 |
|
 |
|
|
"I'm really sorry, i thought this was going to be a workshop on film theory" she said, her shoes clop-clopping on the sunwarm tarmac. A few weeks previously she had beaten me in a sprint in those same high heels, which was kinda embarassing at the time.
"Hey, it's no biggie. I thought it'd be interesting to go to this anyway. And it's only a fiver. And they said her out that series was going to be signing autographs" i said. "Plus, Kerri said she's up for to joining us"
It was a hot day, and i was glad to enter the convention, if at least to get out of the heat. Kerri had immediately made a beeline for a stand selling True Blood merchandise, and i was talking to Baby D. It was her misinterpretation of what a Sci-Fi Con is all about that led us to making the exodus to Earls Court, but it was a Saturday afternoon and all three of us were at a loose end. Ursula was supposed to be joining me, but she got seduced by the Oxford Street sales, and Pablo has fucked off to Great Yarmouth to hang out with Spragg's gang. Whatever D had in mind, i was happy to be there just to check out the indie comic scene that's been a mainstay of London for the last couple of decades.
Still, the list of "celebs" at the venue included syrup-toting spacefiction veteran Bill Shatner, and piston-fisted ear enthusiast Mike Tyson (apparently, the Hangover is classed as science fiction), so i was expecting it to be interesting.
After tearing Kerri away from the various vampire knick-knacks, we decided to do a little orientation. Earls Court 2 is like a giant aircraft hanger, only filled with stalls selling various sci-fi trinkets instead of commercial aircraft. The arena contained about four makeshift avenues of stalls, with a central area cordoned off for those who wanted to pay good money to hear Captain Kirk talk about that one time he did that Kelloggs advert. The end of the hangar was lined with the various actors and sci-fi magnates who would, at a cost, provide an autograph or a photo op.
"Oh my god, is that...." said Kerri, becoming suddenly animated. A person looking suspiciously like David Tennant trotted past. Kerri's gaze of excitment melted back into chill-out mode. "Oh, it's just a person".
The people frequenting the convention were a blend of 50% normal, run-of-the-mill cats like you and I, and 50% straight-out batshit hardcore sci-fi geeks. There were people in costume, a team of south american "Battlestar Hispanica" enthusiasts, and even a sprinkling of furries. The best getup by far was this guy who put a huge amount of effort into looking like the joker from the Dark Knight, only pathetically unmenacing because he was about 5ft tall and willowy-looking. Seriously, a toddler wielding a stick could have driven that guy to his knees.
We wandered around for a bit. Baby D purchased an oversized t-shirt to wear as a dress because her jeggings were overheating her. Soon after, the combination of noise, visual information and humidity made things go a little haxy. I remember Kerri making yet another beeline to the American Candy stand where her a fellow yankette were squee'ing over a small pile of butterfingers.
"What are Butterfingers? said D.
"Glad you asked me, D" i replied. "Butterfingers are a snack-sized cardiac arrest designed to flood a person's arteries with peanutty goodness. It's an american thing" i said, omitting the fact that they are also quite delicious.
"Oooh!" said Kerri, oblivious to us. "They're selling Fluff! Finally, i can make fluffernutters!"
After a while, D had to go and rendezvous with some friends at a pub on the other side of London, so Kerri and I did a bit more browsing. At one rather tattered stall with nothing but a single large poster (torn in one corner) sat two guys. One of them was grinning. The poster was covered in colourful stickmen which i immediately recognised as "Cyanide and Happiness". The table the two guys were sitting at had a placard saying "Free William Shatner signatures". I asked for one and, right then and there, they recreated Shartner's signature down to most minute detail. Spelling mistakes aside, it was a flawless recreation. I thanked them and carried on.
As we made the sweep past the autograph queues, i couldn't help but notice that the various actors and actrixes doing the signing were somewhat warey of their fans. It must be strange having to sign photographs of yourself, only to give them to people who quite possibly take your acting more serious than you do.
I bought an iron-on battelstar galactica patch for my brother (he likes both cylons and pouty women that are, in fact, cylons). After grabbing some lunch over in Embankment, i headed home.
It was curious to see people with so much passion for science fiction. I used to enjoy watching Star Trek when i was a teenager (still see the odd episode of Voyager from time to time), but you'd have to pay me a serious amount of money to dress up like a Klingon, let alone want to do it. In fact, coming to think of it, i've never felt any obsession of that kind. Paul's teriffied of installing World of Warcraft on his laptop because once he starts playing it, he won't stop. He's addicted, not in the oh-lordy-i-can-play-this-for-hours sense, but in the coroner-says-he-died-from-a-ruptured-bladder sense.
Oh, wait. There is one thing i'm addicted to: The Powder Toy.
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Ech.
Damn chest infection, wracking me with malaise and making me feel more punk than a beatsteaks gig. It all started a few days ago with a sore throat, and kinda spiraled from there. I called in sick and started cramming myself with throat pastels, pills, potions and expectorants.
The thing is, i've got lots of work on at the moment and being ill is not helping, so i've come up with a plan to not only bring me up to speed on my workload, but also boost my productivity tenfold.
I've decided to build a mechanical secretary.
Why didn't i think of this before? We live in the space age, and what with science having brought forth such wonders in technology such as the transistor and the cathode, there is no limit to the technical wonders that can be created by hand.
First and foremost, i will secure Neil to come up with the blueprints. As a handyman and designer, he can sketch the overall shape of the mechanoid onto paper. Then, he can create a prototype in all three dimensions using paraffin wax. The secretary will have the curves of a sentient woman, but also the sharp, gothic lines as is the fashion of our time.
Next up, i shall set Mark to work creating the mechanical innards, pushing the very boundaries of physics thanks to Paul's quicksilver thinking in the field. The secretary will need to replicate movements such as typing, walking with posture and even certain forms of persian bellydancing for the entertainment of prospective clients. Indeed, Mark will have to spend many an hour cutting bamboo and indian rubber down to miniscule dimensions in order to create the nimble movements required to operate the robot's fingers.
As for the body, Alex would be charge of forging Neil's designs. I've often witnessed Alex's dexterous movements as he performs the shell game down in Spitalfield to defraud yet another punter. Although Alex is meek at the best of times, he also has a lot of pent-up rage and would enjoy hammering the finest bronze and pewter i can buy in all of Christendom into the shape of an adult woman.
I have also contacted Corning to produce the eyes.
Paul would be responsible for coming up with ways in which to power the android. He has assured me that his designs would enable the secretary to work for days at a time on a single nuclear pellet. He has contacted some gentlemen in Syria to help provide me with this valuable fuel.
And finally, Scouse has offered to program the robot with a broad range of subjects from mathematical long division, to the art of typesetting. Furthermore, he has informed me that the secretary can learn new skills simply by feeding punchcards containing numerical data into a slit behind her neck, enabling her to learn new languages such as Laotian and Tamil as well as exciting cocktail recipes as and when they come into fashion.
I broached the subject with Josh recently.
"Constructing a mechanical woman would have it's advantages" he said, in between chews of his tobacco, "I was thinking of making one myself to do the shopping for me down at the Piggly Wiggly when it gets busy on a weekday. Thing you got to remember though is that robots are always one button away from performing pure evil. Also, there's the whole Stepford Wives situation to think about. Last thing you want is to build a sturdy personal assistant, only to end up with a docile gynoid."
"This is indeed true. I guess i should tell Alex not to sheath the body in realistic skin-coloured rubber then?"
Josh cackled, and spat out his chaw.
"Heck, no! Don't go dandying her up like some tinfoil doxy at a box social! That'd end with her falling in love during the hoedown and wanting to become a human and all sorts of foolishness. Teach a robot the ways of man and right then and there you got yourself all sortsa trouble."
"I wasn't planning on seducing her Josh, i just need something that can type my dictations, cook a roast when i come home tired and spew out plumes of liquid nitrogen on demand in case i forget to put the beer in the fridge"
"If you're not planning on building a sexbot, why make it woman?" said Josh.
"Because male androids are either gay like Kryten and Johnny5, or terrifying like the T-600" i replied. "I want something pleasant to look at, at least" i said. "Plus fembots have a notorious reputation for lezzing out"
Josh wanted to end the conversation there to do some research into the field of "android sapphic practices", so i went back to my blueprints. This robotic assistant idea is a good one! If it works out, i could market my own range of cybernetic assistants to help the modern business man with his day to day business needs. It could even replace the filofax.
On the other hand, it could end up being the preface to the enslavement of humanity should the robots decide to unite, but it's a risk i'm willing to take.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
My favourite time of the year is the high summer, and the best part of that is the early twilight, just after the sun's blazing fingers succumb to the horizon. It is then that moods change, people become more wary of the ways of night and the combination of street lights and the electric-blue of the sky create a phantom carnival, visible only to those who daydream of stranger worlds.
I used to dream of strange journey by train through cities that were only half-understood; tube signs would shine red against the metallic blue panorama of strange buildings made of glass and stone. Vast open spaces would stretch across the landscape, covered by uniform pavement and a sense of urgency would push my thoughts tightly against the membrane of the sleeping world. But in all of the dreams, one thing would remain constant - the dusky pale blue of the twilight and impending dusk ahead of it.
During my waking life, i rarely see these colours as i keep my windowblinds tightly closed against the sunset which glares straight into my living room. By the time i reach home, the last thing i want is to look outside as the city changes from the dust-ridden fury of the daytime into the drunken haze of the evening. But that elusive feeling of the skyline just after the sun has gone down never fully escapes me and there are times when i am out during this brief interval and everything seems sharper and more connected.
Wireless festival was one example. After the show had ended, the sky was still light enough for us to walk along Hyde Park and up to Bayswater road. Neil had invited me and Cian to the festival, and after 10 hours of music, drinking and scalp-frying heat we had left satisfied at the day's hijynx. We'd drank copious amounts of beer and cider, watched Missy Elliott get booed off stage after whoring herself out to adidas resulted in devistating consequences, saw Unkle play a set that rocked pretty hard, missed DJ Shadow thanks to combination of laziness and Neil's poor sense of timing, ate festival food and finished off with a quick stint of LCD Soundsystem. We applied sunscreen, judged people on their appearances and discussed various trends in the music scene. Cian was disgusted by Missy E's frivolous attempts at advertising (given that she built her career on coming from a modest background), while Neil suggested that Jungle and Nu-Disco were replacing House music and Trance.
The sun blazed down on us, darkening our skins a shade or two and drying the ground, sending dust into air to coat everyone with festival grime. Eventually, during one LCD's lengthier ballads, the sun gave way and the festival began winding down. We left Hyde Park around the time James Murphy started boring the hell out of us by mumbling incoherently at the crowd.
Which brings us full circle to the twilight. We decided to head towards Bayswater, away from the crowds. Dusk hadn't quite set in, and the heat from the pavement made the journey pleasant.
"I know this street well" said Cian. The heat and 10-hour festival had made her slightly benign.
"Oh yeah?"
"Back in the day, mum and i used to live down here" she murmured, looking around at the houses.
"It must have been interesting living near Notting Hill" i said.
"It's strange how it changes though. It's totally different in the summer because all of all the green. The trees and hedges and so on. In the winter, it's all brickwork and iron railings".
In a way, i'm kind of jealous of Cian for having sampled London from many different angles. I just moved in and stayed where i am for obvious reasons - it's easier and i like Camden. Still... each place you live in has a story to tell. My dad's lived all over London from Bethnal Green to the Elephant & Castle to Notting Hill Gate (back when it was somewhat more affordable).
After seeing Cian to the tube, Neil and I walked to Notting Hill and parted ways on our seperate journeys home. After the soothing walk down Bayswater with it's gleaming windows and dull-blue sky, it was a downer to use the tube and endure the crush of people and the smell of dead air, but i was tired and needed to get home quickly.
When i got off at Camden, i stood next to a girl on the escalator. She was wearing sandals and her feet were filthy with grime. Festival grime.
"Wireless?" i said, smiling.
"Did you see Missy Elliott? What was up with that?" she replied, grinning back.
I stepped off the escalator and headed into the dark. Night time had arrived.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
FIVE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BEER HALL ON SATURDAY
- Josh turning up at mine clutching a Waitrose bag containing a change of underwear and a mini-bottle filled with listrene.
- Watching Pablo drink a Maß of beer while telling everyone to "pretend we're in munich"
- Mark turning up at 4am clutching a foot-long sub and offering me a half because "seriously mate, it's too much for one man to eat"
- Spragg turning up at 4.08am, clutching a packet of Monster Munch and asking if he can "smoke out my window".
- Feeling the combination of beer, cider, spritzer and vodka ferment into a skull-bending migrane while listening to a catfight outside
FIVE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BARBECUE ON SUNDAY
- Listening to the sports commentator during the England v German game on Radio 5 just give up ten minutes before the end and go off on a complete tangent about everything that's wrong with association football in this day and age.
- Ian's refreshing banter on how he would dismantle the welfare state as well as the NHS, and how eugenics was "a socialist conspiracy" (despite historically spanning all schools of political thought)
- Ursula trying to cook a vegan burger and not being able to tell when it was cooked from when it was raw.
- Neil asking me what happened to the fireplace we made exactly one year previously. I told him i'm waiting for the "right moment".
- Everyone telling me to decorate my house because i'm 30, and not a student anymore. Also, Paul has a real shower.
Also, can i just say to any tabloid hacks out there: FUCK YOU, DICKS. Drawing parallels between England v German and WWII was not only incredibly unimaginative and tiresome, but also fucking lame. If you want to crank up the jingoism, then why not crack a few "harmless" fucking jibes about the Boer Wars to our hosts while you're at it? To summarise: IF IT HAPPENED BEFORE THE MICROCHIP WAS INVENTED, IT'S NOT WORTH BRINGING UP AT A FOOTBALL MATCH.
That is all.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
"GOD DAMMIT!" i yelled, watching a crimson line slowly draw itself across the tip of my finger. Nothing more than a papercut, only the culprit wasn't paper. It was my fridge, more specifically the spatula removing permafrost in the ice compartment.
In a somewhat belated attempt at spring cleaning, i'd spent most of Sunday doing some badly-needed house maintenance. My efforts started off well, attacking the porcelain and enamel surfaces in the bathroom with a combination of limescale remover and an industrial brillo pad. After half an hour of chafing the surfaces whilst listening to Goldie, the bathroom was sparkling and no longer looked like a privy in a halfway house.
Then, things kinda went downhill. The next step was to wash the carpets (more specifically, the one strip of carpet on the stairs from the door to the landing). After 6 years of footwear, neglect and hungover vacuuming, it was looking more than a little tired. The only problem was that i didn't have a carpet washer. So i popped to the supermarket and bought a can of foam cleaner. After blitzing the stairwell in an inch of foam and rubbing it around with a brush, i waited two hours for it to dry before hoovering the dusty residue. The carpet looks somewhat cleaner, but it's not exactly like the spotless beige nap you see lining the oval office. And the edges where the carpet meets the skirting board is still black from years of dust.
"Meh." i said, looking at the remaining grime. "Good enough."
As i was waiting the for the carpet to dry, i decided to tackle the fridge. I can honestly say without hyperbole that de-icing my fridge is a task to heinous that there have been times when i've been tempted to hoy the whole damn thing into the garden and spend the rest of the afternoon getting drunk and looking for a replacement in Argos. So i sat down and glared at the fridge for about half an hour, "Inner City Life" coming to the end and the speakers falling silent. It was making a clunking noise, the freezer equivalent of an asthma attack.
Dammit!, i thought clenching my fists, Get the job done or the whole thing will break and you'll left up dick creek. Unless you WANT warm coke with your evening tequila?
I switched off the unit and it let out one final gasp. I removed the contents of the food compartment (three jars of condiments, four bottles of wine and a giant punnet of strawberries bought from a cockney while drunk on friday). I opened the freezer and manage to yank the ice-tray free of the frost. It was like Scott of the fucking Arctic was being played out in that freezer compartment.
This is what happens when you don't have enough room to move the fridge away from next to the cooker, i cursed silently to myself.
Over the next six hours, i rasped away at the ice with some salad tongs, assaulted it with fridge de-icer, placed several hot-water bottles inside to accelerate the process, and generally faffed around. By the evening, it looked almost exactly the same from when i started.
Fuck!, i yelled in my head.
I decided to placate myself by doing some situps and eat a slice of golden syrup cake. As i was spooning syrup over the sponge, i heard something crash inside the fridge.
"Hey, get in!" i said, delighted. The ice inside the freezer compartment had loosened from the ceiling and i was able to pry out several pounds of frost in one go. I was on my way.
After a couple more hours i was able to extract untold more kilos of frost from behind and below the freezer compartment, although i ended up spilling a litre of melted water all over the floor and soaking myself. As i returned to the kitchen with a mop, a tiny mouse slinked out from under the fridge and stared at me.
"You!" i blurted out, slack jawed. I haven't seen any rodents for at least 18 months and i honestly though i'd beaten them. But no, it sat there looking at me quizzically with tiny water droplets on its whiskers before turning tail and fleeing. After mopping up, i positioned traps in strategic positions and am hoping i'll have caught the offender by tomorrow morning. When i switched the fridge back on, it hummed with a renewed sense of purpose.
My final task was the toilet bowl. I had a new toilet put in a couple of years ago, but London's water is harder than a thai lesbian in a cage-fight and the pot was looking more than a little... off colour.
I went to the local DIY shop run by a family of Hindus and explained my porcelain predicament. They gave me a bottle of "spirit of salt" which sounded reassuringly alchemic. It came with a warning to take precautions, so i put on my glasses and my mouse-handlers and chucked half a bottle down the U-bend. Immediately, it started bubbling and giving off a sinister-looking vapour, i decided to wait out the process in the bedroom. After ten minutes of inhaling the hotbox from next door, i went to grab a bag of pretzel pieces from the kitchen and check up on the progress in the bathroom. Everything looked the same, but when i flushed most of the limescale vanished, revealing gleaming porcelain. Ten minutes of waiting and now i had a crapper that the even queen herself would use.
When Mark moved into his place in Leamington, i wondered why he and Charlotte spent time maintaining "non-critical" things like the flower vase in the living room, and why they didn't take kindly to us lads resting our trainers up on the coffee table. But now i'm starting to get it. I've always said i liked living in Camden because it's central, got great transport links and has fun nightlife. But really, i like living in my apartment because it's the first place i've lived in that feels like home since leaving my parent's house all those years ago. And because of that, cleaning it doesn't feel like so much of a hassle any more.
It's not perfect, but i'll take it.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
| Read:
|
Vanilla Beach 2005 ::
E-Mail Me |
| |
|
|
