Toilet Cap

It’s an absolutely beautiful day today and I'm sitting having my lunch in Waterlow Park, listening to the birds, the game of tennis behind me and the distant groan of an aeroplane. The place is almost empty, I assume because the kids have started to go back to school, or perhaps because they’re all in Woolworth’s buying stationery. At least they would be if Woolworth's still existed. Sadly missed...


There was a group of kids in the cafe this morning who were like a teenaged, plummy version of Sex In The City. One of them was called Elektra! She oozed confidence and charm, until she spilt two enormous vats of hot chocolate all over the place, but even then she seemed to deal with things in a fairly un-flustered sort of way. I suppose if you’ve got a name like Elektra, you’ve really got to step up to the plate!

I found out today that my film, Watford Gap: The Musical, has been nominated for a Gillard Award, which means that every film I’ve made has now been nominated, or won some kind of pretty nice award, for which the Great Lord in all of his infinite wisdom and humour be thanked.

I'm seriously worried about finding gospel and folk singers for the motet, and pretty scared about the concept of finding trebles if St Paul's School can't help. It's occupying my thoughts so much that I ordered a tea this morning, stood at the counter as they made it and then walked away, sat down and started writing lists. It was only after I tried to pour tea out of my previous(empty) teapot that I realised the tea I'd bought some five minutes ago was still on the counter. Cold as a corpse.

September 3rd 1660 was a busy day for Pepys. It started with a visit to an unnamed goldsmith near the New Exchange. Pepys informs us that it was here that he bought his wedding ring, but today he was there on behalf of Montagu, who wanted a ring attached to an extravagant jewel he’d been awarded by the King of Sweden. His plan was to make a “George” out of it to wear around his neck with his Order of the Garter garb.

Montagu left for sea at noon and Pepys was rather thrilled to see the kindness with which “the King did hug my Lord at his partning”. Pepys went to Lambeth with his master, and saw him onto the coach which would take him through Kent towards the Cinque ports. It reminded Pepys of Montagu’s first trip overseas; a visit to the Mediterranean in February 1656, which also started in a coach at Lambeth.

Pepys arrived home to discover one of Montagu’s servants waiting for him. Montagu had forgotten to pack a whole host of things including “a toilet cap” (any ideas?) and a “comb of silk to make use of in Holland, for he goes to The Hague”.

A warped ode to the Beverley Sisters

Ooh... It’s 11.42pm and I've not yet blogged! Crumbs...

It’s been a pretty hectic day, which started in Costa and ended on the sofa watching telly and eating chips.

In the meantime I did a squillion auditions for Pepys, which have put me into a major crisis because I now can’t decide on the people I want for the early music choir; and that’s about the only definitive decision I'll be able to make at this stage. It's an incredibly frustrating process. There are many people I would like to be able to feature, but so few people who have versatile enough voices for me to be able to parachute them into another choir.

I met some particularly wonderful singers today; and got to hear a section from movement five bursting into life. The sequence when Elizabeth discovers Samuel in flagrante delicto seems to have become like a form of warped ode to the Beverley Sisters! It shouldn’t work, but it sort of does! It was wonderful to hear it being sung...

My very old and dear friend, Tash from Northamptonshire called in to St Olave’s Church to say hello and ended up being hauled in to sing various missing harmonies. It was wonderful to see her, but I felt incredibly guilty that she ended up working her ass off. For a long period she was even singing tenor.

September 2nd 1660 was a Sunday and Pepys went to church... twice. He'd based himself in Westminster because Montagu was due to set sail very early the following morning. Towards the end of the day he made the decision to stay the night at Montagu Towers and sent W Hewer home to tell Elizabeth that he wouldn’t be returning until the following day. With no sight of his Lord, he called in on his former neighbour, Mrs Crisp and her family, who were obviously thrilled to have a guest, because they immediately cracked open the booze and started behaving inappropriately. Pepys’ last sentence says it all: “I drank til the daughter began to be very loving to me and kind, and I fear is not so good as she should be.” Eek!

Sloppy Guiseppi

We had a lovely evening last night with Hilary and Rupert on their boat in Chelsea Harbour. It’s called the Cailliach, named after a dark, mystical, mythical Scottish crone. It’s suitably eccentric; a big, beautiful, ancient wooden craft, which is surrounded, as you might expect for Chelsea, by rather soulless pleasure cruisers. Entering the boat is like entering the 1920s. It's undeniably compact, but has an astonishing amount of character. There are all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies; little wooden cupboards which reveal the most intriguing little rooms and storage spaces. There’s a dining room, a sitting room with a glorious wood-burning stove, a brilliantly-equipped galley and a tiny bathroom with an actual bath! Everywhere you look, there’s the most stunning wood panelling. Obviously, I'm covered in bruises today from hitting various parts of my body, attempting to negotiate rather tight spaces, but it truly is a magnificent little home. I wholeheartedly approve!


The company and food was rather fine as well. We ate the most delicious stroganoff and a fabulous goats cheese flan for starters. On the way home, Hils took us through a Design Centre that sits next to the harbour and seems to remain open all night, like a weird scene from a horror movie. You go in, and there’s this strange musak being pumped everywhere. The place is lit up like a Christmas tree, yet there’s absolutely no one around. No one at all. Not even a security desk. Why would it stay open after all the shops have closed? Why weren’t lines of vagrants sleeping in there? Why hadn’t someone nicked one of the freaky models of sheep that peer at you from every corner of the place? I wondered if I'd suddenly walked into some kind of art-house film...

Today, the sun continued to shine. I worked all morning and then went to meet the three generations of women in my God-daughter’s family at Highgate Woods. It was very charming. We had a lovely lunch in the outdoor cafe and then played on the swings. Deia is extremely confident nowadays, particularly physically. She was giving her Grandmother a few minor panics by rushing to the top of a slide and then throwing herself down, using a horizontal metal pole as leverage.

September 1st 1660, and Pepys was organising things for Montagu’s trip to sea; specifically a vessel to carry his belongings out to the Downs; an area of sea off the coast of Kent which was used as a sort of gathering point for warships and large ships heading off on global adventures.

Pepys lunched with Henry Moore the lawyer and Dr Timothy Clerk at the Bull Head in Westminster upon the “best venison pasty” he claimed ever to have eaten. And it got better; “with one dish more, it was the best dinner I ever was at.” Clerk and Moore had a heated argument about theatre and Pepys was asked to mediate. It was decided the three men would go away, think about things, and then return in three days’ time to resolve the debate whilst eating the remainder of the pasty. I assume taverns in those days had no qualms about storing un-finished food for people. Imagine trying that in Pizza Express? "Sorry, I'm a bit full, do you mind hanging onto half of this Sloppy Guiseppi for a few days? I'll be back next Tuesday to finish it off..." Quite how nice a 3-day old venison pasty would be is also a matter for debate.

MOT

What a difference a day makes. London is currently bathed in the most beautiful late summer sunshine. The days of non-stop rain seem to be over and there’s finally a sense of optimism in the air again. I often think the start of September brings with it an element of hope, which no doubt goes back to childhood and the start of the new school year. I still remember the excitement of endless hours spent in Woolworths choosing pencils which smelt of cola and sets of multi-coloured felt tip pens. For some reason I always ended up buying one of those useless plastic set square/protractor combination packs, which would never fit into my brand new furry pencil case. Walking out of my first lesson of the new term, trying to hold all my stationery was like the cabbage game on Crackerjack!


Like all sensible people, I had my annual sexual health MOT today and all was fine. I went to a very lovely clinic in Soho, where the chairs were comfortable, the deco was plush and there wasn’t that all-pervading sense of degradation and sadness that these clap clinics can often generate! The results came back in 3 minutes flat, which has to be some kind of a record and made a very welcome change from that old-school 2 week wait.  The woman who did my test was friendly and kept calling me honey, which I liked for some reason.

I would urge everyone to periodically get tested for STIs. There’s a very unpleasant sense of ignorance, particularly in the heterosexual world, who seem to believe that these kinds of diseases only affect the gay community, but, as Nathan often says, a baby is the nicest thing you can catch! I'm often horrified to hear about the sexual practices of some of my straight friends; the risks they take on a daily basis make my blood run cold. That said, the lady in the clinic announced a very troubling statistic; 1 in 5 of the gay community in London is now HIV positive. Deeply shocking. Of course, it’s now a disease that is eminently treatable, but there’s still no cure, and the side effects of the drugs can be very unpleasant. And be warned; the number of heterosexuals testing positive is rising and rising...

Despite the glorious weather, I’m still not feeling 100%. Today was meant to be about starting as I mean to go on for the rest of the year. Autumn is typically my most productive season, but there’s a distinct lack of energy in me at the moment. Perhaps when I head back to the gym tomorrow, things will change.

Is it just me, or is the man who sings the Go Compare advert jingle, the most irritating person in the world?

August 31st 1660, and Pepys seemed very upbeat and pleased with his position in the world. He spent much of the day “waiting upon” Montagu, who had been called to sea rather suddenly, and as a result there was much that needed to be organised.

On top of the world

Today I got to fulfill another one of my life's ambitions by visiting the Whispering Gallery at St Paul's Cathedral. I can't believe I've lived in London for over fifteen years without stepping foot in that magical place.

I've been on a day out with my very dear friend, Edward, and rather than making a dash for the nearest bit of countryside, we decided we'd have a look at what London had to offer.

As we walked along the South Bank it became very apparent that there weren't many other Londoners on the tourist trail. Most city dwellers had, no doubt, taken advantage of the sunshine and cleared off to Southend On Sea to watch the baptisms!

We popped into the turbine hall at the Tate Modern to see what was going on and were hugely disappointed to discover that there wasn't an awe-inspiring, enormous work of art hanging-out there. Instead they seemed to be running ballet classes, tucked away in one corner of the enormous space, which felt way too self-conscious to be some kind of installation that I didn't understand!

It was whilst we were having a pub lunch that the idea of visiting the cathedral came to us; both of us confessing that we'd never visited it before.

The initial impact of the place is breathtaking. It's fabulously gaudy and terribly high! Standing underneath the giant dome whilst looking up at rows and rows of balconies and frescos, is so awe-inspiring it actually gave me vertigo!

We decided to climb the 500 or so steps to the very top of the building. It's the human condition to want to be as high as possible even if the view is a bit rubbish and the climb is tiring or dangerous.

The Whispering Gallery is the first of three levels and is far grander than I'd imagined. Looking up it's still many, many metres to the top of the dome and the circumference is very large at this point. We did what we were meant to do and took up positions against the walls opposite each other with perhaps twenty meters of empty space between us. I cupped my hand against the wall and whispered Edward's name, and then put my ear to the wall and listened. It took a moment, but then I heard something magical. "Benjamin Till." I heard my name. It was faint above the sound of the cathedral organ, but very definitely there. It was disembodied and extremely eerie; the sort of sound you might expect would wake you up from a nightmare and make you sit bolt-upright in bed in a cold sweat! It was terrifying, yet wonderful and deeply mystifying. We were both thrilled. What on earth causes this phenomenon? I vowed to return at the start of a day when there weren't any other sounds to get in the way.

From the Whispering Gallery, we climbed upwards to the Stone Gallery and then to the Golden Gallery, where we were able to look down at the cathedral floor from a ball-tingling height! But I suppose it was the view of London from the viewing platform outside of the building that properly took our breath away. You could see for miles. Highgate was particularly clear on the horizon, as was Crystal Palace in the south. We stood for some time, looking down on the scores of roof terraces and urban gardens in the City which are completely invisible from street level. Very exciting, in a way, just to know they exist and interesting to wonder who is allowed to use them and whether they know just how lucky they are!

Before I talk about what Pepys was up to, I feel obliged to bring your collective attention to this:

This single, by The Unconventionals, is out now on i-tunes, and was made by a group of my friends. It is guaranteed to cheer you up, and only costs 79p.  Buy it. I dare you!

Pepys woke up on this date 350 years ago to discover that all was well within his house and that his troublesome boy hadn't spent the night destroying the joint. In fact, quite the opposite, he seemed utterly destoyed and very apologetic, but Pepys was unimpressed, claiming he was "the most cunning rogue that ever I met with of his age."

Pepys headed for Westminster and dined with a lawyer at Heaven, which was a bar-cum-restaurant within the complex of Westminster Hall. Apparently there were other bars in the vicinity called Hell and Purgatory!

Elizabeth, meanwhile, went off to the christening of Mr Pierce, the surgeon's child. At the last moment, they asked her to be a god-mother, but Pepys stepped in and urged her to decline; it's not clear why. Pepys noted that today was the first time his wife had worn black patches on her face; a European tradition, which made its way to this country following the Restoration, and made an incredibly good cover-up for any pock-marks created by small pox.

One Day More

I am sitting in a room somewhere in Ealing whilst around me twelve West End performers sing songs from the shows in multiple-part harmony. They're currently singing Seasons Of Love from Rent. No one seems worried that an enormous vat of multi-coloured  popcorn has just been spilt all over the floor. They're all too busy singing at the tops of their lungs. It's amazing what happens to a group of Wendies when someone begins to play songs from the shows. A similar thing happens to dancers when you say 'a five, six, seven, eight.' Try it some day. Nevertheless, I consider myself to be hugely lucky. There's many secretaries in Leicestershire who would pay at least sixty quid to hear this many show queens doing their thing. They're doing One Day More at the moment. Hysterical.

Last night, after my trip to Southend, I went into Soho for food with Nathan and our friend Cary, who is currently writing the book for the production of Flashdance which is about to open at The Shaftesbury Theatre. Yet another musical based on a 1980s chick flick! Next up; Ghost.

We ended the evening in Shuttleworths; a dive of a bar which sits underneath the Phoenix Theatre. It attracts theatricals, and is a rather glorious place, lined with posters from previous shows and countless signed headshots of actors. It's normally a charming place to sit and while away a few hours but last night it was horribly crowded, hot, sweaty and noisy, so we made a speedy exit.

350 years ago, Pepys and his wife spent the morning interrogating their boy, Will, in an attempt to discover whether he was the thief who had been stealing things from around the house. He denied everything "with the greatest of subtlety and confidence". But later, Elizabeth, no doubt by using her feminine wiles, managed to eke a confession out of him. And more besides. Pepys became incandescent with rage and swore to "put the lad away".

The incident obviously made everyone a bit jumpy for in the night, Jane the maid heard a sound downstairs, which was assumed to be the lad, who'd been unceremoniously thrown out of the house, plotting his revenge. Poor Jane was sent downstairs on her own to lock all the doors, Elizabeth went into a proper panic, and the entire family ended up sleeping in one room with candles burning all night!

Baptism

I’m in the back of brother Edward’s fancy car heading back from Southend on Sea. I’ve been on a day out with Sascha, Gemma, Michael and little Thomas. We seem to be listening to a Eurovision Song Contest playlist, which is making a good job of obliterating the memory of the ghastly town we've just visited! I don’t often say this about a place, but Southend is a horrible dump with few, if any, redeeming features.

I love nearly every British seaside town. Some are posh, some are arty, others, Like Whitby are stranded in a sort of joyous 1950s world. But Southend seems to be singularly lacking in any form of charm. The town itself feels like any number of Essex towns; down at heel and badly affected by the recession. I tried to find Nathan an anniversary gift and could only find a TK Maxx, a Superdrug and various pound shops. The seafront has a couple of arcades, a little amusement park and a never ending supply of chip shops, rubbing shoulders with Rossi’s ice cream parlours, but it’s filled to the brim with really tragic-looking characters. Women with faces plastered in makeup walk hand in hand with toothless young men plastered in shell-suit material. Pubs advertise lunchtime striptease acts alongside signs which offer “entertainment for all the family.” In Southend, it’s obviously deemed appropriate for a father to stick his son on a bucking bronco in a pub car park whilst he sneaks off for a quick ogle at a few hard-faced Eastern European whores; deeply unsavoury in a sort of soulless way. This town has plainly lost its way...

Imagine our surprise, therefore, to discover literally hundreds of black Christians, bedecked in white robes, being baptised in the sea. From the markings on the mini-buses they arrived in, it appears that most had come down from Doncaster; begging the question, why on earth were they not baptised on the beautiful Yorkshire coastline? The Christians were arranged on the beach in two distinct groups; one sat in countless rows praying and singing, whilst the other gathered around the seashore, some waist deep in the water, doing whatever ritual they’d come there to do. It was deeply sinister. I’m of the opinion that religion should be a very private thing. These public displays make me feel as uncomfortable as I do when I'm forced to watch a young couple snogging whilst wearing braces! Why not head for a private beach, or frankly somewhere with a bit more atmosphere, class or beauty? Who were these people? Why were they all black? What branch of Christianity were they followers of? And why on earth did they choose Southend?

August 28th 1660 was a Tuesday and Pepys spent most of his time at home with Elizabeth. The day generated another passage which I’m using as text for the motet; “some time I spent this morning beginning to teach my wife some scale in music, and found her apt beyond imagination.” Attempting to teach Elizabeth music became a regular occurrence in Pepys’ life. The cycle would start with him writing about how talented his wife was, but always end in disaster with him becoming utterly infuriated and Elizabeth running away in floods of tears!

Later in the day Pepys called in to the Privy Seal and emerged with 80l, which he took home, delightedly. He was, however, sad to hear that his mother was unwell again, and wrote that he feared “she will not last long.”

Pepys went to bed, greatly troubled, not just because of his mother’s illness, but because he was worried that his boy servant, Will (not to be confused with his trusty clerk, Will Hewer) was a thief. A letter from Mr Jenkins with half a crown inside had gone missing and all the evidence suggested that the lad had pocketed it. Oh dear...

Culture clash in Southend