Mark Dean Veca, graff artist extraordinaire

I've just come across this little Youtube video about a graffiti artist called Mark Dean Veca. It's interesting seeing how he's taken cultural symbols and messed around with them.

I also like the line that he wants to make art "accessible to those who don't necessarily have an art eduction." Too right - I for one get too hung up on the fact that my work doesn't stand up to those by fine art graduates and the like, so it's nice to think not everyone who produces amazing stuff went down the graduate route.

Nice day, shame about the soundtrack

Look at this. It's what I'm looking at right now, sitting at the bistro table, with a perfect vista of the garden. From this angle you can't even see the building site next door. It looks like paradise.

But it doesn't sound like it. A minute ago I got an earful of some bloke shouting "Ronnie! I love you!" I have no idea who Ronnie is, nor do I have any inclination to find out. But I could, just from looking at the TV. because judging by the duff duff-duff-duff duff duff that signals the end of EastEnders, that must be exactly where I will find Ronnie and the person who loves him/her.

Thats the great thing about neighbours (the real life versions, not the soap). You can't live with 'em... On the one side I've got a couple who seem to want to double the living accomodation in their cottage with an extension and even a cabin at the bottom of the garden.

On the other side of the fence next to me, I have someone who has clearly decided to make it her aim in life to faithfully follow every soap opera ever made. Even on a sunny Sunday afternoon, with the temperature in the early seventies and her windows wide open.

This afternoon alone I've endured the Emerdale, Coronation Street and EastEnders omnibus editions. I wouldn't mind if I was deaf.

I would tell her to get a life, but she's probably too wrapped up in the lives of fictional characters to hear me. I feel like I know them already, and it's only been an afternoon.

Cycle log 10/05

The bike is back on the road. Picked it up yesterday, complete with a whole new front end. Easton EA 90x forks, handlebars and stem.

I had planned to replace like for like, but Bianchi don't seem to want to sell replacement parts. It took a few painfully long phone calls before I discovered this. They wanted me to wait 10 weeks for them to ship the forks from America. Yeah, right. With service like that you don't deserve customers. Easton forks are better anyway.

My first run was a reserved affair. Barely put any effort into it at all, but that was the plan - it was all about getting myself back on the bike. It might have been a minor incident in terms of injury, but I still felt a little nervy riding again, and spent most of the time expecting anothe car to pull out in front of me.

I did the run I usually reserve for evenings when I'm short of time - along the seafront to the Kurrsal, then up to Woodgrange roundabout and looping back past the Royals, along the top of the cliffs and dropping back to the seafront. Made it home in one piece, of course.

There's a massive 60-mile bike event next week for the Little Havens childrens' hospice. Wondering if it'll be a case of 'too much, too soon' after having a couple of weeks off. Tempting though.

Orange women

I don't like to be the one to criticise anyone for trying to look their best. Far better that than letting oneself go, by any measure. But some people really should take a good look at themselves before they go out in public.

Take the runner I encountered while out on my evening lap last night. She probably didn't realise that her skin had taken on the radiance of an umpalumpah thanks to some over-eager self tanning. I would bet she certainly didn't know that the backs of her legs looked like she'd lost control of a certain bodily function after a particularly orange-looking curry. The streaks indicated a badly applied fake tan. But it was the colour which stood out.

On the off-chance of anyone reading this being new to the fake tanning craze, it should be known it is available in varying shades. They have been developed to suit all kinds of skin. The idea is that you pick a shade that looks like you might have caught a bit of sun rather than taken a dip in a vatt of creosote.

There is a difference between a healthy sun-kissed glow and glow-in-the-dark radioactivity. Unfortunately, these days one can achieve both by way of a lotion or a spray.

Good taste and judgement is not included.

These boots ...

There's been a gradual shift over the past few seasons back to that whole lumberjack look that had a bit of a turn around the early nineties when everyone was wearing checked shirts and dodgy Caterpillar boots.

But Caterpillars are, like, soooo over, and instead we're seeing some innovative trainer - hiker hybrids instead. This started in Japan with the preference for high-end hikers and now the likes of Nike and Adidas have offered us some interesting little numbers.

The Adidas ObyO MT Boot in collaboration with Kazuki and Nike's new HT Dunk are both essentially trainers with hiker eyelets, but the result makes you feel like you could tackle the toughest gradient, or alternatively hack down your neighbour's tree. Whatever takes your fancy.

http://www.hanon-shop.com/

http://www.highsnobiety.com/

It's just a tickle you swine!

I don't know where it came from but given the recent hysteria, it couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient moment. One minute I'm surveying the lack of Braeburn apples in Waitrose, happily nattering on the phone to Lizzie, and the next I have an irresistable urge to cough.

It was one of those tickles that you just know nothing short of a lung-busting hack will shift and despite my best efforts to surreptitiously cough into my sleeve, the tickle remained.

I had already awakened the interest of an obviously news-savvy customer base. People started looking in my direction with disdain. I could have ran into the store naked and painted from head to toe in lime-green paint and I would have attracted less attention.

By the time I'd made my excuses to Lizzie and pocketed my phone to enable a full-on, sustained throat clearer, there wasn't a fellow shopper within ten feet of me. In the distance I could see looks of abject terror etched on faces. Here was living, breathing swine flu, IN THE SAME BUILDING! A SUPERMARKET NONETHELESS!

You might be relieved to know that I have exhibited no oinking or preferences for snuffling around in the mud, and I have put my coughing fit down to a rogue particle which must have lodged itself in my windpipe.

Not that the patrons of the St Katharines Dock Waitrose would believe that. They're most likely besieging their doctor for a dose of Tamiflu as I write.

On the plus side, at least I got a clear run to the checkout.

Flu protection, Japan style

As if the threat of a swine flu pandemic wasn't enough, you can now buy a surgical mask which will scare the living daylights out of anyone who catches sight of you.

The Japanese masks by Yoriko Yoshida are available with a freaky smiling human face or something that looks remarkably like one of the very pigs that could have started the whole thing off over in mexico.

Which brings us to another suggestion - why not simply slip a mexican wrestling mask over your surgical mask and do your bit for society by giving a coronary to passersby with a weak disposition? Let's face it, if you hadn't got them the fever would, so you'll be doing them a favour.