Sometimes things can be beautiful.

Sat outside for a little while on my own last night. All around me were hundreds and hundreds of fireflies. There were so many of them they made the whole place glow blue. I could pick out the windy path down to the river and the one up to the water pump, it was amazing, like the stars had fallen, or, less poetically (And as I thought at the time) like the magic forest level in final fantasy 10.

Then today as I was walking up the hill from town this moth kept up with me for a good 10 minutes. I'd slow down a little and it would stop on a blade of grass til I caught up. After a little while it fluttered off.

Ben Johnson...

All my love goes to you wherever you may be, but also to those who have been left behind. My memories of you are all good ones.

Daniel.

The grass was green

But it's turning yellow in the heat. It's amazing that only a couple of days ago everything was waterlogged, the sky was grey and I had to wear a sweater when I went outside. To celebrate the warm weather I have been laying around watching the insects mating. To be honest I feel like a bit of a voyuer, but if they're gonna do that shit right where I'm lying I guess they're happy with it. ;)

Came to the conclusion that when things are this dusty the best music for driving around to has got to be the first Queens of the stoneage album... Only surpassed in fucked up dusty drugginess by the New Kingdom album 'Paradise don't come cheap' - which my brother has at the moment.

Got hold of an album called 'the forcefield kids' by a guy called passage. It's pretty excellent, kind of indie rock meets indie hip hop whilst watching a fucked up snowy copy of the breakfast club. It's all broken synths and 80's drum machines with a nostalgic nod to the 80's, well to my 80's anyways, it kinda feels like the goonies if they lived in constant fear of impending nuclear war or something. I suppose it ploughs the same furrows as cloudead, hmymie's basement and Boards of canada, but in a pirate videocopy sort of way... I dunno, I like it!

When I was a little kid back in the early eighties I used to be pretty scared of some sort of Nuclear Armageddon, scared enough to mention it to my teachers at primary school. I used to lie awake at night trying to figure out a way of saving my family should the sirens begin wailing. I think it was my biggest fear and I used to lie awake a lot. The best idea I could come up with was to get everyone down to the shed at the bottom of the garden, then underneath the wheelbarrow. I realise with hindsight that the wheelbarrow probably wouldn't have afforded that much protection as it wasn't even a metal one, but one of those plastic ones with the big globe-wheel on the bottom. I suppose a metal one wouldn't have been much more use because we lived about a mile away from Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment and Greenham Common Airbase, so if there had been a nuclear war we would have been instantly evaporated along with the green plastic barrow.
Still, I was young, like five or six and the idea did comfort me enough to allow me to sleep, so I guess I wasn't being THAT stupid?

Happiness?

For a large portion of my life I thought my happiness and contentment was directly related to the width of the bottoms of my jeans. I could never get it right though, too tight and things were wrong, I felt uptight within myself. Too loose and the cuffs would hook under my trainers and get wet when I walked through puddles. Even though I was content with this level of sag, ultimatley the bottoms would beging to fray, then holes would appear and I would have to throw the jeans away sooner than usual. I suppose there's something there if I could be bothered to look deep enough...

On another note, I haven't been listening to much hip hop recently, dunno exactly why, because usually during the summer months I can't get enough of it. I think maybe it's 'cos my bro and EmdEE live and breathe it and I've been staying with them for a month or so, or maybe because a friend of mine sent me an email pretty much damning the whole genre of music, sowing seeds of doubt in my mind. :) Anyway apart from the new beasties lp which is officially boomin' I've mostly been listening to 'Explosions in the sky', a Czech band called 'Khoiba' and the first sigur ros album... I'm worried that this may be turning me nancy, so gonna have to dig out the NWA best of album later on today :) So in case anyone is actually reading any of this here is my top five listens over the last few days.

Beastie Boys - To the five Bouroughs
Explosions in the sky - Some shady mp3s from somewhere or another.
Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Khoiba - Nice traps
Madlib - blunted in the bomb shelter

I think I'm going to have to check out the new infinite livez album though... a little monkey tells me it's pretty cool.

Prague 06/2004: I couldn't possibly say...

Prague 06/2004: De la soul

Prague 06/2004: Three feet high and rising.

Prague 05/2004: Me and Jon's 'friend'

Outside the semtex festival

A bit of Prague at dawn

ThTc shot

Emdee with three girls on his bed. (he requested that I post this one!) ;)

Threw up some photos today...

May chuck a couple more up tomorrow. Still have some of my brother being a little dodgy...

til then.

When making things out of lego, it is unnaceptable to mix up the colours.

Kutna Hora 05/2004 Jon's saucy new czech girlfriend

Prague 05/2004. Chris, Paul, Mat & Jon.

Prague 05/2004 Burst blood vessel? Or something more sinister?

Zabreh 06/2004. " I seem to have a problem with my pants"

Prague 05/2004. Emdee & Tuco at the international hip hop & reggae Jam

Zabreh 06/2004: Tuco playing good set shock! ;)

Prague 05/2004: Mikey demonstrating the general mood of the evening

Jon 'crossing the tracks' shortly before we got stopped by the shadiest policemen ever.

special photo for Murray...

Got my ear pierced. Pretty hefty.

This is me. And my brother.

So this is christmas?

Well, not really eh? Gawd only knows what this blog business is all about, but I spose it's a chance to keep people updated with my travels and the like, if they're at all interested that is. If nothing else I can keep all my petty thoughts in one place. Nice one. Take it easy. Dan