The Trees of Eternity

Dagenham Girls/We Want Sex

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:13:17 GMT

Some snapshots from the filming in Wales.

Walking in Wales

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:59:12 GMT

I have the weekend off, but train fares plus Sunday's crappy train schedule means it's not worth my traveling back to London. So I decided that today I would go for a walk. I looked some walks up on the internet, but without a map I figured my chances of sticking to their routes was slim.

I found some signs that said Taff Trail so I decided to follow those, but the Taff Trail is very long and my blood pressure was playing up (I have very low blood pressure and half an hour in I started feeling quite dizzy, very annoying) so I figured I wouldn't go the whole way round. As it was I did pretty well I managed to find my way from part the way up the Taff Trail into a Nature Reserve and from there back down along a different river on the other end of the Taff Trail and into Cyfarthfa Castle. It's a fascinating area, 70-250 years ago it would have been a huge centre of industry with coal and iron coming down from the mountains and mills and other works all down the river valleys all powered by water and steam. There are old sections of these buildings all over the river area, over grown and fallen down since river's stopped fueling our industrial base and our coal industry collapsed. It also has many wild strawberry plants :)

The nature reserve area is really beautiful and I want to go back there and walk further up that river valley. There was a man made water channel that came off the river and then ran right along it, staying higher than the river, until it filled an artificial lake at the castle. Although the channel is so leaky these days I'm surprised any of the water makes it to the lake.

Just before I reached the castle I found a mole on the path that didn't seem to know well enough to leg it at any sign of humanity.

After the castle I walked down Merthyr Tydfil High Street. Although Merthyr is clearly a town that is short on money and jobs, it's not so bad as people make out. I kind of like it. It must have been so different though, before the 1950s. The original train station, now demolished, was built by Isembard Kingdom Brunel to replicate Paddington train station and had six lines running through it. Now only one line runs down towards Cardiff from a tiny brick hut. A giant Tesco's Extra stands on the site of the old station and I finished off my walk with an hour of exciting shopping. I bought an orchid for my room, a large number of 30B bras (who knew such things even existed? most places don't go below 32A), and some dinner.

Then I got back to the Travelodge and watched Dune on C5, good film. I think all in I probably made about 9 miles, I was walking for over four hours but I wasn't going very fast and I stopped for lunch.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:06:56 GMT

Well a train anyway, in about an hours time. I am off to darkest Wales until the 11th on an unexpected film role. My hotel's website claims it has WiFi so I may not be offline, but in case I am, fare thee well and I shall see you all when I get back. I don't know if I will be able to blog and twitter about the film while I am away, I will inquire of the production team when I get there as to what can and can't be talked about online.

New Photos

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:09:13 GMT

No more posting blogs from pingfire, I've just had to go back and fix all the photo posts it broke by changing the img url's to ping url's.

I saw this huge fantastic carving on a building on High Holborn!

Working the Equinox Festival at Conway Hall this weekend.

Saw Twilight of the Gods by Julian Doyle last night at The Courtyard Theatre. It's about Nietzsche and Wagner, if anyone fancies it it's running till the 5th of July.

"RICHARD WAGNER and FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE were good friends. But on the day of Wagner’s greatest triumph, the opening of his Opera House at Bayreuth, Nietzsche angrily walked away from the friendship and later threatened to kill Wagner! Soon after these events Wagner died and Nietzsche went mad spending the last ten years of his life in a permanent state of catatonia. ‘TWILIGHT OF THE GODS’ is set in the asylum where the raving Nietzsche is visited by the ghost of the dead Wagner and a manic conversation reveals the extraordinary details of the tormentous quarrel between these two giants of 19th Century culture."

I never blog anymore

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:03:54 GMT

I'm addicted to the mindlessness of only having to post one thought at a time rather than martial a whole paragraph worth of information. Status updates ate my brain.

So, what's going on? I am in an unreasonably good mood and have been for about the last two weeks. Long may it last. I theorise it is a convocation of spring/summer, the tyrosine I've been taking and reading Karen Armstrong's The Great Confusion.

I'm going to be working in Treadwells a lot more over the next while, at least one day a week, mostly Tuesdays. I'll also be running the Treadwells stall at the upcoming Pagan Federation's Gaia Sol convention on the 28th of June.

I bought herbs the other day and planted them up in a window box type planter this morning. I have lemon verbena, greek basil, oregano, marjoram and the interestingly scented southernwood. I also plan to try and grow a bonsai hawthorn tree and discovered (was told by Elise) that you can eat fuschia berries. I have drastically pruned my out of control fuschia plant and am going to try and coax some more berries out of it as the one I got was indeed edible and rather nice.

My new power supply went on the fritz so I'm using my old computer and need to send the supply back to get it replaced before I can use my new computer again.

Tonight I am going to see a short film and then a play called Twilight of the Gods about Nietzschie and Wagner by Julian Doyle who directed Chemical Wedding (the film about Aleister Crowley).

(I really hate the way pingfire turns all the urls into ping urls)

Hunt For Gollum Available Now

Fri, 22 May 2009 19:37:15 GMT

Or go to http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/ for the HD version.

Photos

Fri, 15 May 2009 20:10:24 GMT

Flower photos from near Loch Ard in Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, Scotland.

A 900 year old oak tree from our location in Newcastle shooting Zombie Women of Satan

Spent Tues-Thurs in Scotland visiting the family, had a lovely time. Went on an expedition into the wilderness with my brother on the Wednesday in glorious sunny weather. Although it being the west of Scotland it was still blowing a gale up in the hills. Back in Newcastle now till the 21st, but I have discovered my hostel has an open wireless network that I may or may not be supposed to access.

Now I need to try and watch Eurovision tomorrow. Who got voted out of American Idol this week?

Scar Crow Screenings

Fri, 08 May 2009 19:18:24 GMT

Scar Crow will screen at the Dances With Films Festival in West Hollywood on Wednesday 10th June at 9.30pm at the Laemmle Theater on Sunset Boulevard and twice at the National Media Museum in Bradford as part of their 8th Fantastic Films Weekend. Dates are Friday 12th and Sunday 14th June at 8.30pm in the Cubby Broccoli Cinema, Bradford.

http://www.marysia.com/zcard/scarcrow.html

Weekend of Stuff

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:00:33 GMT

The premier for The Scar Crow is tonight, eek. I've only seen a rough cut of it months ago so it'll be the first time I see the proper film. Plus it won best scifi/horror feature at the London Independent Film Festival and the film is also going to screen in LA on the 7th May as part of the British Film Festival.

I also hear Blood Roses may screen at The Bram Stoker Film Festival in Whitby this October. From the sounds of things the film may be complete in about a months time. The ADR yesterday went well.

In other people's news, the Rachel Stamp best of album comes out today, go to Amazon and buy it now cause Rachel Stamp rock - http://ping.fm/BHC7o

Then watch this entertaining Muppets Oceans 11 spoof - http://ping.fm/S80Zm

More Flowers

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:31:06 GMT

Think I've finally finished putting together my costume for Zombie Women of Satan. Awards Party for LIFF tonight, then winning screenplay reading tomorrow afternoon. http://ping.fm/RLkJi

Then straight off for a night away with friends, back to go straight to ADR recording for Blood Roses then the BASSC Social on Sunday evening. Busy, busy, busy.

Must go read scripts and contemplate acting choices.

The Rose Grows

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:03:44 GMT

Slightly biased review of Blood Roses:
"It's a dark, sexy exploration of betrayal and reinvention, fueled with an evil sense of humour and a vicious final scene that makes you twist uncomfortably in your chair at how much you're agreeing with the nastiness being meted out on screen. With stand-out performances from thinking girl's fancy Benjamin Green and Brit scream queen Marysia Kay, the best way I can describe it is Twilight for grown-ups. Seriously worth your time when it starts hitting the festivals this year." - http://excusesandhalftruths.com/2009/04/17/blatant-pluggage/

Doing a horror film reading on Saturday afternoon as part of the London Independent Film festival. The film is the winner of their script writing contest and the reading will be followed by a screenwriting panel discussion. The event is free, if you'd like to come along it's at 2pm at The Blue Posts, 81 Newman Street, Soho, W1T 3ET (near Totenham Court Road tube).

Burgess Park and Environs

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:30:01 GMT

And the current rose status

More Fauna than Flora

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 10:48:08 GMT

First the rose status update...

This photo is from up in Scotland the other week. We had to beat a strategic retreat shortly after taking it to avoid death by squirrel.

And these are from my walk in Peckham yesterday. The swan was on the warpath and about to wreak havok on a couple of geese. The butterflies are a Peacock and a Speckled Wood.

Out The Back

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:20:01 GMT

Status on the rose on my windowsill and some photos I took this afternoon right out the back of my house. I may not have a garden, but the bit of grass right behind our house can be quite pretty when it tries.

I went for a walk round Burgess Park this afternoon, more photos will follow in the next couple days, I don't like to put too many up at once.

I also made bread. There was some reduced flour and I took a notion. I just took it out the oven. I've never made bread before. So I have no idea how it's going to taste. My main problem was the fact that the dough seemed more interested in attaching itself to my fingers than being kneaded. I also need to buy a lemon meringue shaped tin so I can make the lemon meringue in a box I bought several months ago.

Yesterday I went to see the Oscar Shorts screening for the first day of the London Independent Film Festival. Very enjoyable. They're having a horror based night on Monday at The Roxy I'm probably going to go to some of the stuff on Monday but don't know what yet, unfortunately Credo sold out so I can't go see that. See http://studio63.org.uk/liff/schedule.htm

Tonight I am going out for a friend's birthday, must start getting my shit together.

Twitter v Livejournal

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:55:05 GMT

I've been using twitter a lot lately, I find the 140 character limit slightly too limiting, but often only have something short that needs saying. I've lately noticed a decline in overall lj posts, I don't have to work anywhere as hard to keep up with lj anymore now that everyone is on facebook and twitter instead. I crosspost most of my twitter stuff to various other status type sites but not to lj, cause lj is for blogs not status updates. The question is should I do a daily-ish lj post summarising twitter posts? I know a lot of you may be getting these through other means.

Here is an example of what such posts would look like, if you actively do or don't want me to do this let me know. If you don't care, feel free to not respond.

# Ben Goldacre on why newspapers are incapable of reporting science correctly. http://ping.fm/eI1cT
half a minute ago from Ping.fm

# Ken says following media reports there might be violence at the G20 protests, the police "responded with this ridiculous 'we're up for it'."
22 minutes ago from Ping.fm

# RT @neilhimself Met Police confuse War on Terrorism with War on Tourism. http://bit.ly/33Qqvu
about 13 hours ago from web

# @ManMadeMoon depends on whether I'm expected to kiss the person attached to the beard or not.
about 14 hours ago from web

# @serafinowicz ah, the old cock ring trip wire plot, based on one of the Greek comedies isn't it
about 14 hours ago from web

# @Glinner I shall never tire of knives, they are so shinyabout 14 hours ago from web

# RT @McKelvie Proof that Creme Eggs are smaller than they used to be? http://ping.fm/6RB50
about 14 hours ago from Ping.fm

# @taghioff http://tinyurl.com/dz8bde It's pretty bad, it was the first Things & Stuff I made. They get better, well a bit.
about 14 hours ago from web

# Tomlinson died of internal bleeding http://ping.fm/pyJdw #G20 #policebrutality
about 14 hours ago from Ping.fm

# enjoyed the Oscar nominated shorts at the LIFF, such big credit lists though, would be nice to see a small scale production meet the cut.
about 15 hours ago from Ping.fm

# @AdamRifkin thoroughly ridiculous, I bet if you'd sent a postcard of someone holding a gun to someone's head you'd have been fine
about 21 hours ago from web

# if I try really really hard I could be a genius in anything by 43, it just doesn't seem worth the effort. What if I get hit by a bus at 42?
about 21 hours ago from Ping.fm

# @taghioff I did a youtube video about a New Scientist article on the same topic about 2 years ago, shame hard work is just so damn... hard
about 21 hours ago from web

# London Independent Film Festival starts tonight http://ping.fm/2XAUb
about 21 hours ago from Ping.fm

# @stephenfry How do you say no further comment in Finnish?
about 21 hours ago from web

# @alasdair London Independent Film Festival? http://studio63.org.uk/liff...
about 21 hours ago from web

# Dollhouse officially awesome. The universe is functioning correctly.
about 21 hours ago from Ping.fm

# @anatsuno Russell Crowe!!! Cate Blanchett!!! Argh!!!!!!!!
about 23 hours ago from web

# just turned down potential 5 days filming on Ridley Scott film cause of Zombie Women of Satan. I'll be over here crying into my tea.
about 23 hours ago from Ping.fm

# is listening to the Incredible String Band for ritual inspiration
11:20 AM Apr 17th from Ping.fm

Flowers

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:07:16 GMT

New Trailer for Blood + Roses

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:26:05 GMT

More info at http://www.marysia.com/zcard/bloodroses.html

Also The Scar Crow will be premiering at the London Independent Film Festival at 7pm on Monday the 27th of April. More info at http://ping.fm/HZdtb

You can try and get a seat for free by just showing up, but to be sure of getting in you need to pre-book a ticket for 4 quid at http://ping.fm/mIUyx

http://www.marysia.com/zcard/scarcrow.html

More Born of Hope Photos

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:09:40 GMT

http://www.bornofhope.com/

Photos by Richard Unger, James Page and Nick Dunning.

News and Photos

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:27:16 GMT

News: I will be working on feature films Zombie Women of Satan over May (http://ping.fm/Vt5SU) and Cult of the Moon in July (http://ping.fm/Jevyv).

And now here are some photos from Scotland. I managed to get some not bad weather for once. Most of these are from my trip to Largs on Thursday to see Merry Widow.

Born of Hope

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:00:02 GMT

I spent this weekend camping in a field in Sussex. Let me be clear about this, camping sucks. I have never camped before and now I know why. It's freezing and there's nowhere to put your stuff and the bathroom is way too far away.

But I had a reason for camping in a field, I was on location with Born of Hope (http://www.bornofhope.com/), a 60 minute Lord of the Rings fan film that tells the story of Aragorn's parents, Arathorn and Gilraen. I was there with several other BASSC members (http://www.bassc.org/) and my trusty broadsword to participate in the climactic battle sequence as Orcs invade the Rangers village.

Photos

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:06:26 GMT

The violets are from today in Leyton, the daffodil is from earlier this month in Nunhead Cemetery, the other pic is from when anw and I went to Kew Gardens last year.

Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:49:40 GMT

I lived in utter terror that this wouldn't be as awesome as I wanted it to be, because I am paranoid that way. But it is awesome and it's deep and it's dark and it's moving and it's funny (though not quite as funny as I expected, but it makes up for that by being way more intriguing than the first few chapters might imply).

So, what's it about? I can't tell you, I am sworn to secrecy. Well not really, only about info that hasn't been released yet. Cause the book doesn't come out till the 1st of June (oh my God that is forever away, why are they sending out advanced copies now? You will all have forgotten I told you to buy it by then, so you better pre-order it from Amazon now so you don't forget).

It's about a 16 year old boy called Nick, who has a big shiny sword and an older brother called Alan. Alan and Nick and their mother are being hunted by his mother's ex and his circle of magicians, cause when she left him she stole something and he really, really wants it back. As if that's not bad enough, Alan keeps trying to help people and manages to get himself marked by a Demon in the process.

The story is about family and about needing to connect with people. It's a chase and a mystery and a fantasy world within our world. And it's dark and sexy and unexpected. It creeps up on you, by the end of Chapter 5 you know you're well and truly hooked.

You will like this book if you like dark fantasy and occult literature. It's sold as young adult, but just cause the lead character is 16 doesn't mean adults won't enjoy it too. I already pre-ordered 5 copies to give to people I know, so I'm not just saying it's good cause I got a free advance copy, I'm putting my money where my mouth is too.

Pre-order it now at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Demons-Lexicon-Sarah-Rees-Brennan/dp/1847382894

Read the authors lj at sarahtales

Photos

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:44:57 GMT

Photos

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:33:19 GMT

Photos

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:07:55 GMT