Jet Boy Jet Table

       

            I noticed today that it was the 100^th anniversary of formica – no great deal you might think, and you would be right. Formica in itself is a fairly unlovely laminate which is, generally speaking, much less alluring than a nicely oiled piece of beech, a slab of varnished oak or some well worn ash. However, there is a certain je ne sais quoi to the heyday of the formica kitchen table – it’s appeal lay, I think, in its ability to project us forwards into the space age future that we all knew was waiting around the corner. Like tail fins on a Cadillac or the aluminium wings of English Electric Lightnings  there was something about formica with it’s easy-wipe, brightly coloured, sheer joy of being plastic that spoke of the atomic age (that is, the good bits of it rather than the erm, atomic bits….).

          In every dream home a heartache maybe, but in every suburban and provincial home a formica kitchen table. We had one for years, as far as I can remember it was there from the mid sixties well into the eighties. A yellow the colour of a Mari Wilson dress with arty cocktail hour squiggles that seemed to resemble writhing tadpoles or some other biological objects (much less suited to a wholesome kitchen). It must have been a popular design because a friend’s mum had the same design in blue, but having spent a while trying to find it in ‘vintage’ online formica pattern books and having had no luck I can only assume it was a formica knock-off, passing itself off as the real thing whilst no doubt being considerably cheaper.

          It had the quintessential aluminium legs, that seemed to grow wobblier every year, and at first it added a certain bold newness to our drab brown small town world. But by the time it was replaced it was an anachronistic dated piece of kitsch rubbish – even I could tell that.

          In my mind it’s still irrevocably linked with my growing up, with jets whizzing low overhead almost hourly – the aforementioned Lightnings, big black Vulcans, pretty but hopeless Starfighters – well, the names speak volumes already – and even occasionally a squadron of Russian Mig fighters which the Americans had somehow laid their hands on and flew over East Anglia for training. I seem to remember being told that the pilots (all Americans) wore Soviet uniforms, spoke exclusively in Russian and ate Russian food, all so Uncle Sam could stand a better chance of getting inside the mind of the Red Menace.

          On one occasion a plane on a bombing training run missed the intended target (the marshes some fifteen miles away as the USAF flies) and dropped magnesium flares into the field at the end of our road – it was the middle of the night and the light was blindingly white, bright enough to wake me and the rest of the street who ran out in assorted nightwear just to check that the big one hadn’t finally been dropped. Funny, it never made the papers…

          But I digress (see how evocative laminate tables are?) I’ve got my own kitchen now, with some nice pieces of heavy wood furniture in it; I’ve even managed to get past the stage of worksurfaces made of that foul faux marble. I like it that way. But sometimes, just sometimes, there is a slight yearning in me for the sleek shiny plastic art of the formicalike table with all its promise of a brighter future. I know that I’ll never feel that about the natural beauty of something that is at the end of the day just a bit of tree.

          And for your delight and delectation, enjoy the coolest jet plane this country ever produced – I don’t go much for weaponry, less still attempts to glamorise it, but after four minutes of this I was ready to mix myself a martini, climb into the cockpit, see the night close around me and not care….

(Oh, and watch out for the way the pilot checks his missiles are firmly attached – by giving them a firm manly thump…)

 

 

Update - thanks to my mystery correspondent - THIS was the pattern we had - although it was even more atomic in yellow !

 

Oh and go on - have some music, avoiding the obvious Blondie track here's one from a man I'm proud to have met and had a drink bought by, a legend if ever there was one, alleged inventor of the word 'groovy' and Marvin Gaye's father in law to boot. Awesome

Solid Sender

          You can keep your Hendrix's, your Clapton's, your Page's and you can even keep Keef - there has always been just the one man with a guitar actually worth watching. Wish we could keep him longer.

          John Wilkinson of Canvey Island - We love you more than we probably ever thought we did til now. All the best.

The Groove Line

This is worth a closer look if you haven't seen it before

        

           This week is a special week for anyone with even half an ounce of fondness for London - it's the 150th anniversary of the London underground - the Tube. Now I love the tube - I'm proud of the fact that I can find my way around with barely a glance at a map, I like the anonymity, I find the classlessness wonderful. Over the years I've used it to get to work, get to gigs, been drunk on it, fallen in love on it, been dumped on it, dreamed many dreams on it and still marvel at the fact that much of it was built when Queen Victoria was still only part way through her reign. 

          On top of all the travel advantages of the tube it's also given us one of the most classic pieces of design in the modern tube map, some of the greatest posters ever to be designed, shelter from the Blitz (well, not me, but you get the gist) and buskers....

          Yeah not all buskers are great, I'd be the first to admit it, but then again I once saw The Clash busking at Tottenham Court Road late on a Friday night - that's a story for another time.

          There are many articles in the papers and on blogs which pay tribute to this anniversary by way of songs about tube stations, some of them quite tenuously, so I thought I'd post something a bit different - what follow are some tracks about the system itself, the arteries, the tracks, the lines....enjoy.

          First stop the Bakerloo Line and this Eddy Grant produced produced corker by UK moonstompers The Pyramids - pure London.

 

           

          This next one takes us out on the Jubilee Line, I'd never heard of Brian Olive before but I'm guessing by the look and sound that he listens to more than a little of the stuff that lights our fire around here. Nice poppy stuff that makes that most unlovely of lines almost romantic.

 

          Next we're off 'round the District Line and out to the South, guided by Yorkshiremen Milburn - a great bit of Arctic's style guitar pop

          The Piccadilly Line seems to have inspired quite a bit of musical activity around the late sixties - this is a bit of psych pop by The Liverpool Five. I used to go to work on the Picadilly Line every day - did you know that Holborn is the deepest station on the line? Full of facts here !

 

          

          Then a bit of jazz tinged electronica from Squarepusher as we set off down to the clubs around the Central Line -100 Club here we come. 

 

          And finally - off on what used to be the most useful line on the whole system. But why the hell doesn't it go in a full circle any more...? I really don't want to spend any more time at Edgware Road than is absolutely necessary.... and should you be tempted to skip this one I'd like to point out it isn't that Blue - this is a bit of dreamy dub to pay tribute to all the times I've fallen asleep on the Circle and gone round and round and round....

 

Shell Shock

          Things have been a little heavy around here of late so as a way of lightening things up I thought I’d take the time out to introduce you to a couple of friends of mine and consider their role in the world of popular music. Meet Ruby and Donny – a couple of red-footed tortoises who happen to live in my house. Well, that is they belong to the youngest Tin and spend half their lives trying to escape from living in my house.

          I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t too sold on the idea of a tortoise – its hardly a rock'n’roll pet is it ? I mean I can see the appeal of walking down the road with a panther on a leash, cuddling a crocodile or even perhaps keeping a wombat as a conversation piece (See the glorious Retronaut here)* but a tortoise – I mean what do they do…? except live for an incredibly long while?

           I was wrong of course and over the years have grown to love and respect these little Chellonians, they – anthropomorphically speaking – have such great personalities, they don’t say a lot but they do manage a fair bit of body language for an animal mainly encased in a hard shell. Strangely, and this is true, they respond to my voice and come over when called….OK I know you don’t believe it but its true, apparently they respond to the lower  register so I’ve tried cheering them up by playing some dub to them – it seems like they appreciate the bass and are especially fond of Sly and Robbie.

          Troublesome? You’d think not, but Ruby here escaped at the end of the summer – on my watch as well – never have I had a more panicky 48 hours searching before the kids returned. I sought her there I sought her here to no avail, wanted posters went up around the streets and at the eleventh hour the nice punky lady down the road found her in their garden…relief (and a considerable reward paid out since I really was ready to shell out (sorry) for a replacement that I might be able to pass off as the original).

          But what of the tortoises role in rock n’roll ? Sadly my research didn’t turn that much up – there’s the band Tortoise of course, although they aren’t that much to my taste, there’s also a few folky type songs about tortoises and hares (showing up the paucity of original ideas in folk), but generally speaking they don’t feature on too many tracks. Turtles on the other hand have a plethora of songs, and of course the band, named after them. But we won't go there.

          So the main contribution of the tortoise to musical history has to be one of the strangest and finest covers by one of music's strangest and finest lunatics/visionaries – I refer of course to Mr Julian Cope and his classic album Fried – with Saint Julian labouring under a tortoise shell for a reason that probably seemed like a very good idea to him at the time. Now you’re gonna tell me it’s a turtle shell, just save it and let me believe !

          As for songs – like I said not many – but this does give me the excuse to post the following classic from The Cramps – suitably enough from that wonderful album Songs The Lord Tortoise (possibly…).

You ain't no punk you punk....

* for the record I really don't like the idea of keeping big wild animals as pets...before the ALF start picketing the house....

The Punk and the Modfather (part 2)

 Maureen Barry of The Questions at the !00 Club

         

           Anyway, for those of you with memories long enough to remember the start of this story back at the tail end of November....  where were we...? 

          Oh yeah, we'd done the interview with Paul Weller and off we went merrily shopping 'round the West End, in the way that only people from out of town do. That was the highlight of our day over - or so we thought.

          Next thing I know I'm in a shop, queuing up to pay and gazing idly out the plate glass window at the front. My girlfriend is standing outside in the sun and suddenly I see Weller appear from nowhere, walk up behind her, put his hands over her eyes and say 'Guess who ?' ! Now if you ever wanted to see the physical embodiment of shock, desire, horror, embarrassment, disbelief and so many more emotions rolled up into one nineteen year old girl bundle - then that was it. I gave up queuing and rushed to her rescue (who am I kidding - I wanted in on this new familiarity with my idol !).

         We wandered along the street with a visibly excited Weller - he was acting like we had been not long earlier and was, he informed us, off to meet Pete Townshend to discuss publishing deals for Riot Stories. It was good to see that he could still be as much of a fanboy as I was. Then he casually asked us if we fancied going to the 100 Club that night. We'd already looked in earlier and we didn't really fancy it - it seemed it was a couple of unknown bands.

          Not so, he told us - it was actually Steve White's, the Style Council's teen drummer, eighteenth birthday and he would be there playing along with The Questions and A Craze - two of the bands then on Weller's Respond label. I'd interviewed both bands before and was absolutely up for it. Weller said he'd put our names on the door and then he cut along to meet Pete.

          So, later that night we make our way down to Oxford Street to find quite a queue already outside the doors to the basement club - word has obviously got out. We saunter down to the front only to find that there's no-one there to let us in, so back to sit on the pavement outside to the bemusement of passing tourists. After about ten minutes we get spotted - yes, we get spotted, not the other way around - this time by Mark the drummer from A Craze who was, I think, about 17 and was a fanzine writer's dream in that he was more excited to be interviewed than we were to interview him. He was great and got us down into the club straight away. We chatted for a bit with the gorgeous Lucy (A Craze singer) and various Questions. No sign of anyone else though. But hey, we were in and happy.

          After a while the club fills with an assortment of mods, casuals, soul boys and the like. We're at the bar when Weller wanders over and buys us a drink - we're invited over to meet his friends, amongst them Paolo Hewitt and a few other faces of the time. For a mod boy from the provinces this was like dying and going to heaven - heaven underground admittedly - we spent the night watching good bands, seeing Steve White do his stuff, then come over and join us, all the while just hanging out with not only Paul but with the London modernist cognoscenti. Everyone else in the 100 club was of course way too cool to approach, but all eyes darted over our way at some point during the night. It was so damn good !

          I remember getting a bit concerned that we were going to miss the last train back - Weller picked up on this and acted as my alarm call. Checking his watch periodically and letting us know when our time was up.

          We floated back home on a soft hovertrain of hipness. Even finding that my old Mk2 Cortina had been broken into when we arrived at the station couldn't burst that bubble.

          As a postscript - I sent him a copy of the 'zine when it came out and he wrote back a couple of times - each time a reasonably long handwritten letter. I didn't expect that either.

          But then about a year later I was at Molesworth cruise missile base in Cambridgeshire - stomping about in deep mud demanding that the Americans take their nuclear warheads back home with them. I think we'd been there a few hours and done the whole perimeter fence when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned 'round to find Weller behind me,

          "Hi," he said, "how's it going ? Don't suppose you've seen Billy Bragg anywhere ?"

          I stopped hyperventilating, told him that I hadn't - I didn't move in those circles. Again we chatted for a few minutes, during which Weller blagged two Rothmans off me. I was just impressed he remembered me. 

          Whatever anyone else thinks about how he's been over the years I can't help but forgive him pretty much anything. No pics of us hanging with Weller at the 100 Club that night - I was absolutely way too cool for that, well it's not what you do when you're one of the in crowd is it ?

This is the best I could find for The Questions, with Tracie Young and Weller on bongos - Not a bad take on the Isley's track - even if they look almost painfully young

Soul Sister

         

          Aw hell, not Marva Whitney as well - I blame JB for this thing about great soul singers dying around Christmas, the man did however keep the prime date for himself. Marva isn't an immediately recognised name outside of soul circles but she was a force to be reckoned with and cut some great stuff with the JBs and on her own - not often found on comps but worth digging around for. James Brown dubbed her Soul Sister #1 and that's good enough for me, though it seems James also gave her a pretty hard time (and there's nothing new in hearing that...) and there's still some tracks out there that he never let her put out. Enjoy the track below, with the JBs, oh and those dancers...

          Now I've got tickets for Lee Perry next month - not a soul singer I'll grant you, but I'm feeling mighty touchy as to whether he'll make it through January given his age... I'l let you know.

Heavy Bass

          Now sorry for the interruption in service.... tech problems and all that plus the usual seasonal stuff. Anyway enough excuses - we ended up with Terry Callier going out to the cosmos last time and now sadly it's Fontella Bass, possibly soul music's finest moniker.

          Elsewhere they'll overdo Rescue Me - a fine dancer though it is it was almost irredeemably ruined for me when I saw Cilla doing it on some eighties TV show, miming whilst sailing up the Mersey in a lifeboat, never one for subtlety Ms Black. Anyway there was always so much more to Fontella than that one hit - so in tribute and in hope of widening her appeal beyond cheesy sixties compilations here's one of her pieces that she did in the early seventies with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. What a voice and another one to fly up there with Terry.

You're gonna miss your candyman

          I drove into work this morning listening to Terry Callier. On arrival I read that he’d died in the past few days and it perhaps had more of an effect than these things normally do. I can’t claim that I’m one of those people who dug him right from the start – there’s not many of those about – but like many I started hearing him during my Acid Jazz years and he’s been a constant presence since. Ordinary Joe is one of the most humane, beautiful songs going and the man could throw an effortless groove together and mix it with his thoughtful, deeply soulful voice pretty much every time he turned on a mike. His songwriting is up there in the stellar region and it’s a crying shame that he never ever got the recognition that much lesser talents found so easily.

 

          I’m proud of the fact that he was ‘rediscovered’ by my generation of fellow travellers in the mod/soul/stylist/acid jazz scene and gave him at least some of the lift he so badly deserved. On a personal basis his mellow voice has got me through some pretty lousy times and I’ll hold him dear for that if nothing else. The aforementioned Ordinary Joe is a favourite of my kids, and they’re pretty hard to please when it comes to being converted to their dad’s taste.

 

          So here’s to Terry. A mighty shade of blue, a brother to everyone, a man with few equals. 

 

          Let him have the last words…  "You can make accessible music and still sing about love and peace and truth and life and death. In the end, those are the only things that matter."

something old

 

something newer

The Punk and The Modfather (part 1)

          This is a tale that's been a long time coming - I've sort of blocked myself from telling it to anyone much for the last twenty years because, for a number of years before that, I bored everyone rigid with it.... Now prompted by a comment by Monkey over at Monkey Picks I'm coming out. It all starts back in 83 and I was just getting home from working at the local dole office, another drudgy day with nothing much to look forward to... as I walked through the back door of my parent's small-town fenland house that I'd reluctantly moved back to, my mum shouts to me
           'Someone on the 'phone for you...',
           'Oh right,' I call back disinterestedly, 'Who ?',
           'Paul Weller...'
           What ???
           My mum is on the phone talking to Paul Weller ???? You've never seen someone move from the back door so fast, grab the phone and still have time to process the thought that this is probably a wind up from one of my mates. But the first words were enough to confirm who it was - lord knows I'd listened to enough interviews with him to know what he sounded like.

          So rewind a bit - at the time I was writing a lot of stuff for a fanzine called (sorry it's an awful name really) 'Summer Fun (In Violent Times)' - a sort of mod / surf / psych / punk 'zine with a circulation rather smaller than our ambition. Whatever the readership it did allow us access to a lot of bands and gigs, mostly for free, so we certainly had the motivation. A couple of months before I'd interviewed the late and most lamented Vaughn Toulouse (previously of Guns for Hire and Department S), who was then fronting the Main T Posse on Weller's Respond label, along with his backing singers whose names shamefully escape me . Serendipitously a few weeks later I was at the 100 Club and bumped into one of those self same backing singers who started chatting and introduced me to her boyfriend - one Mick Talbot - already pretty pissed before the bands came on....along with a very nice lady from Polydor Records who turned out to be the Style Council's press person. I blagged her phone number off her, told her I wanted to interview Weller (much as I like Mick's keyboard work I figured that he wasn't going to be the interesting one....) and she asked me to send a few back copies in to her. I did, sat back, expected to hear nothing and didn't.

          Then that 'phone rang and instead of some Polydor apparatchik it was Weller himself who'd taken the trouble to call me up and ask me if I fancied getting up to the Smoke to interview him. We chatted for a bit - well, I suspect he chatted for a bit, I was way too monosyllabic with shock - and made a date, said goodbye and hung up. I think at that point I probably started wondering if I'd imagined it all. 

          My mum stood grinning at me in the doorway - she knew exactly how much that call had meant and was quite proud of herself for having had a chat with the man herself. After all she'd endured years of my Jam obsession. She declared him 'very polite'.

          Two weeks or so later I'm on the train up to London, best clobber on, girlfriend and her brother in tow. She if anything is way more starstruck than I am, I'm trying to play it cool. She's about to dump me for Paul should he so much as look in her direction.

          We find the Polydor offices, Paul comes out after about two minutes - with press woman Lee who I'd met previously - and suggests we go and sit out in the nearby square since it's so sunny. My girlfriend nearly faints at the sight of him. I'm thinking this is great, not only do I get to interview him but other people get to see me doing it ! That was important in those days.

          On the short walk over it's apparent that Paul has read and liked the fanzine - he talks a bit about a piece we'd done on Thee Milkshakes and how he likes their early Beatles in Hamburg sound. I'd love to hear a Weller/Billy Childish collaboration, I guess that there's still time. 

          So we sit in the sun, my old tape player hopefully grabbing every word - I haven't listened back to the interview in a long while, though I still have the tape - Weller is more than free with his time and I can remember having to flip the C90 over at some point so I guess we had him for well over an hour. He was direct, funny (not something that usually gets said about him I know), thoughtful , honest and most of all very generous with his time to a young wannabe who asked him stunningly naive questions and a girl who sat there just gazing at him (Hi Hayley wherever you are !). I tried to scan some of the interview - but to be honest it's not great journalism and the print has faded a lot in the last 28 or so years, happy to send a photocopy if you still want it Monkey !.

          What strikes me now is that he must have been about 26 at the time. It was the first year of The Style Council's life and he was still getting some heavy flak from the national music papers for having broken up The Jam. He was heavily into 'youth' as a concept at the time and I guess that him spending his time with us was a good a way as any of putting his ideas into action. Most of all what struck me was just how normal he seemed (what had I expected???) but it was hard sometimes to get past the bloke I'd seen on stage numerous times in front of an almost fanatical army of fans to get to the skinny, casually dressed guy not much older than me  (OK, casual but as ever his attention to what he wore was obvious - even if it was only jeans and a short sleeved tartan Ben Sherman).

          From my point of view we could have spent the rest of the day talking but he had to get on eventually - my girlfriend gave him a box of after-eight type chocolates that she'd found called 'Cappuccino's' and he handed them around. And that, we thought, was that....but it wasn't.....there was still much more to come, of which I shall tell later...

          And this is what the day looked like through my Olympus Trip !

note the state of the art recording equipment....

...and I don't think I was ever good enough after this....

Heavily underrated - time for a re-evaluation....

Wish that I knew what I know now...

          Once again I come late to things, courtesy of a CD burnt a while back by a much better informed friend. And maybe now it's come into it's own because of that distance between the last rays of summer and the onset of that bloody cold autumn rain, but this song has been playing on heavy rotation as the leaves pile up outside the back door and the skies darken far too quickly in the evening. I have no idea whether it's a good thing that Jon Allen sounds like Rod Stewart and I'd be pretty amazed if I was the first person who remarked on that, but this is just a lovely song that makes me feel happier about the evenings drawing in. I know it's almost a Faces pastiche - I know ! But it's The Faces when they were really really good !

          Perhaps it also has something to do with the almost constant playing of Slim Chance in the car recently - I just have this yearning (and absolutely not nostalgia, because I was too young...) for some good uncomplicated adult sounding pop songs that have that wonderfully evocative feel, woodsmoke and waistcoats, the sort that aren't bloody Mumford and Sons and their gurning relentless 'authenticity'.

          Plus of course I am a complete sucker for anything with a swirling Hammond organ.

          Anyway, make your mind up - here's a twofer - something old and something new. Not Rod but Ronnie, but doing a song he wrote for The Faces anyway. Light the fire, wrap up snugly in an old blanket, play the music and wait for Britt Ekland to pop round for a cup of Bovril...

 

It's almost like Rod was still alive.....

Who can't love Ronnie ?

State of Independence

          Prince Roy Bates has died – now the name probably doesn’t mean a lot to most people, it didn’t to me, but I remembered his exploits from a very young age. I have no time whatsoever for titles but if you’re going to have one then make it as worthless and wonderful as this one.

 

         Prince Roy was the would-be pirate radio founder who originally set up Radio Essex offshore in the sixties and was subsequently closed down in that most pernicious of moves by the British government – much as Tony Benn has much to recommend himself this was certainly not his finest hour as Postmaster General. So, setting out to find a base further afield in international waters Roy came upon an abandoned second world war fort some seven miles off the coast of Suffolk. You can only assume that he fell in love with the hulking concrete beast set in the middle of the North Sea or maybe had watched Passport to Pimlico one too many times, because he abandoned his plans for more broadcasting and instead proclaimed it the principality of Sealand. The UK Government of course took him to court. They lost. Roy declared himself Prince and his wife Princess and with their son they set about making the relic a home.

 

          In 1975 a German, backed by Austrian and Dutch mercenaries in, amazingly, a helicopter and speedboats, tried to invade and take over. Initially they took Roy hostage but were overwhelmed by the superior Sealand Special Forces and in turn they were taken hostage by the Bates family - in a rather wonderful move they persuaded the German to take out a Sealand passport and then retrospectively charged him with treason ! An incident which ended up with representatives of the German government travelling to Sealand to negotiate.

Prisoners of the Prince - looking like extras from a seventies  low budget action film

          Plenty big enough to live on the place had no electricity so they restored the old generators, they kept watch day and night for invaders, they looked for and found their own beautifully warped freedom in an ever more conformist world. Roy designed the country's flag, currency, stamps and passports. Few recognised it as a country in it’s own right but who cared?

           Latterly they kept themselves afloat (sic) by selling more wonderfully worthless aristocratic titles to the principality – mind you, they are at least honest about it unlike most of the titles handed out back on the mainland. You can get one here should you be so inclined. 

          It was such a good idea that even organised crime got in on the act – in the eighties a Spanish ex Guardia Civil was arrested for running a scam selling fake Sealand passports, diplomatic plates and so on – how crazy is that, selling fakes of what were presumably worthless documents in the first place? Anyway, he seemed to do OK out of it – at one point he was thought to have sold 4000 Sealand passports to citizens of the then Brit colony of Hong Kong…at £1000 each ! To top it all he ran the whole operation out of a bingo hall in Madrid…. He had, I should stress, no connection to the true and rightful prince of Sealand.

         The principality was often talked about when I was at school – the idea that someone with enough imagination could do this, the practicalities of doing it and the spark that it set that one day we might try to do the same. We might have been born too late for the heyday of the pirates but we knew a brilliantly crazy idea when we saw it. Something of a legend and one worth passing on. Roy once said 'I might die young or I might die old, but I'll never die of boredom' - would that we could all say the same !

          Here's Art Brut's take on the micronation. 

 

 

What is it good for ?

          Well, there's not been a lot to shout about (or write about) 'round these here parts of late since the place has been akin to a plague pit with all of us at one point or another falling victim to rather foul bugs, which are now thankfully on the way out. But this being a bit of a Marines' town due to the commando training camp up the road we found the following rather amusing - it's probably been all over the internet by now but it bears repetition. I wish they were all like that on a Friday night.

          If those experiments had worked then we may have had world peace, but we'd never have had the mighty mighty War ! Difficult to call that one in the end....

 

Easy

        

Colder here than there - brrrr

           Sorry, it's been one of those weeks where there's not much to say so there's little else I can do today but recommend that you go visit The Insects That Are Not Aliens Surfing Club - not your usual surf site, wonderful pictures that either are or seem to be out of time, strange films, warped words and a good slab of 'sixties garage bands from this Australian site which shows the mellower outsider side of the scene... makes you want to be in off the rocks or hanging by the beach ....but in a paisley shirt that would get you beaten up at most of the breaks I ever surfed when I was there. Leave it on in the background and you've got good music to (not) work by...

          It's a bit coals to Newcastle (NSW) but this one's for brother Kent down on the flip side, keep up the good work....