Got some zines in from Asia of Revenge of the Nerds distro (link currently not working):

Chaos Grrlz is a feminist sxe zine 'for grrlz and boys'. For my distro, Asia sent me a few copies of CG4, which is in English and also a copy of CG5 (Polish).

CG4 has interviews with 3 all-girl SxE bands: Trust (Argentina), Reason to Live (Norway) and Choke Cocoi (Phillippines) as well as with Vienna's Phoolan Devi activitst Kollektiv. Confusingly, the zine turns upside down partway through, and apparently is intended to be split with itself. Having all the sort of things I like, it was my sort of zine for sure. Particularly enjoyable was the international survey asking people why they were/were not sxe, what 'don't fuck' means, etc. Also there's a reprint of a rather good history of straightedge article from the internet. Basically it's a smorgasbord of feminism and sxe.

CG5 is in Polish and contains more stuff better organised and layed out on computer. From what I can make out, it includes music reviews, zine reviews, a sxe Brazil scene report, interviews with Voetsek and Six Pack, a write up of the G8 in Heiligendamm, a piece on Suicide Girls (against, I think), an article on women in Iran and adverts for various grrl zine distros. Highly recommended to anyone who reads Polish.

Marcepan 2 is mostly in Polish but with an English translation supplement. This is a little, personal zine in which Asia writes about wanting to draw comics, the difficulty of socialising in a foreign language, depression (not translated), an illness, reading books about the holocaust, getting over illness & depression & hosting someone who doesn't speak Polish - the story came full circle. A highlight is the story of the writer's aunt who went missing believed dead in Dresden, and an account of her recent visit to the city.

CG4 and Marcepan are old school cut&paste in a v. appealing way with lots of nice images apart from some photocopied photos that didn't come out well. It's all honest, earnest and with a great diy attitude just like all zines ought to be.

The one thing missing from these zines is bike stuff, but here's a distro dedicated to bike zines - Urbanvelo

How I <3 LastFM. The group HxC emo screamo has a mighty list of downloads that's going to help me catch up with all the stuff I've missed the last few years as well as getting some stuff I only had on vinyl. As for the lyrics, there's a dedicated punk lyrics site: http://www.notpopular.com/lyrics/
Rudy's found a French hc vegan kid in Glasgow with a website keeping the vegan-hc link lively: http://www.soyamilk.tk/

Toronto looks so great for teh veggies:
http://www.veg.ca/directory/print.html
Apparently the bloke at this shop: http://leftfeet.ca/site/index.html will help advise where to go from that bewildering array of goodies.

A couple of months ago I mentioned the call for submissions to a womens self defence zine being done by Isy Morgenmuffel et al. My copies arrived today! Just in time for me to distro to the world yay. Looking forward to reading it.

The hc music scene isn't dead, phew. Having made a tiny effort to look for a bit of good stuff to listen to, there turned up an awesome scene of French screamo in Lyon and links led me on to loads of other great stuff. Egs:
http://www.purepainsugar.com/
http://www.daitro.com/
http://www.apemustnotkillaperecords.com/

Omg I think I just heard the lyric, 'There is no happy here'. True emo lives!!!

Brighton ABC have a great newsletter. I'm not surprised there isn't an ABC in London, just not certain what combination of reasons is behind it. If I ever go to gigs again, I'd fancy bringing cards to prisoners for people to sign like Brighton ABC do at the @ Bookfair. Here's their site:
http://brightonabc.org.uk

Now I've read the exciting new issue of Morgenmuffel (15). This one is about Isy's summer adventures which are many. Like me, she's been taking proper holidays (in addition to the catering at activist festivals she usually does) and discovered Wainwright for the first time on a visit to the Lake District. I'm not surprised his stuff would appeal to her. I like it too. She's also been to Cornwall & Latvia the latter of which sounded less appealing. I need to be reminded that in other parts of the world, nazis at gigs is the norm. Updates about the Cowley Club were interesting - the zine starts with an illustrated page on the ace free skool they've got going. There is a familiarly depressing section on the current situation of Brighton's Cowley Club social centre which is struggling in many ways and has faced everything from volunteer theft to attacks by teenagers and financial difficulties. It sounds like a lot of learning has gone on as well. I'm in awe of all they've achieved and weathered.

Today, we can easily imagine the extinction of the human race, but it is impossible to imagine a radical change of the social system
-Slavoj Zizek, 1999

As usual with Ziz, I couldn't figure out if he meant other people or himself, though I suspect he meant other people.

Been meaning to put this up for awhile: An Audio Guide to Emo put together by a very helpful person indeed who, like me, hangs out at the http://www.collective-zine.co.uk board. Awesome.

The Zine Wiki is rather exciting, so I've wanked myself up there with entries for Synthesis and for myself. Hopefully, Tard Nation zine will end up on there and I can find out at long last whatever happened to it. Actually, I might put an entry myself and see if it gets added to.

I've also joined those crazy folks at the Vegan Freak Forums. This morning I made the banana walnut pancakes from the PostPunk Kitchen - another excellent one from Isa, yum! We had them with maple syrup/homeade blackberry jam.

There is this ace website where Mac people upload songs they've recorded diy and they can be downloaded free. I found lots of ace Scottish laments and a song about gentrification.

A student in Cardiff is doing a feminist blog: Diary Of Barbie's Worst Enemy.

Last weekend I managed to miss I Object in London because I thought the gig was Saturday instead of Friday and very annoyingly I was too tired to go up to Dalston on Sunday to see Amanda Woodward, dammit. This weekend just past though I saw lots of nonpunk stuff at the Latitude Festival. Jose Gonzales was pretty good and I also saw Patti Smith who told the music press photographers they should go work in Lebanon instead. My favourite thing though must have been the folk band that played the soundtrack to The Wicker Man on Sunday morning. Their version of Willow's Song was stunning. I spent most time in the Literary Tent watching the Book Club which was fab. I didn't know Robin Ince was a veggie. Next month I might rock out at Chopfest since gigs in Nottingham are nicer than in London.

The festival has left me all exhausted and when I'm tired from not enough sleep I get depressed. Also some ghosts from the past are haunting me this week, bastards.

Been reading a terrific novel - The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Meanwhile, the womyn of Scottish Socialist Youth are having a condom drive

get a free hippo and conserve water

This blog has been visited by George from the fabulous Immigrant zine. Here is his blog:
http://morethansounds.blogspot.com

I've now had vaccinations for my trip to South America, though Flopi in Buenos Aires says it isn't necessary and clearly the NHS is insulting her country.

Being vegan is cooler than ever now. SSOV has lovely new shirts.

( Barry from Greenwich Cyclists on Deptford May Day )


Web Rec: Fairtrade Cocaine

This should come in handy.

I've only ever really liked a small handful of songs by Sonic Youth, but I'll give this new album a go.

Kill From The Heart must be the hc info archive site of which I've heard rumours.

I may have to avoid cross-posting recipes to vegan LJ communities from now on because this seems to unleash the pedants and I really can't be bothered.

The WANC Cafe website returns!
http://www.wanc-cafe.org.uk
There is a cake competition this month. Too bad I'll have to give it a miss :(

http://Worldmapper.org is a mind trip done by social geographers. Fascinating.

http://www.chinchillaweb.co.uk has diy gigs in Leeds, which town I will visit next month. The fact that I have heard of not a single band but the one my mate's in at April's Chinchilla Fest tells me that I've been away from gigs for too long.

A HC Wiki with an emo-ology and UK Scene Report!!! BRILLIANT!!

http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/~collect/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The parent site looks interesting as well:
http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/
I'll do that when I get back from Leicester and Manchester.

*goes back to packing*

Any edge girls out there might want to register at:
http://xsisterhoodx.com