Just back from my audition in Manchester for the BBC show Antiques' Master. I said yesterday that I wouldn't take Guan Yin with me as my sample antique but I felt strangely compelled to take her as I went to pick up the chosen coffee pot - she seemed to be sending me vibes that said "pick me". I managed to find an old rucksack of Paul's that she just fitted into and, wrapped in a towel and some bubble wrap, she was pretty safe strapped into the passenger seat. The rucksack was very heavy and ,although the Buddhist deity is a large piece, as I approached the BBC I thought that something else must also be in the rucksack. I stopped and found a heavy mallet and a load of sharp metal tent pegs from the last time it was used at the Leeds' festival way back when Paul was a lad. I'm glad that I did stop and take them back to the car as I am not sure what impression they would have created at the BBC security.
The audition went reasonably well. I met Dylan, the young producer who had been involved in the show last year, together with his new colleague and I had to answer a written antique test followed by a challenge similar to the ones in the show. I thought that I did OK but my responses were hardly perfect and I think I was more Antiques Apprentice than Antiques Master. Oh well, well see what happens. Dylan's auditioning loads more potential contestants so I won't hear for a while. I shouldn't have any problems in meeting the filming dates if I am successful but I won't be counting on it.
We're heading up towards St Andrews tomorrow. We're breaking the journey up and staying at a Travel Lodge on the M6 tomorrow which is convenient but not exactly luxury. But the stay at the Travel Lodge will help us to arrive at the wonderful Old Course hotel (which is exactly luxury) early and, hopefully, refreshed. We don't play golf and we don't have any interest in golf but there's really only one place to stay in St Andrews. We've stayed at many of the other hotels since our daughter Sarah moved up to Scotland over ten years ago but the service and comfort of our last stay at the Old Course was so outstanding that it's unlikely we'll choose any other in future - can't wait.
I said that we weren't going to get sucked into Sky Atlantic with it's fantastic array of American Drama series and we've stuck to that but then we've gone and got ourselves hooked on BBC4's imported Danish detective show The Killing which runs to no less than twenty episodes. Fortunately the BBC are showing two episodes consecutively every Saturday night so that's a ten week rather than a twenty week commitment but that's still a hell of a chunk of time. If you haven't seen it yet, you are really missing an excellent piece of TV drama. I know I'm not alone in liking this as I've seen nothing but praise online and in the press.
Here's a taster and don't worry, there are subtitles on the BBC's version.
1 comment:
As a Dane it is very strange to experience that our actors speak German :-)
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