I realised this afternoon whilst walking through the streets of Northampton that I'd forgotten to blog last night. I blame the weather. And Little Michelle for being so engaging!
Last night I went to Hatfield. I'd never been to Hatfield before, but it's where Michelle and Ben have set up home. Their reason for leaving the Big Smoke was purely financial. For the same rent as a nasty little one-bed flat in the grimmest part of London, they can live in a charming 2-up 2-down ancient cottage on a country lane over looking the stunning St Etheldreda's church. King's Cross is a 22-minute train journey away. It's almost a no-brainer. As I parked up on their street I was instantly struck by the silence. The lane they live on is a cul-de-sac, so there are almost no passing cars. According to Michelle, the only noise pollution comes from the bells in the church!
It was really heartening to see that it's possible to live so close to London in a really decent house without paying stupid amounts in rent. One of my biggest fears is our landlord selling up and leaving us high and dry, unable to afford anything even remotely similar.
Anyway, I was in Hatfield filming Michelle singing her allotted lines in the little film we're making for the Pepys Motet. No flinging fire this time, but we did fill her garden with hundreds of candles. I appreciate the vision for the film is to shoot people in London locations but actually, Hatfield, on the Great North Road is almost certainly a place that Pepys would have visited on his way up to his father's house in Huntingdon, so it felt legitimate enough.
A quick check of his diaries reveals something even more exciting. On August 11th, 1667, Pepys visited the very church that Michelle and Ben live opposite:
"So to Hatfield, to the inne, next my Lord Salisbury's House, and there rested ourselves, and drank, and bespoke dinner; and so to church, it being just church-time, and there we find my Lord and my Lady Sands and several fine ladies of the family, and a great many handsome faces and genteel persons more in the church, and did hear a most excellent good sermon, which pleased me mightily... In this church lies the former Lord of Salisbury, Cecil, buried in a noble tomb. So the church being done, we to our inn, and there dined very well, and mighty merry; and as soon as we had dined we walked out into the Park through the fine walk of trees, and to the Vineyard, and there shewed them that, which is in good order, and indeed a place of great delight; which, together with our fine walk through the Park, was of as much pleasure as could be desired in the world for country pleasure and good ayre. Being come back, and weary with the walk, for as I made it, it was pretty long, being come back to our inne, there the women had pleasure in putting on some straw hats, which are much worn in this country, and did become them mightily, but especially my wife."
Thursday, 21 July 2016
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
Throwing lumps of fire at the Thames
Man, it was nasty on the Northern Line today! If I'd have known I would have taken a towel with me to get rid of the sweat. Quite why a major line on our flagship transport network isn't air conditioned is beyond me. It's surely the most expensive underground network in the world and at some point I think it might be quite nice to get something half decent for our money. I was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and I know that I have a broken thermostat, but there were some poor bastards walking about in suits and things.
I walked the length of Hatton Gardens by mistake for the first time today and found myself in a different world. It's surprisingly down-at-heal. Signs everywhere advertise offices to let and there were piles of rubbish out on the street. This is the centre of the British jewellery trade. I assumed it would look a little classier. It felt like a proper community, however. Everyone on the street seemed to be talking to everyone else. The place was full of Jewish people and Arabic people. I was fairly surprised to find that that this particular cliche still existed...
It was bakingly hot today. 34 degrees in the capital. The hottest day of the year. Just walking was difficult. Of course weather like this has a profoundly awful effect on people. Everyone slows down to a standstill and gets very ratty. I let one woman go in front of me in a shop today and she repaid my kindness by taking three minutes to search through her bag for a "loose pound" which she "absolutely knew" she had, despite having a ten pound note in her hand.
This evening we went out into the soupy air and took ourselves down to the South Bank to film Abbie and David doing their sequences in the little film we're shooting to accompany the Pepys Motet album. We had a lot of fun. I'd taken myself down to a magic shop in Farringdon this afternoon and bought myself some flash paper, which is the highly flammable stuff which bursts into flames as soon as it so much as touches fire. Magicians use it to freak people out. So anyway, we got a bit carried away, down on a beach by the Thames underneath the Tate Modern, lobbing bits of flaming paper towards the camera! It looked absolutely brilliant. It's amazing how much you can achieve with a couple of torches, some glittery confetti and a bit of tracing paper. David was particularly excited and kept saying "how many times in your life do you get to come down to the river and throw lumps of fire?!" It must have been the full moon. I'm surprised we weren't arrested.
Abbie was singing a passage from Pepys' diary where he talks about sitting in a tavern in Southwark watching the fire engulfing buildings on the other side of the river: "we to a little house on the Bankside and saw the fire grow and as it grow darker, appear more and more..." It must have been an utterly awesome sight, and I'm rather proud to announce that we sat in the very pub that Pepys' himself sat in almost exactly 350 years ago. How's that for brilliant?! We did a lovely little shot through the window of the pub with Abbie sitting inside like some sort of Hopper painting.
I've obviously now become obsessed with shooting my own material. It was only ever going to be a matter of time before I got the bug. I've shot hours of cutaways!
I walked the length of Hatton Gardens by mistake for the first time today and found myself in a different world. It's surprisingly down-at-heal. Signs everywhere advertise offices to let and there were piles of rubbish out on the street. This is the centre of the British jewellery trade. I assumed it would look a little classier. It felt like a proper community, however. Everyone on the street seemed to be talking to everyone else. The place was full of Jewish people and Arabic people. I was fairly surprised to find that that this particular cliche still existed...
It was bakingly hot today. 34 degrees in the capital. The hottest day of the year. Just walking was difficult. Of course weather like this has a profoundly awful effect on people. Everyone slows down to a standstill and gets very ratty. I let one woman go in front of me in a shop today and she repaid my kindness by taking three minutes to search through her bag for a "loose pound" which she "absolutely knew" she had, despite having a ten pound note in her hand.
This evening we went out into the soupy air and took ourselves down to the South Bank to film Abbie and David doing their sequences in the little film we're shooting to accompany the Pepys Motet album. We had a lot of fun. I'd taken myself down to a magic shop in Farringdon this afternoon and bought myself some flash paper, which is the highly flammable stuff which bursts into flames as soon as it so much as touches fire. Magicians use it to freak people out. So anyway, we got a bit carried away, down on a beach by the Thames underneath the Tate Modern, lobbing bits of flaming paper towards the camera! It looked absolutely brilliant. It's amazing how much you can achieve with a couple of torches, some glittery confetti and a bit of tracing paper. David was particularly excited and kept saying "how many times in your life do you get to come down to the river and throw lumps of fire?!" It must have been the full moon. I'm surprised we weren't arrested.
Abbie was singing a passage from Pepys' diary where he talks about sitting in a tavern in Southwark watching the fire engulfing buildings on the other side of the river: "we to a little house on the Bankside and saw the fire grow and as it grow darker, appear more and more..." It must have been an utterly awesome sight, and I'm rather proud to announce that we sat in the very pub that Pepys' himself sat in almost exactly 350 years ago. How's that for brilliant?! We did a lovely little shot through the window of the pub with Abbie sitting inside like some sort of Hopper painting.
I've obviously now become obsessed with shooting my own material. It was only ever going to be a matter of time before I got the bug. I've shot hours of cutaways!
Monday, 18 July 2016
MMd Cabaret
It's been boil-in-the-bag hot today. I almost melted on the tube. I went for osteopathy this morning and, for the first time, was treated by a female osteopath. It didn't go very well. She had two female students observing her, which instantly made me feel hugely self-conscious, and I'm afraid I left feeling like I'd simply been prodded and pushed around a bit, like a half-eaten plate of food. I think perhaps my size and robustness means that I am better treated by a man. I'm sure there are plenty of female osteopaths out there who are brilliantly psychotic and can give any man a run for his money in terms of deep tissue massage - and I'm furthermore sure that if I'd told her I couldn't feel what she was doing she would have upped the pressure - but I just don't feel like spending another £30 to give her the benefit of the doubt. I, of course, feel absolutely awful. She was a genuinely lovely lass, but I'm going to have to call the reception, book myself someone else and insist that it's a man. Does that make me sexist? Are scores of people rolling their eyes to heaven reading this, thinking what a small-minded misogynist I am?
I went into town this evening to the MMD new writers' cabaret where the wonderful Emma Fraser sang a song from Em which seemed to go down very well in the room. Emma performed it spectacularly well. I got a bit freaked out by the piano and at one point couldn't quite work out why my fingers didn't seem to be in the place that made the pretty noises I'd rehearsed!
This monthly cabaret is such a wonderful night which gives us all a chance to put faces to names and hear what British musical theatre writers are writing right now. There's an astounding amount of diversity. We had an old timer Tony-winner playing some of his old school tunes, a wonderful mini-choir from Laine Theatre Arts, and some absolutely brilliant performers doing sad stuff, happy stuff, funny stuff, jazzy stuff, theatrical stuff, folky stuff...
The only downer on the evening was - for the second time in as many weeks - one of the other writers going up to Nathan and telling him how awful Beyond The Fence was. It's all, of course, a combination of sour grapes, jealousy and the fact that the computer element in the project makes people feel like they can be more brutal about it without offending anyone, but it's really tiresome and predictable to think that relative strangers have the gall to say that crap, particularly about fellow writers. I try incredibly hard not to say anything rude about the work of any other British musical theatre writer because I know there are precious few of us out there and we're all swimming against the tide. The whole point about that writers' cabaret is that it ought to feel like a safe space where composers can experiment without being shot down in flames, but if fellow writers are wandering about in the background dissing other people's work, it's really not a lot of fun... For anyone!
I went into town this evening to the MMD new writers' cabaret where the wonderful Emma Fraser sang a song from Em which seemed to go down very well in the room. Emma performed it spectacularly well. I got a bit freaked out by the piano and at one point couldn't quite work out why my fingers didn't seem to be in the place that made the pretty noises I'd rehearsed!
This monthly cabaret is such a wonderful night which gives us all a chance to put faces to names and hear what British musical theatre writers are writing right now. There's an astounding amount of diversity. We had an old timer Tony-winner playing some of his old school tunes, a wonderful mini-choir from Laine Theatre Arts, and some absolutely brilliant performers doing sad stuff, happy stuff, funny stuff, jazzy stuff, theatrical stuff, folky stuff...
The only downer on the evening was - for the second time in as many weeks - one of the other writers going up to Nathan and telling him how awful Beyond The Fence was. It's all, of course, a combination of sour grapes, jealousy and the fact that the computer element in the project makes people feel like they can be more brutal about it without offending anyone, but it's really tiresome and predictable to think that relative strangers have the gall to say that crap, particularly about fellow writers. I try incredibly hard not to say anything rude about the work of any other British musical theatre writer because I know there are precious few of us out there and we're all swimming against the tide. The whole point about that writers' cabaret is that it ought to feel like a safe space where composers can experiment without being shot down in flames, but if fellow writers are wandering about in the background dissing other people's work, it's really not a lot of fun... For anyone!
If you're over 60, please read this! (Not a Brexit rant!)
We have been in Cheshire all day today celebrating Nathan's nephew's 18th birthday. It was one of those occasions which makes the rest of us feel really old! I've known Lewis since he was a pudgy-faced four-year old. He's now bearded and 6'4" tall!
I was astonished to discover today that Nathan's niece, Jenny, has been with her partner, Tom, for a staggering ten years. She was just fourteen when they started dating. Both her mother and her Grandmother are in relationships which began more recently! I wonder if there are any other young ladies in the world with this particular claim to fame!
It was such beautiful weather today. The forecast (predictably) had suggested it was going to be muggy and overcast, but the sun shone relentlessly and burned us all to a crisp. Summer seems to have finally arrived. The whole of Nathan's family was there. The oldest and the youngest ran about in the garden having water fights whilst the rest of us sat under giant parasols. (When did I become a grown up?) There was Pimms, tea and birthday cake.
I tested my theory today, namely that people below the age of about 30 don't have a clue what the word "zany" means. I asked Nathan's nephews and nieces and they were utterly stumped and quite amused. Nathan's mother felt the word was perhaps a bit 1960s for them to know. It does feel like a very 1960s word, like "cool" and "zowie", but a quick blast of research tells me it's actually a 16th century French word. How zany is that?
We had a lot of fun filming everyone doing ludicrous things in slow motion on Nathan's phone. The potential of the iPhone never ceases to amaze me. We have a friend who's just shot a pilot for a major comedy series and apparently about 60% of the material was shot on an iPhone!
Nathan's Mum continues to bloom after her hideous encounter with giant cell arteritis (GCA). If you're a woman over the age of about 60 and you're reading this, I urge you to read up about PMR (polymyalgia rheumatica) and GCA (which is also known as temporal arteritis.) Here's the deal: if you're a woman, you're post-menopausal and you find yourself with inexplicable and excruciatingly painful joints over a long period of time, particularly if the pain is bilateral (in the small of your back, your knees, your elbows, your ankles or your shoulders) it is absolutely worth asking the doctor to investigate whether you might be suffering from PMR. My Mum had it. Nathan's Mum had it. It's THAT common.
The good news is that PMR is eminently treatable with a shortish course of steroids. If left untreated, however, it can lead to GCA, which itself can lead to blindness and, in extreme cases, death. PMR is not, for some reason, one of the things that most GPs routinely check for. They will often send patients away, telling them that their symptoms are "nebulous" or "non-specific." For the best part of a year my Mother was told her pains were a result of general "wear and tear." I've mentioned all this in my blog before and I will continue to do so. It is vital we get the message out about this. My mother was in agony for a year. She started taking steroids and was pain free within hours. It look a lot longer for Nathan's Mum to be diagnosed and she was a great deal more poorly as a result. So if you, or someone you love, has these symptoms, get to the doctor and start getting better!
We travelled home in a blazing sunset, stopping off in North Warwickshire at Ruth's house. Ruth is a member of the Rebel Chorus and has a hugely prominent solo at the start of the movement of the Pepys Motet I'm filming to promote the album release. Her presence in this film was vital! Ruth moved out of the big smoke a couple of years ago, so I had been racking my brains to think of how I would be able to film her without her having to go out of her way. The idea came to me like a bolt from the blue last night when I realised our journey to Cheshire would be taking us within a stone's throw of her gaff.
We filmed her in her bedroom with all the lights out and just the flame of a match. I'd love to have the time, equipment and manpower to properly light all the shots, but we're having to be both incredibly speedy and highly inventive. Our only pieces of equipment are my camera, a few torches and some candles. Today we were draping some of Ruth's clothes over the torches to stop the light from being too white! The end film will undoubtedly look a bit rough and ready, but I'm beginning to think that most people expect that from an Internet film these days.
I was astonished to discover today that Nathan's niece, Jenny, has been with her partner, Tom, for a staggering ten years. She was just fourteen when they started dating. Both her mother and her Grandmother are in relationships which began more recently! I wonder if there are any other young ladies in the world with this particular claim to fame!
It was such beautiful weather today. The forecast (predictably) had suggested it was going to be muggy and overcast, but the sun shone relentlessly and burned us all to a crisp. Summer seems to have finally arrived. The whole of Nathan's family was there. The oldest and the youngest ran about in the garden having water fights whilst the rest of us sat under giant parasols. (When did I become a grown up?) There was Pimms, tea and birthday cake.
I tested my theory today, namely that people below the age of about 30 don't have a clue what the word "zany" means. I asked Nathan's nephews and nieces and they were utterly stumped and quite amused. Nathan's mother felt the word was perhaps a bit 1960s for them to know. It does feel like a very 1960s word, like "cool" and "zowie", but a quick blast of research tells me it's actually a 16th century French word. How zany is that?
We had a lot of fun filming everyone doing ludicrous things in slow motion on Nathan's phone. The potential of the iPhone never ceases to amaze me. We have a friend who's just shot a pilot for a major comedy series and apparently about 60% of the material was shot on an iPhone!
Nathan's Mum continues to bloom after her hideous encounter with giant cell arteritis (GCA). If you're a woman over the age of about 60 and you're reading this, I urge you to read up about PMR (polymyalgia rheumatica) and GCA (which is also known as temporal arteritis.) Here's the deal: if you're a woman, you're post-menopausal and you find yourself with inexplicable and excruciatingly painful joints over a long period of time, particularly if the pain is bilateral (in the small of your back, your knees, your elbows, your ankles or your shoulders) it is absolutely worth asking the doctor to investigate whether you might be suffering from PMR. My Mum had it. Nathan's Mum had it. It's THAT common.
The good news is that PMR is eminently treatable with a shortish course of steroids. If left untreated, however, it can lead to GCA, which itself can lead to blindness and, in extreme cases, death. PMR is not, for some reason, one of the things that most GPs routinely check for. They will often send patients away, telling them that their symptoms are "nebulous" or "non-specific." For the best part of a year my Mother was told her pains were a result of general "wear and tear." I've mentioned all this in my blog before and I will continue to do so. It is vital we get the message out about this. My mother was in agony for a year. She started taking steroids and was pain free within hours. It look a lot longer for Nathan's Mum to be diagnosed and she was a great deal more poorly as a result. So if you, or someone you love, has these symptoms, get to the doctor and start getting better!
We travelled home in a blazing sunset, stopping off in North Warwickshire at Ruth's house. Ruth is a member of the Rebel Chorus and has a hugely prominent solo at the start of the movement of the Pepys Motet I'm filming to promote the album release. Her presence in this film was vital! Ruth moved out of the big smoke a couple of years ago, so I had been racking my brains to think of how I would be able to film her without her having to go out of her way. The idea came to me like a bolt from the blue last night when I realised our journey to Cheshire would be taking us within a stone's throw of her gaff.
We filmed her in her bedroom with all the lights out and just the flame of a match. I'd love to have the time, equipment and manpower to properly light all the shots, but we're having to be both incredibly speedy and highly inventive. Our only pieces of equipment are my camera, a few torches and some candles. Today we were draping some of Ruth's clothes over the torches to stop the light from being too white! The end film will undoubtedly look a bit rough and ready, but I'm beginning to think that most people expect that from an Internet film these days.
Saturday, 16 July 2016
Poetry is rubbish
We've been in Catford all day today doing Craft and Cake. It's properly hot and sticky, and we've been out in the garden. I feel like I've done nothing but eat all day: lovely tomatoes and hummus, and chip butties and feta cheese, and raspberry profiteroles and caramel profiteroles, and pastas and Swiss rolls all washed down with cups and cups and cups of tea. I feel like a right fat chocolate froozler!
It's been a lovely day off, though. We went out to Sam and Julie's allotments and picked raspberries. I don't really know where the year has gone. We're right at the end of the strawberry and raspberry seasons. Soon the blackberries will be out and then it will be Autumn and I still haven't seen the sun this year!!
The day ended in a sea of candles out in the garden. I'm trying to film a little promotional video for the Great Fire movement from our forthcoming Pepys Motet album release. It's a heck of a lot of work which I rather wish I didn't have to ask people to do, because people tend to do me a lot of favours to get my projects off the ground and it starts to get a bit embarrassing to ask. I can't see any way around it, however. Without some sort of visuals, the album will disappear without trace.
We drove home through a crowded north London. Midnight in London on a Saturday night is every bit as crowded as the rush hour, except during rush hour you don't have to deal with pissed people rushing out into the road and then staring at you like you're a bastard for nearly running them over! It took us about an hour and a half to crawl our way home. On top of this, we got caught by every single traffic light. We listened to Radio 4. Poetry is rubbish isn't it? I'm tired now.
It's been a lovely day off, though. We went out to Sam and Julie's allotments and picked raspberries. I don't really know where the year has gone. We're right at the end of the strawberry and raspberry seasons. Soon the blackberries will be out and then it will be Autumn and I still haven't seen the sun this year!!
The day ended in a sea of candles out in the garden. I'm trying to film a little promotional video for the Great Fire movement from our forthcoming Pepys Motet album release. It's a heck of a lot of work which I rather wish I didn't have to ask people to do, because people tend to do me a lot of favours to get my projects off the ground and it starts to get a bit embarrassing to ask. I can't see any way around it, however. Without some sort of visuals, the album will disappear without trace.
We drove home through a crowded north London. Midnight in London on a Saturday night is every bit as crowded as the rush hour, except during rush hour you don't have to deal with pissed people rushing out into the road and then staring at you like you're a bastard for nearly running them over! It took us about an hour and a half to crawl our way home. On top of this, we got caught by every single traffic light. We listened to Radio 4. Poetry is rubbish isn't it? I'm tired now.
Friday, 15 July 2016
Song thrushes, squirrels, pigeons and cellos
We were awoken this morning by an astonishing racket in the back garden which sounded like a kitten fighting a magpie. I immediately stuck my head out of the bedroom window, and, although I couldn't see what was going on, I decided it must be the noise of squirrels either fighting... Or screwing! It went on for ages. I'm not sure much fun was being had!
I sat at the kitchen table today, window wide open, allowing the breeze to tickle my temples. I was rather thrilled to see an old friend in the tree in our garden, namely one of the pair of wood pigeons who, for many years, would coo at each other and nuzzle on the upper branches. One of them flew into our bedroom one morning and got into a right panic. I very calmly talked to him whilst edging myself closer. "Don't be frightened," I said, "I'm going to hold my hand out, get you to jump on, and then I'm going to carry you to the window and set you free..." I held my hand out and was utterly astonished when he climbed on, almost as though he'd heard and understood everything I said to him. I carried him to the window, he hopped off and hopped onto the ledge, where he sat for some time looking at me as though to say, "aren't you a big, funny, old gentle giant?" Then he flew away...
Anyway, a few months ago, either he, or his mate was killed by a cat in the garden and for a long time the other pigeon vanished from sight. I was glad to see him back. I shall be gladder when he finds himself someone else to coo at. Everyone deserves to be loved.
As I walked down to the tube I became aware of a really peculiar tweeting coming from the bushes alongside the causeway which runs down the ravine. Initially I assumed I was listening to some kind of tropical creature in an avery. The little chap had quite some repertoire. Fire alarms, telephones, chirps and whistles. Like a parrot almost. I recorded a few excerpts and sent them to a friend of mine who knows about these things and he told me I was actually listening to a song thrush. Spectacular. Although he says nightingales are better!
I got a bit blue after lunch and texted Philippa, who immediately told me to come down to East London to attend my goddaughter's school's fete, which was an insane experience. A tidal wave of tiny feet. Cake stalls for miles. Pots of jam. Sweeties. Amazing Asian street food... Deia's is an incredibly multi-culti school, and seeing all the kids playing together, and all their mums running the stalls side by side, gave me a fabulous sense of what this country ought to be. The children themselves are often fabulous mixes of different cultures and have no sense of anything being different or wrong. They just play. One lad I met today was half-Japanese, half-Irish. He had mint green eyes and jet black hair. They call it "generation beige" and I think it's the future. The one thing that mixed race people almost always are is beautiful. Whatever the mix.
...Then one of the children weed herself whilst standing on the toy stall table, so it was time to leave!
I spoke to a couple of Australians who are heading back home after a fifteen-year-long stint in the UK. I asked the bloke if he was reticent about leaving. "I was until Brexit" he said, "then I realised I didn't really know the country that I thought I loved."
Columbia Road is a lovely part of London. It's intensely urban but has this timeless quality which is created by the beautiful Victorian architecture. The streets are largely car-free, which means the kids just play out on the cobbles. I imagined them in thirty years looking back on those halcyon days.
I got a bit upset at one point when we all stopped outside a little Bengali-run corner shop. Philippa was buying a magazine for the kids. The daughter of the shop owner was a delightful little dot with, rather curiously, a shaved head. I learned today that quite a lot of Bengalis actually clipper their children's head to encourage hair to grow back thicker and stronger. It sort of makes sense. Quite a number of my friends have shaved their heads and had hair grow back curlier or thicker. Anyway, the little dot was quite delightful, and Deia and Silver interacted with her without any sense of her shaved head being strange. Two older people walked past and gave the child a really strange look and then started laughing. I was really upset. I know I'm more sensitive to that stuff at the moment, but I just can't see a problem with multiculturalism when it is as integrated as what I witnessed today. We have so much to learn from one another if only we bother to listen without prejudice or fear.
Speaking of which, the news from Nice has devastated me. I find myself even more devastated by the ghastly Brits who are saying that this attack proves that we should have come out of Europe. Yet my instinct is overwhelmingly that I want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the French at this awful time. Their pain is my pain. Their problem is my problem. That's always how the Brits responded to the French in the past.
I got home from Philippa's and watched the First Night of the Proms. A spectacular rendition of the Elgar Cello Concerto performed by a wonderful Argentinian 'cellist called Sol Gabetta, made me weep, then get all excited, then laugh, then weep again. I've seldom seen the piece played with so much life. She eked out every conceivable emotion from the piece and bashed the shit out of her 'cello in the process. The 'cello responded brilliantly! Fiona texted to alert me to what was going on. I then called my parents who were already watching. The encore was understated yet fabulous. She actually sang whilst she played. It was all just lovely.
I sat at the kitchen table today, window wide open, allowing the breeze to tickle my temples. I was rather thrilled to see an old friend in the tree in our garden, namely one of the pair of wood pigeons who, for many years, would coo at each other and nuzzle on the upper branches. One of them flew into our bedroom one morning and got into a right panic. I very calmly talked to him whilst edging myself closer. "Don't be frightened," I said, "I'm going to hold my hand out, get you to jump on, and then I'm going to carry you to the window and set you free..." I held my hand out and was utterly astonished when he climbed on, almost as though he'd heard and understood everything I said to him. I carried him to the window, he hopped off and hopped onto the ledge, where he sat for some time looking at me as though to say, "aren't you a big, funny, old gentle giant?" Then he flew away...
Anyway, a few months ago, either he, or his mate was killed by a cat in the garden and for a long time the other pigeon vanished from sight. I was glad to see him back. I shall be gladder when he finds himself someone else to coo at. Everyone deserves to be loved.
As I walked down to the tube I became aware of a really peculiar tweeting coming from the bushes alongside the causeway which runs down the ravine. Initially I assumed I was listening to some kind of tropical creature in an avery. The little chap had quite some repertoire. Fire alarms, telephones, chirps and whistles. Like a parrot almost. I recorded a few excerpts and sent them to a friend of mine who knows about these things and he told me I was actually listening to a song thrush. Spectacular. Although he says nightingales are better!
I got a bit blue after lunch and texted Philippa, who immediately told me to come down to East London to attend my goddaughter's school's fete, which was an insane experience. A tidal wave of tiny feet. Cake stalls for miles. Pots of jam. Sweeties. Amazing Asian street food... Deia's is an incredibly multi-culti school, and seeing all the kids playing together, and all their mums running the stalls side by side, gave me a fabulous sense of what this country ought to be. The children themselves are often fabulous mixes of different cultures and have no sense of anything being different or wrong. They just play. One lad I met today was half-Japanese, half-Irish. He had mint green eyes and jet black hair. They call it "generation beige" and I think it's the future. The one thing that mixed race people almost always are is beautiful. Whatever the mix.
...Then one of the children weed herself whilst standing on the toy stall table, so it was time to leave!
I spoke to a couple of Australians who are heading back home after a fifteen-year-long stint in the UK. I asked the bloke if he was reticent about leaving. "I was until Brexit" he said, "then I realised I didn't really know the country that I thought I loved."
Columbia Road is a lovely part of London. It's intensely urban but has this timeless quality which is created by the beautiful Victorian architecture. The streets are largely car-free, which means the kids just play out on the cobbles. I imagined them in thirty years looking back on those halcyon days.
I got a bit upset at one point when we all stopped outside a little Bengali-run corner shop. Philippa was buying a magazine for the kids. The daughter of the shop owner was a delightful little dot with, rather curiously, a shaved head. I learned today that quite a lot of Bengalis actually clipper their children's head to encourage hair to grow back thicker and stronger. It sort of makes sense. Quite a number of my friends have shaved their heads and had hair grow back curlier or thicker. Anyway, the little dot was quite delightful, and Deia and Silver interacted with her without any sense of her shaved head being strange. Two older people walked past and gave the child a really strange look and then started laughing. I was really upset. I know I'm more sensitive to that stuff at the moment, but I just can't see a problem with multiculturalism when it is as integrated as what I witnessed today. We have so much to learn from one another if only we bother to listen without prejudice or fear.
Speaking of which, the news from Nice has devastated me. I find myself even more devastated by the ghastly Brits who are saying that this attack proves that we should have come out of Europe. Yet my instinct is overwhelmingly that I want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the French at this awful time. Their pain is my pain. Their problem is my problem. That's always how the Brits responded to the French in the past.
I got home from Philippa's and watched the First Night of the Proms. A spectacular rendition of the Elgar Cello Concerto performed by a wonderful Argentinian 'cellist called Sol Gabetta, made me weep, then get all excited, then laugh, then weep again. I've seldom seen the piece played with so much life. She eked out every conceivable emotion from the piece and bashed the shit out of her 'cello in the process. The 'cello responded brilliantly! Fiona texted to alert me to what was going on. I then called my parents who were already watching. The encore was understated yet fabulous. She actually sang whilst she played. It was all just lovely.
Thursday, 14 July 2016
Boris is the what?
So Boris Johnson is the UK's new foreign secretary? Can anyone tell me what the hell that is all that about? I can only assume Theresa May has offered that silly prannie that particular post so that he can hang himself at the first opportunity. If you poo in the playground, you have to mop it up in front of all the other boys and girls. Part of me thinks that if he were allowed to become a back bencher, or do a job which allowed him to dick about like a buffoon, he'd gain popularity again. She knows this, so she's handing him the rope to hang himself with once and for all.
Loving the joke which is presently doing the rounds:
"Boris in the foreign office? No, no, they misinterpreted Theresa's list: It actually said "f-off" by his name!
I'm also loving the fact that, other than Boris, May has got rid of all of that insipid, "Notting Hill", public school lot. Seems like she might actually have a whiff of humanity about her. Could it be that we have a Tory leader with left wing credentials? I feel dirty for even saying it!
There's not much else to say. The lovely Emma came over to rehearse our song for Monday. We ran it three times. We didn't need to do anything else. She was really on it, so we sat in the sitting room, watching videos of catastrophic amateur performances of Peter Pan. There is nothing funnier in my book than stuff going wrong on the stage. Is it really bad of me to admit that, in the year and a half I spent as Resident Director on the West End production of Taboo, I would regularly will things to go wrong!?
Loving the joke which is presently doing the rounds:
"Boris in the foreign office? No, no, they misinterpreted Theresa's list: It actually said "f-off" by his name!
I'm also loving the fact that, other than Boris, May has got rid of all of that insipid, "Notting Hill", public school lot. Seems like she might actually have a whiff of humanity about her. Could it be that we have a Tory leader with left wing credentials? I feel dirty for even saying it!
There's not much else to say. The lovely Emma came over to rehearse our song for Monday. We ran it three times. We didn't need to do anything else. She was really on it, so we sat in the sitting room, watching videos of catastrophic amateur performances of Peter Pan. There is nothing funnier in my book than stuff going wrong on the stage. Is it really bad of me to admit that, in the year and a half I spent as Resident Director on the West End production of Taboo, I would regularly will things to go wrong!?
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