The Premiere of The Learning Curve was on Sunday night down in Lower Marsh opposite the old Cide shop which still has its sign up despite it now being a newsagents and the shop being long gone. A reminder of the not so distant past and a really nice skateshop and gallery. The film was amazing and when it gets released it is a must have for anyone interested in London Skateboarding....spots all over central London some of which are familiar and others a revelation....London looks good through Phraezas lens and the skatingmatches the grandeur of the backdrop....check out the website for more from Phraeza and clips from the film.

Phraeza was there making sure everything ran smooth but he didn't need to worry as people turned out en-masse and the place was packed, all the films skaters got cheers before after and during their runs...yes runs, the sections were actual runs around London rather than a montage of tricks which shows something about the skaters themselves and the potential of the London spots...London looked a little claustrophobic at times, a combination of underground spots and nightime filming which captured the essence of street skating in the city perfectly.
The premiere itself on a cold Sunday night was packed and a testament to Phraezas promotion....old and new faces of London skateboarding turned out and loved it, a breath of fresh air for London's weary streets....Pete Dosset was there too which was a reminder of a past a bit further away than Cide but unlike the sad demise of Cide Pete is still ripping stronger than in 89 by all accounts......



Pete Dosset at Wicksteed Park , Kettering.....



Pete Dosset from 1989 and the contents of Skateboard!



Pete Dosset at last nights premiere of The Learning Curve.......

Some of the London sights in the past week or so..............


The Whale at Bay66


The modular effort in Victoria Park


New Spot near London Bridge.....

I've been delivering packages to some celebrities recently, my first job the other day was down to Chelsea to Bill Wyman, signed my sheet...no big deal....today i went to Kensington Palace and got a police escort through the courtyards to the back door to hand over a package to Princess Michael....not a girls name and i didn't get to go inside anyway.....loads of Deer heads and antlers on the walls in the courtyard though......hunting stinks by the way.

This is a slightly newer version of the Bilbao trip video, there now seems to be a ton of versions using chunks of the same stuff but thats what this blog is all about....repetition, this will never be complete but it will keep slightly changing each week or so especially with all of Andy's footage now on my computer and a load more photographs to drop in there........

Crossfire Xmas Jam..........

Bay 66 mini ramp is amazing.....this was last wednesday night.


Bay 66 on Vimeo

Tony Hawk skated the vert ramp down under the westway..........

Invasion........

The re-named Basque road trip video edit 104....and keep on going.

The chalet we stayed in in Spain looked really like the cover of Salad Days by Minor Threat so here is a newer version set to the song, the second song is Waxwings by The Young Offenders......


spain on Vimeo
More changes sooner........Check out the Young Offenders at their Myspace....

Young Offenders

This is a time we will remember..............

A not so secret London Spot but well hidden from the elements and your average city clown......


london Underground on Vimeo

This is 2 years ago almost too...hiked across the mountains to Lake Atitlan, Guatemala and this is what we saw in the morning of the last day. The smoke is from all the wood fires in the town, the town was pretty big too, it just looks small from on top of the mountain.

Its almost a year since we got back from a year away in Central and South America and iv'e been scanning some slides i took on the trip so here's a slide show of some of then, these are the older ones so they are almost 2 years old.......

This is taken at the beginning of a 3 day hike from Xela to Lake Atitlan which was hard work....right over mountains and on to Volcanoes.....



Guatemala City was a hectic place.....we only passed through but it was amazing wandering around..........

spain next version on Vimeo
new version......

Riding through the city on my bike all day 'cause the filth took away my licence, it doesnt get me down and i feel ok 'cause the sights i see are priceless....oh and i saw this in Spain with my eyes and it looked nice......

Spain intro ideas on Vimeo
Some ides ive had for the intro to our Spain Trip video.........notice Budgie is the music, nice!!


Me and Dave and Styley went to Playstation, now called Bay 66.....this is the big mini ramp.

An updated version of the raw footage spain clip...the same at the beginning as the other one but something is taking shape a bit later on, i will put more up as it changes and hopefully in a couple of weeks will look something like something and completely different to how it looks now. Went to Bay66 last night for the first time in ages with Dave and Styley...it seems like Wednesday is the night to go and everyone was going off..........


Spain 2 on Vimeo

New York was amazing......heres a few pictures of the things we did in between all the walking.........

Here is a quick bit of footage i captured from the multitude of tapes....it might take a while to get something more solid together.......



spain road trip raw footage on Vimeo

Lack of entries on my blog......not been near a computer for weeks, here is an old video i made last year though.........



Smallworld on Vimeo

So the time flies and the trip to Spain is over and we went to New York and now we are back in London.......like always it seems like time stands still and your there for ever but when your back it seems like you never left. Spain was amazing...i got skate every day for 5 days at different parks every day with Styley, Rich and Andy.......Styley put the whole thing together, researched the parks, booled the tickets and got us all fired up with his boundless enthusiasm and there we were on the cheap flight out of Stanstead and heading for Santander......the worst landing i have ever experienced and everyone agreed, the whole plane screamed as the wind took the aircraft almost sideways and we dropped like a stone towards the tarmac.....my stomach hit the roof for a second and then we hit the runway and decelerated and the cabin was in uproar and applauding the pilot and his luck in getting us down to earth....it was too like the Mallrats parable of last moments and final actions and subsequent shame....no one spoke of it as we de-boarded but we all knew.
Picking up the rental car we headed for Bilbao and the skate trip we had come to Spain for...........

Spain Road Trip.....

This is where we are going tomorrow!!!!

london punk shows on Vimeo

After a long break from visiting foreign climes its getting close to time to head out once more...Wednesday morning is the start of a short trip to the skateparks of Bilbao in Spain....Sunday is a brief return to England before we fly out to N.Y.C. for eight days of mayhem and joy....the joy of not working is what i've been working for and the time draws near.....i also have been listening to Manowar so excuse the henceforths and hailing...from now on its Englands shores i shall ignore, do ya get me...i know you do, you really do...its Spanish and American culture i will be immersed in...before we come back to Camden and Dagenham and all that is England....The skateparks of Northern Spain and the cavernous streets of Manhattan will fill these virtual pages from this day forth.

Some cool things i saw today, the many benefits of cycling around London on a sunny day........


Stopped by Battersea Power Station to check out the view, the Chinese Art show is on inside so should see that tomorrow...


This is by Chelsea school of Art next to Tate Britain....it really flies.


Cantelows Park in Camden is almost finished....next week the builder told me but by the look of the deep water it might be a bit longer........

Mike took this picture of me yesterday...an hour later we had a monsoon with thunder and lightning, it took ages to get back from Harrow Road dodging the heaviest parts of the storm...i got back to Clerkenwell puncture free but very wet....the tubes survived too.

The pier at Brighton seen in a thousand pictures, paintings and prints you can buy all over Brighton.....

Archive Material....i keep putting old stuff on here which goes in the face of the Blog up to the minute, new material, fastest form of news reporting and all that but who cares....the quiet times are times for reflection and no one wants to hear where i rode my bike today and how much it was raining and what a riot it was so check out this old video instead................................



archive material on Vimeo

Some footage from the early days...Wicksteed Park in Kettering is long gone and the video from there was shot in about 1989, then there is stuff from the now closed Radlands in Northampton...Tom Penny, Mike Manzori, Rune Glifberg...all skated Radlands and developed their style there...Rune lived in Wellingborough for a while and was down at Radlands most days...theres also Market Harborough....the concrete parks where the Rowell Muties developed their styles too...i think that is the only place left from all the parks in this video and possibly the first one built too back in the 70s

Turner Prize Private view.............

So last night i went to the Tate Gallery courtesy of the Guardian to a private view of this years Turner Prize, i won the tickets on the Guardian website so me and Sarah my sister got the chance to schmooze the night away in the halls of high art fuelled by courtesy Gin and Tonics. The show was pretty good, need to go back and check out the work in the day but two artists stand out so its worth a look, Mark Titchner might have it though.....or Phil Collins's video and installation.....something to ponder as i go to work today safe in the knowledge that heavy rain is expected and i already know i'm going to be cycling all day and the chance of getting wet is pretty high. Siobhan gets home tonight so it's all good and a weekend in Brighton looms large....nice. Looking forward to my next prize though as my one and only competition win has fired me up to become one of those people who make a living from wining inane prizes, yes i will spend my remaining days franticly filling in competitions on the websites of the world....maybe radio and daytime television too, the bonus is you never know what will happen next so your already a winner!!! Cold light of day however means i have to go and get on my bike and deliver some packages across London.

Wattled bell bird.....Procnias tricarunculata on Vimeo

Costa Rica.....

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

This is a short video i made in Bolivia last year.....

This is the top bowl of Dagenham Skatepark....the picture is of me and taken by Styley with my Holga on film and cross-processed which is why it looks all blue.....this was all done about four weeks ago.

This is my first post despite having this blog since April but forgetting i had actually created it. I have got a you tube, a myspace, a vimeo and a Flickr though so now i'm going for the full house.....check back for some thoughts and pictures sometime soon....hold on i'll see if this has actually worked................