Brick Lane

Jiminy Cricket and Non-Blondie, two of the absolute coolest (or perhaps the dorkiest, it can be hard to tell sometimes) bloggers and people-in-their-own-right have kind of officially left the country.

Not prepared to see them go without some sort of a send-off, after some discussion and a little confusion over whether they were free, it was decided that on Friday night we would meet for a couple of quiet drinks, and possibly a game or two of darts. We being the The Girl, Dune and myself as well as the JC and NB.

The plan originally was that we were to meet NB at the pub on Brick Lane where she worked, a couple of hours after she was due to finish, since her regular customers were planning on buying her a few glasses of mineral water and the like. Since Dune worked in east London, she was due to meet NB earlier, while The Girl and I were going to catch up on the drinks when we arrived. Jiminy also had his last day in work on Friday, but unfortunately for him, this didn't involve being bought drinks and instead seemed to mean working late.

Everything was going as planned when I got to the pub -- I'd met the girl, we had found the pub and met Dune and NB inside. I left almost right away to go and get some money out, and it was when I returned that the evening started to wonderfully deviate from its intended course. The landlord of the pub had unfortunately needed to leave unexpectedly with the police, and quite sensibly had placed NB in charge -- since the two girls working behind the bar were still quite new, and didn't speak English very well. Staying in the pub a little longer than originally planned was by no means a bad thing, it had a lot of character -- and a lot of characters who didn't mind buying the occasional drink for a pretty girl, like the three bloggers whose company I was enjoying.

Jiminy joined us before too long, with his enigmatic friend Ted -- last seen in our company on the night Boris Johnson banned drinking on the tube -- and together we all found staying later in the pub also had another advantage: it was karaoke night.
Karaoke night was made all the more appealing by a distinct lack of food in the pub, not having eaten since about midday, and several pints of lager.

Karaoke in a pub is very different to a private karaoke room. For a start, it takes you out of your comfort zone -- the support and encouragement of your friends is matched by the possible reactions of a room full of strangers. It also introduces a wider range of styles and music, and most of all it has a DJ. I don't know if it's common in these places, but the DJ on Friday night was the most self-obsessed karaoke host I have ever known. The man was less introduced in people singing than he was showing off his own karaoke skills in between almost every song. What is the point in being a karaoke host if you can't stand to share the limelight with everyone else? At first it was faintly amusing, he wanted to be the centre of attention, that's fine -- but his own performances probably equalled as many as everyone else put together and he was skipping out songs by Dune and The Girl without apology or explanation. You couldn't help but feel maybe he should get a private room, just for him and his ego. Yes, we know you love karaoke and you clearly love to sing karaoke in front of people as often as you can -- but there is a limit.

There was not a limit, however, to the karaoke talent. Dune was first out of the gate with her blazing rendition of Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me, The Girl was showing off her own vocal stylings with Don't Speak, and even Ted showed himself to be a karaoke madman with an impassioned (or perhaps drunk) performance of Ace of Spades. Naturally, everyone was in awe of my own musical skills -- treating the clientele first to Teenage Kicks (with the chorus changed back to the original lyrics "I want to hold, want to hold it tight...") and a suitably downplayed Bohemian Like You (the "ooh-ooh-oooooh" being particularly brilliant). My final choice of song was a spur of the moment decision -- I had wanted The Clash, but someone else beat me to it, and I also wanted Folsom Prison Blues (after hearing Dune's Ring of Fire), but it was nowhere to be found, so I had to find a third choice.

Paying no heed to the fact that I was in a pub on Brick Lane, I thought the most appropriate song for the evening would be Pretty Fly For A White Guy, which I opted to try and give a New York-Beastie Boys flavour to, rather than the Offspring's original Californian punk style. Apparently I must have been dramatically popular, as both Ted and a drunk man who smelled bad kept wanting to join in and share the microphone with me.

The evening wore on, and Dune had to make her trek home across London -- having stayed out later than she had originally intended to. Thinking this wasn't such a bad idea, since we had a train to catch, The Girl and I also took our leave of Jiminy, NB and Ted in a slightly drunken search for KFC on route to the station.

Somewhere in the excitement of it all, I left my bag on the table in the pub -- narrowly avoiding a terror scare, I expect, by the fact that my good friends were still at the table. I'm surprised that I managed to keep hold of my camera, wallet, phone and door keys, but I did forget my sunglasses. Not to fear, though, as Jiminy safely reunited my glasses with my bag, and charged the esoteric Ted with looking after my bag until I could retrieve it the next day. Since I had all my valuables, my main concern was that Ted might find my paper journal, perhaps if it fell out of the bag, and all my secrets would be revealed. On sober reflection the next day, I wondered why I ever thought he would give a notebook more than a passing moment's thought.

A great night was had, and although there were no dart games, it seems to me like the evening was a fitting send off for the blogger dork twins. Friends, drinks, karaoke, general madness. It's not a sad farewell though, as they are coming back for a few weeks in August -- presumably for one last look at the Great British Summer.

Heinz deli mayo ad shows two men kissing

Heinz pulls mayo ad after complaints

I don't know what annoys me more; that 200 people complained that the advert was "offensive" and "inappropriate", or that Heinz caved to the pressure and pulled it. Heinz seem to be denying this is the reason, of course, instead claiming that the ad "failed in its message". Only the very naive would imagine that Heinz wouldn't have foreseen the media coverage the ad would create -- although perhaps the email warning campaign by American Family Association is going a little far. Here at least is one group very much failing to get the message of the ad.

It makes me angry that seeing two men kissing should be such a horrific thing and so unsuitable for children (isn't it always about "protecting the children"?), although I'm vaguely amused that people were upset at having to explain to children about the gays.

Interestingly enough, the ad was never shown during or around children's programming because the mayo product being advertised was too unhealthy.

I'm interested, though, does anyone around here agree that the ad was unsuitable for children because two men kissing is different to a man kissing a woman?

Justice?

I had the distinct misfortune the other day of giving more than a cursory glance to The Sun. Among the trivia and celebrity gossip being passed off as news was this story about the wanted Nazi war criminal avoiding justice in Austria.

What bothers me about the story is not that for some misguided bleeding heart liberal reason I believe Nazi war criminals should be forgiven, but the insistence that with the man being 95 years old and clearly already frail time is running out for "justice".

I really don't get what they expect to happen. Asner is unrepentant in as much as he denies any wrongdoing, and I'm presuming from all the talk of wanting to haul him before a court, that he hasn't been found guilty by a court. To me the whole thing seems to be saying "Let's execute him before he dies of old age and gets away with it!"

Presuming that someone who is a suspected Nazi and wanted for war crimes would ever be able to have a fair trial, what exactly would constitute "justice"? Should he be made to do community service maybe? Perhaps we should give him an ASBO and stop him from going to football matches? If we refuse to sentence him to death because state-sanctioned murder would be a little bit too close to what he is accused of, what's the alternative -- perhaps he should live out the rest of his (probably quite limited) days in a maximum security prison?

I have no easy answers or quick solutions, it just seems to me that it's all very well writing words in bold and capital letters and shouting about justice, but what exactly is justice in this case, and how would he ever face a fair trial?

The life of the great black bird

Readers may remember how after much blood, sweat and tears (only figuratively, I don't really think of myself as that sort of an artist, although maybe I should), The Great Black Bird was completed.

It was a strange feeling to complete the painting I had put so much time and feeling into, I was left wanting more. Not more from the piece itself, after a couple of days and much thought I became more comfortable with it than I had at first -- the curse of being self critical is I feel like nothing I can do will ever be good enough. Apply this to every area of my life. And yet, it's not always being a perfectionist -- I wish I could say I always strive for greatness, instead I am more often than just dissatisfied. Anyway, I was left wanting more -- wanting to carry on painting -- except I was also back to square one. Wanting to paint, but having no inspiration.

[Unfortunately this lack of inspiration has also been affecting the blogging lately. If anyone still reads this, I apologise for the silence. The words wouldn't come.]

After the completion of the painting and the preparation of the gallery, came the gallery opening itself. The First Time Club gallery was part of the BA Fine Art graduate show of Goldsmith's University -- Hannah, the hostess of the First Time Club had turned her final year project into the First Time Club gallery. And in my humble opinion, hers was best of all the installations I saw.

I arrived in New Cross early on the Thursday evening of the private gallery viewing. It was due to open at 6pm, and perhaps naively I thought that this meant everyone should be -- and would be there for 6pm. I was earlier still, but had enough time to find the college, and make my way back to the station where I was due to meet my guests.

First to arrive at the station was The Girl, who had spent many days carefully planning her outfit for the evening, but unfortunately due to personal reasons and a bad week, Dune was unable to attend on the night -- though she sent her kind words and good luck wishes to me. Running slightly late on the evening, but helping to make up the Aussie contingent were Non-Blondie and Jiminy Cricket.

In the lead was Non-Blondie, who was less-than-impressed with the university's lack of signage and unhelpful staff -- but I took it as a testament to her dedication that despite my bad directions and the other obstacles she didn't give up -- and didn't tell Jiminy to save himself and get away before he arrived.

Because I hadn't been around for when the other members of the First Time Club had set up their art works in the gallery, I had only heard about their individual own projects and not seen any of them. The Girl wasn't over thrilled when one of the first art works to greet her was a semi-nude collage portrait of San. In my defence, until I saw it I hadn't known myself what my ex-girlfriend had produced for her own art work, since it was a closely guarded secret.

Maybe I'm biased, but I thought the work produced by the First Time Club was much better than many of the fine art students -- one piece was a series of audio interviews with people, asking about their first times. Their first time what, they would all ask, first time anything he'd tell them -- so there was all kinds, from their first time making a cocktail to the first time they slept with a woman to the first time they smoke a cigarette. Another piece was called "Cleaning Up London" and featured the contents of a hoover bag, presided over by Ken Livingstone. You might roll your eyes at what seemed to be modern art wank, but that was exactly what the artist was doing himself -- a sly dig at unmade beds and exploded sheds (although I am actually a big fan of the latter piece).

Strangely, on seeing the other installations and art works for the first time I was glad not to have been an art student. Many times when I was at university people immediately assumed I was on an art course, and in the years since I've wondered if I might not have been better off doing a Bachelor's degree in photography -- but on the night there were some times when the other galleries represented everything that gives "modern" art a bad name. Non-Blondie herself put it quite eloquently at one point with the immortal words: "I hate art".

The Great Black Bird had a spot on the wall where it was reportedly lit by the afternoon sun through the window. Because I'm vain, I often liked to stand near it when the gallery was busy, just to see what the reactions were on the faces of the people. I wouldn't talk to them or tell them it was mine, I just liked to quietly watch people. As with the responses here, the people I knew who talked to me about it were nice and complimentary -- and Hannah asked me if it wasn't better in the end doing it the way I did, than trying to find some way to paste an image onto the canvas. The nights I spent drawing, and sketching, and painting, experimenting with colours and textures and styles until it lead me to my final piece? Yes, it was all worth it.

The night ended in a somewhat surreal way, in a local pub that was having a (far too loud) ska night and served Thai food.

I've been thinking about my next painting recently, even though there will be no gallery to display it and few adoring fans to admire my Neanderthal-like style of drawing. My next piece I intend to call "Maelstrom", and as the name will suggest it will be some kind of representation of a storm at sea -- with much more colour than before. Expect many more late nights and rainy afternoons spent with sketchbooks and an old NASA mug being used as my brush pot.

Create your own album.

stolen from something I saw on Facebook:
1 - Go to Wikipedia (random)
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Random quotations:
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

If you want to do this again, you'll hit refresh to generate new quotes, because clicking the quotes link again will just give you the same quotes over and over again.

3 - Go to flickr's explore the last seven days"
Take a picture STRICTLY from the three in the top row - this will be your album cover.

Put it all together, that's your debut album.

Ladies, gentlemen, bloggers. I give you:



They sap our energies, by Morning in America