Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Looking at naked breasts (for purely professional purposes - forthcoming Channel 4 series)

Playing with Twitter (still think it's the Tower of Babel)

The red E-type Jag in Smith Square

on Politics

"The politics of youth are, by definition, the politics of ignorance."
Howard Jacobson - If you say you want a revolution...

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Birdsong at night

Scent of flowers

Going out for a coffee

Starspot #331

Lenny Henry (today, Channel 4)

On Documentary

"If Documentary is just about fact, you may as well get the police to take down witness statements."



Lee Kern

on The Edgware Walker

www.twinklebum.co.uk

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Wallk on the Heath with U on first Summer Time afternoon of the year

Reading in the back garden

Chatting to allotment neighbours

Creative Accounting #65

Things We Lost in the Fire:

Benicio Del Toro = Brad Pitt but darker

David Duchovny = Richard Gere but less distinctive

Track of the Day

Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen - Live in NYC

Come on and meet me... Come on and meet me... Come on and meet me...

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Getting my backlog of expenses cleared - seem to have been cashflowing Channel 4 for a couple of months ;-)

(Blast from the past) Watching a woman's long hair blowing in the slipstream of the tube, unbeknown to her right out the window towards my carriage

The tranquility of my street as I approach home - wet, sodium light, breeze

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking and talking with Holmes around the backstreets of Victoria



The backstreets of Westminster at dusk



Edwardian thrillers - reading John Buchan (Three Hostages)

Simple Pleasures

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."

Cicero

Know yourself

"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we
become disguised to ourselves."

La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

Religion

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."

Abraham Lincoln

Creative Accounting #65

Christopher Jones (Ryan's Daughter) = Peter O'Toole + Tom Courtney

Hair play

Lunatic Fringe (Liffey St, Dublin)
Klassique Kuts (Rostrevor, Co. Down)

Friday's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Sean, Orla and Meabh and sisters-in-law

Visiting the Memorial Gardens in Parnell Square, Dublin commemorating the Easter Rising with N

Finding all the Julian Opie artworks making up Walking in O'Connell Street with N

Today's Happiness Experiment entry (Sat)

Visiting the little visited Goward Dolmen near Hilltown, Co. Down with Cormaic Murnion and boys

Walking in the Mournes near Hilltown

Jogging from pier to pier in Carlingford, Co. Louth

Drama bums - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Meeting up again with Jason Isaacs after twenty years, at the RTS Programme Awards

Chatting with Matthew Macfadyen, star of Secret Life (Channel 4), whose superb performance won the best actor award

Getting the go-ahead for Searching for Osama which I'm really looking forward to doing

The Boys are Back in Town - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking back with N through Dublin past the GPO in the run up to the Easter Rising commemoration, talking about that history as if recounting the Exodus, passing on cultural heritage

Checking out the Phil Lynott statue just off of Grafton Street with N

Sharing the flight over to Ireland with D - looking out over the coast together on descent

Track of the Day - Hot off the Press

for Paddy's Day a brand new arrival...

How can a Poor Boy? from Van's new record out today Keep It Simple

Broached on the couch with N

Creative Accounting #26

Paul Brady + Christie Moore + Roxy Music = Damien Dempsey

(in the wake of Folk Hibernia, last night on BBC4)

Track of the Day - new stuff

Archangel by Burial from Untrue

Human Footprint

Track of the Day

I'm Still Waiting - Diana Ross

Moving Pictures of the Day

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Wandering around Brussels (Q. Why did the Belgian chicken cross the road? A. Because there's fuck all else to do in Brussels)

Late night barflying with Jan (Younghusband) and Tabitha (Jackson)

Watching James Marsh's 'Man on Wire' at the Discovery Campus documentary event - chatted with James about the behind-the-scenes over dinner (where were the famous Belgian thin chips?)

Creative Accounting #22

Paul Klee - Cubism = Keith Haring

See Tiere spielen Komoedie (1937)

Bringing home the silverware - Today's Happiness Experiment entry (Thurs)

Winning one of the inaugural Media Guardian Innovation Awards alongside the likes of Skins and Radiohead (the Cadbury's gorilla was robbed) - with my Mrs and my dear ol' mum present

A nightboat down the Thames to the Millennium Dome

A surprise live appearance by whatever that rapper with the book who sings "Radiohead - just a band" is called - first heard that choon the other week in Rough Trade down Brick Lane

Creative Accounting #21

Jack Johnson = Michael Franks + sun + muscle

Skin deep - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Skins



Reading The 6th Lamentation - historical thrillers



The Regency - Spurs caff (with Christian Ahlert of Open Business)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The children's enthusiasm at the First Light Awards presented by Kevin Spacey, Ian McKellan et al, hosted with her usual brilliance by Davina McCall

The calm late evening tube journey home

Finding out N has got in to his school of choice

Track of the Day

Tainted Love by Soft Cell



Must find my Gloria Jones single this weekend...

lyrics scroller test

- Van Morrison Lyrics

Today's Happiness Experiment entry (fri)

Hanging out at the James Joyce Foundation - looking at Thom's 1904

Hanging out with little bro

An evening snooze (before a posh dinner)

Track of the Day

High & Dry by Radiohead from The Bends

Soundtrack for fraternal time

Today's Happiness Experiment entry (thurs)

Walking in the streets behind Blackfriars/Fleet Street and stumbling upon a variety of public art

Coming up with the eccentric British amateur voice for 4mations

Reading The 6th Lamentation by William Brodrick - a class thriller stumbled upon in Greenwich Village (Felony & Mayhem)

Tracks of the Days (wed + thurs + fri)

W
Head and Heart by John Martyn from Bless the Weather

My secret brother

Th
Glory Box by Portishead from Dummy

F
Cracklin' Rosy by Neil Diamond

Memories of drumming lessons at the Fender Sound House

Track of the Day

New World Order by Curtis Mayfield from the LP New World Order



Bought on my first day as a freelancer in 1987 - a new world order for me

Recent Happiness Experiment entries

(Sun)

Being perched on the paragliding cliff-top above West Beach, Newhaven, East Sussex watching the Adam's Family trying to fly their new kite

Spurs winning the League Cup - enjoyed among a load of Chelsea fans in the White Horse, Rottingdean

The sea

(Mon)

Watching Skins on E4

Lunch chat with Steve Moore

Doing homework with the Enfants Terribles - Roman roads and old-style school reports

(Today)

A while before sunset

Walking half-way to skool with N

Making progress on the design of 4mations

Choe Creation

Here's an interesting arrival in London and Newcastle (simultaneously) this week. Peripatetic (LA born) David Choe has a new show opening this Friday night at the Lazarides Galleries. Here's a sneak preview of the new work...



Picture courtesy David Choe and Lazarides Gallery
Copyright: David Choe 2008

Today's Happiness Experiment entry (Sat)

Ronan O'Gara's one-handed pass - plus a great performance from England in Paris

A traditional north Laines mooch en famille

Barnstorming: A chilled out afternoon of rugby, kite-flying and chat at the new Lilley Villas in Laughton, East Sussex

Track of the Day (Sat)

The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys

On the road home from Lewes

Up in the Downs - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Playing the story chain game with N D and U- a rolling stone makes its way to a shanty town overlooking Seoul, birthplace of a dictatorial general, when a sudden earthquake sweeps us from the caves beneath Jamaica to a Chinese mountain peak where there lies the dead body of a gold-bearded old man.

Walking through the downs near Woodingdean, East Sussex - the curves of chalk

Siesta in Mariners Quay, overlooking the cliff canal

a single lovely action

"Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the
world weigh less than a single lovely action."

James Russell Lowell
poet, editor and diplomat (1819-1891)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking along Brighton Beach at sunset en famille

Taking D to his swimming lesson

Mariners Quay

Quote of the day

"Cornflakes, I'm gonna take you down!"

N (age 11) portraying a cereal killer

Principles

"These are my principles. If you don't like them ...I have others."
(Groucho Marx)

courtesy of Zoe Margolis (Girl with a One Track Mind)

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Duchamp's Nu Descendant un Escalier at private view of Tate Modern's new exhibition - Duchamp . Man Ray . Picabia (someone should make it in wood)

Nightwalk from Horseferry Road to Tate Modern, especially the stretch near Gabriel's Wharf

Discovering U & I had listened to the same countryside programme on Radio 4 on early Saturday morning about the South Downs and Weald of Kent and picked up on the same stuff

Starspots #43 - arty smarties

Andrew Marr, BBC journalist - Tate Britain (Modern Painters: the Camden Town Group) 11.ii.08

Michael Nyman, composer - Tate Modern (Duchamp . Man Ray . Picabia) 19.ii.08
Joan Bakewell - ditto

Playing away - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Walk along the Thames at Fulham/Putney Bridge (with the enfants terribles)

N's first A team rugby match - versus Hammmersmith & Fulham at Hurlingham Park in cold winter sun

Strawberries off a barrow in a nostalgic old corner of Ranelagh Gardens SW6 by the railway arch

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The most beautiful Valentine's card from U

Lunchtime chat with Andy Phillips of Channel 4 Radio

A class opening goal from Berby in Prague

Track of the Day - Andy Harris

Janie Jones by The Clash

in memory of Andy Harris RIP

He's in love with rock'n'roll woaahh

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Dinner with the Enfants Terribles at our quiet spot in Highgate

Practising rugby at our 'private' field in Hampstead Garden Suburb, then rushing home to enjoy a couple of fantastic tries by England

Golden winter sun

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Winter sun

Meeting and chatting with a fella called John who was reading The Fountainhead outside in the sunshine at Amici's at lunchtime

Collecting the enfants terribles from skool armed with cakes

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing the Eric Gill sculpture inside Broadcasting House foyer

Walking from Broadcasting House to El Parador, Mornington Crescent

Walking the Enfants Terribles half-way to school

Track of the Day

A Love Supreme - Acknowledgement by John Coltrane

Track of the day

Across The Universe - The Beatles from Revolver
recorded 40 years ago today
and beamed across the universe now by NASA

Track of the Day yesterday

Eskimo - Damien Rice from O

(D was particularly taken by this one on the way to play rugby at Wanstead RFC)

Creative Accounting #3

Damien Rice = David Gray + Once

Fear factor

"Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?"

Kahlil Gibran

Nothing is neutral and neutral is less than nothing

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel - writer, Nobel laureate

Track of the Day

Tough choice today - could have been Bjork and Antony Hegarty (Dull Flame of Desire) or Shane MacGowan (Snake with Eyes of Garnet) - I do love my little orange Shuffle - but the award goes to...



Donny Hathaway - The Ghetto



which took me places while I was flat on my back in the gym

Bristol fashion - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Chairing a session on cross-platform commissioning with Alan Hayling of Renegade and Paul Canty of Preloaded using Picture This as a case study - at Just-B's Crossing the Void in Bristol

The rhythm of the train

Sitting by the water near the Watershed, Bristol

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Speaking on a panel chaired by Mike Bolland (original Channel 4 commissioner of shows like The Tube and The Comic Strip Presents) about the history and future of Channel 4

Encountering a Dalek at BBC Birmingham

Seeing the Selfridges pin building in Brum

Why are heads round?

"Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction."
Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching N's rugby team win 56-5 on a bright winter morn in Watford, especially his terrier-like tackles

Watching Saracens beat Bath 26-20 at Vicarage Road with N and neighbours

Watching Captain & Commander with U, reflecting on the sea and other stuff

Track of the Day

Last of the Famous International Playboys - Morrissey
as performed live at the Roundhouse

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Hearing Morrissey sing International Playboys (before he retired sick, at the Roundhouse, with Paul Miller)

An evening visit to Black Gull Books

A chat with James Cherkoff about all things blogging

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Empire's Children winning an Interactive Media Award in New York



Visiting the Arts Club in Dover Street and checking out the art round its walls



Walking through St James's and the eponymous park in the afternoon sun (with Ewan Mcintosh)

Track of the Day

FM - Steely Dan



NO STATIC AT ALL


Give her some funked up music she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae she'll love you twice

Track of the Day

You've Got to have Freedom - Pharoah Saunders

Image courtesy of Lyn Rodden - www.lynrodden.com

Good medicine - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching the first episode of Medicine Men with twin docs Chris and Xand as the accompanying Medicine Chest site goes lives with tales of cobwebs and baking soda



Spurs beating the crap out of the Woolwich Wanderers



Looking in the night window of Black Gull Books + reading around (literally) Smith Square [Everything is Illuminated]

Dot Comedy

Some favourite quotes from Dorothy Parker:

* Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

* Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

* You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

* You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

* She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

* If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

* Salary is no object - I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

* Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

* This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

* I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

* All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.

* It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.

* That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

* I don't care what is written about me, so long as it isn't true.

And, to celebrate the 40th anniversary this month of the Prague Spring, a new mash-up from me:

* The two most beautiful words in the English language are “cheque enclosed”. The two most beautiful words in the Czech language are “Czech freed”.

Mac weather - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Pic: Mill Hill off The Ridgeway


Watching the B&B scene in Borat culminating in throwing the dollars at the beetles - satire of Kafkaesque proportions

Setting a shiny new iMac up for Ma and getting the little darling on-line - despite Virgin customer service in India trying to throw me off the scent

A leisurely drive home in the rain along the Ridgeway (Mill Hill) with the enfants terribles

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finishing Justin Cartwright's The Song Before It Is Sung on our new sofa

Walking down to the library and picking up a couple of books for each of the enfants terribles

Being bought a slice of cake

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Coffee with Terry and Gaby Braun, chewing the fat about sonic stuff

Dub reggae - and iPodding my way home generally

Friday evening - always loved it (since the days of Roundtable and reading comics stretched out on the carpet)

Human Behan - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Adie Dunbar's barnstorming performance as Brendan Behan in 'Brendan at the Chelsea' (at the Riverside, Hammersmith til 3rd Feb)

Outstanding vegetarian dinner (with U, Joan & Paul) at The Gate, Hammersmith -based in painter Frank Brangwyn's house

Thinking about Public Value at the Oxford Media Convention

Track of the Day

Chatti Mouth by Creation Rebel

Too much licky-licky...

Guardian Angel - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding out that Big Art Mob has been shortlisted for the inaugural Media Guardian Innovation Awards

Finding out that Picture This has 11.5% of its users spending over half an hour per session on the site (and 4.7% over an hour!)

Meeting Zoe Margolis (Girl with a One-track Mind) in the flesh at the climax of the Cultural and Creative Leadership Mentoring Programme at the ICA

Picture This - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Hanging out at the Photographers' Gallery with Picture This folk including Martin Parr, Alan Hayling, Brett Rogers, Liz Gordon, Joy Gregory, Ed Thompson, and the Renegade posse.

Walking home in the wee small hours

Walking N half-way to skool

Photo courtesy of Lucinda Chua

Track of the Day

Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters as performed at The Last Waltz with The Band

I can make love to you woman
...in five minutes time

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding out that Lost Generation had the highest average pageviews per session in 2007 of any site on Channel4.com

D on being banned from DS and PSP for over 60 days: "A bit harsh."

Juno, particularly Ellen Page's performance

Track of the Day

My Generation by The Who

Creative Accounting #2

Ellen Page (Juno - b. 1987) = Jane Fonda (b. 1937) - half a century

Star spots #554

Griff Rhys Jones
Stephen Bayley, design geezer

yesterday:
Richard Hammond, Top Gear

Terminated

Notes for a movie by Albert Camus & James Cameron





We are biological machines programmed only to survive.


We are born condemned to death.


To survive we must not take that ludicrous condition lying down.


We must rebel against it with kindness (as in 'mankind').


We need to learn to live in the present to maximise our own happiness.


That happiness must be available to the whole of our kind as a context for our individual happiness.

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A chinwag with Andy Taylor of All3Media

Meeting radio drama director John Dryden of Goldhawk

Roast potatoes

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Picture This doing really well - 15.5 page views per session

lunch and chat with Steve Moore, always good craic

making up absurd versions of Quentin Blake's The Clown for the enfants terribles - all the females in New York are toy killers

Old friends - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Meeting up with Nick Golson for the first time in over two decades, over a leisurely dinner at the Wolseley in Piccadilly

Chicken soup

Walking across St James's Park at night

yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Practising drop kicks with N & D in Golder's Hill Park (on a triangle of grass where I played once with my terminally ill dad)

Chatting to an old kite man (by the duck pond where I walked once with my loving grandmother)

Chewing the fat with my old school friend Alan and my neighbour James (on the touchline of Finchley Rigby Club)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading Justin Cartwright's latest novel on the tube - The Song Before It Is Sung

Listening to Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo's Radio 5 movie review podcast in the gym (Christmas review of 2007)

Playing Shrek game with the enfants terribles

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Uncle Johnny again after a long time - shades of my dad

Talking to my mum about how she met my dad - after buying her a new Mac

Mill Hill antiques fair on the Ridgeway - finding an art deco bakelite cigarette box

Live life to a different beat - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Roy Ayers' fantastic young drummer - Jazz Cafe for John Grounds' birthday

Seeing Tanya Stone gain after over a decade - a long walk out at South Mimms

Cholla

Home life - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Putting up Pop's old bookcase

Teaching N the facts of life with U

Doing D's first chemistry experiment - making a solution of Copper Sulphate

Track of the Day

Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan - heard today in the movie I'm Not There

I ran into the fortune-teller
who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long
I can't remember what it's like.
There's a lone soldier on the cross,
smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door,
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done,
in the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Rapunzel at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as produced by Cornwall's Kneehigh company and written by Annie Siddons, with the enfants terribles, U and me Ma

Listening to My City of Ruins with N and having a detailed discussion about it

Walking over Hungerford footbridge and looking downstream at dusk

Track of yesterDay

Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs as performed in most lively fashion on Jools' Hootenanny - the first song I heard in 2008

Out of the mouths of babes...

N (age 11) on graffiti tags: "It's like dogs pissing on walls"

Goodbye 2007 - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Listening to the mayoral candidates on BBC London radio - Red Ken whilst jogging round St Pancras cemetery, Brian Paddock over a late breakfast, Boris when still sleeping in

Reading under the Translinear Light (a 1950s art deco lamp)

The tranquility over the night allotments from the balcony

Hallo 2008 - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

[RIP Reckless - still lying empty]


Robert Elms' show on BBC London Radio reviewing the best music of 2007, with the usual London slant - listening whilst clearing up the party from last night

Mooching around Islington with the enfants terribles - bumped into Technokitten Helen Keegan and Boyd Hilton

Kissing my way into the new year, alone quietly with U - ETs sleeping peacefully up above