Childish logic

When I was 3 years old, standing over my parents planting flowers in our back garden, I asked the following question: "Is soil old dinosaur poo?"

Slightly outlandish idea, but there's some logic behind it, right?

Fictional Fashion

Every so often I visualise a piece of clothing that I would love to own. These pieces will sometimes be a concept picked from a dark recess at the back of my mind and in many cases my imagination is unmatched by what retailers have actually deigned to make available for me to purchase.

Sometimes, these covertous impulses are fired by descriptions from works of literature such as Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History'. Early in the novel the protagonist Richard Papen, realising in a panic that the weather is too warm to wear his best jacket to lunch with a new friend, Bunny, who he is keen to impress borrows a replacement from his disliked dorm neighbour Judy Poovey.

Extract from 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt

I Own the City!

At 5am this morning I walked through central London beautiful in that early morning light and the fresh sweetness of new day air. Witnessing the streets devoid of other human life was a moment of magical life-affirming joy, especially as I walked past St Paul's Cathedral and across the Millenium Bridge towards the Tate Modern.

I allowed myself to imagine I had stumbled into a post-apocolyptic world. In some sense I felt as if the city was my possession, in existance only for me.

This city, usually so busy and impersonal, for a brief time took on an air of intimacy. As I crossed the Thames on the Millenium Bridge two men steering a barge up-river waved to me and I responded heartily in kind. When I reached the middle of the river I turned to face it and let out a long yell. The empty, noiseless city called back.

What more is there to say?

'East Anglian Boy' - Reworking of Estelle's 'American Boy'

Sounds Like Teen Spirit

I first heard of 'Sounds Like Teen Spirit' the documentary film about the Junior Eurovision contest when I saw an advert splashed across the back of Time Out magazine. Unexpectedly, I got the chance to see it at a free screening last night and with previous fond memories of the competition (stumbling across the show on ITV on a wet, boring Sunday afternoon as a student in Norwich where my housemate and I laughed so much that we nearly rolled off of the sofa) I jumped at the chance.

Essentially the film follows a selection of entrants from the moment they are selected to represent their countries to the big show itself. So much of adult Eurovision coverage in Britain is mocking but this film strickes a beautiful balance between light-heartedness and genuine care for the children they are following. Many of the children competing are well-off but some, especially Mariam from Georgia are from extremely modest backgrounds (her mother cannot afford to travel to the contest and so watches her daughter perform via a flickering, snow-storm TV, whose aerial is fixed in place with sellotape).

By the end of the film I felt a great deal of empathy and fondness for the children. Previously, I had assumed that the sort of kids who entered Eurovision were the unfortunate guinea pigs of over-ambitious parents but I learnt that Bulgarian Marina was desperate to attract the attention of her millionaire father in the hope that he would return to the wife and family he had recently walked out on for a younger woman and Georgian Mariam was a humble girl who carried the hopes of a small country desperate to make a mark in the world and escape the dominating influence of it's neighbour Russia.

I absolutely enjoyed the film and 24 hours later find myself still emotionally tied up with it's protagonists. It was moving and funny and, most of all, reminded me intensely about how it felt to be a teenager. This film true deserves to be seen.

Notes on a Scandal

After the best part of a week the story keeps going, keeps growing and growing. At first I didn't pay it too much attention thinking that it was largely hype and bluster from a newspaper looking for a boost in circulation and that there consequences would be small. Now however, I am forced to sit up and take note as it becomes clear that MPs have been embarrassed to the point at which it might become politically dangerous for their careers and at which they are all terribly sorry for their lapses of concentration, ethics, accounting.

While some MPs have clearly acted with self-interest and used the expenses system for egregious gain (particularly those who appear to have been using their second home allowance to moonlight as property developers) it is important to realise that it is a minority rather than the majority of polititians who have transgressed.

Yet a recuring remark made by commentators is that we need to return to the golden age where MPs were upstanding men of honour and integrity. There seems to be a subtext that all of this is not in line with the traditions of 'British' democracy and 'wouldn't have happened in the olden days' which exposes some sort of imperial-era delusion that the British style of democracy is the best in the world.

However, as far as I can see the fiddling of expenses, and more especially the fact that they are not actually published fits quite naturally with the semi-transparent nature of British democracy. After all we have a unelected Head of State, an unelected, semi-feudal, semi-old boys club second Chamber (House of Lords) that seems to be stuck mid-way through the reform process with no agreed end-plan; an unwritten constitution and elections that can be called whenever the Governing party thinks it has the best chance of winning.

The Chair

The Eames Chair

As a small child I was always intrigued by the special armchair my grandfather had. It was of completely different design and style to the other upholstery and occupied a prime location within their living room. From it my grandfather spent significant parts of his retirement watching Channel 4's horse racing coverage. I wondered why it was reserved just for him and why he needed it when there was a perfectly decent 2-piece suite of sofa and armchair (actually it was a 3-piece but the second armchair had been banished to the dining room to make space in the living room for his special chair).

As I get older I increasingly understand the appeal of a special chair, it's almost the indoor equivilent of the shed, a sort of safe-haven for a man within his world. I'd love to be able to have a truely amazing chair, something perfect and impossibly comfortable. In my dreams I can picture myself reclining delightedly in a classic 20th century design like an Eames chair, however, at a cost of £3000 or £4000 each I, like Marty Crane in 'Frasier' may have to settle for something a little more modest, though I hope mine will not be held together with duct tape.

Jeff Wall - Insomnia

Why Wikipedia is great...

Because where else do you get irreverent but wonderful golden nuggets of information such as this on mid-nineties Leeds United football hero Tony Yeboah...

"Yeboah often cited his good form and prowess while at Leeds was down to his love for Yorkshire Puddings"

Tony Yeboah, like a Northern Popeye.

Not Really News: Actor and his character are different

Check this 'news' out, the Daily Mail is wowed by the fact an actor who plays an old-school-man's-man-type dectective in a TV show is actually not like that in real life. Who'd have thought? Look! he rides a bike! He tries to be healthy!

Of course being the Daily Mail it feels obliged to reassure it's readership that "Glenister... lives a healthier and more middle-class existence than the politically incorrect Gene Hunt." Phew... thank God he's middle class!