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Oliver was only five when he realised that the world was about to end. By “the world” I mean ‘his life’, and by “end” I simply mean ‘completely change’. You see, he was a creative boy whose imagination took him to all sorts of special places; a child prodigy that his parents never understood. For now was the time that this little boy was to start school. Big school. Scary school. Big, scary school.

He had no siblings and he wasn’t exactly the most social child. Oliver wasn’t slow at learning, nor was he thick, but his lack of social teachings and graces didn’t give off the right impression to new faces. As a toddler, he’d been starved of affection by his parents forcing him to withdraw and find solace in his mind. If you’d asked him to make small talk with a few relatives, he’d turn his nose up at you in fear. But, if you gave him a pencil and some paper, he’d draw you a masterpiece without even taking the time to blink. By now, I’m sure you’re able to work out the sheer horror pulsating around Oliver’s brain as he tried to compute his chances of being able to stay incognito amongst hundreds, maybe thousands, of other children.

The first thing he did was lock himself away. Oliver retreated to his little hidey hole in his room – location: underneath his bed. He stayed there for a while… thinking…

When he was done, he crawled out and went into the garden with his notebook and sat on the swing. Barely pushing himself, he opened the book to a new page and started to draw a part of the same tree he’d drawn a thousand times before. But, this time he concentrated his energy on one single leaf that has fallen off its twig. It was a smallish leaf, with some parts of it that had already turned brown. It reminded him of himself and he nurtured this drawing into something so detailed and magnificent that he managed to surprise even himself. He sat there and stared at it for a while.

Upon further inspection of his own drawing he was able to see the many small parts that made up this leaf. Pulling himself closer to the item, he was able to see the many vein-like features that comprised the leaf’s form. In fact, it looked like there was a little tree upon the leaf itself. One that looked exactly like the tree the poor leaf fell from. It was at this moment that Oliver realised the circle of life really was inevitable and true. The entire world’s concepts and facets were one, big amalgamation to simply be churned out and melded into each other to form one brand new amalgamation.

And isn’t that what was happening to Oliver too? His life was simply joining another set of lives that would come together to create one big mess, called ‘School’. As the sun started to set, he was feeling a little chilly and so took his new friend, Leaf, and his new-found way of thinking indoors, to get ready for dinner. He was onto something. Something big for him.

After dinner, he found some tape and stuck Leaf next to its drawn counterpart in his notebook. That was the first time he’d drawn something tiny enough to be placed next to his own version. He would usually deliberately sketch and colour very elaborate looking buildings and test himself on the amount of detail he could put into it. Leaf was officially his first small-scale project. One that he’d just managed to learn a great deal from. He felt happier knowing he’d learnt a little more about the world and was able to sleep soundly that night.

Oliver was awoken at the crack of dawn by the noise of his mother’s racket downstairs as she yelled very loudly over the phone, dealing with business clients in another part of the world. He usually hated this part of the day and nothing was different about it today. Pushing himself out of bed, he grumpily got ready for the day ahead and grabbed some food from his mother in the kitchen. He had only a week to go now before he was shipped off to Big Scary School and the nerves were settling in again. After working himself into a bit of a sweat, he clambered under his bed. The panic set in and he found himself under there for a few hours. Upon returning to the world, he felt confused. And a little lost. He thought he’d managed to get himself past the horrible thoughts poisoning his mind. Apparently not – he was stuck and he knew it.

A few days and drawings later, Oliver’s mother asked him to pack for school. He was to be sent off on his own into the big, wide world all by himself. This is where he would grow into a Big Boy; someone who would never know his parents – except he didn’t know that yet. Had he been aware of this revelation whilst packing, he probably never would have begun the arduous task. Halfway through, he felt nauseous and opened his notebook. All the memories of being under the tree came flooding back as he stared at Leaf. Leaf stared back. He ran his fingers over its back, seeing it stuck there under the tape. Now more than anything he felt more like Leaf; trapped under this heavy burden of sticky, being told what to think and feel. He had to change his life and he knew it. If he didn’t do anything now, this feeling would last forever. He got his things together and sat gawking at his bag. Opening his notebook, he sketched his backpack. It was the roughest, most untidy drawing he’d ever pencilled. Tomorrow was the day.

The curtains were opened with haste and Oliver was dragged out of bed, kicking and screaming (in his mind). His clothes were shoved onto the bed for him to wear and his breakfast was already waiting for him. His mother explained to him that he’d be gone for a while and that she and his father would visit him. He wasn’t stupid; he knew where he was going. To spite her, he wore a different shirt.

In the car on the way to Big Scary School, his mother’s phone was ringing non-stop. She huffed and puffed about not being able to answer it and as they reached the gates of the school, she slammed on the brakes and left the car to return the call. Oliver looked ahead at all of the other children being left there. Boys and girls of all different sizes, being forced to occupy these large grounds because their parents didn’t care about them. Well, that was his opinion anyway. As he gazed, he saw this little girl sitting under a tree, with a notebook. He left the car to investigate.

As he got closer to the girl, he realised she was writing in her notebook and asked her what she was writing. She looked at him puzzled and told him she was telling her notebook how scared she was of starting school all on her own. For the first time in a very long while, Oliver smiled and took out his notebook. He ripped out the page with Leaf on it and gave it to the girl, telling her she was no longer alone. She smiled a bewildered smile and they both walked towards Mildly Scary School.

His mother called out after him wishing to say goodbye, but Oliver simply turned his head and raised a hand. His goodbye was short and sharp.

Oliver finally left school at 18. He went on to draw one of the best selling comics ever written, with his new found friend, at the age of 21. He didn’t really understand fame and why people liked him, but he was happy to be doing what he loved. They eventually amassed a small fortune and bought a house far away from prying eyes.

His parents grew older and eventually withered into old, lonely souls wondering how their only boy was doing. They regretted letting him just walk off into the distance, never bothering to chase him to find out where, or how, he was after leaving him at the school gates. I know for a fact that his mother thinks about him everyday.

She regrets never showing him love and missed him more as the years went by. She really did mean to go and see him, but work just got in the way. I also know that it pained her deeply every time he refused to come and see her when she did make her way down to the school, albeit a few years too late.

I miss you, my dear boy. I miss seeing you in the morning and I regret never giving you the hugs you deserved. I’m eager to hear from you and see how well you are doing. I’ve destroyed our relationship greatly and am asking for your heart to see me another way. I’m just sorry it’s taken so many years for me to write this letter. From the bottom of my heart, I do love you.

Please forgive me.

Yours forever and always,

Mother.

For the last year, as most of you know, I’ve been searching for new employment. After losing my last full time job due to the recession, I was certainly not in a fit state for a while – both psychologically and financially. Between now and then, I did manage to get a couple of freelance temporary gigs lasting a total of six months, but neither of them led to anything substantial.

I may have been a little too picky with some of the jobs I applied for/interviewed with and after a while I was starting to lose hope. Interview after interview went by and nothing was appearing. Some jobs were even retracted as the companies weren’t sure if they needed a social media person in house.

However, I’m pleased to announce that the hard slog is over and that, as of yesterday, I was offered a position at PokerStars as their new Social Media Community Manager. There was a very vigorous interview process (I met five people over separate four interviews) and even flew out to the Isle of Man – to see their head office. If someone told me last year that in a year’s time I would be handed my perfect job  – if you know me, then you know I LOVE playing and watching poker – I would have called them stupid and walked away.

Very much looking forward to joining the team over at PokerStars and am even happier I don’t have to move to the Isle of Man! Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I’ve already upped and left in the past (to move to New York) and I’m definitely done with the whole moving away thing. London is my home and I’m more than happy to stay here.

I start on April 19th and can honestly say that I’m very excited. In fact, I don’t think ‘excited’ quite covers it

As part of the Dabs IT and Gadget Show 2010 at Wembley Stadium, I was offered the chance to have a tour of the complex. Given the gadget show was pretty boring, I was most definitely up for it. The new stadium has an enormous capacity of 90,000 and given this, I was more than intrigued to find out how many toilets the venue actually had. Albeit a pretty worthless piece of information on the whole, this is exactly the type of trivia that I find myself fascinated by.

The Stadium is an absolute monster in itself with its very own function room called ‘The Bobby Moore Room‘ which has a capacity for allowing 2000 guests to wine (and slightly fewer to dine) in luxury. It’s a massive room with an upstairs that has a glorious view of my home town from its windows. If I were to host a party in this lavish room overlooking the newly piled

rubble and scaffolding that is to be the new Wembley City complex, I’d be more than a little peeved. From here, we were taken through to the England changing rooms where we were able to see the players’ shirts hanging from each of their pegs. A little factoid that was certainly welcome to hear was that on any given match day each of the players could have up to six pairs of football boots with them. It’s nice to know that it’s not only ladies that enjoy their footwear. There are three massage tables in this room as well as three indispensable hairdryers. There is also no longer the famous big bath in the changing room, but now there are separate baths and showers with very limited personal space, it has to be said. I guess if you live, breathe and eat football with your compadres, you may as well shower with them too. Or something. Given the opportunity, I probably wouldn’t turn that down, would you?

Shortly after all the changing room trivia, we were then taken to the pitch to enjoy our views of the stadium uninterrupted by screaming fans. Now, I’ve been to the stadium before, but not when it actually looked as it was meant to. I was previously here for the Race of Champions (back in 2007 and 2008) where, in our seats from way up top, you could see that the pitch was covered and transformed into a mini racetrack for all the Formula One race car drivers and Motor Cross champions. It’s a weird but consoling thought to think and see that such a huge place be transformed with such ease without causing any damage to it.

The roof of the stadium doesn’t close all the way over, but does cover every single seat. It’s apparently good for the grass to be able to get natural air, sun and moisture through – as well providing natural ventilation for such a large building. The pitch by itself with no-one around looks fairly mundane, but to think that this pitch has had all sorts of things done to it over the years, I bet it’s glad to get its time off. Some more little fun facts about the stadium, but this time with a more musical edge; the late Michael Jackson performed at the old stadium a total of three times, making him the artist that’s played at Wembley the most. George Michael was the first to perform at the re-opening of the stadium in 2007 and Muse were the first band to sell out the entire stadium in the same year. I’m pretty sure when it opened in 1923 nobody could have predicted that this stadium would have had this much history or that it would have undergone one of the most controversial makeovers a stadium has ever been through.

The iconic arch design is 315m wide and 133m tall. It not only serves to become a focal point for people to find the stadium (I’ve spotted it from atop the Millennium Eye, aren’t I just a smarty knickers?), but it has also been designed to be functional by way of supporting the rest of the entire structure itself. As well as this, one side of the stadium roof moves to open and close as needed depending on the weather. It’s quite remarkable to think that this stadium costs nearly a billion pounds, but it sure as hell redeems itself when you visit.  A few more fun facts before I go; the stadium has a circumference of 1km – no wonder it’s always taken me a millenia to get myself round it. The total length of the escalators is 400m and 35 miles of heavy duty power cables run themselves around the stadium. If you enjoy more silly trivia like this, you’ll definitely enjoy taking a tour, as there’ll be more numbers than you’ll be able to remember. Wembley is my home town and it was definitely a proud moment to be walking around our national stadium. Oh, and by the way, there are 2,618 toilets in Wembley Stadium. That’s more than any other building in existence.

After moving the short film project from ‘non-existent’ to ‘officially live’, I can say that nothing much has changed since then. Having to juggle up to ten people’s schedules is minuscule compared to that of the near 50 we had for Liink and Zellda and yet for some reason this is proving difficult. It’s nothing I haven’t faced before, but it seems time to pull out the big guns and simply make decisions to get the process moving – whether people like them or not. Unfortunately, that’s when you turn into the bad guy *sigh*.

Casting, budgets, time-frames, locations, costumes and props; all stuff to take into consideration. I’m happy to admit that 4/6 of those things have been taken care of in a very short space of time. And, nothing happens or gets done without them all working in harmony. I’m too close to getting this done to even think about scrapping it – so that’s not even an option right now.

It’s not all gloom and doom, though. A few have committed all their energies to helping out wherever they can – and for this I am glad. I’m still looking for costumes and making last minute changes to the script, but nothing that can’t be dealt with. Shooting is now looking like it’s going to happen in the last week of February and I’ll conserve my excitement for those days.

Gods, that reminds me; need to get better hosting for our Foolhardy website. Bah.

EDIT: Shooting has now been postponed until further notice.

The Twitter sourcing is going quite well for my film shoot, if I do say so myself. After the interwebs told me where to look to locate a ship nearby, I sent some emails and made some calls. Pretty standard stuff for a producer. But, then the very next day I received an email response from none other than the lovely people at the Golden Hinde telling me they were thrilled to help me with my project! If I told you I jumped for joy, it’d be an understatement. I was almost shouting and running around the office with my colleagues wondering what on earth I was up to. After informing them of my fortune they were also beaming with delight.

Isn’t she a beauty? Here’s a little bit of history to get you going too:

“The original Golden Hinde became famous as the flagship of Sir Francis Drake during his voyage around the world. The journey took three years, with the Golden Hinde being the only ship to complete the voyage. Drake left Plymouth in 1577, the aim of the voyage was for Drake and his men to be the first Englishmen to circumnavigate the globe.”

Yes, the ship is a replica, but it’s the closest thing to a pirate ship I’m going to be handed to use for a shoot. And, quite frankly, I didn’t even think this was going to happen without forking out an arm and a leg for it. The arm I need; the leg might help make the pirate shoot a little more authentic.

After I secured the ship, I put the project well and truly underway and sent out all the initial production emails to all the cast and crew for finalising shoot days in February. This thing’s moving a lot faster than I thought it would be.

One of the other superb things Twitter helped me with was the sound/music for the production. The very lovely and very gifted Jónas Haraldsson tweeted in my general direction and offered his services as musician/sound man. Here’s some of his stuff to get you going once more And if that wasn’t enough – his girlfriend, Laura Viero, wants a piece of the action too. Given she’s been so amazing and already has film work under her belt, I had no choice but to write her in a few lines.

Am now looking for costumes and piratey themed props, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m a little bit chuffed to (perhaps?) be making the first Twitter crowdsourced film. Do you know of any other short films that have been put together and sourced solely by using social media/networking tools? I’ve done some research and found a few, but let me know of any you’ve come across, it’d be good to see them.

Thanks!

Some of you may have heard me utter a few things here and there about a new short film project I am working on with the wonderfully talented cameraman and editor Gavin Free. I would prefer not to say too much about it in case it gets held up (which is unfortunately the norm for independent projects), but I am definitely very excited about it. I’ve not only managed to somehow persuade Gavin to give me some of his time, but I’ve also managed to rope in another awesome and very talented friend; who shall, for now, remain nameless. You’d think they like working with me or something. Sheesh

I’m also quite excited to give a mention to the awesome Adam Cohen, who I’m very much looking forward to working with for the first time. He’s trained in all things circus and is a jolly nice fellow, so the shoot days should be a great laugh. I also have two other volunteers, both of whom offered their services to help after I simply tweeted that I was working on a new project. They will most likely help with all things behind the camera. I’m toying with making a cameo appearance myself, but haven’t really decided yet. To be honest, even if I decide not to, I have no shortage of actresses who’d love to snap up the part.

Earlier today, I tweeted about needing to find a sailing/pirate ship. And, through the sheer power of Twitter, I was able to locate and find one. A little later on, I managed to find another. And then another. Whether or not I actually manage to get to use any of these ships is irrelevant. I wanted to highlight how powerful Twitter is to find what you’re looking for. It’s been a pretty invaluable tool for me to locate the things I’m after for this project and I’m pretty lucky to have such amazing friends (and useful strangers) who’ll listen and respond to my ramblings.

And, because of this pretty fun social-networking tool, I’ve decided to keep this project to Twitter-related people only. I’m going to see how much I can crowdsource and find the things I will inevitably be looking for by simply tweeting for it.

So, there you have it. The only clue you’re getting on the new project is that picture of the Golden Hinde. Watch this space for more!

[If you'd like to get involved in any future projects send me an email and I'll keep you in mind ]

…get repeatedly sexually molested tonight and it freaked me out. Not because I didn’t know what to do (this was blatantly obvious), but because I started to think about the kind of creep that does that to a lady – and it made me angry and quite upset.

So often us ladies are taught to take care of ourselves when we’re out and make sure someone is spotting you or can accompany you home (or at least part of the way). We get told to hang out in groups or, for the more self-assured among us, to attend self-defence classes to teach that indescribable moron never to lay a finger upon your precious skin again. As I sat there on the Tube, on the way home, I wondered what had happened to this girl to get so completely inebriated that she could no longer walk without support. A seemingly gentleman accompanied her onto the train and she jokingly smiled and chuckled as she tried to grab onto a pole and failed three or four times before being pushed forward so she could grab onto it and lower herself in the seat next to me. She did what I thought was the equivalent of passing out on her boyfriend’s shoulder, with him positioning her body around him and away from me (we were sat in a row from left to right, with the man being the farthest away from me), to fall asleep and be escorted home after a fun night out.

What followed was far from joyful as the clock was almost hitting midnight. I’m not going to go into specific details about the ‘gross misconduct’ that occurred right before me, but I can tell you I was scared. Not for me, but for her. The man repeatedly made attempts to grope her in all sorts of places a lady should not be touched should she not want to be. This, quite rightly so, would then awake her from her near-paralytic slumber only to push him off; to tell him not to touch her. This continued back-and-forth for quite some time before she got up once more and asked to be taken to Highbury and Islington. Suffice to say, we were headed Westbound towards North West London and she was not being taken off the train to catch a train going in the opposite direction. She then passed out, once again.

The gentleman continued his nonsense of taking advantage whilst she was asleep on him and I weighed up my options:

a) Tell him to stop and leave her alone/pull the alarm/get violent.

- Problem one; the man was also very drunk and two-three times my size. He could have got aggressive at me, or worse – her.

- Problem two; there was one other guy in our part of the carriage, who’d decided much early on to keep his head down and out of this situation. I was on my own for this one.

b) Report him to staff/police.

- Problem one; how/when/where do I have the opportunity to do this without him noticing?

- Problem two; will police arrive in time before he takes her somewhere else?

c) Do nothing and ignore it.

- Given how absolutely furious this situation made me, I would have regretted this decision and it would have weighed on my conscience forever.

Coincidentally, he decides to get off at my stop after making a hullabaloo out of not knowing where they were the stop before. He quite forcefully picks her up and drags her off the train and I see this as my chance. I exit from a different door of the train, closer to the exit of the platform knowing it would take them a lot longer to get down the stairs since he has to pretty much carry her. I ran down the stairs and luckily there was a TFL worker behind the glass for me to motion to. I banged on the glass, got his attention, pointed out what had happened and that he needs to do something. He hurriedly began watching his monitors and said he’d take care of it. I’m sorry to say that I  don’t know the result of my complaint. The couple moved quite quickly onto the other platform up some stairs and that was the last I saw of them in the monitor, with the TFL man in the know.

I’m not sure if I should have done something sooner or if I should have stood up to him. Nobody really knows the consequences and it’s not everyday things like this happen. My mind just went into overdrive, just knowing her safety was my priority, whether I liked it or not. They could have been a couple for all I know. Or, he could have been a rapist and have drugged her.

All I can say is; don’t be afraid to say something if your instinct and common sense tells you something isn’t right. I just hope I did the right thing and that the girl is okay.

Given how much I really didn’t like the last year or so of my life, for various reasons I’ll only share with you in person, I’m now anxious to get myself back on track. The new year, new friends I’ll inevitably make, the new experiences I’ll have and the already existing brilliantly supportive and smart people that have stuck by me all go towards making 2010 a happier time for me. It’s not all been doom and gloom, but for those that have had to endure (with me) the trials and tribulations that have shown themselves in the past 15 or so months know that it hasn’t been easy.

It seems quite easy to just give up and continue to spiral into nothingness since that’s been my run of luck in recent times. So, the fear sets in. Can I get what I’m after? How do I plan ahead when the short term isn’t working? What’s it going to be like this time next year given two years ago life was amazing? Truth is, you just don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

So many ideas, wishes and wants make it hard for one person to achieve all of that, especially after such a long run of muck. But, I really don’t have much choice but to stay hopeful – especially with so many wonderfully generous and patient friends who have made this time an awesome one to be in, despite the misery.

Thank you, friends.

I’m incredibly pleased to finally be able to show off my new website and blog despite owning this domain (and www.serenaobhrai.co.uk) for almost five years now! I clearly knew I should have done it a long time ago, I guess I just needed a bit of hand-holding/kick up the bum to get myself sorted about things I know very little about, i.e. website design/development.

It’s all in its early stages at the moment as I import blogs and content from the various aspects of my life, but thanks to Chris I should be all up and running in time for early 2010.

I’m excited. Are you?

P.S. Please feel free to leave comments/suggestions here for anything you like/dislike…

Alas, the time will come when love is cruel
Whereby life’s too thorny, the days too long.
To each other we look to fight this gruel;
For it’s within thine heart I do belong.
Sorry I am for the grief that resides
Within the walls of our tender enclave.
And through mine eyes lays perfection besides
Me as I wake to see peering; my fave
Is here with me and that’s all that matters -
Without you, my royal kingdom shatters.