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STUFF, NONSENSE and DOGVILLE
So, what have I missed these past few weeks on 20six? No great announcements to make from my side of life - just been living it instead of blogging it recently. A's away with her grandparents for 14 days, so P and I get to play at being a couple instead of parents again. And it's fun. Been industrious in chasing down new leads and contacts in pursuit of inspiration - had a meeting with Customs and Excise last week as well as lunch with 20sixer John Freeman Got up at 04:20 on Sunday to take friends Nick and Eva to the airport for their holiday ( I shall get my revenge come my next overseas assingment that requires a stupid o'clock departure!) Received the manuscript for the forthcoming book about the most notable VC winners by highly decorated British commander, General Sir Peter de la Billiere and it's unputdownable. Made me feel perfectly humble to be honest. The book is called Supreme Courage - Heroic Stories from 150 Years of the Victoria Cross and it will be published by Little Brown in September. So as you can see, it's been a rather uneventful time in the life of this blogger. I spent yesterday watching DVDs - Monster, the award winning biopic of the tragic life of Aileen Wuornos, followed by Lars Trier's Dogville. Dogville is a stunning film focusing on the complex relationship between fugitive Grace, brilliantly played by Nicole Kidman, and the inhabitants of the small American town who give her shelter. It's brilliantly cast and scripted and notable for the way it's shot entirely within the confines of a spartan soundstage with props and sets at a minimum. Both films are dark and depressing, but they were in accord with yesterday's extraordinary weather, so no worries there.
I've got a commission to photograph some cardboard boxes on location in London tomorrow which is going to require some imagination and inventiveness on my part, followed by drinks with Crystal who used to be a writer on the magazine I edited until last year. More soon. |
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4.8.04 15:28 |
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ASAHI!
God, I feel rough. My head's pounding, I feel nauseous in the extreme and I've eaten nothing in the past 24 hours. So, that'll be a hangover, then. It's been a while since I had one last. It wasn't supposed to be like this. P was out last night so, when the photoshoot was over yesterday, I crossed the river to EC3 and met Crystal for what was supposed to be a quick drink. Bumped into one of her colleagues in the pub as I' was on my second bottle of Asahi and two bottles later, I remember thinking it might be politic to perhaps think about getting some food. That was all the thinking I did though and the next thing I remember is 4 empty pint glasses at my elbow and the pub shutting up for the night. How did that happen?
I remember nothing about getting the train until I checked my moby when I alighted to find a text from P saying that she was on the same train. Waited on the platform to see her walking towards me in conversation with a not unattractive thirtysomething girl who'd been sitting opposite her - it transpires she'd got on completely the wrong train out of Kings X and being the last service of the evening, she was fair stuck. Couldn't just leave her there, so we walked with her and kept her company, guiding her to our local taxi office where we negotiated a fare for her and saw her into a cab to take her home. Well,, I thought it best not to drive her myself, given my condition. I still feel fragile, so if you pop into my blog today, would you keep the noise down please? |
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6.8.04 14:57 |
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LAZING ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON
Sometimes, life just falls into place - and Saturday was one of those days. After the agony of Friday's day-long hangover, I was still flirting with fragility come Friday evening and a long-booked dinner appointment at a local Chinese restaurant with friends. By the time we arrived at 19:30, it had been over 30 hours since I'd eaten and the prospect of a glass of any form of beverage containing CH3.(CH2)4.OH still seemed unmanageable. So, er...that'll be just two cans of Tsingtao then. There's something cleansing about the day after a monstrous hangover - the enforced fasting and day long diet of water and fruit juices flushing the toxins from your body and leaving you with renewed vigour when you eventually rise to face the world again. So it was that I bounded from bed early on Saturday morning, a little lighter than I'd been 24 hours earlier but a world apart in terms of how I was feeling. The cloudless blue sky which greeted me and the bright sunlight which penetrated the curtains in the bedroom doubtless helped, lifting my already buoyant mood. There is a day every year which comes to define summer for you when you look back from the darkness of winter, and something about Saturday suggested that it would be a perfect candidate to fill that role. So on a whim, we decided to drive to Marlow-on-Thames in Buckinghamshire for a day on the river. I love this picturesque town. It's no further from London than the town in which we live, yet it has an utterly different charm. Its historic church, suspension brigge, weir and Norman chapel, together with its location on the banks of one of the most beautful stretches of the River Thames conspire to make Marlow an idylic location. Traffic was surprisingly light as we drove there and I found somewhere to park without too much trouble. Just through the park, on the edge of the river is a place where one can hire small boats by the hour. They're small affairs with outboard motors that power you along at a maximum speed a shade under the river's 8kmh speed limit, a leisurely pace just right for this stretch of river which lies between two locks. So it was that we paid to take one out for an hour to cruise the river. The Thames is nothing like the river I remember in my youth and at Marlow it's easy to see how just how successful the clean up has been. Under a bright sun, one can see to the bottom, to the reeds that brush the underside of the boats and at the shallows by the banks where dogs frolic and cool off in the water. How pleasant it is to drag a hand lazily through the water as the sun beats down relentlessly, warming the skin.
How nice to put the boat's engine into neutral and bob about on the surface of the water, caught by the mild wake of passing cruisers. To dream of owning one of the many capacious properties that line the south bank, with their perfectly maincured lawns running to the water's edge.
Look at the image above, encompassing one of the things I most love about London and its environs -the whole world in our pocket. The scenery, the climate on Saturday were redolent of lazy days in foreign climes, yet they were also typical of what makes living here so wonderful - the fact that it is all here within 30 minutes drive of London's centre. Rolling hills, rivers, ancient chapels...add in a climate like we experienced on Saturday and it could almost be perfect, a vision of a Utopian ideal. Fully 20% of London's 8million inhabitants seemingly vanish in August, meaning empty roads, no queues and plentiful taxis. How much better can it get?
At one point we were passed on the water by a bride and groom travelling by river to their wedding breakfast at the Compleat Angler. They looked a picture of happiness. By midday, the mercury was nudging 90deg F and we decided to return to the boat and wander along the river bank in search of succour from the direct sun. We'd timed it just right too, as when we'd taken the boat, we just strolled up and went straight out. On our return however, every boat they had for hire was on the water and there was a queue for returning launches at least 10 people deep. So we wandered off to a local pub where the barmaid was straight out of central casting and the pint glass of Heineken she handed me looked like it belonged on the set of a TV commercial. It was ice cold, with a perfect head, and the glass was beaded with condensation - suffice to say, a pint never tasted better, or hit the spot as that one did. After, we wandered the church yard, reading the headstones and wandering at the lives extinguished so many years before. On the steps to the church itself, someone had placed these, the whole beautiful in its simplicity:
Later, we wandered along the river bank to the lock, downstream from the weir and sat watching boats passing through for half an hour, before buying a picnic lunch which we ate on the lawn in the park.
We drove home via central London on Saturday evening, watching the buildings catch the evening sun's dying rays. A takeaway and a bottle of wine at home rounded off a perfect summer's day. |
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9.8.04 12:28 |
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FRIDAY 13th LONDON BLINKS - LET YOUR HAIR DOWN!
I have to attend a meeting in central London this Friday afternoon, but the good news is that it finishes far too early for me to even think about going home, but too late for me to do any more work (hey, I work in the meedja, nobody does any work on Fridays!). This one, being the 13th is just the ticket for impromtu blinks - what else are Fridays for? So far, me, Em, YAAGers, So Cheap and Midgetcircus (who is not a midget and doesn't work at the circus) are meeting at the John Snow public house, which is in Broadwick St, W1. Kicks off around 17:00, but if you can't escape work until later, don't worry - we'll still be there when you arrive. Put some names to faces, kick back, and wave farewell to summer. All welcome, the more the merrier. I've blogged the details here in the Blinks blog too. Don't worry, you won't end up looking like this. Well, not unless you want to, anyway... |
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9.8.04 14:45 |
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UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL: RAE BAKER
What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago today we saw the culmination of a long-running heatwave which in ffice:smarttags" /> My own life's changed a bit since then too. This time last year, I was editing a So it was that the phone rang off the hook with a steady stream of agents offering me their charges for interviews, tie-ins, launches - anything to garner coverage for them. I pride myself on being posessed of an interterview technique that cuts through the veneer that celebs present to the world to reveal the person underneath and I was touched when several interviewees offered me praise for the manner in which I'd conducted the interviews, or the questions I'd asked. From those for whom interviews with newspaper and magazine hacks were part of the job, it felt like praise indeed to be told afterwards that I'd asked questions that they'd never been asked before. Perhaps it helped that 'celebrity' doesn't interest me. It neither fazes me, nor impresses me - why should it? I'm inspired by people - what defines their personality, what motivates them, drives them. The minutiae of their lives. I've said it before, but it bears repetition - the average celeb's life is of less interest than that of any number of bloggers. It's not their celeb status that makes them interesting (or not), rather the person that lives underneath that public face - who are they? It's for the same reason that I've never 'done a Biggins' and turned up to the opening of an envelope. Specifically, I've avoided the premieres, launches and celeb parties where possible for one very simple reason: they're as dull as fuck. Figure it, right. Agents tell their charges, "You have to go to this party honey. All the editors, PRs and TV company people are gonna be there, and we have to get you seen". None of the PRs, TV company people and editors want to be there either - there's only so much free Champagne and canapes you can quaff, and the novelty soon wears off. The downside is the unwritten rule that means that nobody says anything meaningful to anybody. Conversational gambits at celeb parties never get further than "So, how are you", occasionally broaching such virgin territory as "What project are you working on now, then?" It's all anodyne, meaningless drivel, the conversational equivalent of lift music. Consequently, many celebs live in this rarefied climate whereby they don't actually know anyone. Oh, they talk to hundreds of people, and see the same faces, sure. But they don't talk about anything meaningful, or wilfully disclose anything personal or revealing because they want this paradoxical existence of fame without the world knowing about their real lives. It's a shallow and lonely existence. Every now and then, though, you meet someone who bucks the trend, somebody who confounds the expectation of diva-ish behaviour. Ewan McGregor is a good example - Perhaps unsurprisingly, an above average number of the celebs that I interviewed for the magazine emulated Ewan in this regard. It never occurred to them to do the whole flash celeb thing...but then, that's the nature of biking. It transcends social strata, industry and class, animating its proponents in conversation. You can't define a biker anymore - not like in the old days, greasy, Hell's Angel's types who live on the edge of society and law. Biking now is an invisible, gossamer thin thread that binds together couriers with barristers, links actresses and builders, retired army majors with barmaids. It's a classless pastime, a great equaliser in that it engenders passion among those who ride. Put two strangers together in a social situation, and the minute they discover the person they've been introduces to is a biker, their language changes. They engage, talk passionately about the adrenaline, the thrill, the sheer fun of riding. They cease to be whatever they are in regular society - to each other, they share a bond through the simple fact that they both ride. But I digress. The interviews themselves weren't exactly hard work - lunch was always complimentary, courtesy of whichever restaurant put themselves up as the venue. A glass or two of Champagne when the guest arrives to put them at ease, and then an agreeable lunch with wine and easy conversation - after all, people generally like to talk about themselves. All I had to do was steer the conversation and be a good listener. I don't do question and answer interviews, preferring to let the ebb and flow of normal conversation define the course of the feature. There are countless ways to get the answers to the questions you want to ask without actually asking them outright. I met Rae Baker in July last year. At the time, she was playing one of ITV's The Bill's most high profile characters, DC Juliet Becker and she was in the middle of the show's most prominent storyline. The producers had other plans in store for her though as they unveiled more of her character and wanted to get the word out to promote the forthcoming episodes. As it transpired, she was a biker - not just in the TV series, but in real life, so I agreed to meet her for lunch. What follows is the interview as it appeared. RAE BAKER: THE SUN HILL SOPRANO
Rae’s late. There’s ‘fashionably’ late, but that passed over 10 minutes ago; 20 minutes later and my mobile rings – it’s her. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I’ve been riding around for ages and I can’t find a motorcycle bay with space to park. I’ll be with you as soon as possible”. By a strange irony, I came into It gives me a chance to drink in the surroundings of the Grade 1 listed building which dates back to 1565 when Thomas Gresham began work on the City of Conran’s Grand Café and Bar takes its inspiration from the elegant early twentieth century Viennese coffee houses and Harry’s Bar in On the hottest day of the year though, alcohol is off limits for me. With the mercury nudging 30degC and oppressive humidity of 66%, every movement is an effort and thirst is ever-present. By the time Rae arrives, I’ve chilled nicely, aided by a bottle of Hildon sourced water. Poor Rae though is anything but cool. “Bloody Ken Livingstone and his congestion charge”, she says. “I was so hoping it would fail. Instead, all the bloody motorcycle bays are full and there’s just nowhere to park.” She’s profusely apologetic, mopping perspiration constantly as her body reacts to the combination of a set of Dianese leathers, a journey through London sat astride a Honda XVT 1800 and an ambient temperature in the nineties. Chuck in the stress of running late and the oppressive humidity and nobody’s gonna stay cool. “And as for buses, the bloody things are a menace, it’s about time they scrapped them. They take up the space of two cars and they’re always empty!” “Waitress, a drink for the lady, please!” Rae is a little hot under her Dianese collar.
If you’re one of the 8.6m regular viewers to ITV’s ‘The Bill’, Rae will need no introduction. She joined the long running series in February, appearing on screen in June as DC Juliet Becker. “Juliet is a real action woman, a bit of a Lara Croft. She has quite a lot of bike chases – and there are quite a few people of both sexes who take her fancy. She likes shopping on both sides of the road. She gets involved with both a man and a woman in CID in the weeks to come. I think she may turn into a good-time girl but she isn't a bitch and everyone likes her. It's a liberating part to play and a natural progression from the gay and lesbian characters that have been in The Bill.” Ah, that’ll be the much-hyped kiss scene in which Rae’s bi-sexual character Juliet introduces bi-curious DS Debbie McAllister to the joys of sapphic pleasure, then. Fancy that, another explosive storyline on The Bill. Can there be anybody left at Sun Hill who hasn’t been shot, stabbed, murdered, raped or abused? And that’s just at the police station. Playing a bisexual cop in The Bill isn't the accomplished 28 year old actress’ most unusual role, however. “Last year I was a transsexual man in the stage play Skin Deep. It was a very disturbing part as I came off stage every night battered and bruised. It was a tough challenge but it did give me a kind of insight into my character Juliet Becker's bisexuality — it's an important subject which is not really talked about that much.”
Much as Jeremy Sheffield, who I interviewed last month, appears a little out of place in a popular soap like In one of those moments which even hindsight can’t diminish, Rae showed up to audition for a bursary only to find out that she’d missed the deadline. Cameron McIntosh happened to be passing through at the precise moment Rae was on stage and was so enraptured by her performance that he personally guaranteed to underwrite all her costs at the school. He even offered her a part in Les Miserables which Rea had to turn down on graduating as she had secured lead roles in both Guys & Dolls and A Winter's Tale at the Royal National Theatre, and landed her first TV appearance in No stranger to hard work, she’s been gainfully employed in acting since leaving drama school in 1995. She was originally invited to screen test for the part of ditzy Honey Harman in The Bill in July 2002 but it wasn’t what she wanted. She must have left an impression on the producers though because at her call-back audition, she was asked what sort of role she wanted. Juliet’s character was written especially for her and the fact that she’s a biker is down to Rae. She’s Sun Hill's first biker cop since the program began in 1984 and her character rides a Honda Shadow, which is great for Rae who owns a Yamaha Virago and a recently acquired Honda VTX1800. She's been riding since she was 16 and in fact only passed her driving test a few years ago. Bikes are her first love.
It’s her personality rather than her undeniably striking looks that is Rae’s most noticeable trait. Sure, she has cheekbones you could clean your nails with and a Home Counties accent, terrific stature (she’s 5’11”) allied to impossibly long legs, but she’s not self-obsessed. Her articulacy and intelligence, her success are the result of hard work, looks a gift or curse as nature dictates. She makes the most of what she’s been gifted, but such frippery is of little import and as currency means little in the great scheme of things. Determination, drive and tenacity define her. These elements lend her a self confidence that she says many find intimidating although talking to her at length, it’s their loss, because she’s nothing of the sort, just blessed with the self-belief that a loving home and happy childhood gift us. Self assured to a point just the right side of conceit, it’s evident that pride is in no short supply. She’s intensely passionate, opinionated, yet I can’t help thinking that beneath it all, she’s easily wounded. She’s thoughtful, taking time to consider some of the more difficult questions that I throw at her, yet disarmingly honest in her answers. There must be a chink in her armour? “I was the geeky nerd at school. I never felt that I fit in anywhere and as a child, I couldn’t wait to grow up because I felt that I had the body of an adult. Coupled with the fact that I enjoyed singing and piano, Gilbert and Sullivan, it set me apart.” Hardly the sort of attributes that are going to make you popular with the cool kids – or any kids come to that, with their rapier-like ability in seeking out non-conformity. Dare to be different as a child and it can only end in one of two ways – the abuse and bullying will either crush you, or lead you to rise above it with an implicit belief in yourself. With Rae, I suspect that it is quite clearly the latter. It’s no mere coincidence that it’s always the nerdy ones, the non-conformist kids that grow up to have the greatest impact on society, ugly ducklings becoming swans.
Rae grew up in a small village in rural Hampshire, the only daughter of (still) happily married parents. She has a brother, an electronics engineer, and a best friend – Lucy - who is nothing to do with TV land. In fact, most of her friends, although of a creative mind, are nothing to do with acting. Certainly, the various men in her life have all hailed from outside the industry and her dad’s a carpenter who’s just bought a Suzuki Bandit. He’s quite obviously played a huge role in her life and together with her friends is a healthy influence on her. She’s grounded. “I don’t get that with some actors. I mean, it’s not like rocket science – we aren’t saving lives or anything, just entertaining people hopefully and having fun in the process”. Her passion is infectious and permeates every aspect of her view that ‘life is for living’. She’s a great fan of extreme sports, and recently took herself off to Newquay to learn to windsurf. She wants to learn to fly too, having just fulfilled a dream to surf the clouds when a friend took her up in a micro light; “It was just so magical, flying along with my hands out, watching the clouds wisp through my fingertips”. She’s just bought her third property in “I want to do a period drama, or film but to be honest, I’m just as happy doing theatre work for £170 a week if the role challenges me. I want to enjoy what I’m doing, and theatre’s great for that. I love Am Dram, the passion amongst those bored housewives and accountants who come alive as they take on the roles of sluts and down at heel prostitutes. They never want the mundane roles, always the gritty character roles because they’re the ones that embolden you, give you something get your teeth into. It’s so liberating to see.”
She reads her reviews and interestingly, is able to quote lines from some to me in conversation although I suspect this derives not through any narcissistic bent, rather a desire to improve as she’s something of a perfectionist. She’s been wounded in the past by less than favourable things written about her although she’s pragmatic enough to know that you can’t take the good without the bad. You take both, or not at all. Some actresses can’t seem to turn it off and you never know which character you’re getting next. It gets so that eventually, they lose sight of who they are because they’re always someone else. Rae ain’t like that. She strikes me as loyal and the passion is genuine. The bike’s for real – she bought it because she loves bikes but more importantly, she loves riding them and the XVT seems like the greatest exponent of town riding. It looks good, but that’s a happy coincidence - she lives her life in Rae appeared in a somewhat 'steamy' TV ad for Sony before landing her role in The Bill which you can download. It's a 2.91Mb file which you'll need Windows Media Player for. Right Click Here, Save Target As... |
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10.8.04 13:09 |
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HIGHBROWS and EYEBROWS
I saw the future yesterday and it was good. After a pleasant lunch at Pret a Manger in Wardour Street, I spent the afternoon at the Soho offices of Britain's leading post-production and CGI effects house, The Moving Picture Company to research a story I'm writing about how Britain leads the world in this strange alchemy. Whilst there, I got a sneak preview of several scenes from a forthcoming documentary series commissioned by the Discovery Channel, which will see a global launch this autumn - the first time a Discovery programme made in the UK has received such an accolade. It's a project which heralds the next generation of television history programmes and the "holy grail" of Computer Generated Imagery - bringing historical events to life so realistically that the audience believes that it is watching genuine archive footage. The technique clearly has the potential to change the way viewers watch historical documentaries in the future, heralding an entirely new genre of documentary making.
I sat transfixed in a viewing suite yesterday and watched avidly as Adolf Hitler bent down to look at the map laid out before him on an oak table. His piercing eyes stared intently as one of his Generals pointed a black-gloved hand to show troop movements on the eastern front. As the camera pans and the Führer leans on his right arm to get a better view there is a blinding orange flash followed by a ball of smoke as the picture blurs. It is the documentary-maker's ultimate fantasy: never-before-seen footage of one of the most famous moments in 20th-century history - the assassination attempt against Hitler at his Rastenburg headquarters in eastern Prussia. The quality is such - from the colour of the film to the graininess of the images - that it could even have been taken by the Führer's private cameraman, Walter Frentz. But the clip was not shot inside the Wolf's Lair in July 1944. In fact this scene was never filmed at all. Instead it was created in the Moving Picture Company's Soho editing suites and exists as no more than a series of computer files stored withing the company's mammoth 56 terabytes of hard drive space. The feature-length programme, which is still in production uses genuine archive footage to support the "archive reconstructions". Historians, such as Andrew Roberts (whose books include Hitler and Churchill), were brought in to advise and to maintain historical accuracy and actors with physical similarities to the key protagonists acted out the "missing" parts of the story before technical experts used CGI to recreate the faces of the wartime leaders and transformed the modern film into footage which runs seamlessly with the original archive clips. The programs are due to screened in the UK in late October and I for one can't wait Leaving there, I headed over to one of my clients to deliver some images I was commissioned to shoot for them last week. I was both delighted and surprised to not only receive payment on delivery of the files, but receive effusive praise from the client for surpassing what he'd explained in his brief. He was so delighted, he's recommissoned me for another photoshoot next week. Which leads me on to the other thrust of this entry, eyebrows.
Whilst travelling into London on the tube yesterday, I read a fantastic and enlightening peice in the Daily Telegraph by that newspaper's sometime health columnist Dr James Le Fanu (registration is required, so I've republished it below). All credit to Le Fanu for a fascinating peice of writing: Those sunning themselves on the beaches of the Mediterranean, or elsewhere, this summer have reason to be grateful for their eyebrows. They might seem a mere cosmetic adornment that serve no useful purpose, but those afflicted with alopecia (total loss of body hair) find that, without them, the stinging, salty sweat from the forehead runs straight into the eyes, making them sore and red. Wet weather is no better, for they find they are constantly wiping the rain out of their eyes. But that is not all, for the eyebrows also perform another, quite unrelated, function as described by a contributor to the New Scientist, Anne Venugoban, when commenting on the effects of Botox injections. The position of the eyebrows emphasises the expressions of the human face, allowing one to distinguish, for example, the smile of true merriment from something more sinister, such as a lewd smirk. "When a friend had Botox injections for the lines on her forehead, she was no longer able to raise or lower her eyebrows," writes Miss Venugoban. "It was very disconcerting talking to her, as I could no longer accurately deduce her mood and had to rely on other cues, such as her actions and speech." This function of the eyebrows illustrates a remarkable attribute of the human body that deserves to be better appreciated. It is a truism that every component, no matter how insignificant, turns out to have some useful purpose, but here we see an almost miraculous economy of design where the same feature serves two quite unrelated purposes - both protecting the eyes and conveying the authenticity of human emotion. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004 The day ended somewhat later than planned as P and I set off for Luton airport to collect Nick and Eva, together with some of Eva's family from Spain. Rather thoughtfully, as well as booking an outbound flight necessitating my rising at 04:20 on a Sunday morning to take them to the airport, Nick had booked a return which delivered them at 00:20 on a school night. Or rather, he thought he had. Turning up to the Easyjet check-in desk at Madrid Barajas airport last night, he discovered he'd erroneously booked them both onto the flight which had left some hours previously - at 12:20pm to be exact. Consequently, he had to fork out another £373 for two tickets on the flight he thought he should have been on. How I laughed. Incidentally, I'll award two sweeties to the first person to comment below who can correctly guess who the photo above is of. I'll give you a clue - she's not a singer, or an actress. ;-) |
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11.8.04 13:00 |
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SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE - ONE YEAR ON
Twelve months ago today, I ventured forth into uncharted territory. Despite being a competent news journalist, 'blogging' was an unknown quantity to me and simply didn't exist in my universe. On this day last year, I was working from home on a slow news day. I'd been idly surfing the web and following a link from another site put me on the 20six front page. I browsed. I read. And I was hooked. I've been here ever since. For a home worker like myself, blogging - and the 20six brand of blogging in particular - has been a revelation. I'm a gregarious animal and I miss the social aspect of office life but in many respects, that hole has been filled by this place. And more importantly, you - the people who make it what it is. Twelve months on, much has changed. I've made some good friends through here, socialised with some over alcohol or coffee. I've had praise, criticism and the even an episode of (unwarranted) opprobrium heaped on me. As a journalist, I'm more used to writing for a silent audience - you lot have changed all that. You've provided a link to normality for me whilst I was stuck in the middle of the insane world that was Baghdad pre-handover, and a sort of vitual office since I returned. You've made me laugh, shaped some of my features, inspired me to write a feature on the blog culture and specifically 20six, which was published on the front page of a national newspaper in the Far East. I can honstely say that 20six has changed the landscape of my life, too - I've had over 100,000 hits on my blog over the past year, resulting in my receiving both photographic and journalistic commissions. I had my blog reviewed, linked to by The Agonist and Daily Kos, and in an example of life imitating art, was interviewed for a feature in Journalism magazine. So thank you to everybody who has ever taken the time to stop by, comment, browse the archives, email me, or taken the trouble to meet up with me. Thank you too for sharing your lives through your own blogs and your erudite, eloquent writing - the quality of some of the prose here is a revelation, streets ahead of that of some professional 'so-called' journalists. For those of you who can make it, there are a few of us from 20six getting together for real in London tomorrow night. Like we need an excuse but with Yaagers' and my blog birthdays falling this week, it's as good a reason as any to have a drink.
For those who can't, we'll do it virtually instead. There's a case of virtual Louis Roederer Cristal behind the bar and some glasses in the freezer - help yourselves, and join me in a toast. |
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12.8.04 10:45 |
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