Oracle Roulette is moving! Now at oracleroulette.com...

If you are wonderful enough to have bookmarked me, then firstly THANKS! You're pretty bloody ace :). 

Secondly, please update your bookmarks and/or links - I've moved over to Wordpress (sorry google) and I'm now at: www.oracleroulette.com. Much easier to remember, and makes me cringe substantially less every time I give out the url (there is pre-existing evidence for me not liking rubbish names like - um - blogspot... *runs and hides*). Oh and the comments work. PHEW!

Clearly, even if you've not yet bookmarked me so far, then you should still visit me over on oracleroulette.com, because it would be lovely to see you there. Please say hello when you visit! (The comments section over there works, did I mention that?).

This site will stay open, but it won't have any new posts, so get yer botties over to my new site. You can subscribe to it over there and everything. 

Faking it...

...for Counterfeit. Ok thats a really shite title, I'll admit it. But I am rubbish at headlines still, and I simply want to show you these links to a couple of articles I've done for Counterfeit magazine, who have kindly humoured me and allowed me to waffle on for a few pages about tuneful noises. Well that's just the kind of magazine I like quite frankly.

So - here they are: 

First of all a short snippet from a night of Synthpop at the legendary Sheffield Grapes (yes I did really drive all that way for no more than free entry and a complementary miniature hero..)

...followed by what I got up to at the fast-becoming-legendary Live At Leeds Festival in - er - Leeds. Photos (including the one above) are by the certainly-should-be legendary Dan Sumption

Hope you like :)

Icelandic banking or British politics?

You know how there's always something you forget when you go on holiday? Well I've forgotten my guidebook. But actually it's not really that much of a disaster. I've been before, have a rough idea of a couple of the things I'd like to see, and am meeting up with a(n) acquaintance(s) who have offered to take me to hot rivers and to bars (I'm still assuming the names I was given were names of bars and not strip joints... I'll probably still go anyway mind..).

I have no actual plans and won't until I get there, but I think that's actually the kind of trip I want. I'm going to Reykjavik (amidst cries of "plug up that bloody volcano while you're there"; "so you're going to see the volcano then"; "is it safe?"; "HOW are you going to get there, aren't all the flights cancelled?" and "ooh isn't it expensive?"), and I loved it so much last time I went, I'm actually going this time to find out a  bit more about the real Reykjavik and Iceland, and seeing if it's somewhere I could live. Not having a guide book will mean I have to ignore my instinct to have lots of lie-ins, go buy some tourist tat and end up in Sodoma every night, and talk to people who live there, do as many different things as possible, and maybe even learn some Icelandic. Even though I can't roll my "R"s. One thing is certain, there will be lots of late nights and lots of stupid photographs taken :)

Despite all this yet-to-be-written adventure, I'm a little bit sad to be out of the UK this weekend, as I'll miss all the bitching, backstabbing and coercing that will see the future of my country unfold. A hung parliament (in any other country it would be referred to positively as an opportunity for coalition government, where politicians - gasp! - work TOGETHER!), negotiations on people actually cooperating for positive change, and discussions on how electoral reform might happen, plus of course the incessant genius, sarcasm and insight of twitter - I'll miss it all as it happens and have to wait to find out how people are actually dealing with it (and exactly how much transparently obvious spin David Cameron thinks he can fool us with).

But onto more immediate things - I have a volcano to go and investigate! I've no idea which side of the plane Eyjafjalla will be on my trip up (some have told me right, some have told me left) - but I've got a right hand window seat and will be there like a sad geek with my camera and if nothing else I'll get some cool pictures of clouds. Or the glacier. While I glug coffee and dream of leaving the chaos behind.

[I'm posting this from Terminal 1 on an overpriced internet connection and the right click doesn't work so I am unable to copy picture links into this today. But I'll try my best for next time, promise x]