When I had been thrown out of Hinchingbrooke school I went to a local community college, The Huntingdonshire College, to take my English, History and Psychology A levels. I soon realised how lucky I had been, I found my new teachers really inspiring, especially Mr Salter, my literature teacher. He was very calm and very enquiring, with a wave in his hair and a beard styled very much like Karl Marx, which I think was no coincidence. The other students were irritated by the way that he would ramble off the topic, spending the most of the lesson recalling an event from his past, or discussing some moral or political point that had no direct connection with the book which we were studying, but I found all the new ideas and new perspectives that he brought to me very exciting.
Still, I wasn't the best pupil. The class went to see King Lear at the Barbican but I didn't see the whole performance. I think my classmate Tom and myself went to the pub. But I was very pleased with the 'Pastelism' fanzine and 'Bit Of The Other' Pastels video that I bought in the record shop on Hanway Street (now closed, has a Beatles Yellow Submarine mural on its façade, half of which has been erased).
Mr Salter and I became friends and, after I left the college, I'd visit his cottage now and again. We'd talk for hours, he taught me how to make Turkish coffee and encouraged me to play the piano more (he had just, in his forties, taught himself how to play). Jane and Howard would call his name to me in a childish sing song voice and laugh.
So, only a year or two ago, I was very happy with the internet offering the opportunity to reunite us. I found him easily, he'd moved to a city further North and was working in a secondary school. I read comments referring to him on student's myspace pages ('he's weird but cool.') I contacted him, we spoke on the telephone. And you know what? Despite my recounting stories and reminiscences he didn't know who I was.
Thursday 30 June 2011
Wednesday 29 June 2011
LSD in McDonalds
When I was seventeen I took a job in McDonalds. I wish that I hadn’t, I am embarrassed to admit it, but I did. It was in Peterborough, a dull city a half hour train journey from my dull home town. I worked there for only a couple of weeks until they sacked me, during the time that I was taking lots of LSD at Patrick's house.
I made friends with a fellow crew member called Tejeb (This may be misspelled, pronounced 'tay-web,') who had mutual friends in my home town I think. I don't remember too much about him. He had long hair, dearly loved the band Felt and shared my enthusiasm for LSD. We were in a pub in the city centre in the late afternoon after I had finished work one day and he gave me a tab. I thought, since we had been talking about taking the drug together, that we were to do so then and there, but it turned out that he was about to start a shift and had only given it to me to try some other time. Unfortunately I discovered this just after I swallowed it. So the trick now was to get back to Patrick's house before I lost my marbles.
I remember, an hour later, sitting on the train and asking a woman, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, "Is the train moving? You see, I have the sensation that we have been travelling for a very long time but perhaps we are still at Peterborough Station? I have taken some LSD you see and it's bothering me a bit." The kind lady assured me that the train had not yet started moving, invited me to the other side of the carriage to join her if it made me feel more comfortable and shared an orange with me.
I can't remember arriving at Huntingdon Station. I would have been taking the short cut to the side of the town which leads to Patrick's village, Godmanchester, because I clearly recall many policeman waiting for me on the other side of the field, on the ring road. I pulled myself together and realised that there had been a traffic accident. Still, it wasn't a pleasant experience walking past them.
Half an hour later I arrived at Patrick's house and he gave me tea and reassured me. I did well to get back so quickly because it was then that the effects of the drug increased a great deal. No doubt, whatever I got up to fascinated me.
I think of myself as being quite fortunate to have taken so much LSD at this time, every few days over a couple of months, and not have badly affected my mind. It is thought to trigger schizophrenia in some. At one point I went complaining to Kevin, the young boy (younger than me at the time) who sold it to me that he had sold me duds. "But Graeme," he explained, "you've taken it every day for four days in a row, you've built up a resistance" so that evening I took two and a half.
I got lost in LSD thought. I recognised that there was a whole new way of thinking, and I felt inclined to return again and again. It was always present when I was sober but I couldn't quite place it and it took me a few years until I stopped being preoccupied with and comparing the two states of mind. During those years I felt quite sad and objects, especially curtains, patterns and plants, would undulate if I stared at them. But the price was a small one to pay, they were the most interesting experiences of my life. The morning after the second occasion that I had taken it was a huge revelation. I sat on a bench in a small, ugly park near the town centre and I felt overwhelmed. Every thing, life, that I had known since birth was suddenly so new, with so many hidden facets revealed. I saw people as they were but I also saw how they moved within the wider context of society. Habitual ways suddenly stood out. People not seeming to be fully aware what they were saying or who was saying it fascinated me. I felt that I began to see more clearly how many people have a lack of self awareness but it also made me empathise with people effortlessly.
The trouble with LSD though is that you just can't be sure of anything. I wrote a song about this for my band The Projects called Planets and I like the line 'you think you know things but you know you may be wrong and you'd like to do things but you cannot get things done.' Mira and I sing on it. Mira suggested that it might be fun if we take mushrooms together and it could be a lovely experience but I am concerned that I might find my having MS too unpleasant.
I think it worked out well. I am a creative person, I’m full of ideas, I write, I make music, I seem to get along with people, I'm self confident and I'm rational and I think that I have LSD to thank for these things in some small part. I would say that the doses that I took were too high. I think taking small doses, as Francis Crick did to ‘help him think,’ to help him envisage the DNA double helix, is not a bad idea but I am not sure that I will ever take it again in any dose.
But I can definitely thank LSD for my being sacked by McDonalds. It makes knowing that I allowed them to employ me a bit easier to deal with. One morning, late for work, I was still under the influence from the night before. I was marvelling at the patterns of the tiles as I walked through the shopping centre and, for a short time, I thought that I was actually in Brent Cross Shopping Centre in North London where my mother would take me as a child. I finally got to work. It was a very quiet midday morning and I was alone behind the till. Someone ordered a strawberry milkshake and so I turned the machine on and wondered off somewhere and became fascinated by something and before I knew it there was a disturbing sea of strawberry milkshake on the floor. A manageress came in from the back room, saw the mess and, quite rightly, sacked me then and there.
I made friends with a fellow crew member called Tejeb (This may be misspelled, pronounced 'tay-web,') who had mutual friends in my home town I think. I don't remember too much about him. He had long hair, dearly loved the band Felt and shared my enthusiasm for LSD. We were in a pub in the city centre in the late afternoon after I had finished work one day and he gave me a tab. I thought, since we had been talking about taking the drug together, that we were to do so then and there, but it turned out that he was about to start a shift and had only given it to me to try some other time. Unfortunately I discovered this just after I swallowed it. So the trick now was to get back to Patrick's house before I lost my marbles.
I remember, an hour later, sitting on the train and asking a woman, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, "Is the train moving? You see, I have the sensation that we have been travelling for a very long time but perhaps we are still at Peterborough Station? I have taken some LSD you see and it's bothering me a bit." The kind lady assured me that the train had not yet started moving, invited me to the other side of the carriage to join her if it made me feel more comfortable and shared an orange with me.
I can't remember arriving at Huntingdon Station. I would have been taking the short cut to the side of the town which leads to Patrick's village, Godmanchester, because I clearly recall many policeman waiting for me on the other side of the field, on the ring road. I pulled myself together and realised that there had been a traffic accident. Still, it wasn't a pleasant experience walking past them.
Half an hour later I arrived at Patrick's house and he gave me tea and reassured me. I did well to get back so quickly because it was then that the effects of the drug increased a great deal. No doubt, whatever I got up to fascinated me.
I think of myself as being quite fortunate to have taken so much LSD at this time, every few days over a couple of months, and not have badly affected my mind. It is thought to trigger schizophrenia in some. At one point I went complaining to Kevin, the young boy (younger than me at the time) who sold it to me that he had sold me duds. "But Graeme," he explained, "you've taken it every day for four days in a row, you've built up a resistance" so that evening I took two and a half.
I got lost in LSD thought. I recognised that there was a whole new way of thinking, and I felt inclined to return again and again. It was always present when I was sober but I couldn't quite place it and it took me a few years until I stopped being preoccupied with and comparing the two states of mind. During those years I felt quite sad and objects, especially curtains, patterns and plants, would undulate if I stared at them. But the price was a small one to pay, they were the most interesting experiences of my life. The morning after the second occasion that I had taken it was a huge revelation. I sat on a bench in a small, ugly park near the town centre and I felt overwhelmed. Every thing, life, that I had known since birth was suddenly so new, with so many hidden facets revealed. I saw people as they were but I also saw how they moved within the wider context of society. Habitual ways suddenly stood out. People not seeming to be fully aware what they were saying or who was saying it fascinated me. I felt that I began to see more clearly how many people have a lack of self awareness but it also made me empathise with people effortlessly.
The trouble with LSD though is that you just can't be sure of anything. I wrote a song about this for my band The Projects called Planets and I like the line 'you think you know things but you know you may be wrong and you'd like to do things but you cannot get things done.' Mira and I sing on it. Mira suggested that it might be fun if we take mushrooms together and it could be a lovely experience but I am concerned that I might find my having MS too unpleasant.
I think it worked out well. I am a creative person, I’m full of ideas, I write, I make music, I seem to get along with people, I'm self confident and I'm rational and I think that I have LSD to thank for these things in some small part. I would say that the doses that I took were too high. I think taking small doses, as Francis Crick did to ‘help him think,’ to help him envisage the DNA double helix, is not a bad idea but I am not sure that I will ever take it again in any dose.
But I can definitely thank LSD for my being sacked by McDonalds. It makes knowing that I allowed them to employ me a bit easier to deal with. One morning, late for work, I was still under the influence from the night before. I was marvelling at the patterns of the tiles as I walked through the shopping centre and, for a short time, I thought that I was actually in Brent Cross Shopping Centre in North London where my mother would take me as a child. I finally got to work. It was a very quiet midday morning and I was alone behind the till. Someone ordered a strawberry milkshake and so I turned the machine on and wondered off somewhere and became fascinated by something and before I knew it there was a disturbing sea of strawberry milkshake on the floor. A manageress came in from the back room, saw the mess and, quite rightly, sacked me then and there.
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Speed Chess
I used to love playing speed chess online. It used to be chess.net that was all the rage but now, I think it's chess.com? Or the other way around? A chess server with thousands of chess players from the completely inexperienced to Grand Masters.
I loved two minute and three minute lightning matches. I bought a load of books from the chess shop on Euston road and studied obscure openings that wouldn't fool anyone in an hour long match but really threw people who were playing quickly. I achieved a good international rating.
I was working at this new media company at the time, Howard worked there too, it was lots of fun working there. I'd play many games of chess throughout the day. Suddenly I became increasingly nervous and the excitement, and the adrenaline that I'd get from playing a game were replaced by fear. The countdown to the match became more and more difficult with each game, I became too scared to play chess!
It was good while it lasted though, when you are obsessed with defending and improving your international rating winning a game of speed chess is very gratifying.
I loved two minute and three minute lightning matches. I bought a load of books from the chess shop on Euston road and studied obscure openings that wouldn't fool anyone in an hour long match but really threw people who were playing quickly. I achieved a good international rating.
I was working at this new media company at the time, Howard worked there too, it was lots of fun working there. I'd play many games of chess throughout the day. Suddenly I became increasingly nervous and the excitement, and the adrenaline that I'd get from playing a game were replaced by fear. The countdown to the match became more and more difficult with each game, I became too scared to play chess!
It was good while it lasted though, when you are obsessed with defending and improving your international rating winning a game of speed chess is very gratifying.
Monday 27 June 2011
Name Change
Howard went to the same school as me, although we didn't become friends until after I had been expelled for having some cannabis. This is a ridiculous story that I will tell another time. I didn't even know how to roll a joint.
One day we had nothing to do. We spent a while in the pub the Waterloo and then felt frustrated when we saw that the chip shop was closed for the afternoon. I noticed that the building beside it was a solicitors office and, since I was entitled to legal aid, I proposed that changing my name by deed pole would be a worthwhile way to while away some time until the chip shop opened.
Mrs Freeman, the solicitor could see me straight away. But I hadn't thought what name I should change mine to. Howard and I came up with a few ideas but none fitted and the solicitor had no suggestions at all. I decided to get rid of my surname altogether and have only a forename, I have never cared much for the name Wilson. The solicitor said that she would check the legality of having only one name and that she would contact me.
Coincidentally, the solicitor was the mother of a boy who went to the same school as Howard, my old school. Steve had thuggish tendencies and now, I think, works for the Metropolitan Police. A year previously, while we were all at the 5th form school ball, Howard made a funny come back to some insult or other that Steven had dished out and Steven, lost for words (he wasn't so bright) punched Howard in the face.
After a few days passed, Mrs Freeman telephoned and asked me to return to the office and sign some documents to finalise the changing of my name. I did so and she issued me with letters to post to my bank, the passport authorities, the vehicle licensing agency and so on.
I told my parents and was surprised that they took offence to me joining the likes of Sting, Prince, Madonna and Cher. They appeared to be genuinely hurt by such an idea as leaving my family name behind and so to avoid upsetting them I never posted my letters but have them still today, somewhere or other.
One day we had nothing to do. We spent a while in the pub the Waterloo and then felt frustrated when we saw that the chip shop was closed for the afternoon. I noticed that the building beside it was a solicitors office and, since I was entitled to legal aid, I proposed that changing my name by deed pole would be a worthwhile way to while away some time until the chip shop opened.
Mrs Freeman, the solicitor could see me straight away. But I hadn't thought what name I should change mine to. Howard and I came up with a few ideas but none fitted and the solicitor had no suggestions at all. I decided to get rid of my surname altogether and have only a forename, I have never cared much for the name Wilson. The solicitor said that she would check the legality of having only one name and that she would contact me.
Coincidentally, the solicitor was the mother of a boy who went to the same school as Howard, my old school. Steve had thuggish tendencies and now, I think, works for the Metropolitan Police. A year previously, while we were all at the 5th form school ball, Howard made a funny come back to some insult or other that Steven had dished out and Steven, lost for words (he wasn't so bright) punched Howard in the face.
After a few days passed, Mrs Freeman telephoned and asked me to return to the office and sign some documents to finalise the changing of my name. I did so and she issued me with letters to post to my bank, the passport authorities, the vehicle licensing agency and so on.
I told my parents and was surprised that they took offence to me joining the likes of Sting, Prince, Madonna and Cher. They appeared to be genuinely hurt by such an idea as leaving my family name behind and so to avoid upsetting them I never posted my letters but have them still today, somewhere or other.
Sunday 26 June 2011
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
Howard and I spent the last of our teenage years doing nothing. Nights in the Royal Oak pub playing pool, visiting awful nightclubs in Cambridge and meeting no one. We had absolutely nothing to do.
Here is a good example of a typical night. We were in some bar in the middle of nowhere, a social club it looked like, fifties design. It was empty. Christmas was coming so I spent all of my money setting the jukebox up to play 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day' by Wizzard twenty times in a row. Of course the selection was only made, and it only played, once. We had no money but stole a bottle of wine, leaning over the bar.
There, that's a typical evening. Sometimes we made little films with Howard's dad's video camera but we usually just sat in a pub somewhere.
Happy Birthday Howard!
Here is a good example of a typical night. We were in some bar in the middle of nowhere, a social club it looked like, fifties design. It was empty. Christmas was coming so I spent all of my money setting the jukebox up to play 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day' by Wizzard twenty times in a row. Of course the selection was only made, and it only played, once. We had no money but stole a bottle of wine, leaning over the bar.
There, that's a typical evening. Sometimes we made little films with Howard's dad's video camera but we usually just sat in a pub somewhere.
Happy Birthday Howard!
Saturday 25 June 2011
Nerdy Emails
When I was little I loved a couple of of cartoon annuals, 'The Willy The Kid' books by Leo Baxendale, who I later found out invented 'The Bash St. Kids.' They were anarchic and chaotic and I was fascinated by the intricacy of the cartoon strips with their asides and little jokes. I had a new look at them a few years ago and they were still good.
I saw that the author had hidden some swear words in them. In each book there was a letter from Willy himself, full of spelling errors and scribbled out words. One example of a hidden word that I remember off the top of my head is 'count dracula' being mentioned, only it follows a scribbled out misspelling of 'cunt dracula.' I think that it's quite interesting that the author of a comic book for children hides swear words in it, no? Quite strange?
Well, The Projects toured the UK with Broadcast in 2003 and James and Lisa got on very well. As a result James remixed one of our songs 'Accidents Will Happen' and I also had a remix by Matt/Simon and I thought that a 7" with them both would be super. I sent Leo an email and asked if there was any possibility at all of him doing a quick sketch of the band in the style of Willy The Kid. He wrote back saying that arthritis had forced him to give up illustration in 2002, it prevented him from holding a pen properly. Isn't the inevitability of ageing the saddest thing?
I have also received a couple of other celebrity emails. I wrote to Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of the C++ programming language saying only 'thanks for inventing C++' to which he replied 'No problem!' I had just completed a perfect copy of the ZX Spectrum game 'Manic Miner' by Matthew Smith that I wrote in C++. I then went on to make a fast 3D engine (I was pleased with it, for those who know C++ it used only pointers, it was slightly clever.) I also had a brief exchange of emails with Matthew Smith. Rumour has it that he took too many psychedelic drugs after writing his smash hit 80s computer game and lost his marbles.
I wanted to go on to become a programmer at some place or other making playstation games but after a little while I lost interest and carried on with my employer on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch and later freelance, making crappy games for the internet.
I also had a brief email exchange with Gary Gygax, the inventor of the role playing game 'Dungeons and Dragons,' who died a few years ago. I wrote explaining that I had enjoyed the idea of role playing when I was a child, studying the books and adventures, but usually no one wanted to play it with me.
I saw that the author had hidden some swear words in them. In each book there was a letter from Willy himself, full of spelling errors and scribbled out words. One example of a hidden word that I remember off the top of my head is 'count dracula' being mentioned, only it follows a scribbled out misspelling of 'cunt dracula.' I think that it's quite interesting that the author of a comic book for children hides swear words in it, no? Quite strange?
Well, The Projects toured the UK with Broadcast in 2003 and James and Lisa got on very well. As a result James remixed one of our songs 'Accidents Will Happen' and I also had a remix by Matt/Simon and I thought that a 7" with them both would be super. I sent Leo an email and asked if there was any possibility at all of him doing a quick sketch of the band in the style of Willy The Kid. He wrote back saying that arthritis had forced him to give up illustration in 2002, it prevented him from holding a pen properly. Isn't the inevitability of ageing the saddest thing?
I have also received a couple of other celebrity emails. I wrote to Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of the C++ programming language saying only 'thanks for inventing C++' to which he replied 'No problem!' I had just completed a perfect copy of the ZX Spectrum game 'Manic Miner' by Matthew Smith that I wrote in C++. I then went on to make a fast 3D engine (I was pleased with it, for those who know C++ it used only pointers, it was slightly clever.) I also had a brief exchange of emails with Matthew Smith. Rumour has it that he took too many psychedelic drugs after writing his smash hit 80s computer game and lost his marbles.
I wanted to go on to become a programmer at some place or other making playstation games but after a little while I lost interest and carried on with my employer on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch and later freelance, making crappy games for the internet.
I also had a brief email exchange with Gary Gygax, the inventor of the role playing game 'Dungeons and Dragons,' who died a few years ago. I wrote explaining that I had enjoyed the idea of role playing when I was a child, studying the books and adventures, but usually no one wanted to play it with me.
Friday 24 June 2011
My Doppelganer
After a night out in Shoreditch in early 2010, Consuelo reported seeing my doppelganger. I think it was in the bar Dream Bags at the beginning of Kingsland Road.
A few weeks later she and our friend Hiroe saw him again, in the bar 'Catch,' but this time she took a photo. I had asked them to get his number if they ever saw him again, but they were too shy. He must have been too good looking! After all, he looked identical to me. He was even wearing the same clothes and had the same haircut! He was ten years younger, mind you.
So, if you see my doppelganger hanging out in Shoreditch then do get his email address for me. Perhaps it was a ghost?
A few weeks later she and our friend Hiroe saw him again, in the bar 'Catch,' but this time she took a photo. I had asked them to get his number if they ever saw him again, but they were too shy. He must have been too good looking! After all, he looked identical to me. He was even wearing the same clothes and had the same haircut! He was ten years younger, mind you.
So, if you see my doppelganger hanging out in Shoreditch then do get his email address for me. Perhaps it was a ghost?
Medieval Cuisine
I found an English medieval cookery book, a university press title I think, remaindered in the newsagent on the Aldgate triangle.
I thought it very appealing to cook a medieval dish, and bought the book without a thought.
The recipe that I followed involved grains, beer and vinegar but the results were nowhere near as exotic as I had imagined that they would be. Honestly, it looked and tasted like sick.
I thought it very appealing to cook a medieval dish, and bought the book without a thought.
The recipe that I followed involved grains, beer and vinegar but the results were nowhere near as exotic as I had imagined that they would be. Honestly, it looked and tasted like sick.
Thursday 23 June 2011
Renting a Room
Howard and I decided one day that it would be fun to rent a room out in Jane's flat on Camberwell New Road.
We put an advert in the Loot classifieds paper, advertising the room at the bargain price of ten pounds, and then showed applicants a temporary shelter made of sticks and a bed sheet on the roof. We had lots of fun, we were very young after all, but the advert was very popular, the telephone would not stop ringing, so we soon grew bored and went to the pub. We left the other flatmates to deal with it, which was very impolite of us since, like I say, the phone did not stop ringing. Very stupid..
We put an advert in the Loot classifieds paper, advertising the room at the bargain price of ten pounds, and then showed applicants a temporary shelter made of sticks and a bed sheet on the roof. We had lots of fun, we were very young after all, but the advert was very popular, the telephone would not stop ringing, so we soon grew bored and went to the pub. We left the other flatmates to deal with it, which was very impolite of us since, like I say, the phone did not stop ringing. Very stupid..
Wednesday 22 June 2011
The Long Lane With The Noisy Dogs
I wasn't going to share this memory, but, well, today is Lisa's birthday.
Once, when Lisa and I were visiting my parents, perhaps some time in the very late 90s, Lisa decided it would be good to make love surrounded by nature. It was something that, she said, she'd always wanted to do and here we were, countryside all around us. We borrowed my parents' car.
I found this long lane that I knew of. A school friend once lived there. I addressed a letter to 'Kirsty, the girl who lives in the house on the long, long lane, with the noisy dogs, B-, Cambridgeshire' and it only took two days to reach her. I drove directly to the end of the road, far past the house with the noisy dogs, and from there we left the car and hiked though fields.
We found a spot that was entirely secluded, it was especially important to Lisa that it be so. We were sheltered, from the direction that we had walked, by bushes and behind us a rising slope blocked any line of sight.
But it turned out that the ridge supported a track and while we were making love a train slowly passed us by, not twenty metres away. We were completely exposed to the gaze of the bored passengers staring out at the boring, flat Cambridgeshire countryside. We waved to the people.
Once, when Lisa and I were visiting my parents, perhaps some time in the very late 90s, Lisa decided it would be good to make love surrounded by nature. It was something that, she said, she'd always wanted to do and here we were, countryside all around us. We borrowed my parents' car.
I found this long lane that I knew of. A school friend once lived there. I addressed a letter to 'Kirsty, the girl who lives in the house on the long, long lane, with the noisy dogs, B-, Cambridgeshire' and it only took two days to reach her. I drove directly to the end of the road, far past the house with the noisy dogs, and from there we left the car and hiked though fields.
We found a spot that was entirely secluded, it was especially important to Lisa that it be so. We were sheltered, from the direction that we had walked, by bushes and behind us a rising slope blocked any line of sight.
But it turned out that the ridge supported a track and while we were making love a train slowly passed us by, not twenty metres away. We were completely exposed to the gaze of the bored passengers staring out at the boring, flat Cambridgeshire countryside. We waved to the people.
Tuesday 21 June 2011
Superstition (Stuffed Birds II)
I was sitting in the back room of the Golden Hart with Howard and Lisa soon after I'd made the discovery that I'd had the bad luck to have MS. I suddenly became superstitious and threw away a coin that I'd been carrying around with me. It was an American penny that I had found on a London street, Abraham Lincoln had been brutally disfigured by someone with a chisel. The coin looked malevolent and I felt sure that it was responsible for my illness, I was quite drunk so it was an easy mistake to make.
Superstition is unusual for me, an atheist who understands the world through a philosophy of determinism, denying people the free will that they mistakenly trust in. I surprised myself when I became much more superstitious over the following year, and coincidental events seemed to justify this. I even started drawing tarot cards to help me make important decisions.
I realised that it may not have been the cent coin alone that was bringing me bad luck. After Lisa had given me a seagull for Christmas, which I received shortly after I threw the penny away, I bought a stuffed magpie. Not a thing for a committed vegetarian but it was very old and quite magnificent. Shortly after I got the magpie Lisa left me. I remember that other misfortunate events occurred, although I can not recall now exactly what they were. I bought another magpie from ebay ('one for sorrow, two for joy') which, according to a note that came with it 'was found dead in the Christmas of 1931 in the churchyard.' It looked like a dead bird that you might see on the ground, turned upside down and mounted on a plinth.
Directly after I acquired this second magpie I met Consuelo, which seemed to validate my superstition.
Consuelo hated the stuffed magpies and had me sell them on gumtree. Incidentally, a computer error made it impossible to erase my advert for about two years, and I received emails almost daily asking if they were still available. Strangely, almost all of the enquiries were from women. Fortunately, my superstitious tendencies disappeared with the stuffed birds. I wanted to get a tattoo of a single magpie over my heart to prove it but tattoos aren't really my thing and, besides, I have an overwhelming, irrational fear of needles.
I wrote a song for my band The Projects which features the birds and the coin and Lisa leaving me called 'Unhappy House.' It is a spiteful song but it was lots of fun to play live. The guitar part is very easy, you just hit the 'a' string and move your left hand on the fretboard at random if you fancy it. I used a tremolo pedal with my old fucked up Vox AC50, which doesn't sound quite so supreme now that I have replaced its faulty capacitors, and it was good!
Superstition is unusual for me, an atheist who understands the world through a philosophy of determinism, denying people the free will that they mistakenly trust in. I surprised myself when I became much more superstitious over the following year, and coincidental events seemed to justify this. I even started drawing tarot cards to help me make important decisions.
I realised that it may not have been the cent coin alone that was bringing me bad luck. After Lisa had given me a seagull for Christmas, which I received shortly after I threw the penny away, I bought a stuffed magpie. Not a thing for a committed vegetarian but it was very old and quite magnificent. Shortly after I got the magpie Lisa left me. I remember that other misfortunate events occurred, although I can not recall now exactly what they were. I bought another magpie from ebay ('one for sorrow, two for joy') which, according to a note that came with it 'was found dead in the Christmas of 1931 in the churchyard.' It looked like a dead bird that you might see on the ground, turned upside down and mounted on a plinth.
Directly after I acquired this second magpie I met Consuelo, which seemed to validate my superstition.
Consuelo hated the stuffed magpies and had me sell them on gumtree. Incidentally, a computer error made it impossible to erase my advert for about two years, and I received emails almost daily asking if they were still available. Strangely, almost all of the enquiries were from women. Fortunately, my superstitious tendencies disappeared with the stuffed birds. I wanted to get a tattoo of a single magpie over my heart to prove it but tattoos aren't really my thing and, besides, I have an overwhelming, irrational fear of needles.
I wrote a song for my band The Projects which features the birds and the coin and Lisa leaving me called 'Unhappy House.' It is a spiteful song but it was lots of fun to play live. The guitar part is very easy, you just hit the 'a' string and move your left hand on the fretboard at random if you fancy it. I used a tremolo pedal with my old fucked up Vox AC50, which doesn't sound quite so supreme now that I have replaced its faulty capacitors, and it was good!
Monday 20 June 2011
Toerag
Liam's Toerag studio became well known when he recorded the Elephant LP by the White Stripes. By that time the studio had moved to Holloway but when I first visited it was located on French Place in Shoreditch. I must have been introduced to Liam through Daniel who had recorded quite a few singles there and and had recently finished recording the 'I Was a Mod' Television Personalities LP.
Stuck for a place to live, I took a spare room in Liam's place. It was more of a closet. About the size of a double bed with a ceiling too low to allow you to stand upright. A few wooden steps led up to it and on them, painted in pink, were the words 'HMS Fairy Cake.' It was only a temporary solution. Josh, who financed the studio, used the space to build huge, gaudy, neon models for his club night 'The Fratshack,' and so I lived amongst giant papier mâché American football players, dinosaurs and grotesque go-go girls.
Liam is famous for owning no recording equipment manufactured after the late sixties, and the same went for his possessions. From the black and white television set to the basil brush doll to the clothes that he wore, it was all from the middle of the last century. And the same too went for all of the people who would hang around the studios. Garage rock bands, surf bands, none of it really my thing but it was fun to be there. I made a few friends, I'd walk Bruce and Holly from the Headcoats/Headcoatees' dog to Hoxton Square now and again.
Shoreditch then was completely different to today's Shoreditch. No one seemed to know where the place was, it was derelict and empty. The pub 'The Barley Mow' did exist, but in those times its interior was full of cricket photographs and greyhound illustrations. The only customers would be bands recording at the studio and policeman from the old Shoreditch Magistrates Court. The Bricklayer's Arms, just up the road, was even emptier. The greasy spoon café on Rivington Street was around then and there was another on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and French Place. Today Shoreditch is not unlike the West End, full of bars and restaurants, places to see people and be seen and a couple of small music venues, and it is a nice enough place, but there was a point in between those two extremes when Shoreditch was really a great place to be.
Stuck for a place to live, I took a spare room in Liam's place. It was more of a closet. About the size of a double bed with a ceiling too low to allow you to stand upright. A few wooden steps led up to it and on them, painted in pink, were the words 'HMS Fairy Cake.' It was only a temporary solution. Josh, who financed the studio, used the space to build huge, gaudy, neon models for his club night 'The Fratshack,' and so I lived amongst giant papier mâché American football players, dinosaurs and grotesque go-go girls.
Liam is famous for owning no recording equipment manufactured after the late sixties, and the same went for his possessions. From the black and white television set to the basil brush doll to the clothes that he wore, it was all from the middle of the last century. And the same too went for all of the people who would hang around the studios. Garage rock bands, surf bands, none of it really my thing but it was fun to be there. I made a few friends, I'd walk Bruce and Holly from the Headcoats/Headcoatees' dog to Hoxton Square now and again.
Shoreditch then was completely different to today's Shoreditch. No one seemed to know where the place was, it was derelict and empty. The pub 'The Barley Mow' did exist, but in those times its interior was full of cricket photographs and greyhound illustrations. The only customers would be bands recording at the studio and policeman from the old Shoreditch Magistrates Court. The Bricklayer's Arms, just up the road, was even emptier. The greasy spoon café on Rivington Street was around then and there was another on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and French Place. Today Shoreditch is not unlike the West End, full of bars and restaurants, places to see people and be seen and a couple of small music venues, and it is a nice enough place, but there was a point in between those two extremes when Shoreditch was really a great place to be.
Sunday 19 June 2011
The Meyerstein Ward I
In 1999 I was admitted to the Middlesex Hospital on Mortimer Street, off Tottenham Court Road.
I'd been having what I described to myself as panic attacks. The worst one, a week before, found me presenting myself at the NHS walk-in clinic in Soho feeling very ill and strange with a pulse rate of 220. They took me to the University College Hospital near Euston Square tube station. The ambulance doors flew open as we drove up Tottenham Court Road.
After not responding to any drugs that they imagined might snap my heart out of the rhythm that it had found itself in, they decided to give me general anaesthetic and shock it into resetting. I was sitting in Accident and Emergency with people all around me. The anaesthetist's mask was on my face and they were passing air through it in preparation for putting me to sleep. Meanwhile a junior doctor was checking my blood pressure with a cuff but it was very uncomfortable. I asked him to take it off and the senior doctor nodded approval. 'If he doesn't like it, leave it.'
The surge of blood that the removal of the cuff prompted, it having been so tight, reset my heart's rhythm. This was lucky because it would turn out that I had a scary allergy to suxamethonium and other volatile anaesthetics, and, there in UCLH A&E, or so I was later told, they might not have been able to save my life.
And so a week later I found myself being admitted to Meyerstein Ward where I would remain for two months. They didn't know quite what to do with me, I was just stuck there, feeling fine, eating chocolate, helping nurses make the beds, meeting people who came in and out of the ward. They didn't want to let me out of their sight, They said that I was at a high risk of dying. They weren't sure but they suspected that I was having dangerous episodes of ventricular tachycardia which was, in turn, threatening to degrade to ventricular fibrillation - the heart muscle losing all coordination.
I knew that alcohol and coffee triggered these episodes and suggested simply cutting them out would solve the problem. They wanted to implant an ICD, an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, in me. Something like a pacemaker only it gives you electric shocks to reset the heart in the event of an episode. They were quite new, these devices, and the prospect of implanting one really excited my doctor. I was adamant that I didn't want this thing in me but I allowed Lisa and my parents to persuade me otherwise. My doctor was very intimidating you see and had scared them into taking the stance that they did. I see it as emotional blackmail. Even the sound of her stiletto heels approaching from the distance was disturbing.
I had the horrible thing implanted in me and very nearly died due to my rare allergy to general anaesthetic, and awoke in the Intensive Treatment Unit on a breathing machine. Apparently they had spent all night trying to cool me down with ice, pumping it into my stomach and caking me in it, after the drug that will usually help in this situation did nothing for my case. They had told Lisa and my parents that I had a very high likelihood of having suffered organ failure and brain damage but when I came to the following morning I felt pretty good. I remember marvelling at the sun as it shone through the window and thinking how beautiful the script that the labels on the cupboards were printed in was. It turned out that this was, in part, because I had lots of morphine in my system. The view was an ugly one and the labels were scrawled in untidy handwriting.
I found out a few things about ITU. For one thing it is exceptionally peaceful in there, and very cold too. It takes you about four hours to get your voice back after they take the ventilator tubes from you. An enormous sensation of warmth and gratitude can be projected onto your nurse when you are high with morphine. Each patient has one nurse, and that nurse fills in a complicated A2 chart of observations but they don't let you take it with you, as a keepsake, when you leave.
I became engaged, without my knowledge, at some point during that night. Touchingly, Lisa had decided that, should I survive, we were to be married. When I woke up she was now described by doctors and nurses not as my girlfriend but as my fiancée. After it was clear that I was ok there was no more talk of marriage on her part and she slowly became my girlfriend again.
In 2004, by the time that it was obvious that it was doing me no good whatsoever, against professional advice, I had the ICD removed.
All along I questioned whether or not this problem had something to do with my being a vegetarian but I was told that this was not possible. It turns out that I was right all along. What a surprise.
I was anaemic!! Caffeine and alcohol were both triggers because they chelate iron from the body!! All I needed was some vitamin c and more lentils, or, as I had suggested, avoiding coffee and booze would have done the trick. My anaemia was triggering arrhythmia. It would have helped if I hadn't have eaten bar after bar of pure dark chocolate to while away the hours in the ward.
I met lots of people over those two months. A rocker took the bed beside me after Zara died. He had stories of dray horses in the tunnels that stretched from Camden Lock, having worked there as a child. I felt very sorry for Zara. She was Iraqi but had travelled from Iran where she was living at the time. She couldn't speak English, didn't know anybody in our country, although she was visited twice a week by a charity worker. I don't think that she appreciated the ward being mixed gender. Lisa and I bought her cakes though which she enjoyed. But worse than her loneliness, her consultant cardiologist was flippant, sounded to me like he was making things up as he went along, and seemed more interested in talking to the nurses about his holidays. He would always get her name wrong. Worse still, he killed her in her operation.
She had two tiny, mysterious scars just below the corner of her eyes that looked like tears.
Yes, when you are in a cardiac ward for some time you start to understand how high the death rate is. A girl whose bed was opposite me died during her operation as well. She was everso young, her boyfriend and grand mother were constantly at her side during the final week and they were very happy and optimistic. And Gary, a hardware shop owner from East London, complained that they had damaged his heart and had implanted a pacemaker that didn't work, that gave him arrhythmia. I would play chess with Mohammed, a friendly, bright fifteen year old. There was an old Spanish lady who spoke no English, had no visitors, and would shuffle around the ward expressing her anguish to herself in a pained voice.
Bill was my best friend on the ward, Bill and his conspiratorial cruise ship..
I'd been having what I described to myself as panic attacks. The worst one, a week before, found me presenting myself at the NHS walk-in clinic in Soho feeling very ill and strange with a pulse rate of 220. They took me to the University College Hospital near Euston Square tube station. The ambulance doors flew open as we drove up Tottenham Court Road.
After not responding to any drugs that they imagined might snap my heart out of the rhythm that it had found itself in, they decided to give me general anaesthetic and shock it into resetting. I was sitting in Accident and Emergency with people all around me. The anaesthetist's mask was on my face and they were passing air through it in preparation for putting me to sleep. Meanwhile a junior doctor was checking my blood pressure with a cuff but it was very uncomfortable. I asked him to take it off and the senior doctor nodded approval. 'If he doesn't like it, leave it.'
The surge of blood that the removal of the cuff prompted, it having been so tight, reset my heart's rhythm. This was lucky because it would turn out that I had a scary allergy to suxamethonium and other volatile anaesthetics, and, there in UCLH A&E, or so I was later told, they might not have been able to save my life.
And so a week later I found myself being admitted to Meyerstein Ward where I would remain for two months. They didn't know quite what to do with me, I was just stuck there, feeling fine, eating chocolate, helping nurses make the beds, meeting people who came in and out of the ward. They didn't want to let me out of their sight, They said that I was at a high risk of dying. They weren't sure but they suspected that I was having dangerous episodes of ventricular tachycardia which was, in turn, threatening to degrade to ventricular fibrillation - the heart muscle losing all coordination.
I knew that alcohol and coffee triggered these episodes and suggested simply cutting them out would solve the problem. They wanted to implant an ICD, an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, in me. Something like a pacemaker only it gives you electric shocks to reset the heart in the event of an episode. They were quite new, these devices, and the prospect of implanting one really excited my doctor. I was adamant that I didn't want this thing in me but I allowed Lisa and my parents to persuade me otherwise. My doctor was very intimidating you see and had scared them into taking the stance that they did. I see it as emotional blackmail. Even the sound of her stiletto heels approaching from the distance was disturbing.
I had the horrible thing implanted in me and very nearly died due to my rare allergy to general anaesthetic, and awoke in the Intensive Treatment Unit on a breathing machine. Apparently they had spent all night trying to cool me down with ice, pumping it into my stomach and caking me in it, after the drug that will usually help in this situation did nothing for my case. They had told Lisa and my parents that I had a very high likelihood of having suffered organ failure and brain damage but when I came to the following morning I felt pretty good. I remember marvelling at the sun as it shone through the window and thinking how beautiful the script that the labels on the cupboards were printed in was. It turned out that this was, in part, because I had lots of morphine in my system. The view was an ugly one and the labels were scrawled in untidy handwriting.
I found out a few things about ITU. For one thing it is exceptionally peaceful in there, and very cold too. It takes you about four hours to get your voice back after they take the ventilator tubes from you. An enormous sensation of warmth and gratitude can be projected onto your nurse when you are high with morphine. Each patient has one nurse, and that nurse fills in a complicated A2 chart of observations but they don't let you take it with you, as a keepsake, when you leave.
I became engaged, without my knowledge, at some point during that night. Touchingly, Lisa had decided that, should I survive, we were to be married. When I woke up she was now described by doctors and nurses not as my girlfriend but as my fiancée. After it was clear that I was ok there was no more talk of marriage on her part and she slowly became my girlfriend again.
In 2004, by the time that it was obvious that it was doing me no good whatsoever, against professional advice, I had the ICD removed.
All along I questioned whether or not this problem had something to do with my being a vegetarian but I was told that this was not possible. It turns out that I was right all along. What a surprise.
I was anaemic!! Caffeine and alcohol were both triggers because they chelate iron from the body!! All I needed was some vitamin c and more lentils, or, as I had suggested, avoiding coffee and booze would have done the trick. My anaemia was triggering arrhythmia. It would have helped if I hadn't have eaten bar after bar of pure dark chocolate to while away the hours in the ward.
I met lots of people over those two months. A rocker took the bed beside me after Zara died. He had stories of dray horses in the tunnels that stretched from Camden Lock, having worked there as a child. I felt very sorry for Zara. She was Iraqi but had travelled from Iran where she was living at the time. She couldn't speak English, didn't know anybody in our country, although she was visited twice a week by a charity worker. I don't think that she appreciated the ward being mixed gender. Lisa and I bought her cakes though which she enjoyed. But worse than her loneliness, her consultant cardiologist was flippant, sounded to me like he was making things up as he went along, and seemed more interested in talking to the nurses about his holidays. He would always get her name wrong. Worse still, he killed her in her operation.
She had two tiny, mysterious scars just below the corner of her eyes that looked like tears.
Yes, when you are in a cardiac ward for some time you start to understand how high the death rate is. A girl whose bed was opposite me died during her operation as well. She was everso young, her boyfriend and grand mother were constantly at her side during the final week and they were very happy and optimistic. And Gary, a hardware shop owner from East London, complained that they had damaged his heart and had implanted a pacemaker that didn't work, that gave him arrhythmia. I would play chess with Mohammed, a friendly, bright fifteen year old. There was an old Spanish lady who spoke no English, had no visitors, and would shuffle around the ward expressing her anguish to herself in a pained voice.
Bill was my best friend on the ward, Bill and his conspiratorial cruise ship..
Friday 17 June 2011
Tear Gas At The Laurel Tree
The Laurel Tree in Camden is where all the indie kids would hang out in the 90s. Jane and I discovered the place by accident when we decided to run away from our flatmate one evening. He was queuing in the chip shop beside Camden Tube and, although it was a mean thing to do, I am glad that we did it. Parsley's band 'Dutronc' were playing cover versions of Jacques and I thought that the whole place was just fantastic. I returned the next week and met Morgane, the first of all of the people that would become my friends in London. I proudly let it slip that I was playing bass for the Television Personalities but she beat me by letting me know that she played keyboards for Stereolab, who I thought were just fantastic. Morgane introduced me to Nick and Dino who became great friends with whom I'd go to lots of parties with and with whom I'd start the band Miss Mend (and later play in The Projects with Morgane and later still Dino.)
One time I was at Chris and Loretta's 'co-op' club night and I found myself wanting for cigarettes. I drunkenly pushed my way through the crowd to the stairs. The ground floor hosted a depressing pop disco and the dance floor was heaving with fake tans. I pushed my way to the cigarette machine and allowed it to prop me up as I slowly filled it with all the coins that I had, searching every pocket for extra five and ten pence pieces.
Eventually the packet of cigarettes was in my hand and I turned on my heel to find the whole place absolutely empty. The few hundred people had disappeared. It was quite a dream like experience. The room that had been a heaving, sweating, drunken mess was, to my surprise, deserted. Then I began to taste what I assume to have been tear gas at the back of my throat. I returned upstairs. It seemed that It couldn't have been a large tear gas canister that had been thrown down there because it didn't have much of an effect on me.
One time I was at Chris and Loretta's 'co-op' club night and I found myself wanting for cigarettes. I drunkenly pushed my way through the crowd to the stairs. The ground floor hosted a depressing pop disco and the dance floor was heaving with fake tans. I pushed my way to the cigarette machine and allowed it to prop me up as I slowly filled it with all the coins that I had, searching every pocket for extra five and ten pence pieces.
Eventually the packet of cigarettes was in my hand and I turned on my heel to find the whole place absolutely empty. The few hundred people had disappeared. It was quite a dream like experience. The room that had been a heaving, sweating, drunken mess was, to my surprise, deserted. Then I began to taste what I assume to have been tear gas at the back of my throat. I returned upstairs. It seemed that It couldn't have been a large tear gas canister that had been thrown down there because it didn't have much of an effect on me.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Kennington Park Lido
Jane and I lived right around the corner from Kennington Park and one sunny day we decided to find the swimming pool. It was marked in my A to Z and we often wondered where exactly it was. We searched without luck, how difficult could a swimming pool be to find in a small park? We asked one person but they were unaware of any lido, we asked another with no luck. We searched on. We asked a lady who took a look at my A to Z, pointed out that it was printed in the early fifties and that the lido had been demolished way back in 1981.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
How I Met Daniel
When I first lived in Stamford Hill, while I was still a University student, my favourite place was Safeways the supermarket. On the opposite side of the junction, I'd use any excuse to visit.
It was there that I bumped into the singer from my favourite band at the time The Television Personalities and his girlfriend Alison. I can't remember what I said but I do remember it being a bit awkward. I don't think that the name of his band was quite as well known in those days as it is today and this made it feel like an even bigger coincidence somehow. I'd play his records every day, I thought that his songs were just great.
They were at a Pastels show that I went to a few days later at The Garage opposite Highbury and Islington tube. He was feeling very introverted and sullen, which I'd say now was down to not having taken heroin, since at the time, he was an addict. Alison was feeling a little upset by Daniel's mood (she didn't know the extent of his drug taking, in fact, I don't think that she knew that he took the stuff at all) and I think my being there was an irritation. We travelled home together and I invited him over for the next day to meet Jane, the invitation was reciprocated and we became friends.
We were to spend a great deal of time with each other, right up until his disappearance. and I got to know Alison well, who's a great person, and their flatmate Declan too who was overwhelmed with an obsession with the blind South American singer José Feliciano.
It was there that I bumped into the singer from my favourite band at the time The Television Personalities and his girlfriend Alison. I can't remember what I said but I do remember it being a bit awkward. I don't think that the name of his band was quite as well known in those days as it is today and this made it feel like an even bigger coincidence somehow. I'd play his records every day, I thought that his songs were just great.
They were at a Pastels show that I went to a few days later at The Garage opposite Highbury and Islington tube. He was feeling very introverted and sullen, which I'd say now was down to not having taken heroin, since at the time, he was an addict. Alison was feeling a little upset by Daniel's mood (she didn't know the extent of his drug taking, in fact, I don't think that she knew that he took the stuff at all) and I think my being there was an irritation. We travelled home together and I invited him over for the next day to meet Jane, the invitation was reciprocated and we became friends.
We were to spend a great deal of time with each other, right up until his disappearance. and I got to know Alison well, who's a great person, and their flatmate Declan too who was overwhelmed with an obsession with the blind South American singer José Feliciano.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Blackbird
I was in my bedroom one day in the spring of 2004 when I heard a terrible commotion in the courtyard. I rushed, as best I could, out of my door and down the stairs and saw a small bird of prey with a fledgling in it's claws.
The baby bird was too heavy and the bird of prey, (a sparrowhawk perhaps) dropped it repeatedly, grabbed it and all the while the father blackbird was screeching at it and flapping it's wings close.
I shooed it away, the bird of prey, and saw that the fat little fledgling was in quite a state, covered in blood and with its wing crooked, so I took it upstairs and popped it in a shoebox.
I contacted The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and they said that their van was passing after midnight and would pick it up. They advised me to leave the box on the street. I wondered if they were insane, having me leave a bird in a box on the street in central London and told them I'd rather stay up for them. I waited until three but they never showed, nor the next day either. On the third day I spoke to a representative on the telephone again. 'You do realise,' said the girl, 'that it won't be able to ever fly again so they will kill it?'
I had been providing it with water from a pipette but now it was time to follow, loosely, some instructions on feeding from the internet. I bought bacon and scrambled some eggs both of which the little one enjoyed.
After ten days it seemed to have recovered and I released it. I lived in a flat with a lovely courtyard then. All day long the blackbird family, the four other fledglings being unable to fly still, would be hopping around in the vines which covered the outer wall under the watchful eye of the father. My young blackbird was unable to flutter up to join its siblings and so followed the group from the floor.
I assumed it had been eaten by someone when I could no longer see it hopping on the floor a week later but, in fact, it had regained the ability to flutter. A while later still and the fledglings were growing their adult feathers. My blackbird grew a streak of white where his wing was damaged and so I could identify him for three years to come as he fathered little groups of blackbirds in the courtyard.
Consuelo saved a blackbird a few weeks ago and, in doing so, reminded me of mine. Qué coincince! Years later Consuelo and I would feed birds in the courtyard from our kitchen window, encouraging more species to nest there. We had bluetits, great tits, blackbirds, finches but then a great big jay came along and scared everyone away.
The baby bird was too heavy and the bird of prey, (a sparrowhawk perhaps) dropped it repeatedly, grabbed it and all the while the father blackbird was screeching at it and flapping it's wings close.
I shooed it away, the bird of prey, and saw that the fat little fledgling was in quite a state, covered in blood and with its wing crooked, so I took it upstairs and popped it in a shoebox.
I contacted The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and they said that their van was passing after midnight and would pick it up. They advised me to leave the box on the street. I wondered if they were insane, having me leave a bird in a box on the street in central London and told them I'd rather stay up for them. I waited until three but they never showed, nor the next day either. On the third day I spoke to a representative on the telephone again. 'You do realise,' said the girl, 'that it won't be able to ever fly again so they will kill it?'
I had been providing it with water from a pipette but now it was time to follow, loosely, some instructions on feeding from the internet. I bought bacon and scrambled some eggs both of which the little one enjoyed.
After ten days it seemed to have recovered and I released it. I lived in a flat with a lovely courtyard then. All day long the blackbird family, the four other fledglings being unable to fly still, would be hopping around in the vines which covered the outer wall under the watchful eye of the father. My young blackbird was unable to flutter up to join its siblings and so followed the group from the floor.
I assumed it had been eaten by someone when I could no longer see it hopping on the floor a week later but, in fact, it had regained the ability to flutter. A while later still and the fledglings were growing their adult feathers. My blackbird grew a streak of white where his wing was damaged and so I could identify him for three years to come as he fathered little groups of blackbirds in the courtyard.
Consuelo saved a blackbird a few weeks ago and, in doing so, reminded me of mine. Qué coincince! Years later Consuelo and I would feed birds in the courtyard from our kitchen window, encouraging more species to nest there. We had bluetits, great tits, blackbirds, finches but then a great big jay came along and scared everyone away.
Monday 13 June 2011
Hitchhiking From Glasgow To Cambridge
I travelled to Glasgow thinking that I was going to be studying at the Strathclyde University there. No sooner than I arrived, with boxes of all of my stuff, I realised that I hadn't read the prospectus so well. I was only interested in studying literature but the course that I had chosen would only specialise 100% in the subject by the fourth year; the first year comprising five subjects, then three and two in the third. So I spent the next month putting off enrolment and attempting to transfer to Glasgow University. I stayed at a halls of residence on Cathedral Street, played scrabble and made a Super 8 film of the blood trails to be found around the city centre (I found new ones every day.) I spent nights at the art school bar, which I heard was a good place, pretty much always on my own (I was awkward and found it impossible to meet people) until Jane showed up. She stayed for a week, during which time all money ran out and we lived, pretty much, off potatoes. I had to steal packing tape. By this time my transfer to Glasgow University, which seemed to a simple formality at first, had been turned down since the course was over subscribed. There was nothing for it, I would have to hitch hike to Cambridge with as much of my stuff as I could manage; two apple boxes, a couple of shoulder bags and a couple of plastic bags.
One evening, a couple of days after Jane returned home by train, I prepared. What I wouldn't be able to manage I packed away in boxes and stored in a closet to be collected by courier when I could afford it. I didn't sleep well that night and at four o'clock I was boiling the last of my potatoes and, by five, I was staggering up the road with my boxes and bags to the M8 motorway. I felt very miserable with such a burden and not even enough money for a cup of tea.
I positioned myself by the side of the road, I had made a huge sign offering all the possible routes that could be of use to me, I was surrounded by all my stuff. Unexpectedly, a middle aged man emerged from a pile of rubbish that I had been standing beside for a quarter of an hour. He was a very friendly vagrant. He was not an alcoholic, he pointed out, but had preferred homelessness all of his life. He bought me a cup of tea and a sandwich from a mobile café.
Soon I got my first lift, a courier travelling South via Edinburgh. In no time at all dawn had risen and I was waiting for him in a quiet cul de sac of townhouses. Returning with his parcel, he drove off at speed, tyres screeching. I pointed out that he had very nearly run over a cat. 'If there's one thing I have learnt driving as a courier' he said seriously 'it's to never, ever be distracted by anything furry or flappy on the road.' The man was an idiot. Later he risked gunning down a road which was reduced to a single lane for both directions due to its narrowness, even though the lights had been red for some time. 'I should have done it, I should have just gone for it,' he had said to himself anxiously as we waited at the red lights. 'Fuck it,' he declared, deciding to just take the risk. It was frightening.
He dropped me off South of the border. I was picked up by a man who wasn't in the mood for conversation and, by mid afternoon, I was at Sandbach services on the M6.
I waited there by the exit with my sign and my stuff. It was crisp and cold but the sky was clear and the sun warm. I was offered a lift by a woman who looked like a model and drove a red Ferrari. Unfortunately it turned out that she was going to Birmingham. I was then picked up by a banker who had just made what he described as a 'an amazing fortune' trading. He kept impressing on me how he'd never do such a thing as pick up a hitch hiker if it weren't for the fact that, on that special day, he felt like 'giving something back.' We soon fell into silence.
Another couple of rides later and, at eight o'clock in the evening, fifteen hours after setting out, I was in Huntingdon. I felt very happy with my achievement. My parents didn't seem happy though and informed me that I could only stay with them for a day or two. After that I travelled to Bristol and shared Jane's room at her halls of residence until we got a flat there together in St Paul's.
One evening, a couple of days after Jane returned home by train, I prepared. What I wouldn't be able to manage I packed away in boxes and stored in a closet to be collected by courier when I could afford it. I didn't sleep well that night and at four o'clock I was boiling the last of my potatoes and, by five, I was staggering up the road with my boxes and bags to the M8 motorway. I felt very miserable with such a burden and not even enough money for a cup of tea.
I positioned myself by the side of the road, I had made a huge sign offering all the possible routes that could be of use to me, I was surrounded by all my stuff. Unexpectedly, a middle aged man emerged from a pile of rubbish that I had been standing beside for a quarter of an hour. He was a very friendly vagrant. He was not an alcoholic, he pointed out, but had preferred homelessness all of his life. He bought me a cup of tea and a sandwich from a mobile café.
Soon I got my first lift, a courier travelling South via Edinburgh. In no time at all dawn had risen and I was waiting for him in a quiet cul de sac of townhouses. Returning with his parcel, he drove off at speed, tyres screeching. I pointed out that he had very nearly run over a cat. 'If there's one thing I have learnt driving as a courier' he said seriously 'it's to never, ever be distracted by anything furry or flappy on the road.' The man was an idiot. Later he risked gunning down a road which was reduced to a single lane for both directions due to its narrowness, even though the lights had been red for some time. 'I should have done it, I should have just gone for it,' he had said to himself anxiously as we waited at the red lights. 'Fuck it,' he declared, deciding to just take the risk. It was frightening.
He dropped me off South of the border. I was picked up by a man who wasn't in the mood for conversation and, by mid afternoon, I was at Sandbach services on the M6.
I waited there by the exit with my sign and my stuff. It was crisp and cold but the sky was clear and the sun warm. I was offered a lift by a woman who looked like a model and drove a red Ferrari. Unfortunately it turned out that she was going to Birmingham. I was then picked up by a banker who had just made what he described as a 'an amazing fortune' trading. He kept impressing on me how he'd never do such a thing as pick up a hitch hiker if it weren't for the fact that, on that special day, he felt like 'giving something back.' We soon fell into silence.
Another couple of rides later and, at eight o'clock in the evening, fifteen hours after setting out, I was in Huntingdon. I felt very happy with my achievement. My parents didn't seem happy though and informed me that I could only stay with them for a day or two. After that I travelled to Bristol and shared Jane's room at her halls of residence until we got a flat there together in St Paul's.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Working in a Service Station I
When I was seventeen I worked for a while in a Shell garage for six months before they sacked me for incompetence and bad time keeping. In the daytime it was far too busy, I just couldn't keep up and people were forever driving away without paying for their petrol, and the night shifts were very dull indeed.
One time Howard dropped by in the middle of the night and persuaded me to let him roll a joint in the back room.
It was typical of my bad luck that just as soon as Howard had said goodbye a local policeman, who would come in from time to time for a chat, drove up and decided to take the opportunity to share all of the many problems of his marital life with me. He wanted to tell me everything. I was concerned about the possibility of him smelling smoke from the back room, or him noticing that I was stoned, it was unpleasant.
You know, I don't think that I ever enjoyed smoking that stuff once but I always seemed to have been doing it.
One time Howard dropped by in the middle of the night and persuaded me to let him roll a joint in the back room.
It was typical of my bad luck that just as soon as Howard had said goodbye a local policeman, who would come in from time to time for a chat, drove up and decided to take the opportunity to share all of the many problems of his marital life with me. He wanted to tell me everything. I was concerned about the possibility of him smelling smoke from the back room, or him noticing that I was stoned, it was unpleasant.
You know, I don't think that I ever enjoyed smoking that stuff once but I always seemed to have been doing it.
Friday 10 June 2011
Tony P.
One summer’s day, when I lived on Camberwell New Road, I was walking through the churchyard near Oval Tube Station and a couple of drunks sitting on a bench asked me for change. I had none but we chatted for a while and they seemed like nice people. They were very surprised when I returned a few minutes later with a can of Special Brew for each of them. They were surprised that I didn't want to drink one myself on such a beautiful sunny afternoon. It turned out that Rocco, who Tony P. would later tell me was losing his mind through drink (he was chuckling constantly) needed to use a telephone. Since none of us had a ten pence piece I invited them around to my girlfriend Jane’s flat, where I was sharing her room. Caroline, Eve and Jane were at home, everyone got along fine, Rocco made his call and soon they went on their way.
Shortly afterwards I received a letter through the post from Tony, inviting me to his house that following Sunday in Colliers Wood, South London.
I remember the journey there well. I was in the habit of always leaning out of the open window in between carriages (possible only with the low windows of the old style trains.) I would enjoy the wind in my hair as I listened to my walkman very loud. I was admiring the art deco fixtures and the unusual configuration of the platforms on some of those stations South of the river on the Northern Line where both North and Southbound trains share the same tunnel. The journey was not memorable because of this though, rather because whilst I was marvelling at the architecture a mad man tried to strangle me through the windows of the doors, from the neighbouring carriage. I hit him in the face and he lost interest. I hate violence and I found the need to punch the man disturbing.
When I got to Colliers Wood I found that Tony had cooked me a roast chicken lunch. His welcome was so warm and I found his cooking for me so touching that I didn’t have the heart to let him know that I am a vegetarian, and ate with him all the same. Neither did I have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t an alcoholic but since he had gone to all the trouble to buy eight cans of Tennents Super, we drank all afternoon.
I saw quite a lot of Tony after that. He introduced me to old friends in Brixton (where he wanted to be rehoused after having been forced to move away,) and we’d make journeys to the West End. We looked quite intriguing walking down the street I think, an immaculately dressed older Jamaican man wearing a Panama and a young, middle class white boy with a stupid haircut. In fact Tony’s daughter was quite suspicious of our relationship, especially since I was in the habit of sleeping on the sofa after not being able to contend with the mental cosh that is Tennents Super. Once we had both assured her that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on she remarked that I looked like Hugh Grant and said that I’d be quite handsome if only I cut my hair. Tony then rolled a joint. I hate getting stoned but I had a drag or two all the same. His daughter asked me if I had ever slept with a black girl. The grass was strong and so I found it difficult to react coherently when she suggested that I could sleep with her if I painted her kitchen which badly needed redecorating. I turned down the kind offer but I was so stoned that it felt awkward to turn it down politely.
"Oh Graeme," he would often say "when we touch down in Montego Bay, we'll pick the fruit straight from the tree." He was a very good man, Tony P. full of enthusiasm for life but life was just too difficult for him. He had been found asleep at the wheel of his car, an empty bottle of rum in his hand and the keys in the ignition a few years before I met him. They took away his driving license which meant taking away his job as a bus driver. He said that he had enjoyed driving buses, although the pre pneumatic assisted clutch had given him problems in the joints of his left leg.
He began to lose his mind, Tennents Super, a drink marketed at alcoholics, has odd additives in it that have this effect. Eventually I had to break ties with Tony P. He was just too much of a handful. The last time that I saw him was at my second flat in Stamford Hill. He was being very rude to Dino who had dropped by and, four times in a row, he couldn’t get down the stairs and into the cabs that I ordered for him. Eventually I had to get rid of him by giving him this acoustic guitar that I owned. He had been remarking all evening as to how he would very much like one and, after hours of him overstaying his welcome, I told him outright. Get in the cab, I’ll pay for it, I’ll give you an acoustic guitar, if only you get in the damn cab.
I know that a woman called Darlene wished to save him, picking him up and trying to take him to church once a week providing he was sober enough. He wasn't interested in the church but he liked Darlene. I hope something good came of all of that but, since we have lost touch completely, I shall never know.
Shortly afterwards I received a letter through the post from Tony, inviting me to his house that following Sunday in Colliers Wood, South London.
I remember the journey there well. I was in the habit of always leaning out of the open window in between carriages (possible only with the low windows of the old style trains.) I would enjoy the wind in my hair as I listened to my walkman very loud. I was admiring the art deco fixtures and the unusual configuration of the platforms on some of those stations South of the river on the Northern Line where both North and Southbound trains share the same tunnel. The journey was not memorable because of this though, rather because whilst I was marvelling at the architecture a mad man tried to strangle me through the windows of the doors, from the neighbouring carriage. I hit him in the face and he lost interest. I hate violence and I found the need to punch the man disturbing.
When I got to Colliers Wood I found that Tony had cooked me a roast chicken lunch. His welcome was so warm and I found his cooking for me so touching that I didn’t have the heart to let him know that I am a vegetarian, and ate with him all the same. Neither did I have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t an alcoholic but since he had gone to all the trouble to buy eight cans of Tennents Super, we drank all afternoon.
I saw quite a lot of Tony after that. He introduced me to old friends in Brixton (where he wanted to be rehoused after having been forced to move away,) and we’d make journeys to the West End. We looked quite intriguing walking down the street I think, an immaculately dressed older Jamaican man wearing a Panama and a young, middle class white boy with a stupid haircut. In fact Tony’s daughter was quite suspicious of our relationship, especially since I was in the habit of sleeping on the sofa after not being able to contend with the mental cosh that is Tennents Super. Once we had both assured her that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on she remarked that I looked like Hugh Grant and said that I’d be quite handsome if only I cut my hair. Tony then rolled a joint. I hate getting stoned but I had a drag or two all the same. His daughter asked me if I had ever slept with a black girl. The grass was strong and so I found it difficult to react coherently when she suggested that I could sleep with her if I painted her kitchen which badly needed redecorating. I turned down the kind offer but I was so stoned that it felt awkward to turn it down politely.
"Oh Graeme," he would often say "when we touch down in Montego Bay, we'll pick the fruit straight from the tree." He was a very good man, Tony P. full of enthusiasm for life but life was just too difficult for him. He had been found asleep at the wheel of his car, an empty bottle of rum in his hand and the keys in the ignition a few years before I met him. They took away his driving license which meant taking away his job as a bus driver. He said that he had enjoyed driving buses, although the pre pneumatic assisted clutch had given him problems in the joints of his left leg.
He began to lose his mind, Tennents Super, a drink marketed at alcoholics, has odd additives in it that have this effect. Eventually I had to break ties with Tony P. He was just too much of a handful. The last time that I saw him was at my second flat in Stamford Hill. He was being very rude to Dino who had dropped by and, four times in a row, he couldn’t get down the stairs and into the cabs that I ordered for him. Eventually I had to get rid of him by giving him this acoustic guitar that I owned. He had been remarking all evening as to how he would very much like one and, after hours of him overstaying his welcome, I told him outright. Get in the cab, I’ll pay for it, I’ll give you an acoustic guitar, if only you get in the damn cab.
I know that a woman called Darlene wished to save him, picking him up and trying to take him to church once a week providing he was sober enough. He wasn't interested in the church but he liked Darlene. I hope something good came of all of that but, since we have lost touch completely, I shall never know.
Thursday 9 June 2011
Reclusiveness
I have mentioned reclusiveness and MS a couple of times in previous entries. I have put off writing this but I suppose that I better just get it over with and explain myself. I wouldn't be at all upset if you just stopped reading this entry here and now, in fact, I'd prefer it if you did.
* I realised that I had MS in 2003 after reading an article in the Observer magazine by a newly diagnosed journalist. She felt very sorry for herself but, after the shock, I wasn't too bothered.
* I was officially diagnosed a year later.
* I was convinced, right up until 2006 when I could barely walk a step, that I'd beat it through an incredibly restrictive diet called The Best Bet Diet.
* I was treated for MS related CCSVI, a new and controversial treatment, in Alexandria, Egypt in December 2010. It helped me enormously and lots of symptoms disappeared. Today I can't use my legs much, but apart from that there aren't many things wrong. Sitting opposite me at a table, you'd never guess that I was ill. It feels like the CCSVI treatment has stopped any activity of the illness and this spring was the first for seven years where I have not had a seasonal MS relapse. I don't expect to get any worse any more. I went to Dr Tariq in Alexandria, although I could have chosen to travel to Brussels, Frankfurt or Glasgow, because he is innovative and seems the best choice of practitioners. My brother Adrian, my father Brian and Consuelo, who very kindly took time off from her school in Spain, accompanied me and we had a lovely time. I have never met a nicer people than the Egyptian people, everybody was exceptionally good natured and kind.
* I became a recluse because I was prescribed a pill called Tizanidine. The dose was titrated up for three months so I didn't think it to blame for the awful side effects. I put the psychosis that I suffered down to my being better informed about my illness. I began to take it on Adelaide's birthday in the summer of 2009 and began to lose my mind in winter. I decided that, being now realistically aware of the unlikelihood of a cure (whereas I had always been very optimistic in the past) resulted in an understandable depression and frustration. I would regularly complain of a sensation of having been buried alive, I became agoraphobic, I would obsess over the things that I could no longer do as a consequence of my illness and I would list the things in life that I considered to 'be nothing' which was an endless list. I really had lost my mind. Consuelo thought that it must be a symptom of the MS. She tried so hard to be cheerful and to help me but, after six months of dark gloom she just couldn't take it any more. It had all made her depressed, and, understandably, she escaped back to Spain. It did give me some great, intricate, fascinating hallucinations, as I lay in bed at night though. Another side effect was terrible, although infrequent, eye pains. In April this year, just in case although I thought it unlikely, I stopped taking the pills in order to see whether it would affect the eye problem.
The next day a miraculous change occurred within me and I realised that I was balanced and cheerful again. I can leave the house, I am always happy and I don't care about any illness.
* I realised that I had MS in 2003 after reading an article in the Observer magazine by a newly diagnosed journalist. She felt very sorry for herself but, after the shock, I wasn't too bothered.
* I was officially diagnosed a year later.
* I was convinced, right up until 2006 when I could barely walk a step, that I'd beat it through an incredibly restrictive diet called The Best Bet Diet.
* I was treated for MS related CCSVI, a new and controversial treatment, in Alexandria, Egypt in December 2010. It helped me enormously and lots of symptoms disappeared. Today I can't use my legs much, but apart from that there aren't many things wrong. Sitting opposite me at a table, you'd never guess that I was ill. It feels like the CCSVI treatment has stopped any activity of the illness and this spring was the first for seven years where I have not had a seasonal MS relapse. I don't expect to get any worse any more. I went to Dr Tariq in Alexandria, although I could have chosen to travel to Brussels, Frankfurt or Glasgow, because he is innovative and seems the best choice of practitioners. My brother Adrian, my father Brian and Consuelo, who very kindly took time off from her school in Spain, accompanied me and we had a lovely time. I have never met a nicer people than the Egyptian people, everybody was exceptionally good natured and kind.
* I became a recluse because I was prescribed a pill called Tizanidine. The dose was titrated up for three months so I didn't think it to blame for the awful side effects. I put the psychosis that I suffered down to my being better informed about my illness. I began to take it on Adelaide's birthday in the summer of 2009 and began to lose my mind in winter. I decided that, being now realistically aware of the unlikelihood of a cure (whereas I had always been very optimistic in the past) resulted in an understandable depression and frustration. I would regularly complain of a sensation of having been buried alive, I became agoraphobic, I would obsess over the things that I could no longer do as a consequence of my illness and I would list the things in life that I considered to 'be nothing' which was an endless list. I really had lost my mind. Consuelo thought that it must be a symptom of the MS. She tried so hard to be cheerful and to help me but, after six months of dark gloom she just couldn't take it any more. It had all made her depressed, and, understandably, she escaped back to Spain. It did give me some great, intricate, fascinating hallucinations, as I lay in bed at night though. Another side effect was terrible, although infrequent, eye pains. In April this year, just in case although I thought it unlikely, I stopped taking the pills in order to see whether it would affect the eye problem.
The next day a miraculous change occurred within me and I realised that I was balanced and cheerful again. I can leave the house, I am always happy and I don't care about any illness.
Wednesday 8 June 2011
Scary Spice
I quite liked working at the Bricklayer's Arms pub in Shoreditch, back when Shoreditch was a nice place. One quiet week day afternoon Patrick, who was a recording engineer at the Strongroom Studios round the corner down the road, arrived with some girls who, he said, were destined to be famous.
The one who approached the bar refused to sign a beer mat but gave me a kiss on the cheek instead. I found out months later that Scary Spice had kissed me. I’m still not sure which one is which. They did that song ‘Spice Up Your Life,’ didn’t they? I like that song and sometimes I sing it to my cat, although I have to make up some the words.
The one who approached the bar refused to sign a beer mat but gave me a kiss on the cheek instead. I found out months later that Scary Spice had kissed me. I’m still not sure which one is which. They did that song ‘Spice Up Your Life,’ didn’t they? I like that song and sometimes I sing it to my cat, although I have to make up some the words.
The Noise Of Public Spaces
Twice in my life I've been exposed to the recorded noise of a public space for hours on end.
I worked throughout 2003 as a technician at the commercial art gallery 'The Lisson,' where Lisa held a good job and where I should not have been at all, me being such a philistine when it comes to conceptual art.
At one time I was overseeing a video installation by Francis Alys and watched over, every day for three weeks, a single shot film of the Zocola square in Mexico City, filmed in real time, from the vantage point of a high building overlooking it. So every day I'd see the shadow of the huge flag pole in the centre of the square slowly draw its arc, and the people enjoying the shade that it offered shifting along with it. Ten hours a day for a month. The soundtrack of people shouting, the noise of the traffic, the kazoo-like instrument that would be played every now and then, drove me a bit loopy. I could hear it in my head for months afterwards.
In the summer of 2009 I became addicted to Anthony Gormley's 'One And Another' piece. I'd watch it streaming on my second monitor day and night. Different ordinary people doing their thing for an hour each on top of Trafalgar Square's empty plinth, day and night for months, the ambiance of Trafalgar Square constantly in my head. I just couldn't stop having it playing.
One day in late August, the day after her birthday actually, Consuelo and I went to visit the fourth plinth. In those days I was a complete recluse, rarely leaving the house, let alone my neighbourhood, so I surprised myself when I went along to the Tate modern and then to Trafalgar Square. I'd explain why I became so reluctant to leave the house at some point but it's a boring story that's quite involved so I shall leave it for some other time. Unfortunately it's only now that Consuelo has gone that I am starting to go out more and more. We could have had such a nice time! She was always trying to persuade me to go out but I just couldn't face it and now it's all I want to do!
We'd also ventured out the day before the visit to the gallery and the plinth, on her birthday to collect an amazing cake, and I think she thought it was the beginning of something new. But it wasn't. And it was all, my reclusiveness, because of that terrible awful pill that the doctor gave me!
Anyway, although the woman on top of the plinth was boring. Just giggling and taking photographs, it was lovely to be there. I just replayed it on their archive and we can be seen for a few seconds looking up at the boring lady.
Now I have to visit the Zocola Square in Mexico City. That would be something.
I worked throughout 2003 as a technician at the commercial art gallery 'The Lisson,' where Lisa held a good job and where I should not have been at all, me being such a philistine when it comes to conceptual art.
At one time I was overseeing a video installation by Francis Alys and watched over, every day for three weeks, a single shot film of the Zocola square in Mexico City, filmed in real time, from the vantage point of a high building overlooking it. So every day I'd see the shadow of the huge flag pole in the centre of the square slowly draw its arc, and the people enjoying the shade that it offered shifting along with it. Ten hours a day for a month. The soundtrack of people shouting, the noise of the traffic, the kazoo-like instrument that would be played every now and then, drove me a bit loopy. I could hear it in my head for months afterwards.
In the summer of 2009 I became addicted to Anthony Gormley's 'One And Another' piece. I'd watch it streaming on my second monitor day and night. Different ordinary people doing their thing for an hour each on top of Trafalgar Square's empty plinth, day and night for months, the ambiance of Trafalgar Square constantly in my head. I just couldn't stop having it playing.
One day in late August, the day after her birthday actually, Consuelo and I went to visit the fourth plinth. In those days I was a complete recluse, rarely leaving the house, let alone my neighbourhood, so I surprised myself when I went along to the Tate modern and then to Trafalgar Square. I'd explain why I became so reluctant to leave the house at some point but it's a boring story that's quite involved so I shall leave it for some other time. Unfortunately it's only now that Consuelo has gone that I am starting to go out more and more. We could have had such a nice time! She was always trying to persuade me to go out but I just couldn't face it and now it's all I want to do!
We'd also ventured out the day before the visit to the gallery and the plinth, on her birthday to collect an amazing cake, and I think she thought it was the beginning of something new. But it wasn't. And it was all, my reclusiveness, because of that terrible awful pill that the doctor gave me!
Anyway, although the woman on top of the plinth was boring. Just giggling and taking photographs, it was lovely to be there. I just replayed it on their archive and we can be seen for a few seconds looking up at the boring lady.
Now I have to visit the Zocola Square in Mexico City. That would be something.
Tuesday 7 June 2011
My Dad's Odd Coincidence
The oddest thing happened to Brian, my father, in the mid thousands when he was viewing a house in Spain. He'd decided already that it was in too remote a location but the price struck him as being very reasonable so he kept his appointment to be shown around the place all the same. The walls had been decorated by the Dutch man who owned the place with old photos that had been bought in junk shops. And there, at the top of the stairs, was a school photograph. He was, at the age of twelve, standing in the second row. From a local junk shop antique photographs had been bought with which to decorate the house, and among them was a school photograph of the assembled pupils from a certain Birmingham Grammar school in 1951.
Monday 6 June 2011
Sellotape
Mat and I had a great idea in October 2002, well, it was Mat's actually, he's full of ideas. I took photographs of him after wrapping his head in sellotape.
Friday 3 June 2011
One Of The Saddest Sights I've Ever Seen
I was driving from my boring home town of Huntingdon to the village of Brampton. The distance between these places is two or three miles and I was about half way between them when the procession of cars came to a near standstill. In time I saw that the delay was caused by a man in a power wheelchair, pottering along at a couple of miles an hour, right in he middle of the road. Miles from anywhere you couldn't help but think that he was going through some sort of crisis, and I evidently wasn't the only one who reached this conclusion, every fourth or fifth driver would slow as they overtook, lean over to wind down the window and, I suppose, ask him if everything was all right, although he didn't seem to be responding.
When my turn eventually came to overtake him I saw, to my horror, that he stared fixedly ahead, teeth clenched, his free hand clasped into a fist and with tears streaming down his face. It was a truly sad sight.
When my turn eventually came to overtake him I saw, to my horror, that he stared fixedly ahead, teeth clenched, his free hand clasped into a fist and with tears streaming down his face. It was a truly sad sight.
Thursday 2 June 2011
A Telephone Ringing
One day when I was seventeen years old, shortly after Howard and I had started going out to pubs and parties together, the beginning of what was to be a strong friendship, we were walking home through the streets of a nearby village, Godmanchester, from some party or other as dawn was breaking. At the end of the empty street was an empty telephone box whose telephone began to ring.
I answered it and it was a friend who had dialled a wrong number. Sadly, today, neither Howard nor I can remember exactly who it was although I do remember that it was a girl who was romantically involved with one or other of us.
I answered it and it was a friend who had dialled a wrong number. Sadly, today, neither Howard nor I can remember exactly who it was although I do remember that it was a girl who was romantically involved with one or other of us.
Wednesday 1 June 2011
Incredible Coincidence
Matthew/Simon has had many different musical projects, he’s very talented. One was, and I’m not so good at categorising music, a club/electro/pop thing which he had Lisa sing on. To be honest, it wasn’t my favourite of all of his creations. He had written a couple of songs, ‘Body Heat’ being the title of one, and wanted to shoot some promotional pictures. I can't remember who the photographer was.
He had found a great location for the shoot with Limehouse Town Hall. It was semi derelict, being used as studio space for artists, and had an amazing sense of faded austerity. The whole building was deserted except for us and Rory, with whom Matt/Simon had made the arrangements in order to use the place and who, today, is a successful conceptual artist. We stood chatting for a while in a huge central hall surrounded by manikins that were in the process of becoming someone’s installation before Simon/Matt and Lisa got to work. I looked on as the band were tied up with rope, back to back, sitting on wooden chairs, at the foot of a sweeping staircase, complete with masking tape over their mouths perhaps (or this might be my imagination at work) to evoke a story line of kidnap.
The following year the band that I played guitar in, and do mostly all of the organisation for, The Projects, had to find a space in which to record our first LP. Amanda from the band Saloon had a portable mixing desk and her and Adam were to do the production once we had found a location. I thought of Limehouse Town Hall, I got Rory’s telephone number from Matthew/Simon and ended up leaving a message on an answerphone. He got back to me a week later, saying that it wouldn’t be appropriate.
In the end we used a rehearsal studio in New Cross that had once been a public library. The building was beautiful, sun streaming into the main room, making the wood panelling and wood inlay that adorned the place glow. The recording took a week, and throughout that week there was a heat wave and it was incredibly hot in the rehearsal rooms. We would have fans running constantly, switch them off for a take and then all be waiting for the recording to be complete in order to switch them back on again as quickly as possible. Just sitting in there forced you to drip with sweat.
It sounded great though I think, Amanda and Adam did a great job and we had the record mixed by Matthew/Simon.
In Spring 2004, the year following our recording and two years after Matt/Simon and Lisa’s photoshoot, I was walking home, crossing Aldgate triangle. A girl stopped me and gave me a flyer, it looked interesting, it was for an online art project, so I took it home. Months and months later I stumbled across it in my coat pocket, I was sitting at my computer so I entered the address written on the paper and was taken to a page with hundreds of tiny, clickable numbers on it, arranged in a square. It took me a few seconds to work out what was going on when I clicked on one of those numbers. From the speakers came, after the sound of an answer phone beep, my own voice saying ‘Hi Rory,’ explaining that I played in a band, that we needed a space to record in and that the town hall would be ideal. Goodness! Of all of the numbers, of all the messages I could have clicked on..
He had found a great location for the shoot with Limehouse Town Hall. It was semi derelict, being used as studio space for artists, and had an amazing sense of faded austerity. The whole building was deserted except for us and Rory, with whom Matt/Simon had made the arrangements in order to use the place and who, today, is a successful conceptual artist. We stood chatting for a while in a huge central hall surrounded by manikins that were in the process of becoming someone’s installation before Simon/Matt and Lisa got to work. I looked on as the band were tied up with rope, back to back, sitting on wooden chairs, at the foot of a sweeping staircase, complete with masking tape over their mouths perhaps (or this might be my imagination at work) to evoke a story line of kidnap.
The following year the band that I played guitar in, and do mostly all of the organisation for, The Projects, had to find a space in which to record our first LP. Amanda from the band Saloon had a portable mixing desk and her and Adam were to do the production once we had found a location. I thought of Limehouse Town Hall, I got Rory’s telephone number from Matthew/Simon and ended up leaving a message on an answerphone. He got back to me a week later, saying that it wouldn’t be appropriate.
In the end we used a rehearsal studio in New Cross that had once been a public library. The building was beautiful, sun streaming into the main room, making the wood panelling and wood inlay that adorned the place glow. The recording took a week, and throughout that week there was a heat wave and it was incredibly hot in the rehearsal rooms. We would have fans running constantly, switch them off for a take and then all be waiting for the recording to be complete in order to switch them back on again as quickly as possible. Just sitting in there forced you to drip with sweat.
It sounded great though I think, Amanda and Adam did a great job and we had the record mixed by Matthew/Simon.
In Spring 2004, the year following our recording and two years after Matt/Simon and Lisa’s photoshoot, I was walking home, crossing Aldgate triangle. A girl stopped me and gave me a flyer, it looked interesting, it was for an online art project, so I took it home. Months and months later I stumbled across it in my coat pocket, I was sitting at my computer so I entered the address written on the paper and was taken to a page with hundreds of tiny, clickable numbers on it, arranged in a square. It took me a few seconds to work out what was going on when I clicked on one of those numbers. From the speakers came, after the sound of an answer phone beep, my own voice saying ‘Hi Rory,’ explaining that I played in a band, that we needed a space to record in and that the town hall would be ideal. Goodness! Of all of the numbers, of all the messages I could have clicked on..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)