Monday 21

A quiet weekend.

Friday sat in and watched the Big Brother final with the housemates, with a Thai Curry from the Thai house and a couple of bottles of beer (Tyskie and Budvar) from the 'mini-mart' a few doors up. The eternally gestating Davina McCall looking less avian than she has in the past, the feathered edges of motherhood having presumably softened her corvine, beak-like features.

The blonde girl, Aisleyne, wept on cue while wearing mostly nothing, the Welsh lad reminded me why I don't go to Wales very often, and the winner Pete, dissolved into a series of fractured twitches and squawks like a self consciously 'childlke' Max Headroom, or a glitch remix of Frank Spencer and Woody Woodpecker.

After that watched Chasing Amy – one of Ben Affleck's better roles, which isn't saying much in my opinion.

Saturday didn't do a right deal. Went and bought a few cheap CD's, inluding an album by The Fall, a Slick Rick album from 99, and a New Electronica compilation from 1994. I'm getting quite into buying techno from this era, and trying to work out if its still any good – and some of it is, very good. Some of it has aged like old socks though. Also popped into Rat Records, where in a spot of Hi Fidelity style geekery, the guys behind the counter and one of the customers were comparing the basslines on Norman Connor's 'You Are My Starship' (as Sampled by Mobb Deep on 'Trife Life') and Freddie Mcgregor's 'Natural Collie'. Practically identical by all accounts.

Saturday night went to The Lock Tavern in Camden to see Sam DJ. I thought Kay was playing too, but she was absent, and Ade couldn't really be bothered going (presumably the thought of attending that venue without a drink to steady your nerves isn't worth contemplating).

True to form is was completely rammed by the time I got there, which was 09:15 ish, and it was one-in-one-out time already. Nevertheless I got in almost instantly, only to have my progress checked at the stairs to the upstairs bar by a buddha-like Eastern European bouncer who kind of looked like a set of stairs himself (belly, manbreasts and head stacked in order of decreasing size.

Somebody eventually rolled a natural 20 on my behalf, because after about fifteen minutes I was waved upstairs, and the spectre of irritation departed to vex the next person who had to wait.

I think it was Sam's last Saturday there, which is fine by me really, as regardless of influx restrictions imposed by bug-bear like bouncers, the place always has the sardine like air of a tube carriage in rush hour, with added beer and cigarettes. Someone had the bright idea of removing spare tables earlier this year, though they just seem to cram more people in now as there's no extra space.

In the end it was alright though. I sat next to Sam and chatted to him between him putting on records. Got a couple of beers on the DJs tab and smoked some roll-ups. Bailed around half Eleven to catch the tube from Chalk Farm.

Sunday stayed in doing some work, and only left to go to the Chinese Supermarket, where I found to my consternation that they've stopped doing three for a pound sardines. Luckily the Turkish place at the top of Camberwell Church Street still does, so a dietary crisis was averted. I noticed the continental market seemed to have departed the green early, for which I can't blame them. When I walked past on Saturday custom didn't seem particularly brisk, and the only other people on the green were a group of winos drinking tins of super strength cider. Not the sort of folk generally associated with consumption of premium deli foodstuffs.

Rounded the weekend off by watching David Cronenburg's 'Spider' on channel 2. It's quite different from most of his stuff, as it doesn't feature his usual technological fetishes, though it is nontheless very disturbing. I really enjoyed it.

Back in the studio in CHI. Managed to avoid doing very much last Friday but I suspect I'm going to have some retail ads sprung on me any minute now.. Sooner the better I suppose.

There's a cute Japanese freelancer at the other end of the room – she's got really short hair and is rocking a houndstooth dress, glasses with narrow frames and large earrings. She looks like she probably moonlights as an electro deejay. The entire ensemble is making me have to stuff my eyeballs back in intermittently.