You caught me drifting

Saltillo - I Hate You

The Pancake Repairman's channel over on Youtube is worth a little peek if you enjoy watching snippets of old films cut to ambient post-rocky type music. 

Aspidistrafly - Porcelain Sky Wink

People of Peckham

I watch a woman with a grey beehive towering unsteadily on her head. It bobs with every movement. She stands swamped in a beige anorak that might as well be a duvet, and wide jogging bottoms that flap in nervous spasms around her swollen ankles.  She sways in the wind and sucks slowly on a cigarette. Her eyes narrow and she scans the traffic with suspicion, her eyebrows slicked into a villainous frown -two black slugs that shape her face into an arrow. The arrow points towards a distant flash of red that might just be a bus. But it's not a bus. She sucks back on the cigarette and squints some more. She picks at her purple claws.

A few metres away, leaning against a billboard, is a lycra-suited body. A yellow and turqoise geometric pattern stretches and swells over disproportionately tiny legs and hulking shoulders and breasts. The unbalanced figure balances solidly on pinprick heels, her skin dripping with gold jewellery and false eyelashes. She smiles privately at her phone, it's a dazzling smile.

Traffic grunts.
Shopfronts are dusted with dirt.
Racks of vegetable lie wilting in the wake of car fumes.

And suddenly a giant of a man is bearing down on me. He ploughs along the pavement with a clumsily attached backpack. He lurches sideways with each step and makes ear-splitting, inhuman noises. Half shout, half growl. Like a malfunctioning robot. I step out of his way and squeeze between the path of two speeding prams.

I slip down a sidestreet and breathe. In a few steps the street unfurls into leafy, bird-chirping quiet. Two worlds, so close.

The books

Are so wonderful.
And they have some of the best videos. Official ones, fan-made ones.. Oh they are brilliant and relaxing. Why not while away an afternoon watching them?

 

  Who knew golf could be this entertaining

PS. Read eat sleep. 

Take me to Portland Bill

So I can breathe freely and stand at the sharp edge of things. I could s-t-r-i-d-e along the cliffs, in yellow galoshes.

I'd fill a house with fossils and crustaceans and big chunks of boats. I'd nail dead birds to the rickety roof to keep out the wind. I'd boil up a muddy slug and seaweed brew, knit jumpers out of crab nets and make shoes out of dried eels (they'll sell like hot cakes)

I'd build a boat out of tourists' crumpled umbrellas and go late-night mackerel fishing. I'd spend time with rogues and fishermen. We'd belt out sea shanties, with mugs of dark rum that sloshes over fingers and sticks to wind-tangled beards.

Photo by Tony Hawkins 

  

We tread water

Tonight I was looking at pictures of Miru Kim. If your curiosity is roused by dereliction and shadowy glimpses of nudity, take a look here at Naked city spleen. 

 

 On a musical note, this video by The Flashbulb is like the blast of cold air that hits your face when you step outside, having been hidden within four cloying walls for too long. I will be on a mountain in May, I can't wait, it seems an awful long time away. Until then I scurry about the gritty city and gulp in the car fumes.