Why Leave London?

The Canadian was very insistent. Apparently, my words are needed to express his pain. In reality, his words are actually pretty good - for a Canadian- but I'll happily help him out, for his pain is not his alone. You see, i already planned to post about this very topic he demands. More than just having it in or on my mind, I actually started a draft on my BlackBerry a while back. I think this was a rant I had in mind to save up for a rainy day. A day when I was stuck for ideas or at a loss for sarcastic inspiration. Well, as mentioned in the last post, my voice is still not yet completely in rhythm with my pencil, so off the bench comes this rant.

Oh Canada, this song is for you.

Another Chapter From Don't Wanna Go Home

I really don't know that much about writing. I know a little. I know what writers I like and that I believe the stuff I write is really good (hard to shake this arrogance). I know which pencils lend to the most legible handwriting. I know how to use spell check, press save on Word and how to format this blog. Where I'm lacking, in the 'knowing' department, is more so in preconceived construct and technical outlay. You see, as I never have anything resembling a formal education in writing, my style and approach is an entirely haphazard conglomeration of ideals and theories, made up of whatever I have been able to garner over the years, acquired from random sources and folk. I've always felt that the information that improves and changes us, is best inherited when least expected. Surprise-Inspiration feels so much more personal and is therefore so much more effective. You'll always remember the street busker showing you how to tune your guitar to Open-G, but find it harder to recall the point of Venn Diagrams (interestingly enough, Venn Diagrams is actually the only thing from high school, that I actually do remember).

Umbrellas

Lots of umbrellas



Scarves, single gloves, vintage, teak coloured pumps, address books, wedding dress quotes, private member club applications, credit cards, reading glasses, child's scooters, baby's drinking bottle, your mum's favourite brooch, birthday gifts, anniversary flowers, wallets, handbags and umbrellas. Lots and lots of umbrellas. This is an abbreviated list of some of the items that have, either actually or allegedly, been left behind by customers over the past month or so. Seriously, just the past month. Some of these, we never actually found and pretty much 99% of the stuff we did find, still sits unclaimed up in the top floor office. Please take note of how I didn't mention mobile phones in the list. This important distinction will become relevant later.

Fancy a Letter?

Why do this? Why write, edit, spell-check, delete, re-write, compare different fonts, scan the internet for a piece of art that I once saw hanging in a gallery and that reminds me of the general tone of the piece, post and then delete and re-write again? Why suffer the buffoon of a chef, who, due to a remnant issue from childhood that caused a need to be the centre of attention at all times, throws fresh eggs at me and threatens to drop his trousers, whenever I'm editing a post on the computer downstairs and trying to ignore him? Why put up with the woman on the other side of this internet cafe who just blew her nose in one, extended, low pitched, gurgle that lasted (no exaggeration) for thirty seconds? (And there she goes again. How is this possible? Thirty, uninterrupted seconds, I tell ya! How does she even have enough breath to blow that long? It's like she's perfected some freak strain of circular breathing. She is the Louis Armstrong of noses. I always wonder what would happen if your parents neglected to illustrate how to correctly execute some of the more menial elements of human, decent conduct. Here's an answer.) Why trade the time I could spend in the pool getting back into the long and lean shape that The City and my friends there will demand of me? Why aren’t I spending my free time in The Studio finishing those songs? Why not just lay in bed a little longer? Or agree to stay over at your house? Or agree to come over to your house? Or keep up this 'every two days' commitment? Why?

Of Ex's and Films

I'm gonna revisit the ‘ex-girlfriends and their catchphrases’ theme from the yesterday (the friend mentioned in the last post, The Darwinite, was and is an ex). Last night, as I was putting into practice my current, urgent, last minute, money saving theory, that involves spending days off immersed in the wonders of SKY+ and not leaving house to spend a penny (Pause. Take breath. This is already quite a long sentence.), the remote control landed onto Cameron Crowe's 2005 film, Elizabethtown. The first time I saw this movie, was in a cinema in North London. This particular cinema had a ticketing booth and concession stand on the ground level, whilst all the actual screening rooms were located on the level below. This meant, that an industrious fellow could pay only but one entrance fee and wander from room to room, viewing as many movies as his little heart desired. Brilliant. Great way to spend a day - those large rooms, near total emptiness during the day, isolated and cut off from the sound and fury of the outside world, whilst the expressions and fictions of Hollywood and Beyond took one on a journey, that came complete with an individual ending. Escapism for two and a half hours, multiplied by three. Or sometimes, even four movies in a row.

Dear London: Here's My Keys

One of my friend's has a catchphrase. Or she had one, anyway - not sure if she still uses it. You see, she now lives way up in the Northern reaches of Central Australia, in a town that draws it's name from The Father of The Theory of Evolution. This is quite apt, for, from what I can gather, the region and it's folk can be fairly, shall we say, primitive. In the way my mind takes snobbish, snap-judgement to the nth degree, I believe I can state with total conviction, that, as a now permanent resident of Darwin, N.T., she perhaps no longer communicates in words, sentences and the like and perhaps has done away with her catchphrase. But she used to use it alot; virtually every time she was hungry:


"I'm craving something, but I don't know what."

Experiment in Rhythm

ACT I


I was up in the office on the third floor. Not doing much. Just staring blankly at a spreadsheet. I wasn't exhausted, nor sleep deprived, yet my energies felt hollow – an echo of it’s real strengths. Every year, during the week immediately following the oppressive month of December, we waiters experience ‘aftershock-lethargy’, as a consequence of the dramatic downturn in customer levels and requirements. The pre-Xmas period mainly consists of office and work end-of-year parties, so is dense with throngs of folk who normally don't get out that often and therefore necessitate so much more effort to serve. 'Amateur Month' is the handle we apply to the whole period up to New Year's Day. By the time the end is within sight, we're all pretty much running on fumes. Sleep starved, weight receding, new grey hairs appearing, drug intake alarmingly increasing and the fighting-spirit fading, every year seems to get harder. But we always get that one week afterwards to recover; one week to wander upstairs, whilst the last customers on a Sunday night are finishing their desserts and just stare at the computer screen.