This week I haven't done any film work at all. I´m on holiday in Cape Verde. Currently I´m in a tiny windswept little town called Porta do Sol on the island of St. Andrao, the northernmost and easterenmost island of the group. It´s the edge of the world, or so it seems. From this point is just thousands of miles of the Atlantic Ocean.

The islands are rocky, barren and bleak as well as being wonderfully dramatic. I´m loving it. It´s the first two week long, proper holiday I´ve had for a couple of years. The people are friendly also. I´m a third of the way through Finnegan´s Wake. I can´t say I am enjoying it as much as his other works. It feels a bit like the first time I read Ulysses. Difficult. Hard going. The intoduction, like everyone I know, says the book is unreadable. It is but I´m a third of the way thtough so that´s not quite true. I´m glad I read it here, on holiday, it wuld be uterly impossible in normal life. I find myself reading and re-reading paragraphs five or six times to get a handle on them or stopping to turn to a dictionary for explanations or for translations on words in one of the 65 languages featured in the book, assuming, of course they actually exit! Like I did with Ulysses, I will have to reread this book. Maybe in 10 years time when I am smarter!

Despite being far away from London and the cutting room, my mind still wanders back to DEP. So much of the footage I have seen, I can´t wait to start cutting. I hope Caroline is working hard on it now and that all is synced up and that she has been able to start the first assembly. We are already 7 weeks behind where we should be and counting.

I got lots of lovely new years wishes from the cast and crew amongst other people. Julie´s, of course, was the sweetest! Steve Norris, despite me asking him many weeks ago to never contact me again sent me an MMS. In it was a picture of someone´s arms cut around the wrist. It seemed like they were cut from the back. If it was a call for help he obviously sent it to the wrong person! If not then what was it for??

Anyway, later today is QPR v Chelsea. Come on u R´s!!!

I am on a small propeller plane heading from the Island of Fogo (Fire) to the main Island of Santiago. Fogo was wonderful, kind of magical, a huge 2900 metre volcano jutting straight out of the sea. It last erupted in 1995 but unfortunately didn’t erupt during my time on the island! My legs are aching a little from the trekking over it and even more so from descending from another crater, “Crater de Paul”, 6 hours down to the sea on San Andrao. Wonderful though. Refreshing.

I’m now two thirds of the way through Joyce’s masterwork. I think I am over the hump. The last couple of chapters have been pure joy to read and have made me think much about language and it’s cultural imperative and how you would do a similar thing in other mediums i.e. film! I have realised that the book is only really unreadable in the same way someone could consider Tarkovsky’s “Mirror” unwatchable. They are not about linear nor actual narrative drama. They are attempting something different.

I got a text message from Neil Harris telling me finally all the rushes are transferred. I am pencilled to spend another day with Caroline next Saturday watching them. I presume they will all be synced up by then.

I am back on Monday and on Tuesday me and Jonnie have a meeting with Chloe Alper who is designing a poster for the film. Then I will try to get a handle on the debts we have and how we will pay them.

I am back in the UK and have just spent most of today in the cutting room. The music, magic and cachupa of Cape Verde are just a pleasant memory now like the shoot is also becoming. Not that I am low about that, although maybe I AM. That is just life. Now I have half a year of post production ahead, hopefully a joyful premier at the end and maybe another film at the end of the year? Of course post-production is never as much “fun” as production. In 1996 I was at the Tokyo film festival and along with a load of other directors was asked to appear on a Japanese game show! One of the questions was “given the choice would you shoot forever or edit forever?” Nine out of the ten of us answered the former.

The trip back on Monday was fraught. Delay after delay, missed connections and lost luggage that has only just turned up. I was more than frazzled when I turned on Tuesday up at Chloe Alper’s to go through the poster designs. We explored one of the three ideas that she came up with, changing a blank red part of it to the red and yellow of the roundabout that Callum first meets Malika on. I hope it will work well.

At the NPA agm on Tuesday night, Williams Rodriguez breezed in while I was in the middle of my speech. He didn’t have the receipts – again! He further turned up on Wednesday to the first of the nine point directors training courses that I run this year, again without the receipts!!! He has now promised next week. If he doesn’t provide them then our only choice may have to be legal action especially as things are now starting to get critical with some of the people who are owed money. Yesterday me and Jonnie had a conference call with Max Steadi. Max told us that if he doesn’t have money soon he will have to liquidate his company and sell his steadicam. It doesn’t quite make sense to me or Jonnie why that would be the case and why the amount of money we owe him would cause him to owe three times that amount to the French government. Maybe the only explanation is that it IS France and strange things happen there!

Anyway, today I saw more rushes, just now 13 scenes worth to see. The love scene in the tent, the best take was the last one, the one Julie asked for so I have thanked her for that! She then said – don’t remind me. She has no reason to feel guilty about asking for that. None of us had a crystal ball as to what was going to happen after and also a) It was my call at the end of the day – NOT hers - and b) it’s done now.

The scene of the Soldier and Callum talking is sublime. Wonderfully performed. The second faeries scene is also wonderful although one of the set-ups was missing from the transfer and had to be done again!

I’ll see the rest next week. All is transferred and synced up. Proper post can now start!

On another positive note, Steve Norris is still alive. The picture he sent me was not of him committing suicide, just another oblique, thought provoking art-revolution post-modernist comment!