Come on- everybody knows it but nobody says- Rap music is all about Shouting at Mummy.
All those diamonds, all that bling, the twitchy dancing, the F-F-F-word (yes, Eminem, that's you!).
Why isn't Mummy paying any attention?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Blasting Woes to Smithereens
I took a huge pile of 12" singles in to the University of the West for Jim, who collects oddball vinyl. He wasn't there, and the other sound engineers oohed and ahed, making me feel guilty that I hadn't offered them to them first! Jim's a fair chap and I am sure he'll share.
I parked my ass in the boiling hot little office where the thesis students come for a weekly yak; three were missing, two ill and one on holiday in Boston where he's pretending to do research.
Ho hum, somebody does this every year, turning up at the last minute all excited and writing Not The Right Sort Of Thing. They are usually extremely affronted by the fact that I have identified their 'field trip' as a holiday.
Ho hum.
I had a nice chat with that Steve Beresford, fresh from playing melodica with The Slits on Friday night. He had really enjoyed it and we agreed that Ari is a fantastic live performer.
A young student has won the internal song writing competition and I spent a couple of hours helping her with her application. She had a streaming cold and I had to give her a paper hanky. Bless!
Out to the car park, where a parking ticket awaited me. I had misread the £5.50 fee as £5.00 and now I have to pay £60 fine. The rotters sell parking in three hour lots, the length of our lectures, so you have to pay for a day as you don't have time to get to or from the teaching rooms.
I thought I'd paid for the whole day, and they are not going to show me any mercy.
This sort of thing often happens at this time of year: it's the sheer stress of the beginning of term. You take your eye off the ball and end up in the poo.
Grrr!
There's a hot curry in the fridge, a ready meal. I don't normally have these things but I'm too tired to cook and I have a lecture to write for Friday. I will heat it up and blast my woes to smithereens!
I parked my ass in the boiling hot little office where the thesis students come for a weekly yak; three were missing, two ill and one on holiday in Boston where he's pretending to do research.
Ho hum, somebody does this every year, turning up at the last minute all excited and writing Not The Right Sort Of Thing. They are usually extremely affronted by the fact that I have identified their 'field trip' as a holiday.
Ho hum.
I had a nice chat with that Steve Beresford, fresh from playing melodica with The Slits on Friday night. He had really enjoyed it and we agreed that Ari is a fantastic live performer.
A young student has won the internal song writing competition and I spent a couple of hours helping her with her application. She had a streaming cold and I had to give her a paper hanky. Bless!
Out to the car park, where a parking ticket awaited me. I had misread the £5.50 fee as £5.00 and now I have to pay £60 fine. The rotters sell parking in three hour lots, the length of our lectures, so you have to pay for a day as you don't have time to get to or from the teaching rooms.
I thought I'd paid for the whole day, and they are not going to show me any mercy.
This sort of thing often happens at this time of year: it's the sheer stress of the beginning of term. You take your eye off the ball and end up in the poo.
Grrr!
There's a hot curry in the fridge, a ready meal. I don't normally have these things but I'm too tired to cook and I have a lecture to write for Friday. I will heat it up and blast my woes to smithereens!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Thoughts, Thoughts, Thoughts
Looks like I may be going away after all, on a tide of requests...
The Araldite is drying on the broken chair leg and the broken lamp.
I can't have boxes to pack until I know the moving date.
I wish I was stronger physically.
I wish cats could go out and buy their own cat food.
I wish cars mended themselves free of charge.
I wis More4 would stop repeating Friends, the sole diet of Offsprog 2.
I wish there wasn't half a tomato putrefying on the side in the kitchen.
I wish the old washing machine would throw itself away.
I wish the Estate Agent wasn't such a bully.
I hope it stays nice Autumn for another couple of weeks so I can enjoy the sharp sunshine.
I hope my tiny new house is as sweet and warm as it looks.
I hope I can afford a washing machine and a fridge after everyone has taken their fees.
I hope my ex-partner finds happiness.
I hope I have nice visitors and a social life when I've moved.
I hope I don't lose my job!
I hope I get to see my best friend a bit more.
I hope this move is as good for everyone as I think it will be.
I have learned a ton of new stuff this year which I never thought I had the capacity to learn.
That's got to be good, hasn't it?
By the way, if you are a friend who I normally have emailed quite a lot in the past, sorry about my silence for the last couple of months. It has been difficult to do anything apart from blog. I promise to be different from now on!
The Araldite is drying on the broken chair leg and the broken lamp.
I can't have boxes to pack until I know the moving date.
I wish I was stronger physically.
I wish cats could go out and buy their own cat food.
I wish cars mended themselves free of charge.
I wis More4 would stop repeating Friends, the sole diet of Offsprog 2.
I wish there wasn't half a tomato putrefying on the side in the kitchen.
I wish the old washing machine would throw itself away.
I wish the Estate Agent wasn't such a bully.
I hope it stays nice Autumn for another couple of weeks so I can enjoy the sharp sunshine.
I hope my tiny new house is as sweet and warm as it looks.
I hope I can afford a washing machine and a fridge after everyone has taken their fees.
I hope my ex-partner finds happiness.
I hope I have nice visitors and a social life when I've moved.
I hope I don't lose my job!
I hope I get to see my best friend a bit more.
I hope this move is as good for everyone as I think it will be.
I have learned a ton of new stuff this year which I never thought I had the capacity to learn.
That's got to be good, hasn't it?
By the way, if you are a friend who I normally have emailed quite a lot in the past, sorry about my silence for the last couple of months. It has been difficult to do anything apart from blog. I promise to be different from now on!
Stressville
The cat has a hyperactive thyroid, the car's being serviced two bus journeys away and will probably come back with a thumbs-down of gargantuan proportions, I have just cancelled a few days away with McMum as I find it difficult to believe that we will manage to empty this house by a week on Monday (that's the John Rebus books off to the charity shop then!).
Offsprog Two's poorly and I am terrified that I've missed something out of the calculations and will end up in the new gaff with a ten grand debt somehow (and that's before I've sorted out the damp!)
In my imagination, though, we live there already, sitting round the table (too big for the kitchen, though) drinking coffee and eating cake, with miniscule fuel bills that a gnat could pay. We don't want or need anything because the house is full already. In fact, all we need to do is get on with our lives. There is practically no housework (eight hours on a Friday here every week to make the house nice for more than 50 viewings) and no gardening (a pity not to have a garden, but there are worse things).
My car's been vandalised three times in the last two years, and crushed fag packets posted through the house door, a full plastic coke bottle thrown at the window and myriad other things. Here, we are a stone's throw (literally) from the estate and the houses our street and the shops at the end are a hobby for the bored post-teenagers who can afford to frequent the boozers on the High Street.
I long for the insignificance of the tiny house to come. There is a high price to be paid for ostentatious-looking lifestyles.
Offsprog Two's poorly and I am terrified that I've missed something out of the calculations and will end up in the new gaff with a ten grand debt somehow (and that's before I've sorted out the damp!)
In my imagination, though, we live there already, sitting round the table (too big for the kitchen, though) drinking coffee and eating cake, with miniscule fuel bills that a gnat could pay. We don't want or need anything because the house is full already. In fact, all we need to do is get on with our lives. There is practically no housework (eight hours on a Friday here every week to make the house nice for more than 50 viewings) and no gardening (a pity not to have a garden, but there are worse things).
My car's been vandalised three times in the last two years, and crushed fag packets posted through the house door, a full plastic coke bottle thrown at the window and myriad other things. Here, we are a stone's throw (literally) from the estate and the houses our street and the shops at the end are a hobby for the bored post-teenagers who can afford to frequent the boozers on the High Street.
I long for the insignificance of the tiny house to come. There is a high price to be paid for ostentatious-looking lifestyles.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
X Factor
Wow- I've just seen one of my best ever ex-students on the X-Factor, being slated by Simon Cowell.
Graziella's from Tottenham and she did some of the most fantastic heartfelt rapping about the violence and cruelty she saw around her. I thought she was so good that I got her a gig at my friend Mike Slocombe's club, Offline in Brixton.
She's got bags more guts that Simon Cowell, who wouldn't survive for one second on the London streets where artists like Graziella come from.
She's too good to be part of a girl group dressed in silly cake-dresses. She's like Miss Dynamite or Lily Allen- an authentic London girl with lots to say in her own voice, not Whitney Houston's.
If I was a record company I would sign her up right now and let her bypass the rest of silly old X Factor. Wouldn't it be great for her to reject Simon Cowell before he rejects her?
Graziella's from Tottenham and she did some of the most fantastic heartfelt rapping about the violence and cruelty she saw around her. I thought she was so good that I got her a gig at my friend Mike Slocombe's club, Offline in Brixton.
She's got bags more guts that Simon Cowell, who wouldn't survive for one second on the London streets where artists like Graziella come from.
She's too good to be part of a girl group dressed in silly cake-dresses. She's like Miss Dynamite or Lily Allen- an authentic London girl with lots to say in her own voice, not Whitney Houston's.
If I was a record company I would sign her up right now and let her bypass the rest of silly old X Factor. Wouldn't it be great for her to reject Simon Cowell before he rejects her?
The Stables
I picked Martin up at Luton: he was full of cold and we went and did a lightning-speed sound check.
Paul Davey came along to play clarinet and I was glad of his services in Autumn Love. The audience were intent listeners, obviously paying careful attention to the lyrics.
Thankfully it was a night I didn't make mistakes (it's weird, the tireder and more distracted I am, the better I play and sing) and they gave me some goodly applause and even laughed at my feeble jokes. The sound in that place is incredible, and you could have heard a pin drop. It was almost unnerving to be listened to with such concentration but a blessed relief after the cacophony from the audience you get at some London gigs.
Martin was great- even though he was full of cold, he sang beautifully and he chose a really interesting selection of songs to play. He sang a lot of my faves- Lilac Tree, Long Forgotten, Rain, Orange, and Paul joined him for a couple of songs, leaping at the challenge of playing with no dots and thoroughly enjoying playing at The Stables, the jazz version of Top of the Pops! It was a good night- two gooduns in a week, and I am a hippy bunny (that's the same as a happy one, only more psychedelic)
I know I missed The Slits last night. Were they good? I bet they were!
This evening I have just finished listening to about 72 songs, submissions to a song competition. I have whittled it down to 18 and will listen through those tomorrow to get to about ten, before roping in another judge to make the final selection. I have really enjoyed it- especially some of the songs that unfortunately had to be rejected 'cos they were so weird.
I cleaned the cooker and did the washing up while I was going through them, and the knackered old cooker hasn't sparkled so much for months.
Now I've got soft flabby waterlogged washing-up fingernails and shouldn't play the guitar until they've hardened up again. I am too achey to do any more packing (where does all this bloody stuff come from?).
I am totally unable to throw away any of my kids' drawings from when they were little, but curiously able to throw away the pink fired clay stone age woman I made when I was 8, whose feet are in her mixing bowl being stirred, because they fell off about 5 years ago and I didn't want to throw them away, and whose head is so big that it bent right forward under its own weight when the clay was still wet, so now she smiles vacantly and blandly at a spot on the ground roughly three inches away from her pot.
Paul Davey came along to play clarinet and I was glad of his services in Autumn Love. The audience were intent listeners, obviously paying careful attention to the lyrics.
Thankfully it was a night I didn't make mistakes (it's weird, the tireder and more distracted I am, the better I play and sing) and they gave me some goodly applause and even laughed at my feeble jokes. The sound in that place is incredible, and you could have heard a pin drop. It was almost unnerving to be listened to with such concentration but a blessed relief after the cacophony from the audience you get at some London gigs.
Martin was great- even though he was full of cold, he sang beautifully and he chose a really interesting selection of songs to play. He sang a lot of my faves- Lilac Tree, Long Forgotten, Rain, Orange, and Paul joined him for a couple of songs, leaping at the challenge of playing with no dots and thoroughly enjoying playing at The Stables, the jazz version of Top of the Pops! It was a good night- two gooduns in a week, and I am a hippy bunny (that's the same as a happy one, only more psychedelic)
I know I missed The Slits last night. Were they good? I bet they were!
This evening I have just finished listening to about 72 songs, submissions to a song competition. I have whittled it down to 18 and will listen through those tomorrow to get to about ten, before roping in another judge to make the final selection. I have really enjoyed it- especially some of the songs that unfortunately had to be rejected 'cos they were so weird.
I cleaned the cooker and did the washing up while I was going through them, and the knackered old cooker hasn't sparkled so much for months.
Now I've got soft flabby waterlogged washing-up fingernails and shouldn't play the guitar until they've hardened up again. I am too achey to do any more packing (where does all this bloody stuff come from?).
I am totally unable to throw away any of my kids' drawings from when they were little, but curiously able to throw away the pink fired clay stone age woman I made when I was 8, whose feet are in her mixing bowl being stirred, because they fell off about 5 years ago and I didn't want to throw them away, and whose head is so big that it bent right forward under its own weight when the clay was still wet, so now she smiles vacantly and blandly at a spot on the ground roughly three inches away from her pot.
Nativity
Wednesday: Three Kings, Clerkenwell
Friday: The Stables, Wavendon
7th November: The Donkey, Leicester
See wot I mean?
Wednesday was lovely- I'd had a hellish day of two jobs in one day at opposite ends of Large London but all was calm at the Three Kings and Jude, Kath and I stuck stickers on our DIY cds and put them into clear wallets.
I'd left my designs for the covers at work but they had spares.
We set up the honesty box and set off, one song each, following our thread. Just like last time, I was wowed by Jude's delicate elfin singing style and Kath's wry humour. Even the background sounds of someone very stressed washing up a thousand forks bunched together in easy handfuls only added to the atmosphere.
The room was full, cosy and smiley, and after a break we embarked on part two.
A guy was there who used to do the door at the Alhambra in Brighton in the 1970s and halfway through he suddenly recognised me as being Helen from the Chefs; perhaps the wooden spoon I had laced through my hair (just as though an outlaw had shot it through there with a bow) helped him.
It was a lovely evening and I'm really looking forward to February when Kath gets back from New Zealand and we can do some more.
Last night's gig at The Stables was good too, but in a different way. I have to stop momentarily and do a bit of packing but more later....
Friday: The Stables, Wavendon
7th November: The Donkey, Leicester
See wot I mean?
Wednesday was lovely- I'd had a hellish day of two jobs in one day at opposite ends of Large London but all was calm at the Three Kings and Jude, Kath and I stuck stickers on our DIY cds and put them into clear wallets.
I'd left my designs for the covers at work but they had spares.
We set up the honesty box and set off, one song each, following our thread. Just like last time, I was wowed by Jude's delicate elfin singing style and Kath's wry humour. Even the background sounds of someone very stressed washing up a thousand forks bunched together in easy handfuls only added to the atmosphere.
The room was full, cosy and smiley, and after a break we embarked on part two.
A guy was there who used to do the door at the Alhambra in Brighton in the 1970s and halfway through he suddenly recognised me as being Helen from the Chefs; perhaps the wooden spoon I had laced through my hair (just as though an outlaw had shot it through there with a bow) helped him.
It was a lovely evening and I'm really looking forward to February when Kath gets back from New Zealand and we can do some more.
Last night's gig at The Stables was good too, but in a different way. I have to stop momentarily and do a bit of packing but more later....
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Woof
My littleoldlady cat get so excited when I wake up (breakfast, not me) that she almost barks.
Desperado Housewives tonight- and believe me, this housewife is desperado indeedo!
Desperado Housewives tonight- and believe me, this housewife is desperado indeedo!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Voices Pic
Music is keeping me sane at the moment, that and good friends, God bless 'em.
It Never Rains But It Floods
Well, a man came to change the gas meter today.
'You have a gas leak', he said. 'I may have to turn off the gas supply to the house and you can't have it back until you know where the leak is and get it repaired'.
I have got used to devastation now.
In the end, it is not a mortally terrible gas leak, but the boiler should have a new valve.
It's literally weeks till I move, but just in the last weeks I will have spent almost £1000 on fixing things that have broken at the last minute.
I CAN NOT WAIT TO GET OUT OF THIS AWFUL HOUSE!
Red and Yellow
Travelling back from Docklands on the Docklands Light Railway, I noticed how McDonalds' red and yellow 'M' sprouts like a triumphantly prolific weed out of the wastelands.
'Ha Ha! We're HERE, TOO!', the vivid acrylic sign declares,
'EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHERE!'
I turned away, thoughts of Japanese Knotweed in my head.
'Ha Ha! We're HERE, TOO!', the vivid acrylic sign declares,
'EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHERE!'
I turned away, thoughts of Japanese Knotweed in my head.
Tea Chest Basses, and Other Things
I love drawing so much and in a couple of years time my dream is to give up teaching and become a drawer and a songwriter-singer for the rest of my life. I have a massive amount of drawings at home here that I have been doing since I was about 14 and after I've moved I will start to sell some of them.
I used to do comic strips and every so often I come across one or two of them rolled up in a dusty tube. A lot of people used to buy my pictures but you have to put a lot of energy into selling them, and I don't have that at the moment because I'm using it all up packing and stuff.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Lofty Thoughts
I'd meant to write up The Perseverance gig yesterday but instead spent almost the whole day moving stuff down from the loft (including bucketloads of dust) and shifting heavy pots about the garden with my nephew, who I employed for the day for his young strength and willingness of spirit.
I found a pile of letters that included a map drawn by John Peel to show me how to get to the place where they broadcast the World Service from; and a set of poems written by my friend Saffie Ashtiany who now spends a lot of time in Iran, finishing her father's animation films. She'd given me the poems to illustrate and I still have some if the drawings somewhere. There was a series of letters from a very funny girl called Pippa who used to write every week when I was in the Chefs, telling me all about her school days (her headmistress banned Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because the Oompa-Loompas were racist). I can't throw them all away just yet.
The plumber's been this morning; he arrived on his motorbike at dawn, fixed the heating and roared off half an hour later. Heaven will be populated by such people, I know.
So... Saturday afternoon was spent copying Desperado Housewives CDs for Wednesday, in between little houseworklets.
I realised that it wouldn't be a good thing to chop onions for tea, an activity that would have neatly fitted in to the burning-time of a CD, because that particular CD would smell strongly of onions.
Maybe that would have been a good idea- a unique selling point that would add at least a quid in value to the CD.
Anyway, I digress...
Voices of the Fall was brilliant: small but perfectly formed.
Alec Dunnachie rustled about in the corridor, buckling himself into a huge and beautiful turkey costume that he could not see out of and bumping into tables on the way to the stage. He had a turkey-head hand puppet, and did a piece about two headed turkeys baking potatoes, which was fascinating when you could hear it properly (I don't think there was speak-hole in the turkey head).
Dix points for costume and effort Alec!
There was a fantastic African singer (her Myspace name is 'silence' as she sings acapella) called Henrietta Alele, who was utterly charming as well as having a beautiful strong and powerful voice; Sarah Verrinder made us all laugh with her intelligent irony and poet-punchlines; Kath Tait was sweetly brilliant as always and Ingrid held the whole lot together with her rambling band of musicians (which included Eve, who sang one of her songs solo too).
I sang two newish songs, Waltzing Away from Winter which the audience did backing vocals to, and Daisies which everyone seemed to like, as well as Two Little Girls and Me and Autumn Love for an encore (which I fumbled over in an unprepared and unprofessional way!).
Sandie was there, Foolish Girl to those who don't know her, and she handed me DVDs of the Borderline gig which I haven't managed to watch yet as my computer's overloaded but I will make sure I watch them tomorrow and will ask her if I can put them on Youtube or something.
And then, just like this morning's plumber, Sandie roared off on her motorbike.
I found a pile of letters that included a map drawn by John Peel to show me how to get to the place where they broadcast the World Service from; and a set of poems written by my friend Saffie Ashtiany who now spends a lot of time in Iran, finishing her father's animation films. She'd given me the poems to illustrate and I still have some if the drawings somewhere. There was a series of letters from a very funny girl called Pippa who used to write every week when I was in the Chefs, telling me all about her school days (her headmistress banned Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because the Oompa-Loompas were racist). I can't throw them all away just yet.
The plumber's been this morning; he arrived on his motorbike at dawn, fixed the heating and roared off half an hour later. Heaven will be populated by such people, I know.
So... Saturday afternoon was spent copying Desperado Housewives CDs for Wednesday, in between little houseworklets.
I realised that it wouldn't be a good thing to chop onions for tea, an activity that would have neatly fitted in to the burning-time of a CD, because that particular CD would smell strongly of onions.
Maybe that would have been a good idea- a unique selling point that would add at least a quid in value to the CD.
Anyway, I digress...
Voices of the Fall was brilliant: small but perfectly formed.
Alec Dunnachie rustled about in the corridor, buckling himself into a huge and beautiful turkey costume that he could not see out of and bumping into tables on the way to the stage. He had a turkey-head hand puppet, and did a piece about two headed turkeys baking potatoes, which was fascinating when you could hear it properly (I don't think there was speak-hole in the turkey head).
Dix points for costume and effort Alec!
There was a fantastic African singer (her Myspace name is 'silence' as she sings acapella) called Henrietta Alele, who was utterly charming as well as having a beautiful strong and powerful voice; Sarah Verrinder made us all laugh with her intelligent irony and poet-punchlines; Kath Tait was sweetly brilliant as always and Ingrid held the whole lot together with her rambling band of musicians (which included Eve, who sang one of her songs solo too).
I sang two newish songs, Waltzing Away from Winter which the audience did backing vocals to, and Daisies which everyone seemed to like, as well as Two Little Girls and Me and Autumn Love for an encore (which I fumbled over in an unprepared and unprofessional way!).
Sandie was there, Foolish Girl to those who don't know her, and she handed me DVDs of the Borderline gig which I haven't managed to watch yet as my computer's overloaded but I will make sure I watch them tomorrow and will ask her if I can put them on Youtube or something.
And then, just like this morning's plumber, Sandie roared off on her motorbike.
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