Simon Perry: Schemes, dreams & trivia

Ben Haldenby is a very talented follow and a friend from the Island.

In an on-the-spot brain storm, he asked Naomi Klein to sign her latest book, The Shock Doctrine, with “Hands Off Iraq’s Oil!” when she was in London recently.

Being a generous thing, he’s auctioning off the book on eBay for charity - all monies will go to the Hands Off Iraqi Oil campaign.

Sort yourselves out, get to the auction and get some bids in!

Went along to RAW Sunshine with high hopes.

Venue was great, most of the music was rocking, but the one thing it was lacking was crowds.

Speaking to the people running it, it had been going non-stop since Friday night and was to continue until Sunday at 6PM. Hats off to the involved, looked like it was getting busier as I was leaving, so hope it filled up for them.

On the way back to the station I couldn’t resist overshooting to check out the excellent sounds coming from the other side of the bridge.

The route down to the sounds was along a I beam with a severe drop on one side. Feeling the colly wobbles I spied another, more sane route - without a lethal drop.

Once down the temporary construction staircase I made my way over under the bridge. A great crowd jumping to an impromptu party powered by a vehicle and a generator. Reminded me of very early days of Soul2Soul under the arches at Paddington.

Berlin is the party city at this moment and one of the most happening place I’ve come across around Warschauer Straße. Great small food places, bars and a general good vibe.

UPDATE: I hear from Holger that there’s a big stadium being built there, so it sounds like the area might soon start to get ruined by corporate-isation. Get there while it’s still good.

UPDATE 2: The more people I speak to, the more doomed this area sounds like it’s going to be. I’ve now heard that RAW-tempel, where the event was held could be turned into luxury flats (!). the people there are resisting saying that the art projects that happen there are more important than flats - quite right too.

Went to a typically great Berlin opening last night. Set in the slightly dilapidated, turn of the century Villa Elisabeth building in Berlin-Mitte, a number of International illustrators had their work displayed around the rooms set on two floors.

The imaginative use of space, the great party that was laid on; the quality art; interesting people and a good vibe - summaries what is special about Berlin at the moment.

The exhibition is well worth the visit.

How cool is this? Music from Berlin is, and has been for a while, fantastic. Friends Juan and Monique have recently got back form there and tell me even better vibe there currently.

I’ve just stumbled on Tractile who said that they’re playing at the RAW Sunshine festival during the weekend that I’ll be in Berlin. Fab.

I\d imagine that the Berlin Mitte Institut für Bessere Elektronische Musik is quite a hot bed of tune talent at the mo.

Get an idea of Tractile’s type of music from the vid below.

What sort of sick world to we live in where Russian plants a flag on the seabed of the North polar cap to try to claim the area - and the 25% of the worlds energy resources that lie beneath it - because it is becoming more possible to extract those resources BECAUSE global warming is making it easier to extract the oil - that is causing the global warming in the first place.

The first 20 seconds of this are the most remarkable - the sheer acceleration is stunning. It’s followed by a lot of accelerating and frantic braking.

Mike Reed, well known to UK-ers, he of Eastenders, has died.

One of the TV shows from his past was a frantic quiz game for children called Runaround, the catch phrase he used was “Run around … now.”

That’s one thing he won’t be doing anymore.

Watch this video and marvel that these bods race flat out, up a mountain, with no crash barriers. Wait until 3:30-ish to see what would greet them is they were to slide over the edge.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked my Mum through how to send a text message, but in the six years that she’s been carrying a mobile phone, she’d never been able to sent an SMS.

Well today … she sent one!!! Amazing.

I’ve handed over the Emporia Life Phone for my Mum to test. Looks like it’s going to be a good review!

Nice - NASA intend to chuck out some of the unwanted stuff from the International Space Station today.

It just amazes me that the US regularly fails to see the PR damage that they do to themselves.

Not just that, but continue to shows a disregard for the population of the world …

The U.S. space agency calculates the odds of the debris hurting or killing a person at one in 5000.