Tales from the arctic circle.....

Long time no write my dears. The last couple have weeks have been pretty busy and theres so much to tell you all so lets get down to business

• Iceland was effing brilliant. Not only is it an amazingly varied landscape (the whole island is pretty much built on volcanoes, so rocky roads ahoy) with all the volcanoes, geysirs and hot springs (oh my!) but true to popular belief Icelandic kids are truly the coolest on the planet. I spent my days visiting geothermal spas (being snowed on whilst in 25 degree opaque turquoise water is an odd feeling) trying desperately not to put my hand in one of the geysirs to see what they classed as 'boiling hot', doing a few small hikes, seeing the amazing Northern Lights (no where near as bright as you expect but they danced across the sky beautifully none the less. Photos were pretty much impossible as you would expect but I took some Holga as well so fingers crossed) witnessing the sheer power of some intense recently thawed waterfalls and doing some serious shopping, or well, on my budget, window drooling. For an island that has a population of no more the 375 000, they have a fantastic collection of designers. They even have a Trippen store there. We don't even have one in friggin London! A great selection of second hand stores too where I did make the odd purchase. Its definitely going on the list of top 5 favorite places I've been.
  

• On to one of the best moments of my life, seeing Björk. Although there was a bit of a mishap and I nearly didn't. Note to self: going away over a series of public holidays when you need to pick something up from an office is not a great idea. I was supposed to pick up the tickets for Monday nights gig and the offices were closed Saturday, Sunday AND Monday which led me into a massive panic Monday afternoon when I thought I may not get in. Lucky they had set up a makeshift collection booth outside the venue (the biggest arena Reykjavik has to offer. It was needed) and I got the tickets. Björk had a few special guests up her oversized sleeves (outfit of choice for the evening was a gold imitation frill neck lizard number. It was all very 'Pricilla') and onto the stage piled the 'Björkettes' a neon clad all female horn section and the lads from Hot Chip to handle the beats. The moment I had been waiting years for had arrived. Björk burst onto the stage and broke into 'Hunter' a huge favorite of mine. For such a small package she has huge energy and stage presence although I was a little suprised at how reserved the crowd was. It was her first gig in six years in front of her home crowd and I thought they would be going nuts but it was pretty much just left to me and another solo dancer in the crowd. She then did a few tracks off Volta which were FAN FUCKING TASTIC (I cannot wait for that release date) and then had Antony (of 'the Johnsons' fame) come and join her for Dull Flames of Desire which had me weak at the knees. Other favorites that got an outing and a new arrangement were All is Full of Love, Oceania, Pleasure is all Mine, Army of Me, Hyper-ballad (which got a huge reworking and smack bang in the middle she decided it was time for a bit of a boogie so had the lads put on some pretty heavy dance beats and just danced like a maniac for 5 minutes before realising that she was still playing a gig and that she wasn't doing that alone, although you get the feeling that she really is in a world of her own most of the time and does this for her own enjoyment as apposed to doing it for us) The only real disappointment was that she didn't do a single song from Debut and only a single song encore. Oh and that there wasn't any merch. I'd planned to buy up any morsel I could to keep this memory alive in my mind for as long as I could and all that was on offer was a back catalogue which I already own. Before I knew it it was all over too soon and all I had to mark the occasion was the bill poster I nicked off a wall.

And now here I am in London again with the post holiday blues but with the whiff of Summer travel in the air (I'm thinking hold on Sicilian men, I'm a comin'!) it doesn't seem so bad. If you need visuals of the adventures above, then look at this....