Had fun at Frazer's birthday drinks last night, except for the bit where Dave from Geek Syndicate French-kissed my nose, which was disgusting (right in front of his lovely girlfriend, too). Had an interesting conversation with Joel about "odd" London, although we seem to have quite different ideas about what constitutes "odd" — he tends towards things that are anachronistic because they are out of time, rather than the downright strange and peculiar that I tend towards. Also, I unintentionally joined two separate groups of people and managed get two men on the subject of their hair and completely off whatever subject they were talking about before I arrived. And they complain when women talk about their appearance!

Anyway, a good night, and a good opportunity for me to flex my creative muscles in making a card. It's not a brilliant card, because it was a bit last minute, but it felt good to get my hands dirty and have scraps of paper scattered on the floor when I was finished (there was a bit on the back, as well, and some stuff I cut out but didn't have time to use). I've had a bit of a creative block over the last couple of weeks, but I think I might have broken the back of it with making this card. I even took some photos today, for the first time since before Christmas, practically. Again, they're not brilliant, but I literally felt light-headed after my little session, as though a weight had been lifted. Here's to flexing those creative muscles even more this year.

I went to Comiket on Saturday, part of this year's Comica festival, which was pretty cool. It was nice to catch up with some of the usual faces, but there were also loads of people whose work I'd never seen before, and seeing new stuff at events like these is always good.

Less good was the complete lack of any signs telling anyone where in the building it was actually taking place, which was poor show on the part of the ICA. Also, once again, hardly anyone had any business cards so I could make note of who they were to seek them out later, when I have some spare cash to throw down on such fripperies. People, people! If you want punters to buy your stuff, you have to make it easy for them to find you when they have money! It's not rocket science! I picked up a few good things to read, but I'll write about them in another post.

Most of the afternoon was spent having increasingly surreal conversations in the bar with Mr Jones, Mr Webb and Doctoe. Subjects included but were not limited to: FLCL, innovative restaurant ideas, honey badgers, fake band names, the mechanics of horoscope creation, cows, and Gay Bingo.

Our favourite restaurant idea was Cut Pig, where diners can carve their own cuts of meat, though Matt1′s Play With Your Food idea is a pretty good one, as well. I don't think I'll ever see truffles in quite the same light again, however, after hearing that there is a French term for women who put truffles into their private parts to get pigs to pleasure them¹. Finding out that there's a place in the Middle East where they bury dead people with honey and dig it up months later so the honey tastes better² was also a bizarre moment, but prompted a great conversation about honey badgers. I can't believe there are still people out there who haven't heard of honey badgers! Honey badgers are great! They're pound for pound the most dangerous land mammal! They're a secret weapon! And they're a Bond-girl name waiting to happen…

One of the less ridiculous tangents of the conversation, prompted by three of us having a fan-group moment over Madame Zee, was about whether there are any specific mechanics or distinct formulas to create horoscopes, and how these would be affected with different input. Maybe one could create useful horoscopes based on things that actually do affect a person's morning, like traffic and pollen count and Evening Standard headlines. Those things are more likely to affect whether you feel like you're having a good day or a bad day than whether Venus is in the house of Jupiter or something.

The Gay Bingo was the subject of much speculation. I had read about it on the ICA site and forgotten all about it, but there was a delicious moment when I realised that it was starting around the same time that the Comiket folk would have finished packing up, prompting fantastic images of the clash of cultures scrapping over who got served first and where everyone would sit. This latter was actually enough of a concern for one rather aggressive butch dyke to come over to warn us that we might not want to stick around if we weren't actually playing, because it would get so rammed it would be difficult to leave. "I'm saying this for the benefit of you two gentlemen, actually. The girls won't have a problem." She did have a point — for anyone who's been there during a very busy Tuttle, it was actually even more crowded than that. Srsly.

By that point, the comics people were starting to arrive in the bar, looking for places to sit, so we left anyway, so somewhat to my disappointment we didn't find out the difference between Gay Bingo and regular bingo. If anyone knows, please enlighten us poor ignorant souls.

¹"I read it on the internet, so it must be true!"^3
2This may only be the product of Matt Webb's fevered brain.
³Actual veracity of this statement may be in doubt, also.

Matt posted some photos of Comiket over here.

I went to see Neil Gaiman read from The Graveyard Book at LSE, thanks to a spare ticket from Ade. It was pretty good, and I've decided I want my own pocket Gaiman that I could carry around so he could read me stories when I'm feeling bored or depressed. Not just his own stories, either; I have a feeling that he would be a great story-teller reading work by other people, too. Actually, I think that everyone would feel better with pocket Gaiman to carry around and tell them stories. Maybe we should clone him.

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I decided not to go to Thought Bubble up in Leeds next weekend, since it clashes with some other things I want to do in London. Instead, I'm spending Friday evening bidding farewell to Adam and Beth before they move to Tennessee, and going to see Dave McKean being interviewed by fellow artist Andrzej Klimowski at Comica on Sunday. I'm also thinking of going to see some silent movies and artists' films accompanied by live music at the Barbican on Saturday; either the Millennial Territory Orchestra meets Laurel & Hardy, or Bill Frisell scoring Jim Woodring and Buster Keaton. Or both. If anyone else wants to come? I am sad to be missing everyone going to Thought Bubble, though. Hope it's a good weekend!

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I stumbled upon Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Frequency and Volume at the Barbican, which was good fun, but would probably have been more effective with more people there.

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I went to the Polaroid retrospective at the AOP gallery with Paul. It was both interesting and disappointing. I was interested to see how much of the work on display looked nothing like yer basic humble medium format everyone-could-afford-one Polaroid photos that most people would be familiar with — but that was also the first disappointment. There were a lot of very interesting techniques used, but, frustratingly, absolutely no information about what those techniques were, or what type of Polaroid camera was used. Since most of these techniques are going to be lost once Polaroid film becomes completely obsolete, and since this was ostensibly a celebration of what Polaroid had to offer in its heyday, it seems such a shame not to have documented the processes to an audience that would obviously be interested. But it's a nice little gallery, and it was good to have the opportunity to visit it in the evening, so I'll be looking out for other shows there.

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I went to Tuttle Club a couple of times, and I signed up to Amp08, but I'll write about that some more in its own post.

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I went to the launch of Street or Studio: A Photobook at Tate Britain. The book is pretty good (see the pictures here), but the party was a bit odd. We weren't allowed to take drinks into the section where the book table and the projections were, and there was a room full of old masters that had been done out like a disco, with pumping music and flashing lights. It wasn't part of the Flickr party, just a regular part of the Late at Tate event, but it was somewhat surreal and, frankly seemed pointless since no one was dancing and it was too loud and too dark to actually look at the pictures! I'm not sure who they were trying to appeal to, except that it was so full of business suits that I thought it was some kind of private corporate party. Only it wasn't. Very weird. So we escaped to the Morpeth Arms just in time for them to have stopped serving food. It's had a refit, with all the normal height tables and chairs replaced by those stupid high tables and towering bar stools that make you look like an undignified idiot when you try to climb onto them, and are a liability if you're drunk. Fortunately, the furniture upstairs is at normal proportions, and the Tribute ale was tasty.

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I popped into Handmade & Bound at the awesomely kitsch and untouched St Aloysius Social Club, a place I've been past many times but never gone inside. I didn't buy much from the fantastically packed stalls, though there was a lot of beautiful stuff to be had, including one woman who makes the most gorgeous pop-up books. Unfortunately, once again, most people didn't have any kind of business card for me to to take so I could remember who they were afterwards. It was nice to see Xtina, Marc, Mark and Gav, anyway. Next time I'll try and buy more stuff!

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I went to Tarek's leaving drinks at The Couch, where they have no couches, and they serve disgusting Gordon's gin when you ask for a G&T, rather than the better-tasting Bombay Sapphire that's become the more standard basic gin of choice in most pubs and bars. But the company was great and we ended up in the New Evaristo (No.3 in Gentry Style's top five London bars); one of those after-hours basement drinking dens that is ostensibly a members' only place but, according to the lass who signed us all in, it seems that to become a member, all you have to do is get on well with the doorman so that he remembers you next time. Great end to a great night, anyway. (Good luck in Qatar, dude!)

Saturday: fry-up; hangover; Harvey; Some Like It Hot; long bath; bus to the Prince Arthur; LUC's first birthday; Nepalese curry take-away; whisky; sickly-sweet cake; surrounded by people colouring-in drawings of legs; watching people sign Sally-Anne's boobage; bus home at midnight.

Sunday: lovely roast dinner at The Crown And Two Chairmen; Burn After Reading; beer at The Harp; tube home; flake out with Penny Century.

Monday: bleurgh.

It wasn't quite how I expected my evening to end, either, as it had started quite normally, in a nice pub in a Victoria back street, for the Comics Reunited meet-up, with some old comics people. When I say "old" I mean people who were involved with the comics scene a while ago, back in the eighties and nineties. I suppose in some way that makes them old in age, too — I was certainly one of the youngest people there (although Cassandra had me beaten in youth by many years). In fact, most of the people were from before my time, because I never made it to any of the UKCAC events, but there were a few people I'd met before, so it was was good to catch up with them, and to make plans for seeing them more often (although the guy who'd invited me was a no-show — what happened, Ronnie?)

The Phoenix was a good choice of venue, too, as it hit all the right points of what I look for in a nice pub. They have a decent selection of beer (including good guest ales), good food (slightly pricey but cooked to perfection), friendly staff and a great location — it's only a few minutes from Victoria station, but seems like it would usually be pretty quiet at the weekends. Well, at the weekends that it's not filled with hordes of people having a reunion. One to remember, I think.

Speaking of UKCAC, a google brings up Jeremy's comic strip about UKCAC — click through for the whole six pages. It's a pretty accurate account of every comics convention I've been to, actually.

In terms of enjoyment of the con, it probably didn't help that I missed all of the panels I had any interest in attending, due to travel and seeing friends. Seeing those people was actually the highlight of my weekend, so I didn't really mind missing the panels, but it did mean that paying £16 for a weekend pass was a steep price to pay just to go into a couple of rooms and look at some comics on some tables (especially as one of the BICS organisers told me I could have got a free pass if he'd known I was going — not that he reimbursed me, mind you). It was also the first time that I've ever come home without having bought a single comic at all. There was nothing which screamed that I must buy it right now, and that was pretty disappointing. Maybe I've just got higher standards than I used to have — in some ways, I'd like to think so, given that I've been to about 25 comics conventions in the last eight years, and have bought an awful lot of dross in that time. That's a more cheery thought than the notion that comics are all shit right now — and I really don't think that's true! Eesh, I hope not, anyway.

My highlight of the weekend was nothing to do with BICS or comics at all. I always like going to these events to see the people, anyway, and it was fantastic to catch up with friends I hadn't seen for ages. I hadn't seen Pete for about a year, and it was even longer since I'd seen Olulabelle and Mix, and it was lovely to meet their two boys for the first time, as well.

We had brunch at the Kitchen Garden Cafe (the food took a bloody long time to reach us, but it was yummy, and they did knock half the items off the bill to make up for the slow service), and then we went to look at piles of rice in an old warehouse in the jewellery district.

That was actually way more interesting than it sounds, and not just because Birmingham's jewellery district is a really interesting place historically and visually. The piles of rice formed an exhibition called Of All The People In All The World, aka thericeshow. You might not think that seeing piles of rice would be interesting, but each pile represented a fascinating statistic, many of which challenged our preconceptions and prejudices in a way that really got us thinking and talking. Some of them were very poignant, some filled me with disgust, some were admirable, and some were just plain silly. We were encouraged to take photos, so you can see some of the more interesting statistics in this photoset.

One in particular made us laugh, the one about John William Gott being the last man in the UK to be jailed for blasphemy after comparing Jesus to a clown. Not that this is intrinsically funny in itself (although it is ironic that his surname means "god" in German — God thought Jesus was a clown!), but because earlier, outside the warehouse, we'd spotted a figure stencilled on a wall, with a face on its chest, and we couldn't work out if the face was supposed to be Jesus or Charles Manson (which is quite a difference, I think you'll agree!). Maybe Charles Manson was really just a stand-up comic. He's certainly as self-obsessed as most stand-up comedians.

The exhibition is worth checking out if you get a chance. It's moving to Barcelona, and then continues to tour the world, so it might show up in your hometown eventually.