for my beloved city, on 9/11

it's as if they read my mind...

When my new roommates moved in back in January, I immediately laid down some groundrules - number one of which was: absolutely NO James Blunt to be played anywhere in the apartment or within earshot of me.

So reading the following in today's Evening Standard really did brighten up my day:

"...This Friday, the Dirty South pub, in Lee High Road [Lewisham, SE London], hosts the League Against James Blunt. The great ex-military crooner is described as a 'whiny, bland, piggy-eyed, talentless gentleman' (actually, they don't use the word gentleman) 'whose castrato warblings somehow enter the female ear, bypass the brain and go straight down to the crotch.' Despite the faint note of sexual envy, the League deserves to sweep London. I've always hated Blunt and his female counterpart, Dido - acts of essentially provincial mediocrity, acts targeted at potato heads from Kettering. They have no place in our great metropolis."

Well put. I for one will most certainly be pledging my allegiance to the League.

i heart...

matteo

born at 00:05 on september 5th 2006. welcome, lovely boy.

The Cobrasnake went to Reading...

... and managed to snap one of the boys.

Alas, I was not there: a mixture of being broke, being sick, not noticing when tickets originally went on sale, having small children to look after [not mine, I might add] and not really being bothered enough to find a way in, all conspiring to keep me in the Smoke, where I spent an incredibly lazy bank holiday weekend sleeping, reading three books in three days, and watching Reading/Leeds highlights on the Beeb. Oh, and writing up last minute Flux mag Joy Division assignments [cue the soundtrack to my weekend...]

In other Reading/Leeds news, I discovered:

1. It's pronounced Max-eeemo [yeah, like emo] Park [I'd been wandering about that for ages]
2. Reading crowds like to throw things
3. What Zane Lowe actually looks like
4. Franz Ferdinand are - sorry - actually a little boring. Maybe it's a being-there thing.
5. Live tv fuck ups are still funny

during the end credits of 'a history of violence':

S: Well the ending was a bit ambivalent. Hmm. I liked it, but it was very violent.

F: it's called A History of Violence, what were you expecting it to be about, puppies??

east london poster poetry

sunday brunch and brief wanderings round brick lane and nearby streets with leith and james and tilda wonderpup and jerry made for a nice break from the ups and downs.

afternoon delight

will ferrell + steve carrell with a side helping of paul rudd = good times.

someone needs to bottle their collective essences and sell it. fuck prozac.

seriously. steve carrell practically makes me wet myself laughing in this film.

time out

there was a baby shower for my imminent godson in shepherd's bush, the party mainly made up of girls we [the mamma-to-be who is my best friend since age 12, and myself] went to high school with. they all started getting broody, and then talk quickly turned to marriage, babies and mortgages [one of them got married in june] and i started quietly freaking out, thinking "when did we all get so old - and more to the point, why are they in such a rush to get even older?" - with the also-unhelpful mantra of "25, unemployed, single, living at home..." running through my mind as they talked about their savings and careers.

that's not to say i'm anti it all. but i feel at 24-25, the age we all are at the moment, it's like prime time for... i don't know, adventures. not settling down. maybe it's just me. cold feet or whatever. but i can't imagine tying myself down to a mortgage. babies are a different thing, they can happen accidentally. love is transient, and falling in love is an adventure in itself. but saying "this is it, this is all i want now" whether it's about a job or home or something... i can't do it. i think i have itchy feet. and a bad case of the don't-wanna-be-heres. we all know i'd rather be in NY, and perhaps if things were happening there it'd be different. but who really knows.

the arrival of my little man, and the trip to NY this fall are all that's keeping me going at the moment...

oh those wacky mental patients

At a family friend's 21st last night I was comparing horror stories about working for the NHS/Health Trusts/Borough Councils, with a friend who had worked within a mental health care team a year or so back. We swapped case stories that had stuck out - the man who'd explicitly told nursing home staff he had to get his mother's placement funded because she was spending his inheritance [nice], the depressive who choked to death on a teabag [seriously] - but then she beat me hands down, with the tale of a patient of hers who, a couple weeks into her job, changed his last name. To Jesus-Christ-Our-Saviour.

Amazing.

birthday antics

My dad's birthday. Just before we sit down for dinner, I'm on a bidness call with Jackie. The conversation turns to Interpol. The third partner in Crash & Boom, Carmen, has been in NY this past week, hanging with Paul and Carlos, who are her bros. Business and chat is concluded, I return my attention to the family dinner.

My dad looks at me, his expression somewhere between amusement and worry.

"So has Jackie been talking to Interpol, or were they talking to you?"

Wow, I think, my dad is more with it that I thought. I had no idea he'd know who Interpol were.

"No, Carmen knows them, she-"

But suddenly, as his face is swept with relief I realise - he's on a completely different track.

"Ohhhh. The band. Not the police."

And suddenly he's back to being the guy for whom Art Brut is merely an artistic movement and Band of Horses is something he'd see in a Western. And who, on occasion, has mistaken my ipod for a cell phone. Old dog, new tricks...

Happy birfday, papa x

Man In Black

So I'm relatively certain I've written before about my love of Johnny Cash.

About my rad JC tee, as illustrated above, with the just-as-rad tee belonging to the one and only Chris Hall. About the bad January week a few years back in which I didn't open my curtains once, barely left my room, and listened to Johnny Cash on repeat [this was before anyone uttered the words "antidepressants"]. About the first time I worked on a film set - a couple weeks' working with the Production Designer - and got paid expenses - and a burned copy of the Johnny Cash Unearthed boxset. About how 'Girl From The North Country' with Bob Dylan is one of my top five all time favourite songs. About the amazing BBC docs and old Jools Holland footage they aired after Cash's death. About how when we got robbed a couple of years ago, two Johnny Cash LPs I'd ordered had turned up and when I walked in the house and discovered we'd been burgled [and once over the horror of having had my laptop nicked] I wondered aloud at the fact that these two amazing LPs had been left sitting on the table and that the burglars hadn't wanted them. About how recently Johnny Cash is pretty much all I've been listening to, on repeat...

A friend was telling me how someone she knew had seen that Walk The Line film and gotten into Cash as a result - but said she only wanted to buy the film soundtrack, as she didn't know if she'd actually like the original material. *Retarded*. It was a pretty good film, but face it, there ain't nothing like the original.

While I'm here, I should also say, y'all should check out the Million Dollar Sessions - Cash, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis; all in the studios at Sun Records, jamming, and Sam Phillips just left the tapes running...


Oh and also, on a totally different note, I know I wrote about how the Cobra Starship song was on repeat a couple weeks ago. My love has grown greater since I read the hilarious bio on their site - CobraStarship.com - and the fact that my lovely friend Alex Suarez of Ivy League is playing bass on tour with them. Godspeed, Cobra Starship.

Get Busy Living or Get Busy - Being Turned Into Rubber Dolls??

From: Dan
To: Me
Subj: I'll get you this for Christmas

LOLOLOL

Thanks Dan. You know me too well...

multitasker

So earlier on I was listening to East Village Radio archives [this computer is so rubbish it doesn't even have itunes or something similar to play CDs] - in particular last week's Misshapes radio show:

Girl: "He used to come to Misshapes a whole lot... He had funny hair-"
Geo: "There's a lot of people with funny hair at Misshapes, let me tell you."

LOL.


So anyway, back to the multitasking: right now I'm currently swinging between three jobs. Once I've finished writing this it's back to jumping between doing stuff for Lula, for C&B/Littl'ans, and then perhaps for the job I'm actually here being paid for. But everyone has already left for the day - for the record, it's only 3:30pm, no wonder the NHS is in a state - and I'm solo, so the incentive to work is nil.

TONIGHT: Ladies, Gents, small furry creatures, head on down to The Spitz [Commercial Street, E1 - nearest tube is Liverpool Street] and be aurally assaulted [in a *good* way] by the delightful Littl'ans...

[New Yorkers - never fear, we're bringing them to you this fall...]

this one time, at band practice...

Who the fuck wants to work during a London heatwave?? I bunked off work to go to band practice and photoshoots, and discovered this:



Why did no one tell me they'd built a beach in East London?!? It's between Brick Lane and Commercial Street. How brilliant? I do miss the beach being a mere [40 minute or so] subway ride away. And yeah, okay so a real beach with some sea would be better, but it's still a neat idea.

I felt a little sorry for the boys having to rehearse in an unventilated basement during this weather, gotta say. They sounded really good.



But clearly the tambourine player felt he didn't need to practice too much...



So me, Ronnie and Jackie disappeared up to the other end of Brick Lane to go get beigels. Mmmmm.

I realise I've only been back in a shitty 9-5 office job like - what, ten days or something? - but I do relish the days of freedom. Office jobs suck. If only freelancing was financially sustainable [big words].

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

*Umm possible spoiler, if those kinda things bother you*

Hey Kevin Smith, does the new Superman movie [surprisingly better than I thought it would be. Wasn't really to bovvered about seeing it, but I actually enjoyed it. I didn't, however, enjoy the broken A/C in the cinema, on one of the hottest days. Oy.] answer your old questions??

Brodie: It's impossible, Lois could never have Superman's baby. Do you think her fallopian tubes could handle the sperm? I guarantee you he blows a load like a shotgun right through her back. What about her womb? Do you think it's strong enough to carry her child?
T.S. Quint: Sure, why not?
Brodie: He's an alien, for Christ sake. His Kyrptonian biological makeup is enhanced by earth's yellow sun. If Lois gets a tan the kid could kick right through her stomach. Only someone like Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a kryptonite condom. That would kill him.

[Mallrats, 1995]

holy heatwave, batman

supposedly the hottest day of the year so far, the hottest day in july on record. it's about 99F out there. my offices have no AC. this is the thermostat in the hallway. i need a block of ice, stat.

summer nights

That letter I wrote to British summertime a few entries back clearly worked. We've been smacked with a heatwave. And of course there's no a/c on public transport. Or in my office.

It does mean we turn all continental and eat out in the backyard, with our mix-and-match chairs and bbqs that take hours to fire up [and then become unuseable after my sister leaves marshmallows on the grill then forgets about them].

Say NO to PDAs

I got the night bus back from Camden last night after a fun-filled Friday night of... work. We were at Hammersmith bus station, driving round the central hub and there was a couple shagging against the wall. No jokes. Dunno if they thought they couldn't be seen or whatever, but there they were in their full Friday night glory, having sex against a grey metal wall at Hammersmith bus station.

*Classy*

i can see the venom in your eyes

i know, i know, everyone has already blogged about the cobra starship/snakes on a plane song, but i have to admit i too am totally obsessed with the song. and the video.

we've been working all evening [it's now twenty past midnight and we're still here...] on stuff that's like so not "discemo", as i believe it's now being called, but i just can't stop listening to this track.

not cobrasnake

friday afternoon

Our boys:
[well, our boys + Pete Doherty. And the fuzz. And some other hangers on]

Join us, my friends:

Crash & Boom

Littl'ans

New York, we should be seeing you for CMJ. Woot woot.

odd dreams

I had a dream last night that my dad was having an affair with Teri Hatcher, by text message.

And I woke up thinking "that's weird, dad doesn't even know how to use text messages."


Yeah, 'cause that's the weird part...

thursday night

Come one, come all, to The Fly on Thursday night. Come and see aforementioned Dior models and rockstars and hipsters who seem so young that looking at them wrong could land you in jail. But what's a night out without a little risk, eh??

dear british summertime

please come back, all is forgiven.

yours fondly,

the ever hopeful british public
xo

they rawk we bankroll

Having drinks & dinner with rockstars/producers/Dior models & Chanel muses is a guaranteed way to feel like Plain Jane 2006.

But hurrah for new projects!

On that note: I started a new temp gig today [finally] - it's to do with caring for old people [in an admin capacity] and there are whole filing cabinets labelled "R.I.P."

Oh no, this job isn't even the slightest bit depressing...

oh dear

Cost per can of Strongbow Super bought from an off-licence and drunk whilst sitting on the traffic island opposite Camden Palace [or do I mean Koko?]: £1.00

Having to get up early after an unintentionally drunken night before that ended up in East London talking French to some kids at the bus stop: painful

Train ride to Highbury & Islington complete with headache: £2.50

Juice to combat dry-mouth and nausea: £1.48

Minutes arrived early for appt thus allowing for fresh air to blow the cobwebs away: 20

People walking dogs or pushing strollers on Highbury Fields: too many to count

Getting to the appointment and realising I'd had my flies open the whole time: priceless...

ribbit

Frog. Sneaking in on guest lists. Strongbow. Polaroids. Random people. Hot boys. Boys in bands. DJs. Photographers. Sounds like old times…

Ended up missing both bands that played [one of whom was Good Shoes that I’d actually wanted to see] ‘cause we were sat on the floor talking to the Blaggin’ Scenesters. Using This Scene Is Dead as a fabulous excuse to approach anyone and everyone. Some kids getting the whole LNP/Cobrasnake thing, but most not – but still happy to pose. Talking to one guy about how LNP had become an excuse for people to take off their tops – and within seconds:

suspenders are things they sell in victoria's secret

It’s a good thing I have an IQ of more than, say, 70. I mean, some less clever people might find having to relearn the English language a task. They might be constantly chided for asking if anyone wants to “go to the movies” or telling people their “cell phone number.” They might have people mocking them for their curious mid-Atlantic twang and pronounciation of certain words. And they certainly might be a little embarrassed if they asked a male assistant at TopShop where the “suspenders” were, when they actually meant “braces” [the things that hold your trousers up], and got a raised eyebrow in return.

we. are. your friends.

A visit to Trash with Jackie Boom Boom and my sister was preceded by buying a four quid bottle of vodka in Holborn Sainsburys then sitting on a stoop and sharing the vodka three ways between us, into bottles of coke. A classy start to my first foray into the London scene…

Security seems much tighter than NY – my bag got searched and my hipflask confiscated [bastards!] – although I was allowed to pick it up at the end of the night. We headed downstairs to the bar. My sister’s first comment to me: “Oh my god, I’m so… Abercrombie & Fitch compared to everyone else!”

Bricolage played a set. My sister tried to con drinks out of people [surprisingly successfully, I might add…] Two different kids I started talking to also turned out to be Misshapes regulars. The place got so fucking smoky [a mixture of cigarettes and, apparently, a smoke machine. How 1990s of them.] you couldn’t see more than a foot in front of you at one point.

We left just before three, before the place shut. Jackie headed to the Camden-bound night bus with some kids while Fi and I wandered aimlessly around the West End, more or less heading for our night bus stop, but stopping for madam to get chips and pitta and talk to men in tuxedos. As we were waiting for the bus in Trafalgar Square [dawn just breaking, the first rays of daylight slowly climbing down Nelson’s Column] we ran into a guy we’d been talking to earlier. We ended up doing the music writer chat thing. He kept stealing Fi’s ketchup for his own chips and started singing the Simian vs Justice tune for us, until the N9 turned up.

a wireless summer solstice

It's the longest day of the year and we're in Hyde Park for Wireless. The crowd: an assortment, some could have come straight from watching a game at the pub, others look as if they belong against the Misshapes wall. There's even a few who look like they've bunked off school to be there.

The Like play first, as we stroll in, mentally noting the location of the frozen margarita stand, and how the line for that is much less than that of the beer tent. Gogol Bordello, with Hutz wearing what appears to be a pair of Aston Villa soccer shorts over jeans, go down a storm, telling everyone to wear Purple. We head to the XFM tent to jump around to the Young Knives briefly before heading back to see Dirty Pretty Things. It seems DPT believe their own hype, and merely dial in a lacklustre performance. Iain Super-8s some of the Raconteurs, who do a little better than Barat et al in my opinion, but a lot of their set is taken up trying to get someone about fifteen feet ahead of us to put down their fucking red umbrella.

As the crowd breaks in between sets, we move forward to stake out a spot for Belle & Sebastian. Stuart Murdoch is still on my list of men-to-marry, but he sounds like he's losing his voice. When they disappear off stage, we scarper as fast as thousands of people crammed in front of the stage will let us, to find bathrooms and food. We go to the MySpace tent and groove to White Rose Movement, then head out to see the more-or-less headliners, The Strokes, play the final set.

By now it's pretty nippy, and we can't be bothered to head into the heaving mass of people so while James fetches us cups of tea, I sit down on a patch of grass way back, where, it turns out we have a perfect view of the screens, and if we stand up, a perfect view [albeit far back] of the stage. We sip our tea and try to warm up, and The Strokes get into their set. As people run past us to join the crush, it seems a fair few people have decided it's just as good at the back, and a small Strokes dance party is going on back there. Toe-tapping helps with the keeping warm, I discover.

Eventually, as The Strokes play the last song of their encore, we start sneaking off to the exits, hoping to beat the rush. When I get to the bus stop on Bayswater Road, however, it seems other people have done the same - and headed back a stop, resulting in full buses not stopping. I manage to squeeze on to the next 94 that turns up and am so tired I end up sitting on the stairs of the double decker, ears ringing, legs tired from standing and dancing, but glancing out the window I notice it's still not wholly dark, and the longest day of the year has given daylight a pretty good show.

[full set of photos]

oh, blue states lose...

I think this might be one of my favourite Blue States Lose quotes ever:

"... the only thing you can do is consult the Idiot’s Guide to Being a Hipster, by Headband Guy. There it is right in Chapter 2, titled “Hipster Health Care: Sparks Tongue, Coke Nose and You” (it’s right after Chapter 1, which just has the sentence “Get a job at American Apparel” cut and pasted 5,000 times in a row)..."

I got a healthy dose of the AA employee 'tude in the Carnaby Street store the other day. I didn't realise it had travelled across the pond from NY.

walk the south bank

So a last minute decision, and we headed to The Scoop over by Tower Bridge to go to the open air cinema to see Walk The Line [think Bryant Park movies by Tower Bridge]. It was a beautiful evening and while we waited for the drawbridge [I feel so medieval saying that!] to go down, we stood on the bridge looking down the river. When we got down to the ampitheatre, it was packed. The theatre bit itself had already been shut off, and people were sitting around all on the towpath. There was no way we would have seen shit. So we gave up and decided to wander down the south bank of the Thames.

I think it was something I needed to do, something to remind me just how great London can be. It was beautiful. We - that's me, my bowling-ball-bellied pregnant friend M, and Izzy who'd twisted her ankle earlier in the day - ended up walking all the way down to Hungerford Bridge, past Waterloo. We walked up the small lane next to Charing Cross at about 11pm, eating Twister ice lollies we'd just bought in Embankment tube station and guessing who of those walking past us were headed to Heaven.

The Doctor Is In

Fuck it, if I really thought David Tennant was in there, I'd have braved the mosquitoes and gross smells to pull open the door.

2-0

After lunch at Wagamamas [mmmmm - hadn't been in about 15 months] with the lovely Emma, I headed back home to theoretically do some work. An hour later I woke up, disoriented, realised it's 4:30 so got my swerve on to Hammersmith, where I met M & S outside the Palais.

If you've grown up in West London, the Hammersmith Palais is kind of a rite of passage - fuck it, maybe it's one for those that've grown up in North, South and East London too, I have no idea. But it's one of those clubs that have been around forever. It's a little bit grubby now, it's gone through various ownerships and name changes, but of course has still always been known as the Palais, even when it was technically Po Na Na. It's now home to School Disco on a Saturday night - not a place I'd recommend.

For the England v. Trinidad & Tobago game on Thursday, they'd opened up the Palais to mailing list members. They had two big screens, table and chairs and so on. We walked in from a bright sunny afternoon and I was instantly blind it was so dark inside. We stumbled our way through to the main club area to see the two screens and a lot of people [and smoke. I always forget it's smoking in bars here until I'm actually in them. Drives me mad. The smoking ban is a good thing.] We made ourselves comfortable by one of the bars - the HD TV above the bar had a much better picture than the big ones - and watched the game. It was kind of a weird place to watch the game, but it did provide for a good atmosphere with that many people. And holy shit, when Crouch finally fucking scored in the 83rd minute, the place went craaaazy.

yo' mama

Did anyone else think the England game on Saturday was actually kind of rubbish? And did anyone else want to smack Paredes and/or the ref in the second half? Winning 1-0 by a Paraguayan own goal... not especially something to be proud of, boys.

In other news:

As my NY peeps throw the Sonic Youth release and after party, I finally manage to upload the SY interview from the current issue of Flux magazine.



And. Also. Whilst interweb-surfing this morning in an Editorial Assistant capacity, I came across this. I hope it brightens up your Mondays as much as it has mine...

find the silver lining in everything

Being unemployed [and broke] may suck, but it does mean that I get to enjoy British Summertime while it's here.

According to James:

Badgers are the most "Metal" of all woodland creatures.

"I mean, look at them, they're already in full KISS makeup. They just sit in their warrens talking about the new Slayer album."

how funky is *your* - er, robot...

I'm *so over* the World Cup and it hasn't even started. It's inescapable. If it wasn't enough that bloody England flags are everywhere, it seems like every single advert - no matter what it's advertising - has a football theme.

Enough already. We get it. Big soccer tournament thing going on, starting verrrrry soon.

Saturday night our "let's go out" plans were scuppered by S. getting sunburnt [yes, you read that right. Sunburnt. In England. There is sun here... sometimes.] Instead we hung out and made cocktails, and I wore my sunglasses inside against the glare of her burn...

I was also schooled about the England team, and it turns out there is one good thing about it.

The RoboCrouch.

Peter Crouch, all six foot seven inches of football player. Who likes to do the Robot dance every time he scores.

Maybe if we win the Cup [hahahahaha] we can get him to do the Funky Chicken...

ride 'em cowboy

So I'm walking up Shepherd's Bush Road to the studios again when this guy steps out in front of me. Tight black trousers. *Amazing* bum. Seriously biteable. Then I look up and realise he's wearing a police riding helmet. And that the Police Horse truck is parked by the end of Hammersmith Police Station. And he's actually a mounted policeman.

Who knew Hammersmith Police force had such great butts among them??

a little less sixteen candles, a little more... act your age?

After a brief sojourn to Nottingham to visit my sister - a trip marred by her sickliness, resulting in all plans being cancelled and instead sitting in her living room while she coughs and splutters her way through How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and her roommates make us dinner [and me a v. belated birthday cake], it's back to the Smoke and joblessness. Unable to handle being stuck at home for yet *another* evening, I escape to Sam's.

A confession last week:
Sam: "I told you we got freeview recently? Well, I've been watching the music channels. And - and I don't know if I'm really behind the times or it's really lame or anything, but - there's this one band I really like."
Me: "Oh who is it?"
Sam: "Umm, they're called... Fall Out Boy."

When I get there, her fiance Joe and a friend of ours, Arthur, are watching the football [England v Hungary], so we decamp to the bedroom where we sit around the computer, watching Fall Out Boy videos and the lamest movie trailers online, listening to the emo bro-down mp3 CD I made her [FOB, P!ATD, MCR], talking about comic books and why some comic book/superhero movies work and others don't, and the Panic! video for 'I Write Sins', and the FOB - sorry, Patrick Stump live lounge acoustic session last weekend [is it just me or does he call Jo Whiley "ma'am" at the end, and if so isn't that one of the most endearing things ever?] and her sister's recent wedding - and then Joe comes in and asks what we're up to and Sam says "acting like teenagers over my new favourite band" and we giggle, he raises an eyebrow and returns to the football and we wonder if even when we're 45 we'll still hop skip and jump up the stairs or into bed when the house is dark and we're the last ones awake so the boogity-boos that live under the bed and creep out from corners in the dark won't get us...

Panic! at the launch party.

The Lula issue 2 launch party in the West End, that I've been helping with all week. Another last minute DJ gig: a phone call last night, asking me to cover James's slot.

Suddenly the what-to-wear dilemma is replaced with the what-to-play dilemma. I've never played a London party and with the disappearance of my social life, I haven't been to any London parties to see what they play. Playlists are rapidly thrown together, some are uploaded online for me from Brooklyn [I heart D.E.], CDs and headphones are dropped off in the afternoon from James.

Then the what-to-play dilemma is replaced by the oh-shit-I-should-have-left-half-an-hour-ago-daddy-please-will-you-drive-me-into-town dilemma, and I eventually get to Portland Place about ten minutes before the party starts. The sound guy and I spend about five minutes trying to figure out the mixer and settings [it was a little odd] then we're up and running and I'm playing to an empty room although apparently people are arriving downstairs.

A couple songs in, I run to the open bar in the next room and grab a peach bellini. A few minutes later someone clears away the empty glass and brings me a fresh drink. I like this service. However, I end up spinning for just under two hours and by the end I'm getting the point where not only do I want another drink [alas, no new one appears after the second bellini], but I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get someone to cover me so I can run to the bathroom. Just as I'm about to text someone, the next DJ shows up and I turn the decks over with some relief, push my way through the fashion crowd to the bar, down another drink then run downstairs to the bathrooms.

A while later, back upstairs in the room where the DJ is, talking to my friend, someone taps me on the shoulder to get my attention. It's a girl, short blond hair. "Are you going to be DJing again at all tonight?" I don't think so, I tell her. "Oh. I preferred your stuff - you were better than her." I stammer my thanks and turn back to my friend,unsure whether my suddenly-pink cheeks are from too much free champagne or from unexpected compliments from strangers.

Later, and we're downstairs watching The Like play, I get an immediate girl crush on the drummer [why is it always the drummers??] It's so hot and the Queens of Noize breeze in and there's a guy wearing a cowboy hat and someone else with their bangs [fringe] artfully scuplted across their forehead to accentuate their cheekbones and I've had too many drinks in quick succession with barely any food all day and my friend comes in and says it's all too Glamorama let's get out of here and as we're heading out Keira Knightley brushes past looking beautiful and we get outside and it finally finally feels like London might be approaching summer as the sky is a light-polluted shade of indigo and it's still warm and breezy and we walk up to Piccadilly Circus to get the tube home talking as if it hadn't been over a year since we've hung out like this.

burning questions

1) Is the new Futureheads song, Skip to the End, a Spaced reference?

2) Is Primark said Pry-mark or Pree-mark?

3) Why, when you're stressed out and in a super hurry, does everything break down? Three - THREE - internet connections went down on me [umm, that reads a little wrongly] today when I had a shitload to email out. And the fourth connection kept stop-starting.

4) Where has my social life gone?

5) What on earth am I going to wear to the big partay tomorrow night??

jobless layabout

As I'm still jobless it means I have time for lunch dates in Covent Garden, and afternoon tea in Soho, for popping in to Magma and standing gawping at everything like a kid in a candy store [a moment of self-promotion: check out the new Flux mag, issue 54 - got my Sonic Youth interview in], picking up the new Amelia's that has Swarovski crystals on the front and the new Super Super [j'adore].

It means I have time to go sit in the Apple Store on Regent St to hear my friend give a presentation, and later spend too long hunting for good ice cream in the supermarket [and failing]. It means I've had time to be bummed the Nets are out of the playoffs. To read two Harry Potter books [the sixth and then re-reading the first. Geek Alert: I'd just like to say OMG about the ending of the sixth. Okay, geeky moment over]. To watch a whole series of Buffy on DVD over a long weekend [okay, maybe that geek moment wasn't over...] To realise that my bank balance needs topping up verrrrry soon. And more than enough time to notice the Evening Standard comment that unemployment is at its highest since 2002...

boo

Imagine the night of an insomniac. How it takes forever to fall asleep. How sometimes you'll reach that stage when you can feel yourself on the precipice of dozing off, but you try not to notice because the minute you become aware, it wakes you up more. So you turn over, try to let your mind drift back into the nothingness it had almost reached. Then through your shut eyes you become aware of a glow. A glow that shouldn't be there. You crack open an eyelid and before you feel alert enough to react, you've thrown yourself backwards away from the bedside table, a shrill "ohmigodohmigodOHMIGOD" stuttering from your lips as your brain registers a visage glowly horribly a mere foot or so away from where you're sleeping.


Yeah, it would've been nice if someone had warned me one of the paperback editions of Chuck Palahniuk's latest, Haunted, had a glow in the fucking dark cover before it jolted me from almost-sleep at 3:45 am this morning.

hmm.

Is there anyone else that always reads Okkervil River as Overkill River?

Anyone?

I miss New York like whoa

So my internet action has been supremely limited since I returned to my house, as I discovered my dad has a dinosaur of a computer that's still on dial-up - dial up! I didn't even think it still existed! - and, my temper already shortened, the frustration of waiting for pages to load up has been incredibly short. However, it's Sunday evening, I've just managed to find a hot spot in my house [perched on the arm of the sofa, my back to the TV. My bum is actually getting kind of numb, these arms aren't very comfy] where I can latch on to a neighbour's wireless, so I'm taking advantage to run around the blogs and photo sites and check my emails.

Then, of course, I return to blogger to write something hilarious and entertaining about being back, but to be honest, right now all I can think about is the fucking huge lump in my throat that I've given myself from catching up on everything that's been going on back in NY. I miss it and the people and my life there so much more than I thought. Being back was nice for about two minutes, then the frustration and otherhomesickness kicked in.

I'm sorry London peeps, it's been lovely to see you all and I do miss you when I'm in NY, but right now NY is so much better for me than London ever feels. I need to get to grips with London more but at the moment, all I want is 24-hr running subways and the insane doorman at Annex and the teenagers at Misshapes and the DJs and the kids in bands and the American Apparel kids and the bloggers-in-person, and wine in the garden/on the bedroom floor or coffee at Sugar Sweet or sushi at St Marks or vodka-sodas anywhere and and and...

Okay, I'll do a better London entry when I'm feeling it more, but I'll leave you with a few London pictures, just so the Smoke knows I'm not completely ignoring it.

New Yorkers - send out a rescue mission, asap...



Well Toto, we're not in New York anymore...


You know you're back in England when supermarkets have aisles marked as such.


Pimms O'Clock.


Two characters that do make London better.

The Goodbye Day

So today is going to be the day I run around saying goodbye to everyone. Gosh, doesn't that sound like fun? I mean, I know that with the people that really matter to me, it's not a forever goodbye or anything. I know that one of them is out in London in about three weeks, another is possibly coming in June, three or four others in September. And I'm sure - no, certain - that I'll be back here.

But it's not just the people, it's the place, it's the lifestyle, it's the - without sounding too schizophrenic - it's the person I am when I'm here. I just don't want to let go. As much as I love London [born and raised, where my family are, etc etc], there really is no place like... New York.

So for all of you who I don't get to say goodbye to in person, thanks for everything, good luck in the future - and all that jazz. Come say hi if you're in the Big Smoke. And, like Ellen said, hopefully I'll be back here before you can say "visa". Or perhaps "five hour waiting line at the American Embassy"...

So anyway, in my recent procrastination [that, I think, reached a new low when I found myself standing among piles of clothes, an empty suitcase yawning at me, trying to figure out how to play 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' on the ukele - true story], I threw together random video clips and a ton of photos that have been taken on my camera in the past year since I moved here [well, apart from the plane taking off that I clearly nicked from a stock footage website], on imovie.

Hey, it fucking beat packing.

[or watch directly at youtube here if this is slow to load]

packing sucks ass. so does being parted from my bike. yes, i'm a loser.

I took a break from the headache involved in shoving things in suitcases, and went down to the Lower East Side for a cawffee and ended up donating a bike to the cause. i was going to put it in a brooklyn basement for a few months until I came back to pick it up, but at least this way it'll get used until whenever.


It was a beautiful evening and we walked up to Thompkins Sq Park in the dusk. Everyone was out, it was still so warm. It felt like the beginning of summer. On one side of the park some teenage girls were practicing cheerleader moves. Elsewhere there were some guys playing drums while some girl in a blue sequinned dress [who we were sure was totally cracked out] danced for them. And we turned to each other and agreed, "only in New York."

So remind me again why I'm leaving??

i love these motherfuckers

I've spent the day running around with Mz Lula, carrying bags overloaded with things from Teen Vogue with horrible handles that cut into my hands, run into Crapercrombie on Fifth Ave for my sister but been unable to handle that shop for more than three minutes, gone back to my 'hood, gone to Target to try and find some luggage, gone back into the city for the show... so I'm tired and still feeling a little sad from the night before [Djing - awesome fun, everything just clicked and the shaky hands only lasted two or songs, but then I got bummed out with everyone there thinking that soon I'd be so far away from them].

The Ivy League show this evening, Lower East Side. A small acoustic affair. I'm sat at the bar with my two homegirls, mojito in hand.

The boys start their set. There's the usual awesome banter, the fabulous tunes.

Then they dedicate one of my favourite of their songs to me. And end the song with a couple of bars from 'Greensleeves'. And, of course, I can't stop crying.


Sigh.

Alex & Ry, love you both and you better bring the Ivy League show to the UK soon.

i've blown that popsicle stand

last day at work.

so i'm now officially unemployed.

can i get a FUCK YEAH.

god it's nice to get out that place.

so I finally started packing

So the whole party-every-night-in-my-last-week-here plan already hit a bump when we decided not to hit up Sway tonight. Instead, while the overworked American Apparel employees crashed [what's that thing about no sweatshop labour again, Dov?], I thought I should actually start sorting stuff out.

Be impressed: I actually packed a whole suitcase.

Be less impressed: I barely made a dent in my room.

How the fuck did I accumulate so much crap over the course of a year?? Some of it I'll throw, but most of it does actually need to go back with me. Dang. This packing malarkey ent gonna be fun. So after one suitcase, dispirited at how little headway I seemed to have made [although I have emptied two drawers and half - well, a third maybe, of my closet] I gave up on the packing idea and sorted music for:



Clearly not worthy of a flyer shout-out, but they're letting me behind the decks again [brave guys]. I'm doing the early [warm up] slot.

After an AIM conversation this eveing with someone who will remain nameless, it's been decided I have to play either 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' by Wham, or 'I Saw The Sign' by Ace of Bass. I was debating whether to or not but decided that my imminent departure for an indefinite amount of time should be enough of an escape if the Gentlemen decide to chase me out of Black and White, cracking their riding whips and shaking their moustaches in my direction. And as my nameless companion pointed out, "I bet they like Ace of Bass really. I mean, just look how tight their pants are."