Though I’ve yet to visit it, I find out that the new King’s Cross concourse does have at least one unique shop: the first European branch of Watermark Books, an Australian chain. They are exploiting the fact they’re right next to the Harry Potter platform, and rightly so. What stops stations losing their individuality and becoming ‘non-places’  is hanging on to unique associations like this. Paddington has its little bear statue, St Pancras its Betjeman statue. It’s a shame these are often tucked away within the stations, but I like that they give people something unique to look for.

***

It’s only March, but I’ve finished attending lectures for the first year of my course at Birkbeck. Next up is four weeks of the Easter break, then there’s a final two seminars in late April. After that the only remaining sessions are workshops in which to prepare for the first exam, and a few introductory lectures about the modules in the second year. I still have to deliver two essays by early May and revise for the exam taken shortly after that, but the regular lectures are over.

It’s been an experience without a single regret. I still don’t feel like an academic, and I still view MA and PHD students as lofty creatures living on a higher intellectual plane (never mind the professors), but the degree now feels do-able, as opposed to something that other people can do, not me. That’s the big difference. It involves work, of course, and putting in the hours, but this is work that I feel happy about doing, which I even look forward to.

We’ve just been given our optional module choices for the second year. Each of the four years is made up of three modules (modules being different subjects, effectively). The first year has comprised three compulsory modules: London in literature, how to study poetry, and an introduction to literary theory. Next year we have do two compulsory modules: one on ‘The Novel’, and one on medieval and Renaissance texts. The third we get to choose ourselves, from an attractively diverse list.

I’ve already handed in my form for this. My first choice is a creative writing module, specially designed for Eng Lit students, but I’ve since been told I probably won’t get to do it in the  Second Year. Third Year students take priority over Second, there’s only fifteen places, and it’s such a notoriously popular subject. Everyone seems to want to do creative writing.

My alternative module choices are, in order, ‘Fin De Siecle’ (Wilde’s Dorian Gray, HG Wells, Dracula), ‘Queer Fiction’ (recent novels by Sarah Waters, Alan Hollinghurst etc), and ‘Narratives Of The Body’ (Angela Carter, Woolf’s Orlando, some films, even some modern dance pieces).

A few of the set texts are particularly interesting choices for literary study:

– The Dark Knight (2008), as in the second Batman film by Christopher Nolan, for a module on US culture since 1900. To be studied alongside F Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath.
– Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2009), for the same.
– the films Blade Runner and Aliens, both for the module on The Body.
– Persepolis (2000) by Marjane Satrapi; the Iranian graphic novel. For the compulsory ‘The Novel’ module.
– Fun Home (2006) by Alison Bechdel. Another graphic novel, for the Queer Fiction module.
– Tangles (2011) by Sarah Leavitt. A graphic novel I’ve not heard of, for the same module. So new that the Guardian only reviewed it a few weeks ago.

It’s interesting that all three graphic novels are autobiographical. In terms of proper graphic fiction, we’ve just been studying It’s Dark In London (1996) as the final text in the compulsory 1st year module about London In Literature. It’s an anthology of graphic short stories inspired by the city, edited by Oscar Zarate and including such names as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Iain Sinclair, Dave McKean, Stella Duffy, and Alexei Sayle. It’s just been republished with extra material and a rather beautiful new cover.

Being closer in format to the genre of underground comics, as opposed to the Marvel or DC-style comics, the book is in black and white throughout. The Alan Moore contribution, I Keep Coming Back, is a companion story to From Hell, which we’ve also looked at – particularly the mythical London tour of Chapter 4. The Moore story in the anthology includes a large close-up panel of an East End pub stripper’s pubic hair, comparing it, rather unforgettably, to an exclamation mark.

I overhear two older ladies in the lecture room, fellow mature students, talking about the collection. It is the first graphic novel they’ve ever read.

Lady 1: “This ‘graphic novel’… (she sighs) I wish it wasn’t quite so graphic.”

Lady 2: “Well… I just kept wanting to colour it in.”

Friday, March 16th: I walk through King’s Cross and St Pancras stations and note a few things. King’s Cross is just about to have its new concourse open, with a panelled golf ball-like dome similar to the Great Court at the British Museum. There is even a countdown board, ticking away the seconds to the hoarding coming down. I pick up a leaflet about the changes:

“Have a wander around the new shops, you’ll notice a few surprises. Just don’t get so carried away that you miss your train!”

The ‘new’ shops include: Boots, WH Smith, Paperchase, Accessorize, M&S Simply Food, Pret A Manger, Starbucks and Caffe Nero.

Some thoughts on franchise cafes:

– I’m happy with the drinks and snacks being the same in every single branch of Costa and so on, yet I resent the music being the same. I wonder why this is. Possibly because music connects directly to the emotions, whereas for food and drink the only emotion is satisfying hunger and thirst. Unfamiliar music is interesting, unfamiliar food might be inedible. It’s okay to always drink the same coffee, eat the same panini. But when the same CD plays in every Costa cafe sound system, I am annoyed.

– Some franchise cafes express their individuality by either playing the standardised music on a very low volume, or – God bless them – not having music full stop.

– Franchises are popular because they give the illusion of familiarity, of being at home. One feels a regular, even if the branch itself is unfamiliar. The Marks & Spencer in Gibraltar is a surreal comfort. Perhaps arriving at King’s Cross and not seeing the usual high street brands would be upsetting.

– There is a link between the emotion of franchise cafes and of going to see a band when they’ve reformed,  just to hear the old hits. Comfort food. No surprises. A journey one has already been on. Reformed bands as trusted brands.

– I wonder what the ‘few surprises’ in the new King’s Cross concourse are going to be.

In St Pancras I pass the toilets near the southern end. There is usually a long queue for the ladies’, and no queue for the gents’. Why brand new public conveniences still fail to address this discrepancy between the sexes baffles me. Swanning in past the ladies’ queue to use the gents, and wandering out afterwards to see the same faces still waiting, I feel the unfairness of nature made worse by the myopia of architects. And I can’t help wondering what gender the architects are, and if that is something to do with it.

I also wonder if gendered toilets per se will be a thing of the past in my lifetime, and hope for more unisex facilities to be brought in – lots of cubicles for all, plus a few urinals for those who want to use them (whatever gender – with a free dispensing machine for those funnels one hears about). Or just increase the amount of cubicles for women until the queuing problem is dealt with. Maybe it’ll happen in Brighton first.

This morning. Standing bleary-eyed at the pedestrian crossing on Archway Road, I hear the following:

“Does the pterodactyl want to push the button?”

It’s a father with his 4-year-old son, the son carrying a small plastic version of the aforementioned flying dinosaur. The boy pokes the pterodactyl’s beak against the button on the panel, and I wait with them for the lights to change.

***

Week 9 of the Spring Term, and we’re onto Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. The lecture, by Steven Connor, is one of the best we’ve had. He explores how you can study Pinter in depth without ever reaching for allegory or metaphor. Pinter uses registers as power play, so what’s going on in the dialogue IS what’s going on, and with Pinter the language is more than enough. Connor puts this so beautifully that the critics I’ve read who dwell on symbolism in The Caretaker – Biblical, cosmic, microcosmic  – now seem to be missing the point entirely.

A good lecture can do that:  it can give you the confidence and the tools with which to contribute to a field of study, and on your own terms. You stop looking at the shelves in the library thinking, ‘these books were written by people much smarter than me’, and start to think, ‘I could write books to slot in alongside these.’

Saturday: Sad news. I hear from Gerry O’Boyle that Rachael Dean has died from cancer. Barely a year or so older than me. I’d bump into her from time to time in Highgate and Crouch End, and she and her sister Emily hired me to DJ at a particularly fun party in 2007. Emily wrote about the night in her column for Boyz magazine, with a photo of the three of us, Rachael on the left (PDF file).

Spend the afternoon showing the newly-Camden-based Simon K around what I suppose is my ‘manor’: the Boogaloo (with its rather fun vintage clothes and cake market), and Parkland Walk. Then to the Boogaloo once more for impromptu drinks with Kirsten M. Discover that 5pm to 8pm is the perfect time there for meeting friends – not too crowded, jukebox available. Lots of Monkees being played (Davy Jones died this week).

Both chats are fairly serious. Chats about getting older (we’re all 35-40), of knowing that one never knows how long one has got left, of remaining plans and ambitions. Kirsten and I talk about the film Dreams Of  A Life, about a London party girl who fell off her social radar so completely that no one noticed when she died (a film I recommend to everyone). But more optimistically, these chats bring a renewed sense of knowing how important it is to stay in touch with friends and meet from time to time, just to talk about life. And also, a vivid sense that however trite the expression, life really is too short.

For my part, I’m pleased I’m doing the course I’m doing (some students in my class have dropped out). I definitely want –  need – to earn a modest living from writing, to publish a few books between now and the grave, and to be of use while not doing something I don’t want to do. That’s pretty much my ‘plans’.

To Piccadilly to meet Mum for lunch, then we both visit the massive David Hockney exhibition of Yorkshire landscapes at the RA. The place is packed, but the paintings are so big that it doesn’t matter – one really has to stand back to properly appreciate them. His sheer productivity and variety of materials is impressive alone – oil on canvas, charcoals, crayons, watercolours, video art, as well as the much-trumpeted use of iPads and computer printing. One wall has five iPads mounted on it.

At the RA shop, the Hockney merchandise includes special iPad covers and a cigarette lighter. Given his public rants against the smoking ban, I like to think the latter was very much his idea.

There’s one surprise tucked away, with the exhibition’s multi-camera film installation. After the expected shots of country lanes and trees, there’s footage of what looks like Hockney’s studio, with assistants milling around and cute dogs fed by aloof young men draped on sofas. The studio is then cleared, and there’s a little scene of ballet dancing, with tap dancing to ‘Tea For Two’. The colourfully-dressed dancers are young and clearly professionals, and one of them is an older man – presumably the choreographer. I wonder if it’s Wayne Sleep, and later find out that, yes, it is:

Interview with Wayne Sleep about the Hockey film

It’s so good that Hockney still has this camp side, experimental yet playful, sharing territory with Derek Jarman, Gilbert & George and Warhol. What’s more unexpected is the way he can find room for an arty little ballet film alongside more profound and mainstream statements about looking at the English countryside – and that it all works.

Overheard at the Hockney, by someone on Twitter: “Isn’t it nice that they got Alan Bennett to do the audio guide?”

Then on to Cecil Sharp House to see the Hockney soundalike (and slight lookalike) himself. Despite the venue, Mr Bennett doesn’t do any folk dancing or singing, though there is a raffle halfway through the evening, sponsored of the local health centre, with the winner getting ten free pilates classes. Second prize is something called ‘gyrotonic’ classes. It’s not clear whether these classes are with Alan Bennett or not.

Even though it’s a benefit for Primrose Hill library, he doesn’t read his recent essay on libraries (there’s already a video of him doing so online). Instead does his usual ‘An Evening With…’ format of diary selections (updated to include his visit to the Occupy London camp), then a Q&A, and then the ‘mantelpiece’ speech from Enjoy. 

Someone asks him about his memories of Peter Cook’s Establishment club in the early 1960s. AB says he saw Lenny Bruce there, doing a set about taking drugs. As the druggier period of the Sixties was still to come, Bruce’s set wasn’t so much rebellious or shocking, just baffling.

Managed to get up at 9am this time, though I think I spent most of the morning reading things on the internet, which is still no good.

For some reason, much of today was reading about male writers who moved to different countries. I stumbled on the blog of Karl Webster this morning. He pretended to be that ‘Ugly Man’ blogger a few years ago (I do find confessions of internet fakery fascinating). Right now, though, he is having adventures living with cats in a French forest.  Or at least he says he is.

(I don’t think anyone’s accused me of making up my own persona to write this blog. As it is, I already look like a fictional character in real life. Even my hairdresser said my too-long hair was like a bad wig…)

I also started reading Geoff Dyer’s Out Of Sheer Rage, and found myself laughing aloud on the Tube as a result. It’s his account of trying to write a book about DH Lawrence, and failing, and details all the procrastination and dithering and hindrances that occur along the way. At the start, he has the chance to move house to write the book, and can’t make up his mind where to go. Not just which area, but which country. This makes him sound quite privileged and fortunate, but his experiences are far from blissful. Early on he goes from Paris (too pricey) to Rome (too hot) and then spends six weeks on a beautiful Greek island, only to discover that after the first few days all the beauty puts him off writing, or doing anything at all. Apart from killing wasps. It’s very funny, and the procrastination thought-processes feel very familiar (Of course, I’m reading this book instead of getting on with my own writing).

I also read a Paris Review interview with the Cloud Atlas novelist David Mitchell, another British writer who’s lived in different countries: Japan and Ireland in particular.

So naturally I found myself thinking about how I’ve only ever lived in the UK (Suffolk, Bristol, London) and wondering whether I could or should give living abroad a go. I don’t have the immediate financial means to do so, but that never seems to stop people I know. Once determination takes over, they just find the money and get the sort of work which can be done on a laptop anywhere, or they take an English teaching job in the country they want to live in.

I don’t think I could do it alone. It would have to be through some external opportunity – such as the decisions of a partner (Dyer’s girlfriend in the book is an American with a flat in Rome). But I’m not the partner sort of person… (and if this were a film, the great relationship of my life would start in the next scene).

Tangier is one place I’ve thought about a lot, having gone there three times and being an ardent fan of its bohemian history. The summers would be difficult, though, given my aversion to heat – I even find London too hot in the summer. Stockholm is another favourite city which I’ve had some happy times in. So if we’re talking sheer fantasy, I’d quite like to try ‘dividing my time’ as they say on book jackets, between Stockholm and Tangier.

But who am I kidding? I’m such a Londoner. One thing I love about London is how I can suddenly decide to see a recent-ish film in a proper cinema and know it will be playing somewhere. Today I fancied seeing Midnight In Paris, the Woody Allen film. It’s been released on DVD now, but there was still one cinema showing it this evening – the Odeon Panton Street. About 50% full, too.

Quite apt to see it so soon after The Artist, given it’s another love letter to the 1920s. The Owen Wilson character is a  gushing fan of Paris during the Jazz Age, with its writers and artists – much like I am with the Tangier of the 50s and 60s. Through a bit of handy time-travelling, he gets to meet all the great names of the era before deciding which timezone – and which woman – he truly belongs to. Pure wish fulfilment (and the story is not entirely unlike the premise of the TV sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart), but a lot of fun. The actor playing the young Ernest Hemingway is particularly good, and in his brief scenes he threatens to steal the film.

Any film that expects its audience to get the following joke is fine by me:

“Wow, was that Djuna Barnes I was dancing with? No wonder she wanted to lead!”