Now we don’t usually go down the whole ‘music piracy’ vibe on this website, but it is Christmas, so whatever, we’re giving you a lovely free download of Phil Spector’s Christmas Album, because it’s great. You can download it by clicking here. To show your love to old Phil, you should send him a letter or something, he’s locked up in Corcoran State Prison with Charlie Manson. He can be reached here; PHIL SPECTOR P.O. Box 8800, Corcoran, CA 93212-8309. I’m sure he’d appreciate it. Maybe.

TRACKLISTING.

1. Darlene Love, White Christmas
2. The Ronettes. Frosty the Snowman
3. Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, The Bells of St. Mary
4. The Crystals, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
5. The Ronettes, Sleigh Ride
6. Darlene Love, Marshmallow World
7. The Ronettes, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
8. The Crystals, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
9. Darlene Love, Winter Wonderland
10. The Crystals, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
11. Darlene Love, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
12. Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, Here Comes Santa Claus
13. Phil Spector and Artists, Silent Night

We’ve gone about how good Get Me are in the past, they’ve put on some great stuff like Tempa T and they host the excellent Reely and Truly film / photography / hip-hop night which we’ve dj’ed at. They are continuing this tradition of fantastic events with a killer New Year’s Eve party at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, DON LETTS is dj’ing, which is pretty fucking great. If you don’t have plans yet, this should sort you out.

Architecture exists, or more correctly it is design to exist, which is why it is interesting when an architectural design is never realised and is instead left to float unsuspended through history. An exemplar of this is Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, which exists now as a monument to the constructivist theories of architecture and not to the Bolsheviks who commissioned it. By never being built it is denied one of the primary functions of architecture, to be a place, and yet neither is it a negation of place, non-place.

Architecture exists, or more correctly, it has different states of existence, it moves from realm to realm, from idea, to planning, to building, to completion, and then possible destruction, destruction can occur during any of these stages, and yet there is some fluidity between these states. We have renovation and rebuilding as well as destruction, we can resist the movements of time upon architecture. So what is interesting is when an architectural project never moves becomes anything more concrete than an idea, never passes from planning to building, and it instead becomes a symbol. This can also occur if a building is completely and irrevocably destroyed. There is a juxtaposition here, it is because architecture is a designed as a place for human interaction, architecture defines the way human beings feel, act and behave, and if an architectural project is never realised it can never play host to the exchanges that make up society. Never realised, it can only form part of a semiotic system that hints at these actions, it becomes part, not of architecture, but of philosophy.

When we consider this, in relation to the designs for the playgrounds Isamu Noguchi planned for outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, we must consider the planned type of human interaction that would occur there. For example, Tatlin’s Monument was planned to house Soviet government, Noguchi though, designed a playground, a place where one of the purest types of interaction occurs, play. Psychgeographry is concerned with how we live and how we want to live, but it is also concerned with how we ought to want to live, this rogue ought forms the basis of theories of psychogeography, especially in theories of urbanism. This will often focus on play, especially in the use of play to create new geographical contours for the city. Noguchi’s architectural playgrounds are the place designated for enjoyment, and all other spaces of enjoyment, from sporting arena to the cinema and the pub, follow on from the role play has in socialising young children in the playground. And because these playgrounds were never realised they themselves turn into the psychogeographical theories of how we ought to want to live.

Noguchi’s playground are not usual playgrounds, his approach is via the theories of urbanism, those that centre on the radical use of play and on the idea of maximising the spaces in a city designated for areas of play, by titling and angling the surfaces of his playgrounds they become part moonscape, part Dali’s draping clocks. Play is turned into a surreal activity, mythic in its ritualism, they are putting forward suppositions about how we should be socialised into functioning civilian adults from children, and yet they represent a sort of dystopian image of socialisation, it is Lord of the Flies as Modernist architecture not as allegory. Through their geographical location, next to the United Nations building, they are positioned as an area for the socialisation of future world leaders and so it predicts dystopian futures. It sits in the theoretical shadow of the United Nations organisation itself. The playgrounds aimed to pervert the way we ought to want to live through altering the environment that contains the early acts human interaction and socialisation; it twists our future, adult relationships into dystopia.

Summer 2009, LA to San Diego. Kodachrome Slide Film. Also posted on Holy Ghost Zine

by Felix L. Petty

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We often talk about the off modern as well as Off Modern, as a concept that is; Harvard professor Svetlana Boym coined the phrase, our reading of it forms the theoretical basis of Off Modern (that is to say, us, and what we do) and it is a development of her radical alteration of how we see art history and its container, history, in more general terms. It is based around a development of the post-modern, in relation to the off modern as supplanting it. Post-modernism is a rejection of the great cultural psychological truths that modernism put forward in the early 20th Century. Now, in the early 21st century, the theories of the Off Modern place themselves as a rejection of the position held by the post-modernists, but also, and critically, it is not a re-affirmation of the theories of the modernists. It links the two, inter-relates them, and sees them as two parts of the same artistic whole, unified by their opposition, like black and white, which are shades of each other and not separate entities. Both positions are, essentially, different forms of the same strand of psychological modernism; they are concerned with the same thing, humanity as community and as individual within said community.

We often talk about off modern as a pan-history; this means that, in relation to modernism, it encapsulates all historical and personal environments in which modernism can occur. Modernism creates for Man a great, unifying psychological truth, symbolised in the figure of the everyman, Leopold Bloom for example. Post-modernism dissociates man from this truth; it says he is alone and that his life is absurd, alienating, terrifying and formalistic. The great psychological truth of post-modernism is that humanity, or more correctly the individual, is alone, and although surrounded by society he can never truly connect to it. The off modern takes every single, alienating section of human discourse, and says, whilst there is no single great psychological truth that unites us, there are instead millions of different psychological truths, and that they are all related via the implications of a new arbitrary pan-historical study.

We often talk about a ‘new arbitrary historical discourse’; this is how we relate the disparate individual events of our pan-historical study. Two examples of this, which are gone into in more detail on this website are in the comparison between the histories of Ireland and Poland, and also in comparison between Marc Auge’s theories of non-place and the city of Dubai. Through a comparison of the unrelated events, of what the post-modern would separate, as disparate, unrelatable and alienating, through discussion we can draw comparison and thesis. The off modern allows us, from this, to form a new arbitrary historical discourse that doesn’t relate to the common historical notion of cause-and-effect, and thus bankrupts all old theories of historical study. This causes a new historical temporal reality that rehabilitates and detourns all old and forgotten histories, all of the millions of different individual psychologies are no longer in a state of alienation, because at random, we can prove everything is related through the off modern.

To celebrate our first birthday back in October, Off Modern hooked up with Time to Waste on our ‘Documentary Project’, which involved us giving fifteen disposable cameras to fifteen different people to document their evenings at Corsica Studios. The cameras are back. Here is a selection of images from them.

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This originally appeared here

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Off Modern are a group of guys from South London that for some reason have a super serious logo but put on really great art shows and parties, I think there’s four of them but the one I know best is a guy called Felix who always plays love songs when he DJs. Art guys are supposed to play difficult or clever music but Felix opts for songs that makes you want to dance and cry into your beer about girls, which is a million times better.

I asked him to make a mix for us, which would have been great on its own, but he went that extra mile and contacted wig wearing actress killer and sometime producer Phil Spector to put together some tracks with him. Here’s the email I got back when I sent over some questions:

FAO OF ROBERT FOSTER. FROM THE DESK OF PHIL SPECTOR. CORCORAN STATE PRISON, CALIFORNIA.

A Mixtape Compiled by Phil Spector on the behalf of Off Modern.

Have you made a lot of mixtapes for girls?
No. I produced and wrote hit records for twenty years, I married Veronica Bennett (of the Ronnettes) and made her sing songs I’d written, I never made any mixtapes, this is my first one.

Why do you think there are so many love songs, even in genres not designed for them, like punk?
I have no idea. I’ve worked with John Lennon and The Ramones, is the best you can come up with?

Do you think we’re miserable so we listen to pop music or we listen to pop music and it makes us miserable (like in the film High Fidelity)?
No comment.

Are you unlucky in love?
I shot an actress in the face.

Every fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with?
Please don’t print a picture of me wearing that massive wig during my court case.

1. Whole Wide World – Wreckless Eric
2. My Sweet Potato – Booker T And The Mgs
3. Sugar Sugar – Mad Lads
4. She’s like Heroin to me – Gun Club
5. There, There, My Dear – Dexys Midnight Runners
6. Spanish Harlem – Ben E. King
7. B-A-B-Y – Carla Thomas
8. Make It Me – Premiers
9. He’s a Rebel – The Crystals
10. Whiskey Heaven – Fats Domino
11. I’m Waiting For The Day – Beach Boys
12. Please Return To Me – Fleets
13. You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care) – Buddy Holly
14. Poison Ivy – The Rolling Stones
15. Almost Gold – The Jesus and Mary Chain
16. Kitch You’re So Sweet – Lord Kitchener
17. Love Mi Ses – Top Cat
18. Molly’s Lips – Nirvana
19. Come, Let Us Go Back To God – Sam Cooke
20. Helden – David Bowie

DOWNLOAD:

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This originally appeared here

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INTERVIEW WITH LUCKY DRAGONS

by Felix L. Petty

I’ve been to Los Angeles twice now and I’m yet to properly work it out, it is inhumanly big, varying, sprawling, stretching out forever. It is a city full of smog, but there is also the sunshine that breaks through it, which is as good a place to start with describing Lucky Dragons as any. Starting up in 1999, Lucky Dragons are Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara. Fischbeck conceived of the band as a never-ending project that could encompass any number of different people at any different time, the music they make together is startlingly disparate in its style, in that you never quite know where you’re going to end up next. LD have released four records this year, and yet somehow the disparity in certain elements of their musical practice only serves to tighten it all together as a organic unit; Lucky Dragons never allow you to take song structures and rhythms for granted. The melodies (sounds might be more accurate a description of some of their work) surface, disappear and reappear, creating a utopian techno-hippy fantasy world that wraps itself around your brain.

I managed to catch up with Luke and Sarah after playing at the ICA’s Calling Out Of Context festival of avant-garde music, their approach to playing live feels as much like a Fluxus (more on this later) event as it does a traditional gig. As I enter the theatre of the ICA I was immediately confronted with a tiny space on the floor covered in all manner of intricate machinery and home made objects, some of them look like halved coconuts, there are two laptops, a mess of wires and absolutely no conventional instruments. The crowd are sitting cross-legged on the floor. Within moments of starting to play a modified projector is turned on and CDs are passed round to audience members to play with in the beams which splash the audience and band with rainbows of light. This is only the start of a night of audience participation in which we are all actively asked to take part in a strange tribal celebration of music. I think I actually catch a couple kissing whilst engaging in some euphoric moment of audience participation. The gig isn’t really like anything I’ve witnessed before, there aren’t really songs, only moments, that lead onto other moments, it isn’t like a traditional BAND -> AUDIENCE gig, they aren’t on stage for a start, and it isn’t a gimmick either, its an integral part of how the band operate in a live environment. The band simply play, and at certain points they invite the audience to play with them, whether this is generating sounds through their bodies (see the Making A Baby project for more of this) by holding onto what appear to be ropes and creating strange pulsating sounds, projections of flowers and buildings vibrate on the walls, almost in time with Fischbeck’s looping musical progressions and Sarah Rara’s ethereal chanting.

Hi guys, how are you? How was the gig?

SARAH RARA: Really good thanks; the crowd were really into it, which is nice, especially as the way we make music relies as much upon the audience as ourselves.

I’m curious as to how you plan a Lucky Dragons show,?

SARAH RARA: Well we don’t have a traditional set list, so we’re much more interested in seeing where things go themselves, sort of setting them loose and seeing how the audience react and interact with them.

Do you approach a show differently when you are playing in an environment like the ICA, which is probably much better known as an art institution than a musical venue?

SARAH RARA: I don’t think so; we’ve always found it more interesting to take the same approach to each show and then see how it translates to different environments, whether that’s playing in a church hall, a youth centre, a punk club or an art gallery. You know we have a very interactive way of making music, we like to get different responses by taking it into different situations and seeing the way audience participation changes.

You named your first record f_uxus 0.01, I’m assuming this is a reference to Fluxus.

SARAH RARA: Yeah, that’s true.

So how much does the whole Fluxus thing influence you? Are you wary of any associations that could be made between yourself and people like Dick Higgins?

SARAH RARA: I don’t think so, we’re really influenced by it, the whole overlapping of the visual and musical aspects of Lucky Dragons, and the whole idea about audience participation and the way they used chance and instruction to create the work. We really like the way you can start something and see how it grows and changes as the show goes on and people cooperate with us and each other in different ways.

So would you define Lucky Dragons as a musical or artistic project?

SARAH RARA: We don’t really differentiate, there are certain aspects of both, but we’re not one or the other. I don’t have any formal musical training for example, and our concerts aren’t like normal concerts either.

Does living in Los Angeles influence the way in which you make music?

LUKE FISCHBECK: Where we live has always been the material from which everything we do comes from, it’s the way we introduce ourselves and the first thing we ask people when we meet them: “where are you from?” It’s the beginning of any exchange we can make. LA doesn’t make sense, it’s sprawling and shaking and rolling and falling apart and caving in on itself and bursting with life and very quiet most of the time. Some cities build up, LA builds in and out, through and on, and the more we travel in support of this place, as ambassadors or whatever, the more we realize how strange and beautiful this specific kind of growth is and how difficult it is to translate.

Are you conscious of a part you might play in a ‘scene’ or community that’s developing there at the moment?

SARAH RARA: I think people have a really preconceived image of what Los Angeles is like, its really easy to see it as this big, fake, city, when there are lots of other things going on at the moment that are really exciting, like the Smell for instance, and the scene that’s developed around it.

LUKE FISCHBECK: Everyone is friends with everyone, life is very slow, everything is easy and everything is possible.

But do you see yourselves as being part of that whole lo-fi punk thing going on in LA at the moment?

SARAH RARA: Well I think we share a lot of things in common; you know there is a certain ethos behind the Smell that we share and believe in too, the all ages, alcohol free thing, there is such a nice, genuine atmosphere there, its lovely to be a part of it.

You’ve been going to ten years now, do you start to look back upon you’re earlier works and reassess them?

LUKE FISCHBECK: Well we’ve been looking back and re-assessing since the beginning, it’s a huge part of how we move forward. Not having any fear of correcting mistakes and re-doing things we feel could be finished in a better way. We’ve even re-used names of things if they’re better suited to something new.

SARAH RARA: Luke conceived of Lucky Dragons as a project that meant we could work with all these different people if he wanted too.

LUKE FISCHBECK: There was a plan from the beginning to never break-up this band, just to see what that would do, removing that drama. So we haven’t been as precious about so many things, always moving forward in a way that recycles and re-edits and tidies up.

SARAH RARA: So I guess we don’t really reassess what we’ve done but more we try to build upon it, see how we develop our ideas and take it from there.

LUKE FISCHBECK: It’s a continual openness with things never being completely fixed or finished!

When listening to Lucky Dragons I always get a feeling that you’re trying to create a utopian vision in the music, there is a real pleasant optimism about it, which I wouldn’t call naivety but maybe it comes close to that. Would you agree?

LUKE FISCHBECK: I’m not quite sure what I am agreeing with, that our attempts are naive, or that we’re trying to create a pleasantly optimistic utopia? or both? Maybe we are, on the one hand, imagining some future possibilities, and then also drawing attention to the very temporary heterotopias of the present, places where many different ideas of what is good can co-exist and there ‘d be no need to collapse things into a single vision.

So what would the ideal future of Lucky Dragons be?

LUKE FISCHBECK: The goal remains, at least, to keep things suspended in an open constellation of possibilities for as long as possible and even when we get to that imagined future place, we’ll still feel the same way!

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Listen to Lucky Dragons here

Hi everyone, its a been little quite of late here, and thats because we have been working hard on loads of different little things, but we almost have the second Off Modern magazine coming out in the new year. If you’d like to check out the Ditto Press Blog you can find a little teaser, you should also check them out anyway, Ben Freeman is the mastermind behind the excellent FUN magazine, which we’ve mentioned before. If you have anything you need printing I’d recommend checking them out.

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IN other news we put on a massive squat party in Mayfair a few weeks ago, Fiction played live, there was a whole host of excellent djs, and a few police officers too. We’ll have photos up soon, promise. Fiction have incidentally just recorded a new song, its called Big Things, its great. Listen here.

Blame Hakim Bey and Crass. Blame Unsound, Hedfuk and Acme soundsystems. Blame South London and rising rent, or if you can’t be arsed to do any research and write for the Guardian, blame !WOWOW! Whatever, squatting’s on the up. This is a piece sharing a few tips on how YOU, yes YOU can get a slice of the free mansion pie.

If you’ve read this far then I’m assuming you’re already interested in breaking a place for one of various reasons. As such I won’t bother going into the history or philosophy of reclaiming dead space. This is about the practical’s; the tools and knowledge you need to storm the castle and begin the siege.

First of all (obvious this one) you need a building. There are empty buildings everywhere. As a rule of thumb, the viler and more run down an area, the more empty buildings. This leads to a mental equation where you have to offset the potential amazingness of, say, a towering fully furnished 20s dancehall with the fact its in West Norwood and surrounded by mental bastards. Generally, unless you’re a mental bastard too, it’s best to stay out of places that are too hardcore. Your neighbours will hate you for paying no rent (even if none of them ever have either), and will either rob you, extort you, or burn your house down. Whilst squatting in Lewisham our neighbours did the first two and threatened the third. I’m not joking here.

Also, ask yourself if you really need a massive gaff? This boils down to what you’re squatting for. If you want a venue to hold fuck off ridiculous parties where you know 5% of the people in the building then THINK BIG. The bigger the building, the bigger the crew you’ll need to hold it and sort out its repulsive shit smeared interior, and don’t even think of trying to live there. This country is too cold to handle a no-heating winter. (Although if you find a place with a working boiler and you don’t mind being a criminal, you could always register the gas in a fake name and then get the fuck out of dodge when the bailiffs come knocking. I wouldn’t recommend this, even though it works.)

If you’re looking for something slightly more exclusive then littler is often better, especially when you’re just starting, and doubly especially if you want to actually live in the space — it means you need less people to rely on and less shit to clean. Old pubs are a great start, usually having upstairs bedrooms and the communal/performance/gallery/shooting gallery area of the previous bar.

When scouting for empty buildings look out for certain signs — curtainless windows, scrubby overgrown gardens, boarded up areas, or just the general sense of emptiness. When you’ve spotted a likely spot go for the tried and tested method of sticking some furled up paper as a marker in the letterbox / doorjam. Keep revisiting to see whether the marker has moved, and if it hasn’t gone anywhere in two weeks or so, bingo! You’ve either got an empty or someone’s about to have a fucking horrible surprise when they get back from holiday.

Incidentally the holiday thing pretty much never happens — if you get into a place and its clear that someone lives there still (and its going to be really clear) you’ll want to get out sharpish unless you want the threat of criminal damage proceedings + the knowledge that you’ve made a strangers life a complete and unnecessary nightmare. Despite what the Telegraph may think that’s generally not top of most space reclaimers wishlist.

You’ll often see buildings with the windows and doors covered by large impregnable looking steel sheets. This hateful stuff is called Sitex and is a total hassle to get off from the outside (unless you can access a council Sitex key — the crusty Holy Grail). However, the presence of Sitex guarantees two things – the place is empty, and no ones going to do anything with it for a while. Often councils are lazy and will only Sitex the ground floor. This is great. If you can get up the side of a building and through a window 3on an upper floor then Sitex is a piece of piss to take off from the inside. There’s even a strong argument for not removing the downstairs Sitex at all, in all but one fairly concealed entrance, as it maintains the illusion to the owner that the building is still secure from you and your feral skipdiving buddies.

So, once you’ve found a building you’ll need some or all of the following —

A torch (Maglites are definitely the best)

A crowbar

Any sort of plug that lights up when connected to the mains (some phone / ipod chargers do this, and some extension cables)

Boltcutters

A new Yale lock (barrel and key)

A mini hacksaw

Chains and padlocks (decent ones!)

Screwdrivers + possibly a drill

Thick soled shoes

2 copies of a Section 6 (The legal document that breaks down your rights. You can download one at http://www.squatter.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=30)

AND CRUCIALLY —

Mates who can bring you stuff like food, water and bedding if the place is a winner.

Here are the rules to the game: If you can get in without the law seeing you, change the locks and maintain a presence in the property, then it’s yours until the courts say otherwise.

It’s a fun game and free to play.

So, step one. Getting in. This is hands down the hardest part, but as with most things in this world, persistence pays off. First off try and find any way you can of getting in without breaking anything. This is pretty unlikely, although a ladder on the side of a place can often reveal unlatched windows. It’s more likely your going to have to either break a window, or prise wooden boards off windows/doors with your crow bar.* Some cheeky beggars like to get themselves a fluro tabard and do this sort of thing in broad daylight, under the cover of being a man from the council. Personally I’ve never had the balls for that sort of carry on and am far keener on the cover of darkness. With London being a large anonymous city its amazing what sort of noises you can get away with in the dead of night. The bonus in prising off wooden boarding is that your certain that no ones going to be inside the property (check for fresh looking building materials though! You really don‘t want to bump into a pissed off brickie working nights). If you’re gonna have to break in with more vociferous means then just make sure the place is empty. Then steam on in.

Don’t worry if you can’t get into a place on first attempt, have a couple more goes that night, then just leave it and come back later. Don’t bait yourself up by battering away at your chosen building for hours. You’ve got all the time in the world. Relax.

Hopefully, eventually, you’re in. Smashing. This part is the most fun. There’s nothing like the sneaky thrill of creeping through a long empty time capsule by torchlight. If the floor is covered in shit and it looks like the place has been squatted before then go slowly and keep an eye out for needles (hence the thick-soled shoes). First off try and see if there’s any working electrics. Flicking light switches is no good as the chances are the bulbs will be gone (although not always, in which case, result), so try sticking your plug-with-a-light into whichever plug sockets you find, avoiding any that look mangled. Don’t go doing anything spacky like grabbing bare wires. If the buildings really old, and really knackered, and you’ve got no power you might have a problem. However any relatively new place can be fairly easily reconnected, so don’t worry if there doesn’t seem to be any juice in the house.

While you’re looking around the place get a feel for it. Does it have any sinks? Do the taps work? Are there any toilets and do they flush? Basically is it any good. Personally I’d say that any place that is structurally sound, that has either working electricity or working water, or both, is always a good bet, even if it’s filthy. Dirt can be cleaned, carpets stripped, junk thrown out, walls painted or knocked through, its all part of the joy of the land of do as you please.

If the place seems good then you need to secure your entry point as quickly as possible. There’s a couple of ways to do this. If the building is a big one with the main doors already chained your going to have to boltcut off the existing chains and replace them with your own. Whilst this is fairly easy in principle, and only really requires brute strength, you might want to practice with the boltcutters and some spare chain at home so you can get good and quick at it. Alternatively if you’re feeling a bit Moriarty you can pick padlocks with hair clips and the top of a biro. I mean, I can’t, but the girl here can : http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-pick-a-lock-for-beginners-266745/

Pretty informative eh?

Alternatively a more residential property will probably have a cylinder lock. These can be replaced by removing the old barrel (which is the part with the keyhole in) and replacing it with your own. There’s a decent guide to doing this here http://everything2.com/title/Changing+a+Yale+lock. This has proved to be the most useful option for me in a number of properties. There’s nothing like sticking your key in your front door to confer the air of a home owner on a person.

So now if you’re in and you’ve got the lock sorted out, its time to embed yourself. Stick up a Section 6 somewhere visible but unobtrusive on the outside of the property. You don’t have to legally put up a Section 6 for it to have effect, and sometimes putting it up only draws attention to your presence. Do make sure you keep a copy on you though, it’ll give you confidence when dealing with the police/ owners. Get on the phone to your mates and get em to come round with food and warmth and battery powered ipod speakers and candles and bog roll. And get ready for your encounter with the law which will probably happen at some point in the next 24 hours. When the old bill come (and it’s be no means 100% that they will) you have to remember that they will lie to try and get you out. Stick to your guns, tell them you’ve been in the property for a while and it’s your home. Refer them to the Section 6 and in the end they’ll fuck off. It’s not really their problem who’s in the building and it’s best to keep it light hearted when dealing with them. Don’t start spouting your counter culture bullshit, or calling them pig, or making oinking noises or banging on about Ian Tomlinson. As detailed below, you may need them to be on your side in a few hours. Still, don’t open the door to them no matter what they say. Honestly, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. If they want it open they’ll just kick it in. If they’re not kicking it in then it’s because they’re not allowed.

Sometimes instead of the police coming down you get the far worse situation of big lairy bastards employed by pissed off landlords, keen to administer a spot of street justice. If they come down with threats to kneecap you or whatever, make sure you’re secure in the building and phone the cops. You’re legally in the right. Most property owners can’t believe it when they get our countries beautiful legal system explained to them, but the fact is they can’t do anything without a court order. God bless England.

Now for the fun part. Once the police know your there, as long as you’re not running the place as a crack house or an all ages absinthe grotto, they’ll leave you alone. If the landlord issues a court order it’s always worth trying to negotiate with them. Sometimes people can get to stay in places for peppercorn (ie nothing) rent, although realistically this is rare. Choose who you’re going to let live with you really, really carefully. Avoid lazy, messy and stupid people, they will only make the process a nightmare. Avoid hippies, they have a terrible aesthetic and tend to paint retarded slogans on the walls, badly. Avoid drug dealers and ketamine addicts. Avoid people who you haven’t known for very long; they will turn out to be thieves. And most of all, avoid Mick Brady, an alcoholic who headbutted me 2 years ago and shat himself on a bus.

* This part of the process isn’t legal, and can be construed as criminal damage, so naturally this article doesn’t condone it, or anything else I might write that is on sketchy ground legally. This piece is just one big jolly with no application to any reality anywhere. You get me.

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Nasty McQuaid is a veteran squatter, superstar dj, and is probably the kind of all round solid bloke you’re paranoid Mother thinks you’re going to start hanging around with as soon as you move to London to go to ‘art school’. He ran a shop in New Cross called Rubbish and Nasty for a few years which sold amazing records as well as putting on some fantastic gigs.