Akshun Only! Yes I'm a one kind fella these days

Akshun akshun akshun, that's been the last couple of weeks for Timbo. Trying to be a (virtually)one man show making a documentary is a little bit taxing to say the least. What with being Director, Producer, Writer, Internet Researcher (one of 2), Secretary, Lackey, Editor and god knows what else it's all proving a little bit had, but we persist (oh, add to this having read about 20+ books on the subject in the last month). However, lucky for me I'm not totally running a one man show here, as I have got beaucoup help from several key people.
These people are:

Adam Lokman - the other 50% of our documentary team on the ground. He is fast becoming another long-sufferer of Timbo, having to drive us to and from Ipoh (about 2 and half hours each way) and then getting horrendously lost in the one way systems and I haven't bought a map yet. Not only that he has to listen to the non-stop interminable jibber jabber of my overheating brain, then on top of all that he has to lug around all the lights and camera equipment (we can't afford assistants, as we have both blown a couple of thousand quid on this already) and then to top it all off he has to shoot beautiful pictures, whilst listening to audio (again, no budget for sound man) whilst I sit there and do the interviews. Then he has to drive back home again. Poor Adam, but he loves it really

Law Siak Hong - the man who runs the museum and knows all of our interviewees, thus puts us in contact with most. He is a fine chap, and has put in a shed load of work for us, and he hasn't told me to F right off (when by rights he should have done a couple of times) when I blunder in with my size 13s and start asking questions that are shrowded in thick mists of Malaysian sensitivities. On this occasion it very much pays to be me (ie: white and about as tactful as a hammer in a kindergarten) because I can basically get away with asking the most blunt questions that asians would never even dream of asking.

Me Dad - Poor bloke has got roped into all this by the merits of being very good at war history research. By rights it should really be him making this film right, as he's the guy who's always read and watched stuff about the second world war, I barely even passed History GCSE. But there we go. Now he's been co-erced into going back and forth to London to sit and dig through god knows how many documents and not being able to find very much - mainly because there isn't much to find. But he has pulled up a couple of gems.

Yes indeed, without these 3 blokes, and of course continual help and support from Miss Chia, then I'd still be swinging in me hammock scratching me nuts, instead of driving all over the country and causing trouble. We've shot a couple of interviews now, and are well on the way to having a 3 or 4 minute pilot ready in a week or so. It's going to be brilliant. I still haven't told you what it's about though, have I? Can't remember. Well I'm not going to tell you yet, so sit tight and get ready to be intrigued and amazed. Well, hopefully.

As for young Bertie the kitten, well, I wish I could have kept him, but the problem was one of the smelly matter. Yes, we cured his worms, and fixed his mite infested ear, then gave him plenty of baths and fed him plenty so he was looking good and healthy. But the problem was that he just wouldn't stop with the diahorreah. He waled round the flat going drip, drip, drip, leaving a trail of rancid stinking poo splats, which then of course muggins had to clean up every ten minutes(the virtue of having a soft heart right).
The last straw was when he lay curled up on my lap, having a lovely little cooch whilst I read my book in my hammock, then amidst the purring he fell asleep and then sschchcooooolllch.... Hmmm, thought I, My leg feels, bizarrely warm, and, oh, bizarrely moist too. Yum, then ultra pleasent sensation of having liquid feaces drippling through your shorts. Mmmm mmm mmmmmmmmm.

So, I took him back to the vet (an Indian chap called Dr Ben, who is bloody lovely, gave me all the kitten care treatment for free cos I took in a stray, how nice is that, hat off to the man innit, lovely) and got him to give him something to fix the crap cannon. But the realisation that I can't keep him, what with the flat just being to small and me being scared that he'll accidentally make a flying swan dive off the 6th floor balcony, made me ask if he knows anybody who takes in cats. He did, a lovely Chinese lady called Agness, who took him off me and is sorting him out, then when he stops with the bum fountain then she's going to get him adopted.
So it's not all bad in the land of Bertie, but I was reet sad when I had to leave him there, poor chap thought I was his mum (on a side note, did I tell you he sucked my nipple? All a bit weird that was, there was me sitting on the floor, T-shirt off, little bit chilly, then Boink, a cat on my teet. Vanessas mum asked me if I was gay, but I can't quite figure out her logic on that, but there we go, I suppose he was a boy cat, so if it was a girl kitten sucking my nipple would that be more normal? I don't know).

Indeed

Dirty Bertie

Hello all. I aquired a kitten yesterday, or should I say it aquired me. I went to the shop to buy credit for my mobile, then felt something weird on my leg to discover that he had climbed up my trousers all the way above my knee. Needless to say I was instantly taken by this mangy mite + worm infested scrawny little bugger. He's very sweet. I took him straight to the vet and he gave him worming tablets (he sat quiet as a mouse in the cardboard box, the vet was well impressed). Then I took him home and he slept on me (climbs up onto my lap whilst I sit in the hammock). I told vanessa how sweet and lovely he is but about an hour before she got home the worming tablets kicked in and he turned into a liquid shit machine, dribbling diahorrea all over the balcony with a little turd hanging out his bum constantly. Needless to say she now thinks I'm utterly insane and a whole new level of filthy for bringing in a shit-squirting street cat into our house. Hmmm, he seems to have stopped with the arse jet this morning however and in one of his myriad poo piles I found the source of his troubles, in the shape of a very big (around 3 or 4 inches long I rekon) and very dead gut worm all curled up. Poor litttle chap.

I've called him Bertie (after the Irish PM)

He follows me all round the house (the cat, not the worm) literally at my heel - to the point where sometimes I lift my foot up and he stands under it, I move my foot (in order to put in on the floor) and he shadows it, thus making me dance around on one foot so as not to break his spine. He's not the sharpest tool in the box, but he's very very sweet, except for the several kilos of rancid faecal matter I had to hose off the bascony this morning - I swear there was twice his body weight out there today.

Love to all

Ear Syringing - oh what a joy

Good day to alll of you, I been out of the loop for quite sometime cos I been all busy trying to sort out all this stuff for my documentary innit. Now looking tres good though, I've got 6 interviews confirmed and seem to be on jolly cordial terms with everybody (just about) that I've contacted. There is one slight thorn in my side in the form of an australian bloke who lives in Singapore, used to be a journalist (dirty dirty media hacks) for the Telegraph in london, and he's being a bit bloody obtuse (and I suspect stirring things with a few of my key interviewees) because he's got a book on the subject and I rekon he's trying to trip me up cos he's afraid I'm going to steal his reasearch or some other nasty little twisted bits of poo that I could just do without.
We were supposed to start shooting tomorrow, but the lads got called away to another job, so we're postponing until the weekend. It looks like we might have interviews in Hong Kong and possibly even Australia too, so it's going to cost me boat loads of money if I gonna self-fund this jobby. But ho-de-ho, you gots to speculate to accumulate innit.
As for me, I had my ear syringed on saturday in the most recent flare up of my recurring ear-wax problem that dogs me every 6 months or so. My jaw is good and painful, as I got a little infection in there, so now Vanessa has the lovely task of dripping stuff into my beautifully gooey lughole, while I lay on my side going urgh-urh-blaargh (this is not a symptom, I just enjoy it). And they say romance is dead.

Furtherwise I recently bought over half a metre of books (at great personal expense) centred around WW2 in asia. I am setting myself up to be a bloody historian at this rate (vanessa says I not allowed that as a career choice cos no money in it) and am seriouslt considering writing a dissertation on the matter in a few months, cos then I can just go and get myself a PHD in asian history. Bit far fetched, I might need a few more meters of books inside my head before I am able to claim that, but I could certainly be a history lecturer in a Malaysian university (but this is not a great intellectual feat, as a rabid hamster would have a fair chance in the Malaysian higher eductation system).

Oh and I met an amazing woman yesterday (no not in that way, away with your dirty sordid minds) who was a founder memeber of Sisters in Islam. Brilliant, she just won an award as woman of the year, and she has spent the last 15 years trying to champion the rights of Islamic women. Proper lady, she is a very devout Muslim and incredibly intelligent, and with several friends of hers they sat down and studied the Qu'ran to see where all the patriarchal mysoginy came from, and to see if it really is written by god that women are subhuman inferiors to men. Needless to say that they found lots of bits in there that men have used to justify beating/opressing/subjegating "their" womenfolk, that are actually not what they say, but have simply been warped by the men in power to allow them to be gits. She was quite an inspirational speaker (as quite frankly she must have recieved god knows how many death threats and fatwa threats over the years) and has really made a lot of difference to women (islamic and non-islamic) all over the world. Hats off like. Got any Muslim friends? Do you think the woman is being oppressed? Tell her about Sisters in Islam, cos they have a lot of answers.

Love to all and try to avoid getting an ear infection, cos they're a right pain in the, erm, well, ear.