Permission to Land

“Always get permission!” – this could be my flippin’ catchphrase at college. Either that or “Right, tea break!”  or “Look busy; the boss is coming”.

My students go out there and they film stuff. They often care not for formalities. They come back to face my new mantra. “Did you get permission? , “Have you had a consent form signed?”, “Did you contact the owners to ask if it was OK to film in their garage?”

“It’s my Mum and Dad’s garage”

“Doesn’t matter- they could sue, you can never tell. Parents can be the worst. Ask Maccaulay Culkin; he’ll tell you.”

It’s been a full week of that kind of nonsense as my class turn in their production files for marking. “That pigeon you filmed, did you get a contract drafted with his agent first? Has he given you worldwide rights? Did he twitter any copyrightable melodies?”

Turns out I am hypocrite. For this weekend I myself got busted for guerrilla filmmaking and brushing my stupid cheek against anti terrorism legislation. Probably. 

It’s Friday and after a week full of deadlines being met at work (both mine and my students) and preparations for childminding, animal sitting and hunting for passports that turned out to be secreted in volumes of Margaret Atwood novels (I know- what goes on in my head?), we are on the last leg of The Lorelei’s Album launch tour to London.  I am on a mission to collect enough footage to put together a third video for the band (First and Second can be seen here, pop-pickers). I have instructed all band traveling companions to get as much video as they can of the band members as they make their way to That London. “Airports, train stations, tubes, buses- the lot. Film them and hand it all over to me at the end.” We are all traveling separately like the Royal Family so I find myself alone on the plane with Meeester M, Lorelei lead singer and usually jovial behatted troubadour. The problem is that we are not sitting together as we booked our flights at different times.  He’s three rows behind me chatting to his fifty something glamourous neighbour.

“Psssst, Meeester, I’m supposed to be filming you!” I shout over in a stage whisper. For one second I think he’s going to ignore me and keep chatting to his new best mate to make me look like some kind of paparazzo sticking out of a hedge- it’s maybe in line with the persona he’s putting forward to his glamorous new companion. "Ignore it, it happens all the time, love. Anyway, where was I...?"

Meanwhile my erstwhile new companion, a guy of about twenty-five, who has until now made no attempt to speak to me offers to move and let Meeester sit beside me, redolent of the bit in When Harry Met Sally when Harry tries to annoy Sally on the flight and her neighbour offers Harry his seat. I’m Harry in this scenario by the way. “Didn’t we once....you know?” “No we did NOT!”

Reluctantly Meeester agrees to move and I set about filming him with my iPhone. He’s not in the mood. He’s got a cold, has just done a full day's work and his Garnier caffeine enriched eye roll on lotion hasn’t quite taken. He gives me the sly two fingered gesture at the side of his cheek as I turn my camera on immediately ruining my first shot, so I decide to get general views of the plane itself. I film the ground crew out the window, I film the overhead signs in the cabin and oh, ace, the safety briefing has started with Gary our Chief Steward who looks like a Dara O’Briain- I’ll film that!

Gary’s in full flow .....and then..... suddenly he stops. He disappears from view and turns off the intercom. I’m still filming. “This is gold dust!” I’m thinking. Gary then comes back into view and suddenly is striding towards me. I’m still filming. In fact I’m still filming him when he stops at my seat and says, “What are you doing?”

Oops.  “I’m, em, filming you?” (Am I? What a bloody idiot!) I am currently floating above my body and looking on as an eejit who was filming the safety briefing is given a telling off as an entire cabin full of passengers look on, several of them laughing, including my former twenty something neighbour who made no attempt to chat me up earlier confirming that I have indeed “lost it”. He is pissing himself laughing in particular.

Gary is nae happy. It’s taken him thirteen hard years to perfect that safety briefing. Only to have it ruined by an IPhone wielding eejit. “You are not allowed to film on the plane. You are particularly not allowed to film a safety briefing” He says as if it were indeed one of your actual Ten Commandments and he is your actual Moses.

“Switch that off,” he commands as he turns and returns to his briefing starting position.

Gary isn’t finished with me yet though. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he says with intercom in hand once more, “ I apologise for having to start the Safety Briefing again but SOMEONE was filming me.”  The safety briefing recommences with no-one watching it as they are now all looking at me. Many of them are openly sniggering.

As drinks are served, I try to hamfistedly make amends with Gary. I could have done better as my opening gambit is, “I'm so sorry. I’m not some mental terrorist, I was just filming my husband’s music video”.  Yes, I actually say the word “terrorist”. Gary still hates me, possibly more now that I’ve claimed I’m not a terrorist which is exactly what a terrorist would say.   

“The pilot has instructed me to tell you to delete all that footage. You need permission to film on a flight and YOU WOULD NEVER be given permission to film a safety briefing” (again with the Wrath of God Old Testament tone). I take my gin and tonic from his judgmental hands and examine it for spit as Gary moves off to serve other better behaved passengers.

So this is the start of the flight. I’ve a whole 80 minutes of Gary’s wrath and fellow passenger ridicule to endure. Highlights include Gary grabbing the intercom halfway through the flight as I make my way to the toilets to tell me to return to my seat “as the conveniences are not available when the seltbelt warning sign is activated” and the bloke behind me who didn’t even try to chat me up laughing at that too.

Always get permission.

Don't ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!

The Chiropractor Embarrassment Increases!

 

Turns out the most embarrassing incident in my husband's life has made it to the finals of the MAD bloggers awards.The post "The Chiropractor Story" is up for Best Post of the Year. Very exciting as I get to go to actual real life awards.

You can read the post again here and if you like it (more than the other finalists, that is, cos you should read them too) then you can click the link at the bottom to vote for me. I win a Soda Stream if I win the category but I'll stick that up as a prize on the Misssives. (cough- that is not a bribe- no really)

Here it is:

The Chiropractor Story

After a good four years of writing the Misssives sometimes you feel that you’ve run out of stories. And then something HUGE pops into your head. This has happened this morning as a result of Meeester M posting this Blipfoto yesterday. In the blurb he claims that if he was a lady and had to wear high heels it would be these. Who can blame him? They are ace shoes.

This morning I said to him, “Oh my goodness Meeester M, do you know what I’ve never blogged? The Chiropractor Story. Can I do it?” . Check me, uncharacteristically asking someone’s permission before I post.

“Yes,” he said, straight away.

“Are you sure???” I say,  even more uncharacteristically making them reassess whether a full Misssive on the subject might not damage their reputation like some kind of reverse tabloid journalist.

“I’m pretty unembarrassable. Do it,” he says. It’s true, he is. Just as well.

Ladies and gentlemen it is with great pride that I give you the Chiropractor Story.

Back in time when Indy was a baby Meeester M worked in social work. He was the manager of an old folks’ home in Aberdeen. Very often he had to lift old people, whether in be in and out of a bath or if they had a fall. One day he twisted his back when an old lady decided mid lift that she didn’t want to be lifted anymore and thrashed about a bit. Old ladies can be difficult creatures. The resultant back injury gave Meeester M a lot of gyp, so much so that he decided that he had to seek professional help.

His doctor was of no use, just recommending rest and painkillers, so one of Meeester’s friends recommended a chiropractor. What possibly swung it for Meeester M was the added bit of information that the chiropractor was the uncle of Tim Wheeler from the band Ash. I throw that in for no other reason than to give a full picture of the timescale. Ash were currently very big. So were the newly wed Beckhams. Victoria had just been on Parkinson the other week embarrassing her new husband about liking to wear her underwear. Remember that? So we’re talking around 1998/9. It was a time of a new Labour government, no banking scandals , no real terrorist threat and George Bush hadn’t been elected yet. Times of positivity and innocence. I think they call them “halcyon days”.

The chiropractor was just round the corner from Meeester’s workplace but he hadn’t been able to secure an first appointment during work hours. He was on an early shift meaning he had to leave the house at 6.30am on a wet dark winter’s morning. Indy and I were still asleep when he left. We would meet him later on when we collected him from the chiropractors on our way down to see Meeester M’s family in Glasgow for the weekend.

After a sore day at work where Meeester M could do no more than office and supervisory duties, he limped around the corner to the chiropractors. He was looking forward to a quick twist and a crack or two of his spine that would suddenly release the pain, and with any luck the mobile number of the management for Ash, so that he could secure a support slot for his band for any upcoming tours.

He met the chiropractor and explained his problem to him. “Old ladies can be difficult creatures,” he said.

“Yes,” the chiropractor said, “If you just go into the changing room and strip down to your underwear and we’ll get you to lie on the bench and I’ll take a look.”  I imagine he was flexing his fingers and cracking his knuckles at that point, but I’m probably embellishing that to add more colour to the scene. Not that any more colour would be needed within a few minutes.

Meeester went into the cubicle and began to undress (steady there, ladies). His back was smarting and he had struggled to get his shirt off. He was worried about bending down to take his socks off. Could he just leave them on? No, they would have to come off. He didn’t want to look like an arse. He needn’t have worried, as something far more pressing was about to happen. 

He looked down at his crotch and realised he was wearing a pair of his wife’s knickers.

Now I’m not one for lingerie, so it could have been a lot worse. But the pants were bad enough for a big hairy man to worry about  going naked in front of the chiropractor uncle of Tim Wheeler for Ash. The pants were hot pink bikini cotton pants from M&S. They may even have been tanga design. There is no way they could possibly have been passed off as bloke’s pants. And, ladies and gentlemen, they had not been put on by mistake that morning. Don't feel too sorry for him. Meeester had worn them ON PURPOSE.

At 6am Meeester M is not good. His underwear drawer is a mess, and he often cannot readily find clean pants in the dark. That morning he decided not to put the light on and disturb his wife as she would very likely attack him viciously if he wakes up the baby, as is her right. 

“I know, I’ll stick a pair of Misssy’s keks on," he thinks. “They’ll do. Nice and snug as well”.  That last thought of Meeester’s – I’ve added that for comic effect, but you know it’s true, they would have been nice and snug. In fact, they would have been very snug indeed.

At 6am he has forgotten that he is due at a chiropractors in a few hours time. He forgets the same thing each time he visits his work loo that morning. Dr Freud would have a field day.

Back to the changing cubicle and Meeester M is panicking. What is the best course of action? Does he appeal to the doctor to keep his trousers on? No, the back pain is in his lower back. Does he go commando? Is it better to go out there completely naked than with women’s knickers on? No, he doesn’t want the police involved in the situation, this is getting public enough. Does he march in nonchalantly wearing the pants and make absolutely no reference to them? He considers this. It could just work.

In the end he decides to ‘fess up. He clears his throat and calls the guy from behind the curtain, “Er, I have to warn you. I am wearing my wife’s underwear.”  Now on reflection his words could have been better chosen, as “underwear” suggests a bra was also in the equation.

“Em, it doesn’t matter. Just come out,” the uncle of Tim Wheeler from Ash who Meeester’s band will never support in concert replies.

Meeester steps out and sheepishly stands in front of the spine jockey as he regards him.

 “Tell me,” he says as he looks at the pubic explosion that is Meeester’s crotch and the fuschia pink knickers combo, “Is it a David Beckham thing?”

you can vote here

Don't ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!

Love is Blind

 Behind the scenes at the video shoot

 Never a truer word was spoken.

This is the first ever music video I have ever directed. I've been busy this past couple of months directing videos for my husband's band, The Lorelei (hence the absence here on the Misssives). 

I chose my favourite song on their new album, Faces, (available here) for my first shoot and here is the result. I was helped hugely by my student Martin Symons who edited it for me and did an amazing job and put up with me texting him all the time! I am very proud of what he has achieved here.

Now I know I'm biased and all that but I think this song has got the potential to be a hit, and I would appreciate it if you think so too, if you could spread the word by sharing the video on twitter, facebook, your blog, whatever you use, because they really deserve more attention.

 There is a second video for another song called Song for The Boy but I'm going to post that separately tomorrow, as it deserves it's own limelight and there are a few stories attached to it that I want to tell you.

Oh and you can come and see The Lorelei live on these dates throughout the country. Click here for tour dates.

Don't ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!