We never did find Marceau's grave

After getting far too interested in the topic of our perception of time, and whizzing through a couple of books on the subject, I've been looking at the past three weeks in a funny way. In one sense, they have absolutely zoomed by thanks to all the unusual things I've been doing. On the other hand however, now that it's all over, the three weeks feel like they've lasted months. If I'd sat about, scratched myself and watched tv, the weeks would condense into a single vacuous memory. Instead, despite having thought 'wow, today has flown by', the result of several unique and interesting things have formed more solid, individual memories, making the weeks greater than the sum of their parts. So hooray for that! Now, what was doing?

Well, The first week, I flew to Belgium for a few days, chaperoning the Byre's Youth Theatre on a NTS exchange. A superb experience; I got to join in the workshops they did with the group we met, Kopergietery, in a fascinating little theatre. We also got a chance to see what I considered a genuinely mind-blowing piece of theatre: taking place inside a velodrome, with mtorbikes, volleyball players, prog rockers, a guy dressed as a hamburger, a huge choir, powerpoint presentations told through dance... Can't say I understood a thing, but my jaw collapsed and never recovered from start to finish.

As soon as I got off the plane back in Scotland, I was off to join the rest of my film group for a week of filming in a spare slot in a shopping centre. I must say, it did feel very professional having our own space, and not worry about getting in anyone's way.

There was also one evening of shooting in Glasgow, where some Turkish guy tried his best pick uplines on me, and tried to get me back to his hotel room ("I win big on casino!"; "Hotel key, yes?"). All of this took place in a chip shop, so I couldn't quite walk away... all very awkward.

Then it was off to Paris! The final scene of the film, just a tiny bit really, is set in Paris, and trying to break records for ambition, we really thought it best that it be on location. So a great time all round! The first day, we filmed stuff, then chilled out. The second day, we chilled out a bit more. One of the absolute highlights had to be Pere- Lachaise Cemetary, home to the graves of the likes of Oscar Wilde, George Melies, Jim Morrison, Marcel Marceau and Edith Piaf. An astounding experience, just a brilliant place to go for a walk and see some beautiful statues. Oscar Wilde's was a difinite highlight, while Jim Morrison's was a sad disappointment, having been cleared of effigies and candles. George Melies on the other hand was wonderfully modest in size, but with the utterly brillant title: Createur du Spectacle Cinematographique.

If you've not seen La lune à un mètre (Trip To The Moon), what have you been doing? Bloody well see it.

Anyway, back home, and we got into editing full swing. It looks good, I'm very happy with it, even though the pop soundtrack destroyed even me after two whole nights of editing. Still, it all worked very well in terms of my love of forcing things into neat nostalgic little boxes - we test screened it in the first lecture theatre I ever had a class in, and followed it up with a lovely last lecture of my time in university. It gets screened in the Mainhouse of the Macroberts on Friday!

Rounding off the week, I headed to the Glasgow SECC for Bob Dylan (still a)Live. Hmm, well. It was seated, which I didn't realise when we bought the tickets, but everyone stands anyway, so being a short guy, I lose. Fortunately, I was drunk enough that I could sacrifice all my front-of-house hang ups about not sitting where I'm told, and went for a little wander. Got sitting two rows away for Maggie's Farm, which was awesome, since I'm only really aware of his earlier stuff. But I kept getting moved, and by the time I got bored of this little trick, I was too far away to even care that Dylan was even in the same room. Still, that's a better position than not seeing at all. Still, if he's not going to make a performance out of the gig, which I wouldn't expect him to, I'd at least hope to appreciate hearing him live. Well, tough luck, the SECC sounds just like what it is, a giant metal box. It's a shame, I'd love to have enjoyed him more, and though I can say I was there, that's really not a big deal.

Instead of ending on a sour note, I'll leave you with a funny subtitle fail, just because I didn't know how to fit it properly into conversation...