london town

and this is friday.
we got an earlier than normal for us train into kings cross for a day of exploring.
we got the tube to liverpool street and had a wander round spitalfields and the area round it.

i don't know what this flower is but i'm amazed by how frilly it is.

can you see will?

next time we go i'm going to see just how good the scotch eggs are and sit on this awesome chair but it was lunchtime and there were lots of business types about and inside the shop was far too crowded for our liking.

then we got the tube to leicester square and walked round to chinatown and had pork buns for lunch. we were far too excited about getting pork buns again but it was definately worth it.
then we went in one of the chinese supermarkets and i got some treats.

strawberry puffs, which by the way, are so tasty.

and a box of plum juice which i haven't drunk yet but i'm looking forward to.
(obviously those photos weren't taken in london)

then we had a sit down with a cup of tea in trafalgar square and made friends with a pigeon.
but a bigger pigeon kept scaring him away. he always came back though.

we both look like we're posing loads here but really we're not.

when we arrived this guy was spiderman. after a while he revealed his true identity by taking his mask off and he left. we figured he was done for the day. a few minutes later he comes back as radioactive man!
because of the sun i guess, the square was full of bad street performers. this guy just stood there squeaking and he had a stuffed horse. the man to the left in the white shirt was shouting nonsense that varied from hitler to dehydration to buses to politics then he threw his keys in the air to make some sort of point. but i don't he was a street performer i think he was either drunk or having a mental breakdown. there was a knight that was one of those stands still until you give them money types and he was pretty good. then there was some scary 'irish dancer' man that was actually just hopping around a little bit.
after a while it all got a bit much so we left.

we went to cass arts round the corner then figured we should walk to big ben because we could see it.

on the way we saw some horses that might bite or kick you.
they were pretty.

we got to big ben and then walked along the river to the tate modern which we looked in for a bit but after seeing something called 'home' that was just kitchen utensils that lit up we left.

we walked from there to tottenham court road. i've stopped taking photos by now because office people are about and they are stressy and take up lots of space bumping into you. we went to paperchase so i could get some foam board then we made a very worrying tube journey to euston and a very worrying walk to kings cross and a quite worrying train journey home. worrying because a sheet of A1 foam board would be very easy for a more concerned about themselves london person to break. but the being very careful worked and it got home fine. then we went and sat in the red lions garden and had burgers for dinner, came home and drank tea.

a very fine day indeed.

x

amanda palmer

the past 2 days have been amazing so i'm going to give each day a post of it's own.
this is thursday.

we headed off to the train station and got on the train to london. i all of a sudden realised i didn't have the tickets. seriously, first time ever that i've forgotten something like that, i felt like a complete idiot. i'd even got them out of the envelope and looked at them earlier that afternoon. we had to get off at the next stop and go back then i sat on the platform while will went and got the tickets and we set off again an hour later than we originally set off. nevermind. and thank you to the ticket lady for letting will back through without buying a new ticket!

we walked round to camden and sat by the canal and had an ale then went inside and had some food. then we walked down to koko for the show.
due to the ashcloud it wasn't the show we'd originally intended to see but it still turned out good.
we got there just as robots in disguise were finishing then melissa auf der maur did an acoustic set which was really good. i want the album but know i'll be disappointed that it isn't acoustic.

then we had amanda palmer.
she was amazing.
it was meant to be an evelyn evelyn show but they couldn't be there because of the ashcloud and jason webley was flying to london while the gig was happening so he projected his face onto the back of the stage 'from the plane' and they did a couple evelyn evelyn songs together.

you can't quite make it out but he is playing accordian in this photo in the background and amanda palmer is at the front in the middle.


then at the end of the show she got us all to do sex pistols karaoke in honour of malcolm mclaren who's funeral had been earlier in the day and they projected the lyrics onto the back of the stage and everyone sang along and she got some people up on stage and then at the end she crowdsurfed to the back of the audience and then back to the stage again.

it was amazing.
such a good show, i'm so glad we got to see her even if it wasn't as intended.
it wasn't quite like anything i've seen before and i'd definately see her again.

x

phone pictures

yesterday we went to the galleria so i could get some coloured card and while in the paper shop we found some cheap stamps. so we got 3 different alphabets. well they're the same alphabet but different fonts. they had to be assembled which is why they're a bit wonky because i'm obviously not so good at lining things up but i think it adds to the charm of it.


this is possibly the most english i've ever been. buying nothing but tea and scones. awesome. two of my favourite things.

i've decided to take more photos of myself in an attempt to stop annoying will. i am stupidly unphotogenic. i always look like a fool. you point a camera at me and i just don't know what to do. and more often than not, i will blink just as the shutter goes. which makes for annoyingness because in this day and age of being able to see the photo instantly will doesn't get to have a photo of me he just gets 'ahh delete it delete it!!'
i'm going to try and put an end to this or there won't be any photos of me, and then what would happen if i got kidnapped? no one would be able to look for me because they wouldn't have a recent photo. terrible.
and just as a side note in that picture i am drinking a banana, pear and blueberry smoothie with a bit of apple juice to thin it slightly. it was gooooooood.

also yesterday i spent some of my hmv voucher my brother got me for christmas and got (500) days of summer on dvd. we watched it last night and it's still just as funny.

x

hoping

a couple of my recent 365 pictures.

yesterday i went into welwyn to look for job vacancies. but unless i want to work full time, can repair bicycles or only want 6 hours a week (which would be nice, give me time to concentrate on art, but wouldn't give me rent) there is nothing at the moment. i'll just have to keep looking.

i also looked at jewllery making bits. i've had an urge to make some necklaces for a while now, i think i'm going to try it after pay day, see how it turns out. i also really want to play with shrink plastic, i've never used it before but looks exactly like something that would make me squeel with excitement.
there are so many things i want to try, i hope i have enough money to try a few of them and i hope i get the week of holiday i've requested at work so that i can concentrate on trying them and getting a load of other stuff i've wanted to do done aswell. it would be amazing to have a whole week to dedicate to art, i can't wait till it's my full time job.
creating things makes me so happy, i can't understand why everyone doesn't do it.

x

projecting

Facts About Projection from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

found this video on that kate's blog.
when you have the choice, go see film films rather than digital films. it's much more magic.
and keeps people like my william in a job :)

x

grumble

i don't like being at work so much, i feel like i don't get anything else done. i haven't done any 'proper' art recently and over the past few days have hardly taken any photos.
and what's more annoying is that i have come up with a plan of saving as much money as possible so that i can live off it without a job for a few months so as to be able to purely concentrate on getting my art career going and hopefully by the time the money has run out i'll be making at least some money from art. but doing this job that i hate not only puts me in a bad mood but also doesn't pay enough that there is any left at the end of the month to save.
oh well.
i'm going to do the best thing i can do and use some holiday soon and take a whole week off work and get some art stuff done that i've been wanting to do for a while.
i also refuse to work another summer where i am at the moment so i need to find another part time job, which as far as i can tell there are none of.
anyway, i feel like that bit in wayne's world where the camera starts to turn away because he's being whingey so i'll stop now and end on a lighter, less annoying note:

i introduce to you, the punkapiller

he's from 2006. and he is awesome.
i love looking at old photos.

x

new bag

i walked through town with will on his way to work and we had a look in the charity shops and i found this beauty. after touching it, turning it, zipping it, unzipping it and just generally giving it a full undecided inspection i decided to get it even if it is possibly a bit too big for what i wanted (but only a bit and it might be perfect, it'll have to go on a test run to find out) and i shouldn't spend any money. but it was only £2.50 and it was for charity.
it would have actually been wrong of me to not buy it.
and i'm pretty sure that once i've changed the over-the-shoulder strap to a longer one it'll be pretty much perfect.

i think i'm in love.

x