Woohoo! Offline gets Time Out's Critic's Choice!

Our Brixton club night this Thursday I24th Feb) is the Time Out's Critic's Choice, and the review is very flattering indeed, starting with the words, "So successful it hurts"!

Naturally, I'm already thinking that this may backfire spectacularly, but what the hell: I'm going to lap up the warm praise for now!

You can see the full review and club details here

At last!



There may not be much of it yet, but at least - at long last - I've finally got to feel a bit of snow on my face this winter!

It's still snowing lightly right now and there's more forecast, so with luck I'll be taking photographs on the snowy streets of Brixton tomorrow!

Oh, a quick update for the last week:

Sat Urban75 walk to darkest Woolwich Arsenal, Eltham and Falconwood. Despite icy blizzards, much fun was had. Photo report to follow.

Fri Day trip to Kew Gardens. Lovely. Urban75 party in the evening. Top stuff!

Thurs: Elm Park Tavern to take my part in a Pub Pop Quiz as part of 'Team Clever'
We lost. Quite dismally.

Weds Hobgoblin, Brixtin for Tsunami benefit with Mark Thomas, Rob Newman, Normal Lovett and Daniel Kitson. Very funny!

A weekend in Rye



We spent a delightful couple of days over the weekend in Rye, Sussex, arguably one of Britain's prettiest towns.

The town hosts some beautiful medieval architecture, with cobbled streets, an old church and lots of beautiful little shops. And - best of all - not a fast food joint in sight!

We stayed in a friend's house in Mermaid Street, an impossibly quaint cobbled thoroughfare with half timbered houses and a 16th century pub.



On Saturday, we walked to Camber Sands with menacing skies looming above. We battled through gale force winds to reach the coast and were hit by a full-on hail storm.



Minutes later, the skies cleared and we were treated to a beautiful panorama of sun, sea and sand. Lovely!

In the evening, we went on a pub crawl around Rye sampling some of the fabulous local ales.

The next day was another day of fast-changing weather.

We walked to Winchelsea station and then caught a train into the coastal resort of Hastings, where we were hit by a face-freezing snow storm. Sadly, the snow didn't settle and within minutes the sun was out again - but at least I had finally got to feel some snow on my face this winter!



We had a lovely dinner in the beach-facing 'Pig in Paradise' cafe before taking a walk on to the pier. And then it time to jump on to the train back to London....

Well, actually, it's more of a tip! tap! than a bang and a crash going on as I've taken delivery of my new Pearl drum kit with special super-clever 'near-silent' heads.

It was weird putting up a drum kit after all this time, but I was like a little kid at Christmas during the unpacking - "oh look! there's the hi hat pedal!", "wow!` check out the action on the bass drum pedal!" and "free sticks! wicked!"

The kit is a Pearl Traveler, which is specially designed for small spaces, silent practices and ideal for drummers who don't fancy lugging half a ton of equipment to a gig.

I've only had a half hour session on the kit, but it's definitely delivering on its promise of cutting down the noise. The wire mesh heads barely make a noise which means - joy of joy - that I can come in pissed late at night and play along to records on my headphones.

Now, lemme see if I can still do that 'ironic' heavy metal drumstick twiddling.....

Wales 11 England 9

Joy oh joy! Wales beat England in a tense Six Nations match - their first win over the English in Cardiff since 1993.

A massive home crowd of 74,197 at the Millennium Stadium saw Wales take the lead, only for England to fight back and be ahead 9-8 with only ten minutes to go. Things were starting to look grim, but then the mighty Welsh boot of Gavin Henson hoofed over an enormous kick to clinch triumph for to the Welsh.

Chez urban resounded to much a-whooping and a-cheering. We beat the English! It's a beautiful day!

Right. Who's coming to the pub?!

After months and months of randomly banging biscuit tins, table tops and anything else capable of making a percussive noise around the house, I've finally bitten the bullet and bought a new drum kit (after raising the funds through some camera flogging).



Mindful of the noise of an over-excited blogger belting the fuck out of a kit, I've bought a Pearl Traveller kit which comes with these clever-clogs wire mesh heads that feel like real skins but are near-silent - and if I want to do a gig, I just swap 'em over for the real thing and I can bish! bosh! to my heart's content!

Best of all, the thing packs away really small too.

Seeing as the last kit I had was a super-pro Pearl rack mounted monster with 9" brass snare and enough drums to equip a small army, it's going to be fun getting back to a basic kit. And if I'm not totally crap after all these years, there may be some kind of jamming type thang on offer at Offline soon! But only if I'm not rubbish.

Due to overwhelming public demand, I've just added another worthy candidate to the 'Slap Gallery' on the site: Robert Kilroy Silk

Give the sanctimonious, orange-hued, racist twat a slap for me while you're there....

On Friday, I checked out the Masked Ball at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London. The theme was beauty, and the evening promised mask making, dancing lessons, burlesque and striptease. And admission was free!

The Actionettes and Action Men entertained the crowds with some nifty dance routines, while a 70s/80s disco battled with the appalling acoustics in the main room. It was fun, but the beer was criminally over priced and the clientele seemed a bit, well, toff-tastic.

Check out the full report here