YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN SLOVAKIA WHEN A GUY GIVES YOU A RIDE IN EXCHANGE FOR SCRAP IRON

When somebody says to you “I have three houses, come visit me” it’s usually a good idea to consider the offer. If that somebody has three houses in a remote region of a former communist state it is a definite yes. You may have to shit in an outhouse, eat three times your body weight in cheese and be ultimately be deleted from Facebook by your (enthusiastic) but ineffably insane host, but it’ll assuredly be a tit tweaking, face slap of an adventure. Slovakia is the perfect idyll for me; alternately an innocent maiden beckoning you through natural orchards for flushed cheeked frolicking and a boob-tubed trashy whore of mish mashed cultural detritus who wants to bang you to a soundtrack of 80s ballads. Incidentally - it’s not that Slovakia is stuck in the 80s, it’s not, it just politely refuses to acknowledge the proceeding decades. That suits me fine. So shoulder pads please lets have a Slovakian adventure:

Kings of Dalston

oh btw -LONDON LITERARY FESTIVAL - WE KILLED IT.

Big scary crowd of onlookers.
Live art illustration of the recital:
I AM THE MAINFRAME live.

Weird Old Warwick.

Don't believe that the English are boring, that we don't have a shamanic tradition, that we aren't able throw together an awe inspiring ritual or two. Bubbling beneath the wishy washy Church of England surface there is a vivid world of pageantry, frenzied pagan frivolity and boundless eccentricity. We shot some camera phone snaps during Warwick Folk Festival to share with you. There was even a twelve foot Borg in medieval attire - seriously, we export WTF from this country.

Soapbox Skits 1

Mr Cognitive Dissonance.

Let me introduce Mr Cognitive Dissonance, there he is, “Ta Da” in his party hat, eating his happy meal, running in his hamster wheel, enjoying three different types of cheese, singing along to his Bruce Springsteen C.Ds, contemplating a wide range of flat screen T.Vs...Perpetually standing in line at the bank, or filling up his tank, taking too long to indicate and too fast to ejaculate, that is, when he isn’t too anxious to penetrate. He buys the Sun and the Sport, The Sun and The Sport and the sun and moon and the stars don’t bother him a bit.

He likes vivid colours and gasoline and supports his hometown football team and punches first if he needs too. Most of the time he won't listen and he doesn't understand and doesn't bother asking if he can demand. It is his duty not to care and he pretends his emotion isn't there until it ulcerates to be aggravated by spicy food and too much lager. His hands are rough and his voice is deep and it takes him a long time to get to sleep, he works hard and he is getting fat and when he looks in the mirror he isn't sure what he is looking at.

Buzzing on additives and headlines his heart is continually pumping at terror threat level red and he is so afraid of dying; he can’t wait to be dead.


Untitled Skit.

I want my freedom, not my Mc Freedom, not this TV state, some blokes off Holly Oaks took coke and now it’s in all the tabloids joke of a reality. I real control, not slavery or dole, to be a human unit brought or sold, constantly harassed and told what to do by corporate liars. I want action and compassion, not footballers wives and fashion, pages and pages of diet tips to slim my hips when we can’t scrap together enough for a bag of chips anyway.

Will we ever be slim or stupid enough for our media?

No.

I want to enjoy my life away from a CCTV lens, with real friends not just Facebook updates and virtual mates and Twittering twatery. I want food that is less expensive because it isn’t so adulterated it is going to give me cancer and a world free from pricks in the town centre who answer everything with “what the fuck you looking at” or "you don't know me though". I don’t need Direct Line insurance and it tests my endurance to be quizzed in the street again and again about bargain prices on mobile phone deals, for an iPhone that some pikey undoubtably steals five minutes later.

I want sentiment not soundbytes, politicians with a pulse and maybe even a soul that can relate to my state as more than a concept or statistic or am I being unrealistic to expect these people to care.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Flex.

Doorways and Windows.