Best Haynes manual ever

The cover is pure genius.

JB, MJ and Prince

Found this really great video this morning. Hey Mr. black MJ does his shit, and boy, JB's lovin that, but then MJ tells him that Prince is in the crowd too... no way.. omg he's gonna do an amazing guitar solo.... no well then he's he's gonna sing some mofokin riffs... no he's gonna fall off the stage LOL.

No wonder it takes him so long to get to the stage, he's thinking holy shit i'm off my face. He can't even walk to the stage. Amazing.

Losing yourself: dancing

I love this clip of the 'crazy' man in Best Buy. He may be crazy but it look like fun - I wish I could get down in a shop. I have to wait until I'm out at a club - which happens once in a blue moon - and its the only time I truly lose myself. I love to dance, and I love it when people don't care how they dance.

Whats the point of dancing if you have to do a standard dance? It seems to miss the point for me. But when I dance, people tend to think I'm on drugs anyway! Its been a long time since I've been somewhere where everyone loves to dance and anything goes - maybe since the jazz funk nights in Cardiff. One of my aims for this year is to find somewhere regular to throw some shapes.

Anyone who can get down like a love child of Bruce Springsteen and Damita Jo Freeman in broad daylight has got something RIGHT in their lives.

The bridge

Sunday Times magazine today had an article on the film 'The Bridge'. Watching the trailer was enough to tell that i'm going to have a strong connection with it. Its about the Golden Gate Bridge and the people who go there to end their lives.

Some ethical caveats - the film-makers would always try to intervene if possible, although it wasn't those who were crying, or pulling their hair, as they initially thought, who jumped -

"The first person i saw jump was in jogging clothes. He'd run out onto the bridge and was laughing on the cellphone. He hung up, took off his sunglasses and jumped in a matter of seconds."

I know the feeling of throwing yourself into 'happy' behaviour around other people, only for the darkness to overwhelm you the moment you can recede into yourself. Unsurprisingly, most of the suicides are by those with mental illness. The film has apparently gone a long way to persuading the bridge authority to finally ok a long proposed barrier on the sides of the bridge.

Stylistically the director Eric Steel uses long slow tracking shots up and down the bridge and had 10000 hours of film from one set of cameras on the bridge and one set at water level. And I imagine the starkness of the bridge makes a beautiful juxtaposition with the emotions of the content.

Sounds beautiful and haunting, and one I know I'll be glad of the dark when I watch in the cinema.

JB Skating - the best fun ever?

What do you get when you mix roller skating with jazz funk freestyling?

JB Skating - that James Brown to those of you who aren't down with the kids in chi-town like what I am. I'd love to roll some shapes if I wouldn't render myself paralysed in the process.

Beautiful nasa rocket separation movie

One of the most beautiful movies I've seen in a long time is this one NASA of the booster rockets return to earth.

I love the long close-up of the rocket at the beginning, the delicate ballet of the two rockets as they stay in the same angle while tumbling towards the earth, the drama of entering the atmosphere and the jellyfish chutes. But most of all, I am in awe of the amazing soundtrack. I'd love to see this on a big screen.

Stott Hall farm

One of my favourite places in Britain, I'm long overdue to take a pilgrimage to Stott Hall Farm - a solitary island in the thundering river that is the M62. I've long wanted to spend a 24 hour period there, soaking the visceral experience in.

Apparently you can reach it by road, and the farm gets travellers gets occassionally visited by people who have run out of petrol or use the phone.

I would buy this place if I had any money and build a glass tower to live in so that I could see the constant stream of humanity rushing past.

Alain de Botton: The Art of Travel

Everyone knows I'm a massive reader. There is nothing more I like than sitting down with a thick book on ancient ruins, views of Derbyshire, birdsong or stately homes.

However this book, and especially a single chapter of it, is speaking to me in a profound way, igniting again a passion for art. It makes plain the things which I feel vividly, but could never express verbally or in writing. De Botton is verbalising my unconcious thoughts, as if an interpreter for a mute child.

The chapter in question is the second, entitled "On Travelling Places". De Botton uses the work of Edward Hopper and Charles Baudelaire as mirrors to hold up against his own troubled thoughts. On service stations at night -

"I remained in one corner, eating fingers of chocolate and taking occasional sips of orange juice. I felt lonely but, for once, this was a gentle even pleasant kind of loneliness because, rather than unfolding against a backdrop of laughter and fellowship, in which i would suffer from a contrast between my mood and the environment, it had its locus in a place where everyone was a stranger, where the difficulties of communication and the frustrated longing for love seemed to be acknowledged and brutally celebrated by the architecture and lighting."

I have, through De Botton, restarted a journey that I have long postponed. Next stops - Hopper and Baudelaire.

Phils birthday picture

Better late to post than never - in September this was all Villa fans thought of.

Uncle Dobbers' viagra cake

My own fair hands

Sunset with James

Photos don't get much better than this - i love the flare at the bottom and the blue forest, not to mention all action Jamie - Thanks Jill.