All entries for August 2006

Bout to watch La Regle de jeu

So Me and Bex have been having a great summer, obviously she's doing a lot more work than mygoodself but I'm doing tons of admin and getting into some things I've been meaning to for some time such as the NO2ID volunteering and concerted Shamanic meditiation. We've had 2 excellent fun weekends so far, first with raving last weekend (definately to be repeated) and this weekend with a trip up to her neck of the woods where we played boardgames and drunk wine with her buddies up there. Next weekend we're going to Reading festival which should be ace. I have to organise us some camping equipment and my journey to the site (probs hitting up a nice bit of train with the rest of the plebs ;–). There's some excellent acts on and I figure if i avoid the main stages I'll avoid the bulk of the drunken 20 somethings. Scary tho is a repeat of last year's festival experience weather wise. It's possibly going to be very rainy. poopy.

We played a great game called Scotland Yard which requires all the players to chase one other player (the murderer) around london using a limited number of puplic transport tickets. I pointed out that we were the police so why should we have to pay for travel and then the obligitory Oyster card jokes were made. Woo. I even got to draw a pom bear on Bex' friend Pat's arm: I reckon it's pretty accurate.

Before Bex took me up to Harpenden I went to hang out at Foxy's which was banterful, we had Ask pizza and caught up, it was especially great to catch up with Ellyiot who I hadn't seen in ages as I'm at uni and he lives on the Isle of Mann (methinks) and it was great also to meet his girlfriend who is a primary school teacher so that was good to learn about. It was also cool to see Foxy's sister Juliet who had gone to the Cambridge folk festival and was taking up the fiddle and who had a new lovely dog called Lucy who was all black and fluffy. We attempted to play some Frisbee while they went on a walk in the park but it was quite short lived as it began raining pretty hardcore. Anyway it was really nice and Bex popped around the next day to join us for breakfast and to take me up the road to her home where I had a nice day chilling and reading (and getting scared by a few minutes of Bid tv and Quizcall and qvc type bollocks, god those are evil and stupid).

My "lil" cousin Tom came to visit a few days ago and we had a nice time going to the cinema etc, it was too short and i didn't get as much of a chance to hang out as i would have liked but I think he had an ace time and was totally street wise getting around london amazing ease and on a tight budget.

IN this pic we randomly took on a bus you can see dartmouth features behind on a sign, weird as Tom comes from Devon.
Tom's friend Jack discovered the source of the smell so i leapt into Super cleaner mode:

Here's me with the discovered source of the putrid smell. Literally it smelt like someone had taken a dump in the chest of a recently exhumed Syd Barrett.

I put the maggot plate into a polystyrene box and sealed it up. it was totally disgusting and just thinking about it makes me want to vom.

Yeah this was fun, I hope you're not eating as you read this! I've safely stored the box at the back of the garden. I dont want to deal with it but i shall before my rents return home. The first day i put it out there something opened the box and i think the maggots got eaten by birds or turned into flys. Ohh exciting.

Yesterday after we came back to London and I dropped off Becky's Reading provisions at mine I came back out to London to meet Karim. We were going to go to a south American music festival but it was apparently crap so we went to brick lane instead. It was really nice, we had a beer in the City Beach which was totally lovely.
We hung out here for a while catching up on all the goss and general chatting which was ace. Becky then appeared on the scene with lovely Warwick thesp Hester. It had begun to rain so we went over to the 1001 club and grabbed a bigol' chicken burger and some shelter. It was great and chatterful. We started chatting to a delightful Santa Cruzian guy called Aerial who was overstaying on his visa and concluded he was a political refugee, good call as far as i'm concerned. A reall cool guy who i hope to see again, and hey the more people I know in Santa Cruz the more reason to return. Hest said how much she liked meeting Karim and how coming to hang and meeting a mate o'mine secured me in her esteem which was real nice of her to say. She's down from the north; Crumbleton? anyway and she's doing NYT stuff so that's cool.

Talking of thespy things and theatre I finally booked tix to see James Sanderson's play at the Globe and a bunch of Planet heads will be coming, yay for £5 tickets, and we'll get to dance with him as we do every month but in a performance context!
Last night we ate a lovely omlette Bex made and watched bleak as you like Ian Holm film; The Sweet Hereafter, it was too much at one point and we had to save the last half hour but it was fucking bleak, incest, school bus crashing, hicks, heroin taking daughters and broken carwashes, oh and lawyers. It better end sweetly or else.
Now i better get on with planning ho to get to Reading and what we're gonna sleep in when we get there. Tomorrow I'm probs going to do some more structured meditation and on Wednesday I'm going to do my first day of volunteer work at NO2ID in Vauxhall (just beyond Planet Angel woo!)

So all goes well even if it's only pretending to be summer. I'm brimming with love and it's all good from all angles which you might think would be rare, but it aint so there, why should it be? :–)

: 21 Aug 2006 16:17 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

yay rant stuff

George Bush is a dick–head & the Israeli president recently made it explicit that his attack on Hezbollah and the Lebanese people is really just posturing to Iran and Syria. What a disgusting and obvious admittance of collective punishment.

Israel is asking the US for cluster bombs (possibly the least surgical weapons in military use) and the US is likely to approve the request, but funnily enough the Israeli government will not allow a 3 day humanitarian truce. FUCK THESE ACTIONS!
Phew! That steam wants to be let off but it just aint going to happen soon, not in our totalitarian world regime. Health and Safety is no excuse for DeMenzes’ murder! Mexico’s elections are fixed. Our protests are ignored or censored! Many of those in power should be arrested for war crimes and for glorifying state terrorism. WHAT ABOUT IRAQ?!?! It’s a civil war there! WHAT ABOUT PALESTINE!?!?! Are we just used to this injustice??? Do not paint our fellow human beings, our Muslim friends as “fascists” George Bush is a fascist and a moron–puppet, Tony Blair is a great public speaker and a fascist, our police are being used as the tools of the fascists. The press is being used to feed the climate and fear. Where is the positive and engaged reporting?

p.s. i feel well sorry for the BBC who get flack from both sides, but they are really towing the party line at the moment. geez

: 15 Aug 2006 18:32 |  Tags: Hezbollah Israel Lebanon Liars Politics |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

"Heroes in a house shell, Turtle Power!

So updation,
In the evening of the day after I got back to London I went to a seminar on careers in the television industry. It was really reassuring that the path I’m on is the correct one especially in showing me there is a ton of flexibility within the industry for me to direct my creative energies. I spoke to (and had a drink with) the speakers after the event and plan on keeping in touch for potential work experience and advice. I also got shown around the Camden Roundhouse’s facilities, they have a bunch of TV and music studio stuff all set up which looked well exciting.
On Thursday I met up with Jamie and Andrew from my film course. It was lovely to hang in Camden with them, we had some lovely tea on the roof of a café there which is gonna become a new favourite of mine methinks.
On the Friday I had a driving lesson (the first one since I failed my first test a couple of months ago) it was really good to get back to it and my instructor George said I may only need a couple of more lessons before my test which will be on the 4th of September.

As there was a Demonstration against the attacks on Lebanon on the Saturday I spent Friday night (and I mean the whole of it) listening to the radio, play lists and The Now Show while I constructed some extreme placards. I went along to the march with Marina, we bumped into a local activist (Zoyra) at the train station and I loaded her up with some of my constructions as I went a bit over the top and we couldn’t carry it all between the 2 of us. It was a really good demonstration with tons of people, we caught the tail end of the speakers, threw children’s shoes at Downing Street and other irreverent acts. I was knackered when all was said and done, lots of people congratulated me and said they appreciated the effort I put in on my placards etc.

On the Sunday I went to meet up with my ex Lucy for the Innocence Smoothy sponsored festival Fruit Stock. It was really cool, we bumped into my neighbour Bob who is the event organiser for Greenpeace, we munched some farmer’s market samples and then got some berries and salmon sandwiches etc. It was really sunny and hot, and it was good to see Lucy after such a long time although for we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things which as confusing and sad.
As we went our separate was I hung around Kings X waiting for Becky to come London ways, and coincidentally as I walked to WH Smugs I bumped into Fred who was going to a bar mitzvah he really didn’t want to go to (t’were his friend’s little bros). So I walked with him for a wee while just to the station.
It was great when Bex arrived and we walked all the way to Angel and we sat outside one of those nice pubs with a live band inside and had Coronas and caught up a bit which was beyond lovely.
On the Monday I tried to go to the video editing course I’d booked myself on but they had seemingly moved the day so that I missed it, lame. But I went home and did some various admin and then headed over to Foxy’s to catch up with him, Rob, Matt, Jordan, Gomes and Karim. It was quite brief but so good to see them all so well, also a good use of the travel card.

I popped into Fopp and Virgin when I missed one of my seminars and found “The Corporation” 2 disc special addition (with over 8 hours of extra material and weblinks) on DVD at discount price. You seemingly can’t even get it on Amazon. Hot stuff all in all, loads of Chomsky and other nutters.

Marina headed off for Petersberg, she's been great cooking up a Russian storm which i've been dutifully devouring (all except for the caviar, waaay too salty for me). Just before she left she put on a little do for her Russian friend which was lovely too especially mm cake.

Last Friday I had another driving lesson and it was really good, I’m going to have a couple more which should put me in good stead for the test which is at the start of September. Wish me luck. Later I went along to Downing St for another demo. Tony Blair was away (holidaying perhaps?) but we laid flowers and chanted etc. It was pretty well attended, we were cordoned to the other side of the road and this cordon was at least 100 metres long and it extended onto the road too. I went but I covered my face with a bandana and I wore my cowboy hat. I also took along the stick with a baby doll and barb wire/nuclear bomb hanging over her barb wire haloed head. Bex thought that in covering my face I was simply making myself look thuggish, I can kind of see where she’s coming from but in context I can think of lots of reasons to be covered up and in the context I also thought that it precluded any sense of thuggishness in comparison to the political thuggishness that we were protesting.
My main theory validating the wearing of a mask like that (apart from making it hard for the police to photo you, the statement you can make i.e. being part of a crowd & representing the cause of people who you aren’t and who can’t represent themselves like dead children, or to add an element of comedy or illustrate a link that may be unclear e.g. dressing like a cowboy of death etc) is that in an ideal society for which we should collectively strive I would have no fear of representing myself with my face, or to take that one step further streaking in the street, there would be no problem with that. But here I had to do something I that is not part of that ideal society or part of my nature (I’m not at my core an angry person). If I have to carry out civil disobedience against my will, to protest a tyrannical government that is supposed to represent me, which I engage with by voting I may have to do it masked against my will but not my better judgement. There were some great kids leading some chanting so I joined in behind them and there was also a very lively orthodox jewish contingent there too which was nice to see.
I crossed the road after the main flower laying occurred (I was too busy chanting) so I left my baby stick with the flowers which reinvigorated the photographers and then I took my flowers and I intended on throwing them over the gates of Downing street to land near a firearms officer (was that stupid? I don’t care I hate those fuckers, he could have been the one who killed DeMenzes, how do I know?) but in my anger and in being a crap sportsman I totally missed and hit what I suspect was a civil servant’s window. Then I skulked off. On the way into the train station I saw a couple coming up with flowers in their hands and I suspect they were heading for the demo too, not just being all lovey–dovey.
On the train back I slam off a quick poem about the event:

I’m a terrorist on the tube
Having scarpered from the scene
Of my latest act of terror
Publicity seeking demo
Face recognition frightens me
So I don Stetson and glasses
My act was decisive and swift
Flower grenade at Downing St
I swing but totally miss

I came back to Evering Road we bathed and Bex cooked some lovely stuffed peppers and we had some ace salad. We headed off later than we had planned to meet Will & Holly and their mate Jim. When we got there we made sure we had enough cash and went to a pub for pre club drinks and then we went to Planet after a wee catch up.
Planet was as per usual AMAZING! It was so nice to have Bex there, to introduce her to all the cool people there and it was cool to let Mitchell and Holly in on the greatness that is Planet. They all loved it big style, I mean how couldn’t you? Having them there, and seeing all of my mates there, made up for some slightly less than perfect elements, they were: boiling chill out areas, no music at all outside, one chill out area being cordoned off until two, the door between the funky room and the garden being closed, the thai bbq was not up and running, a not amazing (from my POV) band was on (too much shouting) during the Happening, and the misfortune to be cornered by a couple of fucked people but only for about 5 mins. I can understand why all of these were the case and none of them detracted from the excellent elements. The door had to be closed and the music was off because the outside backs onto some residential areas seemingly, the band I guess is to please those who find little hippie happenings not hardcore enough; you always seem them sculk off moodily to the trance room, so I guess that was an element of balance. The great things were. In no particular order; dancing with Becky, seeing all my buddies, recharging on massage and recharging other people (although I totally failed to sort Becky out with one properly), lovely lights and wall hangings, the vibe as always, 3’o’clock milky ways that you suddenly find hard to eat, some lovely UV/glow in the dark bracelets that a girl called Fuzzy gave me. I had some excellent games of Jenga with JW et al and we played some giant Jenga with some randomers (Bex lost as always, I’ve really got to teach her some technique ;–).
A bunch of people came back to mine dude to the free house (Foxy, Matt, Jordan, Will, Holly, Jim and Bex of course), we chatted to some others on the way and I found out a cool piece of info for JW, a psy trance event in Nottingham called Psycle (I found out because the guy who runs it is apparently my spitting image & also is called Alastair, wow!). When we got back to mine (around 8ish I guess) we chilled out, played on the Dreamcast (Soul Calibur & House of the Dead with lightgun) and had a little food before everyone retired for a long sleep. When I woke Will et al were leaving having been the first to bed and having the furthest to travel I guess. When we got up (probs around 5ish) everyone chilled out chatted, we ate pizza on the balcony, watched some cool online videos inc OK GO and some sweet scratch DJing, it was good too as Simon Bennet drove over and hung out for a good few hours, we got to catch up and see photo’s from a trip to Spain he made with Matt and Jorden and pics from the lake district trip they all made with Will and Emilia and Karim.
2 minutes after the guys leave I remember why I didn’t give JW the B–day card I had made him; which was my plan to get everyone to sign it, damn me! Och well, instead I wrote him a poem to put in it:

You are but you aren’t my brother and my cousin
We are strange ones from another planet
We parallel nicely but intersect splendidly
It is as well we arrive in two’s too
Forever you and I must walk together
To discuss, decipher and distil that which is true.

On Sunday Bex and I had a lazy day, we walked up to Stoke Newington to check out the charity shops, the best one was closed but we hit up some cool second hand bookshops and Bex got some books for her course which was cool. It was nice as ever to show Becky around where I live and she especially liked Stoke Newington even though we didn’t make it to the bests bits in my estimation which are Clissold park and the library. It rained for a little bit so we grabbed some shelter, Rosa from my course passed by so I grabbed her to say hi, I learned that she lived just off the high st there which was quite surprising, she lives in trendy–ville which I wouldn’t have thought of. On the way back we walked through the cemetery which was nice but a bit muddy on Bex new trainers. On the way back we stopped for roast dinner stuff from k–stores. We began cooking just before Tom and Jack arrived. The food and the company were lovely and Tom provided us with some scrumptious desert; strawberry roll and strawberry cheesecake. Mmmm mm.
Yesterday I bummed around at home doing the usual checking the news, reading, watching flash tutorials, little bit of guitar practice etc. In the evening I went out to meet the boys at Covent Garden, they updated me on all their happenings of the day and we went to get pizza and then we watched Eternal Sunshine in the Prince Charles.
So some thanks, life is pretty sweet, I’m surrounded literally and figuratively in my life by lovely people so thanks everyone for being who you are, where you are and how you are to me. Keep up the good work ;–) as if it doesn’t come natural. Thanks to all those putting good things/thoughts into the world and to those who try to correct the bad ones. Thanks for the time to engage with my experience properly. Thanks for the self knowledge which comes from somewhere perhaps from other people’s eyes. Thanks for food and shelter, thanks for music, thanks for windows (various) thanks for infinity. Thanks for creativity (have you noticed the abstract bent, ok back to the norm) thanks for public libraries. Thanks for K–stores and thanks for Hackney and London. Thanks for all the colour in my life and thanks for my strength and peace.

: 15 Aug 2006 18:27 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

France no etc

Here's some of the stuff I got up to on holiday in France w/my family:

Here's my grandad Eric playing crazy golf through a small villiage and when I say small I mean Lilliputian in proportions.

And here he is again chopping wood
Seriously he's like the terminator. He's got some cool Gnarly scars on him, one across the side of his body, one down the front of his chest to name but 2 and he kicked my ass at every game we played. Twice he was the winner of crazy golf, he's the table tennis champ and he won poker when it was just down to me and him at 1ish in the morning. Terminator!
tho i can't quite see the terminator wearing this hat:

We got some fishing rods and tried to fish but although I suggested we do it from a boat and make a chillum day of it we decided to fish off the side of this tidal break, so naturally our hooks got caught, here's Arch attempting to help mon oncle retrieve his hook and spinner. Archie is a wannabe yoga teacher by the way.

Jw assesses our fishing success

JW decides if we can't catch any swimming prey lets go for the flying targets (i jest i jest RSPB)

we did a bunch of cycling, to the beach and to go karting. We had great cycling weather on the days we went out which was bon bon.

Here's me and me mammy at the Karting track. I beat 8 people out of about 17, randoms and jw, and was only .5 of a sec behind the winner who was Alan. Lame!

But in revenge here is a picture of me knocking alan out of the poker game!

We had an ace time chilling in the house playing games (oh i suck bad at boggle too) watching movies (such as sexy beast, apocalypse now etc) and south park and various comedy bits and bobs.

We also ate damn well, lots of baggettes, novelty french cereal "miel pops"
and nice meats and gallettes.

The net there was a bit slow but i gotta say it was good to get away from the constant pressure (imagined tho it might be) to keep checking e–mails etc.

I did a lot of reading and read most the whole of Maupin Armistad's Tales of the City about 70's (i think) San Francisco. Twere great. I also read a lot of my thick Gaiman book "American Gods" and "fables and reflections" one of his graphic novels.

We slept till about midday every day which is a standard thing for being out there, it just feels wrong to be up in the morn unless you have the energy to cycle to the boulongerie to get breakfast bread.

here's me chilling with my bro on the View de Vix. We chilled out here taking photos and on one clear night we were out here stargazing with JW strumming a beautiful soundtrack, i hit archie up with a massage and there was the most amazing shooting star I ever did see, it cut the sky in two, it had an after glow and it looked like it had 3 trails or something, but bright like magnesium in a chemistry lab.

We got a ton of carembars and malabars, basically french gum and candy. the gum was cool and came with free rub on tattoos but was a bit crap for bubbles as it was bare sticky, espeicually with my 5 week shadow. Here's archie's trauma with it. funny tho.

There was lots of lovely nature around, this butterfly played with me and was well tame seemingly returning to me over and over on my calling it back, it even let me stroke it briefly. There was also a cricket which came into the house and posed very photogenically on the piano, Arch has some photos on his blog or flicker. There was an owl that hung out by the side of the road as we came back from a lovely meal at our friend's Auburge.
Here's a doggie that turned up apparently from the next village along, we used to have a dog called Fabius visit us from the farm next to us but alas now the farm is deserted and Fabius is dead, although it didn't occur in that order.

heres the meal that might have had something to do with attracting the dog, he did enjoy the ribs.

And here is the said deserted farm.

Here's pappy making a mockery of our fishing jaunts buying fish from a guy who has a fish van who comes round our way. a good selection of stuff, we had some ace prawns and muscles, and our restaurenteer friend brought around and bbq'd some ace macrel too.

Arch and Jw built this wall to protect me from the water (well thats how i interpreted the gesture) but the tide cut a gash in the protective wall and all was lost. We had some great times on the beach tho, chilling reading, swimming, snorkeling, body boarding etc.

The penultimate day begun with a trip to what is known as the car park beach, which now has a lifeguard post out of interest. We went to catch some waves as it was a rather blustery day. After going in for a while (and only really catching the last big wave, so worth it, due to my ankle which I buggered playing crazy golf would you believe?) we came out and wandered down the beach. I did some beach combing and found some lovely shells. We also climbed some rocks where you can usually find fools gold.We cruised on over to Sable D’Or and our new favourite bar Les Hamacs, that’s right a hammocks themed bar. Very chilled and we played some pool and we saw that it was good. We also discovered that Jw had burned his arms when cycling, it was funny as:

So the final day occurred after a bit of a sleepless night which was annoying, we got up early and everyone else went off to the beach and I chilled at home, cleaned up a bit and begun packing. We chilled at home, Eric beat me twice at table tennis and we had yet another slap up pick and mix lunch. The journey back wasn’t bad, JW and I crammed into the back of the Hertz rentacar with the lugguage jostling for position. The rest of the journey was uneventful except “new security measures” at Heathrow meant that passport control was long as. When I got home I settled in and moved into the room known as the sp’room.
I had such an ace time, really relaxed and looking back we actually did quite a lot of stuff.

Am tired now but it really was splendid and it was great to spend time with all the family, we were well fed and watered and loved. It was all much appreciated.

: 03 Aug 2006 02:24 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem