First up, apologies for the long gap between this and the last blog...since we left the studio at the end of filming the Sunday before last there's been two Gunjee gigs (late starts and very late nights), all of the Top Gunge Halloween Special editing and rendering to get through, plus the usual day-to-day admin and everything else to stay on top of...but today is my first day of peace in a while, so back to the blog!

At the end of the last update I left you on sat night (I think it was around 9 or 9.30 at night, all I can say is the Beagles were definitely happy to see us when we got back!) After feeding the dogs and feeding the troops (Leon, Lisa, Meg, Jonny and myself at Moomin Towers, plus of course Belle and Boo) we settled down for the most important task of the day - the season finale of Doctor Who! By the time we'd finished food and sci-fi it was time for my bed, with just a quick stop off to label today's tapes and capture the files from the hard drive cameras...I think I could hear Lisa moving the first lot of clothes/towels from washer to drier and chucking the second lot into the washing machine as I laid down for the night.....

....only to be rudely woken by an alarm far earlier than normal. By normal, I mean for me (as working lots of nightclub events means a sleep pattern of 4am-11am is my norm). By 12 noon I was up, showered, at the studio and busy mixing gunge and organising games. The original plan was to shoot two more episodes today (to follow on from two yesterday), but before Dr Who last night we worked out that just one on Sunday was the better option.....it's a balance, because we've got 1700 litres of gunge in the bowl and want to make the best use of it before it starts to go off....but we don't want everyone stood around for 2 or more hours whilst we reset the studio between episodes. Three per weekend is a happy medium, plus my back is showing signs of age!

So Sunday is Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone! I had thought about omitting this part or just glossing over it, but this if a truthful behind the scenes look at what we do, and like many shows we shoot seasonal specials a *bit* in advance, to make it easier and more efficient. Plus we had all the decorations left over from last year!!!

So first thing once we got back to the studio was to check it had been fully cleaned and was now dry from the night before - which it was mostly, only needed a quick run around with the aquavac. Next was starting to mix more gunge. Yesterday we'd started with around 1700 litres in the Gunge Bowl, but we'd lost some of that on girls getting out and through girls throwing gunge! So we needed to mix up another 240 litres or so for that, 240-litres-ish for the Gunge Booth, 240-litres-ish for the messy Pass-The-Parcel (replacing the normal interview section), 100-litres-ish for Pictionary and also there were pies to prepare for Pass-The-Parcel, as well as loads of messy food for the Christmas Dinner section! Add in two Christmas trees and lots of waterproof fairy-lights and we were ready for the girls!

Party frocks were the order of the day (see attached pics) and we managed to get through the games quite efficiently, starting with Pictionary (like last year the girls getting gunged were not guessing themselves - they were being protected by team-mates, just to keep it more interesting!), then onto the Gunge Booth, then messy Pass-The-Parcel (which was <u>epic</u>, don't miss it), then the Gunge Bowl and then Messy Christmas Dinners. Everyone was feeling so festive by the end it was weird to head outside into the October sun afterwards!

The final part of the day (after waiting for the girls to clear through the showers) is to move the props into the cleaning area, scrape the floor, pick up the rubbish, thank Jonny from MessyMayhem and Chris and Leon and Lisa and the rest of the girls for all their hard work all weekend, stop in the off-license for a pack of lager and head back home, shattered, sore, still a bit gooey and looking forward to a hot bath, a cold beer and the start of the editing.....

.....which will be part five of the blog! Coming soon!

Big Dave