Yep, we’re there again.
I don’t care what Sally said on facebook, I’ll look back anyway I damn well please.
This is for me, but if you look at it and enjoy then great.
January
It started in lockdown (which let’s face it is where it SHOULD have ended, but I’m a little ahead of myself).
Chiharu was walking on water, I’m sure I was promised fire next time.
I’d always wanted one. The ear to ear grin was a mixture of fear and liberation.
The melting snow as January ended revealed more evidence that the lesser spotted maskhole was alive and well (?) and still living among us.
February
2 films I’d shot & edited with Soraya Syed back in August/September 2020 about Islamic calligraphy finally got released – watch them HERE
I was absolutely NOT filming at a certain Cambridge University college.
No. Not at all.
Much like I hadn’t filmed there multiple times over the past year.
(When a lot of your work comes from promoting yourself by showing the other work you are doing on social media/your website then not being able to show that work or talk about doing it is a real pain. It also requires stupid sentences to explain)
March
Once again this wasn’t happening. But, if it had (which it didn’t) it would have been fully socially distanced and mask-wearing at all times.
This?
Yeah this actually did happen, plus I got to meet Pip Torrens (Star Wars:Force Awakens, Tomorrow Never Dies and yes, Poldark) & Angela Leighton.
It was for a film I shot with Oliver Sharpe (Hadn’t been working with him a lot recently either:) to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of the poet Andrew Marvell. You can see it HERE
April
I was shooting with Soraya Syed again at her studio in London, this time for a feature documentary being remote directed from Canada.
Note to self: Remote-directed shoots are a nightmare!
At least epically talented soundman Joe Harris was there to help keep me sane and get way better sound than I could have got if I was alone.
There are only so many hats you can wear on a shoot before something starts to suffer.
It wasn’t all work tho as my wife with a baby goat demonstrates.
(Continuing with the Joe Harris theme. There’s a Joe Harris theme now? well, I was keeping my motorbike in his barn so I was over there a lot)
“The eyes have it”
You don’t often get to see a picture of your own retinas….
May
I managed to snag myself 2 (One was for a gift) of these amazing figures made by Hannah Gibson from recycled Astra Zeneca covid vaccine vials.
I can’t think of a better keepsake from the slow-motion apocalypse we are all living through.
It’s a sentiment I increasingly endorse.
June
A pretty special motorbike ride with my Dad.
Luckily I managed to offset all that fun by NOT working again.
Shinzan Roshi passed on to his next rebirth. Om Amitabha Hrih.
July
It’s a real shame I wasn’t working with the lovely Oliver Sharpe again.
I made a deal with my wife that instead of going to the ludicrously expensive restaurant she’d chosen to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary that we would go to the just silly expensive one and with the rest of the money go indoor skydiving.
It was the right decision.
August
NOT shooting again with Oliver Sharpe this time not in London and definitely not on a Sunday.
I know I seem unfathomably cool now, but that wasn’t always the case.
Back in 1990 for example….(That’s me on the left)
September
We were eating a LOT of delicious home grown tomatoes.
Our summer holiday was in Wales. It was glorious. (more HERE)
October
Another pretty cool motorbike moment with my Father.
We finally managed, after weeks of replacing parts, checking the wiring, and head-scratching to start his 1955 Royal Enfield Meteor Minor that had sat unloved for 5 or 6 years.
Turns out it was the last thing we replaced – the coil.
That smile when it starts? priceless.
People often ask me why the tattoo on my right calf depicting my hometown has a shopping trolley in the river.
A river clean-up in October provided just the photo I needed.
November
I got on a plane for the first time in 2 years+
To Moldova for work.
It was an “interesting” trip
Martin Cooper (‘Traces of the Soul‘ Director) published some stills from an upcoming animation I had worked on (I shot most of the live-action and did some VFX)
Why was I writing a blog post about a Spacemaid Band Rehearsal, Hull, November 1994 ?
December
Whilst poking around in a drawer looking for something else I came across an old photo album from my first trip to India.
This photo contained therein is on the roof of the Major’s Den Hotel in New Dehli circa November 1999.
One of these people is me, one of them is my vajra brother, one of them never really liked me and the other two I spoke to for the first time in almost 20 years by calling them out of the blue on the winter solstice (Happy Saturnalia minxes!)
Next year brings a birthday I’m NOT looking forward to and finding things like this seem to be the backward ripples in time caused by that.
And then all of a sudden the Omicronster did its best but good old Boris & The Vampire Tories followed the science so Jesus’ birthday wasn’t canceled this year. #saracsm
120,000 cases a day and an NHS on the verge of collapse?
It’s “mild” in comparison to Delta, stop whinging.
(That enormous elephant in the room we are all pretending not to see? Yeh, that’s Long Covid, we don’t talk about that)
Fuck it!!! Business meeting!!!
I need a STRONG Saturnalia Bloody Mary or two.
2021 ladies and gentlemen.
In some ways better than 2020 in some ways just the same car crash on loop but this time in slow motion.
If you are an anti-vaxxer, we are no longer going to be speaking. Ever.
You are a cataclismically selfish moron.
Every dumb assed conspicarcy theory or outright lie you read on Facebook, reposted by your mate Dave/Sharon whose mate works in an ICU and is still saying there is no pandemic, or the vaccine itself is killing people?
It’s bullshit.
Have some fucking collective responsibility you weapons grade fucktard.
Are you an anti-masker, whose liberties are being so horribly infringed by some paper/cloth (should be an N95 you twat) over your face when you are in a supermarket for 20 minutes to buy your white bread and antibiotic laden shrink wrapped dead animal carcass?
Fine, it’s an infringement of my liberties not to be able to drive past your kids school at 70mph in a 20mph zone with my eyes closed.
I’ll wave with both hands as I pass because steering wheels are a tool of our facist overlords to oppress us and likely contain mind control 5G transmitters.
The rest of you? HAPPY NEW YEAR!