Glut
Two joyous dawn events to gladden my heart! The orange bags have arrived! In addition to this, Miss Dover informed our downstairs neighbors that their waste is blocking our courtyard (by email). This morning she received apologetic reply and a promise that the mendicant cleaner responsible will be “corrected”. I am so relieved as the bags and boxes are beginning to backup to an alarming degree. Meanwhile at the studio I found myself getting more and more carried away with the expanding foam filler. I have always struggled with these sorts of diy substances. Fillers, grouts, sealants etc have a tendency to escape me, adhering to every surface except the intended. There is a sort of domestic excess at work here, like the chocolate pudding in Woody Allen’s execrable nightmare Sleepers. I phoned home last night and talked to my father of hotels, gardening gloves and postcards. My mother (in the background) commented that I also need to apply more punctuation to my writing.
Miss Dover and I visited Southend today to finalise details for our upcoming show at Tap gallery. To her credit M did not bat an eyelid when we told her of our plans to black the entire space out. She not mind either my erroneous AA sign being placed outside her gallery nor Miss Dover’s plans to release a tumbleweed upon the public. All ideas were received with equanimity, happiness even. It was not until she saw one of my suggestions for publicity image (a sexy shot of my novel on a fur rug) that she looked a little disturbed.
After much tea and discussion about communist spies and exams we headed home, (this was our second visit together to Southend and we had failed to see the seafront yet again).
On the return to Ipswich we met Eugene the French Greek Orthodox priest and his girlfriend Jane (a Swiss Artist). He told us he had been a cowboy before taking orders but was now selling olives and cheese. They were off to a monastery in Maldon.
Well things are going very well indeed. We took our new students to Felixstowe today. Practically no expense is spared at my place of employment. To liven up the day I decided to take The Phantom on the 28 mile round trip (after I had managed to lose my way twice). The Phantom is considerably lighter than Lucia but I think the students were quite impressed at the amount of sweat one man can produce. On the way back buoyed by adulation I decided to race a wiry young man on a sleek looking road bike. I have spent the last half hour lying on the bathroom floor. Now slightly recovered and listening to Beethoven’s Ninth playing tinnily out of my laptop speakers I am reviewing my emails. I am delighted to report that the lovely people at Saison Video were not in search of another coaster but in fact watched my dvd and seem to want to show some of my work (though some of the Gallic reserve in Mo Gourmelon’s emails is a little hard to decipher). Mo is a Directrice a position and word so exciting to me that I had to have another little lie down. More excitement was evinced upon my reading of a further email from Miss Vosvenieks the conference and events coordinator at The Bridgewater Hall, in Manchester, a fabulous venue which can hold up to 1800 people. She was extremely helpful with the costings thinking of a few things I had not considered. I quote her letter below with more than a twinge of guilt that she has become my unwitting accomplice:
Hi Alex
Thank you for your enquiry via Rooms for Meetings. We’d love to be able to confirm this event here at The Bridgewater Hall, particularly because we are an arts venue ourselves. Our main auditorium can hold up to 1800 guests on tiered seats across 4 levels, so it would be perfect for numbers around the 1000 mark.
We sell the auditorium as a whole facility hire which comes with our front of house foyers, our other conference rooms, 2 warm up rooms, 5 artists rooms (these are like dressing rooms) and 4 orchestra rooms (these can be used for holding spaces). I have attached our brochure which details the conference spaces and also have attached some photos of the auditorium for you, but if you would like to arrange a site visit please let me know.
Whole facility hire is charged at £12,180+vat for a 12 hour hire period between 07:00 – 23:00. This includes the above areas as well as 2 general purpose technicians, an appropriate level of stewards, in-house power, house lighting and general lighting to the stage. Additional technical costs are quoted dependent on your requirements, but for an idea of costs see below:
In-house PA system, sound desk & microphones @ £800+vat (this is a compulsory charge)
In-house lighting desk and the permanent lighting rig @ £300+vat
Follow spot @ £90+vat
Sound engineer @ £265+vat
Lighting engineer @ £265+vat
Follow spot operator @ £55+vat
Simple projection package (inc. screen and projector) @ £1500+vat
Catering costs as follows:
Tea, coffee & biscuits @ £2.40+vat per person, per serving
– we do have bars on all levels so could have account bar or cash bars open for you.
The dates we have available are:
Wednesday 7 September 2011
Wednesday 14 September 2011
Wednesday 28 September 2011
If you would like to provisionally hold one of these dates please let me know which date along with full contact details so I can hold it off in the diary for you.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you require anymore information.
Live and Let Die is finally consigned to the bookshelf reading it was both an exhilarating and excruciating experience. I’ve decided to move into safer fiction for my next book with a rereading of Bruce Chatwin’s Utz, less barracuda wrestling but also less terrifying racial stereotypes. I have discovered an excellent venue finder. www.roomsformeetings.net This has allowed me to find venues of substantial size across the country. I have inquired after a number of quotes which should get me a little further with my form. The actual planning seems to be going rather smoothly although I am aware it will be a rather large organisational task to get all the events running smoothly and simultaneously. Because of this I am considering the hiring of a sidekick or two but I am not sure how much I should pay them nor who they should be. The choice of a sidekick could be vital to a successful grant application, if I go along the same lines as your average Bond villain I should be able to tick a few diversity boxes as well. On another matter, I am in a quandary as to my own fee. Clearly as “lead artist” I should be due a significant sum but as is usual with these applications I am finding it hard to decide what that should be. In the past, when filling out these forms, I have been encouraged to put forward a realistic fee for my time and effort but whenever I have done this I have always been asked to cut the figure down. Usually (like telling the doctor how much one drinks) I halve the figure I first thought of and spread it out over a much longer period. This may all be irrelevant soon. I have heard whispers that the Arts Council may soon be scrapped. Both Waldemar JANUSZCZAK (excuse the capitals I had to copy and paste the spelling from my Twitter feed) and Brian Sewell are calling for its abolition, this is bloody typical.
I have turned my mind to a search for a suitable nerve agent for my project. This is the area that I think will be most difficult to price for my grant application. Making too detailed inquiries early on in proceedings may make the purchase of such agents in the future. I have found a quite useful pamphlet online. Authored by the CIA, it runs through various types of nerve agents and goes into some detail as to their manufacture around the world. I think in the end I will just have to make a best guess as to costs for the application and include a significant contingency in case of unforeseen expenses. I have managed to obtain the email of Tony Blair’s office and am considering asking him for advice on where to find such chemical weapons. I am also considering raising the entrance fee for the open exhibition to £20. Obviously this is a sharp hike (though still on a par with many similar open call competitions) but I am drawn to the symmetry of the idea that their fee will pay completely for the disposal of their bodies.
