monday 30th april
i took some photos but i want to put them up tomorrow, as it's the first
of the month. that way they last longer. and don't worry, it doesn't matter,
it's only a tuesday.
sunday 29th april
you can sort of hear it with your eyes.
saturday 28th april
the double edged sword of golf is undoubtedly cunning. it gives you huge
a weeping blister on your thumb then makes you have a bath when you get
rained on, muddy and cold. and forgetting about the blister once in the
bath is no fun icantellyou.
friday 27th april
p: alien was on last night. good film, that.
m: yeah. ridley scott's a star, but it's not really a film you can watch
in bed as you're falling asleep. it's scary and you need to calm down
to sleep, not get stressed.
p: it makes you watch it - they hook you. i had to see it through to the
end. you can't sleep until all the monsters are dead.
m: no way! you do that too? i can't sleep until the story's finished otherwise
you're still in it and the alien's alive.
p: and when it's over you can sleep, the bastards!
weird things some of my friends do:
- hold their breath between tube stations (although she can only do it
between covent garden and leicester square without going red)
- put the waiter in fork-prong jail as he comes to take your order.
thursday 26th april
the plans that were afoot a while ago transmogrified into vapourous nothing.
this evening i learnt that you don't always need a plan for things to
go right. in fact, plans are a bad idea. i mean, putting yourself in a
position where the best case scenario is what you expected anyway is unfulfilling.
conversely an absence of plans can lead to the superceding of things you
didn't expect anyway. you can be happier by not setting yourself goals
- just go with it; you never know how good it could be.
wedneday 25th april
it's such a great feeling to wake up refreshed and ready for the day;
up and out an hour before usual, drinking a cup of tea in the lounge whilst
squinting in the sunlight jabbing past the wooden shutters with pin-hole
eyes. an utter absence of traffic queues at london bridge, the sunroof
open, shades on. plus this huyawge package waiting for me at work and
a very kind doorman to look at little blue car's handbrake which for some
reason has gone floppy. today seems like spring will come, fingers crossed.
in the package was some memory for softlad's pc, and my digital camera
(with flat batteries) in case you wondered. golf footage arriving in the
mail. whatever next i wonder.
today's word is 'chipper' because it fits phonetically. and i want it
to be. ha!
check out the arrogance of this
guy! and he wants a job? yeah, right.
i also came across this
today:
dude 2000 -is a game where you must raise a piece of mutated rubbish into
a fully-grown rabbit within 15 days.' seriously? heck, i'm downloading
it just out of curiosity.
but wait. there's more, look:
tux racer -slide your penguin down the mountain on his belly and grab
as much herring as you can.
the cow catching game - fly around the landscape at high speed and catch
as many cows as poosible. (heh, nice typo)
tuesday 24th april
reasonably reasonable and retro sweets. if you've ever eaten beer bottles
- the sweets, not actual beer bottles (why that would be crazy) - you'll
know. when phil gets flappy it's always fun.
monday 23rd april
okay, so this:
is my most precious object: my ma sketchbook. i bound it myself and it
has an s-shaped spine (ie two front covers), with newsprint (the thin
paper used to make newspapers, strangely enough) in one side for writing
and 300gsm (ie very thick) watercolour paper for painting in the other.
tell me if you want to see
inside and i may put some pictures up. i may.
i've just discovered that al has 'accidentally' taken my digital camera
home with him. to cambridge. i was going to put up some videos of us golfing
on saturday just now and oops. so when i get it back in a couple
of days not only will i have golf stupidness but shots of cambridge, too,
taken by meeester benn of the shaven headed loony-brigade himself. *shudder*
i'm dreading it already.
i have a sore but well cut head today, if you know what i mean.
sunday 22nd april
man did i smack my head on the low bathroom shelf when i was hoovering
up. thing is, tomorrow is japanese haircut day with added massage so i'm
not nearly looking forward to it as much.
saturday 21st april
al: well. it's like having asbestos underpants, basically. only not quite
as nice.
kate: alex calls it 'the u.w.o' 'cos he can't bear to say it.
circles in the grey section, courtesy of al's sine and cosine explanations.
nice one, matey.
friday 20th april
so the adsl is fixed but as far as i'm concerned it's a day late and a
dollar short... but i don't care any more as big al is coming down from
cambridge to see me in half an hour. weekends with big al are always
memorable. expect jocularity soon. very soon. and pictures. tons of pictures.
a: how can you possibly say that? it's so not true.
m: nah - love's good but electric's way better. it's purer, more what
they wanted to be. rock.
a: it's more rocky, certainly, but -
m: - ohmygod! listen to us! we sound so thirty. arguing
over which is the best cult album from the 80s and why.
a: yeah... but love is far superior, i mean take hollow man...
more coming soon (i left my sheet of quotes at home).
lost. i'm obviously waiting for the next big thing. with the change in
season and life as it is i'm in limbo looking forward but stuck in gluey
now. everything's really impatient, fidgety and nothing fits into the
irregular shapes their storage has become. and i can't get this damn thing
closed again, kind of thing.
wednesday 18th april
still no adsl. easynet are pirates and bt are absolute w*****s. swearing?
yeah, well the truth hurts. live with it. my hit count was doing so
well last week, too. arse. to illustrate the incompetence, here's
what happened:
easynet man: hello, mark? we need to send a bt engineer round as we think
there's a problem with your box and we'll have to reconfigure it.
me: okay. when will that be?
easynet man: it should be either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. what
time are you around?
me: we work from 10 'till 8 every day, so any time in between.
easynet man: okay. i'll ring you back and let you know what time he'll
be there.
me: okay. thanks.
(two minutes later)
me (stunned he's actually called): hello, mr easynet man.
easynet man: hello again, the engineer will be there from between 8.30
and 10am tomorrow. all right?
me (now irate): er...pardon? no. didn't you hear me? (large lesson in
logic and common sense follows).
easynet man: okay. i'll ring you back and let you know what time he'll
be there.
and i'm not even going to say what he said next time he rang, the fucking
idiot. how do people like this get jobs? this world is leaving me
behind, i'm telling you. i'm staying here. i'm getting off...
tuesday 17th april
disjointed and randomly occured. and still no sleep. what is wrong with
me? i can't be that dependent on routine. can i?
monday 16th april
hum.
terrible sleep. followed by a whole day of learning. and i learnt lots.
as a result, colour bars have been added to the jiggy triangle. unfortunately
i forgot to shove it onto the laptop and what with adsl down courtesy
of the highly inefficient service bt offer at work it's still there waiting
to be uploaded. tomorrow. no excuses. wait a day then click the squares.
sunday 15th april
the royal town of tunbridge wells. fairground rides and joking
proposals of marriage. i was thinking of staying in, too. b-side boy was
so happy with lucy and so sad two hours after they said 'bye. it was a
happy sadness i think, if there is such a thing. yes, actually there is
such a thing. this is a sign only good things will happen. we need more
good things. unfortunately we drove through maidstone so fast that the
only notable sighting was a bridge steve drew on foundation once. i'm
serious; it's that dull.
saturday 14th april
how dare they? parking a
car
that's even better than the one i want in my space! are they trying to
mock me?
phil is right. print work is more satisfying. web stuff always comes back
and is never finished, but with good old traditional print you can at
least send it away knowing there's nothing more you can do. although there
is always that nagging doubt tickling the inside of your head, asking
'are you sure you checked it all properly? what if one of the images is
rgb, or an overprint was missed?'
we shall find out soon enough.
i have spoken to nobody apart from alex today. and i worked on a cattle
prod which is in the grey section. if you feel like shocking the hell
out of the qr logo then this is probably the closest you'll get to it.
improvements to come. i'd like to add colour sliders to the jiggy triangle.
maybe monday?
friday 13th april
the two-on-one concrete vs humans with sledgehammers ended in a mighty
defeat for the former. 4 tons of rubble successfully smashed into a million
tiny pieces. or am i wrong? are these aching shoulders a sign of the concrete
triumphing?
red sports cars seem to be the theme today with this
of stu recklessly reversing his antique spider while peejay nervously
looks at his mg behind. notice the quintessential towers grin. legendary.
thursday 12th april
well, my work computer just went to index itself automatically and i'm
still here to see it, so it looks as though i worked until tomorrow. i
may write some later, if this onedotzero5
catalogue ever goes off to print...
there it goes. so shane's been on good form tonight, making it full of
critical accaclaim of attention to detail (ie, making every '+' symbol
a different colour in sub-heads) to general doc doylin', and the studio
feels really homely. especially with rae + christian rumbling in the background.
you remember shane, he's the pants
boy.
...still the same day, but with a bit of sleep and the catalogue safely
off despite having to chase the courrier company from the pub. up to the
deadline indeed and maybe all this experience everyone keeps going
on about is worthwhile. i was dreading doing it, after mark b's piece
of beauty from last year, but i totally enjoyed all of it, even the late
nights. still someone else's turn to do it next year though.
and to demonstrate how much energy there is left, i've built a getting-jiggy-with-it
triangle in the grey section. office toys, anyone? that's all for today.
tomorrow it's sledgehammering day. should be smashing.
wednesday 11th april
i wish i was foil
sealed for extra crunchiness!
so funkstar deluxe is doing some freelenace work and sent me an email:
subject heading: i can't believe what i'm working on!...
"practical procedures for nurses series 6 contains the following
cards:
constipation 1 - causes and assessments
constipation 2 - treatment
administration of an enema
insertion of a suppository
pre-operative bowel preparation
stool specimen 1 - assessment
stool specimen 2 - collection
...and 5 cards on the adminstration of medicine"
so what do i write back?:
'no shit!'
hahahahahahahahahahaha! aaaaah. heh. *sigh*
tuesday 10th april
right, here it is for those who were waiting. ok. i bought this nice new
animal t-shirt and
was wearing it whilst cooking thai red curry. and i just knew i'd spill
it down me whislt eating it, so i got with the program, changed into a
naff old david carson (...doin' the tour still, i am...) faded rag and
promptly spilt thai red curry down it. not worth waiting for, really.
but i won.
monday 9th april
friendly mini atom bombs.
the first time i drove a car in barbados i became quickly confused. i'm
one of these people that over-respect foreign places, their customs, their
people; i don't want to get in trouble, to be labelled a typical tourist
so i admit i'm from elsewhere (although the colour of my skin gives me
away) and willingly apologise for not understanding the customs and social
conventions instantly. so when i was getting beeped constantly
i wondered why. funky arrived at my apartment in his rented car, horn
blowing all over the show, and i get my answer. "mate," he chuckles
"it's the culture. beeping here isn't the same as beeping in london."
and he proceeded to explain how people honk at friends, to say thanks
for polite driving, or (as we found out in hysterics) to clap at the drive-in.
so now in london, when people are annoyed, frustrated and beeping, i tilt
my head back, relax my shoulders and smile. i pretend i'm back in barbados
and thank them back. you know what? it works.
my mind is clear these days. i can feel my eyes moving, investigating
hungry, i can sense the link between my them and my brain, which seems
to be making very decisive conclusions. i like it. i am happy.
sunday 8th april
i am my father.
well. last night softlad the flatmate is at a random shindig some place
somewhere. i'm at home watching star wars: the phantom menace
on digital cable and the flat is absolutely cooking. windows open,
heating off and drinks with ice abound but i'm still bubbling over. i
look down. inadvertantly my tracksuit trousers (jelly clothes, skids,
blobs, joggers, whatever you choose to call them. yeah, what do you
call them?) are rolled up to my knees. clearly, this has occurred through
an involuntary action of my own. and then i realise. sheer terror. this
is what my dad does, and i didn't even notice doing it. in the words of
janice from friends: "oh. my. god." i'm done for. there is no
hope.
nothing before birth is real.
i visited my parents today and consequently found my old school reports.
as i leafed through the spare room drawer's airmail envelopes and sheets
of irregularly creased, faded-edged, floppy papers, i unearthed an envelope
i'd never seen. i knew i hadn't seen it before but i don't know why. something
about it was new. inside were pictures of my dad - i'd never even seen
him as a boy before, in 29 years. it moved me sideways. there he was,
this young, skinny, athletic troublemaker with his rocker friends and
his football team, grinning deviously happily back at me. what i thought
was this: when the pictures was taken, did he ever think his adult son
would be looking through the eyes of the person he was looking at?
i tried as hard as i could to put colour in the image, to bring it to
life, to imaging them moving before and afer it was taken and transplant
myself into the body of the photographer. no matter how determined i was,
the picture stopped at the paper's surface. it didn't seem real. i got
to thinking that events occurring before your birth never really happen,
at least not in your lifetime. i mean, literally.
later, i investigated my old bedroom (now a study) where mum has filled
my cork noticeboard with pictures of me and my sister and i wondered if
anybody will look at these pictures when i'm old and think the same?
saturday 7th april
a quiet saturday with nothing to do except take pictures of your wall.
and this:
my banana stash.
friday 6th april
on my way to work this morning, large latte in hand, i passed a girl sitting
on her haunches by the side of the road, her back against a building.
her knees were tucked up, allowing her head to rest in her hands and she
was crying. nobody even noticed as they shuffled past down old street.
i looked round wondering how i could be so energised and positive, bouncing
along with my mindisc playing with her at the other end of the spectrum,
obviously distraught and unhappy. i stopped, getting ready to walk over
to see if i could help. she looked up, scowled and put her head back in
her hands. i saw it as indicative of london's character. shame.
reverse at the end of the day chatting with lou, stu, grun and carol all
was well. none of these would scowl:
thursday 5th april
peace in a world free from religion.
peace in a world where everyone gets heaven.
i'm just trying not to die like a dog, to end up alone wheezing from the
smog. i'm just trying not to die in vain.
i'll make my mark, stake my claim.
the language of aggression is on everybody's lips.
wednesday 4th april
sun on kennington park road, 9.35am, on the way to work.
after being mightily impressed by this,
a site that does the same kind of thing as a lot of others but in a very
diffrerent way,
to checking out the weather of the planet we're on, in real time, on a
spinny globe
today has been has had a very disjointed feel. i'm re-appropriating ssh!
from the grey area of this site for brainspark
after showing my site to a client (friend of mine) and she loved it and
commissioned it.
strange to think that things i make just for my own site and for me are
'commercially viable' too. ack, ack. don't really know how to place
it all. i suppose it means that this is all just more work, or
more stuff, or more me. i'll stop thinking about before
i go a bit doolally...
dusk over hillyard street, 7.30pm, on the way back from work.
me (from kitchen): do you want a top-up?
paul (from lounge): a topic?
me: a top up
paul: a topic?
me: a top up
< long pause >
paul: ..and a topic?
me (looking for a topic): i'm not buying them again. tough, there aren't
any left.
paul: and while you're on the topic...
tuesday 3rd april
the meeting with the mortgage advisor was very interesting.
the fracas with the blind was annoying. today has been a day of doing
things not twice but three times. t-shirtless bed though and in with glorious
sunshine mornings like these it's impossible not to love it all.
monday 2nd april
conscious decision: i have to think more about what i wear on week days.
all this rooting through draws for the oldest, baggiest, most stretched
neckline (read: most comfy) t-shirt is a bit of a double-edged sword.
i look as untidy as my good t-shirt ridden bed when i get home and have
to tidy it all up again. sneakily, tomorrow i'm wearing the summer shirt
i bought in barbados.
stop, faber, onedotzero, p+, pavement, brainspark all in one day. and
i said i couldn't multitask. shame on me.
good to get an email from ade, too, on naked truth monday day number 2.
first line: CHECK DIS!! groan.
nice to be happy with steve again, after the inevitable and it was tickling
to know lucy was too scared of me to visit the studio. the quiet and avoiding
was because i knew about it all and didn't want to inflame the situation.
kind of a cyclical irony.
"load it baby." quote of the week already.
sunday 1st april
a new month, a new opportunity for foolishness. "mark, i am lame."
was the first email in today, and i'm not sure what to make of it but
hey, we're all lame in our own little ways from time to time. nothing
very very good or very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
just like last year.
on january 1st my resolution was to travel abroad at least twice and with
rome, france and barcelona stamped i've learnt to enjoy using my eyes
again. barbados recently, new york soon and somewhere creamy white with
snow to slide down novemberish. when you feel bad, you look forward. go
somewhere else and stop being you for a while. but not now and
not here. summer is tickling the toes of spring, blue sky percolates the
floor to ceiling georgian windows providing more hours per day to reach
out and be powerful. now is not a time for retrospectivity, rust or worry.
now's the time for making and bulldozing.
it's going to be a good summer. you aren't lame when you aren't you.
as promised a nottingham photo.
and the conversation i had in sainsbury's:
"excuse me, do you sell chop sticks?" (woman turns round)
"er... dunno..." (turns back, indicating the end of the conversation)
"thanks for your help." why did i thank her? hello? mcfly?
okay, and now even the simpsons are in surround sound (ironically, we
turned the 'church' setting on - simpsons in church?!), with explosions,
laughter, people talking on the street behind you... as a land mine exploded
my flatmate pointed to the floor about two feet to his left and four in
front and said, "it landed just there." it did!
