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Monday, 27 July 2009 - Goldilocks and the three maracas

A few mates and I went to a club up in Kilburn to watch a couple bands play after work tonight. This first dude up was a Paul Steel from Brighton on England's southern coast, and he was something of a one-man band.		Everything from keyboard to percussion to vocals.		And then he had a crack on the ol' geetar!

For his last song he got his mate Goldilocks here to come up and shake his maraca about. Truly amazing ;)		Then these punks got up and rocked the place to bits - not really my genre of choice.		At the end of their set they too got Goldilocks and his maracas on stage, and they gave him a couple tambourines too. It's one way to spend a Monday night :)

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

I got a phone call from the po-lice this morning regarding my bike. Despite there being some four million CCTV cameras in Britain, none of them were looking at my bike when it got flogged, and so the cops claim there's nothing more they can do. They also mentioned bike theft is rampant in that area (around Covent Garden) just now, but until they get funding to employ the use of bait-bikes (same concept as bait-cars, i.e. leave a susceptible car somewhere dodgy, wait for the inevitable then nab the little fuckers) there is not a lot they can do. Swell. However, I've also been in touch with my insurance company and it sounds as though they'll pay out the £1000-something any day now. Grand.

Friday, 31 July 2009 - fabric!

fabric is a nightclub in central London. It is one of the largest and most popular in the UK, and widely regarded as one of the best dance music venues in the world.		I've been meaning to come here since forever to see one of my all-time favourite drum & bass DJ's live - LTJ Bukem (along with his mate on the mic - MC Conrad). LTJ does a set here every couple months but for one reason or another I've been yet to see him, until tonight :)

fabric has three separate (and massive) rooms, and I shit you not the bass makes every open-air hair on your body vibrate! In Room One, sections of the floors are attached to 400 bass transducers emitting bass frequencies of the music being played - awesome :)

Aside from the quality of the audio, fabric puts on a pretty decent light show too. Every drug-fucked chav in the building thought they'd died and gone to heaven.

This guy brought his own light show hehe.		We may look a bit drugged up ourselves, but it was only the alcohol :)

Anyway, 1:30am came around and the great man took over the decks, and his mate took over the mic. Bukem's style of drum & bass has more of a jazz and ambient influence, a style that became widely known as 'intelligent drum and bass' in the 90s after some of his earlier works. Bukem is arguably the single most influential figure behind the style, but is especially noted for disliking the term due to the implication that other forms of drum and bass are not intelligent. As such, that sub-genre is known these days as 'atmospheric drum and bass'. Bukem's preference in drum and bass definitely mirrors my own, and hence I've been a big fan since forever. MC Conrad started out rapping for a local hip hop band and developed an individual style, but eventually moved away from hip hop and into the early rave scene where he hooked up with Bukem - the collaboration for which he is probably best known for.

Sunday, 2 August 2009 - Kiddyfiddler

Welcome to Kidderminster (aka Kiddyfiddler). I'm due to be here during the week for the next four weeks with work. Kiddyfiddler is in north Worcestershire and is home to about 50,000. It's well known for being home to Brintons, a manufacturer of carpets who started up here in 1780 and now have an international presence, and who are actually my client here.		There are a couple hotels right beside the rail station, both of which had reviews along the lines of "If you don't like someone, tell them to stay here" hahaha! I think I can see why.
As I walked into the middle of town to find Brintons, it became apparent that there was definitely no Banksy in this place. Adam wrote his name on a boarded-up doorway...		Josh left his mark in an underpass...

As did Paul.		This guy didn't know how to write his name...		And this guy could think of no better way to proposition Sophie.

Someone has lost their Jack Russell bitch...		And someone else has lost their Margaret bitch.
The middle of town was completely dead, completely!		I did find this place though; might come raid it during the week.

My hotel is out of town a way (the only decent one in the area) surrounded by beautiful Worcestershire countryside. My cab driver was saying there's good mountain biking nearby, so I might hire a car from next week (which is actually cheaper than the train fare) and chuck the bike in the back - beauty!

Monday, 3 August 2009 - In a nutshell

Kidderminster: Don't like money? Put it all down a bottomless slot.		Nails fallen off? Buy some here.

Popped your balloon? Buy another one here.		In need of some pleasure? Simply get some here.		Enjoy arguing on the side of the road? Yup, welcome to Kiddyfiddler!

Kidderminster by week - a lot busier than yesterday when I arrived. This is the centre of town - a large pedestrian-only area, mostly full of old people I noticed.				And at the moment it's school holidays over here, so town is also full of punk kids loitering around bored shitless with nothing to do.

Tuesday, 4 August 2009 - I didn't want one anyway
Until now, all one needed to do to gain British citizenship was live, work and pay taxes here for five years, and pass some test, and by the time I plan to leave this place it would've been a few months short of that. But now the powers that be have proposed an overhaul of that system. After five years you can gain 'provisional' citizenship assuming you pass a new points-based system, followed by another five years before you're given a British passport. It would be handy to gain easy long-term entry and even employment in Europe should I have ever wanted to do so, but I don't and even five years here was pushing it just to get that option. If for whatever reason the proposed plans don't go ahead, I'll continue to think about it, but Canada beckons!

Thursday, 6 August 2009 - Bewdley

I got back to my hotel after work tonight to find it yet again chock full of old people (a couple coach-full's in fact) - they all seem to rock up for dinner in the hotel restaurant, which leaves me waiting for ages to be fed hehe. Oh well.		Old people like to go to bed early, so I decided to go for a wander and get some grub later (after they'd all left). I'm currently working in Kidderminster, but my hotel is on the outskirts of the next town west - Bewdley. The weather has been crap since I got here so I haven't had a chance to properly check it out, until now.

A few of the cab drivers I've been chatting with to and from work have all mentioned there is some good biking to be found around this area. I found plenty of little back roads up into the hills, and there's apparently a large forest just a couple miles from here that's worth a look on the bike - nice! So I'll definitely endeavour to bring the beast up with me over the next few weeks and finally break it in (I've had it almost a month already but the weather's been too rubbish to do much with it - just another typical and predictable British summer).

Bewdley is a bit smaller than Kidderminster, and at first seemed just as boring (apart from the punks screaming around the streets in their pathetic little toys).

As I wandered more towards the centre of town though things got a little more interesting. This is Bewdley Station on the Severn Valley Railway.

Suburbia started to look more expensive all of sudden, and around the next corner I found the River Severn and the centre of Bewdley.

It's a really nice little area along here, and you can grab a feed at the Cock, or at the Midlands (the area of England I'm in) greasy shop of the year - nom nom nom! By this stage the sun was going down so I headed back, but I'll come check this out some more later.

Friday, 7 August 2009 - 12:34:56, 07/08/09

What were you doing at 12:34:56pm today (on this the 7th day of the 8th month of the 9th year of the millenium)? I was working, and knew nothing of the whole 12:34:56 7/8/9 thing until I read it in a newspaper on the train home from Kidderminster. A pair of ugly Poms knew about it though and chose that time today to tie the knot.

Monday, 10 August 2009 - Week two of four

Back up to Kidderminster this week with work, this time on four wheels instead of, umm, however many wheels the train had last week. I think the last three cars I've hired have all been a Ford Focus - the road trip Katie and I did through Southern France last September was a Focus, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the first time I'd screwed one.		I say it so often - I've got no friggin' idea why anybody drives in London. Ten minutes after leaving home it got bad...
...and then it got worse hahaha! Eventually the road opened up and we were all (and I do mean all) screaming along at about 90mph or 140km/h. Seemed a bit fast to me but every other bastard was doing it so who was I to argue. At one point I had a mufti cop pull right up my ass. I saw him whip out the laser gun to get a reading and I was just waiting for the inevitable when suddenly some punk in a Beamer went screaming past all of us and so the cop shot off after him instead hahaha. Phew!		I hired a car this week because a) the train was boring, 2) I love driving (what man doesn't?!), and d) I brought the bike up with me to explore the area after work. Weather permitting of course.

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