Polyp

We’ve just been to a little basement bar on Charlotte Street, where we were celebrating James Fortune’s birthday. His partner, Victoria, arranged the gathering the day before and had thought no one would show up at such short notice, but there were scores of people there. He's a popular bloke.

It was like old times; countless people I hadn’t seen for way too long. Nic and Vic were there, regaling us with tales of recent motherhood. Michael Brett, Stevie Trowell, Adam and Glyn. The only person missing was Fiona, no doubt ensconsed in a condo, all those miles away in Texas, waiting for some official papers to be stamped that allow her to leave the country as a married woman. I'm told she's enjoying the exile and baking plenty of muffins. It was a shame that the bar got too noisy for an old man like me. Some mop top appeared in a corner, and started spinning discs, in a totally unnecessary attempt to create a "vibe." The vibe was fine as it was.

We were forced to make a retreat at about 8pm and headed for Soho where we sat in the window of an Italian, watching all the bizarre people shuffling along Old Compton Street. We’re having a proper heat-wave at the moment, and London is a spectacular place to be when the sun’s shining. Everyone seems so alive. Yesterday, the South Bank felt like the French Riviera. What was it Adele sings? “I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque. I love to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades.”


What I like considerably less is the fact that I’m going to need to have an operation. I went to see the ENT specialists on Gray’s Inn Road today. It was a somewhat bizarre experience. There were probably 6 people in the room, all with different specialities; all very friendly, yet curiously intimidating. I felt like a caged animal. They made me stick out my tongue, grabbed hold of it between two massive swabs of gauze, stuck a camera down my throat on a long stick and forced me to sing. Sing, monkey sing! I gargled. It was highly uncomfortable, slightly undignified, and reminded me of the sensation you get when you stick a toothbrush down your throat to induce vomiting! There was gagging and dribbling...

Anyway, the end result was my being informed that I have a polyp or cyst on my vocal chords, which explains the silkiness I’ve had in my voice for all these months. I can’t say I’m thrilled at the prospect. The doctor said he was “pretty convinced” it wasn’t cancerous, but that he definitely recommended my having it cut out. He said that he didn’t feel it was affecting my speaking voice too badly, but that it could easily grow, and eventually make me sound like Phil Mitchell. Obviously, he didn’t put it in those terms, but I heard him loud and clear! Possible side effects of the operation – apart from the general anaesthetic, which terrifies me – I might end up with a chipped tooth, in the unlikely event that it scars I could find myself in a bit of a Julie Andrews scenario, but worst of all, I won’t be able to speak – not one word – for an entire week after the operation. A WEEK? I mean, I don’t think of myself as a recidivist chopser, but since the arrival of computers, my handwriting has descended into something that resembles hieroglyphics! It’s actually more not being able to sing for a week that worries me. Not an hour goes past when I don’t sing something. What is a day without an ABBA medly? Nathan tells me I was even singing on the treadmill today (apparently whilst dancing and clapping my hands in time to the music, which is almost too mortifying to comprehend!) I think I'll have to go on a writers’ retreat! It’ll be the perfect moment to write a Requiem. I could go to a little seaside town and sit in silence on a deck chair watching the young people passing by. Don’t most composers write their best works whilst recovering from illnesses? Or maybe that’s mostly illnesses of a mental variety... Hmm... Still, needs must...

I have a nasty suspicion that this early sunshine has brought forth the hay fever season. Can't wait.

April 7th, 1661 was a Sunday, and Pepys skipped church in order to do his accounts. In the afternoon he called in on Sandwich, where the discussion turned to Ireland and the state of religion over there. Some things never change! There were chats about money; how to make money, how to retrieve debts. Pepys went home, calling in briefly on his parents to see his wife, who was still living there...

Poor Philip

They say it never rains but it pours...

As if there weren't enough misery in the world at the moment, I received a text message from a dear friend last night which simply said; 'I'm so sorry to hear about your friend Philip.'

My blood immediately went cold. I rightly assumed that she meant Philip Sallon, and thought she was going to tell me he was dead. I called her immediately, and was relieved to discover he was alive, but horrified to learn that he'd been attacked in Soho, in what can only be described as a queer bashing. Details were sketchy. The newspapers were reporting that his skull was fractured and that he'd been left for dead outside the Gap in Piccadilly. 

We have just been to St Thomas' Hospital to visit him. He's still very confused and has no recollection of what happened to him. It is horrible to see him looking so fragile and miserable, and he was in considerable pain. 

The room is filled to bursting point with flowers. As we sat with him, an enormous bouquet arrived from Vivienne Westwood. The nurses were forced to put him into a private room because so many people were calling in on him. He is a much-loved man.

People are very angry about what's happened. Despite his having been attacked in Central London, we've been told no CCTV footage exists of the event. Curiously, Philip was also sent a threatening text just before it happened... To my knowledge the police have not yet followed this one up, which seems particularly odd, as the message came from the meat-head boyfriend of some ghastly waste-of-space so-called celebrity! 

The vigilantes have taken over. They're going to be handing out fliers in the spot where it happened, and his close friend Boy George is leading an on-line appeal to find his attackers. A march is even being planned. I have handed my details to the organisers and will do anything I can to assist. I passionately believe that we need to rid the world of the grotesque, cowardly people who think it's okay in this day and age to beat someone up simply because they're different. The man is 60, for Christ's sake, and utterly defenceless. 

I spent the morning helping Ellen with her cats. She has a bad back and needed help getting them to a vet. It was a glorious day, and we had coffee in Stoke Newington with all the lesbians, former hippies and cat lovers. We took a stroll in Abney Cemetery, which is a location I've earmarked for a potentially very exciting performance in the late summer...

In the afternoon I went to the dentist. My hygienist tells me that my gums are receding. She told me off for not sticking little yellow brushes between them often enough, and I felt like a naughty school boy. The dentist, on the other hand, complimented me on my teeth, but has given me a hospital referral to check out a little lump I've recently discovered on the gum behind my lower back teeth. She didn't seem too concerned about it. I'm hardly being rushed in! 

350 years ago, Pepys met up with his old friend, Thomas Townsend, who recounted the hysterical tale of his walking around for an entire day with both legs in the same leg of his breeches! Oh the fun those guys had with their fancy frocks!

Speaking of fun, Pepys then went to the Leg in Whitehall Palace, where the pretty maid behind the bar disappeared into a back room to give Pepys a kiss. We're not told what sort of kiss, or whether things got even steamier. These were before the days when Pepys would write in graphic detail about his dalliances in a mixture of schoolboy Latin and French. Oo la la! 

Brother can you spare a dime

I sat in Soho last night at a table outside the Costa on Old Compton Street. A homeless person joined me, and smoked the remains of a cigarette, whilst shouting incomprehensibly at passers by.

It was quite distressing to watch him. He was younger than me; a good-looking bloke but obviously drunk and utterly unpredictable. I wondered what had happened to bring him to this place. Very few people, after all, are born homeless.

He seemed angry with the world, perhaps unsurprisingly. The things he shouted were often homophobic and xenophobic. It felt like the wrong place to be spouting those kinds of views. Two Spanish people walked past, and he shouted, "speaker di lingo." Ironically, the only two people who stopped to give money were an Italian and a gay person! I felt very sad to see the way people were looking through him. Some people were looking at him with actual disdain.

He carried on talking to himself; "I ain't perfect" he said to one guy,  and then as more and more people streamed past, ignoring him, "you must have heard of me. I think every body in this world knows me." Sadly, I feel this statement might have been as far from the truth as it's possible to stray! 

Then it all got a bit tragic. "I ain't scared of the grim reaper," he said "there ain't no such thing as the grim reaper." And I wondered if at that moment he genuinely felt that his life was worthless. Then he started singing, which made me so sad that I had to walk away.

I gave him a quid as I left. 

We're in Redhill this afternoon with our friend, Kate and her very charming and profoundly musical son, Lukas. We've built the most enormous mechanical rat-run in the sitting room out of all sorts of toy trains and things. It is absolutely brilliant... And we got it on film! You Tube here we come!

April 5th, 1661, and Pepys went to Jacob Lucy's, where a large gathering of people were being particularly merry. It is likely that Lucy, a merchant, had some kind of weighing machine, for the talk turned to people's weight. Wagers were made, people weighed themselves, and Pepys went away with "half a piece" and a big smile on his face!

Maddy

I’m in Hayes in Middlesex, which seems to be a part of the world with little, if anything, going for it. For starters, it reminds me of a terrible job I did at the lowest point of my career, directing children in a production of Singing in the Rain, whilst a vicious, fat queen breathed down my neck. For pudding, the place just feels a tad run down. On the way from the station, I passed countless shops and pubs which had been boarded over, and more barbed wire fences than I'd have expected to see in a place so firmly within the commuter belt!


I've just been to the Beck Theatre, where I met a childhood heroine, Maddy Prior; the singer from the 1970s folk-rock group, Steeleye Span. It was an absolute treat to meet her and she looked remarkably well. She’s got to be in her 60s, but looked a great deal younger. She has brilliant two-toned hair and was extremely easy to talk to. We chatted about almost everything, from her performing drunk on Crackerjack to the fact that Fiona’s husband’s band, Midlake, are big fans of her work. She was thrilled. I was thrilled. We were all thrilled.

As we spoke, I kept having to remind myself that her’s was a voice I’d listened to since my very early childhood. I used to sit and stare at the All Around My Hat album cover wondering which of the long-haired hippy people were blokes and which were girls. Her’s was the voice that accompanied me on teenaged trips through misty Northamptonshire glades on a search for crop circles and haunted churches. “Whatever happened to crop circles?” She asked “They just went didn’t they? One day everyone was talking about them, and then next the bubble had burst.” I was proud of myself for not gushing. I love to think that she might do me the honour of singing some of my music one day. That would be just so exciting...

And to see the performance on Crackerjack, click here

I’m heading back to Central London feeling all excited about my encounter. It’s Edward Thornhill’s birthday today, and we’re having drinks in Soho House. I feel a little under dressed. I’ve never felt cool enough to legitimately visit Soho House, but I shall pretend...

We’re now a third of the way through the year. I don’t know what’s happened to the time. I sincerely wish I had a job!

April 4th, 1661, and Pepys spent much of the day playing music at Lord Sandwich’s house. He went with his best mate, Henry Moore, to his father’s for tea. He went home late, leaving Elizabeth because their house was still over-run with workmen. All very interesting, but he didn’t meet Maddy Prior, did he?!

You see what I did just then?

We're listening to the Radio 1 chart show whilst heading back to London with a car full of memories from a lovely weekend in Devon.

The Sunday evening chart show seems to have been a fixture in my life. I remember the days of Mel and Kim and Swing Out Sister, when we'd roam the streets of Higham Ferrers, in coats with turned-up sleeves, looking for an open shop to provide us with treats to consume whilst listening to the show. It was the highlight of the day.

Sundays were so incredibly boring in those days. We used to buy a can of coke for ten pence from the one open shop in the town, stand either side of the pond down the rec, and throw it to one another until it burst and sprayed all over the place. That occupied at least an hour!

Reggie Yates, who currently presents The Chart Show, ('twas Bruno Brookes in my day) has just (twice) committed, what has turned into the ultimate presenters' crime at the moment, namely to follow a cheesy or bad pun with the line "you see what we did just then?" It  happens all the time. Steve Jones, Davina McCall and Claudia Winklemen are also keen exponents of the over-used phrase.  I tend to think that a pun is a pun; you certainly don't need to point out that you've just made one. Neither do you need justify the pun's rubbishness by a self-deprecating verbal nod; particularly one so often used!  Keep your ears and eyes open for it... You won't have to wait long!

We had lunch in a carvery today. It was one of those buffet-type places, where a man stands and saws a couple of carcasses apart, and you pass along a counter helping yourself to various vegetables.

I'm afraid the waitress committed another irritating crime. She'd been told there were vegetarians present, and asked us to make ourselves known. I thought she was going to line us up and shoot us, but she simply took a head-count and handed us all a menu. Sadly, there was only one vegetarian option on the menu. She might as well have just handed us the food!

To make matters worse, when she came back to take our orders, I said "can I just check that there really is only one veggie option?" to which she replied "no, there's also a mushroom stroganoff on the daily specials board..." I did wonder why she'd bothered to hand us the menu at all, when she could have just told us the two options... Especially as one of them wasn't even written down!

Anyway, the weekend was a great success, and astonishingly, we weren't expected to pay for a single thing. Celia and Ron were so hugely generous. I can't imagine how much the weekend must have cost them.

Nathan's family jumping on the beach

We went to the beautiful beach at Instowe in the late afternoon yesterday, and took the opportunity to paddle in the water, dig holes in the sand, and rush about in the dunes. Sadly, the car park came free with a burn- out ice cream stand, which didn't feel particularly inviting! I assume the authorities might have that fixed before the high tourist season begins...

350 years ago, and Pepys was badly hangover. The two Sir Williams  forced him to drink two draughts of sack. Hair of the dog and all that. Pepys seemed genuinely surprised by the concept, and even more surprised that it seemed to work!

Perhaps it worked too well, for, in the evening, Pepys went and played his  flageolette for several hours by moonlight. Poor neighbours! That said, in the era of no recorded music, perhaps people were only too pleased to hear music in whatever form it took.

Talk of the town was that the Dutch had given the English a vast sum of money; a bribe by all accounts, to break the King's alliance with Portugal in the form of his bride-to-be, Catherine de Breganza! I'm told the Spanish also had suddenly become rather generous!

Clovelly

A magical day. We're in Clovelly; a tiny village literally clinging to a North Devon cliff. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited, and we have been blessed by absolutely stunning weather.

Clovelly has a tiny little harbour, with an incredibly tall, ramshackle harbour wall, which you access by a series of wooden ladders. I suspect it hasn't changed for a hundred years.

Clovelly harbour wall

Celia's grandfather was the postman here, and used to walk up and down the incredibly steep, cobbled streets with a donkey.

We went onto the pebble beach where we found a waterfall tumbling down the cliff, which you could actually stand behind. On the way back up, we discovered a slow worm basking on a sunny wall, which quite happily slid onto Nathan's hand and sat there for some time.

Running through the waterfall at Clovelly

I'm told Charles Kingsley of Water Babies fame once lived here.

The whole place is absolutely idyllic; the perfect spot to bring a group of children on a perfect early spring day.

The night before last, I went to the Questor's Theatre in Ealing to see my adaptation of Alice Through the Looking-Glass performed by a youth group. It was quite a treat to hear those old familiar words again, although I couldn't believe how surreal my interpretation suddenly  seemed! Afterwards we went back stage to meet the cast, and I had to sign about 40 programmes, which felt rather strange. I don't normally get asked for my autograph!

350 years ago, Pepys took his wife and sister-cum-servant to his father's house, where they were due to stay for a few days whilst the workman turned their own home upside down.

Pepys found his mother on her own, weeping bitterly about the argument she'd had the night before. Ever the understanding modern male, he immediately whisked Elizabeth out of the house and took her to see her own mother, who was not well.

Pepys rarely, if ever, went to see his  mother-in-law and it seems that he merely deposited Elizabeth and went off for a stroll.

He found himself in St James' Park, where he witnessed, for the first time, the Duke of York playing a game called Pelemele... A game which would eventually give its name to a nearby road, Pall Mall.

Pepys ended the day at The Dolphin pub, where the two Sir Williams were drinking with one Mr Delabar. Pepys noted how strange it was "how these men, who at other times are all wise men, do now, in their drink, betwitt and reproach one another... Til I was ashamed to see it." To betwitt! I love it!

Devon Knows...

We're in deepest Devon in a farmhouse. I have very little, if any, phone reception. Heaven knows if this post will appear, so I'm not going to spend too long trying!

There are 21 of us here; all either related to Nathan's mother, Celia, or her partner, Ron. It's a beautiful house - absolutely enormous - but it has an extremely strange atmosphere on the stairwell.

This morning, I returned to our flat to find the most enormous bouquet of flowers on the doorstep. They were from the good folk of BBC Yorkshire and came with a lovely note thanking me for talking at their event. It was absolutely unnecessary, but one of the nicest gestures I've known. Men should be given flowers more often. They made me feel valued, cheered me up enormously, and more than made up for my not getting breakfast yesterday morning!

April fool's day, 1661, was a pretty typical day for Pepys. He did a bit of work, wandered around London, drank a pint of wine and watched a play at Whitefriars. "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife" was apparently a pretty dreadful play. It sounds it!

Pepys called in on his parents, who were having the mother of all rows about their new maid. Dad liked her. Mum didn't. I suspect she was nubile and not unpleasant to look at. Pepys stayed til 10pm, persuading his mother to "understand herself." He lost his patience with her, and harsh words were exchanged. He felt guilty but claimed that he had to put her in her place on account of the "poor woman" having grown too "froward" - an archaic word meaning disobedient.

He walked home in brave moonlight.