The End is Nigh - So let's decorate!

Dr James Lovelock of the Gaia Theory has spelt it out for everyone. The game is up. Climate change is irreversible and there will be massive loss of life. So, party on and start doing all those things that you have been putting off doing!

And what do I find myself doing in all this urgency? I find myself thinking how I should re-write those old scripts that nearly got optioned. I think how I should knock out those shorts that I’ve promised to collaborate on. I also keep thinking about new features, and all those scripts others have sent me, and the TV series I’m writing; not to mention finishing off working my way through the EP Budgeting Software, learning how to get a new compositing software functioning, finish editing the two hundred hours of travelogue I’ve shot in my pointless travels, and work on the documentaries that I’ve got buzzing around in my head. Then there is that collection of all my published short stories I keep going to put together and re-publish.

I have so many projects brewing or half brewed that I feel exhausted just thinking about them and as soon as I start working on one, I have all manner of life issues cropping up. There’s the rental arrears of a tenant, the idiotic solicitors I have to deal with, wayward business partners, and endless promises of instant directing opportunities if only I do all the work in putting together the proposal and script on supposedly other people’s projects.

It’s also coming up to National Day here in China and that means a Bank Holiday and as an Englishman I feel an irresistible urge to decorate the living room. Unfortunately B & Q have just closed down in Hong Kong and where one can easily buy Dulux Paint here is a mystery to me! And I bet that when I find out, nobody will speak English there, and the only selection they will have in stock will be all the wrong colours.

You would expect that the imminent destruction of most habitable environments on the planet would enable one to cut through all the clutter and get down to the important stuff. But no, it only makes everything of equal priority! It is just as important to sit around drinking Australian Wine before it is too hot to grow anything in Australia as it is to win the Oscar for Best Screenplay.

In short: my time is being wasted by others, being wasted by myself, and it does not matter one jot because nobody cares whether I make a decent movie, write a funny sentence, or have any deep and significant thoughts about anything at all. It matters not one jot. Hanging out with a few drunks and playing my guitar, is in theory as much of a viable sustainable life style as anything else.

I should make a documentary about it. So there you have another project on my to do list. Another project to be stymied by lack of money, lack of time, lack of support, lack of interest… but it does not matter. So party on! Because, just like when you were a student, nobody has to clean up afterwards! You just push all the bottles and pizza boxes aside, and scribble out that essay on the table while your housemates fart in the bathroom, fry up some sausages, and the pretty girl’s ugly friend crawls out of your bedroom inexplicably calling you George. You don’t correct her though. Because it does not matter and you’re just carrying on as usual, never reading all the reading list, never fully preparing the model answers, never getting in those ten thousand hours of practice that are supposed to make you a success.  But it does not matter. When the air-conditioning finally packs in, the only thing that will be done well will be you being well done.

On the other hand I could be wrong and the lizards in flying saucers might turn up and say only those with a post-graduate qualification or real achievement need apply to be saved. I bet they won’t though. So I think I’ll buy myself a flashy car and get that film on the topless ladies volleyball team up and in production. Sod art and bugger the pension plan. I think that is probably what I should do - once I’ve found out where I can get hold of some blue paint.