Roaring!

May's parents came over at the weekend. It was cold and because of this we made a dart over to B&Q to pick up some coal. Smokeless fuel I think they call it nowadays. Anyway, after a horrendously smokey false start, we opened the damper flap and we were in business. Even though it's a teeny little grate, it was enough to take the chill out of the air and bring our personalities back. Why didn't we do this sooner?

Vintage Tennis

Yesterday Shorrocks and myself were invited to Soho House to attend the press launch and screening of the Lacoste Vintage Tennis range. Amazing to see the campaign I worked on with Will over nine months ago is finally out in the public domain. It was great to see my film on the big cinema screen, especially as I'd only ever viewed it on a computer monitor before. I'm happy that I can now give you a link to my work as I'd been meaning to show everyone for ages.

The launch went well. There were quite a few people from various magazines and a load of PR types. I don't really like those sort of events as I find them arselicky and full of twats. However, last night I was one of those twats. There's no denying it!... Still, free champagne!

Here's a LINK to the Vintage Tennis film, designed and directed by my good self.

New toy

Christmas arrived late for both myself and May this afternoon with the signing for our new Canon G11!.. I'm looking forward to doing it some real justice and taking som pictures a pint of Guiness in a darkened pub... Let's just hope it doesn't end up in the same netherworld and May's iPod and her spectacles!!

So anyway, May and I decided to stay in this weekend. It was just too fucking cold to even consider going out. Plus it's January and conserving cash is a high priority, especially with the Indian extravaganza coming up.

Friday night we were out with her workmates, as I'd gone over to her office to install CS4.. It was actually refreshing to go out with a group of people who don't moan and groan about the company they work for!

Going back further in time. Thursday night our department said goodbye to Simon who goes to Hong Kong as an ambassador for Group Marketing for four months. He's uprooting and taking his girlfriend and little boy too. For the pleasure, he'll be a work bitch. Well, you'd have to wouldn't you. This is a short video I made for him to remember us by.

Happy New Year!

Back into blogging this year, I promise...

I had a right good Christmas break, but even though the (rather disappointing) work Christmas party feels like ages ago, the whole two weeks off went in the blink of a lazy eyelid.

Most Christmas holidays start before you actually break-up and there's those two first weeks in December where a lot of alcohol gets consumed. Unfortunately for my liver, the alcohol consumption continued until the 2nd of January, which isn't good. Although I've heard that the cells in the liver regenerate fully after a year and a half, so that means that if I'm abstinent until July 2011, everything's going to be just fine.

Fingers crossed.

End of year lists

Hello fans. It's that time again and I've decided to log in. Yes. Log in. It's been a bumper year in one way or another and although I've not been keeping everyone abreast with the latest goings on in and around the lifes and loves of a Pinedevil, I've signed in to let you know my lists.

So. List ahoy.

Top five albums of the year:

1. Filthy Dukes - Nonsense in the Dark

2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray

3. The Juan Maclean - The Future Will Come

4. Little Dragon - Machine Dreams

5. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers

(I've turned more this year to the sound of the synth. Unfortunately no hip hop has been worthy of the top five accolade this year.)

Top five tracks of the year:

1. Luisine - Two Dots (Pezzner remix)

2. La Roux - I'm Not Your Toy (Jack Beats remix)

3. The Juan Maclean - The Simple Life (Marcus Worgull remix)

4. The Horrors - Sea Within a Sea

5. Micachu - Golden Phone

(There really is too many to pick a top five, it's been tough and I should be getting back to real work.)

Top five films of the year:

1. (Without a shadow of a doubt) Synechode New York

2. Avatar

3. Erm...

(Can't think of any more, I just wanted to get on my soapbox and say that I LOVED Synechode New York... I didn't expect any film would have that much of an effect on me. (I started reading Carl Jung after watching it!))

Anyway... That enough blogging for me. Until next year suckers!

x

Just for you Jakie...

I'm back. Firewall problems abound. I'm not even going to give you a run down of what's been happening since April, suffice to say that I've been having fun and that life is good. I'm not even sure whether this will post through the firewall, but it's illegal here, apparently... BREAKIN' THE LAW!.. BREAKIN' THE LAW! So anyhow, for the last couple of weeks I've been using May's Mum's car as she's nicely lent it to us so we could drive it to Norfolk for May's recent birthday. (Her actual birthday evening was spent at the new Conran restaurant, Boundary in Shoreditch. May had fish, I had entrails. The wine was good.).. Norfolk was fun fun fun. The weather hung out for us to all go swimming, surfing, bike riding, blue grassing, seal watching and sailing.. Oh, and drinking. Trying to beat the clock for a last drink at the local before tidy-up time, we arrived with seconds to spare but gave up and tucked into warm wine we'd brought with us. That Thursday night was spent dancing, Zoe and Ian were like the he and she in Grease with May and I combing our hair behind them. I suppose a Sharks and Jets analogy might work here. The following day we woke and sped off top speed on various bikes. Within minutes we were lost and minutes after that May had a blowout and we had to leave poor ol' Hercules in a hedge and ride backy with the Carribean Dream (Honestly, what a name for a bike!)... We made it finally to the pub in Cley. We couldn't find the cider garden so we sat in the beer garden. Four pints of Aspalls later and we were driving (driving!?) to Wells where in the fog we found our way to the sea and to somebodys propped up surfboard. We had a good 20 minutes before the guy came back and demanded we get off it. One quick vinegar-swiping stop off at Cookies and we were soon shovelling shellfish into our hungry mouths. That evening was hilarious. Bearing in mind we had been drinking mostly all day, we managed to make it over to the village hall to see the local Bluegrass band. It didn't take us long before we were dosie-doe-ing with the locals. I've never sweated so much from swinging sixty year olds around! On our walk home, we get the phonecall from the gays who had driven from Newcastle to get there. They turn up refusing help with the heavy luggage in the back of the car, so we get in and open more wine. 20 minutes later there's a knock on the door and a surprise arrival from Helen who was hiding under the luggage all along! Cheeky Helen. As we'd assumed she couldn't make it and she had, we cracked open more wine to celebrate. Urgh. My head the following morning hurt. Luckily so did everyone elses. Plus it was raining so we didn't make it out until afternoon which was fine. We headed back to Wells beach after the rain had stopped to hang out on the sand dunes. Safe... Soon afterwards though we found ourselves going back to the same beer garden for some more cider. We weren't quite so wild though and only offended a few of the locals this time. That evening we decided to have a barbeque instead of eat more seafood. It was all nice and mellow and we chatted politely whilst waiting and waiting for the food to cook. After a cheeky burger we made it to the local, all the while being teased with tunes from Grease floating in from a neighbouring house. We'd presumed it was a wedding and tryed our luck. It turned out it was the poshest wedding in the world and of course they welcomed a bunch of scruffy pissed kids. Did they fuck. I barely even managed to smell the smoke of the top-hatted guy's cigar before being ushed out by the mother(fucker) of the bride. On the way back through the beer garden we befrended some posh kids and brought them back to the balcony for beers. After we'd run out we made local lad go back to his granny's house and pinch all the wine. It was late when we finally got to bed.. And I hurt the following day again. Three days of boozing hurts. I'm no spring chicken. That Sunday we managed to lever ourselves out and down to the harbour so we could board the boat to take up out to see the silly seals. So cool... So worth it. After a pork roast afterwards we were in the cars heading home. A good good weekend and a bad bad head because of it! Right Jake, I'll be more together now. Expect regular updates of my whereabouts every hour on the hour. I hope this thing fucking works through the Firewall now. I've been typing for fucking ages!