London Week One Recap

I’m working on a new story collection. Recently Maudlin House published Aesop Resentment Society and Vol. 1 Brooklyn Aping The Ark which gave me an idea. I have other pieces loosely based on animals and the title Animal Pharmacy is too good to pass up. For a while now I’ve wanted to write something about a professional Duck Duck Goose league and on the train down to the airport last Thursday I finally cracked it. Which has brought me a whole lot of joy working on it since. The flight over was rather uneventful. More writing and then a couple hours kip, very unusual for me, I’m hardly ever able to sleep on a plane. And getting in at 6:45AM just might be the ticket. Jetlag is usually a killer the first few days but getting to Ben & Helen’s around 10AM - with phone battery at 3% cuz I insisted on sending a bunch of ‘You bonin’?’ texts once I got to Heathrow - the option to sleep right away seemed much more reasonable than if I had arrived later. First ducking down to Crouch End to discover North & Ten, a fantastic bagel place adjacent a pub whose faded feel I love, especially the green of that stool. And they offer gluten-free vegan avocado and cashew cream cheeze bagels. So good I got two

Slept for three hours and was right as rain. Ben was ill and Helen in Rome so I opted to head to Skoob (that’s ‘books’ backwards), a great used bookshop near Russell Square I used to love going to and hadn’t been in over a decade. It was such a lovely evening out I strolled on to Foyle’s, neither shop having anything I was looking for but that doesn’t much matter, it was simply wonderful to be back in London again, noticing how my relationship with it has changed. This is only my second visit in 10 years which would’ve once been inconceivable to me, and the city that first night felt very much like an ex whom you’ve had an intensely passionate relationship with but now that time has moved on and everything’s cooled down you can just be friends. Which is always nice. Up to the Angel Planet Organic to try and figure out how I’m going to eat this trip - still an issue as I write this a week later - then up to Red Rose Tandoori, the Indian restaurant on Holloway Road beloved by The Darkness and Jeremy Corbyn. As delish as I remember. Die Hard is on telly when I get back and as I’m quite exhausted this seems pretty perfect. I had forgotten how much I like this movie, I’m not sure I’ve seen it in decades, and you will never be able to convince me that’s not Huey Lewis manning the front desk at Nakatomi Plaza

Saturday more bagels, working on the Duck Duck Goose story, then it’s down to Honor Oak in way south London to meet Francesca for dinner at Amrutha. Excellent to see her as always, though I’ve known her for 20 years now and it’s only tonight she seems to be putting on this Northern meat and potatoes grumpiness towards all other vegetables air. Still, I’m touched when she tells me I’m the only person she’d go to a vegan restaurant for. The food was AMAZING! That cauliflower pakora, out of this world. And I was delighted to see they had peanut butter & jelly gluten-free vegan cheezecake for dessert

I ask for a ride back to New Cross to catch the train, not revealing that it is my secret intention to go snap a photo of Uncle Wrinkle Chinese Takeaway, a sign that has always brought me great joy since my days of lugging guitars down to David Shah’s place so we could work on Soft Close-Ups material, gosh, since 2008. It used to be having to catch the Northern Line then long buses down the Old Kent Road. That’s very much changed too

It’s late when I get back and Ben and I are both tired but I say to him ‘Friends of mine have been trying to get me into horror films, believing it to be the genre truest to life. I know you’re a big fan so if there’s any -’ and before I can finish he’s whipping around the flat, grabbing dvds from all over, and ten seconds later there’s a giant pile on the dining room table that he’s hoping we can get thru in my two weeks here. Heh

Sunday Ben is out indulging a friend’s new nautical-themed movie fascination at the BFI which reminds me I really want to go there while I’ve over and has the added bonus of all the bookseller tables lined up along the Thames nearby. I like going to used bookshops but checking online so many of the great ones have closed, which is sad. I had also planned on finally trekking out to East Ham while I’m here to see The Ruskin Arms pub where Iron Maiden got their start, something I’ve meant to do since 2005 but that too closed in 2018. I note that Walden Books is, against all odds, still open. A tiny little shop near Chalk Farm. I set out on this sunny Sunday and its very much a wonderful feeling as Kentish Town was where I lived when I first came to London. Again noting how much has changed. The Knights Of The Empire Indian restaurant right across from Kentish Town tube station is no longer there. The site of one of my favourite, and saddest, stories. Remind me to tell you sometime. But the venues kept coming, as did the memories. And I began to feel like I was saying goodbye, but in the most wonderful way. I remember my grandmother’s caretaker telling us that a couple days before she died, she asked her to take her through every room in her house and stood in each one for quite some time. This thought came to me as I was walking around for truth be told, up until a few weeks ago, all year I had had this strange feeling that I was going to die this year. For the life of me I couldn’t think past May 4th, the day I fly back from London. I got my affairs in order and it will be fine but also I’m not going to die, heh, there’s too much I want to get done. And I now definitely have plans for the rest of the year. This stroll - the bookshop being only a nominal target - made me very happy indeed as so much came into view both physically and mentally that I had forgotten about - The Enterprise where I saw Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, The Monarch, site of so much hijinx, is now a Big Red, seeing Inch Blue at The Verge, the Mario’s Cafe sign is gone (‘and did you see The KLF last night?’), and Drinkers Paradise which was the inspiration for the British Drunken Secret Service Headquarters in my Off-License To Kill, the first proper book I ever wrote, very much inspired by those first three months in London. Hiking up the hill to my first ever flat on Lady Margaret Road really took me back and I was filled with a joy and overwhelming gratitude that I got to experience it all

Back to Ben’s where Wolfen is on the agenda. Monday is a day very much dedicated to work. Been doing that a lot while I’m here. I don’t think of this as vacation. I don’t particularly like vacations anyway, I always want to be getting stuff done. Still trying to get coverage for The Middle People. The upcoming single is so good and Mikey’s one of my all-time favourite songwriters but despite having had such good luck with the first three acts I was handling with Fire Horse PR, this one is proving a tough nut to crack. Only thing to do is keep at it. Plus I’ve got another campaign I’m waiting for a release date on. It would be great if I didn’t have to start working it next week as the first week is always the most work intensive and there’s a bunch I want to do in London but we’ll see how the cookie crumbles. Long day which Ben and I cap off with watching The Fog, which I dug. Ben tells me he watches it every year and that he’s such a fan, that when he saw John Carpenter and he played the theme tune Ben actually wept. Also, when he and Helen were visiting San Francisco, Helen hired a car to take them the hour and a half drive to the lighthouse. Twas cool how the film starts “In five minutes it will be the 21st of April” and we watched this on April 20th. Helen got home late and we had a quick catch-up but everyone was knackered so it was off to bed

To head to Brighton on Tuesday. I love Brighton and it was an excellent feeling to walk out of the station and peer down the hill at the sea remembering how much I do. Last time I was here I remember we went because Ben had the goal of eating chips and drinking a Coke on the beach. Easily achievable. But Ben reminded me that there was a whole kerfuffle because I really wanted to buy vegan shoes from Vegetarian Shoes but with my wide big feet this posed a problem, especially as I bought them and only later admitted that they did not fit, necessitating returning them. To Brighton. Off the train to Iydea, the veg canteen-style cafe in The Lanes that I always like to go to. Then Rachel Love came to meet us. Yes, Rachel from one of my all-time favourite bands, Dolly Mixture, who I wrote about here. The first time I heard them was one of those life-changing experiences. And she sang on my single last year, Rachel On The Rooftops, adding those gorgeous backing vocals that were so good we isolated them for the transcendent end

We went to Wax Factor, which is now just a record shop, too bad as they used to be half recordshop half bookshop making it an ideal location, or ‘heaven’, as I used to refer to it. Then wandering down The Lanes, Rachel buying a top in a vintage shop because ‘it’s very Railcard’, her new supergroup with Peter Momtchiloff, Ian Button, and Allison Thomson. No one had any good 70s disco shirts. Though it soon became apparent that the goal for this Brighton excursion was to find vintage postcards. Which you would think would be easy to do in a seaside town. But you’d be wrong. Lauren Lavín sent me a postcard along with her book The Third Beat when I ordered it, with instructions to send it along. So, wanting to keep it in the indie lit community, I sent it to Mallory Smart. And was reminded how much I enjoy sending postcards to people. Ben got into it too and wanted to post one to Helen from Brighton. We wandered all the way down to the beach without having any luck. Thinking that might change on the pier, we headed there. Alas, though this was my first time out on the pier and I quite enjoyed it. We did, however, spot a pair of gloves floating in the sea. As Ben pointed out, someone losing one would make sense, but both?? There’s a story there

Came up empty at the museum at The Pavilion, and it was my first time walking past this too. All the while having a lovely time though, Rachel telling us about living here with Captain Sensible in the 80s. Heading back into town now we decided to look further down the Google results for “vintage postcards Brighton” and were thus directed to Step Back In Time where we were now spoiled for choice, in fact overwhelmed, by what was on offer

We each bought some then wandered back thru The Lanes to the station, stopping for a cup of tea and then this photo was a must, me being a double Dragon in Chinese Astrology and green has always been my favourite colour

An issue now being there was not a postbox in site. Which seemed odd for a major rail station. But Rachel kindly offered to post Ben’s for him when she got home

The less said about Wednesday, the better. Haha. Everything seemed to take six times longer than I had planned

Weather has been great so far and today was very summery as I caught the buses to Stoke Newington to meet Glass Records main man David Barker. I’ve long been a fan of Glass - David J, The Jacobites, Nikki Sudden, Epic Soundtracks, Spacemen 3, The Pastels… - and I had interviewed David a couple years back for the Counterforce podcast, so I suggested we meet up while I’m over. I thought it’d just be for a quick cup of tea but no, we sat in a cafe for two hours talking, well, music of course. I hadn’t realized he put out that first Teenage Fanclub record and he regaled me with tales of touring the world with them and The Jazz Butcher. Talked Miles, Alice Coltrane, Pantherman, Zeppelin, The Stones, even Aerosmith, who he saw do a secret gig at The Marquee Club in the early 90s. David also brought me these cds which is awesome. Everyone’s raving about this Radhika album, I love wor_kspace’s cover of The Perfect Disaster’s Bluebell on Remade/Remodelled, an excellent comp which I’m now psyched to own a physical copy of. I gave it a great review for The Quietus

Everyone’s going to a gig tonight but I don’t particularly feel like going. One valuable lesson I’ve only learned in the past couple of years is that if you don’t feel like doing something, don’t do it. Seems so simple. Be nice to stay in tonight

So I’ll be 50 tomorrow. I can hardly believe it. What a strange time it’s been. When I was doing stand-up sometimes I’d tell real life stories to which the audience would come up afterwards incredulous and suggesting changes. And I’d have to respond ‘but that’s exactly what happened’, which puzzled them even more. ‘That was really true?’ My sister once told me ‘you’re hard to explain to people’. Haha. And I do recognize that I have been very fortunate in my life to have done all the things I’ve done. Though I don’t think about the past much, hardly at all these days. There was so much heartbreak, sadness, and disappointment. So many things I wish I had gotten over my own shyness about doing. There were good times too, but there’s so much I want to get done now it hardly seems worth purposely reliving either. Though I was surprised recently when I was in the studio working on the b-side for the new single. I wrote it 10 years ago after J moved away. I had gone to visit her and when I came back I was so sad she was gone I picked up my guitar and wrote one of my sweetest songs, chinese stars. And although we haven’t been in touch in oh probably 5 years, while I was building up the Here Come The Warm Jets-esque end section that day in the studio, I stumbled upon a new melody that somehow seemed to capture everything I once felt about her. So the past is always there, always streaming along concurrently. I just don’t feel the need to prod it these days. It will appear of its own accord if it needs to. And of all those heartbreaks and disappointments, I said to my therapist the other day I would take them all again to be where I’m at now, the creative force I have become, that I always knew myself to be