This week, I have mostly been:

  • making my side of the bed, when gently reminded
  • getting quite, quite excited about W. and Repo
  • discovering the true meaning of the words “dank”, “pokey” and “overpriced”
  • on a hen night
  • coming to the conclusion that the Genius function on my iPod is actually my brain, digitised and sent back from the future to save mankind through the medium of astonishing playlists
  • spending fifty pounds of someone else’s money on a book about grid systems
  • welcoming Sophie, my beautiful new niece, to the world
  • learning how to spell niece correctly
  • despairing
  • dropping shadows.

This week, I have mostly been:

  • waiting impatiently for REM tickets to arrive
  • nursing the doctor
  • figuring out what to do and where to go in New York on New Year’s Eve
  • watching some classic Tom Baker Dr Who
  • enjoying my new haircut
  • trying to work out how to illustrate an annual report without using illustrations
  • convincing myself that I need a new iPod
  • having strange, racist dreams about the next Batman film
  • watching REM and loving every minute.

Stupid stupid annoying phone

Exactly how many screws have to fall out of a phone before it stops working?

My stupidly annoying Sony Ericsson phone – sorry, “handset” – has already gone kaput once. It had to be sent it away just three months after I got it, so that the software could be updated. And my high scores could be erased.

So what now? Well the slidey action jammed a few weeks ago, leaving the phone stuck open for several hours. After a while this fault remedied itself thanks to the sudden evacuation of an important-looking screw. Today it jammed again, and exactly the same thing happened. It’s now missing two screws, but works fine. What did they do? How many more are there?

Further Down the Spiral

I’ve just been listening to Further Down The Spiral, the amazing Nine Inch Nails remix album. When I bought it back in ‘95, I hadn’t actually heard any NIN before. My purchase was based on two things: it was cheap (six quid from Our Price) and the artwork caught my eye.

This might be a bit synaesthesia-ish, but that David Carson sleeve perfectly reflects its contents. Brutal, repetitive, beautiful. And now I’m trying to think of any other albums with artwork that completely captures the spirit of the music. OK Computer is an obvious one. Maybe Parklife too. Any other suggestions?

(This reminds me: Carson’s NIN work - some of his best stuff in my opinion - has been influential/stolen in all the wrong places…)

This week, I have mostly been:

  • working out the plot of The Clone Wars, one sticker at a time
  • regretting drinking so much blue stuff at The Great Nineties Housewarming Party
  • playing with Mike Reed’s new mailer, which defies the laws of physics
  • digging out my old dissertation and trying to make it look pretty
  • guessing the Pantone ref for New York taxis.

You know my name

I don’t think my name is that difficult, but I may as well change it Daniel Gray-With-An-A given that that’s how I have to introduce myself to people. On top of that, things get complicated by my (what I consider fairly neutral) Thames Estuary accent and my own shortening of my first name.

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Twombly disconnect

I went to the Cy Twombly exhibition at the Tate Modern. It was good. I didn’t feel particularly engaged by it though. I’ve never been a stare-at-one-painting-for-an-hour kind of guy, but I was in and out in about thirty minutes. I spent more time in the shop, looking at the same images, but in purchasable form. Am I a philistine? Numbed by 21st century mass media? What’s my problem?

Dan about town

I attended the Editorial Design Organisation talk at the London College of Fashion last night, and jolly good it was too. I love a good talk about magazines, me.

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Rec

Tonight the young Dr and I are going to the cinema* to see Rec, a film I know almost nothing about. Here is what I know about it:

  • it’s Spanish
  • it’s a horror film
  • it’s one of those films that nobody quite knows how to write - I’ve seen it referred to in various places as Rec, [Rec] and [•Rec], because people just latch onto the type treatment from credits and posters and you end up with people referring to Seven as Se7en, which is presumably read as Sesevenen and… and… okay, calm down Daniel… just move on to the next bullet point…
  • the Dr has read a good review of it somewhere.

There’s something great about seeing something with absolutely no preconceptions. It’s normally my own fault, given how many movie blogs I read, that I know too much about most films I see, so it’s refreshing to see something that has completely passed me by.

I recall seeing Fargo years ago, and all I knew about it beforehand was that there was snow in it and it was directed by two brothers (I was a late-comer to the whole Coen thing) - and it was one of the best cinema experiences I’ve ever had.

I’ll let you know what I make of Rec tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

This week, I have mostly been:

  • starting to appreciate the brutalism of York’s Stonebow House
  • getting quite excited about the impending opening of the Duchess of York (the club/venue, not Sarah Ferguson… that’d be weird.)
  • recasting Dr Who in my head
  • buying tickets to see the Dark Knight on the biggest screen imaginable
  • burning a hole in someone else’s credit card
  • getting a little bit addicted to Rumblers
  • not understanding cat’s cradle
  • enjoying the silence.

This week, I have mostly been:

  • fine-tuning my site thanks to some wise words from David Airey
  • listening to lots and lots of Kate Moss anecdotes
  • deciding that “I Told Her On Alderaan” is a fantastic song title
  • being disappointed by Beck’s new Floydular direction
  • sporting a smashing new yellow checked shirt
  • wondering just how communist you can make a pig look
  • trying to convince a New Yorker to be friendly to tourists
  • shocked by the price of things (£2.50 for a 99 Cone! £16.99 for an issue of Eye! Good lord!)
  • STAYING ALIVE! YOU WILL FIND HIM!

This week, I have mostly been:

  • editing upside-down Welsh text
  • realising that if someone tried to fire me during a job interview, I’d probably laugh and pat them on the head (I’ve been reading too much Anna Pickard)
  • thinking that if they ever make an R Kelly biopic, it’ll be amazing
  • wondering why the hell there were two metal nail files in my microwave
  • rediscovering the joys of breakfast
  • helping my sis move to Hebden Bridge, a town which is somehow entirely uphill
  • singing along to Dusty Bottoms, Lucky Day and Ned Nederlander.

This week, I have mostly been:

  • watching the Apprentice final on the biggest television set ever created (and trust me, nobody should see Alan Sugar’s face in that much detail)
  • getting frustrated by the wonkiness of my Cool Hand Luke poster
  • getting frustrated by the brilliance of my Funny Games poster
  • wondering how much is too much to spend on an Annie Leibowitz book
  • offending Newcastle
  • listening to the Raconteurs’ Carolina Drama as much as possible
  • enjoying The Incredible Hulk a heck of a lot more than I was expecting to
  • learning to love egg mayo toast
  • grumbling.

Mouthy Obnoxious Women and the City

The Doc and I went to see Sex And The City last night. A very strange experience it was too. Annoying teenagers noisily chatting and texting each other are generally considered the bane of civilised cinema-goers the world over, but they are nothing compared to what we had to contend with.

Out of about 150 people, I was possibly the only guy in a sea of women. That, in itself, I can cope with (I survived a Mark Owen gig a few years ago). What I couldn’t cope with is that all these women had turned up in mobs, with alcohol, and felt the need to talk all the way through the film - predicting every single plot point and critiquing the many many ridiculous clothes. On top of this, some had even brought cameras to record the momentous occasion.

Oh, and one delightful lady thought it was appropriate to loudly comment on Charlotte’s “chinky” adopted daughter. Nice.

Anyway, the film itself was okay. I can’t really comment on the blatant shallowness of it all, as I was distracted by equally trivial things like the god-awful jacket designs of Carrie’s books and website. With all the attention on fashion designers, couldn’t they pay a little attention to graphic design? And what exactly is the point of that website? It gets mentioned several times, but it doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.

And, given that it was one continuous stream of product placements, I quite liked the bit where Carrie refuses to use an iPhone because she has no idea how to use it. I’m sure Apple don’t mind though - they’ve had ten years of Carrie typing away on a PowerBook (you know – the annoying one that, when open, had the Apple logo on it upside down), and her new MacBook gets lots of attention in the film.

This summer looks pretty good for films - pre-SATC we sat in the bar and made a list of all the good stuff coming up over the next couple of months and it’s a good varied bunch. I’m even excited about M Knight Shyamalan and Paul WS Anderson’s new films. Tomorrow it’s the big green guy. Fingers crossed it’s as good as Iron Man…

This week, I have mostly been:

  • discovering/inventing the delicacy that is Hula Hoops and wensleydale cheese
  • shooting out the back tyres of security vans in GTA IV
  • fighting the foo
  • attempting not to break any Gehry-esque ceramics
  • reading Moondust and watching In The Shadow Of The Moon
  • getting time-beffuddled by watching Lost, Dr Who and Back To The Future 3 all in one day
  • getting more and more angry at the BBC’s use of the hideously racist and divisive term “black music”
  • geeking out at Tony Stark’s appearance in the new Hulk trailer.

This week, I have mostly been:

  • trying to spot my ever so brief appearance in The Bandwagons, a film by fellow Yorkite Miles Watts
  • speed-quizzing/speed-losing
  • impatiently waiting for the results of the Times JG Ballard competition
  • watching clips of The Incredible Hulk
  • Googling lots of logos
  • being pleasantly surprised by the new Buffy book by Brian K Vaughn, aka Writer Of All Things Great
  • spending lots of money on a Tom Gauld print
  • contributing to the Best Wedding Playlist Ever
  • listening to, judging, and ultimately loving Falling Down by Scarlett Johannson
  • watching, judging, and ultimately disliking the new Indy film
  • get emotionally attached to a complete stranger’s chickens
  • celebrating a friend’s almost-doctorness
  • stealing this idea from Anna
  • doing some work.