Dave Cheeseman | Cameraman & Picture Editor

Heading North

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:45:00 -0700

Having spent (most!) of the last 11 years of my working life based in Nottingham, I’ve decided to move up to Manchester to join a new team of technical staff working for BBC Breakfast News, Newsround as well as the regional programmes in the North West of the UK.

Following the much talked about move from London, BBC Breakfast launched this week in a brand new HD studio based in Salford Quays. I began my first week in the new job editing for the program which involves being in overnight, but I hope to get into some film making and various other aspects of the job in the near future.

MediaCity UK at Salford Quays

My edit suite for BBC Breakfast (Quantel QEdit v5)

The new studio is state of the art (if a little small!) compared to Breakfast’s former home in BBC Television Centre, London. It’s green, using roughly 10% of the power consumed by the old studio thanks to an LED lighting rig. Public response mainly seems positive so far, although there have been many comments about the new close-up shots of the presenters and the ‘garish’ colours of the new set!

New BBC Breakfast Studio

Come 8.30am the celebs start shuffling in to the green room area by the studio. So far I’ve had the pleasure of being feet away from Shaun Ryder, Labrinth the Inspiral Carpets, and of course the BBC breakfast presenters who seem like a pleasant bunch.

Here’s to the future!

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A day at the beach

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:21:13 -0700

Camping on the beach. What a great idea. You get a nice soft bed and you can hear the ocean all night washing in and out. Even better, it costs just $10 a night for a pitch, What could possibly go wrong! It definitely sounded like what Nich told me is 'type 1 fun'. This is the type of fun where the proposed activity sounds like fun and then when you do it, it is actually fun (e.g sitting in a hot tub with a beer). 'Type 2 fun' is something which sounds like fun but isn't fun whilst you do it, but on reflection, the stories you get out of the experience are great (e.g. climbing a really tough mountain). FInally there's 'type 3 fun'. This is where the activity sounds like it will not be any fun at all, and when you do it it really isn't but when it's over you get a great sense of achievement or a life changing experience (e.g running a marathon up over a mountain range whilst carrying a bag of cement).

We were on our way from Los Angeles to Vancouver, BC and, with a fairly low budget, had agreed to buy a tent and camp for much of the journey. Leaving Los Angeles and heading north through Malibu, we soon encountered the California State Park system. There are a number of variations but all tend to offer decent camping facilities which range from basic/primitive (just toilets) to developed/family (showers, wash blocks etc). The first stop we made was at a place called Pismo Beach which is at the southern end of the area known as Big Sur.

This is a beautiful part of the world where US Highway 1 runs along the Pacific coast. The beaches are fabulous and the scenery breathtaking. What a place to camp!

Highway 1 running through Big Sur

We arrived at Pismo to be greeted by a friendly park warden who told us to grab some wood so we could have a fire and then head onto the beach. "Just stick to the side of the beach nearest the sea when you rive up there" she said, eyeing our front wheel drive Chevrolet Aveo which we had rented in Los Angeles the previous week. I was at the wheel and got stuck in, zooming down the ramp onto the sand. It was brilliant. There were hardly any people around as we zoomed up the beach, right by the waves.

Driving up the beach is great fun. Even in a 2 wheel drive Chevy!

Soon we saw a few campers, mainly in large trailer caravans and RVs, dotted along the beach away from the water in Mad Max style groups. This is a popular area for off road dune buggy riding and almost everyone is in a truck, and a big truck at that.

Your typical Californian beach camper

We were aware that the tide had been high about 4pm and now it was getting toward 6pm. I don't know about you but I'm not the best at judging tides. How far WILL the water come up the beach? Well, best to use local knowledge and do what everyone else is doing. So, after exploring up and down the coastline for a short while we chose our spot and pointed up the beach towards land to park.

That's when the problems started. I spotted a suitable spot for camp and aimed the car up the beach. About 10 yards off the damp sand it became abundantly clear we were going to have difficulty going any further. The car stopped and the wheels span. We were totally stuck. I got out and moved some of the bone dry sand away from the front wheels and had another go at getting out. No luck. Nich then tried and I pushed but we just dug ourselves in deeper and deeper. A couple of our fellow campers wandered over and pointed out that we should have backed up the beach, but even then though we probably would have had trouble. Then a friendly chap called Roger headed over to us in his truck and offered us some advice. "You won't get that out of there" he said, "I can lend you a shovel if you like". Meanwhile the beach patrol had been over and offered their services to drag the car out for $50.

By now it was getting dark. We hadn't set up our tent yet, but, being northern, there was no way I was going to pay a guy to drag us out when I could dig out for free. So we decided to leave the car there for the night and set up camp. It was now dark and a swarm of king-sized mosquitoes had come out to play. We madly tried to set the tent up as quickly as possible but the first time setting up a new tent is never easy. Eventually it went up and I started digging whilst Nich got the dinner on. Throughout the evening we dug all of the sand out around the car. A hole of around three feet deep was eventually excavated around the entire car and we went to bed, totally exhausted.

The next morning, we emerged from the tent at first light to see Roger heading over in his truck. He hopped out and congratulated us on our efforts. Then he let our tyres down to 15psi and offered to help push. I got in the drivers seat while Nich and Roger pushed and we got out at the second attempt. Whoops and high fives all around as well as some valuable lessons about camping on beaches.

The rescued car and the trench from whence it came

The camp... post rescue

As if to congratulate us further, a huge migrating flock of sea birds swept passed us as we were packing up our tent, It was utterly spectacular and the end to one of the best experiences of the trip. Sometimes you have to get into a bit of trouble to enjoy yourself. i think Nich calls it type 2 fun.

The flock of birds sweeps past. Amazing!

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Back on the bike

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 10:54:26 -0700

Less than a year after leaving, the wife and I were back in Western Canada, this time for a visit and a holiday. We'd attempted to do the drive down the Pacific coast from Vancouver to Los Angeles in Autumn 2010 but only made it as far as northern Oregon. I was stood in Portland Saturday market eating a rather tasty Philly cheese steak sandwich when I got a call from my sister in the UK to say my Grandma had had a heart attack and was very ill. During that day she got worse so we made the decision to abandon the trip and return to the UK. This left us with a half completed trip and a strong feeling that my Grandma would not wanted to have stopped us doing the trip and that we should finish it off this year.

We started back in Vancouver to see our friends and remember why we loved the place so much. One of these loves was the mountains and how easy it was to access the best places in the world for outdoor activity. So, two days in, off we went to Whistler for a days mountain biking. Nich came along this time too after a weekend training course in the Welsh hills. It was an amazing day. Great weather, great riding and great for Nich to finally have a go on a full Downhill rig!

In Whistler Village

This time around, and after my week in Les Arcs in the French Alps, I attempted some of the more tricky runs. But the super fast, jump heavy highways like 'A-line' and 'Crank It Up' are still my favourite experiences on a bike. I knocked together a short video with the help of some music from 'Clutch'.

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Big Trouble in Little England

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:54:05 -0700

"Grab your camera, they're looting shops just down the street". I grabbed my Sony DSR-570, it's not small and weighs about 8 kilograms, and a rucksack containing microphones and spares.

The BBC in Birmingham is housed in the Mailbox, a shopping centre in the heart of the city. It didn't take long for us to meet up with our security guard and get across to where trouble had started. We joined a line of riot police as a group of masked youths began smashing the windows of Marks and Spencer a hundred yards up the road. The police charged and we followed, but the kids ran leaving broken windows and the objects which they'd used to break them, bottles of spirits.

A short while later we wandered around to Moor Street station to find a burning car. There were a lot of kids around but the atmosphere wasn't threatening and I started filming. Within a couple of minutes I got a tap on my shoulder from our security guard who suggested we get out of there. I looked round to see that the kids had been replaced mainly by masked youths. The kids, in hindsight, probably were the masked youths. We got out as quickly as possible to see that the police line had moved back and we had suddenly, briefly, found ourselves right in the thick of it. As we headed back toward the police line the officers shouted at us to get back. The big camera came in useful (along with a press pass) to wave at them to say that we were press. As we approached the line we realised that there were bottles flying from around the corner they were ensconced at.

I got a shout of 'Bottle!' as a Smirnoff Vodka bottle, complete with optics, came flying over our heads, landing just behind the police line we were approaching. We ran through the line and retreated out of throwing distance before commencing filming. The kids were now turning their attention toward the police so we decided it best to retreat back to the safety of the Mailbox.

BBC Ten o'clock news lead story, Birmingham riots

The next day I was awoken by a phone call to get to Winsom Green, a segment of the Birmingham metropolitan sprawl. Overnight, three men had been hit by a car as they stood on the street to defend of their neighbourhood from looters. Sadly, they had all died that night, and now the police had opened a murder investigation. When I arrived the scene, the forecourt of petrol station on a usually busy street, was quiet. A few members of the community stood outside shops, but the majority of people there were police and press. The forensic teams examined the scene and gathered evidence. People started laying flowers and gradually, throughout the day, the community gathered, many of them had been up all night outside the local hospital waiting for news. The father of one of the dead men spoke to the press. He spoke for everything that was wrong with the events of the past few days, and brought it back into reality. I believe that his words had more effect in ending the riots than anything else. As much as the media had it's part to play in spreading the troubles across England, this event demonstrated the power of the media in spreading the message to stop.

BBC Ten o'clock news lead story, Winsom Green murders

I eventually returned home late that night having worked somewhere close to 35 hours in 2 days. My work had led the national news bulletins for nights and the experience is something I won't forget quickly.

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1 year to go

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:10:48 -0700

I spent last Wednesday at the Olympic Park in London. I was filming as part of the celebrations for "London 2012: One Year to Go", mainly inside the brand new and hugely impressive aquatics centre. I've never seen so many media crews in one building. Literally hundreds of cameras swarmed around the pool and diving area.

The pool at the new Aquatics centre for London 2012. Impressive.

There were plenty of Olympic related faces around. IOC president Jacques Rogge turned up and I managed to film the amusing spectacle of Seb Coe, Boris Johnson and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt all lined up together to greet him as he stepped off a little bus. Boris Johnson was great. I filmed three separate interviews with him and he was different and engaging in each. Such a difference to the media robot politicians we have running the place at the moment. It's a damn shame he's totally bonkers.

Pre Interview with Boris Johnson

Other faces interviewed/spotted included former triple jump gold medallist turned TV presenter Jonathan Edwards, former javelin thrower Steve Backley, sprinter Linford Christie, rower Matthew Pinsent and world cup winning England rugby coach Sir Clive Woodward. A good day!

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Mountain Biking in the French Alps

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:55:36 -0700

Last summer, in a move akin to buying a Bugatti Veyron as your first car, I'd taken up mountain biking in Whistler, Canada. My bikey friends in the UK had been quite jealous, understandably, as Whistler is the mecca for the sport. I'd enjoyed it so much that, when I returned to the UK in January, I decided to get a bike and continue riding.

Loving it. First day on Whistler mountain. June 2010

The first problem I spotted was that the bike I had rented over in Canada cost about the same as the car I had sold in the UK a few months prior. The second was that I had been used to hopping on a chairlift or gondola to get up to the top of the mountain, bypassing all of that pedalling nonsense I'd previously associated with mountain biking, and your average British trail park involves powering yourself up as well as down.

Still, I managed to get the money together for a decent bike (not to the same specifications I might add, the main sacrifice was rear suspension), and last week I solved the pedalling issue by driving to the French Alps with three friends to enjoy some lift assisted riding.

My Santa Cruz Chameleon hard tail mountain bike on the Valandry chair lift in Les Arcs

The friends in question included 'Vine-o', who I soon found out had near legendary status in the resort. He'd been a few times before and there were even videos of him on the internet flailing his back wheel over cliff edges. On arrival, he was greeted enthusiastically by all the guides, whereas James, who'd been almost the same number of times, was afforded a brief handshake and manly nod (getting your back end out, it seems, gets you attention amongst mountain bike guides). The third of the three amigos was Diego. He'd brought two bikes and a tool box which proved useful later in the week.

Diego in the bike garage at our chalet. I reckon the bikes in there were worth nearly as much as the building!

I sensed that my 2 days experience with bikes on actual mountains may not be enough for the flying start I was hoping for. Everyone seemed very serious and extreme. In a conversation about mountains over dinner on the first night, I mentioned to our guide Ben that I had recently walked the Yorkshire 3 peaks challenge. He went on to tell me about sleeping the night on the Matterhorn with no sleeping bag. You get the picture.

Torrential rain on the first day was a bit of an evener in that no one really wanted to go out, but in the two trails we rode I managed to fall off the bike about a dozen times. It was way more rocky and slippery than I had previously experienced (even though one of my Whistler days was wet), and the hard tail bike was proving hard on my tail, as well as various other parts of my body.

As the week progressed I became more confident and the riding was stunning. The single track trails rip through the forest and you can descend for hours. The variation is massive and you find yourself on steep, technical, rocky descents along with fast and flowing forest trails all in the same run.

Diego at the bottom of the Cachette downhill run

Being near the back of the pack does have it's disadvantages. You frequently find yourself arriving at the bottom of the run and setting off immediately, giving you no time to have a breather or admire the views. However, guiding is the only way forward. I took a break from it one morning and spent a lot of time scratching my head over routes and getting held up by herds of goats.

A herd of goats on the trail

Pausing to have a look at my brake pads

Later in the week we rode an amazing backcountry route up to Mont Jovet via La Plagne. It included about 800 meters of climbing, 30 miles of riding and lifts and a half hour train journey home from Moutiers at the end of the day. It was a mammoth trip which ended in with my rear wheel broken. Thankfully, Diego lent me his spare bike on the last day! Despite this, I concluded that the best trails were all over on La Plagne. I think it's because it dried out after rain much quicker and the trails had experienced less traffic so weren't as broken up.

Vine-o, James and myself on a trail in La Plagne

The break up of the trails does seem to be a cause for concern. The guides had a meeting in the week with local hiking groups, some of whom do not like the fact that mountain bikers and walkers share the trails. This is understandable, as it can be quite unnerving to have a group of bikes pass you at high speed as you struggle up a walking trail.

Some trails, like this, are for bikes only but many are shared

We had not anticipated, however, that the relations between the UK biking community and the locals had become as strained as it seemed to be when, on the Friday morning we awoke to the news that virtually all of the UK plated vehicles had had their tyres slashed. Although there was talk of various reasons why it had happened, the fact that the main targets were outside British run mountain bike chalets spoke volumes.

The main road in the village of Moulin with nearly all GB plate car tyres slashed and some very angry mountain bikers

Amazingly, our car had not been affected as it was right on the end of the line of vehicles on the main road and the perpetrator seemed to have been disturbed. Still, it put a big downer on what had been a fantastic week and something I'd love to do again. Perhaps on a bike with rear suspension though!

Nice views! (James' bike)

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Celebrity Spotting

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:11:15 -0700

Here at Wimbledon there are plenty of celebs kicking around, especially in the broadcast areas. I've decided to try and take pics of as many as possible whilst I'm running around like a madman filming the actual sport. Here goes...

BBC Sport's Mary Rhodes on the radio

John Inverdale having a meeting

Alistair Mcgowan watching Liam Broady in the boys quarter finals

Richard Bacon, Jonathan Overand and Pat Cash on 5live

McEnroe!

Andy Murray (Lego version)

Me, Heidi and Babs

Rafa Nadal on the practice courts... I was filming some actual sport at this point

Sue Barker doing a piece to camera in centre court

Probably famous in France

David Coulthard with some very attractive friends

Grumpy Boris Becker

Swimmer Mark Foster

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Today at Wimbledon

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:33:13 -0700

It's the 2nd week of Wimbledon and as luck would have it I've landed a job working as a cameraman and editor for these few days. Having never been to SW19 before I was amazed at the sheer size of the site, the condition of the courts and public areas, and the level of media interest in the tournament. The courts are amazing, from the giant roof of centre court to the delightful intimate amphitheatre of court 2 it is the most complete tennis venue. The grass is absolutely pristine, and the site on the whole is first rate.

Court 19 with court 1 behind and Henman Hill/Murray Mound in the background

The working days, as expected, is very busy. I'm spending all my time running between outer courts to catch British juniors in action and interviewing players and family members. So far I've been really impressed with the standard of the young British players. We'll wait and see how far some of them get but I'm really hoping they make it to the latter stages.

The outer courts where many of the British juniors play

Filming one of the British juniors in action

Unfortunately I haven't seen much tennis as I'm often running down to edit and send pictures for various regional bulletins across the UK. It's part of the job and you can easily lose track of what is happening in all of the games as they run simultaneously. Luckily the reporter I'm working with (Heidi) is a tennis freak and is well across all of the scores as soon as they change.

Heidi in the edit suite.

On the celeb front I've managed to spot, in no particular order, Boris Becker, John Inverdale, Richard Bacon, John Mcenroe and some puppet dog of CBBC.

Sorry kids, but it's a man with his hand in a puppet... see.

Andy Murray is on court tomorrow to try and reach the semis. Here's hoping he gets there.

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Mountain Bike UK

Tue, 10 May 2011 13:42:20 -0700

After spending a few days on the downhill trails at Whistler in Canada last year I'd built a bit of an appetite for mountain biking. So, I thought I'd get myself a bike when i came back to the UK and attempt to join in with a few mates who go regularly in the UK and to the Alps.

So, last Friday I picked up a newly built Santa Cruz Chameleon from a great little shop near Nottingham, and on Saturday took it down to Chicksands bike park in Bedfordshire and spent the day racing down the Four X track. Great fun!

On the FourX start line at Chicksands. (L-R) Me, Jirgo, Adventure Man and Rich Vine

The bike is great. Needs some upgrades but I tested it by coming off it quite a lot and now have a splendid array of bruises to show for it. Managed to capture a couple of the crashes on the GoPro, including a rather spectacular front flip with twist over the bars. I sort of landed on my feet which was nice. Vine managed to snap the frame on his Specialized Enduro at some point during the day. Hardcore! Here's a little video of our day.

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Rigging a GOPRO for a lap of Donington Park

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:47:12 -0700

Last Thursday I was given the task of rigging a Norton Cafe Racer SP (Panther) signature model superbike to capture a lap of the newly remodelled Donington Park circuit in Derbyshire. Armed with my GOPRO HD Hero, and a V.I.O PoV camera I'd borrowed from the BBC, I headed down to the Norton factory at the Donington circuit to set up.

My plan was to mount one camera on the bike as close to the track as possible, another on the handlebars looking back at the rider, and then to do a quick pitstop to switch one of the cameras onto the riders helmet. When I saw the bike I realised that there were going to be problems! Being a road bike, there was no space on the bars for any standard mounts. However, we were stood in the factory that built it. So, a bit of head scratching/genius on the spot ideas/engineering from the team at Norton and we had knocked up a brand new GOPRO mount... I'll christen it the 'Norton Indicator replacement mount' I think.

Mounting bracket cable tied to sticky GOPRO mount

Leaving enough clearance for GOPRO mounting shoe

Voila! Now bolt that to the indicator mount on the bars. All made in 10 minutes!

It sat in the spot where the front indicator should be (you don't need them on a high speed lap around Donington when you have exclusive access!) and gave a great shot of the riders helmet clad face.

The second camera was the VIO Pov cam. Its tiny tubular camera is on the end of a wire and so you can get it into some pretty out of the way places. We managed to mount it on the rear portion of the bikes frame and get a shot pointing out of the back of the bike. It was literally 2 inches above the rear tyre but managed to get both the tyre and rear fairing in shot so that you could see the suspension working around the track. The VIO camera then connects to a quite bulky box which we managed to mount to the frame right above the riders left foot and basically on top of the engine block. The beauty of this was that the microphone on the VIO block would pick up the sound of the engine as if you had you ear pressed against it.

All that was left was the riders helmet. That rider was to be former World Superbikes star Chris 'Stalker' Walker. His signature helmet wasn't going to take kindly to glueing a GOPRO mount to it so we had to think of something else. There is no open venting to tie into but Chris himself suggested we strap the vent mount around the chin guard on his helmet. Effectively we were mounting a camera on Chris' chin!

GOPRO on Chris Walkers helmet. That's me filming him on a Sony DSR-570 (photo from Norton Motorcyles website)

We were only given 10 minutes circuit time as the busy preparation for the World Superbikes meeting was on, but Chris managed two laps with the GOPRO on the bars and then, after a quick pit stop, two more with the helmet mount. The results are below, all shot and edited in a day... it's been down converted from 1080HD to SD to match the broadcast cameras used, and for airing on BBC East Midlands Today on Friday 25th March. Thanks to the guys at Norton Motorcycles including Chris Walker, the guys at Donington Park, and Ross Fletcher at the BBC for making it happen!

A lap of Donington Park

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Films, filming and more films

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:29:20 -0800

It's been a busy few weeks. Here are some of the things I've been up to...

I entered a short film into the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival's Jagged Globe shorts competition. We went down to the festival last night and watched all the entries, including mine. I didn't win but it was great to see something like that happening in the UK. The winning film was great (Nich and I actually preferred the runner up though!). Judge and jury and fellow Hull-man Andy Kirkpatrick was entertaining as always and in many ways his intermission chat at the competition was better than his lecture, which we had seen just prior. My mountain biking mate Vine was amused that Kirkpatrick gave the first prize to his mate Ben!

The other great thing that Kirkpatrick did was spend ages in his lecture telling us how he couldn't reveal the name of one of his climbing partners because said climbing partner had requested he wasn't mentioned. "I'll refer to him as 'him'" he said and ploughed on with a reading from his upcoming latest book. The first time he seemingly accidentally said the name, I threw a knowing glance at the wife. Next time I started chuckling to myself, but when he put up a picture of the guy's face and said his name three times in one sentence I was a bit bemused. I fully expected a gag about it at the end of the lecture but there was nothing. So, Andy - you might want to work on that!

In other news, I've been doing the usual work for East Midlands Today, here's an example - Jeremy Nicholas' piece about a rocking piano. I make a convincing body double; Jem can't play the piano.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheJeremyNicholas#p/u/6/8ibfqWC6u9s

Also, I helped out my friend Brady Haran with his attempt at recreating the famous Elements Song by Tom Lehrer. That's the one in which Lehrer sings all the elements in the periodic table to music. A classic. Brady makes videos about science and has created a Periodic Table of Videos with the help of some scientists at the University of Nottingham. Since he's finished all of them, he thought it would be a great idea to have his scientists singing the song. He got me in to do the music and help construct the film, which was fun. The result is here...

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Return of the studio

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:51:32 -0800

Things are starting to get back to normal. Now we've moved back into our house, I've got all of my studio equipment back and managed to have some mates over for a jam on Friday. After the flooding of a bunch of our furniture and the fire sale the preceded the move to Vancouver, we've found ourselves with a lot less stuff so I've been able to litter our attic room with pretty much exclusively musical instruments and equipment.

I've still not bought a soundcard as I ponder the switch to Mac for recording so I was glad to find out the the standard PC recording input still worked.

The studio. Bit of a mess but getting there.

At the weekend, as way of a studio test, Nicola and I decided to do an homage to Canadian folk-rock band Great Big Sea, by covering 'General Taylor' (and Steeleye Span, of course). I set up a little vocal booth on the spare room using only sheets, duvets and Jeremy Nicholas jumpers and we cracked on.

The 'vocal booth'

It'll be great to get back into music again, after a year with only a couple of gigs in Vancouver to speak of. Here are the fruits of our afternoon session!

General Taylor by Heroic Trio Listen on Posterous

Nich and Dave cover 'General Taylor'

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Return to the UK

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:10:39 -0800

We're back in the UK. It's been a year. It's gone very quickly.

Looking back it has been an amazing experience and one which we've been very fortunate to have. It has been expensive, yes, but you spend so much of your life piling up mountains of gold, sometimes it's necessary to ask yourself why you're running in a hamster wheel every day and not getting to do what you actually want. That said, we haven't totally blown the bank, we're not *that* skint, we're just in need of a bit of firm ground to put our feet on for a while.

Despite the promises of 'Frozen Britain' in 'Chaos' we had from the British media, our flight home was fine with only a measly 4 hour delay to cope with! Most of our trips back over here (there have been 3 in all) have been a shock to the system to start with, from the bad attitude of people everywhere to the overcrowded feeling you get in most places. This time, however, the recent snow and the imminent arrival of Christmas meant that all of the usual stuff I get depressed about faded into insignificance. A little stroll down to the village of Hartford in the snow helped, despite the fact that I couldn't post a letter or buy any stamps and was treated like shit by the woman on the counter at the local supermarket!

Hartford village in the snow

The snow is great. It makes me happy. We even went sledging on a golf course today.

Sledging down the 17th fairway at Sandiway Golf Club in Cheshire. Don't tell the groundsmen.

We have been quite used to it all though. The final leg of our Canadian odyssey started in mid-December. Since our experience there in the Autumn, we had planned on re-visiting the BC interior and the Rockies in the winter and this was our chance to do it. The snow had been falling on the west coast of Canada so it was perfect timing. A short hop up to Whistler for a day on the slopes began the journey, and then we headed East to some of the most spectacular skiing and riding we've ever done. To save me explaining it all, I decided to do it in video. Here are the fruits of my labour (most of said labour was done during the journey back to Britain). Enjoy!

Seven Days...Three Mountains

So it's back to work in the new year. Plenty of good times to be had I'm sure, especially if the snow sticks around. I'll keep the blog going but perhaps not post quite as often! Hope you enjoyed it.

Snow = Good

Thanks for reading.

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Big White Out

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:53:20 -0800

We've started our December Canadian snow adventure. We bought the snow chains for the rental car and the first stop was Big White. It took about 6 hours to get up here from Vancouver and we got a taste of things to come when we drove through the thickest fog I've ever seen in my life just outside Kelowna. You could see about 10 metres in front of the car for around 20km down a massive hill on Highway 97. Thankfully we dropped out of the bottom of it without running into the back of all the trucks travelling at 30km/h.

Dropping out of the dense clouds towards Kelowna.

We arrived at Big White to flurries of snow and had a look around. It was completely quiet after 9pm and incredibly foggy so we decided to get an early night and see if it would clear up by the morning.

The Fog

In the morning, Nich looked out of the window and did the old good news, bad news line. Bad news was that the fog remained, good news was that there was lots of fresh snow.

Big White is well known for great snow

The snowboarding was unbelievable. The best snow I've ever ridden. It's dry powder, not like the powder you get in the Alps or even Whistler. You glide through it and it doesn't slow the board down at all. That combined with the sheer number of little jumps and glades along the piste edges make it immense fun. Only a third of the resort is open but there are so many ways down the mountain it won't bother me for the 2 days we are here.

The Big White logo. It really is amazing snow.

What might bother us however is the visibility. It's total pea soup fog everywhere and it didn't shift all day and all night. Apparently that's the one big downside to the resort. It sits on mountains above the vast Okanagan lake and so the moisture sits in the air for days on end.

I usually judge visibility by how many chairs you can see on the lift in front. This is a definite 1!

Seeing this on someone's door in our apartment building made me think we are definitely in for another day of fog tomorrow.

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Rock at the Railway

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:00:07 -0800

I finally did a gig over in Vancouver! Barely a month before we're due to leave. I've played the jam afternoons at the Yale blues club but this was a proper show.

One louder

It was at a great little club called the Railway in town, a place where Nich and I had been on one of our first days in the city back in January. I've been playing for a band called 'Sora' who are fronted by one-time John Lawton guitarist Erol Sora. I met Erol after Chris Dale of Sack Trick mentioned that he had a mate in Vancouver. The two of them had met whilst Erol was a London resident a few years back and Chris was playing for Bruce Dickinson in the Skunkworks era. It was great to get back into it, and everything worked out really well. I managed to scrape together a keyboard, stand and use the Mac as a synth (Native Instruments B3 plugin!). It may turn out to be a one off but if I get the chance to play another that'll be great. Here's a little clip from the show...

Check out Erol's stuff at www.erolsora.com. He has two albums, both released in Europe and Japan.

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Blackpool on acid

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:13:41 -0800

Road trips cost about $1000 per week. That's about £600. You can do it a lot cheaper than that but you have to start thinking about camping/sleeping in the car/spending days doing nothing.

With that in mind, we had been planning a monster journey from Vancouver, down the Oregon coast to San Francisco, Yosemite Park, Los Angeles, San Diego and finally Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Would have taken in about 10,000km of road along the way and taken in the region of 3-4 weeks. As we started planning out the days however, it dawned on us that we would spend quite a lot of time in the car and not that much time actually doing anything. The journey from Vancouver down to San Francisco is about 17 hours straight, but if you get off the motorway and take the coast road, you're looking at a 3 day trip. On top of the time constraints, a year of sporadic work and lots of 'holidays' have left us a little bit short of money and that's before you include the 1 planned and 2 unplanned trips back to the UK we've made this year.

So we postponed the big journey and instead opted to take a cheap flight from Bellingham in northern Washington state to Las Vegas, and then drive to the Grand Canyon. The trip started badly on the journey from Vancouver to Bellingham, with the ever unreliable Greyhound bus breaking down barely 30 minutes in. We scrambled across the border only to find our flight delayed by over 4 hours so it was with some relief (and whoops of joy from a large section of passengers on the flight) that we finally arrived in Sin City.

Vegas. Only 14 lanes of traffic needed here.

In short, Las Vegas is very much like Blackpool would be if you gave everyone in the North West a £100,000 gambling budget every year and figured out a way to make it summer for 11 months of the year. I had heard all the stories, seen all the movies and STILL I was quite shocked by the scale of it all. We'd booked to stay at the Excalibur, which, you guessed it, is a massive freakin' castle. There are thousands of rooms, and as a result thousands of people there. In fact, a bit of research revealed to me that 8 of the top 10 largest hotels in the world are here, and these alone have in excess of 39,000 rooms between them. Bear in mind that the largest hotel in the UK has only 1,058 rooms and is the only hotel in the top 100 (The Hilton Metropole in Paddington).

The vast 'Excalibur' hotel, Las Vegas

The casino litters the ground floor and people are all over it, piling cash into slot machines and onto roulette tables. Everyone who gambles gets free drinks and there are no windows or clocks. Our delayed arrival at gone midnight seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

Next day we checked out the pool then decided to go on a good old Vegas 'bender'. Got dressed up at 2 in the afternoon and went for an all-you-can-eat buffet followed by a few drinks and a traipse around the hotels.

Despite having their own unique character on the outside, they are all very similar on the interior. Ground floor mega-casinos with the odd added attraction tucked in the corners. For example, the MGM grand has lions. Yes, lions.

Mrs. Lion apparently can't hear or smell anything through the glass. She can definitely see the little kid at the font though. Mmm, dinner.

Most of the interesting attractions are away from the casino halls however. Luxor has a massive light which can, according to the hotel, be seen from space.

Luxor. Although all this is actually in Giza.

Stratosphere has a bunch of rides which dangle you precariously over the side of an 800 foot tower. And yes, I had a go on one of them. It was THE most terrifying ride I'd ever been on by a country mile.

Stratosphere tower. That ride is aptly called 'Insanity'

Wouldn't recommend this to my mum

The Bellagio has a great water fountain display which we observed from the patio of former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar's bar "Cabo Wabo".

The Bellagio's fountains. As seen on screen

And Paris has, you guessed it, a 'model' Eiffel Tower which you can ride up and down. A woman on the flight back to Bellingham asked the woman next to her if she'd been to 'Paris'. They were chatting about it for a good 10 minutes before I realised they were talking about this hotel.

Ride the Eiffel Tower before seeing Barry Manilow

Drink was consumed and wagers were placed and we came out of the night 20 dollars up and happy to take off on our trip out to the Grand Canyon.

On our return, we'd decided to take in old Vegas. Downtown Vegas. Where it all started. The Fremont street are has been spruced up recently and now boasts such attractions as the worlds largest TV screen.

The screen is 3 blocks long. That's about 3 football pitches I suppose.

Its hotels have also been revamped somewhat, none more so than the Golden Nugget where we were staying. The original attraction, the 'world's largest' (are you detecting a theme here?) gold nugget is still on display...

Found by a man with a metal detector in 1 foot of earth.

...but they've now added a $30 million shark-tank-water-slide attraction which is so 'Austen Powers' that I had to book into this place. It is awesome.

'The Tank' at the Golden Nugget, Las Vegas

Me sliding through the frikkin' shark tank

The old town is much more like I expected Vegas to be. Less corporate, more down to earth, seedy, rough and ready. I suppose it did really remind me of British seaside towns like Blackpool in a way. Just with more high-rolling poker tables than 2p drops. In a way, I much preferred this, and so did Nich. In fact I was so inspired, I went out for one last play at the oldest casino in town, the Golden Gate, circa 1906. 10 minutes later I was $40 down and penniless. I skulked off back to the hotel. The house always wins in the end.

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2 Weddings and a Funeral

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 02:04:42 -0700

October has been quite a hectic month. As we landed back in Vancouver on Halloween, exhausted, I realised that, if everything turns out like you expect, then we would have no stories to tell and memories to remember.

The month started as planned. We returned to the UK on a flight into Manchester a few days before my sister, Mel's, wedding. If you didn't know already, I am one of six children, three boys and three girls, and Melanie was the last of my sisters to tie the knot. How could we miss it? We had already returned for my best friend's wedding - at which I was best man - back in April.

While Nich baked cakes and went to dress fittings, I spent a few days in Hull. Spent time with my little brothers, Jonathan and Alex. I was proud to find that, having tried for years to inspire them to start playing instruments, at age 15 it had finally hit home and they were learning the drums and guitar respectively.

Jonathan practicing the drums (note the Gideon Retch signed drum skin hanging on his wall)

I also visited my Grandma, Win Sharman. Our family is all from a very small area in Hull and Win, my mum's mum, has always lived just around the corner. She lost her husband George a few years ago and so has been living alone since. However, she got a dog, Freddy, and not a day went by when she wasn't busy. Visiting my mum or her son, walking the dog, taking her neighbours to the shops, driving all over the place. She was, at 82, as fit as a fiddle. We chatted about the wedding over a cup of tea and i showed her some pictures of our recent exploits in Canada.

My Mum and Grandma with Freddy the dog

We also talked about her poems, which I had been attempting to compile into a collection for her. As we left I noticed a large spider had strung a web across her front garden. I started taking close up pictures of it with my camera and she laughed with her neighbours. "Look" she said, "There's a BBC cameraman in my front garden filming a wildlife documentary!"

Mum and Grandma look on as I photograph the spider in the front garden

On leaving Hull I met up with Nich in York, where we first met. We went to visit our friends who have just had a baby. I accidentally mentioned that young Emily Potter resembled a rugby player but luckily her mum and dad, Alice and Ned, have a sense of humour. On reflection, she's actually very cute.

Ned and Emily Potter

So, on to the wedding. The date was 10/10/10 and all went magnificently. We made the cakes, Nich was a bridesmaid, I filmed a little documentary video for the happy couple and got massively drunk and danced to Michael Jackson.

Nich and I ice the cakes

The finished product!

Bride and bridesmaids (L-R) Sarah (sister), Ruth, Mel (sister), Steph (sister), Nich (wife)

Two of these people went to dance class as children

Post wedding, there was even time for a quick trip to Nottingham to catch up with some good friends...

Our friends Sarah, Abi and Paul at the Broadway in Nottingham

And even a meeting with our favourite dog Mavis!

Me, Jane, Sara, Nich and Mavis the Dog! Monsal Head in Derbyshire

We flew back to Vancouver with plans to take off around the USA for the rest of the month and most of November. Everything was planned and off we went, taking in Washington state and some of Oregon. I was standing in Portland, at the Saturday market having just ordered a Phillie steak and cheese sandwich. A call came through from the UK, it was my sister Stephanie. Grandma had had a heart attack whilst out walking Freddy and was in a serious condition. We dropped our plans and started to arrange to fly back to the UK. By the time we had looked into it, Win was dead. It was, and still is, a complete shock. No matter how many people how since said to me that she "looked ill' at the wedding or "was old", as far as I was concerned I left her perfectly healthy with a big grin on her face.

We made it back for the funeral, something i'm really glad we both did. With the help of the siblings, I made up a book of her poems and had them distributed to all the guests at her funeral. They were really rather good poems, from an intelligent lady with razor sharp observational wit. Here are a couple so judge for yourself.

Poem by Win Sharman

Why can it be you’re always wrong in subjects we discuss?

And won’t admit that I am right unless I make a fuss,

And then your lapse of silence, and remaining taciturn,

Endorses what I’ve always thought,

You just don’t want to learn.

--------

The Age of Chivalry by Win Sharman

Now years ago someone said,

The age of Chivalry was dead,

Since then it’s sometimes been exhumed,

But not for long as it was doomed,

Ever since a woman dared,

To air her views ‘til she was heard.

We now have sex equality,

A dirty phrase if you’re a HE,

It started with the Women’s Lib,

And this is why the men all crib,

They do not want us in the pub,

And we’re not welcome in their club,

We’re loathed if we’re the boss at work,

Only they’re allowed to shirk,

We’re frowned at if we play their games,

They could be beaten by the dames,

We may prove better mountaineers,

Or not get stoned on seven beers,

Or we may score a hole-in-one,

Or drive the car and do a ton.

But there is one thing they’ll let us share,

Then chivalry they’ve lots to spare,

Need it even once be said?

They’ll welcome you to share their bed!

In memory of Grandma, 1928-2010.

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The Canadian Rockies: Part 3

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:18:41 -0700

The final leg of the trip started in Jasper. After a trip to the glorious, postcard friendly Maligne Lake, the recent lack of showers - and running water in general - led to us taking a much needed trip to Miette Hot Springs on the edge of the park.

Maligne Lake boathouse

What a great idea it was. A few dollars to get in and you get to sit in two naturally heated outdoor pools, get a shower and bask in the late evening sunshine. We even had the pleasure of watching a black bear and her two cubs meandering down the mountainside towards us.

Nich enjoying Miette Hot Springs

On the way back into town we encountered an elk strolling across the road. I hadn't read the signs warning you to stay in your vehicle at that point, so I hopped out to get a quick shot and noticed that the large bull had a section of his horns missing.

A bull elk crosses the road just outside Jasper

His horn had been torn off in a fight

A few hundred yards further down the road we realised why. It was rutting season, and the rutting was in full flow. A large male was defending his harem against numerous other males, who were also fighting for the chance to fight the boss. It was like the WWF... both translations of the acronym!

The dominant male fights off a challenger

It was amazing to see, and as a result we weren't alone. In fact, there was a paparazzi-style gathering of wildlife photographers with massive lenses all desperately trying to get that postcard shot of the elk clashing horns. Some were getting way too close. I had now read the sign which states that elk frequently charge cars and cause thousands of dollars of damage every year.

Wildlife paparazzi at work

The next day we decided to head out of the park via the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, Mount Robson. It was another great day hike up to a crystal clear lake, with plenty of sights along the way. Autumn had really set in and the colours were fantastic.

Nich on the trail towards Berg Lake at Mount Robson, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies at 4,663 m (15,299 ft)

As usual, the hike was worth it!

We even found a celebrity squirrel who seemed a bit peeved at being photographed when he spotted me.

Celebrity Squirrel caught by paparazzi

So finally our trip around the Rockies came to and end. On the way back to Vancouver we made a stop at Adams River to see spawning sockeye salmon. The fish swim thousands of miles up to their spawning grounds after 4 years out in the Pacific Ocean. Many of them don't make it, but thousands appear in a small section of the river during a short period in October, their scales turning a bright red colour as they reach their final destination. At some points the river is bright red with fish. They fight against the strong current and we saw dozens of fish give up and die whilst in the last few yards of their journey, their scales instantly losing the red colouring as the current sweeps them back towards the lake downstream.

The Adams River - bright red with thousands of spawning sockeye salmon

I managed to get in with them and do some underwater filming which shows how hard they have to battle just to maintain their position in the water. It's really an amazing thing to see them fighting each other off to reach the best spawning grounds. The males are somewhat uglier and more fierce looking than the females but they all do their fair share of biting and chasing.

Getting my hands dirty to film the salmon with the GOPRO in an underwater housing

The resulting footage shows the fish fighting each other

Whilst filming I met up with a few colleagues from Global television in Vancouver who were up doing the same thing I was. 'Small world' I thought, that was until I met Susan Watts, a former colleague and the Science Editor of BBC Newsnight in the queue for a piece of pumpkin pie at a food stall near the river. She was there reporting on declining fish stocks. Small world indeed. Susan's film can be seen here.

We finally followed the Fraser River back from whence the salmon had swum to the Pacific Ocean and Vancouver. Next up was a trip back home for my sister Melanie's wedding. After 5 months away it will seem very strange to be back but we're both really looking forward to it.

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The Canadian Rockies: Part 2

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 22:15:14 -0700

I left my last post having arrived in Calgary, or 'Cowtown' as it's known. If there was ever any doubt that this is Canada's cowboy country, you just have to look at the signs telling people where to walk to in the winter when it's too cold to stay out on the streets.

Too cold? This way Mr Cowboy

We only spent one night in the city, where we sampled the nightlife by sitting on a patio in a bar facing the street watching an NFL game. The bar had parked a massive van equipped with plasma TVs right outside so you could still see the game if you wanted to sit on the patio. Only in Alberta.

If I didn't know that some poor mammal was being made extinct by this sort of extravagance, then I'd think it was a well good idea!

As we left the city we decided to stop at a local landmark which was a huge part of both our childhoods. No, not Disneyland or a film set but the ski jump from the 1988 Winter Olympics. Yes, it was here that Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards soared into last place and single handedly changed the rules for Olympic qualification. There was some rumour that he was afraid of heights but I think that was all rubbish. Ski jumps are absolutely massive and I wouldn't like to try it - especially in a pair of jam-jar-bottom specs.

Nich doing her best Eddie Edwards impression in front of the 1988 Olympic Ski Jump

So, onward, back into the monolithic mountain range we travelled. It's a truly stunning drive from Calgary to Canmore and it was made all the better by some really great weather. However that was all to change the next day.

Now we were sans companions, we decided that we were going to rough it a bit and stay in Hosteling International's network of wilderness hostels for the rest of the trip. The first night was spent in Mosquito Creek, which has the bonus of having a very rustic sauna. After dinner, as night fell, we decided that it would be a great idea to sample it, since there are no showers in wilderness hostels. Of course, you have to build the fire yourself and get the heat up before you can hop in, and then there's the 'swimming pool', which is the Athabasca River. Straight off the glaciers, you're looking at a water temperature of 5 or 6 degrees Celsius, so more like a cold plunge pool. It was a great experience. scurrying between the river and the sauna in the dark, especially when the heavens opened. We were later joined by one of the other two hostel guests, a German IT consultant who, being German, thought it best to whip off his pants and do it properly. Needless to say Nich turned off her head-torch at this point.

The next day, the rain held which made for a disappointing drive through fogged peaks up the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper. Luckily though, as we climbed we got a break in the weather and made it out onto the Athabasca Glacier. A combination of warm temperatures and rain meant that there was a huge torrent of water gushing from the toe of the glacier. We chatted with a few nutters who were walking up with skis and tents to spent the night among the crevasses before skiing down the next day. There were also various mountaineering courses being conducted on the ice.

Trainee mountaineers prepare for their day at the toe of the Athabasca Glacier

We spent that night as the lone occupants of the hostel at Mount Edith Cavell and were treated to a cosy night with a fire in our bedroom and one of the most amazing night time views I've ever seen.

Mount Edith Cavell at night. As seen from the wilderness hostel at it's base

A great days hike up to Cavell Meadows followed (including more sightings of our new favourite animal, the Pika) before we made it to Jasper and Maligne Canyon hostel. By the previous nights' standards, it was packed and we were given a room with 4 other guests. Not great, but, after finding out that the German-born hostel manager was in fact a massive English football (and Arsenal) fan, I managed to bribe him to open up a new dorm room, just for us, with a viewing of the latest edition of Match of the Day on my Mac. He loved it, despite watching his beloved Gunners go down 3-2 at home to West Brom.

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Kayaking with Killer Whales

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:06:56 -0700

Our recent trip to Telegraph Cove in Northern Vancouver Island has now been documented in video form...

...and by my lovely wife Nich on her blog...

Kayaking with orca at Telegraph Cove, BC

An amazing trip and one of the highlights of the year so far.

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