Passing Time

I’m back in the production office for a few days. Until recently it's been a hornet's nest of frantic activity here, all the parts of the filming team finally got off to Africa a week ago but then there were inevitably extra lorryloads of hard drives and cables to be sent out and lots of argy bargy about camp charges and filming fees, but Miss Whiplash sorted it all out and now it’s all gone a bit tum-ti-tum here - on the upside we finally have a chance to catch up with all the online horoscopes, Facebook and Guitar Hero.

When we’ve had enough of these activities, Miss Whiplash, the Youngest Camera Boy and myself entertain ourselves, and any passing guests, with tea parties and lunchtime events. Today a lovely man came and made the kitchen lights work - to celebrate we invited him to join us for lunch. YCB won several gold medals with his splendid stuffed peppers.

Light Man told us about his other job as a DJ;
I used to do toasting - but then I got shy.




I noticed a trendy new clothes shop today so I went in to investigate, I had a question to ask the sales assistant who was Welsh and very camp - I had to wait while he finished telling his colleague about someone he’d met at a party the previous night:
... well he made me really cross, I wanted to kill him and stab him and burn him.

New Porridge Invention

Yesterday I made porridge for breakfast and just as it was ready the phone rang, turning off the heat I picked up the call from my father. When we'd finished talking the porridge was lukewarm, I added a bit more milk to the pan and reheated it ... but the phone went again and by the time I came off that call it was lunchtime so I abandoned the porridge and went out.

Coming back later and seeing the pan of solid porridge I decided to test my husband’s assertion that everything is better fried:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

Bubble and Squeak Porridge (loud applause please)









Served here with bananas, dates, maple syrup and cream, the crunchy bits are good, if it’s the wetness of porridge you object to, this is definitely a dish for you.

Being in London

This week I’m back in my friend’s creamy-carpetted London apartment and wondering whether I should get one those hooded, paper boiler suits like they have in cop shows to protect this perfect place from me.

The London neighbourhood is not at all like my Bristol one; take the local sex shop, in Bristol it's all blacked-out windows and bad typography, here in London the window is swathed in pink satinette and doubles as a joke shop, so you can pick up some bloodshot-eyeball fairy lights and a severed hand with your gimp mask and spanking paddle – it just makes sense.

I'm struggling with the concept of this one, it's a bit like shops we have in Bristol called Pound Shops, where the deal is simple - everything costs a pound. In London they have shops that look identical, stock the same brightly-coloured tat, but the crucial difference is that they promise everything will cost more than a pound, but 99p or PLUS - I ask you!

Awards and Eye Sores

Stills from must-see movie Casus Kiran


Highlights of the week:

Saturday: Invite friends for supper, at the end there is rice pudding with coconut milk, cardamom, and baked pears, there’s a long curl of lemon zest in the pudding and toasted almonds on the top, it instantly wins a Dish of the Week Gold Star, hail self as genius then accidentally poke same self in eye with wooden spoon.


Sunday: Woke with head cold, the eye is swollen and gummy-looking. Total disaster as must look totally gorgeous in exactly three days time.


Monday: Whiplash is back (Cheers from the gallery!) her rash has cleared up and she has discovered a local source of custard tarts baked by Portuguese person, they go exceedingly well with coffee from lesbian café.

Eye looking a bit better

Tuesday: Go to London and stay in friend’s cream-carpetted apartment - she is away. Scared of spoiling immaculateness so confine self to kitchen. Have boiled egg for tea while holding a cold wet flannel on eye. Check an email that is already sent as tender for cooking work, note that I make claims to have catered large pubic events

Wednesday: Eye looking good, set off for interview, wearing chic outfit and proper grown-up make up. Get caught short while approaching Westbourne Grove so nip into the local designer gorgeous public lavatory.

Try to wash hands but soap dispenser nozzle blocked, push harder on soap lever, suddenly soap becomes unblocked, resultant jet of liquid ricochets off my open palms into eyes, rinse energetically, there are no towels. Emerge looking like I’ve been in a fight.

Thursday: Bristol and a gig: Andy White, is very good, here's one of his videos




Friday: Film and dance event in converted church, a spinach and peanut butter wrap served during interval wins Interesting Food of the Week Award.

Autumn Colours

Been revelling in the sheer autumnalness of Bristol since coming home, the farmer’s market is very exciting, partly for the vegetables but also, surprise autumn-only stalls have appeared; there’s a chap who sells apples and cider, a squash man and the game butcher has more variety at this time of year, I had a look to see if he was selling squirrel yet - unfortunately not, so I bought a bag of pigeon giblets instead. Miss Whiplash and I tend to eat even more cake once summer's over and the Women’s Institute stall were having a competitive parkin bake-off, made sure that I capitalised on that one.

Last week on market day I had lunch date with PH, was planning to lure him into one of the the market cafés where they serve cooked-up versions of the stall produce. Seems that PH is frightened of vegetables, he suggested that we attack a mountain of smoked salmon that he’d recently caught at Loch Fyne. The salmon was delicious but then he made me sample a fruit salad that he was apparently going to distill once the fermentation process had completed, regular readers might know that I’m fearless on the experimental food front but I can tell you that I was quite careful not to go near a naked flame for the rest of that afternoon.

Coming Back To The Marie Celeste

I’m back to work. The office is very quiet because Miss Whiplash ran off to Sharm el Sheikh with a new lover a week ago and has now picked up some sort of disease that is apparently keeping her in bed until next week. The boys are away filming in Kenya, except for the youngest Camera Boy who did come back with the German trophy (and it really is made of sand), I can't actually tell when he's in though because he disappears under a massive pile of cables in the kit room that all need cleaning and untangling.


My Turkish holiday is already a distant memory, just before I set off on the trip I had this exchange with my hairdresser;
She: Are you off on holiday then?
Me: Yes, Turkey
She: Lovely - a beach holiday?
Me: Not really - there'll be a lot of loafing about and eating though, I don’t think I'll be spending loads of time looking at monuments
She: Well you don’t go to Turkey to look at monuments do you?

Hilarious, but she was right, Turkey might be crammed with impressive monuments but it is also a country full of the loveliest people - the best bits of my trip were definitely the bits with Turks in. Nice thing about Turkish people is that they’re as nosey as I am, and wonderfully direct, a lady on the bus to the airport asked my nationality then, What sort of education have you had?

Most surprising moment was after an earnest young man came to my rescue in Istanbul then took me to a cake shop owned by the city’s mayor and made me try the chicken pudding (Tavuk göğsü). This fat white tubular dessert is made with finely minced chicken breast, I tried the one in the picture and can report that it is a very sweet, rubbery sort of thing (like Turkish Delight) and I could have handled it better with a knife and fork than the dainty spoon I was given, meat fibres are a strange thing to see in a pudding.

Better Stop Looking Now

The party at Bonjour Pensiyon (see last post) went on most of the night and involved a lot of singing and dancing, even Grandma forgot her humming and danced and grinned like it was the best party ever – which it was. Next day I loaded their computer with the movies and photos I had made during the evening and they loaded me up with a big bag filled with olive oil, jars of olives and olive oil soap (because the olives in Ayvelik are the best in the world!) and the following evening I staggered on to the night bus - bound for Istanbul.


My baggage consisted of little more than a skirt, a summer dress, some t shirts, swimwear, spare knickers, a hat and a shawl - and a lot of olive-based products. The weather in Istanbul is in the 20s and feels like the height of a British summer but the residents of Istanbul are swathed in their autumnal woolies and I was looking ridiculous.

Yesterday morning I went to Taksim, the area one goes for shopping.

An escalator brought me, and a pile of other people, into Taksim square from the underground station, there was a demonstration going on and several of us stopped to watch, the crowds were perfectly well-behaved, marching nicely through the square with their banners, then the police started firing tear gas and the demonstration was made chaotic, I got swept up running with all the protestors, filtering off down side streets stopping finally by a shop to buy lemons and water which helped ease the burning.


Finally today I managed to get me an autumn outfit, a frock and some shoes, all I needed were some black tights - could I find some?

There are countless shops selling hosiery but none have plain black tights. The shop assistant, determined to sell me something, produced a pair the wrong colour, I said these are brown

the shop assistant replied no not brown, light black

Staring

I’m staying in a small fishing town opposite the Greek island of Lesbos (famous for inventing lesbianism). Now that I have been assured that staring is perfectly acceptable behaviour in Turkey I have embraced the concept wholeheartedly and stare as hard as I like as I wander around, and I must say that I’m thrilled with the results. I passed a bakery today and stopped to watch several men, all with cigarettes firmly clamped in their mouths, working together to load the oven. They asked me in and I photographed the handsome brutes. My staring drew stares from the rest of the square and soon there was quite a crowd of us. Next door’s, extremely young, male hairdresser came in with tea -there are loads of hairdressers - and there’s always tea. This hairdresser gave me a bracing infusion of eucalyptus, a flavour I wouldn’t ever actually choose, but I’ve put worse things in my mouth so I swallowed bravely and now feel quite medicated.

Wanting to communicate something and failing a bit, the Hairdresser ran off to fetch an exercise book, in which were hand-written all the English phrases that could come in useful to a hairdresser

Hello, How are you, Would you like a haircut, a shampooing, how much to cut?

We leafed through the book but there was nothing that matched what the Hairdresser wanted to say. Actually I would have quite liked a haircut but he was redecorating the salon and his hands were all painty, also I would have had to climb over the piled up chairs to get to the shampooing sink.

I’m staying at the Bonjour Pensiyon, a guesthouse straight out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. A large, crumbling and beautiful house from the Ottoman period with painted ceilings and fabulous light fittings. The central courtyard is paved with marble and piled with plants, this is where breakfast is served and where the sultry girls who run the place spend their time, smoking, gossiping and looking after grandma who has been suffering from Alzheimer's for 20 years now, the old lady is like a baby bird with her shock of fluffy white hair, she hums constantly and tends to wander off when nobody’s looking.

Yesterday there was another guest, a silent Turkish commercial traveller. Now the sole paying inmate, I spent lunchtime with the family and have been invited to the birthday party of a member of the household this evening - the large man who had manned the reception desk yesterday. I remembered him because he was naked apart from his red satin underpants.

Strange Visitor

I didn’t intend to stop for more than one night in Aydin, but I hadn’t reckoned on the fulsomeness of Turkish hospitality. One of the professors from this town's university visited my house in Bristol last year, so I dropped by to say hello on my way north - I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve been properly shown around.

Aydin is largely made up of newish pastel-coloured concrete tower blocks and mosques, visitors do not come here. Before I go out on the street I put on clothes that I think are properly sober, I look in the mirror and think 'would a Turkish person wear that?’ and I think they might, but people are falling off their bicycles trying to get a better look at me, so I guess that I must appear as an odd cartoonish figure in this landscape. If I look back at the women I pass, they have often stopped in the street and turned to watch me, when they see me they smile and wave, which is nice but slightly unnerving.

I am leaving tomorrow but not before I have made a supper party, my mouth made the suggestion before my brain could stop it and now I’m a bit daunted by the prospect of cooking for a roomful of Turkish academics, possibly they are all daunted by the thought that I might make them eat toad in the hole and spotted dick.

Aydin is known for it’s figs so I’m going to make this tagliatelle dish with figs, lemon and chilli (it’s good, try it) followed by chicken and spinach salad with roast peppers.

This morning I went to the market with its streets of vegetable stalls piled high with produce. The other shoppers are all pushing big overflowing trolleys, I try and buy just one handful of chilli peppers and I get laughed at, it’s not worth charging me for such a small amount, nor the single lime - then some ladies stop me and ask me something - I can’t understand, so one of the women makes a call on her mobile and passes the handset to me so that I can speak to a young girl trying to translate her mother’s question

My mother wants to know ... whasserangum afffersezzem ...

... actually I can’t remember the exact sounds made after that first bit, but it was incomprehensible, we flounder around trying out sounds on each other until the phone runs out of battery, we part company with none of us any the wiser.


Mudbathing Postscript
There seemed to be demand for an image of the mud baths, I'm the one wallowing.

If you stand up in this warm salty compound it's thigh deep but lie down in it and you bob on the surface - weird, and cool, when you want to de-mud you can just dive into the lake on the other side of the wall.

Hot Turkey

The first part of this trip has been in Dalyan, a small Turkish holiday town. We stayed in one of the messy jumble of small pensions hugging the curve of a fat river, the tourism here is low-rise - not chic but there are no chain outlets here either. The bulk of the foreign tourists have gone and the holiday-makers are mostly Turkish now.

The popular thing to do is hop on one of the boats going to the coast, whole families come along on these trips, the men take my husband aside and try and teach him something about fishing while the women get out their purses and, through sheer force of will, make me understand their family history illustrated with the bundles of photographs they always have with them. A ten-year-old from Istanbul with frighteningly good English helped with some translation and, hearing that I had not eaten well the night before, has drawn me up a list of what I must eat and the places I must visit when I get to her city. The image here is one side of several pages of instructions, you might need to click on it if you want to read it.

The Director has now gone to America to attend another film festival and I’m going to go and look at some other bits of Turkey on my own. Lone travelling always gets a bit more extreme and I’ve had some awful times doing it as well as some really good ones, if I can get a connection I’ll tell you about it...

Staff Dispersal

Whiplash left me in Spain, flying off to Portugal to shake her tambourine with her band. Our youngest Camera Boy went to Germany to attend a film festival where one of our films was in the competition. It’s one of a series of short insect films made for children called Smalltalk Diaries, the insects are all voiced in different British accents, he sent an email to let us know that we’d got a prize and I’m wondering if we’ll ever see him again:

hey all! just a quick email to say smalltalk has won the childrens audience award here at greenscreen - congratulations!! pictures to follow......

i've made friends with lots of german film makers, volunteers and the film watching public- yesterday I had some authentic kartoffel suppe at deutsche couple's house. the screening of smalltalk was pretty interesting because there was a live narration by a husky german man, who did put lots of effort into doing different voices for the characters. i have met some guys who are sailing to kiel this evening from eckernforde so I am joining them and have taken the necessary precautions to waterproof and protect the trophy (made from eckernforde sand).

Tschüs!

here's a bit of the winning programme




The African filming trip returned while I was away, I've heard it was a roaring success but the participants are too exhausted to talk about it (sorry about lack of updates on the Field Notes site, I think when enough sleep has been had there will be news). Cake Boy is now trudging through heaps of digital footage that needs lots of processing, he will be alone in the office for a while because I’m taking The Director to Turkey today.

Spanish Antics

We accomplished our mission to find out what the Argentine ants are up to in Spain by virtue of running a camera continuously while Whiplash and I bombarded the Spanish ant scientist with questions. It was a bit like when they send children out to interview celebrities. Among other things we established that;

a) The Argentine ants in Spain are indeed part of a global supercolony*

b) Human activity makes exactly the right conditions for invasive species

c) The ant scientist's favourite colour is yellow and he often has a croissant for breakfast

Our work done, Whiplash and I retired to Cadaqués, a ridiculously picturesque seaside town close to the French border. Salvador Dali made his home there, and it is impossible to turn a corner without seeing his famously mustachioed face. We visited Dali’s very theatrical house which is stuffed with all sorts of things; bottoms, bosoms, mirrors, taxidermied swans, the odd bear and a boss-eyed owl.












I had completely misunderstood the importance of the holy toast (see last post). Too late I realised that, rather than eat it, I should have hung it medallion-like around my neck to ward off the series of temptations placed in my path by Whiplash. I shall not go into detail (I have many episodes on film and plan to start up a sideline business). Hauling the bottles up the hill to the apartment was great for our lungs and biceps but the positive effects might be outweighed by the fact that I’ve started smoking again. I’ve also come home with ‘prickly heat’ – at least I think that’s what the rash is, either that or I’ve picked up something from the daily foam party.

Pop-tastic video courtesy of Whiplash on her mobile phone




*most species of ants make a nest that works like a self-contained state, when they meet ants from another nest, whether of their own species or different one they behave aggressively and often kill each other. Ants of the same species that have formed multiple nests and act in a friendly way towards each other become a supercolony - a sort of federation, they will all be related to each other. Usually a supercolony extends over a few metres or even kilometres of land area, the Argentine Ants have formed a supercolony that extends across continents

My Little Pony

I’m lucky enough to have a big derelict building at the end of my street. The broad steps in front of it are occupied from mid-afternoon onwards by the local winos, but in the mornings anyone can use the space. Last week some ladies in green quilted waistcoats stood among the empty bottles and dried up body fluids and set up a sandwich board advertising Free Prayers.

I wasn’t busy and felt that I could do with a boost, so I told one of the ladies what I needed, then I stood next to her while she shut her eyes, clasped her hands in front of her bosom and said a sort of poem from my words, then I continued on home.

I was a bit sceptical, then excited. Then I got anxious because if Jesus really did send me a pony, I wasn’t sure where I’d put it. This morning though I witnessed a true miracle. On burning my toast the clear image of a pony appeared - I’m not so sceptical now am I?

All that Jesus has to arrange now is for Whiplash and I to get off to Spain - she’s successfully bribed the courts to put off her next hearing, but she is singing with her band tonight and the gig/after party needs to end before the 6am flight.

If it works we’re away for a week – so see you later!

Girls On Film

Crumbs! – I thought I had sorted out a lazy escape for Miss Whiplash and myself - but it looks like we’re going to have to work for it after all.

We have some euros left over from a previous production that need using up - but they must be used for filming business. With my customary brilliance I suggested that we do a recce for the next leg of ant filming which will be in Spain.

What I meant was, that we could try out some hotels and restaurants to see which would be the best for the film crew to use, but the producer has just emailed me several detailed pages of instructions about the things he wants finding out, here are a few of the issues to be explored:

… film the ant colonies to give us an idea of size and density, have Whiplash stand in for scale in some shots … need to know the activity of the ants – when do they first get going in the morning … perhaps this depends on light hitting their nests … When do they stop … what will the weather be like when we plan to film … how will the weather then affect ant behaviour … video some ants fighting to give us an idea of what happens … would be good to get an idea of the day-to-day activity of the ants … What other species of ants are nearby … interview ant scientist to give us an idea of what he is like on camera

Despite this setback I'm still looking forward to it, if I can get Whiplash's tag off we're going next week.

Naked Ambition

Whiplash is doing Community Service today and there’s no cake left. In the lull I find myself once again checking the small ads. Today’s favourite is this one for a Receptionist/PA

(must be over 18) Need a receptionist/Personal assistant for our successful company but must be a hit with management and clients. Must be a flirty bubbling character very open minded.

Are you prepared to do anything for progression. can you work in the nude in a naked office environment?

If your that person get in touch

One might think that this is for employment in a common-or-garden House of Ill Repute and although the syntax does seem to point that way, I'm considering whether this might be the start of a general trend towards nudism in the workplace - or maybe one of my ex-employers is doing a recruitment drive:

I once had a job at an architect’s office, cooking lunches for a sexy beast called Ian Pollard and his staff. Ian was terribly enthusiastic about nudity at work, he had more nudie pics on the walls than you could shake a stick at, his wife and his PA wore very few clothes indeed. Ian himself didn’t like to be too naked at work, we frequently entertained Stalwarts of Industry and he wouldn’t have wanted them to have felt overdressed, and the risk of injury from spitting chip fat compelled me to stay fully covered.

Mr Pollard gave up the architectry soon after I stopped working for him and followed his true vocation: getting on telly as a naked gardener, I’m wondering, if that’s him advertising for a new PA.

Update: I quite like the Sun's take on this too.

Fire And Cake

It seems that we were hit by some kind of storm last week; the film crew arrived back from Arizona, frantically unpacked, repacked, people came and went with bits of engineering, repaired computers and reformatted batches of hard drives

the fridge was emptied.




At 4am this morning we hauled cases out to a vehicle for the trip back to Africa.

I’m standing among the debris of abandoned bundles of cables and surplus wads of packing – I have the stupified look of a cartoon animal that a train just ran over but it hasn’t realised yet.

On the bright side a lovely New Boy has come to work with me and Miss Whiplash

He makes cake

Today he arrived at 9am accompanied by a strawberry sponge and whipped cream

I might recover

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Miss Whiplash is due in court today and we’re all hoping it won’t result in a custodial sentence this time. We’ve had a few discussions as to the best outfit to wear for the judges and I think she might be reducing the leopard print accessories for the occasion.

I’ve never actually made it to court but that’s not for the lack of being naughty, I’ve had several sphincter-clenching moments when I’ve fully expected to be taken away by a policeman and locked up for a very long time. I started a list of my best closest near misses but it just rambled on and on so I'll cut to my top favourite brush with the law of all time:


One of the recording studios where I worked had a big farmhouse kitchen, I cooked and we all sat down and ate together, we drank just water, no wine. After supper the musicians, producer and engineers would go back into the recording studio and continue working.

Larry Klein arrived to record one day and that first evening his wife joined us for supper. Larry’s wife at the time was Joni Mitchell, she had spent the afternoon smoking weed with Dawn, one of the studio employees. They were in high spirits and when the boys went back to work after supper, the girls wanted to get booze and cigarettes and asked me to take them somewhere to stock up.

My car was an A35 manufactured before my birth date and as Dawn got in the back and Joni sat next to me lighting another joint, my mind was obliterated by one repeating thought

I have Joni Mitchell in my car

As we swept into town another thought joined the first

I forgot to get the MOT* done
which distracted me a bit.

Then Dawn said
You’ve just gone through a red light

and there’s a police car behind you

it wants you to pull over

Now my head was full of the newspaper headlines

I got out of the car and smiled sheepishly at the two policmen who said:

Did you know that you jumped a red light back there?

Yes I’m really sorry

We’ve been following you for quite a while actually, we’ve not seen one of these for a few years, d’you mind putting the bonnet up and starting the engine so we can have a look?


And they never noticed the stoned rocker.

*it's a legal requirement to have a valid MOT certificate and the police would normally have asked me to present this document.

Full House

Everyone is here; Miss Whiplash swept back from her Scottish sailing holiday, the film crew returned ready roasted from Arizona, there's a New Boy. And the kit is also back.

I live in the same house as the production company and it’s suddenly very crowded here. I have just got some ply cut to fit over the bed in the spare room to make more space to unpack, clean and repack the cases (ready for next week's trip), my other jobs include getting cross with insurance companies, transcribing the interviews done with the scientists, chasing people for receipts ... and buying food.

The food thing is mainly because Barney the Tall Teenager is also back. Last month he started digitising a pile of tapes that needed processing, a job he started with gusto, but then he got bored and petered out.

I’ve finally caught up with him and twisted his arm with an extra bribe of limitless nice food and a financial bonus if he gets the job done by Wednesday. He has taken me at my word - the first thing he does when he arrives in the morning is check out the fridge and get breakfast. Today already he has consumed some yogurts, 2 boxes of cream cakes and a plateful of pasta, sausages and peppers that would have fed an army.

In order to get the job done in time I want him to work on this evening, so that means more cakes, and a promise of cow pie if he’s still here at 8.

Vicky Pollard's Sister Cuts My Hair

The prospect of an interview in London meant that I finally had to face the fact that I needed a haircut. Most of my French and English hairdressing visits have been quite harrowing, the French ones are fierce and tut when I refuse their advances with the lacquer can and the English ones have a tendency to weep about their boyfriends - or they give me too much detail about wedding outfits and child care.


All I needed was someone to cut a straight line across my shoulder blades, I’d left it to the last minute, the Spanish barber over the road advertises that he is unisex so I stopped by to see if he could fit me in.


Turned out that Manuel was not actually unisex himself but he does have a ladies basin and chair looked after by a disarmingly candid and fast-talking teenager called Laura, her accent the broadest Bristolian, here’s a reference for it in case you’re not familiar:







I was going to get a dry trim, making the visit as speedy as possible but Laura was lovely and made a remark about her employer that was so deliciously indiscreet that I found myself asking what she’d charge for a cut and blow dry, she threw in a special offer just for me she said:

Today I’ve got an offer on of twenty five pound, normally it’s thirty five pound but Jasmine’s left and taken all the customers with her and the book’s empty now so me and Doreen are trying to get more people in.


For the hour it took to ‘do’ me she bathed me in a stream-of unedited chat prompted by my answers to her questions:

Laura: Going anywhere special tonight?’

Me: Just the cinema, I’m going to see Coco Before Chanel

Laura: Oh I love that. I got one of those artificial bags down the market. I love quilted stuff. My Nan made loads of quilts. Mum doesn’t like them though she thinks they’re too hot....

And I learned loads of useful stuff too, for example, if I bought just 10 issues of The Sun newspaper and collected their tokens, I could get a holiday for £9.50. You wouldn't get that information in a Vidal Sassoon salon.

It was the most fun I've ever had at a hairdresser's - I shall go back there.

Bunking Off For Banksy

There is one Camera Boy in the office, diligently logging all the material from last month’s African lion trip, Miss Whiplash is on holiday and I don’t want to deal with the expenses sheets.

This morning I made a big pile of bacon sandwiches and a flask of coffee and ran away from those receipts, at 8am I joined my friends, various people armed with books and newspapers and some children playing Snap to queue for a show by our famous local boy vandal.


Banksy has been pursued for decades by 'The Authorities' for graffiti-ing around first Bristol then the rest of the world and now here he is, in our stuffy little museum, he’s filled the entrance hall with a burned out ice-cream van and binge-culture statues staggering around with their dogs and shopping, fairground music playing tinnily in the background. There are his trademark witty stencil pieces, a room of quite disturbing animatronic creatures and all the upper galleries of stuffed animals and old-fashioned paintings in big gold frames have been interfered with, here’s one of the reviews


Proper grown-up critics can dismiss Banksy as An absolute thundering backside, Charlie Brooker refers to his fat-arsed, berk-pleasing rubbishness (a lot of arse criticism then!!) but an entire road has been closed off to accommodate the queues that two months on, are not abating. The lack of subtlety in Banksy’s work is not the point - it’s funny, cartoony stuff done with great panache and a big part of Banksy's charm is that, unlike many artists, he doesn't take himself too seriously. More people have gone through the doors of our, normally moribund, local museum in the last two months than in it’s entire history and I bet the Oxfam shop opposite are still smiling at the anonymous donation they received just before the show.

Office Party

Since the crew went off filming ants, the production office has gone very quiet. Miss Whiplash and I meet up occasionally to eat cake and play the office bongos but we broke out the Champagne yesterday when an email arrived to say that an episode of our insect series (Pollinators) is a finalist in a German Film Festival, I emailed the news on to one of the Camera Boys and asked him how things are going, this is his reply:


Hiya!

I've told The Director about Pollinators and he seemed very chuffed. All is indeed well here and we're churning out some darn cool footage and enjoying it too. Got some great stuff today of aphaenogaster (long legged ants) licking their queen's bottom. We are working in labs amongst lots of scientists, the rooms here are filled with hundreds of plastic boxes full of the ants - it is pretty fascinating. The daytime heat has a very similar feeling to pointing a hair drier at your face, so thankfully we're inside now! We had a seriously spicy Thai meal this evening in a restaurant and so we have put some toilet roll in the fridge in anticipation for tomorrow morning.

Cya!

The Food Of Love - Part III

This is Mariam Hassan and Manuel Dominguez, her producer explaining about a stew that they are making, it really should be made with camel - but I couldn’t find any camel meat so she has made do with lamb.









I was standing backstage fascinated by their tattooed feet



Mariam is from the Western Sahara but Morocco has occupied this land since 1976 and the Moroccan security forces continue to treat the Sahrawis extremely badly, Mariam has found asylum in Spain but many of her compatriots have been stuck in Algerian refugee camps for 33 years now.

Morocco has built a wall across the territory it is laying claim to in the Western Sahara and Spain has in turn built a wall to keep out the asylum seekers

This review of a talk given last month by Wendy Brown discusses the astonishing number of walls that are going up all over the world.

The Food Of Love - Part II

I packed up the Taste the World tent last night after Andy White, assisted by professional toast-maker John Leckie assembled and served a spectacular Rock ‘n’ Roll Breakfast.

Menu
Coco Pops & Kalua
Granola with Strawberries Flambéed in Irish Whiskey
Champagne with Marmite Soldiers.
with a side order of beer

John had said that he would make Eggs Benedict, but then decided that he wasn’t up to making a hollandaise sauce
Andy: but you’ve produced Radiohead
John: making Hollandaise is much more difficult than producing Radiohead


My work done, there was still time to go and see more musicbefore the end of the festival, all the food left had to be thrown out or given away, there were 4kgs of lamb in the fridge with no takers, so I divided the meat between my shopper and my handbag and took with me to go and meet Miss Whiplash who was watching Roy Ayers at the other end of the arena - I was halted in my tracks by music from this band*



and got no further. I saw no more of the Whiplash but she sent a text to say that Roy was totally amazing and she was running after his tour bus to see if she could have his babies.

I did see/hear a lot of great music, The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are raw pulsating sex on 18 legs, if there’s a show coming near you - see them.


I bought Antikrisis after seeing this and I’ve been playing it non-stop since I got home.



* Sorry about rubbish sound but it's as near as I can find to what I heard from Ba Cissoko a man currently being touted as Africa's Jimi Hendrix.

The Food Of Love

In Real Life I’m a cook, these days I take short cooking jobs and fit them around the work going on at the production house. In my early cooking days I catered for pop stars and I still do quite lot of work with children, but it tends to be non-musical events. I am therefore, really excited, about  my job this weekend at WOMAD, a music festival set in a vast parkland strewn with people performing songs and dancing, I'm especially looking forward to seeing these people.






One of the performance tents has a stage set with a kitchen – artists, who are also performing on the larger stages, come here and cook something for the public who come to watch the spectacle - it’s like Food Art with music.


My role in all this? I am The Girl Who Shops; I get sent details of what the musicians want to make, I buy the ingredients, make sure they have enough of the right sorts of pots, and when the cooking gets going I might end up stirring a sauce while they toss pancakes.

My shopping list includes ‘crumbs of salt cod’, chorizo, smoked ham and ‘moong divide', the Food Events start with Cuban Chicken on Friday and end with a rock ‘n’ roll breakfast on Sunday evening (Kalua and Coco pops and a demonstration of the sort of meals you can make inside a hotel kettle).

the musicians often send accompanying notes, placing their choice of dish in context. Many WOMAD performers are in some way exiled from their homeland, Mariam Hassan is currently resident in Spain, she will be making a lamb dish from the Sahara, to finish she will serve 3 different sorts of tea, the first will be As Bitter as Life, the second will be As Sweet as Love and the third will be As Soft as Death.

Bringing It All Back Home

The Director is back from filming in Botswana, most of the kit is in storage but the lenses are up in the spare room for testing and cleaning. He's mostly been asleep since his return, which is a shame as I was hoping he might do some Man Jobs, like get the congealed fat out of the drain.


He's hoping I'll do some Woman Jobs, like fix all the broken trousers that are in his clothes bag. I won't be doing that because I'll have my arm down a drain, but I will model the trousers that show what happens if you stand too close to the camp fire.

Young, Dumb And Sponging Off Mum

I rely on other people to point me in the direction of telly that's worth watching, in view of the post I put up a few days ago I'll be watching Charlie Brooker's recommendation from behind the sofa.

Dilo Doll Mania Starts Here

Now that we’re blessed with so many television channels, the content needed to fill the yawning chasms of televisual space must be found from somewhere. Mr Dilo in Romania has come up with a winning proposal for a game show; his idea is to pitch his wife Banzai-style (who I totally back to win) against some other people with an unconventional take on their chosen religion.

I’m planning to steal his idea (Genius Steals – Mssrs Picasso, Wilde & Elliot said so), but first I need a photo of Mrs D so I can get some plastic dolls made and a load of other stuff with her image on it – then I’ll be onto a winner and get rich.

I know this because I have recently had a lesson in the economics of children’s television from a lady working for a Spanish television channel - she has a budget of 8 euros ($11) per minute to spend on children’s programming*.

For this sector, programme ideas come mainly from people who want to sell stuff; so a set of characters is thought up by a marketing person, they get together with a manufacturer who then make a load of toys, clothing - you name it they'll make it, branding the characters over as many bits of old tat as possible. The marketing people write out guidelines for the merchandise and then get it strung together into an extended advert which is then called a children’s television programme.

Dilo's idea is perfect for kids, they love punch ups don't they? Earwig Sandwich will soon be given over exclusively to offering you our latest range of Dilo Dolls, Mrs Dilo Lunch Boxes, football strips and ear wax holders. Hand over her photo Mr Dilo and I’ll cut you in – don’t make me make it up!

*To get a broadcast-quality tape of an hour-long programme copied and sent to a tv channel, it would cost in the region of $150 plus courier costs.

The Point Of It All...

Barney has been in the office helping out for a few days, I’ve known him since he was very young, he’s now 18 and has become awfully tall and spotty, I have my suspicions that aliens visited him a couple of years ago and exchanged his brains for bits of fluff and mice.

He finished with ‘school and stuff’ over a year ago but hasn’t been able to get more work than the odd shift at a local bar. We talk about what he could do with his life, I make encouraging noises about the things he’s good at, he makes polite noises back.

Finally, frustrated at my lack of perception he puts the nub of his problem more clearly

I just want to get some money.
(with that uplift at the end, like it’s a question)

RIP Monsieur Splendido

I have spent the evening trying to find the words to write to someone who has just lost her husband. As a couple they clasped me to their bosoms, became my friends and gave me an unparalleled introduction into the tight little society that is rural France.

I was in France looking for a farmhouse that we could use as a filming location and crew accommodation. I had spent my first few nights in increasingly dismal hotels, so when I walked into the lounge of Hotel Splendido, a sixties timewarp of black quilted vinyl, shiny teak veneer and flamboyant floral displays, I felt I’d come home.

Monsieur Splendido and his magnificent moustache were rivetted to a banquette his eyes fixed to a fuzzy image that might have been a sport game on a huge old television screen, he must have divined my presence through his whiskers because he didn’t take his eyes off the box as he bawled for his wife to come and sort me out.

Madame Splendido was stiffly coiffed and wore the sort of makeup that frightens horses. She was sharp and to the point and gave me a thorough interrogation before handing me the keys to my room.

The hotel's restaurant is popular with the locals, in the summer, dinner is served outside on a sunny terrace. The evening that I arrived most of the tables were full of chatty laughing couples, I was shown to a table in the middle of the terrace and Monsieur Splendido (now dressed in chef's whites) appeared by my side, he introduced me to the other diners with a grand flourish, as though he had produced me from a hat;

This is Lulu she is looking for a house to rent, please help her if you can.

The Splendidos were a double act, the magician and his glamorous assistant and it is impossible to imagine one without the other.

Holy Turtles

Carnival is basically a Good Thing, but I usually try and be out of town when it's on, partly because of the racket, but also because the police chases and firework fights can get tedious, I also find it alarming when people hide behind my wheelie bin to shoot up.

Having spent most of the last 3 years out of the country, I had completely forgotten about this annual Caribbean bonanza. However I finally twigged by noon on Saturday when my radio had become inaudible despite only being two feet away from me. I decided that I might as well give up and join in.

I crossed the road to the main body of the party alongside a girl in a vest and face paint, her toes had scraped their way through the fabric of her red slippers and she was propping up a grinning man with a propeller on his head.

The parade was cranked up to full volume, local community groups samba-ed along in enormous glittery costumes, banging drums and pushing trolleys piled high with sound systems. Punctuating the groups were dancing girls wearing little more than body crayon, big shoes and feather headdresses.

The only community group that had decided not to compete in the sparkle stakes were Team God who had opted for a theme entitled 'What I wear To Shop At Asda’. Unity was achieved by dint of large gold cardboard stars tied to their backs, making them look like a flock of holy turtles. Each star was customised with text, mainly a single inspiring word: Give, Smart (??), Happy... emphasized by repetition, like the turtle-man who had the word hopefully written many times in biro all the way down his back.


I think they must have salsa’d too hard, too early on, because by the time I saw them they were trudging wearily and trying not to look at naked girls and men on stilts with bananas in their jockstraps.





This morning I swept up the remains of the television I heard being kicked down the street during the night.

The View From the Office

Over the years I have worked intermittently for this production company, mixing film production work with my other (quite different) freelance work. For the last few months I have been working here full time.

Our film crews are currently working in the US and in Africa. Miss Whiplash and I remain, up to our necks in budgets, schedules and cake, in the production office.

We hear from the field when there are problems; the Monarch butterflies have been unseasonably late arriving in Wisconsin and excessively cold weather has arrived in Africa. This weekend, after days without word from Africa I received a call from a cold and exhausted Director, he has decided to break camp and the crew will make a 2-day journey to another location which should be easier to work in.

Being in a good communication zone a new post has been emailed for the Botswana blog, it is full of details of the local wildlife and practicalities of making a film. Meanwhile back in the office the phone calls fill us with the visceral sense of how these projects lurch from triumph to tragedy.

Today I have dealt with a batch of invoices - they tell a story too.

Here’s a section from the African camp suppliers:

1 X replacement battery charger
2 X replacement radios
Long Johns
Gloves
10mm wing nut
Brazing Rods
5 X Famous Grouse Whisky
2 X cases of Red Bull
1 X box re-hydrate powder
Game Powder Energy drink
Rennies tablets (large)
1X bag of rags
1 X tarpaulin + 6 X duct
vehicle respray for filming vehicle*
re-modelling of filming vehicle
ski rope

*The standard safari vehicles in the area are white - ours is resprayed khaki, partly because a white vehicle is a distraction to hunting animals, but more importantly, as camouflage against other humans out on safari, once they spot a vehicle parked up, they pile over in their droves, creating an instant car park, which is also off-putting for the animals.

Superorgasm

Zena joined us in the office this week, a ravishing Swiss scientist who has been doing some research for an upcoming production on complex insect societies. We have given this film the working title of Superorgasm.

The Latin names of many insects trip off Zena’s tongue, but Whiplash and I need the Idiots Guide to Relevant Species that she has made for us and stuck up on the wall.

TV companies like a bit of sensationalism in their programmes so I’m looking for 'stories’ – ideally someone who has had a limb dissolved by ants or people who have had their car stolen by wasps.

A Pink Evening
In my continuing quest to get reacquainted with my neighbourhood, I have spent the evening at my local cinema, it’s the sort of place that serves Spanish brandy and carrot cake, their films are scheduled to start at 8pm but everyone knows that they never start on time and turns up later, the cinema staff wait until they think everybody has arrived before they start the film. Tonight their Japanese pink film season opened with A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn which is about a woman who pretends to be a cow.

Actually it was about more than that and managed to be touching as well as ludicrous. I think Jim Jarmusch must get inspiration from this genre.

Rubbery Cleaners Revisited

In the mornings, on her way in to work, Miss Whiplash brings us excellent coffee from the lesbian café near the office.

These days it's just the two of us in the office - everyone else is away filming. Whiplash spends half her time nagging a television company to cough up long overdue payments and the rest of her time is spent trying to reassure our creditors. I talk about biscuits and help think of ways to raise finance. In the absence of people I have noticed that enormous dust bunnies have been breeding under the desks,  I’m also thinking of ways to brighten our lives a little.

I do the afternoon coffee run. yesterday, three closely shorn women were sitting outside the café arguing about the qualities they’d be looking for in a nude cleaning person, I don’t think I’d like a completely unclothed person cleaning around me but fancy dress could be diverting. I remembered the ad for rubber cleaners that I’d spotted earlier in the year - I’m still a bit confused about who pays who, but it has occurred to me that if I get it the right way round I could kill several birds with one stone.

I kicked myself for not asking the lesbians where their fetish staff come from, but I had noticed that the café advertises communal stitching afternoons (an activity that has flourished in this city while I’ve been away). I decided to join in and see if I could infiltrate their intelligence network.

As it turned out, communal stitching is not attended by the lesbian community, it was full of girls who like kittens and sparkly things - I have returned knowing far more about knitting gonks than I did before - my quest for a cleaner has not advanced.

Leaving France Behind

The car incident from the previous post was the last thing to happen before I left France last autumn.

Earwig Sandwich has been largely based on the journals I kept while we were filming Smalltalk Diaries

Many incidents did happen at the time of writing and everything that I have written about actually happened, all of those people exist and I maintain contact with many of them.

We kept the Lovely House on after we’d finished filming Smalltalk Diaries and did other filming work there. All the work lined up for the coming year is away from Europe so we reluctantly handed it back to the owner.


Smalltalk Diaries is a series for children, it’s been aired on various BBC channels but for the moment there is no sign of it being shown anywhere else (this has been a frustrating saga and and too tedious to relate).

We can't sell dvds yet (however I can give away dvds to the first 10 people who email me an address).

The Director is filming in a very remote place in Botswana at the moment – I’ve set up a blog here for his reports from the Kalahari.

Dodgy Car-Dealing

We’ve pretty much ticked all the boxes on our sequence lists and I’m now in full packing-up mode, this includes selling the old French police car, a Laguna that I'd bought for this project last year.

I’ve been telling everyone that the car is for sale. A couple of weeks back, when I was alone at the house, I had just stuck a 'For Sale’ notice in the car's window when I saw a familiar Mercedes pulling into our drive, M.Mullet got out of his car, greeted me a little too intimately, prowled around my car and asked me why I was selling it so cheaply, ‘Leave the car with me when you go - I will sell it for you’.

The paperwork for selling vehicles in France is complicated and I told M.Mullet that I needed to have the car sold before I left France, but if he found a buyer he’d get a cut, I went into the house to get drinks for us. When I came back out M.Mullet's demeanor had completely changed, he seemed to be trying to control himself, then he put his face close to mine and snarled, ‘you will never sell that car’ and drove off.

That shook me up

I stepped up my campaign, there was a pétanque tournament at the village bar on Saturday, so I drove the car there and parked with my ‘For Sale’ notice showing prominently, by the end of the afternoon one of the players, a Dutchman, had made an offer and we shook hands on what we both knew was the bargain of the century, he insisted that I took the ‘For Sale’ sign out of the car, I passed it to him and he tore it up. We drank many glasses to celebrate the purchase and he said that he would come by and exchange cash for the vehicle a few days later.

While the Dutchman was out test-driving the Laguna, The Walrus who is also Dutch looked at me and gave me a warning.
be careful! he is from Holland – he will not pay what you are asking.
So when I received a call that evening from another prospective buyer, I said that it was probably sold - and I took her number.

Sure enough, a couple of days later the Dutchman phoned, having assessed my urgency to get the car sold, he was offering me a considerably lower price than the one we had agreed - he said that his new price was all he was prepared to pay, he would call back when I’d had a chance to think about it.

I phoned the woman back, asked if she still wanted the car and took it over to her that evening. She lived a long way away and it was midnight before her husband drove me back home with 3,000 euros stuffed in my underwear.

...and I got to tell Mr Dutchman where to put his money when he called the following day to see when he could pick up his Laguna

Dressed To Impress

12th June
I haven’t seen the Maire since we went hive shopping a couple of weeks ago – he’d said that he would come and move our bees into the new hive - we’ve been poised for bee action, but we've also been busy with other things…

Yesterday we were all in the garden filming the hatching eggs of a swallowtail butterfly when hoards of winged ants started coming out of the earth behind us and climbing up the stalks of chili plants to launch themselves off on their nuptial flights. We’d just scrambled another camera to film the ants when the Maire’s car pulled into the drive and two men in futuristic-looking white overalls got out and walked towards us, the Maire was pumping bellows attached to a metal jug that puffed out smoke, it was like Gardener’s World had merged into an episode of Lost in Space.

The smoke calms the bees down, the Maire and his son set the new big hive next to the one already in the garden, they opened the lid of the new hive and put in a couple of frames of new wax, then they opened the top of the old hive and pulled out frames full of bee larvae and honey and crawling with bees, these were slotted into the new hive.

We wanted the frames spaced wider inside the hive for easier filming - we couldn't do this - the gap between the frames should be the width of a bee, otherwise they get stressed trying to keep the hive temperature constant.

The Maire left us with the smoke blower and his bee outfit, we will have to improvise more protective clothing from net curtains and the dressing-up box when we start filming.

Insect Striptease

8th June
We’ve been filming a lot of insects getting out of their skins lately; cockroaches, spiders, dragonflies, butterflies and this firebug









The most astonishing transformation to my eyes has been the bluebottle. The boys have been fighting over who gets to go down to the dead badger in the orchard, filming the arrival of flies, the laying of eggs and the resulting maggots*.

We took the maggots that dropped off the badger to the studio to film them pupate and then emerge as a fresh new fly.

You might not want to scroll down any further if you’re eating your dinner...

A set was ready in the studio; a fox carcass placed on a tray of earth with a few leaves scattered around (set-dressing – creating a mood). The maggots were placed on the set - we did have to pick them up off the floor as they kept wriggling off. But many of them did make a brown shell.

Then an amazing thing happens - the pupa cracks a little, a white balloon is inflated from the inside forcing the pupa to crack open further until it splits revealing a damp and naked-looking fly with enormous eyelashes.



*we are thinking of rebranding maggots as fly caterpillars – would that make them more popular?

Making An Entrance - Twice

7th June
My friend Florence recently organised a birthday picnic bash for her husband who has been neglected of late due to the recent arrival of a baby.

I baked my current speciality, a MegaCherryFrangipane Tart and set off in the police car but the road into Florence’s village had a big hole in it, and I couldn’t pass. Roads around here will often start off as tarmac and then dwindle without warning into a narrow gravelly track before petering out altogether. Trying to find another way into the village I found myself up one of these tracks and then, in my attempt to turn the car round, ended up backing it into a ditch.

I was tantalisingly near Florence’s house so I left the tart and champagne in the car, crossed the field, pushed through a hedge and walked up the lane to the party, arriving triumphant in torn frock and hair stuck with twigs, Florence ordered the men to accompany me back to the car and get it out of the ditch. They did so in great high spirits but were a bit competitive about how to deal with the problem and managed to further entrench the car, so Florence found a jeep-owning neighbour who came and towed me out. In gratitude I handed over the MegaCherryFrangipane Tart to Jeep Man but then felt thoroughly embarrassed about first stealing the men from the party then re-arriving tartless.

I needn’t have worried, the party had improved since our disappearance, the email that David sent round a few days later includes a reassurance to his friends (who seem to be mostly in their twenties) that being 30 is fine after all, and he then goes on to thank the attendees for their contributions, including this appreciation of my piéce de théatre:

Merci à Lulu pour l'animation de l'après-midi intitulée "A car in a ditch !"

Mr Potato Head Under Pressure

5th June
I went down to the woodyard to get some ply from Mr Potato Head, his mother is extremely tiny and fierce. As I walked up her drive she threw back her head and yelped which is her way of calling her son's attention. Four little dogs joined in the racket, barking and jumping up at me until he arrived.

I had to wait to tell Mr Potato Head what I wanted because his mother had to shout at him first - she was telling him he wasn’t allowed to do anything until he’d delivered the truckload of wood sitting outside the house.

When she’d finished shouting, Mr Potato Head asked me what I was after and I said that I needed three sheets of ply but I was hoping he’d cut them up for me and he said fine and took my drawing away leaving a red-faced and distraught woman on my hands. She told me that her husband is going into hospital soon to have his leg amputated - the protracted result of a tractor accident and spilt battery acid many years ago. This is too sad to hear, Mr Potato Head put the ply in my car and said he must hurry and do the delivery before his mother bursts, I remind him that he hasn’t ever sent me a bill yet and that he must do it soon because we will leave next month...

Omigod we’re leaving! - there’s still loads to be filmed and masses of leaving stuff to sort out (like reselling the police car!) and I’m coming up to the one year mark for starting this blog which was only intended to run for the duration of this project...

Testosterone Poisoning?

2nd June
We're all in a bad way at the moment - not me obviously because I'm a girl, but the boys have all got bad legs or fingers or something, one of the Camera Boys is so badly affected by hay fever that one eye is bandaged up and he appears to be out in soldarity with Pirate Cat. Ms Woolsfoot is concerned that we have succumbed to Testosterone Poisoning.


The Director has something snuffly - what could it be - Man Flu? ... no worse,

Swine Flu? ... worse even.

It must be Swan Flu!!!!

Watch out - it's coming to a menagerie near you.