The Pixel Approves

The other pink fish died. I can’t tell you exactly when because it wasn’t actually dead when it was removed from the tank. It had been, for most of the morning, swimming upside down, bouncing, lazily off the glass walls at roughly the same altitude. Eyes cloudy, gills pumping weakly, fins unable to right it. The latter being nibbled upon by the king / queen of the tank, whilst also being prepped by the tanks resident vacuum cleaner cum mortician. “I’m not dead!” Somewhere about midday a decision is made. It’s not quite euthanasia and I’m not convinced it’s how the pink fish would have wanted to go but once again a fish is snatched out of the tank with the tastelessly jolly pink fishing net which is conveniently stored in the Gent’s toilets and, still doing a job of not being quite dead, is plopped with utilitarian efficiency into a waste paper basket retrieved from under the reception desk. This one goes straight out to the bins opposite and, for good measure, they change the water in the tank.
I’m not convinced about the good fortune of having a fish tank in the office. I feel I have seen too much death this week.

It’s the hotel second extension of my stay. They want my room so I’m moved up to the 23rd floor to what is a mirror image of 1302. This is mildly disorienting when I take a Sunday nap and forget where I am. Out of boredom I check to see if it’s a direct mirror. (Bar door handles of course.) There are differences. These help me decide I’m not going out of my mind. On the plus side 2301 has a view over Tanzhou / Zhongshan which is pretty epic in a Chinese urban sense... It’s a view over the Royal Duke public square and beyond which will probably not exist in its current form next year (The View) as there’s another tower going up which will utterly fuck the landscape (You might find it hard to agree the loss.) 


In the interests of preservation / time passing. This will form the basis of a new Panorama / Long exposure piece and would also have been the perfect time to have a working prototype of the new head.


They’re also installing a Starbucks opposite the hotel. Bedford doesn’t have a Starbucks.

EDIT: They may not be opening a Starbucks.

Apparently some unscrupulous Real Estate folk, when trying to attract new clients to their properties, put up signs for stores they hope to attract to the retail units beneath. This is optimistic / misleading practice is quite common, with tenants finding that the apartment with convenient access to a KFC / Fashion retailer ends up being an apartment with convenient access to an Opple store (Lighting), plumbers or just plain empty. EDIT: Priceless. They’re not installing... a Stabrucks.

I fucking love you China!

We take a Sunday evening walk through the park. The usual dance stands, inline skaters, families with toys we’ve done with in The West are there, along with Karaoke stands, where for a couple of Yuan you can belt out a traditional Mandarin hit under the approving gaze of fellow park goers. The first has a small TV and the singer is giving it the full Elvis. (Though he’s not performing an Elvis track.) Each syllable accompanied by a thrust, swing or arm wave. He’s met with quiet applause. His efforts drown out a normally well attended dance stand which holds only a handful of pupils, all in requisite red and black. Near the main road a better attended karaoke stand ups its game with a projector. Its romantic, timeless (If you don’t count that it’s shot in 4:3 with reasonable colour rendition, planting it somewhere around the turn of the century) MTV obscuring and updating the state sanctioned carved friezes celebrating the individual. The couple go for it, the man in particular holds his notes like a pro. and both are rewarded with a respectful, healthy applause and, as with much of life, recorded on various phones. 


It’s what you’d expect to see in the UK at a festival or fete or some other organised annual public event. (Sponsored by your friendly car dealership in association with the local council and Newspaper.) But this is every night. A public space which is, public. Groups mingling or off in their own corners. A group of schoolkids/students quietly sit with a guitar sharing a pack of cigarettes. A trio of middle aged men lounge on mopeds, probably gossiping while ladies practice swing their hips in tasseled skirts and dresses and impromptu Badminton matches start and stop with no-one encroaching on anothers space. All under the watchful gaze of. Well... no-one. A lone officer cycles through he’s ignored by everyone in favour of a cha, cha, cha.  


This morning I woke up to something wonderful. If you love art then you’ll understand my excitement. If you love photography then you’ll understand my excitement. If you’ve seen Tim’s Vermeer then this would probably be a double Polaroid moment.

Last night I accidentally turned my room into a Camera Obscura. My hotel room has very heavy curtains - Guangzhou’s sun is not messing about - and I’d left a inch high gap at the top. So when I woke up this morning there was something not quite right. There was a pattern on the wall but not the one I remembered. It looked like Polaroid of a block of flats. A few seconds later I’d figured out what it was.

Oh shit! Accidental Camera Obscura! So I spent about 40 minutes shooting 1 minute exposures to capture this. Once I was sure I’d got the shot I then set about opening and closing the curtains to see if I could replicate the effect. If you can’t replicate it, It ceases to be science and becomes magic. But yes, replicable. So definitely science bitches. (drops mic)

I’ve been at the hotel long enough for this to happen. “Congratulations on your first week in our Hotel you homeless bastard. You have now been upgraded to room service food so our other guests aren’t forced to witness your sad and desperate presence. By the way, here is some complimentary fruit.”

Admittedly it could be because the previous night I’d gone over to the shop and come back with shandy mix and wafers. Not the classiest snack I’ve ever had. But it’s not the worst given that I used to eat Pot Noodles and eggs as a meal...

The Office Day 8: And I’ve just found out there’s another 7 to go. Not too fussed I'm enjoying it in spite of the long hours. This factory. (1st floor) does 12 hour days so so do I. Many factories here are the same. 9-12 1-4 5-9. Sensibly, the shops don’t follow the same pattern as the general working day and open 11 - 11pm and beyond. As Mark King sung. This is “The Chinese Way” What it does mean is that I’m becoming attached to my life in the Royal Duke Cherabah Hotel in an oddly Partridge like fashion. (Having said that, I’m surrounded by Michaels “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. It’s just noise” So I’m going to learn more Mandarin, It can only help.

Returning to work for the 5pm shift.

A little snack and some expert level squatting.

We’re in an industrial village which is like massive industrial estate but with flats over the workshops. There are shops, cafes, bike, e-bike, scooter stores and mini-workshops under them. The bigger factories have their own canteens and even Football pitches. Not all workers live here, but if you’ve come from afar to find work and want to save a bit of cash you can stay in one of these. I want to see inside one.

Workers flats paid for by the factory.

When we came back from lunch today one of the office fish had died. I wish I could be be more sympathetic but firstly, it was a fish. Secondly, I didn’t have much of an attachment to it. It was something I vaguely observed as I walked into the meeting room. It’s not that I'm without empathy. It’s just that it was a fish.

As we walked into reception Joe the engineer (3D design guy) and Ah Wei (Production manager) have the lid off the fish tank and are gently scooping a fist sized pink object out of the sparsely decorated tank with a small net.

It is placed in a bin which is stuck under the reception desk.

According to rumour the fish here haven’t done spectacularly well. The first population of the tank included a small shark that grew to be a large shark and ate a fair few of its fellow tank mates. This greedy individual was returned to the aquarium and replaced with fish of less cannibalistic tendencies.

The tank is here because water is a good omen. The 3 days of rain marking my arrival being a particularly auspicious sign of coming prosperity. It’s also good luck to have running water in your building but it should be circulating, so fish tanks are covered and the water fountains are sort of perpetual motion jobbies (unless you discount the regular top ups required due to Guangzhou’s hot and humid climate.)

Toilets... So it’s 20 past 5 and i need to dump. (Sorry, TMI) I really need to but one of the downsides of many toilets these ways is the lack of usable water closets. It’s not me being squeamish, I could show you a picture that’d make your sphincters clench. But I won’t because that would be unfair and make your sphincters clench.

it’s a question of balance. All men have here developed the squat. They do it when there are no chairs, stools or suitable sitting places.  This particular skill is at its most useful when hovering over an open hole in the floor in a room masquerading as a pooper. I did try once last year, not out of choice, Something I’d eaten had vehemently disagreed with me and I’d exceeded my Kegel limit by a good 3 hours. This forced balancing act on the floor of a paperless, hand basin less, water less Portaloo was one of those moments in life where you wish you had a teleporter. Or just a hotel toilet. Ah sweet lift up lid, joy to me o cheap and nasty twin ply. Fuck it just a few sheets of Izal would have been luxury.

Anyway. Right now there’s just a hole, a bucket and a brush. For a country obsessed with wearing masks in order to halt the spread of infection you’d think that operating a sewage system that didn’t involve standing in other folks waste (I doubt the accuracy & efficacy of the squat system) then filling a bucket to flush said waste using a tap that has been touched by who knows what and a brush that appears untouched would be a priority.

Ever wondered how the same cold can mildly inconvenience a woman and put a man out of action for days? Lab coated Poindexters from England, UK may have the answer.



Scientists at the Meppershall University of Looking at Really Tiny Stuff & Spinning Fluids in Centrifuges were commissioned by right wing think tank “Fuck those Poor People” to carry out a study questioning the existence of anyone with an income under £25,000 a year.  In findings some have described as “Codswallop” The university have published a paper (unrelated to the research they were paid rather handsomely for) linking the cause of so-called “Man-Flu” to men’s tendency to exaggerate and amplify their sneezes. (a)


In the paper, released on parole in 1973. The nerds leading the university study performed super scientifical experiments on volunteers who were deliberately exposed to the flu virus via a bowl of pub peanuts in a poorly controlled environment. The 20 subjects, both female, and the other one, were observed over the course at Aintree where scientists tracked the progress of the virus through the various stages of infection from sneezing, sniffles, to sick day, pointless flu remedies, tickly throat, coughing, expectoration, to that bit where you feel really, really sorry for yourself because the tissues you have stuck up you nose make you look a right bell, through to even more pointless consumption of Tunes, Lockets and/or Strepsils and finally, exclusively in the male control group, paralysis.



Under observation, it was observed that in most cases neither group sneezed naturally and that the female subjects tended to suppress and mask their sneezes with cute affectations. Among the most annoying were the onomatopoeic “choos” drawing the “Aw bless” platitude from fellow women subjects and looks of derision and bewilderment from Scientists who had to be restrained from prescribing unnecessary sedatives. In males who tended to the more extreme end of the sneeze amplification scale. Sneezes were often built up over the course of 15 to 20 seconds and accompanied by dramatic inhalations, a drop in vocal register and a physical recoil backwards, as if the sneezer were the victim of a small grenade explosion. “Followed immediately by an ego driven spray of nasty dirty germs as fast as possible because they all want to beat the (nonexistent) 100mph sneeze speed record. (b)Especially near children and older, more frail relatives © scientists observed.
After some highly intensive research, some of it lasting 10 to 15 minutes on Google and Wikipedia. Both gender’s behaviours, at each extreme, were tenuously linked to a prehistoric throwback gene sequence identified as “ATICATAC” 


An unnamed source at the university stated. “I’m Professor McClure, and in my opinion the ATICATAC gene is a recessive flight or fight signature which largely exists in male carriers and manifests itself as an extreme defense reflex. This response dictates that the body when faced with its own sickness and the potential external threat of  lizards with fins stuck to their backs would either, in the case of females, suppress the sneeze thus making them less vulnerable to discovery from any threat, no matter how unconvincing. Or, in the case of males of the species, sneezes were designed purely to ward off giant Sabre Toothed Tigers and Kraken.“ Professor McCloud then went to say that “This gene is bloody useless and should have become dormant as soon as people started to migrate from the African continent. I mean, I started losing my hair at 18 and for some reason we still have a deep subconscious need to chase off encroaching Hydra. What’s that all about?” Professor McGinty was unavailable for comment.


Another scientist who is actually employed at the university had this to say. “Man-Flu itself is entirely fictional. What actually occurs is that in males, the self inflicted exaggeration of the sneeze reflex (fuck knows why,) -  Have any of you guys got a fag? I’m trying to quit but oh, cheers mate. Gagging. Umm yeah. - causes greater damage to the mucoid producing glands, in the first instance this strips away more protective tissue and fluids from the throat than occur when the female sneezes, thus increasing the size of the affected area, prompting higher concentrations of antibodies to go to work sending the body’s defence mechanisms into overdrive. Hence the more severe later male stage symptoms than those for women infected at the same time. Sod them. it’s their own fault. It’s not like a wooly mammoth is going to knock down the door of 23 Acacia Avenue is it? They want to pull themselves together.”

There you have it. Anonymous egghead professor tells men to abandon traditional hetero-hominid cultural and behavioral signifiers in favour of opening themselves up to peer mockery and possible verbal and physical abuse.
Sounds controversial. Is it?


(a) Man Flu. The same flu every bastard gets but Oh No. You’ve got to be Mr. “I’m not going to make it.” You bloody drama queen. 3 days off work? What do you mean you shouldn’t cook in case the kids get it? Where do you think we got it?

(b) Dr. Gerald Hangnail. Self hating TV Psychologist and sexual health pundit.

(c) ”Rarely accompanied by a hand over the mouth” - Subject B7′s Nan