Monthly Archives: February 2008

Great day today – not only did I get through a second gym session in 2 days with no ill effects (read all about it…), but also found out that I’ve hit the Plymouth Sound website.

Because the Marines are based in Plymouth (and possibly because my bro happens to be dating one of the presenters), the local radio station (I say local, they’re pretty awesome, not like some “locals”  I could speak of….) have picked up on the marathon story and are running pieces not only on air but on their website too.  They’ve even included links to the ODR and my Just Giving page so people can either show their support financially or just by signalling their intention of saving someone’s life after they’re gone.

It’s getting quite exciting this marathon lark.  What with the gym sessions and all, I’m starting to think that being able to run a mile in 6 weeks’ time isn’t necessarily totally beyond my reach.  Not sure how fast I’m going to do it, but then the Marines are going to have done 25 miles and be weighed down with 30lbs of kit, so at least I’m not going to be the only one looking shattered by the whole thing.  Although I think I might feel a little inferior jogging across the line just little ol’ me – I might have to fill a rucksack with polystyrene to make myself blend in more.

I also impressed myself today by being remarkably sensible and going against my all-go post-Tx mood and having a sleep this afternoon.  We’ve had a bit of a busy few days since heading to friends in Kettering on Sunday and having two early-morning hossie appointments for K two days in a row, which has added up to not much sleep and lots of go-ings during the days.  Getting back in from the hossie run to Northampton this morning, I spent a bit of time trying to keep sleep at bay checking my emails and doing some work-y bits and pieces, but in the end decided that if my body says “tired” then to bed I must take it – not point playing games with a body still in recovery.

Pretty smart, huh?

Monday’s been a pretty nothing-y kind of day – hossie appointment early this morning for K, after which I dropped her at work and came home.

I sat and watched most of Last King of Scotland, Kevin Macdonald’s flick about the regime of Idi Amin in Uganda and his Scottish doctor who fails to realise what’s going on under the rule of the infamous dictator. It’s a fantastic film, Macdonald’s first fiction turn after the incredible BAFTA-winning documentary Touching the Void. If you’ve not seen either of them, I can’t urge you enough to see them.

Touching the Void is not your usual dry documentary, but even if it were the story alone is compelling enough to keep you clinging to the edge of your seat. Before I saw it I didn’t have much love for documentary feature-making, but Macdonald shows that docs can be just as exciting – if not more so in a lot of cases – as any Hollywood bang-for-your-buck blockbuster.

Last King of Scotland is mostly remarkable for it’s two central performances – Forrest Whittaker as Amin (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar last year) and James McAvoy, the then-up-and-coming, now bona-fide star, who plays his personal physician. It’s brutal and gruesome in parts, but please don’t let that put you off (there’s enough warning to let you look away), with the two leads performing an almost perpetual dance around each other which draws you in. It is by no means a demolition job on Amin, but rather a carefully drawn portrait which shows you not only how terrible he was, but also how charismatic, how inspiring and how self-confident he was. When you see this film it helps you to understand how leaders and dictators like Amin, like Hitler, can rise to power when they seem so extreme. It’s all about the cult of personality.

I didn’t get through the entire flick before heading to fetch K from work, from where we headed straight to the gym and then on to the cinema to catch Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights.

Wong is known for his art-house foreign language movies, many of which have been considerably successful over here in their given scene, although you may not have heard of them. This is his first English-language film, for which he recruits a cast which combines Marquee names like Jude Law and Natalie Portman with solid British thesps like Rachel Weisz, top character actors like David Strathairn and is lead in an outstanding debut performance by better-known-as-singer/songerwriter Norah Jones.

Strathairn is worth the price of admission alone, as one of the greatest portrayals of alcoholism as I’ve seen on screen. It’s not just the perfect notes he hits in his various levels of stupor, but the contrast he creates with his daily working persona, the classic working-man’s drunk.

Jones is very good too, carrying the film on her shoulders with no noticeable nerves or lack of conviction. But one of the key things in turning in any good performance is the people you have to work with and when you play one-on-one scenes throughout a picture with the likes of Law, Weisz and Portman, you know they’re going to help you raise your game.

It’s not a flawless movie and it feels a lot longer than it’s 90-0dd minute running time, but it’s definitely worth a watch if you’re into tails of life and love and everything in between. It’s a little heavy on the food-fetish for my tastes, but each to their own.

First time in over a week I’ve been to the cinema (withdrawal symptoms kicking in big-time), I shot across town to catch Rambo this afternoon with Dazz.

It’s really a surprisingly good film. It’s more than just what it says on the tin, although you can’t go far wrong expecting what you would expect from a Rambo film. For the pacifists and haters of action-movies and film-violence, this puppy was never going to be for you, but for those looking for a bit of a no-brainer it’s not quite that either.

All the elements one would expect of a Rambo movie are there – huge death-toll, cheesy-but-great one-liners, Sly in a headband – but there’s more to it than that, not least the realisation from the scribes that people like Rambo just don’t do a lot of talking. The hero’s lack of dialogue is deftly handled, adding weight to the utterances he does come out with and handing a somewhat over-the-top scenario a level of realism you just don’t expect from this sort of film.

Add to that the sheer brutality of the violence and you realise this isn’t just another churned out Hollywood sequel, but something that’s actually had a lot of thought put into it by everyone involved, not least co-writer/director/star Stallone. He’s made the gunshots visceral and painful, the explosions truly horrific and the violence throughout turned up to a level so extreme it’s almost comical, until you stop to think that it’s more true to life than most Hollywood movies’ portrayals of death-by-gunshot or landmine.

It’s not the world’s greatest picture, it’s never going to contest any awards and it’s not the perfectly-weighted book-end to a saga that last year’s Rocky Balboa was, but it’s an extremely well-made, well-shot and well-put together little flick that entertains in all the ways it’s supposed to and offers up that little bit extra. An in it’s eschewing of the typical, OTT, CGI-heavy action of the more recent crop of action movies from the States, it may well serve as something of a reinvention of the action genre. We can only hope.

Today was, hands down, the longest and most tiring day I’ve had since my release, but seeing as it did a trip down to Guildford to visit C, my other Godson, it was completely magical.

I used to visit him quite often (at least every major school break), but gradually I slipped backwards as I became more unwell and my annual trips to his birthday parties in the summer came off the rails and I began to rely on his parents bringing him up to see me at my mum and dad’s, where they could handle the catering and things and I just had to focus on having enough energy to play board games with him all day and even that was often a stretch.

So it was an experience beyond comparison to be able to drive down today and catch up with him properly – take him out for lunch, explore some bits of Guildford and generally have a totally awesome day.

We were up at 8 and out of the house by 9 (no more 2 hours of treatments to clog up the morning), making our way mostly cross-country to the big G thanks to rubbishness on the M25.  K ably navigated us off the motorway and through the brilliantly named Egham which has some of the most sumptuous and gorgeous houses this side of Ascot.   Although it takes a little longer, K and I often prefer the country routes to the motorways for all the little gems you find along the way.

Bizarrely, as we slipped through the traffic into Guildford, K spotted on the pavement a friend of hers from school she hasn’t seen in 6 years.  Small world doesn’t even begin to cover it.  We managed to pull over to she could chase her down and catch up, before strolling on to C’s house just the other side of the town centre.

With everyone else either at school or work (his brother’s school had half-term the week before – parental nightmare or what), we had C all to ourselves, or rather he had us all to himself.  Or whichever way round works.  After a quick cuppa, made in brilliant team-work between me and C, we set off to find an indoor climbing centre where we had decided to try out C’s bravery and my new lungs.

Disappointingly, there was nothing on their website to tell us that pre-booking was a must, so we couldn’t actually climb, which came as something of a relief as the sheer size of the indoor walls (the full height of the industrial warehouse which housed the centre) made me slightly concerned that C’s bravery would entirely show me up.  Although, being a grown-up, I managed to artfully hide my near-panic at the potential mess I’d gotten myself into, I have to confess to feeling pretty much precisely the same emotions as were written all over C’s angst-ridden face as we stood and gawped at the men dangling precariously from the over-hangs.

We vowed to book ahead for the next break and to take it on together, however scared we may be.  We moved on, instead, to the Electric Theatre in the centre of town to the altogether more sedate but brilliantly enjoyable Doodle Wall.  Set up in one of their function rooms was a 6ft high wall of paper which ran the length of the room, on which anyone could come in and leave their mark in whatever fashion they liked.

It was a brilliantly simple concept, but brilliantly great fun.  Something we thought would be a quick 10-minute stop-over on the way to something more exciting turned into almost 40 minutes of intense, concentrated art-working and we all came away pretty chuffed with what we’d managed.  Being that I can’t draw to save my life, I instead chose to add a nice big block of colour to the wall.

Once we’d doodled ourselves out, we headed up to Jo Schmo’s – a restaurant of C’s choosing – which supplied me with the world’s biggest burger (since the one I had at the Burger Co in Carnaby Street), which I once again managed to demolish with my hands and by minorly dislocating my jaw in suitably snake-like fashion.

Hardly able to move post-burgers, we settled on spending the rest of the afternoon sharing turns on the Wii back home, including the new Lego Star Wars game which had both K and I bickering about who killed who and weren’t we supposed to be a team, much to C’s amusement.  Once his mum got home we then rocked a bit of Cluedo, which I managed to gmable on and lose spectacularly by trying to out-wit the other three and jumped the gun at hazarding and accusation.  I found myself much more suited to Wii bowling, in which I found my niche after being destroyed by Chris on both Golf and Tennis.  Lucky we didn’t do the Boxing or I’d have been even more humiliated.  By a 10-year-old.

After catching up with Mum, Dad and big bro once they all got back in, we eventually shuffled off about 7pm for the 2-hour drive home, again using up a mix of motorway and back-roads once our patience with stop-start M-way traffic wore too thin.

Arriving home at 9pm, we had just about enough energy to sack out in front of the TV and catch the recorded episode of the outstanding Extreme Dreams we’d missed that evening before kicking our keks off and jumping into bed.  I don’t think I’ve fallen asleep so quickly – or so early – for a long time, but when it follows a day like today, it’s not only very welcome, but sleep arrives with a wonderful wave of the most delightful contentment with life, the universe and everything.

Am I the only person in the world who’s immune to Amy Winehouse? Don’t give a chuff what’s going on in her personal life, couldn ‘t care less whether she takes one drugs, no drugs or enough cocaine to fill the Xscape’s snow slope, don’t wanna see pictures of her falling out of a nightclub off her head on whatever cocktail she’s been into next.

She’s got a pretty voice, yes, but when she sings live she just looks like she really needs a wee and it’s really off-putting. She’s on the Brits right now and I can’t bare to be in the same room – I’ve already sat through her desperate toilet-need alongside Mark Ronson, I can’t go through it all again for her solo…

Bring on the Oscars – at least there everyone goes to the toilet before they come on stage.

Today marked the biggest first in my new life since I took my deepest post-transplant breath off the ventilator – I joined a gym and began a programme of real, bona fide physical exercise.

It kind of feels like everything I’ve been doing since I escaped from the hospital has been gearing up for this moment. Finally getting into good physical shape, being fit and strong, has been one of the goals in my life that has always eluded me. For years I’ve wanted to get in shape and every time I’ve tried I’ve been stopped – either by physical resistance, lack of will power or full-on hospitalisation. In the end, the idea of achieving anything physically was about as far from my thoughts as anything, although it remained something I knew I’d strive for as soon as I got my transplant.

The induction today went brilliantly – the trainers at the gym are exceptional and really know their stuff. Not only had he spoken to my physios at Harefield to find out what I should and shouldn’t be doing and what sort of benchmarks I should be aiming for at this point, 13 weeks post-transplant, but he’d also been doing private reading into transplantation and fitness.

After a quick general once-over, including a grip-strength and flexibility test (proving I am officially the least flexible person in the entire world), we set off to do a quick circuit of the machines I’d be using. I’ve a detailed programme of cardio work to do for a couple of weeks, increasing steadily, before we think about adding in some resistance work to help build my muscles strength and tone (the vanity bit).

I’m doing a 5-minute cycle warm-up, followed by 5 minutes on the most evil invention in the world – the cross-trainer. I’ve never felt anything quite as horrible as the physical exhaustion that sets in so incredibly quickly when you’re pumping your arms and swirling your legs on some weird approximation of Nordic skiing. When I’ve recovered from that I’ve got 500m to row, followed by the main aim of the workout, the treadmill.

My short-term goal for my training is to be able to run a mile my April 13, when I hit Tresco to finish the marathon with my bro (sponsor me/us here). Our trainer at the gym thinks this is something I can build to and has set me on a build-up program on the treadmill. I walk for 2 minutes as a warm up, then aim to run/jog for a minute, take 2-3 minutes to recover at walking pace before another minute’s worth of jogging, then walk it off. The idea being that each time I go I can gradually decrease the rest/walk time between runs and increase the time I’m running until I can manage 10 minutes at a jog, which should – plus a little extra effort for a couple of minutes – see me over the finish line.

For those of you interested in following my progress up to the big day, I’ve kicked off a training-blog at trescomile.wordpress.com to keep track of my training and keep me honest – those of you with big sicks to wield will need to keep a close eye on how I’m doing. Unlike my slightly shabby updates on this blog, I hope to be disciplined enough to update the training blog after each session. (Chance’d be a fine thing…).

Today also saw the two of us catch up with an old friend and work colleague of K’s who’s celebrating her 21st tonight. Still not being able to properly put myself out and about in a busy pub of an evening, we decided to mark the event with a trip to Krispie Kreme and coffee at home instead.

The trip to KK served us well enough to take a tasty treat over to S&G in the evening, too, where we had a great natter and catch up with them both whilst introducing Suze to the delights of the glazed donut. Was great to catch up – we talked so much we didn’t even get chance to play a pay-back game of music Buzz that K was so desperate for, since I kicked her butt at movie Buzz the last time the four of us were together. But then, everyone knows I know nothing about music, so it’s hardly humiliating to get trounced. The bug embarrassment is losing movie Buzz to someone and since that someone last time was Gary, I made sure we weren’t going to be playing that again…

I say family, because to me my Godson is my family, although technically the bloodline isn’t there. But today I got to spend a few hours round at his place playing, chatting, introducing K to him and his wonderful parents and it was so lovely as to be almost indescribable. But you know me, I’m going to try…

K had to work all morning, which left me at home to my own devices, something which is never the greatest of ideas when I’ve got something to look forward to in the afternoon, because I tend to not be able to think of much else and so meaningful work is always a little hit-and-miss.

As it happens, I managed to use the time to surf the internet for filmmaking websites and news and such, which has helped inspire and drive me forward with a few of the projects I’ve got rolling along in the background at the moment. My docs at Harefield are keen for me not to start doing any “real” work for a while (6-12 months post-op), which is both freeing and frustrating. There are many things I want to do with myself right now and a few projects I REALLY want to get going on, but at the same time I’m sure in the long run the enforced slow-down will only benefit them all by making me take stock of them properly and devote enough time to thinking them through and planning them properly.

I picked K up from work at half two and we shot straight over to Little R’s house to catch up with them for the first time in…well…. blinkin’ ages. I thought his Mum wasn’t ever going to let me go from the massive bear-hug I was enveloped in no sooner had I stepped over the threshold. Not that I’m moaning, you understand, since I felt pretty much the same way seeing all them again.

I feel like I’ve been so much out of R’s life for so long now, since he lives so close, but it’s been such a struggle for me to get to see him. Now I’m starting out again, I’m hoping we can rebuild our relationship back to how it was early on before I got too ill to do anything with him. We’re already planning an ice-skating trip for the Easter holidays!

Plus, I got to be made hugely jealous at the family’s beautiful home cinema set-up. Not only have they got a PS3 (with Blu-ray, which just won the HD DVD format war for those of you who missed that piece of news) but also a gorgous 40″ HDTV and surround sound system to play it through. I’m not the most materialistic man on the planet, but I have to confes to a slight weakening of the knees when it comes to film-watching in the home (and filmmaking outside of the home…). Anything else I can take or leave – if it’s film-related I think I’d rather take it. Terrible of me, I know.

K and I then came back and veg’d good and proper for the night – some lovely sausage-and-chips comfort food and a night in front of the telly.

We caught the new series on BBC3 Being Human, which I have to say massively impressed me. The idea of a flat-share between a Vampire, a Werewolf and a Ghost didn’t do a whole lot for me on reading the listings, but the result was much more heartfelt, funny, dramatic and touching than I ever expected. It’s well worth checking out, if you can cope with the scary subject matter. It’s not really gory, but they have invested a good chunk of cash in a couple of big transformation scenes for the wolfman. What really impressed me, though, was the way it was shot and cut together. For the first time in ages watching a new British drama (particularly BBC), they have finally steered away from the ridiculous music-video manic-camera movements which blight so much UK output. Instead they trusted the really very strong performances of their lead cast and let the camera linger on them without wobble, shake or zoom. Well done that team.

Without doubt the last 7 days have been the busiest I’ve had in a very long time – pre- or post-transplant.

It’s been a whirlwind of trips here, there and everywhere that’s taken up the entire week without either K or I having time to properly draw breath.  We are both shattered.  I don’t know about her, but I feel shattered in a wonderful, sense-of-achievement kind of way.  K may just be shattered from trying to slow me down all week! (Not in a bad, I-don’t-want-you-to-have-fun kind of way, more a whoa-there-boy-you’re-new-lungs-are-only-three-months-old kind of way…)

I must apologise for the distinct quietness of the blog – I have attempted to redress the balance with a few days’ updates all at once this evening, because I feel terribly guilty for having neglected it all this week, although the truth is when I haven’t been either working or sleeping, I’ve been out and about this week.

Since Monday we’ve been to Stoke Mandeville, Oxford, Harrow, Olney, Deanshanger and Willen, not to mention the shopping trips, gym-visits, cups of tea and various odd-jobs which have taken us all over Milton Keynes.

Next week is looking like it might be mildly more sedate, although being half-term there is the chance to spend some time with my Godsons for the first time since my op, which I’m looking forward to more than just about anything I’ve had the chance to experience so far in the 13 weeks since I have my blowers swapped out for a shiny new pair.

I dearly hope the next week will bring a) more regular blog updates b) more pages completed on the new script (19 down, but none written over the weekend) and c) more firsts for the book of wonderment.

Today I saw my Gramps for the first time since my op – he’s up visiting the ‘rents for the weekend and K and I stopped over for the afternoon to catch up. It was brilliant to see him again – after quite a long while, too – and he was suitably impressed with my turnaround from the last time I saw him. I love to see the look in people’s eyes when they see me for the first time since the op; it’s a wondrous mixture of the most complex emotions, with happiness and relief dominating.

This afternoon was not a great one, sporting-wise, which makes it lucky the rest of the day was so happy and pleasant.

First up, I arrived at Mum and Dad’s in time to sit and watch the Saints drop miserably out of the FA Cup to the mighty Bristol Rovers… they of an entire footballing division below us. Not that the difference in league standing made an impact on the game, since the majority of the Saints team (ok, the entire Saints team) completely failed to turn up for the match anyway. Maybe they thought they were playing Bristol City instead.

Following that disappointment, we hastily beat a retreat from the sofa to the pretty little village of Olney, where we took my Gramps and his lady friend for a nice afternoon stroll around the little boutique shops and stopped at a perfectly quaint little tea shop for afternoon tea and teacakes and crumpets – incredibly refined even if I do say so myself.

We found a beautiful little gift shop there, too, a real little gem, with sparkling jewelery which attracted the magpie-like K and some lovely little tokens and miniature statues and the like.

We eventually wandered ourselves back to the car and back to the ‘rents just in time to sit and watch Man Utd demolish Arsenal. Felt very sorry for K – being an ardent Gunner – but was remarkable to watch. And Dad and I did enjoy making the most of it because, let’s face it, K gets enough comedy mileage out of our following Southampton, so it’s only right for us to take advantage while we can.

We then settled into a lovely evening’s roast dinner (I guess Mum got confused and thought it was Sunday…) and chatted about all sorts of weird and wonderful things as we tend to do when we get together as a family.

It’s been a lovely day seeing Gramps again, going out for a stroll around a small town with him – something I’ve not been able to enjoy for some time, like so much of what I do these days. The firsts are stacking up so fast I keep thinking that I must have run out by now, but then another will pop up and remind me how well I’m doing and how great this new life is.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m am rather pointedly against Valentine’s day. Tipping point this year undoubtedly came when I read an article in TIME Magazine talking about “the holiday” and all that comes with it.

Far be it from me to deprive the un-romantics of this world from their one day when they manage to muster up enough retail-fed creativity to find a gift that won’t make their girlfriend sigh with disaffection, but when we start to call Valentine’s day a “holiday” you know things have gone too far – and too commerical.

As if diluting the true meaning of Christmas and Easter down to a pair of jolly, junk-food inspired cartoon characters (or near enough) wasn’t bad enough, it is now apparent that we have to encourage our kids that February 14th means sending over-priced, over-valued, empty-sentiment cards and gifts to the people we love. I say people because I’m reliably informed that in some schools it’s now no longer possible to send a valentine to the one you kinda fancy, but instead it’s a requirement to send them to EVERYONE in your class. Gosh, if only the real world were that loved up we’d have no war, no poverty, no famine – we’d all be happy little cherubs floating around on clouds of marshmellows.

Personally, I don’t need anyone to tell me – Tesco, Asda, Clinton’s, Homebase – on which day of the year I love my girlfriend. I’m incredibly lucky to have the most wonderful other half (and she very much is my mirror image – only with her own lungs and not someone elses) who loves me to pieces and whom I love just as much. But we love each other this much every day of the year, not just when someone decides we should in order to sell more tat.

My plan for Valentine’s day had been to avoid it all together and not worry about it, but as it happens a friend of K’s had to pull out of going to the Theatre this evening to watch Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker, which left a ticket going begging and a very doe-eyed K looking at me plaintively.

So – grudgingly – along I went, feeling very much like most men look when they go to the ballet: slightly bored, slightly put-upon and wishing they were sitting at home watching Bruce Willis blow something up at Christmas.

So it pains me terribly to say it, but I loved it. Having worked in theatre for most of the last 8 years, I’m only too well aware of Bourne’s reputation as a choreographer and theatre-maker (for his is quite definitely both), but all I’d seen of his work was his Edward Scissorhands of a couple of years ago, which I’m reliably informed is by far his weakest piece. I’d managed to let his Nutcracker, all-male Swan Lake and reportedly spectacular Play Without Words pass me by. And boy to I regret not taking them in when I had the chance now.

His Nutcracker was remarkable – vivid, colourful, soulful and emotive, a real feast of visual theatre that at times strayed about as far from ballet as it’s possible to go without bursting into song. As we arrived at the Theatre, an old colleague of mine commented that at times you forgot you were watching dance and that it wasn’t simply one of the best choreographed musicals you’d ever seen, and I now know precisely what she means.

Humble me it did, and also made me remember my old maxim from the olden days that it’s always worth giving a show a go, even if you think it’s going to be the worst thing you can possibly imagine plonking yourself in front of for two hours of a perfectly good evening.

I resolved to keep that at the fore-front of my mind from here on out and to embrace the new challenges that the Theatre may throw at me now I’m able to pop to Town and take in some of the Fringe theatre around London and more of the delights that visit MK. All judgements will now be reserved until at least the interval. If you haven’t caught my attention by then, mind, you might well see my seat empty during the second act…