Jonathan Sanderson’s weblog, since 2001.
“If you are an alien, how come you sound like you’re from the North?”
“Lots of planets have a North.”
Ah, the new Doctor Who, in officially unofficial but unofficially most likely official bootleg internet-o-vision. I’m halfway in, and thoroughly enjoying it. Those who know me, and can’t find it via BitTorrent, might just possibly expect a link soon. [cough]
Most of the time, Movable Type is rather wonderful. Then there are times like this. No, I”m not sure what happened, but somehow I’ve managed to delete all the site templates when updating to the most recent version.
[sigh]
I’m bound to have backups. Somewhere.
[sigh]
A month. A whole month? Crivens. That’s my posting rate average right down the swannee. But then, February did appear to be ‘no blogging month’ for most of my deletetheweb.com hostees, too. Odd.
But yes, I’m still here. Very busy at work, which come to think of it might just have had some minor impact on my posting frequency. It’s possible. And note, incidentally, that ‘busy’ really means ‘having a bit of a git of a time, on and off’; it’s not been an entirely fun month, to be honest. However, I think we’ve solved most of the truly major problems, leaving just ‘making the series’ to get our heads around. It’s mostly back to being fun again, anyway, which can only be a good thing.
As for the blog: well, now – my notebook appears to have nascent posts on… hmm… let me see… rainbows as seen from aeroplanes; bicycle courier fashions; ‘I believe in Moleskine noteboooks’; muses on being in karmic debt with old friends; textual decoration in coffee shops; drawing stuff in OmniGraffle; and probably something about mustard again. And that’s all just for starters.
So much to write, so little inclination to spend more hours thinking at a keyboard outwith work. Heigh-ho.
February, Glasgow: Cold, wet. So what the heck is a gigantic wasp doing droning around my lounge? Hnngh?! I tried asking it, but it chose to dive into the vacuum cleaner instead, so my interrogation was fruitless.
In an almost certainly vain attempt to prove to Daniel that I’m not an irredeemable left-winger: How to draw the Union Jack. And, yes, it can be called the ‘Union Jack,’ even though a jack is traditionally a slightly different size of flag flown from the prow of a ship. It turns out that’s not a very old tradition, the use of the term has been sanctioned by both the Royal Navy and parliament anyway, and… read the site. It’s quite interesting.
Ever wondered what might have happened in your life if you’d gone the other way at some critical juncture? Craig Robinson has, and he’s illustrated it. Lovely.
Now, for what else did I use ‘Candude’ as the title? I could have sworn it was a blog entry, but there are no results from a search. Curious…
The dynamics of falling toast. I love this kind of stuff.
Pay attention at the back! My colleague Simon worked on Driven with Debs, who used to work on How2 in the first couple of years I did it. Debs, as it happens, is also working at IWC in Glasgow; a year ago, however, she was in Morocco filming a series with Sim, who made the second series of Science Shack with Jem, who I know through the first series of that show. Jem, of course, knows James, one of the prospective on/off-screen engineering consultants for Mechannibals. Simon’s girlfriend, meanwhile, is Melissa, coincidentally the solicitor who acted for me on my flat purchase; another of Melissa’s clients is Adrian, my boss on How2, through whom Simon ended up working at SMG roughly the week after I left, a year ago. Debs, Simon, and my current boss, Hamish, incidentally, once directed Gavin (then wearing his ‘actor’ hat) in an ident; Gavin and I are, by-the-by and through his current employers, trying to sell a series featuring Jack as presenter. Now, before Jack worked for me on The Big Bang, he made a Tomorrow’s World spin-off that used Kursty as a presenter; Kursty may be our presenter on Mechannibals.
I hope that’s perfectly clear. Oh no, hang on, I missed somebody…
Uh… yeah. Looks like I forgot to mention that here. Must have slipped my mind, or something.
On Monday, I started work at IWC Media, up here in snowy Glasgow, on a new series for BBC2. Titled ‘Mechannibals,’ it’s to consist of family teams competing to make the most ridiculous successful machines… by tearing apart their own houses. Yes, it’s evil. Yes, you should look away if you don’t wish to see unpleasant surgery on bread makers. Yes, it’s going to be a hoot. And yes, it’s a proper grown-up family programme, not a teatime children’s show. So yes, it’ll be harder for you lot to explain away why you missed it.
It’s all a bit of a shock to be honest; the job advert was posted a couple of weeks ago, I toddled in for interview last week, and yesterday I was chuckling at the pilot tape, wading through seemingly three years-worth of development notes, and lobbing ideas around with the engineering consultants. Today one of the APs flew in from north Africa (he’s just driven from Plymouth to Dakar in a knackered old Porsche, which is even more barking than it sounds); fairly soon we were mis-quoting Sun Tzu to each other. I think we’ll get along fine.
It is, however, going to be quite a ride. We start filming in around seven weeks, then it’s… moderately mad. The results should be on BBC2 in the summer – but if you really want an inside view, read the (not-quite-right-but-close-enough) blurb here, and think about volunteering. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Meanwhile, I’m delighted that my [cough] ‘dry spell’ appears to have at least temporarily abated. IWC are, by reputation, Good People, and indeed my boss appears to be a jolly sort. It is, of course, hugely good news to be extending my CV towards adult stuff again, too.