Uffington White Horse in lockdown

May 26th: The Uffington White Horse

This year, I was determined to make the most of the beautiful weather. Late May and early June were particularly lovely. My favourite time of the day is undoubtedly dusk. Twilight. The gloaming. The period when it gets dimpsey. The fact that there are so many words for it tells you that that the magical transition from day to night has intrigued and delighted people for generations. As the days get longer, and we approach Midsummer, dusk becomes all the more special. For me, there is nothing more beautiful than sitting on a hillside watching the sun coming down. The shadows lengthen. The wind picks up. The air becomes thick with electrons. Smells become more intense. The birds become deafening, and then, slowly, stop, replaced by the sparse hoots and shrieks of the night. Banks of lavender and pink clouds fade into a blue light and everything is suddenly mysterious. Your eyes start to play tricks. You see shapes moving out of the corner of your eye. You talk in whispers. Anything louder seems crass.

One day, I long to see the green flash. I have seen phosphorescence, the Northern Lights and a total eclipse of the sun. Each one was as magical and extraordinary as I’d hoped it would be. Phosphorescence, which I witnessed at midnight in Nerja in Spain whilst skinny dipping with Sam Becker and Philippa, was perhaps the most extraordinary, largely because it was so unexpected. We were lying on the beach, at the water’s edge, enjoying the sensation of the warm sea water lapping over us. We suddenly noticed a bank of green shimmering light on the waves, perhaps twenty meters out to sea. I’m not sure why we weren’t frightened. It seemed natural, somehow, and we were intrigued. We stayed put, allowing the gentle waves to wash over us as the light got closer and closer. And then it engulfed us. We all stood. I can’t tell you why. Maybe there was a moment of doubt or fear in us all. But I remember watching these glistening diamonds flowing down the contours of Sam and Philippa’s body as the water fell from them, and feeling the luckiest man in the world. And as soon as the phenomenon appeared, it had disappeared again.

Anyway, there has always been more than a whiff of the pagan about me. I don’t think any composer could make music without a belief in magic of sorts. I have always been intrigued by witchcraft, ghost stories and prehistoric communities and have a deep reverence for the power of nature. One of my favourite spots in the world is the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire. I have visited the place on countless occasions and introduced it to many friends. I have blogged very regularly about trips there, so I won’t describe it in great detail this time.

It’s undoubtedly the most iconic of the various white horses which are cut into chalk hillsides across England. White horses are ingrained in British folk law and they have intrigued us for countless years. I can guarantee that there’s a picture of a white horse somewhere in your house. If you look carefully on the front of a tub of Anchor Butter, for example, you’ll see a depiction of the Westbury White Horse in Wiltshire. Some of the carvings are Victorian, like the one at Sutton Bank in Yorkshire. Others, like the one at Westbury potentially date from the 9th Century. Uffington is special. It’s the oldest white horse in Britain, and possibly more than 3000 years old: a fact which I find utterly staggering. Its full beauty can only be seen from the air - which has generated many conspiracy theories about UFOs - but it is also far more figurative than many of its brothers and sisters and this adds to its mystery. Its quirky shape has been recreated on all manner of logos and tattoos.

Michael had never been there, so I decided to take him one night after work. I knew it was a long journey - perhaps a two-hour drive from London - so didn’t tell him where we were heading. We simply packed a picnic and headed west on the M4.

Michael with the White Horse behind him

I have never visited the white horse in bad weather, and always enjoyed the place most at sunset. The horse is on a hillside which faces the setting sun, and it starts to glow in majestic shades of red and orange in the golden hour before dusk. The yellow grasses which grow on the hillside in the summer also seem to turn orange, and I have countless pictures of friends in the area in front of hillsides which almost seem to be on fire. It truly is the most awe-inspiring location. And all the time, sometimes almost deafening, the incessant chirps of skylarks, who actually sing as they fly. Their sound is utterly unique - almost like the sound of a modem dialling into the internet in the late 1990s!

That orange light...

Michael was suitably impressed. There is no such thing as a bad view in that area. Uffington marks the end of the Chilterns, so if you face the west and you can see the entire Wiltshire Plain stretching out for miles towards Bristol and the horizon. Head up to the Iron-age hill fort and look east for views of rolling hillsides. In the Golden Hour, I can guarantee shadows longer than you’ve ever seen in your life. It was a truly magical evening. 

Those impossibly long shadows

The gloaming

A walk with Philippa

May 25th: A walk with Philippa

One of the drawbacks of lockdown was not being able to see my two closest female friends, Philippa and Fiona. I’ve known Fiona since we were about 15. We played in the Northamptonshire Youth Orchestra together and used to busk as part of a string trio with our mate Edward Thornhill in shopping centres across the Midlands. On one occasion, just after I’d finished my A-levels, my parents went on holiday to France. I was so convinced that I’d tanked my exams, that I refused to go with them, telling them that I needed to be in Northamptonshire instead, in order to go through the process of clearing. As it happened, I did rather well, and got into my first choice university, but by then the holiday had been booked and I was destined to stay at home alone. However, even at the age of 18, I was scared to be on my own at night in our house in Higham Ferrers, which was considered to be haunted by pretty much every person who stepped inside it, so Edward came to stay with me for the week. By then we were both driving, so we spent a fairly magical time travelling out to crop circles in the middle of the night, ghost-hunting in the eerie Brixworth church and listening to ELO, ABBA and Steeleye Span on the car stereo. Typical teenaged pursuits. On the Saturday night, my mother sneakily called from France, expecting to hear the sounds of a full-on drunken house party. What she heard instead was the sound of the kettle boiling, me with a mouthful of one of her home-baked chocolate chip cookies and Fiona and Edward playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in the background! We’d phoned Fiona up at about 10pm to say, “we’re coming to Northampton to pick you up… bring your violin.” We played chamber music through the night. I was a dream teen!

Fiona now lives in Glasgow. We speak most days on the phone, but I haven’t been able to see her, and this saddens me enormously. Philippa, on the other hand, lives in London. I met her when I was 19. She’s actually the same age as me, but was a year behind me at York University on account of having taken a year out to back-pack across India, learn to walk like a model and become impossibly glamorous. I think, to this hick-from-the-sticks, all the people I met at university who’d grown up in London seemed that little bit more sophisticated and confident but Philippa was something else. As my Mum once put it, “you notice her the moment she walks into a room.”

Philippa has two children, however, and my assumption about most families in lockdown was that they were all hunkering down, dealing with the misery of trying to educate children, whilst, in many cases (including Philippa’s), simultaneously working full-time from home, without being able to rely on child-minders, parents, or, for those long first weeks, the ability to go to the local park to let the kids run around like lunatics. Philippa also has a husband, two dogs and a cat. They all live in a tiny terraced house off Columbia Road and I genuinely don’t know how they’ve managed to stay alive!

Anyway, we decided to go for a lovely walk one evening in late May. I drove out East, and we went on a winding route which took us across the slightly grotty Ion Road Gardens, past Hackney City Farm, through Haggerston Park (which is full of plum trees - a post war initiative designed to get Eastenders eating proper food) and along the canal tow-path all the way to Victoria Park. 

Philippa on the tow path

Hackney and Shoreditch have a very different vibe to Finchley and Highgate. Many of the people who live there are considerably too cool for school. It’s a Mecca for bearded hipsters with coiffed hair, cut to look just a little bit shabby, who drink home-brewed beer and eat in terribly expensive über-trendy restaurants in old warehouses. City workers by day, the suits come off, they reveal their tattoos and they pretend to be artists by night, playing with guitars and frisbees in parks, and discussing philosophy in barges which have been turned into bookshops.

(I should point out that none of this describes Philippa who is a highly successful screen-writer!!)

The great irony, of course, is that you have to be very wealthy to live in Hackney these days. It’s a shit hole, with dreadfully arcane parking regulations, gangs, shootings, and terrible pollution, but because it’s also got cereal bars, macrobiotic cafes, spoken word artists and an impossibly cool, shabby-chic vibe, it’s more expensive to live in than the genteel, tranquil, leafy, but apparently boring Highgate! Based on the people we met on our walk, I’d say a great many Hackney residents are really noisy, quite into drinking and quite bad at observing social distancing measures. I can’t tell you how many people bumped into us as we walked along the tow path - and how many of them didn’t seem that bothered!

I must book in a session with a psychotherapist to get to the bottom of this bizarre and irrational dislike I have for Hackney. Of course, it’s got a lot of positives. The area around Philippa’s house is absolutely beautiful. It’s row upon row of charming terraced houses, all perfectly kept, and a brilliant backdrop for period dramas. They film there ALL the time. The streets are filled with kids playing out. It feels really safe - like a proper community - and her neighbours are wonderful people.

Philippa and her husband Dylan outside their lovely house

One of the other things I love about Hackney is the graffiti. That sounds like a strangely sarcastic comment, but the walls by the canal are filled with it, the colours are quite brilliant and I love how it all reflects on the smooth surface of the water. The graffiti is often quite witty, political and artistic in those parts as well. It doesn’t feel as mindless or destructive as it can feel in other places. 

Some of that graffiti

Anyway, location aside, it was a real tonic to see Philippa. It always is. She makes me howl with laughter, puts up with my whinging and always deals with my curious outbursts with great kindness. I do say some very odd things to her. I’m not quite sure why this is. We went walking with her dogs, who are the fastest things in the world once you let them off their leads. They are particularly fond of squirrels. You see these little black dots tearing into flower beds without any sense of the damage they may be doing to themselves, or the the herbaceous borders! I also wonder what the dog would do if she actually caught a squirrel. They’re adoringly good-natured creatures, but maybe they’d chew them to see if they squeak. Eek!

With the lovely dogs in Victoria Park

Tide Mills and Meriel

19th May 2020: Tide Mills

On May 19th, 2020, Nathan and I drove down to East Sussex to visit Meriel. One of my lockdown priorities was visiting friends who were living on their own. Of course, self-isolating with family brings a whole set of bizarre challenges, but lockdown was toughest, in my view, on those who had to deal with it alone. I have friends who didn’t speak in person to a living soul for eight weeks or more and I cannot bear the thought of anyone being lonely. 

I’m rather pleased to report that Meriel seems to have found herself a partner during the latter stages of lockdown, but certainly, back in May, she was living alone, and feeling a little blue.

It was a great pleasure to drive anywhere during lockdown. You could literally sail from destination to destination without encountering any slow-moving traffic. Even traffic lights very rarely seemed to get in the way of a decent drive. We’d initially discussed the idea of trying to meet Meriel half way between Lewes, where she lives, and London, but the idea of spending a glorious sunny day by the sea was too alluring to ignore. And we'd be there in a flash...

May 19th was a Tuesday, so we were never going to turn into a speck of bathing suit in a provocative Daily Mail aerial photograph of a mass of bodies on Bournemouth beach! Besides, our planned destination was Tide Mills which is very firmly off the beaten track! It doesn’t have shops, or ice cream vans, and the shingle on the beach is razor sharp, so, even on the hottest summer days, outside of global pandemics, it’s always bizarrely empty.

It’s a really atmospheric spot. Tide Mills is a derelict village which was condemned in 1936 and abandoned in 1939 when the last few residents were forcefully evicted. It was used for street-fighting training in the Second World War - largely by Canadian troops - so it feels eerie. These days, the old village is nothing but a twisting, wind-carved network of light grey stone walls and brick built arches covered in sea grasses and twisting brambles. It’s the perfect stage for adventurous or imaginative children and on a misty Autumnal day, I’m pretty sure the ghosts of past villagers can be seen going about their business. 

The long, steep shingle beach

On a hot sunny day the place seems to gleam. The long shingle beach plunges down to a silvery-grey sea. The reflection of the sun dances on the white waves. But that shingle is lethal! The beach is so steep, that attempting to climb up from the level of the sea is nigh-on impossible without cutting your feet to shreds. Anyone visiting the place should take a pair of sturdy sandals, or sensible water proof shoes. There is, as we know, never an excuse for Crocks, but, if you happen to have a pair, Tide Mills is the place to wear them, before burning them, naturally.

We walked along the old tramline from Tide Mills into the neighbouring town of Seaford. It’s one of those desert-like landscapes you get when areas of shingle start to become home to strange plants which almost resemble cacti.

The old tram line to Seaford

The joy about Meriel is how freely she laughs. Her head tilts backwards and she lets out a chuckle and then a roar of infectious joy. Life has not been kind to her over the last few years and the laughter was sometimes buttoned by a frown. But she’s found resilience and inner strength and I’m pleased to say the laughter is back. Perhaps she now sees in herself the person we all love incredibly dearly.

The infectious laugh

On the way home, we called in on Hilary and her son Jago who also live in Lewes. We sat on a rug about five meters away from them in their garden. Obviously, it’s quite difficult to explain social distancing to a hugely excited little boy - Nathan in particular is one of his favourite people in the world - but we managed to complete the visit without being licked, and I think this has to be a celebrated! I took quite a number of pictures of our little group, sitting happily in the early evening sunshine. Unfortunately, Jago has not yet left behind his desire to stick his tongue out in every single photograph. I’m not entirely surprised - his father refused to be photographed at his own wedding! Hilary, furthermore, is almost impossible to photograph with her eyes open. It’s a really strange thing. She’s not one of those people who blinks noticeably, but when the camera comes out she turns into Blink McBlinky.

Eyes closed, tongue out!

Some people have a curious self-sabotage button which gets pressed the moment a camera comes out of its bag. This causes some to blink, and others, (Hilary NOT included in this category by the way) to start talking incessantly. You know the sort? They launch into a monologue, “no, no, put it away, I always look terrible in photographs… well hurry up, then… gawd, who do you like you are, David Bailey? Come on… I’ve got a cake in the oven.” And, of course, instead of focussing on looking wistfully into the camera, their mouths take on terrible gurning dissatisfied shapes. If you’re the person who thinks they look awful in photographs, you’re obviously either not learning to love yourself in a mirror, or you’re tensing up when pictures are taken because you think you’re going to look horrible.

Thaxted... finally

18th May 2020, Thaxted

It took quite some time before my mother and father felt confident to have us pay them a visit. They are both in their mid-70s, so it’s been very important for them to shield themselves, and for the rest of us to make sure we do whatever is needed to help them in this respect. We finally drove to Thaxted just after Boris decided to relax lockdown rules for the first time in that famously confusing Sunday afternoon speech. The country, of course, immediately went into meltdown. I always felt the message behind his new rules was simply to be a little more relaxed whilst remaining vigilant and sensible, but everyone decided it was best all round to take to social media instead, screaming the most ludicrous questions, and smugly posing the inconceivable scenarios: “So, if I’m not allowed to see both parents at the same time, what if I’m walking with one, and the other one comes out of a shop. Will we be arrested?” And, of course, if you ask, the answer will always be no. So I don’t ask. But I’m probably a natural rule breaker…

May 18th was a beautiful hot day, which was nothing new for lockdown. So that we could stay within the rules, a great plan had been hatched which involved meeting my Mum by the side of the house, and walking with her - a ludicrously large distance apart - whilst carrying a picnic into the beautiful fields behind their house. Rumours were circulating in Thaxted that there was a bluebell wood somewhere in the area so we thought we might have a look for that. In true rural folk style, however, the only directions my parents had been given was to turn right at the badger set! “No, not THAT badger set,” said my Mum as we walked past the largest earthworks I’d ever seen created by a mammal which is not a rodent, but actually a member of the weasel family. It’s always good to get a fact in.

My father would independently make his way to the designated picnic spot - and we could see his familiar swaggering gait walking five hundred metres behind us.

I felt very emotional seeing my Mum. We hadn’t seen each other since early February and I’d been incredibly worried about her, at one stage wondering if we’d ever see each other again. Such terrible stories were floating around about people dying on their own, and their loved being unable to even attend their funerals. I’d watched Llio’s beloved Dad’s funeral on Zoom and been so distressed at the sight of her bravely sitting on her own - two meters away from one of only eight people who were allowed to be there with her.

My Mum’s smile can light up a room, and seeing that flash of white hair and the turquoise and lilac colours she almost always wears, was a real tonic which almost made me cry.

We chose a rather lovely spot for our picnic at the corner of two fields, and sat, about five metres apart in two clumps, unable to share food despite our having brought most of Sainsbury’s with us. We were, however, so grateful for the experience of being there. My mother wore a sun hat. 

Cow parsley?

Looking at a photograph of the occasion, I see a bank of what I hope is cow parsley behind us. There is a lot of giant hogweed around at the moment, and it looks very like cow parsley. It’s known as “Britain’s most dangerous plant.” Look it up. When the sap of this terrible weed comes into contact with a person, it rects to bright sunlight and badly burns and blisters the skin. No joke. This isn’t some strange conspiracy theory. This year’s hot weather has meant that giant hogweed is now growing everywhere. They are trying to kill as much of it as they can. Huge patches of it along the Dollis Valley Green Walk are now brown and dead, with signs up warning people to be careful. 

Those beautiful fields

After finishing the picnic, we went back to sit in the parents’ garden. My mum had decided that we could use the downstairs loo, so had left a pair of gloves and some hand sanitiser outside, but in the end I decided to wee behind a tree!

Since lockdown started, my parents have been playing online Scrabble with their friends Sally and Stuart. I chatted to my Mum on the phone yesterday and she estimates that they have now played well over 100 games. My mother has a physical Scrabble board which she carries around with her, so that she can play around with the letters old-school style, before committing them to the game. When Sally and Stuart place a word on the online board, she dutifully adds it to the physical board. Seeing her with her iPad AND a Scrabble board was one of those delightfully eccentric sights which makes you proud to be from the stock you’re from!

"Online" Scrabble

A walk into The Shire

A walk into The Shire: 22nd May 2020

On the evening of the 22nd of May, we went for a very long walk with my cousin’s step son, Harry. It feels a bit technical and impersonal to call him my cousin’s step son, and because he refers to me as his uncle, I should probably call him my nephew. When you’re one of three gay siblings, you take what you can in terms of younger relatives!

Harry lives in East Finchley, probably less than a fifteen minute walk from our house, and, ever since his wonderful mother died last year, we’ve tried to see him as regularly as we can. He’ll always be an important part of our clan.

It was his idea to go for a walk. One of the joys of walking with people during lockdown was that you could cover some serious distances because the very act of walking was the sole thing which was allowing people to legally be together. In the very early days, just sitting on a bench for a breather was viewed with great suspicion. I once watched a tired dog-walker being moved on by an over-zealous policeman. I remember having a furtive sandwich on one occasion, sitting on a wall in a secluded street in Hampstead with a friend, looking around us like we were doing an illicit drug deal! But the bottom line was that if you wanted to be with someone whilst staying within the rules, you just had to keep on walking...

Harry’s visit, therefore, was the perfect opportunity to head down to the Dollis Valley Green Walk, to see what kind of adventure it could offer us.

As I’ve written recently, this North-London, ten-mile footpath follows Dollis Brook from Hampstead Heath deep into the Green Belt. The Green Belt, by the way, is a 7-10 mile wide area of green space which entirely surrounds London. No one is allowed to build on it, so it stops the city from sprawling whilst giving city dwellers a “girdle” of open space in which to breath clean air.

Nathan and I had hitherto only walked a couple of miles along the stream, and we were keen to see where else it would lead us.

Dollis Brook really is the most wonderful little stream. Parts of it seem to be winterbourne, or, at least only active after a decent amount of rainfall. It has, of course, been a particularly dry year, so perhaps it’s of slight concern that the brook is empty in several places. I always panic about the fish. I wonder if they have a sense that a river is drying up and manage to swim to safety down stream. Perhaps they simply end up floundering and panicking in ever-shrinking pools; a ready-made meal for a passing kingfisher.

The brook is entirely lined by tall trees, all of which change colour with the seasons from lime green to orange and brown. Sun glints on the surface of the water like diamonds, and shines through the branches of the trees to create intricate and beautiful lace-like patterns on the pathways. The birdsong is intense. Magpies, crows and parakeets squawk, caw and croak tunelessly (and yes, there are many parakeets in North London), whilst robins, thrushes and blackbirds show off their virtuoso vocal prowess. On one magical occasion, I heard a cuckoo. It was so clear and cuckoo-like that I thought it had to be fake! In May, the whole pathway is lined with wild garlic. Delicate white flowers tumble down the banks of the stream whilst the air hums with the scent of Italian cooking! Next year I shall make pesto.

Wild garlic near Dollis Brook

The brook snakes up through suburban housing estates, allotments, golf and cricket clubs before splitting into two separate streams. The right-hand fork, which is officially Dollis Brook, heads up to Totteridge and Whetstone, flanked by the designated Green Walk. The left-hand fork is known as Folly Brook. The path is a little wilder and less well-trodden, so it was this fork which we decided to explore with Harry.

The further north you walk, the more the suburbs peter out. Playing fields and bramble-bedecked wooden fences and walls give way to scrubland and then heathland, and then, through the dark trees which surround the brook, you see open fields with horses and cows. Most non-city dwellers reading this blog will be doing so with quite a healthy dollop of “so what”, but when a Londoner like me realises that he can walk from his house into the actual countryside, he gets a little excited. It reminds me of my childhood. I grew up in a fairly rural environment, always aware of the changing seasons. Things were difficult when weather became inclement. When the mists rolled in from the fens, or the snows fell, or the Nene flooded, or winds took trees or electricity cables down, we knew about it. We couldn’t get to certain places. We’d have power cuts. In the city, by and large, things just carry on as normal.

The open fields of the Green Belt

The greatest thing about Folly Brook is that it suddenly enters a sort of woodland, which resembles Middle Earth. The path takes you through entirely enclosed walkways of shrubs, and gnarled, twisted hawthorn branches which feel like secret passageways. Fallen trees have become stiles and bridges. Ferns grow tall. Everything is green, verdant, Jurassic almost, and utterly magical. Rhododendron trees with pink, purple, blue and white flowers thrive in the marshy ground. And climbing up a steep ridge, you suddenly find yourself standing by the beautiful Darland’s Lake. A lone heron perches on a log waiting for fish to pass. Leaves rustle in the trees. The mayhem of London is another world away. There’s no traffic noise. You could be in the middle of nowhere. In any period of time.

Darland's Lake

Turn right at the lake and you’re in an area of open heathland scattered with gorse, buddleja and butterfly-laden wildflowers. A steep, wind-swept hill takes you up towards Totteridge Village. If you stand on the hill and look behind you, you can see nothing but green, rolling countryside. The odd Merchant Ivory-style, grand manor house pokes its head above the trees, and, back in the direction of the city, a few distant cranes are all that could ever remind you that you’re not in the middle of the Chilterns in the 1930s.

Harry in the heathland looking back towards the city

Waiting at the top of the hill is the famous Orange Tree pub, which was not open back in May, but will be now. When a global pandemic isn’t raging, it’s the perfect place to sit and eat a hearty plate of grub in a pub garden. We went there with Nathan’s Mum and Ron about a year ago. The only issue was the wasps, which we trapped in bottles of lemonade. 

Our journey back to Finchley found us following Dollis Brook itself, after walking along the road to Totteridge and Whetstone. It’s a less magical, but still very pleasant walk which takes you through a water meadow, which is rather romantically called Whetstone Stray.

Whetstone Stray

Over the following months, we have walked variants of that particular trip on countless occasions. Brother Edward came up to Finchley on the 16th June, on the 30th of June, Nathan's birthday, we had a very pleasant walk with his sister, Sam, his nephew Lewis and their dog Ginny, and on 11th of July, Nathan and I turned left at Darland’s Lake, and found ourselves walking out of the Tolkien novel and entering the world of Lewis Carroll. Steep paths lead up and down the hillsides in this part of the greenbelt, many of which are lined by incredibly tall hedges, just as I imagine the garden in Wonderland.

Brother Edward by a rapidly-drying Darland's Lake

So, in a very peculiar way, we have to thank Covid-19, because, I think, it has encouraged many of us to explore our local areas in almost forensic detail. For the first time ever, I have thought, “I wonder where that path leads?” and instead of walking on, I’ve merrily headed down the path to take a look. As a result, I have found great beauty, little hidden pastures, absolute peace and tranquillity - and, a week ago, 2kg of blackberries!

Ginny and her family by Darland's Lake

Nathan, Lewis, Sam and Ginny in Middle Earth

Zoom Seder

April 8th 2020: A Zoom Seder

The period of Passover/Easter this year was the first time many of us became aware of the true horrors of lockdown. These two simultaneous festivals, are a time when friends and families gather together and much-loved annual traditions take place: Easter Egg hunts at your Grannie’s house, spring-welcoming ceremonies in ancient stone circles, parades, carnivals, rare visits to church or synagogue, the creation of palm crosses, and, of course, for Jewish people, the almost bewildering set of rituals associated with the Seder meal. It was this period which made us realise what we were truly missing and what might not be with us again for some time. Sure, we’d all experienced the queues, the boredom, the lack of loo paper, aspirin, yeast, baked beans, the worry about our jobs and the general panic and fear about catching the blessed illness, but it was the lack of human contact which made most of us feel so hopelessly sad. And not being able to spend time with friends and family during this holiday brought it all home.

For the last three years, I have celebrated Seder at my wonderful friend Felicity’s house. I don’t think Felicity would mind my saying that, despite being a highly successful QC and a massive supporter of the arts, cooking for friends and family is probably the most important thing in her life. She hosts Friday night dinners for scores of people every week, but it’s the two Passover meals - which celebrate the story of Moses - which are probably the most important meals of them all. Like most Jewish families, Felicity’s crew have developed a series of joyous, charming, unique and theatrical responses to the countless rituals associated with the occasion, and these serve to make a Seder meal at her house an unmissable event.

Being unable to invite people to her house this year was a horrifying thought, so, she decided to organise a Seder Zoom. And when I say organise, I mean she meticulously planned every aspect. The day before the meal, she delivered two Seder boxes with all the food, curios, plates, napkins, matzah, table cloths, candles, books of prayers, songs and stories, table decorations and instructions we’d need for the following night. It truly was a one-stop Seder-shop. The instructions were incredibly detailed, from when to lay the table to when to get the food on to avoid any conflict with religious rules. Felicity always decorates her tables with scores of miniature frogs to represent, probably the most palatable of the ten plagues. You don’t want a table crawling with blood, lice or boils, do you? (Although a thunderstorm of hail and fire might be fun to recreate!) I was very touched and excited, therefore, to discover a lot of little frogs in our Seder box. She'd also given us both a little gift. Knowing I'm a collector of cufflinks - and one of the world's largest ABBA fans - she'd found me a beautiful pair with the word Abba (which means father) written in Hebrew on them. 

We set up a make-shift table out of a pair of ottomans in the sitting room. Once decorated, it really did look a picture, and, of course, the house was simultaneously filling with the rich, glorious smells of the food we’d been sent.

I think there must have been ten or so households on the Zoom call. It was the early days of Zoom, when no-one quite understood the concept of the mute button. For a while all we could hear was a terrible, echoing, nightmare wave of sound - and, at a crucial moment everyone suddenly started to sound like daleks. The sound of mastication got quite overwhelming at one point when one of the guests decided to eat his soup very close to his computer’s mic. But none of that mattered, because we were all together. We all had the same food. The same books. And Felicity had worked out which sections of text we were all going to read out to one another. It was heartening, warming, and, at times, highly moving; a very bright light within a very dark time.

Psalm 23

April 13th 2020: A new recording

The fog of my own COVID illness finally started to clear in early April. I knew it was dissipating because I finally found myself wanting to write music again.

At the same time, people from my synagogue were dying. On one occasion I attended a joint Zoom shiva for two men who had died on the same day. My heart broke to see Ethel, the husband of one of them, sitting there, entirely on her own, in the flat where her husband had passed away, still suffering from the illness which had killed him. I felt utterly helpless. We all did. We couldn't be there in person. It was just horrifying.. 

Ethel and her husband Judah were both huge fans of our synagogue choir and I instinctively knew that I needed to write something which had a chance of bringing just a modicum of hope or comfort to the scores of people who were suffering. 

I wrote to our rabbi and asked him which of the psalms he felt had a message which might best speak to people who were frightened or grieving and he immediately suggested Psalm 23, The Lord Is My Shepherd. After reading the words I knew not just that I wanted to set it to music, but furthermore that I needed to step up to the plate and sing it myself. I am usually rather happy hiding in the background when it comes to performing. I like being part of a choir primarily because, whilst I love making music, I’ve always suffered crippling embarrassment and nerves when asked to perform anything solo. I have the typical voice of a director in my head at all times which says, "what DO you look and sound like?!"

The piece wrote itself in minutes. I have seldom had such an immediate musical response to words. Obviously, setting Hebrew text brings its own set of challenges. I had to run everything past Michael to make sure I was stressing all the correct syllables. Scantion is something I’m fanatical about. Nathan, who is even more fanatical about it than me, taught me well!

I asked Julian Simmons if he would produce the track for me. We decided that I could send him midi files of all the different instrumental parts and trust him to make sensible choices in terms of the pads and samples he used. We've been working together since 2002, so I knew that everything could be done remotely in this manner. We wouldn’t need to sit in a studio together, even though that's the way we'd always worked before.

I asked Fiona to add some violin, and she recorded herself playing in her front room in her house in a village just outside Glasgow. I loved that we were making music like this. It somehow felt like we were beating the virus. My body had beaten the virus and now creativity was beating it as well.

The track the three of us created felt epic and emotional and all that remained was for me to record the vocals. I do not have a good enough microphone at my house, so, after much discussion, we decided it would be okay for me to go to Julian’s house in Crouch End to record it. As long as we were never in the same room and could be linked-up via headphones, it felt like we weren’t being foolish, or breaking too many lockdown rules. 

So, in the middle of Passover, on Easter Monday, in fact, I drove through the entirely empty streets of North London from Finchley to Crouch End. The weather was incredible. Spring really did suddenly rush in this year. I pulled up outside Julian’s house, texted to say I was there, and the front door was opened for me. My instructions were to head up the stairs, and go into a room where a mic had been set up with a music stand and a pair of headphones which I put on. I took a kippa out of my pocket, placed it on my head, and then heard Julian’s deeply familiar and hugely friendly voice in my ear. It really was a wonderful moment. Julian's wife, Carla, is a vicar, so we were actually recording the piece in a rectory! I don't know why this felt quite so right. It was Passover, but it was also Easter and Psalm 23, of course, has as much resonance with Christians as it does with Jewish people, so, I reckon I was in exactly the right place. 

“Shall we do this?” Julian said. And for the next hour, I sang my heart out. I thought about Ethel and Judah most of all. I remember looking out through the window into Julian and Carla's garden, seeing the sun and the lime green buds bursting on the trees, and, for the first time in I don’t know how long, feeling a sense of optimism. I sang well. The notes sailed out with great ease. And, before I knew it, everything was in the can.

I stood on the street by my car, and Julian and Carla brought their son, Yuvi to the front door for me to meet for the first time. We chatted for five minutes, standing maybe ten meters apart, I blew kisses, got back in my car and drove home, feeling very happy, and incredibly hungry.

The photograph below shows the transliterated Hebrew words to the psalm, with all my marks indicating where the stresses needed to fall, alongside literal English translations of the words. I really did my homework! 

And if you'd like to hear the piece again (or for the first time), please click here

Central London Lockdown

Photograph(s) Two: Central London. May 2nd and 4th 2020.

In the very early stages of lockdown, Central London seemed like a no-go zone. I remember seeing a set of photographs taken by newsreader, Sophie Rayworth, which showed all the familiar tourist hotspots almost eerily empty.

On two occasions, quite close together, I found myself walking into Central London, once with my friend Michael and once with Nathan, on both occasions to experience something I felt I would never have a chance to witness again. And some of the things we saw on those two walks have embedded themselves in my mind, probably forever. They were both deeply moving and hugely magical.

The most astonishing aspect was the complete silence. The nearer to the centre of London we walked, the more empty it became. Take away the tourists, the workers, the theatre goers, the revellers and the people who have second homes in the country, and you’re not left with a great many people. Food shops up in Finchley were open and positively thriving, but everything in the West End was closed, and a great many shops and cafes were entirely boarded over. Some of the larger shops like Liberty and Selfridges had security guards standing outside, and very often these were the only people we saw.

Standing on the South Bank and being able to hear nothing but the wind rustling the masts of boats on the Thames was hugely eerie. Hearing St Paul’s Cathedral’s bells chiming the hour whilst crossing an entirely deserted Hungerford Bridge some 2 kilometres away was nothing short of miraculous. Walking around Covent Garden and hearing our footsteps echoing in the roof of the covered market was beyond spooky. Whilst with Michael, I walked for about four blocks, all the time hearing the sound of an alarm in the misty night air. It was the sort of sound which would have been blotted out by traffic noise within a second of hearing it in a normal London.

Piccadilly Circus was particularly weird. The huge LED billboards had been replaced by a giant, blue screen which merely read “NHS”. There were no cars. Almost no people. The occasional bus or cyclist drifted past, silhouetted perfectly against the dark light. You could hear the spokes of the bicycle wheels clicking as they passed.


On one of my visits, I chatted to a homeless man whilst standing on the steps underneath Eros. These steps are usually packed with tourists screaming at each other in a hundred different languages over the yells of traffic, but we were almost whispering to each other. “Where did you study?” asked the incredibly well-spoken, middle-aged homeless man, half way through our chat, “York” I said… “ah, I’m an Oxford man, myself…”

Nathan became rather tearful whilst walking down an empty Shaftesbury Avenue underneath the glowing marquees of the closed theatres. This is his world - his community - and seeing the ghosts of shows was too much for him. For me, standing in the middle of that particularly road took me back to an Autumnal Sunday morning in 2006 when we were shooting the apocalyptic movie, 28 Weeks Later. I worked both as a casting director and as the acting coach on the film, and we did a lot of filming on empty streets. I wrote about it in my blog on March 30th this year. We shot a sequence in the very spot where I was standing on Shaftesbury Avenue - and, to be fair, everything was as crazily empty back then… except for the massive film crew. And, even at 6am on that Sunday morning, we had to do pedestrian and traffic lock-offs for three minutes at a time. We’d finish the shot and then a stream of bemused people and angry-looking drivers would file past. This wasn’t the case back in early May this year…

The other notable aspect of my trips into Central London was the darkness. This was partially created by many of the main landmarks, including the London Eye, the National Theatre and the fountains in Trafalgar Square being lit up in the dark blues and purples of the NHS colours, but it was further enhanced by large areas of the city not being lit up at all. Large swathes of buildings on the Thames were in complete darkness and most of the bridges were unlit. And possibly, as a result of less pollution (both light and from traffic fumes), the skies were much darker. I have never seen stars in the skies above central London before. I’m used to a sort of milky, orange, halogen glow, with clouds reflecting light back into the city. Not so on May 4th.

A return to blogging - with a different mind-set

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down this year, written all, or most of a blog-post and then decided not to publish. Most of the time I’ve been too frightened of the consequences of having an opinion in a divided world where, unless you are happy to put your name to the exact wording of a script which has been written by a bunch of shrieking virtue-signallers, you’re considered to be a right-wing fascist, and dispatched accordingly. I am trying as hard as I can to avoid anything which is triggering: anything which brings back the hell of what happened to Nathan exactly a year ago.

We entered lockdown talking about a brave new world. Caroline Flack’s suicide had made us think more than ever about the concept of kindness, and when people started dying in their thousands, we finally started to act on these thoughts. The helplessness and terror that every single one of us felt meant that, for a brief, almost magical period, we forgot about our differences and started to pull together. We checked in on friends and family. We put notes through the doors of complete strangers. We celebrated love. We accepted hardship and learned to put up with lack of food and interminable queuing.

And yet, within weeks, we were divided again. A new script emerged that we were forced to use. You couldn’t talk about going for a walk unless you added the words “socially-distanced”, key workers had to be described as “brave” and so it went on. If you broke the new laws, or used the wrong script, then the cracks started to open again. People became incensed: “what? You don’t wear a mask?” “How dare those dreadful Londoners living in flats without gardens go to their local park?” “How dare these people go to a beach on a sunny day?” “What?! You’re not applauding the NHS at 8pm on a Thursday? You are so uncaring…”

And, of course, the moment Dominic Cummings messed up, the seething anger and bitterness which had built up in us all whilst being cooped up in tiny houses, flooded over the country like an oil slick. You’d think he’d ridden through County Durham with a machine gun and a machete, our anger was so intense. “He must be sacked!” “No, sacking is too good for him” "Covid is his fault" “Burn the witch…” And, as lockdown finally eases, we are back in our echo chambers, literally tearing each other apart, demanding that certain public figures are cancelled for expressing independent ideas or flying too close to the inappropriate wind. We demand that art is censored. Our silence is violence. Our words are violence. We support Black Lives Matter and then the official UK Twitter account for the group starts to tweet antisemitic conspiracy theories but if you criticise them, you're racist and sent into a corner to "do the work." In short, we can’t win. No one wants to debate because no one can be bothered to listen to two sides of an argument. We only read the comments or newspapers which re-enforce our own views whilst living in a culture of absolute fear. Nuanced conversations have been forced behind closed doors, into conspiratorial whispers, whilst those who scream the loudest use sweeping, deeply unacceptable terms like “fascist" “Nazi” and “genocide” to re-enforce their hatred of the people who refuse to bang their drum. Is whipping people into submission a way of making the world a better place? Do we genuinely believe that we can change someone’s mind by attacking them?

Until very recently I thought I could fight it. Moreover, I felt it was my DUTY to fight it, having seen, first hand, the hell that happens when you don’t. I now realise I can’t. A good friend of mine finally got through to me in one of those text messages which you just want to frame for future reference; “let the terrible twos rage. I’m not engaging. People just want to bicker. I prefer to transcend, knowing my own truth.”

And suddenly it was like a weight was being lifted from me. I no longer needed to be the man who rants about politics, about Brexit, about social justice warriorism and virtue signalling. By ranting about the dangers of all of this, I am no better than those who have stolen my right to call myself left wing from me. I need to focus on my own truth… or perhaps try to find my own truth. There’s a long old road ahead of me, I will fall off the wagon countless times, I’m sure, but I need to do this for my own mental health.

Twitter is no longer on my phone. I no longer watch the news. I am actively attempting to surround myself with beauty, music, kindness and joy, so that, instead of throwing negativity and bitterness into the ether, I’m creating art which moves people and gives them the space to be transported from the anger of the world.

And that, my friends, is the last I will write on the issue…

But the blog is back, so what am I going to write about?

I’ll confess. Lockdown for me was a rather special time. I was lucky. Sure, I lost a tonne of work but I had Nathan. Though three people died at my shul, I didn’t lose anyone hugely close to me. And, more than anything else, because I had the sodding illness, early on, I was able to be a little more adventurous. Once the terrible fog of COVID had cleared and my creativity returned, I was able to go out and experience the joyful silence of London. I could go for long walks in the seemingly never-ending sunshine. We could explore the joys of the green belt, which turned out to be just half an hour’s walk from our house. We were able to watch the days getting longer and longer and feel that extraordinary sense of optimism growing on a daily basis. For the first time in years, I watched the seasons turning.

…And I photographed everything fanatically because I knew I was living in a remarkable time which I would probably never see again. And so, for the next however long, this blog will be a testimony to that remarkable time. I will publish one photograph a day from the lockdown period and write a little bit about how I was feeling when I took it.

I very much hope you will join me on a journey into a unique time, and enjoy experiencing it through my eyes.

Photograph One. Chalk messages. April 2nd, 2020

Whilst still recovering from COVID, Nathan and I started to take advantage of our permitted daily walk. To begin with, it was simply a way of regaining strength - we would walk up the tiniest incline and find ourselves breathless - but the feeling of fresh air was very healing after two weeks trapped inside. The outside world, however, was very frightening. Lockdown happened a week into our illness, so emerging into the new world was like walking into a dystopian novel. Everything was deathly silent. Cars no longer roared down the once busy Ballard’s Lane. A masked young lad on one occasion rode past me on a bicycle yelling vaguely homophobic comments before screaming “covid” and coughing in my direction. The shops were empty. Passing someone in the street involved stepping out into the middle of the road whilst holding our breath to give them as wide a berth as possible. We crossed over the road for old people. We could hear bird song. The rustling of trees. The barking of foxes. My neighbour attempting to play "Tequila" on a guitar. Over and over again. And we discovered the joys of the Dollis Valley Green Walk, which follows a brook that runs all the way from Hampstead Heath, through Finchley, into the greenbelt.

But despite the beauty of Dollis Brook, those early days were highly depressing. It was still winter. Gales in February had brought down all manner of trees. Paths were muddy and everything seemed spiky and wintry.

Our strength grew and the walks became longer, and, to our great joy, we discovered that people were chalking messages of hope onto the pavements by the side of the stream. The messages touched both of us. The sentiments were simple but optimistic:

“Focus on the right things. 

Stay strong.
Make a difference.
Stay connected.
Be kind.
Look after each other.
Stay hopeful.”

I look back to those times and realise we were both broken men. The symptoms seemed endless. The illness affected our minds. We couldn’t focus on anything. We felt depressed. We were scared. We’d lost our sense of smell and taste. But to those two, frightened, hobbling, breathless men, those messages meant the world. And I send my heartfelt thanks to whoever wrote them.