I didn't create the whole thing, a lot of it was already in place from the previous version and I had a whole heap of designers and other developers helping at the end, but I guess I'm responsible for about 50% of the site:
http://www.comedycentral.co.uk/
Watch the countdown, watch it go live on a computer near you...
(This is called tempting fate ... however it's been stable for the last couple of hours.)
See you on the other side.
What's on the turntable? Nuffink
Monday, April 06, 2009
Inspiration
Rachael has thrown a meme into the aether, to see where it sticks. And as we all know I just love the sound of my own typing. (Of course, right now, I'm at work preparing for the big launch this evening - I wrote this last night.)
When you get to be successful it is an absolute certainty that you will be asked: "Where do you get your ideas from?" Or, as this not-really-a-meme is worded: "Where do you get your inspiration?"
Me. Other people. Anything.
Monsters evolved from a desire to create something Buffy-like that didn't involve the supernatural or superpowers. But the original inspiration was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Air was originally seen as a new take on the 1970s TV series Sky which it is, but completely different.
Unit X came from me mis-hearing what two of my friends were saying.
Running started from "I have to write something with Parkour in it" for this producer.
I wrote a radio play based on a Eurythmics song: Would I Lie to You. I had this idea to write a whole series of them.
Une Nuit a Paris was inspired by a 10cc album.
Winter was (originally) inspired by the need to produce an action short.
Strings was pure me "I have to write a new story concept RIGHT NOW".
My novel Elona originally came from a live fantasy role-playing game.
The poetry I've written was either personal emotion, someone else's emotion, commentary on what I saw around me, or seeing something and zooming off on a flight of fantasy.
There was a time I was writing 3 poems a day based on current affairs, I was trying to get a newspaper to pay me to print them. I did it for three weeks. That's a lot of poems. It didn't work.
I don't get ideas from dreams or "my subconscious" or the news (except as mentioned above) - I do get inspiration from me, songs, other TV, the world. But it's all me in the end. (If that's not too philosophical.)
What's on the turntable? "Here is the news" by ELO from "News of the World" (I think)
When you get to be successful it is an absolute certainty that you will be asked: "Where do you get your ideas from?" Or, as this not-really-a-meme is worded: "Where do you get your inspiration?"
Me. Other people. Anything.
Monsters evolved from a desire to create something Buffy-like that didn't involve the supernatural or superpowers. But the original inspiration was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Air was originally seen as a new take on the 1970s TV series Sky which it is, but completely different.
Unit X came from me mis-hearing what two of my friends were saying.
Running started from "I have to write something with Parkour in it" for this producer.
I wrote a radio play based on a Eurythmics song: Would I Lie to You. I had this idea to write a whole series of them.
Une Nuit a Paris was inspired by a 10cc album.
Winter was (originally) inspired by the need to produce an action short.
Strings was pure me "I have to write a new story concept RIGHT NOW".
My novel Elona originally came from a live fantasy role-playing game.
The poetry I've written was either personal emotion, someone else's emotion, commentary on what I saw around me, or seeing something and zooming off on a flight of fantasy.
There was a time I was writing 3 poems a day based on current affairs, I was trying to get a newspaper to pay me to print them. I did it for three weeks. That's a lot of poems. It didn't work.
I don't get ideas from dreams or "my subconscious" or the news (except as mentioned above) - I do get inspiration from me, songs, other TV, the world. But it's all me in the end. (If that's not too philosophical.)
What's on the turntable? "Here is the news" by ELO from "News of the World" (I think)
Sunday, April 05, 2009
On the run
The 60th wedding anniversary party went off smoothly. I was required to make a speech as eldest child present. I was going to prepare but was shoved in front of 30 assorted relatives (20% of whom I had never met) before I got a chance to think about it.
So I improvised. According to the daughter people laughed in all the right places. Phew.
Families are funny things, aren't they? I always found the TV sitcom the Royle Family to be unwatchable - I thought it was really funny, but I couldn't watch it. Because it's far too close to the reality of my relations for comfort - even though it's set in Manchester not London.
Here's the thing: I'm a Londoner even though I've lived North of Watford for over 30 years. I've never lost my accent - kinda. Technically I'm a cockney. I lived in the centre of London (and I mean Westminster) for the first 5 years of my life: in two rooms in a family of 5, toilet down the hall, only cold running water (also down the hall), gas lighting - well, maybe not that bit.
Slums, but good quality slums.
Then we moved up and out. Straight to the suburbs. Detached house with 9 rooms. It would have been culture shock but I was only 5. My accent softened and when I went to university it went "posh". And still is. Unfortunately my poor northern kids have "posh" accents. Their school friends assume they must be rich. Stereotypes.
Anyway I have an enormous London family on my mother's side. It's a matriarchy, the women are strong - the men are - well - less so. They do as they're told. Of course it can go to extremes. I have a cousin (naming no names) she has four brilliant kids. No husband. Never had one and, as far as I can tell, she never wanted one. I'm not entirely sure how many fathers are involved but it's 3 or 4.
I had an uncle, rough London working-class bloke, loved opera - the real stuff.
So we had a relatively small gathering of the clan, my sister couldn't come over from Australia because she's just had an operation, my mother's brother is in the Far East on business. Only one of my father's sisters could make it, others being ill. Well, they are getting on.
I saw my wife and kids - first time in three weeks! Oh yes! Then four hours later had to say good bye again. Well, I'll be seeing them on Friday and for the next few days after that. Until I find the next contract.
The daughter is having her second audition for drama college tomorrow, in Oxford. It'll be good practice for her RADA audition in a couple of weeks.
So, I was at work again today, the website goes live tomorrow evening. Still a ton of stuff to do but my brain was seizing up by the evening. I felt a bit guilty about leaving when others were still working, but I had been there a good couple of hours before them. And work at least an hour a day longer than anyone else. Hmm, justifications not working, still feel guilty.
You might think with the pressure that I don't have time for writing - actually it's mostly the blogging that gets in the way :-)
If I get to be a professional writer I'm going to have to get a First Class season ticket to, say, York and back and write on the train. It's a lot easier. This evening, on the train, I got out my trusty notebook and decided I needed to figure out what's wrong with Running. So I did.
I'd been thinking about it and realised that, although I have a beginning and I have an idea of an end I really haven't got it straight in my head. So I chose a tool from my writer's toolbox: Writing backwards.
This is one of the excellent tools from "Writing a Great Movie" by Jeff Kitchen, and involves starting with the end and working backwards stating exactly what caused the step before - it helps you create a joined-up plot. Of course as I was doing it for the plot as a whole I only had about 8 steps in it but even then it clarified the sequence and made me think about some new ideas.
I also want to analyse it in terms of the 36 Dramatic Situations to see if there's anything interesting I can plumb into the story to generate more emotion. (I've already got lots of sacrifice - scacrificing self for an ideal, sacrificing loved ones, yummy stuff, but sacrifice is easy, what about Conflict with a God?)
I'll be getting my professional feedback notes on Unit X Wednesday or Thursday which is just fine as I'll be a bit tied up tomorrow with the website launch.
Anyway peeps, be careful out there, and keep on writing.
What's on the turntable? "China girl" by Bowie from ... "Let's Dance"? Brilliant song, drippping with irony.
So I improvised. According to the daughter people laughed in all the right places. Phew.
Families are funny things, aren't they? I always found the TV sitcom the Royle Family to be unwatchable - I thought it was really funny, but I couldn't watch it. Because it's far too close to the reality of my relations for comfort - even though it's set in Manchester not London.
Here's the thing: I'm a Londoner even though I've lived North of Watford for over 30 years. I've never lost my accent - kinda. Technically I'm a cockney. I lived in the centre of London (and I mean Westminster) for the first 5 years of my life: in two rooms in a family of 5, toilet down the hall, only cold running water (also down the hall), gas lighting - well, maybe not that bit.
Slums, but good quality slums.
Then we moved up and out. Straight to the suburbs. Detached house with 9 rooms. It would have been culture shock but I was only 5. My accent softened and when I went to university it went "posh". And still is. Unfortunately my poor northern kids have "posh" accents. Their school friends assume they must be rich. Stereotypes.
Anyway I have an enormous London family on my mother's side. It's a matriarchy, the women are strong - the men are - well - less so. They do as they're told. Of course it can go to extremes. I have a cousin (naming no names) she has four brilliant kids. No husband. Never had one and, as far as I can tell, she never wanted one. I'm not entirely sure how many fathers are involved but it's 3 or 4.
I had an uncle, rough London working-class bloke, loved opera - the real stuff.
So we had a relatively small gathering of the clan, my sister couldn't come over from Australia because she's just had an operation, my mother's brother is in the Far East on business. Only one of my father's sisters could make it, others being ill. Well, they are getting on.
I saw my wife and kids - first time in three weeks! Oh yes! Then four hours later had to say good bye again. Well, I'll be seeing them on Friday and for the next few days after that. Until I find the next contract.
The daughter is having her second audition for drama college tomorrow, in Oxford. It'll be good practice for her RADA audition in a couple of weeks.
So, I was at work again today, the website goes live tomorrow evening. Still a ton of stuff to do but my brain was seizing up by the evening. I felt a bit guilty about leaving when others were still working, but I had been there a good couple of hours before them. And work at least an hour a day longer than anyone else. Hmm, justifications not working, still feel guilty.
You might think with the pressure that I don't have time for writing - actually it's mostly the blogging that gets in the way :-)
If I get to be a professional writer I'm going to have to get a First Class season ticket to, say, York and back and write on the train. It's a lot easier. This evening, on the train, I got out my trusty notebook and decided I needed to figure out what's wrong with Running. So I did.
I'd been thinking about it and realised that, although I have a beginning and I have an idea of an end I really haven't got it straight in my head. So I chose a tool from my writer's toolbox: Writing backwards.
This is one of the excellent tools from "Writing a Great Movie" by Jeff Kitchen, and involves starting with the end and working backwards stating exactly what caused the step before - it helps you create a joined-up plot. Of course as I was doing it for the plot as a whole I only had about 8 steps in it but even then it clarified the sequence and made me think about some new ideas.
I also want to analyse it in terms of the 36 Dramatic Situations to see if there's anything interesting I can plumb into the story to generate more emotion. (I've already got lots of sacrifice - scacrificing self for an ideal, sacrificing loved ones, yummy stuff, but sacrifice is easy, what about Conflict with a God?)
I'll be getting my professional feedback notes on Unit X Wednesday or Thursday which is just fine as I'll be a bit tied up tomorrow with the website launch.
Anyway peeps, be careful out there, and keep on writing.
What's on the turntable? "China girl" by Bowie from ... "Let's Dance"? Brilliant song, drippping with irony.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
One Year Blog
My blog is one year old today! (Cue cheers!)
It's a year since I moved into Reading (Berks, UK) to work on a Government education website. Moving away from home for a very long time. It's true I had worked in Dundee but that was only for a month. This was a major commitment.
Six months later the project ended, with me under something of a cloud (not all my fault but it felt like it). I scrabbled through a couple of other jobs, had nearly two months of not working over Christmas. Got a short job in Bristol that went well. Then my current job with Paramount Comedy which ends next week, which has also gone very well.
At home the family coped. It's not been easy for them. When I was there I used to do most of the cooking and cleaning. The son changed schools, which was hard, but now he's playing the saxophone which he really enjoys. And though he's not as academic as his sister he's in the top class in every subject. Plus he's been to Norway and France. And he'll shortly be on the CBBC website as an animation, and is shortlisted for appearing in CBBC's Bamzooki TV series.
The wife, everybody else seems to have names for their respective spouses, so I shall call her The Teacher, managed to finally lose the junior that was causing her incredible stress. The assistant's body was never found. Her new Foundation Stage team are brilliant and this year has been much easier. But we miss each other horribly, a couple of days a week is not enough. Once upon a time we worked together, day in, day out for 13 years. It was magic.
The daughter finished her first year college and exams and did pretty well. But she had to give up drama to do English, Chemistry and Biology in the second year. Her acting has stagnated somewhat especially when she failed to get the part she was expecting at the local AmDram for Christmas. She's not the forgiving sort. But she got settled on her alternative career: Zoo Biology, if the acting doesn't work out. She had her audition with Bristol Old Vic on Wednesday - it did not go as well as she'd hoped and she probably won't get in - but the truth is they told her she had brilliant comic timing and that she should try again next year (and that she should not go to an inferior drama college). So it really wasn't that bad.
The less said about our horrible dog the better. Eating us out of house. (No, I haven't forgotten to add something to that sentence.)
Then there has been the writing. The important bit. The bit that this has always been about. Through this blog I have met some brilliant other writers all of us at different stages of development. It's been good.
This year I went from "I can kind of write but I don't know if I'm really any good" to "it's just a matter of time before the commissions start". It's weird, really, but kind of like my elder sister who became a painter at about the same age as I am now.
It took us this long to find out what it is we really want to do. Now we have we really don;t want to do anything else.
What's on the turntable? "Tubular Bells, Part 1" from "Tubular Bells"
It's a year since I moved into Reading (Berks, UK) to work on a Government education website. Moving away from home for a very long time. It's true I had worked in Dundee but that was only for a month. This was a major commitment.
Six months later the project ended, with me under something of a cloud (not all my fault but it felt like it). I scrabbled through a couple of other jobs, had nearly two months of not working over Christmas. Got a short job in Bristol that went well. Then my current job with Paramount Comedy which ends next week, which has also gone very well.
At home the family coped. It's not been easy for them. When I was there I used to do most of the cooking and cleaning. The son changed schools, which was hard, but now he's playing the saxophone which he really enjoys. And though he's not as academic as his sister he's in the top class in every subject. Plus he's been to Norway and France. And he'll shortly be on the CBBC website as an animation, and is shortlisted for appearing in CBBC's Bamzooki TV series.
The wife, everybody else seems to have names for their respective spouses, so I shall call her The Teacher, managed to finally lose the junior that was causing her incredible stress. The assistant's body was never found. Her new Foundation Stage team are brilliant and this year has been much easier. But we miss each other horribly, a couple of days a week is not enough. Once upon a time we worked together, day in, day out for 13 years. It was magic.
The daughter finished her first year college and exams and did pretty well. But she had to give up drama to do English, Chemistry and Biology in the second year. Her acting has stagnated somewhat especially when she failed to get the part she was expecting at the local AmDram for Christmas. She's not the forgiving sort. But she got settled on her alternative career: Zoo Biology, if the acting doesn't work out. She had her audition with Bristol Old Vic on Wednesday - it did not go as well as she'd hoped and she probably won't get in - but the truth is they told her she had brilliant comic timing and that she should try again next year (and that she should not go to an inferior drama college). So it really wasn't that bad.
The less said about our horrible dog the better. Eating us out of house. (No, I haven't forgotten to add something to that sentence.)
Then there has been the writing. The important bit. The bit that this has always been about. Through this blog I have met some brilliant other writers all of us at different stages of development. It's been good.
This year I went from "I can kind of write but I don't know if I'm really any good" to "it's just a matter of time before the commissions start". It's weird, really, but kind of like my elder sister who became a painter at about the same age as I am now.
It took us this long to find out what it is we really want to do. Now we have we really don;t want to do anything else.
What's on the turntable? "Tubular Bells, Part 1" from "Tubular Bells"
Friday, April 03, 2009
It's cloutin' time!
As Ben Grimm might have said if he were British.
Language is a funny thing, innit? My daughter's English class were comparing words in the various English periods today. Unsurprisingly she had a wider grasp of meaning than the rest of her class - various tables comprise the Bimbos, the Primary School Boys and so on. Yes, it really happens.
But "clout": (a) A blow (as in striking); (b) A flag used as a target in archery; (c) Influence; (d) a short nail; (e) a piece of clothing (unspecified).
Thing is, I saw several hawthorn trees blooming today. And it was a fairly balmy day all round.
Casting a clout seemed quite in order now that the may is out. May is, as you knew, Hawthorn.
There is some discussion about this particular phrase here.
Now you can see how enormously clever the title is. (Ahem.)
The one year birthday of my blog is tomorrow. Coinciding, as it does, with the end of the financial year. A year of gibberish. I would write the blog tomorrow but tomorrow will be a busy day. I will be in work again in the morning, the afternoon is a party to celebrate the 60th Wedding anniversary of my parents. And they get a letter from the Queen. Oh yes. And one automatically every year from now on.
So I shall compose my one year blog birthday blog this evening and arrange for it to be shown tomorrow.
What's on the turntable? "The Time Has Come" by Mike Oldfield from "Islands". To be honest this is my least favourite Oldfield album, I much prefer QE2 from this period. But it's one of the albums I don't have on CD.
Language is a funny thing, innit? My daughter's English class were comparing words in the various English periods today. Unsurprisingly she had a wider grasp of meaning than the rest of her class - various tables comprise the Bimbos, the Primary School Boys and so on. Yes, it really happens.
But "clout": (a) A blow (as in striking); (b) A flag used as a target in archery; (c) Influence; (d) a short nail; (e) a piece of clothing (unspecified).
Thing is, I saw several hawthorn trees blooming today. And it was a fairly balmy day all round.
Casting a clout seemed quite in order now that the may is out. May is, as you knew, Hawthorn.
There is some discussion about this particular phrase here.
Now you can see how enormously clever the title is. (Ahem.)
The one year birthday of my blog is tomorrow. Coinciding, as it does, with the end of the financial year. A year of gibberish. I would write the blog tomorrow but tomorrow will be a busy day. I will be in work again in the morning, the afternoon is a party to celebrate the 60th Wedding anniversary of my parents. And they get a letter from the Queen. Oh yes. And one automatically every year from now on.
So I shall compose my one year blog birthday blog this evening and arrange for it to be shown tomorrow.
What's on the turntable? "The Time Has Come" by Mike Oldfield from "Islands". To be honest this is my least favourite Oldfield album, I much prefer QE2 from this period. But it's one of the albums I don't have on CD.
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