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Friday, February 6th, 2009
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11:49 pm - The Tiny Monkey Stole My Cup
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Mine & Lori's wedding is being featured in the 'Take It Easy' supplement of the Sunday People this weekend so we've just got a nice cheque to go to cancer research. Apparently they've written it so it sounds like a total cheese-fest and it's not quite 'Hello' magazine but it's a start...
Meanwhile, my favourite band of the week is now officially the bloke from Rathergood.com's 'Seven Seconds Of Love'. They've written a ditty called 'Monkey Cup' and it's the best thing since sliced bread.
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| Friday, November 21st, 2008
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10:00 pm - Crazy, that's how it goes...
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It's been an eventful week after the past came back and hunted me down like a hungry wolf. I've never heard of this happening in Swansea before but a new rock club decided to launch a classic rock night, using the same name as my old classic rock night - The Strip!
It transpired that it was an accident and they didn't know there had been a night with the same name already (they're from out of town), however we decided to stick to our guns and asked them to change the name, which they have graciously opted to do. The new night is called 'Wildside' and launches at Vice Nightclub, above the Potters Wheel on the 29th November.
Meanwhile, it looks like we may well be closer to doing a Strip reunion in 2009 as we set up a Facebook group for the Strip and it now has over a hundred members. If we get 250 people join then we will go ahead with the reunion gig, once we've sorted a venue.
I've really missed The Strip in the 3 1/2 years since it stopped running. All the other club nights were as much stressful as they were fun whereas The Strip was just about having a huge nostalgia trip and celebrating the good times of rock.
Anyway, I'm tired and rambling. If you want to see The Strip reunited then follow this link here and join up!
www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php
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| Friday, November 7th, 2008
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10:56 pm - Get Tony Hart Knighted! (UK Citizens only)
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petitions.number10.gov.uk/Tony-Hart/
"Many millions of us were taught to draw by Tony Hart on TV. I read with great sadness that he cannot draw any more after two strokes. What better way to honour a man who moved a generation to draw and paint than official recognition?"
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| Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
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11:01 pm - Exciting stuff...
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As if getting married in less than 2 weeks wasn't exciting enough, from later this week my work will be exhibited in Argentina and the Amazon simultaneously through the International Miniart Exchange.
The 7th IME is taking the form of a tour of Argentina for the next few months. For those of you who speak Spanish (unlike me), the tour blog can be found here: miniarte-argentina.blogspot.com
The 8th IME is taking place at the Central Gallery of the Federal University of Amazon, Manuas - which is located here.
Pretty cool, huh?
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| Monday, July 7th, 2008
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12:04 am - Surrey can be good on rare occasions...
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The missus & I managed to win 2 free tickets for Guilfest this weekend through my work, which is pretty cool.
After lamenting the fact that we're not going to be able to afford any festivals for a long time it was nice to be able to go and chill out, even if the festival itself was pretty tiny.
I was impressed by Cerys Matthews - was worried she'd be a bit too country & western but she was absolutely lovely and even did a couple of Catatonia numbers. Her stripped-down version of 'Road Rage' was a lot better than the original single as well. The Damned were as good a live experience as it is possible to get but were on stupidly early - 3.15, in front of a couple of tribute acts to The Jam and Pink Floyd. This meant their set was criminally short whereas I thought it could have done with an extra 3 or 4 songs. Or ten. Can't moan really as it was a)the second time I've seen them in 6 months and b)free entry. It's just that they've become one of my personal favourite live bands. I don't know what it is but hearing the opening bars of 'New Rose' or 'Smash It Up' does something to me. It's like something goes 'ping' and all of the decaying grown-up cells in my almost 30 year-old brain suddenly run into a phone booth and emerge in a Superman costume ready to rescue people from burning buildings or prop up falling skyscapers or something. It's not right that a band that old should have more energy than bands a third of their age.
For me the least surprising part of the festival was exactly how chuffing good Blondie were. Having seen them at Glasto almost a decade ago I knew that they would be nothing less than excellent, however I feel that I appreciated it a lot more. The band seem to genuinely enjoy being on stage and this made for a really fun show with Debbie kicking her shoes off into the audience after a couple of numbers, starting a song with the intro to 'Voodoo Chile', finishing their main set with an epic version of 'Rapture' and coming back with 'Atomic' and a cover of 'Get Off Of My Cloud' for encores. Needless to say all the crowd-pleasers were included from 'One Way or Another' and 'Heart of Glass' to 'Call Me' and 'Maria'. In the 9 years since Glasto '99, the band have got even better at playing, Debbie now looks younger than she did at the end of the '90s and has also got better at rapping, which was a good thing considering the extended version of 'Rapture', the original single of which allegedly brought New York hip-hop to a mainstream white audience for the first time in the 1980s and was also the worst attempt at rapping ever committed to vinyl until John Barnes guested on 'World In Motion'.
The biggest surprise of the festival for me was Kula Shaker - they are actually really good live. Don't take my word for it, go and see them!
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| Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
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12:43 am - The Last Of The Best
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OK as if it wasn't bad enough losing Smoky, I found our our last remaining rat Badger dead in a flower pot on our windowsill on Saturday night. We can only guess that the effort of climbing up there must have given him a heart attack. He'd been really depressed since we had to have Smoky put down - even this weekend he was still searching the flat for him but it's just so sad and unexpected as we thought he would still be with us for at least another month.
I want to take a break from rats and buy some more rescue rats after the wedding in August as I don't think we'll be able to spend enough time with them in the build-up but Lori is really sad without pets in the flat so I have a feeling we'll probably be going down the pet shop a bit sooner than that.
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| Friday, May 30th, 2008
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1:57 am - Last Rat Standing
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Smoky had to be put down while I was in the USA yesterday as he'd had a stroke and lost his balance completely. Apparently he was pretty much out of it by the time he got to the vets. I'm pretty gutted I didn't get to say goodbye but on the other hand I guess I'm relieved that I wasn't there to see him suffering so badly.
On the plus side, I got to go to the USA! Photos will be on Facebook as soon as I'm a bit more with it.
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| Monday, April 14th, 2008
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12:34 am - What took them so long!?
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| Monday, March 10th, 2008
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12:27 am - Almost Famous...
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| Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
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2:27 pm
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| Thursday, November 29th, 2007
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12:21 am
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| Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
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11:20 pm - I'm famous, me...
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| Monday, August 20th, 2007
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9:19 pm - Swansea!
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Might be coming up to Swansea on Saturday until either Sunday evening or Monday afternoon.
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| Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
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4:06 pm - Sick In Life As Well As Journal
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Me & Lori have just had the last 2 days off sick because we are officially ill! After a week of feeling tired and run-down we've both got full-on colds, hot & cold sweats, headaches and non-stop puking and shitting. Nothing seems to be shifting it either - after 2 days of sleeping and drinking plenty of liquids and taking copious amounts of medicine we seem to be getting worse. All I can think of is the pile of accommodation requests that must be stacking up at work.
But before the Black Death set in, let's have a quick review of life this last fortnight. It's been an action-packed couple of weeks with the annual Seimens VAI sports day, which Lori worked on, visits from Lottie and Andy, getting on the guestlist for The Wailers supported by Easy Star All Stars and Pama International, meeting Lori's Romanian friends who hopefully will be blessing our marriage next year, our friends Sarah & Martin's wedding and the christening of our friends' son. Not bad really, plus also it looks like I should have a venue lined up for a second UK miniart exhibition next March.
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| Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
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12:16 am - So, yeah, rats & stuff...
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As you've probably guessed by my previous post Lori & I have bought 3 male rescue rats from the Margaret Green Foundation rescue centre near Corfe Castle.
It's been a long week as they're busy settling in and getting used to us while we get used to them so we've been bitten, pissed on, had to scoop up loads of poo, lost half of our pepper seedlings that were on the living room windowsill, had one trip to the vet because they've got the snuffles and had a massive panic because one of them managed to get into the back of the sofa, where we can't reach him!
Overall they seem to be having a whale of a time enjoying all the space to run around and nooks & crannies to explore but we're worried about Bear because he's taken a massive dislike to me and keeps biting me quite hard and about Smoky (AKA 'Snuffler') because he keeps running off and hiding behind the armchair for great lengths of time, especially since we took him to the vet. Badger on the other hand hasn't shown any violent tendencies towards humans and runs around like a maniac but we can't ever get him to stay still.
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12:12 am - Meet the new family...
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| Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
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1:06 am - Updates soon!
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Head is feeling heavy but my fingers are still pounding
on the keyboard which is worn out from years of abuse
bed is calling but the mind is still awake like a beast,
slipping from one random thought to another I travel
without moving through time, space and other such
minor inconveniences.
In other words, as a famous philosopher once said "I Can't Get No Sleep".
You can tell i'm tired, my grammar's getting worse and my eyes are feeling slightly soiled and i'm becoming prone to random bursts of art student pretentiousness but still I can't seem to shut off and relax, ready for the next day.
I think it's my own fault as I'm trying to hang about with my old mistress Insomnia in order to get into the right frame of mind for my next art project. Basically I'm taking the work i did for the Satori album and developing it further to do a short project on a bloke who suffers from insomnia but can't bear to be in the house at night so he hangs around in train stations to get peace and quiet. As time passes he starts to make up stories in his head about the various people he sees passing by, creating imaginary lives and characters for them. As he gets deeper and deeper into the alternate world he has created for himself he finds it impossible to tell his wife or family because he is afraid they won't understand and will try to stop him.
Anyway, i was supposed to drag my sorry ass on here to update about things I've been up to like exhibiting the John peel banner at Access Festival in Southampton, which was organised by my very, very old schoolfriends Ben & Holly. It was bloody brilliant and I got to see lots of decent bands that I'd never heard of so altogether a very worthwhile experience. Check out the BBC Hampshire website's article for more info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire/content/articles/2007/04/19/access_fest07_feature.shtml
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| Sunday, June 10th, 2007
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2:11 pm
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| Sunday, May 20th, 2007
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12:42 am - Call For New members - International Mini Art Exchange
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INTERNATIONAL MINIART EXCHANGE
JOIN THE INTERNATIONAL MINIART EXCHANGE GROUP: Free subscription!
CALL FOR NEW MEMBERS
The International Miniart Exchange Group is now open for new members to participate in upcoming international exchanges. Since 2003 the group has organised 4 exchanges in 4 different continents of the world: South America, Australia, North America and Europe.
The International Miniart Exchange was originated by Brazilian artist Clara Pechansky with the aim of showing, in a small format, the panorama of fine art work created around the world. The exhibit format allows each artist a surface of just 20x20 centimeters: this uniform size provides an equal ground on which the artists can express their ideas. It also provides a single aspect that connects the diversity of cultural influences, and the individual creativity of participants.
The International Miniart Exchange Group is an online international forum gathering artists from many different countries, who use the Internet to discuss Art and art related subjects. Through the International Miniart Exchange exhibits, artists have the opportunity to show their artwork for very wide audience, to connect and create dialogue with a growing group, as well as to be active and gaining experience in coordinating international exhibits.
For more information on the International Miniart Exchange past exchanges, participating artists and their work, please check www.miniartex.org. If you are interested in becoming a member, please send an e-mail with a link to your website to the Selection Committee:miniartexchange@yahoo.com.
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| Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
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12:20 am - Updates
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Had a jolly bank holiday weekend in Oxford - met loads of Lori's old uni mates and went to the Pitt Rivers museum, where I had fun looking at the shrunken heads and dinosaurs as well as finding the sketches of aboriginal ground paintings that had originally inspired me back in '98 when I was there as part of my foundation course.
I also discovered that riding a pedallo up and down the Thames is the msot fun you can have with your clothes on, even if in a moment of madness I did let the missus steer the boat for a while, resulting in us getting jammed between the two banks, thus blocking the river until a passing punt managed to dislodge us.
The 'Save Banksy' petition now has 13 signatures, which is 12 more than I originally thought it would get so that's pretty good. I've got until November to get over 200 signatures so get signing peeps!
Anyway, not sure if I'll get much chance to blog this week as I'm about to go to Italy for a week.
Laters!
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kultofkylie's journal
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