The One With The Pearlised Urchins...

Right, once again, quick as I can. This time I have to go get on my bike for a couple of hours, but I have time enough to write this out, I think. I'll lop off the beginning, which is pretty unintelligible and I think may be leftover chaos from an earlier dream.

The One With The Pearlised Urchins

The internal conflict was raging, but I didn't say anything. Not that it mattered, Guen had seen my expression and "suggested" we head back home, quietly guiding me away before I either punched the guy or jumped in the boat to capsize it or bought his entire stock. Neither of us were sure which I would have done.

The guy, a tanned boat-dweller with tattered trousers held up with string, had a small wooden boat and an obvious skill for free-diving. The evidence was a collection of 8-10 GLORIOUS marine gastropods from the reef. Vast and baroque Queen conchs, spiny spider shells and massive tritons amongst others more incredible than I could name. Just one of them was worth hours spent studying it.

They were alive, constantly trying to haul themselves upright and off the boat and the adjacent dock. But every time they a grip the boat-man would jab them with a blade to make them retract their foot and their movements were getting slower and weaker as they ran out of oxygen.

You can see why Guen hauled me away.

We wondered back to the house that the family was renting. A light coloured American style beach-house with three storeys and a porch large enough for 10 to dine around a long table. I sat on a white-cotton-covered double in the front-most top-floor room, feeling a mixture of guilt that I hadn't acted and guilt that I'd felt it was my right to dictate how this man made his living. Guen, probably to distract me, pointed out a number of interesting bikinis wondering by on the beach below and we sat enjoying the warm breeze blowing through the open, circular windows and admiring the beach population's many ways of filling swimwear.

Guen's distraction tactics have never failed and we returned downstairs to find that the younger members of the present family, that being Chris and Lucy, Lauren, Flo and Ben had gone down the beach a little to swim where the shingle turned to sand. After aiding my father and grandfather with some quick repairs to the VW Camper that my grandparents had arrived in, Guen and I set off in pursuit.

(Art by the talented: Declan O'Doherty at http://declanod.wordpress.com/)

While walking along I saw a dog playing with a whelk, the size of a shoe. It was old and dead and beaten by the waves. I re-considered the man in the boat. All of the shells were going to die anyway. They were all huge adults that had done their breeding. Why not die and leave a beautiful shell for study and admiration instead of dying to leave a knackered-out piece of CACO3 for the dogs to run after? But I just couldn't agree with him.

Just as we reached the shingle/sand transition I noticed tiny shining coins on the floor. Bending down for a closer look, they were circular fragments of urchin shell, but shining with the opalescent hue of mother-of-pearl nacre. Incredible! No urchin in the world makes mother-of-pearl! What on earth was going on?

Just then, I looked up, I'd heard Chris call my voice from the middle of a water fight between him and Ben, while Lauren, Flo and Lucy looked on in that faux-unimpressed way that women can get during a water-fight. The fight ended and Chris waded over while Guen and I dropped our clothing by theirs.

When he got to me, he handed me something. A tiny piece of urchin shell about the size of a postage stamp.   -  "I found this and thought you might find it interesting" He said. "I didn't know urchins made pearl..."

And there, right there in my hand, was the answer to my quandary: The shells in the boat belonged to their wearers and we had no right to them. But also, we had no need of them. A tiny broken fragment could hold scientific curiosity, artistic wonder and emotional resonance, all in a tiny package that would be missed by no-one.

The One With Javier Bardem

I'll keep this brief, because I'm just back from training and I have to get in the shower before I congeal:

The One With Javier Bardem

We scampered through the corridors like rats in a maze. The whitewashed Moroccan walls reflected the blazing sun in so the dust we scuffed up hung in the air and sparkled. On the other side of the compound (Monastery? Old hotel? Ancient palace? Not sure) we could hear doors being kicked open and boots pounding the packed earth floors.  Maybe thirty officers by the amount of noise they were making. Against two men and four women, we were running for our lives.

Finally barrelling into one room without an external door, the girls darted over to check the windows and saw only a four storey drop to the azure waters and the red rocks below. The chase had gone on long enough, we formed up to take a stand and heard the thin wooden door being tested from the other side.

(Like this. Only no Dash. And no lycra. And in a whitewashed room)

We held our communal breath.

But the door didn't splinter and fly open. Instead the air started to crackle and the walls bulged. With the dull rumble of heavy stone the outer two walls and ceiling of the corner room exploded outward revealing two helicopters. One of which held the now crumbling remains of the walls and the other one of which fired two bolus/lasso type affairs at my father and I. The helicopter sped away and the coils of slack line were rapidly removed.

In a well-rehearsed instant we linked arms and shins with Anne-Marie, Hannah, Chels and Emily, before the line went taut and the interlocked ball of us was yanked out of the room and hung from a helicopter speeding away over the Mediterranean. We held fast for a couple of minutes before the aircraft pulled up suddenly and cut the line, launching us in a parabolic ark toward a gaping hole in the roof of a huge warehouse on the docks of the mainland.

From blazing sun into darkened warehouse takes your eyes by surprise, but it didn't matter: We were falling and completely unable to do anything about our landing point even if we could have seen it. As it happened, the landing point was a steep, padded slope and we tumbled, painfully but without injury, to a concrete floor.

Immediately reforming into a fighting unit, backs to backs in a defensive circle, we lashed out at the crowd of thirty or so fighting men advancing on us. Diving from assailant to assailant, barely touching the floor in between, we held our ground. Elbows connected effectively with jaws, knees with abdomens and groins. If you could spring off a chest and connect with another man's throat you did so.

But we all noticed at the same time. Applause. One slow, approving clap. A man in a light brown suit, seated on a cheap folding chair. We looked around, none of the family were down. The assailants had been holding back. This Javier Bardem Bond Villain Person had obviously set them the task of testing us, before he had his part to play. We'd never been in danger for our lives.

Until now...

The One With Lieutenant-Commander Doig...

...was one of three dreams I remember from last night. I have about a 4/10 on detail for all of them, so, I'll give you a quick run-down of the other two and then a bit more detail on the last one (which, chronologically, occurred in the middle).

The One When I'm Sherlock Holmes - Very simple premise: I am Sherlock Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and a fantastic grey greatcoat with slightly darker grey scarf, and I am fleeing hostile gunmen down back alleys. An unbroken line of sight means my untimely demise due to lead poisoning. Simple. Chuck into the mix the standard dream-type lack of running ability and alleyways filled with time consuming tangle-type obstacles and you've got a pretty archetypal running-the-fuck-away type dream.

The One with M. Night Shyamalan - Was short and intense. It was set in the hallway at the base of the stairs at my Mum's house in Basinstoke, where my mother the inventor (IRL) had called in the help of M. Night Shyamalan the next-door neighbour and also inventor (not-IRL) to go over some plans for a child's buggy (stroller for our USAsian pals) which had to be made of a gel. After a little use of Wikipaedia, I pointed out that gel could be any of a number of substances and didn't have to be standard Jelly (USAsian: Jello). My mother agreed, stating quite plainly that the "Buggy didn't have to be transparent". Well, *OBVIOUSLY!*. But MNS disagreed. Insisted that we stick to the oldschool and use Jelly. Argument ensued. I poked him with a 2H (4H possibly?) pencil, which I'd sharpened for sketching out buggies, but the lead was off-centre and that had annoyed me. Drew blood. Woke up.

Which brings us to the One With Lt Cdr Doig - Setting: Royal Naval Base - 2035 (ish). All warfare and peacekeeping missions are done by drones (aerial and land-based) controlled remotely from a command centre in the UK. I passed-out of the cadets to a placement in Drone-Control (DC) due to quick reflexes and lateral thinking. On this day, I have advocated that a group of cadets be allowed a single days observation privilege in DC to inspire them to continued excellence in the academy.

Needless to day, all does not go as planned. The group of cadets are late, poorly turned-out and do not listen attentively as the Commodore IC (played by Mr Ralph Fiennes) reels off an inspirational less than 2 metres from them. One of them, acting on a severe and obvious hangover (and being played by my cousin Erica. Sorry Erica) goes to far as to vomit within inches of the Cdre's incredibly shiny shoes.

All eyes are now on me, as my suggested group visit rapidly descends into chaos. The cadets are wandering all over DC, playing with controls, getting in the way, breaking things. As more and more officers are taken from their posts to control the unruly youths, more and more drones in the field will be going dead or unresponsive.

Which wouldn't be a problem, normally: They can be put onto auto-pilot. But one of them, an exceedingly difficult station being run by Lt cdr Doig mission (I can't remember if it was a very powerful drone, or a very delicate mission) can't be left unattended. And with a fire now having broken out and ASBO-Youf running riot, the long-legged and very-beautiful Lieutenant-Commander Doig (played, in full-uniform, by my stunning house-mate Guen) has been forced to abandon her post.

Not a problem, think I, jumping into the nearest seat with a terminal. The system is set up so that any terminal can be used on any drone. You use a program something like a browser to select the link that opens a pop-up window and control the drone from that pop-up.

But, unfortunately for me, Lt-cdr Doig is a very competent programmer, she's written an embedded executable onto "her" drone's control page, which hijacks my terminal and starts to re-configure all of the settings to her preferences. Screen colours and contrast, cursor speed and control aspect ratio. The mouse changes to black cross-hairs. Very accurate, but not very visible. The UI is now yellows, oranges and ochres. The information scroll rate is *far* higher than I can process and every time I try to change a setting back to something I can understand, the executable auto-heals. A very clever, time-saving move in a crisis where she is forced to act from another terminal, but very difficult for me to control the tense situation developing on the other end of the line. So, tense, in fact, that I woke up.

Re-booting...

Morning folks, thought I'd just update since it's been *days* since my last missive.

What's new? Now living in Manchester, cycling a lot. Trying, as I was before, to get into the Commonwealth games. Still dreaming the dreams. Still inventing things in my head., but now I get paid to do it.

Vetting happened, I qualified, went to Cornell, studied genetic engineering and proteomics. Came back, did some work as a vet, loved it.

But you can't both cycle and be a vet, so I'm cycling first and vetting second.

In other news, I've released an art book, so if you're in Cambridge, look out for it in all the bookshops there. And I've got an Oxford version of the same on the way.

It's a compilation of a set of photos of Cambridge College Chapels (pretty much does what it says on the tin, really) and has writing by each of the college chaplains and/or deans.


The Oxford Edition is in the works, I have all of the photos, but collecting the writing takes FOREVER.


And now, on, on to greater and greater things.



Y'all know what happens if you click on this, right?

25 things

A list of 25 possibly interesting things:

1. I do things that scare me. Firebreathing, Fast cycling, Stand Up, Jumping off high things. Whatever. I just figure the more things that scare you that you get out of the way now, the less you have for when your older.

2. I've never really got the hang of working out which bits of life you're meant to think about. I mean, I'll really over think where to put a film on a shelf. Or how to set up the most aerodynamic backpack. And then do something really important without thinking.

3. Most of that shit that i spout is really true. I really did once nearly spin out a plane over the M40. I really did get bitten by a 6 foot fish. Yeah, I once accidentally set my hand on fire and then used it to breath the last breath in a fireshow. What? Crazy stuff just seems to happen arround me.

4. If I had stronger will power I'd be a vegetarian. But I don't, I am week. For one reason only: energy balance. The more trophic levels you put between you and basal producers (crop plants) the more land you need to use to feed one person.

5. I have a huge amount of respect for people that play musical instruments. I can't and that is because I didn't practice back when I had a maleable brain. Now my brain is tough and fibrous and I'm never going to be that good.

6. I honestly care so very little what people think. Most of the time. This leads to costume. I dress how I feel. If I wake up feeling like a pirate, so be it.

7. I honestly think one person can make a difference. Hopefully, a zoovet at the right place at the right time can change the outcome for one species, mabe a whole group of species.

8. I can't drive. And honestly, I don't want to learn. I know I'm going to have to, but I shall take as long as I humanly can. Cars are an excellent case in point epitomising the singular nature of self-destructive blind consumerism. Bollocks to that.

9. I have to do 25 of these things? I'm just not that interesting.

10. I have decided to leave my sexual/relationship ideas out of this. But, yes I have views. Yes, I'd protest to uphold them. If my views were against gays or promiscuits, that would make me a bigot. If they are against homophobes and idiots, does it still?

11. I believe that beauty, both artistic and emotional, is in the ye of the beholder and there is no such thing as objective beauty. The idea of a "perfect" piece of art or a "most beautiful" woman, seems false to me if it is without labled personal bias.

12. I have no problem with public nudity. At all. For this I have to thank James Banton and Stacey Gregg. Without their need, I wouldn't have had any reason to be naked on stage.

13. I adore cinema and am willing to defend its place as a valid form of art experience against theatre proponants who claim that you get more real emotion on stage. I claim in response that the emotion of theatre actors is dulled because they have to do it night after night. Whereas on film, you only have to it once, so you give it your all.

14. Modelling is not just walking up and down with a bunch of skinny girls. It's about trying to get as much emotion across to the audience without any dialogue. It's a challenge and is great fun.

15. While we're on the topic. What is the world's obsession with skinny girls? 12 - 14 please. Somebody give them a meal or two. Noodles, pizza, whatever, I'll pay.

16. I still find magnets pretty magic. That and surface tension. And imaginary numbers. And the last move on a rubik cube where everything gets messed up and then brought back together in the right order.

17. I can say "thank you" in 25 languages. It just seemed like an important word to learn. The most important word to learn. That and "Can I help?".

18. No, I don't get cold. I weigh the same as a baby elephant, of course I don't get cold. If you see me cold I'm either *really* hungry or I didn't sleep very well at all. Or I have a fever.

19. My camera goes with me everwhere. This is important, because photography is about luck as much as anything and luck favours the prepared. And the polite.

20. Mozart. Mark Knopfler. Marshal Mathers. Beethoven. Ola Salo. John Williams. Scroobius Pip. Imogen Heap. Alice Cooper. Tom Rosenthal. Bach. Funtwo. Chuck Berry. Bonnie Tyler. All subjective, remember.

21. 21? Jeez, look at that. I might just make it.

22. I'm honest. And open. Ask me a question.

23. And finally, I don't like rules that are just there to be rules.

I just found...

...a click biro in my room. Blue and white. Made in Germany.

Little bit scuffed and a little bit scratched, but totally salvageable.

With Refugee Legal Centre written up the side.

The One With All The Snow...

So. Yeah. It snowed last night. Like, a lot. Three inches isn't a lot, but it's a lot for June. I know it's not June, but it was in my dream. So yeah, I've had a night of making snowmen, having snowball fights with Ben and Josh (and Ashton, actually, it was good to see him)and generally larking about in the white stuff.

And after a fun and relaxing night, I'm off to take photos. Later folks.