Double-Decka Day

I rose at six and sailed round the North Circular, silently in my mended car. My guitar was on board, plus a thermos cup of coffee to kick-start the day.
Where was I going?
I am helping the Cleaners Complaints Choir at the University of the East to write a song describing their terrible working conditions to the Higher  Echelons who could easily make them University employees instead of victims of a company that pays them late, docks wages for no reason and doubles their workload for no extra pay. Many of the cleaners are African and Colombian and don't speak English; my colleague Luis, who invited me to help out, has already done a workshop with them and patiently translated Spanish to English, English to Spanish at this morning's session.
We ended up with a chant that had animated itself into a chorus, and a circle of smiling faces: now I have to get to work to make the skeleton of a song for Friday. It was fun!

Later, I set off to meet Caroline Coon at the Nancy Spiro exhibition at the Serpentine. I caught an old-fashioned Routemaster number 9 bus with a dinging wire to pull when you get to your stop, and a bus conductor.
Caroline and myself haven't seen each other for a while and had lots to say to each other as we perused the inspiring drawings and prints- so much so that a visitor to the exhibition asked us to shut up. We talked about pornography, art, life, the drawings, art history, the 1960s, the 1970s, spilling out to the cafe at the side of the Serpentine to drink coffee and eat salad (and chips!). Thank you for a lovely inspiring afternoon Caroline; I look forward to our next gallery visit and also to the very interesting email transcripts that will inform a lecture I will be doing to Advertising students at the University of the East.

Now I think The Lost Women of Rock Music will be coming out in September. I need to get my ass into gear to sort out the photographs!