At last! Shit Party photos are online - all 500 of the buggers ;o)
Posted on August 29, 2008
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I’ve finally got the Shit Party photos online - check them out on my Flickr photostream (here), or on the Shit Party website (mixed in with the other photographers’ photos) here.
Enjoy, darlings!
Crazy idea number 34,557: your thoughts are needed…
Posted on August 26, 2008
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For those of you who are missing the updates from the white isle, there will be one along very shortly - I have LOADS of stuff to tell you about.
For those of you who hate being spammed by me, watch out: there’s an update coming shortly, and I’ve got LOADS to annoy you with… ;o)
Righto, on to the thing I want your opinions on: walking back from the beach this morning in the glorious Ibizan sunshine (oh, sorry, sunshine you ask: it’s that hot bright yellow thing which you don’t see much of in August in the UK…), a thought occurred to me.
What if, instead of simply packing a bag and hopping on a plane at the end of my time in Ibiza, I saved up a few quid, bought a bike, and had a go at cycling from Ibiza to the UK?
Google Maps reckons it’s just under 1,100 miles, so I reckon I could probably do the journey in around two weeks. If everything works out here, that would mean the middle of October, so the weather wouldn’t be *too* hot or cold (except across the Spanish/French border mountains).
Then I thought, what if I did it for charity? Would I be able to organise enough people to sponsor me to make it worthwhile, and would I be able to make it even as far as the San An ferry port (about 400 metres, downhill) before my tar- and nicotine-infested lungs packed up and exploded?
You can find a map of the route here:
http://tinyurl.com/ibizatouk
Let me know if you think I’m:
a) stupid
b) crazy
c) annoying - please go away
d) all of the above
e) a Pot Noodle
Much luv,
Al
Photos: Circoloco @ DC10, 18.08.2K8
Posted on August 19, 2008
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Woohoo! My photos from last night’s DC10 Circoloco event are online at Ibiza-Voice.com already!
Randomly, it looks like I might have snapped flavour-of-the-season DJ talent Sarah Main at the event, although I had no idea it was her at the time:
No photos, a bit more travelling, Clubland, Garlands, knife-point muggings at Ket Cove, The Only Female Policewoman, DC10? and Forgetting Sarah Marshall with pizza ;o)
Posted on August 15, 2008
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Hola de España, cheeky-cheekies!
***
“You cannot bring camera in here,” barked the neo-Neanderthal bouncer in broken English.
“Whuh?” was my eloquently-phrased reply.
“You cannot bring camera in here. You from Tillatedotcom?”
“Err, no, I–”
“You cannot bring camera in here, then” repeated the droid.
“Oh.”
It was at this point that my evening photographing the Clubland night - featuring A-list superstars Kelly Llorenna and Flip ‘n Fill (hey, there’s no sarcasm here) came to a sudden and unexpected halt. Ah well…
Still, the Clubland night *was* good fun, even if it was totally cheesy and about 45% populated by drunken beer-boys (nothing wrong with that, except when one of them insists on bouncing his elbows off your face/head/shoulder/drink. Grr…!).
p.s. Es Paradis - sort your lives out. Upping the price of a bottle of water from €6.50 to €9.50 just ‘cos it’s a “VIP” area takes the screaming piss 
***
Last night I managed to blag my way into Garlands at Eden (or “The Balearic Ritzy’s” as a certain chap described it to me with a grimace). Again, the night was fairly good, even though the music was a 50/50 mix of cheesey commercial house and some pretty dark and dirty underground beats. Their bongo drummer was, in all fairness, a very nice touch 
***
So I found myself this morning chatting to some new friends down at a place apparently known as Ket Cove in San An, named because of its association with a certain type of veterinary tranquiliser (and no, I bloody well haven’t, and wouldn’t, ta very much!). Suddenly, a girl - ok, woman (she was very much the wrong side of 30 to be a girl) - came running down hissing “the police are heerrre! They’re about to come down!”.
No-one really made much effort to move, although that was possibly as much to do with a large number of the clubbed-out beachgoers suffering from mental processes running at about 10% speed as the fact that no-one was massively bothered - from my point of view, this was mildly amusing, although rumours of undeserved beatings by the policia local and the guardia civil (Ibiza’s two police forces) run rife through San An, so I did wonder what was in store for us if the plod should arrive.
True enough, a couple of seconds later, three male and one female police officers started taking a leisurely stroll down the stone path on to the beach. In my head I named the policemen Grumpy (not the happiest-looking chappie, although that might have been the early morning start), Lurch (he only grunted broken English), and Father Jack (his wasn’t much of a speaking part - swear words only). The policewoman seemed to be the big-boss, possibly because she spoke perfect English with no trace of a Spanglish accent. I didn’t have time to think up a title for her, but she’d have made a very good Bond girl (one of the bad ones that try to kill him, obviously).
As the police walked round hauling off people who were asleep or otherwise incapable of standing up by themselves, I noticed a few people around me making sandcastles… How odd…
After about ten minutes of sitting down (at the police’s orders), we were told to get up, pick up as much rubbish from the beach as we could carry, and then leave the beach so, being good boys and girls, that’s what we all did (some in a more wobbly state than others), leaving behind a largely-pristine stretch of sand.
As we trudged up the stone path back to the carpark, I realised there was a chap about my age crying his eyes out on the edge of the path. Between myself, another Brit, and the female policewoman, we managed to find out that he was a worker, and just moments earlier while the police had been detaining everyone else on the beach, he had been robbed of his €100 wages (probably a week’s worth) at knifepoint in broad daylight by two men. From the way he’d reacted, I’d say that was probably all the money he had to live off, and that he was pretty certain he was in serious trouble during the robbery - the thought of something like that happening in a place like Ibiza is horrible.
The policewoman, while pleasant enough to deal with, didn’t make any written notes, and told him he’d have to travel to the police station near Eivissa town (about 20 miles away) to file a report. I asked if we should take her name but, just as the police here get VERY upset if they think you’re taking their picture (again, stories of beatings and smashed-up cameras circulate among photographers and tourists alike), she would only tell me that she is “the only female police officer in San Antonio”.
And I promise, I wasn’t trying to chat her up. Honestly.
Naturally, the resilience of clubbers is immense, and not two seconds had passed after the police had left the carpark by Ket Cove before everyone was back on the beach, but this time breaking up their sandcastles to triumphant whoops. Ah, methinks they weren’t sandcastles at all, but possibly some kind of secret hiding places…? ;o)
***
Last couple of things: I was gutted to find out that I couldn’t make the still-not-100%-definitely-happening DC10 reopening party this Friday night - ibiza-voice.com e-mailed asking me to photograph it - but they’ve been lovely and got me and the camera on the guestlist for Monday, so - if I’m back - it should be a very fun night.
Tonight was spent enjoying a pizza with Steph watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall on our balcony. A nicely chilled last night here :o) Shame I’ll need to go on a diet for the rest of my life to burn off all that fat though ;o)
***
Tomorrow morning I’ll be up at 6am and hopping on a plane back to the UK. I’ve managed to cock something pretty important up and as a result may or may not be allowed to return to Ibiza on Sunday. If not, Steph will no doubt keep you updated on her travels. Unfortunately, I’m not sure Facebook is allowed when residing at Her Maj’s pleasure, so if it *does* all go Pete Tong, it’s been a laugh :o)
Toodle-pip.
Al (& Steph, although she’s currently on her way to Cream. Lucky cow ;o).
A(nother) 2-second Ibiza update
Posted on August 13, 2008
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Hello everyone,
I promise this will be a 2 second update. Promise!
- caught a beautiful sunset last night - pics on Facebook or on Flickr
- Steph blagged me in to Es Paradis for Pukka Up last night. Some cheesy tracks but good fun :o) Also got a card from the Pukka Up top photographer chap, but he seemed less than impressed at my messiness, and then I dropped his card on the floor in front of him, so I won’t be expecting a call back when I e-mail him… ;o)
- Steph’s also blagged me in to Es Paradis tonight for Clubland. More cheesyness, but SHE’S GOT ME PERMISSION TO BRING THE CAMERA IN! Get in!
- I’ve quit the photography job. The boss was, in all fairness, a total arse (those of you who have had to work for or with me in any capacity will no doubt be laughing at the irony of this karmic treatment by the Gods. What can I say… ;o)
- I’ve got to pop back to the YooKay this weekend to tie up a cock-up of mine. I may or may not be able to come back out to Ibiza, so I’m trying to enjoy the last couple of days here before it all goes Pete Tong… :o)
Hope you’re all well wherever you are!
Al & Steph
My tuuuune of the summer: Knee Deep - All About Love
Posted on August 11, 2008
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This is, without doubt, the soundtrack to my summer so far. Beautiful :o)
YouTube - Knee Deep - All About Love.
A 2-second Ibiza update… ;o)
Posted on August 9, 2008
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Hello everyone!
Here’s a lightning recap of the last few days, ‘cos I know you’re all *really* interested (note: this is sarcasm, ;o)
Steph and I have moved into our new apartment, which is right above the fabled Ship Inn (Ibiza workers’ central). We’ve got free interweb (blagged, of course) and are right opposite UPmarket, one of the bigger ticket sellers-cum-bit of everything shops in Ibiza.
Steph’s doing a trial selling Clubland tickets tonight, and did a PRing trial for one of the strip clubs in the West End the other night. I think she’s dropped the Shades PR gig now - not a bad thing, ‘cos the place is in a nightmare location for getting customers through the door.
I did my first night selling photo keyrings in the West End last night. The photo printer is set up in a back-room in That Bar, a room whose decor reminds me of the prison cells from Midnight Express (i.e. grim, for those of you who haven’t seen the film). The basic idea is that Luis (the boss) does his salesman/David Bailey thing (fussing about where people are standing or sitting and generally overdoing the Customer Feng Shui aspect), while I try not to look too embarrassed and get a good photo, keep track of the orders, and then run back to my prison cell/photo booth and print up the keyrings before people get bored and wander off.
Still, he’s paying my wages, so I’m not arguing. Yet!
More importantly, GOOD NEWS! Carla at Ibiza Voice got in touch this afternoon and asked whether I wanted to photograph the DC10 opening parties on the 15th and 18th August. As you can imagine, I deliberated long and hard… For about 2 hundredths of a second, and gave her a resounding “f*** yes” so, unless she changes her mind, I should be off for My First Photography Gig where I might actually get paid (and, let’s face it, it’s DC10, so even if I don’t get a penny for it, it’ll be a good night).
Right, it appears that I lied about this being a 2 second update, so a huge apology to Jade for making you jealous again, and to everyone else out there who isn’t in La La Land, I hope you’re all peachy-good :o)
Big luv,
Al & Steph
Randomness, drunkenness, photos, mad dogs & Englishmen…
Posted on August 6, 2008
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Ibiza is a land of contrasts and change. That’s probably a tired old cliché to anyone who’s spent more than two weeks in a row out here, but I thought it might be worth re-emphasising it anyway.
Last night I went from selling tickets (well, trying to), to selling photo keyrings (well, again, trying to). I’m a trainee for Foto Luis at the moment, and my job last night involved wandering round the bars and hotels of San An bay with the man himself, Luis, trying to convince people to buy a photo of themselves, either as a photo, or printed into a keyring.
The “contrasts and change” thing comes into the story after I finished work last night and, €55 better off, ended up in Viva with Steph drinking copious amounts of something alcoholic which stung my throat and made me feel very happy. There I got chatting to a girl - I have no idea what her name is - who is working for Ibiza Rocks in one of their highly sought-after PR jobs. When asked what she did before Ibiza, she said “I was a retail manager with eight years of experience … great money, great job, and I jacked it all in to come out here. I couldn’t be happier.”
That seems to be a pretty common story out here, especially with the more successful workers who can take home a few hundred euros each night - they might not be doing a job which is seen by employers back home as particularly worthwhile if you’re looking to slide your way up the greasy career pole, but the fact remains that common to everyone who comes out here looking for work is a desire to work their arses off, in many cases seven days a week, in exchange for only a couple of hours’ R&R and a reasonable pay packet. That said, no-one seems to be feeling particularly shafted. As my future flat-mate Nathan quipped yesterday, “we’re living the dream [in Ibiza]“.
In the face of all these hard-working people, I’m feeling quite overwhelmed. I think I need a lie down… Although that could equally have something to do with the lingering after-effects of last night’s brief-but-concentrated alcohol consumption…
We picked up the keys for the new flat yesterday, and I’ve got to wander over to the ferretaria (an ironmonger’s, not a ferret monger’s) later to get a copy cut for Steph. Tonight I’m going back to do another night of photography sales fun tonight. Luis wants me to print the keyrings there and then in the bars, which is a bit scary ‘cos the printer probably won’t handle being beer’d too well, so I might have to try and explain that doing them later and dropping them round to peoples’ hotels - as we do with printed photos - might be a better bet. Still, he’s the boss, and he’s paying me, so I’m not massively worried.
Steph did a trial with Shades bar last night. The owner (umm, I think she’s the owner anyway) Carly seems like a lovely English lass, and Steph seems to be making loads of new friends, so that’s definitely a Good Thing. I heard a couple of stories of PR/police hide-and-seek involving some of the Shades PRs, but nothing bad seems to happen (touch wood), so again that’s another Good Thing.
The only thing I’m missing is fresh fruit and veg, and the gym. Going to have to work on the food side of things before I turn into a pizza. The gym can wait a bit longer…
Life out here continues. Where are you? ;o)
p.s. more photos on Flickr and in the Adventures group photo gallery.
Al
Reality TV - should I or shouldn’t I? :S
Posted on August 6, 2008
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Ok, one other thing: I need some advice - there’s a remote chance that I could make a tit of myself on national TV, courtesy of Living TV. I received a call earlier today from Adam - one of their cameramen who I got chatting to at Hush on Sunday night - who asked me a few questions about what I’m doing out here, and a bit about my background.
Obviously, I lied through my teeth and told him that, having been raised by a pack of wolves - who also, coincidentally, invented Facebook and space travel - I was abducted by aliens with and teleported to Ibiza with only my camera and a laptop. He didn’t buy it though, so I had to tell him what I was doing last year, and why I’m really out here (looking for fame, fortune, etc…).
So, my question to you is: if they get in touch and ask me to do a small piece, follow me round and maybe an interview, is it a good idea, or should I avoid it like the plague? If you’ve seen the Ibiza series on Living TV, what’s it like? Are they stitch-up merchants, or do people generally come across alright?
One last thing: instead of messaging me on here, could you drop a message in the discussion forum on the Facebook group, ‘cos it’d be better to get a bit of a discussion going on this I think:
http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=5174&uid=21470882407
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks!
Al :o)
Ticket selling, PR girls, dodgyness and … well, random…
Posted on August 6, 2008
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“So you know where all these hostels are, yeah?” said the PR girl as she handed us €5,000-worth of club tickets and pocketed our passports.
“Sure,” Steph and I nodded uncertainly as we scanned a printed list of hostel names I’d only ever seen before in Lastminute.com searches for hotel accommodation in San An, and the thought ran through my mind that I was about to become the latest willing victim to one of the oldest identity theft scams in the world as my passport was whicksed away from me, maybe never to be seen again…
Steph and I are sitting in the air conditioned offices of an Ibizan PR agency-cum-workers’ accommodation office-cum-internet café, about to be sent off around San Antonio to sell club tickets to people in their hotel rooms. Well… That’s the idea anyway. If nothing else, pretty much everyone comes on holiday with one piece of advice from their parents - “be careful who you answer your door to, and don’t give them any money. You don’t know what they’re really up to,” and I for one wouldn’t buy tickets from some sweaty English bloke who comes knocking on my door in the middle of my siesta asking for several hundred euros in exchange for some bits of paper. A good start, then.
“One other thing,” continued PR Girl. “If you get caught, don’t say who you’re working for.” Get caught? People are likely to be chasing me? “And,” she continued, “don’t do business in the corridors or the streets. Always ask customer to do the deal in their rooms.” At this point, I carried out a quick mental inventory to check whether I’d inadvertently wandered into a prostitution ring. Probably a very low-class one if they’d have me, to be honest…
Anyway, as you can probably imagine, things didn’t go amazingly well for me. After walking around for almost three hours without much more than a gruff “no thanks”
I was grateful, then, that I could take a break at 9pm to go and meet with Luis - of Foto Luis fame - who I grabbed on Sunday night in the West End while he was wielding my Nikon’s older brother (a D80, for the lens perverts among you). This meeting had been arranged earlier in the day over the phone with Luis, a Spanish speaker with heavily accented English, and me - barely an English speaker at the best of times, I was further stitched up by loud traffic noise in the background, so it took some time for us to organise a rendez-vous outside the West End’s Tropicana bar.
When he turned up at our dodgy-feeling meeting, Luis took me round the corner to another bar where one of his photographers came out, and they held a conversation in rapid-fire Spanish which I took to be, “where did you find this dickhead? He doesn’t even look like a photographer, and all he’s done since I met him is smile and nod at me.” Well, it was probably something along those lines. I was too busy smiling and nodding and hoping I wasn’t about to be kneecapped.
I’m going back to Foto Luis tonight at 7pm to be trained how to turn photos into keyrings and prints, and then hopefully - assuming I don’t blow the printer up or maim anyone - I’ll be cast out into the West End with my camera to go and get lots of lovely photos of unsuspecting bods. I have no idea what the pay is, although it’s probably 100% commission and €0.20 per photo sold, so I’ll probably have to take a second job as a beggar even if this one works out.
After that, I pretty much gave up trying to sell tickets. Even if I had felt ok about the job, €1 commission on a €50 ticket isn’t the best motivation for anyone, and by the time we finished after 5 hours and several miles of walking, Steph had only managed to secure enough commission to pay for a small pizza and a coke.
Still, work’s not a major drama at the moment as there’s some money left in the bank. We looked at two apartments yesterday, one of which costs a bomb and is miles from anywhere (but was very plush - everything was brand new), and the other is a workers’ apartment right above the fabled Ship Inn at the top of the West End strip, sharing with three other British workers. If everything goes to plan, we’ll be putting down the deposit on the second flat and getting the keys today.
Ooh, and we popped in to Lineker’s bar last night - photos on Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/alexharries) or in the Adventures Facebook group photo galleries. Enjoy!
Tarrah chucks,
Steph & Al