This Zine Is Small But Full Of Friendship by Phil Chokeword

MANIFESTO. This zine is something that a lot of people put a lot of work in to. You can probably see that from how pretty it looks and how many tiny fucking words fill these pages. That work doesn’t come together easily. It takes a lot of effort and support and self confidence to put out what really is closer than a letter - to you, with love - photocopied 150 times than a media outlet of the internet age. So why bother? For some of us, it’s about trying something new. We’re artists and writers and everything in-between and we’re keen to try a new medium and a new way to share it. Some of us don’t have much choice about being creative so we might as well crack on and do something with those ideas. We’re the ones are up at 3am making notes and doodles because we can’t sleep until we shit our thoughts out. We hope you don’t have to share a bed with one of us. For others, it’s about that compulsive itch to organise – to build community and bring people together, to create a space that’s ours, something autonomous, no matter how small or fleeting. You know our type. We don’t wash very often. We ask you to LIKE things on Facebook you ignore. We aren’t that big on oppression. We genuinely like tofu. Some of us are shy types, with laptops full of beautiful jpgs no one’s opened and full note pads that are hidden away down the back of full book shelves. There are a million amazing poets who no one will know about until they get hit by a bus and their grandchildren find a life’s work they were too worried about sharing. That is the definition of tragedy, and we’re trying to avoid it so be nice... please? For others, it’s about being a crew. A gang. We haven’t got matching tattoos yet - we’re making stickers first. It’s about having an excuse to hang out, to make new mates and see old ones, to do something different together. Some of us like bouncing ideas off each other, learning new skills, refreshing old ones and having a supportive, encouraging structure in place to make this work. It’s a pack mentality motherfucker and we’ll see you in the pit. There are probably some people we forgot about too. Anyhow, that’s about the size of it. 150 copies, published quarterly, each issue with a theme picked by someone different. Drawings, photos, writing, stuff. Lets crack on.

thiszineissmall@hotmail.com

EDITORIAL. I’ve wanted to do a zine for a long time but never really knew how to start it. The thing that appeals to me about a zine is being able to try out things that I haven’t done before - stepping outside of my comfort zone, but still feeling safe enough to do it. And there are no ‘rules’ with zines, and no embedded hierarchies such as exist in the ‘art world’. I was massively inspired by some new music I heard by a band called Tiny Moving Parts. They named their album ‘This couch is long and full of friendship’. I made some photos with friends on our couch in homage to the inspiration from the album and its cover. When I finally got to see Tiny Moving Parts this year I spoke to the singer about how much the album title and cover art had inspired me. I told him about our homage photographs and he said they were awesome. Then I told him about the zine I was trying to start, and that I wanted to call it ‘This zine is small but full of friendship’ and he totally endorsed it! You all know I was really ill last year, and I know without my friends who stuck by me I might not be here now. So I wanted to do something positive with those people and other people who have expressed an interest in zines and zine culture. That’s why I started this zine. I hoped you’d all join me on this new adventure. We agreed as a group of friends that the zine would always have a theme. There has to be something to subvert after all. For the first theme I chose ‘Friendship’. My friends are my family. The really good ones are always there for me no matter how difficult I become when I’m ill. It’s important. They know the bullshitters from the flakes from the passersby. They know me. They know how open and honest I can be to within an inch of discomfort. But they also know I will do anything for them if it is within my capability. To the newcomer I either seem overly confident or rude and withdrawn. The simple fact is I really don’t like meeting new people. It’s right outside of my comfort zone. So I do it all the time. I hope that one day I will do it and I won’t feel anxious or sick to my stomach. That I will come across as the me my friends know. I dedicate this first edition to those who have come with me on this journey. The Faithful. And to you, the reader who has had at least the tenacity to read this far. If you have, read on. It gets better. Kristianne. 3

JESS GLENDENNING

TRUE FRIENDSHIP IS MORE THAN JUST FUN TIMES AND DRUNK TIMES. In one year, I learnt more about friendship than in the previous 29 years, so when I was invited to be a part of this zine and asked to write about “friendship” I knew what I wanted to write about. However, I hate talking about myself, but I can’t escape that for this piece. I promise next time I’m asked to write something for this zine, it will be fun and interesting and nothing like what you are about to read, but since I celebrated a year of redefining my understanding of friendship, I am gonna talk some shit for a bit. So Friendship. Hopefully we all know what we mean by that term…but just in case I knocked up a definition “Friendship is about having people who you care about, can joke with each other without getting offended, have similar interests, relationships built on trust, honesty, encouragement to get more awesome and comfortably talk about poo at the dinner table” it doesn’t need to be all of that, but for me all that helps to be my friend, now we have a basic understanding let’s move on. Who the fuck am I? I’m just some guy, 31, going grey and I swear too much. I listen to lots of music, read a lot of comic books and in the previous year I decided enough was enough. I needed to take my definition of friendship seriously. I had been lying to my friends for the longest time and needed to be honest with them all, I needed to stop being a bad friend. After years of being worried everyone I knew would hate me if I told the truth, I decided fuck it; I will tell them the truth. So I did what every foolish west country bumpkin like myself would do, I got my west country courage on, I drank several pints of scrumpy cider and went to the pub with my best friend. Out of nowhere I told him I’m gay. But then something insane happened. He didn’t care. He just laughed, smiled and said “so?”. I didn’t expect him to be ok with this, but he was. He bought me another pint and he pointed at dudes in the bar and asked who I thought was hot and who was not and then shit got real as he asked me if Top Gun was my favourite movie because apparently “alllllllll the gays fucking love Top Gun man!”………None of this made sense; this is not what I expected. So I carried on trying to tell a handful of my closest friends. Every time I expected hate from them, every time I was convinced it was going to end badly, but the same thing kept happening. They didn’t care that I was into dudes. Some female friends joked “well that explains why you never came on to me”, some male friends joked “so would you wanna tap this?” but after all the jokes and jibes they just hugged me and told me it was cool and I was an idiot for not doing this sooner. 5

The ones that knew would keep on encouraging me to keep on telling people. So I did. I had some of the most amazing people cheering me on, they were keen to see me happy and so I kept moving forward. Then it happened. People were dicks. I call them people, because they made it clear they didn’t want to be my friend anymore, so in turn I guess I can’t call them my friends. Now I don’t tell you this because I want sympathy, nor do I want you to say to yourself “they weren’t friends then” because they were, but now they are not. I tell you this because we all know some shitty people. We know deep down they aren’t good to be around and once all the fun stops they are nowhere to be seen. You never really want to face that fact, but I am glad I did. I was lucky I had a 99% success rate. I told my friends something I never thought I would. They were there for me and they kept me going, kept pushing me and helped to remind me why I needed to do this. Because being happy in ones own skin is more important than just coasting by to make others happy. Friends want to see you go on and do something awesome, they don’t want to see you miserable. I wish I realised that sooner. Don’t get me wrong here. I am not looking back at the years gone past and viewing them as wasted years. I am viewing them as an essential experience that led me to where I needed to be, I am gutted some people no longer want to know me. But I am more annoyed with myself that I didn’t realise how lucky I was before April 8th 2014. So now I get to the point. If you are lucky enough like me to know people, people who you get to spend time with online, offline, in pubs, in clubs, in football grounds, at gigs, where-fucking-ever you get to hang out with them, never under estimate how fucking awesome they are. If you have something going on friends will be there, no matter how unlikely you think the chances are of them giving a shit. You’ll be surprised just like I was - sure I lost some people along the way. But what a fucking adventure! I will never have a ride like that again and it took a journey like that to help me see what I had been missing all those years before “True friendship is more than just fun times and drunk times” “True friendship is about fun times, shit times, sad times, epic times and supporting one another times”. I was dumb to not realise how lucky I was. I’ve learnt that now. This is probably the nicest fluffiest thing I will ever put to print. But take stock, you fucking rule, you have people around you who fucking rule. Never underestimate the level of awesome you have around you. You might not even realise how people feel about you, you might think you are alone. But you sure as fuck are not. 6

If any of my friends read this. I fucking love all of you fantastic twats. If you didn’t push me so hard in that first 6 months, I would never have met the best cunt I know. Thanks x Whilst I procrastinated and avoided writing this… I mostly spent time reading: Punk Rock Jesus – written and drawn by Sean Murphy SAGA Volumes 1 to 3 – written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples East Of West volumes 1 and 2 – written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Nick Dragotta Whilst listening to: Duderus – Didn’t Choose The Nerd Life Seaguls – The Royal We Iron Chic – Constant One ...and then watched: The Daredevil TV show on Netflix Avengers: Age of Ultron Willow Cowboy Bebop

Stay awesome. Hi5 a stranger, you might make a new friend. x

CHRIS GEORGE 7

MIXTAPES ARE FOR FRIENDS. So it was Christmas. I can’t remember if it was just before or just after but either way, it was Christmas. I went out for a curry with some mates, maybe even some of the other contributors to this very publication were there too, who knows? Anyway, during the meal and amongst the various conversations, we found ourselves extolling the virtues of the humble mixtape and how people don’t really make them anymore. By the end of the discussion we had challenged each other to throw together a playlist, burn them to a disc and share our creations. There were some constraints in order to prevent the creation of 5 hour-long prog rock bore-fests. Either a maximum of 45 minutes playtime or 15 songs, whichever came first and a deadline was set, the end of January if I remember correctly. I say that because as of today, the 27th of April, no one has heard my effort. I decided I would choose a theme as the basis to my soon to be 43 minute long, 15 song, emo punk mega mix because every good mixtape needs a theme, right? So I thought about it for a while and played around with the ideas of place, maps or distance as possible themes. I ended up settling on “Places I’ve never been”. It goes like this. 1. Piebald – American Hearts – 3.10 taken from We Are The Only Friends That We Have. I saw Piebald support The Movielife in Oxford back in 2003 or something, and I have to be honest, I didn’t get it. However, after trawling through the WashedUpEmo podcast archives at work, I stumbled upon the Travis Shettel episode and my love for Piebald was born. “I walk the streets of a Carolina. Watching people pushing shopping carts” I’ve never been to either North or South Carolina. 2. Signals Midwest – Monarchs – 2.11 taken from Latitudes and Longtitudes. Not your typical gruff punk or emo revival band, but with a sound that lays somewhere in between the two. I love the rough sounding production on this record. “We broke down at the base of a mountain. Way out west past the Hutchinson plains” Any idea where they are? No, me neither. 3 . Saves The Day – You Vandal - 2.28 taken from Through Being Cool. Life is always better with some Saves The Day, especially a fast, old, Saves The Day track. I could write about a really awkward hug with Chris Conley after their show last year at the Guildhall, but its probably best that I don’t. “Last night I dreamt you called from Costa Rica. The place you’ve been for the last two weeks” I went on holiday to the Costa Blanca when I was 13, but never to Costa Rica.

4. The Ataris – San Dimas High School Football Rules - 2.47 taken from Blue Skies, Broken Hearts... Next 12 Exits. This song, album, band was my favourite when I was seventeen and inspired probably all of me and my mate Pembs’ pipedreams. There are quite a few places mentioned in this song, but for theme purposes; I’ve never been to San Dimas, nor have I attended the high school there. I do like football though. 5. Make Do & Mend – Oak Square - 3.04 taken from End Measured Mile. Live to work? Work to live? I guess that’s what this song is about. Trying to progress your art, whatever that maybe, while still paying the bills. They sound pretty unhappy about it. “Now the plans we make become grit in the storm drain’s teeth”. Oak Square must be a place. It has to be a place for this sake of this mixtape. 6. Dowsing – Amateur Cartography – 2.07 taken from All I Could Find Was You. The title mentions map-making and the song mentions many places. Two minutes and seven seconds to cover the Americas is not bad going. Peru, Canada, The Andes, Montreal, Winnepig and Tennesse all get a mention. An Indie-Punk Geography lesson. I haven’t been to any of the places mentioned in this song, but I’ll choose Peru for the link in this one. “Maybe Peru, just me and you. Shouting from the top of the Andes”. 7. The Weakerthans – One Great City! - 2.54 taken from Reconstruction Site. I love the picture that this song paints of a mundane journey home from work. We all know the feeling of excitement when we finally leave the office at the end of the week, only to enter the scrum of rush hour trying to join the motorway. “I Hate Winnipeg!” Or do I? I’ve never been in the position to judge. This song marks the end of side one. Please flip the record.

8. Tiny Moving Parts – Dakota - 2.51 taken from This Couch Is Long And Full of Friendship. The opener to side two. The lovely guitar jangle that starts this track is all the description that this song requires. It’s fitting for the zine that this song is part of the mix. “The midwest has blessed me with great friends”. I have never been to any of the midwestern states. 9. Attack In Black – Broken Things – 3.35 taken from Marriage. Broken Things is a superb song, there must be something that I can use to link it back to the theme so I can use it in the mix. Then I remembered the lyrics “Let die our spoiled architect boroughs” and given that Attack In Black hail from Canada, I couldn’t have possibly walked around those boroughs. It’s a tenuous link at best. 10. Pet Symmetry - Please Don’t Tell My Father That I Used His 1996 Honda Accord to Destroy The Town of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania In 2002 - 2.51 taken from Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs With Long Titles. Evan (Into It Over It) is in this band, you probably knew that already. I like Into it Over it, especially acoustically on top of the Bargate in the summer sunshine, but I like the two songs on this release much more. Anyway, “I could not see the street signs through the smoke” either, having never set foot in Willow Grove. 11. State Lines – Water Song – 2.43 taken from For The Boats. The start of this song reminds me of Smells Like Teen Spirit, which is no bad thing. There’s another very tenuous link for this track. “We watched an ocean fall apart. Right from the comforts of your front porch.” Yep, your front porch! It could be anywhere really, I know, but I couldn’t use the bands name as I’ve been to the states. 12. The Get Up Kids – Washington Square Park - 3.08 taken from Four Minute Mile. The phone rang. It was Kristianne calling from a pay phone. She was just checking in from her uni trip to New York. She asked me to guess where she was calling from. I couldn’t. “I’m in Washington Square Park!” She was really happy, knowing it was one of my favourite Get Up Kids songs, but upset that I couldn’t be there with her. One day we’ll go together. 13. Slingshot Dakota – Words – 3.56 taken from Dark Hearts. “We move forward. Even when we’re falling.” I had been thinking about reworking this song into an acoustic cover. I may still do it at some stage. Using keys, drums and female vocals, the two-piece are a change in style from the rest of the mix. It’s not hard to find the link with this one.

14. Modern Baseball – See Ya, Sucker – 2.12 taken from Sports. We’re almost there. Given the title of the song and you’ve actually read this far, maybe I should have used this song last. The song mentions a street corner in New York. “On the corner of Canal and Broadway, where that huge signs says love me” I like the fun sound of Modern Baseball and the storytelling lyrics, but don’t worry if you don’t. The track is probably almost finished by now. 15. Run, Forever – Braddock Beach – 2.38 taken from Settling. An acoustic track to bring things to a close. Run, Forever reminds me a little bit of Great Cynics, but it could just be the chord progressions that they use. Anyway, it’s a sort of indie punk loveliness. The song doesn’t state whether or not Braddock Beach is sandy, but it seems to describe the decline of a neighbourhood.

So as the final chord rings out and you’re either glad it’s all over, or going back to tracks that stood out, I’m wondering about the trip that would incorporate visits to the 15 places. If you’re that way inclined, then please put these songs together on a playlist and have a listen. I’m sure it would have been so much easier for me to just burn this to disc and have handed them out 4 months ago, rather than write 1,500 words about it. Oh well, I’ve got a trip to plan.

STU ELBROW

Image taken from ‘No. 3’ by Kristianne Drake 11

WAIT (& SEA). An Icy wind evacuates your breath, the cold cuts you like an insult. Pebbles are awkward and lumpy underfoot making it hard to walk without thinking. Memorial benches taunt you with their emptiness, your singular shape unable to fit their legacy. The only comfort is the always-ness of the sea. lapping lapping lapping against the shore…sure and never missing a beat, and you walk on… lapping lapping lapping The numbness in your bones spreads a little to your thoughts, forcing them to become smaller and stiller. It seems time to leave now, to go forwards. Sea-spray coats you like subtle armour against the feelings, the reelings, the fucked up revealings. lapping lapping lapping You are ok… you were always ok… but you didn’t know it. The sea was waiting for you the whole time, lapping lapping lapping.

ELOISE ROSE13

‘…we take the long route home because we don’t want this to end…’ Moorhen by Great Cynics Early on when the zine was still in conception mode I had a conversation with Ben about the theme we’d chosen. It seemed as if by choosing a theme it had firstly given everyone a framework around which to base their work, but then it seemed to become a stumbling block creatively. I said the same to Ben as I say to every student I work with. The title/theme is just to get things going, do whatever you want to do and justify fitting it into the theme. Ben then told me his piece was going to be about how you don’t have to be friends with everyone. An anti-theme piece if you will. I like that. It appeals to the anarchy in my soul. Let’s take what we’re given and fuck with it. It made me think about how my life and friends had changed in the last 3.5 years. I’ve been living in Southampton now since 2003. I spent the 2 years before that visiting regularly to see my then boyfriend. We would go to gigs and see bands we couldn’t see back home (which wasn’t too many in the early 2000’s as we had a pretty good scene at home). As a regular gig goer you start to see the same faces turning up. I guess somewhere along the line someone has to make the first move, say hello, nod in your direction. But that probably won’t be me. Or it probably will - depending on how I let my anxiety get the better of me. I either come across as moody and withdrawn or overly loud and vexatious. I can’t help it. It’s just what happens. Sometimes it’s aggravated by my depression. It certainly doesn’t help with making friends. When you’ve been an onlooker in a scene for a few years without ever breaking the seal and becoming part of it, the scene becomes a ‘clique’* . Something you once yearned to be welcomed into becomes something you stand back and mock from noso-afar (like the fox and the grapes). Then, when you least expect it, when you’ve actually given up, the seal is broken and you are allowed in. Something has changed. It doesn’t seem so bad from the inside and slowly you become part of it. But, having been on the edge for so long you don’t want to become ‘that clique’, the ones you mocked, so you start trying to challenge your anxiety and take control. Be inclusive instead of exclusive – after all no one really owns punk rock do they? And you are in. You are a part. There is a pecking order and you are right at the bottom, but that doesn’t matter.

For me, getting invited to the house shows at No.3 was breaking that seal. I didn’t know any of the people, I just recognised them by sight. But it was Above Them playing that first show I was invited to and there was no way I was going to miss it. That night terrified me. I was so anxious I took my camera to hide behind so I didn’t have to talk to anyone. And somehow, I made it through the night and out the other side. I got invited back. I started getting to know who people were – mostly because I was ‘that girl with a camera’ – and I made some really good friends. But nothing lasts forever. All good things come to an end. The tenants of No.3 were a mix of students and friends and when the students all finished studying they had to vacate the house. There was one last show. And a moment, right at the end when I was leaving, solidified for me what it had all been about. New friends reaching out to me and hugging me, with tears (albeit drunken ones) in their eyes. No one wanted it to end. No one wanted to leave that night. We wanted it to go on and on. But there has to be endings. Endings occur so that new beginnings might happen. And so No.3 became a thing of legend: and forever will be to all those who sailed in her ship. I wrote a summative introduction to the No.3 book I made, because mostly the photographs speak for themselves. I wanted to share that here along with a small selection of photos. You decide for yourself. *I realise that to some, we were a ‘clique’. A small, but impenetrable, clique. We would never admit that. Not even now.

No. 3.

For two years the tenants of No.3 invited musicians from all over the world to come into their home and play a show all for the promise of a vegan curry and free beers. They invited friends to come and watch the bands play, drink beers, have â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;no un-funâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and donate whatever they could afford to help the bands pay for their petrol. No.3 became the epitome for punk rock today. No managers, no fees, no dodgy ticket touts, no rip off merchandise for sale. Just friends supporting the music scene they live for and musicians who play music for love not money. As the word spread momentum gathered. Bands played, people jumped, moshed, crowd surfed and when it was all over had the number 3 immortalized on their skin. Mineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a cider! Cheers!

Words & Images taken from ‘No. 3’ by Kristianne Drake17

COMRADES =/= FRIENDS. Scene: back of a muddy Land Rover. 4pm late winter gloom. Even muddier people crushed together under a space blanket. Heads crush-aching under the fog of acrid citronella stank and diesel fumes. Knees creaking but unable to move them. Bones cold and weary from a 12-mile yomp. Adrenal drought from sporadic threats of bumpkin violence inspiring crankiness while thoughts of home’s hot shower and Saturday night telly massages them. Sparks of life returning with every sip from a now warm tin of Tyskie and every force-gulped chunk of that morning’s Co-op baguette and hummus (Moroccan spiced for the connoisseurs, plain for the risk-averse). Thoughts cranked up to 11 so they can be heard over the ever-failing engine, which always manages to be that bit louder. Then someone pipes up above the din: “So guys, like, how would everyone feel if I organised a social for us? Like, y’know, dinner and drinks? Get to know each other outside of Sabbing?” No one speaks. At least 50% of the van’s inhabitants are thinking a variation of: “Shit, who tells the fresh meat we’re not actually mates?” Well, that’s actually a lie. Some of us are – incidentally or otherwise. Some of us make weekend plans together extraneous to activism. Some of us have partners who have been introduced to each other. Some of us have accidentally met each other’s parents, P’s and Q’s minded. But most of us are not – this is our only engagement with each other, and considering the muddy legality of what we sometimes do, we’d like to keep it that way. But activism – especially not activism that operates on the boundaries of the law – is not a social space. And I have to qualify this, because I’m probably due some abuse for this opinion. A lot of activist groups become a home for people who lack one. There’s safety in solidarity and, on the whole, people who are hot for social change are not dicks. Who the fuck am I to say that this home is invalid? No one, that’s who. I’m not here to tell you that your experiences are invalid. What I am here to tell you is, the ability to believe that someone that you are standing in solidarity with, someone you are willing to be beaten or arrested on behalf of – the ability to believe that this person is ultimately a bit of a cunt – is ineffable.

Activism – again, especially that which operates on blurred legal lines – can be mentally degrading. Hegemonic order is not meant to be easily challenged. That’s why it’s fucking hegemonic. It’s dominant, which means it dominates you. There’s no aftercare for an oppressive society outside of that we give ourselves. And there’s not always a Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army there to lighten the mood. You want to squirt water from a flower into someone’s face? Here’s a tyre iron. You’ll need it because the cunt over there has a bike chain and he’s much, much bigger than we all are. Plus, the police are on his side. I’m descending into manarchist rantings. I truly am and I’m a bit ashamed. But I implore you to listen – become an activist, help those around you, strive for actual change (not the shite at the ballot box), put yourself out there. But under no circumstances use it as a crutch for empty dates in the social calendar. It will break you, and even worse, it will break those around you. Your comrades are not always your friends, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

FUNCRUSHER

4 GAMES OF TABLE FOOTBALL. “The football is a game that does not promote autism and video games; but friendship, companionship, movement coordination between the right and left hand.” – Alejandro Finisterre (illiterately translated using Google)* 1. Table football, like many simple inventions, had many inventors. The most interesting one was probably the Spanish poet Alejandro Finisterre who - despite versions of the game existing since the late 1800’s – patented the game back in 1937. I don’t know this yet though because I haven’t thought to Google it; that’s because I’m still stood in a boozer in Kreuzberg. There’s a Club Mate in my hand and Cocksparrer ringing in my ears and I’m watching two strangers play the most skilled game of kicker I’ve ever seen. My Berlin mates are considerably better table football players than me but these two hustlers turned up with furniture polish, lubed up the arms and then proceeded to do magical things that prove you can do a lot more with a wooden figure stuck on a metal pole than I – maybe even Finisterre – ever thought possible. The two men make it look like every shot, every dead stop, is somehow perfect, easy and totally deliberate, like they’ve got a co-conspirator controlling the ball via some elaborate radio control or there’s some crazy shit going on with electromagnets we can’t fathom. It’s something to see. Although I haven’t worked it out yet, it’s appropriate that we’re watching this display of skill in what is also a St. Pauli fan pub. The story of the Spanish incarnation of table football goes back to the dark days of the civil war; in a very real sense, the Spanish version of table football was born as a reaction to fascism. 17 year old Finisterre was 19

injured early in the war, during a bombing raid in Madrid, when he was buried in the rubble of a building. Rescued and taken to hospital in Barcelona, the idea for the game came from seeing children on the wards, who injured in air raids, were unable to play football. Inspired by table tennis, Finisterre asked his friend, the Basque carpenter Francisco Javier Altuna, to make the first prototype. Thus was born the Spanish version of table football, fútbolin. In this origin story, Franco couldn’t stop the Catalan youth playing football, even if it was only a wooden version whilst their wounds healed. The game goes on. 2. A week or so later and I’m out with old mates for gelato, taking it in turns to play on what is the worst football table I’ve ever seen. It’s got my preferred lay out, with only one player in the back row, but that’s about all its got going for it. The side of the table is slowly falling off and we have to give it a regular smack to put it back together again. The blue goal keeper has no handle, whilst it’s pretty much only the red goal keeper that has a handle. I wonder what Finisterre would have made of this monstrosity. The thing is, it doesn’t really matter. We’re still having a laugh, not even really paying attention to the score line but shit talking and laughing at the pop music soundtrack. Sometimes I feel like I live in a bubble, divorced from popular culture because football aside, I couldn’t give a fuck about most of it. Every now and then though I’ll hear something when I’m out and about and it’ll stop me dead. Earlier this week was a Taylor Swift song that I heard in a cafe that I quite liked then was surprised by what it was; today its Will.i.am singing about spending his birthday money and I piss myself laughing so much that I let in half a dozen goals. The game goes on. 3. I learnt the hard way that if you lose without scoring at all then you owe the other player a round of shots. Thing is, I talk a good game, particularly given that I’ve already had a couple of pints, but I only play kicker once a year when I visit my crew in Berlin. W of course plays all the time. So he beats me easily. We go up to the bar – which isn’t spinning yet – and I communicate that I want two shots of something, I don’t really care what. The bar maid, who I’ve yet to hit on, gives me a dice and tells me to roll. If I get a six, I get a round of free shots as well as the shots I’ve paid for. Of course I roll a six and thus begins an endless cycle of kicker misery. Increasingly drunk, my game gets worse and worse. My wallet gets lighter, the bar maid looks more attractive, at some point W disappears to throw up and I continue to lose horribly. I’ve no idea if the teenage Finisterre drank or not – he might have been a tee totaller for all I know – but I like to think that he did. I have a mental image of him in the Pyrenees, escaping into France with a small band of refugees and sitting around a camp fire with a shared bottle of red wine. There’s the sound of shelling in the distance and haunted by what he’s seen, drinks himself to sleep, stretched out in the dirt next

to Altuna. Drunk, he doesn’t notice the storm brewing. Soaking wet, he runs for cover but when the storms stop ten days later, he discovers his patent is mush from the rain water seeping into his pack. I like to think that’s how it happened. Regardless of Alejandro’s drinking habits, D tells me the next day that my own nearly got me arrested for drunkenly jay walking down the middle of the road in front of a copper. The game goes on. 4. Finisterre, poet and table football inventor, also has another distinction. He was also one of the first people to hijack an aeroplane. Kidnapped in Guatemala because of his committed Republican sympathies and sent by plane to Madrid, he escaped and hid in the loo where he built a fictional bomb made of soap and foil. Armed with these “explosives”, he convinced the pilot taking him back to Spain wasn’t such a great plan. He was taken to Panama instead and eventually settled in Mexico. Finisterre didn’t return to Spain until after it became a democracy. I wonder what happened to Altuna – making up the gaps again, I like to think of him popping up every now and then in De Fisterra’s life to play him at kicker, both fathers of the game table football ninjas who’d give the furniture polish hustlers a run for their money. The internet is no help on this one – he might have never even made it out of Spain - but I like to think they had an adventure crossing the mountains at least. I really hope that they were old men sat in the Camp Nou together. In any case, I’ve no such exciting table football related story. I am currently getting thrashed by a very drunk N who “could have been a contender”, but N’s well practiced wrist action doesn’t really compare with kidnappings and pretend bombs - even if he did spend 25 quid on four shots of rum by mistake on his way to wiping the floor with me and B. B is trashed but I’m two years sober by this stage and I’d like to think two on one with all the booze consumed would mean that we’d at least stand a fighting chance. This isn’t the case. N clearly has been working on his wrist technique. I’m happy losing anyhow. I rarely play table football but when I do, I remember how much fun it is – but at least part of it is the company. Laughing so hard I’m nearly crying, another ball hits the net and another 50p goes in the machine. Old mates catching up on gossip and banter as the stack of coins go down. Good times. The game goes on.

Research innit:

*Quote taken from a Spanish interview with Finisterre: - mobbingopinion.bpweb.net/artman/publish/article_1215.shtml - www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/the-murky-history-of-foosball-314668/ - www.typicallyspanish.com/news-spain/profiles/Alejandro_Finisterre_-_The_ inventor_of_Table_Football.shtml - www.theguardian.com/news/2007/feb/24/guardianobituaries.spain

PHIL CHOKEWORD

KATRINA GRAEF THOMSON23

STRANGERS IN SPECSAVERS. Sometimes I find the simple task of entering a shop, or any other kind of establishment open to the public, quite difficult. There are a variety of different catalysts for my hesitancy . A closed door, obscured view to the inside or that creeping sense of being watched. I don’t consider this to be a phobia though, more of a psychological landmine that I occasionally trip when I’m at a particularly low ebb. I had been at such a depth for most of the summer, spending most of my holiday inside denying myself the opportunity to experience anything other than my own little world that I had created. But I was running out of holiday and I wanted this done before I went back to work. . I hadn’t gone for an eye exam in about ten years, an unusually long length of time for someone who’s been wearing glasses for at least three decades. An eye test in and of itself I don’t find it daunting. In fact it would be a distant fourth behind the dentist, the doctors and the hairdressers in terms of the anxiety factor they draw from me. So one sunny afternoon I find myself standing in front of a sharply dressed assistant in Southampton’s city centre. I mumble a few words and he appears to understand and thrusts an appointment card into my hand. 2.30pm. two days from now. You know when you’ve got to be some place at a specific time (or write to a deadline) and you think you’ve got it nailed but that confidence impedes your ability to tell the time? I’m ten minutes late. The sharply dressed assistant doesn’t appear to notice my tardiness and I’m too embarrassed to draw attention to it. So I’m conveyor-belted from staff member to staff member performing the relevant checks before I get to the optician. This part did not exist the last time I was here they still had those funny little metal frames with the interchangeable lenses. The test itself has always filled me with unusual emotions. The intimate room, the minimal lighting and the optician inspecting my retinas mere centimetres from my face. In any other scenario this could be quite a sensual setting apart from the occasional requests to read out a random sequence of letters. After the appointment, I started browsing through the frames when one of the advisers came over and chose to start the conversation by complimenting me on my tattoos. Given the environment we were in and our constituent roles as client and adviser I felt this was a somewhat left field approach but it could be that it was a tactic

that saw more success than the usual vanilla “can I help you?.” Fifteen minutes roll by and we’re just about getting to the glasses in the interim we’ve covered topics such as art, spiritual healing and the fortunes of ex partners. Now hang on a minute, this is me and if you know me you’ll know that getting a conversation out of me like this is not so easily won and it was real conversation too with an ebb and flow rather than me answering questions using the minimum of syllables I can get away with. So what happened? What made this possible? Well, in my mind at least, I achieved something. I walked into a building I’ve never set foot in before and made an appointment with a person I had never met before. I came back later and met a further three new people and the fourth got the benefit of, if you can call it that, a version of me with my guard down. The euphoria of completing this task put me in a good place, at least for a little while. I showed myself that I could step over that threshold, both the physically and metaphorically and that I did not have to be afraid of asking or being asked those typical questions that form a fairly routine meeting of two strangers getting to know each other. DAVID CORNFORTH

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE STAGE DIVERS. NOT.

This is a conversation I’ve had a few times recently. I’ve been going to gigs for over 30 years and in all that time only twice been landed on by a stage diver. Many, many times I’ve had errant crowd surfers pass over my head, drop a foot on my face or ear, grab a handful of my face as they try to stay a drift. So why is it that I don’t mind crowd surfing but stage diving really pisses me off? The worst damage crowd surfers have ever done is the occasional knock or bump - and you can usually see them coming. They require the complicity of the crowd to surf and therefore there is an allegiance of sorts between them and the other people who have paid to be at the show. I can see a crowd surfer coming and have the time to move away, and if I can’t, at least know I won’t take the full brunt of a sudden crush. Both times I’ve been hit by stage divers have been very different. The first time the guy decided to come right over to the stage left to scale the amp I was next to, taking photos. He looked right at me, grinned, then climbed up and leapt spread-eagled into the crowd. I had nowhere to move, and he knew it. As he kicked me in the face my glasses flew into the moshing crowd in the packed venue. I had to wait until the band’s set ended before I could look for my glasses not knowing if they were broken or not. 25

The second time was at a show where thus far no one had been crowd surfing. The main band (who I’d seen before) were not a stage diving type of band, so I had no reason to feel I was in danger. The second support came on. I hear two chords and the singer shouted “First person to stage dive gets free merch!” I turned to get away but, in under 5 seconds, I felt the full force of approximately 11 stone of bloke on the back of my neck - everyone else managed to get out of the way. I couldn’t stand back up and dragged myself out from the venue. I spent the next six hours in A&E being checked for spinal and neck damage. Thankfully it was only bruised muscle and nothing more serious. However, I missed the headliner and had to go to a job interview the next day on heavy painkillers and hardly able to move my neck. I’ve relayed these events to various people and it always amazes me when people justify stage diving. Every. Fucking. Time. How would you feel if you broke someone’s neck? Why do you think people want you to jump on them? Why are you such a cunt? Oh - sorry for going to see a band I really like and not wanting to bear the burden of your entire body on my head unexpectedly. Oh, did you pay extra for your ticket to allow you to ruin everyone else’s fun? I didn’t see the limited number of ‘cunt tickets’ that were on sale. Did you buy all of them? Maybe you’d be happy with me punching you in the face every time you stage dive because it makes me feel like I’m having a good time?

THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO STAGE DIVE. EVER. If you need to let off steam box, base jump, punch yourself in the face. Whatever. Just don’t come to the gig that I also paid to go to and ruin it for me and countless other people. Because the next person who stage dives on/near me will feel either my fist or feet welcoming them to try again….

ANON

ELOISE ROSE 27

JESS GLENDENNING 29

KRISTIANNE DRAKE

WHO WE WERE. Kristianne loves music, is a practicing photographer, academic in a

university & teaches arts to teenagers not in education or who are part of the youth justice system. She swears too much, has a small dog called Eric & is married to Stu. She likes cheese.

Funcrusher started off as an angry young man and just got taller. A lover

and maker of drones and static, he is also a long-suffering Spurs fan, vegan, and earns his crust trying to get students organised (with a bit of casework on the side). He digs cheap red wine and is married to Hali Bury.

Stu is a credit controller, cook or musician depending on the time of day. He is also a full time daydreamer, husband, self-doubter and Swindon Town supporter. He comes up with his best plans when he should be working and always forgets them by the time he gets home.

Phil. Compulsive domino arranger. Champion face palmer. Lover of lost causes. Faded blood stain on metaphorical walls. Might not be a prick to you if you catch him right.

Chris enjoys drawing penises on other people’s belongings, wearing odd

socks, bad movies, good tunes and eating food shaped like animals. Chris spends most of his days trying to justify why he shouldn’t be given his p45 and asked to never come back to work.

Jess is a photography student and huge tea enthusiast. Jess can be

found when not studying, wearing a camera like it is the next designer necklace. Also, it is said if you listen carefully you can hear her shutter release in the distance.

David doesn’t know what to do with his hands at parties. Katrina, gory film fanatic, graduate in photography and serial nap taker. Works in the coroners office during the day and is a mischief maker at night. She has a fat fluffy cat who thinks she’s a dog called Moo. She has an admiration for pigeons, she says admiration but what she really means is obsession. Her thinking is that someone needs to love them.

Eloise is a lover of monochrome and melancholy.

Inherently romantic with just enough cynicism to see her through, she is an artist / illustrator who consistently dresses inappropriately for the weather, and almost always in black. She likes the word crepuscular.