urban artist
On Tuesday morning, as I stood on a hot, sweaty, overcrowded South West Train destined for London Waterloo, I happened to notice a pretty, young lady reading a magazine telling her what to wear, how to style her hair and how to look.
As I finally emerged from Bank station, the thoughts of skinny, overpaid, drug taking women as some sort of bizarre role model continued to rattle around my head. Inspired I decided to put my thoughts down on paper - or rather brickwork.
Exclusive, signed, numbered prints are now available for just £8,995. If you look very carefully, elements of the tie have been shaded using some of Peter Doherty's blood.
the one where I raped a man
Accidentally.
For the last two weeks, I have been savouring the joys of commuting into the City on South West Trains and the London underground network.
Like most large, densely populated cities, Transport for London has introduced a Smart Card system, known as Oyster, which allows ticketless travel on trains, tubes and buses.
Most modern cities in the developed world have similar smart card technology resulting in a faster, more efficient transport system with cheaper fares for passengers and reduced staffing costs at railway stations.
Not London.
Last Tuesday, I disembarked at Bank underground station following a hot, sweaty, uncomfortable 5 minute journey from Waterloo surrounded by smart, professional merchant bankers wearing trainers and suits. As usual, everyone strode out purposefully to get off the train first, to reach the ticket barrier first, to climb the stairs first, to reach the blissful cool fresh air first and finally, after a interminable 6 minute loss of communication, get a decent mobile phone signal so they can immediately call the office to show how incredibly important they are: 'Will be there in 5. Passenger jumped onto live rail outside Hinchley Wood'.
I ambled slowly along (marvelling yet again at Bryan Devendorf's drumming prowess) behind a gentleman who was rapidly approaching ticket barrier No. 3. I withdrew my Zones 1-5 One Day Travel Card and politely waited for the chap to 'swipe through' (as we Cockney trainspotters call it) and proceed towards the escalators.
Only he didn't proceed because the failure rate on the Oyster card system is high. Astonishingly high. The gentleman in front of me tried to advance by waving his jacket pocket towards the card reader but, inevitably, his Oyster card wasn't recognised and nothing happened.
I was listening to The National and wasn't paying full attention so I didn't immediately notice his quandary until he gave a little yelp. In fact, he may have given two yelps. One as he rammed into a very hard and very stationary, unyielding ticket barrier. And another yelp as I rammed into him from behind with great force.
Once we'd disentangled ourselves, he started to complain that I'd physically assaulted him. I told him he shouldn't buy an Oyster card if he couldn't use the bloody thing. One of the three staff manning the ticket barriers - most countries eliminated all ticket barrier staff whereas London had to triple staff manning the station exits - separated us and a 'revenue protection officer' then rubbed salt in the wound by charging him full fare plus a £10 penalty. I looked disdainfully at his suit and then I looked down even more disdainfully at his trainers.
I duly appeared in court yesterday charged with 'Gross indecency in a public place' but, inspired by 'Judge Judy', I conducted my own legal defence, launching a magnificent counter claim of 'Inappropriate use of trainers coupled with a pinstripe suit'.
Thankfully, the judge saw sense and acquitted me after a forensic scientist gave expert testimony that the rectal injuries sustained by the gentleman may have been caused by the insertion of a tightly rolled up copy of 'The Metro' and not sexual assault.
the most embarrassing night of my life
Working title: the dangers of Facebook, online dating, stranger danger and gross stupidity
The (now defunct) Chameleons remain one of my favourite bands but were responsible for the most embarrassing night of my life.
After the band reformed, I went to their London gigs and occasionally frequented the (now defunct) Wishville forums for discussion about the band, concert reviews, banter about football, discovering new bands - all the usual stuff we did before Twitter and Last.fm came along.
In November 2002. The Chameleons played a single date in London before a German tour. As I had struck up a friendship with a like minded individual on Wishville (liked footy, liked The Chameleons, liked a laugh) and exchanged messages with him, we arranged to meet up for a drink in Camden before going on to the gig.
Mark Burgess is a City fan, so he'd arranged the gig deliberately to clash with United playing Bayer Leverkeusen in the Champions League so I'd hoped to see most of the game before going to the venue.
Anyway, we exchanged mobile phone numbers, exchanged descriptions and arranged to meet in an Irish pub (public bar) that was showing the football. I didn't tell my Mummy in case she was worried about me meeting a strange man I'd recently met on the Interweb.
Inevitably, something screwed up on the night mainly because we are blokes. I can't recall precisely what happened but someone had a flat battery, lost their phone or told their Mummy so I arrived at this hostelry and furtively tried to identify this gentleman from a (Wedding) photo he'd shown me.
To cut a long story short, I couldn't find him and he couldn't find me. Worse, the footy wasn't been shown in the Irish pub or rather, I think Arsenal was being shown instead of United, so I went elsewhere to watch the game.
After a few beers and United taking a 2-0 lead, I made my way to Dingwalls. Now, there was no way I was going to make contact with my 'Internet acquaintance' in a packed venue so I was quite prepared to enjoy the support (Brian Glancy), soak up the pre-match atmosphere, drinking overpriced lager while watching the technicians twiddle buttons on amps, place guitars on stands and say 'One Two - One Two' into microphones while waiting for The Chamleons to take the stage.
Unfortunately, as always, alcohol intervened and as I watched Glancy performing, I happened to see a young lady who was also a regular on Wishville. This young lady spent every spare minute and every spare quid on watching bands and had traipsed around Germany and the States following The Chameleons on tour.
Unfortunately, I only knew 'Cath' by reputation and only recognised her by virtue of her distinctive dyed red hair. While I enjoyed her superb gig reviews, we'd never communicated directly so I didn't know her and she certainly didn't know me.
I should have just left it well alone but for some reason I didn't and I approached a complete stranger (a female one at that) and memorably opened with: 'Hi Cath. Do you know where Joe is ?'
Cath Aubergine (for that was her rather unusual name) broke off her conversation with her mate, turned to me and replied: 'Sorry - what ? Joe who ? Who are you ?'. There may have been the odd expletive thrown in for good measure.
'Joe - I arranged to meet him here but....'
Blank stare. Her mate is also now looking at me with a similar blank stare. 27.4 seconds left before the 6'2" boyfriend returns from the bar with their drinks.
'Look - you know. Joe - Mr. Moto. Have you seen him ?'
'Oh Mister Moto - why didn't you say ? But what's your name ?'
'Andy.'
'Sorry - did you say 'Andy' ?' Another piercing, blank, suspicious stare. Times two.
'Look. I'm RomanTotaleXVII on the forums but my real name's Andy, alright'. Christ - the embarrassment levels were now excruciating as we were having to shout this conversation above the noise of Bryan Glancy's set.
'Oh so you're RomanTotaleXVII but hang on - you're not RomanTotaleXVII any more. You are now...'
'Yeah, yeah I know. I'm now FieryJack.'
'Yeah - you're the guy who names himself after The Fall characters. Well why didn't you just say so ?'
And so it came to pass - Cath Aubergine led me to the bar area and introduced me to Mr. Moto (aka Joe Donellan)
'Hey Joe - I've got someone who wants to meet you. Here he is - RomanTotaleXVII'.
trainspotting
This morning I commuted, Reggie Perrin style, from my leafy suburb into the heart of London by train. Nothing too unusual about that.
After I paid for my daily travelcard, I took my place on an unusually crowded platform. An unusually crowded platform normally means only one thing. An lengthy delay inevitably followed by an overcrowded, late running train.
Sure enough, I soon gathered that there had been a fatality on this section of the railway line last night which caused major delays and now had a knock-on effect to this morning.
Naturally enough, I didn't hear this update from South West Train staff at the ticket booth or over the loudspeaker system. Instead I heard this important travel status update from a gentleman in a smart, grey suit (and not so smart white trainers) giving a blow by blow account to his secretary, Julie.
The gentleman spoke with such a loud, clear authoritative voice, I took the opportunity to thank him and suggested that he should get a job as a station announcer. Thankfully, the delays didn't inconvenience him that much as his first meeting was only at 10:30a.m - a catch up on the Q3 numbers with Brian and Phil.
A train arrived. It was already overcrowded with standing room only. Everyone attempted to pile on and most of them succeeded. I stood to one side and watched the melee with a few other commuters who didn't fancy standing for half an hour, uncomfortably positioned, face to face, desperately trying to avoid bodily contact with a young lady's breasts or worse, with your head positioned directly under someone's sweaty armpits.
Two minutes later, another train arrived. It was empty. Gleefully, we all boarded and took our choice of seats in the empty carriages.
The train set off - it didn't stop at New Malden and it didn't stop at Raynes Park. Even better, it turns out that we are on a fast service that only stops at Wimbledon, Clapham Junction and Vauxhall. Only this train didn't stop at Wimbledon. Nor did it stop at Earlsfield. It just sailed straight through both stations at great speed.
We also sailed straight past Clapham Junction (the busiest railway station in England) which was a surprise to a couple of people who had got up and stood by the doors, hoping to disembark. I spotted the earlier train packed to the rafters with yet more people trying to board, politely enquiring in a very British way: 'Could you possibly move down inside the carriage - possibly - at all ?'
Back on our train, no-one got off (even if they wanted to), no-one got on and no-one spoiled the blissfully quiet environment with their mobile phones and discarding their copies of 'Metro' so I was able to enjoy my high speed journey, listening to 'Boxer' by The National, in a virtually empty carriage.
As we approached the final destination (Waterloo) I was slightly worried I was sitting on a ghost train with no driver at the controls. Briefly, I wondered whether we were, in fact, even going to stop at Waterloo or simply plough straight on through the buffers into the station concourse, killing 34 people who were staring blankly at the 'Departures' board.
We arrived at Waterloo and thankfully stopped at platform 4. The journey which is normally timetabled to take 29 minutes and normally takes closer to 35 was over. In a new world record of 18 minutes.