Back to earth

I'm feeling a bit strange at the moment. I'm not complaining; I had a great weekend skiing in Italy with some mates from football, of which more later. But since I've come back I've been feeling strangely low. You always feel a bit that way coming back to work after a break, but this time my confidence seems to be shot, and while not exactly having panic attacks I'm worrying about stuff for no real reason.

As I said, there's no reason for it. Things are going pretty well, all things considered. Work here at Ministry of Sound is good, and I'm about to sign a contract to keep me here until August. So I don't have to worry about no money coming in while I look for a permanent job. I'm still being contacted by recruiters and I've had a few roles put to me over the last couple of weeks. So that hasn't dried up, although I know that I need to do more if I'm to be serious about it. The trouble is that I'm so focused on what I'm doing at Ministry that I'm really not giving enough thought to it. I think that's what's bothering me.

I suppose Rangers losing to Celtic in the CIS Cup Final didn't help my mood - a pretty shocking performance that didn't deserve any more.

To the skiing. Two and a half days in glorious sunshine, in Pila, Courmayeur and La Thuile, including a ski to La Rosiere in France on Saturday. A snow walk on Thursday night, walking over a mile on snow shoes to a restaurant half way up the mountain; exhausting but a breathtaking, star-filled sky that made it worth the effort. Lunch looking across a valley to Mont Blanc. The hospitality of local establishments that kept bringing out snacks and plates of cold meats to accompany our beers.

And of course the banter that comes with a weekend spent with good friends. Unfortunately I can't publish the joke of the weekend on the grounds of political correctness, but contact me privately if you want to hear it.

On Saturday I lost my glasses somewhere on the slopes, which was annoying. I've brought some some old ones back into use but I'll be glad to get replacements as my eyes are feeing the strain - thankfully Direct Line will pay for like-for-like replacement so that's good. As it happens, I'd been thinking that I needed some new glasses so maybe it's actually a good thing.

Hurrah! The glass is half full after all...

Old friends

Last night I met with Helzo and Simon, my two partners in crime when we used to be in the corporate communications and event production business. We eventually set up Fingerprint Productions in 1997, operating from a series of offices 'borrowed' from a range of clients who all went out of business, ending up in a fantastic office with a rooftop terrace in Great Titchfield Street. That one was ours.

It was a quieter night than the last time we met, at The Sanderson Hotel with Justin and Kelvin from Illusion Factor. That one was a bit of an epic and probably best forgotten (the bits I can remember that is). My zavvi chums will remember me turning up at around 11.30 the next day with the mother of all hangovers. By the way; thanks, Steve, for pressing ahead with our weekly catch-up meeting at the end of the day... Incidentally, when I did manage to get out of bed on the Friday morning and turned on my phone, I received a message timed at 09.00 from Simon saying "Nearly home now".

Anyway as we enjoyed some very tasty if grumpily served Wagamama-style food at Satsuma, talk inevitably turned to shared memories, and of course the best ones (in retrospect) are where things were going wrong. There were a few of those times - not that our clients would know about most of them. Think of the swan analogy.

My favourite was the Virgin Our Price show where we had Darth Vader arriving onto the stage with sound effects and a cloud of dry ice to deliver the new Star Wars DVD boxset to Doug Morton.

During rehearsals, Simon came up to me and said "We could have a problem with Darth. I don't think he's going to be able to see well enough to do the handover. "How do you know, Simon", I asked, to which he calmly replied "I thought I should do a test, so I put a chair down, asked him to come over; and he tripped over it."

It might seem that Simon is bearing the brunt of those exchanges and maybe Helzo was just a consumate professional throughout. Professional, yes, but Helzo had more japes than an Enid Blyton character. It would take a separate blog to cover these.

I'm off to Aosta tomorrow for a long weekend skiiing, with Chiswick Casuals mates Andy, Graham, Pete, Mark and Alan - who lives there. Should be fun and I promise I won't go on about it when I get back. In any case, there will only be time to get home and switch on the TV for Rangers v Celtic in the CIS Cup Final on Sunday.

Finally, the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that this is the 100th post since I started writing melvtopia all those months ago - a milestone indeed.