I have just been to see the Electric Light Orchestra playing at the O2, which means I’m in a crush of very happy people trying to leave North Greenwich tube station.
It was a last-minute offer from Philippa, who texted at about noon to ask if I was free because her friend Vanessa had a spare ticket. Obviously I said yes without a second thought!
I did manage to catch ELO playing here a couple of years ago. It was Nathan’s Christmas present to me and I thought at the time I would never get another chance to see a band performing live who had played such an important role in my childhood and teenaged sound worlds.
I knew the band was touring again, and my friend Julie had offered to go with me, but the tickets were very expensive and I decided to ring fence my extraordinary experience with Nathan as a never-to-be-repeated chink of joy.
...until today!
...And how thrilled was I to be back in that space hearing all those tunes again? The ELO back catalogue is astonishing by any standard. Philippa and Vanessa couldn’t quite believe how many songs they either recognised or loved on hearing for the first time.
I, of course, was in seventh heaven. I knew every word. Every vocal lick. Every string riff. Every harmony. And, of course, every song has a memory for me, mostly associated with sitting with my brother in my bedroom listening to albums on my little record player, or driving around the Midlands countryside as teenagers with Fiona and Ted Thornhill looking for places to busk. Sweet Talking Woman and Last Train to London remind me of driving up the M1 with the aforementioned and Fiona laughing at me because I used to drive at the speed of the songs!
Wild West Hero reminds me of my Dad. I can see him now, sitting on the sofa at Hind Style, eyes closed, nodding his head appreciatively to the beat. And Telephone Line reminds me of my Mum. I can see her dancing to the song in that same living room. I cried during both songs, remembering the person I was.
The band play brilliantly and Jeff Lynne still has a full set of pipes. He occasionally hands the odd verse over to a highly charismatic backing vocalist, but, otherwise, his voice is no different to the voice which recorded those legendary albums over 40 years ago. There were about twelve band members in total and I was trying to work out how much was being played on click track. The songs sounded remarkably similar to the album tracks. For a long time I thought the symphonic string sound was pre-recorded, until I noticed a keyboard player at the back sitting in front of the three live string players, doubling everything they were doing with highly nimble fingers, so it’s possible that considerably more than I’d initially thought was happening live.
Sadly, I’ve come down with a cold. Something’s been doing the rounds in the Brass company, as is always the case when actors rehearse a play. It started at lunch time with a hot face and an itchy throat, and, by the time I’d reached the O2, I was curiously hungry, my nose was running like a tap and I was sneezing every couple of seconds.
But hey, I went to see ELO playing live tonight! Who cares about having a cold?!
Sunday, 21 October 2018
Demos and Patti Lupone
Yesterday started, as Saturdays so often do these days, at 7am with an alarm which made me jump out of my skin. I am rather grateful to the days when I’m singing at shul because they stop me from a languishing start to my weekends.
I love the journey in. The tubes are always very quiet, and, I can sit, looking through my music, with a lovely cup of tea.
The ensemble yesterday was a good one, and featured young Jack Reitman, who, it happens, is also in the cast of Brass at the Union. Probably as a result of being engulfed by rehearsals for a 3 hour epic, he was a little underprepared for shul, and spent the service looking a little like a rabbit in headlights! I personally breezed through the material until the very last number, when a badly-written-out setting of the Adon Olam caught me entirely off guard. The words were a million miles away from the bass part and the moment I opened my mouth, I realised I didn’t have a chance of sight singing it effectively. The noises I was making were so awful that I instantly had a fit of hysterical laughter, the sort of uncontrollable, inappropriate giggling which is usually reserved for school assemblies and funerals!
Michael and I walked across Hyde Park in glorious sunshine after the service, carrying the wonderful anti-Brexit placard which Little Welsh Nathalie had painted for me so beautifully and left on the stairs up to my flat. She couldn’t make the march herself but wanted to do her bit, so asked me what slogan I’d most want written. I considered all sorts of angry, sweary phrases and puns based on the idea that EU sounds a bit like “you”, but in the end, shot from the heart and asked for it to merely say “musicians love Europe.” I don’t know any that don’t.
The march itself was a major event. We’re told some 800,000 people headed for central London, all, seemingly, with good-natured, kind, attractive faces. I very much felt as though we were marching with our tribe. Nathalie’s placard went down brilliantly. Scores of people came up to me to ask if they could take my picture. She’d painted it in appropriate blues, whites and yellows, so I wore my royal blue suit.
We met Brother Edward, Sasch, Sylvia and two of their Eurovision friends on the corner of Piccadilly. They all looked utterly resplendent in blue and yellow feather boas. I always feel particularly proud when marching alongside my brother. My parents also nearly joined us, but my father is ill with the flu. The four of us wouldn’t have marched together since CND marches in the early 1980s. I know Brother Tim would have been marching with us in spirit as well. Having an entirely pro-European family means so much to me.
The most moving sight on the march was an old woman staggering along on a pair of crutches. Even if it took her forever, she was going to show her solidarity.
We broke off the march at Jermyn Street. The rallies which follow these marches are always for the politicos. You can never hear anything which is being said.
Michael and I instead went window shopping. For a suit lover like me, Jermyn Street is something of a punishment. If I could, I would have bought something in every shop. But I’m not a millionaire. We can but dream.
We went to the Groucho club and sat in a pair of very comfortable leather arm chairs and both of us immediately fell asleep like a pair of old men. I don’t know how long we were asleep for. All I know is that I was awoken by someone gently tapping my leg and saying my name. It was Philippa. I think she was a little confused because people don’t usually go to the Groucho for a shluf, but it was delightful to see her. I always bump int someone I know at the Groucho Club. Usually Philip Sallon. Yesterday I also bumped into Richard Le Coq and the wonderful singing impressionist, Christine Bianco.
Less delightful was the phone-call I received from Little Welsh Nathalie telling me that her bedroom ceiling had caved in. That’ll be the bedroom ceiling directly below the floor of our bedroom. The photos looked dreadful. Huge chunks of plaster had fallen from the roof onto her bed. Had she been asleep in there, she could have been badly injured. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I had to spend the rest of the day wondering whether her ceiling had caved in as a result of something awful happening in our flat, but it turns out it was the product of a build up of water coming through our roof, seeping down the walls of our flat and being sucked into the floor boards. Our entire building is a mess. It’s a massive lesson for our landlord in the “stitch in time saves nine” philosophy.
The yo-yo went flying back up this evening with a trip to see Company in the West End, in the most amazing seats, curtesy of wonderful Felicity. It was so so exciting to be there, and see Patti LuPone singing Ladies Who Lunch: a treat I’m very unlikely to forget. This, of course, is the gender-bending production of Company where Bobby is being played by a woman. I saw the show with Adrian Lester playing the title role about twenty years ago, and have to say it works remarkably well done this new way.
The production is exquisite. The set is remarkable. The cast is brilliant. If it doesn’t transfer to Broadway, I’ll eat my hat. It’s not my favourite Sondheim musical. It’s somewhat flawed in my view, largely because you don’t really get much of a sense of Bobby going on a journey. The piece feels a touch vignettey, almost review-like. The songs are, of course, cracking. But some feel a tad crow-barred into the script. But these are small things in the light of such an epic production which I was pleased as punch to see.
I love the journey in. The tubes are always very quiet, and, I can sit, looking through my music, with a lovely cup of tea.
The ensemble yesterday was a good one, and featured young Jack Reitman, who, it happens, is also in the cast of Brass at the Union. Probably as a result of being engulfed by rehearsals for a 3 hour epic, he was a little underprepared for shul, and spent the service looking a little like a rabbit in headlights! I personally breezed through the material until the very last number, when a badly-written-out setting of the Adon Olam caught me entirely off guard. The words were a million miles away from the bass part and the moment I opened my mouth, I realised I didn’t have a chance of sight singing it effectively. The noises I was making were so awful that I instantly had a fit of hysterical laughter, the sort of uncontrollable, inappropriate giggling which is usually reserved for school assemblies and funerals!
Michael and I walked across Hyde Park in glorious sunshine after the service, carrying the wonderful anti-Brexit placard which Little Welsh Nathalie had painted for me so beautifully and left on the stairs up to my flat. She couldn’t make the march herself but wanted to do her bit, so asked me what slogan I’d most want written. I considered all sorts of angry, sweary phrases and puns based on the idea that EU sounds a bit like “you”, but in the end, shot from the heart and asked for it to merely say “musicians love Europe.” I don’t know any that don’t.
The march itself was a major event. We’re told some 800,000 people headed for central London, all, seemingly, with good-natured, kind, attractive faces. I very much felt as though we were marching with our tribe. Nathalie’s placard went down brilliantly. Scores of people came up to me to ask if they could take my picture. She’d painted it in appropriate blues, whites and yellows, so I wore my royal blue suit.
We met Brother Edward, Sasch, Sylvia and two of their Eurovision friends on the corner of Piccadilly. They all looked utterly resplendent in blue and yellow feather boas. I always feel particularly proud when marching alongside my brother. My parents also nearly joined us, but my father is ill with the flu. The four of us wouldn’t have marched together since CND marches in the early 1980s. I know Brother Tim would have been marching with us in spirit as well. Having an entirely pro-European family means so much to me.
The most moving sight on the march was an old woman staggering along on a pair of crutches. Even if it took her forever, she was going to show her solidarity.
We broke off the march at Jermyn Street. The rallies which follow these marches are always for the politicos. You can never hear anything which is being said.
Michael and I instead went window shopping. For a suit lover like me, Jermyn Street is something of a punishment. If I could, I would have bought something in every shop. But I’m not a millionaire. We can but dream.
We went to the Groucho club and sat in a pair of very comfortable leather arm chairs and both of us immediately fell asleep like a pair of old men. I don’t know how long we were asleep for. All I know is that I was awoken by someone gently tapping my leg and saying my name. It was Philippa. I think she was a little confused because people don’t usually go to the Groucho for a shluf, but it was delightful to see her. I always bump int someone I know at the Groucho Club. Usually Philip Sallon. Yesterday I also bumped into Richard Le Coq and the wonderful singing impressionist, Christine Bianco.
Less delightful was the phone-call I received from Little Welsh Nathalie telling me that her bedroom ceiling had caved in. That’ll be the bedroom ceiling directly below the floor of our bedroom. The photos looked dreadful. Huge chunks of plaster had fallen from the roof onto her bed. Had she been asleep in there, she could have been badly injured. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I had to spend the rest of the day wondering whether her ceiling had caved in as a result of something awful happening in our flat, but it turns out it was the product of a build up of water coming through our roof, seeping down the walls of our flat and being sucked into the floor boards. Our entire building is a mess. It’s a massive lesson for our landlord in the “stitch in time saves nine” philosophy.
The yo-yo went flying back up this evening with a trip to see Company in the West End, in the most amazing seats, curtesy of wonderful Felicity. It was so so exciting to be there, and see Patti LuPone singing Ladies Who Lunch: a treat I’m very unlikely to forget. This, of course, is the gender-bending production of Company where Bobby is being played by a woman. I saw the show with Adrian Lester playing the title role about twenty years ago, and have to say it works remarkably well done this new way.
The production is exquisite. The set is remarkable. The cast is brilliant. If it doesn’t transfer to Broadway, I’ll eat my hat. It’s not my favourite Sondheim musical. It’s somewhat flawed in my view, largely because you don’t really get much of a sense of Bobby going on a journey. The piece feels a touch vignettey, almost review-like. The songs are, of course, cracking. But some feel a tad crow-barred into the script. But these are small things in the light of such an epic production which I was pleased as punch to see.
Friday, 19 October 2018
The blue book
I had a fairly delightful day away from the intensity of the Brass rehearsal room yesterday. I left Simon, our wonderful choreographer, in charge, and headed to New West End synagogue to spend the day recording music.
The afternoon session was spent working on three pieces written by Trevor Toube, who is one of the stalwarts of the community there. He’s actually a very interesting composer and one of the pieces, dedicated to his grandson, Josh, was absolutely exquisite. It had an Eastern vibe, and yet it was somehow imbued with the expansiveness of Copland. Very impressive.
He didn’t half test us, though, in the piece he’d written for his grandson, Ben, which had a Microcosmos quality with octotonic runs alternating from tone to semi-tone. It took us a while to buffer that particular sequence up, but we got there, and I hope we’ve done him proud.
The evening session was spent recording four final tracks for our Blue Book album, one of which was a re-recording of a song we’d done in slightly too much haste in the studio in July. Was it July? It was very hot whenever it was!
It is an absolute joy to record in the synagogue. The acoustic there is second to none. If you stand in the middle of the space, performers can hear each other perfectly, and the sound wafts up into the ceiling, and then parachutes back down like a cascade of butterflies!
There is nothing like the sensation of performing with a group of top-notch singers. There are eight of us, and we sing two-per-part. My “desk partner” is James Mawson, who’s basically the fruitiest bass in the world. He thinks nothing of popping down to a bottom A - which I personally find deeply emasculating! Our voices blend together very well, however, largely because I am more than happy to play second fiddle and make it my primary objective to provide him with tonal re-enforcement!
I think it’s going to be a rather fine album.
The afternoon session was spent working on three pieces written by Trevor Toube, who is one of the stalwarts of the community there. He’s actually a very interesting composer and one of the pieces, dedicated to his grandson, Josh, was absolutely exquisite. It had an Eastern vibe, and yet it was somehow imbued with the expansiveness of Copland. Very impressive.
He didn’t half test us, though, in the piece he’d written for his grandson, Ben, which had a Microcosmos quality with octotonic runs alternating from tone to semi-tone. It took us a while to buffer that particular sequence up, but we got there, and I hope we’ve done him proud.
The evening session was spent recording four final tracks for our Blue Book album, one of which was a re-recording of a song we’d done in slightly too much haste in the studio in July. Was it July? It was very hot whenever it was!
It is an absolute joy to record in the synagogue. The acoustic there is second to none. If you stand in the middle of the space, performers can hear each other perfectly, and the sound wafts up into the ceiling, and then parachutes back down like a cascade of butterflies!
There is nothing like the sensation of performing with a group of top-notch singers. There are eight of us, and we sing two-per-part. My “desk partner” is James Mawson, who’s basically the fruitiest bass in the world. He thinks nothing of popping down to a bottom A - which I personally find deeply emasculating! Our voices blend together very well, however, largely because I am more than happy to play second fiddle and make it my primary objective to provide him with tonal re-enforcement!
I think it’s going to be a rather fine album.
Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Directing
I have to say, I am loving being at Mountview directing again. Directing theatre was always my great passion. It was what I wanted to do, and what I spent the first ten years of my career actually doing. At some point along the way, I fell into making films, and then the composing work slightly took over, but there’s something exciting and hugely meaningful about being in a rehearsal room, leading a team of people, all of whom have the same goal.
Obviously it helps that we’re breathing life into my own material. It is such a huge privilege to be able to enthuse young people with material I’ve crafted myself. And I have a joyously playful cast who are committing to every aspect of the process. We’ve done the majority of the technical work on the show. We’ve choreographed 95% of the dances, most know the music, the words and their characters, so we’re free now to play and work in minute detail. The girls, who, in fairness, probably have a slightly easier track in the show on account of having fewer massive production numbers, feel like they’re slightly further ahead. They are really enjoying the freedom that being on top of material brings. They almost feel like they’re beginning to think collectively. One of them bowls a googly into the group and the rest go with it. It’s massively gratifying to see them growing in confidence every day. I feel like a proud dad.
It’s a very emotional story, and not a day goes past when the entire room doesn’t get flooded by a swimming pool of tears. Catharsis is good, and as the cast commit more and more, I find myself increasingly emotionally effected. There is much of me in that show. Sometimes it feels like my soul will live on through it. There are so many lines which remind me of friends and family members, and transport me to different moments in my life. Today, as we dealt with the death of one of the characters, I remembered my Grandmother. In other scenes, I see the faces of previous Brassers. I’m frequently reminded of the magical day when we took the 2016 cast to the trenches in France. I remember the laughter we had in the boarding houses whilst rehearsing the NYMT productions, the dreadful sound of the fire alarm at 6am and the sight of choreographer, Matt Flint, wrapped in a duvet, waiting to be allowed back into the boarding house after a fire drill. I think of Sara Kestelman telling a cast member that he really was a wanker, and Hannah Chissick saying “that’s literally my favourite moment in the show” ...every five minutes! I think of the day that Ben Mabberley auditioned for the show by playing “Orange Juice” on the cornet, and feeling so profoundly moved that I wrote the song Brass especially for him and remember the day we went to Birmingham to see young Harrison conducting the show with exquisite precision.
At each stage of the journey, people feel like they’ve fallen deeply in love with the show. Only today, one of the actresses in the production tweeted “I've honestly never loved a show as much as I love Brass.”
Crumbs, I feel proud to have brought it to the world.
Obviously it helps that we’re breathing life into my own material. It is such a huge privilege to be able to enthuse young people with material I’ve crafted myself. And I have a joyously playful cast who are committing to every aspect of the process. We’ve done the majority of the technical work on the show. We’ve choreographed 95% of the dances, most know the music, the words and their characters, so we’re free now to play and work in minute detail. The girls, who, in fairness, probably have a slightly easier track in the show on account of having fewer massive production numbers, feel like they’re slightly further ahead. They are really enjoying the freedom that being on top of material brings. They almost feel like they’re beginning to think collectively. One of them bowls a googly into the group and the rest go with it. It’s massively gratifying to see them growing in confidence every day. I feel like a proud dad.
It’s a very emotional story, and not a day goes past when the entire room doesn’t get flooded by a swimming pool of tears. Catharsis is good, and as the cast commit more and more, I find myself increasingly emotionally effected. There is much of me in that show. Sometimes it feels like my soul will live on through it. There are so many lines which remind me of friends and family members, and transport me to different moments in my life. Today, as we dealt with the death of one of the characters, I remembered my Grandmother. In other scenes, I see the faces of previous Brassers. I’m frequently reminded of the magical day when we took the 2016 cast to the trenches in France. I remember the laughter we had in the boarding houses whilst rehearsing the NYMT productions, the dreadful sound of the fire alarm at 6am and the sight of choreographer, Matt Flint, wrapped in a duvet, waiting to be allowed back into the boarding house after a fire drill. I think of Sara Kestelman telling a cast member that he really was a wanker, and Hannah Chissick saying “that’s literally my favourite moment in the show” ...every five minutes! I think of the day that Ben Mabberley auditioned for the show by playing “Orange Juice” on the cornet, and feeling so profoundly moved that I wrote the song Brass especially for him and remember the day we went to Birmingham to see young Harrison conducting the show with exquisite precision.
At each stage of the journey, people feel like they’ve fallen deeply in love with the show. Only today, one of the actresses in the production tweeted “I've honestly never loved a show as much as I love Brass.”
Crumbs, I feel proud to have brought it to the world.
Tuesday, 16 October 2018
Solidarity
I hosted the MMD new writers’ cabaret last night, which is a monthly event for new writers of British musical theatre. The evening gives writers the chance to try out new material in front of a supportive audience. I attended every session for a full year whilst writing Em. It was a fabulous way to force myself not to write “also ran” music. I tried my hardest to write a song each month which topped the last one, and I would learn a great deal each time about what I’d written based on the audience’s collective response.
The evenings were always well-attended and very lively, and, although I haven’t attended myself for a year or so, I was thrilled to be asked to compere last night’s.
It was a bit of a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants scenario, as I had no time to prepare any schtick, so was essentially merely saying, “this is x, who’s written a song called x, which comes from a show called x...” I decided to keep the writers on stage afterwards to ask them a little bit about themselves and what they were hoping for. Occasionally I’d try to throw in a bit of advice, as I was aware that I was perhaps a little bit further on in my career than most of the others... and I think we all have a duty in the industry to support each other where we can. Largely, my message was for them to keep on writing. There were lots of young writers there - and our industry’s future sits firmly in their hands.
The set up in the UK is not geared towards the nurturing of musical theatre talent. There’s an amazing 18 year-old writer called Charli who would benefit enormously from studying on a high-quality musical theatre writing degree course. There are many such courses in the States, where amazing musical theatre writers like William Finn and Stephen Schwartz regularly teach. You literally learn from the best. The UK doesn’t have any such courses, however. The only option for a wannabe musical theatre composer is either to train as a performer and learn his or her craft by osmosis, or to study composing as part of a classical music degree, where musical theatre is often looked down on. There are song writing courses for pop music and jazz in some institutions, but, so far, in this country, the only courses specifically for musical theatre writers, I believe, are very part time or postgraduate courses, and you can count them on the fingers of one hand. There’s one at Goldsmiths, but, when I last discussed it with someone who’d been on it, I was somewhat horrified to learn that it wasn’t recognised by the music department, which meant the students couldn’t use equipment or university practise rooms. The musical theatre writers apparently wandered aimlessly from classroom to classroom, carrying the course keyboard on a trolley. It sounded bleak and undignified. I’m sure things will have improved. They have to have!
Anyway, my great sadness last night was that there weren’t more people in the audience. This was not the bustling event I remember from the past, where sometimes I’d worry that there might not be a slot left for me to perform my song in. I think perhaps only 8 people performed, and very few writers had turned up merely to support. It’s made me resolve to go more often because I feel it’s such an important event. And if any musical theatre writers are reading this blog. Go. Attend. Show solidarity. Us musical theatre writers need to raise our heads above the parapet.
The evenings were always well-attended and very lively, and, although I haven’t attended myself for a year or so, I was thrilled to be asked to compere last night’s.
It was a bit of a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants scenario, as I had no time to prepare any schtick, so was essentially merely saying, “this is x, who’s written a song called x, which comes from a show called x...” I decided to keep the writers on stage afterwards to ask them a little bit about themselves and what they were hoping for. Occasionally I’d try to throw in a bit of advice, as I was aware that I was perhaps a little bit further on in my career than most of the others... and I think we all have a duty in the industry to support each other where we can. Largely, my message was for them to keep on writing. There were lots of young writers there - and our industry’s future sits firmly in their hands.
The set up in the UK is not geared towards the nurturing of musical theatre talent. There’s an amazing 18 year-old writer called Charli who would benefit enormously from studying on a high-quality musical theatre writing degree course. There are many such courses in the States, where amazing musical theatre writers like William Finn and Stephen Schwartz regularly teach. You literally learn from the best. The UK doesn’t have any such courses, however. The only option for a wannabe musical theatre composer is either to train as a performer and learn his or her craft by osmosis, or to study composing as part of a classical music degree, where musical theatre is often looked down on. There are song writing courses for pop music and jazz in some institutions, but, so far, in this country, the only courses specifically for musical theatre writers, I believe, are very part time or postgraduate courses, and you can count them on the fingers of one hand. There’s one at Goldsmiths, but, when I last discussed it with someone who’d been on it, I was somewhat horrified to learn that it wasn’t recognised by the music department, which meant the students couldn’t use equipment or university practise rooms. The musical theatre writers apparently wandered aimlessly from classroom to classroom, carrying the course keyboard on a trolley. It sounded bleak and undignified. I’m sure things will have improved. They have to have!
Anyway, my great sadness last night was that there weren’t more people in the audience. This was not the bustling event I remember from the past, where sometimes I’d worry that there might not be a slot left for me to perform my song in. I think perhaps only 8 people performed, and very few writers had turned up merely to support. It’s made me resolve to go more often because I feel it’s such an important event. And if any musical theatre writers are reading this blog. Go. Attend. Show solidarity. Us musical theatre writers need to raise our heads above the parapet.
Monday, 15 October 2018
Magic of the ancestors
There was an all-too-familiar, last-minute panic this morning as Nathan set sail for New York. His phone had somehow managed not to charge overnight, his 6.30am alarm hadn’t gone off, and he was woken instead by my 7.45am soothing iPhone arpeggios on a fake harp. The taxi he’d booked for the airport had come and gone, and there was much rushing about and cursing. This time last year, when heading off to the same Rhinebeck Yarn Festival, he left his passport at home and I had to drive like a maniac to Hangar Lane to get it to him.
I guess no one could be entirely blamed for messing up an alarm call after the night we’d had. We went to bed at about midnight. It was a muggy night as a result of a sort of misty, moisty mizzle in the air, so the window was open. I was drifting off to sleep to the sound of the Tallis Fantasia and rain trickling over the roof tops, when my ears tuned into a sickeningly familiar sound within our flat... namely the dull thud of water dripping onto our living room carpet.
We leapt out of bed and ran around in a mad whirl, moving furniture and sticking buckets underneath the places where the water was coming through - which, it turned out, was absolutely everywhere. We ran out of buckets and quickly moved on to dustbins, fruit bowls and towels. I’m not sure anyone should be expected to live in these conditions, let alone pay rent to do so.
I spent the weekend in Thaxted at another quiz. Did I ever mention in this blog that I’m quite partial to a quiz? This one happened in a village hall on the winding country road towards Great Dunmow where, on some nights, a strange optical illusion involving light and mist occurs, which makes drivers on the road think there are ghostly hares dancing on the tarmac.
One of the things I love most about Thaxted is the way that it wears its folklore on its sleeve: whether that’s its thriving Morris Dance and folk music scene, curious pentagrams scratched into the doors of local churches to ward off witches, or talk of strange, lingering fingers of smoke hovering over the lanes. Life would be very dull indeed without the promise of magic. I am a rationalist, but there are things which, in my view, shouldn’t be swept aside or undermined with brutal logic. I would not compose music, or write stories if I didn’t believe in certain myths or the all-encompassing power of nature. I certainly think there are skills and perceptions which human beings have lost as we’ve evolved. Apparently we used to be able to smell water from great distances. How we know this, I’ve no idea. I think we were probably able to sense different types of energy as well. I have nothing to back this theory up apart from the extraordinary pyramids, monoliths and perfect stone circles built by our ancestors.
...We came second in the quiz. By one-and-a-half points. Beaten by our mortal quizzing enemies. If Sally had been more certain that the song had been sung by Credence Clearwater Revival, and I’d have remembered that Carol Lee Scott had played Grotbags in the Pink Windmill, we’d have won. Actually, if Nathan had been on the team, we would have won, but he banged his head in the loo of a local yarn store, so was dispatched back to London for a much-needed night of r and r!
I guess no one could be entirely blamed for messing up an alarm call after the night we’d had. We went to bed at about midnight. It was a muggy night as a result of a sort of misty, moisty mizzle in the air, so the window was open. I was drifting off to sleep to the sound of the Tallis Fantasia and rain trickling over the roof tops, when my ears tuned into a sickeningly familiar sound within our flat... namely the dull thud of water dripping onto our living room carpet.
We leapt out of bed and ran around in a mad whirl, moving furniture and sticking buckets underneath the places where the water was coming through - which, it turned out, was absolutely everywhere. We ran out of buckets and quickly moved on to dustbins, fruit bowls and towels. I’m not sure anyone should be expected to live in these conditions, let alone pay rent to do so.
I spent the weekend in Thaxted at another quiz. Did I ever mention in this blog that I’m quite partial to a quiz? This one happened in a village hall on the winding country road towards Great Dunmow where, on some nights, a strange optical illusion involving light and mist occurs, which makes drivers on the road think there are ghostly hares dancing on the tarmac.
One of the things I love most about Thaxted is the way that it wears its folklore on its sleeve: whether that’s its thriving Morris Dance and folk music scene, curious pentagrams scratched into the doors of local churches to ward off witches, or talk of strange, lingering fingers of smoke hovering over the lanes. Life would be very dull indeed without the promise of magic. I am a rationalist, but there are things which, in my view, shouldn’t be swept aside or undermined with brutal logic. I would not compose music, or write stories if I didn’t believe in certain myths or the all-encompassing power of nature. I certainly think there are skills and perceptions which human beings have lost as we’ve evolved. Apparently we used to be able to smell water from great distances. How we know this, I’ve no idea. I think we were probably able to sense different types of energy as well. I have nothing to back this theory up apart from the extraordinary pyramids, monoliths and perfect stone circles built by our ancestors.
...We came second in the quiz. By one-and-a-half points. Beaten by our mortal quizzing enemies. If Sally had been more certain that the song had been sung by Credence Clearwater Revival, and I’d have remembered that Carol Lee Scott had played Grotbags in the Pink Windmill, we’d have won. Actually, if Nathan had been on the team, we would have won, but he banged his head in the loo of a local yarn store, so was dispatched back to London for a much-needed night of r and r!
Saturday, 13 October 2018
Bullies
“This is your Northern Line via Bank train,” says the announcer at Highgate Station. As it happened it WAS the train I wanted to take, but that still didn’t make it MY train, and fifty per cent of people waiting on the platform were waiting for the Charing Cross branch. What’s wrong with “this is A Northern Line via Bank train?”
This sort of ghastly misappropriation of the English language is plainly part of an attempt to make official or formal language seem more cozy. Sadly, to my ears, it’s just as jolting as someone using “myself” to sound fancy when they simply mean “me.” “Who can I talk to about this problem?” “You can talk to myself.”
A rather unpleasant woman decided to squeeze herself into the tube carriage behind me as I made my hour-and-a-half commute to Peckham yesterday morning. She seemed entirely unaware that the space in front of me was being filled by my suitcase, but clearly felt I ought to be standing further forward, so kept thrusting her belly into my back and bum, which I found highly aggressive and, actually, a bit repulsive. I wondered how she would have responded to a man standing behind her doing what she was doing to me. Police have been contacted for lesser issues...
One of the things that #meToo has triggered in me is a desperate desire for parity in the way that we respond to issues relating to gender. These things have to work both ways. Yes, men CAN behave terribly, but, despite being pretty sure the woman’s motives yesterday morning were aggressive rather than sexual, I still felt a little violated by what she was doing.
Women can also be bullies and, in fact, throughout my career, I can pinpoint several times when I’ve been bullied by women, and actually fewer times where I’ve been bullied by men. I remember, on one occasion, a female executive producer literally screaming at me on the phone as I was trying to enter a recording session for the film we were working on. She shouted so viciously that I entered the studio shaking so much I had to sit down. The same person was thrown out of our sound edit for violently throwing books at the equipment when she didn’t get her way.
Strangely enough, I’m not sure I recognised that I was being bullied back then. I knew it was unreasonable behaviour and I knew it made me very distressed, but I don’t think it would have occurred to me that women even COULD have bullied men. In fact, I think many people, women included, still believe it’s impossible for a woman to bully a man. Men don’t have feelings, after all...
Within the last few months I experienced another dose of bullying from a woman, and, for the first time in my life, I called her out on it. She was utterly incensed, but, rather tellingly, instead of apologising, or asking what specifically she was doing which made me feel bullied, she instantly went on the attack and played the gender card: “if a man had said the same to you, would you have accused HIM of bullying?” Did my comments stop the bullying? No. They made it considerably worse.
And that’s how the viscous circle begins. A man is told that he can’t possibly feel bullied, and the bullying continues until he can bear it no more, and he puffs himself up to full size and growls like a lion. At which point he is instantly told he’s a bully!
This sort of ghastly misappropriation of the English language is plainly part of an attempt to make official or formal language seem more cozy. Sadly, to my ears, it’s just as jolting as someone using “myself” to sound fancy when they simply mean “me.” “Who can I talk to about this problem?” “You can talk to myself.”
A rather unpleasant woman decided to squeeze herself into the tube carriage behind me as I made my hour-and-a-half commute to Peckham yesterday morning. She seemed entirely unaware that the space in front of me was being filled by my suitcase, but clearly felt I ought to be standing further forward, so kept thrusting her belly into my back and bum, which I found highly aggressive and, actually, a bit repulsive. I wondered how she would have responded to a man standing behind her doing what she was doing to me. Police have been contacted for lesser issues...
One of the things that #meToo has triggered in me is a desperate desire for parity in the way that we respond to issues relating to gender. These things have to work both ways. Yes, men CAN behave terribly, but, despite being pretty sure the woman’s motives yesterday morning were aggressive rather than sexual, I still felt a little violated by what she was doing.
Women can also be bullies and, in fact, throughout my career, I can pinpoint several times when I’ve been bullied by women, and actually fewer times where I’ve been bullied by men. I remember, on one occasion, a female executive producer literally screaming at me on the phone as I was trying to enter a recording session for the film we were working on. She shouted so viciously that I entered the studio shaking so much I had to sit down. The same person was thrown out of our sound edit for violently throwing books at the equipment when she didn’t get her way.
Strangely enough, I’m not sure I recognised that I was being bullied back then. I knew it was unreasonable behaviour and I knew it made me very distressed, but I don’t think it would have occurred to me that women even COULD have bullied men. In fact, I think many people, women included, still believe it’s impossible for a woman to bully a man. Men don’t have feelings, after all...
Within the last few months I experienced another dose of bullying from a woman, and, for the first time in my life, I called her out on it. She was utterly incensed, but, rather tellingly, instead of apologising, or asking what specifically she was doing which made me feel bullied, she instantly went on the attack and played the gender card: “if a man had said the same to you, would you have accused HIM of bullying?” Did my comments stop the bullying? No. They made it considerably worse.
And that’s how the viscous circle begins. A man is told that he can’t possibly feel bullied, and the bullying continues until he can bear it no more, and he puffs himself up to full size and growls like a lion. At which point he is instantly told he’s a bully!
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