Nessun Dorma

I didn’t sleep at all last night. I kept needing to go into the sitting room to watch the television, just to drive a host of busy thoughts out of my mind. It’s amazing the little snippets of television that you see when you’re having a restless night; shows about strange parasites that people end up with after going abroad and little bits of news, like the extraordinary story that Oscar Pistorius, the darling of the London Paralympic games, has been charged with the murder of his wife. At one point in the night I woke Nathan up, temporarily convinced that I was actually losing my mind. It was so full of little stubs of conversation, and half-formed thoughts, that all I felt I wanted to do was open up the top of my head and allow all the nonsense to pour out like the pieces of a jigsaw.  As a result of all this nocturnal activity, I found myself in something of a surreal haze all day. I’m staring at the telly, but have no idea what’s actually on!

I had a meeting at New Broadcasting House earlier, which is the BBC’s hugely impressive atrium-building behind Old Broadcasting House just up from Oxford Circus. The building reminded me very much of the BBC’s Salford Quays development; an extraordinary amount of natural light pouring down from the glass ceiling, countless floors of activity, lots splashes of reds and oranges in the shape of enormous lampshades and ergonomic chairs.  There was a buzz; lots of people huddling together, discussing news developments, and little pieces of internal BBC gossip. Every day brings more changes in that institution.

After my meeting, I went next door to old Broadcasting House to have a cup of tea and a natter with Ellie in her Radio 3 office. As you’d probably imagine, it was all very sedate, quiet and grown up in there. In newsrooms, everyone rushes around like ants in a spilt glass of Ribena, but at Radio 3 they waltz around the office as though dancing to a silent Mahler symphony.

Of course there’s nothing else to say. There’s another documentary series about trains on the telly tonight. Sometimes I think it’s the only subject the BBC is capable of programming. “People love trains,” says the commissioning editor with her finger on the pulse, “you can never have too many trains on telly...” She is, of course, wrong.

Acrylic yarn

I hate the south of London! Here we are at midnight in Catford. The last train has gone, there are no tubes anywhere in this vicinity, none of the buses go anywhere either of us have heard of and there's a sort of listless energy on the streets. It's always a bit scary to be somewhere you don't know this late at night. 

We've been at Julie's this evening, celebrating her birthday with a series of ridiculous parlour games. It was a near perfect evening of food and laughter. 

My day started at the Musician's Union head quarters in The Oval, with a top secret meeting with the designers of a new piece of music software. It wasn't quite as exciting as I'm trying to make it sound. A group of us had been invited to chat about the sorts of features that might encourage us to invest in a new computer programme, and it became a fabulous opportunity to whinge about what's already on the market. It's always good to meet fellow composers and swap notes about the different ways we approach our craft.

From Oval, I went to the West End to meet an agent about a singer we're hoping will front the Four Colours EP we're recording for the Kaleidoscope Trust in May. The agent liked the track. Everyone likes the track, which is a great relief to me, having had it so viciously insulted in a courtroom by a curious woman determined to prove a brilliantly audacious point. It's amazing how British law could make it possible to prove a work is "unperformable" without said piece ever being performed! Ah, the joys of finally being able to see your work used for the purpose for which it was written. 

We're now in Lewisham on a night bus heading north. The driver very kindly allowed me to get on without paying. To cap it all, my oyster card has run out of credit. Always the way when you're in a part of town with no topping-up mechanisms.

I bought Julie yarn for her birthday. Well, what else do you buy a keen knitter, even one with a stash which well exceeds her life expectancy? The trouble is, I know nothing about knitting, and the woman who served me in the haberdashery department of John Lewis was next to useless. Most of the people who work in wool shops live for the experience of recommending yarn to a customer holding a debit card. I asked her to take me to something special and she pointed at a ball of bright pink acrylic for £4 and said, "that'ld make a good pair of socks." And with that, she was gone...

Can anyone suggest any stress-beating techniques? I'm a proper ball of tension right now! 

The next question of course is how to get home from London Bridge. It's 1am, and the breeze coming off the Thames is terrifyingly cold! 

Pancake mayhem

It’s Pancake Day and we’ve just royally stuffed ourselves with Delia’s finest, covered with currents, lime juice, maple syrup and sugar.  They were absolutely delicious, although I’ve seriously lost the ability to toss a pancake. Mine all ended up like little chamois leathers in the corner of the pan.

It’s been a day of mayhem. I’ve been desperately trying all week to get the Rebel Chorus into a recording studio to start the process of recording the Pepys Motet. It’s been two steps forward and one step back all the way. Every time I think we’ve got somewhere, something else goes wrong. On two occasions the recording studio has fallen through just as I confirm with all the singers that we’re on. I’ve now sorted the women and the basses, but the tenors are driving me insane. Literally insane. I lost it whilst eating lunch this afternoon just after reading that the recording studio booking had collapsed... again. One moment I was tucking into a plate of beans on toast, and the next a curious moaning sound was coming from the pit of my stomach and Nathan was physically having to hold me down! Deeply tragic.

I guess I spend so much of my life doing admin, trying, sometimes it feels against hope, to get my music out there and find opportunities for the choir to do what they do so beautifully. It’s nobody’s fault other than fate. The will is there on all sides, we just need the planets to start aligning. I’ve never been hugely lucky with the planet thing - probably because I don't believe in bunkum.

The over-reaction to the problem is definitely an indication that too much is going on in my life at the moment. I can’t think about anything without realising that my mind is littered with things I need to do. Before we can record the Four Colours songs for the Kaleidoscope Trust, we need to write and organise a quiz. I have two ridiculously complicated funding applications to fill in. I have scores to write. Every time I send an email asking for vital information, it takes a day or so to be returned. Meanwhile I’ve started working on the White City project with perhaps slightly less support than I would normally receive.

As a result of all of this I’m a little shaky and achy tonight. It’s nothing a good night’s sleep and a bath won’t sort. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.

Still, the pancakes were lovely. Things must be on the up!

Foxy Bingo

Lying in bed last night was a really surreal experience. In fact, it took me some time to fall asleep. A blizzard was raging outside and the white snow was reflecting the halogen lights in the alleyway behind us. A milky orange glow was peering through the gaps in the curtains. More curious was the fact that all the city sounds seemed to be being amplified tenfold by the stillness of the snow. I heard the most curious sound, like a little like a puppy being stamped on, but lasting six times as long. I peered out of the window to see a ragged-looking fox, which had obviously just had a fight, limping its way down our garden path.

Much is being made of urban foxes at the moment. A baby got “mauled” by one in South London a couple of days ago. You'd think the media was reporting the escape of a psychopath from a high security jail. One woman, a neighbour (there’s always a neighbour), said she felt lucky to be alive; "that fox could easily have attacked me after that poor baby..."

All sorts of people, including Boris Johnson, are now coming out of the woodwork to demand we start culling foxes. A friend of mine (who’ll remain anonymous) suggested the rise in urban foxes is actually due to the fox hunting ban. At first we thought she was suggesting that foxes are now so bored in the wild, they're rushing to London for a spot of adventure tourism, but after much ragging, she admitted that she thought there were so many foxes in rural locations these days that they were being forced to move to the cities! A vulpine re-enactment of the Grapes of Wrath!

I’ve spent this evening on the White City estate with a group of women playing bingo in a community centre. I met some wonderful characters, who shared all sorts of memories with me. I’ve never played bingo, but always longed to. I’m hoping if I hang around with these ladies often enough, they might invite me to join them!

Debauchery

It was craft and cake today, and we've been holed up all afternoon at Sam and Julie's house whilst the wintry rain pounded at the windows. 

Today's food offerings included tea tree muffins, a boozy fruit cake and a pile of chocolate brownies. I think the group is going to set me up with a beginners quilting kit so that I finally have my own craft, although I'm such an obsessive workaholic that just doing nothing is probably better for me than anything! Everyone seemed astonished that I'd not brought my computer with me today, which probably says as much as you need to know... 

There's not a great deal else to say. Sam and I plotted how we're going to take over the world with the Rebel Chorus, whilst Nathan tried his hand at double knitting (by all accounts a deeply frustrating activity), Abbie knitted a tank top and Tina made red crochet squares for a blanket.  We watched Dancing on Ice and drank too many cups of tea. We're so blinking rock and roll! Next week someone's gonna have a sip of sherry and then our descent into debauchery will be complete! 

 

Chelmsford or Colchester?

I've just been to Chelmsford, the capital of Essex, where the women wear plastic skirts and the men don't wear coats. Nathan was singing a suite of songs at the cathedral, which is more like a parish church, but delightful nonetheless. 

He actually told me that the concert was in Colchester, and it was only when my brother (who was also coming) phoned to say that there wasn't a cathedral in Colchester, that we realised Nathan hadn't read his emails properly! 

It turns out that Chelmsford is a great deal nearer to London than Colchester, and even closer to my parents' house in Thaxted. Sadly they were in the Midlands watering their roots, so we weren't able to turn the day into a family occasion. 

The concert was fabulous. It was a Rotary Club fundraiser for two local hospices and featured a wonderful male voice choir conducted by our mate, John, and a gaggle of glorious girls with pre-Raphaelite hair from the local school for posh people. There's something uniquely stirring about a male voice choir, and John writes wonderful arrangements, which really show them off. The girls were singing and playing the most extraordinary repertoire for a school which included Purcell, Schubert and Vivaldi. They were hugely impressive, but made me feel incredibly sad. 

Music is definitely becoming the terrain of the privileged. Michael Gove's policies will mean that music will all but disappear in state schools within a generation and kids with inherent talent will never have the opportunity to enjoy the thrill of music-making. My mate Debbie is already teaching GCSE music as an after school club. How can this be possible? If it weren't for the county music service in Northamptonshire which provided free instruments and my wonderful state junior school, which placed music right at the top of the teaching agenda, I would not be composing now. It's as simple as that. My family were not in a position to be able to buy me my own cello until my Nana died when I was a teenager. Without music in schools I would be nothing. I hate Gove. I hate him. Ironically, my ex partner is his opposite number in parliament, but I don't know that his policies would be any better. 

I've just had a row with Nathan about my awful driving. It seems every time I get behind the wheel next to him I start to panic because I know he's going to criticise what I'm doing. The panic causes me to drive like an imbecile, which puts him on edge and there it is: the perfect viscous cycle. Can anyone think of a way to break this, other than my simply refusing to drive? 

Answers on a post card. 

A tonne of bricks

I've been troubled of late by adverts for pharmaceuticals with names which I consider to be slightly too graphic. I don’t know why we need our medicines and creams to be portmanteaus of words which instantly reveal the graphic truth of the patient’s condition. I’m talking about fixodent, anusol, normacol, vagisil. Going into the chemist and asking for one of these little tubes is surely tantamount to screaming; “I have terrible piles – please help!” And that's surely embarrassing for everyone. I don’t know why this sort of thing should bother me. I’ve not actually got piles, or anything that would need any of the above substances... but I might in the future.

It was a beautiful day in London today. The sky was powder blue and streaked with enormous fluffy vapour trails. The watery sun reminded me a little of the light you get in the East Village in New York. I felt very content as I strode towards the cafe, as I always do these days when it’s not raining. It’s so rare for it to stay dry for 24 hours however, and sure enough, the rain started pelting down just after dark.

I continue to eat healthily and go to the gym on a daily basis. My osteopath yesterday commented on my weight loss, which made me feel very happy indeed. My face looks tidier somehow, which is a great relief every time I look in a mirror. The true catalyst for this new regime came after seeing myself in an in-house BBC documentary about the 100 Faces project. My face looked like a hairy beach ball. I was bloated, old and weird-looking. I barely recognised the person staring back at me.

The rest of the day seems to have been spent filling in application forms and trying to pin down dates where all my choir are available to record the charity EP we’re going to be releasing in June. Trying to get 20 people all together in the same place is almost impossible, but it looks like we’ve nailed a date just before Eurovision this year. May seems such a long way off, however.

The Rebel Chorus are going to be recording Four Colours, which is the set of songs which was commissioned and then decommissioned by the Choir Invisible in Lincolnshire. It’s had a troubled past, much documented in this blog, which included a number of trips to Leicester Crown Court, so it feels wonderfully appropriate for it to be finally being used for the greater good; finally coming out, as it were. The charity we’re working with, appropriately enough, is the Kaleidoscope Trust, who are fighting homophobia on a global level. The more testimonies I read about the treatment of LGBT people, particularly in Commonwealth Countries, the more angry and helpless I feel. The president of The Gambia, for example, suggested that all gay men should be decapitated in 2008, and even in South Africa, where laws are actually very forward-thinking, lesbian women have been known to be raped by people who think they simply need to be shown what a proper man feels like. It’s barbaric and wholly unacceptable behaviour and we need it to change. Quite why black people don’t see homophobia as simply the other side of the racist coin, I’ve no idea. Until we understand that no one actually chooses to be gay, we’re simply treading water. The world came down like a tonne of bricks on South Africa in its apartheid days...