We've just returned from Tesco where I bought myself some salt and vinegar flavoured mini-doughnuts. I kid you not. They sell them. And they're absolutely disgusting. In fairness, they were going out of date and were being flogged off for 30p a bag, so they were probably more stale than they were meant to be. It was like biting into salty plastercine.
I also bought some Wrights Traditional Tar soap, which I discovered almost instantly is the smell of my Grandmother's House. I took one sniff and was instantly transported to her blue bathroom with its fluffy pedestal mats, its curious dusty bottles of perfume and the little dollies sitting on crochet-covered loo rolls. It made me nostalgic and a little sad. Isn't it astonishing how a smell can trigger such a strong reaction?
Today has been all about orchestrating Brass. I finished Shone with the Sun, and got most of the way through the first draft of When You're a Pal. It's hard work. There are nineteen different instruments in the orchestra pit! I basically spent a day wearing headphones listening to my heart beating when I wasn't hearing music. It's a curiously disconcerting experience.
I went for a run around the woods just before lunch, but it became somewhat disastrous when it transpired that my earphones didn't fit properly. They fell out every ten paces which became the most frustrating experience in the world.
I had my first strawberry of the year this evening. It wasn't very nice.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Tuesday, 6 May 2014
Autistic needs
This afternoon I met an incredibly charming women. Her name is Sharon, she's from Romford and I was interviewing her as part of the Invisible Voices project. Sharon's story is simple. Her 24-year old son son is autistic and gay. He knows he's gay. She knows he's gay, but the authorities won't acknowledge the fact. And therein lies a hopeless problem, which triggers an important debate fuelled by a simple question: Does a person have a right to sexual intimacy?
Sharon's son is very lonely, and he tells this fact to anyone who'll listen on any manner of online chat rooms. But in the process he's putting himself at terrible risk...
In the past he's been attacked, chased and beaten up in local parks and subjected to brutal online bullying which led to his being sectioned at the age of 18.
If he gets chatting to a man online, who shows even the remotest interest, he'll more often than not immediately change his Facebook status to "engaged" because he doesn't understand the intricacies of social convention. This terrifies people. Others take advantage of his trusting nature.
Sharon, of course, longs for him to be happy. She longs for all the things that any mother would long for; the top of the list being for him to have "someone to cuddle at night." She knows the situation is hopeless, however. Who could love her son despite his problems? And if there's a man out there who might, where would she find him? In the meantime, does she acknowledge his right to sexual gratification, even though this has got him into terrible trouble in the past?
Could or should these uncomfortable questions ever be answered? In Holland they have special sex workers who deal with these situations, but Sharon worries that this would give her son an insatiable appetite for something which he'd ultimately not be able to control. There used to be an online, very carefully monitored and chaperoned, dating service for gay people with special needs, but the funding was, as ever, pulled, and besides, Sharon's son doesn't perceive himself as being different to the majority of people. Lumping all sorts of random mental and physical health issues together under the single umbrella of "special needs" leads to particular confusion and distress with autistic people because they can't understand why they're in any way the same as people with more obvious physical disabilities. In fact, they are often repulsed or frightened by what they see.
With so many issues in life, there's a clear black and white answer which a bit of common sense or government investment would yield. In this issue, I find myself stumped...
The only thing that strikes me is that it's a very real problem which needs to be examined and addressed by people with open minds and a desire to protect the needs and safety of young people who, through no fault of their own, don't quite adhere to conventional behavioural models. I don't even know who to lobby about this, but feel I must...
Sharon's son is very lonely, and he tells this fact to anyone who'll listen on any manner of online chat rooms. But in the process he's putting himself at terrible risk...
In the past he's been attacked, chased and beaten up in local parks and subjected to brutal online bullying which led to his being sectioned at the age of 18.
If he gets chatting to a man online, who shows even the remotest interest, he'll more often than not immediately change his Facebook status to "engaged" because he doesn't understand the intricacies of social convention. This terrifies people. Others take advantage of his trusting nature.
Sharon, of course, longs for him to be happy. She longs for all the things that any mother would long for; the top of the list being for him to have "someone to cuddle at night." She knows the situation is hopeless, however. Who could love her son despite his problems? And if there's a man out there who might, where would she find him? In the meantime, does she acknowledge his right to sexual gratification, even though this has got him into terrible trouble in the past?
Could or should these uncomfortable questions ever be answered? In Holland they have special sex workers who deal with these situations, but Sharon worries that this would give her son an insatiable appetite for something which he'd ultimately not be able to control. There used to be an online, very carefully monitored and chaperoned, dating service for gay people with special needs, but the funding was, as ever, pulled, and besides, Sharon's son doesn't perceive himself as being different to the majority of people. Lumping all sorts of random mental and physical health issues together under the single umbrella of "special needs" leads to particular confusion and distress with autistic people because they can't understand why they're in any way the same as people with more obvious physical disabilities. In fact, they are often repulsed or frightened by what they see.
With so many issues in life, there's a clear black and white answer which a bit of common sense or government investment would yield. In this issue, I find myself stumped...
The only thing that strikes me is that it's a very real problem which needs to be examined and addressed by people with open minds and a desire to protect the needs and safety of young people who, through no fault of their own, don't quite adhere to conventional behavioural models. I don't even know who to lobby about this, but feel I must...
Boring Bank Holiday
Nathan and I are watching episodes of Modern Family on the television at the end of a rather dull, slow-moving bank holiday Monday.
My Mother summed it up perfectly yesterday when she said, "I hate Bank Holidays - everyone always has a place to go to... Except me."
I realise this is how I've always felt about Bank Holidays as well. The only benefit to bank holidays is that when I work through one, as I have today, I feel like I'm somehow one step ahead of everyone else.
Nathan was called into a rehearsal of South Pacific today, which I thought was a little tough considering that it's not just a Bank Holiday but a day which was meant to end with large-scale tube strikes. (I've no idea why they're striking. I barely care!) Nathan's call today consisted of a costume fitting followed by a two-hour military boot camp in a West London Park. He's playing one of the GI's in the show, and they want them to be military fit, which apparently involved a gruelling afternoon stood underneath a plane tree whilst, first hay fever, and then a migraine developed. Oh the glamour of acting!
When he got back, we went for a walk up to Waterlow Park, which looked liked something from a Merchant Ivory film. One woman had brought her own Edwardian flat-backed chair to sit on on the grass. A little eccentric, we felt. Still, the park was lovely in the sunlight. Like a Seurat painting. In the last few days I've become hugely aware of how green everything's suddenly become. Spring can be rather lovely can't it?
My Mother summed it up perfectly yesterday when she said, "I hate Bank Holidays - everyone always has a place to go to... Except me."
I realise this is how I've always felt about Bank Holidays as well. The only benefit to bank holidays is that when I work through one, as I have today, I feel like I'm somehow one step ahead of everyone else.
Nathan was called into a rehearsal of South Pacific today, which I thought was a little tough considering that it's not just a Bank Holiday but a day which was meant to end with large-scale tube strikes. (I've no idea why they're striking. I barely care!) Nathan's call today consisted of a costume fitting followed by a two-hour military boot camp in a West London Park. He's playing one of the GI's in the show, and they want them to be military fit, which apparently involved a gruelling afternoon stood underneath a plane tree whilst, first hay fever, and then a migraine developed. Oh the glamour of acting!
When he got back, we went for a walk up to Waterlow Park, which looked liked something from a Merchant Ivory film. One woman had brought her own Edwardian flat-backed chair to sit on on the grass. A little eccentric, we felt. Still, the park was lovely in the sunlight. Like a Seurat painting. In the last few days I've become hugely aware of how green everything's suddenly become. Spring can be rather lovely can't it?
Sunday, 4 May 2014
Mother Nature
We've been in Thaxted today. I woke up this morning feeling incredibly stressed with a sense that the world was on my back needing things from me that I didn't have the strength to give it. I answered a few emails and made some phone calls, with a horrible pounding, nervous sensation in my stomach. Stress, of course...
Sometimes the best thing you can do when that sort of thing happens is take a deep breath... And run for the hills!
So we jumped in a car and found ourselves in Thaxted. The journey there was a little complicated. They'd closed off the main road into the town and the diversion we took, via single-track country lanes which snaked their way through ancient meadows, eventually brought us back to exactly where we'd started! Still, it was lovely to see a bit of rural Essex. It's wonderful, really; you're only five miles from Stansted Airport, but you could be in Devon. Here and there a half-timbered house covered in clematis sitting by the side of the road with pheasants and rabbits and things running around in the front garden. When you get into those seriously rural parts of Essex, you begin to understand why the area is so associated with witchcraft. I think I'm right in saying there was a famous witch-hunter who plied his trade in the area in the 17th Century, causing considerable mayhem. I bet the area is incredibly eerie when those Fenland mists roll in from the North East.
We ate at The Swan. I had a veggie roast which arrived looking dry as toast. "Is there a veggie gravy?" I asked. "We could do you some" said the lovely young waiter, as though I'd asked for something really unusual, like a jug of cream, or a vat of custard to pour onto my roast dinner.
The gravy arrived and everything was suddenly very good with the world.
We went for a glorious walk across the fields, my Mum taking us to a little spot underneath some wildly susurrating trees which she is convinced is the perfect spot for a bit of communing with the universe. There was certainly an extraordinary calmness in the area, despite the whispering trees, and the hackles on the back of my neck were suddenly standing to attention. I had a little chat with the powers-that-be. I shan't lie! Actually, I had a little chat with them about a good friend of mine who could do with a little love right now.
As we continued our journey around a field of rape, we were joined by hundreds of butterflies dancing and fluttering in the breeze. I've seldom seem so many butterflies in so many beautiful colours. Peacock. Red Admiral. Cabbage White. And then something rather glorious whose wings looked like they'd been dipped in amber. Nature can be rather spectacular, can't it?
We went back to the parents' house and sat in the garden drinking tea in the sunshine, only retiring in doors when the sun dipped behind the trees.
My only sadness is the fact that my neck is currently in spasm; no doubt in response to the stress I experienced this morning. I was aware all the way through the night that I was grinding my teeth but when I got up to get my special gum guard for such occasions, I couldn't find it. Ho hum.
Sometimes the best thing you can do when that sort of thing happens is take a deep breath... And run for the hills!
So we jumped in a car and found ourselves in Thaxted. The journey there was a little complicated. They'd closed off the main road into the town and the diversion we took, via single-track country lanes which snaked their way through ancient meadows, eventually brought us back to exactly where we'd started! Still, it was lovely to see a bit of rural Essex. It's wonderful, really; you're only five miles from Stansted Airport, but you could be in Devon. Here and there a half-timbered house covered in clematis sitting by the side of the road with pheasants and rabbits and things running around in the front garden. When you get into those seriously rural parts of Essex, you begin to understand why the area is so associated with witchcraft. I think I'm right in saying there was a famous witch-hunter who plied his trade in the area in the 17th Century, causing considerable mayhem. I bet the area is incredibly eerie when those Fenland mists roll in from the North East.
We ate at The Swan. I had a veggie roast which arrived looking dry as toast. "Is there a veggie gravy?" I asked. "We could do you some" said the lovely young waiter, as though I'd asked for something really unusual, like a jug of cream, or a vat of custard to pour onto my roast dinner.
The gravy arrived and everything was suddenly very good with the world.
We went for a glorious walk across the fields, my Mum taking us to a little spot underneath some wildly susurrating trees which she is convinced is the perfect spot for a bit of communing with the universe. There was certainly an extraordinary calmness in the area, despite the whispering trees, and the hackles on the back of my neck were suddenly standing to attention. I had a little chat with the powers-that-be. I shan't lie! Actually, I had a little chat with them about a good friend of mine who could do with a little love right now.
As we continued our journey around a field of rape, we were joined by hundreds of butterflies dancing and fluttering in the breeze. I've seldom seem so many butterflies in so many beautiful colours. Peacock. Red Admiral. Cabbage White. And then something rather glorious whose wings looked like they'd been dipped in amber. Nature can be rather spectacular, can't it?
We went back to the parents' house and sat in the garden drinking tea in the sunshine, only retiring in doors when the sun dipped behind the trees.
My only sadness is the fact that my neck is currently in spasm; no doubt in response to the stress I experienced this morning. I was aware all the way through the night that I was grinding my teeth but when I got up to get my special gum guard for such occasions, I couldn't find it. Ho hum.
come Dine With Me
Nathan and I have just sat with Abbie in our front room watching a little bit of our wedding on telly. Channel 4 sent a copy of the film through the post to me today, so essentially we just wanted to check it was okay, but were obviously instantaneously pulled into a watching coma. It still feels a little surreal. I can't quite believe the person in that film is me, and that I was actually getting married whilst singing all that pretty music!
Nathan and Abbie sat on the sofa knitting lace-work whilst I scoffed a bit of chocolate. It's my last indulgent hurrah this weekend before going on the diet I promised the cast of Brass I'd go on, if they promised to get themselves really fit, for what will be an extremely physical production.
I'm a little angry with myself for doing very little today other than staring at the telly and making a start on the orchestrations for the song Shone With The Sun from Brass. I guess we're all due a day off from time to time, but only, I think, if we use the day off to garner new experiences. I should have walked in the woods or taken advantage of the beautiful sunshine in some way. Instead, I watched five episodes of Come Dine With Me filmed in Dublin and ate beans on toast. As Tony the Tiger would say, "grrrreat." (Except he wasn't being sarcastic!)
Nathan and Abbie sat on the sofa knitting lace-work whilst I scoffed a bit of chocolate. It's my last indulgent hurrah this weekend before going on the diet I promised the cast of Brass I'd go on, if they promised to get themselves really fit, for what will be an extremely physical production.
I'm a little angry with myself for doing very little today other than staring at the telly and making a start on the orchestrations for the song Shone With The Sun from Brass. I guess we're all due a day off from time to time, but only, I think, if we use the day off to garner new experiences. I should have walked in the woods or taken advantage of the beautiful sunshine in some way. Instead, I watched five episodes of Come Dine With Me filmed in Dublin and ate beans on toast. As Tony the Tiger would say, "grrrreat." (Except he wasn't being sarcastic!)
Saturday, 3 May 2014
I Can't Sing... Or can I?
We went to see I Can’t
Sing tonight. For those that don’t know, this is the X Factor musical,
written by the zanily irreverent comedian Harry Hill. Under normal
circumstances I wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole. I don’t approve of
Simon Cowell’s “get-in, get-rich, get-out” philosophy and certainly don’t want
to line his enormous pockets with any more money. It was also one of those shows
which semi-marketed itself (very unwisely in my view) as an “anti-musical.”
Anti-musicals don’t attract new audiences. They put off those who like musicals
and those who don’t aren’t fooled by the hype.
I was horrified when I heard that Cowell had pulled the show
after just six weeks, taking with it the dreams and wage packets of performers,
musicians, stage hands and front-of-house staff, who no doubt felt they’d be on
guaranteed salaries for at least six months when they heard that they were
working on a big West End show. More worryingly, rumour has it that the powers-that-be
actually wanted to pull the show on the very night they’d decided it was
doomed, but were forced to give the cast a 2 week notice period. When a show
gets pulled it’s worth remembering that the cast and crew don’t continue to be
paid. The show comes off, and, apart from a little bit of holiday pay which
they may or may not be eligible for, that is the end of their money. No
gardening leave. No compensation. No redundancy package. It’s a perilous
industry.
So, when Nathan’s ex-partner, Billy, one of the leads in the
show, managed to bag us a couple of comps, I somewhat begrudgingly agreed to
go. If it was as shocking a spectacle as a show which closes after six weeks
ought to be, it was going to be worth a trip, for no other reason than to say
in ten years’ time that I’d seen “that dreadful flop.” [I find myself very
jealous of Nathan for having seen The
Fields of Ambrosia, although I did see Romeo
and Juliet, which defied description...]
But you know what? I loved it! I LOVED I Can’t Sing! Sure, it’s just a bit of fun. It doesn’t make any
grand statements about life or the world. It’s not worthy. It’s not political.
But it’s escapist, it’s witty, it’s grand, tuneful, well-acted... In fact, it’s
all the things that you’d look for in a good musical. It plainly doesn’t
deserve to go down in history as a disaster and I think its producers made a
very big mistake in taking it off quite so early. They should have had faith in
the piece in my view, and stuck by it.
Thursday, 1 May 2014
Reich
There was a slightly frightening moment earlier when the doors of my train from Hove to London stopped working just after the first keen rush of passengers had leapt onto the platform at Victoria. I was (and always am) amongst the breed of passenger who relishes a railway terminus because it means we don't need to panic about getting our belongings together. I like to sit for a few seconds to collect my thoughts, unplug my computer, save what I've written and pack my bags.
Unfortunately, I suddenly became aware of the only other person in my carriage banging on the door, and asking me whether I thought we'd be back in Hove before the doors were released. Others passed through our carriage in a similar panic, which became something of a stampede as people rushed to the front of the train, one assumes to try to contact the driver.
It was a good five minutes before the door lights went back on again, by which point I'd resigned myself to a yoyo-style journey back to Clapham Common and opened my computer again. I have never rushed quite so fast to re-pack my belongings however, in the terrible fear that the same thing would happen again, and I'd be the last person on a train that ended up in a railway siding!
So today with PK, we finished off the Pepys Motet and dug out all the interesting soundbites thus far collected for Invisible Voices. There's actually a great deal more than I'd expected. It's really difficult to know quite what to do with then just yet. I'm hoping PK will work some kind of extreme sonic magic which will lead me into a form of musical epiphany. I have certainly never created music in this manner before, and am actually not sure any one has! Very exciting.
I went back to Fiona's last night to find the lady herself, back from this leg of her world tour, listening to Steve Reich whilst preparing us a delicious lentil and chicory salad to eat for tea. The Reich made me feel a little emotional. It reminded me of being a sixth former; listening to Reich in my brother's university halls and with Sam Becker at Paradise Lane. In fact, it transpired that it was reminding Fiona of a similar period in her life; a period more than half our lives ago when we'd only just met. I'm not sure I actually particularly remember a time without Fiona in my life. I remember plenty of things before I was 14 or 15, but I'm not sure I associate those memories with being me. I'm sure that statement makes very little sense, but something happened to me when I started attending the music school in Northampton. It was as though everything suddenly came into colour and the early memories of that set, and all that extraordinary music, feel like part of a continuum of me that I recognise today, A lot of water has flown underneath our mutual bridge.
Fiona and I had much to catch up on. When I last saw her, I was an unmarried man and she hadn't played to hundreds of thousands of Placebo fans in countless South American countries. We filled in most of the biggest blanks before sleep overtook us, and I went to bed with a busy mind, thinking about a million projects, the slightly crazy worlds of Brass and the Pepys Motet colliding like a giant game of Space Invaders in my mind!
Unfortunately, I suddenly became aware of the only other person in my carriage banging on the door, and asking me whether I thought we'd be back in Hove before the doors were released. Others passed through our carriage in a similar panic, which became something of a stampede as people rushed to the front of the train, one assumes to try to contact the driver.
It was a good five minutes before the door lights went back on again, by which point I'd resigned myself to a yoyo-style journey back to Clapham Common and opened my computer again. I have never rushed quite so fast to re-pack my belongings however, in the terrible fear that the same thing would happen again, and I'd be the last person on a train that ended up in a railway siding!
So today with PK, we finished off the Pepys Motet and dug out all the interesting soundbites thus far collected for Invisible Voices. There's actually a great deal more than I'd expected. It's really difficult to know quite what to do with then just yet. I'm hoping PK will work some kind of extreme sonic magic which will lead me into a form of musical epiphany. I have certainly never created music in this manner before, and am actually not sure any one has! Very exciting.
I went back to Fiona's last night to find the lady herself, back from this leg of her world tour, listening to Steve Reich whilst preparing us a delicious lentil and chicory salad to eat for tea. The Reich made me feel a little emotional. It reminded me of being a sixth former; listening to Reich in my brother's university halls and with Sam Becker at Paradise Lane. In fact, it transpired that it was reminding Fiona of a similar period in her life; a period more than half our lives ago when we'd only just met. I'm not sure I actually particularly remember a time without Fiona in my life. I remember plenty of things before I was 14 or 15, but I'm not sure I associate those memories with being me. I'm sure that statement makes very little sense, but something happened to me when I started attending the music school in Northampton. It was as though everything suddenly came into colour and the early memories of that set, and all that extraordinary music, feel like part of a continuum of me that I recognise today, A lot of water has flown underneath our mutual bridge.
Fiona and I had much to catch up on. When I last saw her, I was an unmarried man and she hadn't played to hundreds of thousands of Placebo fans in countless South American countries. We filled in most of the biggest blanks before sleep overtook us, and I went to bed with a busy mind, thinking about a million projects, the slightly crazy worlds of Brass and the Pepys Motet colliding like a giant game of Space Invaders in my mind!
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