Category: #MYLDN

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MYLDN 1532

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#MYLDN 1531

My Uncle Cyril died on Saturday from Covid. He was one of 1035 people that died in the U.K from contracting the virus on that one day alone. May he and all of them rest in peace.

Its funny cos I never heard of a hoax killing people before. Can someone explain to me how it can do that when it doesn’t actually exist?

Protect yourself, protect your loved ones. This is real. This is happening. If you think it isn’t, you are delusional.

If you don’t think the rules apply to you and you don’t wish to comply you are contributing to these deaths happening. Wake the fuck up, be a grown up, take responsibility for your actions.

No excuses. No justifications. Just fucking do what is being asked of you so we can stop this runaway train from decimating our lives. All that is being asked of you is that you stay at home and stay the fuck away from each other. That’s it.

My aunt is now a widow and she shouldn’t be. All the families of every single one of those 1035 who passed away on Saturday are now in mourning and they shouldn’t be. Grief is hard enough at the best of times, but under these circumstance it is horrendous as you can’t even console those who have lost, you can’t hug them, you can’t hold their hand, you can’t even be with them. My heart goes out to each and every person whose lives have been devastated by this pandemic.

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#MYLDN (1530)

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A Last word…

…accidentally sent today’s post yesterday. Was clearly keen to get it to you. So as I’m here sayin soz I thought I would leave you with this parting shot which was taken of the Electric Cinema on Portobello Road coincidentally last Christmas..I feel there’s a message in there somewhere although what that is I’m not exactly sure exactly ;)

So I will say Happy Holidays after all…enjoy yourself the best you can..if there is one thing that this whole thing has taught us is that we must savour every moment because who knows what the fuck is round the corner…

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#MYLDN (1529)

Why have I selected shots aimed firmly at the ground this week? Well, I am always fascinated about what randomness you stumble upon as you go about your daily & nightly business. They say you can learn a lot about the society you live in from the rubbish people throw out. Really have no idea who ‘they’ are in this instance but as my random findings include sex, drugs, gloves and takeout paraphernalia I would say ‘they’ are pretty bang on.

But I am also averting your gaze downwards because we just need to keep our heads down and get through this…and we will get through this. But in terms of how you play it is entirely up to you. Don’t buckle for others, don’t succumb to peer pressure, we all have to make our own decisions based on our own conclusions. As I have I said previously the days of consensus are over. It’s a shame as that is what is desperately required but it’s clearly not happening so we might as well admit and work around it.

We all know that the only real chance we have to reign this mofo in is to stay the fuck away from each other but whether you feel able to do that or not will be up to you. Being apart from each other is clearly not good for our mental health and that might be more important for you to preserve than your physical health so we all need to do whatever we need to do to survive this.

You wanna wear a mask in bed, barricade yourself in your house, move to the moon, or if you would rather say fuck it and hug and kiss everyone you come into contact with and party like its 2019, whatever, it’s on you. All I will say, having contracted the virus in March and am still suffering from it 9 months later, you really don’t want this thing if you can avoid it. It ain’t ‘just like the flu’ and it ain’t a hoax. Trust me on this.

This is my last post of the year. And yup, its been a weird one alright. Is next year gonna be better? Its a pretty low bar to beat let’s be honest so let’s go with yes. I would at this stage normally wish you all a happy xmas and all that but as it is likely to be cancelled I will just quote the late great Douglas Adams:

“So long and thanks for all the fish…” And see you in 2021!

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#MYLDN (1528)

Sorry Greta, still not panicking. Actually people are panicking, just not about that. They’re panicking about things that aren’t happening rather than things that are..

Panicking about Bill Gates chipping them with nanobots, not happening.

Panicking about a Satanic Cabal of Paedophiles taking over the world, not happening.

NOT panicking about catastrophic climate change, actually happening.

NOT panicking about the 6th mass extinction on planet Earth, actually happening.

On 13th November 15,000 scientists sent an open letter stating that we desperately need to address the societal collapse that will come from environmental disaster which will definitely happen if we carry on as we are. This slipped through the news net for most as it was drowned amidst a mountain of ‘virus/trump/whatever the outrage of the day was’ headlines but correct me if I am jumping to conclusions but I think they’re trying to tell us something…

( If you want the overview you can read via this article via link here)

We don’t need to panic. We need to pay attention. We need to be able to recognise hysteria from genuine concern. We need to recognise that we are continually and (albeit sub-consciously) wilfully being distracted from the mother of all problems which is looming over our species and all those we haven’t already made extinct..if we do not drastically and immediately alter our trajectory we will be on course to a shitstorm that will make this current one seem like a 2 week holiday in the Seychelles.

Do you want to hear all this right now whilst you are worrying about the virus and how its going to affect your xmas plans? I highly doubt it and sure you have already filed it under ‘things I can’t deal with right now’ but it should be labelled as ‘things we definitely and desperately need to deal with immediately’.

Ok, back to moaning about Covid restrictions…

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#MYLDN (1527)

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#MYLDN (1526)

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#MYLDN (1525)

It would appear that this is either the number of someone calling themselves “R Racist” who has stuck it to a pavement in the hope of attracting other like-minded people. Or else someone is racist shaming someone and just using the letter ‘R’ as an abbreviation for ‘are’. I would probably go with the latter but it is very intriguing if that is the case as seems a fairly strange and somewhat limited way to alert people to this fact…and if this happens to be your number and you wish to clarify the situation please get in touch…

And in unrelated news today is officially the last day to order a “My Neon Noir Print” if you are interested. If you wish to review the shots a breakneck speed please watch this video:

and if you wish to see them at a more leisurely pace, here you go…

MY NEON NOIR NIGHTS

and here are some of the shots of prints that have been ordered if you wanna see what they lookey like…

And once again thank you to everyone who has ordered a print…so far collectively we have raised over 1000 meals for thefelixproject who redistribute food that goes to waste to those who need it.. mission accomplished!

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#MYLDN 1524

Shots depicting life behind a mask this week. No aspect of living has escaped it. This is our life. But we only wear them for one reason. So that one day we won’t have to. I should say upfront I am categorically not an anti-masker. They are essential to halt the spread of the virus but I am anti-mask in the sense that I don’t like wearing one. I want to get past this stage because this bit sucks. This is no way to live so we can’t make this our reality just because we can’t reign in our behaviour. We are too selfish and too undisciplined. We want it over but aren’t prepared to do what is necessary for that to happen. You can bang on about freedoms all you like but this ain’t freedom. This is the opposite. We are trapped in a prison of our own making. And we need it to end.

I have a friend who lives in Thailand ( Hi Nat!) and it pains me to see that their society has effectively returned to normal. The virus is behind them and they have now moved on. Live music events are back, social distancing is over, their previous existence has returned..and all because they did what was necessary. They knew that extreme measures were required to eliminate it in order for normal life to return. And it has.

And the reason we are still up to our ears in this Corona crap in Europe and in America is because we ‘ve all been a bit shit about the whole thing since the off. Both our governments response and our own slackness, driven largely by a total lack of concern for anyone other than ourselves and our inner circle. We have all been focussed primarily on how it has affected us as individuals, how it impacted our own lives, what we have personally lost. It seems we cannot see beyond our own story of woe when clearly the only way to beat this is to treat it is a societal problem we are part of and have a unified response. We cannot move forward on the virus or the climate until we see the human race as one big community. Right now it feels we just see ourselves as single entities all crammed into the same place all fighting separately not together. And as Yoda said to Luke in Empire:

“and that is why you fail…”

( been a while since i used a star wars metaphor but bang into the Mandalorian at mo and it has awoken my inner fan boy, fyi and all..)

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#MYLDN 1523

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#MYLDN 1522

This guy above has been protesting about animal cruelty with the same banner around his neck for at least a decade. I have several shots of him over the years. The one below is from the MYLDN book (still available in all good bookshops & from me plug plug) which also has a passage on these lone long term protestors who dedicate their life to championing a cause with a seemingly low impact. And yet, who knows how many people this guy has swayed over the years? Hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million people must have seen him over the years. He is there pretty much every Saturday outside Notting Hill Gate station dead centre of the exit as people pour out of the station and head towards Portobello market so you cannot miss him. On a normal (B.C) weekend several thousand would seem him in a single day.

Maybe he is more of an influencer than his modern social media counterparts? And then again maybe he has been relentlessly ignored throughout his time there. Regardless, he is there no matter what. He hasn’t got little orange hearts to keep him going. Just his own sheer determination. And now even in the middle of a pandemic he is out there, same position, just now equipped with a mask. People might look on him as just ‘one of those weirdos’ but he is a true inspiration because he soldiers on regardless. A notion we all need to adopt right now.

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#MYLDN 1521

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#MYLDN 1520

#mood #2020

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#MYLDN (1519)

I don’t necessarily disagree with this equation but did we really need a name for it? Is that helping at all? And why are you trying to make Britastrophe happen, yeah? How is that gonna get us out of this mess? It’s also not very good let’s be honest.

Why do we feel we have to labradoodle everything these days? It’s like everything has to be simplified to fuck and made hashtagable before anyone pays attention? It’s like our current government seem more focused on creating the right slogan rather than implementing genuine measures to combat Covid. The virus can’t read. It doesn’t give a shit what catchy phrase you use. Maybe now the Spin Doctor of Barnard Castle is gone, they won’t focus quite as much on advise that rhymes and think that’ means the job is done.

So featured this week are some random wall scrawls alongside some stickers & posters that have been plastered around to jolt people into thought. I think it is the fact that printing has got become much cheaper which has spurred on a new wave of slightly more professional executions than dragging a fat sharpie across a wall as presentation for people’s message out there on the streets. Its become more and more of a thing as you can see..

Many are of an anti-government nature but as in the drug one above, (which I don’t really understand tbh -are they drug shaming or class shaming ?) they can be sometimes quite oblique in their intention. Although most, it has to be said, are of a political nature as are most things these days and am quite astounded how over-politicised are lives have become recently.

It feels like almost everything goes through this political polarising filter. It would appear our persuasions are being pulled whilst others are pushing their own agendas. There was a time when not everything was about politics. It seems to really dominate all aspects of life at the moment. I think we all need to take a step out of the red corner and the blue corner and stop looking for a fight with the opposition at every turn.

I blame the 24 news feed which just wants to stoke our rage to keep us wired in and the easiest way to do that is to push our respective buttons & beliefs. But all it achieves is increased polarisation when we really all need to be coming towards the middle. I miss the centrism of 90s politics. Less black and white, less hostile, less like feeling you had somehow fallen into a civil war you don’t remember starting.

As for the anti-lockdown brigade trying to incite dissent, (well done on the logo & slogan, lovely work ;) they are seemingly the only ones oblivious to the irony that their activity will most likely prolong the very thing they want to end. And its pretty fucking pointless..I mean, go ahead, ignore the lockdown by all means, then what? What are you gonna do? Everything’s shut for fuck’s sake.

And so I will end this week of walled bulletins the way I started it, with some good ole fashioned sprayed graffiti with no real agenda other than to delight up your day…are you talkin to me? Awww, shucks n stuff..thanks!

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#MYLDN (1517)

Ok, personally they wouldn’t have been my first two choices…I’m not gonna go into the first one but full? really? You want the new world to be full? For what purpose? I mean, it’s going that way anyway but who actually wants that?

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#MYLDN (1516)

Not sure about the Ironbladder reference but there is definitely some wallside conflict over Cummings…or should I say…actually I guess I don’t need to as the wall scrawl says it all..and guess it doesn’t really matter now anyway as he’s gone, too late for it to really have any genuine positive effect as just like this wall, the damage is already done…defend his right to disobey? (that’s what’s underneath the “correction” btw) Apparently that’s what Boris fired him for…poor Dom, hoist by his own puppet..although I don’t imagine too many people in U.K will be shedding a tear for D.C..maybe he can take his government’s advice to the arts sector and retrain as a politician..

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#MYLDN (1514)

Maintaining social distance on the underground is really not hard at all these days as its mostly empty . Even before the current lockdown the bulk of the commuting population of London had not returned. It feels like its about 75% down which is inadvertently creating a very pleasant experience . This is in stark contrast to being on the Underground before the Invisible enemy descended as there was one thing that had really came to define London and that was packed tubes. And over the years, as rising rents shunted most normal earners into the outskirts to places they could afford the transportation system of this city became more and more congested.

Crammed in like the proverbial sardines, made to have your body pressed up against a stranger you had no interest in being even remotely near…this was life on the underground and we all endured it because we had no choice. At rush hour you looked down a carriage to see two hundred plus people in a space designed for 50 all pretending everyone around them didn’t exist. And that was the norm. Personal space was an impossibility. And you dreamt of travelling on a train that didn’t instantly induce a claustrophobic panic attack and then suddenly, one day, all the people were gone.

People have been avoiding the tubes since the pandemic to avoid people but there are not really any people on it. Not since I was a kid and I used to hang off the miniature punching bags dangling from the ceiling have I enjoyed being on the tube quite so much. But even though enjoyable, it is also very fucking eerie. You feel like you are in a sci-fi where everyone’s vanished and you are the last remaining person alive. It is also extremely weird because when you do see someone, they are masked up to the hilt looking like Bane’s offspring. You are too obviously but you can’t see how scary you look.

And yet this weirdness and emptiness is starting to feel normal so felt it was important to show you some shots taken on the night tube to remind you that it isn’t. We cannot make our current existence normal. This is just something we are doing temporarily whilst we wait for our pre-covid lives to return. We cannot forget this.

I am also sharing these with you as have just completed a new prototype photography book documenting 3 years of travelling on the night tube at around 3am every Saturday night on my way back from my ‘night job’ which is currently on hiatus as is the whole of the nitelife world. I know it existed because I have shots to prove it but it already feels like a dream..and I really hope we wake up someday soon…cos days are alright and everything but nights are way more fun..

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#MYLDN (1513)

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#MYLDN (1512)