Local Election day

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop this Banksy madness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cost?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War of the Worlds

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

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

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

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

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

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

The War of the Worlds

Hackney Techno Robot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bus Route Review: the 148

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..

Fashion Police

I guess you know you're living in a pretty cool city when police insignia looks like it could be a logo for a Bond villain's private army. Just saying.

Kompakt party

Last night I went to the Kompakt night at Plastic People in Shoreditch. I took a circuitous route via a recruitment consultants party in the centre of town, and to this end this took the 176 as far as the end of the Strand, where I walked across Trafalgar Square.

There's now a huge Christmas tree there, which I vaguely remember as being bequeathed us by Sweden for helping out in the Second World War. There was also some carol singers assembled in front singing, erm, Christmas carols. It was all aglow, and I actually felt festive for around five seconds or so.

Then it was off to the recruitment ball, which I went to primarily to see what my recruitment buddies actually look like, as the girl who signed me up left last year. It was alright but slightly awkward. I grabbed a bottle of beer and worried at the trestle table of finger food. A narky South African freelancer I worked with last year was there, looking slightly more cheery. I demurred to chat, and ducked out, to hike up toward Shoreditch via the Clerkenwell Road.

The Kompakt night was somewhat late starting, as there were some technical wrangles to do with an effects unit DJ Koze wanted to use. In the meantime I wandered round taking photos of the nearly empty club, which in case you are misled, are the ones above (it got pretty busy later on). Steve kicked proceedings off DJ wise, opening his set with a tune by Moodog, which Mr Scruff sampled for Get a Move On, on Keep it Unreal.

To start off with, it was freezing cold, and I was wandering round in a scarf and coat swilling on ice cold lager. There were more than a few Germans there, and I couldn't help but wonder that if they'd had a stall selling bratwurst, it would have been a bit like a techno themed version of the German Christmas markets they used to hold in Albert Square in Manchester. Just a thought.

But seriously, it was a killer night. After Steve's suave intro, Koze stepped up to the decks and dropped some throbbing, bassy, Detroit style tracks. The sound system in there is crisper than a tube of Pringles, and I pretty much thought I'd found jacking heaven, swaying up at the front.

Popping out front for a smoke, I got chatting to Christian from Cologne, who was over from the label, and was similarly impressed. According to him, he'd chatted to some other Germans who'd been to the previous night with Thomas Fehlman, and sung its praises back home. He was less impressed with the cost of a single tube fare being four quid, but then who is.

The night wound up at two-ish after whistles, hollers, and me barking like a dog for "one more" which Koze dutifully served up. For me this ranked as one of my favourite nights of the year, and kudos to the Allez Allez boys for setting it up. A little bird tells me it might also be the last, so if you missed it you missed out.

Getting home was as royal a pain in the ass as it ever is from Shoreditch to Camberwell, with a 35 sauntering up around three-ish to spirit me home to bed.

Thursday night now, and the weekend is nearly here. Not sure what I'm doing at the weekend, but there's always the Allez Allez birthday shindig at the Amersham arms on Saturday.

Uploaded now at Thirty Thousand Streets is me and my esteemed colleague Zeno Cossini's ocassional collaboration (him on words, me on pictures). If marauding crustacea are your thing, you just hit paydirt. Drop by and say hello sometime, comments welcome.

Wenesday

Today's been cold and Wednesday-ish. Indeed, the most exciting thing to happen so far was when a lady rang my flat and asked if we were "the Robbery Squad" which all but made me do a double take at the phone (we're not the Robbery Squad).

Off to town in a couple of hours to schmooze, in my somewhat limited capacity. After that I'm going to swing down to Plastic People in Shoreditch, for the Allez Allez boys' Kompakt night.

Scarves ahoy I think.

'Free' Lance

I'm a bit weary of work at the minute ("aren't we all? I imagine you're thinking") and getting quite cynical about it all. Three years in the freelance game, and at the minute, I'm often increasingly frustrated – a situation I've got to reverse if I'm going to carry on labouring in this industry.

One of the things I've become accustomed to, yet increasingly irritated by, it must be said, are employers who quibble about paying overtime to freelancers.

Yesterday I was working at a medium sized ad agency, helping on pitch work to retain an existing client. I worked over my eight standard hours, and so by the standard terms set out by the recruitment consultants who arranged the booking, was entitled to pay at the rate of time and a half.

It was only half an hour anyway, but when the time came for me to get my timesheet signed, the studio manager announced that "we don't pay time and a half".

This pissed me off. Firstly because the recruitment consultants who set the gig up should have made these terms clear to me, but primarily because I think it is incredibly remiss of a medium sized ad agency to refuse to pay freelancers their dues once thy've worked over a standard day, because that's the way it works, y'know?.

In general freelancers often have to spend a great deal of time running round tying up loose ends and having to do the dirty work the full-timers don't want to touch. Often, you're stuck on the grouchy G4 in the corner none of the designers will use. Often you're just treated like a human status bar, to be fed a stack of work to drill though gradually, like a rat through concrete.

So whatever. No-one ever said it was going to be easy. But the payoff for all this is (or should definitely be) that you're paid your dues at the end of the day, and your efforts are rewarded with commeasurate amounts of the folding stuff. Because often, you don't know where the next gig is coming from. It's a given that full time employers in the design industry on a salary work long hours overtime, unpaid, and those are the breaks; thats's how the industry functions. But it's different for freelancers and if – as in this case – you're a decent sized advertising agency with an enviable client list, you should honour this difference out of simple professionalism, as much as anything.

And funnily enough actually, it is quite often the large-ish ad agencies who refuse to play the game on this one. And while of course it would be naive to assume the advertising industry is exactly afroth with the milk of human kindness, it rankles that a communications agency with plush West End offices, who are obviously doing very well for themselves thank you very much, gripe when it comes to paying up.

Of course there's always the argument that this is an effort to stop agencies haemmoraging unnecessary funds on contracters, but in this case the onus is on the agency, and its planners, to ensure they are more organised in this respect.

Anyway. If I've got any kind of grit I might endevavour to not work there in future. But who knows, I may have to.

In principle though, my sentiment remains: "pay the hell up, bitch!"

The Noodle Conspiracy

Y'know, I like me some noodles. And while I like them as part of a cooked dish with stir fries or as a substitute for pasta, at heart I'm something of a fiend for the cheap packets of instant noodles that seem to be a reliable fixture of mini-markets everywhere.

I was especially fond of the range available at the Chinese Supermarket round the corner, and most weeks would pop in at once to stock up on their three-for-one sardines, and browse the wall of noodles on aisle three. The sesame chicken variety were a particular favourite.

The thing is, I always looked on noodles as a harmless treat: a late night snack I could wolf down, guilt free. After all, they're noodles, right? there's noting in them other than flour, and um.. water? nothing sinister anyway.

So I was quite surprised to discover – while waiting for the water to boil the other day and idly reading the back of the pack – that this particular variety ('satay sauce' I believe) had something like a third (one third!) of the adult male daily fat allowance.. or around 22 grams per pack. At first I thought I'd merely got unlucky in some noodle game of Russian Roulette, so scoured the backs of the other flavours I'd bought, to find that they were all playing noodle-ball in roughly the same noodle-ball-park.

To put this in perspective.. 100 grams of the cereal I'm eating at the minute (Special K since you ask) has 1.5 grams of fat per 100g of cereal, or roughly 5.6 grams in each 375g box. Meaning that the fat content of one packet of these noodles.. is equivalent to four entire boxes of Special K. Khrist.

Ok so I'm probably sounding like a Kellogs advertorial here, and at risk of getting too metrosexual about the whole issue, but that's a lot of fat for a small pack of noodles.. right? I mean, someone actually had to try pretty damned hard to get that much fat in didn't they?

I have to say, I'm slightly peeved about this.. something I viewed as a culinary staple has become.. sullied. I never assumed they had much more nutritional content than cardboard to start with, but by this same token I never assumed I was consuming some covert form of lard.

I dunno, someone'll tell me Father Christmas isn't real next..

Retro Kicks

Todays retro fix is brought to you by Sesame Street, and the 70s. Yes folks, it's the 'Number 12' pinball song.

This is pretty much my childhood right here. Just look at those gorgeous illustrations! but then, I'm a sucker for many things seventies, from graphic art through to vintage tan leather 'funk coats', and the drawing style feels reminiscent of Seymour Chwast and Pushpin to me. Anyway, I think this is sung by the Pointer Sisters, and it's not bad in a kind of disposable disco jingle style. I seem to recall Ninja Tune releasing this on 12 inch as the B-side to a Larry Levan remix of a song by the Cookie Monster. Can't say I've heard that, and I'm not actually sure I'd go as far as playing it out but hey.

Whatever happened to Kinder Eggs

I bought a Kinder Egg yesterday. To me these days, Kinder Eggs are a bit like National Lottery scratchcards.. things I occasionally buy while queueing for milk in the newsagents, in an attempt to numb the general ennui of existence by the frisson of excitement they represent. I could win a million pounds! or I could have a fully functioning scale replica of Robert Stevenson's 'Rocket', in plastic!

Unfortunately, neither are ever true, and with both scratchies and eggs, you're generally left with an instant piece of rubbish, and a faint sense of anticlimax. Kinder Eggs have fallen the fuck off, man.

May I present Exhibit A for the prosecution. Ladies and gentlemen: my prize

















Now, could anyone tell me, WTF this is supposed to be? Obviously it's supposed to be some kind of doll, but what kind of kid would want to have such a thing? I might be getting needlessly nostalgic here, but I used to get loads of these things as a child, and I'm pretty certain they were far superior back in the day. I remember Kinder Egg toys where you'd open it, and it was completely composite – you'd get all these little parts, with a tiny set of instructions on how to assemble your plane/boat/tractor, with fingers still sticky from the ersatz two-tone chocolate. That was half the fun: it invited you to engage in the construction of your toy – to the point of applying decal stickers – and the payoff at the end was you got your little toy, magic trick whatever, to forget about half an hour later when Ulysses 31 came on TV.

The one concession to the construction process in my eye-wateringly ugly plastic homunculus is the fact that it came in two parts. The head is detachable you see, and upon removal of the head you're left with..

















A mini totem devil! Great! What kind of message is that sending out?

"All appearances are false" (booms a hollow voice like Orson Welles as Unicron in Transformers the Movie) "all appearances are false, and at the heart of everything, dwells unreason, which is the very principle of evil"

That's how I interpreted it anyway. No wonder the kids of today are messed up; truly, the devil is in the details.

















It gets worse though. Squinting at the accompanying mini brochure, it becomes clear that this is just one in a family of similar statuettes, all of whom are presumably also demons masquerading as members of some sub-Pokemon cartoon family, all available for you to collect and perform your own mini-inquisition upon. And even worse than this, all of them appear to be piloting small aircraft, which in my case at least, was not included in the original purchase. Great. So I'm to be denied even that catharsis.

This is fairly typical of kinder eggs now.. they do seem to be all based around some dog-ugly set of characters, that require minimal interaction or imagination. Something I find doubly depressing about these toys is that, as non-biodegradeable plastic, if I opted to have them buried them in the ground with me a la the Egyptian pharoahs, there's a good chance these tawdry artefacts would persist long after my remains had long since vanished, for future generations of intelligent insects/rats to ponder over. Kind of a lame legacy to leave, I'm sure you'll agree. Here's some I bought earlier this year.

















In truth this slide isn't restricted to just Kinder Toys though.. as I trawled the aisles of Woolworths the other day in my quest for some 'Henry' vaccuum-cleaner bags, I was arrested mid stride by the selection of lego in the toys aisle. It all seemed more sophisticated, but at least half of it consisted of branded tie-ins to the Star Wars franchise (and presumably George Lucas's latter day revisionist abominations at that). Indeed, even the bits that weren't, while appearing more engineered, were actually constructed of parts that seemed wholly specific to the individual toy – a entire moulded cabin for a flatbed truck for instance.

Part of Lego's charm was its trademark clunkyness.. the fact that all or most of the parts were modular and interchangeable. Something that was a car one minute could easily be a spaceship the next, with a little input and imagination of course. These modern day efforts? well I don't know.. they look kinda cool, but ultimately more limited in scope.. less 'open source' if you like.

Anyway *rant over*. You could probably recreate the sentiment of reading this blog post by simply writing:

"Things aren't as good as they used to be"

And reading and re-reading that for five minutes. In the meanwhile, I'm going to go and shake my fist at the sea. You can discuss how much larger chocolate bars used to be amongst yourselves.

LOLC

Today I went to the Land Of Lost Content, which is a museum of ephemera from the 20th century, situated in Craven Arms in Shropshire, in an old Market Hall.

To put it another way, it's three (draughty) floors of some of the most fascinating tat and bric-a-brac you're ever likely to stumble across in a country village.

It was themed section by section, but part of its charm is that everything is displayed 'Alladin's Cave' style, every corner dripping with the marginalia of popular culture: There's posters, clothes, toys, packaging, records.. the list goes on.

The museum's mission statement is (and I'm going to paraphrase from memory here) to preserve a unique record of how people lived, in times when they endured greater hardship, yet enjoyed an unparalelled contentment, and in this I suppose they are referring principally to the war/post war era of the early to mid twentieth century.

I guess I'm always slightly suspicious of this kind of rose-tinted nostalgia for times past, but it must be said, from the vantage point of our marketing and branding obsessed times, much of the trivia on display manages to evoke a wistful smile, as a lot of it does seem quite sweet and naive, and yes, less sophisticated, than the incredibly nuanced sea of media we inhabit now. To some extent these are kitsch kicks you're getting here (chuckling gently at seventies chocolate wrappers is surely the museum equivalent of those 'I heart the 60s/70s/80s' programmes) but fascinating nonetheless.

Apparently the guy who used to run 'Red or Dead' is a big fan too, and is now involved in trying to market the place a bit more effectively. Good thing, as that day my mum and me were the only two people in there.

I've no pics (at their request) but if you're in the area, take a look.

Afterwards we left, and there was some kind of Children in Need thing going on, with a huge Papier Mache head being wheeled down the street with a guy in Pudsey Bear outfit next to it. I have pictures of that, which I'll stick up shortly.

Cold in Wales

I'm in Wales. It's cold and foggy. Sorry, freezing and foggy.

I need a jumper.

Operation

So. Nearly three weeks ago on Wednesday morning, whilst unconcious, I was set about with a knife by an short bearded man, just off Denmark Hill in Camberwell.

Luckily he was a surgeon and I was being operated on (drumroll-cymbal).

Anyway.. that was fine. I've been a bit sore and limping around a little since, but otherwise ok. I've also not been working (largely through choice) though have been reasonably busy doing other stuff.

I've not been updating this much (at all) recently, as I've had some stuff on my mind, and things I want to sort out, and I don't want to fall into the trap of talking about it rather than getting on and doing it. I always intended this blog to be about experiences I'd had that excited me, and I've been feeling a bit introspective recently. I think once you get out of the rhythm of updating these things it's sometimes hard to get back in.

In other news I've trying to avoid the evil that is Facebook as much as possible (it annoys me) and some estate agent from Foxtons keeps ringing me up and badgering me about why I'm not currently hunting a flat (despite me telling him thrice I'm not). I'm tempted to say "none of your business mate, and if you don't stop pestering me, I might start hunting you" but have managed to remain reasonably cordial.

Anyway. Tonight I'm off to meet up with my friend Tim and some old uni buddies for birthday drinks on Kingly Street in Soho, and then might drop in to the Kompakt night at Plastic People, where Thomas Fehlman – ex The Orb – is DJing. Should be good!