“Everyone” is an artist..”

i go away for a few weeks and what does berlin do? she goes all golden and grinning in my absence. gooood work! i’m looking at the sun flirting through my window and keen to get outside. its a good week for all things arty and performance poetry oriented. first off you will the first i tell that the next call for submissions for cinema rivalry has been chosen. The event will happen at kreuzberg’s one andonly ping pong bar in june, and this events theme is (drumrolll plllllease)

Trash vs. Style

so i’m on the look out for short films with slick aesthetics, or those who make trashiness an aesthetic, and when i say trashy, i don’t mean bad, i mean trashy in the realm of messy intentional over-the top ness. maybe you’re the next russ meyer? email me about it at paulavarjack (at) googlemail.com

but back to this week… kicking off with thursday, where i’ll be doing a feature set at lady gaby’s moving along with verses.

this is a kind of premiere of a new collective i’m a part of called:
skint but sexy. we being three berlin based performance poets and a musician from various parts of america and england. at the moment we’re plotting our uk tour/takeover but more on that to come, for now we’re just working out the finer details of our promotion (printed condoms? matchbooks? or maybe our own brand of ciggarettes?.. knowing the budget and tagline i’m thinking its gonna be matchbooks, but i’m hoping we can rock the condoms) annnnnnyways

friday i’m going to put my film-hat back on to document some performances i;m very much looking forward to. As beatstreet promises sets from that wonderful san franciscan ryan nash, and that scribe from the dirty fableland, Jonas Mccloud (aka Cloudfist Conceptz). But i can’t have tooooo crazy a late night after the show because because because… on SATURDAY
an event i’m very much looking forward to

A tribute night to that diva of dynasty ALEXIS COLBY.

i’ve got a vintage snake print jumpsuit i’ve been desperate for occasion to wear to, and the poem i’ve written for my performances is squarely in the sexual crush category. meanwhile I also love the poem Tom has written and i’m very curious to hear what Niti and Jonas McCLoud are stepping up with. But its not just about the poetry kids, there’s gonna be dj sets and drag, and performance art from Lady Gaby and its all going down in that arty illegal bar wonderbar, with those dangerous orange cocktails Gaby makes. …

i’ll see you there

Chicago is…

Like all the bits

Of America that I’ve liked

And all sorts of other sides

I never considered

But if I had

I would have missed when I left

And its been a long time

Since I had any desire

To make any kind of trip to America

But this visit is

making me rethink

 

Chicago is

Like the arty lo-fi scenes

I’ve loved in new york

Only without the pretenciousnes

Like that vibe I liked in San Francisco

But without the flakiness

Its what the best parts of D.C.

Could be like if it wasn’t

So stifled by all things governmental

Or as quirky retro as parts of Baltimore

But less painfully kitsch

 

Chicago is…

totally unfamiliar

But ever so welcoming

Its this place I’ve found myself in

More than a little randomly

But now I really can’t believe

It never occurred tome come here…Sooner

And I’m walking down main roads

And side streets enjoying

Every single hello how are you

And have a good day that

Many of my European friends

Would happily mock and sneer at

I’m feeling genuine curiousity and interest

When asked what I’m doing,

where I’m going, where I’ve been

 

I’m loving listening in on the conversations in

Coffeshops, amused by racks of alternative indie pornographic comics

Lovingly crafted zines, and thrift shops almost virginal

In their low priced stock of 80s garments

Not yet picked clean by savvy style crazed hipsters

Four jackets for eight dollars

Really you must be joking?

And those Cute  bakeries

with home-baked hand frosted

Cupcakes that are vegan friendly because

Well why wouldn’t they be?

And I can’t believe how many

independently owned

And operated shops there are  here

 

everyone seems so chilled out relaxed

But motivated.

The people I see in café’s are drawing and writing

And talking about organizing gigs and going to gigs

And maybe its just an American thing

But the enthusiasm people seem to have here

Is practically  overwhelming

 

Chicago, so far I have only one complaint for you

I know its only day two

But really there are far far far too many

Tall skinny cute boys with beards and vintage glasses

Slouching around in faded jeans and hoodies

And they’re everywhere!

working in all those

Indie owned shops  and bakeries

Cycling down those side streets

Writing and drawing in their notebooks in café’s

And they’re all way too friendly

I mean, it’s a bit much, Its distracting

after all, I’m supposed to be here to be working..

 

 

 

 

 

 

ok so i’m kind of melt-ing at the moment. and maybe that symbolism is derived from the fact that my last gig consisting of performing as part of this exhibition launch with the theme being_ a postmodernist queer spin on the wizard of oz. i’m sure i’ve had times in my life when i was this busy, the difference is before when i’ve been busy, i havn’t had quite so much fun. i seem to be working all the time now, and its defo work, but its also defo fun. for the moment i’m starting to feel a little on top of things. i had my stint at theatre performing my first 45 minute solo show at this theatre festival last friday, then saturday the exhibition performance, last night hosting a short film night i co-curated, this friday a slam, sunday, monday, wednesday gigs in london, more recording on the album,

then back to berlin for a slam then off i go end of march to chicago, more gigs, hopefully a workshop, onward the week after to newyork for hopefully more of the same (if i manage to organize it) and then all manner of other gigs when i’m back here again. last night i was talking to some poets i adore about a possible tour in september. only a couple weeks ago i was freaking out that booking as far as may blew my mind. thats the way it is.

clearly my darlings… its time for some comic relief. and what better than my favourite themes of dating and relationships. two takes on the subject- first my super talented painfully funny friend lizzy, half of the twosome that make up polsom and sankey. who will be premiering a show at edinburgh this year..

and then on to the berlin and male side of things, mutherfuckin’ david deary, aka b-ski. i may even have to post this one up again as i defo have a lot to say on the calendar of love concept..it’s soooo berlin.

in the small worldness (small… try *microscopic* ) that constitutes those various constellations that make up berlin society there is often the sense of two individuals circling, or maybe orbiting one another. waiting for the time of collision, of eclipse.

one quickly learns to reserve judgement of a new aqquaintance and to avoid burning any and all bridges at all costs. you will come into contact again and again with this person, and find a growing number of mutual friends, some baring connections you could never imagine.

at times an alliance is born from this, or scenes, or affairs, or very rarely, relationships. it is less a matter of courting or dating, and more a matter of the cosmos pushing you into contact again and again and again. maybe the first time you barely spoke, maybe you only just noticed one another. the next time, a nod. the next time, an introduction. the next time, an effor to remember names. the next time, a conversation. this is the best way…

the worst is when one or the other clashes from the start. or one dismisses the other totally. or one is outright rude. because then when you meet again, when your meetings rack up like the winnings of a good night at a casino, he/she that denied the other at first meeting is forced through an extended comeuppance. all translating back to the bottom line - now you have to deal with me.. and i have the upper hand. “ha… so now you want to date my friend?… oh did you realise i manage the list of this club… oh yes i’m friends with the owner of the gallery, oh you wanted to book me? oh you were hoping i’d book you…) and depending on the power involved or the necessity of the favour or trade off,  leading even the most arrogant and egocentric to somtimes.. beg.

then there’s the middle ground. those dalliances born out of one drunken evening, when two people connect so freely in the way you sometimes do with a stranger you never expect or plan to see again. maybe you even have sex that first time you meet. and then just as you wish to forever file that one night stand in your back catalogue, your repeated accidental meetings continue to haunt you with memories of that one night. and its not just like these meetings occur in warehouse clubs and decadent after hours like how you met. they occur in pseudo sophisticated gallery openings, and worse still at 4pm in the afternoon at kaisers… your basket contains whole milk, smoked salmon, eggs, a bottle of sekt, you’re grateful that you never leave the house without makeup. but you’re way too hungover for small talk.

and if you’re a performer of some description. if you stand out a bit, a way of dress, an accent, your skintone, ethnic features of any kind at all, you find yourself encountering people who *know* you. even though you’ve never really met. in order to perform i created an alterego. something to give me the courage to go in front of people and tell them really personal stories.  it was ok because *it wasn’t me*

but it doesn’t actually work that way.

because the audience doesn’t see a character. they see a person. talking to *them* and with an air of sincerity that suggests the stories they’re being told have truth in them. and off the stage, when the performer is seen out and about. they are still a continuation of this performance in the audiences’s eye. an ongoing embodiment of the character. not even a character.  the word privacy never really considered, just shrinks away.

what was i thinking? i guess i didn’t. i guess it never occurred to me that by putting myself out there, and doing everything i could to engage with people. to make them feel like i was inviting them into my private life, to make them feel like my friends, to make them feel like i was living what they were living or wanted to, that i would express what they may want to say but coudn’t , or wouldn’t dare, or wouldn’t know how to. i thought i could engage with people, and leave that engagement, that connection to the confines of the stage, or the hours of a gig.

but i live in a microscopic scene. and i stand out. i stood out even before i put myself out under stage llight after stage light to make myself stand out more. more and more strangers come up to me and make comments on the life i have invited them into via performance. more and more people have no idea that it is partly a character i have created for them. and its draining to be on all the time. i created paula to get away from me. this could be the point where i back away, or i make her even less like me. but as much as it may complicate my current need/interest for privacy further, the direction i’m now headed is to put even more of myself into this character to convey the work i’m interested in making, in writing in performing.

i need to put more of me into her to make her more 3 dimensional. i need to add vulnerablity to the rawness. and that is the point of this play i’m putting on on friday. and i’m terrified and excited.and now my small world is no longer just berlin, its the poetry scene of several cities. and i feel myself in orbit with several people in those cities, and i am very curious of how things will develop in repeat meetings.. .

Now don’t get this the wrong way, I don’t mean tracks that I want to hear when in bed having sex with someone, no I mean that if there was a way I could hook up with the track itself, these are the tracks I’d want to hook up with, and here is how I imagine it going down…The idea was inspired by an article I read in vice online   where writer Gavin Haynes fantasised about how he would hook up with his favourite gadgets if he could. The idea smacked more than a little of cheeky advertising but I liked it enough to do my own riff …. my reaction/inspiration with these tracks, is totally beat and tone driven, i’ve ignored the lyrics in the tracks altogether, that would have been too literal and not as much fun to write. So here we go, 8 tracks I want to hook up with.

Superstar- Benjamin Zephaniah vs. Rodney P
It’s the end of the night, we’ve stayed up til almost sunrise. He’s a lot older than me, and much taller. the whole night he’s been a perfect gentleman, and is incredibly well read and politcally aware and charming. He walks me to my door and asks if he can come up for a coffee. I try to take the euphemism at face value and we walk into my flat. We walk into the kitchen and he leans against the door frame as I get out two coffee mugs. . I pause for a moment looking down at them. And then he’s behind me, hands smoothing down my shoulders, lifting my hair out of the way to kiss my neck. I never get to make the coffee, but we do manage to make it to the bed…..

Ponderosa – Tricky
After a night out clubbing I’ve ended up with some people I met, at one of these ridiculously spacious loft style warehouse flats. There is this one impossibly beautiful couple sitting across from me. They are really tactile with everyone. They’re young and releaxed and smug in the way the beautiful, young and privledged are sometimes. I keep catching the eye of the boy and then the girl. I go to the stereo to change the music. Suddenly the girl is there. I love this track too she says. Then the boy is on the other side of me. So do I he says. And they lead me to a room adjacent. We shut the door, and turn up music and take off eachothers clothes while giggling. We end up kissing, and try to take it further. But we..re too mashed up to actually have sex, so we end up cuddling tangled up together, telling stories and talking nonsense until we fall asleep. 

Lovers and Crypts – Bunny Rabbit.
I’m waiting to order a drink at this really crowded hipster bar in williamsburg, new york. I’m getting more and more impatient, the cue is like thirty deep. I feel someone bump into me, I turn and she says “excuse me”, only she doesn’t seem very apologetic, she’s smiling. She’s petite and curvy and has features that suggest she’s mixed race of at least 3 different ethnic groups. Her lips are so full its impossible not to think about kissing them. “no problem I say” and she cruises me openly, I look her over just as directly. I’m shaken up a bit, I turn back to the bar, and then she’s right behind me. I turn my head to see her in my peripheral but she looks straight at the bar, a smile at the corner of her mouth. And as I wait the next twenty minutes to be served at the bar, I don’t care about my drink any more, because her hands are up my dress serving me…

Mysterons – portishead
Its 4am, I wake up next to this boy in this tiny grey flat in deepest darkest east London.. its raining loudly, percussively on the windows. Streetlight breaks through the the curtains projecting a line between the two of us on the bed. I sit up pulling the sheet around me, and look down at the boy lying next to me in the bed. He looks so peaceful sleeping, I shouldn’t wake him, we’d got to bed so late because of the kind of thoughts I’m starting to have again right now. And I don’t mean to wake him up. I just slide close to him in the bed as close as I can get to him. And then he turns to face me and I close my eyes. And we have sex in the way you do when you’re half awake, a little dreamy, not completlley there, your body on erotic automatic…

Sex dwarf- soft cell
Its this dark ginormous warehouse club. Some kind of fetish party, walk by a woman in head to toe red pvc, dragging ah naked man behind her, his wrists tied up in heavy rope. I find myself dancing with a group of burlesque girls, drift a way from them and end up with this beautiful androgynous girl. She looks like a very pretty boy. Or a boy who would have made a pretty girl. There is something wicked about he/she. I can hear the word “ darkroom?| murmered in my ear. But we never make it there, he?/she? pushes me back taking me behind one of the massive speakers.

Me and my imagination – sophie ellis bactor
She’s trying to get over her exboyfriend. I’ve suggested a girls night out in a poncy mayfair nightclub to cheer her up. 
But actually, I couldn’t care less about her idiot exboyfriend , tonight is the night I’ve been working towards for months. The night when I get her really drunk on whatever girly cocktails she wants and then convince her what would really cheer her up is to have sex with me. And then the moment comes, she’s on her fourth cosmopolitan or chocolate martini or something, and then she turns those big green eyes up at me and says. ‘you know sometimes I think, men are so rubbish, maybe I should have a go with women…. You said you’d been with women before…. Well (as she finishes her drink) maybe you could… “show me”… and before she can say “sex and the city dvd box set” I’ve got her coat and hailed a black cab. The moment the doors close and we drive off. I start to “show her”

Lies - Robert Koch feat Elle p - Trevor Loveys remix
It’s a massive open air party in berlin. The sun is blazing, Two giggly girls in fluoro bikini tops and cut-off jean shorts are doleing out mdma punch. Everyone is wasted beyond belief. There are people jumping into the canal,, splashing water at eachother. Someone decides to start a kissathon, the idea is to kiss as many people as possible. Well it starts out as kissing, but then it morphs ino this crazy drugged out hipster orgy. clothes strewn all over the canal bank. I have no idea how long it goes on for, time blissfully and confusingly elasticates…

Got it on Slow – Selfish Cunt
Something made me want to go out by myself and get seriously fucked up on whiskey. So I”ve been on my own in this really divey rock bar for hours. I’ve been eyeing up this guy the whole time I’ve been in the bar. He looks mean, but in a hot way. He’s there with a friend but every so often he looks at me. I get into conversation with some other guy who buys me another whiskey, and when I look back the two guys are gone. Some time passes and I walk into the unisex toilets. And I can hear something. I walk into the free cubicle and close the door. I listen carefully. There is a couple f%@king in the cubicle next door. They try to not make too much noise. But its forceful, the cubicle is practically shaking with their thrusts. 
Transfixed I focus all my attention on listening, getting more and more turned on by it. And then they’re done, and it sounds like, it may be two men? I go back to the bar and see that it’s the boy I’d been cruising earlier, and the “friend” hed’ been with. They pay for drinks and leave. I order another whiskey and light up a ciggerette, wishing I could have left with them.

Exit stage left…

do you mean like this??

ummm something like that. so i’ve been totally drowning in the number of projects,events and gigs i’m meant to be doing, but at the moment i’m most consumed by rehearsing for my first one woman show next month. a whopping forty minutes. i’m not sure i’ll be able to keep my heels on the whole time. i’m delighted to have been given the right to smoke on stage, just for the sake of artistic integrity of course…

all the performance groups/performance artists had to make a trailer. after deliberating over cutting a montage of live footage, friends gave me a better idea and then, i came up with the following. enjoy

not to be dark or anything. its just that this is so brilliant. i was lucky enough to see john giorno perform this live at the poetry film festival in berlin this year and it kind of rocked my world. it seemed to right to post now in this time post new years resolutions…. enjoy

thanks for nothing….

right, so i’m finally starting to feel like a human being again. if the  last two days are any indication of what 2009 has  in store, i’m a little bit terrified. after all there was a lot of madness and mayhem last year. 2008 started for me with a visit to my best friend in  Tel Aviv.( Its crazy to think of what goes on there one year later from my visit….) .i then returned to the LDN, so i could run away from my then stable media career in kids tv to the totally unstable concept of  becoming a documentary filmmaker. there was also the matter of reassesing/redefining my sexuality. this was somewhat related to a number of  romantic affairs .which had a little bit to do with my decision to leave London and move to Berlin for “six months” so i…moved to berlin, learned to ride a bike again, took german classes for two months, the first month was fairly quiet until i encountered two dj’s, who drew me into Berlin night life, and for the next month, taught me to party to a level i never knew possible.

months later I was at my favourite monthly: broken hearts club, where I  met a poet from california, and subsequentally found myelf writing a poem about how living in berlin felt like cheating on London. encouraged by poet, began writing poetry again. encouraged by performer friend in London, agreed to perform my poetry on  her  caberet night  on my 30th birthday. Somehow in London, came up with the idea of an Alter Ego to use for my performance. Researched scene in Berlin to discover Lady GAby, who graciously offered me a slot at her next line up at Fuel. Performed at Fuel, and suprised myself and my friends with a solid debut. Finished a film about that bar that was not a bar. took it to stockholm for the once infamous swedish outlaw couple to see it. screened and curated a night of Short films from Berlin and London, to a  packed crowd keen to know  when the next event would be.

So how would 2008 end and 2009 begin? A little bit at a loss with nowhere to to stay. i wander oxford street new years eve day hoping andreas may somehow get a hold of a phone  and let me know his whereabouts. i then give up and meet up with my friend nic and her boyfriend trevor at his house so i can get ready to go out. transformed with my silver dress and extra long fake lashes i get on a  bus  to tuffnel park. as i arrive at the pub where Salena Godden hosts her arty party, she spots me and asks if  i’d like to read. at this moment I kind of don’t want to, but i don’t know how to say no. Andreas isn’t  there. no one i know is there. i’m very much wishing i was Paula and not Sara.

i go to the mic and just  feel very girly and small and nervous. i can hear the loud chatter of the bar next door. I stumble through “its time to detonate” feeling far  too sober and certain i don’t quite have it memorized. and then i make it on  to “could have  should have did” and something  happens. that  curious moment when i can feel people smiling and resonating with what i’m saying. and then i relax. A few people come up to me after just to say they like what  i’d done. and  boys and girls smile at me who didn’t before. Andreas arrives around eleven and his presences makes me cheer  up . but i’m feeling restless and sober, so i decide to move on to another  party after midnight.

i go across   town to aldgate east to meet up with  my friend pierangelo at this warehouse party in this amazing flat five minutes away from brick lane. the trains are running all night and free as a new years eve special. walking into the tube, i’m wished happy new year by a group of indie boys walking past a big no drinking sign, they all carry large glasses of red wine. walking out onto whitechapel high street, i realise i have two ciggarettes left. a homeless man sitting outside the nearest off license wishes me happy new year. i give him my remaining smokes and he’s delighted. i buy another pack and a micro bottle of jack daniels. i drink half of it and give the rest to another homeless man a block up the road. as i walk off , i can hear the two homeless men commiserating about me, charmed by my alcohol and nicotine gifts.  at the party there is a generous ammount  of  alcohol going around which i liberally partake of. I  mix my drinks to creative affect.  i avoid mixers and just  go from spirit to spirit,  rum, whiskey, vodka ending with several glasses of champagne. We have a great catch up chat, i’m really happy i’d crossed town to see him.

But its 5.30 am now, and i’m late for the WetYoursSelf new years day party. which is by far the highlight of my new years eve partying. super fun music..  i(i knew Cormac and Peter could rock it, but Jacob really blew my mind this time too) friendly crowd, much  dancing in front of and behind the dj box. lots of flirting, lots of random kissing, drink tickets that kept coming, and other things. i think around 10 am Cormac asked if i was up to coming with him to the Trailer trash party at my much loved old local the Dolphin. to which i said emphatically yes, and left with him and  another mate in a cab.

From this point it  all goes a bit fuzzy. i remember putting  my stuff behind the dj box with cormac and his mate saying did i want another drink, to which i said no, to which he said  really to which i said - oh alright a tequila then” then Cormac looked at me and said with some seriousness, i think i’m going to play madonna, i think i’m going to play pop music….and this lethal combination of madonna references and tequila was too much for me. i don’t recall the details of how, but sometime after i passed out.

i wake up behind the dj box with the dj  the lovely jonjo asking to get behing me to get his dj bag. cormac is getting his stuff to go as well. i suddenly really need to take off my fake lashes. and i really need to leave like now. i hear cormac say, thats your place to stay in berlin to someone. this guy i’d been flirting with earlier says “you lost your energy pretty quickly” i really really need to leave. its 1.30 pm. i see some shoes on a pair of pink stockinged legs. i’m sure they’re mine. i take them off and put them in my bag?

i walk across the street, get on a bus and call my friend nic. i really really realy need to have brunch with her like right  that very second. so we meet up and eat and chat and then i take the train back to my parents. and  hide in my room in recovery mode till like now. so again i wonder… what on earth does this year have in store?i was kind of hoping  this year could be the quiet calm one. btw, did i mention that me, er paula, er paula and me, have been nominated for an award?

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog….

its all been a bit spoken word-centric. it started before i even got out of gatwick. i ran into rob of beatstreet waiting at the carousel for his luggage with his girlfriend silka. he seemed happy to take a break from all things berlin and poetic. when he asked me what i was up to i explained that after a day with the parents i was going to a slam the next day and an open mic the day after. don’t you take a break? he said. i think i must have laughed. my london adventure began with a girl who is sometimes known as patsy cole. her alter ego was running a stall at camden market and i came to help her close up, and subsequentally drink up at the christmas party held for all the camden market vendors (and me…) there was a free bar and the crowd were an animated bunch. it was a little hard to leave, to go far out to stratford for  this”performance poetry competititon” (oddly not labeled a “slam” on the website), but then the winner took 100 pounds so i had to give it a go.

i arrived ten minutes late, and the organizer had not got my email, or the marquis de grant’s email either… so we were fated to not slam, and beg most pathetically for an open mic slot. it was a nice event, i would have loved to compete, but i was happy just to read. it was nice to see so many familiar faces from last time i was in town. i felt part of the scene here in an honorary way.  i was really excited to see performances by deanna rodgers, mc angel, kamil and bunmi hassan (who rightfully won).i performed “development” hoping to strike a chord as the venue was in stratford, heart of olympics regeneration madness. but then as the theatre was kind of the positive side of gentrification, i think my anti-development poem fell on deaf ears… andreas on the other hand stole the show with his arrogant punk braggodacio, and i was a little proud of him for it. we definitely felt like  the freaks in the back of the class (and we kind of were) highlight of the night was sitting outside to smoke and having this super cool forty something woman from grenada rock out, asking me if it was true  i lived in berlin. when i said yes, i was immediately charmed by her caribbean accented german, as she spoke about how much she loved german men and then asked if i would mind if she recited some erotic poetry. andreas and i of course were very encouraging, and her work was not only erotic but sharp and drily funny. she promised she  would come out to visit. i hope she does.

the following night me and mr.grant were again fated to  not perform. we turned up (on time this time) to the kings head theatre pub in islington, only to be told no one else had  shown up for the open mic. we then considered taking the mic by force until  we befriended these two girls who were so sypmathetic to our plight of non-performance that they asked we perform directly to them. They were very taken with our prose. and i was very taken with them. It helped that one of them was cute blonde and super funny, and the other was a stunning dark haired ex model.  we left to catch up with patsy cole at a  party in bethnal green. but sadly her phone was switched off. this meant dancing to bad house at a pub until we were so over the music and crowd  we decided to leave(i had a russian boy flirting with me in the most forward fashion that involved addiing postive adjective to positive adjective until his  last line to me was “beautiful gorgeous intelligent lovely darling wonderful angel”. meanwhile a bicurious (or just drunk) blonde girl from unidentifiable eastern european country just went straight for dancing against me, mouth open coquettishly while her boyfriend watched us…)

back at patsy coles, wine was drunk and chocolate chip cookies were baked, and films were watched. somehow i managed to make it back to my parents the next day. somehow the marquis joined me the day after. and here in the english countryside we’ve been making the most out of having little to do. we are clearing out the house of chocolate and red wine. smoking in the freezing cold outside. freaking out over how many stars we can see. slumming with bad telly- from top fifty celebrity meltdowns to top forty 80s films to marthons of sex and the city, frasier, peep show,little britain, friends. to fighting over who’s checking their facebook account first. keen to educate the swede on british christmas culture: i have inducted him into the world of mince pies and christmas crackers.  boxing day was spent on the coast. we drove out with my dad to the sea and froze by white cliffs. mystified by those who actually chose to swim.

meanwhile as we come out of our chocolate and wine coma, we’re both super excited about spoken word rock star salena godden ’s new years eve party at  the dartmouth arms in tuffnell park. it promises a  debauched evening through morning of music, spoken word and mentalist fancy dress . and if we get drunk enough early enough we may even attempt some performance.

Btw, gigs are coming up i should mention. on january the 8th, his arrogance andreas de grant launches a new night at bardens boudoir, a venue i adore in dalston, east london. and on the 9th of Jan, i’ll be performing a poem or two as part of the first Farrago UK slam of the year. I’ve been nominated for some kind of award apparently. i’m very curious , to know what