Election Fever! | The Friday(ish) Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

What have I been up to this week?

The last fortnight has been a bit of a whirlwind.

Having just released my latest video about British cities going bankrupt, we were about to start work on a veeeeeery exciting video about disruptive climate action.

(I actually spent a bunch of time with Just Stop Oil as they planned and carried out an action, it’s gonna be really great!)

Then…

Rishi Sunak decided to call a general election.

I don’t usually try to make too many videos to coincide with current events.

I think of the videos I make as being closer to “documentaries” than “news”.

As such, I would always prefer to take a little longer to get around to covering a topic, and to do so with a bit more depth and perspective, than to constantly be chasing the latest story.

There’s certainly a trade-off in this (it means the “impact” of my work is slightly different than if I was able to be intervening in debates as they were happening).

But… rightly or wrongly… that’s the route I’ve chosen to take!

This election feels a bit different.

As someone who makes videos about politics and is British, I felt as though not covering the election on the channel at all would be a little weird.

The fact the government is so likely to change from a Conservative to a Labour one, it also feels kind of momentous.

It might be that not a huge amount changes in the UK (and I do hope to touch on that in the video!) after the election, but it would be foolish to suggest that the Conservative Party losing power after 14 years isn’t in some way interesting.

So, we’re once again furiously trying to hit a ridiculous deadline in order to get a video out before the election on 4th July!

Wish us luck!

And outside of work?

Regular readers will know that this year my incredibly busy calendar of trying to make a whole feature-length film (my Nebula Original, Boomers) is made even busier by many, many weddings.

All my wife and I’s friends appear to have decided to get married this year. To the point where we have back-to-back weddings this and last weekend!

This weekend, then, I was out in the countryside helping to set-up, celebrate and then deconstruct our friends’ wedding.

It was a marque wedding in a gorgeous spot in South Devon, just outside of the city I live in.

And it turned out to be an absolute scorcher.

I’d actually bought a linen suit for a wedding we’re going to in Italy next week, but cracked it out for this one too in the end!

I’m very much not built for the heat, but I survived and got far, far too drunk.

It’s all very hectic having to go away for so many weekends, but I’ll miss it when it’s over I’m sure!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

I’ve been returning to an old favourite of an album this week with Cosmo Jarvis’ debut album, humasyouhitch/sonofabitch.

Some of you will have seen Cosmo Jarvis as the lead in Disney+’s Shogun, but he actually grew up just a few miles up the road from me.

And, when he was younger (if he doesn’t still), he used to perform a lot in local bars and pubs.

I don’t know how far his albums spread outside of my hometown, but I’ve always really loved his first release.

It’s genuinely pretty difficult to pick out a song or two because it’s so full of bangers!

Although, the slightly delinquent lyrics will have you thinking about Jarvis’ character in Shogun very differently!

Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!