January japes

What were you doing last Saturday night? I was shivering in a church in Leeds, filming a concert by the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra! It was pretty random. A girl I used to work with at the Barbican asked me back when I worked there - I think in September! - whether I would come and film her conducting. She paid for me to catch a train up, bought me dinner and gave me a bed for the night, all for me to use her tiny handicam for 50 minutes. There were no focus, lighting or sound controls on the camera, so I'm sure it looks a bit rubbish, but I did my bit and spent 7 hours on a train! It felt even more bizarre because I was still somewhat jetlagged.

The rest of my week hasn't been quite so strange. Work at iceandfire. Now I'm sitting at home waiting for my new flatmate to arrive - he's a friend of Jake Corbett, who shot the first prison film I directed. He works in post production and seems like a nice guy. He'll help out with the rent for a couple of months, until Ben gets here! Hopefully in mid-March...

I seem to be becoming the charity video girl! Been asked to quote on two charity videos this week, plus I had a meeting with three organisations that want to do a campaign about decriminalising debt problems - you can go to prison in the UK for not paying council tax or TV licence fees. Not surprisingly, many of these people are in debt - usually single mothers. So that's an interesting project.

I'll let you know how the charity industry goes. It's keeping me in the manner to which I hope to become accustomed...!

Pictures for you

Some new snow pictures added on the right! In the second photo (night) what looks like rain is actually snow. Although the bad weather has been causing severe transport problems, thankfully Heathrow hasn't closed (Gatwick airport was closed this morning, and Manchester too). I also keep checking the Transport for London website and so far all the tube services seem to be operating. The tricky thing will actually be getting from my apartment to the tube station without slipping over! The roads and footpaths are so icy. Last night, as the snow became really heavy, it was peak hour and I could hear cars and (especially) trucks struggling to get a grip. Lots of revving and sliding going on. No crashes though, thankfully.

Leaving the house in 3 1/2 hours - yay! See many of you soon!

Sleek

Just had my first experience of sleet. While snow still has its charms, sleet is like being spat on by a slurpee. But without the raspberry flavouring. Insert cold shiver here.

Freaking freezing

It's so cold here that, although it hasn't snowed for well over 24 hours, the snow is still sitting on rooftops and around the park. It started snowing on Wed, which unfortunately was a day I had to run a lot of errands. My own fault, I'd been putting things off, and then karma punished me for my procrastination by making it snow on me! Feeling a snowflake land on my lips is actually quite charming - freezing my arse off less so.

Just a few days to go until I get on a plane. Not looking forward to the trip itself, but am most excited about getting home to Melbourne. Got a 7 hour stopover in Hong Kong.

Fliss is now back in Melb. She was quite melancholy on her way to the airport. I'll talk to her tomorrow, find out how her job interviews went yesterday. She was talking to St Kilda FC and the new soccer club in Melbourne. I hope she does well.

Got some good meetings set up for when I get back. With ITV and a producer who was at the Pitch competition. I've also emailed Nick Broomfield about the web series, because it's about an undocumented migrant and he's interested in the subject.

I probably won't blog much while I'm away, because most of my "readers" are in Melbourne!

See you soon! :)

Sleepy Saturday

Yesterday I finally got around to following up with people about the pitching competition win from last week. No response from anyone yet (it's so rare for anyone to reply to emails over here in my experience - although maybe that's just me!) but will chase them all in the New Year. Chasing people is exhausting, probably the most frustrating part of my move to the UK. Having said that, perhaps it's just because I know less people over here, so there's more cold emailing/calling.

Did have a good meeting yesterday with Chris Mayo, a stand-up comedian. We have already come up with an early idea for a narrative comedy series, so we'll do some more work over the coming months. I then went to see him do a small gig in Islington and I got a glimpse into the less glamourous work of stand ups - it was a small but strangely hostile crowd. Chris did OK, considering the atmosphere in the room, as did another guy called Daniel, but the MC and another guy completely bombed.

Now, on a Sat night, I'm sat at home watching telly, eating roast veges with cous cous and tzatziki. An excellent night. Felicity is out on a date. Will tell you more later...!