I shan't get shirty when they say I look peculiar...

Why Hello...

I should probably preface this again with the fact I have many thoughts today that possibly conflict and also may not exist so bear with me.. As I will with you. If you were to ask me.

So, today.. ah yes this appears to be a Sunday/after work midweek tradition of writing this blog when I'm not entirely sure what I'm thinking but I'm sure there's something to be gleaned out of the bizarre tired feeling I've got today.. Firstly, an amazing and superbly accomplished but even more modest and kind woman died this week and I have felt very lucky to have met her and enjoyed her company. She was never too busy to care about someone else which was the most amazing quality and it most definitely was not her time. I am very saddened by her passing and I only met her a few times but will always remember them.
I went to the funeral and even though I knew she'd done so much never realised quite how much and I know all her friends and family are very proud of her.

As funerals might do to a lot of you they make you really think about how much good you yourself are doing in this world. I am currently lying in bed listening to John Cale on 6music not doing anything hugely productive so I must up and away at some point. I feel the need to physically move and change things. Though John Cale has oft proved himself an excellent bedfellow. One of my favourite Welshmen, after my dad obviously. No matter how many times I hear Hallelujah sung by idiots and insipid Xfactor winners it still makes me cry. Leonard Cohen and John Cale, even Rufus Wainwright, do it justice to the lyrically succinct melody of melancholic beauty. Especially to one who's not sure if God exists. or even god for that matter. Is now the time to be philosophical? on a whim perhaps. and yet again I've gone once more unto the breach of talking nonsense. Before I can succeed at this writing lark I suppose I ought to control and coral my thoughts into some kind of sense but I do like to feel

In the words of a youtube comment "a story Boccaccio or Chaucer would write" this is not only true.. but also quite possibly the most intelligent sounding comment on youtube I've ever seen.

I must momentarily stop. I have just discovered someone on the radio who I can't even describe. Well I could, in comparisons to such French Ideals as Jacque Brel. Jake Thackray is from Leeds. Leeds. But if they had a sense of humour and had Noel Coward like aspirations. I've been put into a profoundly happier mood by this. By his own admission "I missed out on rock and all my influences were French".. ah my friend.



And this is my favourite, and the one that was just played on the radio. Needless to say I am in love with him mostly because of his nose and his jumpers. What a handsome witty man.. just goes to show my mother's right that I do have a thing for Northern Blokes.. yes that is their title don't you know.



Frightfully, frightfully la di dah!

Now I shall continue to write, lest I sit here all day listening to Mr Thackray. LIes all lies, I'm just going to write and listen.

I have just remembered something, whilst searching for Gene Vincent on the excellent Hype machine (not so excellent as I can't seem to find any as it's not working but still.. excellent usually). Somewhat unrelated I dreamt in Beach Boys songs last night. I awoke with Surfer Girl in my head, convinced I must've heard it yesterday. But now I've remembered that some friends were living on an ice lake in a posh hut just outside what was supposedly the Liverpool Docks, getting a boat to and from work and city. And we were sat in this hut, that from the inside seemed to be a large flat and had several floors and empty rooms to be quickly filled, and listened only to Beach Boys. Here the nuances of how dangerous and exciting it was to live on an Ice lake by the docks were explained to me. One after each other they depicted moments of near death and adrenaline, at potentially falling through the ice when drunk on the boat trip back. That going for one's morning jog was slightly hairy. And yet never once did I think the question their decision of living upon this hazardous but beautifully arid and blue silver landscape. There was no question of why one shouldn't live there.

And for another possible rant. I was in a restaurant the other day and I was having very interesting conversations but I couldn't keep my thoughts straight or my feet still when they played a Joe Meek, Gene Vincent et al extravaganza on repeat. There are never too many times to hear Telstar. and now I feel the need to jive and dance. Admittedly there is a part of me who will always imagine a certain Libertine in Telstar


and whilst perusing that I found not only a rather odd version of Venus in Furs being sang by Barat and Brett Anderson, which I only say is odd because it sounds almost normal in comparison to the raw original but also this hilariously drunk almost karaoke version of Kokomo sung by Moldy Peaches' Adam Green and Carl Barat. Worth it for the little dance in the middle by Carl and Adam screaming names of various islands.


I seem to have gone off on a Libertines binge and this has made me somewhat nostalgic for the aftershow party at Brixton academy like a crackden and the first days of Uni. There were libertines posters needless to say. This song still makes me want to cry and watching footage of gigs and the fans shows how amazing they were before they got into the limelight fucking each other up and becoming the bogeyman of the masses and mail readers. My best friend and I had planned our joint bohemian wedding in Albion, I got Carl Barat (who I do believe is married now... so is Julian Casablancas which saddens my 15 year old self) But there were others and happiness and things that meant something and it makes todays music, not to sound like an old fart, really fleeting and bit a sad. I liked the poetic nonchalance of the Libertines (even Dirty Pretty Things to a degree though they never had the passion really did they?) but now everything is so accessible to the masses. Not that I think music should create segregation but I still remember being awed by Arctic Monkeys getting a number one. An Indie band being big again was weird for me. and I don't tend to like some of the same things as everybody else much in the same way they don't like my things and I"ve oft been called weird. I don't mind it so much. I just liked being part of something smaller that was growing and actually being in touch with humanity. Or maybe that's what discovering music feels like at that age and never again do you feel that way about a band but mindlessly listen to 6music waiting for something or someone to make you feel that way again and hoping that you've not turned into the 20 something square that goes "oh yeah man Indie pop isn't what it used to be but don't you just fucking love Plan B??" If that's the case I'm running away and joining the indie pop circus.
and in some places it isn't like that. Indietracks festival is a place born of those who love what I do. And it's small and happy. and not full of wankers in maxi dresses discussing the nuances of Florence Welch's fringe. I work with many a person like that. I'm not naming names, though I'd like, nor am I going to get as annoyed when older people are surprised I like the Stones and Gainsbourg. How he physically makes me tingle and the beginning of Syd Barrat's Golden Hair makes me go into a psychotropic haze of delight and the sadness that tinges it with a tragic beauty. I know it all sounds very very um…. very pretentious and you know what some part of me doesn't really care. I care very much about the things that I like, so much so that I've apparently used up my data quota for the month in a matter of days writing this and listening to Jake Thackray and the Libertines and pretending things matter still. They do still matter but I suppose you have to work at it. I just wish there was some kind of movement that happened now. Something I obviously might have to start myself. Something to escape and run away from the emo shit and ridiculousness of the long boring day of nothingness in an office.

I've recently bought: Metronomy's English Riviera (which I know probably comes into the everybody likes it category and this pains me. not as much as listening and almost liking that foster the people song. ok I might actually cry now that I've admitted that. I hate it I really hate it when I like something as popular ok! Admitted admission and I'm a big pretentious geek. I don't care!

I've recently made: a long green silk evening gown that I wore to a graduation ball and then promptly threw up all the free red wine and delicious dinner I had all over it. Fun was had but it wasn't pretty (well it was quite 20s at first especially in a setting of an old hall with many an Art Deco furnishing)

I've recently read; um.. let's see what did I finish when I last wrote this… ooh I read When God Was a Rabbit which was movingly excellent and re read One Day as I like to do this every year around the time I graduated to remind me that I may not have lost everybody I ever made friends with and had a connection with and that I may still have time to do something useful and meaningful in this world and not just work in my equivalent of a Mexican restaurant.

I've recently done: very little but sat in bed and looked out of the window.

I've recently been: to London and Belfast. and discussed getting a garden in our new flat. and want to grow beans. and started a lot of sentences with and which pains me somewhat but I can't really go back and change them all now. and...


A bientôt x

Young blood? on somebody's hands....

Well once again I find ridiculous affinity in a song that was probably written for a mass market of lost souls who all feel individually and uniquely the same morose silliness... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdO85Qf4Pocbut still here we go as it's true we ARE all young and naive still We require certain skill.. Yup we all do. So once again I start my blog that is usually born in some kind of malaise or other. I'm not going to be all misery guts... I live where the trains sleep, I still find things interesting. That's nice. but once again I float along in a world of not feeling fulfilled. One goes to the gym merely as a distraction, a vent for frustration, both sexual and boredom. I am rivalling the ennui of the English Opium Eater. Only my diaries contain less opium, more wine. So I go to the gym and blast some guns into oblivion and become the cliche. I have no 1. Cat, 2. lover 3. Wine (today) 4. particular life goal except to change what I'm doing.. I have broken out and I'm almost certain I'm the only one rowing to Joy Division so that's a good start... No life at all in the house of dolls.. No love lost eh no love lost...? or fall back in love eventually.. I must admit I've been spoilt and finding someone interesting to talk to amidst the streets seems futile. it's bizarre how many a person is scared of a Velvet Underground obsessive with a penchant for the word cunt. We are a dying breed non?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiyXjv1aaf8

I am aware of the irony of what I may be about to write but having spent many an hour ambling around and listening to the delightful conversation between Jarvis and Adam Curtis on 6music about computers and their maddening influence on the world it's like re-attempting-reading The Diceman.. a depressing and somewhat scary experience that makes one put the book down, or in this case the computer, and walk slowly away avoiding eye contact. This has indicated to me how static the world can become it's been on my mind for the last few days now and every conversation i've had regarding it seems to be on a computer. This cultish near necessity is scary and writing it on a blog makes it seem even more ridiculous. There is a habit I have, I think of amazing insightful things to write, I think of loads of things I want for my birthday and Christmas and then boom gone. I was walking under my pigeon bridge delighting in the amazing aggressive post punk feminism of Those Darlins. Deliberating why the boys who you want as your bro don't treat you that way and those who do make you feel like a potentially incestuous strumpet. I just wanna roll and play in the dirt with you and you just wanna stick it in. That is something that makes me want to flee my town and make it to San Fran or Washington and start a new revolution. It's coming, at least something ought to be, hard and fast. I've spent weeks eyeing up young, old, men, women everybody undressing them with luckily just my eyes, but there will be pouncing and the pouncing will turn to a taking. A tying up and a thrashing..? I look into their faces with sunglasses on and hear fucking music in my head. Music to fuck girls by... music to be taken roughly by.. oh dear if this doth persist this blog, sporadic as it is, will eventually become a long overdrawn, writhing, wrenching, slapping, arse grabbing, whipping, jodphur wearing Jilly Cooper novel..set in the North West. Now that's an idea... only without a horsey set, Chester doesn't strike me as as much fun as the metropolitan sweat and lust of the inner city.. writhing and rubbing against the cobbled floors and brick walls. I keep wishing I had some kind of deep message to portray however, I do feel I could give an analytical and accurate portrayal of the youth and sex obsessed generation that I am but a victim of. The only other issue of this is that I fear I'm becoming selfish, not self absorbed as apparently that's what happens when one lives alone, but less inclined to do good for other members of humanity. This must be stopped as a loss of humility and altruism means the end of humanity in the soul, it's not gone yet and I'm sure it's just in hiding coming out for smaller things than just to one person.

The sexual ambiguity of turning 24 is somewhat annoying me. I was happy to be 23 and in the words of Blink 182 have nobody like me. I know secretly they did but sometimes, sensitive as I am, I enjoy being a stand offish bitch. This is why reaching the age of 24 has posed some questions about what is necessary for a woman to exist in this day and age, on her own, eating fish fingers, dancing in her pants, who doesn't take down her party bunting as it makes her feel like she's at a country fair in the 40s and listening to Dylan's birthday commemoration on 6music. God only knows. I'm going to seek to find, to not seek and then hopefully find by chance.

The pressure upon myself to say something elusive...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRLqUGhWP0

As I work on my Beasties Boys esque sabotage of the western world whilst simultaneously attempting to form a Ronettes Sans Spector tribute band and marvelling at Michelle Obama I shall think too deeply, drink too deeply and potentially grow another year older before I complete my next blog. I think i should write to commemorate my passing into mid 20s... a carefully assessed analysis of the young and irresponsibly philosophical.

A bientot Cherie...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lwthVtaocc

Any time will do...

Well, 

Here is another boring Monday evening... It's still sunny.. ish.. the sky is bruising quietly in the background.. I've had to stop listening to the radio as my entire left hand is covered in songs I must remember. This is a good thing, naturally, however, it may eventually lead to ink poisioning or septicemia.. So I thought why not write something slightly more permanent.. or however permanent something upon the net of inters can exist in cyberspace. 

Firstly I have a confession. I'm 100% addicted to the new(ish) TV on the Radio song "Will Do".. Not only do we have some virtual reality loving and guitar playing in the video but it's achingly beautiful, reeks of patience and longing.. a sentiment that nobody ever really forgets and some may not want to. I know I don't like forgetting that. so yes here is the video, and I will bet you some of my hard earned banking money that you fucking love it* (*offer null and void if you read it and believe it... I also haven't really got any money so it would only be about 40p which if you're still a student will let you afford a copy of the Guardian... I snuck back to campus life today... nostalgia and cheap newspapers sigh).. 

http://www.youtube.com/wat

ch?v=dXLpXu9T7j0 well ok it won't let me embed it but I urge urge urge you to find it.. stop being lazy reading this and go and find it now. 

Now you're back I've had a little waltz down memory lane for other amazing TV on the Radio songs but frankly I stop dead at Wolf Like Me.  Reasons abound for me loving this song but nothing quite gets you howling at the moon like the should be proverbial Rochester stylee "Dog drawn bitch" hehe... Nobody quite does sexual longing like the ridiculously sexy bespectacled Tunde Adebimpe.. needless to say I'm rather enamoured... and drift away whenever I hear it... 

if you've ever met me you may know that I often take my ipod to the loo in work.. Yes I know it's odd but it's a minute of pure being locked in a room on your own without having to talk to anybody-ness... and you can't beat TV on the Radio for that. except maybe the Human League.. 

Right on with the list. I'm being hard on myself today this shall be less wistful than I'm feeling and less depressing than I'm contemplating writing about and much much less self indulgent.. Speaking of raw animal magnetism and sex Pete and the Pirates' rather excellent Cold Black Kitty has a certain Kinks' "Wicked Annabella" about it.. it's dark and dirty and she's been playing in the alleys all night. The Kinks femme fatales were never real femme fatales.. they were dark women lead astray into the undergrowth of the "Big Black Smoke" or in Annabella's case she has lots of little demons that do her own bidding.. whenever I'm in a mood I go and sit in the park of the pseudo suburban area I live in and watch from atop my little hill the cars go by amidst the greenery.. the bizarre halfway house of smokey life with the undercurrent of dirt and sod... Village green and the big black smoke down there at the end of Dead End Street.... 

I've always admired Nick Cave's growl.. I grew up thinking of him as the man who murdered Kylie but I never really liked her much anyway, after my sister played the Locomotion for hours on end.. I've read parts of his books that are raw.. but Grinderman are moving me.. moving me to excellent feelings that I've missed.. The Palaces of Montezuma is a piece of art.. Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird, a pretty A-Line dress... lyrically it's incredible and always reminds me of the excellent laidback grandness of early 90s indie or the SoftBoys.. and vocally he's gone all Destroyer.., So much to promise in such a nonchalant way... the promises of someone who has nothing but gives everything.. a quiet sigh in the empty halls of Montezuma's palace... drifting all through the gardens of Akbar's tombs and up the gods. 

I guess there's a new theme emerging.. confused love.. but I read something yesterday, a quote a friend put upon her facebook.. (yeah I know I'm quoting another's facebook page but it was all so right..) "The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours...

but music does it too... after going for an amble around the park, scowling annoyed at the ducks, (whom I usually adore by the way), and moping to songs I heard some of these songs (yes I"m addicted to 6music but I can't help it.. I write and write the lists and they're never fulfilled) and all the songs seem so irrationally relevant.. bizarre non?  so not to sound stalkerish I've been searching for more Yeah Jazz after hearing the song "Sharon"... I'm not elaborating.. but I fucking loved it. 

I will however elaborate on my reasonings for not going to the gym today.. in the gym they don't let you play wii tennis in your underwear whilst Black Sabbath blasts Ironman into the living room and out into the softly becoming springlike air..

I'll go and buy the flowers myself... I've been reading Mrs Dalloway and the stream of consciousness reflects my flitting and silly mind.  The springlike air about her writing and yet the near death cycle of her characters are gorgeous... her loneliness in a crowded London.. or her just being alone... They aren't the same... 

I can't decide.. so end on a happy note.. .... happy belated international Women's day... 

if you were in the area you may have seen a few natural talents on stage whom I'm endlessly proud of. .xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Under The Bridge....

And so a freezing frost has fallen upon the city.. I watched this descend in minutes and in the dark it's shining in a haze... 

There are lots of tiny needles falling it's incredible. 

and so I have decided in this end of January ennui and haziness that I wanted to write something. Even if it is slightly self indulgent, but what am I if not hedonistic in my indulging of my own indulgences.  Fog seem rather a lovely case of pathetic fallacy right now though.. a cloud of confusion has fallen upon my brain and it is a case of not knowing anything. Is ignorance really bliss? I'm quite enjoying it but also detesting it somewhat.  The lights of the car are blinding without the fog and shine brighter when it's lifted but they spread and splinter across the world when it's foggy.. but is that just shared confusion I don't know. I'm not one to be concise when it comes to anything but I feel somewhat stark at the moment except for the nights I have spent in the last few weeks listening to Pixies, syncing itself with the noisy bumps my washing machine makes, and warbling until 3am.  

It may be true, but I really hope not, that if you don't use it you effectively lose it.. is that forever? god I hope not as I am still in the realms of a job I thought I'd leave over a year ago contemplating things that I wouldn't normally and discussing things that should be kept for the pages of Take a Break.. 

I'm glad to say though that I have noticed smaller things that make me happy in the last few weeks. 

1. Putting my feet up on my glass coffee table as a sign of defiance at it's inability to remain streak free. I would like to point out to most Estate Agents, who are fast becoming a race of peoples I vastly dislike, that streaky coffee tables, brown relatively uncomfortable blocky sofas and white carpets are ridiculous ploys for deposit stealing schemes.. I'm fucking onto you.... 

2. I've mastered the art of reading a magazine and doing the G2 crossword WHILST discussing banking issues on the phone with the great British public.  If I didn't forcibly remove every angst ridden ridiculous conversation I have had of late from my brain with a pair of powerful pliers then I would be writing some kind of book that revolved around a psychotic mad woman.. oh no wait.. 

3. That I've obviously grown up to some degree as I resisted from spending all my wages on a pair of Isabel Marant trousers and instead bought a month's supply of chickpeas and toilet roll. score. Whether I'm pleased about this I'm unsure. 

4. This is the best thing I've enjoyed recently. I live under a bridge; bread eating at bus stops with my Judd Nelson fingerless gloves aside I am not quite a hobo, though I had a lovely discussion with the Big Issue man today.  This bridge lets loose the trainspotter in me. I must admit the journeys and noises it makes aren't the most exciting in the area, that coveted title must go to the monthly window cleaner who seems to stab my windows with a battering ram when I'm naked or perhaps the late night winter ice cream van, redundant in the hazy shade of winter.. or so I thought (now I'm no shouting Daily Mail reader with the tolerance level of teenage talking head asked about the latest tweets by bored looking newsreaders but I do sing "Drugs van la la la" to the theme of Teddy Bears' Picnic that emanates from the van itself). The Bridge itself, and yes I'm going to make it a character now use my English degree to show some kind of insight with the Bridge and it's situations in life itself.  The Bridge is a mother holding host to a family of noisy yet delightful pigeons, I say delightful as they have yet to shit on me on my way to work, no no the public wait for that when I get there.  The Bridge has a nice little nook, now back to the hobo bit, a nook that if it were warmer I would curl up in and watch the world go by.  But the number one best thing about The Bridge is the array of clutter I find under it.  Difficult stains.  Dogs. Dog shit (not so excited about this bit but it adds to the atmosphere obviously).  and the creepy baby carriage... complete with half emptied tin of oak stain. I'm going to keep a list. 

Things I'm still disliking though are checked shirts. I have delved into the Primarni men's sections (yes I know it's cheap and shit but at least I'm wearing something ludicrous that cost me £3... bad) I do admit I'm rather hypocrite as I am currently wearing a plaid, flannel nightie complete with plaits in my hair and wooly slippers. It's true, at night I get my Laura Ingalls Wilder outfit on and pretend I'm in Skins. Well I do when I'm not pretending to be Ginsberg. 

And adverts for work. I am still holding out for my telepathic application I have been sending to 6music since the day I first tuned in "Yes I do know lots of things test me Jarvis- The National? Why yes they are rather good but you acclaim them a bit to reverently. Oh look a song I've never heard before.. ooh thanks for waking me up to the Strokes again cheers"

As my inner monologue is coming out in spurts, it was only a matter of time-Hell was wrong Love doesn't come in spurts, words and inner monologues and madness do-I should probably wrap up what is a rather disjointed entry that is mostly being used as a state of proving I've hopefully not become an inane gimp, just a raving narcissist. 

Well actually the madness might be ongoing. I start to worry when I find it interesting that the billboards on the way to work have changed. 

I don't want to put many pictures in today. I want to paint something instead and put it up soon. My art work is becoming more and more hippy fair with sideline of hemp. It upsets me. 

Things I've been doing: Deliberating feminist ways to enjoy a play we're putting on in the town of Liverpool.. That Takes Ovaries is on at the Unity on the 10th, 11th and 12th... 

The people who find it strange I'm a feminist confuse me.. I enjoy filth but it's my equal rights to do what I want without being labelled a man hating menace.... pigeon holed into a place that created all the holes for pigeons in the world. 

Knitting... eating spaghetti... reloading all my music onto my computer as a mishap has deleted everything. I've been sat on my floor listening to Nico and sighing. 

There will be more I'm just confused by life.... and my loss of music has stolen my heart for awhile... emotions aside.. no wait no emotions aside I resent stoicism and silence.. 

and planning my trip to Coachella.... to explore the world. On the road again...