Very much from the Spanner mould

Location Lord Stanley pub, near the office | Mood Slightly more hopeful | Date 11 May 2007
Filed in:
Author (full name): 
Franny Armstrong
Location: 
Lord Stanley pub, near the office
Mood: 
Slightly more hopeful
Soundtrack: 
Yabba yabba yabba on their mobile phones
Ailments: 
Eye seems to have stopped watering since cutting down the screen time
Date: 
11 May 2007
Current crisis: 
Still the script
Current silver lining: 
Nice lunch (chilli linguine)

Suddenly remembered Emily James as I was washing up for the first time in three weeks this morning. She's an indie filmmaker very much from the Spanner mould. Her film "The Luckiest Nut In the World " famously used animated singing peanuts to discuss trade liberalisation. Then she made "Don't Worry ", which my pal Frank (he of Luminous Frenzy ) described as "the most subversive thing ever transmitted on British TV" after he spotted it on late-night Channel 4 (they pulled it from it's original primetime slot, for reasons which will be very clear if you get the chance to see it).

I hung out with Emily at the Sheffield festival a couple of years ago and between us we came up with more ideas for the Crude animation in half an hour than we've managed in the two years since. She understood the concept - and the background - and the humour - more than anyone else before or since. We'd both been very enthusiastic about her working on Crude, but then she got pregnant and we hooked up with Passion and the idea went off the boil. But that was a while ago, so don't know what she's up to now - changing nappies I expect. I just left left an overenthusiastic message on her answerphone, so we'll see.