Some pictures from my UK trip

Blue Hole

Here are a couple more pictures from our drysuit course... Andy made this rather lovely panorama. Tiny isn't it? Like a little blue puddle crammed with divers.


This is what happens when your sinuses are out to get you. I think Andy's face exploded 3 times in the end. I would be sympathetic, but it didn't hurt him and it was a bit traumatic for me to have my hubby-let swimming towards me with a mask full of gore. Apparently it made everything look green..

More Museum News... and a flat horse?

Here is an email exchange I had with someone from Radio 4's light entertainment commisioning:

Quoting xxx - Private :

Hi,

I have to be honest and say that not only was there the Museum of
everything but we are also doing a 6 parter from David Nobbs based in a
museum called the Maltby Collection. Having looked at your script it
really doesn't offer enough that's different.
Sorry not to be more encouraging
Best
xxx


and my reply:

Hi Paul,
Thanks for taking the time to read it. I am going to finish my series anyway because I think I have some good ideas, and if nothing else it will be a positive learning experience. I will probably attempt to get it into production in some form elsewhere; I think going through the process is important because I don't imagine many writers who give up at the first setback end up having their work produced. Having said that, I realise there will come a point where I need to move on to other projects if I am not getting anywhere.

Cheers,
Chris

So while this obviously isn't the most positive outcome, I am no where near giving up on this project. I will write what I feel I need to write and finish The Museum. Then the plan is this:

1) Hopefully there will be some kind of reading of my work at the Edinburgh Fringe (more on this later). This will make a few people aware of The Museum, and give me some useful feedback on what works.

2) The BBC might send me some proper feedback some time late spring/ early summer. I'll use this to improve the script and concept.

3) I'll try and get the improved series in production via one of the many indie production agencies. This probably won't go anywhere because most of them pitch to the BBC I think, and the BBC aren't interested, but it is worth trying.

4) If I can't get The Museum professionally produced, I'll do it myself. Probably as a radio series, but there is the possibility of developing it as a stage show also. With a new mac, an audio interface, a lot of patience and some willing bodies I can make a professional sounding job of the recording.

5) If I record it myself, I'll get it 'out there' via my blog, BBC Comedysoup (ironically) and approach local/ indipendant radio stations. They can have it for free if that's what it takes!!

6) After that comes the time to stop hammering the dead horse flat and move on with some dignity... but I will have given it my best shot and we don't really have any right to complain about our dreams not coming true until we get to this stage.

7) Have a new brilliant idea and start again.


I don't know why, but after years of being pretty pessemistic I am finding new ways to be optimistic about this. I just have a good feeling about it and think it is worth the effort. I still have my fingers crossed for a callback for the channel 4 radio competition in a few weeks. The odds are probably almost as low as getting a bbc commission, but I have to believe it can happen. If it does, I will have a contact there. I know no one listens to channel 4 radio, but they will in the future. Maybe.

godammit!

First hurdle to overcome getting The Museum into production: apparently the biggest radio 4 comedy in years is called The Museum of Everything. Apparently it is nothing like The Museum, but still, the setting might be enough to fire a big smoking hole through my attempts to get produced. I am going to go ahead and write the rest of the series because I have some good ideas and this would be a really stupid reason not to get them down. I'm not giving up...

The same thing happened to me when I was 10 and I wrote a story about a dog that saves a family from being burgled then Nan Lane gave me a comic book with a storyline involving a dog saving a family from a fire and NO ONE believed I hadn't ripped the story off. :'-(

If only there were less people in the world things like this wouldn't happen. I'm proposing a new law were babies get their hands bound tightly at birth so they are unable to operate keyboards and therefor can't type up scripts. And their noses filed down flat so they can't use them either. And maybe they get injected with some sort of laryngococcyl bug to make them really bad at dictation. Things will be so, so different when I am in charge :-D

later.....

I've calmed down now anyway, better go and apologise to all the people I ranted at :)

On a more positive note, one of the baby fish survived. She has entered the difficult teen period now and is tearing around the tank, pulling splinters out of the log and hanging out with unsuitable tetras. One of the snails is achingly cool: I swear on my life, it was surfing around the tank on a piece of elodia leaf. It caught the current from the air filter, did a few loops and then gracefully sank to the bottom. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen in my sad, geeky life.

Today..

Darren was buried today. Part of me wishes I was there because it might have forced me to accept his death. I'm not going to say a lot, especially since grief is a private matter... except that I miss him. Since I gave up the comfort blanket of faith I've had to face some harsh realities, and some beautiful truths.. but one of the harsh realities for me is that I won't see someone I cared deeply about ever again. I'll cherish my memories.

Goodbye Uncle Buck :-(



ps... unimportant website news in small font: the contact form is now working properly.

Website news

Thanks to all the people who gave feedback on chrissieB.net.

Some new features: The complete script of episode 1 of The Museum and synopses of the rest of the series are now available through The Museum homepage.

Some of your nice and not so nice messages have been uploaded on the messages page.

And thanks to Alex and Calum for the drunken bug report... I'll get my crack webmastery team on the case right away..


xxC

Being shrink wrapped

This is me totally wrapped in rubber. I wasn't diving; I just like how it feels against my skin. Mmmm, sticky.

We had fun at Blue Hole, NM, learning how to dive in our new drysuits. It is pretty tough, I spent most of the first dive lying on the bottom pathetically kicking up silt, but by the third dive we were starting to get the hang of it. There isn't much to see there, but there are some goldfish and a kind of grotto effect were previous divers have placed little religious icons and toys on the rocky shelves. I failed to find the legendary spongebob squarepants though, that has to be worth another 1200 mile round trip. My left knee is suffering- I don't recommed taking an old injury, wrapping it in sealed rubber and gradually increasing the pressure until fluid is sucked out of the injury and into the overlying skin. It's all creaky now :(. There was a potentially serious incident while we were there- a diver was at 60 feet, got low on air and instead of staying with his group and dealing with it he shot to the surface and popped out like a cork. Scary stuff, I hope he was ok.


This is Andy at Boca Negra canyon, NM, where native Americans carved petroglyphs into the hard black basalt to honour the sacred mountain. In the 1600, Catholic shepards added their own religious symbols, and today a few people have scratched their names into the rock. It throws up an interesting issue- how old does graffiti have to be before it stops being defacing vandalism and starts being sacred art? What if a native american artist just wasn't very good and did a bird that had a wonky beak? Would that still be art or would it be relegated to vandalism? Or doesn't it matter if it is bad or good as long as it is more than 700 years old or so?