Just picked up the prints from our summer holiday in Vis, an island a few hours from Split, Croatia. The reason it’s taken so long to get the photos is that I STUPIDLY left the film back in our apartment!? Yup, I’m a massive idiot. Thankfully my guardian angel/Airbnb host Ratko found the film and posted it to me – but it took two months to get here. I’d almost given up hope and then it arrived in the mail last week ????

Usually I’d take my digital camera while travelling and I’d have all the photos on my laptop, backed up after each day – this was my first holiday ONLY shooting analogue. Why? Because, for a change, I decided to leave the bulky cameras and multiple lenses and just travel really light. When I’m not working, I want to have a complete break from carrying heavy equipment, changing lenses, charging batteries and the post-hols photo editing.

The beauty of film cameras is that they simplify your decisions, leaving you to simply enjoy the moment of taking the photo. You really have to slow down when you shoot analogue, and you truly consider every photo. You remember that you have a limited number of shots and concentrate on really nailing that exposure. So many times I’ve composed an image with my analogue camera, only to decide it just wasn’t worth wasting a shot.

This way of thinking really helps photographers. Taking hundreds of photos with a digital camera may be easier, but it doesn’t help you understand what makes a good photo. Anyone can blast out 1,000 shots and get one killer image. You know you’re a great photographer when EVERY shot is a killer image.

Anyway, enough photo geekery… we had such an amazing time in Croatia and would recommend the island of Vis (thank you Ed and Sarah for the amazing tip!) and our beautiful villa in a heartbeat. We want to be there right now!

All photos shot with Olympus OM-2, 35mm lens and Kodak Portra 400 film.

Josie Long by Idil Sukan @ drawhq.com

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

Hands up who likes standup comedy? Right, everyone without their hand up can get the fuck out, because there’s nothing better than listening to a funny human’s stories and thoughts and jokes and that. And there are fewer funnier than Josie Long, who’s been smashing it on British telly, the Edinburgh Fringe and countless stages for years now. So if you still have your hands up, put one down and use it scroll down to the bit where we’re giving away two pairs of tickets to Josie’s Berlin show next week. I don’t know what you should do with that other hand – maybe make a fist or a peace sign or something.✌️

If you don’t know Josie, check out her awesome “Romance and Adventure” show below, or this appearance on one of our favourite podcasts, Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces. You can get full details about the two Berlin shows over on Facebook, buy tickets to Friday’s performance via Live in Berlin, and win tickets for Thursday below. Enjoy!

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR JOSIE LONG AT GRIESSMUEHLE ON 8TH OCTOBER:

Do you and a friend want to get your giggle on next Thursday? Just answer this question in the comments below:

Who’s your favourite standup? Include a link to something we can laugh at!

You have until 6pm on Friday 2nd October. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address or we won’t be able to put you on the guestlist!
5. We will notify the winners via email.

Josie Long by Idil Sukan @ drawhq.com

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

Hands up who likes standup comedy? Right, everyone without their hand up can get the fuck out, because there’s nothing better than listening to a funny human’s stories and thoughts and jokes and that. And there are fewer funnier than Josie Long, who’s been smashing it on British telly, the Edinburgh Fringe and countless stages for years now. So if you still have your hands up, put one down and use it scroll down to the bit where we’re giving away two pairs of tickets to Josie’s Berlin show next week. I don’t know what you should do with that other hand – maybe make a fist or a peace sign or something.✌️

If you don’t know Josie, check out her awesome “Romance and Adventure” show below, or this appearance on one of our favourite podcasts, Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces. You can get full details about the two Berlin shows over on Facebook, buy tickets to Friday’s performance via Live in Berlin, and win tickets for Thursday below. Enjoy!

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR JOSIE LONG AT GRIESSMUEHLE ON 8TH OCTOBER:

Do you and a friend want to get your giggle on next Thursday? Just answer this question in the comments below:

Who’s your favourite standup? Include a link to something we can laugh at!

You have until 6pm on Friday 2nd October. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address or we won’t be able to put you on the guestlist!
5. We will notify the winners via email.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
Cause I’ll forget but I’ll never forgive you
Don’t you know, don’t you know?
True friends stab you in the front

Listeners to Bring Me the Horizon’s controversial new album That’s The Spirit could be forgiven for empathising with the emotions expressed by “True Friends”. Knowingly or otherwise, these lyrics – intended by singer Oli Sykes as a typically hardcore response to fake friends’ betrayals – actually anticipated the reaction of many fans, and many more former fans, to the album’s stadium-friendly sound.

It’s funny how things work out
Such a bitter irony
Like a kick right to the teeth
It fell apart right from the start
But I couldn’t even see the forest for the trees
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The irony is that Bring Me the Horizon were always headed in this direction. With That’s The Spirit, the band have made the large last leap towards becoming the post-metalcore Linkin Park, but they’ve been on this path for a long time.

Right from the start, they were rejected by the metal establishment as being too pretty and well put-together to be anything more than scene posers. Sykes, also the founder of alt brand Drop Dead Clothing, became the poster child for a kind of hardcore that Topshop designers could lift from. But BMTH proved they had substance as well as style, with a brutal deathcore sound and live shows that converted bottle throwers into lifelong fans.

Now those same fans are declaring the death of the Bring Me the Horizon they grew to love. The melody, the hooks, the EDM production, the glimpses of genuine optimism are, for many, too much to bear. And for a scene that rejects “selling out” absolutely, the commercial success that will no doubt follow is perceived as the ultimate betrayal.

You got a lot of nerve but not a lot of spine
You made your bed when you worried about mine
This ends now

Somehow, no one saw this coming. But less short-sighted fans shouldn’t be too shocked, as That’s The Spirit only marks the latest end point of the band’s evolution. Their breakthrough album, 2008’s Suicide Season, saw them polishing their sound, embracing a more accessible metalcore aesthetic, and augmenting it with electronic flourishes. The re-released Cut Up edition even included a disc of remixes from producers like Toxic Avenger, Utah Saints and a then-unknown Skrillex.

For 2013’s Sempiternal, Bring Me the Horizon replaced their rhythm guitarist with a keyboardist, and pushed the electronics front and centre. From opener “Can You Feel My Heart” through to the haunting “Deathbeds”, performed for growing crowds at venues like Wembley Stadium, it’s hard not to hear That’s The Spirit coming. If this ends now, it started a long time ago.

It’s kind of sad cause what we had
Well it could have been something
I guess it wasn’t meant to be
So how dare you try and steal my flame
Just cause yours faded
Well hate is gasoline
A fire fuelling all my dreams
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The originators of metal were no purists; they used whatever instruments were at hand to create their unholy sound. Listen to Hawkwind, likely responsible for the very name of “heavy metal”, and you’ll hear Lemmy’s growl and distorted guitars swimming in a cosmic bath of trippy analogue electronics.

But then disco came, and the rockers’ reaction to it, which pushed everyone into one of two camps, forcing them into a digital zero-one either-or choice between guitars and drum machines. Even fans of freaks like Faith No More, art punks with a gay keyboard player somehow mistaken for a metal band, kicked back when the group’s experiments reached full fruition. That’s why fans of The Real Thing hated Angel Dust; and that’s why people who tolerated Sempiternal can’t forgive That’s the Spirit.

The good news for those people is that Sempiternal still exists; for the die-hards, Count Your Blessings is still available to listen to. As for the new album, a band making what can be seen as a wrong turn can’t be blamed for daring to find out what was waiting down that fork in the road.

Bring Me the Horizon barely listen to metal any more, and they’ve admitted to respecting bands like Linkin Park, who fill stadiums with big, bold, and sometimes heavy, sounds. True artists make the art they want to see or hear, and brave bands will risk existing fans over the chance to realise their vision, and present it to people who truly appreciate it.

Oli Sykes has come out of struggles like a Ketamine addiction with an appreciation of life in all its shades of grey, all its complicated beauty and bitter irony. And he wants to make music that reflects that. He’s not even 30 and he’s through fucking about. He hasn’t said as much, but you can sense that he’s not going to lose any sleep over so-called fans who are willing to walk away over the expansion of his ambition. For a band that always wanted to be more than metalcore, that’s the real betrayal.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
You broke my heart and there’s nothing you can do
And now you know, now you know
True friends stab you in the front

Bring Me The Horizon play Huxleys Neue Welt on 10th November 2015 (tickets).

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
Cause I’ll forget but I’ll never forgive you
Don’t you know, don’t you know?
True friends stab you in the front

Listeners to Bring Me the Horizon’s controversial new album That’s The Spirit could be forgiven for empathising with the emotions expressed by “True Friends”. Knowingly or otherwise, these lyrics – intended by singer Oli Sykes as a typically hardcore response to fake friends’ betrayals – actually anticipated the reaction of many fans, and many more former fans, to the album’s stadium-friendly sound.

It’s funny how things work out
Such a bitter irony
Like a kick right to the teeth
It fell apart right from the start
But I couldn’t even see the forest for the trees
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The irony is that Bring Me the Horizon were always headed in this direction. With That’s The Spirit, the band have made the large last leap towards becoming the post-metalcore Linkin Park, but they’ve been on this path for a long time.

Right from the start, they were rejected by the metal establishment as being too pretty and well put-together to be anything more than scene posers. Sykes, also the founder of alt brand Drop Dead Clothing, became the poster child for a kind of hardcore that Topshop designers could lift from. But BMTH proved they had substance as well as style, with a brutal deathcore sound and live shows that converted bottle throwers into lifelong fans.

Now those same fans are declaring the death of the Bring Me the Horizon they grew to love. The melody, the hooks, the EDM production, the glimpses of genuine optimism are, for many, too much to bear. And for a scene that rejects “selling out” absolutely, the commercial success that will no doubt follow is perceived as the ultimate betrayal.

You got a lot of nerve but not a lot of spine
You made your bed when you worried about mine
This ends now

Somehow, no one saw this coming. But less short-sighted fans shouldn’t be too shocked, as That’s The Spirit only marks the latest end point of the band’s evolution. Their breakthrough album, 2008’s Suicide Season, saw them polishing their sound, embracing a more accessible metalcore aesthetic, and augmenting it with electronic flourishes. The re-released Cut Up edition even included a disc of remixes from producers like Toxic Avenger, Utah Saints and a then-unknown Skrillex.

For 2013’s Sempiternal, Bring Me the Horizon replaced their rhythm guitarist with a keyboardist, and pushed the electronics front and centre. From opener “Can You Feel My Heart” through to the haunting “Deathbeds”, performed for growing crowds at venues like Wembley Stadium, it’s hard not to hear That’s The Spirit coming. If this ends now, it started a long time ago.

It’s kind of sad cause what we had
Well it could have been something
I guess it wasn’t meant to be
So how dare you try and steal my flame
Just cause yours faded
Well hate is gasoline
A fire fuelling all my dreams
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The originators of metal were no purists; they used whatever instruments were at hand to create their unholy sound. Listen to Hawkwind, likely responsible for the very name of “heavy metal”, and you’ll hear Lemmy’s growl and distorted guitars swimming in a cosmic bath of trippy analogue electronics.

But then disco came, and the rockers’ reaction to it, which pushed everyone into one of two camps, forcing them into a digital zero-one either-or choice between guitars and drum machines. Even fans of freaks like Faith No More, art punks with a gay keyboard player somehow mistaken for a metal band, kicked back when the group’s experiments reached full fruition. That’s why fans of The Real Thing hated Angel Dust; and that’s why people who tolerated Sempiternal can’t forgive That’s the Spirit.

The good news for those people is that Sempiternal still exists; for the die-hards, Count Your Blessings is still available to listen to. As for the new album, a band making what can be seen as a wrong turn can’t be blamed for daring to find out what was waiting down that fork in the road.

Bring Me the Horizon barely listen to metal any more, and they’ve admitted to respecting bands like Linkin Park, who fill stadiums with big, bold, and sometimes heavy, sounds. True artists make the art they want to see or hear, and brave bands will risk existing fans over the chance to realise their vision, and present it to people who truly appreciate it.

Oli Sykes has come out of struggles like a Ketamine addiction with an appreciation of life in all its shades of grey, all its complicated beauty and bitter irony. And he wants to make music that reflects that. He’s not even 30 and he’s through fucking about. He hasn’t said as much, but you can sense that he’s not going to lose any sleep over so-called fans who are willing to walk away over the expansion of his ambition. For a band that always wanted to be more than metalcore, that’s the real betrayal.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
You broke my heart and there’s nothing you can do
And now you know, now you know
True friends stab you in the front

Bring Me The Horizon play Huxleys Neue Welt on 10th November 2015 (tickets).

“I’m looking after Doris for a month.

I used to have dogs back in New Zealand, and eventually I’d like to get one here too. But back home you can have a garden and leave the back door open, and it’s a little more difficult over here. But if you’re used to having dogs, and put in the time and effort, it’s fine.

Doris is very calm, but then suddenly skits out, and gets really playful and excited. When she’s really excited, she can’t control her limbs and kind of looks like she’s having a spasm. She comes up and shakes and does this little T. rex move, and it’s really funny.

But she’s a really good family dog, really gentle, and gives lots of kisses. ”