A second appeal

I'm sitting in Edward's flat, watching the Dancing on Ice final whilst eating delicious wraps. I love staring out at the black Thames and seeing the little boats drifting through the silvery reflection of the Dome. 

I spent the afternoon in East London with Philippa, Deia, Silver and Philippa's Dad, Nick. We made finger-print pictures, cut and tied together endless pieces of multi-coloured string, made a carrot and walnut cake and drank hundreds of cups of tea. It was great fun. 

This morning, at shit o'clock, I took Nathan to Heathrow Airport. We got there in record time; 25 minutes flat, and I was back home and in bed again by 7am. I woke up at 11 and wondered if the whole trip had been a surreal dream, until Nathan called to say he was in a rainy Koblenz, which was effectively closed. The poor lad couldn't even find food and had to beg a restaurant to rustle him up something. The Germans seem to be very keen to abstain from doing anything on Sundays. Funny; I never associate them with being particularly religious. 

I've been a little disappointed by the slowness in which pledges are coming in to our Four Colours We Fund page. I'd love to have been a little further towards our target by now and don't really know what else I can do to motivate people into seeing the importance of what we're trying to do. It's a little scary because if we don't raise the money, it comes out of my own bank account and having just had to buy a new computer I'm in no position to be flash!

It's hard times out there, people don't have money, and obviously Kaleidoscope is slightly more controversial than the majority of British charities. I'm also aware that it's not long since I asked people to buy copies of the Requiem. It may also be that people are planning to come to the quiz. 

God, I don't know. I looked at my twitter feed this morning and everyone's talking about whether One Direction were wrong to ask their fans to get tattooed if they wanted to have a chance of being featured in their next film. First World issues which sadden me. Hundreds of thousands of people will spend 50p voting for their favourite celebrity on Dancing On Ice, and yet when a composer rattles his metaphorical pot, only five people respond. 

View me as a beggar by all means. I am begging - all creatives have to beg at some point, because art with integrity is unlikely to make profit. It doesn't make it any less humiliating. In this instance, however, I'm begging because I want to help a situation which I'm quite convinced we can change within our lifetimes. 

And yes, lots of other things are wrong with the world; we all have a list of things we find worrying. Lots of people are making art, and asking friends to donate money to charity, so I don't really know what I'm expecting, or even why I'm writing this blog! 

I suppose the clincher in all this was seeing that one of the performers on the recording, who's already performing for nothing, also donated a tenner, which was humbling in the extreme. 

I guess I'm just saying that I'm not gonna labour the point - there's nothing worse than a whinging writer - but if you DO have a spare fiver and you believe in the project we're trying to get off the ground, don't forget to make that donation! We really need the pennies right now.

Have a happy week!