Escorcha

Well, Dunc's finally gone and done it, and as of last week he's shipped out to pastures new in Barcelona, where he'll no doubt be reducing himself to penuary on a strict diet of women and gin (or San Miguel).

Tuesday night was his 'testimonial' at the Hermit's Cave, and his loyal fan base turned out in droves to witness it. At one point there was at least ten of us, though the pub was unaccountably busy (that might have been the boxing, though).

One source – close to Camberwell's now ex premier liquid drum and bass exponent said: "move over Dunc, I want to get past".

But his leaving is a blow. As of tomorrow I'll be putting an ad on the notice board in Tadims, and in the ads section of the Southwark weekender for a new drinking buddy (and them tings don't come for free you get me?).

D-Func. D'func. DJ Phase. D Unit. You shall be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his housemates, who've now got an estate agent moving in to replace him. Though he's actually alright.

Then the weekend was good. So good that the psychic trauma of a few days soulless freelancing for an unnappreciative gaggle of Mac slaves in Chealsea Harbour coudn't even thwart it. Friday I went out to the Crypt under St. Giles's Church on the recommendation of Al 'Scot' – Stockport's very own answer to Herbie Hancock. It's always a good night as you get to bump chairs with lots of cool and not so cool types, the beer is cheap, and there is a real live vicar wandering round. On this ocassion they had quite a big name on 'on the scene' apparently, so it was extra busy.

Saturday was almost surreally hot. Surreally in the sense that it was naturally hot without someone in my flat putting the heating on in the middle of June. I proudly donned birkenstocks and outsized Aviators (they make you look like a cross between Tom Cruise and a fly) and headed to Highbury park to meet Sam and Will.

There was a group of lads throwing a frisbee quite near us. It seemed to have an inbuilt random trajectory that rendered it completley unpredictable, and hence impossible to field. The otherwise farcical attempts of the players to actually catch it were lent something of an extra frisson by it repeatedly nearly burying itself in the heads of passers-by and children. We sat and smoked, and Will told us the reason you don't see white dog turds around anymore is because dogfood manufacturers don't add bonemeal to dogfood. That clears that up then (heh).

Then we went and ate at a surly Greek restaraunt on Upper Street called Mem & Laz. The food was alright, but the service sucked so hard it's still slowing down time in some areas of the solar system.

Then on Sunday went for a walk, up to Burgess park, and back down through Peckham Rye along where the old canals were. Spurning ice creams on the way back we popped into Gabby's for one of their excellent Patties (no saltfish though).

I also found some old records in a yard sale type affair across the road, including an Ohio players lp and an amazing 7 inch from 1984 that mashes up Billie Jean with 'Do It Again' by Steely Dan. Special.

We finally ended up on Ed's roof eating charcoal coated falafel, and 'chicken' burgers. Chicken in the sense that chickens exist and so do these, though they look more like the shingles off some vast improbable monster. The roof itself looks like it's covered in lead, but it transpires it's actually concrete painted silver. Pretty fucking funny concrete as you have to intermittently move chairs or they start sinking into the surface. The super-heated disposable barbecue also made quite a good bid for freedom by going 'China-Syndrome' through the roof of the flat. I think we managed to catch most of it in our lungs though.

Right. This week I'm out in Chiswick, then Covent Garden. I'm also flat sitting (or cat-sitting) for Sam and Kaye, so it'll give me the chance to explore 'ackney and 'oxton a bit.

Tube Dog

On Saturday I finally ended up going to Angel, to hook up with my friends Will and Sam, and give Sam the artwork for the business card I designed her. We went to Bierodrome for a bite to eat where I had the burger 'special'. Special by virtue of an added slice of blue cheese. It also came with a serving of fried onions that were devilishly tasty, but hugely salty. The portions were certifiably adequate. Any more and I would have shrivelled up like a frog on hot tarmac, for sure.

Went for one at the Hen and Chickens theatre bar before jumping on the tube at Highbury and heading home. These days when heading home on the tube I've got into the habit of staying on until Oval, then walking back – rather than getting off at the Elephant. It's a bit more expensive.. but miles nicer. You get to walk by such locations as 'The Miliki Spot' and, Mr Dandy, as well as the business park were I spent two days stapling together invoices for a builders merchants last year, so full of happy memories.

On the stop before Oval there was a couple sat opposite me. A black dude with short dreads and a white girl in a grubby tracksuit. The bags under her eyes marked as the 'frequent flyer' type. They had an English bull terrier with them that (I presume it was it anyway) emitted a sour fart of such a pitch to make your eyes water, before winding back behind their legs and collapsing under the fold-down seats.

Got back and my housemate and his friends showed up from the Funky Munky - to play music at volume.

Now it's Monday, and I've just gone and eaten at The Jungle Grill. Set Veggie breakfast 5. Very nice. Marvyn, Gregg and Mandy have gone to the pub. Good luck to them.

Saturday

A flat fuorescent monolith has manifested at either end of butterfly walk, seemingly overnight. A bit like the monolith at the beginning of 2001, except this one probably doesn't herald some kind of quantum leap in human evolution so much as direct you to a load of crappy pound shops selling flimsy plastic artefacts.

I'm a bit hung over. Ended up in the Hermit's Cave last night talking bollocks until closing. Ed was laying out a proposal for his new quiz show. So far as I remember it it's going to be called 'Good Cop, Bad Cop" and the pitch is that one contestant has a secret that presenters Fern Britten (good cop) and Andy Crane (bad cop) have to extract from them. There's also going to be a torture section where Tony Robinson gets beaten to yield evidence.

I think this all came about because we were three of us standing aound a circular table that felt like a gameshow prop.

Anyway. Bank holiday weekend. Not sure what to do tonight, but in the interim I might go and look in some charity shops.

When Fashion Attacks

This week I was working out in Chiswick, which was a hike. Nice enough in a semi-suburban London sort of way it seemed to be mostly populated by average Italian sandwich shops and.. yeah. Nice tube station though.

The work was quite interesting, though I was working on a grumpy Mac that might as well have been carved out of soap considering how responsive it was. It was a 19 gig cube G4, which had 700mb free.

It wasn't fast.

I managed to speed it up by doing some housekeeping (deleting some of the crap of the desktop and backing up some stuff) but nontheless, it didn't work particularly well if there was more than one application open, and seemed to take its own sweet time even then. Oh well.

Other than that the week was fairly uneventful, though on Thursday I did go to be Launch party for the new Diesel Store on Bond Street, courtesy of Deven Miles. It turned out to be stuffed to the rafters with some of most scary fashion types this side of Naomi Campbell's birthday party, which wasn't really surprising I suppose.

Now don't get me wrong, I like me some clothes - I used to get regularly lynched round Stockport by groups of rat faced Rockport clad youths for my eccentric choice of attire, but I was left standing here.

It was held at Victoria house, and I'm not sure what it usually looks like inside, but they had partitioned off the interior into lots of separate rooms linked by corridors, which was a bit like a cross between The Cube and one of those mazes they feed lab rats into. It was also unspeakably hot.

The music was good though, and there was a free bar. Apparently Brian Adams was there earlier, though the only semi famous person I spotted was Trevor 'Playgroup' Jackson. The It's Bigger Than were also in effect, posting it high by the decks, but I ended up leaving after about an hour, as I was absolutely dead tired and felt like something out of a George A Romero film. Being constantly elbowed by the beautiful people didn't help my mood either.

Anyway. Dunc/D-Func/DJ Phase's birthday party and leaving do tonight in just over an hour. If the storm clouds can hold off long enough there might even be a barbeque on his roof terrace, but looking at the sky outside, that seems unlikely.

'Stenders

I find that my TV watching habits are kind of a barometer of what's going on in my life. If I can give good account of recent events in Neighbours, say, it's a pretty good indication that I've not been working and am probably to be found drinking tea and staring moodily out of my living room window at coach loads of Polish tourists thundering past on Camberwell Church Street. Same goes for Countdown – except that's good, of course.

One thing I do seem to watch regularly though is Eastenders, and I say this with very little pride, as I realise that the programme is, put simply, car-crash tv.

It is quite amusingly bad though, and there are a few reasons for this. The most obvious one being that it depicts a London that is utterly nonexistant, except in the fevered imaginations of the shows producers. A vision as authentically 'London' as Dick Van Dyck's accent in Mary Poppins, only less so. For starters, if this is supposed to be the East End, shouldn't it be a bit more, shall we say, ethnically diverse? Rather than the token asian and black characters crudely shoehorned in to for appeasement's sakes, where are the African characters, The Bangladeshis, the Northeners (and don't say burt).

And jobs.. never mind all this market stall nonsense, surely anywhere in London is going to be home to at least one web designer, a couple of grime DJs, a freelance journalist and some recruitment consultants. Oh the recruitment consultants. Some shadey landlords as well, charging small fortunes for shoeboxes overlooking the high street, and taking two months to fix a tap. Then putting up the rent.

But one thing Eastenders does pride itself on, is its portfolio of 'hardmen', who are about as intimidating as yoghurt, only less useful in a fight. The most obvious being gurning 'double trouble' slapheads Phil and Grant, (brought back in in a vain attempt to boost ratings and proving, ultimately, that no-one ever really leaves the square – they just do a series of 'Ultimate Force' instead). Other than that though, notable villains include the 'pathetic gangster' – a post last occumpied by Johnny Allen. Pre-requisites for this role are simple really, you just have to be bereft of gravitas and supremely unintimidating, so having a receeding bouffant hairline and having sung in Spandau Ballet won't harm your chances one iota.

And the storylines... watching a storyline emerge in Eastenders is a bit like watching a ship sink – incredibly slowly. There's an awful inevitability to it in its sheer crashing unsubtlety and contrivance. One thing that always makes me groan inwardly is when two of the characters start talking at each other at cross purposes, and you realise that this is only the beginning of a tedious 'comedy of errors' that will take weeks to unravel, and won't even be that good when you get there. A bit like worrying away at the yards of grubby grey cable tangled behind your pc, somehow you realise it's better left alone and it will still be like that in six months time anyway. Something else that isn't exactly hard to spot in the 'Stenders is the way they introduce new characters – in short, they talk, unlike the hosts of extras who generally potter round mutely in the background like animated bit-players in some East End fuzzy felt diorama.

What is problematic with this, is that the programme's vocabulary in terms of its players is so limited that it's frankly ludicrous. Everyone has got, or had, such beef with other residents of the square that it's hard to see why anyone still lives there. An example of this that Will pointed out to me was how on Steve Owen's stag night, everyone put aside their differences for a night of leering and carousing in the E20. Why would you invite your enemies to your stag do? Because they're the only people you know of course, because no-one else in your neighbourhood talks! Jesus it's like some kind of Beckettian dystopia round here.. let's get down the queen Vic and roll out the barrel.

Eastenders is spiritually bankrupt too. Everyone always ends to scewing someone over over (both literally and figurtively) so in the end, everyone is as bad as each other. There's no moral compass in it whatsoever, unless you count Dot Cotton, and frankly, even she was being kinda snidey to the guy from Dad's Army who Pauline's shacked up with now. And far too many people end up sleeping with Pat Butcher, though, I did hear she was shacked up with Moira Stewart so maybe anything's possible.

All thus aside however, I can't pretend I don't watch this shit, and there's something peversely enjoyable about it. It really is utterly brainless, powdered soup for the mind, which is just the ticket for a Monday night. It also offers up a plethora of characters it really is quite fun to be irritated by – I'm thinking of Phil Mitchell's meeping drip of a son Ben at the precise minute, but there have been, and will be others.

But it has gone downhill since Big Ron left. Next week: Hollyoaks (joke).

I bid thee..

Go forth and educate your ears by going to

http://www.optimo.co.uk/

and downloading the 'first hour mix' from the 'goodies' section.

It's got a reggae cover of the Coronation Street theme*, and a reggae cover of Apache, as well as lots of other top stuff, so what's not to like.

* Apparently one of the dudes from Optimo is a big 'street' fan, or so Deven Miles tells me.

Shoes. Goats.

"The shoes? It's gotta be the shoes"

When it comes to footwear I'm down with Lords Of the Underground on this one. I'm sporting me some new brogues, and goddamn it if they're not pimping. I'm feeling them hard. Now, I just need to get my dads old 70s tan leather Austin Reed jacket repaired, and I'll be S.U.P.E.R.B.A.D.

I'm working back at M&C on some ongoing freelance with a view to becoming permanent. Apparently. Hope this gig works out as I had to burn some bridges to get here – bridges of the recruitment agency form so no huge loss, but still, I hate letting people down.

Twas It's Bigger Than on Saturday, so rolled up there. Ade and Dunc were absent having drunk themselves stupid at the Shaun Goater testimonial match at Southend. Their cousin had originally planned to bring along a live goat, then a load of toy ones before finally opting for twenty quids worth of veg, which he handed out to people with the instruction "feed the goat". No-one was allowed to take it in the stadium though, so the entire thing sounds like a bit of a waste of veg really. Maybe they should have bought a goat for a village in Africa or something. Just a thought. Anyway, I digress. IBT was good, though I was disappointed as Kaye didn't bring glowsticks like she said she was going to. Ah well – they'll keep to her and Sam's wedding I suppose, and in all fainress I left the vicks at home along with my hi-vis jacket and smiley shirt.

Went to the blogger meet up at the Sun and Doves yesterday, and chatted with the guys from the Flickr group. Nice bunch. I want to get more involved but for that I really need a camera that takes more than like, two photos per charge.

My head hurts today though. Realised how misguided my boozing adventure when I awoke this morning feeling like my brain had been dropkicked into a ditch full of asbestos. I should win a prize for how I feel, seriously. Still I'm getting through it. I had a fluorescent salad from Itsu before consisting of seaweed, shredded carrot and pumkin seeds, so that's gotta count for something, right?

Horrid day too. Lukewarm torpid weather with a sky the colour of grey milk. There was a fire alarm here before. Everyone swarmed into the square outside and milled about.

And now I blog. Can't wait to go home.. and Lost's on tonight too, so I'll veg out a bit too. Got a spot of design needs doing first, mind.

..............

10 PRINT "ANGRY"
20 GOTO 10

Bank Hol

I'm sipping grey coffee in a studio in Clerkenwell. The same creative services provider that ran the last studio I was in, incumbent in CHI off Oxford Street.

It uses some software called Twist, which some guy ran through me very quickly with me. As far as I can tell it's like an extension that generates different pdfs simultaneously. I think - I'm not sure. I'm quite tired and will probably ask the guy again.

Last week in Wales seems a million miles away. One thing I didn't write about then is that my mum and dad are plagued by a pheasant, that I think by rights should be a cartoon character a la Woody Woodpecker. Its thing is making a 'bwip bwip' sound a bit like a car alarm being deactivated – followed by a whooshing sound a bit like a flame thrower. Great at four in the morning – I think my dad wants to wack it.

Bank holiday was good. Stayed in on Friday and watched Layer Cake – which was alright if slightly convoluted. Also had some interesting freelance doing some illustration for a magazine in Ireland and working on a logo for a friend. Ironically a few things have happened at once, so a third bit which was also in the offfing had to sidelined, really, as it was spec work, and the other stuff is paid. Shame.

Saturday went to my friends Sam and Kays', and they cooked some food – some nice gnocchi and tomato sauce. Then went to Tea Bar in Shoreditch, where some guy was spinning techno. I recognised some of the tracks from a set by Jerome Pacman.

Awoke on Sam's couch in East London and went and ate eggs benedict at a cafe on Hackney Road. Think it was called 'The Premises'. It's under a studio anyway, and the walls are adorned with signed mugshots of musicians such as Roy Ayers, Miss Dynamite, and um, Charlotte Church. Ms Church's beaming photo was directly opposite me with the caption "Lush stirfry! You guys are stonking!" then something in Welsh.

The weather was good so I rather excitedly arranged to go and sit on Clapham Common with Ade – which was a cue for the weather to change and slate grey clouds to swarm across the sky. Went to the Tim Bobbin in the old town instead, before finally ending up back at Ade's listening to techno until the wee hours.

Felt weak on Monday, so spurned my friend Helen's offer of a roast and went home instead. Didn't do too much except watch a couple of episodes of Darkplayce.

And now it's tuesday. I'm pretty tired. I just finished a book called Post Office by Charles Bukowski. Its pretty funny, and having worked many a bleak summer job (and indeed temped for the NHS more recently) his depiction of 'bleakjob' (tm) rings very true.

I might go and buy some shoes in a bit.

Out of town

"so i be ghost from my projects
i take my pen and pad for the week and hittin' L's while i'm sleep'
on a two day stay, you may say i need the time alone
to relax my dome, no phone, left the 9 at home
you see the streets have me stressed something terrible.."

Nas – One Love

Ok so I haven't got a nine, and I actually took my phone (though I might as well have taken one of those snake shaped draught excluders for all the good it did me) But the last few days were spent on a hillside in Wales.

I was literally surrounded by green, but neither of the crisp folding persuasion, nor the sticky kind that makes you laugh at crap films and walk to the garage at two in the morning to buy a twix. No it was the rather more prosaic form of green that sheep/cows eat, though there was lots of it, and it was probably partly to thank for the lovely fresh air that I got to imbibe for the duration of my stay; it's been a veritable tonic.

So I've done bugger all really, save walk aound, check emails, chill and read books (Truecrime by Jake Arnott, great, and Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosely, almost finished). I also recovered a few bits and pieces that were languishing in my mum and dads' garage, thou not a great deal really – my Orb 'live 93' poster being one of them, along with a Henri Lloyd jacket that had a busted zip the last time I saw it (from my 26th birthday when I ended up getting bitten by a drunken Isrish man, don't ask).

And now here I am, back in babylon, staring down the barrel of another bank holiday weekend, and more immediately, a house meeting tonight. Can't wait. Got to don my 'Victor Mature' hat to talk reasonably about cleaning rotas and the house cleaning kitty. Then I might go to the pub afterwards to moan about it to someone else.

Celebrity Spotting

I saw Gail Porter in Marks and Spencer in Soho today.

Other celebs I've seen whilst in London include the guy who plays Martin Fowler in Eastenders outside the cafe across the road from the John Snow pub (I overheard him say something like "I dunno, I don't even know the geezer" as I strolled past, ears burning) the guy with the really flat profile/wonky nose who was in Holby City and that Smirnoff Ice ad where he's got off with his mate's mum at a party – he in a pub in Clapham junction, and Brian Dowling, who I saw strolling along just north of Oxford Street clutching a Louis Vuitton bag.

Pretty good eh?

I'm off to Wales tomorrow, where the only celebrities I'm likely to meet will probably be prize winning livestock.

Friday

All quiet on the western front.

Things I saw on the way to work this morning:

Two police support officers removing sheathes of those postcard sized chatline cards from a phonebox on the Charing Cross road.

Went to the Blues Bar on kingly street last night, and drank lager in the presence of Gridrunner and man like Zeon Cosini. Saw a guy there amidst the crowd that lived, or still lives in all probability, in Muswell Hill with a girl I saw last year. Couldn't remember his name though, so there really didn't seem much point in saying anything to him.

Then went to The Coffee House round the corner, which is, according to a clipping above the bar 'the pub where regulars go to be insulted'. They don't dissapoint either, and the guy behind the bar kept yelling "lightweight!" at me because I was trailing Ade in beer consumption. Also, last year when I was having about three pints on my luch break before nearly missing a flight to Corfu, the wizzened old guy kept whistling the Scooby Doo theme at me (I had long hair and a beard – I think he was implying I looked like shaggy).

Then went home and ate noodles and internetted.

Things I can see from my desk:

A photo of a a fat, gormless looking grey cat staring at me from the divider between the desks. I think it belongs to Carole who usually sits here (insofar as cats belong to anyone).

A stapler with 'Kate' written on it in black marker on Carole's desk.

Um, my hands?

That's not it obviously, but those are the things that stand out right now.

Well, another bank holiday weekend, and this time my brother's in town, so I feel I should really impress him with the glory that is London – go and do something interesting say, rather than drink in the Hermits Cave. Drink in the Joiners Arms maybe?.

I'm bored. Straw poll: what's in everybody's right pocket?

I've got:

Two pound coins

Some Wrigley's Sugarfree Gum (peppermint flavour)

My Wallet.

That's it.

zz

Really tired again; yet more no sleep action. Frankly, I feel slightly pissed (and no, I didn't drink last night). Maybe this would make a cheaper alterntive to boozng in the future? When aware of an impending date where alcohol is to be consumed in quantity, I could simply stay in and give sleep a miss for the night, and, hey presto! posess the glassy eyed torpor of the post-inebriated, but with a healthier bank balance and liver. There, that's my 'top-tip' for the day.

On a happier note I just hade a look on ebay, and a Futura 2000 print I bought in 2001 is going for nearly five times what I paid for it then. It's not even that good quality a print to be honest, as the stock is very thin and the screenprinting slightly dodgy. But still.. nice to know some baggy jeaned hipster somewhere's willing to pay big for it (and there were 29 bidders when I last checked).

Painted the living room completely white yesterday, and it looks great. A vast improvement on the previous sickly yellowy rent-a-beige anyhow. It took me Marvyn and Cecilia about four hours to do, and was actually quite enjoyable as some relatively no-brain jobs sometimes are. We listened to music as we were doing it – Animal Collective and Hi Records soul compilations, mainly, which I'd heartily reccomend to anyone doing likewise, and the time flew by. I got a pair of 'designer' paint spattered jeans out of it too.

It almost might not have happened too, as Cecilia went to get the paint rollers in the morning, Camberwell Church Street was cordoned off by police 'Do Not Cross' lines due to a shooting at the bottom of Grove Lane. This kind of thing seems to happen slightly to often for my liking on my street – Flashback to 2005 when me and Jess were talking in the living room only to hear rauccous sounds outside. What's this? Oh it's a phalanx of black suited police wih machine-guns wrestling two yardies to the ground. With dogs. While being filmed by CID. Oh. The best bit was that both the rudeboys were staring straight up at us from the ground when we looked out the window. Special.

Anyway. Too much merderation for my tastes. I laugh at Camberwell's eccentricities sometimes, but these eccentricities have as yet to pull a shank on me at the bus-stop, so I do so from a admittedly privileged position.

Top-tip two's probably keep your eyes out then, seen?

G'night G'bless

I'm sat up, it's twenty to five, the last of whichever housemate it was's syrupy orangle licqeur(?) is gone. The last Dire Straits tune fades to silent on my iTunes. Might be painting the living room tomorrow. Goodnight.

Good Friday

So just what is it that makes good friday so different, so damn good?

No work for starters, all tickety boo thus far then.

But what exactly do people do with their Bank Holidays? Anyone not involved in traditional bank holiday pursuits such as going to B&Q or the pub might like to do what I've been doing. "And what's that?" I hear you scream with such intensity that your spittle temporarily blinds me.

Well. Woke up this morning and read a bit of The Incal 2, by Moebius, then ate breakfast with Marvyn watching some Second World War comedy film thing called Ensign Pulver. It's a kind of shades of Sgt Bilko type affair set on a ship, and not actually that good. Most of what I saw involved the hapless Ensign Pulver ogling a bevvy of nurses stationed on the island they're anchored off – and comic hi-jinks ensue etc.

Then went and bought a scanner in town on Tottenham Court Road. Going to test drive it in a minute. I also got the latest All Star Superman by the team of Grant Morrison and my fave 'drawerer' Frank Quitely. He' really is almost too good. There's so much detail in each of his panels that each issue demands a reread just to drink up the little touches dotted around. We3 that they also collaborated on is also rather splendid. cyborg pets in exo-skeletal armour – what's not to like?

And now, I'm writing this, obviously. But just before then, I was staring at assorted bits of paper relating to banking, and trying in my own limited way to make some sense of them. The ongoing saga of me setting up as a limited company gets more tortuous each passing week. At the minute I've got a load of tax stuff from the Inland Revenue, who've managed to mis-spell the name of my company – a company I've as yet to invoice anyone for any money with, I might add. I really want to get this moving, but at the minute I'm just waiting for the final documents and information relating to it all to arrive. The woman I've dealt with at HSBC said she'd leave the relevant papers at the Baker Street branch yesterday, which I duly hiked to from Tottenham Court Road on my lunch break only to find she hadn't. I duly wheeled 180 degrees and trudged back – and that was my lunch break. Anyway. Also emailed Amnesty International to bitch at them about one of their shifty tabard wearing street people.

And later? who knows. Probably involves food at some point, but what I'm not sure exactly. I think the oven's broken now. but nothing in this fucking flat works anyway. Not even me today! Hah.

Just bought a Kinder Egg, which contained a 'haunted tree' which was something I never thought I'd need, but there you are.

Alright chaps, have a good un.

Tired

Man I'm tired.

I slept for two and a half hours last night, which combined with five or so the previous night makes for about seven hours out of the last fifty whatever. I actually went to bed early (for me) at 11, and fell asleep to at two, only to wake up at half four, and not be able to get back to sleep.

This has been going on for a few weeks now, and it's really starting to wear me out. I just really want to sleep a good nights sleep before work, but am seemingly incapable.

I feel wired, and somewhat stupid. I keep on making really crass mistakes, and am almost too tired to care. Yesterday on leaving the office I kept pushing on the door until the girl on reception gently said, "just pull it sweetheart".

I realised I'd been reading the "push" printed graphic on the outside of the glass (in reverse, of course)

Mentally, I feel on the level of watching lots of daytime tv, and that's about it. Countdown would probably seem as tough as quantum physics right now though.

If I can just get through tomorrow, I might just hibernate over Easter and not leave my bed.. In the meantime though, any sleeping tips?

This is getting trippy.

Stu-stu-studio

Well, monday rolls around again, and though I wasn't booked to work anywhere, here I be, in the studio of an agency on Rathbone Street. Looks OK. I'm told I'll be working on direct mail shortly. Hmm. Can't complain, or more accurately, turn the work down if it's offered, but I had planned on sorting some other stuff out. Like cleaning the flat. Woo.

Last week I was back at the dadvertising agency on Dean Street, which came and went, moderately painlessly. Lots of mocking up to do, which was slightly tedious – One of the slight perks of doing such things these days is that people don't use spraymount anymore, so you might live a bit longer anyway. I wasn't sleeping very well though, and one of the corollary risks of running on empty like this while working with scalpels was lopping an errant thumb tip off in an especially enthusiastic bout of trimming. I've jus checked though, and all digits remain intact, including that all important middle digit, which is handy because..

I did find out this morning though that I wasn't getting paid overtime for the evening work I did, which takes the piss a bit, as it was only time and a half, and I only did two and a half hours anyway. Gee thanks, tightwads. The girl at the agency put it down to them being a small agency and not having allowances for overheads like that etc etc.. blah blah.

Weekend was ok. Went to a Spanish place on Hanway Street, where I drank lots of bottles of Spanish beer, which somone else was paying for on their tab, then promptly regretted it when it came to divvying up at the end.

Saturday went to Clapham North for drinks, then wound up going to a nondescript party up the road off Camberwell Grove. Someone was playing somewhat nondescript drum and bass, so I stood by the decks and worked my way through two plates of free pizza (leaving the crusts) before vanishing bedward.

Nearly Easter, then. Not sure what I'm doing for it. Might go back to Manchester, but I'm not sure. The appeal of sleeping on couches for an entire weekend has started to lose some of its native charm recently.. not sure why but I definitely like waking up with two pences and cig butts stuck to my face less than I did a couple of years ago. On the other hand, I'm not sure who's going to still be around Londres for the festivities, so if there isn't anyone, perhaps I should get organising a solo easter egg hunt for myself. Or maybe dress as a giant rabbit and befriend the alcoholics and nutters of Camberwell.

Which reminds me. Whilst walking up Camberwell Church Street the other day I saw a Rasta guy dressed in black with 'DJ SILVER PRINCE' written on the back of his jacket in tippex. The cross bars of his bicycle had some kind of makeshift soundsystem attached, and though he wasn't playing anything, one could only surmise what he might if he had chosen too. My money's on some scratchy 70s dub (or the theme from fraggle rock) Either way, it's times like this you wish you had a camera, or one that worked anyway.

Haircut

Well went back to Manchester, fleetingly, and got my ears lowered as I generally do in those colder wetter climes.

The place I go is a The City Barbers, just a few doors up from The Roadhouse. It's run by a lovely guy called Jim, who's started to remember me. He's a pretty unpretentious type of guy, as happy dispensing short-back-and-sides or ceaser-cuts as anything, I suspect, but dude knows how to style it too. After all, this was the man that gave me a semi-mullet briefly in 2004, and happy I was with it too.

I used to go in on my lunch break. Once when I went in, he was scarfing down a curry, which he promptly ate to give me a cut. He'll also typically light up a cig mid-session, which he'll ocasionally retrieve from the ashtray with thick fingers, whilst gesticulating with the scissors held in the other hand "Getting these in for the ban next year mate". He's brown, slightly wrinkled, paunchy, a Manc.

He always asks how work's going, and tells me how his kid's doing, and narrates tales of the ex-wife with whom he's embroiled in some long running Kramer-esque feud. He never talks to me about football, which either means he doesn't like it himself, or some barberly sixth sense, (perhaps innate, perhaps bestowed by a device concealed in the chair) lets him know I'm not really bothered myself, and indeed find the ritual of confessing to a lack of interest in football as unrewarding as queueing to get frowned at. Either of these possibilities are fine with me.

Sometimes his patter is so good natured and unselfconcious I have to fight to control my laughter, quaking silently in the chair. He doesn't seem bothered though, and inevitably rambles on, about where he's taking his kid next year, or how he's always wanted to run a bar.

And a bargain too, at £9, for a gents haircut I don't think I'd get better than at. say, Toni and Guy (not that I've been). I tipped him a quid last time, and he said thanks, and then I left, with a colder neck, to return no doubt in a couple of months.

Result

Well, got jerked about royally this week on a booking out in Hertfordshire. After it was changed no less than three times, I turned up only to be told that they only had a days work for me – this after getting up at six and travelling for two hours to get there.

The work was fairly dull too, and got briefed in late, by someone hung over. Part of it was report and accounts, relentlessly copying and pasting figures from a word document into an Indesign template, then tabbing them, and after a few hours of that, my mind was well and truly fried.

Anyway, I'm using my newly non-working status tomorrow to flee back oop north, with the dual purpose of seeing some old faces and getting a few bits and pieces languishing round at my brothers. I'm getting a lift back with my new housemate Marvyn on Saturday.

I'm also getting my quarterly (or therabouts) haircut at the best barbers ever, in Manchester.. I shit you not, this guy is a dude.

But anyway, I'll blog about that later.

Just popped into Cash Converters on Walworth road and scooped a couple of CDs – a Shriekback best of compilation, and the Bring Da Ruckus compilation on Loud, which I've been looking out for a bit – mostly for the remix of Rainy Dayz by Raekwon, but really, it's crammed with what Tim Westwood would term 'hot joints', so a steal at £2.

Anyway, I'll probably write again post Manchester.

I don't beliieeeeve it

I appear to be turning into a Victor Meldrewish type figure, really. Thwarted by petty beauracracy and nursing a throbbing vein in my temple the size of a Nik-Nak (not nice and spicy flavour, either).

But I'm going to moan about one more thing, and then stop, alright? then return to writing haikus about, I dunno, snow blossom or something, and gazing at my poster of a wet kitten with the 'bad hair day' legend embazoned across it in comic sans.

Had today and Tuesday off, so endevoured to fulfill the second leg of my quest to become a limited company by opening a business bank account. Unfortunately I hadn't reckoned with the Camberwell branch of HSBC, where they've presumably had to reinforce the floors to cater for a typical days traffic, whilst simultaneously forgetting to employ anyone – anyone real at least.

I eventually spotted a weary looking HSBC employee at the head of a queue, to be told twenty minutes later that the soonest I could be seen was next Monday afternoon, if the world didn't end first. Man this guy was getting me depressed. Fair enough though, the only other sound above the paranoid aandroid's valium induced drawl was the sound of teeth getting sucked and middle englanders tutting behind me, which would've induced clinical melancholia in Ebeneezer Goode.

I agreed, but on leaving thought 'fuck it' I'll see if any other branches of my bank in the nations's capital would see me tomorrow for half an hour. Herein followed a debacle it probably takes an institution as monolithic and arrogant as the HSBC to unwhittingly engineer, as this simple exercise is now seemingly impossible.

Having gained the number of the Baker Street Branch off t'internet, I rang it at home, only to be greeted by that flat robotic woman's voice that makes me want to go out and smash phone boxes.

"YOUR CALL IS BEING HELD IN A QUEUE PLEASE HOLD THE LINE WHILE WHILE WE ATTEMPT TO CONNECT YOU TO A CUSTOMER SERVICE ADVISOR"

It intoned at me, irritatingly, before a tinny loop of Handel's Water Music kicked in, in a vain attempt to soothe me.

Then, predictably, after some Parappa-the-Rapper-esque tone dialling shenannigans I got connected to the inevitable call centre located in Delhi, or somewhere, where my 'customer service advisor' was scarcely more helpful than robot bird.

"Er, hi, I just want to speak to someone at the Baker Street branch to see if they'll see me tomorrow?"

I asked.

No fucking chance, it transpires. The girl offered to ring for me, again putting me on hold for yet another bout of torpid lift music, before informing me that no-one was answering the phone, though if I liked, she'd leave a message for me.
Ultimately it transpires, any number I get off the internet leads solely to one of these places, where my 'customer service' consists of someone telling me no one is picking up the phone somewhere else. Thanks.

Ultimately, I ended up going into central London and walking to the Baker Street branch, where within quarter of an hour I'd arranged a meeting for tomorrow, and the staff were very helpful and polite.

It did mean I missed Countdown though.

'The World's Local Bank'? yeah right.

OK enough!