Englanding #20 : Curry at last.

Kababish, Moseley, Chicken Patthia Balti and a Peshwari Naan:


Amazing. Just, amazing. To have a proper balti again, and just as perfect as I had imagined it.

And today I also drank a smoothie that came with a hat for charity.


The hat is for charity, I didn't drink it for charity. I mean, the hat designates money going to charity, you don't give the hat to charity. Because, I mean, the hat is just ludicrously small, there's no way it would fit anyone, so giving it to charity would just be insulting.

Englanding #19 : The Villa

How awesome is it that the first Villa game I go to in more than two years, they win 5 - 1?




Very fucking awesome.

Englanding #18 : The Rock

What did you do on Friday night?


Devil and Casey Jones made a Rock delivery. Ka-POW! Have some ear damage!

Thanks to everyone who came to our one-off reunion, we had a blast! Maybe see you in another few years!

Englanding #17 : TV Times & Guy Fawkes Night

Despite the glorious opportunity of being in the country to attend our annual celebration of failed terrorism I didn't actually go to any bonfire nights this year. I did however get to see a whole lot of fireworks because they were going off bloody everywhere. For at least three nights coming and going to different places I could see them shooting up from gardens and parks and behind buildings, even in the pouring rain. I don't think any of them matched the sheer bombast of some of the shows I've seen in Japan, but hearing explosions coming from all over the place was really awesome, and more impressive in a different way.

Watching TV has been a mixed bag. I was reacquainted with Anne Robinson and The Weakest Link, and - oh yeah, it's the most hateful, sickening, disgusting show on TV. Watch a bunch of regular people get insulted in the most dim-witted way imaginable by a moron who could probably answer barely any of the questions she asks. I felt nauseous watching it.

On the other hand Harry Hill's TV Burp, where he decides which of two arbitary objects, people or animals is the best by staging an actual fight, seems to have just got better and better:

FIGHT!

Also of note is this trailer for the kids Doctor Who spin off The Sarah Jane Chronicles. One of the biggest news stories since I've been back has been the big postal strike, and the unfortunate timing of this trailer makes it look like the reason is that the postmen are aliens, and Sarah Jane's solution is to shoot them in the fucking throat:

I mean, easy tiger.

Englanding #17 : Happy Birthday Gran

Wednesday was my Grandma's 80th birthday, and we went down South again to have lunch with the family. It was awesome.


Happy birthday Grandma!

Englanding #16 : Extra Brighton & London Content

Well, it turns out that I have a bunch of good snaps from Brighton and London and it would be positively criminal of me not to share them with your good selves. Thus, the Brighton pier that you can't go on:


God, people must love taking pictures of that thing. I kind of want to write an action movie in while the final punch up takes place on it. Awesome. As well as a burnt-out pier, while in Brighton you may also come across the gentleman with whom I'm drinking here, Robert:


He is a scoundrel and a cad and please treat him as such. We saw Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is very good but I have no idea who it's pitched at. It's essentially an animated film in very much the same vein as Wes Anderson's other movies but made a little simpler and with no swearing... y'know, for the kids. Then again, I don't really care who it's aimed at, I really enjoyed it.

Here's where the spies live in London:


Place on the left that is. And here's my touristy tube snap:


Trains that go under the ground?! Sapristi! There could be a whole civilization down there!

Englanding #15 : London again - Turner Prize Atomization

So basically on the Friday: Tate Modern and down to Brighton. On the Monday: back to London and Tate Britain for the Turner Prize exhibition. I've always wanted to go to the actual Turner Prize show since, as I said on Friday: modern art makes me want to rock out. Your mileage may vary, but I really liked this years shortlist. In reverse order of which I liked best (oh, photos thanks to the Guardian!):


Lucy Skaer had some nice pieces, but nothing struck a chord with me at all. I did not want to rock out, thus I did not really rate it.


Enrico David's work I kinda liked. Actually his actual, physical work I was on the fence about. He had some great pieces and some that I found really lacklustre (they were all wonderfully displayed though on a kind of black art-stage.) What I really dug about his work were the themes he dealt in: not just the difficulty of human communication but almost the impossibility of it. It ran through all of his work in the curious clumsy shapes of the figures, and even the placement of each work as they occasionally obstructed or supported one another.


The last two were really difficult for me to pick between, they both seem to be geniuses. Richard Wright paints directly onto the walls, and is inspired by the space in which he works. In this case that brought the intricate gold leaf work above, and a smaller more unobtrusive piece. After each exhibition the walls are repainted and his works are destroyed, which is... dizzying.


So the best for me was Roger Hiorns. That pile of dust right there? An atomized passenger jet engine. Atomized. I have no idea how you even go about doing that. He also made several wall pieces that included brain matter and famously filled an entire flat with blue copper sulphate crystals so that they covered every surface. I would have loved to see that, but as it is - atomized passenger jet engine? I'm officially rocking out over that.