The Online Ramblings of Elliot J. King

2010-12-28T11:03:00.002Z

At the moment i'm a sitten in bed with a laaaauuuury c looking for birthday gifts whilst she plays the sims on her shiny new macbook omnomnom

Christmas has been gooooood and I've got lots of tshirts and books and moneys to keep me going through the yeeeeeeeeee but now the problem is as i said i have to look for birthday gifts but i have noo idea what i want to get which makes the whole thing a lot harder.

At university recently i have finished my first project and started and almost completed my second, all that's left now is to hand it in and bob is my uncle and that doesn't have to be done until the 11th of january so all i have to do now is polish off my sketchbook and shoot the six images for my current christmas portrait project which is all goooooood.

at the moment laury is looking over at my screen every now and then with a disapproving eye at how much i have written as i keep dawdling and umming and aahing about what to say next i think she is very pretty teehee i cant wait till she sees this

one day me and laury are going to get a house together and be the happiest couple you ever did see it's going to be so goood teeheehee

i'm running out of ideas about things to say so i'm going to leeeve a looove a laaave a leaaave it for now but i promise i'll write more soon (sooner than october anyway)

2010-10-11T22:56:00.003+01:00

I am ricketly clunkity carrying on along at university college falmouth by now getting into the swing of things and loving not having to study anything else than photography, the first project being to engage with and study a certain area of falmouth and document it extensively. my group has opted for the beacon estate which is fairly new for me as I'll have to actually engage with people to get my photographs. but i'm looking forward to it as well.

at the moment i am also getting more into cooking and chefing it up in the kitchen cooking for myself my family and for laurums. today i cooked a chicken and cider stew which was delicious but small as i forgot to do the green beans.

laury and i have just celebrated our six months which i think was the happiest i have ever been in all my life. we went out for a posh meeaaal at bustophers and a drinky which ended with me crying like i do a lot because i am so in love

we also gave each other some pressies and i got an awesome mug the most awesome one i have ever seen which is in the shape of a lens with a lens cap and everything. i use it every day

i am learning to get to grips with early mornings and appreciate even more a lie in when they come by mmm mmmmmmmmm

2010-10-01T21:50:00.002+01:00

I have now started degree level education at falmouth university studying photography and am having to readjust to a schedule of early mornings and late evenings at the college so far loving a week of inductions and training on equipment i already know how to use and tutorials on concepts i already understand which is always fun. next week we will be working with a mad pinhole photographer on six month exposures which should be pretty fun yeeeeeeh bryn bran bryan

at the moment i am sitting on the bed and typing whilst laury plays tap tap revenge with some epic tapping skills. we are also steadily working our way through a bottle of southern comfort.

tomorrow we will be heading to plymouth so that i can spend my loan which should be fuuhnnnnn i am keen for some spending om nomnom nom teehee

i am keen for my course to get properly started already i have a whole bunch of films i want to develop and scan including my paris ones shot on my retinette and bronica which i am very excited to seeeeee

i am very happy at the moment i have a laury by my side and i loooveee her and because of her i looooove life i am happy happy happy when theres a laury around

2010-09-02T00:28:00.003+01:00

i'm a bloggen i love to blog

last week laury and i allezed au paris and spent the weekend in a francaiscstasy soaking up very second of the three glorious nights we spent there eating carbonara lasagne and the like.

we managed to tour all of the popular attractions such as the notre dame, eiffel tower, sacre couer etc and also fit in some luxury style souvenir shopping in the mega impressive lafayette and printemps looking at lots of things we could never afford.

the most exciting moment of the trip for me, though, was our ascension of the eiffel tower late on our last night, queuing alongside an american man named michael who chatted to us in the long, long line for the elevator.

i think the sight from the top of the tour was one of the most beautiful and impressive things i have laid eyes upon on in my life and i wish i could have stayed up there forever or flown away like a bird or something it was so deeply affecting.

now we're back in england back in my steamy hot bedroom sleepy weepy sleeping and planning to go to frankie and benny's tomorrow and maybe camp out in the garden if we feel up for a thrill. i've got a metal eiffel tower model on the cd rack next to me and when i look at it i think of the blissful moments we spent up there in the sky

i also bought myself an i heart paris tshirt to reflect to the world my inner feelings for the city of love whenever i please

now i'm going to bed i am a sleepen

2010-08-12T19:31:00.004+01:00

I have once again been instructed to blog by my gorgeous girlfriend whilst she works in order that when she returns home she will be able to log onto this blog as its one and only reader and soak up all the delicious literacy that has been coped out of my little head.

as of late we've developed a competitive and life enhancing addiction to trivial pursuit a la xbox 360

playing match after match with up to 4 player loving every minute of it, it's only a matter of time until we have just memorised all the answers and we'll have to buy some more or something i would genuinely put that much commitment into this game.

its only two weeks now until we are aller au paris dans la eurostar for our three night break which will be a real thrill, it is payday tomorrow and i need to make sure that i don't spend all my money and keep lots for spend-spend-spending whilst we're there, in terms of activities we've got queued up we're thinking of visiting the louvre, heading up to the top of the eiffel tower, going to an art museum that has been developed from what used to be a train station, aller au notre dame, arc du triomphe etc etc the usual touristy things i guess but ideally at a leisurely pace and from the ease of access of our inner city hotel. i think i am most looking forward to the eiffel tower itself but i've been told it's very high so i'm also a little scared but the good sort of scared you get when you know it'll really be a big thrill.

laura and i have also developed the perfect recipe for the most delicious chicken sandwich you could ever imagine, it goes as follows;

1 chicken breast

4 slices white bread

lettuce

mayonnaise

sweetcorn

cucumber

spread

serves two

slice the chicken into bitesize portions and fry in a little olive oil until browned.

lightly toast the bread to taste and butter. add mayo to one piece of bread and place the chicken on the other piece. finely slice the lettuce and cucumber (about five pieces) and place on top of the mayo. stack and slice sandwich and enjoy.

these sandwiches are truly fantastic and i honestly think that we could or should be opening a sandwich bar called chicken delite or lauriot delite or lauriot chicken or something

i have recently bought a camera that i had previously seen in falmouth for £60 on ebay for £17 and it's of the best cameras i've used it's so nice to shoot with and so well built, it's called a kodak retinette and it's from the 1960's according to camerapedia, i've put two films through it so far and though i'm yet to process them so i probably shouldn't be singing its praises it is so much fun to use.

at the moment both laura and i are also lusting after iphone 4's having seen them in various stores and marvelled at their shiny goodness i have spent a good hour of my life seeking out and entering competitions to win them and crossing my fingers.

another recent event that i've been reminded to mention is the presence of a rat in the yard. a few weeks ago dad apparently spotted a rat by the bins at the top of the stairs but was unable to catch it. a week or so goes by with no further sighting of said mammal until one day when it corners inca (one of our chihuahuas) in the yard and genuinely attacks her. ma screams and shouts and paps, luke and i spend a fraught morning trying to catch / kill rat. it eventually comes out of hiding and runs into paps' yard at which point he corners it and swiftly finishes it off with a swing of a broom, using speed and strength i could not imagine a man of his age to possess before bagging it up and placing it in its undignified coffin, the bin. suffice to say no further rats have materialised in the vicinity.

2010-07-31T13:03:00.003+01:00

i am excited keen thrilled indeed for my upcoming trip to paris with the beautiful laura c

we are leaving on the 26th of august for three nights and we got it for only £321 which seems like a good deal. it means getting up at like 5am on the 26th to get the bus to london but thats a sacrifice i'm willing to make. we're going to go up the eiffel tower and visit the louvre and its going to be so gooood i'm really excited.

right now we're sitting in laura's room having laptop club. laura has just finished a showtune session which was refreshing but now we're listening to the distillers because she's punk

i don't know what we're going to be doing today but i could kill a mcdonalds

its results day in like 20 days which is a scary thought im excited but scared at the same time

i love to blog laura love to sing

2010-07-13T23:36:00.002+01:00

this weekend i have had the joint privilege and misfortune of visiting the british grand prix at silverstone.

the trip has been organised for a long time now and i had almost managed to forget that i was attending, having paid the last of my £180 fee a long time ago to the college shop, a place now long forgotten in my mind since leaving college recently, signing out both in ink and in my mind this forgetting pretty much everything i have learned over the past two years. the venture began on a low note, with all those attending having to get up to the college to leave at 3.30am on saturday morning. I set my alarm for 2.47 thinking that this would be the latest possible time at which i could arise and still make it on time, trying to eke every last second of sleep out of the unnaturally short night. I've already worked eight long hours at sainsburys prior to heading to bed, the endless manual labor tiring my already exhausted and fatigued body to a point beyond that which i thought was possible. I manage to drop off at about 11pm and awake moaning and whinging and whining at the aforementioned hour, get my confused body a mug of coffee and a bowl of crunchy nut clusters and get in the car with dad for a lift up.

we sit in the cold in the college car park in the dark with five or six similarly dark cars until finally doog and jon arrive and everyone gets out and subsequently waves their parents or loved ones goodbye. liam tomlin arrives at this point, miserly and unwashed as ever, and we stand together and predict the weekend ahead as doog clambers out of his red fiesta and tries to figure out how to lock it.

the bus arrives around half an hour late, and having boarded we immediately run though a red light. liam and i look at each other and put our heads in our hands with a mixture of fear and regret.

the bus journey takes longer than i could ever have imagined and with more discomfort than i ever thought possible. In order to make matters considerably worse we also have to share the vehicle with a group of around 15 secondary school-age children from plymstock school, all with spiky spiny hair, pierced ears and loud voices. they proceed to shout and fight with each other all the way up to the racecourse leaving my sanity patience and temper in tatters on arrival.

we finally disembark the cursed vehicle at 11am and emerge into what can only be described as saharan, volcanic heat. i am wearing slim fit jeans at this point so there's no chance of a reprieve in rolling them up, and i have made the unwise decision of carrying my bag off the bus with me. the straps begin to chafe and rub on my shoulders after a few steps and i immediately regret my choice. Doog has previously realised that he has purchased child tickets suitable only for those aged 15 years or younger, but thankfully the staff on the gate let us in anyway and we stroll though and continue strolling bearing confused faces as we are denied entry to any form of seating across the course of one half of the racecourse. we contact doog and he tells us that our tickets do not permit us access to the luxury of a chair and we must instead sit in the dirt or remain standing. liam at this point begins voicing his regret on attending the trip and asking for his £180 back.

we eventually meet up with doog and jon and spend the afternoon watching the deafening qualifying races and porsche championships, both of which are entertaining and fairly spectacular in terms of speed. i begin to feel my neck burning in the 30 degree heat and relentless sunshine and so apply some of will pollard's factor 30 suncream to my neck. lunch, continuing from my healthy breakfast of a chicken and bacon sandwich, is a £4 sausage and chips, a £1.80 bottle of water and a £3.70 can of thatchers cider.

at the end of the day i board the bus and instantly see my error in not applying suncream more liberally (i.e plastering it all over my pale skinny body) as my arms turn beetroot red and i see in horror that my neck is literally glowing. the hotel we are staying in is an hour and half drive from silverstone itself and i swear to god it seemed like eternity and a day. we arrive at around half past 7pm and, having dropped off our stuff in the room, head over to frankie and benny's for a healthy tea of pizza. Liam and i bear the appearance of a gay couple as we take our seats at our table for two and order the same item, the "chicago grinder" folded pizza, which is remarkably delicious and blissfully filling.

we then head back to the hotel room and i soothe my burns in a cold shower for a good hour whilst liam watches road to perdition on the room's tv. we draft in a girl from the next room to open our window for us because our IQ is apparently too low for the task and stand sheepishly by the door as she opens it with a simple click. i fall unconscious on my bed at about half ten-11pm, by now missing the beautiful laura c so badly i could have cried or died.

we are awoken at ten to five the next morning to head down for breakfast, my body clock by now so confused that i immediately fall back into lethargy on leaving the bedsheets, have another cold shower to soothe the burns and climb into baggy jeans which i roll up to my knees to provide some kind of draught.

breakfast consists of toast, jam, frosties and an apple, my first portion of fruit or veg for 36 hours. we board the bus again and arrive at the track at around 8am. the heat is more bearable but i constantly apply will's suncream to my neck and arms as soon as the sun begins to shine. I also wear a cardigan around my neck for the entirety of the day in order to prevent further burning, much to the amusement of big jon and dirty dugan, who is by now swigging from a can of kronenberg and wearing a wifebeater.

the main race is thrilling and the first time that liam has stood up all weekend except when walking. I have a bacon cheeseburger for lunch along with some donuts, as the chips at about 10am weren't enough to satiate my hunger. I begin to hate fast food at this point, especially as the burger costs me £6 on the perverse silverstone economy, on which everything is three times the price you would expect it to be in the real world. we have a good view of the track but unforunately nothing hugely exciting happens up our end, but we still get our fix of thrills and board the nightmarish bus promptly again at 3pm. we set off on the endless journey back home, whining all the way, shouting and swearing and cursing the presence of the schoolkids, who are all by now shirtless and yelling and have pink colouring in their hair.

we arrive home at around half past ten and finally stretch our aching bones having only stopped once along the way to eat dinner, a healthy combination of cheeseburger and bacon, my second of the day. my stomach screams no as does my mind but choices were slim and i refused to indulge in a KFC on that day. I am finally reunited with my beaaaaaauuutiful girlfriend after what seems like a lifetime and we have the best hug ever, words can't describe the happiness as she came through the door and i could hear her voice again. we've spent the past two days in constant company of each other and have made amazing cupcakes which sadly i forgot to photography, but they were bright red and had thick blue icing and glitter on top so imagine a cupcake might look if it were baked by mermaids and you're pretty much there.

i am broke at the moment but it's payday on friday and my EMA bonus should be coming in soon so its all gooooooood. I've already bought myself my ipod which is a thrill and relief, i didn't realise how much i was missing having one until i had one again.

all in all i would rate the grand prix experience at around 6/10, entertaining but very stressful and hot and expensive. make sure you get a seat and pack suncream and jorts.

2010-07-05T20:48:00.004+01:00

i am chillllllling this summer chilling all my life with lauuura c at my side we're like a dynamic chilling duo cruising around in a honda jazz wind in our hair loving life and radio 1 (especially the ten minute takeover)

right now we're sitting surrounded by crumbs of awesome gingerbread men see above for lauras monsieur ginger. at the moment i am broke but next week is payday so i'll be briefly able to luxuriate in a fantasy of wealth until i spend it all again. this month i need to buy an ipod and pay myself back £150 into my big account amongst other things but i have worked my fingers to the bone so hopefully my paycheck should be gooooooooooood.

i have ordered a trio of shirts off threadless recently along with some vinyl (draft 7.30) and a moleskine. i'm most loving this one and the faces people in the street pull as they walk past trying to read it all.

tomorrow im gonna go and sign out of college once and for all after returning my textbooks and locker key and receiving my deposits back and promptly handing them over to my mother.

on saturday i am going to the british grand prix which is both very exciting and sad at the same time because im going to have leave lauuuuur behind sad face. i also have to go to falmouth tomorrow and pick up my phone charger off luke seeing as i left it at his house.

laura c is pretty i even like her stern face when i play my music

2010-06-26T22:57:00.002+01:00

i cannot stand to be away from laura

she's gone away at the moment and i can't cope

i can't take my mind off her

i would give anything and everything i have to hold her hand again now

i'm not ever going to let go of her again when she gets back

or ever stop kissing her

or be able to stop myself breaking down in tears

i miss laura

more than anything

and more than i could ever miss something again

2010-06-08T23:22:00.004+01:00

i can procrastinate whinge whine moan and complain all i like but i'll always eventually end up back here at elliotjking.blogspot.com typing away my days the clickity clack of the keys worsening a persistent headache and jarring with the silence of a small bedroom at half past eleven on a tuesday

at least now i have a mac that has some speed on it so the waiting time inbetween taking my seat and starting typing is blissfully reduced. on the flipside though i'm typing from the comfort of a double bed so the temptation to just collapse catatonic onto my side and awake bleary eyed at 4pm the next day is playing constantly on my mind as i hunch over the laptop my shoulders aching and my neck itching in a tshirt i hadn't work for a while and now remember why not. also the backlighting on this keyboard seems to have a tendency to creep up and up until i have QWERTYUIOP etched into my retinas and all i see when i close my eyes is flying lexis and vocab like something out of the matrix.

at the moment i'm literally spending every minute of my available free time with the most incredible and most beautiful girl in the world LAURA CAMPBELL the same girl that has got me back on the blog wagon tonight be it with or against my better judgement. i feel quite different with her than i've ever felt with anyone else and seeing as she's likely pretty much the only person that will read this i'd like to remind her how important she is to me and how much i'm in love with her. hi laura

tomorrow i think i'm going to have quite a lie in as i'm very tired tonight and then i'm going to listen to the xx (fuck all da haterz) and do some chemistry and english revision and subsequently eat a bigass pizza for lunch lml. yeah by the way i have a bunch of exams next week, english on the tuesday is the first one, unsure about this wuthering heights but i think i should be okay on all the others. i always end up worrying and fretting and panicking and sweating over chemistry at the last minute but then pull it out the bag somehow so i'm gonna do my oldskool write-up-all-the-years-notes-in-a-book technique again (and again and again) until i have it all tattooed on the inside of my forehead.

one more paragraph i think and then i'll sign off for now so i may as well touch on my photography at the moment, still keeping it real mostly snapping whilst on walks with laur, i don't even use my digital anymore apart from just around the house for ebay and such. whilst i'm out i near-exclusively use the bronica now, and typing this has reminded me that i still have a bunch of 35mm films left to develop from last summer which will be really exciting, i'll get them done soon and then in a couple of paychecks time i'll buy a film scanner and love life all day long yeaaaaaaaaaaaah

at the moment my music taste has balanced out somewhat encompassing a broad spectrum ranging from merzbow to kate nash. heavily played albums at the moment include the xx - xx, the boats - sleepy insect music, foals - total life forever, laura marling - alas i cannot swim, vampire weekend - contra, bjork - vespertine, autechre - oversteps, flying lotus - cosmogramma, and the nat king cole story, a compilation of nat king coles greatest songs.

being in love is the best thing ever i swear down

2010-05-27T20:56:00.002+01:00

this evening i've been out with the camera for the first time in aaaages. too long. walked from my house and ended up in kenywn chapel, walked around and through and out the back end of the churchyard before wandering into a field and laying down in the sun enjoying the silence. only took three shots but i swear down its worth it for the calm

at the moment i'm getting back into GAS like putting on konigsforst and just laying down and listening to my head opening up and the trees flooding in

at the moment i'm in love and i have never been happier in my whole entire life i have never felt quite like this and i can't quite describe it because it's so beautiful and delicate and just plain beaaaauuuuutiful

at the moment i've got a think for pizza and for garlic mayo mmm mmmmmmmm

i have four bottle tops in my pocket

2010-05-04T18:57:00.001+01:00

i THINK i love the workshop

2010-04-02T22:28:00.002+01:00

so glad to have broken up from college i need some rest

got my grade back from photography and am happy with it rolling on with exam work slowly but surely

i've moved on from bob dylan to badly drawn boy and nick drake and flying lotus and stars of the lid

i'm also getting into the velvet underground and j dilla and the smiths and american analog set

sorry i couldn't alliterate them this time

i am working nine hours tomorrow and i'm already tired

i sleep like a log at the moment

and when i wake up i really have to force myself out of bed

apparently i speak in my sleep these days

probably as i descend into insanity

last night i went to falmouth for the first time for aaaaaaages and then back to truro again shortly afterwards

last night i missed a gig for love and money

2010-03-28T21:00:00.002+01:00

all the days are blurred together at the moment and i'm just going from one week to the next until the holiday starts and i can catch up on a lifetime of lost sleep. i'm working all day every sunday it seems now and i'm hungry all the time. i attended my first acid bath last week to see luke vibert and loved every minute of it. since then though i've been getting sick of the sight of my own blood having crashed like a metal bird onto the pavement early in the morning,, i've made some new friends and i need some new clothes, so this month i'm going to spend my money on that and glossy black vinyls.

we're finally done with english coursework and graphics will wind up for a while this week which is a relief because i need to work on my photography,, the grades for the last project are coming in soon and i'm worrying about mine

at the moment i'm listening to a lot of bob dylan and bibio and biggie smalls and bmodest mouse

i had a driving test booked but its been delayed until next month

i literally can't wait for the lost finale in a few weeks

i have a tumblr now and its at elliotjking.tumblr.com and it gets updated more frequently and intimately than this

i'm eagerly awaiting new albums from flying lotus and foals in may

i'm eagerly awaiting a laptop soon

i could do with a hug and a kiss

2010-03-10T21:54:00.002Z

I have had a week and a half, i feel like i've died and come back again all in the space of about six days and now i'm back where i belong keeping on keeping on

2010-02-27T22:10:00.002Z

I'm literally living in a state of heightened emotion like someone on an expensive drug having had such an indescribably good friday. Will lowry and I roll to tr1 alongside emily and amy and spent the night and our money on spoons and vanilla living the dream.

3am we walk home, me laughing as a schoolgirl might just over the pure fervor and elation of the situation. Collapse into the house still quietly giggling and after gorgeous sleep spend my saturday catching up with Lost on the sofa eating cereal.

2010-02-22T21:11:00.002Z

2010-02-21T21:09:00.002Z

i've just had what I can say without irony was one of the best weeks of my life passing in a hazy fragrant brightly coloured warm blur days of complete and absolute ecstasy punctuated by little bits of sleep and big bits of coffee. now though I have to return to reality and sink back into my usual miasma of self deprecation and misery

2010-01-24T23:05:00.000Z

this morning i woke up and my skin smelled of someone else

2010-01-23T10:32:00.002Z

MY ACHEIVEMENTS ARE SLIPPING DOWNHILL
This week however i've spent a whole week attending university which has to be one and oh my god it's so good. Initially set a brief of portrait images and are ferried to st ives to take pictures of strangers which we then print in the darkroom. The place is like heaven I swear to god, you just do photography all day every day and they got every equipment you can imagine. in addition to that they've got sofas everywhere in the corridors, rooms etc. so you can just chill. ON the last day we hang an exhibition of everything we've done and nobody arrives so we get to drink all the wine ourselves and leave at 1.30. Big thrill all round. I'll probs post the stuff I did in the studio if i get my act together

2010-01-22T23:55:00.002Z

it finds me out
catches my eye
a golden wire

i'm not sure what to do with it

i have been shy
to almost have had
to clasp
the fingers i was given to touch with

sometimes i want to show it
but sometimes i want it to escape

2010-01-06T22:05:00.002Z

4th JAN: drink until you sleep on a college night
5th JAN: purchased a bunch of second hand books
6th JAN: attended college in the snow

ELLIOT J KINGS MMX ACHIEVEMENTS

2010-01-03T22:36:00.002Z

this year i'm going to achieve something every day. or at least every week.
it's going to be a thrill, a thrill documented here for all to wonder at.

1'st JAN: drank until I was ill
2nd JAN: finished prince of persia for xbox 360. yeah thats right
3rd JAN: stole 3d glasses from screening of avatar

late night shopping

2009-12-09T23:37:00.002Z

Thrill and highlight of the week for me at the moment is late night shopping. If my week was to be graphed, wednesday night from 6 until 10pm would be a thin but glorious peak whilst the rest of my time troughed into oblivion. Roll in at 6pm and meet a combination of any of phil, ben, will, liam, jake outside HMV and proceed to walk around the town without aim or constraint for four hours.

This week for example, I rock up to find philip, benjamin and william waiting for me and make my entrance, boxer-style, only to turn around and see the specral form of liam tomlin gliding towards us like the groke out of the moomins. After making conversation with a pair of girls, one of whom is a friend of phil's, one carrying a cello and the other a flute, we head into HMV and spend hard earned money on cheap and bad CDs. Liam complains loudly about the sorry state of affairs that is our lives and reminds me that I will be visiting Falmouth on sunday for luke's 18th and that, being the grinchy grouchy asshole that he is, he will not be drinking. Back outside of HMV the air smells of that smell that you only get on late night shopping, a mixture of onions and donuts and old fat and too many people. We head through the crowds to subway and spend further money on what can only be described as a loose sandwich. I leave disappointed. Classy as ever, we stand around a bin in a group as it begins to rain, until a police officer asks us, and I quote, why we are "standing in a group". We reply because it is raining and he moves off, apparently appeased. We stand in another alleyway under shelter as the rain gets heavier and heavier before finally pouring down like a miserable waterfall. Having bought drinks to sate the unique salty thirst only a subway can give, and the rain abated, you we wheel and deal through the crowds once more, aimless as ever. We run into the cello-and-flute clad duo outside GAME working through an energetic version of "come all ye faithful" for small change. They ask us to sing along but we just stand and hum and clap. After a quick visit to more shops, still yet to purchase any christmas presents for our respective families, Liam decides he will head home, biking out in the rain. The four of us that remain stand and watch a ramshackle jazzband set up whilst a man shakes a bucket of coins at us expecting a donation. We continue to stand and he shakes his head in disappointment. After a performance of rock around the christmas tree and joy to the world, we leave for the highlight of the evening, hot fresh donuts. We are joined once again by flute and cello who are also chasing the sugary donut dream before heading off for the night. We go for one more victory lap of the town as the shops begin to shut and finally head to the bus stop. Will makes his own way home, I leave phil and ben at the stop, run into a bailey, make stilted conversation with my peers and head home.

Sainsburys: Spagetti Rings and 8 Pork Sausages in Tomato Sauce

2009-11-03T22:41:00.006Z

No. No no no never again. On opening the first thing that sets alarm bells ringing is the thin transparent liquid floating on the surface of the beans. I close my eyes, pour the contents of the can into a jug and stir vigorously.

Sausages are present, and, as promised, there's eight of them. Eight textureless tasteless sausages. Mmmmmmmm. The fact that they know precisely how many sausages there's going to be in each can is disconcerting to me, it somehow makes the whole meal seem even more artifical than it already is. With Heinz Saucy Bangers, for instance, the number of sausages seems analogue. It's not stated on the can so there could be one or there could be five. It's all down to the luck of the draw. Here, though, we know from the outset that there's eight sausages to work through, eight horsemen of the apocolypse waiting inside the can. It's like being told the exact time and date that you're going to die. Maybe i'm exaggerating but either way you know you're in for a shock.

And a shock is exactly what you get, a shock to the system. The first thought as this hits your tastebuds is "oh my god, salt". I honestly think that there's more salt than spaghetti in here. I can only imagine that the people who made this must have tasted it, realised it was flavorless, googled "how make flavor", found that adding salt made things taste good, and poured in a good kilo of the stuff. The spaghetti's only redeeming feature is its texture, though this is offset somewhat by the watery sauce it's presented in. Sausages, as mentioned above, are forgettable.

The packaging just about sums up the contents. It looks like something thats been blasted from the bad end of the seventies to the present day. I mean, they didn't even try to make this look good, the cover shot looks like a pile of saturday morning puke with someones severed finger fermenting in it. "Serving Suggestion", proclaims the package, boldly. I've taken the liberty of mocking up my own serving suggestion, as below.

Though this isn't the worst thing I've ever eaten I wouldn't recommend it to anyone sane. Sausages may be frequent but they ain't good. Desperate times only.

aesthetics 1/5 - weak. out of date
gastronomy 2/5 - salty salt. would you like some salt on your salt
sausage frequency 4/5 - see above

Heinz: Big Saucy Bangers

2009-11-01T21:52:00.005Z

This is surely the ultimate in sausage and beans. Although heinz have taken a risk with straying from the traditional reconstituted pork sausage recipe the risk has certainly payed off big time. Due to this change in texture I'm not sure that this product can truly be included in the same category as other competitors - it may be in fact in a league all of its own.

On opening the can the first impression is that of a strange breed of fish floating in a briny red swamp, until one pours the contents into a jug. Only two or three sausages are featured but they are large and wholesome, as opposed to the often watery or textureless items found in conventional beans and sausages. The beans and their sauce are large and thick, and not too stong tasting - just the right balance between tomato and bean.

Heinz have clearly put a lot of effort into their bangers and beans, modelling the packaging after a mock newspaper article announcing the glory of these sausages. To summarise I would highly recommend heinz "Big saucy bangers" as in the upper echelon of beans and sausages. My only complaint is the small number of sausages provided, though their quality more than makes up for it.

Aesthetics 5/5 - good, colorful presentation
Gastronomy 5/5 - I almost genuinely enjoyed eating this crap
Sausage frequency 3/5 - room for improvement (and more sausages)

2009-11-01T21:50:00.002Z

Out of a lack of any other will I've decided to just repurpose this blog into a beans and sausages review site. Over the next few posts i'll be documenting and analysing the different brands of beans and sausages available today, including pros and cons, as well as controversial alternatives such as spaghetti and sausages.

2009-10-25T22:37:00.002Z

I have purchased a Zenza Bronica ecently, fulfilling one of my few dreams. Have only just been able to use the thing this weekend though, due to my ridiculous amount of overtime and college work.
Rocked to St. Ives today and came across a tame seagull perched on a wall, tame enough that it was permitting people to get literally face-to-beak with it. I walk up with the camera and hold my lightmeter next to the bird only to snap back and elicit a girlish shriek as the inquisitive bird snatches the meter out of my outstretched arm. I take it back, heart racing (as it's not even my meter, I've borrowed it off the college) and the gull looks at me as if to say "what did you expect". I take a few shots, taking care to keep a firm grip on the meter, and walk away. Will post here when I've dev'd and scanned.
Going to sleep before I enter a coma.

2009-10-12T23:30:00.002+01:00

I can only apologise for my lack and irregularity in posting as of late but I simply do not anymore have the drama required to sustain my flowery texts.
Tonight, however, I was snapped from a Wolfgang Voigt-induced trance to see my parents at the door speaking to a stranger who had apparently been standing there for some time. I head downstairs and am filled in via the conversation of my parents and our neighbor, also at the door, whilst the woman rambles on and on about needing to find No. 2. We eventually manage to persuade her to leave and she ambles into the road only to continue to stand, steadfast as a rock, for a further 20 minutes.

Eventually I assume the neighbor called the police, because they rocked up in a squad car and had a long, hard talk with the woman, still standing immovable in the same position. I look out the window again later and both woman and police had vanished, so I guess they either persuaded her to leave or carted her off to a cell.

At the moment I am doing very little work in any lecture and need to pick up my game before I come to the end of my courses still with empty books

2009-09-26T22:27:00.002+01:00

At the moment i'm spending my days working and the time off shooting and scanning, having borrowed the bronica for three consecutive weeks. Have had my memory stick stolen and subsequently purchased a 320gb hard drive to make up for it.
This week I got hold of illmatic by nas and fell in love. Have had it on near-repeat alongside slint's spiderland since wednesday. Am also currently rocking nat king cole which is just blissful.
Recently I've been running the whole produce department at sainsburys by myself, slowly elevated to the position of manager whilst all my colleagues take holidays. 8-5 on sundays brings a new definition to hard graft, I find.

2009-09-13T19:58:00.002+01:00

I've recieved Wolfgang Voigt's 4CD box set Nah und Fern, a collection of his work under the Gas moniker, and have been working my way through it this week. Thursday night was Gas, friday night was Zauberberg, last night was Konigsforst and tonight is Pop. I've fallen asleep before the start of the third track every night so far and I don't expect that to change today. The music is brilliant, washing waves of sound punctuated by that relentless kick, more like a heartbeat than anything else. think i'm in love

have returned to college as well progressing with the same old shit, have hired out the bronica over this weekend and shot three films two of which i'll dev tomorrow and the other was a transparency which I had to send away. Today I have worked from 8am until 5pm on fresh foods which was an experience and a half, and very chilly as I haven't been given a jacket. If I have to ever shift so much as a single yoghurt in the rest of my lifetime it will be one more too many.

11:11 : a brief review

2009-09-07T14:35:00.002+01:00

This album is god.
As good as I had hoped, if not better. The duo are still on top of their game and have apparently picked up a few new tricks in the intervening years since the previous album. 11:11 is dedicted to Rodrigo and Gabriela's most loved musicians and those which they find most inspirational; everyone from carlos santana to dimebag darrell, and as such each track has something of a twist from each of these artists interweaved within it. "Gimmick", I hear you scream, red faced, eyes popping. "Gimmick". And indeed this is what I thought at first, when I read the press release, but on listening it's become clear that these two really know how to make an album that just works. Buster Voodoo has its wah-wah pedal, Logos has some kind of violin-sounding thing, Atman has a goddamn electric solo.
Production remains as tight as on the previous effort, this time courtesy of rod y gab themselves instead of John Leckie. The stage is somewhat wider and the bass hits as the pair hammer away on their guitars perhaps more pronounced, though that may just be my speakers.
Good as it is, though, I'm not yet ready to say that it can topple their self-titled third work off its perch. This may change over time though and I'm sure i'll be able to report back after multiple listens.

On a side note I can recommend ordering from play.com, as I recieved a "limited edition" copy with DVD extras I wasn't expecting, including live tracks and a studio tour.

11:11

2009-08-31T20:57:00.004+01:00

I have placed a hasty preorder for not one but two copies of rodrigo y gabriela's new album, 11:11. one copy is for me, and one copy is for a friend of our family, simon stanton, the man I have to thank for introducing me to the band.
Two songs have been pre-released as a taster, and the second - "Buster Voodoo" - is, simply put, awesome. It starts off with the usual blazing rod-y-gab fare, but then something I could never have expected: one of them pulls out a wah-wah pedal and lets rip hendrix-style at breakneck speed. I'll no doubt post a review of this album once I recieve it, but for now I can honestly say that this is the most excited I have been about a release all year.

Lizard Point

2009-08-24T21:08:00.001+01:00

2009-08-23T12:19:00.001+01:00

Doomsday

2009-08-23T00:18:00.002+01:00

Recieved my results last Thursday. Woke up "early" (read: 9am) and boarded an 18 for the first time in a couple of months. Arrive, literally shaking with trepadation like a tiny child, and roll into Fal building with other greasy students, head to the table with my corresponding exam number on it and claim my dreaded brown envelope. Open it up to see I have achieved exactly what I wanted / expected: an A in English and photography and a B in graphics and chemistry. Am especially pleased with photography grade of 193/200 overall, including 80/80 on my exam. I am a photography nerd.
Yesterday I jailbroke my iPod and have since pimped it out to my heart's content. Will post a screenshot tomorrow for those who care about such things. I'm still waiting on the update to the frankly abysmal facebook app, roaring and gnashing my teeth every time I open the app store and am faced with the stony gaze of the "all apps are currently up to date" screen.
Soon approaching my 20kth play on last.fm which will be the biggest thrill I'll get all holiday

Clark - Body Riddle

2009-08-16T00:37:00.001+01:00

Just a quick note to remind everyone how sublime this album is. I mean seriously this is amazing stuff, I just listened to the whole thing through for the first time in a while and fell in love all over again

Music of the Moment

2009-08-15T15:33:00.002+01:00

Luke Vibert - Marvellous Music Machine

Bristol

2009-08-11T16:33:00.002+01:00

Recently visited the banksy exhibition that is currently on at Bristol museum, drove for three hours, queued for three hours, drove viewed for two hours, drove for three hours. All in all pretty awesome, thought the dilution of banksy against actual museum exhibits was a liiiiiiittle too weak.
Have managed to get the first of my recordings onto the PC and will post them here as soon as I can find a way to post an mp3.
Also of note at the moment is my work on my photography prep, for which I am currently writing essays on anything and everything that interests me.
Am currently waiting for the arrival of like viberts newest work, "we hear you", and today I bought rodrigo y gabriela's self-titled whilst picking up miles davis' "kind of blue" for the bargain basement price of 2.99.

2009-08-06T00:05:00.002+01:00

I have spent the last 48 hours in what can only be described as PC hell, my computer bouncing from bluescreen to bluescreen without either any prior warning or apparent reasoning. Have eventually got the sod running again after no less than three reformats of the hard drive. To top the trial off, iTunes today decided that it today was not going to install the drivers for my iPod properly, leaving the device in DFU- Limbo once connected. After an hour of frantic, fraught googling I manage to locate the correct section of windows' myriad device settings and, with a little prodding and pushing, convince the damned drivers to install. iPod syncs perfectly.
In other, happier news, my microphone has finally arrived and tonight I made my first recordings. Headed out aiming for the "underground" section of lemon street car park and sit silent on the floor forten minutes whilst the water crawls by and gulls wheel overhead.
After said ten minutes I head up top with the intention of simply getting the gulls as they fly shrieking overhead but, as I approach the uppermost door, I realise that the top surface of the car park is in fact the chosen roost for a fairly large flock. I open the door and crawl out at the pace of a slug, trying not to disturb the gulls as they chatter among each other and fight over the best spots, sneak my microphone out onto the floor and sit meditative for thirteen minutes as gulls shout at each other and the sky, the yelling punctuated by thuds as more birds land on the metal fence of the car park or drop onto the surface, bowling other sleeping gulls out of the way like some kind of cannonball. A security guard marches up top after around 14 minutes so I take this as my cue to leave. Things I have learned today include
-turn off my phone or else I get that rhythmic interference on the recording
-might want to bring something to sit on
-gulls are ace

Cinema Club.

2009-08-02T22:35:00.002+01:00

Gentlemen's Club never materialised due to adverse weather conditions and was replaced instead by a visit to cinema club the following day with Josh and Daisy. Recieved a text from an unknown number at 1pm asking me to roll into town, to which I oblige, keeping the sender of the text a thrill for myself by not asking their name until my arrival - revealing it is in fact none other than crazy Josh himself. We watch the proposal, which is a fairly entertaining comedy about a woman trying to get a visa and falling in love with her secretary.
Driving last week was more succesful than the prior lesson in that I actually manage to make turns and change gears as opposed to grinding along the road as if possessed by the devil.
This week I have spent a total of twenty four hours in Sainsburys, stacking shelves. I eagerly await my next pay packet on the 14th. Keeeeeeeeeeeeeen for cash, though I think I may save up the majority of it for a new camera. Perhaps. Or maybe i'll just blow it all on vinyl and alcohol, it could swing both ways really.
At the moment I'm listening to a lot of merzbow which can't be healthy, in preparation for the imminent arrival of my microphone and the beginning of my forays into sound art to accompany my photography. At the moment I have this fantasy of going and spending a whole day at roundwood quay with just my cameras and my microphone and my internal ecstasy.

Gentlemens Club

2009-07-27T23:51:00.003+01:00

Currently eagerly awaiting tomorrow's event in which myself, liam tomlin, Samuel Mackenzie and daisy woodall (and possibly Simon dunstan) will roll in syncronisation into Truro and drink the night away. Dress code will be smart casual and faces will be unshaven, with the obvious exception of daisy. Imagine, if you quite care to do so, a twisted, testing version of the mad hatter's tea party in which the tea is replaced with straight liquor, the table is replaced with a conglomeration of truro's bars and the cakes are replaced with one-stop, whilst the guests themselves are replaced with grimly underage alcoholics in desperate search of a thrill, so that the entire farcical situation now no longer resembles a tea party but instead is a dead ringer for a scene from some badly written sitcom - and you may well be approaching the course of tomorrow night. No doubt as our bodies alcohol content approach critical mass someone will end up dead, ideally myself, and the other three or four youths will be detained indefinitely in Truro police station

Holidays.

2009-07-25T23:13:00.002+01:00

I am now three or four weeks into my holiday and I am yet to have another driving lesson due to an increasingly farcical state of events including my own contraction of swine flu (now past) and my instructor's apparently regular bouts of illness. I'm talking regular as in, like, train regular.
At the moment I am spending most evenings shooting out-of-date colour film around Truro. I'm up to seven or eight rolls and have only had one developed as of yet, after my next payday I intend to go on some kind of perverted binge and get the whole lot churned out in one day or something stupid.
I've ordered a microphone to go with my minidisc recorder as well, so you can soon expect this blog to be flooded with the sounds of Truro and it's surroundings.
Here's a nice story from my existence recently: my first payday rolled by, headed to town, check balance, realise only £130 has gone in. I was owed £250, so the glum eyes of the one-three-oh staring back at me cause a fair amount of stress. On arrival at work later that day I speak to the lady in charge of cash and she realises that they have paid me 15 hours short and also taxed me £33 on my £165 wages. I elicit a noise similar to a rodent being gently pressured and ask why. The woman hands me a "student declaration form" and promises I will recieve all the money with my next paycheck. I smile politely and leave the office.

2009-07-25T22:49:00.000+01:00

2009-07-21T16:10:00.001+01:00

I decided I would treat myself having been paid and bought some HD555s to replace my now-broken HD201s. The step up is fantastic and I've essentially only taken them off to shower since they were delivered

nine inch nails

2009-07-16T21:15:00.002+01:00

After months of waiting and sleepless nights and hours of nin on repeat, yesterday I finally boarded the 0729 train from Truro to London Paddington alongside Callum O'keefe. Train journey is relatively uneventful, though boring. We sit opposite a business-looking man with an iPhone.
Arrive in London late, at about 12.30, and wander aimlessly for several hours. We purchase unlimited tickets at £5.60 and head to oxford street followed by Leicester square, up regent street, and back to oxford street again. I spend £30 on vinyl in HMV and come away with two godspeed you back emperor LPs and the White Stripes' icky thump.
Head to the concert at just after 5pm having eaten a greasy mcdonalds on oxford street. Arrive, see a queue and think to ourselves, must suck to be in that queue, we have presale tickets. Then we realise the queue is for the presale tickets. I elicit a loud "you have to be fucking joking" and roll to the back of the queue.
Three quarters of an hour later we recieve our tickets and head indoors. We head round to entrance H and resume queueing. The doors open at 18.30 and after a mass exodus around 15000 people have taken their seats in the cavernous arena.
The opening act is Mew, a danish band, whose sound is so poorly orchestrated the guitarist shrieks and squalls like a merzbow record. They leave the stage after four or five songs and are replaced, after a short interlude, by Jane's Addiction.
They put on an impressive show, with vocalist Perry Farrell clad in what appeared to be black latex trousers and howling like a wolf. The bassist (eric avery) is godlike and the crowd shriek like girls as he roars away machine-like.
Soon though it is all over and JA leave the stage after an acoustic encore featuring a steel drum.
We wait impatiently for nin to start as the roadies check the equipment again and again, time ticks by and suddenly Trent Reznor takes the stage and starts singing "now i'm nothing", the opener previously exclusive to the 1991 lollapalooza festival. The house lights drop as the band rip into "terrible lie", the crowd by this time whooping and salivating like wild animals. Trent spend the show throwing shit at the crowd, across the stage, at other band members; by the end of terrible lie his guitar is hurled offstage and the mic-stand kicked into the press-pit as stage hands feverishly try to retrieve the detritus.
The band work their way through a number of their older material and obscure covers - including Bowie's "I'm afraid of Americans" - and also touch on their more recent output with the deafening 1,000,000 and the stomping survivalism. Highlight of the evening is undoubtedly march of the pigs, where the band cut out leaving just the crowd and trent singing in some evil unison before the man stops and stands centrestage, eyes shut, dripping sweat, arms stretched out wide whilst the front row bay like dogs.
Callum and I have to pack it up early in order to board the 2345 train back, and we only just make it even then. The journey is nightmarishly uncomfortable and the train takes an unbearable seven hours to crawl across the country. My ears ring and my back and legs ache.
Get home at 7 and sleep from nine til' three. Head to work at 5 after an omelette, get in at 9 and collapse in front of TV.

2009-07-10T22:07:00.002+01:00

Weds

2009-07-09T00:48:00.002+01:00

Awake to the sound of the phone ringing and, in my 10am sleep-haze, simply lay back and let it ring out. Get up, call back, take mothers sewing machine to Bosvigo, head home, sit eating rice crispies. Got dressed at some point in that sequence as well.
Head to town later in the day to check the whereabouts of my EMA bonus and run into none other than the glamorous Miriam Carter who has spent the day jobseeking, without success. I head to the bank, check my balance, quietly celebrate as the machine confirms my £100 has rolled in, and subsequebntly head back and stand with Miriam at her bus stop until the 85 rocks into town. We discuss job prospects and my state of affairs at sainsburys as well as the everpresent pain that is driving.
Head home again. Spend the remainder of the afternoon in a haze sitting in front of daytime television and intermittently mustering the strength to head outside minolta in hand.

Driving.

2009-07-06T22:13:00.004+01:00

First driving lesson today, step outside my house into the waiting corsa with much trepedation and am driven to the ominously named, and I quote, "dangerous crossing" by my instructor, Barry Neville.
I take the drivers seat, white knuckled, and Barry has me progress down the lane and subsequently onto a B road towards blackwater before pulling into a layby. Learning curve is steep. I have a bad habit of horrible understeering. The experience is thrilling overall though, and I look forward to actually being able to drive, even though I will be unable to purchase, tax or insure any road-worthy vehicle.
Spend the remainder of the day wandering Truro, minolta SLR in hand. Steadily working my way through the box of outdated film purchased on ebay a week or so ago.

Running on Empty.

2009-07-01T20:35:00.003+01:00

Head to college in a daze having spent the night literally laying on the streets of Falmouth in a pool of unspeakable liquids. Roll onto the bus in a fog of my own stink and subsequently home - still pursued by the vengeful mist - and then after a kiwi fruit, straight back up again to chemistry. Spend the entire hour-twenty lecture with my head on the desk and progress in the same manner through english with alice, note that I am not capitalising her name in context, she has not yet earned such a right.
On a related note I have started a habit of pleading and whinging whenever I encounter Andrew Dodd in the corridor in hope of being readmitted to his classes and airlifted out of the purgatory that is alice.
Pick up a copy of Androcles and the lion from the "FREE BOOKS" sale in college judging it purely on it's penguin paperback cover.
I've purchased a minidisc recorder the other day off ebay for £10 and I'm going to use it to create field recordings to go with my photography, phonography if you will. I have it all planned out, its going to be amazing, I'm going to go out and record places that go with pictures. it'll go

the world > minidisc > computer > cd > cassette

and then the cassettes'll be framed or something alongside the images, I see it in my head like a grid of images above the cassette which is hung on hooks by the holes in the middle of it. I can't wait it's going to be so good, but first I need to buy a microphone, there's an ECM 909A on ebay right now that I'll bid on and lose, thus forcing me to go for the more recent ECM ms907.

2009-06-20T17:04:00.001+01:00

Big Thurs

2009-06-18T21:30:00.002+01:00

Roll in on bus alone as Raz is attending the doctors. Bike into graphics and let Doug know the extent of my cluelessness in relation to the year ahead of me, keeping a blank face as he sighs and groans like a homeless person being dragged to a cell. Spend the rest of the lesson playing lemonade tycoon and not thinking about A2.
Next up is an hour-twenty slog with Jan Mably. Steadily scrape through it, discussing villains in Shakespeare. Watch the clock for the last half hour of the lesson. The attendance in the group is getting lower and lower day by day, I stick by my judgement that our group should have remained as-is. Jan also has now taken the place of Hilary as my tutor, and throughout the hour following the english lesson we sign up for our UCAS entries on the internet. The computers are astoundingly slow and I begin to boil as my free time ticks away.
Eventually escape the stifling computer room, only to run into none other than Josh Conibear himself. Walk to Mylor, Josh shouting abuse at year tens all the way, and then all the way back to Helford once again. I stroll into Josh's tutor under his instruction and acquaint myself with the other members of the group. Andy soon walks in to begin his tutorial session, spots me and proclaims that I am "haunting him", to which I reply "like a vengeful spectre". He concurs, and I leave, waving to the bemused-looking members of the tutor group.
Spend my lunch hour walking back and forth across the campus alongside Ben Oates and Co. until I collapse like a falling tree through the doors of Kenwyn to photography. Am forced to take the long way round due to a blockade of year tens in the bottom corridor.
Spend the lesson in Mylor darkroom with Emily/Amber/Laura/Lauren and attempt to print from my studio negatives. Manage to get a near-decent print, but fail to fix for long enough in the aged chemicals. Place print back in the fix and watch in horror as the previously-small purple spot spreads in a second and the entire sheet turns black.
Head to chemistry. We calculate the yield and test the purity of our samples of aspirin. My overweighed product has an obtuse yield of 87% and is horribly impure.
Head home on crowded bus, studio negatives pressed in graphics textbook in an attempt to keep them in mint condition.
Spend evening listening to Beck.

2009-06-16T15:34:00.000+01:00

Studio.

2009-06-15T22:23:00.005+01:00

Rise at 9.30 and head into college at 10.20, leaving again within the hour as I realise graphics is once again cancelled. Wait at the bus stop for the best part of half an hour and arrive home at 11.45. I sit and watch Jan Švankmajer's "Faust" whilst eating my lunch and thoroughly enjoy it. The film is so surreal it's like watching a perfect screen-adaption of a faintly nonsensical dream, but there's also several deeper, more philosophical moments in which the eponymous theologian discusses the nature of hell and emotions with the devil mephistopheles. The highlights, though, are undoubtedly the totally surreal scenes devised by Švankmajer, including a homeless man clutching a human foot being pursued by a hungry dog and a short ballet acted out in a field.

Return to college at 2pm and spend my hour of chemistry repeating the aspirin experiment we performed on Friday. Head to photography. Spend the hour in the studio with Laura, Lauren and Yo, steadily working our way through the film. I literally dread to think what the photos will look like, but whichever way they swing I'll be posting them here once processed and scanned.
Spend the evening on photography, feeding my latest obsession, clouds. Clouds are brilliant. I'm talking about the kind of clouds you get when rain is brewing, right the way up in the sky, they're like three times the size of Truro and just hang there like sculptures.
Tomorrow I'll post some of my recent cloud images so that everyone can share in my infatuation.

Clouds

Elliot's Music of the Week

2009-06-14T22:38:00.002+01:00

Seasick Steve - Chiggers

Chantek.

2009-06-10T21:46:00.002+01:00

Strolled into town this evening for a meal at my most favourite restaurant of all time, Chantek, in celebration of my grandfather's birthday.
I have chicken satay for my starter which is amazing, it comes on skewers with a duo of coconut and peanut sauces and I could easily have sat there all night and gorged on it until I passed out from sheer ecstacy.
For my main I had stir fried duck with ginger and rice. The duck was fantastic and for a special treat the chef had hidden chilli seeds at the bottom of the sauce which I unwittingly scooped up and ate, causing me to elicit a girlish shriek and dab at my watering eyes.
This evening I have downloaded beneboi's back catalogue it's ace ace ace all the way home.

Other highlights of today include writing the aforeposted transcript in English and creating carcinogenic substances in chemistry.

today's english lesson

2009-06-10T16:27:00.014+01:00

Sharon sprints away

Johnny: YOU'VE GOT UNTIL MIDNIGHT SHARON

cut to Sharon's flat. enter Ruby
Sharon is packing frantically
                                                                       /
Ruby: what (.) what's going on Sharon

Sharon: we're (.) we're leaving (1) Me and Dennis (1) Johnny's gone

Ruby:                                                                                 [interrupts] you've

been to see him (.) you stupid woman

Ruby tries to unpack Sharon's suitcase

Ruby: I won't let him near you

Sharon collapses in tears. exit Ruby
Ruby travels to Johnny's office
Johnny looks up from a stiff drink
                      /    \                                       /
Johnny: *Sharon sent you (.) did she*
                                                                \
Ruby: (1) as a matter of fact (.) no (.) she didn't, I

Johnny [interrupting] shoots Ruby and turns the gun on himself
Eastenders theme plays

Sunday.

2009-06-07T19:20:00.003+01:00

After a hard night in falmouth I board the 9.07 88 back to Truro with Tom Jebbett and subsequently waste an hour waiting with him like a civil partner until his bus arrives.
Head home, eat, drink coffee; head out one again within the hour, dragged out by my family to none other than the Mabe car boot sale. A turnup for the books, though, is my finding of a set of half-decent speakers including subwoofer for only £4.50. After deliberating over the situation like a child choosing a pastry for several minutes, I rush back and gladly take them off the seller's hands.
Follow up the visit to the car boot with a 3 mile walk. See a dying bee along the way, which is melancholy, but take advantage of the photogenic situation he'd placed himself in (see below).

Also buy a Roskillys raspberry and yoghurt ice cream, and oh-ho-ho sweet lordy jesus I swear to all heaven above it's the nicest thing I have ever eaten. I can see myself now spending like £50 on a tub of it from Sainsburys. Relevantly, I also fill out my contractfor my newly-acquired sainsburys job in preparation for my induction on June 22nd.

2009-06-05T16:12:00.001+01:00

Big 5-0

2009-06-02T22:37:00.002+01:00

I am happy and surprised to proclaim that this is my 500th post on this blog. It's been a long, hard slog to get here, but this is the greatest achievement I've had in a long time, so I'm dearly tempted to scale the nearest multi-storey car park and scream at the top of my lungs "I'm on top of the world, Ma" like James Cagney in White Heat.
Spent last night in Falmouth, accompanying Luke on the long and rocky road of history revision.
Board the bus at 8.01 and roll into Truro. The 988 takes me straight to the bowels of the college itself, meaning I have to then turn 180 degrees and Immediately board an 18 lurching in to Truro. Do so, and revel in the empty house for a few hours until Luke arrives, fresh from the exam, and we stroll to Tescos in search of lunch.
I spent my afternoon furthering my revision for tomorrow's chemistry exam as Luke gets the 88 home once again.
I am eventually overcome with a feeling of sheer resignment to my grade, whatever it may be, and end the night with a mood akin to a man making a pact with lucifer.

2009-05-31T23:39:00.000+01:00

2009-05-27T16:37:00.002+01:00

Monday is spent in a leisurely fashion, arriving back from Falmouth and heading to Tehidy woods, which is full of flowers, see photos above.

Spend Tuesday again in the company of monsieur Otley. Sleep at Falmouth on a hard floor with no less than five other greasy boys. Walking dead.

Music of the Week -

2009-05-23T23:42:00.004+01:00

Pierre Henry - "Psyche Rock"

Rollover

2009-05-23T23:19:00.002+01:00

Friday
Awake late - to the tune of 11am - and drink pints of coffee. Eat.
Enter town later in the day in order to get holga film processed. Run into Wesley, head back to mine and lounge around for the hour whilst the film is developed. Stride back to town, Wesley boards the bus home, I pick up my film and follow it up with a visit to HMV. Nearly purchase Beck - Odelay special edition but err on the side of restraint and save my money for later days. Head home. Find that payment for my delivery of leaflets on Thursday has arrived, £12 for an hour of local postal service.

Saturday
Rise early, take walk with intention of photography, stumble across Truro car boot sale, browse, purchase an LP box for 50p, disappointing the seller who was under the impression I wanted to buy his whole box of bowie and Pogues cassettes, only to have me look in horror and explain, glum-faced, that I only want the box itself. He sighs, empties the cassettes into a duffel bag, and hands me the box.
Walk home.
Head back to town and buy two zip-throughs and a pasty.
Home once again only to leave yet again within minutes, this time in the car, driving to Nare Head in order to introduce Philip to the Royal Observer Corps post there, of which he was a part before it was disbanded in 1991. He explains that there is actually a nuclear bunker present underneath the locked hatch on the hill, situated some 20 feet underground and only accessible by use of a laddered shaft, created in order to provide an early warning system and for calculating the damage of fallout in the event of a nuclear attack on Britain during the cold war. Apparently four Observers would live in the bunkers at a time (during training, as obviously there was never any fallout over Britain) with enough rations for six months down there. I immediately want to see inside but am disappointed to find no less than four massive padlocks holding the thing shut. Drive home.
Spend evening sitting mindless in front of television.

Westminster Bridge.

2009-05-21T21:06:00.002+01:00

English exam went smoother than expected. Having queued outside the hall for around half an hour in a group of twitching, yelping students we file in and take our seats. I open the paper and see to my glee that the one poem I can actually confidently write about has been selected. Work my way through the four-page essay before moving on to the novels. Write a further four pages on "parent-child relationships". File out and board a bus to Truro with Luke.
Purchase a Subway to celebrate the temporary exam hiatus (I am free of them until chemistry on June 3rd) and subsequently roll back to mine. Sit static w/ orange juice until 5pm, at which point Luke boards a bus home. I eat avec la famille and then head to the train station in the hope of getting the 88 to Falmouth.
Round the corner at the end of the road only to see the 88 trundling past me in the other direction. Sprint across town, beating the vehicle to the bus station, board, sit at the back.
Arrive in Falmouth at half seven. Sit on the floor of a near-empty room until midnight at which point we head to the dirty kebab shop. Special burger goes down like a brick.
Head home. Watch X-Men. Sleep.
Awake at 10.52 and get the 11.44 bus home after crumpets. Walk through the sunny streets, eat a cheese & onion pasty.
Home again and spend the afternoon resting. Resting as an old person may do. This evening I have been to town with my holga and taken photos of colours, if they're nice I'll post them here.

E-day.

2009-05-19T20:45:00.006+01:00

English revision reaches fever pitch as the exam approaches; now less than 12 hours until I will be stepping through the ~~pearly gates~~ doors of the sports hall, taking my seat and churning out two wrist-blistering essays, both of them most likely unfinished. Having sat and subsequently neglected to pass my graphics exam this morning, I have spent the remainder of the day frantically copying out reams of notes. Also attended a revision session alongside Tom Ford and Charlotte in which Hilary gave the three of us much-needed contextual information on her hateful brew of poems. Afternoon consisted of the creation of several mind-maps all linked up with strings of quotes and the organisation of poets alongside context notes. All in all; a rollercoaster.

On the subject of English, here's an amusing article on something that I find massively annoying.

Elliot's Music of the Week

2009-05-17T21:10:00.003+01:00

"Analog Generique"
Luke Vibert & Jean-Jacques Perrey

Tuesday.

2009-05-12T21:22:00.002+01:00

Tuesday is a happy day now that photography is off the timetable. Awake at 10am, complete essay for Andy and board the 12:01 88 to college. Roll straight to english and slam the completed essay down proudly on Andy's desk. He marks it on the spot and awards me an A- which I personally feel is pretty darn good seeing as how I had failed to so much as touch on the Kelly Gang.

Next up is my lunch-hour which I spent in the Terrace whilst Jake entertains himself on iCopter and Bloons. I eat a tortilla wrap.

Doug releases us after about twenty minutes of graphics and I board the bus home with James K and a member of his band. Get off in town and wander into HMV to see if they have stocked Wisp yet, which they haven't. Stroll home.

Take this as my evening off from the tides of work set by chemistry and listen to Aphex Twin & Hecker's set from Warp20 on Saturday just gone. Available here.

Gloomy Monday.

2009-05-11T22:16:00.002+01:00

Head in late - boarding an 85A, not a bus I've been on before - and sit squinting in the sun until graphics starts. Dough gives us a talk on printing processes.
Remainder of the day is pretty uneventful. English with Hilary is brief and I am given the miserable news that our group has been splintered for the A2 classes and I don't know anyone I'm with apart maybe from Rob.
Chemistry is the usual drag. I got a B on the mock exam.
Head home aboard the 14 and spend evening frantically trying to organise self; I have been offered a job at Sainsburys, and they need my birth certificate and NI card as proof of identity; the very same documents I have just yesterday posted off to the DVLA, as proof of identity. Now waiting on a fresh copy of my birth certificate in the post, praying it arrives before Friday.
This evening I've started an essay on childhood experiences in In Cold Blood and the True History of the Kelly Gang. Will finish them tomorow morning.
Also delivered another batch of leaflets for money. Invigorating and tiring all at once. The paths in Stratton Terrace seriously take liberties with my patience, they're literally like 50m long.

Sabbath.

2009-05-10T21:24:00.006+01:00

Awake in chilly room at 8am. Play Super Smah Bros. long into the morning and board a bus at 1107, jam sandwich in hand. Sit with my head in my hands for the bus journey like a miser.
Arrive in town and shamble home, on the way receiving a phone call telling me that my father has cut through his hand with a hedge strimmer.

Sit alone in the house for a further three hours, eating soup, until parents arrive back from casualty. Dad has his fingers bandaged up like some kind of mockery of a boxer but fortunately his digits remain intact.

Spent afternoon indulging in pints of water and cheesy chips whilst watching Ashes to Ashes. My ankle is sore, which is a really nice touch. Place a pre-order for Sunn's latest opus, "Monoliths & Dimensions. Await it eagerly. Download one of the strangest applications for my iPod yet, "Mokugyo (with cat)".
The application consists of "free play mode" and "with cat mode", the latter of which I will come to later. Apparently the titular Mokugyo is a percussive wooden gong, or as the application authors state:

"Mokugyo is traditional goods in japan
The sound is very Oriental, mysterious.
You will surely relax."

Personally I'm not 100% convinced by the imperitivity placed on the last sentence, making it seem a threat; relax, or be relaxed. Ominously, the program also carries the warning "CreatEra cannot assume any responsibility to the damage caused by the use of this application. Please use the application after it understands". As a first time user I'm left half expecting my touch to detonate in my hand.

"Free Play" mode consists of two instruments, the right hand one presumably the eponymous Mokugyo and the left, some kind of mounted dish. The former creates a hollow chime when touched, not unlike the sound one would get when tapping a fork against a plastic bowl. The dish, emits a strange ringing when prodded, and the background this charade is being performed against shifts between various "beautiful scenery in japan".

The main attraction offered here, though, is not the beautiful scenery of japan, it's the second half of this application's title, the intriguing (with cat) suffix. I'm not sure what I was expecting here, but this certainly isn't it. The right-hand instrument now not only emits its hollow clunk, it also cycles the background through - and I quote - "photograph of a lovely cat". "Cat", in the singular form is not entirely accurate, as there are in fact two featured cats; a white one and a black one, as indicated above.

The mounted dish now takes on a much more exciting function; eliciting a "meow" sound effect and cycling through a series of confusingly captioned images of the aforementioned cats, as opposed to the more standard, non-captioned images offered by the Mokugyo. Minus "With Cat Mode", this could have been a weak application indeed, perhaps even a waste of time; but the inclusion of said mode has turned my whole concept of Mokugyos on its head. 5/5

Closer

2009-05-08T22:01:00.003+01:00

Take advantage of my late morning at the excuse of needing to, as we are waiting for a phone call from a PC World PC engineer, who is scheduled to arrive and mend my ill machine.
Recieve the call at 9am, bleary eyed. Man says he will be in at 1pm. This is good, as father can be in on lunch-break to open the door.
Leave the house and roll to the bus. Board and sit with Lousie + Tamsyn + Rachel, who have spent a chilly first lecture in town.
Sit out the wait until my chemistry mock with Callum & Co. outside Mylor. Said mock can only be described as dire; mournful even. Fail to complete a seven-mark question.
Head to academy follow-up and discuss feminism. Brendan has some drastic ideas involving cooking, cleaning, which the lecturer frowns upon whilst we giggle like schoolgirls. I purchase an early sandwich during the lecture in preparation for Revision With Andy at 1.15. The majority of the class arrive, including three people not even in our class. I purchase a coffee but accidentally get a "black with no sugar" when in fact I was hankering for a "white with sugar". Hand the former to Josh and plough a further 60p into the machine.
Sit in the class eating my ham & cheese sandwich and drinking my white w/ sugar. Sit next to a girl called Kirsty who complains about how Alice is "a shit lecturer"; funnily enough, the very same lecturer lined up for me next year.
Andy forces us full of quotes and notes faster than we can even write, and the room soon descends into something resembling a circus act. By 1.45 Andy is hysterical with what can surely only be fear, fear for his unable class and their impeding exam.
Spend 5th with Mears & Louise.
Doug releases us from graphics, the end to the day, after about half an hour, having given us a list of ephemera titled "WHAT I NEED TO KNOW".
Board the bus home with Hugo.
Run into Luke and ben on Chapel hill. Hugo meets the latter with a frosty reception and after a stilted transaction we march ever-on. Hugo heads to Ryan's for a greasy, sweaty night as I stroll into town in search of DVDs. Find some in Smiths and spend an hour or so catching up on photo backups with my newly repaired CD drive.

Monday.

2009-05-05T22:05:00.002+01:00

Awake at 9am, roll over, fall asleep for another 40 minutes.
Get up and shower. Eat breakfast, finish essay on Death for English with Andy. An appropriate subject, I feel, considering the time before exam row is tick-tick-ticking away.
Sit through a test on plastics in graphics.
Head into town after college and stumble across farm at a bus stop. Halt for a brief chat and then roll on home as she boards the bus to Perranporth.
Spend evening revising chemistry with what can accurately be described as a glum look on my face.

Sats.

2009-05-03T20:33:00.003+01:00

Awake on the floor - as so often I find these days in my miserable existence - of an icy room. Luke and I prepare to leave whilst Liam maintains his comatose situation on the only bed. Luke needs to board a train to plymouth at 10.30, in order to view a bike he is considering the purchase of.

10am comes and goes. Liam is yet to rise from the bed. Luke and I go to step through the door, and an unwashed, skeletal form comes tumbling down the set of stairs clad in rags and oil.

Arrive at the station only to find that the train is in fact leaving at 1115. Spend several minutes staring at a girl, who subsequently approaches the shell of Liam in hope of train-help. Liam grunts, scratches himself and points at the platform. The girl leaves unimpressed and we sit on our platform for the 45 minute wait.

Board the train, and discuss the nature of the bike-seller. Is he a woman killer? Is he a rapist? Is he a lady-boy? Only time will tell. Luke recieves increasingly irate texts from said bike-seller ("Nick") as the journey progresses. On arrival in Plymouth, Luke gets into the stranger's car whilst Liam and I trudge into town in search of food and paint, for the chip caused to Liam's recently acquired motorcycle by Luke's careless tossing of a set of keys. Find what seems to be an appropriate colour in Halfords Metro ("Peugeout indigo blue") and, after buying a subway and re-meeting Luke, make the purchase. Spend a further hour or so pounding the streets and then sit back at the train station awaiting the departure of the vehicle.

Ten minutes later three greasy boys are standing in a line inches from the door of a train, salivating and staring at a table beyond, desperate not to be confined to the two-one seating plan offered by the miserable standard chairs. The aforementioned greasy twats stand in said line for a further forty minutes until the doors open and they charge through like animals released from a zoo.

Take up our seats at the glorious table - forcing several teenage girls to sit on the cabin floor - and spend the journey playing music and throwing litter at each other.

Spend the evening eating ice cream and watching X-Men 2. Sleep on the hard floor.
I board the 18B the next morning, having literally stood in the road in front of it to prevent it passing me, and return home for a day of dirty chemistry revision.

Death Warmed Up.

2009-05-02T00:41:00.002+01:00

Have spent the evening at Liams nightmare abode. Found a bottle with a handwritten label of "100% Proof - Raki" scrawled on it. Spend nearly ten minutes trying to open it. Finally do so and add water. AT THE VERY LEAST I DIDN'T TAKE A CHIP OUT OF LIAMS MOTORCYCLE LIKE LUKE DID

Apple.

2009-04-28T22:17:00.003+01:00

Take Josh's iPod home with me for the day in order to lend him my music collection so that he has something to work his way through. Something, in this case, being gigabyte after gigabyte of ~~beats and nasty breaks~~ shit music. I also take the liberty of copying its contents off and allowing itunes to grind away for an hour as it translates the songs from the strange format iPods seem to carry them in. Arrive back an hour later and listen to Mezzanine by Massive Attack on repeat.

Tuesday is a Lazy Day for me now that photography is off the timetable, and I don't have to step foot through the pearly gates of *truro college until 12:15, at which time I have the ever-thrilling hour of English with Andy. On arrival, I lay my unfinished essay down in front of him in a manner similar to that which I imagine a priest would handle a holy book and silently retake my seat. he looks at the paragraph in disgust and then at me with what can only be truly and indeed accurately described as despair.

Spend graphics with Hugo muttering "avian flu" to each other whilst Zoe tries to lecture us on the advantages and disadvantages of thermoplastics.
Board the bus home and drop like a stone into the wooden casket of a seat alongside Hugo, and, controversially, James K.

As mentioned above, spend the evening working my way through iPods as well as writing a single miserable page of graphics.

*my shift key isn't working properly and to be honest i'm beyond help

Drukqs.

2009-04-28T11:04:00.003+01:00

A few months ago I misplaced my copy of Aphex Twin's Drukqs on CD and, having been unable to locate it, I purchased a new copy last week. As Sod's Law dictates, though, I have now found the original copy caught in a mountain of old chemistry notes in the bottom of my wardrobe.
The matter of the fact is that now I have two copies of Drukqs and I only reaaally need one. SO if anybody wants to buy one off me for the discount, recession-busting price of just £2, email me at elliotjohnking at googlemail dot com.

edit: sold to the lowest bidder, luke otley

Music of the Week.

2009-04-27T22:37:00.005+01:00

BJORK - WANDERLUST

I just can't settle on a format for these posts but I think this one is pretty hot. Note gratuitous and callous use of the word "hot"

Swines.

2009-04-27T22:28:00.004+01:00

monday: day of failure

Failed to board this bus with Raz this morning as I thought she may have boarded the 18 which was sitting at the station as I arrived. She wasn't. I spend the journey lolling in the back seats like a damp piece of fabric.
Failed to progress with my graphics.
HMV failed to stock Wisp.
On a lighter note, I've bumped up my grade for my evaluative chemistry coursework from an atrocious and erratic 7 to a more realistic 13 out of 15.
This evening I have sat down with the intention of completing Andy's homework but ended up simply staring blankly at an empty microsoft word document before rolling like a greasy sphere into the living room to watch ashes to ashes..
In an unrelated but worrying development I've got into the bad habit of using the words "hot" and "hot stuff" in synonymy with "good" and "cool".

Wisp.

2009-04-25T17:29:00.001+01:00

The Shimmering Hour is fianlly due out on Monday, and I'm literally excited. Currently wondering if it'll be in HMV in Monday, if it is I'm going to go in there, pick it up and hold it above my head whilst walking to the counter, before gently laying it on the desk like a delicate, precious metal.

Photography.

2009-04-22T17:54:00.002+01:00

Day one of the agony that comprises my photography exam.
Have worked through the hours walking up and down, up and down, up and down from the print room to K118 until my heels burn with a devilish fire.
The invigilator we have been assigned seems close to some kind of breakdown. After lunch he beckons me to him and says "when you come in the room, could you not slam the door, please."
I question his definition of "slam" and he tells me I should ease it shut, rather than letting it shut itself. I make the sort of sound I imagine a man ould make had he just reached some kind of enlightenment, point at the invigilator and say "gotcha".
Spend the afternoon closing the door with almost theatrical silence.
Tomorrow I just need to bind my prints and stick a few pieces of half-assed work in my sketchbook and I'm good to go.
Tired beyond all comprehension.

Welcome to Death Row.

2009-04-21T23:37:00.005+01:00

Sensible ways to start a working week
by
Elliot J King

Spent Sunday night in Falmouth on the floor of Luke's icy bedroom, sleeping within an uncomfortable proximity of Hugo, having spent the evening sitting static on the very same floor acknowledging and simultaneously embracing our collective lack of work.
Board the bus home in the morning alone, as Luke and Hugo opt to remain in the crypt, further endangering their education. I pay the £4.50 fare, as passes had expired the previous night, make the long haul to college, pick up my new pass and head home. Shower, change, head back to college.
Work my way through the day slowly but surely.
Collapse.

Head straight back in this morning with Raz, purchase my paper and printer credits for tomorrrow's photography exam and then head home once again as I realise I have no lecture until 12.15.
Roll back in and spend Andy's Hour worrying about the impending exam.
Go to graphics an am rewarded, for my hours of blood, sweat and toil, with a C. God curse you, Sean Dugan.
Roll home on the bus with Will and Hugo, finish off the rum that was left in the cupboard and head to town, where I run into farm for the second time in as many days.
Spend the evening finalising plans for sketchbook work and admiring Merzbird and The Chronic.

Music of the Week.

2009-04-18T21:36:00.000+01:00

[Grey Stripe] - Aphex Twin
check it

editing down.

2009-04-18T21:34:00.000+01:00

Hectic Tuesday.

2009-04-14T18:31:00.002+01:00

Have spent the day in the company of Jess. Off to a relatively early start (early, at least for the holiday schedule) and climbed out of bed at 10am in order to shower.
Meet Jess at 11.45 outside HMV and head to Marshalls in order to get my broken lens looked at (the AF has gone on my 17-85mm, which makes me sad) and they tell me that it will cost £20 just to get an estimate. I sigh and tell them I will be back later in the week.
Roll to abbey national in order to move over £200 to my current account, which I will be using to pay for tickets and train fare to see Nine Inch Nails in London at the O2 arena. Queue for around ten minutes and comment on the hedgehog on the posters.
Head to Jessops, get hit with a queue of similar scale to that of abbey, screech, turn, and sprint for the doors of starbucks. I order an americano and Jess has a tea and a chocolate brownie and takes approximately forty minutes to eat it.
Head through the "Hall of Mirrors", which mesmerises Jess, to Truro arts and buy double sided tape. Roll back to jessops, spent £15 on prints for exam sketchbook. Wince at the price of the paper I will be buying - £35 - and stride purposefully out. Meet Holli for half an hour at Topshop before she boards a bus to Newquay, after which we shamble past a banjo-playing busker to Staples and subsequently Tescos. Buy a tube of pringles, and, from co-op, a pair of relentless to wash it down.
Enter what can by now be accurately described as my second home, the museum, and sit static in the space age exhibition playing on the "build your own space age bedroom" game. Meet Mo and Carn, who have been playing with the Lego.
Head back outisde, drink the relentless, meet Emily who takes her camera back of Jess, having lost it at last week's party, and head to TK Maxx to round off the day. We pass Vinnie along the way and marvel at his new haircut.
Sit shaking on the bench outside of the Maxx, finish off the pringles and regret the relentless. 4.30 passes and we go our seperate ways. I rush home and sit hunched, my face bearing a pained expression, in front of tour.nin.com waiting for tickets to go on sale.
5pm passes and after a frantic checkout process I head away with two premium presale tickets within my grasp. Cheer.
Beg for money from my parents in order to cover the cost of the upcoming photography exam.

Kent.

2009-04-12T21:53:00.005+01:00

In all of my years I have spent only one or two weeks more dire than the previous.
The house in which we would be spending the week, on arrival, smelled strongly of old, stale cigarette smoke; the toilet was more or less in the kitchen, only divided off by a sliding wooden door; the upstairs corridor was akin to an iron maiden; the stairs, constructed of ply, were so frictionless that so much as a gentle sway in the wrong direction would send you plummeting down like a modern-day Icarus; the town and local area was filled with hordes of noisy homeless people.
I'm not even going to break down the ordeal into a day by day summary as I usually do, I'm just going to lump it into one big, ugly, seething ball of hate.

Spent the week in a chore-like routine, progressing through each consecutive day as follows;
• Sit in the hovel staring blankly at a map. Eventually decide on a destination.
• Drive to the destination and realise that, as all the others have been, it's a slum.
• Return to the hovel and spend the evening on cider,
anything up to two litres a night.

Thus the week has passed.
I think the below picture sums it up quite nicely;

this is me about an hour before we left the hovel for the final time.
note the haggard expression and world-weary mist in the eyes

Kent.

2009-04-04T12:40:00.002+01:00

I'm in Kent for a week by the way, so expect infrequent posts, whenever I can get to wifi. Currently in a service station.

2009-03-31T22:47:00.003+01:00

click to supersize

Old School, Continued

2009-03-30T23:01:00.003+01:00

Boarded bus of cheery driver at 8.46 and made my sluggish way to the school. Arrived at the site only to find some kind of fracas going down outside; a man in a white van drives past two men standing outside their house and throws - literally, throws - a woman at them. She screeches, the van turns, and one of the two men chases after it. He catches it within moments, pulls the driver from it and punches him square in the face before throwing him to the ground.
I head into the school. Greet the anonymous security guard, who starts to lead me round the corridors. Spot an ambulance arriving presumably for the driver of the white van outside.
The corridors smell of decay. Anonymous Guard showcases what he deems to be the most interesting rooms, including one where the ceiling has fallen in and one which is full of plants that have forced their way through the windows and taken root in the sideboards.
Unlock and enter the kitchens, which carry a stink that can be only be accurately described as deathly. The main hall is in a similarly foul state, with further strings of ivy cracking open the windows.
After this whistlestop tour Anonymous Guard permits me freedom of the entire school - with the exception of the music block, still used as offices - and heads back to his room at reception.
I head up the tower block to the languages and maths rooms, wishing I had a way of recording sounds. The lights failed to turn on at all in the maths corridor, and simply emitted a dangerous-sounding hum when the switch was flicked. Several of the rooms stink to high heaven and have floors covered in black dots, which I subsequently realise are hundreds of dead flies. Feel mildly ill and head back downstairs.
The music block does indeed seem to be the council's last fortress against the ceaseless march of dereliction, a thick, polished, newly-erected door barring my entrance. I peer through the glass and see whiteboards with words like "workflow" and "productivity" written on them.
The humanities block seems to be sinking into a sea of feces, the whole of the floor covered with a thick layer of dust, the sort of dust that's so thick it actually becomes sticky.
Head outside through what seems to be the only unlocked door, but get nowhere as the exterior doors of all the other blocks are locked. They seem to have been kept in better condition than the main building anyway, the science block being used for music rehearsals, the gym for yoga classes and the english block for "meetings", to quote the poster on the door.
One of the R.E rooms has a tree in it.
The prefects area seems to have become some sort of evil copse; all I see through the dim windows of the link corridor is a selection of gnarled trees.
Several of the rooms contain undefined hisses and pops that sound off as alarms as I power on the lights, seemingly emanating from blank spaces of wall.
The council have not even bothered to remove the fittings, fixtures, or even children's work from the walls, and have opted instead to simply leave it to rot. The overall effect is totally surreal; a door marked with MR. G. BURN leads to a room containing only parts of its own roof, a solitary Pokemon keyring sits forlorn in a cooking room whilst recipes for american muffins and apple slices peel off the walls around it; an open window with a branch reaching shiftily through it is marked with a piece of paper with the warning "this window does not open"; the disabled lift makes omninous clanks and clunks as I approach it.
Jump down the stairs in the courtyard, like I always did in year seven, a final time, and then head back to reception. Am jolted back to reality by the sight of Anonymous Guard sitting in his office playing World of Warcraft. Thank him, leave. Board bus home. I'll post pictures tomorrow I promise.

Old School.

2009-03-30T17:50:00.003+01:00

Finally pushed myself to live out one of my many photographic aspirations, and visit the old Richard Lander.
Boarded a bus up and strolled up to the entrance, standing outside, staring stoically at a camera.
A minute or so later a grizzled, pitted, distrustful-looking security guard sidles out of the building and asks me what I want. I tell him i'm on my photography exam under the topic of "urban decay" and his mood lightens, telling me that I have "come to exactly the right bloody place". He says that he has no problem with me doing the photographs but that I might need to contact whoever is in charge. We step indoors, and I am hit with the state of the building immediately. The last time I was in there it was still in near-mint condition, even after so many years of occupation, but after just two years of relative neglect it has plunged into dereliction. The walls are scabbed and taped, and a whiteboard stands like a sentinel in front of the main entrace bearing the hand-scribbled orders of numbers to dial is security is not present.
The guard stares for a minute or so at a list of phone numbers whilst Top Gear plays in the office behind him. He tells me if I come back after 9pm "then all the council workers will be gone anyway and so nobody will have a problem". I thank him and roll back to the bus.
Am now in state of both high excitement and terror as 9pm rolls closer

2009-03-28T00:08:00.002Z

A brief summaryof today: taught by a man who looked like Squarepusher in photography. churned out 4 more pages of graphics. Boarded bus home avec Miriam. Dad brings home new cd drive, install it and rerip some CDs. Watch boxing, collapse.

Thursday.

2009-03-26T21:43:00.002Z

Awake to the sound of Kid for Today by Boards of Canada. Rise from my frosty bed ten minutes later, aiming a kick at the ever-unbuttoned duvet and stubbing my toe.
Fail to reboil the kettle, drink cold coffee.
Board bus up with Raz, sit behind abrasive Treyew children. Watch with amusement as a college student winds them up until their mother clouts them around the ear.
Meet Miriam in the morning and wander the corridors, eventually landing hard in the Terrace. Watch the clock until 9am.
Spend graphics in a frantic haze, marching ceaselessly onwards with my product design. Hit 18 pages and roll to a halt.
English: hand in commentary, weak as it is, and analyse a Thomas Hardy poem.
Argue about the spelling of "existence" with Hilary. Olivia and I believe it is spelled with an E, but Hilary is adamant that is with an A.
Spend lunch again with Miriam, watching her ferociously hammer out her commentary in a desperate bid to get it finished before the the end of the day. Liszt's Hungarian rhapsody No. 2 comes on and provides the most amusing, appropriate soundtrack to the scene imaginable.
Attend a useless lecture on choosing our A2 courses. Purchase a £6.99 folder to present my graphics work in next week.
Spend photography reclining in an uncomfortable chair listening to Nude by Radiohead on repeat.
Chemistry is the biggest drag imaginable. Struggle through barely remaining awake.
Board a packed bus. Stand, miserable.
Head home and continue with graphics.

Elliot's Music of the Week.

2009-03-26T21:30:00.003Z

Skream - Stagger

Special.

2009-03-22T11:15:00.002Z

Spent the day in the company of Ben Oates in Truro.
Headed in at 11:30, having bought Jess her weekly smoothie, and met outside dirty console connections. Spend the next two hours heading around the town handing out my CV to any shop that will have it in a last ditch attempt at getting a job. Most shops simply decline me even the effort of taking the paper from my hands, but we persevere and slowly work through them.
Pay a visit to Lisa in Charlotte's Tea House, which is a lot higher-class than I could ever have anticipated and two greasy, lanky youths sitting in the corner do not fit in at all. Purchase coffee from Lisa, drink, leave. Resume handing out CVs.

I head home at around 4pm only to receive a call from Luke begging me to board a bus to Falmouth. I comply, and arrive at around 7pm.
Head to town late in the evening and purchase, and I quote, a "special burger". Imagine, if you will, a burger filled with the most nightmarish meat known to man, piled 20cm high, and you are getting somewhere close. Luke's nose begins to bleed from the stress of the situation as we approach the kebab shop.
Ten minutes later two retching boys recline upon cold granite stairs in a dirty side alley.

Head home retching. Watch Watchmen on Hugo's computer late into the night.
Sleep on hard floor.

Board 10:08 bus home.

Push.

2009-03-17T22:55:00.003Z

I have finally managed to rid myself of my illness - which turned out to be tonsilitis - after visiting our stammering but affable doctor Paynter, and will be returning to college tommorrow, just in time for the gruesome dirge that comprises the UCAS fair. The summation of my life achievements over the past two days is a page and a half of graphics and push email on my iPod.

Illness.

2009-03-14T18:01:00.003Z

Paid another visit to the cattle Market yesterday with the intention of revisiting the yellow storage container for further photography. Arrive only to find a bloated farmer who tells me "is a strange thing to take a pictures of". I concur, and he allows me the photographs. I leave promptly and march back home.

Today I have contracted some kind of illness. Temperature of 101 and a headache. Impossible to stay warm. Wearing four hoodies in bed and still cold.

'Spoons.

2009-03-12T20:00:00.001Z

Sitting in wetherspoons eating BBQ chicken melt. Mmmmmm mmm.
Uncle has been down this evening with GB's of music.

Cattle Market.

2009-03-09T23:13:00.002Z

Something of note that I have not yet mentioned in this blog is my newly founded affinity with the cattle Market in my photography.
I took a visit to the place a week or so ago with father in tow in order to secure myself a lift back, and captured a series of average images.
Revisited the place alone on Saturday for an altogether different experience, an experience that was, to be frank, terrifying. A chill wind was already blowing on my arrival, and the doors to the building were already ominously open.
I enter the auction room proper, and it is as if I have stepped into some pagan church; three simple wooden chairs are arranged in a semicircle around a fenced off area, presumably into which the animals are led. The room is so silent that I can hear a cranefly banging against the roof thirty or so feet above me.
I imagine the sound of feet on the gravel outside and a shiver literally crawls up my frail, scrawny spine.
A polystyrene cup blows over and I jump several feet into the air.
I then head into the main section of the building for the shots that I really desire, that of the numbered concrete animal pens. I get 13 of the 36 pens down and then hear one of the metal gates across the enormous building clank as if shut. I flee the oppressive smell and atmosphere back outside and walk round the back of the building to check if I indeed am not alone.
Alone, however, is exactly what I am, and I manage to goad myself into finishing the shoot. Get the remaining images at an unprecedented speed and run from the building like a toddler.
Walk the mile or so back home listening to Otis Redding.

HD 201

2009-03-08T21:57:00.002Z

I cannot stress the quality and value of these headphones enough.
They must have had about 700 hours of burn in now, and the sound is still improving - I swear that the bass is getting deeper with every listen. The soundstage is wide and separation is decent. I paid £16 about three years ago and, having experienced them, I can say with honesty I would gladly and willingly pay double the price without hesitation. Build quality is also excellent, the only sign of use on my pair being theloss of the Sennheiser logo ok the head band.
In short, buy now to avoid further disappointment.

Filthy boys.

2009-03-07T00:09:00.003Z

Recieve an invite to Falmouth with the news that "Liam and crazy Aaron are already here". Board the next bus along with a group of equally greasy students. Arrive and wait at esso for the evil trio to arrive. They herald me with the news that Lukes mother has ejected them from the house.
Head to town. Wander aimlessly around before heading to tescos.
Roll back to the wicked haunted house and crawl to the room.
Play scrabble.
Sit in the middle of the room playing spin the bottle on Liams iPod.
Look at ourselves in horror.
Liam and Aaron are currently arguing about where in Cornwall Aaron will be sleeping tomorrow.

Edit: Liam is also trouserless

Bjork.

2009-03-03T21:49:00.006Z

Of late, I've gone on something of a spending spree on Bjork albums, having pulled Post off the shelf and given it a full listen through. I picked up Debut and Medulla for £2.50 each in a second hand shop last week and have been thoroughly enjoying them ever since.
Which brings me to my main point - music theft.
Many of my friends would never even have spent the £2.50 on the albums, they'd simply have downloaded them. I myself have, of course, downloaded far more albums than I have paid for over the past couple of years; but recently I have been thinking about how hateful it must be to have a thing such as music robbed from you, as an artist.
I think of it this way: I have been selling my photographs for the past three years. I only charge £1 per image, but its a nice bit of income on the side. I then imagine how frustrating it would be if people started to take the photographs from me without paying the £1. I'd still have to pay to produce them, but would be getting nothing in return.
"But", I hear the pedants cry, "We're not stealing from the artists, we're stealing from the wicked music industry / record labels".
The way I see it, this is no better / worse; its like me selling ten of my photos to Lemon Street Gallery for £10 and somebody strolling casually into said gallery and removing the images from there as opposed to my hands. The act is still deeply frustrating, and still essentially money out of my pocket, albeit in a roundabout fashion.
Now, I can already see you pumping your fists in the air and screaming "hypocrite" until you turn an unhealthy shade of purple, but as of late I've made a genuine effort to purchase albums that I try and subsequently enjoy.

Thus endeth the pretentious rant. This was brought on by my purchase of Homogenic from the iTunes store and my friend's subsequent questioning of my sanity, which became the "food for thought", as it were.

Music of the week tomorrow, I would do it now but I am confined to my iPod, so it's difficult.