My best friend, Judas, the train and the automobiles
Many of you will have been following my posts from the past year about my love affair with
the Range Rover Evoque and my involvement in some of the original research that helped shape the car, its features, it’s marketing material and day experiences.
Some of the eagle eyed, non gold fish syndromed among you (such as my dear friend, Renee Owens) will have remembered that yesterday, was to be the culmination of years of waiting and months of talking, the moment when this writer would finally climb behind the wheel of a FINAL production model of the Range Rover Evoque and be ordered (okay, asked) to put the car through its paces by traversing perilous ravines (alright, man made water baths), negotiating mountainous passes (yes, metal frame car ramps) and confront carnivorous beasts (otherwise known as Southampton traffic). Yes, you may scoff but most of you won’t know what a zoo that place becomes when the Boat Show is on.
Well, nor do I for that matter because I may have started my day with hope and a good smidgen of trepidation that things were not going to go to plan and, well, they didn’t; my best friend decided to ditch me, our day, our Platinum VIP tickets and my dreams, two years or so in the making, for reasons he hasn’t yet managed to explain, nor do I think I’ll ever manage to comprehend.
Now, some of you who know me will not be surprised to learn that I did have a backup plan, should the friend factor fail me, it was to catch a train to the Southampton Boat Show. However, for this to work, I’d need to know about Judas’ intentions sooner rather than later to allow ample time for the journey. Sadly, he twisted the knife by failing to answer my text messages in a timely manner which meant that I only made it to the train station in time to buy my car parking ticket and watch the 6:30 trundle in and out of the station as I helplessly and breathlessly looked on.
Cue that dreadful realisation moment that all of my efforts had been for nothing. I had actually missed the train and my chance. So, whilst holding a sponge to my leaky eyes, I made my way back to my car where, I’m not ashamed to say, the heavens truly opened. Minutes later, after recovering from the additional realisation that I’d wasted a King’s ransom £2.50 on a parking ticket I was never going to use, I cranked up the tunes, hit the open road and, in that metaphoric sense, cleared the cobwebs from my mind.
Quite conveniently, that super talented dude, otherwise known as Darren Hayes, just happens to have two new tracks out from his forthcoming Album, Secret Codes and Battleships. The track, Black Out the Sun, did nicely. You can watch the video here. Darren, not unlike many artists who have scored the soundtrack to my life over the years, did the trick and, before long, I was fighting fit once more (it’s what I call Music Therapy in Coming up For Air) and, despite the fact that it was still the crack of dawn for many, I started dialling numbers on my mobile phone.
A couple of hours later, I had my test drives lined up (well, I couldn’t let the day go to waste now, could I?) Granted, that I wasn’t on my own, nor was I battling man made obstacles or gushing torrents but, hey, it was something. I had a veritable banquet of Evoques to choose from, as you can see from the pictures, and, I have to say, they drove as beautifully as they look.
What perhaps didn’t drive as well was the price tag. My helpful representative told me that they simply couldn’t build the cars fast enough and that, if I placed an order today, I would most likely be looking at delivery in March 2012. That was after my comment that I believed the Evoque to be a beautiful car but somewhat overpriced. He retorted with, “I don’t necessarily agree. A car is worth what people are willing to pay for it.” And I guess he had a point but at a finished price tag of £45,000 + for my fairly well specced car with some omitted options, you can make up your own mind whether or not this was somewhat pricey when you consider that it is smaller than my VW Touareg and not that much bigger than a VW Golf Plus, and lacks some of the technological features of its elder siblings.
Of course, this all means that the jury is still out on whether or not I’ll actually be placing an order for one of these beauties. The sad reality is that there isn’t much else out there that tickles my fancy and the Range Rover Evoque has, after all, been the object of my desire for the past 3 years…. who knows… watch this space (and yes I know I’ve been saying that for a while now).
The same uncertainty overhangs the fate of my seven year friendship with my best friend who has confirmed eagerness to hold talks next week. Alas, today marked an oppressively sad time for me (and no, not just because I didn’t get to use my platinum VIP tickets) but because, despite knowing how important this day was for me, my best friend, chose to let me down without, presently, a plausible explanation. And, to coin a phrase, ‘we don’t often remember what people say but how they make us feel.’
I’m hoping Range Rover do not feel the same since they asked me to confirm my attendance at today’s event no less than THREE times, stopping short of making me promise to let them know if I wasn’t going attend so that they could give my tickets to others on the ‘waiting list’ yet, each time, I confirmed that ‘we’ would be attending.
Just goes to show that nothing in life is certain, you just have to make the most of a bad situation. Whilst I believed that before, today is probably the first time that I appreciated the meaning.
Ghosts, boats and beauty; the Range Rover Evoque
There are few events in our lives that generate great anticipation and, in comparison to weddings, birthdays and other major family events, my visit
to the Southampton Boat Show next week with Platinum VIP tickets, courtesy of Range Rover, may not appear as momentous but it certainly feels that way for me.
My trip to the Southampton Boat Show marks the culmination of a two year journey as I’ll finally be able to climb behind a finished model of the Range Rover Evoque ( a car that I’ve waited for and followed from concept through to production).
Not only do my platinum VIP tickets grant me access to the event, generally favoured by affluent boat affectionados, but they’re my key to a series of other events which, I’m not ashamed to say, will pale into insignificance when compared to my invite to take the Evoque for an unsupervised drive through down town Southampton. That’s right, after all of these month, I and a friend of my choosing will be ‘unleashed’ with a model of this beautiful car with one of Range Rover’s generous statements, “bring it back when you’re done with it”. I anticipate that this would be never but I guess that’s somewhat fantastical, at least until I put down a deposit for a production model of my own. Will I? Won’t I? All will be revealed after next week.
In the meantime, adverts for my would be new vehicle have hit the small screen and if you haven’t been lucky enough to catch it yet. Here’s a link. http://youtu.be/P4dRHqWtWOI
Meanwhile, it’s 7 weeks to Casa Bella’s Halloween and if I said I was behind schedule it would be understatement. And I’m not sure if that
assessment is going to improve much if I spend my time blogging rather than researching, clicking, paying and assembling one of Casa Bella’s most eccentric dinner party experiences.
Oh, if only I could reserve my own container from the US. I guess I’m going to have to do it the hard way! What else is new?
Blog post about controversial relationship manuscript sees web traffic soar!
“If you’ve loved, been loved, have hurt or been hurt , lost or thrown away somebody special, then this book is not only for you but it is about you.”
Wow, my Sunday blog posts have always proved popular with readers (must be all that spare time) but none as much as yesterday’s article about my soon to be revived manuscript about relationships, COMING UP FOR AIR. You can read the original post by clicking here.
Visits to www.adifferentangle.co.uk yesterday topped 14,000, that’s an impressive increase of 1,000+ on the back of the post about the controversial manuscript that’s due to get a dust off next year and redrafted for before being considered for publication.
Some of you have emailed me directly offering your stories as additional material for next year’s redraft. Thanks very much, I’ll be sure to keep some of these in mind if more material is required but, as you’ll read, many relationships follow the same format/formula and are not so dissimilar to each other. The only thing that’s different are the people involved and, obviously, what they choose to do about it.
Which means that I’m really only looking for truly extraordinary subjects now if I’m to make any additions. Especially since most of the chapters have already been mapped out. Of course, that could change for the truly unusual. 
Stay tuned for potential extracts next year!
In the meantime, thanks very much for visiting adifferentangle.co.uk and for interacting with posts to Facebook. Please be sure to share the articles and posts with your friends!
Controversial relationship manuscript to get a ‘dusting’
“The demons are those shadowy thoughts that lurk in the deep recesses of our minds. You know, the painful ones that loiter on the periphery of our consciousness just waiting for a song, place, smell or taste to order them to the fore and remind us just how much we miss someone.” Extract from COMING UP FOR AIR.
So, it’s the early hours of the morning and by early I mean 04,00 and, in the immortal words of Faithless, ‘I can’t get no sleep’.
It’s naturally frustrating because, after a very busy week of early starts, the weekend generally tends to be the time to sleep in yet, for some obscure reason, my body has decided that to get a natural night’s sleep at weekends would be a total waste of perfectly productive and useful time. The nett result is that I have a newfound respect for all fellow insomniacs out there!
The cause of my new-found insomnia is unknown but I’m attributing it to a series of big projects that I’m involved with at the moment; one of them being Casa Bella’s latest event; Halloween which is taking place on October 29th. Things are not exactly going to plan at the moment as I’m having a particularly tough time sourcing the costumes and props that I’d like since these only appear to be available from the USA! What’s that all about? Okay, so maybe our cousins across the pond are more into the whole Halloween thing but don’t people know I have an experience to develop and I can’t do that with the everyday chintz that most UK retailers believe is the only acceptable way of celebrated ‘the dark side’ of the year.
Meanwhile, I’m being continuously asked about new writing projects and, of course, my immediate response is “there’s too much else going on right now” but then I have to ask myself how much of that is ‘writer procrastination’? After all, writers write, don’t they? Even at 04:00 in the morning. So, am I procrastinating? Generally speaking, I’d have to say no as there really are some very important developments happening in my life right now and there truly are not enough hours in the day, hence my body’s compulsion to expel me, most prematurely, from the arms of Morpheus. Mercifully, I’m expecting a lot of this to reach a conclusion by the end of the year.
That said, the other night I was enjoying some well deserved downtime with the somewhat
traditional practice of settling on the sofa with good friends, a snugly throw, hot tea and a good selection of luxury biscuits, when we ended up discussing an old writing project of mine, called COMING UP FOR AIR; a non fictional novel, in some places autobiographical, about relationships. The concept was inspired by the somewhat dramatic collapse of my own six year relationship and reads just like most novels but with a difference; each story is 100% true. The scene setting is based on the narrative as relayed by the real life protagonists. Between chapters, it also features my own assessment of each case but invites you to make up your own mind. Remember, ‘there’s always two sides to every story’ and, where I can, I try to include both, which may explain why this project has gathered the proverbial dust for so many years. The manuscript features just a few of hundreds real life stories, including my own which is not without its own controversy. Of course, as the author, I could exact a few edits here and there but then it wouldn’t be true to the book’s premise or its purpose; which is to highlight why, as humans, we can be so loving yet hurtful to one another.
The good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful in the first draft of Coming Up for Air was compiled over two years, one of these spent researching (interviewing) literally hundreds of people both in the USA and the UK about their personal relationships. I heard all sorts and it has given me a unique insight into the human factor. The process itself turned out to be an incredible adventure featuring a series of planes, trains, automobiles, and SUVs and led to a collaboration with the Pentagon and, by association, members of the United States Air Force and United States Marine Corps. Many interviews took place right here in the UK at RAF Mildenhall and Lakenheath where I was fortunate enough to receive exclusive clearance to the bases and access to US Air Force personnel at the height of the post 9/11 security alerts. Interestingly, the research process led me to the very place where my own relationship began and and where it met its demise; the depths of North Carolina. It was an effective cathartic exercise but not necessarily one I’d recommend.
So, on the charge of procrastination, in this case only, I plead guilty; the first draft of this manuscript has been put on hold more times than most of its protagonists deserve. In hindsight, I realise that this is due to its somewhat ‘explosive’ content; there is much in this manuscript that some would much rather not share with the rest of the world, and I guess this has always troubled me.
However, the recent trip down memory lane has led me to ‘dust off’ (figuratively speaking)the manuscript that I’d started nearly a decade ago to discover that it’s actually over 200 pages long and features some of the most dramatic, heartfelt, inspiring and compelling stories you”ll ever read and, most interestingly, they’re all true, proving that, regardless of our distinctive differences, we’re all, ultimately, just human. (well most anyway).
I had forgotten just how close to completion this particular manuscript was and this author cannot ignore that nor the collaboration of so many who gave willingly of their time and candidly shared the most intimate details about their lives with the view to helping others. Okay, so some did use the meetings as a mini counselling session but I believe it was a small price to pay for such compelling insight that taught me so much about the complexities of human interactions, how we can on the first day be the nucleus of somebody’s life but on the next be marked for outright deletion. Something I learned first hand with my own introspection.
I truly believe that, no matter how regretful, sad or traumatic an experience; everything happens for a reason. That’s why I’ve decided that my realistic resolution for the new year will be to revisit this project and finish it once and for all. Because, in the words of an esteemed US Marine Colonel, “if this book can help just one person then it is well worth our time and dedication”. If you’ve loved, been loved, have hurt or been hurt , lost or thrown away somebody special, then this book is not only for you but it is about you.
Watch this blog for updates and maybe even some tasty excerpts in 2012 but be warned, one of the primary objectives of this manuscript was to record true life, there’s nothing added, nothing taken away which means that whilst it may prove flattering for some, it may not shine as beautifully on others but then again, nobody’s perfect, are they?
Inspiring Happiness…. in pictures..
It’s Friday! and there goes another week….
Most will be excited that it’s the beginning of another weekend. You appear to be equally excited with the previous two ’inspiring’ pictures posts. It seems you can’t get enough of them as there’s been an exponential increase in hits to the blog!
So, with this in mind, I’ve compiled another batch of ‘inspiring’ images but with a ‘happiness’ theme.
Well, it is the weekend after all….oh, and please remember to LIKE our page on Facebook. Be ‘happy’! ;-)
And the winner of a FREE photo session is……….
So, here it is, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
Last month I declared war on ‘rip off photographers’ (see the original post here) when a friend of mine brought to my attention just how much she
was being charged for her daughter’s wedding pictures, and I set up a web page on Facebook called A DIFFERENT ANGLE PHOTOGRAPHY, I then invited you to become a fan of the page and, to celebrate the launch, I decided to give away a free photo session to one of the page’s fans worth an approximate £700! ( I must be feeling very generous because I’ve been approached about donating a similar experience to charity).
Well, this weekend, I took those names and spun them through a washing machine (okay, not literally) and am really excited to be able to reveal that the winner is MATT AINSLIE!
…who just happens to be a friend of mine (yes, I know what you’re thinking and I know what he’s probably thinking) but he did ultimately enter the competition and his did by randomness get selected, that’s fair isn’t it? You don’t think I fixed it do you?
Of course you do!
So, what other option did I have but to conduct a second draw….. YES, you read correctly, I couldn’t possibly have you avid readers believing that I wasn’t fair. So, there’s not one but TWO lucky winners of the FREE photo session…. and that second person is (DRUM ROLL)….
KYLEE ASHWELL
Well done, Kylee!
Now, there are few formalities that we’ll need to get out of the way, you know, the small print and all. So if the lucky winners could please send an email mailbox@tonymarturano.com (within the next 30 days), we’ll get the ball rolling by exchanging the small print and eventually arranging a mutually convenient date for the shoot which you’ll be pleased to learn will take place right here, at my own Casa Bella personal studio.
As per all my photo sessions, I recommend that we meet at Casa Bella well in advance of the shoot to discuss exactly what kind of shoot we’re going to do, and what exactly will happen on the day.
Well done to the winners and thanks to everybody else who participated but, as you know, there can only be one winner, (or in this case two!) and who said I wasn’t a generous person!
Remember, a DIFFERENT ANGLE PHOTOGRAPHY is facing up to ‘rip off’ photographers so if you have any event or would simply like some pictures of you and or yours then get in touch. Also, be sure to recommend our page (if you’re already a fan) or to LIKE out page on Facebook (button at the top right hand corner) as there’s a distinct possibility that we’ll be holding a similiar competition again and, who knows, next time, ‘it could be you’! 
