Shangri La

I could barely sleep last night. It was horribly hot and muggy and I got myself into a panic about the edit, which led to my scribbling a pathetic email to the Head of Regions at 3am. Once again, editing was slow today and I could barely keep my eyes open through most of the morning. On a more positive note, we’ve now very nearly mapped out the whole film, which means next week can be about finessing our shots. This news means I have a weekend off and I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with myself! I’m almost panicking at the thought. I think a lie-in could well be at the top of my list but I am not a fan of enforced rest.

I had two gin and tonics after work and I walked home from the pub feeling extremely light-headed. How pathetic am I? I bought myself a 12” sub sandwich, and after one bite decided I didn’t actually want to eat it. Unfortunately I continued with my mission and now I feel horribly uncomfortable.

I wish I could think of something more entertaining to write but this week seems to have zapped me of my personality. I have decided to spend the rest of the evening searching for songs on You Tube that I haven’t heard in years. I’m starting with this by the groundbreaking ELO. I’m loving the film that goes with it and am considering using a number of the edit techniques in A Symphony For Yorkshire. I particularly like the one where hearts drift across the screen... Classy.

350 years ago it rained all day and Pepys was unable to have his goods taken from Westminster to his new house. He doesn't write a great deal more, and neither shall I! Is this the shortest blog entry I’ve ever written?

Strawberries and lettuce

This morning was horrible! At about mid day I was wandering around Leeds, sending angry text messages and feeling incredibly sorry for myself. Yet again there were a ridiculous number of technical issues and glitches in the edit suite and way too many people were standing around, scratching their heads and saying; “well, you should never have shot this film in high-def.” I left the building and very nearly left Leeds, saying I wouldn’t return until the technicians took the film as seriously as everyone else at the BBC. In a few hours things were sorted and we were able to continue. It has to be said that not a single day has passed in the edit where I haven’t lost at least 2 hours to problems apparently “beyond the control” of everyone. The technicians stand around saying, rather rudely, that they can't help, until someone kicks ass, or gets shirty and the problems are miraculously solved. That is not the way the world should work. I hate having to throw a barny just to get something done.


We started editing the third movement today, which can only be described as an embarrassment of riches, both sonically and visually. It’s absolutely not what anyone will expect from the symphony but it sounds incredible and the pictures are stunning; the most amazing are probably the shots of Circus Envy in the back of a pickup truck speeding down the middle of Spurn Point, butterflies fluttering around in the early morning sunshine.

I returned to my flat late tonight. I was at Purple Pro this evening listening to the final mixes, which incidentally sound brilliant. Hazel has been doing sterling work. On returning I stood in the lift with a guy who was obviouisly just coming home from a jog. I had decided to give myself a night off physical exercise, but he spurred me on. I'm sick and tired of having a face like a bloated football and need to get back in shape. Besides, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the renewed energy I’ve had since my new regime began on Monday.

The first song that came on my ipod when I was running was Summer Night City by ABBA. Every time I hear that track, bolts of electricity start to surge through my body. If you don’t know the song, I urge you to watch its fascinating video here. It shimmers with a sort of 1970s, glitterball vibrancy and I consider it to be almost mystical! It makes me long to walk around the streets of Stockholm during the white nights of summer.

This is my 196th blog. My 200th blog will therefore happen on Monday and I've decided it’s time to hear from some of the people who read it. I would love to know what you guys are up to on that day... even if it’s just a few lines. I will publish anything that is sent to me before 10pm on the day and hopefully you and I will all have an opportunity to peek into a few others lives, however eccentric or banal, for one day only.

Pepys’ 196th diary entry (or wait, 1660 was a leap year, so does that mean he’d written 197?) was written on a Sunday. Pepys started the day with a lie-in, before heading off to Westminster Abbey to listen to a sermon delivered in Henry 7th’s chapel. He obviously enjoyed the experience, for he returned in the afternoon for more of the same, admitting that he spent most of his time ogling a woman there. In a slightly uncharacteristic concentration lapse, Pepys reports this fact for a second time at the end of his diary entry,  proving, if proof were needed, that he tended to scribble brief notes on a daily basis before writing them up in full at a later date.

Sometime in the middle of this seemingly endless day, Pepys dined alone with Montagu, and discovered him to be something of an agnostic, which no doubt was something of an admission in those days. He then walked around the park until it got dark before returning to Elizabeth, who’d been confined to the house all day on account of her having packed all of her best clothes for the move. Pepys also admitted on this date that his patent had cost him L40, probably mostly in bribes and pay-offs. This was an enormous sum of money in those days and Pepys was worried...

I've just eaten a punnet of strawberries that taste like lettuce...

Monsieur L'Impertinent

I just spent the last two hours preparing a response to a letter from a solicitor in Lincolnshire. Once again, I can’t really give any details, but suffice to say that one of the things I may need to discuss in court is the nature of “soul” and what constitutes “performable” music. If I lose, it will be a slap in the face for hardworking and ambitious composers across the world. What I will say, is that 8 weeks ago 250 musicians and a whole brace of BBC staff wondered if a Symphony for Yorkshire was beyond the realms of possibility. A great deal of hard work and belief has proved the opposite to be the case. Nothing is impossible if you simply close your eyes and open your mind. And surely something can only be deemed "unperformable" if one has tried to perform it! It is my ambition to have worked in every county in the country before I'm dead, but sadly when I hear Lincolnshire mentioned, I shudder.


The edit continues to go slowly, but we’re getting there. Unfortunately it looks as though we’re not going to be able to reshoot the Hull Youth percussion group and I’m devastated that we're going to have to lose them from the piece. Their conductor was contacted yesterday and asked about a possible re-shoot on Saturday but he claimed it was too short notice, so unfortiunately the kids have not been informed. My belief is that it should be the kids themselves who decide whether Saturday is too soon to head to the centre of the town they live in. At least that way they wouldn’t be upset when they watch the symphony and find they're nowhere to be seen. If anyone reading this blog knows any of the young people in question, perhaps you could get them to contact their teacher and lobby him to at least tell them where the filming would take place. Frankly, if only one wanted to do it, I’d still want to film them... I’m horrified at the prospect of their not being involved.

It’s been raining and thundering all day despite the BBC website claiming Leeds would have “sunny spells”. Not only are they not predicting the weather, they’re not noticing it either. Anyhow, it’s incredibly muggy and I feel like I’m in a steam room. Outside, the lightening flashes and the thunder roars and I have a stonking headache coming on. I can’t decide if it’s something to do with the humidity, the electrical particles in the air, or the fact that I’ve been staring at a substandard screen in the edit suite all day. It would be just my luck to be struck by lightening. My little episode on the bumper cars has proven that I must be some kind of mecca for electricity. Perhaps that's why all technology breaks when I'm anywhere near!

350 years ago, Pepys kicked off the day, by telling his wife to start preparing their things to be transferred to their new house at the Navy Office in Seething Lane. And for those of you who are interested in details, this particular lane is in the City of London, just round the corner from the Tower. This would have been something of a move for Pepys. Westminster was a considerable walk away and also the home of the King, Parliament and juicy gossip!

He spent much of the day paying off various tabs at the stalls in Westminster Hall, knowing that he'd soon need to start shopping elsewhere! There was a brief cameo appearance in the diary today from one of my favourite characters, one Mr Butler, always known by Pepys as Mons. L’Impertinent, possibly on account of his political incorrectness and seeming ability to say (and get away with) the most astonishingly rude things. I wonder why he appeals to me quite so much...?

Reality check

Just when you think you’re in the home straight, another problem comes along and smacks you across the face. This morning it became clear that we’re going to have to re-shoot at least two sequences from the Symphony for Yorkshire. Predictably one of these was the shoot with the youth orchestra that caused all the problems on Hessle foreshore and led to me snivelling on a pebble beach whilst eating a Macdonald’s veggie burger. The footage from this particular occasion is just awful; dark clouds, musicians looking disengaged, confusing camera work... The only decent shot was wrecked by the “making of” crew who suddenly appeared on one side of the picture. No doubt they got better shots than we did!


The other problem I’m having at the moment is that I'm suddenly being forced to face the realities of life. When you’re filming you live in something a little bubble. Not only do you eat rubbish, but you wear the same clothes day after day, you let your flat get messy and all your vegetables go rancid. I've just scraped a liquid mass out of a cupboard which I think must have been a potato at some point. It looked a bit like a undercooked omlette.

There’s not been hot water in my flat now for two weeks and the man has just come round to fix it, which is a relief because I HAVE to wash my towels. I washed them in cold water a few days ago, they took forever to dry and when I tried to use them, I couldn’t believe how horrible they smelt. I might as well have tried to dry myself with a block of parmesan cheese.

I also need rather desperately to do another draft of the Pepys motet so that I can start the search for singers in earnest. I think I’m going to have to dedicate an hour to this each day. There really is no rest for the wicked.

Friday 13th July 1660 was a lucky day for Pepys, bordering on momentous, for it was the day which saw the patent for his new position finally sealed and granted. There were nevertheless still many hurdles to be leapt over before the moment finally arrived. At one point Pepys was even forced to pay a bribe to an angry man, adding archly in his diary; “I did give him two pieces, after which it was strange how civil and tractable he was to me”.

As soon as the patent arrived, the good news started to tumble in. Pepys had his choice of house okay’d by the powers that were at the Navy Office and his various requests for home “improvements” were granted, which included the addition of a door up onto the leads of the house, so that he could go up there to walk, sing and star gaze. Filled with joy, Pepys took the signed patent to Elizabeth, who was unsurprisingly thrilled, and the two of them went to look at their new house, which pleased them both enormously.

Chancery Hand

We started the edit today. Well at least, we dipped our toes into the murky waters of the edit! There was a great deal of setting up to be done at BBC Leeds to try and get the systems to recognise high definition film. There was a lot of head scratching and much disappearing behind desks to unplug plugs and re-wire wires. Eventually a sort of temporary solution was found and at about 3pm we finally began the process of matching pictures to sound.


It’s a more complicated process than you’d imagine. High definition means that everything gets picked up; the merest flick of the eyes is magnified – and a wonderful shot can be spoilt by someone in the background doing something slightly eccentric. A brilliant set-up in the market in Leeds, for example, was completely wrecked by a little girl with the biggest head I’ve ever seen, staring like a simpleton at the camera! And in another shot an enormously fat woman actually tried to hide behind the thin violinist because she didn’t want to be caught on film! On top of this there are so many technical things that can go wrong. We suffered a fair amount from the sun coming in and out, sometimes so regularly you’d have thought God was having a disco and this has a terrible effect on the exposure of the film. When you’re working with jibs and steady-cam, focussing can also be a problem. And then there are the musicians, who are a troublesome lot at the best of times! There’s nothing like a singer marking their part, singing down an octave, or miming, to makes things look a bit unnatural.

Nevertheless, despite all of this, I maintain we’ve shot an extraordinary film, far surpassing anything I’ve made before and I can’t wait to start finessing the glorious shots.

I’ve started a regime of health and fitness. Our shoot might as well have been sponsored by Coca-Cola and Haribo. I’ve eaten nothing but rubbish and I feel all bloated and weird. Unfortunately I keep popping up in shot and I've never seen myself looking so fat and middle-aged. I sort of waddle now when I walk and keep catching sight of the little bald patch on the back of my head. Add to this the fact that the sun has sent my hair a few shades lighter and dried it into a wispy, thin mess and you have one very embarrassed director! Ageing is such an unkind process. I don’t behave like a 35 year old. Why should I look like one? And when did everyone around me suddenly get younger than me?

Anyway, I’ve been for a jog tonight, so I feel a great deal more energetic and I had a lovely salad for tea. Sadly, I’m still craving sugar, which is worrying. Perhaps I’ll pop down to the Co-op below and buy myself some fruit... or allow myself a little packet of sweeties. A couple of sweeties can’t do any harm, surely?

July 12th 1660 and Pepys was frantically running around Westminster and up and down the Strand trying to get his official papers signed, sealed and delivered. It was a hugely complicated process. The document needed to be written on the right sort of paper, in a very specific font called Chancery Hand. In fact, from the mid 15th Century, right up to early Victorian times, all official royal documents were required to be written in that hand. And perhaps unsurprisingly, Chancery Lane was the street in which the clerks trained in this style of handwriting were based. Pepys had heard that his predecessor was in town, still kicking up a fuss, so ran frantically down the lane trying to find a clerk who could help him, but none were about. Eventually at 11pm, he found someone, and the papers were drawn up, but Pepys went to bed, still panicking.

It's a wrap

We finished filming A Symphony for Yorkshire an hour ago, and I suppose I’m feeling rather strange and empty. It feels like the end of some kind of era and I hate the thought that I won’t be spending any more time with the surrogate family who've been my companions for so many exciting days. The filming process has been an extraordinary period of time with very few lows and countless highs. And the most amazing shot happened today. 60 musicians marched up a steep street in Sheffield, led by a group of police drummers and a troupe of majorettes. The coup de theatre, however, was the open-topped bus which followed behind them, crammed full of even more musicians and people with balloons and Yorkshire flags. Loads of well-wishers turned out to wave from the sides of the road and all had made a real effort to dress colourfully, bringing all manner of stuff with them including dogs, drums, surf boards and handmade Yorkshire flags. The shots looked magical. I felt ridiculously proud to hear my music playing so loud on a bank of speakers along the road and humbled that people had bothered, not just to tip up, but to learn their parts and play with so much gusto.

Later on we headed to the village of Millhouse Green, to film our male voice choir in their local pub. Yet again I found myself overwhelmed by the experience. At one point I started playing through movement four to try and get a level for sound and spontaneously the choir joined in, singing with an energy and commitment which blew me sideways. It is a real thrill for a composer to hear his music sung like that.

The final shot happened in Viaduct, a gay bar in Leeds. I suppose it felt all the more special because the location represents one of my part of this enormous and diverse community of Yorkshire. At one point I started to wonder how many of the 150 musicians who played in the symphony are gay. It’s easy enough to count the ethnic minorities or the women or to make calculations about peoples’ ages, but I suppose ours is one of the more invisible communities. It brings to mind the age old joke, “which is better? Being black or being gay? Being black because at least you don’t have to tell your parents...”

Our final shot was fronted by the wonderful Em Brulee, who snaked her way up a flight of stairs looking mysterious and glamorous in a 1950s sort of way. Em describes herself as a gay man in a woman’s body, so the location seemed perfect.

July 11th 1660 was a busy day for Pepys, during which he cheekily asserted his right to the house he wanted in the Navy Office complex. He’d been spurred on to take somewhat drastic action when he saw “a busy” fellow arrive to take possession of a house on behalf of Lord Berkeley, one of the new commissioners. There were only four more residences, so in a panic, Pepys rushed home, grabbed a pair of sheets, and knocked on the door of the house he fancied, only to find it occupied by one of the old guard who' lost their positions and were supposedly moving out. Pepys explained to the gentleman that he had come to live in his house and promptly spent the night there! I suppose, even back then, possession was 9/10ths of the law, and Pepys was desperate for the house no matter what.

Pickup Truck

We’re currently on our way back to Leeds from Hull. The sun is beating down, and it’s already turning out to be one of those golden days; one I’m sure I’ll remember for the rest of my life.


We started out at Spurn Point underneath the most beautiful blue sky. I suppose it was the shot we’d all been looking forward to; the winning combination of the wonderful Circus Envy and one of the most mystical places on the planet. The boys were brilliantly well prepared, and filming them was a joy. We let the track run and they played along perfectly in sync...

One of our shots involved the band crammed onto the back of a pickup truck. They looked incredibly cool, and as we hurtled along the single track road running to the end of the spit, I realised that I was seeing exactly what I’d imagined when I planned the shot. The sea to our right was gleaming in the bright sunshine, and to our left, the ferries and oil rigs on the Humber were perfectly in focus, glowing magically in the early morning light. You could see for miles.

We filmed the sequence from the top of a van, looking down on the pickup as it sped along behind us. I think it was at this moment, as the wind rustled through my hair, and hundreds of cabbage white butterflies fluttered around us, that I made the conscious decision to take time out simply to consider how lucky I am.

...And the day continued to improve. An hour later, we'd driven back to the Hessle Foreshore, donned wet suits, and were with the Humber Lifeboat Rescue Team, steaming backwards and forwards underneath the Humber Bridge. We filmed a violinist and a skiffle board player and it was an absolute riot. It struck me that you’d be foolish to claim to have lived unless you’d hurtled underneath the Humber Bridge on a motorised dinghy!

July 10th 1660 was a busy day for Pepys. He kicked things off by putting on his “new silk suit, the first I ever wore in my life”. Restoration fashions and fabrics had obviously arrived in force! Pepys was heading to the wedding of the wonderfully named Mynheer Roder. It was a dazzling society event “with very great state, cost and noble company”. Pepys, never one to miss an opportunity to ogle the ladies, came to the conclusion that he was lucky to have found Elizabeth; “ among all the beauties there , my wife was thought the greatest”. Mynheer Roder, was by all accounts a bit of a pratt. He became an evangelist preacher and was eventually imprisoned by the usually tolerant Dutch, for systematic attempts to undermine the authorities in the name of Jesus. In 1672, he caused mayhem by mistaking the French invasion of Holland for the end of the world. Unfortunately there’s not much going back from that...