I bought the 1982 LP “Blackout” by The Scorpions on cassette back in the summer of 1985, and it was amongst the first albums I bought totally by myself (as opposed to by my parents as gifts for me when I was little). The Scorpions are still touring today and listening back to Blackout over […]
Memories
New York Pavements
There is a photograph of me taken in 1995 on East 75th Street in New York City. It was the first time I’d been to the USA, and I was on a university field trip. Since I was studying Fine Art, our field trip had no agenda other than to soak up the culture of […]
A house where you lived once.
A house where you lived once. Somewhere, despite everyone else who lived in it before or after you, inside it and outside it are fragments of your existence there. A handprint on a wall, buried beneath paint and wallpaper. A dent in the woodwork from crashing a toy car. Atoms of carbon dioxide exhaled from […]
Vehicle Derek
Years ago I was in a hardcore punk band called Vehicle Derek. Recently I’ve put a few recordings of us on YouTube for posterity and nostalgia. There was no other band like us in our hometown of Boston, Lincolnshire at the time and whilst we divided opinions musically we were certainly unforgettable if you saw […]
Beach revelations
I recently went to New Zealand for adventures with my friend Lizzy. A big itinerary was planned and we visited lots of places and saw many things. But some interesting unplanned things happened on the trip as well. The photos which make up this collage were taken on the deck of a cafe at hot […]
Doubling up
I’ve taken photos on and off for much of my life, starting as a kid when I got my first instamatic, through borrowing my brother’s SLR, learning how to develop my own photos in my late teens and then pursuing it as part of my art school days in my early twenties. But I guess […]
Japan
I visited Japan recently with friends, and saw temples, skyscrapers, distant cousins, video games, hot springs, mountains, bullet trains and a whole host of other things. It was the trip of a lifetime and I really ought to write something about it (and I will soon). In the meantime I’m posting pictures to Flickr, and […]
Memories of old tapes
Made for me by Jas Toomer. I think he made this for me in 1989 to replace a previous Big Black compilation he gave me in 1988 when we worked in a flower-packing factory in South Lincolnshire.
Dreams and remembering my dad
I had a strange dream the other night. Which is a strange thing to say, as I think each and every one of my dreams have been strange. They are always surreal, and I never wake and think, “Hey, what an ordinary, normal, dream”. So instead I’m going to say I had an *interesting* dream. […]
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Soon it will be 20 years from when I started a diary. I don’t think I was ever imagining what it might be like to be 36 years old when I began all that. I am really into Lolcats, Kenny Everett and daydreaming. ———————————–
Goodbye Tony Wilson
I was upset to hear yesterday of the news of the death of Tony Wilson (obituary here on the BBC News website, though Blogdial says it nicely too). I got the chance to meet and chat with him in 2005 and I’m glad that I was able to let him know how much his TV […]
From the land of Oz
Earlier this year it was my birthday, and a good friend who lives in Australia sent me over three Scritti Politti 12″ singles. The parcel was sent via sea-mail and arrived yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised but not, however, expecting the records to be padded and packaged with all manner of exotic (to these eyes […]
Listomatic
Currently on car stereo: Klute – No One’s Listening Any More Genesis – Greatest Hits (Disc 2) Ginger Baker Trio – Going Back Home Hard-Fi – Stars of CCTV Films recently seen: My Best Fiend House of Flying Daggers Chronicles of Narnia Currently reading: Midge Ure – If I was Ulrika Jonsson – Honest Barry […]
3Jay exhibit at Oxford Artweeks, Oxford, England
Summer is almost here, and 3jay are proud to present their latest annual show, more at www.rhizome.org
Sociology Essay 1
It used to be thought that the extended family was typical in pre-industrial England and that the nuclear family became predominant as a result of industrialisation. Historical and sociological research has shown this to be too simple a view – discuss (June 1986, paper one). The general view that the extended family, which had grandparents, […]