Urban Legend
Or How Do You Say “Dragon” in Danish? Afternoon off from film editing in the Danish capital (which incidentally was quite a pleasant surprise, I thought I had been booked on a flight to Stockholm until the lady at check-in said “Straight through to Copenhagen, sir?”,...
Piano Subito
Or the Unexpected Melody of Silence Inside and Out Generally, my life seems to be spent in a sort of interior white noise - the humming dynamos and meshing gears of not only creativity (well, whatever it’s called… deadlines, enquiries, what have you) but all the...
Three Worlds Away
Or Inspecting the Instigation of Inspiration… I keep getting asked about inspiration - from where does it come, how does it arrive, where does it take you… Is it a tempest or a slow wave rising, a wild horse with no bridle or a pair of timid eyes you have to coax out...
The Landscapes of the Mind
Or the Art of Interior Decorating Why do we so love landscapes? (Ruling out those who prefer skyscrapers to skies, highway interchanges to changing tides and chainsaws to cedars…) Why is it that we are so touched by places that benefit primarily from our absence?...
Global Village
Or Where I Meet a Citizen of the World and am Suitably Impressed The other day, on a café terrace, in a conversation with a group of acquaintances, I blithely asked someone where they were from. (Simple curiosity, a belated attempt to vanquish my sempiternal timidity...
Lessons Learned
Or The Undeniable Benefits of Hindsight Hands are such beautiful things, I often have to remind myself to stop gazing at the hands of the people I am talking to, but often it seems their eloquence lies there, rather than in their faces and voices. I often wonder if...
Hands
Or Stitches in Time… Oh do I hate smashing up my hands. Like everyone, I have done it a few times, but it doesn’t take much to put me out of commission. How does Harrison Ford do it? He even clambers atop crumbling cornices in the teeth of a positively diluvial deluge...
Britspeak and other Foreign Tongues…
Or the Fine Art of Non-communicating Recently came across a book review in which the reviewer, a decidedly obnoxious but prominent critic, dismissed a British novel because it was riddled with “Britspeak”. Excuse me, but there seems to be something most definitely...
It’s a Wrap
Or the Summing Up of Much in A Short Time… Finished shooting for the Swiss-Swedish documentary, at least all my bits are done except for sound bites. After filming the Howe in his natural environment, we headed off to Strasbourg where we shot on and around the...
The Big Picture
Or the Serendipity of Screwdrivers and Studies The other day, having at last been unable to deny that the computer chair was a wee bit wobbly, I laid it on its side and went off to the basement in search of a screwdriver. In the basement, I did a load of washing,...
Public Relations
Or Where I Make New Friends and Influence People… There are disadvantages to being registered with the local chamber of commerce as a “graphic studio”. (This, by the way, was the closest acceptable definition that could be found to put in the registration, thus I am a...
My Books
Or Thoughts in Front of a Bookshelf I like my books. They aren’t particular about the company they keep. The big ones don’t look down on the small ones. The oversize ones recline gracefully, like some ancient staute of Buddha, when the shelf hasn’t enough headroom....