Circa 1986 I went round to my friend Bezz's house to copy some Commodore 64 games. In his bedroom Bezz had a crumpled piece of paper on his window-sill with a few swatted flies smeared on it.
"What's this for?" I asked.
"Bees n things" came the succinct reply.
"Bees n things?" I said. It sounded funny so I repeated it: "Beeesnthingss".
And lo, a stupid schoolboy catchphrase was born.
"Bees n things"
It was a phrase which amused us, like "pickle-scoffing", "bottle-shitting" and "Chris Orme".

Skip a decade or so. Me and Bezz are still good friends but our sense of humour has developed slightly. We are both into funk music and Bezz introduces me to the music of Roy Ayers. The song that I recognise is called "Everybody Loves The Sunshine". After a few months of loving Roy Ayers' music, Bezz points out to me the lyrics in the song: "Just bees n things n flowers"!

"Bees n things" just seems like a good phrase for a website that contains bits and pieces of no particular common denominator, except being a product of moi, Simon Parkin. I don't want it to be a boring blog site and I don't want it to be a design or illustration site, I just want it to be an expression of me and my passions and influences.

Incase you're wondering, the names for the different sections of this website are based on the above-mentioned Roy Ayers song, "Everybody Love The Sunshine".

Incase you think I'm wrong, Roy Ayers performs a live version of it where he does a call and response. Towards the end of the song he says: "In the what?", and the crowd say: "In the sunshine". He also goes through different variations of "Do what I do what I do what I do what I'm doin'" ("In the what?": "In the sunshine"), like "Say what I'm sayin'" and "Feel what I'm feelin'".

To email me please copy and paste the following, close up the gaps and change 'at' to @ so I don't get any (more) junkmail. Thanks!

simon at susseddesign.com