ME AND MR WOLF

It gives me very great pleasure and pride to be be able to announce the release into the wild, wild woods of the internet, George and Monica Fort's animated Noir masterpiece "Me and Mr Wolf" .  It has been made for The Real Tuesday Weld grown up fairytale song of the same name from the album "The Last Werewolf" and is a duet with the wonderful Ms Piney Gir.

It is the third and final part of the trilogy George and Monica have animated following 'The Show Must Go On' and  'Kix'.

We'll be performing live to it in upcoming shows.  If you like it, I'd really appreciate it if you would send it out to as many people as possible or post on Facebook, Twitter and so on. 


We think George is a genius and we would like the world know.

CITY OF THE DEAD

I wandered down to St Pauls the other day to see the protestors camped next to its churchyard.  I sympathise with them but it is rather unfortunate that their presence has caused the Cathedral to be closed for the first time since the Second World War.  
I do like the fact that the Churchmen and the protestors have been engaged in lively debate -  I have often felt the building and the hill upon which it sits to be one of the major psychic centres of London, if not of England. One of the reasons for this and a circumstance that those camping there may not be aware of is the number of dead bodies upon which it sits.  

When Christopher Wren started digging after the Great Fire which destroyed the old cathedral, he discovered layer upon layer of corpses - a compete corporeal cross section through the city's history with recent burials placed over mediaeval graves piled upon the chalk coffins of the Saxons heaped on the pinned shrouds of Dark Age Britons stacked over Roman urns.  Doubtless if he had been able to keep going he would have found prehistoric remains - Ludgate Hill is after all said to have been the site of a Neolithic stone circle.  He may have eventually even come upon the mythical bodies of the giants Gog and Magog long lost in legend.

London is a teetering Necropolis, a veritable honeycomb of the dead.  Countless thousands lie here beneath our feet - one reason no doubt that the present city is almost five meters higher than its Roman counterpart.  Until inner city burials were banned in the mid nineteenth century, everyone who died here was squashed into often tiny parochial cemeteries adjacent to churches.  Even before the horrors of the Black Death and its plague pits, tales abound of body parts being visible just below thin layers of soil in the churchyards, bodies piled upon each other in cellars, left lying in the streets or just thrown into the Thames.  Nowadays of course it's quite costly to even get a place in one of 'The Great Gardens of Sleep" the Victorians built in a ring around the city to stop all that.  Accomodation has always been a problem here - even for the dead.

At this time of year, they sleep lightly it is said.  I trust there will be a few souls floating around at The Real Tuesday Weld's All Hallows show at Westminster library on Saturday . The building has its own ghosts of course - it is Isaac Newton's old house after all.  If I won't see you there and as we are speaking of the afterlife, I hope you enjoy this little film made a little while ago for the song "Heaven Can't Wait" 

And to quote Orson Welles:

"Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. 

"Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? 

Go on Singing!"
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(The image above is from the wonderful Minotaur exhibition at Waterloo Tunnels)

LOVE ON THE PAVEMENT

In recent weeks, a message has appeared on the pavements of Vauxhall and Albert Bridges.

It says "I think I am it.  If you are too, come to South Quay DLR".  One would guess that it has been painted by one who has have fallen in love with another on the way to work and harbours the belief that love is reciprocated.  My grasp of graphology is good enough to know the writer is male so we can assume HE followed the beloved (gender unknown) and left a message where he knew they would see it - probably on the way home.  It is rather strange because it would seem far more effort to do all that than to just go up to the person in question and start talking to them.  But love know no logic does it?  

There is of course  a noble tradition of romance on bridges - right back to Dante getting his first peek at Beatrice on the Ponte Vecchio in 1300 and dedicating his life to her honour.  Their love was never consumated of course - I believe she thought him somewhat of a wimp and there was always a Mrs Dante and some mini Dantes waiting for Dad back at home.

London provides endless scope for the romantic imagination - yet another reason not to live in the country I would have thought.  This is particularly true when you are falling into or being pushed out of love. The city is soaked with the stains and traces of love lost and love found:  particular districts become associated with a particular person or a particular time; a broken heart can lend significance to the most ordinary of bus stops; an intensity of feeling amplify some dismal corner to the level of that bridge in Florence.  Holborn tube reeks with the scent of a million assignations. 

Such urban love can make fools of us. For a while I couldn't deal with West Kensington at all and found even buying a ticket for the district line poignant yet Dalston retains a certain romantic air in the imagination in spite of its grubby appearance. Once lost in some amorous madness, I saw a man walk through the wall of Russell Square tube, a sun-lit stream flowing through a concrete car-park behind Grays Inn Road.   There is a bench in Soho square I have not been able to sit on since a friend told me he had sex on it ...with my ex. For months, I was absolutely convinced a certain person was about to turn into the street ahead of me and things would be alright. They never did, and now I am glad of it. 

I wrote a song about such things a while ago.  It was released with Joe Coles singing - but here is the orginal with yours truly. 

As for our friends on the bridge above,  It is conceivable that they may be together now.  Or perhaps the wrong person read the message and turned up and it all worked out anyway. That would be a nice ending to this story - but if they are together or even if they are not, I hope someone remembers to come back and clean the pavement - just in case.

THE GREAT MYTHOGRAPHER

I enjoyed listening to Peter Ackroyd read and be interviewed last night.  He is a neighbour psycho-geographically speaking and an undoubtedly impressive personage, The event was to mark the publication of the first volume of his "History of England".  An eccentric workaholic loner, a legendary storyteller, a lover of London and England's cultural heritage, he is a bulky man and is starting to remind me somewhat of Winston Churchill.   He is very funny in a dry sort of way and whilst a popular (and populist) writer remains seemingly indifferent to the great affection in which he is held.  In contract to his slim and enthusiastic interviewer, his demeanour oscillated between that of an impatient headmaster and a cornered badger about to bolt.  Throughout, he appeared keen to leave and get back to his writing - as well he might, having another FIVE volumes of the history to get through before its putative completion in 2024. 

He generally responded to questions with an economy bordering on irascibility.  One audience member asked one of those long, self important questions which was really a lengthy assertion of their own cleverness followed by the preposterous enquiry "Of the tens of thousands of facts in your book, how many would you stand up for in court and attest were definately true?"

"None." barked Peter and turned to the next questioner.

The interviewer had a bit more luck teasing information out and asked what we were all dying to know: "How on earth do you manage it?".  (His output is prodigious and beginning to rival that of his literary hero Dickens: novels; biographies; the histories; poems; essays - he just keeps pouring them out).  His response managed to be both simultaneously indignant and poignant:  

"I haven't got anything else to do." he said and left it that.

He evidently has a taste for the macabre.  His reading had all been about the gruesome crimes and punishments of the mediaeval period and he left us with some very entertaining and insightful thoughts on the recent London riots, slavery and celebrity TV historians.  I thought at one point he almost came out as a potential cross-dresser.

A final question from the floor asked what sort of person London would be like if it had a being of its own  - as seems to be implied by the title of his seminal work "London: a Biography".  Whilst he was mulling this over, I looked around and guessed that a few of audience were probably thinking what I was thinking.

It would be like Peter Ackroyd.

QUEEN MOB

During the recent London riots,   I happened to be far away on the Scottish island of Skye so I cannot recount any personal experiences of the mayhem.  However, I couldn't help but notice that in the acres of news coverage and analysis, almost nothing has been said about London's long history of rioting.

We often talk of such events in a shocked 'what is the world coming to?!' sort of way when in fact they are not a new phenomenon at all or even particularly unusual. 

There have always been riots here - often politically motivated in response to some injustice -  but often just for the hell of it.   Boudicca kicked off the former, kind with a very heavy assault on Roman Londinium after the rape of her daughters.  She and her followers pretty much burned the town down and massacred the entire population with some pretty gruesome tortures before being finally brought down near KIngs Cross. Amongst the others like the anti-Catholic Gordon riots  and the anti-racist Brixton riots several started here in dear old Clerkenwell which, despite today's complacent cappucino drinkers, was once a hotbed of political activism. Check out the Karl Marx memorial library if you fancy a bit more of that.

But the thing which really bothered us this time was the looting, burning and the murders.  The bourgeoise are terrified of gangs: when property is your main concern, the mob seem the biggest threat.  We generally have the welfare state to keep that at bay of course but it has always broken out now and again.  As a fan of West Side Story, I have always had a certain sneaking sympathy for gangs and of course it's worth remembering that many of the seventeenth and eighteenth century London gangs - the Mohocks, the Hawkubites, the Nickers, the Scowerers. the Hectors - were posh, vicious rich boys who loved ripping it up and violating the poor.  The Mohocks were a particularly nasty bunch - they used to love catching people, mutilating them and rolling them in a barrel down Snow Hill just south of here.   Ouch.  I have rolled down Snow Hill myself a couple of times after late nights in Smithfield and I can tell you, that really must have hurt.

Here is John Gay on the subject:

From Mohock and from Hawkubite,
Good Lord deliver me,
Who wander through the streets at nigh
Committing cruelty.
They slash our sons with bloody knives,
And on our daughters fall;
And, if they murder not our wives,
We have good luck withal.

The Gordon rioters graffited the walls of Newgate prison with the slogan "His Majesty King Mob" a name more recently taken up by pre-punk situationist pranksters in West London in the 1970s.  One of their slogans would have easily subtitled last months excitement:

"I don't believe in nothing - I feel like they ought to burn down the world - just let it burn down baby"

Boudiccea is a heroine now of course.  You can see her in full vengeful flight on the embankment opposite the houses of parliament.  She, the original anti-establishment figure, has become the establishment epitome of vigorous Englishness.

GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT

My old friend and collaborator Alex Budovsky genius author of Bathtime in Clerkenwell, Brazil and many other wild and wonderful creations moved from New York to Bogota a little while back.  "What's a Russian doing in Columbia?" you might ask a little suspiciously.  Well, amongst other crazy things he directed this delightful little animation by Olga Gonina.  They very kindly asked yours truly to contribute both the music and the voice over and yours truly was pleased to accept.

TUNNELS, TELEPORTATION AND THE EXPLODED HEART

My investigations into the Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi and the London teleportation system seem to have provoked some interest and have been bearing unexpected fruit.  Thanks for the messages - especially the one in heiroglyphs.

A recent correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous put me on the trail of Bonomi's sponsor the gambler and occultist Lord Kilmorey (also known as 'Black Jack' Needham).  Black Jack became infamous for eloping with Priscilla Hoste who although once his young ward, became the love of his life.  Although much younger than he, his love appears to have been reciprocated but the scandal of the affair or the strangeness of his arcane rituals (which had seen his separation from two previous wives) proved too much of a strain on her and she died. Whether she expired during one of their love rituals or not, she certainly passed on prematurely of an 'exploded heart' - cementing the reputation of Black Jack as a demon lover.

Wracked with grief and guilt at his loss, he consulted with his fellow occultist Bonomi in the hope of finding a way to re-animate the dead girl or at least to be able communicate with her.  Bonomi instructed the architect Henry Edward Kendall in the construction of an Egyptian mausoleum and covered it with heiroglyphs dedicating it to Osiris concerning the journey of the soul through the afterlife.  The mausoleum was initially constructed in Brompton Cemetery near the Courtoy tomb described beneath but extraordinarily, the whole edifice was subsequently 'moved' - first to Chertsey and then to the grounds of Gordon House in Isleworth where it stood hidden for many years.  Whether this movement was by means of horse and cart or was a successful example of Bonomi and Warner's teleportation techniques,  I leave you to decide.  

It has been speculated that the mausoleum was intended to be a 'master' teleportation chamber which somehow controlled the grid of other chambers located in each of the cemeteries which ring London.  Certainly Black Jack had a hidden tunnel built linking it to Gordon House and was said to dress in white, lay in a coffin and be wheeled by his servants through the tunnel to be left with the deceased Priscilla. Whether he did this so he could attempt to communicate with his dead love or to teleport on a discreet journey into town, who now knows?

TEAR US APART

The Real Tuesday Weld have produced a new film - and again it is by their old friend and collaborator Alex De Campi.  This time it is a rather wonderful stop motion fairytale featuring an archetypal hero (the spaceman) and an archetypal heroine (the fairy girl).  There is also a strange dream sequence with a wolf and a deer.  You will have to talk to Alex if you want to understand more about this but I understand that it is her interpretation of the song "Tear Us Apart" from the "The Last Werewolf" soundtrack.

The song seems to me to be an inversion of the normal romantic lyric which blames love for the pain we feel in love affairs - "love will tear us apart", "only love can break your heart" etc - putting the blame firmly back on the lovers themselves - or the dark secret lover, the evil twin, the monster inside each that cannot resist causing trouble or destruction.

You can see the film here

This for me is the metaphorical message of the werewolf myth.

And you?

A STITCH IN TIME

Speaking of Egypt and time travel and being rather long lived myself, I have long been fascinated by the notion of time capsules and in particular the one hidden in London's 'Cleopatra's needle' on the Victoria embankment. The needle itself is obvious but few people know about the time capsule.  It was placed there by the occultist Joseph Bonomi (see below) just before his death in an early attempt at Cryonics.  

Amongst the collection of typically odd time capsule items (including photographs of the good looking English women of the day, a box of hairpins (why?), tobacco pipes, a set of weights, a baby's bottle (why?!!), some toys, a razor, coins, a picture of Queen Victoria, a history of the strange tale of the monument, a translation of its inscriptions, a map of London and various daily newspapers), Bonomi included a vial of his blood and possibly and rather gruesomely, a piece of his flesh in a cigar box together with magical instructions written on vellum.  It didn't save him - in fact, the reputed curse of the needle may have precipitated his untimely end almost immediately afterwards but he firmly believed that beings would exist in the future who would be able to re-incarnate him from his tissue. This may seem ludicrous but many people who are not blessed with longevity are still doing this sort of thing.  You can visit the Cryonics society here. 

I like the needle - it is one of those London features that we pass many times without noticing.  I recently visited its twin in New York's Central Park.  When people talk about the special relationship between the USA and the UK, they rarely realise that if this exists, it is entirely because of the symbiosis between these two monuments.  There is a third - erected in Paris in order to foster further harmony -  but in fact it does not match - which perhaps explains the odd, slightly antagonistic relationship between our countries and France.  Of course all three were plundered from Alexandria where they had been buried in the sand for thousands of years.  The story of their transport is remarkable - the plaque on the London needle records the names of the six men whose lives the curse claimed on its journey here.  Bonomi's Clerkenwell colleague the psychic engineer Samuel Warner may also have been involved in the journey and the amazing mysterious means of movement of theses giant objects.

There is no prescribed date for the unlocking of the casket in the London needle.  How will we decide when it is time?  Perhaps we won't be here at all.  I would be interested to know it there is a similar casket in its New York counterpart.  Do let me know if you know.  And if you too are interested in time capsules, there is an entire society devoted to them at the Crypt of Civilisation.

A WEREWOLF ABROAD

I am very much looking forward to visiting the US next week with Glen Duncan for little shows in New York,  Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The shows are listed here. along with various others with The Real Tuesday Weld

Glen will be reading from The Last Werewolf and I will be performing some (stripped down) excerpts from the soundtrack to celebrate the release of the  US hardback and the album which will be released digitally everywhere on July 12th.

A very special edition of the album with written pieces by Glen, artwork by Catherine Anyango and exclusive tracks will be released by Crammed discs in Europe in October.

It has been a while since Glen and I did any live stuff together - not since the days of I Lucifer actually - but we do hang out and talk bollocks fairly frequently.  He is a very good reader, particularly of his own work,  so do I hope you get chance to hear him.

We are also looking forward very much to going to Disneyland with friends in LA. It has been a long held ambition of mine to get a squeeze from Donald Duck.