Traded in the printer: spent the money on pink boots.
Brightened up my day.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Glug Glug Glug
I feel as though I am drowning in work at the moment: this morning saw a 50 mile round trip to the University of the East to drop off three sheets of paper, applications that I am not allowed to sign so they have to go in someone else's in-tray.
On Thursday, I will travel to Liverpool for the day to examine someone's MPhil, and during all this I am still trying to get my expenses back for a trip to Scotland to be an external examiner for a course up there.
All this, and I earn less than a tube driver.
Think of some good things... think of some good things...
Martin has cleaned, polished and re-strung my Hofner bass (the one I used to play in The Chefs) which now looks bonny and beautiful.
I am going to interview Viv Albertine this afternoon for the paperback version of my book. I have had no luck in my search for Lesley Woods, Jane Munro or the women from Delta 5. This is a shame, because without them the book will be rather focused on the south of England. It would be nice to balance the book (ha ha).
I finished the drawing for Roberto Cassani's CD and Martin is doing some lettering for it.
I completed two songs yesterday and have discovered that the iPhone that I got when I renewed my phone contract last week has a very good quality microphone.
I had the piano tuned yesterday and it sounds lovely when Offsprog 2 plays her pieces.
More good things than bad things I think!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thrilling Twillings
It's Song Circle tomorrow, and for the first time, I have had no inspiration. Our subject this time has been football, and I have written so many songs about football with kids that I just couldn't take myself away from that scenario. So I am going to cheat and take my uke and play Baked Alaska, which was the last song but one I wrote.
Nadya had her 'I'm a Doctor now' dinner last night at a lovely vegetarian Indian restaurant in Chapel Market in Islington. I gave her a dolls-house grocery set in a little basket, which I thought might come in useful.
Steve Beresford was there, and he mentioned the fact that he was constantly disappointed by not meeting a ladies' ukelele band on a train like the one in Some Like it Hot.
'Aha', I said, The Gluts busked on the climate-change train on the way to Copenhagen, which Gina captured on film to prove it.
He smiled, enigmatically.
We chatted... we talked about concertinas with a woman called Claire who works at the V&A; she was shocked at the price; we talked about accordions and I told them how I'd bought two, thinking I could sell them on eBay and then discovering that they are worth practically nothing, so I paid for some studio time with one and kept the other to maybe fix up some time when I can get to Allodi, the accordion specialists in Hither Green.
We talked about the accordion shop on the Kilburn High Road and I told them about taking the metronome back to Blanks Music Shop (actually run by a Mr Blank, according to Andy Warren from the Monochrome Set, who may have been pulling my leg), because it didn't keep time.
Steve is a Proper Musician and wondered what had been wrong with the metronome.
It was me, Steve: I couldn't keep time, having just learned to play guitar, and Mr Blank and his sons, the Blankets, roared with laughter at me, and I blushed with a terrible shame that is with me to this day.
Last time I saw Steve was at the University of the West. I told him how I thought of my colleagues there, whose replies followed an interesting format.
You know, you pass them in the coffee queue and ask 'How are you doing?'
Steve, the past: 'I played at a really nice venue last night...'
Mykaell Riley, the present: 'I'm working on a big project at the moment...'
Shirley Thompson, the future: 'I'm going to be writing a symphony for....'
Past, present and future.
There must be some sort of psychology there.
And I have noticed I'm teaching a group of students who habitually answer a different question to the one I have asked.
'What's your name?' 'I have written two songs this week'.
'What is your song about?' 'I am using the piano instead of the guitar'.
Odd.
How can you tell it's Sunday night? I'm clearing out the dust from the crevices of my head.....
Martin has made a beautiful book for his Buck Easley music project. He's designed it himself, using his lyrics and my illustrations. We are proof-reading it together, by email. I am really enjoying venturing into illustration again, and I've started designing characters for the Medea comic.
Today, Offsprog One's birthday celebration: chocolate cake and pineapple upside-down cake, relatives bearing Easter Eggs (no grudges).
I had bought her a gigantic black mixing bowl and a silly gingham pinny with a cheery hen on it, amongst other things.
Time to hit snoreland, I think.
Nadya had her 'I'm a Doctor now' dinner last night at a lovely vegetarian Indian restaurant in Chapel Market in Islington. I gave her a dolls-house grocery set in a little basket, which I thought might come in useful.
Steve Beresford was there, and he mentioned the fact that he was constantly disappointed by not meeting a ladies' ukelele band on a train like the one in Some Like it Hot.
'Aha', I said, The Gluts busked on the climate-change train on the way to Copenhagen, which Gina captured on film to prove it.
He smiled, enigmatically.
We chatted... we talked about concertinas with a woman called Claire who works at the V&A; she was shocked at the price; we talked about accordions and I told them how I'd bought two, thinking I could sell them on eBay and then discovering that they are worth practically nothing, so I paid for some studio time with one and kept the other to maybe fix up some time when I can get to Allodi, the accordion specialists in Hither Green.
We talked about the accordion shop on the Kilburn High Road and I told them about taking the metronome back to Blanks Music Shop (actually run by a Mr Blank, according to Andy Warren from the Monochrome Set, who may have been pulling my leg), because it didn't keep time.
Steve is a Proper Musician and wondered what had been wrong with the metronome.
It was me, Steve: I couldn't keep time, having just learned to play guitar, and Mr Blank and his sons, the Blankets, roared with laughter at me, and I blushed with a terrible shame that is with me to this day.
Last time I saw Steve was at the University of the West. I told him how I thought of my colleagues there, whose replies followed an interesting format.
You know, you pass them in the coffee queue and ask 'How are you doing?'
Steve, the past: 'I played at a really nice venue last night...'
Mykaell Riley, the present: 'I'm working on a big project at the moment...'
Shirley Thompson, the future: 'I'm going to be writing a symphony for....'
Past, present and future.
There must be some sort of psychology there.
And I have noticed I'm teaching a group of students who habitually answer a different question to the one I have asked.
'What's your name?' 'I have written two songs this week'.
'What is your song about?' 'I am using the piano instead of the guitar'.
Odd.
How can you tell it's Sunday night? I'm clearing out the dust from the crevices of my head.....
Martin has made a beautiful book for his Buck Easley music project. He's designed it himself, using his lyrics and my illustrations. We are proof-reading it together, by email. I am really enjoying venturing into illustration again, and I've started designing characters for the Medea comic.
Today, Offsprog One's birthday celebration: chocolate cake and pineapple upside-down cake, relatives bearing Easter Eggs (no grudges).
I had bought her a gigantic black mixing bowl and a silly gingham pinny with a cheery hen on it, amongst other things.
Time to hit snoreland, I think.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Scanner Joy
I wearied of negotiating with a snarling teenager to use the scanner I bought a while ago, and that now lives in her lair.
'Ha', I said, and tossed my blonde hair attractively, looking askance with my violet-blue eyes, their long lashes fluttering in the warm breeze.
I drew on my silken robe and slipped my tiny feet into my crystal driving shoes, picking up the keys of the Bentley from the key-room next to the Georgian parlour with its original cornicing and shutters.
I roared up the North Circular, scattering scrawny chickens and spotty male teenage drivers in souped-up Escorts in my wake, heading for the Church of John Lewis, where the middle classes congregate and worship.
There, I traded a small rectangle of stiff plastic for a shiny new scanner in a huge box (so it looked as though I had bought something much, much bigger!!!), and roared back home to plug it in.
The servants were on their annual holiday in Broadstairs, but after reading the complex instructions I soon heard the exciting sound of technology grunting, and Saw the Light of bright function.
Alas, after placing Roberto Cassani's illustration on the flatbed, the Computer Said No, and I was forced to call the 5-pence-a-minute Hewlett Packard unhelpfulline.
It took 5 minutes to get through , and a faraway voice from a faraway place took a minute to say each sentence, costing me 45 pence just to say 'hello'.
While I was delighted to hear that the faraway person had a name, it took 35 seconds for them to tell me (two and a half pence), and after they had left me on hold for another five minutes because they didn't understand Mac computers (25 pence) I realised I was being taken for a ride, and hung up.
It's a jolly good job I am a millionaire, and also that I have so much spare time to visit the Church of John Lewis, not only to buy the faulty equipment, but also to take it back!
Why, if I had two jobs and an Offsprog to take care of, life might seem a tad difficult.
Excuse me, the butler is running my bubble-bath before he polishes my gold bars; after that, I'm off to Harrods in the Roller to buy a bag of crisps.
'Ha', I said, and tossed my blonde hair attractively, looking askance with my violet-blue eyes, their long lashes fluttering in the warm breeze.
I drew on my silken robe and slipped my tiny feet into my crystal driving shoes, picking up the keys of the Bentley from the key-room next to the Georgian parlour with its original cornicing and shutters.
I roared up the North Circular, scattering scrawny chickens and spotty male teenage drivers in souped-up Escorts in my wake, heading for the Church of John Lewis, where the middle classes congregate and worship.
There, I traded a small rectangle of stiff plastic for a shiny new scanner in a huge box (so it looked as though I had bought something much, much bigger!!!), and roared back home to plug it in.
The servants were on their annual holiday in Broadstairs, but after reading the complex instructions I soon heard the exciting sound of technology grunting, and Saw the Light of bright function.
Alas, after placing Roberto Cassani's illustration on the flatbed, the Computer Said No, and I was forced to call the 5-pence-a-minute Hewlett Packard unhelpfulline.
It took 5 minutes to get through , and a faraway voice from a faraway place took a minute to say each sentence, costing me 45 pence just to say 'hello'.
While I was delighted to hear that the faraway person had a name, it took 35 seconds for them to tell me (two and a half pence), and after they had left me on hold for another five minutes because they didn't understand Mac computers (25 pence) I realised I was being taken for a ride, and hung up.
It's a jolly good job I am a millionaire, and also that I have so much spare time to visit the Church of John Lewis, not only to buy the faulty equipment, but also to take it back!
Why, if I had two jobs and an Offsprog to take care of, life might seem a tad difficult.
Excuse me, the butler is running my bubble-bath before he polishes my gold bars; after that, I'm off to Harrods in the Roller to buy a bag of crisps.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Observings
It costs 30 pence to relieve yourself at Liverpool Street Station nowadays.
I intend to spend my entire week's pay one week and see how many (or how few) times I can 'go'.
At London Bridge Station, a croissant costs £1.49.
I asked the guy behind the till if they contained gold dust. He laughed, as though I was joking.
A poor French Horn in the second hand shop on Holloway Road had no mouthpiece.
All that potential to make a din, and no chance of doing it!
Brick Lane is full of greedy pin-striped bankers, soaking up the vibe and eyeing up the property.
Soon it will be bland, bland, bland, steamrollered under the weight of ill-gotten gains, a Costa on every corner, a Starbucks on every street, a Cafe Nero in every neighbourhood and Gilbert and George wincing down Fournier Street, trumped by the very guys they have been parodying for so many years.
Last week, I vowed never again to buy any second hand clothes.
My room smells like Oxfam, even though it is full of vintage treasure.
However, I have never before bought so may second hand clothes in such a short space of time!
This week, I shall make the opposite resolution.
I have just finished reading Just Kids, Patti Smith's book about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.
It is touching, honest and full of poetic moments, and one of the best descriptions of pure love that I've ever come across.
I intend to spend my entire week's pay one week and see how many (or how few) times I can 'go'.
At London Bridge Station, a croissant costs £1.49.
I asked the guy behind the till if they contained gold dust. He laughed, as though I was joking.
A poor French Horn in the second hand shop on Holloway Road had no mouthpiece.
All that potential to make a din, and no chance of doing it!
Brick Lane is full of greedy pin-striped bankers, soaking up the vibe and eyeing up the property.
Soon it will be bland, bland, bland, steamrollered under the weight of ill-gotten gains, a Costa on every corner, a Starbucks on every street, a Cafe Nero in every neighbourhood and Gilbert and George wincing down Fournier Street, trumped by the very guys they have been parodying for so many years.
Last week, I vowed never again to buy any second hand clothes.
My room smells like Oxfam, even though it is full of vintage treasure.
However, I have never before bought so may second hand clothes in such a short space of time!
This week, I shall make the opposite resolution.
I have just finished reading Just Kids, Patti Smith's book about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.
It is touching, honest and full of poetic moments, and one of the best descriptions of pure love that I've ever come across.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Acton Bell's Night
I ma playing a set at Acton Bell's Musical Variety Night at the Perseverance, 11, Shroton Street, Marylebone, tomorrow (25th)
Her nights are always veryspecial and I'm looking forward to it!
Her nights are always veryspecial and I'm looking forward to it!
Viv Albertine's EP
I am listening to Viv's EP, which has four tracks and two vids on it.
The first track, Never Come, was a surprise straight away because I expected her to sound like her live self, and this is a full production job.
These songs still have that capability to make me laugh out loud- Viv doesn't make jokes, but she has the ability to wrap up all those young feelings you never lose, all the simplicity of being hurt, and hoping, and getting annoyed, and wishing...
Oddly, it's a relief to listen to this; it's all right to cast off all the pretendy layers that you cover yourself with in order to be an adult and a woman, and shout yourself back to childhood.
I get an excited feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes! I still want to climb trees and run along the tops of high walls as fast as I can, and I still want to boil up rhubarb soup in McDad's old oil pan in the smoke of a home-made bonfire! I want dirt under my fingernails and dust in my hair! I want to wear my brothers cast-off Levis and a pair of sandals with the toes cut out of them to accommodate my child feet that are growing alarmingly fast like courgettes in the night-time vegetable patch!
Viv doesn't care about what people think she should think. She thinks just what she wants to think, in an angry way because life has hurt her, but she builds a beautiful and poetic nest of scratchy guitar and chanting choruses to protect herself, and in the process sounds as fresh as the morning sea and as strong as a stormy wind.
I love the way she almost slips into speech while she is singing, reminding us that she is a real person and always has been, and not a Britney or a Kate Bush. You can tell what she brought to The Slits, and this is intriguing.
Being a guitarist, of course, I wanted to tear away the other instruments and hear just her and her guitar. I have said this before- she's a brilliant guitarist with a unique style and she ties in the way she sings with the way she plays in that spontaneous way the old blues guys used to.
You Go Girl Viv!!!!
The first track, Never Come, was a surprise straight away because I expected her to sound like her live self, and this is a full production job.
These songs still have that capability to make me laugh out loud- Viv doesn't make jokes, but she has the ability to wrap up all those young feelings you never lose, all the simplicity of being hurt, and hoping, and getting annoyed, and wishing...
Oddly, it's a relief to listen to this; it's all right to cast off all the pretendy layers that you cover yourself with in order to be an adult and a woman, and shout yourself back to childhood.
I get an excited feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes! I still want to climb trees and run along the tops of high walls as fast as I can, and I still want to boil up rhubarb soup in McDad's old oil pan in the smoke of a home-made bonfire! I want dirt under my fingernails and dust in my hair! I want to wear my brothers cast-off Levis and a pair of sandals with the toes cut out of them to accommodate my child feet that are growing alarmingly fast like courgettes in the night-time vegetable patch!
Viv doesn't care about what people think she should think. She thinks just what she wants to think, in an angry way because life has hurt her, but she builds a beautiful and poetic nest of scratchy guitar and chanting choruses to protect herself, and in the process sounds as fresh as the morning sea and as strong as a stormy wind.
I love the way she almost slips into speech while she is singing, reminding us that she is a real person and always has been, and not a Britney or a Kate Bush. You can tell what she brought to The Slits, and this is intriguing.
Being a guitarist, of course, I wanted to tear away the other instruments and hear just her and her guitar. I have said this before- she's a brilliant guitarist with a unique style and she ties in the way she sings with the way she plays in that spontaneous way the old blues guys used to.
You Go Girl Viv!!!!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Photo-Love
My friend Lucy told me she'd been picked off the street to pose in one of those teenage photo-love stories.
I was a bit jealous, until she told me they had to actually say the words in the speech-bubble while they were being photographed.
I was a bit jealous, until she told me they had to actually say the words in the speech-bubble while they were being photographed.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Lazius Interruptus
Yes, well, on Saturday night I'd thought I would be sitting watching Wallander, that slow and beige detective show with the slow and beige Kenneth Branagh squeezing onion-tears from beneath his sandy brow.
Offsprog 2 had other plans. With Offsprog 1, she had gone to The Garage at Highbury Corner to see her father play in a reunited-for-the-night King Kurt.
All had become too much, and I got a call to go and collect her, so in my striped pyjamas and a pair of hiking boots and I southwards, through the plethora of large, posh and drunken cars reversing out of one way streets in Whetstone, the small, drunken and beat-up cars doing U'ies in Finchley, the police and ambulance sirens of the Holloway Road and finally, the shouting and drunken young people outside The Garage.
I did get my rest yesterday (resterday?) with Martin, and I'm back at my computer today, wondering at the quantity of Myspace plays I've been getting- 164 today! Has the opposite happened: are they overcalculating? I have never had this many before! It's terribly exciting.
And I have just heard that the book is going to come out in paperback at last. I do so want to find the Au Pairs and Delta 5 and will be applying myself to finding them this week, and contacting Poly to ask her about songwriting in X-Ray Spex.
I have also been asked to contact the Chefs about doing some songs in October. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...
Offsprog 2 had other plans. With Offsprog 1, she had gone to The Garage at Highbury Corner to see her father play in a reunited-for-the-night King Kurt.
All had become too much, and I got a call to go and collect her, so in my striped pyjamas and a pair of hiking boots and I southwards, through the plethora of large, posh and drunken cars reversing out of one way streets in Whetstone, the small, drunken and beat-up cars doing U'ies in Finchley, the police and ambulance sirens of the Holloway Road and finally, the shouting and drunken young people outside The Garage.
I did get my rest yesterday (resterday?) with Martin, and I'm back at my computer today, wondering at the quantity of Myspace plays I've been getting- 164 today! Has the opposite happened: are they overcalculating? I have never had this many before! It's terribly exciting.
And I have just heard that the book is going to come out in paperback at last. I do so want to find the Au Pairs and Delta 5 and will be applying myself to finding them this week, and contacting Poly to ask her about songwriting in X-Ray Spex.
I have also been asked to contact the Chefs about doing some songs in October. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Oldies, and why I am so tired tonight
I have put a whole load of oldies on my Myspace.
www.myspace.com/helenmccookerybook
The night at Cafe Oto was fabulous- a mixture of environmental films and photographs and three helpings of The Gluts: the place was packed. Some of the speakers were a little heavy on the shouting-agitprop-man stuff, but there was a lovely little film about the police raid on the bicycle activists at the Copenhagen conference.
Hayley's other band, the Dollies, were cheerleading out front with pom-poms made of frilly lettuce, and The Gluts themselves were hilarious. It's the ad libs... I loved the cruel chef joke (he beats the fish and batters the eggs) and the good humour that radiates from the stage. All sorts of people had turned up: Akiko was there with her Bunnies, Val was there with her pen and notebook, Judith was there at a table across the way; there were people making instant fanzines and films, and James from Temperatures was working there, and I haven't seen him for ages.
I was desperately reciting the words in my head the whole way through and half dreading, half excited about my bit, talking away to people with the words tumbling through my brain at the same time.
It went fine though- it was wobbly and yes, I forgot the words of the last verse, but I really enjoyed it.
I am pretty sure I got quite a lot of the chords wrong but not enough to stop a chap in a white beard and a black hat coming up and asking if he could have the words of the song so he could play it (later Gina told me he was from the Swell Maps). I accidentally banged the uke on its mike a couple of times and grinned like a maniac: but isn't that what Friday night is all about?
Thank you Gluts for the invitation to play with you, I was greatly honoured to be an honorary Glut for the night!
www.myspace.com/helenmccookerybook
The night at Cafe Oto was fabulous- a mixture of environmental films and photographs and three helpings of The Gluts: the place was packed. Some of the speakers were a little heavy on the shouting-agitprop-man stuff, but there was a lovely little film about the police raid on the bicycle activists at the Copenhagen conference.
Hayley's other band, the Dollies, were cheerleading out front with pom-poms made of frilly lettuce, and The Gluts themselves were hilarious. It's the ad libs... I loved the cruel chef joke (he beats the fish and batters the eggs) and the good humour that radiates from the stage. All sorts of people had turned up: Akiko was there with her Bunnies, Val was there with her pen and notebook, Judith was there at a table across the way; there were people making instant fanzines and films, and James from Temperatures was working there, and I haven't seen him for ages.
I was desperately reciting the words in my head the whole way through and half dreading, half excited about my bit, talking away to people with the words tumbling through my brain at the same time.
It went fine though- it was wobbly and yes, I forgot the words of the last verse, but I really enjoyed it.
I am pretty sure I got quite a lot of the chords wrong but not enough to stop a chap in a white beard and a black hat coming up and asking if he could have the words of the song so he could play it (later Gina told me he was from the Swell Maps). I accidentally banged the uke on its mike a couple of times and grinned like a maniac: but isn't that what Friday night is all about?
Thank you Gluts for the invitation to play with you, I was greatly honoured to be an honorary Glut for the night!
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