cheese cubes 19.04.06

again the Lord fired up His 15 000 candle power maglight, double AA batteries included and beamed it onto me and i glowed.
thursday could have been just another day- saying farewell to a work colleague and munching volumes of hazel nutty baclava, but no, i needed a story, a story i could tell my grand kids about.

Scala, a former porno venue,theatre to the test tube careers of James Blunt and wet cotton wooled saucer to the kidney bean that was Coldplay.
i ran there hoping to get into a sold out gig. who was the band? hell i didnt know but from what i gathered from a newspaper article,they were the 'hottest shyte since godzilla soiled himself on seeing King Kong' .
i waited as a ticketless hero against the stark stuccoed wall of the Scala. 2 school girls waited in front of me,i enquired from them if there were any tickets available,they said 'no,they dont think so.' then one of them went on to quip that 'it seemed that every one seemed to be scratching their nuts today.', i followed on with 'maybe its cos its spring,its that gathering season.' we shared a chuckle.
i reached the finite point of the queue.'ticket?. 'i dont have one,are there any available?'. 'buy one from the touts', said the big massive dreadlocked bouncer, with forearms the size of boabab trees.'i dont deal with touts.' so he gently escorted me away. i figured lemme linger, cos if you linger longer you never know what might transpire. the queue eventually thinned and i returned to the bouncer,'dude are there any returns?,as the big oaf replied 'NO',that Maglite all of a sudden shone mightly hard upon me and some good chap said 'anyone want a free ticket?.' all of a sudden there were melodies in my head,symphonies were going off. again i let fate cast me deep into the river current, and with it a huge fish i did ensnarl.
the mosaiced stairway led me to the bar, i searched for the good chap.
The Scala is a tiny venue, only 800 raucous rock fans could squeeze in, 3tiers of standing room. at the back of the venue you could taste the sweat on the lead singers brow. 2 support bands pulled through,one was a jamie cullum wannabee,except he played a guitar and was a pommie,the other, a trio of rockers,all geet players called bright space.
i didnt know what to expect from OK GO,the main act. but what we were dished was paisley backgrounds and the intro to a rolling stones track. 3 mick jagger lips lookalikes and one melon with a goatee. these were chicago's latest export. they ripped into their geets like a bare knuckeld fighter to a traitorous spy. the knee jolting energy of the lead was awesomely inspiring. they howled and they squeeled and they said' f*ck off,mother f8ckers' and i lagged and i said ,sh*t these okes are damn fine,damn frikkin fine.

Sunday ascended feeling 30 kilos heavier after a night of carboloading. it resurrected itself and was greeted by a bowl of granola,warm 2% low fat milk and a slice of toast smothered in medium cheddar cheese slices.
i was off to blow some coupons on a pair of boots. i knew what i thought i wanted,i just hoped id dig them.so i chooned the store help who was as lazy as sh*t for a pair. i tried to squeeze into them but struggled,so the dude said he'd help me. trying to force my foot into the boot at a most crooked angle, my once limber body contorted and twisted liquirice-style. eventually my right foot said 'f*ck it, i dont want to be a part of you and this fiasco any more.' and so it started to send me into this pulverising,chew -my -arm-off kinda painful cramp. eventually i busted out, 'ah gsus dude let go.' the oke didnt exactly comprehend. short of kicking him unintentionally in the goons,i managed to wrangle my self free and my right foot succumbed. phew,whatever happened to cruising around barefoot?.

that day worked its way into a trip to the Thames to catch the big boat race. the titanic battle betwixt cambridge and oxford. i was pretty excited. richie and i rode shotgun in cart number 6 on a train headed for Hammersmith to meet sam and her bro.so we waited peering over all these human heads,eventually the boats arrived and then they were gone.

tuesday reared its head bucking, kicking and torquing, trying to get rid of the tassled, worn-leathered-boots-day that the tuesday work day was. i figured i was gonna try squeeze my 6-foot-so-many-inches-wire-frame into a sold out gig. but the kev gave me a jingle on the ol digital mobile.'dude wana check one flew over the cuckoos nest?' i was so keen that i bolted outta work so fast,i left my skin limp on the chair.
charing cross and there it is, The GarrickTheatre. 10 squidders and a wink to the cherry tearing tickets and we were in. we sat in the bleachers,but hey,columbus didnt just fly Easy Jet to america eating caviar and salticrax,no he suffered,,he suffereed scurvy,wood worm and a bunch of rotting deck hands. the movie for me was what some might say of War of the Worlds, the best movie ever,well not ever but it was a damn fine piece of 8mm. i expected nothing less of the stage pro-duction. slater reminded me hugely of jack nicholson with his greased back locks parked on his head like a bat, his russian bear hunting, vodka swirling raspy voice and that energy that only 7 year olds have when high on red juice.
what a great show, my bones left there feeling theyd been tickled

i went off see my mate bochy in his production of Galileo in the sticks they call guildford. bochy played the lead and i was well impressed. we went out for a toot afterwards and realised actors are just people too.

anyhoo compadres,its been fun.
so keep it cool and dont wear more than you have to,cos where the hell are you gonna put it if you gotta take it off.

sweetly
the dan russian bear hunter,master swordsman,and soon to be real fire fighting action figurine

porcini mushrooms 12.04.06

A new day began- blood red poppies, blazingly bright green emerald freshly mown lawns, carpeted grassy nolls blanketed in white daisies,blue skies as blue as a fresh pair of finely sewn levi's jeans,sunny side up sunshine oh so warm on my face and the putrid stench of dried urine and calcified sh*t. ah, i was in rome

day one saw me orientate myself-where the tourists are and where there are even more tourists. i happened to crash land my fighter jet smack bang in tourist central at the colliseum and forum vicinity-the strawberry jam of the donut that is rome. the Colliseum is simply a phenomenal master piece. i went on a guided tour of the place given by Mauro,the purple wearing jumper-and-leather jacket italian from Tivoli(and i thought tivoli was a pasta restaurant in Rosebank). Mauro came with Topgun sun glasses and a swagger like al pacino.this guy was definitely worth a chuckle. he guided us on the history of the place-the gladitorial battles that saw russel crowe become an oscar winner and the thumb up and thumb down that caesar used to determine the fate of a battered pugilist. he explained the genius of the roman builder and the construction of what would be today a modern cathedral, for today sport is a religion. he led us from the entrance to the exit and no further. he tried to sell us guide books cheap cheap. man alive what an edifice.
neighbouring the colliseum sits the palentine hill and the roman forum. i touched the stones Caesar my hero once did and all of a sudden my latin classes i did at school were becoming real to me.

the vatican city,sits on the other side of the river,it rained and cos i like to be nimble,i travelled with no coat.for nothing to remember nothing to forget. i queued for the vatican museum for as long as it would have taken me to hand wash a pair of socks in a drying river. the line was most swift and into the museum i deposited my payment fee.theres only one route to the sistine chapel,you may not go left,you may not go right,theres only one way and that's the popes way,upward and onward soldier. after wading through concrete busts,tapestries, fine bronze vases and salad bowls; through parqueted floor and marble too,upstairs and down stairs,'dont touch anything,im watching you boy' and through a pokey little door ,we finely landed smack bam hook line and sinker into its beanming luminosity-the Sistine chapel,painted by Michaelangelo. it is really quite subliminal,extra-ordinarily colourful,and most intricately detailed. i always thought the world was black and white having watched many a TNT tv show and glanced at many a photo from the early 60's and before,hmm so much for that thought.

for saint peters basillica i again queued,and boy did it rain,so some little granny grabbed my arm and pulled me under her umbrella.we walked, after a while she enquired 'you arent in our tour group,are you? 'no' i offered,she duly released my arm and left me to dissolve in the acid rain that is rome's, and off with her brollie she went. The basillica is probably the biggest space ive ever been into i felt a bit llike frodo,besides my hairy feet,i felt what its like to be one eigth my original size. again he detail is quite special,ive probably only seen this sort of detail on the once great star wars action figurines of the late 70's.
i wanted to be the non-tourist and not take a photo of the pieta-i didnt

rome was so hot i nearly spontaneoulsy combusted.

i visited pompei for the day,wow what a place,i mean i started walking into the city and thought 'gsus what an absolute dump',i could see vesuvius out in the distance and i thought 'gsus why hasnt this town been drowned in another lavatic eruption-it deserves it.eventually after 25minutes of strolling towards Vesuvius and past arbitrary fruit stalls i kind of figured i was walking in the wrong direction,after all i did ask the lady at information,i just didnt listen to her. anyhoo i felt a lil peckish-bird flu? so i picked up some sorta greasy mozzarella and congealed tomato italiante pastry and strolled, having paid a teste, into the real real pompeii. let me tell you that the romans were f8cking geniuses,there's simply no two ways about it. ive realised now in terms of my architectural education,im still that wee kidney bean experiment that kids do when theyre at school that is trying to sprout a leaf. the romans could create/manipulate space, enhance the buildings lightness through detailed mosaicing. they got their hands dirty tending beautiful gardens, they understood gutters. wow i say,wow.
pompeii is extraordinary for having been encrusted by Vesuvius' bile. only 66hectares of its roman self have been revealed and only indian jones will be able to reveal it all,stay tuned for episode 800 .phew.

my trip to pompeii forced me to stop over in naples for an hour,thank f*cking goodness. initially i thought 'wow,a new city,a new experience some new folk i could meet, hell, lemme check it out'.so i leave the terminal building and walk towards the sun, and supposedly the best pizza Italy has to offer.
what i saw around the terminal building were lunatic italians boozed to the hilt,i thought 'hey, this dirty trough aint a place for a kid with a fresh white t-shirt. the only person i met was some italian who thought i was eye-balling him,he actually intercepted me with a bit of agreesion and was about to beat me and stretch me like a mozzarella ball luckily in my best italian i just reponded 'enles engles'. he smiled and walked away from our intrepid, brave hero. ive never been so chicken sh8t. i got back to that teminal building so fast, hid behind a column and didnt look back,adieu naples adieu

i visited the jewish ghetto in rome,a tiny 2 block area,it was toitally jewish,naturally. overlooking the Tiber river sat a huge synagogue.one of or rather the most ornate synagogues id ever seen,detailed in a baroque style-gold leafed and ornate.something special ill say was the rainbow coloured glass petalled dome above. i didnt munch on a shnitzel on a bagel i rather settled for pizza from a big hairy italian,buffallo mozzarella not sold separately,yet more expensive

finely i found true rome,true italy. i needed to get away from the umbrella sellers lingering around the spanish steps awaiting a down pour. i needed to dissasociate myself from those throwing pennies into the fountain with their back to the water and getting their sugar to take a snap,i needed to extricate myself from the the oke selling little ash trays that resembled colliseums.i needed to find the real guiseppe and the real andrea and vittoria(an italian hairdresser that used to cut my hair) and the real mario and luigi. lo and behold, indiana found his temple of doom and i found my true italy and my true pasta, (cost me my nest egg,but hey). i found it across the river in trastevere. its a wee area with break knee cobble stones,and bouganvillas. a street network like abowl of tagliatelle, hordes of foxy italians and a vespa motor bike in every crevice.
for me i enjoyed that the most about rome.

ive become quiet cultured of late ,not dissimilar to a great creamy yoghurt from Woolies. i visited Moses,after searching hard for the leather sandled lad. i kept asking the guards, 'where's moses?',they just stared.
moses was phenomenal, extremely real, extremely glossy-a laser beam would surely deflect. moses was so real and that what i hope to achieve through my soon to be aon sale action toy figurine.

so my good readers i could continue scratching for hours however i dont want bleed

so until another day,farewell my far flung friends.
sweetly
the dan russian bear hunter master swordsman and soon to be action figurine,vespa and p*ss pot helmet sold separately.

Born Slippy 29.03.06

there's a country not far from here, a race not dissimilar to me.they arent hairy backed with big feet and live in Gondor,they are quite human i might say.they live in a little square inch of england and its called wales.Cardiff ,(sounds a little like non-milky butter),is its most cosmo city.its home to the millenium stadium and..uh uh

we dropped in on a big rugby day,millenium stadium was sure to be packed to the rafters,heaving like an over stuffed blood sausage. it was gonna blow ,splatter like a jackson pollock master piece.but only in time. that time was after the game,and boy did it splatter. the entire city of Cardiff got stuck into this sporting event like an over keen 13year old bear foot rugby player. people were bloodied in their red wales jerseys and flags. in a bit of a mental manoeuevr or not we decided to head to cardiff bay which is a hope skip and jump from the city centre rather then breathe in the drunken stench of a victorious country. i really needed to see a Richard Rogers building,the welsh general assembly.its pretty simple in its form,pretty transparent like all modern day public buildings,yet it has a ceiling which is gloriously detailed in strip timber in a most curvaceous,voluptuous way.you almost wana caress it.but its too high and you might just get a splinter.
on returning to the city after the rugger,there was absolute chaos-pubs packed and fish and chips shops doing over time.at the end of the exhausted night the city swam in a pool of its own vomit, in dirtied bags and short sleeved heroes. a crazy city indeed and one that needs to be torn apart

so monday nights are those slow ones where by i recharge the proverbial battery,stick on the telly, make a splash of pasta and increase by medical knowledge while watching ER. but a couple kids from work were heading to the 'poob' for a cupla toots.so i hailed my horse,rode on,lassooed the boy to his watering trough and sauntered into the Masque Bar.early enter early leave. and to Tescoes i did go.italian pasta made in england and mushroom sauce for the nights feasting,toothpaste for those glinting pearly whites and soap for a daisy freshness. packet in hand and i was going underground. im no paranoid android, but i see im being watched,or so i thought, by this foxy uber babe. now im a pretty mysterious sorta chap,never venturing to the same place at the same time on any given sunday.so i never usually catch the Highbarnet branch of the northern line but i figured on a night like this id launch a cherry flavoured assault on the aforementioned tiger. meanwhile out of the dark little pokey corner of my glazed blood shot eyeball i could see this other sugar enquiring about her journey from a boozer,with limp arms and sweaty armpits. in my opinion he was making an absolute abortion of the interrogation.

im just about to mount the super tube when the sugar asked me for directions. always keen to help, but 'caught between Iraq and a hard place' i answered with Yoda like wisdom. all of a sudden the doors begin to whistle,'come in boy or stay out cos this boats on the high road home.' my arms are all over the show- in the tube out the tube, with packet without packet. luckily i manage to extricate myself knowing that if i didnt id be a 'quarter chicken mild peri peri with fries on the side, oh and an ice cold coca cola to go.' but unlike Indiana jones who always retrieves his hat, my poor lonely bag of shnacks was caught hanging in the door,all exposed with nowhere to go.i waved like a storm trooper, but to no avail.
good bye little packet, it was nice to know you, may you and your contents feed a thousand impoverished ethiopians.

the serpentine gallery is a square. it sits in hydepark in a forest and rolling green scape. it aint much bigger than a rubics cube and in it an artist had injected it with an installation of everyday corridors. rather strange ill say.hmm contemporary art? what does it all mean?

ey oh far flung ones hope youre all doing well, and if you arent,suck on a Chupa Chup 'cos it aint gonna suck itself.

stay well, until we meet again adieu adieu
the dan russian bear hunter masters swordsman and stand in action figurine to Russel crow in the movie Gladiator.

Pat Cash

so i checked the weather forecast, it said rain expected. it rained.

its not about what you know,its about those connections we have,daniel has them.billy bumpkin elliot was on offer at the lowly price of 30 squiddinks,and oh yes we were gonna be given a hand,and sure as hell we were gonna take an arm, the arm came in the form of the chocloates daniel gave as a gift.once again theatre just wasnt for me.firstly cos id have to sit next to someone,the second cos of bad past experiences.but billy elliot blew his duck whistle and the chaito man came a flying in,thank goodness there were no blood hounds and duck hunters.victoria palace with is plush velvety red flip up chairs, flowred carpets and hand scooped interior decorations was were it was stationed.we sat pretty high up,but no bother. the show was,as daniel put it totally gay but totally sweet.great music, great dancing-it was all like a big sugar dusted jelly donut.the kid ,billy would surely have done his grandma proud

the weekend was full of the goodness and richness that a well mulched garden manure heap should be.
i dunno ive always had this sorta thing for Kate Moss,she's this sorta enigmatic tiger.she isnt gorgeous or beautifully hot.she's got this sorta razor blade edge to her.she has this like killer look to her.she could probably stare you down and turn you into Morphs cousin.so anyhoo theres been a lot of media surrounding her, but ive been with her all the way.saturday was a day when i came the closest ill probably ever come to this absolute peach. it was a photographic exhibition of her when she was say 18,untainted by powdery blow and the glories of rock n roll, unscarred by million squid clothing deals, and unscented by liquid gold perfume sponsorships.she was as raw as the freshly pulled carrot from your backyard veggie garden. however all these wee chips on the roulette table have given her the rock chick status i have so come to favour. its not about going into an ice cream parlour and choosing between ordinary strawberry and vanilla,its about that flavour that no one really digs.
the gallery sidles itself off on a side street away from the worst that tourism has to offer-crowds,huge f*ckin crowds. i hate crowds. the white washed modern cube interior in which her images were portrayed was a simple,humble canvas onto which she could be devoured by my googling eyes.wow.

the gallery and the images of kate,gently emblazoned into the valleys and ridges of my marshmellow brain,led me into mayfair, old bond street and the ever so close yet at the moment,far, Saville Row. the road is quiet,not at all intimidating.advertising is subdued,the asking price for a handchiselled suit simply aint. a 2000 pound suit ,cappucino-hold the sprinkles- and a mint will be mine,oh yes it will.

there was an anime exhibition on the south bank,around 6months ago,i though it had disappeared,it hadnt. animae or manga is id say a japanesey kind of cartoon. often the characters are well versed in cutting humans in half with their bare hands. the detailing is often explicit. it was one image that absolutely plucked my heart out, dusted it in sugar powder and placed a silver spoon into its depths. it was an image entitled 'chick in a club'. she dripped my pure syrupy fantasy.its rather cooky how an image could be so damn intimidating,so damn fine.

monday nights are slow chilled and i went to a lecture by Eric Owen Moss.
university days had seen me thumbing my way through books by this kid and many others. i knew the library-its strange ordering system, its danky smell-the library was my salvation, and my nickname became turbonerd.
eric owen moss is an american with the thickest american accent,thicker than a dolls house double malt with sprinkles.his tongue was so drawn out it was as though he'd just smoked the biggest fattest bob marley rolled joint this side of the caribbean.his humour was as dry as a 2day old turkey, tomato and lettuce sandwich.this oke was brilliant,he didnt speak of 'his' buildings, rather about a building that was built..this kid's work is hot,sh*t hot.he's like the rock band Oasis-he has this sort of f*ck-off attitude,like f*ck it 'im good,i know im good,you know im good,so lets cut the crap and get on with it.'i dig it. what he produces takes balls,and his balls are iron clad,pre-rusted and swollen to 8 times their original size.
uncle eric, thumbs up to you boy.

aar sunday mornings-i dont wanna be in bed,and i dont wanna sleep.whats a lad to do?so i munch my granola,ingest 750mills of h2o,get on my horse and ride.
the camden town arts centre sits on finchley road.an exhibition by hilda af klint. she's a swede id never heard of, i thought it was klimt,but hey who ever knows these things.this swedish babe or not was really cooked-she was into astronomy and speaking to the dead and out would pop art.brr that gave me the shivers.so i skimmed her work, stood close,stood far,read the insets and came out a knowledgeable lad. i must add the building itself was really the fine piece of art.its light parquet flloors, whited walls, bronzed iron mongery streaming natural light and a garden you could play lawn tennis in.go see it,it might just excite you.

so i leave the centre and strolling up the road,somee dude in his VW honks his horn and asks me,'ey mate, y'know where camden market is?', so i say'yeah,camden town'.

anyhoo good folk keep it keep ,keep it running and dont forget 'cool kids play with lego.'

sweetly
the chaito man, russain bear hunter master swordsman and red indellible crayon, yellow and blue sold separately

table tennis 01.03.2006

these past few weeks have been like an amstel beer, slow brewed yet extra matured.ive been patient waiting for the egg to crack, to splatter itslef all over the show,to stain the linoleum floor tiles,and leave me with a story.let that egg splatter as it will, is waht i say.

have you ever been so pissed off that you wanted to turn into the hulk, tear the fluff out of your sisters teddy bear and burn it at the stake?.well thats how i felt after my ebay experience,it all began when graham sent me an email suggesting i read a book called One city,tis about edinburgh,so i thought hey ill give it a wee squizz.so i championed my way to charing cross road where all the book stores lie, rummaged through the ol dirty second hand book stores,and emerged smelling as though id just exited some grandma's flat, minus the stale chocolate.needless to say i didnt find the book.eventually i blazed into Foyles, requested the book,but at a scorching 5 pound 50, i thought 'gsus with that dosh i could buy an oil field in nigeria and a farm on Rissik street', i figured id jump into the unknown abyss,aqualaungs and all and go bidding on ebay,ooh ebay,each letter glowing ina primary colour, each letter written in kids writing, leaving me thinking this is like playing in the sand pit-ill get a few diseases, ill ahve fun and at the end of the day the sand castle i was building would emerge.,ooh ooh.so i found the book.bids kicked off at a whopping 99p,i already knew i had a winner.so i threw in an unbeatable 1 squid 20 and waited for the bid to brew and consume all pretenders.a week later i notice 2 squid 70,it topped me.not cool i say.for some reason, one unbeknownest to me, i eventually won the bid.dont ask i just did.but now the seller wished to use a 3rd party,the only 3rd party i know is the one i go to when im liquored up after the second party.now setting up this 3rd party pay thing just wasnt easy, and this was the point where i wished to turn into a crazy lad in a rubber room beating the shee-ite outta my work colleague. setting up this frikkin account took like 2weeks.eventually i overcame,today i have since read the book and am far more re-laxed.great book graham, and id say it was worth the absolute torture

hampton court palace, its a palace thats bigger than castle grey skull,older than the smurf village, and it nestles in suburbia,which i found rather cooky.there were these folk dressed in victoriana clothing and spoke as though they had jacket pottaoes propelled up their butts.however what they said was most informative.i traipsed this wee castle like the fat bastard henry the 8th did but couldnt find the tv room.i strolled strolled the gardens with their toppiaried trees and symmetrical layouts and got my kickers dirty. twas a toit day, a day i flew Han Solo.

Ah Bath, what a gloriously wee town. a 3 hour bus ride with my fav show on board-Top Gear. its stoned in white and cobbled like a lunch bar. we had 4 hours of daylight to kill, 1 hour we beat munching fish and greasy chips,the other hours were spent cooking chicken soup style in the Roman Baths themselves .befiitting a town named Bath,there were baths.now im no latin geek, although i was one,but this lil place left me totally excited.warm naturally heated pools of green water surrounded by rough stone. and then there was the inevitable body of water filled with coins,gsus,why do folk lob their coins into water,what the f*ck is so thrilling about it?.rather go gambling.someone once said it was lucky to throw coins but someone also once said that the policeman in Noddy was gay.

i went to this lecture by the RIBA gold medal winner, its an architecture award.awarded to the gretaest architect of the year, the architect that has the grreatest influence on the world, from days gone by and will have an influence into infinty and beyond.toyo ito, is actually a tall japanese human, i figured most japs were yay high(id be indicating height with my hand at this point in time).now his architecture was pretty swell.only prob was he couldnt utter much english even if his life depended on it.so i figure the bruce lee interparting his words didnt do him much justice.nevertheless his architecture did have a certain , shall i say 'gin e say quae' about it.

this past thursday needed to be stuffed like a christmas turkey.before a farewell party i needed to show face at, i decided id go to a lecture at the AA, archticture association.the speaker was the great charles jencks.this kid was a guy that i studied with,well not really.many of my lectures at varsity used him to cause riots in our minds, to get us thinking,get us feeling like bumbling idiots.now i was gonna hear the lad speak directly to me.this is excatly whats kiling me bout this lil island.im engaging with the greteast that architecture and culture has to offer.back home these greats were invincible, a little like the super hero i am, althought hey dont have similar see-through-wall super powers.

so im gonna kill this email with a quote i found quite cool, cool cos it sorta reminds me of one of my favorite movies,Alien, and if you think about it long enough you might just have a nighmare. Eminem told ROLLING STONE Magazine, 'i would rather have a baby through my p*nis than get married again.';

quote of the century, heard at the Charles Jencks lecture: 'arrtichokes are what dyslexic folk call architects.'

ey folks, ive sort of put all my scracthings on a blog if you wanna check them out.someone told me that once my scratchings found themselves on a blog then that would force me to do some editing..........................riiiiighhhht

http://scratchingsofdan.blogspot.com/

08.08.2005

um uh in my previous mail on Oxford i failed to mention that the garden style at magdalene differed largely from that of christ church.magdalen was very much an immaculate pristine garden -very bright in colour and well kept, whereas st johns was far more random in style,very engish country side,some might say 'the eclectic paintbrush was in full flight in this garden.'on thursday my boss sent out an email enquiring if anyone wished to have some of his free-range hand-picked courgettes(zuchini for the uninformed) that had been reared in his garden....i took 2.what ill do with them is still to be decided.you know what pisses me off:theres this bird in the office who has a cold and she keeps shnarfing her shnot.it really pisses me off. 'get a fu**ing tissue why dont you, have a little common decency for the squemish few out there, Mary(names have been changed so as not to offend the accused party.because the accused party offers me chocolate chip cookies evry now and then.at the moment im working on on a building in dubai.you see they say dubai will run out of that liquorice coloured stuff which everybody wants commonly known as oil.so theyre turning to tourism in order to bring home the bread.we're doing a building, a natural history museum in an area allocated the name,.....drum roll squire...Dubailand, ver krys sayks jimie. the building is sheathed in this stuff called ETFE, its like bubble wrap.my sister would dig it cos she could piss me off by popping the wee bubbles, and relaxing at the same time.and this little story led me to visit the london natural history museum...gsus they make their museums large here.as yet i havent completed a single museum.anyhoo this museum was filled with tourists and whales and elephants and dinosaurs and big worlds constructed of steel,
two weeks ago weekend was also big because i did my first load of washing......ever.i was uber concerned cos my tshirts are like sweet gold to me, and i was told not to mix colours and whites,but then a curve ball was thrown at me when i questioned what yellow tshirts are.are they colours or are they whites.it so happened that i did a pretty good job,and they didnt even need ironing cos i hung them pretty damn well if i do say so meself.friday swung by,however i rrealised on my way to work that i forgot to bring my wholewheat baguette with me.you see i store my condiments in the office fridge, however without a bagutte, you and your condiments are stranded, lingering in no mans land.so i sent out an eamil to all of the staff enquiring as to whtehr anyone knew where i could get a sweet baguette, anhyoo it so landed up that all those that responded responded with sweet FA.so i went on my merry way in search of the baguette,not unlike Frodo's search for that glorious elusive ring. well as i neared the cusp of the hill in holborn, i saw the peach glowing light of a Sainsbury's, hmm sweet Sainsburys. so i circled the sainsburys and then pounced like a tiger on a wee baby buck.found me a sweet white flavoursome fresh baguette,and would you believe,it was the last one on offer,wikeed. that baguette was to me what the fleece,the golden one, was to jason.but alas jason couldnt smother his fleece in white cheese and coleslaw.hmm hmmwell i must add that i held this email back for a while since i went through a rather testing time on this wee island. the joy that i was writing wasnt what i had been feeling,but alas im back and have more to say so hold tight,check for your exits to the left and right,check for that under seat airmask, which i dont believer really exists, raise your backrests,your lunch trays,stick on a dayvaday and enjoy the ride.
the weekend of august the 6th has just rolled by.i cracked open really early saturday morn to go with christie to an archi exhibition near totenham court road entitled New London Architecture.it was a pretty neat exhibition in that it exposed all that these barbarians ( a term the great Julius Caesar used which means bearded ones) were intending to do on this island.at the moment london is pretty low rise, but as the future rolls on,she will grow upwards puncturingthe heavens with her shards of glass, her gherkins, her wedges of cheese, all carved by the greats-norm foster ,richard rogers and rem koolhaas.once again folks hold on to them seats.we then found ourselves in a store called Muji,pretty japanesey i might add, and a belt and a book i did buy. so we watched the rugger in belsize park,an affluent ,leafy suburb,a great one indeed.but its crazy cos next to these expensive buidlings emerges the horror of all horrors-council flats.but anyway every one seems dandy in their place, and each person knows their place.
i had a great chuckle on sunday 7the august. i was on the red bus 128 to golders green station.honestly the roads were packed. the bus could only edge ever so slowly,then coming from the aisle, some hairy backed gargantuan english homo erectus speciman of a lady blurts out 'come on bus driver get a move on,i dunno wann be heer all day.', so now im properly laging, cos honestly where the F**k was the poor driver supposed to go, so then the driver blurts out,'geez lady what you wana me to do, fly?. anyhoo the bird rolled off the bus and actually said, 'thanks driver'. hows that for kooky?
hmm portobello road, now its this sorta road that i came to london for. some really uber saweet antique shops,proper antiques,and old jackets and old WG grace style cricket bats and all the other shyte youve been hoarding and your mom wants you to chuck out .by the way i used to stick potatoes in my cupboards so that they would grow-and oh boy did they grow.(once again thats for another day.)
reason for portobello road?-the prtobello road film festival.the festival was housed in two studios, the one which me and garon went to (westbourne) was an uber sick little buildig,a double volume, which was actually situated underneath the highway, so the highway underside formed the sculptural concrete roof/ceilign of the studio. the studio also housed a way cool lounge and vast images on windows. we watched around 5 or 6 short flicks,some were really shyte and some were f**king shyte, one was good. however the experience of place was what i loved most. then onto Fruitstock we went. fruitstock is a free for all music festival in regents park sponsored by fruit juice.we landed up there for like an hour,but that was a quality hour i most enjoyed. its crazy but if you could picture the attendants at the original Woodstock back in the late i think 60s, you would see those exact folk and now too, their offspring.it really is a joyous thing to witness
gsus im tired,sorry folks just bear with me.
the day finally ended with a burger, sweet mary jane. this was no ordinary burger, this was the gourmet burger we all wish we could have, its the one we dream of night after night,its the one you wish your son or daughter would bring home.it epitomises goodness in this crazy mixed up world. its what rob roy and william wallace really fought for, F**k freedom i say,its all about the fresh butter lettuce, the voluptous red tomato-perfectly rounded. its the relish you grew up with on the farm-thats if you grew up on a farm, its the bun that the baker man would have spent hours kneeding, rolling and baking. oh my word may we all drop our weapons and indulge in a burger from gourmet burger in Hampstead. 'batteries chips and coldrinks each sold seperately.'
and lastly while i was waiting for a bus home which took an extraordinarily long time to arrive i started hucking this brazillian.so i told her, 'gees ive never met a brazilain',and then she said 'thats crazy, ' and then proceeded to point too the shops in whicha arazillian worked. gees didnt i fnow eel like a half baked turd, but i hoped on the bus and bid her farewell, and thats led me to bid each and everyone of you, adiuefrom the scratchiings of my brainthe dan russian bear hunter and pinball wizard

barcelona 15.12.2005

there it was the hostel, gothic point ,teeny tiney, wooden floors and the united nations, breakfast was sahara desert dry mueslis,oranges and toast. i went into over kill.
Montjuic was the epic journey on which me and chucky would rendezvous. ametro ride and yonder stood the MNAC, museum of art.we hurtled up the boulevard then all of a sudden i didnt know it but it was there.a glance right,i know i seen you boy.amaf*ck,barcelona pavilion,it was my guiness beer.it aint no ordnary building, no siree.it is the architectural haj. gleaning walls of marble, cruciform glinting colums,her statue cradled in a pond.i shed a tear.i drooled litres, swam away to the next location. montjuic, the home of the olympic games,it was high,high up in ths sky,chucky nearly died,but i soldiered on,i wasnt carrying him,no sirree.this aint vietnam boy.he was built like a brick sh*t house.
the stadium ,a little japanese man drew it,tadao ando. its domed with a segmented roof, its skinned in fabric, im sure its cool.
perched on a lower tier, the calatrava telecommunications tower, its tangible like a shell,.it was so sharp and glistening i nearly pricked my finger.i snapped and i skecthced,we got back on our horses and to the medieval castle we rode.
the horizon,yonder, the blue ocean sits..
joan miro,was in a white washed building, i paid my tom and stashed my bag, i moseyed around.he uses colour, he uses free hand, he uses sculpture,he's crazy and i like it.
barcelonetta, johan told me it was toit, to get there its down la rambla- a strip heaving with tourists, with muggers and a sewerage stench.its good for macdonals, burger king and a subway too.its seedy its busy, it just aint for me. a walk along the beach, a quick stop in the Catalan history museum,too much knowledge.back on the streets,through little nooks.barcelonetta, its working class, its huddled by the sea, it has long narrow narrow streets tall too.i saw the facteted zig zag, timber clad exteriot of the coderch building.a lil ol d granny enterd.i bought some biscuits and bananas and munched them on the beach,ooh how i miss the beach. in the distance sat frank gehrys Pisce and his 'scraper .i didnt have to peel the sticky pages of a university library book, it was there and i could touch it. and then there she was most gorgeous girl id ever seen.i had to stare,i drooled and swam away.i emerged ffrom the wet and began to walk,to walk until i bled,i wanted to see so i continued. but i couldnt take it any more, i didnt have the poewr,the sun was a setting and an hours walk back would see me
the rain came down,and i swore.but the museums were open.picasso's sits in La ribeira,old royal palace it was.narrow creviced streets, shiny cobbled stones,and postcards at every corner.i was enlightned ,the museum did it for me.picasso painted in a classical style,i never knew it, then he morphed out of sobriety into colour, chaos and intuition. again i could see and touch all that i had seen in books.i moseyed around the gothic area,woa,what an area.its lined with creepy gargolyles,im scared i cry 'mummy'.

action hero knows his come here for the Gaudi stuff,hes been skirting round it like lone ranger the woman he loves.the day is full,he packs his water bottle,and rides rides hard.he shoots a left,in the distance the flowing lines of cassa battlo, aah.the mirrored light refelcting off of her mosaiced face, she has many openings, alien like portals.she is like this growing,organic membrane.its a most dynamoc building as many of gaudi's are.
casa milla,supposdedly his crowning glory, its a monolith, crested in sculpted, twisted turrets,chimneys and framed views.the lines are not straight,where was his ruler. it was a hard ride but a ride that was good for the soul.and oh waht a sight it is,Sagrad Familia.this aint no ordianry building i tell you.its just not the way things are meant to be.it seeems chaotic,yet it has integrity,it has light-much of it.it has height,it is as though g-d himself had one of those wine bottles over which a candle may melt,and after many a candle lit dinner,that wax build up grows into something beautiful. parc Guell, its a park,a massive park, it has grand paths and lil paths,pocked with stoned tunnels and alcoves,colums of sculpted rock,and jazz buskers.it has a plaza,its edge trim, mosaiced seating this aint no ordinary park,a dragon sits at its very entrance.

i had met a few good folk in hostel number one,but since they were leaving, then this lone ranger must ride
so anyhoo i rode until i found myself in a hostel called Kabul.it was absolutely carazy.they had a bar,and we drank,they had beds and we slept alittle bit,they had a pool table and i didnt play,i watched a middle eastern lad nearly tear the felt.they had showers and i did shower,they had breakfast,-an excuse for corn flakes and they had dinner-not as good as my moms bolognaise.i saw a gaudi, 3 of them, casa batllo-it scared me, its alien facades, its mosaicing,its elasticity: casa mila-she was large, she sits on the corner, her monolithic plastic form imposing herself on carrer de garcia. i visited her attic, it was bulbous, free flowing, her paarabolic arched form intrigues. and parc guewll.now that lad is cooked.when i saw his buildings the movie Alien haunted me.i saw an olympic park and i threw my bottle top in the bin, amassive solar powered panel thingy above and a hertzog and de meuron forum.and a skateboard, and the museum of contemporary art.i continued to walk until my feet they did ache,i never ate a tapas,but i had a subway sandwich or two:).i bought trousers i bought tshirts,i saw easy jet and i flew.bbut what a holiday it was,but i think i need another more relaxing vacation. gothic point in the gothic area. it was in a crevice and colured orange,it had an upstairs and another upstairs.,it had timber floors that creaked and rooms without views.i was bed 210D.there were lads in my room that snorred and chicks and oaks that wouldnt shut the f*ck up,there was me in my jeans, the blue kick ass ones, both day and night, sun and in rain..hostels are like camping,
so i wander the streets like the wandering hero looking for action.the streets are twisty and windy, im in the gothic area and im scared, so i buy a bott of water and a cupla nanas, and the pakistani says'watch your bag kiddo, there be some nasty creatures in these parts'.so i blurt;grathias, adious ,strike a match on the wall, light a fag(a play play one) and ride on.
that night i wandered around getting my bearings polished
wednesday morn, i crack open to the creak of a wooden floor board,grip a bowl of the best,a cupla slices o toast and some shyte jam.so i look around,i eye the table it responds and strolls over to me.so i sit down, and chuck the veteran of eyeraq 1, pulls up a chair,we get chatting.typical questions fly-how why? wheres you been?,when was you last home cooked meals?,you carry round a teddy?.so we decide we'll kill the day together and up a mountain we would ride.the Jaume 1 metro was the ride on which our epic journey would begin.no rubber gloves here,for the spanish have flair.Montjuic was the epic journey on which me and compdre, who i was now calling chucky would rendezvous.i didnt know but it was there.a glance right,i know i seen you boy.amaf*ck,barcelona pavilion,it was my guiness beer.it aint no ordnary building, no siree.it is the architectural haj, .it was so sharp and glistening i nearly pricked my finger.the horizon,yonder the blue ocean.since the old cty of Barca is pretty haphazard,little nooks and crevices outta whicj little spaniards and tapas bars emerge.

untitled 15.11.2005

'if music be the food of love, play on, play on'
a hammered day, sunday was,with its red eyes, it furry mouth and stale smoke stained levis tshirt. twas a day to fly beneath the radar, remain unnoticed stealth-style. twas a day i didnt need.
Manchester United were playing the chelsea,and that was all that concerned our hero. he headed off to a stinky shwetty pub that shimmed of yesterdays stale pig vomit, gripped a pint of that syrupy shyte they call Pepsi for they pleaded guilty to not having Coca Cola and strollled over to the 48inch tv.having screamed and yoddled like Heidi in the Alps carrying Toblerone from the barn, United were finally victorious and i could once again enjoy my existence as a humanoid on this planet called earth. Glorious.
as science fiction as this might sound i was that eve off too meet a tsoogoo tsoogoo to catch a flik- War of the Worlds for the cheap seats at 4 squiddinks a pop. but unlike me i pulled into Leicester square on the Morden via Charing cross train well early. i probably got there so early that i could have made a cigarette ashtray out of pottery clay. but instead decided to take a stroll around the oh so Soho.its always super duper to see a city when the crowds have returned to the cracks in the walls and all that is left is the residue-the drunken scot,the the stains of the previous eves vomit, the debauchery of an emancipated 18 year old that doesnt know his tequila from his gasoline, and the sweaty stench of greasy kebabs. the city reveals itself somewhat, it bares all and holds no surprises.anyways i was coming to the end of my sojourn and heading to the movie,now strolling down charing cross, when lo and behold (..no the lord didnt reveal himself to me in the form of a burning bush) rather i could hear the sounds of true music,Rock n roll-the blazzing riffs of a sickly played fender and the tiney crack of the percussion. so i followed the beats like Jughead to a burger and arrived at the St Martins school of Dramatc Art.
out of the building, which remided me of my Castle Greyskull action toy where He-man lived,was a wee queue. so i milled around thinking,'i gotta get my scrawny a*s in there, man.' so i hung around and eventually an organising official (i knew he was an official by the big tag around his neck that said, 'official'.) came out the door and i asked him how i could gain access to this gig. he said, 'sorry champ this ones for VIP's only.' so i was like, 'ah what says that once the doors close and theres space for one more, then could you let me in?' so the good geezer said ,ah alright son lets take you on in, but if anyone asks, answer youre a student.' honest, true story.so i get past all the ticket shyte and the bouncer heavies and roll downstairs, to the 'Underground', then the dude says, help your self, the bar is on the house.
i simply couldnt believe what was happening.its like when youre wee a kid and all you wanted to do was gnaw on the wall,cos it felt good.so im in there,my eyes are just oozing custard and red jelly, im loving it.the peaches around me were dressed like the typical rock chick ive come to love- red red lipstick,that jet black hair cascading down half her face , the blushed cheeks,fishnet stockings, the suit,the heels,that sorta grunge look that simply kills me. the lads were so greasy, jamie oliver coulda organised a sunday fry-up, bangers and all in that sickly hairdo.the tight dinner jacket and pencil jeans,the mud dirty converse kickers.sick im telling you, sick.
that night was an absolute screamer,the one ive been looking for on this ragged lil island.I think ive scratched the mole that london is and slowly slowly its beginning to reveal itself - its not about the people, its not about the rat race,its not about the lady who is carrying her bags up stairs and no one offers assistance, its not the fact that every shop owner tries to screw you, or the expense of booze,london is truelly an extra ordinary little island. i think its about the culture,the music,the shnacks,the drinksh(best said in a sean connery accent). its this dynamic city where if youre not somewhere that somewhere actually mutates and morphs itself into something else.
the monday eve,saw me extremely lambasted from tiredness, but nevertheless i managed to up and head to the movie i missed so joyously the previous eve-War of the Worlds. the headlines, 'The greatest action epic of al time',the dailymail.yeah riight and im a jet pilot of the 51st squadron of intergalactic super aviators.'how could you do this to me oh great spielberg, and tom cruise?,youre like a 3squid vegetatrian buffet,such potential, only lacking the meaty ingredients.'
do i hear tuesday eminating from the peanut gallery?.ah another lecture at the royale institute of british architects.this time Moshe Safdie spoke,an israeli acrhitect who left me dazed.hadnt seen or heard much of this lad,knew he did the holocaust memorial in israel but thats about it.so i went into the lectuire not totally energised then all of a sudden he started tossing these glowing white effervescent(sick little word) pearls of wisdom at me. it was like this meteoric shower,and i was just soaking them up. this oke wasnt full of shyte. he was a humble gent,an albert einstein lookalike. as rough and hard a lad as i am i nearlly shed a tear. he spoke of landscape and its inherent natural beauty,he spoke of architecture as though it were music,he spoke of architecture as that which transcends fashion.its architects like moshe safdie that are the reason i have chosen this profession.man alive i left that lecture hall feeling totally sweet.
my adventures for the week id say culminated in a trip back to the barbican for a splash of the London symphony orchestra.when i tell you that i was waiting in a queue and some oak offered me a ticket, i aint lying.the problem here is the oak offered me a ticket that his mate who was standing next to him had paid for.this ticket wasnt coming free, i reckon i had already cashed in my 'good deeds' coupons on the last free ticket i received.now im gonna have to help more ladies with their bags up the tube stairs. so i handed over 5 squids and moseyed on inanyhoo classical music is great,it differs from a rock concert. you dont have your lunatic boozed up nacho munching hooligans moshing around like mental patients in a sanatorium, rather you got your old geezer in bow tie farting to the tunes of 'the sound of music.'
i really dig classical cos everyone is plucking their violins like a turkey thats ready for a good basting on a chilly eve.the guy with the symbols gets like 3 oppportunities to be fanmous,but no one really gives a shyte.then there's the conductor who waves his magic wand, and im sure if he clicked his heels 3 times, and said 'theres no place like home, theres no place like home' he'd be infornt of his telly watching Opera winfrey reruns.
all in all a killer week, and one you should try.hang in there oh far flung ones.from the scratchings of a wandering lad,the chaitoman, russian bear hunter, master swordsman
'Goodnight you princes of Maine, you Kings of New England."

mash and peas 27.07.2006

ah rhis weekend kicked off on friday,since the office that i push paper forgave us the day off.last week was an absolute killer.i grafted the wholeweekend and into the weee hours of the morning like an absolute mine shaft worker.i managed to endure such hardship, all with my trusty can of heinzbeans with the pull off lids.hmm beans.the wednesday of that weekend saw me and my trusty sidekick or rathercomputer neighbour catch a taxi from work at round 2am. so i decided to converse with ivan the driver,a true family man who lived in a neighbourhoodwhere 'everybody knows your name'. but it was a proper lag,cos he kept oncalling me 'guv'.so these days im loving the word 'guv'.ivan the driver managed to get into some serious architectural discussion which was ratherinteresting coming from a driver.he even led me to type the word 'cocks andsomething or other' in google inorder to determine the style of their(cocks) work. he dropped me off only after giving me an intinerary of buildingswhich he deems superb.one weekend ill be off checkin them out.the dude threwin a short tour of a man-munching serial killer by the name of Manson.apparently after the neighbours reported a horrid stench from thisguys house,the coppers found fingers in the drains where this upstandingcitizen resides. anyhoo the driver probably screwed me out of loot by driving past this little piece of history and by babbling on a lot.but hey iwasnt paying..he he.satyrday was an alright sorta day,caught the springboks making biltong outof the aussies and the eve was spent on a boat, a stationary boat on the Thames.but this was one of those parties whereby you try consume as muchbooze as your pocket allows in order to have fun,but to no avail.ah sweet mary jane,the day that i was most lookign forward to had finally reared its little turtle head.i was heading off to oxford,the nearest old city to london. what aripper,the day kicked off blazing down with rain,but i feared not and woreshorts. my once lecturer, mentor and fellow austinpowers fan, jono picked me up and for free range omelettes and burgers and a wee bit of culture we didgo.ooh how i love fat chips.theres a library, a round one called the boleian, and bicycles, gazilionsof them.you see oxford is a university and connected to the varsity are many a college,quiet similar to frat houses in america i can imagine. thesecolleges look after the students needs like tutoring,food ,thelord,tranquility,opportunities to hand feed baby deer,to drink,to row andother such thiings. one of the colleges we visited was mordelen (i think thats itprononuciation). its actually written as magadalene, but the educated folkprononuce it Mordelen,and should you pronounce it in any other way thenyoure considered an absolute heathen, a horror, an uncouth, hairy backedsavage.wow the lawns of each of the colleges were immaculately kept,i happened tosimply cross a stretch of lawn when jono shouted 'dude get the hell off that grass',and i was like 'whatever' and he was like'i aint shi*tin youboy'. he then led me to the halls where the students do their munching,theseuber long narrow halls are complete with uber long rows of tables,with little lamps at wee intervals,and wood panelled walls,and at the head of theeating hall sits a little step onto which the professors perch (probablyensuring that the lads eat their peas).i havent jumped on the harry potter band wagon but i reckon this is exactly out of a harry potter scenario.from day one i always thought the beer here was absolutely shyte,i wasdrinking fosters and carling,and then jono took me to this little pub,the ceiling was so low i had to stoop, then he ordered me a proper beer,whichwas fruity,bitter and hit me for six,so now ive become a little morediscerning in my choice of ales.anyhoo my far flung friendskeep it realthe dan

chip cookies

just to quell everyones beliefs that i typed that gargantuan hairy email during company time, i didnt. i typed it in the early hours of each night via candlelight with an old 50s type writer.but what i did ,was etch my thoughts into my forearm with a bllunt rusty meat cleaver so as not to forget them.
lo and behold a new week began and i am thankful. last week was pretty toit. benny from my office chooned me he was keen on a footie match, and i responeded with an , 'ai i is there like a bear'. and so last tuesday we blazed a trail outa the office so fast that before you could finish reading the irish book of inventions or the ethiopian cook book we were at the station and off to Loftus road footbal stadium we did go.the home of queens park rangers, a mighty side indeed. its absurd cos the stadium sits at the intersection of south africa road and bloemfontein road.we sat in south africa stand.these folk here go nutter for their footie teams,they swig their booze,munch their fat chips,stick their kids in little supporters t-shirts, swear like a storm trooper and chant great lil warcries.all making for a fun family night out,the only problem is chances are if u support a shyte 1st division team,then you gonna go home cryin week after week.anyhoo the game turned out allright,it was a little school boy-ish.football was far from the greatest,and mark fish put in a sterlingly shyte performance.
thursday 11th saw me with my classical cd collection amounting to zero and many other classical aficienados mosey on over to the royal albert hall, its a concert hall, a round one in south kensington. its interior is decked out in red plush seats and red curtains,a real pimpin 60s fit out. anyhoo the cheap seats were being sold round back, didnt i feel like a commoner. so i splashed out 4 quid and went to stand in the 'golden circle'.the circle is in front of the musicians, so youre basically right up their nostrils, and only an armstretch away from scratching their foreheads,-i suppose the acoustics arent so great at depth.so im standing in the pit minding, minding how hot it is and i happen to over hear a conversation. the lil lady, 'so she's got a new interest. the old dude in khakis responds, 'right, a boy friend?, whats his name?' she replies, ' a horse, its a horse.' welcome to london my dear boysatnding within the pit with me was like standing in a bag of liquirice allsorts,there were just so many types of different folks.the one oak that killed me was this old dude, a scrawny rat i might add,with shoulder blade length greasy gray hair, wearing his cycling kit-.cooked,
sunday carved it up like a carazy man at the design museum.it was uber toit cos they had the history of the surf board exhibition. now im loving surfing,its culture,its freedom its creativity and the surfer uber babes that seemd to enjoy it too. did i mention the great view of the thames from the museum.it was also groovy cos this museum was like the mini-me of museums,1/8th the size of nearly every other museum i had trekked through, so one could complete the museum with daylight to spare.oh and the toilets.you see im a lad that can appreciate a well designed toilet.i hope the dude takin a leak didnt mind the photo i took....oh well.
wednesday the 17th saw me tubing my way to limehouse, a once town hall, then a boxing gym and now a venue for DORKBOTS conventions, dork being the operative word.and oh my word were there dorks.this was a proper geek fest housed in a truelly colonial mansion-symetrical staicases,extremely high ceilings, ornate wrought iron balustrading,a massive glass window covered in growing ivy lighting the stariwel ,real timber strip floors and a whole lot o geek-izadry. great building indeed. the leader of the revolution was this spaniard, probably alfonso was his name,he like many of these other turbo nerds had big afros, glasses, and spoke a language i had only read about in comic books or seen in late 80s movies.anyway the first techie freak ,ben,,went on about a database of foods which he had scripted in the form of a computer programme, anyhoo he's hoping that a potential cook can grip his/her laptop, type in carrots and come out with about a gazillion things a human can do with carrots.so not to bore me or you folks ill kill this stroy pronto, but believe me it was atrue story.
farewell folks, this weekend sees me in manchester the home of man united.ooh cant waitfrom the scratchings of a lad who listened to the jackson 5 growing up, adieu

lemon curd 24.10.2005

back in september when i could still wear a tshirt every day, i went to see this exhibition on sustainable design in bricklane. bricklane is like little india in britain,great curries and super styling vintage clothing stores, and apparently it has the highest concentration of rats too.so folks be afraid of that curry, be very afraid.it also has as a whole bunch of exhibition spaces.the sustainable exhibit was pretty quirky i might say.there was a chair made out of many blocks of timber,like the game jenga,and a chair made out of a bath and a chair made out of someones mom's favourite crockery.it was a mellow exhibition, not getting too outta hand like most exhibitions tend too.one could get outta hand hammering the free booze and shnacks that are often on offer.having gripped a pint we then watched some seriously uber babes in this open air fashion show, a sick lil eve indeed.
i returned to bricklane that weekend keen on some serious second hand store shopping when all of a sudden my blinger inbox received a message.it was from a friend of mine,kay,we'll call her special k for the purposes of the email. anyhoo she asked if anyone wanted her bicycle,and i duly responded that id take it off her hands. so now perched in my room sits a flaming red cycle ready to carve up the streets of london, its ready to be ridden easy-rider style, its ready to get me groceries,its ready for me to pick up sugars, its ready -it just needs a human being to ride it.
you know what ive learnt about living on my own, its that when you throw something on the floor in your room, it actually stays there.
im trying to get my last action hero-ass to spain,barcelona.the wee problem is i booked the ticket,now it clearly states on the visa rules:'do not purchase the ticket afore ye go', so i thought, gsus im bullet proof, why wouldnt i get a visa,and so it came to pass that theyve rejected my request....... twice.
so im off to see the milennium dome with gello,2 weekends ago,(i actually feel sorry for the people i drag on my expeditions). so we're searching for the dome, we can see it we just cant get to it.eventually i ask this wee little blonde belter where o where we can get access to the dome, and she's like, 'the dome?, and she points to it, 'there it is', and im like 'no, we wana go to the dome' and shes like, 'why would you wana do that?', so i say so i can touch it, caress it, ive travelled the world to see it. so she says, 'well you wasted you money'.thanks love
a couple of weekends ago dave and richie met me in picadilly eager for some serious action. i was under a bit o pressure cos i had chooned these lads all these crazy storys about me, the last action hero.so we set off like a crazed bunch of banshees in a noodle bar to seek a party.we found ourselves at a place called alphabet which i had researched on the net.what a dump.they sold us rancid mexican beer, played shyte beats and called themselves a lounge.anyhoo we blew that rice paddy so fast and moseyed on to macdonalds.next stop we said whatever it is we'll just go in and have a cupla.so me and richie enetr this place,dave was held back by the bouncer while he shlurped his coca cola with M-shaped ice cubes.i thought it a wee strange when all i could see were oaks..gsus we hopped on our trusty steeds so fast and never looked back.
sunday saw me have a massive hang over, something i was yet to experience. we had planned to go to greenwich the night before, so it came 14.30, sunday, the sun was ablazing and kev told me they were in greenwich, so i thought damn a day like this cannot be wasted. as shyte as i felt and although it felt like i had a dead rat rotting in my mouth, i got up and bolted for greenwich which is like an hour away.to get to greenwich one hops on the super tube and shoots the northernline till Bank,then its a sweet ride on the DLR.the dlr is this uber cool train,glazed on all sides, driverless,and has plush chairs.it rides high above the city, and circumvents canary wharf-a slick utopian city developed by business men,and it looks it.its another class of travel, you should try it-at a stretch you coulf feel like buck rogers in battle star galactica. anyhoo i met the lads at starbcuks at around 5, whatched them shlurp their shlurpys, did an about turn and headed back....so much for wasting a day.
a crazy series of events evolved over the morning of the 13th.it was yom kippur, a fast day.i needed to make my way to south hampstead synagogue.that was done either via super tube or bus.as i motioned to the tube i saw that it had been gated up, honestly i swore like a starship trooper and wandered what the f*ck the lord thougth of me now.however there was a replacement bus, so to the bus stop i did go.i waited for a while and then an uber cute uber babe came to wait with me,she asked if the bus was going to finchley road,and i responded ai.so we got talking,and i found out she came from scotland and she has a lad in souf africa.anyhoo we boarded the bus and she chuckled at me cos i always say 'sweet' and 'dig'.meanwhile im thinking ,'the heavens are opening for me to repent for my sins and im busy scoring chocloate chip cookie points with miss scotland runner up to miss venezuela of 2004.anyhoo we alight the bus and i walk her to the tube station,she then(this part kills me) hugs me, yeah thats what i said, hugs the chaito man and requests my cell phone digits.i dunno man,
this most recent weekend saw me trying to achieve the goal of the previous weekend.to see the thames river barrier and park.i returned to docklands.here i got to see a building,the cascades. its a residentila block, block of masonry, chiseled, faceted, revealed and sitting on the banks of the thames.having skecthced and photographed it, i made my lone ranger way back onto the DLR in search of the elusive thames barrier. now this place was more than a stones throw away,. en route i passed the london city airport,a sick little aoirport indeed. its crazy the sorta transport network that throbs its way through london.so i get to this area called north woolwiich, but its a wee late for me to get there cos i could see the barriers,but that didnt mean i could get there before dark. i see this ferry,its free, its large its crossing the great thames and it desreves to be ridden by the chaitoman,so i figured f*ck it, lemme hop the ferry get to the otherside,do an about turn michael jackson-style and return to london town. i mount the ferry like the lone ranger would Silver, and it starts to roll.i happened to be standing next to danny,his names daniel,but he preffers danny.he points out the evo 8 mitsubishi on the ferry and says, 'that evo 8, its a porsche killer, its a masreti killer, its a ferrari killer.'now you gotta picture this dude, he's proper ganstar style, decked out in bling,dressed in way-too big jeans, like when youre a kid and you couldnt hold it in, and what youre left with is a wee lille brown package, white sneakers and a west end massive top.i wanted to say, 'its too big for you dawg.'but he probably woulda popped a cap in my scrawny ass, so i shut the f*ck up. anyhoo i agreed with him and asked if he watched 'top gear, a sick lil motor show. i chooned him they showed the Evo 8 killin a ferrari, and he was like 'yeah yeah, i saw it mate.'anyhoo he told me he knows people who kill peolpe,and im thinkin,hmm cool.he mentioned he'd been to the cape flats and knew the stukkie brothers.we got on discussing how 50cent is an absolute joke,and most people really do die after getting shot like 9times.
i did get to see the thames river barrier which is a series of stainless steel clad sorta armadillo shapped pods, being closed.the closing happens once a year and me gello and richie samir saw it man,we saw it. the adjacent park by the way.is gloroius,the kids would do well not getting grass burns
ah folks this email absolutely exhausted me.im happy to get it outta of here, and i only hope you enjoy it.hang tufthe chaito man,the action figurine that evey kid wants to own

touche 08.07.2006

saturday, abig day in the eyes of the world,a day organised by sir bob,andigot to experience it even though that experience was similar to placing atvscreen in your garden alongside the bbq,getting 55000 screaming english speaking hoolgans to join you,and a gazillionn potty loos an arms stretchaway .i dunno,i cant say that now ive seen any of the bands that performedlive.but what made up for the day was the sick little cheese and tomato and cucumber baguete,a classy piece of culinary wizadry if you ask me,althoughit was lacking a dash of pepper,which i prepared pre-boarding the tube tosouth kensington. i bubble wrapped that little nasty with bananas,apples andsome seriously great pretzels.wowon sunday i decided i needed to spend some loot,being big sale time,theremust be something for the chaito man to get his hands on,lo and behold,hecame home empty handed. but next weekend is another weekend,and i shall overcome.ah what a crazy day today has been.it all started when i donned the mickeymouse t-shirt i bought at euro disney today,munched a cherry yoghurt and 2toasts, packed my lunch-a can of tuna,a massive wholewheat baguette,tub of coleslaw,an apple and a tin opener as well as a 5page editorial on PutinsRussia and headed for the uber tube.oh what a dandy day it was to be. so impreparing to read my 5 page editorial on 'Putin's Russia' which i had pickedup off the last tube the night before- that night before was spent having acouple of uber expensive,bleached, french beers in picadilly circus, whenanannouncement over the train PA tels us that 'this train has been redirected,those travelling to Bank need to disembark this train and pickupanother train'. so im thinkin 'gsus f**ing christ,im trying to read howvladimir is screwing over russia and now i have to hop tubes,bollocks'. so iget off at camden with a gazillion inmates and to the next platform wego,which was like ten people deep. i waited initially like a decent humanonly to see people behind me squeezing into the already tightly packed tubes,then i thought' f**K all you pommie bastards,this next train,the 3rdone id waited for, is mine,all mine-and so it was,unlucky for the chick whowas perched under my pits-he he(just kidding,i bought a couple of Status deos from back home,theyre an absolute dream).my mind then harked back tosouth africa and the joke about them taxis- 'black taxi,theres always spacefor one more' .so im chilling on the tube having a lag to myself,so i thought id chat the lad next to me ,so i say,'hey what a lag, yesterdaylondon wins the bid-supposedly with an efficient transport system-todaythatsystem resembles a heap of shyte'. so he sorta smiles to acknowledge me...5minutes later he starts talikng in a russian tongue-all my goodhumourwasted. anyhoo it came to pass that before every tube stop the driver wouldbelt out that 'due to power failures we wont be stoppping at this station'.that continued beyond my station too,eventually we're let off atlondon bridge which is about a tiger woods drive away,and let me tellyou,tiger woods was stroking that ball real far this day.but it was somewhatsurreal when all us inmates burst out of the tube station like a melonbeingsquashed and all the seeds are just spewed out of the innards of that sweetmunchable melon. there were gazillions of moaning pommies on the streets,thesky was way over cast,everyone was now just moving to their destination butin droves-extremely surreal.my sense of this city now is that its extremely rapid,extremely harsh,no-one really gives two shytes about you.like i ask this little chick atthebus station,'sorry can i assume that all these bus numbers pass throughthisstation,so she looks up at the bus sign and says,'no you can assume thatonly THOSE buses pass through this station',so then i interjected and said,'well then thats not an assumption,but fact.'(just a wee aside)anyhoo i eventually got to graft like 30 minutes late,and only then did myflat mate fone me and tell me that some supposed levis-tshirt,calvin klein wearing Al Qaeda lunatic place a bomb in the tubes.anyhoo it was now time to get home,and oh lord a mission indeed.for somereason i walked to an area not very different from the hallowed turf ofhilbrow,gsus i was scared,i almost shed a tear,then thought of me mum's spaghetti bolognaise.anyhoo after trudging through the rain,passing areallycool tshirt shop,i eventually hopped on any bus and asked the bus to takemenear to camden from where i could possibly get home,a good bus driver indeed.he told me when to 'alight' the bus.(i dig the word alight). and sothrough my wee journey, i met a dude from PE,a surfer ddude at that andtogether we made our way home.me and Casey shared a greatexperience,hopefully he'll teach me to surf one day. stay well my far flung and not so far flung friendsa memoir from an indelible ladthe chaity man

apple juice 15.06.2005

so i always thought theatre was a wee bit gay. i used to hang out with
this sugar from varsity and she used to drag me to her Wits 3rd year
productions,and boy would i have rather chewed broken glass,and so
trauma set in just like gangreen would have to a wounded soldier,and i
was tainted never to step into a theatre so much as to use the hands
free flush urinals.....but then i arrived on a wee island called GREat
britain and and 'we will rock you' was showing.the band queen provided
the music,ben elton,the production. my work's exit,enter barbican tube
station,exit tottenham court road station, the search for cheap
munchies from Tesco,and a 23 quid ticket into the dominion
theatre-uber small,uber intimate,an upper tier front row seat--as a
kid one would wanna spit down to the bottom to see how fast it would
drop,strangley i wished to do it again,cigarette stompy burnt red
carpets,antiquey decor with those little side terraces for the uber
cool folk, and hands free flush urinals-only problem,i had to touch
the taps to turn them on,but thats for another day.sweet mary
jane,this show ripped my heart out,and oh what a joy it was,filled it
with vanilla custard and returned it to my limp body. as manly and
hairy a lad i am,this show brought me to shed a wee tear,it made me
sing along to 'fat bottom girls'and i enjoyed it,it made me shout out
'RockNRoll',it made me feel like a kid of the 70s,even though i am
one. im a big fan of rocknroll,of the culture the dress,and this
little show expressed it all,man alive.the sets were absolutely
glorious,from massive screens,to swivel platforms and some seriously
groovy guitar playing geeks in the background,the cast was like my
moms spaghetti bolognaise...i just wanted to munch it.
i do believe this world is a far lesser place now that the great
freddie mercury has perished,may his music live on.
so dont be gay go to the theatre,however avoid student productions
even if its for something else youre after.
by the way,apparently there are vast amounts of oestrogen in the water
here,did somebody mentioned web feet.
keep it real
the dan a memoir from his head

apples 14.06.2005

ey my good friends,
so last night was an absolute ripper,went to china town for chinese
munchies,handed over a testicle in payment for the graze, but ill
recover,although ill feel a little out of balance for a while.i hopped
on the tube that eve to find a whole bunch of young germans dancing to
the tune of an accordian, it was absolutely crazy,in total contrast to
the flight of the morning tubes whereby everyone is pondering the da
vinci code,or paulo coelho.
so our intrepid hero wearing a teenage mutant turtle suit,with his
smurf underpants exposed,fighting the biggest bears known to human
kind and carrynig around a hip flask full of the best that mother
russia has to offer has been working like a proper pommie of late in
an architecture firm,its crazy but its full of architects. work is
most joyous,the coffee here is great,and the czech republic lad
alongside me is a joy,i have a window seat and swivel chair,the
carpets are green,and the toilet cubicles are drywall,theyve got a wee
library which i need to get involved in,and drinks last monday saw me
getting a lil frot. im in the business of building buildings,and i
just received an invite for this bird karens birthday,a joy indeed.so
london is an apple at the mo'-i just wanna munch it.
i bid u adieu friends
the dude russian bear hunter and master swordsman

cucmbers 13.09.2006

in my previous wanderings i failed to mention an excursion to the great east.ill tell you how great the east is through this little incident. so im on the tube blazing it down the central line like a bat outta hell,im sh*t scared cos i have no need for speed.eventualy the train halts, two hooligans get out the tube and proceed to do push ups, kiss the floor and shout out, 'its great to be back in the east.' so much for concerns of hygiene.
reason for hanging out in the east? my well wiked blood cousin lives in them parts.the day was set out for cousin Ad to show me the sights and sounds of an emerging area, bethnal green.we wandered through to a wee market,normally i think flea markets are absolutely shyte.theyre always selling the same tie-dyed shyte.but this market was all fresh produce-home made stuff like olives and cheeses,a lot of pig and chicken and fudge,it was au-natural which i quite dig.we also moseyed on down to this farm,the Hackney inner city farm.its a wee lil 'twilight-zoney' cos i had just read 'animal farm'.wonder what john edwards the clairvoyant woulda said about that one. anyhoo we saw chickens and ducks,and theyre all just cruising around plucking things and munching stuff,and a massive hog,woulda made for a dandy spit. we landed up at this lil greek place for munchies,so my cuz pulls out this joke about lone ranger and tonto, i cant repeat it cos im shyte at jokes, but boy we had a proper chuckle.so i said dude you should do comedy and he said,nah
manchester,a place known for its hooliganism(very appealing to me) was a 4hour drive and we was there.great little city i tell you, only 3rd to birmingham and london in size.its pretty industrial, pretty low rise, prety suave and full of pretty uber babes.its a little crazy cos half of the inner city was obliterated by the gun toting IRA,however apparently the mancuniians thank their sweet,lucky stars that it happened, cos what coulda have been a giant sized dump of a city is actually quiet glorious(best said int he queens english after shes eaten a cucmber sandwich). so i got to stay at a friend, lisa B and she missioned me around from the goth strewn lawns alongside the urbis museum to the goth filled alternative shopping area, to the home of the greatest football side this side of the ganges and beyond.we managed to go out saturday eve to a disco beneath an hotel and i managed to get a little toasty, and although i was on home ground(old trafford that is) i couldnt take full advantage ifyouknowhaitimean.anyhoo great little city once again and worth a visit oh and a tadoa ando building sits alongside the bus station.
so from hooliganism to craziness.ITS CRAZY BUT THESE FOLKS GO NUTTER FOR these biscuits called jaffa cakes, and macvities digestives.theyre those biscuits your mom left in milk to go soft when you were young and had no teeth,and your ouma keeps them in the bottom cupboard and pulls them out when youve been a good lad.in SA we're built tough,we're built to dip an ouma,and oh its good.jaffa cakes are a soft cookie with like orange jam above and then coated in choccie.i dunno id rather chew broken glass.
it was a tuesday that i found myself with lisa B in regents street at an open air film festival.ah sweet mary jane.i always though open air film was always a tad impossible, i mean surely you could see the screen, but then the sound would be problematic.and how true my thoughts were.but it was incredible, cos they cordened off this lil street which was buffered on foursides by say 5-storey buildings.one edge was pregnant with bursting restaurants and the other not so. the 'courtyard' created was then filled with seats and restaurant tables. the movie showing was, 'cool hand luke' starring the great paul newman.it was a pretty groovy movie, one definitely for my future dvd collection.im sorta into my old picture shows. the thing is i dig movies i just dont like cinemas, this was chilled cos you sorta pitch your tent on the floor and sprawl out,so theres no geting too close to anyone.
anyhoo good folk, keep it real, dont do drugs and stay in school,.sweetly danny champion of the world