One reason I’ve not been bloggin much is that we’ve moved flat. From a poky one bedroom place to a proper two bed dwelling where cats can be swung.
Moving doesn’t really agree with me. I prefer to remain static. Still, I’m begging to get to grips with new surroundings (I’m a ten minute walk to the old place).
For the last two weeks I have had nothing worth writing or even thinking about. When this changes, I’ll be back.
Look! I have an interview/profile up on normblog: http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/04/the-normblog-profile-290-greg-stekelman.html
Many thanks to Norm for asking me to take part.
The Latest issue of my friend Leila’s PDF magazine All The Rage is available now, and I’ve contributed some silly photos. The theme is Man vs Machine.
http://www.alltherage.org.uk/alltherage-2009-04.pdf
Read it now. If you want.
About two months ago I was sitting on the Victoria Line between Kings Cross and Finsbury Park, listening to my mp3 player and lost in thought. An elderly white man staggered onto the train, looking agitated and began to wander down the carriage. I was about to give him my seat when I realised he wasn’t looking for somewhere to sit: he was blessing everyone with the sign of the cross. Before I could do anything, he was stood above me, gesticulating wildly, and then he was gone.
I was annoyed. I didn’t want to be blessed. I looked around the carriage. It was a typically diverse group: Male, female, black, white, asian. I would have guessed that few, if any, of the folk sitting down were Christian.
About three weeks ago I was on the same train, this time travelling from Oxford Circus to Finsbury Park. The same elderly man wandered into my line of vision; he was once again furiously blessing everyone. This time I was ready. As he approached me, I shook my head and said very clearly:
“I don’t want you to bless me,”
“It doesn’t matter whether you want it or not,” he garbled in a thick Irish accent.
“I’m Jewish. I don’t want you to bless me,” I repeated. Some passengers opposite me smiled sympathetically.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish,” he continued down the carriage.
A moment later he returned: “I’ve met God,” he said. “I’ve seen him.”
“Whatever,” I said.
He continued rambling incoherently. There was no point arguing with him.
“Go on,” I gestured with my head. “Get on with bothering everyone else.” And he wandered off.
A black couple opposite me rolled their eyes skyward, in what looked like a mixture of pity and scorn at my attempt to reason with a tube weirdo. I could have ignored him, but I really didn’t want him blessing.
Many thousands of words have been written about Jade Goody over the last few months – mostly crap, with the occasional slice of wisdom accidentally slipping past dozy sub-editors. I don’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said. Charlie Brooker summed it up quite well here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWqvWFUj51k
A lot has been written about “Jade’s Legacy”. Today was Jade’s funeral, and I found myself reading the BBC news story about the event. And a few passages struck me as particularly apposite:
Former Blue singer Anthony Costa says he was “absolutely devastated” Jade had gone. “I hope her legacy goes on.”
After the service he admits he is “very upset”.
Despite everything, it doesn’t stop a member of the public from taking a picture of the pop star. “I know it’s a sad day, but can you smile please?” asks the fan.
Many try desperately to get on TV by waving at various camera crews and calling home to find out if they can be seen.
When I first read that, I tutted to myself and thought about how feckless and stupid some people are – turning a funeral into a chance to be on telly. And then I re-read the start of the passage and realised that actually, it was completely appropriate – it was indeed Jade’s legacy; the desperate need to be on camera, no matter the occasion – no matter that this was the funeral of a young mother who died horribly young. This unquenchable thirst for fame, even if the fame is simply gurning at the camera as a minor celebrity wanders past – that’s something of a legacy, isn’t it? And who knows? Perhaps the next Jade Goody was amongst the crowd, unknowingly waiting for the media to pluck her from obscurity and onto the front pages of the tabloids.
I sit here typing this with a strange jetlag hangover from my trip to Hong Kong. It was an odd, testing trip, but probably worthwhile.
Travelling for work is always a challenge. On one hand, I the trip is paid for by others, and I get put up in a better standard of hotel than I’m accustomed to, but on the other hand, I can never quite shake the feeling that I’m totally owned by work – that I can’t just switch off, run away and go home. They own me, body and soul and that depresses me. So, as a rule, I avoid travelling for work, but I couldn’t really turn down the opportunity to see Hong Kong.
I was staying a massive corporate hotel, adjacent to a new, curvy chrome business park in the middle of nowhere. Everything about the place was modern, streamlined and stylish. It made me feel quite ill. There were no flaws, no dirt, no character. There was no sign of anything human at all. It was like walking around an abandoned space station. Actually, the worst part of the hotel were the arty soundscapes in the lift and corridors, as though silence was so unbearable that we needed piped pseudo-muzak 24/7. I have noted down the name of the ‘composer’ who wrote the soundscapes, and I do intend to hunt him down.
The trip was really divided into two phases. Night and day. By day, I would do my work or explore the city, and I really enjoyed myself, taking buses, trams and trains and doing all the things I promised myself I’d do. By night… oh dear… I would eat on my own in the various hotel restaurants, and then bed would call. Except I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, sweaty and confused. When I did nod off, I would wake at 3am, wide awake, feeling displaced and isolated in my hermetically-sealed air-conditioned room. The rest of my life… my girlfriend, London, my family, all seemed like fictitious fantasies as I slowly went mental on my own in a distant, silent room. And then I’d fall asleep just before my alarm woke me. This routine continued most of the nights, until I started taking sleeping pills. By the end of the trip, my sleeping had improved, if only slightly.
The city itself was amazing. It’s a strange collision of East and West, with Marks and Spencers sitting alongside wet markets where the still-live fish flap around on slabs. I ate, I shopped, I even went drinking with a load of Flemish Belgians. And I took lots of photos, because enjoying things is not as important and recollecting them afterwards…
Some things I noticed:
I’m sure other pithy observations will come to me in time. Just as I was about to board the plane back to London, my glasses snapped in half at the bridge. I tried sellotaping them back together in Duty Free, but to no avail. I did have my contact lenses on me, so I tried wearing them for a bit, but the air on the planes is too dry and after 30 minutes I had to take them out. Which meant that most of the 13 hours of flight was spent in a state of almost complete blindness. I had to virtually press my face against the screen to watch the in-flight entertainment. No wonder I have a headache.
Now I’m probably going back to bed to see if I can sleep off the jetlag and fever.
About 20 of you sent me your answers to the pop quiz. I think some people were put off by the number of songs, so next time I’ll limit it to 10 or 15 intros.
Here are the answers:
1) Tears for Fears – Head over Heels
2) Smiths – Still Ill
3) Blur – Badhead
4) Adamski – Killer
5) Rolling Stones – Time is on my side
6) White Stripes – Icky Thump
7) Destinys child – Bootylicious
8) Television – Marquee Moon
9) Velvet Underground – There She Goes Again
10) Aha – Take on Me
11) All Saints – Pure Shores
12) Estelle – American Boy
13) Sam Cooke – A Change is Gonna Come
14) Zombies – Time of the Season
15) Wiley – Rolex
16) Tom Tom Club – Genius of Love
17) Metallica – Unforgiven
18) Moloko – The TIme is Now
19) Fall – Theme from Sparta FC
20) Don Henley – Boys of Summer
21) New Order – Ceremony
22) Nancy Sinatra – You Only Live Twice
23) Justin Timberlake – Cry Me a River
24) Girls Aloud – Sound of the Underground
25) Mama Cass – Make Your Own Kind of Music
And the winner is… Scott McMillan from the UK, who did very well to get 15 out of 25. All hail Scott. If I can think of a prize to send him, then even better.
Twitter is rapidly taking over my life. It’s a cunning little website, designed to indulge the basest aspects of your ego. As such, it’s very hard for me to resist. There’s really no point to it other than to impress people with what you’re doing or what you’re pretending to be doing. Unlike facebook, there’s no pretence that the people you’re interacting with are in any sense ‘friends’. It’s having an alarming effect on my productivity and I’m lazy at the best of times.
I’ve spent the last two days mostly in bed with the flu (probably just a bad cold). I did have some interesting hallucinations from watching too much Bleach (a fairly generic Manga) and have been taking aspirin like its going out of fashion. I’m in the office today, but will be heading back to bed as soon as I can. When it’s sunny in London, bed is really the only sane option.
Really rubbish celeb spot: I popped out for lunch and spotted Tom Parker Bowles (the son of Camilla) on Westbourne Grove. I felt a bit ashamed that I recognised him.
I’ve also added a few new entries to the journal.
 | Reno on The Dark Knight is a bit … |
 | Adele on Mixed blessings |
 | Alex on The Dark Knight is a bit … |
 | A former reader on Normblog profile |
 | Pole to Polar: The S… on Jade’s legacy |
