Seeing as I how the donations for the 3 Peaks Challenge total £1200 to date (thanks to everyone who has sponsored me) I guess I should say a little bit about how the training is going.

In a word, "crap". It started last Monday with a moonlight jaunt before dinner. I opted to wear my boots, to try and bed them in a little bit, together with my normal socks (I was only going out for an hour. How bad can it be?)

Cutting a long story short, I ended up with really bad blisters and hobbled around for the rest of last week. Still, buoyed by my reasonable pace, I decided to take the car out and trace my route to see how much distance I'd burned up in the hour I'd been gone. A lowly 3.3 miles. More practise was needed.

Luckily my blisters had (more or less) healed in time for the weekend just gone when we were down at Centre Parcs in Penrith for the mother-in-law's birthday. (It was a significant one, but I won't reveal the age. Suffice to say it was more than 59 and less than 61). What better place to get some walking miles under our belts than in the Lake District? The brother-in-laws therefore set out on a mini expedition, led by Hugh (cus he's a scout master and knows about this sort of thing). Our route wasn't quite as the map shows above although we set off from Sandwick and followed Ullswater and (through gritted teeth) eventually reached the top of Place Fell. We all had our advantages and disadvantages. Hugh had the advantage of being fit and an experienced hill walker but had the disadvantage of having to carry all the gear. John (who is doing the 3 peaks with me) had the advantage of having the walking poles but the disadvantage of having as much experience of hill walking as me, was suffering from a chest infection and previously undergone 2 operations on his dodgy knee. I didn't really have any advantages, just negatives, which increased as the day wore on. Having started the walk with little experience and as a smoker with a dodgy ankle, I finished some 5 or so hours later with more blisters, wounded pride, blind panic, bruised ego ... oh, and no fags after I drop kicked them off the top of the summit on the pretense that if I was EVER going to make even one of the three peaks, I was going to need as much help as possible (Please note that the country code was adhered to as Hugh went to recover my booted box of Richmond Superkings).

I've been pretty forlorn ever since, unsure I would even make it up one peak, let alone three. Yesterday I hobbled and ached. Today I hobbled and ached some more but walked to the shops at lunchtime, albeit only a 1.5 mile round trip) to get my healthy fruit and yoghurt for lunch, I've had salmon and lentils for dinner and am going to enrol at the gym tomorrow in an attempt to get fit and give myself half a chance.

Just for the record, I was 15 stone 7 when I weighed myself this morning. I have somehow put on 6 pounds since I left for Centre Parcs on Friday. It must be my time of the month.

I've just realised the last time I wrote my blog was on 26th May 2008, four days before my father (aged 55) suddenly passed away, which I why I haven't felt the inclination to write anything since.

I should start by saying this entry, and probably the next few, are likely to be rambling and disjointed. I have a lot to say in my head and not sure at the moment how it is going to come out.

The reason for writing an entry now is because of my decision to take part in the 3 peaks challenge in May to try to raise money for Bowel Cancer UK. I had received the information a while back and hadn't really given it much thought as it's the kind of thing you do if you're really fit, which I'm not. It involves climbing Ben Nevis (Scotland), Scafell Pike (England) and Snowdon (Wales), the highest peaks in their respective countries within 24 hours. Now, I've been quizzed on this and can confirm that the challenge is to complete the peaks in the same 24 hours. We start at the base of Ben Nevis at dawn on the 30th May 2009 and aim to be at the summit of Snowdon by dawn on the 31st May. This will include coming down Scafell Pike and climbing up Snowdon in the dark. Quite a challenge and not something I would normally dream of doing, but when I realised the date of the challenge, exactly 12 months after my Dad died, I signed up.

It's utter madness for someone who usually spends his spare time smoking Richmonds and playing xbox live ... and I only have 3 months to get into shape, but I think it's a fitting way to commemorate the anniversary, do something positive and try to raise some cash for Bowel Cancer UK.

People obviously assume my father died of bowel cancer. This isn't the case. He was diagnosed with the disease in the autumn of 2007, had his operation shortly after and then completed 6 months chemotherapy. He stayed positive throughout his treatment and was made up to be accepted onto a programme for a trial drug which he had fortnightly, inbetween his chemo. He was determined to beat it, and that's exactly what he did. Having completed his treatment on the Tuesday I spoke to him on the Wednesday and he was over the moon with having got through this difficult time. I can honestly say his outlook had changed since initially being diagnosed. He was looking forward to flying to Spain on the Saturday to get some sun on his back and was busy making plans to live for the moment and do all the things he'd put off in life. Gemma & I had got engaged in December 07 and he had been up to Scotland during his treatment and visited the venue and was really excited about being involved in the wedding (and the stag do ... he was looking forward to doing the cooking and already planning the menus for me and the lads).

On the Thursday we had even better news. His results had come back and he was clear of the disease. My Dad, and the treatment, had beaten the cancer. He said he'd ring me on the Friday before he and my Mum left for a week in Spain.

I got the call on Friday but it hadn't been the one I was expecting. It was my Mum to say my father had passed away. Without wanting to go into too much detail, chemotherapy increases the chances of blood clots forming. This is exactly what happened with my Dad and having gone through all his treatment and beaten the cancer, he died suddenly of a massive pulmonary embolism. Words can not explain what a shock it was to everyone and how much he is sorely missed. I not only lost my Dad that day but a good mate.

Grief is a disorientating thing. I've felt every emotion going over the last few months from anger to sadness to guilt. In some ways, and I realise this might sound odd, but I somehow feel that I've had to step into his shoes. He was always the one who was up for a challenge, and nothing seemed to ever phase him and I was always the son who looked up to and admired him. I still do of course but his death puts certain things into perspective. There's things I've done since last May that I would never have dreamed I would have to do and some things I would never have dreamed I was capable of doing. Just reading my last blog entry for example. I remember him laughing down the phone, listening to me as I wandered drunkenly around Edinburgh explaining to him on the mobile that our film had won the awards. Since then I've had to sign his death certificate at the registrars, stand up at his funeral and say a few words, get through our first Christmas without him and do something I never imagined possible during my groom's speech at our wedding, raise a toast to my late father. Like I said, it changes your perspective on things and as I tried to explain earlier, it somehow feels I've had to step up to the plate. I don't mean replace him but do things in a manner in which he would approach and deal with them. I somehow find great comfort in that.

So yes, whilst he didn't technically die of bowel cancer, I'm positive that if he hadn't have had the disease, he'd still be here today. Hence I've signed up for the 3 peaks challenge. I have also started to write again and have started a competition whereby for a £3 donation, supporters have the chance to have their name used as a character in the book and receive a signed copy.

If you would like to find out more, please visit the following links and if you have any spare cash, I would be grateful for any donations. Thank you

www.justgiving.com/leecrompton
www.justgiving.com/leecromptonbook

I should mention that I also have a vested interest in all of this. Having been diagnosed, my Dad was extremely keen for me to get checked out myself. It just so happened that my colonoscopy came within weeks of him passing away. I came out of the hospital in tears, just knowing that this had where it had all started for my Dad. My results have shown that I have a tendency to develop hyperplastic polyps which in turn have a small chance of turning cancerous. I therefore now have to get checked out every 12 months and have them removed before they have chance to develop into anything else.

Bowel cancer is the 2nd biggest cause of death by cancer in the country. To find out more, please visit http://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/

I suppose I should mention that our film won 3 awards on Friday night ...

Best Costumes
Best Music
Best Cinematography

I don't think I would produce another. You end up doing a lot of the upfront work and form filling and are then left rather marginalised whilst the actual exciting stuff of making the film is taking place over the weekend. That said I got involved in the script writing and the acting, so it wasn't all bad.

Copy of comment I wasn't able to post on the Film Project website ...

Firstly, I'd like to echo some of the others and thank Sam for organising a great competition. I think everyone had their trials and tribulations but the overall experience made it worth it (?!?!)

I can't help feeling there were some strange questions at our screening. One guy seemed to think the entries were planned in advance. From our point of view, "yes" we had ideas and "yes" we had certain things lined up ... for example,

1. I'd got permission from "A Band Called Quinn", a Scottish band I really like on Myspace to allow us to use their music on our film. I checked with Sam if this was okay, got the green light from him, and was looking forward to using their electro/indie/pop tracks on our film. We then picked out Historical Fiction. A Band Called Quinn suddenly didn't quite fit the bill.

2. Another team member had got permission from a swanky modern hotel to film on their premises. We then picked out Historical Fiction (see point 1)
3. We had 2 "proper" actors (yes, people who had actually acted before) lined up for our production. Both of them (possibly seeing the iceberg) pulled out the week before.
Other than the above mentioned military like planning, we pretty much started with a blank piece of paper on the Friday night.

Keith (our music man) sat in on the brain storming session on the Friday night, got (what he thought was) the general idea of what we were doing and was told to come back on Saturday night with some atmospheric music. He did a cracking job (even though when he eventually saw the film said "hmm, that wasn't quite how I'd imagined it")

So yeah, we came up with a historical fiction story, plonked a CD into it, found out some old looking hats, grabbed a spade (and a pie) and went for it.

Highlights would have to be filming outside the Burke and Hare lap dancing emporium on Saturday lunchtime and pretending to rob graves in an Edinburgh cemetery at 1.30am on Sunday.

Good times. See you all next year.


PS Yes Kenny, I am reading, and cheers. Much appreciated and back at ya. Do you want me to wait for you before handing ours in next year?

So that's the end of a frantic 48 hours of film making. We were lucky enough (?!?!?!?) to pull out "historical fiction" for our genre which was always going to be a challenge, especially considering the other things we were required to include.

Prop: A compact disk.

Line of Dialogue: Is that the best you've got?

Character: Robert or Roberta Darling (a restaurateur)

Having received all these details at 7pm on Friday night, we finished the script around 2.30am on the Saturday. After a wee kip, we were back up at 6.45am to begin filming at the Edinburgh Farmer's market where I played the meat stall owner. When then filmed in a pub in the Grassmarket, the Burke and Hare lap dancing club and in the Royal Mile before going for an afternoon snooze. Between 10.30pm and Sunday 1am, we were filming in ye olde streets of Edinburgh and in a cemetery where I was a ye olde policeman chasing Burke and Hare the grave robbers ... it's an interesting short film.

If you'd like to see it, it's being shown at the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh tomorrow night.

Checked into Authonomy this morning and am chuffed to bits that someone has left this comment regarding Worlds Apart ...

"I've read a few books on this site now and this one is the best I've seen. It's presented professionally, it reads very well, and although it's humourous it doesn't really want to be a Nick Hornby/ Douglas Adams novel. My word, an original voice! HarperCollins, are you taking note?"

Thanks Mum.

For those creative writers out there, you may be interested to know that Haper Collins have launched a website (AUTHONOMY) to "flush out writing talent" and then when a piece of work becomes popular they will be able to pounce on it and suck it dry. I have therefore stripped off naked and uploaded extracts from my novels (shouting "suck me, suck me dry"). I've already had a couple of positive comments which is refreshing following my cousin's demolition of Digging Deeper (Are we supposed to like Will, he's an asshole ... bad mix of omniscient narrator ... confused metaphors ... it's not quite ready for publication yet. I could go on. He was on the phone for an hour and twenty minutes). Anyway, that aside, authonomy might be the place to go if you fancy showcasing your work, as is www.ABCtales.com

It's not been a great week for the film either. We had two pro actors who were going to star in it and a cameraman with his own top notch equipment. All of them have pulled out but apart from not having any actors, cameras, camera operators or locations, I think we've got a good chance of winning.

At least my pickled onions haven't let me down. Deeeee-licious!

Last Thursday, I didn't drive a Vauxhall Vectra in my bare feet whilst gorging on Toblerones. I did however go to Dundee to give a talk on self-publishing to a creative writing class at the college.

Thanks to everyone in the class for making me feel so welcome.

Yesterday was a special day in Scotland. The sun came out. So special, Gemma decided to take leave from studying and venture outside. Being bank holiday, the rest of Scotland came out for the day too. Gemma decided we should go to St Andrews.

Firstly we got caught Bank Holiday traffic. Having a touch of man-flu, I'm running a slight temperature in any case. Sitting in traffic for an hour on a hot day in a black car was doing nothing to help. We decided to take a detour. Gem, armed with the map, navigated us to a picnic spot which happened to be 200 yards from Methil power station in Leven. Our picnic consisted of a rug (which we'd bought ourselves), a hotdog (for Gemma) and a strawberry Cornetto (for me) which we purchased from the nearby burger van. Having finished my ice-cream, we pushed on in search of more fun and went to the penny arcade across the road. We eventually waved the power station goodbye and headed to St Andrews.

The place was heaving but we had a great time, walking along the beach, watching rich Americans come up the 18th and visiting a local watering hole for some light refreshments ...then the mist rolled in (as you will see from the pictures) and everyone decided to leave the beach. It took us an hour to get out of the car-park.

We then took the coast road home and called in at Anstruther for a portion of their award winning fish and chips (best in Scotland, 2nd best in UK). The queue was about 75 yards out of the front doors but we decided they'd be worth the wait. Having queued and queued we finally reached the front doors to be confronted with a Disney style zig-zag roped walkway affair. We were only about half way to the counter. By then we'd reached the point of no return. It was a military style operation. Uniformed girls came around and took our orders well in advance. A young boy in front had been waiting so long with his Dad that he needed an emergency trip to the toilet to save himself from peeing all over the floor. Having climbed the steps to the counter and received my fish supper I felt like I'd won the FA Cup. I wanted to hold my chips aloft and blow raspberries at all the other suckers in the queue behind us. I went crazy and thought I might actually want some mushy peas but there was going to be an additional five minute wait for them so I decided against it. One hour and fifteen minutes after joining the queue, we left the "plaice" (get it?) with our dinner, exhausted. We'd earnt it. It has to be said, the grub was excellent.

Flight of the Conchords follows the trials and tribulations of a two man, digi-folk band from New Zealand as they try to make a name for themselves in their adopted home of New York City. The band is made up of Bret McKenzie on guitar and vocals, and Jemaine Clement on guitar and vocals. Bret and Jemaine have moved to New York in the hope of forging a successful music career. So far they've managed to find a manager (whose "other" job is at the New Zealand Consulate), one fan (a married obsessive) and one friend (who owns the local pawn shop) -- but not much else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFjrbmj0CUc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtfQg4KkR88&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5hrUGFhsXo&NR=1

I've entered 2 short film scripts for the Bongo Reef "Losing the Plot" (www.bongoreefpictures.co.uk) project. The parameters were they could be no longer than 3 mins, had to be based on an allotment, and had to be dialogue driven. This goes against everything we've been taught at uni (show, don't tell ... dialogue is one of the 2 main evils in cinema, the other being flashbacks) but not really having a clue what I'm doing anyway, I decided to give it a go.

Seeing as I like Tarantino films (dialogue) and one of my favourite films is Usual Suspects (flashbacks) I'm not really sure I'm cut out for this scriptwriting lark. If film scripts weren't confusing enough, we've now moved onto TV scripts at uni which have a completely different format again. The script should be "action not movement" and "The trick of turning movement into action is to make it active and tie it into character." All very well, but I've not got a clue what all these things mean. Going back to the books, I haven't sold a single one in weeks. Full time writing isn't working out. I'm becoming quite disillusioned if the truth be told. Maybe I should just stick with surveying.

Gemma says that I should write because I enjoy writing and I've now shifted a million miles from where I started and have completely different aspirations. I disagree. Yes it would be nice to have the trimmings that come with being a successful author/screenwriter but my goal hasn't changed from doing things that people enjoy reading (or now watching). Whilst Gemma would argue that you should gain enjoyment from making the film or writing the book, I agree with my tutor. What is the point in making a film (or writing a book) that nobody is going to watch (or read)?

Ignore me, I'm having an off day ... if anyone's reading anyway :-(

Not one for celebrity nonsense, you have to give credit where it's due.

Enter ... Barry Norman's pickled onions, recommended to be by my Mum. I was sceptical, until I tried one. Bloody lovely, a recipe that has been in the Norman household for generations and it was only when a mate of Barry's popped round for tea (and an onion, like you do) and told him they were so good he ought to sell them that Barry cashed in. You can picture it now, Barry with a napkin tucked in his collar as he has one of his onions, vinegar dribbling down his chin, maybe a scotch egg chaser, when his mate pipes up, "F**KING HELL BAZZA! These onions are the dog's b*ll*cks. You ought to sell them me ol' son." I'm sure that's exactly how the conversation went.

Anyway, I like them so much I've eaten a jar already ... and been down to the local co-op to buy some more onions to dunk in Barry's vinegar. Nic nac noo!

Tomorrow sees the start of my two-day course "The Language of Film" at The Engine Shed in Edinburgh. It's a "lively and interactive course on visual storytelling and film technique" and is supported by 4Talent Scotland. I'm hoping the talent comes after you've done it rather than needing to talent to be on it ...

On the back of my experiences in New Zealand, I've signed up for the Edinburgh 48 Hour Film Project. It starts on Friday 16th May and the premise is the same as before ... genre, character, line of dialogue and a prop, oh, and 2 days to make a short film from scratch.

On the basis I haven't enough time/equipment to formulate my own team (and my leading lady is still doing her Masters), I've entered myself on the database in the hope that some other desperados will require my (limited) services. May God have mercy on their souls!

So that's it then! Part 2 of the scriptwriting course is over and it's time to hand in the assignment. Being the swotty brown-nose that I am (if only my school tutors could see me now) I'm hoping to hand mine in tomorrow. It hasn't got to be in until next Tuesday. Get me!

I'm still to think of a title for my 17 minute long script but it's roughly an adaption from the beginning of Digging Deeper (full length version up to 85 minutes to date ... but will need some cutting when I'm finished).

So yes, after a twist in the story and an added character, I finally got there. Hollywood, here I come (is it west from Falkirk? I think I should have taken the first left!)

Thought a few of you might be interested to find out about Word Power Books (http://www.word-power.co.uk/), an independent bookshop opened formally by Booker Prize-Winner James Kelman on 1 December 1994.

Instead of me waffling on, I'll let them do the talking ...

"Our world-wide online service is an alternative to corporate bookshops that refuse to allow their workers to join trade unions. Unlike Amazon, recipient of £1.6 million taxpayers' money from the Scottish Executive (The Bookseller, 28 May 2004), we receive no state funding.
While our site offers you access to all books in print in the UK we remain committed to promoting literature outwith the mainstream thereby making it more accessible and helping to support small presses and new writers. We also provide Platform, a regular column for groups, campaigns or individuals to post articles and foster debate, and a Noticeboard where you can post information and details of events."

I think my previous blogs have made my views fairly clear on the subject of corporate bookshops. I don't think I need to add any more, suffice to say if you're going to buy a book, check out http://www.word-power.co.uk/