Not got the squits anymore, thankfully

Hello all, well it's been a nice and relaxed week this one. Vanessa took the rest of the week off work cos she got sick (simultaneous flu and stomach problems, whilst I just got the stomach problems). So we've done a fair bit of lounging around recouperating. The only thing we can put our finger on to cause the somach flu would have been some icecubes we carelessly popped into our orange juice the morning before we left Phuket. Whoopsy (quite literally).
I've been popping in an out of the new office watching the edit as it develops, and it doesn't look like too bad a task for me - but am still a but nervous like. They need some voiceover work doing on this one, so I have to be a bloody football commentator (of all the things in the world to be, can you believe it, football) - and they want me to be on the crew for the next thing they shoot in March. There's also talk about me editing the next one, cos their current editor Chi is going on an extended holiday to Laos next week. Ooooh, could be rather interesting if I get that, be nice to stick on my showreel and CV innit.

OK, well I'm going off to maybe buy myself a laptop this afternoon, I rekon the time has finally come for me to part with a fair lump of cash in exchange for home computing that will actually work and be of use to me (as opposed to my past attempts to buy computers which have all been spectacular failures and total false economy). Well that's my hope anyway, knowing me I'll just get bamboozed and end up buying a total lemon.

all the best

I'm a coming home in April -albeit only briefly

I got an email from the guys in Wexford yesterday and they'd like me back for the next festival. Hoorah. That means I'll be working there from 19th April until 21st June, out on site at this old castle (called Johnstown castle, and it looks really lovely). I'm not entirely certain how this one will be, after the slightly dubious manner in which I got along with m fellow cremates last year, but frankyl I don't give a monkeys about that - I'm just gonna keep my head down, make no attempts to befriend anybody and think of all the money.
I'll be flying into the UK somewhere around the 5th - 10th april (depending on flights) and I'll be leaving again at the end of June (around 30th or something).
You lucky, lucky people.
Just when you thought you'd got rid of me for good eh.

Well, count your blessings, at least I won't be around long enough to get on your nerves too much.

But I'll try my best

Vanessa Eats "Ais Kachang" - Shredded Ice

The marvels of Malaysian invention. This desert is a true leviathon in the world of frozen snacks. Somehow they manage to combine a bog pile of crushed ice, condensed milk, sweetcorn, red beans, jelly stuff, lichees, blobs of unknown matter, radioactive looking colourings and loads of syrup into an utterly delicious and refreshing post-dinner treat. Like an enormous Mr Frostie with legumes.

Amazing stuff.

Oh and here's an excample of some comedy Malay absorbtion of English (one of my favourites)

Can you guess what this dude was selling?

What I did at work the other week

The Sound Department

I'll give you the short version, because so much happened it was all a bit too much to relate. The first day was an absolute killer, I got picked up at 1am (after only managing about 3 hours sleep in the evening) and we went down to the local mamak (indian food court) and ate curry for midnight breakfast, washed down with vast amounts of coffee in an attempt to stay awake. When we got to the office we sat down for a while at the Pelita Nasi Kandar (next door to the office, a very decent Mamak shop, they do a great Cheese Naan with Tandoori chicken)

I was introduced to everybody, most of whom are muslim malay but with a smattering of chinese. The first shock of the day was when the producer led everyone in prayer to make sure we had a good shoot (I felt a wee bit akward as I was sitting half asleep on the sofa in the middle of reception, surrounded by a circle of people standing with heads bowed. I figured the best thing was to look at my knees and stay inconspicuous while they got it over with). As you might imagine, that felt a little bit bizarre, seeing as it was around 3am and I was a bit spun out after meeting 20 new people who's names I couldn't remember and whose language I only have the most remote grasp of. But there we go, I got on with it - as it happened each morning and mot of the guys would drive off to the mosque at lunchtime, then go again after we wrapped each day about 7 in the evening. I was told that the whole of the shoot would be conducted in Malay, but luckily for me most people spoke a bit of english and my Malay was good enough to be pleasent and understand a few basic commands etc.

Our first location was by a roadside in the absolute middle of nowhere in the pitch dark. I volunteered myself to be traffic watchman (in this way got to be useful, but also got to spend a large portion of the night sitting down and drinking coffee whilst the others worked to a tight shooting schedule. The night went on and on, and I confused many a passing truck driver by making them stop while we went for a take. Not quite what you expect on an empty country road at 5am, a white guy in a yellow jacket flagging you down and talking really bad malay at you. Needless to say a lot of them laughed out loud.

I can see why.

Once the sun came up I realised that the whole time I'd been stood on a corner overlooking a massive and beautiful reservoir, dotted with little islands and jungle covered hills. It was a very beautiful sight (sadly almost entirely lost on my bleary state of mind), it looked like this.....

Then after sunrise the punishment really began. I knew it was going to be hot work, after all 'm in a tropical country, so I wentt prepared with a very silly cowboy hat (the biggest hat I could find in KL) and some factor 45 sunblock. This helped stop me getting burned, but my god it was no use afainst geting cooked alive. There we were, next to a tarmac road, with no shelter anywhere near us, apart from 2 poxy umberellas and peoples cars. The midday sun topped around 42C - according to someones in car thermometre -and the reflections off the road were just savage. The production manager nipped off and got a big bag of tea towels and a couple more unbrellas, so we all wrapped up every spot of flesh like some al-quaida bandits and carried on working. We must have looked a little bit odd to people driving past, but frankly we didn't give a toss cos the choice was look daft or bake. It was pretty funny, what with me having a towel on my head as well as a cowboy hat, like some twisted American/Iraqi fusion. Redneck raghead.

somewhere under all this, you'll find a timbo our shelter against the elements

My friend Bob and his towel.

You may note the Austin Mini in shot above, this car was basicaly the centre of most of the action - not in the Herbie/Knight Rider sense self aware hero car, but the story was about a guy and a lady who drive from KL to Penang so she can scatter her husbands ashes, but there was a comedy bag swap and gangster get involved etc, I didn't really figure the plot as it was in Malay mostly, but the car looked nice all the same. We did some nice shots with suction cup camera mounts that stuck to windscreen and doors, so they could do lots of nice driving shots. All very jolly. The mini was a proper classic, andhad only recently had a full refit and respray to make it up to the old school racing standard. Beast. Shame that it was so noisy inside the car it was a nightmare for us to record decent dialogue, and they can't afford to dub the whole thing after. Never mind, it lends authenticity to the soundtrack. Ahem.

The mini.

Whilst on the subject of the soundtrack, I managed to convince them to hire me as their audio editor. Hurrah, and they gonna pay for this one. Hopefully I'll do such a marvellous job that they'll have no choice but to get me sorted with a work permit and then subcontract me out to all sorts of other companies and I'll have lots of work. Sounds a bit fer fetched, but the response I've had so far has been amazingly good. They seem to have a very bizarre high opinion of British education and training, and gave me lots of respect for my past experience. My only fear now is of making a great balls of it. I'm sure this will be fairly much a simple job (as I was Boom operator for most of it then I got to hear a lot of the raw sounds, so I rekon there won't be too much hiss or hum removal) - it should be a simple case of poppping some music and a few sound effects on top. No worries.

So back to the shoot week. Cut a long story short, we went all over this very remote area just outside KL called Hulu Langat. We did shots where we had to scramble 30feet up a roadside gradient and do driveby shots (this was up on a hill and we got a great view of the jungle below)

great view, bad photo

We also went to a random remote fish restaurant in a forest next to a flat calm lake, which was beautiful and they caught the fish fresh out of a pond for you, barbequed it and served it up with curry and rice. the tables were all in small stilted huts dotted around the forest, just gorgeous and serene, nobody there but us, some cats (and our big noisy generator).

We had a big crew meal here on the last night - at the long table below, sadly the pictures of the meal didn't come out well cos my camera is kind of old and rubbish.

We also went to shoot on the driveway of somebodys house in a very peaceful kampung (village), they had a beautiful river out back, lots of goats (which surrounded me one time whilst I slept on a floor mat, bit scary) and some chickens. Proper peaceful spot.

We went to a lovely waterfall to shoot one afternoon - Vanessa sensibly reminded me to take my swimming togs and I got to go for a reet nice dip in the cold mountain water on our lunch break. Fab.
Me and Hafeezul, the lovely and utterly insane runner. A very equitable chap, salt of the earth and more than a little bit bonkers. Our first conversation went along the lines of...

Hafee: So British music, you like Muse?

Me: No

Hafee: Oh, Radiohead?

Me: Yeah very good, very good

Hafee: Alahmak! You see live?

Me: Once only.

Hafee: Waaaaaaah. Where?

Me: Glastonbury.

Hafee: Waaaaaaaaaa!!! GLASTONBURY?!?!?!?!?!!! Who else you see
Me: erm I dunno, let me see.

Then the rest of the time the conversation went a bit like

Hafee: erm, Blur?

Me: Yeah, one time

Hafee: Waaaaaah! erm Prodigy?

Me: Few times.

Hafee: Waaaaah! Oasis?

repeat for several days.

we wiled away several hours with me trying to describe the plot of "being John Malcovic" to him. This task being basically impossible because I don't even understand the pot myself and would have trouble explaining it to anybody, despite language barriers. But it killed several hours standing by a road (whilst waving a homemade Caution sign - well AWAS cos it's malaysia innit) which would have otherwise been akin to watching paint dry.

Hard at work again.

anyway, enough of this. Suffice to say I had a great time, got a proper job out of it, made loads of contacts, learned a lot of Malay, made lots of new friends, got taken to all sorts of places I'd never go under normal circumstances, ate lots of great food, felt good to be working again and got a bit of a suntan in the bargain too. Even if it was bloody knackering.

end of the weekend holiday to Thailand

Our Happy New Year photo

View of our side of Phuket from on top of big hill.
Vanessa at our mates hotel, by the pool.
View from our friends balcony at night (bit blur)

Still in Phuket, but we're flying back to KL in a few hours. It's been a really nice relaxing few days so far, lots of swimming and a fair bit of driving around seeing the island. I never got to go around that much when I was here before, I was just stuck in the tourist hell of Patong Beach, but now that we got transport and a guide (in the form of Kim) and friendly places to go visit then it's all a hell of a lot nicer. In fact, nobody has propositioned me for verous nefarious acts at all yet, which was the biggest pain of my last visit here. The house we've been staying in is absolutely amazing, Kims mum is a big property owner over here and has set herself up in a phat pad at the top of a hill overlooking the bay. It's a really swanky and lovely spot, with a very peaceful veranda where we've sat and watched the city lights most nights. Yesterday we went off on a dive boat, Van and Kim went snorkelling (but they both got seasick and didn't have the best of times) I did 2 dives, which was rather nice - good to get back into the water. The first dive was a bit tricky cos I haven't done it for over 8 months and the visiblity was prettty low (around 5 or 6 metres sometimes). We didn't get to see that much in the way of big stuff, but the instructor pointed out some very bizarre creatures on the bottom. I was very pleased cos I spotted a Devil Scorpionfish - which looks an awful lot like a rock, so ain't excactly easy to spot. They're good and poisonous, so you don't wan't to step on one cos they inject a venom from their pointly barbs. Nice and harmless to watch mind, they only get pointy if harassed or in danger. We also say a few Rays, big Triggerfish and other sorts of sea life. There was a very odd artificial reef on one dive site, made of big, hollow concrete cubes. That was a pretty surreal place to be.

Marvellously dangerous firecrackers. Fun

The weather the last 2 days has been a bit overcast - which is kind of nice, cos there's a bit of sun here and there but the temperature is nowhere near 40 degrees (it's nice and fresh, at around 29C today; positively chilly even, I should have brought me jumper).

Mexican Stand Off

On Saturday Kim took us for lunch at one of the most bizarre places in Thailand. Yes, you can tell Phuket is a white mans tourist town (slightly akin to the Costa Del Sol I'd imagine) because a guy from Essex decided to make a Million Pound replica of his local pub, The Green Man. It's a very surreal mock-mock tudor affair, with a really nice beer garden (but I doubt the one in Essex has palm trees or bamboo growing there). You could get a pint of Draught Bass, or Old Speckled Hen but it cost more than a Pint of Guinness, and more than a whole jug of Tiger. Strange indeed. They had every detail of a truely quaint English pub down to a tee, except for the fact that the food was well presented and tasted excellent - and easy mistake to make. I had Gammon, Egg, Chips and Peas. Proper A fetching little shrine indeed.

what a week

it's been a mad one, lots of work and made lots of contacts. I've now got a job as Sound Editor with this companay and we all get along so more work for me. Hurrah.
I was basically plonked into a crew that spoke almost entirely in Malay for the whole week, some spoke fairly basic english, so my Malay has inproved a thousandfold since
Right now I'm in Phuket, sitting in the lobby of a friends hotel (mine and Vans old mate Kim, her mother owns lots of property here and is putting us up in her proper nace pad on the hill for the Chinese New Year weekend).
This just a quickie, coswe're gonna go swim in the Andaman Sea and then go ride an elephant for a few hours. Yes, proper falang tourists! Just booked to go diving tomorrow, Vanessas first time, so should be marvellous.

I'll have more photos coming soon, when I've got the time to post them and all that.

Looks like this job might lead very nicely to some proper work

Well I nipped into the new office yesterday to see if I could make myself useful. I've been attached to the Art Department now, because the head of that dept speaks excellent english and we kind of figured I'd be more use if I could understand someone, and someone could understand me. My new boss is a Malay guy called Bob (slightly incongruous name for a Malay guy, but there we have it), and we get along swimmingly. H works freelance for a lot of the biggest film and TV companies over here, and he's offered to hire me after this shoot is over. I explained about my lack of work permit and he's offered to help me sort it out by getting me a job and making all the applications as my employer. Which is absolutely proper. The other bonus is that he lives in the block of flats accross the road from me and Vanessa - which is a bit of a random coincidence, for saying we live in such a big sprawling city, but the world is full of peculiar connections innit.
So there we have it, I'm about to go shopping with the art department for Props and set dressing stuff in town today, then later on we're going to pick up the refurbished Mini Cooper they're using for the shoot. It sounds like a great shoot week actually (apart from the savage hours) - we're going out to a waterfall just outside of KL, some jungle type back roads and then lots of shots of the Mini on the highway (we have an outrigger grip so we can mount the camera in front of the windscreen looking into the car as they drive). It should be rather fun.
I'm gonna take Vanessas camera with me and take a few snapshots to show you all. Right I'm going to eat some greasy egg roti and drink Teh Tarik for breakfast. Yum

today it seems I may have too much time on my hands

It's now gone mignight and I'm at Vanessas workplace waiting for her to finish work on a 1 and half minute Ident sting for some sports awards. As seems to be quite normal for her company she has a very short deadline to deliver quite a lot of work and nobody in her company seems to help her do it.
I suppose I'm going to find out pretty soon how things work in the TV industry over here, as I start this new job at 3am on Friday. I just checked out our production schedule for the next week and it's gonna be pretty damn mental. 3 Days starting a good few hours before dawn and finishing in the evening and then the last day is a 3pm start, finishing at 8.30am the next day. Aiooo, this is gonna be one heavy heavy week, and I'm not even getting paid for it.
Ah well, c'est la vie, it's just one of those things I'm gonna have to do in the hope of currying favour with a company. At least these guys get broadcast on national TV (and I think this show's going to be played in Indonesia as well, cos they speak the same language - well a close enough approximation). It'll look good on my CV and I'm certain they won't be able to find too much fault with my professional attitude, owing that I'm gonna step up and do some good old fashioned ass-whooping, like only a conceited arrogant git like me can.

OK, I'm gonna stop boring you with mindless dross now and go back to reading my very intersting book about the CIAs secret wars in Laos, Tibet and Guatamala (it's called Air America and is a rather interesting yarn) then I might switch on the old idiot box and numb my brain into another dimension watching incomprehensibly mindless foreign gibberish, with unfathomable characters, appalling excuses for humour, horrendously cheap attempts at acting and nonsensical plotlines that seem to have been devised by rabid bonobo monkeys with peanut butter for brains.
That's right, Friends is on - ha ha, aren't I the witty one today.

No Tim, no you're not.

I'll try and have some pictures on the next post, it's clearly a lot more interesting for everyone that way.

Sweaty sweaty sweaty

I've just walked back from the local LRT station after having a sort of job interview in another part of town. I've got the job, which starts in a few days, working with a local film company producing a low budget Malay TV movie. It should be quite fun really. I'm going to be a PA of sorts (but it sounds more like a gopher for the Lighting, Camera and Art Departments) and the shoot is an outdoor shoot lasting a week or so. I'm gonna miss the last 2 days cos me nd Vanessa are heading over to Phuket (Thailand) for Chinese New Year to stay in a friends place.
Right now I'm very sweaty, cos whilst it's only a 10 mintue walk from the station it's pretty savage heat out there.
So all going well I'll be able to get a proper job with this company depending on if they enjoy my wprk or not. This is a kind of trial period - as in I've agreed to work for free (or basic expenses at least) because I ain't got a Working Visa yet and don't want to get deported for being an illegal worker. That seems quite fair to me, cos hopefully if they like me and the way I work then I'll convince them to organise a permit for me. How can I fail, with my charm and the incredible abilty to spout obscenities all over the place (I definitely heard a couple of English and Malay swearwords in their office today, so I'm sure I can help by diversifying the company profanosaurus in that oh-so eloquent manner of mine).
I also got a call today in response to a job applicate I sent out last week, for a job as a Script writer with a documentary company, who like the sound of me. So you never know, there may be possibilties for me in the TV industry here beyond the usual monkey work I do after all.

Righto, more next time, I'm going for a quick swim and then 20 minutes in the gym. Before I settle down to an evening of drinking, chainsmoking and wolfing down fatty food 'till my arteries clog like a plughole full of diahorrea

I've got gas

The day after recovering from my nasty and surreal sweating illness was the first day of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. It's a bit of an odd festival, to an outsider, make no mistake.

It falls on the birthday of Lord Muragan (1st Feb) - who I believe is one of the cheif dieties in the religion with many, many deities. From my ignorant lack of knowledge I have managed to glean these facts about the festival.

I get the feeling that all the devotees have prayed to Muragan to relieve or fix some problem or other (haemorroids, broken legs, scrofula, painful wisdom teeth etc) and when their prayers have been answered then they have their end of the bargain to uphold. Their end of the bargain is a pilgrimage to a Muragan shrine, to leave offerings of thanks to the Lord (mostly in the form of milk and fruit). They make this pilgrimage each year, in accordance to the amount of years they promised to devolte to Lord Muragan in return for their cure.

That's as far as I can gather a basic overview of the festival.

Peoples devotions tend to be kind of painful, a penance as thanks.
Most devotees are barefoot and make a several mile walk, the ladies tended to carry heavy pots of milk on their heads (although men can quite merrily do this too), whilst the men tend to go for slightly more extreme forms of self harm.
Before the festival they will go on a very strict vegetarian diet for several days, then they are put into a heavy trance before they don their pain inducing parafernalia.
A lot of people put thin spears through their cheeks or tongue, others carry heavy Kavaldi (which weigh around 60KG or more) which are very ornately decorated with images and peacock feathers...















Other people favour hanging all sorts of heavy fruit from their body on hooks. I saw people covered in oranges (one guy had more than 50 hanging from the flesh on his back on rather mean looking thin barbs), limes and even a few guys with coconuts (yes the large and very heavy fresh versions with all the outer skin still on)....
thusly.....



Ouch you mighty say.







Thaipusam festivals are held all over the place, but Malaysia tends to favour Batu Caves (just north of KL) as the place to go - however there are lots of other big festivals all over the country. To get up to the temples inside Batu Caves you need to walk up nearly 300 steps. This isn't an easy task in the heat at the best of times, but when you've got a huge heavy Kavaldi on your shoulders, bare feet, spikes in your face and hooks in your body then you'd be very glad to be in a trance I think.





This is Lord Muragan at his finest - all shiny and golden at a very respectable 80 feet high. Guarding the 280something steps up to the cave temple entrance.

devotions can range from the tuneful....

to the useful (this guys hands are free to stroke any passing kittens, for example)

and through to the just plain sick....





(the chains are all attached view hooks to the body by the way. didn't spot that? look closer)









A white guy bearing Kavaldi is a rare sight it would seem. But no less bizarre.








This man is heading for his job interview, as a cocktail waiter in a new Mexican themed bar.





All joking aside, one thing these devotees are is devoted. No doubts from me.

All in all it was a thoughroughly head spinning day for me. And I always thought Hinduism was one of the more sane religions on the planet.

the sunburn hurts less, so I can concentrate a bit better now

yesterdays sunburn was certainly a stinker. the worst case I've had in years. So bad that I now have a very definite circle of reddish-purple around my neckline. I'm not going to show you nay pictures because frankly it's all a bit embarrassing. I'm sitting in the internet cafe with my collar turned right up (like a trendy footballer toss-knobber) so that all the brown skinned people around me won't suddenly burst into fits of riotous laughter about my hilarous condition.
It is pretty funny mind, I look a little bit like some form of plastic action figure with interchangable body parts - All New!! AcshunTimbo(tm) with Incredible removable head and Miraculous EZPeel Flesh!!!

So this week hasn't been the best week of my life I won't deny, cos some how I've spent the whole week being ill as buggery in some way of another. First of all I couldn't get to sleep on monday night cos of a hideous feeling of rancidness and a brutal amount of sweating, all my bones and muscles felt like they wanted to be on the outside of my body in some bizarre agonising manner that is difficult to explain. This was followed by spending all of Tuesday in bed with savage sweating in the morning (absolute bucketloads, to the point that I woke up and was fairly convinced that an Elephant had snuck in to the room and had a slash all over me) and then shivering all afternoon and evening; in a tropical country lay in bed under a sleeping bag and a big duvet shivering cold but my facc was apparently purple and could have fried an egg quite merrily ( yes, this was before the sunburn even - however my face has returned to this colour today even though the illness has abated).
Now that all that is well and truely over, I then went and spent the day at the Thaipusam festival and got outrageously sunburned, so have spent the most of today in the shower feeling rough.

Last night Vanessa was subjected to the comedy spectacle of "timbos home remedies involving fruit to cure sunburn" - whereby we bought a papaya and stuck it in the blender. Then I covered all my face, head and neck with the viscous orange goop and stood in her bathroom like some freakishly satanic tango man, or some voodoo umpalumpa nightmare, in the hope that the immense pain and deep flesh burning would go away.

It didn't really, I just looked like a knob.

So, less of my woe and more about what I've been doing here to justify coming all this way to the other side of the world.
I suppose I could tell you that now, but I actually can't be arsed to broach that subject quite at the moment. I feel my case would be better balanced with the aid of some lovely photos.

so you'll have to wait...........

the first entry of my new (and in fact first) blog

yes well, at last i've decided to inflict my mental outpourings and the tedious mundane day to day ruminations of my pathetic brain on the outside world. don't ask me why i've decided to do it now, seeing as you've all been spared the tawdry mind chaff of timbo for the whole of your lives, why would you need to absorb any of it now?
well i don't know, i suppose the main reason is cos i just can't be fecked to keep saying the same things over and over again in emails, and cos I've got some nice pictures to show anyone who may be vaguely interested.

that's about it, i go into no further detail....

lets begin with my new abode, shared (almost officially) with my lovely lady Vanessa
it's in Kelana Jaya, just south of KL and still on the commuter monorail link. here's a few establishing shots of the new gaff for starters....

These pictures are the interior of our lovely flat (well the main bedroom and the living room anyway, I missed out the spare double room, the box room that is our walk-in-wardrobe, the bathrooms and the kitchen cos that's all a bit dull and unnecessary innit).

The other one with the pool is the view from our dainty balcony (big enough for the 2 of us and some laundry - the balcony, not the pool).
We can use the pool whenever we like, the building behind the pool has a badminton court or 2 and a gym. It's pretty slick, and the whole lot costs about 110quid a month between us. Hurrah.

Today i'm very sunburned, so i'm going to go away now and have a variety of hot and cold showers. It's a bugger being sunburned today cos i only just got over having a random fever for the past 2 days, which had me super heated and sweating in bed the whole time, now my neck and face are superheated again - but the radiation is all external this time. ah well, such is life. in fact I might cool off with a late night dip in the pool. now there's a thought...

stop reading if you think i'm gloating