I've been a little edgy today, and it took me ages to figure out why...

It's this:

It has taken precisely 4 years, 3 months, 17 days and 6 hours for the true horror of it all to hit me.

This is really happening, we really are using that as our branding of the London Olympics. 

Maybe I was in denial. Perhaps I thought it was a practical joke, and that at some point an unearthed Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out in a fake beard and slap me with a diminuitive hand of a punchline.

He didn't, and now we've run out of time. This is going to be on my TV screen every 30 seconds for the duration of next summer. 

Anyway, I've devised some work arounds:

1. The TV

I'm fairly certain the BBC will have the logo on screen at all times in a specific location... I suspect lower left corner. I'm going to print out a new logo and just stick it over that part of my screen.

2. Out and about

In a similar manner, I can assume that there will be plenty of t-shirt wearing walking billboards to encounter during the olympics. To cope with these I'm just going to plaster my glasses with another alternative logo... or perhaps just pictures of kittens.

3. My ears

Fortunately, the logo is purely visual... but can you imagine, just for a moment what it would actually sound like? I figure it would sound like my ears were being penetrated by some sort of hentai monster with a fetish for the Fine Young Cannibals.

Anyhow, here's the thing... alternatives to that logo. I'm open to suggestions and I promise that the best suggestion will be used (I'll take photos of it and everything).

And for the record, here's a logo I knocked up in ten minutes, just to judge how much effort must go into making something of such horror.

This all started last week...

Against the backdrop of the annual A-Level results bashing, the cries of 'these exams are getting easier', the rush for university places before the fees rise to frankly criminal levels and the state of an economy that seems to have forgotten that young people need jobs too, I posted a very flippant comment on twitter. 

"If you're not going to university this year, there is an unpaid internship with an animator in Lancaster"

It was flippant for a couple of reasons. For one, I'm am staunchly against the idea of unpaid work in the guise of 'experience'. It's a form of exploitation. Secondly, I'm not sure what I could teach anyone about animating... the internship was fictional.

Except it quickly became very real.

Twelve earnest applications real.

Not only had these rather bright young things coupled together a CV and a paragraph or two detailing why they'd kill to get the experience and support... but they'd shown initiative by hunting me down over the internet. They had found my email address, and without prompting, applied for the post.

Surely, those are the skills that an employer is going to want to pay for?

I felt pretty awful. I'd wasted their time.

So, I've decided to make it up to them... and anyone else who wants to work in this field, but feels they lack the experience or perhaps just needs some advice.

I'm advertising an Externship.

Here's the deal. If anyone wants all the benefits of an unpaid internship without the horrible slavery and coffee making that seems to be involved, I'll support them. 

You get to work from home, and I'll help you find a job (probably not a paying one, but that's how we all start out, and another issue entirely), maybe animating a short, or a music video... then I'll give you all the support and advice you need. Not only that, but I'm going to get my colleagues involved too.

And, most importantly, if you do make any money through this process, it's yours, all yours... you deserve it, after all, you worked for it.

I'd love to be able to offer a paid internship, I really would, but there is a problem with that, and this is also my first piece of advice. Long ago I stopped chasing projects purely on a monetary basis. I only go after the ones that I find interesting. I suggest you do the same. You might not find yourself rolling in money, but you'll find them easier to work on, creatively more empowering, and generally a pretty good use of your time whilst you get up to scratch on the skills you need.

Learn whilst doing. Enjoy learning.

If you are interested, or even if you have a question, you can always get in touch:

adamyorkgregory@gmail.com

Best wishes,

Adam York Gregory

I wrote this about 24 hours after the first French shots were fired in Libya. Oil-rich Libya.

It's not about regime change and it's not about the money.

No, it's about people – innocent civilians and an oppressive dictator who is making life hard and short for them. They'll keep saying that. And as Dave repeatedly says, this action is Legal.

We hear you, Dave, and we would never, even for a moment, suggest that our own government would drag us into any military action that wasn't legal.

"Legal".

Did we mention that it's not about regime change and it's not about the money?

Anyway, the point, the one I'm trying to make, is that Dave is a bit of a hero. He's not the sort of person to stand by and watch someone in a position of power make erratic, nonsensical decisions that adversely impact the lives of the general public.

Hey, if the French hadn't sent over those wonderful flying death machines, Dave would have strapped on a cape and flown over there to sort the mess out himself. He's that sort of hero.

***

I avoided the comedy-misery sandwich of Comic Relief this year. I did wonder if the producers and organisers were, deep down, just a little bit upset that some radioactive-earthquake-tsunami-clusterfrak on the other side of the planet had stolen their thunder.

Not that it made any difference. They raised a record £74 million. In a period of imposed austerity too.

Civilians are a potent force when they get their act together, when they work towards a goal. 

If you donated, well done, you helped contribute to that, and maybe helped someone out. If not, you'll probably be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Lenny Henry until you find him funny.

Of course, most of those images of starving children, they're caused by oppressive dictators and such, making life hard and short for innocent civilians.

I guess that Dave also skipped Comic Relief, otherwise he'd find his moral duty directed to act there too.

But it's not about regime change and it's not about the money.

***

Global–National–Local... It doesn't have to be a sliding scale. It can be more like a fractal, Mandlebrot or Julia... your choice, as long as it has a Hausdorff dimension which is greater than its topological dimension.

The Theatre Uncut thing happened at the Storey last night. If you're not sure what Theatre Uncut is, there's an animation that explains it on this website – http://www.theatreuncut.co.uk/ .

I'd like to point out that I would have embedded the video here, but, considering TU is all about the power of freely available and distributed material, the site itself is a flash-based wonder of horror that likes sharing even less than an oil-rich dictator.

It's not about regime change, it's not about the money.

Anyway, something brilliant happened last night. A group of people in Lancaster, professionals and amateurs, came together to perform these plays about the human cost of the banking crisis and the resulting cuts.

It was always going to be a good show. The scripts were written by rockstar playwrights such as Lucy Kirkwood, and Jack Thorne. 

Powerful stuff. Funny, informative, tragic... true.

It was like a rallying call for a minor revolution. And who were thoese revolutionaries? They were my friends, my colleagues, my peers and my drinking buddies.

Tim Austin, a former NHS colleague, directed the first play of the night, Housekeeping. Actually, he directed my fellow comicker and artist friend Ant Mercer (who heroically agreed to act at the last minute as a replacement). Mr Austin then went on to star in Whiff Whaff, which in turn was directed by the suspiciously good Daragh Carville. Daragh is excellent pub company, it doesn't mention that on his IMDB page.

Aliki Chapple made a bid for billboard dominance by performing The Fat Man, directing Open Heart Surgery and sharing a producer credit with the fantastic Angela Diggle. I went to university with Aliki, as it happens.

The event was recorded by Mark Rotherham. I know him through the local film co-op and his video work.

As I said earlier, civilians are a potent force when they get their act together, when they work towards a goal. This was Lancaster's own Comic/Tragic Relief.

And that was the point, I think... that I left that night with a burning message to our own leader. Sure, he's not a dictator because we (technically) put him in charge, and yes, he isn't shooting us dead in the street. But our superhero, Dave, through policy rather than force, is making my life, and the lives of my friends and family unneccesarily hard, and in some cases shorter.

He is making erratic, nonsensical decisions that adversely impact the lives of the general public.

And so that message:

Dave, this is about regime change, and it is about the money.