BNP beat Lib Dems in GLA elections in City & East…9.62% to 7.33%…what the fuck is going on.
And Boris Johnson is the mayor.
edit: and how the HELL did 4,754 people vote for the National Front in the South West constituency? that’s…quite a lot of people. And actually, in City & East, 18000 people voted for the BNP. Over half of the people who voted for the Conservatives.
I am getting ready for the blacks and the gays to be deported.
I like riding my bike. My bike doesn’t particularly like me – it only has two gears that work, and I got a flat tyre on my way to the supermarket yesterday – but hey, it’s got to live with me. Living in Muswell Hill, however, proves rather problematic for our relationship – if I want to go anywhere further than either a) East Finchley station or b) my friend Lottie’s house, then there are some quite serious hills to contend with.
Yesterday I thought to myself, I’ll cycle over to Hampstead. Three-quarters of the way up Bishops Avenue on my way to Hampstead, I got off my bike and walked to the Spaniards.
It’s a basic problem of too many hills. If I wanted to cycle to Camden – approximately 5 miles – I would go down three hills (including one rather long and steep one, from Highgate down to Archway) and up one, as well. Hampstead, too, involves two hills, despite being roughly the same height as Muswell Hill. North London is very, very hilly.
Avoiding the notion that perhaps I just need to suck it up and keep doing it until my legs are strong enough, what about CYCLING BYPASSES? You know – “devices which allow some people to drive from point A to point B very fast whilst other people dash from point B to point A very fast”. That’d get more people on their bikes, just two lanes going there and back, with exits at various intervals. Perhaps Muswell Hill to Swiss Cottage, with an exit at Hampstead. Certainly Muswell Hill to Highgate. All these places which are vaguely the same height but are hindered by the down-a-hill-up-a-hill problem when working one’s way between the two, and aren’t serviced by the Parkland Walk (see: Highgate-Crouch End-Finsbury Park).
All other route suggestions welcome. I am sure that with this plan I have finally hit the intellectual target often known in life as “genius”, and if all of the pro-cycling mayoral election candidates adopted it as a last minute policy…well, I would expect a very large sum. That’s all I’m saying.
The classic words of Cyril from “Five Children and It”, which tracked the latter part of my bank holiday weekend.
I am feeling currently as though perhaps the phrase ‘dirty stop out’ was invented for my very own purpose, having not been home since Thursday. My grandma once reckoned that ‘you can live for free in London’ – I think she meant with all the free concerts, art exhibitions etc etc going on as opposed to food and rent, but I am doing my best to cover all bases.
Ridiculousness began on Wednesday evening, when GoodBooks played the Buffalo Bar for the last time in our four-part residency there over the summer. So I suppose summer must really be over. I went to pick up Sportsday ‘Hugh’ Megaphone from his gig at Cargo after GoodBooks finished playing so he could do a nice late night gig with us. It was brilliant, as ever. Later back at mine Max and I talked till half 5, decided it would be a great idea to go to Primrose Hill, then once up there worked out that we might as well go for breakfast now, really, given that it was indeed breakfast time. And so it came to be that we were sat outside the Wolseley at 6.55am, waiting for it to open its doors at 7am, and then finished by 8am – Max having left his bacon roll when he started feeling the effects of the night.
Thursday was wasted being asleep, then. A friend’s birthday in Bedford on Thursday night and a trip to Brighton to see a band on Friday evening, which deserves its own entry, really, and so it shall do. On the subject of entries I am relatively keen to write about topics as opposed to events far more often, and I have a couple on the go of that ilk. Hooray.
I stayed in Brighton till Sunday morning which was very relaxing – lots of Steely Dan on the CD player (a relatively new discovery for me) and more pages turned in Rupert Everett’s autobiography (very good). Then to Reading town for a quick meeting, roast lunch and, oh go on then, a bit more beer as if I don’t drink enough, before hot-footing back to London to go to, oh, hang on, another pub. GoodBooks came to DJ, JP played MF Doom, and I went to my managerial friends’ party in Marylebone, where I remained until this evening amidst doses of fry ups, more beer, Thai food, Five Children and It, and, last but by no means least, Fraggle Rock.
And now home. Much work pondering and stuff to be done over the past few weeks which I need to hone in on in the next week and get down in ink. At the moment a lot of things are merely ideas floating around my head as opposed to even in pencil – so maybe it’s a week of first drafts.
Technorati: Five Children and It, MF Doom, Fraggle Rock, Brighton, Reading, Reading Festival, Sportsday Megaphone, Buffalo Bar, Wolseley, Steely Dan, Rupert Everett
I am only a third of the way through, and as Blur are one of my favourite bands (I think they are tied in first place alongside the Pixies) I am sure I’ll blog about this again. For the time being I will note that this book makes me feel stuff about my life as well as a tad more informed about “the second drunkest member of the drunkest band in Britain”, as the blurbs and reviews of this book constantly throw at us.
I am 19 years old and I live in London, I can get into most gigs I want to go to for free and I am not, on the whole, particularly short of money – certainly not any more so than any other 19 year old. There is no reason for me to not be the funnest person ever. But I have always been a particularly sensible sort of person (except for when I’m not. c.f. Brighton) and I quite like being in control of myself and my actions. Reading this book makes me think that really I would like quite a lot to spend more of my time wandering around London drunk, finding a headquarters (Alex James seems to understand the importance of an HQ better than most. I also understand the value of an HQ, but have yet to find anyone else who shares my belief in the importance of such a place) and watching tons of crappy/brilliant indie bands with my friends before lying in a gutter discussing the intricacies of, I don’t know, Foucault or someone.
I am not sure why I don’t do all of that, whether it really is just that I’m too sensible (I am, after all, a manager of a band, not a a member of one, and if I was less sensible and more talented I would probably not have found myself here), or I haven’t found the right sort of people to headquarter around with (-that shall be my new verb to describe these actions), or whether times have changed.
The early ’90s were, by most accounts, a relatively good time in the music industry and everyone was still quite excited by the fact that they had sold records to people twice by flogging the CD twenty years after the vinyl. Everyone had nice expense accounts and no one was freaking out about BitTorrent. If you went out it was probably to see an indie band, not to catch DJs at Fabric (sometimes that can be good. But it makes my head hurt after a while, in a way that the last four minutes of Leave Them All Behind never can). A conversation with one of the marketing bods at Columbia recently touched upon whether the rise of Franz/the Kaisers was “the second Britpop”, and she said (having been there the first time round) that she thought “yeah maybe…but where are the aftershows?”. All the shoegazing and aftershows make me wish that I’d been born about ten years earlier. Actually a lot of things make me think that, but that’s another story.
Sod all that. I’m probably just too sensible. The good life is out there somewhere! There is probably some merit in working out where to find it.
On another note I forgot to mention that I did a guest blog for Ged Doherty the other week. He is the chairman of Sony BMG and apparently asked me to write a blog for him after I spent some time insulting him and his record company when I was drunk after a gig. I don’t really remember that at all, so maybe I am more fun than I realised. And it makes me feel a little less indie guilt about GoodBooks signing to a major if I am slagging said major off to their faces. It’s not the people that I don’t like, just all the protocol and procedure and always, always the consideration for the bottom line. It’d be much easier if we all just went to the pub when times seemed tough.
Technorati: Blur, Alex James, Bit Of A Blur, Sony BMG, Ged Doherty, Foucault, Britpop, Ride, Why Aren’t I More Drunk More Often
At Glastonbury I met quite a few new people, including Sarah who manages Fanfarlo. On Friday we decided to meet for a drink before going to see Sportsday Megaphone, also known as Hugh – he played with GoodBooks in Cambridge last Saturday and was awesome.
Despite technical issues he was great – possibly not as good as Cambridge though I think that was atmosphere and PA systems rather than performance. Afterwards we went and met Colin – recently of DiS fame but now happier and more fulfilled working for Big Life Management – and his flatmate Paul. At 2am we decided to go to Primrose Hill. I quoted Blur a few too many times. It’s a beautiful view up there at night, Canary Wharf flashing and the London Eye all lit up and the Gherkin barely visible. We stayed there for a few hours then ran down the hill as aeroplanes…couldn’t quite stop running. Then someone had the idea of “Let’s go to Blackpool”, and that changed to Brighton, and then we set off. We got to Brighton at 6am and started wondering why no one else was about. Played on the beach till 8 then went and got Breakfast At Tiffany’s…we were all feeling a tad rough by that point. Then back to the beach for paddling and an ice cream (9:25am) and a trip down the pier.
Even though I knew Colin and Sarah both a bit we are none of us best of friends, but it was ace to just up sticks and do something a little out of the ordinary. Especially as it turned out Paul had never been to Primrose Hill or been to Brighton. Crazy. Next time it would be nice to not be the sober driver but it was still all kinds of fun. Unfortunately I am paying for the whole not going to bed thing with a sore throat. Bet I get a cold. GROAN.
Technorati: Primrose Hill, Brighton, adventure, new friends, Sportsday Megaphone
Last week I kept on eating bacon despite it being bad for me. On Thursday morning I had a revolutionary experience in the form of posh breakfasts – Gareth (of Drowned in Sound/I Was A Cub Scout managerial fame) and I decided to hit up the Wolseley on Piccadilly and were so taken by its genius and brilliance that we reckoned we’d go there as often as possible with as many different people as possible.
From the Wolseley/DiS offices I went on to Glastonbury. That was a good weekend. As everyone ever has said long before me, Bjork and Arcade Fire were among the highlights. My best moment, though, has to be Africa Express on the Park stage on Saturday night. Damon Albarn, Baba Maal, The Magic Numbers, Tony Allen, Fatboy Slim and Terry Hall, amongst others, all on a little stage just jamming away. I used my production pass to great effect and ended up side of stage when they did Rock The Casbah – it was absolutely brilliant. My only regret of the weekend is not spending more time with The Magic Numbers – we seemed to keep on missing each other which I think was mostly my fault – but hopefully I’ll see them soon.
Can’t remember the past week at all really. GoodBooks did Loose Ends on Radio 4 on Saturday which was good fun – BBC bacon sandwiches are top notch – though meeting Rupert Everett and David Suchet first thing in the morning was quite bizarre. I went to the pub in the afternoon with Dan our Digital Man where we bonded and discussed the dullness of weekends. There’s nothing like working out how to exploit Facebook to sell records on a Saturday afternoon, and so that was good.
This week holds booking some gigs for Le Tetsuo and preparing for GoodBooks ICA gig for the iTunes Festival, plus a trip to Canterbury on Wednesday to see GB in the studio. I’ve only been to Canterbury once, I think, but I’m far more excited about hearing new GoodBooks tracks for the first time in a couple of months than I am with the prospect of a new cathedral to add to my non existant list of ‘Cathedrals What That I Have Gone To’.
Technorati: I Was A Cub Scout, Le Tetsuo, Glastonbury Festival, Piccadilly, Wolseley, iTunes Festival
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