I have always thought Victoria to be the most stunningly beautiful model I have come across on all of the British model sites I use. Meeting her confirmed this. However, she has caused me one problem – I have over 800 images, and there isn’t a bad one among them!

Victoria – you are my No.1. It was a real pleasure working with you.

Here are just a few.

A very happy man !!!

I must get around to photographing all four of the Merriman team together today. Tim has changed so much in a week, and he is now coming out with a variety of expressions, so I need to capture the moment.

This is one I missed from two days ago…

Several times a year Bill Bradley from the National Coastwatch Institution, which has a primary role at the Worms Head, organises walks for NCI volunteers, their families & friends. I have been with NCI as a volunteer for probably two and a half years now, but I had still not “walked the Worm”. It is strange, one looks out at Worms Head each time you are on watch and form an impression of the terrain in the varying weather conditions. But nothing quite prepares you for the reality of ‘Walking The Worm’. It is accessible, as long as you are reasonably fit, prepared with the right clothing and footwear, and ensure that the tide is right. Needless to say, being an NCI inspired walk, the tide and weather conditions had been thoroughly checked by Bill before allowing his party to set out. What I had not calculated on was my historically weak ankles (several breaks as a teenager!),being sixty two and still believing that I am sixteen, a smoker & unfit, the terrain being more challenging than it looks from the mainland, plus Bill Bradley (despite being ten years older than me) being as fit as a juvenile Chamois!

Having said that, it was immensely rewarding and revealing. The beautiful thing about the Worms Head is its changeable nature. Undoubtedly one of the worlds great beauty spots, with its relationship with the sea constantly changing. A breeding place and shelter for a wide variety of wild life, flora & fauna. Dylan Thomas regularly explored its secrets. From his short story “Who do you wish was with us” he wrote;- “… Laughing on the cliff above the very long golden beach, we pointed out to each other, as though the other were blind, the great rock of the Worm’s Head. The sea was out. We crossed over on slipping stones and stood, at last, triumphantly on the windy top. There was monstrous, thick grass there that made us spring-heeled and we laughed and bounced on it, scaring the sheep who ran up and down the battered sides like goats. Even on this calmest day a wind blew on the Worm.”

Before him sailors for generations have used the strange rocky configerations as a landmark. In fact the name probably came from Viking invaders who saw the “Wurm” (also known as Guivre, Worm, and Wyrm) as a sea serpent. The area is reknown for over two hundred and fifty shipwrecks (http://www.gowershipwrecks.co.uk/), ( http://www.nciwormshead.org.uk/worms-head-locality/shipwrecks-introduction/470-whitford-wrecks-22-23-january-1868 ), the Helvetia being the most visible remnant, the prow still standing strikingly on Rhossili Beach.

Generations of local farmers have worked its resources, primarily for sheep grazing. It is reported that one even grew potatoes on the south side of the inner head, which produced an earlier crop than was expected. However the problems of transporting them from the Worm proved prohibitive.

The so called ’causeway’, which dangerously floods rapidly twice a day with the tide, looks benevolent from above. Once approached on foot still has treacherously slippery, sea smoothed rocks, together with deep beds of muscles. I was once asked by a dear lady in an electric wheelchair whether it [the Causeway] was accessible to cross. In simple terms, no. It is very unlikely that anyone with any substantial degree of disability would even get to the causeway. (Having set the challenge, I’m sure someone will prove me wrong. If so, I will buy you a drink!).

Regrouping as we set out on the causeway;-

Warnings of the dangers involved with the rapid currents are strategically placed along the walk from the Worms Head Hotel and the National Trust shop, but have been all too frequently ignored or not understood by visitors to the area. Lives have been lost here.

The path to the southern edge of the “Outer Head” is the safest, and having crossed the causeway, is a welcome relief.

The ‘beach’ area between the Inner & Outer Head comes as a surprise. This is the preferred and safest route if the tide is outgoing, as you will see from following images.

Looking back at the Northern pathway, it is evident why this path can be dangerous, especially if it is wet underfoot. It may be the best vantage point to watch the Grey Seals that come to bask between tides, however it is not the recommended route.

The Devil’s Bridge, viewed from the south side. It look precarious from this angle but in reality this is a reasonable crossing point.

A further view of the Devil’s Bridge taking in the Lower Neck to the right of the picture. Crossing the Lower neck involves a fair degree of scrabbling over some difficult terrain.

Approaching the Devil’s Bridge. The tree trunk, washed up on the right of the picture, serves as an aid to crossing

At one point here I launched myself between two rocks, but ended up straddling them, with quite a drop below me! My thanks to the gentleman who came to my rescue! I did feel foolish!

As this picture demonstrates, crossing at some points can be quite difficult. Injuries often occur on The Worm. The Coastwatch Station are able to offer help & assistance. This will involve informing the Coastguard, and assisting in coordinating any response. If the injury is in any way serious dial 999 for the Coastguard. For further advice the Coastwatch team can be contacted on 01792 390167

A further two views looking back from ‘The Low Neck’ toward the causeway.

A view from the Low Neck of the Coastwatch Station

A welcome relief after traversing the Lower Neck. The pathway on the Outer Head becomes more reasonable once again.

Looking back eastward toward the Inner Head.

A view toward the Outer Head from Devil’s Bridge

Looking back toward the Inner Worm from Devil’s Bridge. It is worth noting the the tide, at certain times of the year, can cover this area very quickly.

A view toward Rhossili beach from the Outer Head

Crossing Devil’s Bridge heading to the Outer Head

One of the main things to note is the sign on the Outer Head where members of the public are asked not to proceed any further between March 1st & August 15th because of birds breeding on the Head. Sadly, a large number of people completely ignore this request. I can understand why this must be frustrating, having walked so far and not being allowed to reach the end. I really feel that the National Trust (who own the land) should have advised people of this restriction well in advance of this point.

The final leg of the journey to the Outer Head

For many, climbing the summit of the Outer Head is the target. There is a right and a wrong way of doing this, and even while we were there other members of the public were taking unnecessary risks climbing an overhang of rock. Needless to say, Bill was quick to advise them of the error of their way!

A view of the southern side of the Worm taken from the base of the Outer Head

The return journey across the southern’beach’.

Our return journey across the top of the Inner Head

…and the descent back toward the Causeway

My special thanks to Bill Bradley for making this such a good and safe day.

For a fascinating article on the geology check out http://www.nciwormshead.org.uk/worms-head-locality/geology/121-geology-worms-head

I’ve just checked – these were taken on the 27th August.

…and bubble friends

This evening, (23rd) Tim gets his first ‘outing’ on the patio. Anna decides that it is a race, and lapped him easily…

Inevitably, at such high speeds, accidents happen. Neither party was insured!

No humans or dolls were injured in the making of this blog

And the guard dog…

Mark Thomas Biography – in his own words

Summary – Mark has been a performer since 1985, he has toured the UK and abroad, has made seven series of his own show for Channel 4, worked as a comic, an activist and a writer. He still just about has a regular column in the New Statesman magazine.

Mark was born in South London on the 11th April 1963. His mum was a midwife, his dad a self employed builder (and ex lay preacher).

Mark went to local primary school and then won a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital public school. Where he got some O-levels and A-levels.

He went to Bretton Hall in Yorkshire, in September 1981 and got a degree in Theatre Arts. Did shows in miner’s soup kitchens and fund raisers during the strike. Mark still does an annual benefit show for the National Union of Mineworkers in Wakefield.
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1985 November First proper stand up gig at the White Lion in Putney on 19th November. Shit. (Not sure if that refers to the gig or Putney – Ed.)

December First paid gig .
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1986-89 Mark stops working with his dad and does stand up full time.

To be honest this period is a bit hazy but 1st Radio gig was Cabaret upstairs for Radio 4 and first TV gig was Friday Night Live (going on about shopping trolley rage and Opera singers, we think – Ed.).

Other TV bits included Paramount City, London Underground.

Becomes a regular compere at the Comedy Store in Leicester Square. Does the things comics do, gigs, students gigs, Edinburgh festival gigs.
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1989 Mark is a weekly regular on the first series of the Mary Whitehouse Experience for Radio One.

Performs hippy gigs in Northern California
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1990 Founder member of the Cutting Edge weekly topical comedy show at the Comedy Store.

Wins Time Out award for his “distinctive contribution to the art of comedy.”

Presents the weekly two hour magazine programme on Radio 5- The Mix. Mark makes it through live sessions with Julian Cope, interviews with Kurt Vonnegut and the BBC’s decision not to mention the war. Leaves after nine months.
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1991- Presents Radio 5 documentary “Sleeping with the NME.”

Hosts Radio One topical show Loose Talk, with Kevin Day for series one and two.
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1992 – Montreal International Comedy Festival in Canada.

Hosts Series Three of Loose Talk for Radio One (Leaves after this series)

Nominated for the Perrier Award.
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1993- Montreal comedy festival.

Regular stand up slot on Saturday Zoo -Channel 4, hosted by Jonathan Ross, alongside Kevin Day, John Shuttleworth and Steve Coogan.

Host for Viva Cabaret Channel 4
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1994-Mark appears as a regular on Denton the weekly Australian TV show. Unfortunately this is via satellite.

Hosts another series of Viva Cabaret Channel 4
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1995-Radio 4 series one “Booked!”, the satirical literary show- Mark is a weekly regular on the show alongside Roger McGough, Ian Macmillan, Miles Kingstone and Dillie Keane.
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1996-First Series of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product(six programmes). Bets half the last shows budget on a horse and loses ends up making the last show in a friends living room.

Released video- Sex, Filth and Religion. The video is about sex, filth and religion.

Records Album – Live at the Birmingham Rep.
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1997. Second series of Booked for Radio 4
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1998-Series 2 of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product (7 programmes). Medical cannabis users bum rush Jack Straw’s constituency surgery. The series proves that radioactive seagull shit is at large in Sellafield (the clean up costs come to around £1m). Organises a mass paging of Labour MP’s during the party conference instructing M.P’s to call encore at the end of Jack Straw’s law and order speech. They do. Gets viewers asking to see Sir Nicolas Soames (ex Tory Armed Forces minister) furniture that they are entitled to under the conditionally exempt works of art tax scheme. So many people apply he ends up paying the tax on his furniture.

Dispatches- The Lie of the Land. Investigates the con of the wealthy avoiding inheritance tax by making their art, furniture, homes and land available for public viewing- except they hide the information so no one knows about it. Gordon Brown changes the law in the following budget. The Rothschilds end up paying about a million in tax rather than let the hoi polloi in.

Third series of Booked for Radio 4 (leaves after this one).
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1999- January saw Series 3 of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product (8 programmes), includes a front PR team at an arms fair in Greece and getting testimony on the use of torture and UK equipment in East Timor. Assists British Nuclear Fuels Ltd by providing a citizens militia to guard they cargos of nuclear waste from Dungeness to Sellafield. Flying a hot air balloon over US spy base in Yorkshire, Menwith Hill.

The series receives a special commendation from Amnesty International at their media awards ceremony.

September saw Series 4 of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product (5 programmes). Mark tries to break sanctions by exporting a teddy bear to Iraq, accosts a civil servant in the gents and checks out the health and safety record of Aldermaston.
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2000- January sees the second half of series 4 of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product (6 programmes). More fun with Nestle who change their labeling for baby milk in certain African countries, MT tries to hand over a troupe of French acrobats to MI5 for breaking the official secrets act and ends up on the front page of the Guardian.

One off programme on the Immigration and Asylum bill for the Channel 4 Kosovo season.

Radio 4- Celluloid Psychiatrists – a four part series where Mark interviews the medical profession about the portrayal of themselves and mental illness throughout film.

Changes name of show – Mark Thomas Product, does another series. Nestle end up changing the labeling on their baby products in some African states, ambushes a top civil servant in a toilet.
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2001 Series 5 Mark Thomas Product (six programmes) at the start of the year. Discloses the then Environment Minister Michael Meacher’s addiction to property (12 homes and rising), finds out that the Minister for Trade Richard Caborn has asked for civil servants to “dig for dirt on Thomas so he can rubbish him.” Finds corruption in Export Credit Guarantee Department project and makes programme using CCTV footage claimed under the data protection act.

Fact finding visit to Algerian refugee camps, West Saharawis trying to get their country back from Morocco. Britain had recently reequipped Morocco with Howitzer cannons.

Fact finding trips to Turkey and the Kurdish regions.

Presents Left Bank of the Mind-Radio 4 series on Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl and Tom Lehrer

Tours UK with a two hour show called Dambusters the story of the Ilisu Dam- show sells out much to distress of Balfour Beatty and the UK government. Towards the end of the tour the deal for the dam collapses with UK and Italian firms pulling out of the deal.

Laughing Stock CD of the tour- DAMBUSTERS.

Starts writing bi monthly column for the New Statesman magazine
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2002 Mark presented with the Kurdish National Congress Medal of Honour and a Human Rights Award from the Kurdish Human Rights Project.

Series 6 Mark Thomas Product (six programmes) including a programme on drug dumping, how to become an arms dealer in 8 days and building an enormous ice dam in the corporate headquarters of a company set to build a new dam in Turkey- company later pull out of the deal. Mark calls it a day with the Product, quietly kills it and leaves after 45 programmes.

Secret Map of Britain – Channel 4

American embassy threaten vengeance on Mark and the Editor of the New Statesman Peter Wilby, after Mark publicly puts a bounty on President Bush of £4,320. The story makes the Today programme. The following week in an act of contrition and admission of wrong doing Mark and Peter increased the bounty to 5 grand.

Is part of the CND team attempting to take the UK government to court over “resolution 1441” and going to war. Lose but were right.
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2003- Mark Thomas Weapons Inspector for Dispatches Channel 4- makes a nerve wracked visit to the US to investigate their biological and chemical weapons programme and back home tries to make a nuclear inspection at the UK’s nuclear submarine base at Faslane using a peddlo and armed with a lawyer in a wet suit and a copy of the Geneva Convention.

Mark Thomas Debt Collector for Dispatches Channel 4 – a programme on the creation and profit to be made from Iraq’s world debt.

Tours UK on the forth coming invasion of Iraq detailing the attempts to get UK government into the dock and the birth “Los Confetti-istas!”

Banned for life from all Mean Fiddler events and venues for a surprise confetti attack during the Reading Festival.
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2004- Mark is acquitted of criminal damage after he and some friends “locked on” to a bus full of arms dealers.

Addresses the Barnsley Miners Gala on the 20th anniversary of the strike.

Fact finding trips on the trail of Coca Cola to India and Colombia

Co-curates an art exhibition called Coca Cola Nazi Adverts, this is a collective and growing work that encourages people from across the world to photo shop, draw, print or sculpt on the theme of conflicts with the multinational company.

The exhibition exhibits in the Nancy Victor Gallery in the west end of London, Gallery, the Foundry, Colombia and Ecuador.

Performs a residency at the Tricycle Theatre London and tours the UK with a show about Coca Cola.

Awarded with a United Nations International Services Association Global Human Rights Defender Award.
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2005- Tours UK with Robert Newman.

Newsnight refuse to broadcast an investigation by MT on the Hinduja Group and military supplies to Sudan, after Hinduja Group threatens court action.

Radio 4 series Mark Thomas Presents…introducing live sets recorded in the UK from Stan Freidberg, the Firesign Theatre, Shelley Berman and Mort Sahl.

Awarded a MISTY, a media activists award from the radical film making NGO Undercurrents.
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2006- Coca Cola Nazi Adverts exhibits in Venezuela.

After School Arms Club Dispatches Channel 4- documentary on arms brokerage laws where 2 schools form arms companies to show loopholes in UK and European arms control laws. Irish government pledge to introduce brokerage laws by the end of the years.

Gives oral evidence to the Quadripartite Select Committee (who have oversight on arms control) on torture equipment and embargoed destinations (the Hinduja Group and Sudan).

Radio 4’s Chain Reaction interviewed by Barry Cryer, in turn Mark interviews Alexei Sayle.

Book “As used on the famous Nelson Mandela” is due to be published July by Ebury Press on 6th July 2006.