James Barlow

Declaration of Interest: My Dad occasionally works as an extra (or supporting artist) on Casualty, including a stint as "Senior Paramedic" where you get paid extra [no pun intended] for wearing a uniform in line with Equity rates.

From the Evening Post:

Bristol City Council has joined the battle to keep TV's Casualty in the city and protect the £10-million a year in revenue it generates.

It is using its connections and its media know-how to put pressure on BBC chief Mark Thompson to ditch plans to move production to Cardiff, the Bristol Evening Post can reveal.

The council's involvement behind the scenes – driven by Casualty's importance to the city's economy and its culture – emerged at a meeting of the quality of life scrutiny commission.

Councillor Colin Smith (Lab, Bedminster), who is his party's chief whip on the council, asked what was being done to stop the hugely popular hospital soap leaving Bristol.

I wasn't aware that the Council had any media know-how, but regardless the City of Bristol's economy is worth something of the order of £8-10 billion, depending on whether you consider the authority area or the Greater Bristol Urban Area. Any talk about the importance of this one TV programme to the city's economy is a load of cobblers, particularly since it's made by the BBC who are taking at least £15 million out of the local economy through the License Fee.

If we want to protect local revenue, we'd be better off keeping a list of all the council officers who have time to devote to this nonsense, with a view to making them redundant at the earliest opportunity.

Keen-eyed watchers of the BBC's Tess of the d'Urbervilles (available on IPlayer) will spot noted supporting artist David Barlow, interpreting Hardy's classic "Old Farmer" [or is it "Old Peasant"].

[Need extras? Call Mad Dog Casting for bookings, and ask about their 'two for one' offer on Barlows]

Council News

A meeting of the Full Council of the city of Bristol is currently in progress. I'll be posting snippets to my You Tube channel over the next few days.

Looking back a few days, a report on the City's Capital Programme presented at the Resources Scrutiny Committee (no video) confirms the overspend figures for the Museum of Bristol (see this blog):

Museum of Bristol : as at the latest project cost report, more than 75% of the project contingency has been used, to meet costs relating to : below ground conditions, repair requirements revealed on stripping back the building structure, design changes to the income generating aspects of the building to maximise commercial opportunities, and late release of development details by the design team. Further details are given in Appendix B (to follow). On the basis of a costed register of outstanding risks, the project board has recommended an increase in the project budget of £1.3m, to provide a realistic contingency for the remainder of the project.

In addition, the adjacent Wapping Wharf development is now unlikely to proceed in the short/medium term, so that works that were to have been undertaken under the S106 agreement will now have to be incurred by the project (Museum Square and Museums Street). At this stage, it is proposed that the budget for the scheme should be increased by £1.8m, but that efforts should continue to mitigate the cost increases and to maximise funding from external sources.

And there's another interesting entry about Redland Green School (see this blog):

For Redland Green School detailed work is continuing, with external legal and technical advice, in relation to the work of the design team. Serious temperature control problems were reported in the last quarterly report. Following an independent assessment of the heating and ventilation installation, this has been fully recommissioned to assess the effectiveness of previous remedial work. The outcome of this will determine whether any further changes are needed.

You can also read about the Budget Virements in Appendix C. [Local authority code for "robbing Peter to pay Paul".]

HSBC Travel Money

Well, I got my money back from HSBC after they let someone with my library card pinch two and a half grand from my current account. I also got the following email from the Police:

Hi Mr Barlow, just to keep you informed that an officer did speak with the HSBC fraud office but unfortunately they only keep CCTV for 14 days, so by the time this incident was reported the CCTV had already overwritten. Also the CCTV at the venue overwrites after 5 days. Currently there are no further lines of enquiry and so this case will be filed.

The theft in question was undertaken by a criminal gang - Coventry based, according to the coppers - who apparently trawl conference venues looking smart and stealing stuff off the delegates. It would seem to be a good line of work; I wonder why I bother with all this tedious working when I could be out robbing. Even if you the victim tells the banks and the hotels that a crime has been committed, the management can't be arsed to keep the video, so the return on investment for a life of crime looks quite reasonable.

Now the only issue is to collect my fees from HSBC. I explained to a rather confused lady in Bengalore that HSBC had exceeded their overdraft limit with James Barlow, and that fees would be applied to their account. Perhaps my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service will have more effect.

The End of the World

The Large Hadron Collider is due to be switched on tomorrow (Wednesday 10th), and there is a small, vocal internet-based community who think they're putting the planet at risk. Have a look at Walter L. Wagner's web site for more details on the hypothetical disaster, which involves the entire planet being sucked into a black hole.

View Larger Map

Barlow Snr, fresh from a recent engagement in the role of "Old Farmer" on Tess of the d'Urbevilles (I bet you were just thinking we needed another dramatisation of Hardy's novel), tells me that a distant, Swiss branch of the Barlow clan are maintaining a watch from the shores of Lake Geneva, and will report forthwith on the appearance of any holes, black or otherwise.

Addendum: Given the involvement of CERN in the development of the World Wide Web, I suppose it's appropriate that their web-site eschews fancy-pants CMS, Java and Flash in favour of good old HTML tables.

Currently showing on BBC3 - Being Human - a pilot for a prospective new supernatural drama. The premise:

Being Human – just a regular flatshare… for a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost

Being Human explores what it's like trying to find where you fit into the grand scheme of things when you live with an unusual affliction Mitchell (Flanagan) and George (Tovey) are two twenty-something lads who, like any of their peers, would love to hit the town, pull girls and spend evenings down the pub. Mitchell is a hospital cleaner, good looking, laid back and a hit with the ladies. Oh, and he's a blood sucking vampire. Mitchell's friend George works in the same hospital as a porter. He's an awkward but loveable geek who was befriended by Mitchell two years ago. George was heartbroken after he had to move away from the love of his life; he had to leave before she discovered that at every full moon, he sprouts a snout, grows a very hairy back and transforms into a werewolf.

It's actually quite good. It has a certain British style that saves it from being a routine "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" knock-off. And of course it's an adult-drama, in the spirit of Torchwood. The Beeb are pushing it quite hard, so it's on about five times over the next week, and it's also available on "Catch Up TV" if you have a Virgin Media cable service.

Much of the programme was filmed in Bristol. Look carefully and you'll spot Christmas Steps, The Shakespeare Pub and bits of Totterdown and possibly Bedminster. The scenes half-way through the pilot (well, for the moment it's a one-off drama) representing the fictional Golden Dragon restaurant are a combination of scenes shot in Wong's (formerly Harvey's), and the Mandrake Club.

If you look carefully, you will see a talented supporting artiste, Mr David Barlow esq, in the role of "Old Vampire". My Dad is a paid-up member of Equity, and has previously intepreted the classic roles of "Old Man", "Old Man in Crowd", "Old Man reading newspaper", "Distinguished Elderly Gentleman", "Old Patient in Chair", "Old Patient on Trolley", "Senior Paramedic" and of course "Old Vampire".

That's him in the middle. Here's another view:

Any casting agents out there - if you're looking for an experienced thespian who can - just with his very presence - bring to the screen an air of wisdom and a visual expression of the passing years, then give Mad Dog Casting a call.

One slight critique - why on earth did the BBC hire people to play young goths when filming near Park Street? You could throw a stone and hit half a dozen candidates willing to work for free. "Taking Goths to Bristol" is the new "Bringing Coal to Newcastle".