Sorry Excuse for an Update

It's brief apologetic update time. So I haven't had a day off in thirty something days and my brain, or rather what's left of it, has turned to mush. I have, theoretically, five more days left on Wolf Man but we'll see if I manage to escape scot free or whether I get pulled back from time to time to help out until it actually wraps. After that I have a week to get the next show I'm moving onto up and running and then I have three weeks holiday. I can scarcely believe it. Three whole weeks. I shall probably go to Cornwall for a few days, I want to read some books and I plan on doing some painting but aside from that I'm open to suggestions.

So I haven't posted anything because I haven't done anything other than work. Keep your fingers crossed for the end of the week and the weekend that I've been dreaming of for a month...

Sun Burn

I spent all yesterday at Pinewood Studios for a miniature shoot for the film I'm currently working on. It was an 8 a.m. call meaning that I was in a car at about 7 a.m. heading up there. As usual the day went very slowly and we were out on the back lot for most of it. You learn pretty fast that hearing "going on set" should trigger the thought "take some sun-block". I did remember this and covered my lily-coloured geek-pasty skin with factor 50 for the whole day. I felt a bit slimy but only the tops of my ears got a little toasty. The one highlight of the day was the inevitable fried breakfast in the Pinewood canteen. It's a very long way from sophisticated dining, quite like school dinners, but we must take our crumbs of comfort where we may. I did see one, rather large, fellow with a plate stacked with a baked potato and chips. Very fond of potato obviously.

On the journey back the car that came to collect us was a Toyota Prius, the hybrid car. I have seen plenty about but never had a ride in one. I was rather impressed. It was quiet, comfortable and brisk. With me (a little over six foot) and my colleague of similar height behind me we both had enough legroom to be comfortable and in a car of that size you can't often say that. The driver was saying that the saving in fuel from the hybrid car over the Mercedes he used to drive was over £200 a week. Now obviously this guy does serious mileages but to be able to save £10 000 a year in fuel is crazy. If were thinking of buying a car, which I'm not, I'd definitely put the Prius on the list.

In Hellboy 2 promo news there's a new trailer out which has excerpts from three of the shots I did. There's a whole lot of stone giant in this one at about 1:10 in:

OK, self-promotion over. Time for bed.

Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

Booda Baby tagged me with a meme. Having looked up the words "meme" and "tagged" I believe I have been invited to respond to the small challenge listed below and to write a six word memoir. It is a small challenge in terms of the amount of copy it requires me to write, it is somewhat more onerous when one considers what needs to be fitted into those six words. I have actually given this some serious thought and most of my better ideas came in at an irritatingly, just too chubby, seven words. You may, if you wish, read my answer below. The rules are also listed below. I have issues with authority so I am only going to address parts 1, 2 and 3. If anyone else wishes to play along then please feel free but I wouldn't want to impose.

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you'd like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don't forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Here is my 6 word memoir:

Always knows where his tea is.

This I think says a good deal about my character and my attitudes. I have always been a fairly measured person, I don't get ruffled easily and I have only lost my temper a couple of times that I can remember. Knowing where one's tea is helps with this. There are very few situations that cannot be defused with a cup of tea and a moment of quiet reflection.

I am also a very English person in many ways. I love cricket, tweed, films with David Niven or Terry-Thomas in them, warm beer, and of course tea. A life without tea would scarcely be worth living. The gentle stimulation of the mind that it affords allows one to dream and to think beautiful thoughts. Or it can act as a powerful restorative after a day's exertion. My point is that tea, and the ideas and emotions with which it is associated, are deeply integrated into my psyche. I am a tea person. I like coffee, but I am a tea person. A tea and cake person. A tea and cake served on a nice piece of Staffordshire china person.

There is also a pseudish and snobby element to tea. What sort of tea to drink? How to prepare it? These are the kinds of questions that appeal to the snob/connoisseur in me. I like the ritual of brewing loose leaf tea. I delight in warming the teapot, measuring out the tea, pouring in the water, setting out the cups (or mugs) and those few quiet moments of contemplation while the tea brews just enough ease the troubled mind. It's the same pleasure I take in putting on a suit, or cleaning shoes or shaving. There is a sense of ritual, a process which cannot be rushed; it will take as long as it needs. I think as I am inclined to race around during the day because I always feel the need to achieve, I equally need these pauses that brewing up a pot of tea affords to keep me level-headed and sane.

So there you have it. Tea defines who I am and aids me in remaining that way. It is a crutch and a facilitator. And thus Atrocity always knows where his tea is.

Slow News Week

Apologies for the complete silence for a week. There has been plenty of work to occupy my time and the weather here has been foul, wet and very windy, meaning that when not at work I have pretty much been hibernating at home.

I have been working on a little project of my own over the weekend but I don't have anything pretty to show for it yet and you don't want to read a protracted write-up of several hours programming believe me. I did make a apple and pear crumble last night as poor Tinseltroos had to work yesterday. Tonight I'm the one working late and who's had some not good work-related news so I shall certainly be helping to finish the crumble off. It's the best emotionally supportive comfort food. That's all I have now. Perhaps if I get a bit of my mojo back tomorrow I'll have a little more to say.

Sleep well all.

Notebook Doodle

Notebook Doodle, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

I've obviously been in a very Cthulhu/Frank Frazetta/dodgy 70's fantasy art frame of mind as this is what I absent-mindedly doodled yesterday whilst waiting for renders. I'm not sure what it means but I'm quite fond of him. It may have something to do with relief that the trailer deadline we've been working towards was met yesterday (at the last minute, but then they always are) so the pressure is now off a little. I will actually have this weekend off. Imagine, a whole two days to do what I like. Joy.

And Now Here is a Word From Our Sponsor

"If you are a tiny, baby pug like me, you'll appreciate the finer things in life. Fine wine, single malt whiskies, pâté de fois gras, and of course the best in design. What better to furnish your Mies van der Rohe up town pied-à-terre than this teeny Charles and Ray Eames' recliner? And could there be any more prefereable a way to unwind after a long day being adored by all and sundry than here with a tiny martini? Of course not. Ladies and gentlepugs it is surely time to get that which you deserve. You know you've earned it. Thank you."

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Making Some Noise (Silently)

More of the apologetic, sorry for not writing more, blah, blah ,blah, but once again work has conspired against me and any kind of free time this week. It's my birthday a week on Sunday and Tinseltroos and I are taking a long weekend then in the countryside. At the moment that's the main focus for maintaining my sanity as I'm working on two projects simultaneously as well as trying to write an advanced lighting course for the company. Yesterday was made worse by the two leads I'd had on getting a guitar falling through, so I'm back, once again, to square one in my search. It's very interesting that early '80s type super-strats seldom turn up on eBay in the UK. I know that the whole LA rock/glam metal scene was never as big here as it was on the other side of the pond but I'm pretty amazed at how massive the difference in availability of the sort of guitar I want as opposed the sort that I don't is. Once again more eBay searching will have to be done.

In better news I did finally get around to connecting up my Line 6 Pod guitar amp emulator thing to my laptop so I can record electric guitar fun straight into Garage Band. I did a quick pastiche of "Runnin' With The Devil" on Monday night as a proof of concept. It worked a treat so now, when I have time, I can actually record some music. The Pod is great. Not only does it mean I can play guitar without upsetting any of the neighbours, I can also download other people's presets for matching other players' tones. As you might imagine, Eddie Van Halen's tone is a popular one for people to try and match and there are some really good ones. If any of you have a Pod and want a Van Halen "brown sound" tone then I can very much recommend the "Edward Van Whalen" preset on Line 6's website.

Well that's about all I have for you now, let the rest of Thursday be productive and let the clients like what I've just sent them. Fingers crossed.

In cross-posting fun I did write a piece for Tinseltroos' blog about Tom Ford's new fragrance for men here because it made me so cross.

Band on the Run

Last night Tinseltroos invited a couple of like-minded chums over for a screening of High School Musical 2. I, not liking musicals very much, and positively hating the two songs I'd heard from the first one took the Flying V, my head-phone amp and a laptop and hid myself in the bedroom - as far away from Zac Efron (I had to look that up) as possible. I cannot remember the last time I just sat down and played guitar solidly for nearly two hours. It felt great and I managed to learn all of Running With The Devil which pleased me greatly. I felt I was restoring balance to the universe and natural harmony to the flat by counterbalancing the singing and dancing (and occasional hysterical laughter from the audience) in the living room. I also played Iron Man, as much of Eruption as I could remember and a little bit of Mr. Brownstone to honour twenty years of Appetite for Destruction. Rock truly is a gift that just keeps giving.

It also confirmed something for me. To whit, I'm still getting rid of the Flying V as my poor wrists are sore from supporting the whole weight of the guitar. When sat on the bed the guitar wants to slide down your leg because there are no contours to keep it in place. It really is very annoying, it's a very beautiful thing but it's so impractical and it will definitely have to go.

Zoolander

I finally watched "Zoolander" on Saturday night. Best bit: Milla Jovovich getting out of a Citröen SM. Quite liked the rest of it too, just not as much.

More Meme Silliness

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||||||||| 66% Stability |||||||||||||||||| 76% Orderliness |||||||||||| 50% Accommodation |||||||||||||||| 70% Interdependence |||||||||||||||| 70% Intellectual |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Mystical |||||| 30% Artistic |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Religious || 10% Hedonism |||||||||||||||||| 76% Materialism |||||||||||| 43% Narcissism |||||||||||||||| 63% Adventurousness |||||| 30% Work ethic |||||||||||||||| 70% Self absorbed |||||||||||| 43% Conflict seeking |||||||||||||||| 70% Need to dominate |||||||||||||| 56% Romantic |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Avoidant || 10% Anti-authority |||||||||||||| 56% Wealth |||||||||| 36% Dependency |||| 16% Change averse |||||| 23% Cautiousness |||||||||||| 43% Individuality |||||||||||||||||| 76% Sexuality |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Peter pan complex |||||||||||| 50% Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Physical Fitness |||||||||||||| 57% Histrionic |||||||||||| 50% Paranoia |||||||||| 36% Vanity |||||||||||||||| 63% Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 63% Indie |||||||||||||||| 66%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

A Beautiful Story

This little tale was related to me by one of the participants. He, along with a noted British film director were once working on a commercial with Karl Lagerfeld. During a meeting with the great man the noted director mentioned in passing how much he liked KL's shirt and in a moment of cheekiness asked if he could have one. "No", the maestro replied, "my tailor makes all my shirts. I cannot wear prêt-à-porter. It cuts me like a knife."

Genius. That's how fashion designers should behave. I am going to describe anything I disapprove of from now as "cutting me like a knife".

Rorschach

I've been sitting here in the office alone with some sushi whilst everyone else is out for lunch reading "Spook Country", the new novel by William Gibson. The passage I was reading concerned the details of a dream the heroine has until interrupted by a 'phone call. In the dream, she is walking down Monmouth Street in Covent Garden towards Seven Dials, a walk I did this very lunchtime. She looks at the coffee shop I get my morning cappuccino from every day. The 'phone call she then takes informs her that the owner of the magazine she is working for has the same name as a character from Gibson's last book, "Pattern Recognition". The heroine of that book wore a Buzz Rickson's MA-1 USAF black bomber jacket, an example of which I just picked up on eBay. As "Spook Country" seems largely concerned with the intrusions of the virtual and the imagined upon the real world I begin to wonder how many more weird connections between my day to day life and this book will occur. What does William Gibson know that I don't?

Let The Music Play

You scored as Traveling Matt Fraggle, You left everything you knew in Fraggle Rock to begin the exploration of the last great frontier of Fraggledom – Outer Space. You send postcards back to your nephew in the Rock from time to time to impart your wisdom to him in hopes that the brave service to all Fragglekind will be beneficial to those who need it. You're not sure that you want to come back home because the world of the Silly Creatures is very interesting, but your homesickness shows through in almost every postcard you write. Traveling Matt Fraggle 83% Madame Trash Heap 83% Red Fraggle 83% Gobo Fraggle 67% Mokey Fraggle 67% Boober Fraggle 67% Wembley Fraggle 50% Doozer 33% Sprocket 33% Junior Gorg 0% Which Fraggle Rock character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

A Simpsons Atrocity

If you take a gander at the Simpsons movie website you'll see you can make yourself a Simpsons avatar. This would be me then.

That's Dada for Now

The never-ending utility meter reading story continues...

Total reversal of fortune today. Having had the "nope, no, no way" attitude from the MD of the recruitment agency and being told to contact Samantha I was not feeling hopeful when I called this morning to try and speak to the fabled Sammy. I did not need to. The receptionist, not the one who initially cold-shouldered us on Tuesday, was friendly and very can-do. She was American and it seems to be something of a national trait, at least compared to the lazy Brits I have generally had to deal with. She contacted the receptionist from the old company to find out what the protocol was, phoned me back inside 15 minutes with the go-ahead to come over and take the reading whenever was convenient. Having been brought around from my swoon by a colleague who happened to have smelling salts (this is turning into a Victorian melodrama, sorry) I thanked her profusely and counted down the minutes until I could go and do the deed.

The deed was accomplished with minimum fuss and I was able to contact both the old gas and electricity suppliers, get yet more reference numbers, fill in my EDF form and post the bugger all within an hour. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I am emotionally done for the day.

Everything is Everywhere

I had a weirdly existential moment this weekend. As most of you know I make digital visual effects for movies for a living and until the end of May I'd spent 18 months working on "Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix". I still can't say what I did until the film's out so I'll fill that blank in at the start of next week. One of the few aspects of the job I dislike is going on set. This is mostly because of the boredom factor. When you are on set you are always waiting for someone to do something so you can then do your job. This results in hours of standing around, and as a natural fidget I get very restless and then I get tense and cross. Fortunately I was only required to go on set twice, once for the sequence I was to work on and the other time to comprehensively photograph the Room of Requirements so a digital version could be built. As a result of taking about 1500 photos of the place I have a very clear mental image and though it was only a set its physicality is very profoundly etched into my mind as the room was complete with ceilings forming a totally enclosed environment.

How does this translate into weird existential moments? As part of her pre-Potter film and book excitement building regime, Tinseltroos bought herself the "Order of the Phoenix" Wii game. She has been waving her Wiimote around casting spells for most of the last few evenings and last night spent a great deal of time in the Room of Requirements. As a movie tie-in the game version looks as close to the movie one as possible and it was a very odd experience to look at a very detailed virtual representation of somewhere that I had actually been in person and spent quite some time. If you aren't careful you begin to lose your grasp of what is real, what is pretend on-set real and what is fakey-real. I shall have to have a little sit-down and a cup of tea until I calm down.

Update

Schossadlerflug is still without a telephone line hence no broadband hence a lack of activity here. Sorry, folks. Lucky me gets to take a chunk of my meagre holiday allowance on Friday to wait around for an engineer from BT to come and prod our sockets (not a euphemism) until we have a connection. Then I can order broadband and wait another ten days until that gets connected then normal service can be resumed.

Last weekend was Tinseltroos' and my first weekend in our flat. Though we'd been moved in two weeks, the first weekend was spent in the beautiful Welsh market town of Llangollen (roughly pronounced Th-lan-goth-len) for my college friend Ed's wedding to the beautiful Katherine.

Yes he did arrive at his wedding in the Delorean from Back to the Future. It was a lovely service with most of the music in the church coming from Star Wars, including the happy couple walking down the aisle at the end to the Throne Room Theme from the end of A New Hope. Pure, kitsch, genius. I was so proud. The reception was lovely and Ed's band played so he spent the last two hours of his wedding party on the drums. Kat also sang a couple of Kate Bush numbers. It was very lovely.

That did mean a fortnight until we finally settled into the flat and got the last items of the landlord's that we didn't require put down in the basement, including the world's largest, heaviest, widescreen TV. Now we have space for our guitars in the living room, which is a relief.

We had a pretty relaxed Saturday, it seems determined to rain perpetually at the moment, which is a drag as I've sanded down my bike frame and I want to paint it, but it did mean we could spend the majority of Sunday baking. We had invited several of our work friends around for tea , cake and booze on Sunday afternoon and we wanted to be prepared. Having a double oven meant that we could combine forces. We ended up with two different sorts of savoury muffin, one of my ginger cakes and a Somerset Pomona cake which is a boozy cake with apple in it. Bloody lovely. Having baked, relaxed a bit, got all our pictures on the wall, set up the guitars and the projector it really feels like home now. If we could just get some damn broadband...

Poor Service

I apologise for the lack of words/rubbish this week but I am in the midst of my first week back at work on a new film so there's a lot to get sorted before I can relax there and when I'm not at work I'm frantically putting things in boxes ready to move house. I have a few things I want to get written down and when I have a spare evening I will do so but for the next couple of weeks posting is going to be scarce. Sorry, folks.

Salad Days Are Over

I've been out and about for the last few days hence the lack of keyboard presence. Thursday saw myself, Tinseltroos and Sisoftroos at London Zoo to see Golden Lion Tamarins, the amazing gorillas in their new enclosure, tigers and of course, the penguins:

On Friday Tinseltroos and I boarded a train up the North to visit my mum. We had a lovely weekend visiting Hawksmoor, my favourite place on Earth as well as venturing into Nantwich to get local small brewery beer from the fantastic Barleycorns. Otherwise we just took it easy.

Mama Atrocity took great delight in digging out all my baby photos to embarrass me with in front of my beloved who I think swung between amusement and thinking me cute when little. I took the opportunity to make copies of a few so that I can have records of my formative years to hand. I won a beautiful baby competition in the local newspaper with this shot. What went so wrong after that?

Today, after a delicious fried breakfast cooked by Mama Atrocity which allowed Tinseltroos to taste her first North Staffordshire oatcake (I'm so proud) we got the slow train back to London which enabled me to do some reading, play a little Mario Kart and listen to some backed up podcasts. This afternoon I finished removing the paint from my bike frame and began sanding the little patches of surface rust off. I sorted through the DVDs downstairs, the majority of which belong to me in order to separate mine out to be boxed later in the week. That done I've started shredding my old financial papers. This moving house business is a lot of work. Still it'll be well worth it; I can't wait to set up a little home with Tinseltroos. It will be almost like we're grown-ups or something.

Tomorrow I start back at work following my month long hiatus. It's been exciting, relaxing and I've got a lot of stuff sorted out ready for the move. I think I'm in good shape to work and to pack up my belongings. It's going to be a frantic fortnight. Bring it on.

New York - Part The Third

Sunday we took extremely leisurely. We left the hotel late and went off to find brunch before exploring the West Village. I had the largest pile of pancakes, bacon, scrambled egg and maple syrup of the whole trip. I didn't think that the bacon/syrup combination would appeal but I ate it a few times a developed a bit of a penchant for it although no-one seems able to cook scrambled egg in New York, it's always too cooked.

After failing to finish my breakfast - there were just too many pancakes, we wandered through the West Village past Le Petit Puppy, a puppy shop. Pet shops like this are now illegal in the UK and have been for nearly 20 years but there were a couple we saw with tired little pups crammed into a window display. It's possible that the dogs were on rotation for window duty but they didn't seem happy and the experience upset both Tinseltroos and myself. Fortunately once we'd got beyond the village down to the river we saw many happy dogs out and about playing. We even stumbled across a specifically doggy playground.

One of the best aspects of New York compared with London is what a dog-friendly city it is. T and I are mad-keen on dogs and one day intend to own a Tibetan Terrier whom we plan to name Sprocket, but that's a digression. The number of dogs on the streets of New York was a constant delight. I think we annoyed a few locals by asking to play with their dogs and quizzing them generally about their furry friend.

After our walk we retreated back our favourite watering hole Fanelli's for a beer or two.

Fanelli's is the second oldest restaurant in New York apparently and it's wonderful. The burgers are superb, the beer very good and the waiting staff friendly. They began to recognise us eventually due to the frequency of our visits. From what I saw, bars in New York are generally full of either preppy types who seem too uptight to have fun or serious poseurs. What I liked about Fanelli's was how laid back it was - an atmosphere like a British pub, whilst still remaining a very New York cafe.

Monday was MoMA day and it didn't disappoint. It was a delight to see Les Demoiselles D'Avignon in its centenary year; it certainly lived up to the hype and one of the most amazing paintings it has ever been my pleasure to stand in front of. We were also able to catch the Jeff Wall show which is on tour. I'd seen it at Tate Modern last year but T hadn't so it was good to be offered a second chance and I wasn't about to turn down an opportunity to see one of the best shows of last year in London. The other delight of the MoMA was that it had floors devoted to design and architecture as well as fine art. The exhibit on 50 years of Helvetica, probably my favourite type-face, was lovely to see.

On Monday night we once again opened ourselves up to the wisdom of the concierge and asked for a table to be booked at a very American restaurant as it was our final night in the city. He got us a table at a superb restaurant on 10th Avenue called Cookshop. It billed itself as "modern American" which seemed to me very akin to the "modern British" school of taking some traditional national dishes and mixing them with influences of other cultures a little but with the focus on good quality ingredients. It was a delicious meal, I had a fish bisque, a New Jersey rabbit and an apricot baked alaska. This was washed down with a bottle of Napa Valley Semillon from Ruston Vines. Well worth tracking down the 2003 vintage.

Tuesday post checking out was spent mooching around Soho until the shops opened so that Tinseltroos could go to Miss Sixty and get some jeans.

This was followed by more mooching, a final beer at Fanelli's to get out of the 87 degree heat and then at 4 o'clock we went back to Lombardi's for a late lunch to fortify us against having to eat any airport food.

The cab back through rush-hour was pretty exciting with our cabbie diving down the back streets of Queens to try and beat the rush and he got us to JFK with plenty of time to spare.

After a bit of a panic at check-in when we found that our flight had been cancelled we were allocated to another flight that took off at almost the time we'd been supposed to leave anyway so all was good. I slept from the coast of Canada to due south of Iceland and we landed back at Heathrow, safe and sound at 9 a.m. BST.

Wonderful.