8:12 AM
Saturday night... Dinner Party. First proper one in ages - Martha came over with her French chap Phillipe. Lovely to have the opportunity to cook again. I tried not to get too bogged down in accompaniments - in the past I have spent days cooking just because I wanted to make every side-dish as special (read: complex) as the main course.

We started off drinking sherbet (cheap, sweet sparkling plonk mixed with freshly-squeezed lime juice - gorgeous). Gill made the starter - a salad of smoked salmon, lettuce, tomatoes, mozzarella, black olives & artichoke hearts. The main course came from The Vegetarian Bistro - Aubergine and Fennel with Tomatoes topped with Cheese Custard. It was a gratin dish - layers of fennel, onion & tomato sauce alternated with aubergine, and topped off with a mixture of mozzarella, parmesan and egg that rose and crisped souffle-like. Along with this I served potato mashed up with the left over creme fraiche, and spring cabbage blanched and sauted in walnut oil.

For dessert we had a Nigella dessert special (she really is good at these - turning me into a domestic goddess already). Dried apricots, soaked & cooked in a cardamom-y syrup, split and stuffed with creme fraiche and then dusted with ground pistachio. Very middle-eastern tasting, sweet & scrummy.

'twas nice to do things properly - of course, might have been nicer to go even more over the top (I have some dessert wine somewhere that would have been a treat with those apricots, and an after-dinner cigar wouldn't have gone amiss). But by the end of the evening, we felt well & truly stuffed & sated. Chatted for a while and then went to bed and... slipped into unconsciousness while half-way through massaging Gill's shoulders.

Add comment | this item

8:11 AM
Got the 20.25 train back up to Sheffield on Friday night - I had a standard ticket, rather than first class, for the first time in ages (trying to economise) but... I walked as far as the bar separating the two types of accomodation, remembered the agony of the preceding Monday, when I hunted ages for a seat and then suffered neck-ache from dozing with my head lolling over the back. So I turned around and headed back into first class. As I passed the last few premiere service seats, I saw a familiar gangly figure in oversized thick-rimmed specs sitting in one of the seats. I rather nervously looked for a seat close by, but could only find a table with enough space to spread out at the far end of the carriage. However, on the floor alongside my table were an assortment of musicianly flight cases stencilled with the word "Cocker". Yes, I was sharing a carriage with Jarvis, he of Pulp fame.

Didn't quite know what to do - I wanted to talk to him. Pulp are one of those bands whose music I rather like, but have never felt the need to own. But aside from that, from his appearance to his lyrics to his Michael Jackson-moonie to the Guardian article on his childhood exploratory adventures along the Porter and Don, Jarvis gives the impression of someone who is intelligent, individualistic, interesting, and probably well worth the chat. I kinda thought I might get on OK with him as well. But still... he must get that kinda thing all the time. And, well, celebrity hunting... it does strike me as a bit sad. So instead I started to SMS a small selection of friends to tell them the quandry that I was in. Mark said "buy him a bottle of red wine", which didn't sound like too bad an idea, but still I was too shy. After half a journey of thinking about it, I almost had the courage to do that, but then I walked up the carriage and saw him apparently engrossed in a book, and didn't have the heart to interrupt. So I thought I would leave it.

It didn't help that the guy at the table behind mine started ringing his friends "'ey, you'll never guess who's on this carriage.... JARVIS COCKER!! Yeah. Yeah, I just 'ad a chat with him. Nice bloke. Yeah, says 'e gets a lot of it and... well, he doesn't know what to say, coz basically he's pretty shy. Yeah. Unbelievable though. Jarvis Cocker. Who'da thought it?". And then, stretching his head around the seat to look at me "'Ey mate, you seen who's on this carriage? Jaaaarvis Cocker!" Well, having had to put up with that, I wouldn't wish any more public harassment (not even from me) on poor Jarvis.

Eventually the train arrived in Sheffield, and Jarvis shuffled up to my end of the carriage to collect his boxes. Now, he had a bag already, plus there were 3 solid looking cases (one of which bore a label along the lines of "DANGER! HEAVY BOX") so I could see that he was going to have trouble. An opportunity for conversation... (which has obviously been slightly fictionalised, as of course my memory isn't that good really)

D: Alright there. Can I give you a hand with those?

J: Yeah, but you're going to regret saying that. They're heavy.

D: Nah, no problem. My bass amp's a fuck-load heavier

J: Well, alright then, if you're sure.

D: No problem.

J: So you're got a bass amp then.

D: Yeah. I play in a band. Here, <huge cringe inside> can I give you a CD.... (pause)... not that I think that giving you a CD will be some kind of way of getting into the music industry, I'm far too cynical to think that...

J: You can never be too cynical

D: It's just that, I've got hundreds of the buggers, and the only way I'll ever get rid of them is by giving them to strangers I meet on the train. And besides... you never know... you might like it.

J: Right. Ta.

D: By the way, I really liked that article you wrote a while ago for... was it the Guardian... about exploring the Porter and Don.

J: Oh yeah, actually I think I wrote that for some other magazine...

D: It reminded me of one of those things you do when you're a kid, that you really ought to carry on doing...

J: Actually, I bought myself a dinghy last year. Been meaning to try it again. Well, maybe not the Porter.

D: I was going to say, if you fancy another trip I'll sort out the dinghy. It sounds like fun - give me a ring if you're going

(In the intervening period we have got the boxes off the train and onto a trolley. We've now reached the steps over to the ticket office and are somewhat confused as to what to do - Jarvis spots a sign to a lift but "it's probably just for disabled people and stuff" and I say that I don't mind hefting the stuff up the stairs. So this time I grab the "HEAVY BOX")

D: Bloody hell that is heavy. What have you got in it.

J: It's records. I'm DJ'ing in Glasgow tomorrow night.

D: Oh, right.

J: I'm always worried that they won't like what I play, so I have to bring loads of records in case.

D: Yeah, and I guess you always need a back-up in case somebody comes up and asks you to play the Birdie Song.

J: Actually, I've got a version of the Birdie Song in there.

D: Bloody Hell!

J: Yeah, fucked-up version by a band called (....?)

And we continued to trade a few more inanities (all of this taking place in the short space between the platform and the taxi rank) before climbing into separate cabs and going our own ways (D: Hope you enjoy the CD). I was right, I could have had a good chat with him, given the time. I wish I'd bought that bottle of wine.

Wierd footnote: After handing over the Caustic CD, I started listening to it myself, reading the lyrics, realising that they are actually pretty wonderful, and thinking about that line "Ask Dr. Zeus the way back home again", which I changed to Dr. Seuss (I thought that Arthur had spelt it wrong, he usually does). But Arthur insisted that it was Dr. Zeus, apparently a character from the Planet of the Apes. In one of those bizarre moments of trivial inanity that we all had, I wondered whether, if he were bored enough to read the lyrics, Jarvis might spot the Planet of the Apes bit, or if he would also think it was a Seuss-mis-spelling. Anyway, casting around for Pulp websites to link this piece to, I read that Jarvis "was a huge fan of Planet of the Apes when I was young and had posters of the characters all over my bedroom walls".

Add comment | this item

8:11 AM
Thursday night at Leo Burnett's is traditionally party night. And last Thursday was the biggest yet - Regional Headquarters (the bit of the company that handles all the Europe, Middle East & Africa stuff) based their bash on the theme "drink your way around the world".

Also traditional on these occasions is some free booze, but rarely enough to last beyond the first hour or so. Now, these RHQ guys got it right. Instead of blowing all their budget on costumes, props and scenery that would be all but invisible to the sozzled masses after the first quadruple sprit, they got in a cheap canvas silhouetted with the world's favourite landmarks, a few plastic hats decorated with miscellaneous national flags, and a tanker-load of free booze. And what a selection. Spirits were rather over-represented, with everything from Polish vodka through Mexican Tequila and American Jack Daniels to Greek ouzo. All of the bottles were laid out on a table, with a small smattering of mixers, so a pour-your-own frenzy of large measures ensued.

My own personal tour didn't stray much from the Americas, alternating between Tequilas (with salt & lime, of course) and JD & coke. In between these I would grab a white wine from the bar, perhaps to give myself the illusion that I wasn't drinking too many strong spirits. By the end of the evening I was reduced to ouzo, as there was precious little else left (although the very fact that there was anything remaining by 1am was unique among Leo Burnett parties). I alternated the ouzo with large gulps from bottles of mineral water found lying around the office, in the hope that this would prevent me from dehydrating and perhaps keep me more sober than I might otherwise have been. What I didn't realise that the ouzo and water were probably busy mingling in my stomach and causing more damage than I had anticipated.

The evening started rationally enough, with polite banter, the occasional quick dance, tipsy but not dangerous. And then at some point, possibly around 9pm although time soon became even more of an abstract concept than usual, the spirits did what spirits do, and everything became a bit of a blur. I remember losing my glasses on the floor somewhere (well, no, I don't remember losing them, but I do remember looking for them), finding them sans lens, and scrabbling around to find the missing part. Eventually I realised that the shards of glass splintering into my hands and knees were probably all that remained of the lens I was looking for - my 2-day old £330 (although to be honest pretty naff) glasses, gone in a moment of madness. I hope my insurance will cover them, although I suspect not.

The next 4 hours or so are completely blank. That's the majority of my evening disappeared into the same space where lost socks and biros hide. I am told that at some stage we were doing acrobatics to Elvis - I don't remember this but the dislocated shoulder & carpet burns on my elbow hint that it may well be true. My next moment of consciousness came at around 1am, when the building emptied and I searched in vain for Tim, whose house I was supposed to be staying at. He was nowhere to be found, and so I telephoned him in vain, repeatedly hearing his voicemail kick straight in. I resigned myself to sleeping under my desk, and retrieved a large wooden cask of garlic bread which I munched while pondering my predicament. Then at some point I got hold of Tim - not sure whether he returned a drunked message (I wasn't the only one to leave a drunken message for Tim that night) or whether I kept calling for as long as it took for him to tube it from South Kensington to Tooting. He was back at home, so I said I would catch a cab to Tooting Bec and meet him in the middle of the road.

Reluctant to abandon my newly found hoard of garlic bread, I searched for a suitable carrier for it. Eventually I settled upon one of the empy dustbin bags within the bin by my desk, loaded it up with stale crusts, and hailed a cab clutching my stinky prize. I arrived at Tooting to find Tim, as arranged, wildly flailing in the street to hail me down. Entered his house where again my memory becomes unclear, and slept on the floor under a randomly-flung duvet.

At 7.30 the next morning my alarm beeped me into immediate wakedness. I leapt up thinking "where the hell am I?", gradually realised, somehow located the kitchen where I downed a pint of water (cue for the ouzo to kick in again), and staggered across the road to the tube station. Still extremely drunk, I climbed on board a tube train, careening into the human traffic on the way. Spent a fuzzy & muzzy morning at work, eventually sobering up around midday, but at least I managed to avoid claiming that I would "never again" drink so much. Same time next week...

Add comment | this item

3:19 PM
And JC too. What the fuck.

Oh, and thanks to Niina for this gem from a while back. Makes for good reading. Would make a nice .sig but... a trifle long, methinks.

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky... from Netochka Nezvanova

'I have no talent!' he said, turning ash-white. This moved B. dreadfully.

'Listen, Egor Petrovitch. Whatever do you think you're doing to yourself? You can only destroy yourself with this despair. Where's your courage? Where's your patience? Now, in a fit of depression, you're saying that you have no talent: you're wrong! You have talent, I can see it from the way you can understand and appreciate music. I can show you how your whole life is a proof of it. You've told me about your earlier years and it's obvious that even then you were haunted by a similar kind of despair. And then your first teacher, the man about whom you've told me so much, aroused the first love of music in you and recognized that you have ability. You felt it just as strongly and oppressively then as you do now. The only difference is that at that time you didn't understand what was happening to you. You realized that you couldn't go on living with the landowner and yet you didn't know quite what it was you did want to do. Your teacher died too soon. He left you with just a vague yearning and, what's more important, he didn't teach you how to understand yourself. You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your misery you began to hate everything around you. But you didn't waste those six years; you studied, you thought, you became aware of yourself and your strengths. Now you're able to understand art and your vocation in art. You need patience and courage, my friend… Achievement far greater than mine awaits you. You're a hundred times greater an artist than I, if only you had my endurance! Study and stop drinking, as your good landowner said to you. And above all make a new beginning. Begin with the basics. What is it that torments you so? Poverty? Deprivation? But it's precisely poverty and deprivation that mould the true artist. They are inevitable at the beginning. Just now no one wants you, no one is bothered about knowing you, but that's the way of the world. Just wait a while and you'll see how different it is once they've discovered you. The envy, the petty meanness and, worst of all, the stupidity will be a greater burden to you than any hardship. Talent needs sympathy and understanding, but wait until you see the sort of people who will flock around you when you've achieved just the tiniest bit of fame. All that you've gained through labour, sleepless nights, hunger and hardship will be looked on with contempt and disdain. These future friends of yours will give you neither comfort nor encouragement. They won't point our your good sides. Oh no! They'll take a malicious delight in spotting every one of your mistakes. They'll only be interested in your faults and errors. They'll celebrate over them - as if anyone could be perfect. You see, you're too conceited. Sometimes you're proud when there's no need to be and you may go and offend some important little nobody, and then there'll be trouble, for you are alone and they are many. They'll torment you; they'll prod you like a pincushion. Even I have begun experiencing all this. But now you must cheer up. You aren't completely destitute and you'll get by as long as you don't turn your nose up at humble work. Go and chop wood as I did at those evening parties. You're too impatient, it's a kind of sickness of yours. Try to be simpler - you're too subtle and you think too much; you give your brain a lot of work. You're bold with words but feeble with your bow. You're too vain and you lack fortitude. Have courage and find patience to study diligently. If you don't trust your own strength, then put your trust in luck. You still have fire and feeling. Perhaps you'll reach your goal, but, if not, trust in luck. Whichever way, you can't lose, because the stake is too great. It's a wonderful thing, my friend, to trust in luck!"

Add comment | this item

12:54 PM
So glad that people notice. I didn't realise I'd left my blog unwatered for so long, and then I started to get blog pangs, and during the last week requests have suddenly started pouring (OK, trickling) in for updates. I shall try my best. I love you all, but not as much as I love myself. Obviously.

Add comment | this item

12:53 PM
Niina asked to be mentioned. Niina. Blah. Hope that'll do.

Add comment | this item

12:53 PM
Wednesday night was gig night - much anticipated, much planned and prepared for, but all the preparation in the world can only ever be a prelude. We were playing at the Grand, Clapham, to raise money for the Red Cross. I was there in my capacity as bassist for two bands, Cathy Ray and Bone Turtle. Things started off painfully slowly, as they always do at gigs. We arrived at the venue early (very early) afternoon. Got excited over the mixed Victoriana/Art-deco/disco kitsch decor and 15-foot high stage (gonna have to play with safety harnesses), ran around getting used to the place, fiset up instruments & fiddled about with stuff & more stuff, covered my small amount of hair with peroxide paste, got onstage and played through a few songs, washed of the peroxide gunk after 90 minutes and uncovered hair like a tabby cat's, mottled brown and Duracell-orange, went off shopping for a quick release, plastered my hair down completely with more (LOTS more) peroxide gunk, had a sound check, washed off the peroxide gunk, discovered a head of hair that was custard yellow with tabby drop-shadows, met up with the members of my other band....

Finally we got to play. First on Cathy Ray. Our first gig in over 6 months, with only 1 rehearsal to tide us over, but we were tight as... no, I'll avoid the obvious comparisons... tight as we always are these days. It was fun playing the old numbers, but there was no atmosphere - the audience was half-a-mile away. We tried to throw in some comments between songs (or I did, mainly) as I'm always so aware of the huge & painful gaps where audiences start shuffling their feet & getting awkward, but the talking felt forced & painful. All in all, I know that we put in a good performance, but it was far from what we are capable of, and because I didn't have the audience feedback I didn't feel able to start boogieing and losing my inhibitions and swinging swaying & swanking with the music, which in turn would have pushed it back to the audience & made this whole kinda Princess Diana-style mental feedback loop of intensifying emotional vibes. So overall, satisfactory but we know you can do better. Much better.

Came off stage feeling incredibly unfulfilled. Knew that everyone who might possibly be impressed by our music would have been impressed enough... just. Mark summed it all up. He said, in a slightly embarrased (very wierd for Mark) sort of way... "Cathy Ray were great." (..... long pause..... ) "but not that great". There's nothing better than the truth. Seriously. Pain is pleasure. Occasionaly.

(shit... just realising how drunk I am... writing on a Friday night on a lonely long Sheffield-bound train again. This text is starting to disintegrate into mere words again...)

And then finally we had Bone Turtle. A far longer set (18 songs, compared to the 6 of Cathy Ray), far more populist, far easier for me, as I could hide at the back and just get on with it rather than singing/speaking and exposing myself to possible ridicule within my own brain. I really enjoyed myself, despite the odd (fairly minor really) cock-up and the fact that some of the songs are really starting to bore me. It was pretty predictable good-time party-type Commitments/Blues Brothers music (though, if I do say so myself, with a tiny bit of a twinkle-dust crunch-funk magic touch). We were good. Damn good. And people got up and partied, danced all around the stage (like to see them do the same for Cathy Ray), waved at me and pulled faces. I got to feel good about the whole thing.

And then, 18 songs later, we came of stage, and the emptiness came back. Dunno quite how to explain it. A sort of philosophical feeling, the type of which I'm sure there are words for in German or French (euuurgh, what a horrible sentence). In German, it would be a crunchy painful life-kills-me how-can-I-continue-with-this-pain type of word like Weltschmertz or... shit, what was the other one, I dunno. In French it would be far more existential, like what am I doing here, what is life all for, do-we-really-exist-and-if-so-is-it-worth-going-to-parties type of word, like... shit, somebody pass me one of those French philosophical terms quick, I know they exist. Ah well, maybe it's in the nature of the thing that words are not enough to contain the feeling. Sorry, do I sound poncey. Ah well, it's probably intentional.

So anyway, as I was very slowly getting around to saying, I came off stage and felt kinda happy in some parts, at least as if I'd given it the best that I possibly could under the circumstances, but also like... you know that song, "Is that all there is?" Well, that was pretty much exactly it. So I spent the rest of the evening, drifting around, trying to latch onto people without much success... had one or two really nice chats but never felt 100% there. Still wanted more experience.

I ended up going back to JCs with Niina and Josh. Probably the best said about the lest. Or vice versa. Or... sorry, do you follow me? Had a lovely time, but only because I was already hell-bent on having a lovely time and... no, it was really nice company, but... bizarre. And having had less that 8 hours sleep in total for the last 2 nights, and being well on course to catch about 3 hours for this night, I finally threw in the towel and drifted off to the sofa for a couple of hours snoring. Bzzzzzzz. That was probably the best part of the night. But the rest of the night was nice. Or sweet. Or something.

Add comment | this item

12:53 PM
For every butterfly whose wings flap in Tokyo
This old lady coughs a song down in Salford way
She's getting ready for the greatest date up in the sky
Never ending fags to light up stars in a night sky


Add comment | this item

5:41 PM
If I ever know of anyone sentenced to execution, I'll be sure n'buy them one of these tasteful cards from rtmark.

Add comment | this item

4:27 PM
Last Friday night was drinking night. Unusually, I didn't need to dash and catch a train back to Sheffield - Gill had brought Rowan & Lola to London, and was coming to meet me later. We trickled out of the office towards the Cod, as is becoming habitual on a Friday night (and many other nights, come to that). As well as the usual suspects (mainly Mark, but various other hard reality degenerates) we had two guests: Arnon & Bjarni from Icelandic company innn.

I had drunk with Icelandics before. People from sub-arctic countries seem to have an incredible love of vodka, and in Iceland, which is about as sub-arctic as they come, this love is even more intense that the Finns, Poles or Russians (OK, maybe they draw with the Russians). Well, things started off fairly gently - the usual 3 or 4 bottles of champagne, all quite manageable. Then BJ's friend, also from Iceland, turned up, and talk turned to another friend who downed 78 vodka shots in succession and not only survived but walked away from the scene. And for some reason (no doubt provoked by Mark) things started to turn silly.

The cause of this silliness was our introduction to Russian Cocaine. I haven't managed to find a description of this cocktail anywhere else on the web (actually, cocktail is the wrong word, it's more a drinking method) so I though I'd present it here, as a general disservice to the world.

The drink part is simple - pure vodka. I think we were drinking quadruple shots, although it may just have been doubles of the Cod's exceedingly generous measures. In a shot glass. On its own. The interesting part, as with tequila, is in the external ingredients.

Take two slices of lemons (we made do with wedges, but apparently slices are de rigeur). On one of these slices, sprinkle ground coffee (as much as you can fit) and sugar. Sandwich the second slice on top - you now have a coffee-sugar sandwich in Lemon "bread".

Munch on your lemon sandwich - take a good bite, devour all of the flesh (and dissolving coffee & sugar with it), swallow it and immediately chase it down with the vodka (in one go, of course). And enjoy.

The immediate feeling is one of instant awakeness, awareness, and hyperactivity. Followed some 15-20 minutes later by failure of the legs followed by inability to control the brain.

The reason for the ingredients is, apparently, as follows:

1. The lemon opens up whatever it is inside you that's going to act as a receptor to this stuff
2. The coffee perks you up with an instant caffeine hit
3. The sugar gives you a burst of energy
4. The vodka... well, the vodka does the rest.

And that's it. I can't remember any more of the evening. Sure it was good though.

Add comment | this item