The Reunion

Well.

To think it´s been a week since I last wrote something is bizarre. So much has happened. I nearly had a fist fight with one of the kids, I got severely lost in Cali trying to get the bus on my own, I have started a personal battle against mosquitoes, the current score is Mosquitoes 532 Greg 5, but I can feel a miraculous comeback surfacing anytime in the next week or so, and the kids organised a big crisis meeting for the house all on their own.Oh and two more things, had my first barbecue and went on my first fiesta Colombian style.

Pero, before I commence, check out this link, its the graduates from the circus school and the show is just incredible and its going to be in london in March!! Oh my how lucky for everyone in London, it was a sell out run last year so hurry and book now to avoid disapointment.

It was an absolutely brilliant night. We started off by going to a show called Delirio. Oh my god what a show. It´s four hours of Circus, Salsa and live music.It´s partnered with Circo Para Todos, the circus school I am working with out here, so I had many friends in the show and managed to get back stage and watch them all practice. Fabian the man who I was staying with when I first arrived in Cali was one of the main acts and truly brilliant, the man is a great teacher but it was very exciting to see that he is also an incredible technician, he did one areal routine with a very beautiful woman called Melissa that was fairly spectacular. I had no idea what to expect from this show so when I heard it was four hours long needless to say I was a little bit worried. However along with 1´000 other people I was on the edge of my seat for four hours. With Salsa!! I was wowed for four hours by Salsa!!! I was also pleasantly surprised that every break the majority of the audience would get up on stage and start dancing salsa as well. Please reference picture above.  I turned to a woman I was with and said wow isnt that amazing everyone is dancing in the interval and she said "well of course, you see the salsa it gets in your blood and you need to dance as well" I said that would never happen in England "why not?" she said, I started to try and explain in my quite limited spanish the social constraints that might limit mid show boogying but fortunately the show started again and all was forgotten in the melee of legs flying and hips girating. The speed and skill with which these people dance salsa is absolutely unbelievable. . Oh my lord I have never seen so many beautiful women in one place at the same time. I am seriously considering becoming a professional salsarer.

Check out this you tube linke cause it really is an incredibile show

So when that show finished at midnight there was a few hours in the big top with a dj where everybody danced salsa. Obviously. And when that was finished we went off to a bar and danced the salsa, the chacha, meringue and I threw in a bit of techno just for good measure. There was a point where I tried to go home and Fabian took me by the arm and said "why are you going?" well I´m teaching all day tomorrow and I don´t know how long it will take me to get home etc etc etc he stopped me and said "sit down and enjoy yourself, you´re staying at my house and you can go home tomorrow when you need to start the class" I sat down. I thought here I am, in Cali, with a really lovely group of people, I can either worry that I have work tomorrow and try and reserve energy or I can just enjoy the moment. I poured another beer and had an absolutely brilliant time. You can see from the picture we all had a great time. We danced and danced and danced it was lovely. I think because I am out here for such a specific reason I often need to give myself permission to kick back and relax. Which now I write it down is a little bit crazy. I have lots of work to do but I need to keep myself sane as well. One thing is for certain Calenia´s (people from Cali) definitely know how to party, wow.

So on to the reunion. Last saturday we were having the most epic clean up of the theatre. When I arrived it was in a real mess as you can see from the pictures before and so it´s been a long road to cleanliness ever since really. As you can see I spent a long time underneath the stage sweeping. There was a point where I looked at where I was, hunched over in the dark with a really small broom and I couldn´t stop laughing, and then one of the kids who was under the stage with me starting doing frog impressions and that was me gone I was a complete mess. And yes you are right that is a toilet under the stage, don´t ask I have no idea, there was all sorts of nonsense under that stage. It was all going really well, lots of joviality, lots of children helping, we had just about finished and set up the projector for the saturday night film. Every saturday they set up a big screen and show a film for the kids. Before this alot of these kids had never seen a film before, its quite special. Nia one of the women volunteers said "where´s my phone?" and fortunately it had been stolen. I say fortunately because what followed was really really special. John Hairo the director of the theatre went balistic, apparently it was the fifth item that had been stolen alongside three other phones, a camera and a part of a computer. "No more classes no more nothing until Nia has a new phone!" Well the kids came up trumps.

In the picture from the left is Jonathon, Alex and Nia. In Alex´s hand is a collection box for a new phone for Nia. Jonathon and Alex had decided something needed to be done and that they were going to be the ones who did it. They single handedly organised a meeting with John Hairo and as many of the kids as were available. We were all sitting up in the theatre the younger kids and John Hairo in the audience and the older kids on the stage. To my extreme annoyance I understood very little of what was being said, everybody was talking very fast. However the translation the came round to me at the end was this. Child after child gushing about how important this place was for every single child that was in that room. How it has affected their life and how they want to help keep it running. The meeting ended with round after round of applause and what was close to hysteria. The photo´s don´t really do justice to what was a very special athmosphere and one that I hope I will remember for a very long time.

Here you can see some of the younger children alongside John Hairo. It was very sweet to hear the younger children making points, I think alot of them were talking just because they wanted to be included but some of them were very passionate.

Some of the older kids. Pablo is the boy lying on his back. I will come back to him later so keep him in your mind.

Once the general meeting had finished the older ones all stayed behind with John Hairo to agree a plan of action. They all decided that they would team together and organise the repairs that needed doing and raise the money for this new phone. All fairly special from a group of kids who have next to nothing. Jonathon on the far left is a really special young man. I don´t know the story fully with his dad but when I asked if he missed him he said no, its much better now he is gone. He has a younger brother and a mother who seems to work non-stop, the younger brother had epilepsy so is permanently with his mother just incase. Jonathon is 19 and  so generous and hard working it is unbelievable. He applies himself so fully to every little job and cares so much about doing it well. He has a level of respect for everything that I am finding inspirational, he is teaching me about what it is to do something properly. I like him alot and it gets to me that there are no opportunities for such an incredible young man. I want to give him as much confidence and skills as I can because if anybody deserves a better life it is him. It´s so frustrating because I feel this so strongly but just can´t put it into words, I hope you get the gist.

So, Pablo. I´ll start at the very beginning. There is a boy. His name is Pablo. He is 16. He is an extremely physical young man, good looking, impressive physique, a brilliant acrobat, always has cool clothes, generally cool. All of the younger kids look up to him, all of the older girls fancy him and all of the older boys laugh at his jokes whether they like them or not.  The problem is this: he is very violent and lacks any idea of respect. At the beginning he was fine and I don´t know entirely what has happened but we have got to a stage where he was coming into the theatre where I am working, pushing other kids around, stealing things, messing the place up and generally trying to provoke a reaction. When he got the reaction he would then speak really quickly in spanish and say what all of the kids here call a grosseria (naughty words) which is a much bigger deal here than in England. This was going on for a while and I was trying all sorts of different tactics to deal with it, some of them working but some of them complete failures. He was rude again the other day so I said no stilts. This is where the problem began. He proceeded to get stilts and to put them on so I said to him, "you put those stilts on and I take everyone else off, no more unicycle no more stilts for anybody today" he looked at me, looked at the worried faces of his friends and made the decision. They have a phrase in spanish which translates as testing the oil. When you are around somebody new you test the oil, see what kind of a person they are. Pavlo decided to test the oil. What resulted was a scuffle which ended with me bending this kids thumb back and kneeling on him so that I could get the stilts back. I then walked round like robocop taking disgruntled child after disgruntled child off their stilts. No one was happy. I found Pavlo later and took him up to the theatre just me and him. I said "Pavlo I´m not going to go on like this, you do all of this because you want a reaction, cause you want a fight but I´m not going to fight you" (I said this but I was umming and erring as to whether the best option wasn´t to just catch him on his own and fight him once and be done with it) He pleaded his inocence saying he was never rude, I reminded him how he had told me to fuck off the night before swore at me this morning and threatened to shoot me the day before. He was silent. I said to him "either fight me or stop all of this because it´s not what I´m here for, I can´t teach anybody else when you´re like this". He started to say something quickly in spanish, I didnt understand, we spent a while trying to understand eachother, me sure he was trying to wind me up and him getting more and more insistent until eventually I understood that he was saying he was going to stop. I don´t know how long this will last but since then he has been brilliant, calm, respectful even sometimes apologetic in his manor. He has helped clean up, repaired seats and helped me teach stilts. He is still violent with other kids and rude but that is just his way, turns out he has a very abusive father which makes sence for alot of things. He is also 16, very strong and going through alot that he doesn´t really understand. Hopefully from here on in he will be fine but you never know, I´ll keep you posted.

Below are a set of fairly arty stilt photos and a home made barbecue that was absolutely delicious.

Deeper down the rabbit hole

So first of all start off with some good news. The graduates from Circo Para Todos are performing at the roundhouse again this year. This is an incredible show and a real chance to see what these kids can do with a direction for their energy. All of the performers in this show are from the street and without this company would still be there. Yes! I love shit like this.

Link to Roundhouse website where you can buy tickets and read more

Onto slightly more sombre notes. Had a really fascinating talk with a teacher at a college I have started working with. His english was fantastic so I was making very botched attempts at speaking spanish and he was very eloquently expressing himself in English. It all started when he found out I was English. "ohhhh I´ve always wanted to go there, I don´t know why, ever since I was a boy, it´s so brilliant the language the culture everything" There is a real fairy tale ignorance here about England and Europe in general, that it is a place with no corruption or poverty and everyone lives peacefully and serenely. Bizarre. But we got talking and he is one of the first of hundreds of people that I have asked that doesn´t like Cali and he proceeded to give me the most honest opinions why. He almost seemed sorry to burst my bubble but I was very grateful for it. It turns out he studys statistics and so knows exactly what´s been happening over the past 50 years in terms of politics and corruption. He said that the current mayor isn´t as bad as the last two but still fairly bad. Cali is the way that it is because the rich want to keep on getting rich and that the past two mayors have embezzled so intensely that there is nothing left for the city. And they stay in power because they are so wealthy that they can launch the most incredible campaigns, door knocking with gifts of food is apparently very common. He also said that people who have tried to stand up against it and get things changed have been assasinated.

According to him the centre of cali is rife with prostitution, drug dealing and violence. This is a fact of Cali life but nobody seems to mind. Everyone you ask is so patriotic that they look past all of that and truly love their city. And its true I have asked everyone I have met do you like Cali and they love it, everyone here is very happy and wouldn´t dream of leaving. There is a real culture here of living for the moment. I suppose because it is so dangerous and killings are so everyday that they just live for today, there is very rarely a thought for planning for the future. Prime examples, Colombia sold all of its oil to America and now America is not only getting incredibly rich off it but selling it back to Colombia. All of the best coffee and banana´s Colombia has to offer he has never tasted, it all gets exported. Massive massive Colombian industries that you would think bring in such wealth to the country are more often than not foriegn initiatives that the government has sold on to make a quick buck, take Panama for example. Even in top government there is very little sense of long term planning. In that sense it is the complete opposite of England. In England the pressure to plan your life and to think ahead is so heavily applied it drives some people crazy, even on a day to day basis how many times do we draw up a list of things we need to do in the next week or month, it´s everyday practice. But the main fascinating difference is the majority here in Cali are happy. And I mean truly happy. You see a general contentment and joy for life that you just don´t see in England. Play and generosity are both everyday practice. Which throws up a very interesting question because here it is very dangerous with so much crime, drugs, prostitution, corruption and killings with so few opportunities but yet people are happy. Could you say the same for England I dont know.

We also spoke about the relationship between men and women in Cali. A truly fascinating and truly different one to us English. Everything here is so sexual, so hot blooded and so open with it. Even the kids in the street are forever aluding to sex, both boys and girls. With the boys luring over any nice bum that walks by and the girls dancing and walking in such a seductive fashion its off-putting. And these kids are 8 and 9. It´s funny because the men are obsessed with the women and the women understand this and play up to it. I asked this teacher if there were equal opportunities for men and women in Cali and he said "yes, the women that know how to use their sexuality possibly have even more opportunities than the men" I asked a very beautiful female friend here if that was true and she said that all of her female friends find work in a second whereas most of her male friends are unemployed. I then asked her if most of her females friends were beautiful, she said yes all of them. Image is so important here in Cali, it seems like if you are beautiful you can get ahead, education is so poor and the communication is so physical that it really does make a difference. Rape here is commonplace, apparently a huge problem. With this idea that you live for today and with such a hot blooded and violent culture rape is just another part of a very big problem.

It´s something that I find very difficult to get my head round. There is such poverty here and such poor education and what seems to be no investment in the young or the areas that need it. The teacher from the college seemed to think this was purposeful, the more the rich can keep the poor poor and ignorant the easier it is for them to keep lining their pockets.

On the circus side all is going well. Have set a structure and started to make all of the students set goals for the three months. Very exciting. Check out the video below. Have bought a load of skipping ropes and it is popping off!!You might have to tilt your neck.

Right I´m signing off, teaching a class at three. I am learning lots and begining to miss my family. It´s a strange feeling to lie down at night and think you are in this place for four months, for four months you will have no familiar sights or sounds. In some ways its quite liberating but in some ways a little bit scary.

The work has begun

So the teaching has finally begun. After all the waiting and preperation and obsene fatigue trying to get everything ready back in the UK it has finally begun! And it is amazing! so rewarding.

On the second day I had a child who was deaf and dumb on the unicycle and he was fairly close to pure joy.

So the area I have started working with is poorer than poor. I am based at quite an amazing place called Casa Naraña (orange house). Just and incredible initiative, the man who runs it, Jon Hairo, set it up because in the center of Cali there are many theatres and libraries and cultural projects but on the outskirts and in the poor areas there is nothing. So he works night and day, teaches in three different colleges and gives lectures and performs at festivals and effectively slaves away non-stop so he can provide this for the children of the area. I had quite a moving chat with him yesterday where he said every time you work with a child and give them a skill you are giving them a different option to the gangs. Because finding a legitimate job for these children when they are older is so so difficult. It´s heart breaking because you know there is only so much you can do. But its brilliant because he keeps re-instating these areas need as much help as they can get and he raves about the work Circo Para Todos do. It is such a fantastic, legitimate option for these children to not only get work but to travel, learn and then give something back to their community.

So I have been giving lots and lots of workshops.  The first day I gave a session in Acrobalance because we didnt have any other equipment but then the Unicycles arrived! And they havent stopped since. We have two children in particular who are just amazing!! they are turning the smallest of circles and jumping, all in under two weeks. Unbelievable. They turn up at the crack of dawn asking to practice and don´t stop until the end of they day when I literaly have to force the equipment from them.




Here is the theatre. Its an amazing space that he raised all the funds for and converted. Sitting there is one of the actress´s who volunteers there called Valentina but every body lovingly calls her Gorda which translates as fat. The culture is very very different here, much more direct much more open.

Here is the stage with Javier and another actress/volunteer Mellisa. Javier is an incredible human being. Very very generous and with an incredible imagination. He works here when he can, he makes puppets and masks out of rubbish and some of his creations are just incredible. I have some photo´s of the begining but none of the finished product because I am out of battery and in desperate need of an adaptor.

 The children are obsenely generous. They have so little but are still prepared to give all of the time. They are very generous with help on the equipment and are actually brilliant teachers. Some of them in particular would make fantastic teachers.

I had a meeting yesterday with Jon Hairo of Casa Naraña and the exec of Circo Para Todos and have some exciting news. We are getting more equipment and extra teachers from the school and we are going to be teaching in different areas. We now need to work out the logistics of how this is going to work but its going ahead. With a show at the end for the children put together by yours truly!! ahhhhhh! Also desperately trying to teach the children English. If anyone has any games or tips for teaching english then please let me know because the kids here are incredibly physical and understand their bodies so well but they have very short attention spans for  English.

Starting to try and think about this in the long term as much as possible because I now have just over four months left. What do these children really need? whats going to help the most? It´s incredibly challenging but hugely rewarding.

While I remember Javier is also looking for a beautiful english woman, he told me to write in my journal the following "Javier is a bad man, an ugly man but he is very funny and smart. Colombian women don´t like him. He needs an English woman" so if anybody is interested in a mask/puppet maker/teacher of drama then please get in contact. 


One night we had been painting the puppets and I had oil paint all over my hands. One of the kids took me to the kitchen got some white spirit and proceeded to scrub my hands for a good ten/fifteen minutes. It was a very humbling experience.

The main problem here for them is boredom. They are forever looking for something to do. they are all so bright and so able but just dont have any vehicle for any of their energy. One of the girls Valentina is particularly bright but particularly troublesome. I didnt like her instantly, she fights with other kids, was slightly selfish and very manipulative. I have since found out last year her mother was shot dead. I have changed my opinion of her ever so slightly and going to make more of an effort from now on.

 Although there are so many problems here, extreme violence and extreme poverty with a corrupt government that are doing nothing to help those in need. Everyone is happy. Everyone I speak to loves Cali and loves living here. They open their hearts to you as if you were family. It´s been an incredibly humbling experience.

                    Love this picture

Ahhhh the tropical paradise that is panse. Beautiful. High up in the mountains, a mountain spring and a waterful. Very special.

Will sign off now. It´s very special here and the kids really need the help. More so than I thought. I am frightened at times with the task ahead and with all of the dangers around but as Jon Hairo said to me in the car yesterday.

"often I don´t know how I am going to do it, I don´t know how I am going to pay for it or help anybody and it seems completely impossible but you just do, just do, I don´t know how you are here but you are. You just have to do"

First days in Colombia

Ola.

I am finally here. In colombia. Unbelievable.

For those of you who are just joining, I have been fund raising for the past six months to go and work with street children in Colombia. And now I am in Colombia starting work next week. This is the details of my first week in Cali.

It is absolutely beautiful here. Just astoundingly beautiful. I think the people I'm staying with might think me a little special cause I keep walking round with my mouth open just staring at everything, ocassionaly coming out with an "ahhhhhh" or a "wow".

A typical day consists of waking at 6.30 to train. We go round the corner to a small park, see picture. Three hours of excercise at 6.30 is interesting when jet-lagged. We then get back to the house, which consists of four brothers, one of their sons, their mother, their mothers husband, a couple who are friends of the family, another close family friend and now me. There are five small bedrooms with just enough room for a double bed each. My contact in the house Fabian has been sleeping on the floor so I can have his bed and Rogerigo the other brother is sleeping on the floor for somebody else. They have little but they are overwhelmingly generous. The mother keeps saying to me, watch out, everyone in this house is crazy, I'm the only sane one, stick with me. So we get back to house where breakfast has been cooked and then we are free to do what we want for the rest of the day. But whenever we come back there is a meal cooked. This is the way it works, the mother cooks every meal and washes up and the boys help clean and earn the money. Which sounds chovenistic but there is definite equality in say and opinion. The women are definitely not swept under the carpet, if anything its them running the shop.

It is completely exhausting having to concentrate that much to try and work out what everyone is saying. I am napping alot. Also they are teaching me lots of new skills, my unicycling is improving and I think after many years of failed attempts I might actually become good at juggling clubs...we will see.

It is fascinating the differences culturaly. They are very direct and very honest. They talk about sex alot and very open with their feelings on it, not brittish in any way. I have started teaching a load of the younger ones english and they youngest brother Jason asks me to tell him infront of the girls how to say "will you have sex with me" which he then says to all of the girls, he is 19. In a very brittish way I feel quite awkward for a bit and then just get on with it.

Everyone told me Colombian women are the most beautiful in the world. They were right. No wonder south americans are so hot blooded, this heat and these women are a recipe for disaster.

Here is the recording studio Jason made in his bedroom out of plywood and egg boxes. He makes some epic hip hop. We just laid down a little romantic number together. He asked me to freestyle and the best I could come up with was, yo yo, Im in cali.....But when I told him I could sing before I knew it I was in the studio him rapping and me singing. Its a tune will try and upload it.

So to quickly summarise: I am in a house full of people that speak spanish and I speak very little spanish, I am being fed lots of beautiful Colombian food all cooked fresh, I am in an extremely beautiful country and I am slightly scared about what I am actually going to do here. We are meeting with a man who runs a community theatre to see if I can work for them as well. It is scary here.

It is very beautiful and lots of fun to be had but also dangerous. Lots and lots of poverty, Rogerigo who I am staying with put it well. In London you live for enjoyment and to better yourself in Cali people live to survive. Very fascinating place.

Here is the circus school and its dog.




I will be starting work teaching next week. I cannot wait!!

Last night!!!

So here we are, the night before I leave to Colombia for five and a half months.

Suppose I ought to quickly update you on what's been happening. Since my last post I have unicycled twelve miles across Wigan, organised and put on a Cabaret at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and we have brought our fund raising total up to 3'420!!! four hundred pounds over what we need. Cannot believe the generosity that people have been showing. And Hugo Rodallega who plays for Wigan Athletic (premier league I'll have you know) started off the ride, see pictures below.


There was a complete palavah attempting to get there on time. Everything that could have gone wrong that morning went wrong. We didnt know whether Hugo was going to be in Wigan until 9.40 on the morning of the ride. I got a friend of mine to cycle their bike to Leeds station for nine o clock, they slipped on ice and hurt themselves so were half an hour late. we found out that Hugo was going to be there two minutes before our train left, there was a mad dash to buy tickets and then carry a unicycle and a bike up an escalator to the other side of the station to get a train to Manchester. We got to manchester and ran and only just made it to our train to Bolton. Got to Bolton and fortunately had a little wait for our final train to Wigan. Got to Wigan at 11.45, we were meeting Hugo at 12. I threw Jenny Fitzpatrick, a beautiful beatiful human being who agreed to cycle along in the wet and the cold and take photo's, into a cab and rode the bike to the training ground. I got well and truly lost and a teeny bit stressed. I made it to the training ground five minutes late. Ran into where we were meeting and saw Jenny already there speaking to a south american man. He looks older than in his picture I thought, I ran over and said loudly and warmly "Hugo!" "This is Hugo's father" Jenny said very quickly. I don't know if he noticed and if he did he definitely didn't mind, he ended up showing Jenny all of his holiday photo's it was very funny.

It was a brilliant day though and Jenny was just fantastic, she kept my spirits up at all points, when I thought that there is no way that this can possibly continue her unwavering belief kept us both going. Even when the pedal fell off at about eight miles. To any rational human being a 10 mile unicycle ride with only one pedal is slightly impossible but Jenny didn't even flinch. With a quick makeshift fix with a piece of string we rode on past the ten mile mark and carried on back into town for another two miles. My bum was very very sore.

And the Cabaret was brilliant, we raised £785 in total!!!! How good is that! I worked so hard and it bloody paid off. However it would be a downright lie to say that I worked alone, I had so much help from so many and that is what made it so special. It was the generosity and the love that shone through and made it such a succesful night. I couldn't sound more cheesy and american if I tried, that last sentence was a bit disgusting.

Very excited, have everything ready and my bag packed down beside me. It all seems very very real. This time tomorrow I will be in Colombia. Flipping hell that is a mad thought.

Also in online check in I have reserved seats with extra leg room! yes!

Next post will be from Colombia, can't wait.

Even more manic two weeks, barmy.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, just when you thought it couldn't get any more stressful.  It did.

Just when some semblance of normality crept up, when we all started to relax and enjoy doing the show, we all got the flu.  This week has been absolutely barmy.  We ended up having to cancel three shows, and do three others one man down.  I turned up one morning to find Ivan Stott, the man who can play any instrument, and who single-handedly drives most of the songs, lying unconscious on the sofa in the green room. He roused from his sleep just enough to say "I can't do the show".

We had half an hour to rework the show without him, and then it was on in front of 300 schoolchildren.  Bear in mind, the Princess had been throwing up solidly for two days, the bad uncle had started throwing up during the night and the genie had developed a fever that morning.  I really can't believe we got through it.  There were some ridiculous moments, but we definitely got through it.  There was a point where no one was on stage, and no one was doing anything about it so the genie jumped up in a state of pure delirium and started saying to the children “Who do you think is going to come on next? It's not Aladdin, and it's not his mother, who do you think it could be?” This went on for some time until the bad uncle was ready to go on, much to the genie's relief.

I'm writing this using a dictation software, it’s quite exciting.  I'm just talking and it's doing all the typing for me.  I feel like I'm in some futuristic film with Will Smith.

Colombia fundraising is all going very well.  Very well indeed.  I did the planned facebook blitz. Didn't quite raise the £400 mark I set myself.  No one's perfect. 

The cabaret at the Playhouse is looking to be really good.  Sarah Moyle, who plays Mrs Cratchit in Christmas Carol is proving to be a massive help in arranging it.  She sat me down last week and just blitzed the logistics.  Something I'm quite rubbish at so I was very grateful.  The acts are looking really good as well, I've got Scrooge telling a story, one of the ghosts doing the burlesque act, the ageing Dub foundation are going to sing “me pension song” and potentially the drummers from the Leeds Brazilian society. Who knew Leeds had a Brazilian society.  Going to try and get them involved definitely, they have a huge following so will fill the place. Also the director of Aladdin has agreed to dress up in a novelty costume and do a little number. If that doesnt fill the place I don't know what will. I’m going to try and get as many students along as possible just to try and make sure its full.

I've gone over the thousand pounds mark!  Very very excited.  I reckon if I start fundraising in and around the theatre I can definitely make £2000. It's just a matter of time and energy now. What with two shows every day from here till January 15, I just need to be super organised.  Not something I've ever been famous for, but there's never been a better time to learn.  And I tell you I am learning so much everyday.  If you are ever doing something of this kind my advice to you is talk to as many people about as you can, you’ll be amazed at people's generosity with their wisdom and their time.  Every person I’ve spoke to about it has helped me in one way or another. Just read back through and this it's littered with grammatical mistakes. Also my sentences are really weirdly formed because I’m talking in small chunks so the computer can understand me. That technology has foiled me again.

What other updates have there been. A Latin American bar in Leeds with a big brazilian following has agreed to support my cabaret and let me advertise there. Yes! Very exciting, quite a beautiful manager as well, always helps. Got quite lonely while I was ill, funny how illness affects you. Just felt like I was either sweating and coughing in my room or on stage being Aladdin, real cabin fever. Craved little catches of interaction with anybody. Feel sorry for really old people they must have that feeling non-stop. Think that’s everything, can’t wait till Christmas and hope on hope that my unicycle ride doesn’t get snowed or frosted off. Must think of a contingent plan. Possibly unicycling round the theatre or round a rehearsal room.

Also need to get onto press big time. Just need to start making phone calls and selling the story. Will go into work early and do that tomorrow. Boom! Say it’s gonna happen and do it. What an incredibly satisfying feeling.

Oh yeah also a journalist has really screwed me over, really let me down, dragged me along saying he will cover the story, I gave him an opportunity to pull out a while ago and he said no I’ll definitely do it, just pulled out on me yesterday. Coward. Ah well his loss, but now must find a journalist to cover it. Quick time.

Merry christmas

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Manic Two Weeks

We have had tech week for Aladdin and are now up and running with press night on Tuesday. Exhausting and Exciting in equal measures. 

Several newspapers are interested in covering this story with one definite confirmed.

And I have a new goal system set up to make sure that in this limited time I achieve all I need.

It has been a massive learning curve. I never realised that in an experience like this the more people you include the more it seems to snowball..

One morning I was thinking to myself, what would be the best way of making sure that the time I have from here is spent in the most efficient way possible. On a whim I decided to air that question with a woman called Katie Matthews. And since then the whole thing has just taken off. She recommended I set some goals and write them down, and then sent my story on to a friend of hers who works for bbc radio yorkshire. Someone else overheard us talking and has since put me in touch with a freelance journalist who writes frequently for The Times and is now trying to get a story together. I was then recommended to speak to the press team at the theatre and she has been obsenely helpful!. She has got the Yorkshire Evening Post to cover the story and has set me up with an interview for Radio Leeds. Haha! It's amazing, I love it, be good to people and they will help you out.

So the publicity side is going well. Also have a couple of very exciting ideas in the pipeline.

A Facebook status blitz. I get as many of my close friends to post their status as "www.virginmoneygiving.com/gregorybartlett Everyone donate even just one pound, we are trying to raise 300 in one day"

Also a sponsorship wheel set up in the theatre for everyone in the building to record their support. Will speak to the lovely Paula from press on tuesday. This one is a bit vague at the moment but I think it will work nicely.

So all in all very exciting developments. Setting goals is a great great game. You simply write down a few simple things that you want to achieve and give them to somebody. You achieve them. Tell that person. It feels so good. Its pure motivation and it wouldn't feel like that if you just went away and did the things. There is something brilliant about having it written down and having somebody to share that achievement with, it just feels brilliant. I recommend it hugely.

So by the time I speak to you next I will have done press night, I will have started fund raising in and around the theatre, I will have hopefully raised lots and lots of money, I will have gotten my sister a birthday present and will have done lots and lots of Aladdins.

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