| My long weekend |
[Sep. 1st, 2009|11:09 am] |
Friday
I called my mother, to check on how things were going south of the river, and apparently things south of the river could be better, as her credit and debit cards got stolen earlier in the week, and they lost a fair bit of money from the joint account before anybody noticed the cards were missing. There has been a lot of hassle with the bank trying to get the money recovered and getting the cards replaced – I think some of this is still ongoing now. So the family’s not too happy. I arranged to meet them later in the weekend, to lend some moral support.
As for myself; I managed to come down with a cold, and felt awful anyway after a few late nights working on my projects at home, so I finished work, went for one drink with people from the office, then went home and crashed into bed ridiculously early.
Saturday
I got up feeling a bit more refreshed, did a bit of work updating the website, then rushed out with Lande to meet Robyn in Piccadilly, so that we could go and see the Waterhouse exhibition. I’d been intending to see this for weeks and, I have to say, it was well worth going. It was a bit smaller than I’d expected (four rooms) but all my favourites were there, plus several I’d never even heard of. It was fantastic! Afterwards, we headed to Southwark and met ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) paul_sticks, Lily and other Vagabonds staff for an early evening drink, before everything for the club got set up and the night began properly at the Barrowboy & Banker. Good fun, and we were joined by enlyyl, fireblade__, fatenoir and others later in the night also, but I probably shouldn’t have drunk as much as I did, especially with the cold and everything. I paid the inevitable price for this later on.
Sunday
Badly hung over, I went to London Bridge with Lande to meet my parents. Not only had they suffered the loss of their cards, but on Friday night their car had also been broken into. The thieves broke a window and made off with two cheap folding chairs and a picnic blanket from the boot. I’ve got to wonder why exactly, but the criminal mind must be a very strange and complex thing. But having to get a car window replaced only adds insult to the existing injury, and we found (after a long, meandering walk) an Indian restaurant for a consolatory meal, near Brick Lane. It was great food, but I might have enjoyed it slightly more if I’d gone easier on the drink the night before…
After the meal, we wandered around E1, which is surprisingly good on a warm Sunday afternoon. The thirty degree heat which had been forecast (fortunately) didn’t happen, and we decided not to get sucked into all the Notting Hill Carnival goings on, but East London seemed quite fun, so we stayed there. There were a lot of fairly unofficial-looking street markets going on, and grungy but friendly-looking bars open onto the streets with rambling eccentric types puffing funny roll-ups and jamming together on knackered-looking instruments. I’d never really explored that neck of the woods much, but I think I’ll try and find some more time for it before winter draws in – it’s like a less tarted-up Camden, and also reminds me of the neighbourhood in Berlin where I once lived.
Monday
We watched The Time Traveller’s Wife, which wasn’t my normal sort of thing, but it turned out to be enjoyable nonetheless. Then we had Turkish food. In the evening, I spent a few hours working on my various musical compositions. I’m slowly but surely getting the hang of Fruity Loops and its many plug-ins.
Next Weekend
It’s Inferno on Friday, followed by the Dark Mills thingy on Saturday. Should be fun, provided I get over the cold before then! |
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| The weekend |
[Aug. 3rd, 2009|12:00 pm] |
On Friday evening, Lande and I went to Deviant at the Purple Turtle. It was pretty good fun, but we left halfway through the live set by Cybercide, as we were both feeling really tired and I still hadn't got over my cold from earlier in the week.
On Saturday, we ventured down into Croydon. This was mainly to be at a big family gathering, for my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary (they tied the knot in 1969, just after Apollo 11 landed on the moon) and also for my grandmother's eighty-first birthday. En route though, we stopped at Time Bomb on Northend. I always call into that place when I pass it, just on principle because it's nice to see an alternative clothing shop in Croydon, but rarely seem to actually buy anything (which always makes me feel guilty because they're so friendly). Anyway, they print T-shirts there and I'd wanted to get a Brass Eye-related design for ages so, when I was off work last Tuesday, I managed to draw this out using Photoshop and put it on a USB stick for printing:
I'm pleased with how this turned out! Anyway, from there we continued to my family homestead (not wearing the T-shirt) and seven of the Gardner clan all ended up going for a curry at Zara's Kitchen. In an attempt to unblock my sinuses, I ordered a vegetable madras, which turned out to be so strong I did struggle with it a bit, but it was ultimately rewarding; they never disappoint there!
On Sunday, I managed to raid a few old photos from the albums on my old bedroom shelf, and my parents took me and Lande - as a bit of a random daytrip - over to look at a lavender farm near Carshalton. I did a bit of photography over there (I'm hoping it will make a handy location for a future film project), then we headed back home to north London. No time for the Alternative Bring & Buy sale unfortunately, but I was starting to feel very run-down by this point and wanted to go to bed early.
Today... the NHS Direct website can't confirm this for definite, but it looks like I may have swine flu. I've got an authorisation code to go and collect antiviral meds anyway, and have been advised to stay away from work. So here I am. I hope this doesn't last for too long, I can't honestly say I'm enjoying the illness that much so far. |
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| Tuesday... already?? |
[May. 5th, 2009|07:55 am] |
Friday - I was supposed to get out of work a bit early, as is the custom before a bank holiday weekend, but the volume of shit on my desk prevented this from happening. I eventually tore myself away, dashed home, met Lande, changed, and headed to Piccadilly Circus, where the annual London Sci-Fi Festival was in full swing. I'd meant to attend this for years, but hadn't got organised enough until now; an old college friend was working there, so we all agreed to go and watch a special screening of The City of Lost Children, with an introduction and Q & A session by director Marc Caro. Birthday boy fireblade__ also joined us for this and it was superb (I'd seen the movie before, but not for about ten years, and had largely forgotten how great it is). Afterwards we all legged it to Camden for a couple of hours at Inferno, but a long busy week was beginning to take its toll and we flaked after only a couple of hours.
Saturday - I spent some more time working on some music-making with my PC. I'm getting slowly better at this. A lot of it still sounds awful, but some rays of barely listenable are starting to shine through in places. I also did some work on a landscape painting that I'm doing.
Sunday - Made it down to Croydon in time to have a pub lunch with my parents and a fair bit of my extended family. My grandmother's health doesn't look great, but she's hanging in there and it was good to see her again. Lande and I stayed at my parents' place in the evening.
Monday - We all drove down to Kent look at Hever Castle. I think I might have gone there once as a child, maybe on a school trip, but didn't remember it too well.
It was beautiful and, as it was May Day bank holiday, there was also Morris Dancing going on, and actors wandering around, interacting with guests and portraying Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn. It's a pity we had to queue so long to get into the actual castle (but it was a bank holiday) because I missed the chance to have a go on the archery. Very good day out anyway... and back home to a huge heap of ironing in the evening. |
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| Weekend |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|10:28 am] |
I had drinks with work people on Friday lunchtime, followed by a curry in Covent Garden in the evening, with Lande and my parents*. We discussed laser surgery in a bit more detail, and my mother’s given me some blurb about it, which I need to sit down and have a proper read through.
On Saturday night, it was the ‘main bash’ at Vagabonds. Great times! I decided not to repeat my drunkenness of Lande’s birthday do a month earlier** and stayed relatively lucid for most of the night, which was probably a better choice. The place was sooooo crowded though – having three birthdays going on simultaneously probably had something to do with that, but the place has been steadily gaining popularity for a while and, nice venue though the Barrowboy & Banker is, I get the impression the club’s outgrowing it. The music was great but the dancefloor was more or less impossible to get on, so we spent most of the night in one corner of the lower floor, guarding a couple of the tables... A lot of photos did get taken, although I’m still a bit behind on sorting through them. I suspect morbidfrog’s group pictures came out better, anyway.
We stayed until the end, then made it back home by night bus with fireblade__ in tow and crashed into bed around five. We were woken a few minutes later by shouting in the street below our window, where a load of the local pond life had stumbled into the path of a taxi and chaos ensued, with people chasing each other up and down the road and police intervening… not for the first time, I regretted not filming this sort of thing, speeding it up and putting it on Youtube with Benny Hill music.
Yesterday was pretty unremarkable, after we’d caught up on some sleep. I’ve been trying, with degrees of success, to get the animation project back on track. Hopefully that’ll be completed some time later this month. So, yeah. It's nice - in some respects - to have the birthday over with now, so I can get back on with living normally and not focusing on getting older!
* This was made all the more dramatic by a big angry demonstration going on beneath my office window in the early evening. I wasn't too keen on leaving the building, until the crowd had disbursed. I don't knowingly upset people like this; do they not have anyone better to shout through their megaphones at?
** I still blame her younger brother for this. Force-fed me tequilas, he did. |
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| Fly by night |
[Aug. 17th, 2008|08:54 pm] |
This weekend I've been doing family-type stuff.
Tomorrow I have a day's holiday, so that I can spend some serious time at home, animating. I have much work to do. Much.
Here's a fly-past by a Hurricane and a Spitfire, which I saw with my parents earlier today at the RAF Kenley memorial.
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| Everybody look at me! I've had a weekend |
[Jun. 25th, 2007|12:36 pm] |
And so starts yet another working week with me bleary-eyed and looking like I'm about to fall asleep with my head on the keyboard at any moment. I'd planned a fairly quiet weekend, but it sort of spiralled out of control... ( Read more... ) |
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| Modern Toss |
[Nov. 26th, 2006|12:36 pm] |
It's been a fairly quiet weekend, and I'm glad. I need it. I've had colds testing my defences all week, looking for weaknesses to exploit, so although I've not really been ill as such I've not been on top form either and looking somewhat tired and lifeless.
I made it to Futurepunk on Thursday evening but only stayed until the end of History of Guns's set, then headed for home, as I was enjoying myself but just couldn't be doing with any more by half-ten. I fell asleep several times on the train and was lucky enough to wake up just as it was arriving at my station.
I stayed in on Friday night with some wine and a few marinated olives, slept for about ten hours and woke up feeling like a new man. Yesterday I started making my costume for my department's fancy dress party next month (I'm revealing nothing as yet, only that this year's theme is "good and evil"). In the early afternoon I met up with Christine in central London, as she'd heard of an exhibition at the ICA called "Alien Nation" (an exploration of how social outsiders are treated, using sci-fi iconography, or something), so we wandered around there for a bit, had possibly the best bowl of chips ever in the cafe area (seriously, go and see the exhibition just for their snack food if nothing else!) and discussed the possibility of banding together with a few other aspiring artists of a gothic persuasion and maybe staging an exhibition of our work somewhere next year. This would be very cool, since I've not exhibited anywhere offline since early 2004 and it would be great to blow the dust off some old canvasses again. Afterwards, I wasted some money in the ICA bookshop; did you know that Modern Toss was/still is a comic book as well as an animated TV series? Well, I didn't know, but now I've started a collection of them.
In the evening I headed home for a family meal (it was my dad's birthday) and watched Capote on DVD. My dad's doing okay, but he's had some more health problems lately - he had unpleasant-sounding hospital tests done on Monday for a (benign) enlarged prostate. Not to mention my uncle still worrying us all with his own health issues.
Today I'm toying with the idea of beginning my next animation project, now that I think I've worked out how it's going to run. We shall see. |
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| Daleks: Invasion Walthamstow, 2006 A.D. |
[Aug. 20th, 2006|01:03 pm] |
Another eventful few days. On Thursday night I headed over to Scream Studios after work, for my first proper practice session with Skat Injector. It was a remarkable success really, considering I've not played with a 'band' for about ten years and haven't even picked up my bass at all since 1999 and have less idea than ever before about what to do with it. Rick just said "Stand over there, wait for the track to start, then just go mental with it. And stop when the track finishes." It seemed to work out alright.
We're now investigating places that might want us to play live - apparently the singer from Leech Woman checked out our page on Myspace and says our music's "hilarious", so Rick's now badgering him to try and get us a supporting slot somewhere with them. I've asked if I can write a song now, too - I've had the idea of a really weird, noisy re-working of a Depeche Mode song called "Enjoy The Tinitus".
On Friday evening, I headed straight from the office to Walthamstow, to meet up with random_goth and the two kids, to watch a free outdoor screening of Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.*. It really was a cheap and cheerful evening, with a soul/funk covers band on stage before the movie began and a 'real' Dalek** being wheeled on to help introduce the main feature. Unfortunately, the surface hadn't been prepared with Dalek mobility in mind, and several policemen and security guards had to push it up to the front of the screen, which created the impression that it was pissed and being forcibly escorted off the premises.
Yesterday I went up to Suffolk with my family and spent the day wandering around the coast near the Sizewell B nuclear facility; I'd not been aware that the surrounding countryside's actually so beautiful there! I did arty things like photographing pebbles and old, crumbling WW2 beach bunkers, then stopped for a meal in Colchester on the way home in the evening**.
Well, sorry about this slight deviation from my normal antics. I get paid next week, so hopefully soon I'll be back with more tales of drunken silliness.
* A forty-year-old gem starring Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbins, with an endearingly 1960s outlook on the future - it's inspiring that, even in a world that's been invaded by fascist alien blobs, some plucky Londoners can remain stoic and defiant enough to slap on some Brylcreem and wear a tie.
** It hasn't changed in the three years since my last visit, except a few more shops are boarded up and I no longer know anybody who lives there. |
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| Five pictures for five canvases |
[Jun. 19th, 2006|12:08 pm] |
At the weekend I mostly painted. One man; five canvases (my mother bought them in a sale some time around last Christmas); fourteen days. It’s a challenge, but I needed something to occupy me for my time in exile. There are boxes of painting materials in my old bedroom, which have been collecting dust since April 2004. Some tubes of paint have now gone solid and some spray cans are irreversibly clogged, but there are still adequate resources to set a small production line going again, and I’m using my camera to document my progress. A lot of ‘found objects’* are ending up stuck on the canvases as well, which means lots of toxic glue vapours for me to inhale. Mmmm, toxic glue vapours. I’ve decided the theme is going to be beasts from ancient mythology.
Also, I got a phone call on Friday from the friend of the boyfriend of the daughter of a friend of my mother's (got that? I'll be testing you on this later), who's apparently travelled to Norway recently and been inspired to write a "slightly dark childrens' book", and he heard that I was an illustrator, so could he have the details of my website? He's having a look at my portfolio and says he might get back to me in a few days if it's suitable. Of course, I've been asked to do similar collaboratiosn inthe past and they've come to nought, but you never know...
Besides the painting, I went out to the Dev on Saturday for random_goth’s birthday celebrations, giving me a chance to meet up with loads of faces I’ve not seen in ages, plus a couple of new ones. And wear my new goggles. Unfortunately, a combination of smoke, pollen allergy and uncomfortable contact lenses meant I had aching eyes for most of the night and had to either squint at people or close my eyes completely and try to find my beer on the table by means of touch alone. Afterwards, we all headed for Decadence, which was my first visit there since it moved venue from Gossips. It could have been better, to be honest – it turns out the rumours I’d heard of how small and pokey the new club is weren’t exaggerations, and a drugged-up mentalist deciding to try and start a fight with fireblade__ didn’t help things either. We drifted off in our own directions before two, but it was a fun night at least because of the people.
Yesterday we met up with my grandmother and had a family pub lunch in Oxted, then did more painting in the evening and watched The Constant Gardener (good, if a bit depressing).
* Small metal chains and bits of wood. I did plan to use some old insulin syringes too (my parents’ old cat was diabetic during his autumn years) but then eBay probably have some obscure rule against selling medical waste on their site. |
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| Night #1 spent at my parents' house |
[Jun. 15th, 2006|09:10 am] |
It's strange. Sleeping in my old bed, then getting up and catching the train from platform 3 at Purley, like I used to do. It feels like someone's re-wound my life back to around November 2003-February 2004 (when I'd begun working for ***, but before I moved out). My parents are both fine - I even got made a packed lunch this morning. Wooo!
Aside from that, not a lot to report. My short story's still plodding along during my lunch breaks. I haven't painted anything new yet. Going to watch England vs. Trinidad/Tobago after work this evening with colleagues; I missed the previosu England game because I was at that wedding on Saturday, but by all accoutns it was a crap game. I reckon we're going to get knocked out during the second round anyway, as soon as we have to start facing proper teams... I drew Mexico in an office sweepstake, so I'm just crossing my fingers that they'll do a bit better! |
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| Hastily written, bullet-pointed update |
[Apr. 30th, 2006|12:30 pm] |
I've been a bit rushed off my feet with stuff lately. Here's a run-down of things, written with a generally inadequate amount of detail or chronological order:
- Did some extensive updating work on my website. I also joined another online community for artists and designers in the hope that it might generate some more interest (my listing).
- Played three games of Risk with Mike E, Chris and ollie. I got my arse thrashed all three times, as I appear to have forgotten how to roll a dice properly.
- Sold a painting to wispy_beard via eBay, which is fantastic - I met up with him on Carnaby Street on Friday lunchtime to hand it over and quickly down a pint with him in an Irish bar, then run back across London to my office. The last i heard, he wasn't entirely decided which room it's going to be hung in, possibly the living room though. I plan to start some more auctions in the next couple of days.
- My postcards arrived from the printers - they look wonderful, except for the contact details on the back being upside down. Or the contact details being the right way up and the picture on the front being upside down. One or the other, anyway. After a very lengthy call to their customer service centre in America, there should be a new batch on its way to me, although I don't know if that will be in time for next month's greeting cards trade fair, which was my primary reason for getting them printed in the first place.
- Y has started her new job at the Fenchurch Street branch of her clothing shop, so we now work less than a mile apart! Due to her weird shift pattern though, we've not travelled to or from central London together yet.
- We went to The Pit in Hounslow last nigth with random_goth and Jen, which was good fun and, for some inexplicable reason, involved a lot of balloon sculpture. Yesterday was the second anniversary of us meeting, so the trip was also a kind of marking of that occasion.
- I went for a curry in Croydon on Friday evening with my parents and stayed over at theirs afterwards. Yesterday afternoon we all drove out of suburbia for a bit and got some fresh air in the wilderness, including a visit to an 11th century church with a crudely painted mural on one wall, depicting what hell looks like. Not all that nice, although I personally envisioned it looking more like a crowded Reflex nightclub. My dad's doing some kind of SCUBA diving examination today, to get himself a certificate that he wanted. It's never too late to adopt a strange new hobby!
- I got a last minute commission by the British Academy on Tuesday night to produce another illustration for them by Friday. I just about winged it, but that one was close. Reasonably pleased with the result though and it's all money in the bank.
- After almost a month, my Macromedia Studio package still hasn't turned up from America, which is starting to worry me a bit. That's going to need chasing soon... in the meantime, I've devoted a lot of time to learning about Dreamweaver/Flash from books and magazines, so I might at least 'hit the ground running' when it does turn up.
Right, I'm having a shower and then going into Camden for a bit. We're toying with the idea of doing Inferno next Friday, which has a masked ball theme, so now I need to try and find a quality mask retailer. Should be interesting. |
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| Easter and stuff |
[Apr. 18th, 2006|12:54 pm] |
I don't have much lunch break left, so I'll have summarise what's new quickly:
I have two more pictures for sale on eBay (here and here), following my failed first attempt at an auction. These ones close next Monday morning.
Y's job at the clothing shop is under threat, due to company streamlining. She's just done an interview this morning for possible transfer to another branch (the nearest one to my office, in fact!), otherwise she'll be looking for a new retail job in just over a month's time, so fingers crossed... we ought to know the outcome of the interview before the end of this week.
I spent Saturday and Sunday over at my parents' place, seeing young cousins, aunt, uncles, grandmother, having children and cats climb all over me. It was fun and I got wine, olives and chocolate out of it!
My WGT tickets arrived, so I'm all set for this June. Later in the month, I'm being kicked out of the flat and staying at my parents' place for two weeks, as Y's internet friend from Arizona is coming to visit and there isn't enough room for three.
I sent my short story off to that competition, finished my illustration for the Academy and designed myself a swanky new promotional postcard for HG Illustration, which is due from the printers in a couple of weeks. |
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| Blood on the dancefloor |
[Apr. 8th, 2006|04:43 pm] |
Busy few days... I've been doing a lot of groundwork for my plans to learn more web-designing. I now have a book the size of a breezeblock, from which I can learn Javascript, Dreamweaver, Flash etc. The necessary software is (hopefully) on its way right now from an eBay merchant in the States and I've just finished giving my dusty old computer a much-needed hardware refit, so that it can run the said software without shuddering and emitting smoke. (steeples fingers evilly) All the pieces are falling into place. Now I've just got to make the effort to do all this learning, in order to make this worthwhile.
I called my parents yesterday to see how they are - not too well aparently. My father's off work due to muscular spasms in his leg and my mother's got a toothache. I might swing round to see them tomorrow, if I get a spare moment. Unfortunately though, I haven't been too well myself the last couple of days either; I went to Croydon Parish church hall on Thursday night to donate blood ( cut for potentially squeamish content ) In fairness though, that was the tenth or eleventh time I've donated during my life and it's always gone smoothly on other occasions. That's never happened to my parents in more than fifty sessions, so I guess I was just unlucky that time and I don't want to put anybody else off doing it. I'll do it again. Just maybe not for a while.
Despite not feeling on top form, I went to Inferno last night for Dave C's birthday. I had quite a good time and probably benefitted from laying off the booze more than usual. Mary and Dave are going to WGT, but rather than fly with me, they're taking the scenic route on the train, via Paris. I bumped into __prawnstar__ too, who's something of a regular in Leipzig, so I won't have any shortage of peopel to hang out with in June! As the night wore on, Mary got into the kind of state which Y's cousin adrian would describe as "not fully aware of her surroundings" and Dave managed to lose his jacket, which buggered the night up a bit from his perspective. I began to lose my energy by about two and we headed for home.
Today, I've not magaed to get any illustration work done at all so far (oops) and, contrary to what I've previously said, we're planning to go to The Pit, at its inaugral night at a new venue in Hounslow. What the hell, I won't be getting drunk, so it ought to be relatively cheap. |
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| Fun mystery post of Sunday wonderment |
[Mar. 12th, 2006|11:37 am] |
I'm coming to the end of another three day-weekend. The extra day off wasn't for any particular reason, other than I had a tiny surplus of holiday to use up by the end of this month. I therefore spent Friday catching up on a few projects at home (I'm writing another short story, based on a nightmare I had last November), having an eye examination (I still have two, apparently) and dropping in at my parents' place for a coffee with my mother. The bug exterminator had called at the family homestead on Thursday and the place is still kind of disrupted but they're otherwise alright. Cimex lectularius: 1. Homo sapiens: 1. When my dad went SCUBA diving in Egypt last month, the group had an underwater cameraman for posterity, so I sat down and watched a relaxing - if a bit colourfully trippy - DVD of people swimming around corals in the Red Sea. They were all wearing face masks, but I was assured my dad was one of them.
Yesterday I went to Basingstoke with Y to be at tinker_goth and Will's engagement party, which was fun (I'd never seen Basingstoke before but I now see what people mean about all the bloody roundabouts!). Good food, fun company and a bit of a skin-of-the-teeth journey back on the last train afterwards.
Other news of interest: After years of trying to get myself organised, I'm cautiously optimistic that this year I may actually get to do Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig in June. Cautiously optimistic. Y wants to go to the Download festival with her girlie friends and see a load of metal bands at around the same time, so I asked if she'd mind me going off and doing my own thing with a bunch of sweaty Germans (well, not in exactly those words) and she said it would be fine, so I'm now checking to see how feasible it is. I know _sarnandsynara_ are definitely going, and probably __prawnstar__ too, but I thought I'd just test the water to see if anybody else has similar plans? I'm sure I'll post more on this matter as summer approaches.
Finally, having been an El Jayer for nearly two years, I've decided to do a wee bit of friends list pruning, as there are people on there who I no longer have hardly anything to do with. No offense is intended to these individuals - if you object to being cut then drop me a comment and I'll put you back on. |
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| Howard has a nice cup of coffee. |
[Mar. 5th, 2006|04:26 pm] |
It's been kind of a busy week and I've finally got a moment to collect my thoughts. The main culpret for all this busyness has been work which, for a number of reasons too complex and tedious to list, has been hell. I've been so stressed that it's made me feel physically ill at numerous points and I've had to put in copious amounts of unpaid overtime just to have a remote chance of being able to keep up with stuff, although hopefully the issues lying behind this are only temporary ones and I'm now through the worst of it. In addition to my job mowing me down, there have been domestic disasters like the bedframe breaking, Y's laptop getting wine spilt all over it and the kitchen flooding again, not once but twice.
So yeah, not a brilliant few days, although this weekends been better. After finally escaping from the office, I changed and went to Camden for tinker_goth's birthday celebrations, which turned out to be a trip to the Dev, followed by The World's End and finally the now-Friday-based Inferno. I lost one of my favourite rings at some point, but otherwise great fun (the music was mostly good this time round). On Saturday I vegetated in front of The Last Starfighter for a bit, did a bit of work on my current writing project and then met up with my parents in the evening for a curry and a chance to see photos of their holiday in Egypt and discuss how we're going to erradicate their insect plague*. Anyway, my parents said it's been their best holiday ever and the Egyptians are really top people - despite their initial worries about visiting the Islamic world after all the recent events. I think they needed a good break from things. They brought me back a fez of my very own (even though I'd only jokingly asked them for one) and some traditional Arab clothing. Exactly when and where I'll ever need to wear that I have no idea, but then somehow I doubt The Black Rose has any branches in Sharm el-Sheikh.
I got a call from my parents this morning to say that one of their pipes burst during the night and now their cellar's flooded. They seemed alright considering this latest problem and my dad jokingly suggested that my aura of recent bad luck had possibly transferred to them at the restaurant last night. An interesting thought and one that set my bored mind philosophising.
( The home-spun philosphy bit. It goes on a bit and makes more sense if you've played Risk before but, unusually for me, it's kind of upbeat, so you might as well read it for sheer novelty value. )
* This hasn't yet happened because, apparently, these things become dormant if there are no human beings around for a while. Therefore, as they weren't feeding, there was no point in trying to poison them while my parents were away. Only now have we managed to book an appointment for the exterminators to visit. Although I did spend two Saturdays at their house washing/steaming/vacuuming everything in sight, which has hopefully got rid of some of the little shits.
** Yes, I am therefore missing the Kreuzdammer gig at G Lounge. Sorry guys, but I need to see these non metal-oriented friends, as there's recently been a wedding anniversary and yet another birthday, which I feel bad about missing. |
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| AAAARRRRRRRRGH!! |
[Feb. 16th, 2006|12:17 pm] |
I got a phonecall from my mother this morning, as she was waiting for her flight to Egypt - can I please visit their house at some point during the two weeks while they're away and spray some insect poison, as the bug infestation from my previous flat now seems to have suddenly shown in their bedroom.
Shit on a very large stick. We were forced to make a four day stop-over at their place in early October because our new flat had no electricity, but we took all of our bedding to the dry cleaners almost straight away in case it was still contaminated with eggs and our belongings were stored only in my old bedroom. There's been no sign of them at the new place since we moved in, so it seemed like we'd left the problem behind. Not so; it's incredible that four and a half months after escaping from that fucking scum-hole in Norwood, the place is still managing to blight my life.
I know there's no point in spraying any over-the-counter poisons - having done my homework, I know I can try attacking their bed with a hoover and a hot steam iron, but the only surefire way of getting rid of the bugs is to hire a professional exterminator (or one more professional than my previous landlord used) and getting all the sheets dry-cleaned. Which is going to cost me a lot of money, just when I thought I was almost out of debt for the first time in a year and a half. I guess having any plan for a sleep-over party at their place around my birthday's out of the question now.
I'm not happy. |
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| Take the early train, to an early grave |
[Nov. 7th, 2005|12:39 pm] |
My weekend consisted of:
Friday - Circus of Horrors. Absolutely bloody brilliant, I'm definitely going to see them again. Possibly at a bigger venue though, as it didn't really feel much like a circus when it was all happening on a smallish theatrical stage. I'll keep my eyes peeled for when they're next touring...
Saturday - I dusted off Invisibiity - a short story which I wrote back in 2003 and only bothered sending to one editor (who rejected it, natch). I made a few improvements and corrections to it, printed out a sparkling new manuscript copy and posted it to a magazine called The Edge. I must cast the net wider if I want my work to get noticed. I listened to the new Rammstein album and I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet - could be one of those albums that's a 'grower'. I had to grab it quickly, because it was a special limited edition, with a DVD of live concert footage.
In the evening we had dinner at my parents' place, although a busy week began to take its toll on me and I crashed into bed by about half past nine and didn't get up again for about twelve hours.
Sunday - I tackled a mountain of housework in the morning and headed up to central London in the afternoon, to meet random_goth and Jen at Ben Crouch's Tavern. We then shambled on down Oxford Street to the Mean Fiddler and caught the last four bands playing at the Black Celebration (Mesh had, by this time, been moved up the line-up to headlining position and they were entertaining, although I still couldn't help feeling a certain Apoptygma Berzerk-shaped emptiness in the proceedings). Y soon arrived after finishing work and Dave and Mary Kreuzdammer were there too, so I began to drunkenly pester Dave about letting me make a surreal backdrop-movie for their gigs*. It all ended in slapstick fashion with us daubing black lipstick on each others' faces and eating fried rice on the night bus on the way home.
This morning I was, unsurprisingly, hung over. I stumbled out of the flat to see that Selhurst had followed suit after Paris and become a small warzone, with some vermin from a local secondary school launching fireworks at people in the street from the top windows of a bus (the bus had stopped, so presumably the driver was busy radioing for the police). I didn't fancy getting myself maimed just for the sake of getting to the office on time, so I decided to take the long route to the train station instead, and turned up at work half an hour late. My department has recently moved desks and most of my work posessions had mistakenly been taken to a different floor, so I wasted almost another hour on an embarassing search through a fourteen-storey building to try and track it down. I have a sore-throat. So, today's been a bit shit so far. Oh well; I'm going out to buy some chocolate now.
* I did this for him once before, back in 2001 I believe, when he was the frontman for Punishment State. Back then I'd cobbled together a load of amusing footage from 1950s FBI films about the dangers of narcotics, together with some unused stuff I shot the previous year for an art school project. I'd edited all this together in the crusty old analogue edit suite at Croydon Town Hall but I've assured him I can knock up far superior stuff now from my own bedroom, using Apple iMovie. Fuck, I really hate saying things like this to people when I've been drinking! |
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| Novelty-Value Post, Written During Partial Solar-Eclipse |
[Oct. 3rd, 2005|09:26 am] |
Yes, supposedly about one third of the sun is currently obscured. Not that anyone can tell, since it's so cloudy - just looks like a normal cold, gloomy morning in London at the moment.
( Howard and Yvonne move flat, with hilarious consequences )
[Edit] Incidentally, I got a comment in my journal recently from somebody calling themselves dry_gin, which said: "void150, have you checked this out?" followed by a link to some different website. When I clicked on this link I got loads of virus warning flashing all over the place - fortunately my computer doesn't seem to have got infected, but be warned about this in future in case random strangers post links in your journals, without telling you why! |
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| The Garden of Uninteresting Delights |
[Aug. 22nd, 2005|10:34 am] |
It seems my El Jaying is getting a bit slack as of late. I put this down to the last week being a bit uneventful and also the depression monster paying me another visit for a while – same old same old really, so I thought I’d spare other people the details. So, anyway, if you're interested:
( Let the rambling commence... ) |
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| Schlafgangen |
[Jun. 26th, 2005|02:13 pm] |
This is another long, rambling post about the last few days. And fuck you Livejournal, by the way, for swallowing my last attempt at writing it!
( Read more... ) |
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