Quote, Unquote.

Vogue UK, December 2009.

Anywhere

Asia's current spate of torrential monsoon weather means instead of dreaming of visiting faraway, far-flung places I'm dreaming of discovering supernatural-seeming pastures that wouldn't seem out of place in a magical realist novel.

(Images: Various sources that can be traced through my Tumblr.  Which I've given a bit of a makeover.)

Bring Your Own Ghetto Blaster

I love living in Seoul.  I get to go to parties under bridges.  Like a tramp.

(Image: thexoxokids)

The Growlers

I want to go on tour with The Growlers and pretend I’m in Almost Famous.  They can be Stillwater to my Penny Lane.

Any band that sound like The Doors and have Bill Murray as a fan are definitely worth ambling around America for.

Any band in the world are worth living an idyllic, sedentary lifestyle of surfing, eating and vintage shopping for.

GENERATION OS13

This is an enlightening and artistic short documentary about the current shocking state of Britain and its economy, and who is to blame for the continual recession.  (I'll give you a clue: It's the rich and the powerful).

I've always felt politicised and yet apathetic.  A paradox perhaps, but one that is recognisable in much of the people of Britain today.  We seem to be struggling with finding an outlet for our frustrations when making our voices heard on marches, sit-ins - even riots - draw a total blank.

What can we do apart from get angry and self-educated when our government is blatantly ignoring us?  How do you overthrow a leader when there seems to be no-one qualified enough to replace them?

Please send your answers on a postcard emblazoned with a funny political slogan, along the lines of the ones below.

You can vote for your favourite in Don't Panic's placard competition.

P.S, I used to work at the same place as Anika, the blonde musician in the documentary.  I had heard that she made really bizarre, crap music and that has truly been confirmed.

New

New hair, new shoes, new toes.

Subway Shopping

What do you use as a merchandising technique when you only own a tiny space to display your clothing, in the narrow path of a subway station?

You take polaroids of hip Korean girls wearing your wares and you glue them onto your displays.

Bodysuit

You know how sometimes you see images that you love so much that you want them imprinted patchwork-style onto a bodysuit so that you can sew yourself into it and, like, be the images?  

That's how I feel about these Beth Hoeckel prints.

Vintage magazines and photographs, smushed together to make uber images.  Genius.

(Images: Beth Hoeckel)

Fisheye

Train rides

The Welsh countryside

Snow

Summer tricycling

Finn's squat-like back garden in Canton

Cardiff Queen Street

Voodoo and Vaccines

The first time I ever felt guilt at being privileged enough to be from a developed country was as a twelve-year old in Thailand.  I saw a leper, wizened from the disease and begging for money on the street.  He had one baht in his wooden bowl and I had ten in my hand.  I didn't give him my money.  I spent it on candyfloss at the beach.  I felt horrible about it for days afterwards, and still feel the same way about eating candyfloss as Naomi Campbell should when she wears fur and diamonds (dickhead).

Watching Voodoos and Vaccines, a joint VBS and One production about made me think about this sense of guilt that reoccurs when I think about the disparity between my less-than-affluent, generally mediocre life and that of some of those in the developing world.  It comes from that feeling that I should be doing more than just buying a charity shop dress once in a while.  I wish that filling in my details on a digital petition at the end of the documentary made me feel warm and glowy, but it's not quite enough, is it?

(Although you should all sign it immediately.  It's a start at least).

Does anyone else get this almost childish urge to save the world one moment, only to feel hypocritical, selfish and useless in the next?