Saw the latest Shane Meadows film, Somers Town. While it has alot of the sweet, human melodrama and humour that populate all his film, the warm sentimentality is shattered when the final 20 mins feels like the marketing arm of Eurostar got involved..
That aside, there are some genuinely laugh out loud bits - certainly from the blond star of Made in England, Thomas Turgoose. It's testimony of how good Made in England was that expectations for me were so high, and still look forward to future Shane Meadows productions.
Monday, 25 August 2008
Friday, 22 August 2008
Monday, 18 August 2008
Net neutrality: Why you should give a damn
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/16/net-neutrality-why-you-should-give-damn/?printer=1/
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Important Public Interest Win
Hopefully this FCC decision will have a ripple effect throughout the developed world
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1691
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1691
Sunday, 3 August 2008
3 days over Leyton
Stuart:
The 8.00pm finish the night before, and the 7.30am start on Wednesday was being offset by the fact that I needed to finalise the Monthly Staff News, and get out of the office in time to get to Tottenham Hale to meet Andy.
He, pessimistically, I later found out, predicted his arrival at Stansted to be 6pm. Receiving that time, by text, at lunch time, allowed me to relax about getting all my other stuff finished. So, when he called to say he had landed and was through customs at 5.30pm I panicked… mostly because I had just handed my CEO the final draft of the Staff News to review.
Pacing up and down nervously outside his office I attracted his attention–telling him I had a friend at the airport meant he agreed to give me his comments in five minutes. With just a handful of red pen marks I was able to escape the office and jump on the Victoria Line heading north to Tottenham Hale.
Andy:
Standing on the London Shuttle train from Stanstead, I noticed a woman with child. She appeared Eastern European with a very large red suitcase. I was using an old film based camera. She smiled, my mind raced as to where she was from, what was in the suitcase, the life she'd led before coming here. I imagined what she would bring in that red case to start a new life in Britain, her ideas of what Britain would be and if we were living upto/exceeding them.
She then spoke Italian.
From this moment on I decided as best as I could to leave my preconceptions at home. For four days at least.
Stuart:
Before entering the tube station I spoke to Andy to say I was running late and threw into the conversation that TH was bigger than your normal station – because it a train and tube line. However, Andy presumed I meant he could wait for me in a café over a cup of tea. His suggestion didn’t sink in until I was already on the tube.
Finding him at the top of the stairs waiting patiently for me to arrive I greeted him with a grin and then, after our hellos, I confessed my oversight as we queued for his Oyster Card.
Andy:
Met Stuart at Tottenham Hale, he told me of a another guy from Radcliffe who'd just written a book with Mark E Smith. It always gives me a good feeling when I hear of people from Radcliffe doing well. Maybe the reason is that I reckon it'll rub off onto me.
People from Radcliffe who have 'made' it;
John Spencer (snooker player)
Danny Boyle (director)
A one-time barmaid on Coronation Street in the eighties (who went to my primary school)
For that matter, those that have lived there (for a time);
Garth Sobers (cricketer)
Stan Ogden (Coronation Street)
The son of Giant Haystacks (seventies wrestler)
As for Mark E Smith he would become an omnipresent figure in the following days. At least in the wings of our conservations if not centre stage. He took on a whole new identity for me, a sort of errant messiah, not the bloke from that band who used to drink in our pub, which to be honest he'd almost become up until then.
Stuart:
Once in Walthamstow, we got a taxi to Leyton. Andy had a mini-flight case with him that housed a few hundred pounds worth of collectible records – northern soul and psych rock making up the lions share. So the short, paid for car ride, seemed a necessary luxury.
Five pound lighter in the pocket, we slammed the taxi doors and headed into my house. He’d never visited me in London.
So, I gave him a whistle stop tour of the place. This was more to show him his ‘Spaceman’ painting he gave me after I wrote a three-page feature for him in issue two of Flux magazine (1997). This round, rouged face had had a place in my three previous homes, but this was the first time Andy had seen it exhibited domestically.
“It’s like seeing an old friend,” he said when it greeted him on the landing.
Dumping his bags in the spare room we headed out to the Anatolia, a Turkish restaurant on Leyton High Road.
Andy:
After arriving at Stuart Towers we went to a local restaurant. It was raining so we both walked there with umbrellas. Almost immediately a pretty girl passed us and smiled, I presume, at the sight of two middle-aged men with umbrellas. Why this should elicit a smile I have no idea, but I took it to be a good omen.
Stuart:
Wolfing it down, we got back to my house in time for the Chelsea v Liverpool Champions League Semi-final, second leg. We needn’t have bothered as Chelsea won in extra time. With hindsight, the high point was listening to The Bob Seger System’s ‘Heavy Music Parts I and II’; Andy loved it, and as he would make better use of this seven inch I gave it to him.
Andy:
That night we entered a domain at Stuart Towers called the listening corner. An area that for a few nights at least would act as a sort of sonic-haven, a place where cultural debate would rage above a varied and brilliant soundtrack. In short a comfortable place to get drunk and listen to lots of records. As the conversation rolled on, artifacts from popular culture rained down on me. At the end of the night I noticed the two great twin towers of cd's and books on each arm of my chair. A great first night.
Stuart:
The disappointment evaporated quickly as we decamped three yards from the settee to the two chairs facing my stereo and records… and so began a healthy five hours music listening marathon that nearly got us to daybreak. This, it turns out, was going to the pattern of the next three days.
Aided and abetted by Stella Artois we got through: The Bob Seger System; Doing It For The Kids; My Bloody Valentine; The Pale Saints; The Smiths; Sebadoh; Ween; Mordant Music; and early Rod Stewart. We tried a bit of Bullshit Detector Two (Crass Records Compilation), but anarchy and freedom was a bit too much by the time we got around to playing it.
Andy:
During this time, quite late on I smiled, and it felt oddly strange. It reminded me of an old mate who once remarked about a particularly dour bloke that had he said 'a smile like a crack in a pie'. I realised that perhaps I needed this break more than I'd previously thought.
Stuart:
At 3.30am we called it a day.
I vaguely remembered my wife leaving for work. And by 8am I was awake. With my CEOs corrections to the Staff News still to do, I did that sat up in bed on my laptop (rather like I am doing now).
By 9.30am I was free of work pressures and could get onto to enjoying a few days off with Andy.
While he finished off his sleep, I slipped out to get breakfast provisions – bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, orange juice and some strong, fair trade coffee (I only say this because I can’t believe it is not all fair trade now, but maybe I am a little naïve there).
There was no need for a paper; news of Liverpool’s defeat doesn’t need to be poured over.
Andy:
POACHED EGG, BACON, MUSHROOMS, CHERRY TOMATOES, ONE PIECE OF TOAST AND RED KEN.
Stuart:
Over breakfast we make our plan for the day: picture framers, second record stall on Walthamstow market, charity shop record hunt, vote in the mayoral elections and buy a couple of wood pigeons for tonight’s dinner.
Brief showers kept us in doors longer than we hoped, but eventually it cleared long enough for us to make it to the picture framers near The Bakers Arms pub.
Andy:
The situationists used to pound the streets of Paris with a conscious desire to be lost. To walk with no destination, to toss coins as ways of deciding left or right. The desire was to discover the city anew, to walk in search of the miraculous as the great late Dutch conceptualist Bas Jan Ader might have called it. Today we entered into the spirit of this if not the letter, as we had two destinations; Walthamstow market, and later, a Waitrose in deepest Essex.
Stuart:
A very dark cloud seemed to follow us up Hoe St; when it began spitting, we escaped the wet for a cup of tea in a nearby café. Eventually, it brightened up enough to make you believe the worst was behind us. We’d long finished our drinks so after paying headed up to the market.
Andy:
At the market we headed straight for the record stall. My heart pounded as I saw the hundreds of singles lying on the stall; Pye, Decca, Columbia, Piccadilly - come on! I soon began to realise how good record hunting is in London. The capitol is awash with '60s singles. This when given some thought isn't too surprising, as in those days I guess many records were tested out on the radio stations, jukeboxes or whatever in London, before getting a wider release if at all.
Stuart:
Flicking through an appalling collection vinyl a neighbouring market stallholder made his mayoral views clear.
He shouted, for anyone who’d listen: “Get Ken Out Now!”
He followed this crude propaganda with some borderline racist observations.
“Well the Asians, they all love Ken, don’t they,” he said, again loudly, to no one in particular. It seemed he was inferring that the ethnic minority audience that milled around in front of him didn’t share his political views.
Andy:
The fumbling through the records was briefly interrupted by a bloke shouting "Ken loves the Asians!". this was largely greeted with a " oh dear, Geoff's at it again" kind of reaction. It was then that we spotted Ken Livingston walking by, canvassing for support. He looked older than he appears on tv, also more ordinary, I liked what I saw, he seemed pretty genuine in his interaction with the various people he met, and those that approached him were genuinely thrilled to meet him.
Stuart:
Concentrating on the records, Ken Livingstone then peered over my shoulder. Eyeing up the box of 12 inch vinyl I had my hands in, he spied one he recognised.
“Aah, The Platters, I know them,” he said before continuing on what must have been one of his final publicity drives.
It all happened so fast. And before I could think of saying something to him, he was away, posing with people who wanted to take his photo with their mobile phones.
The anti-Ken stallholder was muted too as the dead man walking went on his way.
We continued along Walthamstow market to the Blackhorse Road end; our final stop off before heading off home was Oxfam. Nothing doing there on the record front - don’t get me wrong this isn’t some thinly veiled attempt of unearthing a rare disc. It is more about finding something interesting for very little; a musical gem, rather than a financial gain.
The day was really clearing up at this point.
Our large, mid-morning breakfast meant that lunch wasn’t necessary. Passing the bingo hall on Lea Bridge Road we uneventfully made it to the Score Building by Leyton Orient Football Club – where I could vote. Prior to that Patrick Brill (aka Bob and Roberta Smith) texted to say that he was performing with The Fucks at Hales Gallery that evening. Hooray! That’s the night’s agenda sorted.
The giddy women marking me off the register of voters were like cameos in a London version of Phoenix Nights. With a glint in their eye that suggested nothing more than a good job they’d done that day, they began to tell me about some mischief down at a Lambeth voting station where the people doing their jobs were not only crossing names off the voters register, they were putting each voter’s unique reference number on the voting slip – effectively nulling them from the final count.
Only two minutes from home we dropped off our records and other debris before heading to South Woodford for the wood pigeon.
Heading east on the Central line through Essex border towns, it no longer feels like London; and South Woodford itself is a calm, suburban outpost. The clothes boutiques cry out ladies who lunch and the gastro chains and Waitrose are their venues of choice. All the bankers are at work when we pass through.
A quick trawl of charity shops reveals little of a decent local record collection buried in some house clearance and more a Jim Reeves and Mrs Mills hotbed. Still we manage to find a Moog does the hits compilation from 1972.
In Waitrose we headed straight for the game birds. The first real disappointment of the day – no wood pigeon left. Who ate all the game birds in this town?
Settling for guinea fowl we gather up pancetta for stuffing and a couple of slices of pie from the deli counter. Sat in a benched area on a island of land that separates the road going into and out of South Woodford we eat our little treat before heading back to Leyton. Exiting the tube station it feels like Hells Kitchen after the calm of South Woodford, but in reality, even Leyton is quite pleasant these days. Just that the high road has a lot of traffic escaping the city via the M11 or A12.
Andy:
THE FIRST THURSDAY DOG-FIGHT
We set off for Liverpool Street station. We were going to see an exhibition by Rob and Roberta Smith, which tonight included a set short set by The Fucks.
Stuart:
The stuffed guinea fowl takes much longer than anticipated and we don’t actually leave the house until after the time that Patrick had said he was performing. So it’s no surprise when we reach the gallery and everything is winding down.
Andy:
Stuart had seen The Fucks before and was less than impressed, though he added in their defence, they weren't playing an ordinary concert venue. As tonight's venue was a gallery I wasn't too hopeful.
We walked into the gallery through an unassuming door, to find a a sort of renovated warehouse type gallery with a small shop and a lovely one-room space. In the middle were The Fucks. I have to say my mate Stuart is rarely wrong, which is a good enough reason for him to be called Rite if not for parentage alone. This was no exception. The Fucks comprise of a boy and girl each with guitar and a drum machine. Yes, the sound-quality was poor, and yes this was not an ideal venue, but it was the sort of self-indulgentproto-punkedgyscreramout-loud fayre we've seen and heard many times before. Yet the two dancing characters in dog costumes and the man in the strange hat appeared to enjoy themselves.
Stuart:
Nevertheless this still means we get to see Patrick dance with a man dressed up like a puppy dog to some sonic warblings from The Fucks. While this draws to a close, me and Andy get to take in what Bob and Roberta is exhibiting. These huge text pieces are unmistakenably Bob and Roberta’s work and we steal ourselves a laugh or two reading what they say.
Andy:
The work of Rob and Roberta Smith on the other hand was fantastic. Scrap pieces of wood, hammered together in a haphazard way to create large squares and rectangles. These were brightly painted in that kind of tone you find in 50s advertising signs, and on each of the pieces was written a text, beautifully written in fact. The pieces ranged from the first time he (Rob and Roberta Smith is in fact a man) had gone to see The Smiths, a talk with a Russian kid in Moscow, a visit to the doctors. Later I'd discovered that he'd studied sign painting for a while in America, which gave the pieces in part an authenticity. They reminded me of amateurism, my grandad's old shed he'd made in a day, those fences you used to see made of doors. Fantastic.
Stuart:
While Andy goes off for a pee, Patrick introduces me to the guy dressed up as a dog as well as Mark Macgowan. For the latter, Patrick explains who he is by adding: ‘pushed a peanut through London with his nose’.
Andy:
When we left the gallery we hung out-side with a small group. News was that there was another party not too far away, where there was going to be a dog-fight. Putting two and two together, not to mention the two characters drinking beer in half their dog-costumes to my left I began to get the inclining of a happening. We headed for trendy (i think it still is, though a borough generally has 2-3 years in the spotlight, so perhaps it's time is long-up) Hoxton, and a the top of a warehouse called The Pitz. On climbing the everest-like stairs we were greeted with a sign made of bulbs saying the Ritz, but with the bottom part of the"R" unlit, therefore The Pitz, which is perhaps corny but I still rather like. We got a a couple of beers and had a brief gander at the work. Pretty standard art-school stuff I'd say, very end of first year. But there was a good vibrancy about the place, and nobody seemed to care about the work anyway. Stuart and I headed outside where the smokers were huddled. A girl asked accusingly why we were outside as neither of us smoked "to be with the cool-kids" I replied, and to be honest I was only partially kidding. The equating of the smokers corner to coolness will never truly go away. Stuart noticed a naive portrait of Mark E Smith on the wall. Quite good it was too, kind of a "fan painting".
We were joined by the two guys who were previously wearing the dog-suits. One of them, so Stuart tells me was the guy who a couple of years back pushed a peanut with his nose through London in protest at the Iraq War, his next protest was beginning this weekend. He was going to bury himself at Margate beach up to his neck for two days. This was in protest at, I think, the decline in support for British tourism. He mentioned how on a previous attempt he couldn't breath due to the weight of the sand on his chest, his friends just laughed at how the seagulls would feast on him. I feared the worst for the poor chap.
Later while listening to the tepid sounds of a dj who to be fair didn't have too many records, word went round that the dog-fight was about to begin. Five minutes before we'd been approached as to wether we'd care to put a bet on the fight, we both declined. Then there appeared our two new friends the peanut-pusher and to be honest his dim but nice mate, dressed fully in their dog-costumes. The bell was sounded and they went for it. They smashed the living daylights out of each other, kicking, pushing, punching the other while he was down. More than once they ended up into the crowd one on the floor the other smashing his head in a frenzy of fake dog fur. The crowd was loving it, we were all back in the school-yard propelled into vocal action by the sight of impromptu action "Fight!,Fight!" was the cry from fifty or so gleeful faces who should have known better. Everybody loved it until the winner was announced after 7 rounds, and the loser took off his dog-head to reveal a bashed-bloody nose. Suddenly the realisation that we'd witnessed an actual fight sunk in. Later we discovered that the result was pre-arranged so that they could make money from the betting. Tonight they made 40 quid between three.
KNOWING LESS THAN A DOG ABOUT ART
Patrick (the man behind the mask that is Rob and Roberta Smith), would later that night mention how he described another artist as "knowing less than a dog about art", which is a pretty cool statement, but for me what was infinitely better, is that following telling us this he immediately informed us that he'd got this line from a mate. I really liked that. Much later Patrick along with Stuart and I return in a cab and drunkenly debate the genius of Mark E Smith. I realise we're not gonna' escape his presence, for this time at least. Another night of cultural to-ins and fro-ins, the arms of my chair as with the previous night amply laden with cd's, books etc... Stuart like me talks in tangents. We always have top conversations, and this was no exception.
A day out in town, we head for the Tate Modern. Apart from a Guston, and a Picasso nothing really has an effect on me. The Beuys installation impresses Stuart. We both agree that the Rothko pictures for once leave us cold. It's not just the fact that we've seen these many times before which dilutes them. We instead reason that it's more that all of a sudden they seem like High Street products. That they've been incorporated so fully into our collective aesthetic consciousness, that they've now been regurgitated as little more than cliched design. Ideal pictures to use in "Changing Rooms". Poor Rothko, not what he would have wanted to hear. In this tepid atmosphere we go for the only sensible solution, we head for the Tate bar.
The bar has perhaps the best view in London, as it overlooking St.Pauls. We discuss Liverpool, the nature of Art and those two buskers playing in front of the Tate. We can't hear them but their attire says to me that they're playing somewhere in the region of Nirvana, perhaps mid-seventies ELO and Devendra Banhart. We finish our beers to go and discover the truth only to find that they've scarpered. We'll never know.
Tonight we off to the East-End for an exhibition based on surfing. On the way (not entirely soberly) we begin impromptu renditions of Crass songs on the tube. I notice some vaguely alarmed looks, and begin to realise how aggressive Crass songs can sound. It also reminds me of how I've had a sneeking suspicion that my Burberry jacket made me look a little, if only in the most slightest way; fascist. I'm never wearing it again. When we emerge from the tube, we're confronted by a fella with half is head in bloody bandages asking for money. We make a quick detour. After a short walk we come across a grey, innocuous building with the word "SET" on the side.
It's pretty well attended, Outside everyone seems to know each other we get a couple of drinks, and went inside to check-out the art. Inside was a make-shift shack which you had to enter through a ramshackle door. We did, and the inside was a teenage sufers' dream. Surfboards as tables, record sleeves on the wall, very stoned art and boxes of surfing paraphenalia. Quite good actually, especially the stoner drawings. These were precise lovingly rendered portraits of hippie-ish friends in pencil, which were then subverted by very stoned spirals and shapes in crayon over the top.
The 8.00pm finish the night before, and the 7.30am start on Wednesday was being offset by the fact that I needed to finalise the Monthly Staff News, and get out of the office in time to get to Tottenham Hale to meet Andy.
He, pessimistically, I later found out, predicted his arrival at Stansted to be 6pm. Receiving that time, by text, at lunch time, allowed me to relax about getting all my other stuff finished. So, when he called to say he had landed and was through customs at 5.30pm I panicked… mostly because I had just handed my CEO the final draft of the Staff News to review.
Pacing up and down nervously outside his office I attracted his attention–telling him I had a friend at the airport meant he agreed to give me his comments in five minutes. With just a handful of red pen marks I was able to escape the office and jump on the Victoria Line heading north to Tottenham Hale.
Andy:
Standing on the London Shuttle train from Stanstead, I noticed a woman with child. She appeared Eastern European with a very large red suitcase. I was using an old film based camera. She smiled, my mind raced as to where she was from, what was in the suitcase, the life she'd led before coming here. I imagined what she would bring in that red case to start a new life in Britain, her ideas of what Britain would be and if we were living upto/exceeding them.
She then spoke Italian.
From this moment on I decided as best as I could to leave my preconceptions at home. For four days at least.
Stuart:
Before entering the tube station I spoke to Andy to say I was running late and threw into the conversation that TH was bigger than your normal station – because it a train and tube line. However, Andy presumed I meant he could wait for me in a café over a cup of tea. His suggestion didn’t sink in until I was already on the tube.
Finding him at the top of the stairs waiting patiently for me to arrive I greeted him with a grin and then, after our hellos, I confessed my oversight as we queued for his Oyster Card.
Andy:
Met Stuart at Tottenham Hale, he told me of a another guy from Radcliffe who'd just written a book with Mark E Smith. It always gives me a good feeling when I hear of people from Radcliffe doing well. Maybe the reason is that I reckon it'll rub off onto me.
People from Radcliffe who have 'made' it;
John Spencer (snooker player)
Danny Boyle (director)
A one-time barmaid on Coronation Street in the eighties (who went to my primary school)
For that matter, those that have lived there (for a time);
Garth Sobers (cricketer)
Stan Ogden (Coronation Street)
The son of Giant Haystacks (seventies wrestler)
As for Mark E Smith he would become an omnipresent figure in the following days. At least in the wings of our conservations if not centre stage. He took on a whole new identity for me, a sort of errant messiah, not the bloke from that band who used to drink in our pub, which to be honest he'd almost become up until then.
Stuart:
Once in Walthamstow, we got a taxi to Leyton. Andy had a mini-flight case with him that housed a few hundred pounds worth of collectible records – northern soul and psych rock making up the lions share. So the short, paid for car ride, seemed a necessary luxury.
Five pound lighter in the pocket, we slammed the taxi doors and headed into my house. He’d never visited me in London.
So, I gave him a whistle stop tour of the place. This was more to show him his ‘Spaceman’ painting he gave me after I wrote a three-page feature for him in issue two of Flux magazine (1997). This round, rouged face had had a place in my three previous homes, but this was the first time Andy had seen it exhibited domestically.
“It’s like seeing an old friend,” he said when it greeted him on the landing.
Dumping his bags in the spare room we headed out to the Anatolia, a Turkish restaurant on Leyton High Road.
Andy:
After arriving at Stuart Towers we went to a local restaurant. It was raining so we both walked there with umbrellas. Almost immediately a pretty girl passed us and smiled, I presume, at the sight of two middle-aged men with umbrellas. Why this should elicit a smile I have no idea, but I took it to be a good omen.
Stuart:
Wolfing it down, we got back to my house in time for the Chelsea v Liverpool Champions League Semi-final, second leg. We needn’t have bothered as Chelsea won in extra time. With hindsight, the high point was listening to The Bob Seger System’s ‘Heavy Music Parts I and II’; Andy loved it, and as he would make better use of this seven inch I gave it to him.
Andy:
That night we entered a domain at Stuart Towers called the listening corner. An area that for a few nights at least would act as a sort of sonic-haven, a place where cultural debate would rage above a varied and brilliant soundtrack. In short a comfortable place to get drunk and listen to lots of records. As the conversation rolled on, artifacts from popular culture rained down on me. At the end of the night I noticed the two great twin towers of cd's and books on each arm of my chair. A great first night.
Stuart:
The disappointment evaporated quickly as we decamped three yards from the settee to the two chairs facing my stereo and records… and so began a healthy five hours music listening marathon that nearly got us to daybreak. This, it turns out, was going to the pattern of the next three days.
Aided and abetted by Stella Artois we got through: The Bob Seger System; Doing It For The Kids; My Bloody Valentine; The Pale Saints; The Smiths; Sebadoh; Ween; Mordant Music; and early Rod Stewart. We tried a bit of Bullshit Detector Two (Crass Records Compilation), but anarchy and freedom was a bit too much by the time we got around to playing it.
Andy:
During this time, quite late on I smiled, and it felt oddly strange. It reminded me of an old mate who once remarked about a particularly dour bloke that had he said 'a smile like a crack in a pie'. I realised that perhaps I needed this break more than I'd previously thought.
Stuart:
At 3.30am we called it a day.
I vaguely remembered my wife leaving for work. And by 8am I was awake. With my CEOs corrections to the Staff News still to do, I did that sat up in bed on my laptop (rather like I am doing now).
By 9.30am I was free of work pressures and could get onto to enjoying a few days off with Andy.
While he finished off his sleep, I slipped out to get breakfast provisions – bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, orange juice and some strong, fair trade coffee (I only say this because I can’t believe it is not all fair trade now, but maybe I am a little naïve there).
There was no need for a paper; news of Liverpool’s defeat doesn’t need to be poured over.
Andy:
POACHED EGG, BACON, MUSHROOMS, CHERRY TOMATOES, ONE PIECE OF TOAST AND RED KEN.
Stuart:
Over breakfast we make our plan for the day: picture framers, second record stall on Walthamstow market, charity shop record hunt, vote in the mayoral elections and buy a couple of wood pigeons for tonight’s dinner.
Brief showers kept us in doors longer than we hoped, but eventually it cleared long enough for us to make it to the picture framers near The Bakers Arms pub.
Andy:
The situationists used to pound the streets of Paris with a conscious desire to be lost. To walk with no destination, to toss coins as ways of deciding left or right. The desire was to discover the city anew, to walk in search of the miraculous as the great late Dutch conceptualist Bas Jan Ader might have called it. Today we entered into the spirit of this if not the letter, as we had two destinations; Walthamstow market, and later, a Waitrose in deepest Essex.
Stuart:
A very dark cloud seemed to follow us up Hoe St; when it began spitting, we escaped the wet for a cup of tea in a nearby café. Eventually, it brightened up enough to make you believe the worst was behind us. We’d long finished our drinks so after paying headed up to the market.
Andy:
At the market we headed straight for the record stall. My heart pounded as I saw the hundreds of singles lying on the stall; Pye, Decca, Columbia, Piccadilly - come on! I soon began to realise how good record hunting is in London. The capitol is awash with '60s singles. This when given some thought isn't too surprising, as in those days I guess many records were tested out on the radio stations, jukeboxes or whatever in London, before getting a wider release if at all.
Stuart:
Flicking through an appalling collection vinyl a neighbouring market stallholder made his mayoral views clear.
He shouted, for anyone who’d listen: “Get Ken Out Now!”
He followed this crude propaganda with some borderline racist observations.
“Well the Asians, they all love Ken, don’t they,” he said, again loudly, to no one in particular. It seemed he was inferring that the ethnic minority audience that milled around in front of him didn’t share his political views.
Andy:
The fumbling through the records was briefly interrupted by a bloke shouting "Ken loves the Asians!". this was largely greeted with a " oh dear, Geoff's at it again" kind of reaction. It was then that we spotted Ken Livingston walking by, canvassing for support. He looked older than he appears on tv, also more ordinary, I liked what I saw, he seemed pretty genuine in his interaction with the various people he met, and those that approached him were genuinely thrilled to meet him.
Stuart:
Concentrating on the records, Ken Livingstone then peered over my shoulder. Eyeing up the box of 12 inch vinyl I had my hands in, he spied one he recognised.
“Aah, The Platters, I know them,” he said before continuing on what must have been one of his final publicity drives.
It all happened so fast. And before I could think of saying something to him, he was away, posing with people who wanted to take his photo with their mobile phones.
The anti-Ken stallholder was muted too as the dead man walking went on his way.
We continued along Walthamstow market to the Blackhorse Road end; our final stop off before heading off home was Oxfam. Nothing doing there on the record front - don’t get me wrong this isn’t some thinly veiled attempt of unearthing a rare disc. It is more about finding something interesting for very little; a musical gem, rather than a financial gain.
The day was really clearing up at this point.
Our large, mid-morning breakfast meant that lunch wasn’t necessary. Passing the bingo hall on Lea Bridge Road we uneventfully made it to the Score Building by Leyton Orient Football Club – where I could vote. Prior to that Patrick Brill (aka Bob and Roberta Smith) texted to say that he was performing with The Fucks at Hales Gallery that evening. Hooray! That’s the night’s agenda sorted.
The giddy women marking me off the register of voters were like cameos in a London version of Phoenix Nights. With a glint in their eye that suggested nothing more than a good job they’d done that day, they began to tell me about some mischief down at a Lambeth voting station where the people doing their jobs were not only crossing names off the voters register, they were putting each voter’s unique reference number on the voting slip – effectively nulling them from the final count.
Only two minutes from home we dropped off our records and other debris before heading to South Woodford for the wood pigeon.
Heading east on the Central line through Essex border towns, it no longer feels like London; and South Woodford itself is a calm, suburban outpost. The clothes boutiques cry out ladies who lunch and the gastro chains and Waitrose are their venues of choice. All the bankers are at work when we pass through.
A quick trawl of charity shops reveals little of a decent local record collection buried in some house clearance and more a Jim Reeves and Mrs Mills hotbed. Still we manage to find a Moog does the hits compilation from 1972.
In Waitrose we headed straight for the game birds. The first real disappointment of the day – no wood pigeon left. Who ate all the game birds in this town?
Settling for guinea fowl we gather up pancetta for stuffing and a couple of slices of pie from the deli counter. Sat in a benched area on a island of land that separates the road going into and out of South Woodford we eat our little treat before heading back to Leyton. Exiting the tube station it feels like Hells Kitchen after the calm of South Woodford, but in reality, even Leyton is quite pleasant these days. Just that the high road has a lot of traffic escaping the city via the M11 or A12.
Andy:
THE FIRST THURSDAY DOG-FIGHT
We set off for Liverpool Street station. We were going to see an exhibition by Rob and Roberta Smith, which tonight included a set short set by The Fucks.
Stuart:
The stuffed guinea fowl takes much longer than anticipated and we don’t actually leave the house until after the time that Patrick had said he was performing. So it’s no surprise when we reach the gallery and everything is winding down.
Andy:
Stuart had seen The Fucks before and was less than impressed, though he added in their defence, they weren't playing an ordinary concert venue. As tonight's venue was a gallery I wasn't too hopeful.
We walked into the gallery through an unassuming door, to find a a sort of renovated warehouse type gallery with a small shop and a lovely one-room space. In the middle were The Fucks. I have to say my mate Stuart is rarely wrong, which is a good enough reason for him to be called Rite if not for parentage alone. This was no exception. The Fucks comprise of a boy and girl each with guitar and a drum machine. Yes, the sound-quality was poor, and yes this was not an ideal venue, but it was the sort of self-indulgentproto-punkedgyscreramout-loud fayre we've seen and heard many times before. Yet the two dancing characters in dog costumes and the man in the strange hat appeared to enjoy themselves.
Stuart:
Nevertheless this still means we get to see Patrick dance with a man dressed up like a puppy dog to some sonic warblings from The Fucks. While this draws to a close, me and Andy get to take in what Bob and Roberta is exhibiting. These huge text pieces are unmistakenably Bob and Roberta’s work and we steal ourselves a laugh or two reading what they say.
Andy:
The work of Rob and Roberta Smith on the other hand was fantastic. Scrap pieces of wood, hammered together in a haphazard way to create large squares and rectangles. These were brightly painted in that kind of tone you find in 50s advertising signs, and on each of the pieces was written a text, beautifully written in fact. The pieces ranged from the first time he (Rob and Roberta Smith is in fact a man) had gone to see The Smiths, a talk with a Russian kid in Moscow, a visit to the doctors. Later I'd discovered that he'd studied sign painting for a while in America, which gave the pieces in part an authenticity. They reminded me of amateurism, my grandad's old shed he'd made in a day, those fences you used to see made of doors. Fantastic.
Stuart:
While Andy goes off for a pee, Patrick introduces me to the guy dressed up as a dog as well as Mark Macgowan. For the latter, Patrick explains who he is by adding: ‘pushed a peanut through London with his nose’.
Andy:
When we left the gallery we hung out-side with a small group. News was that there was another party not too far away, where there was going to be a dog-fight. Putting two and two together, not to mention the two characters drinking beer in half their dog-costumes to my left I began to get the inclining of a happening. We headed for trendy (i think it still is, though a borough generally has 2-3 years in the spotlight, so perhaps it's time is long-up) Hoxton, and a the top of a warehouse called The Pitz. On climbing the everest-like stairs we were greeted with a sign made of bulbs saying the Ritz, but with the bottom part of the"R" unlit, therefore The Pitz, which is perhaps corny but I still rather like. We got a a couple of beers and had a brief gander at the work. Pretty standard art-school stuff I'd say, very end of first year. But there was a good vibrancy about the place, and nobody seemed to care about the work anyway. Stuart and I headed outside where the smokers were huddled. A girl asked accusingly why we were outside as neither of us smoked "to be with the cool-kids" I replied, and to be honest I was only partially kidding. The equating of the smokers corner to coolness will never truly go away. Stuart noticed a naive portrait of Mark E Smith on the wall. Quite good it was too, kind of a "fan painting".
We were joined by the two guys who were previously wearing the dog-suits. One of them, so Stuart tells me was the guy who a couple of years back pushed a peanut with his nose through London in protest at the Iraq War, his next protest was beginning this weekend. He was going to bury himself at Margate beach up to his neck for two days. This was in protest at, I think, the decline in support for British tourism. He mentioned how on a previous attempt he couldn't breath due to the weight of the sand on his chest, his friends just laughed at how the seagulls would feast on him. I feared the worst for the poor chap.
Later while listening to the tepid sounds of a dj who to be fair didn't have too many records, word went round that the dog-fight was about to begin. Five minutes before we'd been approached as to wether we'd care to put a bet on the fight, we both declined. Then there appeared our two new friends the peanut-pusher and to be honest his dim but nice mate, dressed fully in their dog-costumes. The bell was sounded and they went for it. They smashed the living daylights out of each other, kicking, pushing, punching the other while he was down. More than once they ended up into the crowd one on the floor the other smashing his head in a frenzy of fake dog fur. The crowd was loving it, we were all back in the school-yard propelled into vocal action by the sight of impromptu action "Fight!,Fight!" was the cry from fifty or so gleeful faces who should have known better. Everybody loved it until the winner was announced after 7 rounds, and the loser took off his dog-head to reveal a bashed-bloody nose. Suddenly the realisation that we'd witnessed an actual fight sunk in. Later we discovered that the result was pre-arranged so that they could make money from the betting. Tonight they made 40 quid between three.
KNOWING LESS THAN A DOG ABOUT ART
Patrick (the man behind the mask that is Rob and Roberta Smith), would later that night mention how he described another artist as "knowing less than a dog about art", which is a pretty cool statement, but for me what was infinitely better, is that following telling us this he immediately informed us that he'd got this line from a mate. I really liked that. Much later Patrick along with Stuart and I return in a cab and drunkenly debate the genius of Mark E Smith. I realise we're not gonna' escape his presence, for this time at least. Another night of cultural to-ins and fro-ins, the arms of my chair as with the previous night amply laden with cd's, books etc... Stuart like me talks in tangents. We always have top conversations, and this was no exception.
A day out in town, we head for the Tate Modern. Apart from a Guston, and a Picasso nothing really has an effect on me. The Beuys installation impresses Stuart. We both agree that the Rothko pictures for once leave us cold. It's not just the fact that we've seen these many times before which dilutes them. We instead reason that it's more that all of a sudden they seem like High Street products. That they've been incorporated so fully into our collective aesthetic consciousness, that they've now been regurgitated as little more than cliched design. Ideal pictures to use in "Changing Rooms". Poor Rothko, not what he would have wanted to hear. In this tepid atmosphere we go for the only sensible solution, we head for the Tate bar.
The bar has perhaps the best view in London, as it overlooking St.Pauls. We discuss Liverpool, the nature of Art and those two buskers playing in front of the Tate. We can't hear them but their attire says to me that they're playing somewhere in the region of Nirvana, perhaps mid-seventies ELO and Devendra Banhart. We finish our beers to go and discover the truth only to find that they've scarpered. We'll never know.
Tonight we off to the East-End for an exhibition based on surfing. On the way (not entirely soberly) we begin impromptu renditions of Crass songs on the tube. I notice some vaguely alarmed looks, and begin to realise how aggressive Crass songs can sound. It also reminds me of how I've had a sneeking suspicion that my Burberry jacket made me look a little, if only in the most slightest way; fascist. I'm never wearing it again. When we emerge from the tube, we're confronted by a fella with half is head in bloody bandages asking for money. We make a quick detour. After a short walk we come across a grey, innocuous building with the word "SET" on the side.
It's pretty well attended, Outside everyone seems to know each other we get a couple of drinks, and went inside to check-out the art. Inside was a make-shift shack which you had to enter through a ramshackle door. We did, and the inside was a teenage sufers' dream. Surfboards as tables, record sleeves on the wall, very stoned art and boxes of surfing paraphenalia. Quite good actually, especially the stoner drawings. These were precise lovingly rendered portraits of hippie-ish friends in pencil, which were then subverted by very stoned spirals and shapes in crayon over the top.
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