R.I.P.

I’m very sad to have to report that Cyril the mouse died in the night last night. It was a peaceful death. He made himself a little nest from an old red sock and some loo paper, and simply fell asleep. His funeral will take place in the little patch of woodland adjacent to Highgate tube this evening. His family have not yet been informed. Nathan and I would like to say how sorry we are about his death and hope that we made his last few hours as comfortable as possible.

The wonderful Bob Holness has also died. The game show, Blockbusters was such a seminal part of my childhood. “Can I have an R.I.P. please, Bob?” (Fiona Brice, 06.01.12)

Tuesday 7^th January 1662, and Pepys had a long lie-in, before walking, across the fields, with Sir William Penn to the village of Stepney, where they had a “very merry” dinner at one Mrs Chappell’s house. All of Sir William’s children were present, and later in the day, the whole crew trudged back to the City to play cards at Penn’s house. It’s almost incomprehensible to think that there were ever fields between the Square Mile and Stepney, although I’d cheerfully support the notion of turning much of what is presently between the two locations back to beautiful countryside.

The little mouse

I was sitting in the cafe this morning, headphones plugged into my ears, listening to a particularly tricky bar of string music, when, from the corner of my eye, I saw a tiny animal making its way across the floor. The creature was the sweetest mouse I’ve ever seen; no bigger than a large acorn, with the cutest little dumbo ears. He was wandering around, not at all frightened by the enormity of the world, staring like a new born child at a chair leg in front of him. I called out to the cafe owner, who was understandably a little concerned by the sight. “There are traps everywhere” he said, “where the hell do they come from?” “That’s not a normal mouse” I said, thinking it might even be a shrew. The cafe owner was about to stamp on it; “please don’t!” I shouted, “let me take him to Highgate Woods...” Fortunately, another customer was in favour of the Greenpeace solution, so we trapped the little critter in a pint glass. It wasn’t a difficult task – he was too friendly and inquisitive to run anywhere – and seemed to sit, perfectly happily on a piece of cardboard within his glass prison as everyone took photographs.
 

We carefully transferred him into a paper bag, and I took him home to Nathan, who I thought would be the best companion when it came to liberating the animal. In our time, we’ve looked after a number of sick animals. We cared for a dying pigeon in our kitchen and once saved a little frog from a guaranteed messy death on the Archway Road by taking it to a pond on Hampstead Heath. Neither of us can bear to see animals suffering and we’ll both go to great lengths to protect a creature who can’t protect itself.

When Nathan saw the mouse, he instantly fell in love. We looked online and decided that it must be some kind of field mouse, a very young one, and one that was growing increasingly frightened. It wasn’t eating or drinking, it was probably looking for its Mum, and if we’d turned it out in the woods, it plainly wouldn’t have lasted five seconds. So we stuck him in a little cage with lots of sawdust and soft bedding, in the hope that we could feed him up a bit and get him stronger before releasing him.

It’s a bit of a mess, really. I don’t think he’s going to last. He’s still not eating, and by the early evening had got so cold that he’d stopped moving and we thought he was dead. A little stint on Nathan’s hand warmed him up a bit, and he got a little chirpier, but part of me wonders if it wouldn’t have been better simply to allow the cafe owner to stamp on him, or for him to die in one of the traps, or of some terrible poison. Sitting in a cage is certainly no life for him, particularly if he’s so young that he’s not yet been weaned from him mother. He seems to be simply withering away.

Twelfth night – and the decorations have gone away for another year and everything feels a bit grey and miserable again.

Twelfth night in the 17^th Century was a much more important occasion. Pepys took his lute to Mr Savill the painter’s, and watched as the man made a proper hash-up of painting it. In the afternoon he went to see Sir William Pen, who was celebrating his eighteenth wedding anniversary with eighteen mince pies. Pepys returned home to find his young clerk, Will Hewer, in bed. The servants reported that he’d vomited before retiring, and was complaining of a bad head. Pepys immediately summonsed the lad, and royally told him off for being drunk, although Hewer protested that he’d been ill before drinking “a quart of sack” at The Dolphin. Hmm.

Howling gales

Wind rattled our bedroom windows throughout the night. There was a proper gale battering London. For a while I insisted on the windows remaining open. The hollow moan of a gale is always so haunting and beautiful, especially when one is warm and tucked up in bed. The curtains were billowing like a sheet on a washing line. But all good things come to an end. An enormous gust of wind frightened the life out of me just as I was drifting off to sleep, so I decided it was best all round if the window was closed again, much to Nathan's great relief.

I battled my way through the driving rain this morning to get to the cafe. On my way I noticed about four discarded umbrellas, broken and shivering miserably in various gutters and dustbins.

I worked opposite two young Mums, both of whom, I quickly deduced, were actresses. I soon realised that the definition of self-obsession is an out of work actress with a baby on her lap. The two women talked almost exclusively about motherhood; competing with one another about methods of child-rearing. They pulled all the right faces, but weren’t listening to each other, unless there was some kind of compliment floating about. There was a particularly unpleasant moment when both women started to wonder if their babies were actually the most beautiful babies on the planet. At one point they started comparing them to great actresses. The one that looked like road kill apparently resembled Elizabeth Taylor, and the one that looked like a pile of insulation foam had the eyes of Angelina Jolie, or so her mother believed. Periodically they’d break off the baby talk to discuss work, and the plays that they were auditioning for, but this conversation would immediately return to babies; “if you get the role, you’ll have to start expressing milk...” They both laughed like hyenas. I wasn’t sure what was so hysterical about expressing milk. Perhaps they were laughing at the concept of getting a job. One of them had a face like a laminated gala melon. The other looked like pork in a wig. They’d break off periodically to see if anyone in the room was admiring their baby.

I went to the gym this afternoon and overheard a rather amusing conversation in the changing room:

BLOKE ONE: (to mate) You’ve got fat. You’re fat.

BLOKE TWO: I know. It all came on over Christmas.

BLOKE ONE: (prodding his mate’s spare tyre) What? All that? What did you eat? Your mother-in-law?

BLOKE TWO: Ha ha! Funny. You saw me before Christmas. I had a six pack.

BLOKE ONE: No mate. You had a Lurpak!

350 years ago and Elizabeth Pepys wasn’t well, so her husband went alone to church. He returned to the house for lunch and started to eat a piece of fine roast beef, but didn’t want to eat it on his own. His brother, Tom, called in, to say that he’d been to visit the parents of a girl that there was talk of his marrying. Said parents could only afford a dowry of 200l per year, which Pepys felt was a paltry sum –and one that should be passed over in the hope of finding something better. He was a fine one to talk; Elizabeth came with no dowry at all. In the evening he went back to church, and was horrified to hear a psalm, with a perfectly good tune, being sung to the tune of another psalm. He described the experience as ridiculous; probably how I felt on Christmas Eve when I was expected to sing “updated” lyrics to O Come All Ye Faithful. I sang the original very loudly indeed!

Jody who?

Here’s a thing... If you find yourself feeling a little listless of an evening; if your creative juices are in need of a bit of a shake-up, take yourself for a long run in a storm! I’ve just returned from a circuit of Highgate village in lashing rain and thrashing wind. Far from being unpleasant, the experience was exhilarating. I was accompanied by dramatic music on my iPod and for much of the time I felt like an actor in an epic film. It was incredible. It didn’t matter that I was getting soaking wet; the elements were blasting the tension out of my bones!

I walked into Muswell Hill with Fiona this afternoon. We were both feeling a little gloomy after hearing the news that a good friend of our’s has lost a baby in the eighth month of its pregnancy. It’s almost impossible to know what to say to her. She must be utterly devastated. Fiona went with the baby's father to Islington Town Hall to simultaneously register the birth and the death. It just seems so unbelievably unfair; a horrifying way to start a year which should have been filled with absolute joy.

I’m glad to see that they’ve finally put some of the hideous creatures behind bars who killed Stephen Lawrence. The newspapers are filled with the aggressive, twisted faces of the two lads, and we’ve already started blithely describing them as monsters; whipped up, once again, by the media. But here's my issue; the killing of Stephen Lawrence wasn't unusual. Hate crimes happen. People regularly murder transpeople because they’re transpeople. A young Asian bride is murdered by her family because she's taken the wrong lover. We don’t waste pages and pages of column inches demonising these killers. Half the time the police simply wash their hands of the crime, or behave so shambolically that vital evidence gets sullied or lost. Yes, the killers of Stephen Lawrence should be behind bars - they're odious little toads -  but we need to get a handle on hate crime, particularly when it's legitimised by religion. Stephen Lawrence has become a buzzword. It's safe to say we hate his killers, because we know it's bad to be a racist, but hands up if you know who Jody Dobrowski is? Or Kellie Telesford? Does anyone remember the faces of their killers smeared across the tabloid press?

350 years ago, Pepys spent the morning hanging the new pictures by William Faithhorne he’d brought the previous day, and fitting a pair of pewter sconces to the bottom of his new staircase. He went to Westminster by water and met a man called Mr Chetwind, one of the clerks with whom he regularly went drinking. Chetwind had a dog, who became the centre of a scandal when another man appeared and claimed the beast was actually his. The dispute was settled when the dog was placed equidistantly between the two men, and ran to Chetwind when called. I seem to remember something similar happening to Bouncer the dog in Neighbours! Mrs Mangle won.

Requiometer

I worked very hard today. I had a huge amount to do; hundreds of pies that I needed to start sticking my fat little fingers into. Amongst much else, I made a tentative start on the process of orchestrating the Hattersley music. Nathan and I sat up late last night going over the songs, making sure the lyrics were scanning properly. We worked our way through two  of the songs, so I suspect we’re on for another late night tonight to sort out the next two.
 

I can’t take my eye of the ball this year – not for a second. I’m juggling so many projects that I'll need to start compartmentalising my days so that I can dedicate enough time to all of them. I simutaneously need to remember to continue pitching projects for later in the year and find the time to start the process of getting funding together to record the Requiem. I feel another Blue Peter-style totaliser coming on; A Requiometer... But we’re going to need to collect a very large number of milk bottle tops to get this one flashing. £20,000 of milk bottle tops, to be precise. I emailed the record company who are interested in releasing the piece today to get some useful figures from them; how much money we should expect to make from every unit sold, and how many copies we’d need to shift before going into profit. It's all bewildering. I’m bewildered.

I celebrated my bewilderment by battling through a hellish storm to visit the gym this afternoon. I ran for 6km and then cycled for 6km, and now my legs feel like pieces of plastercine. I caught sight of myself in the mirror in the changing room and mistook myself for a flump. Just call me Pootle until you begin to see the effects of the diet I started today.

On that note, I'm very much looking forward to watching The Biggest Loser on ITV tonight. There's nothing better than watching a group of fatties hauling themselves around a football pitch before bursting into tears to make you want to lose weight. I very much enjoyed the show last year. It will, no doubt, remind me of being in Newcastle this time last year. It was an incredibly happy and relaxed period of my life. I’d rush back to my Travelodge room to watch the show whilst eating an apple, an orange and a malteesers bunny.

Anyway, with no structure to today’s blog, I think it’s time for me to bow out gracefully before anyone reading falls asleep. I am sad to read today of the whale who met his end on the beach at Hunstanton. Frankly, there are better places to die...

Friday 3^rd January 1662, and Pepys went to William Faithorne’s studio to buy some of his pictures. They were obviously quite expensive, because he spent the rest of the day panicking about his accounts – and the sheer amount of money that he was allowing to drip, like water, through his usually thrifty fingers.  

Inertia

2012 seems to be rather slowly cranking its tired self into existence and today’s bank holiday has added to a sense of inertia. I couldn’t work out whether I needed to be working or not, so had a lie-in and then did a few lazy hours' composing before heading to the gym, which I didn’t realise was due to shut at 4pm. It would appear that LA Fitness will close these at the drop of a hat. Gone are the blissful days when you could tip up at 6 in the morning or 10 at night. One day I'm sure I'll get there and discover it's only open at lunchtimes.

After running for my allotted twenty minutes, I drove across North London to Columbia Road to see Philippa, Dylan and Deia, who was in a proper strop when I arrived. She hid under a little trampoline, and then threw the present I’d given her at a mug of tea which spilt all over my iPod. Fortunately, she very speedily cheered up, and was a delightful companion for the second half of my visit. We ate mince pies, drank tea and did jigsaw puzzles. Philippa was off to the new Westfield shopping centre, which I thought was a fairly optimistic prospect for a bank Holiday evening.

I picked Nathan up from work, but got there early and had about an hour to wander around Soho in the freezing cold. Fortunately, Foyles bookshop came to my rescue, and I had a lovely time browsing the music department there.

We’re watching telly tonight over a plate of pasta. We sat through the new show with David Jason; the one where he plays a Royal body guard, and both of us were horrified. It’s awful. Really cheap. The incidental music sounds like The Rugrats, and as Nathan pointed out, Jason has started doing physical theatre in the style of Hyacinth Bouquet! I find it hard to believe that a self-styled national treasure would opt to act in such a shoddy turkey. Surely he could tell from the scripts that this one was a dud - and without his name attached to the project, the license fee money would never have been wasted so shockingly.

350 years ago, and Pepys went to a posh lunch at the Wardrobe with Lady Sandwich, which was attended (amongst other fancy types) by Sir William Montagu and his wife Mary, who was meant to be a great beauty, but Pepys wasn’t impressed... "She seemed so far from the beauty that I had expected her from my Lady's talk to be, that it put me into an ill humour all day, to find my expectation so lost." (What a ridiculous notion!) Obvious in some kind of a grump, Pepys returned home and sat in his bedroom playing his lute until midnight.

To finish the blog, here are two pictures from my weekend in Lewes.

Brighton Beach

The hills above Kingston

A perfect year

Last night became a fairly magical evening. We had a beautiful meal with Hilary, Rupert, Meriel and Roy, played some games, announced our New Year's resolutions and then went out into the garden to watch people lighting fireworks across Lewes. We could hear people in the distance shouting greetings at one another and we shouted our own in return into the darkness...

Brother Edward 'phoned just as we'd gathered into a huddle to listen to ABBA's Happy New Year on Nathan's iPhone. Edward sang along on the other end of the phone whilst standing on a roof top somewhere in Canary Wharf, watching the fireworks bursting across London.

Meanwhile, my other brother, Tim, texted to say that he'd proposed to his partner, John, and been given an affirmative answer. Happy days!

We left a very tired Hilary to do Jago's night feed and decided to drive to Brighton beach. We were astonished to discover that the big Ferris wheel was still running, so at 1am were hovering in a four-seater pod, high above the town, looking down at the huge winter waves crashing onto the pebble beach below. 

At about 2 am, we were lighting fireworks on the beach and jumping for joy like silly children every time a rocket burst in the sky. Perfect.

We were in bed by 3. Any later than that and I'd have turned into a pumpkin. 

This morning we went for a walk with Meriel and Roy in the hills above Kingston, which is the little village outside Lewes in which they live. It was raining pretty heavily, but the tops of the hills were shrouded in beautiful cotton-like mist. We were accompanied on our journey by a puppy called Berry; a little cocker-poo, or spoodle. She's grown a great deal. When I last saw her, she  was a tiny little ball of wool sitting  like a merkin in Meriel's lap. She's become a really charming little creature; less dog, more teddy bear/weasel cross! 

The first day of 1662, and Pepys woke his wife up by smacking her in the chops in his sleep. It was an accident, and the incident made him feel rather guilty. 

Despite his new year's resolution to try and avoid trips to the theatre, Pepys spent the afternoon doing just that with the Penns, who subsequently invited him to their house for a mirth-filled game of cards, which became even more hilarious when it was discovered that Sir William had left his sword in the cab that had brought them home. Pepys' boy, Wayneman, was sent rushing after the coach, which he finally found somewhere on the Strand.