Archive for March, 2003

cnuts in may

not for sale by me

Well, I’ll be honest. I was kind of expecting to get one of these letters eventually:

Intellectual property infringement is a serious matter. Penalties for copyright infringement can reach $150,000 per work infringed and penalties for trademark counterfeiting can reach $1,000,000 per trademark for each type of goods sold.

In the event that you have not properly secured the right to use the images/pictures in your store for the sale of merchandise we have closed your merchandise store to avoid any conflict with the copyright holder.

Fair enough, really. The reason I made the shirt available was to take a deliberate pot-shot at the French Connection clothing chain. Years ago I used to work for a band whose logo was FCUK – it formed part of the catalogue number of their records, served as an onstage backdrop and, most ironically, adorned thousands of t-shirts we sold on tour – needless to say, this was a couple of years before French Connection started using the same phrase. And, needless to say, the original artist was never compensated. This has always rankled somewhat, whether the company’s branding was designed in ignorance or not, and so I threw up the merchandise page on Cafepress to tempt them into a response.

Ironically, the cease and desist letter came not from French Connection, but from cnut attitude, a company set up by stand-up comedian Dave Griffiths, who has had his own legal battles with French Connection (and who has since very nicely apologised to me for the heavy-handed nature of his own desist notice). So, as you can’t buy my shirts any longer (not that anyone ever did), buy one of his. In fact, buy one of these and send it to me. And maybe, just maybe, French Connection will one day properly compensate my friend who designed the original FCUK logo.

Hmmm. Not gonna happen, is it?

chutney-farmer

529 names for gay men. I’ll admit that curiosity has got the better of me, and I’d like to know what on Earth “double-barrelled ghee” means. Interestingly, the site spells “battie-boy” [sic] differently from the version featured in the official urban dictionary.

letter from america

I’m back. Here follows the boring “what I did while I was away” bit.

Flying is one of the most tedious activities known to man, and yet my flight to Washington is more than a little eventful. First of all a female passenger trips up in the aisle somewhere over Newfoundland and manages to smash her head on the armrest of the seat behind me, then rises to her feet screaming and showering blood over the other passengers. As if this weren’t enough, when we’ve landed and are queuing up to pass through immigration, a gentleman in front of me collapses with what could well be deep vein thrombosis. Even as the stricken passenger is sliding in and out of consciousness, his wife shrieking and medics on their way, an immigration officer is still persistantly attempting to ascertain the reason for his visit. Welcome the USA.

I quickly drop my bags at the Topaz, the city’s ‘most enlightened boutique hotel,’ where my room has two TVs, two hi-fi systems, and a yoga annex. Yes, a yoga annex. Sadly I don’t have time to explore my sprituality as it’s time to head straight off to the MCI Centre for The Wizards against The Bulls. It’s a pretty straightforward victory for the home side, and Michael Jordon has one of his quieter nights, hitting just seventeen points and being outscored by four other players on court. He doesn’t drive to the basket very often, content to set up chances for the other players, but a couple of times he hits one of those unstoppable, tongue-out, fadeaway jump-shots, the flashbulbs explode all oer the arena, and you get a small taste of just why he’s one of the greatest figures in all of sport.

The next morning I check out before breakfast and walk downtown to the Vietnam Memorial, where I throw up. Yes, for the last 24 hours or so I’ve been suffering from some kind of bug or virus, spending much of the time in a state of near-delirium, and this culminates in a most unpatriotic display of projectile vomiting at the base of the wall. Thankfully, there’s no-one else around, and I am free to sheepishly wander the mile or so to Union Station to catch a train to New York.

Of course there’s no cure for illness better than a night of alcohol abuse, so my host Veronica and I meet up with Wendy Mitchell, author of an indispensable guide to the city’s seediest dive bars, and her friend Carrie, who looks like Britney Spears and proves to be very popular with the drunken Irishman at the first bar we visit. Much serious drinking follows, and we end the evening at a bar where hotly tipped combo The Rapture are DJing. There’s almost no-one in attendance, leading me to wonder whether this current New York revival is really only happening in London (although I will recommend that you keep an eye out for the quite tremendous Ambulance Ltd – remember kids, you read it here first).

Yesterday was a day spent doing all the things one is supposed to do in The Big Apple. I buy books and CDs, I check out a film and, most importantly, I head downtown to the Century 21 department store, a port of call each time I’ve been here. It’s right across the street from Ground Zero, yet the building was pretty much undamaged by the 9/11 attacks – I guess even Al Qaeda realise that you don’t mess with a man’s right to buy cheap underpants.

air blogjam

Bollocks to this. I’m off to Washington. While not 100% fit, Michael Jordan did play two nights ago against the freakish Yao Ming and The Houston Rockets, and will hopefully be fit enough this evening to take to the court against his old side, The Chicago Bulls. And yes, I’ll be there. Hurrah.