Interest

Did a spot of filming with Rimmer last night out in his neck of the woods which is quite a journey from my neck of the woods, but it's still in the woods i.e. London. First, a group of alcohol needy kids took an interest in us as we were old enough to buy their booze for them with a little incentive thrown in for us of course. Then, after Rimmer dealt with the line, we popped into Tesco and were approached by a man who asked if we were the ones skating down the road a minute ago. Expecting a barrage of abuse as usual, we were pleasantly surprised that he was genuinely stoked on Rimmer's abilities and wanted to know more about what we were filming for. So, Chris, hope you managed to visit this site and thanks for taking an interest.

Who's Who

Getting deep into the edit now and just finished the first of two friend's sections which features, among others, Jak Pietryga, Lucien Clarke, Rory Milanes, Mark Channer, Danny Brady and Boots.

Not much chance of any more filming as the weather has turned bitterly cold, so "The Learning Curve" is in more of a finishing straight than a curve now. Still going to keep updating this blog though so check back.

Tickets Please

A City of London night time filming mission went down yesterday with Paul Rimmer in attendance to try and get some last minute footage for "The Learning Curve" which is already in the process of being edited. After a nasty hip bashing and a visit from some unusually friendly police, all we ended up getting was one of these each! Nice.

Glass Is Half Full

I arranged to meet Carl to film some final bits today and it started off really well. A nice skatepark line that he had been planning for a little while didn't take too long at all and so we moved on to the next spot with high hopes, but that's where the problems started. A tricky line started to become a bit of a pain and then an elderly couple decided that skateboarding was not going to happen today and that they positively had to sit directly in our way to look at the huge building we were skating next to. It took about five minutes of jedi mind tricks to convince them that everyone could carry on about their business if they moved out of our way but by then a security guard had appeared and his brain didn't work very well so we left.

We then took several bus rides to other spots out in West London only to find that there were cars parked in exactly the wrong places for us to get anything else done. Infuriating indeed, but there is always tomorrow and we shall triumph! As always, click image for larger version.

Carl Magalit
Photo: Ev

Paul's Pod

As promised, I've put up a new podcast which is the first of a series of very short introduction clips for each of the main featured skaters in "The Learning Curve". If you want to subscribe to the podcasts, simply click the subscribe image in the menu on the right or scroll down and read the "Mad Tech" post. More coming soon.

Nights Drawing In

I don't like the winter one bit. It takes ages for people to warm up to skate; it gets dark early; it's too damn cold etc etc, but it does give me a good excuse for hibernation which is nothing but great.

The weekend was a bit of a failure filming-wise and more than a bit chilly, but I did hook up with Finn, Carl, Ev and a few more people on Sunday. Ev produced a few more gems which you can see below so it wasn't all bad. Click images for larger versions.

Fred Albrow and Finn Andrés
Photo: Ev








Mike Sutcliffe
Photo: Ev












Todd Fowler
Photo: Ev

Tick Tick Tick

Time is running out for "The Learning Curve" now so there's probably only going to be a handful of filming sessions left before I call it a day and enter the unknown world of editing. This past week's storms don't bode well for the coming weekend, whatever the BBC weather website claims, but I'm planning to meet Finn and Ev to get some last minute manouvres and hopefully convince Ev to part with more great photos like the one below. Click image for larger version.

Finn Andrés: Hurricane Grind
Photo: Ev

In Print

The first "proper" mention of The Learning Curve is now in the Folk-Lore pages of magazine's October issue. Cheers Ben for sorting that out.

The possibility of Sidewalk's massive readership checking this page out has given me the kick up the arse I need to start working on another podcast, so look out for it soon. Meanwhile, here's another mugshot of Mr. Edson. Now that's what I call a good t-shirt! Click image for larger version.

James Edson
Photo: Ev

Smoking Boots

The rails are getting larger and the tricks are getting better but a quick bout of rain will stop even Boots in his tracks. The intermittent showers were frustrating today as it would have taken him maybe two more attempts at the most to tame another rail but it wasn't to be. The surface at the spot wasn't the type that would dry any time soon either, so we drove to another spot at the other end of London which was dealt with properly. Click image for larger view.

Boots And Some Weird Guy
Photo: Styley