English man in Font

After Between The Trees went platinum, I decided to take some time off and look slightly beyond the horizon. I bought a big warehouse in China and have a team of 40 people who do nothing but box and ship DVD’s out in their thousands. I was surprised by the take up in nations such as Bolivia and Iran, but it turns out that they want to see hard things look easy too.

Once the factory was set up and I knew that I could manufacture tens of thousands per week I decided to do the only sensible thing and reinvest into Unclesomebody Productions. I’ve hired a few guys who are all now perma staff on the team. Wes, Steve, and Andrew are now working on scouring the globe for the next big project. I also poured some money into other fixed assets, such as helicopters, RED cams, and Hollywood grade editing suites. It’s all looking pretty handsome right now, and from where I’m sitting, the big time is looking like a comfortable place to spend some time.

Once I’d taken care of business, it was time to take care of myself. The advantages of now having a American Express black card are truly wonderful, and I can’t even imagine how I lived without them in the past. I decided it would be nice to have a staffed house in the Bahamas, so I made one call to my personal concierge service and within 1 hour I had the house, the first class flights were booked, and a car would be waiting for me. It’s little details like this that make me really glad I decided to make Between The Trees. Who would have thought it…

Life in the Bahamas has been really nice. Being December, the climate is generally rain free, and daytime temperatures around 21C are perfectly comfortable. I’ve been spending much time on the veranda, staring out past the orchard and onto the shimmering blue of the Atlantic. Somewhere in the distance I can hear the sound of hard work, but it’s barely audible over the sounds of my personal DJ. This is a great service and is once again something I don’t know how I survived without. I used to have to seek out new music myself, cue it up in winamp, and listen to it via a couple of NAD amplifiers hooked up to KEF speakers. Now it seems that all I have to do is think about what I fancy and the beat begins to match. My pulse/heartrate and other physical stats are transmitted to the DJ (who also happens to have gained his Doctorate from Cambridge) via a small chip which he implanted. Now he knows when I’m beginning to wake up so he knows when to start playing the morning set. It’s a wonderful sensation to open your eyes and hear the perfect sound whilst laying eyes on the most beautiful landscape one can imagine.

The world of leisure activities was something which I seemingly knew nothing about, as I’ve seen spectacles that would defy belief in the last few weeks on my Island. One major advantage of being part of the nouveau riche crowd is that I am morally inept. It’s wonderful. I have furnished the island with a zoo of immense proportions, including animals from every land. Once a week we arrange a great fight, where the animals are paired via a random lottery system. They are then placed in the “cage of justice” and at most only 1 of them is allowed to leave. There have been times when, excitedly, neither have left the cage, the winner seemingly sacrificing his life simply for my pleasure. I have great respect for those champions. Last week we saw a wonderful battle between a cheetah and a chicken! Who would have thought that a chicken could put up quite so much resistance. The cheetah was nearly worn down, but in the end its speed combined with the chickens seeming lack of risk assessment gave the victory to the feather covered cheetah. I have proposed that we start airing these battles, so keep an eye out as whatever price I do charge it will be undervalued, I promise you that.

Climbing seems to have lost the appeal it’s once had. I did have a woody built to my exacting specifications in the stables, but I’ve only been down there once, to make sure all the holds were clean. I was surprised to see the Beastmaker boys still there, as they told me it would only take them 1 week to custom make every single one of the 30,000 holds I needed to train effectively. It’s no bother though, they generally keep themselves to themselves, stealing a bit of fruit from the orchard, but I grant them that for providing me with a fingerboard last year. It’s a simple training philosophy to which the board was build. Specificity. I have large board covered in only one type of hold, and a certain orientation, and at a certain angle. I then replicated this as angles ranging from 20 to 60 degrees overhanging. For every different grip type, there is a different board, as there is for every hold type (mono’s, pockets, undercuts, pinches, etc). I guess that with bundles of cash it’s easy to make your dreams a reality. My dream of the perfect training venue has been realised, and yet I lie here dictated my blog post to a beautiful girl who types away furiously whilst making me cocktails with her other hand. It’s these simple pleasures that really give life any meaning…

The future looks interesting. I’m thinking of staying in retirement for a good while longer. I’m taking the jetski out today to battle with some dolphins. They might have won the last round, but the war is far from over. I’ve got the spear sharpened, my speedo’s tighter than ever, and I’ve made inroads into holding my breathe for 10 minutes underwater. Half man, half fish, all rich.