"Brighton Rock..."

Or a trip to Brighton beach

Today I went to Brighton beach, on my own, for no other reason than I wanted to sit on the pebbles and look at the sea. When I got there I drew the burned out pier from three different perspectives. I am no illustrator, I do not draw often, nor practice regularly (can you tell?) So today when I put a pen to moleskine, expecting words to flow, I was quite surpised to find myself doodling away. For a good hour or so.
Here it is, the burned out pier from three different perspectives...


Here is what it looks like from a forth perspective, the one where I was walking away.

It's pretty accurate, would you agree?

One Man: There's nothing out there you know.
Another Man: I'm sorry. What?
One Man (Gestures towards the sea): Out there. There is no point in looking at it because ain't nothing to see
Another Man: Do I Know you?
One Man: Look, trust me. There is nothing out there.
Another man: What about the world?
One Man: I'm sorry?
Another Man Out there beyond that horizon. The rest of the world.
One Man: Oh yeah? Bin there 'av ya?
Another Man: Been where?
One Man: The rest of the world. Seen it 'av ya?
Another Man: Well yes, on tele...
One Man: No, no, television ain't seeing. Television don't make it so. Eastenders isn't a documentary you know.
Another Man: (Looking to the first man) Excuse me?
One Man: "You've heard the expression 'aven't you, Don't believe what you read in the papers? Well it applies to TV too you know. It's all the same thing you know. Media.
Another Man: Wait, are you suggesting the rest of the world isn't out there? Over the sea, Beyond the horizon. That it's all just some kind of media based conspiracy? That out there, there are no starving children, no HIV crisis, no poverty, no malaria, no injustice of human rights, no crime, no war zones, no melting polar ice caps, no hurricane seasons, no tidal waves, no landslides...
One Man: No Benidorm, no magaluf, no Brits abroad, no water sports, no deck cheers, no sun burn, no...
Another Man: Wait a minute. There must be my mate Dave...
One Man: Yeah maybe your mate Dave has, but have you?
Another Man: Well no. (pause, looks out towards the sea) So what IS out there then?
One Man: Nothing.
Another Man: It can't be.
One Man: Well can you see anything?
Another Man: No
One Man: Then your eyes do not deceive you.
Another Man: How?
One Man: It is just a steep drop into nothingness, beyond that line, the horizon, is nothing and nothingness. At least for you and me it is. This is our whole world right here, right now. The only way we change it s by leaving it. (pause both men look to the sea) Tell you what pal, me and you, we'll start saving up, all those pennies, we'll leave this world and enter a new one. We'll take the streets of New York, Paris and Berlin...
Another Man: Wait, I thought you said none of that exists.
One Man: It doesn't. Not yet anyway. But it will when we get there.
Another man (bringing a can of Super Tennants to his bearded lips) : Oh, oh right, I get it now. You were being philosophical (drinks) like Plato.
One Man (Smiling toothlessly, and pointing his Can of Super Tennants assuringly towards the other man): Precisely.
The two sit in an isolated corner of the pier stinking of piss and dreaming into the horizon induced by haze of strong larger.

I sat in that same corner.


I found this sort of exhibition in an abandoned building. It was full of graffiti, strange wooden sculptures and the odd canvas. It seemed impromptu, but was most definitely organised. The picture above was one very small room you could probably only fit three people in lying down. It was full of tags and other various bits of casual graffiti. I wrote a bit in there. It was great, it was like shouting a private internal anxiety from a large building knowing that the world below are too far away to ever hear you, but still it is off your chest. A Grandmother came in with her seven year old granddaughter and tried to direct her eyes from all the swears and drugs related graf such as "Fuk da Police" "Legalize Weed" and "Hallucinogenics are Awesome" and towards such overused wit as "If you notice this notice you will notice this notice is not worth noticing." If you did notice that notice you may also have noticed that the person that wrote it was an idiot trying to pass his/herself off as witty, intelligent and a bit of a wordsmith yet failed to notice that people would notice that that notice was not of his/her own invention.


As a waitress I am trying to master Latte Art. So far I have not got beyond making a white splodge in the center of the drink, so when a waitress handed me this Latte today only two words sprang to mind... Show off!


The book I am reading is called "The Lazarus Project". I am trying contemporary fiction these days. It is well written and has pages with nice photos on them.

Banksy + Andy + Mandi Vs Bristol...


I went to Bristol this weekend with Andrew to visit the Banksy Vs Bristol Museum exhibition.

He drove, I took a 3 hour 15 minute train journey with two changes. It had been two weeks since I last saw him. You just try keeping the smile off my face as I see him, in the distance, walking towards me. We meet in the middle of the street with wide smiles and open arms. It is two o clock friday afternoon. We check into the hotel.
The four star Ramada. In Andrew's words... "It is basically a holiday inn with a nicer smell!"
Me: "and a swimming pool"
Andrew "and a swimming pool"
Me "and breakfast"
Andrew "and breakfast"
We enter the room. Mostly all I can think whilst in the room is "I wonder how many people have had sex in here?" Surely every couple that has stayed here. And with such great adult movies (At 12.99 a pop) as "smoking ladies" (as in they smoke not they are smoking hot, or maybe both, word play!) and "ladies in rubber", it makes you wonder how much love has been exchanged between a solo man and his hand. Sex has probably been had everywhere in this room... in that bed, on that chair, on that desk, against that wall, in that shower... Then I wonder, after all that sex, how sanitary can this room actually be.

We take advantage of hotel facilities, we go for a quick swim, we take a sauna with a guy convinced that Andrew is Max from Hollyoaks. The guy fills the room with menthol, so it is like sitting in a bowl of vicks. It makes me high, I leave feeling happy, light headed and chatty. I recommend menthol sauna's to everyone. We did not visit the Banksy exhibition as it was late in the afternoon, that is for tomorrow morning. Instead we belatedly celebrate my birthday with a pot noodle and bottle of Moet. (Little did I know at the time, as we were toasting my birthday, we were also toasting my dad, who was made redundant round about the same time. Good bye Audi A5, KIT, The bat mobile. My dad has been a very good dad to me, and if the joys of life were dependent on dad points then he would be living greatly. As it happens the joys of life are dependent on a lot of things out of our control, namely the economy...) We then explore Bristol, stumble upon a Punjabi festival in a park, drink cider, find a busy tapas bar, drink spanish/mexican beer. By this point we are drunk, impatient and unwilling to wait to be seated, we order a selection of meaty tapas and eat at the bar. Whilst we wait for the food I go through the intricacies of waitressing with Andrew. Later we drink more bourbon in the hotel room, attempt to go to a bar recommended by a friend of mine, but instead go to bed. Andrew falls asleep whilst I watch some crap film about a caveman living in the early nineties who befriends a couple of high school 'losers'. I get angry because Andrew will not let me spoon him...


The next day we are up later than we wanted to be (we were aiming to be at the exhibition by 9.30) neither of us set an alarm. We feast upon a full english breakfast and steal some pastries from the hotel to feast on whilst we wait in line. It was 11.00 by the time we got there... the queue was 6 hours long.
"Excuse me, what time do people start queuing up in the morning?" I ask
"Around 7.30... we open at 10." That settled it. We will return tomorrow.
In the meantime we explore more of Bristol.

We walk via the Christmas steps to the Eastside and view some great and not so great graffiti, drink 6.5% cider (this post suddenly makes me sound like I have become dependent on alcohol. But I was on holiday!) in a quaint cafe. It seems that graffiti culture is pretty prominent in Bristol. It makes you wonder what came first Banksy, or the Graffiti. There must be a pretty laid back attitude within both the community and council although, I did notice some graffiti that had been painted over/washed away, next to graffiti that was seemingly there to stay. Who decides what stays and what goes?


On the walk back we call into an antique shop that smells like stale smoke and general dirt, for some reason this smell reminds me of being very little, perhaps the memory of the family room in Rylands Rec or maybe the smell of an old persons home I once went into. We buy some LPs, a pound a go. Star Wars sound track, The Animals, Voyage - a journey through discoid (this was bought for the title and insane artwork) Blondie and Led Zeppelin 1 (This was bought because the Atlantic sticker was plum and green as oppose to the very common orange and green. After a quick consultation between myself and Andrew and a quick phone call to a friend, we decided that it maybe worth something, if not, it was a quid nothing much has been lost. Besides I said I would keep hold of it, as Andrew already has a vinyl copy. We are not geeks in the slightest.)

This is possibly the greatest LP cover I have ever ever seen

Then there was Banksy. It is possible that you began reading this post to read about the exhibition. Instead you got a load of semi interesting dross that has not really too much to do with, well, anything. In way I was trying to build a bit of anticipation, build things up in a round about way, let you experience what we also experienced whilst attempting to view this exhibition. As you read earlier, we decided it would be best to arrive first thing in the morning, in the hope that no one else had had this idea. Of course others arrived at the same time, but far less than four hundred (which is the capacity of the museum.) We sat on the road, in an Alton Towers style queue with two lattes, two cookies, a can of coke, a Big Issue and a copy of Slaughterhouse Five (very good read, must write about it on here some time.) By 9 the queue was more than three hours long. The doors opened at 9.30 (early). And here it is... The Exhibition.

Waiting... Tick followed Tock etc

I had been looking forward to this because, finally, I thought I had found an exhibition that I wouldn't have to drag Andrew around. We first entered a room which was fascinating. A sort of mock up studio full of Banksy's stencils. The beauty of Banksy is his accessibility, almost anyone can get it - whether you like it or not, you get it. And it is witty, and it is fun, and it does poke fun at itself, the art world in gerneral and it's audience. In that sense nobody is excluded. Almost. It is great watching a fifty five year old woman attempting to explain Banksy to her 5 year old grandson. At his age he is still making sense of the world that he see's, he is still accepting things at face value, he hasn't enough experience to value something as a form of artistic wit. So when Banksy juxtaposes a still life oil painting of fruit and meat with a handful of plastic, joke shop flies, he doesn't get it. He accepts it for what it is. At the very least he may appreciate its aesthetic, but he will not understand it in any greater context. He will not associate the flies as being a comment on the age/style of the piece, that they are mocking it's artistic integrity (whilst quite hypocritically posing as art itself - a joke in a joke.) The seven year olds however, have started to become a little more analytical. They have seen a few classic art pieces perhaps, and they are now capable of laughing when they see a portrait with a joke shop arrow in it's center. God help their parents when they get to the landscape picture entitled "Dogging", need I say more?


Banksy's wit left the brick walls and canvases. In the second room it found itself in sculpture and animatronics. Where baby chicken nuggets were locked inside a mock pen and pecked at a mc donald's BBQ dip; where two Tesco's Haddok fingers swam around a fish bowl; where a haggard tweety pie swung slowly and unenthusiastically within his cage. Although a very clever man, and dispite enjoying the work very much I felt that this work was a cheap thrill, I got it, it felt good, I was being let in on a joke. But so was everyone else, and in a way I began to feel a little cheated.There was no challenge to this artwork. But then again Banksy is constantly chanllenging his own integrity as art, and not only that, but the integrity of all art. And this is where it begins to get a little bit more interesting.


I did ask to be challenged. And here it is, a 3D 'Where's Wally?' only it was more of a spot the terrorist. A scale model of Bethlehem featuring 294 tiny model soldiers and one terrorist. I found him with a little help from a few other terrorst spotters. 284 soliders to one terroist, I wonder if that is an accurate figure? Probably not - that would be over analysing. Banksy is instant, you don't need to analyse. He is a form of social awareness.


The whole museum then turns into a form of "Where's Banksy". The regular exhibitions have been toyed with. Taxidermy, pottery/craft, fine art painting (classical-contemporary) minerals and so on. Hidden amongst each of these were Banksy. Suddenly things get very interesting. All other pieces in the museum can no longer be ignored. Everything is looked at and scrutinized. The Fifty Five year old turns to her grandson and asks him, "What is wrong with this cabinet?" Inside the cabinet are plates with traditional patterns hand painted upon them, amongst them, a printed plate featuring a photographic image of two kittens. Sometimes there is an item in the museum that you are convinced is a joke but then you find that actually it is a legitimate piece of art/relic/information. There is not always a hint. In the fine art painting exhibit, Banksy's caption would always say "Local Artist" and little more. In show cases there would be a found object intended as a joke, no explanation or caption. The whole experience completely throws you. The second you let your guard down is the second he pops up again with a new prop, and is ready to trick you into believing that what you are looking at is the real thing. We hovered around the mineral section for a good twenty minutes without seeing any practical jokes left by Banksy. As we were leavng I notice a few falic shaped rocks then placed next to them a subtle dildo. I laugh.
Andrew: "What?"
Me: "Those rocks, look,"
Andrew: "Oh yeah they do look a bit rude."
Me: "You don't know what I'm laughing at do you?" He looks again, we begin to walk off
Andrew: "Yeah I do, it was that last one wasn't it. The pink one, it looked a bit like a willy. It even had veins"
Me: "Are you kidding me?"
Andrew: "No it looked like a willy."
Me: "Andrew, that was a dildo, go back and look."
Andrew: "Oh yeah you're right."
I wonder if any of the practical jokes will be over looked and left in there by the Bristol Museum Staff. I bloody hope so!

It was worth the queue, but it wouldn't have been worth any more than three hours... at a push.

The queue from the afternoon

We eat in Pizza Express, I criticize the waiter. "He doesn't even know what goes on a Sloppy Giuseppe," actually he did, he was right I was wrong. What? I have only been working there two weeks.


Our journey ends with a run to the train station, the quickest farewell kiss you have ever seen (I didn't even get to pop my leg up like I wanted too. a run to the platform, falling up some stairs, reaching the platform, reaching out for the door handle of the train, only to be shouted at (quite harshly he nearly made me cry he was so harsh) "STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING! IT IS LOCKED! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED ON!" I take an alternative route home. It takes four hours.

2 Songs That Make You Say Yeah By.... Broken Social Scene

I'm going to try and make this a regular thing.

Backed Out On The...



KC Accidental...



Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes!

"The Still Sea Is Darker Than Before..."

(If you have it listen to Brian Eno's "Julie With..." right now!

To begin with I am in Brighton and the sea is bigger than us. Like the thoughts I am desperate to escape, it doesn't stop. It seemed to be everything when looking out at it at that moment in time.
That was the world and we are its disease. Nothing on the horizon. A never ending deep blue meets a never ending deep blue. That nothingness is what I desire. I want to throw my self into its center. Nothing in front. Nothing behind. Nothing to the left. Nothing to the right.
It seems that I would be able to find complete isolation there. Amongst the roughness of the sea I would be able to find a calmness, my peace. One blissful moment of clarity. In reality I would struggle against current and the waves. I don't run anymore. I face everything. A challenge is always a success, even when I fail. I am always reminded of my failures whenever I succeed. It is a tide. It is a battle against the current. But success is not important, survival is. Despite your insides being in bits, your face no longer cracks, it doesn't let on, and at the end the experience has strengthened you, you are alive. I lie on my back, floating, drifting, thinking of not too much, looking towards the sky, and spitting out the occasional mouthful of water. It is here, where there is nothing, do I realise that nothing matters, nothing but this. Moments, experience and tide. The sea gently rocking my body and carrying me into forever.
I am baptised. All is forgiven. I am new.
It is here where I can truly forget everything. The water washes over me and takes that torment to the shore. It is here I am free. It is here that I can finally forget. It is here where my life is washed away. Nothing else exists. Just me and the flowing sea. There is no love, no money, no hate, no fear, no sex, no desire, no time, only space. There is no longer anything that can torment. The world has disappeared, there is no life, just me the eternal sea and the eternal skies.
But the sea is alive, beneath me a different world grows, develops, and continues towards its destiny, towards extinction. There is nothing but fear. I am never truly alone. On the sea I struggle with violent determination, the rough current my battle ground, my lungs will fill with water, and my body washed up on the shore, back with everyone else. There they will either resurrect me or bury me.
It seemed more appealing to drown in the sea than to drown on the land.
To drown at sea would be to run.

As I look to the horizon, none of that matters.

I wake up every morning full of fatigue. Everyday is a challenge.
I force myself out of bed - it is easier to stay afloat when moving than than it is when I am standing still - I live.


I look out to the sea and I crave it's isolation.
To be truly alone.
No distractions.

Everything.

Nothingness.



We eat Mexican food. It is real nice.

Cumplianos Feliz...

23 years on the planet today.
23 pounds of tips in my pocket (seriously I made my age in tips today).
Mexican food to celebrate...
Happy Birthday to me!!!

Erm... There's an airoplane wing in the room...


There is this flat in London. It is high rise. It is ex council. It has an aeroplane wing running through it.

We are all invited to view this bizarre meeting of living space and aircraft, you simply need a ticket - naturally not too dissimilar to a plane ticket. There are events you can attend if you are lucky enough to get a ticket, these events are called "Salon", and they include book readings, performance and film screenings. "Nova-Kino" is the name of the film night, in which people sit and watch 5 interesting shorts, then discuss. And all the time there is an aeroplane wing in the room. Imagine that! Film buffs discussing technique, cinematography, nova-kino theory, media, art, with serious faces, deep in debate, and all the time, there is an aeroplane wing in the room! I need to get me a ticket and buff up on some nova-kino theory me thinks...

Check out www.phlight.org

Music would not have happened the way it did...


How amazing it must be to have influenced something so massive and massively.

What an strange/incredible person to place telephone receivers into the body of acoustic guitars at the age of 13. (Actually I am wondering what kind of sound that would make, something quite tinny and awful one should imagine, but interesting. Actually I have had and played guitar down the phone, it doesn't sound too hot!)

Something I will always find interesting is near death experience. Before I was born, my Dad (who is a scaffolder) fell down a lift shaft (it was before health and safety - no harness) and managed to catch hold of the scaffold moments before hitting the ground. Imagine that, a world minus me. Have I even effected anyone so greatly to make that much of a difference? (Andrew surely). Well Les Paul nearly died in 1948 in a car crash, 4 years before Gibson began to make the Les Paul, And two years before he creted multi tracking. Imagine that, a world without multi tracking... If you can't, just believe me when I say music would sound a lot different...

An 'ttractive guitar... The one above is a Jeff Beck (signature) 1954 Les Paul Oxblood. (oo er here comes the geeky bit...) It is a recreation of Jeff Beck's "heavily modified" 1954 Les Paul. Which went on to make some very iconic music for The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group - because Jeff Beck hasn't always played a Fender strat you know. As if you care... Here is Jeff Back (in the Yardbirds, with Jimmy Page) smashing it up. Well actually he wouldn't smash up the Les Paul so they smashed up this Hofner instead...



Great song, Stroll On - The Yardbirds 1966. The Movie is Blow Up. Must have watched this clip about a hundred times when I was seventeen. Initially Antonininini, wanted The Who to appear here, but could only get The Yardbirds... Lucky, as it is a rare glance at the Yardbirds with both Jeff and Jimmy playing.

(What it has been years since I was a guitar geek I am entitled every once in a while!)

"I'm not gonna teach him how to dance with you..."

I have these friends, Nicky and Eddie. One night we go dancing in an abandonded Heebie Jeebies (Liverpool).

Here is my friend Nicky. She is upset because she doesn't know how to dance.
It makes her sad that Eddie and I are so damn good at it.



Here I am dancing. What can I say? I am enthused by music...



Here is Eddie dancing. No wonder she is so upset. We truly are awesome.
Nicky hopes that one day she will be as truly awesome at dancing as we are.
Not to worry Nicky, we will help you. What are friends for...?





In this picture, Eddie takes Nicky through the basics...
Then I realise that Eddie has got the basics wrong. You should always, always, ALWAYS, start with the Jagger....




Eddie nods with approval, Nicky sits back down. It is all too much. She is in at the deep end. I try all the moves, skanking, soul dancing, mime guitar, mime drums, (...you think I am joking...) twisting, tango, fox trot, jiving, moshing, and break. Twisting she liked, the rest was a dead loss.

The Art of Standng Still...


A little over a month ago I posted this 'Bird Song'. I had wrote it to express my relief at finally being able to stand still after an intense year of... well not being still. Little did I know that I would still be traveling at such pace now. Still. But I am not standing anymore, it has become difficult to stand. I am jobless and without money, oppressed, I am being forced to remain here, inside my house, alone. Do not misunderstand, I am active. I am involved in a couple of projects, I am not letting my creativity diminish. Neither is my mum. Although my mum seems to have misunderstood the situation and confused the word 'creative' with 'laborer'.
"Oh well seeing as you can't pay me any rent yet you'll have to earn your keep," which is fine, absolutely fair, no problem, "It won't be that bad, in fact, you are creative and there are plenty of creative things you can be doing..." These turn out to be: helping to put up coving, dying the dining room chair covers black (I have not done this yet as we have no washing machine), painting the dining room chairs black, removing some canvas's off their frames and re-stretching them over new ones (she claimed my book binding skills would come in handy for that one...), assembling flat pack furniture... Today I spent the morning on my knees in the kitchen trying to remove the stuff that sticks tiles to the floor. Now this stuff was clearly never meant to be removed from the floor as it is still there. I have chiseled, hammered, scraped until I relised that my fingers were covered with blisters and bruises and also did not seem to want to grip at the hammer anymore. So I ate my dinner and gave up for a while.
What happened? When did everything just stop for me? I keep losing sight, the bigger picture. I am supposed to be saving to study an MA in a years time, but how can I save when there are no jobs? Everyday I wake up feeling heart broken, I force myself out of bed, I shower, I go to my mac, I check my emails, I sit and do whatever I need to do (like I say I have got a few projects), I can sometimes sit here all day, it goes so quickly. I look forward to my fortnightly trip to the dole office. I read books. I watch films. I live through others. I sit and eat my dinner. I remain still.
In front of me there is a box. It is a large box that contained a flat pack sofa bed (which I assembled last week). It reminds me of being a child. When a box meant hours of fun. I climb in it. It turns out to be a time machine.

Yesterday I was younger. The box is in my garden, only it is no longer a time machine, it is a space ship. It is a place I am destined to sit in for hours upon end, exploring the depths of our solar system, encountering aliens, maneuvering the card board walls through meteor showers (12th August...) and space junk, traveling beside crooked astronauts determined to ruin my missions... My controls are made of polystyrene and pens. There is even a space scene in front of me, I have drawn it in red felt. Then one day the box was no longer there.

I return to my living room but remain still inside the box.

Yesterday I was younger. I was sat in my room listening to my sisters Wham! CD (What? I was cool!) playing playstation games. Driver. Only I am not playing the game, I am cruising the streets making my own game up. It does not distract me it feeds me. My bedroom isn't like this anymore, there is stuff everywhere, shelves and stuffed toys. One day, we redecorated, my mum asked me to pack up everything on the shelves. I pack the soft toys into a cardboard box.

Then I am older. I am still listening to music, but I feel different. I feel sad. I am alone. My room is still full of stuff, no soft toys. I am fiddling with a lamp, trying to make a shade out of cardboard... the box.

I am back in my living room. Suddenly finding it hard to breathe. I am panic ridden and lower my arm to the floor to steady myself.

Yesterday I was very very young. My mum and dad are still together. That means I am younger than five. I am playing mouse trap on the dining room table with my mothers cousin Carrie. She is looking after me. We are the only ones in the house. We are listening to Queen. She says she hates Queen. I say she is wrong. 'Under Pressure' fills the room. She says she much prefers David Bowie over Queen, any day, he is great. I say she is wrong. Freddie is the best. (hmmmm). We put the game back into it's box.

Then I am older, but still much younger than today. Still at the dining room table, but it is my Dad's house now. I am playing chess with my friend Karen. Karen doesn't know how to play. I am angry. I have horrific pains in my legs and it is really grating. I toss the board in anger. Later we are in bed, my legs feel better. We do this thing in the dark where we look at each others eyes until we both turn into demons. Our eyes dark and hollow and other features shadowy. We laugh and turn on the lights. "That is scary!"

Then I am a little older. I have made a moon scene. This involves layering, flour first, powder paint second. The idea is to drop items from a height onto the layers to create craters. The scene has been created in a cardboard box.

My living room is still. My head is light.

Yesterday was younger. But I was feeling more myself. I could see his eyes. They were still able to stir up my soul, to give me energy, to elate me. Watching this scene the elation turns to a lump that I am now finding difficult to swallow. I pack up some work into a box.

Yesterday I was bookbinding. I was at ease. The bindery was empty apart from me. Mr Letterpress wonders in and makes a fuss then he leaves. Someone else enters the room, it is... this is not a real memory... It cannot be summoned...

Yesterday I was doing homework, was living in a different house, was playing football in the garages, was obsessed by someone else, and someone else and someone else. Yesterday I was longing to be older. Today I am.

My time traveling continues. Inside the box there are no polystyrene buttons, no windows, no magic, no imagination. I am not in control of where the machine takes me. Memories just appear before me, they are either unwanted or I yearn for their moments. There is one place I wish to go, but the machine won't take me if I will it there, I cannot force these moments. It lies so fresh on my mind anyway. I long to be in control of the machine so I can change things. So I can interact with my past self. So I can stop it.

Stop time. Even though today I am still, it is time itself that causes me a problem. Being still whilst time is still means not a second is wasted. And if it were still I could explore unnoticed, I would be an invisible visitor to a series of frozen moments, of photographs. If I had control of the time machine I would not travel through time, I would pause moments and absorb them. I would visit other peoples memories and I would find happiness there. I would pause time so I could be still without guilt. I would stop it so that I could cross oceans without getting my feet wet. I would pause it so that I could out wit arse holes. I would pause it so that I could hold someone without them knowing. I would pause it so I could screw with peoples minds. Similar to that film where the angel's comfort mortals, (I forget its name) I would hold onto people when their moment is paused in sorrow and hope that when time starts again I have somehow effected that person. I would pause it to do good, to be selfish, to gain control.

I step out of my time machine. Memories still flood. It wasn't the box, it was me, it was time itself. Standing still whilst time lapses, too much time to think, too many moments gone. I seemed to have relived my life in a month. Once upon a time I had the imagination to turn a box into a spaceship, today I have no imagination, just a lot of time. I find it hard to breathe and collapse to the floor for a moment. On the floor I realise that my enemy is not time but my self. Time is destined to tick on. It doesn't stop. What is it's fault if all it can do is move forwards? I stop. I need to keep moving. I need a job. Then I regain composure and head back to the kitchen to remove the rest of that stubborn stuff they use to stick tiles to the floor. I need to start living again...

I am going to work at Pizza Express in Crawly for a month or two. My sister's Gavin runs the one down there and seeing as it is the only job offer I have had I will take it. It is a new adventure. And it is right between London and Brighton. And I will get tips, I will get tips because I will be sweet and smile. If all else fails, I could always asked to be moved into the kitchen - I am an excellent cook you know.

A Beautiful Song


Everyone needs to hear this song. I am obsessed with it.

I will stop posting things about the Arcade Fire now.

A Birthday Wish List

It is that time of year again, my birthday exactly two weeks away.
I have been updating my amazon wish list for the past week. This year is the biggest it has ever been (did I mention I have a lot of time on my hands?)
Hopefully books, music and films galore will find their way to me.
Now, I am not expecting anything off you, your company on my blog is more than enough for me to treasure... but if you did want a peek....

A m a z o n w i s h l i s t o f a m a n d a k. g o o d i e r

I Am Adam Ant...

From time to time a word (or phrase) in the English language really makes me chuckle. A perfect example of this is adamant. I am currently rewriting a few things in preparation for the Manchester writing competition. Checking sentence structures, reordering, ensuring the messages were strong and so on. I had began reading aloud, getting very carried away. Practicing dramatic reading tones, fast northern sounding John Cooper Clarke style, deadpan slow monotone William Burroughs, a slow sort of flippant John Cale, Under Milk Wood Welsh accents- not that I was very good at that one, practicing should I ever decide to read them aloud to anyone other than Andrew, what would be the best style for me? Then I reached it, a sentence containing that word, I burst into a fit of laughter... "I have always been adamant..." the word always brings the vision of that 80's dandy, prince charming himself, Adam Ant. It is as if revealing a secret identity, "Now I know you may find this hard to believe, especially seeing as I wasn't alive when 'Stand and Deliver' was released, but you may now find that that was merely a convenient guise, and a clever one too. No one could possibly have guessed it but I shall reveal all now you see... I have always been Adam Ant."

It happens every time someone is adamant, I see greasepaint and laugh.
"He was adamant..." Was he really, how fascinating.
"I am adamant..." Oh come on, that's a lie, I saw him on TV last christmas, you look nothing like the man.
Of course this was the joke all along but I just wanted to point out it still resonates...

I once saw a guy walking down Tibb St in the Northern Quarter wearing a red military jacket. This was the only flamboyant element to him. He was quite a generic looking mosh style kid otherwise. Not quite the dandy his coat would have him seem. Anyway, it must have been around ten on a saturday morning. Two rough drunk lady's, one with red hair the other yellow, grey roots four inches thick on both, pointed at the boy. "Ay look. He's Adam Ant!" Poor sod I look over. He ignores them. They burst into 'Prince Charming', dance and all. Poor poor Adam Ant. "Ridicule is nothing to be scared of," I utter as if consoling the fella, even though he was out of earshot, and didn't really give a toss. I chuckle at myself and the sad state of 'Adam Ant's' current
affairs, then wonder if the boy actually knew what they were talking about. How many people remember Adam Ant? The boy was probably 15. When is the cut off generation for Adam Ant? When will he become forgotten? What is the cut off age for any time specific piece of knowledge/nostalgia?

I was, I am and always will be Adam Ant.

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