It Never Rains But It Pours

It's Murphy's Law, isn't it. When you really need to get something done, the elements conspire against you to make the task nigh on impossible. Today I went into town - not a big deal, I know - but the reason was because in a few weeks time it's Dad's 60th birthday, and he asked me if I could send him a video message to be played at his party. No worries, easily enough done - especially as I have borrowed the school mac and could do a spot of editing on it. A few years back I did a video message for my grandparents for their 60th wedding anniversary. I went around to a few of the places that we had visited together when they were here, and I told a few little anecdotes standing in front of those locations. Packaged the tape all up and sent it to Uncle David at AVP to work his magic on. No worries.

So I thought that I had best do something similar for Dad. Only problem is, his birthday is in 2 weeks and so there won't be enough time for Uncle David to edit it. But I have the mac. If I can get the footage done on Saturday (today), edit it a bit on Sunday, post it off Monday special delivery or something - that should do it. It should arrive in time. But of course, I didn't allow for Murphy's Law. I woke up this morning, it was absolutely pinging it down with rain. Heavy, heavy rain. Me and a video camera in London in heavy rain. Yeah, right. But I packed it all up, rugged up in my weatherproof (what a sexy look that is!) and headed off to my first location, Trafalgar Square. And at Trafalgar Square I was accosted by thousands of leather clad, pink t-shirted, rainbow flag hippy dudes and dudettes in drag. That's right, people. Today was gay pride or some such. They took over all the locations I needed for my video message, some of them thinking (how?) that I was some sort of reporter, and trying to get in on my video... they were everywhere! Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Oxford St - everywhere. So that was Murphy's Law problem number 1. Problem number 2 was that I had borrowed a camcorder from school because mine is not so good when its overcast - the media guy at school assured me the battery was fully charged, but I got half way through my first message and the battery completely died. Completely. Couldn't even take the tape out of the camera. Luckily I had mine there for backup, but now I've got very dark pictures and also, my camera doesn't have an external mic input - so I had to shout my message. And all the while the rain just keeps pouring on down... Then I found out about Murphy's Law problem number 3. You wouldn't read about it. The posties are on strike at the moment. So even if I manage to edit something in time for Monday, there's no knowing when it will actually get sent. Or even if it will arrive in time... So looks like I might have to give up my delusions of video message grandeur and pop out a quick, emailed mpeg message instead from the living room! Oh well, I can always try again tomorrow - anyone fancy going up to London to be my cameraman?