By way of some resolutions

Having some time off work leads naturally enough to spending some time thinking. Not necessarily high quality thinking but this is what I've come up with so far (somewhat spontaneously and more for my benefit than yours and in no set order):

* The Modern Defence as the universal answer to any move by white (Steve, that's 1...g6 regardless of what white does).
* Read a book about the Modern Defence (or just make it up as I go along - the jury's still out on this one).
* Persist with The English as the universal white opening but with a more aggressive bent.
* Look at endgame play. Basically if I haven't won (or lost) when there's still a reasonable amount of material on the board then I will once we get into the endgame.

* Read more books.
* Read less shit books.

*Watch more films.

*Spend more time painting.

So this is what I have so far. Should I surmise certain facts from the fact there are whole areas of life that aren't covered? There's no mention of relationships, friendships and social stuff. So should I assume that all these areas are OK or just that I'm ignoring them? Maybe I'll go and think about these things next.

The picture, BT, is of Mikhail Tal.

Things I like today

Because I'm essentially a very very lazy busy person I've started a much smaller bite-sized blog on Tumblr that you can have a look at. it's called 'Things I like Today' and the idea is that it makes me do something nice everyday or failing that think about the things that I like doing or even just things that make me happy (sometimes).

Check out 'Things I like Today'.

Awopbopaloobop, Transition

Awopbopaloobop
Originally uploaded by Catfunt

This is the painting that I did for the current show at Transition. This is what the website says about the show:

The synthesis of music and art has a long history from pop to post modern, with particular songs becoming integral to the making of individual pieces of work. As Peter Doig recently remarked when asked if he listened to music whilst painting, 'don't all artists?'

Lyrics can develop a particular artistic poignancy and with this in mind Transition have asked over sixty artists to make a new work inspired by a favourite lyric for the show Awopbopaloobop.

My lyric is from Robert Johnson's Rambling on my Mind: "I got mean things, I got mean things all on my mind."

Things I like today...

The Wrestler: Mickey Rourke has the hair to end all hair (think David van Day meets Nicola big-tits-whatever-her-name-is) and is stunning as an aging wrestler in this new wave-ish Darren Aronofsky film.
Places to eat: Tre Viet near me and Soho Japan (for the lunch specials) in town.
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill: mostly for the cricket and Trinidad in New York.

It's *Rod* not *Rob*, Campaign

Campaign gets the name of Kangaroo's new CEO (and my new boss) ex-Channel 4er Rod Henwood wrong. Nice quote about Ashley though.

Charlie Brooker is like a god to me...

I just read CB's piece about The Tatler's Little Black Book supplement. Genius.

JG Ballard in French with my pic of the man on the cover

JG Ballard in French with my pic of JG
Originally uploaded by Catfunt

A really cute French publishing company, called Tristram (after Shandy), asked me a while ago if they could use a picture I'd taken of JG Ballard. They sounded really nice and I liked the stuff that they did (as well as the translation of JG they were doing Lester Bangs) so I let them use the pic for free. I then forgot about it. But the other day three copies of the book arrived in the post and it looks very fine too. Not surprisingly they reversed the image so JG point out rather than at the spine.

Brand, Ross, Sachs and The Daily Telegraph

I was a bit worried about the lack of coverage of the Ross, Brand and Sachs affair so have waded in despite having no first hand knowledge of what's going on. There's an excellent piece at the Telgraph's website by Neil McCormick where he points out amongst other things that Brand's listeners on Radio 2 are also license fee payers:


The notion of the BBC as a public service broadcaster is being much cited, with rather old fashioned concepts of how it should be upholding some kind of moral code. But everyone pays the license fee, including Ross and Brand's vast legions of fans. Some people actually want edgy, reprehensible humour on their radios and TVs, and would be more offended by the stuffy blandness of most BBC output. Maybe we should start emailing Jonathan Dimbley, and demanding he get a bit more saucy?
My favourite bit though are the comments, some are relieved that some journalists are prepared to keep the whole thing in proportion, see the other side and so on. The others are patently nutjobs (the best bit "If you think they are acceptable you shouldn't be writing for the Daily Telegraph."):


They shouldn't have been engaged by the BBC in the first place - at any price - not even if they paid to do it. If you think they are acceptable you shouldn't be writing for the Daily Telegraph.
As for your infantile remark about the off switch, where is the off switch for the licence fee, where is the off switch for the hundreds of millions of pounds that are poured into the BBC from the taxpayer's coffers.
Catering to the puerile cretins who appreciate and applaud such behaviour is not my idea of public broadcasting.
Good riddance to Brand and, with luck, to the other moron, Ross.

That told them.

Business Quote of the Day, 22 October 2008

“It’s not about having shitloads of shit.”

I work in a very classy place.

Alexa Chung and *Gary Hume*

So we went out with Maria making the schoolboy error of not ordering out and staying in to watch Arsenal take Fenerbahçe apart in the Europen Cup, in the process missing Adebayor's transformation from Saturday's donkey but with a worse first touch to last night's near Henry-like prefect finisher. Anyway on the upside in the dodgy but local Cat and Mutton not only did we run into (Yol says you use this in preference to "spotted" or "saw" as it implies an intimacy that patently isn't there) the extremely talented clothes horse and TV presenter Alexa Chung but also the fabulous Brit artist Gary Hume. For those or you who know Alexa's work but not Gary's here an interview with the man himself.