A bit of reflection...

I guess I owe a bit of an apology to this blog. My posting over the last couple of months has been, if anything, sporadic. It probably didn't help that my camera charger broke (hence no pictures) and that I came down with the fluyest of flus before Christmas but life is rarely perfect. I hope now that I've recharged both my camera and my creative batteries I will once again be haunting these parts a bit more regularly (best friend Fi and I had a bit if a chat re the whole blogging thing and I reached a few blog/life conclusions).

My blog will never be as pretty as some of those that exsist, it's a fact, I'm not going to beat myself up over it, I could make it like that but I haven't really got the time and I don't really think it's supposed to be all about appearance (especially at the expense of content). To have something pretty was not why I started this blog, it was meant to be more like a creative look what I did/found/a recording place whereas for other bloggers I can see appearance has a lot more significance (and that;s great, I love looking at pretty things why should cyberspace be any different?). I'd love for every post to look perfect but at the end of the day if my posts help to convey even a tiny bit of what I'm trying to communicate to just one person then the time it takes me just to do my own entries (they still take a while) will have been worth it.

With this in mind this year on this blog I'm going to try and be less militant with myself (you must post) and also share more of the things that inspire me as an artist (I still feel uncomfortable using that term, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment)/writer and musician as well and trying to record my own thoughts/capturing my own feelings and times.

So here they are my current loves/slight obsessions...

This bangle I completely adore (in fact I was so helpless in the face of it's gothic beauty I accidentally bought it (oops)) it's from this fantastic etsy seller www.etsy.com/shop/ParAmourDesign . My friend Lindsay correctly identified the Edgar Allen Poe subtext but I stumbled across it while I was doing some research for some resin projecs of my own (it's amazing/dangerous what you can do with a google image search...)

TV show - Being Human - A werewolf a ghost and a vampire in a houseshare in Bristol. Okay they are no longer technically in Bristol (side thought - having visisted for work I think I can see why everyone likes Bristol so much, it reminded me a lot of the homelands of Manchester, but that could be down to the fact it was raining thin rain when we visited). First episode of series 3 was aired on Sunday, it watched it with cautiom as I loved the first two series. I'm not going to give you a spoiler but I will say I thought it was as good as the previous series and as an individual episide I found it very very good indeed. You can watch it on i player here www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y3756 (*joy*).

And last but by no means least a combined audio/visual treat. One of my favourite local bands Message to Bears made this stunning music/video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn8mc-_kaOQ

(the song is called Mountains). I think I love everything about it/it just confirms their brilliantness. Directed John Owen - Slate7films.com. Featuring Susanna Herbert and Steve Dolton. Bear myspace www.myspace.com/messagetobears

Punting, but not with boats

Sorry for the lack of posting of late, I've had this horrible worse than a cold, not as bad as flu but it's really annoying thing hanging around for about the last month (this is not helped by the fact that my 'new desk' - which isn't that new anymore is near a boss with a 'high natural temperature' hence he likes to air condition us to death on a daily basis. I'm naturally cold so am freeziing all the time, grrrr/brrrrr). Anyway Dave da housemate and I managed to get ourselves passes for the punt which is where all the good local bands play all the good local venues, but in a festival type manner all at the same time. (the chap in the photo above is Nicola's lovely boyfriend Eric, shocking as it is I've never actually been punting so he's standing for me, thanks Eric. What a guy;-). Tim and another friend also called Dave decided to join ua so we needed a plan. Somehow I was put in charge of picking the bands and venues (the responsibilty) so in the end I went for: The Anydays (never seen them before but I liked the name, 7.30-8.45 - The Purple Turtle; Message to bears (my exciting band of the night have wanted to see them for ages, although it's one guy who writes all the music he has put together a band to play gigs, like a folk Mogwai, see now you are interested no? Can be found online here http://www.myspace.com/messagetobears) 8.15-9.00 - the Wheatsheaf; Telling the bees (local and castle established favourites), 9.15-10.15 - Malmason (inside Oxford Castle; Scholars (another band I've been trying to catch for a while they sound a but like Interpol, can also be found online here ) - 10.30-11.30 the cellar. I have to point out that we were only supposed to see the first bit of Scholars as I had already dosed myself up the maximum level of blackcurranty lemsipness and was feeling pretty worn out from my two days of teaching. Scholars were however SOOooooo good that we had to stay till the end of their set and will be heading off to see them again very soon, cause we like a lot. I think best band of the night would be a fight between the aforementioned scholars and message to bears but message to bears would edge it by a whisker. Today I'm not feeling too bad seeing as by the time we made i home it was nearly 1am. This is probably as someone pointed out adrenaline and I will pay for it later, nice...