Our garden had turned into a building site by the time I woke up this morning. I suspect someone had done someone else a favour, either because they were too nice to say no, or because a little bit of money had exchanged hands! When you live in rented accommodation, it's always hard to get to the bottom of what goes on in the communal garden! Whatever the case, I woke up with the bricks, rubble, mortar and God knows what else of an ten foot wall from God knows where sitting in a heap under our tree! I don't really know who was more confused: Me or the squirrels. It looked like a sort of post-earthquake hell-zone. I was half expecting to see a load of sniffer dogs searching for survivors. I can only assume one of our neighbours - quite a long way down the terrace - has knocked a wall down, which is being rebuilt somewhere. As the day went on, a rather camp little petrol-powered wheel-barrow was going up and down the alleyway collecting bricks and taking them elsewhere. It was all very curious. And a little noisy!
Anyway, true to their word, every thing was removed by the close of business, and the garden was swept and left looking rather lovely.
I spent the day sitting at the kitchen table slowly working my way through the Brass re-writes, stopping periodically to apply for a job, or send an email to someone or other about another potential idea. I'm like an ideas factory at the moment!
I am now at the end of the first draft of the eleventh draft of Brass, if that makes sense! Eleven drafts! Eleven Drafts, I say, (for what I tell you three times is true!)
I went to the gym and worked the late part of the afternoon and into the evening on my sofa, before signing up for a website which advertises jobs in TV and film. I tend to assume there's no such thing. Jobs in my industry are invariably only advertised so that no one can be accused of nepotism or internal appointing when it turns out that the job has already been given to someone known to the company! But, hey ho, if we all remained jaded and brutally pessimistic about our industries, we'd end up going entirely mad! Sometimes you've just got to keep your fingers crossed and hope there's a chance.
I'd gone entirely cross-eyed by the time Nathan returned from work and he had to take me for a walk around the block to buy a tin of pears and clear my head which was filled with little stubs of dialogue from Brass all shouting at one another and vying for air.
Saturday, 14 March 2015
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Polyps and piano bars
Nathan had his long-awaited appointment with a vocal specialist today, funnily enough, with the man who removed a polyp from my vocal chords about four years ago. He's the best in the business and did a cracking job of operating on me... The full week's voice rest after the operation was a bit painful for a man who can't stop talking and I got a mega dose of whooping cough almost immediately after recovering, but none of these things can be blamed on Mr Rubin!
Anyway, unfortunately, Nathan didn't end up seeing the guru and was instead sent to the next door room to a wan who seemed spectacularly uninterested and turned out to be no more useful than our local GP, prescribing exactly the same pills and telling him to come back in four months if they'd not done any good. Well, they didn't do any good four months ago... Sometimes I despair!
Nathan came out feeling utterly deflated, and properly fobbed off, so I told him to go back in and insist on being seen by Mr Rubin, there and then.
...And what a difference a different consultation makes! Mr Rubin did all sorts of extra tests on Nathan, ruling out anything sinister and basically coming up with a diagnosis which felt a great deal more believable, and more crucially something which involved actual hands-on treatment rather than a load of proton pump inhibitors.
I was in the waiting room when the BBC announced that Terry Pratchett had died. There were audible gasps of sadness from people in the room. I guess it very much demonstrated how loved Pratchett was a writer. The news anchorman actually prefaced the story with the announcement, "now we've got some very sad news..." It's not every day that a news reader is anything other than brutally dispassionate.
As we left the hospital, Nathan had to go to the reception to book himself in for his next appointment. The woman behind the counter had a stamp on her desk, which I asked if I could have a go on. She was surprisingly accommodating and handed the stamp over, so now Nathan's official letter is emblazoned with the words, "hearing problem." Every time he shows it to an official from the hospital from now on they'll be obliged to talk to him really loudly!
We went from King's Cross to Friern Barnet, in the process learning, via twitter, that the journalist who interviewed me on Tuesday had put a lovely piece about The Man in the Straw Hat, in the Camden New People's Journal with the heading "Betjeman and Benjamin" which I thought was rather sweet.
We were in Friern Barnet to say a final goodbye to Ian Knauer. We ate chocolate and drank tea (Nathan didn't partake in either, because both are dreadful for acid reflux - which is apparently part of his issue.)
Saying goodbye to Ian was incredibly difficult. A bit like saying goodbye to a score of potential future happy memories.
This evening, we went down South to Kennington to see a West End Wendies cabaret in an upstairs room at Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec. It happens every Thursday night, I'm told, and is a well-organised, beautifully-compared open mic night, where a mixture of industry pros and Joe Publics get up and perform numbers from the shows. It's very much based on the New York piano bar model. I could have been at the Duplex, Monster or Marie's Crisis. Abbie and Julie both did a little turn. It's very much worth tipping up one week if you like the occasional night of musical theatre classics performed by a hotch-potch of crazy eccentrics of varying abilities.
Anyway, unfortunately, Nathan didn't end up seeing the guru and was instead sent to the next door room to a wan who seemed spectacularly uninterested and turned out to be no more useful than our local GP, prescribing exactly the same pills and telling him to come back in four months if they'd not done any good. Well, they didn't do any good four months ago... Sometimes I despair!
Nathan came out feeling utterly deflated, and properly fobbed off, so I told him to go back in and insist on being seen by Mr Rubin, there and then.
...And what a difference a different consultation makes! Mr Rubin did all sorts of extra tests on Nathan, ruling out anything sinister and basically coming up with a diagnosis which felt a great deal more believable, and more crucially something which involved actual hands-on treatment rather than a load of proton pump inhibitors.
I was in the waiting room when the BBC announced that Terry Pratchett had died. There were audible gasps of sadness from people in the room. I guess it very much demonstrated how loved Pratchett was a writer. The news anchorman actually prefaced the story with the announcement, "now we've got some very sad news..." It's not every day that a news reader is anything other than brutally dispassionate.
As we left the hospital, Nathan had to go to the reception to book himself in for his next appointment. The woman behind the counter had a stamp on her desk, which I asked if I could have a go on. She was surprisingly accommodating and handed the stamp over, so now Nathan's official letter is emblazoned with the words, "hearing problem." Every time he shows it to an official from the hospital from now on they'll be obliged to talk to him really loudly!
We went from King's Cross to Friern Barnet, in the process learning, via twitter, that the journalist who interviewed me on Tuesday had put a lovely piece about The Man in the Straw Hat, in the Camden New People's Journal with the heading "Betjeman and Benjamin" which I thought was rather sweet.
We were in Friern Barnet to say a final goodbye to Ian Knauer. We ate chocolate and drank tea (Nathan didn't partake in either, because both are dreadful for acid reflux - which is apparently part of his issue.)
Saying goodbye to Ian was incredibly difficult. A bit like saying goodbye to a score of potential future happy memories.
This evening, we went down South to Kennington to see a West End Wendies cabaret in an upstairs room at Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec. It happens every Thursday night, I'm told, and is a well-organised, beautifully-compared open mic night, where a mixture of industry pros and Joe Publics get up and perform numbers from the shows. It's very much based on the New York piano bar model. I could have been at the Duplex, Monster or Marie's Crisis. Abbie and Julie both did a little turn. It's very much worth tipping up one week if you like the occasional night of musical theatre classics performed by a hotch-potch of crazy eccentrics of varying abilities.
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Sweeney Brass
We've just returned from an extremely pleasurable night at the theatre, made even more pleasurable by the presence of many of the cast of Brass who were in the audience with me. We went as a little NYMT trip, organised by the lovely Jezza, who'd been given tickets by Hilary Williams, an NYMT angel, and one of the producers of the show we saw tonight.
Talk in the foyer was of the Brass re-writes which I'm currently working on. Word had got around that four roles had been cut from the show and I was instantly cornered and asked to spill the beans. We played a guessing game. It's always interesting to see the characters that people assume are going to go. Three of the characters seemed to surprise no one. The fourth shocked almost everyone. This particular decision even made Philippa, the dramaturg, gasp, and the process has been like cutting my right arm off, because with every line of his that I cut, I'm reminded of the remarkable actor who played the role in our production last year and the real life Pal whom he so exquisitely brought to life. Still, I guess, for an actor, there's something rather comforting about knowing that you were the only person to ever have played a role, and when the show comes round again, he'll have to play someone else.
The show we saw tonight was Sweeney Todd, performed in a pie shop which had been set up in a night club in the heart of the West End, next to Les Miserables. I'm told the original production took place in an actual disused pie shop somewhere in South London. The word intimate doesn't do any justice to the production. It was intense. Claustrophobic. Dark. Brooding. Engulfing. There couldn't have been more than seventy in the audience, all seated at long communal tables which doubled up as stages for the eight cast members, the majority of whom were quite remarkable. Top marks to Siobhán McCarthy, who played Mrs Lovett with humour, pathos and power, and, on the more subtle stakes, the lovely young actor who played Anthony without any of the simpering whimper which so often comes hand-in-hand with that particular role.
It was deftly directed with an almost flawless attention to detail. It deserved every second of its lengthy standing ovation, and I would recommend it without hesitation. But book soon. It's a limited run, and it WILL sell out.
Talk in the foyer was of the Brass re-writes which I'm currently working on. Word had got around that four roles had been cut from the show and I was instantly cornered and asked to spill the beans. We played a guessing game. It's always interesting to see the characters that people assume are going to go. Three of the characters seemed to surprise no one. The fourth shocked almost everyone. This particular decision even made Philippa, the dramaturg, gasp, and the process has been like cutting my right arm off, because with every line of his that I cut, I'm reminded of the remarkable actor who played the role in our production last year and the real life Pal whom he so exquisitely brought to life. Still, I guess, for an actor, there's something rather comforting about knowing that you were the only person to ever have played a role, and when the show comes round again, he'll have to play someone else.
The show we saw tonight was Sweeney Todd, performed in a pie shop which had been set up in a night club in the heart of the West End, next to Les Miserables. I'm told the original production took place in an actual disused pie shop somewhere in South London. The word intimate doesn't do any justice to the production. It was intense. Claustrophobic. Dark. Brooding. Engulfing. There couldn't have been more than seventy in the audience, all seated at long communal tables which doubled up as stages for the eight cast members, the majority of whom were quite remarkable. Top marks to Siobhán McCarthy, who played Mrs Lovett with humour, pathos and power, and, on the more subtle stakes, the lovely young actor who played Anthony without any of the simpering whimper which so often comes hand-in-hand with that particular role.
It was deftly directed with an almost flawless attention to detail. It deserved every second of its lengthy standing ovation, and I would recommend it without hesitation. But book soon. It's a limited run, and it WILL sell out.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Interview in Highgate
I went up into Highgate village first thing this morning to meet a very charming journalist from the Camden New Journal. We were taking about The Man in the Straw Hat, but he asked me all sorts of questions about my entire career, and had done a great deal of research, for which I was very grateful to him.
He actually started crying when I talked about our wedding, which touched me enormously. I got a little tearful myself when talking about the terrible things LGBT people are still having to face in various corners of the globe. My thoughts have recently been occupied by the terrible plight of gay men in Syria. There was a time when Damascus was a relative safe haven for gay people. I can't imagine how terrifying it must be to live there with no option of escape. I sometimes wonder if LGBT people in some of these terrible counties find themselves trawling through the internet for images of gay people in places where gay people are free. Would they find the concept of two men getting married in a musical touching, or over the top in a deeply horrifying and sinister way?
Speaking of tears, I sent my Mother a photograph yesterday of the little silver elephant which I always wear around my neck sitting on the grave of my grandparents, her parents. I think she found the image, and the blog I wrote yesterday, fairly moving, and sent me a poem by Tennyson, which came to her mind and I thought was highly appropriate:
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
I made a start on the new draft of Brass today. It's a deeply daunting experience, not least because Nathan fundamentally disagrees with one aspect of the notes I went through with Philippa last week and Nathan can be fairly insistent and dogmatic when he gets the bone between his teeth! I guess I have to dive deep into my heart to find out what I myself really feel. Nevertheless, a start has been made on the new draft, which I guess is the most difficult part dealt with.
He actually started crying when I talked about our wedding, which touched me enormously. I got a little tearful myself when talking about the terrible things LGBT people are still having to face in various corners of the globe. My thoughts have recently been occupied by the terrible plight of gay men in Syria. There was a time when Damascus was a relative safe haven for gay people. I can't imagine how terrifying it must be to live there with no option of escape. I sometimes wonder if LGBT people in some of these terrible counties find themselves trawling through the internet for images of gay people in places where gay people are free. Would they find the concept of two men getting married in a musical touching, or over the top in a deeply horrifying and sinister way?
Speaking of tears, I sent my Mother a photograph yesterday of the little silver elephant which I always wear around my neck sitting on the grave of my grandparents, her parents. I think she found the image, and the blog I wrote yesterday, fairly moving, and sent me a poem by Tennyson, which came to her mind and I thought was highly appropriate:
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
I made a start on the new draft of Brass today. It's a deeply daunting experience, not least because Nathan fundamentally disagrees with one aspect of the notes I went through with Philippa last week and Nathan can be fairly insistent and dogmatic when he gets the bone between his teeth! I guess I have to dive deep into my heart to find out what I myself really feel. Nevertheless, a start has been made on the new draft, which I guess is the most difficult part dealt with.
Sent to Coventry
I went to Coventry today, the ancestral home of most of my family. I was there to meet Hamish at the Belgrade theatre. We talked about musicals, and the general lack of funding in theatre at the moment. Coventry has just been massively hit by another round of cuts. It's deeply depressing. No one can afford to commission or perform new musicals and no one in this country is taking responsibility for the development of composers and writers. What commissions there ARE usually come as a result of producers buying the rights to books and films, which of course inevitably leads to the watering down of passion. So all in all the meeting was a little bleak....
Far less bleak was my lunch afterwards with Siobhan from BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, who was the brains and braun behind Coventry Market: The Musical, which was a massive community musical film we made in 2008, featuring the shoppers and stall holders of Coventry's famous circular indoor market, which was built from the ashes of the city after the Second World War.
Siobhan was on great form and took me to a little vegetarian cafe in a dodgy-looking concrete jungle on the edge of the city centre. All the food on the menu was named after different actors. Shiv had a "Tortilda Swinton" and I had the "Ingrid Burgerman." When I first looked at the menu, I didn't realise we were in the land of food puns, and only did so as I said out loud, "what the hell is Soup Pollard?"
After lunch I went to Stoneleigh, a little village outside the city where my Grannie lived from when I was born to when she died about ten years ago now, I suppose. It's a stunning village, but it was all a little wind-swept today. Spring has not yet been declared in the Midlands. I parked up on the Main Street and ambled down to my Grannie's old house, which I was relieved to see still bore the name, High Beams, which my family gave it more than 40 years ago.
I walked down the lane to the river, which remains beautifully clear with bright green reeds undulating in the water like the tails of tropical fish. I stared into the water for some time, wondering how many times I'd stood on that particular spot as a child and in how many different weather conditions. I remember when the whole lane flooded and we had to walk along wooden raised walkways, which have long since disintegrated or been engulfed by cow parsley.
I walked across the meadow to the church, and stood for some time looking at my Grandparents' grave and feeling supremely emotional. I don't quite know why it affected me so badly this time. I suppose I was experiencing an emotional response to the way and speed that time passes. There are probably very few people left in the village these days who remember my Grandparents. I stared into the old house, with its new lamps and lovely leather sofas, and tried to remember what it looked like twenty or thirty years ago. The bubble wrap in the windows, the strange polished stone eggs, the high-backed, 1960s swivel chairs in the study which would have been so amazing for children who wanted to recreate blind auditions in The Voice.
I drove back home to London, listening to a debate on Radio 4 about Islam and the fact that large numbers of Muslims think that Armageddon is on its way. Apparently, the end of the world will be signified by in-fighting within Muslim sects and wars fought largely in Syria. (Familiar sounding?) The actual end is triggered by a Muslim army marching into Rome (bit random) and Jesus reappearing, ripping the cross in half, and telling everyone he was a Muslim all along. (Seriously!) So basically, ISIS are all behaving like c**ts because they genuinely think they're bringing about the end of the world, which is, you know, nice. I'm fast losing patience with that lot. Since they started tying gay men to chairs and lobbing them off buildings, I'm been thinking they need to be wiped off the face of the earth to enjoy the wrath of an eternity of nothingness. They're backward and violent and it's time to start getting tough with communities and individuals in this country who don't take enough responsibility for their own. Let them go to Syria. Why stop them? Just don't let them return.
I rehearsed the Fleet Singers again tonight. Get your diaries out. Our concert is on Sunday 22nd March, which would appear to be two weeks away! Someone had made absinthe-flavoured chocolate brownies for the interval refreshments, which were absolutely delicious, in a sort of heady way!
Far less bleak was my lunch afterwards with Siobhan from BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, who was the brains and braun behind Coventry Market: The Musical, which was a massive community musical film we made in 2008, featuring the shoppers and stall holders of Coventry's famous circular indoor market, which was built from the ashes of the city after the Second World War.
Siobhan was on great form and took me to a little vegetarian cafe in a dodgy-looking concrete jungle on the edge of the city centre. All the food on the menu was named after different actors. Shiv had a "Tortilda Swinton" and I had the "Ingrid Burgerman." When I first looked at the menu, I didn't realise we were in the land of food puns, and only did so as I said out loud, "what the hell is Soup Pollard?"
After lunch I went to Stoneleigh, a little village outside the city where my Grannie lived from when I was born to when she died about ten years ago now, I suppose. It's a stunning village, but it was all a little wind-swept today. Spring has not yet been declared in the Midlands. I parked up on the Main Street and ambled down to my Grannie's old house, which I was relieved to see still bore the name, High Beams, which my family gave it more than 40 years ago.
I walked down the lane to the river, which remains beautifully clear with bright green reeds undulating in the water like the tails of tropical fish. I stared into the water for some time, wondering how many times I'd stood on that particular spot as a child and in how many different weather conditions. I remember when the whole lane flooded and we had to walk along wooden raised walkways, which have long since disintegrated or been engulfed by cow parsley.
I walked across the meadow to the church, and stood for some time looking at my Grandparents' grave and feeling supremely emotional. I don't quite know why it affected me so badly this time. I suppose I was experiencing an emotional response to the way and speed that time passes. There are probably very few people left in the village these days who remember my Grandparents. I stared into the old house, with its new lamps and lovely leather sofas, and tried to remember what it looked like twenty or thirty years ago. The bubble wrap in the windows, the strange polished stone eggs, the high-backed, 1960s swivel chairs in the study which would have been so amazing for children who wanted to recreate blind auditions in The Voice.
I drove back home to London, listening to a debate on Radio 4 about Islam and the fact that large numbers of Muslims think that Armageddon is on its way. Apparently, the end of the world will be signified by in-fighting within Muslim sects and wars fought largely in Syria. (Familiar sounding?) The actual end is triggered by a Muslim army marching into Rome (bit random) and Jesus reappearing, ripping the cross in half, and telling everyone he was a Muslim all along. (Seriously!) So basically, ISIS are all behaving like c**ts because they genuinely think they're bringing about the end of the world, which is, you know, nice. I'm fast losing patience with that lot. Since they started tying gay men to chairs and lobbing them off buildings, I'm been thinking they need to be wiped off the face of the earth to enjoy the wrath of an eternity of nothingness. They're backward and violent and it's time to start getting tough with communities and individuals in this country who don't take enough responsibility for their own. Let them go to Syria. Why stop them? Just don't let them return.
I rehearsed the Fleet Singers again tonight. Get your diaries out. Our concert is on Sunday 22nd March, which would appear to be two weeks away! Someone had made absinthe-flavoured chocolate brownies for the interval refreshments, which were absolutely delicious, in a sort of heady way!
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Portrait sixteen and goodbye-ee
It's been a day of meeting friends. Everyone needs a day like this from time to time...
Hilary came up to Highgate first thing and we walked through the woods up to Muswell Hill where we bought pastries before heading back via Parkland Walk with its Mrs Tiggywinklesque elevated views across the city.
It's always so lovely to see Hils. There was a time before she moved to Lewes and had little Jago, when we saw each other all the time and I miss our chats about music and singing and art.
We went down to Giraffe on the South Bank this afternoon for Ian's goodbye drinks. So many people were there: Abbie and Ian, Julie, Sam and Matt, Anthony, Shannon, Llio... We laughed a great deal, had some lovely food, wound Anthony up a treat and sang Goodbye-ee and lots of other First World War songs. In fact, at one point we sang in such glorious multi part harmony that the entire restaurant started clapping!
Highlight of the evening was undoubtedly taking Llio's portrait for the front cover of the Pepys Motet album. Llio sings the pivotal alto three track on all movements of the piece. The third alto sings almost constantly through the piece, and has a lot of prominent solo lines.
We set up a fabulous photograph in front of the Royal Festival Hall with a load of candles and lanterns. Anthony and Nathan shone torches onto Llio's face and Shannon dropped glitter in front of the camera for a little added campery. The results were dramatic and beautiful. Llio looked like Tori Amos; red hair glowing like the embers of a dying fire.
We drove Ian and Jem back to Friern Barnet at the end of the evening, vowing to see Ian again before he leaves next Saturday. Procrastination, or what? I genuinely don't want to say goodbye to him! None of us do.
We get to keep Jem for a few more weeks...
Hilary came up to Highgate first thing and we walked through the woods up to Muswell Hill where we bought pastries before heading back via Parkland Walk with its Mrs Tiggywinklesque elevated views across the city.
It's always so lovely to see Hils. There was a time before she moved to Lewes and had little Jago, when we saw each other all the time and I miss our chats about music and singing and art.
We went down to Giraffe on the South Bank this afternoon for Ian's goodbye drinks. So many people were there: Abbie and Ian, Julie, Sam and Matt, Anthony, Shannon, Llio... We laughed a great deal, had some lovely food, wound Anthony up a treat and sang Goodbye-ee and lots of other First World War songs. In fact, at one point we sang in such glorious multi part harmony that the entire restaurant started clapping!
Highlight of the evening was undoubtedly taking Llio's portrait for the front cover of the Pepys Motet album. Llio sings the pivotal alto three track on all movements of the piece. The third alto sings almost constantly through the piece, and has a lot of prominent solo lines.
We set up a fabulous photograph in front of the Royal Festival Hall with a load of candles and lanterns. Anthony and Nathan shone torches onto Llio's face and Shannon dropped glitter in front of the camera for a little added campery. The results were dramatic and beautiful. Llio looked like Tori Amos; red hair glowing like the embers of a dying fire.
We drove Ian and Jem back to Friern Barnet at the end of the evening, vowing to see Ian again before he leaves next Saturday. Procrastination, or what? I genuinely don't want to say goodbye to him! None of us do.
We get to keep Jem for a few more weeks...
Saturday, 7 March 2015
Brunch and daffodils
I received another wonderful email from Australia in the midst of the UKIP mayhem yesterday, which I found deeply moving. "Dear Ben, I watched "our gay wedding" here in Australia this week. Many thanks for sharing that part of your lives. It was an education for me..truly…and changed my views…to better ones. The basis of all human rights is ultimately love…and you demonstrated this wonderfully. So thank you. My best wishes to you and Nathan... people who point you towards a better view of truth/kindness are ultimately good friends… May you both be well and happy..live in peace and concord."
It is profoundly moving to know that our love has been partially responsible for an epiphany of this nature. The thought almost blows my mind, in fact. More excitingly there seems to be a growing number of people in Oz who are referencing our wedding whilst calling for equal marriage in Australia.
I cast my mind back a year to a time when we thought by doing the project we ran the risk of becoming national laughing stocks. I am so relieved that we were brave enough to do it. A year on, we've been nominated for five major awards and moved many people in a country ten thousand miles away. Seems astonishing I'm out of work!!
Philippa sent me an early morning text this morning. I must have been awake when it arrived, because I heard the phone gently vibrating. I answered the text and got out of bed to go to the loo. When I got back in, Nathan was as warm as toast, and it struck me that there's actually very little that is more wonderful than the feeling of getting back into bed for a snuggle with a toasty warm partner!
I had brunch with Llio in Muswell Hill. I haven't seen her for a while, and she was looking fabulous. Rob Viola walked past the cafe, waved, and popped his head in, apparently just to say how cool Llio's hair looked! He was absolutely right of course: it's pillar box red and glows in sunlight. On a beautiful warm spring day like today, it glows big time! We spent our brunch buoying each other up. Both of us are writing and recording music in an era where no one seems to want to buy recorded music, so a lot of mutual support is required!
I walked back to Highgate through the woods which were full of silly, happy, bounding dogs and thronging with the sound of birdsong! The first daffodils are up as well.
From Highgate, I went to Kentish Town to rehearse the Fleet Singers. We made our way slowly, but surely through about half of the piece, and bits of it are beginning to sound really rather lovely.
There was a glorious sunset as I drove back to Highgate. As I walked up the steps to the front door of the flat, an aeroplane passed over, high in the sky. It was glowing blood red and was a curiously beautiful sight.
We heard this year's UK entry for Eurovision this evening, which is a fusion of Charleston music and trip hop. It's very Will i Am, and I rather like its vibe. I'm told the Eurovision fans are less convinced. I guess it all depends how well the performers perform the song live. I was horrified that the BBC didn't opt to unveil it on terrestrial telly. You had to press the red button for the big reveal (hopelessly inauspicious.) I was also horrified that they opted to interview the performers rather than the song writers. It is, after all, the Eurovision Song Contest. A contest for songs, not singers!
It is profoundly moving to know that our love has been partially responsible for an epiphany of this nature. The thought almost blows my mind, in fact. More excitingly there seems to be a growing number of people in Oz who are referencing our wedding whilst calling for equal marriage in Australia.
I cast my mind back a year to a time when we thought by doing the project we ran the risk of becoming national laughing stocks. I am so relieved that we were brave enough to do it. A year on, we've been nominated for five major awards and moved many people in a country ten thousand miles away. Seems astonishing I'm out of work!!
Philippa sent me an early morning text this morning. I must have been awake when it arrived, because I heard the phone gently vibrating. I answered the text and got out of bed to go to the loo. When I got back in, Nathan was as warm as toast, and it struck me that there's actually very little that is more wonderful than the feeling of getting back into bed for a snuggle with a toasty warm partner!
I had brunch with Llio in Muswell Hill. I haven't seen her for a while, and she was looking fabulous. Rob Viola walked past the cafe, waved, and popped his head in, apparently just to say how cool Llio's hair looked! He was absolutely right of course: it's pillar box red and glows in sunlight. On a beautiful warm spring day like today, it glows big time! We spent our brunch buoying each other up. Both of us are writing and recording music in an era where no one seems to want to buy recorded music, so a lot of mutual support is required!
I walked back to Highgate through the woods which were full of silly, happy, bounding dogs and thronging with the sound of birdsong! The first daffodils are up as well.
From Highgate, I went to Kentish Town to rehearse the Fleet Singers. We made our way slowly, but surely through about half of the piece, and bits of it are beginning to sound really rather lovely.
There was a glorious sunset as I drove back to Highgate. As I walked up the steps to the front door of the flat, an aeroplane passed over, high in the sky. It was glowing blood red and was a curiously beautiful sight.
We heard this year's UK entry for Eurovision this evening, which is a fusion of Charleston music and trip hop. It's very Will i Am, and I rather like its vibe. I'm told the Eurovision fans are less convinced. I guess it all depends how well the performers perform the song live. I was horrified that the BBC didn't opt to unveil it on terrestrial telly. You had to press the red button for the big reveal (hopelessly inauspicious.) I was also horrified that they opted to interview the performers rather than the song writers. It is, after all, the Eurovision Song Contest. A contest for songs, not singers!
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