Stu's Journal

Wearing tweed, obviously

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:27:09 GMT

We went for a walk in some bluebell woods over the weekend while visiting burge's aunt Jane. Gorgeous, of course, and other-wordly and fragrant and all the things that bluebell woods are.

This one is full of badgers.

There are large holes all over the place, under the trunks of trees and tunnelling into banks. The expanse of bluebells is broken by meandering paths that the badgers make as they bimble around. There are clearly lots of setts, and some of them must interconnect. It's a subterranean badger community. A badger village. Probably called Brockholes. At least, in my head it is.

'So,' I asked Jane, 'do you see the badgers around, then?'

'Not all that often,' she said, 'but one of my neighbours puts food out for them, so they come and go in her garden quite regularly.'

'Really?' I said. 'What does she put out for them?'

'Well,' Jane replied, 'they're very partial to a jam sandwich.'

Of course they are. Back in my head, they are sitting around a small table, eating jam sandwiches off china plates (probably serving themselves from a cakestand) and drinking strong tea from mugs. The grown-up badgers probably like damson jam the best, but the cubs always go for the strawberry.

I blame Rupert the Bear for this.

(I've just remembered that alasdair habitually uses 'badgers and jam' as a tag for links about amusing irrelevancies...)

Tube time again

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:19:48 GMT

Sentinel

He looks at me through the crystal ball and raises an eyebrow. To me, it descends and distends, refracted through the smooth sphere of glass.

There’s nothing remarkable about him. He’s tall, but not towering; his black T-shirt is stretched over his belly but you wouldn’t call him obese. His hair is past his collar but it doesn’t flow or cascade. His jeans are crumpled, but so are mine. I wouldn’t give him a second glance, except his arm is raised to shoulder height, bent forearm in front of his face, parallel with the floor; and in the crook of his elbow, perfectly still, is the crystal ball.

His face is calm, but not blank, looking straight ahead of him, watching the walls of the tunnels slip past. Look closely, and his knees are very slightly bent, allowing him to absorb the swaying jolts of the train as it descends down to Bethnal Green. The carriage is fairly busy — there are no spare seats — but there’s enough space for him to hold his position, a large black rucksack at his feet, and the crystal ball motionless on his arm.

One by one, his fellow passengers notice him and start looking at the ball, seeing themselves reflected and distorted in its surface. He acknowledges each glance with a tilt of the head, a widening of the eyes, a twitch of the cheek. A quirk of the eyebrow. But he never holds anyone’s gaze; never focuses his attention. Not even on the sphere. He just keeps it in his peripheral vision, perfectly still.

His hand flexes slightly, the muscles tensing and relaxing imperceptibly, and I realise that in fact he’s in constant motion, though too slight to see. It’s like the law of gravity has been revoked, just in one spot and for one object. He isn’t supporting the ball, it’s just hanging in mid-air, static and impossible, and he’s keeping station underneath it so we don’t notice; a scruffy acolyte of the Cult of Newton, maintaining the vital illusion that we’re all drawn downwards towards the core of the planet even when we’re below its surface. If he drops his arm, the air will yawn below the crystal ball and the spell will be broken: we’ll rise from our seats like astronauts, our legs in a loose crouch, our scarves and books and papers and MP3 players floating like weeds in a slow current.

In a smooth motion, he draws his arm across his face, and the ball, keeping position, rotates, traversing the rumpled fabric of his jacket sleeve. When it reaches his wrist, he flips his hand impossibly beneath it, and it somersaults, never losing contact with his skin, over his knuckles and the ends of his fingers until his palm is upwards, the ball resting in it. He moves his hand in a flat circle — or does the ball spin and move his hand? — and it orbits his palm, rolling across ball of thumb, heel of hand, outer edge and the pads at the base of his fingers. Then he flips his hand again and the ball returns to his elbow.

The carriage fills and gradually blocks the juggler from view; the crystal ball is the last thing to disappear, a wink of light or reflection of shiny metal marking its disappearance. When the crowd clears, after a few stops, man and globe have gone.

I let my hand fall into my lap. Just to check.

Back on the Tube again

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:37:51 GMT

Blimey, haven't done one of these for a while.

The man has a pregnant belly between his legs.

The resemblance is remarkable. The case is pear-shaped and swollen, reaching knee-high from the floor, with the curvature narrowing into a short neck that rises vertically then kicks back violently over the gentle bulge. Its surface shines softly, black and textured, with sharp shine of chrome hinges and catches standing out oddly against the man’s scruffy-smart clothing. An archaic form cradled within a modern carapace: a lute in a hard case.

The modern Bard sits comfortably, knees clasped tight around his medieval companion. He brushes some dust off the neck, flicks some debris from the steel binding of the lid. He’s young in an ageless way; soft eyes behind black-rimmed round glasses, short curly hair and a scrubby beard; clothes in muted colours and well-worn fabrics. Not the crusty hippy-patches and patchouli of a revivalist; not the studied academic look of the ancient-musicologist. He looks relaxed and unselfconscious. As easy, yet careful, with the lute as any commuter with a laptop bag.

An instrument full of melody and harmony, to make you dance, or laugh, or cry, long ago; he heads under the West End, his head full of the middle ages, inside a steel-and-glass tube, among the spangles and flashes of the fibre optics of the 21st century.

I write like...

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:53:24 GMT

According to this memey thing that everyone's doing, my cover features read like Margaret Attwood; my interviews tend to read like Dan Brown (oh, dear); my leader columns read like Kurt Vonnegut; and my blog pieces read like Vladimir Nabokov.

Yeah, right.

Photo weekend

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:51:05 GMT

Went on one of the London Meetup photo courses over the weekend, at the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. It's managed woodland and pasture now, with most of the gravestones gently crumbling away. Very atmospheric.

Kept taking photos on Sunday at the Festival Hall, to visit the Air Penguins and Air Jelly.

Minimalism

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:06:58 GMT

This weekend consisted of a 40th birthday party with a difference: a bunch of us went camping in Epping Forest. It was an intense experience.

You can stop groaning now.

The birthday boy is a mountain bike nut, and the forest is his regular riding ground. It took us about 20min to drive to the campsite, and for the benefit of those who don't know London, I live right slap in the middle of the suburbs. Because it's so close to the city, people tend to think that Epping's a bit fake; a tame forest.

Well, there aren't any bears or wolves or anything. But Epping's as real as it gets. Ancient woodland, a true relic of the Great Forest that covered the country before the Romans came visiting. Oak, beech and chestnut; bracken and fungi; birds and badgers. Yes, there are footpaths and bridleways, and it's managed woodland; but there's no plan, no plantation. Just lots of squirrels and people from Essex. Sorry about that.

The campsite is on the edge of the forest, and we were in a field where campfires are allowed, which led to some interesting evening chats. One of the party, an old friend of the birthday boy, we'll call Chester; a man who knows his outdoors. A twinkly-eyed fortysomething, Chester is the type who's always in a fleece and hiking trousers and looks perfectly at ease with that. He's seen the world, he's worked on farms in South America, and he knows the ins and outs of the public sector in the UK. And he has a bone to pick, it turns out, with Quakers.

'I really admire Quakers; they're dead sound, politically. Done a lot of good,' he said, having arranged the campfire for cooking and turned out a delicious cauldron of basque chicken. 'But I went to a Quaker wedding, and it was dull as fuck. Honestly! They do this extemporising thing, where they don't have any ministers or leaders, and nobody says anything until someone is moved to stand up. And then they just mumble on about something completely unrelated and it just peters out! I don't want to hear some platitude about Jesus, I want to hear about the couple who are getting married! I was gnawing my arms off!'

It got us thinking about minimalism, oddly. How the point of it is that it includes only what's necessary, but what's necessary is done really well. 'I can see the point of minimalism, and purity and all that sort of thing,' Chester said, 'but you have to get the bits that are there right.'

And so often, it isn't. Bad materials, shoddy workmanship, not the faultless craftsmanship that the philosophy demands. It's an excuse to cut corners, not to pare back to the essentials. Minimalist architecture should have a calming gleam. Minimalist literature should weigh the precise impact of every word and piece of punctuation (read Alan Garner's haunting and haunted Strandloper to see it done perfectly). Minimalist religion should go straight to the heart (and according to Chester, it doesn't). Minimalist music should have nothing out of place; every note, every word should contribute to mood and meaning.

And that brings me the Royal Festival Hall (minimalist architecture at its best, incidentally) and — naturally — to Seasick Steve.

Steve Wold doesn't look minimalist. He doesn't wear a plain black or white suit. He doesn't have metal-framed glasses. He's a scruffbag not far off 70, in a pair of jeans, a sleeveless yellow teeshirt whose faded logo once probably advertised a beer, a green baseball cap, blurry greenish tattoos up and down his arms, and a jutting grey beard. He plays sitting down; when he walks, it's with a bowlegged lope, slightly stooped. His guitars, battered and held together with tape and spit, are slung around his neck with string. Most of them have strings missing. One is a bit of two-by-four with a single string and a homemade pickup made from a can of corn.

Is it a pose? Partly. Seasick Steve probably isn't short of cash, these days; even though, in his mellow, hoarse Tennessee croak, he tells us that he still can't believe that people actually turn up to see him play. 'I left home before I was 14,' he tells us, in the middle of Doghouse Blues, reciting his story as he has over and over for the past five years or so. 'And there followed years of bummin' around, sometimes gettin' arrested, sometimes goin' to jail. And I don't have no schoolin', but I could always turn to a guitar, throw a hat on the ground for some spare change. And I'm gettin' that spare change now! Heh, only took 50 years.'

You get the feeling it's real with Seasick Steve. He's not like John Lee Hooker, a man who appreciated fine tailoring and was always immaculate, but would put on overalls and a workshirt to play in the UK because it's what the middle-class blues audience expected. Steve's not been on the road for many years. He's worked with big music names, as a studio engineer and a producer; he lives in Norway with his wife. But at heart, you feel, the romantic old hobo life, which frequently wasn't romantic at all, is still the biggest part of him. You can't imagine him with the beard neatly shaved and a white shirt and trousers. It'd be like Chester out of the fleece.

And then there's the music, and that's minimalism. Not the plinky-plonky minimalism of classicists like Reich and Nyman. Not the keening, pure machine minimalism of Kraftwerk and their descendents. Just a man and a guitar and an equally hairy drummer called Dan, stringing out the twelve-bar riffs, over and over, just like they did at the jukejoints back in the 30s. There's the Smokestack Lightning riff, chiming and chuntering like when Howling Wolf played it. There's a cascade of notes and chords straight out of glamrock; a chugging line from Marc Bolan, a flourish and a stomp from The Sweet. There's a quiet walking blues, sung to a woman from the audience whose boyfriend Steve had met that day in Soho and invited along. 'My name's Steve and I'm a staying man...'

You could probably write a thesis about the blues scale and how it links straight into our emotions. Is it something we've learned from hearing it repeated, over and over again, in different forms, in the music we grew up with? Or is it deeper than that? Does it link with something atavistic, deep in our hindbrain? But whatever it is, it's up there, pared back to perfection; an old man who doesn't seem old, loping and skipping up the aisle with a battered guitar, grinning at the willowy blonde dancing at the back from under the peak of his green baseball cap.

(The camping trip, by the way, has ended up with us buying a new tent that we can stand up in. And a barbeque.)

Attention, humans

Wed, 05 May 2010 10:45:10 GMT

My mate Gavin, who lives in Ethiopia, ran his first half-marathon on Saturday. Because he lives in Ethiopia, I don't know how he did, but I'm sure he got on well. Anyway, the charity he ran for, Kembatti Mentti Gezzima-tope (KMG - stands for Women of Kembatta Working Together), is a damn good one. They're a partner of the UK-based organisation WOMANKIND Worldwide. Gav explains:

"KMG is a non-profit, non-government organisation
(what used to be called a charity) who help girls in Sounthern
Ethiopia get a good education and therefore rise out of the Catch-22
of servitude and physical abuse. In particular, they can gain the
means to speak out against harmful traditional practices such as FGM
(genital mutilation, which is every bit as bad as its name suggests).
If you would like to know more about FGM, there is information on the
World Health Organization (WHO) website here.

So, your money directly boosts education for girls and helps them to
eradicate mutilation and its attendant health problems."

Gavin's over his target for fundraising already, but a target is just a target and this organisation needs more money. This is a hugely important feminist and human rights cause — two things which I know concern lots of people who read this blog. So, if you can, go to Gav's Just Giving page and load 'em up with more cash.

Ocelot of trouble

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:52:22 GMT

I had a day out of the office today; a relatively rare thing, as we're still short-staffed. But we got an invite from a group of defence companies to go to Millbrook Proving Ground to see a new armoured car, and these things are too good to pass up. How often do you get to drive an armoured car?

Millbrook's in Bedfordshire, not far from Woburn. It's one of the places car and truck makers go if they want to prove their cars can do what they say they will - so it's got a banked track where you can test out maximum speeds, it's got a network of roads through rolling countryside and woodlands where you can simulate different sorts of driving (they do a lot of movie stunt work there - the sequence in Casino Royale where Bond rolls his Aston Martin end-over-end was filmed there).

They also have what they call a severe off-road circuit. This is seriously rough stuff - huge gravelly hills, sections with big rocks, potholes, simulated mortar holes, roads that twist the chassis of the car. That's what they use to test military vehicles, usually. Tanks get stuck there.

Anyway, this is a big defence sector event, and all the military magazines are there. All the execs from the companies involved are there. It feels like virtually everyone is ex-military or possibly wannabe military. Lots of floppy or cropped hair. Lots of jargon being thrown around. If it hasn't got a three-letter acronym, invent one quick. Sample overheard conversation: 'So I was going to join the polo club in this village, and it was run by this retired brigadier. And I was a bit late for my first session, and this chap said to me "You're being a bit of a nuisance." And I wasn't having that. I mean, this isn't the old Army, where you could be rude to anyone who ranks below you.'

First off, we got driven around the offroad course in this new armoured car, which is called an Ocelot. Great big thing, high off the ground, enormous wheels with loads of clearance between them and the chassis. You can mount a turret on the top. It's shaped so that if a mine goes off underneath it, the blast goes sideways and nobody dies. It looks like this:

Inside, there are two seats up front facing forwards and four in the back, in pairs along the sides facing inwards. When you're sitting in those, you can't see out, so being driven over all this rough stuff was rather like being strapped inside a big, hot cocktail shaker. When you go over particularly bumpy bits you bash your head on the padded handles either side of the headrest. I felt slightly ill.

After lunch, we get a chance to drive the Ocelot. I had the second go, and sitting in the back of the vehicle was a senior execs of one of the companies who developed it. Retired Colonel, bloody nice chap. Wearing civvies but you can tell that he's never stopped wearing the uniform in his head. Strapped myself into the four-point harness, looked at the controls - automatic, handbrake on the side, lots of buttons. Instructor next to me gives me a few pointers - there's a turbo lag, so you won't accelerate as soon as you put your foot on the gas; there are the buttons that turn off the differentials so you're driving all the wheels, and so on.

And off we go. I've never driven off-road before; it's fun, but it's not easy. The rock run — 20 yards of big rocks set into a slight downward slope — jerks the steering wheel all over the place. There are huge concrete ditches set at angles across the road, so you have to lower each wheel in turn into them. You roar up hills and creep down them. The bit where you go through the big ditch full of mud is particularly tricky, because there are deep wheel ruts under the mud which send the wheels the wrong way, and you have to try to accelerate over them with the mud clawing at your tyres.

And all the while I'm being given instructions and rally-style directions. 'Get to the bottom of the hill, gas on, now floor it! Don't lift off don't lift off don't lift off and cover the brake! Brake! Bottom of the hill and left, left, left, move the steering wheel faster, left and right! Rightrightright!'

Fifteen minutes' drive and we get to the end of the course, and I'm hot and sweaty but feeling pretty chuffed with myself - got all the way around, didn't get stuck in any mud, and there were no yells of pain from the back.

And that's when I noticed the smoke coming out of the dashboard.

'Is that smoke there?' I asked, as calmly as I could.
'Oh, probably not,' the instructor said.
Then he looked down.
'Everyone out of the vehicle, please. Quickly as you can.'

There were huge clouds of smoke coming out of the vents in the bonnet.

'What did you do?' asked the ex-colonel chappy.
'I think I broke your armoured car,' I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
'Ooops,' he replied.

One of the other journos, an urbane chap who also writes for the Jaguar Owners' Club, sniffed the air.
'Smells like electrics, doesn't it? I hope it's electrics. If it's electrics, it's probably not your fault.'

The instructor and another ex-mil type were trying to get the bonnet open. They appeared to be having problems.

'It's definitely on fire under there!'

Big blast from a fire extinguisher, just as the on-site fire service turn up, sirens blaring, and leap out to unroll hoses.

'That's a little unnecessary, don't you think?' said the urbane journo to the ex-colonel.
'Leave them alone, they're enjoying themselves,' he said.

Another Ocelot turned up to give us a lift back.

'What did I do?' I asked the instructor, as he walked past me to talk to the other driver.
'Nothing; electrical fault,' he said.

I would like to emphasise that HE SAID IT WASN'T MY FAULT.

Back at the reception, I grabbed a drink and listened to a conversation over walkie-talkies concerning the whereabouts of the sodding recovery truck, as various people consoled me with reminiscences about the time they blew up the gearbox of an APC.

'It's certainly a worry and we'll report it in our faults dossier, but really, don't worry,' the ex-colonel told me. 'We'll find out what it was.'
'What happens if it was my fault?' I asked.
'We'll put the bill in the post, old chap. And we probably won't invite you back.'

Proper cup of coffee

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:27:48 GMT

Mainly for cairmen, but other coffee fiends might be interested...

Some time ago, while gazing around a little shop in Spitalfields, I spotted an unusual and very shiny device. It looked like the offspring of a lever-arm corkscrew and a citrus press, it had lovely curves, and as I might have mentioned, it was shiny.

"What's that thing up there?" I asked the assistant.
"It's a manual espresso press. It's called a Presso. Shiny, isn't it?' he said.

The idea is that it's an unpowered coffee maker, so it doesn't heat the water up for you. Most espresso makers generate pressurised steam to force the water through the coffee, but if the water is too hot, you extract lots of bitter-tasting compounds as well as the coffee flavour that you want. The Presso uses water from the kettle, so it goes in at 100° and cools as you use it, so the coffee brews at about 90°C, which is supposed to be the ideal temperature. Also, it uses much less energy than an electric espresso maker, and it doesn't get limescaled.

Unfortunately, the shop stopped stocking them soon after, but burge was fab enough to hunt one down and buy it for my birthday.

And it's still shiny.

See? Shiny

But how does it make coffee? I hear you ask.

It's pretty easy, and pleasantly ritualistic. First, you warm up the filter cup with hot water, then you dry it with some kitchen paper and put the coffee grounds in. You tamp them down with the back of the scoop (there's a knack to this that I haven't got yet), then you put the filter into the machine - it slots in and twists to lock, just like any other espresso maker.
You pour freshly-boiled water from the kettle into the cup on top, and raise the arms. You leave them there for 15-20 sec (I'm still experimenting with the time) for the grounds to infuse. Then, having remembered to put a cup underneath, you press the arms down slowly and hold them at the bottom until the coffee has emerged. Raise and lower the arms again, and Roberto is your Italian uncle. Knock back your coffee, wait until your eyeballs stop vibrating, then chuck the grounds away and wash out the filter.

And what you get is a cup of strong but very smooth espresso. It does cool down a bit during the process, so it's a good idea to start with a warm cup and make sure the filter is well-warmed. I've also not managed to make an expresso with any crema yet — the manual says that you can overfill the cup to increase the pressure when you squeeze the water through, moving the cup away as soon as your espresso dose comes out. But it does have the strength and velvety texture of good espresso, and even with the dark roast I'm using (organic Robusta from Kerala, courtesy of the wonderfully-named Baby Mathew) you don't get any harshness. A bit more practice to get the crema right and I'll be sorted.

It does make brilliant cappuccino and latte, though. You get a frother with the package — it's a clear, open ended tube with a plunger that pulls two perforated discs up and down, and you can make a dense froth in a cup of warm milk in 20sec or so. It makes a very creamy, but deceptively powerful drink. Andrea was buzzing for a good half-hour after a nice gentle latte yesterday.

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:43:01 GMT

I have returned! Of course, seeing as I've been so bad at updating this journal, most of you probably didn't know I'd been away. But I've been off in Kerala for two weeks, cycling.

Mostly cycling.

Also falling off a few times.

I don't recommend the falling off. Quite painful. And you should see the state of my left knee.

But Kerala is fab.

Long series of posts to follow, including elephant poo, invisible hornbills, enthusiastic locals and the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth.

Because I am a careless lummox

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:16:25 GMT

People!

I have lost my phone. It's probably jammed under a seat at the Olivier Theatre, which is where I last saw it, but the fact remains that I haven't got it, which means I haven't got contact numbers for people.

If you think I should have your contact details, please leave them in comments, which are screened for your privacy.

Many thanks,

A. Careless-Lummox.

Doctor Parnassus

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:28:28 GMT

A preview showing of Terry Gilliam's London-set new film at one of the best cinemas in town, followed by a Q&A with Gilliam himself. I wasn't going to pass that one up, was I?

I'm going to try to keep this as spoiler-free as I can, but if you really don't want to know anything about the film, don't click

The opening shot of the film is, Gilliam says, also the very first image that occurred to him when he started planning the screenplay. Night-time traffic whirrs around the glowing St Paul's Cathedral, as a tall, rickety old wagon, drawn by two knackered horses, slowly sways and totters into the city. That blend of the modern and the fantastical weaves its way through the whole film: Leadenhall, Borough and Battersea provide the backdrop to Doctor Parnassus's theatre, with its promise of enlightenment and rebirth through imagination.

It's a very beautiful film, helped by the presence of the frankly odd-looking but gorgeous Lily Cole, who turns in a thankfully great performance as Parnassus's daughter. In fact, all the performances are great: Christopher Plummer is dignified and desperate as the possibly-immortal Parnassus, who's been caught up in a series of wagers with Tom Waits's suave, pencil-moustached Devil for centuries; Verne Troyer gets a proper character rather than a series of jokes, as Parnassus's concerned assistant; up-and-coming Andrew Garfield, as the naive young barker of Parnassus's troupe, more than holds his own against the other heavyweights.

But the performances you can't escape are Heath Ledger, and his three stand-ins, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. The film is split between the real world and the phantasmagorical world of Parnassus's imagination, with Ledger playing the part of the ambiguous Tony in real-London and his stand-ins, with matching goatees and pony-tails, playing his imaginary aspects. And they do it quite brilliantly: Depp is all sleazy charm and heartfelt empathy; Law's take on the character is manic and self-confident; Farrell's is barely-repressed danger and violence. But, of course, Ledger should have played all those roles. It's a real shame that he didn't, at least, get to play Tony's final scene, where we see him for what he really is.
It's eerie to see Ledger in the role, not just because we know what happened to him, but because Tony is portrayed pretty much as a dead man walking, from the moment he's found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge (there's a wonderfully sinister scene involving shadows and light on the water). The storyline has a lot to do with the consequences of actions, and with the Devil on the scene, there are overtones of doom throughout. Gilliam is obviously still deeply upset about Ledger's death; he took his time and struggled with answering questions about him, and the first credit that appears on screen is 'A film from Heath Ledger and his friends'.

That aside, it's a brilliant piece of fantasy: the best sort of fantasy, which uses its flights away from reality and realism to show us truths about the real world. The trips into Parnassus's imagination are typical Gilliam brought up to date, with computer-generated landscapes full of giant spinning heads, ladders to the clouds, impossibly huge castles and rivers that turn into snakes, transforming from technicolour paradises to blasted plains. The sequences are kept quite brief, which Gilliam said was very deliberate: it stops you taking them for granted and losing the sense of wonder, and (vital for Gilliam) it also happens to be cheaper.

And, like the best of Gilliam's films, it's very ambiguous. I still can't decide whether I think the ending is sad or happy, although Gilliam told us what he thinks. But I do know it'll stay with me for a long time.

The joys of car ownership

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:02:39 GMT

I have a car. It's rather nice. For those of you who know about these things, it's a Fiat 500, in a metallic blue. For those of you who don't, it's a small, cute blue car, a little bit shorter than a new Mini.

Four days after I picked it up from the dealer, I drove over to my parents' place to show it off. While we were having a cuppa, we heard a bang from outside, went to investigate, and found that some testosterone-crazed teenager (probably) had clipped the wing mirror, breaking the glass and knocking the cover off.

We couldn't find the cover.

So back the car went, to the dealer's in the West End. I now fully understand why it's a stupid idea to drive into the West End in the morning.

One repair later (more expensive than they first said, of course), I drove the car back home, and fully understood why driving from the West End is an equally stupid idea. Especially when you go into the wrong lane at Angel and have to drive up and down the full length of Upper Street.

So, Sunday, burge and I went off to alasdair's for regular nerdery, with me driving. Came off the motorway and noticed three things.

1) There was a funny smell.
2) There was smoke coming from the front of the car and through the dashboard vents.
3) People were beeping their horns at me and yelling 'Oi! Mate! Mate! You're on fire!'

That grabbed my attention, so we pulled off and checked under the bonnet.

There was a big, shiny hole where the oil filler cap should be. And oil all over the engine. And oil all over the inside of the bonnet. And a lot of smoke.

Now, I haven't opened the bonnet since I picked the car up from the showroom. Why would I? So either:

(a) for some reason, the garage did an oil check while they were replacing the wing mirror and didn't put the cap back on (and why they'd need to take the cap off to check the oil, I don't know); or
(b) it was on loose right from the start and finally fell off; or
(c) it was faulty.

Anyway, burge took over the driving and drove very carefully to alasdair's place, about half an hour away, and we called out the AA, who shortly arrived in the shape of a young bloke called Andy.

Things you don't ever want to hear an AA man say:
"Bloody hell, mate! You're bloody lucky the engine didn't blow up!"

He cleaned the engine up as best he could, poured in a litre of fresh oil (because there was virtually none left actually in the engine) and applied an ingenious but worrying temporary fix. My engine is now sealed by a crsip packet (Walker's, Cheese & Onion flavour) and a plastic cable tie. Crisp packets, apparently, are very heat resistant. But they have to be the foil-lined kind. Any flavour will do, though.

And so burge drove us, very carefully, home. But she did enjoy the drive.

This morning consisted of speaking in measured tones to the Fiat garage. The AA will shortly be arriving at my flat to tow my lovely new car back to the garage. Again.

I had to go to the doctor's this morning to get my blood pressure checked. Oddly, it was normal.

I aten't dead

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:55:19 GMT

I'm not, you know.

Just in case anyone's wondering.

I think I might be a bad person, though. I was reading the obits page in the Guardian this morning, and spent a considerable amount of time trying not to giggle at the name of the late, and obviously lamented, Ewan Kerr.

Apparently he was dyslexic. It might have helped.

Inspirational, muppetational

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:09:41 GMT

Courtesy of redscharlach, two things we miss: the Muppet Show and Peter Sellers.

As someone says in the comments, it'd be great if Tom Waits covered this song. It'd be even better if he did it with the Muppets.

London Observations blog

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:49:51 GMT

Does anybody have a better idea for a name than 'London Observations'?

Back on the blog

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:32:28 GMT

Please excuse the hiatus in blogging. Life gets in the way.

LIfe is still getting in the way a bit. I have a couple of London Observations in hand (I'm going to move those onto a blog of their own in the near future), plus some bookblogging (whales! scientists! genius 12-year-old cartographers!), Skye and so on. How much of these I get to write at all, I don't know. But in the meantime, here is a picture of a wolf called Mosi, who I met yesterday on a walk through some woods near Reading, courtesy of the UK Wolf Conservation Trust.

It's a strange thing, meeting a wolf. Obviously, they look like dogs. But you very quickly realise that they aren't dogs. Dogs, let's face it, are a bit goofy. Easily distracted. Soppy. Wolves are none of these things. They are self-possessed and confident. They focus. They are quiet. They size you up, and they aren't going to go all gooey if you scratch them behind the ears.

In fact, their handlers tell you specifically not to scratch them behind the ears.

I like watching dogs. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. I do this thing I call 'dog ventriloquism' - you watch the dog, you watch its expression and body language, and you supply its inner monologue. Watch a dog at the beach. 'I'm running! I'm running! Look at me! Did you see that? Did you? Yay! Running into the water! Ohshitthatwater'scold!'

You can't do that with a wolf. Those golden eyes are piercing and unreadable. The best you're going to get is 'I know who I am. I know who my packmate is. Who are you?'

Beautiful, fascinating animals, and as enigmatic as a book in a foreign language, with a blank cover.

Wildlife and cowboys

Mon, 18 May 2009 10:27:09 GMT

No Surprises

A warm and sunny lunchtime, and St James's Park is that curious combination of tranquil and crowded that only Central London parks can manage. The deckchairs that dot the lawns are mostly taken; every patch of shade under a tree is colonised; office workers lounge on the grass, eating their sandwiches as an impromptu picnic; the paths are thick with people. But there's no pushing or shoving; no collisions; everybody has managed to create a perimeter of personal space, carrying it around with them; wrapped in themselves or together with companions, determinedly soaking up the late spring sunshine and the fresh, green smells; watching the sun glint off the small lake; looking at the fairytale spires and cupolas of Whitehall over the water.

Camille O'Sullivan whispers her cover of No Surprises through my earphone as I wander towards Buckingham Palace, soft Irish accent and chiming piano against the quiet desperation of the lyrics, when I spot a glint of gold on a bench ahead of me. But it's not metallic; it's a soft shine, like a sheet of golden satin. And it appears to be coming from a man sitting on a bench. As I come closer, it doesn't resolve itself: the man is elderly, slight, sitting relaxed with his head back, and he has what looks like a thick bracelet around his right wrist.

Drawing level, I see the man seems to be asleep. He's dressed in something like faded motley: a cotton baker's cap, which might have been red once and is now a softly faded pink, with frayed fabric fringing the peak; a blue and yellow jacket, equally softened into powder and lemon pastels; pale canvas trousers; black plimsoles that have surely run their last race. Curiously, his eyes are hidden behind plastic wrap-around sunglasses with oversized kidney-shaped lenses.

The gold bracelet moves around his wrist and raises its narrow, diamond-shaped head. Its tongue flickers out, tasting the breeze from the lake, with its whiffs of goose and moorhen. The body of the boa constrictor is thicker than its keeper's wrist at its widest, and it is coiled at least three times around his arm; its tail disappears behind the man's elbow. Its head, blunt-nosed and wide-jawed, sinks down onto the back of his hand. It's maybe three feet long, I guess, and looks sleek and content, basking like everyone else, maintaining its personal space and that of its owner.

The old man shifts slightly as he snoozes, his arm brushing across his knee. The snake uncurls a little, settles itself into a more comfortable position, and raises its head again, regarding me calmly as I walk past.

No alarms, Camille croons into my ear. No surprises.

Home, home on the trains

Tucked into a corner seat on the way to work, I'm reading my book; an atmospheric story set in Wyoming and Montana, peopled with taciturn old cowboys and a new, curiously tech-savvy breed of railroad hobo. Reaching the end of my chapter, I look up: and meet the eyes of a character from the novel.

Whipcord thin and tanned like soft, worked leather, he's weathered and mournful like a range-rider without a horse. There's nothing showy or fake-Western about him; he shifts his legs uncomfortably, obviously more used to riding-boots, although his sand-coloured, dusty workboots are creased across the toes, with well-worn soles. Blue jeans worn and faded at the knee; a blue shirt showing below the hem of his short brown denim jacket, buttoned up to its mustard-coloured corduroy collar. The edge of a pair of glasses shows from his breast pocket: half-lenses for reading the saloon-bar price list. Tattoos show on both sides of his wrist below the cuff: old, blurry blues and greens.

His face is narrow and tired-looking; gravity has pulled on it and is turning his narrow, hawkish features into a mournful mask, with deep, shadowed bags under his eyes and worried creases across his forehead. His hair is greying; more iron than the jet it once was, pulled back sharply from a deep widow's peak into a straggling ponytail. HIs eyebrows are thick and winged, echoing the upward slant on his cheekbones and giving him a Native American cast; tracker's blood, or hunter's, somewhere in his ancestry. Below the thick but neatly trimmed goatee beard, his mouth is turned down at the corners and accentuated by folds of skin along the jawline; he couldn't look more downcast if his ranch had been repossessed. The furled telescopic umbrella on his lap looks shockingly anachronistic and he handles it gingerly; it's in its right environment and he's the awkward visitor.

At Tottenham Court Road, the woman sitting next to him — plump and kindly-looking with soft curly hair, wrapped in a black felt parka — leans over and murmers something, her mouth close to his ear. He turns to look at her and animation sweeps across his face; dark eyes opening and a slight smile twitching the corners of his moustache. The sadness of his expression turns into a look of patience and wisdom; he squeezes her hand and kisses her on the mouth as she stands to get off the train. It's a surprising moment: he'd seemed so self-contained that seeing him connect with another human, and one that doesn't share his air of being ripped out of another reality, is almost jarring. Once his partner has left, he casts a gaze across the carriage and settles back into his prairie reverie, eyes hooding again and mouth turning down.

We both get off the train at Oxford Circus, and I end up directly behind him on the escalator. He rides the steps leaning forward, one foot one step above the other, his whole lower arm resting on the handrail, still and poised as a falcon on a fence-rail. At the top, he slows, and I walk past him; he rubs a thumb between his eyebrows and waits. Waiting for the wind to settle. Waiting to catch up with time. Waiting to step into the Wild West End.

Thoughts and comments are, as ever, welcome.

Favourite TV moments

Wed, 06 May 2009 10:13:21 GMT

Rob Buckley runs a regular Wednesday meme on his indispensable TV blog, The Medium Is Not Enough (TMINE for short), and today's is the old classic Favourite TV Moments. Here are some of mine, skewed a bit towards the recent.

Cracker, Albie Kinsella stabs David Bilborough, who then crawls through the house out to the street, giving his final statement over the radio as he does so, before dying in the road just as his colleagues turn up.
Later in the same story, Albie and Fitz in the interrogation room, Albie chanting 'L I V E R P double-O L Liverpool FC' and Fitz roaring CELTIC! at him.

Edge of Darkness: 'GET ME PENDLETON!!' and Jedburgh's magic tricks with two bars of plutonium.

West Wing: Many, but Bartlet cursing out God in Latin in the cathedral, then stubbing a cigarette out on the floor; Josh reliving the moment when he put his hand through a window; Bartlet walking to Capitol Hill.

Fast Show: Rowley Birkin QC gets serious.

Ultraviolet: Vaughan Rice, a gun pressed under his chin, waits for the coffins to open; Pearce Harman decides he's had enough of John Doe and turns on the UV floods.

Being Human: 'You shouldn't have gone after Mitchell. It got my attention.'

Doctor Who: The Doctor Dances: 'Oh, please, give me a day like this!"; School Reunion: 'I used to have so much mercy.' Family of Blood: 'Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?' Utopia: 'What about now? Can he see it now?' Turn Left: 'Please...' Forest of the Dead: 'Doctor. Are. We. Good?'

David Attenborough getting equally excited about hedgehogs in his back garden and being in a RIB alongside a surfacing blue whale! And the incredible crystal cave in Planet Earth!

I was sat in front of the TV aged six months, propped up with a horseshoe of cushions, to watch the Apollo 11 landing (my Mum said 'Watch this, son, it's history'), but unfortunately I don't remember it. A certain comics writer has been passing off that experience as his own ever since I told him about it.

If you want to join in over at Rob's, he'd be happy to hear from you. And it's a great blog, so you should all read it anyway.

The Lady Sings

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:36:27 GMT

The first two-gig week for quite a while. The divine Camille O'Sullivan on Monday, and the peerless Duke Special on Tuesday. Am I too old for this?

Hell, no.

There was a touch of luck involved with Camille O'Sullivan. I saw she was doing three small gigs at the Soho Theatre last week, and quickly nipped in to buy a couple of tickets. Unfortunately, I'd completely forgotten about Duke Special, but the Soho Theatre box office swapped the tickets over for the Monday night without turning a hair. And I must have timed it just about right, because the Soho Theatre is small, and it was packed.

Camille is French/Irish (and very Irish) and what you'd probably describe as a cabaret singer with a touch of burlesque. That doesn't do her justice, though. And she doesn't do the normal cabaret standards. You'll get Jacques Brel songs; you'll get some Kurt Weill. But you'll also get what she calls 'their modern equivalents' - Nick Cave, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Kirsty McColl.
The stage is cluttered: a piano, a rudimentary drumkit (actually a miked-up dustbin); a bentwood chair covered with a crocheted blanket. Two sparkly dresses dangle from hungers suspended from the ceiling, along with a swing. There's a table with a bottle of wine; two Japanese parasols; a cuddly knitted sheep. And into this Camille slinks, svelte in a black velvet jacket, a long black skirt, a net veil over her face and high-heeled black ankle boots on her feet. She comes down the stairs alongside the seats, ruffling hair, stroking necks, blowing in ears. She wanders over to the chair, sits down, leans forward, propping her microphone hand on her knee, and croons: a slow, throaty version of 'God is in the House'. Each irony picked out with a twist of the mouth; her eyes unfocus and stare forwards with the fear underlying the song. She acts and lives every second of the song.
Normally, Camille performs with a big-band set up, with horns and strings; this time, she has three accompanists: a pianist, a guitarist (who also plays mandolin, banjo and musical saw), and a multi-instrumentalist who takes turns on percussion, guitar and trombone. And they make a hell of a racket: quiet and delicate sometimes, raucous and roaring at others. Camille removes a few layers: the black skirt goes, revealing a short strapless dress underneath; she unpins her hair, letting it fall loose as she sings 'The Ship Song'. She climbs up into the audience and lays across the laps of the women behind us: 'Don't be scared,' she says, 'it's only a song.'
Between songs, she chats in a soft Cork accent. 'I have to cut down the talk because we don't have much time tonight. Those you've seen me before know how I go on. Jaysis, it doesn't make much sense. But come downstairs and see me after the show, and you'll see me disintegrate.'
Before each song, she pauses and composes herself, getting into the right state of mind. 'Rock and Roll Suicide' starts out barely whispered, but she works through each chord change, dragging herself to her feet, ending up on her knees, wringing every ounce of pleading and desperation into the final lines. Then she gets back to her feet, gives us a grin, and tells us how the single word 'miaow' can defuse any argument, even with the bank manager.
Kirsty McColl's 'In These Shoes' is a barnstormer, Camille taking every opportunity to flash her legs and red sparkly stilettoes, while another whispered song, 'Look, Mummy, No Hands' (Amanda Palmer does this one) ends with Camille and seemingly every other woman in the audience in floods of tears. Camille dries her eyes, swigs on some wine ('It's only Ribena', she says, with a sidelong glance that makes us think she's lying), and applies white pancake make-up to sing Tom Waits' 'Misery is the River' in a high-pitched girly squeal and marionette jerks, her vocals accompanied by a sinister croaking whisper from one of her side-men, distorted through a megaphone so it sounds like Waits himself is operating her. She roars through Jacques Brel's 'Port of Amsterdam', and quietens down for two final songs, leaving the stage to sniffles, wiped eyes, and thunderous applause.
Downstairs, Camille is holding court from behind a table of CDs and DVDs, still caked in white make-up and blathering away, selling CDs and stuffing tenners down her bra. 'The left one's the float,' she says. 'Aw, I'm sorry I made you cry,' she tells a couple of girls. 'I advise you to go and drink heavily now. That always helps.' I buy a CD and she signs it, giving me a hug. As we leave, she's just about to pop up to her dressing-room to get another copy of a CD for a woman who was sitting behind us. 'You have lovely red lipstick and all that hair, and you need a copy of that one,'she says. 'Jaysis, I said you'd see me disintegrate.'

Duke Special review to follow, when I have time!

Scenes from a cocktail bar

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:25:28 GMT

Appearances can be deceptive.

It's a classy, but not flashy, bar in a smart Mayfair hotel. A long, narrow room with dark walls and carpet; huge, faded, gilt-framed mirrors at either end reflect three crystal chandeliers back and forth to infinity. Big comfy chairs, small round shiny tables, solicitous staff rush around with trays of glistening glasses, with bowls of olives and nuts, whisking away finished drinks.

In the corner, a couple laugh over a shared joke. They're mismatched: he is elderly, in his 70s, his collar overflowed by fine silver hair at the back and fleshy jowls at the front. He's dressed impeccably in a dark, tailored suit and a shirt whose whiteness and crisp French-cuff styling doesn't disguise his corpulence. But he's animated and attentive, chatting and gesticulating and focused completely on his companion.

Which isn't surprising. She's young, slim and extremely beautiful. Ebony-dark skin with a high forehead and elegant cheekbones, a wide, generous smile in a heart-shaped face, a thick cascade of straight black hair, a long, slender neck rising from the smooth M-shape of her collarbones. Like the bar, she's not obvious, but classy: high heels, but not vertiginous; skirt mid-thigh, but very tight; fingers manicured, but not coloured; a single gold pendant, small sparkling ear-rings. Her suit jacket is slung over the back of her chair; her patterned blue blouse is open low over a smooth swell of cleavage. She's sitting in the corner, looking out over the whole bar, but her attention is fixed on her older companion, keeping up a flow of chat and a throaty, bubbling laugh.

We all assume, perhaps unfairly, that she's an escort and he's her client. One of the group, a regular at this bar, says she's seen her here before, with different men; but she's been here with different men herself, so who knows? Whatever their relationship, there's nothing sleazy about this encounter: two people, seemingly enjoying each other's company in a glittering, comfortable place. No overt flirting beyond eye-contact and attentiveness; no touching of hands to emphasise a point. A quiet intimacy and a feeling that there's personal space that's not to be invaded, but it's that kind of bar. Luxurious.

There's a commotion behind me and my chair is buffeted; no mean feat, considering its bulk and weight. A male voice, grating and slightly nasal: 'I'm slim, but I'm not that slim.'

I twist in my seat. He's not that slim.

A suntan the colour of chicken tikka and curly, greying hair like wire wool; jeans and a leather jacket; he looks scruffy, but the sort of scruffy that takes serious money to manage. I can't see the flashy watch but I know it's there. He isn't looking at me; he's looking over his shoulder at two younger men in suits whose gaze roves over the bar. They haven't been here before. He has.

I raise an eyebrows slightly and, with a little effort, shift my chair a few inches to one side to let them past. We're between them and the couple in the corner, who are still sipping cocktails – something long and iced for her, a Martini glass for him — and continuing their conversation. The three men slump into seats and fuss over menus; brillo-hair man flips his menu around and points at various cocktails. There's some slightly raucous laughter, and the sort of talk which isn't exactly about business and isn't exactly bragging, but somewhere in the hinterland of both. But the tables are widely spaced, and talk doesn't carry; the couple in the corner are comparing mobile phones, we're discussing the vagaries of Welsh chefs and the merits of a Singapore Sling over a Perfect Manhattan, and I can pick up the odd brand name mentioned by our new neighbours.

Eventually, the couple in the corner finish their drink and call for the bill. The man hands over a platinum credit card and does the appropriate ballet with the waiter, the electronics and the tip, and then excuses himself and leaves the bar while his companion puts on her (impeccably tailored) black suit jacket and checks her (flawless) make-up.

Brillo-hair man catches her eye.

She gives him a long, steady look.

He stands up and comes over, squeezing behind my friend's chair (not that slim) and leaning over to talk to her. She pulls her jacket closed.

The chat is quiet. I can catch phrases like 'I didn't recognise...' and 'wasn't sure' from him, and nothing at all from her, although she's smiling and nodding. Is there some tightness around her eyes? I try not to stare. He asks a question; she reaches into her bag — black and shiny as the polished granite bar-top — and pulls out a thick diary, closed with an elastic fabric band. She leafs through a couple of pages and makes a note, while he smiles and nods.

Can he see, in the corner of his eye, that the older man, her companion, has come back? Does he notice the expression on the fleshy, high-coloured face, almost blank but watchful? Does he see her glance upwards and make a gesture with her left hand, fingers together and palm down?

Would he care if he did?

The couple get up to leave and walk towards the door, both thanking the barmen who are painstakingly mixing. As one of the staff open the door for the couple, brillo-man settles back in his chair and grins at his companions in a manner he probably thinks is raffish. I hear him talking about 'a gorgeous six-foot Brazilian girl.'

Later, I relate the encounter to a friend 'Wonder if he knows that the Brazilian was a tranny?' she says. 'Cos she so was.'

Appearances can be deceptive.

For those who are interested, the Coburg Bar at the Connaught Hotel. The Sazeracs are fantastic. Any comments are welcome!

Tech tweets

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:13:53 GMT

The magazine I write for is now on Twitter, at TheEngineerUK. We'll be tweeting headlines, updates on what we're up to, links to picture galleries and stuff like that. Followers are very welcome — we're funnier than New Scientist, less up ourselves than Wired, and more accurate than BoingBoing!

Half man, half hoover

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:23:12 GMT

...or possibly rechargeable shaver.

This is a self-balancing vehicle for people who can't stand upright. This is a prototype version, but it went wrong. And this one wasn't much better.

We think they need to work on the design a bit. Possibly add a dustbag, or a sideburn trimmer attachment.

Prague, anyone?

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:12:09 GMT

In the Czech Republic, there's a tradition of spanking on Easter Monday.

In Bermuda, they fly kites...

Different strokes. But only in Prague.

A bit Madison

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:41:51 GMT

I have new glasses, courtesy of The Internet (aka Glasses Direct). Well below half the price I would usually pay. They're a bit retro, and seeing as I'm wearing a suit today, I look like something out of Mad Men.

Time for the late-morning martini, I think.

(They're also quite similar to a pair my Dad wore in the 70s, which is taking me aback a bit. I really do look nothing like him)