My away place I need to find

a little corner of earth I can call mine.

Like the field I used to run to when I was a kid

I'd lay and watch the clouds as they floated by.

The hustle and bustle of London's city streets,

the suits, the skinny jeans, the pounding of feet.

It all meets my ears with a terrible din,

does it enrich the soul and make them happy within?

They push they shove; no time for a smile

I hope why they're hurrying makes them worthwhile.

It’s the simple things that really open doors

no time for who told who what, all those mindless bores.

I long for the summer and the happiness it brings

no more coats, hats, scarves, all those cumbersome things.

They become less surly, but yet still racing about

maybe their away place is where they’ll come out.

I have to go night walking, take a good look around.

I'll seek; go searching until my place is found.

Then I can cogitate as I wish, no constraint on time,

be free, be me, in the little place I can call mine.

I am witnessing the best minds of the coming generation

            withering on the vine

Not from smack, nor crack, nor booze, nor skunk,

Not fortune, infamy, celebrity nor power

But comfort, ease and a lack of curiosity.

No hard questions, no sense of adventure.

No righteous indignation here, no battle to be had

Just amelioration, acquiescence  and acceptance

Of the multifariously decorated pages, screens and songs.

The surface is all around them and now that that is all

All that is left for them to do is to spit and polish,

exercising onanistic elbow grease,

‘til like young Narcissus gazing

they see themselves as bright and shiny,

perfected, bent into inhuman shapes.

This is what we’ve bred.

So sad to see the unique become a facsimile,

Living breath become Two D,

Hope and joy arrive at the City of the Dead.

I see the best that could yet come, sucked dry

By Brother Big, Hello/Goodbye, Unreality and the Pod-u-like.

Sat on a sofabed in quaint sub-Urbia

Tossing off another game with porno on the dog,

And not knowing what a boner’s for.

Drooling over cyber babes and CG auto theft

Exercising thumbs and eyes

Leaving heart and foot bereft

Not to mention spirit and Soul,

Nor thought and the God shaped Hole.

I witness hope and thought

Sold and bought

Before they’ve had a chance to soar.

Caught still born,

Dreams of life and adolescent inspiration

Scoffed and sneered at, for having an element of risk.

No riding with the winds and hounds

To destinations yet unknown,

No spreading wings and taking flight

To meet a cat unmet,

Upon the chance that, on the way, the world might open up.

Like it never did at home.

We all got fooled again.

The beards got shorter overnight

The Bosses stayed the same and the songs all lost their bite.

There’s no fighting on the streets

No one looks any different to me

Except they’re wrinkle-free

And they’ve bought the anti-liberty.

And where did it start?

Did we, the aged crones,

not buy into the sweet, soft middle and leave behind

the rough that’s at the edge?

And now our kids are wedged

At the virtual ledge

Searching for a meaning

Without the depths to dredge.

The hard rain is pouring in, the wind is blowing hard

There are no answers here, only riddles in the cards.

Gimme shelter?

Gimme a break!
I wanna riot of mine own.

Black or white, blue or green, livid purple, bright orange,

Just spare me the despair

Of outer magnolia.

There’s a world outside your window

That’s not in Time magazine

There’s people live next door

Not found on a TV screen

Talk you’ll never hear

On yer mobile phone

Time you can’t retrieve

From the world wide web cyclone.

Holy is the neighbour you hear through wafer walls,

Holy is the stranger detained at your front door

Holy is the weirdo that only asks for more

Holy is the Screamer who always asks “What for?”

Holy is the leper whose face is falling off

Holy the blindman whose visions destroy your day

Holy the deaf and blind kid whose Psalms will light your way

Holy the Raspberry Ripple who’ll cheerful up your day

Holy the deformation who shows the price we pay

To have it nice and easy

With aches inside our head

Surround us with detritus

And never rise from bed

To work at nothing all our lives

A true word never said

To rock a boat or crash a car

Stall a flight or blame a star

Take a route that’s oh so far from the way that’s planned for us

By managers and directors who can do neither, but live in fear of discovery, demotion or the shame that dares not speak it’s name

Naked, that's how I want you

only your bare bones showing.

I pull at the corners until your clothes comes away,

they lay on the floor like discarded tissues.

I stand; slightly flustered, heart pounding

preparing for the assault to come.

My sprawling limbs cover your expanse

stretching your fresh skin to flatten out the creases.

Shaking, flapping, fighting me all the time

I persuade your contorted shape into its membrane.

As you fall, your last breath blows the hair from my eyes.

I survey the now motionless battlefield.

Seduced by my triumph and engulfed by your scent

I find myself surrendering.

Marina & The Diamonds, Crystal Fighters, Cherbourg (Andrew Davie solo), Sky Larkin, Alex Metric + many more
 

Levi’s® OnesToWatch® settles in at The Hoxton Bar & Kitchen and Cargo in Shoreditch with a 5 Night Revue of the highest order. Celebrating the latest and greatest from a plethora of music genres, featuring electronica to folk and everything in between, this week-long shindig (16-20 November) promises to entertain, inspire and surprise. Each night has been lovingly curated with handpicked artists who represent the best in new and emerging talent from a dynamic musical spectrum. The roll call includes an exclusive first solo show from Andrew Davie of Cherbourg on folk inspired Monday, Basque-dance prodigies Crystal Fighters, and a much anticipated performance from much hyped Marina & The Diamonds.  To close the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen shows, the Thursday evening will celebrate the best new female fronted acts, with sets from indie-darlings Sky Larkin, the genre-defying songwriter and producer MPHO, and young singer-songwriter of the moment, Beth Jeans Houghton. Levi’s OnesToWatch 2009 closing party will conclude the Revue at Cargo, Rivington Street on Friday night with a more electronic focus, featuring exclusive, VERY special guests, and live sets from The Whip, Alex Metric, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Berlin/Londoners Ezra Bang & the Hot Machine. Free Tickets for this night will be available from selected Levi’s® Stores from 2nd Nov, see www.levi.co.uk/lotw for details.

London winter has now set in, which means darkness descending at half 3, and the BT tower doing its manic light dance every night.  In order to combat our collective SAD, here is a selection of musics for the bitter winter ahead.  

Warpaint are some ladies, singing some tunes. They’ve just signed to Rough Trade records, so best to get the jump on them in 09, and you can be smug as fuck in 2010 when they’re all over the place. They should accompany a sad winter evening in by yourself, possible nursing a cup of tea and feeling woeful about love. Elephants is about as aggressive as Warpaint get, and it has the additional bonus of sounding like it was sung into a fan. Billie Holiday is how I imagine Cat Power would sound, if she was a lovesick teenager.

http://www.last.fm/music/warpaint

Local Natives are like the audio equivalent of a warm fireside, and their new album Gorilla Mountain is out today. We7 kindly lets us all listen to it, in its delicious entirety. Sun-Hands and Cards & Quarters come highly recommended.

www.we7.com/#/album/Gorilla-Manor!albumId=402411

With HEALTH, we’re abandoning the sad side of winter, and opting for some vigorous ear bashing to stay awake during the dark mornings and darker evenings.  HEALTH have created some kind of genre of  tribal-sexual-noise-punk-dance that probably has to be heard live for full appreciation. That said, give Die Slow a go. It will almost certainly induce some kind of head nodding. Possibly even all-over-body jigging – although it’s possible this might be a seizure from the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWZxThGh5wQ

Wolf People recently supported Dinosaur Jr, in a rare instance where the headlining band actually has a support band that you enjoy standing through to get to the main event. The flute’s a bit unsettling at first, but after awhile it makes sense in a strange way, and besides we’re all sick to death of synth and lo-fi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJn9PwTCIQ4

Gliss.  Shoegaze, newgaze, whatever. The name sort of sounds like what they sound like. Perfect for drowning out the ca-thunk ca-thunk tube noise, or the background office babble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhJqER5Kouo

Seeing as we seem to be having a bout of Indian Summer we thought it was time to share the wealth of some of London's lovelier gardens. Take a picnic this weekend (well, probably today) and enjoy the last of the sunshine for 2009.

The Church of St Dunstans in the east

If you’re in the City, look out for The Church of St Dunstans in the East which is tucked away behind Great Tower Street. It’s fairly quiet throughout the week (with the exception of the occasional city worker) and deserted at weekends. The garden created within the ruins of the church has won several London garden squares competitions and is a great spot to get away from the hustle of the city.

Cherry Tree wood

The entrance to Cherry Tree Wood is just opposite East Finchley station and runs alongside the Northern Line going south toward Highgate. Amazingly, the woods are a remnant of the medieval Finchley Wood which stretched from Highgate to Finchley way before the A1. Once inside it all goes a bit Alice in Wonderland and the trees open out into a beautiful green space with football, a playground and really plush tennis courts. There’s a top notch cafe serving cakes and ice cream. Add to that a jazz trio playing by the ice cream stand, and it’s a winner.

The old north London line

Highgate wood is 20 mins from central London and you can easily get lost in it. Walk for a bit and find ice cream (Marine Ices) and a big cafe. There are cricket games in the open space during the summer. Keep on walking south down Archway Road and just past the Boogaloo Pub is Holmsdale Road where there is an entrance to the old North London Line that used to connect Crouch End, Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park. It’s now a treelined walkway with old bridges taking you over and under the roads. Take a look on Google Maps and you can see for yourself. It’s really rather pleasant.

Mile End Ecology Park

If you wander down the canal past Victoria park, you will come across Mile End Ecology Park. Linked to the canal side path, the Ecology Park has a lovely little lake, a wind turbine and an earth sheltered Ecology Pavilion. Not only that, the park is home to rare orchids, moths and spiders. One important remnant of the park’s history still exists – the Palm Tree pub still sits in the centre of the park offering an opportunity for a quiet drink.

I remember feeling like an idiot with my sunglasses on and sliding them to my head. Being pushed from side to side with strangers avoiding eye contact. Foot tapping and lost in my music, mouth upturned.

I remember taking the wrong exit and walking past the park on my left and up to the green bridge where I thought you’d be waiting. You directed me back, smiled and kissed my face.

I remember you put my helmet on and did up the strap. I commented on my dress and the guys watched me get on the bike. I’ve done this before, many times. They would not get a flash of my knickers. The feel of your leather jacket and the clonking of our helmets as we spoke. I remember that.

I remember that I was wearing my new contact lenses. I can see everything. Wow, Nina’s school is so grand. Ooh, there's a boot sale being advertised outside. We went to one in Maldon last summer, you bought that beaten up wooden box and made it look like new.

I remember parking by the swanky pub. We scampered off into the graveyard. You're holding my hand, interlocking fingers just like the old days. We're examining the gravestones the letters seemed to have been done more recently. Archaeology of the soul, remember that? The tulips are red, a man is maintaining things beautifully but the toilets were locked. We follow a path into the woods. It leads to a glade where the sun streams through the trees. We both say how lovely it is.

I remember being a child in a grown up’s body. A mixture of innocence and awareness. I want to fall and graze my knee, to re live the past. You're intrigued by the metal boxes left abandoned on the man made bank and I find a way to join you without stinging my legs on the nettles.

I remember the dog that pounced and shouting… I have a dog in my eye. We're in fits because it reminds us of a scene from Family Guy.

We found a local pub and sat in the late afternoon sun. The air felt warmer than earlier which was strange. You're eating an egg and cress sandwich and your favourite Kit Kat Chunky, from the garage next door as I munch on Bacon Bites. They've got maize in them, so none for you.

On the ride home, we continue to clonk and burst into song at the same time as we pass the road sign… Cecilia you're breaking my heart. That's funny, but nothing surprises me about us. I've told you that.

This is a day I’ll always remember.

This week I've been mostly thinking about how we have almost reached the end of the first decade of this century.

Remember Y2K, when everyone's computers were going to grow legs and start controlling the planet, planes were going to fall from the sky and We'd all have to live on tinned food for 10 years. People we're seriously worried, the following was taken from the Washington Post .....

The District government, recognizing that its year 2000 repair program likely will not be completed on time, is planning a massive New Year's Eve mobilization of emergency personnel and other staff to ensure that critical city services are not interrupted if computer systems fail.

Police will be stationed at more than 120 locations across the city, working 12-hour shifts, to take walk-in requests for emergency services. Twenty-one "warming centers," each supplied with food, water and cots, will open. School crossing guards will be on call, ready to replace traffic lights at major intersections. And D.C. General Hospital will have extra staff members -- as many as 175 -- on site.

Fortunately for the whole world nothing that bad happened and we all carried on as usual. If you are interested in some stuff that's happened over the past ten years then go to Google or Yahoo answers and type something like 

What are some major events that happened in the 2000's till now?

But the question that is on my mind is "what were you doing at the Millennium?" Were you scared shitless that your fridge and oven were going to explode, that you might not be able to see Jools Holland's Hootenanny or did you just stand on a bridge on the Thames and watch the fireworks before walking for five hours to get home (yes, that's what I did).

Let us know and we'll send a prize to the best answer... oh & do tell us how old you were way back in 2000.

Jenny had spent most of the afternoon looking for a cheap package holiday on the internet whilst trying to avoid being caught by her boss. She’d wanted to get away for weeks now. The mounting e-mails and the endless phone complaints from clients had begun to take its toll. ‘Somewhere warm and beautiful’ she thought as she meandered her way around the internet. Anything had to be better than the damp, depressing flat in which she’d shuttered herself away since splitting up with Rob.  

The magazine lay opened at yesterday’s television schedule. It had several tea cup stains from which she’d formed the shape of a face. As she’d only made eyes and a big round nose, and because she’d not added eyebrows or a mouth, you couldn’t tell if the face was happy or sad.  

A cold light barely illuminated the dirt. It was just about dark enough to pass for a clean, perhaps “lived in”, Victorian living room. It might as well have been that old because it hadn’t been re-decorated since earlier that year when her uncle had been found dead in the upstairs bed. 

Jenny lay in a heap on the sofa. The day had been exhausting and the journey home was “a complete nightmare”. And with no-one now to ‘off load’ to, she lay there with television turned up to drown out her thoughts and stared up at the ceiling. Her stomach indicated that lying around on her sofa and feeling morbidly sorry for herself might not be the best way to spend her entire evening. 

“That’s it!” she snapped, jumping up and flicking the television off.

‘Time for ice-cream’ she decided, heading wistfully towards the door. The silence was suddenly palpable. From without, a door creaked and swiftly banged shut. ‘Must be the bathroom window’s been left open’. She was always in such a rush in the mornings, that often she’d absentmindedly leave windows open. ‘Must have slammed the bathroom door shut’ she thought. Once, she’d been in such a daze that she’d left the front door open as she rushed out of the house desperately running for the morning train. ‘I’ll close it before I go to bed’ she thought as she opened the freezer.  

Neapolitan. Her favorite. Neapolitan was the best ice cream because it was the three best flavours: strawberry, chocolate and vanilla, side by side in a flavour frenzy. She always ate them in the same order too. First it was vanilla, the simplest of flavours. Next came strawberry. Sweet and fruity and much tastier than vanilla. Finally, rich and dark, earthy and strong, her first flavour that she’d tasted, chocolate, the greatest flavour of all the flavours. 

Suddenly there was a deafening bang from upstairs. If the bathroom door had blown shut, that only left two other doors. What if someone had got into the flat? Maybe she should run out while she had the chance? No. She’d definitely shut the front door behind her and there was no way anyone could have got through the bathroom window. It was too high up.  

She tip-toed into the hallway. If the window had been left open then the hall would have been cold. It wasn’t. It was warm, almost humid like a tropical forest. The air was oppressive and there lingered a whiff of something unpleasant. The hallway was dark. Besides there being no light coming from upstairs, the carpet was a deep red with swirly patterns and the walls were covered with black and white photographs. Her uncle had always been fond of the past even as a young man. And that was a long time ago.  

He’d been dead in the flat for three weeks before the family had realized that he hadn’t been in contact. At first they thought that he’d gone on holiday and not told anyone. Something he was always threatening to do if he won the lottery. Then when they tried to match his numbers – always the same numbers, he was a very superstitious man – to the balls of the recent weeks, they realized that he hadn’t.  

After she’d moved in, she felt that his spirit had lingered in the flat to check up on her and to make sure that it had fallen into good hands. Sometimes she wondered if the piles of washing up and the growing laundry didn’t anger her dead uncle. She was sure that her tormented relationship with Rob had grown worse due to the presence of some dark force which blackened her thoughts and made her cry out whenever they argued.  

Out in the hallway, the street lamps without shed enough light for Jenny to navigate her way to the bottom of the stairs. She groped in the darkness for the light switch and knocked a picture off the wall. The glass smashed as the picture hit the floor. She slammed the wall, knocking the light switch. The light flickered on and then popped. It was dark again and her pupils dilated in adjustment. The room blurred. She bent down to pick up the broken bits of glass and cut her hand on one of the shards. Now bleeding, her heart began to beat faster as blood dripped onto the deep red carpet. She winced with the stinging pain and decided to wash the cut in the bathroom sink.

Slowly ascending the stairs, she heard another bang, this one less loud. It was followed by a scratching sound like a dog’s paws skidding backwards over metal. The noise seemed to be coming from the spare room, a dumping ground for all her clutter, an Aladdin’s cave of tat, a tangled mass of old clothes, books, lampshades and ripped bedding.

At the top of the stairs her nose tingled. The acrid smell of stale urine overwhelmed her. It cut into her nostrils, making her reel. The sulphurous stench was so over powering that she had to cover her face with her hand. It didn’t stop the pungent reek from assaulting her senses. She pulled her jumper up over her face and leant against the door of the spare room.

From inside the spare room came the scratching sound. Strangely, it paused. The banging noise had changed and was now a rattle. Rattle … scratch. What was making that noise? She was nervous. She pulled back from the door and saw her bloodied hand print. In her anxiety she’d forgotten about the cut on her hand. The scratching echoed throughout the house and for a moment she couldn’t tell whereabouts it was coming from. It seemed to be coming from every room. Maybe a bird had flown into the spare room and got caught amongst all the mess? A police car howled in the neighbourhood. ‘Why weren’t they ever there when you really need them?’ she thought. 

She barged her way into the spare room, falling forward onto a pile of chairs which she knocked over and collapsing beside she felt the weight of the chairs come crashing on top of her. What was going on? Why did she have such bad luck all the time? When would it be her turn to be satisfied? Suddenly, the wind banged the door shut. The only light came from outside. Everything was in shadow. At least she could make out the larger items like the cupboard.

The chairs were still bearing down on her and her foot seemed to be caught in something. She tried to move the chairs and couldn’t even budge them. She tried again. She pushed with all her strength. Nothing. Gasping in panic, sweating and panting, she tried as hard as she could, but she could not move the fallen objects that were pinning her to the floor. 

It was three weeks before they found her. Her boss had presumed that she’d booked the holiday he’d watched her search for that afternoon. He knew she’d had enough of her job. She was hardly there and he hadn’t really noticed her absence as she did that little round the office.