Egypt
Off to Duhab tomorrow. The next week is going to be a real test for me of using the technology. Will I find internet access in the middle of the desert? will I be able to upload my daily blog on stories and pictures ? These are already stored on a remote server so in theory providing I can find a computer linked to the web I should still be able to upload text and images. Had thought of taking my "work in progress" along on a memory stick until I learnt that this is a popular way for hackers to get into computers. Going to a country paranoid about terrorists it is unlikely I would be allowed to access a computer with a memory stick.
Material for my book continues to flow in at a steady rate and I need email access daily. Folk get stroppy if they dont get an email reply within 24 hours. Thanks to a visiting young Dutch boy next door have finally managed to convert all my audio files into MP3 so I can edit interviews. My online book will now have podcasts- oral history in the raw.
Hope to do some video in the coming week, the location should be great, and it will be a change from delving into the past.
Visited the Tate Modern while in London, always a stiumulating experience- and there's a good cafe too.
And yes I did see the Gilbert and George exhibition though now I wonder why I spent £9 to see one whole floor of the Tate devoted to the work of these two men. Two or three rooms would have been more than sufficient. Seems the public are voting with their feet too . This is not the blockbuster they had expected.
Do I really want to spend my Sunday afternoons staring at larger than lifesize images of giant penis' made of shit? and reading walls covered in graffitti?Anyway, I think it was mean of Gilbert and George to insist that the big slide is switched off during their exhibtion; only the smaller ones were in operation.
If art reflects the culture of its times then in a strange way the work of Gilbert and George holds a mirror up to our celebrity obsessed, consumer driven age. Yet in a curious way it all seemed to so..er…English and slightly old-fashioned. Oh well, back to Scotland…
Well, I have just finished the rough edit for my friend's video to go with her exhibition next month in France.
And there's at least 3-4 hours work still to be done to complete the video, make the DVD cover, and of course put the whole thing down to DVD.
Tomorrow I go to London for the weekend and next Thursday fly out to Duhab.
Just checked on the internet and discovered that 30 people were shot in this resort a year ago.
No wonder its a bargain basement winter holiday!
Meanwhile how do I get internet access? The London hotel promises all rooms are WI.Fi but Egypt? that's another matter.
Where have all these photos of Craig-y-nos Castle come from? I must have had around 300 sent in so far.They are very small, often crumpled but clearly treasured memories of a unique experience which girls, now mature to elderly women, are keen to share.
Today the local paper in Wales has had a photo spread ( have yet to see it) and I fear this will result in an avalanche of more photographs.
it is quite extraordinary!
Damien Hirst
Anyone wanting a lesson in media manipulation should read the following link http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol1389313.ece
on how Damien Hirst is "doing Hollywood" with impeccable timing for the Oscars and flying in a 100 members of his staff for the occasion after the New York critics trashed his show in New York.
