Dingle's at The Shannon

Some mates and I blagged our way to membership at The Shannon which was opposite our school in Seven Kings. You had to be over 18 so we put stickers in our building society passbooks with fake DOBs on them - and they actually accepted it. I think we were even in school uniform at the time!

This would have been sometime in 1986. 

Enduring memories of Dingle's club nights...

Getting wrecked on Snakebite

Early house music - particularly Farley Jackmaster Funk's Love Can't Turn Around.

Over-zealous smoke machines

They used to play Sinatra's New York, New York at chucking out time.

How to avoid burn out

When did you last have your blood pressure taken? A year ago? 3 years? You can't remember? 

I couldn't remember exactly either. Maybe 7 years ago? It's not something I thought about much because the last time it was taken they said it was practically ideal. And then this happened...

A couple of weeks back I had a job on the go, the client was particularly difficult. Lots of delays, long days and late nights, deadlines changed after the fact without anyone bothering to tell me, work that hours had been spent on being suddenly scrapped.

After pulling a 12+ hour shift to finally get the magazine completed and to the printers I realised my right eye wouldn't close. It was jammed open. In fact I couldn't move that side of my face at all. It looked like it had been botoxed. The corner of my mouth drooped and I was slurring my speech.

I ended up at King George's A&E where what was initially suspected to be a stroke was eventually diagnosed as Bell's Palsy - caused by a combination of stress, lack of sleep, staring at a monitor too long without breaks and... undiagnosed high blood pressure. Very, very high blood pressure.

I guess the near thirty years of tight deadlines and tricky clients finally caught up with me. 

I'd been lucky apparently. I'd been sent a warning. A wake-up call. See my GP about the blood pressure  else next time it really would be a stroke. Or worse. In the meantime a course of steroids, a few weeks rest, eye drops and chewing lots of gum should sort the facial issues out.

So do yourself a favour - get your blood pressure checked out regularly. And if you have to stare at a bleeding monitor a lot - make sure you take plenty of breaks!

Glory Days

Sprucing up my graphics portfolio to try and get some new clients and decided to add some of the livelier mag covers I worked on in the late 90s, back when I actually enjoyed my job. 

There was a lot of freedom design-wise working on Car Hifi and then, briefly, Fast Car and a lot of laughs to be had in the workplace.

I often got to go along to the photo shoots too, be it for product shots of the latest in-car audio kit, a bloke showing off his latest install or the model shoot for the front cover.

This was in the era of the lads mag, Loaded, Nuts etc, so every consumer mag had to have a model on the cover too. Car Hifi managed to keep this fairly tasteful for the most part.

Unfortunately, years of highly un-glamorous trade mags in restrained fun-free offices would follow...

Jazz Funk night at Charmers

Another club night flyer from back in the day. Used to go to a house night at Charmers in the early 90s. Never actually made it to their jazz funk nights. It's a pity as now I regret not finding out if "Boozing Buddies" actually lived up to their name and performed half cut!?

Playlist: Anamnesis

Jukebox soundtrack for an imagined sci-fi drama...

"London, 1979: Following a car crash a young man finds himself in a secluded clinic where they claim to be able to access memories inherited from his ancestors"

A Forest

The Cure

Drowning in Berlin

Mobiles

Always Crashing in the Same Car

David Bowie

Messages

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

Forever And Ever

Demis Roussos

Dreaming of Me [Single Version]

Depeche Mode

Ever So Lonely

Monsoon

Spellbound

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Procession

New Order

I'll Find My Way Home

Jon & Vangelis

A Forest

Bat For Lashes

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Click here for this playlist and my others on Spotify