Month / July 2005

by Gareth

Weird couple of days

Today was James and Helen’s wedding, and I was invited to the service and to the evening reception. Didn’t really get a chance to speak to them at all, but they seemed to be having a brilliant time, which is what’s important! I’ve put my photos of it here.

It was a good wedding, with some really nice touches…during the signing of the register, they ran a video montage of photos of them both growing up, which looked really cool, and there were some other bits that stood out as well.

I guess though that I found it pretty tough – I didn’t really feel right being there. It’s really hard to explain (and I’m certainly not going to try too much here!), but I just felt uncomfortable for most of the time, and I left at the end of the night not feeling too great. I suppose in the end it doesn’t really matter, because I won’t see anyone from there again anyway.

And to change the subject totally, the other news is that my nan died yesterday morning. It wasn’t totally unexpected, because I found out a couple of months ago that she’d had got cancer and she’s been in hospital since then, but it’s only been in the last two weeks that the cancer got really aggressive and spread like it did. I actually went to see her in hospital about a month ago, and she seemed fine – the plan was that she was supposed to be going home and starting radiotherapy this week, but then all of a sudden it really took hold. To be honest, I’m glad I last saw her like that, rather than in her last few days of life. The funeral will probably be the week after next, but no date’s been set yet.

by Gareth

Why?

I’m sat here in the office watching Sky News’ coverage of the terrorist attacks in London today – and it makes me feel sick, and if I’m honest, quite apprehensive and scared. They’re showing shots of the bombed bus, and have been describing scenes at the tube stations after explosions on 3 tube trains. The news reports are saying it looks like about 45 are dead so far, but that figure could rise. I can’t understand at all the mentality of the people who do this sort of thing, I just really can’t.

What makes it even more poignant is that yesterday, Prince was up in Manchester so we could work on some videos for their venue at this year’s Soul Survivor. The venue is called ‘Underground’ so we were working on an opening video which is basically made up of shots of walking round the Underground stations and travelling on tube trains, which Prince had filmed on his way up here on Tuesday afternoon. Not sure whether we’ll be scrapping that now, with the event only a month away.

I think what makes me scared the most is that there doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping this sort of thing happening – how on earth do you check everyone who gets onto trains and buses? If someone is determined enough to do this kind of thing, what can be done?