MO75
MO75? WTF is that all about? Seen it a few times on the lanes of Donegal. Some Masonic meaning perhaps? Or Fifth Columnists operating on Irish soil. Somebody should be told!
The Roamer
Had my piece about the Mari Lwyd tradition published in The Roamer page of the Belfast newsletter. Thanks Charlie.
Shanshula
My poster for a Palestine film evening in Ludlow, Sat 30th November 6 – 8.30pm
TPAS Calendars ’25
First batch of calendars going out. Will do another session after my tea (pie and chips tonight . Trialing out stronger packaging this year, but alas, the ones I bought were just too long to go into the proper band for postage. So I’ve had to cut every single one down. So apologies if your parcel has got blood on it. You won’t catch anything off me, I had a diptheria jab when I was 5.
Still time to order one right here. No longer need to wait:
Yew Tree Flush
The first waves of Redwing are pouring across Ceredigion. Soon they will remember our centuries old garden yew and see that it is stuffed with ripeness. Then the spectacle starts proper as our resident Mistle & Song Thrushes desperately try to defend the tree. “We were here first! These are all ours!”
Heavens Above
Hyperactive scritchy-scratchy sky over Capel Betws Lleucu (Ceredigion) this afternoon. The sort of sky that would have chem-trail conspiracists rushing to twitter to warn us all.
Ikea Mari Lwyd
Self assembly Mari Lwyd. (Above Table mountain, Crug Hywel). Came across this poor beast at the end of a 16 mile hike from Hay Bluff to Crug Hywel (Crickhowell). Plenty of takers in Wales for the skull.
Spontaneous blackbird deconstruction
First light and our resident male sang his last notes. The Sparrowhawk flushing through three or four times a day finally got his meal. Everything but the keratin consumed – just the beak, feet and feathers left to tell the story.
As luck would have it, this blackbird’s chicks fledged from the nest in my shed a week ago.
And so to Burnley
Film Festival and Pendle Hill. Some time ago I was asked to be judge for the 45th Burnley Film Festival. In total 19 films were entered. Some completely excellent, many just great and all with some merit. I watched all of them at least four times, then once more at the festival itself. I wrote some 6,000 words of deliberation on them all. Erring always on the side of positive. Even the least well constructed film deserved not to be shot to pieces. Least of all by me.
Being so far from home (180 miles) we made a couple of nights of it. Staying at Fence just north of Burnley with the event itself held in Higham , a gorgeous Pennine village. We were well looked after by the organisers and the films played to a full house. I got to read my verdict then announce and present the winners. Dinner at the splendid Fence Gate on Saturday and Sunday morning a walk up Pendle hill – long since on my checklist of hills to climb. On such a fine Sunday morning, so many others also had the same idea. This didn’t detract from an excellent weekend away.
The British International Amateur Film Festival
A week long event of the best of amateur film-making. Don’t read amateur as amateur here. Read it as non-commercial. Brilliant films, it’s just that nobody got paid. Films to make you laugh, cry and pull all those emotional stops in-between. Some 230 films entered, 101 of them shown during the week. Incl one of my own – The Litterator. Monday to Thursday was an online event and Friday through to Sunday evening was a the Crescent Theatre Brimingham. We stayed in the Hilton Garden Hotel right next door.
Friday night, 2 sessions of films, then four sessions per day Saturday and Sunday with the whole red-carpet Gala Dinner and prize giving done on the Saturday night at the Novotel also next door. Here I got to do the nominations and prize giving for “Best Editor” which went to Paul Merotto (France) for American Plague. A hard-hitter about the familial destruction caused by opiate drugs being pushed on to people in pain by an uncaring private health “care” system . Quite brilliant. Also at the Saturday awards I was presented with an award of my own – Fellowship of the IAC for services etc.. So in amateur film making circles I’m now Martin Evans FACI. So there.
See the online version of the brochure (made by me) here.
