godfrey st by katharine eastman
you might find the minimalism (ie bludgeoning repetitiveness) of this piece way too annoying to put up with it for 55 seconds let alone 55 minutes - but don't let it worry you - it doesn't worry me - if dipped into occasionally throughout our remaining years for the odd ten or twenty random seconds its cheerfulness is actually quite invigorating and will give it more life and purpose than lots of other more worthy pieces of music that some sad deluded "proper" muso actually expected people to listen to all the way through
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yesterday a friend and I caught the morning train to Waterloo and Tubey things to Sloane Square and then we got lost in the wonderful sunny crowds as we sampled the free flower festival that so many of the shops/etc displayed - it was free and it was for those of us who are far too poor or whose musical careers haven't gone too well and who can't afford the proper Chelsea Flower Show - or, like me, just not remotely interested in gardening.
If you were there (and I can't believe you weren't, because everyone else was) then you will know what a jolly occasion it all was, even for plant-sceptics like myself and my friend. There were queues for free food and I usually hate joining queues for such desperate pleasures - but ah it's maybe time to take the broom handle out my arse and just do the sappy shit that everyone else did. I even took photos.
My favourite moments were whenever we took diversions off the Kings Road - almost instantly all the crowds fell away behind us, and we were wandering down the beautiful streets where the ordinary locals live - by "ordinary" I do of course mean people who can afford 4 million pounds for a house that is smaller than the tiny house I live in here in a less cool part of the UK.
I've never been a train spotter or stamp collector, and even when I suppose I "collected" records that was merely a means to an end - if you wanted lots of music in your life back a hundred years ago then you did needs lots of round lumps of plastic in your life. But when I'm in London I do love the Blue Plaques - and without any planning or anything yesterday was a record - we saw a million - Jean Rhys (one of my favourite novelists - and I love ALL alkies), Carol Reid, Osbert Lancaster, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (who'd had something to do with having designed the house my parents much later lived in in SW Scotland - FACT!!!), Diana Dors, the pub where Dylan Thomas and Bob Marley etc drank - probably not at the same time - etc etc etc - a million blue plaques.
So that was good. Better than the flowers. But even better than both was the niceness of everyone. Yes when we were on that soulless Kings Road we were all getting in each others' way, but no one was horrible, no one was rude, everyone smiled and apologised and they joined the ends of queues. So maybe all those YouTubes I watch every morning that show London as a petrol-bombed knife-stabbing riot aren't totally accurate after all.
We also walked alongside the Thames and we walked lots of other places and we did pass the real Chelsea Flower Show, and were delighted to see that everyone who was coming out looked thoroughly miserable. Forever-ago I decided that, apart from cinemas, I would never go to any events/etc where you have to pay to get in. Because in the past I would find that I'd quickly want to pay even more to get out. It means I haven't been to a gig all year. Best year of my adult life so far. No coincidence, I think.
Okay, I did enjoy the New Forest Fairy Festival last year. But honestly that is the only thing I can remember. For food yesterday we went to a very expensive Italian place where we had too much "authenticity" and explanations and so on - and really I was happier with the time, about four hours earlier, when we went to the MacDonalds along the Kings Road, we sat downstairs at a quiet corner table and thanks to the wonderful (occasionally, and admittedly) wonders of technology my wonderful techie friend was able to summon up a wonderful waitress carrying a tray of food that was cheap and moist and delicious and about one-twentieth the price.
That is only the third time I've ever been to a Macdonalds. It's not snobbery, it's just that I don't know how to order food there - just like nowadays I don't know how to pay to park anywhere anymore, so I've decided not to own a car anymore - ever. That decision has saved me a fortune. So yesterday was another bit where we joined the dots in London.
When I was young I made the stupid decision to go to a supposedly "good" provincial uni, while my main old school friends went to London unis and seemed to live over in that Chelsea-ish area - this is more than 40 years ago and I'd visit them often because I liked them more than I liked the new friends I was struggling to make and keep at my uni and I found Chelsea back then squalid and grey and unfriendly and real and varied - it's weird how back then everyone looked the same but all the shops and places were different, and now everyone looks varied but all the shops and places look and are the same.
So yes - I still find London waaay more friendly than its reputation whatevers. Whereas Southampton - oh god, let me tell you about Southampton. The evening before last, I caught the bus back to town and got off at the Central Station and walked up towards the Mayflower Theatre, alongside that wonderful Wyndham Court. There's a little row of shops. One of them is a newsagent/sweetshop/etc. As I approached it I heard gunfire coming from inside it - and I could see the main shop window shattering a bit more with every shot.
Wow. Someone was standing just inside, with his back to the door. I was about the fourth person to join/start the crowd outside on the pavement. Weirdly, though I am not a brave person, more like an idiot, I wasn't remotely afraid. One of the "crowd" explained "he's got a shoplifter in there". More bangs from inside, more shatterings of the glass, which was still holding together, like a car windscreen where the driver's head keeps on bashing at it.
Then I saw that I was wrong - it wasn't gunfire - it was a woman inside throwing glass bottles at the window. We could hear her screaming. After a couple of minutes she beat up the guy who was stopping her from using the door and she left the shop - screaming racist abuse at him.
She went downhill. With the action over, some went in to check that the guy inside was all right. I could be of no use in any kind of situation like that, so I went uphill and home. Further along, a woman pedestrian was just ahead of me, and a woman rough-sleeper was lying on the ground by the theatre and for no obvious reason the rough-sleeper screamed at the woman in front of me "What the fuck are you looking at you fucking disgusting (censored) cunt" - and the woman ahead of me, nicely dressed, just walked on and then turned and went into the theatre for a nice night out on the town. What a fucking dump.
(photo Godfrey Street (I think), off the Kings Road, London, yesterday, recorded this morning)
(LATER - I am now certain that this isn't Godfrey Street, but another one nearby - apologies for misleading you)
