Awe: an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like

I was reading up on the Shuttle program at the beginning of the year and noticed that one of the very last launches was scheduled on my birthday. I mulled out loud via Twitter that it’d be very cool to see Discovery take off. One of the guys following me turned out to work for NASA and dropped me a line about organising just that.

If you need a reason to fall in love with Twitter there it is.

Now the September launch could easily get pushed back to October at this point so I’m trying to keep THE PLAN as flexible as possible. The very last flight is scheduled for November so I’ll be keeping that date in my back pocket, but Florida four months from now seems very doable. We’ll see.

After a life time of fictional space flight slamming my imagination all over the place I do tend to forget that the real thing is something to savour.

A major strand of the thinking behind space travel in the Slingers universe came from just how problematic breaking orbit can be and I’ve been working on something new that is a small love letter to the battered Shuttles and their continued resilience. It’s sad to think they’ll end up as museum pieces, but if having them on display reminds kids we need to get back up there then they’ll be continuing an important job even in retirement; to inspire awe.

There’s a chance that when Discovery reaches the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum that Enterprise will be able to tour and once again fly on the back of a 747. That’s how the Shuttle as a concept was first revealed to me as a kid and it’s somehow fitting if it were to come full circle. It should also serve as a reminder that 1977 is in danger of making us here in the 21st century look decidedly old fashioned.

We can and we should do better. Anyway, staying in one place is not how we’re wired.

Mallory O’Brian: Do we really have to go to Mars?
Sam Seaborn: Yes.
Mallory O’Brian: Why?
Sam Seaborn: ‘Cause it’s next. ‘Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what’s next.

The West Wing season two: ‘Galileo’ (2000)

I’ve been lucky enough to attend screenings in the presence of cast members before, but last week I had the unnerving experience of watching JAWS with honest-to-god actual sharks swimming only a few feet away.

This evening Sky Movies HD will be premiering Spielberg’s 1975 classic in high definition and as a run up to this event a small group of people were invited to a preview. I couldn’t begin to guess how many times I’ve seen this movie, but I’d have gone to see it on the big screen again anyway. It’s one of those rare movies that never seems to get old and I never ever tire of seeing it. That the Sky screening was taking place after hours in the depths of the London Aquarium right next to the shark tank was icing on the cake…

JAWS in HD is a thing of beauty. Bruce still holds his own against CGI upstarts that fade and out-date almost immediately while Amity and the water has never looked so inviting. I don’t truck with satellite or terrestrial transmissions myself (seems a little 20th century), but if you have the opportunity to tune in this evening around 8pm you will see the movie in all its crystal clear glory. Hopefully we can expect a blu-ray release soon…

So did having the sharks doing their thing right next door distract as much as say some idiot’s mobile phone going off in a regular cinema? Not really. I’m not convinced they were too interested in what we were up to and even Robert Shaw’s demise met no sly winks of approval, but the few times I was aware of the other humans around me it was nice to note that the reappearance of Ben Gardner still causes people to jump and that the beautiful character study of three men on a boat still elicits a warm response.

In fact it’s a credit to the film that even after 35 (!) years and multiple viewings that the only eyes not glued to the screen were the cold dark ones on the other side of the tank…

Bernard Cribbins has been a part of my life since I was a kid. He probably had more influence over me than my parents when I was growing up and hearing his voice or catching an old movie of his makes me break out into a grin. I’ve never been able to work out exactly why this is, but it turns out Bernard knows. He’s a smart guy. But I’ll get to that.

He recently received a BAFTA Special Award in recognition for his work in children’s entertainment. You can see clips from this strand of his career and interviews from the night here.

“I’m 80 years old now, it’s just a question of how much longer I can carry on and how much longer people will want my services. But they still seem to,” he chuckles, “so that’s alright.”

As a follow up to the BAFTA awards ceremony a more public event was organised at the BFI last weekend and I was lucky enough to be invited along. It was great to see so many young children there and of course Bernard’s recent turn as Wilfred Mott in Doctor Who has introduced him to a new generation of fans. The Q&A was followed by a screening of the 1966 movie, Dalek’s Invasion Earth 2150 in which Cribbins plays another TARDIS companion, police constable Tom Campbell. But of course the main reason for most people to be there was to hear him speak of a career that started when he was just 14 years old.

We were treated to an 8 minute video that showed a fraction of the roles he’s played over the years before he walked on stage saying, “My God, I was busy…”

He’s still a wonderful speaker and was happy to tease his interviewer and concentrate on the audience. It was one of those rare events where the crowd got to ask the majority of the questions and each one lead to a funny or moving anecdote. A young girl a few rows ahead of me asked him in a very serious voice how he had felt upon discovering that he was responsible for the Doctor’s death in the recent Christmas special. Brilliant.

He answered my own question as to why it seems he, rather than so many other actors of his generation of whom I’m also a fan, had such an impact on me as a kid. He recalled being in the back of a cab on his way to the BBC and chatting to the driver when the long running children’s show, Jackanory, came up in conversation. Bernard actually holds the record for reading more stories on the show than anyone else, a staggering 111 appearances. In a very matter of fact way, as if it was not a big deal at all, the man revealed to Bernard that it was watching him read to him on the television that made him decide to learn to read.

Incredible stuff storytelling.

Bernard went on to praise the simplicity of the concept: a couple of cameras, a good story, simple but beautiful illustrations and the reader. What this meant to him – and this was the revelation for me – is that he was reaching out to each child individually in much the same way that would happen when a parent read to their child before bed. No unnecessary bells and whistles, no special effects. One story. One reader and one listener. Life changing stuff. And from the smiles in the audience of kids and adults alike he’s still connecting.

I didn’t like much of the new Doctor Who. Parts of it were utterly brilliant, but for the most part I thought it was dreadful and at worst actually treated the audience with contempt. All the worst parts of the new run seemed to have been brought front and centre for David Tennant’s swan song, but in the middle of this unholy mess was Bernard Cribbins. Inspired casting – although as it turns out his continued role was more chance than intentional – and two scenes stand out. One is when the old man finds himself in orbit and points out far below where he fought in the war (an actual anecdote of Bernard’s that was woven into the script) and then later when Wilfred knocks four times to bring the Doctor’s attention to his latest predicament*.

The emotional charge that Cribbins brought to those scenes comes from not just a lifetime of acting, but also taking the parts seriously. It’s something you can see throughout his career and he’s been in some truly bizarre roles, but he tackles each one as seriously as Shakespeare. Known as a comic actor he’s actually got one of the most varied bodies of work I’ve seen and I’m slowly but surely tracking the roles down.

I’ve seen a lot of Bernard Cribbins, but thanks to BAFTA I think my favourite moment of his now is watching him leave the stage and join his family to watch a movie he hadn’t seen himself in decades.

Time travel, right there in front of me. Pretty damn perfect I think.

*Of course, a moment later the scene goes to hell when Tenant’s Doctor cowardly complains about his fate. Tenant’s done some wonderful things with lackluster scripts, but its this fatal misunderstanding of the character by the new writers that made me wish the damn franchise had been left well alone. But I digress.

SOLD OUT – if I have any dropouts or manage to scare up some extra places I’ll let you know. Keep an eye on Twitter: @sizemore

I’ve been asked to get a few people together for a FREE screening of BUNNY AND THE BULL this Friday (6th November) around 6.30 in central London. I’ll confirm the venue later.

All you really need to know is that it’s from the director of THE MIGHTY BOOSH. I haven’t seen it yet myself, but people tell me it’s a lot of fun.

An extraordinary visual feast from the director of THE MIGHTY BOOSH, featuring the crème-de-la- crème of British comedy talent, including Noel Fielding, Julian Barrett and Richard Ayoade, BUNNY AND THE BULL follows Stephen (Ed Hogg), a heartbroken recluse who finds his mind hurtling back to a disastrous treck around Europe he took with his best friend, Bunny (Simon Farnaby), a dissolute gambling addict, as they embark on an extraordinary odyssey where his imagination is the only limit.

Journeying from the industrial wastelands of Silesia to the ball fields of Andalusia, their adventures bring them into contact with Hungarian dog enthusiast (Julian Barratt), a moustachioed matador (Noel Fielding) and a hot-tempered crab waitress (Veronica Echegui) who soon tests how far their friendship really goes.

Here’s the trailer:

And a scene from the movie:

I have 25 or so seats to fill so drop me an email: mikesizemore@gmail.com

First come first served I’m afraid, but please only get in touch if you’re sure you can make it.

Any drop outs will be abandoned on the TUNDRA. Cheers!

UPDATE: The director, Paul King, will be coming along on Friday to introduce the movie!

Speaking of those two:

Didn’t get better than that did it?

I have a few of these kinds of things squirreled away for my talk in June. Not sure how long I have yet, but I will be talking about how Twitter (and the platforms that work so well with it) allow you to pull a few barriers down without the aid of Palitoy.

And speaking of set visits, following my day with Centurion, I just got invited to meet Hideo Nakata on the set of his new movie. More about that later…

One of the odder things I’ve been involved in recently was a Q&A session with JJ Abrams, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto about the new Star Trek movie. It all took place in Playstation Home:

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it

PPC Interactive and @danlight in particular love having a bash at stuff like this. I found it surprisingly similar to the last thing I did with Reuters (perhaps the first time Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, will be compared with Captain Kirk). We used a mix of platforms again, and in retrospect I’m not sure that CoverItLive, UStream and Twitter were the best way to interact with something like Home, but it was a fun learning experience for me.

Funnily enough I was playing with some new software today that should make these kinds of events a lot easier to produce and up the interactive element. Will post about that later when it’s ready to launch.

Tech stuff aside though, this was all about the people and while it took a little while for the journalists to acclimatise and find their virtual legs, the director and actors were happy with what was going on and got it immediately – those around them perhaps less so (which is fairly typical) – but I think there is something here to build on.

Looking forward to see how far we’ve come by the time Star Trek II is upon us…

Jeff Pulver has kindly asked me to speak at the #140Conf in New York in June.

I’ll be speaking about some of the stuff that Twitter has allowed me to do over the last 12 months or so and learning what a whole bunch of other interesting folk have been using it for. I’m hoping to get a better overview of the possibilities that such  a disruptive platform offers and not make too much of an arse of myself.

I’ll also probably talk about some of the people Twitter has helped me work with:

Top image: Sylvester and Tweetie by James Cauty

Bottom image: Steven Spielberg by me.

… is up:

Download a copy from here if you’re even slightly Tuttle curious.

Oh and I accidentally wrote the foreword. You may wanna skip that page. Or draw cocks on it.

About two months ago Christian and I were invited into Thomson Reuters to help cover a Newsmaker event with Gordon Brown – it turned out to be a pretty big deal. Tomorrow we’re back at Canary Wharf for a similar event:

So yeah, this time out it’ll be David Cameron taking the podium. Christian has already mentioned that the Conservatives have taken the lead here when it comes to social media, which is fascinating when you consider how the Obama campaign recently spread itself equally across old and new media to get its message of change across. Politically I’m way too far over to the left to consider Cameron a good choice for PM (not that I’m a fan of Blair and Brown either – such a shame we lost John Smith) but I am interested in how huge institutions, used to playing on their own terms, adapt and evolve when confronted with the new.

I’d love to find out how stuff like this goes down with them too:

There was an interesting mess recently when it was revealed that the Twitter user ‘Tony Benn‘ wasn’t in fact Tony Benn at all. Jemima over at the Guardian covered the hoo-ha here. Significantly the account was given over to the real Tony Benn’s office after the intervention of Twitter users as well. A brilliant example of self policing I think – as opposed to the fuck up that is the FaceBook (spit) policy of insisting that everyone use their ‘real’ name in the first place.

So what can we expect tomorrow? I have no idea. We went into the Gordon Brown event hoping for some one-on-one time, but everything was pushed back an hour and that put an end to that idea. We’re assured that David Cameron will be taking questions following his speech not only from the journalists in the room, but also from Twitter. We’ll see if we can push that particular envelope and this time out we have both Phil Campbell and Nik Butler on board to help. I won’t get into the pissing contest over Le Web that others are involved in, but I can certainly say that watching the event remotely via Phil’s Rezpondr vastly improved the experience over simply watching the often dull talks on stage. Nik has also been busy creating a new Twitter application (Tweetarator) and we should be using both of these tomorrow.

Lots of Twittering then, some photos and video too. Can’t guarantee how much of everything that goes in will be seen by the politicians. but I do know that as last time Reuters will be watching the response very carefully. Do try and join if you get the chance.

Politics aside then the important thing to recognise here is what an incredibly interesting choice Reuters have made in setting these opportunities up.

As I said last time – I’m not a journalist. That hasn’t changed so why do Reuters think it’s a good idea to let us into these things? There’s a reputation stake here – most of the big news agencies now have a toe in the social media water (or are chugging down the kool-aid if you think this is all rather insignificant). Reuters pride themselves on being cutting edge and I know @ilicco is full of stories that point this out (my own favourite being how a Reuters reporter got a story back home via an N95 after his equipment had been destroyed by armed rebels out in Africa). That sounds like the kind of thing that Christian himself used to get up to and his online reputation as a social media expert is secure. I prefer to think of him as an adventurer – it’s good that he now gets the chance to speak directly to organisations about what he does, but it’s a lot more fun watching him out in the field.

Last time out I got branded as a social media guru by Reuters and that’s the only false step they made. It’s not a bad thing for my profile of course, but the reality here is that I’m trying to pull down badges like that for the same reason I despise the term ‘rock star’ on Twitter. That’s not to say we’re not all redefining our roles via these applications.

I attended an event at De Montfort University a few months ago in which Andrea Savieri from The Institute for the Future gave a presentation on the way work was evolving and she had a bash at predicting some of of the roles that would come into being (I videoed the talk and should ask her if it’s OK to post it online). The point is that we’re all pioneers right now. It’s as difficult for me to pigeonhole what I do as it is for others to name it. That’s why I tend to go with the classic catch-all of writer (it’s when I get asked what I write that I get a headache).

If we’re not actively trying to change things ourselves then we’re still having them change around us. If adaptation is the name of the game then Reuters are very good at it. Not everyone we spoke to internally understood why we’d been asked in, but everyone seemed excited at doing something in a new way. In turn we got to see first hand how an international news institution gets into gear for such an event. Hopefully with less of a security aspect tomorrow (which is why we’re able to talk about it in advance) we can show more of what goes on away from the podium.

Adding social media to the mix then adds a certain value to what was already an interesting event. It doesn’t have to be news based of course. If you think about the fun I’ve had with film promotion it always boils down to an attempt to remove some barriers. More of this sort of thing to come (perhaps as soon as Thursday) and perhaps a chance to get an even closer look at one of the big news agencies in 2009. I’ll keep you posted.

Ah, Joanne if only that were true.

I think this counts as my first day back in the UK feeling close to human. Combination of jet lag and jet lurgy has kept me in a kind of dull stupor that also ran through yesterday’s conference call. Thankfully I didn’t have much to add to the conversation aside from how incredibly pleased I’ve been while watching everyone pull together on Amplified08. I did some of the initial groundwork getting the thing going and a tiny amount of admin, but then people like Joanne jumped in and just ran with it.

The timing couldn’t have been better as being out in California (part vacation part working on something else*) meant I couldn’t do an awful lot. In fact I’m still sorting through all the email that Amp08 generated while I was away. I’ll be dealing with that today and getting at least one new post up on the blog after I’ve caught up with all the new stuff on the wiki…

Only a few days to go and we can start planning the first Amplified09 session. February is looking good I think.

And I’m now feeling much less likely to fall asleep on my feet. Amazing what a 12 hour nap can do...

*see next post

mikesizemore@gmail.com

Warren Ellis

Getting home one heist at a time