Finest cover ever: Bauhaus doing Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”. Always, always makes me grin and perk up.
Author: Alasdair
Literature
So, I’ve been wondering lately: why is it that so many of the things people present to me as “rules” I hear and go : “You what?”
Case in point: Sunday, Andrew claims that it’s a rule that paperback books are what people should bring to read in the park, because they’re more relaxing, more reminiscent of holidays. That this is what everyone does. Apparently, the fact that I think that this is horseshit is just me being difficult and willfully different again, and not in fact based on the fact that my Dad, my uncles, and indeed, everyone I’ve ever been on holiday with doesn’t seem to have paid any attention to whether or not something’s a paperback, but rather, to whether or not they want to read it. Christ, I know people that take big technical manuals with them on holiday, because they want to read them. A book’s a fucking book. Same words inside both the hardback and paperback editions. The only criteria I have for a “holiday” book is that it be thick and heavy enough to bend space around it. And even then, I take two, because I know I’ll finish them within days. This trip (assuming it arrives in time), I’m planning on taking Ackroyd’s “London: A Biography”, because I figure that’ll last me a while, and Thompson’s “The Great Shark Hunt”, because I like to have a little light re-reading available, and if I’m going to be poking about the states, I figure I ought to be reading one of the finest writers they’ve ever produced. I might even take “Infinite Jest” with me, and try and use the time to get it dealt with. Depends on whether or not London arrives, I guess.
I’ll probably slap a book of some sort on the Visor as well, as a back-up.
Escape
Days like today make me want Out. I’m a city kid, but today, I want nothing more than to drive down country lanes with summer music playing very loud, stop to buy cold drinks and picnic food in a village in the middle of nowhere, and watch the sun set from the top of a hill with a summer breeze in my hair. I need to get away from humans, and just relax away from anything that means anything. Just forget all those little, trivial things, and remind myself of what’s really important.
The best I can do is go and eat ice-cream down by the Thames in Putney. Whatever it was I did in my former life, I’m sorry.
Visuals 2
I’m just testing how well this looks with images slapped into it, before I make my mind up on a re-design. The photo is the alleyway opposite my office, heading toward the bus station. I’m sure you’re all fscainated to know that. I wouldn’t mention it, only I need some text to fill up the space, so I’m just churning out inane crap.
I probably ought to have done the sensible thing and used the Latin that newspapers use for sample copy.
Visuals
New Toy. Eyemodule2 and Visor Platinum.
Writeup
Before the new toy, though, the weekend.
Fucking brilliant is almost close, I suppose. Finished off a column that I’m actually pretty pleased with, one that’s spitting bile and hate, even by my standards. Look for it on Friday at Ninth Art. Then Saturday evening, it was off to Uptight. I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a club as much. I used to love The Mission in Edinburgh, but even that wasn’t quite the right music for me. I certainly spent as much (total) time on the dancefloor as I have at any club I’ve ever been to, barring one night at Rock Raider, when I was 17 and had much, much more energy than I do today. Given how hard it is to get me on the dancefloor, this is a serious achievement. They didn’t play every act I’d been looking forward to on the playlist, but that’s just an excuse to go again, in my book.
Sunday I spent mooching about Richmond with Andrew and Andrea. A lovely, relaxed day with fine food, excellent views and good company, although between all the exercise yesterday and the dancing on Saturday, I am now in several kinds of agony. More reasons to get in shape, right there.
Failure
Oh well. Experiment in posting via AvantGo was unsuccessful. More work on this later, I guess. More news on the new toy, as well.
Dancing
Went clubbing last night. For the first time in years, I went a nightclub that can actually make me get up and use the dancefloor. I ache all over.
Result!
Playlist
At work, the technical department is in a separate room. We tend to have music playing, because we can, using the G4 Mac as a jukebox. Now, I know my musical taste doesn’t agree with most of the office, so I listen to my own music on headphones. But a while back, while trying to make a tape for the trip to Bristol, I copied a bunch of MP3s over to the Mac so that I could burn them to CD.
Someone has started them playing, which I’m certainly not complaining about. But this is a room where you’re all you’re normally likely to hear something chilled and ambient, or Another Generic Ibiza Album. Right now, this is the playlist:
New Model Army – Vengance
Dead Kennedys – Holday in Cambodia
Joan Jett – Bad Reputation
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Papa Won’t Leave You Henry
The Pixies – River Euprates
Ramones – It’s Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)
Buzzocks – Boredom
The Fall – How I Wrote Elastic Man
Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster
The Birthday Party – Zoo-Music Girl
The Undertones – Teenage Kicks
The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet
No-one seems to have the nerve to turn it off.
Memorial
John Lee Hooker is dead. Fuck.
One bourbon, one scotch…