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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

At the one end is simple disagreement ‘€“ voicing your view that you think the Government is wrong. At the other is the realm of hare-brained plots involving gas or other devices to try and make a political point to a people you don’€™t think can listen. And in between are countless degrees of protest, usually by students, hippies and other forms of Liberal scum. What should be legal?

The issue first came to my attention with the now-legendary Stop The War rally prior to the invasion of Iraq. Official sources said 1.5 million, Liberal sources said over 2 million people turned out to voice their discontent at the Government’€™s decision. This worried me at the time and it worries me now.

Largely it stems from the increasingly decadent attitude of society in the new century. I shouldn’€™t need to explain how this causes increases in Liberal attitudes and damages the State. But it also stems from laws that I consider too lax to prevent this kind of criminal activity from occurring; a vicious circle of lawmakers born out of the decadent society deciding to loosen already-weak laws.

But what should the laws be? My attitude against public protest is more pragmatic than philosophical. If 1.5million protesters were in Hyde Park, let us say 1% were able-bodied fighters. This leaves 15 000 potential revolutionaries ‘€“ vastly outnumbering the security forces available to deal with the situation should it escalate out of hand, and with a million human shields to prevent live ammunition being used. Furthermore, if 3% of the population were near enough to London to engage in Revolutionary activity, how many more potential revolutionaries are there around the country? Probably far more than the population of the military garrisons around Britain. And it would be fair to guess that far more than 1% of the protesters were able-bodied.

By contrast I don’€™t have the kind of pathological aversion to freedom of speech that might be implied. I agree with Voltaire:

‘€œI disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’€?

Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are both inalienable, as far as I can see, mainly because I agree wholeheartedly with indoctrination, but even to disagree with the State and Party cannot be a punishable offence in itself.

But to oppose the Party is an entirely different matter. I disagreed (in principle, not from a realistic viewpoint) with the same invasion of Iraq, but I was genuinely shocked when it was suggested to me that I attend said rally (which I didn’€™t do) because my firmly held belief is that the View of the Party is superior to the View of the Individual. It is not our place to question the Government in deed, only in word.

More importantly, some means of questioning are more suitable than others. Organising a rally and trying to spread one’€™s belief (I know a good many Liberals, but I can’€™t imagine that many people were that opposed to the war initially) without official backing is effectively treason. It’€™s not a semantic issue. Spreading anti-Party propaganda is treason. So the only morally right choice is to acknowledge that one disagrees with the Party, and then stand by it anyway and (in that instance) support the War, voicing uncertainty to the people in power but more importantly, leaving the decisions to those same people and staying United as a nation.

So where do protests become illegal? As a general rule, I would say all organised protest should be illegal. And had I been Commissioner of the Met at the time of that rally, I would have ordered use of tear gas. But some things are too small to exercise the Iron Fist of Britain. Off the cuff, I can’€™t think of any justified examples of organised protest in recent decades, only situations where calling out a regiment of riot Police would be overkill.

The other entirely practical consideration is that there is no necessity for public protest anyway because, as is invariably demonstrated, it doesn’€™t work. Protesters are always a minority ‘€“ maybe a minority convinced of their own correctness but still a minority. The majority view in this country at the time of that infamous rally was, after all, pro-War (not necessarily for moral reasons; I was pro-War because I felt it was in Britain’€™s interests to side with America. I stand corrected). Most inhabitants of Kiev were pro-Russia. The protest is a last resort of a minority unable to concede that they are not wanted by the whole and as a result, civil rights are actually protected by a strict control of public gatherings. 5000 people can force an ex-Soviet country to change President, even if the other 5million inhabitants are in favour of the outgoing candidate. Or more recently, the vast majority of Chinese are trying to settle their difficulties with Japan peacefully; only the few troublemakers intent of provoking violence have been protesting.

So the overwhelmingly obvious fact is that the Right to Public Protest is in fact a breach of, or constraint upon, civil rights, and not their first incarnation. The people have a right to security and unity; they do not have the right to impose the will of the unenlightened, Liberal Few upon the backs of the Many. In so many ways Liberal attitudes are damaging to the State. If anything, the dilemma of freedom of speech is resolved by the view that Protest is in fact injurious to true freedom of speech.

Morally I remain ambivalent, but as with the War, one often has to take the side of lesser evil rather than the side of good. I respect the fact that a ban on public gatherings would infringe some of the rights of the individuals protesting, but the fact remains that the right of the State to its own security is infinitely more important than any rights of a minority. A minority has rights, but they are less important than the rights of the majority, or those of the State, because it is only by preserving Unity of the entity as a whole that its component parts may be preserved. This is the flaw in the reasoning of the Liberal: To give an individual more rights than the State is to undermine the State, and to undermine the State is to undermine its component parts. It is only by making the State as a whole the foremost power that its members can be adequately protected.

Today’s quite a depressing day, it’s such a stark contrast to how proud the city was yesterday. I don’t want to rehash the events of the day as you’ve probably got much better news sources than me.

It has put quite a dampener to what turned out to be quite a fun day last night, a quick tour of watch this space, a 2hr talk on voices to make poverty history; including speakers such as Kofi Annan and Gorden Brown at St. Pauls. This was all followed by a thoughtful drink at the underbelly in Hoxton while listening to the SohoDolls, or more honestly, staring at the keyboardist. Whether she knew how to play the keyboard was debatable.

Watch this Space

Watch this space was it’s usual elegance, a small band on a small stage playing small time music. It wasn’t up to scratch that day though, a largely instrumental band playing traditional indes music with the electro acoustic guitar giving little of an edge. We were late for the debate so left, just as we were doing so they let out with a song which made me want to stay.

Voices against Poverty

The debate turned out to be a preaching sermon (at St. Pauls no less) by various important political leaders on the terror of world poverty. A preaching to the willing with no real sense of change in the air. More along the lines of Live8 without the music and more of the same catch phrases repeated. I was more expecting the nuances on how to achieve the end of world poverty by 2015, exactly which subsidies to the western world had to be cut and how Africans could pick themselves out of a rut. Instead, there was an urge to sit and listen and think about it – . When asked “what can one person do to make a difference”, the reply was a mediocre, “Let’s get together and form groups so we can talk and pity more efficiently”, (Paraphrasing, obviously) – Voices against Poverty indeed.

An interesting couple of hours all in all. To listen to Gordon Brown speak and feel some what changed, in the same way that watching an indie movie gives you that sense of change, yet the feeling rarely ever surpasses to the next day. I’d have rather enjoyed a lecture given to 200 cynical business men to invest in Africa, rather than a couple of thousand fervant Christians wanting to help.

The Soho Dolls – Underbelly – Hoxton Square

And so feeling changed, me, Dave, Rosanna and Mike spent a good 30min trying to find a bar to get hammered. This was no ordinary bar, we’d signed up to see SohoDolls for free; free cocktails, free music, free ambiance. All except i’d forgotten to sign up, it’s daunting after a 30min trek with the chance that they’ll just turn you on your arse and send you scampering along. As I was hoping, it was a lax affair and we entered without much hassle.

So we’re there sitting and chatting, i’m being rude to Rosanna and she surprises me by saying she reads this site. Great. I try to come back with, your twin sister’s pretty fine. I end up texting her, asking her for a drink. Should be fun.

The greatest thing about the SohoDolls is, if I haven’t mentioned so already, that the Keyboardist is So attractive. She was dressed very kitsch and just stood out from the mostly grungery alternative indie dressed people. Indie has become a by-word for ugly in my books. She overshadowed the lead singer in ways the lead singer was obviously aware of, having to strip down to a self made bra of Gaffa tape. Ok, just a strip of Gaffa tape. I doubt she thought it through very far before she did it.

We walked home from Old Street St. to Trafalgar Sq. roughly 6 hours from the explosion. On the bus back, the conversation turned to my failings in life and what was I to do. I obviously hadn’t put much thought to it as I ended up contradicting myself a fare few times.

Hey hey my little fruityliciousnessess…

This article marks a somewhat ‘comeback posting’ for me after my brief vacation in the land of exams: freak sunny weather, very little alcohol and equally stressed, demoralised and somewhat tetchy ‘natives’. BUT, since that is all now out of the way and I’ve returned home to the freedom of drab and dreary weather, mixed with the joys and freedoms of exam-less life, I have to say is: ‘Let the good times roll, and the frolicking continue!’ In essence, my summer (‘Of Love’?!) has begun very much in earnest, today being the first day in a week where I’ve had more than 5 hours sleep and in my own bed. Drawback is of course that I now have no money for all my ventures this summer. Now, knowing the spendings of more than one of the readers/writers/site owner of SPIELOFF I’m pretty damn sure that there’s a lot more people in the same boat: penniless, homeless and bloody hungry. Now it seems that Mr. Steven ‘site-owner’ Vu can help you, regarding the hunger with his new burger deals, and as for homelessness, try ‘Shelter’, they do a lot of good work around the country and especially in London, poignant methinks for my column…

What I CAN help you with is the first dilemma I mentioned, penniless frivolity! Over the summer, I shall strive to inform and educate you on many a cheap (or indeed free!) happening in and around London, starting this week with what the Vu-man mentioned briefly in one of his postings. No, not cheap burgers, but instead the ‘Watch This Space’ event outside the National Theatre on the Southbank. Now the Southbank in any instance is always a fantastic place to be anyway, a very artisan and bohemian place with its ‘Villier’ arches, book stalls, Tate Modern, Royal Festival Hall, Hayward Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, the Millennium Eye, National Theatre, National Film Theatre, The Globe…and the list goes on and on…

However, an added incentive to visit the Southbank now comes in the shape and size of the aforementioned ‘Watch This Space’ festival. Running until the 3rd September, it promises to be as ever a delightful and interesting festival full of colours, magic, dance, music, theatre and film. There are ‘acts’ on every day, sometimes even twice a day. Having been for the past two years, it really is the most eclectic mix of performance artists. I mean thinking back, the two big acts which won me over last year were the ‘Le Parkour’ (Free running) guys, and the surprise artists ‘Hayseed Dixie’: bluegrass galore! My thoughts exactly, random! Oh and the year before that was the acrobatic troupe that you see in between BBC programmes, you know, the guys rolling down a strip of cloth from the ceiling and doing martial arts based movements on what I think is the Dome?! (Someone correct me if I’m wrong…) There’s something completely different for everyone, everyday, regardless of the weather and perhaps equally as important, its completely free. I mean, who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Besides, since most acts begin at 2:30 (unless otherwise stated) it really IS a free lunch…-time entertainment.

Since the whole festival lasts until September I couldn’t possible list to you everything which is going to happen, but I mean off the top of my head within the next week or so, the ones you should really look out for is the UK Breakdancing Final (Yeah, I have no idea either…) on the 8th July, and then on the next day ‘Organzola- Theatre of Adventure’ which in itself should be pretty damn bizarre and funny… an absolute must for anyone who likes absurdist comedy or farce. Right, I’m going to be a little bit cheeky now and plug my own show on the 5th and 6th August. I shan’t harp on about it unlike Mariah Carey at Live 8, but it’s basically a National Youth Theatre production of Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ in celebration of his bi-centenary. Like I said, it’s all free and it would be good to see some of you there. (We have another two different shows in the National Theatre itself as well as the Lyric in Hammersmith throughout August and September but it would be unfair for me to plug it…. Oh wait have I done that already? In that case tickets are 6 or 10 quid for the National Theatre Shows, and 10 to 25 quid for the Lyric shows…)

Right back on track now… ‘Watch This Space’ really is probably the best of free summer entertainment in London, check out the National Theatre website for more details, but one other show you should look out for is the Sheena Davis Group on the 29th August who is arguable one of the country’s greatest current jazz vocalists. Think Ella Fitzgerald meets Lisa Hannigan if you will… Even if you don’t plan ahead, this is one of those things in which if you’re just out in London for the day, you can go south of the river and enjoy. It’s a 15 minute walk at most from the West End and Trafalgar Square across Waterloo Bridge and along what I think is the most beautiful part of London in its proximity to the (alright admittedly grubby) waters of the Thames.

Even if you don’t go to every single performance, or if you don’t even see one at all it’s still worthwhile to just sit on the fake grass and bask in the glory of the sun south of the river. (Oh, and pints are 3 quid so you know, extra incentive…) And who knows, you might see Jude and Sienna there as I did not too long ago and perhaps even more excitingly, you might even see ME there…

Anthony

P.s. Come support the National Youth Theatre! Mwah! x

Had such a lovley day wondering down southbank today. The annual National Theatre summer festival is in full swing, watch this space. It’s based just outside the Hayward Gallery and features a small stage with a patch of luxury fake grass. Much more fun than it seems.

Later on in the festival open air films are shown on the large square blocks on top of the Hayward. If you’re ever in London on a pretty summers day I suggest you pop down and see what’s going on.

Anyway, today a pretty lady by the name of Joanna was playing with her band. Nice cool relaxing Jazz mixed with singer songwriter stuff – never good at describing music. Her cute daughter was running amock in the audience plugging the CD.

I forgot my camera but here are a few pictures of what it looked like last year.

After went and met Jeannine for a relaxing chat in the park.

Watch this space is a summer festival which happens just outside the Hayward on the southbank. A small stage and pretty astroturf for all weather fun in London. Here are some entries from last year, I’ll fill it up in the coming week.

National Gallery – Watch this space calander

It’s a face off kids. Madrid vs London.

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