Posted without proofreading because I need to get the washing out

[alexsarll]

"New romantic dark electro post-punk discotheque" Black Plastic returns tonight, after far too long away, and if you're not at Latitude/San Diego/Nuisance, I strongly recommend it. I am certainly in the mood for a dance right now; sometimes even the more assured among us feel everything getting on top of one rather, especially when looking at the bank balance and realising, actually, one is a bit skint. There couldn't have been a better time for Entourage to turn up as a reminder of the crucial mindset: "Something will turn up. It always does." Now, I'm just waiting for my own equivalent to Vince's 'phonecall from Scorsese. There's a couple of jobs I've applied for which look pretty good, but since it's only the pay I object to with this unemployment business, rather than the hours, that Euromillions rollover would go down even better.

Finsbury Park station is having some 'improvement' works on the entrance I normally use, not to do anything practical, just to better the 'ambience'.
Which means getting to the Tube takes me another couple of minutes.
Which means I find it harder to avoid the sort of locals with whom I don't want to associate - couple of days ago there was a bad transvestite (at least, I hope she was a bad transvestite) pushing a wheelchair full of clothes while periodically blowing a whistle, and if I wanted that kind of Royston Vasey crap, I could have stayed in Derby.
Which also means I have to pass the Annoying Billboards. When the Christian Party were campaigning in the elections (and thank heavens that even if the Nazis got in, these scum didn't - they have nearly two millennia extra experience in persecuting Jews and gays), my nearest billboard for them was here. Recently, it's had a tourist board ad with the slogan "everything that makes Mexico magical remains the same" over a picture of an Aztec temple. So, you're saying that Mexico still has human sacrifice? Think I'll pass, thanks. And now, it's ads for one of those religious revival meetings. Though at least it's the one called Dominion. I have no idea whether this differs theologically from any of the similar enterprises, but I first became aware of it coming home the day after a B Movie night at which we'd been dancing to the Sisters song of the same name in an environment guaranteed to blow any evangelical's tiny little mind.
Supposedly the Wells Terrace entrance will be finished by 'mid-July'. Well, I make it mid-July and it doesn't look ready yet.
Elsewhere in the city, Oxford Street is starting to alarm me. There are ever fewer real shops there, ever more fly-by-night places one would expect somewhere far less salubrious, yet still the crowds graze it on some kind of retail autopilot. I was only there to engage in my own little spot of vulture capitalism, checking out Borders which is closing down and promising that everything is half price. Except that everything in certain sections - SF and comics among them - has already been shipped off to surviving branches. Really not the spirit of the thing, is it? Still, afterwards, in Bloomsbury and already half-cut, as one of the second hand shops packed away the outside tables, I was just in time to pluck out an Olaf Stapledon and a Baron Corvo of which I'd never even seen either in the flesh before. Literary acquisition urge cheaply sated, and in a far more civilised environment too.

The latest issue of top zombie despairathon The Walking Dead also contains, at no extra charge, the whole first issue of Chew. In spite of the name, Chew is nothing to do with zombies. You know all those 'cop with gimmick' shows on TV? It's one of those, about a cop who can psychically understand the complete history of anything he eats. Also, there's a moderately amusing satire of the war on drugs in that it's set in a USA where chicken has been banned - except supposedly on account of bird flu, which now looks like total topicality fail. It's moderately amusing. It's by two guys whose names mean nothing to me. And yet it's apparently selling like hot cakes, even to people who are not regular comics readers. And I genuinely have no idea why.
In a different way, DC's Wednesday Comics is a weird one. It's the size of a normal comic when you buy it, but then folds out to broadsheet size - and it's printed on newspaper. I think it's meant to be reminiscent of the 'funny pages' from US papers of yore, but given the closest I ever got to that was the Funday Times, it's a bit lost on me. Still, some of it is charmingly nostalgic stuff, fifties Silver Age stylings without being as badly written - the Supergirl and Green Lantern strips are charming, but best of the bunch is Neil Gaiman returning to the Metamorpho family, albeit with a much lighter touch than we saw in Sandman. Problem is, if this is also aimed at lapsed comics readers, the Superman and Batman strips are real misfires - and the latter is on the front cover. Brian Azzarello has demonstrated before that, while he is quite well aware of the ways in which Batman is a typical noir protagonist, he does not grasp the ways in which Batman differs from them. Same here, and in something otherwise so all-ages, the (admittedly mild) swearing really jars. In the Superman story by no-mark John Arcudi, meanwhile, we get a page in which Superman doesn't do anything super, and then Batman dismissively tells him to get some "super-prozac".

Comments

[suicideally.livejournal.com]

I am incredibly annoyed that Borders came over here, strangled most of the surviving independent bookshops, and is now having the bad grace to SHUT DOWN.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

At least in the short term, they will still exist - London is keeping the Charing Cross Road branch, for instance. I generally heard more against them from (ex-)Waterstone's employees than independent shop enthusiasts, TBH - with Waterstone's themselves the preferred enemy of the independents. And the sad fact of my experience is, most independent bookshops aren't very good, even ones I wanted to like eg Prospero's Books in Crouch End. Honorable exception: the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, which I have already plugged on Facebook but which is a place of joy and wonder.

[suicideally.livejournal.com]

Judd Books on Marchmont Street is pretty good (though its philosophy section is very analytic, sadly for me).

I grudgingly like Waterstone's because their shops are really good - it's obviously staffed by subject experts.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Judd was the one where I had the good haul of secondhand stuff later! And then yesterday in the pub I saw someone with one of their bags. Clearly a shop whose time has come.

Waterstone's got overcentralised for a while, which I think harmed what was always good about the place, but they seem to be backing away from that now and returning to the prior, better model.

[suicideally.livejournal.com]

The one near UCL is just amazing. The sections are really well organised, and it has lots of good displays. Steep stairs, though!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

And I've just learned what's happening with Borders: management buy-out, apparently. We shall see how that goes, but I'm not optimistic.

[tiny-tear.livejournal.com]

I was working there when Downer started working there. for me it was the start of the end with him thinking selling books is the same as baked beans

[tiny-tear.livejournal.com]

Borders just had a management take over and the current CEO has bought some share in the company. I think there might be some closings but not all of then...

And you probably have heard against them from me, an ex Borders Books Etc employee.. I haven't bought anything at Borders since I quit over 5 years ago...

No idea if they killed the independent shops, but they blooming well killed Books Etc

[angelv.livejournal.com]

Francesca told me that the station entrance is opening again on 19th July. I don't know how she knows that, but I believe her cos she's nice. Agreed re: misery of having to spend 2 extra minutes Walking With Peons. I'm not leaving N London this weekend, I've decided.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Surely Black Plastic is arguably E London? Borderline, though, granted. Yeah, I remember hearing the 19th mentioned, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[suicideally.livejournal.com]

We have an N16 postcode! (Albeit metres from the E8 border)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

A lot of my favourite London spots - including both places I've lived - are right on the borders.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

couple of days ago there was a bad transvestite (at least, I hope she was a bad transvestite) pushing a wheelchair full of clothes while periodically blowing a whistle, and if I wanted that kind of Royston Vasey crap, I could have stayed in Derby.

You sure it wasn't David Shayler hanging around in Finny P?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've already seen those pics once today, and that was more than enough. They look like bad photoshop even though they're real, don't they?
But no, this one was a lot skinnier. And not quite so mad.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

It's the Rod Stewart circa 1974 wig that makes it look like inexpertly done Adobe Photoshop; and that's before the Mail's crack team of retouching monkeys get their mitts on it.

[willjsm.livejournal.com]

oddly, although its open now, they don't seem to have done much apart from ripped up the floor and put new light bulbs in. and generally made it look less than half finished. not impressed. Unfinished Park, really.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, it opened two days ahead of schedule - but with the impression that they'd done less than half of the work, so doubtless we can expect it closed again shortly. I would add that they've also had a rather half-arsed attempt at painting the top half of the walls - but in the process, they've let the tiles on the bottom half get far muckier than they were before. Total waste of everyone's time and effort when there are still exposed cables overhead.