More fluff

Just a quick note to say that Errol, the photographer who you might remember took photos of me and my trainers, has had his photos from last week's Fluff SB launch party published on Aussie trainer website Sneaker Freaker.

Check them out here.

Marie and I, local celebrities that we are, got papped:

The sound of my shoes

The trainer queue. It's something I've only ever read about. Anything from a handful to hundreds of dedicated souls waiting outside a shop for anything from a few hours up to a week to get their feet into that special pair of trainers on the morning of release. This weekend, I finally bit the bullet and tried out the experience for myself. But the queue is just part of the story...

On Friday night, I was lucky enough to get an invitation to the UK release of the Fluff SB book launch. The book, presented by Nike Skateboarding and dutch skateboard magazine Fluff, comprises photographs by Marcel Veldman, following 117 riders from the European Nike SB teams on various tours through 19 European countries.

To celebrate the book release, there's an exhibition of photos from the UK content of the book at the Nike Sportswear London shop, 1948.


The show opened on Saturday, but I was there for the party on Friday night. As most of the photos were taken in Ramsgate, the exhibition has a traditional British seaside resort theme, with the photos displayed on the walls of beach huts.

Keeping with the theme, there was also free Nike SB/Fluff rock. And a free copy of the (600-page, 5kg) book for everyone who was invited. There was also free beer. Lots of free beer.

After the Nike party, it was on to party two. It started out as Kate's birthday party, but soon turned into a celebration of Kate and Steph's engagement.

Getting home from drunken karaoke at about 2am, I went to bed for about two-and-a-half hours before getting up and heading out into the snow to pick up one of 12 pairs of Nike Zoom Bruin SBs, designed by the people at Fluff magazine, that were released to promote the Fluff SB book.

Swaddled in all my warmest clothes, some of which I hadn't worn since climbing Mount Kenya in the summer of 1997, I got (back) to 1948 (the aforementioned shop, rather than the year) around 6am, definitely feeling the after-effects of the free booze consumed in the very same place not 12 hours before. There were two people already there. They'd turned up at 1am and slept in their car. Between then and 10.30, when the shop opened, people turned up in dribs and drabs, until there were about 16 people (unfortunately for the last four, the fact that there were only 12 pairs had previously been just been a rumour).

Despite one of the guys in front of me also being a size 8, I was very happy to pick up a pair in my size. Very happy, very relieved and ridiculously tired. All in all, the trainer queue was an enjoyable experience, but not one I'm planning in making a habit of.

For those of you with an interest in photography or skateboarding, the Fluff SB exhibition runs until 14th February and it's well worth a look.

Modern love gets me to the church on time

I went to a wedding on Friday. "What," I hear you cry, "has (another) one of your loser mates managed to trap an unwitting life partner in the eyes of God?" Well, in about a year one will have, but that's another story. No, this wasn't what you could call a "real wedding". It was at Bestival. In an inflatable church. Between Zoe, who's boyfriend, Joe, was absent, and Tom, who, as he pointed out at the start of the service, prefers his partners to be a bit more "male".

I tried my hand at some amateur filmmaking during the service. Here are the videos (there should be three but I filmed the first one with my phone on its side and I can't work out how to rotate the film):

Talking of videos, here's a slightly more professional effort. It's the bonus footage from Debacle, Nike SB's latest skate film. Short and sweet but I love it.

And while I'm on the topic of things I like at the moment. I strongly recommend you give this Resident Advisor podcast a listen. It's Erol Alkan in his Disco 3000 guise. An hour and 20 minutes of great '80s-electro-tinged tunes. I can't find a tracklisting but when/if I do, I'll post it up.

A good day indeed

To promote the release of Paul Rodriguez's third signature skate shoe, Nike SB has created a microsite based around the 'Today Was A Good Day' TV ad for the shoe.

The site features a full, 2:20 version of the ad featuring cameos by fellow Nike SB team members Eric Koston and Theotis Beasley; Basketball legend Kobe Bryant; and Ice Cube, probably best known for his role as Danny Rich in Anaconda. It's well worth a watch.

The shoe itself is coming out in this lovely red colourway in September. I like it lots.

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.

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!

No less than Jake

This may be old news as far as this blog is concerned – I did it while I still had a job – but I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Interview with Jake from Slam City about the Nike SB pop-up store

What's the date today?

This was the only page greeting me when I tried to check NikeSB.0rg this morning:

NikeSB.org shutdown due to Multiple Nike Lawsuits
Tue Mar 31 2009 12:12:22 Eastern Time

SHUTDOWN NOTICE

March 31st of 2009 - NikeSB.org, the popular fan site from Virginia Beach,VA has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Nike Inc. Nike claimed that NikeSB.org infringed its trade marks and copyright by user submitted content with other brands registered trademarks, and have recently obtained a judgment in the United States rendering NikeSB.org's organization of news/info on SB sneakers unlawful.

As of today, NikeSB.org will not be in the position to accept any new members. Furthermore, NikeSB.org is working closely to follow up on any transactions held between our members. The staff of NikeSB.org will make sure that nobody will get hurt in the crossfire of this ordeal.

"Today is Nike's victory, with this precedent set, next week could already be the stage for complaints from Nike about the samething, or from other brands about fan sites such as NikeTalk, BapeTalk, or PumaTalk.", stated Jeremy Wilder, formerly known as the developer of NikeSB.org.

"That's the latest dark spot in their track record as an industry leader. The Empire finally 'won', few dominating blogs from the States probably will rejoice the news, but everybody else in the sneaker world lost something today."

Hmmmmm... Let's see if that's still there tomorrow.