Daylight water fireworks

Today was the first truly spring like day walking through Bristol. A key indicator being that I had over dressed for my walk through town. A stark difference from just one week ago when I was still having to make sure that under my winter layers I wore a t-shirt long enough to tuck into my pants! My sure-fire way of keeping the cold out. Try it. Even the water faeries were celebrating the windswept spring day by kindly putting on this beautiful daylight firework display reflected in the windows of a boat for all the passers by.

I haven't really been able to celebrate in the same way, what with our office being tucked away in the belly of a Bristol recording studio. Very little natural light gets down here which is lovely on cold winter days when you can hide away, forget that it's already dark at 3pm and ignore the snow and rain. It's not so great when you want to jump around in the sun. A day like today is made for windsurfing - an activity I adore but now rarely get to do.


On a day like today I can almost smell the wind and waves in this photograph I took of close friend of mine when we were last sailing together. I can feel the water beneath me being made solid from the speed. The hollow skimming noise of the board as it clips the crest of each ripple, barely touching the water and the power of the wind as it takes my breath away. It all combines, forming shivers in my spine like the shimmering reflected sunlight in the video above.

Tonight I celebrate with my lady. I can't wait.

Save some breath

I have just realised I could have concisely summed up the controlled chaos I was talking about in my last post by simply referencing this:

Stop Making Sense concert film featuring Talking Heads - 1984

On that note there is a new documentary film Ride, Rise, Roar, which follows David Burns' most recent 2008 tour. It releases at SXSW in March this year. The trailer is here and I think it looks and sounds ace.

Order in Chaos

Rock and roll is cool. Pop music is cool. Indie music is cool. Music on the whole is cool but across all the genres live music tends to be the coolest of all the cats. I think that is mainly thanks to the unknown and potential variations from recorded versions of songs we know and love. Nobody jumps off the stage on a record no matter how many times you listen to it, but they just might when it's played live. It's that possibility which adds to the excitement. So why is it then that The Ventures performing Wipe Out, all standing in a line, doing nothing more than occasionally turning to their right to face the drummer, are so darn cool? I'm as certain as there will be rain that none of them will be stage diving any time soon.


If I had to be any of The Ventures I would be the bass player standing on the right, Nokie Edwards. He's got a little swagger and glint that says "I don't always want to be in this line, but I know where my bread is buttered, and right now that is in this line; hey don't I look cool?" Nokie, yes you do.

On a slightly less cool note, on the way home I was looking to distract myself so did a little peering through the window of a rather ramshackle secondhand shop, which for me always brings to mind a jar of multi coloured boiled sweets.

The ordered chaos like this shop display draws me in. In the same vain I think that's why I love greasy spoon type cafes: confused colour schemes, chipped melamine tables, bench seats with slightly torn garish plastic covers and cutlery that doesn't match. As with a live music show it's the combination of the unknown and unplanned coupled with someone's care, attention and desire for it to all come together, that gives me a little buzz of excitement; countless opportunities for a single moment of brilliance created from nothing. In this case a slightly startled bear questioning why I was photographing his tea set.

One of those February days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold

I'm not a fan of dogs but when two run so enthusiastically in a game of chase as I witnessed today it is impossible to begrudge them the simple and childlike joy of being free. I was in no doubt their bounding around, up over steps, through bushes and at one point hilariously circling round and round after each other in a flower bed, was nothing more than a fun game triggered by the sun peeking out the first time in a several months. It took some will power to not join them. Walking on I was listening to one of my new favorite podcasts, passing the free-sandwich-and-squash religious stall that has recently appeared on my walk to work when I came across nothing less than this bargain of a cocktail bar.


It's a most dazzling combination of awful design and magnificent design all rolled into one Only Fools and Horsesesque piece of furniture that everyone can live without. A fact reinforced by the £50 price tag. Except, I wanted it. It has three tiers! I'm assuming it was the burgeoning spring air filling my lungs and clouding my judgement but I managed to come away without purchasing it using only the deepest reserves of self reasoning. Well, that and my little logic angel pointing out that there was no way on earth I was going to pick it up and stroll the rest of my journey through town with it under my arm. Oh, for the endless energy of a silly dog.