Le Flâneur

Just got a calling card through the front door. We get these sort of things quite a lot. I’m going to start a collection.  It reads:

Sheikh Malick: International Clairvoyant Spiritual Leader. The 11th generation of the family member of the African medium order.

Initiated healer of well known plants in the wild sacred forest; 15 years experience in Europe. Specialises in desperate cases which seem to be unwordable. He is a specialist in bringing back your loved ones, relationship problems and court cases. He can help with sexual impotency, exams, infertility, lose weight, depression, fidelity between husband and wife and many more, like immigration problems. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Wow! Is there anything Sheikh Malick Can’t do? I particularly like the enigmatic Specialises in desperate cases which seem to be unwordable. I wonder what his rates are like.

You may have noticed a new page has appeared in the top right corner called ‘the list’. This is a new mammoth project we’ve undertaken to objectively and qualitatively place absolutely everything in the world in relation to everything else in an infinite borometer of goodness. You may see that so far things like ‘Jeremy Vine’ and ‘vitamin supplements’ are somewhere in the middle of the continuum, while Semisonic are bringing up the rear. At the top are things like ‘Cate Blanchett’, ‘dogs’ and ‘The Stooges’.

Our projects does bear some resemblance to British Sea Powers’ one to deem things ‘rock’ or ‘not rock’. Except ours will encompass everything even the seemingly banal. For example, are The Charlatans better than fashionably dressed teens? The answer is probably yes, for although the Charlatans are perhaps the most perpetually mediocre of bands, they’re still better than that feeling of wasted youth one experiences at the sight of happy fashionable teens buying Japanese lager in a Shoreditch off-license. But even the most cynically minded would have to admit that fashionably dressed teenagers are preferable to Christianity. At the moment the design is a bit crude but this will be refined. We welcome suggestions for new entries, and debate with regard to placement.

This blog will now have contributions from Joe Miller and Matt Venables. This way it’ll probably be updated more regularly and you’ll have three voices to, ahem, enjoy instead of just the one. It’ll be fun. You’ll be able to read about all our exploits living in a rodent invested hell hole in Hackney. This has come about after a sustained effort on my to get them to joint the party. Thematically it’ll probably remain the same. The truth is that there is no theme to this blog, it’s just easier that way. To see who is the author of a post, you’ll have to click on the comments section and scroll down to the bottom.

This picture is from the FIB festival this summer. Matt had hurt his arm and is sporting a rather fetching and coordinated bandage. Joe is just resting his eyes having consumed only a moderate amount of alcohol.

I recently edited together my footage from that week. It had taken many months before I could bring myself to properly review it all. I think this picture is quite emblematic of the holiday. Notice how just out of frame Tom is somehow still holding it together. After this we had to walk the three or four miles along the beech back to our apartment to watch some more wrestling on the TV.

For the record, this is more or less what happened on Tuesday the 31st of July 2007. On the preceding Sunday, I had taken some snaps of what may or may not have been a Great White Shark swimming in the sea near Westcombe beach on the south coast of Devon. Let me tell you, we all had quite a scare. A day or two later I posted them on my Facebook profile. I had been joking around with friends about sending them to The Sun but had assumed that the whole shark theme the red-tops were running had now been succeeded by something else. Something less ridiculous, and something, frankly more newsworthy. Not being a huge follower of the tabloids I had little idea that the silly-season was now officially in full swing, the traditionally quiet summer months where it seems literally anything goes. (perhaps I had also underestimated how poor the ratings for Big Brother have been this summer)

Quite soon after posting the picture I began to get comments about the terrifying shark fin lurking in the background. This made me think again about sending it to a newspaper. I decided to have look at The Sun’s website and low and behold there it was: ‘Britain gripped by shark mania!’. I needed no further persuasion. I quickly cobbled together an email with a story that basically reflected events as they unfolded on the beach that fateful afternoon. Here is that email:

Hi,

Some of my pals were swimming in the sea off the coast of South Devon near Westcombe beach and the village of Kingston. It was Sunday afternoon. I was enjoying the British summer and getting some rays when all of a sudden I spotted what looked like a fin somewhere beyond my friends.

At this point I started shouting at Hannah (23) and Freya Miller (20), both on holiday from Oxford, to warn them to swim in immediately. Fortunately the girl’s cousin, Joe Miller (26) was on hand to dash into the water and help (pictured).

I think I managed to capture the moment when all three of them actually saw the fin behind them (see the second picture). The girls were a bit shaken but otherwise unharmed. They may think twice about swimming in Westcountry waters again.

Regards,
Chris Lowe.

If you’d like to purchase the pictures for publication call me on (01752 880748) anytime

The rest is history. I’m sure I will write further about this incident (in particular my dealings with the UK’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper), but right now I’m a little tired of sharks and anything shark related. Plus tomorrow I’ve got to move my whole life up to London and I’ve barely started packing.

Perhaps a bit of a boring subject to post about, but the weather this summer has been completely beyond the pale. It’s just never really started. Here in Britain we expect our summers to be somewhat aloof at times, but this year it seems more akin to how I imagine nuclear winter would be.  It’s really beginning to get me down.  The depression that this entails may stem from a sense of time itself having slowed down. Things around here move slowly enough as it is without having the constant deferment of summer as well. I went for a walk yesterday evening through the fields and through the dense mist that has descended over the South-Hams (I exaggerate only a little), and imagined all the things that might be happening if this were anything like a normal summer ie. trips to the beach, BBQs etc. This year I’ve eaten only a small number of meals outdoors. If I believed in God I would surmise that he/ she was pretty pissed off with us all right now, but I’m sure the real reason for the gloom is something much more prosaic. And worrying.

At least next week I’m heading to Spain where sun is always guaranteed. I keep looking at the BBC weather display for Valencia and the lovely orange sun symbols and I try to remember what a sunny day actually feels like. Roll on next week…

It seems that God is really messing with our heads at the moment with the announcement in Nature today of the discovery of Gigantoraptor fossils. A sort of flesh eating dino-bird twice as tall as a man. Yeah right like that ever even existed.

I’ve just noticed that when you log out of MySpace you’re confronted with a full page advert for gym membership. I suppose this is because they’re trying to capitalize on that unloved johnny no-mates feeling that sometimes accompanies a fruitless trip to the all conquering social networking site (nobody likes facebook). People think “I really have to do something about my fat arse or nobody is going to want to be friends with me or sleep with me ever again”, and hey presto there’s the solution. I wouldn’t know about any of this of course, it’s merely speculation.

Whilst half asleep recently I half heard a report on the today program about the launch of a new magazine. I’d forgotten the name of it until this morning, or perhaps thought it was a dream. Monocle Magazine, the name of which hitherto eluded me, is now counting down to the release of issue three. The website is worth looking at for the quality of the design alone. It was conceived by the founder of Wallpaper so you would expect a level of visual panache.

The concept outlined on the website is nothing if not ambitious:

We believe it’s time for a new, global, European-based media brand. With a keen focus, strong reporting, sharp wit and a more classic approach to design, we’ve dubbed our venture Monocle. At the core there’s a monthly magazine delivering the most original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design. Alongside, there’s a web-based broadcast component covering the same areas through a variety of bulletins, mini-documentaries and talk formats. Focused on informing and entertaining an international audience of disillusioned readers, listeners and viewers, it is our intention to create a community of the most interested and interesting people in the world.

I have to admit that on the surface it doesn’t seem quite like the kind of magazine I had wished for. I haven’t bought a magazine regularly since The Face and Jockey Slut folded and I was hoping this might be the one to the fill the gap. Annual subscription is seventy five pounds which is a bit steep, and no doubt individual issues are at least a fiver. Worth looking at in the library though.

I was listening to Women’s hour a couple of months ago when there was a feature about a new craze sweeping the homes of super-rich Manhattenites. Apparently the new fashion accessory for the working mum is the the male nanny, or ‘manny’. The refined New York journalist being interviewed on the show explained that the male nanny offers a different kind of service to the more conventional female one. The manny takes the boys to the park and tires them out playing baseball. He provides a role model for youngsters with fathers that work long hours. You can read all about the new craze here, and here. The type of young man who typically fulfils this role is a graduate or on some kind of gap year. He is well spoken and well dressed and has a clear vision about what the future holds for him. She expressed a faith in the effectiveness of interviews for determining the appropriateness of a candidate for a position. Despite Jenni Murray’s attempts to undermine the concept, the interviewee was convinced of the wisdom of the idea and so am I. Her NewYorker’s assuredness was simply impossible to deny.

I’d forgotten about all this until a couple of days ago having lunch with a friend. We were talking about my moving to London and what I was going to do with myself when I got there when it suddenly came to me ‘London Mannies‘! © How could it fail? What ever is big in NY is bound to eventually take hold of London’s ultra-rich also. So Tom has registered the domain name for me and now we’re ready to roll. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you want in on this exciting new business venture. We can talk strategy.

What sell-outs Mitchell and Webb Are.   You must read this. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html  What a weird campaign it is - Brooker has it absolutley right.  Who would you rather go to the pub with: lovable Mark (you could have a pint of bitter and talk about history), or Jeremy (you could talk about ambient techno over a couple of bottles of Magners)?  The answer is obvious.  Macs are better though.