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I was late.  For a very important date.  Much like the White Rabbit would have done, I bounded down the Bethnal Green tube escalators, dodged a few slow-moving meanderers and boarded the westbound tube which had conveniently just pulled into the station.  I glanced at my Pod: 13.26.  A 13.45 arrival at a Baker Street restaurant was probably pushing it but I wouldn’t disgrace myself too badly.

Until the tube juddered to a stop about 5 mins later.

La Nouvelle Année and a few of my Favourite Things

So this is the New Year/And I don’t feel any different/The clanking of crystal/Explosions off in the distance

So everybody put your best suit or dress on/Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once/Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn/As thirty dialogues bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days/Then I could travel just by folding a map/No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways/There’d be no distance that could hold us back

- death cab for cutie

The lyrics of emo/indie fencesitters and Seth Cohen pin-ups Death Cab for Cutie seem apt as 2008 and its events (natural, political, financial - it all seemed particularly calamitous) segues quietly into 2009.

BoJo may have lost his MoJo

Walking past a bunch of English schoolchildren outside London’s City Hall… all no more than 8 years old, bundled up in puffa jackets, woolly hats and gloves, their cheeks rosily glowing in the bitter chill of London’s sudden cold snap.  Their teacher asked: ‘And who’s the Mayor of London?’

‘Gordon Brown!’ they all chanted in unison.

Boris better start reviewing his PR methodology.  Perhaps a spot on Blue Peter then?

Ibiza Chill, Espana 10-17 June 2006

Ibiza. The word conjures up a multitude of images. Mad dance parties in huge superclubs. ‘Chillout’ CDs. The Venga Boys. Misbehaving, partying, vomiting clubbers. Drugged up, drunk and/or comatose revellers. Perhaps even a certain Seat model of car.But that perception of Ibiza is primarily restricted to the Brits (and Aussies). The Spanish, Germans and Italians, have always known that the White Isle offers so much more.

A haven for hippies – particularly of the Teutonic variety – since the 1960s, who arrived and never left. We stayed in a little bungalow in Cala Gracioneta, just out of hideous San Antonio, owned by a German gentleman who had inherited the property from his father, one of these blessed bohemian types. The bungalow itself was one of five residences on the property, four of which were rented out to holidaymakers, the fifth being the residence of the German gentleman and his wife. Our little bungalow was one of three in a row overlooking the Cala and a stone’s throw away from the beach and the clear, cool water of the Meditarranean. More importantly, it was within stumbling distance of Cala Gracioneta’s chiringuito, a delightful Spanish institution where one can obtain all manner of goodies, namely Spanish coffee (arguably the best in the world), liqueurs and mouthwatering paella, amongst other lip-smackingly delicious snacks right by the beach.

Back to School

Ephemeral, mercurial summer. Seemingly here one day and gone the next in a flurry of settling into new abode, gigs, bashes, festivals, weather grumblings, a not-quite-there heat and lazy hazy sundays… Suddenly, the early August chill attained a permanent air, a heads-down vibe permeated the atmosphere and September had arrived.

Incommunicado

Much like a chav in a filing cabinet, next abode has been sort-ed. The imminent move – more physically demanding (for my friends!) but less stressful than the search – has rendered my room and house awkward to negotiate about. It’s amazing how much junk one can accumulate over three years when one derives one’s enjoyment (and to an extent, identity) from literature, film, music and *cough* fashion. Much of this detritus is currently strewn throughout my room and house, sitting half in half out of boxes, garbage bags or in their own peculiarly categorised piles.

But as of this time next week, I shall be kicking back in new, infinitely smaller flat, feeling calmer, more well-rested and (hopefully) quite minimalis. A pure white room, as immortalised in one of Ab Fab’s 60’s flashbacks is probably too much to hope for but remains the Holy Grail.

But as with all things utility-wise, it will take awhile until the new flat’s telephony is up and kicking.  Until then, updates, news, reviews, musings, meanderings etc. will be put on hold.

Until then… err… then.

The Kindness of Strangers – Built to Spill, Scala, Thursday 24 May 2007

Being fairly petite and vertically challenged, my gig modus operandi, is to rock up suitably early to secure myself a raised vantage point, with a railing to lean on when Knee tires. The only fly in the ointment is that after having secured such a position, one needs to hang on to it for dear life. Unfortunately, after a pint or so, the need to relieve one’s self may interfere with this. This is when having a bud comes into its own. However, my buddy Jaya was wandering far and wide, trying to secure his ideal vantage point in the midst of the scrum. With a shrug, I thought ‘easy come easy go’ and scuttled off to the ladies’.

‘Jeff Rules!’ – Wilco, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Sunday 20 May 2007

So came the inebriated cry, in a quieter moment during the Wilco set at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Sunday 20 May 2007. Wilco frontman, Jeff Tweedy, wrapped up in bringing a song to a close, did not acknowledge it but most within the vicinity chuckled.

Clumsily articulated, perhaps, but never was a truer sentiment expressed.

Bored of the Bling

Lord of the Rings: The Musical.

Not a phrase to whet a theatre-goer’s appetite, really – even one who was a Tolkien aficionado (for background, during my adolescence and teens I read and re-read his books dozens of times, bought copies of various special editions and wrote a pained, torturous high school thesis on some obscure, forgettable LOTR theme). I had paid scant attention to reports of the demise of the first stage adaptation in Toronto and certainly was not interested in seeing if the West End could make it palatable.

But Tues night found me sitting in an £80 stall seat in the magnificent Drury Lane Theatre, courtesy of a friend who had wrangled some free tickets. A magnificently thorny hedge had seemingly sprung from each side of the stage and had crept its way to the rafters and forward to engulf half the ceiling and the first two boxes. But the hobbits gambolling about the audience and the stage during the pre-show, capturing wondrously life-like fireflies were frankly, irritating. Admittedly, I have never appreciated Tolkien’s love for his daft, exasperating hobbits at the best of times.