Letting The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death [by Joe Wilson]
	North America, Winter 2002 [by David Westlake]
	Huddled Masses [by David Westlake]
	Joe's German Diary [by Joe Wilson]
	The Germ of Panic [by David Westlake]
	Clothes That Make You Cry [by Joe Wilson]
	Placebo Tour Diary [by Liam Howe]
	Shame [by David Westlake]
	Diary Abajo del Pueblos [by Joe Wilson]
	The Hum of Plastic [by Joe Wilson] 15/7 My feet are cold. The luxury of tiled, summer floors is slightly offset by instant toe ice creams. This is a bit of a minor grumble in the face of bright sunshine and almost blue skies. I have swum for the first time in several years and am surprised by the rush of blood into lungs that haven't been flushed pink since I was a frisky teen. The test is whether the four of us can survive in a small house in deepest France, record an album, and not kill each other. It would be a shame if we only manage one at the expense of the other. Happy days. The house we stay in has a very specific holiday home smell that brings up memories of a childhood I haven't actually had. I don't remember ever going anywhere sunny or French, so it must be a planted memory, that seeded by holiday programs I saw as a kiddie. Perhaps Judith Chalmers had some traumatic effect on me. Image this scene, a small boy sits in front of a television set. The door slams, and the set falls, crushing the small child. I am that child and the last image I see is Judith Chalmers orange face bearing down on me. This would explain the odd feeling I had when I first came here, an associated false memory, produced by seeing a sight that I had never previously seen. 17/7 Big tedious rows. Whenever we have gone or played in Manchester, we have always had massive stupid arguments. These would usually happen at restaurants, and it came to a point where I would rather eat apart from the band, because of the horrible inevitability of us being outside the Arndale centre screaming blue murder at each other. Its not that we hate each other, but rather there are undercurrents of unresolved issues. Anyway, to cut a long story short, this little corner of France is quickly becoming a facsimile of Manchester. This we should probably avoid. The big news is that it is properly hot, which actually makes for a lees tense atmosphere. Before I left England, I heard on the radio an item about killing chickens. In the piece, the journalist refereed to the headless chickens as, " running around like small children". This daft metaphor puts me in mind of the amount of lizards I see scurrying around like headless children, moving so fast, that you only notice when they are gone. I would like to take them as some sort of signifier or metaphor, but in reality they are just cheeky little lizards scampering around. 18/7 I have The Fear today, which is a shame, since the weather is fantastic. 19/7 Not paralysed with the Fear today, which is nice. Last night was the evening of dreaming of animals. Liam claims he had a dream where he was being fucked by an Alsatian, which is possible, considering the amount of wild doggies, I hear chortling in the valley. Chris was doing some vocal take, late last night, and whenever he would hit certain notes, all the dogs would go mental. In a Julian Cope style solution, Liams dream could be explained in terms of grumpy canine vibes floating up hill, and going into liams room by mistake. Dave has also mentioned animal dreams, apparently he was watching some sports event, (I cant remember what kind) and a lion ran onto the pitch, attacking a sportsman. I think this is just some Aslan style religious image relating to some latent catholic thing. Which is nice. Animals have been present in real life too; giant centipedes in Liam's room and Dave found a glow-worm. Chris has been noticeably absent on the animal/insect axis, preferring to make music, which I suppose is the whole point of being here, rather than a Johnny Morris safari. On a sinister note, a mysterious room has been found under the house, which we can't get at. I can only see through a crack in the door, and see crockery covered with cobwebs. Some kind of punishment room, I expect 20/7 as a postscript to the animal dream conversation, Dave has apparently also had a dream about a seal. I believe (but could be wrong) that male seals have large tusks, and female seals do not. When pressed, he claimed not to know the sex of the seal, which prevents any serious analysis. Sometimes a seal is just a seal. Last night I left the house for the first time since I have been here. We all walked to the nearest village for a meal. The nearest village is actually an hours walk away, so the whole experience took on the feel of route march. No serious rows, just minor threats of antagonism. Have decided to achieve a tan. World continues to turn. 21/7 Shooting stars! Now that is what I call country. Three successive bright sparkles across the French sky. In Damien: Omen 3, three stars align to show the exact location of the rebirth of Jesus Christ. This happens to be in England, somewhere near Salisbury plain, by the look of it. Damien is played by a pre famous, and still New Zealand Sam Neil. Is it possible that these three shooting stars hint at greatness below them, a drama played out under French skies? When I was a child I was accused of having messianic tendencies, and as I grew older, at the tiniest hint, I would cook for a large amount of people, using only the smallest amount of ingredients. Ha ha ha, I'm so funny. I should go back to chatting about animal dreams. What I really should do is talk about the fine record we are putting together, but I am incapable of anything but free form chat. 22/7 Extremely hot. We travel to a nearby town, for a market. I buy a hat, and then the Fear descends while in a café full of freaks and non-freaks. The four of us sit about, Liam and Dave coping much better than Chris and myself. I don't really know what causes this, and it is very unusual for Chris to get freaked out. I'm usually the one who wants to run for it in public places. This eats up most of the day, so no real music done till evening. David and me go for a long walk in the hills, it is all long straight roads looping up and down. The main crops around here are corn and sunflowers. These line the roads on either side and are taller than us, meaning that you strut down leaf corridors, with a bright blue stripe above. The crops are irrigated with huge sprays of water, which loop in huge "u" shapes. One of these covers the road, so that the uninterrupted heat haze suddenly has a zone of heavy rain. The "Children of the Corn" atmosphere is suddenly changed in to a "Footloose" scene, all dancing about in the spray. We are on tune number five and my hat make me look like one of Kid Creole's coconuts. I look the business, I can tell you. " ...Annie, I'm not your daddy..." A discussion has erupted about whether Kid Creole was at any point in Grandmaster Flash and his Furious Five. I suspect Grandmaster Flash ("that's Mr Flash to you") was far more fun to be part of than being in Kid Creoles gang. Mind you Dave's newly washed hair resembles Ronnie Biggs hair and thus would suit Kid Creoles zoot suit garb. 23/7 I was woken up by electrical storms and bizarre dreams. I was in the record shop on Waterloo station when it was announced that Robbie Williams would be having a private party in the shop. He was helped in by a minder and was obviously coked out of his mind. His nostrils were bleeding and he was stumbling around. Now, the record shop on waterloo station is tiny, there is not enough room to swing a kitten, let alone an addled pop star. He kept coming up to me a shouting at me, "You're a cunt, you wanker...etc" I just kept appealing to his minder but he paid me no attention. It was at this point I woke up, and found that the storm had knocked our power off. The weather is crap, really grey and clammy, which kind of sums up how I feel. No matter where you are in the world, and whatever the weather, Sundays always creep around the corners and spoil your day. The News of the World has printed names and addressees of convicted paedophiles, which seems a terrible moral barometer of the mood back in Britain. It seems the British public will not be happy until queen Victoria is back on the throne and we all salute the flag while burning witches on pyres built from banned texts. You get the government and media you deserve, if you aren't too careful. 24/7 Ian arrives today. Ian is the co writer of Sneaker Pimp material. You never see him in the photos, but you see his name on the credits. A bit like Don Black, but without the Cliff Richard style face. Double disasters have occurred, we have had a computer fail on us, requiring us to resort to desperate measures, such as placing a keyboard in the oven. This hasn't worked and has just made our kitchen hum of plastic. Disaster number two, in a series of two, was that I sat on my new Kid Creole hat. 25/7 A car pulls up in the drive, which usually causes us to panic for some reason. A pair of suspicious looking characters get out. For some reason, I am convinced that they from Interpol. A man and a woman, the woman slightly glamorous, the man, dark and quiet. Surprisingly, they turn out to be journalists, and interview Chris and Dave. To a background of lightning and spraying water, they chat away, drowned out by the thunder. It has been filthy weather all day. 26/7 The weather is still ghastly. Th e sheets of rain that curtain the villa, cause unusual animals to appear. A giant slug has started lugging its mud sausage form across a rug in Chris's room. I entertain fantasies of it crawling into Chris and eventually taking him over. He has a violently successful haircut, and is growing a pencil thin moustache. This looks fantastic and immensely suave, yet I don't think they can be linked to the slug movement. Sometimes it can feel as if animals are surrounding the house, all silently waiting until we slip, and then they will take us. There is pool man who comes once a week. He wears white shorts; tight tennis tops and has long sideburns and a moustache. He therefore looks breathtakingly cool, maintaining an effortless kind of calm and charm through sharp threads alone. I look forward to his weekly visits, and see them as a form of education. Mind you, I also enjoy the weekly visit from the dustmen, who all resemble chain smoking David Hasselhof types. I think only the pool dude and dustmen crew will save us from slug and wolverine attack. Its that or we will have to rely on the advice I have gathered from Puff Daddies latest smash; " I love you Jesus, you'll always be my best friend" I'm sure a man like Puff knows which side his bread is buttered as regards slugs. 27/7 In the morning, one of us have to go down to the nearby bar and collect our bread. Trudging down through the drizzle, I wonder why we are here. The bar is owned by an English couple, who supply "birds of a feather" style wanker dialogue. The atmosphere is distinctly Saturday night shit soap opera. The man could be played by the Labour party's Alisdair Darling, and she could be played by Glenda Jackson. I think Glenda Jackson would slash her delicate wrists if she found herself in a sitcom written by Marks and Gran. Surprisingly, he claims he recognises me from somewhere. He asks if I was in wormwood scrubs when he was. As far as I remember, I have not been to prison, so he must be thinking of someone else. 28/7 A short Science Fiction; "Jave stood erect for the first time in days. The blinking sand bounced of his lovely Yellow blonde hair. He had been tracking the Animals for days, across the airless dead desert of Aramis. Each day the sun bleached his lovely yellow hair, and burned his unusual arms. Each held a tattoo, a daily reminder of his days at the prison farm. There he had to forget the horrors of his surroundings, by indulging his addiction to preserves harvested from the space ants, that circled his prison bed. Jave had escaped by determination and a rare suave nature, rare in a man such as he, a native of the planet Fructus. Once free, he could return to his original task, tracking down the Animals, a breed who had killed his parents in cold green blood. " Am I not a mere Fructian?" he asked himself. As the droning days grew longer, he found it more difficult to hide his unnatural desires, but the baking planet was as devoid of the space ant, as it was of cool, clear water. Jave squinted at the sun, brushing sand off his exceptional arms. "I am ready for you now, you filthy bunch" he murmured through cracked and blistered lips." The weather is better today, and we went to the local restaurant to eat together, last night. "The Aramis sun beat down causing rippling sheets of air to billow in front Jave's sparkling crystal blue eyes. Each diamante sparkle refracted off his translucent orbs, making his aching brain twist and squirm like a maggot on a hook. "Damn this infernal inferno" Jave gasped. He had remained still for three days; the heat had sapped his Fructain blood, which was thin like his ideals. He had to find the Animals, but the heat made his solitary quest difficult. He needed brusque companionship to help him through. The manly Fructian race needed to the oily wrestling rings to relax, and these needed a manly companion with unusual arms to roll with. Jave sighed, and flicked his hair, involuntarily enjoying the suns rays bouncing off his bleached hair. Sometimes the Fructian could enjoy the simple pleasure of his magnificent body. Suddenly a sudden sound made him gasp and roll into the required Fructian tactical crouch. Through the sand he could see a water starved weed move across the surface of the ground. He knew of no moving plants indigenous to this desert world. Like a magnificent ocean liner pushing through an arctic ice flow, the weed pushed harder and revealed itself to be a humanoid form merely attached to the weed. Jave flinched in fear at the sudden arrival. Its face contorted into a cruel parody of a right thinking mans visage. " I am the Sand Weevil." He paused, the unholy genius of his words pulsating in Jave's beautiful head. " I am the guardian of the Sand and I will aid your living trail on this dusky hell-land." It is really too hot now, but it beats the shitty rain. We are on tune number seven, so we are actually on schedule. 29/7 Work has staggered to a halt, under the influx of visitors. Erratic weather combined with only one car means there is a slight air trying to entertain the kiddies on a wet weekend in Bournemouth. Strangely homesick and rather bored. Last night was disturbed by Ian marching around talking to himself. I once stayed in a hotel in New York where I found that Ian has the ability to sleep with his eyes open. I have since found out that he also talks in his sleep. The combination is disastrous, meaning that it is difficult to tell if his conscious or not, especially when he his incoherently ranting at you. 30/7 Mind crushingly dull day. Nothing going for it all. I have to admit that today I wish I wasn't here at all. 31/7 Last night I was woken by shouting. "Hello...HELLO.... HELLO, oh shit, oh no, SHIT...HELLO, oh no" Dave yells at me, " Its Ian, he must be in trouble." I think he must be locked outside or something. I run outside to find that Ian is infact in the kitchen. He is holding the handset of the telephone, which is no longer attached to the rest of the phone. He seems to be oblivious to this situation and is waving the phone around, shouting into thin air. "HELLO...HELLO". I plug the phone back in and hand it back to him. 1/8 The Fear has been bubbling under all day. Feeling very creepy. I have burnt my legs and hurt my back. I cannot concentrate and feel very pissed off. We are on tune number nine. The cracks appear to show and then they are covered up, papered over until another day. We recorded Chris's vocals at the peak of the day, Chris bear chested with thick white sunblock plastered over his face. He looks very Apocalypse Now, especially in this heat. I'm inside at the mixing desk wearing my Kid Creole hat, with its inevitable arse dent. I am dizzy with heat and David has to go between me and Chris to sort levels and compressors out. The track will end up reflecting this atmosphere. I remember when we recorded Destroying Angel, we had been up for days and the heat in London was unbearable. We were drunk all the time, trying to describe the sound we wanted with empty bottles and microphones. Sometimes you blink and you are one year later than you thought you were, blink again and you are back in the present. "Meanwhile the Animals sat and watched. They had stood on the top of the mountain for three Aramisian days. No normal creature could have withstood the throbbing member of the suns gaze. They lived by living under it, their skins blistering and puckering, but for every mercurial stab of focused primal energy their hides grew thicker and more resilient. Truly they were animals amongst men. Occasionally, they tried to string together sentences into words that rhymed. They could only communicate through rhyme or at very best, light sports such volleyball. Badminton tired them out, and chucking the Nickyclarkian Frisbee made them irritable." 2/8 "Captain Rowan Bungle stood upon the deck of the prison ship Vache. His cold glare was exacerbated by the fact that his eyeballs had been replaced with two glass facsimiles. His edictic brain however, was hard wired into a massive computer that had seen and lived in all known times. This combined with the captains' unerring ability to learn and practically understand nothing, meant that his blindness was no barrier to finding his way around the galaxy. Except in one respect, a daily torture that meant his cold hard features retained a permanent grimace. Tying the shoulder strap on the dungarees (a privilege denoting his rank and frigidity), Captain Bungle cast his savant brain back to the crisp features of Jave, the one man to have evaded is clammy grasp. He had to admire the Fructian and paused remembering his surprise at the advanced musculature of the man's arms. His glass eyes may not have seen them, but his moist palms did touch them. "One day, I will wear those arms like gloves" he growled. Got up early today, to find a massive thunderstorm has cleared the air, making it much cooler. We start tune number ten today. Liam and Ian played football with some local kids yesterday. I hope Liam's competitive streak didn't lead to an influx of tiny childrens injuries, suddenly flooding local French hospitals. We have run out of things to say to each other, a side product of the isolation. I'm sure this will make no difference to anything. David and Ian are practically living at our local bar, "Tony's". Each day they return in the morning with slightly more obtuse and conflicting reports. By the sound of it, it resembles "Ever Decreasing Circles" with more wife swapping and Stalinesque purges. 3/8 Err.. 4/8 Small cuts everywhere. I turn around and bang! another little seam has opened. Some kind of paper cut genie, creeping up on my turned back. More rows last night, empty as paper bags. 5/8 Fight, fight, fight, tora, tora, tora, 6/8 Last night we went to eat at Tony's place. At about midnight, our collective paranoia kicked in. Tony came in, said he was going across the road for a few minutes and then locked us in the dining room. We were the only customers. We sat silently, each of us trying the locked doors with increasing panic. The only other exit was painted shut. Why had he locked us in, what did he not want us to see? Rosemary's Baby sprang to mind, Tony as high priest of some diabolist cult. As we were trying the doors again the painted door sprang open, propelled by a pair of fat slack jawed German Shepherds. The dogs whirled in to the room, rancid fur and saliva flying. I hate dogs at the best of times, but Alsatians really freak me. It is something about their arthritic gait, all lumpy hips and loose skin. Their bodies move with greater momentum than their fur can withstand, their skin arriving just after their paws have. Tony appears, all smiles. The locked doors were to prevent us being disturbed by the puppies. I begin to feel rather faint, general neuroses combined with the Fear and real big dogs makes for a twitchy end to the day. 8/8 Mice have gone through our rubbish. They have thrown tin foil around in an exuberant manner, making the lawn looking like the end of the London Marathon. Perhaps there is a mouse marathon around Bordeaux, like Ralph and his marvellous motorcycle. In Ralph and his marvellous motorcycle, he zooms around a hotel on a toy motorcycle. He uses half a Ping-Pong ball stuffed with cotton wool for a helmet. This has nothing to do with anything, but I always admired this mouse's ingenuity. He also propels the motorcycle through making the sound of a motorbike, but that is another story. We are on song number twelve, fuelled on tequila hangovers and vodka afternoon. David has been advising someone on what kind of swimming pool lining that they should have. He apparently is suggesting a Miles Davis cocaine swimming pool; the sides of entirely mirrored. I have a friend who I once tried to force into carpeting his house with Astroturf, he wasn't convinced, so I doubt that David's skills can force a grown man to mirror his pool. Tony appeared at the house today, bringing with him a French t.v. crew. He asked if I was the only one in, and when I said I was, he said "oh, how unfortunate". I think with that kind of attitude he can stuff his bar up his arse. The film crew resemble the Interpol pair who turned up a few weeks ago. I have a feeling that they are perhaps collating some bad information upon us, and Christ only knows there is enough, if only about the amount of glass we smash. The first three weeks, we couldn't have snapped glass if we tried; now it is an hourly occurrence. Wineglasses splinter and spiral, feet are pricked by errant shards. "Jave and the man Weevil strode purposely into the night. The Aramisian sun lowered slightly in the dusk, the ever-oppressive heat lowering its guard. Jave and the Weevil had quickly assessed each other's various skills and found solidarity each other's physical oddities. Both beings were possessed by a vain streak, Jave for his highly desirable arms, the man Weevil for his highly talented hair. The man Weevils hair allowed him to keep his body at any desirable temperature. After they had finished grooming, they snacked on some nuts and crisps." I can't really be bothered to keep up this short science fiction. My heart isn't really in it. I don't think that bodes well for a career as writer, or anything that requires any long-term discipline. 9/8 Superhot....boiling hot sun....can't concentrate...on rock.. 11/8 Mice attacked in the middle of night again, I cannot keep up with their evening soirees. This combined with the purchase of incorrectly sized binliners has led to all out mess. I have two obsessions, dustbins and pylons. Mice figure in one and not the other. Today is the last day, we have to coil cables and unplug plugs. What do I have to show for this month? Well, we have thirteen songs, but I have broken my shoes and my swimming trunks have disintegrated. This means that I have to unplug things in my underpants. A bit like "Men in love", wrestling with wires by the light of the computer screen. I rock.
	What We Do [by David Westlake]