OPHIUCHUS

Really regret not being able to make it to Stefan Danielsson's recent I Hide In Snakes exhibition in Sweden. To me, right now he's the most exciting artist around. You can enjoy some of the amazing images here: www.galleriloyal.com/IHideInSnakes.html

TRANSFIGURATION

There's a marvellously touching PBS documentary called Monkey In The Mirror. Ostensibly it's about how so much more intelligent chimps, monkeys, and apes are than we give them credit for. To me, especially to my more misanthropic side, it's rather just another depressing reminder of how arrogantly fucking stupid human beings are.

AGE OF AQUARIUS

Just received the latest copy of Elegy from France, one of my favourite newsstand magazines, a delightful mixture of dark music, art and fashion - certainly nothing to compare to in the UK. Anyway, as I was flicking through the pages of photography of sexy fetish goth girls, Trevor Brown-style artists and various reviews, stumbled across an interview with that loveable old rogue Tibet who inexorably brings the subject round to the imminent apocalypse, the second coming of JC, added to some remarks about AIDS being a message from God - and in the process managing to outdo some of the more extreme US Christian fundamentalists. In this case earnestness somehow belies ignorance. David, if you're reading this, I adore you to bits and we want to give you a final chance to see the light: like Noddy, like Minski, your Bible is just mythical literature, there was no historical Jesus Christ; like Krishna, like Mithras, he symbolises the sun, so just go out and relax and have some fun.

DESTINATION FINAL

After publicly recommending the Final Destination film franchise, I got a barrage of shocked emails. Now I'm as pretentious and can be as irritatingly smug as the next arthouse film buff and am no lover of Hollywood trash, yet I believe these films are great. Why? Not for the scripts, not for the storyline, nor for the acting, but for the remarkable and unique killing set-pieces. Each one is like a beautiful artwork to be admired and revered. I find the dark humour, the unique beauty, and the inventive cinematography, of these individual set-pieces totally inspiring.

Can't wait for the next instalment.

PAPER IDOLS

It's nice to see some sacrifice.

I know all sorts of other people can make perfectly good music for dancing, for driving to, for headbanging, for the radio, for chilling out to, or even for the basic purposes of improvisation or experimentation, or any of the other common basic functions of the medium. It's that music, on account of its publicity and spectacular side, attracts many who merely want to capitalise their beauty or careers, and you see them, gamblers one and all, meaninglessly lining up week after week, generation after generation, in the music magazines, on music TV channels, and elsewhere, sucking into the camera lenses, plying their mechanically-created wares.

RUBBER STAMPS

So the question used to ask myself in the process of musical creation is: how can this music affect in a way that causes to : go to that special place, and : allow these very special emotions : come out to play? In such a way that no matter how hard we try to deny that desire, it takes on a life of its own, compelling, vivid, real, where you’re prepared to take this stranger’s hand that leads you into the woods: yes, I want to step into this special place and explore something risky, exciting, dangerous, and to some potentially even life-changing.

And that’s really the only criterion by which it can be measured. There is really no other incentive.