The Local Natives

I'm really falling for this band. More acoustic performances outside I think........anyone agree?

Cloudburst

NYC

Paris

No specific destination

I did the London Skyride yesterday. Days off are rare at the moment; even rarer are those that allow me to simply ride my ancient bicycle with no specific destination in mind.

After lunch near Marble Arch with a friend I freewheeled it along to speaker's corner to hear some semi-sane ravings for old time sake. I used to be addicted to Speaker's Corner. Whilst half listening to a man warn of The Robots impending takeover I noticed hundreds of people wearing yellow jerseys with the words "Skyride" emblazoned across them. I cycled down towards Hyde Park Corner where they appeared to be congregating.

As it turned out, our mayor Boris Johnson had closed down a huge part of central London to enable 50,000 cyclists to take to the streets without a car in sight. The route ran from Buckingham Palace, along the Victoria Embankment to St Pauls, to the Tower of London and back again. I merely planned to observe this post-apocalyptic/eco-warrior's wet dream car-less London; but instead, I became literally swept along into the whole event and completed the ride with a huge smile on my face. What a priviledge it was to pedal down Constitution Hill without a car in sight. London and it's September summer was on beautiful form. Dressed in all it's finery, with no Range Rovers to negotiate, the city revealed itself as a beautiful old friend. I was a tourist again in my own city.

It was 15km in total and although teams of 7 year olds on BMXs seemed to race by every 30 seconds it was a pretty graceful experience. With speakers installed in Blackfriars Tunnel, Kasabian's "Fire" reverberated around the grimy old tube like psych-rock from the bowels of the earth. It was a great moment - unique and surreal - and a great reminder of everything this city can be.

Mixtape

The rough trade counter culture compilation of 2008 is a cassette with a USB stick inside it. I was actually disappointed to see that it wasn't a tape. I used to worship my tape collection, the mixtapes especially, recorded for me by friends and girlfriends. I still have a few at my parent's house and I'm going to try and dig out those musical relics and love them again. Send me some pictures of your old mixtapes or some old tracklistings and we can reminisce together.

An odd state of affairs

I've got that year zero feeling again. A new album is in the can and I'm at that blissful stage where no one has actually heard the thing yet and no judgements have been made. If any of you have read Paul Auster's "The book of illusions" you'll remember the character who makes movies that no one ever sees. He seals them in a vault only to be seen once by one journalist after his death and thereafter destroyed.

Right now "The Pursuit" is in my car, it's on my iPod, it's on my home stereo and it's my favourite album. After it comes out I will probably never listen to it again unless by accident in a restaurant. It's an odd phenomenon, but I wouldn't change it for the world.