We're currently driving through the misty Shropshire countryside, listening to the London Requiem at full volume on the car stereo. It's amazing how appropriate the album feels for a journey through the darkened, rather mystical world of the county in which I'm proud to say I was born. I rather like being able to say I'm a Shropshire Lad...
We've spent the day in North Wales at Nathan's sister's house, celebrating Nathan's niece's 21st birthday. It was a lovely gathering which featured four generations of an extended family with so many eccentric and unique branches, it would be almost impossible to explain!
Sam had cooked us all chilli and a table full of party snacks including a birthday cake in the shape of a hippo surrounded by smarties. Perfect. Truly.
We talked a great deal about Christmas Day, which was the last day we'd all gathered together in that particular house. It was agreed that it had been one of the best Christmases ever.
We're now driving on the M6 through the middle of Birmingham. The mist is really closing in, or possibly descending because rather curiously there's a clear moon in the sky. A series of floodlights on incredibly tall posts are glowing - almost floating - in the air. Birmingham always looks so troubled from the M6. One sees nothing but battered industrial landscapes, lorry parks, rusty rail depots, pylons, graveyards and down-at-heel grubby Victorian buildings. The M6 is elevated above everything. Almost as though escape via road is the aspiration of all Brummies...
I'm a proud Midlander, but Birmingham was never somewhere we visited. There never seemed to be a great deal of point in our going there. We shopped and went ice skating in Milton Keynes and Peterborough and went to the theatre in Northampton and Coventry. I always thought Birmingham was nothing but great big scary blocks of concrete watched over by the ghastly Rotunda. I've been there perhaps five times in my life - once admittedly to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm proud to say I was there in the flesh when Dana International won. The parents say the city is beautiful these days. The canal district is apparently well worth a visit and the experience of hearing the CBSO playing at the Symphony Hall is, I'm told, one of the great wonders of the sonic world!
Maybe I should go back there to spend some proper time...
As I write this sentence, we're passing the exit for Coventry and Nuneaton, which is where my part of the Midlands truly begins. I love Warwickshire. The red earth in these parts was farmed by countless generations of my forefathers, and every time I enter the county, I feel a sense of great peace and belonging which grows as I age.
Saturday, 7 February 2015
Friday, 6 February 2015
Rak!
Fiona stayed at ours last night and after an early lunch at the spoon on Archway Road, we made our way (via Camden) to St John's Wood where we visited RAK recording studios. I'm not sure RAK should be written in capital letters. I don't know if it stands for something or if it's short for something else. Whatever the case, it's a rather fine little recording studio which oozes both class and atmosphere. In fact, if some of those corridors aren't haunted I'll eat my hat! Which is lucky because today I took delivery of one of the many hats I've left in different corners of London in the past year!
Speaking of eating strange substances, I'm told the Americans talk of "eating crow" in a similar way to the way we talk about eating humble pie. They're a fascinating lot, those Yanks. An American friend of mine, who has recently become a TV chef, was tasked with cooking a female chat show host an actual crow because she said if such and such happened she'd eat crow... Actually maybe eating crow is more similar to eating a hat. Who knows? Does anyone reading this know? Anyway, the chat show host ended up eating crow both metaphorically and physically.
...Where was I?
I went to RAK to lend moral support to Fiona, and take photographs of the string session for her solo album, which the world ought to be very excited to hear. Fiona had opted to use a somewhat eccentric line up of players; namely a string octet with two extra violins. They sounded extraordinary. I could never have imagined that ten players could sound so much like a string orchestra. A lot of their success was in Fiona's adept scoring, which involved keeping the 'cellos fairly high and understanding when best to use divisi and unison. And of course the players, all of whom are at the top of their games. All that technical stuff aside, the music was divine. Absolutely stunning. Still, yearning, incredibly sad in places. She uses subtle dissonance to extraordinary effect. She's not scared of space in her music either, which is a great, great skill. Whenever I attend a session of Fiona music my own writing changes very subtly. I thought I was something of an expert, but what she doesn't know about string writing really isn't worth knowing. The session was brilliantly organised as well, and ended forty minutes early! Oh for a session which actually ends early!
It was lovely to see all the players, four of whom had played at our wedding, and many of whom I'd worked with before on projects as diverse as the London Requiem, Songs From Hattersley, Blast! and The Busker Symphony, which has got to be almost ten years old now. Kotono, who played in that particular project was filmed on a rickshaw trundling down Brick Lane. Those were the days when everything I made was merry and camp! Blast! was recorded so long ago that I can't really remember how it goes!
Speaking of eating strange substances, I'm told the Americans talk of "eating crow" in a similar way to the way we talk about eating humble pie. They're a fascinating lot, those Yanks. An American friend of mine, who has recently become a TV chef, was tasked with cooking a female chat show host an actual crow because she said if such and such happened she'd eat crow... Actually maybe eating crow is more similar to eating a hat. Who knows? Does anyone reading this know? Anyway, the chat show host ended up eating crow both metaphorically and physically.
...Where was I?
I went to RAK to lend moral support to Fiona, and take photographs of the string session for her solo album, which the world ought to be very excited to hear. Fiona had opted to use a somewhat eccentric line up of players; namely a string octet with two extra violins. They sounded extraordinary. I could never have imagined that ten players could sound so much like a string orchestra. A lot of their success was in Fiona's adept scoring, which involved keeping the 'cellos fairly high and understanding when best to use divisi and unison. And of course the players, all of whom are at the top of their games. All that technical stuff aside, the music was divine. Absolutely stunning. Still, yearning, incredibly sad in places. She uses subtle dissonance to extraordinary effect. She's not scared of space in her music either, which is a great, great skill. Whenever I attend a session of Fiona music my own writing changes very subtly. I thought I was something of an expert, but what she doesn't know about string writing really isn't worth knowing. The session was brilliantly organised as well, and ended forty minutes early! Oh for a session which actually ends early!
It was lovely to see all the players, four of whom had played at our wedding, and many of whom I'd worked with before on projects as diverse as the London Requiem, Songs From Hattersley, Blast! and The Busker Symphony, which has got to be almost ten years old now. Kotono, who played in that particular project was filmed on a rickshaw trundling down Brick Lane. Those were the days when everything I made was merry and camp! Blast! was recorded so long ago that I can't really remember how it goes!
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Anti-Semitic
My eyes are square. I've been staring at a computer all day. A brief sojourn to the gym is all that has kept me from turning into the middle-aged, 21st Century equivalent of Mike TV. It was worth it. I fired off an organ part for our recording of Oranges and Lemons, (which I've decided it a piece of music which needs to make me a fortune) and also finished the first draft of my brass band version of A Symphony for Yorkshire. Productive.
The news today was full of reports that anti-semitism is on the rise in the UK. We're told it's a reaction to Israel's behaviour in Palestine over the last few years. Even attempting to justify anti-semitism is unacceptable in my view, and I felt incredibly uncomfortable when this particular fact was trotted out by the reporter. No excuses. Besides, British Jewish people have nothing to do with the decisions made by the government in Israel. One of the most horrifying reports was of a man on a bus shouting hideous insults at a group of Jewish kids. The bus driver refused to stop to deal with the issue, which sadly doesn't really surprise me.
I witnessed a very similar event about ten years ago on the tube. In this instance it was a Northern man spitting and screaming racist abuse at an Indian bloke and his eight-year old son. It really upset me. The people he was spitting at seemed to just quietly accept it, like it was a everyday part of life for them, as homophobic bullying had been for me. I was upset for the father. Every father wants to protect his child, but, in this instance, he was helpless to do anything but accept the torrent of abuse and saliva heading his way.
No one on the tube said anything. Everyone merely buried their heads in books and newspapers and tried to imagine they were elsewhere.
I went apeshit at the man, followed him off the tube at Tottenham Court Road and had a scrap with him in the ticket hall, which ended with me sitting on the little bastard whilst screaming for the LU staff to call the police. The staff couldn't have been any less helpful, telling me to let the man go before he "had me up for assault." After a five-minute tussle, during which time I receive no help from anyone, I was forced to let the man go. He crawled out underneath the ticket barriers like a injured rabbit.
When the police finally arrived they said that there was little they would have been able to do even if I hadn't let the man go, because the Asian people the man spat at were unlikely to report the crime. So I made a statement but heard nothing more. I guess the man might think twice before behaving like that again. I think I gave him a bit of a shock!
The news today was full of reports that anti-semitism is on the rise in the UK. We're told it's a reaction to Israel's behaviour in Palestine over the last few years. Even attempting to justify anti-semitism is unacceptable in my view, and I felt incredibly uncomfortable when this particular fact was trotted out by the reporter. No excuses. Besides, British Jewish people have nothing to do with the decisions made by the government in Israel. One of the most horrifying reports was of a man on a bus shouting hideous insults at a group of Jewish kids. The bus driver refused to stop to deal with the issue, which sadly doesn't really surprise me.
I witnessed a very similar event about ten years ago on the tube. In this instance it was a Northern man spitting and screaming racist abuse at an Indian bloke and his eight-year old son. It really upset me. The people he was spitting at seemed to just quietly accept it, like it was a everyday part of life for them, as homophobic bullying had been for me. I was upset for the father. Every father wants to protect his child, but, in this instance, he was helpless to do anything but accept the torrent of abuse and saliva heading his way.
No one on the tube said anything. Everyone merely buried their heads in books and newspapers and tried to imagine they were elsewhere.
I went apeshit at the man, followed him off the tube at Tottenham Court Road and had a scrap with him in the ticket hall, which ended with me sitting on the little bastard whilst screaming for the LU staff to call the police. The staff couldn't have been any less helpful, telling me to let the man go before he "had me up for assault." After a five-minute tussle, during which time I receive no help from anyone, I was forced to let the man go. He crawled out underneath the ticket barriers like a injured rabbit.
When the police finally arrived they said that there was little they would have been able to do even if I hadn't let the man go, because the Asian people the man spat at were unlikely to report the crime. So I made a statement but heard nothing more. I guess the man might think twice before behaving like that again. I think I gave him a bit of a shock!
Broadcast Awards
We're currently at the Broadcast Awards in the palatial Grosvenor House Hotel. It's a very swanky ceremony, with a big slap-up meal and lots of people looking very suave in their sparkly dresses and dinner suits. We didn't win the award for best music programme. That particular award went to a glorified advert for Coldplay's latest album, which wasn't exactly comparing like with like! We didn't even make the opening montage - in fact, the clip they decided to use from Hollyoaks was of two gay men getting married - so from the moment we walked into the space we knew there was little hope of winning!
Some very odd programmes won awards, so none of us are too downbeat about the decision. BBC1 won the broadcast channel of the year, which I thought was particularly strange. I've seen some dreadful dross this year on that particular channel. The BBC is notoriously playing it safe at the moment. The big celebratory film package demonstrating the channel's high points was led by the Great British Bake Off, which we all know was initially a BBC 2 show.
Am I sounding like a bad loser? It was genuinely lovely to be there. I met lots of fascinating people and enjoyed playing the fame name game. Top celebrity sighting: Mary Berry.
Highlight of the evening was definitely chatting to Jon Snow, who threw his arms around us and told us Our Gay Wedding had been the best show ever made by Channel 4. His particular favourite moment was our mother's duet, which he described as beautiful and wonderfully moving. Jon Snow telling us that is worth fifty Broadcast Awards!
The last time I was at an award ceremony in this very venue, we didn't win either! That was the SONYs in 2008. I think I'm going to politely decline the next invitation I get to an award ceremony here. That, or I might have to assume it's going to be third time lucky...
Julie popped around earlier on tonight. She was watching a show at the Gatehouse up in the village and wanted a quiet space to do some dramaturgy with a chap she knows who's writing a musical. It was a joy to welcome him into our humble abode. It turns out he's actually a legend. He wrote "I Love to Love" by Tina Charles! It was almost impossible to talk to him without humming his song!
Bit pissed. Should sleep.
Some very odd programmes won awards, so none of us are too downbeat about the decision. BBC1 won the broadcast channel of the year, which I thought was particularly strange. I've seen some dreadful dross this year on that particular channel. The BBC is notoriously playing it safe at the moment. The big celebratory film package demonstrating the channel's high points was led by the Great British Bake Off, which we all know was initially a BBC 2 show.
Am I sounding like a bad loser? It was genuinely lovely to be there. I met lots of fascinating people and enjoyed playing the fame name game. Top celebrity sighting: Mary Berry.
Highlight of the evening was definitely chatting to Jon Snow, who threw his arms around us and told us Our Gay Wedding had been the best show ever made by Channel 4. His particular favourite moment was our mother's duet, which he described as beautiful and wonderfully moving. Jon Snow telling us that is worth fifty Broadcast Awards!
The last time I was at an award ceremony in this very venue, we didn't win either! That was the SONYs in 2008. I think I'm going to politely decline the next invitation I get to an award ceremony here. That, or I might have to assume it's going to be third time lucky...
Julie popped around earlier on tonight. She was watching a show at the Gatehouse up in the village and wanted a quiet space to do some dramaturgy with a chap she knows who's writing a musical. It was a joy to welcome him into our humble abode. It turns out he's actually a legend. He wrote "I Love to Love" by Tina Charles! It was almost impossible to talk to him without humming his song!
Bit pissed. Should sleep.
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
London odyssey
I hauled myself out of bed fairly early this morning to make the most of a day which I knew was going to be jam-packed with all sorts of fun. I opened the bedroom door to be greeted by Fiona, who stayed with us last night, and the news that it had snowed. I love snow. We looked out of the sitting room window at a winter wonderland. Snow was clinging to all the trees and people on the street below were shuffling and sliding their ways to work.
Fiona and I instantly headed to Highgate Woods. It's rather strange: Fiona is often with me when it snows in London. I think she's a harbinger of snow, which, for a woman whose name is an exact anagram of "brain of ice," is possibly unsurprising!
I had my camera with me and we took pictures between the trees, whilst excited dogs rushed about wondering what this glorious new substance was...
I returned home and spent a couple of hours working on my synopsis before heading into town with Nathan, carrying the enormous card which the kids from NYMT had made to thank Cameron Mackintosh for his generous donation to the Brass recording pot. It proved to be a somewhat cumbersome item to carry on the tube, especially when gusts of underground wind caught it, and it acted like a sail, guiding us through the corridors.
We deposited the card at Cameron's offices and the two charming people on reception made all the right noises. As cards go, I think it's a thing of very great beauty, but I was chuffed when someone else validated the fact!
At about midday, I ambled my way from Tottenham Court Road to Somerset House, determined that, if this wasn't destined to be a gym day, it would be a day which featured an obscene amount of walking!
I had tea in the little cafe on the courtyard at Somerset House. It turned out to be the most expensive tea I've ever consumed - £2.75 - but at least I got an hour of work done before meeting Michelle of the Turkie for lunch.
It was so lovely to see her. She's had some dreadful news, which actually made me physically hold my hand up to my mouth. Fortunately, she's being incredibly brave and choosing to look for the chinks of light rather than allowing the gloom of the situation to engulf her. She's well. Her family is well. And that's really all that matters. I felt incredibly proud of her, and somewhat humbled by her response to the crisis.
I guess, when we feel the world has bowled us a googly, we occasionally need to look around us to find out how others are doing. As if to prove this particular point, just as I wrote that very sentence I passed an elderly couple on the tube. He had withered legs, a calliper and was stumbling along with a stick. She was as bald as a coot, but for a few wisps of hair on the nape of her neck. Life is never as bad as we think...
I walked across Waterloo Bridge on my way to the osteopath. It was bitterly cold, but the sun was shining and there was a powder blue sky filled with scores of tissue paper clouds in delicate shades of grey, white and brown. The Thames itself was swollen, yellow and angry-looking. I guess all that melted snow had to find itself somewhere.
The osteopath session was good. He did a lot of manipulation on my upper back and then put me into a coma with some dorsal springing. I was mortified at the state of my boxer shorts however, which fell down as I took my trousers off for treatment, causing the osteopath to go a little red-faced. I must throw them away. That's twice within three days that they've embarrassed me. Naughty boxer shorts.
I took the tube from Borough to Old Street. It is Philippa's birthday today and I wanted to pop by with a little gift, see the god children and have a nice natter.
She wasn't there when I arrived, so I wandered back to Columbia Road in search of somewhere warm to have a drink and do some work. That place is a veritable ghost town on a week day afternoon. It's really rather strange to see an entire row of shops, including two, pubs closed on a Tuesday afternoon. I guess the flower market on Sundays is so successful it actually only makes sense to open up at weekends. I eventually found a pub and happily sat inside working, coming within an inch of finishing the second draft of my synopsis.
I spent two hours with Philippa. We made cup cakes and fuzzy felt circus scenes, whilst little Silver ran around like some sort of remote-controlled gnome on acid. I had no idea that a two-year old could move so swiftly. I simply don't understand how parents manage to keep their children alive at that age!
From Columbia Road, I walked to Liverpool Street, skirting between Brick Lane and Shoreditch. The whole district almost throbs with energy these days. Even the little side streets, which ten years ago were no-go zones peopled by drug dealers and gangs of Bengali yoots, are now filled with cafés, artisan bakeries and chi-chi boutiques selling reconditioned Ercol furniture. These were the slums of the 19th century; sickly ghettos filled with Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms in mainland Europe. In the 1960s the Jews moved to the fancy suburbs and were replaced by a whole new wave of immigrants from Bangladesh. Concrete slums replaced the ones made of red brick. The stalls started selling popadoms instead of pretzels, and the cycle of life continued...
Now they say the Somalis are replacing the Bengalis. I disagree. The young professionals have moved in...
And then within a blink of the eye, you emerge in the shimmering lights and steel skyscrapers of Liverpool Street. It's a fascinating journey through time and taste.
From Liverpool Street, I travelled to Holborn, and watched the tourists outside the tube station dicing with death to hail black cabs in the middle of a pedestrian crossing.
I had a Subway sandwich for tea on Shaftesbury Avenue where I finished the draft of my synopsis and met Nathan before walking into Soho to meet Richard Fisher, a Broadway agent, and friend of Nathan's. We had a drink in the upstairs bar at Compton's, which is always surprisingly empty, and a great deal more salubrious than most of the gay bars in Soho. Purely by chance we also managed to bump into Philip and Darryl who came into the bar saying they were having one for the road... One bottle of champagne that is!
So as we travel home tonight, my feet feel like blocks of lead, but I have a great sense of both achievement and pleasure. I've seen friends. I've worked hard. I've walked the streets of our beautiful city. All days should be like today.
Fiona and I instantly headed to Highgate Woods. It's rather strange: Fiona is often with me when it snows in London. I think she's a harbinger of snow, which, for a woman whose name is an exact anagram of "brain of ice," is possibly unsurprising!
I had my camera with me and we took pictures between the trees, whilst excited dogs rushed about wondering what this glorious new substance was...
I returned home and spent a couple of hours working on my synopsis before heading into town with Nathan, carrying the enormous card which the kids from NYMT had made to thank Cameron Mackintosh for his generous donation to the Brass recording pot. It proved to be a somewhat cumbersome item to carry on the tube, especially when gusts of underground wind caught it, and it acted like a sail, guiding us through the corridors.
We deposited the card at Cameron's offices and the two charming people on reception made all the right noises. As cards go, I think it's a thing of very great beauty, but I was chuffed when someone else validated the fact!
At about midday, I ambled my way from Tottenham Court Road to Somerset House, determined that, if this wasn't destined to be a gym day, it would be a day which featured an obscene amount of walking!
I had tea in the little cafe on the courtyard at Somerset House. It turned out to be the most expensive tea I've ever consumed - £2.75 - but at least I got an hour of work done before meeting Michelle of the Turkie for lunch.
It was so lovely to see her. She's had some dreadful news, which actually made me physically hold my hand up to my mouth. Fortunately, she's being incredibly brave and choosing to look for the chinks of light rather than allowing the gloom of the situation to engulf her. She's well. Her family is well. And that's really all that matters. I felt incredibly proud of her, and somewhat humbled by her response to the crisis.
I guess, when we feel the world has bowled us a googly, we occasionally need to look around us to find out how others are doing. As if to prove this particular point, just as I wrote that very sentence I passed an elderly couple on the tube. He had withered legs, a calliper and was stumbling along with a stick. She was as bald as a coot, but for a few wisps of hair on the nape of her neck. Life is never as bad as we think...
I walked across Waterloo Bridge on my way to the osteopath. It was bitterly cold, but the sun was shining and there was a powder blue sky filled with scores of tissue paper clouds in delicate shades of grey, white and brown. The Thames itself was swollen, yellow and angry-looking. I guess all that melted snow had to find itself somewhere.
The osteopath session was good. He did a lot of manipulation on my upper back and then put me into a coma with some dorsal springing. I was mortified at the state of my boxer shorts however, which fell down as I took my trousers off for treatment, causing the osteopath to go a little red-faced. I must throw them away. That's twice within three days that they've embarrassed me. Naughty boxer shorts.
I took the tube from Borough to Old Street. It is Philippa's birthday today and I wanted to pop by with a little gift, see the god children and have a nice natter.
She wasn't there when I arrived, so I wandered back to Columbia Road in search of somewhere warm to have a drink and do some work. That place is a veritable ghost town on a week day afternoon. It's really rather strange to see an entire row of shops, including two, pubs closed on a Tuesday afternoon. I guess the flower market on Sundays is so successful it actually only makes sense to open up at weekends. I eventually found a pub and happily sat inside working, coming within an inch of finishing the second draft of my synopsis.
I spent two hours with Philippa. We made cup cakes and fuzzy felt circus scenes, whilst little Silver ran around like some sort of remote-controlled gnome on acid. I had no idea that a two-year old could move so swiftly. I simply don't understand how parents manage to keep their children alive at that age!
From Columbia Road, I walked to Liverpool Street, skirting between Brick Lane and Shoreditch. The whole district almost throbs with energy these days. Even the little side streets, which ten years ago were no-go zones peopled by drug dealers and gangs of Bengali yoots, are now filled with cafés, artisan bakeries and chi-chi boutiques selling reconditioned Ercol furniture. These were the slums of the 19th century; sickly ghettos filled with Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms in mainland Europe. In the 1960s the Jews moved to the fancy suburbs and were replaced by a whole new wave of immigrants from Bangladesh. Concrete slums replaced the ones made of red brick. The stalls started selling popadoms instead of pretzels, and the cycle of life continued...
Now they say the Somalis are replacing the Bengalis. I disagree. The young professionals have moved in...
And then within a blink of the eye, you emerge in the shimmering lights and steel skyscrapers of Liverpool Street. It's a fascinating journey through time and taste.
From Liverpool Street, I travelled to Holborn, and watched the tourists outside the tube station dicing with death to hail black cabs in the middle of a pedestrian crossing.
I had a Subway sandwich for tea on Shaftesbury Avenue where I finished the draft of my synopsis and met Nathan before walking into Soho to meet Richard Fisher, a Broadway agent, and friend of Nathan's. We had a drink in the upstairs bar at Compton's, which is always surprisingly empty, and a great deal more salubrious than most of the gay bars in Soho. Purely by chance we also managed to bump into Philip and Darryl who came into the bar saying they were having one for the road... One bottle of champagne that is!
So as we travel home tonight, my feet feel like blocks of lead, but I have a great sense of both achievement and pleasure. I've seen friends. I've worked hard. I've walked the streets of our beautiful city. All days should be like today.
Monday, 2 February 2015
Bohemiana
The sun was a pretty extraordinary sight all day today; almost entirely white and sitting permanently behind dusty cloud, which made it look about twenty times its actual size.
The day started with a visit from Little Welsh Nathalie downstairs, who popped up to help me with the boards I've been making for the front of the Pepys Motet CD. She's very kindly taken all twenty away with her to decorate with Pepysian shorthand characters, and in the process taken a great weight off my mind! We had a cup of tea and nattered about the Archway Road and how it has a somewhat bohemian quality. The shops are all a little alternative, and everyone you see around here seems a bit wistful and artistic. The reason is plain. For much of the 1970s and 80s, all the houses on the road were condemned. The council wanted to turn the A1 into a dual carriageway, and whilst environmentalists and local residents fought to prevent this from happening, property prices plummeted. And what do bohemian people like? Large, cheap Victorian houses!
For the rest of the day I worked on the synopsis for my musical. I'm slowly paring things down; cutting unnecessary scenes and trying to get a sense of where the musical numbers need to be.
I went to the gym after lunch and discovered a faulty running machine with a slippery tread, which I'd reported as broken on Thursday. I was assured it would be taken out of action until such time as it could be fixed, but there it was, switched on and ready for anyone to use. I'm usually fairly unimpressed by anyone who takes health and safety too seriously, but this felt like a fairly major problem. I told the manager, who blamed the people who fix the machines, whom she said were taking the piss out of LA Fitness. "No," I said, "taking the piss is not taking a dangerous piece of gym equipment out of service." She looked a little sheepish!
This evening I ran a rehearsal with the Fleet Singers. I went at quite a lick, and worked them incredibly hard, which I think they appreciated! It's important with a lengthy work like The Man in the Straw Hat, that everyone has the confidence of knowing the geography of the piece before we get too hung up on the nitty gritty. Too much detail too early on and everyone gets freaked out and thinks they'll never reach the end!
The day started with a visit from Little Welsh Nathalie downstairs, who popped up to help me with the boards I've been making for the front of the Pepys Motet CD. She's very kindly taken all twenty away with her to decorate with Pepysian shorthand characters, and in the process taken a great weight off my mind! We had a cup of tea and nattered about the Archway Road and how it has a somewhat bohemian quality. The shops are all a little alternative, and everyone you see around here seems a bit wistful and artistic. The reason is plain. For much of the 1970s and 80s, all the houses on the road were condemned. The council wanted to turn the A1 into a dual carriageway, and whilst environmentalists and local residents fought to prevent this from happening, property prices plummeted. And what do bohemian people like? Large, cheap Victorian houses!
For the rest of the day I worked on the synopsis for my musical. I'm slowly paring things down; cutting unnecessary scenes and trying to get a sense of where the musical numbers need to be.
I went to the gym after lunch and discovered a faulty running machine with a slippery tread, which I'd reported as broken on Thursday. I was assured it would be taken out of action until such time as it could be fixed, but there it was, switched on and ready for anyone to use. I'm usually fairly unimpressed by anyone who takes health and safety too seriously, but this felt like a fairly major problem. I told the manager, who blamed the people who fix the machines, whom she said were taking the piss out of LA Fitness. "No," I said, "taking the piss is not taking a dangerous piece of gym equipment out of service." She looked a little sheepish!
This evening I ran a rehearsal with the Fleet Singers. I went at quite a lick, and worked them incredibly hard, which I think they appreciated! It's important with a lengthy work like The Man in the Straw Hat, that everyone has the confidence of knowing the geography of the piece before we get too hung up on the nitty gritty. Too much detail too early on and everyone gets freaked out and thinks they'll never reach the end!
Sunday, 1 February 2015
Buying trousers with the Orthodox Jews
We've had a right old day today. It's quite unlike me to start a Sunday with a list of things to do, but we had much to achieve, and by the time we'd had a lie-in and watched the disastrous Andy Murray match in Australia, there wasn't a great deal of time in which to do it!
Top of the list was buying two new pairs of trousers. If I'm to descend into poverty, I'm not starting the process looking like a tramp! It turns out I only have two pairs of trousers in the world. My second best pair has a hole in the crotch and my best pair no longer fastens at the top. We were in Sainsbury's earlier on and they dropped down to my knees, followed by my boxer shorts, because the elastic has gone in them. If it hadn't been for my duffle coat, I would have bared my behind to an entire shop of people! It's times like this that you have to acknowledge that things have got a little out of control!
We went to Brent Cross and wandered around between the mirrors (which were everywhere) and the myopic Orthodox Jews (who were also everywhere, holding things they were contemplating purchasing right up to their bespectacled faces!)
I hate shopping. Nathan hates it even more. He gets shopping tummy, which he describes as a sort of anxiety. Nothing seemed to fit and everything seemed to be either made for an anorexia-thin teenaged lad, or modelled on the sort of thing that Michael Portillo wears in his train journeys around Britain show: all mismatched jackets and semi-formal canvas trousers in the garish colours which 65-year old men think of as fun and funky. I panic bought some grey things from M and S and some black things from T K Max. Call me classy if you like, but the good news is that I won't have to deal with another undignified episode in Sainsbury's again!
We came home and I did a stack of admin before finishing the first draft of my new musical's synopsis which is way too long, although I would far rather read a detailed synopsis than something which doesn't have enough information to give me the full picture. I slogged hard to get it done, and finally finished at 9.30pm.
I am resolved to lose more weight. Looking at myself in all those Brent Cross mirrors was not a great deal of fun. I'm thinking of getting a pedometer and trying to walk 10,000 steps in a day. I did that once, about ten years ago, and the weight fell off me. A very close friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, is currently wearing a pedometer on her wrist, and confessed to me that, sometimes, when she doesn't have enough steps registered, she puts it on her daughter and asks her to run around for a while. That's how to beat the system!
Top of the list was buying two new pairs of trousers. If I'm to descend into poverty, I'm not starting the process looking like a tramp! It turns out I only have two pairs of trousers in the world. My second best pair has a hole in the crotch and my best pair no longer fastens at the top. We were in Sainsbury's earlier on and they dropped down to my knees, followed by my boxer shorts, because the elastic has gone in them. If it hadn't been for my duffle coat, I would have bared my behind to an entire shop of people! It's times like this that you have to acknowledge that things have got a little out of control!
We went to Brent Cross and wandered around between the mirrors (which were everywhere) and the myopic Orthodox Jews (who were also everywhere, holding things they were contemplating purchasing right up to their bespectacled faces!)
I hate shopping. Nathan hates it even more. He gets shopping tummy, which he describes as a sort of anxiety. Nothing seemed to fit and everything seemed to be either made for an anorexia-thin teenaged lad, or modelled on the sort of thing that Michael Portillo wears in his train journeys around Britain show: all mismatched jackets and semi-formal canvas trousers in the garish colours which 65-year old men think of as fun and funky. I panic bought some grey things from M and S and some black things from T K Max. Call me classy if you like, but the good news is that I won't have to deal with another undignified episode in Sainsbury's again!
We came home and I did a stack of admin before finishing the first draft of my new musical's synopsis which is way too long, although I would far rather read a detailed synopsis than something which doesn't have enough information to give me the full picture. I slogged hard to get it done, and finally finished at 9.30pm.
I am resolved to lose more weight. Looking at myself in all those Brent Cross mirrors was not a great deal of fun. I'm thinking of getting a pedometer and trying to walk 10,000 steps in a day. I did that once, about ten years ago, and the weight fell off me. A very close friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, is currently wearing a pedometer on her wrist, and confessed to me that, sometimes, when she doesn't have enough steps registered, she puts it on her daughter and asks her to run around for a while. That's how to beat the system!
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