Interactions

Yesterday morning I swished down to Green Park for coffee with Lucy O'Brien at the Wolseley. We sat in the bar area, which was quiet and away from the glamorous tourists and businessmen (did I tell you about the chap with a baby sling who tenderly placed a napkin on his baby's head before chomping on a croissant?).
One of the waiters told me he gets there at 6 and the doors open at 7; sometimes there's even a queue. But those early-breakfast customers are having two-hour meetings and are not at all friendly, even though they are regulars.
It was lovely to see Lucy- sometimes she's busy, sometimes I am, and we meet rarely but always have a lot to talk about. Both of us are independent-spirited, which makes fierce career-climbing difficult, but in the end, what other way is there to be? If you get to where you are by stamping on other people's heads, it's not an honourable position to be in. And I am firmly of the belief that you meet the same people on the way down as you did on the way up!
We had a conversation with the bar manager, who is from Sydney, about being a small fish in a big pond (Sydney) and being a big fish in a small pond (London), and how wherever and whatever you are, you hanker after the other.
Lucy loves my CD and I am delighted, for she started off in a punk band just as I did, and it means a lot to me.
Propelled by caffeine, I shot back to Barnet and whizzed through the afternoon's chores.

I had a successful upward learning curve with Garageband on Sunday, which was totally absorbing, and I realise that I don't need to go to recording studios to record demos any more.
Last week I had a mini-rowette with the guy in Digital Village who sold me a guitar cable for 50 quid that he said I needed; later, talking to Martin on the phone, I discovered that I didn't need such a complex thing at all, so I took it back to the shop to get my money back. The guy was most pompous, saying I wouldn't be able to do what I wanted at all, and telling me that he was 'only an expert'. Well, Mr Sarky Expert, it would appear that when you looked in the mirror and decided you were the expertest expert of all, a more expert expert was getting on with recording her guitar easily, with no trouble, and is fighting back the urge to ride into the shop on a huge horse shouting and swinging her music round her head in triumph:
and stamping on your head, perhaps?