I can fix... my Chromebook

Wednesday 28th May 2014. 23:49

Today, I received delivery of the replacement screen for my chromebook that I ordered of ebay. That's rather swift delivery, bearing in mind I only ordered it Monday (I think).

So, £29.03, free postage and a 'how to' film on youtube and I now have a fully functional Chromebook again.

I did try installing Ubuntu onto it, so that I could get Celtx to work with it, and be able to use it when I don't have an internet connection (Celtx provide an in browser service call Celtx Edge, but of course this doesn't work when you don't have an internet connection).

I managed to install Ubuntu fine enough, it was just that I couldn't seem to get Celtx to install and load. I gave up in the end.

It may be that the Celtx isn't compatible with the version of Celtx I downloaded and installed (after following another 'how to' video on youtube), or it may be that there's something else I was doing wrong. Either way, I abandoned that idea. It's not like I'm away from an internet connection that often.

Celtx, the awesome script and novel writing tool.

I'm just creating other procrastinations, reasons to not write.

During my messing around, I did discover that the Novel writing part of Celtx now works on Celtx Edge. I don't think it did before.

Anyway. Helen came up last night. She was originally due to come up during the day, and we were going to meet in Cosham and have some food at a pub. Helen works from home as a travel agent, and this means that sometimes she can get delayed dealing with a client's booking.

Not like I'm in a position to criticise anyone else for working odd hours, or staying later than they have to.
UKIP at the local council and European elections, and how the other parties are fairing. What we both like, dislike and are frightened by in the recent turn of events.

When we weren't saying how worried we are by the fact that a lot of people seem to have voted for a party that they know nothing about, or have any understanding of their policies, and how this has historical links that do not bode well for society.

This got us making a jokey comparison about the whole in Europe / out of Europe debate, and how there is a stark irony about the Scottish Independence vote (due September this year), - wanting to leave one union in order to agree to rejoin another. In our normal way, we couldn't stay too serious too long.

We started to explore the idea of what would happen if Portsmouth decided to have a referendum on independence, on leaving the United Kingdom.

We ended up thrashing out some plot points, and a whole manifesto of policies of the party that would supposedly push for this.

The scarily funny thing seemed to be how plausible despite being completely ridiculous the whole concept and the policies were. Perhaps there'll be more on that later.

I'm sure I'll also want to put my two pence worth in about the rise of UKIP. Suffice to say so far, that I decided that I would do something about representing the kind of Britain I believe in by joining a political party. This is the first time I've ever done this, but do feel that I am naturally drawn to the common sense sort of policies of the Liberal Democrats. As is typical of me, I want the best of both worlds, left and right, because I do feel that we can't have a fair society if we do not have a strong economy, but that there is no point having a strong economy if our society isn't fair.

I do believe in people's strong responsibilities for the wider community and themselves, and society as a whole, and how they are the best at deciding and designing their life and their destiny. Personal freedom, and responsibility, duty go hand in hand. I also feel that unless we design our society to include and engage people, they won't be involved in politics.

Help those that need help, make decisions based on fact rather than with idealogical motivation. A society of tolerance, and freedoms - where there are more roads to travel than walls to keep people in - that's what I want.

Don't take away my take away.

Saturday 14th September. 2013.

Well, aren't I awful ? It's been a whole ten days since I last wrote anything in the blog. A whole ten days where the rest of the world - or at least the fifteen or so people that stumbled across my page - could rest in peace without my opinion chucking, boredom logging drivel.

Anyway, for anyone that was actually missing my documentary upon the life of the fallible fella, then I guess here's what you've been waiting for.

Last week I got the wrong night for when Steve, Helen and some others were going to come round mine to do some filming. This actually took place on Tuesday, September 10th. It was the first time in about six months since I've seen Helen. We started about an hour later than planned, because I was delayed leaving work, and Steve was later getting here than he'd anticipated - having held off on his earlier plans because I had let him know that I was working late.

As it happens, I got a taxi from work. First time I've ever had to rush AWAY from work like that, only to wait here an hour for everyone else to turn up. Still, When they did arrive, it was a very good evening, with a not unexpected level of laughter and mucking about from some people.

It was really nice to see Helen again. I was worried that things between us would be really strained, but actually when she turned up, it was rather easily as if she had not been absent from my life for such a period of time.

She really isn't having a good time of it, with the problems that's she having in her family. After the filming was done, we sat and talked and caught up, until about half past midnight.

I was so glad that I had arranged for the filming to take place on an evening before my day off.

So I had a day off. What did I do on my day off ? Well apart from lots of not very much, I did actually sit down with my Chromebook for an hour or two and designed a process chat for the guys at work to follow on some stuff we're working on right now.

That's right, my life is so fucking sad. Hardly rock and roll.

As the being late getting out of work on Tuesday indicated, it's been a tense few days. So much to do, and so little time to do it in.

Tonight, I went out for a lovely meal with Paula and Tony and Steve. We'd originally planned to go for an Indian, but I had asked if anyone else minded we have Chinese food instead, as I had ended up eating two lots of Indian take-away last week. (long story that I will make short, or at least a little interesting later on).

Fantastic evening at the L'Orient in Fareham. It's just so nice to make the effort and go out of an evening and spend time with people, having nice conversations... we had a ranging spectrum of subjects though.

I am going to have to talk more about the events of the week, including an update on teenage terror, but right now, I want to get some sleep. Catch ya later.

Coming round then ?

Monday 2nd September. 23:39

It was hardly any surprise that after that sort of day, that my exit from the building was executed with expediency.

Tomorrow Steve is coming over to do some filming at the flat. This is filming for the 'Doorstops', series. One of the people coming over to do this is my friend Helen. The one that I haven't seen in about six months.

It's been sad that our relationship as friends has suffered over the past year, but there have been several things brewing along to contribute to that. Some things I guess will seem in the light of day to be rather pathetic.

People that stay in your life stay in it for a reason. She and I have been friends for over twenty years and it would be a shame really to lose her as a friend, although I am aware that people grow and change and that things don't stay the same. Things move on. People move on.

I also need this week to get started on the editing for Steve that I have volunteered to do. This, like everything else will be harder to start than it will be to actually do. Just the motivation to not turn on the bloody TV of an evening and crack an hour or two's work on the footage he's sent me.

Get off your arse and cook !

So  far this week I have achieved rather little, creatively. I have been back at work for two days now and although I have gotten on well with making sure that I leave on time, today I did not allow myself a lunch break and I have again come home and vegetated infront of the television. 

I may be being a little hard on myself here, I did get off my arse long enough to clean the cats' litter tray out and wash up three days worth of cuttlery and crockery and run the vacuum cleaner round the flat. 

Also, despite not really feeling that hungry when I came home, I did make some dinner. I mean make dinner, not something processed, or something more of a cheat (processed chuck in the over stuff). I have a large amount of mushrooms knocking around in the fridge and I didn't want them to go to waste, so they really led my inspiration. With some red onions, peas and the addition of some rolled up back strips this made for a rather simple but very quick and very satisfying meal. 

The salad and cherry tomatoes have made lots of outings the last few days too. I did make a concious decision when I did my last round of internet shopping to buy some 'proper food'. You are what you eat after all, and even if summer is hiding from us, I can still take some culinar inspiration from it. 

It's a bit odd, but I had a small perfunctionary chat with Andy online last night, the usual sort of thing, congratulating him on recently becoming a father, asking if either of us have spoken to or seen anything of the people we last did a theatre production with. We agreed that we needed to find some time to have another get together. 

Tonight, my long term friend Helen is obvously feeling pangs of nostalgia as she's going through lots and lots of photos that I've put on facebook from either the last theatre production that we did, or from some of the videos that we shot. 

With facebook working the way that it does, this has prompted a couple of the others to comment or to 'like' some of the photos also. I wouldn't put money on us getting to the end of the week before someone else starts suggesting we do some more filming - which would be a good thing. Did I not start this blog moaning about how I haven't taken the time to do anything creative today ? (this effort excluded). 

I just hope that certain people don't start going on about wanting to do another theatre production.

Turn it off and on again

Poker face

Been so long since the last post, but what can I fill this one with that isn't pages and pages of anger and frustration ?

I know, let's fill it with love and understanding and.....

Ah bollocks to that !

This week has been hard. Looking back on last week's blog, I can see that this is becoming a regular thing, something that I am steadily accepting, and rather apathetically shrugging my shoulders and carrying on. With a tough, hard fought week at work where everything went mental (one of our competitors announced that they would be increasing their prices and it seemed that everyone in the world wanted to speak to us). On the good side, we have two new guys in our team who seem to be getting along really well, but have had great success to show some of the more established hands that you can do things if you put your mind to it. Progress with a couple of the team who have perhaps struggled to take charge of things, and seeing them realise that they can have an effect on their results if they chose to approach it in the right manner. Great to see, one in particular pretty much shining all week with a brilliant 'I am going to get this done and nothing's going to stop me' focus.

It has been non stop though, hard work. Really seeing the fruits of their hard labour. Feeling exhausted by the week, but elated with how things ended up.

It has been the usually roller coaster ride though of the highs and lows of elation and near depression. The yo-yo ride of emotion inside work has not at all coincided with the operation of the same ride outside of work. Elation at finally submitting the poster design to the printers, and getting some publicity material 'out there' has helped start off the week, but Monday's rehearsal left me feeling rather flat and with the desire to run away as fast as my legs could carry me. Wednesday, on the other hand, we focussed on going over and over a couple of the really intense scenes in the show. These are the ones with lots of things going on at the same time (our trademark chaos), and are hard to plan and direct. Even harder to execute with people still holding on to scripts for dear life.

With some gentle encouragement, they were able to drop their scripts (for the most part) and we got through three different scenes, with great progress being made in the timing and performance of all concerned. No easy feat, but was helped certainly with everyone actually dropping those pesky scripts and with all the cast actually being there, which must be about the first time that has happened.

Still only three weeks to go before the show. There is now a crowd from work going along, it will be great to have that support.

Guess what ?

Another flipping flat tyre !!! Seriously. What ?

Interesting couple of days. Work has been quite far from easy. At some point the reality that we are not doing as well as we think we are, and that action needs to be taken to correct that. Some people are not, I think being honest with themselves about how good they are. Others are overlooking how good they are, which is a damn shame.

Air conditioning not working on Saturday, which was a swelteringly hot day anyway, without having to spend 5 hours inside a baking hot call centre. Normally this wouldn't have been something that really bothered me (apart from the discomfort, and the smell - only kidding - there wasn't a smell) if it hadn't been for the fact that I was meeting up with a nice young lady after work, and hadn't really wanted the first time she met me for me to be this scruffy, sweaty dishevelled bloke getting off the bus.

We met up, as planned, after I had stopped into Tesco to get some food. (Cooked chicken and some salad). Met her at the bus stop and walked her round to mine, so that she could meet the kittens. Yup, that's right, so pathetic am I that I used my kittens as part of my chat-up routine. (yeah right, anyone that knows me, would really find the idea that I even indulged in chatting people up, let a lone that I had some sort of routine to follow hilarious. Routine. No. Spreadsheet - maybe).

She is a very nice girl, and it's amazing that even in this day and age when you get to know all sorts of things about people from the internet, from looking at facebook (oh common, you'd have a peek, wouldn't you ?), and that you get to see various images of them before meeting them for real, that they still look different and aren't entirely how you imagined them.

My imagination could never have envisioned how gorgeous she is, nor could I have realised what sort of a person she is, or the things that she's been through. Makes me think perhaps I should shut the fuck up moaning about my life. Like the saying goes, there's always someone worse off than you.

How do these sort of things work ? I've never known how to interact with people at the best of times, let a lone beautiful women, who probably think 'god what a plonker'. I think the standard advise, is 'be yourself', be 'cool'. Cool ? I've never been cool. Bow Ties are more cool than I am. Fezzes are more cool than I am. I am most definitely a mad man with a box.

The situation that I wrote about the other week, between myself and my creative partner, Helen is not going away. I received a rather long email from her last night, which I have had to stop myself from responding to. I can say how I feel, but I don't feel that I can without hurting my friend. I am also feeling frustrated that we seem to have covered the same ground, again and again, and my point of view doesn't seem to be sinking in.  I feel at the moment, sadly that the very best we can hope for is that we can get this show produced and finished with without irrevocably damaging our friendship. I don't bare grudges, it actually takes a lot to really piss me off, but I can be belligerent and judgemental. I do like to know that I am right (but this only gives me any comfort whatsoever if I actually am right).

What's a guy to do ? I'd like an easy, relaxing hassle free part to my life, please. I guess that's not going to happen any time soon, now. Is it ?

Oh yes, did I not mention. Another flat flipping tyre, now repaired, I can only hope that it stays repaired.

... and where was it you spent your Wednesday evening Simon ?

In the toilet.

With some friends.

I think I'd better explain. Quickly.

Upon hearing that we would be 4 people short for Wednesday's rehearsal we struck upon an ingenious plan. (Okay, so maybe I'm only saying it's ingenious because it was my idea). Having already noticed that we were struggling to arrange for people to be together to do the filmed pieces for the show, we decided that we would film some of them with the people that were able to attend that session.

This meant that the 'Dumping Ground' scenes. So, in rather a rush, and nothing less than an absolute hurry, we did indeed mange to film four segments.

This only leaves us with two to do from the toilets. The rest of the filmed spots will need to be shot in my flat. We didn't finish till very late, but it was well worth it. While all this was going on, Helen was busy going over a couple of scenes with some of the rest of the cast.

Both Helen and I are getting really worried about the amount of lines that people have actually learned. The play really does need people to be natural as possible, and they sure can't do that whilst holding the heavy tome that is the script.

Another thing that had been worrying us (along with all the other things to think about regarding the show) is that we don't have a poster.

Well not anymore. Lin's friend, Mo Welch, who has done a brilliant poster for us emailed it across to me today, and I then spent the afternoon messing around in iphoto to get the other information onto the picture.

Helen and I are very pleased with the result.

Grumpy old man

Am I getting less patient as I grow older ? Less understanding of others ? Less accommodating of the downright stupidity of other people ?

I wonder this, because I feel myself getting steadily more impatient and cross with Helen, my long term friend and cowriter, coproducer, codirector for The FatCat And The Grafter. I don't want to launch into a major whinge, but think that after that sentence I had better explain myself.

On Monday's rehearsal, which I have already documented as being the hardest session so far, there were some elements that made it harder to make progress. Helen had changed some of the lines in the scene, and made some other alterations, which she had not gone through with me before I started directing the scene with the cast, she also wanted to put in some suggestions about things that her character could be doing in order for her to get to be doing what she felt the character should be doing. Again these things were not explored in detail before the session, so when mentioned required that I had to then work round or ignore them in order to direct the scene the way that I had planned it. Interruptions and delays were caused by the sometimes attention grabbing silliness she employs whenever she feels embarrassed about something. The thing that I was embarrassed about was that the scene wasn't working, and it wasn't made to work any more, or look any better with interruptions of messing about from my co-director.

We had agreed a couple of weeks ago that as we were directing most of the scenes separately, that if we wanted to make any suggestions to scenes the other was doing that we do it after the session, so that the discussion would not hold up the rehearsal or make us look like we didn't know what we were doing.

I don't want this to come across in the wrong way, it's not about Helen, bless her, it's about interruptions themselves. I feel like I spend a part of my working week trying desperately not to tell people to stop being such twats. Polishing a turd doesn't even come close. I'm not angry though. As much as sometimes the odd thing will slip out, I am amazed at how tactful I can be. Sometimes it's like it's not me at all.

Things can only get better ?

After a weekend that was all too short, back to work, and back then afterward to rehearsals. Nice enough, but I think from having planned the blocking of this scene that I have realised somewhat that this scene could easily be removed from the show and no one would miss it at all.

My inner editor tells me that I should get out my filthy big red pen (metaphorically, as I don't actually own a red pen, big, filthy or otherwise) and strike if from the play. Helen wants to err on the side of caution and leave it in until we do a paced run through the second act, so we can see how it falls into place with the rest of the show.

I don't remember this shared directing lark being such a test either. Normally things go perfectly well, but tonight things kept going off track, the scene was complicated enough, but Helen did keep wanting to descend the scene into farce, and needed reigning in. I worry that some of the patience, faith and trust that the cast have in us may not be entirely limitless.

Helen pointed out today that we really need to pull our finger out with organising the show. We have not sold a single ticket yet. hopefully all this will change once we have the poster, and we can start advertising properly.

Hopefully.

Kindle joy

 

Those lovely people @ Amazon turned this..

 On my way to work yesterday I managed to collect from the post office the replacement Kindle that the very helpful and apologetic 'Alex' from Amazon had sent me. Overjoyed would be something of an understatement.

I'd gotten up early enough to allow myself time to go and get the new kindle, and to then stop off somewhere with free wifi in order to get it synced and up to date with my books.

..... into this !!

This I did at the McDonald's in Havant. Admittedly this was rather cheeky of me, standing suspiciously by a pillar (not wishing to take a seat as I thought that would have been one infringement of their hospitality too far). Not having used their free wifi before, I had to take some time to setup an account with 'the cloud'. Easy peasy. Whilst I was doing this, the power kept flicking off in McDonald's. OK, so dodgy looking man, with strange looking hat, standing next to pillar, with strange device... when he walks in, the power starts going off. Hmm. That's.... strange. One of the workers did, in the end, come over and ask me if what I was doing would have any effect on the power situation. I thought it was quite funny, but I guess had I been in their situation I would have thought the same thing, and she was perfectly nice about it.

God I've missed my kindle. The real coup for me was the service given by the guy at Amazon. Such a shame that it is not the norm elsewhere. I've just got to package up and send back the broken one.

Last night I went with Helen, Bill, and Lin (and her friend Mo) to go see Phoenix Players' show, It Runs In The Family (by Ray Cooney). It's a very fast paced, farcical comedy which was very tightly written, acted and directed. It's a great script and we all really loved the show. There were some brilliant performances from some of the cast with particularly shining efforts from Ben McCready, John Lewin and Jeremy Fletcher.

After the show we decamped to the utterly deserted pub over the  road. Sadly for such a lovely pub, it looked like we were the source of the entire evening's takings. In the conversations, what we'd figured out was that Lin's friend, Mo is an artist, and she has wonderfully offered her services to create our show's poster. We tried (as best we could) to explain the point of the show - having to remind ourselves first - and what the characters are like - so that she could get some ideas of what sort of things to incorporate into the poster design, and figure out what sort of thing it was that we were looking for.

There is this excitement building about the show, coupled with the 'calm before the storm' that is the final few weeks of production. Need to get our thumbs out of our proverbial arses to make sure that people know about the show. If we don't we are going to go to all this trouble and no one will come see it.

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.

The show must go on..

Sunshine has suddenly become an expected part of the weather in England. We've had glorious weather pretty much for about 4 days now, and before everyone starts moaning about it being 'too hot' or how stupid they were and that they got sunburned, I figured that I should just take a moment to enjoy it.

Done.

I now have a couple of days off work, due to the Easter holiday, and then am in for 5 hours on Saturday and not back in the office until Tuesday. This is all fantastic stuff, and really appreciated, coming as it does right toward the end of Script Frenzy. Realising that I haven't broken into double digits really does make it tough for me to achieve the 100 pages before the end of the month, but I guess that I won't get them sitting around on my arse writing my blog. I'll get them sitting around on my arse with a copy of Celtx open, writing some script.

I wasn't that well on Monday, and pretty much spent the day in bed. It'd been about 6 months since I last had a day off work through sickness, but I was absolutely wasted. Man flu ? Well, call it what you like, but I got up to get ready for work that day, and after calling in sick, went back to bed. I didn't wake up until about 7 hours later. Must have really needed that. Still got annoying cough and pains in my chest, from the coughing, but I am very much near mended. Went back to work Tuesday, but hate, hate, hate being off work. It also meant I certainly wasn't up to attending drama on Monday night.

This was the second session that I have had to miss. Poor Helen being left to carry the can. On both occasions the turnout from the cast has been lacklustre also. We can't afford to keep wasting these valuable rehearsals. Apart from the cost (£8 per hour), there is the cost in time. There are only so many weeks before the show is due to open. Helen was very good about the whole thing, and understanding. Wednesday's session was very good. We did about half of one of the more complicated scenes, and although I hadn't had a chance to go through it with Helen in advance, I planned it out on my own. The characters are really coming alive, with Jay Jay (Steve Penfold) and Troggie (Chris O'Connor) working very well. These scene was working out to show the desired amount of chaos and comedy, with Helen and I both finding it funny to watch, even at this early stage. Some of the cast, well most of them actually, haven't worked with us before and we've taken a bit of time to explain to them how our comedy works, why we have so many things happening at once and how at times, it appears to break most of the 'rules' of theatre, and get away with it.

We've gotten off to a rocky start, but if this is any indication of how the rest of the show will turn out, then we are on to a winner for sure.

Now on to some script frenzy !! If I'm good, and focused and get lots of work done, I may just treat myself with an afternoon out to Steve's BBQ tomorrow...

If you see a Blackberry flying past you.... an angry me may be nearby....

Blackberry battery death. My world has fallen apart two days running now. When I recount the event, it seems so insignificant and spoilt of me that I am almost ashamed. Though, I guess not so ashamed that I prevented myself from sharing it on the interweb.

My beloved Blackberry's battery decided to die yesterday half way through work, it had not been an extraordinary day in anyway, I had not taken or made lots of calls from it. I guessed that perhaps I had forgot to turn the charger on at the wall when I plugged it in on Sunday night, or that somehow I (or someone else) had left the wifi or bluetooth switched on. None of these things turned out to be the case.

As luck would have it, I had taken my netbook to work with me, so that I could make some progress with Laptop, this meant that I was able to hide myself away at the back of the bus on the way home, and get some charge into my phone from my netbook. This was just as infuriating, as not having the phone at all, as I began to be deluged with messages, voicemails and emails from people wondering why I wasn't responding to them. Why is it that people don't understand the definition of 'urgent call' when you advise them that you have next to no power yet ?

The evening was only completed by me having left work late, rushing to get home (as much as you can rush when you are dependant on whatever time the bus driver thinks is acceptable to get you anywhere), trying desperately to sort out the phone issues and ending up leaving the water running in the kitchen sink causing a small flood. What is it they say about more haste, less speed. Well it certainly was true last night. The more I rushed, the more annoyed I was getting. I realised that not only was I completely unprepared to go anywhere, but that with further public transport connections required I wasn't going to get there until about 8:30.

This on top of a succession of those text messages being from people telling me that they wouldn't be able to make it to drama. I could have screamed. I think I should have. Maybe it would have helped. In the end, poor Helen ended up trying to make a session of interest for the 5 people that did turn up, without me. I felt awful, and just wanted to go to bed so that the day would end sooner.

Today's battery death was entirely unexpected, having a decent set of charge bars at lunch time (4pm today due to a later shift), I was surprised (I am being generous, my feelings were better described as something else but I won't use those words here) to see that again the battery status was in red and the pretty much as I left the building, it decided that there was not enough battery left to do anything of any value, turned off the mobile connection, and then 5 minutes later shut down completely. It took all my strength not to hurl the bloody thing across the car park.

Ok. So now I am amazed and appalled by this pathetic overreaction to the loss of the ability to communicate with people so lazily as my mobile phone allows. In my typical 'there's no middle ground' style (it's just one extreme or the other folks) where I was only recently considering changing to an iPhone 4 when my contract comes up for renewal, I am now considering NOT getting a new phone or contract at all.

Yeah right. Anyone want to take any bets on how long THAT idea will last ?

wooooosh ! And the weekend is gone !

With much of a plan to spend most of Saturday with Helen rewriting the show, and really looking forward to spending an evening with Becky the very same night I had hoped that the weekend would bring that ever illusive balance of focus, work, creativity AND plain old fun.

Sadly the reality was not quite the same. I am, as I type this a little worse the wear for a lovely roast dinner at my Mum's punctuated with some red wine and some port.

Helen turned up late, after some issues that she needed to deal with at home, this meant that we didn't get anywhere near as much done as we wanted to. It would be short changing to say that we didn't make progress, we made considerable progress. It's just that we had hoped to finish the much needed rewrite of ACT I and then a quick tweak of Act II, so that we could read through the whole of the show on Monday. This now will not happen, although we have got nearly half the first act rewritten. Oh dear. I'm beginning to feel the pressure of not only the show's performance date, but also Script Frenzy.

Think positive ! 6 pages is hardly an unrecoverable score at three days in.

It's on ! It's on ! It's on !

GO GO GO GO GO...... GO ! 

What's with all the implied excitement I hear you ask ? Well, it's April 2nd and I've survived April fools day without any incidents to report. But THAT is not the cause of this unbridled enthusiasm. That is due to Script Frenzy 2011 now being 'live' and me actually having a chance, against my expectations to get some script down.

I managed 5 pages last night. Not sure that they are very good pages, but I am remembering that for the month of April, and for that script I will be suspending my 'inner editor', my 'inner critic', my 'inner poo-poo-er of things' and all their relatives, friends and family. I will need them all for the work that Helen and I have to do today on The Fatcat And The Grafter. Would be rather pointless doing a rewrite of that script without inviting at least an 'inner editor' along.

5 Pages ! Yeeek ! I'm off (wondered what the smell was). Talking of smell, the flat really needs a clean, but I have so many other things that I want to do that are, well, more interesting. Must clean, clean the flat, clear my head. I'm going to scrub at and vacuum away the grime that acts as a barrier to my creativity, and let it shine.

Also, in other news, I've only got a week more of work and then I'm off for a week ! Yippeee. The week off being punctuated by two really great things, (I have noticed how many times I have said that lately, like I'm always trying to make a list out of everything in life, but really suck at it because I only do two). Those two things being that Chloe is coming to stay, and that hopefully I will get to pick up the kittens next weekend.

I need something fawn over, and gush about how cute it is that isn't made by Apple ? I need to have an interruption to my rather set ways and 'spotless' living environment. Yup that's right, I think my lovely new flat is too clean, too tidy so I'm going to introduce two baby cats (kittens to you) to help mess things up a bit. My Mother thinks that I am mad. This is possibly not untrue.

Anyways, the script....

© Simon Sansbury, April 2011. A PDF can of Laptop, can be found here :- Laptoppdfcanbefoundhere

One script finished (almost)... another starts

One o'clock in the morning... now 60 minutes into script frenzy 2011. Two things are terribly apparent.

One. That although Helen and I have finished writing the play 'The Fatcat And The Grafter', we do still need to edit / rewrite it before the read through on Monday. (This will mean that I cannot devote Saturday to some one on one time with my frenzy script)

Two. I really wish that I could sit and blast out, in an energetic eruption of creativity, a few pages, but I'm honestly too knackered to do that right now.

I will probably take my netbook to work, so that I can work on 'netbook'. I haven't sat down and worked out the characters, but I do have a pretty good idea of the flow of the narrative, so I will be able to get down a few pages before having to do any more really detailed planning.

Other exciting developments in the world of Fallible_Fella (is it cool to refer to your blogging name in the third person ? Possibly not). Well, Helen and I had more people turn up to rehearsal on Wednesday, and this meant that we were able to cast most of the roles in the show. There are still some that we haven't been able to give to anyone.

In a twist of fate, we now have more than enough men, and are unsure about how to cast the last few male roles. (Mycroft Cockburn, Trevor(s), Narrator). Starlight, the ditzy air-headed girl is a role we also have to fill, but currently do not have a girl that would be able to take the role on.

With some other people interested that may come along on Monday, we may well just be in a situation where we can have the show completely cast before we start rehearsals, and without me having to take a part. This is actually something that although  I have said all along I would want to avoid,  (incase someone backs out, we always have me as a backup) but now I think the realisation is dawning that I'm rather going to miss being on stage myself. I will, no doubt get to be in the 'filmed' pieces, assuming we can sort out the organisation of those and all the technological aspects.

Monday ? Did I say Monday ? Yes. That's right, we will be moving to two sessions a week as of next week. Exciting stuff. This only leaves us with 23 rehearsals to get the whole show ready, but I'm sure that we can do it. We may have to cram in some extra sessions somehow (god only knows when or where)... but it's all about the art of the possible.

The other fantastic news is that Helen finally got around to giving me the contact details of the lady that has some Kittens for sale. (I was so worried, I was having Kittens about it myself). She says they may be strong enough to leave their Mother in the next week or so. I feel instantly cruel, taring these poor kittens away from their Mummy. If they are up to it, I will be able to pick them up the weekend at the start of my holiday, this gives two rather brilliant effects, being that I will get to spend time with them as I will be on holiday to settle the little darlings in. The other being that I will have Chloe for a few days that week, so she will probably be inconsolably excited when she finds this out. I am trying to stop myself from telling her, so that it comes as a surprise.

Can I keep my mouth shut ?  Hmmm

Act II is done

Helen came round tonight and we have managed, against our expectations to finish the 2nd Act of The FatCat And The Grafter. There's lots of tidying up to do, and lots of things that we need to revisit in Act I that perhaps now don't go so well with how the script ended up. Still as the evolution of the show goes, this is good stuff.

We're meeting again on Saturday to work on those points, and then, room being available, we're meeting Monday to read through the completed play to the whole cast. Yay ! We will still have a couple of roles left to cast, which we don't have people for, and there's a couple that we need to let some of the people coming along try out to get a feel for who would be best at what. I could tell you who's got what, but... Shhh !! Spoilers !

This under wire performance, is actually ahead of our usual 'ah lets start rehearsing the first act before we've written the second' which is kind of what happened last time. It left us with a rather bloated 2nd act when we came panic write it, a month into the rehearsal schedule. What On Earth (is Happening) was a long play as a result, and that was with us taking a knife to large parts of the script in Act II, about a week before the show went up as we recall. Ooops. Thankfully the great bunch of people that we had in the cast were able to take that in their stride, but it's an unnecessary hassle and stress for all those concerned that we want to make sure we avoid this time.

It does also leave me in the situation where I won't be able to devote a weekend to attacking Script Frenzy, my script 'Netbook' with vengeance until probably the 2nd week of Frenzy. Then, although I have a week off work I do have Chloe for 4 days, which I am really looking forward to also. I am sure there is a way round it all. It's funny how I feel better when I am tasking myself with doing more, and then achieving it.

There are plenty of empty evenings, even once I exclude the ones where I will be involved with rehearsals for The FatCat And The Grafter. I remember last year, it was only some point into the month that I decided to abandon the joint project that Helen and I had started, and write something on my own. Hard work, focus, vision, determination. I can do this. I'm like a coiled zebra, ready to pounce, and stripy.

Same *bleep* different day

I'm curiously aware that I should be careful what I wish for.

I am so glad that this week is over, it really has been a supreme struggle, where I have been pretty close to giving up. I've managed to stop myself resorting to a spot of Apple based retail therapy as a compensation. It does look distractingly gorgeous, and is sooooo nice..... But, in reality it would be foolish to engage in any more big ticket expenditure. Especially with things feeling so fragile at work at the moment.

When I cast back to how I have felt at similarly low point before, I can see that at least on this occasion I am aware that I am not in a good place, that things need to change, before something else happens that forces that change in a more uncontrollable and destructive way. I'm not going to allow this situation, brought about as it feels by the particular demands of certain people to ruin my life.

If the way I feel good is when I have a clear plan, and when I am achieving steps towards a well defined goal, then it is a new plan that I need.

The world breaks everyone, and after, some are stronger in the broken places. - Ernest Hemingway.

The clocks go forward by an hour shortly, what is it that the people of the UK will do when they realise tomorrow that they have been cheated out of an hour ? Personally I will probably just be really pissed that I didn't get to spend another hour in bed, and get on with the rest of my day.

Tomorrow Helen is coming over, and we're hoping to finish the rest of the play, and then go back over the obvious flaws in Act I. If we can manage this, it would mean that at next weeks rehearsal, not only will we be able to announce the casting for most of the characters in the show, but that we will also be able to give people a near final draft version of the script.

THEN... it's onto the next big thing... 2011 Script Frenzy. There do seem to be some post-its missing, and this may be because some of them fell off the wall (serves me right for buying £1 shop post-it notes), or it may have something to do with me finding a couple of them stuffed down the back of Chloe's bed. Grrrrrr.

Just when you think things can only get worse....

Well, lots of things are going down the shitter at the moment, but I am really glad to report that the play certainly isn't one of them.

We had a bit of a sad realisation last week when it suddenly dawned on us that we had fair few people coming to the workshop/rehearsals that were never going to actually be able to be in the play. (due to previous commitments). A mild, ok, less than mild set of panic set in, shortly followed by the determination to find a way of resolving this issue as soon as possible. (Or ASAP, as Jamie would say).

So, Helen and I asked the people at this weeks session to confirm if they were going to be able to be in the show, and also in which characters they were interested. This revealed real surprises itself, as has always been the case in our previous plays, what we normally find out is that the people that have shown themselves to be best at playing a particular role, the ones that shine at one part or another, are the ones that are interested in it. We've never had auditions, we've never really needed to. It always works out that in the workshop sessions and 'energised' readings of parts of the play someone stands out for each and every role.  Everyone shines at one role or another, and this means that there isn't so much a competition for any part, more an evolution and natural progression.

It also means that everyone has a chance to do something they enjoy and are really good at. It's so simple, and works so well, we really don't understand why there other drama companies don't seem to do the same.

With the people that we've got, which initially we thought was actually much less than it works out, we have been able at this point to definitely cast several of the roles in the play.

It wouldn't be right for me to announce them here, before we've had a chance to speak to everyone, and I don't want to kill the dramatic and exciting reveal at next weeks session.

The roles that we aren't immediately able to cast right now, we need to give those interested a chance to play with the characters. This will help us, and them to see who is the best person for that part.

I was starting to think that we were so short of people that we couldn't continue with the show, but as it's turned out this isn't the case. Isn't the case at all.

This has, in no small way been made possible by the help of The Phoenix Players. They have been great in putting people our way that aren't being used in their currently play (which is on the month before ours), and some of those (Steve, Allison) have been absolutely fantastic in helping drum up more interest and exposure. They've put us in touch with a chap that has a half hour slot on a local radio show, and will be able to raise the profile of the company and hopefully get along the last couple of people that we need. He's also going to be try and get us mentioned the big screen in Portsmouth Guildhall Square. It really does go to show that it's not what you know, its who.

So even if work is like a pile of dog excrement at the moment, I am at least revitalised, recharged and invigorated by the things happening outside. I can actually achieve things, I can get things done, make things happen. Not so useless after all, eh ?