The 23rd of November was frightfully cold. It was 9am or a little after on a Saturday—I run late on Saturdays—and I was on Venn Street flyering for the festival. Normally there’s a market on Venn Street at 9am or a little after on Saturdays, but on that day there was only half a market because it was frightfully cold. I stood amongst sellers of various meats, pies, meat pies, and confectioneries, all of which sell because they are tangible and of definite worth. Selling tickets to a film festival proves difficult because film festivals possess few, if any, of those qualities. A flyerer realises eventually that he must first sell the all-too-busy, all-too-serious, nose-skyward Londoner on the very idea of cinema. This is lofty work.

I left my post to buy gloves from a corner store and upon returning was met with a man—occupying my post—dressed as a can of Mitchum deodorant. He was giving out free Mitchum deodorant to passersby from a Mitchum-branded bucket. A flyerer does not need to look capitalism in the face, as I was presently doing, to realise cinema is not such an immediate commodity. How does a flyerer compete?

With verve. Everyone has their angle. Simon’s an eccentric—he assumes many characters: the cockney ‘Come one, come all’ showman; the silent, brochure-offering contortionist; the proprietor of the ‘Mystery Box’ and other elaborate discount schemes. I’ve seen them all. I, the straight man, offered a simple ‘Film festival?’, but I know Tim Carlier opts for the cooler ‘Movies?’—I’m yet to find the gusto for this. Leon, with a flair and confidence I’d honestly forgotten he possesses, would show up my ‘Film festival?’ with a ‘Festival of film?’, and then laugh at me when it worked, which was every time. SEJ would scare people with his Northern imposition. We each do our best in service of cinema, our great love. I know few who love deodorant.