The second filmed interview in a week led docoDom and I to Hackney. This one would be a big deal. As part of the M25 Spin documentation, Dom had somehow snagged a chat with Iain Sinclair, acclaimed author and, for our purposes, writer of probably the best book about the ring around the capital, London Orbital. It would be a long, tense, but massively rewarding day.
Continue reading A Ring, A Tree and Yuan Fen: How We Interviewed Iain Sinclair
Not the sort of thing you normally see at commuter o’ clock on a Wednesday morning. This old beauty huffed through Reading Station, her Pullman carriages full to the gunwales with people eating breakfast and looking very satisfied with themselves. It was all very pretty, and something of a good omen for the day that was to follow. Of which more tomorrow.
Further notes from our transport correspondent, Richard Betts:
“Clan Line is an ex British Railways “Pacific” Class (4-6-2) steam locomotive owned and maintained to mainline standard by the Merchant Navy Locomotive Preservation Society. She is based in London at Stewarts Lane Depot, and she returned to steam in November 2006 after a major overhaul which took five and a half years to complete.”
See, you learn stuff reading X&HT, whether you want to or not.
If you’re a fan of noir, if you like your crime tales bleak and nihilistic, if you like your movies to be in black and white, and your morals to be all shades of grey, then there are some comics that you should know about. See, crime stories were a news-stand staple long before the capes and masks came over the rooftops and camped up the joint. You could get your fix of guns, broads and hard-faced men making bad decisions in the newspapers. The true crime comics vied with Warren and EC’s horror titles for pure visceral, authority-baiting thrills. And that tradition carries on today with writers and artists across the planet giving us stories that hit hard and stay put.
Continue reading Blood In The Gutter: A Comics Noir Primer
Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.
I choose to misinterpret the koan above, which might also be subject to a mistranslation. The Creative, to my mind, is the urge to create. If you tap into The Creative, then your life is irrevocably changed for the better. You access something greater than you know, and become capable of feats that are frankly astonishing. The Creative is the reason I write every day, and feel tetchy and nervous if I somehow skip the task. I am guided towards friendships and relationships with people who have also tasted the Creative: film-makers, artists, musicians. Being one with the Creative opens your eyes and heart to a bigger, brighter world.
Maybe I didn’t misinterpret master Lao after all.
I am a busy bunny today, so this is just a quick one. Comedian and all around good egg Chris Addison is putting together a Springtime playlist on Spotify that’s quickly turning into warm, sunshiny, essential listening. It’s collaborative, so any of us can contribute tracks that suit the mood. I’ve just added “Glad Girls”, my favourite Guided By Voices track. What would YOU put on to the list?
For the last fifteen years, a man called Gimpo has been on a journey. It’s a journey that for most people would have little point, and less meaning. But for those who enjoy the idea of simply getting in a car and driving, Gimpo’s trip is the perfect distillation of the joys of travelling without a set destination, going for the hell of it. Driving just to see the road disappear beneath your wheels.
Since 1996, Gimpo has spent a day each year driving around the M25. In fact, a day and a bit, as he takes 25 hours. He plans to do it until 2021. That’s a 25 year circumlocution of one of Britain’s most hated roads. Gimpo calls it the M25 Spin, and it’s quietly becoming one of the most intriguing art projects out there.
He has form with esoteric art. As an honorary member of The K Foundation, he was with Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond when they torched a million quid on the Isle of Jura in 1994. As manager of The Foundry, a bar and art venue in Shoreditch based in an old bank, he would set off army-issue thunderflashes in the vaults to feel the concussive thump in his chest, turning the thick concrete walls into a giant drum.
But the Spin is something else. It’s a mobile, participatory artwork. Anyone can join in, meeting up with Gimpo and his heavily decorated white van for a guest lap or two. Take a seat in the back, where there’s always a sofa, good music and something to drink. The Spin is part celebration of a mobile lifestyle, and the idea is to have fun.
Dom has been helping to document the work for three years now, and I tagged along for this year’s interview. We met Gimpo in his East London back garden on a glorious April afternoon. Over a couple of Red Stripes, some green ginger wine and a Lucozade shot, Gimpo took us through the history and future of the Spin.
When he was a boy, he told us, his dad would let him sit up front on long journeys. He would put his chin on the dashboard, and his entire field of vision would fill with the road unspooling beneath him. Soon, he would slip into a dream state, where he was the master of his own destiny.
Later, as a commercial driver, he would find that he was constantly pushed to meet deadlines, rushing and stressing to get deliveries to their final destination. The journey was no longer the point. He yearned to get back to the time when being behind the wheel of a car or van could become an excuse to simply be. The Spin was born out of those experiences.
Gimpo loves the M25. He believes that most people hate it because no-one travels for the hell of it anymore. We go out to get somewhere. We don’t go out just to go out. The Spin is about recapturing that feeling, the fugue state that long journeys can often induce. He records each Spin, upgrading his kit when the budget allows, moving ever closer to the dream of being able to gather a whole 25 hour session seamlessly, without changing tapes. For now, he captures one circuit at a time and bolts them together as best he can in post.
The Spin was featured at the Portobello Film Festival last year, and Gimpo insisted that anyone that wanted to look at the footage would have to sit through at least one circuit. He wants the road to hypnotise us in the same way that it does him, and that’s a process that takes a bit of time.
As commentary on modern travel, on the way we look at the London Orbital and as an inspired piece of performance art, the M25 Spin is fluid, wise and spiritual. It takes an experience that most of us find boring or repellent, and gives it a strange ungraspable beauty. The more I think about the Spin, the more I agree with psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, who has called Gimpo a visionary. He sees something in the London Orbital that we simply cannot.
For more info, your best first pitstop is Gimpo’s website. The Spin takes place on the weekend before Mother’s Day every year, mustering at Thurrock services.
This is kind of a sauce, kind of a condiment, kind of an accompiment. But it’s all great.
Mix half a cup of creme fraiche with half a cup of yoghurt. Then add a big handful of finely-chopped chives, and about three-quarters of that amount of either fennel tops or dill. A pinch of salt. That’s it.
I’m trying to keep the measurements a bit vague so you can scale it up and down to meet your own needs. The amounts above will give you enough for two, with enough for leftovers afterwards. As long as you keep to half and half yog and creme for a spoonably thick texture, and enough greenery to make it interesting, you could make enough to feed an army.
Tweak it if you like. Don’t got fennel or dill? Maybe some parsley or chervil. Perhaps a little cucumber might be nice to make it more of a salsa.
Goes great with chicken, grilled fish, on a burger or steak, hell, I dunno. It’s your dinner. I’m just trying to help you out a little here.
I’d be cautious to claim this as a major victory, but Andrew Lansley’s appearance in the Commons yesterday to announce amendments to his NHS reforms was a pretty significant moment. It’s rare for a Cabinet member to make a statement about a bill while it’s still making its way through parliament, and Lansley’s backdown showed us a couple of interesting things.
Continue reading The NHS Climbdown: Who Says Protest Isn’t Working?
Source Code is a tightly written, sharply executed dose of intelligent SF, with winning performances and characters that you can care about. Why then does it remind me so much of Sucker Punch, the bloated ugly adolescent fantasy I ragged on last week?
I’m grateful. Really, I am. It’s good to have a low water mark against which all else can be judged. It’s good to know that when a friend rags on a film that you can chip in and say, “Yeah, but at least it’s not…”
Let’s put it another way. We have our new Battlefield Earth.
Continue reading Low Blows And Dirty Tricks: X&HT Saw Sucker Punch
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 