Softly spoken secrets.

LISTEN TO 'IF YOU LEAVE' BY NADA SURF- it's the song from the very memorable scene from the O.C between Seth and Anna.

Got a photoshoot set up for tomorrow. Well to be honest it's now 12.15 so I guess I'm doing a photoshoot today. I'm hopefully going to shoot up two rolls of black and white film. I'm going to be photographing my various meat sculptures and develop the ideas and basically see where it goes from there.

I had a really important presentation last Tuesday on a photographer called Robert Mapplethorpe. If you're not familiar with his works then to prevent you from google searching him and having your eyes violated I'll give you a quick break down. Black dicks, anal beads, bull whips, index fingers, male fisting and enough explicit material to put a 14 year old teenager to shame whose just discovered masturbation. My mate, Steve Tylor and I put together the presentation over a couple of days and presented to our seminar group - we had a really good discussion which lead to be having a better understanding about what the artist was trying to achieve through his socially shocking images. (the B&W image is Mapplethorpe's tastful stuff)

After a recent skype conversation with my really close friend and general annoyance, AMY NEWMAN I have now got to include her more in this blog. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that she has nothing of great interest in her life therefore studies my BLOG and has picked up on a lack of Newman chat in it. So this is the start....

My brother is coming to stay with me for a couple of days soonish. Really can not wait, I rave on about him a lot to my uni pals so it'll be really cool to get everyone together and go for a night out and show him a good Nottingham time.

We've put something in the post

When I was leaving Nottingham my mum phoned me saying 'We've put something in the post for you, it's just a little something, have a good time in Birmingham, say Hi to the boys for me, Love you, Bye'

Conversation over. Lasted a few seconds. On Tuesday I received the object in the above photo. Bless them, I believe the postage probably cost more than the actual gift. But even still, Bless 'em.

Spent last weekend in Birmingham visiting my fellow Jew looking friend Matthew Kitching. All my others pals from back home who also go to various universities travelled to Brummy land for a big get together.

We ventured to the 02 Academy to enjoy some cheap drinks and thrills. However, the main the thrill of the night was getting into a fight after some utter wanker thought it was a clever idea to push over Kitch's girlfriend, the always delightful Jenny Humphreys She covered herself in her own drink and went flying on floor which I swear was NOT disease free. Andy (the biggest out of us all) tried to calm the situation by talking to the lad - Andy received two head butts. I got punched twice. Kitch's uni mate practically got knocked out. Things just escalated quickly. We didn't throw one punch, yet all got hit. After a little timeout in the first aid section of the club we fire our spirits up again and venture into the mix of it again. Plenty of laughs from then on. I have a terrible takeaway from some shit place in Selly Oak near Kitch's house then drift off to sleep on a brown sofa staring longingly into Mr Stewart's eyes.

Day two starts slowly...Andy, Ben and Josh have to venture back to girlfriends and uni work so we see them off at the train station. I'm staying for another night, I like it here in Brum. Kitch has got a class group of mates who are always up for showing me a good time. We buy and drink our pre drinks quickly and head to The Guild which I think is their SU. The place was brilliant. I'm not going to lie but I busted out some phat shapes on the dancefloor which eventually lead to me waking up the next morning not in Mr Kitching's and having to phone him to come and find me and take me back to his.

It really was a cracking weekend - really nice to catch up with the Brum lot. However, the train ride back was horrendous. I'm usually perfectly fine after a night out, just a bit of water and I'm as good as new. This was different. I boarded the train listening to the Black Keys on my iPod. We'd been going for about 10minutes. I turned the music off. I needed to focus all my concentration on me not hurling my guts up all over the Cross Country train. I turned green, sweated so much that it was just dripping straight onto my trousers, and began to get teary eyes. The attractive brunette to my right tapped me on the back as she clearly saw me in distress and asked if I wanted some of her water. My polite response of "no thank you" suddenly I felt the stomach tighten. I turn to the aisle and retch like there is no tomorrow. Nothing exits my body apart from the litres of sweat. I compose myself and look up to see opposite me, two young kids about 6 years old staring at me with such innocence in their eyes. I then make a noise I have never made before and to this minute can not redo it. I let out a little crying 'yelp'. Then returned to my bolt up right position. Worst train journey ever.

Above are a few images I've taken recently - the meat and plant ones are for a current on going project the portrait is an image of my good pal at uni Matthew Wilcox.

I guess since my last update I've been struggling to come up with at least something half decent to write here. Without going into great detail and moaning on about stupid occurrences I seem to have spent the past couple of weeks annoyed and tired of the same feelings and situations repeating on me.

Although all of us singletons out there tried to act like Valentines day is just another pointless fucking day in the English calendar it still grips you and gets you down. However, the lads at Gill Street cooked up a plan that we'll go spend it at Hooters. Therefore, to blow away the Valentines blues we'll stare at boobs, rate each girl in there out of ten and eat endless amounts of chicken wings. We were served by a horrible woman (older enough to be some of the lads mums) - she did not take a sympathetic view towards our group of six boys strong on a mass man date on Valentines. We ate, drank and left kind of happier due to the range of D and E sized breasts in the establishment. However, on the walk home walking past various restaurants I did the bad thing of peering in through the windows and witnessing happy people together staring at each other with a love and passion. The sudden realization of going back to my single bed which is designed for no more than one person. Definitely not two hit me again! I suppose this feeling was emphasized due to the particular day but on the other hand it's a very strong and true feeling that always hits me, daily.

Tomorrow I'm hopping on a train to Birmingham. Hopefully, this will cheer me up. I say I hope. I know it will. I'll be with Matthew Kitching, Ben Smitten, Andy Stewart, and Josh Thomas. We're planning on a cracking night on Friday at the 02 Academy. I'm staying for Saturday night however the boys have all got girlfriends so they're going back to their Uni lives. Then on Sunday I'll return back to Gill Street and slip into the same boring routine longing for some fun and exciting plans.

On the Photography side of things I'm once again lacking motivation and inspiration to take my project further. Really can't explain what is going on with my creative side. It's like anything I think of these days I just seem to automatically go and shoot it down without even testing it out. Hardly take my camera out and shoot. I know if I do this more often it'll trigger something new and interesting and develop my technical skills but I just can't be bothered. I hope I snap out of this mind set very soon as it really pissing me off.

I have built a tree house.

Cracking song suggested by Lizzie Hiles.

I have built a treehouse
I have built a treehouse
Nobody can see us
it's a you and me house

Awesome song by 'I'm from Barcelona' lovely lyrics. Wish I had a treehouse.

1. When writing her own list she bull shits to pad it out. Example number 6.
2. She picks up on stupid things that are not important
3. She has a weird right leg (not true)
4. The way your accent makes everything sound sad/depressing
5. I tell you things I don't like SOOOO you go out of your way to do them then laugh at my hatred look towards you.
6. You always insist on ordering horrible shots for our linking shots.
7. You're annoyingly funny.



Reds smash records - not to my liking.