Need to get my clean on.

Saturday. Last two days before I return to work from my holiday.

I've had Chloe to stay most of the week, but she went home Thursday. She is, however staying tonight. I know that might sound strange and maybe even make little or no sense, but hey. That's life.

Just sitting on the sofa, having some breakfast of fake Shreddies (with demerara on top of course), cup of coffee and glass of orange juice. Trying to fight off Twilight, who seems to want to come and shred my left elbow in an effort to get me to stroke her.

No TV. Nice and peaceful, just the sound of the washing machine rumbling away in the background, the clickety clack of the keys on the iMac's keyboard that I'm using to write this on my ipad.

Okay, the reason the TV isn't on may have something to do with the BT Vision box stopping working since I have now cancelled the package and moved my telephone and broadband to someone else. There's been a few hiccups with the router or the broadband dropping out a couple of times, and I'm also keeping an eye on how fast the service is. I wanted to save money, but I don't want to do that at the expense of the broadband connection making my online life hell. When I say hell, I may be being a tad over dramatic. After all, it's not like it's the end of the world if I have to wait three milliseconds for a web page to load instead of one, is it ?

Scroll down one the page has finished loading then. I am currently looking around for a set-top box to replace the BT Vision box thingy, and have asked myself, how important is the ability to record TV these days ? Almost everything is on catchup TV, or available on Netflix or Love Film. This leads me in the direction of a 'smart' set-top box. One that will allow me to connect to the internet and to use on demand functions from 4od, BBC, ITV etc. It gets to the point where I could spend anything between about £30 (for a plain freeview box) to about £300, (for a freeview HD recorder with smart functions).

Starts to look like its worth buying a new TV with those features built in. All of these things I would rather not be buying at the moment. I don't want to be putting more large purchases on my credit card(s), and I'm not convinced that I actually spend that much time in front of the TV anyway.

So I spend hundreds of pounds buying something that I only use occasionally ? I think I'd rather spend the money on a Dyson.

what could possibly require such padding ? 

The light bulb in the en-suite gave out several weeks ago, and in a fit of efficiency, having waited said number of weeks to do anything about it, I ordered the special bulb off the internet on Wednesday (or Thursday, it's not important). Anyhoo. It arrived yesterday.

bubble-wrap supplies for next 300 years............. 

An anonymous brown box, surrounded with industrial sized bubble-wrap. Inside, was.. well, the light bulb and.. more bubble-wrap. I now had a replacement light bulb, and enough bubble-wrap to recreate at least three of the monsters from Tom Baker's era of Dr Who.

Despite my moaning above about not spending money I don't have, I have been on a mini spending spree lately, but I consider the light bulb a necessity rather than a luxury. I have also bought some new toys for the cats to play with, and those I will show when they arrive, no doubt with their truck load of bubble-wrap or polystyrene.

I have done little editing of my nanowrimo book whilst I've been off. I think I did some on the first day of the previous week I'd had off (I had the week before Easter off, went back to work one week and then off again). I need to be more disciplined.

There are too many distractions.

Another that I have also recently taken steps to limit is Facebook. I have actually gone so far as to remove the app from my ipad (I'm annoyed I can't actually remove it from my phone. Seems it's a default app or something). I have found that I'm not now wasting time endlessly looking through the comments of comments or inane minutia of other people's boring lives. I have gotten just so fed up with some of the bigoted short sighted rubbish that some people put on there. I want to argue with them, or correct them, but lets face it. You can't argue with stupid.

I am getting annoyed with my mobile phone too. It's just so slow, and doesn't seem that responsive anymore. This may of course have one of two causes, that either as it's getting older and more full of apps (even though I don't download any), it's overworked processor and limited storage capacity are getting stuck in the mud. Or it may be that it simply has never really recovered from being dropped in the washing up that time.

Being a bit-geek, I am already considering two courses of action here. I know that my contract does not expire until August / November, sometime, but after checking on Three's website I can upgrade in July at no extra cost, or I can upgrade early and pay a fee. Anyway, the two courses of action ? Well, I am looking at the new Blackberry's coming out, the ones with keyboards (don't even get me started on the point of a blackberry without a freaking keyboard), or something older, that isn't a smart phone at all. A candybar phone that just maybe takes pictures, does text and phone calls. That's it. Since I've got my ipad, and I do take it lots of places with me (reminds me I must show the new case I bought for it, that matches the one for my kindle paperwhite), and this means that I don't use the phone that much anymore for internetting. I may have previously trawled through facebook etc, but I just don't like working from it that much, compared to how easy to use and responsive the ipad is.

Do I get really rebellious, and get rid of my mobile phone altogether ? People would think I've gone mad.

Resolutions seem to break like...

...china cups dropped onto my kitchen floor.

Not that I've done that you understand. Puft ! Like I'd have china cups !

I'm remonstrating myself about not blogging as much as I had wanted. I have taken my eye off the ball. It's not for lack of events to blog either, it's more a case of lack of time. Before I got home last night (to start a 4 day weekend) I hadn't actually turned on my lovely iMac since last weekend. Poor thing.

So what's been happening ? The kittens have well and truly settled. Very comfortable, and are loving their new cat tree. 

..thank you Daddy x

Dr who is back. And Stetsons are cool.

Progress is being made, sort of, with the show, but we've had some set backs. Gemma, who was going to play Starlight, has had to pull out as she realised she has family commitments the week of the show. The wonderfully talented Faye has let us know that because of increased workload (at work, I guess) she has had to drop the larger of the two parts that she had been cast.

We may well be able to get Nick's Mum to do one of the now vacant roles, it would be brilliant to have her involved in a show again. Fingers crossed. So pretty much looks like we are only one person short, instead of two. Monday's rehearsal involved us going over one of the call centre scenes, which are the complicated ones.  We did this easily enough, despite the lack of a Starlight, and with Helen getting herself distracted, becoming too carried away with the background antics of Polly. Even so, scene got blocked out and was working well. We'd actually planned to only do about 5 pages of the scene, but decided to do the whole scene in the end. The comedy is coming alive, the (hopefully) wonderful visual comedy that is laced throughout the show. Wednesday night we blocked out a scene set in the Manager's office, and again the comedic talents of Lin (Bone) and Faye came to the fore. Such a shame that she (Faye) won't be able to do Hermione, but I understand if she's at risk of being overwhelmed. Much better that she let us know now, than in about 8 weeks time. 18 Rehearsal sessions left until the show opens. Clock is ticking. Clock  IS ticking.

The blocking, on the whole is taking less time than we imagined, which is good because we will have to go back and do some of it again for the benefit of the characters that we will now have to recast. We also need to make sure that we can sort out the filmed pieces in the show, as if we can't get them to work, we really do have a problem.

Dr Who returns. Fantastic, thrilling, scary and funny episode. The Impossible Astronaut, at risk of running out of superlatives, it was a brilliantly sharp script. I've now watched the episode 6 times, and it sings every time. Really tight. Really well done. Again laden with phrases that will, I am sure to be copied by millions of fans up and down the country.

I've brought a sun hat. After shaving off all my hair again, and the recently gorgeous sunshine, I thought it would be a good idea to protect my poor noggin from the sun. I have become rather attached to my sun hat. I am sure that the prevailing opinion may be that I look like a prat, but I don't care. I like it, so I wear it. I am ready to pick Chloe up tomorrow, and have her laugh uncontrollably at me.

I wear a sunhat now

I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to be able to complete the script Laptop for Script Frenzy. Now I know that I sure as hell WONT achieve it with THAT attitude, but as I am only at page 25 I really would have to cane it completely to even stand a chance of getting it finished before the end of the competition. This is sad. I really had wanted to make sure that I did complete it, as I had failed so miserably to complete NanoWriMo in November last year, using the move as a reason/ excuse.

Grrrr. Frustrated with myself. Need to get a review done for Beacon, as I haven't done one since I moved. Need a great big boot and rather bendy legs, so as to kick myself up the arse don't I ? Yes. See. I knew I was right.

... and sunhats are cool....

What else has been going on ? Well, work has not been without its dramas this week. People can be funny things, and sometimes the hardest thing they find to do is to look into the mirror and accept what they see. Me, I'm always looking in the mirror, although you may not think so to look at my dress sense. It his heartening to realise that despite some difficult times, the world isn't against me. I work with some really great people, and I just wish I got more of a chance to get to know them in that context than the ones I am normally presented to them in. Hopefully the crowd from work will come along to the show, and will be able to let their hair down and have a really good night.

Royal Wedding. As someone who both dislikes the idea of royalty on political grounds, but has a deeply contradictory love of the royal family themselves - and all the things they do for the country I had decided that I wasn't going to be spending time on my extra day off to watch William & Kate's wedding. Somehow, my 'bah humbug' nature was overridden sufficiently for me to watch the spectacle and be very moved by everything that I saw. I really don't give a stuff about the ins and outs of their or anyone else's private lives. But to be a spectator on such a happy day reminds me of how much hope there is in the human spirit and in the love of another. I do wish them well for the future. Wishes I am sure they will not be short of.

It is at times like this, when pretty much half the country has gotten caught up in the fever and celebration and flag waving that we remember what it's like to be British. It is nice to see though, that because most of the flags are the ones provided by the Sun newspaper, and have a picture of the happy couple on them, thereby forcing Jo public to put the bloody flag up the right way. Otherwise I would be getting all anal about how some people don't realise that there is a right and a wrong way to hang a union flag.

Bad Blogger....(again)

Okay, so I've been a bad blogger. A very bad blogger.

What's happened in the world since the last time I made an entry ? Oh, only the general election, a surprise coalition government shared between the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat parties, The series of Dr Who so excitedly received in the last entry is over halfway done, streams of volcanic ash have grounded planes in the UK, leaving thousands of people stranded.... err what else ? Oh Apple have put their ipad on sale in the UK...

Lots of other stuff happened.

I entered Script Frenzy, technically, entered twice. The script that I was writing with Helen, the one about facebook's part in the destruction of society (it's a comedy) is still not finished. We are only about 30 pages in, and at this rate it doesn't look like it is going to be finished any time soon. We are both keen though, and there is hope that it will be made into our fourth stage show, though not any time soon. By soon, I mean THIS YEAR.

The other script, RETROROCKET I did get past the 100 page target by the end of the month of April. I actually got to somewhere around 106 pages. The sad thing, is that it is also still not finished.

Both scripts have one thing in common, is that I have avoided a scene by scene breakdown. It is something that I will never avoid again. I have gotten used to working that way, and it helping me frame the story, and pace myself. Otherwise I find the dialogue just running away from me. I can sense the rewrite is going to involve something of a cull.

Oh well. Beacon Bar-b-que is this weekend, with the premier of the current season's finale for The Adventures Of Stephen Brown.

Dr Who... how long is it since fish custard ?

The crack in your wall... is ... a... crack.

It hasn't taken me four viewings of Matt Smith's first outing as Doctor Who to form an opinion about the return of everyone's favourite Doctor on April 3rd.

I'd barely got halfway through the first viewing when I had formed two very deep opinions about it.

1 That I don't like the new intro music. It's not loud, or beaty enough.

2 I love, love, love, love, Matt's interpretation of the Doctor.

The casting of him is an absolutely brilliant stroke of genius. The energy, quirkyness and well.. sheer madness and otherworldly quality he brings to the role are just.. er... what the Doctor ordered. David Tennant's first outing didn't actually involve him all that much, he spent most of 'The Christmas Invasion' recovering from his regeneration in Rose's bed. (a place lesser mortals have dreamt of being). It was essentially more of the same, but with someone younger, and sexier (sorry Chris) at the controls in the Tardis.

He just has SOMETHING about him that makes him the Doctor. Even his voice has different cadences to it that give an impression of youth, and wisdom, and age at the same time. The outfit does SO work for him. Having seen it in the pictures and the trailers, and thinking...'ooooookay.... going for the Cushing look are we...'.. and it is, a more 'mad professor, geeky genius' kind of look. But it suits the role. Work it work it !

You watch sales of braces and bow ties go through the roof now.

Steven Moffat's script is scorchingly brilliant. So tight, you couldn't get a sheet of paper between the pages. So many iconic lines from it. 'it's not my fault you can't give me any decent food, you're Scottish, fry something'.... 'I'm the Doctor, I'm worse than everyone's Aunt.. and that is not how I'm introducing myself'.... I could go on.. it's packed with beautifully crafted dialogue.

Wondered if we hadn't thrown a bit of Douglas Adams into the mix, with the Atraxi, and their great big eyes, and very, very deep voices telling us they are going to incinerate the planet. (not, as it seems for a hyperspace express-way). Nobody really does monsters like Moffat. He's a bloody genius. How can one man be so good at witty dialogue, sassy characterisations AND be good at coming up with new, but simple and ancient ways to scare the hell out of kids ? It's just not fair.

When I watched it for the 4th time with my friend Helen, I did spot two errors in the editing.. I'm not going to ruin it by telling you... but if it took me 4 viewings to pick them up... I would agree with her assessment that the camera work was entirely different and the show had a crisper feel, much, much more cinematic. (the words she used were 'last series looked amateur... this looks professional - ouch !)

I've seen it four times in three days, and I'm not tired of it. I was tempted to watch it again, and can't wait for this Saturday.

So there is life after David ? Yes, but I guess that's the point with such a wonderful plot device like regeneration... there always is life after... and it's always different from what came before.

I think in a very short space of time we'll be asking ourselves 'David who ?'. Poor Matt Smith though, go from being greeted with 'who is Matt Smith' from the press when it was announced that he had the role, to 'Matt Smith is the best Doctor we've ever had'... I mean, don't make it easy for the guy !

The key test, was that when I changed the poster over on the door to Chloe's room, from showing a picture of David Tennant, to the one of Matt Smith, she didn't say a word. When I suggested it a couple of months ago the response was 'no, don't turn it over.. he's weird'. We all know that weird is not a bad thing in this house.

I am surprised that the Daily Mail hasn't lead a campaign to assault the BBC for encouraging lonely orphaned girls to invite strange men into their bedrooms to help them with the strange cracks in their walls.... would it be too much to ask that they have realised that parents, and children do have the sense to know what's real and what's fantasy ? God no, they probably just figured that they'd be seen for the party poopers they are.

'There's one thing you should understand Amelia Pond, because one day your very life may depend upon it, I am most definitely a mad man with a box'.

And actually, yoghurt is just 'stuff with bits in' and I'm rather tempted by the idea of fish fingers in custard. A quick trip to Iceland in the morning will sort that...

So what happened to common sense... being driven... and well.. getting things done.

I have ! I have I tell you.

Despite a lack of comment at the progress, much was achieved during my self imposed exile, my holiday to the next room as it were. I was rather pleased with one script, and then got started on the other, the one that I am meant to be writing with Chris. We had done lots of fat chewing, ideas throwing and pretty got the scene by scene sorted. The scene by scene. Ah that wonderful thing that gives scripts their start, middle, end and how to get from one to the other, in easy baby steps.

I've done some 'thought showering' today. Funny really, as like a lot of other people, I sometimes come up with things in the shower/bath, on the loo or whatever. Usually in a place where you have no means by which to capture the idea.

But I've thrashed out a little to do with 'Retro Rocket' this idea that I had about purposefully recreating the look and feel of 70s & 80s scifi shows, with wobbly sets, the big shoulderpads, the even bigger hair. The eye-liner (and that was just the men). The really naff and unbelievably shallow female characters.. the special effects shots, where you could so easily see the wire pulling the model spaceship along. Did we care ? No. Did it spoil our enjoyment ? Not one bit. It was only when those nasty Hollywood types threw all their money at things that we started to feel ashamed about home grown scifi. Scifi like the original Dr Who, Blakes 7, Saphire & Steel, Space 1999. You only have to look at the collective works of Gerry Anderson to know that the odd string here and there doesn't dent the entertainment value of the show.

Somehow, back then, the sets were unstable, the performances had more ham than Waitrose at Christmas, but somehow, we were glued to the screen, we were absorbing the nature of science fiction. The 'believability' having absolutely nothing to do with how many carefully drawn CGI characters or spaceships there were. The baddies all looked like people in awkward poses with coloured cling film on them.. but it didn't seem to matter to us.

The imagination was the thing that was fired. That was allowed to grow and run amok. Today, everything is done for us. The scene is set, and given to us, we don't have to do any work at all. We're not involved in the ways we were in the 70s & 80s.

Have we, in making scifi mainstream, dumbed it down to the point that it fits into 'Hello' but has lost both the sci & the fi that gave the genre its name ?

Anyhoo... just to completely ruin my idea.. I've attached a scan of my scribblings.

Hopefully that works.

There's not a massive amount of data there to work on, but it's hard work, creating things when Homes Under The Hammer is on.

The ideas that Helen and I are forming into something we can work on for Scriptfrenzy exist at the moment as a load of pieces of paper, which I have allowed, in my infinite (lack of) wisdom, Helen to take away with her. I did cunningly, photograph them before she went. They are on my blackberry, and I haven't been bothered to get them off and put them onto a computer. Just yet.

I have suggested, on that front, that we do blog, and Vlog our progress, and efforts. This will hopefully, draw people to our youtube stuff, but also mean we are still uploading some films, even though the month of April is going to be so gloriously, and completely given over to ScriptFrenzy.

I do.. also have a back up, backup plan, just in case this one doesn't work. But for now, the idea of that script is... well, it's called 'Network' and is pretty much a social commentary on what would happen if people were no longer allowed to work, that workplaces, and all places of congregation are banned (for health and safety reasons, or for anti terror reasons, we're not sure). The idea being that people work from home, or from the park, on their laptops, all communicating by skype. Everyone with a headset. What would happen to the economy, without anyone buying petrol, cars, using public transport. All that lost tax revenue. No schools allowed to open, no supermarkets (homeshopping allowed with severe precautions).

We want to explore this in the comical way that we have explored all the other ideas we have had. For example, imagine a couple, in their kitchen, with their headsets on, awaiting calls from colleagues / customers, and they launch into a full blown argument, but have to pause it, when one of them gets a call. About to let fly again, when the other does too. Similar comedy may be found in when couples are trying to have sex.

The whole idea about home working, pushed to the limit. You may well go to work in your slippers and nightie, (again, that was just the men), but would people want to see you do that ? Video calls, leading to people dressing their upper bodies in office-wear, while remaining in just boxers and slippers etc below the belt.

There's comedy in them there hills. I'll have to get those ideas transferred, and uploaded. In the meantime, there's someone on their way down to do some writing, so I best go get ready.... and make sure I haven't forgotten to get completely dressed after all.