Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon
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NIGEL LESMOIR-GORDON NIGEL LESMOIR-GORDON came into this world in the midst of the Second World War, appearing among the soaring academic towers of Cambridge – the last outpost of civilisation before the black-soiled, windswept fens ran their endless way up to Kings Lynn and The Wash. He grew up in the austere and reactionary spirit of post-war southern England. People felt lucky to be alive. So many had died. There were shortages. Most of our ships had been sunk and we lived under the heavy-hanging threat of nuclear annihilation. By the time Nigel had made it to his teens Cambridge had blossomed and become prosperous and he grew up in a privileged world. He was 13 when he went off to board at Oundle School and Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel burst incandescently upon the world. He began writing at Oundle and published poems and short stories in the UK, the USA and in France. He toured the UK performing with his poetry & jazz group. Nigel's interest in film took him to the London School of Film Technique in 1965. When he left Cambridge to go to film school he moved into a flat in Cromwell Road, South Kensington – the infamous ‘101’. When David Gale wrote about 101 in The Independent he recalled: “As the 60s began to generate heat, I found myself running with a fast crowd. I had moved into a flat near the Royal College of Art. I shared the flat with some close friends from Cambridge, including Syd Barrett, who was busy becoming a rock star with Pink Floyd. A few hundred yards down the street at 101 Cromwell Road, our preternaturally cool friend Nigel was running the hipster equivalent of an arty salon. Between our place and his, there passed the cream of London alternative society - poets, painters, film-makers, charlatans, activists, bores and self-styled visionaries. It was a good time for name-dropping: how could I forget the time at Nigel’s when I came across Allen Ginsberg asleep on a divan with a tiny white kitten on his bare chest? And wasn't that Mick Jagger visible through the fumes? Look, there's Nigel's postcard from William Burroughs, who looks forward to meeting him when next he visits London!” During a weekend spent in Cambridge with old friends as part of his experimental work at film school Nigel shot the now cult-movie classic Syd Barrett’s First Trip. When he joined the industry as an editor he worked for Hugh Hudson, director of Chariots of Fire, on TV commercials and documentaries. The film Performance was produced from the Chelsea studios where Nigel worked. In 1968 he was commissioned by Mick Jagger to co-write a screenplay with Christopher Gibbs (the set designer on Performance) called The Quest. Marianne Faithfull writes about this project in her biography Faithfull. Mick, Keith and Marianne were already cast and keen to make it. The script we wrote drew on Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology and romantic poetry. Donovan had been writing music for the film and was disappointed when the project stalled due to other Rolling Stones commitments. To make up for this he suggested that Nigel produce and direct a film of him making music sailing through the islands of the Aegean Sea with a small acoustic band. The band was called Open Road and the completed 30-minute film was There is an Ocean. He then moved to the BBC as an editor, cutting dramas and documentaries for two years. He went on to work with Pink Floyd, 10cc, Squeeze, Rainbow, Joe Cocker, Big Country, Wings, Paul Nicholas and Leo Sayer amongst others in the 70’s producing pop videos and live concert recordings. He concentrated on commercials and corporate videos throughout the 80s. He wrote and directed Regiment a documentary about the Royal Air Force’s Infantry Regiment before he made the award-winning television documentary The Colours of Infinity, presented by Sir Arthur C. Clarke with music by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd in 1993. The Colours of Infinity has been broadcast in over fifty territories. It brought the Mandelbrot set and the subject of fractals to the attention of the general public for the first time. Following The Colours of Infinity Nigel wrote, produced and directed two broadcast documentaries: Is God a Number? This film explores the mystery of consciousness and the power of mathematics in describing the universe. And Clouds Are Not Spheres – the life and work of the maverick mathematician, Benoît Mandelbrot. He then made the feature film Remember a Day and recently completed Mandelbrot’s World of Fractals, which he directed and presented for the National Science Foundation through Yale University. The acclaimed short comedy The Mysterious Michael A was written, directed and produced by Nigel in 2005. This film has been featured at 18 film festivals and at over a dozen film clubs worldwide. Nigel directed the documentary Brixton Beach and in 2007 a compilation of three of Nigel’s science documentaries, and featuring a fractal chill-out film with David Gilmour’s music, was released on DVD. His first book, Introducing Fractals was published by Icon in 2009. It traces the roots of fractal geometry and looks at the developments springing from this revolutionary new discipline from Zeno to calculus, through set theory and the maverick mathematicians who set the stage for the genius of fractal geometry, Benoît Mandelbrot. Text and graphics combine to offer the most accessible account of fractal geometry that any reader is likely to find. To quote J.A. Wheeler, protégé of Niels Bohr and friend of Albert Einstein, 'No one will be considered scientifically literate tomorrow, who is not familiar with fractals.' This book is the ideal guide to that literacy. It is available in four languages and has sold over 16,000 copies. Nigel’s second book based on The Colours of Infinity was published by Springer in 2010. The contributors to the film are joined in this comprehensive survey of the fractal theory and practice by some other leading experts in the field. The book features contributions from Arthur C. Clarke, 2 Professor Benoît Mandelbrot, Professor Michael Barnsley, Gary Flake, David Pennock, Will Rood, Professor Ian Stewart and Nigel. The book includes an online link to the film. Following the sad death of Benoît Mandelbrot, Nigel was invited to write obituaries for The Guardian and The Times. He also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Last Word, discussing Mandelbrot’s life and work with Ian Stewart of Warwick University. The plot for Nigel’s first comic/thriller novel Nothing and Everywhere came to him in a dream. He has produced a screenplay based on the book. His second novel Life is Just... is in a more serious vein. It’s set 1962 Cambridge and is the story of a 'perfect' family's fall from grace and its redemption. It was published by Eventispress in 2015. He followed this novel with the sequel to Nothing and Everywhere called A Glass of Two Milks. This story is set in 2030 in a utopian world but one still plagues by human failings - lust, anger, greed, attachment and egotism. It was published by Gordon Books in 2016. The following year Eventispress published his fourth novel The Keeper of the Faith. The story is set in 1968. A US Marine platoon, led by Tristram, 8th Earl of Oundle, is choppered into the wrong jungle location and left outside radio range, face to face with The Vietcong. The ensuing relentless frenzy of death and destruction carries Tristram to India, into a Benedictine monastery and finally to remotest Scotland in his search for truth, salvation and love. 3 .