The things I do for you

This is actually a post intended exclusively for my baby sister, Jimi. That's not her real name. It would be weird if it was. But a little cool.

These pics are for you, Jimbo. Enjoy.

This was taken on Ferndale Road, on the way to Brixton station, on Sunday afternoon. There's a Baptist church across the road, and the people inside were all on their feet, singing and dancing.
 

I just got a photo of the berry beanie.
 

I am too old to jump on  leaves. Especially leaves like this one.

So someone else must have stepped on it.

I walk past this sign most days. Every so often, someone adds to it.

I got very drunk and woke up with this in my bedroom. And they say alcohol makes you do stupid things.

Kinks on the 'pod. Of course.

Neighbourhood kids playing soccer under a No Ball Games Allowed sign. Shouldn't really need to explain why I love this.

The kitchen. The Coco Pops are mine.

The River Thames. Did you recognise it?

Toy soldier on a window ledge in Northumberland Avenue. I don't know why, either.

The view from my kitchen window. You'll notice the sky is blue. It is showing off for your benefit.

This is a weird piece of litter. That's all.

You're old enough. It's time you know. This is what London phone boxes really look like:

Some friends who look mysteriously similar:

And finally, can you see why I took this?

Look again.

Love you, Jimi.

Cake or death?

Now you can do both!

Bunnyhawks

One of my sisters wants a ukulele, but that's a story for another time. 

I went to bed nice and early (about 4am) so I was bright and shiny this morning, and keen to watch my freshly downloaded copy of To Have and Have Not, screen debut of la Bacall and yet more confirmation (if you needed it) that Humphrey Bogart was and is the coolest kid to hit the screen. Ever. Starting with the fact that he could pull off a name like Humphrey and continuing with recognition of the fact that he pulled the hottest babe in tinseltown, Betty 'Slim' Perske.

So. What with Bogey and Bacall and all the Chandler I've been reading, now I'm a bit noired up. And I got that painting into my head, you know the one, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. 

Most famously paid tribute to by Gottfried Helnwein, when he replaced the gin-soaked lushes and dodgy loners with moody, tragic stars of popular culture, thusly,

Jimmy, Bogey, Norma Jean and The Pelvis. How we love them still. So anyway, I had no idea, until I googled it, just how many came after Helnwein. There are some straight up copies, or homages, I imagine they prefer, like this one,

But why bother with them when there are so many ridiculously fantastic and fantastically ridiculous versions of the painting now housed in the Chicago Institute of Art. 

Take this one:

I'll be honest. I straight up don't get it. But it does something for me. And I don't know if it came before or after this one:

But I could guess.

There are others that I really can't figure out, like this one,

And there are a whole bunch that work in their own particular pop culture preoccupations, like the anime Nighthawks,

and, inevitably, McNighthawks.

An artist's impression of what a modern-day Phillies might look like:

 and a festive Phillies,

What really gets me is just how many Star Wars-themed Nighthawks there are. Uh, why?

I'd better own up at this point. I've never seen a Star Wars movie. I know it's in space and there are wars, and some surprisingly complicated family relationships, but that's enough for me. So it's safe to say anything Star Wars related is pretty much a mystery to me. But this?

And this?

And, yeah, it's not Star Wars, but I bet whoever did it has the complete set of DVDs and a couple of figurines still in the original packaging.

Okay. Whatever. May the force be with you. Strange to me this is.

What I did like was the Tintin Nighthawks. Lovably weird. 

And a bunch of kids who re-enacted the painting for a competition. My school never had that.

By the way, fear not, there is another bunny-themed Nighthawks. You just knew it, didn't you? It's called Nightrabbits.

And it's fucking creepy.

Unlike the Simpsons version, where the part of the lady lush is taken with consummate ease by Edna Krabappel, and we get a perfect view of Homey's bum cleavage.

That really only leaves my personal favourite, the Lego Nighthawks. Praise the lord, someone did it. And if you're willing to look, I'm fairly certain whoever it is has Legoed other Hoppers, too, if you're into that sort of thing. I probably love this all the more because of the brilliant Lego adaptations of Eddie Izzard routines that you can see on YouTube (darling, if you haven't, you really must).

Which only leaves, sigh, this mystery wrapped in an enigma smeared with a waste of time:

Enjoy.

The Weird is behind you...

It's never a good idea to start writing your blog in the middle of an episode of Supernatural, so of course I've let it finish. I do love Sam and Dean. I especially love their stated mission:

"Saving people. Hunting things."

Doesn't get much more straightforward than that. And it's the family business! Bless.

In the last episode, when they couldn't kill the baddie because he was just a horribly abused (and yeah, okay, homicidal) kid with telekinetic powers, he thoughtfully shot himself before our heroes could stop him. Sam was pretty upset about that, for about three and a half seconds, until he realised that if scarily-pale-nutjob (sane people are identifiable by their healthy tans?) hadn't taken care of business, Dean would have set him on fire anyway. He couldn't help himself. That's the other part of their mission statement, the bit that got cut from the opening titles:

"Saving people. Hunting things. Driving fast. Starting fires."

I don't like it when Sammy "don't call me that!" Winchester gets upset, and not just because nobody likes to see a kicked puppy. It's more because Jared Padalecki, the boy with the name my friend Meow Tse Tung loves to sing about, only has two facial expressions, and I prefer the happy one. When he starts to get all emotional and, lord forbid, starts to act, things get ugly faster than a phantom truck on a dark and stormy night. He does things to his lips and chin that certainly look uncomfortable, and I worry that if he really does keep that up for the next six or seven seasons (I've only just started on season one. Thanks again to Meow) he might do some permanent damage, and end up looking like a sulky baby brother with something caught in his teeth for the rest of his life.

But enough of jPad and his future Oscar. I just wanted to share with you some weird shit I saw in Soho this week. It was pretty quiet in the shop, espesh on Thursday and Friday, so I had plenty of time to stand in the doorway, trying to catch some sun (ha!) and flashing drivers.

Here is a selection of Stuff Seen (in future there will be pics. For now, use your freaking imagination):

- The superfat dude who looks for all the world like Homer Simpson in that episode when he was superfat. Special not because he's fat, but because, like Homer, he has fantastic dress sense. Best yet: beret and black coat made out of huge loops of wool. Averagely weird clothes made weirder by large scale. Pretty sure he was wearing makeup as well. I swear to god, this guy is four donuts and a mini-stroke away from a floral muumuu.

- Big, tall black guy, purple pedal-pushers, purple ballet flats, purple sequined top, painted purple nails, perfectly coiffed, glossy curls under a purple fedora. Loudly telling someone on his silver :-( phone that she was his best friend and she understood him because they both told it like it was. I'm guessing it was purple.

- The (pre-op?) tranny hooker who comes into the shop. Worthy of a post of her own. Notable only because she got a new wig. And by the looks of it, a new john. Good for her.

- The Polish prostitute who normally wears an all-silver outfit that looks like something out of Eurovision, dressing down with white flip-flops, black tights with neon pink side stripes, dark purple tracksuit top with neon pink side stripes and a neon pink crop top. I guess she needed somewhere subtle to keep her huge fake boobs.

- Finishing with a personal favourite. The rest of her outfit (slashed tights, leather miniskirt, etc) was less than diverting by Soho standards, but I have to say I enjoyed the incongruity of the fact that she was wearing five inch heels and walking with a crutch. I'm sure that says something about fashion or modern women or stupid people, but I just don't know what it is.

Going back to the Winchesters now. Or Raymond Chandler. Haven't decided. It's hard to choose between actors who can run so convincingly and a writer who can crack a joke about the subjunctive.