Bus Route Review: the 148

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War Paint

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frankie Fraser

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

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

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

Easter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Thursday Thug'

"Kiss me shoes"

Bloomsbury Bowl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Royal Mail is like Christmas

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

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

2. Complete lack of snow.

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

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

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

6. Lots of queues.

7. Everyone's pissed.

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

That's about it. Any questions?

The Day Nothing Worked..

Nothing has worked today (including me).

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

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

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

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

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

I enquired.

"Yeah boss, sure"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul's Olive Shop

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

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

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

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

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

The Fog

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

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

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

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

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

Play that beat!

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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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

Tuesday

Though now it's technically Wednesday.

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

Work's OK, can't complain.

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

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

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

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

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

Brick by Brick

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Those are women's coats!"

he barked at me, from behind the counter

"Men's are on the other side"

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

"Those are too large for you!"

"All extra large!"

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

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

"Please leave the clothes as you find them!"

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

"Sorry?"

I asked.

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

He grunted.

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

"Oh yes?"

he bristled, marching toward me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I enquired, in a perplexed but irritated fashion.

"Hah!"

He laughed, ironically.

"Get out this charity shop!"

Which I did, bemused to the point of peturbation.

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

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

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

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

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

Give me Ebay any day.

Other people's music on the bus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Troy Bar, Trocadero, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

On Friday night I headed up to Shoreditch to meet an old(ish) friend, Sarah, who is over visiting from Spain, and who I hadn't seen in over three years. We met in the Troy bar near Hoxton square, where they have a jazz jam session on Fridays. It was good to catch up, though it did get really busy later on, and both her and my friend Al stepped to the stage to perform, him on keys, her singing at the very end. Altogether the music was fine, though some of the shifting lineups didn't really gel that much.

At closing time we parted ways, my friends to Wood Green, me to Camberwell. The weather was foul as I waited for the bus, a sparse rain, a keen bone cutting wind slapping reluctant pigeons into the air like grey litter. All around me the exiles from Shoreditch's clubbing Eden shuffling past: a girl in her mid-twenties pushing a chopper bike, lads in drainpipe jeans and hightops.

After about thirty minutes the bus rocked up, and for once didn't park up at the previous stop to thumb it's nose at everyone for ten minutes or so, though the downside of this was that it was already rammed with drunken revellers, especially upstairs, where from the sounds of it, someone had installed a mini German beer hall, replete with chanting and syncopated foot stomping.

I arrived home, drank a pint of water and slid into bed.

On Saturday it was a nice day and I fancied getting out and about so headed up to Portobello Road Market, where I bought my annual black beanie from
Maniyak's stall there, which I'll probably leave on a bus at some point in the next six months. They do incredible hats and scarves, and are one of those outfits who seem mostly to be 'big in Japan'. They don't seem to have most of the styles on their (wholesale only) website on their Portobello road stall though, annoyingly.

After that I headed into the centre of town to meet up with Sarah again, who I caught up with in the Trocadero centre of all places.

It's odd, though maybe not all that odd, that despite having worked mostly around Soho for the last three years, the square half mile or so around Leicester Square is a kind of geographical bindspot for me, marked "here be tourists" on my mental map. The Tracadero centre especially, though I do have vague memories of wandering in there with Will around seven or eight years ago. It's like a bit of blackpool, transplanted to central London – though more warren like – with a dizzying array of balconies, stairs, escalators and the like, all festooned with flashing lights and kiosks vending tat. It's sort of a modern consumerist rendition of one of Piranesi's imaginary prisons.

After I finally caught up with Sarah, we headed up to Denmark street where she got excited about guitars and I mostly stood about, before going for a fairly average meal in Chinatown, then a pint in The Angel, before parting ways.

At eight fifteen I met up with Will, Ade, Helen and Rachael at the Leicester Square Odeon, where we went to see 'Before The Devil Knows You're Dead', which I'd heard absolutely zero about, but was a really good film, though probably the bleakest thing I've seen since Requiem for a Dream. After that I got a lift back home.

Today's been Sunday-ish. Toast and coffee for breakfast, while reading the paper, then went for a walk up to East Dulwich, where I bought some wildly contrasting records (Silva Bullet's 'Bring Forth the Guillotine and Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald's 'Porgy and Bess', since you ask) before heading to the Chinese Supermarket on Denmark Hill to get some tuna steak. The light at the minute is odd, and tinted with blue. Very melancholy and January.

Last weeks booking wound up, though I do have some work pencilled in (potentially) for the end of the month. This might be a week of re-jigging my CV and sending it out, along with tax stuff and more enjoyable personal projects.

Jeans

The January sales are an occasion for me to stock up basic clothes as well as the odd extravagance.. things such as hoodies, socks and jeans.

When it comes to denim I like dark, indigo, rigid denim. I don't really get jeans that have had some kind of wash or treatment, or have been hand distressed previously by some poor sod with sandpaper and a basket of rocks somewhere. Surely the point of a pair of jeans is that you have them for years and they age naturally with wear, becoming a garment particular to you, no?

It's bizarre what a modern fetish jeans are, and how much something that originated as durable workwear, can cost. There are some dizzyingly expensive jeans to be had these days.

I opted for a couple of pairs from from Uniqlo in the sale, which were nice quality selvedge denim. Unfortunately the only jeans in this style were the seemingly ubiquitous 'skinnys', when I'd probably opt for something more like a straightforward 501 fit these days. But, they're straight leg and have quite a nice sillouette so I guess I can pour myself into them and get down like that. Having sported the baggier styles for years it does feel different though (and I more self conscious) and I seem to recall Umberto Eco having written an essay on jeans in Faith in Fakes where he contrasts the introspection bestowed by slim-fitting jeans, against the meditative freedom permitted by the loose fitting monk's habit* (though I guess as a professor of semiotics at Bologna university you can forgive him for missing out on the whole 90s hip-hop fashion thing).

Anyway, my jeans are cool, but bluer than Barry White, and seem to take the concept of colour transfer to a logical extreme – bestowing anything worn above or below them of a lighter hue a noticably blue tinge. Needless to say, if you had some white leather scarface-style sofas from Linda Barker's range at DFS, these babies would be out of the question.

So, I've given them a soak in the bath for a couple of hours this afternoon, then wrung them out, and hung them out to drip dry in the bathroom. At the end there was a lovely blue tidemark in the bath which I dutifully cleaned. I think my housemates were slightly bemused by it all, but hopefully, it'll shift some of the dye.

*As The Name of the Rose attests, Umberto Eco's kinda big on monks.

New Year Crime!

Hey! How's everyone's new year going?! ours is going great! we just got burgalled!

Ok so it wasn't a particularly extensive burglary.. we think they walked in off the street, into the first room at the top of the stairs, where they rifled through David's drawers, pockets and underwear (bizarrely), and exited with a digital camera through a window. We were all in, too.

This is slightly unnerving, for apart from an incident where me and Jess witnessed a couple of yardies getting busted by submachinegun wielding feds out the front of our flat two plus years back, we've (touch wood) managed to avoid even witnessing much crime round here, something I have in the past put jokingly down to living in the eye of Camberwell's storm. No room for complacency though it would seem, especially as crime seems to be such an opportunistic pursuit.

The place is getting dusted for prints tomorrow, and we'll hopefully get new locks fitted soon.. until then? dunno. Hope they behave more like lightning than a murderer I guess.

Christmas in Manchester

So Christmas over for another year.

This one was pretty good, though my return to Manchester spelled out to me just rainy this place is, with it being not so much a white Christmas as a grey liquid one (It's drizzled incessantly). For that reason alone – though there are others – I don't really see myself living here again anytime soon.

Change seems to be afoot in Manchester, with cranes looming over the skyline everywhere. If the gentrification of the city centre was gaining pace when I left three years ago, it now seems to have gone into overdrive, with warehouses everywhere being converted into ubiquitous trendy loft-style apartments by Urban Splash and the like, and there's even been a development out near Ancoats that's been branded 'New Islington'.

Someone brought up something I'd read about months ago, that the boutique shopping emporium Afflecks Palace is facing an uncertain future, and might well end up being itself converted into flats, which seems to highlight to me a problem with this influx to the city centre: being that the introduction of massive wealth often prices out the businesses that make it an interesting place to be in the first place. So the question is, is everyone suddenly going to rush to the suburbs again in ten years time, when they realise they're actually living in a kind of city centre housing estate punctuated by anodyne bars, and all the interesting-but-skint people upped sticks years ago, to go and live in, I dunno, Levenshulme?

Did I mention the bars? Yeah, there also seem to be loads of new trendy looking bars around the Northern Quarter, but having walked through the valley of the shadow of death which is Manchester at kicking out time, these aren't things Manchester needs particularly (at least in my opinion).

Stockport hasn't changed much, mind, as I can attest having spent a fair part of Christmas Eve seemingly trapped in Whitefield Industrial estate in South Reddish. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the now unfamiliar factory units, but I managed to arrive pretty much exactly back where I started, within an hour of setting off, and I nearly gave up there and then.

Getting a lift back tomorrow with Ade and Rachael, and I can't wait actually. I mostly just want to sleep in my own bed and eat 'normal' food really.

Next up on the agenda: New Years Eve.

Seasons greetings..

Shalom Alecheim and all that good stuff..

Fry's Churlish Delight

I saw this on the tube last night.. it's from a poster for a DVD game called Strictly Come Duncing, which in light of recent events must have one of the most unfortunate cover photographs ever, as a demonic looking Jonathan Creek, sorry, Alan Davies, is depicted reaching for QI presenter Stephen Fry's ear, looking like a modern day bewigged Nosferatu.

Dude's on some Mike Tyson shit..