Yes peeps. Charging through another week like a Rhinoceros moving towards a lone sunbather. The bank-holiday weekend whipped by in a blur of sleeping the day, waking up begrudgingly to the afternoon, trying to survive the night and then back again at the keyboard in the small hours, trying to click straight and resist the urge to go browsing for animal porn (joke). The Saturday night in particular deserves some note although to be honest I don’t really want to go there. It’s still a bit fresh in my jaded brain and I’d really rather one of the other participating members of the Bolo community picked up on it, but perhaps it’s worth making a few observations before I forget some of the thoughts that seemed important to document at the time. Six in the morning and you’re worrying about finding a bit of paper, a blunt pencil and trying not to fall over while your handwriting spirals all over the page. This is the life of a blogateer or a boloteer or something. Perhaps just a fiend – but a retiring fiend I think. It’s time to lay off some things methinks because on Saturday I:

1. Reconsidered the mysteries of the universe, the meaning of life, the relationship between the self and society and how to look through the floor to the other world within (whoa man).
2. Decided which animals I could take on in a one on one fight and then worked out in detail how best to incapacitate a dangerous and potentially life-threatening emperor penguin.
3. Contemplated how the world would be if the digestion process was approximately reversed – don’t ask.
4. Thought of a fair few commercial uses of glo-sticks.
5. Realised that the visual perspective of distance was not an absolute concept.

Definitely time to retire……

I thought it was very decent of the PM to come all the way back from Barbados just to rap with the Bolo delegation.

Unfortunately some other important matters had cropped up when the delegation arrived and the best we could manage was a photo opportunity…

Better luck next time.

….and after you’ve spent all your money in there you can go next store to legendary nightclub ‘Shakeeys’, that is if you can get through the sturdy new brick door.

Thanks to a Mr T Hoffa from West Drayton for that one. Keep your letters rolling in readers.

Not got many words in my head this week, but playing with images a fair bit and it got me thinking. We need bolo branded merchandise. Not for any sick or money-making purpose really, but just for amusement. So to set the ball rolling I have done up a couple of bolo wallpapers to brighten up your desktop. You can download a 1024×768 version or a 1152×864 version.

Also, have been working on getting this gravatar thing working. If you look in some of the recent posts you can see that where I have commented, a little picture pops up. You can get one of these pictures by visiting gravatar.com. Then it should work automatically with your old comments (providing you use the same email address for each one) and any new ones. Hoorah.

Saw this and it made me think – Jesus Christ, what’s in the bastard? (sorry Soapbox)

Of course fear of these things is relative. Adrian Mole spent most of his adolescent years trying to get into Pandora’s box. Then again, he never had an XJ-220, but lets face it who does, apart from some twat earl with a car museum who doesn’t like people looking in his cars.

As the healing coffee flows into my energy starved body this morning, I can’t help but feel a little optimism brewing, for the first time in a while. These swine have me in their sweaty grasp for the rest of today and the following three days, but after that, for two consecutive weeks, I am on holiday. That’s right, get back you fuckers, get back. I’m free to do what I want, any old time. Free to do what I want to do, free to ride my machine, to get my booze and to quote appropriate song lyrics at will, and free to mix them up and all. Free to make big plans, then achieve half of them and spend the rest of the time chilling and milling about town amongst the just-got-back-to-work-after-a-month-off-suits, checking out the quality of the latest influx of student fitness. Oh yes, keep your dull tasks, whining clients, stupid questions, colleagues with whiffy pits and your inbox of bollocks, because for half an entire month, I don’t give a fuck. Make that an entire month, counting the time it will take to convince my unwilling self that it’s actually time to begin toiling again.

Sorry about that, boloists. I thought I’d post something positive for once, but I seem to have gone off on one…..oh well, at least I’m free to be who I choose, to get my booze, any old time.

Lazy, I know, but I’ve been digging through the crates a bit recently and come up with a few old scrawls. This one dates back to the first year of uni, but in many ways it still applies.
Living in a kitchen
Sleeping in a box
Got my beer
No chance of detox.
Sinking in a mire
Falling out of trees
Just do my best
Trying to please.

A week off work draws to a close and I find myself looking back and wondering where the time rushed away. The week saw the obligatory August drought caused by holidays and the approaching Notting Hill Carnival. Ironically, in the midst of that, the rain kept tipping down. Fortunately that saw me for the most part inside, tidying up those little details that had been eluding me for some months and mainly in front of the magic screen, taking advantage of a newly donated internet connection. Big shout neighbours.

Yes, it was a week of learning. A week of preparation. Not a holiday so much as a chance to hunker down, take some deep breaths, learn some new tricks and get ready for the onslaught promised by September. Anyway, after the last friday, my instincts told me to stay in, keep out of trouble and not answer any phone calls where I didn’t recognise the number.

A good break and tentative good news on all fronts, something my friends, that is certainly not to be sniffed at.

A dark stabbing pain slides down my tiring back;
Will it ever save me from what I know is the truth?
If this compass guiding The Lost wavers and stops firm,
The dark cursing waters perhaps will rest.

I’ve been mainly sleeping in till midday. It’s been amazing.

This week has also given me some time to start building up the good ship Bolo ready for it’s refurb. You may notice that there are now a few links to random posts etc. left at the bottom of some of the pages. Also have put in a statistics plugin so that contributors to the site can see how many visits we are getting etc. To get there, log yourself in as normal – then go to the ‘dashboard tab’ – then under that should be a link to ShortStat which lays it out all nice. Lovely.

Going through some cds the other day and found this gem recorded circa 2000 in Queen Street, Lancaster, which incidentally is the subject of some local controversy. Thought it would be a good chance to test the audio techniques of this website majobby – assuming you’ve got flash, you should be able to click on the play button below. Much respect to Knaggs – though you are in Wales, you are nonetheless a genius and of course as always salutations to our mediterranean cousin.

[audio:01 Track 1.mp3]

If you can’t see the player – I think you should able to download the track instead.

It’s my birthday in a couple of days so in time honoured fashion I decided to get a group of pals together for a few drinks. I was feeling strangely optimistic about the coming year and it seemed the right time to reunite some long lost acquaintances in the grimy bars of Shoreditch.

Previous years had seen me struggle to get through quite enough ale within the time available so I resolved to start early and aim to plough through a solid base of drinking within the first couple of hours to set me up for a good night. Foolishly dispensing with dinner, I remained a stable character as people turned up and the free pints from friends turned up to replace the ever diminishing ones in my hands. Cracking smiles at old acquaintances to often told anecdotes and making sure I kept mobile, getting to catch up with everyone.

Slightly miffed by the corporate ambience of the first bar we were in, I managed to pull off a two pronged assault on a much improved venue: The Legion. In there I found even more old friends that I hadn’t known were coming, which much delighted me. In fact, I found myself in a mental state approaching euphoria. Well-meaning friends kept coming up to me proffering rare shots of horrible beverages. My clarity began to fade. The music was particularly excellent and I found myself bopping to the maximum. Fiendish gyrations to twisted beats. Leaping on to tables to descend making crazed arm movements onto the beer-soaked floor.

Which is maybe where it should have ended. An experience my mate described to me the next day as “Rocking the Legion”. An ecstatic tribute to the tunes and the style in which we marauded it. All good-natured stuff you understand? No bad vibes and fronting. Just straight enjoyment in the moment. And maybe it did end like that. I can’t be sure. Round that time my memory gets erased entirely and the next clear memory I have is of stumbling around the street, on my own, desperately trying to hail a taxi. I remember thinking: “my god, in this state, on my own, I’m going to get beaten up”. None of the cabs wanted to go out as far as the suburban morass where I reside, and when I got one, eventually, I was delighted at the chance of being robbed of an extra forty notes. Oh, and losing my cashcard, but then that’s another story.

And so I find myself wondering, what did happen in that lost hour and a half. Why did I end up on my own, particularly when I was in the bar with one of my other mates who also ended up taxiing it home on his lonesome. Weird stuff and a strong reminder of the fact that I’m not indestructible. No Groover, you are not the one-man-human-drinking machine. To those that attended the evening and I think potentially those that tried to escort me home, I salute you as good friends one-and-all. Despite the fear illicited by the memory loss described above, I think it possibly could have been one of the most amusing nights of my nearly one year older life. In fact, you know I really hope we all get to do it again some time, but I think on the next one I might have to skip the brandy.

Just went through and deleted 32 comments picked up by the spam filter in bolo, left by people (about 50% of them Germans) advertising their poxy poker site. You absolute twats – leave my site alone. I hope you overdose on your fake viagra or die in a house fire fuelled by fake university certificates.

Had to bop to Sunderland again today. Starting to know that place with the back of the hand and with that knowledge comes loathing. Loathing, not particularly for the place – it seems like many of the other slightly undernourished areas I have to visit – but because I’m forced to head off there at the crack of dawn, deliver some sort of fearful presentation, coffee stimulants propping open drooping eyelids and arms gesticulating as I try to find sentences which make sense and get through the thing without blowing my cover.

This morning particularly, at 6am with the sound of torrential rain outside and the knowledge that the light grey flannel of my suit would soon be flekked with dark grey from the spread of the rain which my umbrella couldn’t catch, I was reminded of a Hunter S Thompson article from the Great Shark Hunt where he recounts a time in his younger life where while working on a construction gang he turned up on a day when the skies opened and the world of work seemed particularly abhorrent. I can’t remember the exact wording, but I seem to remember him describing how one of the old hands in the group made the following observation:

“Fellows, what in gods name are we doing out here? On days like this there’s only one place to be – lying in bed with the rain beating down on the top of the corrugated iron roof, a bottle of wild turkey within easy reach, belly to belly with a good woman”.

…. And that’s exactly how I felt this morning.

And so I return to Bolo. I feel that I have progressed sufficiently in my life-saga to take some of your precious time and describe my happenings to you. I was living in a student flat approaching derelict status; I have now leap-frogged the usual socio-economic ladder to a dwelling approaching the highest echelons of living accommodation in old Madrid. My spanish still sucks and I am constantly reminded of how feeble my language skills are (as the waiter still tells me the bill for my coke in english). But fuck it. I have time. There is nowhere else I need be and I need not rush it; impatience is not a virtue, however… the señoritas are crushing my soul with every stolen glance, and are a constant reminder of the inferiority of the male gender. If you think I should be more of a team player, I offer you this simple anecdotal evidence: Last night, in a club near Gran Via, whilst surrounded with simmering sirens I lit the wrong end of my cigarette, and later, more embarassingly, I had a wet sueño.

Seeing all this high quality verse action going on, I am reminded that an update to the look, design and layout of bolo is well overdue. Rest assured that this is very much on my mind. Just need to finish work on the new Frankie Wedge website (about two weeks), then I’m going to get started on it right away. Plans at the moment are to provide a bit more space and to split some of the content up a little bit. e.g. maybe have a box for verse and a box for general stuff and a picture bit or something. Maybe a box that pulls out a random post from the past – particularly as it seems like some good stuff has got written and is kind of lost in the site at the moment once a couple of weeks go by. Still don’t want it to be too cluttered. Be very interested in hearing other people’s ideas on the subject.

On other matters, started preliminary planning for an illustrated childrens book yesterday and I think that’s got a lot of potential. No point writing for adults – their brains are all hard and shrivelled. Kids on the other hand have spongy, absorbent brains.

Wild Honey

I sucked on honeycombs
‘til my head reeled
and my eyes rolled back
‘til my tongue spieled
and my mind cracked
I forced my way
Through the wild ways
In between the worlds

Still it was never enough
“Give me more of that good stuff”
Was ever my refrain

(Could it be I couldn’t take the pain?)
Whatever be the case, man, this was my cry:
“Give me visions, brothers, let’s get high!”

In due time I said to the sun (with Donne)
“Why should I rise with thee?”
Then the hours of my waking
were determined utterly by me

I formed my world
Round my rejection of it
And the road I set out along
Passed in time (through Vegas)
down the barrel of a gun

Yes, I sat with my pipe and my oblivion
(Like a toddler with a toy)
My world was one of skunk-smoke and cider-spit
I fashioned of myself a pit
A pit in which to sinking sit
In a mire that was only me

Sometimes I roused myself
And tried to flail away my pain
I sought some ecstatic dance
Some rolling pulsing dancing trance
Some fusion of foot and rhythm
Some blazing kaleidoscopic fission

Some dawning of some
final bright implosive light
in which the mind might end
so I might thus have come to life

Mad as I was I sought sanctuary in the play of spinning disks
Yes I wished to wash my soul clean
In the surging stream
of rapid whip-snap beats

Brothers, you were there –
Can any of us claim it worked?

Or rather can you still see me where
I lay sprawled
All twitch and eyeball
Heaving at the heart’s wall
Haunted through those hinterlands
by shades of long narcotic night?

Let’s admit it:
Wailing with the world’s pain
I was not a pretty sight

What happened then?

Well, my source dried up
And my world became a desert
And I lived for a time
Amidst the whip and whine
Of a fire sky – of an end-is-nigh
Apocalyptic vision

And then even that sky faded black
And I clattered blind amidst the bones

And I cowered in a world like death
Amidst the ravens’ screeching tones

What happened then?

Well I was struck by a sudden surging tide

- And – in the half-light of an unexpected time
I washed up on golden sands
(In the bays of unfamiliar lands)

I had been so sure I was shorn of myself –
Can you imagine myself surprised
when I awoke and stirred to see
a night-cloaked figure handing me
a ‘comb that leaked like gold?
(It was wonderful to behold!)

And though the bees stung
I drew on it
(And I draw on it still)

And for as long as I draw as hard as I can
It transforms my pit
and makes of my mire a man

Brothers, this good stuff tastes like honey
though in truth it burns like flame

And who’s my source?

Well, for fear of the (fashion) Feds
I’d better not name the Name

No sleep again, too much GTA and no responsibility. Definitely time for a readjustment some reassessment or some other word ending with ‘ment’.

The plus points of this sleep deprived condition are that I have managed to identify that one of my projects is growing into a better and better analogy of the Star Wars trilogy or should that be Star Wars is a good analogy for the project. Never mind, that’s splitting hairs, which in itself has always seemed a fairly meaningless phrase to me. Oh yes, but the point is that I am working in Star Wars (minus the wookies, space ships and laser (sorry, blaster) battles. The good thing is that I am definitely in the Return of the Jedi stage of the project and that can surely mean a foolhardy mission against a big floating space station, a man with a strange helmet and a dude who fires lightning out of his fingers is fast approaching….. but first, a Jedi must rest.