65,000 swaroski crystals vs £3 tester pots of paint

oh how the other half live.

yesterday, flicking through a filthy red-top, and reading about things that i do not care for, i came across the story of Rihanna splashing out nearly £100,000 on a sparkling 5 foot square image of Marilyn Monroe that is made entirely of Swaroski crystals.

she now has it hung in her Beverly Hills mansion.

while last week i was in the attic of my two bedroom terraced house in Enfield, making progress on a couple more walls of what will eventually be a finely decorated geek room.

my brother helped me with a bunch of boards that i had acquired for the princely sum of zero pounds and zero pence that needed cutting to fit the slant in the ceiling, i made the job look harder than it actually was, my brother helped make it easier.

i then decided that before i plaster these boards with piles of comic book panels that i have acquired for the princely sum of zero pounds and zero pence (and also research mod podge and decoupage glue) that it would probably be a smart idea to start painting the adjacent wall so that i do not splash paint about where it is not wanted a ruin a lot of time and effort.

so off to Waltham Cross i went, in search of 'the right shade' (oh no, not these decisions again), stopping off at the charity shops and being blessed with the discoveries of a rather 'manga-fied' looking Darth Vader Figure, a talking Syndrome from The Incredibles, and both a General Traag and Footsoldier figure from Turtles, two figures that i used to own, back in the day (in fact, i get the distinct feeling that the footsoldier was actually my brother's) and then onto Homebase, where i invested £3.19 or so in a tester pot of paint.


and the following day was spent sketching a rough outline on a wall and getting really artistic, checking back to my reference material and standing back and feeling proud of how it is all coming along so far.

and over my next couple of days off it should come along further, possibly even getting close to completion.

probably costing me another tester pot or two to make up the colours i need.



i still look around my house now, going on nearly a year and a half since we bought it, and occasionally the sparseness shocks me, and i want rooms to be full, and complete, but i told myself that the home would grow naturally, attracting oddities and embellishments over time that would make it truly unique, and not just a copy of a trendy hipster pad that could easily be paid out for and bought wholesale in one lump.

and as wonderful as life as a pop star must be, and how great it must be to have a huge bloody mansion (to think, i could actually have the library room that i have always wanted for myself), i may be kidding myself, but i still think that i would struggle to break from my frugal ways, and would surely still want to be hands on with my own decorating.


although i may be tempted to part with some of my millions to pay for a commission of this quality...

oh boy

i come bearing bad (although not wholly unexpected) news

it regards the music column that i had been contributing to for my local rag, The Enfield Advertiser, or rather, it regards the lack of it...

it is actually quite a task to cast my mind back and remember the time when the Advertiser were still running regular music columns, as detailed on this blog before, the entertainment section was initially under threat, then it was the staffing of the paper itself that was called into question resulting in strike action, and sadly, these trials and tribulations resulted in the decision of Entertainments editor Jonathon Lovett to leave the paper

his parting words in an email was that the future of The Weekender, that he had been at the fore-front of, was still uncertain, but that he had not heard that its days were numbered just yet... providing a new contact at the paper for submissions



in October i emailed her with pieces on the live return of The Others and the passing of Steve Jobs and the impact he has had on music. these both went ignored.


and in the months since, the newspaper has certainly seen a decline in the entertainment covered within as the once proud Weekender has slowly lost pages and articles and been folded into the ever-slimmer newspaper until there is very little trace of it left at all.

i'll admit that my last couple of articles were not very Enfield-centric, and if the pressure was on then perhaps they would not have been in good stead to occupy prime space, and with that in mind i decided to make one last ditch attempt at getting a focus of Enfield music back in an Enfield newspaper, submitting my recent review of Worst Case Scenarios debut EP.

i received an apology for not having getting any replies to my october emails, but that was by-the-by, the truth of the matter was that 'Unfortunately, we don't have room for music reviews in the paper anymore as we only have three arts pages'


my reply back pointed out that it was a shame that the Advertiser would not even consider running these features and raising the profile of and supporting musicians within the community that they live in.


i did not get a reply back.

better man - part 2

it is so often the case that the sequel is never as good as the original, but let's see if we can help to re-balance the theory as i sit around at work, with not much work to be done, and plenty of time to ponder over yesterday's blog post and what i intend to do with my life...

it is common for me to live in daydreams

and despite trying to do otherwise, i still spend more time thinking then i ever spend doing

but i am daydreaming in those moments that happen between moments, the moments that are of little consequence, bus journeys, walking to work and other occasions where you are in a transitional state, waiting, or moving, but not fixed and not dedicated to fulfilling a purpose, those are the times when my mind wanders and the fantasy life plays out

i put belief into these desires, that they could be true, that it will happen someday, that something is holding me back but, in time, i will make good on these flights of fancy


i have some more music to make, my Giles Babel persona has not been as prolific as i had wished, but when i do find the time to mess around for a bit i do start dabbling, because that is what Giles Babel does, he does not merely make music, he makes experiments and projects and tests without placing too much fear in the fact that it is not 'music'

and i hope to push myself and push boundaries a bit more when i eventually get my hands on a fancy little iPad and load it up with useful apps, i have played around with the ridiculously simple garageband while idling in an apple store, and researched a few other useful looking programmes that do not look beyond my own capabilities

the intuitive nature of the touch screen pitches the iPad and the desired music apps somewhere between a toy and a portable music creation tool, making learned skills look easy at the touch of a button and hopefully encouraging a playfulness in my own machinations and a freedom from restriction.

before then tho, i need to focus some energies on wrapping up that which i have already started, drawing a close on what should have been the debut Hunchbakk album that is long delayed, cracking on with this latest collection of Giles Babel sounds, and, as my brother reminded me and his followers, maybe i should be looking to finish up the SoundArt collaborative project that we started in december 2008 with the intention of creating a 12 track album over the following 12 months, but is still stalled on the 9th track that i have barely made a start on.


i shan't go making any wild claims that 2012 will be my year, a grand exclamation like that sets me up for too big a fall for my liking, but lets just take it as it comes and see what happens regardless.




credit where it's due:


that slightly bizarre image up there was half inched from a seemingly unrelated article and was stumbled upon when i searched for the term 'better man' in google images

better man

i'm not one for new year's resolutions

but i do understand the reasoning behind it, feeling that we need a new start for the new year


instead i shall continue doing what i believe is the best type of resolution to make, whether it is new year or not, and that is to be the best person i can possibly be, to try and do everything that i have intended to do and more so

so, i've got a novel that needs editing, which i shall get round to this month

i've got music that i need to make and share, and would like to expand upon this by making an accompanying t-shirt design

i've got ideas for a couple of comic book storylines that i should really put pen to paper with, and at least get working on a first draft so that it can begin to take shape

i need to keep Seeking Susan Boyle up to date with musical tid-bits and should really get a logo and header sorted so it all looks a little bit more official

now, this may seem to be just another one of those blog posts where i harp on about the things i should be doing instead of just doing them, and that is because it is



damn, it seemed a better idea before i got started on it

so, post over...because i have the last few christmas decorations to take down and put away, some washing up to do, a review to write and dinner to make later on