Me & Bagpuss

Today I met Bagpuss and the Clangers. Canterbury Museum has an Oliver Postgate gallery and a Rupert bear one. Pictures and details to follow.

I had a good day. I made a mini zine about Canterbury, which I will give out tonight. I went for a black olive and goats cheese pizza with my mum, went to the museum, and bought some things I neeeded like a new wallet, and some lino plates (I wanted to buy everthing in the art shop, but my budget was about £1.50). Canterbury is lovely, but I think living there might get a bit dull for me.

I'm about to eat thai takeaway at my dad's house, and then go to Tukru's to do some pre-drinking before we go to Moogie Wonderland ( http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=265360358338&ref=mf ) It's an art exhibition/ club night combo, the art this time is provided by my friend Scott Smith (check out his great blog scottjasonsmith.blogspot.com ), and they play the music we like so it should be a great night. I'll get to see all the ace people like Tukru, Scott, Bee et all who I don't get to see enough.

Also in good news, it looks like I'll be able to do a masters in 2011. The one I have my eye on is an animation and illustration course in Brighton. As a teenager I always planned to go to art college, but I ended up going down the strict academic route for a variety of reasons. It would be good to get art college under my belt.

Steve West- Marble Valley

Last night me & Chris went to see Marble Valley. They're Steve West from Pavement's side project. I don't know if he intended to be the comedy Silver Jews, but that's what they are. Silver Jews + Flight of the Conchords. The support bands were identikit young men trying to sound like the Arctic Monkeys, but minus the wit.

Zinefest stuff

We had our zine social again at the Freebutt, not particularly heavily attended, but then we didn't promote it much. I was possibly the only person to ever bring a typewriter to the bar. It's nice to type on it now I've finally got round to replacing the ribbon.

One of the final meetings before the festival is on Tuesday, where we'll wrangle out the final stall allocations out of the heap of applications we've received, and sort out some of the entertainment line-ups and other bits and pieces. I need to gussy up the website a bit too.

Birthday Haul

I finally have all my birthday presents, after ooh, 2 weeks. Thanks Royal Mail.



Dress I got from Beyond Retro with the money my brother sent me. (The new Brighton branch of Beyond Retro is great, and also cheap). £1 fondue forks in the spotty box from the Habitat sale. Hotel Chocolat bonbons from Chris. Owl money box from Chris' parents. Pink LED torch from them too. Pastels single, Great Literary Hoaxes, Father Ted dvd, Diana Wynne Jones book (another awful cover), guitar tuner to replace my busted one, and another 331/2 book (Elliott Smith this time) all from Chris. Poirot boxset, and DSLR remote from my dad, Freaks and Geeks boxset from my sister. ATP film from Chris. I've got Panda Bear tickets for March for me & Chris from my mum. I've got plenty to keep me occupied here!

(Not pictured, lovely embroideries from Vicky)

The Orange Undresses

I've been trying to learn how to do stop motion animation. Today I practiced a simple orange peeling exercise. It's annoying how every video becomes more jerky and grainy when you upload it, flickr is the best of a bad bunch.

Mr Benn Barnsley Style

An episode of Mr Benn entirely made by small children from Yorkshire. You understand I would've killed when I was 8 to do this. (I was never on Rolf's cartoon club, *sob*)

Snowcake

I was stuck at home today because of the snow. I wish I'd had multi-coloured sprinkles for this, the pink ones kind of look like blood.

Fisheye

Testing out the fisheye lens adapter I got for xmas off my dad ...

Rosettes

emmajane.etsy.com

I added a lot of rosettes, brooches and badges to my etsy store today if you want to check them out.

Albums for each year of the last decade

Everyone's doing it, I might as well jump on the bandwagon. These were the albums I listened to death each year they came out. Most of them are pretty predictable, I'm afraid. There's a lot of great albums that I bought a year or two after they came out, and I've left them out of this list. It's strictly albums I got when they came out.

2000- Relationship of Command- At the Drive In



Sparta bore me, because straight-up hardcore bores me, and the Mars Volta bore me because prog bores me. The two halves together were perfect.

2001- Kid A- Radiohead



Ok, according to wikipedia this came out in oct 2000, but I didn't get it til the beginning of 2001, so I'm counting it as my 2001 album, alright? I loved it immediately. This is also one of my favourite Radiohead songs.


2002- Turn on the Bright Lights- Interpol



I was a bit leery about buying this, because I thought it might be a lame Joy Division rip-off, but it was cheap on vinyl, so I gave it a go. I was glad I did. They play together so perfectly on it. I don't like any of their other albums, just this one.

2003- The Story Is in the Soil, Keep your Ear to the Ground- Bright Eyes



This actually came out in the US in 2002, checking wikipedia, but I definitely got it in 2003, as did my friends. I ordered it on vinyl when it came out, but got it delivered to my dad's house (I probably used his card or something). He came to drop it round my mum's, but ran into me on the way into town and handed me the envelope instead, so I ended up lugging it to the pub. It came in an extremely nice gatefold set. A bunch of us stayed round Chris T's, and I wanted to put it on, but his record player was busted, but someone had the cd, and we all oohed and ahhed over the songs. When everyone was asleep Chris' brother draped slices of ham over everyone's faces (he didn't really know me, or the fact that I was a vegetarian). He's a strange one. This song is fucking amazing, by the way. I like some of his following albums, but none as much as this one.

2004- Funeral- Arcade Fire



This actually came out in the UK in 2005, but my housemate went on holiday to Canada in 2004, and came back with this album and their first EP, raving about the band. So I got a bit of a sneak peak. I love the way they seem to have as many people banging things at once as possible by the end of the songs.

2005- Wind in the Wires- Patrick Wolf



I absolutely loved Patrick Wolf at this point, I loved his whole aesthetic of mixing folklore-inspired songs with electronica. This album is fantastic, every year when I go on the train to Cornwall with Chris I listen to this from start to end. It's sad that Patrick Wolf seems to have turned into a prick. Both me & my friend Bryony also got sick of going to his gigs and being the oldest person in the room, even though we're/ were only in our early to mid 20s.

2006- Gulag Orkestar- Beirut



I think Bryony got me onto this one. Oompah-pah-pah.

2007- Person Pitch- Panda Bear



Like the Beach Boys, but more psychedelic basically, by him out of Animal Collective. This album was instant love.

2008- A Larum- Johnny Flynn



This was a tie for me between Bat for Lashes, and this, but Johnny Flynn won. I went with Chris to a gig at Reading Town Hall- it was someone like Explosions in the Sky, (I can't remember exactly) and Johnny Flynn was the support, looking about 10, and what I actually remember from that gig apart from the weird no drinks or cameras in the auditorium rule.

2009- Merriweather Post Pavillion- Animal Collective



Seeing Animal Collective was the only thing that saved my miserable 24th birthday (spent the day in a depressing port town at a pointless job interview, got soaked, was too late to go out to dinner as planned before gig, accidentally smashed ipod on the way home)