Galactica.

Galactica.

So, it’s over. The greatest TV experience of science fiction in history. Finished. Story told. ..What do we do with Tuesday nights now?

I saw a friend’s status update the morning after the final episode of Battlestar Galactica had aired in the US, at the weekend, and it said he thought it was ”all a bit… meh.”

Oh dear.

This meant I was secretly set for a bit of a disappointment lastnight, as Laura and Chris joined us for the ceremonially last getting together for our favourite show. But this can, I find, sometimes enhance your discovery of a film or program. Low expectations – good life lesson, kids.

For, in the end, lastnight’s episode essentially rocked. But gently.

They did all the right things, really. Well, almost. Two things that disappointed for me were the limp disappearance of one of the most dynamic characters in the dynamic ensemble, Starbuck – “Right, so bye then.” >pop!< – and the end of the eponymous heroine, Galactica herself.

I reeeally wanted dramatic closure. I wanted to choke up manfully as we watched an unwarranted amount of CG man hours pull apart the old girl’s every nut and rivet – because to me it would have been warranted. Symbol of hope and safety and fighting chance, Galactica was ending her life and service. Off into the sunset wasn’t good enough – I wanted a phoenix end with surging score and way too much screen time.

..Although, on that score (as it were) they did deliver. I’d always hoped, since pretty much the beginning, that in the last ever episode someone would have the courage to deliver the original colonial theme. It’s just a great theme. And thankfully, after what amounts to probably the greatest musical build up in screen story-telling history, Bear McCreary finally got permission to surge in with Stu Phillips’ stirring motif. As the fleet broke orbit around Earth for the last time and in came the tune, I cheered. Annoyingly.

Hooray for great tunes. Well done, Bear – you did the right thing. Though you have a silly name.

Interestingly though, the young composer has said that LA is a great place to find musicians who play odd things. By which I assume he means unusual instruments, rather than Daft Punk on the tuba, or something. Though I’m sure you could get that too.

My point is that Bournemouth is not a great place to find musicians who play odd things. I could really have done with finding an oud player for Sophie at least. Or even better, a vocalist. But, as much as I’m having to fake it, I should say that the pieces coming together for Ben’s little show are cute and groovy. But still more to write and arrange before next week when he delivers the first of it.

Short weeks like this often seem to attract more deadlines than normal weeks, I’ve noticed. Pulling my hair a little leading up to time away on the boat – during which I’ll probably be thinking about all the music I’m not doing leaning over in the middle of the Solent.
Still, I had to pay homage to the most impressive thing on TV. Ron Moore did the right thing with Galactica’s last episode, apparently writing on a white board in a production meeting: ‘it’s the characters, stupid’. It was the right thing to do to amble around and say goodbye and tie up loose ends for these people – they deserved it.
I would say, however, that there was so much to practically get through, it was hard to pack a real wallop of an emotional punch. Too many places to apportion your emotion, really. So there were no tears as we said goodbye, though a good number of emotive moments – especially President Roswell’s thankyou to the doctor – just a feeling of satisfaction.
Well rounded, damned interesting story. Seemless cast of powerful performances. Writing that pushed TV drama hard, but with compelling integrity. And production values that were frequently bloody amazing.
How do such things come into existence? How can TV get things so right occasionally? It’s a little miracle of creativity.
But that is the key – commitment to creative integrity. When suits trust the creatives and creatives trust their instincts, you get a smash hit.
So say we all.

(..Unless the creatives turn out to be crap. But don’t spoil the noble mood. Shh.)

Equinox(e).

Equinox(e).

It’s still my favourite Jean Michel Jarre album, I feel.

Zoolook – that’s the one, obviously. The creative one. The one I’ll say I’m taking with me on Desert Island Disks, largely because of Ethnicolor. And because it’s sort of the original inspiration behind me making music at all.

But I slipped on the ol’ iPod headphones the other night, alone on the sofa, and found myself dialling up this old 1978 electronic record, Equinoxe, and just enjoyed it as an old, old friend. Beyond critical faculties.

I mention it only because today is the spring equinox. Day as long as night. A tipping point into summer, perhaps.

We’ve had a joyous week of consistent, high, sunny skies and still the houses beyond the studio window are bathed in warm evening glow at nearly half five on this Friday evening. Felt the sunshine for much of it too, though not all. But, y’know, some things are done as the week ends, other things are at least progressed, and a mezze platter with friends is waiting for me in town right now. So life is sunny overall, I know.

Plus, more importantly, I’m falling in love with a new tune I’ve produced for Sophie. Over twenty years, there’s been more than just French space music or Kraut techno pop influencing my writing, but I still feel as energised by finishing a new tune as ever I did back in the days I was recording in a shed on a four track.

Expect to hear a giant mix of Trailblender online sometime soon.

I am a tart. But it’s spring, so it’s good to get frisky in some way.

Saturday night, Sunday morning.

Saturday night, Sunday morning.

They’re not meant to go together. Not when Sunday morning becomes the time to do exercise.

I’m a fan of the Littledown Centre. As much as people defect over the road to The Village for its Starbucks coffee and its swimming pool you can actually swim in, I think the Littledown flies the flag for municipal sports facilities pretty well.

You’re already thinking I’m taking the pee, right? The same pee it takes five hundred gallons of chlorine to sterilise the idea of in the minds of swimmers in the main pool, right?

Well, no. I speak as someone evidently unschooled, skilled or motivated in matters sporting, of course; Laurent Garnier’s The man with the red face is not my favourite workout track for nothing. But this council-run sports centre has created a nice enough vibe to keep me coming back. If only because they need my money a little too much to throw me out of the classes as a hazard.

Sunday was its 20th anniversary. To celebrate, they’d apparently decided to have a day of ‘1989’-style activities and prices and Adrian announced at the end of Thursday’s circuits class that he was holding a special version of one on Sunday morning.

For some freakish reason, I decided to go.

To the sports centre.

On a Sunday morning.

Me.

The guy so not cut-out for sporting prowess that his only emergency asset in the gymn – his personality – is emergency over-ridden by blood flow and some autonomic safety reaction when engaging in exercise. All I have in there is Funny. Only it stops working after five minutes of running, leaving me floundering like a flipped turtle in my panting exchanges with Actually Fit people as they spring past. Cheeky smiles become villainous leers, amusing quips become spittle-repeated weirdo remarks to strangers, and boyish confidence becomes stooping, sweating, staggering, purple-faced vulnerability.

Me.

It was a gorgeous morning as I pulled on my shorts and irreconcilably-deformed sports shirt. And it felt odd as hell doing so.

Pulling up to the swooping shape of the Littledown, I felt a hint of the same kind of trepidation I felt going to a pre-term summer sports week, before I started big school. Everyone laughed at my Super Saints sports bag, I recall. Thankfully, I knew so little about football even then, it didn’t scar me.

Who else would turn up to this? And why couldn’t I think of a place to get a sweat band?

But, as I approached the windows overlooking the main hall, I found myself grinning. Adventure play today, kids.

The middle station included some spongy stairs and crash mats, a spongy hole-in-the-wall and some crash mats, some more crash mats to run along and some beams to leap under and over, without crash mats. Fun, in other words. And a legitimate reason to waste time experimenting with amusing comments in the heat of exercise. Like comedy boot camp.

Adrian was, as I’d have place money on him being, wearing sweatbands. I ruminated as we started the warm-up run that this was the one occasion when I could have legitimately held my stupid floppy hair out of my face without unspoken pity – in fact, with the jump-started pride of a man Evidently Amusing – but I’d missed it.

The thing was. Yeah. That thing.

Working out to eighties music is weird. I couldn’t work out whether we were all secretly energised by Eye of the tiger or whether, by the time Living in America was bouncing off the high walls, we were all feeling very uncomfortably like we were doing Robert Webb’s now infamous Flashdance routine.

In my head, I could feel the cling of lycra and the inexplicable ankle heat of leg warmers. I could feel myself starting to mince-skip, between stations. By the time There’s no stopping us (no stopping) from the original soundtrack to Breakdance II: the electric boogaloo had me side-tapping my head and singing along, its 808 beat marking my jogging steps, I was beginning to just feel dirty.

It was a feeling subsumed, I should continue, by fatigue. That adventure playground was no playground. Those spongy stairs weren’t for softies. Crash mats? Crash and burn mats, baby.

Obviously all the fittists took it seriously. I however, after one lap of running through what felt like treacle, found myself draped over the high bar like, in my wife’s worryingly-immediate words afterwards, “one of the 118 blokes”.

I know at one point I opted for the positive alternative of shouting instructions and encouragement to the people still actually using the equipment for exercise. “Come on. Yep – nice one, keep going. Now over the mat. Good – knees up…” You get it.

I think I ended the session on my back, spilling out of either end of the spongy hole-in-the-wall. Cheering in a very can-do fashion, so quietly that no-one could hear.

To be fair, some of the Genuinely Fit People almost made to invite me to come to the normal Sunday morning class, sans spongy toys. But I think it will be a while before I do anything reckless with my Sunday mornings again.

I really should have put this to good use and at least been sponsored for Comic Relief.

Short.

Short.

I promised myself I’d be wedded to the timecode today. Ben’s now sent me three little edits of the show and I’d hoped to be well into the fun bit by the time I was sitting here in a fresh shirt, about to go and watch a bunch of films that actually got finished.

Somehow, unsurprisingly, didn’t get that far. I’ve, like, watched all the clips though.

It is the fun bit, reacting to the pictures and the edit. But I won’t be able to get back to it until Sunday now; Mark and I are taking a road trip to Bedford tomorrow.

Tonight, however, we’re going as far as Bournemouth pier. After a flurry of emails, the chaps now hosting Future Shorts are showcasing their organisational skills tonight. Mark and I had chatted seriously about taking over the franchise down here, it’s so cool. He’d naturally gotten as far as basically convincing the lady from FS in London to give it to us too. But realistically? How would either of us have found the time to organise a miniature film festival?

White Lantern, the prod co who’ve taken it over are good chums of Mark’s however, and however much they’ve turned in a good deal of enthusiasm for tonight’s lavish gala of short films and minor movie production celebs, I can’t help suspecting something of this will still end up on his desk in the, well, future.

Wednesday I did something I’ve not made the time to do before. Take a morning off and just go for a walk.

I shouldn’t be blogging this, of course. I’m up to my eyes etc. But the point is, I usually am. And when do I go take in the seaside charm I’m always telling my clients it’s great to work near?

Near? What difference is near? Unless you’re completely at, you’re not there at all.

So I slung a little bag over my shoulder and walked. With a decent pile of things to do that were all largely pending someone getting back to me with something crucial to make them finished things, I paused the Skype pipe and pottered off into the crispy sunshine.

I took myself into Tuckton and along the river and up to the Head, naturally. Found a weird and perfect sweet spot on Warren Hill and watched the waves breaking against the beach in the mouth of the solent. Wandered back eventually past Ma’s place to find her ‘wagging six tails’ at the new carpet that had been finally put down that morning. Dad’s old room looks stunning. Largely thanks to the efforts of my wife.

Efforts are something she doesn’t have right now, though. Still run down enough to be sleeping rather than working today, poor thing.

So, I’m leaving her to Brideshead Revisited – a very long thing she’s almost entirely through – while I go out with our bright young things to watch a series of short things.

Sometimes you just need to get a way for a short time on your own. Off to a beach head, or into another world. Helps you get back to all the workish, creative, real world a little more equipped.

One thing I did manage to do by the end of the week was revisit something I thought I’d finished but hadn’t – Disfunkshun. So much fun, but… what was the piece missing still?

Mucking about with the beats still further, like something I should leave well alone, I hit upon a little detail by accident that suddenly made it fall into place. Just… there it was. Grinning like a loon, I suddenly knew what we were supposed to be doing with the video.

The Hospital mix is now up on the website and the MySpace. Not much different but different.

Short can be sweet. Especially when it’s the short little something that finally connects up the very long something that still didn’t quite reach.

Bankst.

Bankst.

Can you believe it’s snowing again? As wet as it is out there, snow is back – and settling. Which is unsettling.

Chillier is the news that the Bank of England is about to announce another interest rate cut, apparently – to 0.5%. It’s another attempt to unfreeze the economy, while Gordy tries to warm the UK/US entente cordiale. Or at least get Obama’s autograph.

As everyone over-analysed the two leaders’ body language this week, I couldn’t help thinking that Prime Minister Brown must represent an odd partner in the economic fight – wasn’t he at the helm of the UK’s influential economy for the precise ten year period that we built the success time bomb? Wasn’t he at the head of the drooling mob, stuffing fifties into the M&S; y-fronts of various vulgarly gyrating bank bosses, burring: “Devilishly imprudent, you naughty boys”?

To say nothing of his public backing of Blair in the war on Iraq.

A nice ironic daydream I’ve had is Blair still being PM alongside the Obama administration; though they represent fairly fundamentally different micro-eras in world politics, I can picture them dragging out every press con with charming jokes and little witty winks to one another. Possibly with stiff little declarations of love creeping into the routine…

Tony:
“I meeen, y’know, c’mon, Mr President knows, ah, y’know,” >LOOKS UP, DEAD-PAN< "that I love him. >PAUSES< "Asyouknow," >SMIRKS BASHFULLYTO ONE SIDE< "it's always beeen a vury... speshul relationship... and..." >LOOKS UP AGAIN, PRESIDENTIALLY< "I'd like him to take me in his arms and tell me the warrineerack was just a bad dream."

Barry:
>MOUTHS THE WORDS< I Love You Tony.

Well, it’s Gordy and Barry doing the stand up. And I think they should let Baz do the jokes.

..Maybe that’s the ticket, yknow. While Mr Brown returns home and discusses quantitative easing with the bankers, fretting over where to get more cash from, I think the US should send Obama on a world comedy tour. Really. Can’t you see him, perched louchely on a cocktail lounge stool? Knocking them out to rapturous guffaws?

Wouldn’t just ease everyone’s tensions. I think it would be a licence to print money.