the launch of the coastival poster/brochure on the south bay beach. there had been notice it would be a swimsuit model for this photo opportunity, and rumours abounded of who might be brave enough to pose as our poster buxom beauty (who has been christened ‘gladys’ by the coastival team). but not many people had counted on a male model… a very game andrew clay, director of woodend creative workspace. pick up a brochure to see his comic counterpart.

above: evening news photographer andrew higgins (see his daily photo journal here) sorting various musicians, artists, dj’s and more.

above: andrew clay in character with coastival director, wendy clews. joining in on the snapping is tony bartholomew who is also photoblogging as coastival365. contact tony if you’d like photos of the launch or just of andrew in a bathing suit. we won’t ask why.

photo from the press call at ‘the shop of priceless things’ in rotherham on friday. poet john w clarke admiring some of the stock collected from the people of rotherham, me dressed as a tugboat captain for no reason other than it’s the warmest jumper i have. james behind the lens.

as you can see, this was taken part-way through the window graphics being applied – which was proving to be a struggle at only 5°. there are some tweaks being applied this week and we’ll have pics of the whole shop – all nine windows – early next week.

i thought i should report back on the downing street visit – it was quite an experience, and having had time to reflect a few things still stand out:

surrealism: steve and i were ushered into a side room on arrival – privileged to be part of a select group of 5 out of the 150 present who had been invited to personally meet the prime minister and lord mandelson. (a blue sticker on your name badge indicated your special status) i remember turning to steve and admitting i was finding this all a bit surreal. he concurred. i have to admit it felt quite good to follow the PM out into the main rooms with everyone looking and rushing to shake his hand. we played it cool scarborough, we played it cool.

charisma: everyone asks what the prime minister is really like. as you might have heard elsewhere he is surprisingly charismatic, affable and witty in real life. his speech was delivered without notes and peppered with a couple of jokes about recession – perhaps a tad risky in a room full of small business owners but those assembled seemed to appreciate his honesty. he came across very well – the tv cameras really do hate him.

rush: it was also clear though that his life is probably planned to the second, with his arrival imminent we had to down glasses and (quickly! and in the right order!) line up ready and waiting. and he was ushered away immediately after his speech to vote in the new speaker of the house. it was clear that any hopes of actually having a conversation with him were a tad naive – our meeting was a handshake, thanks for what we were doing and small talk as we were photographed. but by the time the speech was under way steve and i were happily loitering at the back, glowing slightly and enjoying a glass of wine thinking what the heck – how many people get personally thanked by the PM?

message: but before it sounds like we just went down and attempted to drink some of our taxes back, be assured that we did make some serious effort getting scarborough’s message across to government ministers and staff. what was a real surprise was how genuinely nice the government people were and how much they knew about us. several people – including rosie winterton, minister for regional economic development and minister for yorkshire who recognised us from across the room – made an effort to come up and say how impressed they were with scarborough winning with european enterprise awards. we were made to feel rather special and certainly felt very proud to be representing the town.

art: after chatting with some other entrepreneurs (all equally bemused at their invitation) and after speaking to journalists we then wandered around looking at the state rooms and the art on the walls. an interesting mix – there’s a whole other blog post on that topic to come i suspect.

after: we did the obligatory posing for a photo in front of the iconic door and then steve and i went for a couple of pints opposite the houses of parliament and reflected on the evening. strangely i think my overriding memory of the evening will be the arriving. having to turn up without an invitation when everybody else had one (just say your name on the gate, they said), going through the security check and then being left to wander up downing street to the door of number 10 keeping a careful eye on the policeman with the machine gun just in case i looked as out of place as i felt. it was a bit like walking through the other side of a mirror.

it’s been one of those weird weeks with a mix of good news and high pressure in equal measures. so when rebecca took a phonecall mid-meeting and announced there was someone on the other end asking if i was planning on meeting gordon brown and peter mandelson for drinks on monday evening, i assumed it was a wind-up.

but it wasn’t. and so myself and steve bromham of scarborough IT-consultancy save9 will be turning up at no.10 downing street this monday. apparently the evening is to congratulate businesses succeeding despite the recession although our invitation is, of course, due to scarborough’s renaissance partnership winning the grand jury prize for britain in the european enterprise awards.

the situation became even more bizarre when i received another phone call late today saying that there were a few people the prime minister would like to talk and be photographed with specifically and could i email over a quick biography and photo so they’d be able to pick me out when i arrived. i am seriously wondering if they’ve got the right person…

still, it’s an honour nonetheless, not least to represent scarborough, the town that has been so good to me. i shall be encouraging the PM and secretary for business, innovation and skills to pay us a visit sometime. i’m thinking that surely it’s good for a government during a recession to be visiting the most enterprising place in europe… a coastal town in the uk? the invitation to downing street is also a good excuse for me and the family to make a short break of it and ‘do the sights’. sorry, no sense of urban cool here – we want to see soldiers in shiny helmets strutting about on horses in front of the queen’s house thank you.

hastily-written media release: media-release-ea-and-save9-at-no-10-v19-06-09

our first exhibition in the tiny gallery – new works in architectural glass by rachel welford – is over and we’re rather sad to see the lightboxes go although very pleased that the two window panels specially created for the exhibition have remained and are now in their new places at either end of our studio/gallery windows. they were in the background when we were interviewed on bbc look north last week. so you can still have a look if you’re passing.

we’ll also be keeping some of rachel’s work on the gallery website – the idea is to build up an online gallery of work for sale by artists who have exhibited with us.

our new exhibition opens on thursday evening [invitation above] and features work by local painter malcolm macdonald. do come along.

you heard it here first: scarborough has been awarded the grand jury prize in the european enterprise awards.

we were entered in the awards after wining the 2008 enterprising britain competition which was pretty much our life at electric angel for a month or two last year. we updated the material we produced for the national competition to go to the european judges and produced some new illustrations for scarborough’s submission to help explain some of the key economic changes in the town. so we’re well chuffed to have helped scarborough and great britain win this prestigious award.

the real congratulations go to everyone who has been involved in scarborough’s renaissance over the past 7 years – it has given the town reason to believe in itself again and that is why we won. well done everybody.

a freak blizzard brought scarborough to a halt for our gallery opening, but lots of friends still braved the snow to look at rachel’s work and glass or two of much-needed schnapps. we had a nice gentle stream of visitors on friday – the first day of coastival – as the snow rapidly vanished and rachel and i were interviewed on bbc radio york.

the exhibition runs to 15 may and is open whenever we’re in. do pop in if you’re passing.

rachel has created two glass & mirror window panels as part of her exhibition which are specific to the location. they’re based on the view from inside the gallery and reflections in the windows from outside and can be viewed from both inside and outside the gallery. our gallery overlooks scarborough’s south bay and spa footbridge and they’re the images you can see in the design.

also in the exhibition are two lightboxes and two wall pieces.

we wondered if this was the very definition of postmodernism – me taking a photograph of rachel taking a photograph of a piece of work made from photographs that rachel had taken including a reflection of rachel taking a photograph of the reflection.

it’s not every day you get your photo in the paper under the headline ‘failing’. well, they say all publicity is good publicity. [mail on sunday 18.10.08. full deadline: failing resort town turns tide.]

some more enterprising britain publicity for electric angel:
financial times 20.10.08
small business 21.10.08
but what made it all worthwhile was jim fixing it for us…
you’ve not achieved anything in scarborough until jim gives it the thumbs up.

ta to everyone who’s got in touch after seeing me on/in inform magazine. your comments were mostly polite. i was photographed on the beach for what i thought would be a small pic accompanying an article on enterprising britain and was rather surprised to find myself cover model too. it’s been suggested there might have been some kind of sony product placement deal going on… alas not, but i’m tempted to send them a copy and pleading letter now my laptop is full of sand.

download a copy of inform for the article and bizarre ‘adrian in middle of freak storm’ pic here

photos of victoria performing in york station. this was the best of the unusual venues we visited to promote coastival. people stopped to listen, often to chat and the sound of arias echoing around the magnificent station architecture created quite an atmosphere. it was lovely to see people look and smile even as they were dashing to catch a train. radio york interviewed victoria and myself live from the station and broadcast a snippet of her performance.

our task was also to take photos for use in future publicity – this was sometimes a little more hazardous than we had anticipated. the photo at the humber bridge below very nearly resulted in james and i getting blown across the humber. we were also accused of stealing real road signs – so they must look the part!

you can sign up to be first in the know with headline acts, listing and special offers for coastival at www.coastival.com. full resolution versions of the photos of victoria performing are also available on the coastival website.