Spent a couple of days this semi-glorious bank holiday weekend down at another wedding, deep in the darkest, coastally close countryside.

A strange place indeed, but much natural beauty at the ceremony itself, although more from the trees and fine lawns that graced the mansion where we were based than from the assembled company. There was a most distinct lack of single women for me to ogle/berate, so I spent my time considering my strange fortune at being in a reconditioned barn which looked out to luscious gardens, taking trips outside for too many cigarettes and seeing what I could do to stay out of trouble.

Duty done, we piled on back to the hotel, on the fringes of a retirement village, somewhere near a Sainsbury’s multiplex. This kind of place is not always convivial to joke, but well aided by alcohol by then, we managed to create our own entertainment, assembling a crew of established jokers in a baracaded room, to partake of the cheroot and swap a few more laughs and stories. Ignore the bangings on the wall, floor and ceiling from those trying to catch some ill-deserved kip. Just turn the volume on the ipod up, shout louder and resist all attempts at entrance from peope wearing security uniforms, allowing people who prefer Hawaiian shirts and heart shaped shades.

I think Blur probably hit the nail on the head when they sung “Your mind gets dirty, as you get closer to thirty”. Perhaps it’s because we’ve been starved of sun this summer, but every time there is a nice day and the ladies come out wearing their lack of wares, man, I’m nearly going blind.

Yes, that’s right today I reached the lofty heights of 27. This is the type of age I would definitely have classified as ‘old’ when I was a long-bleached-hair, long overcoat wearing indie weirdo teenager. I would have expected that by the time I got to that age (if I even made it) that I would have written a couple of books, maybe made a film, certainly a top 10 album.

Ah well, I probably knew even less then, than I know now, and certainly my haircut has improved (a bit). On the plus side, the last couple of years have felt like things are finally moving. The creative endeavours are growing in both intention and magnificence and that is surely no bad thing. I finally feel like some of what I started off wanting to do is possible and that the rewards maybe are there if I can just keep my tentative grip on reality and keep going against the current set by the increasing crowds of haters, nay-sayers and plumbaits of every description, found on all sides.

One thing I’ve learnt since being 15, is that it is possible to turn this great ship around. It is possible to set your navigation by a distant and dimly lit star and sail toward it, fearful of falling off the edge of the world, but certain that not heading for it will lead to a lifetime of regret and recrimination. However, it is bloody hard, everything takes a ridiculously long time and there is no certainty. You never quite feel that you know what you are doing and for every epiphany it feels like there are a hundred moments of doubt. It is a bit like trying to wade through concrete. It can be done, but it’s fucking dangerous and is slow tiring work that will probably ruin your shoes and see you standing still for a very long time.

To commemorate this fact and the occasion, I kicked a car-park ticket machine today. It was refusing to accept my money as I stood in the pouring rain and this made me extremely unhappy. Something clicked in my head, so I kicked it, stepping back to allow maximum momentum of bottom of sole into soft display panel, before stamping forward hard. The thing made a suitably loud crunching noise, rocked a little and then, sensing the risk of destruction, an alarm went off inside. Several concerned residents looked over before thinking again about making any kind of comment to the 27 year old who was already loping off into the distance, rain dripping off his face and shaking his fist at an old lady who was attempting to run him over, feeling once again, a lot better about everything.

Hurtling through the countryside again, past miles of farmland and the occasional nuclear power station, after an afternoon excursion to Newcastle to talk about transport security.

A three hour meeting and six hours of travel always makes for feeling jaded and in this instance, it’s been compounded by the fact that I couldn’t sleep last night. Lay there fidgetting and imagining I needed the toilet for a couple of hours before evenutually passing out at five, only for the alarm to ring three hours later to remind me to get up and catch my train.

This kind of insomnia hits me about one night every three months. It doesn’t seem to be related to having stuff on my mind (or not especially so), just a perverse joke chucked in to keep me feeling paranoid for most of the following day.

As a result, thinking back about actions of the past few weeks and getting nervous about the prospect that for I while now I’ve been taking myself dangeriously seriously. This is not a good habit for a serial animaliser. If you can’t laugh at your foolish behaviour and rejoice in the diminishing effects of bumping into old girlfriends, the prospect of marriage going on on all sides and late night expeditions to sleazy old cheese bars….. Well…. it could be pretty much terminal losing your sense of humour in that game. Side effects, part positive are that I currently seem to have the single minded purpose of the very drunk and the very religious, but that in itself can bring its own problems. Much determined to get home, get some rest and launch a few new schemes destined to bring trouble, exhaustion and most importantly, a high level of amusement, to fully re-balance the scales.

I came up with a couple of paragraphs a few nights back, that demonstrate what happens to a man when he drinks too much coffee, stays up too late and leans himself up (they’re not in the final cut, although I was tempted):

“We kept coming back to the list. We pinned it up on our noticeboard, we wrote down words on post it notes and stuck them on the fridge. We drew strange diagrams and argued about whether colours captured a particular emotion or whether a font was too austere or too boutique. We checked everything we made against the list and sometimes this meant starting over or making tough decisions. On occasion, we pulled our hair out and ripped up the bits of paper scattered on the floor, cursing the cat for putting paw prints on our prototypes and banged our heads on the wall, rueful of the day we had determined to visually express the concepts of ‘creative’ and ‘heavyweight’ at the same time.

These were good days, and the reason I mention them is that I want to make the point that getting branding right is difficult, but worthwhile. Successful branding is about opening up a compelling dialogue with your audience and offers you the chance to express your work in its best light. It should evoke consistent associations, while allowing room for creative freedom, debate and playfulness. It is about being clear about who you are and having the confidence to deliver consistent messages, within a consistent visual framework that increases the impact of what you do and what you say. ”

It was then, I knew for sure that I had passed over the threshold of Bill Hick’s simple categorisation of evil. I was an animal, and I was proud of myself.

Coughing like an old asbestos worker today. It came on sudden after a night’s heavy drinking and Parcour tomfoolery. I woke up in Putney confused by my geographic location and irritated by my inability to remember to drink copious amounts of water before going to sleep.

By then it was already late, sometime mid-afternoon and that meant there was work to be done and casualties along the way. The Greek was somewhat agrieved to hear that I would not now be popping over to his flat for some light marootage later in the day. I apologised, I was a drunken fool I explained.

My cough was getting worse so I knuckled down to the computinator to get some work out of the way. A lot has happened in the last few weeks and I find myself desperately trying (and so far failing) to make some space to sit down and get some writing out, not least to clear the mental tubes a bit. Avoid complete shutdown or complete burst of the seratonin valve and all that good stuff. Ah well, perhaps it will happen and perhaps it won’t. If I can just preserve the valve, then everything else might just be well.

Had to have a nap this afternoon as I was up early to drive to Bicester and back. It was a good trip, and Crimpanort’s bag of paper prototypes seemed to go down well, but getting up early is totally offensive to me, so after we returned I staked out the sofa for forty winks.

Need to save energy because tomorrow Lurch is tying the proverbial knot. The day promises to be taxing because of the requirement to don a strange suit and do minor errands in the interests of keeping up the bonds of friendship and because of the inevitable onslaught of alcohol, high-jinx and dad-dancing that will no doubt ensue.

The first of my home crew to take the plunge, it all seems like an epic moment in the history of the group. A momentous occurrence of some note and not one without its peril. Lurch snapped his finger yesterday in an impromptu bout of wrestling with Davros. Sometime before that, after a dose of sambucca and champagne it was myself and Prubast that were trading insults. Shouting abuse in each others faces for a couple of minutes before thinking better of the whole thing and repairing home for a couple of maroots.

All in all, ominous rumblings, but not insurpassable. I feel another nap coming on so I better sign off wishing sunshine, providence, frankincence and all other good things, arrive conveniently at 13:00 tomorrow.

Returned late last night after the seats on the plane we were supposed to catch at two in the afternoon were sold off to wealthy oil barons and tax-experts by the world’s favourite airline. We had timed our arrival at the airport exactly, blazing it up furiously in a favourite coffee shop, fully equipped for a large group of individuals each ranging somewhere between a form of manic frenzy and listless unconsciousness, for the hours before, before swinging in late, off the double decker train, to lurch up to the counter, brandishing online check in numbers and hooded eyelids.

Previously, I had prepared for the trip and the ominous prospect of flying by downed my way through several fresh orange juices (to maintain constant health), while gradually emptying the many bags of quality vegetation I had accumulated on the trip. The camera memory was full (link to appear shortly) and the company was jovial, laughing about the last couple of days and celebrating the fact that scaffolding had not killed anyone off (more to come on that and on other stories I’m sure). The job had been well done and I had reached the inevitable zenith of leanness, secure in my place in the universe, albeit severely unsteady on my feet.

Suddenly, though standing at the counter, as the nervous looking BA attendant explained that whilst most of our party had gone through to the flight fine, myself and three others were without transport. Despite our furious abuse, he explained that the best that he could do was to get us onto a flight for Gatwick for that evening, a considerable blow considering that we had flown out from Heathrow and the car we needed to get home was safely camped out back there. “No good at all, my man” we retorted, but it was no good, he cut us off “So, London is London”.

This logic was irrefutable, but I wasn’t sure what relation it bore to two airports, on opposite sides of a giant city. Nonetheless, it was impossible, he was delighted with the London deal and explained otherwise we would have to wait for the next day.

Disconsolate, pranged, totally lean timed to just about manage to get to our plane seats and pass out. We stopped and considered our options. There were no options, we had over five hours to kill and all the airport had was overpriced baguettes, boxed selections of toblerone and the stench of travellers. We jumped back on the train to the Dam, passed carefully once more over the bike, tram, car strewn streets and repaired to a fine coffeeshop. Ten minutes later, I was sanguine once more, in that short space of time having realised, that delays can be opportunities with a bit of luck and just the right kind of sick determination.

Trying to shuffle through the requisite amount of papers today, because come this evening it’s time to down tools, marshal my energies and prepare for a trip to that legendary den of iniquity, and road crossing danger: Amsterdam.

I haven’t been there for a couple of years, but on some level, memories of that dirty place still return from time to time, usually when I’m sitting round a table, somewhere between wide-awake and full on white-out, laughing about a world of psychadelics and hallucinogens that I was pretty pleased to have consigned to my ill-considered youth.

But it’s back. Brought on by Mr Lurch’s decision to do the right thing by his delightful partner of choice, we’re off for a stag weekend to the city of a thousand maroots. We’re a big crew and I approach the event with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, sure that at the very least, a bolo adventure of some proportions, is about to unfold. Just need to pack up the trusty camera, the dictaphone, drink a couple of pints of berocca for extra vitamin reserves, steel my resolve and head out to the flatlands. Resistance, and by that I probably mean sobriety, is pretty much futile.

I signed up to my hosting provider about a year ago. They were cheap and offered a lot for the price. For a long time, I was very happy with them. Things ticked along smoothly in the background, I set up a number of websites and the pound coins slowly rolled in.

Then a couple of months back, things went wrong. Emails sent from some of my accounts started bouncing back. I received fearful warnings that the IP address connected with them was associated with some kind of spam, form mailing form of madness. Websites broke for periods of time and then in one final straw moment, suddenly trying to get some of the websites from google resulted in a horrible warning from the search giant, effectively accusing the site of being some kind of digital rapist, liable to infect you with malware, spyware, crabs and make your eyebrows fall out.

Jesus christ, I thought – This is going to totally fuck my business and it’s not even my fault. I was paying out my money so that my hosts could put in the investment to keep their tenants secure, safe and impregnable from seventeen year old pimply virgins, getting their rocks off on the sordid pleasure of hacking into other people’s servers. No-one really knows why they do it, but the answer could lie somewhere between never getting any sex and not quite being ready yet to head out for the next Columbine massacre. Either way, fuck them, it’s the job of my old host to keep me safe from these urchins and they aren’t doing it.

So, this means I need to move all of my websites over to my new shiny account based down in Docklands. I’m going to start with bolo, to act as a test case. This could mean that a) bolo moves into a new era of amazingness, on a faster connection, and much more impregnable to attack or b) that I botch something up in the process and bolo goes to the wall never to be seen again. Which would make this the final post, but then again hopefully not eh?

Sitting, contemplating the fact that tomorrow I’ve got to rise from my pit at some ungodly hour to go and do some research. Dragged back to my old time employment on a freelance basis on the promise of much needed financial gain, to keep me able to afford takeaways across the weekend and constant supply of Cafe Nero.

Feel a bit grim about it. Seems harder than ever to put the sharp suit on and go into Hugh Grant mode, shaking hands and trying to build a rapport. Trying to find out what in hell’s going on here for the inevitable report down the line and making sure I come out of the building clutching the requisite pile of excel spreadsheets.

Ahh data, the new policy gold. All does not glitter in that department, but that, at this hour of the night, is certainly a subject for another day.

Yes, so slow fear. The usual unlikely possibility of experiencing some kind of breakdown in the day, bearing down upon me. Visions of smashing digital recorder on table before throwing a table over, kicking the shit out of a small pot plant before riding an office chair down the stairs. This probably will not happen. The reality is that I will sit in an office for much of the day, occasionally glimpsing out the window and thinking about getting through, and getting on with something better. Cracking jokes and riding the elevators, keeping a lid on madness, because lets face it, who really wants to see that? Certainly not me.

The last few weeks have seen a veritable slew of long-overdue reunions with old pals, drunken nights ended with passing out listening to Keb Mo, Jamie T and upon the purchase of a digital radio – Planet Rock. An amazing unceasing barrage of tunes with guitar solos, played by dudes with massive hair and quite possibly beards. Shouted conversations in bars with strangers and ever present prospect of doom, epiphany, destruction and elation. Exactly the right stuff for this blog.

Inevitably, several times I’ve wanted to write something and never quite got round to it. Running around firing the camera off like a strobe light and caught up in a frenzy of work. Trying to read more than Johnny Five from Short circuit and getting strangely scared about putting words on a page for all my writing energy spent tapping out corporate wisdom. Surely some of this must be leaving it’s mark? Something to show other than those dark circles under my eyes and the ability to type 100 plus words per minute?

Just time to find an image for this post, roll a final creation and settle back contemplating the week ahead. Mad welsh people staying in the house, so no rest there. Just the crazed melody of the Swansea dialect (familiar to some of the bolo contingent) and the sound of vodka being downed. Best to stay round the Crimpanort’s, caught amongst the ash and the bits of crisps. Tapping out this message on a clapped out silver laptop, nodding to the beat of the tv and the fuzz of static as it lurches in and out of tune.

Not a bad weekend by any means. No big scares and no harrowing drama. Sometimes that’s what you need. A chance to summon up a bit of reserve energy and go lurching off home, swigging lucozade for energy, oranges for health, weetabix for intestinal fortitude and cheese for encouraging incoherent dreams.

Was out driving this weekend, down the rolling hills to a little place called Ashburton somewhere in the deepest West Country. Out of the blue my old work pal, “The Professional” sent an email round announcing that he’d decided to do the right thing and marry the teutonic girl of his dreams. It seemed like a good chance to duck out of the big smoke for a day or so, clear the head, before confusing it again with beverages, and catch up with some old friends.

And indeed it was. Nice to crank the car up to 90 and see the countryside blur past at high speed. Good to stop for a snack in a village pub, have a joke with the local alcoholics and move on again, dodging Massey Fergusons and scraping the hedgerows. Excellent news when you just about manage to grab the only cab in town, draped in crisp suit and obligatory pink shirt/tie combination. Proceed to spend an evening investigating the qualities of real ale, soft-rock tribute bands, quiche and generally spectating in the obligatory first dance / speech umms and ahhs.

The Professional looked deeply contented as did his new wife and I generally felt a sense of right with the world, trading witticisms with the assembled crew and finding ample opportunity to throw a few erratic shapes, sliding around on the polished floor with my new shoes, just another drunken suburbanite out for a country break. The next day I felt rough, but on my return I felt rested. Ready to wreak new havoc, I came up with some interesting new ideas quickly, which reminded me of something important, which amazingly I had forgotten about: Breaks really are a good thing.

Firstly, apologies for the paucity of posts on the good ship bolo of late. I am a shambling, buholic, webmaking shenanigan splicer, but that’s no excuse.

Got home today in a pretty good mood because whilst my branding meeting up in town had revealed some interesting setbacks, essentially everyone was happier on some of the other points than I had expected. I had also managed to save to disk, four and a half years worth of emails, contact details and calendar, so that put me on a logistical good footing, something I never expected or ever dreamed I would one day hope to achieve.

Then crisis. Round to Crimpacine’s to fill him in on the meeting, because he’d been laid up all day with the sickness and I made the foolish mistake of having a quick check of the email. One of my website’s key features was in the process of breaking down and I was to blame. This was to prompt a quick few hours leading up to now checking through queries, making some quick fixes and pondering carefully over the wording of an apologetic email. This activity was only punctuated by cups of tea, occasional marootage and most momentously by the surprise phone call from the bank to check whether I had recently placed a large bet in an online casino out in Arkansas. Funnily enough, the answer to this was in the negative, and the polite Indian call centre man I spoke to informed me that my credit card had been compromised. Some toerag was attempting a rinseout on me and I was much enraged.

Anyway, it was kind of alright, because apparently the card is covered for fraud, which is very nice indeed. Still, that was the kind of evening I’ve had and the weekend, god bless it’s ramshackle ways, can’t come soon enough…

Downloading images off shutterstock and feeling like I’ve been sniffing glue. Pages upon pages of information flick by and my fingers click, wait for this slow machine to kick into life, then click again. Too many images, burns out the brain and once you kill the head, the body will die. Old messages it’s true, but believe me, nothing can sear your eyes like an lcd screen, with the contrast up so high and the distant hum of wireless signals passing somewhere between the box and the receiver, through the centre of my head and out into my earlobe transponders.

I just logged into bolo for the first time in a week or so and was somewhat surprised to find that the spam collector had managed to pick up 3,400 spam comments in the week. Makes you wonder how much filth, (I’m not saying the ‘p’ word because I don’t want to encourage these ingrates through using words that make them think this site is worth advertising on), used cars, man extenders, lack of potence curing, degree giving, church of scientology (quite agree with Breakingstein), monkey chimp baiting activity there is out there. Almost like the whole internet is just one giant huge rotating nipple on the back of a fat three headed man, one smoking a pipe, one biting the leg of a baby and the other one lecturing you about the values of open source software and tax rebates through the use of patent pending productivity maximisers. Incidentally, I think a lot of it may be to do with swearing, so there’s an interesting and new reason for encouraging fucking censorship.

Well yes, hit the ‘delete’ key and that stuff’s all gone. Out the proverbial window to go wherever unwanted data streams go. Perhaps to a cyberspace version of Neasden or a Northern club on the grim North Western Coast on a Wednesday evening. Incidentally remember that poor chap that died on the way back on the bus one night in Freshers week? What a way to go.

But once again I digress and what I really wanted to talk about was things that probably will stay with me. Memories that have that tendency to dig deep, to pop up in the head during a moment of silence with mates at some imagined point in the future and you go ‘oh yeah I remember that’.

I wanted to talk about finally finishing work and moving onto the world of full time design company running and freelance ambling shambling consultancy. Yes, finally it is here. The last few months racing through like they were vexed just being here and suddenly I was walking home on Thursday night and thinking: ‘Oh my word, tomorrow I leave work’.

Friday morning I was as usual into the office tired and bleary eyed. Missing my ipod because I couldn’t afford to take it in on a day when I knew I’d be consuming a few beverages. I got to my desk without incident, fired up my computer and prepared for a day of idle email traffic and japery. At some point later on having consumed my first cup of coffee, my senses cleared and I suddenly realised that a good proportion of the company’s workforce were wearing the tshirts that Crimpanort designed last year for the awayday to Paris. It was an epic tribute and I felt highly amused, even putting aside my usual hatred of fancy dress to don my own version of the shirt.

Later on, I was lucky in that the speech I had been failing to conjure up in my head during the quarterly company meeting for the last couple of hours, somehow fell perfectly into place as I stood up to the humiliating demands of the obligatory circle of fear. That task over it was off to Bar Music for a few drinks to celebrate the moment of escape.

The night itself is a bit blurry towards the end, but began distinct. A sea of faces old and new raising glasses, impromptu outbreaks of dancing and frenzied photography. Doing the rounds to grab moments of conversation, explain future plans for the thousandth time and laugh at old reminiscences. Just about hold politeness in check for the most part, least till near the end, when the loss of cigarettes and the combination of pints plus cheerily profferred shots of sambuca had me potentially raging. Ah the joys of memory loss, but no creeping fear this time and mainly the feeling of happiness as I bopped onto the dance floor to spill my own pints and throw some shapes into the air.

Least till the morning, when I awoke on a friend’s floor in Bow, sickened, staggering out onto the blazing hot street and buying up a milkshake, a Dr whatserface smoothie, and two cans of cream soda. Observe the regeneration money spent on the area and the zero danger of a beating when looking like a crazy man and sucking volubly from a giant carton of banana milkshake. Onto the train to sweat it out with the weekend travellers, through the drinks collection by home, to spend the rest of the day vegetating out at my friend’s barbecue, aching limbs portending of creeping doom.

Suddenly the implications of what I had done sunk in. It all seemed a bit more epic than it had been before. It was no longer pretend. I’m still not sure I fully comprehend it, but it certainly appears real. Fortunately no real time to over-think. Today spent getting an events board ready for a client and processing the last few day’s amusements. Not too bad and starting to calm down, as the afternoon went by and jobs sailed out of my fingers into the keyboard into the programmes and up into the big nipple in the sky to be picked up by satellites, passing ufos, wireless connection stealers, credit card readers and more importantly, their intended targets. When the jobs were done I felt better, so I wrote a list of the jobs to do the next day, and then I remembered I hadn’t written anything on bolo for far too long. So I wrote this. After that I felt on top of my game again, so I went to sleep to dream of leopards and alligators and the impossibility of being able to fly for a consistent length of time.

I was walking home friday clutching a kebab house cheeseburger in my left hand, when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a figure in a stripy top running for his life. He glanced quickly over his shoulder as he pounded down the pavement before reaching the junction which I was approaching from another way. Then disaster, for as he reached the kerb, his relentless pace became too much, his left leg stumping on a dip in the ground and he began the inevitable route towards hitting the floor. Arms pinwheeling, legs still running hard in an attempt to rebalance the critical head forward angle you are fast approaching, but it’s too much and he went down flat, sliding along the road a little way.

We had to pick him up off the ground and call him a cab home, try to get some sense out of his incoherrent ramblings and dust off the open wounds in his arms and legs and face. We still don’t know what he was running from, but he stacked as hard as I’ve seen. (Actually no, I can think of an even more frightening example) When we first approached him, he was as scared of us as the people he was supposedly running from, but by then desparation had kicked in, he was winded and luckily for him our karma was well in need of a top up.

I was up early this morning, splashing hot water on a pasty face and trying to prise eyelids open to enable putting on of trousers. Not easy.

Quick dose of training and then on to Moorgate for a branding meeting. Trepidation of a sort because we were armed only with expertly presented designs mounted on nice black card. Fortunately however, they received this offering in good spirits and we emerged, relieved and celebrating once again that the good train looked like it might just keep rolling.

Now, slumped over the keyboard again, long past when I should have been thinking human and decent thoughts like ‘quick bowl of cereal then off to bed eh chaps?’, but instead I was planning the beginnings of a novel, the ends of an email and thinking about my place in the universe again. Not really that helpful, but it kills the time.

I was plunged into horror after I realised that I had misplaced my camera. Out for the usual round of beverages and maroot action last night, I seemed to have lost the thing. I thought at first it was round the Crimpanort’s house, but a detailed search came up dry. Home was empty of camera looking items. A call to the cab office revealed that they too had seen nothing of the small shiny object.

I bopped upstairs to sulk for a few hours and forget about it by ploughing through some long overdue work. Then, just after consuming my curry and cursing myself for my inability to look after my precious possessions, the phone started ringing. It was Checkers, Pinner’s most legendary cab company. One of their drivers had handed in my belonging and all was well again. The relief was intense, not least because earlier on I had promised my mates that if I couldn’t find it, I was fully prepared to set myself on fire and run around screaming. Instead I was running round, thanking the gods that my drunken ineptitude had for once gone unpunished, and I haven’t come down since.

In other matters, I have to report that I think this is one of the most animal stories I have ever read. Good work crazy Slovenian swimming chappy.

Life continues as normal, monumental deadlines sweeping by, late nights and feverish days up at the computernator, trying to hold off destruction. Putting new clothing and new haircut to paper over the cracks of sleeplessness, the impending onset of madness, paranoia or at least hypochondria. The great fear that any moment one piece of the puzzle, one cog in the great machine, will fall, sending the whole pack of the cards down, with Groover trapped underneath, screaming about the council taxes and the plumbaits. Then switch moods to derive endless exultation at glimpsed possibilities and through celebration of the fact that there are four (yes count them) more days of employed life ahead, and beyond that lie at last, the great open hills of self-employment and the chance to really see something new. Indestructible confidence: Lets push things forward, or at the very least, catch some amusement in the attempt.

Lurch rung me up on Wednesday when I was on my way out of tax training (hmm) and asked if I wanted his spare ticket for seeing Faithless that night. Not too difficult a decision really and it was with some excitement that I rocked up to Wembley, eagerly awaiting some high amusement.

Still, Wembley arena is a funny place. Resplendent in leisure centre ambience and the fake ghostly echoes of people chanting for Wolf from the Gladiators does dancing on ice. Totally non-smoking, lit up brightly by strip lighting and heavily policed by a range of unpleasantly bureaucratic security characters. After I got through the obligatory search I hit my wallet for a £4 beer and took in the atmosphere. Fun fair rinseout territory as far as I could tell.

Inside the arena and confined to a seat – Lurch didn’t tell me that and I hate seated gigs – Faithless were brucking out their usual blend of euphoric house chillout and that certainly had its moments. Seeing the skinny form of Maxi Jazz bobbling about the stage like a puppet on his own strings was pretty cool as was the bopping sight of legendary keyboard maestro Sister Bliss. Unfortunately though, we were a bloody mile away and they could have been anyone dressed up to look like them for all I know. I kept looking down at the seething thousands that had blagged a place standing in the crowd down below and couldn’t help feeling I was missing something. Still, good to cross an old band off the unseen bands list and to stay up late afterwards playing their albums, shouting drunkenly and blazing it up till the small hours.

Inevitably today was pretty unpleasant. A surfeit of work and the inevitable deadline for the project I’ve been running, was on me. Sweating and shaking through a bit of quick spreadsheet work, sneaking out for gasped cigarettes and then back, brain on fire from cups of coffee, sickness and fear of failure. It was a long day. 9.5 hours to be precise, but it was with a light step that I left the office today. I felt like I’d stuck at it and though doom is almost certainly to come in shape tomorrow due to the still unfinished state of the work, it was a brave effort.

Then brilliantly I got on the train at Moorgate to inadvertently sit on the seat that a stop later was to be frequented by a fine young lady who insisted on pressing her leg against mine while smelling of an amazingly clean and soothing perfume. I closed my eyes in a veritable summer garden and went happily to sleep.

Crimpanort inadvertently booked picking up the pizza at the same time as linking some extra herbs. How are we going to do that, we wondered? Then we remembered that we both had cars.

On other subjects, the break for freedom gathers pace. Just one more high octane week of furious needs and supply assessment county council action – honestly, don’t ask and then I’m off for two weeks. Plan to spend a couple of days sitting in an easy chair reading a book or two and then kick back into website mode. Projects coming out of my ears at the moment and in a desperate bid for future solvency, seem to have sold a bit too much. Ah well, beggars cannot be choosers and actually I quite like the idea of rolling out a couple of big projects in the next couple of months. Then again, I quite like sleeping and reading as well and at least those two days are coming first.

The front page of the newspapers today were carrying the story that a few ‘activists’ from Greenpeace had managed to evade intensive security arrangements clustered around the Houses of Parliament, scaling a floating crane to unfurl a banner that read Tony *heart* WMD. This annoyed me for a few reasons:

The main one was that after a hard day’s office work I felt no particular affinity and certainly no support for people who spend their days plotting for ways to ascend giant climbing frames, squatting in flats and tie dying their clothes ready for airing their unwashed armpits in sight of the house of government. I hate crusties. I seriously resent the fact that I have to graft hard for every penny that ends up on my table, turning my hair grey through endeavours designed to provide for an incredibly unaffordable London mortgage, while these fuckers piss around smoking roll ups and moaning about the capitalist state. Yeah great capitalist state that picks up your benefits tab, lobs you a load of housing benefit, and puts you through hospital when one of your mates, scabbed out on acid tries to remove your scalp with the top of a tin of beans. I’ve got no time for people whose main protest is to disengage, sit outside trying to piss in and quoting French philosophy. Without struggle there can be no revolution.

I’m also annoyed about the imposition of the WMD message itself. It just shows how out of touch these clapwits are, harping on about getting rid of the nuclear arsenal when there is absolutely no chance that it is going to happen. Didn’t you cunts know we’re at war? Don’t get me wrong, getting rid of weapons of massive destruction would make me pretty happy, it’s I just would rather we addressed some more practical concerns first. Hell, why not even try to address something where we could make a difference? Lets stop the build up of aggression over Iran. Lets curtail this madness in Afghanistan. Lets get out of Iraq. Principally, lets try to affect change, where change is possible.

The other thing is WMD? What the fuck? Is that my top concern? Am I not more concerned about some irate Birmingham mosque dweller strapping themselves up with home made explosives and a biscuit tin and sending me or my close acquaintances, commuters one and all to the great tube line in the sky? I think you’ll find I am.

Oh yeah and the fact the banner was addressed to ‘Tony’. I hardly think the leader of Labour personifies the government’s and the Conservatives’ support of keeping nuclear weapons. I hardly think it’s just Tony, sitting round going “yeah, I love atom bombs me. Brown, how much money have we got in the back for another neutron test in the Pacific? Lets fit a nuclear reactor under Stonehenge. Hell, Cherie any chance of some depleted uranium with the chicken hot pot tonight.” I hate the simplification of government policy into an attack on one personality. Tony *heart* WMD – it’s like a slogan from a photo next to another photo of Britney Spears falling out of a car in Heat magazine.

Finally, I’ve got no time for Greenpeace. a) they are ‘run by crusties’ as described above, which is pretty tough given they’re a bunch of shit pant wearing hippies rubbing linseed oil into everything and student weekend activists popping ecstasy tablets and salvia divorem and talking about repression. Untested virtue when your mum pays for your beer means nothing to me. However, the thing I can’t forgive Greenpeace for is that b) they spend years harping on and on about (often totally legitimate) environmental concerns, then go invisible on the whole thing round about the time everyone is starting to hear their tune. The last couple of years have seen more focus on the environment from scientists, politicians, business leaders and the public than ever before, but I can’t remember seeing Greenpeace making any meaningful statement on the matter for all of that time. These days they confine their activities to pulling stupid stunts, rescuing lone seals, and dressing old tramps and earth mothers up in lycra suits to send them running round oil platforms and scaling cranes like the bastard child of ‘Fathers from Justice’ and that pig-fucker Otis Ferry. Don’t even get me started on that cunt.

I don’t particularly know why, but on the way home I was thinking about the broad codes or belief structures that people live by. The things that keep people wanting to live and motivate their behaviour along the way. The list I’ve come up with so far is:

Hedonism – the pursuit of physical or sensual pleasure, be it from drug taking, eating, dancing or sleeping with another human being.
Religion – the belief that there is a higher purpose that sits behind our earthly life and a resulting self-imposed code of behaviour.
Humanism – the belief that there is no god, but that it is worth observing a moral code based around ensuring some equality of experience for all and achieving the karmic balance that should mean that you don’t deserve a bad thing to happen to you.
Procreation – the pursuit of life through your children and through the innate belief that your life is worthwhile because you are protecting and nurturing
Philanthropy – the principle that helping others provides your life with greater worth (whether acknowledged as a prop to the ego, or suppressed, observing humility)
Fame / recognition – the idea that your life is worthwhile because others (not necessarily that many) know who you are and the belief that this implicitly implies that you have committed some actions that are worth remembering.

This isn’t a perfect list, but thinking about it made me realise that while there is a great deal of overlap between the codes – for instance it’s perfectly likely that you might seek fame and be a hedonist – I feel that most people lean most strongly towards one of them. I’m not sure what any of this means, but I know I’m really tired today and that I wanted to get this down before I forgot it.

Not sat down to write much on bolo of late, which is a shame. Lots of thoughts running round my head seeking semi-literate documentation, but very little room in the busy schedule to condense said contemplation into three to four logically structured passages.

There are two reasons for this: The first is that I am as ever it seems submerged by work. Beset in my day-job life by substance misuse supply assessment (don’t ask), and in my home life by substance misuse inspired website development (possibly do ask). Still furiously trying to head towards the great work departure in the sky and this week finally tied down a big contract that equals one half of my plan for the great escape. If I can get the other, the puzzle is complete and the great yonder calls. That’s a pretty big ‘if’, but feel pretty good about the karma of the whole thing because I think it was working myself into exhaustion on the proposal for the job that we’ve won that plunged me into sickness. It would have been a double pisser if all had been for naught.

The other reason I’ve not been writing much is that with the purchase of my new camera, I’ve been spending a fair bit of my lazy time running around snapping things, fiddling with the settings and annoying my friends with the constant flashing of the bulb. To date, I’ve shot well over 1000 pictures and about 1 of them has been half good, but the whole thing is strangely addictive. I’ve been putting them up on flickr, which truly is a wonderful website. One of those things that gets me really excited about this whole internet business and transcends all that marketing bullshit about web 2.0 and social networks. This means my flickr account is pretty much taking the place of the blog at the moment and the writing is suffering. I’ve long found that as one of my creative endeavours takes off, another declines. It’s either something to do with only having so many hours in the day, or only having so much creativity. It think it’s probably somewhere between the two, but basically conclude I’m happy enough as long as I’m messing around with something a bit more varied than a spreadsheet.

Clearly the answer to this conundrum is to blog my photos from flickr onto bolo. This is readily possible and in their wisdom, the good photographic techy people over there provide fully automated tools for doing it. However, the photos pop in looking pants cos I need to do a bit of styling within bolo to incorporate them properly and there’s no time for that not just yet. Tonight for example, I’ve got to clear some emails for those friendly HAC people, move the RSPCA site towards completion and start planning the mother of all contracts alluded to above. Over the weekend I’ve got to mix developing some legalistic terms of reference (might need some help on that Mr Steedo), with celebrating the good Prubast’s birthday and then next week has really got to see the start of the article for Bromley as well as some progress on the finely embroided world of Irish Linen. Phew, I think this potentially puts the overdue redevelopment of bolo back to April, along with the new Ech site (at this early stage looking like a shiny creation indeed), as I’ve got three and a half weeks off. It really can’t come soon enough, if you ask me.

Yesterday, I was poking round my house trying semi-successfully to get some work done, but mainly failing, when my old pal Ben sent me an email. It turned out that his employers Channel 4 were celebrating the launch of their new digital radio show with a night of unsigned bands for the workers’ enjoyment. Did I want to come because he could get me a pass? I thought about another night of watching DVDs and making websites, grabbed up my coat and headed for the tube.

When I got there, I was impressed, firstly by the fact that I had seen the building before on the news and secondly that they had managed to turn the whole of the ground floor into a bar / gig environment. This guy called Tom Ravenscroft was up on stage talking about giving away some free digital radios. Something about his voice was familiar. Very familiar. Ahh, that’s right he’s John Peel’s son. He was going on about having sent his cv to channel 4 about a million times before they took him on. I was thinking, well you should have just got your dad to write a letter, but actually he was quite humorous so I decided to let him off.

Anyway, a few beers in, having met Ben’s pals and starting to settle into the vibe, I was jarred by the band that were playing. They were some crazy group of asian hipsters who concentrated a lot on what they were doing, nods of non-verbal earnest communication going on between them as they shifted keys, tempo and volumes at will. Still this seriousness didn’t really help because as far as I could make out, they were playing a discordant mess of noise, randomly plucking notes out of the air, throwing in some drum beats and an occasional ear splitting burst of oscillated synthesizer. It really was quite taxing and unlike others that stood there attempting to tap their feet and playing the latter day ‘emperor’s new clothes‘ card of ‘I don’t really like this, but I don’t want to diss it in case it’s cool’, I stood there lauging and popping off strange shoulder movements.

The other bands were alright, but I was glad when we could leave for Ben’s current haunt of Notting Hill and do some serious drinking, without jazz trumpet interfering with our anecdotes. You can have too much of a good thing and I was all media’d out by the end.