Pleased to see the diary has been linked to by a blog entirely about Chopin, thanks to my entry the other day about the film Impromptu (plus the use of Chopin pieces by Take That and Monty Python):
http://chopin2010.blogspot.com/2008/04/chopin-currency-april-22-2008.html
Radio 3’s In Tune last Friday features a pianist playing some Chopin live in the studio. Every time presenter Sean Rafferty finishes chatting with her and introduces the next piece, there is about eight seconds of footsteps and chair creaking while she walks across to the other side of the room to sit down at the BBC Piano. I presume there is some technical reason why she cannot be interviewed at the piano seat, but I actually prefer it this way, making the live performance all the more alive, and less like a CD. More footsteps on the radio, I say.
You can also tell the pianist definitely isn’t wearing Flip-Flops.
After this, Mr Rafferty plays a familiar-sounding symphony on CD. Slow, stately and haunting, it’s one of those pieces which leaves me racking my brain, trying to work out if I know it from on a film soundtrack, or (as is shamefully often the case) a TV commercial. A quick look at the Radio 3 Website and its handy playlists reveals it’s Gorecki’s Third Symphony. Specifically, the early 90s recording with Dawn Upshaw that looks like this:
Then I remember. When I worked in the Hampstead branch of Our Price in 1995, this was the biggest selling classical CD at the time, so no doubt it would have been playing on the shop’s sound system on a regular basis. The other big favourite with customers was the first Portishead album. Gorecki’s Third and Dummy: the sound of mid-90s Hampstead dinner parties in a nutshell.
***
I pop into the huge branch of Zavvi at Piccadilly Circus, the one which didn’t stock the Fosca album a couple of weeks ago. Am now delighted to find there’s three copies of the Fosca album in their racks, which is two more than HMV. Thank you, Zavvi.
***
Having a new album out, if nothing else, gives you something to say at parties. What do I do? What am I up to? Well, I have a new album out with my band. Three copies in Zavvi, 1 copy in HMV. There you go. Well, you did ask.
The truth is, right now I’m not really doing anything. Not really. I loaf around at home, or I drift around Central London and Highgate, install myself in cafes and libraries (either the British or the London), read, try to write, think, and sip tea. Sometimes I go for days without speaking to other human beings, beyond my mumbled transactions with shop staff, supermarket cashiers, and street beggars.
Beggar at Holborn Tube: (standing around, approaching people at the station exit) Can you spare any change? I’m waiting for my benefits to come through, and I need groceries.
Me: Okay, sure. (fumbles in purse)
Beggar: I don’t suppose you can stretch to a tenner?
Me: (slight snort) Ah! Sorry. But I can give you 50p? (looks in purse) Or 70p? I’m on benefits myself, you see.
Beggar: Really? You don’t look it.
Me: Well, just because I’m on the dole I don’t see why I should look it.
Beggar: Yeah. (thoughtful pause) I don’t really look it either.
And he says this half approving of the sentiment, and half sorrowfully, as if the problem with his lack of begging success is that he just doesn’t look poor enough. He’s in a nondescript but untattered jumper and jeans, is clean-shaven and doesn’t smell. By making himself comparatively presentable and clawing back a bit of personal dignity, the worry is that he’s washed himself out of the begging market.
As I turn to leave, he pats me on the back in a ‘good for you’ way, presumably for dressing as if I can afford to give beggars £10. Of course, the men of my age and younger who CAN afford to give £10 to beggars tend to dress scruffily, as it’s the fashion of the day: unkempt beards or stubble, baggy jeans, battered trainers, uncombed hair.
The beggar doesn’t look poor enough. The unemployed Mr Edwards doesn’t look unemployed enough. And the monied young men of London don’t look as if they can afford a razor.
