9 days to go... Welcome Italy, Iceland & Iran

Hello from New York, 

The good news is that those gorgeous Italians have finally joined the Global Premiere (eight cinemas confirmed, maybe more coming soon) - as have Iceland, Iran, Moldova. and Nigeria (where we're going to be featured on a TV show called Morning Ride on Ch 5 on Sunday 13th). There are no cinema screenings in Australia, New Zealand or the UK - as the film's already been released there - but anyone in those countries can join the premiere by setting up their own screening via our Indie Screenings website.

But the bad news is we've just realised there's a fundamental flaw in this ludicrous plan of ours... We are attempting the world's biggest live film event.... with no advertising money whatsoever.... for a low-budget documentary about climate change (as opposed to, say, a high budget feature film about war starring Brad Pitt)... which means we have to rely totally on word of mouth for people to hear about it. So far so logical, yeah? But word on mouth works by people seeing the film and then recommending it to their pals.... Whereas our film is playing for one night only.... so there is no time for word of mouth to build.... aaaaaaaaaaargh....

1. Word of mouth before the event.  Tom has made a super-easy page with all the possible ways for you to spread the news. Just go to this page http://www.ageofstupid.net/promote and add the new widget to your site, make a poster in various languages, email all your pals and so on. If you do all the steps, you'll also land in the electronic hat to win a Stupid goodie bag.  (In case you were wondering: this is not a money making exercise like a normal film. It's highly unlikely that we'll ever even break even - would have to take ten million pounds or something - and, even if we did, all the cash gets shared out to our funders and crew. So if you are able to help promote the premiere, you'll be helping spread the news about the climate crisis rather than making anyone rich.)

For a bit of inspiration, check out the fantastic Stupid websites in Holland (http://www.notstupid.nl) and Hungary (http://ahulyesegkora.com/).  There's also some brilliant Spanish, Dutch and Hungarian twittering going on. No idea what they're saying, but they're sure saying a lot of it. If any of you twitterers, out there felt like sending a message with the #ageofstupid tag, that would be much appreciated. Or do you have any famous twitterer friends who might care to mention it? 

2. Friends in far places. Check out the v v v v v looooooooooong list of countries which have now confirmed for the premiere. Got any pals living in any of them? Please forward them the link to their country page and encourage them to buy tickets to their local screening. Might be an idea to mention that they have to go on the day of the Global Premiere (21st Sept in USA, 22nd Sept everywhere else) or there'll miss it. It's just for the one night, not a whole week of screenings or anything. 

Our mega-climate campaign welcomed an iconic British business into the fold this week..... Yup, Royal Mail have signed up to cut their emissions by 10% in 2010. ie the postman. Well, all the postmen. And all their vans, all their offices, all their stamping machines...  It is ridiculously exciting after so many years of talk, talk, talk to finally see people actually starting to cut their emissions... Enough to melt the hardest heart. 

My first bash at writing for the world's biggest and most respect blog, the Huffington Post, was accepted and published this week. Yahey. Pls retweet it if you think it's any good. Then again, it's just the normal stuff about yeast and coin-flips which I'm sure you're all bored to tears with by now. 

My old sparring partner Ed Miliband and I had another of our public spats this week. This time on BBC's Newsnight. Except I had the major disadvantage of not being able to see Ed or Paxo and having a killer echo of myself in my ear, which made it extremely difficult to string a coherent sentence together. I demand a rematch. 

Just in case you were feeling sorry for me there for a second - humiliated on national TV - the supremely generous Eric and Lenny (the dudes who will be satellite-linking our New York solar tent to all the world) have not only given us a giant free office (which is already crammed full with our ever-expanding team of interns - minimum requirement pHD in climate science, it seems), but they also dragged Lizzie and myself out from behind our desks the other night and took us to.... the US Open tennis. Ha ha. To entertain us even further, they got their pals on the cameras to make sure they kept filming us at inopportune moments - and then to round off the evening, John McEnroe came out of the commentary box and bashed a few balls around with Djokovic.  At last the perks are starting to roll in... 

Over and out, 

NY Sat night team