Dan Germain

the longest brush

This man has the longest window cleaning brush in the whole of London. It's magnificent.

As seen this morning out of the window. Important enough to be the first post on this blog for many months.

it's 2011

And it's time to post something. First up, I saw this...

And then I listened to this...

I've been listening to quite a lot of old acid house, and Ewan and that Weatherall bloke are very good at it. I like how they took it in turns to play records.

Then I met Luke for breakfast and he inspired me by being young and interested/ing. Luke lives here.

And I've been doing other things, like making adverts for smoothies and orange juice, getting our new innocent home ready for the people to move into, judging some awards, and encouraging children to visit the dentist. Got a puppy as well, and a machine that scoops up dog sh*t.

Lots of good things. If I get a bit more time I might write more about each, in some sort of order and depth. Thank you for reading.

the plain truth is that everyone knows that photos of sunsets are never as good as they actually seem when you're looking at them with your eyes, but we keep taking them anyway

time for a holiday

I am about to go on holiday, so no blogging or blipping for a while. Of course, holidays mean rented cars, and before I go I would like to leave you with some thoughts about these magical vehicles:

"Even more important than being drunk, however, is having the right car. You have to get a car that handles really well. This is extremely important, and there's a lot of debate on this subject – about what kind of car handles best. Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car. Nothing handles better than a rented car. You can go faster, turn corners sharper, and put the transmission into reverse while going forward at a higher rate of speed in a rented car than in any other kind. You can also park without looking, and can use the trunk as an ice chest. Another thing about a rented car is that it's an all-terrain vehicle. Mud, snow, water, woods – you can take a rented car anywhere. True, you can't always get it back – but that's not your problem, is it?"

by PJ O'Rourke (via Rory Sutherland)

sometimes it snows in april

I don't wish to intrude upon Paul's blog, but it snowed last night. Quite surprising, given the time of year.

a song for easter

Happy Easter. I hope Santa brings you lots of toys.

I'm going to be gardening, drinking tea, cooking and reading. I will not be thinking about advertising or writing or any of those things. Let's be clear about that.

hang out at the local dog run

a foggy morning

In these dark times of howling gales and foggy mornings, it's hard to teach yourself new tricks. But I enjoyed reading these tips to help maximise creativity. I especially liked the bit about leaving a sentence unfinished. I'll be doing that.

Like most of this sort of stuff, I'll forget most of it very quickly and get back into some comfortable bad habits. But as long as I remember a couple of smart things, I will improve. Oh yes.

Now, to the dog run.

the problem with moving house

The egg cup goes missing. So then you have to use the next best thing - a small coffee cup. But it's difficult to get at the egg, and it may end up tasting of coffee. This is not satisfactory.

Tomorrow I will buy a new egg cup.

in the country

Keen readers may be bored of the fact that I moved out of London a little while ago. Although the early mornings are a bit of a pain (up at 6, in at work by 7.30), I am enjoying the fact that we now have a garden. We've planted courgettes, lettuces, runner beans and this morning potted some tomato seedlings. It was a pretty fine way to start a Sunday.

Gardening seems to be one of those mindless things that helps your brain fly off in all sorts of directions (a bit like running or driving), so I find myself having all sorts of ideas about work and writing and creativity and all of that rubbish while I'm doing it. I guess this is a good thing.

PS for those of you who heard about the floods and then immediately thought "I wonder if Dan is OK in the countryside?" don't worry. The garage flooded a bit and we had to chuck a couple of boxes of junk away, but there was no indoor carpet damage.

leaving london

I hadn't sat down and thought about it until this evening, but this is my last week as a Londoner. I'll still be working here, but after Friday I won't be living here. Admittedly I'm not a proper Londoner. I only moved here properly in 1999, after a bit of dabbling between 1994 and 1996. But I've come to consider it as my home - it's going to feel odd not to be here anymore.

At the weekend my wife and I discussed what we should do on our last weekend. Should we go to the Royal Academy and look at the summer exhibition? Go for tea at Claridges? Spend unnecessary amounts in Liberty or Selfridges? Watch an obscure Japanese film? Or eat some poncey grub?

In the end we didn't do any of these, mainly because we just didn't fancy it (it can also be a bit tricky to do some of those things with a 14 month old). To be honest, I think we left London when we decided to move. What used to be exciting and even a big edgy has now just become dirty and slightly dangerous. It makes us sound slightly pathetic, but we can't wait to get out and listen to the silence of the village at night. I'm getting excited about throwing open the back door and wandering into the garden in the morning, without getting annoyed that the Australians over the fence are still pumping out some crazy techno beats at 8am. I'm not going to miss the bass bins in the back of that Audi across the road, or the weird tramp who walks down our street every night at about 2am singing an unknown song and clanking a specific gate in a specific way every night, without fail. I'm not going to miss hearing the neighbours doing their neighbour stuff. In short, I think it's the noise that drove me away.

I know I sound old, but I really don't mind sounding old. When we used to talk about getting out of London, we always used to say "maybe in a couple of years, when we're earning more/working less/bringing more small people into the world."

And then we realised that there was was this strange concept called 'now', and that if we kept waiting for a couple of years, we'd never get there.

So off we go. See you later London.