Thursday December 2nd 2010. London and much of the UK is currently covered in snow.  I wake up today shivering and cursing my ability to throw off heavy blankets in my sleep. Not to mention my bedsit’s lack of central heating. I have an oil-filled radiator plus a small fan heater, both of which plug into the mains, guzzling up £1 coins in the meter at a frightening rate. Still, I feel more at home in a cold Victorian bedsit in London than I would in a well-heated modern house anywhere else in England, such is my dyed-in-the-hair metropolitan blood. And I can use the heating of libraries, galleries and cafes in the daytime.

I’m convinced there’s only two ways I’d be permitted to live in any settlement outside the M25: either like the Christopher Lee character in ‘The Wicker Man’ – the eccentric yet powerful lord of the manor – or as the first sacrifice the second the crops fail. Actually, the locals probably wouldn’t wait for that.

When I visited a bookshop in St Ives last September, the woman on the till warned me – within seconds of entering and presumably with no awareness of The League Of Gentlemen –  ‘We mainly stock books for locals. Not so much for Londoners.’ I hadn’t uttered a word.

But then, as proof of my innate London-ness, one of the things I first noticed when in St Ives was that there wasn’t a single drycleaners. Plenty of art shops and art galleries, but the moment one gets a blob of acrylic on one’s cravat, it’s off to Penzance with you.

***

Yesterday morning: I surprise myself by getting up at 5am for a spot of voluntary work. I am collecting for the international HIV charity Mildmay, as my bit for World AIDS Day. I stand with a bucket and tray of red ribbons by the ticket barriers in London Bridge station, from 7am to 10.30am. Without a break, too, though that was my choice.

I also choose to never shout at passers-by, hoping my status is clear from my bucket – and the unflattering t-shirt they give me (the things I do for charity). Partly because I’m not the shouting sort, but mainly because I think people might be grateful NOT to have a street fundraiser barking at them or impeding their path on their entirely blameless journey. I can’t do ‘fun runs’, I can’t shout or collar pedestrians, but I can do is what I once did at school for charity – a sponsored silence (a sly way of keeping children quiet in class, I now realise).

So I just stand there with my bucket, careful to be visible while keeping out of people’s way, not speaking unless I’m spoken to, and armed only with a hopeful smile. It seems to work: by the time I knock off, my bucket is satisfyingly heavy with coins, and more than a few notes too.

Find out more about Mildmay and donate at www.mildmay.org

Catching up…

Saturday November 20th.
To the Cruciform building in Gower Street for London’s Transgender Day Of Remembrance service. The main part of which is a reading of the names of people killed in transphobic attacks over the last twelve months. The list goes on and on and takes a good twenty minutes or so: most of them trans women from Brazil and Mexico. Roz Kaveney reads an excellent poem, and there’s three musical performances. The showtune-belting Mzz Kimberley sings ‘I’m A Tranny’ to the tune of Peggy Lee’s ‘I’m A Woman.’

There’s an interesting contrast between the other two singers: both are trans men (ie born female). Naechane Valentino sings soul-pop and says that since starting to take testosterone, he’s finding it harder to stay in key with his backing tracks. I hope he can get them transposed, pun not intended (which really means one enjoys the accidental pun and so leaves it in).

CN Lester, however, is a classical singer who has chosen to eschew testosterone in order to retain their trained mezzo-soprano voice. I think of the way choir boys’ careers end the moment their voice drops, while boy singers in pop music can carry on, like Michael Jackson. At the service, CN sings a heart-stopping version of Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’.

Two lessons in language learned from this day. One is that the slang term ‘tranny’ is increasingly considered offensive to trans people. Unless you are trans yourself using it in the spirit of reclamation – like Mzz Kimberley – it’s best avoided.

The other is that some trans people do not always – as I’d assumed – use the pronouns of the gender they identify as. Instead, they’d rather be described by the proposed genderless pronouns ‘zie’, ‘hir’ and ‘s/he’, or failing that, ‘they’. CN Lester is one.

Trouble is, mainstream English hasn’t yet evolved to accommodate such words, though I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. There are a few genderless titles, like ‘doctor’ (and indeed CN Lester, being a PHD student, will soon be able to use it). But throwing ‘hir’ into a mainstream text without explanation can’t yet be done.

I’d love to be the kind of writer that helps to kick-start such changes, but here’s another problem – my own identity as a writer. I am a few steps behind the mainstream, being as I am fogeyish and fusty and arch, still using ‘lady’ when I should use ‘woman’, or ‘actress’ rather than ‘female actor’. This usage is part of my character, like my suit-wearing. And character is context.

I just hope that people realise this and do not mistake me for a default mainstream writer. Otherwise it’ll be like the time when I was asked by the hip literary venue The Book Club to take off my jacket and tie. It was clearly a policy aimed to keeping out City workers looking for a drink, but they didn’t realise that my suits are part of my dandyish look, my identity. I wondered if other suit-loving writers, say Tom Wolfe or Mark Twain, ever had the same problem. ‘Come back when you’ve got some skinny jeans on, Mr Twain!’

So, just as I cannot carry off jeans and trainers, I feel unable to join in with some popular changes in English usage. I’ve written before about my inability to use the word ‘shit’ to mean ‘stuff’ or ‘things’. That’s my hipster line drawn in the sand, right there. But I’m starting to feel like the only Englishman alive who doesn’t use it.

Three recent cases in point.

Paul Chambers, the ‘Twitter Joke Trial’ man, used it in the Tweet that saw him arrested: ‘You’ve got a week to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!’

Secondly, the video footage from the student protest at Millbank the other week. After the now-infamous fire extinguisher is seen dropped from the roof onto the police below, the protestors on the ground voice their disapproval instantly, by chanting to their colleagues on the roof, ‘STOP THROWING SHIT! STOP THROWING SHIT!’

Thirdly, David Cameron used the phrase ‘shit happens’ in a dinner speech last week, for the Spectator magazine.

All of which puts me in my increasingly old-fashioned place. When it comes to gender, politics and sexuality, I like to think I’m fairly progressive. But when it comes to language, I am more conservative than the chief Conservative.

I have a female friend who addresses everyone with the word ‘dude’. She’s British, and about 30. I once batted the term back at her in conversation, tongue very much in cheek, knowing full well how it’d sound on my lips. She nearly fell off her chair laughing.

Link: Video of CN Lester performing Dylan’s ‘Just Like A Woman’

This morning: I write a little article for Green Wedge, wondering why today’s newspapers not only choose to misrepresent the student protests with a cliched window-smashing image, but also why they all plump for the same photograph. I name nine newspapers, but later discover there’s a tenth culprit: the newly launched “i” newspaper. Ten different publications rushing to be exactly the same as each other. Or rather, the same as Sky News.

http://greenwedge.org/2010/11/11/media-hunting-pack/

***

Afternoon: To Waterloo Station with Mum, to see the stage production of The Railway Children. Manages to balance the nostalgia with touches of innovative stagecraft and Arabian Nights-style narrative dialogue.

Rather ingeniously, the show uses Waterloo’s mothballed Eurostar terminus to stage E Nesbit’s classic; last time I was here was for a Fosca trip to Paris in 2001. A real 1870s locomotive and saloon compartment are the stars; the saloon is even the same one used in the 1970 Lionel Jeffries movie. Bernard Cribbins’s part is taken by Marshall Lancaster, aka DC Chris Skelton off Life Is Mars / Ashes To Ashes. He’s rather superb – and there’s a touching photo in the lobby of he and Mr Cribbins together. Sarah Quintrell is equally spot-on in the Jenny Agutter role.

Throughout the show, Waterloo’s normal trains constantly rumble offstage, which would normally be an irritation. Instead, they enhance the show’s site-specific quality, adding to its uniqueness. Such a great idea.

Tuesday 26th Aug:
The tag is taken off by a droll gentleman in half-moon glasses. Unlike his colleague who put it on, he doesn’t wear forensic PVC gloves.

Two abiding moments from the tag month. A few days after it went on, I weighed myself and was shocked that I’d put on about a third of a stone. Wandered around in a state of even greater confusion than usual. Then realised where the extra weight was coming from.

Another occasion: I call the tag firm with some questions. No, they’re not available in any other colour but grey. And no, they don’t advise that I decorate it with pink seahorse stickers. The man on the phone isn’t completely sure, but he says it MIGHT count as violation.

Weds 25th August.

First night out since the tag is taken off. I spend it at Madame JoJo’s in Brewer Street, seeing Simon A’s drag queen showtunes evening, ‘The Velma Celli Show’. Lots of twisted and funny takes on songs from Cabaret, Chicago and A Chorus Line. There’s also a spoof of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, the version from the TV series Glee. I’ve still not seen the programme, but I recognise the costumes – red sweaters and blue jeans – just by cultural osmosis.

Weds 25th-Mon 30th August:
Catsitting again in Crouch End, for Jenn C and Chris H while they’re on holiday. The cat, Vyvian, is unusually lethargic. He’s actually suffering from a handful of wounds acquired through fights with other cats (even though he’s neutered), but the marks are so hidden under his fur that no one detects them.

Then on my last evening, he wipes flecks of white gunk from his forehead onto my suit trousers. After much thinking and Googling, I realise it could be pus from an abscess. So I hunt carefully around on his head, and – ta dah! – locate the wound in question. Following more Internet instructions, I soak some cotton wool in warm water and clean both wound and trousers before texting the owners. They whisk him off to the vet the next day. [He’s much better, as of Sept 21st.]

Therapy today: the therapist hears about the tagging, and thinks that not only am I addicted to self-sabotage, but that I use it as way of seeking attention, passive-aggressive style. ‘Notice me, O dole office!’

The sessions now feel so much like hard work, that I realise I’m putting on personae in order to please the therapist. Good Patient. Bad Patient. Both. Which is a waste of time for both of us. So I cancel therapy for the time being. Am in a sort of neutral mindset, as it is: not productive and not doing much with my life, but not strictly depressed either. The therapy was adding to the anxiety, rather than treating it.

Tues Sept 7th
Against Nature at Proud Camden – the last one for now. Grateful thanks to the door volunteers: Alex P, Sam C, Suzanne C. I rather feel I’ve run out of Favour Credit. You can only ask friends to do things for free for so long. Ideally I’d pay the door staff in future, but it’s not possible if I’m already losing money paying the venue (£50 on top of the bar takings), the sound engineer (£100, though he did know the PA inside out, unpacked it, built it, packed it away, and worked all night) and the four live acts (£50 each, apart from the Soft Close-Ups who took pity on me and waived their full fee).

A modest but acceptable turn out (£177), given the tube strike AND a Tuesday evening. I end up losing money once more, but as it’s the last one I don’t mind so much. Am just glad to finish the night with me actually hosting it.

Have learned an awful lot doing Against Nature. About what I can do and what I can’t do. About what I can do, but would rather someone else did; what I can’t do, but could do if I worked at it; and what I can’t do, and will never be able to do. And most of all, what I don’t want to do. Which is promote a monthly club night again. Done that, now. Ticked. It. Off.

I know there is more to life than just ticking off things on a big list, that you’re meant to choose one or two things and stick at them till the grave. But in my case, I’m still finding things spring up which I quite fancy trying out, if only because I’ve not done them before.

I now have a increased respect for promoters, performers, and anyone trying to get anyone else to do anything at all. It’s proper Work. Not Fun. Or at least, promoting is the proper work behind Fun. I still have a terrible problem with these two concepts. In my head, Work is not meant to be Fun. Fun is not meant to be Work. I realise that this is part of My Whole Trouble. Not helped by phrases like ‘Work/Life Balance’. So… Work is not being alive?

A couple of venues have approached me to do something similar with them, so I suppose I must have been at least vaguely good at it. What I may do is try putting on Against Nature as a one-off festival-style event. Festivals do rather seem to be the in-thing right now. Friends are going miles out of their way to get to a festival – Guildford, for example – while eschewing regular club nights and gigs on their own doorstep. The digital era has given non-digital experiences more value. In a world saturated with news coverage and commentary, festivals can be news items AND events.

Thursday Sept 9th:
My joint birthday soiree with Seaneen M at The Hideaway in Tufnell Park. Fourteen friends turn up. Which is perfect for a soiree: not too few, not too many. I love seeing people from the different social worlds I paddle in make connections: David Ryder-P turns out to be from the same small Welsh town as Miss Red. Jenn & Chris provide champagne truffles, and I drink myself into a happy stupor rather than a maudlin one. Given the way most of my birthdays have gone in the past, this is what I believe young people call a ‘result’.

***

From Alan Bennett’s ‘Father! Father! Burning Bright’:

Midgley took her by the shoulders.

‘Things will change, you’ll see. I’ll change. I’ll be a different person. I can… go. Live! Start!’ He kissed her quickly and warmly and ran from the door down the little drive towards the van. His wife rushed to the door to catch him.

‘Start?’ his wife shouted. ‘Start what? You’re 39.’

I’m 39 now. Still living in the same rented furnished bedsit as I was sixteen years ago (but it IS in a very leafy and sought-after part of North London), and still on the dole, with no savings. Less than the dole, in fact, as I’m paying back a massive overpayment. Lots of time, but no money. But then again, lots of time.

Have applied for a few jobs in the spirit of hilarious optimism, with no joy. Initial enthusiasm has rather been kicked out of me after I gave what I thought was a perfect job interview for a job helping organise exhibitions in libraries. A dozen other people after it, though. But perhaps something will come along soon. I’m available.

Till then, I’m extremely grateful that I’m not doing something I don’t want to do. It’s not quite a definition of a fulfilled and happy life, but it is a luxury.

(And now, St Ives).

I’m about to scoot off to St Ives for three days. Some catching up is rather in order. First, a commercial break.

My small yet surprisingly powerful Session guitar amp is now up on Ebay, as sold by my brother. Used throughout my time in Orlando & Fosca. It’s just been fully serviced, ready for a new owner:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230520038872

Now then.

Weds 4th Aug:
Against Nature: August Edition, at Proud Camden.
I have to run the night by remote control: setting everything up, the sweets, the soundcheck, the silent movie,  then I dash off home by 9pm because of my curfew. Kevin Reinhardt does the stand-in promoter duties. Kind door volunteers: Sam C, Farzana F, Sarah H, Alex P, Kitty F. Del Des Anges (sound engineer) and Sophia Wyeth (DJ) also work their socks off for hours on end. I’m utterly grateful to them all.

It ends up being the best attended night of Against Nature to date (including the September one). And I’m not there to attend it myself.

Joe Atari sends me some photos he took.

Ophelia Bitz:

Patti Plinko:

Anne Pigalle:

Thurs 5th August:

Paid work! I do a one-off talk at the National Portrait Gallery on the subject of Queer Perspectives. I’m the guest speaker for Sadie Lee, who puts on the event regularly. Am wearing the tag, and wonder if this is some kind of first for the NPG. Or for wearers of curfew tags. The talk lasts 7pm-8pm, and I easily make it home in time for my curfew. The Northern Line is so much better than it used to be. Still need to write up the notes as an article.

Fri 6th August

To Wynd’s Shop Of Horrors on Mare Street. He’s asked me to DJ at a few of his events, in return for some framed original drawings by Stephen Tennant. I get to pick out the ones I want, settling on an illustrated poem written on Wilsford Manor headed notepaper, a Cocteau-esque portrait of a sailor, and one of Alexander the Great.

A few weeks later (Sept 21st), I hang two of them, using the picture rail in my room. Hanging framed art at home is the closest I feel to being properly grown up.

Back at the shop, I’m interviewed about dandyism by a Polish journalist, Kamilla Staszak. She takes a photo of me wearing the tag:

Fri 20th Aug:

I spend an hour or so collecting for DEC’s Pakistan appeal at Holborn tube, holding a bucket near the foot of the main escalator. It’s an official collection by TFL staff. Although I’m not a TFL employee, they’ve asked friends of friends to boost the numbers. Farzana F is a friend of the organiser, and she’s a friend of mine, so here I am. Quite touching when an old lady stuffs a £20 note into my bucket, while a 6-year-old girl runs over and puts in a penny, encouraged by her parents.

One very weird moment. A well-dressed man stands next to me and asks quietly, ‘Would you be prepared to sacrifice yourself for Pakistan?’

I say, pardon? And he repeats it. What on earth can I say back? Does he want a debate on the subject, right now? Or am I actually being….? No, surely not. And yet, I do have this history of strangers coming up and saying very unexpected things to me. Whatever it is, I want him to go away. I blurt out some words.

‘Um. I’m just collecting coins and notes… That’s as far as I go, I’m afraid.’

And he walks off.

Later, in the laundrette on Archway Road.  As I traipse out the door with my pressed shirts, a woman stops me.

‘Excuse me!’

I turn around. ‘Yes?’

‘You look like Superman.’

‘Right. Thank you.’

She doesn’t seem particularly insane, either.

Somewhere in all this is what, I suppose, my friend Shanthi calls my Unique Selling Point.

As part of my birthday present, Dad sends me a package of old and curious books and bookmarks. One vintage bookmark is an advert for toothpaste (or rather, ‘dental cream’), in the shape of the product itself. Double-sided, too.

The toothpaste company is ‘Kolynos of Chenies Street, London W.C.1.’ I’m looking at this at home when Charley S texts me with a proposed meeting point for tonight, close to where she works: Chenies Street. No signs of any toothpaste companies there today. Just the Drill Hall venue, home of gay plays and BBC radio recordings.

From there we walk to the Artspace Gallery in Maddox Street, Mayfair, to see an exhibition by the Stuckists. Excellent paintings, though frustratingly without any labels to indicate artist or title.

Still, Ella Guru’s Last Supper is unmistakable. It really should be put on permanent display at the Tate Modern, given it’s a chronical of all the Stuckist types – Billy Childish et al.

Close-up detail here.
Annotation by Ella here.

Ella’s portrait of Debbie Smith with her collection of snuff boxes is another highlight.

More at Ella Guru’s site: www.ellaguru.org.uk

Am also impressed by Peter Murphy’s rendition of rock stars in the medieval Russian icon style. He uses your actual egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed panels.

Taken from Peter Murphy’s website here.

My favourite work in the exhibition is Paul Harvey’s ‘Charlotte Church’ (2006). I love his clean lines style.  A touch of 1890s art nouveau mixed with 1960s psychedelia.

Taken from www.paulharveypaintings.com

***

Charley buys me dinner at Yo Sushi in Woodstock Street nearby, and I do what normal people call ‘catching up’. I’ve learned that whenever you look away from a friend’s blog or Facebook updates, that’s the time all the big events in their life happen. Moving to a new country, splitting up with their other half, getting together with a new one, getting married, getting divorced, babies. Always the last to know. As Del Amitri once sang. I know useless things like that.

If in doubt, I just assume people I’ve not heard from in a while have either moved to Berlin or had children. Or both. Seems to be the popular options.

Today’s lesson: A watched Livejournal never boils.

Also in Yo Sushi, Charley says hello to Rob Ellis, drummer with PJ Harvey and umpteen other notables.

Thinking about trendy musicians in Yo Sushi reminds me of the first time I went to one of these places. It was in the late 90s, in the then-new Poland St branch, as the guest of Nick ‘Momus’ Currie – a lover of all things Japanese – and Anthony ‘Jack’ Reynolds. Anthony kept trying to put the empty plates back on the conveyor belt, to get away with not paying, but was stopped by the more law-abiding (and I suppose, less rock and roll) Momus.

Actually, Momus’s cousin is the singer with Del Amitri. I really wish I knew less of these sort of things and more things that actually mattered.

We talk about the stress and strain of what to do on one’s birthday. Charley suggests I contact Seaneen Molloy, whose birthday is Sept 4th, the day after mine. She suggests we organise some sort of joint party.

***

On the overground train from Liverpool Street to Cambridge Heath, I bump into Marc Samuels. Marc tells me how he’s just interviewed one of his heroes, Andy McCluskey from OMD.  A new OMD album is doing the rounds. Original line-up, a tour in the offing.

In the midst of our 80s synthpop chat, a cartoonishly large spider suddenly scuttles across the carriage floor, prompting a yelp from a female passenger. The doors open at Cambridge Heath, and I expertly kick the blameless arachnid out into the gap between train and platform. The woman smiles at me as I get off. I have the glow of a Useful Gentleman. I’ll be putting up shelves next.

Used to have something of a phobia about spiders. Clearly no longer. Though downing a large bottle of sake helps.

***

Onto Wynd’s Little Shop Of Horrors (11 Mare St, E8) for a private view. Zoe Beloff – ‘The Adventures Of A Dreamer by Albert Grass.’ The moment I enter, I hear ‘Dickon! You know about Momus, don’t you!’

Wynd’s shop has a range of decadent and cult books, including titles from Dedalus and Atlas, plus several copies of ‘Lusts Of A Moron – The Lyrics Of Momus.’ Some customer was surprised that other people knew about Momus at all, hence the utteration.

Also at the private view is Robert V, boyfriend of the aforementioned Seaneen M. So that’s my message to her sorted out.

Zoe Beloff’s show is a sequence of comic book-like panels inspired by one Albert Grass, who apparently founded the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society in the 1920s. According to Ms Beloff, he tried to have the resort’s Dreamland attraction rebuilt as a kind of Freudian theme park. He also created a journal full of oneiric images, which comprise this exhibition. Just how much is Ms Beloff’s own imagination and how much is Grass isn’t clear. I wonder if Grass himself is in fact her fictional avatar.  Regardless, I like the panels of dreams, particularly this one with a small badger whispering ‘Je t’aime! Je t’aime!’ in Grass’s ear.

Zoe Beloff: www.zoebeloff.com

Tues 31st August. I head off to the London Review Bookshop in Bury Place, in order to buy the London Review Of Books. The shop stocks the latest issue a day or two early, even ahead of the issue’s contents appearing on the LRB website. So today I get to read a brand new Alan Bennett story, ‘The Greening Of Mrs Donaldson’. Like ‘The Clothes They Stood Up In’, and ‘The Uncommon Reader’, it’s another tale of a buttoned-down character getting a new lease of life. This time, a widow lets her young lodgers skip rent in return for a ringside view of their sex life. There’s also amusing scenes from her job as a stooge patient for medical students.

I wonder why I’m so excited about buying the LRB this way. Then it dawns on me. In the 90s I used to love getting the weekly music papers, NME and Melody Maker, on a Tuesday lunchtime in Camden, a full day before everywhere else. It was a magazine buying experience with the hint of privilege, even time travel. Priority boarding.

With the music papers, there was a sense of trying to join a club. Of wanting to Belong. Now I merrily stroll through life in blissful ignorance of who the current crop of strange-haired bands are. Instead, I have a passion for wanting to read the latest Alan Bennett story hot off the press. Which suits me, at the age I am (39 this Friday). It is a Seemly Passion.

***

In pursuit of further Seemly Passions, I’m working my way through the current Booker Prize Longlist. Quite enjoying the excuse for a dip into the latest literary fiction, using my library card. Here’s my Twitter-length reviews so far.

Alan Warner’s Stars In The Bright Sky. Young Scots women mooching about at Gatwick & Hever Castle. Touching, funny. 8/10.

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Unlikeable Aussies. Good last 50 pages (of 500). Lots of smoking on the verandah. Should be more of a page-turner. Isn’t. 7/10

February, Lisa Moore. Canadian oil rig disaster widow reflects on decades of grief. Happy ending. Moving. Superb detail. Prefer Alan Bennett’s widow solution, though. 8/10

Damon Galgut’s In A Strange Room. South African man’s frustrations en transit. Worrying depiction of Kafka-esque health care in India. Old fashioned existential-lit. 8.5/10

***

Am attending regular one-to-one sessions with a government employment adviser. She gets me firing off job applications, tweaking my laughable skeleton of a CV, and it all feels wrong. I need to do something though, so here I am. Would I consider voluntary work, she asks. Not really, I say ungratefully.

You can’t sit at home watching daytime TV all your life, she says. And then she hastily adds – seeing me about to complain – not that you’re the sort of person who does that!

Last paid job: giving a one-off talk at the National Portrait Gallery (Aug 5th), on Queer Perspectives. While wearing a curfew tag. Wonder if that’s a NPG lecturer first. Need to write up the talk and put it online.

Wisdom learned from club night promotion: the host can never quite enjoy the party.

I’m doing Against Nature one more time on Tuesday Sept 7th, then taking a break in order to find out what I want to do next.

Here’s the details.

AGAINST NATURE
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH 2010

A night for dressed-up dandies and vintage vamps. DJs provide a rococo mix of easy listening, showtunes and exotic pop, punctuated by silent movies, eccentric bands and unconventional cabaret.

Live On Stage:

SCALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
Vocal harmony comedy group who cram the back catalogues of Madonna, Abba and others into inspired and hilarious medleys.

KIKI KABOOM
Inventive and irreverent burlesque performer. Winner of Best Newcomer 2009 at the London Burlesque Festival.

ROSE WATT
Obsessive compulsive wit armed with ukelele and cupcakes.

THE SOFT CLOSE-UPS
Wry pastoral songsmithery courtesy David Shah and Aug Stone

Plus DJ & host Dickon Edwards.

Doors 8pm.
Live acts 9.30pm-11.30pm.
Dancing to 1am.

Door charge: £5 before 10pm. £6 after.

DRESS CODE (optional but preferred): Vintage & dandy-esque.

Proud Camden (South Gallery)
The Horse Hospital, Stables Market,
Chalk Farm Rd, LONDON NW1 8AH.
Tel: 020 7482 3867.
www.proudcamden.com

Catching up, filling gaps.

Sat July 24th: Afternoon: ‘The Habit Of Art’ at the NT, with Charlie M. Superb. Excellent play, stuffed full of different ideas rather than just one, just as the History Boys was. Charlie M prefers Alan Bennett’s intellectual, thought-provoking work like this, and isn’t so keen on the work that gets him dismissed as a cosy purveyor of Northern old ladies. I like it all.

Lead part originally written for Michael Gambon, and it shows. A grumpy old actor, who looks like an unmade bed yet is charismatic and funny and has a good voice for poetry. Pure Gambon. He needs to come back and play the role.

There’s a huge photo of Gordon Brown in the NT’s annual exhibition of newspaper photographs. With a hand sweeping back his hair, it’s meant to show Brown looking anxious and under pressure. In fact, he looks moody in a Mr Rochester way. Charlie M says she’s so attracted to the photo she can barely look at it.

Another huge photo is of what I take at first to be an emaciated elderly tramp. Turns out to be Alex Higgins, the snooker star. When I get home, he’s on the news. Dead at 61, looking at least 80. Am uneasy about the sense of guilty delight in the press: a satisfying riches-to-rags story. The price of success. But I suppose this comment is a delight, too: the joy of feeling superior to the media.

All comment is vanity, one way or another. Art takes the curse off comment, makes it feel less cheap. Which is one of the points of The Habit Of Art.

***

Evening: The Doctor Who Prom at the Royal Albert Hall with Anwen G. I spot a few fezzes, include one on the bust of Sir Henry Wood. Matt Smith turns up in character to perform a Steven Moffat-written mini-adventure, and demonstrates how good with children he is. The little boy he gets to help him save the world takes him utterly seriously, as only small children can do.

Our seats are right by one of the aisles used by various parading monsters, including a Cyberman and a Venetian Vampire. Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) performs one of her links right next to us. Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier) is in the queue for guest tickets right next to me. So that’s us happy. We can be spotted in one of the BBC’s promo photos of the evening. I’m the blond-haired one in the linen suit, funnily enough.

The music is mostly Murray Gold’s soundtrack to the new series, punctuated with classical crowd-pleasers to fit the sci-fi adventure idiom: John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, Holst’s Mars, and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. My ears are absolutely ringing after the last two. I didn’t realise just how noisy Mr Holst and Mr Orff could be.

William Walton’s comparatively subtle and laid-back ‘Portsmouth Point’ also gets an airing, apparently chosen because Murray Gold is from Portsmouth. I rather like the thought of young Doctor Who fans coming away with a new-found interest in William Walton. All very old fashioned BBC. ‘This’ll do you good!’

Actually, I come away from the evening with a new-found interest in Benjamin Britten, thanks to The Habit Of Art.

***

Sunday 25th July: Evening: The Ku Bar in Lisle Street to catch Adrian Dalton’s act. Mr Dalton is a post-op trans man whose drag alter-ego, Lola Lypsinka, pole dances in high heels. I get a catcall: ‘Oy, Jared Leto!’ Which would normally be a massive compliment, except I suppose they might mean Leto’s bleach-haired character from Fight Club after his face is smashed in.

A man from the audience is brought onto the stage. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen – it’s Charlie from last year’s Big Brother!’ Polite whoops. Charlie makes an unkind comment about the winner of his series, Sophie (had to look her up). One chaser of nano-celebrity sneering at another. All very modern.

***

Sat July 31st. Miss Red’s birthday party at Dr Strangebrew’s Tea Parlour, 186 Royal College Street, Camden NW1. Cannot recommend this place highly enough: cheap teas and homemade cakes in a 1960s treasure trove of vintage collectibles. Including two jukeboxes and a radiogram – which still works.  I am filmed for an in-jokey spoof ad on the shop, which refers to Miss Red’s recent appearance in an advert for Maynard’s Wine Gums:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRPtczeHBk4

Also at the party is Ms Cherry Williams, who turns out to be the seamstress who made Karen Gillan’s dress for Act 1 of the Dr Who Proms, as designed by Kate Halfpenny. A very London sort of coincidence.

More examples of Very London things. As we’re sitting outside the shop that afternoon, a young t-shirted couple approach.

‘Excuse me,’ the boy asks in a thick foreign accent. ‘Can you tell us where Amy Winehouse lives?’

Last call for Against Nature – the August edition. Time Out Magazine have included it in their Critics’ Choice list:

Here’s the details.

AGAINST NATURE
A speakeasy for dressed-up dandies and vintage vamps. DJs provide a rococo mix of easy listening, showtunes, and exotic pop, punctuated by silent movies, eccentric bands and unconventional cabaret.

LIVE ON WEDS AUGUST 4TH:
…A unique triptych of boho chanteuses. Oh yes!

ANNE PIGALLE
Legendary, globe-trotting Parisian singer and survivor of the ZTT Records scene, performing songs and erotic poetry from her new show, Amerotica. ‘As if Edith Piaf were booked in the bar in Star Wars’ (US Music Connection)
http://www.annepigalle.com/

PATTI PLINKO AND HER BOY
Eccentric, brooding songstress, channelling whiskey-soaked songs in the carnivalesque spirit of Nick Cave and Tom Waits. ‘A vivid dream of maddening, freakish talent.’ (The Argus)
http://www.myspace.com/pattiplinkoandherboy

OPHELIA BITZ
The sharpest razor-tongued wit in London: vocalist, ringmistress, compere and performance artist with a reputation for stealing hearts, drinks, and anything else not nailed to the table. ‘Bitz may have the voice of an angel but she also has the mouth of a filthy gutter slut.’ (Time Out)
http://www.myspace.com/opheliabitz

Plus DJ SOPHIA WYETH, spinning easy listening, showtunes, pastiche pop, and all that deviant jazz.

Mr Edwards regrets he is unavailable to attend in person, due to a slight disagreement with the Department For Work And Pensions. Please welcome instead guest host & promoter KEVIN REINHARDT.

Doors: 8pm. Live acts 9.30pm-11.45pm. Dancing to 1am.

Door charge: £5 before 10pm. £7 after.

NB: Latecomers may have to wait until an intermission between live acts.

DRESS CODE (optional but preferred): Vintage & dandy-esque.

VENUE:
South Gallery, PROUD CAMDEN,
The Horse Hospital, Stables Market, Chalk Farm Rd,
LONDON NW1 8AH.
Tel: 020 7482 3867.
http://www.proudcamden.com/