At some point last night I began to get the sense that a cold was heading my way and at about 1am it entirely engulfed me! I kept waking up in the night unable to breathe and the dreams I was waking up from were becoming increasingly surreal...
I've felt like death all day, which feels a terrible shame as it's Midsummer and the weather is absolutely glorious. I would love to be in Avebury or Cambridge or on the Heath, drinking in the sunset, but instead I'm limping to the local kebab shop, with aching limbs, feeling lonely and rather sorry for myself.
I've managed a day of writing, albeit from the sofa, so at least the day doesn't feel entirely wasted. From now on my task is to write two minutes of orchestral music every day. If I keep this level of intensity up, I'll have broken the back of Brass by the end of the month. That's the theory in any case!
I did at least find time to marvel at how light it still was at 9.30pm. I think it's vital that we mark the seasons by noticing this sort of thing.
I sat and stared at the man in the kebab shop grilling me some halloumi and using a pair of tongues covered in terrible bits of meat, but was too much in a daze to say anything. I just felt horribly sick instead.
On the bright side, at least the problem with our ghastly alleyway smell seems to gave been solved. My neighbour reports workmen appearing in the offending flat's garden, who, when questioned, confirmed our worst fears, that the smelly water seeping through the wall was indeed sewerage. But, for the past two days, there's been no gunk, so something has obviously been sorted out.
I touch wood. I touch wood. I genuinely did just touch wood as well!!
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Saturday, 21 June 2014
Ropes, nets, storage holders and eigenharps
I've become curiously addicted to a show on Dave called Storage Hunters which purports to be a "real life" US series about storage unit auctions. I know! Who comes up with this stuff? The assumption, or at least my assumption, is that the units that are being bought and sold have been compulsorily reclaimed. Perhaps the people that used to own them went bankrupt or ended up in jail. No one ever bothers to point these things out at the start of the show, which, of course rather detracts from its legitimacy claims!
Anyway, the programme focusses on a bunch of oddballs and misfits (the same group every episode) who watch a big black guy with a power tool known as Green Mile breaking his way into a storage unit. Once the door has been prized open, everyone gasps like they're peering into an Egyptian tomb lined with gold. None of them are allowed to actually enter the storage unit and have a good root around, but all of them seem willing to have a bash at bidding on the contents.
An auctioneer makes all sorts of weird noises in the process of selling the unit to the highest bidder. Many of the noises he makes have no sentient value, but they make him seem incredible charismatic, like he's performing a rare phonetics-based work by the composer Berio. The units sell from between 500 and 50,000 dollars.
The bidders all hate each other. Passionately so. There's a white trash married couple called Brandon and Lori who we're obviously meant to support, and, surprise surprise, every time they end up bidding on a unit, they find something astonishingly valuable lurking under a piece of tarpaulin. In one episode they found a rocket, and in another, a sports car worth $100k. It's like an episode of Flog It on speed!
There are baddies as well; a funny bloke called Papa Bear, and a pair of brothers, who always get their comeuppance. In one episode they paid $45,000 for a set of boxes filled with plastic wrist bands.
The rest of the bidders don't seem to have any money, but can always be relied on to make the right noises. The black Mama sucks her teeth a lot, and the little Japanese girl (who the auctioneer actually calls "Hello Kitty") laughs with her hand covering her face.
It is, of course, an absolute fiction. On one occasion they ended up at a sea port, bidding on cargo units. For extra drama one was opened up, and caused much consternation because it was covered in rats. There was a lot of screaming and Hello Kitty almost passed out but no one seemed to notice that the rats had done no damage to the furniture in the cargo unit and were all looking incredibly healthy for a group of animals who'd had no food during a journey from China. More comically, the rats were all beautiful fancy rats in pretty colours; the sorts of rat you'd only ever be able to buy in a pet shop!
Furthermore; no one ever seems to question why they're not allowed to go into the units they're bidding on. It is the most surreal game show I've ever witnessed, but it's compulsive viewing.
Speaking of compulsive viewing, I've just returned from twenty doors down down the road at Jackson's Lane Theatre. I tend to forget that I share brickwork with an actual theatre and am ashamed to say that it's the first show I've seen there since living in the neighbourhood! How tragic is that?
What definitely wasn't tragic was the show I saw there tonight, Midnight Circus, which was a remarkable evening of death-defying circus activity. The whole evening was brought together by atmospheric lighting and thumping, pumping music; a blend of electronica performed live by Dave Kemp on an Eigenharp, and prerecorded rock and dance tunes mixed by Kemp as the performers did their extraordinary thing.
Highlights of the evening must include a highly erotic pas de deux performed on silks high above the audience by two almost naked Adonisis (or more accurately, one Venus and one Adonis!), and a finale which involved a shed load of fire. These people were literally risking their lives for our enjoyment. Hats off to them!
The show was the full sensual experience with cast members, each more attractive than the one before, hanging and spinning from ropes and nets by seemingly every part of their bodies, accompanied by extraordinary lighting effects which made them appear to fly or float like curious glowing creatures in the depths of an ocean.
So, go on, get yourself up to my neighbourhood to see a really very decent show, and if you're up here, come have a cup of tea with me first.
Anyway, the programme focusses on a bunch of oddballs and misfits (the same group every episode) who watch a big black guy with a power tool known as Green Mile breaking his way into a storage unit. Once the door has been prized open, everyone gasps like they're peering into an Egyptian tomb lined with gold. None of them are allowed to actually enter the storage unit and have a good root around, but all of them seem willing to have a bash at bidding on the contents.
An auctioneer makes all sorts of weird noises in the process of selling the unit to the highest bidder. Many of the noises he makes have no sentient value, but they make him seem incredible charismatic, like he's performing a rare phonetics-based work by the composer Berio. The units sell from between 500 and 50,000 dollars.
The bidders all hate each other. Passionately so. There's a white trash married couple called Brandon and Lori who we're obviously meant to support, and, surprise surprise, every time they end up bidding on a unit, they find something astonishingly valuable lurking under a piece of tarpaulin. In one episode they found a rocket, and in another, a sports car worth $100k. It's like an episode of Flog It on speed!
There are baddies as well; a funny bloke called Papa Bear, and a pair of brothers, who always get their comeuppance. In one episode they paid $45,000 for a set of boxes filled with plastic wrist bands.
The rest of the bidders don't seem to have any money, but can always be relied on to make the right noises. The black Mama sucks her teeth a lot, and the little Japanese girl (who the auctioneer actually calls "Hello Kitty") laughs with her hand covering her face.
It is, of course, an absolute fiction. On one occasion they ended up at a sea port, bidding on cargo units. For extra drama one was opened up, and caused much consternation because it was covered in rats. There was a lot of screaming and Hello Kitty almost passed out but no one seemed to notice that the rats had done no damage to the furniture in the cargo unit and were all looking incredibly healthy for a group of animals who'd had no food during a journey from China. More comically, the rats were all beautiful fancy rats in pretty colours; the sorts of rat you'd only ever be able to buy in a pet shop!
Furthermore; no one ever seems to question why they're not allowed to go into the units they're bidding on. It is the most surreal game show I've ever witnessed, but it's compulsive viewing.
Speaking of compulsive viewing, I've just returned from twenty doors down down the road at Jackson's Lane Theatre. I tend to forget that I share brickwork with an actual theatre and am ashamed to say that it's the first show I've seen there since living in the neighbourhood! How tragic is that?
What definitely wasn't tragic was the show I saw there tonight, Midnight Circus, which was a remarkable evening of death-defying circus activity. The whole evening was brought together by atmospheric lighting and thumping, pumping music; a blend of electronica performed live by Dave Kemp on an Eigenharp, and prerecorded rock and dance tunes mixed by Kemp as the performers did their extraordinary thing.
Highlights of the evening must include a highly erotic pas de deux performed on silks high above the audience by two almost naked Adonisis (or more accurately, one Venus and one Adonis!), and a finale which involved a shed load of fire. These people were literally risking their lives for our enjoyment. Hats off to them!
The show was the full sensual experience with cast members, each more attractive than the one before, hanging and spinning from ropes and nets by seemingly every part of their bodies, accompanied by extraordinary lighting effects which made them appear to fly or float like curious glowing creatures in the depths of an ocean.
So, go on, get yourself up to my neighbourhood to see a really very decent show, and if you're up here, come have a cup of tea with me first.
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Same old, same old
A very lovely soft wind has been blowing all day today and there's a rather milky, hazy light in the sky. It's the sort of whether which delivers the scent of flowers! On my way to the gym I was almost knocked out, first by a honeysuckle and then by a rose. Sadly I don't think it'll be long before it begins to rain. But looking on the bright side, at least the rain will wash away stagnant water from our alleyway!
I saw two horse-driven hearses making their way along the Archway Road in the length of time it took for my bus to arrive. There seem to be a lot of these types of funerals passing our flat. I don't know which cemetery they're heading to, or where they come from. It's a practice I associate with the East End, so can only assume it's old East End Jewish people heading off to Hoop Lane cemetery in Hampstead Garden Suburb. One hopes they've not travelled all the way from Bethnal Green. That would be quite a journey on the back of a horse!
I'm afraid my days at the moment are all rather rolling into one. I wake up, I have a bath, I eat breakfast, I work on the kitchen table, I have lunch, I go to the gym, I go to the cafe, I work, I walk home, I work, I watch telly, I sleep.
Today I read an article about a woman who breastfed her eight-year old child. I know nothing about breastfeeding, about its benefits and everything, but I'm pretty sure a child who can remember being breastfed is going to have some pretty major psychological problems... Particularly if it's a boy. I think there comes a time when a woman needs to acknowledge who is benefiting the most from breastfeeding.
I didn't realise England were playing tonight until I switched the telly over to see if there was anything on before Grand Designs. By this stage we'd lost our match to Uruguay and everyone seemed both surprised and upset. At a certain point, instead of saying we played brilliantly but were robbed (there's always some excuse floating about), we should acknowledge that our squad is beyond awful, send them all back home with their tales between their legs and stick a load of second division players on a plane to Brazil who actually understand what it means to play in a team. I guarantee they'll do better. Routine humiliation is all that's required at a time like this. They'll soon learn to be better. But there again, what do I know about football, other than that it's a game for peacocks and poofs!?
Ps - when did they start calling IKEA ickea (to rhyme with sick queer?)
I saw two horse-driven hearses making their way along the Archway Road in the length of time it took for my bus to arrive. There seem to be a lot of these types of funerals passing our flat. I don't know which cemetery they're heading to, or where they come from. It's a practice I associate with the East End, so can only assume it's old East End Jewish people heading off to Hoop Lane cemetery in Hampstead Garden Suburb. One hopes they've not travelled all the way from Bethnal Green. That would be quite a journey on the back of a horse!
I'm afraid my days at the moment are all rather rolling into one. I wake up, I have a bath, I eat breakfast, I work on the kitchen table, I have lunch, I go to the gym, I go to the cafe, I work, I walk home, I work, I watch telly, I sleep.
Today I read an article about a woman who breastfed her eight-year old child. I know nothing about breastfeeding, about its benefits and everything, but I'm pretty sure a child who can remember being breastfed is going to have some pretty major psychological problems... Particularly if it's a boy. I think there comes a time when a woman needs to acknowledge who is benefiting the most from breastfeeding.
I didn't realise England were playing tonight until I switched the telly over to see if there was anything on before Grand Designs. By this stage we'd lost our match to Uruguay and everyone seemed both surprised and upset. At a certain point, instead of saying we played brilliantly but were robbed (there's always some excuse floating about), we should acknowledge that our squad is beyond awful, send them all back home with their tales between their legs and stick a load of second division players on a plane to Brazil who actually understand what it means to play in a team. I guarantee they'll do better. Routine humiliation is all that's required at a time like this. They'll soon learn to be better. But there again, what do I know about football, other than that it's a game for peacocks and poofs!?
Ps - when did they start calling IKEA ickea (to rhyme with sick queer?)
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Two for the price of one...
Two blogs in one today because yesterday's, for some reason didn't post! Aren't you all lucky!
Tuesday 17th June 2014:
I'm currently working on one of the newer songs from Brass. It was actually one of the first songs I wrote for the musical, and, after playing it to Nathan, who wasn't entirely convinced, I rather hid it away to the extent that it was never rehearsed during the Easter period. I am hoping a bit of a shine and a buffer will breathe new life into it. I'm falling in love with it again, so with any luck, it will meet the standards of the thirteen other songs I've so far orchestrated.
I went to the osteopath and then to the gym and was astonished to hear, instead of banter in the changing room, a full on improvised rap from a group of lads. It was really quite impressive. The content of said rapping was offensive in the extreme; lots of derogatory references to women, very much the terrain of most raps, but the rhymes weren't bad, and the guy who kept piping up with little snippets of melody had a great voice. Such a shame they weren't rapping about politics or something more interesting. Calling women whores, or more accurately "hos" is so 1998. When will these sort of men come out of the dark ages?
I did two hours in the cafe at Tufnell Park before walking up the hill again to Highgate. There's a moment when you're half way up when you see the church in Highgate nestling behind a bank of trees, almost as though it were at the peak of an impenetrably tall mountain... A mountain you realise with horror you're about to climb!
Wednesday 18th June:
I read today about a very special school in Borneo, where baby orang-utans who have been abused, abandoned, put in cages or lost their parents in the wild, get to learn the skills they need to be returned to their natural habitats. One of the saddest sights, according to the journalist, is a pair called Rocky and Rickina who refuse to be separated and were found hugging each other over the dead body of their mother who'd been killed in a machete attack. Too too sad. I sat on the top deck of a 134 bus trying to hold back the tears.
I have needed to keep the windows closed today as a result of the terrible stench which is coming from the alleyway behind our house. I finally managed to catch our neighbours on Saturday, and, on inspecting their garden, it immediately became clear that the water damage is being caused by a faulty water pipe. Heaven knows what the pipe is carrying, but it has obviously cracked underground. The stench is either rancid water or something a great deal more sinister. It's certainly getting worse.
Vinh at Haringey Council (yes that is the name he gave me when I called this evening) informs me that the matter is not an emergency. I agree with him at this stage, but should the wall collapse, or if someone gets ill as a result of raw sewerage pouring into our alleyway, then an emergency will certainly have occurred and every single person who I've contacted about the issue will need to stand up to be counted. Why is it that people are so unwilling to take preventative measures? I basically loathe Haringey Council with every fibre of my body. They have put us in a hopeless position where we are powerless to do anything. And yes, I know that no one's died, and that orang-utans are being ripped from their mothers arms in Borneo and that I'm a First World NIMBY who likes to moan and whinge, but I'm not enjoying the stench of shit which is floating around my house and don't see why I should pay vast quantities of council tax to a group of people who point-blank refuse to help me!
And here endeth the whinge.
The rest of the day had been spent working through the fourteenth arrangement from Brass. I'm still not quite happy with the end of it, so might take a look at something else whilst it seeps through the various uber-cluttered caverns of my brain.
A woman on the tube today was wearing a jump suit, complete with mini-belt the like of which I've not seen since Sheena Easton sang 9 to 5. The effect was something along the lines of a draw-string bag, and I wondered how much of a fashion victim you have to be to actively want to make yourself look like a sack of spuds.
Our bath is leaking water into downstair's flat. Our landlord keeps sending plumbers round, but none of them seem to be able to get to the root of the problem.
With the issues we're having with the alleyway wall, it seems there really is something in the water. Oddly, I dreamed about floods last night. My friend Julie and I had to push her car through a country lane which had become a river and then we were visiting a deserted village on the Isle of Wight which had been evacuated due to coastal erosion! Imagine being in my head!
Tuesday 17th June 2014:
I'm currently working on one of the newer songs from Brass. It was actually one of the first songs I wrote for the musical, and, after playing it to Nathan, who wasn't entirely convinced, I rather hid it away to the extent that it was never rehearsed during the Easter period. I am hoping a bit of a shine and a buffer will breathe new life into it. I'm falling in love with it again, so with any luck, it will meet the standards of the thirteen other songs I've so far orchestrated.
I went to the osteopath and then to the gym and was astonished to hear, instead of banter in the changing room, a full on improvised rap from a group of lads. It was really quite impressive. The content of said rapping was offensive in the extreme; lots of derogatory references to women, very much the terrain of most raps, but the rhymes weren't bad, and the guy who kept piping up with little snippets of melody had a great voice. Such a shame they weren't rapping about politics or something more interesting. Calling women whores, or more accurately "hos" is so 1998. When will these sort of men come out of the dark ages?
I did two hours in the cafe at Tufnell Park before walking up the hill again to Highgate. There's a moment when you're half way up when you see the church in Highgate nestling behind a bank of trees, almost as though it were at the peak of an impenetrably tall mountain... A mountain you realise with horror you're about to climb!
Wednesday 18th June:
I read today about a very special school in Borneo, where baby orang-utans who have been abused, abandoned, put in cages or lost their parents in the wild, get to learn the skills they need to be returned to their natural habitats. One of the saddest sights, according to the journalist, is a pair called Rocky and Rickina who refuse to be separated and were found hugging each other over the dead body of their mother who'd been killed in a machete attack. Too too sad. I sat on the top deck of a 134 bus trying to hold back the tears.
I have needed to keep the windows closed today as a result of the terrible stench which is coming from the alleyway behind our house. I finally managed to catch our neighbours on Saturday, and, on inspecting their garden, it immediately became clear that the water damage is being caused by a faulty water pipe. Heaven knows what the pipe is carrying, but it has obviously cracked underground. The stench is either rancid water or something a great deal more sinister. It's certainly getting worse.
Vinh at Haringey Council (yes that is the name he gave me when I called this evening) informs me that the matter is not an emergency. I agree with him at this stage, but should the wall collapse, or if someone gets ill as a result of raw sewerage pouring into our alleyway, then an emergency will certainly have occurred and every single person who I've contacted about the issue will need to stand up to be counted. Why is it that people are so unwilling to take preventative measures? I basically loathe Haringey Council with every fibre of my body. They have put us in a hopeless position where we are powerless to do anything. And yes, I know that no one's died, and that orang-utans are being ripped from their mothers arms in Borneo and that I'm a First World NIMBY who likes to moan and whinge, but I'm not enjoying the stench of shit which is floating around my house and don't see why I should pay vast quantities of council tax to a group of people who point-blank refuse to help me!
And here endeth the whinge.
The rest of the day had been spent working through the fourteenth arrangement from Brass. I'm still not quite happy with the end of it, so might take a look at something else whilst it seeps through the various uber-cluttered caverns of my brain.
A woman on the tube today was wearing a jump suit, complete with mini-belt the like of which I've not seen since Sheena Easton sang 9 to 5. The effect was something along the lines of a draw-string bag, and I wondered how much of a fashion victim you have to be to actively want to make yourself look like a sack of spuds.
Our bath is leaking water into downstair's flat. Our landlord keeps sending plumbers round, but none of them seem to be able to get to the root of the problem.
With the issues we're having with the alleyway wall, it seems there really is something in the water. Oddly, I dreamed about floods last night. My friend Julie and I had to push her car through a country lane which had become a river and then we were visiting a deserted village on the Isle of Wight which had been evacuated due to coastal erosion! Imagine being in my head!
Monday, 16 June 2014
Once Upon a Tchaikovsky
I had a meeting at Channel 4 today to discuss one or two ideas for musical documentaries. It's actually quite difficult to come up with an idea which works as a musical documentary whilst meeting the hard-hitting, experimental style which C4 prides itself on. I took my footage of Soho and we had a lengthy chat about wider issues. I do love Channel 4. I love pretty much everything it stands for and feel very much at home within its curiously 1980s-looking head quarters on Horseferry Road.
The rest of the day has been spent pottering. I played Nathan the two Brass orchestrations I've been working on over the last week, the first of which, the one where the cast sing their letters, actually made him weep, which felt like a rather good sign.
We took ourselves down to a print shop in the afternoon to get a quote on a print run of sheet music which might be good merchandise for Brass audiences. The show could also be an opportunity to flog a few requiem CDs, which continues to be a priority until all investors have been paid back in full.
This evening we went to see Malificent, the new take on Sleeping Beauty staring the newly bedamed Angelina Jolie and Sam Riley, whom I actually cast in his first ever feature film, Control! What a claim to fame! Jolie acted beautifully and her English accent was fairly good with the exception of her use of the "o" vowel as in "hot." Americans will insist on turning it into "hawt" to rhyme with "ought", which is, frankly, unacceptable!
The little touch of genius in the film was its use of the song Once Upon A Dream, which, of course featured in the original Disney cartoon. The new version is performed by the incomparable Lana Del Ray, but sadly, no mention is made in the credits of the role Tchaikovsky played in the piece. It was, after all, the main melody from his Sleeping Beauty ballet which Disney pinched as the basis of their song. Just because a melody is out of copyright it doesn't mean it no longer has a writer.
I sent Nathan off to my masseur this afternoon and he arrived home clutching a copy of a local magazine with a picture of our wedding inside. I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of seeing pictures of it, or having people come up to congratulate us. Just this week another three emails from strangers arrived. I still feel incredibly blessed.
The rest of the day has been spent pottering. I played Nathan the two Brass orchestrations I've been working on over the last week, the first of which, the one where the cast sing their letters, actually made him weep, which felt like a rather good sign.
We took ourselves down to a print shop in the afternoon to get a quote on a print run of sheet music which might be good merchandise for Brass audiences. The show could also be an opportunity to flog a few requiem CDs, which continues to be a priority until all investors have been paid back in full.
This evening we went to see Malificent, the new take on Sleeping Beauty staring the newly bedamed Angelina Jolie and Sam Riley, whom I actually cast in his first ever feature film, Control! What a claim to fame! Jolie acted beautifully and her English accent was fairly good with the exception of her use of the "o" vowel as in "hot." Americans will insist on turning it into "hawt" to rhyme with "ought", which is, frankly, unacceptable!
The little touch of genius in the film was its use of the song Once Upon A Dream, which, of course featured in the original Disney cartoon. The new version is performed by the incomparable Lana Del Ray, but sadly, no mention is made in the credits of the role Tchaikovsky played in the piece. It was, after all, the main melody from his Sleeping Beauty ballet which Disney pinched as the basis of their song. Just because a melody is out of copyright it doesn't mean it no longer has a writer.
I sent Nathan off to my masseur this afternoon and he arrived home clutching a copy of a local magazine with a picture of our wedding inside. I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of seeing pictures of it, or having people come up to congratulate us. Just this week another three emails from strangers arrived. I still feel incredibly blessed.
South Pacific
This morning we walked through Highgate Woods and along Parkland Walk into Muswell Hill. Parkland Walk North of Highgate follows an old railway line which used to take people from Highgate Station to Ali Pali via Muswell Hill and the infamous Cranley Gardens, which is, of course, now a little more famous as the home of the mass murderer, Dennis Nielson.
The walk clings to the edge of a hill and offers stunning Mrs Tiggywinkle views across North East London on one side and Rear Window-esque glimpses up into the Victorian houses of Muswell Hill on the other.
We had soup in a cafe-cum-antique shop and then wandered back to Highgate. My guests were impressed and slightly surprised at how green North London actually is. I think I'm actually right in saying that there are so many trees in the capital that it can officially be classed as a forest.
This afternoon saw me on a train to Rugby of all places... Home of my ancestors. I mistakenly thought I might be able to find a nice cafe nestling near the train station to sit in whilst waiting for Ian and Jem who were picking me up there. I walked down a long Victorian Street towards the dope-scented, profoundly empty town centre, wondering how anyone could live in a place so genuinely horrifying. The whole town was filled with aggressive and bored-looking lads in their uniforms of shiny shell suits and hooded tops. And lots of Eastern Europeans. These should have been my people but the whole place felt utterly alien.
As I walked away from the station I remembered the story my Grannie used to tell - probably 100 years old - of a loyal dog who would meet his owner off the train at Rugby Station when he returned from work at the same time every day. I think the story then goes that the owner died, but the dog carried on going to the train to meet its owner. Day in. Day out. A sort of Greyfriar's Bobby in a less interesting environment.
I eventually found myself in something resembling a town centre with a church and a little pedestrianised shopping centre where there was a Cafe Nero. I was highly amused by the name of a shoe shop opposite, "That's Shoe Business!" Glorious! I was pleased to read in the window that the shop also "does number plates." What a relief! It makes me wonder whether they chose the shop name after they'd decided what to sell!
I was up in the Midlands watching Nathan performing in South Pacific at the open air theatre at Kilworth House, which is about a nine mile drive from Rugby. It's a beautiful theatre in a beautiful country house setting and we had a mirth-filled picnic which was provided by Jem and Shannon. Top billing went to Jem's asparagus quiche. Jem is a culinary God.
Open air theatre is such a treat. Nature always makes her presence felt in some glorious manner. Sometimes there are sunsets, crazy rain showers, little rumbles of thunder or blasts of breeze... Today there were birds, and lots of them. As dusk rolled in, song birds were replaced by the more sinister, rather empty sound of crows.
I very much enjoyed the show. Nathan, of course, was tremendous and there were some lovely touches, although very clever acting is required these days for some of the more unacceptable plot turns. The character of Nellie, for example, walks out of a relationship, essentially because the man she's in love with admits that he has children from a relationship with a black woman. It takes a high calibre actress to make an audience accept that sort of footle in this day and age!
The walk clings to the edge of a hill and offers stunning Mrs Tiggywinkle views across North East London on one side and Rear Window-esque glimpses up into the Victorian houses of Muswell Hill on the other.
We had soup in a cafe-cum-antique shop and then wandered back to Highgate. My guests were impressed and slightly surprised at how green North London actually is. I think I'm actually right in saying that there are so many trees in the capital that it can officially be classed as a forest.
This afternoon saw me on a train to Rugby of all places... Home of my ancestors. I mistakenly thought I might be able to find a nice cafe nestling near the train station to sit in whilst waiting for Ian and Jem who were picking me up there. I walked down a long Victorian Street towards the dope-scented, profoundly empty town centre, wondering how anyone could live in a place so genuinely horrifying. The whole town was filled with aggressive and bored-looking lads in their uniforms of shiny shell suits and hooded tops. And lots of Eastern Europeans. These should have been my people but the whole place felt utterly alien.
As I walked away from the station I remembered the story my Grannie used to tell - probably 100 years old - of a loyal dog who would meet his owner off the train at Rugby Station when he returned from work at the same time every day. I think the story then goes that the owner died, but the dog carried on going to the train to meet its owner. Day in. Day out. A sort of Greyfriar's Bobby in a less interesting environment.
I eventually found myself in something resembling a town centre with a church and a little pedestrianised shopping centre where there was a Cafe Nero. I was highly amused by the name of a shoe shop opposite, "That's Shoe Business!" Glorious! I was pleased to read in the window that the shop also "does number plates." What a relief! It makes me wonder whether they chose the shop name after they'd decided what to sell!
I was up in the Midlands watching Nathan performing in South Pacific at the open air theatre at Kilworth House, which is about a nine mile drive from Rugby. It's a beautiful theatre in a beautiful country house setting and we had a mirth-filled picnic which was provided by Jem and Shannon. Top billing went to Jem's asparagus quiche. Jem is a culinary God.
Open air theatre is such a treat. Nature always makes her presence felt in some glorious manner. Sometimes there are sunsets, crazy rain showers, little rumbles of thunder or blasts of breeze... Today there were birds, and lots of them. As dusk rolled in, song birds were replaced by the more sinister, rather empty sound of crows.
I very much enjoyed the show. Nathan, of course, was tremendous and there were some lovely touches, although very clever acting is required these days for some of the more unacceptable plot turns. The character of Nellie, for example, walks out of a relationship, essentially because the man she's in love with admits that he has children from a relationship with a black woman. It takes a high calibre actress to make an audience accept that sort of footle in this day and age!
Sunday, 15 June 2014
Big woods and fire engines
It's a bit late to be writing a blog, but I've just spent the last thirteen hours in the company of Raily, Tanya and Hilary. It's been like old times all day.
The day kicked off with Hilary and a trip up to Highgate Village for the Fair In the Square, a sort of fete filled with all kinds of wonderful stalls, colourful people on stilts, curious pipe organs, and of course, the local fire brigade. What fete could ever be complete without the ability to climb all over a fire engine?!
There was even a little train which ferried people up and down a short stretch of road.
The atmosphere was wonderful. We ate veggie burgers and ice cream and listened to a local amateur choir singing songs from the shows. One of the sopranos got a little close to the microphone, and in the excitement of performing managed to sing every thing exactly a quarter town sharp, which lent their set a curiously polytonal vibe which would have fascinated my mate Sam!
The choir were followed onto the stage by a group of school girls doing a contemporary dance which involved a great amount of self-conscious posturing and jagged hand gestures. I'm not sure Highgate was quite ready for such an extraordinary display of originality, but it made the fete feel somehow complete.
We strolled across the Heath together before hooking up with Raily and Tanya, who'd been doing what female historians do at the women's history network all day.
We packed ourselves a mini picnic of crisps, muffins and fizzy pop and went back to the Heath, this time heading for Jack Straw's Castle to take a charming walk around the pergola there. It became the theme of the day to smell every single flower we encountered, Raily claiming she'd lost her sense of smell and someone else asking if it's possible to sniff the scent out of a flower!
We sat by a pond on a blanket brother Edward gave to me and talked for hours about the world.
We went home via Hampstead Garden Suburb; a request from Raily who'd seen the "Big Wood" on a map and thought it sounded intriguing. And it was! The whole of that area intrigues me, in fact, built as it was on wonderful socialist principals in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement. It was designed as a utopian garden city where poor and rich could live side by side, separated by hedges rather than fences. Ironically it's now one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the UK!
We returned to Highgate where I cooked the team a pasta dish of mushrooms, courgettes, Quorn (TM) and peas in a cream sauce, with a beautiful salad which featured lettuce from Raily's allotment. She also handed me a Jerusalem artichoke, which I'm told I'll need to boil for an hour. An hour?!! It better be worth it. The last time I ate Jerusalem artichoke I was sitting next to the actress Billie Whitelaw at my old mate Vera's house. It was an enormous artichoke, which was given to me as a starter. I remember everyone sitting and watching me eating after they'd finished their starters and feeling both incredibly self-conscious and a little underwhelmed!
The day kicked off with Hilary and a trip up to Highgate Village for the Fair In the Square, a sort of fete filled with all kinds of wonderful stalls, colourful people on stilts, curious pipe organs, and of course, the local fire brigade. What fete could ever be complete without the ability to climb all over a fire engine?!
There was even a little train which ferried people up and down a short stretch of road.
The atmosphere was wonderful. We ate veggie burgers and ice cream and listened to a local amateur choir singing songs from the shows. One of the sopranos got a little close to the microphone, and in the excitement of performing managed to sing every thing exactly a quarter town sharp, which lent their set a curiously polytonal vibe which would have fascinated my mate Sam!
The choir were followed onto the stage by a group of school girls doing a contemporary dance which involved a great amount of self-conscious posturing and jagged hand gestures. I'm not sure Highgate was quite ready for such an extraordinary display of originality, but it made the fete feel somehow complete.
We strolled across the Heath together before hooking up with Raily and Tanya, who'd been doing what female historians do at the women's history network all day.
We packed ourselves a mini picnic of crisps, muffins and fizzy pop and went back to the Heath, this time heading for Jack Straw's Castle to take a charming walk around the pergola there. It became the theme of the day to smell every single flower we encountered, Raily claiming she'd lost her sense of smell and someone else asking if it's possible to sniff the scent out of a flower!
We sat by a pond on a blanket brother Edward gave to me and talked for hours about the world.
We went home via Hampstead Garden Suburb; a request from Raily who'd seen the "Big Wood" on a map and thought it sounded intriguing. And it was! The whole of that area intrigues me, in fact, built as it was on wonderful socialist principals in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement. It was designed as a utopian garden city where poor and rich could live side by side, separated by hedges rather than fences. Ironically it's now one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the UK!
We returned to Highgate where I cooked the team a pasta dish of mushrooms, courgettes, Quorn (TM) and peas in a cream sauce, with a beautiful salad which featured lettuce from Raily's allotment. She also handed me a Jerusalem artichoke, which I'm told I'll need to boil for an hour. An hour?!! It better be worth it. The last time I ate Jerusalem artichoke I was sitting next to the actress Billie Whitelaw at my old mate Vera's house. It was an enormous artichoke, which was given to me as a starter. I remember everyone sitting and watching me eating after they'd finished their starters and feeling both incredibly self-conscious and a little underwhelmed!
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