It is curious what you pull out wading thru piles of records in charity shops…. coz I was in one again yesterday and wedged between platters by the likes of Jim Reeves, Conway Twitty, Sidney Devine and The Alexander Brothers, I pulled out some class vinyl in the form of the second eponymous Gavin Christopher album (the 1979 RSO Curtom one) For those that don’t know, Christopher was mentored by Donny Hathaway and Curtis Mayfield (hence his late-seventies signing to Curtom), played early on with Chaka Khan and other future members of Rufus, and was a quick off-the-mark industry mover on the hip-hop scene.

A question I’ve been asked a number of times recently is how do I maintain my lavish life-style? The answer is simple, my life-style isn’t particularly lavish but many people find me so fascinating that they project their fantasies onto an image they create of me. It should go without saying that if you know your way around the place, then London can be a very cheap town in which to live. I very much doubt I could survive as easily in New York or Paris, although someone born in those places may be able to do so. However, to satisfy those who dislike rational explanations I shall add that I have multiple personalities that run into six figures and each one of them earns a living in a different way – some as gangsters, others rob banks, one has been bleeding a hedge fund dry, and all of them earn me a fortune as I sleep!

Searching for someone called Francois Raymond on the outskirts of Paris is probably a little like looking for a specific John Smith in London. Who is Francois Raymond? The one I’m looking for exhibited a series of six photographs of my mother Julia Callan-Thompson as part of an exhibition entitled Exposition Tamrauc at the Maison de Jeunes et de la Culture (Paris) in October 1967. I have two prints of just one of these photographs, and rubber stamped on the back of one of them is an address: Francois Raymond, 37 Rue Gambetta, Puteaux (Seine). I’d like to acquire copies of all the photographs Raymond took of my mother, which is why I’ve been attempting to track him down…

La Subversion Des Images tells us a lot more about the state of official culture in Europe than it does about surrealism. This is an expansive show of surrealist film and photography, but it is also incredibly lazily curated. The good news first, there are examples of Man Ray’s hardcore pornography that I’d not seen before, and I assume are rarely shown. His undated stag film Two Women, featuring both oral sex and strap-on penetration is very curious; and for me it made my trip to surrealist show worthwhile. Overall I’ve never been impressed by surrealist film. Bunuel is obviously the exception who proves the rule that there weren’t any good surrealist film-makers.

How long most people will continue to put up with corporate web 2.0 platforms when they could be controlling their own sites using similar software is anyone’s guess… What we do know is that while a platform like Facebook has many users, it is not necessarily profitable. That is not, of course, the only reason why the financial value of web services that rely on user generated content ping-pong, but it is definitely a contributing factor One corporate operation that is clearly well past its sell-by date is Friends Reunited, which ITV bought for £170 million in 2005. Attempts to sell the platform have been ongoing for most of this year – in August DC Thomson put in a £25 million offer (£145 million less than ITV paid for it), but the sale has been blocked until April so that the Competition Commission can conduct an inquiry.