Russell Davies

teenagers in the house

We've got my nephew staying for a few days. And his mate. I spend a lot of time trying to work teenagers out for work but it's a long time since I've shared a house with them. They spent most of their time looking through our itunes library and giggling at names like Echo And The Bunnymen and Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark. Quite impressed by my DJ Shadow completist tendencies though. I like their combination of shyness and bravado; they won't move rooms without asking permission, but they're quite happy to brave the security guards and go skating around Euston station. Good kids.

damn lucky

I'm not a sneaker obsessive, but I'm interested. (I'm basically just into Zoom Haven's). And I have a small collection of skateboards. And I'm a huge fan of Futura's work. Got all the books and stuff. So when I heard about the splay/futura For Love Or Money skate project I thought I had to get me one. So I did. But then I heard that they'd had a draw and I'd won these. Futura. For Love Or Money. Dunks. They are just lovely. Apparently there's only 24 on the planet. And they're never going on ebay. I'm keeping these. I've never won anything before. I'm damn lucky.

previous lifes

This site (via things) reminded me of my previous life as an internet pioneer. (I especially remember presenting at an internet conference in 95/96 with a little line at the bottom of a chart saying 'How many divisions has Ivan Pope?', possibly the smallest, most obscure joke ever.)

One big moment was gathering in a boardroom at Sun's offices in London. There were all kinds of UK internet gurus gathered there, in hushed expectation, not quite sure what we were going to see. There was a little bit of blather, then they loaded a webpage and this little character appeared on the screen and STARTED WAVING. We couldn't believe it. It was astonishing. character appeared on the screen and STARTED WAVING. We couldn't believe it. It was astonishing. (I still don't know enough about Java to actually make it wave here.) Living through the mass arrival of the internet was strange. My son will look at me in complete bemusement when I talk about dialling up. And he'll probably never hear that strange logging-on, hand-shaking sound you used to get out of a modem.

hotel tax

I've been travelling for a couple of weeks. Portland. Seattle. Manchester. Had a great bunch of stuff to post. But I left my trusty camera in a hotel room. And though I called the hotel from the airport, not two hours after I'd checked out, it had already disappeared. That's how it seems to be with hotels. If you leave anything behind, then your forfeit it. It's like a tax on forgetful people. Fair enough I suppose.

Anyway, I plan to buy a new camera tomorrow. So maybe I'll get a blogging head of steam up again.

the things you see

Monday morning. Walking to work down Great Titchfield Street. Saw about 60 horses being walked down the road. Army horses presumably. Funny old place London.

not that russell davies

For obscure and silly reasons this blog was once called paincave. And now it seems to be called 'russell davies'. Which is reasonable because it's my name. Though it seems unusual for a blog. And it causes difficulties because 9 times out of 10 I'm not the Russell Davies people are looking for. I'm the wrong Russell Davies.

I'm not the Russell Davies who wrote Queer as Folk and is writing Doctor Who. (He's actually Russell T. Davies.)

I'm not the Russell Davies who presents a show on Radio 2 and used to write for the Sunday Times. Maybe he still does. (Though once, when I was writing jokes for a living, the BBC confused his tax and mine and spooked the inland revenue badly.)

I'm not Dennis Russell Davies (obviously, he has a different name, but Google doesn't work that way) American Conductor and Composer.

I'm not Russell Davies, anaesthetist, who pioneered the recovery room concept at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.

In fact I'm no kind of Russell Davies at all. All these superior achieving Russell Davies's make me feel a bit rubbish. And there's a ton more out there too. However, I'm the one that's blagged the russelldavies.com namespace. Which seems to make me part of a phenomenon.

help is at hand

just incase you can't find a shade of ecru that works with beige. the gap stylists are here to help.

it's the strangest thing...

...people are starting to read this. And not just people I already know. It's a very nice feeling. But weird. And other, brilliant blogs like i like and things, have linked to me and said lovely things. Which is like being on TOTP or something. What's odd is the funny truths it forces you to acknowledge. You pretend that you're just writing it for yourself. But obviously you're not. You're writing it to be read by people; with a funny mixture of arrogance and showing-off; but when people start to find it you begin to feel nervous. Ah, bollocks, whatever.

good/bad

this is my favourite example of a horrible thing with a beautiful name. the saffron hill ncp.

incongruity

there's someone who could have done with some consultancy. 'committee' just doesn't seem the right word to go with 'visit brazil'