the devil wears prada

american psycho

justified

maybe with the negative responses to my range of media tramps i should seek to justify them a bit more. i guess they are on a line between satire and art, but as i'm more of visualist than a political spokesman i'll forcibly nestle them in the world of activist art.

activism has been expressed through art for a pretty long time and - good or bad - it comes from the artist's need to express a dissatisfaction with the world as it is. politics, pop culture, conformation, capitalism, colonialism and anything you care to list has probably been satirised or commented upon in some form of activist artwork, and this is all i'm doing. whether you think it's offensive or ill-informed or just plain 'bad' that's fine; but i'm regularly and consistently angered by the way that certain roots of the media choose to celebrate and reward mediocrity. for some reason the likes of paris hilton and jordan - who don't appear to contribute anything positive to our society - are praised, empowered and rewarded for such lack of action.

paris hilton is paid up to $100,000 to turn up to a party. a hard day's work i'm sure.

jordan promotes the idea of a bad body image in a lot of teenage girls.

amy winehouse has had more publicity through news coverage this year than anyone else, largely because of a widely advertised drug addiction. earlier this year, winehouse was voted (by teenagers) to be the best role model in the country, without any redemption. if that's not a concern, what is?

kate moss is considered a role model for children, showing them that as long as you are physically attractive you can be paid a lot of money for disgracing yourself.

simon cowell is just arrogant and doesn't get pulled up on it enough because he gave us westlife and robson & jerome. twat.

lily allen's one is just a review of her music really. you could read similar reviews in any issue of NME magazine.

the american judicial system has ruled britney spears to be a bad mother. whether she loves her kids or not, i can't find evidence to argue with them.

steve jones is famously rumoured to have slept with mariah carey and as one man to another i feel i should at the very least take the piss out of him for it.

i am genuinely frightened of the potential reality of sarah palin becoming president. this particular one was inspired by matt damon's comments last week.


these are all pretty concise, and i'd probably find great self-destructive pleasure in ranting at length about each of these people in turn. i thought it would suffice to do the pictures instead.

i suppose you could argue that these people are unfair game, have personal psychological troubles and it's not their fault that cheap-ass tabloids focus on them and put pictures of their abuse on the front page. if you were totally naive.

you should all note that i didn't have to look past the first google-results page for any of the links used in this post.

peaceful the world lays me down

a lovely little song from a lovely little band.
Noah and the Whale - 2 Bodies 1 Heart

what's eating gilbert grape?

xXx

baise moi

i've done a few of these media tramp pictures now and there are more to come. some people have taken offense to them, i just thought they were funny. offensive is funny. satire, eh? some like it hot, some don't.

i don't mean any personal offense, just having a bit of a rant about the way popular-media celebrates mediocrity. i find it offensive that this lot suck up my TV time. i pay good money for my license, you know.

that's better.

white christmas

bend it like beckham

memento

faster pussycat, kill! kill!

(you make me feel like a) natural woman

the bourne ultimatum

sometimes hollywood actors do actually make sense.

suburban rhythm

come to this and see me there!

i touch myself

in celebration of that thing we all do, i must shoot some respect all over the face of the chap who runs this website.

the (forgivable) anonymous contributor has been keeping a long term tally of all the wanks he's had in the last few years over the hot women to be found on british TV. from newsreaders to CBBC presenters, we've all thought it, and now thanks to this turkey-choker we can all admit it.

please take time to read the blog, it's a heart-breaking tale of the battles he faces between his heart, his mind, and his fist.

also check out the Wank Rank - a tally of tugging.

i found this site whilst looking for images of BBC weather-girl Laura Tobin (pictured)... mmmmmm

the kids are alright

childs play was originally released 20 years ago!

now you feel old, don't you?

to celebrate, the distribution company dressed a load of kids up as chucky and sent them out into new york to play with knives. look how sinister they are... look at them. bring back children with meat cleavers in films i say. or just give a load of meat cleavers to some children and see what happens.

non, je ne regrette rien

i got back from holiday the other day.

being home and going to work is not as good as being on holiday.

here is a gallery of photos in which you might find pictures of my pregnant sister being forced into a chilly swimming pool, my best friend looking retarded and some of our mighty Ford Tourneo... "the most uncomfortable hire-car in history" (pictured).

alien autopsy

on saturday 30th august, a friend of my girlfriend got married. i took my camera and i think i might be starting to get quite good at using it because i took some nice photos. i'm still operating on a scatter-gun approach... "take 4 thousand photos, get 5 good ones" but it seems to be working.

the guest list at this particular wedding seemed to only consist of very beautiful people, and me. i was rather taken with the one you can see in that picture there, and can't find anything in me to not brag about the fact that she is - in fact - my girlfriend The Budd.

awesome.

there is also a beijing 2008 gold medal winner in there. see if you can spot him.

mercury rising

i hate BMWs.

i know they are well made cars that go for miles, but i invariably have an adverse physical reaction to them akin to that gut-wrenching feeling you get when you've forgotten to do your homework. mainly because they are inevitably driven by arseholes.

it's true. i've been conducting research in my head over the last few years, since i started riding a motorbike actually. about 70% of the time i've seen some idiot driving badly it's been a BMW.
and when i see a BMW, about 50% of the time, they do something idiotic.

and they look so smug all the time.

however, i just discovered this video and i must say, the emotional response to it was rather different. instead of the normal adrenalin rush of fear for my life and the lives of those innocent parties around, i got one of immense excitement and arousal. watch this and tell me you don't feel it too.

my favourite is the bonnet. hummana-hummana.


ooooooohhhhhhh.

the west wing

fingers crossed everyone

rednecks

this made me laugh. these guys are the equivalent of chavs in this country so a great deal of pleasure is to be had by watching this all the way through.

don't do guns, kids.

pretty woman

currently i'm watching the ladies weightlifting.

there are two kinds of weightlifting:

the snatch
where you lift it above your head before straightening your legs.

the clean & jerk
where you lift it to your chest before lifting it above your head.

they both have equally amusing names.

payback

in my current job where i don't really do anything except watch telly, i've been spending a lot of time with the beijing olympics.

my favourite moment so far happened about 20 minutes ago when georgia fought back from inevitable defeat at the beach volleyball against the russians.

yep, that's a strange old situation. i can't help wondering what was going through the girls heads while they were playing. it must've been impossible to not be thinking on some level about the slaughter happening back home. yikes. they say politics shouldn't come into the olympics.... and i'm well aware that beach volleyball is on quite a different level to military invasion, but still, i'm pretty glad georgia won.

on a side note, being able to watch beach volleyball at work is frikken awesome.

the thrill

this is my friend louise. her music is awesome. you should watch this music video as it is really rather good.
and then go to her website: louisegolbey.com

the fly

i don't normally do such things as copy and paste the news, but this story made me laugh. martin brundle, you legend:

ITV has escaped punishment after the word "pikey" - a slang term for gypsy - was used in a sports broadcast in June.

Host Martin Brundle was interviewing Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone before the Canadian Grand Prix, where part of the track had crumbled.

"There are some pikeys there at turn 10 putting tarmac down - what do you think of that," he asked.

Media regulator Ofcom said it would take no action after ITV apologised and addressed the issue with its presenter.

The broadcaster argued that "pikey" was now used more widely but conceded that it still remains a derogatory term.

It added that Brundle was unaware of the potential racial or ethnic connotations and so had not meant to cause any offence towards the travelling communities.

After the show ITV received 22 complaints from viewers over the remark while Ofcom received 14.

Brundle was a Formula One driver throughout the 1980s and 1990s and has won awards for his work as a commentator for ITV.

He is known for his "walk-and-talk" technique, where he prowls around the starting grid before races to interview drivers and celebrity spectators.

read story here

chariots of fire

try as a i might, i can't find an attractive lady on the GBR olympic team.

maybe we'll win a medal for that.



although china will do quite well.

backdraft

right now there are probably a few high level executives in the oil industry watching burn up, BBC2's new so called "eco-drama" about corruption and denial and apathy and greed.

where we are right now in the story is following the slow realisation of the central character, that perhaps stuff that is bad for the environment is actually bad. now, i'm a cynical bastard at the best of times so my feeling is that those high level executives are probably smirking to themselves about how weak a business man he is, and are pretty un-accepting of the fact that oil might not be the best thing for their kids.

they do make a valid point in the show, though; that we don't know for sure that oil is the main contributer to global warming. science hasn't proved it... fair enough.

but we do know for a fact that some sort of a change is happening. it might just be the natural cycle of the earth, so while there's a possibility that its not man made we might as well enjoy ourselves and burn lots of oil.

i guess.

i guess, is what they are thinking.

now, unfortunately there seems to be a lot of pussy-footing around with no real evidence of action. governments and corporations are being very polite to each other; most notably around the american government who, let's face it, are basically skipping along hand-in-hand with big fat oil producers. it's like tweedle-dee & tweedle-dumb. i had high hopes for gordon brown, but he's basically spent the last 12 months rolling out disappointment after disappointment. i'm not talking about the increasing price of filling up my car fuel tank - i don't care about the rise in the oil price as far as the consumer side of things is concerned. in the world where every cloud has a silver lining, perhaps it has cut down the amount of petrol people have bought recently. and made them think twice about buying a brand new porsche cayenne. (i recently got rid of my 4x4 as the guilt was becoming too soul-destroying.)

what i am talking about is that apparently he had some good attitudes towards environmental change before he came into his version of power, but i haven't seen any evidence over the weekly apologies, repeats of unemployment figures and back peddling. still, at least we're not being run by the tories... yet. shit, that's a depressing thought.

i went off the subject there, what i was going to say is that there is too much politeness & diplomacy where there should be raised voices & honesty. what words should be being said by those with access to the people in question are:

to the american government and the shareholders of shell, bp and esso and all the others -
you are cunts and nobody likes you. stop killing people so you can have bigger portfolios. it's just numbers on paper.

to the governments of all the other countries in the world, specifically the british -
stop being so wet. we, like you i'm sure, are aware that the world has run out of real leaders and we have to deal with the timid, politically correct wimps that now sit round the table at G8. but come on, buck your ideas up and start earning yourself a morsel of respect from the the folks in your country. you never know, you might even prove yourselves worthy of sitting in that seat.

of course, climate change champions might be completely wrong and either there is no such thing as global warming (*nonchalantly shrugs shoulders to the population of southern bangladesh*), or there is global warming, it's caused by the natural cycle of the earth and we can't do anything about it.

i dunno, we might end up with a booming alternative fuels industry though. and cooler, quieter, less polluted streets for the 100 years we've got left on the planet.
and greener golf courses,
and better quality steak,
and maybachs that run completely silently....

serenity

spread the word.

planet of the apes

occasionally i like to point you towards things that might make you laugh.

try this.

childsplay

weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

hard target

jean claude van damme: he's in the same league as dolph lungren and steven segal. despite desperately wanting to, i can't lump arnie in that group because he had the good sense to get out of the movie business. he now runs california which is equally as ridiculous, but that's another story.

jcvd, though.... has made an interesting choice. um. yeah, interesting. and i'm quietly applauding and immensely fascinated. i can't wait to see this:

WHAT!?!?!

money for nothing

my entries are sparse (on this blog)

my time is filled (with other stuff)

there are four things that are currently fulfilling my life. they are good, and they look like this:

ladybudd: my gorgeous goirl-freund.

my job: that is way better than the last one.

my new car: that works with magic and has so many gadgets it hurts.

the odd cast: a damn fine hobby with damn fine people.

the lion king

i have a wide and varied music taste. it is something i'm immensely proud of; that i can give adequate time to, and often thoroughly enjoy any type of music (that isn't house or misogynist hip-hop). i even let kanye west into my life for a moment until i saw for myself that he was utter pap.

tonight's gig was pretty far out there in terms of experiencing variety.... yup. it's difficult to explain the animal collective and very difficult to explain who they are and what they do. only that there are only two people i know who've ever heard of them. one is myself, and the other is my old boss and good buddy 'ass' who introduced them to me. they became an invaluable tool in getting through daily life at our old job, where the only way to deal with the irregularities and dystopia of that crazy workplace, was to go back and load the office p.a. system with something even more random and uncontrollable.

step in the animal collective (amongst others*).


for a long time, since i first heard about rave music actually, i've wondered where music was heading. where it would be in 10, 50, 1000 years. in the last hundred it's changed and evolved at a ridiculous pace into uncountable streams almost indecipherable and unrelated to its roots. back in those days i listened to nothing but metal and thought the likes of The Prodigy and The Shamen were bouts of mindless noise akin to mental illness, symptomatic of broken homes and shock treatment. i did know that there were people who found ways to appreciate wider music than me at that time; people who could somehow enjoy meatloaf, biohazard, barry manilow AND 2unlimited. equally.

don't worry i've killed him now.

before i'd reached this audio maturity i did have an inkling that somewhere in the distant future someone would find a way to combine musical genres. someone out there would be able to see a link between hardcore, repetitive dance-centric beats and lyrical, oppressed, melodic flows. my suspicion is that eventually it will all lead to a hundred people sitting in a room listening to 1k tone, but for now i'm very happy to enjoy the animal collective and anything within that genre. if someone could tell me what that genre is, i'd be most grateful.

electronic hardcore punk-rave?
binary soul?
intellectual death drum n' bass metal?

...no idea. but i like it and the gig this evening at koko, camden was an sensual experience in the literal sense of the word; encompassing confusion, pain, wonder and watery eyes. me like.


* also look up:
squarepusher
battles
and steve reich's train album

annie, let's not wait

unfortunately i have no control over public transport. 

sometimes it doesn't matter, i'm just meandering aimlessly or i'm only going to be late for work by 5 minutes. i can deal with that. but there are other occasions, like today, where it doesn't matter what i do and how quickly i get things done; i can hurry home, get changed in a flash, tidy up in a haste enviable by billy whizz. i could get everything together and ready at a speed you've never seen before but 8.15 just will not arrive any quicker than the laws of time will allow.

stupid laws.

niagra

everyone has their own heroes. and they should. in the sentiment of self-development; and immediately after, the development of the human species we should all have an aspiration to be better. personal heroes are a template; not to be worshiped like some earth-bound deity, but an example of a pattern to knit your life and your theology and your ethics to.

my esteemed friend the troubadour has chosen Doctor Who, and to be honest i can't think of a better choice; certainly for him. he would acceptably maintain that Doctor Who chose him. it makes sense, you can't choose who suddenly makes a profound impact on your life, especially not when it's a fictional character penned by the hands of a skillful writer. there's no development there, just BAM! and suddenly it's a new feature of your life. i guess it's the same with those chaps that end up with sports-people as their aspirational being - one spectacular performance and the immediate accolade is impossible to ignore.

i can't understand the sports thing entirely, though. lest not footballers who generally appear to be amazing at kicking a round thing between two sticks, but often brain-dead and rapists. they're good looking, oh yes, but to aspire to be good-looking when you're not good-looking is a pretty pointless and wasteful use of energy.

i have two heroes outside my dad and a few of my close friends, who create feelings more akin to an ultimate respect than the idea of an abstract heroic entity. in this conversation i'm calling a hero a distant figure, admired from afar. and there's a huge list of very adequate people to choose from in the worlds of science, religion, human advancements, literature... fiction and real. worthy contenders feature martin luther king, einstein, beethoven, superman, michael gambon, the suffrogettes, neil armstrong, king arthur. none without their faults, but a decent selection of life aims and objectives could be filtered from such a list.

i have two. and they may lack the grandeur of a world leader like j.f.k, or the historic significance of someone like mahatma ghandi, but i suppose that echoes true with the reality of myself. my intention was just to write about one, but it looks like i've waffled out a bunch of unnecessary exposition, how very like me. if by some chance i may lose any of the regular readers that my deluded mind convinces me exist, may i take this moment to thank you for letting me dribble my nonsense into your consciousness. i won’t be in any way offended if you leave now, with only a peripheral sight as to how long this entry is turning out to be.

my heroes.

the first is ewan mcgregor. i shouldn't have to formally write many reasons why, it’s far too obvious - the man's successful, talented, has a respectable list of brilliant films and theatrical productions to be proud of. then of course there's the immense human achievement of riding around the world on a motorbike. for charity. and to top it all off, the man is beautiful. i mean, seriously. it takes a lot for a definitively hetero chap like myself to entertain the idea, but... i would. for mcgregor.

but he’s not quite at the top of my list. yes, he’s a man of integrity and talent, and has french-kissed scarlett johansson... but i have a favourite. someone who sums up all the elements, attributes, achievements and life stories that i can only ever dream of catching a glimpse of. that man is john ravenscroft, better known as radio one d.j. john peel. if you ask me, he’s one of a rare few true jewels in the british crown (not that i’m in any way patriotic) joining a list that should include shakespeare, richard noble, monty python, robin hood and steven fry. a quietly unassuming character that could literally be held responsible for a change in the zeitgeist of british popular culture, although arguably unsung comparatively to the impact he had. one of the many reasons for my unending respect.

unlike the troubadour and the doctor, i don’t have a definitive and vivid recollection of my first conscious engagement with peel. sadly too, it is far too late in my life to have built my youth around him in the same way that the doctor has influenced troub’. my initial experience was most likely not even john peel himself but a track he played at around midnight as i drove home from my university years job at the ugc cinema in northampton. terribly, i don’t even remember what track it was that caught my attention as i searched for radio enjoyment in the dull greys of that horrible midland town, i suspect and hope that it was some sort of odd bluegrass number or a poorly produced punk track made in someone’s lounge. both are equally likely from john’s eclectic, eccentric playlist. whatever, it caught me off guard and aroused enough interest to keep me listening to an otherwise unbearable radio station. and it suited the atmosphere of the stillness of the night, the flickering street lamps and the pile of scrap metal i was driving around at the time.

as i say, i can’t remember particular details. i do remember being intrigued by the existence of such an oddity amongst the other d.j’s i’d heard that mostly put me off listening to radio at all. i do remember hearing captain beefheart for the first time on one of those drives home. my appalling memory only allows me a blurry idea of a weirdly varied selection of music and the drawling, strangely hypnotic delivery of an unending list of life stories that while not always life-changing, were always true, honest and erudite. i say not always life-changing, but subsequent interest has informed me that he was arguably instrumental in the careers of some of the most important bands in british popular culture: the sex pistols, the undertones, pulp, t-rex... actually i’m not going to list them, suffice to say that you have all heard of them and they could each be held partly responsible for much of the music you hear today, for the clothes you see on the street and for the attitudes of yourself and the sub-cultures around you... the rolling stones. ahem.

in short, in my opinion, if you have listened to any music and it has had any effect on you in the last 30 years then you have most probably been affected in some indirect way by peel. my love of the man doesn’t end there. anyone could play such an eccentric playlist, if they had the gall (sadly not very evident in todays media pandering to the mediocre tastes of the license paying majority), but there was a dedication that went with it that’s even harder to find. oh shit, i can see this going on for a long time... i’ve lost the brevity of my intentional blog entry. actually that disappeared after i wrote that thing about king arthur. it’s hard to stop once you’ve opened such a sluice of sickly gushing. for some reason it’s strangely satisfying to write, if not read over.

i just liked the guy. there was an honesty, an integrity to him. he quietly changed the course of popular culture without any desperate need for acceptance or praise. he loved his family. he was funny, intelligent, witty, eccentric and interesting. did you know he met J.F.K? no, i bet you didn’t. he worked hard at what he believed in, never let himself be compromised by external pressures, hated tony blackburn. it is basically a list of features that i had tried to have before finding peel, but a list that became suddenly credible and obtainable post-JP.

the best decision the bbc could make would be to resurrect all the recordings they have of him and play them in the same old slot, in chronological order, as they were first broadcast. i would listen intently, lapping up every track and word and mistake like a teenaged girl at a new kids on the block concert.

god i hate fanboys.

die another day

the following may well be read as grossly smug. read it at your peril if you're not happy with that, but don't say I didn't warn you.

a couple of times in the last twenty-eight years i've had a moment of clarity where everything seems to fit in place, where all that is happening to me makes sense. the first one perhaps shortly after birth, realising why i had been curled up in a comfy annex that more recently had been feeling like it needed some sort of extension. perhaps a conservatory. i have a morbid recollection that as i rolled down a road in islington at 50mph after dropping my bike i may have partly accepted the inevitability of the event as a brutal poetic justice for someone who was basically being an idiot. there have most certainly been others, most likely involving my long time confident: the troubadour, a certain evening in a tiny village with tisch, and standing on a high up volcanic rock as the sun set over the great white lake in the middle of nowhere, mongolia.

i can't help but have a spring in my step as i meander my way to work this morning; after a spectacular 10 days centred by my birthday, a fine selection of happenings enhancing my 28th like dolby digital.

the order went something like this:
a lovely evening with the lord and lady monkhouse: the 'rents who made it all possible. indian food and fine conversation, what more is needed?

being rescued from a disappointing evening with the new work mates by whackwit, and having a much more pleasant evening with him, a pint of finest and a handmade burger.

a day kicking terrorist ass with the troubadour, followed by a genius party for the duchess involving high spirits, high notes and an array of highly attractive young ladies. more of one of those later.

a very pleasant date with a girl who could be mistaken for natalie portman.

pub quiz with some of my nearest and dearest, accompanied by bangers and mash - the choice of a new generationX. we didn't win but at least i now know what piacrete is.

to the theatre with some more nearest and dearest to see a show that is just about the closest to manly that a dance show could get; about a family of kung-fu stars who spend all their life training under their kung-fu master grandfather. the nearest it gets to a story is when 2 burglars try to break in to the house and they end up having a half-hour martial arts fight. utter genius.

then the troubadour and i whacked out a very tasty odd cast within only a few minutes.

the biggest disappointment was when i found out my wonderful friend xany was suddenly unable to come to my birthday party, but i managed to swap an evening with her for an evening with the - frankly delightful - miss budd; a very easy-on-the-eye, pint-sized blonde with a filthy sense of humour and turquoise eyes you could swim in. life dealt me lemons, i made long island ice tea.

a very enthusiastic lie-in on saturday was quickly followed by ale & pie, shopping with The Budd, more drinks with nearest and dearest which involved (quite thrillingly and against all odds) xany appearing from nowhere. battles had been fought and variables had been conquered and there she was in the pub we had chosen but minutes before. i still don't quite understand how it happened, but will happily remain in the dark, marveling only at the way the world works sometimes.

more food, mexi-CAN. by this time, my stomach was making some noises of complaint and one or two worrying gestures. nothing a good cocktail couldn't fix, mind.

then onto shunt, my favourite of all london clubs; possibly the only one i actually like: a selection of darkened tunnels weave their way under london bridge. a series of manmade caverns and hidey-holes and pinball machines, where between 20 and 30 wonderful people joined me to share in the wonder of 28 years of jonathan. so many thanks to all who came, i spent the evening with the funniest men and the most beautiful women in all of christendom.

and that's just an overview. how could i pick a favourite bit?

perhaps the x-box 360 i bought myself as a birthday present.
perhaps the dedication of The Fox, who queued for 2 hours to get into my party after being stuck on a tube, only to be mildly concussed by a hurtling drum stick soon after she got in. thank you jenny.
perhaps the crazy chain of events that suddenly leapt in our favour and xany magically appearing from the depths of the midlands.
perhaps the spectacular time i spent with The Budd, who by now must be aware of my growing affection and doesn't seem to mind responding to my poor-witted (and sometimes rude) text messages, and with whom i share a love of geese and trickle vents.

i literally cannot find fault with the last 288 hours. if you have seen me or sent me a message in that period you have contributed to the spring in my step and the whistle in my suit. or something. it has been a feast of great joy and for a while i forgot how close i am to turning 30.

fuck.

indecent proposal

remember kids:

eagle vs. shark

(it's likely that you will now encounter a very bad metaphor...)

typical. you wait for a bus for a good few months and suddenly out of nowhere two come along at the same time. two very beautiful buses.

your brain tells you to take the first one and disappear into the wide blue yonder. but there's a wildcard; your heart tugs you to the second one. it's a bit of a walk, but it's got a CB radio.

and it's a really very sexy bus.

my happy ending

almost famous

it's been far too long since i went to my last gig, but thankfully the drought was ended with a brilliant evening spent with shoelace and his old school pals from devon, the rumble strips.

a long while ago i heard their song "motorcycle" which is frankly nigh-on anthemic, disguised as a sort of lo-fi garage recording. not only is it a catchy little number, but also came onto my radar at pretty much the same time i passed my motorbike test and got myself a crotch rocket. the 'strips encore performance of said song bought those pleasurable feelings flooding back and i was momentarily back in the fresh air with the wind in my eyes and flies in my teeth.

in the very hip new proud gallery, camden (£5 drinks... urgh) the rumble strips played to a small but energised crowd. there was an honesty to the set, a result perhaps of a group with their feet still on the ground; becoming famous, but not yet suffering from the fall out of mega-stardom (despite collaborations with mark ronson.) anyone who knows me will know i will always favour the underdog, the independent, the cult... and this band is happily within this gamut; certainly for now. though there's something unpretentious and genuine about their writing that implies they could remain untainted for a good while.

brilliant, don't ruin it.

deliverance

shunt

i must tell you about one of the best venues and one the the funnest cabaret ideas what i did experience on friday, these...

shunt is an awesome 'members club' underneath london bridge, hidden in the shadows of railway arches amongst the strange, the circus and the unusual. it's a performance art club and anything goes.

anything.

the time i went before, the evening was interrupted by a rather large naked dude who ran amongst the revelers only to have a bucket of tinned tomatoes fall from the ceiling on top of him. after throwing himself around a bit in a frenzy of ketchup manufacture he ran onto a small stage where another bucket (this time of sand) fell atop his head. more writhing about then back into the crowd/dancers/audience whereupon a bucket of water drenched him and anyone standing nearby.

he was one of the owners it turns out.

so yeah.... anything.

but last friday i went off to the good old freakshow in support of an old friend of the troubadour's who was performing with her band - karauke - please do go to the website for information, but in short they are a ukulele band who put on karaoke gigs. like karaoke, but with a 15-piece ukulele band instead of a little machine with a microphone attached to it.

check them out. go and see them. and sign up early to do a song. don't hesitate like i did and by the time you've psyched yourself up enough to go on stage and you're really excited... time has run out and the gig is over.

shame, because my ukulele backed rendition of kaiser chiefs "oh my god" was to be the stuff of legend...

karauke

basic instinct

fight club

a view to a kill

view from the top

for those of you who give a monkey's, some more things of my new job that is nice, yes.
a big fat screen

deep impact

i did my first day of my new job.

i was given a lot of information.

my head feels like it will burst open.

this is sort of like my new office and that:

east bound & down

well, that's it. my time at central hall, westminster has come to an end. at the risk of sounding institutionalised it's been my life since december 2005. jeez, that sounds like a long time.

working there has been a big fat mixed bag o' nuts, featuring the all time lowest points of my mental and physical states, all the way up to laughing uncontrollably and the occasional immense & warming sense of pride in my abilities and dedication. i will miss the place, whether i like it or not. there are some fantastic people there, a couple of fucking morons, but generally through the years i have seen some brilliant people come and go. and it's been great to be honest.

i'm so glad i'm leaving to go and do a new, interesting, varied, better-paid, different job... but as my emotions got a little better of me last night at my good-bye drinks it turns out i do actually really love the place and it's a bit hard for me to leave. thanks to all who turned out to my leaving do, loads of people came to see me off (probably to make sure i was actually going), i think you are all excellent.

also thanks to those who didn't come but gave real reasons.

i'm sure i'll see you all when i pop back now and again. the cafe does a mean jacket potato.

the lost world

right now i'm watching a documentary about steven hawking and how he proved that the world is being sucked slowly into a kind of warp thing made by the sun. he's said that stars shrink to the size of atoms and eat light, and that the entire of existence was once "infinitely small" and you could've fit the universe in your pocket. he can 'prove' that the universe began from a singularity, but doesn't know what a singularity is.

it's a very interesting theory, but one that he can't prove until he manufactures a black hole. which is impossible. i'm not denying that he is a very intelligent man. stupidly intelligent. but while he can put a load of maths and physics to his hypotheses, it is still speculation until it is demonstrated.

i think that black holes are created by space monkeys who build them using a machine that looks like a petrol generator with a bucket under it that you throw clam shells at. if you give the monkeys ikea furniture then they'll rustle up a new galaxy for you.

i can prove it with this diagram:

lonesome town

Beneath the ounces of foundation and mascara'd lids you can almost detect a sense of immense beauty. She hides it away under number seven and a layer of self depreciation. The late night holds a secret; some shocking encouragement so forth her lap is filled with a thorntons white chocolate easter egg.

Half eaten.

Melted milky magma coats her fingers and fingernails like something off-white and unspeakable. Her sweet banquet is momentarily blocked by the gaggle of unbalanced party goers rocking into the train, all high-heels and legs and giggles and indiscriminate flirting.

She sighs and places the egg back in its package. It nestles guiltily. Licking her fingers is her final battle.

inner space

a bunch of my energy has recently been directed to The Odd Cast. you should subscribe too it if you haven't already. do it here if you like:
subscribe to the odd cast

it's the hard knock life

yes, you are right; i haven't written in a while. not at length anyway. the age-old excuse will suffice - i've been busy at work dear. to be honest it's been a bit ridiculous and the last few months of last year drove me quite near to the edge of insanity. i was only ever at work, barely a spare moment to myself let alone to the ones i love. there was actually a point around mid-november where i realised i hadn't seen any friends or family for a month. four weeks! to be honest, that's just utter stupidity: work/sleep/work/sleep, for 28 days. nothing social in that time, only a selfless contribution to someone else's paycheck. this in the midst of a whole year of nightmarishly hard labour and dwindling social activity.

then a meeting, with some monkey who supposedly manages the company. "as a department we thrashed our targets to pieces this year, individually i have been instrumental in this and have taken on the work of someone in an entirely different pay scale. how about i get a pay rise and some indication as to when i will stop having to work 75 hour weeks?" said i.
"unfortunately the rest of the company didn't do so well so your department's contribution isn't really worth a rat's cock," came the reply, or something similar, "and we can't give you a pay rise now because you only had one 11 months ago and we can only look at salaries once a year."
"because of what reason?" me.
"because that's how it works." him.
"oh, that makes perfect sense. and what about the unreasonable amount of time that i've spent in this building over the last few months?"
"you won't find a job in this industry that allows you a 40 hour week, mate."
"don't call me 'mate' you ignorant patronising fuck."
(i may have paraphrased that a little for dramatic effect, but the sentiment was certainly there)

well, to cut a longish story short i handed my resignation in a few days later; when i found that i had spent 5 days in a constant state of teetering on the edge of losing my temper. bearing in mind that i've only lost my temper once before in my life and that was when when someone hit me with a mercedes, this wasn't a mind set i enjoyed wallowing in. so i quickly wrote a letter and gave it in.

it was a nice feeling. then i thought - i should get a new job, then..... um, yeah.

"you won't find a job in this industry that allows you a 40 hour week, mate."

except... i have.

here:

and they're going to pay me much more money.

suck on that you morale-destroying cocktard.

oranges are not the only fruit

i have recently spent a stupidly large amount of money on a lovely mac laptop. i will be running this (what i am typing on right now) and my windows based PC for the time being; subconsciously comparing the two i guess, whether i want to or not.

much as i am purposefully going to resist becoming one of those horrible self-righteous militant apple users that you encounter far too regularly, it does seem that OS Leopard is quite ridiculously a lot better that XP. no surprise there i suppose.

as long as i don't have to go any where near Vista, i'm a happy man.

the italian job

if - by some very strange and pleasant set of coincidences - the gorgeous girl i met today with a coat of the same name and trouble with her mackerel, is reading this... please do get in touch. this would be most agreeable.

super mario bros.

the odd cast

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

the young ones

i casually look out of the side of my eye at the menu on his ipod; as i like to do when i'm sitting there waiting for my wheeled tube to reach its destination. i like to see what different people choose to hear when they adjourn. you see

he wears a conservative trenchcoat and business tie. grey makes cameos on his temples. his shoes are sensible, but to him a luxury. the celebrity page of a badly written free newspaper holds his attention.

he is listening to a dora the explorer audio book.

walk the dinosaur

for all of those thousands of readers out there who are completely enamoured by everything i do and say, you have another chance to update your life on my life on a regular occasion. me, shoelace and troubadour have just embarked on a slippery route to recording a podcast. i've bought a load of recording equipment and we've sat down and talked inanely for a few hours.

click here and you'll be whisked off to a page where you can download "The Odd Cast." eventually it will be on iTunes and you can automatically do it for free automatically. presently there's only the first episode, with more to come very soon. the first one is a bit rough, but bear with it they are getting awesome.

or just listen to it here:

The Odd Cast Episo...

of course you may just be completely bored by it, but it passes the time on a journey to work now and again doesn't it?

I've been to the year 3000

I got a new phone. It does a lot of things like push email and video calls. I am using it to do this blog while I'm sitting on a bus.

It doesn't let me type in only lowercase letters though, as is my normal style.

To be honest, the only reason I'm writing this entry is to see whether this phone has the same layout problems that my last one did in transfer from handset to internet. Pretty dull for you guys.

Yep.

it was a very good year

yes, it's 2008. the year i become older than i ever thought i'd be. and it's the time of year when you look back at last year and mull over how goodish it were. then you look at the year ahead and wonder how goodish you can make it be.

as for last year:
i took an amazing trip across eurasia, ran a youth theatre event for some amazing kids, i bought a massive jeep, kissed some mighty fine ladies, didn't crash ANY vehicles, bought an expensive suit, got drunk & smoked with my equally sober best friend, spent a great deal of time with my wonderful friends, stood up to my boss, went to at least one gig every month, worked through tonsillitis, threw caution to the wind a good few times, ate a snake....

it'll be a tough one to beat, but to encourage a good beating this year i plan to:
1 get a new job
2 have two proper holidays
3 throw caution to the wind a good few times
4 marry each one of you in turn
5 seize every opportunity to do good stuff
6 discover a new favourite band
7 wear hats a lot
8 see my wonderful friends more

quite generic, i know, but... whatever

if i can pull off 5 of those 8, i will consider it perfection.

one down

i am legend

his face is familiar. as he climbs from a silver car an earring glints in the lights, flickering like a strobe. he smiles at no-one and smooths down a crease in his jacket. calmly he hides a wince as the december cool pokes a finger under his shirt with exploratory depth. acting, i guess.

hollywood teeth.

i expect he has spent most of the day in front of a mirror with a thousand well paid amazons stroking and carving and licking where possible. there is a response in the area that i don't quite understand. i spend the next ten minutes pondering it as i walk away, buffeted by latecomers desperate to glimpse his million dollar smile or his pristine wife.

they could just wait for tomorrow's edition of london lite, if they could stand the words.

it is noisy back there, and camera flashes are busy using up expensive batteries. it must be a little weird for him.
sometimes.
if he thinks about it.

i'm no superman

he thinks he's clark kent or something. hair, glasses, suit and tie all measure up. There is a giveaway though. underneath it all, he's a couple of feet shorter than me and about half as wide.

his tie is left only half done like he was in mid-change in a phonebox when he got the call from the tube.

it may be a fake tan, but i'm not so sure. he seems the type though.

if it were twenty years ago he'd be shouting down a big grey breeze block of a phone, struggling with the weight of its solid polycarbonate aerial. this would continue even into the tube system to keep everyone in the know about his business expertise, wealth and self-belief. today, instead, he covers the cover of his spy book with a dorothy perkins bag.

he maintains a puffed up chest in order to make him appear bigger and more solid. the breath control needed for this results in a constant look of concern.

big

he is enormous. before we settle in opposite seats we stood by each other with him towering above me as far as the roof allowed. tall and wide and thick. he has grown his hair long, thrown carelessly into an elastic banded horses tail.

i count 10 badges on his donkey jacket, each a weird tribal or comic book design apart from one pink ribbon. one has fallen off leaving just safety pin and some glue.

his head is slightly over sized for his features. his eyes are no where near symmetrical.

he is studying a badly written paper that will have been handed to him by some guy dressed in purple. there is an ironic smirk on his face as if to say "these guys are terrible journalists, but this is a free paper."

his fingernails are long and his arms are more hairy than average.

who are you?

there is a split straight through his thumbnail, looks like he has taken a sharp knife and slowly & carefully sliced a ruler straight line from base to tip. dark brown dried blood marks it out.

it is not worrying him. he sits with legs wide apart, a large sized paperback open on his lap and his arms following the direction of the pages so his elbows stick out beside him and into the burgundy haired woman on one side.

the book is old, second or third hand from an old musty bookshop or riverside table sale. if the bookmark tells the truth; he is a fast reader and has zipped through maybe a hundred pages on this journey.

i think he is an artist. there is a tiny speck of paint on one trouser leg and none of his clothes match.

i never get to see what book he is reading, he dives from the train at the last moment before the doors close at kings cross.

girl, interrupted

She finds reasons to avoid reading her novel. Constantly she picks it up, reads a line or two and places it back on her leatherette handbag with the relief snakeskin pattern marked out by grease stains. Gabriel Garcia Marque one hundred years of solitude is written on its cover. She attempts to look interested as she skims over a story that skims over a family skimming through time.

With her topcoat buttoned high and her dry straw hair doing their best to cascade over her shoulders; there is but a glimpse of a victorian blouse.

She looks intensely at the route map above my head. Then, with a sigh, heads back to dusty lands and tiresome generations.

She has a pointy face. All features lean forwards in a constant hasty distain. Her engagement ring looks homemade.

I wonder if anyone will ever notice me writing about them like this.

underground

He clutches an empty espresso cup, holding it near his face as though to smell the remaining frangrance. His hair is slick, ginger deadened by products fighting to hold it against his head.

He has clearly spent a great deal of time trimming his beard into its perfect shape.

He looks american.

Clothes betray each other. A red striped sports top, african necklace with the manufactured tooth of a pretend animal, Tight jeans hold things in place and bulge awkwardly when he crosses and uncrosses his legs. The biggest contradiction covers his feet in enormous black leather and
metal boots, all buckles and studs and architectural steel structures.

Black ray-ban shades are proudly displayed, resting on his forehead and each time he removes them to clean last five minutes dust he reveals two temporary ray-ban scars just above his eyebrows.

His eyes are dark. Like a raven.

jazz, delicious hot, discusting cold

rare it is, that a band is greater in the flesh than on the disc.

before cutting the vinyl you can bend and sway the voice, edit the eclectic keyboard, re-drum the faulty drum. steppe by steppe you can piece together a puzzle of good versions with a PC or MAC until your track be perfect. e'en a bad lady recording of girls out-loud miss-firing and stuttering like a spoilt collection of old bangers can be spoon fed into a computer box like an EVENTIDE MODEL H3000-B, H3000-B+ and B/LT ULTRA HARMONIZER®, and everything can be pitch-perfecticided.

this happens pop-freaks. deal with it.


but the run-of-the-mill can be replaced. thankful, i am. now & again you can be jumped upon by a pack of musical hounds with talent falling from every stitch. duke special runs and jumps into this category with by far the best live act i have come across. whilst their music on the compact disc is a fine rendition, you haven't grasped the duke and his merry band of merry men until you've merrily leaned upon their stage.

i miss them when they're gone. i first encountered them at a little known music festival in cheltenham about 4 years ago and desperately attempted to get everyone i knew to join me as the gig slid. they couldn't. some of them were hundreds o' miles away. but then begun my love affair with duke special.

duke special is led by himself, the duke. strongly irish husky tones surrounded by eyeliner and dreads atop a bright red military coat, pouring out unique rocky folky da-da and a hint of mesmerinsing heart. the duke is backed up by a tiny plethora of personable musicians each more talented than the man before and after him; and picking up more than their body weight in different instruments over the course of the evening. a recent addition to the team is that of ben castle on soprano/alto/bass saxomaphone, trumpetteering, clarinet, vox and all round gentrification. yes, he is roy castle's son.

for me personally, and not surprisingly most other audience, the shows are completed by the drummer. no ordinary drummer this. a man who has taken to calling himself "temperance society chip bailey" fulfils the da-daist regions this band ventures into. a phenomenal drummer and percussivist, with a set of snares and toms and cymbals and woodblocks and weird hitty things that would rival a dusty bric-a-brac shop, this ol' chap performs the music.

duke special on stage is an act of theatre.

and there is the music; opening up a soul-wrenching world of fantasy, original, orchestral walls of noise, playful to the end, cutting lyrics and - dare i say it? - beautiful tales of love and hope and the people who have both and neither.

i love this band. go and see them. buy and hear them. they are like nothing you've seen before or will ever see again and they make the world a little bit better.

tequila!

why is the most beautiful girl in any club trying to sell me a small
expensive drink?

new slang

the shins' albums are a collection of songs that can envelop you and coax you into feeling all warm & cosy with wistful unexplainable melodies and nostalgia and thoughts of charlotte from your year 9 art class whose eyes were like moonlit lakes. listen to them and "they'll change your life" as natalie portman's character says in Garden State.

the shins hardly ever tour, and tickets to their gigs are as hard to come by as a date with the aforementioned charlotte (or natalie portman for that matter - even more's the pity). However my good buddy 'the whackwit' fluked some earlier this year & I managed to step out of work early enough to sample a pint of swedish pear cider before they played.

much as i love their recordings, i have to say i was a little disappointed by the live show. i suppose i was hoping for that enveloping sound, i was hoping to stand in a room of music swaying slowly with my eyes closed in a room of sober, like-minded individuals. not so my friend, not so.

there seems to be a tendency that when bands like the shins perform live, they feel they need to 'liven' up their music, make it noisier and apparently more exciting. it's a shame, because the reason I like them is precisely for the mellowed demeanour of their recordings. if you distort the guitars and put the volume to 11, you destroy the mellow, and replace it with something resembling a bad cover band. though I hate hate hate to say it about a band that I otherwise love, that's a bit like what happened here.

perhaps slightly more unforgivable was the performance itself. the chaps pretty much bluntly refused to engage with the audience, simplifying the show to standing there and churning out the music with next to no personality showing through, bar david hernandez on guitar who jumped about a bit. i love this band, but sad to say it, left this gig feeling a little bit cheated.

working nine to five

just a little message to all my loved ones:

i'm sorry i haven't really been very responsive of late and haven't replied to any emails or text messages very much or at all. it's not that i'm actively ignoring you, it's just that i've been at work. "at work?" i hear your questions, "but surely there are evenings and weekends that you could've spent not ignoring me.."

nope. i've been working evenings and weekends too. it's stupidly busy here at good old central hall, busy like a hungry cannibal in an asylum. unfortunately the stupidity will continue for about another four weeks, but after that i'll be able to have some sort of social life again and actually meet up with you. so that'll be nice. if you do happen to see me please forgive the way i look, i probably haven't slept.

hope to see you soon, i miss you all. cheerio for now.