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/

Night 1 of the curfew was Weds 28th, the day of my conviction.

Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court is an unhappy old building. Sad yellow walls, stairs like a 1970s leisure centre in Purgatory. Lots of brooding, broken people sitting around in the reception area, barely held together by their tracksuits. The only people in suits apart from me seemed to be lawyers. This is the pettier, half-arsed end of the legal system.

The courtroom turned out to be a drab, open-plan affair. Long tables and chairs, a coat of arms on the wall. Not even a proper dock. It was never explained to me who did what, why there was one man seated at right angles immediately in front of the three magistrates (the clerk of the court?), and another tucked towards the back of the room taking notes. No names of the magistrates, no names at all.

Myself, Charlie M – taking time out of her job to give me moral support – and my legal aid lawyer, Ms Malik from Hodge Jones Allen, entered in time to catch the end of the case before mine.

Which wasn’t going well. A red-faced fifty-something man – I saw him as a Del Boy-style stall holder – was shouting at the three magistrates. ‘I can’t pay the fine. You’ve already taken my stock. This is LEGALISED THEFT. You’re all THIEVES’.

Then he turned around and shouted directly at each person in the room. Including his own lawyer, and even me.

‘I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! THEY’RE ALL THIEVES. THIEVES, I TELL YOU!’

He had to be asked to leave several times.

As I looked at the trio of magistrates, I noticed that the man in the middle did all the talking, while the two women flanking him remained silent. I kept thinking of the day Orlando had to play a special mini-gig in an expensive rehearsal room, the type used for industry showcases. It was solely for the producer of Jools Holland’s ‘Later’. I’ve always resented the way success in music – like in all the arts – depends on fitting the tastes of a small but powerful group of critics, festival bookers, and TV & radio producers. Never mind the passionate letters from lonely teens in Leicester saying your album saved their life; if Jools’s producer doesn’t like you, you’re going down (the dumper).

Like the magistrate, the male producer came flanked with two silent females (possibly co-producers) and sat on a sofa to watch us play a few numbers. We were never invited on the show. In terms of one’s music career, it felt like receiving a court sentence. Or possibly a thumbs down in a Roman arena. Shame. I was rather looking forward to the boogie-woogie piano jam.

My sole contribution to the court proceedings was to stand up and give my name, address, and plea of guilty. Ms Malik did all the rest of the talking on my behalf.

‘This is a contrite young man…’ she said at one point. I was rather pleased with the ‘young’.

She appealed to them to give me a conditional discharge, but after consulting among themselves (a matter of 2 minutes), the magistrates said the amount of the overpayment made that impossible. So I got the curfew and the tag.

After the session, I wandered around Soho in a daze. I called my parents from the Coach & Horses. They were sitting by the phone with their stomachs in knots, of course. I’m not proud.

I considered keeping the whole thing a secret and inventing an excuse for not being able to attend my own club night on August 4th. But I soon ditched that idea as unworkable: far easier to just be honest. So the last few days I’ve been repeating the same words to shocked friends. I’m not quite bored with it all yet, but it’s getting there.

Night 1: Consolatory drinks at the Arts Club with Charlie M and her friends. No tag, but best not to risk it. Back home by nine. Typing up the same answers again and again to people on Facebook. Feels like coming out: you have to keep telling people until everyone you’ve ever known knows. At least Joe off the X Factor does it on the front page of the Sun. Maybe I should just take out an ad in Court Circulars.

Night 2: Thursday. Emma Jackson’s birthday drinks at the Flask in Highgate. Try hard to not make the inevitable answer to ‘What have you been up to lately?’ upstage the birthday girl’s bash. Back home by nine. A woman from the tagging company comes round at quarter to midnight. She gets down on her knees to measure my ankle and fit the tag. I think of scenes from the life of Christ.

Night 3: Friday. Am getting used to walking around with the tag. By a weird coincidence, I lost the feeling in one side of my left ankle last year. Nerve damage after an operation for varicose veins. So by putting the tag there, I can’t actually feel like anything’s changed. Not uncomfortable in the slightest.

I worry about the grey colour, though. It looks too ‘cool’. I am uneasy about appearing ‘cool’, and am careful to point this out when showing people the tag.

Ricky Gervais once suggested that the best way to stop youths collecting ASBOs as badges of honour would be to make the tag bright pink, with the words ‘Mummy’s Little Bender’ in a girlish font across it.

The back of the tagging firm’s leaflet says, in big and friendly lower case:

‘we are here to help you
if you need us – just call!!’

I stare at the double exclamation marks and think far too much about them.