A tweet has recently been doing the rounds which depicts two contrasting images from America. One shows a black man with his hands in the air in front of a group of policemen wearing bullet-proof vests and pointing guns aggressively. The other is of a white man happily posing for a selfie with a jovial-looking policeman in riot gear. As separate images they're strong. Placed alongside one another, they're incendiary, particularly when a caption is added: "This is what white privilege looks like."
We gasp at the photos, horrified. How can we allow this to happen in a civilised society? But how many of us stop and think about what we're actually being shown? Although they've been put together, these pictures aren't linked in any way. They show policemen in different uniforms, in different places, in different unrelated, unknown circumstances.
The separate stories behind these two photographs are also unclear. Zoom out of one, and you might find the automatic weapon hastily dropped as the black man raised his hands in surrender. Zoom out of the other and there might be a row of men in riot gear posing for photos with people of every colour and creed. We just don't know. But it's dangerous to search for a link..
In order to truly view the scene in the first picture as racist, the police would need to have been shouting racist abuse, or we'd need to be convinced that the circumstances surrounding the picture were disproportionately heavy-handed... Likewise, for the image of the white man having his picture taken with a policeman to be a racist statement, I would need to know that a black man had had a request for a selfie turned down by the same policeman in similar circumstances. It's so easy to claim that all policemen are institutionally racist because, the fact is that they regularly have to arrest people.
I instantly went onto the internet and found a picture of a black man having a selfie taken with white policemen and the picture of a black policeman beating up a white man. Simply to prove to myself that it works both ways...
Now don't get me wrong. It doesn't always work both ways and more often than not, it works less well for people of differing social backgrounds (the poor, the isolated, certain religious communities...) We live in a deeply imbalanced society. Until recently, and probably still, if a gay man in this country was mugged, attacked or robbed whilst in, or near, a cruising area, the assumption was that he only really only had himself to blame. Ditto with any gay man who ended up being HIV positive.
The fact also remains that there are far fewer creative opportunities available for people from poorer or more rural backgrounds. In my view, socioeconomics and location divides people far more than race ever has, but this is a deeply unpopular view which apparently makes me a UKIP supporter.
If we are to genuinely show racism, which we all know exists, we need to do so in a considered manner. And that means not blithely retweeting images of "racism" which show nothing of the sort, just because we feel a little bit guilty for being white. Otherwise we send out a dangerous message: that it is inherently racist to criticise someone from a minority community who behaves badly. And if one more person counters this argument with the same dull statement about us having to take some responsibility for someone else's bad behaviour, I'll throw all my toys out of my tiny pram!
Anyway. Back in my deeply middle class and privileged white man's world, I re-kindled my British Library membership today to do some research for the rewrite of Brass. I wanted to look specifically at 1915 newspaper reports from the Yorkshire Post, and since the newspaper library at Colindale has been disbanded I've had nowhere to do this sort of research. The women who dealt with me on the phone were universally charming. It was no surprise to learn they were all in Yorkshire.
I had to re-register at the British Library in St Pancras, and pose for a new photo for my card. The woman behind the counter laughed and then swung the screen around to show me the last image they had of me: taken in 1998! It was like looking at a smiling ghost. Ah, the days when I was handsome and slim!
Anyway, I always felt a bit special to have a British Library pass and that rush of excitement filled me once again as the lady handed my pass to me.
The place still feels the same - filled with spiral stairwells and huge reading rooms. The microfiche is all computer generated these days, however, and a little less easy to operate than the old manual system. I found what I wanted mercifully quickly and was away within an hour, and off to Euston Station where I worked in a cafe whilst waiting for young Josh to arrive on a train from Manchester.
Josh and I walked down to Soho together, had a late lunch on Old Compton Street with Nathan and then sat in the gloriously sunny Soho Square where Josh listened to the first mix of the song Letters from Brass. He was wearing dark sunglasses at the time, which made the appearance of the tear trickling down his cheek all the more poetic and beautiful!
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
Monday, 6 April 2015
Nothing
I've done nothing today. I'm told it was lovely outside. I wouldn't know. I was sitting on a sofa, feeling a bit sorry for myself, coughing occasionally and stuffing my face with Easter eggs. Well, actually, just one Easter egg. I didn't really have much appetite.
I feel a bit better this evening, thankfully. Nathan's cough, on the other hand, worsened throughout the day. In fact, I picked him up from work this evening and drove him to A and E because he was concerned that his pneumonia might be returning. For the record there doesn't seem to be any sign of anything other than a viral something-or-other. Let's hope he's feeling better in the morning.
We had a card through the post from Haringey Council today which claims that, despite our paying council tax, they believe our property is empty and therefore that anyone living there is ineligible to vote. This follows hot on the heels of the letter we received from them which told us our names were back on the voting register, and that we didn't need to do anything else if we wanted to vote. I now feel that Haringey Council HAVE to be the least organised council in the entire world. No wonder they are constantly marred by scandals brought about by negligence and ineptitude!
I feel a bit better this evening, thankfully. Nathan's cough, on the other hand, worsened throughout the day. In fact, I picked him up from work this evening and drove him to A and E because he was concerned that his pneumonia might be returning. For the record there doesn't seem to be any sign of anything other than a viral something-or-other. Let's hope he's feeling better in the morning.
We had a card through the post from Haringey Council today which claims that, despite our paying council tax, they believe our property is empty and therefore that anyone living there is ineligible to vote. This follows hot on the heels of the letter we received from them which told us our names were back on the voting register, and that we didn't need to do anything else if we wanted to vote. I now feel that Haringey Council HAVE to be the least organised council in the entire world. No wonder they are constantly marred by scandals brought about by negligence and ineptitude!
Sunday, 5 April 2015
Homecoming
7pm. We're driving through a murky, rather peculiar sea mist in the coastal town of Conwy. Darkness descended in less than a minute. One second we were driving through the hills, watching the orange sun as it sank behind a Welsh mountain, the next, we were entering a band of smokey fog... And that was that for the day. Now I know how brilliant the eclipse ought to have been!
We've had a genuinely lovely day which none of us really wanted to end. This part of the world is truly magical. I've always been incredibly proud of my North Walian heritage, and, perhaps as a result, whenever I enter the mountains of this part of the world, something within me comes alive. It's not just me, of course: I'm pretty sure there's no one on the planet, Gog or not, who wouldn't be stirred or inspired by this countryside.
Conwy is a particularly impressive little place, which is surrounded entirely by rambling medieval walls. With the possible exception of York, and Lucca in Italy, I doubt it would be possible to find such an impressive example of a walled town anywhere else on the planet. The views Conwy's walls offer are quite remarkable. Conwy Castle looms over the town like something from a Robin Hood legend. The castle is near perfect. I'm not even sure you could class it as a ruin. People would probably live in it if it weren't a Cadw-run.
From the walls you can see up into the hills above the town, which today have almost permanently been shrouded in some degree of mist. In fact, round here, when the sea mists ascend, they often don't go as high as the tops of the hills, so it's possible to stand on the summit of a hill in brilliant sunshine and peer into a valley filled with fog like a giant steaming cauldron. It reminded me very much of the San Franciscan phenomenon. I suspect something rather similar was happening... (*flicks through the pages of his A-level physical geography course notes searching for references to sea mists and haas.*)
The Conwy town walls undulate down to the harbour and end with a section which stretches a little way into the bay itself, like a sort of medieval pier. My Dad tells me this particular part of the wall was there to protect boats in the harbour heading off to Ireland in the bad old days when the town was an English outpost. The walls were there to keep the pesky Welsh out.
We sat on the seafront drinking tea, whilst around us scores of children dangled bait on the end of pieces of string to entice crabs. A man in a little hut was doing a roaring trade in crab-catching kits... And they seemed to work: many of the little buckets sitting next to the kids had rather perplexed-looking crabs inside!
From Conwy, we went into the mountains of Snowdonia. Initially I'd hoped to get all the way to Snowdon itself, but Brother Tim had tipped us off about a rather magical little church - one of the oldest in Wales - which sits in gorse-covered moorland on the top of one of the hills.
We snaked our way up there through single-track lanes, many of which were delineated by the most extraordinarily beautiful streams.
The church itself was magical. There's something deeply pagan about some of the rural churches in Wales. I'm told it has just two services a month, but for the rest of the time is open for visitors and hardy hikers. The back wall is covered in the Ten Commandments written in Welsh, with a crude painting of the skull and crossbones underneath. A bier hangs on one of the walls, used, we're told, to carry the remains of the dead to their final resting place.
The highlight of the church is definitely it's little Packard harmonium, which begs visitors to play it. Musical instruments deserve to be played, so, to celebrate the ancient pagan festival of Eostre, I did the honours, and busked some folk songs, very much enjoying the process of pumping the little bellows with my feet. I will return to that spot to record something. I feel a very strong sense that the place is blessed somehow.
In the corner of the windswept and highly atmospheric churchyard sits a well, the water from which was renowned for its healing properties, particularly, we're told, for children.
We spent another hour on a rocky hillside above the church, proudly flying a Welsh flag from a bracken tree whilst basking in the unseasonably hot sunshine. The valley below us was shrouded in mist. I felt incredibly happy to be there. I felt a sense of belonging somehow.
We went from the chapel to a winter garden complex where they specialise in Dutch pancakes (you can't make this stuff up!) where we met Tim and John again and ate, unsurprisingly, Dutch pancakes. Mine was sickly, rubbery and horrible, but don't tell anyone!
We went back to our little cottage for a plate of halloumi and a cup of tea. It was here that I learned that my mother's two favourite words are "toxic" and "soggy." I love the concept of a favourite word. I'm not sure I have one. Someone once told me that their favourite word was elbow. If you've got this far reading this blog every without getting bored, perhaps you'd tell me what your favourite word is... I might start a lexicon...
10pm. Our journey home started at about 7pm, and found us coming in and out of great banks of mist, the most impressive of which arrived as we drove along the coastal road near Abergale, where the sea was covered in a rolling, low-lying, almost endless mist which resembled dry ice in a Kate Bush video.
We popped in on Celia and Ron in Shropshire on our way home for tea and chat. They've been seeing green moving lights in the sky of late. They've convinced themselves that they're some sort of lazar display in a distant town, but I think they may actually have been witnessing the Northern Lights, which I'm told have been visible in the Midlands lately. There are definitely some curious sights to be had in the night sky at the moment. The moon as I write is bright orange and enormous!
We've had a genuinely lovely day which none of us really wanted to end. This part of the world is truly magical. I've always been incredibly proud of my North Walian heritage, and, perhaps as a result, whenever I enter the mountains of this part of the world, something within me comes alive. It's not just me, of course: I'm pretty sure there's no one on the planet, Gog or not, who wouldn't be stirred or inspired by this countryside.
Conwy is a particularly impressive little place, which is surrounded entirely by rambling medieval walls. With the possible exception of York, and Lucca in Italy, I doubt it would be possible to find such an impressive example of a walled town anywhere else on the planet. The views Conwy's walls offer are quite remarkable. Conwy Castle looms over the town like something from a Robin Hood legend. The castle is near perfect. I'm not even sure you could class it as a ruin. People would probably live in it if it weren't a Cadw-run.
From the walls you can see up into the hills above the town, which today have almost permanently been shrouded in some degree of mist. In fact, round here, when the sea mists ascend, they often don't go as high as the tops of the hills, so it's possible to stand on the summit of a hill in brilliant sunshine and peer into a valley filled with fog like a giant steaming cauldron. It reminded me very much of the San Franciscan phenomenon. I suspect something rather similar was happening... (*flicks through the pages of his A-level physical geography course notes searching for references to sea mists and haas.*)
The Conwy town walls undulate down to the harbour and end with a section which stretches a little way into the bay itself, like a sort of medieval pier. My Dad tells me this particular part of the wall was there to protect boats in the harbour heading off to Ireland in the bad old days when the town was an English outpost. The walls were there to keep the pesky Welsh out.
We sat on the seafront drinking tea, whilst around us scores of children dangled bait on the end of pieces of string to entice crabs. A man in a little hut was doing a roaring trade in crab-catching kits... And they seemed to work: many of the little buckets sitting next to the kids had rather perplexed-looking crabs inside!
From Conwy, we went into the mountains of Snowdonia. Initially I'd hoped to get all the way to Snowdon itself, but Brother Tim had tipped us off about a rather magical little church - one of the oldest in Wales - which sits in gorse-covered moorland on the top of one of the hills.
We snaked our way up there through single-track lanes, many of which were delineated by the most extraordinarily beautiful streams.
The church itself was magical. There's something deeply pagan about some of the rural churches in Wales. I'm told it has just two services a month, but for the rest of the time is open for visitors and hardy hikers. The back wall is covered in the Ten Commandments written in Welsh, with a crude painting of the skull and crossbones underneath. A bier hangs on one of the walls, used, we're told, to carry the remains of the dead to their final resting place.
The highlight of the church is definitely it's little Packard harmonium, which begs visitors to play it. Musical instruments deserve to be played, so, to celebrate the ancient pagan festival of Eostre, I did the honours, and busked some folk songs, very much enjoying the process of pumping the little bellows with my feet. I will return to that spot to record something. I feel a very strong sense that the place is blessed somehow.
In the corner of the windswept and highly atmospheric churchyard sits a well, the water from which was renowned for its healing properties, particularly, we're told, for children.
We spent another hour on a rocky hillside above the church, proudly flying a Welsh flag from a bracken tree whilst basking in the unseasonably hot sunshine. The valley below us was shrouded in mist. I felt incredibly happy to be there. I felt a sense of belonging somehow.
We went from the chapel to a winter garden complex where they specialise in Dutch pancakes (you can't make this stuff up!) where we met Tim and John again and ate, unsurprisingly, Dutch pancakes. Mine was sickly, rubbery and horrible, but don't tell anyone!
We went back to our little cottage for a plate of halloumi and a cup of tea. It was here that I learned that my mother's two favourite words are "toxic" and "soggy." I love the concept of a favourite word. I'm not sure I have one. Someone once told me that their favourite word was elbow. If you've got this far reading this blog every without getting bored, perhaps you'd tell me what your favourite word is... I might start a lexicon...
10pm. Our journey home started at about 7pm, and found us coming in and out of great banks of mist, the most impressive of which arrived as we drove along the coastal road near Abergale, where the sea was covered in a rolling, low-lying, almost endless mist which resembled dry ice in a Kate Bush video.
We popped in on Celia and Ron in Shropshire on our way home for tea and chat. They've been seeing green moving lights in the sky of late. They've convinced themselves that they're some sort of lazar display in a distant town, but I think they may actually have been witnessing the Northern Lights, which I'm told have been visible in the Midlands lately. There are definitely some curious sights to be had in the night sky at the moment. The moon as I write is bright orange and enormous!
Saturday, 4 April 2015
Tim and John got married
My brother Tim and his partner John got married today at Llandudno Town Hall. The sun shone down on us constantly. Spring has arrived. Once again God has proven that he likes it when the gays get married!
The day started with a little walk around the cottage we've been staying in. It turns out there's a beautiful moss-lined waterfall behind the house. I doubt water gets any purer than the stuff gushing down that Welsh hillside.
The town hall in Llandudno is rather badly signposted so it took a while to find. We actually went past it several times. It ended up being the building where a craft and antique fair was being held. 50p entrance fee. Lots of tat. I was tempted, but instead we hovered around in the vestibule until a woman came over and asked if we were there for the wedding.
It turns out that the wedding itself was a very select event with only fourteen guests. Bizarrely it was the first gay wedding (apart from my own) that I've attended. Perhaps as a result, I found the experience hugely moving, particularly when the registrar announced that "marriage was defined as the union of two people." I'm rather proud that it's no longer defined as the union of one man and one woman. In that single changed sentence, British equality was born.
I was also surprised by how quick a wedding can be if you a) don't film it and b) don't sing it! I reckon we were in and out within fifteen minutes.
Tim and John looked so happy. It was a joy to see them being declared "husband and husband" and cuddling and kissing each other.
The "wedding breakfast" was in a lovely country pub with views over a sun-sparkling estuary, beyond Conwy and back in the valley where we're staying.
We all sat on one table and ate gorgeous pub grub. I had a frittata and a bowl of chunky chips. We took photographs in the pub garden, with the Welsh mountains glowing mauve in the background. Tim's father made an eccentric little speech. It was all very charming.
We came back to Tim and John's long house on Little Orme and sat on their patio in the glorious late afternoon sunlight drinking wine, or, in my case, Lemsip!
I've been knocking back tablets, potions and cough medicines all day to try and beat this ludicrous cold I've been suffering from. I was up all night coughing. I'm determined it's not going to spoil my trip, but its damnedest!
The day started with a little walk around the cottage we've been staying in. It turns out there's a beautiful moss-lined waterfall behind the house. I doubt water gets any purer than the stuff gushing down that Welsh hillside.
The town hall in Llandudno is rather badly signposted so it took a while to find. We actually went past it several times. It ended up being the building where a craft and antique fair was being held. 50p entrance fee. Lots of tat. I was tempted, but instead we hovered around in the vestibule until a woman came over and asked if we were there for the wedding.
It turns out that the wedding itself was a very select event with only fourteen guests. Bizarrely it was the first gay wedding (apart from my own) that I've attended. Perhaps as a result, I found the experience hugely moving, particularly when the registrar announced that "marriage was defined as the union of two people." I'm rather proud that it's no longer defined as the union of one man and one woman. In that single changed sentence, British equality was born.
I was also surprised by how quick a wedding can be if you a) don't film it and b) don't sing it! I reckon we were in and out within fifteen minutes.
Tim and John looked so happy. It was a joy to see them being declared "husband and husband" and cuddling and kissing each other.
The "wedding breakfast" was in a lovely country pub with views over a sun-sparkling estuary, beyond Conwy and back in the valley where we're staying.
We all sat on one table and ate gorgeous pub grub. I had a frittata and a bowl of chunky chips. We took photographs in the pub garden, with the Welsh mountains glowing mauve in the background. Tim's father made an eccentric little speech. It was all very charming.
We came back to Tim and John's long house on Little Orme and sat on their patio in the glorious late afternoon sunlight drinking wine, or, in my case, Lemsip!
I've been knocking back tablets, potions and cough medicines all day to try and beat this ludicrous cold I've been suffering from. I was up all night coughing. I'm determined it's not going to spoil my trip, but its damnedest!
Friday, 3 April 2015
Welsh vallies
We would appear to be in the most glorious North Walian valley, where the peaks of the hills are covered in a table cloth of mist, and the only audible sounds are babbling brooks and newly born lambs.
The sheep in these parts are a fluffy breed, whose lambs have rather charming ginger cuffs. I've never really had a chance to watch new born lambs playing before. I didn't realise, like kids in a playground, lambs gather together in big gangs and rush about causing mayhem and getting into all sorts of scrapes. There were a group of about twenty which we stood and watched for some time.
This part of the world feels particularly magical. It's absolutely steeped in legend. The nearest village is called Rowen. It has a lovely-looking pub, a little village shop and a beautiful three-aisled chapel.
A river runs through the village, and there's a glorious little walled graveyard under trees in a water meadow. The roads are lined with daffodils, and moss-coated dry stone walls. Little lanes wind up the hills, disappearing into mist. The air smells of wood smoke and gorse.
The telephone box in the town has been turned into a little tourist information station - a gwybodaeth - with leaflets and a shelf of books for local people to swap. One of the little posters in there was written in English and some disgruntled local had scrawled "Cymraeg?" across it, meaning "why is this not also written in Welsh?" The person who obviously looks after the phone booth had added a note saying; "instead of writing Cymraeg graffiti, why don't YOU translate a Welsh version instead of moaning!" Good call, I'd say.
We woke up this morning at Nathan's sister's house and spent the morning with Nathan's niece, Jen, driving to Oswestry, the place of my birth, where we bought Easter eggs for the family at great expense.
Sam cooked us a lovely roast dinner and we were joined by Celia, Ron and Julius.
The journey further North was ghastly in the driving rain with terrible traffic jams. But as we hit the coastal road, the sky started turning blue and this evening has been dry. I hope the skies are clear tonight. I'd love to sit and stare at the stars.
I understand my blog for Monday this week failed to print, so I enclose it as a special bonus here... You lucky people...
Monday 30th March: portrait 18.
I arrived at Finsbury Park tube today, just as the world, his wife and several of their extended family were getting exiting the station. There were queues around the block at the bus station outside. Frankly I'd have given up and walked. I had no idea that the Finsbury Park area was so popular with commuters. I used to come to this station when I lived in Crouch End, but never remember it being so rammed in the rush hour.
I've been with Julian today, in his mrs' vicarage, mixing Oranges and Lemons, which is the bonus track on the Pepys Motet album. Keen readers of this blog will remember that it features the recordings of 200 separate bells, struck, we believe, about 4000 times! It is the stuff of madness: overtones, undertones, harmonics, multi-phonics... They're all in there in abundance, and the effect is striking, if nothing else! ('Scuse the pun!)
We worked all day, but for a brief sojourn when we went off to Stroud Green Road for a bite to eat in an Italian deli. That part of town used to be incredibly edgy and quite exciting, but on the fringes of Crouch End, it's become mega chi-chi la-la organic moi-moi ja-ja. Back towards Finsbury Park, it starts to become familiar again, with its shops selling Indian fabrics, hair extensions, yams and knocked-off bottles of perfume.
We returned from lunch to find the vicarage in darkness, and ventured onto the street to find all of Julian's neighbours similarly in the midst of power cut. A bloke opposite, wearing some sort of medical white coat, seemed particularly upset, telling me he was in the "middle of a procedure." Bizarre.
By the time I left, both of our ears were bleeding. Bells, a church organ, a choir and a synth pad are all quite dense sounds, so we're going to sleep on it, and fine-tune the piece tomorrow when our ears feel a little less trashed.
From Crouch End, I walked back to Finsbury Park, which locals sometimes refer to as Crappy Rub Sniff as a homonym of what the area would be called if all the letters came in reverse order. I've always found this hugely amusing. Upton Park goes one stage further, revealing Crap not Poo if spelt backwards.
Anyway, I digress. I took the Victoria Line from Finsbury Park to Euston, which is a particularly quick journey. I find the Victoria line to be a very pleasing line in this respect. When I lived in those parts I could get from the tube stop down to the Royal Court at Sloane Square, where I worked, in seventeen minutes.
At Euston I met lovely Ruth from the Rebel Chorus off a train from Brugge where she'd spent the weekend with her husband. These days Ruth lives in Coventry, so my only option for taking her portrait for the Pepys album cover was to catch her as she made her way from one train to another.
Ruth sang on five out of the six Pepys Motet movements and was in the original gospel choir when we performed the piece as a forty part motet back in 2010. She features very prominently in the Great Fire of London movement, singing the first few lines; "Jayne called us up about three in the morning to tell us of a Great Fire in the city. She says above three hundred houses have been burned down." Jayne Birch was Pepys' loyal servant. No one knows a great deal about what happened to her. I believe Pepys included her in his will despite her having long since married and left his service. Under any other circumstances, someone of her status would have lived and died completely unnoticed, but her status as the person who first told Pepys about the fire - the man whom himself has told us more about the fire than anyone else - secures her a little spot in history.
Because Ruth sang this particular line, I've always seen her as Jayne, and that's why, in the photograph, she is holding a placard with the word "Jayne" written on it. It's actually one of the first words in Pepys' diary which which isn't written in shorthand. Real names like Jayne and Axe Yard (where Pepys lived) didn't really have shorthand characters, so he wrote them in full.
The sheep in these parts are a fluffy breed, whose lambs have rather charming ginger cuffs. I've never really had a chance to watch new born lambs playing before. I didn't realise, like kids in a playground, lambs gather together in big gangs and rush about causing mayhem and getting into all sorts of scrapes. There were a group of about twenty which we stood and watched for some time.
This part of the world feels particularly magical. It's absolutely steeped in legend. The nearest village is called Rowen. It has a lovely-looking pub, a little village shop and a beautiful three-aisled chapel.
A river runs through the village, and there's a glorious little walled graveyard under trees in a water meadow. The roads are lined with daffodils, and moss-coated dry stone walls. Little lanes wind up the hills, disappearing into mist. The air smells of wood smoke and gorse.
The telephone box in the town has been turned into a little tourist information station - a gwybodaeth - with leaflets and a shelf of books for local people to swap. One of the little posters in there was written in English and some disgruntled local had scrawled "Cymraeg?" across it, meaning "why is this not also written in Welsh?" The person who obviously looks after the phone booth had added a note saying; "instead of writing Cymraeg graffiti, why don't YOU translate a Welsh version instead of moaning!" Good call, I'd say.
We woke up this morning at Nathan's sister's house and spent the morning with Nathan's niece, Jen, driving to Oswestry, the place of my birth, where we bought Easter eggs for the family at great expense.
Sam cooked us a lovely roast dinner and we were joined by Celia, Ron and Julius.
The journey further North was ghastly in the driving rain with terrible traffic jams. But as we hit the coastal road, the sky started turning blue and this evening has been dry. I hope the skies are clear tonight. I'd love to sit and stare at the stars.
I understand my blog for Monday this week failed to print, so I enclose it as a special bonus here... You lucky people...
Monday 30th March: portrait 18.
I arrived at Finsbury Park tube today, just as the world, his wife and several of their extended family were getting exiting the station. There were queues around the block at the bus station outside. Frankly I'd have given up and walked. I had no idea that the Finsbury Park area was so popular with commuters. I used to come to this station when I lived in Crouch End, but never remember it being so rammed in the rush hour.
I've been with Julian today, in his mrs' vicarage, mixing Oranges and Lemons, which is the bonus track on the Pepys Motet album. Keen readers of this blog will remember that it features the recordings of 200 separate bells, struck, we believe, about 4000 times! It is the stuff of madness: overtones, undertones, harmonics, multi-phonics... They're all in there in abundance, and the effect is striking, if nothing else! ('Scuse the pun!)
We worked all day, but for a brief sojourn when we went off to Stroud Green Road for a bite to eat in an Italian deli. That part of town used to be incredibly edgy and quite exciting, but on the fringes of Crouch End, it's become mega chi-chi la-la organic moi-moi ja-ja. Back towards Finsbury Park, it starts to become familiar again, with its shops selling Indian fabrics, hair extensions, yams and knocked-off bottles of perfume.
We returned from lunch to find the vicarage in darkness, and ventured onto the street to find all of Julian's neighbours similarly in the midst of power cut. A bloke opposite, wearing some sort of medical white coat, seemed particularly upset, telling me he was in the "middle of a procedure." Bizarre.
By the time I left, both of our ears were bleeding. Bells, a church organ, a choir and a synth pad are all quite dense sounds, so we're going to sleep on it, and fine-tune the piece tomorrow when our ears feel a little less trashed.
From Crouch End, I walked back to Finsbury Park, which locals sometimes refer to as Crappy Rub Sniff as a homonym of what the area would be called if all the letters came in reverse order. I've always found this hugely amusing. Upton Park goes one stage further, revealing Crap not Poo if spelt backwards.
Anyway, I digress. I took the Victoria Line from Finsbury Park to Euston, which is a particularly quick journey. I find the Victoria line to be a very pleasing line in this respect. When I lived in those parts I could get from the tube stop down to the Royal Court at Sloane Square, where I worked, in seventeen minutes.
At Euston I met lovely Ruth from the Rebel Chorus off a train from Brugge where she'd spent the weekend with her husband. These days Ruth lives in Coventry, so my only option for taking her portrait for the Pepys album cover was to catch her as she made her way from one train to another.
Ruth sang on five out of the six Pepys Motet movements and was in the original gospel choir when we performed the piece as a forty part motet back in 2010. She features very prominently in the Great Fire of London movement, singing the first few lines; "Jayne called us up about three in the morning to tell us of a Great Fire in the city. She says above three hundred houses have been burned down." Jayne Birch was Pepys' loyal servant. No one knows a great deal about what happened to her. I believe Pepys included her in his will despite her having long since married and left his service. Under any other circumstances, someone of her status would have lived and died completely unnoticed, but her status as the person who first told Pepys about the fire - the man whom himself has told us more about the fire than anyone else - secures her a little spot in history.
Because Ruth sang this particular line, I've always seen her as Jayne, and that's why, in the photograph, she is holding a placard with the word "Jayne" written on it. It's actually one of the first words in Pepys' diary which which isn't written in shorthand. Real names like Jayne and Axe Yard (where Pepys lived) didn't really have shorthand characters, so he wrote them in full.
Customer services
The day kicked off at the Apple Store in Covent Garden, which is always a pleasurable experience. I was returning a broken cable and they couldn't have been any more charming or helpful. I do think many businesses could learn a great deal about customer service simply by visiting an Apple Store and finding out why staff seem so universally happy to be working there.
The same can be said for the Sainsbury's Local on the Archway Road and the Starbucks opposite Borough tube, where staff are always keen to smile and help. I wonder why certain places generate happy staff? Is it good bosses? Or is it places where employees genuinely have enough flexibility in their roles to actually make a difference and help people? In my view a great deal of bad customer service happens as a result of customer-facing staff not being able to authorise the little protocol-busting manoeuvres which brighten a troubled customer's day.
I went from Covent Garden to Earl's Court to meet Abbie. We had tea and brownies in the upstairs room of the cafe in that giant Tesco hypermarket on the A4. It's actually unexpectedly cozy up there, with leather sofas and brilliant light fittings which sit in bowler hats.
Abbie was sad and I felt sad because she was sad. There was very little I could say other than that I was there for her. We all are. As I rushed across London to be with her this morning, I remembered that we'd returned from our San Franciscan pneumonia crisis to find some potatoes, a tin of beans and a packet of cheese from Abbie waiting on our doorstep. It was one of the most touching things anyone's ever done for us, so Abbie, if you're reading this, if there's anything you need, just ask.
I grabbed lunch back in Highgate, measured Nathan's shawl for reasons unexplained, dashed to the post office to send Jo's phone charger back to Portsmouth, and then drove down into Kentish Town to replace the tyre which had exploded on the M25 on Saturday.
The mellow men at Kwik Fit predicted an hour's wait, so I went into Kentish Town to do some more errands.
I sat on the floor in Barclays Bank for what felt like most of the afternoon. I might not have minded but the man sitting on the chair to my left had such bad BO that even my burgeoning cold couldn't offer protection.
I was in the bank to get a form stamped for my Arts Council grant and there weren't enough staff in the branch to help me, particularly once the manager had decided it was a form he'd need to "look over thoroughly" himself. After an hour's wait for him, on the floor, I was dealt with by someone who wasn't the manager, who plainly hadn't read the information on my form before stamping it. The manager reappeared and I asked why it hadn't been a job that his counter staff could have done a minute after I'd arrived. "This was a form which needed to be read carefully," he said. I looked at the woman who'd stamped it; "did you read this carefully? What is this document about?" "You want to pay money to a company called Brass" she said. I laughed, "that couldn't be further from the truth!" Her eyes narrowed in a "don't criticise me, I'm a nondescript Eastern European and I know people who could make you disappear" kind of way. I left feeling violated by her icy blue eyes and strong jawline.
I returned to Kwik Fit, paid for the new tyre they'd fitted, and drove the car out of the garage. I'm not altogether sure what made me think twice, but as I reached the end of the street I thought I ought to just check they'd put the spare wheel back in the boot. Imagine my surprise therefore when I opened the back door to find nothing! Of course they were hugely apologetic when I returned and told them they'd not actually changed the tyre I'd been charged for, and they got the job done at a suitably Kwik fit fitter speed, but I can't think how horrifying it would have been if we'd got a flat tyre on the way up North tonight and thought "thank God we changed the tyre" to discover an empty boot!
Speaking of which, we're currently half way up the M6 on our way to Wales where we're staying with Nathan's sister on the way to Llandudno for the weekend, where Brother Tim and John are getting married. We've listened to rough mixes of all of the Pepys Motet, Oranges and Lemons, and Billy Whistle from Brass. It's odd to think I'm going to be unleashing two hours of Till on the world in June! Two whole hours of recorded music. It's very exciting. There must be something in the air: Fiona is presently mixing two albums as well...
We're much later than we thought we'd be. Nathan was forced to get off the tube at Camden and take a bus the rest of the way home, which delayed him by an hour, partly because he got into an argument with an incredibly rude Underground staff member at Camden station. I note today that LU have launched a campaign which attempts to stop people shouting at their staff. The poster slogan runs something along the lines of, "my Mum got shouted at today by a customer. I thought she was crying, but she told me there was just something in her eye." I get it; LU staff put up with a hell of a lot of nonsense. But some of them are right arsey so and sos with serious lip-sucking attitudes, so from time to time we must all reserve our right to vent!
The same can be said for the Sainsbury's Local on the Archway Road and the Starbucks opposite Borough tube, where staff are always keen to smile and help. I wonder why certain places generate happy staff? Is it good bosses? Or is it places where employees genuinely have enough flexibility in their roles to actually make a difference and help people? In my view a great deal of bad customer service happens as a result of customer-facing staff not being able to authorise the little protocol-busting manoeuvres which brighten a troubled customer's day.
I went from Covent Garden to Earl's Court to meet Abbie. We had tea and brownies in the upstairs room of the cafe in that giant Tesco hypermarket on the A4. It's actually unexpectedly cozy up there, with leather sofas and brilliant light fittings which sit in bowler hats.
Abbie was sad and I felt sad because she was sad. There was very little I could say other than that I was there for her. We all are. As I rushed across London to be with her this morning, I remembered that we'd returned from our San Franciscan pneumonia crisis to find some potatoes, a tin of beans and a packet of cheese from Abbie waiting on our doorstep. It was one of the most touching things anyone's ever done for us, so Abbie, if you're reading this, if there's anything you need, just ask.
I grabbed lunch back in Highgate, measured Nathan's shawl for reasons unexplained, dashed to the post office to send Jo's phone charger back to Portsmouth, and then drove down into Kentish Town to replace the tyre which had exploded on the M25 on Saturday.
The mellow men at Kwik Fit predicted an hour's wait, so I went into Kentish Town to do some more errands.
I sat on the floor in Barclays Bank for what felt like most of the afternoon. I might not have minded but the man sitting on the chair to my left had such bad BO that even my burgeoning cold couldn't offer protection.
I was in the bank to get a form stamped for my Arts Council grant and there weren't enough staff in the branch to help me, particularly once the manager had decided it was a form he'd need to "look over thoroughly" himself. After an hour's wait for him, on the floor, I was dealt with by someone who wasn't the manager, who plainly hadn't read the information on my form before stamping it. The manager reappeared and I asked why it hadn't been a job that his counter staff could have done a minute after I'd arrived. "This was a form which needed to be read carefully," he said. I looked at the woman who'd stamped it; "did you read this carefully? What is this document about?" "You want to pay money to a company called Brass" she said. I laughed, "that couldn't be further from the truth!" Her eyes narrowed in a "don't criticise me, I'm a nondescript Eastern European and I know people who could make you disappear" kind of way. I left feeling violated by her icy blue eyes and strong jawline.
I returned to Kwik Fit, paid for the new tyre they'd fitted, and drove the car out of the garage. I'm not altogether sure what made me think twice, but as I reached the end of the street I thought I ought to just check they'd put the spare wheel back in the boot. Imagine my surprise therefore when I opened the back door to find nothing! Of course they were hugely apologetic when I returned and told them they'd not actually changed the tyre I'd been charged for, and they got the job done at a suitably Kwik fit fitter speed, but I can't think how horrifying it would have been if we'd got a flat tyre on the way up North tonight and thought "thank God we changed the tyre" to discover an empty boot!
Speaking of which, we're currently half way up the M6 on our way to Wales where we're staying with Nathan's sister on the way to Llandudno for the weekend, where Brother Tim and John are getting married. We've listened to rough mixes of all of the Pepys Motet, Oranges and Lemons, and Billy Whistle from Brass. It's odd to think I'm going to be unleashing two hours of Till on the world in June! Two whole hours of recorded music. It's very exciting. There must be something in the air: Fiona is presently mixing two albums as well...
We're much later than we thought we'd be. Nathan was forced to get off the tube at Camden and take a bus the rest of the way home, which delayed him by an hour, partly because he got into an argument with an incredibly rude Underground staff member at Camden station. I note today that LU have launched a campaign which attempts to stop people shouting at their staff. The poster slogan runs something along the lines of, "my Mum got shouted at today by a customer. I thought she was crying, but she told me there was just something in her eye." I get it; LU staff put up with a hell of a lot of nonsense. But some of them are right arsey so and sos with serious lip-sucking attitudes, so from time to time we must all reserve our right to vent!
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Wistful sore throat
I woke up today with a sore throat. Joy. That'll be another cold Nathan's passed on to me. My Mum thinks it's all part of the same illness. There are so many people who have been poorly on and off this year, some complaining of illnesses which go back to November last year. It's particularly galling because I've been feeling really well of late...
I've finally managed to enfranchise myself again. Is that the opposite of disenfranchise? A letter arrived from Haringey Council this morning, which said, "I'm writing to let you know that your recent application to be added to the electoral register has been successful." Ironically the letter then says, "you don't need to do anything else. You won't need to register again unless your entitlement to be registered changes." Or, of course, if there's a glitch in the system which involves someone at the council randomly removing a tax-paying Haringey resident from the voting register as happened to us both last year! We were told then that it had been our responsibility to let the council know that we hadn't moved out of the borough. I wonder how long it will be until it's our responsibility to tell the council we haven't moved again. Twats.
I went to the osteopath this morning, highly conscious of the fact that I'm always ill when I see him. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow; "is the cough STILL bothering you?" I felt rather unconvincing as I told him that I'd felt perfectly well for the best part of a month. I'm pretty sure he's now decided I have some sort of terminal illness.
I came home and worked on a couple of little piano/ vocal arrangements; a Shakespeare song and a Lewis Carroll poem.
A close friend texted with some rather bad news just after lunch, which put me in a sad and contemplative mood for the rest of the day. Sometimes life seems so astonishingly unfair and words feel so inadequate...
The news made me think about all sorts of things; largely how in life there really should only be space for love, and yet we waste so much time and energy hanging onto hatred and anxiety. Me particularly.
Nathan came home from work and locked himself in the sitting room filming the third of his knitting vlogs whilst I worked on the bass band arrangements of A Symphony For Yorkshire whilst continuing with a whole heap of admin and making a vegetable stew.
We caught up on previous episodes of Mr Selfridge, which finished with a slightly surreal sequence (with strange anachronistic rocky guitar music and soft focus slow-mo) which featured the lovely Emily from the cast of Brass! It was fabulous to see her on telly, and if it weren't for this silly sore throat and my friend's bad news, I'd have gone to bed with a big smile on my face. As it stands I'm feeling somewhat wistful.
I've finally managed to enfranchise myself again. Is that the opposite of disenfranchise? A letter arrived from Haringey Council this morning, which said, "I'm writing to let you know that your recent application to be added to the electoral register has been successful." Ironically the letter then says, "you don't need to do anything else. You won't need to register again unless your entitlement to be registered changes." Or, of course, if there's a glitch in the system which involves someone at the council randomly removing a tax-paying Haringey resident from the voting register as happened to us both last year! We were told then that it had been our responsibility to let the council know that we hadn't moved out of the borough. I wonder how long it will be until it's our responsibility to tell the council we haven't moved again. Twats.
I went to the osteopath this morning, highly conscious of the fact that I'm always ill when I see him. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow; "is the cough STILL bothering you?" I felt rather unconvincing as I told him that I'd felt perfectly well for the best part of a month. I'm pretty sure he's now decided I have some sort of terminal illness.
I came home and worked on a couple of little piano/ vocal arrangements; a Shakespeare song and a Lewis Carroll poem.
A close friend texted with some rather bad news just after lunch, which put me in a sad and contemplative mood for the rest of the day. Sometimes life seems so astonishingly unfair and words feel so inadequate...
The news made me think about all sorts of things; largely how in life there really should only be space for love, and yet we waste so much time and energy hanging onto hatred and anxiety. Me particularly.
Nathan came home from work and locked himself in the sitting room filming the third of his knitting vlogs whilst I worked on the bass band arrangements of A Symphony For Yorkshire whilst continuing with a whole heap of admin and making a vegetable stew.
We caught up on previous episodes of Mr Selfridge, which finished with a slightly surreal sequence (with strange anachronistic rocky guitar music and soft focus slow-mo) which featured the lovely Emily from the cast of Brass! It was fabulous to see her on telly, and if it weren't for this silly sore throat and my friend's bad news, I'd have gone to bed with a big smile on my face. As it stands I'm feeling somewhat wistful.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
