small ritual

urban church set

this is a expanded version of the 'urban church' drawings on smallritual.org, based on the talks i did in melbourne and adelaide last year. the idea was to draw together a whole range of things that i've done into an overall picture of what 'church' might mean, from small things to big, from your pocket to the city. it's best as a slideshow so things are in order, but i'm beginning to wonder if linear order matters. there are some more slides to come, especially in the 'objects' section, but i haven't been getting round to it and i'm tired of these just sitting on my hard drive.

despair, inc

great t-shirts from despair inc. and they're on american apparel stock.

other stuff too.

via keep austin weird

celebs

had my [highly favourable] annual review over lunch in the jerwood space cafe which is just round the corner from the office. ross kemp and ewan mcgregor were there [though not together]. i always thought of the jerwood as a gallery, but i see it's got rehearsal spaces.

new flat

today i put the deposit down for a new flat. i move on december 1st. it's only 5 minutes walk from this one, but very different - late 1960s modernist, to go with my furniture ;) of course there will be photos later. meanwhile i have to set things up for moving.

pawnography

mike radcliffe is selling some amusingly naughty t-shirts

diwali

right now it sounds like a major battle is raging in west london - a cannonade of gunfire and explosions and flashes in the sky, hour after hour unceasing. i'm reminded of accounts of the somme, or waterloo as heard from brussels. in fact it's diwali tonight and every asian in west london [and that's a lot] is setting off fireworks. the greatest contributor to the din is the suburb of southall a couple of miles away, which erupts with huge displays, but there are five or six domestic versions going on within sight of my windows here - not close enough for my liking, sadly. i can hear more than i can see, and i can't see southall at all from here. one year i must go, or at least find somewhere i can see across the rooftops.

this video from last year captures something of what you can't see. imagine five or maybe ten displays like this going off a mile away... i love the surreal patter of the fairground stall guy.

diwali can vary widely in date across october and november, which extends the local firework season for weeks. guy fawkes night is eclipsed, its displays few and brief by comparison. the availability of large powerful fireworks for domestic use round here has contributed greatly to the Grace annual firework party. at the moment we're still using guy fawkes as an excuse.

it really is noisy out there.

mushy peas

i find myself explaining mushy peas as a result of this photograph

i have to record this

i didn't see or think about mushy peas for many years [even in northern chip shops you were more likely to get frozen peas in the 80s and 90s]. and now they're resurrected, courtesy of trendy pie shops and the fashion for traditional english food. the restaurant at tate modern serves fish, chips and mushy peas - we took our russian clients there and persuaded them to have it - it's strange having to explain how to eat something you've grown up with. how to eat fish in batter without eating the skin or any bones, for instance [don't just cut slices like a sausage!].

when i was small we lived next door to a chip shop in cleethorpes. i remember sometimes getting threepenceworth of chips [old money not decimal] for supper, as a treat. makes me sound victorian ;)

ariake

as i predicted four years ago, free running now has its own special shoes. soon to be seen on non-freerunners near you! i do like the white/brown/black version i must confess. would look good in the office ;)

as for the rest of my predictions - it's too late for the 2012 olympics [although it would have been appropriate, they could have used a brutalist housing estate or the south bank as a course]. it took snowboarding about 15 years. skateboarding's been refused [this time]. maybe 2020 for free running?