Working in Soho, I’m lucky enough to have loads more lunch options than I had working near Tower Bridge. Granted, most of these involve fried eggs and bacon, but you don’t see me complaining. In an attempt to play a healthier hand today, however, I thought I’d try the excellent and wildly popular Jumbo Eats on Brewer Street. As usual, the queue was formidable but, living in England, I pretend to like queues, so I waited.
Music blared from inside and, after about thirty seconds of waiting, my brain pieced together what I was hearing: a horrible dance remix of Wham!’s “Careless Whispers”. I couldn’t even type that last sentence without furrowing my brow in disapproval. The bulk of my mp3 collection consists of sounds most breathing creatures would kindly describe as unlistenable, but a naff disco turn at Wham! brought me to my knees. Surely no wrap made under the influence of Wham! would be fit for human consumption. I wouldn’t even buy cat food made with solo George Michael in the background.
I fled from the horrible saxophone to my familiar cafe around the corner for a trusted parma ham panini. I let Wham! get the better of me. I let Wham! win. The panini, however, was really nice.
Recently it has been brought to my attention that, in my thirty-three years, not only have I told a fair chunk of people to fuck off, but I’ve also become quite good at it. Admittedly, it’s a skill of dubious honour to possess, but if there’s one thing I learned after twelve years of Catholic school, it’s that God wants you to make the most of the gifts he bestows upon you. Sometimes those gifts lack subtlety, and on the surface can seem like the by-product of an antisocial personality disorder, but they are natural talents nonetheless. Besides, I’ve never told anyone to fuck off who didn’t deserve it.
Over breakfast on Saturday, Rin suggested that I chronicle my many fuck off stories here. Later that night, I started making a list and found that I’ve told a surprisingly high number of people which exit they can get off at. Sometimes I stayed friends with these people and sometimes we parted ways, but everytime I told them to fuck off. This will be a series of at least five or six parts. If you don’t like it, feel free to leave a comment, and if you’re really lucky, I’ll tell you to fuck off, too.
As most of you probably know, I don’t post here as often as I once did because these days I’m generally quite busy devoting most of my writing efforts to Londonist. Southbank Centre’s annual Meltdown festival is my busiest week of music writing for the whole year and the one that just ended was the most active I’ve ever seen.
Thanks to the support of the lovely press team at Southbank Centre, I was fortunate enough to attend four events this time around with a photo pass for each one. I reviewed all of them for Londonist and published my photos on Flickr. Here’s the links to those reviews along with a selection of my favourite snaps. If you missed out on Meltdown this year, you missed a great one, but I’m sure 2009 will be even better. Enjoy!
One of the greatest things about living in Britain is that I can walk down the street openly drinking a beer and I can legally bet on whatever the fuck I want. A few minutes ago Rin and I went down to Paddy Power on Camden High Street and placed our Eurovision 2008 bets as follows:
Spain: £5 (£2.50 to win at 40:1 odds / £2.50 to place in the top four at 10:1 odds)
France: £5 (£2.50 to win at 50:1 odds / £2.50 to place in the top four at 12.5:1 odds)
Finland: £5 (£2.50 to win at 12:1 odds / £2.50 to place in the top four at 3:1 odds)
Personally, I absolutely adore the Sébastien Tellier song and would love for it to win, though on the other hand I can’t stop dancing El Robocop thanks to Rodolfo Chikilicuatre. Finland earned my bet not only because their entry brings back fond memories of 2006’s Lordi victory, but also because I wanted a remote chance of winning a tiny bit back.
I’ll leave you with videos of what we gambled on, including one we didn’t simply because it has an angel, a devil and lots of fire. Time to watch the Eurovision final!
Spain - Rodolfo Chikilicuatre - “Baila El Chiki Chiki”
Last Sunday was so dreary and grey that it seemed as good a day as any to break the DJ silence and record my first new mix in years. I wasn’t sure what really would come out when I started, but after all was faded and sliced, I think I picked up right where I left off.
With a newfound love of black metal and a continued affection for minimal drone, I’m happy to present you with almost 35 minutes of the sometimes electronic, always psychedelic, Village Green Decimation Society (right-click link to download or stream in the player below).
Track listing:
Burzum - Spell Of Destruction
ABBA - Arrival
Eric Copeland - Scraps
Eyeless In Gaza - Avenue With Trees
Luboš Fišer - The Sermon
Luboš Fišer - The Visit
Skip Spence - Weighted Down (The Prison Song)
Sewer Election - White Golgotha
Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - Heaven Is The Notion That All This Will End
Steve Bradley - Forces In 2 Dimension
Skull Defekts - Acid Animal
Stephen O’Malley & Z’ev - 14m 10s From 1m From 22s - 1m 22s - 28 Track Submix
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