At the moment everything is kind of okay here despite the continuous rain. My allotment is pretty much overgrown and I am frightened to go there because there are so many weeds waiting for me and a lot of raspberries and red currents to pick, whilst the tomatoes, peppers and aubergines did not seem to have really survived this summer’s weather in a productive state and the beans are staying embarrassingly small. So, in a desperately intelligent moment, I decided that the only category I could possibly show off in this year’s FEDEGA flower and vegetable show are the house and home craft categories.

As an enthusiastic reader and commenter of the Guardian and its Comment is Free, I am delighted to link to this debate about the state of documentary films and also to this rather amusingly enlightening blog of a TV commissioner. The Edinburgh International Film Festival people have confirmed my press accreditation for this year’s event, which is really nice of them, because I chanced it a bit as a freelancer without any commission and only poor old Indymedia as the main publication. Ooops. Didn’t have time yet to look for another outlet. The programme looks interesting, though in the documentary area, there seem to be fewer social-political documentaries with less interesting content on than last year.

Finally, the new video, also subtitled _“Success with containers”_ has uploaded. You can watch it either on download the 97 MB big heavyweight from this website. It has been made with the help from Pilton Video, the best community video project in the world! Fluffy has been a brilliant movie star, very quick he was on his feet, but after he got accustomed to the camera, he quite liked all the treats he was getting for doing funny stuff, like hopping into the bucket or coming when called. The video was initiated by all these poor fellows loosing their escaped hamsters, its a little guide on how to prevent it, how and where to find the hamster, how to tame him or her and how to catch him/her.

The conflict in Oaxaca has flared up again. I wouldn’t have noticed if Tom would not have put up an article on Indy Scotland. Quick look around and apart from the BBC website, no mention at all about these events in the media, and the BBC takes the usual authority-supporting stance. Maybe the article is written by a news agency, not sure if they have anybody in Latin America and if so, where. On Indy, it’s a completely different picture, though. It has been discovered, that a former teacher has been arrested unharmed and then been beaten into a coma by police.

The last days I have been fighting with my dissertation topic. I am not quite sure what it is about. Given that it has to be handed in at the start of September and August is filled with reviewing the Festival, it’s getting a bit late. I know it is about the G8 and the protests and activists because I have done a lot of interviews and already written my reflective essay, which only needs to be intellectual-ified with quotes and references and beautifying the language, but the headline and take on the whole issue is still varying greatly. My supervisor is nearly as frustrated and nervous as I am, he insists that it needs to be a topic attractive enough to sell for publication and the work should be about something totally new.