Friday Mick Jones Alert

This is an intermittent series in which I track the movements of Clash guitarist and punk idol Mick Jones, asking the question 'Am I stalking Mick Jones, or is Mick Jones stalking me?'

I know from this photo it looks like I'm following him, but he's clever, that's one of the things I've noticed about him.

It is frankly weird how often I see Mick Jones.

I don't just see him in west London either, in fact the sighting before this was in Shoreditch.

It's ironic too, because he is the member of the Clash that I am least excited about seeing. Can I just stress, as I do every time I see him, that he looks terrible, it's like his face is being drawn up and away from his teeth, by a giant invisible hand, and up close, like when I saw him in WHSmiths (he was buying all the papers, all of them), he smells just the way you'd expect a dying rockstar to smell.

He wears black suits on sunny days. I would hazard a guess that mercifully he never, ever wears shorts.

If I have a vision of Joe Strummer on the H&C line I will be sure to snap it on my trusty mobile phone.

The Jones/Strummer dynamic is a good model for a particular kind of creative relationship. One disgusting sentimentalist plus one intellectual with an axe to grind. Lennon/McCartney also fit this model.

I'm having a seriously good time at the moment and people keep sending me interesting stuff. Look, here's a reading group where you can read DFW's Infinite Jest over the summer. And here is my friend Andy's blog about failure and art which as you can imagine seriously rings my cherries.

Also had an enjoyable online discussion with an Australian on the Ideal Murder blog yesterday. I was slightly embarrassed to find myself on the front page of their site (not too embarrassed to link to it obviously), but I don't have a password, so I can't see if my article has sparked a lot of spluttering indignation in the comments from whoever at Mother was on here reading yesterday. (Yes, I'm watching you).

I'm doing a longer feature piece for the next issue that has so far involved interviewing Dan Germain from Innocent. He gave me a lot of free smoothies without asking to touch me inappropriately or anything. I'm also meeting the writer at Malmaison, so perhaps you can guess what the piece is about.

Happy Friday.