Looking out of the window, the rain is lashing down and it feels like Britain again! Lets hope that this is just a temporary thing as I was quite enjoying the hot summer weather, made a nice change!
The events are still thick and fast - I even went to a christmas event - a preview at Denbies Vineyard - at one point we had santa jumping up and down between the vines in sunglasses - quite surreal! The Swing and Pop events at painshill were fun and the weather did them proud. The highlights were of course the fireworks at the end of the evening and spectacular they were - pics available to see on my home page!
The Duck race too was a huge success with over £2000 raised and a riverside full of kids and families brandishing duck whistles - a great family atmosphere. For me that preceeded a superb night in Hyde Park with my old pal half pint (aka Andrew Gordon), as we watched the Boss in all his glory on stage at Hyde Park Calling. I have always been a Springsteen fan and this is the fourth time I have seen him perform. For a sixty year old bloke to keep going like that for two and a half hours is pretty amazing - I would be knackered after ten minutes! My reccommendation music wise is his latest album - 'Working on a Dream', and look out for the first track - 'Outlaw Pete' - awesome!
Last week I was in London a lot, for various commercial projects and sweltered on the tubes which I really don't enjoy. I did drive one day and seriously regretted it after getting stuck on the Kings Road for I don't know how long!
Last Thursday I was working for The Children's Trust again covering the Guy Portelli Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Guy won investment from Dragons Den to put on the exhibition which was very good and made even better with support images of Iconic rock and pop stars by famous photographers. I met photographer, Nobby Clark there too whose work is well known and who informed me he had photographed Springsteen (pah!) - For me it was quite an honour to meet one of my contemporaries and to actually have approval of my techniques by him (ie. no flash and prime lens). Amongst the guests was Prince Harry's friend Astrid who was really pleasant too.
Somewhere between all this I managed to go fishing with my girlfriend but it was too hot to catch anything, although it was a beautiful location and it was great to relax in the sun!
After such a hard week sunday was truly a day of rest and it was spent walking with the dog on Leith Hill and watching films, just the ticket.
It would not be right to let the week pass without mentioning Michael Jackson. What a shame and such a musical genius. Once again the press had a field day with an average of six to eight pages per paper dedicated to him for the most part of the week. This I disagree with as he is just one person in a world of billions and whilst he was a superb performer and unique in many ways he did have his dark side and it was obviously his dark side not his music that gave him so much coverage - what a sad world we live in. Nevertheless he was one of those artists who left his mark in some way on most people. I myself won a Michael jackson dancing competition when I was nineteen and recently at a party I relived the experience (after a few jars of the brown stuff of course!) I hope that there is not one almighty battle now for his kids, for their sake . ...and boy, how quick did the jokes start! I bet the phone companies made a fortune on text messages.
Happy birthday to my Nan who was 86 on the 4th July, bless her and my brother Christopher who died when I was younger would have been 37 yesterday, I cannot even imagine what he would have been like but I still miss him so much.
and finally, as Trevor would say, hello to Kristin who is in Namibia at the moment eating crocodile kebabs and doing canyon treks, - it sounds like 'I'm a celebrity....' hope you are looking after my camera, I dont want it coming back covered in elephant dung.
...till next time, I will try not to leave it so long!