Don't adjust your set

I know it's just been videos for a while, but videos can say so much more than a huge essay.

This is a video I stumbled upon when looking around Vimeo, and it is amazing.
It is a modern adaptation of the nativity story, using no words, but still all the characters are easily recognisable if you know the story.
Enjoy.

'Tis the season

Every month or so I make a few videos for an event called Alchemi. Working on a format that is used by many larger churches, the sermon or talk is superseded by a short title package whose function it is to introduce the topic that is to be covered in an entertaining, informative, provocative or otherwise thought-provoking manner. The video sometimes poses questions to be answered in the talk, or may just set the scene and tone, providing continuity for a series of talks.

Even though I make teasers, trailers and intro videos for these events, I don't tend to showcase them beyond their intended audience. This is usually because I don't think the videos would fit when taken out of context or just aren't good enough to be widely broadcasted. The intro video for tonight's event is one of the few exceptions to this, as it doesn't need a context and I think can hold it's own.

So instead of waiting until after the event to show off the video, I've published it early.
I hope you enjoy it.



Soundtrack: Instrumental cover of "My Almost Lover"
Performed by Iwillbot http://www.youtube.com/WillTingMusic
Original by A Fine Frenzy http://www.afinefrenzy.com/

A Quick Note

I'm well overdue some real fat, on-the-bone content about what I've been up to I know, but with Panto season ramping up I've hardly had any time to do anything,let alone blog bout all the things i've been doing.

BUT there is one thing that I want to mention, and that is the charity phenomenon of Movember.
You may notice that there is an increase of men in the month of november who sport some form of hair or stubble on their top lip. This all started in australia a few years ago with a group of friends, who subsequently decided that perhaps they could use the "Mo" (Aussie talk for moustache) to raise some funds for mens charities conducting research into Testicular and Prostate cancer.
This has now spread worldwide and this year, yours truly has been donning a caterpillar on my top lip for the cause. This has caused much interest at work, though mainly people have been trying to think whether i look more like a geography teacher, Ned Flanders or Ron Jeremy. (If you don't know him, I suggest you don't consult google images, or you may get a shock)

If you want to see some photos of my mo growing progress and maybe sponsor me, you can visit my movember page at http://mobro.co/lewzey

Here's a freebie.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Let's see. Over the past month or so I've been to two weddings, driven a canal boat. worked stupid amounts of overtime at work, seen a friend move into a new house, revisited my noise boy roots and become a year older.
Weddings first!
I always enjoy weddings to an extent, the pomp, the circumstance, the frippery and ceremony of it all, but for the first time I got enveloped into the proceedings as a Groomsman! Also a first was the fact that as well as attending the stag weekend, I also attended the hen weekend, but that's probably never going to occur again.

As well as being groomsman, getting the matching suit, cravat and buttonhole, I was also asked to read a poem during the ceremony. To give you a hint of how nervous I was, I was unintentionally singing with a tremolo in my voice! The poem was "Us Two" by A. A. Milne, who wrote the Winnie the Pooh books.

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,

There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh.


"What's twice eleven?" I said to Pooh.
("Twice what?" said Pooh to Me.)
"I think it ought to be twenty-two."
"Just what I think myself," said Pooh.
"It wasn't an easy sum to do,
But that's what it is," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what it is," said Pooh.


"Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh.
"Yes, let's," said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few-
"Yes, those are dragons all right," said Pooh.
"As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That's what they are," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what they are," said Pooh.


"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh.
"That's right," said Pooh to Me.
"I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!"- and off they flew.


"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."


So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said: 
"True,It isn't much fun for One, 
but Two,Can stick together, says Pooh, says he.
"That's how it is," says Pooh.

In case you didnt read it out loud the first time, revisit the first two lines and read them out loud. Imagine saying that in an anglican church!
The bride and groom hadn't until that moment heard the poem spoken, and were in fits of giggles most of the way through because of it, and apologised at the reception.

Apart from that slight lapse, I can say that the wedding was a great success, and the groom did marvellously, he was most definitely the most nervous groom in history.

Hoist the mainsail! swab the decks! Yar har har, and other piratey-navy-type things!

Just after the aforementioned wedding, myself and five other landlubbers took a few days off to explore the Avon and Kennet canal, thanks to some friends who lent us their boat

It was so nice to have a few days off; putt-putting at about 2-3mph, getting given regular cups of tea by the on-board catering team, and stopping at pubs along the way whenever it took our fancy (we stopped at every one). 

Most of us had a go at steering the boat, each for as long as their mettle could hold out, and we only had two accidental bumps (and one intentional brush with some overhanging branches for the benefit of the girls who were sunbathing).

I do miss being on the boat, and it took a few days for me to stop swaying when on dry land, much like when you get out of a lift and you feel like you're still moving. I'd be glad to go back sometime and head in the opposite direction, towards a stretch of 26 locks in 6-7 miles of canal. That would be a fun day or so!

Of course there are bits that i haven't mentioned, but they're either for another day or just to illustrate how busy august-september was.

So that was "yesterday". 

Today has been a day of complete rest, the first I've had for maybe three weeks, and I can tell you it's been great. 

And as for tomorrow? Tomorrow hasn't been written yet, I'll wait and see what happens.

Diolch, a Nos Da

Well it's happened. I arrived just under 5 years ago as a sprightly young thing from the green fields of surrey, into this great unknown province of the british empire, and left a much different man.

Almost as if Cardiff didn't want me to leave just yet, my house keys went missing on the day of the move. Well, I say on that day, but because i never take keys off my keyring, i naturally assumed that they were still there. So after a 3 hour, 180 mile drive, we arrived to find that my key had slipped off in the night.
Luckily though my housemate, though she had recently moved to bristol, happened to be working at a conference in a nearby hotel just 5 minutes down the road! A quick trip to the key cutters via the hotel and we were back in business, but not before a trip to Central Bar Wetherspoons.

We spent maybe 3 or 4 hours packing and cleaning, cramming the car with every possession I hadn't already smuggled across the border in previous visits. The only things that had to be left behind (apart from some furniture and computers I gave away) were a pair of old speakers that were found in a shed back in my student hovel. The circle of life decreed we leave them outside the house to await their next owner as there was no room in the car (though they might find them a bit lacking in high-end as I fitted a crossover to turn them into subs).

Now I've got to figure out how much of the stuff I brought back I actually want to keep, giving bits to charity shops, church, friends, etc so that the next move will hopefully be a better fit.

My housing contract has ended, I've sent the key back. The only thing I haven't done is tell Cardiff council I won't be voting there any more. Chances are they've lost my details again and won't miss me anyway, englishmen only slow down the devolution process.

Though I may be gone, I have not left. In the words of Evita, "Don't cry for me Wales, I'll be back a week saturday."

Or something like that.

Strawberries and Cream

Wimbledon is fast approaching. The world famous sporting event that sits beside Ascot as one of the more refined pursuits of athleticism available in britain. Apart from living in cardiff during the six nations, I've never worked or lived near to the centre of a major spectacle such as this, which is leading me to wonder what, if any, effect the weeks of Wimbledon might have on my work life.
In a first for the sport, this year the BBC is offering tennis coverage in 3D, and all without needing a subscription (but of course you still need the 3D HDTV and 3D set-top box, which will set you back a few quid). This jump in viewing technology is probably the biggest thing to happen to the sport since centre court got a roof built over it.

I probably won't get to see any of the 3D coverage, or much of the live bog-standard 2D SD coverage, as I'll be working a mile or so away, but this video has got me a little excited, I just hope that I'm still able to get a seat on the train with all these tourists swanning around with their huge sunglasses and punnets of strawberries.

As June swings into view on the 400 metre running track of 2011, I begin the process of figuring out ho to move my remaining belongings out of Cardiff, changing my dozens of contact addresses and looking or somewhere else to dump all my things so I don't end up being the straw that breaks my parents house.
It's strange going back to cardiff on the rare visits I make. Even after living there for 5 years, and only being away for 3 months, I sometimes feel like I've been gone for years and that it was a place from a dream or a past life. Or maybe it's just because getting there takes so long that it feels like a lifetime!

The start of June also ushers in the end of my three month probationary period at work, and the start of my proper contract as a member of permanent staff! It was a pretty safe bet that the management would deign to keep me aboard the good ship White Light, but it's still nice to have got my appraisal out of the way so I don't have to keep wondering when it might happen.

Though this job and the associated riches and comforts it brings with it is a welcome change from floating on the financial breeze that comes with freelancing, I will admit that being a monday to friday worker wasn't where I was seeing myself when I looked forward in January. I've now got a commute, a lunch hour, a swipe card, and even an oyster card! I'm just thankful I don't have a suit and a desk to complete the set,  that could be disastrous!

Summertime, and the living is easy

Gordon Bennet, it's been a bit warm recently hasn't it?! I'm not  a fan of overly hot...heat, but summer sun is great under a shady tree with a book and a cuppa.

I've been getting plenty of sun after a week in Somerset with my old you group from home, but this time I'm playing the role of the leader (eep!). It was great to be back at Spring Harvest at Butlins in Minehead, back to the old haunts like the beach, the ice cream hut and the Poundshop. But the best thing about the whole week has probably been finding out what it is like to be on the other side of the age gap, seeing what my youth leaders had to go through when I was a whipper-snapper at SH.

This time around it was 22 kids versus 6 leaders all sharing 4 chalets, which made for some interesting balancing acts and times that were sometimes akin to herding cats.

The week has been a great start to the summer months, we just have to get through the traditionally rainy april, then dash through the month of maybugs, and arrive puffing and panting at the official start of the summer.

I just hope my hayfever doesn't get any worse, my eyes have been streaming while writing this, for which i blame the plants in the kitchen. Curse them!

Take a deep breath

It feels like I've been working solidly for weeks on end, but in reality I think I'm just experiencing what normal people call "day-to-day living".  Five days on and two days off? Repeating again and again? That's inhuman!

Having saturdays off is a great relief as it allows me to take stock of my progress in the week, see where I've learnt new things, where I've made stupid mistakes and try and create a sort of chart (in the executive boardroom in my head) of how I'm progressing in my "Trainee" role.

I must say the most refreshing thing about having a real job is that i have actual, real money! Not that there's much of it to go around, but being able to predict my earnings helps when I think of the things I'd like to buy. Like a shiny new pocket watch for instance...

Sometimes I wonder if buying these old-mannish items is like wishing my life away, as if buying a pipe will get me a cottage, reading good books will get me a comfortable life and getting a pocket watch will get me a good wife and kids. Ha!

Oh my word, I've just seen the most amazing bassist on TV, he has a beard to rival dumbledore!

Read it and weep!

That's one thing I don't think I'lll have in my old age: a beard that could sink the Titanic. That would drive me nuts, and I wouldn't have the patience to comb it everyday.

home, home on the range

I've been pretty bad at keeping up to date with my blog since moving back to dear old england, sorry Ruth!
It's been a strange transition, moving from freelancer that flits from job to job, location to location, to warehouse monkey with a set pattern of work hours and days. Luckily working on the evening shift means I don't have to drag myself out of bed before the sun rises and cram myself onto a rolling sardine tin, just to repeat the cramming on the way back! Yes, the hours I keep are quite anti-social, but the off-peak trains keep it cheap and I get a seat every time!

It's been nice being back in dear old england, being able to see old friends, spend time with my family and have my favourite ale easily available! I get to come back to the land of my uncles this weekend though, as part of an ongoing adventure with Ignite in Cardiff Students Union and the great tech team that work behind the scenes to get the show moving and (hopefully) running without a hitch.

A bit of trivia for you: the angel that sits on top of Guildford Cathedral sits on top of mobile phone masts from a couple of mobile networks, the angel itself was added when scenes from The Omen were filmed at the cathedral.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

The time to leave wales has finally come, I should really be doing some packing but I never liked packing, least of all when I end up with a huge pile of "essentials" that I can't carry to the train station, and have to whittle it down to two bags-worth to have any chance of storing it in the luggage rack.

Now isn't the time for reminiscing, I haven't left yet! But regardless I still think back to the first time I crossed the severn bridge as a fresher, with a laptop, some clothes, bass and amp, and a pile of kitchen utensils thrown together courtesy of my older sister and grandparents. I was excited to arrive at university, in the Wales that I spent many childhood summers canoeing and sailing and fishing, a great big world to explore and new freedom to enjoy.

God has been good to me all these years, guiding me through the myriad of life choices, ensuring I ended up in a good place with good people whatever I did, and I trust that this new chapter that has started will continue that trend, and shape me for the better.

If music be the food of love...

Ever since I first listened to a CD compilation of my mum's called Hits of the 80's I have been intrigued and captivated by music in all its various forms.

Some music makes you want to do this

The list of genres for which I have no love is usually only one or two words long, depending upon the current crop of artists that dwell within it. Some past residents have included Rap and Hip-hop. Most of my choices are based upon whether they exhibit any traits of a Normal and Caring human being or if it's all about Guns, Bitches and Bling.
One genre that has always stayed firm in the list of must-listen genres has been Indie Rock. Not the out-of-tune screamy girl punk indie, but the vague whistful thoughtfulness of acoustic guitar and piano-based rock that causes you to lean back in your chair and have a quiet think to appreciate what you have. (or that may just be me)
One band that kick started this was Coldplay with their album Parachutes. Now,  now, hear me out. This album appeared before I really knew what indie or alternative rock was, I was still having a history lesson off ELO about glam rock and the role of the synthesiser, but in later years, about the time Coldplay released their second album, I started to get curious about this well-spoken group that my friends had all discovered.

While the second, more rocky album was the first one I heard, the quiet simplicity of the first album became one of the albums that formed the soundtrack of my last year or so of school. That was the time when I discovered the freedom that choice and age brought, when I had my first taste of independence: when I paid for nought but snacks and the odd train, but could hang out with my friends all day long, when the weather didn't matter and you were in the company of like-minded young people who had their own hopes and dreams for the future and couldn't wait to ram into life head first.
Parachutes has always taken me back to an earlier time, to one which I look back on fondly, but wouldn't want to visit again, for fear of breaking my rose-tinted spectacles. You may think that Coldplay is for manic depressives and art students but it has its place. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, I'm just waiting for R'n'B artists to become a bit less narcissistic and more socially aware so I can have an empty list.

Social Media and being sociable

It's interesting that, in this era of Web 2.0, we tend to get caught up in statistics. Statistics about how many people read our blog, how many friends we have on Facebook, how many followers we have on twitter; and I'm not immune to this.
This past week or so I have been watching numbers of views on one of my videos since it got embedded in the homepage of my local church. Vimeo tracks not only views on your Vimeo channel, but views of the embedded videos too. This has given me an insight not only into the number of people who view my video, but because the video is set to play automatically, it also tracks how many visitors to the church website there are.
With all this information at our fingertips we should aim to put faces or names to the numbers, to try and understand what the effect of these numbers means to us, and to those who have now become a statistic. We've got to try not to let them make us vain in the pursuit of bigger numbers, more frequent views, more "friends" but to help us shape the way we communicate: to better inform people, to spread a feeling of community, to push the world into a more understanding and tolerant state.
We've seen recently in Egypt how the power of the internet has been harnessed an all levels, how it can be used to rally around a cause and to make a difference. It was used as a social and political tool and not an ego-booster, it wasn't about trying to create a huge group on Facebook, or for a single person to take charge and create a following, it was the voice of the people, and the voice of the world, amplified.

Nothing to see here...

I'll probably write a bit about the last few days touring soon, but we've just got back to Cardiff from Ealing and I'm dog-tired. But before I go I'd like to share an amazing thing with you good people.

Choons, Chilling and Chester

He looked at me as if to say "bust a move or I'll bust your gut"

We are just over halfway with our stint of north Wales, combining Cath's tour, Dai's tour and some schools work and by some miracle we managed to end up with a day off! We heard about the various charms and attractions that Chester offered, only an hour and a bit away along the A55, so after a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast we pootled across in the VW to see what we could see; cruising to the latest offerings from Soul Survivor and Beth bullock.
In the end, we couldn't see as much of chester as we had liked, because as soon as we reached the park and ride, a dense mist had set in all across the city. We weren't put off though, so we soldiered on into town, stopping off at a few shops in the main shopping centre before breaking into our individual errands around town. Dai opted for the Wifi in starbucks, Cath wanted to have a nose around Jack Wills and I found myself walking around not even looking at the shops, but looking at all the old buildings that there were.

There is an archway halfway down the main shopping street in Chester, which I found could be accessed from the street and forms part of the city wall that encompasses the city centre. I had an hour to kill so I decided to have a quick stroll around and see what cultural tit-bits I could find along the way.

Part of the city wall

As well as learning bits of the history of chester and seeing how the old city has integrated with the demands of 21st Century travel infrastructure (Roads needing widening and turning part of the wall into a footpath over the railway) I found remains of some buildings built by the Romans, including a half-uncovered Amphitheatre near one of the city gates.
The wall is almost continuous around the city centre, breaking only once by the river for a road to go over. At one point the castle, which now accommodates part of the university, looks over the weir almost menacingly. The castle was a royalist stronghold when they were fighting against the parliamentarians and also served as a base for attacks against the Welsh.

I hope some day I can go back to chester when it's sunny and there's no mist, although the mist did lend itself to a sort of victorian london look, making the Abbey and tudor-style shops look quite majestic and timeless.

3 for the price of 1

View from FOH at The Interchange

This week I am braving the wilds of North wales, visiting various towns along the north coast as part of the three separate but related tours. The first tour is my current stint the The Tentmaker, the second date of which we performed in Colwyn Bay on monday.
The second tour is to promote the album of Cath Woolridge. I'm not technically (excuse the pun) involved with this tour, but as one of her dates is in the same place as a tentmaker date two days later so I've been roped in with that as a moral supporter.
The third tour isn't really a tour but involved visiting two schools in Llandudno today and doing a short play and a workshop on the effects of alcohol abuse. This is a brand new show being presented by Going Public and it's had a warm reception from two very different groups of kids.

Sometimes you get the luxury of walking into a venue and finding that you hardly ned to touch anything to get your show going. This was the case with monday's tentmaker at The Interchange. All i had to do was plug in my laptop to the sound desk and projector feed, put a CD on for walk-in music and make sure I could see my script when the lights were dimmed.
Of course i couldn't let it be that easy as I started to fiddle with EQs, different lighting states, trying to improve on the system that seemed a little rough around the edges. I'm not sure if I achieved it but it gave me something to do between meals.

As part of the deal with churches organising the first half of the north wales tour, the members of the team were put up with various church members for two nights. I was housed by a lovely couple who go by the names Steve and Sue. Both evenings that i was at their house we would watch some good quality TV, sandwiched between cups of tea and talk about our churches, life experiences, and all manner of good things like that.
Staying with these guys has been as much a part of this leg of the tour as the tentmaker and schools work has been, and I have been blessed so much by their caring and selfless attitudes, allowing a scruffy bearded stranger like myself into their home for two nights.

On my first night Sue asked me whether I had any phobias. Apart from a fear of heights I had none really. At that point she told me she was glad because she keeps all manner of creepy crawlies in the house to take to schools and show the children. I'm not sure what she would have said should I have professed to having a fear of snakes, spiders or mice! (Incidentally the mice aren't alive, they're for feeding the snakes!)
The next few days should be cracking, Cath has a show tomorrow night (she has a poorly voicebox at the moment so it could get interesting), then spending a day in Chester, then its back to Bangor for another tentmaker show. It's gonna be a blast!

Share the wealth

As promised, here is one of the songs recorded at The Depot in the Swansea Grand Theatre, enjoy.

A talented cast

Well that was exciting!

Library Photo

First night of The Tentmaker 2011 tour has come and gone and I must say it's a great feeling to have survived the new format. It was also a great chance to test out some shiny new sound equipment that Going Public have just bought.

Breaking from tradition, the play had a support act beforehand in the form of the elegant Miss Beth Bullock and her songwriting skills. If you haven't heard beth before I recommend you hop over to her Myspace page and check her out. I covertly recorded her set and may put a track or two up here, but not before I get permission from the lady herself.

The Depot at the Swansea Grand Theatre is a great little performance space; tiered seating around 3 sides, with a mirror and black curtain along the back side underneath an overhang that houses the PA. There is a gallery running above the seating which houses the lighting rig and operator, while the sound tech has a mobile desk and rack by one of the exits. 

We weren't able to use the PA without incurring extra charges for the host church so we took along a new HK audio system comprising of an active sub running two 10in tops on sticks. The tops themselves seem to put out a fair amount of noise on their own, but add the sub and it's a perfectly adequate system for an audience of around people.

Photo by Andy Crowder

When setting up the projector and screen I was presented with a problem. The throw of the projector wasn't short enough for the image to fill the screen without the screen being halfway downstage. Then I had a flashback to my days at college when we put on a concert and we had exactly the same problem, which was solved by one of our technicians by facing the projector backwards and having a mirror reflect the image back in the right direction, thereby essentially cutting the throw distance in half! This is exactly what I did with the wall of mirrors behind the stage and with a flip of the image so it was the right way round, we had a working screen! Maybe I should start packing a mirror in with the rest of the gear...

I may have mentioned that this was potentially the best venue that we would visit on the tour, but new information about the Ealing date has revealed that the The Depot is more akin to a secondary school rehearsal room when compared to the Ealing Christian Centres main auditorium and the amount of kit they've got! I'm very excited about this date now, but first I have to brave a week in the wilds of North Wales!

Now, where did I put that canoe...

Boys on tour

Tomorrow I am starting a second tour of The Tentmaker with Dai (Dave) Woolridge. This time around we have lost fellow techy Steve; the audio to my video, the Ying to my Yang. Instead we have managed to cobble together a single show file that I run from my laptop. It runs all the slides, videos and sound effects from a single bit of software. The weakest link in the chain is that the software we have made the show file from is Powerpoint, which has a habit of cutting the last split second off the ends of videos (when the video is a matter of seconds long, is quite a bit).
We already had a quick practise of the new format before performing at Ignite back in december, where the whole thing went off without a technical hitch (though maybe the odd human element crept in once...or twice...) so we know it works. The challenge this time is that because we now have two techs instead of one, there is the chance that load-in and load-out times might suffer quite a bit, especially when we are in venues where we have to provide our own lighting.
No two churches are the same, and as they are run by volunteers, there's an element of uncertainty as to what the church has in the way of equipment, and sometimes how much room there is to perform in! On the last tour we played in village theatres, sports halls, traditional anglican buildings, as well as a few chapels. This tour is taking place predominantly in wales, but makes short hops to the richer side of the border to visit Cranleigh, Ealing and Chippenham.

I tried to take a photo of something interesting from each venue last time, be it a gap in a newly built wall, or a mess of cabling underneath a "mobile" AV desk. Hopefully I'll keep it up, maybe soon I'll start  jotting down bits about each one and create a little black book of venues from the various tours I've done these past few years.

The sort of venue that we won't be playing in.

Embeding and smartphones

Just a little test to see how the video shows up on various browsers, and to see if the embed code works for iphone playback.
The video isn't mine, but its a great video using a fast shutter speed and sophisticated slo-mo software so the frames flow nicely.