Christmas under construction

Building works, complicated by the strange lay-out of our house, have been going on around us since late November. With noise and dirt and endless consultations with my Albanian builders, plumbers and electricians, this has not been a very productive time work-wise. Still, at least the roof is now finished, finally freeing us from the nightly dread of indoor rain, in spite of the fact that there are now holes of various sizes all over the building (several of which I found myself forlornly plugging with old champagne corks...)

With luck things should have returned to normal by the end of January, and then I'll be able to get back to writing and research. In the meantime it is nice to receive updates on the progress of other work-related projects, even if I'm not actually involved in the creating. In that vein, I just received this short video taken at technical rehearsals in Rotterdam for the one-woman drama based on The Einstein Girl. Apparently the music, which I rather like, is used in the show.

Two views of The Valley

Hot from the design department at Vintage Books, comes some new concept artwork for The Valley of Unknowing. It makes for quite a contrast from the previous attempt (see below), and I've given it the thumbs up.Something like this will go on the bound proofs, and doubtless there will be more tweaks before the final version appears on the first edition.

I don't think the designers had an easy time with this one. 1980s East Germany was a place of many arresting images, but the fashions were atrocious and the backdrops either soulless or decaying. I like to think The Valley of Unknowing is quite a vibrant story (love, sex, death and plumbing - all play a part), and that's hard to convey in such an apparently gloomy setting. I sent over a disk crammed with 'inspirational' images, but I was never confident they would help. All-in-all, I think this is a good solution: the general feel of the image strikes me as Middle European (or at least European), and there is plenty of blood pumping through the deep red of the title.

As for the shout line, that too is up-for-grabs. In the end, we may not use one, relying instead on a past review or an endorsement. That would be my preference, because it would effectively kill two birds with one stone.

An (almost) exclusive preview...

This is the first cut of the video trailer for The Valley of Unknowing. The cover shown at the end is not the one Harvill Secker are actually planning to use. So we'll put the final artwork in as soon as it's ready. That aside, this is pretty much the finished product, bar the odd bit of enhancing and tweaking on some of the stills.

This video took very little time to make, unlike the last one. I am getting quite adept at splicing music, and this time there was no live footage to shoot.The edit was done on an Apple Mac using iMovie software - which, I have to say, is far from ideal, being a "time-based" system, rather than a "linear" one (like Final Cut or Adobe's Premier). This really makes a difference when you're trying to cut precisely to music. On the other hand iMovie has some very nice bells and whistles, exports with ease, and usually comes free with the computer, as opposed to costing hundreds of pounds. So you can't really complain.

By the way, if you happen to be in Germany, you may have to download this video from the TrailerSpy web site. The download takes slightly longer, but at least there are no annoying pop-up ads to contend with.

http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/15837/THE-VALLEY-OF-UNKNOWING

PS - I owe a big thank you to Derya, our multi-talented German au pair, who supplied the computer and the skills to work it.

The Einstein Girl incarnate

Starting on November 25^th a one-woman play based on The Einstein Girl (or to be more precise Het Einstein Meisje, its Dutch incarnation) begins touring around the Netherlands, starting in Maastricht. The show is written and performed by an up-and-coming Dutch actress called Annemarie Hagenaars (see above and below), and directed by Sylvia Weening.

I haven’t seen the show, but there is talk of having it translated into English for performance in the UK and beyond. I hope that happens, because the video trailer on her web site looks intriguing (http://www.annemariehagenaars.nl/). Apparently Ms Hagenaars travelled to Berlin to research the role, and sought out many of the locations in the story. It’s wonderful to see such enthusiasm, and I hope her show is a great success.

In any event, I can say that Annemarie represents the first living embodiment of The Einstein Girl’s eponymous heroine, even if she does not turn out to be the last.

Usedom remembered

Following the warm reception of 'Das Einstein-Mädchen' in Germany, I was recently asked to write a short piece about holidaying in that country for a touristic web site called Germany is Wunderbar. I decided, in the public interest, to recount an unexpected encounter with German naturism - which occurred during a rainstorm on the attractive island of Usedom on the Baltic coast. Click on the link below to read how it happened and what I was doing there. Rest assured there are no photographs. Any visions of dangling will be in your mind alone.

http://germanyiswunderbar.com/news/usedom-laid-bare/

Actually, for an unusual holiday tip, it's not bad. (The island, I mean, not the naturism). The proof of that particular pudding is that a few years later I went back (to the island, I mean, etc...).

And now a little music making...

... which demonstrates that there is indeed more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.

Diamond clarity

Recently astronomers in Australia captured the world's imagination with the discovery of a planet that appears to be made of diamond. Luckily for De Beers and the diamond cartel, it's rather a long way away. And so far, nobody's managed to polish it.
In the attached article one of those astronomers reflects on his happy experience, and how different it would have been if he were working (using precisely the same methods) in the rather more consequential field of climate science.

http://theconversation.edu.au/diamond-planets-climate-change-and-the-scientific-method-3329