Sometimes people really make life hard for themselves – and they don’t seem to realise how much they’re contributing to it themselves.

It struck me watching the BBC’s new Fame Academy thing for Comic Relief first off. Every night they all step up into the “circle of fear” to perform slightly out-of-tune, glorified karioke versions of wel-known songs to varying degrees of success (and even I’ll admit that Ray Stubbs had me smiling tonight with his version of “Lola”). But what kind of a mind-set does it get you in to call your performance space the “circle of fear”?

If you want to ward off your nerves and give of your best, you need to be feeling positive and confident when you step up to the mic. Telling yourself you’re stepping into the worst 12 feet of space in a building is hardly gearing yourself up for success, is it?

But that’s not the thing that’s lead me to this. What’s bothered me tonight is reading another blog of a lady who says she’s “not coping” with all the things in her life.

She lists all the many things going wrong with her – some unavoidable, some unbelievably sad and some which, to me, are a matter of pure perspective.

Some people – and this isn’t aimed merely in one direction – don’t seem to know how to let things go. They like to wallow in their failures, their mistakes, their foibles and to make sure everyone else knows how much they are suffering.

You know what? We all are. We all have our own daemons, our own battles to fight, our own mountains to climb. Bad things happen – that’s a part of life.

But the measure of a man – or a woman, or a child – is whether he can take the knocks on the chin and get right back up, look life in the eye and say, “Is that all you’ve got for me?” It’s not easy, but neither is it meant to be – nor should it be. Where is the joy in victory if you’ve not had to fight to get it?

Sometimes you fight and sometimes you lose, but there’s no good to come from dwelling on your losses. That’s not to say you can’t learn from them, but you’ve got to take your lesson and move right along. A rolling stone gathers no moss, it’s said, and why open yourself up to being over-taken by weeds when you can keep on moving and break free?

Blame is the hardest thing in the world to accept, yet some people choose to heap it on themselves. Why go through life carrying a burden that you’ve given yourself? Come on, life gives us enough to carry on our own, there’s no point adding to it. Blaming yourself for things you can’t change is a surefire way to get yourself into a vicious circle of personal degradation.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m belittling people’s problems, nor do I intend to suggest that I’m forever rosey and never have my dark days – anyone reading this blog over time will know how much I’ve struggled. I merely mean to suggest that sometimes, you need to offer yourself a fresh perpective on your situation – to look at it from a different angle and see if the insurmountable is actually just really f***ing hard.

“Fate doesn’t hang on a wrong or right choice,
Fortune depends on the tone of your voice.”

It’s been a bit of a weird week this week – I appear to have been either out of the house working or running errands, or asleep.  It’s a bit all-or-nothing.

After travelling home on Monday I was shattered, but ok with a bit of an afternoon nap, then I had Tuesday morning to laze around before being on Taxi duty for K (through choice not compulsion, I must add).

Then yesterday, K started her new job (yay!), which meant I was up at 8am to get her there (boo), and then found myself coming home and passing out on the bed again till the afternoon – not intentionally, but when your body’s bossing you around after a weekend like mine, you listen.

Then last night it was back to normality with my session at MKT with the Youth Theatre.

I say “normality”, but it’s not every week that I get to spend 20 minutes shooting part of a short film with Samantha Janus just after she’s come off stage in Guys and Dolls.  Even by my celeb-bumping-into standards, this was a bit on the surreal side, my friend Helen (who’s the dep wardrobe mistress on the show) having spoken to her and got her to agree to do us a favour and pop up in cameo in our opening film for the YT show.

She was lovely, and very accomodating, especially since we literally accosted her straight off stage, at a time when I would imagine most performers just want to be left alone to veg out – especially with another show starting in just over 2 hour’s time.  But she happily stood around and delivered her line of dialogue for us enough times for us to cover it and we left her to it.

The rehearsal itself was very good again.  I spent the first part working with the Chorus on the piece I’d written, which was good fun, although slightly odd to be blocking something I’ve had in my head.  It’s what I love about working with performers, though, because it really gives you a chance to work through things and see how they work -and if it’s your own script, you can chop it and change it as much as you like.

The second half of the session was back with my Hamlet trio, who again worked diligently and have formed a great little grouping.  They were struggling slightly to get to the meaning behind some of the Shakespearean waffle, but we worked through it and managed to get through to what lies underneath the flowery poetry and make it make a bit more sense.

Although the show’s not too far away now (and if they’re reading this, they really need to be learning their lines!!), I think this piece has the potential to really show how talented some of our young people are.  Combined with the piece that Suze is directing – called After Juliet, a modern take on the aftermath of the Romeo and Juliet story – it’s a chance for our older members to really show some flair for the dramatic, and we both know that they’ve got the range and the power to do it.

That’s not to say it’s not going to take a considerable amount of work on their part, and support for them on ours, but if the work goes into it, they could make it something really special.  Of course, if they don’t, there’s the worrying prospect of it coming out as a group of youngsters lost in a mire of misunderstood poetry.  But that’s the challenge.

I’m hoping that this weekend is going to provide a nice window of relaxation for me – a chance to stay in bed, or veg on the sofa and do as little as possible, whilst shoe-horning as many calories as possible down my throat to keep energy levels high and infections at bay.

It may have left me struggling for energy, but I’m determined that the weekend isn’t going to take me down!

Well… wow.

Over the course of the last 7 or 8 weeks since I first officially came on board the Laughter for Life project, I’ve sat down or laid in bed at night and thought about how it was going to go and ru all kinds of best-case/worst-case scenarios through my brain. But none of them came even close to last night.

It was, without doubt, one of the best nights of my life and one of my greatest achievements. I felt both proud and piviledge to be part of such a spectacular and succesful event and I can’t even begin to express my gratitude to all of those who were involved, helped out, donated or just encouraged us to do it.

Shattered now, yes, but boy was it worth it.

We didn’t have access to the space until 6 o’clock, so we turned up en masse at the venue around 5.30 to put our stuff down in our function room and lay out our battle plan. Emma, myself, Paula and Rose all took on various jobs without much discussion and everyone just seemed to fit in around what we were doing.

I don’t want this to be a stupidly prolonged thank you session, but I think it’s safe to say that without the assistance of the “significant others” – Brad, K and Julian – things would have been a lot more bumpy.

I left everyone to handle the front-of-house goings on and found my way to the auditorium and found Suze all ready and raring to go as our Stage Manager for the evening. I had no idea that she was going to be as busy as she was – having assured her it was just going to be a case of jogging each act with a 5 minute call before they were due on stage.

As it happened, she was completely invaluable, doing all the legwork that I couldn’t have done. I think our partnership for the night was rather like the proverbial swan, with me sitting serenly above the water looking calm and controlled and marshalling people here and there, whilst Suze paddled away furiously under the surface making sure everything I was marshalling was where it should be to be marshalled.

The acts all turned up in plenty of time (more of an achievement than you’d have thought, let me assure you) and were absolutely brilliant to a man. Kind, generous and fun to chat to, I managed to have a good giggle before we even got to the show itself.

I had Rob, my documentary cameraman, following me around getting all the madness on tape, so it’s going to be interesting to look back on it in a few month’s time and see just how calm I was (or wasn’t!) looking.

We had just over an hour to get everything set up, including rigging a follow spot, getting the band set up and sound-checked and giving the acts a chance to familiarise themselves with the space and the set-up.

They all wandered on stage from the green room just before we opened the house (let the audience in) and chatted with the band to arrange their walk-on music, which was great for them to be able to choose. The house band – Big Buzzard – were brilliant and added such a sheen of professionalism to the whole event.

They were something of a last-minute addition, having offered up their services at relatively short notice, but I’m so glad we took them up on their offer – they really added that extra dimension to the show.

The show itself was simply stunning. The entire bill was nothing short of hilarious and several times throughout the even I thought I was in danger of embarrassing myself with loss of bladder control. If I’d not be tied to an oxygen cylinder, I’d have been rolling in the aisles.

Bill Bailey strung the whole thing together perfectly – giving everyone perfectly distilled little pieces of his humour whilst linking between the acts.  Geoff Whiting, Glenn Wool and Rob Rouse tore through the first half and had me coughing with laughter the whole way.  After the break, I had managed to compose myself enough to be less of a distraction through Ian Stone and Dara O’Briain’s sets.

During the interval, I popped backstage to the Green Room to grab a fresh O2 cylinder – it being the nearest secure place to leave them through the show – and was planning on heading out front to catch up with all the various friends who’d made the effort to come along.

As it was, I ended up in a really long chat with Rob, Glenn, Dara and Ian about my O2 and then segued into CF and its various effects/characteristics.  They were all genuinely interested and keen to learn, and being the Ambassador I am, I’m never going to pass up an opportunity to educate people on CF!

After the show, I was keen to make sure everything got sorted backstage, but was hurriedly ushered off to make my presence at the after-show drinks reception felt.  Although I think what I actually ended up doing was making sure that Richard Madeley understood all of my gobbledigook on his crib sheet for the auction.

Emma stood up and started things off with a run of thank yous and talked for a bit about where the money we raised was going and what we were all here for.  I then followed up with a brief heartstring-plucker to get everyone in the mood to dig deep in their pockets for the auction itself.

I have to say I’d not done any prep for it apart from thinking about my opening line, and I was pretty impressed with what I came up with.  I knew I’d have to talk about some difficult stuff, but I think I’m so used to it now, it just rattles off without me having to think about it too much.

It seemed to set the tone well though, (“Thanks a f**king lot” was Richard’s response when he took the mic from me) and the auction went really well.  Considering all the lots we had were donated for nothing, everything we cleared was money straight in our boxes and we did a great run for 11 lots – over £1,800.

That figure will be swelled over the coming few days with cash from programme sales and the collecting buckets (somewhere in the region of £1,200), and individual donations (which is currently overr £1,000 and expected to rise) – all of which is to be added to our ticket sales, which is somewhere around £15,000.  All told, we’re looking pretty good to hit £20,000 for the whole night – an astounding and truly humbling amount of money.

If you’d like to donate, please please please do – you do it safe and securely (and anonymously, if you wish) at our Just Giving page here.

I think one of the biggest compliments of the night for me, though, was to hear today that there were people in the audience who had no idea they were at a charity gig at all – they had bought their tickets purely on the strength of the bill we presented (no pun intended) and when they realised it was for charity and learned about the cause, couldn’t wait to dig into their pockets and drop cash in our collecting buckets.

I said last week that this whole experience had taught me how wonderful people can be and to believe in the spirit of human nature and it’s only been reinforced over the last couple of days.

This whole event has been one of the greatest – and most rewarding – experiences of my life and I have to thank Emma and Emily not only for letting me be a part of the project they started, but for allowing me to feel so much a part of the team and the cause.

If you’re not already signed up to the organ donor register, you have time to do it now.  If you’ve just read through the whole of this blog entry, you clearly don’t have enough to do today, so you’ve got enough time to take out 2 minutes of your time to go to www.uktransplant.org.uk and sign up right now – it’s fast, it’s electronic and it could make a difference to up to 9 other people’s lives.

Don’t let your death be in vain, and don’t let the 400 people who died last year while waiting for a transplant have passed for nothing.  If there’s any message that should come from this weekend, it’s Live Life Then Give Life.

Amid all the hullabaloo (gotta love that word – never thought I’d use it here!) surrounding L4L, I have actually been looking after myself, too, you’ll be pleased to hear.

In fact, I was booked for a check-up at clinic today.  I popped along, with K in tow for waiting-room entertainment, and saw all the necessaaries, who all seemed to be buzzing about my appearance on Radio 4 and/or the upcoming gig.  It was almost like a taste of celebrity…

But most importantly, things went really well.  Off to a cracking start when I weighted in at 52.6kg – the heaviest I think I’ve ever been at clinic.  According to my notes I’ve put on a kilo and a half in a month – pretty good going!  Especially considering a week of that was spent in hospital, where eating enough calories in a day is more like a carefully managed game of skill than a diet-plan.

While I was up there, since I was due to start back on my TOBI neb (a nebulised form of the antibiotic Tobramycin), I asked them to do a check on my lung-function before and after, as the last couple of months I’ve had of TOBI (it’s taken on a month-on, month-off basis) I’ve noticed my chest getting tight after a dose and I wanted to check it out.

Sure enough, my before and after L-F showed a drop from 0.7/1.4 to 0.6/1.3, which doesn’t appear overly significant, until you work out that actually what shows up as a 0.1litre change on paper calculates to a 14% drop in the “real world”.  And I challenge anyone to lose nearly a 7th of thier lung capacity and not notice.

So after a quick conflab, the powers that be (that’s my CF nurse and Doc B) sent an order to pop me on a ventolin neb to see if it would relax my airways back from the TOBI.

I haven’t taken ventolin in years, and even then it was only as an inhalor, not nebulised, so I don’t have a great deal of experience with it and didn’t know what to expect.

What I didn’t expect – at all – was to find that after a single 2.5mg dose, my L-F jumped to an eye-watering 0.9/1.6 – a scale I’ve not reached in over a year!

To say I was happy is to do understatment a disservice – it’s unbelieveable that a quick 2 minute neb can make such a difference to my breathing.  But more than just the numbers on the page, I really noticed it in my freedom and ability to breathe and walk and just generally not feel breathless.

In  fact, there’s a good story that will show you how good it was.  When I got up to leave the ward after the trial, I switched from the hospital-plugged oxygen supply back to my walkabout tank and wandered up the corridor to Pharmacy, from where I then walked back to the car with K, had a 5 minute telephone conversation, walked back to pharmacy, returned to the car and then popped quickly back inside for a pit-stop before we left.

When I finally got back to the car and switched to my “driving cylinder” (long story), I discovered that I’d forgotten to turn my walkabout cylinder on when I left the ward.  So I’d spent the best part of 45 minutes walking up and down and all over without once noticing a shortness of breathe and questioning my oxygen supply.  What’s more, I actually remember noting to myself how I seemed to be walking faster than I normally would without noticing any adverse effects.

You don’t get much better than that.   Consider me not only well chuffed with my day’s activities, but on a personal high both physically and mentally.  Things have a way of turning themselves on their head – it only takes a bit of positivity and something to add a bit of meaning and purpose to your life.

Three days and counting and the pace is non-stop.  The great thing about the whole thing now, though, is that we really are just dotting I’s and crosssing T’s on the event itself, plus chasing what media coverage we can over the next few days.

I found myself staring out of the pages of MK News yesterday, in a beautifully placed story on page 5 – sadly, it was with an awful old photo of me from one of the stories they’d run previously when they sent their photographer round.  They also managed to make the simplest and yet most glaring of sub-editing errors by spelling my name wrong in the headline.  I don’t know how on earth you spell it correctly all the way through the piece itself and still manage to get it wrong in the headline, but there you go.

I’ve yet to see a copy of today’s MK Citizen, but I’m hoping I got my ugly mug in there, too.  I had a call from BBC 3 Counties Radio this afternoon to ask me onto their breakfast show with Martyn Coote tomorrow morning, which is great.  I’ve been in there three times before, so they know me and it’s a nice, friendly place to stick my head into.

For those who want to listen, I’ll be on around 9.40am on the MK breakfast show (as opposed to the Luton/Beds/Herts one) which is on 94.7, 98 or 104.5FM or, possibly, at <a href=”http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/local_radio/”>http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/local_radio/</a> – although I’m not sure if this will offer you the option of the MK breakfast show, or just play the other one.

Technically, the show is coming together nicely – we’ve got our follow spot, and our follow spot op.  We’ve got our Stage Manager for the night, as well as a stand-by team of MK techies to help out if need be.  They’re actually paying customers coming to see the show, but I’ve warned them I may need to collar them for a hand during our SUPER-quick get-in on the night.

We’ve sent info packs out to all the acts about the night, with the running order, information on the campaign and general goodies (a pin-badge, no less!).

Most excitingly – and this is the bit that had me doing the closest thing I can to jumping up and down – we’ve secured a 2 tickets to see Avenue Q, the puppet musical in the West End, along with an exclusive, private 30-minute workshop with a cast member to see the puppets up close and learn how they go about bringing them to life on stage.  It’s an unbelievable lot (in my humble opinion!) and I’m so excited about it.

That said, we’ve actually managed to come up with a generally awesome collection of things to auction off at the VIP party – we should not only raise some really good money with the things we’ve got, but also offer people some really exclusive stuff for the cash they’re parting with.

Among other things, we’ve got an original artwork by an artist whose life has been transformed by a double lung transplant, a facial at a top London beauty salon, tickets to no less than 4 West End shows, including super-special extras to go with them, and the ultimate war-fighting day with a company which promises to supercede paintball in both value and realism.

It’s amazing how things are coming together and I’m getting more and more excited by the minute.

It’s going to be an amazing weekend and I can’t wait for it to be here.  Three sleeps till Laughter for Life! And remember, if you can’t be there, but you want to support us, you can donate through our Just Giving page, here.

Blimey, life moves at a hundred miles an hour sometimes, doesn’t it?

A friend asked me the otheer day how I think of things to put in this blog everyday – and I have to admit sometimes it does seem a little pointless to be writing when nothing much has happened.

And then you get days like today, where it’s ALL happened!

It all kicked off at 10am this morning when the phone woke us up.  Until today, I’ve been up and about by 8.30am every day for over 2 weeks – completely naturally, waking of my own accord.  But the first day I sleep in, it all kicks off.

Steve from Tin Racr Design was on the phone, asking if I’d got his proof of the programme through yet, which I had to confess I’d not seen because I wasn’t out of bed.  Hastily rolling out of bed, I plonked myself in front of the computer and checked my mails to discover not just the proof, but also an email from the printers we thought were handling the printing for us saying they could no longer do it.

To say I panicked would be overstating it slightly – I’m not really a panicky person –  but let’s say my calm took a bit of a dent.  Rolling K out of bed, I thrust the phone, a yellow pages and an outline of what we needed into her hands and got her dialling while I jumped on the job of proof-reading the awesome-looking programme.

In the middle of the chaos, other emails kept firing in from various sources, all seemingly demanding instant attention.  I can go days without getting any emails (well, ok, not at the moment) and usually you can sort them into various piles of urgency, but almost every one that came through today seemed to need an immediate response.

Understandably, with all my activity and the prospect of an exhausting rehearsal session at the Theatre tonight still to come, K was getting anxious that I pace myself and make sure I was keeping enough in my tank.

I pride myself on working well under pressure and although I had a couple of moments of dread at points today, I managed not only to address everything I needed to, but also to make sure I had enough time to have a proper lunch and take time to lie down in the afternoon to recharge before work.

As well as signing off on the programme, today has seen me: get hold of a follow-spot for the show, finalise two auction lots, get a sponsor for the programme (the legendary Dunham’s Solicitors in MK), confirm all the technical details with the venue and recruit a stage manager to handle the back-stage organisation for the show (well, nearly recruit, anyway, as it’s dependent on getting hold of someone else first – but we’re nearly there).

Not only that, but I’ve had a three-hour rehearsal at MKT for the Youth Theatre show, including an hour-and-a-half working solely with my three wonderful Hamlet cast members who have taken to the whole thing so much better than I could possibly have hoped.

Shakespeare is not an easy thing to grasp and there’s a lot of nuance and little touches to the text which can take an age to go over and discover in the rehearsal process.  I was so happy tonight to find that the cast have already got a good grasp of the text, but also that they are keen to share ideas and work with me and with each other to find a balance between their characters.

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked specifically as a director in a rehearsal setting and it felt great to be putting something together again – I realised tonight just how much I miss that area of the Theatre and how much more I want to do down that avenue.

On top of which, I also delivered the final part of the piece I’ve written to open the first and second acts of the show and it went down really well with the cast, which is always a good place to start.  I was concerned it might need a bit of redrafting, which would have been a headache considering how limited the rehearsal time now is, but it’s actually looking like it’s going to be OK as-is.

And now I find myself back home in front of my inbox again (with another 12 emails come through since I left the house at 5.30 tonight) and discovering a whole new load of greatness to polish off my day.

We’ve got some really good media interest, which will hopefully convert into coverage, and a few more pieces of the auction have fallen into place – including securing a workshop for people to see behind the scenes on Avenue Q, which I’m so insanely excited about it’s funny.

I’m now tired enough to go to sleep almost immediately, but I’m also pleased that I don’t feel totally exhausted.  I suppose the true measure is going to be how I feel when I roll out of bed and drag myself over to Oxford for clinic in the morning, but I think I’ve got the Big Guy on my side this week and he’s making sure I’ve got the fuel inside to see me through the weekend.

That said, I’m not taking anything for granted: I know I have to look after myself and pace myself or I’m not going to be able to make the most of what’s going to be one of the best night’s of my life.

Four days and counting!

We’re 5 days out from Laughter for Life and things are gathering pace with alarming speed.  It feels constantly like there’s a thousand things to do for us to be ready on time, but actually, when I sit and analyse where we stand, there’s really very little to be done.

It’s reassuring (in a sense) to think that the night could actually go ahead and probably run perfectly smoothly if we all completely stopped working now and did nothing until Sunday.  Of course, that’s not going to happen – we’re all far too commited to making this night the best it can possibly be – but I think it may serve well to remind ourselves as we fret over the final details that actually the leg-work is behind us and we’re now adding the icing/gravy/hair gel/anaolgy of choice to an already fab night.

Today was press release day and with the help of our awesome PR-guru Paula, who’s done a whole heap of work for Live Life Then Give Life in the past, we’ve mailed out press releases to local and national media.  I think the naitonal ones are due out tomorrow morning, but all my local ones have gone today, so I’m hoping that tomorrow and Thursday should be full of phone calls and sparked media interest.  We’ll have to wait and see.

Also today, we’ve made great strides in gathering some great lots for our auction which is taking place in the VIP party afterwards, which include some signed Might Boosh stuff, a raft of Theatre tickets with accompanying bonus features which are still being pulled together through various wheeler-dealings around the place and some great pamper packs and treatment sessions and some awesome original artwork.

Emma is really struggling with a new course of IV’s, which is incredibly rubbish timing for her, but goes to prove that CF pays no heed to any other masters and will wantonly and brazenly do whatever it can to intrude on life.  But, she is showing the classic resiliance of all PWCF and not letting the little bugger get in the way.  “Chest infection? Pah!  I laugh in your face! You shan’t stop me!”

Patrick, from Bill Bailey’s management agency is being a total legend in helping us get things squared away and sorting last minute bits and pieces with us and Steve from Tin Racer, who do all the artwork and design for CF Talk is ploughing through preparing the programme for the evening for us.

It’s amazing how helpful and kind people have been in coming together to make this event happen.  People have given us things, offered extras, consitantly gone the extra mile and done whatever they can to help us along, with goods, services, money or support.

It’s amazing to see just how much goodwill there is in the world and a sobering thought when you consider the cynical times we live in.  People seem to expect so little of other people and often assume the worst.  What I’ve found throughout the last six weeks or so that I’ve been fully involved with this as a project is that people are far more ready to support and help people than I would ever have expected.

I’ve always prided myself on thinking the best of people and often wondered if I’m being just a little naive in my belief in the goodness of the human race.  But this project has taught me to stick to my guns even when the world around me is presenting a universally cynical view of itself through the press and TV – people are fantastic and if you give them a chance, they will bend over backwards to help you out.

There is no way this night would have been possible without the MASSIVE assistance of a huge number of people and each and every one has made contributions that could have stopped the whole show in its tracks.

This is more than just a gig: it’s a chance to tell a whole new crowd of people about the importance of organ donation.  But more than that, it’s reaffirmed my belief in people and it’s also given me the confidence to believe that if I want to do something, I really can do it.

Five sleeps and counting until the night of the year so far!

I’m always loathe to jump up and down and rave about having a good few days without any enforced bouts of bed rest.  Well, let’s face it, I’m always loathe to jump up and down full stop any more.  All right, I’ve ALWAYS been loathe to jump up and down.  Even when I could.

Still, it seems that the last few days have been particularly encouraging for me – a full day’s shooting all day Saturday, a nice, restful Sunday which still managed to include a trip to K’s parent’s for a lovely Sunday/Brithday lunch for her Mum and a middlingly-active day today getting K sorted for her new job and fixed up with sexy new specs.

I seem – seem – to have found a nice equilibrium with my energy levels for the moment – succeeding in balancing a need for restful periods with achieving the most important goals of the day without running myself completely into the ground.

I’m hesitant to be fully excited until I get a couple of days further into the week with no repercussions, but so far, so good.

The day’s shooting on Saturday was really good fun.  Although we had quite a bit of time pressure to ensure we were out of the public areas of the Theatre by the time the matinee audience came in, we actually got all of the stuff we wanted relatively quickly and with very few hiccups.

We did, unfortunately, realise later that we’d miss-shot one scene and made a fatal error known in the trade as “crossing the line”.  This is far too hideously boring to explain in full to anyone not familiar with the term, as it’s a bit of a pedantic, anally retentive technical thingy to look out for, but unfortunately it’s one thing that can completely ruin a film when it’s all cut together.  Most of an audience would never be able to point it out, but would undoubtedly know there’s something wrong with what their watching.

Luckily for us, the scene in question with the minorly-major technical hiccup (or f**k up, depending on your view) is one which we still have to shoot a couple of additional shots for, so shouldn’t be too much of a problem to go back and rectify.  Fingers crossed.

Today I spent another morning in front of a camera, this time giving an interview for a student film for Bournemouth  University’s journalism programme about transplant and life on the list, as well as what can be done to increase donor rates.

It’s nothing major, but I was put in touch with the filmmaker through UK Transplant and as I said at the time I agreed to it, any publicity is good publicity.  I think it’s particularly good because there’s a chance it’ll be seen by a good number of students at the uni and that the message it sends out will get through to one of the most campaign-aware sectors of the population.

There’s huge amounts of resources sitting around university campuses in way of students who can be incredibly vocal about any subject close to their heart.  Make just a few of them aware of the importance of having people signed up to the organ donor register and there could be a whole new wave of Live Life Then Give Life supporters coming through the system and shouting louder than we have before.

Arrangements continue apace for Laughter for Life and I’ve spent a large chunk of the day on the phone to various people and rapidly swapping emails to finalise press strategy for the week, with local MK releases going out tomorrow.  Our national campaign should begin in earnest this week, too, although we’re a little disappointed that Bill’s not able to help us with shouting from the rooftops due to his already manic schedule.

That said, we’ve got an entire 3-hour gig lined up for Sunday night with some of the countries top comedians donating their time for nothing and for which we’ve already sold out a 600-seat Theatre, so it’s pretty hard to be unhappy about anything!

Here’s hoping the rest of the week stays as smooth as today.  We’ve got a few auction lots to finalise and gather, as well as the press and media work to cover.  I’ve got some technical gubbins to double check and artists to liase with.  We’ve got an auction to plan and sales to figure out, and I don’t even know what I’m wearing yet!

Gosh, it’s all go!

Today has been much better – certainly a little more stable and les energy-crazy.

I have taken what struck me as a very sensible and mature decision at the time to not accompany my parents and K to the Theatre tonight in light of the fact that we’re shooting for the Youth Theatre film all day tomorrow.

With my energy levels being as unpredictable as they are, it’s clearly a good idea for me to rest up today (tonight especially) and make sure I’m on top form for the shoot.  It’s a bit of a drag and I know K would have mucch preferred that I was there, too, but if I’m going to get out of my vicious circle of lustre-lacking, then I’m going to have to make unhappy choices now and again.

It feels like we’re accelerating incredibly quickly towards Laughter for Life now – it’s just 8 days away, which seems insane.  There still seems to be a remarkable amount to do but while I would normally be ever so slightly panicked by now (well, a little) I actually feel confident that this is all going to come together and pass off marvellously.

It’s promising to be such a fun event, with such great support and we can only hope that not only will everyone have a great time on the night, but also that we manage to really push people’s awareness of Organ Donation, whether through people’s attendance at the show, or through the press and publicity the event gets.

It feels a bit odd going into the week before the show being really aware of all the avenues of publicity we’re still pursuing – both locally and nationally – but with nothing yet confirmed.  My diary for next week is pretty empty at the moment, but it may well start to fill up rather quickly from early on Monday, when press releases and things go out and we really hit the campaign trail.

Of  course, it could be that none of it comes off at all and we end up with next to no coverage, but let’s hope that’s not the case.  Even if we don’t get as wide coverage as we’d hope for, the main thing is the event itself and the money it’s raising to help transplantation in the UK.

It’s going to be a hard week this week, balancing the work that needs to be done with the rest that needs to be had to make sure I’m in top form for the weekend and the night itself.  It’s going to be a long one, and likely a hard-working one, too.  But it’s also going to be one I won’t forget for many, many years to come.

Normally, I’d have edited my last post to include this little epilogue, but I thought it was such a wonderfully tightly-written ode to self-pity that I’d leave it untouched for all to see that I’m not necessarily the relentless optimist I sometimes make myself out to be.

Anyway, it’s worth noting that while I say today has been rubbish, and physically, I’m right, it has, I’ve actually had two really good things happen which I suppose is something I should be clinging to, even if I do feel a bit poo right now.

First off I got in touch with a friend who used to work at the Theatre here who’s now tech’ing down in Bromley and he thinks he’s managed to sort us out a spot light for the show.  I’d spoken to the venue earlier in the week as they’d told us that they were happy for us to bring our own follow-spot operator with us so we wouldn’t have to pay their technician to do it, only to find out after arranging an op that they don’t actually have any spots any more!

But, thanks to Gary it looks like we’ll be squared away with one for the night, which is BRILLIANT really.

And secondly I had a really nice chat with Bill Bailey’s agent who also represents Glenn Wool and Rob Rouse.  I’d sent him a draft running order from the night and he’s been speaking to Rob about it, who gave me some brilliant pointers on how to make the best use of the guys and their time.

Coming from a Theatre background, I’m fairly good at knowing what pieces need to be in place for an event like this, but it being stand-up there’s lots of bits which are specific to the “genre” as it were which I’m not so au fait with, so it was great to get feedback from Pat and Rob about the night and make sure we’re putting on the very best possible gig for the punters who’ve stumped up their hard-earned to see some top acts and raise some cash for transplant services in the UK.

So although I can sit and wallow in my own little malaise if I want to, there’s really good reasons not to be too glum.

It’s all about perspective and I guess I’m struggling on that front just now.