All Is Full Of Love

...and sheep may safely graze... or Cheltenham’s Ladies may safely go back to learning at any rate...

And now as SWF ’09 has already begun its pass into memory, I ought to put something down about it; just can’t think what. I managed, almost successfully, to control my crazy for nearly the whole four and a half days- the cracks did start to show on the last night- presumably due to a heady brew of zero-sleep and Strongbow. I still don’t understand or care much for networking... I find approaching anybody with my own agenda very hard.

There will now follow a couple of random opinions...

If I write nothing else about SWF there’s just one big thank you to all the good people who managed to put up with my diminishing levels of sane for the duration. The words ‘above’ and ‘beyond’ spring readily to mind. Thank you.

Here’s something you need to view, now, and throughout the next week, Girl Number 9, from the brains of Dan Turner and James Moran. It’s really rather good.

I’ve officially dumped the word ‘aspiring’ into a great big bin designed for holding ‘negative power words’*. (That should please Lord Arnopp.)

Thursday last became quite a good day- full of ups and downs, it was. Now, as I am supposed to be semi-literate I should be able to find some words to describe the feeling I’ve been left with post-Festival. Unfortunately I can’t think of any and, as I can’t share the appropriate mimes, I can only explain it with musical clips... it’s a combination of the following...

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 Mvt. 4

(Buy this version by the way.)

Bjork: All Is Full Of Love

1998, Chris Cunningham

Final thing. Tonight is Hallowe’en. I had intended to watch some appropriate films; had decided to watch through as many Blind Dead films as possible before either a) my brain cell melts or b) I doze off. As it is, I’ve noticed they’ve got a Francis Bacon night on BBC4 instead... curse you scheduler people! Still, the documentaries finish at 11 so that gives me enough time for Tombs, Return and possibly the The Ghost Galleon

And the cat’s just got into the Hallowe’en spirit by walking past the window with a large bird obscuring his mouth. Mice, I don’t mind; birds, I do.**

*I just made that up but it’s sounds very guru-speak, don’t it?
**The cat’s started eating the bird... how can creatures so soppy be so vicious?***
***And now he’s sitting at the window looking very smug.
****!!!!

Cartrouble

Recent developments....

Been a bit busy of late, gathering my thoughts for the Screenwriters’ Festival which is now looming large in something I like to call next week...

Have also managed to have another car written off- the fourth- none have been adjudged my fault. So, another write off... or is it? An air of mystery hangs over this- it initially looked as if I’d just broken a front headlight in what was a very low speed impact. I took it to my regular garage for a replacement and, having got it up on the ramps, they rang to say they spotted a chassis leg had been cracked and that this was not viably repairable. So, I had to take the thing to the insurance approved engineer and their initial assessment was it just needs a new headlight... all very odd. Now, they’ve looked at it more and concluded... it just needs a new headlight. Not sure what the outcome of this will be; would rather like it to be a straight headlight repair but fear, with my luck, it will not. But keeping my fingers crossed. I really dislike dealing with insurance claims.

Now another random conundrum. The other night I did me a pizza and settled down in front of TV (and I can’t recall whether this was during Emma [good- far lighter adaptation than most period things], the South Bank Show [interesting- about the writer of Billy Elliot] or Saw II [reasonably alright but still seems like a reductivist version of Se7en], but it was definitely Sunday night). The cat came in with a dead mouse in his mouth... he promptly proceeded to eat it in front of me.

Now, the pizza was hot, the mouse was dead... I let the cat get on with it... does that automatically make me a bad person? Or just pragmatic? The strange part was that the crunching noises from the munched mouse were rather similar to the cracking noises of the crunched crust of the pizza... makes you wonder what they put in the topping!

Anyway, I’ve had it confirmed that at SWF I have these speed-dating sessions with both agents and producers. This means I have to meet people- this is perturbing: I’m nervous enough meeting people I know; a gibbering wreck round people I don’t.

I feel comfortable enough with my anxiety to admit I’m moderately terrified.