A Theological Diagnosis: A New Direction on Genetic Therapy, 'Disability' and the Ethics of Healing by Matt EdmondsTuesday, 17 May 2011
Nice Review
A Theological Diagnosis: A New Direction on Genetic Therapy, 'Disability' and the Ethics of Healing by Matt Edmonds
Monday, 14 July 2008
Since the BBC.
Things I have been up to since hearing (in a feedback session) that I was 'too serious' for a job in comedy at the Beeb:
1. Went to an architecture exhibition, where bespoke jelly moulds of famous London buildings were the centre-piece. Loads of little pink jellies of places like St. Paul's cathedral and The Eden project were displayed in front of a camera-phone toting public. By night the jellies had fallen to the floor, and the public danced on them to the coolest MC/DJ pairing I have ever seen. The Swing playing 'Correspondents' featuring DJ Chuckles and MC Ian Bruce (who's adopts the style of a fifties American Preppy) was amazing.
2. Been asked to play drums on my friend Lindsay West's record, and to sing with my friend Noa on a song where I will impersonate Noa as she sings, well, like Noa too.
3. Reworking my book proposal on Theology and Disability for JKP.
4. Entering E4's Radio HaHa competition with my 'Letters From An Absent Father' improv.
5. Looking for places for my sitcom pilot - now finished - to go.
6. Playing more festivals, the last one being Lounge on the Farm. I got a little drunk, slept in a van, enjoyed playing (though Joe is still out of action), and learnt that Kitty, Daisy and Lewis (who were on after us and were great), not only live opposite me, but also own the Hearse I occasionally see parked outside my house. They carry their stuff in it, you see...
7. Thinking about my Radio Four doc.
8. Watching my friend's Edinburgh Preview, entitled 'How to learn the Ukulele in under an hour: How George Fornby saved my life'. It's by Sam Brown and Donal Coonan. If you're at Edinburgh this year, look them up.
1. Went to an architecture exhibition, where bespoke jelly moulds of famous London buildings were the centre-piece. Loads of little pink jellies of places like St. Paul's cathedral and The Eden project were displayed in front of a camera-phone toting public. By night the jellies had fallen to the floor, and the public danced on them to the coolest MC/DJ pairing I have ever seen. The Swing playing 'Correspondents' featuring DJ Chuckles and MC Ian Bruce (who's adopts the style of a fifties American Preppy) was amazing.
2. Been asked to play drums on my friend Lindsay West's record, and to sing with my friend Noa on a song where I will impersonate Noa as she sings, well, like Noa too.
3. Reworking my book proposal on Theology and Disability for JKP.
4. Entering E4's Radio HaHa competition with my 'Letters From An Absent Father' improv.
5. Looking for places for my sitcom pilot - now finished - to go.
6. Playing more festivals, the last one being Lounge on the Farm. I got a little drunk, slept in a van, enjoyed playing (though Joe is still out of action), and learnt that Kitty, Daisy and Lewis (who were on after us and were great), not only live opposite me, but also own the Hearse I occasionally see parked outside my house. They carry their stuff in it, you see...
7. Thinking about my Radio Four doc.
8. Watching my friend's Edinburgh Preview, entitled 'How to learn the Ukulele in under an hour: How George Fornby saved my life'. It's by Sam Brown and Donal Coonan. If you're at Edinburgh this year, look them up.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Radio Four
Well the BBC may have rejected me, but Radio Four have just commissioned an idea of mine! It's a half hour doc. about an American singer called Mrs. Miller, and it will go out in May 09 if I can convince Victoria Wood to present it.
Who was Mrs. Miller then? Well, she was a woman with a bizarre, untrained, tuneless, vibrato-laden voice, and a tendency to forget lyrics both in live performances and on recording, She became something of a cult figure in the 1960’s, and beyond.
Her success was phenomenal. In 1965 she was just an ordinary grandmother singing as a hobby in Church at her home in California. In 1966 she released her first LP on Capitol Records, the ironically titled ‘Mrs Miller’s Greatest Hits’, and it sold more than 250,000 copies in its first three weeks of release. By 1967 she had sung for the troops in Vietnam and performed live at the Hollywood Bowl.
But this is not a tale without hurt and sadness. For one thing, it’s not so certain that Mrs. Miller was in on the joke herself. In fact, the singer claimed late in her career that she wasn’t off-key or off-rhythm by nature but that Capitol, keen to cash in on the possibility of a ‘so bad it’s good’ cult, engineered the whole project without her knowledge. She claimed that they would make her wait until she was tired before allowing her to record, and would not allow her to familiarise herself with the words of a song, so that she would appear forgetful and distracted.
I'm excited about the programme, and really hope I can get Wood to present. Should go now, but thought that I'd leave you scattered readers with a little treat of a promise... Soon to come , people, will be a couple of posts on the supremely ridiculous and varied characters that I met at my Cambridge college, Wolfson - the only international college in the University. Watch out, that's all I'll say.
Who was Mrs. Miller then? Well, she was a woman with a bizarre, untrained, tuneless, vibrato-laden voice, and a tendency to forget lyrics both in live performances and on recording, She became something of a cult figure in the 1960’s, and beyond.
Her success was phenomenal. In 1965 she was just an ordinary grandmother singing as a hobby in Church at her home in California. In 1966 she released her first LP on Capitol Records, the ironically titled ‘Mrs Miller’s Greatest Hits’, and it sold more than 250,000 copies in its first three weeks of release. By 1967 she had sung for the troops in Vietnam and performed live at the Hollywood Bowl.
But this is not a tale without hurt and sadness. For one thing, it’s not so certain that Mrs. Miller was in on the joke herself. In fact, the singer claimed late in her career that she wasn’t off-key or off-rhythm by nature but that Capitol, keen to cash in on the possibility of a ‘so bad it’s good’ cult, engineered the whole project without her knowledge. She claimed that they would make her wait until she was tired before allowing her to record, and would not allow her to familiarise herself with the words of a song, so that she would appear forgetful and distracted.
I'm excited about the programme, and really hope I can get Wood to present. Should go now, but thought that I'd leave you scattered readers with a little treat of a promise... Soon to come , people, will be a couple of posts on the supremely ridiculous and varied characters that I met at my Cambridge college, Wolfson - the only international college in the University. Watch out, that's all I'll say.
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
That was the week that was (and the one before that)
Well I haven't blogged for a month or two and thought I'd maybe given up on it, but the last fortnight shouldn't slip away without online documentation, if only because it was so odd. So yes, this is me back on the horse.
Week one of two saw us play three back to back shows; a Kings College Cambridge ball, an intimate Mojo magazine sponsored event at the Enterprise in Camden, and another ball, that of my alma mater Wolfson College, also in Cambridge.
The first show was great, though the ball wasn't as spectacular as the surroundings should demand. The theme seemed to be dress as a burke, and saw silver spandex girls mix with blue face-painted boys. Add to this the ubiquitous dodgems, candy floss and andy c mixing drum and bass, and you can imagine that all in all it was quite fun. But there was no massive pomp and ridiculousness (which the colleges seem to save for once every three years), and nothing spectacular went off to make it a hugely astonishing event. Our gig was packed, however, with hundreds of pissed-up students shouting the words to Eyeless in Holloway making it lots of fun, even if a worse for ware Lilly Flynn will never remember much of what went on.
Back in London on the Thursday for this Mojo gig then, which was an absolute treat. Johnny, Beach and I played a special gig here with Pete and the Pirates and Dennis Driscoll a couple of years ago (my soon-to-be girlfriend watching alongside Jamie T and Adele!), so it was great to be back. There was a real sense of crowd participation and intimacy on the night itself, with our stage banter on top form (even allowing us to excuse the God-awful noise made by Adam's preamp falling on the floor - think an angry rape alarm....). An offhand quip of mine about us sounding like Erasure even got a round of applause, which made me happier than I should have been.
Alas, we didn't get three good'un's in a row. The second Cambridge gig was a bit of a disaster. Going home to my college was brilliant; a lot of mates were there to great me, and the familiar smells and sounds that made me happy. But, even though we were supported by Elvis (...an impersonator from Croyden), the sound on stage was so appalling that we were completely thrown, and we weren't at out best. I was pretty devastated because I wanted the gig to be so good for the people I care about, but it wasn't. Still they seemed to enjoy it, and the night was spiced up a bit when I found out that Jim - a guy i knew from my time there - had become Hazel ,a pre-op Transexual. Like all men who dress as women he seemed to wear quite motherly clothes (why is that?), and seemed very happy in her-self, making everyone feel at ease with thereselves too.
The next week started with a trip to Sweden and a package from the BBC. Off to Stockholm to play the accelerator festival on the Tuesday, coming back on Wednesday night with an interview for a position in radio comedy on the Thursday, they decided to lump me a surprise parcel on the morning of my departure containing a fifty page scrip to analyse and a CD to review. I'd have to do it in fucking Sweden.
The festival went off without a hitch. An indoor thing with Foals, Wild Beasts and Duffy among others. We played our shit quite well, no one really knew the songs but we won the crowd round, and that was good enough. At this stage we thought a lot of Sweden. But the views at night weren't enough to convince us of the charm of the city, when four drugged up nutters attacked us as we walked back to our hotel in the early hours of the morning. It was a pretty scary time. These twats even punched Lilly in the face, chasing us for fifteen minutes, and even shouted at one point 'Welcome to Stockholm', as if they were the terminator, rather than pilled up morons with small penises. Joe's arm became dislocated as he tried to block a punch and had to go to hospital, but apart from that we weren't hurt too bad.
As we got back to the hotel, we were shocked and breathless, and all needed a good night's sleep. I got the key for my room and went up a floor, only to open the door to see a man fully naked at the desk, wanking over his computer. I was obviously shocked, as was he. I turned to Adam and said 'I think there's a naked man in my room, wanking'. Still shocked, i realised I hadn't closed the door fully and heard an accented voice utter gingerly 'Could you close the door, please'. I did, and marched downstairs to sort the whole business out. But the idiot staff couldn't get me a new room for hours. Luckily, by the time Chris and Joe got back from the Hospital we had been given a new room, which did not contain a man wanking.
The next day saw me working for hours on end in a cafe in Stockholm for the next day's interview, which turned out to be a grilling and - as i found out yesterday - was to no avail. I didn't get it. i got down to the last fifteen from 2000 applicants but it wasn't enough. Thankfully my post doesn't finish there though, as I haven't yet said that before that revelation came a weekend at Glastonbury...
Worthy farm hosts the most amazing music festival on earth. I am sure of that having been there for the first time this last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It just has everything. We were booked to play three gigs, and each of them were special. We started with a stripped down and rocking set at the Green Peace Stage on the Friday. Joe's arm is still in a sling and so there was no cello, but this allowed the punkier side of our music to come out, and I enjoyed that a lot. After the gig we had the rest of the night off, and so took in a bit of Franz Ferdinand (not great), the whole of Dizzee Rascall (AMAZING), and an impromptu show by a sensational African five-piece whose name I'll probably never know.
We had planned to stay in a cottage on the outskirts of the village, but this turned out to be miles away. The walk back at four in the morning then was tough, but worth it, as we felt refreshed and bed-slept for the next day. And what a fucking day it was. A great gig at the Strummerville tent in the Shangri-La was followed by one of the best shows I have ever played, at the Bimble Inn at The Park. People were buzzing, shouting and dancing to our tunes, and even Emmy the Great - who had come along to support Adam - really enjoyed it. Feeling great about life I rushed to the Pyramid stage to watch Amy Winehouse sing Rehab and punch a fan, and then stayed for the full JAY-Z set. It was electrifying. To open, he covered Wonderwall, a sort of fuck you to Oasis' moans about him headlining, and got everyone the chants the words. Having finishing his brit-pop moment, he just said 'I've got one thing to say', and then went straight into '99 Problems'. It was electrifying. The whole show was great, such a spectacle to be amongst 80,000 people watching, and it set me up nicely for the evening. After a bit of partying, Sam and Chris and I set off with the instruments in hand to make the long walk back to our lodgings. It was an incredibly tiring three miles or so, but as we collapsed in the field that lies just before the house, i felt amazing, as if I had earned the beauty that the sun-rise was showing us.
The next day was just purely serene. I walked to the stone-circle as a sort of one-man pilgrimage, and had some excellent thinking time, before getting back to the house just in time to watch the Euro 2008 final. At two am we got home to London, tired and groggy, but sort of full with everything. Oh, but I did walk into my room to find my mate Dave asleep in my bed, which wasn't that nice. He screamed and stuff.
Week one of two saw us play three back to back shows; a Kings College Cambridge ball, an intimate Mojo magazine sponsored event at the Enterprise in Camden, and another ball, that of my alma mater Wolfson College, also in Cambridge.
The first show was great, though the ball wasn't as spectacular as the surroundings should demand. The theme seemed to be dress as a burke, and saw silver spandex girls mix with blue face-painted boys. Add to this the ubiquitous dodgems, candy floss and andy c mixing drum and bass, and you can imagine that all in all it was quite fun. But there was no massive pomp and ridiculousness (which the colleges seem to save for once every three years), and nothing spectacular went off to make it a hugely astonishing event. Our gig was packed, however, with hundreds of pissed-up students shouting the words to Eyeless in Holloway making it lots of fun, even if a worse for ware Lilly Flynn will never remember much of what went on.
Back in London on the Thursday for this Mojo gig then, which was an absolute treat. Johnny, Beach and I played a special gig here with Pete and the Pirates and Dennis Driscoll a couple of years ago (my soon-to-be girlfriend watching alongside Jamie T and Adele!), so it was great to be back. There was a real sense of crowd participation and intimacy on the night itself, with our stage banter on top form (even allowing us to excuse the God-awful noise made by Adam's preamp falling on the floor - think an angry rape alarm....). An offhand quip of mine about us sounding like Erasure even got a round of applause, which made me happier than I should have been.
Alas, we didn't get three good'un's in a row. The second Cambridge gig was a bit of a disaster. Going home to my college was brilliant; a lot of mates were there to great me, and the familiar smells and sounds that made me happy. But, even though we were supported by Elvis (...an impersonator from Croyden), the sound on stage was so appalling that we were completely thrown, and we weren't at out best. I was pretty devastated because I wanted the gig to be so good for the people I care about, but it wasn't. Still they seemed to enjoy it, and the night was spiced up a bit when I found out that Jim - a guy i knew from my time there - had become Hazel ,a pre-op Transexual. Like all men who dress as women he seemed to wear quite motherly clothes (why is that?), and seemed very happy in her-self, making everyone feel at ease with thereselves too.
The next week started with a trip to Sweden and a package from the BBC. Off to Stockholm to play the accelerator festival on the Tuesday, coming back on Wednesday night with an interview for a position in radio comedy on the Thursday, they decided to lump me a surprise parcel on the morning of my departure containing a fifty page scrip to analyse and a CD to review. I'd have to do it in fucking Sweden.
The festival went off without a hitch. An indoor thing with Foals, Wild Beasts and Duffy among others. We played our shit quite well, no one really knew the songs but we won the crowd round, and that was good enough. At this stage we thought a lot of Sweden. But the views at night weren't enough to convince us of the charm of the city, when four drugged up nutters attacked us as we walked back to our hotel in the early hours of the morning. It was a pretty scary time. These twats even punched Lilly in the face, chasing us for fifteen minutes, and even shouted at one point 'Welcome to Stockholm', as if they were the terminator, rather than pilled up morons with small penises. Joe's arm became dislocated as he tried to block a punch and had to go to hospital, but apart from that we weren't hurt too bad.
As we got back to the hotel, we were shocked and breathless, and all needed a good night's sleep. I got the key for my room and went up a floor, only to open the door to see a man fully naked at the desk, wanking over his computer. I was obviously shocked, as was he. I turned to Adam and said 'I think there's a naked man in my room, wanking'. Still shocked, i realised I hadn't closed the door fully and heard an accented voice utter gingerly 'Could you close the door, please'. I did, and marched downstairs to sort the whole business out. But the idiot staff couldn't get me a new room for hours. Luckily, by the time Chris and Joe got back from the Hospital we had been given a new room, which did not contain a man wanking.
The next day saw me working for hours on end in a cafe in Stockholm for the next day's interview, which turned out to be a grilling and - as i found out yesterday - was to no avail. I didn't get it. i got down to the last fifteen from 2000 applicants but it wasn't enough. Thankfully my post doesn't finish there though, as I haven't yet said that before that revelation came a weekend at Glastonbury...
Worthy farm hosts the most amazing music festival on earth. I am sure of that having been there for the first time this last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It just has everything. We were booked to play three gigs, and each of them were special. We started with a stripped down and rocking set at the Green Peace Stage on the Friday. Joe's arm is still in a sling and so there was no cello, but this allowed the punkier side of our music to come out, and I enjoyed that a lot. After the gig we had the rest of the night off, and so took in a bit of Franz Ferdinand (not great), the whole of Dizzee Rascall (AMAZING), and an impromptu show by a sensational African five-piece whose name I'll probably never know.
We had planned to stay in a cottage on the outskirts of the village, but this turned out to be miles away. The walk back at four in the morning then was tough, but worth it, as we felt refreshed and bed-slept for the next day. And what a fucking day it was. A great gig at the Strummerville tent in the Shangri-La was followed by one of the best shows I have ever played, at the Bimble Inn at The Park. People were buzzing, shouting and dancing to our tunes, and even Emmy the Great - who had come along to support Adam - really enjoyed it. Feeling great about life I rushed to the Pyramid stage to watch Amy Winehouse sing Rehab and punch a fan, and then stayed for the full JAY-Z set. It was electrifying. To open, he covered Wonderwall, a sort of fuck you to Oasis' moans about him headlining, and got everyone the chants the words. Having finishing his brit-pop moment, he just said 'I've got one thing to say', and then went straight into '99 Problems'. It was electrifying. The whole show was great, such a spectacle to be amongst 80,000 people watching, and it set me up nicely for the evening. After a bit of partying, Sam and Chris and I set off with the instruments in hand to make the long walk back to our lodgings. It was an incredibly tiring three miles or so, but as we collapsed in the field that lies just before the house, i felt amazing, as if I had earned the beauty that the sun-rise was showing us.
The next day was just purely serene. I walked to the stone-circle as a sort of one-man pilgrimage, and had some excellent thinking time, before getting back to the house just in time to watch the Euro 2008 final. At two am we got home to London, tired and groggy, but sort of full with everything. Oh, but I did walk into my room to find my mate Dave asleep in my bed, which wasn't that nice. He screamed and stuff.
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
This morning
This morning we were on This Morning. It was hilarious. A nervous johnny had asked the researcher not to talk about his brothers (Jerome and Dan) the night before but when we got there Fern Britain was announcing "It's Oh Brother Wednesday today" and up shot huge stills of the whole Flynn Clan. It was a fun thing to do though, these things always are... I had far too much makeup put on me, ate toast and jam, and got myself ready to mime to the track while Joe slept and Adam drank coffee. We had a rehearsal in front of the cameras and snooped around a bit, going into the production room and looking at the set (the bricks aren't real!). Finally, after a feature on fat babies, skin rashes and liver disease, it was our turn. An interview with Johnny was a little awkward - he was thrown by all the brother questions and Fern's huge bosom - but the miming went really well (unsurprisingly). When the cameras were off, and all was done, Eamon Holmes came over and me and him had a half decent chat about Irish Drums. I called him a true professional, which made him laugh, and that was that.
Normal.
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Odd Things 2
Well I didn't go to that playboy party in the end but I am appearing on This Morning tomorrow. Philip Schofield and Fern Britten are currently at the helm. I'm excited. Also I started writing a sitcom with my friends Dan and Tim today, and have been doing more radio bits on my own.
Friday, 28 March 2008
South By South West - A Retrospective pt 3
SATURDAY - Day Five
The day started excellently with a trip to the Seattle party down town. Freebies, good food, and familiar faces (Ryan was one of the co-hosts) meant that we were all in high spirits by noon. We watched Ryan's sister's band and then left to find the Johnny Cash themed Bar that we were due to play in as part of the Mojo party. The line up was excellent. The Felice Brothers (who I missed but bought the CD of because all the crowd were raving about it), Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip (who remixed the Antiques Road Show theme tune amongst other bits and pieces) and Laura Marling (playing the set that I have now heard a million times but still enjoy) were all playing on the same bill. We started our set well but halfway through the Wrote and the Writ Johnny broke ANOTHER guitar string. We needed saving badly and up to the plate stepped our cellist, Joe Zeitlin, to play the first movement of the First Bach Cello Suite. He was visibly nervous when I announced him over the mic (well coerced him over the mic), but he swallowed his nerves and played. It was amazing, a real South By South West moment, and by the time he finished to captivated applause Johnny had changed his string and we could carry on. I did then offer to beatbox but the crowd weren't up for it. Philistines. Anyway, after we'd finished up, and I'd had a nice chat with my friend's friend Riz MC, our South By South West crew - Laura Marling and her entourage, Peggy Sue and the Pirates, and us lot - went for a big lunch in a nice Mexican place. Unfortunately, I got stuck to the only tag along - someone who had come because he wanted to do business with us in tour managing or something. I nearly cried with boredom till I made my escape.
I did escape though - via a lift from a man named Bill who saw us play at the Mojo party and loved it - and back in town I took in two great shows, Hanne Hukkleberg (who've I wanted to see for ages) and Riz (who I've never seen live before). Tired but reflective, it was nice to then make the huge long walk to join Chris and Johnny who were at the out of town country music club where men are men and women are also possibly men. Together we watched a true hick country band called Sons and Daughters, got a bit drunk, and called it a night.
SUNDAY - Day Six
Sunday is the day of rest, and so it was for us and the rest of Austin. South By had finished, everyone was leaving, and we were up for a chilled one. We met our south by crew at Laura's hotel and played a monumental game of Basketball for a couple of hours. We were joined by a hugely fat taxi driver who called himself 'Jordan....Markus Jordan'. He was immense, schooling us on the court with his skill, panache and those sort of chortles that fat people do. We saw his ass far too many times though because he was so large that he basically couldn't move and when he fell over it took him a long, long time to get his pants back around his waist.
The rest of the day was much less energetic. A long lunch with our new friends (excluding Mr. Jordan) was followed by a great evening in a spacious bar. It seemed like every band in the world was there; Us, Laura Marling, Peggy Sue and The Pirates, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, The Pan I am, and more. Still, I preferred to talk to Laura Marling's lovely tour manager Steve about his wacky conspiracy theories about Hitler. It's all about the Spear of Destiny, he claimed. Brilliant. This is my last memory of South By....
The night came and went and so did the plane back. We came crashing back to english earth on the monday as we had to do a bloody video for Tickle Me Pink where teenagers danced unconvincingly round our awkward and jet-lagged bodies. It never rains in this business....
The day started excellently with a trip to the Seattle party down town. Freebies, good food, and familiar faces (Ryan was one of the co-hosts) meant that we were all in high spirits by noon. We watched Ryan's sister's band and then left to find the Johnny Cash themed Bar that we were due to play in as part of the Mojo party. The line up was excellent. The Felice Brothers (who I missed but bought the CD of because all the crowd were raving about it), Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip (who remixed the Antiques Road Show theme tune amongst other bits and pieces) and Laura Marling (playing the set that I have now heard a million times but still enjoy) were all playing on the same bill. We started our set well but halfway through the Wrote and the Writ Johnny broke ANOTHER guitar string. We needed saving badly and up to the plate stepped our cellist, Joe Zeitlin, to play the first movement of the First Bach Cello Suite. He was visibly nervous when I announced him over the mic (well coerced him over the mic), but he swallowed his nerves and played. It was amazing, a real South By South West moment, and by the time he finished to captivated applause Johnny had changed his string and we could carry on. I did then offer to beatbox but the crowd weren't up for it. Philistines. Anyway, after we'd finished up, and I'd had a nice chat with my friend's friend Riz MC, our South By South West crew - Laura Marling and her entourage, Peggy Sue and the Pirates, and us lot - went for a big lunch in a nice Mexican place. Unfortunately, I got stuck to the only tag along - someone who had come because he wanted to do business with us in tour managing or something. I nearly cried with boredom till I made my escape.
I did escape though - via a lift from a man named Bill who saw us play at the Mojo party and loved it - and back in town I took in two great shows, Hanne Hukkleberg (who've I wanted to see for ages) and Riz (who I've never seen live before). Tired but reflective, it was nice to then make the huge long walk to join Chris and Johnny who were at the out of town country music club where men are men and women are also possibly men. Together we watched a true hick country band called Sons and Daughters, got a bit drunk, and called it a night.
SUNDAY - Day Six
Sunday is the day of rest, and so it was for us and the rest of Austin. South By had finished, everyone was leaving, and we were up for a chilled one. We met our south by crew at Laura's hotel and played a monumental game of Basketball for a couple of hours. We were joined by a hugely fat taxi driver who called himself 'Jordan....Markus Jordan'. He was immense, schooling us on the court with his skill, panache and those sort of chortles that fat people do. We saw his ass far too many times though because he was so large that he basically couldn't move and when he fell over it took him a long, long time to get his pants back around his waist.
The rest of the day was much less energetic. A long lunch with our new friends (excluding Mr. Jordan) was followed by a great evening in a spacious bar. It seemed like every band in the world was there; Us, Laura Marling, Peggy Sue and The Pirates, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, The Pan I am, and more. Still, I preferred to talk to Laura Marling's lovely tour manager Steve about his wacky conspiracy theories about Hitler. It's all about the Spear of Destiny, he claimed. Brilliant. This is my last memory of South By....
The night came and went and so did the plane back. We came crashing back to english earth on the monday as we had to do a bloody video for Tickle Me Pink where teenagers danced unconvincingly round our awkward and jet-lagged bodies. It never rains in this business....
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