Sticks and stones may break my bones (but whips and chains excite me)

I'm so easily amused, I wanted to write this post just because the title makes me laugh. As ever with these stories (the guns, the bomb, the revolution) it starts with a girl.

Ultra is one of those people who are hard to figure out – she plays her cards very close to her chest, so it can be difficult to get a handle on who she really is. She calls herself 'Ultra' although her name is really Sofia, and I asked her if she was an "Electro Girl". In my case, it was a reference to The Mighty Boosh 'Electro' episode, where Vince forms a band with two electro girls called Ultra, and Neon. She didn't seem to pick up on the reference, although I still have my suspicions it's where the name came from –- because of my love of random trivia.

In this case, the random trivia extends to knowing that the girls who played Ultra and Neon in the programme are real-life musicians, in a an Electro pop outfit called Robots In Disguise. I mentioned knowing of their work to Ultra, and she seemed pleased –- though I made sure to clarifiy I didn't really get into their music, but I knew of them, I'd downloaded some songs a while back. The name seems too big a coincidence to not be connected.

Sometimes now when I'm talking to someone new, when we're still in that "getting to know you" stage, I like to throw in random or challenging questions. Rather than the standard "what do you do for fun", I've found a good question to ask people is "what's the most personal thing you're willing to admit to?". It's sufficiently subtle enough to not be too personal, after all you aren't actually asking them a personal question, and they can decide the "most personal" thing they're willing to admit is their favourite colour, if they're so inclined. Sometimes, though, it throws the doors wide open, like it did with Ultra. Suddenly we were talking about fetish clubs and spanking midgets and who knows what else.

I've said that she's difficult to know, and it's true -– I sometimes wonder how much of who she is or what she says is just for show, and how much is really her. She'll tell me something like how she's going to pose for an erotic life drawing class, and ask me if I'd ever consider it – already done the whole life drawing class thing last year, I tell her. Or she'll ask me if I'd ever consider a threesome, and I'll happily discuss the preferred male/female mix. It's really not going to shock me. It's perhaps a little uninspiring that for her 'personal' was automatically interpreted as 'sexual'. It can be used as a front to stop people getting to know the real you.

But we talked about fetishes, or kinks, or whatever you want to call it. I'm not going into too much detail here, but if you would rather not hear anything about this, you'd probably do best to stop reading this post altogether. For the rest of you, be reassured this is never going to get graphic. But, in the right situation with the right person I would say I am rather partial to a spot of tie me up, tie me down. Also blindfolds do a lot for me – because, I think, I have bad spatial awareness so have no idea where I am if I can't see. People close to me also soon learn that I am inclined to bite.

I actually bite people in a whole range of situations – if, for example, someone keeps prodding me and I warn them to stop it, or I'll bite them, I will carry out that threat. I expect Freud would call it an oral fixation (yes, I do bite my nails, and yes I do chew pens) but I can think of situations where I would affectionately gnaw someone's shoulder, or situations where one might be so inclined to bite a partner's neck. Then there's hair-pulling, too... But moving swiftly on, I'm a pretty open minded kind of guy.

Ultra seems surprised when she mentions places like Torture Garden or Coffee, Cake and Kink that I know them. Know of them, at least, not know them from having personally visited. I didn't know the Circus Revue Soho when she mentioned wanting to go. It's strange, because I wanted to go on a date in Shoreditch -- so I don't quite get how one was suggested in place of the other. But say yes more, right? She would probably get on with my Goth friend Owen from university -- when I wanted to go to the Union and drink snakebite and black, he wanted to explore abandoned buildings and drink cheap, fizzy wine.

I asked a friend if he knew of the place, and he had a look on google and sent me some links. From his response I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the links in work, and he mentioned that one of them made specific reference to a big transvestite night (a big night for transvestites, not a night for big transvestites -- we're not talking about Rik Waller in a mini skirt here). Other links made reference to torture and pole dancers. I pictured people hanging on meat-hooks.

She said I'd need to be glam for it, referred me to the myspace of someone named Malcolm Pate for inspiration, and mentioned since I'm bisexual I should have no problem with makeup. That amused me, and I asked if all bisexual men wear makeup? Perhaps she just meant that I wouldn't be worried about people getting 'the wrong idea'. Anyway, it's been years since I've worn black eyeliner, but for a night out like that, it probably wouldn't be nearly edgy enough. And that's a good point -- more than anything else, I thought what on earth would I wear to a place like that? I've since researched it a little further and found it's not all that extreme -- what Ultra wanted to go to seems to be more of an electro DJ night, with someone from Torture Garden on the decks. I told her I had no problem with going, but had no idea where I was going to get anything 'glam' to wear by then. It would most likely involve a trip to Camden, but also possibly a crash diet for me -- to get that 'heroin chic' look.

I also had no idea how I was supposed to get home at 4am after the club, and asked her if crashing at her place was an option -- no funny stuff. She said she had been banking on crashing at mine, since she can't get home either. For the record, she never actually asked me if that would be okay, and is yet to actually tell me where she lives.

There's a lot she hasn't told me. She made some references to work recently, and I asked her what she did -- she joked about being an escort, and the subject was changed. She asked me if I was on facebook one day, and after I told her my name, I looked her up. Maybe she didn't think I would, but I discovered a couple of items she hadn't told me -- like that she's 18, and at boarding school. Maybe that changes things, or should do. I have a feeling in this case for her "work" might well be a euphemism for "studying", or exams.

I wonder how much what she says is maybe just for attention -- and what this might have to do with her age. Because of the conflict of where the hell we were meant to stay the night after the club, it's been postponed. I took a rain check on a proposed Coffee, Cake and Kink date one night week because I'd been out late the night before (see last post), and besides hadn't been clear we had definitely arranged it. Since then she's suggested she'd be too busy to see me any time over the next weeks.

From here, who knows where. I haven't really "invested" anything in her emotionally at this stage, having only spoken to her a couple of times and not met I am still reserving judgement.

Public transportion is like bartering for your sanity

In terms of ideas I've had, it was not a very sensible one.

I'd been talking to a particular blogger for a short while, and had commented that when she was visiting London (from New York) we should meet up, and I'd buy her a pint. As far it goes, that part was perfectly reasonable. I like meeting new people, making new friends -- I also like making online friends into real-life friends, and of course I like drinking. All of those points made it a very fine idea, indeed.

The only trouble was, that with only a week in my fair city Elizabeth was determined to cram as much into her days as she could -- so the days were filled with culturally enlightening activities like museums and galleries and places of historical interest, and the evenings were taken up by plays. This meant her time was accounted for until about 10.30pm every evening -- which even if I was still in the city was after my last train home. Before she left New York, Elizabeth told me she hoped I wouldn't be too disappointed if we didn't get the chance to meet.

And so it was the days passed before I hit upon the idea of "hey, I could always meet you after a play". Although as soon as I said it struck me as illogical. It would be late, she would be tired from her action-packed day, it would possibly already be after closing time in the pubs by the time we met, it was after my last train home, I had work the next morning -- and what the hell was I going to do for the five hours between finishing work and meeting up?

But by the time it rolled around to Tuesday morning I knew I had to make a decision either way. Elizabeth had left it in my hands, and stressed there was no pressure to see her. I knew it made no sense at all, I asked a magic 8 bell if we would meet up and I was told it was "doubtful". I did what anyone would do in my situation; I said fuck it, let's meet up anyway. Before Danny Wallace, I might have let it pass -- but I remembered Say yes more and knew if I didn't go, I'd regret it.

They say it's better to regret something you have done, than something you haven't. I've often questioned this line of thinking; say you're drunk and your car is outside. It's cold and raining and a long walk home. Or you could just take the car. You know you shouldn't, but it would probably be okay... In this case -- I think it would be better to have a long, cold, miserable walk home and regret that you didn't do it, than to drive home, crash, kill someone, and regret that you did.

However, that has no relevance at all to my story. I told Elizabeth I would meet her, and the rest of the logistical details I considered my problem.

Tuesday morning, I took my car to a nearby town and left it at the station there -- this afforded me a couple of hours longer in the city, so long as I made that last train home, shortly after midnight. Knowing that the pubs might be closed or close to time by the time we met, I also sent a message to AQA to ask them where I could fine late bars near to the station, to which I might take a girl. Their responses were largely unhelpful -- of the three suggestions made, one was a takeaway, and one was a strip club. The third was accurate enough, but it was badly rated in reviews.

The day passed as normal and I'd given some vague thought as to what I might do to pass the time in the evening. I figured, it's a big city there should be plenty I can find to do. Galleries, museums, small independent cinemas... The first two choices were quickly exhausted, since it seems they don't open past 6pm. The cinema -- whether it was small and independent or not -- could have been a good idea, but could I find a single film I wanted to see at a convenient time? Could I bollocks. I wanted to see The Future is Unwritten, but it started either half an hour before I left work or at 8.30, which was too late for a film with a running time over 2 hours. I tried to but a ticket to see Black Snake Moan, but strangely the cashier told me it wasn't showing at his theatre. I say this is strange, I only asked for a ticket because I had just looked at their board and seen what time it was showing. But it wasn't like he could sell me a ticket for a film they didn't have, so there went that idea.

I decided to splash out and spent a whole £1 on an hour's internet access in a cafe. Sure, I have internet access at work, but it's monitored and restricted and is via some old version of Internet Explorer. It's not the same as the freedom to view any site you want. Plus I usually have work to do. So I read my emails and caught up on blogs and all the usual stuff. Near the end of my time, my mobile rang -- it was Elizabeth. But shortly after she established where I was, she was cut off. I waited to see if she would call back, but she didn't. Duh, I thought, she was probably cut off because she has no money -- so I called the number back. No answer. I finished up what I was doing, and left. I tried calling a few times more, but with the same

Almost all the ideas I had to pass the time were met with similar outcomes to the cinema. I passed a bar on my way to the station with a sign proclaiming beer and a burger for a fiver. At first I walked passed, but then I stopped -- that would be a good idea, so I went back. I searched the pub for the toilet before I was going to sit down -- since I wouldn't be able to get up and leave my bag later. I couldn't find it. I searched everywhere. I asked the bar staff and was directed up a flight of stairs to another bar, and there was only one door; to the Ladies. I did another circuit of the bar, and gave up on that.

So I went to Camden Lock, figured I would wander round the markets. I love Camden lock -- it's so full of life, you wander round all the food stalls and the sellers are all shouting to you, trying to get your attention, trying to convince you to buy your Vietnamese noodles from them and not the seller next door. It's a great idea if it's a Saturday afternoon -- not surprisingly, they close in the evenings. All the stalls, deserted and locked down. Metal gates across the doorways to the indoor market. The fortune tellers have all gone home.

Fine, then. I remembered a pub in Camden I had been meaning to go to -- so I found my way there, figured I would maybe get something to eat and stay awhile. The pub was small and cramped, and standing at the bar I discovered I had no actual money on me. I left, at first to find a cash machine and then decided not to bother going back and just carry on, along my way. I had a better idea, there's my favourite pub in Kings Cross, with the large comfortable chairs and the good food and friendly staff: I would go there.

Rather than a quiet Tuesday evening where they might be grateful for someone coming in and buying a meal, they were having some kind of cabaret/disco night. There was loud music and flashing lights, the place was crammed full of people in suits or dressed like Liza Minnelli -- no chance of relaxing in a chair and reading my philosophy book there. Dejected, and quite hungry by now, I wandered back down the road.

I bought KFC from a restaurant near the station. The restaurant had only perhaps three seats in the window, and they were all taken -- so I got it to take away, without giving consideration to where I would eat it. I ended up taking it to the station. It's strange, train stations have a certain smell. Not the smell of piss and sweat -- or not just that -- but something else, I can't quite define. But a smell that reminded me of all the times I spent at university, hanging around train stations in Derby, Birmingham, Euston. I found some plastic seat opposite the departures board, and watched as the station filled with people, and then emptied as people caught their trains home.

You can't hang around too long in Kings Cross without being offered drugs, sex or just accosted by a random freak. A random freak asked me where the nearest church was, I just told him I didn't know. I felt bad afterwards, I did know -- and if I hadn't been eating, I would have taken him there, even if he most likely wanted to confess to a brutal murder or something.

After dinner I had a much better idea: Covent Garden. There's always stuff going on in Covent Garden, as there is in Leicester Square. But it seems always is an exaggeration. There was nothing going on, and I got lost. It's not easy to get lost there, but if you're me you can get lost anywhere -- I just was unable to get back to the tube, I'd end up walking in circles round the piazza. So I walked. I walked to Trafalgar Square, past Charing Cross -- noticing the hotel I was meant to meet the joournalist at that time a couple of weeks ago -- and eventually just decided to catch a tube to Earl's Court where I was to meet Elizabeth.

I knew I would be well early, but figured I could check out where I was meant to meet her, and then look for somewhere to go for a drink. Elizabeth had wanted to go to somewhere near Liverpool Street, so I could be sure of catching my train home and wouldn't have to sleep rough in the station. But I didn't like the idea of her travelling across the city, late at night, on her own. Especially since her Mum didn't know where she was or who she was meeting. The gentlemanly thing to do was to drink near her hotel, I could take care of myself.

My luck changed, as near Earl's Court station there was a pub -- just your average, run of the mill pub. No cabaret nights, no elaborate floor plans, just a place where I could get a drink and read my book. So I did just that. Although it's difficult to concentrate on Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge when you're sat in a pub, waiting for someone. Unexpectedly, after a short while my phone flashed up I had voicemail -- when I checked it, Elizabeth had called a while earlier to say she was out of the theatre earlier, and to just wait where we agreed as soon as I got the message. This could have been at least half an hour earlier, and by the time I got the message it was about time to meet anyway. I only assume she called when I was somewhere underground.

But we met, and we went back to the pub, and it was good times. We had a (grossly-overpriced) pint each, and just chatted about everything and nothing -- while both keeping an eye on the time, since we had to allow me at least half an hour to get to my train. The company was good, and absolutely worth spending all night wandering aimless and lonely around the city.

Predictably, we managed to get lost after leaving the pub as Elizabeth tried to find Gloucester Road station which would mean I didn't have to change trains. We never did find it, despite her tendency to start swearing in a bad British accent when stressed and asking directions from people in a corner shop who probably couldn't speak English anyway.

Our meeting was even worth missing my train home -- luckily I found there was a train later than the one I thought was the last. I eventually made it home, and our meeting was worth getting to bed just after 2am and getting up less than five hours later. Elizabeth made her way back to New York without event -- and I certainly don't regret a minute of it. Next time, though, I hope we'll spend a day together.

Given up fags and drugs now, baby

Sometimes it's all very well realising "Oh, I have issues with attachment", but where do you go from there? Especially if you don't want to become attached to the idea of detachment. But like anything, I guess it's one step at a time -- if you can recognise it you can begin to change it.

We were in the pub the other day, when Nick turned to me and asked if he could get my opinion on something. I gave him the standard response of "[shrug] You can try" which usually confuses people who don't know me very well, him included. He told me that someone on Facebook had told him they wanted to buy some of his photos, and wanted to know from me how much he should charge. What, like there's some set amount? I told him that it really depended on how they wanted them -- canvas prints obviously cost more than normal ones, and then there's sizes to consider, not to mention posting costs. He said none of that mattered, because they didn't want it printed -- only the image. This I found very strange, and told him to make absolutely clear they weren't buying the rights to his pictures, and even then I'd be concerned that if it's someone you just sort-of know online then what is stopping them from printing and selling them -- once they have the image? He didn't think it was likely, but mentioned that further to this they are willing to pay him to take more pictures of London.

My first emotions I think were anger and probably jealousy. I was angry that I can't just have something that's mine, without someone like him coming along and trying to crash my party. He's one of those people that if you mention you like a band's new single will then go out and buy their entire back catalogue and tell everyone what a big fan he is. I felt like I had mentioned something I was trying to do, and he wanted to make it his thing instead. And yeah, I guess it was all just jealousy. But I remind myself that I shouldn't be attached to the identity of "artist". What is it Yoda says, attachment leads to jealousy? For a muppet, there was a lot of Zen wisdom to him.

I am sure the world is plenty big enough for us both to be able to take photographs if we are that desperate. I need to remind myself why I do it, to just dig stuff -- like the picture a couple of weeks back of the sun shining through the branches of the tree. I was standing out on the fire escape at work today, and looking around I decided that it would make a good picture -- so I'm taking my camera tomorrow.

In non-Zen related news, work is good. I'm all self employed and stuff. People ask me what I do for a living and I now tell them "I'm a freelance PR consultant", which basically means nobody would give me a permanent job. I'm thinking freelancing might be the way to go, if I can be sure of semi-regular work -- at least for the summer, so I can have mini jaunts to Europe. But we shall see, right now I need to get my finances straightened out a bit.

I really don't have anything interesting to add to this, which is quite sad. I was thinking of adding a paragraph about a girl, but I'm going to hold off on that for a little while until I know what to say.

The art of giving up

The picture taken on a beach, celebrating Australia Day, apparently captures simmultaneously fireworks, lightning and the McNaught comet. I don't care that the picture isn't entirely as it appears*, it's beautiful to look at.

This post today started with no real focus to it, other than to "share" some items I have found, or have been sent -- like this article, lovingly sent by a friend following the last post. However, along the way writing it -- as is often the case -- it's become something more.

The art of giving up: for those among you with short attention spans, or who just don't like following links in case they lead to goatse, the piece can be summarised with a few choice, inspiring and easy-to-digest quotes that will hopefully serve as appetisers, for the rest of the piece.

"life is a process of letting go of your own ego, or letting go of your attachments...When the idea of self (ego) is attached to the object of enjoyment, you lose the ability to see it for what it is.

"It is also common to see aspiring artists, musicians, and actors entirely drop their activities once they come to a conclusion that they are not going to make it. At that point, it becomes clear that the driving force behind their creative pursuits was not their enthusiasm or passion, but their attachment to the idea of becoming someone. Or, it is also possible that whatever enthusiasm they had was overwhelmed by their fear of failure. Ironically, I believe that, if you can give up the idea of “making it,” you would have a better chance of actually making it."

I had never realised it, but what I was expressing in my last post and what I have expressed in so many posts without knowing, is I have a kind of addiction to attachment.

I develop strong attachments to all sorts of things, and all manner of issues can suddenly be explained by this -- particularly my illogical reactions. I develop attachments to items of clothing, hence when I lost my "favourite" jacket last year I was upset (and when I thought I lost the coat my brother gave me earlier this year). I also have favourite t-shirts, favourite items of jewellery and favourite pairs of jeans. I wrote about death a few posts ago, and I wrote about how for years as a child I remained distraught over the death of our pet cats. Again, an almost-irrational attachment. It would be no surprise to anyone that I appear to harbour attachments to people -- I remain close friends with my exes and remain attached to past crushes. I also develop attachments to jobs, or workplaces -- to the point where I find myself crying with disappointment when I don't get a permanent job.

There's the more destructive things I have got attached to, as well -- alcohol, self harm, depression, buying new things and even the emotional and chemical cocktail of love and sex. And aren't we all? If not those exactly, then at least attached to our identities -- as writers, or whatever -- or attached to individuals, to blog comments, or just to attention.

My fear of failure, my drive to consider myself an artist to assign myself an identity, are an attachment to the self. And this is where the article really sparks my interest:

"Zen Buddhism is a process of detachment. It is so concerned with attachment that, one is discouraged from being attached to the very idea of detachment, and I can see why; because attachment actually has positive, useful functions. In this sense, Zen is not a process of detachment, but simply an understanding of what attachment is."

Zen teaches us that the self is an illusion, and in some parts a cause of suffering -- the erroneous belief that we are all separate, perhaps in a way the belief that we are all beautiful and unique snowflakes. What this tells me is my attachment to my "self", my identity becomes too attached to my ego and through the fear of not making it, and so not being "someone", I risk it all.

I feel inspired.

*if you can't be arsed to follow the link it is described as a "three-photograph panorama".

Ordinary's just not good enough

It's a strange feeling; sort of realising that you're too afraid of failure, or too plagued by self-doubt, or just too damn lazy to ever really succeed at anything. I get intensely frustrated by feelings -- not of inadequacy, but of mediocrity. But I'm not going to go back over old ground again, or rehash that same post where I ranted before.

For a short while I ran with a tagline on my blog that quoted an Our Lady Peace song, "An ordinary boy, an ordinary name, but ordinary's just not good enough today" -- I deleted it later, for various reasons. Partly because it wasn't displaying how I wanted, but also partly because I felt it had been said before. Now I read it again and I see an underlying positivity. There's a certain subtle positivity in a lot of OLP's music, it just might not be easy to spot at first.

I could delete it because on one reading it isn't the positive message I need. I don't need to be telling myself I am ordinary and "not good enough", I need to be thinking of myself as amazing, as someone with extraordinary ability. I read somewhere how a belief is just a thought you keep having, and I have recently begun to appreciate fully quite how much I can control. I am learning techniques to control the release of endorphins, I am creating and encouraging new neural pathways -- I can and will believe anything I tell myself.

Just the same, it's all very well for me to be able to say I can take back control of my beliefs and my moods from there, but I can't assume it is the same for everyone. When I have been depressed before there were analogies of water. It feels a lot like drowning, and people have told me not to try and swim against the riptide of it. It would be like comparing someone treading water in a swimming pool, to someone struggling out at sea. One can not say they are in the same position.

The point of this post has evolved, while writing. I can't tell myself I am a failure, or any of the negative things I started with, if I ever want to be anything more. Although I might feel it. And I shouldn't project on to others, in any various contexts.

Friday whir

I realise I've neglected Musical Monday this week -- bank holidays throw me off like that, so it feels like a Monday today. In light of this, I might do a (feels like)Musical Monday post instead. If I can think of anything to write about.

This time last week I was bumbling my way through an interview in leafy South London -- it's been all quiet on that front, so I guess I didn't get the job. Is it really a surprise if you're so unprepared you don't even know you're going for an interview? These things happen, though I should really catch up with them to see what the dealio is.

The more observant among you might remember that last week I was supposed to meet a man about some journalism work. I'd responded to an ad for a Trainee Music Journalist, and after some discussion we arranged to meet up. The original meeting was to be on Thursday, but the journalist pushed it back a day -- it made no difference to me, either way -- although in the time between my first response and the day of the meeting, I'd begun to have my doubts.

There were several points I wanted to discuss -- the job advertisement had used the word "trainee", and yet there hadn't been any subsequent mentions of training. What training was going to be involved? I also wanted further details about how much of it was going to be about music, since the job was writing for a publication interested in mobile phones. I'd been told what he was most interested in for this position was the growing relationship between music and mobile phones -- but to me that does not suggest being a music journalist.

We agreed to meet a hotel in the West End, and as I made my way through the people thronging Trafalgar Square I was suddenly struck at how strange the situation seemed. Here I was, on my way to meet a man off the internet I didn't know, on my own, at some hotel in Soho. That's the kind of situation where you're going to wake up the next day missing a kidney. So I did what anyone else would do, and carried on.

The hotel we'd arranged to meet at was coincidentally next door to the agency where I had been working, until recently. I'd been standing around for almost 10 minutes when a couple of my former colleagues, passing by, spotted me. Given the chance, I'd have sooner hidden behind a rock than speak to them, but there was no chance and no rocks -- so I just made polite conversation that I was meeting a man about some work, but worryingly he was late and I was beginning to wonder if he was going to show up.

After some effort, I connected my mobile phone to the internet to access my email and found a message informing me he was waiting for me inside. Inside! What an idiot I was, I'd been standing outside. Shaking my head at amusement of how I dense I can be, I walked into the hotel and saw immediately a man sat at a table, clearly waiting for someone. Waiting for me, naturally. He looked up and we made eye contact, so I walked over to him, introduced myself and sat down. I explained to him I was an idiot and had been waiting outside, and what a coincidence it was that I had recently been working just next door.

There was an awkward silence.

Then he apologised, and asked me who I was. I had just sat down with a complete stranger who was waiting to interview someone else completely, probably for a job in the hotel. I'd thought for a minute before I sat down how he clearly looked nothing like the person I was expecting, but I didn't know if the editor of the publication was the same person who had been emailing me.

I checked my email again, and the journalist had sent me another message -- this time with his mobile number. Success! Now I would be able to contact him and find out what was going wrong. But no! The number didn't work! I tried adding digits, removing digits, but to no avail. Worse yet, although I could read my emails I couldn't reply to them.

By this time, I had begun to wonder if I was at the right hotel. He had said Charing Cross, but not specifically Charing Cross Road -- what if there was another hotel? He was clearly waiting for me somewhere.

With nothing else for it, I went off in search of an internet café to try and resolve what was going on -- and to check on hotels. Armed with £1 for an hour's net access, I set about exploring the world wide web to find information on London hotels in Charing Cross, and respond to my emails. It didn't take me long to establish the difference between the hotel I had been waiting at and the one he had been -- he was Charing Cross, I was Trafalgar Square. It seems like a matter of semantics, the difference between the two places, but they were different hotels.

I emailed the journalist and explained I was an idiot, but that if he still wanted to meet me I'd be in the internet café for a while, checking emails. I didn't hear back, and presumed he -- quote rightly -- had better things to do with his time. He has since replied to the email I sent, but it's me that has better things to do. I recognise I am wholly responsible for going to the wrong place, but I am sure he had a copy of my CV with my number on it -- and I would have called him, had he given me the right number.

I mentioned I have better things to do, and so it is -- I got a call on Friday morning about some more freelance work. A two week contract, doing some in-house PR (rather than for an agency) on a reasonable daily rate; I'm now officially registering myself as self employed and we shall see what happens from there.


Above: Trafalgar Square last Friday afternoon -- in the background if you look carefully, the hands on Big Ben read 2pm, so I was technically already late for my meeting when I stopped to snap pictures.

Roots rock rebel

Thursday, May 24
Suicide Bid @ The Underworld, Camden
support from Baby Boom, King Blues and the Deathskulls

I had to pause for a second there, writing the date -- I remember last night I was line to collect my tickets and two girls behind me were commenting on a poster in one of the windows. Or rather, they were commenting on the date. The show advertised was for tonight, but one girl kept insisting it was still April. Her friend asked me to help them settle the argument, I assured her it was definitely May.

Gentle reader, you may remember we left off with your humble narrator frustrated that he had bought a third ticket because he had inadvertently ended up with two people both wanting to go. To make matters worse, yesterday morning Laura sent me a message to say she had now decided not to go after all, because she was hoping to go to Brighton for the weekend. I mentioned it to our mutual friend Pete (bass player for Suicide Bid) and he said to be honest, he didn't expect her to go. I wished someone could have warned me of that to begin with, but I should know by now what Laura is like -- and she didn't ever say for certain she wanted the ticket.

So it's the morning of the concert, and now I have another bloody spare ticket again. There's no sense in looking for a date for the evening, since I already have company, but I put up ads advertising the ticket for sale. Obviously, I got no responses. But fortuna was smiling upon me, when Ten sent me a message to ask if I had any more tickets, because her girlfriend wanted to come along as well. Loose ends tied up -- I now didn't have to wonder if Ten would get along with Laura, and the ticket was taken care of. I also plan to get reimbursed for the tickets.

Ten had asked me what time I wanted to meet in Camden, and had advised "+ half hour!". She hadn't needed to remind me of that, I remember all too well what her sister is like with being on time for things, and can remember several times where the three of us were going somewhere Ten would have to catch us up later. As it happened, her timekeeping last night was impressive. I told her to meet me at 7.30 (meaning 8), and it wasn't much later than 7.45 when her and Julia arrived at the pub. Clearly stoned, they mentioned they were going to get cheeseburgers -- I said I'd just stay and finish my drink and read the paper.
This part confuses me -- because they managed to meet me on time, but then disappeared for about half an hour. Eventually, I sent Ten a message asking how long it takes to get a cheeseburger, but they came back before I got a reply and all was well.

We found a table and just sat and drank and chatted through the first band or so, and it was good company. Ten found some white sticker labels in her bag from a Eurovision party she had a few weeks back, with a different country written on each one. We each chose to wear a country, I think I got Finland. By the time the King Blues were playing I felt more like watching the bands. King Blues were fantastic -- definitely a band I shall have to watch out for -- but naturally everyone was waiting for Suicide Bid.

It was no disappointment, ferociously kicking off the set with The Assembly -- the first track from their debut mini-album -- from there I knew it would be a good show. When Morning Comes will always mean a lot to me, for its significance -- and I was excited to see Laila K from Sonic Boom Six doing her guest vocals on songs like Wind Ya Batty and -- my favourite -- Like A Lion, but am ashamed to say many of the other singers I didn't know. I could recognise their voices from the album, but haven't ever listened to many of their bands. Something I intend to correct when I get the chance, especially King Blues and the Inner Terrestrials.

I encouraged Ten and Julia to shout "We love you Pete!" at the stage, but of course we weren't close enough for him to hear. All too soon, the show was over and it was time to drag bedraggled selves home. I caught my train home with minutes to spare, and was too tired and happy to even mind the stranger next to me who kept falling asleep on my shoulder.

I'll post (bad, blurry) pictures later and maybe a song, until then just go to their MySpace page. Because I say so.

On needing to pay more attention (day 2)

I arrived in South London just after 10am yesterday morning -- and as usual, although I had made a note of who I was seeing, and the name of offices, even the road name, I hadn't actually checked little details like how to find the offices from the tube station. Lucky for me it was a nice day and I was in no hurry. I found my way to the main high street without a problem. It was which way to go on this long stretch of road that puzzled me. In the end, I settled for choosing one direction -- and stopped into a petrol station to buy a drink and ask directions. The woman behind the counter had never heard of the business centre I was trying to find, but knew of a pub by the same name -- and so I thanked her, and said they would probably be close to one another.

I set off down the road, and decided instead to go in the opposite direction. Why, I have no idea -- the only thing resembling a promising lead, and I ignored it? Luckily after less than a minute, I met a postman. He would know where it was. And fortunately for me, he did -- not only did he point me in the right direction (yes, it was the other way to the way I was going :P) but also pointed out a large tower that he said was part of the centre I wanted.

This time, I found it easily enough -- and was still way too early, so I sat on a bench in the sun, and listened to the few songs I can fit on my phone's memory. This week, I love the Eel's Hey Man, Now You're Really Living -- it's inspiring and catchy, but I have to ration myself or I am going to get really sick of it.

When the time was right, I went into the office complex and announced myself at reception. They called through to the company, and I stood waiting. After what seemed like forever, my contact came down and met me and showed me up to the offices -- we made polite conversation about how far I'd come and about someone she knew that lived vaguely near me. I think perhaps when I caught the word copy writer I thought something was not quite right. My contact showed me the offices, just with a brief wave, took me into a meeting room and offered me a drink. I asked for a glass of water and she left me for a couple of minutes.

It was about this time I realised my meeting was not with a recruitment consultant, but instead was a job interview. In my defence, it never happens like this. What happens is, you see a job advertised. You apply for it. A recruitment consultant calls you, asks you to come and register with them, and sometimes they put you forward for the job. A time is arranged for an interview, they brief you on the client, and off you go. What does not happen is this -- you do not see a job advertised, apply for it, get an email from the company itself saying "looks good, are you free to come in for an interview tomorrow?" and then go for an interview.
It was all I could do to stop myself laughing my head off while I was left alone.

It was unfortunate I knew nothing about the company, and could only surmise very little about the job itself -- being a perceptive sort of lad I worked out quickly that it was a biztech job (that is, rather than consumer tech) and obviously it would be a junior position, or else I never would have applied.

The interviewer returned and we were at first a little confused how I had heard about the job. I thought someone had contacted me about it -- but looking back in my emails, this is clearly not the case, I had instead seen it advertised on the jobcentre's website -- this surprises me, since the jobcentre is usually completely useless. In what I hope to be a continuing trend, I was relaxed and confident, and regaled the interviewer with my witty tales of consumer PR.

The interviewer noticed my PR experience was what could be described as fluffy -- fashion, beauty clients, not exactly hard-hitting stuff. I assured her what I really wanted to be doing was tech, and that was where my interests lay outside of work. Maybe so, she said, let's see -- she started outlining a hypothetical situation involving a large company with a couple-hundred networked computers, people working from home and links to offices overseas. She asked me where I would begin advising on this. I just dove straight in, talking about firewalls and working on ftp servers, rambling about wireless networks against wired, the need for security on a wireless network, and using ftp for people working from home, or accessing a central server. I think that mostly satisfied her, although she had her own ideas about stopping servers from overheating.

I don't want to get my hopes up on it, but I think it went well. She asked me about notice periods and how soon I could start, I talked about doing the commute via moving somewhere closer. I think she liked me, there was talk of perhaps getting me to do a written test and I assured her that would not pose me any problems. That said, some practice wouldn't go amiss.

Speaking of writing, I was sent an application form to work for a PR agency I contacted on Monday. It was all going swimmingly until I came to a question asking me to write a 300-word press release about myself starting work at the company. Finding the way in to it is the hard part at the moment. I also need to write something similar in way of a biography for an art site I will be submitting some of my pictures to. Both of them require a certain amount of bullshit, but without filling it with statements like "Jay is the best thing since bread came sliced". We all know that is true, but it needs to be more subtle. The art biog needs to avoid being pretentious, but at the same time make my pictures sound more thought out than just "I thought it would look good". It's just as well I have a lot of time on my hands.

In other news, I mentioned previously having tickets to see Suicide Bid on Thursday night -- and more specifically, a spare. The personal ads I placed regarding it yielded nothing and I was beginning to think I would have to go on my own. I'd left some status update on my Facebook profile about it, and was surprised when San's younger sister asked me what it was about. I remembered playing her Suicide Bid once when I was round their house, so I emailed her about how I had this spare ticket and she was welcome to join me or to bring friends along and included some songs. I heard nothing back that day and thought nothing more about it. Then yesterday morning I bumped into a friend on the train, and he mentioned our mutual friend Laura had recently broken up with her boyfriend. While it bugs me (and others) that it seems like Laura only wants to be friends when it suits her, and sometimes she will completely blank you if she sees you in the pub, I heard Laura was quite cut up about the break up and so I invited her to make use of my spare ticket.

You can guess what happened next. Ten replies to my email saying it sounds cool, she'd love to come and would see me on Thursday. Then Laura replies saying yeah, she'd be interested if she can afford it, who else is going? I explain how nobody else we know is going, and that it wouldn't be a cheap night -- hoping to put her off now I don't have that spare ticket. How come? She asks. How come what -- how come nobody is going, or how come it's not cheap if tickets are less than a tenner. Sure, tickets are cheap, but there's travelcards, and drinks and taxis, I say. And nobody else is going because they can't fit it in with work.

I figured I would leave her a day or so, before mentioning having other people interested if she wasn't. But I didn't need to wait, Laura sent me a text this morning to say she would take the ticket. Faced with two takers for the same damn ticket -- and neither of them even a bloody date -- I've ended up buying a third.
Let's hope I get that job to pay for them.

Addiction to television warped my perception of reality

I was on the tube, minding my own business, when the man sat opposite me fell asleep. Nothing unusual there. Except you could see even with his eyes closed how his eyes had sort of rolled back in his head. It looked a bit weird, but I was doing my best to ignore it. But then his eyes opened. Not opened all the way, but sort of half-opened so that with his eyes rolled back you could just see the whites. It was completely disgusting. Not to mention unnerving that it felt like he was looking at me. Every time the train jolted I hoped he'd be jerked awake, partly because I was beginning to wonder if he was asleep and not having a fit or something.

After a while I figured he seemed alright and not about to swallow his tongue, but he was still freaking me out. He looked like Ash in the Evil Dead where he gets possessed by the evil dead spirit, or like the zombies in Shaun of the Dead. Sitting there, staring at me with his undead, zombie eyes I began to look through my bag to see what I could beat him to death with, if it came to that. In the end I figured I could either beat him round the head with a book called Feel Happy Now, or with one of my very stylish Tom Wolfe shoes.

It was very difficult. I had to at once keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn't getting out of his seat to try and bite me, but at the same time not stare at him because he was giving me the creeps, staring at me with his unseeing, half-closed eyes -- and because he might wake up at any moment and wonder why I was staring at him. So I had to look intently at the advert above his head, and only occasionally glance down at him. When he did occasionally wake up open his eyes it was almost as bad -- like watching someone with a Jekyll and Hyde personality.

I don't think he noticed me staring, and I never had to try and remove his head.

Day 1

My first "day off" -- I'm preferring to think of it as having time off, rather than being unemployed -- and it hasn't run exactly according to plan. The idea was to call the recruitment consultant who got me the freelance contract I just finished, and see if I could schedule a meeting with him today to discuss my next moves. Predictably enough, last week when I had mentioned it to him he had seemed reluctant -- unless they think they're about to get a contract out of you, they are rarely interested in talking to you.

My Mum had said told me she would ask if there was any chance of work at her place -- all I needed to do first of all was email her a copy of my CV, once she'd had a chance to empty her work email to make space. I think this is where it went off track -- online and updating my CV and casually applying for jobs.

The day was meant to be spent in London, being cultured at the British Museum or something -- but I kept getting calls; "Hi, I saw your CV online and wondered if you'd be available to come in for a meeting..." or asking if I was interested in sales positions. I've stopped answering the phone now if it's not a London number -- nobody in Essex is going to be calling me about PR contracts.

Instead of making it into London, I have applied for a reporter's job with some IT newspaper, applied for entry-level graduate positions with at least two major PR agencies, sent speculative letters to at least two others, arranged meetings with recruitment consultants on Tuesday and Wednesday, and arranged a meeting with a guy about work as a music journalist.

The latter is an interesting little project, it's unpaid, part-time work -- but since it is working on the growing relationship between music and mobile phones, there would be a free phone in it for me, and lots of free gig tickets. I figure if its part-time then it is probably something I can fit in around a proper job -- and as ever, it is good experience.

In other news, rocking the shaved-head look is working out well for me -- many thanks to all the people who have complimented me on the look, and on the pleasant shape of my skull! My thanks go out to all of you who have recommended I shave it to begin with, and of course that's not to say I don't appreciate all the people who sympathised with me, and those who encouraged me to accept myself as I am. It could be when the novelty of looking like a monkey ready to be shot into space wears off, I'll be back to needing to just accept myself.

Shame on anyone who didn't read my last blog post because they thought it really was just going to be only pictures of me wearing different hats -- it would have been no fun to only post the last picture on its own.

And a shout out to any London readers (or lurkers) I have a spare ticket to Suicide Bid this Thursday night in Camden if anyone is interested. I have given up hope on actually having anyone want to buy the ticket, now I just want some company so I don't go on my own. I put an ad on Gumtree looking for a date, and got three responses almost immediately. All three lost interest after requesting pictures. But yes, Suicide Bid, the Underworld, this Thursday night.

Musical Monday #19

With so many bands, it can be difficult to see where the lead singer ends and the band begins -- often one of the main creative forces in the band, and often used as an image or a hook for the "brand" of the band. It's often annoying if you're a fan, to see Hole confused with Courtney Love, to see Blondie confused with Debbie Harry. Sometimes, though -- like with the Eels, last week -- the band is just as often a vehicle for someone who one person, for one reason or another.
Either way, this week's Musical Monday is about Pulp -- and the eternal question; where does Pulp end and Jarvis Cocker begin?

Pulp had albums before the 90s made them popular. By all accounts, they had albums with influences as diverse as Leonard Cohen and Wham! These albums failed to chart and were pretty much ignored by the public at large, right up until the release of the album His n' hers which was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize, and the catchy single Do You Remember The First Time.

But it was their 1995 single Common People and subsequent album Different Class that really helped the controversial and quietly charismatic band become indie/britpop darlings of the 90's on the "Cool Britannia" wave.

The 90s threw up any number of pop/indie bands, from Suede, to Menswear, Sleeper, Blur, Oasis, Dodgy and even more that I don't want to remember. I don't recall Jarvis Cocker ever going to Downing Street to meet Tony Blair or Pulp ever playing their catchy but sordid songs of love at any of the prime minister's parties.

In 1996 Jarvis Cocker became more famous than the band when he invaded the stage during Michael Jackson's performance at the Brit Awards. Fed up of Michael Jackson pretending to be Jesus, Jarvis ran about on the stage, and waved his bum at the crowd. He was then arrested, accused of assaulting the child performers -- although he was released without charge, and the video footage of the incident doesn't show anything of the sort. He was largely hailed as a hero for the stunt, and the music paper Melody Maker suggested he should be given a Knighthood.

Like so many bands, when Pulp did hit the big time they found it wasn't what they wanted at all -- and it was several troubled years before they returned with This is Hardcore. For me, this album is the best work the band produced -- it was less commerical than Different Class, but the Britpop wave had broke and rolled back long before. ...Hardcore had themes not so dissimilar to earlier songs like I Spy and Underwear, but it had a darker undercurrent and seedier.

The album contains so many fantastic songs, I couldn't begin to do justice to the album without going through it track-by-track, which I certainly won't do. It's one of those albums that needs to be played as a whole for the full experience, but to my mind just one line sums up the album, from the title track This is Hardcore -- "what exactly do you do for an encore?".

Perhaps this question troubled the band for a while, since it seemed like a very long three years before they eventually came back with We Love Life. Completely different in style from Different Class and This Is Hardcore, the album reflected a perhaps lighter side of life with songs like Sunrise, Weeds and The Birds in Your Garden. For the record, the latter song is filthy and Weeds seems quite political. There's also more songs about love and break ups -- with Bad Cover Version of Love, which again includes one of my favourite lines "I heard an old girlfriend has turned to the church, she's trying to replace me but it'll never work".

Jarvis has predictably enough gone solo now the band are on hiatus, and the songs don't sound so vastly different to his work with Pulp, so you have to wonder if the band will ever return. As a personality, Jarvis continues to attract attention, criticism and praise for being his usual outspoken self. But it's not video Monday, it's Musical Monday -- and today's song was a very difficult choice. I have chosen Sorted For E's and Wizz, a haunting comment on the 90s rave culture ("I seem to have left an important part of brain...somewhere in a field in Hampshire").

Sorted For E's and Wizz

A journey with hats

I wanted this to be a longer post than it is, displaying my love of various hats. Unfortunately, my love of hats doesn't seem to extend much further than three. I'm sure I have got a floppy festival hat somewhere, but I can't find it. Just the same, we begin our journey...

This hat I bought one summer, many years ago, for the Western-themed fancy dress birthday party, of one of San's flatmates. That party will forever be ingrained on my memory, memories of so many cowgirls... But anyway, the point is I like the hat a lot. The last time I wore it to a Western themed party I believe one of my friends referred to me as "the only Gay cowboy in the village", and yeah I guess the picture hardly exudes machismo. So it's just as well I am donating it to my 2-year-old nephew...

Although a winter hat, this has become kind of all-purpose headwear for me as my love of hats (or desire to wear one more) has grown. Most of you are already familiar with the picture featuring this hat, taken at last summer's Reading festival -- proof that I wear it winter and summer, indoors and out. It was bought just one winter when I needed something new to keep my loaf warm, it's now my favourite.

This is a strong contender for the title of "favourite hat" -- bought one day from a market seller in Chinatown, I'm a big fan of camouflage print and I particularly like the 'wings' on the front of it. It also goes much larger than the blue hat, meaning it can shade me better in the summer and won't get as hot. It goes well with my look when I'm wearing my big black boots and black g-star pro pants. I'll see about getting a picture maybe of that whole image, I can be very vain.

Finally, no hat at all -- but instead shaved like a monkey ready to be shot into space. For all you people who told me to just shave my noggin and be done with it -- especially Steph. I like that I look mean in this picture, it neatly offsets quite how camp I look in the first. And no, I won't smile in pictures.

Job post-mortem

Now I am feeling slightly more stable, I should provide some more information on what exactly happened with my job. I realise the little info I gave previously makes the company seem completely unreasonable, and that they had been just leading me -– and others –- on, with no intention of following through with any of it.

The fact of the matter is, the person who was sort of my direct superior -– the Account Executive –- handed in her notice a short while ago. I wondered at the time what this might mean, but didn't think too much of it. What did happen was in the process of recruiting for that position, the powers that be decided it would make most sense to combine the roles -– that is fold my role into that one. Whether it was for financial reasons or whatever, I don't know.

They found someone to do that job, and so dissolved my own. I've heard of this happening to people in the past, of them being made redundant because your job doesn't exist any more. I consider myself fortunate that I haven't been made redundant a short time into my job. I was taken on to do a freelance contract for 5 weeks, and that is exactly what I've done. It sucks (a lot) that I didn't get a permanent job out of it, and it's particularly unfortunate that I was interviewed and stuff, but I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining.

In many ways, it was a blessing in disguise -- following a conversation I had with HR about the interview it seems clear to me that I wasn't going to get the job. If they hadn't abandoned hiring anyone for the position, the job would have gone to someone "better suited" to the accounts and to the team. As I thought, I was confident in the interview and answered their questions well -- but apparently not in such a way to convince them I was the best person for the job.

Focusing on the positives; this job got me out of the shitty call centre in Essex, this job was better paid than the call centre (when I do eventually get paid at the end of this month), this job is closer to what I want to do with my life (or for a career), this job has given me valuable -- and paid -- experience. I've met nice people, and made some good contacts.

To my mind, the company and everyone involved behaved completely correctly. It is unfortunate for me that my job didn't go permanent, but I was hired for a 5-week contract while they were recruiting and that's what I did.

Job news!!!!

Not only did I not get the job, but they have decided now not to recruit for the position I was doing -- and so they don't even need my freelance services any longer.
This means, as of Monday, I am unemployed again.

If anyone has any offers of work for a PR nerd or a writer/photographer, send them my way.

If anyone is looking for someone to be their 'artist friend', I could use all the friends I can find at the moment. Couches to sleep on are especially welcome, the world over. Plane fares might be a little hard to come by, though.

This is all.

On work and being emo

Monday evening was my first -- and hopefully not only -- interview to do the job permanently that I have been doing as a freelancer for the past 5 weeks. They'd been talking about interviews for weeks, but any time I asked I was told they were still working out the details. I wasn't too concerned, since they longer they took about it the more work I would have.

Eventually, it rolled around that they had it all arranged -- all their ducks in a row -- and my interview was Monday, 5.30. I complained to friends that I would be thinking about it all day, with it at the end like that, but on the plus side I had plenty of time to prepare.

The interview itself was unremarkable. One of the account managers interviewing me I have worked with quite closely on a couple of accounts, and already got the impression she liked me. I fielded the questions well; I was asked how I'd feel about working late some days, if the accounts needed it, and conversely finishing early other times -- and so reminded them of the day a couple of weeks ago when I got up at 3am, just so we could visit radio station breakfast shows. I felt reasonably relaxed and confident -- at least more so than usual in interviews, and left with quite a good feeling.

There's more people for them to see all the rest of this week and the start of next week -- before they make a shortlist of people for the second stage. There may even be a testing stage after the second interview.

Now I'm feeling unsteady. I started the day feeling cheerful, but after seeing a couple of other candidates about the place during the day, it sunk in how the odds are against me. People tell me that I shouldn't worry, that surely they would sooner hire me who has already been doing the job and settled in, than a stranger. But I can't rely on that any more, last time I had been doing the job largely without pay for six months -- and I was dumped in favour of someone new.

I might not make it to the second stage. Or I might make it to the second interview, and no further. I don't know what I'll do then. I think it's fairly clear I'll have to look for a new choice of career -- the experience I have will count against me, if two employers have both chosen not to keep me after interview it will look like there's something wrong with me. I was advised against doing any more unpaid work experience for that very reason.

I guess work is work, right? It doesn't much matter what you do. Perhaps of more pressing concern is how I can go from 0 - Emo in the course of a day. In work I can't let the mask slip -- I can't let anyone else even suspect I might be unhappy, and have to stay in character to do my job properly. I joke about these feelings, but I've said before recently I feel as if I am looking at a machine and lack the tools to fix it.

I don't know what I need. Some stability, some security maybe. Some belief in myself, or belief that whatever happens things will be okay.

Musical Monday #18

I first heard the Eels with their debut single Novocaine for the Soul -- although I understand that singer/songwriter E had a couple of solo albums before this. It seems strange to me now that he would release solo albums under his own name, and then form a band which seems to just be a solo project. But anyway.

The song appealed to the angsty teen in me -- with lyrics like "this paint-by-numbers life is fucking with my head", the Beautiful Freak album as a whole was sad and tortured, but at the same time strangely catchy. The songs would get in your head, or lines from them would just stand out -- even today I still use the line "one day the world will be ready for you, and wonder how they didn't see".

Their second album, Electro-shock Blues was much darker -- E's mother was diagnosed with cancer, and his sister committed suicide. The albums content reflected these events, but it was more mature than its predecessor and to my mind the songwriting improved. The themes might have been difficult, but songs like Cancer for the Cure and Last Stop: This Town remain catchy and accessible. For me, the best song on the album is the insanely-catchy Hospital Food, which is far more upbeat than it really should be.

"If Electro-Shock Blues was the phone call in the middle of the night that the world doesn't want to answer, then Daisies of the Galaxy is the hotel wake-up call that says your lovely breakfast is ready". The follow-up album Daisies of the Galaxy was disarmingly cheerful, for me it lacked some of the depth of the last album, but songs like Mr E's Beautiful Blues are the kind of song I need to listen to more often, with it's repeated line "Goddamn right, it's a beautiful day".

From there, Eels sort of lost their edge for me. They released the much darker Souljacker, but all I ever really heard from the album was the mournful Woman Driving, Man Sleeping -- once put on an indie compilation tape for me by a girl named Kath. The mention of her name makes me pause, she needs a whole post sometime.

Most recently, Eels released an album that I saw described as containing 10 of the best songs they had ever made, but unfortunately the album also contained 22 other songs that weren't quite as great, so it could be hard to find them... As ever I guess with these bands is there's a certain time and a certain place, and in that moment you're left with a feeling like "yes, that's it, exactly". Later your paths go in different directions, and sometimes you're a little sad about it -- but you always have one song that you love, and it makes you happy for a little while.

With this in mind, today's song isn't Novocaine for the Soul or Cancer for the Cure, but instead Mr E's Beautiful Blues.

Finding Emo

It's hard to know what to say about this.

Saturday morning, I had a small parcel waiting for me. At first, I thought it had come from Australia -- a while back, a friend had vaguely mentioned about perhaps sending me something. I thought, maybe this was it? But then I recognised the clean, neat handwriting and saw it had come from Japan. I was disappointed. However much I love getting things in the post, and was flattered San would send me anything, I expected it to simply to be her returning a DVD I sent her a week or two back.

Instead, I opened the envelope and found this inside. In case the picture isn't totally clear, it is a black cotton wristband with a shark on it.

Far from disappointed now, I was instead surprised and amused -- and instantly reminded of this post about dolphins. If you can't be arsed to read it all, I draw your attention to this particular section:

"The Black dolphin has a bit of a goth thing going on. They should make a movie about them called "Finding Emo". Then they'd be popular."

I emailed San almost right away to thank her for the wristband, and to tell her that to celebrate it, I was going to grow an asymmetrical fringe. I also announced my intention of wearing black eyeliner, and generally going for the "emo Peter Parker" look.

From the other side of the world, the subtle nuances of the email would have been hard to pick up on -- San discouraged me from adopting the emo look (I'm 26, for chris'sake, I don't think I was really serious about it), but said she hoped I did like the wristband, and she'd been unsure if I would wear it.

I do plan to wear it, though, because I think it's great. I think San remembers I used to have a blue wristband several years ago, and I wore it all the time. I think she stole it -- and it's more than likely I have mentioned several times since then that I want it back. But I can't see me thinking "What my 'image' really needs, to set it off, is a black wristband with a shark on it".

I expect the trouble with me might be finding the line where ironic amusement ends and being serious begins.

A postscript to this story, over lunch yesterday with my uncle, my parents started to tell him about how San was teaching English. I forget how the subject goes up (had decided not to wear the wristband outside the the house), but they started the conversation along the lines of "Jay's girlfriend is in Japan teaching English and--"
This is where I stopped them.
"She is not my girlfriend, and in fact hasn't been for about...oh, three years now."
"What we meant was...she's your friend, and she's a girl, and..."
I just stopped bothering. They probably hope we'll get back together, and it's way too complicated to explain to them why we never will. But then again, they also hope I will get back together with Fiona, and I haven't dated her in six years or more. I just thought I'd share it with the class.

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black

I love the Rolling Stones song Paint It, Black, I've never heard an official line on the meaning of the song, although on reading the lyrics I believe it to be about bereavement. Either way, I like the imagery of it.

There's a certain fascination in popular culture with death, or more specifically 'untimely' death. Not a natural process, like the sleep at the end of a hard day, but more like something snatched, and stolen. Perhaps when we're young and depressed these things particular capture us -- everything from the Smiths' seemingly-endless dirges to Goth kids seem to have what could be described as an unhealthy interest. I don't suppose there is ever a healthy interest in death -- oh no, it's ok he just has a healthy interest in death. Maybe funeral directors, or coroners?

But we do hold up untimely deaths as something special, the premature demise of musicians is the subject of much speculation -- particularly why 27 was such an unfortunate year for so many, including Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison.

For myself, there are certain parts of popular culture -- certain themes of death that have always appealed to me. However it sounds, I have favourites -- favourite songs about death, favourite poems, favourite stories. I don't know if this is common or normal, but I wanted to write about it. A cautionary note, however -- please don't take this to mean I am either suicidal or self-harming. I'm not. There is no cause for concern.

I don't think growing up I ever really handled death very well. I was fortunate enough that nobody close to me died until much later, but I remember now perhaps months or years after pets dying, I would wake up almost screaming with tears, because they were gone. I think I was something like 16 when a girl in my class at school was killed in a car accident. I couldn't get my head round it, how someone could just be... gone. I think in the end I decided that it would be essentially the same thing if I pretended they had just moved away and I was never going to see them again. I guess the stories since then are just a variation on those two, with other issues mixed in.

Local Boy in the Photograph appeared on the Stereophonics first album, and was an apparently true story about a young man who died in an accident. I think it was a kind of tribute to him. Part of what I love about the song is the detail, the narrator's memory is prompted by certain items -- a smell, a taste in the air -- the train runs late, and he remembers. The sound of the song switches at this point, the tempo slows and the guitar drops out as he remembers where he was when he "heard the news for the first time". Depressed at 17, this song appealed to me -- it's so sad, and yet I wanted to be the person for whom "all the friends lay down the flowers, sit on the banks and drink for hours, talk of the way they saw him last..."

That last line brings me neatly on to my next: the poem Funeral by Carol Ann Duffy. It's a simple, stark poem -- I don't need to say its about loss. Who the person was or how they died is never mentioned. Perhaps again its an attention-seeking side of me, but I always liked the lines:
"From all over the city
mourners swarmed, a demo against
death, into the cemetary".
And not unlike in the Stereophonics song, there is the more intimate, personal level:
"we said your name, repeated
the prayers of anecdotes
bereaved and drunk

enough to think you might arrive".


Many people love James O'Barr's graphic novel The Crow. More people probably love the movie, and know nothing of the comic. I don't even want to think about the people that liked the tv show. There's many things that appeal in it, the story of revenge is not unlike the Count of Monte Cristo and is a visceral theme that applies to the animal in us all. There's also themes of love, and importantly of loss. The sadness and loss of the graphic novel are played down in the later film, but I was fascinated in the poems of Rimbaud and Baudelaire, and even the melancholy song by Robyn Hitchcock. Thinking back, it might have been the song Raymond Chandler Evening that inspired me to start reading Chandler's own novels -- but it's difficult to remember for sure. Ultimately, the Crow was a story of a man who has lost the one person he cares most about and had nothing left to live for. The fact he is dead by this point is irrelevant.

There's probably more, but these are the three pieces of art that have influenced me most and influenced my own perceptions of death, Paint it Black only gets an honourable mention. See above for reassurance that there is no need for concern.

He names the planets after you

Yeah, I decided to go for a bit of a redesign -- except things never look in reality the way they did in my head. I'm not completely happy with how the layout has turned out, so expect there to be further revisions.

I wanted a grey/red colour scheme, but I'm a little frustrated that I can't change some of the other colours in this template and I'm not wholly sure about the pictures. However, that's what you've got to put up with when you use a standard template. I lack the skills to make my own.

Other than that, I was bored of the title "Whiskey bottle and a .45", it was never the most inspired of titles, but it got the job done. I was also bored of all the google hits from people searching for novelty whiskey bottles -- if anyone wants a good business idea, I think there's money to be made making novelty whiskey bottles, from the number of searches for one or another. I think "Just me, against the world" was my previous title, and recently my mood has left my feeling this is a more appropriate title. One could say that I'm slipping back.

I want to change. I want to use meditation, philosophy, Zen, neuro-linguistic programming, self-hypnosis, therapy or all of the above, just to find the tools I need to be happy. I know it's up to me to be happy, I just feel I'm looking at a problem, and I don't have the right tools to deal with it.

With the change of title came the relevant change of picture. I liked the Sith picture, it reminds that PR is the "dark side" of the force and makes me smile, I also just like how it looks. I like to imagine I look like that when in a bad mood. The title of the blog comes from the picture of the same name , by the super-talented Rimfrost.

That's sort of it, for now. Nothing in the real world to update on.

12/5/07 Update: I found a different template I liked. Eventually figured out how to use it, but then decided I hated it. Somewhere on reverting back again I ended up back in the original blue template. So I dug out the backup I had made the other day of the new template. Then decided that, no, I was better of with it in blue.

I lost my faith in the summer time

I really wanted to paint yesterday, it was weird. We all know I don't paint because I can't paint, and I guess I can't paint because I can't draw. Even if I had the talent, though, I had no inspiration. But just the same, I just really felt like painting. I got up reasonably early (early for a day off) and outside it was already pouring with rain. I knew it was going to rain on Monday, they had been saying so on the weather forecast all week, but I hadn't been expecting great sheets of torrential rain. It made me think of you Aussie bloggers, and how much you'd like some rain like that.

I don't think I'd been up long before I got a text from Nick asking if anyone was about and wanted to do anything. I told him I was about, and had been thinking maybe of sunbathing, or having a barbecue or maybe sitting in a pub beer garden in the sun. Maybe not the sharpest knife in the draw, he replied to tell me it was raining on his side of town. Like maybe I hadn't noticed perhaps? I think I replied with something along the lines of "That's strange" and then the conversation degenerated into his complaining I was in a funny mood again, and responding I am always in a funny mood. Although I am beginning to wonder if, like how people have problems with drink or food, I might have a problem with sarcasm.

For her birthday last week, my Dad bought my Mum an MP3 player. Not just a small MP3 player though, no, he decided what she needed was a 30GB video player. The options were limited to begin with, since what she really wanted it for was listening to the radio -- but there were smaller, simpler (cheaper) options. He had his heart set on one particular price range, and that was that. I tried having a discussion with my parents months ago about MP3 players, if they really understood what they did, if they had ever downloaded music in the past and if they would be able to work one. I didn't get very far with it, which is more or less self-explanatory since they bought one anyway.

Having ripped and uploaded all the CDs my Mum wanted, and then donated half of my own music collection, I think barely 5GB have been used. Of course, there was yesterday afternoon the usual frustration when -- surprisingly -- my parents couldn't work out how to use it and kept asking me. I had to keep telling them I'd never used that (or any, as it happens) mp3 player before and had no more idea than they did. They would forget this 5 minutes later and be whining at me again. My 2-year-old nephew can use the DVD player better than my Dad, at least my nephew knows to put discs away in their cases.

I ate Thai for the first time, recently. When I told people in work I'd not eaten Thai before they literally looked at me with wide-eyed and open-mouthed amazement. Where have you been? they would ask me, and I'd shrug. Last summer, Philippa the cute Kiwi girl, said she and I should go out for Thai -- but I never saw her a second time, and that was the end of it. There aren't any Thai restaurants in my neck of the woods, in fact I don't even know where the nearest one to me would be outside of London. I think it's not living in London that's the key to this, nobody has ever offered because it's not been something obvious to suggest. My friends sometimes go out for curry, but my requests that sometimes we might be able to go out for Chinese instead has always been refused.

But yes, the Thai. To tell the truth, I was a bit worried about it. Another reason why I probably haven't tried it before is sometimes I just get a bit weird about trying new things. It's weird, ask me if I want to go on holiday on my own, to a place I've never been before, where I can't speak the language, to stay with total strangers and try to learn to surf or something, and I'll readily agree. Yet, I get nervous about food. It wasn't just the food though -- it was the fact I had been in this job a week and a half, and I still wanted to make a good impression.

In the end, I ate pad Thai which turned out to be just a bowl of chicken and noodles and although it tasted different to Chinese food, it was good, and I didn't make a tit of myself. Speaking of such things, though, I wanted to share this story to reassure Steph she's not the only fucktard.

It was an ordinary afternoon in the office, I was minding my own business. A colleague came over to ask people around me if anyone had a light, he was going out for a fag break. One girl said yes, she had a lighter, in fact she also had matches -- and she didn't even smoke herself. She said she'd just found the matches. Taking my cue from all of this, I piped up with:
"Charley says that if ever you see a box of matches lying around tell mummy because they can hurt you."

Imagine an absolute silence. People stop what they are doing and quietly just stare.
"What?" I say, and then: "Mrrowrrowrrow!"
Hoping to prompt their memories by impersonating Kenny Everett's Charley did nothing for me, I incredulously asked them if they had never seen any of the "Charley says" public information films. It seems they hadn't. I emailed them this link to show them I really wasn't crazy. I don't know if they bought it. My friends tell me that only I would do something like that, but it seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time...

Baby's got rabies

It's been a while since I last updated, properly, and I can see my readership has dropped off sharply -- but it's not a big deal, I don't ever expect to get a book deal out of my blogging. I just write compulsively, and sometimes try to write well. The truth is, there hasn't been much to say. Except, I have noticed that you're all slacking on the guestmap.

Since starting my new job, there's not much going on -- the job itself is good, the work is very familiar and similar to what I used to do in PR so there's no problems there. I don't have much more to say about the job than that, partly out of fear of being dooced, but mostly just because it's not very interesting to anyone outside the industry. I might start updating "Too Many Divas..." again, but I don't even have anything to rant about. I don't know if the job will last, but for now it's all pretty good there.

And work treats me pretty decently, as opposed to that soul-sucking last job. It seems strange now how suddenly I left that job, and how completely I left everyone. Occasionally on the train or on the tube or in a station I'll think "Oh look, there's-" whoever, and then remember that it won't be them. The one guy I really considered my friend I tried inviting to gatherings with my friends at my house one weekend, but he couldn't come and that was more or less the last I heard. Sometimes it's almost funny how you can think of someone your friend, and how quickly you will leave them behind. All the people I lived with at university, the people I was close to, down the pub every night, out on the town -- and then suddenly,
nothing.

I still have a copy of my old posts from the blog I kept on Open Diary, all those years ago. Saved in such a way that all the original comments were saved with each post. And yet, some names mean nothing to me now.

The other labels used most around here I think are music and girls. In terms of girls, there is really nothing to say. San is Japan, and enjoying herself, which is nice to know. She calls me about once a week now, and that makes me laugh as at no point during any of the periods we were dating did she ever call me regularly. There's nothing in it, though, I think she just misses having a link to home. I had a dream about Lyndsay the other night, which was surprising. I think it was prompted by recent communication I'd had with the girl. For ages, she's been mentioning she was coming to London, to see a friend, but it's consistently been pushed back because she has no money. Which is fair enough. Then recently, when the Pound was at its strongest against the Dollar, my parents started speculating about an impromptu Floridian break to make the most of it. If I tagged along, I would also have got to see Lyndsay on her home turf -- and put into action my plan to woo her with pizza and miniature golf. I mentioned the first part to her (the impromptu break, not the wooing) and she thought it was a grand idea. But alas the idea was abandoned because it was just too costly.

Then, as I say, came the dream. I won't go into it in too much detail as it can bug me sometimes when outside of a dream diary people devote pages and pages to their dreams. My dream generally featured Lyndsay working in Sea World as some kind of dolphin trainer/performer, and I had to convince her on behalf of the British government to undertake some espionage mission, for the princely sum of a million pounds. Naturally, her boyfriend also featured in the dream, suspicious about my motives and about the truth of it all. He was convinced when he discovered it was all true. It's funny a boyfriend I've never met and may not even still exist appeared in the dream, it reminds of the time I asked Lyndsay to run away with me to Vegas to get married, and she told me she didn't think her boyfriend would like it very much. But anyway, there will be no impromptu holidays, no meetings either side of the Atlantic ocean, and probably continue to be very little contact.
I also wonder if I was inspired to dream about Lyndsay because I have been working closely the last few days with a cute girl sharing the same name.

There's not much new on the music front to shout about. On Wednesday I went to an open mike music night in my friend's car.
It was an experimental night
that does gigs in people's cars.

Actually, that's completely untrue apart from featuring an open mike music night (the rest of it was an adaptation of an old John Hegley poem I might post sometime) -- we went to an open mike music night to see a friend's acoustic jam band doing a bit of a headline slot. The earlier acts were the usual fare, pretty awful, and it made me wonder if I couldn't join myself sometime. Despite the fact I can't play anything, and can't sing in key. It didn't seem to stop anyone else. It was a good night though, I had been unsure if I even wanted to go earlier in the day, but I enjoyed myself and it was good to do something different for a change.

So you see, nothing much to say. There's no new crushes, or new developments with old ones. No new bands to shout about -- although recently I have been mostly listening to Silversun Pickups and the John Butler Trio. These things are important.

The blog interview

Here's an odd sort of meme, where instead of telling everyone if you think thunderstorms are "scary or cool", there's five questions -- chosen personally. In this case, I proposed Madame Boffin should "interview me". Questions, and answers, as below.

1. If there was one moment or decision you could "do-over", what would it be and why?
Unfortunately, there are many. I am going to narrow it down to two.
I was 20, and living in Utah. For -- I think -- President's Day (or some random holiday) we had gone to Vegas for a long weekend. On the trip I hit it off with a cute girl called Karina, I think she was from Costa Rica. We joked we were going to get married in Vegas, and who knows if we hadn't got separated, maybe we would have done. That's not what I regret. I think the day after we came back, we had our first class together and Karina made what seems now as a very deliberate decision to take the desk next to me. It was all so very high school, but I suggested to her that we should exchange numbers -- so we could study together. I remember she smiled, like she didn't buy it at all, and then she wrote her name and number on the back of my writing pad. Then she gave me her pad, and asked me to do the same. And you know what? I never called her. Not once. Not even to say hi. I have various reasons why I didn't -- I was too shy, that I knew she either had a boyfriend or had very recently come out of a relationship, and also that I sort of perhaps was in the same position. I don't recall us ever really talking again, and she probably was offended that I didn't call. If I could, I'd do it over and actually call her -- it didn't necessarily have to lead to anything.
My other choice was less than a year later. A student in Derby, I remember one weekend my parents coming to visit me and how they told me my grandmother was very ill -- so ill I might need to return home at short notice. I think it was perhaps a week later, or even less, that I spoke to my parents and it was discussed if I should come back. We weighed it up, and I decided to stay. We thought, or I did, there would be more time. There were essays to write, books to read. My grandmother died that same night while I was just out drinking in Derby. I never got to say goodbye to her.

2. If a habitable planet was discovered, would you ever consider being one of the first colonists?
I don't think I have much in the way of useful skills -- like farming or building or whatever, so I'm not sure a PR nerd would be in high demand.
Ignoring that, I am a bit of a thrill-seeker, so I like to think I would be at the front of the queue. Plus I would love to be somewhere new and unspoiled -- and hopefully be able to keep it that way.

3. Where/what is your 'perfect place' and why?
I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. A place I consider perfect? I've never known one.

4. If money wasn't an issue, what would you do with your life and why?
Some more tenacious readers will remember this from before, the elusive job as a "blue sky explorer". It was a competition run by expedia, where you would "win" essentially a job, the chance to travel the world, taking pictures, keeping a journal, all in search of the perfect blue sky. Like yourself, I presume we are keeping it reasonably grounded – rather than spaceman. But that is my what I would do, if money wasn't an issue I could devote myself entirely to just travelling, taking pictures, writing, and digging stuff.

5. Everyone has something that they're good at – what's yours?
I was going to say "self deprecation" at first, but I don't think I'm very good at that.
I'm good at lots of things; recalling random quotes from pop culture (and often passing them off as my own wisdom), saying things out loud that are better kept to myself, procrastinating...
But I guess the main thing I am good at is being artistic, in my own little way. Even if I'm not a painter, or a sculptor.

And, if you want to join in, leave me a comment saying, "interview me." I'll respond by asking you five personal questions (I will leave these questions for you in my comments). I doubt many of us can resist the desire to talk about ourselves -- more so than usual.

Guestmap

There was some concern recently that my shiny-new guest map -- as linked to in the sidebar -- wasn't working. You can all rest assured now that I have enlarged the map and there should be no further problems. Now all of you, go mark yourselves -- even all of you lurkers out there.