Cheers!

Thanks for all you kind comments here's my latest filim!

Beer here there & everywhere

Out about in London’s brilliant parade with BLBW for well with some inevitability some beer we went to the London Drinker beer festival at Camden centre.
It was jolly perhaps not as good as the Hackney one in December but the beer was good. Ales to look out for Acorn IPA, Urban Dusk from Redemption (a lovely best bitter from Tottenham’s finest) and a lovely IPA from Fullers Bengal lancer which won’t be around for long so hurray while stocks last.

It was then off whizzing through the night to Battersea which picking itself up from the disappointment of me and BBLW no longer living there has got even more la-di-da. Had a jolly time at a new pub amongst the gilded youth of the south shore (shoulder pads and loud voices are back in or never went away I’m not sure).

It is a different world, the beer was good and the place was buzzing. It was odd to see that “brewing Up “ by BB is now aspirational amongst the other tasteful poster and oh they have He-man wallpaper in the bogs!

Anyway wandering home via the Kings road with its orange trainers and cafes that sell champagne for breakfast I made a little film...” we’re not Deptford anymore Toto”....

Quote of the Day:

On the tube: a friendly group of museum workers on their way home, sharing horror stories of their difficult customers.Apparently on being told there were no more places left at a sleep over event for their little “Saffron” the reply came back from one Uber mum

“ you do realise she’ll won’t get into Cambridge now!”

In a toy box far far away.....

Our W and I have been at again on a shared film this time (with some graphical help by A)  anyway enjoy!

Art Yule either love or......

Christmas Art Review!!
Jonathan Jones is attempting to disappear up his fundament in this piece in the paper today .

here's him taking about a Christmas Tree by Tactita Dean.

Unpretentious, melancholy, exact, Dean's Christmas tree lightly brushes against themes of transience, reality and truth that are at the heart of her work

Ms Dean's artistic breakthrough is lighting it with candles, which sounds really nice but the likes of Jones do her no favours with nonsense like this. Surely you can say you just like a Christmas tree without too much guff.

Those pesky artists are at it re-imagining the nativity elsewhere in the paper (as they do) Mr Parr is back on form with his and there's some others including John Squire from T'Roses.

All well and good but if you want the Christmas story interpreted look no further than  Family BLTP's  latest Auteur Our W. The boy's really got something he just disappears to his room to make these film on his playstation (which is very cool). Look out for the tantrum from king Herod played of course by a robot!

Hot New Steamy Video.....

If you're ever in Tottenham (yeah I know It's unlikely!) but the Markfield Beam Engine  is worth a trip, (you need to go on a steam day check the website) and you can have a wander down the  Lea and feed the ducks!

Tanks for the memory

Chariot: My new film or more accurately moving picture . Putting aside any obession with rusty russian technology this old T-34 standing on hillside in peak district is strangely imposing. It's hard not be influenced by Ian Hamilton Finlay on this one and his playing off of martial imagery with nature. Enjoy!

Happy St Jorge Day!!

Jorge & the Terrors:
Ahh aren't random made up as we go along traditions wonderful so in celebration of Cervantes , Billy Shakenstevenspeare, spring, fine ale and of course Robots here's my new film!
Please be gentle as you step on my onions!

Warning contains scenes of mild terror, dodgy sepia and musical saw playing.
No garlic was injured in the making of this film well maybe a little bruised.

Hoyland we have a problem...

Watch this film:

To prove I do have better things to do that prattle on about BBC2 foodbased talent contests here's my lastest film.



I tried to post it on yourtube but warner music group censored it because
in a tribute to all the early 70's Apollo launch clips I watched as a kid, I used ELP's version of "Fanfare to the Common man". The sharp eyed of you will see that ELP made a healthy living out of robbing other peoples tunes and that FTC is actually by Aaron Copland who orginally borrowed it off the common man (probably) .
A further irony being that Copland enjoyed a healthy relationship with a "borrowing" tunes , using hymn tunes in "appalachian spring" and using traditional mexican tunes in his el salon mexico etc. It's not nicking if you nick from poor people or god! I am not impuning AC work here he's one of my favourite composers especially as his mexican stuff sounds like the theme from "the magnificent seven" I am just saying the music industry are knobs!

Anyway enjoy the film unless you work for WMG.

The films stars are a lot less bitter and more joyful than I and the slow motion bits are very pleasing and yes some of the camera shots are nicked from NASA but all their stuff is in the public domain so there!

THE DEPTFORD SNOWBOT

Snowed in:I decided to treat today as icey snowy gift and not spend all day watching telly so I did some washing and mopped the floor went out for some bits made some bread oh and made another little film....... as always I offer it to you as an indulgence. See what you think.

It’s a small world

Model Citizens:

Here's my latest craze tilt-shift photographs mainly because my flickr and real friend C pointed me in the direction of the website that quickly does them for you. Don't worry about the theory just enjoy thes of pictures of real life made to look like a model village. I hope you like my train set pic. Here's a proper example

Like most people of I always liked miniature worlds, I had rail layout as kid and part of the joy of it was the tiny people and getting down and looking at the trains from close up. Most people have imagined walking round a dolls house or driving a toy matchbox car. One of my favourite daydreams as a kid was imaging climbing up a pile of sand or broken concrete wall but at the scale of tiny airfix toy solider (1.72 kit fans).

It's also the fascination of what we always called snowstorms but seem to be now called snowglobes. Here's my film of my Anthony Gormley's snowstorm that someone on youtube wanted to buy the cheeky bugger.

Which leads to BLBW getting me this excellent book "Little People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu" for Christmas (I got him a space rocket and big war comic book) which is full funny and touching little scenes made with I suspect of model railway characters in tiny scenes on London streets, have a look at his site for the more. The book has a foreword by Will Self which is his usual windy arse.

50,000 Christmas Presents

And this one is from Donna in Texas......
Well, hows things? It's foggy and dark here in Yorkshire, the rest of the house is pleasantly filled with sleeping reliatives. Mooching around as is my want, I've just had a very pleasant late present; logging on to fiddle with some pictures I took my daily peak at how my little film was doing on youface and it's passed the pleasing figure of 50,000 hits.

Now I was pleased when the people who know me said nice things about it (someo of them on here) but I would be lying as much as the indie star who gets to number five on Top of the Pops and still goes on about "just doing it to entertain themselves" if I didn't admit to being pleased that all these people have had a peek at my film.

It's has had the particular Tubebook specific accolade bestowed on it this week as someone has posted an answer video. It's a female singer doing an acoustic version of LDB, which again is pleasing if it has encouraged someone to do something creative. If we all made and did stuff we could dump rubbish like 'stenders and Holby city and we'd only need Nick Park and the news to entertain us on the BBC!

Anyway I'll let you get back to the bread sauce and Cadbury's celebrations. I need to have think about a new idea for a new film what about a robot version of Brief Encounter....... Hornby 00.......in Spanish........Uncle Joe's Mintballs.......

Little Drummer Boy

There's no getting away from it now Christmas will be here soon enough so I'm dusting off the advent calendar to celebrate this enjoyable if occasionally annoying season.

Little Drummer Boy Year 2

Advent Day1: I blame my parents they always encourage us as kids to make Christmas and birthday cards and the habit sort of stuck. So after a few years of making music compilations I was running out of good Xmas tunes and struck on the idea of making a Xmas film. I'd always liked Lows Yuletide EP and after seeing a drummer boy clockwork toy worked up the idea of him being chased by a killer robot initially across a number of famous London venues but eventually settled for things I could make in flat out of tinfoil and wrapping paper. It took a few nights to make mainly because I was using my cheap stills digital camera which could only record a few minutes of film before I had to transfer the shots to my borrowed laptop. Then using Microsoft movie maker I edited it. The whole thing if you excluded the cost of the borrowed laptop and the camera cost around £30 quid in clockwork toys, baubles and tangerines!

Broadcast yourself

When I made it in 2005 YouTube wasn't around (or if it was wasn't well know) so I spent some more evenings burning 20 or so cd's to send out to my family and friends as cards. They all seemed to enjoy it. That was that until last year by which time YouTube had grown to in effect the 6^th TV channel in Britain and so I up loaded it.

I have to admit I was pleased after a day or so that 20 or 40 people had watched it, this quickly turned to 100's and by the end of January 20,000. It's many times more popular than any other of my films due mainly to the popularity of the tune.

I do find it thrilling that a film you make literally in your bedroom (mines a studio flat!) can be seen by a fair sized football crowd. Of course I doubt if many of the viewers have watched it all but even so they seen 30 seconds of my film. In fact this does raise an interesting idea if I was making it now would you change it? The opening scenes where meant to be a montage of
Christmassy things which would introduce the theme and it takes almost a minute it introduce the main characters of the drummer boy and the robot so maybe if I were re-cut it for YouTube I would literally cut to the chase a bit quicker, but you know what I'm not going to mainly because editing stuff is time consuming and fiddly but also the film fits the song and if some bored Danish teenagers tunes out before the main scenes more fool them!

IMHO

Talk of the audience brings me to the comments underneath; it's not new to say that YouTube comment posts don't show humanity at our best. Even the gratefully received positive ones are less than flattering being the usual "lol" "cool film" variety, the others fall into the cultural differences column with discussion of why there's tangerine in film.

The is also usual boastful pride filled evangelical nonsense as the god botherers storm in as, as the song is religious we get lots of random blessing that and Jesus stuff plus over literal analysis of the song i.e. did Jesus play the drums?

Lastly up is the abuse usually saying how bad the film or that they hate Jesus or Christmas.

I'm not saying the negative stuff doesn't affect me I just don't know why anyone would bother that much, I've seen hundreds of poor film on YouTube but rarely feel need to abuse the maker (or more likely poster) one guy (ivcam1021) recently told me to "next time ask a pro" . Which I didn't understand "ask a pro" what? How to make films but YouTube is all about broadcasting yourself it's about amateur film making or maybe he's a pro and I should email him when I want to film a radar tower and stick some electronica over the top! One thing I will guarantee is that anyone on YouTube who leaves a negative comment if you follow their name tag back to their profile won't have made any films of their own and are effectively anonymous, this sort of thing happens a lot less on flickr where if you slag off someone's snaps there's a good chance they'll swing by you page and could have something pithy to say about your collection of pics.

On the whole I think it's all funny really why do people think anyone gives a toss what some misanthropic teenager in Denmark thinks about a song written by some slow speaking Mormon stuck on a film about clockwork toys by a slight obsessive bloke from Yorkshire.

DO IT YOURSELF
anyway my films out there and it looks like because it's a Christmas film it will be watched for years to come all things being equal, already this Christmas 3 or 4 thousand views have clicked on it which brings us back to positive note on which to end.

If you have an idea and small amount of money you can make film and if it's any good people will watch, people however odd all over the world will see your film which is frankly very cool so happy advent I'm off to check my viewing counter one more time.

Give my Love to Erith

Here' s today's new film!

Having a computer that can edit video without crashing means I can whiz through my backlog like a dream plus its dark outside all the time...

So here's some film of Erith its a contemplative piece of some of the rough and ready sights around the marshes there. The music by the excellent "Epic 45" off shoot "July Skies". The film quality is better than my sloe one I think YouTube squeeze your films so the longer the film the more detail they lose.

Sloe daze

Here's my latest film from the warmer sunnier days of late Autumn. I may try a different video streaming channel the quality on Youtube is rubbish my pinsharp shots full of wood grain and grass stems just end up as blocky pixels, anyone have any suggestions it looks great on my lap top.

The Espistles of St Paul's

The Writings on the Dome.



I saw this on the way home last night and so I thought I'd make film, it's a installation by Mark Firrell made up of post from a blog (*added later*and it turns out the dean of the Cathedral and philospher AC Grayling).
It was a nicely engaging piece the banal ,sometimes gnomic posts reflecting the diverse and sometimes pompous, sometimes profound thoughts of the Cathedral's visitors. Anyway here's my film shot on my phone apologises for the rough cut I wanted to get it out instead of fretting over every last second. It's better viewed full screen so you can read the words clearly.
Here's the Artist Mark Firrell's website

Life's a Peach: the movie

Acts of Fruitility (Pavement Art)

There was this peach in our road last week; here's a little film of how it returned back into the carbon/nitrogen cycle via some new baby ants, flies and I suspect a fox or may be some rodents !

My new favouritist new band:

Do Yourself a Favour........ and get hold of this # 1.

I was reading (god I’m so old fashioned ) a music magazine (kill me now) the other day and the review of a record sounded good (here comes the modern bit) I went on “web” and heard some the songs and then (my Old Skool roots showing) I bought the lp.

It’s by Windsor for the Derby who are from that there Texas I think and is called “How We Lost” and I really like it. Being a gushing type they are my favourite new band this week. New that is except this is there 7th LP and they formed in the early 90’s!

They have had a bit exposure in the wider world appearing on the recent soundtrack to Maria Antoinette. Any way the review listed “lowlife Era” which is where I came in so what’s not to like.

WFTD are what’s increasingly called “electronica” and so sound like British bands like New Order with flat but not un -engaging Indie vocals. They are a bit “post-rock” but don’t hold this against them. They aren’t a complete pastiche and have a charm of their own and as much as I like hip swinging music as I said after seeing the Blue Nile the other week there’s al ways room in my heart for a bit of melancholia and songs that have a bit of Steve Morris drumming keyboards and go “Ba la la la da Ba Ba bla da in the middle.”

I nicked a bit of the intro to “let go “for my latest film and I like “maladies” a lot. See also “Fallen off the Earth” and “Hold On”

I won’t post a song partly because they need some cash but also they have MySpace site and also you can get whole LP’s for free at their web site.

Now one last thing their name: Now I don’t want to be like one of those types who falls in love with soul objective of changing the object of their desire to some unattainable idyll. But Windsor for the derby is a rotten name I know it’s probably deep or the name of Robert frost poem or summat but it’s is rotten.

So here’s a list of suitable names for the era of band they want to be: Silicon Oppenheimer (either together or part), the ancient futurists, schism, Chime, The Rainmakers, August, Weimar, Die Stjhl, Chain, oh I don’t how about “gosh look at all those trees”, “Are we there yet?” “One potato” “One finger typing” anything other than “Windsor for the Derby”*

* Unless it refers to entertaining the star of “it ain’t hot mum” in dare devil smash’em up car race that is.

Just get up and do it!
I've got a new phone and it's got an excellent camera on it so I made a film.
It's my view of some pavillions in Bedford square, I've released me inner Jonathan Meades.

I don't want to go to Chelsea...

Wot no Gaye Search?
Why go west when you can go east? Why go to the Chelsea Flower show when we can have one here in SE London, all that was lacking was tasteful tv coverage with an even more tasteful indie soundtrack, so I made a film. Gorilla Gardeners of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your bananas plants!

Late night update: the music is by the unlikely named "speck mountain" who i like great deal, i heard it in q record shop and bought it there then, the tracks called "summer above" . I really like them they are a touch scandnavian but from the states I think

Train not always in Vain

I been travelling on the east coast line for it seems like forever barring a few years after college when I found out what paying full fare meant and spent hours in purgatory on the National Express. I know the songs great but the reality was rubbish.
9 hours from London to Leeds next to a mad drunk, or some obsessive chubby gothish morrissey fan who kept stopping my tape walkman and forcing me to listen to her tapes, she seemed a little tightly wrapped so I let her until she wanted to share the gum I was already chewing…..

Or another time falling a sleep on the motorway and waking up an hour and half later in the same place. The worst time was coming down to London to live for the first time in my twenties suffering from I found later measles. It was high summer I was sweating more than the cheese sarnies and could hardly walk from the bus to Victoria train station so never again.
Now the train can be bad if like on Tuesday it’s late you’ve read the paper already, left your head phones at home but staring out the window proved enjoyable. The view changes with the years, in times past in mid summer England was clouded in stubble fires, last winter a haw frost turned it black and white; today it was primary colours in Yorkshire the woods on reclaimed mucks stacks were bright green like the freshest lettuce, blue bells blazed in the understory.
On the lowlands every other field was bright yellow with rape seed flowers. Other fields with charcoal black fresh from ploughing. Fields so large they could contain all of Deptford except not a soul was in sight. This does make the choice of a negative film a little perverse but I thought it looked good.
The music is by July Skies who are great an off shoot of the more folky epic 45 check them out you won’t regret it.

The train was mostly pleasant except for the incredibly posh girl across from me, she alternated reading the Mail in dramatic flicky way, with head tossing, ringing her boyfriend Simon or playing with her Jackie O sun glasses. She was most striking the scary symmetry of her face marred only by a large mole/spot on the end of her up swept nose; which probably plagued her more than it should. It would have been good to make a film of her but it would have been super super creepy, so I starred out the window. In the end we all got off the train at Kings Cross not quit like Whitsun Brides not even like Stephen Patrick but thankfully not like Bowie. No I got of the National Express train (oh the irony!) wandered down to the tube recharged my oyster and headed south.