Ladonia and Nemis

In the spring of 2001 Lisa's father drove us to the principality of Nemis in Ladonia, which had declared its independence from Sweden only six years earlier. The drive from Lisa's home town of Malmö to Ladonia, also situated in Sweden's Southern Skåne province, took a few hours. Lisa's father was a very enthusiastic, highly knowledgeable man with something of a short temper. I wish that I had had a chance to talk with him more.

Nemis was approached from the nearest road by foot, a hike over a steep, woodland hill. It is a sculpture made from drift wood which the artist Lars Vilks had begun to construct in 1980 and is evolving still to this day. Consisting of huge towers connected by walkways, it was quite an adventure clambering up them. Afterwards we swam in the ocean before we realised that lots jelly fish had the same idea.

This is one of the few occasions that I met with Lisa's father. He and Lisa's mother were no longer together and only this once did a visit to Sweden for both Lisa and myself involve meeting up with him. The first time that I did so was shortly before Lisa and I had our first show with the band Miss Mend in the Hope and Anchor pub in Islington but I was too nervous to speak with him or anyone else. Another occasion was our trip to Nemis and the last time we met he visited us at our flat near Liverpool Street.

Neither Lisa nor I liked cannabis but, I think because someone had forgotten it, a huge lump of the stuff had been hanging around the flat and Lisa's dad fancied trying it out again after many, many years. We got very stoned and I gave him a bowler hat which I had bought years before in Cambridge and which he wore for his journey home to his hotel at the end of the evening.

The next time that I saw him he was no longer living and so it was a very sad occasion. He had ignored indigestion for many years but it turned out to be the symptom of a problem far more serious than he could ever have anticipated. Lisa had been visiting him at the hospital in Lund for some weeks and he died of inoperable cancer the very morning I had arrived to visit him myself.

Presents To Myself

A couple of years ago I found that my short term memory just disappeared. I found myself living like a goldfish. I would remember something that I had to do one second only to find myself having completely forgotten that something another. I'd send myself emails to remind me to do things and leave notes to myself lying around.

I conduct all of my shopping online and so every time the postman arrived the contents of the parcels that he had for me were a complete mystery. Not only that but I would forget having ordered those things in the first place and so these parcels were a terrific surprise. Every day was like a birthday, only a very special birthday where I was guaranteed to receive presents that were sure to surprise and delight, presents that I really wanted and needed. I would always feel so very grateful to myself for having been so thoughtful.

I considered sending myself anonymous letters of encouragement but I hadn't time to get around to it because, after a month or two, much to my relief, my short term memory became strong again, just as if nothing had ever happened. It was a strange experience, that's for sure.

Climbing The Primary School

Howard and I sat on the roof of the primary school in Godmanchester, looking at the village in the dusk. We were seventeen years old.

I had been taught how to climb the building by some older boys a few years earlier - the boys that I mention in the entry 'Curly Hair.' I was walking with them from the pub where I would go called 'The Waterloo' in Huntingdon town centre to the village of Godmanchester. Everyone looked like they were members of the Sarah Records band 'The Sea Urchins,' wearing drainpipe jeans and pointy Chelsea boots. The Waterloo has since been completely redeveloped but then it was quite a dark, dangerous and, to me, magical place

They decided to climb the primary school. They had done it many times before but I thought they were joking at first and I felt unprepared when I realised that they were not. I was drunk and I wasn't that used to drinking, I was only fifteen. I remember at one point wondering if I'd make a particular jump. You see, it involved climbing one structure, jumping to another, climbing a drainpipe, swinging around, dropping, climbing. It was very involved, it seemed dangerous. They guided me but still it felt a little out of control.

I took part in a climb two weeks later. I felt more at ease this time. Gary fell through a sky light. It was a great shame to vandalise a primary school and it took a lot of effort for them to retrieve him.

Anyway, on this occasion that I am recounting I was sober, as was Howard who had never climbed the school. He questioned the need to but admitted, once we had scaled the building, that it was worth it and the view was beautiful.

This was during the two or three months when I was staying at Patrick's house and at this time, as I have mentioned before in this collection of reminiscences, I was taking LSD every few days. Howard and I had each taken a 'purple om' acid tab a short while earlier at Patrick's house and we sat there in the dusk, enjoying the view until we thought it best to climb down while we could without difficulty. This was the first and only time that Howard took acid. I tried to persuade him not to but he insisted on returning home before the LSD began to really take effect and he would spend an unpleasant night lying in bed at the house that he shared with his parents, tripping.

I have a pleasant and strong memory of sitting with Howard on the roof of the school as dusk fell.

Tim's Briefcase

We were studying Brownian motion in school. Some experiment or other which demonstrated the model led me to contemplate determinism, I extrapolated the cause and effect, the predictability, of one molecule encountering another to a person, to the world, to the universe and to the whole of creation.

Tim and I would sit together at a bench. He dismissed my thoughts, after all he was a fervent Christian and in my conception of things there is no place for a soul.

I have thought about determinism ever since. I believe it is a philosophy with many followers but I am not sure and keep meaning to buy a book about it. It is amusing to apply the notion of predestination that it implies to morality, to social behaviour. The concept of free will collapses only to be reinstated when it's understood that it's nothing more than the way we live, a reflection of the way in which we think, and therefore retains all of the qualities that it always had, at least almost all of them. In other words, it doesn't matter if you see any given action as the result of a myriad of electrical impulses in the body, exchanges between cells of proteins and enzymes and all of the other, near infinite number of processes both within and externally, or as a result of a 'conscience choice,' it's all the same.

I wrote a song about it, as a matter of fact, called 'Impulses and Motivations.' I have made a video as well, which will be on Youtube one day, but it is taking forever to find the right people at the right time to finish it, it has been well over a year. In fact, I only have ten more seconds of footage to film but I am very pleased with it. It features bees and Dino hatching eggs and spiral staircases and ominous trains and everything.

Tim, who now works with Microsoft, a young Tory and an ardent Protestant, was haughty and pretentious. He was one of the only boys in our comprehensive school who would use a briefcase and on this particular day, the day of the Brownian motion class, I was whiling away time by changing the combination of the lock on it. I had discovered that you could feel which number was the correct one very easily but, unfortunately, it turned out that my method wasn't foolproof. Tim had a tantrum when I realised that the case was locked but I didn't know the correct combination. For my carelessness I had to carry the case all the way home in the summer sun, a journey of two miles, it became heavier and heavier. Finding the correct combination of the nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine possibilities took forever and made my fingers sore.

Dolly

I had a Dolly Parton video which wasn't on Youtube, she is singing 'Love Is Like a Butterfly' live on some TV show, so I uploaded it for the benefit of mankind. My way to say 'thank you.' Now I get an email once or twice a week telling me that a new comment has been posted on the page. Things like 'we love you Dolly' and 'I have loved Dolly ever since I was a little girl.'

Nelson Mandela

I once told Jane all about Nelson Mandela when she admitted that she had no idea who he was. It was a complicated, long story involving Nelson, the Dutch man, rowing all the way to Africa in only a small kayak. It was especially surprising that he was adopted by Africans as a leader since he was a white man. He fought Robert Mugabe who assembled an army of mercenaries. He was victorious and united Africa.

One day we were sitting in her lovely house and her father mentioned Nelson Mandela after South Africa had been discussed on the television news, 'but I bet you know nothing about him' he said to Jane, smiling, to which she happily declared 'oh, but I do' and then recounted the story to prove it. Sorry Jane.

Gambling Addiction

When Lisa and I had only just moved to Whitechapel we were walking down Whitechapel Road and, passing the amusement arcade 'Carousel'. I told her never to let me set a foot in there because only two years earlier I had sought treatment from psychologists for an addiction to playing slot machines. We hurried past and I explained that I didn't trust myself to even set eyes on the place and how I had to fight my feeling that that environment felt so enticing, warm, so right.

A year later and we found ourselves bored, waiting for a flight to Malmö, Sweden to visit Lisa's mother and her husband. I suggested playing a slot machine to kill time but she told me off anxiously, she seemed shocked by the suggestion. I had no idea why. I had forgotten telling my innocent fruit machine addiction lie you see, I never imagined that she would take me seriously anyway.

My ES250/2

I'd never much cared for motorbikes until I saw one of Joe's MZs. It was built from brand new parts and stood, never having seen oil nor petrol, in his living room. Red and black, it looked so cool that I decided then and there that it was my destiny to ride a bike just like it.

A while later, after having owned a smaller MZ for a couple of years, (the plan was to then pass my motorcyle driving test) I was sitting on the train to Milton Keynes in order to buy my new MZ ES250/2.

I was met at the station by a fat, taciturn biker. The bike had been standing for years but it seemed to ride just fine. I bought it for £400. As I say, I intended to pass my motorcycle driving test but had not yet at that moment. This meant that it was illegal for me to ride a 250cc bike but I planned only to take it back to Whitechapel and keep it there until everything was above board.

I was concerned that it had been standing for so long and I was concerned that I hadn't a valid driving licence nor insurance and the bike had no MOT certificate. The sky was a blanket of low grey clouds, stretching in all directions for as far as the eye could see, threatening rain. But how peculiar it was to ride the bike. It felt so different to the one that I was used to. And the headlamp shell was fixed which gave a strange impression, as though the handle bars were static.

It was the first time that I rode on a motorway, yet another thing that I was prohibited in doing without a full motorcycle licence, and the feel of the bike, the ominous clouds and the illegality of it all made me very uncomfortable. And then the engine started to sound odd. It sounded slightly scratchy and clunky and the noise grew worse. I knew that a two stroke engine, as the oil mixed with the petrol aged. was liable to have bearings become pitted when left standing. At first they bear up but, as the work of the engine wears them, they begin to break up. I knew this because it had happened to me driving once from Southend to London (a disastrous adventure which is a story in itself) and it would actually prove to be the case. It was some consolation that I was just arriving at services. I rode the bike around the garage forecourt there and it was obvious that there was no going on.

A kind lady at the Little Chef restaurant allowed me to store the bike in a small bin area in their car park, a sort of open air wooden shed. My father bailed me out, as usual, and he hired a trailer with which we picked it up. Weeks had passed and they were beginning to think about getting rid of it they said.

I loved it so much. People remarked on it wherever I went, tourists took photographs standing beside it and people from the former East Germany would shout 'MZ, MZ!' as I passed. It is, by far, my favourite thing that I have ever owned. It is standing at my parents' house. So if anybody wants to buy a motorbike.. It would be sad to see it go but perhaps one day I will be able to ride it again and I will buy it back off you. It has a nice registration plate number, huh?

Consuelo And I Swapping

As Consuelo arrived in London to be with me my MS got so bad that I found it difficult to leave the house. The stairs became unmanageable at our Liverpool Street flat. At the very beginning we did see the Mount Cherries play at the Bethnal Green Working Men's club (The Projects, incidentally, were the first band ever to play there when they decided to cash in on having a stage in such a good location,) The Monks at the Dirty Water Club and something or other at The Spitz, Monade, I think. The Mount Cherries were terrific, what a shame they split up! Their singer Dora had a great voice and they all always had lots of fun on stage, there were many of them, they were a gang.

And so at this time, because we liked the same kinds of bands and the same sorts of locations, Consuelo began to go to all of the same places that I used to go to. It felt strange to greet her when she came home from a night out and she'd say that she ended up at such and such a place, ask if I'd heard of it and I'd recall fun times and say 'oh yes, I used to go there lots.' Then we moved to Dalston, the plan was that we would be going out together all the time, but my doctor prescribed me a pill which made me feel so dark and ill that I didn't want to be around the people that I used to spend time with, despite the elevator and no staircase to contend with. Consuelo would propose places to go and things to do but  I would always turn them down. I've mentioned this elsewhere here, I think the entry was called 'reclusiveness.'

And then, just at the same time as Consuelo decides that she has had enough, I realise that the medication was the cause of my troubles. I have also mentioned this before and how I felt better and started to go out again. And now it's me going to these places and spending time with these people. I only mention it once more because it strikes me as such an odd, unfortunate progression of events, how we swapped like that.

Tanya

I placed an advert requesting English/Russian language exchange in an English language school on Oxford Street. I would have been twenty five at the time and so there was quite an age gap between myself and Tanya, who answered my advert, who was aged around 40. Of course, I didn't pay much attention to this, after all it wasn't a date, we were meeting for conversational practice.

She decided better of my idea to use one of the class rooms and suggested instead that we find a pub. We compromised and set off for a cafe. It struck me as a little odd that the first thing that she had me do, after walking down to the street from the language school on the fourth floor, was wait for her as she bought knickers in a small lingerie shop on the corner. She spent some time holding panties up against her body and assessing herself in a mirror before buying a red g-string.

We met a half dozen times, she was only in London for a fortnight, extending a business trip in order to take her language course. Each meeting would end with me turning down an invitation to accompany her to the pub. Late afternoon is not late enough for pubs.

It was only at our final meeting that I realised that she was interested in seducing me. I agreed to go and sit in a pub with her. I think that we ended up in the tourist pub The Cambridge, where Old Compton Street meets Charing Cross Road. She tried to get me drunk, with some success, and then asked me if I'd like to see her hotel.  I wondered if Lisa would approve of me sleeping with a pretty, friendly Ukrainian woman but I knew that she wouldn't and I am a faithful person so, much as I'd have liked to have taken up the offer of hotel room sex, I went home instead. Still, I have her number written in the front cover of a Russian/English dictionary and an invitation to give her a call should I ever find myself in Kiev.

My Grandfather

I loved my grandfather on my mother's side dearly and we were very close. Looking back I suppose he would behave slightly oddly, although I never really noticed, after all, I was very young.

He was a man of habit. In the morning, if it were a winter's day, he would fetch coal and kindling wood for the fire and arrange them in the hearth in preparation for the evening. He would conduct his chores around the three meals in the day which my grandmother prepared for him, perhaps visit the shopping centre there in Huyton, Liverpool and then he and my grandmother would watch television after the fire had been lit. They would drink tea from a teapot, with three biscuits and then later coffee prepared with hot milk. Occasionally the two of them would drink shandy prepared with only a half a can of lager between them.

But there is nothing peculiar about this. Some of his ideas might have seemed strange to some people though. He would declare that all motorcars ought be banned,  despite the fact that he himself drove (and not because he was concerned about pollution but because roads were too crowded in his opinion), he argued for the abolition of inflation (which could perhaps be supported by valid arguments but he was unaware of them), that all communists should be hanged (he would declare, out of the blue, that the Russians were very cunning but, nevertheless..) He would chuckle to himself  'it's a funny old world.' As he pottered around the house.

I think he felt, and quite rightly, that he had been dealt a poor hand in life. He could have been a skilled engineer, he was very practical and was fascinated by industry, the workings of engines and how things were manufactured. He succeeded at school and won a scholarship to university but my great grand mother insisted that he go and work and bring money home. So, as a teenager, he went to Liverpool Docks and found a job as a deck hand. He would later become a steward on the Red Star Line of cruise ships. He said he almost got a job as a cook but they were only taking on cooks with cookery books. It was common to hear a foreman shouting, so my grandfather told me, affecting a strong Lancastrian accent 'cooks with books' at docks because cooks were always in demand.

My grandmother and he were close and held each other in high regard but they were not loving. He never gave my grandmother a present, he never surprised her. I am guessing that he suffered from depression.

When I was thirteen or fourteen my parents decided for him that he should replace his old blue Ford Escort with the Vauxhall Astra that they had been driving for a few years. They had made the offer of buying my grandparents a new car a few times previously but he had always turned it down. He loved his car and it's engine and modern cars are so much more difficult for enthusiasts to tinker with. My parents surprised them with the gift of a new car, my grandmother was delighted. My grandfather, for fear that the neighbours might think that they had been abroad, covered up the GB sticker with black tape.

I'm Smooth As Vanilla 'Cos I'm Ice On The Mic

When Howard and I lived in Stamford Hill we'd go lots to the old man's Wetherspoon pub in Stoke Newington, The Rochester Castle, because it was cheap and we had little money. We'd have no fun at all and then we'd go to the Jolly Butchers up the road which, in those days at least, had the potential of odd, aggressive people forcing themselves on you. They had a lock in most nights, so we would go there and have no fun.

On one occasion we met a rapper (that was his description of himself) in the Rochester Castle. He insisted on teaching me his favourite rap. I found this very amusing and we all had lots of fun getting drunk and then he decided to take us to a local recording studio, we were to improvise a rap together.

Fortunately the studio was just closing and didn't want anything to do with him since he was drunk. But then an amazing thing happened. On the corner of Evering Road and Stoke Newington High Street he christened me with a gang name using something that he found on the road in place of a sword, with three other gang members present to bear witness.

I woke up the next morning with a real hangover. Honestly, hangovers don't usually bother me but this one was notable. But I had forgot my gang name!! I remembered the ceremony well, but my special gang name, to which I was now entitled, well, it was gone, forever.

I do remember the rap that he made me learn over pints and pints of lager though:

'I'm smooth as vanilla 'cos I'm ice on the mic,
weaving in and out like a flying kite,
but there's death on the block 'cos dope's on the scene,
sucker gettin' iced 'cos the gansta leads'

More of a poem than a rap, huh?

Shrinking Primary School

I rode my motorbike to Stanmore, in North London, a long time ago. It was the smallest, the first, of the two motorbikes I would own so it must have been around 2002. The motorbike was a blue MZ TS125 by the way :)

I went there because I had spent the first seven years of my life there and I felt, on a whim, like taking a look at the place again. I passed 'Mike and Angela's' newsagent which, of course, was renamed since, in my seventh year, Mike killed Angela to punish her for infidelity.

I saw the entrance to Stanmore Common where the family would pick rose hips for mum to make jam. I stood outside my old house, which had shrunk, along with the open spaces and the playground around it.

The most astonishing bit of shrinking had occurred at my primary school.
The hill in the playing field there, which I remember being so mountainous, which I remember exhausting myself running up, was two foot high.

I looked the school up on youtube today, and only one result came up, a choir recital in the school hall. I was surprised to see the same piano standing there, all these years later, although that's hardly surprising, is it?

Bianca Tinned Tomatoes

One day I was shopping in Whitechapel Sainsbury's a short walk from my flat in the old schoolhouse there, when I noticed that Patsy Palmer was pushing a trolley down the aisles. It made sense, it was, after all, just around the corner from The Blind Beggar' and I could easily imagine her and the Krays sharing a joke over a pint of lager there.

I had followed her from a distance before I carried on and picked out my stuff, not because I was impressed by her or her celebrity, but because of  people’s faces when they realised they were looking at Bianca from Eastenders, in the flesh. Jaws dropped in awe.

I was very pleased to see that Sainsbury's were stocking a cheap brand of tinned plum tomatoes called 'Bianca.' I filled my basket with a dozen cans and went in search of Patsy. I caught up with her near the bread counter, She had left her trolley standing so as to push through a small crowd there and choose her bread. I put the tins in her shopping trolley, it took some time to conceal them all but she was waiting for a loaf to be sliced. I hope that she found the tinned tomatoes to be a pleasant surprise at the checkout.

Dennis Nordern

Once I was walking with Jane through Soho, down Berwick street. Just where the market stalls begin we bumped into Dennis Nordern, host of television's 'It'll Be Alright On The Night.'

I remember that it was Victory in Europe day and so, for some reason or another, I was carrying an old World War Two British Tommy helmet. I got so sick of the sight of the thing I was to give it away in 2005 via an ad on Freecycle. A very grateful Italian student inherited it.

At first Dennis seemed quite open to the idea of finding a photobooth and having passport photos taken with us but, to be honest, I'm not sure that he was that aware what was going on around him. He soon became agitated and insisted on parting company. I had promised him that he could wear the helmet in the photos which had appealed to him at first but now he became disinterested. I dragged him by the arm but the commotion that he made was attracting the attention of passers by so, reluctantly, I released him.

Huntingdon Library

The library in Huntingdon was a beautiful disc shaped building which now, or so I'm told, has been demolished for some reason.

I remember standing in there, with a book in hand, fretting as an eighteen year old that I hadn't yet written a novel, this fact made me anxious. I was a great reader in those days and would get through two or three books a week.

I also remember visiting one day to find out why my breath had been smelling, on the odd occasion lately, of pear drops or nail varnish remover. The librarian pointed us to a shelf of medical reference books, located on the first floor, when I outlined my problem to her. In the end it would be the Encyclopedia Brittanica which revealed the cause of my condition and I discovered that my body was experiencing a bout of ketoacidosis following binge drinking (we had been drinking an astonishingly large volume of whisky, vodka and beer.) I was a little concerned so I put it to the back of my mind and life continued as normal. since I was young and adaptable the episode was soon nothing more than an amusing anecdote.

The Watermark Club

In the early 2000s the Watermark club opened in Shoreditch. It was close to the Dragon Bar, or somewhere in the direction of Liverpool Street? All the cool kids went there and everyone took lines and lines of cocaine. They all had a high opinion of themselves, it was nightmarish. After a couple of years it was closed down for not having a late license but opening all night.

My Mum's Lost Ring

Meg, my mother, came home from work one evening panicking. She had just discovered that she had lost her ring. A 'keeper' ring that Scots women wear traditionally below the wedding ring. It had belonged to her great grandmother.

We retraced her steps, in the deep snow, all the way back to the centre of Bracknell, and all the way back home, searching the poorly lit path for the ring which never presented itself. My mother was very upset for days.

Killing A Bag Of Chips

In the winter of 2003 The Projects were on tour with Broadcast. Trish had heard our 'Entertainment' 7" and taken to it and so they invited us to support them at the University of London Union. I am surprised that they liked this show, I was just listening to a dictaphone recording that I made and the songs are all played extremely fast, so fast that it sounds wrong, They all begin at the right speed with, perhaps, a keyboard intro or the guitar and then the drums come in and everything is 20% faster. Mark, the drummer in those days, did have a tendency to play quickly. but, I think perhaps he was nervous on this occasion. I remember it being unpleasant. On the tape the rest of us are all having difficulty keeping up with the drums. But Broadcast did like it and so they invited us to join them for the UK shows in their world tour that year.

We had a lot of fun, I think we played good shows. I hand block printed lots of sleeves for tour CDs which had a Matt/Simon remix on them. They looked pretty and they sold well. I made some T Shirts with an image of a giant hand reaching down from the sky and picking up a tower block. I thought they were good but they didn't sell quite as well.

This was the first time that my MS really showed, although I believed it to be a trapped nerve at the time. After the opening show in Nottingham I was jogging out to the van with a drum shell and my legs suddenly seemed to not be running as quickly as the rest of me and I fell flat on my face. Broadcast, packed up and waiting for a straggler in their van, were all watching and thought that I was blind drunk.

Martin, from Duophonic, Broadcast's manager was with us the whole time and it was good to get to know him. He's a very nice man. We didn't talk too much to Broadcast although, after the last show, James said that he would miss us and that he wouldn't mind coming to London with us because Birmingham was a bit slow. Lisa and James were to email each other regularly for some time.

There was a very exciting incident en route to Aberdeen but I think that deserves it's own post. As does the van break down. As does the most depressing birthday I ever had. As does Broadcast's unhinged session drummer attacking Mark. Five more posts, that's good. I'd write about these things now and here were I not so lazy.

One moment that does stick in my mind occurred during a sound check one evening, perhaps in the beautiful choral hall in Brighton where we played. Trish was running through scales, she has an exceptional voice, it really was beautiful to hear. She then announced over the microphone (in reply to somebody out of ear shot I suppose) that she 'could kill a bag of chips' in a thick Midlands accent. I know, things like that aren't supposed to stick out but I am allowed to find a Birmingham accent amusing because that's where my dad's from.

I was sitting waiting in Accident and Emergency in Homerton Hospital in January when Dino sent me a text message conveying the sad news of Trish's death.

Speed Addicts

I attended the regional college to study for my A levels when I was seventeen. I was only really good friends with Tom. He got along well with a group of speed addicts who lived in the nearby town of St Ives. One of them, I forget his name, seemed like a good and thoughtful person were it not for this terrible mean streak that he had in him. He had a vendetta against a senior policeman and was forever threatening that he would kill him. I seem to remember that he had some hold over him, having some knowledge or proof of corruption. I seem to remember hearing about some episode where he was trying to run this detective off the road, chasing his car with one stolen.

They would all spend their time at Danny's flat, there was a group of a half dozen speed addicts sleeping there for a few hours each afternoon. He was very skinny and was constantly taking vast quantities of different drugs. The flat was absolutely bare, save for a yellow NHS sharps bin and graffiti all over the walls, executed with a permanent marker, depicting Disney characters shooting up drugs.

It was really ugly and pathetic and I couldn't see why Tom gave these people a thought. I suppose he was impressed somehow.