iknowyouknowiknowV4

I have already begun work on the project for 2k8, and it promises to be more of a whimper than a bang... which is slightly depressing. Still onwards!

I've been doing a lot of surfing recently. This return to an old sport (or, at least, one I used to indulge in) has prompted some massive rethinking on my part on life, the universe and everything. Suddenly the weather outside has meaning; this has never happened before.

Actually you know what? Fuck this shit. Fuck this blog, and fuck you.

Happy things.

Look for redesigns and all that shite soon. Maybe even today.

Guess who I hung out with last night???

I can't pretend to be anti-APEC. This little conference of world leaders has caused a descent in productivity normally only associated with Easter and Christmas. That holiday feeling is even in the air. Most of us are is casual clothes (apparently so we don't get beaten by the children who are skipping school to protest, a group of whom I just saw. They are very young and blank eyed. No school will do that to you).

It was, however, with some trepidation that I noticed the storm clouds gather last night. The sky turned dark, and it rained on me. An ill omen following the week of good weather that was. Bush arrived last night, and even the most creatively-crippled managed to draw the parallels together.

I'm going back to my coffee now.

Yes. APEC is in town. I have to work in the middle of the "exclusion zone" so I will attempt to both not get arrested, and get some photos of the wall. I'm not to bothered by anything like Bush or that... I am fascinated by the fencing it in thing.

So see you soon with some photos, or not so soon from jail.

I discovered Bloc Party away from everyone else. While I'm certain that I was dimly aware of their rise, and susiquent radio play, it was just before the shattering of a long term relationship that I saw this CD in the racks at Virgin near Tottenham court tube. I had developed a habbit of buying CDs because of their placement in the stores combined with interesting album covers, and I took this home to play to my then partner, who ismessed them, and this "new crap" in general I was into at the time. An indication of things to come, and so Bloc party became the sound track to a terrible moment in my life, gaining constant play time through a tumultuous change. A testimony to the music that after these events, it becaomes about other things than terrible feelings; It's increadible to think that a band can capture the very nature of a monterouse (in scope) city as London, but it's something that they certainly do.. for myself at least. Maybe it's because we both seem to have a love/hate relationship with London, or appear to have one at the very least. I'm very coy about compairing even my thoughts with this group because they are simply majestic, and I am not. No sir, and today they proved it to me.

The tent was packed, and leaking when they took the stage, with the noise of the crowd almost drowning out all coherent thought. But we don't need thought, we have a band that can certainly work a crowd.

I could say more about the gig. It was good, and I can't quite find the words though...

East London is indeed a vampire, as Bloc Party say. And yet I found myself strangly distressed at my absence form, dare I say it, home while standing in the middle of a dusty field, in the middle of nowhere, New South Wales (just), Australia. For one glorious set I was walking the streets of my adopted home town of London, crossing bridges, drink in the pubs, walking down Camden lock in the sun, going down to Brick lane to the Bengalie transport café to meet some somes for a cheap dinner, and going to waterloo to fight my way home.

Far too early the spell is broken, and the silent promise I made to the world to return to London again is lost in moment, stalled as life comes back to me, and I turn to walk out in the dust of my new home again.

But hey, it's hot here, and it's raining in London...

It is with much sadness that finished The Deathly Hallows on Saturday. I picked the book up from the wonderful Kinokuniya in Sydney. As always they've gone to a lot of effort when I arrived at 9:01AM to pick up my pre-ordered book. The staff were dressed as students, witches and wizards. Cauldrons, lights and smoke added greatly to the effect, as did the distinct lack of children. Not that I don't like children, it's just that there was no noise, which added to the slightly surreal effect wonderfully carried off beautifully. Maybe a child in the cauldron…?

But no, I collected my book, and went to the coffee shop and sat and read. And read. And read. And read some more.
607 pages in one day, and then off to the pub. Very, very good. Very sad, and maybe not the children's books that they started out as, but still very good. Yes. Good. Sad that it's over, but good.
Mmm. Good. Read it.

Although… maybe not the last chapter, which I understand was written a long while ago, and clearly demonstrates how the authors style and ability have greatly improved over the last 17 years. It feels tacked on because… well, it is.

For all of you wanting to get into this as soon as possible, I give you Potted Harry for beginners at the BBCs news site. It would have been amazingly useful to me, if I hadn't already of listened my way through Stephen Fry read them to me over the last weeks.

So I was going to write about my cultural couple of weeks, but then I realised that this place is effecting me strangely, if I consider these things to be *ahem* culture. You can all insert some jokes about heat and yoghurt of something like that here. I'm going to just sigh and walk off into the sunset.

When we see the fucking sun.

Index of "culture" for the last two weeks.
Treasures
JB Play
HPV
Men at Arms

I have a very old friend that I have not seen for years. Dan, apparently, directs a lot of plays now, which is weird because I was sure he'd do something or other with computers, but there you go. You can't have everything.

He is part of, or has formed (we really have not seen each other for a while), the archancellors men. They put on the magnificent Men at Arms, and it was good.

Um. Men at Arms. That is the site.

Some of the actors are not quite as good as some of the others, but that's what you get. Some are amazing (Cuddy, the Patrician) and some costumes are great (Death). I wish I could have put in a suggestion or two. Geekery would have enabled me to put a Vader voice synth in that Death Mask, and I have the greatest idea for a troll costume EVER…

But yeah. It was great.

I am excited