The street was crowded and the speeches were inaudible, but it was very exciting and it was really, really good to see some people that I haven't seen for a long time: Pauline Murray and Rob Blamire (from Penetration), Gaye Black, Tessa Pollitt (with her daughter and very cute grand-daughter), Andy Linehan from The British Library (a national treasure), and lots more. I had a nice chat with Steve Mick, who I've heard reading his poetry at Toby Mott's Cultural Traffic events and whose book I coughed up a tenner for, and Zoe Howe (who has the same good taste in social events as I do 😀). Everyone was excited, even the security guys, which I thought was rather sweet. Gaye is going to have an exhibition in Newcastle, which will definitely be worth going to.
Andrew and Susan were running The Fridge by the time I moved to London; I wasn't part of The London Set but I'm used to being the most uncool person in the room; in fact, now I enjoy it.
I did get to meet Marco Pirroni and Dave Barbarossa from Adam and the Ants, and to admire the sartorial splendour of roomful of mature punks, who have aged rather gracefully, and to earwig in on a lot of interesting conversations.
Why the title of the posting? Well, I am listening to songs from the twelve days of music on this old computer in the kitchen and up came one of Lionel Bart's songs from Oliver!, which has got to be the best musical ever written. It was on our radar back then, wasn't it? And the Grammar School kids were doing Charles Dickens at school. The style and snarl of punk is hardly surprising, when you think about it; when it got all black-jackets and cidery it lost touch with it's literary roots, but they were definitely there at the beginning.
Anyway- I'm making a birthday cake for Offsprog Two, who I have just moved to Sarf London (four hours round trip). so time to get that out of the oven. Toodle-pip!
Pix: Veiled plaque; Pauline under the unveiled plaque; Gaye and Shanne.
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