This week I started a filmmaking class at Austin Film Works. It seemed the right thing to do. I have a miniDV camera, I’ve taken a course on film editing and bought the software, I’ve learned a bunch of movie-making jargon, bought a screenwriting package, come up with an idea for a short film and exhausted Amazon’s supply of books on filmmaking, editing and writing. In short, I’ve done everything except actually create something.

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So I just ordered my ‘Yoga Kills’ t-shirt from my fave British t-shirt shop Toby Pimlico. Sadly they aren’t yet stocking any ‘Golf Blows’ 3-button nylon shirts but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. It’s not so much golf that I have a problem with, everyone has the right to make a tit of themselves, it’s more the attitude towards golf that bothers me.

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To my mother, the passport office and the HSBC bank, with whom I had an account 3 years ago and have never quite gotten around to canceling, I am Margaret H Gallant. To everyone else I’m Maggie Gallant, or in extreme cases Margaret Gallant. Doesn’t sound so bad does it? I didn’t think so, till I moved here and found that having no middle initial made me something of a loser.

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I’m standing in line at Starbucks (which I hate admitting to because as an Austinite I’m supposed to support the independent coffee houses, but they’re too far away and frankly kinda scary). So there’s a bit of a line in front and behind me and only one person taking orders. Finally the guy ahead of me gets to the counter and I hear the overly chirpy voice ask him what she can get him. And his reply? “Oh, I don’t know, what do you recommend?”

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Hello? … yes … it’s me mum, Maggie, yes you called me … I am still in bed … no I haven’t wasted the best part of the day, it’s only 4 in the morning here … yes the time difference is 6 hours, in the OTHER direction …..

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Take a few yards of plastic sheeting and a roll of duct tape. Add half an empty washing-up liquid bottle, a wire coat hanger and 2 cardboard toilet rolls and you’d have a project to make Blue Peter presenters proud. Or envious. Blue Peter, a 40 year old institution in children’s television which, for most of us over the age of 25, brought us such treasured memories as:

- Goldie, the inventively named Golden Retriever. ‘Owned’ by 80s presenter Simon Groom who managed to wangle regular visits back home by subjecting viewers to coverage of life down on his parents Derbyshire farm. Goldie’s litter of pups supposedly ended up “being trained as guide dogs”, though the show had a history of lying about its studio pets — beginning with border collie pup Petra whose premature death after two shows was expertly covered up by Valerie Singleton and a Petra look-alike.

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