10am & hung over after a raucous Thursday night, I sneak to my desk past semi-comatose colleagues, my pasty office tan camouflaged against the white of the sterile hallway.

I work in an average London office, for an average salary with an average company. Like a school for the ‘special’ we have a kitchen covered with safety stickers so we don’t wash our hands under the boiler tap, stick our fingers in power sockets or drink straight from the water cooler.
I spend my days spinning in my office chair shaded a pleasant cloudy-grey, basking for hours under a constant fluorescent glow & updating my Facebook status at every opportunity…
****** is… bored
****** is… hungry
****** is… asleep
****** is… enjoying talking about himself in the 3rd person
****** is… therefore I am

My manager notices my lateness, gives me my seventh final warning then retreats back to his office to browse personal ads.

I’m not even sure what our department actually does. Sometimes we have meetings. We all meet in the boardroom, talk about our weekends & listen to our manager recite the same speech about being more focused on the company’s priorities. We then go back to our cubicles & compete to find the funniest &/or strangest movie on YouTube.

The IT department sent me an email yesterday to say that I was the second highest user of Facebook in the company & that number one had just been sacked. Time for another status change…

****** is… the new highest Facebook violator in the company!

After a few smug spins in my chair, proud of my new title, I figured I should get some real work done.
I had photos to upload, friends to poke, online scrabble to play & primary school girlfriends to search for. It was going to be a hard day.

(Dedicated to my flattie, a self-confessed Facebook fanatic)

During my daily commuting I often pass a busker in the tube station playing the same song every time. ‘Would you know my name’ by Eric Clapton.  Someday I think I’ll stop & tell him that I most likely won’t know his name if I saw him in heaven & will probably just call him busker dude.

But enough about him & more about awesome & excitedly interesting things:

The street art scene in East London is massive & before you start thinking “oh yeah I know all about Banksy, he’s the coolest” -it’s time to move on. Mr Banks has no time for posting stencils down dark streets when his work is now worth more than a piece of toast with the face of Jesus on it. OK maybe not THAT much, but he’s now being compared to Andy Warhol & in April this year his not-so-exciting Space Girl & Bird piece fetched a price of £288,000!!

Instead of dealing pirated DVD’s, illegal immigrants or endangered antelope like the East African Bongo to save up for a Banksy original, I’ve hit the streets with my trusty photo capturing device to get shots of the new &/or persistent artists transforming brick walls into visual treats.

Anyone with information about the artists / specific works, or, if you have images of your own you think deserves to be published, please leave comments or get in touch.

New findings posted soon.

I`m sure none of you have been the slightest bit concerned that your nonsensical narrator may have fallen off the face of the earth several months ago, consequently resulting in a lack of fine* material during this period… and if anyone was in fact worried, they`re now breathing a sigh of relief as I obviously must still be in reach of an internet connection & therefore did not experience any gravitational phenomena.

That being said, as I now travel the globe & manage to find time between some serious holidaying, i.e. whenever it rains, I will endeavour to post more fantastic*, excellent* & stupendously* brilliant* stuff .

It`s only partly cloudy today so I`ll leave you with some “Hello I`m back” haiku. Until next time, enjoy.

Traffic Lights

Man on my chassis

Funding his junkie habits

Wipes clean my windscreen.

Calling Home

Dialling numbers

An international call

I`m still dialling!

The Golf Ball

Enclosed in whiteness

Break me free from spherical

Freedom with your wood

Eggtime

Hey look it`s egg time!

Excreted chicken product

Yolk drips off my chin

Beware the Dreaded Clown Monkey

Elusive devil

Wicked little clown monkey

But damn you`re so cute!

*Adjectives have been changed to protect the author`s dignity & in no way represent an actual portrayal of the said material`s quality

Who doesn’t love a treasure hunt? That’s right! Some of you! Well all you others, get out your trinkets because this site has taken treasure hunting worldwide.

Here’s the deal…Find a hidey-hole in your local park or back-alley that renegade scavengers won’t discover & stash something like a CD given to you by an ex who thought she/he knew your musical tastes, vintage rainbow asparagus from China or an object far more interesting.

Take a photo of the general area.

Go to dropspots.org, mark your dropspot on the satellite map & post your photo along with a hint on finding the bounty.

Sit back & bask in the glory that is the unknown delight/disappointment the finder shall be subjected to.

The only condition, & subsequently the joy of the whole concept, is when locating a dropspot, the finder must replace their discovery with another uncertain article.

It’s still very new & content is minimal but as usual the idea’s taking off in the US like they’ve got nothing better to do. So spread the word like the legs of your beloved because there’s stuff to be found & I’ll be damned if I’m gonna get hyped-up for nothing!

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• noun (pl. lives) 1 the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth and functional activity. 2 the existence of an individual human being or animal. 3 a particular type or aspect of people’s existence: school life. 4 living things and their activity. 5 a biography. 6 vitality, vigour, or energy. 7 informal a sentence of imprisonment for life. 8 (in various games) each of a specified number of chances each player has before being put out. 9 before a noun (in art) based on a living rather than an imagined form: a life drawing.

Xtra speshal thanx to the Oxford dictshunary for its ever so yuseful wisdomness

.

Carrots come in many shapes & sizes…there’s pointy carrots, less-pointy carrots, short carrots, long carrots, siamese carrots or the more politically correct, conjoined carrots…And did you know carrots produce more distilled spirit than potatoes?!    

So while I’m on the topic, I might as well mention that students from the TAFE Design Centre in Enmore, Sydney are having their jewellery works showcased at the Carrot Exhibition later this year. 

                 Oliver Fity

You can view some of their stuff & get a taste of the carroty goodness at their new website http://www.jewelleryandobjects.org. 

                                                  Eliza Barnfield

If you’re in Sydney, the exhibition runs from 29 November to 2 December 2006 at the Depot Gallery in Waterloo.

                          Susannah Dwyer  

Dear Diary,

Got no sleep last night.  They say herbal tea before bed helps you sleep but they don’t tell you too much tea & you’ll be irrigating the night away…     Added them to the list.   x

_____________________________

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I went grocery shopping & saved $2.37 by eating a whole packet of biscuits before leaving the store!  Now I have no biscuits…         

For the last few weeks a grand sticker hunt has been taking place & at the end of July, a successful sticker finder will be chosen at random to win a prize (that was undoubtedly going to be equally as random). 

Up for grabs will be a can of Vintage Rainbow Asparagus!

Seen here in its natural habitat…

Dating back to 2003, this can has been imported from China where asparagus grows wild & in many forms, including the rainbow variety. 

Growing Wild…

There are endless asparagus recipes but why not… 

…try it in salad……on pizza…

…or with your favourite chardonnay…

And if that’s not enough to get you interested, rainbow asparagus is also guaranteed to make you 10 times more appalling to the opposite sex!

It’s not too late to get entries in & with a prize like this you’d be MAD not to!!

Are you a bit of a computer geek? Do you go to parties & request the tetris theme or Mario Bros bonus level to the annoyance of the DJ & fellow clubbers? Then this is right up your cyber-alley!  

A producer called Nullsleep from New York! New York! uses modified Gameboys & old-school gaming consoles to mash-up melodies & blippity beats with a pretty damn catchy result.  

Caution: anyone who has owned a gameboy or NES may have a nostalgic reaction…