How cool is this: I have a Star Wars action figure named after me!

Back in the late 80′s I was working at Games Workshop’s Design Studio along with a lot of very talented writers, artists and game designers. One of them was World Famous Game Designer ™ ’Cuddly’ Ken Rolston, who was heading back to the US to write Star Wars roleplaying material for West End Games, so I jokingly asked him to include me in the Star Wars universe and pretty much thought nothing more of it for ages…

But in 1988 Ken’s adventure module Strikeforce: Shantipole appeared and in it was a character called ‘Lt. Pollard’ - a hero of the rebellion, tough and dangerous looking (obviously modelled on me, then.. ). I was very happy and still have my copy.

But even more surprisingly (and wonderfully), the character has reappeared recently in some of Dark Horse’s new Star Wars Rebellion comic series (where he’s now a famous B-Wing fighter pilot and leader of Dagger Squadron) – and Hasbro have made an action figure of him and his B-Wing!   Thanks, Ken!

After being behind the camera on Tuesday I was in front of one yesterday, taking part in a film shoot in London with Rob and Ian at the Inner London Crown Court .

The Digital Paparazzi had been hired to play… er… some paparazzi (so no typecasting there, thankfully) and we spent the evening on location with a large crowd of extras snapping away at the very pleasant young leading lady portraying a successful actress arriving at a premiere.

Perhaps even more excitingly we’ve been asked back to appear in their next film too – a zombie movie! (Although… as undead paparazzi? Hopefully not!)

I spent last night in the wilds of Leicestershire (well, in the back room of a pub in Enderby, technically) with my video camera setup filming Bodgers Mate, a truly excellent folk/ceilidh band who I work with regularly at the Sherwood Center Parcs Robin Hood banquets.

They needed some video clips for some potential bookers in Spain so we had a very pleasant evening with beer, music and a lot of laughter (mainly at my inability to get it right)! Still, after a little trial and error we got some good stuff recorded so I’ll post some of the clips here (and on YouTube) shortly and you can judge for yourself!

In other news: Hopefully I’ve finally got rid of those annoying pop-up adverts that kept appearing too – hurrah!

It’s been a strange week – last Friday I was with The Digital Paparazzi at Haydock Park racecourse (photographing entries there for a ’best dressed lady’ competition – that was fun) and today I’ve spent the day at Trent Bridge cricket ground for the first of the Twenty20 Cup matches held there this year.

Not only was it my first visit to the ground but my first ever cricket match too – and quite fun really (despite the fact sport and I just do not mix) as I got to meet, greet and chat with loads of fans, most of whom supported Nottingham’s County team (‘The Outlaws’).

Sadly Nottingham lost on the last ball of the last over, but I still got to meet loads more fans at the end along with both teams and ‘Nuts’ the Nottingham team’s mascot (he’s the one on the left, in case you were wondering)!

On Friday morning I was up at Nottingham Castle again with the lovely Sal Chappell (from The Dogs of War re-enactement group) as Maid Marian to welcome members of the excellent Karlsruhe Youth Band, a brass orchestra who are visiting Nottingham as our two towns are twinned. Sadly I couldn’t make it to the concert they presented that evening as I was working in Harrogate, but we had great fun welcoming them to Nottingham and accompanying them on a cave tour in the tunnels beneath the castle!

Time for a change I think - I hope you like the new look! I’ve had some major changes in my life so there’s a new look here as well as changes elsewhere. I still need to update the actual content (which I’ve just ported over from the old site design) and reinstate the Photo Gallery as the link leads nowhere at the moment but it’s a fresh start, and that’s got to be a good thing!

I’ve got lots of new and interesting work coming up soon though, even if the economic downturn has meant some other has dried up a bit – and in the past few days I’ve had the oddest employment I think I’ve ever had… 

Still, let’s save that for another post (quite soon), eh?  

The Tales of Robin Hood, Nottingham’s commercial tourist attraction has finally had to call in administrators, according to this story at the Nottingham Evening Post website and this one at the BBC‘s.

Speaking of the BBC, BBC Radio Nottingham have asked me to go back onto their Breakfast Show at 8am tomorrow to talk about it, but all I can say is that it’s a great shame (especially for all the staff who are being made redundant) as it now leaves Nottingham without a full-time Robin Hood- themed tourist attraction, unless the city council can take over the running of it, or make a permanent exhibition at Nottingham Castle itself. However as today the council has announced it’s having to make up to 350 people redundant itself, now may not be the best time to consider either option, sadly.

Having said that, the last time the Tales got into real troubles they opened again, so maybe they will again – at least this time they don’t owe me £600 I never got!

I seem to be one of the last people in Nottingham to find out that The Tales of Robin Hood, the city’s commercial Robin Hood attraction (which I used to work for a lot a fair few years ago) seems to be in considerable trouble – in fact it’s entirely likely it’ll close very soon (if it hasn’t already). That’d be a great shame, because Nottingham doesn’t make enough of Robin Hood as it is.

Because of this, the lovely Sarah Julian from BBC Radio Nottingham invited me onto her Breakfast Show this morning to talk about being Robin and what the city can do with the legend. You can hear (or right-click to download) the whole interview here, although be warned, it’s an 18Mb file (but at least it includes a nice Bob Marley tune too)!

In the interview I mention having a photo taken on the steps of the New York Public Library a while ago, so that’s the one here – imagine just behind the camera a huge semi-circle of New Yorkers also taking pictures and wondering what’s going on!

You can read more about the problems faced by the Tales here, here and here.

Another fun picture, this time from the St George’s Day celebration held at Nottingham Castle on 20th April this year, showing St George and his trusty squire, Robin Hood and the then Sheriff of Nottingham, the lovely Jeannie Packer.

For all we were celebrating it was a fearsomely cold, wet and miserable day but luckily there were a lot of people to cheer us on as we paraded up the castle mount to raise the Cross of St. George!

The photo was taken by (and is used with kind permission of) Julie of DesignCat.

 (More) Horsing About!

So as it’s now December and I’m about to be plunged into festive shedloads of Digital Paparazzi gigs I thought I should post something jolly and Robin Hood-ey, so here’s the start of my version of an occasional advent calendar, some of my favourite pictures from the last year or so!

This one is from a publicity shoot I did in November last year with wooden bowl maker Robin Wood (yes, really) for The People’s Millions £50m Lottery Bid for Sherwood Forest – sadly it lost out in the final but it was great fun and reminded me how much I enjoy riding!

You can see another pic and the two very silly YouTube videos we made here!