This is yer first officer Dan Bibcock here with a few words on behalf of the GoGalactic, Earth to Karran Hargal team.
Just wanted to let you know how we’re getting on. We’ve got an air flight speed of around 250 million miles an hour with a nice solar flare pushing us firmly along, out of the Milky Way. To yer right you’ll see the ice moon of Saturn, Ceberus. If you’ve never been, don’t bother.
We’re aiming for the outer edges of Kosson 5b at which point we’ll orbit twice before using the gravitational slingshot effect to redirect us directly towards the Andromeda galaxy and Kassan Hargal where the local air temperature is a balmy 31 degrees centigrade.
Upon arrival at Portal xx5y9 we’ll be greeted by a delegation from the Poosenarka who will be providing transfers from there to ‘Earthling Hot Zone’ and to Gergel Mergel Wergel.
OK. Now I’m just going to invite our passengers from Earth to pop in their complimentary GoGalactic earplugs as we hand over to our head of cabin crew, The Mighty Jeyna for the Poosenarkian language version of this announcement.
As much as I like our landlord Fred, I feel he is a not a man who is concerned by the vagaries of building regulations. I would go as far to say that I feel Fred’s priorities are more focused on the fiscal benefits of land-lording. His punctuality when picking up the rent cheques (Fred likes to pick up the rent in person like a sitcom character) and the booming echolocation qualities created by any movement from the flat above reflects this. He’s also taken to leaving old beds in the front yard.
I hear his knock at the front door.
‘Hello there my friend! How are you?’
We’ve had quite a few conversations now but Fred still can’t remember my name and it’s clearly a bit too embarrassing for him to ask again.
‘Hi Fred. I’m good thanks. Here for the rent?’
‘Yes please Sah.’ He pronounces ‘Sir’ like a Caribbean Sergeant Major.
I hand it over.
‘Looking forward to seeing the family then?’
He looks surprised that I know that he’s going to Barbados. He told me this when his van broke down out front of our house and he spoke wistfully over my shoulder and told me about home whilst I called the AA for him.
‘Yeah yeah. It’ll be nice.’
He gives me a sideways look as he tries to work out when he told me this. Fred has a lot of tenants and clearly a lot of semi-comatose conversations with them. I’ve seen him, face filled with bafflement, as a tenant calls him with a problem and Fred, not being sure which of his houses they live in, just assures them he’ll be coming over tomorrow and then, shaking his head with wonderment, turns his phone off. I’ve seen him do this.
‘Yeah. Flying from Heathrow tomorrow. Bit of sunshine. Good for the soul and that.’
He sees one of my cats walk behind me and quickly latches on to this as a talking point.
‘How is your catttttttt’ he starts to extend this final letter sounding like a kettle coming off the boil and as he sees my other cat segues this into an extended ‘s’.
‘ssssssssss. How is your cats? How are your cats?’
‘Yeah they’re good. Still small but we’ll be letting ‘em out soon!’
He nods, utterly disinterested and smiling benignly.
‘OK then. Everything alright with the place though? I like my tenants to be happy.’
I show Fred some mould in my bedroom.
‘It’s not mould. It’s a problem when you paint it wrong. I can’t remember what it’s called. It looks like mould but it isn’t. Keep an eye on it. If it’s mould I’ll fix it.’
‘Well thanks Fred. I’ll see you later then.’
‘Yes you will,’ he smiles.
We shake hands.
I close the door and go back to my desk.
Fred knocks again seconds later.
‘Hello again,’ he says, all hunched, side-on and sheepish and a good distance back from the front door.
‘Just to say, but can you not make the cheques out to ‘Fred Brown’? Just F. Brown will do. Cheers!’ He tries to quickly shoot off.
This is a website I made with the magnificent Greg Hannan for our friend’s pizza restaurant in Brixton Market. I made the content Greg did the coding wizadry.
For the past 9 months or so I’ve been working for a community engagement organisation called Well Communities. They try and bring together disparate communities which a struggling with social cohesion. I’ve been helping them rebrand, build a new website and creating new content ready for their relaunch in early 2016. I can’t show everything now but this is the animation I scripted and directed to explain what Well Communities does. Drawings by Alice Maggs and Animation by Tom Price.
This man had fallen over the street in front of me the day before and I called him an ambulance and waited with him. I saw him the next morning and he walked straight past without even a hint of recognition.
I saw another photographer (who’s name I can’t remember...) who was playing with his polarising filter with the plane glass to get this trippy effect. I copied him.
