Kira Kira Pen

Marrakech

2007-04-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Marra, marshmallow: something soft, pink and sticky that you can sink into. Kech, a guttural and unknown sound with a kick: the hiss of a snake with a sting in its tail. The first two syllables roll around in an mmm of pleasurable dissipation, the last zaps a charge of fright through to heighten the senses. Hippies lolling around on cushions in an opium haze know that if they get caught a long jail sentence awaits. Artists caressing the voluptuous bottoms of young boys, find that the fear of deportation for sex crimes adds a certain thrill to the otherwise mundane trade.
The air is ripe with the promise of illicit pleasures. It’s the place to go to fall to pieces glamorously, where William Burrows fled to after shooting his wife by mistake, where Sebastian Flyte went to kill himself with booze in the tragic end to Brideshead Revisited. A person can corrode elegantly here; doing yourself in with heroin under grey skies in Hull just isn’t the same as smoking yourself into oblivion with opium in the azure Moroccan firmament.
When I was younger, I used to dream of sitting on a balcony of some colonial period French villa, a typewriter and glass of chilled wine on the table before me, gazing out at a square below bursting with white light and shouts from street traders. I’m going at the end of this month.

Capital punishment

2007-04-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

So that the landlady won't mistake me for a marshmallow stuck to her lovely carpet when she next visits I decided that a day out in London was in order. Now, as a result of this jaunt am beginning to think that life as a shut in definitely has its merits. Public relations in the city have broken down to such an extent that there are gangs employed to dump water on the pavements to keep people from sitting down outside the Sunday Up Market near Brick Lane. These sociopaths enjoy theirs jobs so much as to not think twice about soaking my friend’s coat without warning even though he’d stood up and was about to leave. Return to Brighton brittle and shivering at the hostility of the outside world.

Mock meat is murder

2007-03-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

Vegetarians beware. No they haven’t slipped in real meat by mistake. Despite the fact that the ‘mock meat’ displayed on this can looked like it had been wrapped in cellophane and then left out in the sun, I decided to try this luridly packaged tin of fake pork. Thanks to being soaked in a thick sugary sauce, it seemed to taste fine at first. That was until I got tummy ache afterwards. My boyfriend, who has a cast iron stomach, then decided to warm the leftovers up later. Reheated the chunks of ‘meat’ took on the consistency of rubber, he could actually hear the pieces squeaking between his teeth as he tried to get the stuff down.

Purge and Binge

2006-11-29T09:44:00.000-08:00

I think I’ve got things upside down. After throwing some very unsexy and uncomfortable poses in my yoga class this morning in an attempt to rid myself of my Buddha belly, I end up one hour later in an extravagant chocolatier’s café tucking into a slice of cake large enough to sink a fleet of Ocean Liners. This monstrosity was even too much for my boyfriend, a man notorious for possessing a full head of sweet teeth. While we scoffed our way through, passers by stared enviously in at us, making me wonder if the staff often had to wipe off saliva stains from the shop windows. This is my first Wednesday off work, (hard fought for) so I can get on with being a real journalist. So after this Bacchanalian feast I headed off to the library to do some research (read magazines) and, as the typescript went in and out of focus before my sleepy eyes, discovered that it’s actually possible to gouge out after a fix of chocolate cake.

Decline and Shawl

2006-11-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

Lured by the promise of free booze, Beth and I went to an opening of a studio shop, earlier this week. Right at the furthermost tip of Kemp Town, the shop sold floaty pieces of ornate knitwear -a tied securely to this world by a hefty price tag (scarfs were £70 pound a pop). Fortified by a cheap glass of wine on the way, we entered into a room heaving, with expensive smelling slightly wrinkled cleavages. Red lips kissed air and sipped champagne. Posh middle aged women formed a scrum around the merchandise, whooping in delight at the bargains? A giant loom sat in the corner lending credibility to the cottage industry ambience.
Beth and I were torn between finding the proceedings ridiculous or slightly nauseating. It seemed a little sick that these people thought nothing of spending a couple of hundred quid on a scarf when other people struggle to meet the rent. But then decadence wouldn’t be any fun if there weren’t someone to lord it over. A couple of middle-aged gay men held court. They resembled an arrogant Roman Emperor and his exotic lackey. One had a large, noble head, which rested on a silver-grey silk cravat, the other’s was shaved and stamped with an oriental tattoo. Both stood erect with puffed up chests. They were clearly not there to buy for themselves, but their presence put the imperial seal of approval on the whole proceedings. As they passed us on their way outside one urgently grabbed the other and pulled him back to draw his attention to a display case full of woollen necklaces, shouting out “Oh Fuck Fab, look at these, they are just divine!”
Soon after Beth walked out into the freezing starry night and shouting out “Oh Fuck Fab”, whilst wending our drunken scarfless way home.

Say Ohmmmmm

2006-09-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

My new yoga teacher looks about 65 but can wrap his legs behind his head and give out instructions without pausing for breath. Initially the instructions sound like musical gobbledygook; he has a strange mellifluous intonation, his tone rising and falling with a regularity that disregards the rhythm and intonation of the words spoken. Perhaps this sing song delivery was meant to be relaxing but it only exacerbated for me the sense ridiculousness that yoga sessions inevitably inspires. I always want to giggle when it comes time to join our hands in prayer and say ohm. The solemnity seems a little silly though I have to admit a session of yoga is preferable to the abject boredom of going to mass. It didn’t help of course that I’d forgotten to wash my brown tracksuit bottoms and had to wear my pink, Britney Spears, got them down the car boot sale horrors. This apparel drew looks of horror from the fashionable black clad, Celtic tattooed, rubber limbed set.

Personal Pruning

2006-08-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was spent performing a kind of painful but necessary personal surgery on myself. As my parents are moving house I’ve been ordered to come back home and remove my tat. It was probably best that I was anethetised to the task by a mother of all hangovers caused by an excessive alcohol intake the night before. I blame my dad’s gin and tonics (so possibly the phrase father of all hangovers best fits). When it came down to choosing the select few items I could carry back with me on the train home, I am proud to say that no tears were shed (although I will admit to some anguished sighs as I consigned a pile of Tintin books to the Oxfam pile).
The books were bad enough but I consoled myself that the boy reporter hero of my youth could always be encountered again in some musty bookshop. What hurt most was having to divide up the sticky wads of old photographs. While my relationship with Tintin is timeless and will never change these photos were like tombstones, etching the irrevocable loss of times and friendships gone by. Should I keep them and continue to mourn, or should I move on and throw them away? I’ve always been wary of nostalgia, it’s a bitter sweet emotion which first intoxicates as you dream of the past, but then is inevitably followed by a nasty hangover as you become conscious of the contrast with the stark realities of now.
Just like roses need their dead stems cut off in order to grow, in order to stop the too sweet scent of our memories from poisoning and infecting our future the pruning away at parts of our past is necessary. But just how far do you have to go before you begin to find yourself chopping away at yourself? I returned to Brighton with the crushing burden of giant rucksack on my back and a huge weight off my chest. I can almost smell the scent of fresh rose petals in the air.

The Angels are Moving the Furniture

2006-07-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

An electric shiver cuts through the narcotic heat.
Rain spots the hot pavement outside my door.
Once flat colours bloom in the moist air.

The distant thunder above makes me think of my grandmother, who died a year ago.
Every time there was a thunderstorm she would say: “The angels are moving round the furniture.”
I doubt she is helping, having been an atheist.

Kira Kira Pen

2006-07-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Kira Kira Pen

Attack of the flying ants and other sinister creatures

2006-07-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

The vanguard of a flying ant infestation are out on the streets making their presence felt. Tomorrow you won’t be able to move without one catching in your hair, flying down your top or worse still into an eye. I always find this event gives the streets a twilight zone feel. Is it a display of force in order to make us humans know that we aren’t as in control of the environment as we think?
I have a friend who is terrified of ants and will actually screech like a girl during this time of the year. Apparently it’s their unthinking and effective organisation which freaks him out. Personally I wouldn’t go so overboard. When I was doing English Literature at A-level I always thought that Ted Hughes must have been a right wimp to write poems about how fish and crows terrified him. Get a grip. While I admit I’m a bit scared of Seagulls (yellow eyes and lack of fear of humans), sometimes to the extent of crossing the street to avoid them, I wouldn’t be afraid of fending off one with a big stick.

2006-02-02T17:13:00.000-08:00

Brighton licked clean of colour shock

2006-02-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

Cycling back from Whitehawk today I noticed that the lights from end of the pier were blurred, colours corroding in the mist. The freezing fog that has been slowly seeping into Brighton over the past few days, has finally drained the city a pale grey. The outside world is now fuzzy and indistinct. The cold has blunted my sense of smell and touch. This is not good. It’s like driving along with bird poo and dead flies stuck to the windscreen of life.
I am craving one of those chemical sunsets that stain the sky the artificial hue of a blueberry slush-puppy. I find unnatural colours irresistible, Tutti Fruiti does pinks, blues and yellows like mother nature never could (with the aid of various evilly-named chemicals such as dextrofructo hyrochlorine 84). This is one of the reasons I live here where even the dour Victorians sensibly chose peppermint-cream green for the ornate railings, lampposts and benches along the seafront. The palate for my ideal universe contains raspberry-ripple red, parma violet and candy-floss pink. Colours that give you an immediate heady hit of happiness, so bright that they are almost lickable. Of course I appreciate that natural colours have their own slow-acting appeal, no doubt burnished autumn leaves are all very wholesome as they leak into your system giving you a tweedy glow when you return home to a roaring hearth. But they don’t quite give me the same sherberty buzz that sends my imagination spinning into the stratosphere.
We say boo hiss to the world of no colour and decide to go on a reality strike instead immersing ourselves in an alternate reality of Azumanga Daiyo and Felix the Cat till the outside world is painted a little more brightly.
By the way J-Pop fans I am now doing my night monthly at the Penthouse above the Freebut Brighton and will be Djing on Saturday. I am also playing music at Departure Lounge on the last Wednesday of the month at the Albert. Sonic Dragelo will be doing

TAKE COVER TAKE COVER!

2006-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

When I was little my best friend had an eagle eyed Action Man whose eyes not only slid from side to side by means of a switch at the back of his bristly macho plastic head but he would also squeak the words "TAKE COVER TAKE COVER" when we pulled the string at the back of his neck. This was our cue to dive under the duvet to avoid the invisible onslaught of enemy plastic armies.
These days it is not the threat of toy invasions that makes me dive under my duvet but the very real threat of the great outdoors. Only the other day I was innocently strolling down London Road when a wild-eyed man burst out of the phone box in front of me and shouted "GUNS" at the top of his voice. There didn't seem to be any guns about but judging by the whiff of solvent and the plastic bag he held in his purple hand, the artillery he was screaming about were a vivid reality in his world. It is this kinds of event and the fact that it is so cold outside that it HURTS to breathe that has had me retreat under my eiderdown.
Happily this temporary tactical retreat coincides with the delivery of a new bed and my discovery or Azumanga Daiyo an anime about Japanese high school girls. The cuteness rating of this cartoon is just off the scale and for hours afterwards I can bounce around in a pink girly dream-world completely oblivious to glue heads and other nasty things. That is until I have to go outside again.
Other updates is that I just bought the YMCK album from records of the damned www.recordsofthedamned.com in America. 8 bit music made with i-book and logic. Anyone who has heard DJ Scotch Egg who writes tracks on his Nintendo will be familiar with this 80s space-age sound. However YMCK are the sweet and fluffy Elmo to Scotch Egg's grumpy Cookie Monster.

Cartoon Shaped Afternoon

2006-01-14T08:53:00.000-08:00

A decadent Saturday afternoon eating grapes in bed and watching Felix the Cat cartoons. The great thing about Felix is that he can be bashed on the head and be bawling his eyes out but the second he spies a tasty fish he leaps in the air, his legs twirling underneith him in pleasure and totally forgets his injuries. It would be nice to aquire that hardcore cartoon indestructability.
My favourite bit is when he drinks moonshine and sees a winged elephant with flashing spots and zebra stripes. I got the DVD in poundland for all you bargain hunters out there.
I am also taking out my other bargain(a new pair of tailored grey shorts), to my friend's party tonight. They are very sweet looking, as short as a micro mini whilst cutting down on the risk of knicker flashing. Though perhaps the knicker flashing aspect all adds to the visceral thrill of wearing a mini skirt. Don't think I will be giving up on them just yet.

Minor New Year Tweakings in a Graveyard

2006-01-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

New Years eve and, to my glamorous Londonite friend James' dismay I spent it in a cemetery rather than our spectacular but ultimately unworkable plan of Budapest. So a cemetery, there were more dead than alive at our party. Ba Boom! And no I am not one of those weird pagan people who likes to commune with the dead in order to relish LIFE. Actually my friend is the caretaker of said graveyard and has invited us all up to his lovely timbered cottage to celebrate. He is not a seedy man in his forties with cracked hands wearing an overall, he is an angelic man in his twenties who wears comfortable holey jumpers and has better skin than most girls, so please adjust your prejudiced mental image accordingly. In the past I treated the New Year experience as a rigorous scrub down for my imperfect personality with a brilo pad in an acid bath, however time has taught me that it's not just dirt and bad habits that cling to you throughout the year but also good things that should be lovingly savored. So I raised my glass with all my lovely friends around me: James, Beth, the two Emilys (I am an Emily magnet, the other significant Emily in my life couldn't be there as she is about to give birth), Mason, Charlie and Red.
Beth filled the role of party organiser and managed the countdown to midnight admirably, instructing everyone to kiss at the appropriate moment with the unshakable sense of authority that can only come from a PGCE student. After which we provided James and Mason with amusement demonstrating our ghetto moves dancing to Missy Elliot in the living room.
To those who went out having their ears branded by banging sound systems I can point out that our party was not without controversy, a small committee had set up by the fire to pose the question to innocent passersby of "What would you draw the line at in bed? Animals? Excrement?" James and Beth again ganged up on me putting down my silence to Catholic guilt.
Mason had a better epitaph and instructed me to "embrace your inner indie kid, don't fight it. I'm an indie kid and proud". And so instead of the acid bath renewal tactic, this year I will embrace the me that I am; guilty ex Catholic indie kid and with minor tweakings set sail for new adventures.

Come to my Japanese club night in Brighton

2005-12-23T04:36:00.000-08:00

Sophisticated Catchy

2005-12-19T04:11:00.000-08:00

In a bizarre turn of events that resembled an eighties feel good movie plot I ended up DJing my own club night on Saturday. The plot goes thus, girl loves Japanese music and listens to it in her bedroom all the time. She receives an email about a Japanese club night in London. She wants so badly to go but doesn't have enough money for the train fare. She wishes that there were some night like that in Brighton and whilst chatting to her friend who shares her passion for helium fuelled pop and ear melting rock they begin to hatch a plan . . . What if we had our own night at the Penthouse bar in Brighton we could do lots of cool things like holding origami godzilla competitions n stuff man. So on Wednesday we went down to ask. Now normally this is the stage at which the plan fails, it proves too difficult to organize and I go back to picking my nose in front of the Simpsons. But not this time. There is a cancellation on Saturday, can we step in?
And so a gruelling week of gathering together 5 hours of suitable music begins. At this stage in the feel good film there is a montage showing my friend instructing me how to DJ. In Rocky they played eye of the Tiger but for this movie I think I'd choose the Mothra song by Peanuts. At first my sensei keeps shaking his head as I change the records over too fast or too quickly, forgetting to check that the levels are equal. However in time he begins to nod his head and a smile breaks out. We dash round town putting up posters in record shops. All too quickly Saturday rolls around. But things don't run all that smoothly, the Plus Tech Squeeze Box album I ordered over the internet doesn't arrive in the post on Saturday morning but does arrive by a miraculous second post. Just one hour before I leave the house my Japanese t-shirt that I put specially in the wash vanishes only to be found still wet in the washing machine. Thank god for tumble driers.
Anyhow we manage to start playing on time and to those who are interested in these matters here are the names of some of the bands we played: Cornelius, Pizzicato Five, Yumi Yumi, Polysics, Melt Banana, Peanuts, Plus Tech Squeeze Box, Kahimi Karie, The Boredoms, 5,6,7,8s, Shonen Knife, Hyper Kinako, The Pillows, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Cacoy, Takeko Minekawa and more . . .
Now I'm not sure that my 80s movie is over yet. Apart from our friends the whole thing was so last minute that no one realized it was Japanese night. There was a punk gig playing downstairs and when they were chucked out we kept getting requests for the Dead Kennedys. However we won some of them over by moving over from pop into loud shouty stuff at this point. A few people came up and asked us where they could get the music we were playing, so all in all it was a beginning. Watch this space to see if we try it again.
PS I named my post after the Pizzicato Five song. Is this a good name for a club night? Any suggestions welcome. I chose Nihon Go Go (for people who know Japanese nihon in kanji with the go go spelt out in katakana) but not enough people get that Nihon is Japan.

Biscuity, peppery with a hint of gooseberries

2005-12-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

I am dusting the cobwebs off my rusty wine pornographer's patter having just started working part-time for a reputable wine emporium again. Unfortunately I lack the breathy, panting delivery of the Marks and Spencer's lady who rambles on in such an erotic manner about sticky toffee pudding that you almost believe she is butt naked smothering herself in the stuff whilst she addresses the nation's couch potatoes.
Besides I might embarrass the customers if I started sounding like I was getting wet for Chateuneuf-du-Pape in front of them. But I have my tried and tested tricks so without having tasted a bottle I can come up with the appropriate adjective to suit. Any expensive champagne is 'biscuity' or 'fresh and crisp', Shiraz is always spicy, Zinfandel, peppery, it's always safe to guess that a Chardonnay is melony, Barolo is chocolaty, Claret is quaffable or blackcurranty (don't say ribennery though it's true) and finally Pinot Noir is complex (this goes down well with people who think they are superior to others). From this you can take pretty much any food and add a y at the end to form a new wine adjective although don't every say grapy because 1) you are stating the obvious and 2) have you no imagination? But the weirder the better, if you can somehow fit in pomegranates, persimmons or star fruits then you are streaking ahead because most people having no idea how these exotic fruits taste and will be so amazed at your superior palette that they instantly buy up a whole case of the stuff.
You can also tailor your description to fit the customer by sizing them up and applying the appropriate vocabulary. Thus to the horesy country type "this wine is a thoroughbred", to the owner of a flash car "racy, packs a punch", to the thin sensitive type "a hint of elderflower" etc, etc. I once went totally leftfield and wrote on a wine label "reminds me of a dream I had about a forest full of cats", unsurprisingly this didn't turn on any customers, there's just not enough surrealists into wine I suppose.