The honeymoon is nearly over.

Prepare for the onslaught…

— Friday, July 29th, 2011

I am taking advantage of this sudden burst of internet at the reception desk of the Hotel Kalimera, where we’re staying. We’re investigating renting a car to go and explore the top of the island. That beautiful gif up there was taken two days ago in Fira, the capital, where all the visiting cruise ships and The Tourists swarm like hungry bees.

We are staying in Akrotiri, miles away from The Tourists, and it is pretty much the most beautiful place I have ever seen. And the hotel is run by saints – Flora, currently manning reception, just gave me some eyedrops after one of my contact lenses nearly fell out. Her brother is hooking me up with his digital record collection. I am very excited by Greek music, some of it is incredibly dramatic.

Being on Honeymoon is entirely wonderful. I haven’t been this relaxed since I was in the womb. I am by this point the colour of a rusty old jeep. We spend our days exploring the island, splashing around in the surf like porpoises and lazing around on the sand reading. To my amazement, I have just run out of books, having made my way through Grant Morrison’s entire Batman And Robin run, a collection of Bukowski short stories, and The Rum Diary.

Anyway, I should go now, I just relaised I am Not Relaxing, I am typing. Typing in paradise! Foolishness!

— Monday, July 25th, 2011

THis is actually, like, 6 days old, this is the first time I’ve been able to find internet capable of uploading such a weighty file.

WE ARE HAVING SUCH AN ACE TIME!

— Monday, July 25th, 2011

Joy to the future!

I am a married man. And how!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our wonderful friends and family for your contributions to our perfect day. Thank you! We are bless-ed.

It was a beautiful day. And a beautiful night. I might write about it sometime over the next ten days. Maybe I’ll remember my speech and write that. It was a great speech. it was great because it was true. The truth is easy to say, even, nay, especially in front of ones friends and ones family.

Getting married is awesome. I would recommend it to anybody.

Maybe I won’t write anything at all, though. Maybe I’ll just frolic and play with my wife. For now, dear reader, I am packing my bags: we are off on our honeymoon. We booked it yesterday, and if you’ve been in the vacinity of my Twitter or Facebook you’ll already know what an ordeal that has been. To cut a very long, epic, and horrorful story short, this morning we got an email saying the lovely 80 euro a night hotel we’d booked wasn’t actually available, and we were being moved to a crap one. We rang to protest: “it’s our HONEYmoooon” wailed my wife… so the nice American lady called Larra we were speaking with declared it her mission to find us somewhere suitable, and after an hour rang us back and informed us that we were being moved us to a shockingly posh 340 euro a night place FOR FREE. My wife squealed with delight. “It’s got a flipping “rain type shower bathroom” and a view of a VOLCANO!” I wrote on Facebook, excitedly. My new wife and I danced around our little flat in a state of pure joy. Truly, we were happy newlyweds.

Two hours later, the phone rang, and we were told that we would not, in fact, be getting the shockingly posh 340 euro a night place, and were offered a rotten looking little place that a cursory Google search revealed to be the recipient of a number of one star reviews, including one that referred to it as a “hovel” with a “stinking” toilet that was “full of flies.”

“But it’s our HONEYmoooon!” wailed my wife. We spent the rest of the day on the phone with Larra from Expedia, who had evidently acted in haste by trying to book us somewhere posh, and was now working within considerably more humble bugetary constraints imposed from on high. And, eventually, we found somewhere that didn’t fill us with a deep, longing sadness.

Yes, it is sorted now (although the confirmation never came through, now I think of it, so I must chase that), and we need to be at London Bridge by 4am, an on a plane to a tiny Greek island at 6am.

OH BOY!

This will be me and my girl’s – sorry, wife’s first holiday in 5 years, and by far our longest. We are going for ten whole days! I can’t quite belive that it is true, but I’ll find out soon enough.

Perhaps when I return we will have a new Prime Minister and one less tabloid and so-called “quality” paper to ignore. Perhaps not. But please look after yourselves, and each other, and keep me abreast of anything worth knowing via the comments, and The Channels. I shall be looking in on the ole internets occasionally.

One thing is certain: when I return, you can look forward to The Manga Mixtape, an album/mixtape by me featuring a glorious smorgasbord of new songs and guest appearances from Big Narstie, Marvin The Martian, Time, and a whole host of cool cats. I am looking forward to getting back and putting the final polish on that thing, then letting you have it for the rest of eternity.

But first…

— Monday, July 18th, 2011

Best Day Ever.

JOY TO THE FUTURE!

Photos courtesy of Baz, Päivi, Cat and Ginny

— Saturday, July 16th, 2011

I did it guys! My wedding is TOMORROW, but as promised, I finished the Living In The Future 2.5 video! HOOOO GRAAAGH!

Living In The future 2.5 is the 2011 version of my 2005 “borderline classic” (BBC wales, I would personally drop the “borderline”, like Chris de Burgh (HA!) but the classic is bang on), featuring the all star cast of ME, Big Narstie, MC Lars, Eddie Argos & Scroobius Pip, all of whom put in legendary performances. It was produced by Joey2tits and myself, and is available now from The Donshop, iTunes and so on. If you’re skint you can get a free 192 kbps download of track here.

The video was premiered on July 12th by The Quietus, who wrote:

Friend of The Quietus Akira The Don is getting married tomorrow, for which we congratulate him, and wish his beloved the best of luck. To celebrate these auspicious nuptials we have the video for his earworm track ‘Living In The Future’, below. In it Akira The Don and collaborators Big Narstie, MC Lars, Eddie Argos & Scroobius Pip muse upon the joys, perils, pitfalls and pleasures of this pixelated world in which we now live. Must be said that Eddie Argos looks as if he’s enjoying a Chat Roulette session. Says Akira The Don: “MC Lars, Eddie Argos, Scroobius Pip and Big Narstie all filmed themselves from their various global positions with modern technology. Pip was in Essex, Narstie was in Brixton, I was in Hackney, Eddie was in Berlin and Lars was in new York. Hail to the future, and hail to my rap-superfriends and their abyssal inner beauty. May they live forever.” We’ll raise a glass to that.

The video was directed and edited by me, and the dope Skype-esque visual interface was created by the very talented Mike Simmons, who’s work can be seen in the new Captain America movie.

I hope you enjoy it!

— Thursday, July 14th, 2011