I had a big delivery of plasterboards at my house this morning, around 10am. Plasterboards are the material that walls are made out of, and unfortunately we had to move more than 100 of them up into the barn where I am building a house (if you want to see more of it, have a look at BuildAHouseWithMe.com).

The whole place looks pretty full now (a mess), but I have enough materials for the next four months of building (AT LEAST).

So anyway it took about 6 hours to shift them, and it would have been a lot longer if there wasn’t an EXPERT TRACTOR DRIVER on hand to help:

Just as we were moving the final few boards, I noticed that each had a time and date written on them, saying when they were produced in the factory:

Amazingly, they were made at 4:53am on the 11th January…just two days ago!

The only question I have is how did they manage to ship them from China so quickly?!

Some people emailed me recently asking what I do. I have no good answer for this, so let’s just say that I dig holes and move the turf to other places. Today I did that, for five hours NON STOP. That’s a lot of turf.

The good news is that in future I’ll be able to use the new hole for a chili pepper garden! Sweet! Or spicy. If you want to learn about how to grow chili peppers then you can look here! Hot!

Here are some pics:

So after the soil and grass was dug up it was moved to here:

That’s unholey! What turf!

Since I’ve been in France, I’ve started eating a lot more beef.

There is something very traditional about living in the countryside and eating farm-fresh meat, however I had previously never felt the urge.

Now, however, it seems that I’ve turned into some sort of wild animal.

A week ago I had a pretty MAN-SIZED steak, cooked medium…

Then a couple of days later I decided to try (for the first time in my life) rare beef…

And last night I hit a new life-milestone. Raw beef (boeuf tartare), which I previously thought was some sort of myth.

Do you know why it looks like burger-mix? Because it IS burger mix.

Anyway, I ate it. It was OK, nothing special. I won’t order it again (not with steak on the menu, anyway).

Luckily, I still haven’t hit the lows of the rest of my family…

I saw this on the wall in the self-service café on a Brittany Ferries boat.

Skynet 2011. Scary stuff!

One of the highlights of summer (well, the end of summer) was buying an outdoor pizza oven.

I could give a ‘How-to’, but I think you can work it out from these pics…

Further pizza oven based food experiments to come!

Since I haven’t posted here in about 36821 days, people have messaged me asking why I am so lazy. I’m not lazy! I’ve just been distracted.

I started a summer project of building a house in France (Google: Build a house with me), however that seems to have extended from ‘summer’ to ‘the next 10 years’. I had no idea that it would take quite this long (after having lived in China where they build hotels in 2 days).

I’ve also been writing on SportingOpinions.com and editing financial news on eMoneyDaily.com. Every day! Well, most days…

Don’t worry, none of this is actual work.

In the next few days I’m going to try to fill in some of the blanks with photos from summer from my Instagram and other places. Yeah!

Oh…and this has been my house for the last 6 months. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words…and if that is true, the following photos represent my Bible, Little Red Book, Hobbit and To Kill a Mockingbird, rolled into one.

他们说一张照片胜过千言万语… …如果这是真的话，下面的照片可以代表我的圣经，红宝书，霍比特和杀死一只知更鸟，集于一身。

While walking near The Strand in central London, my Dad, Brother-In-Law and I were blessed to witness one of the most fantastic ‘protests’ in the history of disagreement – the World Naked Bike Ride.

当我走在靠近伦敦市中心的Strand的时候，我和我的爸爸，还有我的姐夫，见证了历史上最棒的一次‘抗议’之一 – 世界裸体骑自行车。

The main theme of the event was to campaign for the improvement of safety for cyclists, as well as highlighting the world’s dependency on oil…and what better way to do it could there be than dropping all of your clothes and rolling around town?

本次活动的主题主要是为提高骑自行车人的的安全意识，以及强调世界对石油的依赖… …，能有什么比脱光衣服在城镇滚动更好的方式来完成吗？

For more info about the event, have a look here: http://wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org/wiki/London

欲了解更多相关信息，请看这里： http://wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org/wiki/London

Oh…I also took some photos! Here they are….

噢…我还拍了点照片！在这里…

What do you think those two handsome men are thinking?

你觉得这2个帅哥在想什么？

After many nights of blood, sweat, tears and beer…it all came together. Just.

Next stop, SPARTA.

I really love a wide range of musical styles, but when I heard about ‘Post-dubstep Chinese pop’ and ‘Chinese folk-step’, I have to admit I felt a little bit out of my depth. On the cutting edge of this East-West fusion is a DJ called Mobidextrous, and I asked him about his musical past, his current project with bewitching singer Miss Melody, as well as cocktails in Beijing.

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What’s your background – how did you end up in Beijing?

I wanted to come to China because based on my reading and research it looked like the most fear-inducing place to live and to do business. I own and run a medium sized Executive Search firm and also thought that there would be talent shortages as the big multinationals and local firms battle to expand. I chose Beijing because Hong Kong was too much like England and the arts and music culture seemed a bit more fresh and gritty than Shanghai. I like the straightforwardness of the people here.

How long have you been known as Mobidextrous?

Since late 2009 when I got into producing music. My other alias is Mikey Dee. That’s the name I DJ under around China.

What was the one thing nobody told you about China before you came here?

No one told me that you could legitimately pass for fluent in Chinese to most cab drivers and many other locals simply by saying “Ni Hao”.

How did the team of Mobidextrous and Miss Melody get together?

We got together at the grimiest, darkest and most underground nightclubs in Beijing, most of which have since cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercised [nothing to do with me, haha] where I used to play pretty percussive tribal house beats. She began to MC/Improvise over these beats in a kind of operatic and folk-style and it just worked. We’ve been writing songs and performing together since about May of 2010.

What is the biggest challenge for you in getting your music accepted in China?

To my surprise, there’s a lot of enthusiasm amongst local people here for *new* and interesting music. There’s a huge amount of face to be had for local club owners and festival organisers having an “international” DJ on the roster, so finding work was easy.

Tell me about your biggest musical success.

After we put our single “Huan” out recently (Youku, Youtube), a friend of ours came back from Thailand excited because she’d heard our music playing in a high-end shopping mall out in Bangkok. For me that’s a hundred times more meaningful than some of the big festivals I’ve performed at in front of thousands of people [INTRO, ZOO, STRAWBERRY] because the music we make here in Mandarin can travel beyond even China’s borders.

Has DJing brought you to Shanghai? Any places you love/hate?

Yeah I did a guest spot at M1NT. Horrible place. Melody and I would love to do a show at the Shelter though [hint].

Your music with Miss Melody is a true crossover of styles. Who would you say are your biggest musical influences?

We like a range of stuff. Portishead, Massive Attack, Chase and Status, Diplo… and Melody’s singing has been compared to Kate Bush and Julie Cruise which kind of makes sense as it’s a bit operatic or breathy on certain tracks.

What social media services do you use to get your music ‘out there’?

The list is long. I could run a consulting service advising on Social Media here and in China. Soundcloud has been great, places like YouTube, Bandcamp, Ourstage, Reverbnation as well as obviously Facebook and Twitter (@mobidextrous @missmelodycn) but the most promising locally looks like it’s going to be Weibo which we’ve just started tinkering with. In the next 8 weeks we should have a pretty swish central website which will be a pillar for promotion, we’re having it designed by a guy who’s done work for Visa, Google, Mountain Dew and other big brands.

What are your short term plans for this project? And long term?

We’ve just got enough material together for serious live shows, so that’s something we’re planning to do in late summer. A tour would be a nice diversion but the terms have to be right. It’s a well known fact that almost no one makes money out of record sales any more so we’re probably going to approach selective brands for sponsorship opportunities. Longer term I’d like to have a hand in getting Melody more recognition not just locally but internationally too, we’ve got a deal which I can’t say too much about which should be a catalyst for that.

What is ‘Now Playing’ on your iPod?

I’m listening to Muse, on repeat. For Chinese music It’s all about a cool band I recently discovered called Acid Live. Those guys are sick.

What’s your favourite…

Convenience store?
7-11 is the pinnacle of convenience.

Bar?
Got to say LAN in Beijing because it’s so over the top.

Delivery food?
Fried Jiaozi with peanut and cabbage. As greasy as possible. Sounds disgusting but there is no better comfort food.

Movie?
Old Boy. I love those freaky Korean films.

Cocktail?
Mine’s a bucket of dry martini with marginal olive dirt. Your shout Oli, yeah?

No chance.

———————————-

Connections

Connect with Miss Melody: Douban, Twitter

Connect with Mobidextrous: Soundcloud, Twitter

Huan – Miss Melody and Mobidextrous

When the weather’s nice, there’s nowhere better to go than the park! The Jing’an Sclupture Park is one of my favourite places to go (near to my house), for many reasons.

艳阳高照的天气里，没有比去公园更好的去处了！静安雕塑公园是我最喜欢去的地方之一（就在我家附近），有很多原因。

The first thing I like about the park is obvious…the sculptures! They would fit in well in any modern art museum!

这个公园里我最喜欢的显而易见的就是…雕塑！他们放在无论哪个现代博物馆都会很适合！

Check out this basketball sculpture:

看看这个篮球雕塑：

And this big metal thingy:

还有这个大的金属的东西

There is a really nice stream/pond/fountain thingy:

这个水池喷泉一样的东西真的不错：

And where else would lovers go on a sunny day than to the park! I saw my first pair today and they looked very….happy.

万里晴空的日子有哪里比公园更适合情侣去的地方呢！这是我今天看到的第一对，他们看起来很…欢乐。

Walking around a bit more, I was treated to my second dose of naked bum in the park…and this time it was a girl! Finally!

再走一会，我又发现了公园里第二只光屁股…这一次是一个女孩子！终于！

These public displays of affections are very ‘new’ in Chinese society, and so some people don’t know how to react when they see it. You can tell that this couple were shocked by what they saw:

这些场合的真情流露在中国社会上是很’前卫’的，因此有些人看到以后不知道该如何反应。你可以看出这对夫妇被他们所看到的东西吓到了：

Or they were upset that they didn’t bring their camera :)

或者说他们不高兴了，因为他们没有带照相机。 :)