Ambitious Ambitions

The cocktail of creative projects I've surrounded myself in over the past few months has long been stirring up suspiciously dormant creative cavity within me. It's almost as if every project I've worked on has dropped a metaphorical Mentos into the creative Diet Coke pouch of my brain (I'm no biologist, but I'm pretty sure that's real).

It has been nice to focus my creativity into other peoples projects, but as it's usually just building on their unique foundation or trying to further express their vision, it hasn't exactly quelled my lust for something greater.
It's not that these projects aren't a challenge - far from it - it's just with every project I help to develop, a tiny voice inside me gently murmurs "...What about me?".

And now that voice is a scream, and it's piercing my brain with the words "DO... SOMETHING!"

Granted, the voice lacks direction... But the little ethereal bugger has a point. It's time to work on my own projects again. Except this time I'll be calling on all the remarkably beautiful creative and artistic people in Peterborough that wants to throw a wadge of creative wonder my way.

With a funding event coming up very soon, brought to us by those wonderful folks at Creative Peterborough,  I'll have a chance to get a little bit of money to help fund whatever my brain regurgitates onto some virtual paper.

Last years Fund It! event gave me the opportunity to work with another artist, Vanessa Manning, to help create a brilliant little art video. It was great to work on such a unique project and help bring Vanessa's vision to life.

But this year I'd like to step things up.

Instead of applying for funding with the aim of creating a single project, I want to make at least THREE separate pieces; a short film, a documentary, and a music video.

Although ambitious, these projects will be more than achievable thanks to the plethora of talented folk that surround me. Peterborough is a veritable hub a creative prowess that is begging to be tapped into for film makers.
Artists, actors, dancers, graphic designers, poets, musicians, crafters, builders, designers of every specialty - all here and deserving of more exposure and praise for their talents.

So here's hoping I can get a little funding, or at least have the opportunity to work with more and more people in this buzzing community.

So if anyone wants to get involved in some way, don't hesitate to ask - there's always more room for creativity.

Film Ideas

A month before pitching a short film idea at a funding event and our original film idea has fallen through. Through no fault of their own, the person I was planning the film with is now to busy to work on it. Although understandable, it still leaves me with less than a month to come up with a new concept, write a treatment, start a workbook, design some eye-catching displays and create a pitch for an impending funding event.

As such, I've decided to turn to Twitter for suggestions for films I could make. The responses have been inspiring, to say the least.

• A "The Office" style documentary about Raul Moat's Disco Boat (inspired by my "Mass Murderer's Failed Business Ventures" idea.) (A gritty exposé on Adolf Hitler's Cheap Bar Mitzvah also came about in conversation)
• A wildlife documentary called "March of the Morgan Freeman's"
• The not at all egotistical egotist Joey Cadd said "I was going to suggest doing a documentary about me, but then I thought that might sound egotistical."
• Something about how binmen are in control of the time-space continuum.
• A mockumentary about a crazy guy who is obsessed with pub quizzes.

I think we're off to a good start. Keep up the suggestions, I'm sure 140 characters is more than enough to sell me on an idea.

Monday Morning Shame

The beginning of each week is starting to feel like Groundhog day.

I wake up in a cold sweat, riddled with guilt over my selfish actions the night before. Evidence lays strewn across the kitchen, left as haunting reminders of my grotesque actions. As my thoughts transpire to that of shame, I know what must be done. Picking up the stone-cold, lifeless husk, all that's left is to devour the remains, and pray that no one remembers my terrible actions the night before.

Wiping the shameful tears from my eyes and ketchup from the corner of my mouth, I swear one last time:

“Seriously – THIS WEEK I'll give up take-aways.”

Seriously. This week. I mean it this time.

Life Progress: Fitness

In a vain effort to get fit (with the hopes of an "overall better health" side-effect) I've started to exercise - a word I've so rarely used in my adult life I genuinely just had to check how it's spelled.

Going through sporadic, albeit fleeting, bouts of fitness isn't a new concept for me, but the genuine lack of motivation or goals always reduces my efforts to a week of gentle jogging, before collapsing in a wheezing heap of asthmatic mess on the floor, resembling something a smoker might hack up on the pavement.

Asthma is also a major hindrance to any exercise regime I attempts - not through any medical reasoning, but because I can deploy the self-pitying excuse as soon as I get wheezy, allowing me to back down from any physical activity while convincing myself I don't look entirely lazy. People don't mock others with undisclosed levels of minor health issues, right?

Never-the-less, it's that time of year when I should start thinking about looking after myself, put down the butter-infused IV drip and start waddling around until my face drips with the unfamiliar salty sweat my body tries so desperately to keep inside me.

The problem still looming was that of continual motivation. It's all very noble to try to better myself and live a healthier life style for the same reasons as everyone else (and overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction and the pungent stench of smugness), but that's never been enough for me. There are plenty of other things - easier alternatives - that I can develop to lord my deity-like talent and worth over people/feel better about myself. Even easier still is to invent something to be better at.

What? You can't Skypar? That doesn't surprise me...

This new bout of fitness, however, has an alternate goal - one I've never trouble myself over in the past: Vanity. Or, less succinctly, to help curb my ridiculous physical appearance while wearing a skirt and delivering a speech to a large room full of people.

As I've mentioned several thousand times before, I'm set to be best man at a wedding in Scotland come September. This inevitably means having to wear a kilt and have my photograph taken as I awkwardly hide my awkward nature behind an awkward facade of confidence and comfort, a concept that is about as natural to me as a dog training a hamster to shit out tiny star-shaped pellets to decorate a child's lunchbox. Only with less appealing results.

So here I am - slowly building up my endurance, and something called "cardio", with a milder variation of an MMA fighters exercise/warm-up regime. Although instead of doing 15 minutes a day, three times I week, I'm working at a gentleman's 5 minutes a day, with 3 hours of weeping and 4 hours fruitlessly licking at an emptied packed of Haribo in a desperate attempt to remember what sweets taste like. (Did I mention I'm also trying to eat healthy? Probably not, as that's going about as well as Tory Lib-Dem coalition. SATIRE GET!) (Incidentally, that joke could be seen as a direct metaphor to how well this fitness milarky is going).

So that's that. I have a goal, I have a plan, and I have minimum required level of enthusiasm to tackle the task.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to do another 5 whole minutes of exercise, complete about 3 minutes of it (I've got asthma you see, which stops me from getting as much air into my lungs and stuff, so I can't breathe as long as normal people can, you know, when they exercise and that), then complete another 12.8 Skypar permiations.

It'll be a new world record. But I don't expect you to understand.

An idiots guide to: Arguments

After an emotionally charged exchanged with a loved one - be they friend, relative, or "other" - you can always be sure of two things:

1) The collective plural for octopus is "octopuses", not "octopi"

and

2) Someone will inevitably hurt someone else's feelings.

Under some circumstances, those frayed edges of emotions can be easily preserved, by either party recognising the minor suffering and withdrawing their position from the discussion (making sure their original point is still withstanding, it being the correct one and all).

The more common outcome, however, is to relentlessly and incessantly repeat your statement, enforcing it with emotionally-charged speculation, and other people's conveniently similar opinions, rather than solid facts.

*Side note: Facts can be your friend in an argument, often even rupturing the other persons position with infallible logic.

BUT BE WARNED; in exchanges regarding opinion and emotional (and often general) ignorance, facts may prove irrelevant, and the misplacement of facts could cause your side of the argument to crumble into obscurity when faced with the icy tundra of an emotionally-charged ignorant mind.*

There are several ways to win such arguments. The first and quite possibly the most simple technique is to berate your opponent with an onslaught of wild speculation, fortified by unnamed sources that have been said to agree with your chosen statement. All the while, make sure you maintain the illusion that you are, indeed, taking their side of the discussion on board. As their opinion is incorrect, however, feel free to interject their soliloquies of logic with repeated variations of your original statement.

In certain situations, your opponent may seem to start winning the exchange of intellect. This is when you use your secret weapon - Guilt.

Guilt can be used in a variety of ways. A simple execution of this move is to refer back to a time in which they were incorrect. Specific references aren't necessary, but if you can use examples of similar situations, that will aide your cause substantially.

This version of Guilt, though easy to implement, rarely weakens their stance on their own opinions, which is the real key to success in emotional discourse.

The best execution of the Guilt maneuver is to make your opponent feel sorry for you - or, more effectively, guilty for their actions and attempts to reason with you. The easiest way to achieve this would be to show how much you dislike yourself, making sure they understand that it is their fault for reminding you of such heinous thoughts. This technique also allows you to reference mistakes you've made yourself, taking away ammunition from their arsenal of condescension (the fact they've yet to use them against you should be a shinning example of their lackadaisical approach to the argument in the first place. Or that they may in fact have a conscience - something a vastly opinionated argumentor should never adhere to.)

Continue repeating these steps, ensuring to increase the levels of self-pity and, subsequently, guilt throughout, and you'll soon find your exhausted opponent erupting in unharnessed and explosive frustration (therefore leaving them vulnerable to logistical paradoxes, in which you can claim your opinions are facts, using their current outburst as "proof", and their new emotional state will prevent them from formulating a coherent reply).

Either that or they'll leave the room in fear of what their unbridled emotions may project.

In either situation, you may consider this a valiant win of prodigious proportions.

Follow these simples tips and you too can best those who wish to reason with you coherently!