Hello There,

We really need help. Over the next month the rather bland carcass of 159 Hoxton Street, N1 will be transformed into a monster supply shop, with a Ministry of Stories secreted behind its humble facade. We are working with a great team of designers, but we need people power to make it happen in time.

We are going to be holding working parties and need volunteers to come along and help paint, build, arrange, clean and hold things steady whilst someone drills – you get the pictures. If you can make any of the following times, please just turn up and lend a hand.

WORKING PARTY TIMETABLE

evenings of Monday 18 October and Tuesdays 5, 12 & 19 October 5pm-10pm every Sunday from now until 24 October Monday 25 – Thursday 28 10am – 10pm

EQUIPMENT
We are realising how much equipment a Ministry needs, and are starting a drive for donations. If you are able to donate any of the following useful
things-
please contact info@ministryofstories with the subject line ‘I can donate a [insert your much needed and gratefully received item here]‘.

a hoover
a mop and bucket
30 drinking water cups for a class
laminator
shredder
binding machine
children’s books in good condition (including picture dictionary, dictionary, range of ages up to young adult/adult) portable stereo teapot microphone and stand small pa system suspension files for filing cabinet telephone pinboard extension leads

We’d also like to borrow some things that will help us with our fit out.
Do you have any of these things that you could lend us through October?

Paintbrushes, paint trays and rollers
Stepladder
Dustsheets
Sewing machines
Large car/van and driver for IKEA trip

Thanking you in advance. Over and out.

The Ministry of Stories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5JaicYuVU&feature=player_embedded

I hope you had a good summer.

http://www.nonesuch.com/journal/ben-folds-adds-music-to-nick-hornby-s-words-for-lonely-avenue-due-september-28-on-nonesuch-2010-06-14

I had England to win two-nil on Saturday night. If only I knew someone who was a decent tipster:

http://www.gq.com/sports/guides/201006/world-cup/nick-hornby-vs-sean-wilsey-world-cup-2010#ixzz0qoud7VQ5

Impressions of the weekend, in no particular order: our producer, Finola Dwyer an Oscar nominee too – on the verge of being escorted from the Kodak Theatre after a ticketless visit to the toilet, moments before the ceremony started; T-Bone Burnett and Michael Giacchino, musical geniuses both, deep in conversation at the Vanity Fair party, statuettes dangling casually from their hands; my new friend Geoffrey Fletcher’s genuine incomprehension when it was announced that he’d won an Oscar for his Precious screenplay; Piers Morgan, penned in behind the press cordon on the red carpet (his frustration and bewilderment were almost tangible); Colin Firth, inches away from us and trying not to make eye-contact, as he read the Academy’s tribute to ‘An Education’ from the autocue; Carey Mulligan’s face as the acceptance speeches for Best Documentary Short, the category she was presenting, degenerated into an unfortunate but amusing farce. (There was, apparently, some ill-will between the producer and the director.) And, inevitably, I was directly involved in a great deal of A-list celebrity obsequiousness, although I will spare the blushes of the A-list celebrities involved. (They might not want people to know that they suck up to writers.) Disappointingly, just about everyone I met over the last six months has been lovely, or at least faultlessly polite. There is only one fellow nominee I wouldn’t be pleased to run into again, and that was someone I had expected to like.

And now it’s over. I haven’t really written anything since I finished ‘Juliet, Naked’, a year ago, and though I will miss being in the same room as Meryl Streep, it’s time to get back to work. It may not be what I do best (I’m actually pretty good at being in the same room as Meryl Streep), but it’s what I get paid for.

“It’s the nicest part”, a previous nominee told me  before the lunch. “There are no losers yet, just people delighted to have been nominated. After that, it all gets depressing.” I told him that it couldn’t get depressing for us. We know we can’t win any of our three categories, and we’re still euphoric about the distance that our small movie has travelled. But this week, the tenor of the online conversation has changed. On In  Contention (an invaluable, readable and always trustworthy companion during this whole business) Kris Tapley notes that Carey Mulligan’s early buzz “seemed to dwindle throughout the fall awards season”, as Sandra Bullock started winning prizes; another website predicts that we will be one of only (!) one-hundred and thirty-five  or so Best Picture nominees in history to collect no Oscars whatsover. (We’ll be in good company. ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The Maltese Falcon’ didn’t win anything either.) Ah, yes. When did it all go wrong for Carey? It must have been at some point between her Oscar nomination and her BAFTA win.