The Anachronistic Milk Bottle

McSis would sit there in stitches: every time she watched a film, she saw the telegraph wires in the drama set in the stone age, the Edwardian double yellow lines or the microphone bobbing up and down in scene after scene, top left hand corner. She would chortle through the most serious films at the parallel text of silly mistakes.
Yesterday I went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which is a really enjoyable film (casting done from a Pantone chart: grey complexions). But in one scene a tea tray is brought in , and the milk bottle is definitely the contemporary shape rather then the correct vintage, and it worried me for the rest of the film.
Funnily enough, the best actor is actually Benedict Cumberbatch, closely followed by D'Arcy (oops!) who acts with his dimples. Gary Oldman seemed to be playing Alec Guinness, rather than George Smiley.
But maybe that's just me being fussy.
I roadied Martin to Wales and back on Saturday/Sunday, where he played at a wedding in a teepee; it was very jolly and even the older chaps who didn't know his music ended up dancing and hollerin'. On the way over I texted a colleague and the iPhone, which I must say has turned into a complete bully, autocorrected the word 'roadying' to 'toadying'.
iPhone, I have a bucket of water beside me, and if you don't start being-have immediately, you are in for a good ducking!

Tonight Nat the Hammer presents another of his nights at the Boogaloo in Highgate, featuring Sergeant Buzfuz amongst others. The featured artist is David Bowie, and I am off to learn The Laughing Gnome as we speak.

Gobbled Up Email

To the person who sent me a very nice email about 24 Hours- could you re-send it? My cunning iPhone deleted it as I read it!

Photocopying and J-Pop

Thursday and Friday mornings are up-at-six mornings. I got to work early to do some photocopying, and stumped down two flights of stairs to Security because they hadn't opened the door of the photocopying room.

I had given up on the machine in the post-room, which was churning out blank paper.

By the time I got to the third photocopier that was churning out blank paper, I realised that I had the originals the wrong way up.

DUHHHHHHHH!

What a prat I am. Three quarters of an hour wasted by my own stupidity.

Later, I watched the student's faces as they watched a J-pop video. 

How I wish I had filmed them!

Watch it, and see if you can catch sight of your face in the mirror.

Georgian Light

I met Caroline Coon this morning at Holborn, for our trip to the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Every month or so, we meet for a catch up and a museum or art gallery visit. Caroline is a really good chooser, and this venue was no exception.
On the pavement, a polite and cheerful attendant gently persuades you to put your bag into a plastic carrier bag (in our cases, almost like reverse childbirth); you hang your coat on a hook by the door, and enter an enthralling world almost entirely lit from above through cupolas and skylights and craftily-positioned mirrors and windows that send shafts of light down on to exhibitions of ancient remains (I particularly liked the small wall of paws), or a suffused autumnal glow through vistas of carpeted rooms with inlaid chairs (every chair has a daintily-placed by menacing teasel placed upon it as a subtle hint that they are not to be sat upon).
There was so much to see, and more than we ever imagined, as we turned around just before leaving due to  Carolin'e inspired enquiry about the drawings for the design of the Bank of England and re-entered a tiny, square room that displayed amongst other things a recently-restored painting by Canaletto.
The gallant and knowledgeable attendant undid some brass fittings, unfolded the whole wall to gasps of disbelief, and there was a whole other layer of paintings and drawings: the Bank of  England, and a drawing showing all the buildings Soane designed in a collection, and a drawing showing all the ones that never got built....
The attendant told us stories galore before undoing yet another wooden layer and showing us the Monk's Parlour from above, stained glass and all.
More was in store: we shuffled across the room, for at the other side the secret shutter his the entire sequence of Hogarth's paintings of The Rake's Progress. By this time losing his voice and ready for his one o'clock soup, we were talked through the sequence of events: and there was Handel at a spinet, painted from behind as he had told Hogarth never to put him in one of his paintings. And there was the Rake's gardener (according to Hogarth's great great grand-daughter, who had visited the museum).
It is a completely magical experience to visit this museum. Every single attendant was ready and enthusiastic to tell us anything we wanted to know (for instance, Soane was an abolitionist, but this was almost the lesser of two evils as the alternative back then was to be an imperialist, whose adherents wanted to plunder and rule Africa anyway). Soane's enthusiasm for architectural design was more than matched by the museum staff, and this rubbed off on the visitors. Every time we wondered something aloud, someone with a guide book would answer our question; and as I was translating a French notice under one of the pictures, others were listening in politely.
Sweetest of all, a mausoleum in the yard addressed 'Alas, Poor Fanny', is in fact dedicated to Soane's wife's pet Manchester Terrier who outlived her to capture her master's heart.
So much to see: three layers of shutters on the front windows, Georgian underfloor heating, curios, oil paintings, space; I can't describe it all. It would be a perfect rainy day destination to change the mood and revive a sense of wonder.
Ten out of ten- for staff, respectful preservation and sheer magic!

Rats, Always There

As I returned home after saying goodbye to McMum and McSis, off the the US to see the Fall Colours in New England (they almost had to cancel because of illness), I watched a large animal galloping down the pavement in front of my house. In horror, I realise that it was a rat: fat, swaggering, confident.
Where was the urban fox I heard sobbing in the back gardens a few weeks ago?
Come on mate, get to work!

News About The Chefs CD

The Chefs CD will be released in March 2012 on the label Damaged Goods.
The CD will have the John Peel and Richard Skinner Chefs sessions as well as the Peel session we did under the name Skat, as well as the tracks we recorded for Brighton's Attrix Records. The sleeve notes are by Everett True, cover design Emerald Moseley, tracks remastered by Colm O'Rourke.

www.damagedgoods.co.uk
More news as it appears.
Photo by Claire Barratt, 1979

Wallanders

What a lot of 'Wallanders' there are. Ystad must be overflowing with them.
I don't mind at all (apart from when this week's one burst into rock-song at the end of the show: scary!).

Student debt (the American type)

http://www.reclamationsjournal.org/current.html

Banners

Almost a year ago, Gina (Birch, from the Raincoats) made a series of feminist banners for a re-staged feminist march; the idea has been bubbling along and this morning we met at The Serpentine (some of us in seventies gear) to appear in a film she is making. It was cold and grey; rain was in the air. Richard Branson's helicopter passed above us, low in the sky, first one way and then the other. Tourists photographed us, or asked to join in. Her friend's daughter filmed part of it, Gina filmed part of it and Hayley Newman filmed part of it. We all chatted, chanted, interfered, shouted, ran, marched and synchronised. It was a great way to spend an autumnal Saturday morning and I think the film should be a lot of fun! (think it's for one of The Raincoats new songs, but I'm not sure).

Art Website Refreshed

I have posted some new stuff on my art website and will continue to do so over the coming weeks. Take a look at www.helenmccookerybookart.com

In Which Tired Blogger Avoids Nigel Slater

Although strictly speaking I am too tired to write a blog posting this evening, I am exercising myself in 'avoiding Nigel Slater'. I am too tired to change the channels, or rather to experience the other unpalatable offerings that are broadcast at this time on a Friday evening.
A while ago there was a dramatisation of his semi-autobiographical novel on TV. The boy Nige came across as an awful snob who was ashamed that his natural mother couldn't cook (hence the book's name 'Toast') and even more ashamed of his stepmother. I haven't been able to read any of his recipes since, without imagining scenes from the dramatisation and cringing.
Before I got wise to my own problem, I used to cook huge vats of soup made from leftover vegetables and leave them on the side in the kitchen. I would take the lid off the pot before heating it up, sniff it, and think 'compost heap', and then of course, throw it away.
Quite a lot of Slater's recipes inspire me to the same reaction. I watch with a sinking heart as he adds just one ingredient too many to the mix, and then with a lot of 'hmmm'-ing, tucks into a different coloured compost heap each week.

Talking

After an early start and three hours of study skills teaching (great students!) and a research supervision course, I await the Course Party at the University of the East (which I  just mis-typed as eats, because I am hungry).
Some of the afternoon has been spent talking about every subject under the sun with my office-pal. Controversy, Josephine Baker, The X Factor, we cover it all in between talking to students about emergencies, and teaching.
I have brought the Green Goddess, as I'm supposed to be playing some songs at the course party.
Shortly, I shall commence some pool lecturer teaching at the University of the Middle, which I think is rather splendid: East, Middle and West. Perfect!

Amazon

The list of books and CDs that I wanted to order from Amazon got to over two hundred pounds and I still had another list of CDs to add. Would I read it all and listen to it all? No, I would not.
I had a boss a while who who used to get me to read all his books for him and report back. I got free books, and he didn't have to bother to read them. Something like a cross between one of those poor people forced to taste the Emperor's food in case it was poisoned, and a 'walker' who accompanies a married woman about town in a chaste manner when her husband is out of town. I think.
So the list has been pared down and is now merely a fantasy list.
The less I read, the more I write and draw, and the less I listen to, the more songs I write; expect production!

The Likes of Us

I have just finished reading Michael Collins' The Likes of Us: a Biography of the White Working Class.
I lived in Southwark for 13 years, as a Housing Association tenant (a middle class one, which I gather from the subtext in Collins' book he rather dislikes).
The early pages were fascinating. The most poignant part of this was reading that all of those young men who died in the First World War were not even eligible to vote. Following the rights of women throughout history, I had neglected to realise the lack of rights of poor people and the working class.
Collins appears to be very angry with most of the historians that documented early London working-class life, with the possible exception of G.K. Chesterton. As one reads through the book, this provides a tension with his own subjectivity. The book is described as a 'history/memoir' and this is accurate. Unfortunately  there are passages that assume that the reader is male: for instance, his description of Vic Brown in Barstow's A Kind of Loving: 'ultimately trapped by his circumstances when his girlfriend falls pregnant' (148).
So how did his girlfriend get pregnant then?
Stork bring a baby?
The descriptions of the drama of light and shade and poverty are evocative, and in some of the later parts I began to wonder if our paths have crossed.
I read the book because I felt that it was an important subject and a very interesting one. By the end, I felt a little cheated. For instance, the reports of the lack of white on black violence in the 1960s and 1970s could be because black people under-reported what was happening to a police force that they perceived as being racist. I don't know this for sure, but I worked with a young black guy for a while who described being beaten up by white kids every single morning on the way to school, which is why he eventually started carrying a weapon.
Its good that the book exists, especially the sections where he compares the way different writers, from social theorists through journalists to playwrights and novelists, responded in writing to the way the working class live and lived in Southwark. But I started off wanting to recommend it to my kids to read (who were brought up until they were six and three respectively on Camberwell New Road until the murders got out of hand), and ended up thinking they would become infuriated by the later chapters. Being of the next generation, I think they might actually find some of the assumptions in the book racist.  There is a list of possible ways a white working-class person might know a non-white person, as 'lovers, muggers, husbands, killers, wives, victims, neighbours, rapists, friends, foes, attackers, carers' (223). Even my ex-mother in law, born and raised in Southwark and later moved to Welling, had praise for her black doctor. Why not mention the professions in this list? Teachers, lawyers and medical professionals are very important people in the community.
What a can of worms you can open; I am well aware of the shortcomings of the autobiographical parts of The Lost Women of Rock Music. You could say that as a member of the middle class, I am resentful of the strong identity of the upper and working classes in the UK. Us do-gooding snobs have no fixed identity, observing those 'above and below' with fear and awe and a patronising gaze (we are often told).
Overall, a book like this is a good contribution to history and would be a good addition to a personal library; however, I feel that it needs a reply, another person or people in the room to make the later chapters not only more gracious but also more detailed.
By introducing us to one elephant in the room, the author blocks out a whole series of elephantlets, which is probably an inevitable result of pioneering writing.
Ironic, given its location centred on the Elephant and Castle.

Pink

Between two sets of railway tracks at Durham station, a faded pink stetson is nestling amongst the weeds and beginning to return to nature, the last remaining evidence of a long-gone hen party.