market research

it seems that one of the most popular pages of my blog is the one of Roxanne Pallett wearing very little, which seems to be welcoming visitors from google all the time

i can't possibly think why it should prove so popular, but who am i to argue with it

and if it is what the people want, why not give it to them



there is much more to this blog than the occasional lady in smalls tho, and before your sticky fingers tap another hottie's name into the Google toolbar why not stay a while and enjoy a little bit of culture, perhaps read some of my poetry, or download the latest musical/artistic offering, or just peruse the posts and see what has been on my mind recently...

tho if it keeps bringing people to my blog, perhaps there will soon be weekly Roxanne Pallett posts

where are they now?

it's a question usualy posed about washed up film stars, musicians and other celebrity types that once had their fifteen minutes of fame before moving to Wiltshire to sell caravans

i'm guessin the same question being asked in my local rag would be published so that people are able to track down old friends, neighbours or relatives that they may have lost touch with

or possibly not...

as this weeks newspaper tries to help with the current whereabouts of a cat (?!?) who is apparently new to the area, but may possibly pick up The Enfield Advertiser to get up to speed on all the local goings on.

my favourite waste of time

and that there is Akira The Don's supreme mash-up that is rocking the internet and tore up Eddy TM's Remix show all time top ten record last week and is now posing a challenge on his own website

Akira spent bloomin ages slaving over this mix last week to cram 210 tracks into 10 minutes

and now is asking followers of his website to try and spot and name as many of those tracks as they possibly can


so i used my time constructively (as u may notice from the comments i left) and i'd like to think i'll be stomping around in a fetch pair of Don Shoes sometime soon

this is my jam....

is it so wrong for me to enjoy singstar so much?

it's intimate karaoke for the socially awkward and the vocally challenged is a godsend for those that don't wish to make a complete fool of themselves infront of a crowd but are quite happy to make a fool of themselves infront of a small number of people that are already aware of what a fool you are...

other people might actually be good at singing, but that is my opinion of it anyway

and while my best friend was away on holiday i borrowed her pile of games and microphones and spent two weeks nagging my girlfriend to come round and play

after initially thinking the game or the microphones were broken i eventually found my form and my toneless voice managed to kick ass singing The Jackson 5, Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff, The Cure, The Smiths and Radiohead

ok, it wasn't all winning streaks but i feel overwhelmingly proud when i can start comparing myself to Morrissey and Thom Yorke

slammin' vinyl

as youngsters' brains are being re-wired into a number of different offshoot genres as they try and find their own identity (or copy the coolest person they know's identity) it becomes increasingly difficult for your average DJ to keep everybody happy

so i'll just stick to my guns and stick to not being an average DJ and keep using the saying 'you can't please all of the people all of the time...' as my own personal mantra

a re-tooled Bubblegum Stomp tackled an 18th birthday party as all of our DJs slide further and further from ever being 18 and find ourselves faced with stupid questions and stupid songs

malia party boys couldn't understand how a DJ could still use CDs (these play mp3, mutha'ucka!?!) swamped the dancefloor when we played a track from their CD (car beats 5, mutha'ucka!!) and then stayed on the dance floor when we followed 'Riverside' with 'YMCA' (homoeroticism, mutha'ucka!!!)

but we are Bubblegum Stomp and we do what we like and we will pull out the stops to get you dancing and we will be confused if we are accused of not having any new music when at the same time you know nothing of Toddla T's existence

but we'll play the classics, we'll play the new stuff and we'll play requests (if we've got them) and we'll enjoy ourselves and we'll remain infinitely cheaper and infinitely better than your standard 'rent-a-mobile-disc-jockey'....

and we even helped sweep up afterwards

dedications what you need...

the first images of Tim Burton's surreal reinterpretation/sequal of Alice In Wonderland are all over the place now and plenty has already been said of the 3D flick due out next year

Burton's usual alumni, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, are on board and anticipation is high, and it was reported today that Johnny Depp is taking his role as the Mad Hatter very seriously and has actually been researching the effects of mercury poisoning on 18th century hat makers which may have contributed to the term 'mad as a hatter'

i like your smile

i had intended to post one of the poems i had written in the last couple of weeks and had folded up on pieces of paper in my back pocket, alas, now i cannot remember where i emptied my pockets

while searching for possible hiding places they may have ended up i unearthed another poem that had been tucked away on another piece of paper, so instead of starving this blog's readers of my creative output i decided i'd post this one up in the meantime




Everything is so bleak
when i witness the world
through your dusty goggles

Painted black window panes
Shed no light upon this room
with no view

Another account of
airtight insecurity
that suffocates
and smothers reality

the sound of her wings

i am young enough and fortunate enough not to have personally known too many people that have died

i recently heard the news that someone i knew and that i liked had died afew months ago

he wasn't a large part of my life by any stretch of the imagination, but he meant alot to afew people that meant alot to me

mourning publicly and online is a rather curious byproduct of a modern age but i felt compelled to mention the pangs of grief i've felt and leave a short anonymous tribute

my thoughts are with his family

R.I.P

and it isn't just sofas

you thought sofas had a tough time out on the streets, but there are afew other household items that have to make it on their own after being abandoned...

thrill me

i'd be lying if i said the U2 gig was everything i hoped it would be

when it kicked off it felt like u was caught up inside a giant U2 music video (or a Blackberry advert) but, although the stage was stunning enough it didn't feel like every song was connecting with the crowd

at an enormo-gig like this for an enormo-band like U2 i want to be surrounded by people singing every word but the energy wasn't really there

perhaps they feel the need to give you value for money when they choose to play a two hour set, but i think i'd much prefer it if they spent afew extra quid on dazzling lazers and epilepsy inducing holograms and instead played a slimmed down set that is all killer and no filler

that isn't to say it wasn't a good gig, this is all just personal opinion from someone that knows what he likes, and i'd have liked 80's songs, the 90's gimmicks and The Fly and Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me thrown in for good measure

i woke up this morning and decided to create a new playlist for my generic mp3 player, a fantasy U2 setlist put together with careful consideration

if Bono is so concerned with changing the world, perhaps if i sent him a nice letter he may consider changing his setlist

if god will send his angels

who would have thought you could buy a standing ticket to see U2 a at Wembley Stadium a day before the gig?

what's gone wrong with touts these days??

i couldn't get my hands on these tickets when they went on sale because of the demand!!

i've always thought that the spectacle of seeing U2 live was something i'd love to experience, they have such an impressive back catalogue to draw upon and are renowned for their extravagent touring set-up, but maybe the chance had passed me by this time... until i realised i might be able to take advantage of that villianous corporate sponsorship deal

a friend of the brother of my girlfriend works for blackberry, so i suggested to her a little bit of cheeky begging on our behalf, while all his other friends are asking for blackberrys from him, we'd ask for some U2 tickets

he tried, with no luck, and i thought it was worth a try, it just wasn't meant to be this time

and two days ago my girlfriend rings me up with 'good news and bad news'


the good news...

he'd manage to blag tickets to U2 for saturday

the bad news...

i couldn't go


her brother had claimed one of the tickets and she was gonna go with him


what a kick to the teeth, a bad mood commenced, i felt empty inside and tears were almost shed - who knew i'd feel this way about missing out on seeing a band! - actually it was a double blow, as we were planning to go see Dan Black in Camden on saturday, so not only would i be missing out on Dan Black (again - long story), i'd also be missing out on U2 AND would be sat at home on a saturday night on my own feeling sorry for myself

some things, like seeing Dan Black, watching U2 or relying on a 217 just aren't meant to be...

i knew this wasn't my girlfriends fault (tho i may hold her accountable for the 217s) and i wouldn't deny her the chance to see U2 for free and after much huffing and puffing and moping and bus missing we took a look for tickets online, only to find that standing tickets were still available

the long version of this story also involves trying to find out whether the complimentary tickets were standing or seating, whether the tickets were in hand, issues with both ticketmaster and livenation and a frustrating mission to top up an oyster card

thankfully the short version doesn't, and this is the abridged version that you are reading right now

but both versions have the same ending, i bought my ticket of ticketmaster yesterday morning and have been charged nearly four pounds for the priveledge of collecting it myself from the box office (on top of the £6 booking fee, obviously)

and tonight, i get to see U2!
and won't be going anywhere near a 217

crystal clear

so who would have thought that Crystal Castles' influence would be so far (and commercially) reaching...

ok, so perhaps Shakira hasn't been inviting Beyonce round to her house so they could talk about boys, watch Pretty Woman and devise their own routines to Crystal Castles' songs as they dance around her bedroom with the album on repeat

but it's a possibility is all i'm saying

and i say this because after hearing Shakira's new track a few times as it picks up a bit of radio play i realised that perhaps the reason for my strange endearment to it was the fact that it reminded me of Crimewave, admittedly a Crimewave that scrubs up well and has cleaned under it's fingernails and quit smoking and hanging around in squats



ok, that was Crimewave, now feast your eyes (and ears, obviously) on She Wolf, featuring Shakira Shakira dancing like a mad woman in what could possibly be the inside of a major artery, doing a, erm, 'sexy' dance in a cage and rounding the whole thing off by dancing like a loon on the roof of a building...

part of the queue

i didn't expect to be in Bristol this past weekend

i didn't expect to be stood in a queue for three hours and forty minutes either

but this was what was necessary if you wanted to get into the Banksy vs Bristol Museum exhibition that is running until the end of August

we arrived early enough on saturday morning and thought the queue looked reasonable, until we realised it was being filtered and actualy snaked back and forth on itself in an adjoining road, and didn't end there either, crossing the road and trailing down a further, longer road

luckily my girlfriend who had planned the surprise trip had also heard horror stories of three hour waits so we were fore-warned, so, stood on the end of a ridiculous queue we formulated a plan to pass the time, we passed up on the idea of taking it in turns to sit on our own drinking in the wetherspoons opposite the museum while the other held our place in the queue and instead she let me wander off to an oxfam bookshop i'd spotted on the condition that i left her my generic mp3 player and brought back a trashy magazine detailing the latest woes of Jordan, Cheryl, Posh, et al

another thing i didn't expect (and neither did my girlfriend) was to find a Forbidden Planet store on my little wander so when i returned i was in possession of a couple of reduced graphic novels and a copy of reveal

despite the horrendous waiting time everyone seemed to be in quite good spirits as we basked in the midday sunshine, kids waited patiently, old men made hats from newspapers to shield their balding heads from the searing sun, a strategically placed ice cream van took a small fortune as practically everyone grabbed a lolly or an ice cream as the queue passed it, and i got half way through a Grant Morrison penned JLA story (which was a bargain at £4, was published just after i quit reading comics - including JLA - and carries straight on from the Aztek graphic novel i recently read) before we got to the entrance of the museum.

and once inside, the ground floor of the museum has been thrown over to Banksy with room full of a large display of stenciled canvases in Banksy's usual style and used stencils from works that have graced the streets over the past few years and another room full of disturbing 'living' creatures including a monkey, a rabbit, a number of fish and sausages and some newborn chicken McNuggets that all need to be seen to appreciate the true unsettling horror of Banksy's twisted vision and social commentary.




but the whole three story edwardian museum needs to be explored to get the full experience as a number of the sculptures, paintings and displays have been tampered with to bring them to life and give them a modern slant, all just sitting cheekily alongside the museum's usual exhibits, i still don't know if i managed to spot it all but my favourites of the ones i did find include the dildo standing proud among the stalactites and the stuffed beaver awarded a fishing trophy.



i've intentionally not mentioned absolutely everything i saw so that anyone thinking of going can experience it for themselves but i'm sure there are a number of sites that document the exhibition in greater detail, including this one i found

toaster

how difficult could it possibly be, i mean seriously, we all know how to work a toaster, right?

which also makes me wonder if the oh-so obvious warnings that are provided in this law-suit crazy age that we live in are actually the result of somebody stupid enough to have done the things we are warned against and the risk that it could happen again.

here are a sample of a tesco's toaster user guide:

- before using your toaster please read all the instructions in this user guide with particular reference to the safety notices

(ooops, didn't do that, i thought i had it sussed but perhaps i should double check)

- disconnect the appliance at the mains supply when filling or emptying the toaster

(ooops, here's one i've been getting wrong my whole life)

- do not immerse the appliance, connecting cord or plug in water or liquids

(ok, a kinda obvious one here, but some people are stupid, best to warn them just in case)

- This appliance is for domestic indoor use only. Do not use it outdoors

(look people, if it's nice out just have a BBQ instead of inviting all your friends round for toast in the garden)

- do not place this appliance on or near a hot gas or or electric burner,

(erm, why would you? but wait, there's more...)

or in a heated oven

(for chrissakes, who puts a toaster in a heated oven?? why did you even buy a toaster, what do you think you actually do with it? in the oven?? seriously?!)

Sound Art Experiment Number 6

A number have things have crept up and kept the sixth installment of the SoundArt project away from you, i have been dealing with (among other things) being computerless, faltering mic inputs and most recently a lack of internet that stopped me from getting things updated around here properly

but now this is it.....

SoundArt6
Free file hosting from File Den




perhaps the first impression is that the Sound bears little in common with the Art that inspires it, and truth be told it was a tough one to translate and transform into music.

but the more i thought about it, the more i felt that the art was giving me a free reign over what i was to produce, and even deeper thinking resulted in coincidences and echoes that reverberated through my intentions as i began to join the dots that perhaps only i can see....

SoundArt6 in one form is a homage to the work of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, from another perspective it is influenced by the myth of Icarus, it was also an attempt to free myself from the use of readymade loops and samples, i saw this artwork as an invitation to 'dust off my wings' and use some equipment that had been sat around for a while and use an idea that had also been gathering dust, and no matter what angle i looked at it from it all began to bring itself together

the end result was meant to be my magnum opus, but perhaps it was let down a little by my skills as a musician which still leave much to be desired, but it is still something i am proud of, and i intend to live my life as a revisionist, and hope to one day have the time and ability to improve upon my flaws

SoundArt6

and, of course, every intention was in place to get this SoundArt project back on track, only now i find myself with a computer that doesn't record, which may limit my options and stunt my creativity.....

so don't hold your breath

art: a slideshow

there isn't much to say now that hasn't already been said, today is the last day of the three day Form Fest at Bar Form, and those arriving from 6 will be able to view the sculptures created by my brother and a small display of my own photography, as i mentioned in yesterdays post

i'm hoping that is all the reminder anyone will need so i'll leave you with a slideshow that takes a little look inside the creative process my brother undertook as he began work on some new sculptures especially for Form Fest



and just like normal publications and newspapers, i need to print a retraction and apologise for my little moan about The Enfield Advertiser the other day...

for even tho it was the Advertiser that rang me in order to contact Ian, and it was the Advertiser that sent a photographer round, the article was actually printed in the Advertiser's sister paper, this week's Enfield Gazette!!!

a rather well informed and informative article! we got there eventually, eh?



click on the article itself for a larger view, and the eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that one of the sculptures pictured with my brother in the article is the same one started in the above slideshow, it all ties together neatly in the end!

and to see the conclusion of all this hard work, displays of both my brother's scultures and my own photography can be viewed from 6ish til 8ish tonight at Bar Form, Enfield Town

so one last time, for luck, here's that familiar flyer



(click the flyer for a larger view)

everything is borrowed

and since i've dedicated a fair share of this week's posts to banging on about Form Fest at Bar Form i think it's only fair that i allow myself a little time to indulge in self-promotion

at last weeks Sel-Out! when me and my brother were discussing the art exhibition due to take place there was mention that apparently not many artists and fashion types had actually put themselves forward, i don't tend to shout about what i do very often but it started playing on my mind that perhaps i should include some of my photography in order to bulk out the so-called art and fashion shows that so far only had one artist

so i put forward my intentions last friday, got the nod last sunday and then found myself volunteered to exhibit and only having a week to get anything together!

luckily, my life quite often seems to just fall into place and even with such short notice i have managed to pull together pretty much everything needed to put on a competent display of my work that was actually so much better than i imagined it could have been

this post includes afew of the photos that didn't make it into my final choices, i thought i'd put them up as a little taster of what to expect






the exhibition runs from 6 (ish) til 8 (ish) tomorrow at Bar Form, Enfield Town
costing just £2 entry which but will get you in for a whole evening of entertainment including a music quiz and bands playing live



and i'm actually gonna be there tonight in a musical capacity, DJing with the Bubblegum Stomp crew from 10pm

full details of everything goin on can be found here, in a post nabbed from facebook



(click the flyer for a larger view)