One of the bands I worked with during the last few months of that time period were Whiskycats, a bunch of fun-loving, charming lads with a fine line in jazzy, poppy, jump-on-the-table-and-boogie kind of numbers. BBC 6Music’s Shaun Keaveny made Slipped Disco a Band Aid band of the week track on his breakfast show in early 2008, a moment which brought the band and I great pride.

I’ve just received a text message to tell me that the band are playing a very special show at Sound Control in Manchester on Saturday February 4 in support of Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, who are there for anyone who has had their lives affected by cancer.

One of the people who has received support from the centre is Whiskycats bass player and co-founder Piers Moth, who was diagnosed with an inoperable grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma brain tumour in summer last year, and has been receiving treatment and generally fighting it with his usual humour and sense of aplomb. Piers is a wonderful guy – funny, talented and so loved. I enjoyed working with him and the rest of the band so much.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to make the show as I’m at the wrong end of the country that weekend, but am going to try and find out how to make a donation to Maggie’s. There are still tickets available via Ticketline – but be quick as they’re going fast! You are in for a treat – rehearsals are now in full swing and if it’s anything like the last time I saw the band play, it should be an absolute hoot!

P.S: If you can’t make the show but you want to donate to Maggie’s, there’s a secure donation page online at their official website.

Last Friday, I went to see Senna at Manchester’s Cornerhouse on its day of release. It’s taken me a week to sit down and pen some (incomplete) thoughts as I think I might need to go and see it again to appreciate some of the nuances of the film. In short though, I was very impressed.

Let’s lay out my cards on the table; I never saw Ayrton Senna race first-hand. All my knowledge of him and his work is from historic footage. Therefore, it feels impossible to say unequivocally whether he was underrated or overrated as a racing driver or whether Senna is an accurate or glorified portrayal of the man, as all my knowledge of him as a racer and as a person is gleaned after his untimely death seventeen years ago. What it is possible to work out from Senna though, is that he was certainly a charismatic character worthy of a film like this.

Director Asif Kapadia and screenwriter Manish Pandey are great storytellers. They have crafted a genuinely compelling narrative that flows with a certain ease, almost as though it were scripted as fiction. In fact, it was interesting to read an interview where Kapadia explained that the film was ‘storyboarded’ and researchers sent out to try and find matching footage. There are so many clever ways in which they play up the human interest angle of Senna’s life. One is the much-discussed lack of talking heads. Where modern voiceovers are used, they are instead set over archive footage. Even the camera shots – notably tight framing of faces and fly-on-the-wall shots into busy racing teams’ garages – drag you into a scene. In particular, snippets from two drivers’ briefings makes you feel like you’re there, perhaps because they’re shot at quite a low angle, with tight framing on the key protagonists.

Sound is also used cleverly. Clips of Senna with his father after the Brazilian Grand Prix in 1991 and at Imola 1994 as he realises the severity of Roland Ratzenberger’s ultimately fatal accident are extremely revealing and moving because of what we learn about our protagonist’s personality from them. Use of audio from one of Senna’s interviews as ‘voiceover’, set to fairly graphic footage of the horrific crash which ended Martin Donnelly’s formula one racing career in 1990, is also a thought-provoking moment. On top of this, the scoring and use of music thoroughout the film always feels natural.

But where the film excels – certainly for racing fans at least – is with its use of in-car footage. Driving a formula one car in 1988 was not like it is now, where smoothness through corners pretty much counts for everything. At times it looks like Senna is trying to tame a bull – although this is perhaps in part deceptive and probably also has a lot to do with his on-edge driving style and inclement conditions in some of the races. The intensity of some of the in-cockpit footage from Monaco 1988 and Brazil 1991, two key peaks in the narrative, almost makes you feel dizzy at times. I don’t think the video above was used in the film, but after struggling to find the ‘correct’ onboard footage, it’s there to give you an idea of what to expect if you go and see the movie.

Another train of thought that cropped up during the film is how the way in which Senna negotiated his rivals, motorsport officials (the controversial former FISA and FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre is, in effect, the movie’s stock villain) and journalists correlates with the personalities of his successors. Much as seeing Kraftwerk perform live for the first time a couple of years ago suddenly enabled me to make sense of 30 years’ worth of electronic and dance music, watching a terse Senna sparring with Sir Jackie Stewart during a one-on-one interview and his gung-ho attitude on track – particularly his rivalry with Alain Prost – reminded me of countless world champions who’ve followed in his wake.

Suddenly, it makes sense why every driver who’s ever said that Ayrton is their all-time favourite made the claim. Without this extra knowledge, it felt like they were saying it because you had to rather than because you wanted to. It’s also clear how revered Senna was (and perhaps still is) by his fellow citizens. I knew that he was held in high esteem in Brazil, but it was still a bit of a surprise to see footage of him being greeted like a popstar or a member of the royal family.

Ultimately, the end of the film will provoke tears, even if you don’t know the story. The way that the narrative is put together will achieve this from even the hardest of hearts, or if you’ve seen the story countless times over. There’s an especially poignant piece of voiceover from Senna’s sister Vivianne which sets the tone – and will probably set off your tears too.

But there are moments of light in the movie too. Ron Dennis gets to show a fun side rarely revealed in later years when he flings a large bucket of water over Ayrton on the podium, there’s some tender footage of Senna on holiday with former girlfriend Adriane Yamin, and Alain Prost cracking on to Selina Scott in the mid ’80s during an episode of Wogan comes as a complete surprise. It would have been lovely to see or hear some more of Senna and Gerhard Berger’s famed fondness for practical jokes, but perhaps the relevant archive wasn’t available. It is an incomplete portrait – and inevitably there are some who will quibble with certain angles taken in the story – but as a window on the world of an interesting personality, it is a really illuminating and beautifully constructed film.

She specifically requested a clean, minimalist design with only a small amount of text and a strong focus on the pictures. I’ve been hacking up HTML code, trying to make a headstart on some good SEO in the backend, helping her to pick the best pictures (from our family friend and master photographer Matthew Priestley – he taught me everything I know about documentary photography) and indulging in the occasional difference of opinion over what looks better.

It’s still very much a work in progress but it’s up now at www.michellesamuelsdesign.com. We’re going to get more testimonials up over the summer – so lots of phonecalls ahead this month and next! And it’s inspired me to do something that freelancers are notoriously terrible at – setting up my own website…

K

The kind of song that made me the most excited I’d been about a new band for a very long time. I saw them live in April, having missed the boat a bit, and I bloody loved it. Got that slightly smug sense of ‘I heard this brilliant band in a tiny venue the other night…’ for weeks afterwards.

I’m not going into details, but it certainly did at the time, and still does a little bit now. It’s still one of my favourite songs, though…

When I am able to play this riff perfectly (in fact, when I own an electric guitar – step by step, Kate!), then I can die a happy woman.