Instruments, photos… photos, instruments

I’m not sure if non-musicians get it, but there’s something mesmerising about looking closely at instruments.

And even better, if you can make a poster of your own…

But my personal favourite is the front of my cello…

Simplicity is a special place

Everyone has their own special space. You know, that little flowery field you ran through in the summer holidays when you were 12. That mountain you climbed in New Zealand. That cave you found in your kayak.

They are all different places. Every one unique to their thinker.

Except they all have one thing in common – you’re there on your own. It’s your space.

Now think back to some of the best times of your life. When you felt happy, content and like the world was waiting for you to discover it, and take your place.

For me there are two distinct periods. The first was VI Form college. As a musician, it meant I was working hard and making the most of performing. My teachers had encouraged me to play classical music, jazz, blues and rock. I was endlessly going to rehearsals with different people, exploring different ideas, and different skills. The highlight being a concert where I had performed in every group appearing, and shaking hands with the drummer at the end of the final piece who had just achieved the same fete of 2 hours of non-stop performing.

Then there would have to be the first year of uni. Discovering new things. Finding freedom (oh God it’s turning into a cliche). The cut-outs of Scarey Spice and Sporty Spice in our communal kitchen with daily quotes in speech bubbles fr fellow students to see, ranging from Billy Bragg lyrics to Nick Cave quotes (ah, saved it from cliche).

Here’s the thing. In both of those situations I was being independent. Yes, I was playing in an ensemble, or had my flatmate Joel to help decide the daily quotes. But I was independent in the sense that there was no one else to mess it up for me. I wasn’t relying on a third party. I wasn’t delegating. I didn’t need permission to do things.

Are you thinking of your special place? I bet you’re independent whilst you’re there. I bet there’s no one else there to mess it up for you or critique… says a lot about what’s wrong with life, doesn’t it?

Bit part actors of our lives, stand up and take a bow

So, with still 6 weeks to go, Oscar fever is upon us. Whilst I might think the two people there on the night most deserving of an accolade are the ones presenting it, there will be the inevitable sobbers and smugsies. There will be some talented actors there. And there are several things we should be thankful for – most obviously the fact that Ricky Gervais’ face won’t, hopefully, fill our screens for any more than a few minutes of the evening.

The nominations are a mixed bunch. There’s Morgan Freeman, who has spent his entire career pushing himself ever further and breaking boundaries in his new role. And then there’s Colin Firth, who as far as I can see has spent his entire life playing a public school graduate from Buckinghamshire regardless of the demands of the roles he is cast in.

But our lives are full of bit-part actors. They roll in and out of our lives. Entering stage left, exiting stage right.

These are the people we see on a daily, weekly, occasional basis for whom we don’t know names. The people who in a movie scour the credits whilst everyone’s leaving the cinema looking for ‘bank guy number 7’ or ‘shopper with canteloupe’.

We all have them.

We pretend we don’t, but they’re everywhere.

For example, my house overlooks Mondeo man. A few houses away there’s ‘drummer boy’ and ‘drummer boy mum and dad’. On Sundays I tend to see ‘fluffy dog lady’ whilst washing the car. If I buy bread there’s ‘handlebar moustache chap’. The list goes on.

I know to some it seems strange, but stop and think about it. You get home, and you’re telling your beloved about your trip to the greengrocers and you say, ‘oh I bumped into…’. What do you say? ‘That chap who, now don’t think I’m a snoop, but lives at number such-and-such and puts his bin out a day early?’… No, you don’t. You pick a characteristic. A characateur. It’s not rude. It’s not disrespectful (unless you want it to be). It’s just, you know, they’re not a main character in the movie of your life. They won’t be getting an Oscar for their part in your life when you arrive at the pearly gates. They’ll be scouring the credits of your life to see if they’re listed at the end. In the smallest font. After the grips and technicians. After the movie theme tune has finished and the cheap stock-muzak has started and we head towards the technicolor(tm) logo.

So, bit part actors of our lives, stand up and take a bow.

How big’s a foot? About a foot.

Although I’m in danger of this becoming a foot blog [disappears off into Google to see if such a thing exists]…

Further to my last post, I have found a good use for large feet. The lovely Sarah and I have been looking at moving house lately, and have been trying to make sense of Estate Agents’ details for various properties. Is that kitchen big enough? Just how good is a 17ft living room?

It turns out that my foot is exactly a foot long. This comes in very hand for measuring things. Although Sarah contested the idea that my feet are 12 inches long, when she stopped laughing an appointed measuring device proved me right. Therefore I have spent much of the last few days pacing up and down the living room imagining various bits of houses whilst looking like I’m featuring on one of those Police, Camera, Brutality shows on Cable taking a drink-driving test in America.

There is an added bonus – it is widely believed that the measurement of a foot was set by Henry VIII. Therfore, I have regal feet.

Fresh in their newfound royal status, my feet were given the freedom of the coffee table, released from the confines of the sock. I’m not saying my feet should be modelling for Reebok or M&S, but I like to think they’re nice-looking feet. But again, here Sarah had a bone of contention. Or, technically, a tendon of contention.

Apparently my feet look like they are in a perpetual state of tension. They never relax. This is shown, says Sarah, by a large tense line standing out above the join of my big toe to my foot.

Being as I am, unable to move my toes they certainly can’t exercise the tension out of themselves. I’ve never been able to wiggle or bend my toes. I know I should be able to do so, but it’s like someone forgot to include the wiring to connect my toes to my brain. I can think and think until my face looks like I’m trying to calculate the circumference of a circle in my head, or fathom out why Giles Brandreth is famous, but it’s now good. They just defiantly sit there immobile.

Now, I’m no expert, but how does a foot look relaxed? A comfy chair? Nice book? Glass of Chianti?

I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that my toes are in fact too relaxed. The little piggies just won’t move at all.

Popstar to Opera star – as it happens…

ITV – ‘Popstar to Opera Star’

8.59pm – Oh my God, this could be the most chavvy musical experience of my life. And I’ve seen The Honeyz and Bewitched

9.01pm – Yes. All fears realised.

9.02pm Mylene Klass and Alan Titchmarsh are presenting. Presumably this programme is at some point going to involve gardening whilst wearing M&S lingerie. I have to turn this off.

9.04pm It’s judged by Meatloaf???!!!  Right, that’s me hooked.

Mylene – ‘Most people train for years to become an opera star. Our guys will have just a few weeks’. Not everybody trains that long, Katherine Jenkins is giving it a stab.

9.06pm – Lawrence Ll-B ‘When opera is done really badly, it makes me angry’. Me too Lawrence… Let’s leave now.

9.10pm – The lovely Sarah: ‘If I had to make a programme about music that had to be really s*!t, this would be it’

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Your feet’s too big

There are many things in life that you can do to make things difficult. Like trying to perform brain surgery wearing oven gloves. Or paint a copy of The Last Supper using a 3 inch brush and Dulux paint.

There are also things in life that are made more difficult because of things beyond your control. Like wanting to be a trapeze artist but you have vertigo. Or wanting to be a Bobby Davro impersonator, but you have a cracking sense of humour and speak in received pronunciation.

Or you try to do something sporty but are 6’3 and have size 13 feet.

I’m sorry, but I’m just too far away from my feet to make most sports workable. The broadband that you are using to read this will be slower the further your router is from the wall socket. Similarly, the response of my feet and legs is slower as my head is further away than with the average person.

Cycling works well for me. I can jump, go for miles without hands (including cornering) and do all the tricks the average 12 year old can do on a mountain bike. This is where my feet work perfectly. They just take it in turns to push down. And they only occasionally rub against the front wheel going round corners because they’re so stupidly long.

As a result of all of the feet I have, it’s very rare that I’ve owned a set of trainers. Walking shoes: yes. Trainers: no.

But it’s been sales time in the shop – the happy time for all us clothing freaks. The tall, the short, the fat, the thin – all of the extremes of body shapes can proudly approach the sale rail and find an Aladdins cave of great deals. So too those of us with big feet.

It was the end of the trainer sale in the sports department. Only the shoes on display were left, with only single sizes left over. As a result, the sales assistant seemed surprised to see someone trying trainers on – there were only size 7s and 12/13s left.

And now I own some running trainers. I am going to run. I shall be a runnist. I only mention this because, if you happen to see someone moving fast with legs flailing around, with an expression on his face like he’s trying to do really hard maths and an army assault course at the same time – it’s probably just a 6’3 person with size 13 feet trying to make his feet do something they haven’t done since he was 16.

Be nice to the freak feets.

Snow? Balderdash!

As the country comes to a shuddering (or should that be shivering?) halt, with everyone housebound by snow with only ‘Cash in the Attic’ on TV, there will be an inevitable temptation to start a board game involving the entire family. Whatever you do people, don’t do it.

The problem with playing board games with the entire family is that you’ve already reached rock-bottom before it’s suggested. You’ve listened to everything on your Ipod 10 times in a row. You’ve searched every tv channel, discovered the QVC shopping channel hour-long special ‘scrap-booking with Candice’ is the best television has to offer and are now watching it again on QVC+1. Perhaps the batteries have run out in every present you’ve been given, and you’ve done every square foot of carpet in the house with a lint-roller. Traditionally there is nothing else to do but break out the boardgames.

The thing is, when you’ve hit rock bottom, board games are the only thing that can unlock another level to sink to.

There’s the inevitable build-up. One person has a brilliant idea to play one, and then chirpily encourages everyone else to join in. A little flicker of hope out the boredom lights in every eye.

Everyone rushes around the house. Drinks are got. Biscuits and Quality Street opened and put on the coffee table – the next couple of hours are going to be action-packed, and there won’t be time to go and make a sandwich…

One person, normally the one who owns the most number of pocket calculators, explains the rules to everyone. Then they explain it two more times for granny or grandad, before granny or grandad exclaim ‘I’m sure I’ll pick it up as we go along’. We know they won’t.

For the next 10 minutes there is action. Everyone’s scrutinising the role of the dice, the spinning of the spinney thing on the board. You’re all planning a winning strategy. The living room is filled with people taking on the mindset of the illegitimate offspring of Alan Sugar, Bruce Willis and the guy who invented the electric can-opener. It’s just like the advert. Who’ll be the first one to break?

Of course, the first one to break won’t be the loser in this situation. Far from it in fact. Since the dawn of time, no attempt to play a board game has ever lasted more than 20 minutes before one person cracks. They get bored. They start taking their turn slowly. The inevitable line, ‘sorry… who’s go is it? Oh, it’s mine’, is uttered from stage-left. The phrases ‘is this game nearly finished’, or ‘shall we just say x won?’ signal the end is nigh.

Within 30 minutes the living room has gone from all the thrill of the fair to the closing moments of The Italian Job. I know this – I’ve played ‘Absolute Balderdash’.

And in many respects the ‘snow event’ (didn’t it used to just be called weather?) is exactly same. The news of oncoming snow creates a little flicker of hope in peoples’ eyes that we’ll be taken out of our routine. We sit around for a few days marvelling in its snow-white glory. We have good, childish fun. Everyone pitching in together with a real sense of community spirit. And then the doubters start: ‘Productivity down’, ‘feeble Britain beaten by snow’. And people want out.

I’m always sad when the board games is put away having not reached its true potential. And right now, I’m sitting watching the snow melt realising that pretty soon everything will be back to normal – the grumbling downers will have us back out of our British Blitz spirit and packing away the sledge boxes in no time.

House

I’ve been busy lately doing DIY (more to come on that later). But I did have time to try out an HDR version of my French Chauteau…

Snow!

Some Christmassy scenes…

Posting in the name of

Firstly, let me congratulate you all. Yes, you. All of you. Every single one of you. Well, every single one of you who bought ‘Killing in the name of’. Not only have you reaffirmed my faith in music – as a musician, it’s important to feel there are people out there who want to hear real music rather than the plastic pre-packed string-cheese variety pedalled by Simon Cowell, possible the only organ-grinder to also play the role of monkey – but you’ve given me opportunity to feel like I’m 15 and standing in the crowd at Reading watching RATM at their heights.

But where was I? Ah yes, Christmas cards.

Living in a small close, it’s inevitable that you’re going to get someone else’s post from time to time. It’s not the postman’s fault. The fact that most streets are now laid out using such unfathomable mathematics with even numbers on the left, odds to the right, and prime numbers down a separate lane unless they add up to 30, mean that you need Rain Man to find a specific house in less than 30 minutes.

This means that every now and then you’ll see people nipping across the road a few minutes after the postman’s gone and putting a letter or two into the correct house.

But then there are the nomadic letters. The ones that seem to zig-zag their way down the street like a drunk on his way home on New Year’s eve. Every step of the way gets a new little note scribbled on the front in different shades of black and blue and a myriad of calligraphy as the list of attempted deliveries grows.

Then, all of a sudden the music to this game of pass-the-parcel stops and it lands on your doorstep.

I looked over the front of the letter. It had made a kamikaze trip to end up on my doorstep, via numbers 44, 42, 49, and now some helpful person had written ‘try 46’. This letter hadn’t just arrived here by accident, someone had suggested it was for me.

Then I noticed the names, ‘Morris and Vicky’. At first I thought they must have noticed that two people live here, and that was that. But then the thought occurred, do they think we look like a Morris and a Vicky? The lovely Sarah doesn’t come off too bad in that deal, ‘Vicky’s a perfectly acceptable name. But I’m Morris? Morris suggests I blunder around in a Leyland Princess like Terry Scott in Terry and June. Morris suggests I’m on the committee at the bowls club. Morris suggests I spend my Saturday afternoons shouting, ‘jolly good show’ at the cricket. It suggests I’m on the planning committee of some society or another. Or that I have an interest in collectible corn flake packets from the years 1972-76, excluding special editions.

I know no one is ever going to guess my name, but still…