the sun always shines on tv

sometimes the sun does shine
so in recognition of the longest day we're gonna have for a while, some sunny photos. afternoon gorging ourselves in kew garden followed by Xtreme frisbee in the forest with morris and ellie and nige and shippie. ace.


nige remembers where he left the smarties...


not sharing.


and that's all


sweet and short right?

i'll be

yeah so there was an amnesiac memory card but no longer! so its...

AMSTERDAMnER II.

thank goodness. really. i know how to get the most out of my tourist miles. no, really because your kids are paying for it. tell it to the polar bear.

some fellas hanging round outside biggie and rene's

again??>!>!?!>!?


geoff and alana find the first beach of the day. cafe inside a glass house. sounded like a good idea at the time...


real life dog. none of that CG stuff. nono. funny too. bow wow. ee.


second beach of the day.

It was big and black.

Yesterday, we saw a great big black spider; it crawled out of our bed, shortly after we did! Usually this would have given me the geebies, but I was so taken by how beautiful it was that I completely forgot to be frightened. Jon carefully picked it up and let it go outside. It was nice to see an insect, as not so many creepy crawlies seem to dwell in the city. Guess they're a bit smarter than humans.

While we're on the topic of big, black creatures, a crow has taken to hanging out on our balcony. I have so many dark and forboding associations with crows, so it kind of made me feel a little nervous at first and everything seemed to take on a B-grade thriller feel. I was ready for the vampires. Then I remembered I was in Chiswick where there are too many zimmer frames and babies carriages for such flights of fancy (tho would make v cool zombies). I think our friend master crow is really more interested in scavenging wee morsals of breakfasts and bbqs. Which, thanks to the growing summer warmth, are happening outside on the deck with ever-increasing frequency.

Today, we went to the garden centre to get some herbs to plant in pots on the deck. Our flatmate Megan had already started the green thing going with tomato's, sunflowers and basil, so we brought mint, sage and rocket to add to the mix. The garden cenre was a little oasis, absolutely teaming with plants of all variety and even a little pond housing the ubiquitous goldfish. Felt like right urban hippies, cycling home with our bags of dirt on our carriers and mint plants in our baskets.

damns

when my world was smaller and my mind bigger i used to have a great time imaging a cool event just about to happen or just passed... like this time a week ago i was visiting my cousins in australia...or this time tomorrow it will be christmas...jeeez that was a mind trip...

...anyway... found myself doing that yesterday (being sunday night)... thinking back to this time last week when me and lala where playing @ being bard pitts and andy joline @ cannes. why you say?

cos first of all congratulations to mark albiston (ablie the racist dragon) and lou sutherland for directing and writing some kind of short film thing that some people liked more than 3000 other entries to be 1 of 11 finalists @ cannes. yeah, so alright i guess.

so after going ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for about that long i decided to go and after going yeahaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for that long la decided to go. (sadly our chorus was a little off beat so we had to fly different airlines. not superb, especially with a 2 hr stop over in paris, but mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

FRIDAY
yeah and met up with some others from the sutherland/albiston entourage (mark's sister angie and buddy nathan) and helped to inject a little energy into the dazed and confused wellington lads (7 nights of caning it in cannes had taken its toll) - so they dutiful got us tickets to 'all' the 'great parties' and treated us like superstars. which is always nice. really. it is. i don't feel bad. at all.

and swimming. cos it was warm as.

SATURDAY
was the screening of the 11 finalists. was a beautiful cinematic experience. up there with seeing star wars in matamata back in '78, and the empire / jedi double feature in the paramount in '83 (anyone feel free to correct me where i am wrong). great films and cool to be sitting in the theatre with all the film makers. good times all round. had a wee celebratory sea food feast with some of the fellows from mexico cos they were nice.

mark, lou and robin (who made everything happen!)




albie didn't think the sea snails were very nice, but then he was sick as a god from impressing all the fellas the night before. very impressive.

i'm sure there was a swim in there somewhere.

SUNDAY
another great hookup was getting accreditted (means you can wave your id card and go into any movies you want (after queing for an hour, but it was free right?), so we went to see new coen bros film (some title someone else remembers). alana had the best getting in for free trick cos she had stolen someone else's id (photo looked nothing like her), so heading to security she carefully positions the id around her neck whilst strategically lowering her cleavage... text book diversion tactics... she could teach you a thing or 2.. yep.

swimming (probably)

oh yeah and then we realised that we weren't just going to mark's award ceremony but to the whole she-bang cannes closing prize award hooplah. so we were excited. and i was glad that i did bring a black tie. was all a little overwhleming, with me trying to get as much shaky footage of mark and lou doing there schmoo on the red carpet and kinda forgetting that i was there too. another time perhaps.

if only our mums could see us now.


exciting stuff huh?

the first awards read out were for the short film competition, with mark's film getting a jury prize (essentially runner up), so luckily i managed to get some more shaky cam footage of them reading out his name, and from there its a bit of a blur...

hookups followed all evening, sneaking into pre-dinner drinks, being ushered back out the red carpet into waiting transports and whisked down the beach to the dinner dinner and toe tapping to the acest tunes you haven't heard since a night out @ the fraggle rock in palmerstone (i thought the french were supposed to be good @ the house thing. oh well. the vodka was cold)

this is london

alana hawke's return to the medium of oil in a triumphant interpretation of naked people


we have a new favorite hong kong diner just opposite Leicester square station. chicken and sweet corn soup. Thank You.

sometimes you just don't know who to call. so you call them. all.

there are some museums in london. most of them are free. some of them open late and some of them let bands play with coloured lights and things. this was @ the victoria and albert. (the V&A to those in)


alana found a new bike in brick lane. stolen from only one little old lady. then she ran into this hideous picture. hideous.

hideous.

our shower is VERY capable. protection IS ESSENTIAL. YES.

you know.

very important photo. thats why i smeared vaseline on the lense to make sure it was well lubbed. this is hoxton square. where i work. next door to the white cube gallery (where i was standing for this pic). every thursday there is a phenomenon where places with paintings, sculptures and other brick'a'brack open their doors, set up ice buckets of booze and say 'go on then'. this is commonly known as The Thursday Gallery Crawl. and also it was a sunny evening so all the riff raff of the neighbourhood where laying about like they do. those yoouf of today. laying abouts.

i am ster dam

One of the greatest things about England is that all the bank holidays fall on a Monday, allowing for a very convivial jaunt to the Europe. Our latest foray was to Amsterdam, and we are besotted.


geoff liked it faster

Amsterdam is a medley of everything you would expect; tree lined canals, old dutch bicycles (everywhere), scantily clad ladies posing in windows (all day and well into the night), coffee shops that aren't cafes and cafes that aren't coffee shops, sunflowers and poppies, tall tall people taller than geoff and jon and rene, potat frittes with mayo, and mayo, and potat, and mayo.





Then there was the amsterdam we got to experience thanks to the marvelous mr rene and the charming biggie; run down regions just starting to buzz, graffittittiied squatter mansions, once ship building yards now creative hubs (nz osh wouldn't have a bar of it), hidden away, waterfront cafes and an 11th floor club that was. happening. Junk stalls at happy beach, pancakes at the pancake palace, back stories to the red light district (apparently all garnered from an open day), inexpensive, exquisitely ordered second-hand boutiques (saw jon coming home sporting a new waistcoat, cummerbund, silk scarf and tie, and la a floral swim cap and bikini), beer, coffee, patat, mayo, beer, coffee, patat, but no wall food. This trip.




And finally there is the Amsterdam that you find when you get lost, cycling at night along the canals, a moments distraction or intentional disorientation leading to a the inevitable italian bar serving birra morretti and limoncello. Cycling home, reorientating, cycling home again, now in the rain, didn't we just pass that bridge? gaze into that lamp lit lounge? Find our way home?


all in all, it was pretty great. thanks guys for being there. for coming there. you know who you are.

somehow we only have half a memory card worth of photos...but you can check out some more pics at http://web.mac.com/rene.klinkhamer

Ruby tuesday

Ruby Xya Jade BatachEl lives in Feilding. Apparently she's a bit of a joker.