Monday 21

A quiet weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday 12

A grey, cool Saturday to be precise.

Awoke early and couldn't get back to sleep. Went and bought some bacon from Kennedy's, who sell the best pork round here. Anyone remember putting crisp packets in the oven as kids, and shrinking them to the size of bus tickets? That's what most bacon seems to do under the grill. Not Kennedy's. None of this '87% pork' for them. Just as well I went early as they quite often sell out by midday.

Came back, drank coffee, read the guardian, and listened to the Arvo Part CD I bought yesterday. How exceedingly middle class of me.

Saw Marvyn looking like he'd just invented a subgenre of hangover. Having gone to an award ceremony for the bank he works for last night, he was unashamedly late.

Not sure what to do now. Might hop on the bus (then the tube) and go 'somewhere'. My friend Vic is down this evening, for eight hours, to go to an Northern Soul all-nighter at the 100 Club on Oxford Street.. Don't think I'm going to make it there, but I might hook up with her for a few beers this evening.

August, again.

It's old news now, but the above headline I spotted outside a newsagents on Camberwell church street the other week is either evidence of Wasps having read my last post and venting their collective wrath, or the standard of journalism at the London Evening Standard. Maybe they were killer celebrity wasps. Still haven't seen many myself.

I haven't blogged in quite a while because, quite frankly I haven't felt up to the task. Which doesn't mean I haven't tried. On numerous ocassions over the last few weeks I've sat down with the intention of writing something interesting, and promptly given up out of sheer apathy. And I couldn't think of anything interesting (frankly I was hard pressed to think anything other than "it's hot"). Indeed my blog dashboard is currently littered with half written blog posts, discarded like watermelon rinds beneath a rusting tractor.

Only the other night I began writing about a moth the size of a sparrow that was ricochetting off my bedroom lightbulb, tracking it's movements to a bottom left position on my 'Octopus, squid & cuttlefish' poster, before I came to from my reverie and went to bed.

All this low bloggage is a shame as it would appear some people actually read this thing, including, it would seem, the good folk at my local, The Hermits Cave, who somehow worked out who I was. This has in turn prompted me to put on ice my review of The Castle, in case the owner reads it and sends his ghostly dog after me. Watch this space though.

Apropos nothing, Big Brother has really started to wind me up, and actually stresses me out to watch it now. If stroking a cat lowers the blood pressure, watching grown men and women screeching at each other over trivia is the equivalent of watching a bag of kittens being thrown into the Thames and shot at by idiots. I wish they'd bring in Paul Verhoven as guest producer for a week and liven things up with some 'climbing for dollars' style games. I'd buy that for a dollar.

Also, Lily Allen has seemingly become as omnipresent as fried chicken joints in South London, thanks in no small part to the Guardian being on her (purely metaphorical) dick. I've got no real beef, as she actually seems likeable enough, though you know the nation's in thrall to someone when she gets her fashion tips from Pat Butcher and no-one seems to notice. Have you seen those earrings? You could pilot a digger through those no problem. If this seems unfair, remember the girl herself seems to have a fine line in invective, unleashing darts at celebs such as Pete Doherty ("I do think he should be exterminated") Madonna ("The most over-rated person in pop history") and James Blunt ("Rhymes with his surname"). That last one especially is fine by me.

I actually spent a good half hour or so looking for pictures of both Lily and Pat, with the aim of doing a 'separated at birth' type feature, but it didn't work out as they actually look totally dissimilar apart from the loud garments and out of scale jewellery. See what you think.



similarly, I intended to do a a profile on the similarities between the facial hair of Ja Rule and Blakey from 'On The Buses' last year, but sacked it off because no-one cares who Ja Rule is. I'll post it here so you can check it out, though looking at it again, it does seem more like wishful thinking.



In other news I'm working in a flat in Putney at the minute. Not sure what I think about Putney, though it's not somewhere I think I'd gravitate towards instinctively. The corner I'm in is in a suburban bit just off the Richmond High street, and it reminds me superficially of Didsbury in Manchester, only with less gentrified shops. I did spot a pub that doubled as a Thai restaraunt though, so it definately is in London.

Having worked in more urbane locations, one thing I find genuinely bothersome about places like Putney is finding a decent lunch (where's the sushi? The jerk chicken?). The nearest sandwich shop I found had offerings of the order of tuna and sweetcorn, where the readymixed ingredients glower at you from beneath fronds of tired lettuce, under crenellated peaks of some stiffening union of fish and mayonnaise.

Stifling a facial tic I headed next door to the local news agents who predictably dispensed gloomy looking prefabricated sandwiches in plastic containers. A quick scan of the list of the compedious list of ingredients revealed more E's than the Castlemoreton rave. Unbelievably I opted for a Ginsters pasty: a pocket of sick which had the texture of a freshly dead frog with none of the taste. I'm sure this all sounds very bourgeois, but once you've got dined at Il Panino in Soho, any other sandwich just seems vastly sub-standard.

This weekend has been alright. Went to It's Bigger Than last night which was good, though hot. It took two hours to get home too. The weather is generally a lot cooler now, and Summer already seems to be in the act of riding off into the er, sunset. I can't believe the unnerving speed with which this year has whipped past. I'm orking for some of this week, then I'm going to try and savour the last dregs of this heat, whilst getting some other stuff done.

Jaspers

It's summer but.. something's missing.. hmm. sun – check, beer – check, barbecues – check, Tim Henman losing at Wimbledon.. yeah, wait a minute that's it, WASPS! I don't know about you but I've seen hardly any this year!

And where are all the wasps anyhow? Have they been priced out of London too then? Not that I'm bothered, they were hardly key-workers in the accepted sense. In Manchester the advent of summer always brought with it the shadow of the wasp, who would be there before you at the beer garden (like Germans at the sun loungers, yeah), and almost certainly there after, hovering drunkenly round the last quarter inch or so of your pint of Stella. Wasps get pissed too, in all senses, especially in late summer when they're just looking for trouble, and should you get lary with them, they release a pheronome, so all their mates show up minutes later for a piece of the action. Truly, they were the bane of the sugary drink drinker's sunny afternoon, and universally disliked.

Seriously I reckon even Noah probably planned to ditch the wasps prior to the flood and it was only after he awoke the morning after setting sail to hear two rattling away behind his blind that he realised his scheme had been thwarted. Wasps posess the apex of that blind insect instinct to find their way into your room, through any hole – no matter how small, without being able to do it in reverse, even were you to demolish the wall of your house and attempt to usher them out with a jet turbine. I assume they navigate by the moon/sun like moths as they also have a tendency to fly directly into any lightbulb with a sound like someone training a dentist's drill on it. Eww that sound. I also remember wasps flying into my bedroom, perching on the lampshade and audibly crunching away on the paper (of course, this was before I got into listening to techno at artillery volume, so a wasp would probably have to be inside my ear now before I could hear such a thing). Terrible thought.

One thing about wasps is that pretty much everyone is united in their hatred of them. This blog here is like some kind of wasp genocide bulletin board:

"It’s us against them people. We can’t let the enemy take over our homes! I’ll let you know how it goes. Great stories!"

froths one contributor excitedly. Uh, ok, they are kind of annoying I guess.. Ever read Watchmen? One thing's for sure, if it turned out wasps were poised to take over the world, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush and Kim Jon Il would be united in their struggle agaainst the striped menace quicker than you could say "Yeehaw let's nuke those fucken yellerjackets!".

Anyway, here's my favourite wasp anecdote (you might want to save this for halloween, mind) Are you sitting un-comfortably? Well I'll begin:

I was back at my mum and dad's one summer whilst studying at uni. My brothers were in the two rooms next to mine. I awoke at about three in the moarning hearing an all but subliminal "WHHHUFF" sound from my brother Harry's room, punctuated by short panicky gasps of "shit!" coming from the lad himself.

Seconds later 'middle-bro' Dan awoke, and stomped into my brother's room..

"What THE FUCK is going on"

He roared.

What, it transpired, had happened was that a load of wasps had chosen to nest in the roof just outside his bedroom window. Now my brother liked to keep his bedroom window in summer (and bedroom light on), and perhaps unwisely, the presence of several thousand stinging insects just outside was not sufficient to deter him. You can perhaps guess the rest.. while he slept and under cover of darkness, the wasps let themselves in and my brother had an extremely rude awakening when a wasp crawling over his face decided to sting him on the cheek. The first sight to greet his no-doubt horrified eyes when he opened them was a roiling vortex of wasps circling beneath his room's naked lightbulb. Not to be deterred he rolled out of bed, grabbed a can of lynx and a lighter (cricket, clipper, who knows) and got medieval on those wasp's tapering asses.

Yes, that "WHHHUFF" sound was none other than a deodorant based flame-thrower my brother had hastily fashioned. A quick glance around his bedroom door the next morning revealed a war zone, with drifts of scorched wasps lying everywhere. It was like The Wasp Factory in there, or Aliens redux where the marines win. Those wasps fucked with the wrong guy alright. They sure got to know the true power of the Lynx effect.

Nowadays, I'd like to think I'm not too bothered about wasps. Live and let live, god's creatures etc.. and wierdly beautiful too, amongst other things* One swooped quite near me in Highbury fields the other week, and I barely noticed, honest!

But still, maybe it's the NIMBY in me, but I'm not sure I'd like some sort of government funded wasp farm in my back yard (even though it technically belongs to the landlord, Mr Spyrou, so he could do with it as he wanted I suppose).

Maybe I should actually try and sort my life out rather than posting blog entries about wasps at half eleven on a monday night. Who knows.

*critically important in natural biocontrol or course, thanks Wikipedia.

Photo copyright Alain Labat 2006

Rise

On Saturday me and Gridrunner headed North to check out the Rise festival at Finsbury Park. Can't either of us lay claim to coming up with the idea, but the man responsible – Ed, wasn't present as he and John had headed on a mission to Ikea in the dark heart of Croydon, and were presumably circumnavigating the winding path that wends its way through forests of flat-pack pine in all it's stores. Ed was also assuming the enforced air of radio silence that comes FREE! without a mobile phone. So we left without them.

It was aight, though..

For festivals to work for me a few things have got to be true.

Firstly there's got to be few of you. You've got mates yeah? Now's the time to show them off, as you saunter round drinking off-cool Red Stripe at three fifty a pop in a camouflage jacket and shades. Otherwise you feel like a bit of herb. Urban (what you call it?) festivals especially are where everyone and their Staffordshire Bull Terrier seems to come to hook up with someone else and their squat muscular pet.

You need to find somewhere and sit down. Plant a flag. Put down a blanket if that's your thing, but crucially, sit down soon and put down the plastic bag with the luke-warm wine cooler in and start interracting as normal. There'll be plently of time to go and buy some overpriced falafel or see some local crew, but for now, act as though you were sat in your local park on a particularly busy Sunday. Or you could have a plan, but personally, I feel all other festival plans are incidental besides sitting down somewhere.

It can't be too busy. Okay, busy enough, but not rammed. Notting Hill sounds like a great idea until you get there and realise it's like a bigger, louder, hotter, busier version of Oxford Street on Christmas eve. Two years ago Me Ade and Dunc fought unsuccessfully for the best part of two hours to fight our way to the mythical Norman Jay sound system, before finally giving up and shuffling around wearily next to the Trouble On Vinyl soundsystem playing out the back of a truck. Actually getting out of the place is the most terrifying prospect of all however, as you are swept along remorselessly in rivers of people. For me, no amount of saltfish can compensate for the fact that your free will is effectively circumvented by the whims of the million or so people squashed up in your face. If John Carpenter ever ressurects Snake Pliskin and the "Escape From.." franchise, the third one should be set here. Kurt Russel wouldn't stand a chance.

It's got to be hot. Ok not essential, and a bit of rain's quite fun actually, certainly no surprise, but put it this way – at least one or two of the previous rules need not apply if it's actually a blazing hot day. Shouty urban grime acts are prolific in London; sunny days less so.

Sadly, non of these cardinal rules applied to me and Ade. We arrived late, unwashed (me anyway) and jostled through the thronging crowds. We had arranged to meet Ed by ringing his housemate John but there was no network coverage. The sky was the colour of grey milk, and the atmosphere moderately torpid. Most of our time was spent queueing for things, and wandering round clowning around whie Ade took pictures of beer bottles and reflections of bins in my shades.

Eventually we went to the the Finsbury pub across the way and sat out front with a pint. In a rare moment of synchronicity, a couple who had been sat a table away in the Hermits the night before were also there, two tables away. It got cold, but I couldn't be bothered going in the pub as the footy was on and Gary Linneker's face was leering, big brother style, from every screen in the joint.

Went home via Oval and got some food from the Silver Lake, opting, on the Chinese lady's suggestion, for some Malaysian style Mackerel. Very nice. She also showed me a laminated A4 photo of a bearded Kenneth Brannagh, thesping it up out the front of the shop.

Then went and watched 'Live Flesh' round at Ed's, before going home to sleep. The end.

Stuff

What have I been doing.

Last thursday I went on a sort of date thing with someone I met off t'internet. It was an experience I don't think I'm going to repeat any time soon. Nice enough, but I couldn't quite get over how out of sync she was with the mental picture of her I'd built up in my head. We went for a drink in Camden, before making mutual excuses and heading our separate ways. Actually, she made the excuses, but it's my blog.

The most annoying thing about the night was, while waiting at the top of the escalators at Camden tube, a policeman came over and started talking at me while I was trying to send a text.

"Can I ask you what you're doing sir?"

he enquired.

"I'm waiting for someone" I answered

"and do you often wait for them here?"

"it's the first time I've met them"

"and who might they then"

"it's a date"

"Oh a date is it" he said, staring off at an angle perpendicular to my head. All the time he was maintaining a studied bored monotone, and I didn't much care for the sardonic edge to his voice that suggested all this was the dramatic build-up to some cretinous punchline. He was going to ask me to move, and I found his circuitous route both irritating and irritating.

"look, shall we cut to the chase here?" I asked, wolverine style claws pricking at my knuckles.

"don't take that attitude with me" he said, all traces of flaccid humour suddenly having evaporated "move out of here and stop causing an obstruction"

Which I duly did. What annoyed me was the moment I exited the turnstiles I was duly pestered by various people trying to sell me 'skunks', all of ten feet from robocop, who stood officiously staring at the hall of the tube station, ready to thwart wrong-doing in all its static, loitering forms.

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against the police (some of my best friends are police) but shouldn't he have been out trying to catch some real criminals? James Blunt and the person ultimately responsible for the 'Tom Tom' sat-nav advertisements are a couple of obvious examples, but I could go on.

Anyway.

This week I've been working at a Corporate Identity consultancy with lots of Germans, which was either miles better than that sounds, or lots worse, depending on your perspective. The grid system was king, and there was no decent coffee – for me at least.

Their offices were in a huge victorian terrace with white walls and wall-to-wall blue carpeting. It was pretty much silent but for the ocasional conference call and the incessant clicking of mice. Every once in a while an insect would stray into one of the uplighters on the wall and perish with a piercing smell like burning hair.

Tasty.

Now it's the weekend. Went for a bite to eat at a Spanish place in Hackney with Sam and Kay, before going back to theirs for a couple of glasses of wine and a game of 'Buzz'. Also bought a copy of the Guardian, soley because today it came with a free poster depicting various types of octopi and squid (and cuttlefish). It's now pinned above my desk and I can tell it's going to be a slow month.

Post 100: Charity Shops

When I finally get around to assembling my 'Fantasy Football' band – 'The London Ipods,'* (consisting of me, Brian Eno, KRS1 and I dunno, one of the Cheeky Girls) my first single is going to be called 'Charity Shops Are Crap These Days', which is basically going to be a wailing lament/torch song about the current charity shop circuit, which as any dedicated charity shop scenester will tell you, has gone well downhill.

When my friend Sam got back from LA recently he was all like "The second hand shops out there are amazing man" he was all like "Dior t-shirt" and "Camper-style-shoes", and "vintage dresses" (Kay's, not his I might add), while I could but sit there agape.

Time was charity shopping here used to be one of my more preferred methods of wasting a Saturday, trawling through bins of mouldering old vinyl, and rails of motheaten old clothes in the hope of uncovering that elusive holy grail (which I'm reliably informed actually happens in a Neil Gaiman story).

Generally I'd operate alone – as dedicated charity shoppers do; you don't want to be sharing the goods with another enthusiast should you actually strike a seam of metaphorical charity gold, nor boring the shit out of those of your friends lacking the shopping chromasome.

Still the times were good, and there were bargains to be had. The shops you were after were those run by two little old ladies who loved cats, (and thats's about it) and who had an absolute absence of what might be termed 'street smarts'. By this I mean they had a howling void in place of anything which could vaguely be termed A: an aesthetic sensibility, B: an appreciation of design merit or C: any kind of nose for value. Sounds harsh? Well that's word to ya moms B; the last record any of these girls bought was probably a waltz on Shellac or a music hall number from the mid-late 40s. Other good signs were if it smelled of some enigmatic cocktail of mothballs and sick (the exact breakdown was never clear), and was for a singularly odd charity such as 'Pigeons for Jesus' or somesuch.

I remember triumphantly purchasing a Phillip Starck lemon squeezer (admittedly a bit of designer tat if ever there was one) boxed, for a couple of quid in the Royal Society for the Protection of Blind Sparrows shop by the Heaton Mersey Somerfield.

"Eh love, you really want to buy this?"

Queried the old dear behind the counter, eyeing the chrome object suspiciously. I did indeed.

And records.. not often but ocasionally you'd arrive just in time to snap up someone's collection of disco 12s or Soul lps – an entire crate of sometimes pristine wax for an absolute song (so to speak).

And clothes of course.. retro, ironic, it was all there.

But that was before 'the dark times'. I suspect that there was a golden era of charity shopping towards the arse end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s, when people rushed blindly to ditch their old clothes and records in favour of exciting new fabrics and those shiny drinks coasters we call CDs, little realising the kudos that these scorned artefacts would be garnering scant years later.

With the advent of ebay, and perhaps more so the arrival of the well worn rut of cheap BBC daytime programming – 'Tat Hunt', "Crap in Your Attic" etc, a phonemenon ocurred wherin the same crud people would pay other people to take off their hands a few years back suddenly became as potentially valuable as reconstruction contracts in recently deposed dictatorships; through some mysterious sleight of hand and under cover of relentless jocularity David 'The Real Lovejoy' Dickenson became apotheosised as some kind of sloganeering antiques neo-christ. Things were never to be the same again.

When charity shops got smart, the laminate flooring moved in and the bargains moved out, to be replaced by tat of such calibre I'm genuinely aghast any of it sold in the first place – the kind of synthetic jive St. Audrey would have been ashamed to have in her living room when she was rocking a lace necklace. While these once holy bastions of the bargain buy masquerade as shops, all the good stuff is creamed off in some warehouse to be auctioned for a premium on ebay, leaving me to panhandle through shelves of crap I'd deign unfit to throw rocks at. Now where's the fun in that I ask you?

It has to be said, it may just be symptomatic of the wider malaise that is the rampaging webber-beast devouring the high street, as it's not like anyone's going to root through racks of crackly Kanye West MP3s in ten years time is it? (or is it?). Only the other day I noticed Dixons had got eaten.

GOOD STUFF

Anyway. Here's a top ten of things I'd like to find in a charity shop. Pretty unrealistic I guess but you get the picture.

10. A stack of well thumbed 60s design magazines such as Avant Garde.

9. A load of brightly coloured seventies glass sculptures shaped like fish. They'd look really ironic in your bathroom at a party.

8. A cardboard box full of seventies science fiction paperbacks on the Panther imprint. Art direction on the cover is generally a stylishly shot photo of a lava lamp, or one of the glass fish from number 9 above. Stanilsav Lem might be well represented here.

7. Some cool t-shirts – badly screenprinted shirts from holiday destinations, obscure local businesses, and old computer games such as "Shadow of the Beast" earn extra karma points in the afterlife.

6. A clutch of original Blue Note lps from the 60s, slightly worn maybe, play fine though.

5. A pair of nicely worn in 'Big E' Levis.

4. Some retro electronic 'Grandstand' game, such as 'Munchman'. (Wimpey to Pacman's McDonalds, basically)

3. A couple of prints from the seventies – frame is cracked on one. Maybe from the Moebius 'Starwatcher' series? Yeah that'd be nice.

2. Shit.. I dunno, some Star Wars figures? Actually fuck that.. FUZZY FELT.

1. A Louis Leathers 'Super Sportsman' jacket, brown, size 40" please santa. (ironically, my ex housemate Paul did actually find one of these, it immediately rocketed to my number one and proved there is hope yet)

BAD STUFF

And Now, a top ten of the kind of raw shite you're going to have to wade through in your vain quest to find anything worth posessing.

10. Some James Last LPs. Never heard anything by him to my knowledge, never intend to. The art direction alone elicits the kind of panicked fearful response in me as some dogs have when they walk across the sites of ancient battlefields.

9. Some crappy home decoration book such as "Stencil Your Way To Success!", which isn't even on some ironic Readers Digest type flave. Avoid.

8. A 'Windows 98' handbook, though as Ade noticed the other day, our flat inexplicably owns one of these already (though I suppose I could take it to a charity shop).

7. Nylon shirts. Lots of them.

6. Mid 90s Topman t-shirts bought for the unreconstructed lad by his girlfriend. There'll probably be a faux-distressed picture of a mini on it, or a six-pack of some beer with the legend 'Six Machine" written on it; or (most heinously) the name of a developing country or suitably ethnic quarter of New York: 'Harlem', 'Bronx' etc. n.b. – this 'isn't the same' as the 'tourist' t-shirts described under 'good' in point 7. That cannot be emphasised enough.

5. Same weak assed chic-lit with titles such as 'Chardonnay Wedding', 'Man shopping' or 'Shopaholic Crimes'.

4. Some slightly sweaty looking Nike Trainers in size 6. And no they're not Dunks.

3. A simpsons tie. Though actually, it could be any Simpsons merchandise ie: boxer shorts, waistcoat, bubble bath.

2. Some god awful toy that has been spawned by some corporate sponsored tv franchise, A 'Tweenie' maybe, or that horrible purple dinosaur.

Fuck this is getting boring.. but you get the idea. Any ideas for the number one gratefully accepted.

ps: Hey-yah. One hundred posts deep. I'm popping the Chandon as I write.

*Apple's lawyers allowing.

Woah

Proving that my mum's blog is more interesting even than mine, here's my uncle kissing a certain stoney sea-lord somewhere high above the streets of London.

She gets all the scoops.

Ol' Brown RIP

I'm cat-sitting in Hackney at the minute, which makes for a change. The cat's nice anyhow, and so friendly you could mistake it for a dog. It was mewing and scratching at the bedroom door the other day so I let it in, thinking it would just sleep on the bed. Instead it stood on my chest rubbing its face against mine and pacing up and down incesssantly until I ejected it from the bedroom of eden, to the wasteland of the hall outside.

I got in quite late last night, having sat outside the Hermits for a bit with Marv and Gregg, who was stranded in London having missed his coach. As I was crossing a junction in Shoreditch the bag I've owned for nine or so years caught on a railing by its strap, which prompty ripped in two. There were a couple of hipster girls crossing the road behind me: "nice" commented one in passing, as they strode by.

I mourn its passing. In it's short life it's carried weighty tomes of critical theory from college and back (often largely unread), stacks of vinyl and cans of lager to parties, and socks and t-shirts to weekends away across this green and pleasant land.

Back in Soho again this week. This place has got air conditioning too, which after last week, is a godsend, especially considering the weather today was like a hot day in Spain. Shame to have to work, really.

I'm tring to sort out a tax return for 2005. I don't want to. I keep getting stern looking letters off the Inland Revenue urging me to get it in soon or else.. Or else what? You sent it to me late for starters.

When I tried to fill in the self assesment form I found that you have to send off for a subsiduary form about employment – which has just arrived a week later. To save time I tried to register to self assess online, and when my password didn't work, rang the IR helpline up to confirm it.

He said he'd send it in the post, as they don't give out such details in the post. And it'd take about a week. Sigh. What gets me is all this password would enable someone to do is potentially complete my tax return for me. If anyone fancies doing mine, they're welcome to it.

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.