Doyenne

I feel like I’ve been struggling a little bit through today. I’m obviously a little stressed and a bit over-wrought. I’ve developed a rash on my foot, my glands are up, I’m clearing my throat a lot, and my voice is getting very tired when I talk.

It’s all a horrible echo of what happened a couple of years ago when I needed surgery to have a polyp removed. There’s no way I’d ever go through that operation again, so I guess all I can do is try to keep as quiet as possible, and try not to mumble the words I’m writing on Brass out loud as I write them. I find it almost impossible not to, because it enables me to get into the minds of the characters, but it’s not doing me much good.

My computer (as ever) is playing up. It’s not allowing me to send emails this evening, which is just fabulous.

To cap off a rather stressful day, my back keeps going into spasm, which hasn’t been a lot of fun. Still, on the bright side, I’ve definitely kick-started my health and fitness regime, and have been running every day for the last two weeks.

We went to Philip Sallon’s house last night for an impromptu birthday party. As ever, his front room was filled with the most peculiar assortment of people, from famous actors and comedians to trannies, barefooted bongo players, wannabe pop stars, and drug-damaged ghosts from the early 1980s. Boy George was there, looking incredibly thin, and surprisingly well, and I made a few new friends, which was lovely. I did, however, feel somewhat under-dressed. There was a lot of Vivienne Westwood being paraded around the space, and people had made a huge effort to look glamorous and exciting, hardly surprising, really, given Philip’s status as a doyenne of 20^th Century fashion. I was wearing a horrible T-shirt which looked like velour and clung to my body in all sorts of unflattering shapes. One of my goals for 2014 is to drape my newly sylph-like body in nicer clothes!

Abbey Road

I fulfilled an ambition today, and got, for the first time in my life, to record something at Abbey Road studios. It shouldn't have been any more exciting than recording music at any other studio, but it absolutely was! I tried to play it cool. God knows I did, but even as we arrived, and saw the tourists all lining up in groups of fours to walk across "that" zebra crossing, my heart started pounding...

Quite aside from this being where the Beatles recorded everything, in fact where everyone recorded everything, it's where Roy Harper created those epic tracks like Me and My Woman and my beloved Kate Bush made all of her albums. It was opened by Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar! How's that for an extraordinary link to genius?!

It's probably a bit corporatey these days, they sell merchandise, and a few suspicious men in suits were milling around in the cafe, but there's definitely something in the air there. Something a little magical. It has the same heady creative buzz as the corridors of the old Television Centre. I hope it doesn't meet the same fate. You'd think it's iconic status would make it impervious, but they said the same about the BBC's flagship building, and Polar Studios in Stockholm, specifically designed by ABBA, is now a blinking gym!

We were in Studio Two today, although I darted into the empty (and vast) Studio One for a couple of minutes and played the opening bars of Wuthering Heights on an upright piano. There was a surprising shimmery brightness to the sound which made me wonder if it wasn't the actual instrument old Kate played on the track. Perhaps it was simply the room's acoustic. It was a wonderful moment, the memory of which I shall cherish.

Nathan and I were singing on the soundtrack of a feature-length documentary written by a friend of Uncle Bill's. There were eight professional singers and a children's choir from a school in Rye who were horribly late because their bus didn't arrive to pick them up!

We did the same sequence of music again and again, in different styles, until we wondered why we were still singing it! Such is the nature of film, one assumes. I'd certainly love to have been running a session with a choir of pros at Abbey Road Studios... The things I'd have recorded! I'm definitely in the wrong business!

But Abbey Road! What a treat! I suspect only lunacy or Alzheimer's will shake today's magical memories from my mind!

Breastfeeding

I read today that a group of people have started a campaign to shine a light on the importance of breast feeding. Apparently there are still some people who make the women who choose to publicly breastfeed feel rather ashamed. I’m sure there are one or two luddites and misogynists out there who behave appallingly, but I can’t help but think there are greater issues for women to get worried about. Unfortunately, and I’m going to say it, breastfeeding can be an anti-social thing which becomes particularly uncomfortable when the child doing the feeding is old enough to walk over to Mummy and ask for milk!

Above all, I get slightly irritated by the militant mothers who feel that, because they’ve CHOSEN to have children, the rest of the world needs to feel somehow grateful. To those of us without children, breastfeeding can be a slightly odd sight. I know it’s good for the baby; it’s natural, it establishes bonds, and delivers nutrients, but it’s also divides people. I for one don’t particularly like the sight of breasts. There are many who don’t like penises, and that’s why, when I have a wee, I don’t whip it out and piss in a pot in a cafe!

Furthermore, (and more importantly) I know plenty of new mothers who are desperate to breastfeed their children, but don’t have the ability to do so for whatever reason. Many non-breastfeeding mothers are made to feel rather (for want of a better word) emasculated by their inability to produce milk. There are also women, whose children have died or been adopted, who spontaneously lactate whenever they hear a child crying, and seeing a woman breastfeeding can be hugely distressing. Moreover, there are women, many, many women, and some men, who are desperate for children, but whom, either for medical reasons, or through circumstance, cannot have babies.

I personally think making a song and dance about breast-feeding or any aspect of child-rearing can be devastating for many. “Look at me and my fecundity, whilst you’re sitting opposite all barren and withered...” I once heard the story of a woman who poured her heart out to her friend (a mother of one) saying how terribly sad she felt that she didn’t have children. When she looked up, her friend was in tears. It very quickly transpired, however, that she wasn’t crying in sympathy with the woman, she was crying because the conversation had made her realise that she was probably never going to have a second child. I mentioned this story recently to a mother-of-two who said, “of course she was crying, the desire to have a second child is as strong as the desire to have the first.” She’s probably right. But what of the woman with no children at all? I use this example to suggest that the behaviour of young mothers can periodically (and unwittingly) be quite cruel. There’s sometimes a bombastic quality about their drive to be the most tired, the most put upon, the most amazing career woman, which can lose sight of the fact that, for some, they’re the luckiest women on the planet. Us non-parents are often told we simply don’t understand, without anyone realising that the views of the outsider can often be if not important, at least relevant.

The bottom line is that there are some things which need to be handled with a degree of subtlety. I am a proud gay man with law on my side, but I would never dream of showing a huge amount of romantic affection to another man in public, because I don’t want to offend, and frankly, don’t want to appear undignified. Quite why we need to suddenly go all militant about breastfeeding I’m not sure. After all, most of the women I know are hugely discrete about the act. They use cloths and blankets to hide their nipples to protect those who may find the sight a little bit too free and easy and I don’t see why we need to offend for the sake of being liberated. With all of these issues, we surely need to simply establish an understanding all round, without banging our drums too loudly simply because we have right on our side.

Armistice

You know when you go out and immediately realise you've completely under-estimated how cold it is? That! Except, after I'd started sweating a little, everything started feeling unpleasantly sticky.

It's been the sort of day that I despise. Mizzly, drizzly, a little windy. Everyone walks around with looks of thunder plastered on their faces. Everyone you pass has a frown chiseled to their foreheads. Everything looks grey, from the sky and the River Thames to every building you pass. Grey, grey, grey. People get angry because they can't walk along texting or talking on the phone because the rain water gets into the mechanics of smart phones and makes them go temporarily wrong in peculiar ways.

I went to see my osteopath this morning, and, as usual, he gave me a bit of a pummelling, telling me I was the patient he dealt with who could take THE most intense deep tissue massage. I felt a little sick afterwards and my nose went all runny; a sure sign that he'd dislodged some serous toxins, which I'm hoping I don't somehow reabsorb.

11 am on Armistice Day happened whilst I was in the waiting room. Just as I stood up to announce to the room that the moment had arrived (I tend to think people like to know these things) the doors flew open and a group of osteopaths arrived to pick up their 11 o'clock appointments. There was mayhem in a space which was lovely and calm just two minutes before. I felt a little sad, but I would have made myself very unpopular making an announcement in the midst of all that. So I took my hat off and sat for a moment, thinking about the Leeds Pals, and the Barnbow Lassies, and the good folk of Coventry.

I met Michelle Turkie again for lunch, which is something we may do quite regularly over the next few months. It's so nice to catch up with her and see her smiling face. She gave me some apples from her tree; tiny little bright red things which were exquisitely tasty. I had two and two were offered up to pass onto Nathan, so on my way back home, I stopped off at the Shaftesbury Theatre and duly handed the contraband on.

I came home and wrote more of the Brass script. It was somewhat slow-going, as the opening of act two is a pretty lengthy song, and lyrics obviously take a great deal longer than script, particularly when you're reliant on an online rhyming dictionary!

I went running in the rain. It's a very liberating thing to do, especially when you find yourself brushing past fir trees, hanging over the suburban pavements, thick with water, which smack you in the face with an amazingly refreshing blast of raindrop joy.

More Brass, (I even wrote on the tube back into town) and then we met Jim Zalles and Matthew for dinner at Amalfi on Old Compton Street. It was just lovely to see them. I'd not had much of an opportunity to talk to Matthew before, and found him to be a very fine chap. He's the first person I've ever met from Milton Keynes.

We went home via Charing Cross police station to drop off some keys which Nathan had found on the street outside Bar Italia on Frith Street. Every good day deserves a good deed!

Final session

What a relief! The Pepys Motet is now completely in the can. I'm not even going to THINK about the next stage, the many hours of editing and things, until at least next week, but the thought that twenty voices are all down on virtual tape and that there have been no meltdowns, fall outs or terrible catastrophes in the studio is a great relief.

The tenors were brilliant. I was really proud of them. Some of the sounds they were making as a unit by the end of the session were just beautiful - mellifluous, moving - and more excitingly, we had what the altos had recorded last week playing for much of the session and they sounded as good as I'd remembered them.

Our new tenor, little Joe, who actually MD'd the Christina Bianco cabaret I went to see with Llio last month at the Hippodrome, was spot on; an absolute delight to work with.

As ever, Dear Ian delivered the heart-breaking vocal sound of the London Requiem's Pie Jesu, Anthony "Ding Dong" delivered the theatrics, Nigel was note-perfect, always the best prepared of all the male vocalists I work with, and then Christopher completed the equation by powering in with an operatic maelstrom of sound. At one stage I said to the group, "this is the moment to unleash your inner operatic divo," to which he replied, "back off bitches" and opened his lungs like a daemon!

So now I can watch Downton Abbey with a plate of food on my lap without feeling there's something dark looming in the shadows... That's if I can haul myself out of this lovely hot bath in time!

Hug a hoodie

On route to Julie's this afternoon, we saw a gang of young lads hanging about outside a shop on the Holloway Road. I immediately bristled at the sight of one of them spitting on the pavement. Not just spitting, in fact; the nasty little git was almost vomiting a trail of phlegm onto the footpath! It was somewhat grotesque. There he was, in a hoodie, looking like a proper little chav. "God, how ghastly!" I said to Nathan.

Five seconds later, the lad was rushing to the shop door and I wondered nervously what was about to happen. Was he going to rush in and nick a can of coke? Was he going to wallop some unsuspecting passer by?

Turns out he was rushing to open the shop door for an elderly man with a walking stick who was struggling to get out. And, even more surprisingly, he made sure the man was okay before moving on.

What an astonishing dichotomy! It just goes to prove that one should never judge a book by its cover.

We had a lot of fun at Julie's. It was craft and cake and I went as easy as I could on the cake bit; a touch difficult when you're confronted with the most delicious chocolate and orange thing. Hard times!

We watched all the talent shows, marvelling at how the X Factor can call itself a classy television programme whilst it refuses to employ live musicians to accompany the "acts" every week. This week was "Big Band" week, which meant, finally, they got to perform in front of an orchestra, and, as always, the decent acts raised their game. Hardly surprising: the power of a Big Band including a full string orchestra will give any self-respecting performer a lift.

There were no white Grannies on display for the mixed-race performers this week, but they did pull out Tamera's (white) mother. Simon Cowell obviously thinks she's got record-selling potential, and as she was in the bottom two last week, must have felt it was time to remind the country that she's not a scary black woman. Desperate tactics. Sometimes I feel a little ashamed.

Elaborate code

There's an extraordinary code which exists amongst people in our industry where individuals demonstrate their personal links to famous figures by using nick names when they talk about them. When I directed an obscure Britten operetta at university I remember an old colleague of Britten's coming in and referring to him as Benjy.

A group of older industry figures came into the cafe this morning and were talking about a whole host of actors in this manner, the one that stood out was "Freddy Molina." (Alfred Molina.) I always question whether these people actually know the person they're talking about quite as well as the nickname would suggest!

I worked a full day on Brass and got all the way to the interval, which feels like a good place to reach just before the weekend.

I went for a run at lunchtime in a gap in the rain. I've been listening to a lot of Rita Coolidge whilst jogging. Her disco covers are always recorded at about 105 beats per minute, which is a good running tempo... For the record!

Raily arrived at 7pm, and is actually still here. We've had such a wonderful evening. Great food - a lovely pasta dish with some aubergines lightly fried in breadcrumbs - and amazing conversation. Raily is so knowledgeable and encourages the most astonishingly erudite debates. We've discussed so many things: art, politics, sexuality, evolution, monogamy, Frasier (all those whilst I've been writing this blog.)