Location "Yahoo 24" internet cafe. Don't try the 'cappuccino'. |
Mood Grumpy |
Date 8 August 2006
Nooni finds splendid new filming position
Location Dingy hotel room. No AC, no lock, bedbugs, gotta move. |
Mood Winding slowly into second gear |
Date 7 August 2006
Crude Team with taxi
Have assembled a crack team with miraculous speed:
Ra'fat (Palestinian), fixer. Well connected & persuasive.
Location Wobbly table outside coffee house, downtown Amman |
Mood Eyes wide open |
Date 6 August 2006
Amman, Jordan.
Location Plane to Amman, Jordan |
Mood Nostalgic |
Date 4 August 2006
Not sure what exactly changed - perhaps panic that we haven't even found our final character yet - but we're heading out to Jordan, despite the ongoing war.
Lizzie's a few aisles away being tortured by a screaming baby. I have the headphones and laptop. Sure is good being the boss.
Some pretty profound life and death stuff has been going on post Crude-Camp-with-Mark. Like when someone is diagnosed with terminal illness and gets six months to live - or if they survive a near-death experience - they often say their whole perspective changes.
Location At my desk in office in attempt to bring order to chaos |
Mood Chugging along |
Date 3 August 2006
Slightly confused by too many options after my week lying around with High Tide, so sent a couple of emails to our 'Crude Insiders': the 180 darlings who invested in or are working on Crude. Couldn't believe the response - tonnes of great ideas, tonnes of links to further thinking and tonnes of "good on you, keep going". What a fantastic, unintentional side effect of the "How we gonna fund this film without giving away the rights?" problem.
Location On the floor in the office |
Mood Brain-exhausted |
Date 2 August 2006
The heatwave continues.
London's response: buy more air conditioners.
I've spent the last five days lying on the floor with High Tide Mark, doing pilates (him), eating ice lollies (me) and both of us trying not to turn the electric fan on (seems inappropriate somehow).
We are attempting to nail all the arguments/positions/key points to include. Extremely glad we decided to, as Mark has demolished many of my favourite ideas. (The Sweden no-oil-after-2030 is a red herring, apparently.)
Location Sofa again. Springs coming through. Torn apart by cat scratching. Will I still like the threadbare look once the Crude millions come flooding in? |
Mood Yearning for domesticity, terrifyingly |
Date 25 July 2006
Real tears are dripping onto my laptop typing this, as Emma Thompson has just found out that it's all been a big misunderstanding and Hugh Grant isn't married after all. This is extremely worrying and not just because of my history of electrical equipment and water.
Location Dad's house in the woods in Oxfordshire |
Mood Hopeful |
Date 23 July 2006
One good thing about my sort-of-boyfriend's government killing hundreds of innocent Lebanese, is that I didn't have to blow out my dad and stepmum's 20th wedding party yesterday by being in Jordan. Not that I would've felt TOO guilty, as my dad scarred me for life by missing most of my childhood birthdays cos he was away filming important documentaries in difficult countries. Revenge is best served 25 years cold.
Location Not managed to get out of bed yet |
Mood Lonely and miserable |
Date 21 July 2006
Endless problems caused primarily, I think, by this crazy idea of making six documentaries in six countries at the same time. With a crew of two.
All our stories are running away with us. Jeh is in the UK at an airshow, but we only found out via the news, so we missed filming his big press conference this morning - he's buying 10 more planes. Shit. That would've been a good scene for the ever-expanding angle.
Al is getting stressed at us filming on the rig. Think he might be thinking of backing out.
Location Office |
Mood Nesting |
Date 19 July 2006
London is melting. Today was the hottest ever day in July. 36.3 degrees C. I'm happy to say this is not going unnoticed.
The Middle East is also in meltdown.
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