this weekend was made possible by mobile telecommunications

i've got over a week of awesome tales to tell you.

let's start on the saturday before last. i had planned on making some plans for the weekend, but when that fell through, i was delighted to get a call from pops asking if i wanted to go to the plaza in stockport on a saturday night. there was an alistair sim double bill - 'an inspector calls' (what a needlessly wierd twist ending) and 'the happiest days of your life' (oh, joyce it was hilarious). the cinema is a time box, full of the usherettes had those funny fans on their heads, they showed adverts in the interval for lyons maid ice cream, and other things they don't make anymore, and an organist! that went up and down! i don't know how it will survive.

monday i went to see richard james with ewa. i would have gone it alone but she was only round the corner in the ox (the best pub in britain? must be something to do with the very very expensive food. but the dickhead staff and rubbish music put me off a bit). it was at the king's arms - where i'd seen euros childs and pre-met marion. she wasn't there for this gig though. did it slip under her radar, did she not care, or because she supposed i would go? where the fuck even is she? anyway, ewa had her own cross to bear, who was present, but i'm not going into that.
then it was cult of luna. i should have just sat back and rocked gently instead of trying to shuffle to it (they do have some beats sometimes you know). suprisingly the great revelation for me was enjoying the support band atavist. they played two songs in their set, totalling possibly around seven different notes. i was glad i went alone, molecular biology book in hand. it's amazing the similarities between dna and turing machines. i really, really wanted the light brown cult of luna t-shirt with the roses on, but i figured i'd spent enough on music for one day/week. so i just bought a couple of cult of luna cups instead.
it was a wierd gig. they're a completely different band now. was the singer not there? is that it? last time i saw them they had a wall of fog lit by a single blue light for the whole gig. it was amazing, you could just make out the outlines. this changed that whole image for me.

and then, the big weekend. i went down to neil and leslie's on friday, had a lovely dinner by neil, and introduced him to my world of interesting time signitures (spurred on by his fascination with a david gray track in 7/4), garden, and my own recordings. he reccomended an interesting-sounding female singer. well, we'd all like that, wouldn't we?
the next day i went down to brighton and found it seemingly deserted of people i knew, like jess, who'd gone up to manchester. if only i'd realised that by staying up here on friday night i could have seen her. not even steph was around, and no-one in dave's recognised me. so i went down to the beach and read, and it was beautifully sunny, i got my feet wet in the spray. and then i needed lunch. so where did i go? when you've got one day in brighton, you might as well go somewhere special. but they were all too expensive, so i went to offbeat and then to rach's for tea and also tea. but planet india was fully booked out! heartbroken, we all sloped off to china china across the road. i had a fully tasty malaysian-style curry. i'm the best at choosing food sometimes. i noticed, laurence, that planet india now does a lunchtime buffet too.

god, then what happened.
er, i went off to see robin and anna and kate and we sat around for a bit and went to the pub and then i went back to rach and robin's house party. i was not being a control freak, but someone needs to put songs on at parties and everyone else kept wiping the playlist. it was a charity shop party, so everyone was decked out in nice klobber from robin's five pound rag bag. nice to see you. at about two o'clock, a bit later than planned, i walked over to robin and kate's to sleep, but i didn't have the heart to knock loudly enough to wake them, so i wandered back again. that took an hour. sometimes i'm the best at committing to things.

in the morning, i got the fuck out of brighton, via the completely obligatory dumb waiter build your own breakfast - sausages, hash browns and cheesy bubble and squeak. it was all the same colour so an egg could have come in handy. but darn it was delicous. the following six hours were spent getting to, and then waiting for people to get to, hampstead. it was great, people just kept dribbling in. who'd expect to find such a disparate bunch of tenuos artists in a pub like this, growing by the hour? we went off for our picnic, i supplied beer and delicious chevda. this may not have made up for the amount of other people's houmous i consumed. we played and sang songs, and then luke got a fire going with very little stress. we stayed out in the woods until about ten when it started pissing down. i lost my self harmy knife. i was gutted.
but you know what? i've had the tool over ten years. it's amazing i've kept it this long, and the morning after, walking in finsbury park, i saw some lovely, relatively inexpensive multi-tools, and they even had nail files on! feels better now.
the day after thom and i went out to meet dan, who i am very sorry to say i didn't see for long enough, but we both seemed to be having such a good time with everyone else. it was merely a matter of hours we spent together. he got some japcore food, wandered a little, then headed back to his for a cup of tea. mistake! that's a long way to go for a cup of tea. got stuck into the fabulous horse riding sim 'shadow of the collosus'. what a beautiful and sad game. but we where late, and the northen line was mungged up, and the queue was long. and we completely missed ephel duath. i suppose god got me back for the time i wandered around leeds for an hour looking for joseph's well, and they started just as we came in. anyway, fantomas/melvins were incredible. i recognised two pieces, one of which was 'low rider'. not one song title, never stopping (okay, so everyone got a rest now and again while one of the band members was doing something stupid on their own). it was a perfect performance - and for only one gig, not even a tour (i suppose that would be to much of a strain for these guys delicate perfectionists). thom went off with his cousins back to bournemouth and i went back to ed&jez's and watched consolevania and the colossus outro.

so now i'm back and i've been challanged to 'do' my dad's photo website. here we go..


i've got over a week of awesome tales to tell you.
don't but i don't got you, and you're the thing i need the most.



click it to see exploding pregant zombies.

even better than that, there is now an unbelievable fifth episode of triangle and square. you know where it can be found.