12th March 2012

My head is now quite royally fucked, sleep is what other people do when they go to bed and today my left cheekbone hurts whenever I yawn, which is frequently due to the lack of sleep. It's lunchtime and I’m currently over staying my welcome at Darling #1’s, I should be gone but I’m hoping she’s coming back from work and I might get fed.

Still not got anything for the billboard at PPspace, but this morning I have been purposeful and alert. I have sent off a proposal for this year’s Supernormal festival and drawn up another one for Eastside Projects' travelling bursary for ESP's.

The latter will involve a field trip to Dusseldorf to find something that does not want to be found, namely Kling Klang studios, home of the legendary German synth band Kraftwerk, writers of such fun, fun, fun on the medium wave dial as The Model, Radio Activity and my own favourite, Ohm Sweet Ohm.  I only want £350, which as it happens is what they are offering, not to me but to whoever wins. Have roped Nathaniel in for this, would be fun if we got it.

Went to small cocktail gallery in Bristol on Friday, met the legendary Alex from fb and enjoyed looking at her work. Went back on Saturday with D#1 in tow for a pavement pizza + beer with Alex before cheerfully sending her off in what was apparently the wrong direction for the motorway.

Tonight I’m going to football back at the Wu in the Shire, but don’t talk to me about football, or swans. No matter.

I know I only appear to post once a month and there isn’t much here to fill a weekend let alone a month but rest assured I do do other shit, just can’t be arsed to write it down.

It’s 1.15, what time do they have lunch in schools? I think that she is not coming back and I might have to forage for myself.

Bye 

Badlands Flashback

Lately I’ve been working just outside of West Bromwich, county town of the Black Country Badlands. For me it’s been a step back in time, a chance to retrace and reconnect with my routes. I lived here until I was 18 and these are my people;  cast Iron Curtain tendencies crossed with shopping centre etiquette dating from the days before malls were invented  - and they all speak my language. Part anthracite, part broken English, Yam Yam is my mother tongue. Over time the grime gets in your nose, turns green snot grey and ends up being part of your DNA.

Standing on the site of a long vanished bus station is the Public art gallery. Inside it is like being in a very large box of Liquorice Allsorts; everything shiny, textural overload, multi coloured, only this one’s been rebooted with intel Pentium hardware. Good toilets though. Beyond the multi stories lies Dartmouth Park, annexed by the A41 and only accessible by bridge from the town and beyond it the encroaching darkness of the Sandwell Valley and a reminder that West Brom has surprisingly large swathes of greenery, not quite the glistening Albion the town’s team’s name evokes, more one suggesting a Midlands desert for the departed.

Kiosk

Pylon

Billboard

Depot

Station

It’s a bit like being in a Kraftwerk song, maybe an English Autobahn or a Johnathan Richman Roadrunner, but one made of velour and lycra and held together by velcro.

After Lydiate Ash the land falls away but after Frankley service station it closes in once more with a ripper’s intent, pylons, so straight in the countryside peel away past Dudley, zig zag over Hill Top, sidestep past Tipton, converge on Wolverhampton. Driving in on elevated M5 battleship grey concrete past raised Black Country sea of neon advertising where only Coke adds life. On Trinity Way brightly painted skyscrapers scuttle past skeletal cherry pickers. Junction 1 approaches, away to the right brittle, football ground pylons and linking them all together are the piss stinking arcades, blind alleys, corrugated bus shelters and football chanting backstreets of this badlands flashback.