Barge

I've been with Fiona all afternoon, calmly floating down the Regent's Canal from Paddington to Camden in a charming converted barge.

The occasion was the 50th birthday of the partner of one of Fiona's bandmates. It strikes me, in retrospect, that I was there under hugely tenuous circumstances, but I had a blast and met some lovely people.

It's such a calming thing to glide down a canal surrounded by trees and glinting sunlight. The most exciting aspect was undoubtedly going through a long tunnel, a beautiful ever-growing green window at the opposite end.

The canal cuts through the middle of London Zoo, an aviary on one bank filled with all sorts of bizarre birds, and a pen on the other filled with comedy warthogs!

Periodically, a curious klaxon would sound from the front of our barge and we'd pass another vehicle on the water. At one point I was astonished to drift past a punt load of people. I had no idea that one could actually punt in London. It strikes me that punting along a canal is probably quite a bad idea. Motorised boats have a habit of creating all sorts of crazy ripples and waves in their wake and they don't tend to notice things like punts which float so close to the river surface.

We sailed past the zoo and into Camden town where the banks were filled with hippies, punks, stoners and bemused-looking tourists. I think everyone has decided it's the last day of summer. People were trying to soak up the last few rays of decent sunlight. I doubt the temperatures will make it into the 20s again this year.

Fiona and I walked home from Paddington to Kentish Town via Regent's Park and back along the canal, this time after dark. One of the bridges was lit very beautifully and was reflected like a giant moon in the raven black water.

We walked past the aviary again and looked up at the weird birds with curiously long necks settling down to roost for the night. A giant heron seemed to be stalking around the floor of the pen, it stopped for a moment to peer out at us rather superciliously.

Camden Lock is such a lovely-looking place at night. A thousand twinkly lights reflected on the canal surface. The rich, tempting smells of food from every corner of the world. A great sense of people feeling relaxed and doing their own thing.

We've come home and Fiona is helping me to create Pro-tools sessions for the Pepys recordings at the end of the month. It's amazing how much preparation is necessary for these things! It seems to be takin forever!

Quizteama Aguilera

We've just come second in the Thaxted Tennis Club annual quiz. It was a nail-biting climax and we lost by just 3 points, largely because I refused to acknowledge that Hades was the God of the underworld. I'd forgotten that the ancient Greeks view the homes of their Gods as the same thing as the Gods themselves.

It's amazing what one learns and then instantly forgets during the course of a quiz. It's also fairly amusing to see village life on display; the little squabbles, the hierarchies, the women who enter the space with an aura of royalty...

I'm told the quiz master, usually quite a flamboyant individual, was asked to "tone down" his appearance for the good people of the tennis club and the man who thanked us all at the end didn't seem to open his mouth when he spoke. He grinned a lot, however, and managed to make himself look like a ventriloquist! I wanted to ask where Orville was, but I'm slowly learning how to tell the difference between my internal and external voices!

We had cream teas in Poppy's Tearoom in Thaxted this afternoon; a genuinely lovely experience, which never lets you down. Brilliant cakes, friendly staff, wonderful ambience. If you ever find yourself going cross county to Cambridge, you must pop in.

It's suddenly started feeling autumnal. The Virginia creepers are now a deep shade of scarlet, and one of the trees on the outskirts of Thaxted was looking decidedly colourful. Driving home, through the dark North Essex country lanes, I'd periodically pass through a little wisp of mist and as we emerged from the village hall after the quiz, we could see our breath in the air. I like autumn. I find it deeply inspiring, although when I begin to consider everything that needs to be done before Christmas, I start to feel a little panicky!

Acarnage!

As I walked towards Highgate Tube today, an extraordinary thing happened... I was machine-gunned by acorns! It's obviously the period of this year which Mother Nature's designated for the acorn drop, and a memo must have gone round to all oak trees. To ensure speedy shedding, high winds have been ordered and the trees are all going for it. I've never known anything like it. It was like something from a Hitchcock film!

My mistake was halting at the entrance to the tube to finish writing a text. I must have been hit about four times, but there were acorns dropping all around me, making a sickening popping sound on the ground. And let me tell you something. Acorns sting when they hit you on the hand! Someone call health and safety!!

I spent much of the day formatting scores for the fifth movement of the Pepys Motet, which has to be the most over-worked composition I've ever written... And yet still I find mistakes! In fact, I found rather too many today, some of which I felt sure I'd remedied in the past... And then, at 6pm, the penny dropped. I was formatting a previous draft of the blinking piece. Ahhhhhh! That's the equivalent of a computer crashing on un-backed-up material. A full day's work wasted! Extraordinary.

I went into town for lunch at the Stock Pot with Nathan before a meeting with a group of people who are wanting to put on a charity gala for the Kaleidoscope Trust. They're looking at the first week of December, which could well prove problematic in terms of performer availabilities, and for that matter, audiences. The run-up to Christmas is already blocked out in a lot of diaries. It's also a highly lucrative period for singers and musicians. I avoid December like the plague!

One foot in the past

I spent the whole day working on the synopsis of Brass and sent it off to Philippa - who is working as dramaturg on the piece - full of trepidation and fear. What if it makes no sense? What if it's just one long flight of fancy on my part with no discernible structure? Ah, the terror of starting out on a creative journey! Still, I'd much rather the criticism came at this stage than further down the road when I've written beautiful songs which belong in scenes which need to be cut!

I worked through lunch and all the way till six o'clock and then took myself for a jog to see if I could shake the back ache which has been threatening to become an issue for the last week.

I ran around Highgate Woods. The air felt rather sticky but there was a glorious orange sunset which looked a little like someone had thrown up in a giant porcelain sink!

I came home and we ate pizza whilst watching Sarah Millican on iPlayer. Nathan is now winding hand-spun wool onto a swift. What with half of my brain lodged in the First World War, it's like we're bridging 100 years in a single evening: modern technology colliding with the ancient world. Now pass me a candle...

Window ledge

Nathan left the house bright and early this morning to go to work at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Within minutes he called to say that he'd left his oyster card by the bed, and to save him coming round the back of the house, could I throw the card out of the sitting room window? I opened the window and found Nathan standing expectantly on the street below. 

I threw the card down but it turned into some kind of crazy helicopter and the damned thing gently circled its way down to the widow ledge of the flat next door! And there it sat, staring up at me. Going absolutely nowhere! Nathan merely shrugged his shoulders and walked off down the street, absolutely disgusted. 

I threw some clothes on and rushed next door. Fortunately my next door neighbour, whom I discovered is called Tom, was in. He appeared at the back window looking decidedly naked from the waist down, but was extremely helpful, and soon I was able to call Nathan to say that I'd recovered the card. Sadly it was a little too late. He'd already bought himself a new one. 

I spent long hours on the telephone to EE, which is the name that Orange masquerades under these days. I have no idea what EE stands for. There used to be a chain of Internet cafes called EE, which stood for Easy Everything, and was run by the same people who did Easy Jet. They had orange branding and were open through the night. It cost a quid to "surf" for an hour. People would sit in long lines checking their hotmail accounts and looking at porn in weird balsa wood booths. I guess they went out of business when people started getting lap tops and smart phones. 

Anyway, there's something wrong with my iPhone and I wanted to talk to someone about it, but the customer services people took 22 1/2 minutes to answer, which I feel is an all-time record. Bottom line is that EE don't give a s**t about their customers. Fact!

I went to Westminster for a meeting with the Arts Council today to talk about Brass and things went very well. There's a genuine sense of excitement building about the piece. I just hope I can nail it.

I went to Highbury on my way home and sat in a chip shop with Fiona who's up in London for a gig. The only chip shop in London, it seems, too arrogant to offer a vegetarian alternative. Still, the chips were nice... And Fiona paid! 

The shoulders say yes!

I went to Pimlico today for a lunchtime meeting in one of the town house on Vincent Square. It's astonishing to think that people actually own whole houses in fancy locations like that! We were discussing Brass, my musical about the First World War, in advance of a meeting tomorrow with people from the Arts Council. 

I arrived early, as usual, and sat in a pub for half an hour, busily writing a synopsis for the piece, still buzzing from our trip to France. The pub was playing a highly eclectic, slightly random set of songs from all eras of pop music. I assume someone's iPod was on shuffle because what else unifies an obscure song by the Beatles, the Fine Young Cannibals, Rhianna and, most bizarrely, I'm in the Mood for Dancing by the Nolan Sisters!? I'd forgotten what a camp classic that song is. First the shoulders said yes, then my head started nodding and before long I was making a right tit of myself! I caught the eye of the woman behind the bar. She looked at me with pity.

I came home and took myself for a much-needed massage. I'd woken up in the night in considerable pain from my back but am rather pleased to say that the massage seems to have nipped things in the bud.

I'd like to say I'm taking things easy this evening but it still feels like there's half a tonne of stuff to do. 

Perhaps I'll watch Eastenders and then get on with my work. Is it me, or is Sharon's  hair a weird shade of green? Too much peroxide in the swimming pool, I suspect! 

From Here to Eternity

I went to the old people's film club on the Uxbridge Road this afternoon to watch a screening of Tales of the White City. It was a moving experience to watch my piece alongside several of its "stars" plus about 40 other local people.

The film club is a very special enterprise. Pensioners from White City and Shepherd's Bush turn up every Monday lunchtime for a lovely buffet and a two-hour film programme projected on a large screen. My piece was followed by a Marx Brothers film.

It was standing room only today. The group meets at vicar Bob's church hall. Bob, of course, features prominently in the film singing about his struggle with epilepsy. I'd visited the group in late February in the process of recruiting people to take part. We played 100 Faces and Songs From Hattersley and a number of key people came forward as a result.

Bob stood up  today and spoke passionately to the group. The poor bloke has had another seizure whilst out jogging and was sporting the most horrendous tick-shaped gash on his forehead. He said the words to his song were going through his head throughout the ordeal. He's always said how important he feels it is to use the misery of his condition for the greater good. He spoke to the group today about the importance of asking for help, be it from friends, religious leaders or professionals, proudly announcing that he'd decided to go to see a counsellor to help him to come to terms with his epilepsy, which I thought was incredibly brave. He spoke honestly and openly and had the group in the palm of his hand. He's obviously a very fine vicar. 

There were sighs and laughs all the way through the film itself. I'm not sure the crowd would have been able to hear every word as the hall has a very odd acoustic which rather swallows up dialogue, but there were certainly plenty of coos of recognition as people noticed obscure corners of the estate which had significance to them, and friends and family members who they hadn't realised had also been a part of the film. 

My films might not reach the largest audiences in the world, but they certainly seem to touch those they do. I felt very proud. And anyone wanting to see Tales of the White City can do so here:

I spent the afternoon working in a cafe in Soho and then went with Nathan to see the first preview of From Here to Eternity, Tim Rice's new musical about the WW2 attack on Pearl Harbour. I was pleasantly surprised. The music was sumptuous and beautifully orchestrated and the performances were strong across the board. It could do with a little trim in act 2, and one of the story threads in act 1 seemed somewhat confusing, but I'm sure all of that will be sorted before the press night. 

I personally think we should be celebrating anything modern and British in the field of musical theatre particularly something which has had a bit of money thrown at it in the shape of a large pit orchestra, a big ensemble of actors and some good-looking sets. It was brave and it was dignified. Congratulations Messrs Rice and Brayson.

In the interval, I overheard two ghastly old theatre queens laying into the show. "Yes, that actor needs to get himself to the gym, doesn't he?Yes, it was really dull wasn't it? What was it that the stage manager you met said about the show? That's right, from here to February! Pnah, Pnah, Pnah..." Mincey, mincey, gay, gay. On and on they went, and I thought, "come on, you nasty homs, this is the interval of this show's first preview performance. How DARE you take great delight in the concept of any theatre piece closing after a four-month run. People have worked incredibly hard to bring it to the stage. It might not be your cup of tea, but don't hope for failure, because if it DOES fail, it will signify another nail in the coffin of the British musical theatre industry and in no time at all there won't be any shows in the West End left for you to slag off, you rancid turd." That's what I thought... And I wished I'd said it to him, and then bitch-slapped him across his fake-tanned face. I hate arm chair critics. I just hope he paid for a full-price ticket! I half expected to see him in the little drinks reception afterward telling Tim Rice what a smash hit he'd written! 

And anyone