The wobbly video is up – It’s in HD but you might have to view it on Youtube directly to see it.

Thomas Truax is a strange sort of man, but that’s no real surprise. We have struggled through the rain to see him and are excited when we see him lurking by a merchandise stand. He wears a black suit with an 80s cut and loose hair. We stand about dripping.

He seems confidently enshrined in his own little world full of self-invented instruments and references to unknown women in gigs. The crowd laughs half in politeness and half because he’s charming. He is also American, which surprises me. I don’t know why – maybe my notion was of an eccentric Brit – the Dr Who Matt Smith of music.

Three songs in, he leaps from the stage, guitar in hand and strolls into the audience, singing and strumming. “How odd,” I think, neither here-nor-there on the matter. He suddenly leaps from his guitar-filled wander, dives towards the door and bursts out with a clang. I potter off towards the toilet, coincidentally in the same direction (or maybe I’m just nosy and won’t admit it) and bump into the brown haired ticket-selling girl on the way.

“Where’d he go?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s his thing,” she tells me, waving ticket stubs about. “He runs up the stairs, and round the back. There’s a secret ‘No Entry’ door by the toilet which leads onto the stage.” I peer up the stairs but he is long gone. I continue on my toilet hunt, suspecting I must look like a stray fan hopelessly following Truax around the building. I see the secret door. It is a bit dull for a secret door and very nondescript, which probably keeps drunk people out. Such is the way of the secret door.

I take shaky video footage because my arms tire easily as I try to hold them really high. He finishes quickly and I eagerly ask him if he will play Wicked Game, a good 80s cover and the first track I heard by him. It’s no doubt an irritating request at the end of a gig to be asked to play a specific song. “Were the rest not good enough?” I half expect as an reply, but he smiles and tells me that he doesn’t have the right pedals.

Afterwards, everyone clears and feeling bold and drunk I grab my camera and leap on stage. Perhaps if I am arrested I shall tell them I am a blogger. That will fix things.

Bob discovers I have not been told off or frowned at in any way and jumps up too. I spin the ‘Sister Spinster’ around; it’s a smaller version of his first instrumental creation, a clanging beat-producing wheel with spokes, but I’m terrified of being that idiot who broke it and avoid pushing it with any force. The tapping noise it makes is exciting enough. This is the closest I’ve ever come to steampunk, and it’s lovely. There’s also a briefcase filled with a xylophone, with a lightbulb on a string hanging from the top. Wikipedia won’t tell me the invention’s name but it’s fantastic nonsense. I tap out some notes on the xylophone and admire the lightbulb. It’s brilliant and is my favourite bit. Glee glee glee.

We stomp back out into the rain. I rather like Mr Truax. Bob smiles all the way home. He took some lovely photos despite the red lights – you can find them here.

I am a rhythm-deaf ginger kid with sausage fingers. We are not famed for our musical prowess (save perhaps Johnny Rotten and Florence). I borrowed a Ukulele last week and have been eagerly practicing chords. “What is a bar?” I keep asking.

I have been learning Noah and the Whale’s 5 Years Time. Wholly unoriginal. Today I have been also learning Ben Kweller’s On My Way which may not be a most fantastic song but means I am learning rhythm (in some capacity) which makes me very happy. Soon I might sing along garishly.

It is very easy to poke fun at Nicholas Cage, but I am not one to sway from such a practice.

I saw Kick Ass yesterday – and when I say yesterday, I mean around Saturday but I have been distracted from writing about it by other more unimportant things. Kick Ass is a perfectly good film to accompany a Friday night of gorging on popcorn, which was main our goal of the evening. Cage, generally known for wearing the same expression in such films as Lord of War and many others (that I have not seen but many claim to have done), appears at one point. I leapt in my seat. Glee, thought I, it’s Cage! I will be able to write a review – a hilarious anecdote explaining why Nicholas Cage is rubbish, and how even I would make a better and no doubt far superior actor.

He plays a thin faced beige-wearing father with an eagerly acting daughter, a bit in the realm of Leon‘s Natalie Portman but with a higher neckline. It’s a strange film from the production company behind Layar Cake that borders on Fox Searchlight’s version of not-particularly awkward indie (say 500 Days of Summer) and in the same sort of way there’s lots of faux awkward scenes that aren’t at all so.

Undoubtedly the worst parts were the painful advertising swipes of Pepsi cans and Pepsi-filled phrases hitting the screen. We collectively shuddered.

The mystery is that Nicholas Cage is in no way irritating. It’s all really quite pleasant once you get used to it, and for some reason they’ve also stuck in some South Park-style Jewish accents throughout the cast – which may in fact be typical New York – which makes it all quite snigger worthy. As intended, it’s a jolly, and escapist feel-good film with no risks attached to watching it and in this way I feel barely warrants a review because it is as good as you’d expect. It’s is appropriately accompanied with a good music-filled ending as the genre dictates and unlike Bruce Almighty’s “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” they’ve also pulled off the one take-away quote: “With no power comes no responsibility” now popping up on a mass of social networks.

The biggest downside? There was a 2.0 joke which I laughed at. It was shameful but I reveled in it.

I am a minimalist who can’t do minimal (maybe I just masquerade as one). I am also a perfectionist, but shit at it. Perhaps I am just indecisive. Anyway, although I have some bits to add, it’s my new layout made in some capacity by me. It features a frowning dog.

Do say Hello to him, he doesn’t have a name yet.

The products of yesterday: my frowny egg cress head. He is only small and feeble because the kids needed the big shells. Why does cress smell so bad? It’s stinking my desk out and has been relegated to the windowsill which suits both of us better.

A nice site has made it simple to compare political policies called Vote For Policies – and everyone liked the Green Party apparently, even me (although I looked up only four policy topics, namely: schooling, health, crime, and democracy). Every party’s policies of privatisation, deportation, and re-hauling systems seemed to be terrifying. Perhaps no one wants too much change, and that’s why we all like The Green Party.*

My notion of politics comes from somewhere between a horiztonal drawing which read along the lines of ‘liberal vs privatisation’ along it, and Adrian Mole books in which no one likes Thatcher.

“Conservatives want to privatise the schools and hospitals,” said my Mother. “They did it with the milk.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“No,” she said sagely.
“Who do you vote for Mummy?” I asked.
“It’s a secret. I’m not telling you.” I wondered for a couple of years.

I was very pleased when Tony Blair came into power when I was in Year 6. Lots of people said “Tony Bleurrrghr” and made vomiting noises, but the grey haired man on television was dull and Tony Blair did good speeches. (It’s to do with the mono-tonal voices that children of a certain age ignore no doubt).

I took some tests on The Political Compass answering the questions in as bias a way possible. ‘I’m near Ghandi and Old Labour,’ I said, pleased. I spied New Labour. “What is this?” I outraged. “They’re near the conservatives – and we don’t like them because they take our milk,” I thought, and set about using Wikipedia as my sole source of information about Old and New Labour. My conclusions, at age 13, were that I would vote for Labour, and so thus the New kind if I must. I would vote, but I would be voting on the principles of the 80s. This would fix things, even if I wasn’t a coal-miner.

I was talking about politics the other day, and my (reasoned) disdain for small parties, people’s lack of enthusiasm to vote for them, and generally pontificating on a subject I know little about. I’d like to compare policies, in the same way I want to find a chart listing pros and cons of iPhone vs Android (another pressing problem in today’s society) that makes it easy to work these sort of things out:

‘NHS privatisation’ tick, cross, tick.
‘White supremacy’ – tick, cross, cross.
This would make things easier.

Of course, it’d be all the more effective if I’d ever voted. Last year I incorrectly put envelope B in envelope A and voided my vote.

*Alternatively, this link is passing around only certain demographics via Twitter, all of whom happen to cycle bikes and like the environment and such. Also note, the current voting stands at 119 completed surveys, which isn’t hugely proportionate.

The man who writes at Privatesecretdiary.com, predominantly about chickens, has had his book published. I was reading bits out yesterday in a voice that I felt was appropriate for chicken stories. After reading three posts I immediately encourage you to read it. It also, beyond chickens, mentions being a blogger at media functions during which I sniggered, as I spent last week imagining the same awkward fate as I was put on my first guest-list for an event.

“I write a blog about Brighton,” I imagined mumbling distractedly on arrival at my first gig, new to this guest-list business.
“A blog? No you may not come in – we are not in the future yet,” they laugh. Luckily, it transpired, that this is indeed the future.

“Here is somebody to meet,” says the Host. “This is the renowned journalist who repeatedly and tenaciously harried the Houses of Parliament with Freedom of Information requests, eventually forcing the authorities to concede details that led to the exposure of the expenses scandal, causing the biggest shake-up in the British political system for several decades and redefining the relationships between the Westminster establishment and the public.”

“Hullo, I – er – write a blog. About Norfolk,” I reply, after a bit of a pause.

A waiter refills my wine glass, which has emptied itself already.

“I travelled all the way from there to get here,” I add impressively, deciding that in the absence of any achievements whatsoever in my life, I will be ‘man who has made the most effort to attend.’ Another man joins in. It transpires that he has travelled from Glasgow. I shoo him away. Fortunately at this point the Host shushes everybody to make a short speech, and the lady from Durex says a few words about Durexes.

I was reading using my Adrian Mole voice which has generally remained as an inner-voice until today. I looked about for quotes to gallivant about the house quoting at unsuspecting people.

At some point in my childhood I acquired an Adrian Mole book, the brilliant story of our in-no-way ironic poet chap who has injected memories attached to Sheepskin coats, Thatcher, reverse-charge calls, and a host of other strange references that I missed by ten years into my mind at a young age.

He also says “Ratfink Lucas,” still one of my favourite words today.

I found last night that the BBC has done an adaption. It is faintly terrible, with all characters taller, fatter, more Harry-Potter-esque, and toting the wrong accents than the book suggested. I ended up watching the entire series on You Tube though. Once you got painfully past the fact that childhood reading memories were tainted, and sidestepped the credits, it was quite good. I did have to check he wasn’t somehow played by Daniel Radcliffe though.

I come from a village in Berkshire – a strange sort of mix of tracksuit bottoms, woods, and dog-walkers – in which our house lives in the bottom of an A road, with a speed limits that over the years been doggedly dragged down from de-restricted, to 50, and now to 40 mph. I live at the bottom of the hill before it broadens out to a flat strip, and when occasional pairs of ‘boy racers’ speed down the hill with their engines shrieking, pushing to overtake each other.

It’s not unusual, but when a neighbour awkwardly pulled the 90 degree turn into their driveway, it was peculiar to lean back, halfway through a bit of teenage HTML coding, to glance out of the window and see two cars impacting into each other and a wall, in a shattering bang that smacked the neighbourhood quiet as the third car went sailing past.

Part of me will forever be the accident rubber-necker. Mostly though as I dialed 999, I felt like a surreal prankster. Accidents on TV will forever be different to real life. I asked for police and ambulance, and tottered out almost too shy to ask if anyone was actually hurt. I think I peered into the wreckage and mumbled “Probably” to the nicest sounding lady on the phone.

It’s not uncommon, and when I moved to London over the summer there was something reassuring about cycling. It’s strange because the cycle lanes seem more reassuring – they were completely absent from the roads I cycled to school down, and Brighton implements them in a lax sort of way in which there’s a white line but with very little red coloured in. Having said that, I’ve never been nearly hit by so many times by idiotic drivers blindly swinging their doors into the roar, and weaved around so many buses, but it was always the cars with the engines that were shut off that terrified me most. And it’s always at the slowest speeds that I’ve come anywhere near an accident in my own car.

In London cars on the road seemed more aware – “it’s a metropolis, everyone active is engaged, busy and aware” the country kid in me explained. Somehow everyone on the move is on some sort of zen level (which is inexplicable given people’s ability to navigate around each other on say, Oxford Street) whilst stationary people are the most terrifying (If you watch the video below, this is a perfect example of ‘the things you look for’).

“You’re mad to cycle in London,” said a friend with an aversion to cycling in general.
“But it’s not scary,” I told her.
“And you don’t even wear a helmet?”
“Admittedly stupid,” said I, citing curly hair and vanity as an aversion, and the niceness of not needing to take a million locks, pumps, hats, and shiny belts on a journey out.

This all very loosely leads to the new TFL advert that’s been put out. What a horrible, cliche, unavoidable ending, I thought, as every TFL motorbike, car or cyclist advert must be. But ooh, I thought, what a delightfully true notion – and it reminded me of The Stoned Driving advert which seems to be on the other end of the stick, and focusing on our reactions to things we’re avoiding; ashamedly, the big issue man for one. Stare straight ahead.

I was watching Eagle vs. Shark yesterday, which is good and essentially negates all the subtle bits of conversation with a summary of how most romantic conversations go. It’s rather good, quite unsubtle, but not a Napoleon Dynamite sort of film. Napoleon Dynamite essentially works as a perfect benchmark for comparison.

“I have to keep creating, otherwise I’ll juse die” says Jemaine Clement as Jarrod.

How embarrassing, thought I. Often I find that days without doing or making things are horrible. What a painful comparison.

I’ve wanted to make this for a while (click ‘more’ for a bit of thrilling backstory). Building on some unprofessional yogurt pot candles I made during summer, I had a go at making a candle dipped in a different layers of colours (three; blue, red, and yellow. We like our primary colours). It was pretty difficult as you’re no doubt meant to use giant vats of wax, which I unsurprisingly don’t have and instead started with small Activia pots to begin with and ended up using bean cans. It’s pretty bumpy since towards the end it outgrew the beans pot and I ended up just pouring the wax over it. It should be nice when it melts. I suppose it’s one of those ugly children type things again. I think it’s lovely anyway.

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