JasonBlog

One day...

After returning from Holiday, I expected to be raring to go again with the job of creating web sites and that. But so far it has failed to happen to any real degree. I just feel drained. I've also had a couple of clients who have made me feel a bit down and bruised - and I'm just feeling a bit defensive as far as my job is concerned. I feel like I'm battling ahead on too many fronts, and it's the work I'm doing for no financial reward that is at present the most rewarding.

One of these is the recent One Day for Newbiggin project - which just 10 days ago invited the folks of Newbiggin to take photographs so that we can make a book / web site / exhibition out of them and create a unique historic archive of life in Newbiggin. The project is a very ambitious one, and I am beginning to see why so few people have attempted something like this. It takes bloody ages to organise.

Today though, I started to see some of the fruit of the project - as I looked through several of the images that have so far come in. We've had loads of single use cameras back, and we'll be sending those off for processing soon. It'll be interesting to see what sort of quality these achieve. They were quite cheap, but should be good enough for a book. We're going to get them processed and uploaded to the internet, rather than prints, so we don't have to scan them. I hope that this choice gives us high enough resolution though. Might give the processing company a call to find out the resolution of the files.

As the 19th August was such a wet rainy day, as expected many of the photos are from inside people's houses - and I find it fascinating to see this glimpse of people's lives. I saw the vicar's dirty plates in her sink, for instance.  And her untidy desk. I feel like a peeping tom. Eugh! But the pictures of everyday disorder - the photos of the untidiness of life - are to me the most interesting. And there are some quite inventive ones too. And already some stars are emerging - the RNLI's Richard Martin and his dad Tim are in quite a few shots!

I really hope we get enough pictures to make an interesting book and exhibition. It would be gutting for the event to be a bit of a disappointing one after all the effort and expense so far. I'll feel happier when I've seen all the pictures. Especially the ones from the old people's homes.

Out of the blue Tony Henderson from The Journal phoned me last night and asked me about the ODFN project, and how Newbiggin is becoming a community with an arts economy - and arts and tourism will be some of the significant industries in the future of the village. He's really keen to come and chat when we've got a few pictures selected - 20 or 30 - to do a big feature in The Journal. I was surprised to see some of what I said to him quoted in today's Journal as part of a story on Newbiggin Arts Forum's Summer Spectacular on Sunday, and a separate piece about ODFN- speedy work Tony! Was that you setting that up Garry Smith the PR Guru?

So some good stuff happening in amongst the chaff. I got a really nice email from Sean Henry this evening as well, thanking me for the name check on BBC1 on Monday - although the interview was so short and superficial it was hard even to work in the name of the sculptor - but he appreciated it and I'm looking forward to meeting him finally on 21st September when he's up for the Blessing of the Sculpture ceremony - I think that's what it's called.

Tomorrow I will be a successful new media professional, and achieve loads and loads. I've got Tim in, which is immediately a good thing. Also I've got the first full day of my newly appointed Administrative and Accounts Assistant, Lesley. I already feel sorry for her, having to sort out my administrative mess, and chase up my debtors (you know who you are, and now's the time to get worried 'cause you ain't dealing with pushover Jason any more...) and get my invoicing up to date. She knows how to use Sage Accounts, which is more than I do. So there's some hope.

I must go now and rest my brain by watching Big Brother. Grand Final this Friday. Then normal life will resume, possibly. I need the BB fix though, to de-stress me. I'm hooked, and it's cold turkey from Saturday. Help.

What weekend?

I feel very much back at work today, after a really busy Bank Holiday weekend. Meetings with clients most of the day, whilst the glamorous Tim held the fort and the phone, and did what I call REAL work, actually producung web sites for clients - something that seems an increasingly elusive part of my job at the moment. One day soon, I really must sit at a computer and actually design a web site, before I forget how to do it.

Saturday was a relatively relaxed day - in the afternoon we ventured onto the beach and the kids paddled a bit. It was a lovely sunny evening, and I managed to get a picture of a young bloke making sandcastles with his toddler daughter - part of the series of Couple photos I've been commissioned to do for a series of postcards with poems on them that's being produced very soon. I asked the man's permission and he seemed very happy to be photographed, as most people are. It's so gutting when I see someone who'll be perfect for the picture, and ask them if they mind being photograhed, and they say they'd rather not. How dare they stand in the way of my artistic vision. It's difficult.

Sunday was the day we decided to visit the Mela - the Newcastle festival of Asian music and culture - although we mainly go for the funfair, stalls and food, the philistines that we are. I had a great mixed kebab, and we saw some belly dancers, rode on some ferocious dodgems, and had a delicious kulfi ice cream. I wish I knew where to get these from apart from Mela once a year!

Then Bank Holiday Monday was a day of pick ups and drop offs and interviews. I met up with the lovely Curtis family at Newcastle Airport, and brought them safely home - to a very busy Newbiggin. The sun had brought large crowds to the new beach, and it's possible that recent media attention had made this bigger than it would usually be.

Just after dropping Andy, Liz and Loise off, I got a phone call from Sean Henry, the sculptor of Newbiggin's Couple statues, to wish us well for the TV show tonight, and go over a couple of things that might be said in the interviews. I still haven't properly met Sean, but he'll be up in Newbiggin next month, and has said he'll do a fuller interview for www.newbigginbay.co.uk.

The afternoon was spent taking photographs and preparing for the live broadcast from the beach. Gary Smith from Strictly Press (esentially my agent now, I think) had arranged for the BBC ONE show to do a 4 minute live piece from our very own lovely new beach in the evening show, and at 4.30 we met with the producer and presenter and he chatted through what we might say and the segment was planned and rehearsed and re-rehearsed and re-rehearsed right up until transmission at about 6.25pm.

My bit was basically talking a bit about Couple and explaining that they represent a new beginning for the village's tourism and that rather than have their backs turned to the village, they're standing shoulder to shoulder with us looking out to the future etc. etc. It lasted all of about 45 seconds, and in it I apparently invented a new word, but who cares. I didn't swear, wasn't sick and wasn't punched by anyone, so in terms of a live broadcast, it was a success.

On getting home, I dropped by the Chinese takeaway, and picked up what was to be my only meal of the day. And I really enjoyed it - Crispy Chicken in Ko Bo Sauce. Mmmmm. Spicy. Exhausted, I watched Forbidden Planet, and Big Brother, which is coming to an end this week, after a very entertaining series. Tragedy is, there's no Celebrity Big Brother next year. Boo hoo! I thaught it was better than the main one...

Festival of Fun

Yesterday Pete Allsopp and I went to Edinburgh to see what this Festival Fringe thing was all about this year. We didn't make it last year - which was the first time I've missed it in a few years. So a drive up to Scotland at lunchtime in the beautiful sunshine was in order, so that we could take in a few shows.

The first one we saw, in The Pleasance Courtyard, was a female comedy duo called Watson and Oliver. I'd never heard of them, but Pete had booked on the strength of a couple of good reviews. They were funny, energetic and their material was quite fresh - they played male and female parts in the short sketches, and it was fast and frantic and lots of fun.

The Pleasance is a great place to hang out and have a drink, as many of the festival's comedians hang around there and are happy to chat with you. I spotted the fat lad from The History Boys - whatever his name is, but he was bust so I didn't go over. Great film.

On the spur of the moment, after this, we got tickets for the Nicholas Parsons Happy Hour - veteran performer Parsons essentially hosting a chat show with different guests each day. Today it was the turn of Marcus Brigstocke (comedian), Victor Spinetti (Welsh actor famous for being in the Beatles films) and Mitch Benn (topical comedy musician from Radio 4's The Now Show). It was a funny and entertaining hour, and Parsons was a bit naughtier than you hear him on the radio - he even used dirty swearwords. Shocking. Victor Spinetti was your archetypal chat show guest, dropping names like there's no tomorrow, and steadfastly getting absolutely ALL of his anecdotes in, no matter what he was asked. Likeable though, and pretty funny.

A quick latte and panini later and I got bored waiting for the next show, so while Pete sat and drank a coffee, I played a new game called See How Many Celebrities I Can Get To Record a Video Ident For This Blog. I started big, with Christian Slater, who happened to be passing by. I asked him if he would say he read and loved JasonBlog on video, and he declined. Honestly - if a semi-A List celebrity can't lie for my own personal amusement on the internet, then what's the world coming to. I photographed the back of his head, as a witty response.

I changed my method, and just asked everyone else I met if they'd just say their name and then This is Jason's Blog... Most people I spoke to were very happy to do so, including Frank Skinner, Bob Goody, Richard Herring and Les Dennis. Bob Goody in particular was really nice and chatty. I remember a kids book TV show he did in the early 80s called Smith and Goody, with Mel Smith. It was great - really funny for kids at the time. I also saw him in the late 80s performing Shakespeare in Newbiggin Sports Centre - he remembered coming and being in Newbiggin, and seemed very pleased that people remembered him doing it!

Richard Herring's comedy show was next, at the Smirnoff Underbelly, where we'd seen Stuart Lee a couple of years ago. Good gig - Richard Herring is always a safe bet for a funny stand up routine. I loved his Fist of Fun, and This Morning with Richard Not Judy on TV in the 90s. Quality comedy, but strangely not available on DVD or repeated on telly at all. This show was called Oh F*ck I'm 40. He's a couple of years ahead of me, and most of the routine was to do with reaching that age without having had kids, or got married, or got a respectable job. Naughty rude dirtyness, naturally abounded, and jolly funny it was too.

That show came out at 9.30pm, and Pete and I hadn't had enough, so we got tickets for a late night political comedy stand up show called Political Animal, again at The Underbelly. It was hosted by Andy Zaltzman with Richard Herring, Glen Wool - who stole the show with his fantastic surreal style comedy, a trans-sexual performer (now female)who wasn't great, and another American comedian Jimmy Tingle - who was quite OLD SCHOOL in terms of political gags, but great accent and delivery. Very funny night, and none of it was repeatable here, unfortunately. Especially Glen Wool's Dali Llama stuff about reincarnation...

Back home by 3.30am, chatting along the way with Pete about comedy, music and therapy. Brain full now...

Media whore

Just in case you're interested (yawn - go on say it) here's the piece on Radio 4's You and Yours programme that was recorded on Sunday evening - CLICK TO GO TO PAGE and LISTEN

Snapping the town

I was in Newcastle last night to try and take some photographs for a web site I'm busy with that organises party weekends in Newcastle and Gateshead.

I was pretty dispirited at first, because the sky was quite overcast, and there were very few people about, and I was trying to get busy Quayside party type shots, but this wasn't happening.

Instead I took a few pictures of the bridges, and the streets and bar exteriors at night. The golden hour, when the sky is blue and the buildings are lit nicely lasted a very short period of time - it grew dark very suddenly. Still I got a handful of shot I was relatively happy with.

It's strange - I never feel as though I've got anything worthwhile when I'm there, but when I get back and see them on my main computer I usually have more shots than I think that are okay for the intended purpose..

400 Emails, 350 photos and 2 interviews - good to be home.

I must say that in the 2 full days that I've been back home, I haven't stopped to breathe. We got back home at 11.05 Saturday evening, and after unloading the car and a quick cup of tea, during which Sparky the little Cat jumped all over us, it was time to start the One Day for Newbiggin photography just after midnight.

Sunday 19th August was One Day for Newbiggin - and I was out and about for much of the day, either taking pictures, or delivering single-use cameras to the care homes in the village. I also popped into the Sports Centre where Zuzana, the photographer from Slovakia was leading a photography session with some of the village's youth.

I came across loads of people taking pictures, and it seemed like a pretty good day. The only problem was it rained or drizzled almost the whole day. Still though, as I said to more than one person, it wilf encourage people to take more indoor shots, and we're really looking forward to seeing what comes in.

During the course of the day I photographed:

• A wedding party leaving the Bank House Club just after midnight
• The promenade in the dark, from the beach
• The Couple statues against a night sky
• People having coffee in Nevin's Nibbles
• Sunday footballers in the drizzle
• People walking along the prom
• A few kids playing football on the beach
• Toni's mum and dad and sister
• The main street in the evening
• Our family having lunch
• The staff of the Shaj Indian Restaurant
• The staff of Ladhars Chip Shop
• The staff of Continental Pizza
• The staff of the Co-op
• People in The Coble pub

In the evening, I was wandering down the promenade at about 7.30 when I bumped into Judith the Vicar being interviewed by Radio 4. She introduced me to the interviewer, who apparently had been trying to contact me last week whilst on holiday, so he interviewed me too, about the Couple statues, and the Bay Regeneration in general. Can't remember much of what I said, but it'll probably be on You and Yours some time this week.

Monday 20th August was my first day back at work after being on holiday last week. The day started with a quick trip to Newcastle Airport at 4am, dropping the delightful Curtis Couple and Daughter Louise off for their jaunt to Spain. Then back to bed at 5.

On getting into my office at about 9, I opened my emails to see an inbox containing around 400 unread emails. And that was AFTER spam filtering. I further sorted and filtered these, to leave about 50 that required urgent attention, and set about these with not wonderful enthusiasm.

Then at 10am I got a call from Garry Smith at Strictly Press, almost certainly the North East's finest PR company (he might be reading this, but even so he's very good at what he does) and he said that Tyne Tees wanted to interview me and another resident about public reaction to Couple, so I was to meet Karen Thomas and a cameraman down on the prom at 11.30. This I duly did, and chatted to camera for a few minutes before being taken further down the beach and was filmed taking photos of Couple. Fame at last!

All of this meant that the work I was supposed to be doing didn't quite get done as much as I'd hoped, but  there you go. The 2 minute section on North East News wes quite good, I thought - local woman Mabel Allen spoke about how much che like Couple, the folks at the Black Pearl said they didn't think much of it, then I said I liked it - so on balance quite positive.

I hope I get more work done during the rest of the week...

Coming back again

The day started at 4.30am closely followed by the careful packing of everything we'd brought and bought then a little later the less careful packing, as we had to be on the road at 5.15 and it was now after that. The drive to Roscoff was pleasant, and we listened to French radio - soothing sounds of Debussy and songs from the 1940s with the theme of dreaming.
As I type we're on the ferry somewhere in the English Channel. Not the French channel - we're on home ground now.
Rebecca had her hair braided, and we all went to the little cinema and watched Evan Almighty. Added realism watching this particular film aboard a pitching and rolling ship. It was like a motion simulator at times - except what was on screen was fake.
We've just had breakfast in the restaurant. Buffet style, and we took them for everything they had. I thought we were going to be asked to leave near the end, and they refused to give us carrier bags. Hardly in the spirit of hospitality - but then we're technically in Blighty as I mentioned so I shouldn't be surprised.
Lots of texts from varous people telling me how great the Couple statues look. I watched them go in last night on my phone - viewing Derek and Margaret's webcam. Strange that technology should allow me to peer out of my in-laws' window from hundreds of miles away.
The sea is a little choppy, but we're enjoying it. Can't wait to be back in Newbiggin now. Only a few hundred miles to drive when we get tp Plymouth...

Les animeaux amusant, especial un cochon avec mon chapeau!

We visited a small wildlife park yesterday very near to our village. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and the animals were very tame - especially the deer. A whole herd of them - coming right up and eating out of our hands - even following us around. We were given crepes to feed them, and the pigs had lots of baguettes - some of which the kids took to feed the donkeys (cute ass eh?). I put my hat on a pig which confused the kids for a while, bless them. Tiny little baby goats - very cute. Good afternoon - we even stroked the very friendly wallaby. Mmmmm. Wallaby....

Bonobo Parc

We're at a 'playground' that we saw advertised at the Bowling alley last night. It seemed to be a sort of adventure park where you climbed through trees. This it is - and it's actually quite scary. The first thing that happened was we were given harnesses to wear with 2 life lines and a pulley wheel thing, then we were given a brief tutorial 3 feet above the ground where we were told to ALWAYS have at least one lifeline attached to the red safety line that runs round the whole course. Then we were set free in the trees. There are four courses. Unknown to me Katrin and I chose the second most difficult one. It was very high, very scary, and involved edging between trees, 50 feet up, balancing on wires and rope bridges and zip-wiring over the heads of the more sensible and less terrified ground-dwellers. I hadn't expected it to be so physically demanding - every muscle I have was used to try and stop me falling - even though I knew the harness would save me. Even climbing the rope ladder to the first platform was about my limit. Phew - exhausted. Kids loved it - although Ol and Becks a bit scared at times. Adrenalin high still going...

Bowled over

A busy day - the weather changing every few minutes and we've had everything from 23 degree total sunshine to prolonged torrential rainstorm.
This morning we went to Benodet and Sainte Marine - location of a very enjoyable holiday almost 20 years ago with Toni's family. We even found the house we stayed in - completely the same. The village seems much busier now though.
Thisafternoon we went to the walled town of Concarneau - remember it well but not this crowded. It was shoulder to shoulder - and we occasionally had to shelter in little shops during showers. The shops sell craft items, jewellery, clothing, and the one the kids liked best, medieval weaponry. I bought an enamel Cafe sign.
At tea time we went to find the bowling alley at Quimper - which we did and booked a lane. It wasnllt available for an hour so we went to find somewhere to eat, during which time we got very lost several times and I eventually bad-temperedly pulled into a McDonalds where we had tea. Was sure we'd get even more lost trying to find the bowling alley again, but as luck would have it, it was right beside the McD's.
We had a game of 10 pin bowling and Toni's playing really cheered me up.
Tonight we'll probably finish watching On the Waterfront which we started last night. Great film - can't believe I've never seen it till now.
Sad news abbout the delays to the installation of Couple statues. I assure you I had nothing to do with it...