1. Cassette design from Paperchase

2. One Life Left - from a radio show on Resonance FM

3. Honest Jons Records - Currently my favourite label

4. "Save Your 20%" picked up at Lewisham People's Day

5. Broadstairs Folk Festival - I didn't go, my friend Lorraine gave it to me.

6. Vortex badge given to me by Steve Beresford

7. Rather disappointing badge bought at the amazing Atomium in Brussels

8. Saddleworth Rushcart - couldn't go this year, but Gary got me a badge, I'll be there next year.

9. Greenwich Observatory

10. Antique Ever Ready badge, from eBay

11. "Eutectic + Castolin" strange enamel industrial badge picked up in Barnstaple

12. Flock wallpaper badge from Paperchase

13. 1965 Records - badge found on the pavement in Berners Street

14. Greenwich Observatory

15. Weather Badge, another gift from Lorraine - origin unknown

16. Vedett Bier badge, given to me by Nodge, picked up in an off-licence

17. Astral Major - from a series produced by Lyons Maid in the 60's, I had the set as a child and recently bought them again, from eBay. The originals each came with a personal letter from one the Tracy Brothers of Thunderbirds...

18. Gin Panic - presumably a band, picked up at the rehearsal studio Lost Robots use.

19. S-P 20 - presumably a band - picked up at Sister Ray Records

20. Sixties Post Office Tower badge, from eBAy. I worked very close to it, and became rather obsessed with it during 2008.

21. I Love Trekstock. Mysterious badge obtained at the launch of the Sony Walkman that Blackheath Morris appeared at. One of your number was photographed wearing it...

Previous Years-
2007
2006

1. Very enjoyable morris practice last night - including the best "Upton-on-Severn Stick Dance" I've ever done. I've forgotten just how great I feal after strenuously leaping about for a bit. Endorphins, I suppose...

2. I found a badge in the street this morning for "1965 Records". Doesn't look like my kind of thing, but the padlock design is quite nice.

3. I'm really digging the first Bombay Connection LP at the moment. The track "Burning Train" is the oddest thing I've heard for a while. An MP3 excerpt is here.

4. I'm not the only one who finds the end sequence of "In The Night Garden" upsetting.

5. I intend to spend tonight getting rid of a lot of stuff that I no longer have time for. This includes a pile of the American critical fanzine Science Fiction Eye from the late 1980's. It occurs to me that some readers of this blog may be interested in this, let me know. Home found!

6. The guest on "Little Atoms" this evening is the former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. Details here. Resonance 104.4 fm 7.00pm.

1. A fantastic day out with the lovely Northwood Morris Men

2. "Millenium Volunteers", apparently. Picked up by Ruth.

3. Another one from Ruth. Charming.

4. Paris for the for the New Year

5. Alaska Studios, where Lost Robots have been practising hard for their new album

6. "I rode the airwaves" badge presented by Dexter Bentley at a Resonance FM event. Did I ride a bike to power the generators? Did I heck.

7. Winkies Castle in Marske, visited on our summer holiday. Home of the two headed lamb.

8. Sompting Morris Ale - another great weekend weekend. Although with a tragic conclusion.

9. A badge given to me by Mick The Pole...I asked what it was..."it's you, you twit!"

10. Picked up at Lewisham Country Fair

11. Genuine 1980 "Tick Tick" badge given to me by elvislives77. There's talk of the Tick Tick stuff making a CD re-appearance....The band also got together in the Summer, although not to play...

12. Panda badge. A birthday present from Ruth.

13. Saddleworth Rushcart. The event of the year. Again.

14. Salisbury. We wnt in the Autumn. It was lovely.

15. The badge I wore at the last folk session I played at.

16. Badge from Ed Baxter.

17. Badge attached to Christmas Card from suzanne217. Thanks!

Last years "Year in Badges" is here.

1. A trip into the North Sea on the Regal Lady - I saw a dolphin (very, very fleetingly)

2. The miniature railway in Scarborough - everybody waves at it.

3. Pestival at the London Wetlands Centre - Lost Robots played at it...

4. The Baltic Arts Centre in Newcastle - fabulous.

5. Saddleworth Rushcart - an amazing event (lots of Photos), where I knacked my leg.

6. The badge given to me by Nat West Bank- as featured in the Bank Story.

7. A conceptual badge by Mark Pawson, bought at the Baltic, it's a badge of the reverse side of a badge.

8. Alaska Studios, where Lost Robots have been rehearsing hard, and got our groove back.

9. My friend Lois Pryce, who's riding a motorbike across Africa (in Nigeria at the last bulletin).

10. The London Musicians' Collective festival (last weekend)

11. The utterly strange "Naval Warfare" event in Peasholm Park, Scarborough. There's a nice description by a certain Mr Monkey here

12. Little Atoms at the Euston Manifesto launch.

actually, I should do a "Badges of the Year" post...

Steve Beresford sent me a couple of badges for my collection yesterday- one was a "support the miners" badge, evoking an icy chill of Thatcherite nostalgia, the other shows a snowy scene with the legend "Is It Christmas Yet?", which I may start wearing soon.

He also tells me that Fopp are selling the complete Vic Reeves Big Night Out for £7.

Several things have conspired to cheer me up after this morning's gloomer.

1. Simple really, it's really sunny and warm. Hurrah for September.

2. Because it was warm I put on my "summer jacket" (actually a biege linen jacket of the style favoured by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), looked in the inside pocket and found a blue badge with an aeroplane on it. I don't remember getting this!

3. I've been sent a promo of the brand new CD by my favourite band tm, Bellowhead, and I can report it's as splendidly eclectic and wonderful as I expected. The cover, unfortunately, is a little bit Marilion-

But it's already probably my album of the year, for "London Town" alone...

4. I've just had some "black jack" and a "fruit salad" sweets. In my head, I am now five years old.

Blimey! I'd almost consider voting for them if they still had badges as cool as this.

This one is pure "Tomorrow People" meets "Old Grey Whistle Test"


And what about this classic?-

What's going on? Disillusioned worker glares sullenly ahead, whilst boss and shop-steward are in cahoots outside pollution spewing factory....or something.

*actually they're the US SWP, but we can have a bit of fun can't we?
Thanks to wayne for the link

Four recent additions to the badge collection-
The top two from Mrs Bagrec-
They show Edward the Confessor and Florence Nightingale.

The two lower badges were sent to me by Steve Beresford, and come from an art exhibition- they read "I protested" and "I signed a petition". The source is the same as my "I raised issues" userpic.

Thanks to both!
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Yesterday I watched "Brief Encounter" for the first time... it's weird how you keep missing things.
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This got forgotten about in the excitement about the launch of the Euston Manifesto (which incidently already has a Wikipedia Entry), but on Thursday I went with my friend and accordion photographer Jayne Taylor to an exhibition in
this building-
which is the Elms Lester Painting Rooms". The show was "Bande a Part"- " A photographic exhibition of a cross view of 11 photographers on the New York underground scene from the late 60's to the mid 80's."

It was fun and nostalgic - lots of pictures of US new wave types like Patti Smith (looking surprisingly vulnerable) and Television (looking cool and skinny) and the Dead Boys (looking crap and ugly). A notice on the door read "Warning- contains nudity", "that'll be Iggy Pop then" I said. It was. The photos by the bizarrely named Godlis were particularly marvellous. He took the Patti one above.

If you want to see the show (and the really nice building it's in) then move fast- it ends today.
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Today will be spent gardening, watching DVDs and sorting out my record collection.
Happy Easter.

Some leftover stuff from the weekend-

At Scaledown, Steve Beresford gave me a great badge - showing two clinking glasses, it reads "Champagne Anarchist".
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Charity shopping on Saturday I picked up a few "Living Shakespeare" LPs from 1964 - interesting in themselves (Shakespeare plays reduced to 45 mins), each one also includes "musique concrete and sound patterns" by Desmond Leslie, who I've written about before. Frankly bizarre....
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On Saturday evening Mrs Bagrec and I joined in the annual Geoids quiz. Whilst we struggled through the spelling round ("Desiccate"? Really?), and the London Underground one the marathon round was 3 pages of album covers to identify. As director about town Mark Pullin put it, "once I saw that, and that you were here, I realised we were screwed". I got three wrong- one of which was a Fleetwood Mac album herculesmusic probably would have identified in a flash ;a gorilla eating a cake, since you ask...
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I haven't written about the Ken Livingstone affair because I'm still hopping mad about it- especially when some on the left that I support are painting him as a kind of Galloway figure. Let's get this straight- Ken is no Galloway- he successfully rejoined the Labour Party for starters, where as the ungorgeous one has not only burnt his bridges, but blown them up with semtex.
Jackie Ashley in the Guardian gets close to my anger over this- "Livingstone's suspension is an affront to democracy".

Steve Beresford, knowing I'm a keen badge collector, has kindly sent me these two beauties-

The green one reads "I raised issues"
The yellow one reads "I supported a political organisation"

I like the implied world-weariness of the past tense....

Thanks, Steve.
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Astonishingly, tonight will be my first visit to Cecil Sharp House.
And we're getting a lift from sham9, hurrah!

Come back to the Live Journal, sham9, sham9...