The DJ Played On...

I played a set at a free part over the bank holiday... I pulled the short straw and got a 7am slot... we drove to the ass-end of nowehere, set up the tent and the PAa and then waited for the punters to arrive

I think we had competition from the Beachdown Festival across the valley, so other than a few remaindered crusties and the couple of obligatory chav-boys with there staffs there wasn't much of a crowd at first, the music at the Festival must have shut down at 3am because by 4 the numbers had swelled and we were getting somewhere - the police were busy with the legitimate bash and the only time we were disturbed was when a group of moonlight orienteers crossed the middle of our patch - here was a rare meeting of three clans the asbo dodging bling boys, the last of the crustices and the goretex clad midnight bobba-joggers.

There was a pause... dreddlocks hovered in the air, staff held mid snarl and compases stretched in front of the orienteers ran through... eyes fixed... seeing nothing... hearing nothing... knowing that it's better not even to register the existence of that whole other world about them.

The party carried on... Dawn broke and the mist came down. Lucinda was waiting with me, as I peered over the shoulder of an intensley focused PsyTrance DJ, the crowd started to disperse, damp and tired. The trance carried on endlessly - tediously cycling and looping - he wouldn't even look at me. Soon there was only me and him, Lucinda, Josh and Russell waited at one side for a resolution to this battle of wills.

The DJ played on.

Round and round over and over - nananana - break - drum build - nanananananana - break drum build - nananananana - you know the method to that PsyTrance madness....

I wasn't sure how the others would stick around - I was about to do something - something physical - step in and stop the man physically when I friend of Josh's grabbed my camera and took the photo below.

That's me behind the man behind the platters that matter - Josh is in the parker - Lucinda the pink hood.

And that was it - the photo got taken - and Mr DJ stepped to one side - passed me the cans - and left me an empty field to entertain.

Which I of course did....

I looked over even Lucinda had wandered off - with Josh - most probably to enjoy his viarious chemical treats.

Leaving me alone. In the mist. Playing Globhop.

After a while the genreator ran out of petrol.

I shut down and we went home.

Keep him out of my house... please

Barney came round again. Uninvited. Fat, obtrusive Barney bloating out another day of my life.

Why? Why don't I have the strength of character to just tell him to 'fuck off'?

No one knows where Barney lives, the general suspicsion is that there is a mother somewhere who takes care of him by night, realising him into public so that he can blight our lives by daylight.

Today he was telling me about his share dealing. He invited himself in, I mean not that I was doing anything but that the point, he invited himself in and sat on Lucinda's new designer couch, and started telling me about his plans for the next few months.

"Sell up your banking shares Cornelius I'm telling you."

"Barney I don't have any banking shares".

"Well get out of anything tide up with higher finance."

"Barney, I'm a gardener".

"Its all coming down I tell you."

He told me to buy VW shares and hold them until the end of the year.... and I thought "I'm don't have a penny you bullshitter and neither do you between us the only difference is that I have the honesty to admit that there is nothing in my pocket" but I didn't say that, I nodded with a weak "Yeah yeah" and waited for him to leave.

"I'll leave", he said about an hour later.

After he'd gone, maybe another hour I noticed there was a dent, no not just a dent, a sagging bend of a dent, in the couch where he had been sitting... permanently... an ugly folded reminder of the hateful man's arse.

A Picture Has Appeared on the Mantlepiece

This is me really testing whether anyone is reading this blog... I would be so dead if I was caught doing this... but I'm enjoying the mixture of the public and private. A personal confessional that takes place in a public space.

I would though be completely dead if Lucinda found this site.

You see, I haven't seen this picture for a longtime - her mother died a long time ago - when she was a teenager. She hasn't really told me how, well she has but for the most part I've forgotten the details... does that sound harsh... well given that NO ONE is reading this nonsense why should I care...

Sorry, where was I?

Yeah Lucinda's mother, the venerated figure of whom no ill can or will ever be spoken, and suddenly there she was - in our living room - gazing softly out at me... all black and white and cool and beautiful. There are some kids in the background of the picture - I'm not sure if Lucinda is amongst them...who's to say.

I asked her about this picture and she looked sad and said it would have been her mother's birthday this week - she would have been 50 - and Lucinda said she had been on her mind. Her whole family had been on her mind. In that moment I thought about the photo I found, in the cereal packet, the little photo of her sister. I wondered if I should tell her I knew about it - that she needn't keep that part of her life secret anymore - that I wouldn't judge her no matter what - those words were just on the tip of my tongue - I was on the cusp of saying them...

And then Lucinda looked at me with such warmth - such affection - and she took me in her arms.

She told me: "You don't need to say or do anything... you're my family now... all I need."

And the moment was gone. The truths I had to speak were left unsaid. We would carry on living with our secrets.

I took this photo of her photo though... I really am so completely dead if she finds this...

Loop de Loop

There was a Festival in town the other day, near the Pavilion, electronic music and local bands and the like. I'd put myself forward to get a DJ slot but was only offered the opportunity to play a 'click-house' set in a ice cream van with speakers outside it. Got us free passes anyway so I shouldn't complain too bitterly, even if it was at 12pm and my only audience was a two year and a drunk Scotsman in combat fatigues.


The afterparty dragged on endlessly and then thanks to Lucinda's endless enthusiasm for filling our house with wasters ended up back at ours. I hid in bed, covers over my head, unable to sleep... when I got up to have a slash I checked the living room and there was Josh and Lucinda in a corner, talking as per usual, having one of their little tete a tetes - only this time Josh was crying. Wiping tears with his cuffs... and... this is the oddest thing... I swear Lucinda was taking a picture of his tears. On her camera phone. Close up.

I enter the room and for a beat everyone stops - they stop talking, bullshitting, skinning up, bragging, monging and sagging in their seats. Everyone takes a beat and then carries on.

And I am frankly I am deeply and profoundly freaked out.

So I go for a piss and then hide in bed.