CHRISTMAS IN CLERKENWELL

You may not have known it but the Christmas Cracker was invented in Clerkenwell. A certain Thomas Smith, confectioner, based in Goswell Road developed it in the 1840s from a Parisian paper-wrapped bon-bon by adding a written message, a toy, a mild explosive and eventually a paper crown.

I had a very religious upbringing so sadly, I am less inclined towards belief these days but it was lovely to walk to Westminster on Christmas Eve for the carols in the abbey. As we stood and the choir sang, I noticed some of my fellow genius loci (and sometime antagonists) but, in honour of the occasion, and the place - elected to set aside centuries old rivalries - well, temporarily at least.

The abbey is always wonderful, not least because it contains 'Poets Corner' - a chapel or chamber which is the very epicentre of English Culture with its extraordinary array of tributes to the literary, musical, political and spiritual heroes of these islands.

Afterwards to Trafalgar Square to inspect the Christmas tree - an annual gift from our Norwegian friends in recognition of British efforts on their behalf in the war against "Hister of the crooked cross'. Very nice - but I thought the crib opposite to be rather feeble - perhaps it is a victim of the credit crunch. The bells of St Martin's-in-the-Field were pealing as we walked backwards home through the frost. Lovely

Anyway, here is that other tune I mentioned and briefly posted. It is rather perky - so watch out. Oh, and a very happy new year to you too.

A DREAM AT THE END OF THE YEAR

What's in a number? Not much it seems. I hear the word 'trillion' almost every day now and as this decade draws to a close there seems doesn't seem to be much fuss being made about it at all. Perhaps that's because the last time - the millennium - seemed such a grand numerical event. Even though another day is just another day, it did feel then as though passing from December 31st 1999 into January 1st 2000 was a big deal. I seem to remember I was high that evening - sitting with friends somewhere up on a hillside above the San Francisco rooftops, watching fireworks explode into gigantic red hearts over the bay. On reflection, they may have just been inside my head.

Almost ten years later, sitting here looking out over the London rooftops, I'm thinking that on a personal level, the noughties were rather a momentus decade. Ten years of The Real Tuesday Weld for a start (the first ten years if they let me). As I am sure for most people, there were personal tragedies, deaths, births, lost and found loves, revelations, travel, unexpected meetings, a lot of surprises, adventures and new friends. I miss my father, I find myself generally feeling slightly stunned but perhaps more than anything, as ever, I feel very fortunate. I'm blessed with amazing family and friends. Thanks so much to all who have supported us and to all the people we work and play music with.

After 'I Lucifer' I thought: "I'll write about Love because there's not much worth saying about anything else". After 'The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid' I thought: 'I'll write about death because there's not much left to say about Love'. After 'The London Book of the Dead', I thought: 'I'll just say nothing for a while' and so, for the last year couple of years, as well as the touring and all that I've really been making instrumental music for films, producing other people and writing songs for others to sing.

As ever at this time, we make our little audio christmas card to send out. It's expanded in content over the years and now become quite something in itself - a proper greetings card by Catherine that you can send to a loved one and an entire mini album of new music. Some of this is from recent projects and collaborations and there is a sneak preview of what is next. I'm very pleased that it features our friends The Puppini Sisters, Louis Franck and Joe Coles.

If you like you can get it from this place

For you, there is also a little something else. Enjoy, and I hope that this decade has been just the forerunner, the entree, the opening act for all the wonders that are to come.

With very best wishes

TEA OVER THE BOSPHORUS

A couple of years back I had a dream about being in Constantinople - or rather in a version of the city that had survived into some strange alternate version of the future. The next day I tried to capture it in a song which later metamorphosized into something else but today I looked up the original rather rough demo which is here if you like.

In waking life, I have never been to Istanbul so it was a great pleasure to be invited there this weekend and indeed to see so many people dancing at the show. I was surprised to hear from our friends there that this is quite unusual in Turkey. But apart from the odd dream, I only really know the place from rumour, imagination, occasional news reports and the memory of reading the story of Belisarius as a child. Thanks to Elif, Kerin and Hakan at Tamirane for having us.

The city is soaked in so much blood and history that it almost makes London feel shallow. Thankfully it seems to have managed to somehow retain a degree of mystique through this internet age (where the abundance of information and the sense of mystery appear to be in direct conflict) and yet, like Rome, it has avoided becoming merely a museum or consumable heritage experience for visiting tourists. The very warm and hospitable people, the wonderful spice market, the stone and the sea, the sound and the scent - and of course, that Queen of drinks, Tea.

Sitting up there on the Golden Horn, on the border of Europe and Asia where the Orient Express once came and thinking of Agatha Christie. it was easy to dream of the past.

THE END OF THE WORLD

The recording of the final Valentime's eve pre-apocalypse concert at The End of the World Club is finally released in Europe today through Antique Beat. As ever, it comes with beautiful artwork made by your friend Catherine Anyango - including a free Last Will and Testament form for you to fill in to mark the end of your own world (or that of a loved one) should you choose to do so.

It all comes wrapped up in a special black box containing other ephemera from my own collection so each one is different.

Read more about it all here

"Like shadows we are and like shadows depart"

LYME REGIS

Defying the season
Pink English tongues flick out to lasso
Yellow ice cream
In low slanting sunlight

The Jurassic Coast shrugs
At the ebb and flow of this year's troubles
The autumn tide comes in
And we head home for tea

RESURRECTING AN OLD SPIRIT

A few years ago, The Real Tuesday Weld were touring Europe with The Magnetic Fields. Being rather partial to exotic spirits, I asked for a bottle of Absinthe to be put on the rider in Copenhagen. It was duly delivered but unfortunately, it was the cheapest, greenest, most vicious looking version imaginable. It went straight into the fridge on the tour bus and remained there, virtually untasted as we criss-crossed Scandinavia and Germany.

A few months later, I received a letter from Toon the driver of the bus who told me that after our tour finished, the next band on was Michael Schenker - a famous heavy metal guitarist from a German band called The Scorpions. After his first show, Michael found himself alone on the bus without anything to drink as Toon drove him through the night. On investigating the bus fridge, he discovered - and downed - our bottle of Absinthe in its entirety.

Mistake. Apparently, he turned completely green himself and had to be hospitalised for alcohol poisoning - thus missing the rest of his tour. So imagine the headline: "Monster of Rock unhorsed by fey English dreamers." Apologies to all the Michael Schenker fans.

Anyway, these circumstances have never put me off the drink itself and I was pleased to work with maverick director Ronni Raygun Thomas on his new spot for Le Tourment Vert absinthe - a very classy film for a classier drink altogether.



Bottoms up.

ON THE SCENT OF SOMETHING OR OTHER

Whilst on the subject of body parts, I thought it might be worth drawing attention to one of London's lesser known features. I am sure most people are aware of the London Eye - the giant ferris wheel on the South Bank of the Thames in Westminster. But did you ever hear of another of the capital's facial features - The London Nose? No I thought not. Well, here it is - high up on a wall within Admirality Arch - so high in fact that it could only really be reached by a man on horseback. A man in the cavalry say who may pass it on his way to war with Napoleon and touch it as a good luck totem.

Interesting right? But I am very pleased to be able to announce that this isn't the only London Nose. There are in fact six other much lesser known noses whose purpose is entirely obscure. I did read the other day that London is the 'cocaine capital of Europe', so perhaps this nose is a monument to the practice of ingesting that illegal substance- Stiff upper lip powder as we used to call it. They are certainly in the right part of town.

Or perhaps they are there in recognition of the fact that until fairly recently one of the most significant things a visitor or new arrival to the city would have noticed was the smell. Talking with Catherine Arnold, it became clear to me that until the first world war, the place would have absolutely stank - of death, disease, rotting food, raw sewage and unwashed bodies. Nice.

Sniff.

FURTHER ADDITION 11 OCTOBER 2009..
I thought I would add three further noses. (one courtesy of David Wright - thanks). I intended to sniff out the other two soon.

Yesterday at Cafe Koha with Joe, I found myself sitting next to someone with a very fine nose indeed - Ms Jerry Hall. Nice to see an American Actor / model / whatever smoking Camels. I have given up myself but it's become so unpopular and un-PC that I have been reconsidering - especially when seeing smoke exhaled from such elegant lips. We did however then bump into the actor who played Dot Cotton in East-Enders and my resolution was strengthened.

Another fellow with a fine figure of a nose is the English musician Stephen Duffy. At the Raindance Festival on Friday, we saw the film 'Memory and Desire' a documentary about his career. Much of it was filmed in hand held close up - in fact, I thought the camera may be about to actually go up one of his nostrils at one point. Despite that, he has a wonderful and extraordinary time of it and had written some of my favourite tunes so it was a pleasure to see him so lauded.

I"M READY FOR MY CLOSE UP MR DE MILLE

I've been zipping around the freeways of Los Angeles in a hire car. This was a fairly terrifying experience - mainly for the citizens of Los Angeles. I know that Americans use the right side of the road (the wrong side we would say) but on all previous visits, my driving has been of the back seat variety.

The geography of the city became somewhat clearer to me as a result of my time on the roads - at least in that I understood much more clearly how radically different it is than European cities - first of all it is seemingly limitless and secondly, there is no centre. I liked it much more this time than previously - not difficult I suppose when you are sipping a cold drink by the pool of a house in the Hollywood hills or of a sea-front hotel in Santa Monica. I was of course there to work - but still.

Now on the other hand the psychogeography of the the place remains quite novel to someone used to the Dickensian labyrinths of London life. It's easy to assume that absolutely everyone is involved in the film business in some way or to fall back on easy cliches regarding superficiality, low carb diets and cosmetic surgery.

However, regarding the latter, I must point you at this delightfully spiteful piece of moving imagery by our old friend and colleague Alex De Campi for the Marcella and The Forget Me Nots song "What have you done to your Face?" produced by yours truly..

Quite put me off having any work done myself - even if I will be spending more time near the camera and musing on the words 'cut', 'score' and 'feature'.

EEL HEART LOVE

Yesterday to Broadway market to drink cocktails for Joe's birthday. He has reached the ancient age of 30 and therefore will not be able to drink there much longer as it now seems to be entirely the preserve of young hipsters.

I was reflecting on how much this part of the city has changed although as you will see below, a few fragments of the past still remain:

I am not particularly interested in Eels (hot or jellied) myself as I don't eat meat and they cannot be easily used for taxidermy purposes but I was glad to see that enough people - and possibly even some of the hipsters - still care enough to keep this shop in business

On the way home, we gave Rosie Cooper a lift to London Bridge. She is working on a very interesting project about The Dead - or what happens to us after we die - not in a metaphysical sense but in a mortuary sense. As we had earlier been to visit the wonderful but gruesome show Exquisite Bodies at the Wellcome Trust and what with the birthday and the eels and all, it felt rather a visceral day somehow.

For no obvious reason apart from the fact that this all made me think of it, here is the mash up of Blood Sugar Love and the Feist song 'How my Heart Behaves' all set to another of the amazing Catherine Anyango's lovely and mysterious films..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TUESDAY

It was 66 years ago today.

I watched 'Once Upon a Time in America' the other night. How wonderful.
And each time I see the Cinncinati Kid, I just..
Anyway, I hope she's having a wonderful day.

Image by Peter Blake.

Tate Gallery London