We're All Souls Of Mischief!

So far, January has been a pretty hard month. The hardest thing about it has been not drinking! It's my own fault, i normally do the now customary January detox along with the rest of the world....... but this year i decided not to drink for 6 months! Sounds a bit extreme to most people, but i realized i've probably been drinking constantly for the last 21 years! This was a bit of a scary revelation to me, so i decided drastic action was called for! Now that January is over it doesn't seem that much of a task now, only 5 more months to go!

Before Christmas i was asked by my friend Charlie Quinn if i'd do a poster for the club that he works for in town. Charlie's taken the brave step of putting on some big live acts in our area, which could be a risk given the state of the club and live music scene in Penzance at this moment in time! The gig in question is for hip hop band, Souls Of Mischief, who had somewhat of a cult status in the early 90's. This is a pretty big gig for Penzance, although other promoters have been responsible for some very big gigs in the past.... most notably Dion Star & Music Evolution for putting on live acts such as Fat Fredd'y Drop, Bonobo, Alice Russell and AIM. Hopefully Charlie can inject a bit more passion and effort into live music in Cornwall and Penzance in particular. I agreed to do the poster for him, as i think Charlie deserves all the help he can get! Here is the result which i was pretty chuffed with. The actual art work is on A0 paper, and i've used Spray Paint, Acrylic and Posca Pens. Ive taken some Aztec imagery as a reference as the bands new album is called Montezuma's Revenge, which is a phrase used to describe an upset stomach in a foreign land.... a bit like Delhi Belly!

I only finished the poster on Friday, just in time to relish the arrival of my mate James from Bristol. James was coming down to stay for the weekend to get away from the city and get back to nature! He's a bit of a nature boy, loves rock climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking, is a tree sugreon and an all round Ray Mears kind of guy! On Saturday he took me and my son Jack down to Sennen near Lands End to do a spot of rock climbing. Jack is 9 years old, and has done a bit of rock climbing, and i dabbled a bit when i was at Uni too. We had to scramble down to where we were going to climb from, which was a long way down. It was a pretty sunny day, but it was bitterly cold too and as we were making our way down it even started hailing pretty heavily! Once in position James got all the ropes and harnesses ready for our ascent. He went up to the top first with the rope, and then sent it back down to us for Jack to start his climb. He was a bit scared at first, but like i said, he'd done it before at Lands End and also on a few rock walls too.

Once he got going though, there was no problem at all. Kids don't really have any fear at that age, i get more scared of him jumping around on the edge of a cliff! My turn came, and i have to admit i was a bit nervous a bit too! The sun had come back out, but about half way up my climb it started bloody hailing again while i was stuck to this rock hanging over the sea! At one point i couldn't feel the ends of my fingers, so much so, i had to stop for about 5 minutes to warm them up! It's a weird sensation when you're trying to grip onto the rocks when you can't feel your fingers, you just don't know if you've got a grip or not! I managed to drag my 15 stone frame to the top in the end, which is no mean feat! My whole body is aching now! It was worth it though, felt awesome to have been able to take Jack out to do stuff like that. Hopefully James is gonna be back down a bit more over the summer which means more climbing expeditions for me and Jack, and the weather will be a lot warmer so we won't loose our fingers to frost bite! Maybe then, after completing some more difficult climbs, i'll be able to sit down with James afterwards and have a nice cold pint! Roll on the summer!