- fought - red - handed -

2009-02-22T20:15:00.003Z

listening to: motown

motown = motor town = detroit, a 1, a 2, a you know what to do.

this blog is now closed for business. i've been looking at other ones with pictures and music and that's what i'll get.

dont ideologise

2009-01-21T19:07:00.002Z

listening to: animal collective

the archetype of the 'unnatural' deviant, amplifying the practice of resistance through style.
equally oppressed by the seamless web of forms and meanings which encloses and yet excludes:
'i was astounded by so rigorous an edifice whose details were united against me. nothing in the world is irrelevant: the stars on a general's sleeve, the stock-market quotations, the olive harvest, teh style of the judiciary, the wheat exchange, the flower-beds,... Nothing. This order... had a meaning - my exile.'

Jarry's cult of subjectivity.

'disarticulate' language with ambiguity puns neoligisms cliches and words used for their morphophonetic rather than semantic content. characterize that world. gravitate towards an instinctual, anarchic nature. translate it by an aggressive discourse. constitute a revolt against traditional usages of language.

create a word, throw it around, a privileged entry into your lexicon because it applies to you and your universe. A simple word suddenly changed with mythic significance. (UBU has merdre and it is happily applied to people and objects in his universe, which really only exist in relation to himself. His officer is his 'garcon de ma merdre', his wife 'madame de ma merde'. Enamored of his pompe a merde, he informs his world with overflowing, obscene matter. -- this is not my universe, its jarry's)

change spelling: expand a word's field of connotation.

Where is the great metaphysical fear that roots all theatre?
The great metaphysical fear that can allude a human if you want it to.
An indestructible yearning to escape the routine and the commonplace.
Pataphysics.

'Notoriously addicted to individual liberty, as well as to ether, which became his major vice - it was cheaper than absinthe - Jarry determinedly stalked absolute freedom, even though it led him to self-destruction.'

Shooting glass bottles against a garden wall, a mother is concerned for her children. Should they come to any inadvertent harm, he says, I will happily assist you in making new ones.

I need to read H.G Well's the time machine.

In a society you consider profoundly mediocre, push your own existence to the absurd. fanatically exercise individual freedom.

'He ordered a complete dinner in reverse, beginning with brandy and ending with soup; he then ordered a small glass of red ink into which he dipped a piece of sugar - to be eaten with great relish - without deigning to notice the bewilderment of the restaurateur'.

A sole desire to astonish the common crowd, to manifest ferocious mockery in physical appearance.
If you reject the linear, do you turn instead to symbolism and magic?
And what does this mean, 'the identity of the return of the Same with absolute dispersion of man.' - Foucault?
art is either plagiarism or revolution?

Art now. Not the symbolic expressions of sympathy or the visualisation of a certain critique of the injustices in question. The point is to present solutions, create toolkits and do-it-yourself guides. allow disadvantageds to better their situation. this form of engaged art is marked by no-nonsense, its realism: if you are not striving for immediate improvement in the fate of the victims, you have no right as an artist to produce great art.
the stakes of art are immeasurable.

i have been trying to gauge what changes between the feeling of fullness and the feeling of swirling despair! the change from self-satisfaction to self-deprication. the necessary flux. the disconnection of the modern world i do believe in. that the modern world is a beautiful thing i believe too.

there may once have been a place of light
where a god not made by man took flight

a lonely voice of descent in a generation and a common cry of madness. come to the conclusion that society sucks. you hate society? go and buy a gun and shoot yourself! you need money to buy a gun. the great importance of descent! i want to find truth and meaning in life! is that so corny?
spring from the margins.
dostoyevsky - notes on the underground
i read a piece, arthur rimbaud: the aesthetic of intoxication
you drink so much the next day you feel mortal. each ache and pain reminds of the possibility of a greater pain that never goes. twenty two, twenty two, i must avoid death!
liberate the word: be the bravest of the brave. with open acceptance i hope to propel these ideas, these people!

don't you occassionally feel the urge to embrace all these things?
oh my darling i am not overly critical. i don't like to criticise where people try
we all use our energies in different ways
some expel it in spitballs of scorn: what is not good deserves it
others nod, or half smile:
i accept what you do
i suppose i act to conserve it
the impetus to try.
i like though that you can define what's good and not
just know it's in my character to accept most things
to listen
to what does not correlate to a lack of passion
your integrity is my integrity.

a systematic arrangement of the senses
the senses are illogical forms
shatter them
well done surrealism
"thou shalt not be such a shit you don't know you are one"
why do you write?
do you sometimes wake from this dream and feel you are inhabiting yourself for the first time?
oh its so good to lose the internet
to feel connected with poets painters
transluscent treehouses
opulescent
the psycho-chemical age: overturned
pedal to the floor
nose stuck in the door
a seatbelt wrapped around my jaw
this is not a car crash
society includes non-human people
stop calling old people stupid
stop laughing at tv programmes

i want to move away from here but i can't just yet and so the most important thing i think is not to get overly comfortable and not to get upset. this may seem mad to you, to carry on when you know something isn't quite right. but i also feel that if you start something, there is merit in finishing it.
brief existence. emotionally rich, don't let it not be rich
the policeman is there not to create order
the policeman is there to preserve disorder
seeing people bursting with energy!!
the things i shall allow myself:
a love to listen
i like basketball
i like to buy postcards and visit treasure houses
try to take every illegal drug once a year
its not a tragic death.
what are your hopes, your aspirations?
is it important to make these clear?
to not be mundane.
working with children teaching them standardised skills of mathematics
is this mundane?
is that mundane?
keep carving out a consciously unreal place to never stay too long in.
i want absinthe. i want to be in an unmarked grave.
i believe in tenderness.
a dionysian movement in late civilisation
don't ideologise,
don't deny the pure.
the most important things:
type written pages
submissive to everything?
in love with life
be crazy
write what you want bottomless
the unspeakable visions of the individual
i understand and i want to understand more

last words: i know i should be frightened, but im exhilerated
your eyes are still looking for jesus
you make the world beautiful

this'll be around forever wont it

2008-11-12T23:38:00.000Z

listening to: elvis costello

'when do you come into contact with children?!'
'when i go to the playground'

the secret massage room

2008-04-20T10:10:00.000Z

listening to: neil diamond - the pot song

last night:

the secret massage room.

i had been sworn to secrecy and told to stay in a cupboard. the comedian had demanded that no one should know he was there. i jumped out of the cupboard and the swinging of the door open knocked him square in the head. it was michael caine and he was supposed to be getting married, but how could i let his wife marry him while knowing that tash had given him a naked massage in the secret massage room at the boys college sports centre. i had made a lot of people very angry through bursting out of the cupboard; sarah had said whatever i did i must stay in that cupboard. i picked up my speed and as i ran away i got covered in wet gravel and plastic bags and the gravel felt like the stuff the salvia made me roll in at oxegen festival. there were children outside the sports centre with strong bristolian accents telling me how good holly was and did i realise it. i made it into the church and found myself on a pew with sarah cleaver. i was still covered in scratchy gravel. two young black girls with reaaaaaally long legs like betty spaghetti and long stretched jumpers were dancing either side of the priest and the couple waiting to be married. i was trying to edge my way out of the pew. i relaxed when i realised that an objection (i think by janine) had already been made to the marriage.
--

the teachings of don juan

2008-02-04T08:30:00.000Z

listening to: radio 4 - the today programme

so many so many thoughts last night and all through the day riding for hours through amager and already reading 80 or so pages of the teachings of don juan. that book got me so excited,

so excited that when the dog kept appearing, around every corner in christiania, this big, black dog, around every corner it seemed Mescalito.

and how excited i am calming down for a while with some things to do. and how early in the morning i'm awake to take a phenomenology class, and the skies even a little bit blue and my rooms been heated on 5. these three days of sunshine have made me realise how absolutely miserable the cold weather has made me.

i dreamt last night myself and three rah rah friend of the royals boys were plotting to sell a story about prince harry to the newspapers. i figured because they were ringleading it, and because i didnt know prince harry at all, it wasn't really unethical of me to get involved to make a swift buck.

black diamond

2008-02-01T15:40:00.000Z

listening to: charlie parr

the nearest thing to walking up a hill in copenhagen is the travelator in the black diamond library; i went for a run in the stinging rain and it led me there. too cold today. i finished 'on the road'. no matter how sad or mad dishevelled dean moriarty is at the end, he's no tragedy is neal cassady..

'what i should've said was they were
just ripples on the bottom of the upside down lake of the void'

lucky sal though. how was it everyone liked him so much? i think i ask very different questions when reading this. reading it in the week before term starts in expensive and dark copenhagen, oh i've never felt so stagnant and itchy and podgy and ready to pop and deflate wildly around the world.

restless souls able to tell a life story at the click of a finger.

the final chapter, the mexican chapter, made me excited for summer and sad for this dark drudge that keeps us all cooped up inside, you'd be mad to hitch to mexico city from copenhagen in this weather. i cannot stand these winter months. i cannot stand more darkness. february 1st, it has been dark for 30 minutes and its 5.26pm.

there are some awful things on the waves today.

yuck. ive just listened to the liars - 'dear god' from the housecloud 7" and its without doubt terrible.

gulping at banana pear yoghurt from a plastic carton. new month, new goals for when it stops being so god damn cold.

radio 4 heaven

2007-12-23T16:01:00.000Z

listening to:

today is radio 4 heaven, lying in bed reading the northern lights, getting up for tea breaks and listening to a serialisation of roald dahl's 'the witches' on the pocket radio. talk to my mum about what our daemon would be, i think a red squirrel, she wants something graceful like the swan from her shamanic journey but it could more likely be a sheep with a puzzled expression.

the book is making me remember childhood vs adulthood and today i feel particularly childlike. a great feeling. the way they played the witches on radio 4 made me feel strongly that child and adult worlds should be more evenly appreciated. i love childlike.

i love juggling. i have taught myself to juggle and each time i practice i get better. it made me squeal with glee when i got it for the first time.

im going to get back to reading northern lights now..

i am very, very happy today.

you dont have to be this and you dont have to be that, as long as you're happy.

playground

2007-11-04T21:47:00.000Z

listening to:

awesome remix of the day:

the gossip - standing in the way of control (playground remix)

AWOOOOOOO. it has been so long since ive written on here.. b-b-b-but today i have severe urge for creative regeneration!

progress documented here.

in defense of english cooking

2007-04-21T03:06:00.000Z

listening to: damien marley - welcome to jamrock

a short musing..

having watched news24 two nights in the row after work.....

why the fuck should we (I) care about the virginia shootings? its sad. OBVIOUSLY. its tragic. and if we're going to get political then its because fucking GUNS ARE EVERWHERE in that country..

i no longer care for news 24. its a fucking car crash of bad time stories.. and when you look at it, its like a secondary school news ZINE but reported to you via twats in suits. journalism is shit. who really needs to give a fuck about horrible culturally bred incidents that have no effect on 'my world' nor 'my world' effect upon. fuck off bbc 24.

exactly.

the beat generation

2007-04-16T21:56:00.000Z

listening to: loudon wainwright III

sang a song last night:

'theres my daughter in the water,

everytime she fell i caught her.

theres my daughter in the water,
i lost every time i fought her.'

zoos are full of prisons overflowing.
my how the world loves a cage.

boycott animal circus!

this is harold and maude:

'reach out.. take a chance.. get hurt even. but play as well as you can'

and the red stained wine glass on the sill
thats been there for months?

the ledge of plates, creamed cups of mould, trophies
the crusted knifes and forks, my rusted rifle rack

the red stained wine glass stands like a trophy / cup / crown / first prize
in the pose like this:

there is nothing i would imagine quite like the inimitable feeling of being dislikeable and there is nothing more corrective than an elocution lesson for one who could talk a glass eye to sleep.

cocorosie - werewolf (live)

2007-02-12T20:13:00.000Z

listening to: pilote - by the river

'i live by the river
with my mother
in a house.
she washes
i cook
and we never go out.'

a beautifully weird song c/o:
www.myspace.com/pilotemusique

other things i have been listening to:
tom waits - orphans
beirut - gulag orchestra
joan as policewoman
ian dury and the blockheads
nathan fake - drowned in sound
the blow - true affection
tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain

at the weekend we went to see bonobo
and last night laura and i saw the guillemots.

we throw parties you throw knives

2007-01-06T16:38:00.000Z

listening to: los campasinos

when you play pass the parcel with body parts
someones going to get a head
and someones going to get hurt.

phil phistino! worlds strongest man
h.h. holmes and the murder hotel
probably on fleet street

you can't polish a turd, so why did you try.

are air conditioning units for SUCKING YOUR SOUL especially in winter.

the fantastical adventures of the terrible conversationalist.

i need a photo of athletes running.

WLTM King of carrot flowers

2007-01-05T17:27:00.000Z

listening to: bjork - come to me (accoustic version) and all other songs on lastfm tagged 'amazing'

last night i paced the house looking for philip pullman's book.
i started reading: THE MAGUS by john fowles

it is about a man called nicholas urfe who goes to greece to teach at a boarding school on the greek island of phraxos. he has short relationships and ends them for the release, the loss that makes him feel free.

we shall not cease from exploration..
the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

dream about sweden

2007-01-04T14:47:00.000Z

listening to: amy winehouse / joan as policewoman / cat power / isobel campbell and mark lanegan

i am in bed with notes, lots of notes with a sketch of a giraffe and books with titles about colonies and sex discrimination, and this lovely playlist, playing awaying. without the breaking to go downstairs i would've been in bed for 15 hours, because:

i had a long dream last night:

a high school in an obscure part of sweden. empty, long school corridors, sun and windless. white painted windowless frames ran along the ground level corridor alongside grass that had no people on it. we showered before the match and my heel was amass with plasters that had to come off. i wasn't nervous about the match. it was the match that we had come to sweden to play, but it never happened. i had foolishly left my dog inside a suitcase. a small suitcase on top of a mound of sand. as i considered what to about the suitcase, there was a terrorist attack on the school (but the school was always quiet and there was no sirens or guns or anything like that). the attack was a release of gas from a silver coke bottle. we were quarantined within the school and an effect of the gas seemed to supress any talking because there was no talking for the rest of the dream. our faces all went very red from the gas. there was a mexican there. and my dad was there and his face was very red too. my face was especially red because i had been lying on my arms which made my blood pump out of my arms and into my face.

i think that when i eventually die it will be because i suffocate myself in a dream.

it's 2007, happy new years.

i like dolly parton as a cultural curiousity

2006-12-29T17:23:00.000Z

monkey and bear / back towards

2006-12-28T18:22:00.001Z

listening to: tom waits / the cat power / joanna newsom

'oh i just want a rock to have a little rest on that won't suddenly reveal itself to be a cartoon turtle '

i want to make a boat out of a magnifying glass, a very powerful magnifying glass, practically telescopic. or a boat with a magnifying bottom and a telescopic deck. envelllllllloped in blue stars and sky sea.

musically, 2006 has been a subtle year.

my favourite new albums were:
joanna newsom - ys
cat power - the greatest
richard hawley - coles corner
matisyahu - youth
amy winehouse - back to black
hot chip - warning

these are some of my favourite lyrics to a song.....

The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep
And the combo went back to New York, the jukebox has to take a leak
And the carpet needs a haircut, and the spotlight looks like a prison break
And the telephone's out of cigarettes, and the balcony is on the make
And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking...
And the menus are all freezing, and the light man's blind in one eye
And he can't see out of the other
And the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid, and he showed up with his mother
And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
As the bouncer is a Sumo wrestler cream-puff casper milktoast
And the owner is a mental midget with the I.Q. of a fence post
'Cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking...
And you can't find your waitress with a Geiger counter
And she hates you and your friends and you just can't get served without her
And the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire
And the newspapers were fooling, and the ash-trays have retired
'Cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me

squarepushers new album isn't nice enough. too clinky, mechanical, cold. i really don't find that appealing at the moment.

mimicry / mockery - the ambivolence of the colonized. someone suggested that because of ambivolence, empires would fall no matter what and it would be purely because of the ambivolence. in the book i was reading, it introduced this theory as contraversial.

the liminal.

the metonymic gap between the colonels and their colonized: 'I am using your language so that you will understand my world, but you will also know by the differences in the way I use it that you cannot share my experience.'

i finished reading time's arrow by martin amis which haz got me for christmas. the narrator is inside the body of several characters, watching everything happen but it all happens backwards, like they take their food out of the bin to eat it and smacks stop children from crying, pimps heal prostitutes bruises. the first half of the book i thought very good. the goodness from destruction. the everything going back towards something. it felt, for a few days, as though i was living my life backwards. starting off as a very innocent child everything gets more and more complicated only to have it all simplified by dying.

are children even innocent? i do find it amazing to think how i have become this person i am now, and does it feel natural that from a little girl i have turned into.....

wonderful wonderful boat boat boat.

now. listen to:

the blow - true affection

i've just rememberd that james brown died.

and a funny story about bruce forsyth when me, rach and red skipped school to go and see him do a signing at WH smiths and rach pushed to the front to try and take a photo of him but there wasn't any film in the camera and bruce said "EVERYONE POINT AND LAUGH AT THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN CAMERA". ha.

how old is bruce forsyth anyway? 70? higher, higher.. lower, lower..

alterity: i think therefore i am, but how to know the other.

my reading of the day has been the post-colonial: key concepts. it's actually interesting and i have to answer:

did colonialism contribute to development? consider with reference to one or more case studies.

yes, colonialism - or rather, its being a consequence of imperialism - contributed to everything. modernism, globalization..

mowbray

2006-12-11T01:03:00.000Z

listening to:.....

arab strap - the first big weekend
the album leaf - eastern glow
a silver mt zion - 13 angels standing guard
jens lekman - how much you mean to me
nina simone - lilac wine (album leaf remix)

oh music to make me mournful.

i wake up, walk with the dog in the cemetary.
i pass a man
'morning' he says
'no just taking the dog out'.

arab strap's 'the first big weekend' i first heard on rob da bank's show. when i searched for it on the tracklistings it came up as being a four tet remix which was very rare and only available on 7"... today i searched for the original:

it came up, it played, it was the same.

it's a beautiful scots voice telling a story of a weekend..
search for the lyrics. it takes me back to walking home in the summers.
with my friends, who are very real friends.
beautiful music makes you sad when it makes you mourn people who are alive.

that person who you love a lot and know can sometimes be full of shit but you love enough (so much) not to ever just say you're full of shit. you grin, you bear, and that's why they love you (so much).

if only short bus would wake the whole world up to sexual liberation

we saw it on wednesday.
i thought it was wonderful.
i thought sexual liberation was wonderful.

pan's labyrinth captured well the things we forget about childhood

the fantasy and the frustration.
the serious things that happen to adults also happen to children.
i think men have the ability to be a lot more evil than women.

on thursday, jack, rach and ali, and caz came down to visit in bristol and we went to pubs and the croft and i cant really remember that much other than very happily spending most of friday sat tangled on the sofa, saying the word 'mowbray' over and over.

then this weekend came, and i worked both nights with the same acts and the same jokes. it was ok on friday, better on saturday. a girl called shiv works there and i'm not sure whether i feel intimidated by her (though she is always very nice and funny) or whether there's just some cosmic force that means i can never say anything around her. that stifled the evening a bit.

i think comparatively i may not over analyse everything, though i think i am introspective enough not to look at things in relative terms?

this time last week i went to see new found glory in birmingham with caz and rich. it was a lot of fun though i am so pleased to know while beautiful music with beautiful lyrics did not exist that night, it exists so much elsewhere. there is SO much music and i cannae wait to find it all.

tomorrrow i shall go to london. x

I CANT BELIEVE THEY DRILL IN THE ARCTIC

2006-12-04T01:05:00.000Z

listening to:

i can't believe they drill in the arctic...

people, whether they like it or not, have to admit that they're part of something more vast then them.

what do wildernesses actually do for us in practical terms?

tonight we talked about the Shleszlie.

shez dennis
schezlie josephs
schlenny henry

if i was to have a dog, what should i call it?
mooli?

lady love

2006-11-18T16:28:00.000Z

listening to: krazy baldhead - apple juice

went to see Plaid and rex the dog at Thekla last night.
last saturday annie mac, evil kitty and justice at blue mountain. AMAZIN.

some tunes.....

krazy baldhead - apple juice
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=26386868

zoot woman - seven days
http://www.myspace.com/zootwoman

phoenix - too young (zootwoman remix)

justice - waters of nazareth (justice remix)

joanna newsom's new Ys album

richard hawley's album... it's dad shmaltz but i love it.

roman salzger - neo dancer

did i neglect to mention i now have decks? an expensive hobby but i LOVE it.

penguin

2006-11-07T01:04:00.000Z

listening to: zoltan kodaly school for girls - hounds of love

- the sea lion that can inflate a protective membrane
- peaches
- general happiness
- a rat in a bag of grapes
- decks! i now have decks.
- the galapagos islands
- haz and john visited. fireworks, wrestling, cabot hill.

everythings illuminated the film version is not good.

- joanna newsom tour in january!!!!!!!

sunday stray dogs

2006-09-25T01:34:00.000Z

stray dogs:
these scenes of kids with torches chasing a small white dog, backed into a hole and they were going to burn him alive. the dog was never named but taken under the arm of a little girl on the streets of afghanistan. she and her brother walked between the prisons of their mother and father, hoping for the father to revoke the mother's imprisonment, hoping for a roof to sleep under and eventually hoping for imprisonment themselves. nothing is easy. even getting arrested.

chug:
a chihuaha/pug cross.

drunk comedian hacks.

'Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, But do not be disheartened, The source they come from is eternal, growing, Branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you And this whole world is springing up from it.'

sometimes you will think about a problem so much that when it disipates, and they do, you get a kind of cheated relief. the weight lifts and leaves you half empty. thinking like this cheats your own relief. is this because lifting a problem is cheating? the problem of permanency, liking everything to be constant, everything volitional.

dr. masaru emotu: messages from water.

deafinitely

2006-09-19T17:48:00.000Z

listening to: death cab - crooked teeth / the fratelli's / micah p hinson

deafinitely.

stick on mouths

uses for the stick on mouths:
- rush hour traffic
- old peoples homes

how would you know if they'd died?

skip to the end at tiga. i forgot we saw ettiene de crecy.

need pictures of saturday dressed, as coral reef ecosystem (haz), cheetarah thundercat (rach), salman rushdie (liv), sigur ros drummer boy (cookie)..

there's nothing to rely on is there?

an analogy of lying low the manager starting up a conversation while you're sitting in the curious garden with a book. swarm. swarm. swarm. eurgh seu jorge does funk.

other other other things..

armando ianucci on the 8th
hot chip on the 9th
the guillemots sometime
fingathing 25th nov

ohhhhhhhhhhhverwhelming heart pulping head in
hands all locked around duvet body

i would ring for a chat
though its difficult to breathe
without my stomach falling down my throat.

this is ljubljana (slovenia):

this is one of my favourite places in the world, metelkova in ljubljana:

impeach my bush

2006-09-03T21:32:00.000Z

listening to: marion black - who knows //

this song is used as the sample on RJD2's ghostwriter.

i have turned twenty!
a week and a few days ago.

- haz made me an elizabethan ruff with distorted pictures of my friends. i love it!

- sophie got me the blue planet book, david attenborough's 'life in the freezer' dvd and also the hot chip album!

- ed and lottie got me lots of noss

- dannie took me to see horrible histories at the hippodrome and gave me lemon jelly's album :)

- rach and haz and laura took me to slimbridge to see swans and ducks and flamingos

the stanton lick is definitely a most favourite of favourite songs.

on thursday i had my bearded bristol birthday at timbuk2. ruffnek diskotek!

laura's birthday:

tomorrow morning im going to slovenia with annie where we shall meet up with sarah.

how dya get a tan like that in winter? ya ran off to bots n got a box of tinter

2006-09-03T18:03:00.000Z

listening to: lady sovereign /. nathan fake /. the guillemots /. broken social scene

lady sov - tango

Bring out the bucket, bring out the cloth, bring out the liquid, bring out the lot, if not, lets roll her to a carwash
Now washin you will be like washin a goth
all that black lipsticks round their gobs,
how the fuk do we get it off?
i think this is gonna be a very hard job.
How did ya get a tan like that in winter?
ya ran off to boots n got a box of tinter...... dint ya!!
Seeeeee.. u still got orange fingers!!

What network are you on....."orange"
Colour of your bathwater....."orange"
I think your favourite fruit must be an orange
Bitch did you know your orange

Slap, bang you gotta fake tan
bitch you look like the tango man
bogebogebo
do the tango bogebogebo do the tango

......"its the gone-wrong salon".......
Your clothes keep wrippin like your the female incredible hulk,
you gotta broken bra, a broken top, a broken phone n a broken coat,
youve bin wearin the the same jacket since you was in year 8
and it smells like you urinate on it bitch, that aint great.
You tried to be christina so ya died ya hair black,
but really you looked like the vicar of dibley on crack!
Now step back and just face the facts you dont like the fact i get facey when i wax, anyways talkin about wax, look at your face, girl relax!!

Why not flimmer on the window, saw as a pumpkin, when its approaching halloween,
or on ya english breakfast place her next to the bacon she could be the beans,
and you always know where shes been and you always know when shes had a pee,
coz the toilet seat aint clean, the toilet seat has an orange sheen
Bring out the detergent, scrub that umpa lumpa its urgent,
have you seen her face its disturbin, how much fake tan are ya squirtin errr its hertin ma eyes its startin to look like a sunrise and ya fake tans so "ming!!" you are attracting flies!

Wot network are you on....."orange"
Colour of your bathwater....."orange"
I think your favourite fruit must be an orange
Bitch did you know your orange.

"You got tangoed!!! and you know the worst thing.. You done it yourself hahaha!!"

going to slovenia tomorrow for 4 nights, then sicily for 7 days. so much happens in between these posts i can't begin to think which gaps to fill. meg left to go to canada this morning - she'll be in toronto for a year. she left for me a cd with a track by broken social scene called 'anthems for a 17 year old girl' on it that i love a lot. as do i nathan fake's album. and the beatles' revolver. and cansei se der sexy. and aphex twin's girl boy song.

gigs upcoming... hot chip, tunng, jamie t, the guillemots, the puppini sisters (sophisticated barbershop quintetsque take on songs like kate bush's wuthering heights), luke vibert, ben kweller, NFG, spank rock.

last night rach and i saw volver at the cinema, the cineworld cineplex no less, and i thought it was brilliant and the colours of spain and penelope cruz's green cardigans and motherly love and closeness and the line (cruz, having been hacking at her husbands corspe has got some blood on her neck, goes to open the door):

Ernesto (looking at her neck): did you cut yourself?
Raimunda: no. women's problems.

we all had a lovely time

2006-07-31T01:16:00.000Z

listening to: tunng

i have found something that makes me happy this morning at 2.15am after a day of feeling a little sick, and i think that thing is experimental / folk / electronica.

i really really love this group called Tunng. four of their songs are on their myspace page which is here.

i don't know why i felt a little sick today.

i listened to the coach drive me back to bristol as i go back and forth between homes. i think it's because i travel alone, and because i am alone.

i got my death row penpal and i'd like to stop him from feeling this little sick because it goes with a bit of care.

the song i like by tunng is called woodcut. i heard about tunng from a rob da bank compilation called 'folk off'. the song on there is called 'the pioneers' and i recognise the lyrics a lot... 'if it can broke, then it can fixed.. all we need is time'.

other songs i found today...

the acid casuals - bowl over
this is the kit - 2 wooden spoons

and 2 others by the go team that i hadn't heard before properly but recongise from ashton court.

i had a fantastic time at ashton court with loads of people im glad to call my friends. it was a lot of fun and i liked myself a lot.

my penpal is called clayton and he lives in an underground prison in oklahoma. the world i looked at from the coach was stretches of roads and cars. loads and loads of cars going though fields and the fields were so blatantly the world and the cars were so clearly something else.

i saw mark today. mark is a producer for badness records and works with a load of rap artists from brixton. he's a lovely man with loads of drive and ambition and he loves music and makes beats. i like him for it but i feel sick because i want him to find me interesting but i clearly am lacking any real substance at the moment. i am fluttering about without a job and without prospects, which is not true at all because i really do think i have some propsect waiting to find itself in me. i think it's nothing though if you have no one to share it with.

i like micah p hinson's voice (download 'beneath a rose'). he plays at the fiddlers in october i think. and seu jorge and afro reggae play at colston in november. and tunng play at casablancas across the road from me on october 26th.

afro reggae is the musical movement from the favella's in rio.

i just need to find a way to channel all these things into something i can do..

at the elbow rooms tonight, skye let me play some records though the whole experience was a flash in the pan (hmm proverbial misplacement?) and stressful - 'flick the fader over now... NO NOT NOW!!.. etc' and left me feeling a bit sick again though talking to the long haired harry potter man made me feel better because he said reggae dj-ing is eeeasy and i should just go out and buy loads of vinyl and then get some jobs at bars.

james william hindle - come down slowly

this late night splurge of folk inspired sick release is due to me now having internet in my room. it actually makes me feel very happy.

john's friend sarah inspired me a lot this past week or so. i met her properly for the first time in slak the other week after a few cups of peyote slime and felt thoroughly comfortable around her. i'm joining the farm network tomorrow and hopefully i can go off somewhere soon. good honest work that makes you so tired you fall asleep at 9pm. that's what i need. hard work and fresh food.

i should mention that last night i went to gifford's circus. it was spectacular and uplifting and inspiring with a 1960s psych rock janis joplin inspired theme. people need to rememeber how much i love janis joplin so i should probably buy a poster or something with the secret bank account money i found.

everything will sort itself out and i will settle somewhere and not be alone.

i was a lover

2006-07-20T10:48:00.000Z

listening to: tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain

and then we went to berlin and katie had looked after the tickets for so long and in ten seconds i'd left them somewhere and we were in the scarily symetrical Hoje Taastrup pleading at the train person to not make us pay 60 quid for another one but of course all trains people are officious w-a-n-k-e-r-s with far too much respect for the rules. haz was wearing the purple wig and we smelt of five days without showering. somehow it all turned out fine and we had four hours sitting in sun / watching bags / finding supermarkets.

(the new tv on the radio album is welll good)

the train we got boarded a ferry and took us onto germany into hamburg and then through to berlin where harry (lovely harry) met us and took us back to his dad's mate's flat in the stadt mitte. i love berlin, of course i do.

roskilde..

2006-07-19T14:25:00.000Z

listening to: nosliw - manchmal // the guillemots

so. i saw:

soulwax,

clap your hands say yeah,

sigur ros,

gogol bordello,

martha wainwright,

matisyahu,

lady sovereign,

fat freddys drop,

wir sind helden,

bob dylan,

death cab for cutie,

scissor sisters,

seeed,

four tet,

immortal technique,

primal scream,

tiga,

kanye west,

the strokes,

spank rock,

the raconteurs,

roger waters / pink floyd.

the silent rave...

(it was very very great and i was very happy and we had so much fun and i was so happy to introduce katie to these funny funny people and vice versa.)

gestern war so kalt heute ist es heiss

2006-07-18T17:19:00.000Z

listening to: the wiseguys - zwischenbilanz // seeed - aufstehen // the zutons - valerie

toilet graffiti: in semi permanent marker.. i'm a rebel, not a vandal.

my most favourite find recently is diane cluck who sings a song called 'easy to be around' which you can and should download here if you like effortless and understated arrangements and wish you were easy to be around. i found this on an album brimming with singersongwriter gems but kept repeating this one.

the wiseguys are an acapella beatboxing barber shop deutsch supersource of sweet sounding harmonies and lyrics about sitting auf einer schone strand and playing with the sand that when turned to love are very, very lovely. like the first chapter of this murakami book i'm reading but whose title i forget. avoid thinking of G4(?) (the pop stars runners up?) when listening to them.

- zwischenbilanz
- radio

better though... seeed:
- pyschedelic kingdom
- release
- aufstehen
- dancehall caballeros
- we seeed
- yaaam
- love is the queen

fuck it, it's all pure gold but the song that got me hooked was 'release'.

so copenhagen then...

kate and i flew out on at the end of june spitting bananas on each other on the plane.. it's a very expensive city.. but a very beautiful city.. with giant murals on the end of every terraced row. we spent a small fortune on supermarket goods. we went back to christiania (the ex air base taken over by peace loving hippies, anarchists and bohemians in the 70s and turned into a self governing commune). i want to learn and i want to write my dissertation on tree living.

our roskilde began on the wednesday camped out in K with the lake not too far and a plethora of surrounding danes and swedes and general nordic japes. two middle aged finns helped us set up our tent and we set about talking in bizarre engleesh accents and mangled deutsch to anyone foreign.

the music began on thursday night...

the scar of mend / where's the penance

2006-05-12T23:52:00.000Z

listening to: prefuse 73 - one word extinguisher

nashville skyline.. girl from the north country:
johnny cash's voice compliments bob dylan's so well.

prefuse 73's 'one word extinguisher' is an integurral part to any fan of squeaky organicly mecahincly swoosh sounds. it has so much energy.

david bowie's hunky dory was finally purchased by me today because i love the 'oh you pretty things'/'life on mars' sound..

dj format's fabriclive27 cd was on first few listens: 'uninspiring'. i copied it before taking it back (after which it improved... some nice old funky pieces on there along with a lot of rather dull format/ugly duckling style stale hip hop) and on the returns form i wrote, as my reason for return,: 'bad cd'. i don't know why but for some reason that small episode of my day stuck in my head.

aim's fabriclive17 is infinitely all roundly better and seemlessly covers a much broader range, leaps through decades and musical epochs 'like the BFG over a hedge' (quote: Matt). i especially like boards of canada - roygbiv, ice cube - good day, InI - what you say (the hook sounds like bob dylan's Lay Lady Lay), ed o.g and da bulldogs - love comes and goes and fingathing - lady nebula..

anyway i'm sure i'll impart these gems on you in a mixcd of my own in good time.

we're bartering with skye for his old decks and a mixer for £300. we saw dj derek tonight.. he's a local bristolian legend. 70something yr old, cardigan wearing, thick rimmed, ex-accountant turned reggae dj supreme. he has an album out on trojan: sweet memory sounds. it's a superrrb starter album (oh don't i sound pro) if you like old soulful and sweet reggae.

he looks like this:

dj derek, is to me, the musical equivalent of the glorious gloucester road. i fall in love with that place more everytime we go. today sarah and i stopped in the prom and watched the world go by in the sun. i'm verrrr happy.

yesterday i had several sets of drinks with people that i love.

- you like people who can tell you something new about the world
- you think extremely extroverted people are wonderful on first impressions
- you see through extroverts quite quickly and love the secret connection this forms

tomorrow.. claire has invited me to weston-supermare for the seaside, though having just had the last few weeks filled with pure larks decide it is time to do a little bit of work. tomorrow im going to the library. im doing these stale old essays that ive had since well before easter.

e-mail of the day:

"am in a slight quandry because cannot wait for the impending fun that will be summer but can't help but feel i don't really deserve it- where's the penance, the rough with the smooth, the lick and the lack!!?? oh what a grateful grapefruit i am!"
-- haz

oh what a lovely world it is when you can flick through a months old weekend magazine and apppreciate so much the smallest photo of a rose.

ahem:

there are those who do not imitate,
who cannot imitate
but then there are those who emulate
at times, to expand further the light
of an original glow.
knowing that to imitate the living
is mockery
and to imitate the dead
is robbery
There are those
who are beings compete unto themselves
whole, undaunted - a source
as leaves of grass, as stars
as mountains, alike, alike, alike
yet unalike
each is complete and contained..

- - - johnny cash 'of bob dylan'

having just finished my first listening of one word extinguisher.. i never wanted it to end and it ended all too soon.

it is a beautiful, beautiful world and if you don't like it, leave it alone.

love is all there is, it makes the world go round

2006-05-10T18:49:00.000Z

listening to: bob dylan's nashville skyline

shut up and shut your eyes.........
- loudon wainwright : lullaby

i said i had trouble with expressing myself.

//

why didn't conversation flow,
why didn't we talk- not serious talk
but why didn't we chat
natural chat with laughter and stories and closeness.
not stilted, julted, blighted
silence that makes your stomach knot.
why. dont. i. talk?
uncomfortable unnatural.
i like the feeling of closeness,
(which is a positive thing)
i want to connect and i want to be close, so much
that rosemary said:
the things we want most, we most often get.

//

come mother come fathers throughout the land and don't criticise what you can't understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly ageing, please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand, for the times they are a changing.

//

on sunday i saw my favourite film in some time: the squid and the whale. painfully sad and laugh out loud.. and the soundtrack... loudon, lou reed, pink floyd..

bonobo was great on friday night as was the whole evening..

i'm chewing dan's chewing gum that he left in my room this morning.

we went to see nicky blackmarket at native last night and today there was thunder, lightning. it was claire's birthday on monday and we went out to the old duke for the seven jazz men in red suits. it was a nice.

//

i want to connect with you, and therefore maybe one day, we will.

i keep it dirty not like fergie from the black eyed peas

2006-05-01T22:17:00.000Z

listening to: richie hawtwin - electronic adventure // spank rock - yoyoyoyo

have decided my opinion on minimal has been made after sifting though sleeparchive and audio werner and alex under etc etc.......

decision: minimal techno go home!

mishmash of detroit ghetto tech, miami bass, early beastie boys and uk grime on the other hand - welcome into my walls. spank rock i bought today on complete impulse because the sticker on the cover said 'children if you want dad to think you're on drugs play this loud... genius to the power of 32,186'.

bump is the greatest mesmo-grimey-lectro-magical-filth-lyricism i have heard in a while and im very very excited.

i like pictures, so here are two more of tribe...

and one of me and sarah (who dropped her bag in the loo and then had a harmonica lesson):

and oh why havent i put this up yet.. my newest jacket:

i had a dream last night about going for dinner with katie's family and she lived in a huge cotswold stately home. her mum was the mum from the film 'parenthood' (starring steve martin and keanu reaves.. it was on tv last night). they fed me soup. then i woke up and it was 7am so i drifted back to sleep again and dreamt sarah was made of plastic and looked like leila from futurama and was making a music video about the clothes you could wear to work.

tribe of frog

2006-04-30T22:55:00.000Z

listening to: logic bomb

tribe of frooooooog at lakota!

the psy trance. it never ends. series of photos of me looking progressively messier, though at one stage i did look like this:

and im never going to let u forget it.

i went with tash and summer and aaron and phil and jo and pearl and simon and alex and stacy. i love them.

phil bought me flowers on the way home. it took us about an hour to walk 500 metres.

it was very good. we stayed at the casablancas after party til almost 10. it was just like half moon in koh phangan and illumination in cairns. have decided psy trance is my new favourite thing in the world. even if it is just the same track playing for 12 hours.

i think some boy actually fell in love with me. which was nice for the evening but then i swear he was crying when he had to leave me. true story not inflated ego. this freaked me out and i just wanted for him to go away and me be in bed with a pint of cranberry juice.

aiiiiiiiii.

very contented.

had very profound moment on laughing gas where all of life's mysteries seemed tied together. forgotten now.

now sleep.

make it (german) reggae

2006-04-28T10:15:00.000Z

listening to: seeed - release

i love uni again.

on thursday i saw coldcut with leo (we were flyering so got in for free and drank a bottle of ouzo to celebrate). on friday i saw katie for the first time since last term and she'd bought me a fez from morocco and some scented pens. we saw jose gonzalez with ross and maria and tash. i wept. on saturday, summer, tash and i went to fiddlers for the human beatbox champs and foreign beggars. it was grrrreat. after i went to see thea and derek who i both like a lot.

then on sunday i went to a pub over the otherside of the river (oooh) and saw sarah and jess and meg and rachel and daisy and col gemma luke and mark. matt had somehow managed to bring home a huuuge box of randomly printed t-shirts from work. there was about 300 of them with stuff like 'maggie and finn's 20th wedding anniversary'. a lot of fun rummaging through them and challenging mark to see who could fit on the most.

on monday i went to the library and ate healthily. in the evening, pearl, mary, tash and i went for tapas at this place by the station and then meant to go on to see the carmen remake africaaan film but it wasnt on so we went to the elbow rooms to see pavel's band play. we danced a lot. it was grrreat!

then on tuesday i was in uni all day with gaps to meet katie for tea and discussss ROSKILDE! after politics i stayed in the library for a little bit and then walked on down to meditation class at the chaplaincy.. there was only about 6 of us, sat meditating on anger, the futility of anger, the benefits of setting a positive example... don't act on anger but act on compassion etc. i'm going to go back next week.

after that i felt very much like i wanted to be disconnected from the world for a while so i bought crime and punnishment on cd from borders, got into bed at 9pm and listened to about 4 hours worth of it. i LIKE though now ive left it a few days i've forgotten everyone's name..

on wednesday i had my appointment with rosemary which meant i couldn't sleep too well the night before, trying to think of things to say to her. but i had plenty of things to say to her and she decided i was a special enough case to keep our appointments every week. i had to go to a lecture on macdonaldization after which was utterly rubbbbbbish. our lectures could be condensed into a few sentences, and even those sentences would be completely stating the obvious. i think sociology is stupid again.

that night i went out with bex from winkworth who i'd never met before but thoroughly liked. we went to see captain play at the Fleece, sandwiched by drinks at the old duke (pub i love). it was lovely and i was all chatty and first termy again.

and yesterday... we all had a bbq up on cabbot hill.. me, pearl, sabine, ben, dan, nchika and then many more. i went to see Pierrepoint at the cinema after with mary tash and ross. it was Aaight though a bit of a made for tv type thing - just a lot of people being hung and not much beef on the characters. still it was good and i was able to rub shoulders with ross. heh.

but better news than all of that is that my Roskilde ticket has arrived and i've booked my flights! flying out with katie on the 26th, spending a few days in copenhagen, meeting up with caz, kerry, (haz? whoever else flys out) on the 28th and going down to roskilde to set up camp for four days of festivalling before getting the train to berlin and flying back on the 7th july. ehehehhe.

the lineup is: animal collective, arctic monkeys, birdy nam nam, clap your hands say yeah, george clinton parliament, coldcut, death cab for cutie, diplo, bob dylan, the editors, floetry, goldfrapp, guns n roses, happy mondays, kaiser chiefs, lady sovereign, looptroop, damian marley, matisyahu, morrissey, annie nightingale, placebo, the raconteurs, soulwax and 2 many djs, seeed, sigur ros, skin, the streets, the strokes, superdiscount feat ettiene de crecy, tiga, rufus wainwright, roger waters performing the dark side of the moon, kanye west, wolfmother..

eeeehehehhehe.

look me in the eye and tell me we are really through

2006-04-22T12:46:00.000Z

listening to:

last night i went to see jose gonzalez with katie, tash, maria and ross at the colston hall. the woman on the sweltering hot door to the rear stalls told us the support band were dreadful but they were an interesting green dressed three piece, playing all sorts of instruments, recording them and fiddling them with laptops, with a backdrop of visuals like reindeer in snow globes.

he doesn't talk much, jose. but when he does people clap a lot. he is spectacularly good on the guitar and is very tall and long with huge hands. he was accompanied by a man playing the bongos and another man playing an egg. as soon as he started i never wanted him to stop.

he played massive attack's teardrop and finished with 'love will tear us apart'.. but it was this that made me weep like shmall child:

Put your hand on your heart and tell me
That we're through,
Oh, put your hand on your heart
Hand on your heart

Well it's one thing to fall in love
But another to make it last
I thought that we were just begining
And now you say we're in the past
Oh, look me in the eye
And tell me we are really through

You know it's one thing to say you love me
But another to mean it from the heart
And if you don't intend to see it through
Why did we ever start
Oh, I wanna hear you tell me
You don't want my love

Put your hand on your heart and tell me
It's all over
I won't believe it till you
Put your hand on your heart and tell me
That we're through, ooh

Oh, put your hand on your heart
Hand on your heart

They like to talk about forever
But most people never get the chance
Do you wanna lose our love together
Do you find a new romance
Oh, I wanna hear you tell me
You don't want my love

Oh, put your hand on your heart
Hand on your heart

Oh, look me in the eye
And tell me we are really through.

which upon getting home i found out was actually a cover of a kylie minogue song..

lovely.

corset etchings on skin

2006-04-18T10:45:00.000Z

listening to: transcript - nick guerney talking about unitary local councils..

firstly. my dream:

i was living in the projects with 2 men. one smelt of burning sandalwood and we were going to get together - i was lying on his chest feeling very much in love. the other man had hurt his finger - rach lived with me too and said he was probably lying, but then i reminded her it was the projects and therefore it was all too likely that he did have a bad finger and wasn't lying at all.

our apartment block appeared to be the trenchard street car park. when i was outside gun shots were going off everywhere. i walked past some cars very smoothly pulling an elaborate insurance scam involving pre-scraping a car then driving it past a JCB. a man in a car behind was delivering a bath. it weighed a tonne. he was taking it to wareton which he thought was near alaska and would involve a few hundred miles driving. the JCB driver told him he was thinking of warington, and wareton was actually just behind St Pauls (5 minutes away).

then i was in boots with sarah (who in no way resembled sarah) and they were filming adverts, saying how important it was to have a famous figurehead person who actually shopped in boots. they'd chosen cate blanchett (who was actually the presenter of 'a place in the sun') and she had a good thousand boots advantage points. boots then merged into tescos - but a nice form of tescos with a whole room of vegetables laid out on tables and a big pond like vat of water cress (i like the logic). i ate a bagel. past the vegetable room were some stairs and tiered seats that led up to the hotwell's conservatory. someone who was lisa in the year below from pates (but didnt resemble), whos blog i used to read, was in the doorway of the conservatory doing some kind of show. she was wearing a bondage corset with fine details etched very neatly onto her skin. my greek flatmate maria was sat up on the row of seats above me. as lisa was about to leave, she said to her - 'if you were gay i'd take you home with me' at which maria got up took off all her clothes and preceded to have very stange lesbian sex with her in the glass walled conservatory for all of tescos to see.

at some point sarah and i decided to leave and as we were walking back through tescos, a huge group of security guards (all men) came running at us and pounced. they took us into an open plan office and were very aggresively accusing us of something. i thought one of the men was a a gun (i just did, not sure how). i said i thought they'd made a mistake. the man who was a gun said 'i think it was you that made the mistake in expecting us to give you compliments'.

hmmmmmmmmmmm. what does it all mean? how did i remember all those details? why aren't i going out with the man that smelt of burnt wood?

last night haz and i created a magic vortex:

we went to the vine and to slak and had the sorts of fantastical conversations that we tend to have, about life and churches and this boy who lives with Jon (who works with haz and who we both love. he hears Kate Bush 'Cloudbursting' everytime he opens the fridge) who is doing everything he can not to be a real person.

i hope she comes and lives in bristol with me over the summer.

the pelorian cat project

2006-04-17T18:08:00.000Z

listening to: sage francis - broken wings

if you, like me, have an interest in the fashion based abuse of housepets:-

the calvin pelorian cat project will be of interest.

i dont know what i've done today and i feel rubbishy for it.

blondie stencil

2006-04-16T20:55:00.000Z

listening to: delroy wilson - im in a dancing mood

second half of today i have been mostly making this...

... so i can make sar a card for her birthday.

the very first half of today i was in bristol, sleeping off the excitement of the boosh in winkworth under a duvet with no cover that kept catching on my toe nails. sabine gave me a lift to the station and i got onto a train that smelt of dry sweat.

* Boosh :
jean-paul jaquittier, with his jacket on
jean-paul jaquittier, with his jacket off
jean-paul jaquittier, he put his jacket on
jean-paul jaquittier, he take his jacket off

kinder egg toy - a porcelain alligator playing squash.

i love noel fielding so much it hurts me here, and here. but. look at the photos and you'll see i met him, he kissed me twice, i told him he looked hairier in real life, he said.. i forget. but anyway. get me with my signed boosh dvd.

the rest of the first half of the day was spent at the black horse pub in naunton which is a pretty cotswold village near nowhere. there was a table of lively, old people which made me feel happy. one of their friends had given up cheap wine for lent. they drank a lot of wine. i liked this. they weren't old. i won't be old. i ate beef. really - when did i become so utterly rubbish at being vegetarian? since cauliflower cheese was the only vegetarian alternative that's when.

an interesting concept to make me vomit: cauliflower cheesecake. Ech.

i physically can't stop eating today. i am wearing teal coloured tights that make me look pregnant.

excitement at:
- the prospect of making more stencils
- decorating my room in the flat next year
- people living in villages
- meditation class on tuesday
- the prospect of liking myself again

anxiety at:
- my jaggedy back tooth. running my tongue over it feels like the feeling you get from chewing on a mr kipling apple pie case.

i am grappling purely with the concept of liking people and not liking people. is it always wrong or a source of guilt to dislike someone?

i have decided i want to be a journalist because i read the times for the first time in a while and there was an article on the best song lyrics ever written. i decided the article was the worst article ever written and that there is still a need for journalists who aren't stupid. i've just re-read the article on the times website and it isn't at all as bad as i've just made out. but that's not the point.

mighty boosh!!!

2006-04-16T00:23:00.000Z

15th april - colston hall..

pictures first, excited babble later.. PS LOOK AT ME AND VINCE!!

pictatorial promises of cd's to you all

2006-04-14T20:18:00.001Z

listening to: jon kennedy - old wooden toys // dashboard confessional - nightswimming

if you ever forgot about R.E.M's 'nightswimming' and you find it again, it'll be a happy day. i dreamt last night, amongst other things - of extremely long newspaper reports, of moving house and cut off tights - that i was swimming in the sea, plunging feet first down when i started spinning head over feet uncontrollably until i lost all grasp of which was up and which was down. i could feel my feet tracing the sand and i kept trying to bend my legs and push myself off and up from the ground which kept shrinking into nothing. the water wasn't deep and barely covered my head when i was touching the floor and i was aware of people around me. when my breath was just about to run out i managed to launch myself free and above the water i looked and saw a ring around the area i had been trapped in. it was a ghost ring and we just accepted this, i swam away.

...Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
I’m not sure all these people understand
It’s not like years ago,
The fear of getting caught,
Of recklessness and water
They cannot see me naked
These things, they go away,
Replaced by everyday
Nightswimming, remembering that night...

the difference between the sprout and the bean

2006-04-10T12:08:00.000Z

listening to: joanna newsom - the sprout and the bean / brother frost - peach plum pear remix

society is the guardian of order and meaning not only objectively in its institutional structures, but subjectively as well, in its structuring of individual consciousness. it is for this reason that radical separation from the social world or anomie, constitutes such a powerful threat to the individual. She becomes anomic in the sense of becoming worldless. The socially established nomos may then be understood, perhaps in its most important aspect, as a shield against terror. The ultimate danger of separation is the danger of meaningless. The danger is the nightmare in which the individual is submerged in a world of disorder, senselessness and madness. Reality and identity are malignantly transformed into meaningless figures of horror.

this week i've been mostly listening to: Louden Wainwright, get.cape.wear.cape.fly!, the kooks, sounds of the city New Orleans.

i also listened to doris day's songs from the movies yesterday while reading about russian politics. god i love being a girl, i can listen to anything.

i've joined humanWrites.org which is an organisation that sets you up with a penpal on death row in america.

i've developed an infatuation with paris hilton. don't tell anyone.

checkedy check out brother frost. his remix of peach plum pear (by joanna newsom) inspired me to tell ma that i wanted to be a dj. she's so sweet gor'bless 'er and is keen on the idea. i told her i'd play celtic world music just for her.

other exciting news.. i love jon kennedy and from his tour dates it looks like he's going to be living in Cosies for most of june. YEY!

can i make someone a mix cd? can i make you a mix cd?
i would like that a lot.

other fetishes:-

- festival dates. i just love 'em. would you like to join me?

> 15th - 17th june - SONAR, barcelona
> 29th june - 2nd july ROSKILDE, denmark
> 6th - 9th - july EXIT, serbia
> 14th - 17th july GLADE, berkshire
> 15th july - BERLIN LOVE PARADE, berlin
> 4th - 6th august - BIG CHILL, ledbury
> 9th - 16th august - SZIGET, budapest
> 19th august - V, stafford
> 23rd august - MY BIRTHDAY, liv
> 26th august - CREAMFIELDS, liverpool / TDK, london
> 8th - 10th september - BESTIVAL, isle of wight

- smoked cheese, so hot right now. smoked cheese.

- meeting up with travelling friends! luke and kodo who we saw last in byron bay shall be joining us in stroud! woop! and meeting up with old friends in general.. giz, kerry.. yey.

- the greatest site in the world right now, beedogs.com

- soul searching. who'd have thought being 19 would've been such a tunnel of self loathing and discovery ey..

- the mighty boosh on saturday!

- upcoming gigs.. jose gonzalez, coldcut, amusement parks on fire.

- facebook. the novelty still has not worn off though is it wrong that i'm eyeing up prospective boyfriends on it? yes.

ouvrez and out x

spit bear

2006-04-08T03:12:00.000Z

jonty the pinky hen

2006-04-06T20:30:00.000Z

listening to: arcade fire - wake up

haz and i went driving to the rococo gardens with the plants called clematis cirhossa freckles. we wished that the slope, ussually coloured with flowers, would slide before our eyes into the pond, that everything would slide and we would watch. to marry a tree with etched out eyes and to grow apart.

jonty the pinky hen would look all jaunty like the boxed horse in toys-r-us.

we went to toys r us in gloucester yesterday. its huge and everything is in boxes. every country pub we stopped at on the way back was closed. what is the point of you even existing, closed pub?! but it was pretty, so very pretty, and it was good to see jess again.

the blessing in disguise of the power cut last night.
it meant i didn't have to eat trout for dinner. mum and i went driving off into the country in search of food and it was so spectacularly beautiful as the sun set over the cotswolds, the heart of the cotswolds, with the miniature horses and lambs and green grass, grass and more grass.

we talked a lot and as i tried to make sense of everything, i felt so very poetical and if only all those ideas had stuck in my head i'd a writttttten a book that would've made a lasting impression.

i am reading 'the girl with the pearl earring'.

1.one a them changes (essential to a novel) is Griet growing to appreciate art. its a nice thing to have in a novel though its so frickin contrived: the white of the clouds, its just not white, its blue, its grey, its green.. i like this BUT then this appears every fucking time she looks at a colour. ooh her skirt, it's not just black, its brown and purple and yellow. ooh this wall, its not just red, its.. etc etc.

2. this novel pisses me off because everything falls into place a bit too easily. ok vemeer is going to have some illicit relationship with his wide eyed maid, but why?! what did griet ever do to merit any attention?! she's bleedin' dull.

right i shall actually finish the book before i vent any further.

'the funeral directors for gene pitney came into difficulties when told the coffinmakers would require three weeks to make a coffin from oak. however, they were informed it would only be 24 hours from balsa.'

haz's mum.. i love her!

all things perish

2006-04-04T22:02:00.000Z

watching: newsnight special report : witch child

a lengthy study of the degree to which long term prisoners were capable of 'abstract' as opposed to 'concrete' thinking.. found that the prisoners were more likely to think in a 'concrete' way. this meant that they scored less well on a test of abstractness: when presented with objects such as miniature handcuffs they were more likely to say things like 'police' than abstract notions such as 'law and order'. on the basis of this statistical demonstration our psychologist then went ahead to propose that group therapy of long-term offenders should be designed to help men think abstractly, so that aims such as deterrence and rehabilitation should be meaningful to them... weed out all the concrete thinkers and help them to come to terms with the abstractness of reality.

concrete thinking / abstract thinking..

if noone was a deviant, would we all be happy?

social deviancy and the witch children of the congo... because social deviancy isn't constructed in the west in the same way that it is on the streets of kinshasa.

kindoki is used as an excuse to kick children out onto the streets.

'if you cried out when they held you over the fire, that meant you had kindoki. i cried out. they made crushed chilli peppers and made a paste that they rubbed in my eyes. i cried again and they told me the kindoki had gone. i went back home where my uncle beat me. he kicked me out onto the street. they ruined my life.'

i sometimes forget whether sociology is trying to be all encompassing, because we're taught eurocentricty as being a fault of marx, weber, durkheim... i'm not sure if we're trying to explain the way things are, because this over arching theory should surely be the same for one and all? but people do things for all kinds of reasons.

why are these children labelled deviants? laura and i had been talking about guantanamo bay and i could not understand why they'd want to pick up people with no link or connection to anything even remotely criminal, just so they could torture them.

wherever there's a deviant, there's deviancy.

since the churches are only built on money, people should stop believing in them. only people are stupid. 'she didn't understand a thing. she already had hatred in her heart'

moral panics, social deviancy theory, the mass media, moral entrepeneurs..
vs
the wisdom of repugnance

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3109375.stm

just another diamond day

2006-03-14T23:45:00.000Z

listening to: bonobo - terrapin // dandy livingstone - message to you rudy

i have not written for a while for all too many reasons. end of.

detailing everything ive done in the past month would be all too exhausting so in brief list, highlights have been: the go team, death cab for cutie, jack johnson, witney, dad's bday, house party, stellastarr, cats in hats, street party, cory tap..

muhhhh. i found this in the drafts:

14/3
last night i stayed up very late
falling asleep to 'a sea of honey'.
journey as follows:

friday, cheltenham, a long bit'a quality time with the mother.
breakeven @ hub with rach and caz and becky and rach and so much alcohol.
we sat in the beer gardens.
slept from 4 til 4 on saturday and had a cold bath before:
dad's birthday meal. he's 60 now. it was a nice meal. good times.
then i got the train back to bristol that night
went straight to matt's birthday party.
rattled around through snow, and ren and stimpy,
and change from night to day.
5pm came and i walked back and passed out on my bed until 3pm on monday.

after a little while we went to the cory tap and drank cider until we were so hungry we ate pizza express. it was nataly's birthday so we moseyed round there somewhat before going over to thea's flat, i cant remember why. some debacle and then i was in the croft for hanna's dub night which was all good fun and a guy called plug said i smelt nice despite not having changed out of this hoodie since sunday afternoon...

..but i just can't seem to muster the lustre to continue with this blogggg.

clocking off, over and out. x

go team, death cab and jack johnson

2006-03-04T05:21:00.000Z

listening to: the blue room - toothbrushing song

i trip to witney

2006-02-25T22:59:00.000Z

listening to: death cab

yesterday i visited: OXFORD and WITNEY with sarah. it was beautiful. i really want to buy a hamster. here are photos:

weeks have passed too quickly to pay back library fines.

dontcha know you're driving your mamas and papas insane!

2006-02-21T14:01:00.000Z

listening to: death cab for cutie - 405 / summer skin

the argument over alpha male, alpha female and the european virility eventually resulted in ego bolstering: 'i can't think of many things wrong with you'

i feel so happy listening to david bowie. right now, i am belting: SAILORS FIGHTING IN THE DANCEHALL! OH MAN LOOK AT THOSE CAVEMEN GO, ITS THE FREAKIEST SHOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW........

why isn't aloud.com accepting my card? i need jose gonzalez tickets goddamm it!

at the arnolfini last night rich and i watched thumbsucker. the cinema is set inside a theatre. we arrived early and were sat alone, the blue tinted curtains and the darkness like the silencia scene from mulholland drive.

the film was LOVELY, ebbing to a soundtrack of polyphonic spree and elliott smith, reminding me of my 17 year old thumbsucking self and all our issues. i had nice moments of clarity about why things were how things are. the family. love. there is nothing so shattering as an unhappy parent.. how can we reconcile an unhappy parent with our thumbsucking ideals that people can be happy forever?

inactivity breeds discontent. sedentary lifestyles breed alzheimers.

it is important to be critical: sunday brought out all these debates about donnie darko because the sunday times was giving away free copies. Alex got passionate about how this degrades the film and it shouldn't be given away free. i argue my disagreement with this opinion in much the same way i contest donnie darko's status as a brilliant film: i.e. i refute it as stupid and feel no real urge to explain why. (not strictly true, i can give a d.d diatribe.. it's pretencious, drew barrymore's 'cellar door' spiel is ridiculously contrived, it doesn't make sense, it's about angsty middle class boys..). my power of critique is so smugly limited, and why ever not. this frustrates me about sociology.

today we were talking about the 'leisure society' that we now live in. we were to define leisure and define work, and we talked about an article someone had written with a load of statistical findings concluding leisure time is increasing. i can't seem to overcome the stupidity of it all: these so easily disputed conjectures with flimsy statistics stand for nothing. do we ever know what we mean? do i ever know what i mean?

i am a little passive at times. at times i am not.

we watched so much mighty boosh yesterday that i dreamt i was at the live show. it lasted for 5 hours and included a buffet. i really need tickets..

'have you ever drunk baileys out of a shoe?' - old gregg

on sunday i went to see sabine's friend's band: the attika state play at the louisiana. as am-bands go, they were cool, as were i am the door who played after.

enough of the weekly rundown, its all been just fine.

counter culture

2006-02-13T20:20:00.000Z

listening to: cat power - the greatest

We're so glad you will come back
Every living lion will lay in your lap

i love the cat power!

electro burlesque pantomime that was nude on saturday night for my favourite ginger fag's birthday.. 'emerging gollum like at half past 3 on sunday afternoon'

i shall post pictures, here ^

friday night laura, rach and i sang - among other things - kareoke to ebeneezer goode. going to london to see haz makes me fill with happy and momentary bursts of angry at how fabulous she and all my friends are. anger at friends' fabulosity must surely be punnishable in the afterlife and i shall never admit to it again.

i stayed up late into her corridor, talking to adam about marriage and me and i'm so altogether in love with how in love with me he is, that it will only ever be fair once i find someone else to like me (and tell me they want to spend the rest of their life with me) and let me let go of him.

the search will be easier now i have a little more love for myself again. i also have a lot more love for me in a mini skirt and i also dont care about what my hair looks like anymore. i can't afford to. on saturday, after sleeping 5 to a room of broken sleep, caz and i went shopping round camden. i LOVE it, i love it! it goes on and on like the secret markets of hong kong. it was her first time which made everything all the more exciting.

i shall post pictures of haz's pin creation, here ^

i spent a miniscule fortune which included shoes and a scarf and gloves and a skirt and a top that says reeeeelax and the latest rough trade counter culture album that makes me itch to get back to my computer and make a new mix cd for anyone who'll appreciate the cat power.

everyone is so human that i saw this weekend. they cried when they were tired. they take anti-depressants. they want security. i told laura how secure i was when we were best friends as we sat on the k-sofas upstairs in ministry. i will stop being sketchy, and start being nice again.

i came back to cheltenham yesterday. haz and i passed speakers corner in the park where men come to talk about the lord's saving grace. the man with the biggest crowd was stood on the tallest ladder. there was a man stood on a crate who had no crowd around him. he was just stood in the rain with an umbrella.

i shall post a picture of him, here ^

i had many baths and a shower and as mum and dad are away in lanzarote, there is no food. i ate BACON SOUP. i am not happy about this. i did get 16 hours of sleep last night though. it was beautiful. i dreamt about feeding the cast of the wizard of oz with multicoloured fairy cakes. i also dreamt about winkworth and i dreamt about surfing.

which reminds me of a dream i had some time ago about mum surfing in naunton park. the waves were coming the opposite way they should've been.

i'm going to wake up at 7 tomorrow morning so i can get to the train station. if i get to the train station depends on whether my card has arrived. on thursday i lost my keys, my cards and my phone because id got stinkingly drunk on wednesday. i felt very close to nervous breakdown. now i have my keys and my phone. everything is ok!

you look like david bowie but you've nothing new to tell me

2006-02-07T14:58:00.000Z

listening to: clap your hands say yeah - over and over again (lost and found) // joanna newsom - peach, plum, pear

<-- this is my bedroom.

all of yesterday i spent in bed:
i went to bed with the local radio.
some guy called alan who worked at a gym
asked the host for the pussycat dolls.
i went to sleep thinking of him
cleaning equipment to r&b.
thinking of him, thinking of me
listening to local radio.

dc++ 137.222.208.67:75

this week i have mostly enjoyed:
Joanna Newsom - the milk eyed mender ... BeAutifuL!
The Cat Power - 'names'... so sleepy, so restful, so perfect for illness.
Royksopp - 'what else is there?' (think duke remix) ... reminds me of fabric
The knife - 'heartbeats' ... as i have milked the jose gonzalez version
Clap your hands say yeah - 'over and over again' ... wailsome beautiful
Maximo park - 'apply some pressure' ... a singalong shower favourite
We Are Scientists - 'its a hit' ... i saw them first and drank with the drummer
Amon Tobin - 'one day in my garden'
The concretes - 'you cant hurry love'

what happens when you lose everything?
you just start again, start all over again.

visually. i have watched groundhog day (2nd feb, naturally.. incidentally the groundhog predicted there will be an extra 6 weeks of winter this year), saw, aladdin, the labyrinth, napoleon dynamite, spun, lady and the tramp, much spaced, mighty boosh and south park.

i thought saw should've scared me, but it didnt:
1) because the lead man, the doctor, is an appaling actor.
2) it was far too hollywood blockbustery.. the blonde wife, the cliches..
3) it was twisted but had the scope to be a million types more twisted.

i get a little high and mighty and secretly decide that everyone who likes it is stupid.

on friday i met mary and emma at a cafe that asks you to write top 10 lists that you stick on the wall. we went to the arnolfini gallery which was brilliant: my favourite room was the one that made you take off your shoes and lie on its floor while looking at the ceiling which was a huge colour changing screen that shook and pulsated. outside of the gallery was a bus with a man called dr roberts inside giving out free cigarettes, alcohol and colouring books. we walked home, cakes came round and we went to see fingathing at timbuk2 and i had so very much fun. sunil and i stayed up til 8.30 when the postman came. on saturday we all stayed in sarah's bed with the electric blanket and on sunday i didn't feel very well. i stayed in bed all day yesterday. at 9 we watched the 1/2 ton man. he was very, very fat.

today we looked at a house that was too far away and too small but quite comedy because it smelt of curry and the girl in the bedroom said 'its fucking freezing in here'. i ate soup at the fairtrade shop with rebecca. tonight, cakes and i shall watch a french psychological thriller called 'hidden'. why doesn't everyone called katie call themselves cakes?

extreme
ironing

it's actually thursday now. hidden sucked as a film because nothing was explained and i couldn't breathe. i spent all of yesterday in the white hart. i lost my keys and my card. i saw many people. meg came round. pearl and i went to the woods. she got the part in a play she auditioned for so we drank cocktails. we climbed up cabot tower today and watched the sunset. beautiful world. beautiful world.

i cant recommend joanna newsom strongly enough.

what is this? a centre for ants?

2006-01-25T12:13:00.000Z

listening to: talib kweli - keynote speaker // the clash - spanish bombs

why dig for nose gold if you don't share it with the townspeople?

charlie chaplin! - - - the kid

life back then plays like a
black and white
silent comedy film.
i would love to have been there
to see it being filmed,
to see it in colours
and real people.

the impact of globalization on my sociological thought: the rise of the information society (Castells, 2000) means that the internet is in every room and my mobile phone is always on and i scroll through my messages before bed. i get up from my bed and cross the room to send a text when i'm about to fall asleep, which i never do, inside my electrical cage. i can't sleep and i write rubbish. that is the impact of globalization on my sociological thoughts.

aphex twin - nanou 2:

like being sad and getting a hug from someone who is sad too

it is a beautiful song. a beautiful album. a beautiful day to be alive that makes me sad for the days that passed without the basking in sadness and rolling around.

on saturday it was maria's birthday so we celebrated with pizza and party and the academy and everyone was back in our flat. i remember all night being happy but little of the details. i think someone spiked my drink. with more drink. by the time summer, meg and nick were in my room i was back making sense again.

last night i went back to hotwells for the first time in ages and felt v happy there although it was to brush out sarah's dreads.

sunday night was greatly spent at the watershed's silent comedy festival showing of chaplin's the kid, complete with introducing from paul merton and interlude of dianna serra cary who was a child star in the 1920s. what a magical life. the film they showed before this all had a live music soundtrack made by this guy at the front of the cinema on the piano with a violin resting on his shoulder. me, pearl, natasha, aaron and sophie fully enjoyed :-)

the black, the white, the everything in one frame. the silence is what i see the 1920s to be. i wish i could hear those silent films and see them like i see our flat 24 kitchen today. that was my revelation in the van gogh in amsterdam. paint was colour. paint was paint as paint is today.

greatness. i need to achieve greatness!
today i fill in my watershed application.

today is also collette's birthday. on friday we'll go to a comedy club.

eerie, indiana

2006-01-20T13:02:00.000Z

listening to: snow patrol - chocolate / sonic youth - tunic / souls of mischeif - 93 til infinity / soulwax - krack..... (Today is brought to you by the letter S )

the week has mainly been spent, me being: lame.

but: today i feel much better. its actually sunny. its friday. i have no seminar. i have taken a more chilled approach to work. i am listening to 93 til infinity. last night i watched eerie indiana with sabine. she has the box set. marshal teller. IMDB.

on sunday i came to bristol on the train and that night after the white hart i went to goldney which is a student halls on a par with disney land, drank red wine and cava and tom came for a bit and we space hopped around natasha's flat and drew with chalk and then i went to see simon. then i sicked a bit and then on monday night i helped out at the homeless shelter in st pauls and we served food and drinks.
on tuesday we gave our sociology presentation and went to the mardyke and then on wednesday i handed in a sociology essay and that evening we watched desperate housewives followed by the human autopsy and surgery ruined my wife. on thursday i wanted to drop out of uni because we had to do a social policy presentation and despite having 2 essays left to do, yesterday evening we went for dinner with the flat below and then went out to dojo's where they played a song i heard annie mac play at fabric. it has a woman vocal. i think she says something about flashlights. anyway. we came back and sabine and i watched eerie and the mighty boosh and today i do work.

you don't need this disease, not right now

2006-01-14T12:17:00.000Z

listening to: the editors - munich // the guillemots - trains to brazil // the strokes - you only live once

fantastically i dreamt last night of this alice in wonderland house with a room full of trees and a patio area where i had a freudian experience with larry david and then a chaise longue on a tiled floor where the white queen sat beside me. a room with a mirror that showed me with no eyes or nose or lips, just teeth. emerging from the tree room into a savannah of rhinos and hippos that we filmed and were to show a room of parents the footage of. seeing myself aged 11, playing hockey. and the whole experience being part of the nasdaq 100?

(i wanted to stay asleep foreeeeever and when i woke up i thought how i couldn't wait for tonight and more sleep)

it is good i am awake though else i wouldn't be hearing the editors 'bullets' and wishing i'd bought tickets for their gig at the academy. you don't need this disease...

if something has to change. then it always will.

- i have to leave this house.

i, too, will disappear, will
Escape into centuries of darkness.
Come here and give me a cuddle,
Sit on my lap and give me a hug
While we are both still enoying
This mysterious whirling planet.
And if you find me fat, you find me
Also, easy to find, very easy to find.

tonight i'm going to watch jarhead with caz.

i went for a walk with laura last night. we saw jason the dj from hub who took me to massive attack. i had to cross the road because i was feeling agrophobic and afraid of people seeing me. we went to the pub and had stella and lime and i was wearing the hoody i'd worn to bed. this is more than the work. this is a sick feeling in my stomach. but all this is fine as long as i keep saying: i am not feeling my usual self. you don't need this disease. lift. self. up. proactive. ice sculptures. what the world needs now... guitar playing. reading books. running. job. dedication. help. reform. design.

i feel better.

your tears are important of course, of course

2006-01-13T15:03:00.000Z

listening to: the strokes - razorblade

the strokes new album : * * * *
favourite tracks : razorblade, you only live once

i love razorblade because the chorus sounds like

oh mandy, you came and you found me a turkey on my vacation away from work-ee...

i love the strokes as much now as i did when me and laura were 13,
skinny tied and ski jackets.
i am a physical form of anxiety invested in sleepless nights and more anxiety and anxiety that
i am home in cheltenham. i watched so much of the mighty boosh last night.
imbeds itself in knowing that any more anxiety will push me back and everyone away but also in knowing this
cheese is a type of meat, a special kind of beef, i milk it from my teet, but i try to be discreet..
i know that the only way to defeat anxiety is to ignore it
i love it! i remember when we saw noel fielding at the royal albert hall and he talked about the zebra with metallic nipples and something about a canoe and it felt like me and caz were the only ones rolling in the aisles. its such a big place.

your moves are like being carressed in natural yoghurt

they created glow in the dark pigs. they are green through and through and look like this:

i was in cheltenham to see great expectations at stratford with my parents. i watched the mighty boosh instead feeling heavy and i decided to start deconstructing my dreadlocks as a form of penance or somet'ing.

sleeeeephotos

2006-01-11T22:34:00.000Z

my digital camera works again so photos come of caz's tattoo, abstract hair, our trip to dartmouth and the new greeks.

snog

2006-01-09T11:54:00.000Z

listening to: belle and sebastian - we rule the school

on friday i got lifted to london by adam and patrick in a car that played amon tobin and coco-rosie and the go!team and everyone was making an extra special effort to make me feel comfortable (noted and appreciated).

harrrrriet turned 20 on saturday so for her we all went out to fabric on the friday where erol alkan and annie mac and scratch perverts were playing. i gave her a copy of kate bush's album with a list of our travelling memories inside a box i'd coloured in and written some nice things about her on. i think she is true GREAT. in my hours sleep last night i dreamt she'd said how she appreciated it and she gave me a booklet that i thought she'd written in description of me 'fruity, mysterious, illustrious' but then realised i was reading the wine list. she did however give me a box of celebrations which mostly were malteasers (although no truffles). we also had means of teleporting ourselves - kylie and jess wanted to talk about dresses but managed to teleport themselves into the toilets at fabric which they forgot were unisex and therefore could not talk about dresses. we were also looking at art that contained the macdonalds arches in the form of blue legs. mark was trying to swap it with a blonde mother for the jumper around his waist. fucking hell how do i remember all that, it was most possibly thee worst nights sleep of my life.

(i went to bed around 1 (sober), lay wide awake til 3 when i decided to watch celebrity big brother and the dragons den in the kitchen with some tea. at 4 i came back and listened to the bbc world service, immobile but completely conscious and hacking up cough sounds. at 6 i heard the start of the today programme (dick cheney has been rushed to hospital. wankers, whats the rush?) and finally at 6.30 i was asleep. to correct my erratic sleeping i set my alarm for 9.00. i. feel. rancid.)

i got to haz's camden halls and we were drinking tequila at 6pm with rach and ky and gaby and tina and claire and catherine, who i have come to conclude i am completely infatuated with because: 1) she has many interesting things to say 2) last time i was here she talked in detail about how she liked to squeeze the spots on her boyfriends back and the time she encountered a double headed spot 3) she seems very real and delicate and insecurely endearing 4) when i talk to her i am very conscious of how much better i want to be. we got the bus to paddington and went to adam's and tina had made haz the best cake with octopus and sea things on it and there was more vodka and tequila and jack, ali and nick, hilf and maybe some other people. it was funny. i liked it a lot.

fabric was largely packed and it began with me and adam getting lost from the others and raving to annie mac upstairs, having a brilliant time alike the old days.. ultimately confusing and i have ultimately confused him by telling him i wished i was in his bed when i called him from haz's halls when i couldn't sleep at 7.30am. a girl snoggged me in the toilets. scratch perverts were largely cheesey. haz and i lost everyone. i lost haz and then i found adam and gaby together. bob's housemate Pad was there. we left just before it closed and i went back to halls with gaby and tina and lay on haz's floor listening to martha wainwright's factory over and over for a while but could not sleep so at 8 i got up and walked back through camden and it was snowing and it was beautiful and i had lots of those life affirming moments as the market got put up with the sun.

by 10 i was on the coach still feeling fairly good and alive until i convinced myself a japanese lady behind a glass wall was trying to have a staring competition with me and then i passed out and woke up in cheltenham and spent much of the day in bed or on the phone and mum had cooked. by the time it got to bed time i was so tired i couldn't sleep and had more lying awake thinking about anything that had ever worried me and going round in this big loop where i eventually reach the conclusion that things are fine and they are if i fall asleep at that point but if i don't then i have to go through all the thought processes over again. when i woke up i threw an internal tantrum at having to go to lunch with at my parents' friend's house before i could get dropped off at my flat. i then almost cried in the car because radio 3 seemed unbearably pretencious and frustrating. lunch was actually superly nice. sarah is a lovely cook. we had dahl and potatoes and pear salad and asparagus soup. and my dad was being quite funny. i felt silly for my tantrum.

i am now back in bristol. last night i went out to see jess and sarah and ed and matt and trudy and lottie. i have decided that i like trudy a lot as she is very interesting and i should dedicate my tantrum time to a list of things we compiled to improve life: like joining a club, helping the community, reading more, waking up to radio 4 at a reasonable hour, growing vegetables..

today i shall do some essay of some variety. luckily in my sleeplessness the question began to make sense to me and i did some reading last night which i realised is what i need as it stopped my head from being so absorbed with itself. i hate the way when you have insomnia the whole world has shut down and you have nowhere to go. i think it's that that keeps me awake.

i saw king kong with mum on thursday. it was self indulgent overlong action shite! charlie brooker summed it all up for me in the G2 so i shall steal his words:

There simply isn't space to list everything wrong with it; its most glaring flaw is being 16 times more overblown and histrionic than necessary. For instance, Kong doesn't just fight one T-Rex, as per the original. No, he fights a whole bunch of them, while entangled in vines, dangling above a ravine, and tossing Naomi Watts from paw to paw like a Hacky Sack - for ages.

If there'd been a scene in which Kong went to the toilet, it would've run like this: 1) Kong unfurls his 10km penis and piddles into an erupting volcano for 45 minutes; 2) Kong turns around and passes a stool the size of a blue whale, in slow motion, to the strains of a 20,000-strong choir, while Naomi Watts stares at him, her eyes brimming with love; 3) his bowels emptied, Kong plucks the planet Jupiter out of the sky and swallows it for no reason, while fighting 15 giant crocodiles. And a robot. And a pig.

What's more, the cast are just plain weird to look at. Jack Black looks like he's playing the lead in Young Prescott, Adrien Brody resembles a cross between Ross from Friends and a disappointed sundial, and Naomi Watts spends the entire film gawping, sobbing, screaming or turning into Nicole Kidman in your head. Until the final scene, when she does all three at once. In slow motion. Atop the Empire State Building. In 3D.

As a film, it's the fattest, most swaggering, numb-headed and pointless assault on the senses it's possible to imagine

tomorrow i'm going to see my grandparents in devon who celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary on friday. stuff to do...

propaganda 23rd dec

2006-01-06T12:05:00.000Z

everything was raining, my beautiful dredded queen

2006-01-05T12:01:00.000Z

listening to: the arcade fire - funeral

okely allowing myself the daily blogg interlude now.

firstly:

last nights dreams...

one involved being back at winkworth. we are due to have some chinese gals move in and i dreamt that one of them had come and insisted on playing communist music really loudly and pissing everyone off. the dream progressed and i was in our top floor flat. it had a balcony with roof garden and foliage and it was in cyprus. i was out on the balcony with jess and mark eating some kind of pasta meal. there were riots outside which was very scary at the time because the downstairs flats had been ramsacked and everyone else had been taken away by the rioters (except me, mark and jess who were eating our pasta meal). we heard the sounds of the rioters getting closer, footsteps on the stairs. we all ran to the wall that shrouded the top of the stairs and stood in wait while people were shrieking and what not. then at the opposite end of the balcony a man in a yellow tracksuit suddenly flashed infront of my eyes and before jess and mark even looked round, i shot him.

a cyprus lady came up and asked if i'd seen her husband but as i'd shot him i felt quite bad and so we just wandered around our tile floored cypriot villa while she taught me foreign words that i garbled back at her. then she left and i decided to run away for a few days as i felt quite bad about shooting this man. everything was raining and all i'd packed with me was the stuffing that goes inside duvet covers and the only food i had was cake mix, but as chloe from hollyoaks was there too she kept eating it all.

i woke up before 10 for the first time this holiday.

i am now sat in the basement trying to formulate some kind of essay on globalization and sociology and the only pleasure it gives me is the tap tap tap sound of the keys that i can beat out in time to the arcade fire.

it is indeed a wee bit of a spaz to think about these three essays and those two presentations that i have to do and the fact that i've spent this whole week gurning into space beneath my duvet stuffing deep in sleep. it is also fairly silly as tomorrow im going to london to see erol alkan at fabric for haz's birthday.

but what is not silly is that my mood has lifted immmmmmeasurably and i feel back to how i was, y'know.. clearheadedandhappygolucky. i tend to merge words together when i think i might come across as a cliche but there is no shame in a cliche unless it is the watered down rhetoric of a sociological phenomenon (globalization). nothing is ever beyond repair.

hopefully my early waking up will mean i actually sleep tonight. i was so used to falling asleep to its glumandhow (humandglow) that when it went away and i was in winkworth in bed with silence i was kept awake with all this mental chatter that made me stay up for hours. i listened to kate bush's a sky of honey cd twice and the bbc news world report for 45 minutes.

it worried me to hear that deep sea fish are in serious danger. this is a fairly recent development (circa 1970) because before they'd just be satisfied with trawling through the fish at the top of the sea but now they go down something mad like 1,700ft (im not sure if thats true, it was very late) and they get fish like the onion eyed something or other (definitely a real fish) before they're given the time to mature (they take a long time) and as a result of all this their population has been reduced by 99.7%.

in other animal type of news, scientists have helped a mouse regrow breasts.

other things i heard on news 24.. ariel sharon has had some kind of mishap. i heard the phrase: 'he is a very big man, not just in stature but in influence..' about nine hundred times.

i went to the vine last night with caz and jess and lozza and foreman and haz and beal and maddy and steph. i wonder what my friends names say about me? i laughed hard for a lot of it and this made it all the gayer that i shall not see half of them again until easter. when i couldnt sleep i realised how immensely proud i was of foreman. she can barely eat anything because of her stomach (no chocolate, no ice cream) and because she is at oxford doing law she has to write two essays a week (this actually made me produce tears) but she never complains like the rest of us do.

i dont like uni work. i dont think im ready for it and i have no idea how to do it. i started reading bareback mountain (by annie proulx) yesterday while i was watching neighbours and it struck me:

a) if me and uni fell through i would be worse off than ennis and jack (who are built on a "life of privation") because i couldn't break horses. more broadly speaking, i dont got the skills of a layman.
b) i would quite like to write a book. but only a good book.

something else to interject: i don't fully trust those lindt (lindor?) chocolate balls that you see on the adverts. the inside tastes suspiciously like chocolate coloured butter. i think its butter.

on which note it nears 1pm and i should start samba tapping words out to the sounds of neighbourhood #1. word count hovers at 260. wackle.

psycho killer.... que est-ce que?

2006-01-04T14:11:00.000Z

listening to: steely dan - peg // talking heads // stevie wonder - living for the city

ok so steely dan is helping everything at the moment because:

1) i have only just realised the song 'peg' is the basis for de la soul's - eye know
2) i have only just realised that steely dan is not a funky black stevie wonder type, but two loner-ish white males
3) i am almost certain it is uncool to listen to steely dan

talking heads are my new 'wontstoplisteningtothemonrepeat' band. and i couldn't give a shit how cool you think i am. seriously, they fucking rule.

(i wish i had been alive at the same time as talking heads, and david bowie, and blondie, and the velvet underground..)

i have been sleeping a lot a lot a lot since the weekend. i had some fantastic dreams last night - involving camping and freezer food (a sara lee lemon meringue pie and lots of that 3 flavoured ice cream), a paul robinson type policeman shouting at his son (who was me), and traipsing through long grass by school.

i have been in bed for at least half of my days home. haz told me not to worry as this was a brilliant thing but then she also told me that on monday i'd tried to push the idea of drinking tequilla with red wine until we both passed out.

naturally i am in a stupid mood because now i have to decide whether to take my dreadlocks out which is inevitably tied to many more deep issues and ramjambled stuuuurf that has made this first term back at home so strange.

i've paraphrased it into three things:
1) loneliness at having broken up with adam which leads to...
2) insecurity about the way i look and the way i am with people which i believe is contributed to by...
3) family

but, i console myself with:
1) memories of how explosively great my ego can be at times
2) escaping mediocrity by doing volunteer work, helping the community and getting a job
3) dreaming of decks and a musical careerio
4) scrapping any notion of ambition and satisfying myself with being a nice, good, person.

i find number 4 works well. it is nice to concentrate on people you like when you feel lonely or edgey or sketchy. i still have thank you letters to write. (i still have essays to write). i still have lots of people at uni who i look forward to getting to know more and better and more.

independence. i want to be independent. i am going to scrap introspection and over analysis for the new year.

last night i went out for a meal with my old friends - how fucking different things would've been if i was becky and i'd gone to nottingham with abbi and it could've been us living in a house together next year and who knows where we'd all be. i always compare myself to each of us when we meet up like that and conclude: why do i always forget how much i like myself?

Now. I have to start writing an essay. HERE BLOWS!

give the world a go...

2006-01-03T16:17:00.000Z

listening to: martha wainwright - factory // say jansfield - sad past

oh the most brilliant thing has just happened. a man called rob has got in touch through the power of my blog. he plays with say jansfield - whose beeeeautiful song i heard on the blue room not so long ago. he has since connected me with this song, which seems to be the only thing my withered little body can take today. i am going to make it my mission to:

1) get a job at the fleece
2) get say jansfield a gig there

for now though, i shall try and untangle the last few days (with the ups and the downs feel assured that everything is ok).

on thursday ma and dad went to dartmouth to see the grands and i really should have gone too because they'll probably die soon but i said i had work to do, which was true, but i didnt do it. myself and stefi went sales shopping which is nice as me and steph don't really have all that much in common but it doesnt really matter. i bought some sweet old vintage boots. in the evening we drank a lot of wine and had jokes to take that cd's, gardener of the year and the retreat. a little too much, a little too soon and all of a sudden i was in pan pizza feeling well depressed because there are so many cocks who crawl the streets at that time and would you like to know something very melodramatic? i did (drunkensomely) consider topping myself because of them, it, the world. oh mood swinging.

on friday sarah picked me up as she drove through from witney (and i still felt a little sketchy. which scares me: as a general rule, i love myself around her and to think that im being a dick is a shame/source of panic) and we had lots of random stuff to chat about and i really do like her so much so that to avoid ever being a sketch around her, i shall make every effort to sort my head out.

back at the house was nice as mark and jess were back and then later ed and then later again, matt and his friends. we drank and stuff and went to the pub. and then i was awake and we were shopping for clothes to wear and excitingly so, it was new years eve! - which only registered in my head as a huuuge party and not the end of a year or anything significantly something. blowpop was siiiiiick! i danced a lot, and ed danced so hard he broke his ankle (kind of) and had to go to hospital for 4 hours. my memories are so minimal but contented.

i got back to cheltenham yesterday afternoon. i have about 5 hours of unaccounted time where all i can remember is falling down the stairs and having a bath before going to see everyone out in slaks or spoons or fez and then going back to slak to meet haz and drink a bottle of wine before gus joined us back to hazs to drink champagne and tequilla and talk about many happy tinged things (like my yearning to be a landscape gardener). i walked home at 4am i think and at some point was on a milk float (?!).

i woke up around 2 this afternoon because carla phoned and asked something about essay questions but i was making no sense. since then my day has been spent largely washing my hair and sick burping out of my nose. and listening to say jansfield.

if your head seems soft and cloudy
but your vision seems quite clear
just focus on the future

or kate bush:

Sweet and gentle and sensitive man
With an obsessive nature and deep fascination for numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation of Pi

revelatory. 2005 was so superb and i love all these ups and downs to which the conclusion will always be: it'll be fine. which reminds me, haz and i shook on tattooing the backs of our ears with 'everything is fine' today. we also had a knife fight and a mashed swede fight.

mash mash mash.

Oh Me Oh My... the Way the Day Goes By the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit

2005-12-27T00:53:00.000Z

listening to: arcade fire - funeral

every now and then i get a little down until i remember, we don't have to be like them.

in Pi, kate bush sings the numbers of pi to 70 decimal places.

i love this woman and listening to aerial this morning has made me cry.

the bell orchestre run on so nicely to aerial. they are made up of two people from the arcade fire and they play this beautiful music, that if i were to run away to iceland, or france, or somewhere monochrome, i would play this in my head as i disappeared.

i bought their album, 'recording a tape the colours of the light'. i might make copies to distribute in brown paper bags hanging from a tree like the spider tree in balham on the northern line. i like the song: salvatore amato. i sent jess a copy of the arcade fire with a card i'd made and had this quandry over whether i was being pretencious. pretence is something i'm afraid of: like being called a fantastical liar, like dead birds, like paper cuts to the eye.

i have taken note of what mum and i talked about on boxing day in costa and have not stopped thinking when i go to bed at night and i can never sleep. i was awake until 3 before i decided to stop trying sleep and i read 'a runaway world' almost from cover to cover. i feel physically sick that my only outlet of expression at the moment is this. seen by people i don't know and people i do know.

(i'm not sure what i am doing with my life but with my christmas money i shall go crazy on books and music and with the new year i shall get crazily ambitious and find a job that will teach me about books and music and set me up for a retirement of sitting by the sea and painting to the sounds of the bell orchestre.)

i get this overriding sense of lacked ambition and when it makes me feel sick enough i get some drive and it instantly makes me feel better to do something creative or to even think about the interesting things that are. i'm getting some kind of nausea at the moment that contorts itself into all kinds of things like my hands pulling at my hair when i can't sleep.

for one moment in the night i swallowed as i was thinking of what we'd talked about and the rejection i was thinking about felt like the air that i swallowed. all these abstract things. leaving as i slept on boxing day morning would not have bothered me had i not thought of rejection as i swallowed and felt that knot of air in my stomach and realised that through all your illness: you reject me.

i disappear for five months and then three more and you don't even ask me where i've been or what it's like, and while this doesn't hurt me - because we accept it (because you are ill).. i have grown up too much now to hate you like i did when we were little (and hate is an ugly word) and i have learnt to find things i can like about you, and i feel so strongly about the things that have happened to you that i can only feel so sorry for you (i have no capacity to hate someone who is sad) and so torn as to how we got here. in wanting you to be happy we have to look away from your ingratitude, your lack of interest in us, your selfishness.. i will never know what its like to be you, but i try.

we are all fragile and no one ever really knows us. that is what kept me awake this morning. even molly. she sat on my bed, panting and shaking in the dark when i'd put down the runaway world and for the first time i thought of her, thoughts running around in this little dog that no one would ever understand.

quite frankly, 10 of my top albums of 2005... and my standout tracks

arcade fire - funeral rebellion
sigur ros - takk glosoli
erol alkan - a bugged out mix ettienne de crecy - fast track
martha wainwright - martha wainwright factory
diplo - florida diplo rhythm
kate bush - aerial a coral room
jamie lidell - multiply multiply
the go! team - thunder, lightning, strike ladyflash
fingathing - time capsule walk in space
the magic numbers - the magic numbers see you, see me

all the bands i've seen this year...

van morrisson, dj format
alkaline trio, babyshambles
the infadels, the test icicles
mew, joseph arthur
goldfrapp, the magic numbers
the bees, blackalicious
we are scientists
kano, four tet
mocky (with taylor savvy)
kid carpet, grace jones

all the countries i've been to this year...

hungary, hong kong, china, lao, vietnam, thailand
australia, fiji, holland

all the people i've broken up with this year...

adam

instant karma's gonna get you

2005-12-21T18:44:00.000Z

listening to: chris coco in the blue room sunday 11th dec

this song is lovely..... unfortunately i can't find it anywhere other than the radio waves at 5.30am on a sunday morning.

say jansfield - a sad past (creeping bent label)

on friday night we got indian takeaway and watched...
1) the corpse bride
2) the idiots

i chuckled through the corpse bride and i thought the idiots was brilliant. it shocked and amused me and made me think:

1) how rarely we are confronted by disability. me and my friendship group hardly ever (never?) have a 'disabled one' come and sit down with us. therefore i have never gauged the way i'd deal with it. i don't know what i really feel about it. my opinions are dishonest.
2) good acting and a good idea are neither an underrated virtue nor an overrated virtue. they are are simply there. this is an attitude i hold towards most things.

that night i came back and some people had gone to dojo's but richard and tom had been in drinking all day so i stayed in and spoke to richard about conformity and rebellion. my feeling is that he thinks i have an opinion of myself that is anti-conformist. i don't think myself to be anything. understood?

on tuesday we bought rollerblades and old skool quads and skated around college green before the first politics seminar in some time and then to the watershed to watch march of the penguins underneath a blanket as it's cold in that cinema. i realised how little i previously knew about penguins.

it was then home to watch 'the magnificent seven' which was about that woman and her autistic spectrum of offspring existing in this magic universe that is not quite like our own. it was a perfect prelude to the jazz funk soul band at thekla. no not really, that sentence made no sense. the music was good nonetheless.

kate winslet just said this on extras:
'your big purple headed womb ferret'

thursday was meg's birthday spread at her's and daisy, rachel and luke's lovely little house. she had cooked very nice vegetables. mmmm. drank much wine and took many silly photos. it was then to the tube, a new club that looked promising as james lavelle was playing there. disappointingly there was much funky house and office party types. luckily i was too drunk to notice. but we left though and a little deliberating led me on a wild journey eventually making it to thekla for nicky blackmarket with jess, ed, sarah and fezkatie, and much fun. we had an entertaining walk back to hotwells where sarah sicked and two 30 something nigel's traipsed with us and jess said she was doing a degree in lesbianism.

saturday was full cycle at the academy with scratch perverts, roni size, fabio and jumping jack flash. summer, ed, jess, sarah, dan and nick were all there. it was shweeeeeeeeeeeeeet if not a little too eventful. fat, american ladies peering over toilet cubicle doors as i peed is surely an infringement of personal privacy in the name of scatty security.

i am now home. home... cheltenham... is... so.... white.

yesterday sarah came round on her way back to witney and we watched DEAL OR NO DEAL (noel edmonds quiz show.. 4.15pm on c4) as it was the one we were in the audience for! so very exciting. then i went to the vine with rach and haz.

and today.. i woke up after a long dream about swimming in the sea in fiji with my clothes on and went to FCH to look at books on globalization's effects on social policy. being home is dull. cheltenham does not bode well with my self esteem - in the same way that hollyoaks, loreal (or any normal hair) adverts and r&b clubs do not. i do not feel sexy in cheltenham.

term one

2005-12-18T14:39:00.000Z

listening to: eels - novocaine for the soul

term one:

babyshambles, the infadels, the test icicles, dj format, scratch perverts, stanton warriers, mampi swift, roni size, krafty kuts, plump dj's, pendulum, mr scruff, adam freeland, joseph arthur, alkaline trio, dj food, van morrisson, nicky blackmarket, nitin sawhney.. wallace and gromit, broken flowers, march of the penguins, harry potter, narnia.. the races, noel edmonds, 21st birthdays, leeds, fabric, hotwells party, christmas dinner, fireworks on cabot hill, toxic dancehall, blowpop, full cycle.

bloods and the crips and the kkk

2005-12-13T20:03:00.000Z

listening to: jose gonzalez - heartbeat // babyshambles - albion // jamie lidell - what is it this time?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Gang killer 'Tookie' is executed

so today founder of the LA Crips gang was put to sleep with a lethal injection. williams always protested his innocence (accused of 4 murders) and last minutes appeals from his lawyers and a clemency petition to governer Schwarzenegger were unsuccesful.

i particularly like this quote from schwarzenegger:

"Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologise or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case. Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

smells like Salem, don'tcha think.

the article continues:

Williams wrote a number of anti-gang books for children and dedicated his 24 years on death row to educating young people about the dangers of gang life. His supporters said this showed he had changed his views, but Mr Schwarzenegger did not agree.

today we went rollerskating! sarah has old school quads and i have blades. they both contain an element of yellow to them. we went around college green. it was much fun. i have just had some wraps put in my hair. one is pink, two are blue, one is purple, and one is sparkled. i also had more normal hair put in so they are less weak now. the politics today lecture depressed me. i sat staring. comments she made when looking at my photos made me feel my mum is not particularly interested in anything i do. pfff.

yesterday i got a lift and lunch back with sarah + the rev. i made a christmas card. after an outing to the gym (YEP), the evening was spent in the mardyke.

magic time

2005-12-11T21:22:00.000Z

listening to: van morisson - magic time // jamie lidell - multiply

watching the lion, the witch and the wardrobe i thought i bore some kind of resemblance to lucy. now all i want is to look like the white witch. tilda swinton does dreads well.

this was me:

on thursday we went to see dj format and abdominal choreogpraph hip hop perfection. i liked it.

i am at home now. i came back yesterday to celebrate rach's turning 20. we sat around chatting and listening to diplo, evil nine and what not (caz has such impeccable music tastes), drinking champagne and whiskey. for nostalgia's sake we went to the hub and i still love it. i had a great, great time. i love my friends A LOT. sarah newman was also there, which was pleasant. i believe she probably is actually bristol sarah's doppelganger and must get them in the same room at the same time, purely to freak me out. we all went back to haz's and bended around a bit before caz and i flopped in J.J's bed and stayed up talking to rach and haz for a bit and we all seemed so beautifully on the same wavelength. they are all interesting people. i walked back from haz's through the mist and fog to the sounds of the dawn chorus and awoke in my own bed to ma having cooked bean casserole with apple crumble for afters. oh domestic bliss.

we've just got back from watching van morisson do a brilliant concert in worcester. our seats were amazing. right at the front. the hall was a converted methodist church and some people were sat on pews. one song he did, 'magic time' made me well up slightly, in a very nice way. shame he's such a moody crunt on stage? some kind of melancholy adds to most things. he came back on stage to do brown eyed girl and gloria. i enjoyed it a lot and feel very happy.

the metaphysics of presence

2005-12-07T16:38:00.000Z

listening to: the go! team - everyones a vip to someone // bloc party - little thoughts // sigur ros - glossoli // the bees - i love you

at the Arnolfini until 15th January 2006:

set in rural North Carolina, Black Mountain was not an art school. Its wide-ranging curriculum put the arts at the centre of life, in an environment intended to encourage learning through doing. At Black Mountain it was believed that the imagination could be trained to equip people to deal humanely with a complex and uncertain world.

--

the exhibition made me feel so happy in a non-everyday way. an inspired way. of course everything will be ok. i don't think you can feel lonely when you feel creative.

art is revelation instead of information,
expression instead of description,
creation instead of repition.

the downstairs room had a john cage exhibition. he does stuff with sounds, like sounds coming out of pebbles in bags of dirt and sand, and an installation of a garden shed that you can walk into and hear sounds from the ceiling. leaves and branches came down from the ceiling, sheltering a red leather chair.

Audible mushrooms, sonic furniture and a new take on Cage’s fascination with Kyoto’s most famous Zen garden.

i'd love to listen to an audible mushroom playing sigur ros's glossoli in japan..

natasha enjoyed it much too which was good and made me feel happy as i'd like to live with her next year.

i miss hearing amy playing bloc party's album from room E.

the day before yesterday i went with hilary to the museum up by the will's building and saw a fantastic array of stuffed animals. they had a gorilla, giraffes, lots of birds, monkeys, weasels, rhinos... they also had dinosaur bones. when i have work to do, i will go and sit in between the dinosaur bones and write about Jacques Derrida and the metaphysics of presence:

meaning is just a fleeting phenomenon that exaporates almost as soon as it occurs. meaning is not fixed. it does not transcend time or different audiences and therefore the belief that the meaning of the word is 'present' in the speaker's mind, such that it can be communicated without any significant slippage to the listener, is untrue. nothing is simply what it is. words are just echos.

notttttttttthing has any meaning. let's all postmodern play.

last night it felt fine to stay in, tidying the room, watching curb your enthusiasm and some programme about a 33 year old man who hadn't gone through puberty. the testosterone implants in his buttock turned him into a nasty teenage boy with nothing but horn.

on monday night i went round to carla's flat for christmas dinner. it was deeeeelishous. i ate the meat. i ate the meat! converted vegeratian! we had parsnips, roast potato, sweet potato, mashed swede, cranberry and bread sauce, stuffing, pigs in blankets.. muchos! then we played a lot of drinking games. it was lahvly. i wish i knew them better. i get edgey around people who i barely semi-know.

i love the blog. i can look back to this day last year and i realise i am in a much better place. this time last year i was overworked. this year i've met so many new people and made new friends. i've travelllled the world and now i'm living in bristol.

it's sophie's 24th birthday today! im not sure how these things happened. she's immortalised in my head at 15 and i'm 10 doing our own versions of crimewatch with elizbeth wally stealing our biscuits and bursting into our rooms to ask us if we liked PJ and duncan.

tonight i'm going to watch alex in the uni pantomime. richard and tom properly hate alex. the other night they scratched 'twat' onto his door, and alex responded by sccccratching 'cunt' twice onto richard's. it's fucking stupid and i look forward to moving out. ooh. there. i said it: i hate this flat.

tomorrow dj format is playing at the fiddlers.

colour like no other

2005-12-05T13:24:00.000Z

sony BRAVIA advert i think is lovely:

http://www.bravia-advert.com/commercial/braviacommhigh.html

the song is jose gonzelez - heartbeat. i think it also lovely and will track down his album for christmas.

i just don't have the energy to write a sitcom

2005-12-04T19:32:00.000Z

listening to: dj shadow - organ donor (live in tune and on time)

i krack myself up:
microwave - a mexican wave but for small people

i saw harry potter at the cinema on monday with mary et all.

the mental chatter. why have i not finished a hundred years of solitude?

tuesday shopped, lunched and beered with natasha. in the evening i met belgian tom who was good company and flaxen haired. we watched jazz funk people openly take the mic at the white bear. met with barber and decided i was very jealous of everyone in halls and convinced myself that me = woe.

on wednesday i got the midweek blues and felt ever so crap and edgey and generally down about most things. things being mostly ellen leaving uni (and being replaced my a chinese student) and sarah being at home with no tonsils. this was salvaged somewhat by an interesting lecture on hyper-reality (the gulf war did not exist..) and then post-lecture playtime. it came to me that all sociological theories were void simply because there are so many individuals in the world with so many million seconds of life in each of them and far too many different experiences to ever make valid the idea that we're all somehow seeing the same world. there is no such thing as sociology. the evening brought a trip to the white hart with winkworth girls and me getting so drunk that when pearl, carla and i got back to the flat i had no idea where i'd just been.

thursday.. social policy. stayed in le boudoir and we watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. yadda yadda. is such a lovely little film.

friday. adam came down. we drank with carla, alex, pearl and simon then went off to timbuk2 for dj food's set. was shweet. there were christmas crackers and in mine i got a pink ring and this joke:

q. what colour is pure molten gold?
a. green

i didn't get it. until i looked at it again this morning and saw it was a trivia question.

my gettttttttting ready playlist:

plump djs - electric disco (repeatedly til my ears bleed)
soulwax - krack
hiroshi esashika - kazane
josh wink - higher state of consciousness (of course)
infected mushroom - converting vegetarians

saturday. hungover. went for lunch with adam. i ate a very nice bean and celery stew. the evening then descended into royal Flange as i got very indecisive. spent a good 5 hours or so deliberating whether i wanted to go out to toxic dancehall at the black swan.. we did - it rocked. i now feel borderline toxic. very surreal eye opening early hours in the kitchen with adam. baby got the bends. something about crushing a prawn in my hand. natalie talking about the recorded bird that sings in the dark. sunset beach on freeview.

i am left feeling positively open eyed. especially after watching a muppets christmas carol, i felt this warm, surprisngly together-headed feeling. in a totally non ironic way it is one of my top five films. muppets, christmas and michael caine. it gave me the nice happy feeling that everything would be just fine if people were only nice to each other. it is nice to be nice to people.

stay positive.. im pissed off that i cant remember the name of the australian middle aged man in sydney who i shared a night with talking about the meaning of life and what not, who said that paranoia around friends just shows a lack of respect. i keep wanting to call him donald but that's purely home and away.

ellen left today and although i cried came to the conclusion that despite the fact that her leaving is sad, the fact that she came at all was happy. i really need to learn how to punctuate sentences.

tonight rich and i went to the pub and he dissected my personality. in the kindest possible way, i think i am too cool for school.

and your point is?

i also learnt that the finnish senior resident wants to 'take me in my sleep'.

is blogging 100% sycophanatic?

does it surprise you more when people like you, or when people dislike you?

asking the magic ball

2005-11-28T13:15:00.000Z

listening to: soulwax - krack // mars volta - televators

a mad mad week. last week was mostly essays. sarahs braids came out and dreads were put in. i don't remember the particulars of last week. thursday i went for a drink with richard and derek and then sunil and then friday came and i went down to london.

we went to fabric:

: and it rocked. plump dj's, pendulum, krafty kuts... i forget the rest but it was superb - lots of dancing with haz and lozza and matt, scatty rachel, trudy and all a that lot were there too. matt spliced open his finger and when i finally met up with him again he was spluthered in blood. it was pretty.

after getting in around 7 we stayed in haz's camden bed til the sun had risen and gone down again. we ventured to the lock to get some pizza and sit and blurble into our low carb beers (wheres the logic). then i met up with adam. which was nice. he looks good. but on the phone on the way down he was bad to me and told me he hated me so after deciding i wanted nothing to do with him, seeing him and quite enjoying it was a confusing sensation. i probably won't see him again til christmas when cheltenham will bring us back together. it would be good to be good friends. i feel like i need good friends.

on sunday i missed my coach so i got a lift back home with derek. he's sweet. much love for the lift home. i bought cake and champagne and balloons at tescos then went to sarahs to semi decorate. then to the pub with richard which was nice as he compliments me a lot and tells me im a non judgemental free spirit who will never settle into suburbia. then i went to the mardyke with all the hotwells people and we sat and drank and i heard about mrs oddy's ordination. back to the house where we sang happy birthday in various styles and generally bended around.

in the morning sarah turned 21 and we had champagne and marmite on toast in bed and everyone was super nice to her like it was christmas. it felt like christmas. she got lots of nice presents and by the time we left for the mardyke we were already drunking. from there we went to the white hart where we stayed for the duration, while many different people came in and out. jess and i wrestled quite extremely. matt came in on a barbie scooter. jess came back to winkworth where we bended before she walked home and got stopped by the police for being drunk and welsh.

tuesday we had a seminar at 10am. it was funny. sarah mostly sat with her head in her hands and groaned. her one contribution:

tutor - so is the communist manifesto a useful piece of literature?
sarah - yes.

we went back for fish fingers and neighbours and did some house cleaning. i was a waste of space so i went home and ate salmon en croute which was nice. then i went to a winkworth pyjama party! we drank lambrini and marshmallows and watched american pie... i thought it would be good to extend my social activities to things more normal and it was fun. then ellen and i flanged around, pretending we were going to go out, but mostly just sat around watching simpsons.

on wednesday.. i went to a lecture. in the evening we went for a meal at some greek restaurant in clifton for jess's and sarah's birthdays. it was sweeeeeet and we drank champagne. then we went on to see mampi swift at timbuk2 which was PHAT and i met politics boy and made connections with cool people on my course! it was great and bendy and the dancing was immensely fun.

i went back to winkworth and ellen and rich were still up so we did some table wrestling and then most randomly decided to do a ouiji board which bloody worked. i have told the story too many times. it now bores me.

on thursday we did the whole social policy routine but we felt too ropey by midday so went back to mooch on my bed to napoleon dynamite. that night... watched adam's band play at the three tuns before meeting politics boy (james) at the elbow rooms. then went on to Stutter with rich and hilary and her friends from winkworth. was cool. richard left quite abruptly. there is tension which i wish did not exist.

friiiiiiiiiday... caz and kerry came down! i so jammily managed to get an alkaline trio ticket with no fuss and we watched them. gleefully. i dont know much of alkaline trio. mneh. i will watch anything, so i do. after the gig we wanted falafel and wandered friday night bristol before settling in the tantric jazz cafe with red wine and hummous. jungle vs reggae was a £1 at the epi so we went there and did one part dancing to three parts talking. politics boy james was there. we came back and watched the simpsons where marge gets boobs before settling down to an epic sleep.

i dreamt i was at some sort of family party over dividing the house. i went outside into the drive of the house and there was a white van with take that inside it (minus robbie). i was sat on jason orange's lap and i said, 'wheres jason? he used to be my favourite', and he said 'im jason orange', and i said, 'oh i knew that. i meant where's gary barlow?'. then we started to drive off and i panicked because i didn't know where we were going and i didn't have my mobile phone on me to call the party and tell them what was going on.

on saturday we eventually bulged out of bed to go shopping down park street. kerry and caz liked it much and bought many things. i must remember to pick up vice magazine. mid evening after munching they got the train back to their respective places and i walked round to hotwells for colette and jemma's birthday surprise thing for jess and sarah's 21st's. they had put on a right royal party spread with different foods and they surprised them both with a glass of champagne which sarah dropped almost instantly. many people were there and it was very sweet and lovely. sarah bought me a card so i wouldnt feel left out. it was about a stray hair that wanted to be a dragon.

i left before the games began and got myself a taxi back to winkworth and went round to carla's flat where we drank and babbled a lot with alex (+1), hilary, louise and simon and his friends from home. we then went off to the academy for mr scruff which was phattttt and packed. i liked it a lot and we all danced longtime. much fun. then went back to the flat where we chatted s'more and then i went to bed and didn't wake up til almost 2. slummed in the kitchen before going with ed to take sarah to the hospital for her tonsilectomy. it was quite exciting but hospitals are a funny place and i feel sad that sarah is now in hospital for 2 nights sat opposite an old lady who will quite blatantly die soon. is that sad?

i think excess this week is making me feel my mortality and how we might all end up breathing out a hole in our throat or peeing into a sack and it makes me feel sad but not that sad because recently i've had these bursts of happiness that remind me of that certain time in the autum of year 12 when a lot of things felt possible and life felt quite exciting. i got that today looking across the downs when we drove past and it reminded me of the protest ralley and walking through the mist in china.

amy moved out on wednesday? did i mention that? i cried in a very unexpected way when she left. i don't feel very settled. the situation sucks but will take some time to adjust to, and then everything will be ok, although now ellen wants to drop out of her course, and then there will be 5.

today is now monday, i have just woken up. i have no food in my cupboards but a big list of things to do today. last night i watched the emperor's new groove with carla and simon. it was GREAT. then natasha came round with a bottle of red wine and we went to the elbow rooms to see sky DJing before going to the woods with mary etc from goldney. it was cool, i like them a lot. its almost christmas.

mondays photos

2005-11-26T19:52:00.000Z

jess

um

jess and liv the twilight zone

shoelicker..

sunil and summer

megan and luke

sarah, rachel, liv, jess and trudy

again

ellen and matt

sarah and ed

mardyke

white hart

hotwell road

champagne

bday card

i monster

bending

matt

sunil

sunil gemma and nick

house

21st birthday

21st birthday

pull me out from inside

2005-11-14T18:01:00.000Z

listening to: the go! team - feelgood by numbers // placebo - nancy boy // the smiths - what difference does it make

placebo's 'nancy boy' used to be one of the songs that i'd play loud on my headphones walking to school imagining how much i would rinse it (in quite a wrong way.. nancy boy??) if ever i got the chance to perform it on a stage. i think i would cross dress four times over and confuse everyone (especially you) by biting the head off a dog somewhere in the middle section.

this is my essay interlude. i am now assessing the extent to which New Labour has struck a balance between economic dynamism and social justice. i shall stay up all night looking at it so that tomorrow is more free for watching bill and ted's mmmmost excellent adventure and drinking wine etc etc.

we played poker (kinda) on wednesday and i drank large amounts as i'd decided not to do the essay in the name of Fun and anti-hermitic socialising. thursday was quite bendy and we spent many hours in spoons spitting ice cubes at each other and sticking rizlas on our heads. on friday i handed in an essay and in the evening sarah and i watched broken flowers at the watershed.

broken flowers is a film where bill murray wears various shades of fred perry tracksuits while trying to find out who mothered his 19 year old son. a lot of beautifully aged older ladies in the cast who made me worry about the elasticity of my skin, the regularity of my bowel movements and the bendiness of my joints in years to come so i resigned myself to a retirement of graceless haggardry with cats living in my hair and small cancers growing from my spine (too far?). the film ultimately left me feeling slightly empty and i shall therefore give it a 2.8 stars out of a possible 5.

Ash, my malaysian flatmate, was cooking something delicious called sambal when we got in. i ate it and it kept my mouth entertained for hours.

on saturday morning we got the train to cheltenham where we went to the cheltenham races. we rinsed the food festival for free cheese and crisps and wine and oh how excited free stuff makes me. sarah won the first race (with the aid of velcro and a small arab boy) so we took at as a sign to drink champagne all day. we got fabulously drunk and then met up with rachie who was also in cheltenham for the day.

then we hitched a lift back to my house and had a meal of delicious fish and mash with my parents. i don't remember much but at the time i felt we were being incredibly articulate and funny. we watched spongebob squarepants: the movie (four stars! four stars!.. is patrick a starfish or a tongue?) slouched in my basement before we eventually made it to bed and i woke up feeling so confused as to where i was, why i was at home and why sarah was in my bed. so we took the dog out. and she ran into the road. and we came home.

sunday night i reunited with my flatmates. richard and i drank quite a lot of wine and generally had a nice old time. adam has now moved out (woooop) and is being replaced by someone called hilary. today i have not taken off my PJ's. i have watched neighbours twice and i have written 676 words of my essay in between talking to lozza for a long time on the phone and strangely having a pop punk revival in my ear drums.. new found glory, fenix tx, blink182. hehehehe

so tomorrow i shall be lectured and seminally seminared on sociology. i shall try and spend tonight imagining what it would be like to be married to mr allinson.

infected mushroom

2005-11-06T13:43:00.000Z

listening to: goldfrapp - number 1 // infected mushroom - converting vegetarians

THURSDAY = me + natasha went to the thekla

quel fabulous dinge d'n'b hole club boat with banksy's tag.. so bristol..

twas phat.. a first stop off point for when people visit me here.

on FRIDAY, apart from doing my gym induction, going to a seminar and then going to the gym AGAIN, we went to bedminster to a club called fiddlers to see Nitin Sawhney play a most spectacular set of breaks and sitahs. a most good night of dancing in my new green converse. i then went back to ed's where we watched ice age and i slept til the morning when i went home with the intention of doing some essay but instead put photos up on my wall and watched much 'nighty night'. it is COMIC GENIUS.

on SATURDAY you may remember it was the 5th of november. tom, rich and i went to the mardyke where we communed with mark, jess, sunil, ed, meg, summer, rachel and luke. we then ascended onto cabbot's hill.. the view of the city was spectacular as was the company. many many fireworks. jess and i clutched at gin, playing sexual alphabetics on the park bench with the view over the rooftops and the colour explositions. back at hotwells we mooched for many hours and listened to the rain on the conservatory roof and chatted much before i rested me head in jess's bed.

this is the view from hotwells house:

i am now back in me room. today is for work and recovery.

shake ur dix

2005-11-02T19:28:00.000Z

listening to: counting crows - mr jones

i am finding it impossible to write in anything other than 'grand narrative'. it's a marx thing. on topic, is marx defunct? discuss.

yesterday, sheff katie, sarah and i went to see the test icicles at the manhattan bar. i like the name test icicles and the lead singer was big and blick with funky hair and oversized trainers. i felt at home as i was wearing oversized boy trousers. there was a very emo boy crowd and the testes (heh) only played about 5 songs.. but i had a most nice time. the 1st support act was good in an instrumental hardcore rocky four tet way. im not sure what that means to you. the 2nd support act was funny. white stumpy rapper who rhymed the word fresh with fresh a lot and made the crowd, on't count of 4, shout DIEEEEEEEE! i dont know why. we walked back to winkworth and we drank that 3 week old cider that tastes of the hotwells party. then there was bed.

i set my alarm to wake me up to radio 4 at 9. it completely confused me. the radio went off and i was semi sleeping, dreaming about calling one of my flatmates a cock. i woke up slightly and listened to the radio and then fell asleep and woke up convinced i had 3 meetings to attend about child rights or something along those lines that was being discussed on radio 4 in those few minutes when i was awake. i went to the sociology lecture in a poor mood as sociology generally panics me at the moment as i have an essay in next week. hence, is marx defunct? discuss.

i had an informal meeting with rebecca and james from my social policy class. we discussed marx's opinion of the welfare state. they strike me as motivated and somewhat of an intelligence™ force. me like.

to narrate s'more. last wednesday i went to sarahs where we watched trash tv (trinny got her bum out on tv), smoked and read social policy notes. it was Fun. thursday was nice as thursday is social policy day and social policy does not tend to panic me because it is not a panic subject. our seminar was fun and this nutbar mature student lady said she wanted to cut someones bollocks off. i forget who. besides which i don't know why she was saying it. on friday night we went to cosies which was small and underground with wooden tables and played d'n'b. drinking much absinthe. it was, again, Fun. sunil, ed, sarah and richard were there. apres, richard and i were roaming winkworth when we bumped into tom and ben from flat20. we stayed up talking to them and i pushed many boundaries and found myself to be incredibly witty and funny. ho absinte..

on saturday i felt mostly disgusting so i stayed in my pj's and watched finding nemo with alex. around 8ish i dressed and we went to watch the film making society's film showing. alex had made a short film. the end.

on sunday ma came in to bris around 3. again i was in pj's. we did some mooching and bought me some Hip Hop Trainers™. i feel mostly blick when i wear them. then she drove me home and i mooched at home, bathing etc. rach was back from leeds for her sister's birthday so in the evening she came round and we watched goldmember. it was MOST nice to see her.

i came back on the train on monday afternoon with lots and lots of bags of clean washing which were very heavy on me hands. monday was the 31st of october. it followed, therefore, that halloween was to be celebrated. i wore my skeleton costume and went with sarah and scatty rachel to asda. i liked being a skeleton in a supermarket. winkworth had some night organised at mbargo. we got extremely drunk and mosey'd down there. i remember approximately 35 minutes of it. something about a witches hat. it was fun but for some reason ellen, richard, tom and i left for the elbow rooms. we sat on the table where i had sicked last week. heh. then for some reason ed picked me up and drove me back to the house where we stayed up til 4 or so. in the morning i slept through sarahs mad alarm and glurgled my way through painful sociology seminar (bloody silent rahs) and two lectures (with a toasted sandwich and neighbours interlude).

i believe that brings me to now.

me listening to peaches. i should like to see live: peaches, bjork, jimi hendrix and janis joplin, david bowie and no doubt. guttingly i bought tickets for the go! team but bought them for reading instead of bristol. do you live in reading? do you like the go! team?

zahra moved out of the flat today. she is replaced by aisha who is malaysian and in the five minutes contact i've had with her, seems pleasant.

oh other news of the day, i found a new blog which i approved highly of and reminded me of long involved msn conversations about animal olympics and rubbish supermarkets. and yes, we most definitely should be friends.

fingathing

2005-10-26T18:06:00.000Z

listening to: death from above 1979 - romantic rights // fingathing - time capsule

do you remember a time when this city was
a great place of architects and dillitantes?

on friday i got to spend a night at home because Virgin Rail Suck™.

home : a beautiful carpeted place where you can bath and watch tee-vee. my parents also fed me tuna and vegetables and then rice pudding! i may go home again very soon.

on saturday hazzer, rach and i got the train up to Leeds. i like leeds (especially the vintage boutique called blue rinse and the sheesha cafe with drapes on the ceiling) but also find it very big and very cold. many beautiful people live in leeds and there are many fashionable haircuts. we proceeded to the pub where we drank stella and ate chips and waited for steph, caz, laura, rich and jess to drip on in.. we drank s'more and sat around steph's flat by which point i was very drunk. then this guy luke who we met in byron bay came in brandishing my (lucky) eels scarf that i'd left in Australia 6 months ago! it was magical. then we went for a curry which i don't remember. playing titwank. confusion later resulted in some people going home and me, rach1, lozza, victor and haz going to northern light for technique: adam freeland, craig richards, agoria, cagedbaby... most fantastic - i felt super - and we partied hearty til the early dawn when we walked back along the canals and trees that led to clarence dock. on sunday we went for a roast of which the vegetarian equivalent is three yorkshire puddings. we sat and ate and drank and then moved onto another beautiful place where we lay on cushions, smoked strawb sheesha and ate goats cheese bruschetta for a good 6 hours... most delicious.

sarah has tonsilitus. i went to her house on monday and her housemate matt cooked curry so we ate it and drank wine before onto the mardyke for more wine and flatmate seeing. then sunil, izzzy and i went on to the elbow rooms where 'i was sick three times under the table but all in good humour'. i like them.

tuesday's seminar at 10am made me want to explode and splatter my alcoholic guts onto a perspex wall. it wasn't so bad. in the lecture that followed, the fire alarm went off and it sounded like 500 rape alarms ringing in my ear. it hurt. it burnt. i went home after and richard and i went shopping in wilkinsons for stuff to jazz up the flat with as it seems like everyone wants to leave and i like to think a comfy chair and a tv would reverse the trend. harriet left on the weekend but i didnt get to see her off. her replacement is called ellen and i prefer her because she actually talks to me and she doesn't play lacrosse. heh.

all in all today has been fairly blurrr. i went out for a drink with sunil last night then when i came back watched the life of brian with alex and richard. i fell asleep. this morning i have had panicky stomach feeling. it will go.

better news i have bought the fingathing album which i think is worthy of a three thumbs up! buy it! BUY IT!

pendulum are playing tonight... but i am in debates as to whether i should go. the elephant man is showing at the uni or someone's friend is dj-ing at bar 3. or there is poker. there are many options tonight but i have many books to read.

i spoke to adam today. he seems to have chilled.

grow baby, grow

2005-10-20T19:30:00.000Z

listening to: coldcut - mr nichols // kanye west & adam levine - heard 'em say

music

after poker last night i could not sleep (in an alert way. not a tossing and turning way) so i stayed up listening to my RADIO.

ras kwame helped me discover that that:

a) r&b... urban.. it aint all that bad by a long way
b) in fact, i quite like it

but the best song i have heard this week is coldcut - 'mr nichols' the video for which you can see here and i can only urge all you music lovers to have a listen.

mi madre

gestern kam meine mutter nach Bristol, um mich zu besuchen. wir treffen vor dem Arnolfini, dann essen wir etc etc etc.

oh distance has the way, of making love understandable

universility

wednesday we give each other presents. sarah gave me 4 batteries and a miniature bottle of ouzo. ntasha gave me a piece of paper with various willys and heads on it. thursdays are my social policy making days which means two lectures and a seminar. the seminar was funny because we have a mature student who makes me want to erupt because she talks to our tutor as though she's confronting tony blair on PM questions and when she's not doing that she is forever talking about that woman who got locked up for not paying her council tax even if we're talking about social democracy. we also have some angry looking rahstards wearing pashminas and looking Sultry. sit and swivvle motherfuckers.. oh the joys of rejection

heute abend und danach

go to the mardyke. seminar in the morning then i go to leeds to see caz and steph and rachel and whoever else is thar.

today she learns to meditate on a second hand couch

2005-10-18T23:43:00.000Z

listening to: chris coco in the blue room // joseph arthur - honey and the moon

on Monday i went with sheff Katie and saw a most lovely: joseph arthur.

he wore a mustard yellow suit and behind him was a white canvas that he painted face shapes with blue and yellow and red and black paint.

one line he sang:

She wrote her name with a heart
Inside his birthday card
Right beside the PS which read
Please don't think I'm devious
... You're what I find most beautiful

he also turned out to be a lovely faithful christian and said all us human souls are just a heart shape floating in the middle of nowhere. im not sure what this means to you but it left me feeling nicely tingly behind my eyelids.

sheff katie is very nice and it was her who told me about the gig. she reminds me of my cousin jess because she is also from sheffield and has a chopped black fringe.

-----

today was the 20th anniversary of neighbours which we watched on our lecture break in between cleaning the basement of sarah's house. it left me feeling soppy and much love for australian soaps. all the old crew came back for a screening of analise's bbc commissioned documentary about erinsborough... titled 'neighbours'! yeeey.

----

the party this weekend was most PHAT and i shall leave it at that. i have much love for hotwell road.

---

my phone is missing, presumed fallen down a k-hole. this is a bummer and leaves me feeling disconnected and most pissed at having spent £20 topping up that day. i also pity the fool who stole my most rubbish phone.

--

i really most really want to see adam. this evening i missed him much.

-

cold cut - 'mr nickles' is a lovely song. on friday night me and flatmates alex and amy went to watch the new wallace and gromit film. i was extremely drunk by the time we decided to go. a most definite three thumbs up. other news; i have just spent an ow ow ow £76 on a frickin train ticket! it does however mean that i will spend the weekend with rachel, steph and caz + other crew scattered around other uni's. YEY.

dead animals

2005-10-12T18:34:00.000Z

listening to: london elektricity - power ballads

just been searching animals on yahooligans:

The Caribou (known as the Reindeer in Europe and Asia) sometimes gathers in groups of up to 100,000 in late winter.

now does this mean that in america they call the reindeer a carribou? and who exactly calls it a reindeer in asia other than english speaking people.

other news.

lets see:

on friday i went to see the infadels with flatmates rich, alex and also jenny from somewhere around these here walls. it was most enjoyable, most sweaty and most freakin excellent plus i managed to get a set list (most likely a sweat list).

on saturday after spending a good solid day in and out of bed i went to BLOWPOP at the academy with sarah + rachel and their housemates jess, mark and ed. stanton warriers, krafty kuts and nitemares on wax. i would give it a full five star yeeee. i stayed over at sarah's and we mashchatted for a while and stayed in bed til it was time to go to the station and drop alex off.

for the rest of sunday i was mostly inactively recapturing energy. i went to the gay pineapple with flatmate rich for a bit and then on to another pub which was less gay. we drank wine and ale and talked about schooldays and acid trips to the zoo. we ended up in flat 20 with pearl and tom and ben and then i went to sleep.

my mondays are now forever free so sarah took me out to show me st nicks market. we drank for 12 hours with various peoples before leaving the mardyke for her house where we mostly slept and ate crisps.

on tuesday i had Lectures. this was ok and i mainly did drawing and stuff. in our break we went to asda with natasha and i bought a skeleton costume for halloween. (god this makes for a fascinating read). i had a politics Lecture then I went home.

in the evening i spoke to adam and thereafter felt queasy. i threw up into a glass because i am a vacillating pea. i went to sarah's where we sat in the conservatory with the strawberry flavoured sheesha pipe and many teas and rollies with ed, jess, matt, mark and sunil. then we cleaned the rats and i went home where richard and alex made me drink a lot of wine and i couldn't sleep so i made a cd.

and, refreshingly, that brings me to today. a sociology lecture, a drink at the pub and much rain. adam is going to leave imperial which i think is good.

enya, grease and infadelical rock

2005-10-08T03:13:00.000Z

listening to: gomez - bugglegum years

hey hatfiish!
felt inspired from the crow pastry story to write to u - i swear there is a small peroquet trapped between my walls.. every night about 4am i hear this 'cahhhhhhh.... cahhh' (dove from above noise).

good to hear from u tho peafasso. i am actually listening to 'talk talk talk' by the ordnary boys and it reminded me of u and rach. tonight i went to see this electrock thrashy new order style band called the infadels with my flatmates.

CLASSIC

mate haz i hear u have a transexual! sorry i was far too pissed to take in all our stories when i spoke to u! just recollecting now the one about kelly osbourne! i went to see babyshambles on wedensday with a dude from my house - how fucking rocknroll could pete doherty be!! he made me go weak at the knees. then a girl collapsed, +when my housemate barged into the rescue i ended up meeting bez from the happy mondayY!!!

hope to see u soon - did i tell u i met miss phi phi jr?! looked slightly different without the thai tan and volunteer palm tree soilage.. nice all the same though to get some recongnition!

now listening to gomez album (brings back koh tao)... many happy times this week chatting to people about our travels. got a brochure at the freshers fair from some round the world ticket place.. so many more places yet to go!

sorry darling very pissed but love to see an email from u, keep in touch, and i should be up to london soon (missing adam much! love how distance really does do conform to cliches..)

lots of love Livver x

>From: "harriet jones"
>To: little_miss_livsta@hotmail.com
>Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:17:14 +0000
>
>darling just read your email but i'm guessing it was pre phone call
>citations! you fucking nutter i love you!!! saw lee scratch perry
>for some dub reggae in camden lastnight was fucking cool and today
>was surrounded by about 15 crows while eating a danish like
>something out of a very sinister disney-was quite beautiful actually
>i hope somebody took a photo.
>
>must love you and leave you fresher fun just keeps on coming
>-tonight it's pyjama party along our corridor-think i might get
>reallly into it and go to bed hope to see you soon peach mad love x
>
>__________________________
>The new MSN Search Toolbar now includes Desktop search!
>http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/
>

with screws in their neck

2005-10-07T02:05:00.000Z

listening to: the decemberists

last night i went to see babyshambles.

a guy called ryan had a spare ticket, but then decided he couldn't go, so the spare ticket was mine; i put a paper sign up on the door to block two and when i'd given up hope of going, ben from flat 20 came up and so began the night. two support acts: pipe up and the littluns (inc random skinnytrendy man with tambourine) and already the crowd were eating from pete's hand but not before some man came on stage to recite a poem about a snake in the garden of eden. we were up top when i noticed ben was wearing cowboy boots. he'd been travelling a lot this past year and was able to put a girl into the recovery position when she collapsed during babyshambles' encore, during which - incidentally - i bumped into bez from the happy mondays! the music was good - although not instantly unforgtetable, but pete doherty was a complete rock'n'roll star in all sincerity. he stripped off, he threw clothes into the crowd, he signed promo's, he grabbed people up onto the stage. at first i was convinced kate moss had been pulled up on stage. it wasn't.

then we sat around and cooooootched on mine and adam's balcony and eventually me, pearl and alex watched a bit of napoleon dynamite.

i went on a library tour this morning which was a big ol' waste a space and time at 10.30am. then i went to freshers fair and signed up for a fair bit of societies. probably about 10 altogether... inc : indie, politics, film, amnesty international, RAG, jungle, electro house, helicon artsy magazine, free palastine (the guy on the stand was friendly.. and it does need freeing)... urgh probably more but some were free. like the falun dafa society. they gave me a lotus flower.

tonight... i met up with dan, matt, derek and jeff from flat 9 and we went to a very nice bar called 'the woods' with old vintage lamp shades and unusual seating. we wandered up to the epi in hope of jazz fusion jamming but we were too late so i just used the toilet and we came back to their flat and watched ricky gervais.

rach rang to say someone had been murdered on here street in Cov!

other highs... i found a natural grocery store-esque shop and bought falafel.

now i am going to bed. wrapped in blanket.

the higher the contrast.. the deeper the groove

2005-10-05T00:11:00.000Z

listening to: fabriclive - rob da bank : fabric24 // high contrast - what we do

some reason have the urge to start this post of with a.... 'yo'

so i am now at bristol!

i find it all absolutely fascinating. i love this place and i feel very positive about the rest of my life etc etc. and am now feeling thankful to be from somewhere like cheltenham so that i can find places like this so exciting. the free magazines, the live music, the stylised people.

im also liking my flat. my room is looking schweet. a little yellow, green and brown = mmmm. flatmates are a nice interesting bunch too.

ive got: an amy, alex, adam, rich, zara and harriet.

its only me and rich who arent from london. but everyone thinks cheltenham is in london anyway. monkeyfuckers!

loving all these rah's aswell. its a very interesting experience for me and reminds me a lot of the stories kerry used to tell me about exeter! one thing ive noticed is that i think properly loaded (and decent) people find it quite hard. they tend to really play down their wealth and are almost apologetic about it. methinks: am i approaching this with a sociological mind?

sleeping very little and even now, on my night off (staying in plastering pictures up with annie mac on listen again), i don't feel ready to go to bed.. have admitedly been wearing a blanket for the last 7 hours or so - far too hectic a morning of registering and walking up hills on a fuccccky hangover! have already found two COOL people on my course. and one of their cool house mates. friend potentials!

hopefully will be going to blowpop on saturday for stanton warriers, krafty kuts and nitemares on wax! aaaaaaayee! then i have royksopp (and sebastian tellier) on the 10th. then league of gents on the 15th. ordinary boys on the 16th. joseph arthur on the 17th. and maybe, very maybe, babyshambles tomorrow night. is all good here, never a reason to get bored.

its all interesting. even looking forward to getting into some work! yee-ha- to the extent i cut out an article in the paper to read for sociology!

speaking to adam quite a bit which is nice. also so nice to feel no extreme pressure or rush to make friends here (will anyway but dont feel it is absolutely stressy essential) as all me friends at home are keepers and i quite enjoy my own company. however am finding it nice and relaxing just being round new people and am pleased im not being a frigggggggin wallflower! love getting to know them all and like the fact we've got plenty a time. looking forward to finding some mad music heads to exchange passions with.

most of the guys in my flat are very into their films too. sweet!

some films to see:

- oliver
- wallice and gromit
- thumbsucker (its keanu reaves but the premise looks quite good...?)
- broken flowers

want to get into some kind of writing/painting thing for one of the many independent free magazines floating around. ah excitement. can't wait for the societies to start up.

eek up mate cake.

keep it clean don't be poltical

2005-09-29T16:30:00.000Z

listening to: do me bad things - the song rides // sigur ros - glossoli // death from above 1979 - romantic rights

ooh do me bad things - i must buy you!
sigur ros's takk may also be my... album of the year 2005!

on MONDAY - adam and i went to see danish new prog rockballs Mew at the carling academy in birmingham. it was emotional - for some reason i was thinking more during that concert than usual, especially as lead singer man screamed his high pitch lady voice during their oh.. oh.. oooh climax song, 'comforting sounds'. they seemed like nice guys. talked about meat loaf's glove.

then on tuesday we went to newport to see my grandparents. it was our first time in wales together and was accordingly momentous. we had lunch at a pub called the man of gwent (don'tcha know). my g'parents were incredibly sweet and funny and cool and oh i want them to live forever.

in the evening we watched morvern callar. i felt a bit sad because of all this change and then things got a bit weird with adam so he went and i took sleeping pills and i slept in til 2.30pm

on wednesday when we went to buy grasshoppers for his lizard and folders for his uni life. then he went to coventry to see alex and i couldn't go to see rach because she's got a job at wetherspoons (what is happening to my world?!?!) so i stayed in and watched lost and felt very jittery and unlike myself.

lost was good though.

on thursday, which is today, i did some tidying and packed up a load of dvd's and sturf to take with me on saturday which is when i go to bristol. i had been in text cahoots with steph which got me excited about being a fresher! i feel better today. then i walked molly around the park. adam picked us up and dropped us home and gave me a monkey and some cool headphones like his so i can look cool like him.

later tonight we are going to oxford to watch howl's moving castle which is a japanese anime film like spirited away. then tomorrow he goes back to imperial and i get packing! i wish there were more people around here.

find some beautiful place to get lost

2005-09-23T23:27:00.000Z

listening to: the decemberists - bridges and balloons

^ possibly a favourite song for 2005??

i have been to amsterdam!

i got back yesterday afternoon. a brilliant city. bikes. slim people. lovebud.

the first night we were there we went wandering and found ourselves walking down a street with a parade of people seemingly charging at us. very spinny. then this naked man covered in feathers knocked on a door and we realised there was a camera crew somewhere in the forefront. everyone hooted. there was a bit of dallying. then they all moved on in a big gaggle. so we followed them and they got to a theatre like building and went inside. they dispersed into the lobby, so we did too and we stood waiting for a while for the next big surprise. but it didnt happen so we left and we never got to find out what the fuck was going on.

we went to the van gogh museum which impressed me no end. colours, so modern for 1890. really. i bought a poster of a painting i fell in love with but i left it. the next day we went to the rijksmuseum where we stood in front of the night watch for a while. art is interesting. then we went to the sex museum. which was interesting too.

ah! and i bought TOEJAM AND EARL for the megadrive! AWESOME.

arnaud artouts - to have done with the justice of god

tonight i went to watch a comedy of errors at the RSC. it was brilliant and i would give it a very good *****.

boogie nights

2005-09-13T23:34:00.000Z

listening to: rough trade - counter culture volume 4

have not written for a whole week because my black marker (colouring the spaces with modelling clay) is much more satisfying right now. and because everything's a little too personal and top shelf for you.

cryptics aside, my week has been highlighted by:

a delivery from amazon yesterday morning of royksopp's 'melody AM', rough trade volume 4 and a dvd of morvern callar. i heartily love post!

the ashes! we won! i watched! i enjoyed!

a quite cool breaks night at the hub and then some far too hectic nasal narcosis arguementing with adam on friday

abbi's 20th birthday!

jo's 20th birthday!

a lovely lovely day yesterday moping about with each other then having a meal at the daffodil (art deco ex 1930s cinema turned restaurant) with this live jazz band playing on the balcony followed by a brief trip into town then bettered by a drive up to the top of the hill where we could see all the lights of the town buzzing like china

reaching the conclusion that we should all make more of an effort with animals so that one day we can talk to them and we can have underwater allies (dolphins, whale sharks, clown fish).

coming tenth in the pub quiz at the kings arms under the team name 'mary'

(( its like the story. with the rat jumping on the ox.
the who jumping on the what now?
the chinese. jumping on the bandwagon. the storytelling bandwagon. ))

a low point:

listening to lozza describe every detail of bestival and now realising i would have sold my left leg for a ticket!

never being able to find any south park on tv

and tomorrow:

rach returns from egypt!

Loose Women

2005-09-05T19:36:00.000Z

listening to: amusement parks on fire - venosa

totally forget to mention that haz, rach, laura and i went to see the ITV daytime virtuosa that is loose women on thursday!

the presenters were a bit bum. no kerry, sherry or carol. not even a jane macdonald. but they did have kay, koleen nolan and ruth from hollyoaks. it was awesome though. just to be part of something so beautiful.

I RULE.

haz's exhaust fell off on the way.

tdk photos

2005-09-03T14:12:00.000Z

listening to: nina simone - in the dark

i got my student accommodation thing through today. on opening it i must admit i was initially bummed at being in a student house - but fuck, it's a sweet deal. i shall be living at the bottom of park street in the closest accommodation to the city centre (bierkeller, bristol academy, watershed cinema!) in a spacious single room with en suite and a shared kitchen. there's about 100 other people there, and, granted - it probably won't be quite the same kind of vibe as the mad halls but i don't feel im after that. i don't need to be. i am really happy. it will also be perfect for adam's visits and a good base for any of my other free loading gig hopping friends. i must say, i am feeling very positive! my life RULES.

here are some photos (with my green lomolita!) of my tdk sunday experience:

adam and i on the tube ride over--

adam and i dancing (kinda)--

liv harmoniking--

half a bottle of vodka later handing out information to unsuspecting festival goers..--

in the info box--

for my people--

caz, adam, rach, steph and haz (JESTIFY!)--

mocky--

liv and mocky (apparently doing a monkey pose)--

adam, the before shot--

adam with contact ball--

rach and adam holding on to their front row for felix da housecat position (only to realise later he was dj-ing from a different stage..)--

camouflage jumpsuits

2005-08-31T09:54:00.000Z

listening to: mylo - in my arms

i had incredible dreams:

everyone around me on this platform being dressed in camouflage jumpsuits and me tearfully refusing to fly in the bomber plane because all that would happen is "we'd get shot down, and we'd die for nothing". running down the cobbled steps down to a seaside town that looked a bit like dartmouth and repeating to adam sands how i didn't want to die for nothing. then there were ski's on my feet and we'd gone to see my grandparents who were asleep in chairs in their front room looking very peaceful.

//dream

i filled up 2 photo albums. one with the school china trip. one with berlin, prague and budapest. barclays keep charging me £25 for being overdrawn mufuckingwankers

love is just a game, broken all the same and i will get over you
love is just a ride, happens all the time, swear i know this much is true.

darling when i see you, i see me

2005-08-29T20:38:00.000Z

listening to: kano - nite nite // magic numbers - i see you, you see me

my week of fun is to a close.

on thursday we got the bus to london. i got addicted to sudoku. we lay around in bed. we drank wine and ate takeaway. we got the tube to camden, walked around and smoked a joint before going into the jazz cafe on parkway. aphletik were warming up when we arrived. a very mixed crowd of rude boys and not rude boys and lots of very tall people. then blackalicious came on and they started off with something fast that i didn't know and they were amazing. i had a big grin on my face. fast rapping with proper words that makes sense impresses me and i had a good old train of thought about how music of any genre could appeal to me as long as it showed talent and originality. yah. they played chemical calastenics, first in flight, deception and (my favourite) make you feel that way along with other things off their new album which is called 'the craft'. i was very happy and very tired when we got back to the paddington pad.

on friday we went for lunch on carnaby street and did a runner. we creamed over all the great, great shops in search of a pair of jeans and some shirts for adam. he bought me some very cool shoes for my birthday present. we went round the camden vintage and he almost bought a fuck me now second hand leather j. we discovered my niche in the seven way street near covent garden with a 50% off sale in mooks and a whole street full of motel, superdry and urban outfitter-esque b's. and thousands upon thousands of interesting book shops and design stores and arty dvd boutiques. mmm MUST buy 'all about lily chou chou'... by night time we were tired from the london air that comes out like black fly guts on the tissue when you blow your nose. we had bought the incredibly classic, incredibly silly 'labyrinth' and spent the night watching david bowie as king of the goblins from the comfort of bed. eating choclate gu.

on saturday we stayed in bed til 3. conserving our energy. rach arrived in london at about 4.30 and at 5.30 we got the tube to kings cross for the tdk cross central festival. we had a meal near the station at this place called cassa mama and lo and behold - on the next table were michelle and romeo from the magic numbers!! this was EXTREMELY exciting and although we didn't go and ask for autographs we did play it incredibly cool and got to say good luck with the gig etc etc and they were very happy and smiley and eating large portions. we made it to the festival around 7 in time to hear dungen and by 9 we were on the front row of the main stage listening to the magic numbers playing one of the nicest sets of live music i've heard. the girl who does backing vocals is super cool. she has a goregeous voice and she played the glockenspiel, the wood block and a cross between a recorder and a keyboard. we stuck round the front rows in time for the bees who were super. we all went very mad doing the chicken payback. next we watched goldfrapp. i hadn't realised before but seemingly she is only 4ft and i only caught momentary glimpses of her huuge hair. she had sequined unicorns dancing on stage with her. she was SWEET. from dirt smooth electro to canvas 1 where we watched Kano do an hour long set. incredibly talented - how do they do it.. we wandered in between mr scruff (who was playing an EIGHT hour set) and the cross (the most amazing sound system which makes the floor jump and your lungs vibrate). then we watched Four Tet which was delicious! crazy sounds and a crazy crowd who lapppped it up. then we went home.

the venue had cobbled stone floor. there were lots of beautiful people with good hair. there were lots of people in ball dresses and masks. it was very london. very arty. oh i felt so very elite!

adam stayed in bed for most of sunday while rach and i went round to oxford street and got a bit silly in topshop. rach bought a very stunning vintage silk dress. i got a green lomolita camera, some caffeine tablets and an emergency contraceptive. at 5 rach went. she is in egypt now. adam got up. we bought a bottle of vodka. made strawberry chewitts vodka smoothies and moseyed our way down to day 2 of our TDK experience!

we left quite late and by the time we'd got to the tube we were both quite pissed. i was wearing a texas holdem poker cap. i had a harmonica with me. it was the notting hill carnival that day so a little girl on the train had a horn and i initiated an impromptu duet with her horn and my harmonica. it was a happy affair. a rah girl took the lemon she was sucking out of her mouth to tell us to 'shhhh' and i decided that she was the cause of all life's problems. she was wearing very poser dior glasses so we addressed her as 'oi, dior..' and told her she sucked, much to the approval of the rest of the train (including two ladies who i later went on to tell i was playing at the festival).

once inside we met up with everyone - sar, steph, bob, caz, rachie, nik and hazz. i don't remember who was playing when we arrived but soon grace jones came on in a big suped up wig and i did a lot of boo-ing and abusing and heckling, but as if to spite me, 'ride up to the bumper baby' was stuck in my head for the rest of the night. i then vaulted into the empty information kiosk and spent a good half hour or so directing people the wrong way to imaginary stages and handing out maps. we then went to see the almighty mocky playing on one of the smaller stages with a crowd of very nice and friendly folks who all appreciated him and his super support in the form of taylor savvy. we were so close, right at the front, dancing all over the show when things got even better and i somehow got to play a harmonica solo with him?!?! OH YEAHH! he gave me an apple.

then felix came on the main stage and we jiggled around in front of the smoke machine to tomas andersson 'washing up'. i felt VERY very good and spent a few minutes chilling out draped over the barrier by the main stage contemplating just how good my life was. adam and i found lots of secret seating areas and a very cool security guard. we then danced the night away to tiefschwarz and mylo til the sun came up and it was 6am. the music was insanely good and i had such a great time. i decided there was no way the night could have gone any better!

said our farewells. went back to the flat. semi-slept. got the coach back to cheltenham. saw my parents for the first time in what feels like months. heard all about their san francisco stories and now i am going to collapse in bed infront of some very undemanding tv.

oh my killer week! oh my lust for life.

nobody move, nobody get hurt

2005-08-24T19:01:00.000Z

listening to: kano - nite nite / we are scientists - nobody move, nobody get hurt

i am one year older as from yesterday!

( - pictures c/o ben - )

on sunday adam took me to oxford to see 'me and you and everyone we know' which had some beautiful moments:

“I’ll poop into your butthole and then you’ll poop it back into my butt and we’ll keep doing it back and forth with the same poop forever.”

but was overall a bit too arty for its own good. irritatingly so, it was lacking, it was pretty.

he stayed over and we stayed up all night, eventually falling asleep to a pirate version of lemony snicket. on monday we stayed in bed doing su doku.

in the evening i went with caz and rach and steph to watch the kareoke at the suffolk and eat thai curry. then everyone else turned up and when that was through; rach, haz, jess, jack, adam, alex and gus all came back to mine to see in 12o'clock and get blindlingly drunk. i had a grand old time. bebbers, rach, rich, dan, andy, abbi.. jo and others - fucking jack lewis?! who the hell are you and why are you in my house?! cocks.

and then it was tuesday and i was 19! opened cards and presents in bed where we stayed til the afternoon when we took molly to kennels which has scarred me- seeing her dragging her heels in and looking back at me with sad eyes when they tried to take her away. picked up rach who had made me falafel and bean salad!

caz, steph, rich and kylie came round at various points in the day. kylie had made me a pass the parcel-esque present containing sweeties from the corner shop and a different fact in each layer. fact. then everyone else turned up and claire gave me some monkey pants and foreman, despite being really quite ill at the moment, came round to drop off a huuuuge birthday cake which i have been eating all day (i am still in my dressing gown and pants and its almost 7). we drank sherbert vodka and took to the road! i was in adam's car with rach and becky and some sherbert vodka and my dirty novel. we had the best journey up - completely mad going round and round the ring road and at one point driving the wrong way down a motorway slip road. somehow we made it to the custard factory before everyone else. the venue was great and it wasn't that packed so we were right at the front. i wish i remembered the name of the support band. they were cool. one of them bought me a birthday whisky while i mingled with michael the drummer from we are scientists.

i had a suuuuuuper night.

tomorrow - thursday - will be going up to london to see blackalicious. i think.

gigs!

2005-08-20T20:14:00.000Z

we are scientists - 23rd august custard factory b'ham
blackalicious - 24th-25th august
erol alkan - 27th august concorde brighton
bestival - 9th-11th september isle of wight
hayseed dixie - september 13th bristol
mum - 17th sept london
de la soul - 19th-26th sept jazz cafe london
mew - 26th september birmingham
uk turntable comp - 29th sept nottingham rescue rooms
london elektricity - 20th october london
sigur ros - wed 9th nov carling academy brixton
chemical bros - 19th dec brixton

my birthday so soon... get me tickets to any of the above!

window cleaners

2005-08-16T12:13:00.000Z

gah. fat topless man somehow appears on a ladder at the window of every room i go in. he's washing the windows. i didn't ask him to. he was just there. i don't have fucking money to pay for window cleaning!

dampen the mental chatter

2005-08-16T10:52:00.000Z

listening to: plastic operator - folder

my, i have been busy. i felt inspired yesterday which i think i owe largely to waking up at 9am. so i did my first work of art in ages and i made this (im very excited with it!):

It took me like three hours to finish the shading on your upper lip.

on another note. i reached the drunk sobreity point last night where you've drunk so much you can't get any drunker and all you want is to be drunk and not conscious of any of these nasty things that drunk sobreity point makes you thing. i tend to peak to soon. i get sober walking home and i start thinking way too much. i had to control my breathing as i went to sleep last night so that i wasn't thinking so hard. dampen the mental chatter.

the napoleon dynamite song

2005-08-15T13:39:00.000Z

from the napoleon dynamite song!

it's funny. listen to it. napoleon. make yourself a dang quesadilla!

maniac mansion

2005-08-15T11:11:00.000Z

listening to: broken social scene - looks just like the sun // bedouin soundclash - when the night hears my song // maximo park - the night i lost my head

things are looking better as it's 10.30am, i'm dressed and the sun is out, i've started drawing again and aretha franklin sounds so good round my empty house. last night after the quiz (on my face and tell me you love me), rach and haz came back (joking about apu) and we played cards and watched 'pretty in pink' - oh what a film! looking through molly ringwald's backlog i am pleased to see she played cordelia in king lear and that she still seems to have a healthy career (she appeared on richard and judy last year). 'pretty in pink' (written by ferris bueller and breakfast club man john hughes) is brilliant though. new favourite character - duckie. boys, watch it. then when it comes to fancy dress do duckie! in the same vein, i found out from hotdog magazine that brian the geek dated molly the prom queen ringwald while filming the breakfast club!

on saturday i saw 'charlie and the chocolate factory' which was DELICIOUS! it makes me wonder why tim burton hasn't done more roald dahl.. i would LOVE to see the twits or even a reworking of the witches (johnny depp as head witch). and as huge a part of my life as the 1970s version of 'charlie..' was, i renounce it all for this. oh so dark, so funny, so beetlejuice!

the james blunt songs make me feel uncomfortably cringey. i saw him sing it on the glastonbury coverage. eegh. my skin crawls at anyone who starts a song with 'my life is brilliant'. i get frustrated when you sound like skin from skunk anansie but aren't. which i suppose is a good thing. but.. james blunt, you have given us a new addition to the rhyming slang dictionary.

i want to jump on the NME bandwagon and see the arctic monkeys but i can't. so someone else do it for me.

why, did we have to meet, on the night i lost my head?

my dream

2005-08-13T09:04:00.000Z

listening to: kate bush - cloudbursting

i had the weirdest dream! let's see if i can go from the beginning...

adam and i had gone on this late night mission to see the new graffiti work around cheltenham. there was this new artist called lomo who had painted very detailed yellow and purple faces everywhere. we got on a bus. i sat on the top deck on the back right. adam disappeared and rach was sat next to me. a man at the front of the deck said he had a bomb and was deciding whether to use it. everything became very frantic and we were all scared that he could choose to blow up the bus. then he said he had made his decision - to detonate the bomb - and there was this incredibly long freeze frame with such an overwhelming feeling that everyone was going to die that we didn't realise at first that the bomb hadn't gone off. we calmed down in a swimming pool where i recounted the story to jo. soon after, i was on a train going across china sat behind a man who had exactly the same voice as my grandad. i had a mouth full of jelly like chicken fillet that i kept spitting out. i explored the train. my carriage had been turned into a kids cinema showing the princess diaries. i saw claire. the train floor became very sloped. me and claire were sat right at the top of tiering; really loud music was playing, being controlled by this chinese chef down in the aisle. claire showed me this beauty brochure which had been made while we were in china a few years ago and amongst the chinese models on the front was a picture of caz wearing a fur stole very o.t.t'ly applying a face mask! it made me laugh so hard that i woke up.

dann sind wir helden, nur diesen tag

2005-08-12T19:24:00.000Z

listening to: gomez - bring it on // david bowie

i find it funny that i just put a cup of wine i didn't manage to drink last night back in the fridge ready to drink again with dinner tonight.

today i got up, watched Trisha, ate breakfast and walked Molly round the park before 11 this morning. I cleaned the bathroom. I did a basket full of ironing. i used a detox oxy wipe on the kitchen. i sorted out stuff for a carboot sale on sunday. we taught molly how to jump over sticks balanced on plant pots. I am domesticated. i can take on the world.

tomorrow we are going to the ballon show in bristol with a picnic and some vino. apparently if you write 'S.I.E' on an old train ticket you can use it over again. it stands for 'stamped in error'.

I was listening to:

Lost souls, you and I, my dear
Whiskey bottle and a 45, my dear
We're on a roll, suitcase and celophane, my dear
Whiskey bottle and a 45 satisfies my dear
And someone's whispering into my ear
Askin' softly what do your fear today

Which is Gomez - 'Bubblegum Years'.

incidentally, every music collection could benefit from 'bring it on' by gomez, 'free the bees' by the bees and 'mishapes' by pulp. jarvis cocker, you make my blood tingle.

yesterday when it got to 7pm there were too many hours in the day to fill. housebound with my dog for company. I had a bath but couldn't get out because the bathroom was too cold and the water was warm. I went to bed freezing cold and woke up later sweatingly hot. I am not sure why I am divulging these details. I have had far too much time on my own spent dissecting myself and thinking about a hundred different things, such as: anxiety, fulfilment, friendship. I semi concluded that not having a job has dented my self esteem and the same goes for my incredbly messy hair and my mumps. I also decided that David Bowie circa Spiders from Mars is probably one of my favourite people in the world and I shall definitely go as him to the next fancy dress party.

i also semi wrote a song which is exciting!

it would have lyrics like:

A small Jean Genie snuck off to the city
Strung out on lasers and slash back plazas
Ate all your razors while pulling the waiters
Talking bout Monroe and walking on Snow White
New York's a go-go and everything tastes right

silly, concepty stuff. i would shoot for kate bush but probably end up like 'tight fit'; that 80's band who sang (and got a number 1 out of) 'in the jungle, the mighty jungle'. i am only mentioning this because my next door neighbour was in that band and i bubble with pride at being able to tell the story of living nextdoor to a one hit wonder.

i found some interesting things while searching for carboot soul goodies:

- a postcard from abbi, amy, rach and jo from the german exchange in yr 9 where no one seems to be having much fun
- a copy of 'broken sword II' for the playstation. oh mystery game, i shall play thee tonight!
- some horrendous singles i bought in days of old. honestly, there is no way i can defend: chumbawamba - tubthumping, shawn mullins - lullaby, the dawsons creek soundtrack...

i am watching the big brother final tonight. it makes me feel so safe and womblike. i will be drinking blonde organic lager and playing broken sword during the breaks. SWEET.

and we'd save terrence and phillip too, cos that's what brian boitano'd do

2005-08-10T16:40:00.000Z

listening to: ian dury and the blockheads - sex & drugs & rock'n'roll // south park soundtrack // arcade fire - neighbourhood #1

bombs are flying.
people are dying.
children are crying.
politicians are lying too.
cancer is killing.
texaco's spilling.
the whole world's gone to hell..
but how are you?

I'm super!
Thanks for asking
All things considered
I couldn't be better I must say
I'm feeling super!
Nothing bugs me
Everything is super
when you're..
Don't you think I look cute in this hat?

south park!!

step two instead of shit say poo as in 'bull poo' 'poo head' and this 'poo is cold'!

i am rediscovering the 'bigger, longer, uncut' soundtrack. it is making me feel SUPER. memory of watching that film at the roses in tewksbury with my dad and sister many years ago - there was a very elderly woman usher who warned us, as she showed us to our seats, that there would be some very bad language.

mump is dying slowly. last night was painful as i was burning up, feeling very sorry for myself and very bad for it as i was watching 'born to be different' about people with real problems. i don't know how to deal with my own illness. rach dropped me roudn a home made get well card which was so brilliant. caz gave me banana and strawberry smoothie.

randomly, this is me and rach doing our bit to help out phi phi island, planting palm trees...

today i feel better than yesterday and the thought of eating doesn't make me want to SPEW. i feel a bit more project orientated. adam's gone to france and my parents go to san fran in a few hours. in a way, i am quite glad i will be on my lonesome despite recently really oversentimentalising my soppy self when i realise how much i love my ma. i can't really express anything real on this. (oh my god i've become stale..)

i could:

make a scrap book / flip book that actually works
paint a comic book mural on my wall
go to the lowlands festival nr amsterdam!!

the lineup...... doves, magic numbers, kaiser chiefs, the prodigy, nick cave, pixies, marilyn manson, maximo park, franz ferdinand, the go! team...

ahh... this is rach, haz and me on phi phi lay:

i love these lyrics:

They may cut your dick in half
and serve it to a pig,
and though it hurts you'll laugh
and dance a dickless jig.
but thats the way it goes
and though you're shat upon
though you die la resistance lives on!

i am SO having that as my epitaph!

don't be afraid, you have just got your eyes closed

2005-08-08T15:55:00.000Z

listening to: mum - don't be afraid, you have just got your eyes closed

firstly. fabric was brilliant. the music was excellent and i exerted brilliant (for me) personal control over my pockets. i danced a lot - roni size was awesome as he played lots of very dirty heavy things.. including pendulum - 'slam'! my night was somewhat blighted by the fact that i had plump dj's - 'soul vibrates' stuck in my head for about 6 hours and everytime i went near the breaks room i was convinced it was playing. it wasn't. i lost half my brain. excellent.

MUMPS / pills /
Lethargic blame /
why can't i be happy
because i shouldn't be ill.

all these sad things - like my mum one day not being here - i keep thinking of them and (i don't feel the depressed numbness) i feel sad like crying. i feel in this middle land where i don't like being in company and i don't like being left on my own. on thursday night we had a really nice meal (poached pears) with my mum and dad for her birthday which i think sparked off this thing in me where i felt like a bad conversationalist and i wished i was more animated.

i think mumps are coming out of my ear.

last few days acquired cd's:

M.I.A - arular
mocky - are + be
pendulum - hold your colour
david holmes - david h presents the free association

i watched garden state yesterday which i really liked but felt to ill to connect with. good soundtrack.. accoustic version of 'such great heights' by someone who isnt the postal service??

have been listening to:

tomas andersson - washing up (tiga remix)
soggy bottom boys - man of constant sorrow (oh brother where art thou!!)
pendulum - slam
arcade fire - old flame
kaiser chiefs - everyday i love you les and less
m.i.a - pull up the people
lyrics born - hello (remix)

BAD MOOD. GOING NOW.

three men and a baby

2005-08-04T11:57:00.000Z

listening to: razzy - i hate hate // soggy bottom boys - i am a man of constant sorrow // elvis - suspicious minds

it struck me, as watching 3 men and a baby:
tom selleck's huge cradling alien arms -
we are all living in parallel universes
mechanically drawn to baby's round eyes and silly cheeks.

we thought, acting out somewhere is the actuality of watching 'Alive' on this night:
3rd August 2005.

(we wanted to watch Alive (the film about uruguayan rugby players eating each other) but Blockbuster didn't have it and the shop of the window behind which it wsa selling for £1.99 was closed).

we had actually wanted to watch charlie and the chocolate factory (JOHNNY why have i not seen it already?!) and i fast walked looking strange with my bruised legs all the way to 8.25pm until we saw it was sold out and turned back. we sat in the beer gardens which we used to do a lot a few years ago but it didn't feel the same and this 'summer holiday' doesn't feel anything like a summer holiday: that little network around you.

so we watched 3 men and a baby on pay-per-view which is an incredible film: baby steals the show for a sequence lasting about 45 minutes of nil dialog just peeing over everything. the sequence ends when Pampers really steals the show with an average name drop rate of one supersize nappy pack every 30 frames. there's one great moment where Peter is shopping in the supermarket having a chat with the shopping assistant who is conveniently placed infront of a whole aisle full of Pampers. so very 80's product placements, we salute you.

my legs were bruised from 2 hours intensive capoeira fighting on monday night. it's this brazillian art form involving kicks and ducks and no handed kartwheels that you might remember form the bbc adverts. it was fun. there were musical instruments. everyone else was good.

in the day we'd been to sudely castle and made the ladies at the visitor centre very, very nervous.

we monged after and stayed in so we could watch The house of OCD which i found extremely touching. newsnight was on after and they had some extremist muslim groups saying britain should adopt shariah law and 'the banner had been lifted for jihad in the UK'. we had also watched a programme about supermarkets: the mutant chickens and the regulation cucumebers. i went to bed feeling depressed with the world wondering, on how many levels is the world wrong?

eye candy... me and haz on the beach at phi phi-->

on tuesday i won the irish bingo at the kings arms! i was extremely excited.

better still, on saturday night adam took me to see 'the improvisers' at the theatre in malvern. it's a stage version (kind of) of whose line is it anyway? all improvised, unscripted, phil jupitused. it was brilllllliant! they were so funny, i loved it and what was very cool was that stephen frost (bushy eyebrowed star) pretended that we'd run over his leg as we were parking.

eye candy... me, rach and haz in a koh tao sunset-->

today is my ma's birthday and i'm reminded that this time last year i was in my post-global gathering sleep walk week seeing massive attack and watching hamlet. lozza went to australia on sunday which among other things makes me feel like i'm missing a big part of last year.

on friday though we are off to LONDON to see evil 9, plump dj's and nitin sawhney and on the 28th august we have our tickets to see mocky, grace jones, felix, mylo and tiefschwarz at the TDK cross central festival. but i DO wish i was going to the big chill!

chinese necklace - sex, blood, birth

2005-07-30T11:50:00.000Z

listening to: the beatles - all you need is love // kasabian - reason is treason // simple kid - the commuter

certain points in the last five months,
where if you cut out the bits in between
would just show me, air born,
flying all the way around the world in an aeroplane.

we went dancing on thursday, all elastic legs for the length of 'prodigy - breathe' i felt like sitting on the leather with an extremely smug grin on my face. extremely happy.

rach, haz and adam came back and we stayed up clawing at the scrabble board, sitting on the grass patch in my garden singing mine and rachel's jazz scat version of 'baby its cold outside' and jamming on the guitar with the tuneful harmonica - possessed by someone who could actually play.

i managed to while away those dead hours of the morning in bed with adam feeling happy half thoughts and not reeling off insanities as i ussually find myself doing at that time before wondering.. what was i just thinking about?

friday was spent glued to my sofa underneath adam's arms and a duvet watching a whole disk worth of family guy eating chocolate truffles and bean soup. when he left my parents also left for their picnic with jools holland at the westonburt arbatoreum with the sandwiches in the fridge with the 'touch on pain of death' sign on them.

running round with the house to myself tutting at friday night tv even though i was convinced it was saturday. i settled on having a free standing bath in the new bathroom ('this is my favourite bathroom...' my summer of love .

//bath time
i listened to pulp.

first bath in the new bathroom
and how clean and luxury it feels
but not too clean and luxury
because too much is for things that aren't so great
and this feels lovely

unfortunately there is no blind.

the green framing
the white all around the window
panes reflecting the wall lights.

the light bulbs in this dim light with their backs reflecting off the mirror looking like an illuminated onion christmas decoration.

bath time\
dilemma of the moment is whether i am:
a) living the loafers dream! grabbing the last opportunity to be free from debts and work and shitty jobs!
b) being incredibly lazy

i have decided to throw everything into believing it's a) but have decided for this to satisfy me then i have to do stuff for other people and not live in squalor which i wake up to at half past twelve every morning. for example : buying flowers, making cakes, writing letters to grandparents, reading short stories by hunter s thompson.

on wednesday i played tennis against adam and played probably better (how brilliant is probably before an adverb) than i ever have and it went to a 6-6 tie break. he won but i was happy.

dedicate life. you just know i'll succeed at something don't you?

i think maybe i forgot, that things don't always have to be the way they are.

fiji

2005-07-26T12:52:00.000Z

winter solstice rave photos

2005-07-26T12:12:00.000Z

listening to: jan francisco meets josef armani - infatuation

photos from the winter solstice rave in cairns: