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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 |
ed_fortune
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12:19a |
Start of the year, I sent this CD out to a bunch of people as gift. Of course, the mail being what it is, it doesn't always get to everyone, hence the link and download here. The Track List, by the way, is: 01 MUSE - Knights of Cydonia 02 OK Go - Invincible 03 The Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr A 04 Serj_Tankian - Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition-HHI.mp3 05 Throneberry - Touched 06 Divine Comedy - Thrillseeker 07 The Dresden Dolls - Let the Sunshine In 08 The Mighty Bosstones - The Impression That I Get 09 Half Man, Half Biscuit - Turn A Blind Eye 10 My Chemical Romance - Teenagers 11 TISM - He'll Never be an Ol' Man River (for about for 5 seconds) 12 Paul and Storm - The Captain's Wife's Lament 13 Lacuna Coil - Stars 14 Victims of Science - The Device Has Been Modified 15 The Stranglers - Golden Brown Current Mood:  awakeCurrent Music: all sorts of stuff |
| Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 |
squirmelia
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10:52p |
Rotorua
We stopped to look at a waterfall; looked for fluorescent blue fungi out of the camper van window; plunged into hot tubs in Rotorua that night, surrounded by plants. The steam rising from every street corner in Rotorua, rising from gardens, rising from parks, worried me at first, after having been in Melbourne when the Black Saturday bushfires were raging across Victoria. I kept thinking that something was on fire. Of course, it wasn't, it was just the geothermal activity that causes the steam to rise. The smell of sulphur was strong. It felt magical to walk through a park with many different bubbling pools and steam everywhere, so that the trees would disappear in the steam sometimes, and then reappear. I felt like it was a whole different world we had found, there in Rotorua. In the park, I saw basket fungi, but did not at first believe it was fungi, because of the pentagons. I went to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland and saw pools of many different colours - red, green, yellow, multi-coloured craters, and the champagne pool; sipped blueberry wines and gooseberry liqueurs at the Mamaku Blue Blueberry Experience; saw lots of squelchy bubbling mud, with bubbles that would burst and spit mud into the air. |
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nedrichardsrss
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9:58a |
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artremis
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5:03p |
o dear - i'm going to be 36 at the end of the month and i still get asked "Is your Mum in?" when i answer the phone! An that's with talking the setroids for long enough and at a high enough dose to have the whole pseudo-adam's apple and vocal cord damage. Just how girly/childish was my speaking voice before that? Could only dogs and bats hear me? |
artremis
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3:58p |
again with the whole nature wantng to kill me thing
I am regetting saying "thanks very much" to Mr Downstairs when he offered to toidy up my garden in exchange for being able to use it for acsess. He's been great at the clearing but now he is burning a big pile of gren-not-very-famable stuff and even with al the windows shut it's pretty smoky in here. I've got trhat whole feeling like there are stones in my lungs thing and mega-itchy eyes Current Mood:  sore |
a_llusive
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2:50p |
Bespoke leather I can't afford
There was actually very little I was massively impressed with at this year's Hampton Court Flower Show, and of course many of the most impressive things were most expensive. Aside from various scented roses ( Peter Beale had already impressed at Chelsea in 2006), some unusual corydalis and pelargoniums and some hanging love bats R. hated from this guy who did all sorts of Professor Yaffle looking style stuff  , I have been left with an unfullfillable longing for various bespoke leather items, chiefly ( Non-vegan leatherwear cut )This ladies' tweed Courtfield coat by Katherine Hooker has also aroused sinful thoughts, as well as this Alexander waistcoat, the Hacking jacket and the tweed of the Hendre jacket and various dresses. However I can put myself off, as most of the fabrics, while lovely, don't look to be the most hardwearing of tweeds and, as Gav said contemptuously, they're only single lined. The Gift of Oil had amazing 25 year-old Balsamic Vinegar to taste, beyond my means. Oh, if you want a 12 ft dragon for your garden, look here at Dragonswood Forge and some really wierd gates here at Bex SimonI shall content myself with planning which nematodes to assault the slugs with, and considering which bypass loppers,I like best (currently the mini-loppers) while considering the merits of root trainers for veg. |
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nedrichardsrss
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7:09a |
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webofevil
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3:04p |
“Auspicious start” award
 The traditional throwing of a bride's bouquet for luck ended in disaster at an Italian wedding.
The bride and groom had hired a small plane to fly past and throw the bouquet to a line of women guests, Corriere della Sera reported. However, the flowers were sucked into the plane's engine causing it to catch fire and explode.
The aircraft plunged into a hostel. One passenger on the plane was badly hurt, but about 50 people who had been in the hostel escaped unscathed, as did the pilot. [BBC]
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duranorak
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1:32p |
Why is the surname hardest of all? Go too far one way and it enwanks the entire thing, swathing it in purest wank for all time, and too far the other way deadens the two thirds you've already got right. Ngh. Wavering between Troy Octavian Desmarais and Troy Octavian Hart right now, and I'm sure there are still other things. and. I realise that 'Troy Octavian Woolf' isn't actually all that bad, but 'Troy Woolf' really does sound like a bluff American army boy and I'd prefer to avoid that. although 'Troy Hart' might not be any better, it just looks it from here. Sorry, out of my mind at work trying to find people/things that don't exist, as usual, so thinking about this instead. I've got to find something, otherwise, you know, it's just sitting there being unfinished. Sigh. Edit - this is, though, not the right day to be thinking about this, because I have spent the entirety of today wanting to obliterate myself with kitchen equipment. So remind me I'm not to make any decisions based on how much I fucking despise myself :) |
fridgemagnet
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5:03a |
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huskyteer
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12:25p |
That Righteous Stuff
I had treats last night: The Right Stuff at the BFI, and a scoop of Eton Mess-flavoured ice cream on the South Bank beforehand. ( Read Stuff )Spoilers: The Russians get a man in space before the Americans do; the first American in space is a chimpanzee; the X-20 programme gets canned. Current Mood:  impressedCurrent Music: Pink Floyd - Yet Another Movie | Powered by Last.fm |
smiorgan
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12:34p |
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barrysarll
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11:14a |
Woke up. World still here.
Two Edinburgh previews last night. It wasn't surprising that both included material about the expenses crisis, the smoking ban and the general decline of British civic society - but what are the odds on them both having jokes about raping horses? When the Observer music magazine first hit, it was briefly the best music mag going - between the decline of the weeklies and the way the monthlies seemed trapped in retro rockist amber, that maybe wasn;t saying much, but still. Picked one up this weekend for the first time in ages and it seems to have followed the same trajectory as the Guardian's Saturday mag, turned into a flimsy, shiny guide for confused consumers, written by churnalists incapable even of contradicting a press release (I'm enjoying Neil Hannon's Duckworth Lewis Method album a great deal, but anyone repeating the lazy lie that it's the first album entirely devoted to cricket needs their genitalia used for a wicket until they apologise to the Cavaliers). One exception, though - Paul Morley talks about his crash course in classical composition. As much as I like Paul Morley's writing, a lot of his journalism lately has been on autopilot - still ahead of the competition, but far behind what he can do. This one has had all the usual tricks pruned away, without for a moment feeling compromised. Finished Joe Haldeman's The Forever War yesterday. I'm not sure where spoiler etiquette points when you're discussing a book from 35 years ago, but Ridley Scott's film of it comes out in a couple of years, so let's just say that I can see exactly why he feels there'd be a wider audience for it now, geopolitically speaking. One element I'm not sure he'll get on to the screen is the bit where, as our time-dilated protagonist encounters humans from 500 years in his subjective future, everyone on Earth has turned homosexual. A trope which also appeared - coincidence again - in the Cordwainer Smith story I read yesterday, 'The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal', written a mere decade earlier but considerably more terrified by the Planet of the Gays. Otherwise, what have I been doing? Finishing up Torchwood and the second series of Justice League Unlimited (both of which, surprisingly, have a greater degree of ambiguity to them than Alan Bleasdale's much-praised GBH, which I am enjoying but which is basically a pantomime). A (not quite) midnight picnic in the park - and the only hassle we got was a Fighting Fantasy-derived heckle when we were clearly playing a card game - stupid young people. Pubs, of course. A play on the Heath, or half of one. It wasn't a weekend that lives in legend, but it was fun. Current Mood:  enervatedCurrent Music: Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now) - Cracker |
carrot_rope
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10:00a |
Decorative Plate / Feminism / Vote for me!
Apologies for the radio silence, my poor neglected livejournal! I promise I will lavish you with all manner of attention and new work soon. But for now I have a favour to ask of you. This is a new picture I made inspired by 'The Awakening'* by Kate Chopin, which I just entered (fashionably/foolishly late) to the Don't Panic poster competition. Please vote for it here if you would be so kind!  I originally intended on this being quite a different beast. To start with I wanted to enter something to said poster comp because the theme was feminism and I felt like I could actually make something good for that. Of course then I couldn't think of anything at all, and ended up talking to my mum about this book. We both agreed that we thought the image of a woman underwater somehow worked well, without being overbearing. I had a good idea of what to do, it was going to really emphasise the themes of the book, and be made up of big brushy lines and bold textures & huge swathes of ink wash; it being a poster after all. Then while reading the intro to the book and seeing Aubrey Beardsley mentioned I started thinking about all sorts of other things and ended up scribbling this out, then felt completely compelled to make it. I ended up taking influence from all manner of stuff as well as Beardsley; decorative plates, Samuel Palmer, Jillian Tamaki, George Barbier, manga art and even the Moomins. Also I finally got round to using my Deleter pens properly and realising I can actually, like, draw with them! That's the first time that's ever happened with that sort of pen and am v pleased. So yeah, this may have become something quite different along the way. A print rather than a poster perhaps, and maybe more fanciful than at first thought. But, y'know, this is what I have. So I may as well enter it anyway! However, I'll probably try and make some nice prints of this regardless because I do think that's actually how it will work best. Plus I like it. * Which, when I checked the Wikipedia entry on it for this post told me it was 'one of the most boring books ever written. It has little value to people who are under the age of 35, who aren't married, and are not female'.... Aw, bless! So naive you can tell precisely who and why they might be writing such a thing. |
| Monday, July 13th, 2009 |
kerrickadrian
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10:48p |
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| Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 |
duranorak
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6:53a |
I may faint from how good this is. Pass it on. More of this, too, please, it is very nice when all my rhetoric about pop music can be supported by stuff that's out there instead of undermined by it (which reminds me, screw you, Friendly Fires). |
| Monday, July 13th, 2009 |
duranorak
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10:53p |
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mondoagogo
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7:04p |
argh
For some reason one of the html tags in my last post is simply refusing to close, no matter how many times I edit the damn thing. So, sorry if it's broken, but it's not my fault (and I don't know how to fix it).
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artremis
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6:30p |
So, other-people-who-are-now-called-differen t-names-to-the-ones-they-had-chosen-for-t hem-in-childhood. Do you get the thing when you hear an obviously parental/other-carer-ental voice calling your old name and turn around automatically, then momentously feel annoyed like you do when someone uses your old-name to be delibrately disrespectful but then realise they where calling to their own small who just happens to have that name and feel a bit silly? Or is it just me? Current Mood:  irritable |
mondoagogo
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6:39p |
Return to NotLondon
On Saturday I made another trip to NotLondon, in Kent this time, where I discovered many things, to wit:
On the train, I discovered that "Britain's best architecture was inspired by beer"1, and also that there is a random and unexpected obelisk sitting next to the railway near Swanley station. (Later googling turns up the information that it is a rather picturesque version of a coal tax post, which I'd never even heard of before, so there you go.)
From the car we discovered that lavender fields are amazingly — almost shockingly — purple, even when seen from a distance:
At Lullingstone villa I discovered that I am taller than a Roman cow, but still shorter than the average Roman woman. We also discovered that English Heritage can be wonderfully vague and contradictory about things ("we think this may possibly have been a shoe. Or perhaps a plate."). That sort of thing doesn't matter if you're with people who are curious enough to speculate on their own theories, though. The theories are usually more fun. There are some people who you can meet for the first time and fall so instantly into easy banter and conversation that you forget to introduce yourselves for at least two hours (not so much a new lesson as a reminder, that one).
Wandering through Eynsford village itself, I learned that the diocese of Rochester doesn't allow fake flowers in its churchyards, but "fresh flowers are very acceptable"; and that, even in the 21st Century, it is still a surprise to some people that >gasp!< a woman in her 30s would order a whole pint of ale for herself. I don't know who was more surprised, them at my order, or me at their surprise.
Back in London I was reminded that the world is getting smaller and smaller and it has absolutely nothing to do with men walking on another planet.
I also discovered that lavender meringues are rather tasty, too.
It was a shame we didn't go and explore Lullingstone Castle, though, and only passed by outside because, again thanks to some googling, I discover what an interesting place it is, from housing the oldest stained-glass window in England, to being one of the earliest venues of lawn tennis, to being the current home of a man once held hostage by Panamanian bandits for nine months. Quite some history. I think I'll have to go back. It's a great place to channel Fay Godwin, anyway:
I didn't have the greatest success with my camera on Saturday, because I was with a group of people who weren't wielding cameras and couldn't understand why I wanted to take so many photos of brick walls, and the light was really bad, but some judicious photoshoppery has rescued a few shots, which are here.
1What would BLDGBLOG make of that, I wonder?
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fridgemagnet
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5:15p |
I'm wondering whether I am stressed, tired, sick or caught the sun yesterday - all of which are true to some extent, and also interrelated - but I feel like death today. 
Weather's quite nice now though. |
fridgemagnet
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5:15p |
I'm wondering whether I am stressed, tired, sick or caught the sun yesterday - all of which are true to some extent, and also interrelated - but I feel like death today.
Weather's quite nice now though. |
ill_prezidante
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4:37p |
600k ride has now been done. 363 miles in total and I am now suffering the consequences. Nothing monumental to report about the ride save the epic downpour overnight and the last 100k being into headwind up a series of long slow climbs. 37 hours total. Food eaten in order of appearance: 3 oat and raisin cookies, coffee, tea, coffee, apricot danish, twix, banana, powerade, chicken pasta salad, banana, snickers, sausage roll, coffee, pork pie, powerade, flapjack, coke, pasta bake, squash, pasta bake, apple pie and custard, banana, juice, flapjack, birthday cake, coffee, flapjack, snickers, powerade, banana, flapjeck, cheese & pickle sandwich, Lucozade hydration drink, 2 egg + beans on toast, coffee, shortbread, flapjack, juice, 1/2 pack dextrose tablets, flapjack, 2/3 bag of nuts. All washed down with an estimated 2 gallons of water. Counties ridden through in order of appearance: Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire. |
mondoagogo
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4:27p |
exploration requires imagination
I've neglected this place a little since my epic write-up of my epic meal at the Fat Duck. Which is a bit of a shame, as I did some equally noteworthy and interesting things last week.
picture by Russell Davies
I went to see a real live moonwalker, the second man on the moon talk at the Royal Festival Hall. Given the original future-looking optimism behind the growth of both endeavours, it seemed like the appropriate place to hear him. This was especially reinforced not only by what Aldrin talked about, but by both the men interviewing him, Rick Stroud and Andrew Smith. As Smith said in his introduction, "They had to make everything up as they went; it was a gargantuan feat of imagination" which is something that is all too frequently forgotten. This imagination seems to be Aldrin's driving force to an extent, at least as a credo for living:
"All we need is the determination to define the best course, the imagination to set bold targets, and the willingness to take risks. The future of space exploration begins, as always, with imagination."
I actually didn't take many notes, because sometimes Aldrin would manage to ramble off on personal tangents that were hard to follow because they seemed to come out of nowhere. Other times, he talked entirely in soundbites like the one quoted above, which I suppose is to be expected given the number of times he's probably had to answer the same questions over and over again.
Ironically, the one question he's asked most is the one that he still struggles to articulate an answer to; that one about what it feels like to walk on the moon. His answer to this seemed the most genuine part of his performance (and make no mistake, up on that stage he was certainly performing), but unfortunately was the one where I didn't manage to take any useful notes of what he said. Aldrin's answer in this Guardian interview [via Russell] comes quite close to the answer he gave on stage, but it's more succinct:
"People want to know what it felt like. They want us in a few words to generate the enthusiasm that the world had as they contemplated what we were about to do. Well, what it felt like is something that we trained for. We were trying to treat it as calmly as we could and perform to the best of our ability. We tried to repress feelings of exuberance, of disappointment, and be proud and responsible people accomplishing the task that was given to us. That sounds kind of boring. Except that what we did was kind of earth-shaking."
Which reads as such understatement that you don't really grasp the sheer enormity of the achievement, especially if, like me, you were born enough years after the event for it to have entered into our culture as part of history, and therefore out of our grasp. Hearing him talk about it on stage, as he struggled to describe the sensation, and dropped the soundbites out of his conversation, I finally felt it. The idea that only eleven other people had done what he had done. How can you describe a sensation like that to people who not only have absolutely no commensurate experience, but are never ever likely to?
picture by Matt Jones
A couple of days later, I went to the BLDGBLOG book launch at the AA, which seemed quite appropriate, given that blog's approach to, well, everything. If there's one theme that unites all the posts on BLDGBLOG, it's the idea of exploration, and of finding new ways of looking at stuff that has always been taken for granted — which is of course, an idea that I have recently been exploring on this blog, too.
It was interesting launch, with talks by Area Code's Kevin Slavin and, of course, BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh. It was typically as full of fascinating new directions and ideas as the blog itself. Even though I've sworn not to buy any more books until my shelves have some space, I couldn't resist buying the book, and have forgone the two books I was already reading to dive into all the exciting features on urban exploration and architectural speculation. So far (I'm on part two at the moment), it's been a thoroughly stimulating read, although I do have a couple of minor objections about the book's design. It's been laid out along similar lines to a magazine, and while sidebars work in that format, it's a bit frustrating to be really into a piece of writing, and then lose the pace of it through having to turn over several pages in order to get to the rest of one sentence. That aside, I highly recommend it.
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webofevil
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3:37p |
Someone at the Sunderland Echo has an eye for the startling headline that can’t help but overshadow the actual story: 15ft Christ threatens wedding |
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