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Punk Rock Ephermera

I'm sometimes surprised by the stuff that appears from old boxes I haven't looked in for years. Yesterday I came across these items of punk memorabilia which I'd forgotten about.

There are two issues of Sniffin' Glue, the original punk fanzine. This was founded by Mark Perry in 1976 London, and ran for a year or so. I bought these two issues in 1977, in the King's Road in Chelsea. (I'm fairly sure that's red ink, and not blood, on the cover)



On the cover of one issue there are pictures of Johnny Rotten, The Clash and the Damned. I think it's the magazine staff on the other. I notice that picture was taken by Jill Furmanovsky, who went on to become a well-known photographer.

Sniffin' Glue had a big role in driving the punk rock explosion in Britain. It was certainly an innovation. I'd never seen a fanzine before Sniffin Glue appeared. Soon afterwards there was proliferation of fanzines, though I don't remember buying any others.

My other piece of ephemera is a little Raincoats booklet, from a year or two later. That's not really punk rock, of course, it was post-punk, and very different in a way. But similar in other ways. It was a creative period in Britain, and there were a few years of this sort of creativity which flowed together. Though the all-female Raincoats were nothing at all like the Sex Pistols or the Clash, they wouldn't have flourished, or probably even existed, without the creative energy and freedom created by punk rock in London. Creative energy which got me writing, as I may have said before. Hundreds of times.



I don't remember when I got the Raincoats booklet and there's no date on it. It was probably soon after their first album came out, in 1979. It think it came from the original Rough Trade shop in Kensington Park Road. I saw the Raincoats play on various occasions around that time.

I don't know what to do with these things now. Put them back in the box, I suppose. But I'm glad I found them anyway.

I just did an interview, answering reader's questions, here at JennIRL.

Hello Kitty

I'm finding Twitter confusing. I didn't realise there's a link you have to press to see if anyone has replied to your posts. I only found out after I asked my friend @Abby about it. I'm still confused about what posts go where.

This brings on some gloom about the modern world. I've been through websites, newsgroups, message boards, forums, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and God knows what else, when all I really wanted to do was generate a little publicity, sell a few books, and spend the rest of my time watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Was this so unreasonable? Yet now here I am, trapped by technology. Clearly my life has gone wrong somewhere.

* shakes fist at modern world *

I noticed some Hello Kitty bags in the supermarket today, and I was interested in this, because you don't see much Hello Kitty merchandise around here. (Vex, Kalix's friend, is a fan of Hello Kitty) I quite wanted to buy one, and wondered if there was someone I could give it to as a present, but I couldn't think of anyone. My niece is too old, and would be scornful of it. And I couldn't really justify buying it for myself.

Hello Kitty has a little bow around one ear. This looks pleasing, but I'm wondering if it's really practical. Would a bow really stay on a cat's ear? I think it might just fall off all the time.

I was going to finish this blog with the stunning revelation that Hello Kitty was inspired by the broad flat colours of the great artist Matisse, particularly the paper collages he created late in his career. That would have been a good piece of information to pass on. But I've just remembered it wasn't Hello Kitty that was inspired by Matisse, it was Miffy the Rabbit. Hmm. I have no real opinion on Miffy.

Soo Catwoman T-shirt

Here I am in my new Soo Catwoman t-shirt, which I love dearly. Notice the expression of deep concentration as I struggle with the difficult task of taking a picture and talking on the phone at the same time. Afterwards I had to sit down and rest.

Also in picture - MacBook Pro, box it came in, nice little tartan head-scarf, World Fantasy Award, box of tissues, edge of trusty old Mac iBook, blue mug, assorted books, wicker basket containing socks, TV remote and envelope containing bill for something.

I bought this t-shirt from Catwoman Clothing which is the creation of Dion, Soo's daughter. To paraphrase her daughter's words, very many people have used pictures of Soo Catwoman over the years, on books, magazines, posters, clothes, record sleeves and so on, without either asking permission or paying any money, so now they're reclaiming it.

You can buy various designs of these t-shirts either at Catwoman Clothing's Myspace or Soo Catwoman's website.

Here's another picture of one of their t-shirts -

Chinese Good Fairies

Here's the cover of the new Chinese language edition of the Good Fairies of New York, to be published at the end of this month in Taiwan. ( ISBN 9789861736518 )



My name in Chinese, I think  -  馬汀．米勒

(I'm saying 'Chinese' here, but that's probably not quite accurate, because there are different types of written Chinese.)

Here's some of the blurb from the back cover -



Notice the important words, in brackets in English - Jane Austen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Sex Pistols.  Good choices! I'm pleased to be known as a fan of Buffy, Jane Austen and the Sex Pistols. All three were at the top of their genre.

It also mentions Thraxas. I am at this moment planning to write a new Thraxas story, and publish it as an ebook. This will happen some time, though I'm not certain when.

Mysterious Painted Mark

Outside the front door of my block there are some small metal covers, all marked 'stopcock.' Recently one of these metal covers has been mysteriously painted blue. I'm very suspicious about this. Why has it happened?

I walked down the block, looking at the other entrances. There are similar small metal covers on the pavement outside other doors. None of them have been painted blue. Or painted at all.

It all seems very suspicious to me. And a little worrying. What can it mean? At present, I'm leaning towards it being a signal to aliens. At this moment, they might be looking at my front door through giant telescopes, and thinking 'that's the place.'

Less likely, but not impossible, assassins have marked my flat for a sudden deadly strike.

Could it be a secret sign, like in The Hobbit, when Gandalf scratches a mark on Bilbo's door, and all the dwarves arrive, thinking Bilbo is an expert treasure hunter? Hmmm. Actually, I've always thought that was quite likely to happen to me one day. I'm sort of expecting to have to help dwarves battle a dragon at some time or other.

It all bodes ill. Secret and mysterious marks outside your house can't be good. I don't like it.

Malveria's Shoe Catastrophe

Here is a digital painting of Queen Malveria, by Sam Causon, which she's posted on her deviant art page. I am very fond of this image.

An angry Malveria, with flames flickering around her eyes, is complaining to her friend and fashion designer Thrix MacRinnalch that the heel on her new shoes has broken. It was a very upsetting experience for the Queen. Though, as Thrix does point out, she shouldn't really expect a fashion item like these high heels to survive a harsh environment like the Great Volcano. It's an early scene in Lonely Werewolf Girl, and writing that scene went a long way towards setting the tone of the book. I remember being pleased with it at the time.

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I'm not so pleased that every time I log into Facebook an advert appears on my page inviting me to try a 'Mature Dating Service.' Hum. Is this advert targeted specifically at me? Surely there is some mistake. My targeted ad should say something like 'Hello you handsome young stud, here are some glamorous movie stars who want to meet you.' Must send Facebook a strong complaint about the mix up.

More Computer Problems. Sigh.

What a trying week. My computer broke down, again. I had to have a new hard drive fitted last November, when it was only a couple of months old, and now it’s happened again. A complete hard-drive failure. I had to take it to the Apple Store in Regent Street to get a new drive fitted.

This has shaken my faith in Apple somewhat. Their support and free repair service has been really good, but it’s quite unsettling to have a new MacBook Pro and be on my third hard drive in eight months.

Naturally, the whole thing was very stressful. I was meant to go last weekend but several hours before setting off I managed to pour boiling water over my arm in a shocking household accident. This was really painful, and as I ran my arm under the cold tap I was envisioning myself in a hospital bed surrounded by drip-feeds, skin grafts and anxious relatives. It didn’t turn out to be that serious, though it did hurt dreadfully for a few hours before starting to feel better. By the evening it was all right, if very red. But it had put me right off visiting the Apple store.

The next appointment I could make was last Saturday. That was a poor choice of day. My agoraphobia made the visit difficult anyway, and it became worse as I arrived to find that it was iPad launch day. The Apple store was absolutely besieged by eager customers. There seemed to be several million people there, all wanting iPads. There were assistants and security guards shepherding the vast crowd in all directions. As I stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting for my group of people to be allowed upstairs, I realised that I’d picked a very bad time to visit.

“I’m afraid we’re running late” I was informed. I nodded gloomily, and settled in for a long, quite anxious wait. I couldn’t really blame the store, as the place was absolutely crammed with people wanting iPads.

At least the repair was quick. They’d replaced my hard drive by the next day and I’m now back in business, after the fairly tedious process of reloading my new operating system and software and work files and so on. Urgh.

Will this hard drive last longer than the others? I hope so.