CERN, LONDON, BOISE AND BRONCHITIS!

Been off the radar for a bit – just returned to Boise, Idaho USA from London, England!  Again!  Can’t stay away from my home town.  It was a good trip as always, lots of theatre, seeing friends, trip to the country (Suffolk) what more could one ask?  a job – acting – maybe, still –  been having a lot of fun and pleasure – making my own films and picking my own roles.   Don’t forget you can watch our compilation of  New Chilling Tales – the Anthology on Amazon.   I would love to do more of these, it’s a matter of organising scattered thoughts and ideas, raising the money and shooting the the two scripts we have ready.  They can be made anywhere, are classic and period never goes out of date.

New Chilling Tales- The Anthology

Came back with bronchitis and so crawled into bed and have been hibernating for a few days.   The strange thing about being sick with a fever is that it really does do strange things to your imagination and I got an unreal sense of detachment from the real world, our world and the usual silly thoughts of what’s it all about, why are always arguing, fighting with each other, trying to get our voice heard.   The craziness of Brexit continues in the UK and today I listened to a BBC broadcast of the front runners answering “phone in”  questions and quite honestly the whole format and the way it was managed by a capable host, just didn’t work and it descended into more of a kindergarten quarrel.   No wonder Boris Johnson has kept his distance so far.   I am not a political animal, so will say more.

Rehearsing “About Andy”

Last year I made another -contemporary – short: About Andy, about how Artificial Intelligence will infiltrate and possible overtake us eventually.  It is coming- friends.  Professor Stephen Hawking called it the greatest threat to humankind, that we have ever created…the ultimate Frankenstein’s monster.  I have written a feature length version, continuing the story.  I will put the short up soon.   I just have to think of a way to monetize the short, to raise some funds towards the feature.  So much now is free on the web now and people’s expectations are “everything free on the web!”   I love the internet and everything about it…how clever we are…even Facebook – the greatest form of free promotion for business and self, ever invented.  However now we all expect everything, web based, to be free!   When I was running my father’s multi- lingual recruitment business in London, I created the online multi-lingual career network languagejobs4u (still thriving, bought and sold now a couple of times,) I knew that online was going to dominate much of the service industry.  I learned much about online and its power and the  impact it would have, from our 10 year  service contract with CERN.   We had a great time in Geneva and it opened my eyes and imagination to the coming world.

Father William Merrow with Mum Eve Morgan

Father’s Day has just passed and my thoughts turn to my Father -William Merrow (formerly Werner Meirowsky), refugee to the UK from Nazi Germany.  I did not appreciate what an extraordinary and brave man he was, while I was growing up.  Sadly my parents did not get along, never lived together and my childish view of him was coloured by my mother’s bitterness.  However Dad, got on with everything and made a success of his life.  He may not agree with me, but I believe he did.  He grew up in luxury in pre-war Germany – large mansion, chauffeur, nanny, maids, cook – the lot.   His father was a world famous Professor of Dermatology.  Then came the Nazi’s, who decided the family was Jewish enough to be unwanted…ironic since both Dad and Grandfather were atheists, though Grandfather used to haul the family off to the Roman Catholic Cathedral for Christmas services, for social reasons.   Further irony and tragedy came when Dad’s sister Lisemaria  a successful children’s doctor,  became a Roman Catholic nun, after an unhappy love affair and ended up dying in Auschwitz, after she was captured with Edith Stein and the other nuns of her order helping Jews escape across the Dutch German border.

Dad wanted to be an actor, but his father wouldn’t hear of it…decadent profession.  Dad’s brother Arnold Meirowsky became a neurosurgeon in the US and was one of the first surgeons to take brain surgery on to the battlefield ( he hated “Mash”!) in Korea.   Poor Dad was up against formidable arguments…anyway the war came and he helped his parents escape from Germany, virtually destitute as my stubborn, proud Grandfather Emil  would not believe that anyone would do any thing to him, until the university threw him out.   He left it too late to get much of his money or possessions out. Dad joined the British army – was a gunner, dug ditches, was an interpreter in a German POW camp and he did become an actor in his fifties!  William Merrow actor.

And –  he built a successful business in London, the first to market – the Multilingual Recruitment Agency – Merrow Language Recruitment…think it might now be part of a bigger European consortium….he was a man to be reckoned with.

Ok that’s enough for now about my father’s side of the family.   Dad never lost his will, nor grit, nor his imagination.  During his final days he wrote to the government to ask when they would get flying cars into the air, to ease traffic problems.  Last word – my oldest friend Patricia Doyle, with whom I shared a room (no apartments in those days), while we were at RADA, reminded me that Dad used to bring us food parcels, as money was tight and we watched our pennies while food shopping, no treats!  So he brought them.   Dear Dad, I miss him.