To The Forest, To The Sea, And A Mad Tea Party?

This past week I've been very busy, which is good, in away. I went to the New Forest, like I do every year, for a short break with my Aunt, Uncle and Nan. There were plenty of trips through the forest, to tea rooms and to the sea. Milford-on-sea is such a relaxing place to be. It's not a sandy beach but there are awesome places for rock scrambling.

 

After the sea, we went to the very charming and delicious Lavender Farm tea room. We ate the best homemade tomato and cheese scones and a most excellent coffee cake. Lots of things on the menu included lavender, including their homemade jams that they sold but I wasn't too sure about eating lavender. It was a great place, shame the weather was a tad on the grey side but still a great place to visit, I recommend this place to anyone visiting the new Forest.

 

http://www.newforestlavender.com/index.htm

After the joys of the forest and the sea, it rained the next day, so much that it was on the news. So we all took shelter in one of my favourite cinemas, Harbour Lights (Picture House Southampton). We saw Arrietty, the latest film from Studio Ghibli and oh my it was beautiful. We saw the dubbed version, but with animation it doesn't really matter, the quality of the animation was amazing. The story was just how I remembered from the old BBC children's TV show and my Aunty told me that it was very close to the book.

When the rain finally stopped, the sun came out but it was time to leave Lyndhurst and make our way back to Whittonium! Before we left we had Cream Tea at The Mad Hatter's Tea Rooms and I had a wonder around one the best crafts shop I've seen in a while. I would have spent a lot more money than I had on me, I was like a child in a sweet shop or me in HMV during a sale. I held back and only picked up a few items to start the re-birth of boringfish.com cards and a few other things to get me started with my own Tea Party that I plan to have. Watch this space, it will happen, I have a book and everything.

 

To conclude, I have a great time and I always love going back to the New Forest. Love the room I stay in and the collection of Moomin books my Aunty has. Looking forward to my return.

 

In other news I've also had a very stressful week, underneath all the fun. I've been organising a shoot that takes place this weekend for an advert. It feels just like Uni so I know what to do but this time there are less resources and less time. Its starting to come together . . . . but more on that later.

A Dodo, some films and a Fruit Picking Jerk Face

So, after months of stress, angry phone calls trying to book tickets and the lies about schedules, Big Screen finally arrived!

In my opinion the whole event could not be compared to how awesome Movie Con was. It worked for three years but Empire decided to sell out and move from the comfortable and welcoming BFI to the over sized 02 Arena (The Dome). The events that Standard ticket holders had to choose from were few (the good ones anyway) but the Diamond ticket holders basically got Movie Con for triple the price. It was not what the posters and leaflets said. It was good but not great.

The first thing on the itinerary was a discussion about the greatest comic book, advertised as something different when I picked it. It was interesting the hear the discussion  and better when people joined in but after the talk my sister and I had ages to wait until the Aardman presentation. So we wondered over to the stalls and Studio exhibition. Some of the things there were pretty awesome, but again, it was a huge space with not much around. There were loads of film standees and the stalls that were there were the same as the London Film and Comic Con a month earlier.

 

We enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes display. We sat in his chair and guessed where Moriarty was to win a prize and wondered next door to The Dark Knight Rises display. The various displays were quite fun to look around but we managed to see everything in less than an hour. Also no free stuff this year, which I thought was mean, we paid enough money to get in. Free goodies always used to be a perk at Movie Con.

The Aardman presentation was great! Their new film Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists looks amazing. After several technical problems and 20 minute late start we got to see several clips from the film, still being made, and saw the filming process. Unfortunately because of all the delays Annie and I had to leave in the middle of it because film started soon after the presentation. We were quite annoyed about that. The first film of the day was 30 Minutes or Less and it was hilarious. I don't to give anything away but its about a lazy pizza delivery guy (Jesse Eisenberg, who was great) who gets forced into robbing a bank by another nasty, foul mouthed guy (Danny McBride) who needs money to hire a guy to kill his Father. Just from that you know its going to be funny.

 

This is Polly, a dodo. He is the Pirate Captain's pet. Annie and I couldn't stop looking/laughing at this bird.

After the first film, we went ate plenty of food, drank some wine then ventured back to Studio City where we were accosted by two actors dressed like they were in a western film. They called Annie a fruit picking jerk face and we were off to the second film of the day and last event of the day too.

And it was awesome! The two genres worked prefect with each other and even got away with a slight bit of comic relief (Sam Rockwell and to some extent Harrison Ford). When this film comes out, go see it, I am not saying any more for the fear of giving any details away. Apart from this, I swear Harrison Ford is wearing skinny jeans for most of the film . . . .

Overall we had a good day but Empire's Big Screen was most certainly was over blown, over priced and not much happening. Almost a Big Fail to be honest . . .  I say BRING BACK MOVIE-CON!

Mad About The Journalist (Angry With More Like)

The other day I was traveling home on the tube. I had just seen some awesome people and had had fun. This particular journey is an hour long by tube so I brought my favourite new film magazine of the moment, The New Empress. I enjoy the articles because they talk about past films (which I am partial too) and if a magazine includes Labrynth art I am going to read it. Anyway I had enjoyed the evening and the magazine until I read an article called 'Wars vs Rings' by Diana Thompson.

The article was about how the journalist had never seen either the first Star Wars trilogy or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I usually enjoy this sort of article as its always interesting to see why they hadn't seen then in the first place bu no, not this article. Instead the journalist went on to say how she quite enjoyed Star Wars only because "any movie with two cute robots is always going to have a head start." WHAT?! Is that even a reason? Then the journalist went on to say that they found LOTR "incredibly pretentious" and this coming from someone who had opened an article saying that she had been brought up in a "cultural void" and that her previous boyfriends (compared to her current one) were more likely to own George Melies' Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) than Empire Strikes Back (1980). Pretentious much???

I personally detest journalists like this. The snobs who hate successful films just because they are successful. I have seen and studied Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) and I enjoyed it, I love old black and white films but I can also appreciate big budgeted films like LOTR, which is in fact one of my favourite films of all time. All she did was compare the LOTR to Star Wars (no idea why) and ridicule it. That isn't film journalism. I am glad to say that her opinion, in the greater scheme of things, is irrelevant. Lord of the Rings is already a classic and millions of people can agree with me.

After being outraged by this article I immediately told everyone I could then looked up this journalist and discovered that she is a Fashion Journalist. Then it all made sense, she doesn't know anything about modern film and I suggest that never writes about film again. But of course she will. The only thing I didn't see wrong was that she enjoyed tea and vintage cameras.

Distraction! Distraction! Distraction!

I know I've neglected writing this blog but I have several good reasons. Mostly because I've been job hunting (some interviews, all except one were for unpaid work and an internship which I am currently in the middle of) and partly because I've tried to distract myself with other small projects. I definitely was distracted for a while.

I managed to have to massive clear outs and still not actually throw much away, I've gone to the cinema (but seen everything I wanted to see), gone down memory lane with the family, tried and failed to escape the country (not as dramatic as it sounds), visited Southbank in all its summer beach hut glory and of course desperately looked for work.  People keep saying don't worry you'll find work and that it takes time, I understand this but I am impatient. Not the best quality to have I admit. And the truth is, I've had plenty of unpaid work offered my way, I just need a paid job!

The result of my impatient nature are my own personal side projects. First of all I started 'The Great Postcard Resolution' in which I sent out lots of postcards to a select few. I collect postcards and I simply enjoy sending them out and I think most people like receiving post, especially if its a postcard.

 

If you would like me to send you some random postcards, no obligation to reply, just send me a message!

Other side projects include me deciding to watch the entire Battlestar Galactica TV epic from start to finish now that I have all seasons. I am also still writing poetry as I received some good news that one of poems will be published (third time) and I have my writing projects that I will keep under my hat, for now.

To Be Continued . . .

A few things: first my job search still continues but things are looking up. I've has a few phone calls and a couple of interviews plus the adaptation (its still going on) to write. But I'm in need of some inspiration for my own stories. Every few minutes I think about moving to New Zealand or at least trying to work out there. Then I think about following through on a few applications in America. Then I get a hankering for Bath. I am very keen to visit Bath once more.

Moving on.

This brings me to the ongoing saga of The Hogansteins. As usual I left the story on a cliff hanger (for those who read it) and haven't written anything more for quite some time. This cliff hanger will be going on for longer than expected and will return in the near future. Instead I will be testing out a new story.

To be continued . . .

A Taste Of Work and A Woodland Wedding

My excuse for neglecting this blog is that I have been really busy. I've been doing work experience at Art Alliance Media for two weeks and had a jolly good time. I now know how to book films into cinemas, duplicate drives, check drives and send them on their merry way. Same with trailers. I am quite looking forward to adding AAM to my CV. But the down side, early mornings. Getting up at 7am for me everyday was quite the struggle. Once I had downed my first coffee of the day I was on a roll and made my annoying journey to work. Annoying because Kensington Olympia station is one stop away from Earl's Court but only arrives once (if I'm lucky) every hour! Or so it seemed. After two weeks of this routine, I finally got used to waking up early, that's just how it goes.

But this work experience was cut short by a day as I had my second wedding of the year to go to, Jeanette (my cousin, Claire's sister) and Paul's. The wedding was in Norwich Cathedral and there was a bit of confusion as to what wedding was at what cathedral, a few people had to quickly dash away. Then after the ceremony we all gathered to a awesome place in the woods. We were greeted with pear cider and we were all, as Jeanette said, free and minglely. There were tents, toad stools and bails of hay to sit on, cupcakes with afternoon tea, a fantastic bbq, an amazing live band and not forgetting the archery on the front lawn. The whole day was so much fun, I ended up dancing most of the night, while taking rests in between the rose wine (yes, I didn't learn my lesson) and the pink lemonade. They played a few song that Annie and I remembered from when we were young, in the car on long journeys. In between the music and wine we also had the most amazing wedding cake, white sponge with jam and cream inside, so delicious. When  I described the cake to my Grandad later, I swear his eyes got wider and wider. After the music we were all given a lantern each to light up and release into the night sky. And just like in Tangled, all the lanterns, apart from one that got stuck in a tree, were let of. They looked so pretty against the dark sky. It was a perfect end to the day. On the way back home, we did make a few stops, one of which was at this models and toy expo shop that was situated just off the motorway. It was amazing to see all the toys I used to play with. Lego, Duplo, Sylvanians and of course Playmobil. They even had their own Jurassic park Park!

After the extra long journey back the next day, Roller Derby was meant to follow, but the lack of sleep and energy I had to settle to hear the good news over facebook, Steam Rollers won the championship!


Now the great job search continues! And along the way I will be throwing many things out in my quest for a tidy atmosphere!