Ratface

Met him briefly at the Gothenburg Film Festival. A huge bonus as we didn’t know he would be answering questions after the showing of a selection of his short films.

If you get a chance to see a Svankmajer film like Alice or Faust, then do it. They are unforgettable.

I got to interview Gilbert when he was in London promoting the Fabulous Furry Freak brothers. This would have been the early 1990s when I worked at Forbidden Planet and wrote articles for Comics World.

He had been a hero of mine for a long time and I was nervous about the interview. He answered a lot of questions with simple yes & no answers and seemed reticent to open up at all. After the interview I listened through my tape and felt I had got very little material. However I tuned into a radio interview he was doing later that day and realised that he is simply a very taciturn person.

The interview turned out to be a success when it was written up as an article – and Gilbert gave me a very fine sketch of Fat Freddies cat that I still have in a frame at home.

Purps and her hubby have visited us in Sweden several times. Not least they came to help us celebrate our wedding in 2004. At the wedding we had a gigantic cake with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme topped off with Jack and Sally figures that Purps had bought for us.

What a great friend!

Got made redundant, started a company, got my first clients, cycled a lot (2500km), celebrated my mum’s 60th birthday, hired an employee, programmed a lot, launched products, saw Vive La Fête, Khonnor and a bunch of other bands, did wonderful things with my wife, cooked a lot, prepared a new product launch, had a great christmas.

In a restaurant in Islington after a fun session at the gym/spa.

Ratface worked out with my hubby and his wife and I were pampered in the spa.

What a lovely day