ENGLAND'S DREAMING

10:34AM

Grim bout of food poisoning yesterday. I can pinpoint exactly where and when I got it. Cheap chinese lunch. My bad. Journey back from Brighton on a hot, crowded train was hell. A real shoot me now moment (or several).
Ironically I had conflicting invites last night and was uncertain which to take. Private view of Ben Eine's show at Ink'd in Brighton or a Street Art Collective do for a homeless charity held, painfully ironically, at the Ivy of all places. Since all I wanted to do was rendezvous with my bed the conflict was resolved.
Shaky today but so much better.
Paul is actually off work with his knee playing up. We'll be heading back down to the coast this afternoon. I want to get started on the snug in the basement. It's been used as a general store room/dumping ground and it's time to sort through the mess. I've established by now what I will be keeping. There will be a number of trips to the charity shops scattered around the town.
Sunday morning I want to go for a long, early bike ride out past Hove. Paul can sleep in.
And I guess I need to start facing up to the challenge of finding Xmas presents...

Here are some great graf pieces from B.Right.On.



( Brighton Graf )

10:56AM

Jeremy Fish studio visit.
Fish says he finds making art hard and so just has to work at it.
He definitely works at it. The man is unstoppable.
For some people that may make him overly ubiquitous. I reckon he could care less.

11:13AM

Haven't had a great deal of time to post as I have been in B.Right.On dealing with the damage from the storms. After the fours days with the carpenter, who has done good work but was not cheap (£1000 +), and having to fork out £65 to have one lock changed and then buy paint for all the carpentry done and...well, I decided, bar needing to get a plumber in to check the boiler, anything that needs doing I will attempt. Even if I have to go on a course to learn. Resolved to apply that thinking to the first thing. So a storm with 100 mile an hour wind hit and tiles fly off the roof. The other morning saw me clambering to the top of the house to check damage and amateurishly replace a few tiles that had become dislodged. Getting up there was pretty easy to be honest. But I'm rubbish with heights. That said, once astride the very top of the house it was exhilarating. Cold. Very, very cold. But exhilarating. The old place has held up well. Though I shouldn't be surprised. It's done so for 300 years. And is reasonably sheltered. Lat weeks onslaught was hopefully unusual.
At some point I'll have to lay some new carpet. They had obviously recently recarpeted in readiness to sell. And they chose off white because it looks good. Until removal men remove their stuff and others move my stuff in. Tramp stomp tramp up and down the stairs. Off white off white carpet.
It can wait until the new year. Got to watch the pennies if I want to lead the quiet life awhile.
Never realised so much work would be involved. Was very daunted initially. Enjoying it now.

1:18PM

I should have been back in London today but Matt the carpenter hasn't quite finished. I thought he was being a little ambitious when he said he could do everything in two days. As I don't like hanging around the place when he is there I have had a good chance to explore Brighton. Yesterday I had to go look for a new fridge and after finding that I walked back through an area of the town I was entirely unfamiliar with (there are a few of those). It was well worth it.
First off I stop in at a recycling place,'Shabitat', and I picked up a pushbike for £30. It's been years since I've been on one and I don't know much about makes and models but it seems to be one of those all terrain ones that you can hurtle through woods on and along muddy tracks and stuff. Big, chunky tyres and nice bouncy suspension. A ludicrous amount of gears that sort of unnerved me but I found one that seems pretty comfortable all the time. A seat that crushes the knackers a tad. And a lot of rust.
I took off along the seafront. A storm was coming in so the sea was getting rougher and the waves higher as I cycled. It was bloody freezing, my hands were numb and the rain stung my face. It was brilliant. I only turned round and came back because it was getting dark and I had no lights. I assumed that, like bikers and fell walkers, cyclists would nod at each other when they passed. They don't. However, by the end of the jaunt I could go no-handies.
Today I went and bought lock and lights and some concoction to clean it with and the whole lot came to four times more than the bike cost. Like everything these days owning a pushbike is marketed as a lifestyle choice and there is no amount of crap you can buy.
I left off buying a new seat. I could get a new sofa at the price. My balls will just have to get used to it. Also can't bring myself to wear one of those dumb helmets. I'll be mostly going along the cycle paths along the coast and if push comes to shove I'll improvise with an old army helmet that's kicking around. There is looking ridiculous and then there is looking ridiculous. Besides, when I was a kid I spent my life on my bike and never hit my head once even though I came off loads of times.
Also came across a printmaking studio and arts centre on my travels. When I am back down next week to paint Matt the carpenter's handywork I'll pop along and hunt out screenprinting sessions.
Speaking, again, of Matt the carpenter I went along last night to see his band. Don't know if I have mentioned this but he is very tall. An he plays double bass. Which makes sense if you are very tall. I'm always amazedanyone chooses to play one. What a hassle to get around. But maybe that's because I am short.
The band was comprised of him, a drummer, an accordianist, a clarinet player and a singer/guitarist. They played what could be termed Alt.Folk. Waltzes and tango rhythms as well as more conventional fare. He didn't ask me what I thought about it this morning for which I was grateful. How can you say get rid of the singer/guitarist politely? Bland voice and no personality. That kind of eclectic music demands passion and personality. Little came off stage. The best bit was Matt the carpenter and the drummer getting down and dirty funky in a few brief interludes. The audience responded immediately. I loved the sound of the accordion too. Just the singer didn't cut it. Didn't lead as he should. The drummer was more verbally communicatice (successfully). In fact, the act before was a lone singer/songwriter with guitar. Hell of a voice and personality. They should get him in the band.
That's my Malcolm McClaren moment for today.

Other than all this I have also learnt - never ever be so foolish as to have breakfast in a vegetarian restaurant and choose their Full English equivalent. It hurts the soul.

2:41PM

In Brighton.
Have a carpenter putting in fitted shelves. I thought of trying myself but the alcoves are awkward, I want to optimise the space and I want a curvy little desk/shelf thing to boot.
Been getting a long walk by the sea early every morning. Despite the rain and the bitter winds. Which I actually like. By the time I get my late breakfast/ early lunch I am ravenous.
After a work out later in the day and supper I have been falling alseep with that great physically worn out feeling each night. Though I'm missing Paul beside me and his complaints about my snoring.
I like Brighton off season. I like it bleak.
Tonight I am meeting J. the hard partying Christian rocker and we are going to check out The Ramonas, a female Ramones tribute band.
That reminds me. In Berlin there is a Ramones Museum.
Writing this in an internet cafe. No internet at the cottage and I would like it to stay that way. Though I might crack if we are spending all Xmas down here.
Bugger all else to say for myself but thought I'd check in.

4:45PM

So the Mac is working again. No idea why.
But, while it does, here is ( Berlin )

12:31PM

for notdefined and others.

puppies

5:31PM

Right.
I deleted my last post because it was largely about my Mac dying on me.
Then I changed the fuse.
And then it worked. So I deleted the post euphorically.
Then it died on me again.

Anyone any ideas?

It booted up and worked perfectly for about ten minutes.
I went out of the room and returned to it in nada state again. No little light. No sound of power. Nothing.
I managed to salvage 14 of nearly 200 photos from Berlin.

I would be far more pissed off about this if I hadn't just had such a wonderful time in that city.
It was very cold but we kept very warm.
Next year will be twenty years of our long distance affair and it still goes from strength to strength.

Unlike the Mac...

8:44AM

It is sad that Lady Jaye died and seeing interviews with Genesis P-Orridge since you can sense much grief.
But he still talks immense sense and still puts himself way out there so the rest of us, in our dozy way, can traipse along in their wake.

10:18AM

Obviously 'Where the Wild Things Are' was around when I was a kid. I never had a copy myself so would fall on friends' copies and, if anything, it became more magical in my mind because of that.
II won't be rushing out to see the film. It can't possibly come near the book and the wonderful illustrations, though from the clips I have seen they have done their utmost.
But the book was short and the drawings did much. The rest was the child's imagination. Which will always clobber Hollywood re-interpretation, even if wacky Spike Jonze is involved.
Criminal beyond belief though is David Eggars idea to re-write the story as a novel. The kid now has 'issues'. Sigh.
Eggars should be sent off on a boat to an island.
Where there are no Wild Things.

In other news I had a quiet weekend in B.Right.On, mostly lain on the bed streaming with cold (still so today). The upside was a got a lot of reading done.
Finished "Hiding in HipHop". What an odd book. Dreadful things happened to Terrance Dean's family. That he came through all that is extraordinary and impossible for someone like myself, who has had it pretty comfortably, to comprehend. He makes clear the particular homophobia a black man will experience from his own community. He makes clear the difficulties for black people in white Hollywood and the further difficulties for black, gay men. However, we already know about the Hollywood closet.
But when he moves into the music industry and the more blatantly homophobic world of hiphop it becomes a little harder to take. He acknowledges the homophobia but then details the extraordinary lengths to which gay men will go to be on the 'Down Low', reinforcing the ugly behavior that oppresses them - and then talks, incessantly, about how hard it is to keep hidden but how a gay man in hiphop needs to because otherwise he won't, let's be blunt, get the spoils. So we have pretty extensive descriptions of rappers who are closeted, descriptions that, even to me, point fairly clearly at certain people but we don't get names for obvious legal reasons. Is this meant to be titillating? What is the point? Gossip?
After the umpteenth spiel about how hard it is to live a lie I just started to think, um, "Well, don't". We are not talking the kind of closeted where someone just keeps quiet about their life. We are talking a whole construct - marriage where the wives are not in on it, gangsta rapper spitting homophobic, sexist muck but getting his homeboys to procure for him.
At what point does a gay man become worse than the heterosexuals who hate him?
Very confusing.
My head, and heart, hurt.

As a leavener I also read Delaney's Babel 17 and managed to understand some of it.
Just my head hurt there.

Thank Christ the Sunday papers came along.

And I got the underfloor heating working in the bathroom. When I bought the place and saw we had this luxury I thought 'Wa-hey' while also thinking I was unlikely to ever use it. But, small as it is, the bathroom is already sub zero in the mornings. But could I get the program to work?
As ever, an hour of fiddling and then buttons pushed randomly in frustration led to a toasty bathroom experience on Sunday morning.
Now I just need to make it so we can get a full tub of hot water.

8:27PM

Mostly means nothing in the States but last week Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, clawed his way onto mainstream television. This is the man that said 'Adolf went a bit too far' and that those who believe the Holocaust happened are akin to members of the Flat Earth Society.

Here is a link to a page on the BNP support site, depressingly called Excalibur.

This is not only offensive it is so pathetic, infantile and obnoxious it beggars belief.

I loathe these people.
2009 and fascist fucks are still around...

7:33AM

Full of cold. Little sleep. Sneezling and all rheumy eyed like a sick dog.
I needed some Bo Diddley.
Screw all the wearers of head mikes and users of backing tapes.

8:16AM

I'm off to Berlin for a few days in a weeks time. Any recommendations. Good independent art galleries? Restaurants, cafes? Gay bar with an older crowd. Any bar just a good place for a drink. How I'll deal with being teetotal in the land of great beer I don't know. Life is but a challenge.

Speaking of 'bear bars'. After exchanging my duff Lomo parts yesterday I stopped in the Kings Arms (soda water and lime again...) and, as I had hoped, bumped into someone I had not seen in a while. Great to catch up. Which we do, briefly.
He knows a fair few people on that scene. We know each other from way back. So four blokes join us. All pleasant looking men. Late thirties, Regulation neatly trimmed beards, bit of bulk and muscle. All a bit camp. Almost immediately one started getting a little over familiar. The odd remark made generally and, more irritatingly, half asides to the friend next to him in stage whispers. Some of this could be taken as flattering. Some of it, angled in a piss taking manner was meant to be amusing but all in all it became off-putting very quickly as it was pitched to ensure any actual conversation became impossible.
Then he starts with the feeling my bicep and, sin of sins, stroking my beard.
Now I realise I am meant to be flattered and play the game and all that.
But I can't.
Why should I be pawed by a grown man behaving like a schoolgirl.
I told him to fuck off, shrugged my shoulders at my friend and said 'See ya' and got the hell out of Dodge.
Pissed off. Confused.
I still don't get it. All that.

Of course, the major line of defense before was alcohol.
Without that I don't think I'm fit to do gay pubs.

7:54PM

People who are not ashamed to be intelligent are probably of more value today than ever.
But Lord is there a tightrope to be traversed.

Quotes from Clive James autobiography (second installment).

"I would have liked to have been in England when Larkin died."

"My own view of the past was expanded considerably by a recently acquired ability to read Russian."

"Hardly anyone ever resigns from the Garrick."

"When waiting in the car with my driver, I would read to him from Simenon or Maupassant."

"At the same table as David Hockney, Philip Roth, Harold Pinter and Sir Isaiah Berlin, it was flattering to be treated like one of the boys."

"I talked to the granddaughter of ... Vinicius de Moraes, whose poetry I later learned to love."

"Sitting outside my favourite cafe in the Rue de Université, where I still write at least part of all my books ... "

"I had become so caught up with learning to read Japanese ..."

"At one time I often saw Gore Vidal socially ..."

"Peter O'Toole quoted one of my own poems to me ..."

"I was working late in my London apartment when I got the news [ of Diana's death ], and for several days afterwards I couldn't stop crying... Finally a call came through from Tina Brown at the New Yorker. I owed her too much ..., so I took the call."

"I could easily improve my knowledge of the syntax and the grammar [ of Spanish ] by underlining the various ways in which the clichés were held together."

Two and Four, for a start, made me laugh out loud.

Make up your own minds.

1:25PM

Obviously sad and depressing - but if watched to the end somewhat amusing as well. Young man asks where is democracy when the police will not leave and Geert Wildebeast won't come out in the street...so they can kill him.

Also there is an ad just above saying 'Meet sexy women in your area'.

Democracy at work

What with this, that BNP toad on Panorama and the incessant but gleeful efforts of the media to remind us of all that is wrong with the country, the government, our health, the economy, the world and life in general, no wonder binge drinking is a problem in this country.

Way too many opinions. And here's me adding just one more.

We need an international Shut The Fuck Up day before all the idiots above ensure some government makes it a Shut The Fuck Up country/world.

8:54AM

A tailors up the road are doing an insanely good recession busting offer. Bespoke suit for £360. There is a limit to the cloths available, though it is still no small amount, and you have to pay extra for added fancy bits (particular linings, embroidery...)
So I'm up there this morning. They did a suit for me before. Very straightforward. Worn to my father's funeral. Dark blue Prince of Walls check. But with a poncey addition of the vents cut so that if you turn the lining is revealed.
This time I am taking a photo of a gent in the background of a photo from a book on the Beats. I want that '60s still coming from the '50s thing. Pre-Mad Men. To my mind when men looked most fuckable.
And I want 'Be Reasonable, demand the impossible' sewn inside.
And the number '13'.

Then I have to take my Lomo Diana camera back to the Lomo shop. The flash doesn't work. Nor do a couple of other bits to be honest. No amount of 'hip' marketing can get round the fact that they are infuriating, flimsy plastic pieces of nonsense. Sure water from a well tastes better but mostly I'll be getting mine from the tap rather than carry a bucket load back to the house. Analog is over for a reason. Down with the Luddites!
However, this was a gift and I am determined to master the art of not breaking the film when I rewind and so on. It took me a whole evening to load a film actually. Paul was guffawing at my sweary frustradedness.
I have never been good with breakable plastic stuff. I was rubbish at model making even though, with a Roth and Famous Monsters of Filmland obsession, I made many. I always used a littl;e too much glue and bust a fragile bit somewhere.

And now beaming in entirely from planet leftfield...people may well have seen this mash up of the surreal, the homo-erotic and the, well, utterly bizarre. If not, fear for your sanity:

Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend

9:10PM

8:19PM

I had to play catch up on stuff I needed to do on the cottage in Brighton but haven't been able to due to, well, the stuff I have posted about previously.
Hadn't been able to get down in a while. Was behind.
So the weekend was spent with paintbrushes and a hammer and a drill and doing stuff that you do with those things.
I had a cracking DIY time.
I could grow to like it.

It took us three hours to get back on the usual Sunday service.
I'm working gently on encouraging Paul to stay down Sunday night and then travel in early Monday am to London Bridge. He can get to work easily from there.
The weather was stunning today and it seemed crazy to spend half of the afternoon on the train.
That said I saw a whole load of pheasants, some swans flying, a fox loping along the tracks, any number of happy dogs running through fields, two completely white calves playing tag and 5 magpies.

What a bland post.
Next week I start keeping chickens and throwing a quilt together.

12:08PM

Ian Baynham was kicked to death in an unprovoked, homophobic attack less than a month ago. In Trafalgar Square. At 10.45pm. By two young girls and a young man. They were aged between 16 and 19 and he was 62. A friend with him tried to fight back but Baynham was floored with one punch from the male and then kicked by one of the girls while he was on the ground. He died later in hospital when they switched off the life support machine.
Trafalgar Square was busy at the time. Witnesses have confirmed the attack was entirely unprovoked.
But no one helped. The friend he was with, who received only minor injuries, actually had a hold of one of the girls and a passer-by forced him to release her assuming he was the aggressor.

I cannot begin to comprehend how the scum that did it think. Hopefully they will be caught (there are good cctv images of them as they ran away). Undoubtedly their sentences, if they are caught, will be insufficient but at least will screw up the rest of their lives for them.

But neither can I begin to understand the cowardly fucks who walked past while it was happening.

He was the fourth man to die in the last year from a homophobic attack. In London.

Fucking breeders.

7:00PM

I've been listening to Beyond the Beat Generation a whole lot.
Like SomaFM it's a station I came across in Second Life. Once I heard the Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation I was in love. Have a whole bunch of collections on the iPod, some even sorted by city...Michegan Psychedelia, Texan Garage Punk etc.Can't get enough of it. So to find a 24 hour station...
And this is strictly '65 to '69.
Just yesterday morning I was bopping about to Moulty by the Barbarians, the moving tale of their one-armed drummer Moulty's search for love. Sung by him too. Classic.
Magic stuff...all trying to sound like some other band (insert choice) and not getting it quite right and making something different because of that.
Just like punk rock (who says punk wasn't people who couldn't play too well attempting Zep's 'Communication Breakdown'?).
And like SomaFM the music is continuous, the only interruptions being great ads from the period or outtakes from exploitation flicks.

So thought I'd spread the love.