T -17 Days and Counting

With just a few weeks left of lovely Lutterworth College, let's reflect on the past two years.

What a load of bollocks.

Okay, now that's over, here's a bit of wisdom I spouted this week:

Why spend every day playing the dress rehearsal of a show that'll never take to the boards? Wipe the makeup from your face, open the curtains and step forward into the lights of real life. Break free of the chains of some other director. Let morals be your script, and chance be your choreographer...

Who doesn't love theatre saying? Non-theatre types, I suppose. Rupert, for example. It was written for someone in particular, but it has a wider meaning than shaking free of the shackles of directed performing arts.

Life is like that. Look at all the abuse I get on Formspring - people trying to direct me to how they want me to be, and causing trouble when I refuse. Why bend and break to what other people expect?

And why expect people to bend and break for you? I'm proud to say that I'm very much for Vertical Tutoring. But people who haven't seen it work on this level don't - won't - understand it, and kick up a fuss. I don't suppose any of you will know how hard it was to stand in front of Yr11 and do that assembly. Yr10 was easy they don't know a thing about me. But to stand in front of close peers, and even friends who value my opinion, and say something that was very much against the stroke was a difficult thing to do.

And the clever people pulled the "You're not going to be here" card. So? So bleedin' what?

VT is something that you have to see working to understand it. Until you do, how on Earth can you not be open minded?

Rant over. I had a very cold day at Mallory Park yesterday, attempting to improve - or rather, gain - some motorsport photography skills with Kenneth. The Kingsmill team were lovely and didn't mind having me pottering about for a little while taking photographs of their sidecar and eating their rolls. Which were blatantly cobs, this is Lestah. Tchh.

(Photographs to follow - I took over 800)

You could see the smoke from the Enderby fire from the circuit. I was listening to the Leicester City match on my iPod inbetween races, they mentioned it a couple of times. So much smoke, poor ozone layer. Poor polar bears...

Busy week ahead. Bank Holiday Monday. Off Wednesday as I'm having teeth removed. Not overly sure if there's much point going in for the rest of the week....

Gone revisin' xx

Decisions, Decisions...

The title for this blog is quite possible the most popular ever, especially if you read some of the word vomit that I do. Some people seem to think that their life should be posted upon the Internet every single day, and whilst this gives them some odd sense of self satisfaction, to be honest, nobody's reading. Or watching, if you're completely mentally deficient and record video blogs.

Today has been a long, bust theatrical day. 1:15pm, I hosted the Jaffa Cake eating competition which would have been fine if I'd remembered where I put the Jaffa Cakes. Meera, who was running the event, got a bit miffed at me, and gave me evils as I cheered on some chav to scaff a pack of Jaffas in 2minutes eighteen seconds. This was followed by a quick jaunt to the Library to print of some floorplans for the Croft Show.

Then maybe a lesson? Fourty minutes which the Neeson film Taken in RE, then to the auditorium to help last-minute rigging for the Talent Contest.

Now, school Talent shows often get a lot of stick for, simply, being shite. But you never get that at Lutterworth - because we do actually have talent. And this show ran a lot better than last year, we all enjoyed it more. However it was backbreaking with just Taran and I backstage, and I was hosting it as well. We remembered the old theatre adage that we'd certainly spouted last year...

Never Again.

But all in all, it was a fantastic show. I kept switching ties throughout the show through three colours to see how many people noticed. Not everyone. And my procrastinating skills are ever increasing, after looking at my watch with thirty minutes to go and no acts left to perform. A hasty and hushed conversation between Taz and I backstage was seamlessly interrupted by a by standing guitarist - "Mate, have you got a wireless pickup?" What stood here in a suit and tie? Feck off.

The beautifully talented Becky Orton won, and if you've never heard her music get your ass on YouTube now. The rest of this post - in fact the entire blog - is garbage compared to her.

It comes back to decisions. Those artists made a big decision to get on stage in front of 230+ people. Tomorrow, I have to tell a girl that she bluntly isn't wanted at a party we're throiwng this weekend. Sunday, I have to decide a safe way to rig the auditorium for the Croft Players show.

Every single action we take is a consequence of a decision - and nobody has time to waste in making them. Anybody who watched Married Single Other this week and last will know what I mean. Life is simply too short. Ask anybody who's lost a brother, a sister, a best friend. They'll tell you exactly how short life is. Some people never get the chance to make the decisions you don't even bother worrying about. Some people are taken from us too soon, and it is impossible to predict who is next.

We can't make the right decisions all the time, and in theatre and photography you can learn the most by making the wrong ones. But some are simple. Some are so dead straight and obvious that making the wrong one shout raise huge mental flags. Some wrong decisions could cost lives.

And nobody can play Monopoly with that sort of currency.

Peace.