Not for the squeamish

Another day, another quiz, and I’m currently heading home from Central London on the Victoria Line, which is one of those epic tube lines which goes like the wind and cuts people’s journeys in half.

I’m sitting opposite a drunk man who is plainly trying very hard to stop himself from a) falling asleep and b) vomiting.

I’m quite convinced that, any moment now, a huge torrent of chunder is going to roar out of his gob and coat us all.

I once went to France in a cross channel ferry in very bad weather. The boat listed from side to side perilously and I ended up the only person in my class who didn’t vomit. I didn’t half feel queasy, however, so took myself onto deck and leaned over the railings into the soothing, drizzle-filled, salty air. I was aware that my face was suddenly much wetter than it had been a few seconds before, and turned around to see that the bloke standing on deck next to me had vommed over the side of the boat. Sadly, it also became clear that the wind had brought it all back into my face. The poor bloke was a shade of green. He looked at me, terribly ashamed. “Sorry. I’m really sorry.” With that, he vomited on his shoes. Under normal circumstances I would have laughed uncontrollably, but I was too shocked!

Horrified, I ran to the loos to wash my face, but the sinks were full of huge piles of sick. The place stank to high heaven. It was as though someone had thrown half eaten bowls of Weetabix against all of the walls. The floor was covered in the stuff as well, and, as I turned around to run out of the hell zone, I tripped, slid and then skated across the floor, landing on my bum in a big heap of boak.

And that’s my story about sick. Enjoy your breakfast!

No loo for me!

I did an interview tonight for the BBC’s Georgey show, a national programme which gets rolled out across the network of local radio stations of an evening. She’s a really lovely presenter, and the interview, which was about my Nene composition, went very well. I did it “down the line” which means, by the magic of technology, she was able to interview me from a studio in Leeds, whilst I sat in the swanky New Broadcasting House in London.

The problem with the BBC these days is that, unless you have a proper pass, it’s almost impossible to do any business within any of their buildings without being chaperoned like some sort of 18th Century virgin!

I arrived in plenty of time for my interview, got myself signed in at reception, and then sat, like a muppet, on one of the Beeb’s non-functioning sofas, waiting for someone to come and collect me. I waited. I waited. I huffed a bit. I chatted to the lovely lady who puts bags through the airport-style security barriers. Eventually, a man came rushing down; “we didn’t know you were here!” I explained that I’d watched the woman behind reception calling someone to say I was there. He seemed genuinely apologetic, but not apologetic enough to offer me a glass of water or a cup of tea, which would have been nice, but at least I was in the building.

By the time I got into the studio, I was receiving worried calls from the producer in Leeds. As it turned out, everything was okay. They shuffled the order of the show around. I got to listen to I’m So Excited by the Pointer Sisters as I waited my turn. I had a lovely chat with Georgey, who was witty and charming. And that, I thought, was that… 

As I left the studio, the man who’d shown me in came running over to take me out of the building again. As we reached the giant revolving doors which separate the special BBC employees from us hoi-polloi, I told my guardian that I needed the loo. “When you pass through the doors,” he said, “turn right, and then it’s the first door on the right…” He shook my hand, said goodbye and headed back into the fortress.

I went through the doors and the security man grabbed the temporary pass I’d been given. “Oh,” I said, “don’t I need that whilst I’m using the loo?” He gave me a somewhat smug look, “you can’t use the toilet here. You’re only allowed to use the toilet if you’re accompanied by a member of staff.” “Then can YOU take me to the loo?” I asked. “No. You cannot use the toilet.” I tried to explain that using a loo was a basic human right. What if I had a medical condition? What happens when my prostrate blows up like a balloon? What if I were a pregnant woman? He was having none of it. I genuinely felt like some sort of terrible criminal.

I went up to the reception and asked if there was anything they could do to help. “Sorry sir” (she was very polite) “you need to be escorted.” There was a fair amount of buck-passing and “don’t shoot the messenger”-ing. I let out an enormous, desperate for a wee sort of sigh and said, “okay, could you get on the phone to the man whose task it was to escort me around the building, and ask if he’d come back down here?” She picked up the phone. At this point, the security guard behind her took pity on me. “I’ll take you through…”

And so it came to pass. I was, of course, hugely grateful to the kindly security guard who deigned to take me to the loo, but absolutely furious with the one who’d made me feel like some sort of worthless animal for asking if I could go. In my view there is absolutely no way that this should have been allowed to happen; not to anyone, but particularly not to someone who's just given his time to speak as a guest!

Southampton

Gosh, what a busy day! I am presently in a train which is steaming its way through Hampshire. There’s the mother of all rows happening between the train guard and two passengers whose young person’s railcard is so worn down that they’re being charged a full-price ticket because the tickets they bought with the card are not considered valid. The argument seems to be whether the faded writing says January or not. The guard stood her ground and has won. The passengers are incredulous. And sad. I actually believe them because they’re still looking sad and anxious despite the guard being long since gone.

I’ve been in Southampton all day, chatting to people in a very splendid theatre down there, which I hope to have a chance to work in at some point. It was a lovely day: cold, but relentlessly sunny.

It was my first visit to the city. I’m not sure why I’ve never been there before. It might be something to do with being from Northampton and getting very bored of people asking me whether Northampton is “anywhere near Southampton?” Yawn.

I wasn’t there for long enough to get a sense of the place. I ended up in a ghastly shopping centre, with terrible floor tiles, looking for somewhere to have a healthy lunch. I failed, and ended up in a chippie, which plainly viewed itself as a cut above the rest, because it had a board on the wall which told customers where the potatoes and fish had been sourced. The fish came from the Faroe Islands, which struck me as a little tragic for a chippie in a sea port. Surely fish should be fresh and locally sourced?

I enjoyed listening to conversations in the shop. The local greeting seems to be “how are you doing, alright?” To which the appropriate response is “how are you doing, alright?!” I was desperately hoping the phrase was going to turn into some sort of crazy endless loop, but it seems once both people have asked the question, nothing more needs to be said!

I was immensely cheered up by the sound of a carrillon coming from a tall council building, which I assumed was some sort of town hall. I recognised the melody the bells were playing, but couldn’t for the life of me bring the tune’s name to mind.

The rest of the day has been spent doing radio and TV interviews. Some have been about Nene. They made a film about my walk along the river and the performance of the composition at the Albert Hall, which was aired in the Eastern Counties last night, so there’s a lot of interest all of a sudden. I’ve also been asked to talk about cuts in arts-related subjects at secondary state school level, which is happening with frightening regulatory these days. It makes me want to weep. Art mustn’t become the terrain of the posh and the wealthy. So much is being written about lack of opportunity for women and BAME people at the moment, but let me tell you, the massive injustices in this world come from where you’re born and the level of wealth you’re born into. Regardless of colour or gender. By and large, city people have far more access to arts initiatives because the major cultural institutions are based in urban centres and have public funding which is (rightly) reliant on their doing outreach work in the local community. The answer to our woes certainly isn’t solved by lazily handing out opportunities to women and BAME people from privileged backgrounds. In my view this simply exacerbates the problem and creates an ever-widening chasm between those who have and those who have not. Until someone has the guts to tackle this problem head-on, I think we’re going to continue to rush about in circles getting absolutely nowhere.

I’m meeting up with Fiona later on, which I’m very much looking forward to. I’m hoping for one of our epic walks across Central London.

Radio Three initiative

BBC Radio 3 are presently running an initiative to attract female composers. This particular drive is as old as the hills. There’s really nothing new about trying to get more women writing music. There were scores of similar initiatives when I was a student composer. Whether they’re ever more than gimmicks, however, I’m not sure and, already, the BBC seems to be heading at top speed down gimmick highway. 

It appears that the BBC is planning to spend a day patting itself on the back, playing music by female composers, which, in itself is wonderful, but, are they serious about finding and nurturing genuine talent? Are they planning to play material written by the composers they choose long into the future? Or will they choose a load of crap which merely reenforces the out-dated notion that women can’t compose?

Yes, it’s noble that they want to attract previously unheard composing voices, but there are so many reasons, beyond gender, why composers find themselves unable to break through. Social background, schooling, location, lack of confidence, being endlessly in the wrong place at the wrong time, or writing music in a style which doesn’t fit into the narrow box defined by Radio 3 (who are their own worse enemies in this respect.)

How about a call for unpublished composers? Or a call for writers who went to state schools? Or one for composers who write cross-genre music and haven’t had radio play as a result?

Anyway, the hideousness of the whole initiative is bailed out by the photograph they’ve used to promote it, which features a pair of headphones sitting on a piece of paper covered in a load of guitar tabs. It’s almost as though the organisers are assuming that women won’t be able read or write proper music scores, so need to be patronised by being shown that they can enter if all they know how to do is strum a bloody guitar.

No! This is Radio 3. If you can’t read or write music, you shouldn’t be having your music played by the station. And as a person who has spent thirty years honing my craft as a composer, I would even go as far as to say that if you can’t read or write music, you have no right to call yourself a blinkin’ composer at all. And there are certainly plenty enough brilliant undiscovered female composers out there who do NOT need to be patronised in this manner!

On a far happier note, my godson, Will, has another sibling. Raily gave birth to little Lola on Friday night, and sent us all the most fabulously Pre-Raphaelite image of her breastfeeding the little lass just minutes after birth. It was a home birth, entirely natural, with no pain relief whatsoever, and I am so very excited to meet her.

Success!

So, yesterday, I launched a crowd funding initiative to pay for a run of physical albums for Em. Having them all made up in advance means that every single sale of the album can go straight to charity, which, in this case, is CoramBAAF, who deal with issues relating to adoption. As Em tells the tale of a forced adoption in the mid 1960s, it felt appropriate to work with that particular organisation.

Anyway, we set what I thought would be the rather difficult target of £1500. Some years ago, Nathan and I tried to do the same thing with an EP of songs which we released for the Kaleidoscope Trust. Our target was lower, but it took us four weeks and a lot of hassling to reach. All of those panicky thoughts ravaged my brain as I hit send on the crowd funding site this time round. “What if no one donates?” “What if everyone hates me for going to them, cap in hand?” I became determined not to obsessively check the total, and got on with my day, pretending it wasn’t all going on in the background.

I am somewhat staggered to report that we reached our target in just 24 hours! In fact we were told that the campaign was “trending”, whatever that means in crowd funding circles. A large amount of thanks has to go to Nathan’s podcast followers and fans of all things knitty, who were responsible for a massive spike of donations during the night. Most of Nathan’s people are Stateside, so this explains why their activity was all apparently nocturnal.

We suggested various different levels of donation. £15 pre-ordered a copy of the album, £25 bought the album and a set of downloads of backing tracks and £40, our highest donation, included physical copies of my other albums. I was therefore stunned when people started putting £50 in. And then £100 from Philippa, Michael, Peter Smalley from NMPAT, and Nathan’s wonderful sister Sam. And then, early this morning, Lisa chipped £200 in, saying “I hate seeing your talent and spirit squashed by something so crass (but necessary) as money...” I am so so grateful to everyone. And thrilled at the outcome.

I am entirely in love with the album. It has been stupendously mastered by Denis at Skye Mastering, who actually mastered all of those great musical theatre albums in the 1980s like Cats and Phantom. He wrote to me, saying, “I hope you don’t mind me telling you this, but Em reminded me of those albums.” “Mind?”, I said, “I’m thrilled!”

Of course, if you still wish to donate or pre-order, we’re now at the stage where everything beyond the amount we needed will go direct to the charity. It’s rather exciting to think that I’ll be able to give CoramBAAF a donation before CDs have official gone on sale.

And if you want to read about the charity, here’s their website:
https://corambaaf.org.uk

I’m a happy and very relieved man, as I really didn’t know how I was going to afford to get those CDs made.

So now starts the lengthy process of working out what needs to be said in the album blurb. I actually want to keep the CDs very simple: probably in black and white in a classic, probably matt, cardboard sleeve, so it looks like one of the photos my Mum has from that period of time. I think this approach will lend it a classy, vintage quality.

If you fancy making a donation, or preordering, you still can, and please do. All the information you need (and a lovely little video of Ruby Ablett singing) can be found by going to:

https://www.gofundme.com/emalbum

Love you all.

Nene tickets go on sale

I discovered today that tickets for the full version of my Nene composition have gone on sale. Those who follow this blog will no doubt remember that the piece was performed at the Royal Albert Hall in November. The Northamptonshire Music School subsequently commissioned a new version of the piece which is twice as long as the first and has some hugely exciting new sections including the musical evocation of a ghostly hunt charging through Peterborough Abbey in the Middle Ages and a setting of the last poem that Mary Queen of Scots wrote before she was sent to the block at Fotheringhey on the banks of the river.

Performances of the piece are happening at Northampton Derngate Theatre on March 8th and at Peterborough Cathedral on March 17th.

THESE SHOWS WILL SELL OUT! There are more performers on the stage than there are spaces in the audience, so if you want to come, please book, and do so speedily.

http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/143/section.aspx/142/nene

https://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/whats-on/nmpat-big-sing-nene/

Over and out!

Mind the Gap

I walked through Soho this evening, winding my way through the streets from Old Compton Street to Oxford Circus. It’s such a wonderful part of London, hidden away from all the tourists who bustle and screech around its outer rim. It makes me very sad to see the gentrification: the “boutique” chains, the fancy pads, the shiny hetty bars, where once grubby all-night cafes and ramshackle gay bars stood.

There was still a vestige of the old Soho magic there this evening. The streets were dark. People were drifting at a country pace. Arriving at Oxford Circus was like descending into Dante’s Inferno. A massive swirl of people on the pavement was attempting to push its way down into the tube. It was such a horrifying sight that I simply kept on walking. There was no way I was ever going to willingly put myself into such a dangerous and claustrophobia-inducing crush of people. I certainly wasn’t prepared to PAY for the privilege.

Instead, I walked back to Tottenham Court Road and browsed around Foyles bookshop, which was a delightfully calming experience. I bought myself a copy of When the Wind Blows. I initially tried to find it in the children’s section but when I asked the woman behind the counter, she shuddered, and said, “it’s the saddest graphic novel in the world, I just don’t think it’s going to be in the children’s section!” She was right. It was up with the graphic novels for adults.

...And that was my little trip around Soho. There’s a memory there on every corner of every street, from outrageous nights out with Philip Sallon and the cast of Taboo, to midnight demonstrations and vigils against homophobia. I still remember the excitement I felt on seeing a row of gay bars for the first time in my life, and the terror I felt that spring afternoon in 1998 when the nail bomb went off at the Admiral Duncan, less than two hundred meters from where I was working.

Those streets certainly hold more than their fair share of memories.

Speaking of memories, I read a rather charming story yesterday about the “mind the gap” announcements they used to play on the Northern Line. They were recorded, some forty years ago, by an actor who recently died. His widow, missing him terribly, would often go to Embankment Station, and sit waiting for the trains to rush into the station, so she could hear her husband’s voice. One day she waited for the announcement to discover that it had been pensioned off. She was devastated.

When Transport for London heard about the sorry tale, they instantly changed their minds and decided to keep the actor’s voice, just at Embankment, until his widow had died and no longer needed to hear her husband’s voice. And if you don’t feel moved by that, you’re made of stone!