Brighton rocks!
I'm writing this on the train back from Brighton after a delightful afternoon in 'London by the Sea'.

The weather was perfect - sunny, crisp and cold - and it was lovely to hear the sound of the sea crashing over pebbles again.

I took some photos of the tragically derelict West Pier, which strikes a forlorn sight as it slowly rusts into the sea, its infrastructure and beautiful Victorian buildings destroyed by two highly suspicious fires.

I hope they nail the bastards responsible - local rumour has it that the culprits might be found just a short distance away to the east...

If you've never been to Brighton before, it's definitely worth a visit - it's lively, bustling, beautiful and stuffed full of excellent clubs, bars, cafés and restaurants.

Talking of which, you won't find a better plate of veggie food anywhere than the delicious fare served up by Terre a Terre on East Street.

It's not exactly cheap, but the food and service is worth every penny!

Sadly, my perfect day was slightly marred by grim news coming from Upton Park, where the mighty Cardiff City lost. Bummer.

Still, I'll be back in London soon, and I'm sure a few cold beers will help me forget the football result!

A selection of links
After last night's all-girl punk rock shakeout, I've been having a shufti around these websites:
Women of 1970's Punk - a huge compilation covering Siouxsie to Pauline Murray to X Ray Spex and
Punk Brighton - covering the history of punk/new wave bands in the Brighton area. There's a page on The Chefs whose lead singer, the fabulously monikered Helen McCookeryBook, is a top old chum of mine (we worked together in several bands with Lester Square from the Monochrome Set)...

Curiously, my dubious punk rock past has been documented on this incredibly methodical site. The guy's even listed some of the obscure gigs we did back in 1977!

In fact, there's a whole page on me here - the only trouble is that it's all in Norwegian!

Fopp'd!
Once again I succumbed to the feast of CD bargains served up at Fopp, a discount record store in Covent Garden.

What sets Fopp apart from most cheapo record shops is the choice of CDs on offer - these guys clearly know their stuff so filter out all the usual detritus that fills up the shelves of discount stores.

I don't think I've ever managed to escape the premises without buying at least 5 CDs and today was no exception: for the princely sum of £34, I bought the highly rated debut album by British Sea Power, Rickie Lee Jones fabulous 1978 debut album, Tim Buckley, Snow Patrol and indie rockers The Stills.

Presentation-tastic
Today started early. Too early.

I had to be up at 8am (that's the equivalent of the crack'o'dawn in my world) to prepare for a talk I was giving at the British Council in the West End.

I was asked to give a presentation to an international delegation, and it felt quite strange talking about urban75 in front of 70-odd folks from all around the world.

Still, they seemed to get my jokes and despite the ungodly hour, I think I made some sense!

My talk wasn't helped by a lingering hangover from last night. We'd gone to this weird Dept. of Something or Another staff bar to see a friend play in their all-girl punk band, the A-Lines.

The smoky underground bar was strangely reminiscent of the old working men's clubs I used to play in the Welsh valleys, with an oddball mix of punky-types there to see the band - and lots of completely hammered office types who'd clearly been enjoying the discounted beer for hours on end.

The 1970's throwback felt even more real with the DJ playing an authentic collection of punk and new wave tunes (The Adverts; "Gary Gilmore's Eyes", Costello; "Peace, Love and Understanding" etc).

I fear I revelled in nostalgia a little too much as I feel pretty rubbish now. Why can't they invent hangover-free beer?

Still, the late night walk by Parliament and across Lambeth Bridge was a lovely way to end any evening...

Right now, there's just been the merest hint of snow in central London, although there's no chance of seeing the blankets of snow I grew up with in Wales.

I miss snow...

Saturday afternoon, London
Cillin' with an afternoon coffee in the Photographers Gallery, Leicester Square.

It's been a mad week - I worked out that I'd barely left the flat for three days as I'd been battling a mo'fo deadline for a big writing job for Internet Magazine.

I was writing a big 'group test' of WYSIWYG web editors, so I had to spend ages installing the things and then trying to make sense of the 'help' files. It was a main feature (six pages) so I had a lot of writing to do, but you'll have to wait until the May issue comes out for the results!

(For the record, I don't use WYSIWYG editors for my own site - I'm an old-school, 'head under the bonnet' get-yer-hands-dirty-with-HTML kinda guy - sp it's Notepad or Homesite for me)

By Thursday I was definitely ready for a beer - which was handy because that was the launch night of my new urban75 club at the Brixton Ritzy, Offline.

Despite recurring technical problems with the amps, the night was a fantastic success - the place was absolutely packed!

I have to say that I really enjoyed my spell on the decks, even if being reduced to one working deck reduced any scope for dramatic cross-fades!

Billed as 'The Editor's Post Punk Half-Hour', I brought along a pile of my old 45s, and successfully fumbled my way on the turntable to knock out tunes by New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, Jesus and Mary Chain, the Smiths and the delightfully obscure Leyton Buzzards, 'Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees'.

I swear I saw a few heads nodding approvingly. Or maybe they were laughing...

Mighty Wales!
Oh yes! Despite being many players short of our full squad, we still managed to whip, nay, crush Scotland 4-0 at the Millennium Stadium! And how good was the 22 yr old hat-trick king, Earnshaw? The pocket dynamo's now slammed away six goals in 10 international appearances - I only hope Cardiff can hang on to him....
Obscure fact! At the end of the game Wales only had Nationwide players on the pitch!

Away from the football pitch, yours truly has been firmly ensconced in the house for the past three days, battling with a writing deadline for Internet Magazine and growing a most unpleasant beard. I'm reviewing five 'WYSIWYG' editors in a group review, which means lots of installing and uninstalling programs and rifling through baffling help files.

I've got to finish the job by midday tomorrow as I've got a meeting in town and the have to hotfoot it back to Brixton for the launch of my new chilled out club at the Ritzy, Offline.

Are you lot coming or what? ;)

Cardiff report (part three)
Headlining the night was the highly tipped rockers, The Loves.

With a brace of high profile support gigs under their belts (Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), I was looking forward to seeing the band - as were the Actionettes who'd been booked to perform one song with the band, dance a full set afterwards and then DJ for two hours.

The evening was already running late when The Loves were due to go onstage. When they finally graced the stage, it was clear that lashings of alcohol - and quite possibly vats of industrial strength pharmaceuticals - had all been imbibed liberally by some members of the band.

Instead of launching into their set, the singer decided to treat us to a truly unique rendition of The Who's rock opera, 'Tommy'. It was awful beyond words.

Some members of the band appeared to gamefully go along with this deeply unrehearsed sonic assault, but it wasn't long before a grand hissy fit broke out.

Band members stormed off in all directions leaving a trail of naughty words in their wake.

The Actionettes, sensing a night of chaos ahead, lobbied to go onstage, but any kind of decision making seemed beyond the drunken organisers.

In the end, the band returned to play an unremarkable set with the house lights coming on the second they finished.

Some of the crowd took this as their cue to leave, so by the time The Actionettes took to the stage, the place was half empty.

Undeterred, the Actionettes were determined to salvage something from the night, and put on a lively set of dance moves.

And then - to add insult to injury, the lights came back on after the third song and bouncers told everyone to leave.

Not the greatest of nights then!

Cardiff trip (part two)
There was a total of eight bands playing that night and I can't say any of them particularly floated my boat: almost all of them sounded like they wanted to be The Strokes!

None, however, could match Black Wire for their rock'n'roll strutting. Stick-thin and dressed in de rigeur black, there was no doubting that they meant it maaan.

Trouble was, the lack of a real drummer seriously undermined their rock credentials (drum machines are for disco boys, no?) and apart from one interesting 'Roxy Music' their music rapidly became very formulaic.

Worst of all, the singer had an unpleasant habit of going completely bonkers at the end of each song, squawking like a demented cocker spaniel.

Several of us took this ear-splitting hysterics as our cue for the bar, where we stayed for the remainder of their set.

Cardiff report (part one)

We arrived to find the streets of Cardiff deserted as what seemed like the entire city's population were packed into bars watching the mighty Wales thump Scotland 23-10 at rugby. Woohoo!

We walked to the student union on Park Place and the venue looked fine - nice and friendly with Stella a mere £2.10 per pint!

We were tipped off that there was a great veggie restaurant on Woodville Place; unfortunately, we forgot that it was Valentine's Day so it was completely booked up.

After strolling further down the chilly Cardiff streets, we found a new-looking Chinese restaurant further down the road.

Sadly, the prospect of serving 7 Actionettes (and four hungry boyfs) proved a challenge too far for the staff. Meals turned up at erratic intervals with no semblence of order: some people got all their meal in one go, while others got nothing at all.

We eventually got a very nice tasting meal but several of our party were left staring at an empty plate for over 40 minutes.

A near riot was breaking out in the take away queue next door when they were told that their already overdue orders were going to take another 15 minutes.

A few on our table cancelled their orders and left, thoroughly pissed off. And still mighty hungry!

Back at the gig, I was delighted to bump into two urban75ers who seemed as keen as me to take advantage of the low beer prices!.

On the road with the Actionettes!
I'm currently scoffing a delightful selection of home baked cakes as my train trundles up to my hometown of Cardiff.

We're due to arrive at 5pm - exactly the same time that 72,000 rugby fans will be leaving the Millennium stadium opposite! (come on Wales!).

The Actionettes are taking part in the all-day Valentine's Day Mascara event in the Cardiff Student Union hall - I suspect I will be partaking in more than a few beers later!

Severn Tunnel here we come!
Cymru am byth!

Temptation!

The competition is hotting up in the prosumer camera arena, with this latest bevy of digital beauties being announced. I can feel my wallet twitching!

Minolta have just announced a very tempting follow-up to their excellent A1 camera - the appropriately named Minolta A2, featuring 8 megapixel sensor, an improved viewfinder, USB 2.0 interface, 7 frames per second capability, anti-shake function and a Sony 828-rivalling 28mm - 200mm F2.8 - F3.5 lens.

Olympus have also announced a new 8 megapixel model, the chunky-looking Olympus C-8080 with 28mm-140mm F2.4 - F3.5 zoom and a natty flip up LCD monitor.

Canon have also thrown their hat into the 8 megapixel ring with their new Canon PowerShot Pro1 . The camera comes with an excellent feature set and is considerably smaller than the Sony 828 - but there's no denying that the camera's a bit of a dog to look. The function dial seems to have slipped off the top plate and got stuck half way down the back of the camera and the zoom lens extends so far out it may end up belting the subject in the face!

Also check out Minolta's first digital SLR, the 6 megapixel Konica Minolta Maxxum 7 Digital

Like buses, it seems that highly desirable new cameras come in packs!

Walking the streets of London
Just spent a delightful few hours thumping the byways and alleyways of London town.
I had a meeting near the Barbican and decided to take the rest of the day off.

First, I checked out the fabulous Museum of London and wandered about as chuffed as Billy McChuffo amongst the recreated street of Victorian shopfronts.

With my head suitably filled with culture, I decided to breath in London's living history with an invigorating stroll into the West End, finally ending up with a frothy cup of the finest coffee in the Photographer's Gallery.

I got into a conversation with the venerable Ivor Cutler (poet/writer/musician/all-round-interesting-bloke) who told me that I'd managed to cheer him up (he'd bust up with his woman and seemed quite down at heel).

Right, I've finished my coffee so it's time to head home. Let's hope that this fancy new PDA blogging thing works as I rather like being able to update my blog in a café!

Testing, 1,2,3!
Here's my first attempt to upload a blog entry using vagablog, a neat app that runs on my Sony Clie. If this works, I'll be able to update my blog on the move, using my PDA and my mobile!

Stand off in Brixton
The eastern part of Coldharbour Lane has been sealed off all day as police have tried to talk a woman out of her flat. Apparently, the woman was due in court today but didn't show up. The police were called and when they went around her flat she flashed a blade of some description and threatened to kill her three kids inside. So, there's been a long stretch of police vans and curious bystanders lining the road all day (since 9am) - and they're still here now - at 2am! Let's hope it gets sorted without anyone getting hurt...

New urban75 Brixton night coming up soon!
Here's the press release: come along!

Offline is a new, chilled out night in downtown Brixton, run by the folks behind urban75.

The launch night is Thursday, 19th Feb at the Ritzy, Brixton. 7-11pm. Admission free.

Background stuff:

urban75 is one of the UK's busiest non-profit community websites, registering over a million page impressions a week - without a pop-up, pop-under, animated 'click me' or shite banner advert in sight.

With nearly 6,000 registered members, the busy bulletin boards have spawned a real life party community, with word-of mouth, unadvertised events regularly attracting hundreds of people to squat parties, underground venues and - last summer - the legendary 'Party In A Hedge!

The only trouble was that amongst all the party madness, people often ended up too 'enhanced' to actually talk to each other, so we've come up with 'Offline', the first of our regular, laid back nights at Brixton's Ritzy.

Set on two floors, there'll be a fast moving selection of variable-quality urban75 DJs playing everything from chilled out Germanic dub to post punk to dance, with comfy sofas, table football and cheap beer.

The elusive urban75 Book Club have also threatened to turn up and show the party crew a thing or two about chilling out, and there'll be scrabble, chess and beer to keep them happy.

And if you're still bored with all that our going on, you can always bugger off and pay to see a film in the cinema downstairs.

Everyone's invited - no modem needed!

Go to Offline website

Fuckwits of the Week: Apple Computers
Apple's homepage is currently festooned with Pepsi logos as part of their disgraceful new iTunes advertising campaign which publicly parades children 'convicted' of illegally downloading songs off the internet.

With a rehashed 'Clash-a-like' Green Day rendition of "I Fought The Law", the defeated kids look suitably crushed as a series of captions reads: INCRIMINATED … ACCUSED … BUSTED … CHARGED.

What could be more sickening than a corporate love-in by Mac, Pepsi and the Super Bowl in an attempt to tell the 'kids' to stop downloading tunes and pay to 'The Man' instead? And then having the audacity of trying to associate The Clash with their sickening exercise in cod-rebellion?

Joe Strummer must be going turbo in his grave!

No doubt Apple's next slick advert will be telling us how rebellious the brand really is and Pepsi's next $$$$ advert will be insisting that they're 'down' wit de yoot.

I fought the law, my fucking arse.

See the ghastly advert here and read what The Register has described as "of the greatest public relations disasters in history"