After some transferring of stuff, I'm underway with a working computer, and sending Apple back a laptop with the network name "Carl's Buggered MacBook". Enjoy.



So it's been out with the EX1 again to shoot some customers of a bank that didn't do any naughty investing, and is thus fine. Nice testimonials on the roof of the bank's building in central London, with a view that was representatively varied between scenic and scaffolding.

More lectures, too - the editor of "Nature" magazine, with some very interesting perspectives on frictions between scientists' interests, the "story" and the truth, as reflected in the media. Also a talk on the way in which universities select students - admissions are not the same as when I went to uni, and I'd not really thought through how you sort from thousands of applicants who've all got four As at A level...

I've signed up for a low-budget feature in the summer, as it's shooting on my doorstep, and the director and writer seem really nice... as I get older and grumpier, money becomes less important than working with nice people and getting home in time to read bedtime stories from time to time.

Meeting with the Last B&B FX guys today - more fun evolving, though as the FX budget is zero, people are generously working on it in free moments, which, being bright and interesting chaps, they have in short supply.

Had some trouble with a faulty MacBook Pro that arrived last week, but I've managed to work around the lack of a reliable laptop for backing up rushes from the EX1, getting through a shoot in Bath that also involved 9 hours of driving on a Bank Holiday Friday... My ankles hurt after that.

So this week we headed to Bologna for a film about bilingual education. Very encouraging to meet some teenagers from a non-privileged background who've decided to double their schoolwork for the cosmopolitan benefits of being properly bilingual with specialist vocabulary for their subjects.

Bologna's very pretty - a nice city centre with duomo and lovely piazzas, and San Luca, a church overlooking the city from the hills. We cabbed it up to there to shoot some panoramas, and then walked four miles or so back to town down the steep hill road, which has an entirely covered walkway for pedestrians with 600-odd lovely old arches, little shrines, frescoes and everything. Scenic, and full of locals out for a run.

The school we filmed at was named after Galvani (who invented galvanising, and, I learned, started out trying to reanimate frogs with electricity...). Also learned that the reason English lasagne falls rather short of its original model - Bologna's native dish (as opposed to spaghetti bolognese, which the locals think is English, though they might give you tagliatelle with ragu) - is we don't cook it with an extra layer of pasta over the bechamel to stop it going rock-hard, then throw that layer away. Had some lovely food :)

Seems we just got back in time, as Bologna's about to be closed by volcano ash again. What happened to the government while we were away, though? Registered so Jo could proxy vote for me, but poor Nick actually lost seats. That's what happens if you went to Robinson; don't get your hopes up.

4 hours after returning from Italy, I was piled back into my car for a night shoot in a Rochester warehouse. The short, "Three", was all done in one night, and it was nice to meet the amusing and charming folks on it, even if I was so tired after 26 hours awake that my repartee wouldn't have been up to much.



After recording a very interesting lecture by Sir Ian Wilmut - who cloned Dolly the sheep - this week, I found myself trapped in the building by a big crowd (plus security) awaiting the next speaker, Richard Dawkins. Stayed to watch, as I'm a fan of his books (if not his rather pompous, public-school tone, though he can't help his breeding any more than the Galapagos tortoises, I suppose). Slightly dry overview of excellent "Greatest Show On Earth" (audiobook version read by him & wife Lalla Ward - this being Cambridge, someone asked him if he'd only married her cos she was a Dr Who companion...)