On set

I was there when the Hold Tight guys filmed this. Oddly enough, I didn't make the final edit. Oh well, practice, practice, practice.

And while I'm on the topic of skateboarding, these decks have just cropped up in Brum's Ideal skateshop:

Since Spike Jonze, director of the forthcoming film adaptation of one of my childhood favourites, Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, is also co-owner of Girl Skateboard Company. So it's not too surprising that the company has produced these lovely numbers to go celebrate the imminent release of the film.

I can't wait for it to come out. And I want all the decks too, please.

Absolute fucking liberty

Swearing for the sake of swearing, I don't agree with. Swearing where absolutely appropriate, go for it. And never has it been more appropriate than tonight:

Do not go for a drink in the Grosvenor fucking Hotel. That's for a bottle, by the way, not a pint, as if that'd make it any fucking better.

Update! I really should add that, despite the price of that, the one beer I bought myself, I drank quite a large amount of wine. Wine provided free by, or at least at, the hotel. It was disgusting. As is probably fairly obvious, I was very much under the influence of said wine and single beer when I wrote this post. And tequila, mustn't forget the tequila. The hangover lasted three days. Which I deserved.

Critters

Having found this chappy in the entrance hall to my block of flats:

It was completely blown out of the water by the newest resident of my parents' garden

Maybe I'll delay my next visit for a while.

Go Skateboarding Day

After tooling round Mile End skatepark a bit today it would appear that having a few weeks off has sapped me of all my "skills". Bugger. Oh well, maybe I'm just out of practice. And there's something I can do about that.

Talking of skateparks, this place opened today – Paul Rodriguez's park in Pacioma, California. It looks amazing.

It's black, it's white, shomon (muthafuka), yeah yeah yeah

For me, saying "no more trainers" is like Bubs going up to receive his "24 hours or a sincere desire to live" keyring. The habit is even harder to kick (if you'll excuse the pun), when Nike SB bring out these brilliantly simple black/white Dunks and Bruins:

Actually, I'm not going to even bother trying to kick the habit and fully intend to "cop" these when Slam City get them in next month (hopefully). Thankfully, I won't have to sell stolen metal or whiteys from a shopping trolley to pay for them.

Update: check out the coincimental timing. I posted this a mere six days before Jacko carked it. Spooky.

Something for the weekend

I'm very much looking forward to this. I'm not intending to take part in any of the organised events but will pop down to Mile End skatepark to have a roll around, very much in the spirit of the tagline on the poster below, designed by Steve Caballero:

www.goskateboardingday.org

Back in the habit

Fear not readers (or, more appropriately, 'the imaginary friends its apparently acceptable for adults to have'), I have returned to the blogosphere after a short hiatus. A hiatus spent in Taiwan. Those of you who can access my Facebook will know I have literally hundreds of photos and a few tales to to tell so might get round to posting about it on here at some point, you lucky, lucky people. Here's a taster, courtesy of Natalie:

Anyway, back to now. When we signed up to the Barnardo's Nun Run, Marie and I were entered into a competition to win tickets to the new Sister Act Musical. We both won and went last night. Although Marie is a musical pro, the last one I went to see was Tommy, probably well over a decade ago. I have to admit that I really, really enjoyed Sister Act. Go and see it. It's a lot of fun.

More in keeping with my usual interests, I went to Slam City and, while resisting the ever-present temptation to buy trainers, took a few pictures of the new exhibition in the basement Nike SB pop-up store. The exhibition is of photos by Jon Humphries to promote the forthcoming SB skate film, Debacle. I was invited to the premiere at Slam but was too busy being on the tube, missioning home from Heathrow after a sleepless 16 hour flight.

The first batch of photos I took were rubbish so I had to go back and take some more. Luckily I don't think they noticed me sloping back in like an amateur. The better pics can be seen in my little write up for N-SB.org. It got a mention on Jake's Alley (right down the bottom), which I was quite chuffed about, even though I might have emailed over the link in the first place...

Oh, something else that's probably worth mentioning – I've got a job. Today I started as Deputy Production Editor for New Media Age magazine. It's only a 13-month maternity cover contract but it's still a step up. So, after being made redundant at Marketing Week, I stayed on two extra months, returned as a freelancer at a much better rate (working about 10 days a month and earning more or less the same as I did as a full-timer), went on holiday and returned to a new job, which basically counts as a promotion – NMA is also a Centaur publication. Take that recession!