Today Simon and I headed to Dungeness to film some material for the March's installation (ARIEL). Accompanied by our new cast members Tamar (Miranda) and Ben (Ferdinand) we took to the shingle, clambered over huts, discovered industrial sculptures, ate copious fish'n'chips and tried not to get run over by miniature trains. After lunch, following in the footsteps of Derek Jarman, we set off down to the RSPB nature reserve.

 Here Tamar gamely dipped her toes into a freezing lake - in a landscape so desolate it could double for death valley or darkest siberia. We were very quickly shewed away by the RSPB centre manager on a fag break and took to the road to try and get the end of the material we wanted (mainly Ferdinand wandering aimlessly through undergrowth). If your interested this is the part we were filming (this is from Derek Jarman tempest - a great one. 15:08)

This is when things started getting a bit odd.

Simon decided he wanted to get a shot of Ben walking down the empty road. Watching from the warmth of the car, I saw the pair get interrupted by a jovial pair of policemen, who had emerged out of what looked like a prop police-car (signage clearly held on by gaffa tape), and proceeded to question them in detail warning them that while filming was not restricted, pointing cameras towards certain sensitive material (bizarrely in the opposite direction of the power station) could pose a threat.

After a long wait, while their names were un-quieda'd, a second unit arrived and out sprung two armed policemen. One of whom was carrying a very large machine gun, keeping us at the side of the road taking down all of our names to give to an intelligence agency, and seeming very dubious about Simon's Sunday Times ID.

We beat a hasty retreat only to be followed by an unmarked white van until we reached the motorway...

[Also posted on retzproduces.wordpress.com]