freaking out some timid kids Tweet

My step brother bought me Homework for Christmas when I was 12. I loved 'Around The World', but I think I played it all the way through just once initially—those aggressive, squealing synth bits in 'Rock 'n' Roll' and 'Rollin' and Scratchin'' scared the living bejesus out of me. There's something wild and evil in those tracks. It was only when Discovery came out that I revisited it, and properly exorcised my fears. Since then its never left my CD wallet, iPod or DJ box, and I hope that right now Homework's freaking out some timid kids who like 'Get Lucky'.

Jack Savidge of Friendly Fires for Dazed about Daft Punk

we're up all night to get lucky Tweet

It's the 1st of May and, in Romania, that is Labour Day. In other words, PARTY TIME! And while most people spend the national holiday over BBQs and beers, in their gardens and in public parks and in even more picturesque natural settings, the cool kids got to the seaside. Today is the unofficial start of the season. That means few venues would wake up from their six month sleep, as the tourists are rare, the breeze can be chilling, and the water—freezing. That also means, however, that the highway to the seaside would be mostly empty, and so would the beach, bar a few... bars that'd already put out cool loungers and get muddling their mojitos as they prepare their venue for a party in the evening and chilled music plays softly, wafting in the breeze.

That empty highway, that empty beach would be the perfect setting for blasting this tune in the loop, the volume just high enough that one gets intoxicated and transfixed. I honestly didn't think about any of that for years, but now the perfect tune is here, and London is sunny, and I found myself listening to it in the loop, and dancing in the office (which is, essentially, why the boss should be able to close a door and save the employees from the embarrassing scene). And then I looked at my shoes startled, because suddenly they seemed bulky and hot and incongruous and my body, making the moves, remembered a different time. A time of free toes in the bright sand, tanning anew.



I can't say I got awfully excited when word came out of the new Daft Punk album release at some strange local fair in Australia (I believe). Was only a tad curious whether I'd still find them interesting, relevant, to my liking... Whether they still had it. And then the first video of the single got leaked to YouTube, as things go, and I listened to it once, between things, and didn't think much more than, yeah, it's in the same vein, if with less tooth to it than before. Until this morning, when the planets conspired for a perfect setting, and I felt like waking up from a long winter sleep.

I'll carry on listening among meetings and calls and all that necessary evil of running one's own shop, but I'm not really here today. I'm in a car flying towards the sea, on an empty highway in Romania, surrounded by green fields covered in poppies. I've kicked off my sandals, put a foot up on the chair in the co-pilot seat, and lit a cigarette. The windows are open, the wind messes my hair, and the Daft Punks are loud. Soon we'll reach the empty beach, seat on fluffy sofas, and sip a cool drink as our skins unfurl under the sun and our ears get used to mixing up the waves with the soundtrack again. As the sun prepares to set in a few hours, refreshed and relaxed, I'll step up to the decks and get the party going with my new summer anthem. Free toes muddling the sand until the sunrise come.

an april cherry tale Tweet

Blogging seems something of the past, and at the same time something aspirational these days. That said, here I am, with a tale of cherries past, and present. A few years back, in the hottest April I've ever experienced in these lands, I madly thought that our new raised beds/ troughs, aimed at creating some greenery and privacy about the terrace, should be inhabited by native species. So off I went ordering hedging plants in a shopping spree that turned epic before rendering any pleasantness. That said, it looked promising to get hazel, sloe bushes and native cherries. The blooms we'd have! The autumn foliage to come! The astronomical growth of these untamed creatures!

More than one thing went wrong back then, and since, among which no blooms the first year, and some feeble examples the second. On its third season leg, the adventure finally brought about, in the last weeks, some better sloe bush action that hopefully will lead to more than 250ml of homegrown homemade sloe gin this fall. But one never knows anything when it comes to gardens, yields, London weather and that wonderful metaphor, Mother Nature. So I'm choosing to focus on a small jig for making it to the other side of the rainiest year in centuries and the coldest winter in just as long perhaps, and being able to see sloe hedge blooms in the sun while at it.



Funny enough, while this business was slow to get going and the local garden center was forced to offer a 50% sale just to dig itself out of the worst year in documented garden center sales volumes, we splashed on a flowering cherry one snowy weekend and, behold, it paid. Not in discounts, which are still to be routed our way by the garden center's manager as the witch at the till wasn't favourable upon our visit, but in blooms that have started cracking and suggest the kind of prolific display we thought we'd get by default years back. Enter the not so native cherry, the ornamental cherry, the weeping style tree my height that most people would feature as a lawn centrepiece and we simply dumped on the side of the terrace.



The morale of the tale? The bloody native cherry is lining up its own blooms, for the first time ever! Competition is a wonderful thing. And more cheery cherriness might ensue in the next month on the terrace, as this last purchase wasn't my only attempt at fixing up the native hedge situation over the years. There's a fruting cherry tree in a pot, my height too, getting ready to go (yes, fingers crossed for cherries, it arrived with all of two fruits on it last year), and a less tall flowering almond fluffing up its pink buds as I write. I can only hope that I've diversified my portfolio enough for Mother Nature to still succeed at its elusive job.

email of the day: a whole new world of rental jargon Tweet

Dear Mrs Mirona,

We thank you for your mail dated 14 march 2013. Actually we do not dispose any goods that correspond to your search criteria. We will contact you as soon as we have a good that fits in your budget.

Yours faithfully,

lost count of london snow this winter. poidh, right? gif, too Tweet

I worked from home yesterday, which is an incredible development this year. Still in beta, and only some Mondays. As I went about my business with the regained, and scarifying focus that working on one's own can induce, I could've missed all those times the sky chucked snow at us, yet again. It has been a good winter for snow, by London standards, and thanks to the odd brewing of a coffee and stepping outside with my phone and a smoke, I stumbled upon sampling the latest exhibit. And it only took me one day to get you the proof (instead of going to bed) and, well, brag about things, really. I'm alive! I wrote a tiny blog post! I took photos! I made a GIF! I'm not completely out of touch with Internet fads! I saw snow! In London! Again! I worked from home! Again! My daffs are in bloom! Again! I won the Jacksons spring watch competition! Again! My crocuses are in bloom! Need I go on? Hope you're not snowed under wherever this finds you :)

ebay message of the day: oh my goodness! Tweet

Dear gorgeoux,

Oh my goodness, I am so sorry. I have not posted it. I am so very sorry. I will post it out to you today. I will send it first class. I am so very sorry.

ebay message of the day: a miniature whisky welsh rugby ball Tweet

Dear gorgeoux,

Thank you very much for your very kind comments, so glad you liked the Tea Pot. Glad to see it arrived earlier than anticipated, during the Olympics two of my parcels were opened as part of a security check, & naughty security damaged one, as it was a minature whisky Welsh rugby ball they removed all the whisky, this did annoy me as it was full when it left West Chiltington.

Best wishes & big thanks.