Postcards from another time

I bought some postcards recently from a charity shop on Marylebone High Street. They are dated from 1966 to 1977 and three of the four are to different addresses in Worthing. I wonder how they found their way to central London in the 21^st century?

The oldest postcard shows the orange Space Needle in Seattle, where Mary Collier went to visit family (Post date: Sep 17 1966). She tells Mrs M Pitt of Harrow that “Nicholas is a very attractive little boy and Susan chatters non-stop.”

Mr Adamson writes to (his?) Dr Grieg from San Francisco, (Post date: Oct - 1977, day no longer eligible) “very interesting but very tiring. One is constantly bombarded with noise and flashing lights, freeways and highways,” and goes on to say, “I could be, very shortly, a near candidate for a Psychiatrist.” It does sound very different from Worthing, 1977, Mr Adamson. It also sounds as if you’re using the postcard, traditionally used to send written holiday snapshots, to get a referral to a Psychiatrist.

Amy, writing to Miss L Lewis of 16 Shelley Road, Worthing, about her trip to Southsea (Post date: Aug 24 1972) does not sound at all happy with her holiday. Apart from "proper weather" she claims they, “don’t care for what we saw."  O dear. “Didn’t see anything of the town centre but the –(word unreadable, although I wanted to read it as "other tourists") are very scruffy.” Although surely a plus, “saw Chichester Cathedral as we approached the train.”

The final postcard shows a girl on her own looking across a lake. It gives a hint of loneliness, but the card (post date: July 10 1969) from Weymouth is the most positive. “Had a lovely holiday and enjoy Weymouth… have enjoyed a paddle in the sea yesterday, it was good.” It is signed “kind wishes from us both” and leaves off with “no shopping needed”.

So if you’re thinking of going on holiday in the past, between 1966 – 1978, it sounds like Weymouth, July 1969 is your best bet. And go with company. I never know what to write when I send postcards so next time I go on holiday I may steal lines from these old postcards. 

Postcard from Ramsgate

Friday night, we take the fast train from St Pancras and an hour and a half later we’re on the promenade amongst the faded seaside glamour of Ramsgate. Georgian houses facing the sea, a grand Victorian lift that may or may not take you to the beach, a chip shop that urges you to use the bins provided. Not bins provided by the chip shop but the ones on the opposite side of the road, supplied by the council.

We’re here to see Jeffrey Lewis at Ramsgate Music Hall, a fabulous little venue that at full capacity holds 120 people. Upstairs is a cosy bar with a glass display of old tape recorders, and big sofas from which you can also view the gig on a screen if you so wish. We watch downstairs; Jeffrey Lewis is stunning this evening, the sound amazing and the cider upstairs a treat.

Despite the rundown feel of the place - the fight that happens in broad daylight up a side street in town, and the problem that we don’t have any of the tattoos required to fit in with the general ambience, everyone we speak to is friendly to us. We must be radiating that holiday vibe. The guy who runs the venue is surprised at how far we’ve come and chats to us about the venue and the bands. I persuade him to try and book the Vaselines. The next day, at the Ice Cream parlour, the guy serving us decides we should get flakes for free because “we deserve it”, having deservedly ordered ice cream and tried for free the fabulous blood orange sorbet.

Later we’re wandering past a junk shop under the arches by the harbour when we spy a blue folding bike outside, with a £45 price tag. We offer to buy it immediately but the guy doesn’t take cards. He tells me where the cashpoint is and tells me to travel there on the bicycle I’m yet to buy. We’re not in London anymore.

On the train we take up four seats, two for us and two for the new bike. The ticket inspector turns up and has no issue with our use of seats. Infact, I think he positively likes it. Later we see him at St Pancras station getting some tea before he heads back, and he waves and says hello. Then he invites us to the Broadstairs Charles Dickens festival in August.

See you soon Ramsgate.  

Water flowing underground

I’ve found a perfect spot in the house to relax; a duvet has been thrown in one corner of the spare room, below the window, and it’s here I sat the other afternoon, with the sun coming through the window warming my head. I dug out a batch of old letters, the bulk of which were sent between 1992 and 1995; the golden age of letter writing. O letter writing. a forgotten but perfect art. These days letters come in the form of officially typed addresses, with reference numbers, in plastic windowed envelopes. The thud on the mat is never met with anticipation, just a resigned feeling of which wolf has come through the door this time?

I’ve hardly looked at these old letters for at least ten years and I’d forgotten I’d been sent some of them. There they were, individual handwriting, different personalities who immediately became familiar after a couple of sentences. All these brilliant people I used to know. I was taken back to a world of cheap musty rooms I could almost smell again. The world of exchanging mix tapes, charity shop clothes, nights sitting around three bar fires drinking Bulgarian red wine,  drinking into the next day because it didn’t really matter if you got up or not, days wandering, talk of festivals, dreams and schemes shouted enthusiastically into the night. This forgotten world. Where did everybody go? Where did the boy they wrote to go?

An anecdote from 1992. One bored evening Barney reveals he has bought a bag of dresses from a jumble sale for 50 pence, protesting he only bought them because they were so cheap. Next someone has the bright idea of us wearing the dresses and knocking on people’s doors in the house with a camera to capture their reactions. The reactions fall into two camps.  One side say, with a resigned tone: “Oh it’s you lot.” The other side say: “Have you got any more dresses, Barney?” Before long there are eight of us taking to the streets, strumming guitars and chanting our way around. Not the best move on the streets of Toxteth. We get to the end of Lodge Lane before changing our mind and retreating home. We sit around the landing, before Marcus comes back home from his shift at the pub. He takes one look at us and says, “ you lot must be really bored,” before disappearing quickly into his room.

I’ll leave you with a few words, written to me in January 1995 from my friend Miss Nutt (I’m sure she won’t mind): “I know I said I’d write over a week ago but my brain has been in a pickle jar since then and that Brucey boy went an’ lost the lid”. 

Yes folks this was the 90s.

Postcard from a Montmartre Bus Stop

Hello. Here I am in 2013 leaning against a bus stop post in Montmartre, outside a grand building with green shutters, just up the road from the Sacre Coeur. We went to the Sacre Coeur on the day we arrived, sheltering from the rain. The nuns were singing and we lit a candle for Sonny. Up the road the other way, although we don't know this yet as we're still at the bus stop, is a beautiful street with food shops all huddled together; the butchers, the greengrocers, the cheese shop with the man outside promoting truffle cheese.

Tracy says she'll take a photo so I lean against the bus stop and decide to write something down but I don't know what. As I stand here, the bus arrives full of passengers and I think, I hope he isn't stopping for me, what with me just being here for a picture, which can't be taken right now because there's a bus in the way and should I get on and go one stop to just be polite? At this time I haven't written anything apart from 'ah, Paris' and 'O Montmartre', so it isn't going that well, but the bus stops, the doors open and a woman and her little girl, dressed in a brown cord coat, step off onto the cobbled street and as they do so the girl waves at the bus driver. And right at this moment everything feels right with the world. Then she and her Mum make their way down the hill, across the crossing and out of sight. And the bus glides around the corner and the street is quiet again.

And so that's what I write down.

The postman always knocks at ten past seven

Buying music is becoming harder to do, the music shops are disappearing. It's about a two hour round trip to my favourite record shop and it may also be my nearest. I like downloads but not as the only option. If I download something I feel I missed out on an integral part of the process. It's like where is it, why can't I touch it? Increasingly I find myself ordering records and I do like the fact you usually get a download version or a CD version with it as well. The last one I ordered was the BMX Bandits in Space LP. Take a listen. 

The thing is when the postman delivers LPs he turns up at 7.10 am, always the exact same time. I had to put a sign on the door for him to knock loudly because he was a bit timid. Not any more. He nearly knocked the door down this time. It seems to only be records he delivers at ten past seven though. One evening I came home from work to find a huge box outside our house taking up most of the pavement. It was a plant we'd received as a gift. The postman had put a card through our door at mid-day to tell us he'd left the parcel in the porch. We don't have a porch. 

I forgot the joy of vinyl for a long time. Too many cheap record players, too many records played late on drunken nights with people knocking into the stereo. I took records back all the time. On its release I bought Pulp's 'His & Hers' on record but it jumped. I took it back to Penny Lane Music in Liverpool where I'd bought it, and told the guy. He asked which track and then put that track on his record player. It played perfectly. I sheepishly asked to change it for the tape. 

When I was fifteen I loved going to record shops in Brighton and thankfully a lot of those same record shops are still running. In some of them you still get served by the same person. In Portsmouth they have a pie and vinyl shop which sounds amazing. And they have Hovercrafts. Must get there soon. 

The clocks go back

Hello, I thought I should get back in touch, it's been a long while. I'm enjoying the extra hour we get from the clocks going back at this time of year. You can't beat lying in bed till half past nine, then putting the clock back to find you're getting up at a nice respectable time for a Sunday. The church bells on the hill were ringing when I got up, it's impossible to get up before them. If you succeed you may as well become a bell ringer. 

I decided I wanted a doing kind of day and went for a run this morning. I bought this new PE kit in July and frankly it's not been out the drawer much since. It was cold out and I thought I'd be the only one out. On the meadow the dog walkers were out and about as usual. I run past a guy putting a bag of footballs in his car boot. Continuing to the park, it's pretty busy with dog walkers here too.

It's been a weekend of good food, I made rye bread Friday night with carrot and coriander soup and then waited for Tracy to come through the door after a works party. I could have gone out too but these cold nights are making me want to head for home. Today we make bruschetta and victoria sponge. I've also found the juicer my Mum bought me one Christmas and have been serving up fruit and veg smoothies. At first I tried to make one in the food blender, feeding through carrot and rhubarb. It didn't produce one drop of juice though, just very finely chopped veg. 

Work is looming, we need more time off work, maybe I could put the clocks back another hour, or a day. 

Japan

Japan is a beautiful and friendly country, a truly amazing experience that is very difficult to put into words.

12,6 and a half

“Let’s go, fast leg.”

This is what’s being shouted at me and my fellow bikers in a darkened room. I’m spin biking, which, for the uninitiated, is like being in a nightclub on an exercise cycle. They turn the lights off and pump out dance music while shouting instructions. It’s a lot of standing and pedalling, ‘hovering’ which is crouching forward, turning up the gradient so peddling becomes heavier, then more ‘fast leg’ peddling.

It’s a nice gym tucked away on a mews street in Marylebone. I’ve not joined, we’ve got vouchers, which means as a non-member you can’t book the spin class. It’s usually fully booked so each time I have to wait outside the class until the right time and am a substitute for some lazy person who’s not turned up. I step into the pitch black room and hope the instructor will turn the lights on so I can find my way to a spare bike.

Yesterday evening a girl came into the class with a musical instrument in its case and put it behind her bike. I liked that. If I had an instrument on me I’d use it as an excuse to not turn up or put it in my locker and spend the whole class wondering if it’s been stolen. I liked the way it suggested she’d accomplished two activities that day. Me, I only managed the spin.

After the Saturday class I feel nicely warmed up under the ice cold blue sky as I walk the streets of Marylebone with their desolate Saturday afternoon feel, while the mass rush of Oxford street is only a few streets away. I go for a coffee, sometimes at the Nordic bakery, sometimes closer to home.

Either way it feels like the most deserved coffee possible.

At the Hop

I saw a photo the other day of the junior school play I was in back in 1980, but I can’t remember a thing about that play. Ah Chesworth, with your yellow doors and classrooms divided by curtains. Here’s something I do remember:

Chesworth 1977 or 1978 and me and David Wood, who’s my best friend at school, hatch this plan where we must spend the day hopping on one foot and the leg that we're not hopping on isn’t allowed to touch the floor. A harmless enough plan, perhaps even a brilliant one. By first break this plan is gaining momentum. As we hop to the first break other kids in the class are joining in. There must be about 10 of us hopping by the time we head back to the class. By lunchtime it’s become a craze. As we bob up and down en-masse towards the hallway to collect our coats, a teacher comes charging over, demanding us to stop. Her adult mind, perhaps tainted by disappointment, hints of tragedy, with a little bitterness and paranoia thrown in, is not clear enough to see that this is pure fun. Cleverly I have decided to put one foot on top of the other so I’m not, technically speaking, touching the floor with both feet. The teacher demands to know what this is about. Is she thick? It's the challenge of not letting both feet touch the floor. It's about hopping. We’re shouted at some more and told we’re all in lunchtime detention immediately. I use both feet to walk to the detention.

The following day Tim Ottley arranges a lunchtime football match especially for the hoppers. Non-hoppers are not allowed to play. He’s quite ruthless about this rule, grabbing the ball off one kid and sending him off the pitch. Yesterday we were punished, today we're being rewarded. Good times.

I don't know if I've explained it too well but I still laugh when I think about these kind of memories. It's a comfort. Life just isn't that funny anymore, at least right now. I'm just glad we're out of 2011.

The crabs at San Wo's

Friday 5 0'clock and after a Thursday night out, I'm looking forward to going home, or at least I've convinced myself I am.

Thursday night I was on Jermyn Street, with its independent suit, shoes and cheese shops. I especially liked the cheese shop. It's probably even better when it's open. We were in a hotel at an after meal for a conference Tracy organised. The toilets in the hotel had TV screens above the urinals so you didn't miss any of Sky news. TVs turn up in the weirdest of places these days. At a recent meeting in Canary Wharf the building we were in had TVs in the lift. Also playing Sky news.

I'm going off the point a bit here, not that there is one. Anyway, Friday I leave for home for the weekend but it doesn't quite feel right. Leaving work on Friday should be one of the best feelings of the week but this Friday it's not quite that. People are still working as I leave. I get home and pretty soon I'm feeling restless. It's my own fault. I was invited to a cocktail bar and an indie night but declined both. I want to wake up sober. You don't get that privilege after a night at a cocktail bar. Anyway the restless feeling won't go away; I try pizza, a selection of friday night songs, I feed the fish, none of it works.

Then I hit upon the solution. I put on the Madness DVD, which has the music videos for all their singles. Madness videos if you haven't seen them, or have forgotten them, are pure joy. The nutty dancing, the toy saxophone, band members flying through the air, the two tone clothes. Do you remember Woody Allen's list of things that make life worth living, in Manhattan? If I ever compiled that list for myself the Madness videos would have to go on. The odd thing is the DVD is not currently available in the shops. They need to bring it back. If anyone asks the cure for friday night blues, it's Madness.

Mystery Train

Every morning, it seems, on reaching the platform the tube train is waiting, yet threatening to shut its doors in your face and leave at any second. The trick is to never board this train. If you do, in a panic you jump into the first carriage and the doors stay open for minutes allowing dozens of other panic stricken passengers to board the same nearest carriage until it's rammed, and your journey is spent with your face picking up ink from someone elses Metro.

I tend to take the slow train, which is usually ignored by passengers waiting for the fast train, so you tend to get a seat. Usually it only takes five minutes more to reach Finchley road. The tube is a place to be invisible, nobody looks at each other, although I break this rule often, taking in strange sights; such as the man playing a game on his phone while contorting his face into the strangest mannerisms as he does so. I only see him once. There are no regulars on the tube.

I say usually it only takes five minutes extra for the slow tube to reach Finchley road. The other day the tube was delayed as it reached the first stop. The driver explained there were problems on the line earlier so the trains were backed up. The passengers are silently united. We're all going to be late. We all hate the London transport system, what is it with them? Here we are heading to somewhere we didn't want to go and now we're not even going to get to the place we don't want to go to on time. Somebody tuts and then groans, emphasising how we all feel. Wait a minute, who the fuck does this person think they are? What makes them so important, that they are allowed to complain with the most irritating of noises - the tut? I'm not sure about the rest of the passengers, but I have shifted my hatred for the London transport network - they're fine, it's a difficult job - there's no problem being held here, the only problem with being held here, is that we're stuck in a carriage with this idiot tutter trying to make us feel uncomfortable. Let's banish the tutter from the train then we can head off.

In true organisational style (which maybe part of being British or maybe part of being human), we are advised to get off the train, head back to the station we've just come from, where, apparently, we can board a fast train. We dutifully board the train heading in the opposite direction, get comfortable and then are told the train we were on is now ready to leave. We all step off and head back to our previous train. This time the tutter is not in our carriage. Hopefully, detained by the transport police. (Something else happened on that train, nothing to do with the tutter, but I'll leave that for another day).

If you're leaving the train at Finchley road the trick is to be towards the front of the carriage because it's a platform people cross over to change trains, or just step off and wait for the next train, so when you try to leave the platform there's people walking across you rather than just towards you. This one day though, from towards the back of the carriage I step off and the platform seems empty. I walk up the platform, with nobody in my path, just this strange peaceful throughway and so I walk on through half expecting Jenny Agutter to come running up in Edwardian attire, calling out, "My Daddy".

Career Opportunities (Part 6)

One afternoon we are called over to Terminal One where a hundred or so would-be passengers who are supposed to be on a plane to LA, are stuck around a dining table in a huge sparse but thickly carpeted room, a floor to ceiling window facing the runway so they can watch other passengers take off towards their destination. Their flight has been delayed for 6 hours and so they’re being treated to a three course meal to try and dispel their ill feelings towards Gatwick Airport and its staff. Six of us have been sent from the Village Inn to pretend to be silver service waiters for the afternoon.

The men who run the kitchen are a camp bunch who swear a lot. We are given silver trays full of food and pushed out the kitchen doors towards the unhappy looking passengers. The trouble is, whereas everyone else has been given a professional silver tray, I’ve been given a tray made of tin foil, like the trays you get when you buy a quiche from the supermarket, only larger. So when I go out with a tray full of peas it flops about. There’s no way you can carry it in the professional one hand aloft manner without it sagging. A trail of peas mark my path from the kitchen to the dining table.

“Would you like peas?” I ask, as they tip off of the tray and run around the whiter than white table cloth.

“No,” shouts one woman, “I want a knife, why haven’t I got a knife?” She asks malevolently, as if I’ve somehow stolen it.

“I’ll get one when I go back to the kitchen.”

“My flight is 6 hours late and now you can’t even provide me with a knife.”

Oh I get it, the delayed flight is my fault too.

I dish out the remains of the peas and hurry back to the kitchen.

In the kitchen there aren’t any knives. There’s no time for discussing knives, there’s only time to fill my floppy tray with more peas and rush me through the kitchen doors again. I follow the previous trail of peas towards the table of angry passengers, holding on to the tray with both hands while the other staff, confident with their more sturdy trays, perfect the silver service pose.

“Do you want peas sir?” I ask as they drop from my toy platter.

“Do I have a choice?” he asks, his plate already full of them.

“Where’s my knife?”

If I don’t look at her maybe someone else will deal with this. I move to another part of the table, giving out extremely generous portions of peas.

“You with the blond hair, where’s my knife?”

I head back to the kitchen but there’s no refuge there.

“What are you using this for?” a white hatted chef asks angrily about my tray. “Call yourself a silver service waiter?”

“When did I call myself that?” is all I can blurt out as I realise the floppy tray is also being added to the list of things that are my fault.

They want me working in the kitchen, which saves me from Mrs No-knife. However they don’t tell me what to do so I begin by standing in a corner trying to look invisible but when this is interpreted as standing in the way I make out my shift has finished and go back to the Village Inn.

It’s quiet over here, the bar is closed, staff ‘look busy’ with serene tasks; polishing glasses, collecting trays and stray glasses. The washer-upper is out the back, whistling away, happy in the knowledge he doesn’t have to deal with customers or pests that frequent this airport like holiday makers and employers. I’m beginning to see why he likes his job.

I’m not liking mine though. As the days continue they keep me away from the bar. Infact they seem to be running out of jobs to keep me away from. I decide to make it easier for them. A few days later I hand in my notice. Nobody objects.

Career Opportunities (Part 5)

My friend James thinks we should apply for bar jobs at Gatwick Airport. He’s so keen to work there he thinks I should phone up to enquire while he shouts abuse at me to put me off. It’s summer 1988, Southern England, jobs are easy to come by and despite background abuse and laughing while I’m asking about the job, we’re asked to come for an interview. To get the job you have to show up for the interview and you’re in.

James is working in the departure lounge and I’m in the south terminal, at the Village Inn bar. At the supplies store they’re handing out the uniforms. It doesn’t get off to a good start.

“Got a young man here, needs a uniform,” shouts the woman at the counter to the woman hidden in the store room.

“Is he tall dark and handsome?”

“No, he’s the opposite.”

Well I’m not short, I am blond and if I’m the opposite of handsome I must be hideous. Thanks for rattling my already shaky confidence 50 year old supply woman.

The first day I’m working the bar. The pubs are open 11 – 3 and we get off to a quiet start; polishing glasses, wiping trays clean, serving the odd coffee, but come mid-day the place is packed, a sea of faces and fists clenching tenners eager to be served alcohol. Good under pressure? Oh dear. I get the orders wrong, I can’t find the exotic spirits they’re ordering, I spill drink on the bar, I input the wrong things in the till.

Not to worry, I need guidance, motivational talks, someone who leads by example, a kindly…

“This’ll be a laugh, seeing how many hundreds of pounds your till roll is out by,” snorts the bar manager.

He struts to the till, nonchalantly opens it and calculates my till roll.

“I don’t bloody believe it.”

My first day’s till roll is out by 1 pence.

The following day they’re not so keen for me to be behind the bar. I spend a lot of time taking glasses out to the washer-upper. He works fast loading up the huge industrial dishwashers, whistling and singing in the steam filled kitchen. He actually seems to enjoy his work.

They put me on the tills for the busy last hour. I repeat yesterday’s mistakes but I work the till right. The second bell is rung for last orders. A man sitting down leaps up from his chair and rushes to the bar.

“4 pints”.

“I’m sorry, last orders has been called.”

“I’ve been waiting half an hour.”

“You were sitting over there a minute ago.”

“Alright, 2 pints.”

“Sorry, we’re closed.”

“How dare you, I want to speak to the manager.”

“I’d prefer you spoke to him too.”

My shift is 8 till 4. There’s a train that gets me to the airport twenty minutes early, or one that gets in five minutes late. I opt for the latter. The first weekend is not part of my shift but the second weekend is. Don’t they understand I only live for the weekend? At the weekend I need to be on the other side of the bar. I decide to ring in sick, phoning the only number available which goes to some random answer machine in an empty office, leaving a message for someone to ignore on Monday. I also get Monday and Tuesday off as part of my shift to reward me for the weekend I’ve failed to work.

“Where were you yesterday?” asks the bar manager.

“I was off, it wasn’t my shift.”

“You were supposed to be in at the weekend.”

“I was ill. Did you not get my message?”

Myself and an impish looking lad are sent to see the boss in his office for a bollocking. We have to stand waiting while he talks to Mrs Bell, someone even further up the chain of command if her suit is anything to go by. Mrs Bell eventually leaves.

“That was Mrs Bell, we were a bit behind.” The boss says.

“She has a very nice behind,” the impish lad says, clearly having failed to pick up on any of society’s ways during his lifetime.

“I beg your pardon?”

I move slightly away from my fellow skiver, just in case the boss thinks we are in some way connected.

“I said she was a very nice woman,” the lad tries to correct himself, but fails due to the mischievous look on his face.

“How dare you speak about your employer like that. Mrs Bell eats young whippersnappers like you for breakfast. Do you understand”

“I do,”. Unfortunately his “I do” does not contain the amount of sincerity needed to get him off the hook and the boss lays into him a while longer. Long enough for him to forget why I’ve been called into the room and my two days bunk is left unpunished.

As he hands out the wages for the week, the bar manager is all set to have his revenge for my unallocated time off.

“I can’t wait to see how little you’ve made this week,” he scorns as he passes me my wage packet in its brown envelope. His face changes as he looks at my paycheck. “I don’t bloody believe it.”

Due to my non-work in the early part of the summer my tax has been readjusted and I’ve just been awarded an £80 tax rebate, putting my wages above everybody elses for the week. Serendipity rules this summer.

Like a float in the Macy Street Parade

It's Bank Holiday Monday. Bank holidays are brilliant, especially when you don't even leave the house all day. I've had a good day pottering about, generally making things up as I go along and refusing to stress about a thing. And still it's been more productive than a day at work. If I never went to work again it wouldn't bother me one jot. Well, as long as they kept paying me. I see no reason why that should stop. Infact they should give me a pay rise as I'm not using any of their office space anymore. I'll write to the CEO or whatever the head person's called these days and see if he'll agree to these reasonable requests.

It was Reading weekend. Did any of you go? I didn't, I watched Pulp on TV and for a minute I wanted to be there, I wanted to be in the crowd, lost in the music and the performance and the night air, drunk on summer cider. It's a great feeling that, the real world does feel very far away and boy is that a good feeling. You feel that you're having this great epiphany and the world will have changed by the time you return. But then the real world comes and smothers you, you're back at work and you have to be all sensible. You certainly aren't encouraged to rant on like this. But maybe to get these thoughts you have to be 19, but I'm not, I'm 41 so I watched it on TV.

We saw Pulp in Hyde Park a few months back. Should we feel guilty about such nostalgia? No way, it was fantastic, and it was in a weekend that we managed three great nostalgia gigs, Pulp, Dinosaur Jr performing 'Bug',and the Flaming Lips performing 'The Soft Bulletin'. The Flaming Lips, now there's a performance.

I may leave the house soon in my slippers and see if the car will start. Bu then again,Tracy connected her PC to the TV so we can watch i-player and on-demand, so maybe I'll do that instead. It's Bank Holiday, we can do what we like.

Waving at Trains

Hello, long time no speak. How are you? We went to Scotland recently, I was going to blog about it on my week off but it didn't happen like so many other plans I had for my week off, like riding bikes for miles, running through fields in slow motion and waving at trains. Unfortunately real life interfered to taint things a little, phone calls had to be made to customer service teams. Is there a more inept, uncaring bunch of excuse ridden morons than these people? People so callous they probably cheer for Apollo Creed to win during not only Rocky but Rocky 2 as well. I had to call and shout at them on a Friday as well so they were probably dressed up and admiring each others 70's fancy dress.

Two weeks on and Scotland is a haze of windy roads taking us through mountains, their peaks hidden by thick cloud, pine forests and beautiful lochs. Memories of a proud father of the bride (we took in a Scottish wedding), a sunny boat trip to Mull looking out at calm waters to moss covered castles, a gigantic plate filled with fish and chips in Oban and sighting Eugene from the Vaselines at Hillhead station (see picture above).

We returned to London to hear reports about it being burnt to the ground. There was some pretty scary stuff going on but some of the coverage was ridiculous. My favourite report was from Russian TV where they were claiming that London zoo had been attacked, the Lions and Tigers were released and were now roaming the streets of London. There were no such sightings when I went to central London to visit my friend Paul who was in London on a course. Paul hates the tube and does anything to avoid it. This time he was heading to the Southbank for his tea and returning to his hotel by boat. Brilliant.

It's now Sunday and I smell cooking apples on the hob. It's time for tea.

Our House

The view from the bedroom is fantastic, you can see over to the hills beyond and at night the view is filled with the lights from the houses in the town below. It's so vast; I'm used to seeing houses and gardens opposite. Because our house is built on a hill it takes some getting used to. For instance the the front room, accessed via the front door is also, at the back of the house, on the first floor. So after a while looking out the window into the first floor of the houses opposite you turn around to see people walking past the window by the front door, which makes you think they are floating or flying past.

We've been here almost three weeks now and it still feels new walking downstairs to the front room. We've almost got the place sorted now, found room for everything. It's been so busy these last few weeks, it'll be nice just to sit in the house and enjoy it. We haven't had much time to explore our surroundings. There's a cricket field down the hill, I could hear the sound of leather on willow and polite clapping the other Saturday evening. Apart from that we haven't got much further than the pub on the corner.

We've got a yard too which will be handy for summer nights, when the rain stops. Until then we can sit inside on the sofa watching the people float by.

The Booklovers

Part of the joy of moving is packing up all the stuff you’ve been dragging around for years but have never found any use for, knowing full well it’s just going to sit in a cupboard till the next time you move. The plan was to give away a stack of books to the bookshop two doors down the road.

The reality is I’m handing the shopkeeper one book. He doesn't get up from his chair. He’s staring at the image of a bird on the back cover. I don’t know what the bird is called and I’ve a sneaky suspicion he’s no ornithologist either. He calls the bird something like ‘whirly-whirl’, a pet name for sure.

“Ah interesting, a whirly-whirl.”

“Sorry?”

“The bird on the back. Whirly-whirl.”

“Right.”

“Does the Whirly-whirl feature in the book?”

“I don’t remember the bird. It’s a book about a travelling musician.”

“Ah, so he travels with the Whirly-whirl?”

“I have to leave now.”

I pitter-patter out of the shop as he sits fixated on the back cover.

The next day, having lost my sentimentality, I have a stack of books to give away. I’m relieved to find it’s a different shopkeeper. He's standing, slightly stooped in an apologetic way. He tells me I’m very kind to give him all these books.

“Are you sure you’ve finished with them?”

“Yes thanks.”

He volunteers in the bookshop once a week. He asks me if I live locally, I tell him two doors down for about the next half an hour. It’s just a flat above the shops but it was my home. It turns out he lives with his mother and they live on the street with the Aston Martin, paying £50 rent a week. That’s the way to do it. His neighbours pay £400 a week. But then he tells me that when she passes on he’ll have to find somewhere else. He likes it in Highbury too and he’s worried he’ll have to move away. I chat to him a while and then tell him I need to finish packing the last of my stuff.

There’s no sign of the book I brought in yesterday. I’ve no doubt though that yesterday’s shopkeeper is at home, scouring the pages for Whirly-whirl.

Highbury, don't leave me

Early June, late night tube, I’m sitting with a full rucksack, my pockets full of paraphanalia, delicate wine glasses in a box by my feet. I’m leaving my Highbury flat and I don’t feel ready.

Earlier I hoovered up the dust in four bare rooms, not wanting to look in the cupboards because I knew they were still full. What do I want with this stuff anyway? When I started this site I called it searching for home and this flat felt like home, more-or-less since I moved in, certainly since I bought my rug. It really tied the room together to quote the Dude from the Big Lebowski. You see every time I move it’s because I’ve overstayed my welcome, I’ve worn out my flats like old socks; I’ve always been desperate to get out. This time is different. I like the flat, I like my landlord, I like Highbury. I was originally planning to stay in the area, hoping to move around the corner to the street with the Aston Martin on. Not because of the car, because it’s a really nice street, situated between Clissold Park and Highbury Barn. So nice, that the couple of places for rent there were way beyond our price range. I think if we’d held on we may have lucked out, but T found us a house, and we started thinking maybe we could live in a house like real adults live in, with a yard to sit in throughout the summer time. It’s out in the sticks but when we saw it, it felt right.

I had this idea of moving really slowly, taking a few boxes at a time in the car, depositing my nest gradually in the new house. Living between the two houses for a couple of weeks. But now I’ve started packing and moving I just want the thing to be over with. Most of my stuff is over at the new place. I’ve a few things left in the flat but they’re playing on my mind.

I opened a drawer, it was full. How did that stuff get there? I decided I’d sort it later. I wanted to take the wine glasses now to toast the new house.

I’m sitting on the train thinking about my old home. Things I take for granted in the middle of the city; buying a pint of milk at midnight, getting home from a gig at the Roundhouse, jumping on a bus to Oxford street outside my house, the sound of the football stadium, someone casually crossing the road in nothing but a pair of shorts on a rainy Saturday - just the variety of life you see on the streets, these things may be harder to come by in our house on the hill, but hey, everything is changing. It’s a new season.

On the Buses

Outside the window of the 253 bus a girl is skipping to school and it seems a good way to travel as she's beating the bus. At the stop waiting for the 31 a school girl is sitting with a unicycle. Impossible you say? Nothing is impossible when you work for the circus. The 253 and 31 are my new bus routes to work, although not for much longer. Sometimes I skip the 31, head to the health food shop and buy a load of licorice, which i chew my way through as I walk through Regent's Park and up over Primrose Hill to work. The other day a man sat on a bench on Primrose Hill playing war tunes on a trumpet. It sounded good in the morning air and I looked over to him as I walked past to give him a nodding approving look but he glared back at me as if to say: "Never seen a man practice trumpet in the park before?" To which the answer would be no. But I have spare licorice if you'd like?

Have you noticed how when people reach a certain age they boast about how they never go to clubs anymore. "Clubs, pah, I can't remember the last time I went to a nightclub." To counteract this we decided to go to a club last Saturday. What we were looking for was a London club that most mirrors Liquidation in Liverpool, so we went to How does it feel to be loved? which alternates between central London and Brixton. This week it was central, in the Phoenix just off Oxford street. The dance floor was packed, we started with a large space in the middle and ended up with a small corner by the speakers. I'd recommend nightclubs to the older patron. It's dark in there, nobody is aware you've been hobbling round the planet for 40 odd years until the lights go on. We leave before the lights go on.

On the bus home a huge guy is snoring at the back corner of the bus and nobody will sit next to him. Three rows in front of us a guy is sick three times, his mate sits laughing beside him. People either move seats or open the windows to try and dispel the stench. I'd forgotten how much fun the night bus was.

Listen Yoko, the snow is not falling

It's the hottest Easter on record for 100 years and there's another four days off next week so things couldn't be better. Although not everyone is in agreement. Yesterday in Marks and Spencer's a girl, who must have been all of twelve years old, shouts out to her mother, "I just don't understand this world anymore." Hey, I hear you sister, wait till you've got 41 years of confusion behind you and try and work that one out. But until then enjoy the sunshine.

I haven't blogged for a while, I'm out of the habit. I went to see Deerhunter the other week and I was going to blog about all the strange thoughts I have when bands are playing (if they're great). It's a lot like my thoughts on planes, I always think the future is going to be great and the possibilities become bright and endless. It's that time just before reality comes creeping back in to stifle you. Do you know what I mean Readers? Me neither, although I could explain it to you at a really great gig. Another thing I always think is going to happen at gigs is I'm going to see someone I know from the good old days, but I never do. Although at Deerhunter people were shouting out "Tracy". I decided to shout it out too, just because I like joining in, then it turned out to be some friends a few rows back who were shouting for the actual Tracy who was sitting next to me.

We went to Crawley yesterday to see my sister, and shortly after we stepped out from the station someone shouted, "Mr. Davison". I replied, "Yes" because that's my name but I had no idea who the couple and child were. I was all ready to have a conversation with him without letting on I didn't know who he was, and try and pick up some clues on the way. Luckily he took his shades off and I recognised him as Gareth, who I can't have seen for 20 years. But his girlfriend is my sister's husband's sister, so I guess we're more-or-less related. I'd not seen her since my sister's wedding in 1997.

Heading to the park the other day I saw the Aston Martin above parked outside a house in a road we really like. It's a quiet street we'd like to live in. I like looking into the bay windows to check out the rooms. (It's getting a bit of a habit so I may add this onto the hobbies section of my CV).If someone with a James Bond car lives there it may prove a bit expensive.