I've been shooting things again

Like some inherent vice of a generation brought up with video games. Trained explosives experts of the electronic variety, reload time second to none, and with more lives than all the cats in the world. I am green beret, SAS, Navy seal and crack serious crime operative. Always look for the exits just like Manners, and never underestimate the enemy. Just because you can take out fourteen troopers with a knife doesn’t mean you can shoot down a chopper with an air rifle.

There's a lot of attention on the games industry today. The media's taking it's yearly magnifying glass out for the release of Modern Warfare 2. It’s rolling out the child psychologists all around the world to find out the experts opinion on the old debate, 'do violent video games cause violence?' We know there have been instances in the past where games have been the alleged inspiration behind killing sprees, we also know that the ultra violent games in question are ultra popular, selling millions of copies worldwide. People like shooting stuff it seems, and surely we don't have millions of potential killers on the make?

This is obviously a touchy subject that only comes in waves (i.e. whenever a new violent game is released), but the worrying thing is that all this activity only serves to increase the game notoriety and thus it's publicity. Seemingly it's a stunt, and it even had politicians arguing yesterday with Labour MP Tom Watson urging gaming fans to join a Facebook petition as a show of strength against the critics. In the pocket of one of the largest growing industries perhaps? After all, it's only a game. Isn't it?

Oh, My Green Soap Box

‘And what will we do on the days where there’s no wind?’ Lucy Foster asks addressing the solution of wind farms to the world’s energy crisis. It’s simple, ‘we’ll stay in bed,’ an answer the world leaders would chuff to like a gaggle of bankers, but in their hearts probably couldn’t think of anything more appealing. When did the economy become more important than love, anyway?

Oh, My Green Soap Box steps back from the racing protests and the urgent dialogues on how we need to act now, and thinks about our emotions. With a few well-crafted scenarios showing how we could be affected in everyday life, it made the climate change message even more poignant. It wasn’t preachy, nor did it require donations, and the point was more powerful for it.

On one occasion an audience member was called upon to take a walk across the farm; through the forest where the city stood, by the river where the motorway once lay, and into the farm where the banks used to be. The volunteer was shown what life was like on the commune picking apples, making pies, enjoying love. In fact it almost made climate change sound positive. As if it has the power to make us realize the error of a capitalist consumerist society, and get back to basics. Let’s face it; we never really needed all those handbags, IPods and celeb mags in the first place, eh?

Foster weaves in enough relaxants and jokes that remind us we don’t need to be militant to be revolutionary. At one point she wanders through London dressed as a Polar Bear to remind people not to forget about the beautiful creature and to demonstrate that it might be gone one day.

Unlike most climate campaigns out there, Lucy Foster’s isn’t after donations; her show wants us to understand it in a way that we haven’t considered before. It isn’t a pin-badge, or a plastic bracelet, a T-Shirt or a status update, but an actual organic thing that will change our lives. She opens the simple truth that in years to come we might need to teach children in schools what exactly the ‘white’ stuff was. As Foster points out from the start, ‘This is the biggest campaign ever’ and we are all going to play a part in it.

She's Electric

It was in the penthouse. Right by the whisky bar, the chattering teeth and the playing cards. The fairies strung lights like an electric warrior belting out the shocking tones of ‘Jeepster’. The charge sent forth a bolt like the light brigade and jolted her into the air like a tossed pancake.

Gallantly our heroine fought on, casting the sparks back to their wall bound prison with her left hand. Taping the wound with masking tape she tapped her two feet in victory and danced the butterfly.

Conversation after conversation she threw the static prints upon the floor and trampled over their reverberating microtones, she was prepared for any surprise the night could throw at her…

Bat For Lashes 05/10/09

It’s hard to connect with five thousand people, and I’m not going to say Natasha Khan overcame that this evening, but she gave it a good go. As usual at these kind of gigs the low murmur of chatter like an accidental baseline gave that feeling that few were really listening to Khan, as she weaved suburban magi-drama with her new dance led electro bop from this year’s ‘Two Suns’ release. It’s also worrying to see Khan still strut the amateur theatrics that’s hit the mainstream with the likes of Florence and the Machine and Little Boots. But it’s not the theatrics as such that are the problem, but rather the lack of them, and their reduction to a few well choreographed arm swishes and wolf howl manoeuvres.

I first saw Bat For Lashes shortly after the first Mercury nomination and was immediately drawn into her heart transplant bat ache moan, fluttering the wings of blind abandonment. She was god-like, handing out free bat masks and lyric books on the doors, and backed by a full choir of orchestral followers. But this time it was all too dull. The vague smatterings of theatre with her multi-media encore of ‘The Big Sleep’ salvaged something, but weren’t enough to dispel the comedy of tacky lighting bolts during ‘Glass’.

I feel the skin-tight spandex of 09’s fleeting fascination with American Apparel, has paved a predictable path into dull electro-clash, when what I loved about Khan during ‘Fur & Gold’ was the Bolan cat growl, the swishing hippie cloaks and the DIY sound production; banging a wooden stick on the stage to create the cardiac beat of ‘Sarah’.

Saint Cecile

We arrived sweaty from the over priced omelets of Saint Mont Michele and sad throngs of people pushing the sand along the hourglass. The cast assembled whilst the shirt stuck to my back, amongst the small country surroundings of Saint Cecile.

The cider shop door left ajar, and a note said they’d be back after lunch, the hotel was closed till two. A few more cars arrived during the interval, foreign number plates with smiles like a cricket crease and voices we’d later recall at dinner. I tried to feign French with them, whispering hellos and goodbyes and hoping they wouldn’t hear me speak English.

We checked in with a cleaner who finished the hoovering before she spoke with us. The whole place revolved around dinner, served between seven and eight and in the garden were some sheep searching for their lambs we’d later eat.

The evening would play out like a murder mystery. Middle aged women with seductive eyes crave bacchanalia whilst their husbands gave up sex in favour of instant personal gratification. The few staff moved with hidden intent.

The old man in the linen room shifting through white sheets with his moustache and I saw a few cooks open a back door somewhere. Frost expired from the frame and they dragged out a carcass and a dying bonfire outside gave wind of a gardener, although I didn’t see one.

At dinner the only waitress was short tempered. German marching music blasted from the small Ghetto-Blaster and a well dressed Dutch family began to laugh. The waitress proudly offered her coffee specialties, although I wondered where the other staff went and why the cider shop outside still had its door wide open.

A coffee protected by the batak people

Returning from holiday I am to discover the latest in the line of special club Nespresso varieties. Although this time the ‘exclusive’ coffee company has gone completely mental with an ancient civilisation of the Batak people. There’s enough marketing guile to give the impression a‘coffee expert’ (picture Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee with a travel espresso machine) climbed the highest mountains and swarm through leech infested jungles to bring you this intense flavour. Rather than the more obvious truth of a middle aged balding golfer liaising in glass fronted offices with a big-shot from the Batak coffee company looking to expand their business.

Merry-Go-Round

It was the first time I’d driven abroad, and before you get any ideas the car returned in mint condition with just a cool thousand or so more miles on the clock. If I’m honest it was surprisingly easy. As soon as we hit French soil I found myself on more roundabouts than the Romford circular, and although the French are still getting used to the phenomenon, I found myself slipping into all the right lanes. I loved the nonchalance of the drivers. They’d all pile straight onto the merry-go-round, happy to sit there for a minute or two, quietly puffing on a cigarette whist more cars poured from the estuaries into the turbine.

I quickly found that being a pedestrian in northern France is a little peculiar though. For some reason no one stops at ‘zebra’ crossings, and when I’d pull up beside one and let the fishes past, I’d be treated with the scornful expression only the French can pull off; as if I’d drank red wine with fish, or demanded an English menu.

Tindersticks 1st July Hyde Park

I finally got to see Tindersticks perform at Hyde Park's Serpentine Sessions this summer. Having shamefully missed 2007's Barbican show of the second record in its entirety, the band, originally hailing from Sheffield have seemingly left touring behind them to focus a wealth of side projects. Staples with his French home and studio 'Le Chien Chaneux' (The Lucky Dog) and original core member Dickon Hinchliffe escaping to score films, the battered line was left only three deep for last years release, 'The Hungry Saw.'

The 1st July saw the three warriors of sorrow backed by a full cast of musicians to crack into sleazy classic 'Rented Rooms.' Next the sticks pulled tracks from almost all their releases from the past 15+ years, that developed into the halftime paranoia of 'Another Night In' followed by the mid-show heart attack with 'Say Goodbye To The City' bursting the audience with a 'Tribute to Jack Johnson' esque smashing trumpet solo.

Highlight of the night though had to be the surprise inclusion of old favourite, 'City Sickness' with it's wise words of city life warning 'so this is where I ran to for freedom, where I may not be free' ringing true throughout the audience of tube trapped photo takers viewing life through the dusty lens of an IPhone. Makes me want a taste of that French escape Staples has found himself.

Journey to work

First in a series with Rashbre of 'cammuting'

Engine Parts

I've been constructing a couple of scripts amongst other bits and bobs. Going to shows, conferences, clubs, having a peanut butter binge and generally doing lots of things. The end of last year was awash with spending money and now I'm considering budgeting.

I'm thinking blog minded again, and need to flex the old muscles to get this engine operational.

This has to be a well oiled machine if it wants to keep going. So I'm swapping out the oil pressure spring, cracking in a new gland nut and washer, replacing the head gasket, taking the spark plugs to town for a wash, and airing the carpets from flood damage.

I'm also thinking about getting one of those flux capacitors? Time travel is inevitable.