A corner of a foreign field

I was naked from the waist down when the workmen arrived (unannounced) at our house again today, prompting my Mum, who was on the phone at the time, to ask if I was always undressed. She may have a point. I often am... To make her feel a little better about her son's obvious loucheness, I told her that I'd once stood with Philippa whilst she ironed a top for a night out on the tiles whilst wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of cowboy boots. I still remember her mother entering the kitchen where all this was going on and saying in a distressed voice "oh darling..."

I was cleaning the bathroom when the men arrived and rushed to find a towel to protect my/ their modesty. The nearest thing to hand was a threadbare old thing which I hastily draped around my waist. I stepped out of the bathroom and said a cheery hello, but it was only after I returned that I realised there was a big hole in the towel which was exposing my nether regions to the world, or, more specifically, them.

The workmen stayed for five minutes. This is the pattern. I don't think they're doing any work. I actually think there's something in the loft they're paying homage to...

Some twenty years ago, I moved into a garden flat in Palmer's Green with my mate, Sam. On one occasion, hot water started flooding through the ceiling of our bathroom. We knew an old lady lived in the upstairs flat so managed to convince ourselves that she'd died in the bath before turning the taps off! We had visions of the entire bath dropping through the ceiling with a corpse inside, so immediately called the fire brigade because no one answered when we banged on her door.

To their credit, the boys in yellow and blue were there in seconds. They broke into the upstairs flat but found no corpse and discovered that the pipes in our own flat were to blame, so they kindly offered to go down to our cellar to turn the water off. We'd just moved in so hadn't yet ventured down there ourselves. One fireman went down the steps and pretty speedily came back up to find a mate. And this kept happening till all four firemen were in the cellar. For an age. Sam and I sat in the sitting room panicking that something awful was happening.

Half an hour later the firemen emerged looking flushed and giggling like school children before telling us that everything was fixed and scampering away at alarming speed.

Sam and I thought we ought to go down into the cellar to find the water switch in case there was a repeat of the incident and immediately discovered why the fireman had spent so long down there: Boxes and boxes and boxes of grot mags. Literally thousands of them! Heaven knows who lived in the flat before us, but the firemen must have thought we were running a porn empire!

I keep meaning to mention that Brother Edward has been researching our family tree and in the process charted one branch of relatives back to America. Isn't it Americans who are meant to trace their relatives back to Europe and not vice versa? Far more interesting is the fact that Nathan has now officially joined the family tree as my spouse. How good did it feel to see his name next to mine and know that future generations of genealogists will look at their forebears and not blink twice to see a same-sex married couple?

People from Leeds City Council have finally started getting back to me and I'm pleased to report that, contrary to initial suggestions, the 100th anniversary of the death of the Leeds Pals battalion is being marked officially in the city, although one person was at pains to point out that new evidence suggests not quite as many Leeds Pals died on the first day of the Somme than reported at the time. I wasn't sure whether I was meant to read from that that we were all to commemorate the event just a little bit less.

I was a little horrified when one of the people I contacted said I might be pleased to hear that Leeds Council had decided to fund another musical... About the Leeds Pals! This one seems to be being told from a modern day black woman's perspective. Which, of course, is the one thing Brass was missing.

The same woman told me she is only able to fund arts-based projects in Leeds itself. I fully understand her position but would have thought, if Rupert Brooke, were anything to go by, the death of 300 Loiners in a patch of land the size of a football pitch in France means that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever Leeds.

The best chart run down ever

I'm slowly coming down to earth again, but the stress levels aren't dropping as quickly as perhaps they ought. Nathan tells me I need to simply stop. He says he looks over at me and often finds my brow furrowed, but I worry that stopping suddenly will be like going into cold turkey. I'll just sit there, in a panic, creating lists of things I need to do! I'll keep trying.

Today I SORT of relaxed. We had a lie-in and then, after waking up, I decided to clean the living room top to bottom. I put all my photo albums in date order and labelled them on the outside so that they're easier to identify when people ask to see them. It's easier to relax in a house which doesn't look a terrible mess.

I scrubbed and tidied the bookshelves, polished all the surfaces, cleaned the windows and even treated the sofas with a special leather conditioning spray. (Yeah, I know - they properly saw me coming in the shop; the sofas look and feel exactly the same as they looked and felt before!)

I've felt pretty rough all day but forced myself to go for a run after dark. I headed down the A1, and round the block to Muswell Hill and back. It was a fairly swift jog. No more than twenty minutes. My lower back started seizing up and it was too painful to continue.

Nathan went out on his own tonight to see a film presentation at the Drayton Arms theatre pub, which happens to be where Alex, from the original cast of Brass, works as a barman whilst he trains at Arts Ed.

It was good for me to have a night doing nothing. I watched about ten episodes of the Big Bang Theory, which seems to be all that E4 broadcasts at the moment.

I also spent some time flicking through a brilliant book which lists every top forty chart in UK pop music since the charts began. I set out to see if I could find the best top ten of all time, having watched a 1981 episode of Top of the Pops with Meriel which had a chart run-down of complete non songs (nongs.)

I believe the chart I was searching for happened in March 1978. It would surely be difficult to find a more classic set of songs in a single top ten run down. I was so excited by the list that I feel obliged to quote it in full!

Week ending March 18th, 1978:

1. Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush)
2. Denis (Denee) (Blondie)
3. Take A Chance on Me (Abba)
4. Come Back My Love (Darts)
5. Wishing On a Star (Rose Royce)
6. Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty)
7. I Can't Stand The Rain (Eruption ft Precious Wilson)
8. Stayin' Alive (Bee-Gees)
9. Mr Blue Sky (ELO)
10. Matchstick Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (Brian and Michael)

And who said that the 70s were the decade that taste forgot?!

Melodifest

I'm at Brother Edward and Sascha's house watching Melodifest: Sweden's massive song competition which culminates in the selection of a song for the gay man's World Cup, Eurovision. It was won by a rather peculiar, somewhat messy song performed by a part-British lad who can't really sing. You could have blown me down with a feather when we were told that the song, If I Were Sorry, was already the favourite to win the whole competition. I genuinely wonder if I'm getting a bit old, because the UK entry this year, which Sascha and Edward both rate really highly, strikes me as a bit of a non song, or a nong as we like to call it in Highgate. My immediate prediction was that it would come 23rd. One place above Germany - whatever they've chosen this year. But what do I know? I gave this year's Swedish winner nul points on my little scoreboard.

We've been shown all the other entries for this year. Expect to belly laugh at San Marino. Expect to be moved by Italy. Your shoulders might say yes to Spain. Estonia is louche and quirky. You'll like Russia despite yourself. Serbia and the Czech Republic have offered up the big singers. The Serbian entry is a cross between Amy Winehouse and Judi Garland with a whiff of Maria Callas! Intrigued? You should be.

I've been all over London today. We walked through the woods to Muswell Hill with Mezza for lunch and then walked back again giving all the dogs we passed marks out of ten. Nathan refused to score them, fearing they might be offended!

We took the bus into town and met Raily at the British museum where we looked at African, Inuit and Indian art. I wouldn't necessarily have rushed in that particular direction, but I'm glad I did. Anything is interesting when Raily is around. She has an uncanny ability to engage anyone in fascinating conversation about, well, anything. Meriel was greatly knowledgeable about Buddhist religious iconology. I brought nothing to the table but the mildest whiff of sarcasm. I have a cold coming on. What can you do?

Spring like

It's felt rather spring-like all day today. Everyone I've bumped into has commented on the weather. The woman in the shop, the man in the cafe (whom we discovered yesterday is called Ahmed...)

I spent the day doing admin and tidying the sitting room. I cleaned out the hearth. Imagine that! How's that for a bit of Edwardiana? I wanted to find an apron and a pot of blacking but had to make do with a can of Mr Sheen and an old sock.

Nathan has thrown away two bin bags of clothing and a carrier bag full of cables. Why the heck do we accrue so many cables? There was a pile of giant leads nestling under the chest of drawers which must have been designed for the most enormous mobile phones and lap top computers ever built. You could have towed a bus with some of them!

I've been rather frustratedly trying to get in touch with various people in Leeds Council to see if they can help me with a hugely exciting off-shoot-of-Brass project which is currently brewing at the back of my mind. Sadly, Leeds council feels a bit disorganised. They're going for the City of Culture status but their head of culture left before Christmas and has not been replaced.

My legs feel like stumps. I've been running today (around the edge of the woods) and walked for miles with Meriel and Nathan across Hampstead Heath. All part of my new fitness regime.

The days are certainly getting longer. We left Highgate to go for our walk on the Heath at 5pm and there was still light in the sky a few hours later. A beautiful crescent moon began to glow in the sky. The air felt fresh but not cold, and the parakeets were dancing and shrieking in the sky.

They're doing work on the ponds at the moment. I think they're creating a series of overspill meadows where water can drain into if there's a large amount of rain and the ponds burst, as they did in 1975 when the whole of Gospel Oak and the Vale of Health was inundated with water... So much water, in fact, that one poor fella drowned in a basement flat.

Meriel came back to ours this evening and we watched an ancient and charming curio called Les Bicyclettes de Belsize; a thirty-minute musical film shot in 1968 in Hampstead. It's almost impossible to quantify, but well worth a glance for the cinematography alone, which includes two three-minute single shots with the most intricate focus pulls. The music is patchy, but the end result feels like a glorious injection of urbane flower power!

We ate curry whilst watching Tori Amos videos. Another person who understands how cinematography enhances music. Her videos are often surreal, bordering on pretentious, but always stunningly shot.

Meriel's currently telling us that she got thrown out of piano, cello and ballet lessons as a child because her co-ordination was so bad. She was also thrown out of the school choir. How does anyone ever get over that level of rejection? I think I got chucked off the school chess team, but that's like really cool, isn't it?

Paper

I spent this afternoon ruthlessly clearing out the loft as part of my "spring clean or drown in paperwork" mission. My decision was to throw away anything which I felt would be instantly chucked away if I died. It's actually quite a relief when certain things go in the bin. I threw away all the photocopied scores from the operas I directed in the 1990s and instantly felt five stone lighter for same reason.

I uncovered all sorts of interesting and wonderful things, including an unopened wedding present from my mate Anna De Bruin; a beautiful antique silver tea strainer that she'd handed to me whilst performing The Man In The Straw Hat last year. I put it in a bag for safe keeping and found that bag nestling behind a box of London Requiem CDs!

Some of the discoveries made me happy. Some made me incredibly sad. I found a congratulations card for our wedding from Meriel's Mum, which I instantly displayed on our book shelves. It's funny: when someone's gone in the flesh, they'll often periodically return to light up our memories. A gift. A letter. A Christmas card. Little acts of kindness that can reverberate through decades.

It's very odd looking at personal documents with the benefit of hindsight. I often found myself glancing at a contract and thinking "if only I'd known how that gig was going to turn out..." It can be very difficult to look at things written in a bygone era. I realised today that I've slightly lost the joy-filled, life-affirming optimism which used to separate me from other people. Ten years ago I'd have tried almost anything, hoping - in fact expecting - that things would work out if I worked hard. These days I expect little. It's a funny form of self-protection. I cap the peeks by never believing the hype and the promises and stem the troughs by ignoring the harsh criticism. I live comfortably somewhere in the middle.

But it's paper which sends me over the edge: Old scores, scripts, receipts, bank statements, cardboard boxes... The unopened Christmas cards which remind me how insanely and claustrophobically busy we were at the end of last year. I'm pretty certain the story is the same with every self-employed writer across the country. Everywhere I turn in the house I see little piles of paper, neatly stacked, left where they were dropped after I hauled them up the stairs and rushed to the sanctuary of my sofa. There's a pile by the door. I think it's audition scripts from Brass. I've hitherto tried to kid myself that if I save them I can reuse them for games involving pens and paper. But how many times do people come round to play games involving pens and paper? It makes me feel bad to simply chuck them out, but sometimes you just have to wipe the slate clean.

I need to play more games with pens and paper...

I filled five bin bags with crud and then chucked them all in a recycling centre down at Kentish Town before taking myself out for a jog around the block, the first run I've had in three months. Step one towards reclaiming my sanity! I'm coming back!

Beaming

It's been a remarkable day in a most unexpected way.

We woke up and immediately walked the length of Parkland Walk from Highgate to Finsbury Park. The walkway is such a wonderful resource for North Londoners. I've written about it many times, but for those who aren't familiar with its charms, the walk follows the route of an old railway line which, I believe, was initially designed to link the Northern Line with the Piccadilly Line. It closed in the early part of the 20th Century and has subsequently been reclaimed by nature.

It's been a very warm, spring-like day, a little rainy, but intermittently sunny, so the walk was filled with birds bathing in puddles, which was a rather lovely sight.

The purpose of the trip to Finsbury Park was to gate crash BEAM, a brilliant festival for new musical theatre writers. I think I was the only British composer who wasn't officially involved. I've only just joined the right organisations to hear about these sorts of initiatives but wish I'd known about it, because it only happens every two years! I'll be ancient by the time it comes around again. I knew almost everyone there from producers like Julie Clare and Christmas Jim and my publisher at R and N to every British composer I've ever met: Eammon, Jake and Pippa, Dougal, Chris Ash, and Zara Nunn (whom I was at musical school with back in the day...)

Each composer had a fifteen minute slot to pitch either themselves or a new show. Four of the actors from Beyond The Fence were involved, two of whom performed in, what I feel, was the stand out showcase of the day, namely Chris Ash's "rockumentary" about the Brontë sisters. No, it shouldn't have worked. But yes, it was brilliant. BRILLIANT. In fact, the music was of such quality that I feel I have to raise my own game!

I went with Llio. Nathan had been called into work at the last minute. As we entered the building and headed over to the box office, a lovely lady whisked us both away, "come this way, Benjamin..."

I left feeling elated: like British people were finally starting to take musical theatre seriously. There's a lot of talent out there and I feel strongly that one of us, sometime soon, will land a Broadway smash which will be followed by a new British Invasion of America.

To continue with our celebration of British musical theatre, Llio and I went to see Mrs Henderson Presents, which has just opened at the Noël Coward Theatre. It's always a thrill to see a proper West End show, particularly one written by English people featuring a really strong and emotive story. There's something about the London Blitz which goes straight to the heart of any British person. The set was stunning and there were some wonderful performances...

Sadly, that's about where the praise ends for me. I feel a little uncomfortable being nasty about the output of a British writer, but having spent a day hearing amazing shows from wonderful but totally impoverished writers, I felt a little like material by a British writer in a West End show ought to have had me on my feet cheering.

I feel the makers of Mrs Henderson Presents had got a great deal wrong; from the comedian who appeared way too often in front of the curtains telling excruciating jokes, to the decision to give the lion's share of songs to an uninteresting character. The gay character in my view was offensively portrayed. The songs all sounded me same. There were factorial errors as well. One assumes Mrs Henderson is meant to be at least sixty, yet she talks about losing a 19 year-old lover in the First World War just twenty years ago. So much material felt generic and lacking authenticity and the show was devoid of drama and heart, which, considering the subject matter, was no mean feat!

That said, I applaud anyone who dares to put on a West End show which isn't a juke box piece of fluff, and everything was done properly, so don't let me put you off. There were plenty of people in the audience who were having a great night out.

Let's get them broadening their horizons now! Send them all to BEAM!

Static

I've done sod all today. That's actually a lie. I drove up to Brent Cross where I bought a belt because the belt I last tried to put on fell apart as I tried to buckle it up. I felt a bit tragic emerging from that terrible shopping centre with nothing but a belt, but I have decided to lose weight before buying any nice clothes for myself.

For the rest of the day I sat in front of the telly. I should have started the process of spring cleaning, but Nathan was working today, and at a certain point I realised that I simply couldn't be bothered. So I sat underneath a blanket instead.

Another workman arrived to do something with the roof. I'm not enjoying how often they're coming and going at the moment. They never call to give us warning and blithely let themselves into the building, so the first thing we hear of them is a little tap on our door, before they let themselves in five seconds later. I have now been naked twice when they're arrived. Today I made the decision that they have to expect nudity if they're going to turn up unannounced, so I greeted the man in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel. It was literally all I had the chance to put on!

Day time telly never ceases to amaze me with its inaneness. It was nice to spend a day doing nothing but any more days like this would start to send me round the twist. In fairness, I was switching channels left, right and centre, but I have managed to watch about six property shows of varying formats today, five of those programmes where dreadful people go and stay in each others' bed and breakfasts and go around looking under the bed for dust, and four ghost-watching shows mostly featuring Yvette off of Blue Peter screaming her tits off. The amount of times I've turned up for a meeting with a TV commissioner and been told that they already have "a programme similar to that" in development. I wonder what happens when people go in pitching an idea for a home improvement or antiques show? Do the commissioners suddenly forget that they ONLY have similar shows on their roster? It blows my mind.