A man without romantic attachments or ambitions

[alexsarll]

For the first time this year, I could walk to the Beautiful & Damned along the Parkland Walk, but my reverie was soon interrupted by posters warning that Haringey Council and TFL want to lay a ten foot wide cycle path. Not that the Green Man seems the sort to allow anything of the sort, but anybody wishing to lend him a hand - the meeting to say them NAY! is at Coleridge School, Crouch End Hill, 7.30pm on May 3rd. Though if the campaign does have a web leg, I can't find it.
The mysterious 'special guests' were a band called The Procession, whose album I eventually realised I'd listened to once and then discarded because it was OK but I'd never listen to it again. Better live, in a Ben Folds sort of way, but still not really appropriate to B&D. Later, we got one Frank Sinazi (who rather polarised opinion, shall we say - personally I thought he should have just done his 'That's Life' reworking 'Third Reich' and then stopped) and a rebel song from Shane MacGowan, which was more the thing.
After a brief stopover in exactly the sort of flat one hopes to find in Highgate, I decided that with the Walk in danger I should maybe make the most of it, so I walked it in the dark for the first time, Equipped myself with the first stout stick I found just in case, then upgraded it to what was essentially a log, but saw no sign of human life. Which in retrospect is possibly because I was a large, angry-looking man in a dinner jacket with a cudgel.

With the freebox finally back in operation after its mystifying sabbatical (maybe its comic needed a circulation spike?), I watched a BBC4 drama, albeit one I taped ages back - Reichenbach Falls. I don't really know the work of Ian Rankin, who came up with the original idea, but it makes perfect sense that the director should have worked on Life on Mars; in so far as one could make something like that programme without ripping it off outright, this is it. Which is to say, it's a cop show intertwined with a genre show, but here the detective's dilemma is that he may be in some sense fictional. Well, obviously he is, but he may be even within his own fictional world. A fine drama, and I'd be saying that even if it didn't have lovely, lovely Nina Sosanya as the detective's new partner.

Even after learning from Neil Gaiman's journal that the son of a writer I like mildly was among the victims, I find myself with little to say regarding the unfortunate events at Virginia Tech. Which is probably for the best, because most commentary on it can be summarised thus.

Popjustice-endorsed pop mag "has bombed in a way nobody connected with it could ever have envisaged", closes after one issue. In happier music news, this Rufus Wainwright interview has all the scandal and secrets one could want, and as such leaves one wondering which is the most dangerous influence: the Wainwright family, or crystal meth?

And finally, is anybody going to see the Indelicates at Nambucca tomorrow?

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Hmm yes you're right, I'm sure Highgate is a veeery scary place, you never know where those delicatessen owners could be lurking!

Nambucca?! INDELICATES?! I'm assuming this is you trying to part on a humourous note (not that I know who the Indelicates are) (or indeed am sure if I can spell "humourous", I think I can).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You could always google them, innit? They are ace, largely (though not exclusively) because their debut single was called 'We Hate The Kids'.

Parkland Walk has burnt out motorcycles and other evidence of misbehaviour, and you would do well to remember that!

Also I think you can drop the middle U.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Nambucca then (also I have other plans anyway, but that is not as fun to rile you).

The u! I knew the problem was u all the time...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It has been refurbished, and is no longer *quite* so ghastly. Also very handy for mine. And the nineties night there is the only club where I've heard ECHOBELLY recently!

[charleston.livejournal.com]

Sounds like everyone in the world except me was at the Boogaloo last night. I was busy with my guitar. I'm very cross about that cycle path thing. The Parkland Walk already is a cycle path, isn't it? no cars I mean. If they put in a path, then walkers will use it to avoid getting their feet muddy, and then there'll be an accident, and then before we know it there'll be a paved path for walkers and it'll just be another road...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The cyclists don't seem to have any problems with it the way it is, and I imagine they also enjoy the respite from urban London.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

ta for that linkie mr sarll. i find him endlessly interesting. plus i *know* if we ever met we'd be best friends.

/scary stalker

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There were several people I suspected would appreciate it, with you top of the list and first in line for a restraining order.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

meanie! i just mean we would SO bond over judy love. and addictive personality. perhaps. :P

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Crystal meth really does seem like a bad idea on every conceivable level.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

yeah, but you know i wouldn't say no though, don't you?

/idiotic, but probably scary true fact.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

scarily

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's the only drug I wouldn't want to try even the once.

I've got a crystal meth memoir (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leaving-Dirty-Jersey-James-Salant/dp/0091920337/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/026-0193444-9887632?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177067949&sr=8-1) to read at some point. I basically got bored of addiction memoirs years ago, because they're all a bit samey, but am making an exception for this just because what I know of the drug does make it seem genuinely Satanic, and not in a good way.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

oh i've heard of that one, and was curious. can i have a lend when you're done?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You can borrow it ahead of me if you want, I've got at least six other books ahead of it in the queue! When am I next likely to see you?

[shewho.livejournal.com]

david's drinks tomorrow?

(that'd be ace, ta!)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

At least for a bit, aye. Will bring it.

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

There's an interview with The Roof in Word magazine. I haven't got round to reading it yet as Word always lasts me a week.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

lemme know if it's any good when you get there!

[intermix.livejournal.com]

I have no plans tomorrow, am I going to like them?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, give myspace.com/indelicates and myspace.com/theindelicates a listen and find out!

[intermix.livejournal.com]

For some reason this computer doesn't want to open the bit which you can play the songs from (does that make sense? I think you know what I mean), but I think I trust your taste in music, so I shall give you a text if I think I'll be going. x x x

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Myspace players can be temperamental sometimes. But yes, let me know; I'll be drinking in the heart of town earlier so whether I stay there or head on will largely be determined by whether anyone else is up for it.

[baphomette.livejournal.com]

David's drinks, tomorrow? Comics swap? Also, depending on the cost of the indelicates, I may be persuaded to come along...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes! Finally...

[cappuccino-kid.livejournal.com]

He's copying Andrew and Johnny; they had the idea for a 60s style girl singer called Nazi Sinatra...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The only problem is that even if they collaborated, they couldn't make a version of 'Something Stupid' any more disturbing than the original.

well...

[cappuccino-kid.livejournal.com]

Didn't the guy from UB40 do a cover with his six-year-old daughter?

Re: well...

[cappuccino-kid.livejournal.com]

No, I'm sure he did. The Chrissie Hynde one was 'I Got You Babe'.