Happy New Year to you all! We're hosting a little dinner party at our house in forty minutes' time. We're still in the car and we haven't tidied the house or cooked any food. Oh well!
We've been in Huntingdonshire all day. I refuse to acknowledge that Huntingdonshire no longer exists as an official entity. It was a perfectly decent county before it was brutally annexed by Cambridgeshire, so until it can do a Rutland and regain its independence I'm going to make out like I didn't get the memo that it was no longer a place!
We were in Huntington celebrating Nathan's god daughter's birthday, who is wildly unfortunate enough to have been born on New Year's Eve. She's 9 today. It only seems like yesterday that she was born. Where do the years go?
We had dinner in a Bella Italia. I had a veggie lasagne, which wasn't bad, all things considered. There was tea, cake and chatted back at Lisa and Mark's house.
Tonight's soirée will feature a select gathering of close friends. We'll play games, eat baked potatoes, and drink in the new year. I'm not altogether sure I'm ready for 2014 to leave us. It's been good for both of us.
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Strings
We've just finished a 12-hour mammoth recording session for the Brass soundtrack and I am exhausted beyond words. We all are. I watched the musicians trekking out of the studio one by one, all pale-faced and under-nourished, having worked ludicrously hard.
Today was the turn of the string players. Two violins, two 'cellos and a double bassist, aged from about 14 to 19. None had ever recorded in a professional studio before, or, for that matter ever recorded music whilst wearing headphones.
They did a brilliant job. We managed 15 of the 16 songs on the album, which is beyond amazing, and they were patient and hugely well-behaved. There were, of course, the obligatory few moments when we found ourselves recording bars of absolute rubbish, but so much of what we did was inspired and I'm thrilled (and more than a little relieved.) I actually didn't know some of those players were capable of performing so beautifully. They recorded a sequence in I Make the Shells which is bordering on the sublime. It's astonishing what a recording studio will pull out of someone.
I think I have drunk 10 cups of tea today. We have a fabulous studio assistant who keeps throwing cups of tea in my direction. Tea calms me down. Then it makes me all jittery. Then I can't sleep...
A 1960s ventriloquist's doll has been watching me all day today. I don't know what it's doing in the studio, but people have obviously been moving it around because I keep seeing it staring at me from a variety of shelves and sofas. It's a creepy little fella. I'm told his name is Phil Jupiter...
We drove home in freezing temperatures. Our car's thermometer informs me that it's -0.5 degrees here in Willesden. It'll be colder yet at Highgate. Highgate is always 2 degrees colder than the rest of London.
We keep driving past curious towers of mist, which our headlights are lighting up like eerie cyphers. They appear to be coming from the man hole covers in the middle of the road. I've never seen that in tins country before. The sewers are obviously warmer than the air above them and the hot air is freezing like it does above the subways in New York.
The ponds in Hampstead have frozen solid. We got out to take a look as we drove past. I've only ever seen them freeze like this once before. I have to say, I'm rather loving this weather. I hope it snows.
Today was the turn of the string players. Two violins, two 'cellos and a double bassist, aged from about 14 to 19. None had ever recorded in a professional studio before, or, for that matter ever recorded music whilst wearing headphones.
They did a brilliant job. We managed 15 of the 16 songs on the album, which is beyond amazing, and they were patient and hugely well-behaved. There were, of course, the obligatory few moments when we found ourselves recording bars of absolute rubbish, but so much of what we did was inspired and I'm thrilled (and more than a little relieved.) I actually didn't know some of those players were capable of performing so beautifully. They recorded a sequence in I Make the Shells which is bordering on the sublime. It's astonishing what a recording studio will pull out of someone.
I think I have drunk 10 cups of tea today. We have a fabulous studio assistant who keeps throwing cups of tea in my direction. Tea calms me down. Then it makes me all jittery. Then I can't sleep...
A 1960s ventriloquist's doll has been watching me all day today. I don't know what it's doing in the studio, but people have obviously been moving it around because I keep seeing it staring at me from a variety of shelves and sofas. It's a creepy little fella. I'm told his name is Phil Jupiter...
We drove home in freezing temperatures. Our car's thermometer informs me that it's -0.5 degrees here in Willesden. It'll be colder yet at Highgate. Highgate is always 2 degrees colder than the rest of London.
We keep driving past curious towers of mist, which our headlights are lighting up like eerie cyphers. They appear to be coming from the man hole covers in the middle of the road. I've never seen that in tins country before. The sewers are obviously warmer than the air above them and the hot air is freezing like it does above the subways in New York.
The ponds in Hampstead have frozen solid. We got out to take a look as we drove past. I've only ever seen them freeze like this once before. I have to say, I'm rather loving this weather. I hope it snows.
Monday, 29 December 2014
Assault and battery
On my way to the studio this morning, I glanced at a poster on the tube: "Does your health insurer give you the chance to win football tickets?" It asked. And every fibre of me shuddered. Not just because I can't imagine anything worse than attending a football match, let alone simply getting the "chance" to win tickets to a game, but because insurance shouldn't be something which requires incentives. Frankly, if you're wealthy enough to be able to afford health insurance, I'd have thought you could afford a ticket to a football match. Sadly, posters like this do nothing but remind me of the fact that we're moving ever closer to a world where the NHS no longer exists.
I changed from the tube to the overground at Kentish Town. There is both a bus strike and planned engineering work on the travel network today, so I had to plan my route rather carefully! Kentish Town is one of those stations where they tend plants and play classical music to stop people from having hissy fits at the staff. Today's choice was a recorder concerto, which instantly made me feel like strangling the first person I saw!
Fortunately, I emerged from the station to the most joyous scene. The world was covered in a thick layer of white frost and the orange sun was making the ice crystals shimmer like sequins in a spotlight. A gayer sentence you may never read! I found myself staring in awe at tiny details; a little weed in a sea of gravel resembling a candied jelly tot, the top of a low brick wall looking like it had been dusted with a mixture of talcum powder and glitter. Nature certainly knows how to put on a show.
The Thameslink took me to West Hampstead, where I walked to the Jubilee line tube station and instantly got on a tube heading in the wrong direction! I ended up in Finchley Road surrounded by LU staff members shouting and barking. It turns out that Finchley Road is the gateway to hell today, where Jubilee line trains stop operating and everyone panics because they simply don't know how to travel any further south. Fortunately, I was heading North to Willesden, so stayed on the train as it u-turned at and continued its journey in the opposite direction. One poor woman was trying to get to Victoria, but seemed intent on traveling ever-further North in the hope she'd find a train that would take her South! The deep lack of logic people display when they're in a panic never ceases to astonish me!
The studio we were working in is called Assault and Battery, and is the home of the legendary record producer, Flood, who has worked with almost everyone who is anyone. There was a Grammy on a shelf behind me, which Flood won for the U2 album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. No pressure there then...
There were three Bens in the studio today. Ben Holder, who played piano, Ben Varnam, who played drums, and me. Brass has always been sponsored by the name Ben, but today was ridiculous. Phrase of the day became "which Ben?"
The day was an intense experience to say the least. We recorded sixteen piano-led songs. There are fewer than thirty bars in the whole show where the piano isn't playing in some form, which put a huge weight on Ben Holder's very capable shoulders.
The drums are perhaps the next busiest instrument in the show. The songs regularly change metre, tempo and genre and the drums are always expected to lead the drama. Ben V did an astonishing job. He's a very tidy little drummer who didn't seem to want to let anything phase him. I was astonished when he announced at the end that this had been his first professional session.
I'd say about 90% of what we recorded was as good as it could have been. We timed out towards the end of the session and rushed our way through Letters and the Prologue, which I'd rather foolishly left till last. I guess you've got to do something last, but not necessarily the longest and most complicated number in the show, and the first thing people will hear on the recording! Hey ho! It'll all come out in the wash.
We were inspired in the morning by the arrival of a very charming little film, which has been posted on Facebook, showing the mechanics of the production of Brass. Unbeknownst to me, a number of cameras had been set up back stage, on stage, and in the lighting box, and a wonderful package has been edited together of the last fifteen minutes of the show featuring the actors backstage psyching themselves up for entrances and all sorts of technical shenanigans. Anyone who is interested can see the piece here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWDuDPDPG_Q
I changed from the tube to the overground at Kentish Town. There is both a bus strike and planned engineering work on the travel network today, so I had to plan my route rather carefully! Kentish Town is one of those stations where they tend plants and play classical music to stop people from having hissy fits at the staff. Today's choice was a recorder concerto, which instantly made me feel like strangling the first person I saw!
Fortunately, I emerged from the station to the most joyous scene. The world was covered in a thick layer of white frost and the orange sun was making the ice crystals shimmer like sequins in a spotlight. A gayer sentence you may never read! I found myself staring in awe at tiny details; a little weed in a sea of gravel resembling a candied jelly tot, the top of a low brick wall looking like it had been dusted with a mixture of talcum powder and glitter. Nature certainly knows how to put on a show.
The Thameslink took me to West Hampstead, where I walked to the Jubilee line tube station and instantly got on a tube heading in the wrong direction! I ended up in Finchley Road surrounded by LU staff members shouting and barking. It turns out that Finchley Road is the gateway to hell today, where Jubilee line trains stop operating and everyone panics because they simply don't know how to travel any further south. Fortunately, I was heading North to Willesden, so stayed on the train as it u-turned at and continued its journey in the opposite direction. One poor woman was trying to get to Victoria, but seemed intent on traveling ever-further North in the hope she'd find a train that would take her South! The deep lack of logic people display when they're in a panic never ceases to astonish me!
The studio we were working in is called Assault and Battery, and is the home of the legendary record producer, Flood, who has worked with almost everyone who is anyone. There was a Grammy on a shelf behind me, which Flood won for the U2 album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. No pressure there then...
There were three Bens in the studio today. Ben Holder, who played piano, Ben Varnam, who played drums, and me. Brass has always been sponsored by the name Ben, but today was ridiculous. Phrase of the day became "which Ben?"
The day was an intense experience to say the least. We recorded sixteen piano-led songs. There are fewer than thirty bars in the whole show where the piano isn't playing in some form, which put a huge weight on Ben Holder's very capable shoulders.
The drums are perhaps the next busiest instrument in the show. The songs regularly change metre, tempo and genre and the drums are always expected to lead the drama. Ben V did an astonishing job. He's a very tidy little drummer who didn't seem to want to let anything phase him. I was astonished when he announced at the end that this had been his first professional session.
I'd say about 90% of what we recorded was as good as it could have been. We timed out towards the end of the session and rushed our way through Letters and the Prologue, which I'd rather foolishly left till last. I guess you've got to do something last, but not necessarily the longest and most complicated number in the show, and the first thing people will hear on the recording! Hey ho! It'll all come out in the wash.
We were inspired in the morning by the arrival of a very charming little film, which has been posted on Facebook, showing the mechanics of the production of Brass. Unbeknownst to me, a number of cameras had been set up back stage, on stage, and in the lighting box, and a wonderful package has been edited together of the last fifteen minutes of the show featuring the actors backstage psyching themselves up for entrances and all sorts of technical shenanigans. Anyone who is interested can see the piece here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWDuDPDPG_Q
Year in review
It's Abbie's 30th birthday today. It strikes me that this is very much the year of the zero birthdays. My Mum was 70 yesterday. My Dad, and Nathan's father were 70 in July. Nathan and I, and just about everyone else we know were 40 at some stage this year. Abbie, of course, also got married in 2014, so it's rather nice to know that we'll always share that particular anniversary. If one of us forgets how long we've been married, we can always ask the other!
Everyone on Facebook is currently attaching a "Year in Review" post to their timeline. The nerds who run Facebook have found a way to extract the most talked-about moments of a person's online year, and have stuck them all in a fancy-looking bespoke document, which, unsurprisingly, people are sharing with the world. It's become the modern-day equivalent of the Christmas card "round Robin." Of course, its success rather depends on a person regularly posting self-congratulatory statuses and photographs on Facebook. I don't know how the good stuff gets siphoned away from the posts about doom and gloom. If certain friends of mine had their Facebook statuses analysed, their year in review would consist of nothing but desperate midnight screams for sympathy and oblique attention-grabbing statements like, "Now I understand the meaning of true misery..." These open-ended statements are usually followed by about ten "friends" offering up platitudes like, "hugs, babe, things will get better soon." No-one, of course, ever bothers to establish what was wrong in the first place, and a thread of mawkish, cliched sentiment is usually signed off by the original postee saying, "I'm so blessed to have such amazing friends. You guys are awesome. I feel completely humbled."
Here's a word of advice to actors reading this blog. People like me often check Facebook when contemplating whether or not to offer a person a role. I vetted the entire cast of Brass during the audition process. What you opt to publish on Facebook and Twitter says a great deal about your personality - and your levels of intelligence - so do watch what you write!
My 2014 started with a trip to Yorkshire to see Nathan in pantomime. I took the lovely Cindy with me, and simultaneously introduced her to the joys of Haworth, York and Leeds.
January continued with a glorious trip to the Dominican Republic which gave Nathan and me a blast of much-needed Caribbean sunshine and a shedload of laughter.
Two months later, on March 29th, we got married in a televised musical, which remains, to this day, the most significant single event of my life. The wedding was nominated as the Guardian newspaper's TV moment of 2014, and won a prestigious Grierson Award.
The wedding somehow morphed into Brass. There was a trip to France with the creative team, a workshop week, and then a flurry of intense and insane writing activity as I developed orchestrations and re-wrote the script over and over again.
Brass performed for a week in August at the Leeds City Varieties Theatre, and, completely against all odds, and with the support of theatre critic Mark Shenton, won the UK Theatre Award for best musical production. It was an extraordinary honour. I owe a great debt to Jeremy from the National Youth Music Theatre for not just giving me the opportunity to write the piece, but for trusting me to do it the way I felt it needed to be done.
There were summer holidays in Derbyshire with my surrogate family of university friends and 40th birthday celebrations in London, Avebury and Cambridge.
The autumn saw us honeymooning in San Francisco, with only a brief bout of pneumonia marring what was otherwise the most perfect trip.
I entered another intense period of writing in October and November, working on The Man in the Straw hat for the Fleet Singers, which will be performed in April.
December become about prepping the cast recording of Brass, the sessions for which begin first thing tomorrow morning and continue into 2015.
So I exit the year feeling upbeat and positive with my fingers firmly crossed that the new year will bring new adventures and successes. That said, I can't think there will ever be another year like 2014.
Everyone on Facebook is currently attaching a "Year in Review" post to their timeline. The nerds who run Facebook have found a way to extract the most talked-about moments of a person's online year, and have stuck them all in a fancy-looking bespoke document, which, unsurprisingly, people are sharing with the world. It's become the modern-day equivalent of the Christmas card "round Robin." Of course, its success rather depends on a person regularly posting self-congratulatory statuses and photographs on Facebook. I don't know how the good stuff gets siphoned away from the posts about doom and gloom. If certain friends of mine had their Facebook statuses analysed, their year in review would consist of nothing but desperate midnight screams for sympathy and oblique attention-grabbing statements like, "Now I understand the meaning of true misery..." These open-ended statements are usually followed by about ten "friends" offering up platitudes like, "hugs, babe, things will get better soon." No-one, of course, ever bothers to establish what was wrong in the first place, and a thread of mawkish, cliched sentiment is usually signed off by the original postee saying, "I'm so blessed to have such amazing friends. You guys are awesome. I feel completely humbled."
Here's a word of advice to actors reading this blog. People like me often check Facebook when contemplating whether or not to offer a person a role. I vetted the entire cast of Brass during the audition process. What you opt to publish on Facebook and Twitter says a great deal about your personality - and your levels of intelligence - so do watch what you write!
My 2014 started with a trip to Yorkshire to see Nathan in pantomime. I took the lovely Cindy with me, and simultaneously introduced her to the joys of Haworth, York and Leeds.
January continued with a glorious trip to the Dominican Republic which gave Nathan and me a blast of much-needed Caribbean sunshine and a shedload of laughter.
Two months later, on March 29th, we got married in a televised musical, which remains, to this day, the most significant single event of my life. The wedding was nominated as the Guardian newspaper's TV moment of 2014, and won a prestigious Grierson Award.
The wedding somehow morphed into Brass. There was a trip to France with the creative team, a workshop week, and then a flurry of intense and insane writing activity as I developed orchestrations and re-wrote the script over and over again.
Brass performed for a week in August at the Leeds City Varieties Theatre, and, completely against all odds, and with the support of theatre critic Mark Shenton, won the UK Theatre Award for best musical production. It was an extraordinary honour. I owe a great debt to Jeremy from the National Youth Music Theatre for not just giving me the opportunity to write the piece, but for trusting me to do it the way I felt it needed to be done.
There were summer holidays in Derbyshire with my surrogate family of university friends and 40th birthday celebrations in London, Avebury and Cambridge.
The autumn saw us honeymooning in San Francisco, with only a brief bout of pneumonia marring what was otherwise the most perfect trip.
I entered another intense period of writing in October and November, working on The Man in the Straw hat for the Fleet Singers, which will be performed in April.
December become about prepping the cast recording of Brass, the sessions for which begin first thing tomorrow morning and continue into 2015.
So I exit the year feeling upbeat and positive with my fingers firmly crossed that the new year will bring new adventures and successes. That said, I can't think there will ever be another year like 2014.
Sunday, 28 December 2014
Made in Dagenham
We woke up a little too early this morning. I reckon I could have done at least another hour drifting in and out of sleep. I hit the Christmas brick wall today; the one where you long to hibernate for a week, not eating any more rubbish food, just staring, shell-shocked at a silent telly with no one else around.
Nathan's Dad and step mother, Liz, came to see us this morning and presented us with lovely jumpers and plates of cheese. They'd been greatly missed on Christmas Day itself and it was great to catch up with them and swap Yuletime tales.
It's my mother's 70th birthday today, so Nathan and I hot-footed it into Central London to meet the parents and Brother Edward at the Adelphi Theatre, where we were taken to see the musical version of Made In Dagenham.
The parents absolutely loved the show. It's such a wonderful story. My parents remembered the real-life events that the story is based on, and were thrilled by the authenticity of the costumes and sets. For those who don't know the film that the musical is based on, Made In Dagenham tells the tale of a group of female workers at the Dagenham Ford Car factory who, in the late 1960s, fought for equal pay for women. These women, in my view, are right up there with the Cable Street rioters and the Jarrow Marchers.
I was slightly horrified to note that the creative team of the show consisted entirely of men. It's not that I think men can't, or shouldn't write about female struggles - far from it - but I think, in this case, a bit of female energy wouldn't have gone a miss. The biggest, most powerful number was sung, for example, by the husband of the central female character, and the women characters in the show felt a little one-dimensional.
The book was good, the lyrics were passable, but the music was largely unsuccessful. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that, as a piece of musical theatre, David Arnold's score systematically managed to miss every dramatic and musical beat! It was like listening to a lengthy yawn. There were no stand-out melodies and it screamed of something which had been written in haste and without love, which upset me enormously, because the story is so profound and strong.
The show has been in development for a long time. It was workshopped several times and was in rehearsals for months, but it seems there was no-one on the show who had the balls to say, "this melody isn't strong enough. We don't need this pointless comedy number. This song hasn't been earned by this character." And so on. Most irritating of all was the way the words scanned. The strong musical beats were regularly placed on the wrong syllables of words which began to make my skin crawl. Wholly unacceptable.
To make matters worse, the orchestrations were synthetic, dense and hugely old-fashioned. Everything was scored for that Musical Theatre-cliche of a smattering of woodwind, a trumpet, a rock band and 97 synth sounds. It actually felt like a parody of musical theatre. I have massive respect for David Arnold as a film-writer, but musical theatre would appear not to be his forte. I'm not sure he respects the medium enough. That, or he wrote the work a little too speedily. If I were him I'd be heading back to the world of James Bond as quickly as possible...
It appears that Islington Council has done the unimaginable and given all of its roads a 20 mph speed limit. I have seldom witnessed such utter insanity. Of course the decision will be dressed up as a way of protecting pedestrians, but clearly, based on the sheer number of new cameras (one of which flashed Nathan last night) this is nothing but a money-making scheme.
...So my journeys through the borough are now a third longer than they were before, which is annoying enough, but driving at 20mph on a main road like Holloway Road is actually dangerous. It makes a driver get so bored he starts to think he can do other things at the same time like tweet and sleep! Honestly. I spent so much of my last journey looking at the mile-ometer that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed someone rushing out in front of me. It is so counter-intuitive.
Nathan's Dad and step mother, Liz, came to see us this morning and presented us with lovely jumpers and plates of cheese. They'd been greatly missed on Christmas Day itself and it was great to catch up with them and swap Yuletime tales.
It's my mother's 70th birthday today, so Nathan and I hot-footed it into Central London to meet the parents and Brother Edward at the Adelphi Theatre, where we were taken to see the musical version of Made In Dagenham.
The parents absolutely loved the show. It's such a wonderful story. My parents remembered the real-life events that the story is based on, and were thrilled by the authenticity of the costumes and sets. For those who don't know the film that the musical is based on, Made In Dagenham tells the tale of a group of female workers at the Dagenham Ford Car factory who, in the late 1960s, fought for equal pay for women. These women, in my view, are right up there with the Cable Street rioters and the Jarrow Marchers.
I was slightly horrified to note that the creative team of the show consisted entirely of men. It's not that I think men can't, or shouldn't write about female struggles - far from it - but I think, in this case, a bit of female energy wouldn't have gone a miss. The biggest, most powerful number was sung, for example, by the husband of the central female character, and the women characters in the show felt a little one-dimensional.
The book was good, the lyrics were passable, but the music was largely unsuccessful. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that, as a piece of musical theatre, David Arnold's score systematically managed to miss every dramatic and musical beat! It was like listening to a lengthy yawn. There were no stand-out melodies and it screamed of something which had been written in haste and without love, which upset me enormously, because the story is so profound and strong.
The show has been in development for a long time. It was workshopped several times and was in rehearsals for months, but it seems there was no-one on the show who had the balls to say, "this melody isn't strong enough. We don't need this pointless comedy number. This song hasn't been earned by this character." And so on. Most irritating of all was the way the words scanned. The strong musical beats were regularly placed on the wrong syllables of words which began to make my skin crawl. Wholly unacceptable.
To make matters worse, the orchestrations were synthetic, dense and hugely old-fashioned. Everything was scored for that Musical Theatre-cliche of a smattering of woodwind, a trumpet, a rock band and 97 synth sounds. It actually felt like a parody of musical theatre. I have massive respect for David Arnold as a film-writer, but musical theatre would appear not to be his forte. I'm not sure he respects the medium enough. That, or he wrote the work a little too speedily. If I were him I'd be heading back to the world of James Bond as quickly as possible...
It appears that Islington Council has done the unimaginable and given all of its roads a 20 mph speed limit. I have seldom witnessed such utter insanity. Of course the decision will be dressed up as a way of protecting pedestrians, but clearly, based on the sheer number of new cameras (one of which flashed Nathan last night) this is nothing but a money-making scheme.
...So my journeys through the borough are now a third longer than they were before, which is annoying enough, but driving at 20mph on a main road like Holloway Road is actually dangerous. It makes a driver get so bored he starts to think he can do other things at the same time like tweet and sleep! Honestly. I spent so much of my last journey looking at the mile-ometer that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed someone rushing out in front of me. It is so counter-intuitive.
Friday, 26 December 2014
Kent
We're in Kent. We drove all the way down here from North Wales this morning and arrived at about 3pm. It wasn't a bad journey, although I got caught short somewhere on the M6 where there are no service stations. I ended up having to take a wee on the hard shoulder whilst numerous cars beeped their horns at me! Mortifying.
We're at my cousin Neil's house, somewhere in the countryside near Maidstone. An enormous bunch of descendants of my grandparents have gathered to spend Boxing Day together and Nathan and I are representing the Till clan. We had a huge curry for lunch and a massive game of gender non-specific Mr and Mrs, which was won by my cousin's daughter and her step sister. Nathan and I came third. We were actually the highest place married couple. Second place went to the twins.
We sat down to watch cine footage of our family in the 1960s, including extended sequences of the much-fabled house my great grandmother lived in on the Isle of Wight. It had an eight-acre garden with lawns and woods and streams which stretched down to its own private beach. My Mum can't talk about Ventnor without going a little misty-eyed, and this is the first time I've ever seen film footage of it. It was really quite moving. And such a beautiful house.
There was also cine footage of my Grandparents at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. They were quite the adventurers in their middle age, and there were even shots of her meeting the England players and wandering onto the pitch post game!
At the end of the night we watched Our Gay Wedding The Musical, which again felt rather special surrounded by four generations of my family.
We're at my cousin Neil's house, somewhere in the countryside near Maidstone. An enormous bunch of descendants of my grandparents have gathered to spend Boxing Day together and Nathan and I are representing the Till clan. We had a huge curry for lunch and a massive game of gender non-specific Mr and Mrs, which was won by my cousin's daughter and her step sister. Nathan and I came third. We were actually the highest place married couple. Second place went to the twins.
We sat down to watch cine footage of our family in the 1960s, including extended sequences of the much-fabled house my great grandmother lived in on the Isle of Wight. It had an eight-acre garden with lawns and woods and streams which stretched down to its own private beach. My Mum can't talk about Ventnor without going a little misty-eyed, and this is the first time I've ever seen film footage of it. It was really quite moving. And such a beautiful house.
There was also cine footage of my Grandparents at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. They were quite the adventurers in their middle age, and there were even shots of her meeting the England players and wandering onto the pitch post game!
At the end of the night we watched Our Gay Wedding The Musical, which again felt rather special surrounded by four generations of my family.
Thursday, 25 December 2014
It's Chriiiiissssttmaaaaaas!
It's been a hugely pleasurable Christmas Day, filled with very special people, games, food, mulled wine, presents, and, crucially, no TV! None whatsoever.
The day started in Shropshire at Celia and Ron's house just outside Market Drayton. We attempted to make blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which Meriel, Celia and I managed to entirely destroy! Nathan tweeted a series of photographs as the situation descended into complete mayhem and the kitchen filled with smoke. The last picture was of a rather sad pile of charcoal sitting in a frying pan!
We travelled to Wales and arrived at Nathan's sister's house in Penley just before noon. There were fifteen of us at one point; my Mum and Dad, Brother Edward, Sam's lot, Meriel, Celia, Ron and various boyfriends, girlfriends and associated children.
We toasted absent friends and families across the world at 3pm in front of the Queen's Speech, which is a tradition Nathan's family have always upheld. I toasted Billy Whitelaw with my wine glass with the pretty on it.
We went for a walk down the hill into the countryside outside Penley, and sat on the little bridge where Wales becomes England, looking up at what Sam's daughter Jennie describes as the best sledging hill in carnation.
We ate a dinner with plates and plates of wonderful-coloured vegetables. It was like a rainbow on a plate. Purple cabbage, orange carrots, golden parsnips, yellow sweetcorn, bright green Brussels and every colour of every vegetable in between.
Meriel brought Christmas crackers filled with miniature (slightly out of) tuned whistles on which we played simple melodies, like The First Nowell, one note at a time.
There were indoor sparklers after lunch and we discovered it was possible to use a slow shutter speed to take photographs of people spelling out words, which we then realised we could do with considerably less effort on iPhone torches. Lovely little words like "happy" and "Xmas" became incredibly rude words with exclamation marks attached!
We played games in the evening with pens and pieces of paper. It felt so special to have everyone together; four generations of an extended family of misfits all together. Meriel is definitely a keeper. We're going to try and encourage her to become an honorary aunt!
We're thrilled to note that we've become a question in the Guardian newspaper's quiz of the year. Question 20; "what did Nathan Taylor and Benjamin Till celebrate in musical form last April?" Obviously they meant March, but it's nice to be mentioned! I've never been the answer to a quiz question before. Actually, that's a lie. Whilst I was dating the MP Stephen Twigg, director Stephen Daldry asked a question about me at the Royal Court Theatre Christmas Party quiz.
The two sets of parents and Edward left at about 8, and we played another game, ate large quantities of cheese (and scored each block out of ten) and then settled down for a night of chatting, knitting and winding down.
The day started in Shropshire at Celia and Ron's house just outside Market Drayton. We attempted to make blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which Meriel, Celia and I managed to entirely destroy! Nathan tweeted a series of photographs as the situation descended into complete mayhem and the kitchen filled with smoke. The last picture was of a rather sad pile of charcoal sitting in a frying pan!
We travelled to Wales and arrived at Nathan's sister's house in Penley just before noon. There were fifteen of us at one point; my Mum and Dad, Brother Edward, Sam's lot, Meriel, Celia, Ron and various boyfriends, girlfriends and associated children.
We toasted absent friends and families across the world at 3pm in front of the Queen's Speech, which is a tradition Nathan's family have always upheld. I toasted Billy Whitelaw with my wine glass with the pretty on it.
We went for a walk down the hill into the countryside outside Penley, and sat on the little bridge where Wales becomes England, looking up at what Sam's daughter Jennie describes as the best sledging hill in carnation.
We ate a dinner with plates and plates of wonderful-coloured vegetables. It was like a rainbow on a plate. Purple cabbage, orange carrots, golden parsnips, yellow sweetcorn, bright green Brussels and every colour of every vegetable in between.
Meriel brought Christmas crackers filled with miniature (slightly out of) tuned whistles on which we played simple melodies, like The First Nowell, one note at a time.
There were indoor sparklers after lunch and we discovered it was possible to use a slow shutter speed to take photographs of people spelling out words, which we then realised we could do with considerably less effort on iPhone torches. Lovely little words like "happy" and "Xmas" became incredibly rude words with exclamation marks attached!
We played games in the evening with pens and pieces of paper. It felt so special to have everyone together; four generations of an extended family of misfits all together. Meriel is definitely a keeper. We're going to try and encourage her to become an honorary aunt!
We're thrilled to note that we've become a question in the Guardian newspaper's quiz of the year. Question 20; "what did Nathan Taylor and Benjamin Till celebrate in musical form last April?" Obviously they meant March, but it's nice to be mentioned! I've never been the answer to a quiz question before. Actually, that's a lie. Whilst I was dating the MP Stephen Twigg, director Stephen Daldry asked a question about me at the Royal Court Theatre Christmas Party quiz.
The two sets of parents and Edward left at about 8, and we played another game, ate large quantities of cheese (and scored each block out of ten) and then settled down for a night of chatting, knitting and winding down.
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