steven.vu

China City | Concept at Battery Studios | Schlepp Records

I got an email a few weeks ago from Kevin. He’s been reading my site and quite randomly invited me to dinner with his friends. Not having much to do, I politely accepted his invitation. I was a little apprehensive about meeting someone through the interweb, so just to be sure I dragged Graham along. By heaven’s grace I wasn’t murdered.

China City was good. Nice food and a chilled out atmosphere. The tsingtao beer was a little too easy to drink. I refreshed myself to the game of chai mui and merrily drank the night away. I don’t think I learnt it right the first time.

We had a private room, I think they’re free with a minimum spend of £250 and you get a karaoke machine and table sitting ten. There was a white girl singing in Chinese. Apparently she studied Chinese for 4 years. How odd.

We left China City and headed over to Yates on Leicester sq. I had another couple of drinks before Chris called me. Chris and Rachel were heading to Schlepp record’s studios. It’s not actually their studios, but they rent a room at Battery Studios on 1 Maybury Gardens in WIllesden. It’s a rather professional affair. I was expecting a basement in someones house.

Chris rapping.

Ayi impersonating Chris.

The track is pretty damn good. It’s a dance track with Barry the Liverpudlian singing in Cantonese, Ayi backing in Mandarin and Chris rapping. The rapping track took 1 take. Ayi took another take and the editing was done in a pretty slap dash way using Logic. It turned out really good.

Here’s a little video of Christopher Leslie Evernden performing a few months ago.

Chris asked me why this website comes up when you search Christopher Leslie Evernden. I told him it was because I was cooler than him.

Scamming No Limit Texas Holdem | Grosvenor Casino

I’ve been to quite a few Casino resorts; Macau and Mocbai. Between them i’ve visited half a dozen casinos.

Yesterday I actually played in one. Chris Leslie Evernden aka “Concept” the rapper, had a clever little scheme that was sure to make money. Off we went; Rachel, Chris, Graham and I in his mini. We put some gangsta rap on and went posing down to Edgeware Road.

The scam was this; 4 people play on the same table. We all play like tight assholes, only playing pairs and premium hands. It’s not really a scam – just tedious. It’s all legit, but the fact that you can make money is dubious to say the least.

We went to the Grosvenor Casino on Edgeware Rd. It’s one of the safest places to stay if an all out terrorist attack happened to hit London. Registering was easy enough and off we went.

Each of us converted £25 into chips and sat down at the table. We got down to business.

In three hours of play, we played a dozen hands. Fucking boring.

I hit with a pair of kings in my pocket and the flop went down. Two aggressive players played it out and forced me to go all in. I won the hand doubling my chips to £53. Next was Graham. He got queens in his pocket. Everyone folded before he could eek any money out. He then played a little loose and got to about £40 in chips. Rachel was the luckiest. She hit pocket tens. The flop came down. She’d made three of a kind 10s. Everyone on the table went in except Chris, Graham and I. The pot got to about £90 and she cleaned up.

About 2 hours into the game it was like this;

• Rachel – £90
• Me – £50
• Graham – £40
• Chris – £15

Not bad. This could work.

Now here’s the bad point. The casino makes its money on a rake per half hour. Every half hour we each had to pay £3. In total we stayed for 3 hours, so the total the Casino raped off us was £72.

That’s a lot of money considering we only bought in £100 in total.

As the night wore on, the rakes and blinds killed us. By the last hour, I was down to £20. Chris was down to £5 and Graham was down to £20. Rachel luckily cashed out.

I decided I couldn’t play like this. It was 1.30am and I thought fuck it. I went all in. Chris went all in. An even tighter arsed player, hit pocket aces. I couldn’t have given a shit.

We ended the night with:

• Graham – £10
• Me – £0
• Rachel – £80
• Chris – £0

We lost £10 between us for 3 hours work. If i’d have had more discipline, we’d have been £10 up.

Moral of the story:

I have no doubt that if the play was more refined, we’d have been able to double our money. Is it really worth it though? To play poker so tight that it doesn’t become fun. If we’d all have stuck to a dead end job for 3 hours, we’d have made £60 guaranteed, rather than some pot luck dream.

I’ll go to the Casino again, but with the intention of having fun.

Corporate branding | Rush Hour 2 | Vietnamese food at Kingsland Rd.

Rush Hour 2

Chris Leslie Evernden aka Concept and Ayi were set to play at Rush Hour 2. A Chinese party organised by JnG promotions. He called me the day before.

I’m not a particularly busy person so said I’d come. After trying to convince a few people to come and watch and failing, I decided to go by myself.

The venue was in Bank, 24 Cornhill Rd and in a club called Abacus. Rather upmarket.

I got there and said I was on Concepts guestlist. She looked at me in awe. Was Chris this famous? She turned around and spoke to her boss; he said sorry, it’s still £10. Obviously he wasn’t that famous.

I mulled around by myself for 20 odd minutes and had a couple by myself. I bumped into Chris’s friend and got even more drunk.

Chris and Ayi got on stage at 1am. They were awful. Not because they were awful, but because the sound was awful. All you could hear was a beat, feedback every few seconds and a mess. If the sound was better, then I’m sure it wouldn’t have been that bad.

Branding.

We’re trying to create a brand. The brochure had a very corporate image so we decided to add in a mascot. I stumbled past istock.com and bought some vector monsters. We used our swatch to colour them and made some nice ID cards. Each employee now has a monster.

We’re also getting the monsters made into stamps; if you like a kid then you can stamp their work. I’ll post some pictures when they’re done.

Vietnamese food at Kingsland Rd.

There’s a road near old street that’s full of Vietnamese Restuarants. I went with mother and her friend. My mother’s friend is buying a restuarant down the road so thought she’d check out the competition.

We went to a place called Viet Grill. Owned by the people who set up Cay Tre. My mother and her friend could probably name the owners of most Vietnamese restuarants in London. It’s the way things are.

Adventures of Bertie the couch – London

Max got drunk a few months ago. He was in a bad way. We decided to leave him in the office after he refused to go home. The next day we arrived to the sweet smell of ammonia. He’d pissed himself.

A few months later, Max finally felt enough guilt to buy us a new couch. Guilt is a rather rare and disturbing development in Max’s psyche.

After buying the couch from Max’s manager, we towed it through Kingston. The heat was immense and we sat down for a quick fag break. From here on in, we took a break every 5 minutes.

We passed our old school, Tiffin Boys, and decided to pop in and take a couple of snaps. Unfortunately the CCTV caught us and a couple of bemused teachers confronted us. Thankfully they were nice enough to let us take a few pictures before moving us on. That’s Mr King on the left, my old Geography teacher.

After seeing Mr King, I decided a pint would be best. The problem is the closest pub, was full of our old teachers. On a summers afternoon, all the teachers fuck off down the pub. It’s an unwritten rule that students are not to fraternise with the teachers. They’re embarressed of us. Like people don’t know they’re bloody teachers. For the Tiffinian’s amongst you, we saw:

• O’Connell
• Williams
• Liddy
• Skirton
• Lipchenska [sic]
• Girling

I started chatting to them. I offered them all a job . They kindly refused. At this point the cider soaked in and we decided to take Bertie to London.

It’s surprisingly easy to get a couch onto a train. At first, you feel slightly eccentric, but after 10 minutes it’s just like the commute. I read through that shite paper, The London Paper; While it’s better than the London Lite, it’s still just an aggregation of the AP. I’m secretly hoping that i’ll be in it tomorrow, under the “You were on the train sitting on that couch looking dapper, coffee sometime? x” section.

The couch had never seen the London Eye before, so we decided to stop by. British Airways refused our couch on the Eye. Maybe next time.

After the Eye, we dragged the sofa over the bridge towards Embankment. I got a busker to serenade Max and I. Max got a little carried away and tried to kiss me.

After that little incident, I decided I needed another drink. We entered the first pub along that steep road towards Charing Cross. The pint tasted like it’d been sweetened with sugar. Do avoid. We met some chef’s from the Royal Society of Arts, he did his best to explain what or where it was, but I really wasn’t listening. I do remember where they were from; Scotland, Liverpool and Sweden respectively. They seemed each to bear the stereotypes of their respective places.

My phone camera isn’t best suited to night pictures. We asked quite a few people to take a picture with their cameras, but no one’s emailed them to me. Darn.

I can’t remember how many people have sat on this couch. I’m assuming it’s a lot.

To the future

Bertie is resting in our office. I don’t know if he can bear another trip. We’ll try and find another sofa from somewhere. I was thinking down the Mall, Leicster Sq and Hyde Park next. During the summer we could do the festivals. Maybe calling Ikea would be a good idea.

Click on page 2 for the full gallery.

Driving with a Gangster

I’m so supposed to go to Raffles with Jin and Graham. As i’m in London already I make the great mistake of heading back so that Jin can give me a lift. This doesn’t work as he fucks off to god knows where, which leads me twiddling my thumbs all night.

Not being sore about it, I settle down to a night on the couch. I’d have stuck in Amelie or some other girly movie which i’m partial to at the moment, but the thought of seeing Pearl on TV was a little too much of a draw. Posh and louded is on – great shit.

Chris
The home phone rings at 1:32. Only one of my cockish friends would call at this time. Turns out he called my mobile enough times so fair enough. “I passed my driving test! I’ll be at yours in 5 min”. I’d be surprised, except it’s Chris. He turns up 30 minutes later, which is also expected. Turns out he’s borrowing his mothers Rav4 for the night. She doesn’t know and he doesn’t have insurance. Fun ride.

Zoe

To the women, a Rav4 is a Japanese rip off of the 4×4 off roader which has the sporting appearance of a Range rover’s bastard son. The door open and out pumps the most ludicrously loud obnoxious shit ever. I’m liking it. Zoe’s in the front. Main reason I agreed to go out was to ponce a fag. I try to gesture at her but the music’s far to distracting. Telling her this would give me negative points.

Chris is posing with the driving. Doesn’t matter where he’s going as long as it looks good. We decide to drive down to London. He nearly crashes repeatedly. He stalls 3 times – once at a traffic light. He tries the sporting start that you do on grand turismo. It doesn’t quite work as the sporting gear box can’t quite live up to its name. We get lost and end up in Camden for a little while.

I try to meet up with Jeannine but she’s left at this point. Shame.

p.s how I miss my camera. Old photos included for reference.

Weekly Media – Civil Rights Part I: Civil Disobedience

One of the more difficult considerations for anyone attempting to construct a political philosophy is that of Civil Disobedience. How is it classified? Or more importantly, what is allowed, and what is counted as terrorism in our increasingly intolerant and paranoid (paranoia is a good thing) society?

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