The View from Up Here Is Brilliant (part one)

Aug 1st 2009 was like most days that summer, Wet! I had travelled to work that morning as I always did had half asleep and praying for a quick uneventful day.
My main holidays of the year had been and gone and all there was to look forward to now was more of the same long dreary days full of the same dreary events, working all week and looking forward to the weekend where I did little but wait for Monday morning to come along so I could start the same routine all over again. Little did I know then I was about to embark on a journey, A journey that when it was over I would be able to look back on as a starting point in my ambition to change this life into something more.
I had arrived at work as normal that morning at around 5.30am taking over from the nightshift I opened the rear gates and turned on all the lights in the building before settling down at my desk and checking my work e-mails, finding very little to do that morning I signed into my gmail account.
Reading the usual mix of important mails such as ” Hi Alan Congratulations you have won our grand prize…….” or “blah blah is now following you on Twitter”
Which is normally someone who will tell me how I could change my life if I just sign up to the extremely fair priced life coach training @ £299 for a whole set of videos, tempted, let me think about it not.
But just as I was about to give up and head over to something more exciting I noticed: info inbox One & Other: Congratulations “You have been chosen to take part in One”
Almost Instantly my heart stopped as just for a moment, I froze remembering a few months agoI had applied for a place in one of the biggest art events in the country however thinking that I would have no chance, and I don’t mind saying I was more than a little nervous on clicking on that line to open it up.
I read it once then read it again, Its true I shouted out looking around me talking to the walls as if they were my atentive audence, I have never wanted to have someone else with me so much with an over whelming urge to tell all the great news. However with it being only 05.50am and my wife most likley asleep I managed to control that reaction but only just.
the e-mail said:
info@oneandother.co.uk to me

One & Other
Congratulations! You have been chosen to take part in One & Other – Antony Gormley’s extraordinary live monument due for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Your name has been selected at random from the many thousands who entered the draw – you are one of just 2,400 people who will each take their place on the plinth for an hour, to create a living monument in a place that’s usually home to commemorative statues!
Your slot is 0300-0400 on Thu 24 September 2009.
It is not possible to swap the time you’ve been allocated (though we’re sure you won’t want to lose it!). You may, however, decide not to accept it, in which case your name will remain in the draw until the end of the event, but of course there is no guarantee that you will be lucky enough to be allocated another place.
To accept your place, please click Accept .
If you don’t want to accept your place, but would like to remain in the draw, for future months, please click Reject . And if you want to withdraw your name from the draw altogether, please click Retire . Like there is any chance of that I thought at this point
Thank you for taking part in this project, and many congratulations once again.
The One & Other team
www.oneandother.co.uk
One & Other is produced by Artichoke in partnership with Sky Arts
Almost straight away with my mind racing I began planning just what I would do in this my sixty minuets of fame.
What could I do with this an hour of me in the centre of London I thought to myself before noticing the time, funny how you can not notice something while reading it in black and white Your slot is 0300-0400 on Thu 24 September 2009. now that’s going to affect what I might like to do. My first thoughts were to include my enthusiasm for my hobby “Photography” not that I am the greatest photographer in the world or even in my town but i would like to be, but my first idea was to create a 360 degree work of Trafalgar Square, However after checking out the one and other web page I notice that at night there were a few lights that were trained on the plinth and these would obstruct large parts of any photo I could take so it was back to the drawing board.
Its amazing how you can become so obsessed in something starting with the email and shooting through several ideas, asking for any input from my friends in the bubble before emerging with the finished idea. I would be showing photographs of public art one of my passions along with several works taken from Red Bubble after having placed a few journal entries requesting anyone interested in being involved in this project, I would attempt to show these works on the plinth a sort off open air gallery for one hour only art within art.
However I must say for the first and last time now its all over and in the past I was more than a little disappointed in the response, I had thought that having the opportunity to show one of your works in one of the biggest art event projects in the uk of the year would be unmissable, but it seemed it was more missable than I had thought, I however do have to say to those ten people who did reply thanks it was great to show your work I hope that you liked what I did with this hour of free publicity, but ten people out off how many on the rb site?
However I now had ten works of my own and ten from others which appeared to fit in well with the original project “one and other” including as many people within my hour as possible.
I was now spending most nights and weekends working on either the prints or out buying mount boards and ink ect, this opportunity had now turned into a deep money pit, £300 on a new A3 Printer £20 for a box of photo paper, I think in total for just the mounted prints alone I had paid out over five hundred pounds. As a relatively low paid worker I was beginning to think perhaps this was a mistake should I be spending this money on something that I cannot actually get a return on? but was I looking for a return? or was this something to look back on in year to come and think “I did that”?
One thing I did decide was that any journey to London would have to be done as part of my annual holiday so I would be booking a few days for myself and my wife to spend some time in the big city enjoying all those things we see in the news like the London Eye then out to the theatre to see the mousetrap. then that Thursday morning at 3am on the plinth for an hour before having to get back to the hotel and get a couple of hours sleep then to top of the visit we had to be at the houses of Parliament for a guided tour set up for us by a lord rouker a full itinerary that’s for sure.
I had also thought that I should use this opportunity to raise some money for charity which added a little more to the stress of doing this in the first place.
Mean while back in the real world the art department that our bedroom had become covered in mount board and copies of photos, I had boards stored on the bed under the bed on the wardrobe in the wardrobe behind the wardrobe the place had become a minefield of things to avoid sometimes I would tread on one of them forcing me to have to start all over again.
However there were some excellent benefits to the run up to the event none more so than opening up the local newspaper to see yourself described as a “Local Photographer” or “An Interview with local Personality” I knew I gave the interview but it was just special seeing it in print. You could tell even then there was something special about taking part in this work becoming one of only a few people who would have this opportunity to take in the view from that vantage point to show the world who you were and what you were about its not often in life you get the chance to put yourself out there and say this is me like it or not.
It did not seem to be that long before both me and Catherine my wife were stepping on to the 09:50am train from Alloa heading to the bright lights of London this was also the first train journey that I had taken in many years,
I have too say that the nerves had not yet kicked in, I was more like a young kid going out from the home for the first time wide eyed taking every thing in I could

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and, london, one and other antony gormley