K.P. Webster's Blog, page 11

A Man, A Plan, Some Canals – Amsterdam! (Or As Near As Damn It)

On Wednesday night I did a ‘London to Amsterdam’ Google search and found coach tickets for £15. I didn’t have anywhere to stay yet but I was feeling positive, so I bought a one-way ticket. Even if it all fell through, it was only £15. But also, there was something about the risk of buying a ticket I might never use that excited me. It was foolhardy. It was impetuous. It was only £15. And no one need ever know if it all went awry.

On Thursday I received a negative response from my first Airbnb request. I felt pangs of stupidity and started looking at Rotterdam. There are a lot of unbooked places in Rotterdam, and only a couple near Amsterdam. I even started looking at Bologna, where I used to live, thinking, well at least I know lots of people there, and I do speak the language. I would prefer somewhere new, but really, anywhere would do to start.

On Friday night I received a positive response from my second Airbnb request. The house is actually in Almere, which is about half an hour outside of Amsterdam.

But that’ll do.

The coach leaves on May 31st, the evening of my birthday, at 9pm, and gets into Amsterdam Duivendrecht Rail Station, at 9am the following morning.

Then I’ll have two weeks to find somewhere to live more permanently. I only really want to stay in Amsterdam for a few months, then I was thinking, maybe Prague. But let’s face it: anything could happen. And if I don’t manage to find somewhere in that two weeks, Rotterdam or somewhere in Italy might be back on the agenda.

It’s exciting though. I’m excited.

*And* I noticed this morning that on Friday I received £524 from ALCS. And if you don’t know what ALCS is, join the club. All I know is, I’m very grateful they exist. I’m particularly grateful because with this money, I’ll be able to afford a new laptop, which will enable me to start teaching English online with confidence in April.

*And* – as if that weren’t enough – today is the first day of Spring. 

Spring!

Until tomorrow.

x

 

Filed under: TRAVEL, Uncategorized Tagged: Airbnb, ALCS, Amsterdam, Spring

Feedback Friday :: Enough Already

pitches sent :: 1. I’m still in pre-ninja mode. Easy now.

commissions :: 0. My rather outré approach clearly didn’t work. Ah well. Their loss.

deadlines met :: 1

responses to submission :: 0. Despite repeated polite requests. Hmmmm. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, though. They must be busy. Too busy to do the right thing. It’s fine. It’ll all work out.

Airbnb requests made :: 2

Airbnb requests rejected :: 1

Airbnb requests pending :: 1

Maltesers stolen :: 9

hours of training :: 30

ongoing commissions/projects :: 5

English lessons taught :: 2. My other two students had friends visiting from Italy so decided to forego their linguistic development for the week. Pfffft.

physical exercise :: 0 runs around the common. I’m worried about my knees. Three indoor work-outs. Not enough. May join a gym before I go away. Will probably wait.

metaphysical exercise :: 3 short spells of meditation. Remembering the tingle.

week 10/52 overall rating :: 7.5/10. Not bad. Good in fact, but enough things didn’t go my way for me to knock off half a point.

…

I’m knackered. And I need to get drunk. Not need need. Just want need.

Thankfully, I’m off up to North London in a moment for the surprise party of someone I don’t know.

That’s not the surprise.

This is…

GOODBYE.

 

Filed under: FEEDBACK, REAL LIFE Tagged: Eminem, Stephen Colbert

On the Release of High-Rise :: An Interview with Ben Wheatley

I’ve just realised, On the Release of High-Rise is a very misleading title. It sounds like in this interview, Ben Wheatley is talking about High-Rise. He isn’t. This interview took place eleven years ago. Sorry. I’ve accidentally (and then, I guess, deliberately) misled you. Oh well.

So, in April 2005, I went to Brighton to meet a female blogger and ended up weeping in her bed. Those were the days. The very next day I met and interviewed Ben Wheatley. It’s not a great interview – which is totally down to me, by the way – but it is kind of interesting…

…

Now in their early 30s, Mr and Mrs Wheatley have been together since they were teenagers. But they aren’t married. They are Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump, and the stuff they make for the web goes here. [Sadly you can’t see the stuff they made for the web, as nothing prior to November 2012 remains on the site. Shame.]

They also have a sweetly toddling little boy, who was with Ben when I met him in Brighton recently, and whose hood made a perfect receptacle for my Dictaphone as we sat outside some coffee chain near the Pavilion pretending it wasn’t cold and chatting about things.

Ben was born in London. When the time came to study, he went to Brighton and studied Fine Art Sculpture. After which, he and Amy returned to London and dossed about for a bit, wondering what to do. Then Ben found a good job. Then he lost it. ‘I was working as a creative director for a marketing communications company, which went into the ground at about a thousand miles and hour after dotcom. And I found myself completely unemployable, which was quite startling, you know, after thinking I was hot shit.’

This was followed by ‘a year just pissing about’ and working on a lot of animations and films which would later appear on the site. Generally speaking, Ben concentrates on the animation and graphic design, whereas Amy is more concerned with the writing and editing. They have been very busy over the past couple of years, and you’d probably be surprised at how many of the viral animations that turn up in your inbox have something to do with them.

One of our favourite Wheatley creations is Karl Parsons. Karl lives in Worthing 2, is pals with Jeremy Clarkson and buys his weed from Jeremy Irons. Karl also shares a passing acquaintance with Jude Law, who in one strip uses the threat of Ray Winstone to claim Nicole Kidman back from God (cancer). If this all sounds rather infantile, that’s because it is. It’s brilliantly infantile and it cheers me up no end when I’m feeling blue.

[Again, Karl Parsons is gone, erased from the internet. But why not watch this instead…]

The mention of Jude Law causes Ben to become rather agitated. ‘What kind of a world are we in where Jude Law is a film star, you know? It’s just fucked. I don’t know if it’s just getting older, but the culture seems to have taken a real nose-dive.’

Jude Law will do that to you, if you let your guard down.

Thank God then, for the internet.

Ben and Amy had always made funny stuff for people to see, but the problem was finding a means of distribution. Then, about two years ago, they launched their site. ‘I didn’t understand the web before,’ says Ben, ‘even though I’d been working in it for years. But then as I sat there and saw the traffic going backwards and forwards and saw what was popular and what wasn’t, I started to have a bit more awareness of the – without sounding wanky – the global audience that’s out there.’

One of the most popular features on mrandmrswheatley, which has so far had going on two million views, is a very short film of the Wheatleys’ mate Rob jumping over one car, then being horribly squished by another. [Again, sadly disappeared from their own site, but the tiny film Cunning Stunt can be watched here.]

‘Not surprising,’ says Ben, ‘that slapstick without any dialogue is going to travel further than silly, complicated animation with loads of English humour in it.’ They also received a lot of emails asking to know how they’d done it, citing hi-tech applications and the latest computer wizardry. Turns out it was just a stool and a swipe. You can even see the shadow of the stool if you look very closely.

Just the other day, Ben bumped into a friend of his who used to run an annual film festival in London. This was an Exploding Cinema type of thing, which would allow young film-makers the opportunity to show their work to a real audience. Apparently, his friend had worked it out: ‘The equivalent of the amount of people we get through our site in a day would take him 120 years of shows.’ Which is about as clear-cut an illustration of how ‘the amazing interweb has democratised comedy and art’ as you’re ever likely to find.

Global audiences are all very well of course, but if they don’t convert into good, hard income, then what’s the point of them? Thankfully, the Wheatleys seem to be doing OK. The success of their site has led to work on all manner of ads, extreme sports channel idents and viral marketing campaigns. Plus, as well as farming out their skills as storyboarders and editors, there is also much talk these days of pitches and pilots for a number of TV projects, some of which can not be mentioned – not because they’re particularly hush-hush, but because if they don’t come off, Ben is worried he’ll end up ‘looking like a cunt’. Whether they come off or not, the future looks busy, and, as the following words testify, incredibly rosy:

‘Really, as far as I can see, all that happens in the commercial world is that you fight your way back to being able to do what you were doing for nothing. It’s like being on the dole – it’s brilliant; then you get a job and you’re fighting your way back to the lifestyle you had when you were on the dole, which seems crazy. I think I probably have the most creative freedom I’ll ever have at the moment.’

…

High-Rise is released across the country tonight.

A version of this interview first appeared in The Friday Thing on 29 April, 2005.

 

Filed under: FILM, INTERVIEW Tagged: Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley, Jeremy Irons, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman

Day Fifteen :: Hey! Teacher!

Today I spent what was probably far too much time making my video for iTalki. Actually, I haven’t finished yet. I’m currently learning how to use iMovie again. It’s been a while. I haven’t used it since I did this. All those years ago.

I know there’s an argument on iTalki for just slapping up a quick fairly slapdash video where people can hear my voice and see my face and decide if they like my style or not – like Ian did. Or Richard. Or even Steven…

But – despite Steven’s pipe and flag, both of which are ideas I have stolen for my own video – I’m trying to do something just a tiny bit more professional. No disrespect to Steven. (Please watch the very end of his video by the way. Although he’s not so hot on eye contact, his pipe-work is unsurpassed.)

Right. I’ve got to get on.

I leave you with Stewart. He’s fun!

See you on Monday for the final week of these online training updates.

Have a smashing weekend.

 

Filed under: TRAINING Tagged: iTalki, Pink Floyd

Day Fourteen :: Caught Up in the Webs

Right. OK. So.

I finished listening to the interviews today – instructional, inspirational videos with various online entrepreneurs – then I started watching a one-hour webinar* on how to build a website. Now I’m OK with building websites and have managed to scrape by over the years with some pretty basic knowledge, but there are things I want to change about this place.

I need a proper static front page for a start, with proper navigation to services I offer, products I sell, a portfolio and a separate blog page. As with every other area in my life – thus far – my main problem with websites has always been with organisation. But then I suppose that’s all websites are really, little organisations of information.

Anyway, for the last hour of today’s block of training, I drifted into a world of pain and got stuck. Not exactly pain I guess, but the usual trial and error, frustration and mounting panic that messing around in the back-end of a website entails. (For an amateur.)

I know there is a lot to be said for leaving my website for now and concentrating on finding work online. After all, that’s what this is all about.

But I don’t want to do that. It feels half-cocked. And I’m not comfortable with the idea of being half-cocked. I want to sort my website out before I start looking for work really. I’m still teaching a few days a week in the afternoons  – in the real world – and that’s enough to keep me going for now, money-wise.

How does this sound? I’ll give myself till the end of March to finish this period of preparation, then I’ll focus all of my efforts on finding work online. Yeah?

Yeah.

Sounds like a plan.

…

In other news, I sent my first request to live in someone’s house for a month on Airbnb yesterday. It was a lovely place just outside of Amsterdam. With a cat.

This morning at 8am I got my first rejection. ‘Unfortunately I’m not accepting any bookings for now,’ I was told. Hmm.

Like a lot of people, I have a tendency to take any rejection at all rather personally, so my first reaction is to imagine that this is not true, that their property wouldn’t be on Airbnb at all if they weren’t accepting any bookings for now, and that it was more a case of them just not liking the cut of my jib.

Which is fine.

Perfectly fine.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY JIB?!!

Fuck it. Something will turn up.

By the way, when I’m feeling really frustrated, this is the song I like to play. As loud as is reasonable. 

Until tomorrow.

*I really don’t like the word webinar.

 

Filed under: TRAINING Tagged: 3m1k, determination, frustration, James, Nine Inch Nails, Wordpress

Day Thirteen :: And It Was Called Trello

I haven’t been this excited without drugs in a long, long time.

Today I listened to interviews.

Oh, by the way, the course I’m doing is called 3m1k and it’s run by a guy called Niall Doherty.

The reason I didn’t mention it in the first place was because, if I’d been unhappy with the course, I would have had to say so, and that would have been embarrassing and unpleasant. I don’t want to be bad-mouthing people online. I’d feel like a jerk. I mean, unless they’re horrible evil pirates and naming and shaming them would be a public service. Thankfully, that is not the case here. Far from it.

I’m sure I’ll write about this again later, but here’s a tiny bit of background. I came across Niall’s site, Disrupting the Rabblement, when I was doing background research for my Vipassana piece. Niall had done Vipassana but had only managed two and a half of the prescribed ten days. He was very respectful of the process, but just couldn’t handle the discipline of the regime. At that point.

However, while I was visiting his site, I noticed that he was one of those people who’d quit his job to go travelling, and had managed to carve out a decent living online in the process. He was a digital nomad. A technomad. As you prefer. And I’ve always fancied a little bit of that, so I read a few more of his blog posts and signed up to his newsletter.

When he started advertising his course training people to work online, and when I saw his money-back guarantee, I signed up. Mostly I signed up because a) he seemed like a lovely bloke and had been very warm in a very brief email correspondence we’d had, b) he’d been living the dream for some time. And he’d done this…

Have a look here for photos from his trip around the world without flying.

So there it is and here I am, thirteen days in.

And although I could probably have tracked down everything I’ve seen and read so far myself – I could even have interviewed Niall’s interviewees, in theory – it would have taken me years to gather all that knowledge and sage advice together. And having it all in one place has been very well worth the £230 the course costs.

So today, I listened to particularly inspiring interviews with Carlo Cretaro, Dan Johnston and Sean Ogle.

Better still, I discovered Trello.

I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that I’ve been looking for Trello all of my life. (It’s a little bit of an exaggeration, I’ll grant you. But not too much.)  If you need help organising yourself, it’s perfect. And it’s free.

Look! My life, sorted. 

Oh, and I also discovered Airbnb, which is to say spent a moment looking at the possibilities, Amsterdam-wise, and that’s very exciting.

And now, I have to get on.

Until tomorrow.

 

Filed under: TRAINING Tagged: 3k1m, Airbnb, Carlo Cretaro, Dan Johnston, Disrupting the Rabblement, Niall Doherty, Sean Ogle, Trello, Vipassana

Day Twelve :: A Dream Come True

Today I found out all about iTalki, an online language learning service that’s also described as an education technology website, but is really just a marketplace that brings teachers and learners together and enables them to exchange skills and money.

As part of the course I’m doing, I heard an interview with a young German who has set himself up on iTalki as a Community Tutor, which is to say, an amateur. Not a professional teacher. So he does German conversation and generally plays it by ear. He speaks another couple of languages, which is a definite advantage and means he has some knowledge of how people teach and learn, but essentially, he’s winging it.

When he started, just over a year ago, he was charging $10 an hour. Now he charges $22.

And remember, he had no teaching experience before signing up to iTalki. I’m not casting aspersions on his teaching ability by the way. I’m sure he does a very good job. Some people are naturally good at teaching. I did a pretty good job myself when I taught English for a year in Istanbul with a forged certificate. But then I did the qualification. And then I taught for twenty years. So I probably have a few more skills. And can probably charge more. 

Hence my excitement.

Before you can advertise your services on iTalki, you have to make a video so that prospective students can check you out and see whether they think they’d like you teaching them or not. I’ve started writing a script for mine. I’ve also spent a little time checking out the competition. I think the first one I watched, picked at random, was a chap called Kevin in Prague.

Please listen to the first two seconds of Kevin’s video. I’ve watched that opening seven or eight times in the past half hour. I think it’s brilliant. An English teacher who begins his introductory video with a word from the Middle Ages. Or the North. Which is much the same thing. Again, I swear I’m not having a pop. I just don’t think it’s a very good advert. However, Kevin has taught 826 lessons in less than two years on iTalki, and he charges $15 an hour.

So there you go.

Then there’s this fruitcake, who is just far too wacky for my tastes. And this guy, who gives me the willies.

What’s most exciting for me about iTalki, however, is that I can lay out very clearly what kind of students I want. I can insist that they must be almost painfully enthusiastic and very definitely fun and, ideally, of at least a pre-intermediate level. Generally, in the real world, you have to take what you can get or what you’re given by some grasping agency.

So I’m excited. And I feel like a bit of an idiot that I didn’t know about this a year ago when I was so desperate for money that I went schlepping round all the foreign restaurants in Cambridge looking for students.

The internet, man. You gotta love it.

By the way, I don’t yet know whether iTalki is pronounced eye-talk-eye or eye-talkie, but I’ve been hearing the latter, which is how the above song got stuck in my head. Hopefully now it’s stuck in yours too. 

Until tomorrow.

 

Filed under: TRAINING Tagged: Happy Talk, iTalki, language, South Pacific, teaching

Day Eleven :: So Much That I Wanna Do

Today already seems so long ago.

What happened?

Well, let me tell you. I learned about pricing and looked at the question Should You Ever Work For Free? The answer, obviously, unless there’s a damn good reason, is no.

Of course I’ve known that for some time but still, like the slack-jawed nebbish I am, I’ve done shitloads of work for free. Why, the last time was only a few weeks ago. But you know what? No more. Seriously. No more charity.

Although in all honesty, if a kitten charity wanted me to write something, and instead of paying me, just let me get in a big cage with sixty kittens, I would definitely do it.

That’s on my bucket list.

Oh God.

So much that I want to do.

I also learned about the psychology of pricing and when to back down.

NEVER!

Not really.

SOMETIMES!

Sure.

Other stuff too. All good.

In a moment, I’m going to send an application for a job that doesn’t really exist. I worked on it all weekend too. On and off.

It’s for a company I came across on Friday night. I read a lot of the words they’ve written about themselves and what they do and I thought, yes. I’d love to write for them. So I wrote to them and told them as much. But because they’re a slightly unconventional company, I wrote to them from the future. Yes. It was quite a risky strategy. But I have nothing to lose. On the contrary.

There’s a good chance that the recipient of the email will come here too. In fact, there’s a good chance he might even read very these words. So I should really make them count.

Um…

Nah, I got nothing. It’s been a long day. He can read my Vipassana bit instead. Then he’ll hire me for sure.

The reason I didn’t check in earlier, by the way, is that I had to interview someone and then write a thing for The Peckham Peculiar, which is a bloody great name for a newspaper. So I did that.

You see? It’s all happening.

Until tomorrow.

 

Filed under: TRAINING Tagged: Peckham Peculiar

Feedback Friday :: Flow

pitches sent :: 3. But that’s what the training is for. I’m in a phase of intense preparation. I’m like a ninja, perfecting my stealth, my guile, my lexical metsubushi. Give me another fortnight and it’s going to be a pitching frenzy. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to it.

commissions :: 0

hours of training :: 30

ongoing commissions/projects :: 4 or 5. Or 6. ~remembers to focus~ 4.

English lessons taught :: 4

weight to shed :: I don’t know. I’m fuzzy on my goal. I need to focus on that too. Because it’s time to get fit again. Which of course, is all part of the same process. This is good. I’ve been trying to do this for years. And I’m excited that I may finally be going in the right direction. But I’m the same weight as I was last week, only now my knees are hurting. And I’ve given up bread. Two days and counting. I saw a shocking video highlighting the maltreatment of dough. No, but I really have given up bread. It’s an experiment. A friend of mine gave up sugar recently and he said it was harder than coming off the horse. Then he had a couple of Quality Street. But that’s interesting stuff, isn’t it? I love the idea of cutting something out of your diet or daily routine, completely, and monitoring the effect its absence has on your body. And, incidentally, you’re only really in a position to do that if you’ve embraced structure. If you’re on top of yourself, all over yourself, right up inside your own arse, in a psychic way. I’m really quite stoned, I wonder if that’s coming across at all. That’s allowed too of course, in the measured, structured, carefully constructed scheme of things. Fuck it, it’s encouraged. If that’s your thing. If that’s not your thing, not to worry. But try to make sure you do have a thing of your own. Because it’s fun. And fun is a good thing. And goddammit I deserve it. Also pasta. And wine.

weeks without milk :: 4 or 5. Boom!

cows saved :: INFINITE COWS!

new ailments :: buggered knees

old ailments :: A touch of this, I can’t deny. But we’ll say no more.

physical exercise :: 2 runs around the common, 3 if you count the one I did last Friday night, the one in which I tripped and fell in the gravel like an old man, but you can’t really count that because I counted it last week already.

metaphysical exercise :: 2 very short spells of meditation – I’m building it into my pre-work hour routine, but my hypomanic tendencies are making it a fucknut of a struggle.

week 9/52 overall rating :: 8/10. Yeah, a good 8 at that. I mean, really, what did it lack? I spent most of it doing something I’m programmed to love. Inasmuch as we all are. There are studies that if I weren’t so eager to be elsewhere I would dig out, that show very clearly that learning stuff that interests us is one of those things that makes us feel really excellent. So I did a lot of that. It lacked romance, for sure, the week. Although in a sense of course, it was packed with romance, but just not sexy romance, which is what it lacked. But that’s fine. Frankly, I wouldn’t have had the time. But I will. By God, I will. I hope. And in the meantime I have this. And I have time. Look at the time! And we haven’t even mentioned flow.

…

On the off-chance that you’ve never seen this, I urge you to watch it. It’s nine minutes that will stay with you forever. Or else you’ll just go meh. (Your spoon is too big.)

x

 

Filed under: FEEDBACK, REAL LIFE Tagged: Dan Hertzfeldt, focus, Quality Street

Day Ten :: Mojo

I was listening to an interview today with a woman called Michelle Nickolaison. In the interview, she says: ‘People know they need organisation, but nobody wants to pay for it necessarily.’ It was a comment made very much in passing, but it struck me as hugely relevant to my life and what I’m going through at the moment.

I’ve always desperately needed to be organised, but it was never something I wanted to pay for. But then I’ve never really wanted to pay for anything. Not because I’m mean, you understand, but because I’ve always been skint. And of course the reason I’ve always been skint is because I was so badly organised that I could never make any money. Ha! Funny!

(Plus of course, I have huge problems with capitalism, but that’s probably not unconnected to my lack of organisation.)

So two weeks into this course, as I think I have made clear in these increasingly repetitive updates, I am very pleased with my progress. Mostly, I am very pleased with the fact that I am becoming organised.

Interestingly, as I write these words, I am rather stressed. The reason I am rather stressed is that this morning I became less focused. I went from the above-mentioned interview to an informative screencast to a video entitled Freelance Strategy Hacks by an undeniably successful chap called Shane Snow. Unfortunately this led me into the world of search engine optimisation, which is where I remained for the last hour of this morning’s session. It was all good stuff and useful, but not what I need to be concentrating on just yet. So I ended up flapping about in my website’s back-end and getting all antsy and unfocused.

And then I had another ‘Look at the time!’ moment.

I have huge problems with time. (Also very closely connected to my lack of organisation.)

The truth is, I think that doing this course might be a significantly life-changing experience for me. This is primarily because it’s proving clear, wise and well-structured enough to have already justified my commitment to getting organised enough to get the best from it. And in that getting organised – specifically, committing to a minimum daily routine of 6am to 12pm – I feel I have already benefited so massively that I will keep it up.

And then when I’ve read all the materials and completed the minimum amount of knowledge-garnering, I’ll split that six-hour time-slot into specific periods of activity designed to find me enough work to make enough money to live well and wherever the hell I like, primarily writing stuff that actually interests me.

Boom!

Eat that, naysayers!

Weekly feedback shortly.

Routine is important. 

 

Filed under: TRAINING Tagged: BJ Arnau, change, Michelle Nickolaison, routine, Shane Snow