Year: 2002

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I wouldn’t normally do this, but…’ he began. And the poem was, to be fair, better than we’d have expected. A tad surreal for the Glasgow underground, but it was national poetry day.

But when, a week later, the same man made the same comment… I left the carriage. As the doors closed behind me, he launched into the same poem.

On the road out of the town where I grew up, there was an old ramshackle warehouse that looked fantastic. Every time I drove past I thought ‘I must buy some black and white film.’ Of course, the day I pitched up with a loaded camera was the day after it had been knocked down.

Happily, Abandoned Places has vastly better shots of such stuff than I’d have taken myself.

A weekend of wandering around Glasgow, arriving at galleries just as they close and posing for ‘Gosh, we’re interested in this pamphet’ pictures.

Top day, actually. Gong highly recommended.

My mate Damien (the other half of the currently-moribund but oh-so-badly-missed It Likes You – returning soon, promise) has been shortlisted for the video prize connected with this: Full Length 19: Morcheeba. Head on down the ICA on Sunday and look for a vaguely Polish chap. Oh, and raise your glasses in the general direction of Glasgow, where I’ll be. Grr.

Brazilian election broadcasts. Reality TV for real. I’m particularly fond of the last para.

I had a phone call the other night. “You know vacuum dessicators? I reckon that trying to dry socks in one would be a waste of time. What do you think?”

Hmm. Interesting.

In brief, I concurred. You?

So, my flatmate Martin has been on holiday, in Florence and his old family haunt Prague. When I picked him up from the station last night, he looked to be in much better spirits than when he left, which is, I’m told, rather the point of a holiday.

Like most holiday returnees, his bags bulged. Unlike most, his bags bulged with Czech packet soups. Curious.