London - It's Ben Rayner's Birthday

This is my lodger Ben Rayner playing his banjo outside the London Vice
office in Leonard Street. Today is his birthday so we’re doing a tribute to him…

This is one of our favourite YouTube clips of all time. It’s Ben secretly filming himself practising his moshing moves to Hatebreed in his mum’s front room, aged 15. The best thing about the video is the noises his flailing limbs make as they connect with the floor, his ass and the sofa.

Here’s Rayner in his room showing off the tattoo that Liam Sparkes from Trencher and Queen Of Swords did for him. It’s meant to be teardrops. Liam also did literally the sketchiest Black Flag bars anybody has ever did on Ben’s arm.  You can see it in the next issue of the magazine.

Here he is fucking around on my desk with load of Yashica T4s. He loves these cameras so much he has one delivered to the house about every week. The post man usually turns up about 7.30 AM and he’s never there to open the door so I’m the one who has to sign for them, usually wearing my underpants and with barely open eyes. Sorry postman.

Often you will see him staring into the distance wistfully like a character from a Thomas Hardy novel. Nobody has any idea what he is thinking about but you can bet it is: “very meggy” which is his most used catchphrase. Others are “megs”, “pretty real” and “ello buddy” which is what he says when he’s taking photographs of dogs. There’s plans afoot for a book about the dogs and it’s gonna be called “Hello Buddy!”

This is Ben at a show at the Old Blue Last feeling “pretty real”.

This is Ben the day after at the office feeling “very meggy”.

This is how much money he makes every day. He also has people like Alice Dellal and the girl from The Kills on his Blackberry Messenger. What a stud.

He’s in a band called Shitting Fists and it’s like a punk version of Motorhead. Deano just quit the group though so they’re looking for a new bassist. Maybe it'll be you.

This is us having dinner at Bodeans with Maggie Muldoon. We’re totally having a totally real time. Maggie’s favourite thing in the world is ketchup and she has it on things like caviar.

Today he just got back from holiday in Spain. He got this swan tattooed. The quote was: "Looks more like a duck. I almost bought a baby duck in Spain. I wanted to bring it back so I could hang out with it."

Here he is with Jaimie Reynolds playing drums at some party after the NME Awards where everybody was totally fucked. Ok, enough with this. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGS!!! (Party at The Dolphin tonight).

ANDY CAPPER