Broadway market to Angel via Regents Canal cycle path

This is the journey from Broadway Market to City University (Angel) on my bike.

NB: The towpath is closed between Kingsland Road and Whitmore Road until Easter. Don’t forget to ring your bell before going under a bridge.

Music: Right Turn Left, Marylebone

Rhetoric from the crypt

I have been collecting spooky stories for a magazine we are launching at City University. It’s called tell! and can be found online at www.tellmag.co.uk.

The talented Lotty Sanna drew some illustrations to go with my words.

This story was told to me by Timothy Renouf.

“I used to babysit the kids of my parent’s friends to earn some extra money.

They had a big house and it always made me feel uncomfortable. There was all this old paraphernalia, like dolls, sculptures and weird oil paintings in ornate frames. But I’m not silly about stuff like that, so I’d shrug off the weird atmosphere.

I went over on a Saturday night last January because my parent’s friends had gone to see a movie. Everything was fine. I put the kids to bed and they were sleeping soundlessly. I sat in the living room watching TV and drinking tea.

Hours passed and I must admit I was feeling on edge. There was something strange about the room and some of the new ‘antiques’ that had been bought.
Just after midnight their mum rang to check everything was OK. I told her that the kids were fast asleep, no problem, and the house was lovely and warm. “Only thing is,” I said on impulse, “I don’t like that new clown sculpture you have in the corner. It’s kind of creepy.”

The clown was about four foot tall and dressed in a silky one-piece with curly hair, a white face and a bright red nose. I noticed it after putting the kids to bed and it had been bothering me all night – staring blankly forward with those kind of eyes that look like they’re following you.

“Go upstairs. Get the children and get out of the house now,” she said. I got up straight away and asked her what was going on. “I’ll call the police. Get out,” she repeated.

Terrified, I ran upstairs and scooped the children out of bed. Their mum went on to tell me that they’d been having some problems with the eight-year-old schizophrenic boy next door. He had been disguising himself and breaking into people’s houses along the street.

The sculpture was not a sculpture at all. I had been sitting in a room for two hours with a small, disturbed boy dressed as a clown. The worst part is, to get out of the house I had to walk right past the corner where the child stood frozen. I have never felt so sick.

The boy was taken into mental health care following the incident, but I can’t sit in an empty house anymore. I’m terrified I might not be alone.”

I chipped my tooth for punk rock… what have you done?

It was Jamie and Kath’s birthday on saturday so they had a big party in the Strand rehearsal room, Swansea. The Computers and The Cut Ups from Exeter turned up to surprise Jamie and Ssssnakes played too.

When Ssssnakes played “I wanna go skateboarding” everyone went nuts. Kath crowdsurfed, Lotty spat beer and some guy fell into my bottle of Taffy Apples chipping my tooth.

The next day was mothers day so we all went to the beach.

It was pretty sunny. That’s my mum.

Then we saw a real snake! It was a grass one apparently… and it was dead.

Sunshine on the streets of London…

That is all. Let’s hope the good weather stays.

This is the canal where I live (off Broadway Market).

Balham Bowls Club

This is where I work. It’s an old bowls club that is now a pub. It still has all the original fixtures including scoreboards and wooden panelling. There are also lots of antiques. It is the place that time forgot. The locals are quite eccentric. Yesterday one shouted, “42″ at me. When I asked him what he meant he said, “42 is the meaning of life.”

Oh apparently it’s haunted as well.

These are dead creepy.

The Arteries in Plymouth 04/03

We chugged down to Plymouth on the railway, on the railway, on the railway.

The countryside blurred past us at an exceeding pace, exceeding pace, exceeding pace.

Caught up with best friends…

Of mice and men…

And heckled some punk band.

www.thearteries.co.uk

Black Monk Time reissued April 13 2009

The Monks used to be called the Torquays. They used to play surf music, cover Chuck Berry songs and serve as American GIs in Germany.

Then something happened; an epiphany of sorts. They left the army; ditched the pseudo-British name with its connotations of beat music, shaved their heads into monks’ tonsures and started playing the most rhythm-heavy progressive rock that had ever been heard.

Forty-three years after its original release, their only album Black Monk Time is being reissued and it has never sounded more current.

Roger Johnston’s fast percussion and the cynical, pithy rhetoric of Gary Burger’s lyrical is an obvious precursor to bands like Black-Flag, Dead Kennedy’s and The Descendents; punk landmarks.

“Monk Time” opens the album and spits out controversial polemic like, “Why do you kill all those kids out there in Vietnam? Mad Vietcong.” It is not just their ex-military history that makes the song stunning but its’ modern scuzzy arrangements; anarchic keyboard, unrelenting beat and raspy screams. They are political without standing on the soapbox.

Then comes a song like “I Hate You” which is painfully lamenting and so far ahead of its’ time, preceding the shoegaze sound.

The most inexorably engaging record I’ve ever heard. Where the donald duck has this been all my life?

The Pavillion Cafe, Victoria Park

Rode my bike down to Victoria Park today to meet friends for breakfast in the Pavillion Cafe. It looks out onto the lake and has a huge glass dome for a roof. On a sunday morning everyone reads the papers and today people sheltered from the rain.

Salmon and scrambled eggs, toast and marmalade, pancake stack, crumpets and honey, full english breakfasts and cakes…

Slab of joy.

Rain rain go away.

Over the top recycling in Hackney

Some people try and recycle the weirdest shit.

“Freecycle” an online network of almost 5000 groups, encourages its millions of members to give and get for free. You simply sign up to a group in your area and start taking people’s unwanted crap or offering up your own.

It’s all pretty green. I got a perfectly non-infested mattress off a woman in moccasins the other day. She was rich, bored and got a lot of enjoyment from changing her bed furniture frequently.

I am thankful for sad, strange people like this because I have slept like a dosed up baby ever since and scoffed at my good cash-paying housemates incessantly. Paying for shit? Imagine that! If you can’t steal, inherit or trade for it then you can bite your vitamin-deprived tongue and do without.

That said, there are some offers that are just plain unnecessary.

Here are my favourites:

“OFFERED: large carrier bag of bubble wrap
Re-offered due to no-shows…”

“OFFERED: Hundreds of Dog Magazines. Including ‘Our Dog,’ ‘Your Dog,’ and ‘Dogs Today.’”

“OFFERED: A backlit picture of Jesus. Makes a lovely gift. A picture of Jesus which, when plugged in, is backlit with a twinkling light.”

“OFFERED: 4 x 28 Packs Tena Super Pads. I have these 4 packs to offer and need to be rid of them ASAP. Please let me know if you are interested.”

www.groups.yahoo.com/group/hackney_freecycle/

Ex Lovers in Rough Trade 02/03

Falling somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Deerhunter are Ex Lovers. They create tuneful, whimsical pop songs with great harmonies from two lead singers, Laurel and Peter. The performance in Brick Lane’s Rough Trade East is unassuming but also underwhelming without much charisma. Their deep-and-meaningful eyes to the ceiling and nonchalantly swaying hips recall the twee romantic vibe of the Cruel Intentions soundtrack. They have a penchant for delicately crafted arrangements, clinky glockenspiel and sweeter-than-thou lyrics of heartbreak which the record exhibits better than their live show.

And some nice artwork.

www.myspace.com/weareexlovers