When I first started making films I made it a habit to come home with some small item from the production as a memento. I’m sure you’ve all done it. Like a cricketer snatching a stump or a footballer taking his opponent’s shirt. Those first films were all so hard and so beautifully enjoyable that it felt vital that I clung onto some small piece of the divine wreckage. A crumpled envelope addressed to “no one, nowhere” from our film “Crowd Scene For Existentialists”, an empty milk bottle from the still almost entirely unseen “Cold”, the gorgeous, battered, tube map of the soul from “Russell Square”. As time passes these talismen lose their power and importance and I’ve parted company with pretty much everything, even the hangover from filming “If Looks Could Kill”. However one pair of props seem reluctant to leave me.

In 2006 we shot a music video for the sublime and deeply missed indie band “Special Needs”. They were newly signed, we were newly inspired to make music videos and we were all the best of friends. The result was this gorgeously silly Monkees-ish chase video. The coffin is lost in the loft of the Brixton house where my brother used to live (God knows what the current occupants think of that), the Spitfires are back in Duxford but the free-wheeling, battery-powered Dodgems are still in my garage.

Well, not for long – a need for space means I’m finally forced into selling them – http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130362281897&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_793wt_1167 – c’mon, trust me, when it comes to simple pleasures none is simpler nor more pleasurable than Off-Fairground/On-Road Dodgem racing…