“It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some kind of cosmic significance, almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire time-space continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.”

Soul Searcher is now available in all good DVD stores. In theory. I couldn’t find it in any of the good DVD stores I went into today, and neither could anyone else I know. The Curse must do its final work, and so the disc is absent from the shelves… for now. The good news is that play.com says the film is temporarily out of stock, which must mean it’s sold out. (Perhaps unsurprising, if people can’t get it from the fecking shops.)

Wysiwyg are now running a Guess the Budget Competition. Part of the prize is a Soul Searcher poster signed by some of the cast and crew. Don’t ask me what the rest of it is.

Prize letter of the week:

i dont like your trailer voice on your trailer, i wanted him to shut his f***ing bastard mouth however, i like the trailer! and i think you should maybe consider some coca-cola mate! or dr pepper perhaps. it tastes like swamp dust!

Thomas Chamberlain

Well anyway, enjoy the DVD, have fun finding the easter eggs, and thanks for tuning in, for here I must leave you, my virtual friends. The story of Soul Searcher is over. You can follow my continuing adventures at Dark Side of the Earth.

So many classic moments there have been over the last four-and-a-half years: James’ nipple-shaped biscuit; that weird guy who hangs around Hereford with the long hair and the shorts (no matter what the weather) turning up to audition; the poncho debate; the e-mail from Mum’s Curtains about the impossibility of recording an orchestral score on a microbudget; my dream about Lara being a murderer; the druids on Dinedoor Hill; David Dukes almost getting knifed on his visit to Hairy Ford; mixing Rick O’Shays (ricochets) and Kurt Russells (coat rustles) at Neil’s studio; the glorious weekend of The Guardian article and the sell-out screenings; the chocolate ice cream lunches in Cannes… I could go on.

The question is: was it all worth it?

We’ll let fate be the judge.

Here’s the Blockbuster link.

Less than a week to go. The cast and crew copies finally showed up on my doorstep this morning, all pristine and cellophane-wrapped. (Sorry about the cellophane. Personally, I hate the stuff, and one day intend to track down the inventor and invoice him for all the time I’ve wasted during my life trying to rip the stuff off things.)

The DVD is now available to order from a number of other websites besides Play, including: Virgin Megastore, HMV, Tesco (you can also rent it from there), Woolworths, CD Wow, Amazon UK (also rental), Screen Select (rental only), WHSmith and Asda, but I’ll warn you that they’re all more expensive than Play. I’m told that Blockbuster will also be stocking it.

I’m extending an open invitation for anyone so inclined to join me for coffee at the cafe in Virgin Megastore, Oxford Street, London, England, Europe, The World, The Solar System, The Galaxy, The Universe, at 11am on Monday. If you can’t find me, it’s because a security guard mistook my box of cast and crew copies for a bunch of pirate DVDs and is interrogating me in the back room behind the pantry. “Oh, directed it, did you, sir? A very likely story.”

Well, three weeks Monday it’ll be out. Whether the cast and crew will get their copies before then is another issue. Wysiwyg won’t even give me an ETA on them. The same goes for the all important review copies for magazines like Impact and various websites.

Congratulations! You may have been reading this journal for four years – well, now you can finally buy the film.

Go to Hell right now and pre-order the DVD on Play.com

It’s only UKP9.99, and you get more extras than most Hollywood two disc releases. Bargain. And ignore where it says fullscreen (4:3) – it’s actually in letterbox 16:9.

Had a meeting with Katie Button, my new point of contact at Wysiwyg. She was very positive and enthusiastic. Today was the first day of the wholesaler’s campaign to sell the DVDs to highstreet shops. This apparently involves them sitting the head buyer for, say, HMV down in front of a Powerpoint presentation consisting of the trailer, cover “art”, synopsis, etc. I’m not sure it’s a very pleasant thought that four years of my life and creativity has been boiled down into Powerpoint, that cheesily-transitioned opiate for the office-bound masses. (Weeeeeee! There goes bullet point number three, flying on! It’s almost like I’m not a hamster on a wheel!)

The Curse lives on. In the wee hours of November 20th 2003, at H. Weston Cider in Much Marcle, Lara Greenway came a cropper running down a slope. At the time, as this journal will testify, it was treated with much jest amongst the cast and crew, particularly the immortal line uttered by the poor woman as she lay prone on the ground: “Did we get the take?” But she’s still suffering from the injury today, still seeing a chiropractor. By giving just UKP2 a month, you can help Lara… Just kidding. But it’s all true, and now we’re trying to make a claim on the insurance policy I took out for the shoot. This involves filling in forms about things that happened two and a half years ago, which is quite difficult. Names and addresses of all witnesses? I wish I had Jason’s address – he’s still got two of my DVDs…