Hampstead Heath

 

Temple of Ideas is an event run on Saturday afternoons on Hampstead Heath by Meg Lee Chin, and it's basically an open mic for over-55 aged poets, comedians and songwriters. I love playing in the open air, and I said 'yes' to this as soon as Meg invited me about a month ago. It starts at about 3 p.m. and we were treated to some quite sombre poetry from two poets, and some lovely music and comedy too. My favourite act was a Czech comedian who pitched her material just right: she flipped British people's racist assumptions right on their heads in an almost affectionate way, which worked really well. My guitar broke (!) and I had to borrow a Takamine from Ben, the other musician, which was very kind of him. Compared to the electric guitars that I normally play it was a difficult proposition, but it helped me to keep my set within the allotted time, which the following poet had a problem or two with. Open mics help to keep your feet on the ground, because you have to develop patience while other artists are playing, and stick to your time slot. You simply can't feel that you are more important than other performers: everyone is equal. I didn't envy Meg having to get him to stop, but she did so very politely. There was a dedicated audience of about 15 people draped on the grass and rickety camping chairs, one or two in the greenery out of the sun, and some wanderer-uppers, including a dog or two. I loved the informality of it all; it was a great antidote to the heavy-duty editing I've been doing fo the album in the past week. I just have to find a way to upload the tracks to send off, because my home Broadband is too weedy to cope!