misfits unlimited

An invitation to a dream walk...

In a couple of weeks, on Wednesday 23rd June, I'm going for a walk with my dreamcoat - anyone want to come with me?! We're going from Glastonbury town to the festival on the day the gates open. I've wanted to do a walk for a while now and Glastonbury seemed a good place to give it a go - particularly with this year being it's big 40th birthday celebration. I mentioned it to my good friend Liz at the Phoenix Project in Glastonbury and she fully encouraged it and helped me make it happen.

It's a pretty special place Glastonbury - town and festival both full of history and brimming with colourful and magical stories, and of course the landscape is gorgeous. As I've been looking into doing this I've been helped out by a lot of lovely locals who've given me loads of stories, suggestions and directions - but I'm up for more if you have them!

We've worked out a route that includes a few meeting/stopping places so people can join and leave at different points if they can't/don't want to do the whole thing. It's about 8 miles altogether, we'll be going at a reasonably leisurely pace but be prepared! This is roughly it, although it may get tweeked a little before then so if you are coming please let me know so I can keep you informed.

10am - Meet at Wearyall Hill by the Thorn Tree

11am - The Chalice Well / Lilli's garden for elevenses.

12-2.30 - Walking along the A361 luring festival goers out of their cars!

2.30 - 3.30pm - The Lion Pub (on A361), West Pennard for replenishments!

4.30pm - Pennard Hill, view of festival site

6-7pm  -  Pedestrian Gate B

Obviously the logistics are slightly tricky with getting to Glastonbury on that day but if anyone's up for a different, fun adventurous way of getting to the festival it'd be really great if you could come along and celebrate all that history and those stories and create a few new ones of our own.

You'll need to bring a bit of food, water, appropriate walking stuff and if you are going to the festival (non-festival-goers most welcome too) don't forget your ticket! And to make arrangements for your luggage/tents etc with some kind friends. If you can wear bright colours that'd be really good too - we'd like to make a colourful walk for our dreams.

If you can't make it but are going to the festival, the Phoenix Project will have a marquee up at the top of The Park area, the dreamcoat and I will be based in and around there so come and see us!

Hope to see you somewhere in those fields (of dreams!)

walking at Maifest, Berlin last month 

Homage to Berlin pt1

After a few conscientious months in London I’m back in Berlin for a bit and so happy to be here! I feel very lucky to be able to spend some of my life in this inspiring city - it's the closest I've come to finding an actual, existing place that feels like a festival - which suits my personal manifesto to make the everyday world feel like a festival! I could put up amazing stories and pictures everyday but as anyone who 'follows' this blog knows, I won't! So here's a very brief guide to why I love Berlin...

The space..... wide streets and roads that are really quiet (especially after living in London for the last 10 years!), a lot of green - trees, parks, canals and loads of really good 'spielplatzen'!

The pace..... so easy, so laidback, so unexpected in a big city that really likes to party and really doesn't sleep! People take their time here, you always run into friends - and find new ones - sometimes it feels almost like a village.  This is a sunny Monday afternoon in Görlitzer Park last October.

Because it's so laid back and also because it's mostly flat, makes for a perfect biking culture. Many favourite memories of biking with a posse of friends from party to party - so much more fun than taxis!

 
Art everywhere! And from everything, often in the most unexpected places.

 
Originality with re-cycling - seen in a lot of things but demonstrated especially well in the beautiful, original bars and cafes. This is a more classy example, Wohnzimmer in PrenzlauerBerg.

 
People getting together and doing stuff, mostly for free. Mostly the motive for doing things here is not money, fame or 'success' but just to do nice stuff. It's extremely liberating.

Music of all kinds everywhere - this is OMP playing in Mauer Park, they play on children's toy instruments and only songs about sun or summer. 
http://www.myspace.com/orchestreminiatureinthepark

 
History, it's very strong and a lot of it is very recent and as a friend of mine commented 'you can feel the emotion in the city'.

 
Activism, a Berlin tradition, but of course often done very creatively. These are protesters against the build up of huge media corporations along the Spree.

 
Style, individuality and the acceptance of it, whatever it may be.

Of course there is 'die andere seite der medalia' - the other side of the coin - but that's for another time, (maybe)! For now I'll just finish by inviting you to the festival/exhibition that our friend is arranging, it's called 'NEGLECT' - and is a very lovely bunch of artists/good people taking over 2000 sqm of abandoned floor space and rooms and filling it with art, ideas, music, performance, objects, drinking, dancing and imagination! The address is Am Treptower Park 28 - 30 from 12 midday on Sunday 9th non-stop for 48 hours. If you happen to be in Berlin at that time please come along, it's going to be special.

Bringing in the Spring

 

It was a few weeks ago now but we had a great day/night at the misfits gathering at the Lockside Lounge in Camden (London) at the end of Feb. Personally I felt like it was a bit of a winter goodbye party going by my not-very-scientific-but-desperate-for-the-end-of-winter theory of the way we were taught the seasons when we were kids - March, April and May being the allocated Spring months - the next day, the 1st March, was beautiful, bright, shiny and blue and just a little bit warmer. Thanks so much to all of you for coming, and those who couldn’t make it – see you in Berlin for the next one?! 

A right nice bunch of people came down to enjoy each other’s company; brilliant Trish came all the way from Wales to play us some tunes, 

Justina did beautiful art on faces – this one's Stephanie’s. 

Aaron, Naomi and Scholar sang us a couple of songs and Sophie tap-danced to some of them. We had visitors from afar – Lotta from Sweden, Magda from Poland and Chris’s dad from Manchester! And lots of very interesting entries in the Misfit Files... 

"It seems to me that it's all about not caring about fitting in, as you go on. It's really hard sometimes to trust your own head + ignore common sense, even when you know you're limiting yourself. Just take it one thing at a time" Michael

and from an anonymous writer....

"If I have a poo that isn't an 'immediate now I want to come out' poo - I stand on the loo seat - one foot either side - and speed up the process by squatting Indian stylee - with great results - does that make me weird??!! or at least a misfit? Hope so..... Yippee!!!"

Brixton Magic

I just had a really inspiring weekend so I thought I'd better write about it. It was also pretty magical and full of coincidence-serendipity-synchronicity moments and incidents which won't surprise those who know me but even by my standards it was pretty packed with 'em.

I mentioned briefly in another post something about the dreamcoat thing I do. I've been doing it a few years now and whenever, wherever I do it it's always a very special experience. Last weekend I ended up doing it at 3 places within 24 hours. First at my friend Nancy's birthday in a pub in Shepherd's Bush which was great fun. Then I took it to a 'Slumber Party' at a warehouse in Hackney, more of that later. The third place was Brixton Village Market where an organisation called Spacemakers were putting on a small carnival as the weekly Saturday event they do there. The Village market is the indoor market next to the main bit of Brixton market and the Spacemaker people have stepped in to make good, helpful and creative use of the empty shops and spaces there, they describe better what they do....

Our approach is to start with what is already there: the stories of a place and the people who live there; its unused or underused buildings; the skills and experience that exist within every neighbourhood and workplace; the desires of everyone connected to a place or project.
Our role is as a catalyst, bringing out the possibilities which were already present in a situation and making connections which might not have been obvious

• between local communities, property owners, local authorities, policy-​makers and others.
  
• between the energy, enthusiasm and deep pragmatism of grassroots projects and the reputation, specialist knowledge and resources of established institutions.
  
• between the creative explosion of projects making temporary use of empty space and the long-​term future of our local economies and communities.

And this seems to be happening there - alongside the local fishmongers, butchers, grocers, cafes from all delicious corners of the globe, hairdressers, dressmakers, you also have things like shops that are art installations, a no-frills cabaret venue, community project stalls, even a little temporary theatre. It's all really creative, lovely stuff but the best bit is the atmosphere - you really get the feeling that these people are supporting each other and enjoying being part of this vibrant place. And it was so nice to go somewhere like this and feel like a visitor rather than a customer, I didn't feel like I was having 'lifestyle products' thrust at me, I felt like these people were here doing things they enjoyed doing, and honestly hoped others liked and that making a living from it was almost an add-on! It was like the low-fi, openminded artiness of Berlin combined with the relaxed but noisy and friendly community-ness of Greece but with a bit of Brixton spice thrown in!

Here's  few examples of what I'm on about....

Vivian runs the hairdressers on the corner, 3 doors up is the Community shop where Himi works. I 'did' the Dreamcoat first at the Community shop, a bit later I went to Vivian's shop. Vivian got Himi's dream which was that hugs were the standard greeting so of course we ran straight up the lane and gave Himi hugs!
The Community shop is involved in some great projects which if you haven't heard about you should give yourself a treat and have a look at some of the very positive things that are going on around us at the moment - and maybe even get involved in them! Try Transition Towns and The Brixton Pound.

This is Hassan with a truly enticing table of goodies from the Brixton Cornercopia - one of the best deli's I've ever found. Not only is the food incredible - I had a big chunk of chicken and mole (that's a mexican chilli/chocolate sauce not the little blind hole digger) bean pie - but it's all sourced from the other market stalls, they invite people to make chutneys, pies, suaces, marinades etc to sell in the shop and from this stall here Hassan was collecting recipes and the stories of them from passing folk to add to their blog community. 

Serendipity/synchronicity alert!
As I said earlier there was a lot of serendipity buzzing about that weekend, this little tale is the cherry on that spacey cake. So to go back to Friday night and the warehouse in Hackney - I came out of there into the very cold night/morning and went to wait for my bus. There was another girl waiting there, looking a bit fed up, she told me she'd been waiting for the 142 for an hour. I asked if her night had been worth it thinking there might be some redemption there but no, she shook her head and told me not really. She asked the same back to me and I said 'well yes actually' and told her the reason why - which was the dreamcoat. She brightened up a lot at this, and then a bus appeared and she jumped on with a big smile and wave.

The next day, as you now know, I'm at Brixton market, in the sweet shop and I hear someone shout 'DREAM POCKETS!!' at the door. Yes, on the other side of London, the complete stranger I'd told about my coat in a bus stop the very night before magically appeared next to me! So I think we have to be friends! Luckily she's dead nice.

A Heart and Soul Get Together

Hello - welcome back, hope you're all well and ready to be warmed up! As we're hitting the hard slog bit of winter I thought it might be a good idea to have another misfits get together. 
So Sunday 28th February - (write it down quick!) will be a lovely, super-informal gathering in a great venue in Camden (London), the Lockside Lounge. As always everyone is welcome, bring friends and family if you like, come along and hang out and meet nice people and just be your weird, fascinating, normal, boring, wonderful self! We're planning a few little treats entertainment-wise and if you have any ideas for contributions of any kind I'd love to hear them. I can also let you know there'll be a very special guest appearance - Billy is finally coming to the UK! So come and meet him and show him how nice we can be. 
We'll be starting around 2pm (the Lockside also does food) until closing. Then there'll be an after-adventure over to Passing Clouds in Hackney for their legendary Jam Sessions evening for anyone who wants more. Let's get together and warm each other up! I really hope you can make it.

A few pics from a misfits gathering in Greece....

Our friend Mike has a beautiful beach bar in Pilio, Greece and he very kindly gave us the run of it for Billy's birthday. It was a very stormy start but the few that faced it were rewarded with a truly fine time and a complete turn around in the weather.

Happy New Decade

Welcome to the new decade, how's it going so far? Feels quite good to me, I always like the 'fresh page' feeling at the start of the year, it's quite exciting. But this year seems even more so, there's a buzz of hopefulness and positivity and -blimey- cheerfulness about! Despite all the stuff not to be cheerful about which of course is plenty. However my first wish for the new decade is that cynicism gets sent to the naughty corner and the rest of the class get to relax and enjoy themselves.
I hope you had good festive times, I was in a very snowy Berlin (will post some highlights soon) and it was wonderful - simple, peaceful and a really big lot of fun. A continuation of that for all of us is my second wish for the new decade.

I also thought it would be a good time for a misfits re-boost! I was exceptionally random with my blogging last year which I don't apologise for because I was doing other stuff and that's what you're meant to do. But I will try and put more up here this year and perhaps make it a bit less random in content. (I say a bit and I'm sure that's exactly what I mean! Perhaps I even mean more random. See I've started already.)

What I would like to do is make more of our 'misfittery' - the bits about how we don't fit, the reasons we find ourselves odd. I'd like to put these under your pictures in the galleries so we can all have a good laugh at how daft we are! So if you're a T-shirt wearer expect me to be pestering you - or I'll just make up something! And thanks so much to everyone who's got involved, encouraged and supported this last year - you're great!

And here's a few more Misfits from last year....

 
Leslie and Aieit stumbled upon our party and ended up staying most of the night, coming back the next day - and the day after that! On holiday from Hamburg, Germany they didn't care about the up-down weather, they were in love with Pilio and Greece and so happy to be there. And we were really happy they were there too!

A proud moment - our first stage appearance! Daddysmilk did a pre-christmas gig in Manchester and wore misfits shirts at it! And I've never even met them! The misfit message was passed along by my very good friends Teresa and Andy - pictures coming soon right?

 
On the boat from Greece to Venice we met Louis from Germany-via-Luxembourg who got T-shirts for him and his mrs. Then we sat and talked for hours, despite my rubbish German and heard great tales of his drives through Africa. Top bloke, every bit as warm as the smile that first engaged us.

This is our friend Ralf in Berlin. He's upside down. He laughs a lot and does great parties.
He's a misfit because - "Self control is not my friend"

 
This is Ron who's from Berlin, but has lived in Manchester for the last few years and is currently working in Western Australia for a little while! He also did the Mongolia Rally a couple of years back. This picture was taken at about 6.30am New Year after he'd just had a massive, spinning, shimmying, twirling, throwing dance-a-thon with a very energetic partner. 

 

Xmas presents for your happily unusual friends!

Just an idea! Give your friends a part in a special social project, a chance to write about their quirky traits, be part of a positive movement, wear a nice T-shirt and have their picture on the real, live internet! And they also get an inspiring certificate and a hug (which you'll have to administer yourself) - wonderful and much better than bath cubes. 
I've attempted to set up Paypal and it seems to be ok but let me know if you have any difficulties. I'm all out of small pink and large navy I'm afraid. Have a look at the 'T-shirt sizes' page on the right, I've attempted to give you more of an idea of how the sizes actually look.

A few people have customized there shirts which I'm massively up for - do your worst, send me pictures of the results. Here's my sister and mum in theirs....

...and this is my mate Kim in hers, also customised. She's looking happy and a bit pooped because she's just walked up Mount Snowdon to celebrate her birthday. There are a lot of people who have been an amazing support to me these last couple of years as I've been treading this unusual path that I'm allowing life to take me down and Kim is most definitely one of them. Aswell as consistent encouragment and re-assurance that I'm not completely nuts - which is all extremely important! - she also gave me a home in her beautiful flat, for free, when I really needed one. She was having a bit of a rubbish time and wanted somebody around and I needed a base for the winter while I worked out where to go next - it was a very successful exchange, a real 'in kind' deal.

 

 

 

Van-aki - superhero

A quick Greek lesson - a lot of words have 'aki' (pronounced ai-kee) on the end of them which turns it into a sweet way of saying something eg: Pouli is a normal bird, poulaki is a sweet bird! So finally my van became vanaki and it was a real sweetie. A couple of small things along the way but the engine is unstoppable, it was super un-greedy with the fuel and we love it.

 

In Giannitsa we had a little hole in the exhaust. Not only did the mechanic fix it for only 20 euros, he also gave us two small bottles, one of homemade wine, one of homemade tsiporo! Then he showed us out the back of the workshop the kind of makeshift 'summerhouse' he'd made complete with bar and stone oven so that they all had somewhere to hang out after work.

 

We got off the ferry in the port of Venice on our way home intending to park up, spend a day looking round Venice, a night sleeping in the van then head off. The weather was hideous - really wet, dark and stormy, parking was proving a problem and then suddenly the van wouldn't start. Got on to the insurance company, got taken to a garage who diagnosed a melted ignition which would need to be replaced but they couldn't do until Monday (it was Saturday afternoon). We were then sent a taxi to take us to a nearby, very nice hotel where we happily stayed for two nights. The next day was full blue and shiny, Venice was stunning and the bus that took us there from outside the hotel drove right passed the van so we were able to jump out and have dinner there!

 

One of the best gifts we got on this trip was the new curtains that Billy's Aunty made for the van. The old ones were really nasty, dull patterned things and I always felt it deserved better. So I was absolutely thrilled with our lovely new ones - yellow with greenish flacks and - so flash - different fabric for the kitchen! (Yellow and white check with pink and red flowers and butterflies!) Thanks to this lady.....

 

Billy's mum's sister and her husband outside their mountain house.

Home of the Gods

Well, I'm still trying to recover the photos from my broken laptop, however all is not lost - literally. I have a few photos on my camera so I'm going to post up a few random travel tales in no particular order. And I'm going to start at the top(ish) on Mount Olympus, also known in Greek mythology as the home of the twelve gods with the highest peak named 'Throne of Zeus', it's a pretty sacred and special place and this was undoubtedly a highlight of my time in Greece. A friend of Billy's has set a camp up there the last few summers and I felt extremely privileged to be able to spend a few nights in this beautiful and most peaceful of places, jumping in (and straight out of) the freezing cold and completely pure water, walking in the stunning nature and sitting round a really good fire, under very bright stars cooking, eating, drinking, listening to music and silence with strangers and friends I had a feeling of overwhelming gratitude that I had the fortune to experience this very simple but amazing thing that very few others would get the chance to. 

Actually, the train of thought went like this: I was gazing into the fire while friends were cooking some very good sausages on it. The stars were bright and clear and many above us, it was cold but cosy and an incredibly simple but incredibly special experience and as I said I was thinking about how lucky I was to have it. Then I started thinking about people who probably wouldn't get to do this and for some reason I imagined a TV newsreader! Having a really good career and probably a pretty nice but quite busy life and probably never thinking to spend his time off camping up Mount Olympus with a bunch of hippies! But he undoubtedly gets to have his own unique and amazing/amazingly simple experiences. And actually, I pondered, each of us around this fire are having exactly that - even though we're all here, sharing it, none of us are having the same experience. And then I just got all overwhelmed about all the unique and special experiences that everyone was having to themselves all over the place every day that we can sometimes relate to but never completely understand!

It was also the perfect place to do the dreamcoat, with some really great people who'd just got back from a festival the previous day. And again it felt like a real privilege.

 

Bonding with lovely Stefy!

 

The dream that Sakis got "To breathe only the freshest of air on the brightest mornings. And to find peace in body and mind.... absolute bliss..." described our situation perfectly. It was given to me by Fran sitting in my van late on the last night at the Glastonbury festival.

Where to start and where to finish...

I'm SO sorry for the long delay! Internet access was not so easily available while we were in Greece and became more tricky when I got red wine spilled on the keyboard of my laptop and it died (still hoping I can recover the pictures from our trip that are on there). It was a really good wine though. And it was an amazing trip. Really amazing, at points almost overwhelming. What a country. The nature, the food, the history and of course the people. And so much more, and so diverse from place to place that I left feeling I'd only seen a teeny, tantalising glimpse of this wealthy land - 'where to start and where to finish' became the tour catchphrase.

It was an interesting way to set out on a trip like this - with almost empty pockets and a big bag of t-shirts. Billy had trouble getting paid for the work he was doing before we left (in the end only getting half of it), which made things even more interesting! Fortunately we went to possibly the most generous country ever, you can barely say a 'Kali Mera' to someone without them bestowing some kind of gift on you - a couple of times we even just waved to strangers whilst passing in the van and got invited to join them for food and drink. So we were really pleased that we had something to give too. 

Giannitsa is Billy's home town, about an hour North of Thessaloniki, and of course that's where we started and where we finished... and a lot more! From arriving to Billy's mum's incredible cooking to being given a watermelon by a complete stranger on the almost last day, the Giannitsaz not only made our trip possible but also made it exceptionally warm, tasty, fattening, fascinating, freaky, friendly and a really lot of fun! Thankyou! And...it's full of Misfits! We got our fair few recruits over there. Here's a few tales, more to follow when I get the pictures from my laptop, or when you send me your photos!

 

Billy and his brother Angelous who took care of us both in so, so many big brother ways - he knows, we know - thanks again Angelous. The family's electrician store in town is almost as much of a hangout as the Four Seasons and sometimes a lot more colourful!

Kiriakos. He finished work one Thursday night, picked us up in his car, drove us an hour and a half to Mount Olympus where we spent a nice couple of hours round a fire with some friends, then drove us all the way back again (including a quick souvlaki stop on route). Hero.
He also provides top class entertainment after he's had a few drinks!

 

Christos - aka Monsieur Minimal, pop star, friend and the other celebrity of Giannitsa (besides Billy!) With Johanna, who turned up at our leaving party about midnight and took over the kitchen to make a feast of sausage, pasta, salad for all of us.

Vickis is Vasillis' cousin, Danis is one of the owners of our favourite Giannitsa bar The Four Seasons and one of the smiliest people in town. As well as taking good care of us in his bar and letting us play music there, he and Vickis also invited us to their birthday lunch by the beach in Litochoro (hosted by Padelis and Corina - where's your photo you two?!). Fantastic food, company and music with the most Zorba-like dancing I saw all holiday from neighbour Adonis.

Akis and Anneta - another of our tour catchphrases 'Bravo Akis'! He has a great Deli in Giannitsa and gave us many treats that turned our van picnics into sublime feasts (see below)! This is them on holiday with their beautiful daughter (I think at Halkidiki?), where they were looked after so well by the barman at their hotel that they passed on Akis T-shirt to him. Spread the joy!

Aha Dimitris - this is after staying at his great apartment in Larisa, during an enormous feast of seafood and tsiporo (that's what's in his glass, most definitely not milk, it's grappa, usually but not always flavoured with anise. But this particular tsiporo was made with figs and sends you a bit loopy), and before he sent us on our way weighed down with honey, more tsiporo and the best hugs this side of the Balkans! And yes, he's as much fun as he looks.

Makis or as we call him YippeeMakis, a master at enjoying life. We were driving down South to find sun but the more we tried the more it rained. So we called in at the beachfront restaurant where Makis works and he insisted the only way to spend a day like this was to eat fantastic seafood and get completely drunk on tsiporo (see below). And you know, he was so right. He and Larisa Dimitris (above) are best mates and together they're irresistable. 

 

Stef (right) and Nikos representing the Four Seasons boys, who are a brilliant team and turned out to be very enthusiastic misfits!

 

Sabas, also known as the Frog, with Billy looking very weird! A good heart and an amazing story.

Christos and Eva. Christos kept chucking us bits of fruit from his stock to counter all the souvlaki we kept eating here at Eva's Souvlaki restaurant/grill, the best in Giannitsa and beyond.

So that's a starter... nowhere near finished. This gives a small picture of the amazing hospitality and generosity we came across wherever we went. And yes - we ate a lot and grew little Greek bellies.
I'll post more as soon as I can. Send me your T-shirt photos! xx