the boyfriend who didn't fit in

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.


By Robert W. Service 1874 - 1958
Could have been written about my ex-boyfriend...

Norfolk - Northfork

I was filming in Norfolk recently and we spent the night on the north coast next to these huge mudflats by the Sea. It was bloody freezing but beautiful.
We stayed in a little B&B, with all the English chintz that you'd expect.
Behind the house was a boat in a field. It belonged to the couple's son and I thought 'how cool to live in a houseboat in a field' - but apparently, and to my disappointment, it's not a houseboat but just a regular boat he's renovating and no one lives there.

Reminded me though of the crazy 2003 film Northfork (note similarities of name with Norfolk!) Has anyone seen it? I still have no idea what to make of it. I think it probably had amazing potential which it didn't quite meet unfortunately. A modern day Noah's Ark? Maybe that's what the son was really building...

  

   

I like the loneliness in it though, and that's what the Norfolk boat reminded me of. Poetic.

Talking about loneliness, here's 10 words a Twitter friend just used to describe me:

Beautiful, intelligent, sullen, travelled, protective, sculptural, simpatica, graceful, lost, tierna

Tierna is Spanish - Literally, it means "tender" but the connotation is sweet, loveable, innocent, heart-warming, etc.

Northfork at IMDB

omar khayyam

I've recently finished working on a documentary about Omar Khayyam who was an 11th Century Persian polymath - mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, physician and poet.
His most famous poems are compiled in the Rubaiyat and are still loved today for their timelessness and have been quoted in speeches by Martin Luther King and Clinton.


They are great fairytales and here are some of my favourite illustrations from it by Dulac, Vedder and others...

(This one is actually the Princess and the Pea, not the Rubaiyat, but I love the colours and draftsmanship)