Had to get up at 9am to get ready to take my daughter for her flu jab. Despite her fear about the prick of the needle, the jab was over in a second. Had to laugh when the practise nurse giving the shots asked my 13 year old daughter if she was either ill or pregnant. My daughter and I both looked at each other and burst out laughing. What kind of a sick twisted world is it where it's not only possible but probable that the answer to such a question would be yes. I dispair, I really do.

Did a few text messages with my colleague Ruth Sidery about the shoot on Sunday and the session I got to sort out on Monday (grr again). It's 1 degrees out there today (even at 2pm in the daytime) so tomorrow night it's going to be below zero. Got to dress up really warm. Might have to break out the jacket I wear when I'm in Helsinki, a nice little red duvet number. My little cord jacket ain't going to cut it, and the last thing I need is to be freezing my nuts off all night. Must get some mints, ciggies and other treats for the crew. I like to run a happy set, and while I'm kind of whoring myself on Ruth's set on Sunday, I find these things come in handy. Nothing defuses frustration and anger faster than listening to people's greivances while whipping out a bag of assorted minties, and saying "yes, that's terrible... minty?" Nobody can resist a minty, and life never seems quite as bad with a humbug in your mouth.

Listening to a copy of an album called "Buckingham Nicks", something Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks did before they joined Fleetwood Mac album. It's something of a rarity and I haven't heard it for like 20 years, so I'm enjoying it a lot. Also earlier I wigged out to Captain Beefheart's "Clear Spot" and "The Spotlight Kid". God bless you, Don van Vliet.

Got to do some routine stuff today, laundry and shopping. I love our local ASDA WALMART. We tell people we don't live in Frome, but in ASDAville, a little town just outside Frome. I almost never go into town any more, cos I love ASDA so much. They got everything I need, and they are so inexpensive. I get all my shit from ASDA. In fact next time I get a census form I might put it down as my religion. (Reminds me of that South Park episode, "Something WALMART This Way Comes".

Kids and Mia are playing Disney Monopoly, so I'm going to hop in the car and worship at the altar of ASDA.


ASDA looks so beautiful in the misty afternoon...

Okay, finally I get around to making a blog. I figure I might actually keep this one up to date, ish, in the way I don't really keep up with diarys. I have drawers full of diarys which contain entries up to January 8th, or are FULL of cryptic "See P about the thing" type notations. I've read lots of blogs and I like the little slices of life they let you into. I thought I'd like to give it a try.

So what can I say about myself. I'm 45, I live and work in the Southwest of England at a small but well thought of theatre school called the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. My partner, Mia, is from Finland. My children from a previous marriage are Hattie 14 and Teddy 12 and they live with us. While I work as a teacher and technician at the school, I'm a frustrated filmmaker, frustrated only by my years of inaction and singular failure to get anything of my own in the can.

Sure I've gotten shots for other people, brought THEIR projects to fruition, but have I made a single short or long film of my own? Nah. And that makes me really angry. I'm 45 and haven't done the one thing which would really make me happy, and that's carve a niche for myself in the world of filmmaking.

I train technicians at the school, and I teach them how to go from really basic photography, to videography and cinematography in a very short time. We make student video projects. Some of these are very good. I spend all my creative juices giving life to the filmmakers of the next generation, leaving very little time or energy to my own pursuits. But all that's going to change.

I had a project that I wrote about 9 pages of, called "Cheese Food", originally intended to be the first of a trilogy of campy short horror movies. I've decided to make it into a feature and shoot it next Spring break. This means I have to finish writing the thing before Christmas, realistically. Plus I'm going to have to finance it before I have a script, probably, because I know that these things take time.

In any event, I've made the decision. I'm going to do it. I mean jesus I might get hit by a truck tomorrow. I got to leave my mark somehow, and hopefully not just a grease spot on the road.


Manta and Tommy get along for a change... snoozing is a great leveller.

I got in early to work to teach my last session of the week. Photography 101 with the first years. Not a bad session. I sent them out to take pictures and we later critiqued their pictures, looking at the digital cameras on a TV monitor to look at each picture on the screen and see if they were correctly composed. I explained that correctly composed pictures have a structure composed of simple geometric shapes. Lots of nice pictures. The students seemed like they got the gist of what we were talking about.



I then talked to members of staff about a number of issues regarding the backup of their computers, as it's part of my duties as a technician to advise on such things. As I was preparing to leave, it occurred to me to that I should check on a certain session on this coming Monday. It turned out that a few details needed to be sorted out, delaying my leaving for about an hour meaning I only just made it to pick my partner up from work.

The end of a very busy week. Looking forward to next week when I'm not teaching and I can spend some time getting the school computers cleaned up, and preparing for the 1st year student video project next term, my favourite job of the year. Also next week we have a shoot for this year's short film, a specially commissioned script no less called "Inside You", which is being shot in and around Bristol every day. I'm looking forward to hanging out on set some of the time, seeing students I've trained from scratch getting their first real taste of a proper movie of their very own.

Actually on Sunday I'm officially working on the film. I have a call at 4.30pm in the centre of Bristol where we will be filming a night scene. It should go on till 11.30 or midnight, but as I have to be in early on Monday to sort out that teaching session at the theatre (grr) I can't really stay up too late. Then I have to be back at home at 12 noon on Monday to wait for the gas man for six hours. Ah British Gas, they really know how to work for their customer's convenience. I got some stick from my boss about taking the afternoon off, but as I said what am I going to do? I got to get my boiler serviced, cos it's going to be winter soon and I can't afford to have it crap out on me. I got my good friend John Waterhouse (techie god) to cover for me that afternoon, plus I'll be available on the mobile if anyone gets their pecker caught in their inkjet. ("Push the document feed button, then pull, jackass!")

Anyway, very tired now. Looking forward to having a nice relaxing weekend. Forget all the shit till Monday morning.

Mia and I fell asleep watching "A League of their Own". Damn I love that movie.