So another week without a dedicated studio, but instead an ad hoc repurposing of the 'front room' here in Little Venice. The sofa shifts to the window, the background is held up with safety pins and the models brave enough to dare a trip to the bathroom have to dodge my resident stalker Mr Ruffles. He stalks them here, jumps on them there, he bites them everywhere and dosen't even care. At least he has impeccable taste in ankles. (Yes, Mr Ruffles is a tabby-kitten of roughly five-six months (I'm not exactly sure when he hatched from his furry egg that bounced down on Warren Street from the Heavyside Lair)) The reason for this devolution of my natural shooting environment to the wilds where the carpet monsters prowl is the imminence of a long sojourn to deepest, darkest, most alien (to me) Asia for some serious filmmaking work. I'm set to spend the next four-six months on an arduous pilgrimage that will lead me from Thailand by mule, across China by yak to eventually wash up in Wuhan province by reed boat where I shall down my hot sandals, bow my browned pate, and pray to the gods of animation. I will have no Passerpartout or Sancho Panza to aid me in my travels (Mr Ruffles was refused a VISA on the grounds of his affiliation to the Daily Llama (a notoriously subversive pamphlet printed in the fluffy hills of Kittymandoo)). Fear not dearest deviants, for the hermit is permitted one luxury: my trusty Nikon will be coming along for the ride. My personal crusade will be to radically alter Chinese politics from socialist capitalism to free loving, slightly pinko hedonism for all. So wish me luck (and a good lawyer versed in Mandarin) and if you are in Wuhan around thanksgiving time and see a wild eyed westerner clutching a camera dangling back and forth in a cage with "foreign devil" written on a sign around his neck; try to think of me kindly...

RS