Back at my desk in Highgate. On Sunday I walked to the station from the hotel via Norwich City Centre, thinking about the pop songwriter Cathy Dennis, of all things. She’s from Norwich, and has just been in the news for not being Ronnie Hazlehurst. Various newspaper obituaries cited him wrongly as the author of ‘Reach’ by S Club 7, which was really one of hers. Turns out the journalists all copied from Wikipedia’s entry on Ronnie H, taking errors and jokey vandalism as fact.
This is less a criticism of Wikipedia’s reliability – the first thing anyone knows about the site is that it’s not the lone destination for any serious research – and more a worrying indication of laziness among journalists, who surely must have plenty of industry-only, professional reference sources at their disposal. So not only do they not know the first thing about Wikipedia, but they don’t know the first thing about research per se. If you’re paid to check things properly, you check things properly. Bad enough that broadsheet newspapers were among the culprits, but the BBC did it too, Hazlehurst’s own employer for 20 years. I wonder if this now means that as well as giving us all those theme tunes, the late Mr H has unwittingly improved journalistic standards in the Internet age? I hope so. Embarrassment amongst one’s peers is a serious weapon of change.
It’s true ‘Reach’ was a jaunty BBC TV theme tune, backing the credits to S Club 7’s second series, the one when they went to L.A. Just entirely the wrong period and wrong style. Hazlehurst’s very 60s / 70s TV jauntiness is a completely different flavour to Cathy Dennis’s very 90s /2000s Motown-esque pop jauntiness
I could have helped said journalists avoid egg on their faces. I am Dickopedia. I know that ‘tripsolagnia’ is sexual arousal from having your hair washed. I know that the screenplay to the violent new David Cronenberg movie was written by the man who co-devised Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Canned Carrott, and that it’s the first movie to combine branches of Londis, Finsbury Public Baths, blood, gore, tattoos, and nude men fighting with knives. And I’ve always known that Ronnie H didn’t write ‘Reach’. I know Cathy Dennis did. Because I like to read the writing credits of pop hits, and tend to remember if it’s her. Or if it’s Betty Boo. Or Diane Warren.
I once met Cathy Dennis in 1997. She was on the same bill as Orlando at a swanky event in a Park Lane hotel, celebrating music management. There was Mike Scott, Cathy Dennis, and representing up-and-coming acts, Orlando and The Stereophonics. Not at once. Mike Scott was scary. The Stereophonics were unabashed blokey rockers, and of course went on to be very successful with it. Cathy Dennis was doing a song from her curious Britpop-tinged phase of the time. It was either The Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Sunset’ or her own ‘West End Pad’. Maybe she did both.
We were backstage. She came over to us, and was very charming and pretty and looked like this:
‘Hullo Orlando,’ she said.
‘Hullo Cathy Dennis,’ I replied. ‘It’s a pleasure and privilege to meet a fellow pretty East Anglian songwriter. Don’t worry about this weird Britpoppy phase of your singing career. You’ll soon be writing massive hits for anyone who isn’t nailed down. And many of those who are. By the way, in ten years’ time, one of your hits will be mistakingly attributed to Ronnie Hazlehurst when he dies.’
‘The Two Ronnies guy?’
‘The same. The Guardian, Independent, Times, even the BBC will say so.’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘Something called Wikipedia will be invented. It will become the first port of call for many knowledge-seekers, but some journalists will also make it the last port of call. And they will look very silly. And in that same week I will be walking through the city that spawned you, and inventing this conversation for the purposes of diary entertainment. Though I did really meet you. You lovely Norwich pop genius, you.’
‘Funny old world. Isn’t that Dave Lee Travis over there?’
(it was)
At this point, my thoughts snapped back to my surroundings in Norwich. To my left was a huge Salvation Army band marching past through the pedestrianised shopping area; a proper parade. To my right was a Dalek. A proper black one with someone inside, shouting ‘Exterminate!’, delighting tourists outside the huge glass-fronted Forum:
***
A Sunday train means engineering works, so my journey back to London involved a fairly quick train through Diss (the Quiet Zone carriage, though people were still making loud mobile phone calls), then a slow double-decker bus from Ipswich to Marks Tey, then a very slow train at the other end stopping everywhere. And then a tube.
Arrived home feeling exhausted and fragile and keen to have a quiet night in, but instead changed my suit and dragged myself down to a pub in Clerkenwell to see Neil Scott, the talented designer of this website. He now lives in Glasgow with his partner Laura, but was in town on a rare visit. Chatted to Neil and Laura and their friends, including Jen D and Angelique. Jen had just come straight from The Scala, playing drums with Scarlet’s Well for a David Shrigley event.
Felt my energy sapping after an hour, made my excuses, and went home to an early night. On the tube, someone shouted out my name. This happens more often than not. I recently took the very first 210 bus on a Sunday morning from Golders Green to Highgate, having just travelled through the night from Nottingham. And of course, someone on this dawn-raid 5am bus knew me (hi Tony). He was off fishing.
It’s great being recognised, forever bumping into people who know you – in my case down to a cartoonish appearance and 15 years of dipping in and out of diverse London scenes – but when you’re feeling fragile and thin-skinned and tired and barely capable of speaking or thinking straight and just want to Garbo it at home, it can make you feel a bit guilty. I’d rather not have people thinking I’m being rude when I’m just being tired.
I suppose this is the one side of getting older that I’ve really noticed lately. I’m getting invites to a lot of under-35 type events, but I now have over-35 energy. No, more like over-85 energy.
***
Still have this recurring stomach ache. Saw the doctor on Friday, who prodded me about and suspected it was a flaring up of the IBS I had a few years ago. Brought on by stress.
‘Anything stressful happen of late?’
‘Well, I turned 36 and started really worrying about where my life is going for the first time, and what I should be doing with it, what I’m actually good at and indeed good for, and about the best way I should be earning money, seeing as I have less than none and no ‘job prospects’ of any sort whatsoever.
‘Then I started worrying about the sheer mass of clutter and possessions I’ve accumulated, and began a major clear-out process that’s been ongoing and still isn’t finished, unearthing some upsetting items from the past here and there. And sometimes not knowing what to throw out and what to keep was upsetting enough. And then my roof leaked. And then it fell down. And then I had to move out for a week. And now I’m back but it’s all new, and if feels like I’ve just moved house, with things still in boxes to go through.’
‘So… I guess the answer about anything stressful happening is…yes?’
He’s given me the same pills that cleared the IBS up back then. Can’t wait for them to start working; the stomach ache is still ongoing and unpleasant. And it makes everything slower and more difficult.
***
A lot to do today, and it’s already nearly 3pm. Been sitting here typing, web-surfing, emailing. Must stop and get on. Photos to select and send to the Swedish newspaper and the White Mischief people. Lots of Fosca business. Outstanding laundry. Preparation for Stockholm on Friday. Things to buy for my newly-regenerated room.
I need those things that tie back curtains and hold them in place. I’ve always wondered what they were called, and had assumed there was a special word, like a ‘valance’ is the drapery bit around the bottom edge of a bed.
So I asked Liz. She said they’re called ‘curtain tiebacks’.
And there’s so much stuff I’ve not written about in this diary: events, emails, plugs for other things.
This entry is too long. Sorry. I’ll try to do smaller bits, and more often.
