Iain Sinclair: Stone Tape Shuffle.

A collection of readings by Sinclair. It’s got stuff from Lud Heat, Suicide Bridge, Downriver and White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and was recorded in various places around east London and the City. As well as location noise spill, it’s been mixed with plenty of weird sounds that weave in and out over Sinclair’s unsettling, staccato prose. The end result is wonderfully deranged and eerie.

And it’s on nice, heavy, vinyl. I love those big black circles.

Hat tip to my baby brother for the heads up on the release.

It’s a limited pressing so off you go and get one.

Aren’t they cool. You can convert images already on your iPhone or, more likely, you can take a photo using ShakeItPhoto and watch as it spits out a virtual Polaroid. If you shake your phone you can speed up the ‘development’ process. Shaking and waiting for the image is something that’s really only fun the first time you do it so – thankfully – there’s an option to turn that off.

It has a very nice way of making pretty ordinary and mundane things look really rather pretty (in a polarised, saturated, colour-shifted, grainy sort of way). The picture format also forces you to think differently. Normally when taking a photo, most mortals are used to thinking in rectangles but thinking in squares makes you look at things differently.

ShakeItPhoto cheered me up immensely on a snowy morning trip to the shopping centre. It’s not quite perfect – as it crops the standard rectangular iPhone image, it could use a screen overlay to show what will be included in the final, Polaroided photo. Other than that, though, it’s really excellent. If you’ve an iPhone, try it.

You can see the full gallery over at my Picasa.

A rather splendid Christmas dinner at my in-laws began the Christmas Waist Expansion in earnest.  Over the next few days, much beer was consumed and the entire second season of Saxondale was viewed on a dark, tea and chocolate-filled afternoon.  In a Caligula-like moment of decadence I scoffed a big bowl of tiramisù while lying in bed.  Possibly not my proudest moment.

I also got to chat with some friends that I don’t see often and, from one of those splendid fellows, I acquired this lovely little thing:

Isn’t it cool?  It’s a Halina 35X.  Despite that it looks quite snazzy, it’s actually a Hong Kong cheapie from the late 50′s and is probably worth less than the cost of processing the roll of 35mm film that I’ll be putting in.

Before any shooting or processing can occur, however, it needs some TLC.  The shutter seems to work just fine, as does the winding mechanism.  The inside could use a damn good cleaning (to avoid scratching up the film) and ditto for the lens.  The big problem, though, is that the lens barrels are really stiff.  This probably means I’ll need to take it apart and lube it up (no Carry On jokes, please).

Why on earth would I want to dismantle and reassemble a forty or fifty year old camera in order to shoot actual film when I have a perfectly good digital SLR?  If you have to ask, you’ll never know.  Look at it.  It may be cheapie and it may need a lot of work and I will have to pay to process any images I take but, look at it.  It’s a thing of beauty.

And I’m a geek.

So, now, I’ve got a couple of jars of mouth-watering chutney in the fridge.  Too, too tasty.

Really, too tasty.  It’s so damn tasty with some nice cheese and a bit of crusty bread and a beer or two that now, even more than usual, I’m sitting up late and eating cheese and crusty bread and drinking beer just so I can have some delectable chutney.  I figure, at this rate, I have about a fortnight’s supply before it’s all gone or my liver gives out.

Better make a bigger batch next time.

How truly beautiful is Audrey Tautou as Amélie?   All innocence and prurient purity (yes, I’m a bit pissed again – big deal).   All immense, inky eyes and slightly dodgy bob.   She’s very talented too.  Not quite sure why she got involved with the arse-stained wet-wipe that was The da Vinci Code.  I can only guess that Ron Howard seduced her with his ginger fingers and tales of talking pies.

Beautiful.