Managed to get sucked into watching the film "Starter for Ten" last night. It was a poor representation of my own university life, given that I went to an ex-polytechnic on the South Coast which had precious few over-achievers in any of its many campuses ( Read more... )

1. A pretty woman in her early twenties sat opposite me on the train today, and pulled out a copy of "A Confederacy of Dunces", one of my favourite novels of all time. "God," I immediately thought, "If I were single and fifteen years younger, this is the sort of woman I'd develop a crush on". Then she failed to laugh at the book once during the ( Read more... )

You know when you're sat socialising with a few friends, and you begin to make a joke about something awful that happened to you a long time ago, way back in a time before you were a fully fledged adult and knew any better, but for some reason it comes out a bit wrong and you can see from their lack of laughter, concerned expressions and awkward ( Read more... )

Like most of you, I feel angry, conflicted and confused. Walthamstow was among the regions of London hit by the riots (quite early on, on Sunday) and as we are a neighbouring district of Tottenham where the problems started, that shouldn't have been any big surprise. Compared to some regions of London, however, we seem to have got off lightly ( Read more... )

At a second-hand record stall in Wood Street Market yesterday, I was amused to overhear the following complaint from a vinyl dealer ( Read more... )

Ever since they moved in downstairs, Amanda and I have assumed that the small child downstairs is autistic. If not autistic, then certainly somebody who suffers from OCD. Despite being around six years old and past the stage of the "terrible twos", he screams, he wails, he cries, he punches walls, he throws things at doors, he shouts and hits out ( Read more... )

I've been invited back to the London live music night "Rum Do" at The Castle in Whitechapel to do some more DJ'ing, and on this occasion my efforts will be taking place at their rather exciting All-Dayer, which hopefully means there will be loads of time to play the usual crowd-pleasers plus explore the more groove-some nooks and crannies of my ( Read more... )

I went home to Portsmouth a few days ago. No, let me correct that sentence. I returned to visit Portsmouth a few days ago. That's better ( Read more... )

Where train travel is concerned at the moment, I seem to be a magnet for all manner of weirdness. Only a few LJ entries ago I chronicled the argument I had with a cloth-cap wearing Gilbert O'Sullivan lookalike, but in the past few weeks alone the following people have sat next to me ( Read more... )

Just a quick update to let you all know that I'll be DJ'ing at the Vintage, Crafts, Jumble and Flea Market "Can't Buy Me Love" on Saturday 28th May from 1:30pm - 3:30pm (or thereabouts. I doubt anyone will have their finger on a special retro clock timer ( Read more... )