Did you know mermaids exist?
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Christmas Present
The only reason that I look at the internet is to see pictures of jumps, so as a Christmas present for you I want to find the 10 best pictures of jumps that there are. I have got some on my hard disk but if you have any you want to suggest then either put them on the book or email them to ben at scruffian dot com.
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Spread the vibe .com
Spread the vibe is updated so often. Have you ever been there? It’s amazing – about 10 updates a day. Link of the month.
The shovel load is top notch these days.
Try and find a BMX website without a link to pretty shady.
The trails diary has been updated.
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The Endless Summer Nights
If you look back at the November zine you will probably see some things that weren’t there before.
Also there is a new 2005 media page here.
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People I went to school with
When you are at school you make freinds with people. When you leave school you generally never see them again. Well that’s what happened to me. Then you start wondering what happened to those people You usually don’t find out unless something interesting happens. Here are some things that happened to people I went to school with.
Ollie Bashford.
Ollie was in my class. Ollie was a quiet person who listened to loud music. He was really clever and seemed to do well without really trying too hard. His experimentation with mind altering substances didn’t seem to affect his work in any advese way. ollie’s older brother was called Will. He was very clever and got a place at Cambridge. He decided not to go to Cambridge though. Instead he took a foundation course at Kent Institute of Art and Design. I don’t know what happened after that, until I found out a few months ago that Will died of Lukemia. I expect that he was glad that he decided to go and do Art, which he enjoyed rather than going to Cambridge, since there would have been little point in that. Have a look at Will’s website.
Thusara Chandetc.
Thusara was also in my class. I sat next to him in Physics. We had a pretty fun time messing about and coming up with weird versions of his name. He liked playing Radiohead on He also enjoyed cricket, and I think he was quite good, although I wouldn’t know becasue I don’t like cricket. He went to Cambridge and played more cricket.Then this morning I found out that his Mum is in custody charged with murdering his Dad with an axe. That is pretty terrible for him. I was going to give more details of what a nice person Thus was, but I don’t want the media to get on his back. Thus, if you see this and you want to meet up for a chat then let me know. You must be having a hard time at the moment.
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New Job
I am starting a new job in the new year. That means I get about 2 weeks off at Christmas to dig. I guess that’s still less than all the students, but it sounds good to me.
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Keith James – The Songs Of Nick Drake
I went to see Keith James perform The Songs Of Nick Drake in Maidstone’s Jazz and Blues Cafe last night.
I don’t like bad reviews so I am going to try and be as objective as possible, but I have to admit that starting of a review like that doesn’t bode well.
To put it simply, if you expect Keith to perform Nick Drake’s songs with the sympathetic accuracy and attention to detail that Nick himself strove to perfect, then you will be disappointed. Keith James is not true to Nick Drake’s performances in guitar playing, melody, style, lyric or attitude.
He is obviously a talented musician, and has a strong voice and guitar, but he didn’t seem to feel a need for keeping accurately to the songs, which I found confusing. I am not sure if this was delibrate or not. What I find difficult to understand is the motivation behind these changes. Either he is not aware of how unfaithful he is being to the original songs – in some cases the differences were vast, or thinks that it doesn’t matter. Given that Nick Drake is the best singer/songwriter who has ever lived, James is brave in trying to “improve” on his material.
I’ll stop there before I get any more mean – if you can’t say something to someone’s face then you shouldn’t write it in a review.
And just to set the record straight, Nick didn’t write Been Smokin’ Too Long, it was Robin Frederick. Nick just changed one line.
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Last night
Well last night went OK. I didn’t touch the computer at all and only watched a little bit of TV because Rebekah had it on. I wrote a really nice guitar part too, so it was good. I am away this weekend too so the zine is dying off a bit. I have a new idea for December. Nothing exciting to you probably, but I am quite excited.
scruffian 