Musical Monday #23

I was tempted to write today's Musical Monday about Elvis Costello. And you never know, when I'm feeling short of ideas I might just wheel him out -- along with an anecdote about a girl who thought he had a song about zombies.

But I can tell you're impatient. You don't want to beat around the bush today, you want to be taken out to dinner, wined and dined, and you want to hear what today's Musical Monday is all about.

Paul Simon. No, not that Paul Simon -- not Paul Simon of "curtain superstore" fame. This Paul Simon. I know it's not fashionable to admit to liking Paul Simon, in many places it's probably enough to get you shot. But I'm fairly confident that you won't find anyone else talking about Godspeed You! Black Emperor alongside Paul Simon in the same blog.

I think my liking for Paul Simon -- like many odd choices of music, including Billy Joel -- is probably rooted in my childhood, and hearing these songs in the car with my parents. I don't remember them ever playing Simon and Garfunkle, or actually any Paul Simon album other than Graceland. I think it was probably new at the time, and they would have copied the album onto cassette in order to play it in the car. It's strange, imagining my parents younger and that passionate about music.

Graceland features the engaging African harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I try to recreate that feeling of being five year's old and in the back of my dad's car, probably drifting in and out of sleep, and hearing these voices so unlike anything else I knew. And it's the song Diamonds On the Soles of her Shoes that I feature in today's post.

It's not just that one song that I love so much -- the whole Graceland album has so many great songs. The album starts with The Boy in the Bubble -- and though I don't know what it's referring to I like how lines like "the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio" are contrasted with "these are the days of miracle and wonder". The title track starts with the striking imagery "The Mississippi delta/was shining like a national guitar", and the song itself is a traditional song of love and loss, with lines like "She comes back to tell me she's gone. As if I didn't know that.". Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes is about your traditional rich-girl-poor-boy star cross'd lovers, she wants to be taken out dancing but instead end up sleeping in a doorway.

By way of closing, I would like to mention that I'm not a complete heretic; even though this post is about Paul Simon as a solo artist, and in particular Graceland, I am a big fan of Simon and Garfunkle. The song America seems desperately sad and lonely and wistful -- and probably more so than anything by Simon alone.

"Kathy, I'm lost" I said, though I knew she was sleeping, "I'm empty and aching, and I don't know why"

Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes

Volunteer adventures

I mentioned some time back that I was going to be doing some volunteer work. There was some discussion and disagreement about my motives, about karma, continuing discussion about the nature of selfless behaviour and in between it all I completely forgot to update about my first shift volunteering.

I previously described it as a soup kitchen, this is more for ease of communication here than it is necessarily accurate. To be completely accurate, the group I am involved with is not a soup kitchen -- we do not provide meals for the homeless, nor actually have anything to do with the homeless. Also, people don't come to us for the meals. How it works is the group make and deliver meals to housebound people, suffering from HIV and Aids.

I signed up originally with the intention of working in the kitchen, in fact without knowing much about the group at all. I learned on an induction day about what they did and how they needed volunteers was not in the kitchens (where there are waiting lists to join in) but out on the roads, delivering. So that's where I fit in.

My first shift was two weeks ago, I had to be at the kitchen in north London for 11am and although I wasn't worried about the delivering itself -- since I'd have a navigator with me -- I'd never driven to or in London before. I've driven further than London in the past, I've driven to Portsmouth several times and last month I drove to Brighton and Portsmouth on my own. But just the same...

Approaching London was a strange feeling. As the skyscrapers and familiar landmarks came into sight, I was filled with a mix of excitement and nervousness -- London is tricky enough to navigate on the tube, on the road is something else altogether. It felt very surreal to be driving by myself through places like Shoreditch and Islington and Camden that I know -- but are used to seeing on foot or out of the window of the bus.

Despite some wrong turns, I managed to get to the kitchen slightly early for my first shift. People were busy doing the cooking, so I just amused myself reading for a while, until my navigator for the day arrived. I'd had my fingers crossed on the navigator. And come on, who wouldn't? You're always going to be hoping that obviously on top of having a photographic memory of a homing pigeon and the patience of a saint they are going to be hot. And single. And possibly from somewhere exotic, where they are desperate to take you back to meet their rich family. Anyway, getting off track. My navigator was neither female nor hot, he was a Swedish man named Mats so at least he was from somewhere vaguely exotic.

Despite obviously lacking in the wish-fulfilment categories, he was a great person. His navigational skills were excellent -- or maybe just what normal people are like with things like maps and finding where they are going -- and he kept me amused. He also didn't complain about my choice of music, which is a good start.

I can't remember all the things we talked about, although he told me how boring Stockholm is compared to London -- or at least his boyfriend thinks Stockholm is boring. Boring might be unfair, but it seems safe to say it's a lot quieter. Could be a good thing. I liked our time driving together, I like to approach these things as an adventure -- Jay and Mats Take On North London -- and the sense of adventure would be added to when we'd approach roundabouts and he'd not be entirely sure which exit I'd be taking so I'd have to do some creative lane changes, or when he referred to my driving as being like a rollercoaster. I'm still not sure what to make of that, actually...

Today I wasn't even meant to be volunteering. Since the driving takes up my entire day -- with the journey to and from London along with the actual deliveries -- and I only get reimbursed for what I spend on the deliveries rather than my travelling into the city, I figured once a month would be enough. I don't feel like it's enough, but it's got to also be practical. Either way, we get emails every week that flag up any volunteer shortages at the kitchens. Most of the time, I either ignore them or if asked directly will apologise and say I have plans. But this week I got an email to say that they were three drivers short at this kitchen, and I figured it isn't like I do it every week -- here and there I can give up another day to do something good.

So again, I found myself on the road into London -- and found my way a little easier, too, although the novelty and nervousness is still there. And I thought maybe this time round my navigator would be a cute, poetry-loving snowboarder... When I arrived, I introduced myself to my navigator, a guy named Dominic with an unfortunate stutter. It's only really unfortunate if they are required to give you directions, though I could guess if he was stuttering over "l-l-l-l..." he was probably going to say "left" and not "right". Either way, speech impediment or not, he was again a really interesting person to know. Almost as soon as we got into the car, he immediately endeared himself to me.

I started the engine, the cd player came on and Suicide Bid started playing. He asked me if it was Rancid -- so he immediately scored points for liking ska punk. Although he didn't know Suicide Bid, he'd heard of them -- which was no surprise when I found he liked bands like Sonic Boom Six, King Blues and the Innerterrestrials -- all of whom are involved in Suicide Bid (since it's more of a "collective" or a "project" than a band). He also really liked what he'd heard of them, and told me about a gig he went to once, in Hackney. An anti-capitalist gig, held illegally in a squat, riot police had closed the road stormed the building before the end of the night. Certainly a story to tell your grandchildren, about the bad old days when listening to music could get you arrested.

Our route today was a lot closer to the kitchen than my first. Whereas before with Mats we'd had the shortest route, but the one farthest away, today we had quite a long route but it was a lot closer. It also took us an hour longer than anticipated, because of unforseen problems like closed roads, not being able to find an address at first, and taking wrong turns. It didn't worry me so much, I had good music and good company -- and I think it helped Dominic to have a calm driver to balance out the neurotic navigator.

I got home just after 5pm, having left just after 9am this morning. I don't have any work again this week, although I have an interview and a meeting in London tomorrow to get up for. Except I'll be taking the train tomorrow...

Don't panic

Maybe I'm just easily amused, but I wanted to share this:

"The current weather forecast suggests that for the first time in living memory, much of Britain might actually have several hours of sunshine this afternoon.

As this astonishing news may have caught you off-guard and unprepared, we present a quick Metro guide to What To Do When The Sun Comes Out"

.

My favourite parts include:

"Do not panic... it's worth remembering that in many other countries, the appearance of the sun is in fact considered 'normal'. Indeed, historical records show that this may not be the first time the sun has appeared in Britain."

"Waterproofs, hats, umbrellas: what to do with them... Accounts of previous sunny days in history suggest that it is traditional, at the first appearance of any sun, for the British to remove as many items of clothing as local laws permit and then lie around trying to pretend that the wind isn't actually a bit chilly."

"Dine 'al fresco'... A favoured pastime amongst the populations of Mediterranean countries, 'al fresco' literally translates into English as 'sitting at a wonky table on the pavement wondering when its going to start raining'".

Just the same, I'm still open to offers of work and couches to sleep on in other countries.

Art goes up for auction

I decided to see if it would be possible to sell my art on ebay. I figured from the feedback I get from you kids here it should be fairly popular. A little under a week ago, I started the auction with bidding at £1 for one of my favourite pictures printed on an A3 canvas. This will cost me somewhere in the region of £50 to produce, but I don't have to actually get it made until the auction ends -- and I've listed a turnaround time of 10 days, which should be ample.
I also set up the auction so that 10% of the final selling price would be donated to Cancer research.

Sounds reasonable, right? I'm starting bidding ridiculously low for an awesome looking picture on canvas, and even donating money to charity. In an effort to help cross-promote it I added an ebay auction application to my facebook, so I can leave comments on my auction reminding people it's there and encouraging them to bid.

I had no idea just how popular it would be! And by popular I mean completely ignored. Bidding is yet to get as far as one single bid for £1. I apparently have one person "watching", who might be planning a last-minute bid of a quid, but I think it's unlikely. Maybe people don't go to ebay when they want something like this, I don't know. Sure, I could use all of the premium promotional features ebay offers -- but is it worth spending £10 on some extra features when I don't know if bidding will make it into double figures? I figure at this rate I'd be better off ending the auction early and abandoning that idea than letting it possibly sell for a couple of quid.


San Francisco

The wedding

Last week was my friend Rufio's wedding. It's a strange feeling when people you know start to get married -- I still feel like we're only 17. At 17 Ruth was dating a stoner friend of mine and in between classes a group of us would be sitting on the pavement in an alleyway by the side of the local bank, where they'd be smoking their roll-up fags. I don't think Ruth smoked either. It was always a strange pairing, Ruth and this scruffy stoner boy, and apparently even though he later dumped her he's never quite got over her and wasn't overjoyed when he wasn't invited to her wedding.

Anyway, fast-forward several years and she's now married to the man she met when she was working on the checkout in Asda. It's not quite the story of coincidence and fate it might seem -- with him coming through her checkout and asking her out, since it was revealed in the best man's speech that the groom would deliberately choose the checkout of a good looking girl. He chose Ruth that one day, and on a second visit he asked her out. And I guess it went from there -- and Ruth landed on her feet with a guy that is not only good-looking and wealthy, but also one of the nicest people I've ever met.

So last Friday I'd taken the day off work for the wedding. Ruth had arranged the hire of a minibus from our town for her local friends to all get to and from the wedding -- so I met Jon, and we met with Austin and his girlfriend, before meeting the rest of our friends in the pub for a swift pint before the bus. I was dressed in my smart black suit and my favourite patterned white shirt, and had decided to leave off a tie. I quickly regretted this when I met everyone else and I was the only one who wasn't wearing one. Luckily for me, my Dad was at home and I got him to grab the red one I'd worn for an interview the day before and bring it into town for me. I like red ties. A lot of people wear blue -- and I have a couple of blue ties I'm particularly fond of -- but red is more unusual, you stand out and the colour red has connotations of confidence.

I'm very contradictory, I will wear the same pair of distressed blue jeans for perhaps a week, paired with perhaps a long sleeved white shirt and some band shirt or another. I like shaving my head now as I never have to bother trying to make my hair look vaguely presentable, and I'll only shave perhaps a few times a week. And yet at the same time, I also like looking smart. I really like how I look in a smart black suit, and I like to stand out -- I don't want to wear the same as everyone else. I'm not a novelty tie person, but as I mentioned I like to carefully choose a colour to suit my mood and to look confident. I like a pair of fashionable shoes and wearing red when everyone else is wearing blue. I go from scruffy and looking a bit 90's alternative in skate shoes with holes in the soles, to looking smart and well-dressed.

Anyway. We all caught the bus and the wedding was being held on some country estate not far from where I used to work in a call centre. If there's one good thing about where we live in Essex it's that in no time at all you can be out of the town and into the countryside. Granted, there might not be any of the hills or breathtaking scenery that you get in some other parts of this green and pleasant land, but it's still nice. Despite heavy rains earlier in the week and dark threatening clouds in the morning, by the time we were standing around before the wedding the sun was beating down. The groom's dad came and spoke to us all, we introduced ourselves and he asked me if I thought the nice weather was a good omen. I told him definitely, I thought the sunshine after a week of miserable weather was certainly a blessing. He agreed. I don't remember much of what we spoke about, it was the usual polite conversation about how we knew other people and where he'd come from -- many of the groom's family had come from Dubai. Slightly further than we had.

While I was talking with my friends I noticed a cute photographer girl walking about, trying to get pictures of the guests looking natural while they were talking and not noticing her. Cute photographer girl looked familiar to me, but I couldn't be sure if I knew her or not -- she certainly didn't seem to have noticed me. I figured that being a cute photographer girl was as good a reason as any to talk to her, whether I knew her or not -- so when she wasn't busy, I walked over to her. I realised she was the girl I thought she was -- we'd worked together in the pub several years ago, and I'd liked her at the time, even though she liked one of my colleagues and besides any of that she'd already had a boyfriend. She didn't notice me at first as I stood next to her, until I said to her "Hey, Fluff". She'd been nicknamed "Fluff" at work, naturally enough, for being "fluffy" -- endearing and a little bit ditzy at times.

I've known for years she was a photographer, but hadn't remembered she knew Ruth's brother -- whom was actually one of the people I'd camped at Reading festival with last year. She was enthusiastic and pleased to see me and we chatted a little about nothing in particular. "I'm the photographer" she told me -- bearing in mind she was carrying an SLR that was almost as big as her, and she'd been walking about taking pictures, it was a pretty fluffy comment to make. "No kidding?" I said, and she realised how silly she'd sounded. She said she was friends with Ruth's brother and knowing how talented she was, she'd been invited to be the official photographer. Not a bad gig. After a little while I let her get back on with her work, and hoped I'd see more of her at the reception later. Which I never did, but that's how it goes.

My friends had thought I was just being my usual self and trying to charm a cute photographer girl -- which obviously would make sense, that would be exactly the kind of person I would likely be trying to charm, but I explained who she was and some of them remembered her.

The wedding itself was a fairly short civil ceremony -- which we were all quite pleased with, being largely irreligious, but as we were sat at the very back of the room I, at least, was unable to really see anything. As we were waiting to leave the hall, Jon asked me what song I would have played at my wedding. Despite not being a fan of the Beatles, I said I quite liked the idea of "I wanna hold your hand". Jon turned his back on me in disgust. I asked him what he would choose, he said despite it being about something completely different, he was thinking "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins. Although in the song Billy Corgan is suicidal and being sarcastic when he says "Today is the greatest day I've ever known" he said most people wouldn't realise that. I wasn't sure I agreed with Jon's choice, even if he intended the song to be positive rather than literal -- and I told him if you were going to be using inappropriate songs out of context, he could also use "Better man" by Pearl Jam, especially since you always see couples being all...couple-y at gigs when they play that song, despite it being about an abusive relationship.

Following the ceremony we were led to a garden area, where waiters were continuously circulating, carrying trays of champagne -- every time we finished one glass, a waiter or waitress would be offering another. Someone commented that it was funny, since we'd been instructed not to get drunk that we should be left standing around in the sun, with nothing to do but drink. But it was a warm, bright and sunny afternoon and there was place in the world we'd rather have been.

Our table for dinner was placed -- probably deliberately -- as far away as possible from the head table. But the evening was very civilised, with the meals being a kind of buffet of some Arabian influenced dishes and I made the most of the jugs of cold water to rehydrate following the afternoon's drinking in the sun. It was interesting looking at my friends and wondering who out of them will marry -- it like Austin will probably be the next to marry, he's just bought a house with his girlfriend and I think it's probably already being mentioned. Who the last will be, I don't know...

Postcrossing extravaganza

Postcrossing has gone crazy this week -- previously I thought I understood that in order to receive a postcard you had to send one, but in one week alone I have received three different postcards without having sent any more. I have one all written and ready to send to Finland (yes, Finland, again) this week -- but have no idea why I have been getting cards without sending any. Not that I'm complaining, I like getting post.
This first card is from Doris in Austria. She lives in the town of Wiener Neustadt, which she tells me is located about 50km south of Vienna. She also tells me that she would rather live in Antwerp, in Belgium. I don't know why, she doesn't elaborate on it...

My second postcard comes from Finland, from the town of Lappeenranta, a city of aprox. 58,000 people close to the Russia border where the sender lives with her boyfriend and their three cats.

The front of the card reads "Everyday 160 million cards are sent. This one is for you!" which I think is a very nice sentiment. I don't know if that figure is worldwide or just for Finland -- it seems that sending postcards is a very popular pasttime for the Finnish.

My third postcard of the week came all the way from Germany. The sender Stefanie doesn't say what town she lives in, and doesn't offer any insights into what is quite an unusual looking card. The picture seems to show a road accident, and I'd like to point out that the writing says "HILF" and not MILF. If any German speakers can offer an explanation as to what this means, and what the cars is saying, I'd be grateful. Maybe it's part of a campaign for road safety? Either, Stefanie is 24 and makes polite conversation about the weather, before mentioning that her baby son learned to walk a few weeks ago and "is now exploring the world". It's quite a random bit of information to drop in, after expressing her hopes that the weather is nice in England.

International readers -- which is pretty much everyone who comes here: is this a widely-recognised piece of diplomacy? Are you taught that if you have to make polite conversation with an Englishman, you should mention the weather?

Stefanie seems particularly keen for people to visit the website for her son, since she includes a link to it on my postcard and mentions it in her postcrossing profile. However, I'm not sure she would want me linking to it from here.

I might start scanning in the cards I send, too -- I think the general consensus is the more pictures around here, the better.

Stop making the eyes at me, I'll stop making the eyes at you

It was weird. This evening I had an email from some girl, replying to a personals ad that I hadn't realised was still available to view. I guess I forgot about it after a however long with zero response and so didn't bother to delete it. This girl sent me a short message, light on details, but said she was curious. It was a nice enough message, so I replied. Not that I get so many messages that I choose which to reply to, but whatever. In her message she also linked to page on blogspot -- I call it a page rather than an actual blog, since there is only the one page.

It was sort of like a dating profile, I guess -- rather than an ad in and of itself. The usual, some details, a picture. I liked the picture, she had pretty eyes and it seemed genuine -- not like some cropped MySpace picture or something deliberately posed.

At the bottom of her page was some note about if you wanted to see more pictures or her profile to join some dating site or other she was linking to. I moused-over it and it didn't suggest it was anything...dirty. So I didn't think much of it. It was only later when I was telling Diane about it, that I mentioned I hoped she was for real. What, and not secretly a fat, old man? More like...not someone who is spamming ads to get people to sign up to some dating site. So I clicked the link given on the blog page, to see where it lead.

I was disappointed. I've been to this site before -- notoriously it being the place where I signed up for some trial or whatever and found myself with some executive gold membership for hundreds of dollars. I got them to refund my money and downgrade the account in the end, but I bet that's what this... person is there to do. Encourage people to sign up, they don't notice the small print, and a lot of money is made.

So who the girl in the picture with the pretty eyes is, I don't know, but I doubt I will be hearing any more from her.

Work related stuff

I didn't get the Brighton job. I never found out exactly why, I just got a letter saying I was unsuccessful and they'd keep my CV on file, etc. I'd begun to wonder towards the end of last week what was happening, and had called them on the Thursday. The director hadn't been able to take my call, but despite leaving my name and number he didn't return my call. I emailed him as well, but got no response. By yesterday, when the letter arrived, I had given up hope. I knew what the letter would say without having to even open it -- they don't send you a letter to ask "when can you start?".

The director had been very warm and encouraging when we'd met, so I can only assume I didn't get it because I didn't already live in Brighton. I've had two interviews since then, but didn't get past the first interview with either.
This continues my unbroken record of never having got a job I interviewed for.

I had my last interview Thursday last week, for a major agency over in Canary Wharf. The company were very impressive, and from the research I'd done I liked what I had seen. I felt I answered their questions well and asked them relevant questions in return.

All I was told was that I wasn't the right fit for their "team". I was never told what clients I would be working on, so I can only assume there was a difference when I talked about the kind of clients I have worked on or would like to work on.
I'm currently working way the hell out in Chelsea -- I have to get up at 6 every morning, just to make it to the office for 9 -- but still don't get home until 7.30.
The work isn't bad though. It's not somewhere I'd want to stay permanently, perhaps, but it's earning a living.

If anyone is wondering about other interviews I have fairly recently mentioned; I didn't get the job with the Leukaemia charity, but didn't hear why (tho I can probably guess), there was the agency job where I was specifically told I had to look "cool" -- which I didn't get because I didn't have enough experience for the role.

Speaking of earning a living, as of today I am still waiting to be paid from my last job. I was promised last week I would have the money in my account by Monday. Monday morning arrived, but my money didn't. I was again told the money would be in my account that day. Tuesday morning arrived, and still no money. I was beginning to get quite annoyed and was asking to just speak to accounts so they could tell me why I hadn't been paid, when my Dad called to tell me I had a letter from the company. The letter was receipt for a money transfer, that the transfer had been put in place on Thursday -- which to their credit, one would rightly expect the money to be in my account by Monday.

As I was looking through the jobs in one of the national papers yesterday, I saw an ad for moving abroad and learning a trade. I figured I could do that -- Canada, New Zealand, Australia; any one of them would do nicely. As for learning a trade, you never know -- I might still be able to freelance as a PR at the same time. Or maybe it would pay the bills enough for me to make more of my art?
I mentioned the ad to Jon -- since he needs a new job, and it would be a good way to go about it. Okay, maybe a better way of getting a new job would just be to look properly for a new job rather than looking at moving halfway across the world to do something you have no skills or training in. But the prospect of skipping the country might help inspire him.

The great postcard exchange

Postcrossing continues to kick arse, with my second received postcard coming all the way from Moscow, and shows the monument to Peter I. The sender, Eugenia, is a 37-year old assistant manager of a lingerie distributor -- and mistakenly complained I didn't have my real name on Postcrossing. I forgive her though, it's a neat looking postcard -- and the stamps take up most of the space on the reverse of the card! I might have to scan in that side, too, later.

Today's hotly-received postcard is my first (I expect of many) from Finland. Hinuopp comes from a small town called Savonlinna, in the Finnish lake district. I don't really understand what's going on in the picture -- it looks like it might be some kind of snakes and ladders type game perhaps, but "Hinuopp" said she thought it could be just the card for me. It seems she might be a good judge of character :)

On recent events

There's been so much in the news lately regarding the "terror suspects", the men suspected of trying to blow up London and Glasgow recently. Sometimes it all moves so quickly that there isn't really time to take it in properly, let alone try and think of some kind of relevant comment. However, I can try -- and if it looks rubbish? You people are just going to have to wait.

A major issue with the terror suspects (otherwise known as psychopathic nutjobs) -- at least a major angle for the tabloid press -- seems to be that they came to Britain as asylum seekers and refugees. Naturally, certain members of the press rubs their hands in glee at such a development -- evil asylum seekers and terrorists, if only there was some connection to Big Brother, too. Maybe I'm slow on the uptake, but it seems to me sometimes a point is being missed. The righteous who want our borders shut and bolted, among other things, cite this as good reason. It seems like we offer them refuge, and they bite the hand that feeds it -- as ever is the way, no good deed goes unpunished.

Many of the suspects were refugees from Somalia. I don't think many of us can even begin to imagine the horror of the civil war -- and what it is like to live through something like that, and for whatever reason to have to leave your home. I somehow doubt that these people fled Somalia, planning to commit mass murder in Britain. And so it follows, if they came to Britain as humbled, desperate people then where the changeover happened was within our own country. Sure, we can shut the doors for whatever reason and say that our nation is too much of a soft-touch -- this isn't a debate for today, my point is that there's something rotten within our own societies. I expect someone growing up in Mogadishu during the civil war could have a different perspective on life and a perceived value of life. So you have troubled men, displaced or confused, and then they're exposed to things like radical Islam and convinced the root of their problems lies outside themselves.

It could just be a coincidence, but maybe these men saw the large US oil corporations buying up land in Somalia before the president there was overthrown and the arrival of the US Marines -- perhaps they felt, or were led to believe, the US was an invading army -- taking their resources, taking their land. It could be I'm reading too much into it -- but perhaps they are reminded of it by Iraq. Or even if they aren't, perhaps there are people that have deliberately twisted these things in their minds. I really don't think this is an issue about refugees or immigration.

I don't have any easy answers, I tend to only have questions. If "radical Islamic clerics" are twisting the minds of angry or troubled men with false logic and false justifications in religion, what can we do? We pass laws against inciting racial hatred, among other things, and some people cry it's censorship -- or more often it's the same people that rail against political correctness are the same ones wanting to silence the hatemongers. Personally, I think it's the ideas that are the problem -- and stopping someone speaking them doesn't make them go away. But like I say, I don't have answers, only more questions.

Obviously, I expect 99.9% of refugees have no desire to blow up clubbers in London -- and I'm sure nobody is suggesting otherwise, not even the Daily Mail. And if these men bore no ill-will towards us when they came here, it's not a question of immigration. The fact that one or more of them lied about being from Somalia is a different matter -- yes, these things should be checked, this kind of thing is always a matter of concern, but I still don't think that is where the problem was.

There has been outcry more recently that these men attended some kind of "terror training camp" in the Lake District. Does it strike anyone else as odd that there are apparently terror training camps in the Lake District? Maybe they go hill-walking and have orienteering seminars in the driving rain? Perhaps I should be better read, then I would know exactly what is supposed to go on at these camps in the unlikely British countryside. Stranger still is that they were watched attending these camps by our security forces. This raises more questions about what exactly what's going on if our security services know these camps exist -- maybe there's more of them in places like Dartmoor and the Brecon Beacons, potential terrorists wearing cagoules, sleeping in tents and and trying to read a map as it disintegrates in the rain. Inbetween taking lessons on how to make bombs.

But I digress -- there's terrorist training camps in the British countryside? And our security forces follow and monitor suspects at these camps? Is it a question of at least they know where these camps are, and if they shut them down they might relocate somewhere else and not be able to find them again? Seems to me they should just have people infiltrate the camps, teaching them rubbish and leading the would-be terrorists off into the Dartmoor fog to get eaten by the big cats. Or just teaching them to windsurf instead of bomb making.

I read a columnist this week lamenting that we couldn't arrest the suspects sooner because people would complain they hadn't done anything wrong, yet. Unfortunate as it might seem to some, I think this is quite reasonable -- until perhaps someone sets out deliberately to commit a crime, should we really be arresting them? All that will do is fuel hatred.

It still seems to me the Glasgow bombers had a lucky escape -- it was unfortunate for them that their suicide attempt should have failed, as surely they knew what a mob of angry Glaswegians would do to them. And the mob of angry Glaswegians almost did live up to their reputation and tear them limb-from-limb...

I'm sure there's more to say, but I'm going to leave it there for today.

With my big black boots and an old suitcase

We return to our regular scheduled programs, and pick up where we left off -- I got out of my interview in Brighton, and had to find my way to Portsmouth.

I hadn't bothered to use google maps for the Brighton - Portsmouth journey as I was fairly sure they were close enough together for it to be signposted. I was wrong. I had absolutely no idea what way I should be going to even try and leave the city, and then even less of an idea as to what direction to head in. I think I did several laps of the city before I was illegally calling my Dad while driving to ask him. He had no idea, either -- so I said I would head for London, even though it wasn't right, and hopefully once I was on a main road there'd be signs for Portsmouth. My Dad accepted it as an idea as good as any other (except, I don't know, him looking it up for me might have been good) and warned me not to get stuck on a motorway.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I got stuck on the motorway and ended up driving back to London. Well you're wrong! I drove almost as far as the start of the M23 but pulled into a services at a place called "Pease Pottage" instead. I figured there I could ask directions if my Dad wouldn't help. This time he figured maybe it would be a good idea to consult a map for me -- and yes, found I shouldn't have gone that way at all, in fact I had been driving North when I should have been driving West, and all I had needed to do was follow signs for Worthing in the first place. This meant driving back to Brighton, just so I could follow signs for Worthing -- and wouldn't you know it, as soon as I start following those signs, up pops Portsmouth on the signs as well. Confusingly, almost the whole way London was appearing on the signs as well.

From here it was plain sailing -- windows down, rocking out to my live Pearl Jam bootlegs, all the way to Portsmouth and to my parents' flat. I found a parking spot almost right outside, and everything was good. Dumped my bags, cracked open a cold beer, and called my brother to see if he wanted to meet up for a drink.

He seemed very non-committal about the idea, saying it was up to me either way, but that he could only do Friday night if I decided I did want to to do anything. I figured despite his perceived lack of enthusiasm, it would be good to see him -- I don't see much of him, and miss him now we don't live together. So we made the necessary arrangements, he gave me the number for a cab company, and I figured I should get something to eat and get changed.

I got my shirt out of my bag, and started rummaging through the pile of t-shirts I'd brought. Why did I pack so many t-shirts, I wondered to myself, did I really need that much choice? And why could I not find my jeans. Then I remembered, the night before when I was packing, I had been wearing the jeans I wanted to take -- and so thought I'd pack them later. I obviously forgot. I'd remembered to pack a pair of pyjama bottoms and 50 million different t-shirts and two types of deodorant, but I hadn't packed any jeans because I'd been wearing the ones I wanted to take.

Fine, I thought, I'll see if I'd left any clothes in my wardrobe there. Maybe a pair that were a bit tight in the waist but would do for one night and a weekend. Nothing. I thought, fine then, even though his waist is about 10 inches wider than mine, maybe I could get away with a pair of my Dad's jeans with a belt and look a bit gangsta in my baggy jeans. The only pair I could find were enormous, with paint and grass stains on them.

This left me with two choices -- either cancel going on, because I had literally had nothing to wear, or wear my suit. I was worried what my brother's reaction would be if I turned up in my suit, but figured I'd be damned if I was going to cancel. The shirt was casual enough not to look like I'd come from a business meeting, and yet smart enough not to look stupid with a suit, and I figured if questioned I'd tell him I'd just wanted to look smart and hadn't been sure what he'd wear. Obviously he wasn't going to be wearing a suit, but whatever.

I got to the pub a couple of minutes before him and just hung around outside. I saw his cab pull up, but pretended not to notice so he wouldn't think I'd been impatiently waiting for him. He didn't recognise me at first as he walked up to the pub, I forgot he'd not seen me with a shaved head and certainly wasn't expecting to see me in a black suit. He was surprised I'd decided to wear a suit, but didn't really give me any stick over it.

Once Steve and I had found a table and started talking I quickly realised that what I'd taken for indifference on the telephone was more likely just tiredness after a long day, and a long week, not being a huge fan of talking on the telephone and really not minding if I didn't want him to come out. The important thing was that it hadn't been indifference to seeing me.

I can't remember the last time the two of us just had a whole evening alone together to drink and talk and laugh and catch up -- it has probably been years. Whenever we see each other it's because he's come to stay with his wife and his son, or that they are visiting when we're staying in Portsmouth, or we are visiting his house. Either way, it's never just him and me -- and any chance we get to be alone together is cut short fairly quickly by someone else coming in, or something needing to be done. Neither of us are great conversationalists, so we don't talk on the phone, and he's not much of a letter-writing person, so it meant a lot to get that opportunity -- and it reminds me of why I would like to live closer, so I could see more of him, and his family.

I woke early the next morning with one of the worst hangovers in recent memory. It hadn't been a late night, there hadn't been shots involved, but I don't recall how much we did drink. I should never try to pace him for drinks, but at least I didn't throw up everywhere like I did one night when I was out drinking with him in Rhodes, many years ago. Either way, Saturday morning the pain was excruciating and my parents seemed to have a complete absence of pain killers in the flat. Also, it seems that even soothing muscle gels containing ibuprofen don't do the job. And so Portsmouth found me, dressed in a suit, sat outside the Co-Op, waiting for it to open at 7am. I went back to bed after some painkillers and some toast to line my stomach.

Around 11 I got up, had a cold shower because I couldn't work out how the hot water worked in the flat, and put my suit on yet again -- although I did wonder if I could get away with wearing pyjamas outside, and decided against it -- so I could go and buy something else to wear. I decided to buy from Gap some vaguely smart khaki trousers I could wear to work where they deem it necessary to be "smart casual".

Once I got home and got changed the rest of the day was my own, I sat in the sun near the seafront and read a book of my brother's I'd found in the flat. I took pictures on my phone -- reminding me my brother had laughed at me on Friday when I'd said I was an artist -- and I actually ended up slightly sun burned. For my Australian readers, you can laugh at me here because it was probably barely 20ºC.

Saturday night, I stayed in, cooked a couple of sausages and a small ciabatta bread I'd found in the freezer, and watched a DVD -- since along with a selection of t-shirts, I'd also brought a choice of films from home to watch. I woke on Sunday free from any headaches, but must have slept strangely as I had a crick in my neck -- just the kind of thing you could do with a muscle gel for...

Musical Monday #22

Given to Fly is hands-down, without question, one of my all-time favourite songs. As my absolute all-time favourite song is by Stone Temple Pilots, it should come as no surprise to anyone, but that might be a Musical Monday post for another week.

I guess -- unlike last week -- these things are best explained with some history. I came to Pearl Jam -- I cringe as I write it -- through Silverchair. I liked Silverchair and read that they sounded -- I think the exact phrase was "like a raw Pearl Jam", of course it wasn't until later that I understood fully what this meant. At the time, I thought it just meant like Pearl Jam. Because I liked to hear bands who inspired the bands I liked, I did what I always did -- and borrow from the local library anything they had by that artist. In the case of Pearl Jam, that was their Vitalogy album.

That will have resonance for any Pearl Jam fans, but for anyone else -- it was a little strange, a little offbeat, and absolutely nothing like Silverchair. Disappointed, I gave up on Pearl Jam in disgust -- and a little confused.
It was Jon that really got me liking the band. When we became much closer friends at around 17, he lent me a whole stack of albums -- which included all of Pearl Jam's albums to that point, so up to and including No Code. I didn't have much of an opinion on them either way, not at first -- I thought No Code sounded alright, but in the end I found it was Vs that I was giving repeated listens, paying particular attention to songs like Daughter, Go, and Glorified G. From there, I appreciated Ten properly, but still didn't much care about Vitalogy or get entirely hooked by No Code. I was ready for something spectacular.
It was then that the first single from the forthcoming album, Yield, was released.

Given To Fly had all the elements that was missing from the previous albums -- a distinctive tune, some classic Vedder vocals, and more than that, a narrative I felt I could identify with.

On the surface, Given To Fly is a very basic story -- about a man discovering he can fly. It's a tired old cliche', but it;s rare that I remember my dreams -- dreams I do remember, however, are dreams of flying. Year after year, when I blew out the candles on my birthday cake, I wished to be able to fly -- before I realised that wishing it wouldn't make it so. And on that level, the story of the song resonated on a certain level with me. The narrative isn't detailed, but it seems to be about someone troubled, maybe also oppressed by some job -- there's references to a "bad time" and of being "alone in a corridor", but it's from there that it changes.
He breaks out, runs for hundreds miles and discovers...he can fly.

The song builds up like a wave to this crescendo. It's started -- with a guitar sound almost certainly borrowed from an old Led Zeppelin song -- slowly, quietly, almost like waves gently washing and breaking and washing out... It continues softly until he makes it to the ocean -- there's a lyric about how he "had a smoke in a tree", and yet you're still not sure. There's nothing yet to suggest anything extraordinary...

And it's here the song resembles larger waves starting to crash on the beach, it builds up to a stronger sound and suddenly it's not just about the troubled man, running -- the song goes "the waves came crashing like a fist to the jaw, delivered him wings 'Hey, look at me now'"
There's nothing really you can take for a chorus in the song, it builds up to a crescendo, with the waves crashing on the rocks and you're with him, flying, before it quietens down again.

Unfortunately, this is where I begin to have problems with the song. And this is entirely my own issues with religion, and my own conflicts with Eddie Vedder's apparently quite clear Christian beliefs. For me, the song stops being about a man who can fly and becomes about Jesus. The man comes back "because he wanted to share the keys to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere", but naturally of course, these things follow a certain course: "first he was stripped, then he was stabbed, by the faceless men..." -- if this isn't obvious enough imagery for you, he lays it on a little thicker "he still gives his love, he just gives it away, the love he received is the love that is saved...". It's all just so much clumsy religious allegory, and too much for me.

Luckily for me, he tones it down a tiny bit, just as the music is again waves crashing on the shore and Vedder is singing about this redeeming love, it all goes quiet again...

"And sometimes he's seen, a strange spot in the sky....a human being that was given to fly"

It inspires me. It's asking me, what would you do if you knew you could not fail -- being given to fly could be any one of us.

I love the sound of the song -- it's a short, passionate song -- it's free from elaborate guitar solos or long instrumental sessions, and it really feels like ocean waves beating against the shore. And I love the story, of a human being, given to fly.

Given To Fly -- Pearl Jam

Interviews, contracts, etc

To think now, Friday started out so normally. After a week with no work, all I had lined up for next week was another one-off day's work at the same place as last week, but a suggestion that more might follow from it. I had an interview lined up for early afternoon on Friday, in Brighton. I don't normally look outside London, apart from the occasional cursory glance at Portsmouth, but I'd widened the search to the South of England, just to see what was going on. And that's how Brighton came up. I sent them my CV, they called me back and I arranged to see them Friday. I figured while I was on the road, I'd carry on to Portsmouth. It all seemed so simple.

Friday morning I loaded up my car -- with the choice of music being especially important (for the record, I chose two official Pearl Jam bootlegs -- of 3 discs each -- from shows in Sydney in Honolulu, and a mix cd a friend made me a while back), and headed for Brighton. The journey was supposed to take about two hours, but despite not needing to be there until 2, I still set off before 10am. Knowing my sense of direction, I'd need the extra for when I got lost.

I made it all the way into Brighton without a wrong turn. It had been plain sailing all the way there, and even taking my eyes off the road while I fought to change the cd didn't cause me too many problems. I got to Brighton far earlier than I needed to be, but it was once I was in the city that I ran into problems finding where I wanted to be. It had all gone so well, right up until the very last road. In the end I parked somewhere and called my dad, so he could look it up on google maps -- I was only 5 minutes away from my destination. Finding somewhere to park was next to impossible, the parking meters all seemed to have a maximum stay time of two hours and I needed much more than that. After what seemed like a year, I eventually found a multi-story car park where I could ditch my car on the roof for a while.

So far it all sounds pretty normal, right? The trouble was with all the missed phone calls I had. One agency had wanted freelancers, and on seeing my cv asked me to start 9am on Monday morning. I'd asked the recruitment consultant if they could make it 9.30, because it wasn't exactly central London -- I also told them to check how long the contract was for. While all this was being checked, the agency that wanted one day's work out of me for this week had now decided they wanted at least three days. I couldn't respond to that request until I knew that was happening with the other, but that was taking all day. Then a third person was trying to contact me about two applications from last week -- two agencies wanting me for interview.

So, back to Brighton. I wasted a sufficient amount of time before my interview, and presented myself promptly just before two. The account exec who had arranged the whole thing -- who was probably several years younger than me -- showed me to the meeting room, but the director was currently still out at a meeting. So I made small talk with the exec, found out she'd gone to school near where I live in Essex -- to a posh, public school in fact -- and we chatted about where I lived and whatever else. The director was about half an hour late for the meeting, but I'd amused myself reading the paper and assured him his apologies were unnecessary. The interview itself went very well, he was impressed with my experience -- I'd name-dropped the big agencies I've worked for in my covering letter with my application -- and we got on well. Towards the end of the interview he asked me about my interests, and I mentioned music and in particular live music -- he was very enthusiastic, was enthusiastic when I mentioned having tickets to Reading festival, and was even more enthusiastic when I said I'd seen Aerosmith play in Hyde Park a couple of weeks back. I left generally very encouraged by the interview, it's probably one of the best I've had -- and he told me he thought I was a very strong candidate, but he had more people to see, and it was bothering him I didn't live in Brighton. He really wanted someone who knew the city and with local connections. We'll find out this week if that was insurmountable for him.

Meanwhile, I had voicemail to say that 9.30 was no-go for Monday morning, it had to be a 9am start (which means a 6.30 train into London in the morning), but the work was for a couple of weeks, at least. So I then had to call the other recruitment consultant to say that not only did I not want the three days work being offered, but wouldn't take the single day's work either. And the third person with the interviews was going to be very difficult.

As it stands, the director of the agency I was supposed to work for is reportedly "bitterly disappointed", and I have been admonished by the recruitment consultant because apparently I should honour my agreements -- I had agreed to his day's work first. I figure I hadn't signed anything, and I gave him several days' notice -- all for a one-day job, that's more than enough. I think it's the recruitment consultant who is bitterly disappointed that she won't be getting her fee -- and probably also because my former colleague at PizzaExpress had previously been offered work with this same agency, and also rejected them later for a better offer.

And the interviews -- I have arranged one, grudgingly, for tomorrow. I know that it shouldn't be grudgingly anything, permanent work is surely better than freelance, but I don't like to be asking on my first day in the job to have time off for interviews somewhere else, even if I am freelance. Again, there was a pushy recruitment consultant behind it all -- which makes me think they must get commission for getting people along to interviews. Makes me think of the interviews I go for where the employers reject me almost right away for not having enough of the right experience...

Anyway. This is just a work post, there will be more posts about the weekend itself to follow.

'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean

I had started to write a post complaining how Postcrossing were ripping me off (even if it's free) and I hadn't received a single postcard for the two I had already sent. I now take it all back -- I am in possession of a postcard that has travelled all the way from the Netherlands. You could probably hand-deliver it quicker than it takes to post, but either way my first postcard has been received from a 35-year old Dutch lady who is married with two cats.

I sent my third postcard off today to a 16 year old in Finland who particularly requested postcards with images including churches, castles and cities. I found one of Colchester castle, which I believe is one of the oldest surviving castles in Europe and certainly the largest. I filled the postcard with information about this, and how Colchester is the oldest recorded Roman town. Maybe more information than she needed, but hey. I'm tempted to request readers here send me unused postcards from around the world, just to really confuse the recipients...

In other news, after a week off last week I had a new freelance contract on Monday. For one day. I spoke the guy last week, didn't much like his tone of voice/attitude but figured they don't pay me to like them. I could put up with pretty much anything for a day, and we said we would play it by ear for any further work. The agency turned out to consist of only three people, and one of the people I later found out was a temp, and was also just there for the day. The other two employees were the joint-directors, and spent almost the entire day out of the office in meetings.

The work itself was the usual fare, and nothing remarkable -- although when the guy with whom I'd arranged the day's freelance work with arrived back at the office (mainly just to tell us employees we could go once we'd sent him an update on what work we'd done that day), one of the last things he said to us both was he would be in touch. Since he hadn't made any mention of further work, I thought this was strange and instead wondered if rather than freelance work the day had really been a kind of job trial. A strange kind of job trial if you don't hang around to see how someone works, but I have been invited back for another day's work next week -- with the hope he might see something of me this time, and possibly some work next month. If it wasn't for the fact I need the money and need the work, I could take it or leave it -- but isn't that how most people feel about work?

It's just as well then that today I was applying for various jobs in the South of England and found one going in the much-lovelier area of Brighton. I applied, they called me back, and so I'm in the car and driving south for an interview this Friday. I might then decide to stay in Portsmouth for a day or two, since several of my friends are out of town this weekend for a wedding of an old school friend.

And just to make things that little bit more interesting, the illustrious Lyndsay (of Pablo Neruda Sonnet XVI fame and whose beauty I once likened to the sun on the French Alps) has unexpectedly re-emerged. I guess if I'd remembered it was July 4, and she would possibly be visiting relatives, I might have expected her to pop up -- but on both counts, I didn't. The reason why visiting relatives might cause her to make an appearance is she has no internet at home. But after a whirlwind conversation, taking in why I was celebrating Canada Day last week when I'm not Canadian, Napoleonic history and The Count of Monte Cristo, what she's decided she wants to do with her life, and her plans to possibly move and study in England, she's promised to write me a letter to catch up properly.

Finally tonight in other news, I have looked once again at therapy. After consulting my doctor about it several weeks ago, I decided to do it myself with neuro-linguistic programming, but recently have noticed when things don't go my way I could perhaps do with sorting some issues. So I called a therapist, specialising in NLP, and they told me all about it -- before getting to the point: how much it would cost. It's only £295 for a two-hour session, and of course they think I might just need two sessions. So, umm, yeah -- maybe not? I need to call another place, that my doctor recommended specifically, and I've a feeling they might be ten times cheaper -- if I remember correctly. Summer will come again, I can be happy.

Musical Monday #21

This will be a (mercifully) short post this week, since I have only recently 'discovered' the artist in question and am still just discovering his music.

K'naan (Pronounced /keːnan/) is described as a Canadian poet and hip hop artist. I was fortunate enough to catch his set at Friday's Canada Day celebrations in London, and was impressed with his style and the authentic feel to his music.

Born into the civil war in Somalia, K'naan grew up in the violence of Mogadishu. His father -- who left Somalia to work in New York -- sent money back to K'naan's family, and it was from the hip hop albums he sent to his young son that K'naan taught himself phonetically the diction and style of the genre. After escaping Somalia on the last commercial flight out of the country in 1991, K'naan and his mother joined their family in New York -- before later moving to Canada.

K'naan dropped out of school in 1993 to rap at open mike events around the country, and in 1999 he landed a gig speaking before the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It was here he performed a spoken word piece criticizing the UN for their failed aid missions to Somalia, and attracted the attention of singer Youssou N'Dour.

The rest of K'naan's musical history to date I will leave you to look into yourselves, if you're interested. I like his music's passion and energy and so today, I leave you with two offerings -- the title track from K'naan's debut album The Dusty Foot Philosopher. On first listen, it seems very similar to Eminem -- but if you listen to the lyrics, the content is very different. I also include a video of a song I saw him perform on Friday night (although this performance is another time entirely) -- the quality of the video is terrible, but the audio is good, and that's what counts.

Canada Day

After a week with no work and nothing new to blog about, everything happened on Friday. I already had an interview arranged for Friday morning -- a press officer role for a Cancer charity -- when I got a call on Thursday night that an agency wanted to see me on Friday. Lucky for them I was already going to be in the city and hadn't made plans to go to Manchester or anything of the sort. Another good reason for having interviews on Friday was the Canada Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square. Calvin and I also went last year -- and he's actually Canadian, too, so he had good reason to be there.

I mentioned everything happening on Friday, it was also Jon's birthday -- earlier in the week I'd asked him if he had any plans for the night, I mentioned Canada Day to him and he was enthusiastic about wanting to come along.

Friday morning started without event. I'd arranged the first interview for mid-morning, so I could get a later train, and as seems to be a common theme was already half asleep when I felt the buzz of a text message in my pocket. Calvin was warning me that Piccadilly tube was closed and that parts of the surrounding area were closed off. I think I replied with thanks, but I didn't need to use the Piccadilly line for anything -- although I hoped it was nothing serious. I didn't wait for the reply, and just went back to sleep. Even when my phone buzzed with the reply, I didn't look at it. This now feels very familiar.

I jerked awake when I heard someone on the train discussing the station closure; there had been a car bomb found in Piccadilly. I immediately checked what Calvin's message said, and although his was perhaps phrased more along the lines of a bomb scare than an actual bomb having been found, it was the same story. I browsed to the BBC News website on my phone to have a look at the breaking news, and sure enough there it was; described as "a potentially viable explosive device".

I didn't even know Jon would be awake yet when I got a worried message from him about the bomb. I tried to reassure him, if a bomb had been found then if anything surely we would be safer than normal, since everywhere would be on high alert. He wasn't convinced.

My first interview went reasonably well; although I don't think I got the job -- for various reasons I won't go into. I thought I was going to be late at first, I hadn't been able to travel to the tube station I needed because of problems with the line and was easily disorientated -- even though I had left more than enough time, I was starting to panic but luckily I made it with time to spare. I was made to complete a written test, which felt very similar to the old NCTJ journalism exams I once took, and then interviewed for what must have been over an hour.

The afternoon passed without much event. I spent some time in Trafalgar Square watching the Canadian teams playing street hockey as part of the celebrations, and was trying to gently convince Jon by text message that London was perfectly safe and everything was normal. Just before he finally did leave the house, reluctantly, the second bomb was found. Now there had been two carbombs found, filled with petrol and nails -- and Jon was asking, "What if there's more?", and we were still having the same discussion about how safe it was, over and over.

The night before, I had been stressing about my second interview on Friday. I'd been told by my strict recruitment consultant that she didn't want me showing up "looking like a square", and that I had to look "cool" and be confident. This had the opposite effect for me, although by the time of the interview on Friday afternoon I knew I was looking fine and was genuinely of the opinion that the agency would be lucky to have me. The interview was incredibly short, but I think it went very well.

It was almost two hours later before Jon finally turned up, with Nick in tow -- since he didn't have to be in work until much later that night -- and who was reporting that several more bombs had been found, according to his police contacts. At that point in time, it was unclear whether they reporting "suspect devices" or suspicious packages or actual bombs. In hindsight, at least two of his reports were all about the same one -- the second bomb, reported later in the day.

It wasn't very helpful, Jon was clearly agitated and worried he was going to get blown up -- and on his birthday, too -- and Nick was reporting a second bomb being found five minutes away from where we were in Trafalgar Square. But life goes on. We enjoyed some Canadian beer -- that Jon and I called "Meesehead" all night (as opposed to Moosehead), after he'd wondered earlier in the week if Meese was plural for Moose. The Canada Day celebrations were better organised than last year, and we enjoyed watching the bands and each had been given little Canadian flags on sticks.

Since we had time to waste before Sam Roberts Band were due to play, the four of us trooped off to a pizza restaurant Calvin recommended and celebrated Jon's birthday. By now, Jon had relaxed far more and admitted that how things seemed on the news at home and how they were in the city were two different things. After dinner, Nick went to work and for the three of us left there was more watching of Canadian music, and more drinking of Meesehead until the Canadian national anthem around 10pm.

In the crowd of people -- while looking for Jon and Calvin, on my way back from the bar -- I bumped into a mutual friend, Phil. He was surprised to see me there, and asked what I was doing -- I told him, naturally, I was there celebrating Canada Day. And what's more, I was with Calvin. He said he was there with a group of people, but he didn't have any Canadians -- they were all South African and Australian. Together we found my friends, and although I brought bad news -- the bar was closed -- I'd found Phil instead. We went our separate ways from Phil after the national anthem, and the three of us remaining set off to find a bar in Covent Garden to spend the rest of the night.

We finished the evening and wearily made our way home about midnight, although Jon was still getting phonecalls throughout the evening from his parents to check he was okay and that he hadn't been killed or maimed yet. We found out the next day that the bomb found in Park Lane that Jon had seen on the news before coming out must have been the same one Nick was talking about when he said something had been found five minutes away -- since the car had originally been left and towed from the Trafalgar Square area. After an attempted carbomb attack in Glasgow yesterday, Britain is now at its highest level of "alert". My philosophy remains the same -- we're no less safe today than we were last week, so you just have to get on with things and do what you can.


A rare picture for me, smiling -- waving my Maple Leaf flag.