I'm in a big rush because I'm trying to sort out all the details of tonight Offline Club in Brixton, London. We've got new wave legend Tom Robinson DJing, the fabulous Actionettes go go dancers, live acts, DJs, videos, a photo exhibition and the Human Fruit Machine!

The club is Critic's Choice in this week's Time out and it's all for FREE!
So get your arse down to the Dogstar, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton tonight, 7pm - 2am!

Site updates: I've now posted up the photo feature documenting the January 2005 urban75 Thames-side walk and a piece on the fabulous New Piccadilly Cafe in Soho..

Check out the 360 degree panoramic view of the cafe interior.

I finally managed to get a refund on my 5 month old Sony DSC f88 digital camera, which had proved to be a bitter disappointment.

I've been using various versions of these small, swivelling super Sony marvels for many years, but this one proved to be a duff one, suffering from horrendous 'blooming' (white light bleeding into the picture form the corners) and a moody shutter release that would sometimes decide to have long moments of quiet contemplation before taking the bloody picture!

After much faxing (note to readers: if you want something done, send a fax: the technology may be ancient, but it works!), Micro Anvika generously refunded the cost of my camera and I replaced it with the super-sleek new Sony DSC V3 - a semi-pro, 7 megapixel digicam that has picked up rave reviews from the likes of dpreview.com



I had the chance to try out my shiny new purchase the next morning, when I took on my role as tour guide for the January urban75 walk.

As are the rules for walk organisers (we take it in turns), the route has to be carefully researched with local landmarks and historical oddities pointed out on the way, so I headed off to the met up point at the fabulous Duke's Head in Putney armed with a swathe of print outs.

The walk took us along the south bank of the Thames, from Putney through Hammersmith up to Barnes where we grabbed a few drinks. We then crossed the Barnes Bridge and walked along the north bank to Hammersmith, stopping off at the Doves, en route.

It was a lovely day: the weather was sunny and crisp (until the very end) and I had a fine set of companions for the walk!
Expect a photo report in the London features section soon!



Tonight, we paid a visit to the New Piccadilly Cafe, Denman Street, Soho, London W1, an almost untouched celebration of formica and 60s design in the heart of Soho.

The food is cheap and no-nonsense, the owner Lorenzo warm and friendly and - being a bring your own booze kind of place - the ideal place to get quietly squiffy.

The sad news is that bastard developers are threatening to up the rents so high that this fabulous example of a traditional London cafe will be lost forever and - no doubt - be turned into bland yuppie hell hole.

I've spent long, tedious hours rummaging through fading receipts looking for some long-lost proof of some long-forgotten purchase.

I've wasted wasted entire days adding up random figures that no longer make any sense and my room is currently covered in sheets of banks statements and scrunched up invoices.

Yeo, it's tax return timer and I fucking hate every single second of it!

This is going to be a short set of updates on account of the black bastard storm cloud looming up on my horizon. Yep, my tax return is due for completion. Aaargh!

More painful than a session with an arthritic dentist and duller than a month of wet Sundays in Grimethorpe, this is the one time of year I'm guaranteed to be really grouchy.

I mean, what can be more tedious than wading through a load of bollock-dull bank statements and boxes full of fading receipts? I hate this shot. And I'll be getting very, very, very drunk when it's done..

Anyhow, on to the week's recap:


Strolled past the delightful ice rink at Somerset House on Saturday. Sadly didn't get to have a go, even though I'm right up there in the league table of Really Crap Ice Skaters.

Earlier we'd walked down to Borough market, a fruit and vegetable market by London Bridge which has latterly become known for selling fine organic food and farmer's produce. Sadly, the toffs seem to have marked it off in their leather bound PDAs because you could hardly move for upwardly mobile types pushing ridiculous SUV-like prams into your ankles.

We left smartly.



On Wednesday there was yet another urban75 curry club meeting in Brick Lane, east London.

The turnout was massive, the curry mighty fine (although not quite up to the mighty standard of Khan's in Brixton) and we all got drunk and took stupid photos of each afterwards.



On Saturday, I checked out the excellent National Portrait Gallery and the popped in for a coffee at the Crypt Cafe at St Martin-in-the-Fields (by Leicester Square)


It's something of an under-rated gem, serving up big healthy portions of no-nonsense British food at reasonable (for central London) prices. Recommended!

Right. Now back to this bastard tax return (mumble, moan....)

Well, it's an old story - nearly a quarter of a century to be precise - but I've finally got around to posting the story of My Office Job Hell, my grim tale of being stuck in a really shite job.

In case you haven't seen it, there's also an older companion piece on the site, My Rock Hell, a tragic tale of my short lived career as a rock photographer. I quite fancied myself as a photographic upstart until I had to photograph the likes of Vixen, Bon Jovi, Skid Row and (please nooooo!) Europe....

Sunday was a drinking day. We started off early, grabbing a breakfast at the Brixton Lounge before heading off to the Battersea Arts Centre for Tom Robinson's annual private party/charity shindig.

In case you've not heard of the fella, Tom Robinson led new wave legends the Tom Robinson Band in the 70s and 80s. The band were reknown for their strong political ideals and were heavily involved in gay rights and Rock Against Racism.

Tom now does a nightly show on BBC Radio 6 and - I'm delighted to say - he'll also be DJing at the next Offline night in Brixton on the 27th January! Woohoo!



We got to the gig at just gone 2pm and Tom was already way into his first set - a storming collection of tunes old and new. In fact, one of his new tunes - an angry, embittered, vitriolic attack on the morality of the Iraq war - was vintage TRB.

Original punkster TV Smith from The Adverts put in a lively acoustic set, with original performances from the "Mancunican near-do-well" Lee Griffiths and a witty collection of rap tunes from QBoy, 'the UK's Hottest Gay Rapper'. Kudos to him for cheekily naming his first release, 'Even the Women Like Him'.

We got quietly drunk at the afternoon wore on, but the biggest treat was an acoustic set from Roddy Frame (ex-Aztec Camera) which was absolutely stunning. Roddy's been one of my heroes since I was a kid and he didn't disappoint - and he even played Oblivious from the magical High Land, Hard Rain album. (I just love this line: "I see you crying and I want to kill your friends.").



By the time Tom Robinson had finished the second half of the set we were already well pissed - so foolishly decided to carry on drinking!

We stumbled into the Prince of Wales, Clapham, a mad old pub with bits of metal, dinner plates, signs and other sundry items dangling from the ceiling.

A few beers later we crawled into the Albert, drank some more beer and then it all became a bit of a blur.

But my head sure hurts today and make no mistake!

It's taken a while for me to get this post up on account of an Everest-sized hangover after a wild night seeing in the New Year.

The quaffing started in earnest at the flat and then continued up the Brixton Windmill where we got down to a New Year's Eve PROD special



A huge throng of lively Urbanites were in attendance, with the urban massive completely taking over the back room and heartily getting into the spirit of things. I think I got a little 'over-excited' and talked a complete load of bollocks to anyone who would listen, but I suspect several others were in a similar state.



After PROD, we headed off to an all nighter run by the Unsound system at Bar Lorca.

I don't recall an awful lot, but we stayed until 7am and had some fun.



Of course, today was payback time. I've felt like shit all day and - for the first time in memory - stayed in on a Saturday night. I simply couldn't face the prospect of drinking till...well, at least tomorrow.