Back to Work

Oh, those words....
Refreshed, even though not rested, everything seems logical and I am calm; mostly, accepting the barmy logic of a large organisation helps.
The fact that for a second summer running someone has stolen things from my office (last year, the set of Spice Girl figurines, this year, Swimming-baths Ken) makes me mildly upset rather than apoplectic with rage.
I have regrouped my self-respect (probably temporarily); standing on quicksand has become the norm and I wear a large pair of metaphorical flippers that allow me to proceed at a less panicky pace through the administrative tasks that shift and change shape before my eyes.
All is terrible: yes, I know.
I am still allowed to laugh, and to eat ice cream for as long as I can afford it!

With Sue at the Musicker Cafe, Rothesay.
Sue runs the cafe with her partner John and she gave me this beautiful apron with cowgirls on it, which I think she made herself. It was even wrapped in retro paper!

Her friend Buster had sent me a photo of a similar one a couple of months ago- and now I have my own!

Mention On Blog Makes Helen Feel Important

Thanks to Richard Cundill for sending this link
http://fruitierthanthou.blogspot.com/2011/08/helen-horns-imperial-college-london-9th.html

A Weekend in the West of Scotland

And what a lovely weekend too- good company and fun gigs!
Gig 1 was in the Musicker Cafe, Rothesay, Bute; it was intimate but fun, one of those gigs where people listen to the lyrics and understand them. And thanks to Sue for the beautiful cowboy apron that coud not have been more appropriate!
Gig 2 was a Stephensons Rocketts gig at a Youth Hostel by Loch Lomond. Smothered in Avon's Skin-So-Soft against the midgies, the Rocketts took off with a whoosh and entertained a group of guests (including children that I taught how to hand jive) at Neil's 50th birthday party. What a laugh! The band played a stormer and included Junior Cavener (17 year old son of John the double bass player) on sax, much to the excitement of the assembled teenage girls. Martin (stormin' rhythm guitar!), Joe Guillan (scorching rockabilly lead!), Keith Shepherd (sticksman extraordinaire!) and John (walk that bass, man!) himself all played brilliantly!
Sunday was mooching around Glasgow, where these buskers on Buchanan Street showed the opposite ends of busking- an elderly lady with her accordion at one end and an amazing rock band of twelve year olds at the other who put on a flawless performance of rock classics to an astounded audience.

The Hawaiian beauty is from Paul Templeman's music shop in Rothesay!

Seezya L8r

Got some good photos to post later on...

Reading

Donna Tartt for the train- better than Patricia Highsmith, not as good as John Updike; found her in a Charity Shop and she's not going back.
Introducing Plato: a Graphic Guide for the way back!

Wood
Bark
Woof

Musicker Cafe

I'm off to Bute tomorrow for a gig at the Musicker Cafe in Rothesay, which I'm really looking forward to.
I bought a new cowgirl dress (well, a new old one) but I am too fat to get into it! A normal dress and cowboy boots will have to do.
Next night, Stephenson's Rocketts have a private gig and I need to practice playing Rockin' Girl tonight.
It's all go- seems like ages since I've played and the fingers had rusted over a bit but I've rubbed 'em with WD40 and they are OK again now.
I am getting rather sick of beans on toast, which I have eaten every night since Offsprog Two left home. Upon my return I will have to devise 'simple meals for one' that don't involve eggs, which are monstrous things and ought to be exported wholesale to Mars, as far as I am concerned.
Right, where's that guitar?

Bagskirtman

I am waiting in a telephone queue listening to EDF's awful queue music. It gets steadily worse, each time I phone them and wait for months to talk to an advisor.
Anyway- I have just returned from a visit to the Dirt exhibition an the Wellcome Institute with Gina and her Offsprogs. It is every bit as good as the Science Museum is bad, and I was moved to tears by the horrible Nazi poster that equated Jewish people to ticks. I can not believe that the Nazis were even human beings, even less that they managed to brainwash an entire country.
There was some fascinating stuff about Delft, and an installation made of Indian poo. Gina saw the notice saying 'Do Not Touch' too late. Luckily I had my little tube of antibacterial hand gel. I reassured her that such a venerated institution would not be allowed to spread disease, especially with an exhibition like this!
On the way, I photographed this member of staff at High Barnet tube station. They collect rubbish and old newspapers (which they pile up for people to take and read again, a sweet touch), because we are at the very end of the Northern Line.

He has been gradually tucking more bags into his belt as the weeks progress and now has a full bagskirt, which I think you will agree is magnificent!

About Bambos

I drove to Brighton with a carload of cushions, buckets and tables, and after unloading went round the corner to visit my old friend Bambos and his Missus, neither of whom I have seen for a long time.
Years ago, Bambos and myself collaborated on a comic called Ratman, that featured Bambos's story of the superhero Ratman and a short story of mine.
Since then Bambos has worked for Marvel and many other comic publishers; he used to write and draw Blimey, It's Slimer! and has inked and lettered all his life, as well as drawing and writing the stories (currently Tom and Jerry). He is a true craftsman, eschewing computers for hands-on artistic skills. He is finally beginning to archive his life's work, not before time, and has started to attend comics conventions again. He says: "I'm at the Birmingham Comic Convention on Saturday & Sunday 27th -28th August and I'll have issues 1-3 of Ratman on sale... 50p each or 3 for £1, what a bargain!"
His comics blog is at http://whatswrongwithcomics.blogspot.com/

Photo of The Chefs by Dave Peacock

A Song from the Scarygarden

Excavating

Today has been a day of excavation: up into the loft to find a chair, cushions and curtains, and then into the cupboard to look for a tiny and essential piece of music equipment. I found the very first Helen and the Horns poster, and also a book with the lyrics of a lot of Joby and the Hooligans songs, including Skateboarder Rollerballer, written by our first drummer, Dub Duncan. He was an amazing drummer and morphed from a slightly hippyish person to a very stylish punk dressed in his dad's RAF boiler suit. We did a pretty good (for us) version of How Can I Leave which Dennis Brown was having a hit with at the time. Actually, I think we probably mauled the poor song and made it into a 'miss' but I felt very proud of having worked out the bass line. We also played Jonathan Richman's Roller Coaster, which I also loved because of the bass line. Both of them nestled comfortably into our set of punk thrashes!
I had seen a photograph of Little Nell in '19' magazine wearing a costume from Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's shop which I think was called Sex at the time. I had no money for designer clothes but this was easy to mimic- little plastic animals sewn on to a dress. I bought a whole lot of little dinosaurs and sewed them on to a t-shirt and some black fur fabric shorts that I'd made. I was the wow of the hour!
Ah memories, just the thing for Sunday evening. I am happy because Offsprog One has managed to finally film her giant zoetrope on a children's roundabout in Brighton. The things I do are little, so I am greatly impressed.
I have been writing lyrics today for Lucie; I will sing them to her tomorrow. I hope she likes them.

Truly Terrifying Toy Boy

Working Again

I have been working again, interviewing students at an Open Day to help out; Universities have been inundated with applications. I thought the candidates today were really good. What a lot of interesting and intelligent young people there are! They are the greatest resource we have as a nation. We need to keep them hopeful and interested and stop criticising the young generation.
And, for that matter, the working population.
I could hardly believe it, but I heard the other day that my former colleagues at the University of the West are being asked to write pleading pieces to explain why they should keep their jobs! I do hope this is a rumour. I can not imagine that any employer should think that this was an honourable or respectful way to treat a group of people who between them have written and produced chart hits, written symphonies, developed fantastic reputations as innovative musicians, run record labels, taught and nurtured hundreds of promising students and helped to get them jobs, let alone their potential for getting the country out of its recessionary rut by generally being creative and optimistic!
Without the arts and crafts, without ideas, we would live in a stodgy grey and navy blue world.
One Alan Sugar is enough, folks; this clever island has invented myriad scientific, design and artistic solutions to all sorts of situations and putting the business ideal before the invention is exactly... putting the cart before the horse. We can't make money out of anything if we haven't got the space to have the ideas in the first place; all I ever seem to hear when I listen to the TV or the radio is "Business, business, business".
Have the grey men with clipboards and stopwatches won?
Let us live our lives in colour, with creativity in our hearts!

The Caller Knows You Are Waiting

I have been on phone duty today at the University of the East during clearing, talking to prospective students and drinking tea from a huge and dangerous urn that needed to be tipped up to get the hot water out of it. It was busy, noisy, and calls of ''Someone answer that phone!", punctured the murmurs of hundreds of staff and the trills of hundreds of phones.
On my way home on the Docklands Railway at three, I suddenly realised that there was a young fellow coming in for an interview at 3.30. I got off the train, crossed over the platform and went back again.
I was glad I did, because he was a very interesting chap.
So now I am home, toasting the evening with a bottle of Dandelion and Burdock and sniffing some beautiful flowers that Martin sent me; Offsprog Two headed north this morning, catching the train by the skin of her teeth. She has left her pencils at home, and I'll post them to her tomorrow morning.
It is unnaturally quiet. Later, I will go and remove the empty wine and spirit bottles from their hiding places in her room.

Lady Takes Large Bee on Bus

Wednesday Joke

What do monkeys drink to celebrate special occasions?
Chimpagne.

T-Mobile, the Company that Only Wants Male Customers

I photographed this ad on the tube. I'm sure you have seen it too; it was obviously either designed by a 'politically correct gone mad' designer, or an 'ironic' one who thinks they are being modern and knowing.
Wouldn't touch your products with a barge pole, T-Mobile.
Cadbury's Yorkie did this too recently. According to Wikipedia, it was originally 'aimed at men' when it wwas launched in the 1980s; I remember the ads with trucks, and having an ambition at the time (between bands) to get an HGV licence and drive a big lorry, I sent off for a Yorkie sweatshirt and wore it until it dropped off my back. They had a relaunch a couple of years ago that seemed so nastily old-fashioned in its tone that I decided never to purchase the offending item again; it had become as gender delineated (like that?) as a jock strap.
Surely it is within a company's interest (especially in a recession) whether selling confectionery or mobile phones and internet connections to speak to as much of the population as possible?
Grr. Every so often things remind me that I am a feminist as well as a mother. That doesn't mean that I hate men (rather like them, you see), but it means that I prefer not to feel as though I am a trained chimp in sheep's clothing!

Waiting

I have done this before, three years ago... waiting for the teenager to come home.
Although she is an adult, she is still my child, and living under my roof.
The clock ticks.

Old Skool Music Technology

I bought a copy of The Wire today. It is a magazine that focuses upon new and experimental music, and I bought it because the author mentioned below has written a couple of emails about my blog posting and also because there is a lengthy and interesting article about Daphne Oram in it. She was a mystical person, which is not apparent at all in the display at the Science Museum.
It also for some unfathomable reason jogged a personal memory of working in the 1990s in what was then South East London Technical College (or Seltec) but is now Lewisham College. I had a jobshare in a Business Resource Centre where mouthy students handed in their work, looked at Company Annual Reports and copies of the Financial Times and swore at us (plus ca change).
It was boring and I found a Basic computer programming language manual on a shelf one afternoon.
It didn't take long to work out how to programme musical tones: proper programming, not using music software. I would sit there and type in 'SET SOUND ON' and fiddle about with the lines of code until I had made a phrase of music. My boss came in one day and told me to stop playing Oh My Darling Clementine. I was miffed, not at being told off, but because I was playing a childrens' nursery rhyme that I had written about Neptune, the god of the sea!
I wonder if this would give me credibility in the Wire community?

Yesterday

Yesterday was a very musicky day. In the morning, I photocopied and posted the trumpet parts to Stephen, who will be playing with Helen and the Horns at the Jazz Cafe gig on 16th September where we support the Daintees. I spent the afternoon with a very interesting song writer, seeing if I could help with her lyrics; it will be an exciting thing to do and I hope it works out well! It is so interesting learning the way that another musician works.
I am puzzling away at a guitar part for a song that has been in the pipeline for a couple of weeks and I did a bit more puzzling before watching Martin's Stageit show, which was being broadcast from the little cafe in Strathpeffer in Ross-shire. Strathpeffer is a cute Victorian town that boasts a venue that the Beatles played shortly after they became mega-famous (they honoured their live contracts), and looks a bit like a fairy-tale village.
It was a really good gig, with Martin on top form and accompanied by Henry Fosbrooke on drums. Martin's guitar playing really sparkled; the netcast sound was really perfect and he played a lot of my favourites including Nairn Beach as the audience instant-chattered along beside the screen. I think I'll do another kitchen-cast soon.
While I was watching and listening, six noisy teenagers were next door eating pizza (apart from one who is observing Ramadan). I will miss the bustle when Offsprog Two leaves on Friday. I wonder if I will spend my empty days baking and getting fat?

Martin on Stageit

Martin Stephenson on Stageit.com, 11 mins time!

Connie Converse

Chuck Warner sent me this link- she's amazing- sort of BBC posh but American, and quirky songs.
I think her songs sound a bit like mine!
http://connieconverse.bandcamp.com/

Daphne Oram

The 20 pence machine stands in the kitchen, waiting for its dinner.
It has a high opinion of itself, standing there in its red garb, and as a punishment for its over-assertiveness, it has been moved to a corner next to the framed bad-taste packets.
On Friday I went to look at the Daphne Oram exhibition at the Science Museum. She was a fascinating scientist who experimented with sound and imagined all sorts of developments in music in a quite visionary way, inventing machines at the BBC that processed sound waves that she drew on to film.
What a terrible disappointment! They have no right to advertise it, because there's scarcely anything there- yet, they say.
There are a couple of electronic displays, one of which is good because it demonstrates the way that a continuous sound wave can be altered with visible changes to its form, and there is an original machine housed in a converted commode cupboard, which is amusing. Apart from that, there are a series of display cases full of promises: we will have this here, and that there; but even the promises are vague, and do not tell us either what will eventually be there or the names of the artists and scientists that it promises it has asked to contribute to the exhibition in future. There is more about Oram here: http://daphneoram.org/
I made a special trip to see the exhibition and found the Science Museum to be a total con. A huge amount of the ground floor is taken up by a gift shop with repeat-displays of not very scientific gifts (a bit like a Tescos for plasticky science toys) and there are one or two very expensive-looking commissioned pieces, such as the beautiful grasshopper clock. But there are what appear to be acres of empty wooden floor on the upper levels, which is a total disgrace during the summer holidays.
Want more grumbles? Why doesn't Douglas Kahn mention Daphne Oram in his otherwise excellent book Noise, Water, Meat? ( I know why, and so do you).

Leeds and Back in a Day

Early this morn, the two Offsprogs and myself loaded an unfeasibly large quantity of boxes, bags and a trunk into the boot of the car and heaved ourselves up the M1 to Leeds, where Offsprog Two will shortly be studying. We unpacked, and folded ourselves back into the car, stopping off at Otterton to pick up a 20 pence machine that Offsprog One bought off eBay for her art show in September.
It didn't speak much, just lying with its head poked over the back seat, wondering what its new home would be like. It's here in the front room, standing to attention and waiting to be filled with interesting objects d'art, all priced at 20 pence.
'I'm tired', chorused the teenage Offsprogs; I rolled my eyes and didn't mention the almost 400 miles I have driven (or not much!).

Bruv

This is another of Peter's wonderful photographs. My brother was the other guitarist in the Chefs although he is playing bass here and sitting on the old black flea-ridden sofa at their house in Kingsgate Road, West Hampstead.
As soon as you sat down anywhere, a mass of fleas would jump on to your lap and then seek out exposed flesh to attack.
Their unfortunate (for them) favourite was cups of tea, which they sprang into in droves, seeking heat but finding termination-by-hot-drowning.
Russell, our drummer, was given some ghastly Old Spice aftershave one Christmas, and we filled glasses with it and then had random competitions to see how many kamikaze fleas we had caught. I think the record was around 108 in a half-hour period.
I have written before about Russell's triumphant mouse-trap prey, that turned out to be a large and juicy ex-slug, and the dogs downstairs that widdled on his drum cases every time he put them on the pavement to load into the van before a gig (Question: why not stop putting the drum cases on the pavement? This was never answered).
John Peel cycled over for breakfast one morning, politely ignoring the squalor and wearing a pair of Dave Lee Travis's underpants (clean) on his head to keep his ears warm; and one day the BBC broadcast the first of a series called The Young Ones.
The inhabitants of Kingsgate Road looked at each other in recognition!
I was really glad I didn't live there, but actually the house where I lived was a million times worse. I will write more about that one day.

Garden, Summer Evening

Although I am proud of my yarden, I am simultaneously horrified at the huge quantities of orange slugs that I appear to be breeding here.
There were three 3-inchers out there this evening, and I realise that what is encouraging them is the compost heap. The toad used to live there because it's warm (I haven't seen it for ages: do you think the slugs have gobbled it up?).
They are good-for-nothings and too monstrous for me to take on with salt, pellets or beer.
In the end, I scoop them up with plastic plant pots and throw them away with the rubbish, which I tell myself is humane relocation.
Somewhere in the middle of Hertfordshire, they are growing to epic proportions, rumbling massively down narrow country roads at the dead of night with their all-seeing eyes fixed on small rodents and helpless drunkards stumbling home after a night at the hostelry.
Beware death by slurp!!!!

In Which David Cameron and Boris Johnson Provide a Fine Example for Youth of Today

http://blogs.ft.com/westmi​nster/2010/04/exclusive-da​vid-cameron-and-the-bullin​gdon-night-of-the-broken-w​indow/

More of Peter's Wonderful Photographs of The Chefs

Peter Chrisp sent these today, after I contacted him asking for hi-res photos for the Chefs CD.
It will be coming out in February, by the way. The photos show us playing on the back of a lorry, driven by Jonathan our manager. He got an aching leg after driving for about 2 hours at walking pace for the CND rally that ended in Dollis Hill.

 In the photo you can see our drummer Russ playing with his shoulders hunched up high- that was a typical Russ style; he would flick his wrist back suddenly and nip the hi-hat with a swift click. The rest of us look sunny and bumbly, which we were that day, unusually. Mostly we just argued.

Snaps of Scotland

La Mirage at Helmsdale, Sutherland, founded by Barbara Cartland's biggest fan, and once sporting pink sugar.

Greedy seagull in Cromarty. The pub owner has to race out and collect the dishes before the seagulls smash them in their quest for scraps.

Rose and hips by the side of the Cromarty Firth. There are wild raspberry bushes everywhere.

Champagne Friend and self in Ullapool. Actually, she's a Tea Friend now because I don't drink any more and she rarely does either.

When The Revolution Comes

Well, here is the revolution. The supermarket is boarded up, and I'm sitting in the garden eating Smarties.

Tottenham Riots: from a Resident's Perspective

I have just been speaking to my friend who lives in Tottenham.
Yesterday, while the riots were happening, there were no police to be seen: they had cordoned off the main road, ensuring no traffic flow- but traffic would have toned down the riots, she thinks.
She thinks it was planned, because the shops that were targeted for looting were jewellers and clothing stores that supplied goods that could be easily sold on, on eBay or suchlike. Relatively well-to-do young people were sitting on the wall opposite her house texting each other, presumably to call reinforcements, before re-entering the fray. They were filling rubbish bins with stuff, setting them on fire and pushing them through windows.
It is the small and more picturesque buildings that have been burnt out rather than the larger ones; the buildings that developers would like out of the way.
She is not sure where these rioters came from, but many of them wore designer clothing and had Blackberries. They were not the disposessed of Tottenham (which is what I had assumed)
Her very old man friend (in his nineties) is in tears, because the High Road has gone. Everything is closed, the cashpoints have been stolen and the shops are not open. He does not know where to go to get his pension.
There is no electricity, and has been none since last night, so no TV to watch to try to find out what is happening and no internet. There are no food shops.
I invited her over for a bath and some peace, and perhaps to leave her valuables here, but she does not dare to leave her house.

This reminds me of the Brixton Riots: my Uncle was on his way over and when he arrived he said that Coldharbour Lane was cordoned off. All night long, we heard helicopters, but there was a news blackout, which was frightening because we were less than a mile away.
Next day we discovered that Smeg (King Kurt's lead singer) had had his flat burnt down. It was upstairs from a very ostentatious-looking bed shop. His exotic lizard had been burnt alive, and all his and his girlfriend's possessions. The cat escaped, but they lost everything else. His girlfriend was the same size as me and I gave her clothes and about a week later we did a gig and gave them money to tide them over until their compensation came through.

In these parts of London, Tottenham, Camberwell, Peckham, live poor people, often very decent people, who are terrorised by criminal bullies. The police don't care, because the poor people don't have any power as far as they can see.
It is more productive to make sure that rich businesses and establishment organisations are protected.
I realised after 13 years of living in Camberwell that it was never going to get any better; five people got shot in a  nightclub opposite our house, and our upstairs neighbours flooded us by leaving a tap running all day and destroyed our house. They didn't even apologise.
The entire neighbourhood was over-run by rats, and after we left someone had their throat cut in McDonalds at Camberwell Green. Daily, you would see fights in the street, or people lying on the pavement with injuries; at night you would hear guns, sirens and helicopters.
People tried to have civic pride and tried to bring up their children well but they were (and are) swimming against a tide of political indifference. I used to get tremendously upset, thinking about the Queen and all her jewels and her basement at Buck House stuffed with Faberge Eggs and sketches by Leonardo, so close to the dismal poverty of the capital city of her realm.
'Perhaps she doesn't know about it', I thought. Then one day, a huge shining black car sailed down Camberwell Road, with a large royal crest on the front. Lit up inside was the Duchess of York, smiling and chatting to her chauffeur.
I suppose to Them, the poor are equated to lesser animals, cattle and pigs perhaps.
Let them snuffle and squabble!
Let them hack each other apart!
Let them steal each others things!

Let Them Eat Cake!

Saint FM Broadcast

Tonight, I'm broadcasting on Saint FM between 7-9 p.m.
http://www.saintfm.org.uk/

Not Far From Ullapool

Martin's friend George Hearton lives towards the west coast of Scotland; he used to film Bob Marley and Stefan Grossman (he was one of the first film-makers to use split-screen techniques) and is currently working on a film of John Renbourn, filmed in Spain.
We went to visit him and he and Martin sat across the table from each other picking Mississippi John Hurt tunes for a while; nosy little birds came to the bird-feeder at the kitchen window, pretending not to peer in as they helped themselves to seeds.

Cromarty

Cromarty was sunny and beautiful, and just the place for a Mr Whippy 99 Flake.
This afternoon we have been working away, adding and subtracting guitars and vocals, and this evening there will be more of the same.
Book fussings are going on in London but I can't do anything about that from here.
Thankfully.

Working on Album

Working on the album, adding guitars, taking away vocals, listening, eating strawberries....

Scotland

Sunny: rosebay williwherb from Nothumberland to Edinburgh, poppies further north.
Woken from sofa-sleep at McMums by TV coming on of own accord, Bargain Hunt at full volume in the wee small hours, then small cat playing bouncing game close to my ears until I stirred and gently placed it on floor.
Slow time in Scotland... So different from the frantic ant-hill of the South!
Forget to pack umbrella or coat; fingers crossed.

Cafe Gig on Bute

The gig at the Musicker Cafe on Bute is sold out, according to Martin- that's exciting!
I think we will be doing some song writing workshops the next day, before a private rockabilly gig with Stephenson's Rocketts at Loch Lomond.
Meanwhile I am urgently looking for a venue to debut some new Helen and the Horns material next year.
And it's hot...
I am just about to start to finish (!?!) the album with Martin The Cafe of Tiny Kindnesses, a lot of which I haven't heard for a year owing to having misplaced the CD with the demos on a while ago. Nothing like listening to music with fresh ears.
Plus I think I have been eBay scammed but music first, scammer-sorting second.
We have booked an Albertine/Birch/McCookerybook gig in Norwich and would like to do one in London with Pauline Murray too this autumn.

Too Many Features

With a sinking heart, I read an email from Yahoo that tells me it's upgrading itself. Oh dear!
It already has an obnoxious feature that streams incoherent ramblings from people I don't know.
Myspace upgraded to become completely incomprehensible, with so many animated ads that it takes a century to load, a playlist that they have invented for me that I'm not remotely interested in, bucketloads of spammy emails and my song counter stuck on '4' for the last six weeks (someone told me that this is to prevent them from having to pay royalties, should legislation require them to).
My phone has a billion things I don't want, and the only thing that I do want it to do not working (playing MP3s).
Stocks and shares? Wow!
Apps? Schmapps!
Facebook offers to link everything together in an awful technology-chain so I can bore people stupid no matter where they are and no matter when, posting nonsense about posting nonsense....
Grrr!
Soon the email account will have wings and function as a sanitary towel, Myspace will offer to bake Pop-tarts or run off to MacDonalds and get me a burger, and who knows? Maybe even good old Blogger will force me to watch the whole Harry Potter film cycle before I can make a posting!
Grrr!

Long live single-function applications!!!!!!

Dong Dong Dong

The piano tuner has been this morning, easing the discordant strings into harmony and making music out of noise.
I hovered in the kitchen, trying not to break into my paperback ration (I want it to last!) but after the dishes were washed and the worktops were spotless, I could resist no longer, and broke into a paperback with a guilty snivel.
There are all sorts of songwriting housekeeping things to do but I need a break, and I rose at 3.15 (miraculously, woke at 3.14 just before the alarm went off) to wake Offsprog Two for her Paris trip.
'Can you put this film into my camera?', she asked, dumping an unfamiliar camera and a roll of 35 ml film on my bed. I fumbled in the dark hopelessly before nodding off. She didn't have room for it in her luggage anyway.
It's too hot for my semi-Celtic blood outside, so I shall spend the afternoon re-stringing my classical guitar, and maybe even tinkling the ivories for a minute or two.