Random Day Off

Hooray! Rose tea, McVities plain chocolate digestives and Frasier repeats.

Bollo's Audition

Brilliant.

Cat Alarm Clock

My friend George sent me this ages ago and I only just got around to watching it, and it really made me laugh...

Circle Line (ish)

We braved the infamous Circle Line Pub Crawl (warning; offensive design) in celebration of Richard's 30th on Saturday, which was lots of fun until we flaked quite rubbishly. Richard seemed to like our t-shirts, which I was quite relieved about, but of course I was scrutinising the printing. I think I should've made the superman bit purely block colour and it would've printed a bit thicker.

It just so happened to coincide with The Lord Mayor's Show which was interesting, although I'm not sure I'd bother making a special trip to see it without the distraction of a pub crawl. But then I'm not hugely into marching bands or unidentifiable fancy dress (despite what some of you may have seen on facebook). We had a nice leisurely start in Westminster's The Red Lion (?) and on to Embankment's cute Ship & Shovel and Temple's cavernous Walkabout, in between taking some photos of the bands and floats preparing to start.

Then on to The Blackfriar at, erm, Blackfriars, lunch at Wetherspoons at Tower Hill, a slightly scary place in Aldgate, a gin bar at Liverpool Street, a 60's concrete box at The Barbican, The Castle at Farringdon, O'Neills at Kings Cross, and our final was a really nice place around the corner from Euston Square, but fairly inevitably I can't remember what it was called. It had nice beer though.

Who did this creepy child grow up to be?

Seriously, this must've been Photoshopped, right? I mean that's a SCARY child. Mind you, bit of a scary grown-up too.
See this one and more here.

Sightseeing Weekend

Mom, Dad, Any, Mandy and Vicki, originally uploaded by ant217.

We had Ant's parents, sister and her boyfriend over to stay last weekend, and as Mandy and Andy had never had a proper walk around London before we took the opportunity to do lots of touristy things. We did possibly underestimate the sheer distance we were going to be walking but it worked out ok, with a pub stop at the Tattershall Castle along the way and the goal of a curry at the end of it. So after a quick run around the Science Museum we jumped on a bus to Green Park, had a nice Autumny walk down to Buckingham Palace, on to Trafalgar Square (where we saw lots of people protesting to keep the NHS free, whilst standing outside pubs drinking and smoking... hmm) Whitehall, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the pub, a walk along the South Bank down to Tower Bridge, and a curry. Phew. I feel exhausted again just typing it. It was really nice to see everyone at once (not to mention unusual!) and we didn't even get told we should be buying a house too many times. And Chris was nice enough to help fix my poorly car which had seemingly had an argument with it's clutch cable. All made up now.

Idlewild

This week I got to see Idlewild play a fantastic gig for the second time. The first time was when they were touring their second album, nearly ten years ago, and it was my first gig (I think!) - it was a bit shoutier than their more recent albums but then I think I was too. I got to Wolverhampton Wulfrun with my friends in time for the doors to open at 7pm, and I think we were a bit confused by the fact they didn't come on 'til gone 9. I still have the t-shirt I bought too, although I think it might be right at the bottom of one of my wardrobes with a lot of other things I don't wear but don't want to throw away, like my V99 t-shirt and my bright purple Garfield t-shirt with 'Florida!' on it (should probably point out that that's quite a bit older...).

But anyway, back to the subject, they were fantastic, and as they're now touring their Greatest Hits (hope that's not an omen - apparently more to do with their parting ways with Parlophone before making Make Another World) they played a huge range of stuff, some which I'd forgotten I even knew, as my Captain and Hope Is Important cassettes wore out, oo, about 8 years ago and I never quite got round to replacing them (rubbish I know). And I'm pretty sure they played it better than they did last time. They do seem to have evolved into almost 2 bands now though - one that's more connected to how they started, more, well, shouty, and one that's a bit more... Virgin Radio I guess. They do both really well, but I thought they just looked like they were having far more fun jumping around shouting. And they even brought their own little carpets in order to make the jumping around (with no shoes on) a bit more cosy. Which is nice.

Official site
myspace
wiki

Kew in October

It's feeling properly Autumnal now, so going to Kew on Saturday was a bit different to usual (although in a good way). It's even more beautiful at the moment than normal, and it helps me to exorcise that feeling I get at this time of year when I want to run around taking photographs everywhere I go (so I took about a zillion). I thought these little trees looked a bit like hearts with their red leaves. Aaah. How lame of me.

James Blunt Funny Shocker

I'm so confused now.

Deck-Chairs in October

Enjoyed a lazy walk around Hyde Park on Sunday on an unusually hot day for October - T shirt weather! It was great, the Park looks beautiful at the moment with the leaves just starting to turn, although it was a little bit odd to see people sunbathing on deckchairs amongst brown fallen leaves.

Learning New Things

Dog on a bike, originally uploaded by Sailing ( Ronn ) "El Viaje".

I'm learning how to put my website together. Something new! Very exciting. I'm quite tired now though (blogging at gone 11 on Saturday night? loser!), so I'll keep it short and sweet. Surfice to say, it's going to be very simple, and it's going to take me aaaaages. So you won't see it for a while. I think I'm (slowly) getting it though. I love how instant it all is, something which really frustrates me about working in print (or really, working for print and then sending artwork away and seeing the results a week or two later). So short of going out and buying my own printing press - something I would LOVE to do but I'm not sure either my landlord or my boyfriend would be particularly pleased about as it would pretty much completely fill any remaining space in our flat (before promptly falling into the flat below. Then the flat below that.) - this is as instant as I'm going to get really. If you don't count polaroids. Oh, well, you know what I mean...

The Apples

Ok, ok, I know the whole bands doing unlikely cover-versions thing is getting a little tired now, but this one really is completely amazing. I you like Rage Against The Machine, and you like trumpets, you'll love The Apples.

Buy/Listen here. (And is that really a comment from Mark Ronson?)
theapplesmusic.com
myspace

DJs With 60 Years Experience

The weekend saw an impromtu trip home for some yummy home cooking, force-feeding of cake and a (slightly) cheaper haircut. Lucky I managed to kind a Toni&Guy hairdresser who didn't have terrifying hair herself (although she did have fluorescent pink nail-tips).

It's always a bit like walking into a little time-warp going back to Cannock. I don't think I've heard as much dance music all year as I heard this weekend. And it's not just the bars & pubs - even down to over-hearing car stereos, walkmans and in every shop and, well, hairdressers. My small collection of entertaining club/bar flyers has been somewhat extended though. Perhaps I'll have to turn it into a flickr group now that I have all of 3. Apparently a DJ with 60 years experience is something worth advertising! It was great to catch up with S, and overall quite a fun night out (it's a lot easier to have fun there when you know you can leave again) apart from perhaps the odd intervention of a guy who seemed genuinely confused that we were having a nice time and even, yes, laughing. Now he was fairly drunk (or should I say, "tu-be faaairr, 'e wuz a bit drunnk"), but nevertheless it did make me feel a little bit sad, that he was so obviously so frustrated and bored by the place and yet it didn't seem to have occured to him to leave. Poor, strange man. Oh well, at least it will be quite amusing for my friends now that I'm once again over-pronouncing all my vowels.

Feist

Feist's gig at the Shepherds Bush Empire the other night was really fantastic. Not the best venue for a 'standing still' kind of gig (if you're in the stalls, anyway) as it means you only really get a view of the ceiling unless you're 7ft tall. Which I am not. But the sound is great in there.

She played a little bit of Broken Social Scene but pretty much stuck to her solo work. 1234 predictably brought down the house - and I suspect that quite a number of the audience were only there to hear that one song - and at times you could have heard a pin drop between lyrics. The balance was much the same as on the album - mostly fairly simple, honest, somewhat downbeat songs punctuated with a few more upbeat songs, so it didn't get monotonous. My Moon My Man is still definately my favourite song though, it has a great video too (albeit owing a little in inspiration to OK GO);


The point where she invited a random audience member on stage to play the piano did seem a little odd, although it all became clear when he went on to read out a really sweet poem ending in the line, "Lauren, will you marry me?" at which point I think the audince made the most noise it did all night. She said yes... a suitably romantic highlight to a captivating gig.

website
myspace

Lameness

The History Boys

The first quiet weekend for months, time to buy a winter coat, counting the weekends 'til Christmas - it must also be time to start DVD-ing again. The first of this year's Autumn/Winter film fest was The History Boys, adapted directly from the play by Alan Bennet. So needless to say it was great. It was really really great. And isn't the poster lovely? Obviously it's for the play rather than the film (which had a garish lime green, fish-eye lens concoction) but as it's even the same actors I think I can get away with it.

Fraggle 7

On BOATS! Yes, boats. Very romantic idea, not quite so in reality - bunk beds, cold piddley shower, days of breathing nothing but diesel. Ah, the open canal. But at least I didn't have to do my hair. It was nice to spend lazy days sailing through countryside, although a bit odd that we all kind of split up for most of the weekend - I'm used to Fraggle being 1 giant free-for-all. There were so many of us (27) that we had to heve 3 boats - 2 10-berth boats (namely the 'party boat' and the 'sleepy boat') and one super-luxurious 6/8-berth one that was brand new. As this was the only one to have a decent shower I absconded on Sunday morning to steal it, only to get my comeuppance when that boat made me feel very seasick.

Saturday was pirate day, which was hilarious for a little while, and then we kinda forgot what we were wearing and wondered why people on passing boats were looking at us funny. I was quite pleased with my glamorous sequined eye-patch. Kinda 'Vegas-pirate'. Yarrrrr!

All that fresh air and beer meant we were all pretty rubbish at up-keeping the party-boat's reputation and sloped off to bed not too long after midnight. We did try though. Katy and I even had plans to stay up and watch the sun come up - genius idea! Until we realised that was about 7 hours away and, well, we were kinda tired... We did have lots of fun photographing rude symbols drawn with my torch first though.

Rachel and I were the only girls on our boat (of 11) so we did have a bit of 'boy-smell' to contend with - funny how if you get 9 blokes together in a confined space, even if none of them smell individually the space will still smell of SMELLY BOYS. And I think Rachel found herself with a slightly dis-proportionate amount of cooking duty (sorry Rachel - I did have to clean the whole boat Monday morning if that makes up for it) but that was no bad thing for the rest of us with a feast of Penne Ala Sausage. We were all very glad we hadn't gone to the pub.

Sunday lunch at a nearby pub - obviously Hungry Horse pubs cater more for the 'quantity' and less for the 'quality' (although the Sticky Toffee Pudding was great stodge) and I did feel myself turning into a bit of a snob when the table next to us was filled with 3 teenage mums; one of them had a little boy with her that must've been about 7, and was really good actually, although that was a small miracle after being around those 3 all his life. After a long-winded conversation about their respective beat-up/make-up relationships, the conversation turned to who each of them was planning to beat up next and why ("she was well givin' me evils") and then finally their choice of vibrator and how long they lasted until they 'burned out' (??!!). All in front of the little 7 year old boy. Who then desperately throws some food on the floor in a bid to get some attention. Which he doesn't. Scary and sad.

Small But Perfectly Formed

Yesterday I went to see Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan at the British Museum.
It was a small exibition but fantastically beautiful. It was a really nice group of pieces actually, enough for a 'wow' factor but restrained enough not to be over-doing it, as if saying "we're really proud of these pieces, but of course there's a lot more where that came from". Which I've no doubt there is. A place where creative and craft skills and pure hard work are rewarded as much as concept and delivery, Japan seems to be really good at nurturing its artist community, designating the most accomplished Living National Treasures.

I found the Kimono/textile artists particularly inspiring. In a short interview one of them explained that he had considered what he could do with a kimono to make it different, more special. He realised that he shouldn't change the simple shape because that is part of why it's special - if you change the shape once then you will change it again and again striving to make it better, and it becomes like any other clothing. The simple shape of the kimono lets the textile speak for itself. Texile designs are produced by various laborious methods, including woodblock printing with a 2" square block, dyeing individual strands of hand-spun silk and then weaving together to create complicated (and perfect) geometrical patterns, and stencil dyeing, all done completely by hand.


Tokuda Yasokichi III - Bowl, 'Genesis' (Sosei), porcelain with vivid coloured glazes (yôsai), 1991. On loan from the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
This was beautiful - a coloured glaze bowl that apparently went wrong, so the artist then re-fired it at higher temperature and the stripey effect appeared - "a gift from the gods. Or an accident." Luminescent, and perfect. Perfection seemed to be a theme that runs through each and every piece actually. It's the only word for it.

I'm getting old

I'm a member of Kew Gardens. Yes, really. Lovely scones.

A full 12 months in anticipation of when I finally manage to save up enough money for a lovely DSLR, and I will be completely obsessed with taking photos. More than I am now.

Oh no, I'm getting behind already...

Well, 2 weeks ago now was George's surprise-ish birthday. It was a fantastic weekend - I actually managed to get her the frame she wanted, the weather was good, camping was manageable, and there was just generally a lot of eating, drinking and dog-fussing. The freebie tent Ant pinched from work stuck out a bit, I hadn't actually thought it through very well and only after pitching realised she was obviously going to know whose it was from half a mile down the road! Oh well, she seemed surprised....

V festival

I spent last weekend at V festival with Chris and Denise (and Anthony for a few fleeting moments). I'm still pretty knackered from camping so I'll keep it short. ish.

Foo Fighters - fantastic, always are. Odd that they started the set with Everlong though, I don't think the set was quite as good as this one at the Isle of Wight last year. But then again the hair was much much better. Swings and roundabouts.
Just Jack - I wasn't expecting to particularly like or dislike, but actually he was great. A brilliant opener, he got everyone dancing around and up for a party. Until The Proclaimers came on and completely deflated everyone again that is. Ugh.
Juliette and The Licks - otherwise known as That Band What Juliette Lewis The Actress Is In, were really really good. Very un-celeb-ey you can definately see why she made the jump and did it properly (unlike the cringey bands that Bruce Willis/Keanu Reeves/many more dabble in). She is very thin. Not normal thin - LA thin. With white latex trousers and a red sequined feathered-mohican headdress, she looked sort of Vegas-Military I suppose. Very striking and extremely bendy.
Newton Faulkner - lovely, a bit shy and fantastically talented. He's only had 1 single but I think he's going to be really popular. His cover of Massive Attack's Teardrop was a predictable crowd-pleaser but nontheless, somewhat breathtaking with his guitar-clunking skills.
Ghosts - zzzzzzz
The Wombats - great, energetic, playful, brilliant songs. They reminded me a bit of We Are Scientists, another hugely energetic 3-piece not taking themselves too seriously. It's nice to have some personality along with good songs. Surprisingly uncommon at times.
Mr Hudson & The Library - I only knew 1 of their songs but I liked every single one they played. Unusual and definately different from the glut of 'The..' bands. I'd definately buy gig tickets for these guys. Loads of them. And bully all my friends into going (so watch it).
Jet - dissapointingly dull.
The Hoosiers - only saw their acoustic set but they were good, not sure wether the 'cheeky chappies' routine will get a bit grating but we'll see. Love their single, a great pop song.
Plan B - not usually my cup of tea, wouldn't be rushing out to buy it but I can appreciate that he's a great artist, his performance was faultless and very engaging. Angry Young Man.
Cherry Ghost - zzzzzzzz
The Cribs - wasted guitarist/singer yet entertaining. Was he sick behind his amp at the end maybe? He crouched down behind it for no apparent reason.
KT Tunstall - is much smaller than I thought she was. Little and petite. Very good also.
McFly - got a lot of people dancing who I wouldn't have expected to (including myself), especially when teamed with Al Murray.
See it here.

I've never been a diary-keeper...

...but I also have a frustratingly bad memory, so hopefully I'll be able to keep this up. Stay tuned to be bored by the minutiae of my life. And the interesting bits too. Sometimes.
You'll still be able to see design-related guff and pretty pictures over here.