The Eyechild

Moving on

2009-09-26T16:47:00.006Z

Sup peeps?

Posts have been somewhat thin on the ground from this lapsed blogger, but to briefly summarise recent events in my life, I have upped sticks, and decamped from Camberwell to Hoxton, after (almost) five years of living in the same flat. I'm now living in what I hope to be fairly short-term accomodation, for the purposes of scoping out the East, in a small, pretty functional bedroom that consists of bed, table, wardrobe and not a right lot else. It's a flatshare, and I'm hoping this is the last roll of the dice for me in terms of this kind of cohabiting – there's a warning light somewhere on my mental dashboard above the message "need own space" that is throbbing with greater insistency, these days.

So why Hoxton? dunno really. As wearisome a hipster cliche as it might be, I do spend a fair old bit of time here in the evenings, and the 35 bus home at two in the morning was just getting too much. Beyond all this though, I was just desirous of ringing the changes. Although I have an odd sort of affection for the environs of SE5, I was starting to feel like part of the street furniture – something like a partially melted plastic bin with a Morley's chip box atop it. This, at least in part, is what I ascribe my somewhat stuck mojo to recently, blogwise and beyond.

The transition has been generally fine, insofar as moving residence ever is, and the weekend I moved, London was basking in the eye of the Indian summer sun, which as ever, gave even the down at heels environs of SE5 a temporary lick of gloss, and lent my departure with a faint sense of poignancy; though as the taxi wheeled away for the final time, bearing me toward Tower Bridge and beyond, the tune on the radio was Odyssey's 'Back to my Roots' which I must congratulate the cosmic DJ on being a nice touch.

The last week has been great fun, out and about here and there. Today I wandered up to the quasi-bohemia of Stoke Newington, and had a poke about the bookshops and record shops on Church Street. Tomorrow I'm going to go and look at some potential studio space. I think I'm going to like it here.

The Rain...

2009-08-01T17:54:00.010Z

As the monsoon season kicks off properly in my grimey quarter of the capital, the natural soundtrack would seem to be rain-themed street raps over the pop and hiss of sweet soul licks...

This is something random I stumbled across on Youtube a while back from relative obscurities the East Side Hustlas. Love those strings, which KRS1 also nabbed for his remix of Mad Lion.

I first heard this remix (by Diamond D) on the Stretch Armstrong/DJ Ev mixtape which my good buddy Sam of Allez Allez (formerly DJ Deven Miles) was wont to stick on 'of a sesh' or when we were cruising round the mean streets of the Four Heatons in my beat up Citroen 2CV. Word... Gotta love those strings and echoey seventies "boowe" sounds.

Off the the album Da Storm, this sees the Boot Camp Click's charmingly named offshoot Originoo Gun Clappaz in a video shot on a beach, by a lighthouse wearing full-on yellow fisherman's cagoules with their obligatory nineties Timberlands. Kinda reminds me of the video for Big L's Put it On, where he's walking down the street rocking Helly Hensen dungarees. Fisherman fashion... Who'd a thunk them rappers would have beat the whole current obsession with 'rugged workwear' to the punch by a full decade?

'Barbecue Summer'

2009-07-30T00:17:00.004Z

Has anyone else noticed that the met office is, well, a bit shit? As meteorologists never tire of telling us, theirs is an 'inexact science' which is sort of fair enough, but in which case, can you hold off on the press releases anticipating a 'barbecue' summer, which as I glance out of the window at the default grey, rainy, humid July English weather, patently hasn't manifested.

Googling 'barbecue summer' I get lots of by now rather silly looking news items from around April, like this one from The Torygraph, where we're treated to a picture of some sizzling meat (presumably a visual metaphor for the British Isles) and the sub-head:

"Britain is expected to bask in a hot and dry summer with temperatures regularly reaching 86F (30C), forecasters have predicted."

Along with this statement from an expert, qualifying the whole 'barbecue' bit with the strangely disconcerting delivery of a GCSE science teacher attempting to channel empathy at his bemused charges.

"The thing I remember about last summer was not getting the barbecue out. Not sitting on the terrace with a nice glass of wine or camping. People didn't do that very much last summer. In terms of the misery index it was right down the bottom.

"So we felt this year, especially with all the bad news around, we thought we have a good news story."

Aw, thanks guys. Shame it was bollocks though, eh? I'd have preferred it if you'd told me the events in Babe: Pig in the City were real – finding out that wasn't true would just mean I could start eating bacon again rather than frantically attempting to book last minute flights off this storm lashed rock we call home.

(To be fair, they did also attach a caveat to this press release saying there was only a two in three chance of this actually happening, and there was hence a good chance they were completely incorrect, but isn't this in itself a bit... rubbish?)

Amongst other news articles, there were also typically hysterical cautions about the soaring rates of skin skin cancer we could expect from the anticipated withering heatwave (the chance would be a fine thing) compared to which today's story about exposure to sunbeds posing a similar health risk seems decidedly sheepish.

This fallability would seem to be true of most weather sources though, the weather 'predictions' on my iPhone seeming to perform more in the manner of a live Twitter feed, only delivering live blow-by-blow (literally, given the wind) updates on the weather, as it actually happens, with any accuracy, by which time I generally know already, thanks. At all other times the 5-day forecast seems in a state of constant flux, the meteorological glyphs shifting according to who knows what arcane pattern.

I guess my beef is this: if modern scientific weather forecasts are as subject to chaos as this, then what's the fricken point? we might as well revert to casting the runes or examining the livers of sacrificed animals – at least that way we get something for the fabled barbie if it does turn out alright.

But weathermen (and women) if you are to persist with your modern ways, here is my suggestion: At the end of Spring, when a crowd gathers round your hut in the forest, wondering how the weather will turn out, simply announce:

"honestly? it'll probably be rubbish, and we'll get one really hot Saturday sometime in mid June, then it'll be Autumn"

That way, nobody gets disappointed, and if the sun does decide to put his hat on, it's just a bonus. Everyone's happy! No-one'll take you seriously, but you'll probably be right the majority of the time. Go on. Take one for the team if you're so eager to please.

All this said, the forecasters are now predicting rain in August, so expect a sub-Saharan heatwave any time now...

Psygnosis

2009-07-26T17:36:00.010Z

An enduring, marginally endearing memory of my secondary-school era was of traipsing to my classmate Chris Pinchbeck's basement in Heaton Norris to play (or mostly watch him play, in all honesty) the new generation of computer games on his then state of the art Amiga 500.

Having not even graduated from the last generation of 8-bit gaming – a realm populated by machines such as C64 and even then venerable Spectrum 48k – I was gobsmacked at the sophistication of the graphics and sound-card, which seemed little different from arcade quality. My awed reaction to this new technology was probably comparable to that of say, the French infantry at the battle of Agincourt, finding themselves outgunned to an absurd degree by the English Longbow, a kind of "OMFG!" moment, followed by: "I gotta gets me one of these..."

One of the games that captivated me the most was 'Shadow of the Beast II' a sideways scrolling platform-cum-roleplaying game, where you controlled a ball and chain wielding beast man, questing through a perilous landscape to wrest your kidnapped sister from the clutches of some generic 'dark lord' type.

Gameplay was short in evidence, in all honesty, and the most expedient way of getting anywhere in it was the cheat where you asked a pygmy for ten pints and were rewarded with invulnerability. But where it did succeed was the gorgeous parallax scrolling graphics, which had a peculiarly lurid flavour – like wandering through a stack of seventies prog-rock LPs.

Indeed, the cover for the game was created by artist Roger Dean, responsible for amongst other things, the original Virgin Records logo and covers of various albums by bands such as Asia – which effectively informed the game's dark, vaguely psychedelic feel.

And having also designed their logo, Dean seems to have set a creative precedent for the label's house style, if not quite formed a creative partnership outright. All their games tended to feature baroque, ornate seventies-style letterforms in their logotypes, and seemed defined by a visual language more redolent of a florid Jack Vance novel, than a supposedly cutting edge games company. Indeed, as with the aforementioned SOTB II, they often seemed to indulge in graphical showboating at the expense of playability, must of the games usually being so-so to play, whilst remaining visually arresting (bar, perhaps Lemmings). And it's a trade-off that worked, really. Their unusual visual identity was immediately recognisable, and the company still has something of a cult following to this day.

Now. I own a much-loved promotional T-shirt for the first Shadow of the Beast game, which is now somewhat cracked and faded, so have set up a Google alert for "shadow of the beast shirt" which yesterday dropped this link into my inbox:

Which is basically a French fan/tribute site to the label, with a pretty comprehensive list of all the games Psygnosis produced, some of which induce some heavy waves of nostalgia in this blogger.

Amongst the oddities on display are Agony, a sideways scrolling shoot-em-up in which, in characteristically odd Psygnosis fashion, you play the chrome owl featured in their logo (rather than say, a spaceship) spitting bolts of energy from its beak. There's actually a video of someone playing it to completion on Youtube, and yes, it looks somewhat tedious after a while, but hey, great visuals! Here's a shorter clip:

Also included on the site are assorted press clippings and reviews from French gaming magazines. One review by 'Dogue de mauve' of War of the Worlds blast-em-up 'Walker' seems to sum up much of Pysgnosis's ouevre when he notes in the bulleted Top/Flop section 'le action est trop repetitive."

Inevitably perhaps, the things that most piqued my interest here were the promotional merchandise, such as various Roger Dean designed T-shirts for both Beast games, along with a Pygnosis logo-shirt. There were also a range of pin-badges (which you can see in the 'Goodies' section) that I'd reet like to get my feelers on (me and the rest of ebay, no doubt).

So there you have it. A blast of shameless nostalgia from my adolescence, which I hope you'll permit me, internets. And it is at the very least interesting to note, that while the playability of these games in question isn't in itself very memorable, the graphic language surrounding it is, as a retro-retro gaming oddity.

I'll leave you with the faintly homoerotic game over sequence from Shadow of the Beast II, which is kind of Dire Straits meets Michael Moorcock. Enjoy.

Racists. Still fucking stupid.

2009-07-26T00:22:00.012Z

A few months whilst walking through Soho, I chanced upon a trail of unsophisticated graffitti, where someone had crudely sprayed the 'Slayer' logo, alongside that much maligned icon, the swastika, joy of joys. Happily, such scrawlings are few and far between, and I usually just have to contend with the only slightly less mindless piss-smears of territorial gang tags that daub the walls and street signs of South London.

It did get me thinking though, just what kind of dickhead throws up signs on the one hand showing approbation for a Californian thrash metal band, alongside a symbol hijacked by (and ultimately now inseperable from) the kind of fascist pinheads who would surely have denounced the former's music as 'degenerate'.

I hypothesised – a dickhead of supremely limited intelligence.

And my suspicions were confirmed on Friday, for whilst strolling to work in Covent garden I happened again across another packet of sub-political hate sloganeering, the first, a 'C18' or 'Combat 18' tag (the number's are Adolf Hitler's initials or something odious like that).

The second one is pretty hilarious though. Check it.

Now, I've heard of the BNP, but the BMP? what does that stand for? the British Moron Party? Being Major Pricks? Perhaps the writer was simply celebrating that hallowed graphic file format, the bitmap or bmp? It's momentarily amusing that the cretin responsible is dumb enough to incorrectly write the three letter acronym of the party they're invoking, but then, the realisation dawns that ultimately this is the truth of the matter, that such supposedly political constructs as the BNP just validate the xenophobia of angry people, indifferent to political affiliations beyond those which rubber-stamp the stamping on of a few heads, whilst the CCTV cameras are turned to the wall.

For 'charity's sake' you might at least acknowledge that the graffiteur in question had the chutzpah to write on a window with a CCTV sticker behind it. But of course, you could always chalk that one up to stupidity as well, and derive reassurance from the knowledge that these people might constitute some kind of significant menace – if they could spell words of longer than two letters.

Hyper Hyper

2009-07-13T20:33:00.008Z

A few years ago whilst living in Heaton Moor, my good old buddy Will came up to stay, for what turned out to be a long boozy weekend (these being in the days before he hopped on the wagon and left the rest of us rolling pie-eyed in the streets like inhabitants of a Hogarth etching).

On the Sunday, prior to his departure, I took him and our hangovers up to the Holdsworth Mill in Reddish, where on the Fourth Floor, a strange agglomeration of traders had set up shops trading mainly in knick-knacks, gew gaws, and the like. There were shops selling horsey things (bridles and tackle, saddles and such), shops selling pet food, shops selling second hand CDs and records. One enterprise was manned by a a rotund, mustachioed, opera singing eccentric, who claimed to have been firebombed out of Gorton for refusing to pay protection money. He was undertaking the retail of a vast mine of virtually worthless comics and books (though I did find Moebius's take on the Silver Surfer in there). All the shops were housed in fake shop fronts, in a fake self contained 'village' within a floor of the mill. All sold utter tat (by and large second hand), and I, inveterate lover of bric-a-brac as I am, was mesmerised! (Will, less so. He later confessed he hated it). The entire setup had the feeling of some strange post apocalyptic trading outpost, where the denizens of the new world elevate the ephemera of the last to near religious status.

I only mention this because a similarly shabby business model seems to be appearing in London. First it was 'Hyper Hyper', breakfasting in the ruins of Zavvi's – and previous to them of course Virgin's – megastore on Oxford street (I haven't been in, but half the tat flogged in the concessions within looks like it belongs on the market in Eastenders).

And yesterday, whilst on a mission into town, I was surprised when I walked past Burberry's old headquarters on the Strand, to see that someone has rented out the old space to flog racks and racks of old Gola and Lonsdale gear, beneath the antique branded clock that hangs outside

These particular premises were not recently a shop, and the scheme for the retailer to consolidate all its offices into one mega-office at Horseferry House required their abandonment of this location like the Corleone's did their ranch at the beginning of The Godfather Part III – but regardless of what you think of them, and their plaid, it looks pretty folorn and shabby now, like it belongs in The Arndale Centre in Manchester.

After this I went to check out the fire damage from the blaze on Dean Street on Friday. That was pretty surreal for me because at the time, despite being only two streets away, I was completely unaware of it happening, possibly due to being plugged into a Mac frantically retouching, whilst submerged in a Larry Heard mix. I stepped out of work at Seven O'Clock to find vast swathes of Soho cordoned off, and Police and Firefighters everywhere. "Oh no" I thought, "What's happened". Thankfully ('thankfully') it was only a fire, though London's probably had enough of those the last fortnight. Not much to see, though, as the street was still cordoned off in front of Quo Vadis restaurant, and the building clad in plastic sheeting.

I then went and bought a CD (the Martyn album, very nice) and went and looked at some shoes on sale. Predictably, nothing I wanted was in my size.

I'm working with estate agents today. I looked out the window this morning and thought 'shorts'. Having got to town, I'm now thinking 'umbrella'.

Booked it, packed it...

2009-06-18T08:20:00.001Z

Fucked off.

Hunterian Museum

2009-06-14T20:16:00.012Z

I went to the Hunterian museum this Saturday gone, which is situated a (sling-shot) stone's throw away from the John Soames house, on the Southern Side of a garden square in Holborn. It was as part of an illustration short course I've been doing, and the purpose of the trip was visual research, sketching and drawing.

It's actually within The Royal College of surgeons, and, in a nutshell, is a collection of surgical artifacts, including paintings, antique instruments from the operating theatre (which looked like they could have doubled as tickle-sticks for the Spanish Inquisition) to the core of the collection – banks of display cases containing a variety of organic specimens, from skeletons to dissected fauna to human anatomy.

No photography was allowed (due to the sanctity of human remains, y'dig?), so unfortunately you'll have to make do with my drawing of a crumbling syphilitic skull. But take my word for it – this is a pretty amazing little museum.

It's centred around the collection of the distinguised surgeon and anatomist John Hunter, which the government purchased in 1799 and presented to the college. Hunter was (to quote Wikipedia) 'an early advocate of careful observation', which is borne out by the miscellany presented here, assembled for reference, which orginally constituted the contents of a museum in Leicester Square. To be blunt though, and scientific merits aside, much of its allure for me did lie in the 'grue' factor inherent in wandering through chambers populated by centuries old limbs and biological oddities suspended in fomaldehyde. In fact, it wouldn't be too hyperbolic to call some of it a bit 'freakshow', if one is assuming the word freak to denote anomalous, as some of the exhibits are indeed mutations – such as the two-tailed lizard and the four-legged chick – only these are very much real, rather than some sideshow bit of fakery (though the skeleton of 'The Irish Giant' Charles Byrne suggests its previous owner wouldn't have looked out of place in Todd Browning's carnie classic, Freaks).

Highlights for me included (in no particular order):

Watching a video where a team or brain surgeons excised a tumour made me all the more admiring of their consummate skill, as well as glad I didn't have the Pret Meatball Ragu sandwich for lunch.

The club owned by one on the 'Beadles' responsible for transporting the remains of executed felons to the college for dissection (perceived as a horrible fate by the underclasses). It's a kind of wooden belaying pin with iron flanges, presumably used to repel irate rellies of the deceased.

Some stereoscopes attached to a wall displaying before and after cases of early 'plastic' surgery to first world war casualties, a reminder if ever one was needed that trench warfare 'ain't great' especially on the frontline, with assorted bits of metal hurtling about at high velocity.

An early device for removal of gall stones. Most of the surgical instruments look like more tarnished versions of things I'd glimpsed in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, but this little bit of steel joy is something else. Supposedly an early example of 'non invasive' surgery, it probably helped gave rise to the surgeon's phrase of the day 'Lord if thou take me, do it not through the bladder". I'm not going to even try and explain it here – pets might be reading.

Charles Babbage's brain. Yep, that's right, a section of brain previously belonging to the man often referred to as a 'father of the computer' can be found bobbing round in an unassuming fashion in a jar in Holborn. Apparently they've got two other bits out back, and his family were quite 'up for it'.

That should hopefully have piqued your 'appetite anyway'. I think there's some other bits in the college to check out, but this section is, in itself, is a fascinating window onto a historical period in medicene, and nascent surgical techniques (as well as lots of things that look like they're out of that film Aliens). It's free, as well, so even if you're feeling 'the pinch of the crunch' you can justify mooching on over for an afternoon. Plus kids will probably love it if it doesn't scare them witless.

Gordon Brown

2009-06-09T21:10:00.010Z

I got this David Shrigley postcard with a print I bought from POW recently, and it's kept me chuckling ever since. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about David Shrigley I like. I feel I should find his stuff naff – wonky doesn't usually do it for me – but I instead find it intriguing. And hilarious. And sinister.

And G-Unit? I sorta feel sorry for the guy, really. He's in an unenviable position and it looks lonely at the top. He seems tired and out of his depth, which even by the standards of someone whose spent most of their premiership very much on the back foot is saying something. Presumably the only reason his 'Heathcliff-like' presence is still lashed to the wheel of the ship he failed to navigate past so many icebergs is the albatross around his neck, which might yet draw some of the public's venom away from Labour's cankerous body politic. Poor lad. He only wanted his turn.

But I can't take Labour seriously anymore. The government that marched us off to war, wants to retain our DNA on a database, give us all ID cards, and make it illegal to photograph Police (so they can whack us over the head with impunity when we try and protest), yet tries to block details of their expenses coming out in case we find out they've been claiming for their Muller Corners on us? Puh-lease!

Indeed, Labour are so far beyond the point of people being able to take them seriously, that the light from 'people being able to take them seriously' will probably reach them just before the universe ends, or whenever they get back in power – whichever comes first.

In the meanwhile, and in the words of 80s coin-op 'Operation Wolf':

"Sorry, but you are finished here".

2009-06-06T22:28:00.000Z

Radio Advertising

2009-05-29T22:36:00.007Z

Radio Advertising. Annoying: probably pretty effective.

I'm working at the minute, with all that entails, including listening to an office radio. And this week, the slightly tepid pop selection comes courtesy of Absolute FM who, in their favour, have a policy of not playing the same tune twice in a day*.

The same can't be said of advertising unfortunately, and on commercial radio my experience seems to suggest far fewer subscribers buying slots – compared to the pluralistic frenzy of the internet or TV – with the result that the same five or so radio ads get some seriously heavy caning throughout any random eight-hour sample.

Radio advertising feels odd to me. My initial thoughts upon getting reacquainted were that it represented some kind of extant bunker of purely jingle-led promotion, sticking to its guns on the airwaves like packets of Japanese soldiers hiding out on Pacific islands long after World War 2 ended. But no, generally all the ads are re-purposed versions of TV campaigns – just lacking any visual context (one, a Subway ad, features a Peter Kayesque 'talking pocket' which I'd never have garnered from the radio) Even so, the focus of radio ads does seem to be the twee, catchy little tunes.

On the plus side, this relative lack of sophistication seems quite endearing, hearkening back to days when the marketing mensch weren't preoccupied with trying to enslave the latest bit of social networking apparatus to their own dark ends. But on the downside it does mean you're probably going to be subjected to some of the most insanely irritating tuneage since the last Christina Aguilera single. Irritating, but it must be said, catchy, for these sung refrains are insidiously compelling – like a kind of mnemonic mind-worm that burrows into your brain (think the slug things in the Star Trek film 'Wrath of Khan') – and they stay there!

I can still remember jingles from my childhood, in fact. Who could forget classics such the Kellogs Bran flakes ad, for instance?

"Theeeey're tasty tasty very very tasty." (etc)

Though when my brother bumped it to the forefront of my mental playlist whilst on holiday the other year, we were all at something of a loss to recall the product it originally centred around. Bacon? err, chips? dunno. And even though the accompanying images of the piece in question have largely faded from my memory, I can still vividly recall the song from a Mobil ad of my youth, that set the following lyrics to Gene Pitney's 24 Hours From Tulsa:

"Only 24 toasters from Scunthorpe,
Only 6 double beds from Torquay,
And I can’t decide if I will
Buy a diamond ring or a drill,
And if I want to
I can add to
My Premier Points with cash
If I haven’t driven enough!"

I think the line where the singer sums up the (exciting) quandary that the choice between a tool and a piece of jewellery elicits is pretty much automatic D&AD award-winning genius (well, maybe not). But still somehow captivating in its silliness, hey?. Old advertising is a heady garden of nostalgia though anyway – I recall with affection the ads that punctuated a crackly recording of Star Wars on VHS we watched to abstraction as kids, such as the Heineken one with the road-mender's sign in the rain, where the icon of the man slurps on a crisp lager, then with a flourish, transforms his spade into an umbrella (that was when Heineken was 3%, mind. God knows what he'd do now – probably fall asleep.)

But I digress. The main reason I'm writing all this is that the last few days I've been subjected to a Muller corner ad that uses the tune from Nina Simone's 'I Got Life', only behind some most unfeasibly inane wordplay I've ever heard. It's basically a choir of people, young and old, taking turns to insert their favourite Muller flavour into the "I've got my" format, and the net result is truly distracting in its stupefying idiocy. It starts something like this:

"I got got my cherry, got my berry! got my biscuit, got my crunch!"

then meanders off through some other flavours, (a child cheeps "I got my blueberries!", discordantly) before the cherry girl triumphantly reiterates that she's 'got her cherry', and the whole thing ends.

I've been hearing this about five times a day (at least) the last fortnight, and it has the kind of nauseating, delirium inducing effect otherwise only legally obtainable off herbal-high counters in Camden. Annoyingly, it's habit forming though, constituting an itch my brain seeks to scratch through involuntary repetition: I'll be pootling round my kitchen, say, and suddenly catch myself starting to hum "got my cherr" before I come to with a start and give myself a mental 'dry slap'.

It's brutally effective stuff. And I could envision myself happily pounding my own head to mush in order to escape extended repetition of this particular ditty, but my last word word almost certainly be "M U L L E R", spelled out in morse code and clumps of brain as my head beat a wet, red tattoo against the wall, probably leaving something much like a Muller yoghurt and topping smeared there, more's the irony.

But seriously, who writes these things? I'm trying to imagine, and the only mental picture popping in there is of a cross between Andy Warhol and Nosferatu hunched behind a mixing desk in a post-production house in Soho, giggling maniacally between bites of a Pret butty. I'm evoking an evil genius here, but it actually does sound like quite a laugh (unless you have to take it seriously).

Anyway. That's that off my chest. Any jingles that got you reaching for a rusty nail to scratch out the bit of your brain containing it? c'mon friends, share my pain...

*apart from some competition they're running at the minute

Birkies

2009-05-24T14:45:00.000Z

Uniqlock RULES!

2009-05-21T21:40:00.004Z

I stumbled on this the other day.

I spend far two much of my time thumbing through the racks of 'the Japanese Gap' in the quest for fresh new t-shirts, or investigating their much touted 'Designer's Invitation' projects (the Guilded Age one, is pretty good, as it happens).

So imaging my joy when I stumbled upon a web-based timekeeping application, soundtracked by mid-90s Nintajune style jazz beats, with a quartet of Japanese girlies in pastel hoodies and jeans cavorting round a corporate looking glass and steel structure. I mean, what's not to like, huh?

Anyway. Uniqlock is pretty mesmeric, and it's busily chattering away in the background as I write this. Basically, Japan, Uniqlo and half-decent sample based music usually cheer me up somewhat, so for these reasons, I'm going to temporarily at least whore my increasingly dormant blog out to a corporation by installing the Uniqlock in the upper right corner, especially as I'm somewhat obsessed by the passage of time these days, weeks months and years.

That's all.

Tuesday

2009-05-19T08:56:00.001Z

So, a wet grey Tuesday morning here and I'm sat in a Cafe Nero in
central London, with a load of estate agents. Following a gas leak.
Not only that, I'm drinking Starbuck's coffee. Sounds like a dream
huh? *Arnie voice* "IT ISN'T"

Daily Mail

2009-05-14T11:26:00.006Z

Adoption Nazis? There's a sitcom in there somewhere... I'm thinking something like that late 80s wonder 'My Two Dads' (starring Greg Evigan and the guy who played slimy corporate retainer Burke in Aliens) except in this the two adoptive parents are nazis living with their charge in an ex-local authority maisonette in Dalston. Not only that but they're gay. Comic hi-jinks ensue, etc etc.

A la Manc

2009-04-17T20:05:00.000Z

Pegasus

2009-04-04T12:47:00.009Z

I'm having a flutter on the gee gees today, on the Grand National. First time I've I'm ever placed a bet, though I'm not much of a gambler generally, apart from those little insta-rubbish lottery scratchies ("Oh, I've won a quid, I'll buy another one, oh, I've lost")...

Flash forward ten years. Me, in a betting shop in Hull. I've put on some weight – a roll of fat wobbling over my waistband like a sea-lion lurching from a bath. My jeans are shiny. My face graven with worry and excess. If Sherlock Holmes were here now he could point to any one of a dozen things about my demeanour, carriage, attire, that speak of a life on the brink, unpaid bills, bailiffs hammering on the door, kids crying, wife screaming...

As my horse 'Time and Relative Dimensions in Space' rolls in last with all the urgency of the Camberwell Tube extension, I tear asunder the betting slip, I destroy it, this creaky bridge to far off dreams, as I have burnt so many bridges, as the destitute farmer in Colorado sets ablaze his failing ranch.

Simultaneously, I wheel about, head for the door, already parlaying this minor footnote of failure into a grander scheme of entropy, as I head for my local boozer 'The Likely Lad', there to prop up the bar until closing time or forcible ejection (whichever comes first) and dream of the days you could smoke indoors...

Ahem. Hope that doesn't happen.

MyRail

2009-04-02T12:49:00.005Z

I just regretfully deleted a nice, free little application from my phone called Myrail Lite. It was really handy. It would locate stations closest to you, and filter the timetable to give you a handy list of destinations, and arrival and departure times. It was very useful, especially when you out and about or on the go. And indeed, even if you did have access to the internet, as I've never found the National Rail Enquiries website that much of a joy to use, much like the trains themselves, to be honest.

Well, when trying use it last night, I discovered that it, like many people these days, had been forced to stop working, when National Rail didn't renew their license to publish a live feed of train times.

And hey, w-what's this, National Rail have just created an application of their own, reportedly inferior, for £4.99. That's £4.99, for information on a public service, who already charge some of the most expensive fares in Europe, for conveyance in their grotty overcrowded carriages. Greedy. Why not make it free, National Rail? or charge 50p, but £5? For shame.

Still, why am I surprised that the rail infrastructure in this country is continuing to pursue their tried and tested policy of making things less efficient and more expensive, even in this minor aspect.

*adjusts monocle, lights pipe, harumphs etc.*

I'm getting bored of this poster now.

2009-03-30T14:00:00.002Z

Thanks to Sigh 9 for kindly pointing me in the direction of this Flickr pool which contains numerous examples of that poster I was whingeing about. I can probably put this sucker to bed now.

This is my favourite, I think.

Grizzly Man

2009-03-30T01:42:00.004Z

This evening I watched the Werner Herzog documentary 'Grizzly Man' about the reclusive guy who fed himself and his girlfriend to bears in 2003, Timothy Treadwell.

There's something incredibly eerie about it, as it largely mostly consists of footage self-filmed by Treadwell whilst out in the Alaskan wilderness, consisting of him delivering enthusiastic bulletins about his ursine friends, when you in fact know what the grisly outcome of this obsession was

And he was definitely an 'unusual' guy, with something of a chequered past, who discovered bears like other people discover Jesus. In fact, there is an messianic zeal about some of his straight-to-camera monologues, which veer from sweet (if somewhat naive) hymns to the giant beasts he loves so much, to expletive strewn rants against human society, against the bleakly beautiful backdrop of some mountain vista – usually with a skip-sized brown bear swaying in the middle distance.

In contrast to which, Herzog's measured, considered voiceover seems incredibly compelling. He is clearly fascinated by this man and the legacy of his extant footage, though while the I got the impression he views him kindly (and some people interviewed for the programme clearly saw him as a crank who got his comeuppance) he is as at odds with the spiritual significance that Treadwell projected on to the lumbering beasts who were his companions as anyone. One quote which we actually had to rewind and re-listen to it was so solemn and aphoristic was (and I paraphrase) "The common denominator in the universe is chaos, hostility and murder".

Ultimately, this is quite a sad, affecting portrayal of a man who paid the ultimate price for his love of bears (great tagline, huh?). What stays with me as much as anything however is the incredible gravitas that the archived documents that survive Treadwell possess, the breathtakingly stark beauty of an Alaskan wilderness, mostly indifferent to human motives, set against the emotional crusade of a single man, and as well as being a documentary it's a tragedy, if not also a strange sort of love story.

I also enjoyed Little Dieter Wants to fly by Herzog, too. Next time, I think I'll try and catch one of his actual 'movies'.

Keep Calm

2009-03-28T00:49:00.008Z

There's that phonemenon, largely subjective I suspect, but often ascribed to synchronicity, where something you were previously unaware of – such as a word, or phrase – suddenly becomes apparently ubiquitous, and you start hearing it on a near daily basis. (Such a thing happened last year, when everyone started saying "über" rather too much).

It is possible that this is largely due to the brain's subconscious yearning to identify patterns, but also, on occasion can arise simply from a popular trend, or something that cleaves to the public imagination, at any given moment (Myleene Klasse, for instance).

Into the latter category would I place that poster, the wartime public broadcast "Keep Calm and Carry on" (you must, by now, know the one).

Now, I realise that this is an artifact of some antiquity, dating from the Second World War, but prior to the end of last year, I was cheerfully unaware of its existence. Then, one day I saw it, and suddenly it seemed to be EVERYWHERE. I see it on a near weekly basis now, peering at me from the corner of an interiors photoshoot in the the pages of a broadsheet weekend magazine; gurning at me from a web browser, or acting as a kind of serving suggestion in the window of a local framers.

More disconcerting still is the wacky meme of appropriating said, rather staid wartime propaganda, and 'subverting' its message. In fact, I think I might start a niche museum dedicated to archiving permutations of this specific visual macro-trend.

The theatre of Advertising relies on cliches, which act as a kind of shorthand – effectively conveying a set of associations with relative economy, by setting the context. You want to imply that your brand is 'for the people?' (ie: cheap) simply effect a poster campaign aping those Soviet-era propaganda posters you went and saw at the Tate the other year. Y'know, flip the 'R's around, lots of red, raised fists, that sort of thing. Simple.

Almost too simple. Simple to the point of being hackneyed, in fact. But I suppose it takes time for what are by now slightly weary tropes to worm their way into the visual vernacular. What I do find a fascinating enigma, is the notional tipping point at which something like this attains critical mass, and becomes recognisably iconic – to the extent that it's no longer simply a rather simple bit of typography, than a meme, or trope. What precipitated this little bit of design's inauguration into the national Consciousness's golden hall of design fame, alongside The Routemaster?

God knows. But what I suspect from experience is we're probably going to see a lot more of this rather unassuming poster in the future in some form, be it parody or pastiche. The latest example I've secured for my rogues gallery of such examples I spotted on the Peckham Road the other night, which I present for your appraisal here.

I can't help but think that the designer here has aped the typographical layout of the original to the detriment of the poster's actual message... quite aside from the phrasal emphasis feeling slightly wonky – "ANYTHING YOU SAY MAY (be taken down) AND USED AS EVIDENCE" – the poster felt to me like some kind of wagging finger aimed at prospective criminals, when actually the two little lines of copy at the bottom reveal that the poster's purported message is about a police pledge to use confidential informant's testimony as evidence in court.

Still, I suppose it does at least stylistically fitting in the context of a message originating from the state, even if it does look a bit 'V for Vendetta'. We live in an incredibly pluralistic, visual culture (someone quoted "alter modern" at me the other day) where entire historical visual languages are there to be cherry-picked, just a Google search away. In such an age 'appropriateness' is perhaps the best a designer can aspire to, when there is no single master 'design narrative'.

PS: has anyone else spotted any other hacks of this bit of iconic design? I'd be interested in seeing them.

Closer @ Hidden

2009-03-22T20:16:00.004Z

On Friday night I went to a night called Closer, at a club called Hidden in Vauxhall which was, appropriately, tucked away on a little side street just next to the South Bank.

It's a pretty compact venue, with two shoebox-like dancefloors, one with a kind of mezzanine bar above it. There's also an astro-turfed smokers bit outside. Pretty unpreposessing really, but the music itself – some of the banging-est techno I've heard in a while – was a refreshingly cathartic opportunity to dance like a thing possessed, for most of the wee hours.

In spite of the yellow and black industrial stylings of the flyer, (which owe a rather obvious debt to The Hacienda and Peter Saville) and the fact that legendarily tough-as-titanium-nails producer The Surgeon was headlining, the music was on a surprisingly groovy Detroit flex (still well hard though).

Highlights for me included someone playing Game One by Infiniti (a Juan Atkins pseudonym) and 'The Surge' dropping Didgeridoo by the Aphex Twin at about five in the morning, though by that time I was somewhat weary, and in fact popped out about halfway through the tune to down a shot of vodka and ice at the bar.

Following this, Saturday was almost entirely couch based. I stayed in, ate Chinese and watched Gosford Park. Today I went for a mooch round Hampstead Heath with Will, Sam, their bairn Zac and Helen and Renee. On our way back home we passed George Orwell's old gaff on Parliament Road. Most relaxing.

Here's that Infiniti track. Enjoy. Or don't, if you hate Techno.

That Watchmen review

2009-03-20T13:44:00.009Z

Who Watches the Watchmen? well me, last Friday at the iMax, and I actually sat down and penned quite a long review about it too, before thinking, hmm, about eight squillion people have already chucked their two penneth in the jar, so you can probably google "Watchmen review" and get an idea whether you think it's going to suck or not without recourse to my ramblings. Here's an extract from my epic:

"It's been said quite often that a serialised TV show would be a far better format for translation of this project, and I have to agree. Watchmen was, as a comic and latterly a graphic novel, intrinsically episodic, and its frequent forays into the medium of other media (e.g. Newspaper clippings and magazine articles) from the alternate late 20th century Moore dreams up for us, are intrinsically problematic to channel onto a cinema screen."

Eh, I do get carried away sometimes (I start going on about Marshall Mcluhan, too). I think that's enough for now. To paraphrase my weighty, considered review:

"Watchmen: It's not as bad as it could have been"

In fact, it's not bad at all. No, it's not the novel, never could be, never was going to be, so get over it. It's pretty (if that's the word) and if you liked Dave Gibbons' artwork, you'll probably just be mesmerised by seeing that translated into moving images for two-and-a-half hours. That's me as a fan speaking though. Lord alone knows what people who hadn't read the comic thought – they were probably utterly bemused by it all.

What I would say is, if you haven't already (and can be bothered) read the book first. It's very good, and doesn't even really bear comparison to the film in terms of its breadth.

Now, for a bit of fun, here's Watchmen author and all-round arch beard Alan Moore commenting on and reading from the book (if you stick around to the end). He fucking hated the film on principle. Fair enough. I like his assertion that Batman, as a archetype is essentially a vigilante psychopath.

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What tickled me more was the similarity between Moore (no pun) and Garth Marenghi in Channel Four's wonderful Horror spoof Darkplayce. It made me chuckle, anyway.

Just William

2009-03-13T17:51:00.015Z

So, this afternoon Prince William popped into The St Giles' Trust on Camberwell Church Street. Immediately prior, I was scarfing down a bowl of noodles from my flat over the road, gazing absently out of the window and wondering what all the police and – even more rare for Camberwell – photographers were doing there.

Me and my housemate, whom I alerted to all this, assumed it was probably some MP or something, and it was only when the tall grinning one emerged from a silver people carrier with his entourage, that we realised what all the fuss was about.

After that, we pulled up seats, waiting for him to emerge again. It felt a bit like being on a police stakeout (though quite entertaining) as we watched a rogues' gallery of Camberwell's eccentrics tramp past, up and down the street, looking bemused at the gaggle of reporters camped outside of the Castle pub downstairs. I managed to get a cactus needle stuck in my thumb, from the withered specimen on the windowsill, which I spent most of the time trying to tease forth with a fair of tweasers. One of the guys from the trust popped out for a ciggy three times, which suggests he either really likes the coffin nails, or was just quite nervous (or both).

Eventually, a blunt looking 4x4 (containing two slightly twitchy looking bodyguards) and the silver people-carrier reappeared, signaling his reemergence, though it was another twenty minutes or so before he stepped out the door. In the meanwhile, one of the waiters from House gallery next door emptied a bucket of suds into the drain under the SUV of the two secret service types, nearly causing a security incident in the process. Word had got around by now, and the African guys from Merrygold's Barbers were were out on the pavement gawking (along with the girls from Hairshack afro-hair salon next door).

Eventually, Wills stepped smiling out front, to be greeted by flash bulbs and cheers, before stepping into his carriage and being spirited away 'up West'. The Castle Pub was looking especially busy when I walked past just now, presumably full of St Giles' employees, talking excitedly about their day.

Annoyingly, my photos are 'crazy shit'. But there you go.

Moodymann at Need to Soul

2009-03-01T16:23:00.008Z

So last night I trooped up to Cargo for Need2Soul with Al, where the enigmatic Moodymann was headlining alongside Benji B, who recently interviewed that other Detroit legend Juan Atkins for his BB6 Deviation radio show.

It's hard to know what to expect from such a individual, who is, as a personality, almost as cryptic as his mystically obtuse deep house jams. In an era of vapid celebrity, there does seem something almost heroic about Moodymann's celebrated reclusiveness (he's like an Alan Moore who writes house rather than comics) which falls into the same 'faceless' vein of fellow camera-shy Detroit reclusives Underground Resistance, and whom like the latter is often outspoken in a scene perhaps perceived as apolitical in the supposed inclusiveness of the dancefloor. This is perhaps epitomised best by his infamous 'whiteboy-baiting' liner notes on a Silent Introduction which could perhaps be interpreted as a topical sideswipe at producer Moby's liberal ransacking of the Lomax brother's field recordings of deep south blues singers on the album Play, (tracks from which later on ended up gracing a host of commercials, somewhat tarring the Go producing vegan's credentials in the process).

And Moodyman – or Kenny Dixon Junior's – rants on the proprietary nature of all things black seem to extend to recorded media itself, for he is a champion of the vinyl, as the 2000 release, Forevernevermore testifies - the rambling passages of mumbling, ambient clattering and near silence that interrupt tracks otherwise pristine on the LP release seeming less his evocation of musique concrete than a sly dig at those who chose to fork out for the shiny little coasters (that was my take, anyway).

Which was ultimately borne out last night, when he played a vinyl-only set from the DJ booth at the side of the room. We got in just in time to witness the beginning of his set, and hear him doing his laconic paper-comb-voice-mumble bit, waving a 12 inch aloft and affectionately referring to the crowd as "all y'all motherfuckers out there" (for which they seemed exceptionally delighted). In spite of his unshowiness, the man is clearly a showman of sorts.

As for the music. Well, anyone expecting anything too beardy was probably in for a letdown, as he played a surprisingly accessible two hours. The set opener was The Door's Riders on the Storm, segueing into The Family Stand's Ghetto Heaven, which acted as a bridge to mostly well-loved soul and disco numbers, such as Skyy's First Time Around and the Light of the World's funk-ta-fied cover of I Shot the Sheriff*.

Later on, having popped out for a drink and a roll-up, we retuned to find he'd upped the tempo somewhat, and was playing such proto-house electro-disco numbers as Telex's chugging Moskow Diskow and the prowling electronic whine of the sinister Sharivari by early Eighties Detroit act A Number of Names, followed some more straight-up house numbers.

After that it was up to Benji B to take the reigns, which he did with a Latin-inflected set, detouring into house later on, which I thought was good, if not exceptional. By this stage I was up on the stage for the second time, having been moved off once with everyone else by one of the bouncers.

After that I departed South to Camberwell, though ultimately ended up walking to Elephant and Castle, as all the buses were so stuffed to the gills with merrymakers. Even this though, failed to detract from what was an extremely enjoyable night out, if not quite the array of obscure delights I anticipated.

Based on my two excursions there so far, this is a really good night. Soulful, danceable music over a range of styles, without being particularly faddish. The venue's not bad either – I like the outside smoker's oasis, and the soundsystem bumps. I'll be back, soon enough.

*This track, incidentally, I identified with the Shazam application on my phone, which appears to 'know its shit'. I had rather assumed it would only be able make identifications of the order of whether something was Lily Allen or not, but the music database seems to be surprisingly good.

TDR RIP

2009-02-19T14:30:00.010Z

I read today, via a link from the man like Ade,(and as reported by Creative Review) that Sheffield based exponents of all things vector The Designer's Republic offically went bump, sometime in mid-January of this year (shows how up-to-date I am).

It sounds like they encountered a 'perfect storm' of mishaps, such as the loss of a couple of accounts and non-payment by another large, as-yet-unnamed company, which combined to render the good ship DR financially non-viable as an ongoing concern.

The web is already seeing an outpouring of dismay from assorted designers across the board, tinted largely with a flush of roseate nostalgia for TDR's heyday of the 90s, which is, I suspect, part of the problem. Sad as it is, I can't say I'm incredibly surprised TDR went under, as though it's maybe heretical to say it, every dog has its day, and theirs was around 10 years ago.

The Designer's republic, to me, always had a fairly strong 'house style'. They were your go-to designers for a certain icon-rich, vector-y cool, that was, to be sure, oft imitated – the most obvious exponents of this type of design that come to mind now, being Japan's Power Graphixx (which is sort of an irony in itself, given how much TDR 'borrowed' Japanese pop iconography, at least in their early days).

It was undeniably, pretty dammned cool. The kind of stuff that launched a thousand design consultancies, and inspired tens of thousands of students to pick up pen and mouse.

Unfortunately, that which is radical today is often the cliche of tomorrow. The last couple of visits I paid to their erstwhile website (admittedly years ago) it was starting to look a little tired and perhaps even slightly irritating in its ADHD flickery-ness. Harsh? I hope not. TDR were the dogs bollocks, for long enough, but their aforementioned trademark style did leave them open to the vagaries of changing trends and fashion. They were very good at what they did, but the world moved on – and for me, The Designer's Republic connoted the 90s stylistic zeitgeist as much as Mo Wax records and combat pants.

For the problem with cool, is that all too often it gets co-opted by large quote-unquote EVIL corporations (eg: the makers of a certain ubiquitous brown, fizzy drink) and broadcasted back to fast moving consumer groups (FMCGs). The problem here being that these people are so fast-moving, that the product (or rather the wrapper itself, in this case) has a shortened shelf life.

Nowadays of course, it's all about artsy Non Format style art direction, all neo-modernist/brutalist typefaces with the kind of florid augmentation last seen on Herb Lubalin's blotter pad in the 70s, in New York, and to be honest, even this is starting to look a little faded. (If I seen another fancy-nancy type treatment with swirly stuff wibbling out of gothic typefaces with all the holes filled in and a ten point stroke on them, so help me god, my brain will probably shut down to save my sanity.) I wonder what's next?

But as Creative review reports, founder Ian Anderson intends to reboot his baby, and take it back-to-basics with the original ethos he set out with in the mid-eighties, as opposed to the more identifiably 'formal' agency it reportedly became. Let's hope that if TDR does return, it'll be with a spirit of reinvention.

For now though, my personal footnote?

TDR: It was fun while it lasted.

Pro-Keds!

2009-02-13T13:01:00.002Z

Been hunting for some of these 'for a minute'... my last pair are wearing through at the heels.

Bus route flashback

2009-02-11T20:41:00.009Z

Ever wonder what London's bus routes looked like in 1933?

I know I have.

Well wonder no longer, friends.

All is revealed,

here...

LOL

2009-02-11T03:40:00.001Z

Square to be hip

2009-02-10T14:39:00.013Z

An interesting article on the hipster 'phonemenon' which the author cites as evidence of 'The Dead End of Western Civilisation'.

The guy who wrote it gets lambasted a bit in the comments for being a crusty old timer, deriding the kids for having fun, but I think he's got some valid points – in effect, that 'the cool' comb through subcultures of the past and appropriate cultural signifiers, effectively robbing them of meaning and rendering them as banal, disposable fashion. (though maybe I'm saying that cause I'm a crusty old timer now? entirely possible).

I'm not entirely sure it's not part of a wider malaise though. A lot of design, art and fashion is unbelievably lazy in its gnawing at the bones of the past (here! here's an old image I found on google! I'll distress it and stick it on a t-shirt! yawn, etc. etc), or its sheer incestuous 'me-tooness', in the everlasting quest to remain 'on trend' – the imperative scouting for anything that appears even vaguely new, its appropriation, repackaging, and regurgitation onto the high street, for us to consume at cost.

Still, perhaps it was ever thus? Answers on a postcard please to the usual address...

Deviation

2009-02-05T14:29:00.011Z

Went to Benji B's Deviation night at Gramophone on Commercial Street in Shoreditch, for my mate Al's birthday last night.

I really like this night. I've been once before, for the birthday shindig, when you couldn't really move, or dance particularly. This time it was a bit less packed, but still fairly lively.

The guest DJ was Kode9, who was dropping dubstep stuff, which I caught a bit of. I like some Dubstep, some tracks I've heard by Martyn especially, but often find it can retard actual dancing somewhat, the music seeming to be lacking a kick drum somewhere, to anchor you in the goove – the Dubstep room at the last night I went to at Corsica studios was a mass of unsyncopated flailing limbs, like octopi drifting in space.

Benji B's sets seem to be reliably good, though I'd be hard pressed to pigeonhole his sound, apart from the fact that it seems to represent the new generation of producers who eschew predominantly sampled motifs in favour of a new, more electronic flavour of beatmaking – more specifically the kind of glitchy laptop aesthetic that dudes such as Flying Lotus create (and some of whose tracks off the excellent Los Angeles got an airing last night).

There was also some heavy rotation of tracks by the late hip hop pioneer Jay Dee, his having passed away almost exactly two years ago on the tenth of February. And in truth, echoes of his warm, slightly off-kilter sound could be heard in a lot of the newer music being played. The bouncy, James Brown sampling I don't Know and lolloping uptempo drums of Fuck the Police eliciting excited whoops from the crowd.

In general, the beats are loose limbed staccato funk. The vibe excited, friendly, warm; the crowd a mix of all shapes, sizes, etc. And though there was the usual contingent of cool kids, looking all nonchalant as they danced, there was a distinct lack of attitude in the sense of moodiness and general sub-gangster (or actual gangster) posturing I recall from jungle nights way back last decade.

Indeed, as the old guard of hip hop and drum and bass producers continue to lick their wounds and dream of those halcyon dog days of the mid-90s, it's heartening to go somewhere like this and bear witness to forward thinking (if not quite avant guard) music of (whispers it) black origin with a left-of-field lean. I'll be going back soon I think – I'm just gutted I missed the lesser-spotted Moodymann, whom the webbernets tells me played there in December last year. Dayum.

Every roleplaying character I've ever played, er, 4?

2009-02-03T22:26:00.012Z

Part four in this increasingly infrequent series is an elf I played in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game run by Matt Hyde, some of whose online creations for Chaosium's Elric! system – set in Moorcock's Young Kingdoms – can be found here and here, if anyone's interested. But I digress.

WFRP was a pretty interesting gaming system, really. The world, which was developed when Games Workshop weren't soley predicated to the merchandising of tabletop wargames (I said soley) was a gritty one, reminiscent of our own Europe circa the 1700s (The Old World), except with the addition of marauding beastmen, trolls, orcs and the like. Principally set in a Germanic Empire, one of the things which helped set the slightly mordant gothic tone (aside from the political intrigue, and incursions of a mutative sorcerous blight known as Chaos, from the wastelands of the north) was the game system itself – which based character progression around a series of career paths – and the combat rules therein, which were realistically perilous, and came complete with a gruesome 'critical hit table' to determine injuries if a foe landed a particularly telling blow.

So to cut it short (literally), this chap here had his right leg lopped off after being on the receiving end of one such injury, probably at the hand/claw/tentacle of one the ubiquitous beastmen, I think, whilst on a boat. Having sorcerously healed the wound, he set about carving himself a peg leg, scrimshaw style, from some Ivory that happened to be lying about. This was probably highly impractical, given that Ivory is probably softer, more expensive, and more attractive to your average passing vagabond than wood, but what the hell.

He later got a magic sword, and a magical amulet thingy that Matt informed me had been stolen between gaming sessions. Matt! no fair!

His name was Tanis, also the name of the half-elven guy out of Dragonlance, but shucks, I didn't know that then.

It's like Narnia out there...

2009-02-02T12:38:00.001Z

Hootchie Cootchie

2009-01-24T18:04:00.008Z

Friday night, at a friend's instigation, I headed up north to Camden. I don't normally get up to Camden much as, A: It always struck me as more of a hangout for rock types (and I'm more of a techno suede-head at heart) and B: I don't really want to buy a t-shirt some chancer's ripped off Threadless to hawk on their stall. Still, Camden's a cool enough place, if you dare to pierce the veil of incense smoke hanging over it.

The night's destination was 'Hootchie Cootchie' night at The Jazz Cafe. Kinda lame name, I think, but actually quite good fun. The Jazz Cafe is actually a venue of some pedigree, I'm aware (like the Band on the Wall in Manchester) and my mate Jules, eyes glowing, later related going to see Pete Rock and CL Smooth there in about 2002 (before they fell out, and started slagging each other off, again) I'd never been though, so was keen to check it out.

The remit of the night was 50s Rockabilly, with a DJ spinning 7 inches and a live band with a luscious singer who looked like she'd just stepped off the set of South Pacific. All of which was fine, but I was mostly absorbed in staring at the sartorial pageant surrounding me.

Whenever I go to nights like this, eg: Northern soul events, I'm always struck by the amount of effort people put into their get-up. And I sometimes wonder, aside from the obvious nostalgia inherent in people affecting modes of fashion from a specific era, whether it represents a certain yearning for a time when people belonged to identifiable tribes, rather than that generic hipster melange of tight jeans, plaid shirts and PE pumps we see strutting round our city centres today.

Here, there were plaid shirts in evidence, but they were mostly tucked into wide legged chinos, or crisp wide-legged selvage jeans with turnups, over oh-so-shiny boots. Leather flight jackets were in attendance, as were immaculately Brylcreamed barnets, a la Mark Lamar (or even Mark Kermode). Chain wallets were in effect, as were Hawaiian shirts, and, I would hazard a guess, polyester.

And the girls... again lots of sculpted hairdos, and the much deprecated high waisted skirt, along with more leopard skin on display than your average safari. Ranking a close second in the swatch stakes were polka dots (followed by stripes), but the big cats stole the show, definitely. Some of the girls were also wearing those glasses you generally only see in Gary Larson cartoons. Awesome.

Of particular note were a triumvirate of angular-looking girls who stood by the bar staring waspishly about and boozing, who sort of resembled 50s Super-villainesses in mega-tight leggings, and beehive hairstyles that probably actually contained bees. One of them even seemed to have sculpted her hair into cat ears. Any single one of looked like they could, and would, have scratched Amy Winehouse to bits for a pair of nylons.

So, all in all, fun anyway, though the three buses home were less so.

Saturday night, after watching an incredibly misconceived Kenneth Branagh adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like it, (whose sole redeeming feature seemed to be squeezing Brian Blessed into Samurai armour) me and a flattie ended up in The Funky Munky in Camberwell (which incidentally has the worst name of anything, ever). We just wanted a beer, basically, and the Hermits was shutting. The guy who's been DJing there for the last four years or so (DJ Dazzle) always plays pretty much the same set every time I see him – ie: tried and tested funk/disco/pop numbers – and he didn't disappoint in this regard. The crowd certainly seemed to be loving it, though I really wonder how he manages to play the same records so often without A: going clinically insane, or B: coming to loathe them utterly. Perhaps he's succumbed to both eventualities.

I watched the last X-Men film tonight, which was OK, I suppose, if a bit of an overblown FX fest. Another week looms, anyway. Bought a load of Tria markers the other day, which I'm going to enjoy some spending time with.

Abney Park

2009-01-23T17:47:00.011Z

On Wednesday I went to Abney Park cemetery, on of the 'magnifient seven' of cemeteries built in the first half of the 19th century to accommodate the deceased of the city's burgeoning population.

I'd been once before with my mate Ed, on a hot day in Summer two years back. Then, when we made it to the disused chapel at its centre, there were a couple of groups of distinctly gothic looking individuals, sat around drinking beer in the sun.

Ironically this time around, when the weather was of what I would assume to be a much more gothic nature (cold, wet, sepulchral) there was not a single leather trenchcoat or facial piercing to be seen in the impending twilight. Whaddya know. Roy Ayers was right: EVERYONE loves the sunshine.

After that, me and my travelling companion went to the Lemon Monkey cafe on the high street, where I had a slice of pear tart thing (bit like a bakewell, with pear, obv.) and a peppermint tea. Nice enough place, though the back room where we found a seat was full of people silently communing with powerbooks. It felt wierd talking.

After that, went for a wander round Stoke Newington while we waited for a train. I quite like it!

Breakfast!

2009-01-21T12:23:00.009Z

As episodes of Sesame Street came courtesy of individual letters of the alphabet, breakfast today owed its existence to my mum, or more precisely some hens she's got stuck in a trailer on a hillside in Wales.

Before and after shots.

Damn those eggs look like huge Cadbury's Mini-Eggs!

I made an omelette with sliced up chunks of chorizo in it and some Worcester sauce. If I'd had some tabasco I'd have probably wanged that in, but I didn't, so I didn't. It tasted better than it looks.

Next time: with some salsa perhaps? like our American cousins. Incidentally, I kind of wish I was in the States right now, positive vibes n' all that.

Listening to Spotify right now (streams albums over t'net for free, basically). I'd forgotten Ade told me that part of the deal was every once in a while it drops in an advertisement, so when a commercial from the Inland Revenue came on, I thought for a moment that Lupe Fiasco had sampled Moira Stuart for the intro on one of his tracks. Most odd.

Gerry's Joint 4th Birthday

2009-01-18T21:54:00.008Z

Last night I took a last minute deviation from the Air night at Matter (attached to the 02 Arena) and instead headed North to highgate, where 'Gerry's Joint' were having their fourth birthday party. I was meeting some friends at Old Street tube where a group of Police Officers, with the help of a couple of enthusiastic golden retrievers, were frisking people for narcotics. Kay didn't seem to think so when I told her later, but it looked like at least one of the 'retriever keepers' was blind – and as I stood at the top of the steps waiting for my clubbing buddies, he entered the ticket hall arm-in-arm with a member of the public (who appeared to be assisting him) and whom a trio of police officers swiftly escorted to one side 'for a chat'. It took me a moment to work out what was going on.

After that jumped on the Northern line to our destination. I sometimes forget, dwelling in the 'Well, that huge swathes of London's assorted boroughs are actually quite easy on the eye, and that area around Muswell Hill is a case in point. It's just... quite nice really.

Anyway we headed to The Boogaloo, where the night was, and were early enough to get in free – and get a table, which was a result, as it rapidly filled up. Basically the remit of the night seems to be 50s and 60s rock n' roll and soul, hosted by the guys who Deejayed at It's Bigger Than at 93 Feet East (along with my buddy Sam, of Allez Allez fame, who I went with). They appeared to have carried over their penchant for 'all things party' and it did have a convivial, swingin' atmosphere, somewhere between a cool pub-disco and club, though not a cat-swingers party, no sir, too busy for that.

The crowd itself was a blend of young to middle aged, though did have a healthy turnout of the usual hipster/prankster types, who were capering drunkenly around in plaid shirts by the decks. In fact, what is it with plaid shirts? specifically those slightly wooly, lumberjack-esque ones Brick Lane seems to have adopted as some kind of informal team kit? Enough already. You should wear skinny jeans, from Uniqlo, like me *trails off, uncomfortably*

Also ran into a friend of a friend who was there with her mate. Was trying to chat, but the music was too loud. Increasingly I find I just can't chat in clubs, perhaps because I can no longer be bothered attempting to lip-read, guess what an appropriate response might be or lean in close enough to get deafened when they bellow in your ear to exceed the music's volume. Not much of any import was communicated.

About twelve we headed off to catch the last tube, as attempting to get back to South London by bus at that time is a fool's errand. Otherwise I might have stayed later. Who knows.

Bitterly cold today. Walked over to Dulwich, and back via Peckham. Just ate a slightly stodgy Thai curry I made. It was OK.

Christmas Decorations

2009-01-13T13:35:00.005Z

Open letter to businesses, re the 'Christmas decorations thing' (especially the Chinese takeaway downstairs).

Dear businesses

Re Christmas decorations. It's now January the 13th. Twelfth night was seven days ago. I believe I stand for everybody when I say: "Probably best to take them down now, hey?"

Yours Faithfully,

Everybody

(Having said that, I note that the pound shop fairy lights cling still to the weary rubber plant in the living room, and though I had prepared myself for it, I nearly physically flinched the other day when my housemate said, in comment on them:

"Hey, they make the room look quite nice don't they? shall we just leave them up?"

I disagreed, albeit tactfully. Christmas decorations – the clue's in the name, innit.)

Future Shock

2009-01-12T14:26:00.004Z

I was chatting to someone in the kitchen at a party, the other Saturday, when the subject of Woolworths came up, and I wondered out loud, whether there actually will, y'know, be any high street shops, in ten years time.

I said it more for dramatic effect than out of any certainty, as I'm sure there probably will be, but still...

These are, rather obviously, tough times to run a business, and no business more so than one involving an actual, physical venue as a shop-front (as opposed to a virtual one). I've lost count of the number of independently owned, interesting small businesses – such as restaurants and shops – that have fallen victim to spiralling overheads, most notably rent. (From what I have heard, this was also the issue that put pay to all the record shops on that once jewel in Bristol's independent shopping crown, Park Street).

As dust was scattered on Woolworth's coffin, voices could be heard expressing regret at its passing. Some even noting the irony that if Woolworth's had been as busy in the last few years as it was in it's final hours, it may not have had to close. I am simultaneously bemused by the sentimentality expressed here, and the fallaciousness of the statement. They saying goes "they never really miss you till you're dead or you're gone", and I would certainly argue that insofar as buying practices go, people were only nominally aware of Woolworths as a shopping destination whilst it was in supposedly rude health. And of course the liquidation prices that drew the crowds in the end would, presumably, have been unsustainable in the long term.

And while we're on the subject of unsustainable business models, let us not forget that part of Woolies plight originated from the fact that it made 90% of its profits in the six weeks before Christmas (which suggests to me that it would only take one particularly fell Winter to put pay to their uniquely tawdry world of averagely priced gewgaws and niknaks). (Yet another surprising revelation to a layman such as myself is the fact that many of these larger, supposedly profitable retailers, have an inherent reliance on readily available credit to pay suppliers: the minute that stops, the wheels come off.)

We all mourn the passing of institutions such as Post Offices, local cinemas etc. whose presence we tend to take for granted, but ultimately we as the consumers have, however involuntarily, voted with our feet or (by proxy of favouring shopping on the internet) our fingers. It is, presumably free market economics that have allowed business to flourish in this country and make it the global player it is. Government intervention – as some have claimed was a viable solution to Woolies plight – is only another way of paying for something we evidently do not care much for. The question is, I suppose, do we want high street shops, in ten years time? Because it seems to me, perhaps the only retailers equipped to weather the storm might be those with enough financial clout to achieve enonomys of scale, or who own property outright and are hence not beholden to spiraling rent from landlords

Perhaps, in the future (say, 2020?), all we'll do is work, then come home – maybe we'll even all work from home, by then. There won't be anywhere to go in the evening because all the pubs and bars and clubs have been turned into luxury flats or demolished to make room for new train lines. No, instead we'll just get drunk on supermarket-bought, loss-leader Stella, whilst hunched over a flickering screen, ordering DVDs off Amazon. It'll be like 1984 but with Facebook. By then local government will have capitulated to the seemingly inevitable and turned the centres of all our cities into huge coffee shops. There'll be concessions for the high street retailers, all of whom will be Phillip Green.

But it's just progress, I guess.

Hammers and walnuts

2009-01-08T12:30:00.016Z

Mid-to-long term readers of this blog might remember way back in the mists of time (ok, July) I got caught on one of those notorious whipping boys of public transport, the nefarious number 12 bendy bus, without having swiped on with my Oyster.

I have little to say in my defence, really. Save it was the end of a long, hot, fairly crappy day at work in the grey London heat, and I just scrambled for a seat, forgetting to slap my wafer of blue plastic against the reader. It later transpired I also only had £1 on it, as well, to compound my oversight. My bad.

Well, nearly a full 6 months later, I've just received a court summons for it, with the option to not attend court, and simply plead guilty and pay up £100. I'm fairly pissed off about all this, obviously, as I seem to be in a 'Lose/Lose' scenario, i.e.: pay £100, plead guilty and get a record, or attend court, probably lose on the basis of own fairly frank admission to the inspector ("I forgot") and get a criminal record and pay the legal costs.

I think it would be naive of me not to admit culpability for having not swiped or having checked my Oyster was fully topped up, and indeed never intended to deceive. This was a first time offense, and I was fully open about it. I'm frankly exasperated that something that occurred the best part of six months ago, has been hanging over me like some blandly bureaucratic sword of Damocles, until the new year (when incidentally, I don't currently have any work) when they've finally got round to issuing a court summons, and indeed that they would even bother doing such a thing, for a £2 ticket.

I actually suspect that it's largely down to TFL haemorrhaging money out of the backside due to the unpopular, unsuited to London bendy buses, which they presumably introduced to dispense with ticket inspectors – the only problem here being that they have to then hire the surly 'Revenue Protection Inspector droids' (the traffic wardens of the public transport system) to patrol the buses on what seems like a permanent basis to recoup losses, and occasionally, truck loads of our boys (and girls) in blue, who hang around at bus-stops to back them up, when presumably they could be out 'fighting real crime' like, I dunno, terrorism or something. In all honesty, fare dodging is endemic to those buses, which practically invite you to jump on without paying, and I see it every time I get on one. I always pay, apart from this one ocassion, when as luck would, or wouldn't have it, I got caught. I 'fessed up then, but rather than deal with my transgression with what might be seen as an appropriate and commeasurate response to my exceedingly minor transgression (like, a fine), this farcical palaver has been taken to the courts. FFS.

So now, as the the peripheral gears of the British system grind exceedingly slowly up to speed, I potentially face some form of legal footnote to efface 31 years of (mostly) good behaviour. I'm kind of resigned to it now. I suspect my admission of an oversight, rather than being taken in the spirit it was intended, will, in the eyes of the law be tantamount of intention to defraud TFL. Having done a bit of poking around, I've read that a crime of this order might only be a problem if entering a legal/financial career (unlikely) or attempting to emigrate (unfortunately increasingly attractive), but still...

So there you go. I'm seeking advice on this, but who knows, by this time next month I could be a felon, sporting prison tats and dodging the 5-0 (OK, exaggeration). If such is the case – and I warrant it extremely likely – I doubt I will ever have a good word to say about the maladministered public transport infrastructure in London, ever again.

ps: Advice gratefully accepted, though I suspect I know what the outcome of this will be...

UPDATE:

Finally got this settled out of court, after a visit to Peckham CAB Bureau, who were tremendously helpful (in spite of being extremely busy – I got there when they opened at 10am and was still there for two and a half hours). On their advice, I was given a number, and able to settle out of court with TFL, after speaking to someone in their 'Enforcement and Policing Directorate' (who seemed like a reasonable enough chap, to be fair).

Nonetheless this resolution had a faint air of 'beware of the leopard' (see the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) about it, insofar as I had to visit the CAB in the first place to be made aware of this solution. In none of their written communications to me was the option (as a first time offender) of settling out of court made clear – and I know of a few people who have simply pleaded guilty and hence received a criminal record.

Corporation Tax...

2009-01-06T16:59:00.001Z

STINGER

Bleak

2009-01-05T14:28:00.005Z

Last Friday went to the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern, which felt like a pretty fitting postscript to the departing festive season, and indeed accompaniment to the nascent cold grittiness of January: large sombre squares of muted colour, displayed in subdued lighting, arranged according to obscure variations in repetitious technique and layout – the dub techno of modernist art, perhaps. I ended up sitting in front of one particular canvas in black and grey, bordered in unpainted white, and felt like I was looking at a remote moonscape.

Afterwards went for a pizza, then ended up in the Archduke pub, underneath the arches on the South Bank, which reminded me of nothing so much as an 80s 'wine bar', replete with with tiered seating, a mezzanine, lots of bamboo furniture and green anodised aluminium fittings. A faded poster from a Milton Glaser exhibition regarded proceedings from beside the staircase, whilst folky violin-led jazz, a la those Papa/Nicole Renault ads from the mid 90s trickled from hidden speakers. We settled in the conservatory and got outside a few beers, before heading home.

Saturday was Kay's party, where I had my first vodka martini (boozy) and tried a bit of a 'Dirty Martini' which is much the same, except with the addition of olive brine *pulls face*. After that went over to cargo and threw some half-hearted shapes.

Monday now. Just been out to pay a couple of cheques. Bitterly, bitterly cold out there, the first specks of snow borne aloft a bone-cutting wind. Need to look for work...

Woolies RIP

2008-12-31T02:12:00.011Z

I took a trip to the Camberwell branch of Woolies today... a moribund, joyless experience if ever there was one – like a wet weekend in an off-season British coastal resort, except without the fun. There was however a faint air of the feeding frenzy, lent to proceedings by the crowds of eager bargain hunters, come to dine at the carcass of the mortally wounded high street giant like crows in the aftermath of some bleak mercantile war. All it needed were the mournful strains of 'The Last Post' being played by a sole, bloodied bugler to make the scene of mournful defeat utterly complete.

By then the flesh had been stripped down to the bones of the fixtures and fittings, with pretty much only the Pic n Mix left (and a few Girls Aloud CDs knocking about at half price). So little more to tempt me than usual, then. A spot of light entertainment was provided by a loud, possibly drunk, Scottish woman, screeching at the tills, but she was escorted out after a while by a security guard.

Woolworths, I wish I could say I'll miss you, but the truth is, I hardly noticed you when you were there. As they say in Birmingham, "Tararabit".

My Credit Crunch Christmas

2008-12-29T16:58:00.009Z

So, Christmas 08 came and and is all but gone. And it was pretty fun, though as ever, when the time came to return, I was almost relieved.

I caught the train back on the 27th, which took five-and-a-bit hours due to the West Coast Line being rebuilt from scratch or something. My travelling companions for this journey were two slabs of the funkiest cheese since that Lipps Inc. tune – a wobbling disc of ripe Camembert, and a smaller, but scarcely less potent, roundel of goat's cheese named 'Petit Billy'. These were a gift from my brother Dan, brought back from the Alps, and though double-wrapped in tupperware boxes and a carrier bag, the aroma from the overhead luggage compartment was still just about noticable if you were looking out for it.

Also along for the ride was perhaps my favourite present ever – a wooden chough carved by my dad, 'Big Al'. You don't believe me? well here he is. Ladies and gentlemen may I present... Oreb

I've named him Oreb after the bird of the same name in Gene Wolfe's bizarre religious/science fiction epic The Book of the Long Sun. The bird in that was a red beaked 'night chough', an intelligent, crow like bird with the ability to utter short, two word phrases (fish heads? bird good? etc). I think this is a fictitious breed invented by Wolfe, and having dug around t'internet, I find that Oreb is actually the Hebrew name for a raven, so it might be a misnomer, but what the heck. A great gift, anyway, credit crunch or no.

Back in London, now. It's very cold, and very quiet. When I first arrived back, the house was freezing, due to one of the fellow inmates having left his bedroom window open. It felt like the derelict spacecraft in Sunshine. I can hardly believe it's going to be New Year's Eve in two days time, though no-one seems to be hugely fussed this year. I think I might be spending it in The Scolt's Head in DeBeauvoir Town, anyway, where Sam's DJing.

So if I don't blog before then, Happy New Year, to one and all.

Christmas

2008-12-24T16:57:00.002Z

I actually wrote quite a long post the other day, but failed to stick it up there, so the moment seems to have passed, somewhat.
In it I detailed how a section of one of my teeth shored off like a chunk of melting glacier two Sundays back – which I imagined heralded the opening of a sort of Pandora's box of dental woes in my mouth, but was actually not too bad, I just need to floss.

Up in Stockport again, this Christmas Eve. Arrived yesterday on the train, which in spite of traditional festive travel chaos at Euston, seemed oddly undersubcribed. Caught up with some old colleagues for drinks in the city centre.

Writing on my brother's Mac, while I wait for my phone to charge, and then to head out for traditional Christmas lager (Stella, natch) which I'll imbibe at the Crown on Heaton Moor Road. Wales tomorrow; should be festive.

I can see!

2008-11-22T13:53:00.005Z

So I wear glasses now, which I picked up the other day, and have been wearing, somewhat tentatively. I became aware I might need glasses when I found myself squinting to read the subtitles on the Godzilla DVD that came with the Guardian one week, along with bus destinations, shop signage, stuff like that. The thing is, I didn't realise just how accute a difference having a couple of lenses in front of my eyes would make – upon exiting the opticians it was like viewing the bustling Covent Garden street scene in hyperreal Imax format – everything appearing surreally closer and sharper.

The magnification also knocked my depth perception for six, and approaching a kerb I attempted to circumnavigate it as one might a stile in the countryside – with huge steps that seemed to connect with the pavement a moment after I expected them to. I started to feel a bit queasy, and took off the specs.

I wore them home on the bus though, as the afternoon turned to evening, and found myself gawping at familiar scenes, sliding past in the twilight – street signs, office interiors etc – and thinking "that looks like that? whoah". Because the difference it makes to my mid-to-long range vision is striking in terms of clarity.

I guess the gradual rate at which my vision degraded – however slightly – meant that I acclimatised to the changes as they ocurred – boiled frog syndrome basically. Now, everytime I remove them everything looks like it's had a bit of Photoshop's Gaussian Blur whacked on. Blurrier. Fuzzier.

Anyway. I'm kind of enjoying my enhanced vision, though it's odd to think that I'll probably be wearing glasses in some form from now on in. They look alright though. I was going to go for some Large frames, but it was all starting to look a bit Maurice Saatchi, so I toned it down.

Next time, a hearing aid perhaps (or zimmerframe).

Wasps

2008-11-06T15:00:00.002Z

I saw a wasps nest today. A WASPS NEST. In November.

This country's weather is pretty messed up these days (Brighton last weekend was a a sort of seasonal megamix) but this takes the biscuit.

Gobama!

2008-11-05T14:01:00.004Z

Right, well, it's a start anyway – at the very least he can hardly fail to do a better job than the cretin who preceded him.

Anyway, in celebration me and my colleague Zeno Cosini have upped something new at our increasingly infrequent 30,000 Streets project for your delectation. It's our entry for the Observer/Jonathan Cape 2008 Graphic short story prize. We didn't win, but it was a very enjoyable project for me, and a medium that I'd like to pursue in the future.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, though must concede, the deadline, coupled with work commitments at the time meant that it was more rushed than I would have liked. It also gave me an insight into the amount of work that goes into making a comic. Generally speaking, pencilling, inking, colouring and lettering are four separate jobs, so doing them all immediately prior to the closing date entailed some midnight oil burning – but it was all good.

Anyway, swing on by. Feedback appreciated!
Story here.

In other news, I'm not working the minute, though I guess that's that Kredit Kruch biting eh? Got offered a months work the other week, only for the client in question to change their minds and keep the work in-house. I hate it when they do that... if you've got work for me, great, if not, fine, just don't offer me a handy booking then whip it away in a Bullseye "look at what you could have won" fash. I'll probably mentally have started spending the paychecks...

Return of the Mac

2008-10-28T11:42:00.005Z

Last weekend was pretty good. Hiked up to the Design Museum on Saturday to meet Sam, where we checked out the Alan Aldridge exhibition there, which was ace. I have to say, I always find the Design Museum quite succinct in terms of its exhibition space, so my tip would be – Get there late on Saturday – with about an hour left they only charge a fiver, which seems like a reasonable amount of time to wander round any given exhibition.

After that stopped in the shop to buy a copy of his book, then sat out on the embankment while Sam drank a coffee (I couldn't, any more that day and I'd have got the shakes).

That evening headed up to Cargo in Shoreditch for Need2Soul with Al. I was pretty hungover and tired from the night before though, so it was quite hard work at times – the music was really good though, Benji B and Glenn Underground especially, who delivered a payload of vocal US house bombs.

Sunday night I set up my new iMac, and after many moons typing on a battered old 1st generation Powerbook which now looks like something from the Millenium Falcon, I'm quite frankly loving the huuge screen on it. I must also admit, I've whiled away a few hours playing assorted arcade classics on a coin-op emulator I've got for it – such as R-Type, Commando etc. I have actually bought CS4 for it though, so working in Photoshop and Illustrator is going to be a pleasure.

Now debating the allure of an iPhone... never really been gadget-mad, but I'm thinking of going contract, and I'm a bit sick of being the hand-me-down phone kid. If my old powerbook looks like part of the MF, the busted old Nokia Ade gave me two years ago looks like something the Jawas would probably have slung into a sand dune. We'll see. A bit more costly, but I could put it down as a 'business expense'.

Oh, and I need glasses. I went for a free eye test courtesy of a voucher in the Marks & Spencer magazine at D&A in Peckham, where I learned I am 'astigmatic'; the analogy the tester used being that the corneas of my eyes are more rugby ball shaped than round. Anyway. I got my prescription, but thought all the frames in D&A looked pretty much all the same. Me being me, I'm thinking about something a bit more more like Michael Caine in The Ipcress Files.

Every Roleplaying character I've ever played 3

2008-10-28T11:25:00.004Z

Orgon Twinswords

This dude was a merchant sea-captain from the Island of the Purple Towns, in Moorcock's Young Kingdoms, in a game curated by my old buddy Matt (who I haven't actually seen in about five years).

Anyway he was armed with two swords (hence the name) one of which was a legitimately rolled-for sorcerous magical heirloom (clue: it's the one that's glowing). I got his name from a mini-digest of names in Chaosium's Elric! rulebook – which was cue for Matt to crack many jokes about 'Organ's Organ' ha ha etc.

I played this guy in the Stormbringer! trans-dimensional campaign Rogue Mistress which was a typically picaresque ramble through the multiverse, acompanied by Will's character in this period – an Victorian English gentleman armed with an elephant gun, whom it transpired, was somewhat ill-equipped for close-hand combat against the assorted demons the game launched at us, once his large shooting iron had run out of shells.

My character, I'm glad to report, was a sort of two-sworded whirling dervish of destruction. Which was nice.

'Credit Crunch'

2008-10-18T17:18:00.009Z

As I go about my daily affairs, it's been nigh impossible to avoid the sense of fermenting financial doom, simmering just below the surface of, well, everything (at least in London – Greece didn't seem to care as much, at least the resort I was in a month ago).

Scarcely a day goes by when I don't open the paper to read some hyperbolic sqwawk about the parlous state of the world economy. "Black Friday!" boomed the reassuringly pessimistic London Evening Standard, the Friday last but one.

I'm getting a little bored by all this. The fact that we've entered a period of relative financial insecurity has actually penetrated my cranium by now, aided by soundbytes such as 'The Credit Crunch', and abetted by Brass Eye style graphics of plummeting line graphs, typographical ligatures involving resolutely downward facing arrows, and photographs of worried looking Wall Street Traders.

But it seems to me, the big story that everyone I know is talking about, bar the actual papers themselves, is the role of the media itself in this debacle, the spectre of which looms large in the wings, excitedly wringing its hands. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but the relentless pessimism of the news regarding the global economy is surely guilty of inculcating the sense of doom, that is all pervasive at the minute (of course, I suppose a headline such as "Story-hungry Media excites mass global panic!" might just be a tad too recursive – a little too close to the truth, if truth be known). This was proven to be the case when the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, asserted that head of RBoS, Barclays and Lloyds had gone, a beggin' to Alistair Darling for some beads, which promptly wiped £10 billion off the value of the Royal Bank of Scotland alone. Oops.

And there is, oddly, a faint sense of inevitability about all this – the long predicted chickens have finally come 'home to roost' as it were. I remember last year, reading in the broadsheets last year muttered hints that: "This can't go on forever" which it patently could not; but in some ways the paranoia now seems to be a case of prophecy fullfilment.

I've never know much about the dark arts of economics, and at least one thing that's arisen from recent events is a slightly clearer understanding of the greed, naivety and sordid practices that led to all this. It's been a little like training a torch on the underside of a long undisturbed rock, to witness a host of unlovely, armani-clad beetles scurrying away from the questing light – though perhaps it was a lack of scrutiny that led to this debacle in the first place. A couple of things that have only really become apparent to me for is the fact that very little of this money actually exists (i.e. if everyone wanted it back, not everyone could have it) and for all their perceived, grotesque wealth, banks actually operate with a thin skin of capital – the rest being all speculative cash in motion – and in some way it all seems to be linked to some index of confidence, which at the minute, is severely diminished, and shaken yet further by the press's frenzied speculation. To use an analogy in physics I might compare it to the Oberver effect, wherein in the very act of witnessing and recording an experiment ultimately effects its outcome.

For this reason it almost feels like the best thing that could happen, would be for the media to find something else to yap about about for a few weeks, and the eventual trickle-down effect might be people discarding the siege mentality that seems to be the defining zeitgeist of the moment. Ever since Orson Welle's radio play on Well's War of the Worlds it's been pretty clear that the media has the power to precipitate mass panic, if used recklessly, and this is hardly an exception. So why not, I dunno, talk about Madonna divorcing guy Ritchie or something, and everyone can slip back into their normal everyday coma, before emerging blinking, from the bunker, into our brave, new, credit-less world.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to brace myself for an even-more-consumerist-than-usual rendition of Christmas 2008, as all and sundry attempt to claw back some of their collapsing profit margins. I saw my first Christmas advertisement on ITV yesterday; DFS, I hate you.

"These aren't the plates you're looking for..."

2008-10-07T20:31:00.000Z

My housemate has developed this 'Jedi mind trick', where if she ever doesn't feel like she can be bothered to do her washing up, she just sticks the offending plates on top of the freezer – thereby marking them as 'on hold', and emphasising the fact that it's 'different' from normal dirty crockery, and doesn't count – she's just really busy, yeah?

Personally I find it mildly annoying, as it just spreads filth more evenly round the kitchen, rather than quarantining it to by the sink (I'd prefer it if she just spent two minutes washing up, though).

It also means if I want to dip into the freezer, I have to to move the offending articles (typically bespattered in congealed baked bean slime) before I can access my frozen treats.

Just thought I'd share that with you. I guess this is like ultimate passive/aggressive 'house note' So passive/aggressive in fact, they don't even see it.

Booger-Loo

2008-10-06T23:40:00.003Z

At the risk of sounding overly worldy, I've worked in a few places in my time. Running the whole gamut of everything from grim sausage factories up north, to quote unquote 'funky' design groups, to top ten advertising agencies.

Obviously this comprises a fair bit of variety in terms of type of employee, workplace culture, size, location etc, but in every place I've worked in, every place I tell thee the walls of the men's toilets are always encrusted with snot, where someone's carefully wiped it mid-slash.

I walked into the gents today, and felt like Steve MxQueen in The Blob.
What is this? Some kind of atavisim? society dictates 'mucous-guy' can't waz against the wall to mark his territory, so he instead flicks a Taj Mahal sized booger as a biological remider of his passing.

It's better than racist graffitti, I suppose, but still, fairly damn rank.

Sort it out lads.

Seizure

2008-10-01T01:27:00.007Z

Having gone for milk this morning I returned to find two old ladies at my front door, one just having located and pressed the buzzer.

"Can I help you?" I enquired.

"Ah hello" one said "We just called today to discuss how we as individuals in the world can get closer to Jesus"

It was then I noticed the glassy expression characteristic of the 'religion addict' on both their faces.

"Sorry, no time" I said, sidling past them through my front door, and closing it after me.

I wonder how much luck they had with the 'discussing Jesus thing?' Presumably they do it with the ulitmate aim of coaxing people into the fold, as it were, but I can only imagine people who were already followers to be interested in chatting about the big J. Indeed, it was they way they proceeded from the assumption that said individual exists as a divine entity, when I don't believe he does, which really put me off – we'd have needed to get past that little debate before they could start inviting me to church, and I wasn't in the for theological debate, at least prior to my Special K.

This afternoon I went to Seizure – Roger Hiorn's installation in a condemmed low-rise near the Elephant. To paraphrase: It's the interior of a flat coated in really blue crystals, but actually, it's pretty damn cool, albeit less strange than you might expect it to be. Last time I went it was on a Sunday, and there were large queues, but this time, hardly anyone – which is at least one good reason not to work on a wet Tuesday at the end of September. Like much art, I find, half the fun is the venue, and the ritual of going and wandering around looking at stuff with your head tilted at 'the art angle' – and this was no exception. It kind of felt like one of those block viewings estate agents introduced at the height of the property-buying insanity last year, only obviously less ludicrous, and more enjoyable. You also have to swop your shoes for wellies, for the duration of the viewing. Great stuff, anyway.

I was thinking of buying Adobe Creative Suite 3 today, but CS4 is out next month, so I guess I might just hold tight until then. That's probably the best idea, isn't it?

Paxos

2008-09-21T16:12:00.011Z

So, I went to Greece last week with moms and pap dukes, more specifically, the little Ionian Island of Paxos, just off the southern tip of Corfu. Indeed, the island was visible from our apartment in Kavos when me Ade and Dunc went way back in 2005, and in truth, it represents a sort of anithesis to Kavos (or Chavos) as I sniggeringly referred to it): sedate in the extreme compared to the nero-esque orgy of raw-alcohol doctored booze, consumed by rampaging British grockles, that Kavos represents.

Paxos seems to exist in stasis, pretty much, cheerfully insular and indifferent to a wider world seemingly entering into a hyperbolic media meltdown over investment banking. In truth this has some historical, nay, mythical precedent, as legend has it that the Island was created when Poseidon smote it from the Southern tip of Corfu, to create a sort of shag-pad for him and a Nereid (sort of a mermaid, I guess) he was kicking it with at the time. And it has to be said, it would be a pretty amazing place to vanish to for a week if you were in some loved-up relationship (the most interest I got on holiday was the unwanted attention of a Greek, vaguely Benny Hill-esque omi-poloni on a moped. Sigh).

So how was it? Um... yeah it was good. The weather... not so good. When I touched down on Friday the weather was gorgeous, though it was a little like arriving just in time to see the curtains close on Summer, as the next four days ranged from being merely torpid and grey, to out-and-out sub-tropical thunderstorms, replete with driving 45 degree rain, rolling thunder, and jagged bolts of forked lightning (which actually redeemed itself by virtue of drama, to some extent).

By Tuesday however, my iPod had run out of batteries, I was down to the last third of my final book, and pacing from room to room of my apartment like a bored bear in a zoo, wistfully thinking about computers (me, not the bear of my tortured analogy).

After that, the weather picked up and there was lots of Sun, but it still felt a little like drinking in the last chance saloon, as the evenings were drawing in, the nights chilly, and fellow tourists noticable by their decreasing numbers.

Still, it was good to get a break, and hang with my folks. Greek food's pretty damn good too – generally robust and delicious – and the sofrito and calamari in particular were exemplary. It was also a chance to chill and take photos too. Which I'll bore you with after this writing.

Got back on Friday, and last night was my birthday do, which I had at the Princess Louise in Holborn, which is a funky-assed gin-palace-resembling joint, with mirrors, booths, and tiles aplenty. A good turnout, and I must have had a good time, as the large bruise on my right arm attests.

Work tomorrow, of the pretty basic bread-and-butter kind, which I can't pretend I'm all that eagerly anticipating, but hey, that stuff pays for holidays, software, Macs and mocassins, so can't complain, I guess.

Holiday

2008-09-11T21:21:00.002Z

I fly to Greece in about eight hours time. Can't wait. Means I'm doing the night shift at Gatwick Airport, wandering round til checking in time like Tom Hanks in whatever that film was.

Weather permitting, I'll mostly be lying on a pebbly beach reading crime novels (Derek Raymond and Edward Bunker are 'in effect') and I'll probably have the odd beer, and take some photos.

Take care now.

Thursday

2008-09-04T22:19:00.004Z

Another day, another grimey buck tucked in the freelancer's pocket, in this modern day babylon. Still, not all bad. A project I worked on a few months back, which I thought had been quietly forgotten about, might actually seen the light of day, in a still recognisable form. Which is nice.

Someone stuck on my Arthur Russell CD today, which lasted about three tracks before someone said "this is wierd". Which it is, I suppose (that's why I like it).

Its kind of strange going back somewhere I work frequently, to discover lots of people have moved on, as has happened recently. Ade suggested it was a bit like Narnia, only of course, proceedings aren't being lorded over by an intelligent christ-like lion, so not all that like Narnia at all.

Went to see Will this evening in Shepherd's Bush, on the penultimate day of his working there. No tube, so got off at White CIty one stop up, and walked down past the BBC. I reminded me of one of the first nights out I had in London when I moved down almost four (fuckk...) years ago and I caught the 148 up for post work drinks, so this evening felt curiously epigrammatic somehow. Went for a pint and a chat, which was good. Will got half a pint of Tim Taylor, and it came in the rinkyest half pint tankard I've ever seen, which the people behind me at the bar were gasping at.

Caught the bus back, which took ages. Cooked fishcakes when I got in. Tired now. Listening to the Starship Sofa podcast, and observing that science fiction poetry is possibly the cheesiest thing ever. Almost Vogon-like in stature, in terms of badness, in fact.

Film tomorrow evening. Hoo-ha.

Every Roleplaying character I've ever played 2

2008-08-28T23:36:00.009Z

Sun Cleric

I think this dude might have been about the only cleric I ever played. After all, let's face it, clerics are sort of lame... even in a world where gods actually exist! And what's with just using non-edged weaponry? I wonder if this might have been inspired by the church banning crossbows on Mediaeval battlefields because they were 'too barbaric' but I could be wrong (begin caveat) I remember reading that somewhere anywhere (end caveat).

Anyway, I only played him about twice, but typically got reet into designing his outfit, which I envisaged as being ornate, full gothic plate. I also originally drew his shield with the sun's cantons extruding as huge flanges. Will (for he was GM in this solo game) said "Y'know, they'd get hacked right off in a fight". "What, even if they were made out of metal? no way!" I answered, defensively. I think he might have been right though, and have hence changed that.

Oh, yeah, sun shield, sun armour, who did he worship? A sun god, of course. I think once of the conceipts I came up for this character was that he actually worshipped the sun, by lying in the sun, until his skin was nearly black (sunbathing, essentially), I think I got that from seeing 'The Holiday Programme' on the Beeb in around 1990, when they described holidayers visiting hotter climes as 'sun-worshippers'. I quite liked the concept. I think Will laughed.

Anyway, a two handed war hammer is obviously going to present problems when also using a shield, but I'm sort of envisaging this guy as some kind of Soulcaliber style combatant, with an outrageous, kinetic fighting style.

Victoria

2008-08-26T10:35:00.001Z

I'm back in Victoria. for the second week, and the third time I've worked here in total. Victoria is weird though. Busy and bustling, yet ultimately hard to attribute any kind of personality to.

Victoria represents a kind of architectural pile-up. If you suffered from acute tunnel vision, and were dropped, blindfolded, in the middle of this no-man's-land and told to orient yourself in time and space, depending on where your gaze alighted, you could probably infer yourself to have arrived in any decade out of the last twenty or so, which I guess is true of much of London, just much more acute here, where each and every building seems to be participating in an 'every-edifice-for-itself' slug-fest with its neighbours.

Victoria is dominated by the huge train station in the centre of course, and the more out-flung coach station round the corner, and these two seem to dictate much of the 'personality' of Victoria such as it is, with the exterior of the train staion having much of the flavour on the inside, with the same phalanx of anodyne coffee shops and sandwich bars clone-tooled up and down the length of its bustling pavements. And in truth, it does sometimes feel that there is very little to do in Victoria, other than go and buy a sandwich. Victoria is full of people, but in keeping with its nature as a mass-transit hub, most seem intent on heading somewhere else.

"Why did the chicken go to Victoria" one might ask. "to get to the other side" would be the only possible answer, surely.

That's possibly not the entire story. If musicals are your thing there's Billy Elliot – the musical, and Wicked, but they do almost seem incidental to the area. Bizarrely, the one club I can think of in the area is the London venue of glam Ibiza club Pacha, plonked incongruously in the grey environs of the the bus station. Other than that, you're left with an array of regular-less boozers, where the clientele imbibe liquids between modes of transport in a sticky-tabled purgatory, and the odd Pizza Express, frequented by tourists.

Step off, into the hinterland of side streets and there are some moderately interesting buildings, but even here there seems precious little incentive to linger, rather than press on. Victoria is so impersonal it feels almost incidental to itself, and you'd probably have to head to a motorway flyover, to find a place less conducive to the pleasant passage of time. Ultimately, so long as I'm working, I feel justified in being here, but not a moment longer.

No matter though. Lunchtime approacheth, and with it the big decision of the day, in effect: what sandwich to eat.

Every Roleplaying character I've ever played

2008-08-25T22:31:00.006Z

Roleplaying. If you say the word to your average man on the street, they're probably going to think of some excruciating exercise on a corporate training day, where you take on the part of an employee attempting to placate an aggrieved customer. But what I'm talking about here is the species of dice-based games, poularised to some extent by Dungeons & Dragons, and popular with adolescent (and not so adolescent) boys, and yeah, maybe even the odd girl.

Basically, you'd take on the role of a hero, in some world of the imagination, wandering through dungeons, dispatching orcs, getting drunk in taverns or whatever was appropriate, really – after all, there were a variety of systems and worlds to situate the games in, such as the realm of Michael Moorcock's Young Kingdoms, or the more familiar, yet still perilous, parallel world of 30s New England which was the setting for the Lovecraft themed 'Call of Cthulu'.

Of course all this stuff actually had quite a lot of stigma attached. Going round to your mates of a weekend to sequester yourself in a room to roll dice and attempt to defeat, say, an imaginary wizard, is probably never going to appear as conventionally 'cool' as hanging out in the park, drinking cider and smoking Benson & Hedges, which some people at school were doing at that point (that came later, for me), and I think it bemused my parents, who used to call it 'gnome wrangling' (sigh).

Of course, with the advent of things like Second Life and World of Warcraft, it perhaps suddenly doesn't seem all that odd really. Indeed, the internet provides such manifold opportunities for all and sundry to massage into life bizarre fictionalised avatars, that really, it all seems perhaps a little sweet, not to mention pioneering, eh? At least we actually went and hung out together when pretending to be people we weren't, rather than squinting at a screen in an ill-lit room somewhere.

And it was all pretty cerebral, if not actually intellectual, and the beauty of it was that it could be totally non-linear. If you wanted to do completely random stuff for the hell of it, you could, though of course it was very easy to derail entire games by doing that. Its beauty lay in that it was creative, and improvisational – and escapist. For a few hours you could take on the part of a muscle-bound axe-wielding dwarf (though that example possibly isn't selling it in that well, I suspect).

Many of the characters I played I got quite attached to, some less so, depending on how long I played them for. I can't really remember what happened to most of them, but I think most of the games just trailed off, rather than them actually dying. So who knows? maybe they battle on still in some parallel universe, or are frozen for eternity, waiting for me to resume control of their destiny, a little like the end of every episode of early 90s TV kids show, Knightmare ("Warning Team").

Anyway. In an attempt to lay these spectres to rest, I'm going to ressurect, over the next couple of weeks, EVERY ROLEPLAYING CHARACTER I"VE EVER PLAYED (or at least the ones I can remember). You lucky people. Some off it's going to be a little vague I fear, some of their names I don't even remember – and I'm going to excercise some creative license in their appearance – so if you're concerned as to whether they were clad in full or half-plate armour, take it from me I probably don't remember anyway (some of this ocurred the best part of two decades ago, ferrchrissakes). Some of them are so sketchy in my memory I'm not even going to bother with – such as the 'warrior' I played on a Saturday morning club at a school in Reddish, who was erased from existence when a passing truck ploughed through a puddle on the way home, deluging me, and reducing his 'character sheet' (a page of statistics relating to said chap) to pulpy, inky ruin. Suffice to say though, if you imagine Arnie in Conan the barbarian, he was probably something like that. After I've drawn them all, and written about them, I'll probably combine them all in Photoshop, print them out, then hope any girls in the real world still want to speak to me.

Anyway, I'll start of with a lesser character.

Mishak

I actually got the name for this guy from hearing the 'Round The Horne' tapes my dad used to play in the car, which had a sketch with Kenneth Williams just saying all this random stuff in his outrageously croaky, camp voice (though I don't think it was the Julian and Sandy sketch where they chatted away in Polari).

Anyway, it was a reference to the biblical figures of Shadrach, Meshach and Abendigo, and I kind of liked the name, so nicked it for this guy.

Basically, he was a sorceror, and I didn't play him for very long, so he never got very advanced in terms of his spellcasting. Hence probably the most combat-effective incantation he posessed was 'Magic Missile', which he's shown casting here. This was a solo game I played with my friend Will.

Other things about this guy were that I designed a symbol for him (on his brooch here) which was a open palm with a star in the centre.

Anyway, here he is.

More to come soon (bet you're excited!)

BT Bill

2008-08-20T00:00:00.002Z

When is an itemised phone bill, not an itemised phone bill? When it's a BT itemised phone bill, where roughly half the calls show up as 'non-itemised'.

The irony of this is not lost on me, now the sole user of the landline, and faintly concerned I didn't make them – or indeed as to what the hell numbers they were that doubled my average spend. Despite promising otherwise, my flatmate whose name the bill was in, failed to get a breakdown of calls, and apparently, now a month has elapsed, the trail has gone cold forever. It's entirely possible that it was Lord Lucan ringing Elvis from Shergar's back, while we were all at work, but I guess I'll never know now.

I could, I suppose, try my luck ringing someone in Mumbai, but I don't think I can be bothered shovelling yet more cash at a telecoms provider for the BT's intercontinental version of the bland call centre apology, which will inevitably only ever tell me what I already know.

West Hampstead

2008-08-17T19:09:00.008Z

This afternoon I hiked up to West Hampstead, to say hi to my friends Will and Sam, and their wee bairn Zac, who is small, cute, and generally baby-ish. I even held him, with the aid of an odd cushion that sort of resembles half a life ring – especially as it's engineered to sit around your midriff. It was good to hear Will's got off to a good start with the lad's education, by reading him science fiction (James Tiptree Junior) and watching horror films with him (Rosemary's Baby).

But West Hampstead: I forget about West Hampstead, though actually quite like it, in spite of its slightly prim, moneyed demeanour. And why not. In spite of my Southside blogging credentials, many things aspirational appeal to me, so a place as peppered with delis and the like as West Hampstead is right up my street.

And of course, before I'd even moved to London, many, many moons ago (10 years worth of moons, in fact) I used to visit West Hampstead a lot, as that was where Will and Sam lived, in a tiny flat between 'Wampstead's' main drag, and the bustling environs of the Finchley road.

For this reason it always evokes a faintly cosy sense of nostalgia, as I wander alongside those gentrified mansions, especially as West Hampstead is, for London anyway, fairly non-threatening – or as Douglas Adams might have it 'mostly harmless'. Yet it did serve to illustrate how living anywhere redically changes your perception of it – or to put it another way, the closer you get to something, the more it seems to disappear.

I think there are many examples that point to this slightly sombre truth, but an example that springs to mind was given by a lecturer at university at Bristol, who described the analogy of two lovers running to meet one another across a field, who at the moment prior to embracing discover they are separated utterly by an invisible barrier, which they detect when their breath condenses upon it. Either that or by clobbering themselves unconcious, one presumes.

My early memories of London were of its utter cyclopean vastness – huge avenues yawning off into the theoretical distance. But as you live somewhere, you gradually piece together the composite parts into a tapestry of sorts – that promptly shrinks in the wash. That vast, fobidding London is gone for me now, to be replaced by something smaller, more prosaic, though still exciting, challenging (and really, still impressively vast).

But I catch glimpses of that other London still – in a shaft of sunlight outside Selectadisc on Soho's Berwick Street, pushing through a mass of bodies at Notting Hill or crossing Waterloo Bridge in the evening. Perhaps no more than in West Hampstead though, where I sometimes feel a nostalic affinity for the ghost of of my younger self, out and about in London, and this sudden shift in perspective is like glimpsing a street you know well, from the window of a swiftly moving train – fleet and momentary, to be relished while it lasts.

From such sub-philosophical rambling I returned earthward to my flat, to discover my housemate huffing, puffing and generally martyring herself because she's doing her chores after a stint at the pub she works at. Working in Victoria tomorrow, more on that then, no doubt.

Too much Posse Pocket

2008-08-02T19:03:00.023Z

Got this fishing vest in the post today. I ordered it off Yoox in their sale, thinking it was just from Woolrich's main line, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was from their 'Woolen Mills' collection, designed by workwear obsessive Daiko Suzuki (also the man behind Engineered Garments).

I've got a bit of a thing for workwear and utilitarian garments, and furthermore, I do like a pocket or two. This guy here has 17 of the things! including a huge one on the back, to carry, um, fish or something.

Weather was pretty repulsive today. Staggered around feeling hot and irritated. Bought the New Order Republic album, with art direction on the cover art by Peter Saville, from about the time he discovered layer masks in Photoshop. People often turn their noses up at this period of his work, but I still think it looks great though (I love his 'wave paintings' from this era).

Saville's got an undeniable confidence and lightness of touch with most things he designs, and it's precisely because Photoshop filters are such a cliche that his use of them is somehow commendably bold, I feel, and sets off the plastic-looking photo-library images he sourced for this with to deliciously ironic effect. In fact, one of my favourite covers ever is that from the World single, which blends stock imagery of a mountain range and cityscape at night to haunting effect. I get shivvers just thinking about it.

The weather's done its Summer 08 thing, and the clouds fucked off at around half five. Quite nice now. Off to Peckham shortly, for beer and barbequed food (I never learn) then off up to London Bridge (maybe) for a soul night.

This Week

2008-07-30T12:57:00.005Z

I watched a dispatches special on Monday, whilst waiting for Dragons Den. It was on 'sandwiches', and helpfully told me that the very one I'd eaten that day contained more fat than TWO DOUBLE MACDONALDS CHEESEBURGERS.

Granted that unlike the last time I freaked a bit about stealth fat I could have seent his one coming more, as the sarnie in question was a 'Oakham Chicken Ceasar Sandwich' which contained chicken, bacon, and lashings of some kind of Caesar-Mayo-Dressing-ting.

Still, I did do a bit of a double take, as I generally don't rank the humble sandwich as a fatty snack, though this is of course contingent upon what goes into it. Marks and Sparks (for it was one of their butties) rather archly responded to the report with a statement that the sandwich in question was 'an indulgent treat' which many customers enjoyed.

Yeah, sure I enjoyed it too, until I realised it was an indulgent treat... who wants to eat an 'indulgent treat' at their desk at work while filling out timesheets? I don't (I want to save that til the evening, when I retire to the pub to sink crisp pints of european lager). Anyway. Won't be getting that again.

Last night I got fined for not paying on the baking cattle truck that is the Number 12 'bendy' bus. It was 'one of those things'. I generally always pay on, but in this case was in a mad scramble for a seat, as riding the 12 back to Camberwell without one in this heat is like a scaled-down version of hell. Two stops down I heard "can I see your tickets and passes please" and remembered I hadn't swiped. Busted.

Went for a barbie at a friends house last night, which was nice, but drank too much Kronenbourg 1664. I wasn't even very drunk really, but I've a bizarrely disasterous hangover. I'm tired. My head is throbbing. My skin itches. There seems to be a grey film over everything I look at (including the hi-res mobile phone handsets I'm retouching today). I feel awful.

Roll on 6 o'clock...

Ewoks theme

2008-07-24T00:03:00.002Z

Which one was the best though?

ps: I Know.

Blisters on my Fingers

2008-07-13T14:00:00.013Z

On Friday I bounced out of work half an hour early to hurry over to the 'Blisters on my Fingers' print show at MC Motors in Dalston. My original scheme was to get the tube over to Old Street, which I realised was probably misconcieved when I got through the gates at Tottenham Court Road to remember that it's on a different branch of the Northern Line from my destination. Like, duh. I battled over to Bank station to find the platform Northbound resembling the final scene of Crocodile Dundee, but I managed to squeeze onto about the fourth train.

From Old Street I walked to the bottom of Kingsland Road, then caught the bus up to Dalston Junction, from where the Studios in question were but a short trot. As predicted there were 'bare heads' in attendance, nervously clutching umbrellas and Google Maps printouts, or at least I was. Guestlisted up, I was waved on in.

The exhibition's remit was: Thirty Five Artists, Thirty Five Prints, Thirty Five pounds, and given that that is a very low print run, £35 pounds seems almost absurdly affordable, especially when one considers that Lazarides gallery was knocking out Anthony Micalleff prints from an edition of 1000 at three hundred a go. Interestingly perhaps, the two most well known 'street artists' exhibiting (Eine and Pure Evil) had sold out within the hour, before I'd even arrived, and in some ways I thought their work was some of the less interesting on display. But then, I often find 'Street Art' a triumph of branding through repetition rather that any necessarily dazzling display of skill.

I'd also gone to see what Si Scott had on display. I'm a big fan of Si's work, or at least his typographic excercises. He and Non-Format pretty much wrote the rulebook on the deconstructivist, Illustrative typography that populates advertising and magazines these days. He basically does one thing, very well indeed. I'm less of a fan of his personal illustrations of creatures, examples of which can be found at Cosh gallery in Soho, and such a one was on display today, with a drawing of a swan's head, which though undeniably pretty, seemed slightly underwhelming to my tastes. I've seen calligraphic etchings from the 1800s where the subject is rendered in a series of 'Spencerian flourishes' by the artists hand, and these examples of Scott's work seem to fall into this tradition. Up close though, this one seemed a little fidgety and have something of the blotter pad about it, but whether that owed something to the process of digitally rendering it, or the gauge of the screen, who knows.

I bought a print by Steve Wilson, (like Scott, on the books at Breed London) and who does lots of stuff for an impressive range of musical and corporate clients. He perhaps falls into the body of slick 'digital' illustrators, of whom Jasper Goodall was an obvious, early exponent. What I do really like about Steve's work is his variation in style – he's managed to carve a niche for himself where his motifs are at least reasonably recognisable, yet still manages to experiment with what he does. I don't like everything he does, but some of it I like a lot, and moreover he reinvigorates his work regularly, which keeps it interesting. His print here was some straight-up Magic Eye-style eye-candy. More than that though, I thought it was among the most ambitious on display, considering the amount of colours used. Having dabbled with screenprinting myself I know aligning all those different screens can be a bit of a pain, and although the registration here wasn't bang on, his use of overprinting to achieve extra colours made a virtue of the process's shortcomings, by lending it a certain optical vibrancy where the inks hadn't trapped quite right.

I was going to take some photos, but perhaps inevitably my camera ran out after one, pretty duff shot. There are some here on Flickr...

Anyway, having bought a print and mooched around with an Efes beer, I departed into the the tepid rain, to catch a train from Dalston central, over to Hackney Central, and thence to meet my friend Sam over near Broadway Market, where we went for a bite to Eat at The Dove, and a pint and pep-talk at the Cat and Mutton.

Awoke on Saturday morning, and headed out to get a parcel from the post office. Opened my front door to find blue Police tape, and the pavement at my feet caked with purplish, clotting blood where someone had been bottled the night before. Nice neighbourhood I'm living in.

Saturday evening went out to Wahaca, a Mexican retaurant in Covent Garden, which was good, though the service was a little patchy. Based on 'Market Food', my favourite bit of the meal was from the 'sharing' bit of the menu, which we had for starters. It was quite Tapas-y, and made my main – a steak burrito – seem a little leaden and brick-like in comparison.

After this we went to the John Snow, and then caught the tube to Elephant and Castle, where there was a Drum and Bass/Dubstep night on at Corsica studios – neither of which I'm a huge fan of, but they did have a metal detector on the door, which was reassuring.

Sunday, all quiet really. Made some Laksa for dinner, then got a bit panicky that the paste had been hanging about for a bit and might give me food poisoning. Seem alright now though. Back to work tomorrow. Musn't grumble.

Friday

2008-07-11T16:26:00.003Z

Late Friday afternoon and I'm sat waiting for an Account Handler to forward me some images do drop into a document. After that. I can piss off.

Then off to Dalston, to the Blisters on my Fingers print show. I anticpate some kind of hipster bunfight as assorted trendoids (me included) queue to buy limited edition prints.

Can't pretend I don't want one mind...

Yay! just got the all clear – I'm outta here!

'Summer' part II

2008-07-09T14:26:00.002Z

As mountains of Walls Soleros lie unmolested in chiller cabinets across the land, and mountains of knocked-off Kanye West style slatted shades dawdle on the racks on Oxford Street, I feel it's time to make a clean breast of it and just say it: "the weather this Summer sucks. Again."

Yes, friends, it's the annual weather whinge; but I promise I'll just get it off my chest and revert to traditional British stiff-upper-lipped stoicism.

But seriously, it does suck. Or blow. one of the two. My mate Ed was in town over the weekend, and whilst here had bought an Umbrella from the posh shop on New Oxford Street. He was very pleased, and I was slightly bemused, but the truth has started to dawn on me that he in fact now posesses the ultimate accessory for the drizzly English Summertime (though not so much the gusty British Winters, when the winds tend to decimate umrellas like chaff before the storm of some vengeful old testament god). How d'you like that?

It's possible I suppose, just possible, that we could be due an 'Indian Summer' but we're already over a week into July and it's still looking like Atlantis out there. In short, I don't think I'll be running to William Hill anytime soon.

SIGH

When franchises outstay their welcome

2008-07-03T17:49:00.008Z

A couple of months ago now, I was in my local. The footy was on the big screen and an ad came on for Sky Sports, featuring The Alien from the eponymously titled franchise, and the crab headed Predator – playing penalty shootouts (I think the Alien was in goal).

I think – I think I nearly wept... but wasn't utterly surprised.

I bring this up because the other night me and a friend had a drunken conversation about movie franchises, with particular reference to the Alien Versus Predator films, which are both utter drivel (though I'll concede, I haven't seen the second of the two, I just know it's bad).

I hate it when these tedious money-spinners emerge, intermittently as they do, to tarnish the legacy of what was a great film, and though I wouldn't count myself as a 'fan of the Alien' par se, they are disrespectful to people who care about the films memory.

Mainly though, they're just lazy. Lame and lazy, and represent a complete paucity of ambition or ideas. It's also a bit stupid, as if the suits behind these crappy sequels continue to plunder old themes like this, rather than investing in new, fresh ideas, they won't have any old horses to whip up to the glue factory in ten years time (and please note here that AVP is also an anagram of PVA).

And the original film did have ideas by the score. True, it was a fertile meeting of minds between some creative movers and shakers (Ridley Scott, HR Giger, Dan O'Bannon, Moebius etc. etc.) that doesn't happen everyday, but that doesn't preclude similar projects happening again.

What I think is particularly brilliant about Alien is its sense of style; its look and texture – right down to the Moebius designed ships uniforms, and Giger's trademark biomechanics. Indeed at a lecture at university one of my tutors cited the Alien itself as an important (and tres postmodern) example of a visual cue from that has gone on to influence industrial product design.

And beyond that, there is the point at which its visual atmospherics mesh with its 'world-building': the story is compelling, the characters believable, and more than that entities whose fates we might care about. And in spite of its big ideas, big concepts, and ability to shock, it retains pace and an important lightness of touch. I've heard it argued by no less than Sigourney Weaver herself that Alien is essentially a ghost story in space – or at least more a slasher flick –than the out and out fire-fight that the later episodes degenerated into. Scott's direction reveals the lurking monster in a sort of slow delicious strip, realising as he must have done, that as with anything frightening, the human mind's capacity for imagination is a far more potent tool than any amount of special effects.

If then, the ghost story that Alien comprises a certain sinister eroticism, mixed in with its queasy tropes regarding the reproductive cycle and sexual symbolism, the subsequent potboilers descend into a detached, disinterested, mechanical pornography of screeching beasties and exploding chests.

Granted, while the decaying orbit of the story's arc is at least gently parabolic (the sequel is good, both three and four feel like merely frustratingly squandered opportunities) the final two are just utterly moronic, and represent nemesis to the franchise.

Indeed these latter two were, I believe, ultimately instigated by the scene in the trophy room at the end of Predator 2, where the camera briefly lingers on an Alien Skull, which was a little post modern bit of fun, and that is where it should have started and finished, as just a little tantalising footnote, for stoned nerds to chuckle over.

Instead we get to be bored to death by the science fiction equivalent of a WWF (that's World Wrestling btw) showdown. Intertextuality sounds cute enough, but more often than not, occurs with a watering down of the original spirit.

The only direction that the films now seem to have to go in is whipping out new things for the Alien to impregnate – in a kind of 'pimp my Alien', which while a novel conceit, is no longer 'the big idea' when re-fed through the mangle like this. In fact, I don't know why they don't have and be done with it, and play the ultimate recursive trump card by having an Alien impregnate another Alien! how cool would that be!

What really bugs me though is this: If, as I have said, allusion and hinting at the overall form is infinitely more sexy than spelling things out in mile high neon letters, why do people insist on explicating things in wearying detail?

The best example of this I can think of would be the gag-reflex-invitingly-bad Star Wars prequels of recent years. Apart from the fact that they were dull, and completely lacked any sense of gravitas or kinesis (due in part to the 'look at me wanking' CGI showboating of Industrial Light and Magic), what also got on my tits was the fact that they portray, clumsily, events that were obscurely (and deliciously) referenced in the original films. Who THE FUCK wanted to know what The Force was for example? Why do these loose ends need tying up? can't you just let them dangle?

Not that I'm that bothered anyway (blinks back tear) I'm over it.

I suppose, at least with the AVP films, that what you're getting, is ironically (given the reproductive themes of Alien) a sort of genetic hybrid – the bastard child of two different films.

But confronted with this progeny, I respond as Arnie himself did in Predator, when confronted with his titular foe:

"You are one ugly motherfucker"

Web Ding

2008-06-30T21:41:00.015Z

Ha ha sorry I meant wedding, cause this weekend I was up in Lincoln, for my old friend and Drinking Buddy, Ade's wedding.

I'd never been to Lincoln before but it's a pretty little market town, built around a hill – the only hill in Lincoln I'm told – which is otherwise as flat as a witch's tit. Yet in spite of it consequently being the site of about a zillion old airfields, Lincoln's not seemingly all that easily accessible. To get there I had to connect by jumping on a single carriage train that appeared at Newark Station like the Hogwarts Express, at a platform advertised with a sign the size of the Guardian Guide.

Anyway Lincoln was grand – the more London makes me want to kill me or someone else, the better it is to escape to idyllic, cobble-streeted zones like this, where the most modern thing is the Topshop in the ubiquitous precinct. Which is a good thing. (I must admit though, even though I didn't really come to shop I did have a nose round some decent second hand bookshops).

Anyway, after a few beers on Friday, the day of the wedding came, and I got duly kitted out in the kind of suit people only ever wear for weddings, including a Jacket with tails, waistcoat and flouncey tie etc. I quite enjoyed cufflinks though.

The ceremony was nice and sweet and secular and completely devoid of any kind of religious trappings aside from the tones of the 'National 12 Bells Striking Contest' who were having their annual showdown in Lincoln cathedral across the way, so in that respect, we kind of got a two-for-one deal. In fact, immediately after the photos, we were further regailed by the sound of Status Quo warming up for a gig in the castle grounds next door, and a flyover by a spitfire and a Lancaster Bomber, so all in all the auspices were good.

But all this was kind of dramatic build up the sound every Best Man dreads, the clinking of knife against wine glass, speech time!

One phrase I've never really got into using much is "Shitting it". Ocassionally I'll be sat on the tube and I'll overhear some media-career lass say to the mate/colleague sat beside her something like: "Yeah I was absolutely crapping myself", and it all just seems kind of wrong, but I suppose if ever I was to adopt such a phrase, then might have been a good time. My heart felt like a game of Space Attack!

Anyway, like so many things in life, it's all about the rythym, and after a bit of a trembly start I got more into the flow of it, and before I knew it, it was over. A lot of people complimented me anyway, saying it was really good, and I think was too, but then, I also think it's a bit like the speech at the closing of the Olympics, where whatever dude it is always says "Truly, this has been the best Olympics ever" (apart from the one in Atlanta, which everyone agrees was wazz).

After that it was your buffet and reception at the hotel round the corner, which was about as wedding-y as they come. I really like weddings, but they are pretty odd events in any social calendar, replete with the kind of things you only ever get to see at weddings – someone's gran dancing with a five year old bridesmaid for instance, or a web designer in a suit.

The DJ was cheesier than an family-pack of wotsits too, and after promising the bride and bridegroom he was going to 'keep it real' with lots of Motown and disco, proceeded to drop what I imagine was a carbon copy of the last wedding set he played (and the one before that, etc). Which was actually fine, as I don't think some cold-assed minimal would have fitted the bill really, though I do think he made a mistake dropping Billy Jean second! There were a few raised eyebrows amongst the attending DJs after that one, I can tell you.

And Sunday was a bit of a 'mare, in that I was really, really hungover, and had to get back. Not so bad though, as I got a lift, but bad enough.

Monday now. Been working today on some pitch work for a lingerie account which I don't reckon is as fun as it sounds. I've been hit by a large-ish phone bill, as although I'm supposedly the only one who uses it in the flat, there are 108 'non-itemised' calls on there (whatever that means, I didn't make them). Annoyingly, my spidey-sense for this kind of thing can dimly perceive that it's 'one of those shared house things' that will never be satisfactorily resolved, and the closest I'll get will be a nonplussed BT employee answering me in the negative from a call centre in Mumbai. Thanks.

Best Man?

2008-06-27T10:22:00.001Z

I certainly hope so. Off to a wedding in Lincoln now. Cheerio.

My most popular photo

2008-06-17T16:11:00.008Z

The internet is a funny old place.

I have a Flickr account, and while I do like taking the odd photo, I can't pretend I'm particularly amazing at it, and nor have I sought to publicise what I do to any huge degree – which is probably why the bulk of my photos probably have under ten views.

The other day, whilst out a wandering I snapped this photo, after noting a slightly more than passing resemblance to the Edvard Munch series, The Scream...
...and posted it on a group associated with a blog 'faces in places' (which it was duly featured on), before leaving on the Friday for Ireland.

I returned to discover that it's been picked up on 'Explore', and some 'Digg' style link aggregator, and has 36,000 odd views. At the time of writing, this has gone up to 78,241. The next photo along? 17 views.

I don't know what to draw from this, apart from if you get people talking – you generate hype. And if you could harness that hype, you'd probably have it made.

That and people like pictures that simultaneously resemble expressionist paintings and dodgy wiring.

Dublin

2008-06-16T18:15:00.008Z

Despite it being a hop, skip and a jump away, I'd never been to Dublin, so I was pleased to be going for my old friend Ade's stag do, which took place in Dublin the weekend just gone.

Dublin is something of a chiched destination for such an event to be sure but when I mooted Belfast, our source of inside info from the Emerald Isle itself said (and I quote) "I wouldn't consider going to get smashed in Dublin unless you actually want to get smashed up".

So we reverted to stereotype and went to Dublin.

We set off on Friday morning, a motley crew of advertising sales execs, web designers, Swedish web designers, jazz keyboardists and myself, and kicked off proceedings with a pint at Stanstead Airport at 11 am, which got the ball rolling nicely.

Other than that though, it was relatively tame. No drugs/stripping/prostitution/murder etc. though we did drink rather a lot. Oh, and no matching polo shirts with iron on transfers.

Dublin's a bit of an odd place, and I struggled to get a grasp of what it was really all about though. Nice enough to look at in the day – with an impressive portfolio of historical architecture – which my sources tell me has more overall continuity than, say, London, due large patches of it not being flattened by the Luftwaffe in the 2nd World war. But it did also look a bit like a large English town with a river and bridges (Shrewsbury anyone?) rather than a bustling metropolis. It also had green post boxes, which was a momentarily diverting novelty, and I can reveal that the pedestrian crossings emit a rapid-fire glockenspiel-esque sound which Orbital sampled for one of their tracks in the mid nineties.

It also had a slightly trashy resort feel in the evenings that weekend, what with all the vacationing inebriates staggering round, grunting at one another. I had sort of anticipated this though, and to be fair, we were at least part of the symptom, even if we hadn't chosen to wear outsized Guinness hats and puke in a fountain somewhere.

And be-jaysus it was expensive. I'd been warned about this but I think the 'penny dropped' when, shortly after we checked in, we went to get a bite to eat. Having opted for an restaurant selling traditional Irish 'fayre', I chose a 'Boxty' which is basically a filled pancake, which cost about sixteen quid. This was pretty much par for the course really, and while I can appreciate that people have got to make a living, the portions weren't hugely generous, and I couldn't quite kick the feeling that they'd seen us (the Brits) coming.

The boozers were pretty good mind – I really liked the John Kehoe on Saturday afternoon – and as for the Guiness (and Murphy's, and Beamish...) well, it tasted like another drink really – cool and ridiculously smooth.

Culturally, well, it wasn't that kind of holiday, though I did find a gallery/exhibition space round the corner from our hotel where they had a graphic art show on, consisting of posters responding to the brief of 'Flags and Anthems'. There was some excellent stuff and I bought a couple there and then.

We headed back Sunday, which was just in time. Sharing an apartment with six other guys smoking, sweating, drinking and farting has got a pretty limited sell by date really, and by that time I really wanted to go home and sleep properly. Easier said than done however, and the flight was delayed for about two hours, during which one of the people on our flight helpfully managed to spew all up and down the concourse. Which was nice.

Chilling out tonight. My housemates are out drinking at the Hermits Cave (sic) in the aftermath of the Camberwell Arts College degree show, and my housemate Jess didn't seem to be able to comprehend why I didn't want to go and booze in a pub stuffed to the gills with pissed up art students, but then, I did all that years ago.

Screenprinting

2008-06-09T21:37:00.006Z

This weekend just gone I schlepped up to 'Gunchester' on the Iron Horse, to screeprint some t-shirts. It's something I've been meaning to do fo ages, and I was assisted in this by general all round good guy Keith at 78 Plate Apparel Printing, who as a fairly long time acquaintance allowed me to sit in on a process I've only ever previously experienced from an art-print perspective.

Despite some initial teething issues involving the transparency size, with a little of my Photoshop nous (and a lot of his printing expertise) we'd soon got the plates exposed and were rattling off the garments themselves, which I'll probably be selling through my website very shortly (watch this space).

So once again, big thanks to the man like Keith for all his help, and if you're looking for some assistance in that area from a very reasonable guy, you should do yourself a favour and check out his operation.here.

In other news I quite enjoyed being back up North for the weekend. And as I strode from my brother's house in Heaton Norris over to Didsbury Road to catch the 23 to Chorlton, I was reminded why people choose to live in the suburbs – they're so damn quiet! which is of course something that never struck whilst I actually lived in them; being the hip young urbanite that I perceived myself to be.

Anyway, I caught up with some friends and generally had a buzz, and at the end, as I sat in my brother's back yard in the Sunday sun drinking coffee, while he cleaned his mountain bike with a toothbrush, I actually slightly regretted having to leave so early, to catch the train at a quarter to four.

But time and tide and all that.

Back and work today (and until Friday, when it's Ade's Stag do) which has been fine, except the lovely weather has brought the onset of my relatively infrequent, yet immoderately irritating hayfever.

It started off OK, but actually built to a climax at aroud five o'clock when I knocked off, by which time my eyes were itching and watering and I was sneezing in stacatto. The warm evening air felt like a kind of peppery soup as I staggered through Soho, struggling not to breath in through a nose displaying a reservoir-like capacity for liquid I was hitherto unaware of.

I've found a small tube of spray stuff in a draw now, so fingers crossed, if worst comes to worst tomorrow should be fine.

Staffordshire Bull Terriers

2008-06-03T16:47:00.010Z

Today I saw a waterlogged sign sellotaped to a poop bin in Camberwell Green, that advertised a 'Staffie neutering service'.

"Staffie neutering?"

I mused

"why not just say 'dog neutering".

Then I remembered – in South London Staffordshire Bull Terriers pretty much are dogs, and if you were to present your average home grown South London teen with an Alsation (or even common or garden mongrel) they'd probably think it was a wolf.

But Staffordshire Bull Terriers are pretty ubiquitous round here – everywhere you turn there's another of these squat muscular canines straining at a leash with a tracksuit in tow. I can't quite understand how they have become the status symbol that they are, but I'm guessing it has something to do with them looking 'a bit like Pit Bulls' – hard and 'street' – the pet equivalent of a New Era baseball cap with the 59/Fifty circular gold sticker left attached (to a peak as flat as the Netherlands).

As my esteemed colleague Zeno Cosini once surmised, the only way Staffordshire Bull Terriers could possibly become more desirable to rudeboys was if they came with a built-in MP3 Player and mobile phone, sort of like a mobile cyborg entertainment system with an attack function, purpose built 'for da streetz'.

I find it slightly depressing that people buy these animals as a sort of auxillary snarl – to orbit their heels like one of the modular weapons from R-Type and I guess I feel pretty sorry for the dogs. A friend was recently looking after a Staffordhire-cross pup, and it had a lovely temperament, so it's sad that many of them are probably reared to act as a fierce-looking accessory. Slightly depressing, and, like any fad (e.g. cabbage patch dolls) slightly odd... You wonder why more people don't think, hang on, do I really want a hard looking dog? Boring! I'll never get on any Flickr 'Loldogs' group that way – I'll get a Shnauser instead, or a wet-eyed Spaniel mayhap.

Anyway. As far as I'm concerned, it's all about the English Bull Terrier. Now that's a dog – and you don't look like a wannabe DMX if you go for a stroll with one of those...

Troy Bar

2008-05-31T12:58:00.007Z

Headed up East yesterday, to Shoreditch, to meet Al.

Everywhere was abuzz with people spending their paychecks on overpriced alcohol, spilling out onto pavements in the torpid evening air. Pretty much most of Shoreditch seemed to have convened at The Foundry, including a pleased-looking contingent of fixed gear bike-riders, who had aggregated against the nearby railings like trendy flotsam.

From there we proceeded to The Legion, where some DJ was playing good tunes in a fairly incomprehensible order, by agency of maniacly scratching them in – with nary a blend in sight. Just to confirm: Apache by The Incredible Bongo Band into Fix Up Look Sharp by Dizee Rascal doth not go (and that was one of the more compelling mixes). Spotted 'Mickey' from Eastenders in the bogs, who was chuckling at the ubiquitous human pez dispenser as he yelled at people trying the out of order cubicle at the end.

Troy bar next for some jaaazzzz. Al stepped up to tinkle the ivories, along with a bassplayer called Rick James, and an African saxophonist in a dapper brown corduroy suit who apparently toured with Fela Kuti in the 70s. Then I went home.

Flat looks a tip today because the rota's not been done, though I'm the only one in which is nice. Popped out to get some bacon from Somerfield and en route spotted my favourite supermodel waiting for a bus at the top of Camberwell Church Street, looking swish in a tan belted mac.

I'm now off to trawl charity shops on the Walworth Road, in my futile quest for anything worth owning.

Books I've lost

2008-05-29T21:53:00.003Z

I've just got in after a semi-boozy post work session in the Blue Posts in Belgravia (opposite the new Banksy 'One Nation Under CCTV mural, you know the one) to discover I've lost the book I was reading.

It was 'Less Than Zero' by Brett Easton Ellis, and I was frick'n enjoying it! Anticathartic.

Other books I've lost recently were something by Ian M Banks (not so bothered really as it was a bit of a Space Opera snoozefest) and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, which I left on a plane en route to Paxos, via Corfu, in 2006 actually, so not that recently at all.

I'm pretty good at not losing most things, but Books I'm pretty good at losing, along with security passes for places I'm freelancing in – especially if I've just a really bad photo taken for them. I found one at the back of my wardrobe recently from a couple of years ago when I had long hair, and I look both vaguely Jesus-like, and uncomfortable at the prospect of having my image captured digitally.

Never mind. I've got a copy of 'Disco Biscuits' (tagline: new fiction from the chemical generation) which I bought in a Charity Shop to lull me to sleep.

UPDATE: I found it! So the free world can once again sleep at ease.

Handbag Chihuahua

2008-05-28T00:25:00.006Z

My friend Vicki was telling me the other day about the last time she worked for her mate Joel, at a sample sale near Brick Lane Market.

One day a Japanese woman came in with a cavernous Miu Miu bag (or somesuch) inside of which was perched a small Chihuahua. She proceeded to delight all and sundry by getting the dog to perform a couple of tricks, firstly: holding up her palm so her pet would give her a mini doggy hi-five, and also (this is great) putting two fingers to its head, and making a shooting sound, whereupon it would flop over as though dead, to reappear like a large eared canine Lazarus seconds later at the mouth of the bag.

Normally I dislike small dogs, but this tale has forced me to reevaluate my stance. And I know it isn't my anecdote strictly speaking, but hell this is a tale that needed telling (and Vicki doesn't have a blog).

Reclaim the Beach

2008-05-11T21:45:00.002Z

So last night I went to meet Ed at Foyles, and wandered down to the South Bank, where we sat on a patch of grass and drank cans of beer. After that we moved up to the 'Reclaim the Beach' party under festival pier. It's still called Reclaim the Beach, presumably because no-one's had the heart to point out it's actually rather a silty riverbank, strewn about with bricks and bits of rock people have dumped into the Thames over the years. It's dirty and smells a bit (much like London). I guess 'Reclaim the Bank' didn't sound as good though, hey.

I came to one of these events years ago and managed to drop a can of Stella into the filthy sand, top-first. I wiped it clean on my sleeve, but was still slightly paranoid about catching dysentry after drinking it. I did drink it though; it was my last beer.

This time the crowd were a strange emulsion of krazy hipster types and pit-bullish lads glaring about like the eye of Sauron. There was some kind of art installation in progress where a couple of guys in waistcoats were sculpting an obese man on a sofa out of the grey sand, that looked like it would take it forever. It was nearly undone when a group of lads pursuing someone (presumably to dish out a beating) piled through us (spashing my shirt with beer, I might add) and looked set to smash into it – only narrowly missing it as they stampeded up the stairs.

For a party there was a distinct lack of music to start with, bar a sort of Mariachi band that wandered down the steps after about half an hour, though later on I think someone stuck some tunes on. We headed off around midnight anyway, to go and get a pint in the Hermits, feeling perhaps slightly underwhelmed, but glad to have gone nontheless.

Gorgeous weather today. I went and sat in the park and drew.

The sun

2008-05-08T22:47:00.007Z

"Sunshine, everybody loves the sunshine" lilted the certifiably adequately titled Roy Ayer's track Sunshine.

I certainly love the sunshine. Can't get enough of that sunny stuff. For when the sun's out, beaming over Soho, it imparts an almost narcotic thrill: free, non pharmaceutical ecstasy, which adults, children, policeman, pigeons (and pehaps even secretly, goths) alike can indulge in, unambiguously.

In this instance, I perhaps, slightly wish climactic conditions had permitted the gorgeous weather had intruded more over the preceeding Bank Holiday weekend, but fuck it, stepping out of work for lunch and putting on sunglasses is a truly wonderous thing, even if you're just going to purchase a sandwich from Pret.

I think half of it is the fact that England labours under some pretty grim weather a lot of the time. Often interesting, often cold, often windy, but mostly wet (and dark). Which has its plus points of course – the pasty faced brits have little recourse during the long winter months than to top up their screen tans writing Flash code and electronic music that cannot help being the envy of the world.

But when the sun has got his hat on... well hats off to the sun. Taking photos is easier in the sun, people smile more in the sun, supermarkets sell more Stella and disposable barbeques in the sun. Fuck, London feels more like New York in the Seventies to me in the sun – which is one of the things – everything has a kind of shimmering halcyon glow to it. You remember popping bubbles of tarmac on the road as a kid, the smell of cigarettes abroad (hell, I even remember watching TV while the sun was shining, probably Cities of Gold or summat).

But mostly, everyone smiles a bit more, and is a bit less god-damn introspective, which in this metropolis, on this rain lashed outcropping of rock, on this bauble of matter orbiting the sun itself, cannot be underappreciated. Sun, you primary source of Earth's energy, I salute thee.*

*Cue some kind of Ballard-esque 70s sci-fi sun-based disaster scenario (which is probably, actually happening somewhere).

Bank holiday monday

2008-05-05T20:15:00.003Z

A lovely warm bank holiday here. Tramped up to Ruskin Park, and read some of Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, before moving to Brunswick Park, en route to which, I bought the first Magnum of the year (white chocolate, since you ask).

When I got back to the flat, the living room window was open, and a pigeon had flown in and was bringing all kinds of ruckus, making that weird, humming, slippa-slap sound pigeons' wings make as it crashed repeatedly into the blinds, and dislodged small objects from the window sill.

Pigeons are often called flying rats, though to be fair, rats are quite intelligent and pigeons are as thick as a short plank (singular, between them). This one was no exception. It panicked as soon as I walked in the room, proving almost impressive in its ability to completely avoid the open window it had gained entrance by, in its blindly terrified attempts to avoid me ("homing sense on the blink, huh buddy?"). It then managed to get lodged behind my ex-housemate Cecilia's slowly dying catcus on the window sill, and it took some not inconsiderable effort on my part to usher the feathered fool out into the welcoming arms of Camberwell Church Street, made more tricky by the fact I didn't actually want to touch the greasy thing in case I caught the Rage Virus or something.

Right. Now I'm going to do some work.

Love, Labour's lost.

2008-05-03T15:59:00.010Z

Text received today from 'Boris Johnson' which... well read it yourselves. Weird. Kudos to whoever did it though.

Yesterday moms and pops dropped by, en route to a soiree in Battersea, dropping off some pots and pans from years ago, as well as some photos of me looking drunk in Bristol in 1998. My high estimation of my mother was further confirmed when she identified the typeface on my 1972 Otl Aicher Munich Olympics poster as Univers. Mum, you're my kind of mum.

Last night was spent in the Hermits Cave, slurping Heineken and drunkenly toasting Ken Livingstone. I don't suppose you even need the benefit of hindsight to see that Labour were going to perform badly. Increasingly, as politics seems to be about personality, Livingstone seemed perhaps a little tired, and Gordon Brown comes across as something of an inarticulate ditherer, increasingly on the back foot. The country has spoken.

A slightly torpid bank holiday Saturday, today. When I awoke it seemed sunny-ish, with a faint miasma of vapor shrouding the sky that prevented it from feeling properly summery. Went and bought bacon and some sunblush tomatoes for a breakfast butty. Popped into Rat records and bought The Black Dog's Book of Dogma which I'm listening to now. Fucking incredible, timeless, beautiful, melancholy, joyous music, and for me, perhaps the most elegant evocation of techno since the Detroit pioneers. I think the French(?) guy who works there thought I was a bit of a prick for wearing sunglasses inside, which is fair enough, but they were quite expensive and I didn't have anywhere to put them other than hanging them off the collar of my t-shirt (no).

Got my first commission through my website, which, while it isn't going to bankroll yachts in the Hamptons, is encouraging. Next I basically need to promote that sucker hard. Watch this space etc.

Local Election day

2008-05-01T12:05:00.005Z

Election day today, and I'm shortly off to register my vote(s). I'm probably going to vote for Ken first and Brian Paddick second. I just can't really see myself voting for Boris Johnson, as I don't think I can take anyone who affects such an 'endearing buffoon schtick' seriously (I'm not entirely certain he doesn't have some kind of consultant on hand to artfully ruffle his hair, just so, before he leaves the house).

Looking at all his policies too, a lot of them seem to be quite reactionary, and not very well thought through. With regard to crime he proposes installing metal detectors at major transport hubs to detect knives and guns, and more police on public transport to prevent antisocial behaviour, neither of which I'd particularly want to see, as they both seem like classic examples of treating the symptoms rather than the cause, and indicative of the increasingly paranoid society we live in, where we're scared of ourselves and our kids.

On transport, well, I have to say, it still seems quite expensive and disorganised, but then I don't know what it was like before Ken came to power really, so don't have much to compare it to. Looking at his website, he does seem to have some positive statistics to back his policies up, and again, Boris's '21st century Routemaster' all sounds a bit fuzzy to me.

Mostly though, I'm hoping Boris loses so that the London Evening Standard will SHUT THE FUCK UP in its increasingly irritating front page campaign of alternately smearing Ken, and intimating that Boris's victory is almost a foregone conclusion. I hate that rag anyway, with its dreary celeb goss and regular, hysterical predictions of 'Travel Chaos' or 'Chaos Fears', every time it snows or there's a public holiday (worse if the two are combined).

I can sort of understand voter apathy though, or indeed why people might feel that it is 'time for a change'.

After that I'm off to get some cord for a poster I got framed, for the gallery who did it (who shall remain nameless) neglected to do it themselves... which is pretty crap really.

Stop this Banksy madness.

2008-04-18T12:34:00.006Z

*removes imaginary glasses, wearily massages bridge of nose between thumb and forefinger*

Now, I know everyone – but everyone – wants a piece of Banksy's ass. In fact, when we're all older, ironic pictures of snogging policeman will probably be what those kitschy reproductions of the woman with the green face were to your gran (and you know 'street art' has been utterly co-opted when advertising for the 'urbanproof' Nissan QashQai features the now familiar Banksy tropes of weapon wielding flying rats).

Just recently I received an email from his online vendor Pictures On Walls, advising buyers to beware (in their usual vaguely snarky tone of voice) of counterfeit editions of his work, currently flooding an internet auction site near you.

The thing is, people don't actually seem to be so bothered about the actual provenance or authenticity of the work, so long as they're buying a stake in the stencil grafitti goldrush, at vastly inflated cost. Which is good for some, as Banksy's satire-lite arguably constitutes an industry in itself, which from the looks of it, some people are managing to make a very respectable income off. For example, there's a gallery in Spitalfields market that as I remember, carries an almost exclusive stock-in-trade of canvas prints of photographs of his iconic paintings.

The biggest piss take I think I've ever seen though was just recently on this website, which came to my attention through a Google text ad in Gmail entitled "Banksy/Kate Moss original artwork" and just out of curiosity I followed through.

I nearly spat out my lunch. What's on offer isn't a painting, isn't even a print edition, it's a record cover which happened to feature the Bristol lad's Warhol knock-off featuring Kate Moss.

The cost?

A mere £495 to you (or a very reasonable £795 framed).

I'm sorry? What? are you having a laugh?

The blurb for this 'objet d'art' reads:

"The cover artwork is an exact replica of Banksy's original Kate Moss artwork based on the style of Andy Warhol's 'Marilyn Monroe'. Both this and his Mona Lisa stencil went for outstanding prices at Sotheby's, more than double his previous record price of £21,000"

Yes, but that was for a signed, limited edition screenprint which was about 24" x 24" in size. This is a record sleeve... and not even for a particularly good record, by the looks of it. Who the 'funk' are Dirty Funker anyway? Some straight-to-video dance act who deserve to be consigned to history's ash-can for the heinous pun-crime of bastardising the words 'funk' and (w-wait for it!) 'fuck' – Audacious!

But not nearly so audacious as the people running this site..

"Don't miss out, stock is very limited."

They warn, in a cautionary magenta footnote at the bottom. Yeah, stock's very limited because it was a hugely derivitive slice of "My Sharona" sampling Euro-cheddar which vanished without trace in 2006. What beggars belief is that they don't even pretend that it's anything other than a record sleeve though presumably some muppet with more credit cards than brain cells might actually purchase this, blinded by the throbbing retinal afterburn caused by seeing the words 'Banksy' and 'Buy' in close proximity.

I think I might start knocking out web-optimised jpegs of Banksy's 'authentic' artwork at a fiver a pop. Any takers?

War of the Worlds

2008-04-15T01:16:00.010Z

Now, you can keep your facebook, your Ebay (ok maybe not), but things like this, *wags finger emphatically* this are what makes the internet amazing. Ladies and gentlemen may I bring to your attention the original 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds, by HG Wells and starring Orson Welles, which sent swathes of the American radio listening public into panic when first broadcast.

It seems odd in retrospect, that while you could probably get the wack new Tom Cruise star vehicle version on some bi-torrent site no problem, it'd never ocurred to me (given its infamy) that this might be out there for the taking; but it is, and what a treat it is.

Based loosely on Wells's premise, the tale is transplanted from London – where the Martians land on Horsell Common – to New Jersey, and given a radio play treatment by Welles. In spite of the fact that in our wacky post-modern world, we're all sophisticated, cynical consumers of media, it still doesn't actually surprise me in some ways that it caused a furore at the time, at least in the first half, which consists of hoax emergency bulletins, cutting into segments of light instrumental dance music with an increasingly panicky tone.

I was also amused to note that these very incidental segments ("We're taking you now to the hotel martinette in Brooklyn") were later featured on the the cut'n'paste classic 'Lesson Two' by Double Dee and Steinski, and subsequently the sometime intro to Stretch Armstrong's eponymous hip hop show during hip hop's golden age in New York, New York, which kind of gives an indication of how far into modern popular culture, this event percolated.

Elsewhere on the same site, there's other vintage radio goodies, such as a 1968 version of H.P. Lovecraft's The Outsider and other tantalising bits and bobs I haven't as yet ventured to listen to.

So pull up a chair, or whatever you sit on on your planet, and prepare to enjoy a bit of radio history. Bliss.

The War of the Worlds

Hackney Techno Robot

2008-04-13T20:49:00.004Z

London can be really exciting sometimes, in terms of the sheer volume of stuff going on, and its accessability. Quite recently, when I arrived in Central London half an hour early for a meeting one evening, I popped into the National Gallery, and found myself almost giggling with glee at how fun it all was, wandering round looking at these huge old paintings, checking out the tourists on the quiet, listening to a duo on cello and violin who were playing in one of the rooms.

In terms of more contemporary art and culture, London is always going to feel closer to the throbbing pulse of what's considered 'contemporary' and 'relevant'. In fact, the universal quest to be 'really fucking post modern, man' and 'edgy as fuck' has attained such a pitch in areas of the East End and Soho, that it's almost passé, oh irony of ironies.

I have to say though, I'm usually quite up for a bit of pretensious 'Über wank', as long as it's all in the spirit of fun. I come from Stockport y'see, where for me, the most 'underground' I could ever hope for on a Friday night was a lock-in at The Whistling Jig on the A6, with its flypaper-like carpets and seats whose upholstery was waxy with filth (though on karaoke nights there was certainly something quite 'challenging' and 'abstract' about the punter's renditions of poular hits).

Last night was really enjoyable. Sort of unexpectedly so too. I went up to Shoreditch to meet my friend Sam, and was anticipating a pretty standard evening boozing in the East End, perhaps spiced up with some techno, but ultimately wandered into something much more interesting – twice actually, the first time being when we nearly wandered into a face off between two groups of Hackney kids lobbing bottles at each other, but I won't go into that.

Firstly we caught a pizza (not literally) at Furnace, just off Old Street, which was really good – pizza express-ish with a wood fired oven. I'm constantly bemused by how crap most pizza joints are. I couldn't care less about the authenticity of pizzas – nobody talks about authentic, 'British' sandwiches – but like sandwiches, it can be a pretty unforgiving medium if you stint on ingredients. It's never going to be absolutely mind-blowing food, but extremely tasty if made well. These were really good, and I'd go back.

After that we hiked to a studio up in Hackney, where we were told, there was a gig. It was in a performance space on the second floor of an old office/factory complex, which doubled as someone's flat – a bit like a down-at-heels arty version of The Loft. There was a load of keyboards and the ubiquitous powerbook DJ, and we basically stood about jawing and swigging Heineken until, about half an hour later, the performance began.

The first act was a guy dressed as a robot in silver-painted boxes and tubes, who wandered out of the bathroom to play industrial noise on a pair of bust up keyboards, whose guts were spilling out in loops of cable. I couldn't quite work out what he was doing, but apart from playing the odd snatch of melody on the keys, I think he was largely manipulating the sound by altering the connections between these and the amps, and soldering them live. Ocassionally, amidst the grinding cacophany, he'd break off and wander into the audience to hand out fizzy sweets and affix springs to people.

Oddly, though it all appeared quite humorous and sweet, the overall effect was actually slightly unsettling – like having a mute 1980s Doctor Who monster in our midst.

After that, there was a break, where I ran to the offy, and returned just in time to catch a guy in a tie-dye jacket playing a solo set of African music – some traditional – on an electric guitar. He also had some kind of effects pedals, and marracas taped to his feet. Sounds kind of cheesey, but he really won everyone over as it was generally quite lovely, accessible music.

After that, more music, and I boozed and chatted, with some people I kind of know, and some I didn't, until around two, when I bounced, to read the last of Robert Harris's period ripsnorter Pompeii on the 35 home.

It was a really cool night... low key, but exciting enough to remind you why you'd want to live in London in the first place. I need to get involved in more stuff like this, so if anyone's running any under-subscribed 'happenings' round these parts, holler at me and I'm there.

Bus Route Review: the 148

2008-03-31T23:59:00.004Z

Buses are manky. Filthy. I actually quite like the things, but even I'm prepared to come clean and acknowledge that. The 'free' buses (the hated on bendys) are the worst, no question, and they always seem to posess a faint but cloying stink – a rank cocktail of chicken bones and sweat.

So it was with some surprise that I discovered the gem that is the 148, which sallies forth from Camberwell Green to the far flung reaches of Shepherd's Bush, because it's like, the Orient Express of London buses or summat.

Everything's just so CLEAN.. the seats crisp and brand new. At least one of the times I've caught it these were clad in some kind of faux leather polymer, butter-soft and shiney. They're widely spaced as well – like riding in some kind of business class suite with extra legroom.

We've got Britain's premier HGV construction firm Scania to thank for all this (their logo is proudly embossed on all the headrests) and they've done a bang up job, too fo' sheezy. If there was a spin off series of Pimp My Car entitled Pimp My Bus, presented by Tim Westwood, and the 148 was selected for a makeover, I think the big guy would be left, for once, speechless, having witnessed the majesty that is the 148. He might even cry, before going home.

"But why is this?" I hear you cry, dear reader. "Why is this bus so damn fly, when I wouldn't deign to keep chickens on most of them?"

Well – sigh – there is a downside to this bus. A reason for its pristine glory. For each of these buses has a pre-recorded voice that speaks the bus number, destination, and current location at every stop.

"THIS... IS THE... 148... TO.. SHEPHERD'S BUSH"

An anodyne female voice intones flatly, when you first board. At first it isn't so bad. Something of a novelty in fact. But like many 'novelty items' (novelty erasers for example) the sheen of the new is quick to tarnish, and it rapidly becomes deleriously irritating.

I'm guessing Scania thought they'd really push the boat out on this one, and create 'The Bus of The Future – a sort of robo-bus if you like. Well if this is the future of buses I've just seen, it's a dark one, if they're all to sound like The Bride of KITT strung out on valium.

I'd heard that one of the practices in those lovely American prisons for 'unlawful combatants', alongside water-boarding and the like, was to play music at unholy volume at the detainees – such as Barney the Purple disosaur, or even worse, Eminem. And this, after a while, is a bit like that: torture.

But on the plus side, even 'da yoof' who are partial to serenading buses with the skittish strains of Nelly and SoulJah all their mobile phones are utterly antagonised by robo-bus, and so the people who would likely be scrawling 'Murda Zone' onto a seat, or spitting on the floor aren't much in evidence.

But neither is anyone really, which is why they're so crisp and new feeling, for to tarry too long on the 148 is to court gibbering insanity as effectively as summoning Azathoth. Which is sort of fine actually, as I never usually wish to ride it all the grim environs of Shepherd's Bush, and I'd rather get the tube up to Notting Hill.

Camberwellians in a hurry take note though: As a shuttle bus up to Elephant and Castle tube however, it really is, just the ticket.

War Paint

2008-03-30T17:42:00.004Z

I love working in Soho. It's all there basically. A heady stew of media bitches, okey-cokey tv celebs, record shops, clothes shops, vice, and decent food.

There's also a smattering of hip galleries and print-shops thereabouts, such as Cosh on Berwick street, and now the Lazarides print shop on the Charing Cross road – a sort of sister venture to their longer established space on Greek Street, that regularly had peeps snaking round the block to purchase an Anthony Micallef print.

It's split between an exhibition space on street level, and a print shop above – and accessed via – Soho Books. The exhibition on right now is entitled War Paint and features paintings by Massive Attack's 3D, and some photos (or 'light-paintings') by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones.

I quite like 3D's stuff, which graced some of Massive Attack's releases, along with the MoWax 'Headz' compilations, and he was a grafitti artist in Bristol before being a musical artist. Like many 'street' artists, the same figurative motifs recur in his paintings, populated as they are by raw Francis Bacon-esque viscera and homunculi. All the images are rendered in a strident red, and are available as prints (the companion blue edition sold out on Pictures On Walls practically instantly).

The accompanying photo portraits by Warren Du Preez and Thornton Jones also take a deconstructivist approach of the personalities involved, and are arresting, but I've gotta say, I wasn't in the market for a photo of James Lavelle's mug even in the heady, stoned days of the mid nineties, so god knows what I'd want with one now.

In fact, I read that the exhibition was inspired in part by the Unkle album, War Stories, which I'm slightly bemused about, having always viewed everything beyond The Time Has Come remix ep as a yawnsome product of Mr Lavelle's ego, and hence not that cool or indeed interesting. Oh well.

The actual print shop has the prints from the exhibition on display, along with other bits from the Lazarides gallery archives. Now, it must be said, Steve Lazarides and co. are reet canny fuckers. The blue edition, vended through Pictures on Walls which sold out like that (snaps fingers) had five editions of 50, on at £275, wheras here, the red (and more limited) versions are on at exactly twice that, and presumably before VAT. These cats have basically got a license to print money. I was going to try and blag one of the show posters, but looking at the price list, I see that even that, an unlimited edition, costs £20. Oh well, can't front I suppose. Artists getting payed is a good thing.

I was also looking to see if there was anything by MoWax/Dizee Rascal's designer Ben Drury, who is also on the roster, but there didn't seem to be anything in evidence. Amongst the other stuff there were prints by Antony Micallef, Faille, Space Invader and others.

On an aside, I have to say, there are some tropes particular to this kind of supposedly 'subversive' street art that are getting a little tired, such as the juxtaposition of militaristic motifs with icons of popular, consumerist (read: bad) culture. A US marine with Mickey Mouse's head superimposed over his would be a perfectly acceptable example of this. What is slightly irksome is that, wandering round Lazaride's super cool (won't say Über, oh, damn) Soho print shop, is of course that their operation covets this very same consumerism, under the guise of some supposedly ironic, knowing, distance.

But of course, there is an immense appetite for all this, which at the minute, much like war, doesn't seem to be abating. People just can't get enough, me included, apparently, as I've bought a couple of prints from the over the years. Guess I'll shut up. And actually, on that that front, one of the prints has more than doubled in value, so not a bad little purchase, if the market doesn't suddenly get bored of guns, skulls and halftoned dots.

Anyway, worth a goosey if you're in the area, or want to splash out on something for the wall of your trendy hackney studio flat.

Frankie Fraser

2008-03-27T22:39:00.003Z

I've seen Frankie Fraser twice. Once on the Number 12 on the way to Elephant and Castle, and once stood at the top of Walworth road outside the library, looking absently around like any lonely pensioner might.

The first time I spotted him, a much younger man randomly came up to him and greeted him with enthusiasm like an old friend (I suppose he might even have been an old friend) but then, he is like London royalty, I suppose.

To look at him now in his 80s, you'd hardly suspect he was once as 'ard as nails, and accused of pulling someone's teeth out with pliers, but then, he was shot in the head as recently as 1991 outside the now defunct Turnmills, so he is clearly made of sterner stuff than most.

Easter

2008-03-24T20:30:00.006Z

This Easter just gone has been sort of strange. Mainly just quiet though. Time was, I used to spend pretty much all of it from Thursday evening through to Monday evening, drunk or otherwise out of it. This time? I drank a bit but mainly chilled out and ate. I was also at something of a loose end for stretches of it as many of the people I know had left London to go and see family, though, for this very reason I had the flat to myself for a lot of it. Which was ace.

The weather was freaky too.. Easter usually seems to fall just beyond that unspecified tipping point of Spring when the sun first starts putting his hat on. This, in mid-march, was bitterly cold and largely grey, punctuated by bouts of intense hail ('hail texts') and surreally isolated sunny spells.

On Friday I went to meet Will up in Mayfair, to see The Orphanage at the Mayfair Curzon, which in screen one at least, had quite a fetching seventies-looking Auditorium. It's a good film. Very atmospheric and chilling, though, as with much horror, there are some things which don't quite add up (suspension of disbelief is critical). I couldn't help thinking about events in Jersey at the minute though.

After that we mooched round in quest of a post film pint. Mayfair is wierd. Walking round it on Friday evening is disconcertingly quiet, and many of the side streets are pretty much empty of life save for the odd liveried doorman. Will speculated that for all it's bland wealth, any of those grand facades might be playing host to all manner of Brett Easton Ellis style depravity, and ironically of course, just last week, a European flapper was done for by an untouchable arab prince, who has since absconded in daddy's jet.. 2008 so far really does seem mainly to be about people murdering other people.

We eventually found a boozer, where we seemed to be the only non-tourists in there, and ordered a pint each and a packet of nuts. After a bit, the landlord – an African chap – picked a microphone up at the bar, and proceeded to welcome everyone to England, wish them a happy holiday, and apologise for the slowness of the kitchen; which pretty much confirmed our unique status amongst the clientelle. After that we both caught tht tube to West Hampstead, where Will headed home, and I trotted off to a party at the bitter end of the Kilburn High Road.

Saturday was cold. Bitterly so. I awoke late and tired after a night on beer and mojitos, and vague memories of seranading a room in Peckham with an out of tune banjo and improvisational singing. I headed off into town and met Will, again, at the Courthauld gallery on the Strand, which I'd never experienced before, but is something of a gem.

There was an exhibition of Renoir paintings, themed around La Loge (or Theatre Box) which is where people went in nineteenth century Paris to wear their best clobber and gawp at what everyone else was wearing. An interesting snapshot into another age, placed in some sort of context alongside random ephemera such as sophisticated fashion magazine illustrations, and gently satirical cartoons.

The main collection was pretty excellent too, with some pretty jaw-droppingly famous works on display.. such as Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, and that self portrait Van Gogh did after he got all Alan Davies on his own ear.

After that we wandered up Fleet Street to see if Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was open, and thankfully, it was.

I love the Old Cheshire Cheese. It's kinda touristy, kinda London, Olde Worlde as fucke, yet while other boozers sharing these traits make me cross myself then cross the road, the Cheshire Cheese makes me want to curl up, dormouse like in a cosy corner and get slowly blitzed with friends over tall glasses of ale. It's got a fire, it's got a chop room, it's moderately labyrinthian, and it's cheap – though it is a Samuel Smiths pub, and hence not that great the morning after. Someone was saying there's a bit of ancient tree in there, though I've yet to stumble across that.

After that, we parted ways, again, and I went home to sit on my couch, for most of the rest of the weekend actually.. watching crap films aand reading the papers.

I'm now back for a third week at a design group in Soho, wrassling with a print job that has been refusing to give up the ghost, but might just go away tomorrow if I hit it hard enough. A short week, which is good, for in spite of me being a workshy freelancer, this Easter did what all good bank holidays does: made me forget to some extent what work is like (though I do often enjoy it). Cheerio.

'Thursday Thug'

2008-03-20T09:50:00.001Z

"Kiss me shoes"

Bloomsbury Bowl

2008-03-17T01:16:00.006Z

So last night I went to Bloomsbury Bowl in, er, Bloomsbury.

It was fun. It kind of reminded me of a smaller, less arty Shunt Bar, insofar as it was subterranean, oddly laid out, and groaning with hipsters, in this case a notable proportion of which were dressed in Rockabilly gear, because this is a bowling venue, and of course, bowling is inexorably linked with the 50s, which is to Rockabilly types as the 60s are to mods. Personally I associate it more with teenage birthday parties, which aren't maybe so cool.

They're doing a brisk trade by the look of things, and it was six bones on the door, and 36 odd to hire a lane. We got there before eight and were just able to book a lane for eleven. Apparently this could only be done in person as the limited amount they'll book out over the phone had been booked up months back. Anyway, you get an hour, which sounds like a lot, but actually is about enough for one game. If you're really into the bowling then you're probably better off going to the one at Elephant and Castle shopping centre, which is cheaper and they'll let you wear your own trainers, which I wouldn't have minded as my bowling shoes were awful sweaty things with velcro flaps on them. I didn't come last, at least.

After that we danced around a bit to some rock and roll, though the sound system didn't have much oomph. Some brylcreamed weirdo with turn-ups kept taking mobile phone pictures of one of the girls I was with, which was a bit disturbing.

We left around two-ish and headed out, wandering down towards Holborn to catch a bus back South of the river, and managed to lose two of our companions when we did get on one. We got off at Waterloo to wait for them to catch up. Julia, whose birthday it was proceeded to drunkenly arrange Sainsburys shopping baskets up the pavement around the bus-stop (she's an artist, bless her). We left shortly after.

Got into Peckam another bus ride and a taxi cab later. Piled back to a friends for vodka and Orangina, which was dandy, until a huge oestrogen fuelled argument broke out and people started screaming at each other and slamming doors and crying. I took this as my cue to leave, grabbing a bag of vinyl I'd left leaning against a wall at a party three months ago.

Woke up this afternoon to hear the wind buffeting the house like a plaintive ghost. Found this oddly pleasing. Fixed a huge breakfast and read the papers, sipping coffee. Got the internet back at our flat, so wasted some time there. Also did some work.

Working up in Soho tomorrow, and for the rest of the week. Some other bits to sort out too.

Why Royal Mail is like Christmas

2008-03-15T17:42:00.004Z

On my way back from my regular haunt the Royal Mail parcel depot yesterday, whilst wielding a giant cardboard tube I'd had to wait a week to pick up in person, I got to thinking how Royal Mail is a bit like Christmas. I can already sense eyebrows raising, Spock-like at this theory, but let me drop todays mathematics and break it down for you one time.

1. Abundant use of the colour red (albeit more of a weedy scarlet than a bold crimson).

2. Complete lack of snow.

3. Like Father Christmas, Royal Mail decides if you've been a good boy or girl, and whether you deserve to get what you want. If you've been bad, those parcels, cards (especially the plastic kind) might just not show up! The Royal Mail elves will see to that.

4. It's largely mythical. Royal Mail? yeah right.. How about doing everyone a favour and rebranding as 'Shabby Mail'.

5. Like Christmas, the post happens about once a year, but it doesn't usually bring good cheer.

6. Lots of queues.

7. ~~Everyone's pissed.~~

8. It's a complete bloody shambles and nothing works and nobody does any work. It's cheerfully witless and indolent. Everyone knows it's a load of bollocks, but as this is England and, we get to stand in the aforementioned queues and gripe about it quietly afterwards, everyone's actually secretly rather pleased.

That's about it. Any questions?

The Day Nothing Worked..

2008-03-07T17:36:00.002Z

Nothing has worked today (including me).

The internet at our flat, which was supposed to get cut off at the weekend and get re-connected on Thursday, instead worked all week, then cut out last night.

A package I ordered on Monday hadn't turned up so I went to the 'Banjonet' internet 'cafe' opposite the chameleon-like Redstar on Camberwell road to leave an email for the Ebay vendor who sent it.

Banjonet, once my favourite internet cafe, seems to be mutating into a nail bar. There was a lady getting her nails done in the window by a chinese chap wearing a face mask, and the place stank of amyl-nitrate. I felt dizzy just breathing in there.

The two dudes who run it, after selling me a ticket, couldn't actually get an internet connection, so I offered that I go to the Post Office while they sorted it out.

"You'll be alright in ten minutes yeah?"

I enquired.

"Yeah boss, sure"

Trotted down to the Post Office parcel depot to see if there was anything for my name and address. Nada.

Interestingly enough, the guy 'serving' me at the counter was engaged in a phone conversation with someone at Royal Mail about two bank cards of his that hadn't shown up. The irony.

I returned to Banjonet. No internet still at the internet cafe, so I got quid refunded and moved to the next one up the street, where I could get on the internet, but it wouldn't let me download PDFs, so some documents I needed to print were unobtainable.

So I moved to the next internet cafe and bought another half hour on the web, plus two A4 printouts.

I went home, consulted my account, filled them in and went to post them. On route to the post box I found that the gum on the envelope was unsticking, so went back home, and sellotaped it shut.

Cleaned the flat. Whilst cleaning assorted mirrors and windows, noted that 'glass cleaner' actually does a better job of smearing than cleaning. Maybe that's me though.

Rang BT, and established that even though the phone line was re-established three days after changing the name of the account holder, it'll take a week as of today to get t'internet back.

Back to the Latin American internet cafe over the road to check my mail again. The space bar isn't working very well. They seem to have a hairdressing salon incumbent, and from the stairwell to it downstairs by which I'm sat, wafts the aroma of burning hair.

I'm going out now. To watch a film. Hope that works.

Paul's Olive Shop

2008-03-04T20:23:00.017Z

One of the things I've heard from older Camberwell residents I've fallen into conversation with is that SE5 used to be the province of Cypriots and ex police – a little like a retired version of Cop Land only minus Sly Stallone and I'm sure they weren't corrupt. Well, the police seem to have gone (even the ones who haven't retired), but there is still a Greek presence – even if it is on the wane – mostly in evidence in the handfull or so of Greek run businesses scattered about.

Today I went to Paul's Olive Shop just opposite the Castle on Camberwell Church Street. A funny little shop this, it's sort of a deli, selling mainly Greek produce and run by a friendly Greek lady who vaguely reminds me of a matriachal character from a Miyazake film. It's a half decent greengrocers but what it does really well – perhaps unsurprisingly given the name – are olives. This time I bought some garlic stuffed ones, but there are actually quite a few varieties to be had.. my personal faves being chilli marinated.

What I like about this place I suppose is that it just sells quite a nice selection of little things to eat.. the aforementioned olives, olive bread (very nice), olive oil (seeing a theme here?) and assorted sundry dips such as, you guessed it, hoummous, taramasalata, guacamole and so on. Its fairly narrow remit means that while it probably can't supply everything for your weekely grocery shop, it's great if you just want some bowls of food for a party, or can't be arsed cooking and just want something appealing to suggest itself to you. In addition to my olives I also bought some lovely mozarella, which was so nice I had it with tomatoes for lunch and tea (it was like tearing up and devouring a milky, fluffy cloud).

It all feels pretty healthy too. Indeed, whoever designed the tarpaulin engineered the 'S' on Shop to resemble a snake, and I wonder if this wasn't something to do with the serpent on the Asclepian staff adopted by the medical profession as one of their icons (when they're not, more mistakenly, using the Hermetic symbol the Caduceus.) I could just be talking bollocks there though.

If none of this strikes your fancy then they seem to have branched out with a small section devoted to selling bric-a-brac just to the left of the shop such as old pine furniture, but really, it's pretty dire, and I'd suggest sticking to the olives (they taste nicer, arf arf).

The Fog

2008-03-03T19:31:00.006Z

So the weekend was pretty good. Went to Clapham for Liam's 30th on Saturday, where he'd hired out a place called Gigalum (previously Oblivion) by the green. Whilst in the area, I nipped next door with Siobhahn and Kerryn to Pizza on the Green, which is kind of like the DFS of pizza, in that over the five or six years I've been going there, it's constantly had a 50% off 'special deal' on. Works for me anyhow. The bar was actually pretty bad though.

Last night I watched John Carpenter's The Fog, which I stayed up quite late to catch. There are some programmes or films you seem fated to only ever see certain episodes of. For instance: If I should happen to turn on 'Only Fools and Horses' of an evening, there's a 90% chance it'll be the episode where Del and Rodney dress up as Batman and Robin and go to the wake, or if I happen to flick channels to be confronted with the original 70s version of Battlestar Galactica, it'll always be the episode where they go down to the gambling planet, where there's an alien version of The Three Degrees (with double the usual amount of features) performing in the casino, and the bug-like proprietors who run the show are conniving with the Cylons. Always.

Similarly, up to now I'd witnessed The Fog on around three separate ocassions, but only ever seen the last ten minutes or so, which really, is probably the worst bit of a horror film to catch in isolation isn't it? Unless it's the film version of I Am Legend, when you're just actually saving around an hour and a half of your life which would be better served cleaning the oven, or something equally less pointless.

It was alright actually, though pretty understated all in all. Things I admired were: the lovely seventies titles, the Tangerine Dream-esque throbbing synthesized score, the glowing fog (which, coupled with the aforementioned music gave some scenes the feel of a nightclub frequented by dead sailors) and the alcoholic priest. It's not as good as The Thing, but then what is? Apparently there are intertextual Lovecraftian references to Arkham in there (which I missed) and one of the characters is called Dan O'Bannon, and I wondered if that was a nod to the actor/screenwriter of Alien/Dark Star fame.. I certainly hope so.

Anyway. Sorry to get all IMDB on your asses, but I might go and see a new film this week, in which case I might tell you about that. Or not.

Play that beat!

2008-02-28T13:05:00.011Z

Hey, do you like scr-scr-scr-scr-scratching? As a teenage yout' I used to be bang into it, and I do think it takes a certain degree of nerdy laddishness to get excited about watching other men moving records back and forth, however expertly. These days I'd probably just as soon listen to y'know, the actual tunes, rather than a cut up rendition reminiscent of hearing two dolphins bicker.

One of the best live scratching expos I've witnessed was DJ Cash Money at The Thekla, Bristol in about 1997, who managed to tread the thin line between entertaining the crowd and outright showboating. At the end of the night one of the girls on my course, Rachael went and got him to sign her arse, a bit like when my friend Vic got DJ Format to sign her Stagecoach buses 'Megarider' ticket in 2003, before promtly losing it (Though Rachael didn't lose her arse after that).

Anyway. Taking it way back to 1990, here's Cutmaster Swift on Wogan, on the eve of defending his DMC world title. The Wogester, dressed in Alan Partridge style sports jacket and slacks looks suitably bemused as Cutmaster Swift kicks off proceedings by dextrously juggling two copies of 'To The Max' by Stezo.

Later on Wogan presciently enquires, "What happens when we get CDs?". Tsch, now they're old hat aren't they? Anyway Terry, we've got Final Scratch to use with our MP3s now, so that's all good.

On a more traditional Deejay tip, here's Greg Wilson on The Tube in 1983, where he's interrogated by a pre-big-piano Jools Holland rocking 'sunglasses at night' and fetching leather jacket combo.

Greg's got an interesting set-up, but one of my favourite things about this video are his headphones, which are a pair of those flimsy plastic shits with red foam covering, like what you'd have listened to, I dunno, the Ghostbusters theme on your walkman on the school coach to Chester Zoo.

Anyway, if "all this scrathing is making you itch" then maybe bounce on over to Rewind Selection," (where I'll 'fess up, I flensed those Youtube links from) for a selection of hip-hop/soul/electro mixes from the 80s and 90s. Digging around I even found one by Sean B from Autechre, though be warned, it's pre his Warp Records phase, and features Paul "N-N-N-N-Nineteen" Hardcastle.

Or for some more up to date sonic kicks, the last two mixes on Allez-Allez's" blog were particularly fun. Enjoy.

Tuesday

2008-01-30T01:19:00.000Z

Though now it's technically Wednesday.

Woke up this morning to the bleat of my alarm.. stumbled across the room to switch it off and discovered I'd been sleeping on one of my arms and it was completely dead. I was reminded of my mate Peed telling me how he once woke up having fallen asleep on both his arms, completely unable to right himself until circulation resumed..

Work's OK, can't complain.

Got in this evening and cooked up a brisk stir-fry, with chillies, garlic, ginger, five-spice and some duck with noodles. Whilst eagerly slurping them down over Eastenders a droplet of the spicy liquor from my meal was catapulted into my right eye, which spent the next thirty minutes or so streaming.

Just went to the Hermit's Cave for one, then went back to Ed's and watched 'Holiday in Rome' starring Audrey Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, which was charming: She playing the monarch, slumming it in, yes, Rome, he a cynical reporter. They fall in love, but it could not be.. It's all quite sweet and relatively chaste, but sexy in that way unconsummated love on the silver screen must surely be.

Throughout most of the film both are attempting to conceal their identities from one another (though Jimmy's character knows what's going on) and when the Hepburn's princess asks what it is he does for a living – whilst sitting at a cafe in a square – the air is split by the sound-effect of a horse whinnying, before Stewart responds "I sell fertiliser" (horse-shit). Genius.

I think I once saw a programme about Audrey Hepburn saying she nearly starved to death in the second world war, and she does have a ambiguous air of fragility/toughness about her which is pretty captivating - an air of mystique which the faintly saurian posh spice is probably attempting to replicate by pouting in a mirror as I write.

Wednesday tomorrow.. January nearly gone though I've not been so hung up about it this year.. mostly looking forward to a pint with the man like Ade, who's been on the wagon for most of it.

Brick by Brick

2008-01-26T16:16:00.000Z

The quest for the perfect charity shop is a thankless one. As more and more seek to emulate high street shops in today's parlous retail environment, the genuine article – musty shops piled high with vintage garments, well thumbed 70s paperbacks, treasure troves of vintage shellac LPs and managed by frightening eccentrics – becomes an ever more rarified phonemenon.

Unfortunately, I begin to see why. And furthermore, I think I'm finally 'over it'.

Yesterday I visited the Brick by Brick charity shop on the old Kent Road, which a friend had mentioned to me earlier in hushed tones, in the hope of unearthing some thrift store gems. Unpreposessing in the extreme from the outside, the shop is a tardis-like cavern within, piled high with assorted bric-a-brac and racks of clothing. At last! I thought, I have found my Shangri-lah.

A more than cursory inspection reveals that something here is odd, though not displeasing in its symmetry – Everything is arranged in rigid formation: some shoes in lockstep on a shelf, clothes hung in precise intervals like ragamuffin uniform in a ghostly barracks, books stacked flush with fanatical precision. This shop isn't just tidy, it's an attempt to impose order on a chaotic universe, a battle cry against entropy, an attempt to wrong-foot the third law of thermodynamics by tactical placement of donated goods.

For the shop's wares are jealously guarded by a shopkeeper who would be better suited to living under a bridge and accosting goats than vending second hand goods in the name of charity. A bristling Russian man of about six foot in drab olive military fatigues, with a curled moustache, and blotchy tattoos creeping from beneath his sleeves, he patrols the shop like the commander of an extant cold war nuclear bunker, stamping snow from the boots of his mind.

Spotting some leather coats on a rail near me, I moved to investigate them.

"Those are women's coats!"

he barked at me, from behind the counter

"Men's are on the other side"

Ok, I thought, and duly walked over to the mens aisle, where I started thumbing through some t-shirts.

"Those are too large for you!"

"All extra large!"

He announced from behind me, closer this time, a questing bear snuffling at my heels.

Riiight I thought.. and headed to investigate some coats, which I browsed through idly, sliding the hangers on the rail to permit viewing as, y'know, people do in shops. Nothing doing, so I moved on. At which point, he pounced.

"Please leave the clothes as you find them!"

He snapped, briskly rearranging the hangers on the rail according to some internal rote.

"Sorry?"

I asked.

"The clothes. You find them tidy, you leave them tidy! Do not make a mess!"

He grunted.

"Look mate" I said, somewhat exasperated, "I don't work here" (mistake)

"Oh yes?"

he bristled, marching toward me.

"And what am I, your servant? Who the fuck do you think you are? royalty?"

"Yeah, actually" I quipped lamely "I'm the king"

Maybe, just maybe, his were ancestors who sacked the Tsar's palaces, for this wisecrack was the straw that broke the charity-shop-Bolshevik's back.

"Right!" he intoned sternly "Get out of this shop!"

Ok, Ok I thought, you don't need to tell me twice and headed towards the exit, he escorting me all the way to the border of his miniature state. At the door I turned at last to face him, his piercing blue eyes wintery with scorn.

"Have you ever heard the expression 'the customer is always right?'"

I enquired, in a perplexed but irritated fashion.

"Hah!"

He laughed, ironically.

"Get out this charity shop!"

Which I did, bemused to the point of peturbation.

I will concede that I don't necessarily respond too well to many things petty and bureaucratic and have a tendency to bristle in response, (the blame for which I lay firmly at the feet of this country's bizarre institutional contempt for the paying customer).
But even so, I find the idea of a shopkeeper actually intimidating his customers a bizarre notion.. even if it is 'just a charity shop'. Why won't you let me look at what you want to sell.. you never know, I might actually buy something.

Feeding the shop's name into The Google, I actually chanced upon this forum where people where burbling excitedly about this man, venerating his drill-seargent approach to customer relations like it was a genuine sighting of the sasquatch in SE1. But to me, rudeness is rudeness, whether it's dispensed by a surly checkout girl at Somerfield or some 'gruff but loveable eccentric' rattling sabres with his customers on a forgotten corner of The Old Kent Road.

And yeah there's lots of stuff in there but there's lots of stuff in there 'cause no-one goes in there because in doing so they'd risk facing some kind of hastily convened military tribunal for glancing at a shirt. And while I might have forgiven the big guy's intransigence if he was curating a priceless cache of forgotten byzantine art, all he's really doing is chasing customers away from a hoard of second-hand jumble. Shame really, as I generally like second-hand jumble.

All this said.. I did some digging and found out that the charity does good work building homes for the, um, homeless, and the man in question – in spite of his fearsome demeanour – has certainly done more to help his fellow man than I have, including releasing a book on the flora and fauna of St James's Park (it's just a shame I didn't have the chance to find this out for myself). So to offset my 'wanker footprint' and prove that I'm 'one of the good guys really' I made a small donation online (which should hopefully balance out the karma lost for slagging off a shop that raises funds for charity).

But much like the danger zone that is the Walworth Road Army and Navy, I would caution anyone visiting said establishment to tread lightly and be solicitous – if you do actually want to buy something. I, it would seem, don't have the patience.

Give me Ebay any day.

Other people's music on the bus

2008-01-15T18:58:00.001Z

Unlike my esteemed colleague Zeno Cosini, I'm actually really rather partial to the odd bus ride. This is of course pretty contingent upon route and mode of bus of course (three years in and I still think the Bendy bus was as welcome an addition to London as the kane toad was to Australia).

They may be slow, they may meander, but for the flaneur, or idle man about town they therefore represent the zenith of metropolitan transport, allowing as they do an unparalleled view of our capital's streets, and how they stitch together. And in the unlikely event that you don't want to gawp at the shifting facades of Starbucks Coffee houses and Chicken Cottage takeaways slipping past in the January rain, what better excuse to stick your beak in a book, for an hour or three.

Today I caught the 176 to town, and was in reflective mood, staring out the window thinking about god knows what (my accountant, I think), when my idyll was shattered by that most modern of annoyances, some dickhead two seats behind me playing mp3s on his mobile phone.

There is nothing particularly new about this headache, and it's being going on quite apparently for some time now, but I actually get more irritated about it now than I ever have. When I first heard someone regailing the entire top deck of the bus with tinny renditions of R&B pap through a mobile handset, I think I rather assumed it was a passing fad, but three years on it just seems more prolific than ever, with at least a third of my journeys being marred by having to endure someone else's shocking taste in music. The reason I've become so hyper-sensitised all of a sudden is, I think, that it's just started to sink in that this is the way things are going to be from now on: mobiles are here to stay and buses will never be the same again. The hinges of the world have turned, irrevocably.

Today the musical feast (or rather Chicken McNuggets) being served up, sounded very much like the Neptunes, with Pharrell William's trademark warbly falsetto rending the quiet. I used to quite like the Neptunes production when it first came out, melding as it did the glitter and sheen of pop with the grime and posture of hip-hop. Unfortunately now that the shock of the new has dissipated somewhat, I can see that they've got a lot a lot to answer for, as every lump with a keyboard who can sing a hook can now pretend to be a rapper. In any event, these days you're more likely to see Mr Williams on a red carpet wearing Billionaire Boys club gear than actually in the studio 'holdin' it down', so there.

Ironically though, it's kind of fitting that half the music I'm forced to endure from other people's mobile phones is brainless 'ass-titties-ho's-n'-cash' rap, given that the music actually sounds like it's being played out of a mobile phone.. before even being played out of a mobile phone, it's that brittle and plastic.

And there's the rub: momentarily putting to one side the rather subjective factor of musical taste, music played over mobile phone speakers always sounds like it's emerging from a (closed) biscuit tin. It just sounds rubbish. Why not just listen to it through headphones and do everyone a favour?

Whenever I'm forced to endure someone else's chronic lack of musical taste on the bus, a variety of scenarios usually play out in my head, ranging from the witty (me turning round to the owner of the phone and saying "'scuse me mate, seeing as we've got to listen to your phone, any chance you could put something good on?) to more directly interventionist tactics (such as used by Mr Spock in the Star Trek film with the whales in it, where he gives the Vulcan neck pinch to the punk on the bus with the ghetto blaster).
However, as the offending party is usually a Akademiks-tracksuited rudey who looks like he stabs bloggers for breakfast, I, along with the rest of the bus have so far demurred from actual comment, much as I'd like to tear the guy in question a new orifice, and stick his phone up it (having first turned it off, of course).

Anyway. There you are. Even though the tube sometimes feels like it's giving your lungs an insight into the life of a nineteenth century chimney sweep, it also seems above the grime threshold of those who think using a mobile as a hi-fi is a good idea, which is definitely in its favour. I think I read somewhere that it was going to be made an offence to play really annoying music in public like this, though I suppose there's fat chance of that ever getting enforced. I for one would totally be up for a 'Guardian Angels' scheme, like they had on the New York subways in the eighties. Only these would be on the buses, and would primarily deal with infractions relating to mobile phones (they could still wear berets, though).