scruffian

One night last week we didn’t really get any sleep. I did try for an hour before Ben got back from his (not very successful) trip but it was a bit cold to get to sleep. Then the neighbours got home from a drinking place. They come home drunk a lot and thump around. They live in the flat above us so we get to hear their thumpings.

But last night it was a lot more than just thumpings. From about 11pm when they got back they put on some very rubbish dance type music as loud as it would go. Their dial on their stereo was like this:

I think it was as loud as it could ever be. But worse was the girl who spent a couple of hours shouting out of the open upstairs window (directly above our bed). We think she must have been on the phone because she did seem to be talking to someone – complaining about f****** c**** b***** b******* f****** f******… you get the idea. I think she probably had a sore throat in the morning.

The next odd thing was at 1:20am they turned the music off. She carried on shouting for a while and then had a better idea. Throwing saucepans down the stairs.

This is the best throwing saucepans down the stairs picture I could find, but the facial expression on the face of the boy on the far left is a bit like mine was at this time, only mine was a bit crosser.

Ben decided to try ringing the police,

but they were too busy dressing up as orcs to do anything about it.

She stopped throwing saucepans down the stairs at 2:30am. Perhaps even more strangely, was that at 7:20 she drove her partner to the train station (no more than 200 yards) and when she came back she had parked very wonky so I think probably she still was not competent (or sober enough) to drive. The next day me and Ben looked like this:

The tiredness also squashed our faces.

It’s windy and rainy. Go for a walk.
I on the other hand don’t get to see daylight at the moment. I get to work when it’s dark and leave when it’s dark. What colour is the sky?

These pictures are from a few days ago. Just a bit of digging going on, while Becky stuffs her face.

Tim has been riding a lot of flatland recently due to his broken limb. This has mean that he rides around with his bars inverted like this so the front end is shorter and the headtube angle is steeper. He still can’t do many tricks as they take a long time to learn, but he is good at manuals now.

There is a new media page up in the media section or here. You have to wait for a while for it to load.

Apparently life is full of strange coincidences. I didn’t know about this until yesterday when I walked into silverscreen (a dvd shop in maidstone). They were playing and REM song called Electrolite. I just wandered over to the sale stand and pick up a dvd – as it happened it was “Mulholland Drive”, a film by David Lynch. At almost the same time the song that was playing sang the line “If I ever want to fly, Mulholland Drive, I am alive.” This was strange. The expalination is from here and below.

“There is a significance to R.E.M.’s name-dropping of Mulholland Drive in Electrolite. Mulholland Drive is a really long (42km I think), really windy road that goes across the hills overlooking Los Angeles. You get some stunning views from up there, and it’s right near the Hollywood sign, hence “Hollywood is under me.” And when you drive along Mulholland Drive, and you’re above one of the world’s biggest cities, you do very much feel like you’re flying (“if I ever want to fly”).

As for the film, I think it’s quite possibly the best ever made. I am a very very big Lynch fan and Mulholland Drive is what got me into his work. The metaphor of Mulholland Drive is used to similar effect as in Electrolite. The film is all about Hollywood, and the naivity some take in coming there to experience stardom and love, and end up crushed, bitter and twisted. The only drawback is it’s near impossible to understand what’s going on first time of viewing, and that makes a lot of people give up. But I like a film where the plot isn’t fully explained in the first 10 minutes, something you have to actually think about. So take your time in watching Mulholland Drive – it truly is a wonderful piece of cinema. It’s probably only $5 cos it’s about 3 years old, it’s pretty cheap in the UK now too.

I was in L.A. with my dad earlier in the year and we made a special effort to drive along Mulholland Drive to pay tribute to the film and to Lynch, and as we did we listened to Electrolite, paying tribute also to R.E.M.’s homage to Hollywood.”

Bored yet? Another strange coincidence was that a few months ago I bumped into an old school friend (Happy Time Harry) who also happed to be working in Maidstone, so we started travelling to work together. Then after a while I started giving his sisters boyfriend (Bruce Lee – that’s his real name) a lift to.

Yesterday Tim was working in Sainsburys, and he asked one of his usual customers if they would like cash back, and they said “Yes please, I need some petrol money to give to your brother for giving my boyfriend a lift to work.” Confused?

Well it turned out that this lady was Happy Time Harry’s sister and Bruce Lee’s girfriend, and she recognised Tim as my brother after only seeing me one, in the dark, for about a minute. It’s sort of one of those non-anicdotes isn’t it a mad world.

by this.

Vote now kids.

I have been to work on pretty shady a little this morning. Joe – where’s my money?
The shovel load is always amazing. Trip to Caversham BMX track soon?
What has happened to unknown trails rider?
Has dave done his new site yet?
Will we still be doing this when we are 50?