Monster St Ives/Cornwall photo updates!



It feels like it's taken an eternity to sort out, but I've now added over 100 new photos to the St Ives and Cornwall Photo Section



Keen followers of this blog (if you do indeed exist, dear reader) will already know that we went pedalling around Cornwall on our natty fold-up bikes in August and had a fab time.



I also spent a fair bit of time swivelling, panning and generally annoying Em as I composed a host of panoramas, which can now be seen here

Printer rant

I want to smash my Epson printer into a million pieces.

What's the matter with the fecking thing?

One minute my Epson Photo895 will be producing beautiful, rich prints, the next minute it's churning out utter shite banded prints that six - count 'em, six - ink-sucking cleaning cycles won't cure.

Yes, I am using their rip off branded inks and have the latest drivers, so what the fuck is the matter with the thing?

Grr.

Shame that blog!



Today's nomination: Sonik
Untroubled by a single post since Thursday, April 21, 2005!
How slack? Off the scale slack!

Offline hangover!

Ouch! My 'ead 'urts!

Some photos from last night's Offline at the Dogstar:







More photos here

Apple scrape the barrel



Some fuckwit at Apple thought it would be a grrrreat idea to "associate" the "values" of the multi-billion company with Rosa Parks, who died recently.

Parks was a brave US civil rights activist who protested against segregation in the fifties by famously refusing to give up her seat to a white man, despite being ordered to do so by the bus driver.

Her arrest was to spark a bus boycott which helped make other Americans aware of the civil rights struggle, with her case ending in a United States Supreme Court's ruling that segregated bus service was unconstitutional.

The case proved to be a landmark because the ruling applying to all segregationist laws, not just those affecting interstate/intercity commerce.

So what, you may ask, has her struggle and achievements got to do with Apple?

Well, the answer is, of course, absolutely fuck all, so I'm well pissed off to see that they've branded her image on their homepage, branding her photo with the Apple logo and corporate message, "Think Different".

Wankers.

Maybe this will be their next front page?



Click for larger version

Cross wielding Christians in Brixton

The corner of Brixton Road and Coldharbour Lane (aka the KFC Crackpot Corner) has long played host to weird and wonderful religious types.



We've had racist black dudes dressed up as medieval heavy metallers shouting homophobic abuse at passers by, scripture-quoting blokes with megaphones, happy clappy Korean bands, dodgy Nation of Islammers, God Squadders blasting out Jesus tunes at Motorhead-threatening volumes and even a group of bagpipe-toting Japanese gospel types with a banner declaring "Brixton Will Be Saved".

Things have been a little quiet there recently, so it was good to see this latest addition on Sunday - the cross-wielding Christians.

Offline photos are now online



More photos here!

Next Offline is this Thursday (Oct 27th) at the Dogstar with tons of live acts, DJs and cabaret performers - and it's free as usual!

Where else would you get a 60s garage band, a rap outift, 'Leicester's quirkiest band' and a blind Polish bongo busker on the same stage?!



Click for large flyer

Offline website

Hangover Deluxe!

Last night's Offline was another top-notch beery mash-up, so I'm too hungover to post up the photos, but in the meantime, check out these fantastic clips from Prangstgrup.com

The one with the world's longest start up sound is outstanding!

New Brighton photos!


I've just added about thirty new pics to the Brighton photo gallery

Sad to see the West Pier looking so moribund - here's how it looked just ten years ago:

Brighton 1 Cardiff City 2



It's been a long time since I've seen Cardiff win, but I was a happy bunny on Saturday, even if the 'field of dreams' looked more like a playing field.

Here's an excerpt from my report in the urban75 CCFC section

Brighton 1 Cardiff City 2 Championship, Saturday 15th October 2005

This was my first away game at Brighton for many years, and the first time I'd visited the Withdean Stadium. And what a horror the place is!

Stuck out in the middle of nowhere, with all the atmosphere of a deserted lunar base, the Withdean has to be one of the worst grounds I've visited for many years.

It's not that I don't empathise with Brighton's plight - I was there at the 'Fans United' protest at the Goldstone in 1997 - but the prairie-like open spaces made it feel more like I was watching an egg'n'spoon race at the local school.

I hope Brighton sort out their proposed ground at Falmer soon because I never want to come back to this ground.

The facilities at the ground bordered on spartan, with a handful of portacabins providing basic toilet and food provision for the away fans.



The view from the jerry-built away stand was atrocious - the sun was directly in my eyes for most of the game and I was stuck in an uncomfortable plastic seat right in the front row where I kept banging my knees against the scaffolding.

If the seat had been any lower I would have been chatting with the moles, and despite being at the front of the stand, the nearest patch of football pitch was some way in the distance.

Standing up was declared verboten by stewards who insisted on constantly winding up the crowd further by blocking their view while they had occasional chinwags right in front of the stand.

And if all this wasn't bad enough, they had the audacity to charge me 23 ruddy quid for the privilege...
More...

Cycling through the New Forest



It's taken me a while to get around to it (nearly five months - eek!), but I've now posted up a page about a delightful day we spent cycling around the New Forest.

It's a great way to spend a Sunday!

See pics

Offlines coming up

Its going to tally up to three Offlines this month, with another Birkbeck gig on the 21st, followed by a Dogstar mash up on the 27th.

Here's the flyer for the next one at Birkbeck College (Malet Street, central London)

It's free, open to the public, has a really cheap bar and there's great bill for the night, so you've got absolutely no excuse not to come along!

Terrorism and railways

Two new features on the site:

A fearful flight with a wannabe terrorist tells the story of the day I found myself in a plane that had to make an emergency diversion to Frankfurt after a passenger said he was a terrorist with a bomb onboard. And yes, it was scarey!

The other feature also involves transport, but it's another of my 'none more obscure' railway articles on the Cardiff Railway and the Coryton Branch Line.



One of the tiny halts on the line, Rhiwbina Halt used to be my local station when I grew up in Cardiff.

The old late night railway specials that used to run from Ninian Park to the station were unforgetable, passing by in a blur of ejected seats, broken windows, flailing toilet rolls and exploding light bulbs, as the local hoolies rampaged.

Brixton Cycles squatted!



Great to see an old style community arts squat opening up in the heart of Brixton after the old cycle shop on Coldharbour Lane was successfully squatted.

Check out the article

Vauxhall Cross



It's been mistaken for a ski-slope, a roller coaster and some sort of weird launch pad. Not everyone likes it, but Vauxhall's Transport Interchange sure isn't boring!

Read the full story here.

Photos from Offline2 @ Birkbeck College
It was a strange night at first - I had to grimace through 45 minutes of a horribly over-enthusiastic salsa instructor whooping up a class of students before hitting the decks, but the £1.20 pints of beer soon loosened things up.



Basically, I put on a mini-Offline, complete with Vic's Cabaret Corner and an acoustic set from Helen McCookerybook with Dubversion and me doing the sounds.

It was fun but the hangover next day.. eeeeurrgh!

Walking Kew Gardens, Richmond Lock, Syon park and Brentford



Just posted up some pics from last week's walk along the Thames.

It was a lovely autumnal walk, around 9 miles in length. Check out the pics!

Thames walk

Brixton Crack Squirrels

Daft story of the day - from the South London Press.

It's about squirrels supposedly becoming addicted to the crack rocks that addicts have been stashing in Brixton front lawns late at night.

Curiously, a near identical story was reported by one of the urban75 posters last week....

Here's what the urban75 poster said:
Yesterday I was chatting to one of my neighbours and he pointed out that the reason I had found his screwdriver in our front garden (in central Brixton) was that crack users / dealers sometimes hide bits of their stash in our garden.

An hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds.

And here's what appeared in the South London Press a week later:
"I was chatting with my neighbour who told me that crack users and dealers sometimes use my front garden to hide bits of their stash.
"An hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds.
"It looked like it knew what it was looking for.
"It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging. "It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks."

Could they, perchance, be related?

Friday night mash-up!

I'm doing a mini-Offline type event at Birkbeck College this Friday.
Entry is free. Beer is cheap. Very cheap.

I had trouble coming up with a name, but after unwisely thinking 'Billy Birkbeck's Bumper Big Bevy Bonanza' was a great name for all of 20 mins, I plumped for 'Tinseltown'. I like it, anyway. For now.



Friday 7th October 7-midnight

Birkbeck College SU Bar
4th Floor,
Malet Street
London WC1

DJs
Dubversion and Editor

Live Act
Helen McCookeryBook

Vic's Cabaret Corner with
Your host Vic Lambrusco
Ant The Rant "Acidic Verse From Colostomy Del Mar"
Sarah Daggar-Nickson "A Finger Of The Wise On Triviality's Pulse"

Entry: FREE!

Stat-tastic!

For those of you interested in this kind of thing, here's the urban75 traffic stats for September 2005.

Bulletin boards Sept 05
New posters registered: 872
New threads: 4,214
New posts: 137,121
Average unique users logging on per day: 1,500


urban75.net Sept 05
Unique users: 77,658
Number of visits: 168,047
Page impressions: 3,683,955 (122,798 pages per day)
Hits: 24,050,191

urban75.org Sept 05
Unique users: 195,378
Number of visits: 270,807
Page impressions: 1,703,629 (56,778 pages per day)
Hits: 20,414,662

As ever, these figures do not include traffic to urban75.com because I can't be arsed to download the huge (700+ meg) weekly log file!

Clubbing, drinking and walking

Blimey, it's been a busy week!



Thursday's Offline proved to be a ton of work to organise and run, but I'm happy to say that it was the best ever, with three floors, four rooms, 18 musicians, six live acts, three poets, 15 DJs......and Howard Marks!


Howard Marks at Offline, Dogstar, Brixton

The BBC were in the house and happily there was no mishaps with the ramshackle stage that me and Johnny (from the Messengers of God) put together.

Comprising of two stage segments supported by five tables and a lot of rope, I did have my fears when a seven piece band took to the stage, but our handiwork thankfully held out all night. Phew!



It was a great night and a whole load of fun. See the rest of the pics here.

Today, I went for a lovely walk from Kew Gardens, westward along the Thames to Richmond Lock and then back over the opposite of the river via Syon park.

In the evening, we met up with Tim "no blog updates for me" F for a birthday meal at the excellent Bonnington Cafe, 11 Vauxhall Grove (near Vauxhall tube).

Starting life as a kitchen for the use of local squatters, the cafe grown into a very popular vegetarian restaurant - we love it!