There is much afoot in the background of The REG Temple. Several new sections of the site are being worked on at the moment and one or two of them should be ready to come online in the next week or so – provided that all the testing goes well of course!

One of the more exciting and major developments on the site is the new REG Temple Official Online Store where you’ll be able to purchase bona fide Richard E. Grant and REG Temple merchandise – with all the profits going to Waterford I might add! When fully up and running the store should have over 50 different items in several styles and designs – from T-shirts and jackets to mugs, lunch boxes, mousepads and even underwear!

The “Pictures” section of the site is currently undergoing a major refit and refurbishment and hopefully will be ready very soon. The main inspiration for this came from a chance email from SueW which made me think “Yeah, I could do something a little different with that! Let’s take a closer look at it and see what develops.”

Likewise a recent flurry of polls on the mailing list and an email from Jolie inspired me to have a look at setting up some polls on the Temple site itself. There’s several good software packages out there and one of them should make it to the site sometime in the near future.

Perhaps one of the more bizarre things to be developed for the Temple is a section where people can host their own web auctions. Emphasis obviously would be on REG related articles and we at the Temple have plans for some very special items indeed to be auctioned off! What are they? Well….you’ll just have to wait and see!

As always, we’ll keep you posted.

“Tooth” tells the story of a young, feisty Tooth Fairy called Tooth, who misses the Fairytopia of old and the magic that was at the heart of it. Long ago Mrs Claus, the Fairy Queen, had taken magic and fled to the real world to live amongst humans, after she had watched Fairytopia become consumed with greed and a love of money.

Featuring cameo rolls from Richard E Grant (Gosford Park, The Little Vampire, Jack & Sarah) and the perfect villain Vinnie Jones (Mean Machine, Snatch, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels), stars as The Extractor.

To read more about the film from the distributor’s press release, click here.

Tooth will be released in the UK at Christmas 2003.

Thanks to SueW for sending me the press release.

Just in from REG:

“I saw Denise and Joan at the opening of the Eton gallery sculpture exhibition yesterday and they pointed out that I had neglected to thank them for the recipes – my mistake as I stupidly only thanked all the names accompanying the messages at the end of the book without checking the chef names as well! So here goes – please add the names I missed out if possible – Carol McHaney, Susan, JR Joan and Denise Hale – especial thanks for the fresh lychees you brought on Saturday and for supporting the gallery opening and of course to Pat again for doing the collating and printing and art work.

I fly to cape town on 7th September to start work on film of “Story Of An African Farm” based on a 19th century novel by South African writer Olive Schreiner, in which I play an Irish con man called Bonaparte who invades a sleepy farming community in 19th century South Africa, with only two things on his mind – sex and money.

Shooting more Argos ads for their summer campaign in the UK this week with Julia ‘Abfab’ Sawalha at a country estate in Chipping Norton.

Will keep posting.
Chin chin
richard”

We’ll keep you posted on more “African Farm” news as it comes to hand.

Cover – The Drummer by Jonathan Mhonderahuma, medium Serpentine. NOTE: only top half of sculpture featured here.

Notes on Jono Mhondorohuma.

Jonothan was born on Christmas day 1974 in Mvurwi.He attended Primary school in Mvurwi and also completed his O levels there.

In 1989 Jonathans good friend Square Chikwanda asked him if he would like to come to Tenegenenge sculpture village to try his hand at stone carving.

Jonothan agreed and spent six months there learning the basics under Square Chikwanda. Jonothan then decided that rural life was not for him and he moved to Harare. It was there that he met and worked under the tutelage of the late Joseph Ndandarika at the Kentucky Hotel. It was a formative period for the young Jonothan who was taught a great deal by the masterful Ndandarika. His influence can still be seen in Jonathans work in such aspects as composition, composure of expression and fluidity of line.

When Ndandarika passed away in 1991, Jonothan move to Hatfield and began to work on his own. In 1997 he joined Chapungu Sculpture Park on the artists residency programme. He is undoubtedly one of the major young talents of Zimbabwean stone sculpture. He is preceded by the likes of Benhura and Supini but is consolidating his position daily. His work can be seen as classical within the Zimbabwean context, as he attempts to give form to his past. An exciting, if not erotic factor in Jonathans work is the theme of sexual relations between man and woman, in all their phases. His book reader series has also received wide acclaim and is an area he is currently exploring.

Richard At Eton

By Joan Roach – Saturday 28th June, 2003

Hi – Denise and I went to the ;Talking Stones XIV exhibition at the Contemporary Fine Art Gallery in Eton yesterday – this comprised some leading stone sculptors from Zimbabwe and most of the proceeds were going to go to ;the Waterford ;Kamhlaba School (Cam had originally put the gallery site ;on ;the website ;which Sue had ;sent him – thank you both).

All the artwork was great and there were some lovely pieces, but very expensive, and one lady at the exhibition had just bought two sculptures and was looking around to buy another one so there were quite a lot of wealthy people attending.

The guy in charge of the gallery, Nicholas Pritchard, was a great host. He kept on checking to see if Denise and I were okay and actually told us “Richard has arrived” – This was at ;12.30. He wore a lovely ;cream jacket with light trousers and brown suede slightly pointy shoes and had a nice even suntan (sorry, can’t remember exactly all the ;dress details but I think Denise will also be doing a report for the site so she will have the correct details in!)

Richard made a nice opening address and everyone liked him instantly (now there’s a shock!) Denise and I went up and talked to him and we mentioned the recipe/birthday book he had received from the REGiment and he was quite surprised and said “how did you know about my mail”. We answered that Cam had ;sent it but that a few names had been missed out. Richard was mortified ;and ;said he was very sorry that he had missed some out. He asked which recipes Denise and I had sent and then said “Yes, I saw them! But how did I miss ;out your names?” ;when we told him which one’s we had sent. Richard explained that he had collected ; ;the names ;from ‘greetings’ at ; ;the ;back of book. We assured him not to worry as he kept on saying “how awful, I can’t believe I did that” and then we felt awful because we had raised it in the first place!

We took a few photos before he left – he stayed for a couple of hours and talked to everyone there, practically!

There was a reporter for the local newspaper and he was interviewed and photographed for that. The reporter mentioned to Denise and myself that he had been to Zimbabwe on an exchange visit or something. He was a nice guy and was very pleased to have interviewed Richard for his newspaper.

All in all it was a lovely day. We went to a nice restaurant afterwards and ate out in the sunshine. Denise had brought her son Kieran and we had a fun time.

The event is going to be repeated next year so that will be good for the Waterford School funds. Also at the moment £1 equals 15 of their currency so it goes a long way.

Anyway I thought I would just let you know – so for those people who have been missed off Richard’s list – Richard says sorry for that. Also he told us that Cam had asked him to let him know more (and sooner) where he would be visiting/appearing but he says he gets a bit embarrassed at telling him where he will be. I told him that we would love to hear where he is so he just laughed and grinned at that.

Chin Chin
JR (Joan).

To read a report of the event by Denise, click here.

To have a look at part of the catalogue, click here.

A posing Richard.

Joan with catalogue. Richard with lychees.