c a m e r o n ü b e r a l l e s ?

the bloated toad of brown is down but not out. not yet.

and so, it would appear that the masses are, yet again, drawn inexorably to anything bright and shiny; and in politics there is nothing brighter, or shinier than the promise of change. spurious change it may be but the very word holds within it something that requires no measured weighing of the facts, no examination of policy or intent. it’s the sociopolitical version of ‘out with the old in with the new’.

change was powerful enough to get a black man elected in america, i would argue a very positive thing indeed, but it’s influence over populations is not an exclusively moral one. the tyranny of change is instead utterly blind. look at the idolatry that was laid at the feet of shit-eating-grin blair.

the allure of change lies in the concept itself and exists in a parallel world to that of logic, a world where the motto is ‘this isn’t working, try the polar opposite’; where the only thing of value is the about-face, the 180◦. the eternal promise of the utopia within the u-turn.

at the time of posting there are more tory wins than there were in the time of kinnock. the hounds are howling on the horizon and the foxes are getting nervous…

time, people, to get the blues.

n i c e b a c k h a n d

hostess elisabeth to your humble author:

“i’ve often thought there was a bit of the autistic in you.”

and then the big finish:

“i don’t mean it in a bad way.”

y o u a r e i n t h e v i l l a g e . . .

finally took a trip to the village, also known as portmeirion, something we’ve been wanting to do for years. thankfully, it doesn’t disappoint as a thoroughly outstanding and genuinely eccentric place. on our first night there we were driven down into the village in a minibus (sadly not a mini-moke) and just to see it lit up, still painted in garish oranges, pink and blues, the same narrow, winding  road, the arches and stairways, the square and statuary, was incredible. the next day, wandering around in daylight, it soon became clear that extraordinarily little has changed since the prisoner was shot there in the late 60s. one of the first things that strikes you is that it’s smaller than it looked on the series, along with the obvious fact that where you thought certain buildings were in relation to others, the general store, number six‘s chalet, number two‘s dome, the balcony where he made his election speech etc. are completely at odds geographically with how they appear on the screen. and yet just being there is ever so slightly alarming, as it should be, as indeed the series still is; this weird little resort of italianesque architecture on the welsh coast, the stretches of flat beach when the estuary tide is out, the (of course utterly fake and adopted) sense that leaving might not be quite as easy as simply taking the a4212 from porthmadog… i have to say the barest residue of the dread evoked by the series remains, at least it was there for me, and contradictory though it might sound, it’s a lovely feeling.

sadly there are less prisoner-centric attractions to be seem about the place these days, none of the sign posts i’d hoped for from the series, but the fact that the place itself is still so similar makes the visual effect more than satisfactory. there is of course the prisoner gift shop, housed in number six‘s abode, and the village’s own tv station which beams a different prisoner episode into your room every night, which was great. and yes, we spent  w a y  too much money in the prisoner shop but no, we resisted the urge to buy one of their ‘rover‘ giant balloons (yes, they sell them), tie it to my ankle and take pictures of it chasing me across the sands. can’t say we weren’t tempted though. really tempted. maybe we’ll go back.

and yes it was a little chilly. well, it is wales.

as well as the village itself, the surrounding countryside is stunning, the mountains were still covered in snow when we were there and the woodland that all but surrounds the village seemed to be full of the strangest trees:  not to mention a number of bizarre tree stumps with coins pushed into them:

  and a dog cemetary…

if you are off hiking around the grounds, hostess elisabeth can recommend picking up a big stick which works well for steadying yourself on uneven ground, and for whacking the side of the cast iron lighthouse while i’m standing inside it trying my best not to suffer irreparable hearing loss. the whole place has an otherworldy air and portmeirion’s architect and mastermind clough williams-ellis (a genuine british eccentric) is revealed with every twist and turn as a truly remarkable man.

i can only recommend the experience, particularly if you’ve ever enjoyed the prisoner. portmeirion is a place to wander and to wonder, to take pictures, to soak in the atmosphere, whether of architectural idiosyncrasy or cinematic paranoia and unease… a place to be… unmutual.

i’ll leave you with a compendium of just some of the village’s startlingly odd signage and statuary…

        

 

grad-u-8

graduation was a  somewhat strange experience. and no i didn’t wear the gettup.  the ceremony took place at the barbican and as  walked in and handed the usher my ticket, which read g-29, she looked at it, looked at me and said “that’s row g, seat 29”. i have to say, after three years of ‘higher education’ i think i might have worked that particular conundrum out for myself. perhaps i looked particularly stupid.

the frankly enormous hall and the utterly bizarre multi-coloured faux medieval outfits worn by the faculty gave the whole thing the air of a religious cult rally. as i sat down a fellow student suggested that, if offered, i should not drink the kool-aid. i expected at any moment that we’d all be urged to suicide, that we may all meet up in the u.f.o. in the tail of haley’s comet.

what was strangest though was to discover that i finished in the top fifty students of the university. still not sure if that should be a matter of pride for myself, or a damning indictment on the educative prowess, or lack of same, of the university. in lieu of a mortar board to throw into the air when pictures were taken, i chose instead to throw my wallet. it seemed apt considering the expenditure involved in further education. some threw their shoes. not kidding.

” b l a c k , l i k e m i d n i g h t o n a m o o n l e s s n i g h t . . . “

 

unreleased unsong drone track henry’s head has been employed in the showreel for new david lynch inspired cabaret & burlesque night the double r club (together with the superb andrew liles track robotic monkey):

next evening of “damn fine” cabaret & burlesque “from another place”, wednesday 21st october, bethnal green working men’s club…

” i t ‘ s   h a p p e n i n g   a g a i n . . . “

h i p p y d e a t h c u l t

despite what many in attendance seem to believe, in the face of all available evidence, glastonbury festival is a profoundly commercial event, sometimes to the point of absurdity. witness the massive sales of hats no one possessing all their mental faculties would ever wear in public, the hoards of wooden poles with skulls atop them sold, the fairy wings, the ‘hilarious‘ novelty t-shirts.

 

 speaking of which, this weekend i saw two young boys, both no more than ten, both wearing this t-shirt:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
i say again,  n o   m o r e   t h a n   t e n .

 

 
the very same day i saw a boy of around twelve with a t-shirt which read simply “easy fuck”. which struck me as wholly inappropriate.

but then i got to thinking. i’m quite a lot bigger than him. stronger. he probably would be.

 

o and yes i do have a ‘festival hat’ to keep the sun/rain off, but mine wasn’t purchased at a festival and is decorated with real human teeth.

b a d d a y g o o d d a y

yesterday:

i had to write and print out a note to put under the plumber’s windscreen wipers to stop him being clamped. i wrote, printed and put under the windscreen wiper a note which read:

“emergency plummer at number __”

this constitutes a bad day, at least intellectually speaking.

 

today:

i opened a packet of ibuprofen at the end of the box which wasn’t blocked by the folded over ‘important information’ booklet, thus allowing my, albeit infinitesimally, speedier access to the tablets inside. it’s the middle aged version of getting a prize in a box of cereal.

this constitutes a good day. shut up. it does.

i am so edgy it frightens me.

y o u r c d c o l l e c t i o n w i l l l e a d t o t r a g e d y

“this is a picture…”

quite a small picture, granted, but a picture nonetheless of the ultra rare shellac album live in tokyo (the very fact that this is the best image i could find online is some indicator as to the disc’s heightened rarity). i first encountered this cd back in the mid nineties in rough trade, off portobello road (sing along!), priced at an almighty £29.99 or thereabouts. i remember being horrified that such an astronomical amount might be paid for an album, let alone a live album, even one whose rough trade sticker announced “this is a live album but one recorded through the sound desk and sounds great, honestly!” or something similar. i didn’t have the money at the time and so didn’t buy it; o foolish, foolish boy. together with the futurist record (which i’ve come to terms with the fact that i shall never own) the live in tokyo album is a release i’ve chased all over the internet ever since, always recoiling at the price it ended up going for on ebay, which often stretched into hundreds of pounds. that is, until recently…

last month i finally got the thing, and for what i consider to be a reasonable, if arguably inflated, price. excitedly i paypal-ed the shit out of the thing and awaited its arrival. the collector gene is a dangerous and cruel mistress ladies and gentlemen.

then, a few days later, this happened:

i have since waited and waited for the arrival of the cd, but to no avail. now i’m not saying the disc was on the fedex plane that crashed but… well… the seller tells me that the japanese postal system needs to investigate the disappearance and that this investigation may take as long as a month. were i a more superstitious man i would think that someone or something didn’t want me to own this particular album. fingers crossed the fucker turns up.

trust me children, the collector’s gene is not your friend.

 

“this is a picture,
of things going a little out of hand.
this is a sculpture,
 of a couple of things we’ve got to get straight.

sooner rather than later,
genius invents a tool,
to show the world what -what it means when,
when i’m in a bad mood…

there are angels there.
you know where they keep angels?
heaven, that’s where.

i can’t wait to die,
i can find me some.
it’s where i’ll find my life,
when i’m through with my present one.”

–shellac, from the album ‘terraform’

————————

update 14/04/09: against all odds, as one philip collins might have put it, the cd arrived today! worth every penny. “fucking bible“.

c a n c e l m y s u b s c r i p t i o n t o h e l l o

“everybody loves you when you’re dead
and everyone is suddenly your dearest friend
nobody talks no dirt about you
but life it just goes on above your head
when you’re dead“

-cop shoot cop

 

“if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

-from nineteen eighty-four by george orwell

t h e h e a d y s c e n t o f m a r a j o o a n a

it’d been a long time since i’d been at a party. years probably. they were never really my thing. anyhoo, an old old old friend of mine ian was having his fortieth and myself and hostess elisabeth were duly invited. along we shuffled.

ian has some… eccentric friends. yes, that’s the word i’m going for; ‘eccentric‘. we were introduced to a chap, who i told we’d met once before. he immediately launched into a long description of the problems he’d had in his life due to alcohol, i’m guessing by way of an excuse for not remembering me. “right” i think i managed “um, ok.”

there is a certain kind of forty-something, the kind that has spent their youth yearning in vain for some kind of facsimile of the rock and roll dream, and who seem unable to escape this fruitless search. these types live in a cloud of patchouli and indian fabrics, they wear leather jackets that probably wouldn’t do up over their beer bellies; they have that strange fragile, hollowed out air to them, casualties of their past excesses. ian knows a lot of these people.

it’s been years since i’d watched people pass a joint around and i know this will sound unforgivably patronising, but it all seemed so… quaint. yes, that’s the word i’m going for, ‘quaint‘. i have nothing against drugs at all, quite the contrary, it’s just that the whole idea of them seems to have nothing to do with me. very odd.

anyhoo, glad that the coats were upstairs and would therefore be free from the stench of dope, conversation went on, music played (still can’t quite get the fascination with reggae); general partiness ensued. a few people were taking photos. hostess elisabeth and myself were sat by the open window (no doubt singling us out as ‘squares‘) when all of a sudden something flew through the air, hit the window and fell to the street below.

it turned out that one of the people taking photos had taken this one particular wiry psychotic looking chap’s photo and he had asked them not to do so. they’d done it again and he’d reiterated his objections, possibly with some form of profanity. they’d taken his picture again and the wiry psychotic chap had duly snatched then launched their camera out of the first floor window. the photographer left to retrieve his camera and didn’t return. can’t say i blame him. televisions? pah. rock and roll is all about the cameras out of windows. you have been told. rock on.

o, and half way through the evening the ‘smokers’ had been reassigned upstairs. to the coat room.  and so our jackets soaked up the aroma of the, if i might go all middle-aged for a moment, ‘wacky baccy’, anyway, thus forcing a cracking open of the febreze when we got home, around one.

we are so hardcore.