The most recent 30 posts to the Brighton Bloggers aggregated RSS feed
D&AD awards night
(image by mark forrester)Last night was the D&AD awards evening. It was also my son's third birthday so i couldn't go, however as the details, photos and results emerge i certainly feel like i missed a great night. the big winners were apple and fallon. the new venue looks awesome.
controversy is stirring over the lack of winners under the 'graphic design' category - although i fail to understand why graphic design has it's own category. surely it's present as a part of the other categories. was there no graphic designers involved in any of the packaging, digital or branding projects?
anyways info here, photos here, twittering here and winner listings here
i'm going home to polish my pencil.
Character's fresh new site
San Francisco based design agency Character have released a beautiful new site. The work is stunning, the photography of the work is stunning. Not only that, but their studio looks really nice too. I like this site, it makes me want to be better. It's tone is just what i initially wanted for Preview. Looking at this site reminds me of the importance of brevity and makes me want to revisit the design of our site. hmmmmm
Great Escape Festival 2008 Review - Day 1
Here is the first review from the Great Escape festival, some of the highlights from the first day. We saw Bon Iver, Runaway Sons, AA Bondy, Sunset Rubdown, Okkervil River, a massive queue, Arun Ghosh, Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee and The Ting Tings. What a night!
18:00 - The evening begins
We started off by wandering down to the pier to pick up our festival wristbands, fortunately there was no queue and on the way down we observed Brighton had turned into Brooklyn or Shoreditch. More skinny jeans than you can shake a stick at, checked shirts a-plenty, the trendys and musos had turned out in force. There’s always a few, but tonight there’s nobody else in sight.
En route we also passed the xfm van, and a mobile recording studio outside the Pressure Point with Bon Iver inside. Then it was time to queue outside the Pressure Point for…
19:30 Bon Iver @ The Pressure Point
We started off by checking out one of the most exciting new bands from the US, the Wisconsin based Bon Iver. There’s been a lot of talk online of how front man Justin Vernon holed up in a cabin for 6 months to write the new album, and the place was packed - unusual for such an early performance.
Bon Iver sound like a cross between Iron and Wine and TV on the Radio. Live their set is divided between calm quiet moments and loud guitar based freak outs, often descending into organised chaos by the end. Whilst the band are mainly just Justin on record, live he is supported by a drummer and another guitarist and they can make quite a sound.
They got the audience very involved as well, getting everyone to sing along to parts of ‘The Wolves’ which worked surprisingly well. At the end of the gig the band left the stage and came down into the crowd to perform ‘Skinny Love’ which was a great touch and made it feel like the end of a great night, rather than the beginning.
Hard to beat this one! Shame the place was so packed nobody could see, and the couple snogging in front of me and the guys talking loudly to the left didn’t help either, but still..
The album ‘For Emma, Long Ago‘ has had the best reviews this year according to metacritic, check out the bands myspace to sample, and listen to a full length gig over on NPR.
Here’s Skinny Love:
20:15 On the move…and why its best to stay put
After a great start we headed over to The Pavillion Theatre by the dome for the rest of the first part of the night. Sometimes its wise to pick one band, get there early and stick with them and see what else comes your way.
By now we heard the Concorde 2 was full what with the Vampire Weekend gig at 10, and I imagine Iron Wine had drawn a good sized crowd as well. We opted to see Okkervil River at 10:15 so getting into the Pavillion Theatre was the best plan. En route we popped into the Unitarian Church and caught a glimpse of Polly Scattergold. Then it was into a thankfully spacious, Pavillion Theatre to catch the end of the unlisted and dreadfully run of the mill Runaway Sons. Think The Kinks being reinterpreted by The Sterophonics…not good
20:45 AA Bondy @ The Pavillion Theatre
AA Bondy is an Americana/Country singer from Alabama who looks strangely like an officer from WW2. Perhaps its the moustache and army style jacket. Either way, he follows the Bob Dylan format of guitar, mouth organ and vocals and keeps it simple. Twisted lyrics included a song about killing himself when he was young, one about Vampires and a love song for that obvious combination of drugs, whisky and Jesus.
Reminded me of Calexico, was an interesting diversion and a good chance to sit on the floor and relax to some interesting tales.
Check out his myspace, a complete recording of a gig at SXSW, and this video of ‘I killed myself when I was young’.
21:15 Sunset Rubdown @ Pavillion Theatre
After the sitting down, it was time to stand up and get up the front for the new band from former Frog Eyes member and Wolf Parade front man Spencer Krugg. The band are from Montreal, and their new album has had some great reviews. This is their first ever UK gig.
On stage alongside Spencer was a keyboardist/electronic wizard and 3 rotating musicians who played drums, bass and lead guitar at varying points during the evening. Due to the singers distinct David Byrne like vocals the band do resemble of Wolf Parade and the similar Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The music is disjointed and lurches through various unusual styles and back. Often they reminded me of their contemporaries The Arcade Fire and Interpol but mixed with plenty of other stuff. They even turned into Sparks for the last track. An interesting band, one that would take repeated listens to get fully.
There’s a myspace of sorts, and a session download.
22:15 Okkervil River @ Pavillion Theatre
Okkervil River have been around for over a decade and are a highly respected live act in the US. Tonight was no exception, and although their music is pretty standard stuff, live they have everything down to a fine art. Despite drums falling over, stuff not working properly and mic stands crashing all over the place (perhaps this is all part of their act) they sounded perfect and came together like a well rehearsed chaos.
The audience were very enthusiastic, some a little too much as one group of guys kept getting told off by security for being too excited. Arms in the air for every song, they even managed to form a very small and gentle mosh pit. This all added to the chaos on stage as the lead singer leapt around, guitar often slung over his back with the mic being hurled all over the place.
Okkervil river have a big sound, and a large band, with 2 keyboards and 5 people on stage in total, all in suits except one, and mostly over 35. They are a real drinking band, with their style more Irish craic than indie rock. The Levellers spring to mind, as do fellow Americans The Hold Steady. True professionals and an unmissable live act.
Check out their myspace to sample the latest album The Stage Names, listen to a live session and check out this acoustic session at Brooklyn’s Sound Fix records:
23:00 The Yeasayer debacle
After Okkervil river we rushed over to The Barfly to catch Yeasayer along with everyone else. Hence on arrival we found a queue of at several hundred people. One of our writers, Angela, had been standing in line for over an hour, and said lots of people had pushed in resulting in a crowd of about 100 people, followed by the queue. It was one in one out, and everyone seemed very tense. Angela had left the queue and people refused to let her back in, assuming she was another ‘pusher’, with all this madness, we headed across the road
to the Pressure Point for a little world music. That still involved a half hour queue as everything was running an hour late for some reason.
00:45 Arun Ghosh and Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee @ The Pressure Point
Instead of Yeasayer, who are playing again anyway and would have been rammed, we found ourselves at this gem of a show, which featured some really interesting and ethnically diverse sounds.
First up was Arun Ghosh, a clarinet player from Bolton by way of India, who played chilled out nu-jazz with an eastern vibe. He played with 2 others on tabla and double bass, but I think we would have benefited from his full live band who were promised in the festival guide. Never the less this was certainly something unique sounding, and I felt transported to another world, or at least, a world music festival.
The second act was extraordinary - Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee, a human beatbox who plays the flute at the same time! He was joined by a skilled Tabla player Hanif Khan who preformed an incredibly fast solo before being joined by Nathan. Along the way we also met a flamenco guitarist, another amazing human beatbox who provided some pounding bass for a recreation of the Knight Rider theme, and a rapper. Blending music with the excitement and awe of a carnival freak show, this was undoubtedly one of the most unusual performances of the night, and I feel the queue was probably outside the wrong venue
Here’s that Knightrider theme:
Angela incidentally joined us in the end after failing to get in to see Yeasayer, unbelievably some other people who had queued for over an hour and stuck with it, did eventually make it.
01:45 The Ting Tings @ The Barfly
After deciding to head home, myself and Angela decided to enter the forbidden kingdom of The Barfly, since there was now a queue of only 4. Bizzarely the doorman persisted in behaving as if there were still hundreds outside, making us stand in the correct spot, and telling us we had pushed in when more people arrived and we moved in front of them. He must have had one hell of a bad night though, so we let him off and got in just in time to see The Ting Tings start up, luckily half an hour late.
Sadly I was far too tired to be dealing with the trendy pop of this Nottingham chart bothering duo, and I’m not sure I would have liked it in any circumstances. Angela seemed to have a great time though, and perhaps I’ll get her to add some thoughts in the comments. For me, with an aching back and sore feet, bed couldn’t come quickly enough.
Come back tommorow for our thoughts on day 2.
Words - Mark Kirby, Photos - Rob Noble
GET LONDON READING
Get London Reading is a campaign by Booktrust to get Londoners reading books set in London. To promote the campaign, KentLyons have created a selection of installations around London, showing extracts from books in situ. The extracts appear on pavements, windows and rubbish, as though the words have fallen from a book.
www.getlondonreading.co.uk
www.www.kentlyons.com
www.flickr.com/â¦
SUE DOEKSEN
One of the nicest packages to come through the door arrived earlier this week. Sue Doeksen kindly posted us her Game & Prize (For you by Sue) and our Invincible pass for the year. Great stuff from this Dutch designer and just remember, it takes Sue to tango!
ALEX PURDY
Alex Purdy is a visual communicator, illustrator, zine maker, type enthusiast and exhibiting artist. He was kind enough to post through two recent zines he’s done, Violence Against Children and Boing 2. Both are great and if you can get your hands on a copy they are hugely recommended.
FEVERZINE 3
It’s always nice to see the development of a small publication, from issue to issue you warm to the content and aesthetic of it and genuinely look forward to the next one. One zine in particular that has stood out in recent months is Feverzine, the creators Alex Zamora and Simon Whybray have worked hard for Issue 3 and the editorial includes RES founder Jonathan Wells unveils Flux, the ‘Your Face’ blog jumps into print, a look at independent publishing fair Publish & Be Damned, acclaimed illustrator Andy Council talks dinosaurs and kids TV gets subversive with Pancake Mountain among other articles.
For just £2 it’s hard to complain, roll on Issue 4â¦
Yeondoo Jung
Has everyone already seen this? Korean guy takes kids' pictures and recreates them as photos. Churlish of me, I know, when so much effort has gone into it, but I kind of wish he'd done every detail rather than ignoring a few things. Still fun, though.Ever wondered what it's like behind a Neilson speedboat?
Mark offers a video of pontoon starts, jumps.....and falling in!Broccoli Sprouts Safer and More Effective than Sunscreen
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that broccoli sprout extract boosts the body’s natural ability to defend against the ultraviolet solar rays that cause skin cancer. Recently I wrote about the toxic effects of sunscreen. Perhaps this is the answer we have been waiting forâ¦. A carcinogen [...]When Iâm Prime Minister #1
My administration will hit the ground running…
Day 1: If you vote for a political party because a dead soap opera character told you to, you will lose your vote. And your prefrontal cortex.
links for 2008-05-15
- Oooooh I am not entirely sure how this works but if it does what I think it does it looks really neat! I think it records digitally what you write down, shame its windows only atm
- a better way of using subversion on a mac
COUNTERPART MAGAZINE
The nice people at Counterpart Magazine kindly sent us through a copy of their latest issue. As well as the great line up of music videos and shorts featured in Issue 2 there’s a limited edition screen print from the fantastic Hannah Waldron, all for a fiver!
Thurs
Pfft Argus, useless, must have experience, must have driver's license, fuck you. No ones going to hire me. But i did get an application in the post today for a scivvy role.Nothing's really happened today, I can't even remember. My mum was being really annoying, just wanting me to be a coach potato in front of a tv. Probably thinks I'm going to kill myself, but she makes it worse.
Got an invitation to go out tomorrow, structured lovingly in a demaning comment, but it's too short notice. I have to go to my dads, have to, not even want to, but ye. If he was working it would have been fine. I would go otherwise.
Here's to tomorrow
We had to pay extra for those seats, but I think it was worth it.
Oh those human rights!
People who believe that all those 'human rights' things come from the wicked European Union* could usefully pay attention to what the California Supreme Court have just done.
(* and yes, I know they come from the Council of Europe).
Domain Names - Empty Home Syndrome
Nothing annoys me more than finding a good domain name that someone has purchased with the intention of either selling it on or doing absolutely nothing with it. Bulk domain name buying has been around since DNS was setup but what really irritates me is that there are millions of domains that sit doing [...]Talking type in Ljubljana
A month ago I was kindly invited to Ljubljana to speak to the local web designers & developers about web typography and how could I resist? My talk last night formed episode 85 of Spletne Urice (Web Hour), a series a weekly talks held in CyberPipe, a cafe/bar/computer museum/free wifi hotspot in central Ljubljana. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, with a good crowd contributing to a excellent Q&A session, which apparently was quite unusual for Slovenes, who claim to be a very reserved nation of people. The slides are available online.
Reserved Slovenes may be, but they are certainly hospitable too. So many thanks must go to Marko, Marko, Jure, Andraž and the guys at Zemanta for keeping me entertained and connected. Thanks also go to Parsek Interactive for getting me there and putting me up.
Speaking of Zemanta, do check it out – it’s a clever way of enhancing the content of your blog posts. By way of Firefox extension, Zemanta analyses your blog post text and suggests photos, links and tags which you can add or remove by a simple click.
The photos are gleaned from sources of CC-licensed images such as Wikimedia Commons and Flickr; the links from various news sources, Wikipedia and Zemanta-enabled blogs; and the tags by text analysis. Zemanta currently works with Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, and there’s an API in private testing as we speak.
I should also add the Ljubljana is a lovely city, with the relaxed cafe culture we Brits seem to lust after. The weather was gorgeous for this – my second visit – and I think I’ve been luck enough to see the city in its two best guises: blanketed with snow and bathed in sunshine. The city also has a vibrant web community, with events on almost every night, all run by volunteers. I may well be back again.
Talking type in Ljubljana
A while ago I was kindly invited to Ljubljana to speak to the local web designers & developers about web typography – how could I resist? My talk last night formed episode 85 of Spletne Urice (Web Hour), a series of weekly talks held in CyberPipe, a café/bar/computer museum/free wifi hotspot in central Ljubljana. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, with a good crowd contributing to a excellent Q&A session, which apparently was quite unusual for Slovenes, who claim to be a very reserved nation of people. The slides are available online.
Reserved Slovenes may be, but they are certainly hospitable too. So many thanks must go to Marko, Marko, Jure, Andraž and the guys at Zemanta for keeping me entertained and connected. Thanks also go to Parsek Interactive for getting me there and putting me up.
Speaking of Zemanta, do check it out – it’s a clever way of enhancing the content of your blog posts. By way of Firefox extension, Zemanta analyses your blog post text and suggests photos, links and tags which you can add or remove by a simple click.
The photos are gleaned from sources of CC-licensed images such as Wikimedia Commons and Flickr; the links from various news sources, Wikipedia and Zemanta-enabled blogs; and the tags by text analysis. Zemanta currently works with Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, and there’s an API in private testing as we speak.
I should also add the Ljubljana is a lovely city, with the relaxed cafe culture we Brits seem to lust after. The weather was gorgeous for this – my second visit – and I think I’ve been luck enough to see the city in its two best guises: blanketed with snow and bathed in sunshine. The city also has a vibrant web community, with events on almost every night, all run by volunteers. I may well be back again.
Rock Bar at Belushiâs Brighton - Snake in the Grass review
This is a review of Snake in the Grass - a regular Sunday rock night taking place at Belushi’s on the Brighton seafront. This review is from Sunday 11th May.
The band Jalopy, who headlined tonights gig.
what is snake in the grass?
Snake in the Grass is the brainchild of Andy and Seth from local rock band Flange. Andy is an Australian who has been living in Brighton for a few years now and was surprised at the lack of a good local rock scene. He told me you have indie, and folk which is well catered for, as well as metal, but straight up rock which isn’t especially fashionable right now is not as well served. I’m no expert but I certainly haven’t seen an abundance of rock nights myself.
The aim of Snake in the Grass is to provide a place for local rock bands to play, and a very affordable night out for fans. Its on every other Sunday, from 6PM to 1AM, 4 bands play and entry and drinks are cheap.
reviews of the bands
Tonight I managed to catch 3 bands, Jalopy were the excellent headliners, Tool-like From beneath it devours supported along with Bula.
From Beneath it Devours
From beneath it devours are a three piece prog-rock/borderline metal band who sound a lot like Tool. They played 3 tracks tonight, each one lasting around 10 - 15 mins. Vocals came and went, but the majority of the music was instrumental. At times complex and weird, at others repetitive and boring, this band left me confused. I think a little trimming of tracks could be in order, and a barely audible recital of a William Burroughs poem was a tad odd. I couldn’t quite work out if I liked them or not, but they were certainly more interesting than some local bands I’ve seen.
myspace.com/frombeneathitdevoursuk
2.5/5
Bula
This band seemed like they were mostly out to have a good time. Punk rock with short songs and tunes was a bit of a change from the previous band, but the novelty soon wore off. People did seem to be having a lot of fun though, on and off the stage, and it felt a private party more than a gig. Not a bad thing at all, and although this band lack great songs they make for it with enthusiasm and a good attitude.
2.5/5
Jalopy
Jalopy in contrast to the other bands were a little less full on rock and sounded far more like they had the potential to progress away from the local scene. Their music is relelentless, the sound huge and the skills of the drummer and guitarists second to none. The songs might not be fashionable but they are incredibly good. Watching this band I forgot I was supposed to be writing a review or taking photos and got lost in the music, which is something that happens much less often than you would think and speaks volumes.
4/5
the night overall
I must admit, I wasn’t expecting much from this night, I’m generally not a fan of local bands as there are so many proven signed bands visiting Brighton, but watching the headliners tonight changed my opinions somewhat. There was a great sense of community and the feeling of a scene going on, quite a few people knew each other. It wasn’t cliquey though, people seemed friendly and approachable and very unpretentious, which is more than can be said for some the more trendy places about town. For fans of grunge, rock, metal and alternative rock this is well worth checking out.
4/5
what next?
Having been impressed tonight and wanting to expand our musical reach, Brighton Culture has invited Andy to write a column for us on the local rock scene in the town, which will keep people up to date with bands playing this venue and others. Hopefully this will give anyone interested an opportunity to get stuck into the scene, and let people in bands know where to go to get gigs.
There are more Snake in the Grass nights coming up on May 25th (with a fire eater promised), June 8th and June 22nd. Belushi’s has a rock night every Sunday, with another group organising those. Belushi’s is underneath the Brighton St Christophers Inn.
Tickets are £2, and only £1 after you sign up as a member.
Jane's Blog
Jane's Blog: Highly entertaining blog from Jane Millar, of 11 York Villas. If you want to know who everyone is, consult the first posting!301 Redirects
A 301 redirect is implemented when a web page changes its destination URL. Its job is to inform and re-direct the search engine spider of this move.
Think of it as a removal serviceâ¦
- When you have an office move such as Leapfrogg have recently you need to be able to transport all of you new information to your new destination. This is the job of a 301 re-direct, it should preserve your search engine rankings for a particular page.
- Or if you change page names or are moving files around then this is a great safety net enabling you to maintain your web presence.
- 301 is a code, it translates to a search engine that a page or URL has moved permanently after the code the missing URL or named page is noted by the search engine and follows through to the new path.
Every moving day needs a removal manâ¦
- You can set in place a re-direct by contacting your developer and asking them to set one up using the .htaccess file. This file contains the specific instructions for the re-direct, including security information, redirection issues and how to handle certain errors.
- The next time a search engine spider reaches your website the rule within the .htaccess file re-directs it to the correct destination (you wouldnât want your office furniture ending up in a cake shop â or perhaps you would!)
- The spider doesn't actually read the .htaccess file, but recognizes the response from the server as valid.
Rowan Likes To...
Rowan likes to think she is sadly missed by all, but she is probably mistaken. Strangely, I actually had this exact thought recently - when I was away in Hungary. I dreamed that all my friends had got together in my absence and signed a petition to not be my friend anymore. I blame the sedatives (prescribed for dental treatment, I should add) for making me even more paranoid than usual.
Rowan likes to ride her bike, but the bike was still at the house. A euphemism for my life, if ever there was one.
Rowan likes to watch dog shows on TV with her uncle Ron. I don't have an uncle Ron, but If I did, I'm sure I would be happy to watch dog shows with him.
Rowan likes to have books read to her, contemplates mobiles, and hates hippies. Should read: Rowan likes to have books read to her, contemplates hippies and hates mobiles.
Rowan likes to wear scruffy clothes, pick cues off the wall (or curtain poles) and beat people with them. Yep.
Rowan likes to create things to meet needs. Doesn't everyone?
Rowan likes to encourage integrity and fairness in all dealings. That'll be the Libra in me.
Rowan likes to talk...a LOT. No comment.
Rowan likes to quietly put her hand over her food so that you donât take it. That's what it's like living with the Cookie Monster.
Rowan likes to play. True.
Rowan likes to be able to make the puppets do whatever she likes. I do try, but they always resist.
Rowan likes to think of herself as a member of the nattering, chattering classes. That famous sub-set of society.
Rowan likes to get rides down the hall in the laundry basket. I'm actually going to try this when I get home. I wonder if I could harness the cats to pull me along in it?
Rowan Likes To Brag! Never! I'm far too modest!
Rowan likes to pretend she's a 'titty with a dick'. WTF??
Rowan likes to pretend. She often says she's not Rowan...she's Daddy. There seems to be a pattern emerging here, which would imply that I'm some kind of kinky freak. Purleeese.
Rowan likes to eat gerbils. False. Rowan is in fact a vegetarian.
Rowan likes to eat a pancake for breakfast every once in a while. I do love a pancake, especially with maple syrup and ice cream.
Rowan likes to climb and then balance on things precariously. This usually occurs quite late and night, and invariably ends in tears.
And that's it. That's all Rowan does, apparently. Well, it made me laugh.
Now the obligatory tagging bit. I only recently tagged a load of bloggy friends with a different meme, so I won't risk annoying them with another one so soon - but anyone who's reading this, do let me know if you decide to follow suit. Do it! Do it! Go on... it'll make you giggle!
KATE BEATON
Kate Beaton is from The Canadas and makes my new favourite webcomic; half pen and paper, half MS Paint. Funny, honest and occasionally endearingly nerdy. She also seems to spend an inordinate amount of time with the Pope, but frankly who doesn’t?
Leapfroggs Getting Greener!
Since the move from serviced offices into our very own leased offices we are doing even more about reducing our Carbon Footprint. We have recently set up a mini recycling centre in our offices and have enlisted the help of Magpie, our locally based recycling gurus, to help us recycle anything that we possibly can!
As we continue to set up the services for the new office we will be making sure that we select suppliers that think the same way we do when it comes to doing whatâs best for the environment and our local community and of course are in tune with our moral and ethical standards! Watch this space, as froggs we have a duty to get even greener!
Dear Mr Gableâ¦
Two new articles for my series, ‘Another Side Of Marilyn’, are now on the Immortal Marilyn website. The first, for my ‘Films Marilyn Considered’ column, covers the 1954 epic The Egyptian. And ‘Dear Mr Gable’, for my ‘Marilyn’s Heroes’ topic, considers her admiration for the king of Hollywood, Clark Gable.
Brian Paddick
"Campaigned like a Tory, and voted like a Trotskyite" - as Ken so aptly put it.Although Ken lost, he did...
His total number of votes were UP by 30% forcing Boris to get an unprecedented 1.3m votes to beat him. Labour actually increased its number of GLA seats in contrast to the Labour decline elsewhere. And finally, Ken exposed the Lib Dems duplicity in London, that they manage to get away with elsewhere.
It is a real shame and disappointment to many progressives to see the conservative nature of the Lib Dems - in London they refused to join the progressive alliance of Greens and socialists and in doing so, they suffered badly at the polls - just 9.6% for their lacklustre Mayor candidate and they lost 3 seats on the GLA - they also helped elect Boris as Mayor by not endorsing Ken as preferable.
The Lib Dems are doing better nationally under Nick Clegg - under Ming they were in meltdown - just as Labour is under Gordon Brown, but Chris Huhne (who we now know would have won had all his votes not got held up in the Christmas post) would have been the more appropriate leader for their party.
As an ex-Tory it is clear which way Nick Clegg is taking the party - it might help in their fight to keep southern English seats - but most of the Lib Dem membership must be appalled at their shift towards the Tories.
there goes the fear
Do you remember when you were young? It occurred to me the other day that when i was i really did have very little sense of danger, or fear of 'stuff'.I mean i was afraid of things, things like spiders, two geese we had, who were called Lawrence and Green, and were particularly badass, ghosts, posters with things on them that had eyes ( don't ask ), the dark, all the usual childhood fears, give or take a few crazy ones.
However i wasn't so afraid of actual dangers, like falling out of trees for instance. I'd climb up those babies without a fear in the world, despite being incredibly clumsy and gangly.
I can remember we had a hay barn, about the height of a two story house, and on summer days we'd break up a few bales of hay on the floor and climb up the other hay bales to the top of the barn, and then jump off into the broken bales. Without a fear in the world.
Quite often i miss that careless abandon you have when you're young, when things that are quite obviously dangerous don't seem like that.
That hasn't quite come out right, what i mean to say is i find it frustrating and sad sometimes that as an adult i spend alot of time being afraid of stuff. As a child i didn't have that worldly wise-ness and it freed me in many many ways to do things that were good and fun without any thought. I just did. Naivety was my god.
For instance with the hay bale death jumps my major concern wasn't a broken fibula or paralysis from a fractured spine. No my major concern was that my mum and dad would find us and stop the fun ( and possibly give us a sound telling off ).
So anyway here's the point of this all, here are some things i'd do if i still had the mentality of my child self but which as an adult i'm too repressed and dumb to do......
roller coasters, tattoos, riding horses, flying, hot air ballooning, travelling.
That's just a few, i suppose the big one is my presentation i guess. One of my friends once said that if she could, if she hadn't got the fear, she'd wear shorter skirts, lower tops, she'd glam it up. I get what she's saying, more so now i think than all those years ago when she said it, in a different life. I have in my head an image of who i want to be, and it doesn't match the one i am. Which isn't to say things haven't got closer, they have very much so but the actual final image? I'm not there and to be honest i'm not sure i ever will be, i'm not sure i'm ever going to be able to let go enough, to be like my carefree younger self.
i should point out that although it sounds like i'm not happy with myself i am happy with things at the moment, life is very very good, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to think and speculate i guess. Maybe then we can find our way past the things stopping us from being more like ourselves.
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