So Bang! Suddenly I'm back at work in my new mega-commute job in the LA 'burbs - and it's painful. Seven weeks out went by in teh blink of an eye....the blink of an eye I tell you. So, the money will roll again (right into my mortgage account), but life feels weirdly over. So, yeah, I whined about getting laid off, and now I'm whining about going back to work - I am obviously a bastard.

Anyway, I spent a great deal of my seven weeks worrying about not having a job, then the last week down about going back to work. But these last few weeks have had some rad times - hanging with Ramos, his lady and the Ramos-possee is always good times. Add a Morrissey show to that and its slightly better

Then, amazingly, teh Pogue-meister shows up in LA too - peruses my collection (he's sooooooooooooo jealous of all the Real Head I own....riiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhht... ) and we have fun.

Add Pete teh God of Turtle taking me to Jinkies for a great breakfast on Saturday, and last weekend kind of rocked... and I didn't even get any new toys.

But back to the last few weeks - my two-weeker to England was RAD - filled with memories, family and fate (think I'm exagerating? I kid you not, if not for the randomness of my visit someone very close to me would probably be dead now - so, things are working how they should be).

Here's a few things from along teh way:

Under teh South Bank, skate history in living action - this guy shredded SUPER hard - you should see teh video I took. Huge Nollies to crooked nose grind, massive switch flips...and the guy pulled em off more than he didn't - RAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!


Silversun Pickups first ever show outside North America...and I was so close that....

Brian offered to plug my ears for me while the lovely Nikki looked on....


Even before I was born there, Scarborough's Donkey's have RULEd:


but I guess time didn't move on...I shit you not, these were everywhere... oh dear:


and onto ancient history in York. These gold lectern sculpts blow away Real Head I'm afraid, and they are waaaaay more ancient:


Ghosts in teh machine...errr...minster


and check the Kaiju out - clear vinyl goodness with squishy brain:


and bakc to London with Wales' finest, the incomparable and criminally underated MANIC STREET PREACHERS - James hown here:


and over to Brighton, Londons seaside get-away, and now containing a great little toystore run by cool, friendly locals:


and here we are in South London:


and a little bit of God Save Us love:


and, a definite highlight...LoSK in full effect:


I need this to go with my Labbit stools (ulp!) - a Bowie Coffee table from Paul Smith for a princley $1400:


oh, did I say that this looked spectacular, but SUCKED so hard in all other ways:


and finally, what better way to say goodbye to London than with our very own iconic coke head hotster meets Philip Green's Topshop empire...woooooo hoooooooooooooooooo......



fack...this took forver to create, enjoy, cos judging by my new job and the amount of work I'll need to be doing, and the lack of ..errr.... privacy ....my posting will be going down da cripper-crapper. Bye.

I sat and watched at that skatepark a couple different times when I was there last year, it looked fun and I didn't have a skateboard with me, I will not make that mistake twice.

Welcome back, Carl!!!

right on, Carl! Glad to see things have worked out!!

thanks for the pics and commentary, good stuff

Ha!
Excellent Carl.
Did you check the links i sent you?
editors lp on the way for ya too.

That skate park is killer!
For years the skaters were fighting the owners who were always throwing them out and trying to screw up any skateable areas.
Until a new curator took over who used to skate in Australia and commissioned a couple artists to make skateable sculptures, i.e. those long concrete coffin like things.
Now! Everyone is happy

yeah...a new job to hate! hope you had a good little break (looks like you did)...welcome back to the world of working stiffs.

These are Golliwogs, right? When I was in Australia I visited a toy museum that had tons of these. I thought they were a thing of the past, but at Toy Fair a couple of years ago we passed a British vendor who was selling modern versions. We asked the guy if he expected to get out of New York alive. ;p

Welcome back Carl. Told you the time off would be over in a flash. Glad you got to have some fun.

or 'Gollys' if yer wanna get PC . . . although I think the damage has already been done!

I never really thought about it but it's kinda surreal how ingrained these guys are in British culture . . . kids books, promotional pins and kids toys!

Carl . . . yer shoulda posted when you were in Scarborough, it'd been worth the drive over for a bag of fish and chips on the front . . . will hopefully catch up with yer soon!

Welcome back!! Great vacation pix.

Congratualtions/Sorry about the new job. I suspect you'll have the corner office soon enough and a brand new project objective for your staff: Sofubi on YJA.

thanks for the cool read!