an audience with the pope

I totally expected living off my own back to be some massive head trip of crazy fun for the first while, and then I'd come down to reality and have to start taking it all really seriously, and then find my balance of work and fun over time. Turns out that I'm pretty good at budgetting as far as paying the bills go, and every night I'm with my friends, pretty much always doing something. I'm loving this so much and I have adjusted to the lifestyle instantaneously!

First rent (from my own funds) is due in a few days, it's all sitting in my bank ready to fly into my landlady's account. Not interesting for you, but exciting for me - it's my first ever residence-based payment that I've earnt myself! Living expenses are a little tight, but it's all working out fine, I have plenty to survive on! Working a 5 day week isn't so bad when you've got a genuine incentive and goal to meet, I'm not tempted to skip work any more. Well, sometimes I am. But a boy needs holiday time! If you want to see my room/flat and haven't yet then head over to youtube.com/blogmaths.

I'm determined to strengthen my DVD collection while I'm living here, especially after meeting a new friend recently and hearing about his 900(!!) strong collection. I've just ordered The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited and Road to Perdition, three of my favourite films ever, as well as The Science of Sleep, a film directed by Michel Gondry that I haven't seen and am really interested in. "But what's already in your DVD collection, Ivens?" I hear you cry. 'Ave a butchers (click for big version):



I still need another 20-30 to reach my desired minimum collection of personal favourites and then I hope to extend it to loads of films I've always liked, loads I've always wanted to see and then thanks to Amazon's 'you might also like...' feature, loads I never knew about that I should add to it. Not to mention many box sets and TV shows. The collection's missing 3 or 4 DVDs that are currently on rent to friends by the way.

A gradually increasing group of myself and friends have all decided to hit up Serbia this Summer to attend EXIT festival 2010 - check out www.exitfest.org for photos and line ups of previous fests. Firstly it's in a lovely town called Novi Sad (which I have been told is nicer than Marlow, for you Bucks dwellers) and everything is stupid cheap - most expensive pint of lager being 90p. Fucking win. Everything else is just as cheap too. For a 13 bedroom complex with a pool, kitchen and living room, we're looking at £120 a head for 5 nights, which is blindingly good. With flights, festival ticket, accommodation and spending money we're looking at £500+ but friends who attended last year have assured us it is worth every penny! Can't wait!

Peace out home boys and girls, I'll be back soon. For now keep an eye on Blogmaths.

the birth of Grivens

As of January 3rd, Michael Ivens will be the paying tenant for an occupancy in High Wycombe! Pretty crazy, I can't believe it's actually happening and, suddenly, I've become very scared of the big bad world. Anxiety is waving the finger of responsibility at me but excitement is slapping me round the face and giving me a pep talk.

Dinner ready for me when I get home? Laundry done for me? Being cleaned up after? All things that will literally within 48 hours fly out of the window. I'm anticipating that for the first couple of weeks I'll miss home and miss the company of my parents, but I'm very happy about the fact that I will no longer be living under the guise of two (alleged) authority figures and will be forced to learn independent living. I know I need this, and I know it will be invaluable to me for university life in September and for eventual later life!

The weirdest thing about all of this is that tomorrow I have to spend all day packing my most important possessions from the 19 years of my life so far into boxes to bring to a tiny room in a totally new environment. Not in my house. I'm telling you now I'm gonna well up.

I'll post up some photos of the house and there'll obviously be future blogs/videos conducted there anyway.

As for university, I'm still waiting in a queue of many for my old Art Foundation tutor to write me a personal reference and send in my UCAS form. To be fair, he's not leaving it very late or anything (THERE'S THIRTEEN DAYS UNTIL THE FINAL DEADLINE. HE'S HAD SO LONG NOW.)


This is a little out of the blue but recently it's a subject that has been really irritating me. Take from this what you will but it is just my genuine opinion pouring out in its purest form...

Here is my new rule. If you are opposed to the abuse of illicit substances and intoxicants, you are not allowed to get up in my face about it. Guess what? By trying new experiences that perhaps others have shied away from and by accepting the trust of my friends to introduce me to new viewpoints and perspectives through the ingestion of varied substances, I am not a failure at life, nor am I a lonely crack head living on the streets. I get wasted just like everyone else my age is, but OMGNOWAI it's not always by attacking my liver with buckets of alcohol. Sometimes I use other, cheaper, quicker alternatives that often turn out to be more fun.

I don't want to be seen as massively condoning the constant use of illegal drugs for fun because obviously that is just unhealthy, however I will unreservedly and always say the same; the occasional use of a controlled substance amphetamine, herbal or otherwise, must not be seen as a disgusting taboo. There is a gross misconception surrounding the use of drugs nowadays. I'm frankly ashamed to know people who think it's fine go and spend £40 getting wankered in a shit club, but turn there nose up to those who try an upper now and then for half the money and often an entirely new level of personal and social experience. I hope that the world starts to think for itself a little more in the future when it comes to this kind of thing.


I could go on for days about this, but I wont. Happy Christmas, happy new year and, um... don't do drugs?

your hair's straight but your boyfriend ain't

Girls? Are you kidding me? Do you want to confuse me any fucking more? Just when I think I've found a way over your impenetrable fortress' wall, some dickhead comes round the corner and pushes me off and I go flying to the ground again. Mmmm. Metaphors.

Seriously though! Aaaaahhhh, when are girls ever going to stop confusing me. I feel like such a twelve year old doing this blog but it's become so much more important to me recently. I need to prove to myself that I can get with a nice girl before I lose all of my self confidence!

Pretty blunt but yeah.

On further thought about this, it's not even that my approach is wrong, (as far as I'm aware) I just find the wrong girls to try it on with I think. I hope university comes up with the goods :(

we travel by night

I've been on tour with my friends' band Lights & Sounds for the past 11 days, filming the general banter and performances to make into a couple of tour videos after we have completed the tour in 3 days time at the Camden Underworld.

Today was the one day off we get on this tour, in which I went to see New Moon. While the film was cheesier than a cheddar/stilton hybrid, Radiohead has once again somehow made its way into the soundtrack, and even better, in the second installment of the Twilight saga Thom Yorke has written an exclusive and previously unheard track. It's called Hearing Damage and I've downloaded it via the New Moon OST.

Browsing some of the footage I have taken on the tour so far, I came across a large section of film I took with the camera poised against the tour bus window, recording the passing lights and cars that float by in the darkness of the motorway. I have matched this footage to Thom Yorke's new tune and have thus entered myself into a very difficult editing challenge. Cutting up bits of footage which are all essentially red or white dots on a black background and a) making it interesting without being repetitive, and b) making it fit with the music is quite difficult.

The sombre tone of the music sets off the footage really well. Only thing is that I'm getting lost in the track and repetitive footage, getting a little hypnotised by it at times. It might take me a few days, but that's nice because usually I rush all my work in an afternoon, never more than a day.

Anywho, I'm going to let that project simmer while I finish the rest of the tour and potentially get a little more night time driving footage in too. Peace out brosephs.

"i'm flattered!"

This will probably be the funniest blog entry I ever put up. Prepare yourself, this one's a good'un.

So today I was working at my job (a market research call centre for those of you who don't know) and basically fell in love over the phone. The girl I was speaking to sounded hot from the start, this cute sort of understated but intelligent hotness - I quickly started summoning faces in my head of who I was speaking to. She was eating something through most of the survey, whatever it was she was slurping it in a way that seemed suggestive and we flirted for the whole time. I was actually pretty distressed that the call had to end, but she asked for the name of the company and who she was speaking to, I definitely felt some sort of connection, I was so sure of it.

As the call ended everyone around me started leaving for the lunch break. A little dazed and lovestruck I stumbled from my computer and told Tim and Ruby what had just happened.

"Why didn't you write down her number?"

Fuck! Why didn't I write down her number!? I had the perfect opportunity to take her contact details and I fucking missed it when it was staring me in the face! Surely I couldn't just throw this away.

After the lunch break I went back into work and asked a manager if I could have access to the interview so I could 'check the answers she gave me for spelling mistakes'. I wrote down the number and twenty minutes later, too full of excitement to contain it any longer, I told my manager I felt ill and made my way home.

As I left the building the sun came out, I put on some sweet tunes on my iPod and at a quick pace set off to the train station. I got there and a train was literally about to leave back to my stop, I made it though - it seemed like things were panning out like a film, this couldn't be too good to be true, it felt too real on the phone. I walked half an hour home, my feet barely touching the ground and sat down in my study.

All these doubts were flying around my head - surely this is ridiculous? I can't let myself do this! This is so stupid! But I managed to over ride those thoughts and hesitantly punched the number into the phone.

She picked up pretty much instantly.

"Hey... is this Mary?"
"...Yup?"
"Hi, this is Mike from the call centre earlier - (this next sentence had gone through my head a hundred times on my way home) this might seem a little weird, and maybe I'm completely out of line but I really enjoyed our conversation earlier, even if it was just some stupid questions. You seemed like the sort of girl I'd really like to meet up with... would you be up for meeting for a drink or something?"
"...Wow! This is such a shock... um, whereabouts do you live?"
"I live near London, I know it's pretty far from you but I can get a train up north pretty easily."
"Yeah, I live in Beverly - it's a bit of a trek!"
"I can get time off whenever I need, would you still be up for it?"
"Yeah, sure! I mean, well lets start by swapping email addresses and... we can go from there! (Best. Pause. Ever.)
I just need to ask - how old are you?"

Oh shit, I thought this might come up.

"Uh, I'm 19-"
"-ohnonononono... I'm sorry, I really can't do that, you might be in for a bit of a shock. I'm 38 with a little boy."

At this point, my hopes had been shattered but I was still desperate for this fairy tale romance to become true.

"Well, I mean, it doesn't bother me? I'm still game if you are?"
"No no, I'm sorry, I'm very flattered but I'm a bit old for you I think."
"Ok, well thanks for considering it anyway! And could you do me a favour?"
"Yeah, what's that?"
"Don't tell my manager?"
"Haha, of course I wouldn't darling! Thank you very much, that's very sweet - I'm flattered! But I don't think this can happen, it wouldn't be right."
"Ah, ok. No worries. Ok, bye."

I spent a few minutes laughing to myself - I'm not the sort of guy to ever do this! Pretty glad I did though, definitely gonna be telling this one to the grand kids.

a weight lifted

Every Tuesday morning, whilst walking half an hour to Beaconsfield train station to get to work, I stop to withdraw £10 from my fresh weekly paycheck. The ticket machine at the train station doesn't provide change in notes, so when I feed it my new, crisp £10 note every Tuesday I am faced with a day spent lugging around a pocket filled with £7.80 in coin change.

I just got a debit card. Means I can pay for everything without the need for a physical money transaction. No more Tuesday morning wallet stuffing. Sometimes it's the little things that perk me up.

I'm in a strange place at the moment. I don't know whether I'm melancholy, confused, curious or completely unsure of myself.

photographic memory

So this is the tattoo I'm getting on my right arm once I've booked it in:


This is my new hobby when I'm at home and I'm bored; just sittin' and mixin' all my favourite songs into a coherent DJ set. It's so much fun:




This is a film I watched for like the fifth time yesterday. Only film to have ever made me cry out of happiness every time I see it:



And here is a pair of shoes that combines my inability to ever escape from the clutches of the plimsoll (of which I have had too many pairs to mention) and my adoring love for boat shoes (of which I own zero pairs, somehow):


Peace and love x