ooh. just heard that this year's Field Day will be headlined by Phoenix. Phoenix! and Gonzales is in the line-up. Gonzales!
it's been pretty amateur so far, downright incompetent the first year, but i'm still inclined to give them another chance. there's something i like about EYOE.
http://www.fielddayfestivals.com/

when i heard that there was this band that Joe Cross* was helping with, and they were called Hurts and were from manchester and took themselves too seriously -

this isn't what i was expecting (but i kinda like it in a wierd way)


*the synths/production/remixes one from Performance

haven't really been doing anything with my photos for a while, but remembered that i scanned some in the summer, including this one which i rather like. demonstrating the M3 in all its slow-film, hand-held, low-light, open-aperture -ness. taken in the King Charles I near kings cross, a lovely little gem of a pub (when they have sufficient beer, which isn't quite as often as it should be...)

Alternative Press Fair this Saturday 13th February, 12 noon til midnight, at St. Aloysius' Social Club NW1 1TA A day of zines, comix, poetry, radical literature, printmaking and anything else self-published! Then from 6pm there will be a birthday party to celebrate our 1st year - with music, spoken work, DJ's and open mic. So come along and be a part of the day. http://www.alternativepress.org.uk

i know some of you lot like cake - http://www.caketime.org.uk/recipes.php

latest addition to my links list is a friend-of-a-friend's newish blog http://urbanorienteer.blogspot.com/

he links to a most lovely animation:

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

really like this (the posters and some of the blog)
http://advicetosinkinslowly.net/

Damn. Phone just crashed and spontaneously switched itself off while i was posting. And it hasn't saved a draft that i can see.
Anyway - cds have been in boxes or otherwise unsatisfactorally arranged for a few years now. Put a few albums onto phone before going away last weekend, including Sketches for my sweetheart the drunk, not heard it in ages. Listening to Morning Theft repeatedly the last several days, puts me in a slightly unconstructive headspace. Just now the shuffle play followed it up with Lets Pretend (Tindersticks) - seems to be the perfect antidote.
Am always amazed how mass-produced, mass-consumed music with no real experienced or directly relevant aspect can have such control over me.

Also, i am currently reading 2 books which are hanging out in my bag - "The Conversation Series: Hans Ulrich Obrist and Wolfgang Tillmans" and "The House at Pooh Corner". Nice.

It is a quarter to four on a saturday afternoon. I am on an old smallish bus - rail replacement part-way to london. It is cold and draughty and crowded. I'm listening to a mix of favorite and familiar songs on my phone. The window are evenly, flatly, completely covered in condensation, but no drips. We are passing through countryside. It's quite beautiful, a strange little bubble of unexpected, mostly silent companions, the world outside softened and blurred, just a bright grey glow of sky over green haloed ground, with ghosts of bare-branched trees glimpsed as we pass alongside... (i can see a photo in my mind but i don't think i can take it technically even if i were brave enough to do so)

what with that, forgot about some other stuff:

Analogue radios are doomed aren't they? someone explain to me why this is a good thing. old radios are beautiful, they still work, and people can make them. it isn't like phasing out old, polluting cars, although there might be a similar scrappage scheme in the works.

Also, putting new kitchen floor down was a reasonable success. Have slightly sore knees. Miss doing physical, productive work. Monitoring/inspecting buildings sites really isn't the same - i don't get to actually make anything. hmm.