'Why do you have to make everything so ugly?'

Barry and myself met up Thursday night to go through the first draft of Jobs and try and smooth its rough edges. I had some ideas about how I could improve on it, he had come armed with a copy of the script with notes scrawled across it. Sounds bad, but actually much of it consisted of 'great - love this bit!'. Everything he said was invaluable and we chewed the fat for some hours, knocking ideas back and forth again. At one point we were in tearful hysterics at an idea for one scene, god knows what our neighbouring drinkers thought!

Odd thing was, between the first draft and the meeting I had stumbled across the ostensibly 'missing' final page of Barry's original story. I was pleased, the ending I had created was much better! BUT, scrawled on the bottom by Bob Johns circa 1996 (the last time I ever contemplated adapting it) was a note for an alternate ending, which was just as interesting - I like it so much I'm going to use it for my next project, which is already formulating. Anyone believe in fate!?

I didn't show Barry this last page, I will after we have finished the movie and besides, he is already busting with ideas, and can't wait to get down to some hard work and commit them to paper.

We feel that already this script is ready for a third opinion, a professional opinion. This will therefore be the draft we hopefully take to ScreenEast or some such body, I have no idea what they will make of it...

Who cleans up at NTA's

Without wanting to serupticiously become some sort of Doctor Who news site, I just thought I'd let everyone who is not based in the UK know that Who cleaned up at the 2005 National Television Awards. Chris Ecclestone won best actor, Billie won best actress and Doctor Who itself won best new drama.

So there.

Not bad for a silly cult programme...

Last death gasps....

Treat yourself, and don't forget to tell ya friends:

Straightman - last chance to buy!

Good News for Yanks!

Despite all that nonsense with boxes of tea and harbours, we limeys have shown that we don't bear a grudge and that most British of institutions The British Broadcasting Company have seen fit to allow Canada to buy full and proper 'NTSC' Region 1 DVD versions of the new series of Doctor Who (always better than Star Trek). These will be available from Amazon Canada sometime in November.

They've obviously stopped short of allowing them to go on sale in North America proper, but once you've dealt with all those websites with a language option showing the 'stars and stripes' next to the 'English' * option, I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.

(*That should be the British, or at least an English flag, in the same way that the 'French' option is not represented by a flag of Algeria)

Torchwood!

I had one of those Doctor Who fanboy moments today, the sort of fanboy moment that only comes along once every so often.

To give you some background: As soon as the last series finished, RTD said that there would likely be another over-arcing phrase in series 2, along the lines of 'Bad Wolf'. Some insider info posted on the Who forum Outpost Gallifrey (always to be taken with a pinch of salt) claimed that this new word would be 'Torchwood' - which, boys and girls, is an anagram of 'Doctor Who'. Now, there were allsorts of theories running wild about what 'Torchwood' would be, some said it was an alternative Universe Doctor, nobody knew.

Then, yesterday night, the BBC Doctor Who new series page had the following phrase 'Prepare for the new word order'. Everything went into full overdrive, everyone expected an announcement of some new villain.

Cut to this morning, I get a text from Dad, asking if I'd heard about Torchwood yet, 'not yet' was my reply - my cue to run to the PC for answers before I left for London. After many attempts, Dad had finally come up with the goods! A bit of Who news I didn't know! (Lee, you're off the radar mate, you've let yourself down with a frankly poor performance).

So, what is Torchwood?

Let me quote RTD himself from this mornings Independent if I may:

"Torchwood will be a dark, clever, wild, sexy, British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show with a sense of humour - the X Files meets This Life. It's a renegade bunch of investigators charged by the British government to find alien technology that has fallen to Earth"

And who's the star of this series? Why, Captain Jack of course!! Hurray! A new, proper Who spinoff is long overdue, and Capt' Jack was an excellent character. 13 45 minute episodes, to be shown on BBC3....

Today's Review: Campfire Headphase

I received two CD's in the post on Saturday morning, one was a lovely surprise from Helen which I really wasn't expecting, but have wanted for a while. I've been so skint, I haven't been able to justify a purchase. That was Amorphous Androgynous' new album, Alice in Ultraland. Amorphous Androgynous are The Future Sound of London in a psychedelic mood, I've loved the former since the musical discovery days of my late teens, early twenties and thought the latter's 2003 offerings The Isness and The Otherness were quite superb. I think it was Rich who introduced me too FSOL, so I owe him a debt of thanks, but that's OK, coz before I set him straight he was listening to Iron Maiden, so we're probably even stevens. I've only spun this platter a few times, but so far it seems as rich and multilayered as the previous psychedelic offering and oddly, seems to have some sort of chronological logic to it, sounding more early 70's than late 60's - it even has what can only be described as a 'funk track' on it. So multilayered is it, that I don't feel it fair to review it just yet, it will take quite a few listens before I'm back with an opinion.

The second CD to ejaculate through my letterbox, was Campfire Headphase by Boards of Canada. Boards of Canada really are my cup of tea, hovering somewhere in my top 5 all time favourite bands. When I bought there first full album Music has the Right to Children I distinctly remember thinking 'fuck it, someone's got there before me', it really was like that.

Let me describe their music; its ambient in the loosest sense, but its real trick is to describe a time rather than a place. There's a wonderful sense of nostalgia about what they do, everything sounds, somehow, like it was lifted directly from your own childhood. Part of their sound is a kind of' broken old tape recorder' aura, everything wobbles, everything has hiss. Its electronica with a real warmth and soul to it. Imagine, over the top of this, a very subtle hip hop beat, add to that a bunch of voice samples, with a predilection for talking about cults, mysticism, religion or spirtitual matters, and you've probably got a fair idea of what I'm talking about. Their tracks are also loaded with messages for those with the time on their hands to look for them.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, suffice to say I think they're bloody good, and will fight anyone who disagrees with me, 5 rounds of Queensbury.

So, the new album - the sleeve is promising, but not exactly 'out there'. Its a really lovely sleeve, but it uses the same theme and even colour as Music Has the Right to Children, a shame after Geogaddi's bright red hexagon affair. Moving on though, its the music that counts, so what's it like...?

Well, its OK....

Its very BOC, all the boxes are ticked, and this albums angle is to use far more acoustic elements, so there's a lot of guitar in there basically. But it just sounds like the band are coasting a bit. Don't get me wrong, it is a good album, by anyone's standards, but maybe the problem is that they have set the bar so high, but there is certainly no innovation here, which was very much evident in the last album Geogaddi, just 2 years ago.

The second thing to note is the production, yes its smooth, yes, its well done, but it actually seems to be lacking layers and depth. It all sounds a bit too clean. Apparently, the 2 BOC members have been producing material since their childhood. I suspect that much of that wobbly sound, and the naivete is a direct result of sampling from past childhood works, and I wonder if that supply is now drying up a bit. The most naive, uncomplicated stuff must surely come from the mind of an innocent who wouldn't be thinking of an audience, or paralysed by adult concerns of whether what they were doing was any good or not.

More importantly though, and perhaps more worrying for the future of the band is a lack of solid choons. I take that back, there are maybe 6 of the 15 tracks on here with really beautiful melodies, one of them is a genuine departure for them, Dayvan Cowboy, which is seemingly produced with an electric guitar, but that's only 40% of the album, what about the rest? Again, not bad tunes, just a bit feeble by their, admittedly high standards.

I suppose for a band like BOC, they're almost hoist by their own petard, they have such a recognisable sound that to deviate from it would be to alienate fans, to stay the same would be to bore fans, to do something totally new wouldn't be Boards of Canada, so I do sympathise, but I also wonder if its time to add some new blood into the mix.

So, in summation - not a bad album, an album that will be perfect for the winter evenings which are now drawing in, but I will happily wait a little longer for the next BOC masterpiece if it means we get a genuine masterwork.

Maybe I need to listen to it some more, tell you what, give me a week, and I'll let you know if I've changed my mind....

Jobs

Remember I talked about Barry and I getting together and getting involved in the moving image again? Well, we had that conversation. Initially we were going to remake an old favourite from our college days called, The Birth.

We dropped that idea. We played about with concepts for ages, but we couldn't decide; Do we simply remake it, using the same script, do we take the core idea and totally rewrite it? If so, why not make a whole new movie? It didn't matter in the end that we had nothing to show for our evening, because, out of our intense too-ing and fro-ing we realised, we still had plenty of ideas and we could coax them out when needed. We decided to abandon The Birth for now, and come back to it later. In the meantime Barry would get thinking up some new scenarios and I would concentrate on adapting an old short story of his called simply Jobs.

I have always liked this story, and had often played with the idea of making a film of it. It is such a great idea and in so many ways, it screams "Bob and Barry". So I dug out the scrappy original late last night and got to work.

This afternoon, at about 6.30pm, I finished the first draft. I gave one copy to Hel and emailed Barry with it. Already I can see things that may need to be changed, but I feel well under way now, and I am very enthused with the way it has turned out. I've no doubt it will change 100% before much longer, but the core is there. I'm looking forward to Barry's notes.

I started to look into Film Council funding today too, so who knows what we may end up with...

Bad news from the folks

Had some bad news from Mum and Dad today, their new kitten Dylan was knocked down and killed by a car this morning. I never met him, but he sounded like my kinda kitten and so I felt very sad, especially for Mum and Dad, he sounded such a good natured and playful cat.

They buried him in the garden and Mum plans to plant some bedding plants over him.

Giant b*llocks

Its a hoax, but a very clever one:

Tsunami Giant

The Occult will stay that way - well, to me anyway...

The Occult simply means hidden.

A little over two Christmas' ago, Barry approached me with the idea of forming a local Paranormal Investigation group. Both of us have had an interest in these sorts of things that go back many years, and we wanted to do our bit, on a local level at the very least. So, we got geared up, buying various bits of kit that included Negative Ion detectors and ElectroMagnetic Field Meters. Initially focusing on the more ghostly side of the subject, we would hold 'vigils' at alledgedly haunted locations throughout the East Midlands, usually from late at night until the early hours of morning.

We had mixed results, some locations were interesting, some weren't, some results were obtained, other locations drew a blank. As time has gone on, the group has grown in scope and size, and at the bi-monthly meetings we were struggling to fit all of our members around a pub table. You can see our website via the EMPRG link on the right of this page, to give you an idea of where we went. As you'll see, we even made it into the local paper, for our latest venture we had some interest from the BBC who wanted to send a local camera crew along to film us 'at work' at Lincoln Castle.

For some time now, my interest has been waning somewhat, for a multitude of reasons that I won't bore you with now, but amongst them was a feeling that nothing could really achieved from performing vigils and that any techniques used, whilst seemingly scientific, would never stand up to much scrutiny. I also felt that a little too much 'wishful thinking' was creeping in, almost totally at odds with barry and my rather dry approach. As my interest waned, the input of others stepped up and in reality, I have been carried by more energized members of the team for some time. It wasn't fair anymore, I was baggage, and besides, I had some other projects I now wanted to dedicate some time to. I wanted to leave, and I planned to tell Barry last night over a beer at our regular haunt, the St Mary's Vaults in Stamford.

As it transpired, Barry explained that he had contemplated throwing the towel in too, but instead would simply step back for a bit. I explained I wanted to leave and gave my reasons. Barry decided he had had enough too. So, the founder and the founders mate chucked it in. Barry hoped someone would take over from him, it may or may not happen, but to me, EMPRG has served its purpose. I got to spend some quality time with an old mucka with whom I had spent precious little time in recent years enabling us to become fully reacquainted again.

So there it is. The occult will remain so for a little longer. Probably.

Salad Finger

I recommend you try these flash movies out, they're demented, but very good. There's a whole series of them, but don't expect them to make much sense!!

Note to all Techno-spaz' - click on the links below:

Spoons
Friends
Nettles
Cage
Picnic
Present

New Job

I started a new job on Monday, scary and exciting enough you may think, without the additional pressure of working for my friends! Its a bit like being one of those kids at school who's Mum was a teacher or something, I never envied them, but they were always the best performers in the school.

Actually, its not been like that at all. In fact its been a real pleasure. I was concerned that it would interfere in my relationships with them as friends, one week in and that certainly doesnt seem to be the case, when I think about it, nothings really changed, we're all from the same background, we've worked together before and they know what I can do, which makes it easier for them I'd guess.

I'm really excited about the job, and very excited about the future for the company, something I haven't felt since the naive days of my mid twenties. Certainly, the moneys not like it was, but that's not the point - this ones about job satisfaction, and for me personally, regaining some of that confidence I had before I was bumraped by Dehavilland.

Exciting times ahead.

Kittens.

Normal service has been resumed.

Shut up Mindy, you tw*t.

I came home to a grand total of 8 turds on the carpet today. Not in one spot either, but spread throughout the lounge. Oh, and one wee wee. Helen had been out of the house for about an hour, Mindy had spent most of the day outside.

Mum and Dad say they'll have her, providing she's jabbed up and has a Pet Passport.

Shut up Robbie, you tw*t.

Apparently Robbie Williams has come out in defence of Kate Moss' exposure as a cocaine snorter of Dyson proportions. He says she's done nothing wrong, that the journalists who broke the story and exposed her, are the same people who have taken coke with young Robbie in the past.

Now, setting aside the fact that Robbie's fanbase rarely ventures above the age of 14, for a moment and ignoring the fact that impressionable teenage girls are not known for the standard of their decision making, especially if confronted with a green light from an ex-Take Thater, what absolute dumpo is he talking?

Firstly, let me excuse myself. I went to art college. I'm no angel and yes, I have ventured into territory stiffer than beer, or other hearty and 'good ole fashioned' drugs, I should also add that I have no doubt that the journalists in question were hypocrite's, I'd be surprised to learn any differently. Similarly, no, I do not expect our celebrities to be held up as pantheons of virtue. BUT, his assertion that she has never hurt anyone except herself, whilst not exclusively hers, is totally and utterly and wholly incorrect. Its one of those pieces of received knowledge that really f*cks me off when I hear it. There are plenty of them, admittedly, but this is my blog and I'm going to do some redressing.

Burma. Robbie, you heard of it? Too remote maybe. Honduras? 75% of the white stuff comes from Columbia. Let me give you a small sample of how your money is being spent, then maybe you can tell us again that Kate and 700,000 people n the UK like her didn't hurt anybody. Severed heads of policemen are left in public parks as warnings to others on a daily basis. Last December, a drugs gang armed with AK-47s, paid for by the proceeds of deals in faraway bars, fired on a bus and killed 28 men, women and children as a warning to the authorities not to interfere.

I wouldn't expect you to have heard about these 'connections', but then journalists are far too busy snorting these days to write anything important.

Still, so long as Kate can click her fingers in an ad for ending World Poverty, having supped on a Fair Trade Columbian coffee, her conscience is clean.....As for Robbie, his musics sh*t, and now here's another reason for me to think him an utter, utter twat.

Sorry, I've been getting a bit political of late haven't I? Normal service will resume tomorrow with a picture of a Doctor Who monster.

Tory Tattle

The Tory party conference has been all over the media in the past week, but no matter how hard anyone tries to make something of it, it just comes across as a woeful non event. In fairness so was the Labour party conference, behind the usual soundbites and tub thumping, nothing of any real worth was said. The difference, sadly for the Conservative Party, is that the Conservative Party is a woeful non event, heading for oblivion, a death that should have come a lot sooner.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no rabid Labour supporter, I have been a member at various strategic points, I've voted for them, by and large and by and large I support their policies - by and large with some fairly notable by and large exceptions.

At the same time, I am more than happy to see the Tory party disappear. What they stand for I diametrically oppose, if indeed they know what they stand for. What actual function does it serve, except to prolonged the delusions of a group of old people who don't like the unalike? Or for whom mammon is their temple of choice? The problem is, that the Tory party, despite itself, is a terrible, messy contradiction. But I can't get angry about them anymore. Why:

Take the name - Conservative. What does it mean? That's a rhetorical question, you know what it means. We've heard plenty about new blood, youth, reconnecting with voters in the past few days and my favourite: Change. How can a conservative party change? Reconnection? A party that won't let its membership vote on the leader? There's been plenty of hot air from prospective leaders saying that the Tory way is still relevant but that the message isn't reaching the electorate. No, no no. The message IS reaching the electorate, but the problem is x number of the electorate are gay, or single parent families, or foreign! They got the message alright! The Britain, they talk of doesn't exist anymore, ironically, it was them who destroyed it. They are out of touch to the tune of 26 years and because they dislike people unlike themselves, they will never be fresh or reinvogorated. There will never be 'new blood'.

The problem is that the Tory party is exactly what it says on the tin, if you change that you cease to be Tory. Its stuck. Caught in the same cycle of 'reconnecting with its core values' over and over again, until all its members are dead.

And so, I look on the leadership contest with a certain amount of amusement. You have a collection of candidates who can broadly be split into 2 camps, not Anti EU/Pro EU, or Socially conservative/socially progressive as is sometimes claimed, but into Genuine Tory/Pretend Tory. Or, if you prefer Unelectable/Electable.

There are people in the leadership contest who, at a push, could be voted Prime Minister. They are not the people the Tories will make leader, because the people the Tories want as Prime Minister are not the people the electrorate want to be Prime Minsiter. There-in lies the crunch...

Ikea Update

The new temp has left. Apparently, its chaos down there.

Titter...

Special Request

This one is for Rich of Austin, Texas, who has asked us to do The Slitheens and their hit. "Do you mind not farting when I'm trying to save the world". Enjoy son....



I should add that for this exhibit there was a big button you could hit which would make a prolongued farting sound, kept Greb engaged for ages ;)

Sunday Sunday

Was a much quieter, but no less pleasant day. We had to leave at 4ish to get home at a sensible time.

Ted/Dad/Grandad drove us down to Rottingdean, where we had a wander around and Mum bought me a crab fridge magnet. We intended to have a sit in Sara and Ian's beach hut, but Dad forgot the keys. So, we had a stroll on the beach instead, the highlight of which was Mindy getting 'suprised' by a wave. See picture below for her full 'Dog-Wave-Pathos'.

Then it was back home for Bob's veggie Toad in the Hole and home. All in all, a very relaxing weekend, and as usual, sad to leave the folks, who will be enjoying themselves in Brighton for another couple of days.

Rogues Gallery

London-on-Sea

A wonderful weekend was had in Brighton, it went so fast - but was well worth the long drive there and back. American's will laugh at me if I tell you how long I mean by a long drive. Lets just leave it to the old adage to remind us that 'to Americans, 100 years is a long time, to the British, 100 miles is a long way'...

We got in late on Friday night, having already eaten a decent portion of fish'n'chips from the local chippy van (such things exist in the fens). We picked up sister Greb en route. Mum and Dad were in good spirits when we arrived, Mindy was very pleased to see her Granny and Grandad, as were we. We felt at home very quickly in Sara and Ian's lovely, peaceful house, attended to by my ever attentive parents.

Saturday was a pleasantly busy day, giving us a chance to take in the myriad of great record shops, jewelry shops, comic shops, junk shops et all. The piece de la resistance though was obviously the Doctor Who exhibition on the end of the pier. I will let my rogues gallery above speak for itself, as I am knackered, and want to go to bed. Sunday's photos will follow shortly...

'Ohhh, a complete change of direction then!?'

I left my job of seven months yesterday. It was only ever meant to be a temp job, and by temp I mean one that I could do for a few days or maybe weeks, with no stress, no input, no responsibility other than getting the job done - an admin job, a disposable job that would pay a few shillings to keep me (barely) afloat.

Unfortunately, my idea of what a temping job is and what Ikea defines as a temping job are apparently two different things. Alarm bells should have rung on my first few days when it transpired that 2 of the 4 people already working in this 'project' - (for twas not yet a whole department) had been there for a year already - and were temps. Before very much longer I was a fully esconsed member of the team, waiting for the right vacancy so I could jump ship. The existing manager applied for her own job when it was given full department status, having been considered a riproaring success (I saw the numbers, it was). She was turned down, no replacement apparently there to fill her shoes. So what happens? A department that recovered millions a year for Ikea, ends up being run by a temp, a temp who could go at any moment, all knowledge of the depts operations going with him. Except nobody expected this temp would want to leave....Why would I, for £6.30 an hour!! I'd be a fool!

I told a few people that I would be returning to an industry I know, that I would be picking up my largely successful and lucrative career in Account Management and Sales and was met with "Oh, a complete change of direction then!?".

Yesterday afternoon that temp left Ikea the only person with any working knowledge. The department will descend into chaos. It never fails to astonish me how inept British industry is, I've seen it at close quarters many, many times. They have replaced me with another temp, who has a very strong sense of the word temporary, and in all likelihood will not hang around having seen what the job entails. Bang goes an entire department. It will be complete anarchy. Nobody knows how to do anything. A department that recovers millions every year for the company will disintegrate. Genius. I could hear the roof falling in and taste the plaster dust as I walked away and I loved every damn second of it.

Of course there's always the human cost, there are good guys there who I made friends with, tellingly something that didn't happen in my previous job in Canary Wharf and they will have to endure the chaos of the coming weeks. For me though, although a frustrating affair, the stress levels were nonexistent and I could remain aloof from it. It was a welcome relief from the stress, unfriendlinesss and exhaustion of the previous 9 months working for the company who's name shall never be uttered. Time to move on though, new challenges finally await.