THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS ARRIVE FOR MR YETI...

Howdy folks and folkettes,

Nice, aye!? This is the cover for the script book for the first series of THE BEAST OF FRIENDS, which should be out at the start of September and is being released as part of my 20th anniversary of SUTTON PARK. There should also be a new SUTTON PARK episode up around that time, as well - maybe two!

This week I'm going to continue with the diary of what I've been up to - writing about what's gone on between Monday 23rd July until the end of the month, which just happens to be the day that I usually post on here! It's also the day before I head to The Lakes - so next week's post will be all about that and probably won't get posted until late Wednesday or early Thursday.

I'm going start by sharing details on the live video that I loaded up late last week:

SHY YETI'S INTER-WEB / BLOG BONANZA SHOW - 2 is the second video from my recent Poetry Cafe show on Friday 8th June 2012 and includes poems by myself and the fantastic John Smallshaw, my special guest of the night. My poems include: CRASHING BORES, NEVER STEAL ANOTHER MAN'S RHUBARB, A CURE FOR ALL KNOWN ILLS, I WANT THEM TO SEE ME (ON TOP OF THE POPS) and THE CREATIVE GNU - not to mention a little limerick!  John's poems include: THE FUNFAIR and two others... Thanks to The Poetry Cafe, to all who came along to raise money for MS TRUST and special thanks to Dominic McCauley for filming events! Music is by Luca. This film is Copyright the performers, 2012. There may be more footage from both these May and June shows released later in the year, so watch this space!

Youtube: http://youtu.be/cFzjsavCbNA

Vimeo: This video may not be loaded on Vimeo until after my holidays, but it will be available by late August 2012.

...And so on to this week's diary...

Monday 23rd July 2012

I was only in work half a day today, but started by loading up the latest live video from June's BLOG BONANZA SHOW and got some poster's ready for September's SHY YETI GOES WILD AT THE POETRY CAFE show, so that I could drop it off at The Poetry Cafe itself later in the day. I was off to a meeting late morning, but had the afternoon booked off for Dominic's birthday. As well as all the cake and ice cream eating we filmed some introduction scenes and a yeti hand-jive for one of the September live episodes. The weather was gorgeous, so hopefully there will be a little summery weather to recall once the year is done! It may feel quite a way off until the next show; over a month - but what with being off work for three weeks I've started to prepare already. John S is certainly onboard and I've pretty much decided the line-up of poems that I want to read on the night; the first half being animal poems from SHY YETI GOES WILD and the 2nd half being pieces from ARE WE THERE, YETI!? The charity is also decided as The London Zoological Society, which fits the theme of the night, as well as being a good cause in the memory of  somebody special.

Tuesday 24th July 2012

Today began with a little more editing on the "Lost" Hollywood video and whilst at work I moved a lot closer to completing episode 3 of the second series of THE BEAST OF FRIENDS, whilst working out which will be the next Mouse Of Commons book that I prioritise once TALES FROM THE MCWHISKERS' ARCHIVE is published in September. I am currently working on the sequel to THE COUNTER-CLOCKWISE CONUNDRUM, but I don't think that's going to be ready by 2013, so I aim to work on a novella and some short stories - three of which I wrote back in 2007/2008. It'll either be called FIVE TAILS ARE BETTER THAN ONE or THREE TAILS ARE BETTER THAN ONE... depending how many stories are included! Other than this I also worked on proofing ARE WE THERE, YETI!? but with the end of term at college coming I'm not feeling my most motivated - I just want to get on holiday as soon as possible. Hopefully I can type up some of the short stories and poems that are waiting to be typed whilst I'm off - and get on with doing some editing for the 20th anniversary episode(s) of SUTTON PARK.

Wednesday 25th July 2012

Tuesday finished with a little more "Lost" Hollywood editing - and Wednesday began pretty much the same way. This time next week I'll be heading to The Lake District - so I'm beginning to get excited about going away and have started putting aside a few poems that I've not recorded videos for. Which reminds me, as of yesterday I began to narrow down my selection of poems for the September show. Even when I scale it down to roughly 20 poems per half I always find that's too many - but it's better to be prepared! This time the first half is going to be mainly animal poems - whilst the second half is pieces from ARE WE THERE, YETI!?, but I'm also trying to read a fair few new poems as well, to give them their live debuts! During the day today I did a few bits of tweaking on a number of the 10th anniversary editions of my earlier poetry collections; the next one out is THIRD TIME LUCKY in October - the first time it's been available on Lulu.com as a single volume. Today I also received my first copies of THE BEAST OF FRIENDS - Series 1 in paperback and very nice they look too. Along with working on any changes that my mum has suggested on the new Mouse short story collection today, I also as good as completed the third script of BEAST..., Series 2. That should be done by tomorrow.

Thursday 26th July 2012

I stayed up until about 1.30 am working on the Hollywood video - it's coming together nicely and I'm up to the end titles; although it still looks less like it was filmed in Hollywood and more like it was filmed in a quarry in Surrey on a rather dull, overcast day! When I got a chance today I continued tweaking various projects - finishing that third BEAST 2 script and also working on a new poem called THE MAN-EATER OF SURREY GREEN. My original aim was to post the new live video on Friday, my last day in work for 3 weeks, however I made it available on Thursday - and Facebooked about it the same night!

Friday 27th July 2012

My last day at work for aaaaaaaages!! HOOOOOOORAH! I started by Tweeting about the new video as Twitter had been down Thursday night due to Olympic overload or somesuch. During the day I did further work on the third script of BEAST 2 and worked on plans for the 4th episode - as well as typing the new poem and working on corrections that my mum had sent me for the Mouse book. In the evening I copied footage from my hard-drive to make up SHY YETI BOTTLES SUMMER and also material for the forthcoming 20th anniversary episodes of SUTTON PARK; both projects that I'll be working on when I'm in the Lakes. Whilst going through my back up drives I decided to load up 3 of my 2008 Vimeo only poems onto Youtube where they may get a bigger audience. I'll be making these available before I go to the Lakes, but will post the links in next week's post.

Saturday 28th July 2012

Not a lot planned for today, however I did decide to start posting those three old Vimeo films that I loaded on Youtube yesterday. I choose to post DAREDEVIL and will probably post the other two on Sunday and Monday before I leave for the lakes. I also worked further on the Hollywood video, I've taken a slight step back in getting it finished in the cause of making it a better finished film. I added photos from the period of the trip that the video comes from, something I had neglected to do until this point - I think it'll look all the better for it In the evening I headed out with DM and some other friends for a night of dancing in Vauxhall - I even managed to film a little bit too... You'll probably see the results at some stage!

Sunday 29th July 2012


Well, we did stay out until about 2, so technically most of the filming took place on Sunday! Just! I shot a few little nightclub scenes with friends and even managed a yeti dance on the streets. This footage will probably end up as the introduction to my first Lake District episode! Once home I made old video GOOD HUG available on Youtube and also completed SHY YETI'S "LOST" HOLLYWOOD VIDEO; it's also already loaded up - and appears to have done so without a glitch, so I rather doubt that I'll be able to wait until the 20th August to release it, but we'll see... I'm still in two minds at the moment!

Monday 30th July 2012

Today was the first proper day of my holiday and I began by posting the third of the three Vimeo videos that I loaded up the other day; this one being THINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE )(PT 1) I'd stayed up quite late doing the information on the Hollywood video and am still considering whether to post it first thing on Wednesday morning before I head off on holiday or whether to leave it until my return. Anyway, I didn't spend all Monday indoors, oh no...  Calum and I headed for Arundel and walked along the river from Ford; also revisiting some of the parkland around the castle. Originally I had planned to record just one poem today - and maybe another on Tuesday. However, the weather was good, so I decided that actually I might record a sequel to my - as yet unedited, but next to be completed - episode SHY YETI BOTTLES SUMMER. In the end I recorded two stories MIST YOU and AUTUMN'S COMING and a poem - WAKE-UP CALL and will probably work to completing this episode tomorrow. All these pieces coming from my collection NOT AS SHY AS I WAS which won't be out for a while yet. All this and I also loaded up 6 more Vimeo videos from June 2008 which I intend to release over the next few weeks - but more about that in future posts...

Tuesday 31st July 2012

The first thing I did today was to post one of the Vimeo videos that Owen C and I recorded back in Summer 2008; I choose THE BALLAD OF A GO-GO BEAR and advertised it on both Facebook and Twitter. DM and I went to Weybridge around lunchbreak and although the weather wasn't as good as on Monday we managed to film plenty of footage to complete SHY YETI BOTTLES SUMMER 2, including reading a poem called AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - lots of little sketches and, of course, a yeti dance. Otherwise I have just been working on editing the first episode of this series and packing for the Lakes trip, where I'll be heading tomorrow morning.

So, that's it for now... Next time - as I mentioned before, I'll be posting a little later in the week, with a review of what I've been up to during my time in the Lake District...

To finish with I thought I'd share with you that BEAST OF FRIENDS poem that I wrote to go with the new book. I'm holding the scriptbook back and releasing it, hopefully, at the same time as the new Mouse book and ARE WE THERE, YETI!? at the start of September. But here's the poem - which doesn't actually have a great deal to do with the series other than sharing a title with it!

More soon...

Yeti hugs,

Paul xx

PS At time of posting we had reached 9616 hits on the MRSHYYETI Youtube profile - so I am hoping by the time I return I can announce that we've passed that 10,000 mark a good 5 months earlier than I ever expected. Thanks again to everyone who has ever watched one of the videos there!

THE BEAST OF FRIENDS (A POEM)

Oh, the BEST of friends they were!

Became the BEAST of friends instead –

And always seemed to love a barney;

No matter what their mother’s said…

They were called the beast of friends –

Were always at each other's throats!
You’d hear more irritating bleating –

Than a field of rabid goats!
They always claimed to be good pals –

But with such fury did assert...
Directed squarely at each other –

It's a wonder they weren’t hurt!
With their teeth bared at the ready –

With their claws extended thus...
Were just the beastliest of friends –

Folk just ignored their random fuss!

They were called the beast of friends –

They always swapped a birthday gift...
Despite them being bitter rivals –

Despite their violent boyhood rift!
Oh, each ruck they had it seemed to –

End without an outright winner!
Forever shouting over breakfast –

Scrapping all through tea and dinner!
With their anger at the ready –

They kept on coming back for more!
They were the beastliest of friends –

Yes, they would bellow! Really roar!

They were called the beast of friends –

Folks ducked as fisticuffs were thrown...
Had been at war since they were born;

Although by then were fully grown!
By then were oh-so out of sorts –

And really feeling very cruel!
Stood back-to-back beside a tree –

About to stage a deadly duel!
With their guns cocked at the ready –

With their daggers freely drawn!
Those beastly friends by midnight; dead.
Quite sliced and diced upon the lawn!

They were called the beast of friends –

Their plight continues after death!
In the after-life keeping squabbling;
Even without the aid of breath!
So if you hear some great ta-doo...
Of rusty chains so loudly rattling...
Then it may be those bestest mates;
Now ghosts so busy up and battling!
Sticks and stones there at the ready;
With harsh words full of sarcasm...
Avoid those beastliest of friends –

Avoid their sticky ectoplasm…

Oh, the BEST of friends were they –

Now the BEAST of friends they be!

They enjoy a fight, yes, far too much;
To EVER curtsey or agree!

This post and its contents are Copyright Paul Chandler, 2012.