24 Hour Soho

Wandering aimlessly around Soho at any time of day, on any day of the week, should be my emotional identity. My ample rear lumbers so often through it's streets and lanes, that Soho shop owners have undoubtedly started calling me The Idle Toad by now.

I love Soho to the max, it's the big fat, juicy cherry on top of life's heaving stress cake and as some high powered TV Executive in the midst of a nervous overload might say, is just..

"Amaze!"

I came across this curious coffin like entity on a recent episode in town. My foolish brain took quite a while to figure out what was going on..

..but after what seemed like an eternity, it identified it as a sleek new variety of street bench


According To The Internet™ they have been designed as the ultimate crime resistant addition to our apparently hellish streets. Anti-rough sleeping, anti-skateboarding, anti-graffiti, the list of kill joys goes on.


'Amaze' I hear you say?

Considering that pure function has resulted in a subtle expression of modern design, then yar, it's a little amaze. Let's take this design concept a little further though, and see if we can introduce full blown artistic mayhem onto our pavements.

Here's my next generation street bench concept..

 

Get that shit happening on the streets of Camden. I wouldn't mind some spinning light boxes attached to my FACE.

Continuing my... 'Yar I'm in Town' ....session, I headed deeper in to the woods and loitered around the bottom of Centrepoint for a bit, admiring the Centrepoint Apartments on St Giles Street and hoping that somebody would throw me down the deed to one as I did so.

I noticed their style was not unlike the street bench I'd seen earlier, smooth white granite, borderline sculpture. A little bit like the early 80's film Krull.

Some Krull flavours...

                                   You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down?

Starting to feel stimulated, I popped in to Cass Arts on Berwick Street, but found myself slightly irritated by the whole chain-store vibe, their twee sloganism and the fact that those are the things we go to Soho to escape from. So I got the fuck out of there as quick as humanly possible.

Which led me A. Past that Soho stalwart Bill Nighy and B. In to Walker's Court.

Seeing Bill Nighy in his trench coat, all louche and enigmatic restored my heart. He inspired me to imagine an even better Soho, one filled with poor people, artists and prostitutes. A place where women wear shiny plastic raincoats and men wear black eyes and hangovers.


                                                    
                                                    
The Soho look

                                                                  Ronnie

Zhora

Feeling exhausted by the humanity, I decided it was time to eat.

Worth a visit for the name alone, The New World on Gerrard Street in China Town offers not only scrumptious dumplings, but probably the only opportunity in the UK to feel like you're on the set of Seinfeld. I summarily ordered some dumplings as that was all I really cared for at the time, at which the look on the waitresses face turned from loving, naive child to..

'We're both in the Warsaw Ghetto, it's 1944. If you don't order any more food, you die'.

I ordered more.

Where have you been David?

David didn't know, but his brain plugged in to the computer sure did. As it scanned through various star charts to the shock of the extras in Flight of the Navigator, it pulled up systems that weren't even in NASA's databanks. The answer David's brain gave to where he'd been all this time: In analysis mode on Phaelon.

Sounds great!

Click on image for some analysis mode action

My mind has been pondering over that line since I saw the film 25 years ago; Analysis mode. There's something quite reassuring about that concept. Like as in I wouldn't be expected to mow the lawn or anything. Which, by the way, I did a lot of as a child and is just about the least favourite activity available to me in this universe. Although something inside me says I'll probably really love doing it when I'm 55. Proof of Satan's existence?

The other least favourite activity available to me in this universe goes to........ shopping. With particular emphasis on shopping down the High Street. High Streets are hell. We all know it. Now let's start talking about it.

If it's not the High Street metaphorically beating the crap out of me, it's IKEA.

No sooner have I walked in to the place, my eyes are mysteriously closing shut. I went recently in support of someone else and thought it a choice opportunity to eat some meatballs for a quid. Contrary to all the efforts of IKEA's merchandising team, the standout moment of the day for me (apart from the meatballs) was when a woman complained that her 50p hot dog was getting cold whilst she waited for her 50p chips to come out of the deep fryer. My heart literally bled for her.

Far out, IKEA really needs some spicing up doesn't it. Like a store re-design from the team behind Cirque du Soleil. Or some psyched-up-to-the-eyeballs American screaming at grunts fighting over a 99p toilet brush. Or Holly Hunter playing the role of a sexually repressed, secretly lesbian drill sergeant.

Or Corporal Ferro from Aliens...

Or maybe Joy Behar from The View?

SHIT. I'm getting totally carried away. There's something about Joy Behar that makes me feel ALIVE.

Post IKEA-haze I managed to haul my large backside onto my bike and bumped and ground my way through the peaceful and sunlit Lea Valley Regional Park. I felt totally at ease. A bit of a rarity considering I live on an estate sandwiched between two retail death zones of propaganda, Canary Wharf and Stratford. Both places could really do with a Lea Val injection. Or in lieu of that, a David Bade exhibition. Bade's work has all the colour, freakishness and curiosity that Canary Wharf is devoid of, and all the thought, questioning and character that Stratford refuses to let in.

Art and expression.

Another piece by Bade. 








To stay the descent into madness I repeat my mantra as often as possible;

"Don't Let The Suburbs Get You Down".

It's the mentality of the suburbs that will ultimately atrophy your body and your will.

A girl I know said to me recently...

"You can't really succeed at being ethical in society, all you can do is reduce. Reduce the amount of shit you're consuming until you're stripped back down to the basics"

In all honestly I would LOVE to see that last line enscribed on a cast iron arch over the A11 as you pull in to Stratford.

Either that, or...

"Get some standards bitch"

PS: I love Joy Behar to the max.

I Heart Algerian Soccer Moms

Zoning out and being screamed at by their kids. That’s Paris in a nutshell.  I went there for my birthday recently, which happens to be Bastille Day, France’s national day. Hopefully future historians will have the ability to distinguish between motion picture event and real life situation, because Bastille Day ain’t no Amelie. In reality it’s a lot more Children of Men. It’s fathers on the metro whispering prayers to their crushed child, grim faced police with guns forming impassable human walls and mothers screaming so deeply from their lungs that it sent a chill down my spine. Never go to France on La Fête Nationale, it’s apocalyptic. They even had 30 year old men in trousers and knitted vests watching 50 Cent videos on the free internet at the Georges Pompidou Centre. Now that's grim.

The hottest act in Paris right now. Before YouTubing, please ensure you have at least 3 buckets ready to spew in.









If only I could have beamed myself up to the Snog outlet in Covent Garden, which I’m not sure if anyone’s noticed lately, is where the spirit of G.A.Y has been transferred since the destruction of the Astoria.


There it lives on until the Astoria can be rebuilt and its ‘Katra’ can be restored. Seriously though, it's full on. They're cranking Euro Trance and Electro Dance like it's going out of fashion. I think it must be something to do with the 16 year old party animals they're employing as management, cause I've been to the Soho branch and it's like the chill out room for the Covent Garden one. I’m literally gonna go there as often as I can, nowhere else is documenting gay rave culture in the 90’s quite like it.

Senior management meeting at Snog Covent Garden.

I’d love it if they had one of those Blue Plaques for notable past residents on the front of that place you know, that’s an amazing hypothetical photo opportunity waiting to happen. You could read all about how John Knox hatched plans for the Protestant Reformation there in 1532 whilst twinks dish out frozen yoghurt to thumping Jungle Trance.

Fierce.

It’d be excellent if people wrote any old shit on the outside of their house for the entertainment of the public, like ridiculous YouTube comments for example. Which it would seem, happen to be a window to the human psyche that has never before been available to science. Some examples:

 “If God created the heaven and hell then heaven can you can find somewhere on earth can the afterlife but hell you find in my soul”

“why do i watch these, i know ill always cry because, i may be a 13 year old boy, i still cry every time i see one of these vids, i hate how i always end up watching these, its ruin's my day”

Next time I try to get some group therapy sessions out of the NHS I’m gonna take along a print out of some 13 year old Armenian boy's YouTube account.

They might offer it to me that time.

Come into the light Carol Anne

My TV turned itself on the other day when I moved it slightly to the right. Which having been psychologically scarred by the Poltergeist films as a child, made me a little 'curious' and perhaps even a little 'wary' of the darn thing. Just as wary when I was a child of killer clowns laying in wait underneath my bed. Kids really shouldn't have large unoccupied spaces underneath their beds, it's not good for their minds.

Totally normal sleeping arrangement.







It's been a while since I've been properly petrified by a clown though, nowadays I'm far more likely to be scarred by an episode of Gilmore Girls. Imagine one of those two Hellmeisters dragging you underneath the bed and dropping high speed irony-bombs left right and centre; death by Resentment of Humanity would quickly ensue.

Not that I resent humanity, but watching Gilmore Girls makes you understand why some people do. Take the town they live in for example, the cheesily named Stars Hollow. Demographics: 99.9 percent white and loving themselves sick. That'd be a great tag on the welcome sign when you come in to town.

                                                                  Gross.

I think Gilmore Girls actually gives wholesome a bad name. It's so wholesome it gets you thinking the whole time you're watching "What's the porn remake of this like?". Like those porn parodies they do of main stream Hollywood movies. From Edward Penishands to Whore of the Rings, or my personal favourite, Analyze These (you need to see the cover for the whole effect). That's a franchise that'll never run out of ideas.



Carrying on from my last post that fetaured a look-a-like, I was thoroughly inspired recently whilst watching (for reasons to remain anonymous) the Sesame Street Movie: Follow That Bird. If you've seen it then you might remember this character, Mrs Finch. AKA Big Bird's caseworker.

Mrs Finch

who looks and acts just like (work with me here).......

Mary Portas

The physical and emotional similarities will Blow...Your...Fucking......Mind.

Westfields is a Cancer

That silly emotional water sign did a big fart on my heart on Sunday. It's a shame because my heart had been cleansed of all High Street evils and Chavery from a stunning cycle through the exo Kentish countryside. Fields of barley, cherry orchards and the wide blue sea had been the order of the day until we got back to....cue the demon knell... STRATFORD INTERNATIONAL.

AKA: The Three Gorges Dam in China.

It's dull, boring, on a non-human scale and just like in a prison, you have to be escorted out of there in a transfer shuttle. The scale of Stratford Internash is so unbelievably Communist Party of China, I literally couldn't get over it. Not even with 60 ladders. It really is the dullest place in the universe and I can honestly say I've never felt so starved of graffiti in my entire life. There aren't even any junkies walking around asking for 20 pence. I mean, come on man.

Talk about idol worship, it even sort of resembles the Temple Mount right? This could be armageddon for real.






No dramas though, I had my jean shorts on, my Surfer Joe's and a bum bag, I could deal with it. I was 10 levels ahead of Westfields.

Try and deal with this though...

Pre movie entertainment courtesy of the Prince Charles. The screen edges had been pulsating neon, but I only managed to break out of the trance right at the end and caught this psychedelic snippet. Tripping out and falling victim to potential subliminal hypnosis is both a powerful AND enigmatic experience.

Consuella, AKA Charlotte Rampling in Zardoz, would have loved that shit. She was mad for experimentating on people, or 'Brutals' as she called mere mortals.

Pictured here with May the Scientist, Consuella controls the mind of a 12 year old me with her eyeballs.



Shaz is genuinly not unlike her onscreen character you know. I had the fortune to be sat behind her once at an awards evening. I say fortune because I was obsessed with her in Zardoz. I had no idea she was sitting right behind me actually, so when I heard Stephen Fry announce her as the next speaker I was like "SHUT.....THE FU...wha? Is tha....SHUT TH...Ohmygod.....FUCKING worl...'d...........UP", spun my cranium a whole 180 degrees, and low and behold, the behemoth arose. Her cluster of French Buns expanding as she grew within my vision.

Sound and time stood still.

Then it moved, and...WHOOOOMP! Sonic-Boom the likes of which Lucasfilm can only dream of. Everyones eyes retreated into their craniums in humility.

I was like bitch no way....

Bruce Grove McDonalds

I had a minor panic attack there once. During one of the darkest and dorkest periods of my life. Bruce Grove isn't such a horrible place mind you, but the McCrackers there is rank. Rank is probably putting it too lightly actually, filth might be a more appropriate descriptor. Filth as in the filthy olive green colour scheme and 'focal point' furniture by the windows. The intense hecticness of everyone else there also did little to alleviate the general filthness going on.

That wasn't the last time a fast food chain induced an increase in my hysteria levels. The menu at Wimpey on Watney Market managed to do just the same. I'd gone there with high hopes of that 80's American sitcom vibe that delivers seratonin directly in to the cerebral cortex (Roseanne, Blossom et al). However when the pictures of bacon and egg fry ups started looking just a little bit too early 2000's, I knew I had to get the shit out of there.

Needing to wizz like a racehorse I hot-tailed it to the pub opposite, which to my complete, abject joy had a fireplace that's the architectural doppelganger of Dumb Donald from Fat Albert. Intelligently, I took a photograph to confirm this fact to you all..

 Fireplace

and Dumb Donald.










Pure magic.


The whole pub could actually be a stand in for the set design on Dune. It's amazing, I mean it's not everyday you come across a pub where the interior decor is themed high-art-space-opera-epic. I'd only gone in their for an emergency piddle but I couldn't stop marvling at all the curved masonry, balustrading and subtle colour schemes. Genuinely unexpected. Of course I really had to beg the Landlady and her cronie to take a photo of the fireplace, which isn't too much of an insane thing to ask for if you really think about it, but boy did they make me feel it. What they lacked in verbal communication skills they made up for in facial-gesturing-ability. Talk about weirding way. I mean what a bunch of Bene Gesserit Bitches. Who does she think she is? The Kwisatz Haderach!

Dork gold mine of innuendo.

In the Mountains of Australia

A friend of mine said that mid-convo the other day and I thought it sounded amazo. I reckon it sounds great because Australia doesn't really have any mountains. It does technically, but they're not the sort of mountains you'd see in the Alps or the Himalayas. It's as flat as a pancake. I love that title though. If I ever get a cat I'm one hundo percent calling it that.

I think I desire a cat a lot more than I'd actually ever want a cat. The reality would come crashing down after about 20 minutes of murderous high pitched cooing and emotional transference. I just bumped in to a funny old pussy in Glasgow, his name was Callum according to literally everyone who passed me by. Three people passed me by the whole time I was stood next to him and every one of them gave me the low down on Callum. Age: 18, Hobby: Catching mice: Lives: Up there with 2 men (a cat of the gays?), Status: Not actually blind although he seems it. I'd be well up for a cat like that, old, pretend blind, gay friendly and catches mice just like in the cartoons. Heavens to Murgatroyd.

Scotland's straight up like that. Whatever the hell you do, don't fuck about in Scotland. In the words of Scotsman and Big Borther 4 winner Cameron Stout; it's not big and it's certainly not clever (fucking about that is). My friend tried it on in Glasgow with a taxi driver and she ended up being pelted by 1p coins whilst standing in the cold, grey Glaswegian rain. Those pennies hurled at her in slow-mo elegance and danced about her feet in sheer, mocking, misery. People normally only dream about those sorts of histrionics. The Scots are making them a reality.

It feels great being back. The spirit of adventure and escape that I felt at Glasgow Airport (Pure dead brilliant by the way) heading for the balmy South felt undeserved and barely earned, but it was palpable all the same.

What felt even better was hearing Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover by Sophie B Hawkins at Eat today. Especially that break down bit towards the end.

That was nuts.