Kiwi hell

The time has come for me to put some serious effort into losing weight. Having seen some excerpts from the “Making of” film, I see nothing but a man getting fatter and fatter; quite horrendously so, and with frightening speed! With people like me, who balloon up and down in weight, there’s always a moment when you realise you’re about to pass the point of no return, the stage at which you cease to care about the way you look, and two years later find yourself unable to get out of bed without a winch and pulley system. I’ve just reached this stage...


I seem to have brought the Yorkshire rain to London. The weather is extremely disappointing and I keep forgetting to take an umbrella with me. Thankfully, the storms have suppressed my hay fever, but I ate a banana earlier, which has made my eyes itch. This happens rather a lot with fruit. Kiwis are the worst, followed by melons. Both fruits make my mouth feel weird, and when I get the juice on my skin, it can sometimes trigger a weird reaction. Much as I refuse to be allergic to fruit, I find myself avoiding Kiwis, which makes me wonder what would now happen if I ate one by mistake. Sometimes I think if you carry on eating something you’re slightly allergic to, it makes you less prone to violent attacks because your body just deals with it. I worry that more and more people are becoming horribly allergic to things precisely because they cut them out of their diet at the slightest provocation. So many babies now have these long list of allergies, which they never get a chance to remedy.

I am heading to Ladbrook Grove to see my good friend Glyn, but unfortunately this has meant getting on a rail replacement bus, which will, no doubt, take forever. Two men wearing LU tabards were standing by the bus stop at Paddington, but didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with me, or speak any louder than a whisper when I was trying to ascertain how long the bus was going to take. You’d have thought they’d understand that being forced onto a bus mid-journey can be a stressful experience. Again, it’s another example of bad customer service; and something I don’t think you’d get as much up North, where people genuinely seem to be friendlier and more willing to help. Having been up there all that time, I now find it slightly odd that strangers down here don’t exchange friendly banter... or for that matter call each other “love” or “pet”, which is something I’ve enjoyed greatly.

350 years ago, Pepys wrote a rather epic and descriptive diary entry which was far more entertaining than many of his previous efforts. His day started in Whitehall with a visit to his patron, whom he discovered had gone with the King to dine at the Tower. Montagu’s daughter, Mrs Jem, that strange, unfortunate creature with the dodgy neck, was at home, and the two of them dined together alone.

After a great deal of work at the Privy Seal Office, he found himself in Westminster Hall buying some bespoke bed linen from Betty Lane. Ms Lane was, or at least became Pepys’ mistress. It’s difficult to tell whether they were lovers at this point in time. Pepys took Betty for a drink at The Trumpet “where I sat and talked with her, &c” The “&c” possibly implying a little bit of how’s your father...

Pepys returned home by coach in a storm “it thundering and lightning exceedingly” and took Monsieur L’Impertinent (who must have popped up at the pub) as far as The Savoy. Arriving in the Navy Office courtyard, Pepys found a man in the darkness asking which his house was. This was in the days before buildings were numbered, and in a city with 400,000 residents, it’s a wonder that anyone found anyone! The man in the darkness had come to tell Pepys that his beloved clerk, Will Hewer was ill and would be staying with his mother that night. In those days, news of someone being ill could often mean death was just around the corner, so Pepys was justifiably concerned.

My Little Pony

I’m feeling a bit low today. London is muggy and overcast and I have an almost bewildering amount of silly little bits of admin to deal with. Add to this the fact that our tumble drier has broken and you have a very unhappy little ex-camper. My annual hay fever is also in full swing. Joy! Heaven knows why my body waits until the first two weeks of August to provide me with a nose which simply refuses to stop running, but I could well do without it!


I'm still reeling somewhat from an unpleasant encounter in Snappy Snaps, Muswell Hill. I'd taken a set of black and white photos in there to be developed. The woman handed them over, I opened them up, and discovered every single one of them was a shade of lurid pink! “These pictures are all bright pink” I said “Yes” she replied “that’s the colour you took them in.” “No” I said “I took a set of black and white photos, not a set a pink and pinker ones. Did it not occur to you that I wouldn’t want pink photos? Do I look like My Little Pony?” She looked blankly. It was only when I threatened to keep the photos and bring them back to show her boss that the surly cow took them back and re-printed them. "Less of the attitude" I shouted over to her as she huffed and puffed in the corner...

I then went through the lengthy process of selecting and ordering some digital prints. I could sense the other Snappy Snaps staff members looking at one another and within minutes they were hovering behind me, telling me they were about to shut up shop. “Oh well” I said “I better just print off the ones I’ve already chosen” “You can’t do that” one of them said, belligerantly; “we’ve closed.” Obviously she didn’t get away with such ridiculous behaviour and I made her switch the machines back on and serve me like a proper shop keeper, but I can safely say I’ve never met anyone with more of an attitude and less of an interest in her job.

The 3rd August 1660 was a Friday and Pepys started the day at the barber’s. A morning of work at the office was followed by lunch at Dr Timothy Clerk’s, who was one of the founding members of the Royal Society. Despite the presence of Elizabeth, Pepys found himself most taken with Clerk’s wife, Frances, whom he described as “a comely, proper woman, though not handsome, but a woman of the best language I ever heard”. Pepys spent the afternoon at the Privy Seal office in Westminster “signing things and taking money”. But he obviously found there was more work than anticipated, because his plans to meet up with the others at the Red Bull Playhouse were thwarted. By the time he’d finished, the play was over. Poor Pepys.

Spasmodic Dysmenorrhoea

It’s my last day in Yorkshire and I’m wandering about rather aimlessly. It feels like the last day of a holiday when you’re waiting for an evening flight. My mind is already back in London thinking about the Pepys Motet and quite how much I’ll need to do on that to move it forward to the next stage!


All my clothes and belongings have been thrown, willy-nilly into my car. I don’t have enough suitcase space and so things have been stuffed into little orange Sainsburys bags, which are splitting down the sides. Dirty laundry is mingling with toothbrushes and bits of food that I didn’t want to throw away when I left the flat. Shameful!

I’m being interviewed on Look North tonight and don’t have anything to wear that hasn’t been screwed into a little tiny ball, or coated with a layer of tenty-grime. I'm wearing a pair of socks for the third day running and a jumper that I slept in every night when I was camping.

I'm horrified at the prospect of someone witnessing the way I’ve thrown things into my car. I remember as a child, my family returning from Devon with a car rammed full of post-holiday clutter. Unfortunately the boot burst open as we were driving through Stroud and all our belongings, from dirty laundry to children’s toys, were deposited on the High Street. My mother rushed out to stop the traffic and salvage as much dignity as she could, whilst my brother burst into tears because he felt the holiday had been ruined. I think I was probably simply trying to pretend I wasn’t there.

Heaven knows how humiliating it would be if the boot of my car flew open today on the M1. I think I’d just have to keep driving!

I just spoke to my Mother who brings news from the province of Essex. All the flowers in her garden are now officially dead; murdered by the sun, including the Buddleia, which is apparently one of the hardiest plants know to man (and butterfly).

She also tells me the very sad news that one of her close friends, who’s been suffering with cancer, has now had her treatment stopped and we’re told it’s just a matter of days. She's apparently hoping to live long enough to see her son getting his exam results in a few weeks’ time. The news made me feel extremely sad. The idea of having your ambitions and dreams cut down to things you might be well enough to achieve in the space of a few weeks fills me with a mixture of panic and incredible pain. It’s also at these moments that I feel a great deal of anger towards people who waste their lives in a permanent haze of drugs and alcohol or in pools of depression or self-obsession. Perhaps these people should be forced to watch someone who is desperate to stay alive, thankful for every extra moment they’re given to breathe the air of this beautiful planet.

The responses to A Symphony for Yorkshire continue to come in. Most people have commented on the film’s optimism and joy, which I consider to be a huge compliment. One chap from Sheffield has even offered to take me out for a drink to fill me with “over-introspection and gloom” in an attempt to corrupt by relentless positivity! Negativity is easy. We can all find the bad in people but life's not worth living unless we focus on the good.

The nicest thing that I’ve ever read about myself was written yesterday by a lady on Facebook, who first got to know my work through the Oranges and Lemons project. She wrote:

“The only thing I can say after listening to and seeing the video of the complete symphony is that everything surrounding you is magic and you make it real by giving a light of hope and happiness to everyone’s heart.”

If I hadn't already decided to have "Benjamin Till: The Musical" written on my headstone, I'd go for that!

350 years ago, Pepys started the day in a boat to Westminster, which he shared with the two Sir Williams. Their servants followed in another vessel. Quite right! After doing a bit of work at the Admiralty, Pepys went for lunch at Mr Blackburne’s; “where we were very well treated and merry.” He then headed for the office of the Privy Seal, where he was paid handsomely for a couple of days’ work. He returned home early; “it being the first time I could get home before our gates were shut since I came to the Navy Office.”

Unfortunately he discovered Elizabeth was not very well, suffering from her "old pain", which has subsequently been diagnosed as spasmodic dysmenorrhoea or horribly painful periods. The condition seems also to have also led to periodic yet incredibly unpleasant boils and cysts forming around her private parts. The illness was untreatable in those days and made intercourse almost impossible. Pepys was obviously not responsible, but she may well have thought he was, fuelling rows and suspicions. Pepys mentions that she was suffering rather badly from the condition when they got married, which must have been just awful for them both. What a way to embark on a sexual journey!

Fudge packing

We spent this morning in Whitby, which is a town I’ve loved from a very early age. We came here on a school trip when I was about 10 and I still remember being almost washed away by an enormous wave on the beach, staring in awe at the whale-bone arch and climbing the 199 steps to the abbey, which fired my imagination for years to come.


Rupert and Isabel went to church whilst Hilary and I strolled around the town; a fine place to amble on a Sunday morning. We climbed up to the abbey and stared at Caedman’s cross whilst I regurgitated all sorts of tit-bits from my muddled, aging mind! I remembered that the church’s graveyard is famous for periodically ejecting its ancient coffins off the side of a cliff after particularly heavy storms.

I wanted to buy some fudge until I remembered I don’t like fudge!

Later on, we met the others and went wandering along the harbour, following the walls right out into the beautiful blue sea. It’s a very special place.

It is Gay Pride in Leeds, which means half the streets have been blocked off. Leeds is a city which is almost impossible to navigate at the best of times, but today I was forced to spend an hour cursing and swearing, whilst stuck in traffic jams filled with similarly bewildered and irritated people.

So what is Gay Pride in Leeds? I took a pen and paper with me and jotted down words and phrases that came to mind as I walked through the middle of the festivities:

Bronzed, trinkety, shiny yet tawdry, emo gays, a plethora of men with their elbows surgically attached to the sides of their stomachs, silly moustaches, mullets, every shade of hair dye, bondage trousers, balloons, rainbows, old men looking sad, old men looking hopeful, terrible arguments, deaf gays, the smell of poppers, dancing gays, the smell of poppers, singing gays, shrieking gays... Gay shrieking louder and louder... Must escape... Must escape... Help me!

Hmm...

Homosexuality en masse obviously freaks me out somewhat. As I walked along, I looked from face to face trying to identify someone I could identify with. I failed miserably. I suppose I’ll always be a bit of a one off and am not a fan of any large gatherings of people based on type. Though I would support the gay community until my very last breath, large displays of campery like this make me feel uncomfortable. Not only do they feel somewhat forced, but they intimidate people...

It’s Yorkshire day, and church bells are ringing across Leeds. The Yorkshire Symphony was broadcast on various BBC Radio stations for the first time today and I had several lovely texts and messages from strangers who enjoyed what they heard. I am so pleased that people take the time to do things like this. It really does make the whole experience seem that little bit more worthwhile.

It was a day of business for Pepys 350 years ago. There were various meetings and various formal matters to be addressed, although nothing of any great interest in my humble opinion.

Pepys met up with his clerk friends and drank at a “bottle beer” house on the Strand before taking a boat with the intention of heading back home. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, he found himself buying a lobster and instead of taking it home, he took it to the Sun Tavern where he had it cooked and ate it.

Daddy or chips?

I am sitting on Scarborough beach watching a small child being buried up to his neck in sand. He appears fairly happy with the situation but if the same had happened to me at a similar age, I would have been traumatised for life!


We’ve had chips from Harry Ramsden’s and made turtles in the sand. Very shortly I shall be going for a paddle but first the children are going to have a ride on the donkeys. I've only just learnt the difference between a donkey and an ass. I'd always thought they were the same creatures, and that we only sing “Little Donkey” at school at Christmas time because the concept of singing “Little Ass” is too horrific to contemplate!

It rained last night and we were all forced to retreat into our tents. Trying to cook vegetarian sausages under a canopy is no laughing matter, although in the mayhem, I did manage to whip up a rather lovely onion and red wine gravy, before spilling all over a plastic sheet. After the skies had cleared, we were able to light a pretty impressive fire, which we sat around whilst toasting marsh mallows and staring up at the bright, full moon. Blissful.

It seems that a few people have been commenting on the symphony trailer on You Tube. The responses are almost exactly as I would have expected; a mixture of good and bad. You can’t please everyone. I was insulted, however, to see that someone has criticised the young lad who was featured rapping in the third movement of the film on BBC Breakfast yesterday. Say what you like about me, or the BBC, but there is NO excuse for writing that about a child. If he reads it, he’ll be devastated and that is not at all fair. I urge anyone reading this, who enjoyed the lad’s performance, to write something constructive to counter-balance the rude comments.

I was rather tickled by the chap who felt the need to point out that the bus company who provided the vehicle featured in the clip originally came from the south like it was some kind of devastating information that would cause a catastrophic amount of embarrassment for the BBC. You can see them now, can’t you? Rushing through the corridors and spending hundreds of pounds of license fee payers’ money investigating how a bus that was built in High Wycombe could possibly feature in a film about Yorkshire! I am sure that 50% of the instruments played by musicians in the film were made in China. Does that make them invalid? Surely the fact that 280 Yorkshire-based musicians bothered to take part is enough to validate the project? Heaven knows what this particular person would have written if he discovered, horror of horrors, that the composer was from the Midlands! Maybe he'd have done something like this. On that note, I was particularly thrilled to be described by one reader of this blog as "bridging the gap between southern fairy and northern monkey!" Now that's the kind of praise I respond to!

350 years ago, Pepys was in White Hall, having a crisis meeting with other senior figures about how money might be raised for the Navy, which was in a very sorry financial position. Ships lay in harbours, unable to go to sea because they were falling apart. Sailors were not being paid. The situation was getting worse and the King was diverting more and more funds towards his court. I always think a good, old-fashioned Bring and Buy sale works wonders, but this was in the days before Blue Peter, so maybe things weren’t quite that simple. Instead, Pepys returned to the Admiralty Office to do some calculations aimed at working out quite how in debt the Navy was!

That reminds me... Must sort out my expenses...

Weird sheep

I was awoken at 5am this morning by the very strange sound of sheep.


Sleeping in a tent is a peculiar experience, particularly in a camp site in the middle of nowhere, which becomes almost deathly silent after dark. The strangest sounds get amplified out of all proportion and in your little synthetic bubble, you lose all sense of where they’re coming from. At one point I could hear a girl’s voice talking in her sleep. It sounded like the voice of an angel in my slumber.

The sheep, however, were highly entertaining. They were so loud that I assumed a massive herd of them were wondering past my tent. I know livestock are meant to bleat and moo with regional accents, but these chaps sounded really weird. I became certain that within the melee, at least one human was doing unconvincing sheep impressions!

I had to be up supremely early to be interviewed by BBC Breakfast at Rievaulx Abbey. A very charming man, with startling blue eyes did the introductions, whilst members of the Yorkshire Wind Ensemble played a few bars of my music... again and again! No one had told them they’d need to play, so I was thrilled that they were able to remember anything of the symphony at all! Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that they’d be playing whilst I spoke and I found the whole experience extremely confusing to the point I’m not sure I said anything that made any sense whatsoever!

Still, the journey across the moors to Helmsley was astonishingly pleasant. We drifted over the tops of beautiful hillsides covered in “shining purple heather” and looked down into valleys where little swirls of mist hung over the rocks like puffs of smoke. Our journey took us up and over the famous Rosedale Chimney so I was finally able to see the stunning view from there. Keen readers of this blog will remember that my last visit to the place was marred by a ridiculous unseasonal mist, which restricted the view to a white cloud which seemed to be strangling a little wooden bench!

As an interesting addendum to my rant yesterday. I discovered that my friend Meriel, upon telling the York Minster people that she wanted to use the building to reflect and pray, was given free entry, which made me feel a great deal less angry about the situation. Perhaps the church of England isn’t as bad or money-grabbing as I’d first thought! And, in response to the comment left on yesterday’s blog, I do appreciate that these churches and cathedrals are extremely expensive to maintain and would be horrified to see them turning to dust.

350 years ago, and Pepys was very proudly showing his father his new home and office. Later on they were joined by Pepys’ former neighbour, Mrs Crisp, who obviously had a whiff of the Anna Rider Richardsons about her, for she made a number of suggestions as to how the house might be better furnished.

Pepys received his first quarter’s salary, and went drinking in Westminster to celebrate. It was at the Rhenish Winehouse that he was sought out by the entertainingly named Mr. man, better known as the sword-bearer of London, who wanted to purchase Pepys’ Clerk of the Acts position. Quite why he felt this would be either practical or legitimate, I’ve no idea, but Pepys humoured him, suggesting they talk about it in the morning.

And for those of you who can’t wait to see A Symphony for Yorkshire, a trailer is now up on You Tube, so take a look, and let me know your thoughts. The full thing will be displayed on You Tube from mid-day on Sunday. I really hope you enjoy it...

York

I am sitting on a step outside Cafe Concerto in York listening to the carillon playing a rather attractive little medley of classical music. It's rather lovely to know not just who is playing it, but how he's playing it and where he's sitting!

I am on the first day of my summer holiday. I am camping on the moors with university friends. We've already been to see the old place. It's a very strange blend of the absolute familiar and whole buildings I've never seen before, which confused us all!

York itself has not changed at all. We had a splendid picnic in museum gardens before strolling along the Walls.

The only disappointment was arriving at the Minster to discover that you had to pay £8 to enter, which for a place of worship is criminal. By all means ask for donations, but this is a building which would have opened its doors to the most troubled members of society and now effectively welcomes only the wealthiest, which I think is grotesque and a typical indication of what's wrong with religion today!

350 years ago Pepys was himself complaining about religion. The service he went to on this date was 'over the top'. He soon returned to more interesting pursuits and went for a walk to the village of marylebone. The evening was spent getting his accounts signed off by montagu. Pepys was worth 120 l. He was getting wealthier by the day!