Jason Thompson's Blog

Bunker Spreckels

Now that's a name and a half. Tim mentioned this chap in my last blog comments, and I was intrigued. What an amazing character - and the subject of a documentary after long lost footage of the last 2 years of this guys life were recently uncovered. See http://www.bunker77.com/ - see also this blog  - and this book

Whay Aye Five-o

Saturday was my turn to decide what we did as a family - and I asked the kids if they had any ideas. Oliver did. He reminded me of a conversation we'd had weeks ago when we were in Tynemuth, when we said glibly that we must come back and hire wetsuits and surfboards some day over the summer. Because that would be fun. Little did I know that he was listening and had taken us seriously.

But it was one of those - if we don't do this today we may never do it - sort of things. And it would be an experience. And the weather was okay. I phoned up the Tynemouth Surf Shop and asked if they were doing surfing that day, and they said that they certainly were and that conditions were perfect. So off we went with no real excuse not to.

I have to say that right up to the point of being kitted out in wetsuits with our surfboards, standing at the edge of the sea, I somehow thought that this wasn't really going to happen. But happen it did, and it turned out to be one of the most fun things we've done for quite some time. Slightly out of our comfort zone. A bit way out there for us. But absolutely fun fun fun, and we'd do it again.

I'd never worn a wetsuit before - in fact neither had Toni or Katrin. Rebecca had once for a nativity play in which she was a sealion. But Oliver was the only one amongst us with true surfing credentials. He'd been in the Surf Club at school, and actually had lessons for a year. So we were hoping to learn from him.

As it turned out the surf boards we had were great, but I don't think they were big enough to support my weight when standing, so I was limited to lying down on it whilst surfing. Not that I was anywhere near being able to stand up anyway.

We all had a great time, and we really felt like we were getting good excercise too. My arms - 2 days later - still ache at pushing and pulling a 10 foot surf board through breaking waves.

The sea wasn't anywhere near as cold as I thought it would feel. The wetsuits were great - it makes being in water bearable. But I was surprised at how sticky seawater feels. And the surf is constantly changing in a totally un-predictable way. It's only when you're stood waist deep in the sea waiting for the perfectly formed wave that you understand how the surf changes from minute to minute, even the direction of the waves, how soon they break, how high they are etc.

We had sausage and chips from the Robinson Crusoe Cafe on the beach, and it was very welcome. We must have surfed for over three hours, and although I'm still some way off understanding the mindset of someone who takes time off work to surf, I admit that it was great fun. A sunny aternoon in the sea wasn't something I thought I'd enjoy, to be honest, but it was good.

What wasn't good were the changing facilities. I'm someone who objects to the cleanliness of Swimming Pool changing rooms, and I feel UGH in them. Now here we are as a family crammed into a dingy smelly damp toilet block with no showers or toilet, wet sandy muddy floor, no lockers or shelves to keep our clothes dry, and other surfers casually walking around as we struggle to prise ourselves out of our wetsuits and wipe sticky seawater off ourselves with already damp towels. Deeply unpleasant.

Back at home, a very hot shower made me feel human again, and the kids never stopped talking about the fun we'd had. My dad would have been proud too - he's always been into watersports, and used to be in Newbiggin's scuba diving club with my mum back in the 60s. I'm just beginning to follow in his flippersteps.

The other thing is, looking back at the video Toni shot of my best surfing attempt, which felt like I was travelling at lightning speed for about half a mile, it appeared that I was traveling quite slowly through tiny surf for only a few feet, and I look like a seal strapped to a plank. I prefer the image in my head.

Fringe report 2008

Last Monday I joined Andy Flounders, Danny Flounders and Pete Allsopp at the Edinburgh Fringe for our annual visit to the comedy festival.

It rained all day.

We arrived at midday, and collected our tickets for four shows. These were...

1: The Suttie Show. Isy Suttie is a young woman who does standup and songs, and she was very funny. Sitting next to us in the audience was Richard Herring, who we'd spoken to a little earlier. I sometimes read his blog, and have seen his show many times, but this year we didn't get tickets - but he has lost weight and he must be happy with that. Isy Sutie is probably best known for playing Dobby in Peep Show. The best bit of her act was her character who was supposed to be Amy Winehouse's responsible sister, who is an active member of her villages WI and writes songs about Health and Safety with her husband.

2: Nicholas Parsons' Happy Hour. Guests included Fred McCauley (Scottish standup and DJ) a bloke called Des O'Connor who wasn't the one who we all know and hate, but a new younger one who plays mildly satirical songs on the ukulele in white tails and elaborately jewelled facial makeup. I prefer the other Des. Also guesting was a very funny Australian woman whose name escapes me, but she did have a great sense of humour, even though Nicholas Parsons insisted that she was Irish and a childrens nurse, when she was in fact neither. He's getting on a bit. We even managed to meet up with him for a chat afterwards, and Andy made him angry my photographing him before he was ready, making him look very unprofessional because he wasn't smiling. We certainly saw a nasty side to him, and he smashed the place up swearing like a Glaswegian landlord...

3: Count Arthur Strong - The Man Behind the Smile. This act was new to me - although the character (a northerm variety star whose time has come and gone, whose memory is poor at best, whose grasp on language is slight and whose ability to stick to one topic when talking about anything is non existent) has been on Radio 4 for a few years now. I hadn't heard any of his stuff before. It was excellent, very funny, clever and subtle and an absolute scream. I'm now officially a Count Arthur Strong fan, and even have a limited edition signed sausage. So has Danny.

4: BBC Presents Late and Live. This was a group of four comedians, with a compere in between, and was pretty good, but we arived at the venue later than we expected due to us believing it was on at The Pleasance, when it was actually Pleasance Dome, avout half a mle away through driving rain. So we were wet, a bit puffed out, and like arriving at church late, when you turn up for a comedy gig late, you get seats in the front row.

However, we were lucky that also in the front row was an unbearably cool bloke with a stupid name and job, so he deflected the full blast of the comedians' attention away from us. Phew.

The compere was probably the best stand up amongst them - Jon Richardson - very natural, quick witted, intelligent and not one of those comics who tries too hard or just uses swearing in place of wit.

We'd also heard of Robin Ince (so-called friend of Ricky Gervais and but of most of his practical jokes apparently, although his set didn't mention Ricky once) and an American stand-up Kristen Schaal - best known in the UK as the only fan of Flight of the Conchords. She was great - truly surreal and amusing and quirky and free-flowing comedy. Excellent.

The other two stand-ups were also good - one of whom did a set of amusing Country and Western songs - reminded me of Steven Wright in his delivery - and the other was a very young lad who was also good, but  whose material wasn't very memorable and didn't really make me laugh out loud.

We ate a great pizza at The Filling Station on Rose Street (I didn't know they existed any more - that took me back to the '80s) and I got a few video idents for my blog along the way. No Christian Slater this year, but we did have a lot of fun, and although it was a late night, we all felt it was well worth the journey and the wet.

I was in at 4am and up at 7 to stand in the rain on a construction site in Blyth to take photos for a newspaper article about a sculpture. The article didn't appear in the papers, as far as I'm aware.

Meat popsicle

For Katrin's birthday recently, we decided to take the plunge and give in to her demands for the finest food experience known to man - ans something we hadn't tried before but have always been curious about. Corndogs.

Toni found a recipe online at www.hillbillyhousewife.com and dutifully made the perfect batter. The dogs were dipped and fried, and skewered. Then eaten.

And do you know, although they're not the most tasty thing on earth, they're definitely nice and there's not much out there that's anything like them. The corn batter goes very crispy on the outside, and bread-like on the inside, and the hotdog is warmed very nicely. I'd be interested to see what burgers would be like in corn batter.

So watch out for our experiments with cornburgers, cornballs, cornprawns, cornfish, cornspam, and or course corncorn - corn on the cob in corn batter. It might work. We are trailerpark trash...

Sean Henry Book Signing

17th August this year was the first anniversary for the Couple scupltures by Sean Henry, and to mark the occasion, there was a special event in Newbiggin. Sean Henry came back to the village to sign copies of a special book launched to mark the occasion.

It was a really good day - Sean met many people and chatted and signed books, and it was nice to meet up with him again. The book is available from shops in the village from now, and it's really nice. It has several photographs in it that I took, and the front and back cover were by Derek and Margaret Hobbs, my in-laws.

There was a dance performance too that was scheduled to be performed last month, but was cancelled due to heavy rain. The dance was by two women who started out on the promenade, then jumped over the wall on the beach where they danced, eventually ending up in the sea. That's entertainment.

Also attending the event was glass sculptor Craig Colquhoun, who has recently got in touch with The Arts Forum wanting to locate his workshop in our new Arts Centre, formerly The People's House. He'd heard that Sean was coming to Newbiggin, and made an 18" high reproduction of Couple in glass, which Sean signed.

A good day was had by all, and we even got a mention on the news. I was taking photographs for the event, contracted by Inspire, and I was quite pleased with the results - that's the sort of event I really enjoy covering - lots of human interaction and interesting stuff to point the lens at.

Next month Sean's own book - a retrospective of all his work over the last 20 years -  is published. I took the cover photo for it back in March and I'm very excited about it. Sean brought a copy to preview to those of us who were there, and it looks fantastic.

So that marks the end of the Couple coverage - and what an amazing year it has been in Newbiggin. Here's hoping for a decent few weeks weather so that we finally get the tourists in.

Asylum

After watching a documentary about Paramount Comedy channel, I was prompted to research this great and overlooked comedy series from 1998, a forerunner to Spaced, it stars Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, Julian Barratt (Mighty Boosh) and is directed by Edgar Wright. More info here. See the whole series online at http://www.normanlovett.co.uk/video-asylum01.htm - worth checking out if you enjoyes Spaced or like quirky well directed British comedy.

The view from the seat at Wallington

Edinburgh thricely

This is the view from the back seat of Andy Fs car as he, Danny his son, Pete and I journey to the Edinburgh Festival for our annual comedy and culture fix. One of the shows we have tickets for is Count Arthur Strong and were also booked up for a BBC comedy showcase late tonight - no idea who'll be in that as yet.

It's raining and I've just had a McLatte and a Cadburys Picnic. I've also just found put the photo shoot I'm doing for Inspire tomorrow is at 8am.

More news soon and I will of course be seeking celebrity endorsements for this blog as usual. Bye for now...

Just when you thought I'd given up...

... a blog comes along. A poor one, admittedly, but a blog nevertheless. I've been very remiss recently, which is partly to do with the busy week. I've had lots of work on, and it's been birthday and anniversary season in the house, plus family visits and a new starter at Sound Ideas.

Our wedding anniversary was celebrated on Sunday evening, as it was our 18th anniversary on 11th. We went to the Tyneside Cinema and watched the excellent documentary Man on Wire, which is about an attempt in 1974 to secretly string a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. It was fascinating edge of the seat storytelling and is recommended viewing. We rounded off the evening at a Tapas bar in Newcastle - La Vinas - which was very nice indeed. I'd do that again. Good food, nice atmosphere, hyper friendly staff. We must do that again with a bunch of friends so we can order loads more dishes.

Oliver was 10 on Monday, and he had a nice day doing pretty much what he wanted. This involved going to Toys r Us and getting a massive Lego Star Wars model from the new Clone Wars film. Later that day we had a Dominos Pizza with his friends.

Tuesday was Danny Flounders' second day at Sound Ideas. He's the son of long time friend Andy, and he's doing some work with me at the moment on a couple of web sites. He's saving up to go to Ecuador next year, so I'm happy to do my bit.

Wednesday we say Chris and Alison before they went off to Norn Iron, then it was Katrin's birthday on Thursday and more visiting Newcastle. I'd got her a red and black stripey hoodie, and like a true dad, hadn't got the right size, so we exchanged that and had a browse around. Then back home for lunch and a lazy afternoon - for the kids anyway. Later that day the kids watched Enchanted - good Disney movie.

Friday was a visit by sister Michelle, and her lovely daughters Charlotte and Alyssia. We also went over to visit eldest daughter Victoria who lives in Newbiggin - to check out her new house which is lovely. Good to see her. Then back home for the Big Brother eviction. I have no clue what the public are doing with their voting this year - so few of the evictions have gone the way I'd want them to go.  All of the interesting and nice people are being voted out and we're left with nasty or boring people. Lisa, Sara amd Mikey are my current favourites. I absolutely hate Rex with a violent passion. I cannot believe how he treats his girlfriend Nicole -  she'd more like a servant to him, and he's the rudest most arrogant person I've seen on telly for ages.

This weekend is busy too. Yesterday the family and I went to Wallington and played around in the grounds for a bit. W played rugby (not full rugby, just passing the ball around) and went for a walk in the walled garden. There was a lovely secluded seat there that I'd never noticed. t would have been the perfect place to go on a nice day and read a book. It was almost completely hidden by trees and shrubs, but there was a nice view from it up the full length of the garden.  I'd go there a lot if it was my garden.

I'm reading a great book at the moment - Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh - in which director ML talks about his work film by film. Really interesting stuff - some of his flms are amongst my favourites.

I'm also watching a great film - Betty Blue. I'd never seen it, but when I was getting a haircut from Frank Bertorelli last week he said it was one of his favourite films. So when I saw it really cheap at Borders of all places (home of the most expensive DVDs on earth) - and it was the Directors Cut too - I had to have it. Watching it is a pleasure - although I'm doing it in installments as it's 3 hours long and I don't have time to sit in one place and watch the whole thing. It's a French film about a quirky relationship between a young odd job guy and a waitress he meets while working at a deserted beachside resort. She's a very beautiful, but very unpredictable person, and their relationship is far from idyllic, but there are times when it's so great you can see why he puts up with the scary moments. She's going off the rails, and I haven't got to the end yet, but even two thirds of the way through I k now that however it ends it's a great film and one I'll watch again and again.

Today I'm photographing the first anniversary celebrations of COUPLE - Sean Henry's sculpture that's in Newbiggin Bay. Sean is coming up to sign books that have been produced. The book looks great - there are a few of my photographs in it and I'm very proud of them. There's also a re-staging of some of the Pas de Deux dances that were aborted due to rain a month ago. Hope the weather is better today. It has been raining, but it's anyones guess these days as the weather changes by the minute.

More on this later probably.

Eating like an American

Fenwick's food hall has a great range of regional food and drink. And it's got a Yo! Sushi. And now I have evidence that it sells a great range of American confectionery. Toni was in town yesterday and came back with some special treats USA style.

The kids were especially taken with the jar of Marshmallow Fluff. It's the stuff inside Tunnocks Teacakes, and the kids enjoy eatng it straight from the jar with a spoon. Disgusting. I'm not sure how else yu're supposed to eat it though - perhaps on toast?

There were also Lucky Charms - the famous American breakfast cereal with tiny edible leprichaun trinkets strewn within it's crispy flakes. We're not sure what they represent, but we had fun guessing what they were supposed to me. One of them was almost certainly a leprichaun's bottom cheek.

Then there was the selection of Hershey's and Reese's confectionery - including a cool Hershey's miniatures selection including standard chocolate, Hershey's Krackel (chocolate and crisped rice), Special Dark Hershey's and Mr Goodbar (chocolate and peanuts).

There were bags of Reese's Pieces (candy and chocolate coated peanut butter balls) and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in milk AND white chocolate (sickly heaven) and a bar called a Watchamacallit (peanut butter crisp, caramel and chocolate). A stong peanut butter bias to American stuff, isn't there?

I now need to speak to the Fenwick's food buyer and insist they import Twinkies and corn dogs.