Burns night

It is the 25 January and tonight Scotland celebrates the birth of its national poet in 1759, Robert Burns. In 1787 Burns wrote a poem called Address to the Haggis, to be recited over the serving of the traditional Scottish food. It endures to this day and haggis producers the world over owe it's success in the main to Robert Burns poem.

He is regarded as the pioneer of the Romantic movement and is the best known poet to have written in the Scots language. His poem Auld Lang Syne is often sung around the world at New Year, or Hogmanay, as we would call it in Scotland.

Burns was the eldest of 7 children born to a tenant farmer. It wasn't until 1786 that his poems were first published in Edinburgh. In his latter years he was a strong sympathiser of the French revolution and by expressing his views openly and freely, alienated most of his friends.

He only lived to 37 years old, but by his death he had achieved much success. He died of complications after a dental extraction in July 1796.

This Saturday I am attending traditional Burns Night Supper and will wear my kilt for the occasion of course. Haggis is served with mashed potatoes and turnip (called swede in certain countries) and a shot of whisky. I have been asked to recite Burns Address to the Haggis, the first time I have ever done so.

To say I'm nervous is an understatement.

I'm not a whisky drinker but maybe it might help!

Namaste

Every day at the moment seems to be filled to the brim, mostly with working on my own film Sleepless 'til Seattle of course, which recently launched a fundraising site (link on the right). Then there's the fun task of supporting my friend Pauline on her continuing world cycle. There are also a number of paid pieces of work now trickling in, which is of course very welcome.

Occasionally I am asked to give of my skills for free, which all depends on my available time and on the project itself. However, sometimes there's really not much to think about. One such event has presented itself in the last few weeks.

On the 21 June this year, for 4 days, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will once again visit Scotland and I am to be his official film director for the visit. A great prestigious honour.

This is not the first time I have been trusted with such a responsibility. Back in 2004 I led 3 camera crews throughout Edinburgh and Dunfermline during a previous visit. This time will prove to be no less engaging.

He will start off in Edinburgh, then on to Dundee and finally to Inverness. I will have a smaller crew this time but greater access, though last time having lunch in his company was access enough! It wasn't until the visit was over on that occasion, when people were speaking to me about it, that i realised what an incredible experience it had been. I was so focused on the job in hand I forgot I was in the presence of a leading world religious leader, admired by almost everyone on the planet!

If you'd like to find out more about his visit just follow this link: Dalai Lama Scotland.

The Dalai Lama's current home is in McLeod Ganj, just above Dharamsala in India and I visited there in spring of 2000. Little did I know when I saw him there, on my birthday as well, that I would one day be his film maker of choice for his future visits to Scotland.

Namaste, as they say in Scotland.

THE 2004 CREW

IndieGoGo

What on earth? You won't find the title os this blog in any dictionary, so allow me to explain:

As you are no doubt aware, I took a little trundle on my bicycle across North America recently, with my friend Pauline. We clocked up an impressive 4,300 miles and learned so much about America. We found it's not all hamburgers, baseball and cola!

We also had a bigger task in hand: for over 4 months we strived to film as much as possible of the adventure. There was an amazing variety to capture on camera, from extreme weather and wild bears to the many interviews and wonderful people that helped us along the way.

Now we are assembling the edit of the feature length film that once finished will be entered into film festivals around the world. The whole process has many parts, one of which is raising finance.

So we've launched a campaign on the crowd funding site IndieGoGo, in the hope of raising enough money to finance a music score, animation, legal fees, final sound mic, festival fees, etc.

For this to be successful we need your help. One of the ways you can help us apart from contributing is to pass on the link through your contacts. Hopefully they in turn will pass it on through theirs and so on. Please click on the highlighted link for IndieGoGo or the logo on the left and have a look at what we are trying to achieve. There's a lot of fun rewards for people who contribute.

We're also on Twitter and Facebook and of course the Sleepless 'til Seattle website.

We found America to be warm hearted and generous and it showed us how easy it is to be kind. During these tough times that we live in we found the experience to be uplifting and inspiring. We'd like to pass that on to you and others by bringing the film to the big screen.

Thank you

Resolutions

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me: "Did you make any New Year resolutions?" It's tradition I suppose. I tend to make some loose plans as opposed to what one would call resolutions.

This tends to happen on the first day of January of course, and the Romans dedicated this day to Janus, the god of new beginnings. I would like to think that 2012 will be just that.

In previous years I have tended to get a bit carried away with my list of plans. I do like a list. Actually, I like crossing things off a list and have been known to add something to a list I've already completed, just to have the pleasure of crossing it off!

But I digress. This year I kept it to three:

1/ Pay the bills. Seems an obvious one, but as a freelance creative this is quite a challenge. To date I've always achieved this but it would be nice this year to go a little bit beyond just paying the bills. You see, I was just about to add to the list again!

2/ Finish the film Sleepless 'til Seattle. Simple enough statement. Quite another thing achieving it. This is the focus and major challenge of the year. I've only just started editing the footage, though currently that amounts to randomly opening one or two clips out of the 3,500 or so and wondering where on earth I'm going to start! Then there's musicians asking me for pointers for the type of music I want, animators wondering when I'll know what maps I want in 3D animation, and so on. It's exciting of course, but I'm entering a whole new area of film making. This time it's serious.

3/ No regrets. This is a tricky one. I wouldn't want to say that it applies to everything. For example, imagine deciding you're going to say exactly what's on your mind to everyone so you have no regrets in not saying it. That could lead to a few hurt people maybe. It applies more to positive actions I would say. Last year I met up with my best friend in America to cycle from Boston to Seattle. I was sacrificing the possibility of good paid work and a comfortable lifestyle for a while, but with the recent deaths of two friends, and mainly because it was the opportunity to spend a quality amount of time with Pauline. So I went for it, as I knew I would regret it if I didn't. That kind of sums up this third plan. Balanced judgement without fear.

It's no use! I can't help it. I have to add to the list! Let's just call this things I'm looking forward to:

Performing some public talks on my American adventure; a holiday; tramping and camping in the Scottish mountains; finishing a script I've been working on for years. The event I'm most looking forward to is when my best friend Pauline returns from her world cycle. It's many months away yet, but it will be great to see her once again. The last time was waving a tearful goodbye in Vancouver airport as we parted after our great American cycle.

Here's to 2012. Happy New Year.

Year of the rabbit

According to the Chinese zodiac calendar, 2011 was the year of the rabbit. A year in which we should catch our breath and calm our nerves. A time for negotiation. If you force issues you will ultimately fail. Those born in the year of the rabbit are reasonably friendly individuals who enjoy the company of good friends.

I was born in the year of the rabbit, 1963, and I know that my friends are the most important and precious aspect of my life.

This year saw me lose too many friends that were very dear to me, some through horrific events. Two of these events occurred just weeks before I left the UK to cycle across the United States. It was very sad, and still is, but I know that friends come in and out of your life as time rolls by, but if you're lucky some stay forever.

2011 seems to have been a year for extreme weather. Pauline and I set off from Boston on the 18 May and from almost day one we experienced wild and unusual weather patterns, repeated across the globe.

In January, Queensland, Australia had major floods. On 22 February Christchurch in New Zealand was hit by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake destroying large parts of the city. March brought the worst tsunami ever witnessed in Japan.

In April, the month before I left for the States, over 300 tornadoes had already hit America. A figure that would rise to 753 by the time the season ended. At one point 200 tornadoes touched down in the space of 48 hours. Just one week after I landed in Boston, a 1 mile wide tornado swept through Joplin, Missouri, killing 162 people. With caution we continued to push west keeping a watchful eye on the weather forecasts. Not long after the Joplin tornado, Minot in North Dakota suffered a terrible flood as the Mouse River swept away many homes. In August we would find ourselves cycling through Minot and would witness the aftermath first hand.

June saw a large volcano in Chile erupt, and by the time we were almost across Montana in August, Hurricane Irene swept up the east coast of the States putting 65 million at risk.

I returned home at the start of October to learn of severe flooding in Thailand and shortly after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey. Then, just two weeks ago, Christchurch finished the year as it had started with another quake hitting the town.

We were lucky to escape most of these terrible weather events, though coming very close at times. I used to think we had poor weather in Scotland but these events go to show how calm and temperate Scotland really is.

2012 is the year of the dragon, a year that is meant to bring much happiness and success. To all those who had to deal with so much devastating change in their lives over 2011, I hope that 2012 lives up to it's Chinese zodiac meaning.

A happy and prosperous new year to you all. Stay safe.

A Christmas wish

This season of goodwill brings with it a proliferation of invites to lunch, dinner and parties for many of us, and we tend to take it for granted because of the time of year.

Why is it that people rush to get in touch and cram their diaries to bursting, insisting that we should get together before Christmas? By January we've run out of steam, conversation and money, leaving a void because "we managed to see everyone before Christmas". It's a strange concept and all part of the modern day Christmas I guess. Many people make a special effort at Christmas to see people they wouldn't normally see throughout the year, which is in part a good thing.

But why do so many of us take it all for granted? Isn't it a great thing that people around us like our company enough to extend an invite to meet and take part in their lives.

It is surprising how much we all take for granted, from our jobs and work colleagues, to our possessions and even the ones we love. The worst part of this of course is that fundamentally we are not appreciating and respecting the needs of others, which could result in us losing their respect in return and thus no more invites, leaving you reeling and wondering what went wrong.

There are a number of commercials on at this time of year appealing for help to assist those who are homeless or may not eat any kind of meal at Christmas. I'll bet not a single one of the recipients of this charity take any of it for granted.

So it is my Christmas wish for the future, for myself and for you, that we always appreciate those we are closest to, and the privilege that is extended to us to participate in their lives, for food on the table and shelter over our heads.

Merry Christmas everyone. Be kind and thoughtful to each other.

End of an era

End of an era is a commonly used term for all sorts of events these days, but it really applies to long periods of time, such as the Victorian era, or in geological terms, the Jurassic era. 20 years therefore doesn't seem to warrant being called an era, but in this case it feels right.

In 1990 I was coming to the end of working for various companies in the advertising industry. It hadn't been the greatest working experience of my life by that point to be honest. Advertising well deserves it's reputation as a back stabbing world and I witnessed several incidents of people undermining another's work in order to have them fired and then take their job. This was early on in my working life as well and didn't serve as a good example to be setting I thought.

But a recession hit at the start of the 90s and a large number of advertising agencies went to the wall, including the company I was working for at the time. It came as a complete surprise on a cold morning in January and I vowed never to work in that industry again.

Within a few months I had really thrown a curve ball in my working life. I found myself the owner of a small delicatessen in my local town and for want of a better title named the shop Kitcheners Delicatessen, which was rather vain on reflection. It was still a creative type of job though, especially the marketing side, and I found myself enjoying every moment, working long hours 7 days a week.

5 years on and I expanded to the property next door and created a coffee shop in the original deli area and a much larger deli in the new extension. Overnight it went from me and one other member of staff to me and 9 staff. The workload multiplied overnight as well but so did it's success, largely due in part to my great staff and to my best friend's support.

Over the following years it became a destination for the local community. Several times over the summer months I would have live jazz bands outside and together with the tables and chairs on the pavement it created a real cosmopolitan atmosphere. I returned to film making at the end of the 90s, in tandem with running the business. Everything was going well but then a period of physical illness hit me over a period of 2 years and it became obvious that it was time for me to change my working routine. And so, partly on the advice of my GP, I said a tearful farewell to the deli on the 2 April 2006 and left it in the hands of two new owners.

I don't think they really knew the first thing about running this particular deli, despite my best efforts to help, but whatever the reasons the business started to nose dive. They sold it on just 2 years later and the new owners had a steep uphill challenge ahead of them. They apparently didn't get the business in the same healthy state I had left it in.

Then the global recession hit. Try as they might the economy was against them. As has happened to so many businesses in the past 2 years they have finally decided it's time to call it a day. And so, on 31 December this year, after just over 20 years of trading, Kitcheners Deli will close it's doors for good.

My best friend wrote to me about the deli once, comparing it to a scene in one of our favourite films, Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe:

It will always make me think of the deli and the wonderful times so many people have had there. In the film the main character says at one point that when the cafe closed the heart of the community was lost and people drifted away. But it always held a strong place in people's hearts and memories, no matter what.

I owe that period of my life so much. So many important memories were made there, and not just for me. I will miss the old place.

It truly is the end of an era.