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.