More About Big Ben University

The tutor is called Tony Erickson, and he doesn't understand a word he's saying, and half the girls and half the boys are called Sam, so when he asks Sam to answer a question, they all answer in unison.

Treasure Trove

Me and my pal went in a great shop the other day.
I have driven past it loads of times and craned my neck to see what was in there but it got so tempting I had to park up and have a look.
The shop is called Audiogold and it's sort of in between Muswell Hill and Hornsey (Park Road) or Crouch End and Alexandra Park, depending on who you are and where you are coming from (!).
It is stuffed with vintage speakers, portable record players that you can stack your singles on and have them play one by one, microphones, old beatboxes, old radios (including a radiogram), headphones, vinyl albums and singles, and comfy chairs to sit on.
It's a proper shop- totally uncorporate, the sort that has regular pop-in customers who don't buy anything, haven't ever and probably never will. The odour of leatherette pervades, and I was charmed by a child's miniature toy piano (unfortunately possibly the only item in the shop that wasn't for sale).
Old telephones are sprinkled about the place: it's nerd's heaven and was very difficult to leave once we were in there.
I bought some carry boxes to store my old 7" singles in and I've spent this afternoon happily forcing them in, only just having bought enough boxes to house the collecsh.
I imagine sitting in a big old room with a choice of vintage speakers to listen on, clicking through each set with a switching device and eating marshmallows while I do so.

The Football

I went to see Barnet play Dagenham last night- Bees versus Daggers!
I love the ground at Barnet, cos it's straight out of The Hotspur and with a visible slope that seems to get steeper as the game progresses.
Barnet was playing downhill in the first half and the team were playing very well- nippy and neat and quick, and they scored one goal about 20 minutes in and another not so long after.
We drank plastic-flavoured tea and marvelled at the wonderful condition of the pitch (it;s like a bowling green at the moment).
After half time, the Daggers must have had a pep talk because they played loads better, down the bottom of the slope (and far away from where we were standing on the terraces, unforchly). They sped up and an air of desperation took them as they frantically grabbed the ball and tried to score: but it just didn't happen.
We counted six balls in the locals' front gardens (one brought back by a sleepy boy a few minutes later).
The fans were in great voice all the way through and the man of the match was the Barnet goalie, who is probably the perfect goalie: strong and supportive when the action's somewhere else but bloody fast and sharp when someone's trying to get a ball past him.
As a non-expert, I could see that Barnet need to remember to keep their wits about them throughout the game and not just in the first half. They are good at defending themselves generally but they need to remember that they have to have that 'attack' stamina all the way through, for when they play really aggressive and experienced teams later on in the season.
Sometimes the guys weren't there when the ball was; and sometimes they guy with the ball just needed to try to score rather than dribbling it around to a place of safety, by which time the opposition had made off with it.
They reminded me of my teenage boy cat, thrilled by his own natural energy and agility, amazed at his own speed and full of joie-de-vivre, clever and smart, but sometimes short on strategy.
But all in all, great game- good team, and watched in good company!

Score: Barnet 2 Dagenham 0

What's All This?

...I asked myself as I logged on to a Hotmail account I have.
'Get more done thanks to greater ease and speed'
Someone flogging happy pills? I read it as
'Get more done thanks to greater 'E's and Speed'.
Hmmm.....

Big Ben University

I am going to write a radio play set at the fictitious Big Ben University (main campus: Crawley), based on a fictitious lecture in the B.A. Cultural Studies (Reality Television) department.
Mobile phone rintones will be interrupted by the gashing rip of black nylon velcro bags being undone; a singer-songwriter who writes desperately miserable songs in a minor key will be enrolled: his name is E. Moaner.
All the other boys are called Dan (3), Tom (3), Ben (4), Ed (2) or other names of three letters or less.
The girls are either Olivia (4), Georgia (2), or Melody (3).
There is also a large Alsatian dog enrolled on the course. Nobody knows how or why, but in these days of Equal Opportunities, he will not be challenged.
Halfway through the lecture, someone drops a ping pong ball in the top tier of the lecture theatre; it bounces down merrily, three bounces per step, gaining momentum as it descends.
Hushed, the students dare not stop it in its course.
That bit actually happened at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1975.

Songs

Yesterday evening Martin recorded some songs for me using a new USB microphone to get an unplugged effect- they may well be for my next album, or if not, very high quality demos.
Recording informally like that makes you sing differently- more as though you are singing to yourself or just one or two other people.
I've put Dreaming of You on Myspace as it's a song that is being revived for the Desperado Housewives gig; and Monday's Mood, just because it's a song from the old days.
The next song I'm writing is about Wood Green Shopping City.
I hung out there while I was doing jury service two years ago, looking at all the things I didn't want to buy with all the people who didn't have enough money to buy anything anyway.
Today, I noticed the Chuggers (the charity muggers) in Barnet High Street being hoisted on their own petards, as unemployed people took delight in finding someone to indulge in long conversations with.
One chap was telling someone all about his central heating problems; time on his hands and no money in his pockets!

In Which The Desperado Housewives Have A Rehearsal

We thought we'd try out our scheme of singing a song each, following a loose and winding thread from one idea to another, and we met up at Jude's lovely house in Mottingham to give it a go.
I had been wondering how our different styles would work, but after this, I can see that it's going to work really well.
Kath's songs are gently funny, building up a naive-seeming picture that gradually materialises into a knowing disruption of everything around her; Jude's are almost Dickensian in their darkly moral lack of morals; mine are quirky takes on emotional subjects (well, I think so: but that seems to describe all 3 of us).
Apart from anything else, it's going to be wonderful to share a stage with 2 such interesting song writers. The best thing will be if we can paint our world and invite people into it.
Will I dare to wear the lilac chiffon Abigail's Party dress that Martin brought me back from Australia?
I think so!

The first ever Desperado Housewives gig will be at Liquid Nation in West London next Tuesday.
Details to follow!

From the Brain of a Teenager

HungryfoodEAT
HungryfoodEAT
HungryfoodEAT
HungryfoodEAT
EAT
EAT
EAT

Fridge

Fridge

Toast
Bread

Fridge
Butter

M-U-U-M!
M-U-U-U-UM!!
M-U-U-U-U-U-M!!!
THERE"S NO BLOODY BUTTER!

Oh.

Toast.
Butter.
Knife.

M-U-U-M!
M-U-U-U-UM!!
M-U-U-U-U-U-M!!!
WHERE"S ALL THE BLOODY KNIVES!!!!!!!!

Oh.

EatEatEatEatChompChompChompChompChomp
Want more.

HungryfoodEAT
HungryfoodEAT
HungryfoodEAT
HungryfoodEAT
EAT
EAT
EAT

EAT.

Packing Casualty

I realised with horror this morning that another casualty of the chaos of moving half a lifetime's worth of stuff has been a set of photos probably from the 1950s of my family when we were all spring buds: it wasn't just the nostalgia but was also the aesthetics- the colours had mellowed to jewel-like turquoises, deep reds and creamy ivory.
There was one of tiny versions of Big Bruv and myself, packed into a bed with McMum reading us a story which you can almost read from our faces. Bruv's hair was a mass of coppery curls that glowed out of the photograph like a beacon.
There was another of McDad with us, next to our semi-basement kitchen window. There was no door out from the kitchen to the garage where the car was, and we used to climb out of the window to go to church each Sunday.
I always used to visualise this as we sang the hymn 'Father, Lead Me Day By Day'; father climbed out of the window first, followed by children, and mother last to shut the window.
I'd been carrying them round to scan, and they must have fallen out of the book I had them in.
Silly.
But what a nice surprise! This morning, Zoot sent through this photo of The Chefs (thank you Zoot!). It must have been a very early incarnation- perhaps as early as 1979 because my hair is short. But not too early- I'm playing Bruv's bass, which means this photo was taken in between my Hofner bass being stolen by Hell's Angels, and by it's miraculous return (the story is here in this blog, miles ago).
Back to yesterday's posting: doesn't life have many episodes? I am lucky to have really good recall (or unlucky, sometimes, as some of the more exciting episodes have been rather nasty).
Sometimes I get really down, but then I wouldn't exchange my life for anyone else's.
This, I think, is a good testing point to define the difference between true depression and a fit of the miseries, and on occasions when I or a friend start sinking, we talk about this.
It is surprising how many people do value all of their life's experiences, good and bad.
A bland life? No thanks!

Episodery

There are aspects of the University of the East that are desperately frustrating: the trigger-happy email system, for instance (did they buy it cheaply from China?) which chose two delete not only the complex email I'd sent to book studios and equipment for my students, but also the duplicate safety email, sent from another address in order to trick the trigger-happy email system.
Patiently, the man in the equipment store and myself Tried Not To Moan and did the whole lot again.

Then a house-panic occurred, the millionth of many seemingly insurmountable and frustrating problems. The estate agent's voice whined faintly against a sonic backdrop of jets taking off loudly from London City Airport and the outdoor disco to welcome new students ('Oh yes, we do this all the time here at the University of the East, you know!').
I broke into end-of-tether type perspiratiion.
As I waited for a slow-moving printer ( 'wait a minute' was ten minutes, and then seconds started to be added, so I left before my head exploded), I decided to give the rest of the morning a miss, and headed for the Woolwich ferry.

What a day-rescuing surprise it was!
Neatly packed between juggernauts, we swept over the Thames in a trice, unloaded ourselves without fuss, and I could deliver the dolls-house to Sarah's nursery classroom and hope all the bits were there to be put together.
I was too vexed by the morning's issues to stay for a cup of tea but it was nice to see Sarah even briefly, and the ferry did it again on the way back.
A gold lurex dragonfly crackled past the car window and settled on the leaf-green tarpaulin of a neighbouring eighteen-wheeler.
I leapt out to take a picture but it twinkled off, too shy perhaps, or maybe it wanted to show its party clothes to its lover before appearing on the cover of Hello.
As we docked, a lone starling sang its heart out on a rotten joist under the jetty, having found something utterly joyful to tell us all about in starlingese.

I went into the giant Tesco at Gallion's Reach. Ugh. I stood it for fifty seconds and had to leave- the noise, the bad manners, the volume of crappy stuff I didn't want, the trolley that thought it could go in four directions at once ( or at least the wheels did).

The rest of the afternoon was a chair-slumper as I tried to sort out the house-panic.
I looked at the semi-dismantled wardrobe. The eBay buyer had turned up alone to take away a big wardrobe. He had his mother in law with him, who sat looking ghostly in a chiffon scarf in the front window of his white van in the dark outside the house. He took off a door with much huffing and puffing, knocked a chunk out of the chimney breast as he tried to move it forward, and then left. I now have a doorless wardrobe that I can't sell.
Oh well
Oh well
A wardrobe
I can't sell
Bloody Hell
He paid all of £1.24 for it. Somehow I have the feeling that if he'd paid £50 he would have come back and taken it away the next day!

This evening I went over to Tottenham to play at Chances. The audience was sparse but the spirit was there. A Russian called Anton sang songs about booze and cigarettes that had a hint of Velvet Underground about them. There was a very good poet and a P.A. system that seemed to be doing everything it could to sabotage everyone's sets (maybe it has a Degree from the University of the East).
I like what Razz does at his nights- he mixes experienced and inexperienced performers, and it is touching to see people get more confident over a few weeks as they find their feet.

The day has been like a book made of chapters of different books slung together randomly, and reminded me of when we used to amuse ourselves at school by splicing sentences from our separate library books together during compulsory reading, making nonsense soup out of Heidi, Little Women and The Jungle Book as we read them aloud together with innocent faces while the fiendish teacher stalked the room.

Limes

The dusty fire grate went off to a woman in pristine white trousers, driven off in a brand new car, presumably dispensing gobbets of grime on to its brand-new carpet all the way home; the tiles, plus a selection of surprised woodlice and panicking mini-spiders, were packed up into plastic boxes and piled into a very posh vehicle with satnav and what could well have been a personalised numberplate.
After my wardrobe misadventure later on that night (which I will tell you about in a couple of days: I hope the situation rectifies itself before then!), I needed a day off, so I met Joan Ashworth, my animator and animated friend, at the Victoria and Albert after snaffling a forbidden croissant in desperation, having missed breakfast.
We had gone to see the 'Telling Tales' exhibition, a fascinating little exhibition of artefacts that tell a story. There's a boat that's actually a bath with taps at the end (the water is inside, rather than outside), a cow-shaped bench made of leather, some slippers made of moles, and all sorts of other Grimms Fairy Tale type things.
Afterwards we went into the courtyard for coffee, where there were lots of beautiful little lime trees in pots (not an orangery- a limery?) and a selection of beautiful little people sitting round eating almond cake and sipping beverages. It had a bit of a continental feel, those high-windowed red brick walls and the oasis of calm with chaotic and grubby Exhibition Road just over the other side.
The V & A has a brilliant shop, with things that look like exhibits. Some of them are furiously expensive but you can get something for £1.50 (all right, it's a button, but a very special big one made of porcelain with a bluebird painted on it!). I gobbled it all up with my eyes and bought you a little something for your birthday Sarah, but I'm not going to tell you what it is!

Goodbye Dans

These funny little china men jumped into the bin last week. They had missing toes and feet. I'd had them since I was a little girl. they reminded me of our chant at school:
"Dan, Dan, the dirty man
Washed his face in a frying pan'.

Pillsbury

Amazingly, the little rubber Pillsbury Dough Man with '25p' written on the back of its head has got two watchers of its own on eBay.
I sold the wardrobe for £1.24. Do you think they will come to pick it up?

tea break

I'm having a tea break. I was up at 9, clipping the hedges in the front of the house and wiping the missile traces off the windows (regularly, idiots walk down this road throwing things at the houses). Then I packed and threw away more stuff, got the dolls house out of the loft, and generally spent the day grafting at it all.
In my tea break, I have been singing, and browsing the internet.
Much to my amusement, when searching Martin's releaes on Amazon, I discovered that 'Customers who bought this also bought'... a set of Philips nose-hair clippers! There they are, in between Gladsome Humour and Blue and High 7 Moon 5, or something. What a sign of the times, or spirit of the age, or something like that!
Next discovery was that Time Out has listed a solo slot I'm playing on Thursday, and according to them, I am an 'Oddly named singer-songwriter'. They don't mention the oddly named voodoo poet on the same bill, Cam Ringell.
Personally, I think 'Time Out' is a very oddly-named magazine, and they should be rechristened forthwith. The name 'Helen McCookerybook' trips off the tongue nicely so they can use that if they wish.

Thursday's gig is at Tottenham Chances, 399 High Road Tottenham, London, N17 6QN, start time 8 p.m. Cost £3.50, £2.50 concs