Soulwax & 2 Many DJs

Tomorrow. 9 till 6. Should be E-pic.

Ones to watch - #1

Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe

BBC4 Tuesdays 10pm

Watch a few (all) episodes here.

Past brilliance -

Biggest Cocks In Advertising

Imaginationland

Genius South Park action is having a THREE part finale?!!!11

It's better than Lost/24/Prison Break.

Will Kyle suck Cartman's balls?

It's a cliffhanger all right.

Good news everybody!

The surgeons are going to cut me to bits very soon!

For those not in the know a normal human knee looks like this (below) you can see the Patella or knee cap to those without medical degrees firmly placed in the centre of the knee, mine however is somewhere near Mexico. In the NHS's rapid haste, with 3 years of umming and arring over if they could possibly do me on the cheap, involving loo roll and sticky back plastic with an ounce of good will have finally told me what I've been telling them since I was 16, it's buggered. So come January sometime they shall cut me open, and rebuild my interior cruciate ligament (also below) out of some ligament left over from behind my kneecap. They'll also be trimming off my cartlilage because that's ruptured too. I assure you this is indeed a great thing, and should have me in crutches for one week maybe two, and back to full fitness within 5 months or so, by full fitness I mean playing sport well. I'll be basically fine in about 2 weeks. Enjoy the HUGE picture! (which you might have to click on for it to work proper)

However

Things stopping me from throwing myself to the mercy of rabid dogs...

Tickets to Hamlet this August bank holiday.
David Tennant as Hamlet.
Very near mine and Nathalie's two years.
Should be sublime, lovely seats, corker.


And, Patrick Wolf - Finalé show, Sheperd's Bush Empire 20th December.
Night in London, nearly Christmas.
Awesome.


See what I meant about oppertune moments?

N'night, tired head.

Oh and finally...(extra)

Oh ffs...


Ronnie O'Sullivan (Eng) 6-8 Marco Fu (HK)

Oh and finally...

England 1 - 2 Russia


England 6 - 15 South Africa


Second Placed - Lewis Hamilton GB 109 Points

I mean come on really, all that in one week?

Watching stars without you, my soul cried.

Put from your mind all thoughts of reason sensible thinking and reasons against for five minutes say.

Ok, you feeling free and lucid and maybe a bit sixties flower power?

Awesome, indulge me.

See over the last few months my hearts been telling me something that my brain can’t really correlate, more over something it can’t really control or really rationalise as much as my thought police mind wants to. I’m emphatically in love, truly. People band about love, I used to do it, I was part of the problem contributing to love becoming something no more than an adjective to which you’d use to describe your liking of cheese or shoes. However my heart tells me something different. It pulls at me when I’m apart from her, flushes rational thought away from me when I need to be with her, dopes me with serotonin when I’m lying on the couch with her, feeling how smooth her hand are, how small they feel in my hands.

I want to propose.

There we go, that’s the crux of the thought bi-pass between heart and head. Heart says blow it all and do it, head lines up the problems. Mainly that I worry that I don’t want to keep her engaged for the next three years. Heart says that’s how it used to be in olden days. Via that I mean the fifties. Head says if I had a fiancé I’d like to be nearer to her than I currently am. Heart says distance has proven no object as of yet. Head says I don’t want to send her off and distract her in her last year of university with the calamities of sensible living and almost too grown up ideas. Heart says we could cope. Head says I couldn’t afford the wedding she deserves. Heart says I couldn’t give her the wedding she deserves.

My heart and head are fighting with alarming frequency. Most of all I’m worried she’d say no (rightfully, we’re young) and me getting upset and spoiling things. Every part of me wishes to ask her, and opportunities are presenting themselves in the near future. I need a divine sign, or a less divine sign. A sign.

I am forever the fool and will be lead by feelings and emotions, and to some extent I trust them. Maybe heart will win over head in the end.

Please stop reading.

There will be no miricles here.

People try and hide the light underneath the covers.

Every now and again I’ll listen to Arcade Fire –Funeral. As an album it’s a stunning piece of work, but partly the reason which I love it so much is because it’s just packed with happy feelings. I got the album roughly just as spring was starting to be punctuated by summer. I’d broken up messily with Jennifer and I pretty much moped and twitted around aimlessly for months as is my way, I think I thought that I was being cool by wandering listlessly around doing nothing in particular.

The nothing in particular meant staying in a lot on weekends. I was 17, probably could have gotten into clubs but couldn’t afford it even if I’d got past the door. I really was skint, very very. It seems strange looking back on that now because somehow back then I could make ten pounds work for me so well, yet now I spend that on a hat. Regardless, I was super skint, super boring and pretty much super depressed.

Whilst watching Jools Holland, I happened upon a band, there were loads of them, they were dressed up smartly, spoke politely and played their first song, Power Out with passion and gusto, “more from them later” kept me from going to bed and kept my attention fixed upon my televisual box. As shallowly did the pretty blonde violinist. Regardless, for their finale they played Rebellion (Lies). I think it took 5 seconds for me to decide that this would be my favourite song in a long time, I hit record. I went on to watch that video numerous times, I knew what must be done.

I spent £12 pounds on a little paper card covered album, with gold embossed. It felt like a golden ticket, I pondered it on the bus back, what would it sound like? Would the other songs be as good? I noted that Rebellion (Lies) was to be the second to last track.

I scuttled up to my attic, hot and bright but the only place I could play music loudly uninterrupted, and I needed no diversion, this album I had decided must be heard from start to finish.

I’m no good at describing music, but it’s sumptuous. And it evokes new emotions from me every time I listen to it, currently, writing this Crown of Love has new resonance. (But I’ll square with you; I’m still waiting for Rebellion Lies). Nothing much changes. That’s not even slightly true, everything’s changed for me since I first heard this album and fleeting happiness has been exchanged for lasting smiles, my heart is open and my head is held high.

Beneath the stars came falling on our heads,

But they're just old light.

Lovely.

We Fail.

For.Fucks.Sakes.

Russia 2 - 1 England

Why did we bother with the cold war if we were going to bend over like that?

Last night...

I somehow booked afternoon tea for two at the Ritz.

I'll be calling later to cancel that then...I was just trying to see how much it was going to cost...

No joke.

"Thank you, your booking in the name of Mr T D Marshall at The Ritz London has been confirmed.
Please make a note of your booking reference number which is detailed below:

Booked via website: The Ritz London
Date: Thu 20-December-2007
Time: 11:30
Persons: 2
Seating Area: The Palm Court
Address: 150 Piccadilly London W1J 9BR"

lame.

Suppose I kept on singing love songs.

I think this is really quite beautiful.

Regina Spektor - Fidelity

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind all of this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
when it breaks my heart

Suppose I never, ever met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never, ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never, ever saw you
Suppose you never, ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course it's gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better better better better

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind
All of this music
And it breaks my heart
And It breaks my heart

I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind
All of this music
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
and It Breaks my Heart
when it Breaks my heart
but it breaks my heart
when it breaks my heart
breaks my heart
and it breaks my heart
and it breaks my heart
and it breaks my heart
and it breaks my heart

Maaaaaaan

Party got out of hand fast.

Don’t think twice it’s alright.

Summer’s fucked, I don’t think autumn even gets a look in anymore. There seems to be a defining week in which leafs fall off trees nights draw in and everything becomes a little bit more dark, depressing and shit. As I sit in my room, with my heating on which is slightly too hot (but the off position makes it too cold) I stare out of my window to the M6, which is currently pulsating with light. This depresses me. Not the fact that I have a concrete behemoth outside my window, no, the mere fact that it’s nearly 9pm and that road is still full of people. People are trying to go home.

One day they’ll be a time where I don’t cite my literary references from songs but for now - “why wait any longer for the one you love?” It’s a terribly bohemian and utterly unfeasible and unworkable ideal but really if there’s someone out there you love and you want to see them but, you know, you’re doing this or that, fuck this and that and go and jump on them. I sorely wish I could take my own advice.

Sigh

Asda Shades "cushion soft" toilet paper should be brought to rights under the trade description act.

Explanation

Weeks pass quicker when you have something to look forward to. I tried something different today and the result is underneath, can’t decide if it’s pretentious or powerful. It’s about Nathalie, but that’s quite obvious. It’s about waiting and remembering things in the spaces between not actually having those things to hand. So what you’ve got it snap-shots and memories. All jumbled and messy, waiting for clarification.

eilahtan's words

Spending time. Indifferent. Lost focus. Loosing time not knowing time where has it all gone? Missing you. Missing touch. Taste. Times. Times together times apart. Times apart feel longer still. Times together don’t last as long as needed. Needs. Closeness needed. Need to feel your hand in mine. Hands. Hands smaller than mine. Softer than mine. Smoother than mine. Less bony. Less worried. Less time. More time spent on phones. More time spent writing. Tapping away. Tapping away on phones. Phones ringing. Phones vibrating. Making me happier. Making me think. Talk. Sad. Happy when alone. Happy when alone in a crowded room. Happier to be alone with you. In a crowded room. Crowded out. Crowded thoughts. Loss of concentration. What was said? I’m half deaf. Sorry. Music too loud. Still see your lips. Can’t lip read. Don’t need to. See you. Feel you. Touch you. Here. All I need is here. Feel safer now. Waiting for your voice. Waiting to see you. Four days. Four days till trains. Trains to take you. Borrow time. Beg. Lose yourself. Postpone. Wait anxiously. See your face. Light up. Colours vivid. Can smell again. It's you. It's now. It’s you I’ve been waiting for.

Tiny Dancer

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

Jesus freaks out in the street
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad

Piano man he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows, the tune she hums

But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can't hear me
When I say softly, slowly

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand.

From the second you fit yourself into the glorious opening piano riff you feel at home in Elton’s voice, where he’s going where he’s from and where he wants to take you. It’s a shame he’s such a figure of fun now a days, but in all fairness he doesn’t really help out his fans on that notion much at all.

It’s a love song written by Bernie Taupin, Elton’s lyric writer. For while John possessed some of the finest soul golden lined pipes in all of the 70’s he couldn’t transfer that to words at all. He and Bernie marauded the US touring and writing, producing untold amounts of music, they were simply prolific. This song symbolises Bernie and John coming together, doing what they do best and creating a mother God of a song.

I don’t know, listen to it and try not to think about his fashion directions and you’ll be fine.

I can't stand...

English Language studies, it's as interesting as a man telling you about his breakfast when in fact he didn't have time for breakfast and had to make do with a nutri-grain bar so instead he reads the ingredients off the back of the packet in a monotone voice as if to say he's not even interested himself but you'll be interested because you've got no where else better to be.

GAH!

Constant Amusement

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Summer pt3 Uni life.

And so to the final large development of the summer/early autumn, me leaving home and going to university. This has been a rather uprooting and traumatic time all round for me, and one that’s taken a while to get used to. Leaving everyone behind has been tough. Leaving Dickie after only just getting him back, leaving Mike who’s been my main man for the last few months and leaving Nathalie just when I was getting used to seeing her every day.

Most of all leaving my parents was tough, I love them to bits. Equal parts to annoyance.

Uni is fun though and I’ve made new friends and got to know people which has been fun. My course looks like it’ll burn my retinas out by the end of it all with the vast reading lists, but hey, I am reading English Lit. My lectures and teachers all seem thoroughly nice sorts, my tutor emailed me to wish me a happy birthday. I think I fit in here.

My university is no longer called UCE (University of Central England) however, I’m now a student of Birmingham City University, which sounds a bit grander and by the looks of it means we’re getting plasma screens put in the windows of the buildings. Hurrah for change eh?

Here’s evidence of my cooking skills,

Here's my cooking buddy Shaun



And the view of brum from my penthouse (complete with greyhound track)

Fun times await, I've blogged enough.

Night loves

x

Summer pt2 Sidari

“The sky is often used as a metaphor,

I suppose it’s because it’s so big and expansive,

When a long stranded cloud sits just above the horizon,

Leaving a strip of clear blue beneath it,

It becomes the panorama,

And you turn your head 360 degrees,

And the same line follows you round,

If the land is sufficiently flat,

Really nothing can be compared to it.” – Paul Smith

So onto Sidari, which came at the right place at the right time with the right person doing the right things with me and enjoying every moment. Leaving the day after returning from Leeds the day of leaving was a strange one, an evening flight a strange un-day. Nathalie and I went shopping in the day time through want of not wanting to just sit around all day willing ourselves onto a plane.

Soon enough 5 came around, and so did 6, 7 and 8 and finally 10 decided to show up and we got on our plane. Flying scares me and enthrals me in equal measure. Deep down I believe it’s not normal or right that a human being with legs and arms can be 15,000 feet above land, sea and air but at the same time you get such abject beauty from the height that my mind forgets my worries for minutes at a time wherein I take it all in. I end up feeling small, overtaken by the vastness of the open expanses. Then we get turbulence and I fear for my unborn and previously un-thought of children.

We arrive after me placating myself with the greatest hits of Sir Elton John through some serious (read: minor) shaking and rolling of the plane. Well Tiny Dancer anyway. I could write an essay about Tiny Dancer. But for now the fact is that it’s brilliant and that’ll have to keep you going. Corfu has a strange angular airport with all sorts of styles being attempted, but one never actually having authority over the other. It’s dizzying after 26 hours on the go.

(Stray Lizard)

We arrived at the hotel at 5, local time and went straight to sleep. I don’t know what it is about foreign climes but in the dark they mostly have to look of a building site or war zone about them, it’s all a bit strange and scary. I assured Nathalie of this but she was very worried. I was secretly worried, but after years of having the parents that I’ve had you learn to keep those sorts of things to yourself and make the best of a warzone if you have too. However this really wasn’t necessary because the place was simply lovely! The wonky shower rail was fixed by the time we came out of the pool and the cleaner was really kind to us, we locked ourselves out on the third day and I had to ask her half naked (the acceptable half) and soaking to be let back in. To be honest she probably thought we were mental. We’d made friends with a cat which I’d named Timothy (later found to be a female Timothy with Kittens) and she’d come in and have food in our apartment, and twice Timothy left with me and Nathalie and walking past a rather confused maid, obviously wondering if we were sleeping with stray cats on holiday. We left 5 Euro, hoping this princely sum would buy her silence.

(Timothy's Kittens)

A lot of the holiday was spent larking in the very literal sense around the pool and sun bathing, whole heartedly unspectacular but I loved every moment of it. We did our own shopping and cooked our own meals and I felt as if Nathalie and I were living together just like we had done for a week earlier this summer and it was amazing. It wasn’t jarring, I feel more comfortable in her presence than I do at home. The miniature homes we make while together keep me happy. It’s in stark contrast to what we’ve got for the rest of the year on a whole, snatched moments and weekends together. I love our snatched moments, I can get out of situations and feel happy even if it is only for a few days at a time, and they’re no less special. It just excites me that we’re capable of being together for longer periods without wanting to kill each other.

(Part of Corfu Town Old Fort)

We joined in quizzes and did film nights; we went for walks along the beach and held hands.

Sidari is an inheritantly beautiful place. Its views are stunning but jarred against rapid and obviously un-planned development. Sections of Sidari seem rushed and un-kept but the parts where you can’t stick a block of flats on are simply gorgeous. The architecture in Corfu town is chaotic and draws from all sources but is beautiful.

(The Popcorn Seller, Corfu Town)

I loved my holiday; it was the best present I’d ever been given and was everything I needed and more.

I love her quite a lot. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that do I?

Summer (Pt1) Leeds Festival

The months of august and September where particularly sparse writing times for me, for one I wasn’t really around a computer for too much of it all, and secondly I was too busy living the events and soaking them all up, I didn’t really want to ruin it all by rationalising it in my head. So now, in hindsight I look back on one of my favourite summers in a long long time.

Leeds Festival.

Leeds festival is good fun no matter what happens, that’s what we all had in our minds and to a certain extent that’s still universally true. I had to think this harder than most this year, because frankly the line up was sparse and obtuse. My favourite bands were clashing or on in mid day, people had gone mental for nu-rave and the beer were a ten pence cheaper. However, this all was eroded upon the first day of glorious sunshine and good old fashioned joshing.

Friday’s highlights included buying the guardian and thinking that Trent Reznor looked like David Gest.

Saturday’s highlight was seeing MAXÏMO PARK (sorry but they have to be in caps) blow the entirety of Leeds away with some as always jaggy art pop driven genius. I can’t hear them without smelling room oderiser. They just make me happy, they’ve got artsy lyrics about girls and love and roughly 14 amazing choruses. Me and Philip greeted each other on the morning after with –

“Five times five equals?”

“TWENTY FYYYYYYYYYVVVE!”

Amazing, topped off by a rather thin but ultimately sublime Patrick Wolf the day was one to be savoured.

Sunday came round with pangs of guilt and regret. I’ll tell you the tail but first you must agree not to judge me or condemn me until you know the facts. On Sunday I burnt my friend’s guitar. Right. “Bastard” you’re thinking and think you might, however here be the facts and in some way there is a redeeming logic to it all. Skip back a night to the Saturday of fun times, I’d had fun and as with fun, when 4am roles around you kind of get tired and in thinking that you’ll be up in roughly another 4 hours anyway it’ll be best to get some sleep. (Due to the transparency of tents, and the overzealous nature of Leeds campers). So when 5 rolled around and some CUNT sorry but CUNT was playing “Why does it always rain on me?” for the fifteenth time with boy band vocals added that perfectly rational part of my psyche snapped. I was not only over the edge of reason I was somewhere past Cuba lighting up a cigar and giving the US border guards a rounded V sign. I cracked that night in Branham Park. And I’m not proud of my exacting revenge.

Sunday passed without remark, the bands were average the cider was flowing and I’d finished off my box of wine, I’ll be very honest in saying I was very drunk. Yes very drunk in-fact. However not too drunk not to remember I had yesterday’s guardian in my tent that I hadn’t read yet and through utter despair at the line up headed that way with Sarah, possibly Hayley too. We arrived to find Phil, Nic, Georgia, Mike and Dickie. Possibly others were there, I’m not sure. They seemed to be stuffing grass into Luke’s guitar. Now call this full blown twatishness or sheer excitement but seeing my tormenter royally stuffed filled me with a passionate joy. And like most passionate joys when inebriated it bypassed my brain and went straight to my foot. And my foot went straight through the guitar. Oops.

I hadn’t quite intended it to all happen so soon, but then the memory changes and becomes confused and quite separated through myth and fiction. I can remember someone shouting “BURN IT” (this may have been me, though more than likely Phil) and I dutifully obliged, it seemed those fire lighters were in my pocket for the speed at which they were dispatched. The guitar was gone. No one claimed the deed, no one dobbed the other in. We passed it off as a moment of madness.

So there we go, judge me. (On a side note the guitar was a £9 child affair from Asda)

In true “American troops in Basra” style we decided not to just get our kicks but to incriminate ourselves with photographic proof.

So that was Leeds.

And here’s our truth.