All the Songs Have the Same Chords

I am not sure if I’m more excited by the music or the essence of the artist that I fully intend to see tonight.

In his own words (from MySpace):
“Beans on Toast is one man with a guitar. Hes been playing songs for about a year on time of writing this (25th June 2006) and intends to do this for a bit longer. Hes convinced that global warming is going to wipe out civilisation any minute now. Hes bored of racism. He enjoys having sex. He drinks too much. He has recently bought a new guitar. He intends to offer his songs for download on this site. He intends to change them on a regular basis. He is aware that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He likes North London. He has a beautiful girlfriend. He pretends to be a gypsy Hes a big fan of Tom Robbins. Hes not a big fan of capitalism. He owns an Apple Mac. He spent the last year making some sort of stand against myspace. This is his myspace page. He has his tail between his legs. He is a proud Sagittarius. He pretends to be a hippy. All his songs have the same chords and he sounds like Billy Bragg.”

See what I mean?

Okay, there are some parts of his manifesto that I can't say I subscribe to (Tim Robbins?), but hey, a man that holds onto good intention, whilst being fully aware that human weakness is generally a victorious son of a bitch, is a man that I can respect. And he manages to relay the complexities of character so very simply.

Who I saw at End of the Road 2007

End of the Road is an amazing festival, where artists and punters are all one, and everyone loves music. It's all about the music.

Strange Idols
Not nice

Seventeen Evergreen
Very up and down mellow slightly twee indie, some out of tune

Jesse Sykes
Had Slash imitator on guitar which made it awful

Scout Niblet
Nice then rocked out and went wrong

**All Smiles
Sounded very nice and mellow, guitarist from Grandaddy

***Viking Moses
Main man had excellent voice but the rest of the band were uncoordinated and there were some terrible female vocals, and too much humming

Marie Frank
Quite nice and mellow soft female vocals and did nice Velvet Underground cover

**Midlake
Excellent except for the unfamiliar tracks!

Yo La Tengo
Good experimental variable music, with a small amount of lovely twee mellow songs and some clever feedback, intense guitar experimentation, then just went too much into masturbatory rock.

**Loney Dear
Very lovely heartfelt gentle songs

****I’m from Barcelona
An amazing balloon and confetti party, with some lilo surfing.

King Creosote
Nice enough…

**The Bees
Rather jolly

Super Furry Animals
Good old stuff but now rock out too much and lack innovation. New songs seem like bad rocky version of old songs.

My Brightest Diamond
Too glam rock

Darren Hayman
Excellent and better than Hefner – his bluegrass set (Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee) was also amazing

Danielson
Like a discordant bad version of Bearsuit, not good

Tape the Radio
Nasty rock

***Slow Club
Fun and quirky great female vocals

**9 Bach
Welsh traditional folk – lovely voice and banter

Young Republic
Okay as background music

**Indigo Moss
The singer is the spitting image of an old friend in years gone by – youngsters playing good folk

**Port O’Brien
Anti-folk without as much silliness, but friendly and lovely.

**Dawn Landes
Gorgeous voice

***Jeffry Lewis
Crass covers with a couple of fun tunes at the end. Political and great.

**Herman Dune
Jolly Fun

***Misty's Big Adventure
Brilliant set full of classic Misty's, but no “all things bright and beautiful”…

**Malcolm Middleton
Scottish folk pop with some good amusing lyrics.

Hyacinth House
Big Swedish folk band – nice enough but too rocky with nothing that sets them above.

**Peggy Sue and the Pirates
Best set yet. Deliciously fun with a happy sit down audience applauding enthusiastically.

***Charlie Parr
Beautifully understated excellent guitar folk.

I Never Said it was Clever

Last night I had a beer shampoo and shower, got squashed into a more compact unit, narrowly avoided flying elbows and feet and sang my little black heart out. It was absolutely amazing. First of all Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong came on like true rock stars, having only released one single ‘Lucio Starts Fires’. Then The View jumped onto the cage in very convincing Dizzee Rascal outfits. Their set was really quite something. Say ‘WO-AH’, ‘WO-AH’. And of course, nothing could be better than hearing Captain Sensible’s ‘Happy Talk’ being sampled, a favourite of mine since the single digit years. You’ve got to hand it to Dizzee; he puts on a damn fine show. I’ve always loved a bit of scrit-scrit-scratching! I had been looking forward to seeing The View, as advertised, but what a warm up. Jump, Jump… We jumped.

Some headliners headline and others stand on stage like reluctant mice; some completely arse it up. The one and only Mister Pete Doherty - the tabloids favourite crucifixion target – is an unpredictable artist, but on the night of the 25th November 2007, he demonstrated all of the reasons that the tabloid disciples have no fucking idea.

The nation’s most loved and hated minstrel played like an undisputedly talented poet, musician and performer. He played the best gig I have seen in a very long time, and, I assure you, I have not been hiding at home. Okay, the sexual chemistry – akin to homoerotic fantasy blogs that The Libertines inspired - was absent, but me oh my, what a show. The new album ‘Shotters Nation’ gave a taste of what was to come, and there was no disappointment in this irrelevant person’s mind. To top it all off, Pete, alone and blessed with the magic of a natural singer songwriter, gave acoustic performances of ‘Music when the Lights Go Out’ and ‘The Lost Art of Murder’. In his living room corner of the stage the band then joined him for some further acoustic wonderland treats, with ‘There She Goes’ and ‘Albion’.

Get up off your back
Stop smoking that
You could change your life

Pete, you may have gone through a shambolic phase and released one truly terrible album, but your overall output over the last five years makes you one of the greatest artists I have ever been blessed to share a room with. Good luck with rehabilitation. You got me high.

I went to sleep singing, I woke up singing, and I sang all the way to work.

When Crisis Comes

In a month’s time I will abandon my post at our local mental health charity. I am sad to say, I must be on my way, to the land of risky gambles and a job that may not pay. And I am sad. I am sad because I will miss the crisis calls. Crisis calls, like buses, can be few and far between, but often, when they do come, several come at once. Crisis calls are the most important calls that I ever receive. A crisis call is a telephone call (surprise surprise!) from someone in crisis, usually with direct or indirect references to suicide. Giving time to a person in crisis is one of the most worthwhile things that anyone, anywhere in this world, can do. I will miss giving my time to people in crisis. I will not be there when crisis comes.

Umberto Peteo

He mumbles a thought, Dreams crumble away

In preparation for the Babyshambles gig on Sunday, I am watching this clip on repeat:
Umberto Peteo
It wasn’t always a series of mumbles that only just manage to escape from a byzantine mind.

Just be Humble

Calling the meek and the humble
Welcome to blackboard jungle
So don’t you crumble
Just be humble

The Orb sampled it, and now the Wobbly Squadron do too. Lee Scratch Perry’s Blackboard Jungle (1973) sounded brilliant as an ambient house sample in 1991and it was cracking to hear it being sampled again last night at the Hobgoblin.

The Trip Part Two

The past is here: so read it first:
The Trip Part One

Monday 5th November, 2007

Remember, remember the fifth of November, bike tours, mezes and port. A new day dawned. And as I awoke in this unknown city, magic was in the air. My geek was excited about the first day of his conference, and with a little help from the internet and a very poor wireless network connection, I had plans of my own.

Before the sun had found its way over the hills and high rise buildings, I was out of bed, breakfasted and heading towards the centre of town. I walked along Carrer de Ribes, past Arse de Trump and along Carrer Corders towards the Barri Gotic. I had an engagement to keep. I didn’t have time to stop and chat with Graffiti Che - and his fine pink moustache - about the delights of Barcelona’s freshly laundered washing. Or perhaps I did? I just wasn’t sure if I did.

I was heading towards Plaça de Sant Jaume for a four hour long bike tour of the city. Plaça de Sant Jaume, our meeting point, was once the centre of the original Roman settlement of Barcino. And did those feet in ancient times... get sore? It was a good place to start the day. The plaça is now home to the Ajuntament (City Hall), and the Palau de la Generalitat, where the Catalan regional government pretends to know what it's doing. Police stood outside guarding the buildings and directing tourists. I stood outside directing my camera and photographing police.

It was a quiet morning, but Plaça de Sant Jaume is not always so dull. At its best, it is a place of protest and Catalans love to protest. Not only do they love to protest, but they are also rather partial to protesting in no clothes. Yippee. In 2006, in this very square, seventy naked people curled up on the pavement outside City Hall. They were pretending to be the number of ill-fated minks that died in the name of Liz Hurley’s underfed wardrobe. My feet were standing in a place of public nakedness, with a fully clothed body on top. I feel guilty just to admit it and you don’t know what I was wearing yet.

Best of all, it’s perfectly legal to strip down. Recently, a man called Irwin decided to check it out. All summer he traversed the streets of Barcelona with his dangly-bits a-swinging. The 2004 nakedness law was upheld and his not so private parts celebrated their fully fledged liberation. There are photos of him on the internet to prove it. Made you look, made you stare; or did you? His toned bronzed naked torso and the city’s architectural triumphs sit surprisingly well together. I’m just a little bit sad that I can’t find any photos of him raising an erection at the Dildo. Perhaps that’s the one spot where he did feel self-conscious.

If you’re not sure about going naked alone, Barcelona also has a very good turnout for the annual world naked bike ride. The Critical Ass event was even born in Spain, in the city of Zaragoza, a little north of Catalonia. Many English towns now celebrate the event too, but Barcelona is probably a little bit warmer and there’s no risk of arrest. But beware; there have also been protests against tourism in the Catalonian capital.

Still completely unaware that nakedness was a viable option, I went for a little wander with my feet in the pouches of two live kangaroos, and a screaming giraffe wrapped tightly round my neck. Having barely bounced two steps, I found myself at the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia; the real cathedral of the city. I soon learnt that, akin to the Gaudi Basilica, this holy building has the blood of many centuries soaked into its stones. Wars, colonialism and globalisation changed the political face of the world, new islands formed and people grew twice as tall, yet still God’s stones waited to take their place. This laissez faire approach to cathedral construction is a deeply seated trait of the Catalan population, passed from generation to generation like a defective gene. As far back as 343AD, the Roman Empire had built a basilica at this site and yet it wasn’t until 1913AD that the central spire of the cathedral was finally in place. The front of this building is still covered in scaffolding and I’m not entirely convinced that it is complete. Perhaps they forgot a feature or two.

The coolest part about the history of the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia, is that I can go back to talking about naked people and I’ve barely drawn a light breath. Nakedness is not new or trendy; it’s inherent, wonderful and travels through time as a superior partner to the slow-cathedral-construction gene. The Barcelonans were keen on people roaming the streets naked as far back as 303AD. All the same, there has always been confusion about whether one can get away with it.

Way back then, some three hundred years after Jesus had led everyone up the Roman road with talk of his amazing imaginary dad, a beautiful young girl called Eulàlia, later to be known as Father Christmas Eulàlia, tried to test it out. She was full of youthful idealism and wanted to walk the city naked. History goes in cycles don’t you know? As thirteen year old Eulàlia ambled around with her small pert breasts raised high, legions of men - and a handful of women - were excited to see the outcome. Would any officials intervene while a naked girl walked the square? The anticipation was unbearable. Imagine a city where all the girls are free and willing to walk around completely unclothed. Imagine a city where, just for a few hours, a sex starved populous – bound for eternity with fat nagging wives - can stare at a beautiful naked thirteen year old girl in one of their finest public places. We have already established that nudity and fine buildings make for a tasty combination. Back then, thirteen was okay. Eight year olds got married... Don’t go all Paedofinder General on me.

Unfortunately, Eulàlia’s adolescent experiment took an unexpected turn that would lead to dire consequences. Just as excitement levels were reaching fever pitch, and more and more onlookers were coming in droves, flash cooling struck Barcelona. On that warm spring day, without a cloud in the sky, it started snowing, and snowing really hard. The washing that hangs from each and every window in town, gained a thick layer of soft frozen water. In no time at all, Eulàlia was wearing a dense white coat. Not an inch of her flesh could be seen. She had past her idealistic phase and discovered mink; white mink at that. The anger of this unforeseen interruption was insurmountable; the Catalans like nakedness, and fur clothing is just not on. Eulàlia was nothing more than the biggest prick tease that had ever walked their sun-soaked soil.

To punish the young whore for not maintaining full exposure until the time of complete climax, and for bewitching the weather, the Barcelonans rammed Eulàlia into a barrel, jabbed knives into its soft wood and rolled her down the street. They also cut off her breasts and decapitated her. The body of Santa Eulàlia is entombed in the cathedral's crypt. It has lots of bits missing – two small breasts, a head, many chunks of flesh – but it is where they can keep an eye on it and make sure that she doesn’t get up to any more mischief. The cathedral has a secluded Gothic cloister where thirteen white geese are kept to remind all thirteen year olds about poor young Eulàlia’s fate. Keeping birds in captivity is wrong; don’t they know that?

Just round the corner from the Cathedral is the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat (the Museum of the History of Catalonia), Palau Reial Major and Rei Square. In Rei Square, I watched a film crew and some 70 odd people dressed up as olden day Catalan peasants. It was time for my tour.

Back at Plaça de Sant Jaume, seventeen fully dressed travellers had gathered for the bike tour. The tour guide was already in full flow and telling the ancient story of The Barcelonan Bike Tour Wars. Way back in BC (Before Cycling), Fat Tire set up the first bicycle tour of Barcelona. It was a time of great capitalism and before long they developed many rivals. We have since learnt that the principle of competition is unfair, but those were hard and bleak times. Unsurprisingly, any village, city or town bike does not take kindly to rivals. Just thinking about her slimmer, prettier competition wears her down. And she just can’t stop thinking about them. Aaaaargh. This isn’t surprising when you see the rivals in action. Two other bike tour companies turned up in Plaça de Sant Jaume while I was there. They arrive about thirty minutes before the Fat Tart’s tour starts and steal her customers. It looks quite easy to do and I quite like the idea of sending Fat Tart mad; just because she is so very close and already provides such great amusement. Fancy a Fabpants and Softseats tour anyone? You can come naked.

While the bike tour-ists gathered in the south west corner of Jaume square, and shared horrified glances about the bike tour wars, a gypsy beggar woman circled her prey; ummm, that would be me. She wore many layers of colourful clothes and put her hand to her mouth repeatedly to suggest a need for food. She was missing a fake baby. Perhaps this was not her day. Akin to London, it is common to use a fake baby or to borrow a real one for a stint of begging. The scam must work to be repeated so often. Perhaps Westerners are soft to the idea of helpless starving children. How odd.

In many parts of the world, a baby is not enough to make the rich heart bleed; the ladder of desperation is climbed by self-inflicted mutilation whilst working towards maiming. We Europeans have such style. Instead of allowing our citizens to reach such levels of deprivation that they cut off a leg, we educate them just enough to come up with scams like throw the baby. So while you are trying to catch Tiny Tears in mid-air, and save a poor helpless doll from certain injury, remember that this is civilisation. Your possessions needed a new home. Alternatively, if you see a flying baby, just let it bounce. Not just in Barcelona; anywhere. You don’t know how these scams can travel. I saw a young gypsy beggar woman with a genuine baby later that week. She was sat on a bench in Avinguda de Gaudi. I had to stare twice to check that the small apparent human was real. How convincing are fake babies? I really want to know.

Fake babies grow up and, if they haven’t cracked their head open on a boulevard or pavement, they become baby beggars. Big baby beggars with clipboards. You may see them in the streets of your local town. They claim to be raising money for charity; you know War Head, Christian Aids or Apathy. In Barcelona they cut out the middle-man. They want the cash in the here and now, and not your card details for those regular monthly instalments. Enterprisingly, they do have a photocopy of a sponsorship form and a fully fledged scam in the making; it’s that European education again. A clipboard is also a wonderful tool for covering over anything that a hapless tourist happens to have left unattended on the table. The dual purpose tool enables both the ‘sponsorship’ and ‘walking off with it’ scams. I have a clipboard myself. I would later encounter two of these children outside the Museu National d' Art Catalunya. I bet it’s not the life they’d choose.

Back in Plaça de Sant Jaume the bike tour starts. It takes us back to where I have wandered; to the cathedral, the film set, and onwards. I have a nice red bike with somewhat fat tyres; they could be fatter, but it could get silly. We ride further through the Barri Gotic like a sedated bike gang and stop for the odd story. Then like a true gang we are told to ride three abreast on busy roads and to completely take over our side of the street. We hold up traffic and have a few near misses with the batty motorcyclists that govern the local highways. It's fun and slightly exhilarating. I wish we looked like a proper gang; tourists are so pansy.

Key stops in the city centre included: the Ramon Berenguer Square, which is home to a large stretch of the old city wall and some big brass letters that say ‘BARCINO’; The Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) which was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner Paula; and an eternal flame in Fossar de les Moreres, which is dedicated to those who died during an invasion on September 11th, 1714, in the Siege of Barcelona. It is pleasantly understated communal space

Do the Americans love the date symmetry? Of course they do. Will they compare Fossar de les Moreres with their own 09/11 memorial? I don’t know. Perhaps I should for them. On the one hand we have the Catalans. They have a small communal memorial square. In the square, a stone wall commemorates the dead; it bears an inscription of a poem which honours their sacrifice. A twenty foot steel arch holds a Bunsen burner-like flame over the street. It burns for the lost souls. It is soft and unobtrusive.
On the other hand, we have New Yorkers. Their memorial hasn’t been finished yet and their loss is much more recent. They are constructing a park; once more a communal space. In the footprints of the Twin Towers, there will be two man-made urban ponds. They will be filled by waterfalls that run from the edge of each watery square. Visitors will be able to descend to an underground memorial space.

So there we have it, two communal spaces with a soft feature to help visitors to contemplate a country’s loss. There may be 287 years, and many miles, between these two countries, that for many September 11th is a sad day, but they share so much. Oh sorry, I forgot something: The Freedom Tower.

New York’s Freedom Tower will stand some 1,776 feet above ground level, and will block out sunlight to half of city. I pretended to be an aeroplane there once, which gives me an idea. Instead of building a tower, they should erect statues of people with outstretched arms pretending to be aeroplanes and encourage visitors to do the same. I digress.

Following the Siege of Barcelona, the "Decretos de Nueva Planta" ("Decrees of the New Institution") abolished all Catalan laws and institutions, subjected the region to heavy taxation, and banned all public use of the Catalan language. It’s just what the Americans fear; most of all being robbed of the language they invented all by themselves: MSEnglish. The Catalan language was forbidden until the early nineteenth century, when it flourished once more. Harking back to the good old days, the draconian dictator Franco prohibited it once again from 1939-1975. He was a card.

The longstanding bike tour then took us to the Parc de la Ciutadella , where we saw the large temporarily inoperable fountain designed by you know who and a lesser known architect Josep Fontsere. It is apparently very nice when it’s working. We then rode on to the Arse de Trump (my local pooping arch), and northwards to the Sagrada Familia. On foot, I walked around the entire building. I like the cranes. They’re a good feature. It did look quite fun to climb the spires and peak out. We then rode down to Barceloneta beach and stopped for some tourism-enhanced lunch. I dined with an American pilot and a hairdresser from Coventry. It was dry cous cous with a bit of salad. How do they come up with it?

The favourite topic of our tour guide was the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1479. Isabella was the queen of Castile, so the marriage united the whole of Spain. Unfortunately for the Catalans, Isabella had the upper hand and Ferdinand was well and truly sat on. Isabella was the one who sent Columbus off to America, when all other nations had turned him down. She was a shrewd woman; or perhaps she was just lucky.

Isabella’s original plan had been to fill Columbo’s ships with prisoners and lose the whole goddamn lot of them - and a surplus of flasher macs - off the end of the world. Good riddance to bad detectives. Her dreams were not realised, but this is where the luck comes in. Columbo may have returned with his cigar and conceited manner in place, but he spoke of gold and the kind of riches that the Queen had only envisaged in her wettest and wildest dreams. Because Columbo had travelled with the Queen’s money, and the money of Castile (what’s mine is not yours Ferdinand), the Castiles were rich. As for the Catalans, they were later refused permission to trade in the New World, and were told to finish their cathedral first. If you’ve ever wondered who started the Spanish Inquisition; that was Isabella too. She was staunch Catholic and God demanded a lot of her.

It all worked out rather well until inbreeding killed off the royal family some two centuries later. Okay, perhaps not that well. Isabella was succeeded by her schizophrenic daughter, Joanna, who went completely mad after her philandering husband had shagged every woman in the Western Hemisphere. Good old Ferdinand, so sick of it all, poisoned his son-in-law and Joanna was locked up. Fortunately, any offspring from that kind of background is stable and well-balanced by default and then it really did work out well. Peace, stability and reluctant, but stable, leadership followed. All the same, marrying your first cousin is not to be recommended.

Poor old Charles II of Spain, descended from Joanna Schizoid a total of fourteen times - twice as a great-great-great grandson, and twelve times further - was fucked. He had so many multiple, severe disabilities, linked to inbreeding, that he was developmentally disabled, had a huge head, and could not chew his food properly. His aunt and his grandmother were one and the same. He was so deformed, that nature decided to put an end to all the silliness; and children were not to be. The collapse of his bloodline and the family’s habit of fucking their cousins led to the War of Spanish Succession. Those Habsburgs, eh? They liked to keep it in the family. Well, not long after that came September 11th, 1714, which was part of a very complicated war. The less said the better. On the bright side the 1714 incident did lead to Catalonia having a domestic market in Spain and later an overseas market in America, they just couldn’t use their own language to trade. It’s hard to understand why they make such a fuss.

I decided to head east in such of any long lost cousins. Wandering along Carrer de l’Arc del Teatre a homeless man lay sleeping on a window ledge. With each pace I saw increasingly levels of poverty and deprivation. With each pace I developed a more hardened expression in an attempt to blend in.

After a left turn, I soon found myself at Port de Barcelona. Huge luxury cruise ships lined the port’s harbour and I looked out of place amongst the sparsely distributed passengers mingling in the World Trade Centre terminal. I almost expected security to move me along. With familiarity, I could lose the fear of mugging on Carrer de l’Arc del Teatre, but I’m not sure that money will ever make me feel comfortable amongst the über–rich; born and breed into the upper echelons of greed.

Port Vell is perhaps more me. Or is it? Port Vell is another 1992 Olympics story. Before the Olympics, Port Vell was an old obsolete harbour, complete with empty warehouses, industrial buildings, refuse dumps and railroad yards. It is now a clean modern yacht basin and entertainment centre. It houses an IMAX cinema, the largest aquarium in Europe and a state of the art indoor shopping centre. I had little interest in any of the entertainment and I certainly didn’t want to waste my time abroad in shops, but the communal outside space did capture my imagination. In the water bobbed a porcelain white buoy in the shape of a young, contemplative man. A cable car tower stood silhouetted against the background. At certain angle the bouy and the tower were silhouetted together, with the cable cars moving across the skyline in perfect symmetry.

I turned round to find the Maremàgnum shopping complex and its unique exterior of mirrored surfaces. The sea, yachts and clean structural features of the port stood over me in a series of gently curving squares. By standing under the entrance I could see myself from up on high. Stood centrally in a square of my own, with the wooden slats of the port’s causeway as my background, I became a uniquely framed piece of art. I became more than many modern exhibitions at the Tate; and I a humble tourist. I walked back through the city, once again past Graffiti Che and his wonderful pink moustache. A film crew was at work in a shoe shop opposite the South American rebel.

A bath later, I walked those streets once again; this time with a companionable geek. It was dark and the streets in the Barri Gothic were wet and slippery following their nightly wash. Tourists are filthy buggers. We ate a fine meze at the Vegetalia Restaurant, followed by biscuits and a divine hot chocolate. On the way home we passed the Restaurant Colon. Oh, if only we had passed it earlier, we could have eaten like thread worms.

It’s Such a Perfect Day

I was taken out today. In an ‘I’ve been out’ with Nicholas Parsons kind of way. Nicholas Parsons! Nicholas bloody Parsons! I’m not actually dead; sorry. I was taken out for lunch in a mad but fancy restaurant (yum yum), fondled the Tate’s crack (it’s much bigger than mine), saw Elephant and Castle - Stick it up your Arsehole - from a pod from on high, way up in the sky, watched Beowulf hide his lust muscle in 3D and then visited another Old English Pub. It was bloody brilliant.

Yes, they really do use the terms 'lust muscle' and 'wank' in Beowulf and it's a certificate 12. Angelina Jolie won't let her own children see the film because of the nudity. Instead her bairns are going to listen to an audio version of the film. 'What's a lust muscle mummy?'

Don't Walk Away in Silence

I have just returned from the cinema having watched Control. It is a beautifully understated film and the live music, which stole a significant proportion of the running time, had me completely and utterly hooked. Unfortunately, that was its last showing. I am so happy I caught it during a second run at our local palace of sticky floors. I wish I could watch it on the big screen again tomorrow and then listen to my Joy Division CDs over and over. I want to hear those songs until they can’t penetrate any further into my soul. Don’t walk away in silence. I will walk away in silence.

The Trip Part One

Sunday 4th November, 2007

Getting up at 3.45am is wrong. Have I said that before? For the first time in my life I got a taxi from home to the airport, but where is the luxury when you feel sick with sleep deprivation? Where is the luxury when the valleys between Brighton and Gatwick are filled with a beautiful mist, the taxi driver proceeds with great haste and there is an underlying feeling of fear? The luxury is at the other end, on the other side of the pollution trial that we leave across the sky. The luxury is Video Bum Stop.

From the moment I saw the words ‘Video Bum Stop’, in thick black lettering against the yellow advertising board of a crusty porn shop, I knew that I had found home. I knew that posteriors on film and my sleeping hole were destined to be entwined. Of course they were; how could they not be? And how could they try and reject us, confuse us with a Microsoft drone from The Netherlands? They couldn’t for long. So there I was at 10am, at the Hotel Confortel, checked in and ready for the city rejuvenated by the 1992 Olympics and, before that, the 1888 Expo World Fair.

I was a mere stone’s throw away from the Arc de Triomf, that fine gateway to the 1888 shenanigans of old. Yes, there I stood, as the sun began to warm the slowly stirring city streets, fuelled, armed and ready for action. The famous city of sweet Pari awaited my full attention with garlic breath and rude stares. No, you’re confusing me, why did you put such thoughts in my head? I wasn’t in Paris at all. I was in the warm hearted washing capital of Catalonia. The Arc de Triompf is, was and always will be a beautiful ruse. Barcelona is way cooler than that French shit hole.

East Barcelona is a series of squares, but no Spaniard can live in squares alone. That’s why Ildefons Cerdà invented the Avinguda Diagonal. To save the Spaniards from a square rigid existence, he gave them a street that cheekily cuts right through, oh so very many rectangles, from the heart of Plaça Catalunya, past the bullet of Torre Agbar, and onwards to salty waters and the Edifici Forum.

The Edifici Forum is where Microsoft bases itself for two weeks of every year; where sea meets land, sand meets toes, and lowly geek meets geek god, or was that Gandhi? My geek companion said it was like meeting Gandhi. Being a systems architect for Microsoft is logically akin to being a major political and spiritual leader for an entire country seeking independence and civil rights. This you may not know.

The Edifici Forum Building, designed by Swiss architects Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, hosts an auditorium to seat 3,200, an exhibition hall covering some 5,000 metre squares and an arrangement of construction materials that cost 144 million US Dollars to put in place. It’s a triangular building that says ‘I live on a diagonal street and I’m an awesome triangle; fucking eh!’ Opposition parties in both the Barcelona Council and the Parliament of Catalonia wondered why it cost so much to build a triangle, but they hadn’t anticipated the cost of a protractor or the needs of the corporate geek that would visit once a year. Of course the average geek spends most of their time at the yearly MSConference marvelling at this ‘new Barcelona’ architecture. They certainly don’t sit in corners all alone, nursing their laptops and contemplating code. The one I saw was definitely marvelling the architecture as reflected by his laptop screen. Very modern!

In Diagonal Avinguda, sunny Sunday vibes were in full effect. A wide promenade runs along the centre of the entire length of street, as it does in Aviguda Meridiana, Saint Joan and the frightening Rambla that fights through the city’s heart. Along the promenades, bikes, roller blades, skate boards and feet roam, glide and stutter, and people converse merrily on benches. The roads provide for life and not just gas guzzling transportation. And gas can be guzzled from bus stops, or so it seemed.

I merrily conversed on a bench myself, while eating bread rolls made in England at 4am. A lady dressed in a leotard was trapped inside the cellophane wrapping whilst doing her daily exercises. I liked the graffiti that announced it was Urbano in the corner of a dilapidated abandoned square, where perhaps a home for many had once stood. A photographer, sat in the middle of the promenade, with her camera and tripod pointed at nothing but an ordinary street, and her bottom resting comfortably on the path, said ‘Sunday’. Diagonal Avinguda is a street for locals and not for hapless tourists, beggars and the drunken fools who define their vacations by alcohol consumption. Hazy Sunday mornings are made for people like me and the locals.

From the Edifici Forum to La Barceloneta, the Barcelona lawns and prom run along the water’s edge. From Nova Mar Bella beach, I walked along the coastline to La Torre de les Aigües. Along the way, at a seaside cafe, the language barrier that separates the ignorant English from the ignorant Spanish provided for a little gentle amusement between two proud and incompetent European races. When two nationalities of great ignorance combine, good things can happen. People smile, point and, because each are the same, there is no embarrassment to endure. The everyday situation, which could be oh so very formal and dull, becomes a dance of incoherence without misunderstanding.

When both Spaniards and the English can travel so far and wide on their sweet home tongue, there is little reason for learning another. Both are truly fine languages for expression, and to learn a second language would sully the importance of the first. ‘Am I not enough?’ cries the Oxford English Dictionary to the child of grey clouds and dark poetry as they open a traitorous book of bleak translation. And ‘please do not betray me’ the La Real Academia Española pleas passionately to its beautiful sun scarred babies as they depart with warm smiles and grand hand gestures. Don’t be brainwashed by the places where hola is not hola but hello, hi or ni hao. And why would anyone learn any language when they have been born with inbuilt pointing devices and a smile?

Incredibly brave or stupid English people swim in the cold sea while the land creatures pull their coats closer to their bodies. Slender men with six packs throw cartwheels and handsprings on the beach. A cycling tour rides by and a bus tour goes the other way.

The bus tour awaits the ears, eyes and bottom. Barcelona Bus Touristic has three routes: Red Route which circles the north of the city; Blue Route which circles the south; and the Forum Route which travels to where my feet have already trodden and is not in service. At the Platja del Bogatell the bus says ‘hello’ and ‘sit down’ to tired feet. It only takes a short period of assuming the sitting position to remember the torture of sleep deprivation. A whole city, that I know so little of, lies ahead in a welcoming embrace. I have not yet heard about the impact of the 1888 Universal Exhibition or the 1992 Olympics 100 times over, and I am so very eager to. Sleep can wait a little while longer.

As my feet say ‘ahhhh’, I learn that many of Barcelona’s beaches are new; thanks to some famous sporting event in 1992. They sure are pretty and so very clean. Will Hackney get luxurious sandy beaches in 2012? I want to play volley ball on a beach in Hackney.

The Parc de la Ciutadella houses the Catalan Parliament in a zoo that was created in 1888. Most interestingly, there are 400 different species of politician held in the zoo. I never knew there were so many, and in one region alone. The Spanish and the Catalans don’t get on too well.

The Torre Agbar, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, looks rather like Norman Fosters London Gherkin. It lights up at night and is home to the Barcelona water company. The building is known as the Dildo. It accommodates the needs of many Catalan housewives. It is a very dry country.

At the Placa de Catalunya, I move to the Red Route, which starts at the Tourist Information Office. This is very much tourist land and akin to Piccadilly Circus. It is also the start of the terrifying La Rambla, with its pickpockets and living statues that move.

Soon we are to be bombarded by works of the famous architect Gaudi. My favourite Gaudi fact is that he was knocked down by a tram in 1926.

The Sagrada Família cathedral is not a real Roman Catholic cathedral because each city only has one. The term cathedral developed because Gaudi lived up his own behind and developed a building far grander than Barcelona’s real cathedral. The snails are the best part of the whole Sagrada Família Basilica building. The snails are ace. Good work on those snails Gaudi. The roof of the Casa Batlló is also pretty damn cool. There is a lot of Gaudi this and Gaudi that on this part of the tour, and perhaps my geek friend was confusing Ghandi with Gaudi when he was describing the godlike status of the source code masters. Gaudi liked to dress as a pauper in his later years. After being knocked down by the tram that led to his final demise he begged to stay in a hospital for the poor. He wanted to live like common people but to build a cathedral that would cost so much that it still hasn’t been finished to this day. My guess is that Jarvis Cocker would take him to a supermarket given half a chance.

Other points of interest, which I decided to attempt to return to later, were Park Guell, Montjuic hill, the Olympic stadium, the Montjuic cable car and Port Vell. The Tibidabo amusement park, with the Tramvia Blau - a tram that has been in service for over a hundred years - was rather disappointingly closed on weekdays by the time of my visit. A trip on the roller coasters was not to be. The tour bus got dark and cold. Sleep was beckoning. After another short trip on the blue route, Video Bum Stop called my name.

You Can't Trust Anyone Nowadays

After pocketing the Spanish weather and sneaking it through customs, I am horrified to report that it was stolen. I have been looking at worldwide weather reports and I am almost convinced that it was a damn Spaniard who robbed me blind and took the goodies back to their own country. The cheek of it all! It is cold.

Who I saw at Truck Festival 2007

Getting up at 3.45 in the morning is wrong. Here is one I made earlier. The only expertise I have in music is knowing what I like and what I don’t like. Comments may be considered inaccurate…

Monkey Swallows the Universe
Nice twee pop with some terrible out of tune moments.

Morrison Team Fayre
Like The Coral with a bit of a hoe down

***Fuck Buttons
A VERY pleasant wall of sound

**Paris Motel
Like a smoky folky Stereolab

Fanfario Music
Like a less interesting slowed down Granddaddy. Nice enough voice, but voice and lyrics did not fit with the music

**Brakes
Good dirty rock

Garth and Maud Hudson
Music to listen to when you are old and ready to die

***Six Nation State
Dirtier bouncier version of The Coral with the grit of The Libertines and a good measure of ska.

Emma Pollock
Lacked the sparkle of The Delgados, didn’t use full range of voice and rather dull.

Gabriel Minnikin
Great gravelly voice a bit like Leonard Cohen, a country twang

The Early Years
Atmospheric like Spiritualised.

The Epstein
Bland country. Technically proficient but no pep.

**Sam Isaac
Like a young Frank Turner or Get Cape Wear Cape Fly with no politics.

Actress Hands
Like Galaxie 500, but nowhere near as good. Made a lot of mistakes but giggled through them.

Fonda 500
Started like poppy Alabama 3 then turned into horrible rock

***The Mules
Good fun bouncy tunes with a gritty edge.

Lo Fi Culture Scene
Sounded good when we walked by.

Napoleon IIIrd
Indie wailing

**The Rock of Travolta
Funky wall of rock with no vocals.

***The Winchell Riots
Lovely Fell City Girl crossed with Mogwai-esq soundscape, but mellower and less intense.

Rachelle Van Zanten
Not nice. Thinks she’s Jimmy Hendrix, sings with a southern American state accent in a style similar to bad country music.

Baby Gravy
Terrible untalented riot grrl racket.

A Silent Film
Have potential like a rocky version of Interpol but too rocky and didn’t have the tunes.

Thomas Truax
Discordant comedy songs which were not funny. Rubbish.

Easy Tiger
Country rock with pep.

**Joe Driscoll
Funky – Brimful of Asha – style songs all done with loop layering – beat box, guitar and vocals by just one man.

Toenail Cutting Service Required

When I play computer games, I have to sit with my nose almost pressed against the bright screen of speed, action and adventure. I can’t aim a car, a weapon, or a person, unless my eyes are at least a metre away from the screen; 40cms makes me a potential winner. The screen might be 15” or 36”; I have to be just as close no matter what. It’s like a secret law of physics that only applies to me. When I cut my fingernails I like to hold my fingers at least 5cm away from my aforementioned nose. My fingers are in great peril if I don’t. I currently have one foot with raggedly cut toenails and chunks of missing skin and another which could be used to catch small rodents. In conclusion, fireworks are ace, but health and safety measures should always be adhered to.

Who I saw at Glastonbury 2007

It rained a lot and I didn’t make notes, so really after all these months I’m not too sure. I definitely saw these:

• Bill Bailey (briefly – it was very very wet)
• Bjork (briefly – walk by)
• Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
• Iggy Pop (briefly – walky by)
• Jamie T
• Jeremy Hardy
• Mark Steel
• Mark Thomas
• Phil Jupitus (comedy and djing)
• Simon Munnery
• The Dirty Pretty Things
• The Earlies
• The Fratellis
• The Guillemots
• The Maccabees
• The Magic Numbers
• Jonathan Kay Twisted Cabaret
• The Waterboys (briefly – walk by)
• Euros Childs
• The Stephen Frost Impro Allstars
• Ed Byrne
• Shazia Mirza
• The Rakes (who were really poo despite having a few good songs under their belts)
• The View
• The Who (had the misfortune of walking past)
• Tony Benn
• A great mystery band in the Steiner School Tent

I know I missed loads of amazing bands and made some bad choices, but I did have a very lovely time. That's all that matters!

Cows on the Rampage

The Devilish Dyke Halloween Walk was supercool. The cows were really quite scary.