I went to bed ludicrously early last night. 11pm. Something like that. Nathan tricked me into thinking it was midnight because he thought I needed the sleep. Which I did. I slept through to 8am without even noticing that I was alive.
I did a morning's admin. I was like a whirling dervish ticking things off an ever-growing list of things to do, whilst applying Vicks vapour rub to the neuralgia nonsense on my upper arm. Obviously Deep Heat would have been a tad more appropriate, but the Vicks made things tingle in a different kind of way, which felt suitably decadent... I called my parents and discovered that they are also suffering from colds, which we no doubt passed onto them during Tim's wedding weekend.
I went into town to meet Nathan for a lateish lunch. He'd had a fairly awful morning at the box office on account of a ghastly customer who'd been immensely rude and then cried racism when he gave her a piece of his mind in return. Playing the race card as and when it suits is a despicable act because there is almost no come back. Crying racism, Islamaphobia, or homophobia merely frightens people into acquiescence and makes any victory an incredibly shallow one.
I came home and tried to consolidate files on various computers, mass storage devices and goodness knows what else. Every device I was using had some kind of remedial issue which made accessing their contents a complete nightmare. I was using slave keyboards and holding pet rat-chewed wires together with my finger tips. I was searching for various scores, photos and documents pertaining to the Pepys Motet and Oranges and Lemons, the latter I was horrified to learn was written six whole years ago... As I looked through various documents from various points in my life, I started to feel incredibly old; like a wizened old hoofer who finds a pair of tap shoes in an old chest and briefly remembers the time when he was able to do wings, Maxi Fords and a triple time step, all at the same time! Instead, I remembered the days when it didn't matter that I was poor!
At 9.30pm I finally located the last piece in the cyber jigsaw and was able to stop for the day and watch a few episodes of the sitcom Marry Me - which I recommend wholeheartedly. It's on Channel 4 OD, where you can still watch our wedding... as it happens.
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Monday, 13 April 2015
Merry-go-round
My day started at Tate Britain this morning where I met Penny for tea, which became lunch, and a glorious look around an exhibition of pioneering photos, many of which were taken in the 1830s. They were quite astonishing to look at. In some cases I found myself peering into the faces of people dressed in Regency clothing. We all have a basic concept of what the Victorians looked like, as a result of seeing some of those famous shots of people like Isambard Kingdom Brunel in top hats and frock coats, but I've never seen a picture of a group of woman in empire line frocks before, or a photo of a man in white breeches a la Colin Firth in Jane Austin! It was eye-opening. Genuinely. It was also fun to look at some of the early Victorian female hair dos, with their carefully coifed great big scoops of hair sort of hanging down on the sides of the face like giant circular side burns. We're used to seeing something similar in period dramas, but in these cases it's very much the 21st Century version of the look. The original dos were a great deal more surreal and gravity-defying!
The Tate Britain is a fascinating and much-ignored little gallery, which has been utterly eclipsed by its flashier Tate Modern brother. It's actually a really nice place just to be. It sells lovely food and isn't full of insane tourists. There are a few brilliant pieces of art there as well including Mark Gertler's Vorticist masterpiece, Merry-go-round, which I was trilled to see today.
I came home and went into admin overdrive. There is so much to do in preparation for the various projects I've got on at the moment. We have a fundraising music quiz to prepare, a filming day to prep and two albums to release, both of which need press releases and inner sleeves... I've also got to find myself some paid work. Perhaps as a result of all of this, I have neuralgia all the way down my left arm, which got so bad this evening, I was forced to take a paracetamol. I also had a bath before cooking, which made me over-heat like crazy. I'm currently sitting in the front room like an elderly Cypriot lady, sitting on the doorstep, flapping my polyester skirt to keep my biddy-bits cool!
I switched the telly on at one point and got extremely upset watching one of those fly-on-the-wall ob-docs about road cops in the Home Counties. I was fairly appalled by their behaviour if I'm honest. A group of immigrants were arrested for stealing a bag of charity clothes from outside a supermarket. I think if anyone needs to steel clothes from a charity bank, they should be allowed to do so with everyone's blessing. The police behaviour felt nasty, heavy-handed and, if I'm honest, a little racist. No one deserves to be hand cuffed and taken to a police station for "steeling" charity bags. An announcement at the end of the show said the men had been let off because no one could prove who the original owners of the clothes were. One of the policemen kept saying that it was the principle of the matter that he was objecting too. He said the same thing after arresting someone else for steeling a broken cat scratcher from next to a dustbin out on the street. Frankly, I think he was doing someone a favour by taking it. Perhaps because this particular man was Irish, the policeman did that thing where he said he could smell alcohol and therefore needed to do a breast test. The test registered zero unsurprisingly. I say unsurprisingly because the same thing happened to me one night on the A1 when I was stopped and breathalysed. I don't drink. I certainly don't drink and drive, so I was actually horrified and offended when the policeman said he could smell alcohol on me. Like the man in the film, I registered zero. I think they say they can smell it, because it justifies doing the test in their mind. The programme ended and I was left wondering what police spend most of their time doing.
The Tate Britain is a fascinating and much-ignored little gallery, which has been utterly eclipsed by its flashier Tate Modern brother. It's actually a really nice place just to be. It sells lovely food and isn't full of insane tourists. There are a few brilliant pieces of art there as well including Mark Gertler's Vorticist masterpiece, Merry-go-round, which I was trilled to see today.
I came home and went into admin overdrive. There is so much to do in preparation for the various projects I've got on at the moment. We have a fundraising music quiz to prepare, a filming day to prep and two albums to release, both of which need press releases and inner sleeves... I've also got to find myself some paid work. Perhaps as a result of all of this, I have neuralgia all the way down my left arm, which got so bad this evening, I was forced to take a paracetamol. I also had a bath before cooking, which made me over-heat like crazy. I'm currently sitting in the front room like an elderly Cypriot lady, sitting on the doorstep, flapping my polyester skirt to keep my biddy-bits cool!
I switched the telly on at one point and got extremely upset watching one of those fly-on-the-wall ob-docs about road cops in the Home Counties. I was fairly appalled by their behaviour if I'm honest. A group of immigrants were arrested for stealing a bag of charity clothes from outside a supermarket. I think if anyone needs to steel clothes from a charity bank, they should be allowed to do so with everyone's blessing. The police behaviour felt nasty, heavy-handed and, if I'm honest, a little racist. No one deserves to be hand cuffed and taken to a police station for "steeling" charity bags. An announcement at the end of the show said the men had been let off because no one could prove who the original owners of the clothes were. One of the policemen kept saying that it was the principle of the matter that he was objecting too. He said the same thing after arresting someone else for steeling a broken cat scratcher from next to a dustbin out on the street. Frankly, I think he was doing someone a favour by taking it. Perhaps because this particular man was Irish, the policeman did that thing where he said he could smell alcohol and therefore needed to do a breast test. The test registered zero unsurprisingly. I say unsurprisingly because the same thing happened to me one night on the A1 when I was stopped and breathalysed. I don't drink. I certainly don't drink and drive, so I was actually horrified and offended when the policeman said he could smell alcohol on me. Like the man in the film, I registered zero. I think they say they can smell it, because it justifies doing the test in their mind. The programme ended and I was left wondering what police spend most of their time doing.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Powder blue
Our day started this morning with a buffet breakfast in our lovely hotel. It is an absolute treat to eat proper French baguettes in a French hotel. Crispy on the outside, soft in the middle: a dollop of cherry jam and a smear of Nutella = joy!
We went to a supermarket first thing. Nothing tends to be open in France on a Sunday, so we were hugely lucky to find anywhere to buy anything. It turned out that we didn't actually have anything to buy, but trips around foreign supermarkets are always a treat... Although these days there are disappointingly few differences between supermarkets and their supermarché cousins,
We spent the morning at the Beaumont Hamel monument to Newfoundlanders killed in the First World War. It was my third trip there and the place never ceases to amaze, move and surprise...
We had a guided tour with a very charming young Canadian student called Brendan, whom we all fell in love with a little! I think he was a little surprised and impressed to find a group of people who knew so much about the Battle of the Somme! The questions we asked him forced him to think quite hard!
We learned a great deal from Brendan. We learned that all the trees on the site are all native trees in Newfoundland, planted there so that the men buried on the site could feel like they were spending eternity in familiar surroundings. We also learned that the land itself was initially bought by Newfoundland women; one assumes the wives and mothers of the dead who were unable to think of another way to process their grief. It turns out that their decision to leave the site exactly as it had been during the last moment of battle, and merely to let grass grow over the jagged scars of No-Man's-Land, was inspired. It meant people like me could stand on a vantage point and look across the battlefield, getting a true sense of the scale of events, and exactly what a hell zone those men had faced on July 1st, 1916.
We walked around the site, across No-Man's-Land and over the German front line trenches. It's such a tranquil, beautiful place. Our conversations turned philosophical and spiritual. I did a bit of communing with nature. I think the place made us all contemplate the meaning of at least something.
We took ourselves off to Bus-Les-Artois, which is where the Leeds Pals were billeted. Things in those parts are always a little Groundhog Day-like. You go to Serre, and the farmer comes up and asks if you know Judi Dench. When you go to Bus, a lovely chap called Lobel appears and offers to show you his tiny museum to the Pals in a barn in his garden. This is a place which so inspired Brass. The little doll's tea set there, for example, inspired Harry and Emmie's story and the barn Losel went on to show us the first time we visited the place was used as Erik's inspiration for the show's set.
It was particularly lovely to see Lobel today as we were able to hand him a copy of the programme which he is thanked in. I thought what a surreal experience it must have been for him to meet a group of seeming strangers, all of whom knew his name, and were handing him a programme with his name inside!
From Bus we went to Auchenvilliers, and had lunch in the Ocean Villas Tea Rooms which is what the Tommies fondly called that particular village. There was a tendency for British soldiers to parody and Anglicise all French and Belgian place names, and Ocean Villas was a particularly good one in my view.
The tea room is run by Brits, and has a charmingly Greasy spoon vibe. The place also has a trench in the back garden, which has been reconstructed on the site of one of a number of communication trenches which ran through Auchenvilliers and on to Serre during the war. I think I'm right in saying that the Leeds Pals were in this particular village the night before they went over the top, so standing in a communication trench, which some of them might have stood in at that terrifying, life-changing moment, felt incredibly poignant.
I could think of a lot worse than running a little tea room in the Somme region in my retirement...
I jumped in Julie's car for the short hop from Ocean Villas to Serre, namely because she had the roof of the car down and I wanted to experience the joy of driving through the beautiful spring French countryside with the sun-kissed air battering my face. There was blossom everywhere. Daffodils. Primroses. Aubrecia. The joy of a late spring is that everything bursts into colour at once.
We walked around Serre for an hour, and Abbie, Hils and Julie finally got to see where so many of the Pals had lost their lives. One of the little cemeteries there has fewer than seventy graves but more than half of them were Leeds Pals.
From Serre we drove north-east, beyond Vimy Ridge and Neuf Chapelle to a cemetery on the outskirts of Hazebrouck, where Sam's Great Uncle Bertram lies at rest. It was incredibly moving to see Sam paying his respects, silently staring down at the little white grave, eyes filled with dignified tears. Seeing his surname on a gravestone was strange for me, but must have been even odder for him.
I'll struggle to forget the sky which hung over us throughout the day: powder blue always, and, in the morning, criss-crossed with white vapour trails. Whilst we communed with Sam's Great Uncle, layer after layer of tiny fluffy white clouds appeared, neatly spaced across the entire sky.
As we reached the ferry, the sun started to set, and by the time we'd reached the deck, there was a glorious sunset which made our faces glow orange. A stunning end to a very special day.
We listened to Brass as we headed home. It felt appropriate, somehow.
We went to a supermarket first thing. Nothing tends to be open in France on a Sunday, so we were hugely lucky to find anywhere to buy anything. It turned out that we didn't actually have anything to buy, but trips around foreign supermarkets are always a treat... Although these days there are disappointingly few differences between supermarkets and their supermarché cousins,
We spent the morning at the Beaumont Hamel monument to Newfoundlanders killed in the First World War. It was my third trip there and the place never ceases to amaze, move and surprise...
We had a guided tour with a very charming young Canadian student called Brendan, whom we all fell in love with a little! I think he was a little surprised and impressed to find a group of people who knew so much about the Battle of the Somme! The questions we asked him forced him to think quite hard!
We learned a great deal from Brendan. We learned that all the trees on the site are all native trees in Newfoundland, planted there so that the men buried on the site could feel like they were spending eternity in familiar surroundings. We also learned that the land itself was initially bought by Newfoundland women; one assumes the wives and mothers of the dead who were unable to think of another way to process their grief. It turns out that their decision to leave the site exactly as it had been during the last moment of battle, and merely to let grass grow over the jagged scars of No-Man's-Land, was inspired. It meant people like me could stand on a vantage point and look across the battlefield, getting a true sense of the scale of events, and exactly what a hell zone those men had faced on July 1st, 1916.
We walked around the site, across No-Man's-Land and over the German front line trenches. It's such a tranquil, beautiful place. Our conversations turned philosophical and spiritual. I did a bit of communing with nature. I think the place made us all contemplate the meaning of at least something.
We took ourselves off to Bus-Les-Artois, which is where the Leeds Pals were billeted. Things in those parts are always a little Groundhog Day-like. You go to Serre, and the farmer comes up and asks if you know Judi Dench. When you go to Bus, a lovely chap called Lobel appears and offers to show you his tiny museum to the Pals in a barn in his garden. This is a place which so inspired Brass. The little doll's tea set there, for example, inspired Harry and Emmie's story and the barn Losel went on to show us the first time we visited the place was used as Erik's inspiration for the show's set.
It was particularly lovely to see Lobel today as we were able to hand him a copy of the programme which he is thanked in. I thought what a surreal experience it must have been for him to meet a group of seeming strangers, all of whom knew his name, and were handing him a programme with his name inside!
From Bus we went to Auchenvilliers, and had lunch in the Ocean Villas Tea Rooms which is what the Tommies fondly called that particular village. There was a tendency for British soldiers to parody and Anglicise all French and Belgian place names, and Ocean Villas was a particularly good one in my view.
The tea room is run by Brits, and has a charmingly Greasy spoon vibe. The place also has a trench in the back garden, which has been reconstructed on the site of one of a number of communication trenches which ran through Auchenvilliers and on to Serre during the war. I think I'm right in saying that the Leeds Pals were in this particular village the night before they went over the top, so standing in a communication trench, which some of them might have stood in at that terrifying, life-changing moment, felt incredibly poignant.
I could think of a lot worse than running a little tea room in the Somme region in my retirement...
I jumped in Julie's car for the short hop from Ocean Villas to Serre, namely because she had the roof of the car down and I wanted to experience the joy of driving through the beautiful spring French countryside with the sun-kissed air battering my face. There was blossom everywhere. Daffodils. Primroses. Aubrecia. The joy of a late spring is that everything bursts into colour at once.
We walked around Serre for an hour, and Abbie, Hils and Julie finally got to see where so many of the Pals had lost their lives. One of the little cemeteries there has fewer than seventy graves but more than half of them were Leeds Pals.
From Serre we drove north-east, beyond Vimy Ridge and Neuf Chapelle to a cemetery on the outskirts of Hazebrouck, where Sam's Great Uncle Bertram lies at rest. It was incredibly moving to see Sam paying his respects, silently staring down at the little white grave, eyes filled with dignified tears. Seeing his surname on a gravestone was strange for me, but must have been even odder for him.
I'll struggle to forget the sky which hung over us throughout the day: powder blue always, and, in the morning, criss-crossed with white vapour trails. Whilst we communed with Sam's Great Uncle, layer after layer of tiny fluffy white clouds appeared, neatly spaced across the entire sky.
As we reached the ferry, the sun started to set, and by the time we'd reached the deck, there was a glorious sunset which made our faces glow orange. A stunning end to a very special day.
We listened to Brass as we headed home. It felt appropriate, somehow.
Saturday, 11 April 2015
Albert again
We're sitting in the Ibis hotel in Albert in Picardy, France. There are eight of us here: Julie, Nathan, Abbie, Matt, Sam, Meriel, Hilary and me. We've spent the day trekking across fields and wandering around cemeteries in weather which can only be described as inclement.
The day started at 5am, with a car journey through Kent mist to Dover. The ferry was crowded; rammed to the rafters with spectacularly ugly people. Heaven knows what the French must think of us if that's the calibre of human being regularly invading their country!
We drove speedily down to Albert from Calais, the weather getting steadily more cloudy. There's a moment when you turn off the motorway, south of Arras, when you suddenly realise you're in the midst of the poppy trail, or the "circuit de souvenir" as they call it in these parts. My heart always starts pounding really fast when I see town names like Auchenvilliers, Pozièrs and La Boiselle. Their names fill me with a mixture of sadness, excitement and yearning... Almost as though I were some sort of reincarnated Tommy! Perhaps I am.
Our own tour started at the Lochnagar Crater, which is the site of one of the world's largest ever explosions on July 1st, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It was the site of a bewildering number of German and British casualties, and the place where many of the Grimsby Chums met their end.
We drove from the crater to Serre, where the Leeds Pals went over the top. Sadly, our sat nav really shafted us by taking us down a single track road which got thinner and thinner and eventually became just tractor marks on the edge of a cornfield. It was an horrific and fairly terrifying experience, particularly for poor Julie in her Mercedes, which struggled and then broke down with a big chunk of the exhaust becoming dislodged. Google maps have a LOT to answer for...
To make matters worse, when we'd finally limped our way to Serre, we got out of the car, and were instantly drowned by a terrible rain storm. We stood in a cemetery under an arch, shaking in the cold, wondering how much worse the day was going to get. The only positive was that I was able to say a quick hello to my Great Great Uncle, young William Mabberley. We also got to see the mad farmer who haunts those parts stopping tourists, asking them if they're English then asking if they know Judi Dench. When I was there with Sara Kestelman, the answer was a categorical "yes."
We cut our losses and legged it to the Thiepval monument, which we knew had a little visitors centre which would at least keep us dry, and by the time we'd emerged, the sun was shining again.
Hilary and I could hear a random bell-like sound coming from a distant corner of the monument site, and, assuming it was some sort of curious sound sculpture, decided to explore. It turns out it was the detritus of some sort of visual art project involving flags. The rusty flag poles were still standing, with bits of wire bouncing off them in the wind... And it was these wires which were causing the fascinating bell-like sounds. The sign was still there which told us what the original art work had been. I reckon what had been left in its wake was a vast improvement!
After Thiepval, Julie, Hils and Abbie returned to Albert to find a mechanic to help with the car, whilst Mez, Sam, Matt, Nathan and I returned to Serre in the glorious evening sunshine to commune with the Pals. It's such a special place; utterly at peace with itself in a strange sort of way. The fields had just been ploughed which meant there were large amounts of 100 year-old chunks of metal on the footpaths; the remains of shells and bits of barbed wire. Nathan scoured a field and found all sorts of interesting artefacts.
We returned to Albert and met up with the others in the lovely Cafe Higge, which, since coming to these parts is practically the only place I've eaten!
The night ended on the town square, with Julie teaching Sam and Meriel Jewish line dancing around the fountain whilst the golden Madonna and Child peered down on us from the top of the Cathedral. Perfect.
The day started at 5am, with a car journey through Kent mist to Dover. The ferry was crowded; rammed to the rafters with spectacularly ugly people. Heaven knows what the French must think of us if that's the calibre of human being regularly invading their country!
We drove speedily down to Albert from Calais, the weather getting steadily more cloudy. There's a moment when you turn off the motorway, south of Arras, when you suddenly realise you're in the midst of the poppy trail, or the "circuit de souvenir" as they call it in these parts. My heart always starts pounding really fast when I see town names like Auchenvilliers, Pozièrs and La Boiselle. Their names fill me with a mixture of sadness, excitement and yearning... Almost as though I were some sort of reincarnated Tommy! Perhaps I am.
Our own tour started at the Lochnagar Crater, which is the site of one of the world's largest ever explosions on July 1st, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It was the site of a bewildering number of German and British casualties, and the place where many of the Grimsby Chums met their end.
We drove from the crater to Serre, where the Leeds Pals went over the top. Sadly, our sat nav really shafted us by taking us down a single track road which got thinner and thinner and eventually became just tractor marks on the edge of a cornfield. It was an horrific and fairly terrifying experience, particularly for poor Julie in her Mercedes, which struggled and then broke down with a big chunk of the exhaust becoming dislodged. Google maps have a LOT to answer for...
To make matters worse, when we'd finally limped our way to Serre, we got out of the car, and were instantly drowned by a terrible rain storm. We stood in a cemetery under an arch, shaking in the cold, wondering how much worse the day was going to get. The only positive was that I was able to say a quick hello to my Great Great Uncle, young William Mabberley. We also got to see the mad farmer who haunts those parts stopping tourists, asking them if they're English then asking if they know Judi Dench. When I was there with Sara Kestelman, the answer was a categorical "yes."
We cut our losses and legged it to the Thiepval monument, which we knew had a little visitors centre which would at least keep us dry, and by the time we'd emerged, the sun was shining again.
Hilary and I could hear a random bell-like sound coming from a distant corner of the monument site, and, assuming it was some sort of curious sound sculpture, decided to explore. It turns out it was the detritus of some sort of visual art project involving flags. The rusty flag poles were still standing, with bits of wire bouncing off them in the wind... And it was these wires which were causing the fascinating bell-like sounds. The sign was still there which told us what the original art work had been. I reckon what had been left in its wake was a vast improvement!
After Thiepval, Julie, Hils and Abbie returned to Albert to find a mechanic to help with the car, whilst Mez, Sam, Matt, Nathan and I returned to Serre in the glorious evening sunshine to commune with the Pals. It's such a special place; utterly at peace with itself in a strange sort of way. The fields had just been ploughed which meant there were large amounts of 100 year-old chunks of metal on the footpaths; the remains of shells and bits of barbed wire. Nathan scoured a field and found all sorts of interesting artefacts.
We returned to Albert and met up with the others in the lovely Cafe Higge, which, since coming to these parts is practically the only place I've eaten!
The night ended on the town square, with Julie teaching Sam and Meriel Jewish line dancing around the fountain whilst the golden Madonna and Child peered down on us from the top of the Cathedral. Perfect.
Friday, 10 April 2015
Sevenoaks
I'm exhausted. We're all exhausted. We're currently at Julie's house, lying in a bit of a heap, having a competition to see who's the most exhausted...
My day started in Victoria with young Harry from the Brass pit band. Harry played flugelhorn and trumpet in the show and on the cast recording. We walked down Victoria Street, sat on a little grassy knoll opposite Westminster Abbey and ate dry muffins and drank tea in the glorious sunshine. We talked about everything; musical theatre, trans-awareness, film casting... At one point there was a tiny flurry of rain which neither of us commented on!
I rushed home to Highgate, flung some things in a bag, jumped in the car and then drove to Seven Oaks in Kent to see how this year's NYMT rehearsals were getting on. The three productions the company are staging this year are Pendragon, Sweet Charity and Prodigy, by Pippa and Jake, which is this year's new commission.
A smattering of the Brass cast are doing shows this year and it was just wonderful to see them all again. We sat with Jeremy in the great hall and listened to some of the rough mixes from the Brass cast recording at top volume on a stereo. It wasn't the best system to hear it on - it was very bass heavy, and not very clear - but everyone seemed to enjoy it, and there was a tangible sense of excitement about what they'd all achieved. It's going to be an incredible album.
I had tea at the school for old time's sake; pasta and my second muffin of the day. All the cast are at such an exciting time in their lives. They've either just started colleges or are off to drama schools and universities. A huge number of them seem to be going to Trinity Laban.
After tea, I drove with Jeremy, through the most beautiful countryside to Tonbridge School, where the NYMT is rehearsing Pendragon. I was there mostly to see the adorable Anne- Marie, who is the costumier for the company, and Ben Jones, now Mabberley, who played Alf in Brass. It was particularly good to see him. I understand he has a very large role in Pendragon, but all I got to see him doing was lifting a sword dramatically! They were rehearing a scene with witches when I arrived, who seemed to be singing a setting of Adam Lay Y Bounden.
I drove from Tonbridge to Catford where we ate toast and more pasta with Julie, Bal, Nathan and Abbie.
We're up hugely early in the morning, so sleep is of the essence...
My day started in Victoria with young Harry from the Brass pit band. Harry played flugelhorn and trumpet in the show and on the cast recording. We walked down Victoria Street, sat on a little grassy knoll opposite Westminster Abbey and ate dry muffins and drank tea in the glorious sunshine. We talked about everything; musical theatre, trans-awareness, film casting... At one point there was a tiny flurry of rain which neither of us commented on!
I rushed home to Highgate, flung some things in a bag, jumped in the car and then drove to Seven Oaks in Kent to see how this year's NYMT rehearsals were getting on. The three productions the company are staging this year are Pendragon, Sweet Charity and Prodigy, by Pippa and Jake, which is this year's new commission.
A smattering of the Brass cast are doing shows this year and it was just wonderful to see them all again. We sat with Jeremy in the great hall and listened to some of the rough mixes from the Brass cast recording at top volume on a stereo. It wasn't the best system to hear it on - it was very bass heavy, and not very clear - but everyone seemed to enjoy it, and there was a tangible sense of excitement about what they'd all achieved. It's going to be an incredible album.
I had tea at the school for old time's sake; pasta and my second muffin of the day. All the cast are at such an exciting time in their lives. They've either just started colleges or are off to drama schools and universities. A huge number of them seem to be going to Trinity Laban.
After tea, I drove with Jeremy, through the most beautiful countryside to Tonbridge School, where the NYMT is rehearsing Pendragon. I was there mostly to see the adorable Anne- Marie, who is the costumier for the company, and Ben Jones, now Mabberley, who played Alf in Brass. It was particularly good to see him. I understand he has a very large role in Pendragon, but all I got to see him doing was lifting a sword dramatically! They were rehearing a scene with witches when I arrived, who seemed to be singing a setting of Adam Lay Y Bounden.
I drove from Tonbridge to Catford where we ate toast and more pasta with Julie, Bal, Nathan and Abbie.
We're up hugely early in the morning, so sleep is of the essence...
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Seminar
We've been at a seminar in Mile End all day today. I can't really say why, or announce exactly what we were doing there, but the theme of the event was computational creativity. It was a genuinely fascinating experience to get a sense of what is out there at the moment in terms of, for want of a better phrase, artificial intelligence. Can computers yet make creative decisions? Can they reason? Can they self-evaluate?
...I've certainly heard a lot of words - used very often today - which I might not normally have heard on an average Thursday. "Algorithm" featured prominently (as you might expect) as did "ideation" and "intentionality."
I have had my portrait painted by a computer. I've also had a computer refuse to paint my portrait because a newspaper article in the Guardian had put it in a bad mood!
Highlight of the day was almost certainly having a robot "die" on me. It was midway through asking me a series of questions with its chirpy child-like voice, when it started to droop, gently lay on its back, and promptly stopped functioning! That's the effect I have on all technology. It's a gift, you know.
I've had some fascinating chats with a number of boffins, and only once felt myself glazing over and losing the will to live. I think I must have been going low blood sugar as Nathan tells me it was one of the most fascinating conversations of the day.
I'd genuinely like to be able to write more, but I can't...
Nathan and I are currently heading home on a crowded tube. Nathan is knitting. He attracts a lot of attention on public transport when he knits; particularly when he's also wearing a biker jacket. People stare in a mixture of amusement and awe.
We will eat pizza tonight. Another friend of ours' father has died today, and it feels like we ought to have an evening of contemplation and stillness. Two fathers. One week. Why is the world so blinkin' unkind?
...I've certainly heard a lot of words - used very often today - which I might not normally have heard on an average Thursday. "Algorithm" featured prominently (as you might expect) as did "ideation" and "intentionality."
I have had my portrait painted by a computer. I've also had a computer refuse to paint my portrait because a newspaper article in the Guardian had put it in a bad mood!
Highlight of the day was almost certainly having a robot "die" on me. It was midway through asking me a series of questions with its chirpy child-like voice, when it started to droop, gently lay on its back, and promptly stopped functioning! That's the effect I have on all technology. It's a gift, you know.
I've had some fascinating chats with a number of boffins, and only once felt myself glazing over and losing the will to live. I think I must have been going low blood sugar as Nathan tells me it was one of the most fascinating conversations of the day.
I'd genuinely like to be able to write more, but I can't...
Nathan and I are currently heading home on a crowded tube. Nathan is knitting. He attracts a lot of attention on public transport when he knits; particularly when he's also wearing a biker jacket. People stare in a mixture of amusement and awe.
We will eat pizza tonight. Another friend of ours' father has died today, and it feels like we ought to have an evening of contemplation and stillness. Two fathers. One week. Why is the world so blinkin' unkind?
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Derek Griffiths
The man making announcements at Borough tube this morning sounded just like Derek Griffiths! He was talking about planned engineering works, but I was expecting him to burst into song. Do you remember Derek Griffiths? He used to present children's telly and had a very distinctive sing-songy voice. His "solo vehicle" was a show called Heads and Tails, which, in retrospect, might have been called Heads and Tales, because he was telling stories about animals. Who knows? I never liked that particular show. I thought it was silly. What I do know is that Derek Griffiths was at university with my Dad and in Miss Saigon in the West End with Nathan, so I'm plainly destined to meet him at some point!
I woke up early this morning to the news that Our Gay Wedding had been nominated for a BAFTA award. We won't win, of course. We're up against David Attenborough and our old adversary, Grayson Perry, and he's the darling of all award ceremonies! Still, to have a nomination is incredible. And it's one of those ones awards which generates positive responses. People don't necessarily know what a Grierson is, but they understand the concept of a BAFTA. Matt Lucas called from LA to congratulate us. He's been nominated for seven BAFTAs of course, but I do somehow feel part of a rather special club all of a sudden... Fiona texted to say that there are not many people who can say their wedding has been nominated for a BAFTA, although she'd "seen a few look like they were trying!" I laughed all the way home from the osteopath... (Who has the cold I reckon I gave to him last week...)
I had my hair cut by a Kurd, who used a razor-blade to make me look a little too quaffed for my liking, before coming home to do half a tonne of admin on the various projects I've got coming up: namely two album releases and a promotional film, which needs to be costumed, located, set-dressed and produced. I'm trying not to ask too much help from anyone else; this is, after all, my idea!
This evening, Nathan and I went up to Halfords in Friern Barnet to change a headlight in our car, and buy a few torches which might help with another project I've got going on in the back of my mind. We were served by a wonderful, smiley girl called Peaches, who couldn't have been any more helpful, knowledgeable or enthusiastic. I seem to be witnessing the absolute polar opposites in customer service at the moment. It strikes me that people immediately decide if they want you to have a good experience! The woman at Haringey council whom I spoke to about our having been disenfranchised for a second time wasn't that bothered. It turns out that the borough has two separate electoral rolls, and they use the oldest one as the basis for all their communications. On the newer list we exist. On the older one we don't. The woman whom I spoke to thought my suggestion was a good one; namely that it might make better sense to have just one list. It would certainly waste less paper, fewer stamps and cause considerably less heartache from Haringey residents. She thanked me for my feedback. I told her she was welcome and that if I could assist the borough in avoiding any more unnecessary lawsuits she only needed to ask. When this level of ineptitude is going on, one hardly need ask how both Baby P and Victoria Climbie managed to slip through the cracks in Haringey Council's understanding of their own borough. Let's not forget that this was also the borough who took Nathan and me to court in absentia for not paying a parking ticket which had been sent to the wrong address, along with all the court papers and the bailiff note! And people wonder why it's so easy for immigrants to vanish in the UK!
I woke up early this morning to the news that Our Gay Wedding had been nominated for a BAFTA award. We won't win, of course. We're up against David Attenborough and our old adversary, Grayson Perry, and he's the darling of all award ceremonies! Still, to have a nomination is incredible. And it's one of those ones awards which generates positive responses. People don't necessarily know what a Grierson is, but they understand the concept of a BAFTA. Matt Lucas called from LA to congratulate us. He's been nominated for seven BAFTAs of course, but I do somehow feel part of a rather special club all of a sudden... Fiona texted to say that there are not many people who can say their wedding has been nominated for a BAFTA, although she'd "seen a few look like they were trying!" I laughed all the way home from the osteopath... (Who has the cold I reckon I gave to him last week...)
I had my hair cut by a Kurd, who used a razor-blade to make me look a little too quaffed for my liking, before coming home to do half a tonne of admin on the various projects I've got coming up: namely two album releases and a promotional film, which needs to be costumed, located, set-dressed and produced. I'm trying not to ask too much help from anyone else; this is, after all, my idea!
This evening, Nathan and I went up to Halfords in Friern Barnet to change a headlight in our car, and buy a few torches which might help with another project I've got going on in the back of my mind. We were served by a wonderful, smiley girl called Peaches, who couldn't have been any more helpful, knowledgeable or enthusiastic. I seem to be witnessing the absolute polar opposites in customer service at the moment. It strikes me that people immediately decide if they want you to have a good experience! The woman at Haringey council whom I spoke to about our having been disenfranchised for a second time wasn't that bothered. It turns out that the borough has two separate electoral rolls, and they use the oldest one as the basis for all their communications. On the newer list we exist. On the older one we don't. The woman whom I spoke to thought my suggestion was a good one; namely that it might make better sense to have just one list. It would certainly waste less paper, fewer stamps and cause considerably less heartache from Haringey residents. She thanked me for my feedback. I told her she was welcome and that if I could assist the borough in avoiding any more unnecessary lawsuits she only needed to ask. When this level of ineptitude is going on, one hardly need ask how both Baby P and Victoria Climbie managed to slip through the cracks in Haringey Council's understanding of their own borough. Let's not forget that this was also the borough who took Nathan and me to court in absentia for not paying a parking ticket which had been sent to the wrong address, along with all the court papers and the bailiff note! And people wonder why it's so easy for immigrants to vanish in the UK!
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