HERE TODAY GONE TOMORROW

The Evil Empire is coming to south Clerkenwell.  The area has a long tradition of being home to scoundrels, robbers and ne'er -do-wells so Goldman Sachs or the 'Giant Vampire Squid on the face of humanity' as Rolling Stone described them are carrying on a long tradition.  They have got hold of the very large ex-telephone exchange at 70 Farringdon Street and will be using it as a centre for carrying on the toxic activities described in Greg Smith's recent resignation letter.

Most importantly though, the existing building, a rather drab modernist block houses the rather wonderful 1960s murals by Dorothy Annan celebrating the wonders of modern communication.  They are painted on ceramic panels in steel frames and were placed to enliven what would otherwise have been a very boring street-scape.

They are quite constructivist and have a sort of English Klee or Miro feel with abstracted imagery of teleprinters, aerials, switching gear, pylons, TVs and so on. Ironically Dorothy Annan was an unashamedly left wing artist.

 

Check them out soon if you can - the building will soon be demolished.  I don't mind that so much - it is fairly charmless although it is the place that the first international phone call from England was made in 1963. 


Thankfully the murals themselves have recently been listed and so will be saved but who knows where they will end up? As I mentioned here, the statues previously adorning the top of the Unilever building (which is also listed) disappeared into the CEO's Surrey garden during the renovation works so I wouldn't be surprised if these lovely things end up gracing Lloyd Blankfein's Mayfair pad now he knows they are valued.  


The bank had previously wished them destroyed.

SWEET THAMES SONG

 
Drifting back downstream, it is Tower Bridge is probably the bridge that most of us think of as representing London.  I actually find it rather camp but of course it has some rather tragic and morbid associations.   As well as 'Dead Man's Hole' the river mortuary on the north side, a few years back, there was the incident I wrote of here when 'Adam' a six year old Nigerian boy's body was discovered floating under the bridge.   He was a victim of the Yoruba cult.  I was reminded of this recently by the grim incident of the French boy murdered in London by his sister and her boyfriend who claimed he was possessed by an evil spirit (the un-selfconcious irony is mind boggling).

On a slightly lighter note, several people have come a cropper on Tower Bridge  - especially in the early days when, in an impulse that I completely understand, it was popular to try to leap across whilst the bridge was being opened. One of them, the famous Clerkenwell deep sea diver Benjamin Fuller, leapt in such a grand act of derring do that he ended up swimming with the fishes - a deep sea dive from which he sadly never surfaced.

I will now leave these tales of bodies and bridges despite there being many more to tell.  Here is Glen Duncan reading from the 'Sweet Thames' section of Eliot's The Waste Land.  

It was a piece we did a while ago. I forget why.

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS

It seems all of London's bridges are stained with blood.

If you had been catching a bus southward on Waterloo Bridge on 7th September 1978 you may have witnessed the murder of Georgi Markov.  He was on his way home after a day's work at Bush House in Aldwych - the home of the BBC's World service where he worked in the Bulgarian department.  LIke Roberto Calvi under Blackfriars Bridge (see 'A Hanging and a Haircut' below) he was assassinated - but this was classic cold war stuff.   Georgi was an outspoken critic of Bulgarian Communist Party Chairman Todor Zhivkov and ridiculed him mercilessly in his broadcasts via Radio Free Europe.  His death is thought to have been a birthday present to the Chairman from certain Soviet friends.

In some ways way it was also a very English Death.  The murder weapon was either an umbrella or a fountain pen and was delivered by a gentleman in a bowler hat (nationality uncertain). Markov felt a sharp pain in his leg and looked around to see the gentleman backing off apologising as though he had stumbled.  A few days later he was dead - fatally poisoned like Alexander Litvinenko a couple of years back - but in this case by the Ricin in the pellet shown above which his bowler-hatted assassin had injected into his thigh. 

I was thinking of all this as we were driving from Brussels after a show with The Real Tuesday Weld last weekend and passed a sign for Waterloo.  Waterloo bridge like the station is of course named after the famous battle when the Duke of Wellington defeated the French and about fifty thousand people died. Can you imagine their ghosts lining the bridge? I always thought using the name was rather tactless towards the French who arrived in London via the station.  (As too apparently did a French politician who asked that it be re-named.  That would have been unacceptable of course but is one of the reasons they moved the Eurostar arrival location to St Pancras Station).  

The modern bridge is rather elegant and without doubt has the best view of any of the Thames crossings in both directions.   In some ways it is also the most female.  It was built mainly by women in the second world war and for a long time previously was known as 'The Bridge of Sighs' because of all the female suicides that happened there (for a beautiful example, check out Vivien Leigh in the film "Waterloo Bridge").  The name works rather well for the romantic trysts for which is suited too - I notice that the British Film Institute which shelters beneath it has become the assignation place of choice for certain internet daters.  I often get approached when there alone with a hesitant "Are you William?", or a gentle cough and an enquiry like: "Is that Frank…?".  

Of course if you've seen Terence Stamp and Julie Christie crossing the bridge in "Waterloo Sunset" that makes perfect sense.

Speaking of which, apart from the perennially lovely Kinks track of the same name, the area and bridge are associated with a few very good songs. Some of my favourites are Abba's pneumatic Euro-salute 'Waterloo' and the very nice 'Waterloo Station' recently penned by Rufus Wainwright for Jane Birkin.   But the most moving by far has to be Gavin Bryars orchestrated loop of a tramp singing "Jesus Blood Never failed me Yet".

The area now occupied by the IMax cinema was for years a bleak submerged roundabout where many homeless people sheltered.  Gavin made the recording in the 1970s whilst involved in filming a documentary about them.  The tramp concerned, a war veteran, is long dead now but he has gained a kind of immortality through this beautiful piece - singing a song which keeps me just this side of Atheism and which is timeless enough to serve as a lament for all Waterloo's dead - whether they be in London or in Belgium, now or long ago.

LOVE AND DEATH IN PARIS

I will be in Paris on Valentine's Eve  - playing with the The Real Tuesday Weld at Le Comedy Club . I am looking forward to it especially as we have already released a live album 'recorded in London on Valentine's Eve 2012,  the last night before the apocalypse'  This album was beamed back to us in a dream.  Assuming the dream was metaphorical, as many are, that the Mayans or whoever it was got it wrong and that we are still all here on the 14th, I intend to spend Valentine's day in the City of Love at Pere Lachaise  - which is of course in fact a rather wonderful City of the Dead.  


I've always associated love, death and dreams together.   I guess true love is a kind of dying (une petit morte as it were) to one's ego and hence something to be both feared and desired in equal measure.  To paraphrase Mark Twain: I have always loved life so I hope I shall love death.  That is one of the reasons we made Catherine Anyango's artwork for the aforesaid album as a real life blank Last Will and Testament form.  You can complete this for the benefit of your loved ones if you haven't done one already (most of us, unable to contemplate the idea of our demise, have not). 


Personally I find spending time thinking about my own inevitable end a useful prompt to love my friends and foes rather better.

I hope to meet you at our Paris show or perhaps at one of our shows in Gent, Brussel or Alsace that proceed it  but if I don't, above is a song on the theme at hand - it is a demo and rather ragged so forgive me for that. And, so as not to get too sentimental, here is Woody Allen on the matter:

“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.” 

See you on the other side then?

A HAIRCUT AND A HANGING

We are are rather looking forward to the opening of the shiny new Blackfriars station. The platforms will actually be on the bridge so you will be able to look up or down the Thames whilst you wait for your train as the bankers and the bohos come and go. Very nice. 

I was in the old, cute and rather wonkily shaped The Blackfriar pub just nearby the other day mulling on this and various other things about the area.  The name Blackfriars comes from the outfits of the Dominicans who built a monastery here long ago. Opposite is the rather grand art deco-ish white curve of the Unilever Building.  This used to be crowned by a row of classical statues.  They mysteriously disappeared when the building was re-furbished a couple of years back.  I know they weren't original but it was quite an unpleasant shock when the scaffolding came down - a bit like looking up to see an elegant friend who has just had a very bad haircut.

Curious as to what had happened, I investigated and, despite being fobbed off several times, was eventually told by a little bird that the statues been secretly spirited away to a private garden in Surrey. (A bit naughty this considering they were attached to a listed building).  Mind you, the area has a history of dodgy dealings.  Once called Alsatia and home to the Blackfriars' cousins the Whitefriars, until the18th century this was one of those extraordinary places with the privilege of 'Sanctuary' - that is an area officially beyond the law. Basically it was full of scumbags - some of the religious persuasion, some not. Next door the district known as The Temple remains the home of those other stretchers of justice, London's lawyers.

Near here too, the hidden river Fleet exits into the Thames in a giant chamber way below the surface.  Almost ten years ago, I visited it as part of my psychedelic studies (more on that here if you like). It is quite a gloomy place and the path under the bridge, now part building site / part wee-smelling concrete canyon, is rather melancholy too. 

Psycho-geographically, the desolate atmosphere may be the result (or perhaps the cause) of a macabre incident in the early 1980s when Roberto Calvi, a powerful Italian banker was found hanging under the bridge as dead as a defecit reduction plan. Just another London suicide?  Perhaps.  A few years ago, it was revealed that his neck showed no sign of hanging and his hands had never touched the bricks in his pockets that weighed him down.  In keeping with the historical tradition of Alsatia Mr Calvi was found to be rather beyond the law.  Fresh from one conviction, he was about to be put on trial again for his role at the heart of a massive international fraud ring. In another uncanny correspondence with the religious character of the district, he had fled Venice to take sanctuary here and was known as 'God's banker' because of his association with the Pope's bodyguard Archbishop Paul Marcinkus.  As a Vatican employee with the benefit of his own sanctuary from the law, the Archbishop was never questioned about the death (well not at least until he left this mortal coil for his own personal judgement day a couple of years back).

Currently of course there is something rather significant about the the image of a dead banker - as is evident on posters at the anti-capitalist protest a few hundred metres uphill by St Pauls.  And down here at the edge of the financial city of London, despite the shiny new glass and silver rising up above, I couldn't help but wonder as I finished my drink and wandered home, if the place of Mr Calvi's end was not in fact holding on to its old character.

GOING GAGA AT CHRISTMAS

It has felt a strange year in many ways. But then it always has and it always will won't it?  I have been avoiding the West End (well, apart from Blacks obviously) because they turned the Christmas lights on in October - which I found vaguely depressing.  I like the rituals of winter, like brussel sprouts and tangerines,  to be kept well within December, don't you?  The frenzied combination of commerce, over-sentimentality and genuine nostalgia can drive you quite Christmas crackers. 

Speaking of which, The Real Tuesday Weld have made their annual little audio seasonal greetings card as they now do every year. You can get one, or several, here if you like.  Making them has become a regular pleasure. They have almost become mini albums and I often think it would be nice to just make mini albums.The artwork is drawn from Alex De Campi's miraculous film "Tear Us Apart".

There is a version of Poker Face by Lady Gaga for whom I have a certain regard after she sent her bodyguard to assist me when I slipped on a half-eaten avocado on 42nd Street in 2007.  It's for my friend David Piper who is Gentleman Gaga.

I received an extremely nice early Christmas present myself today from my friend especially talented spillyjane .  A knitted version of myself - or rather two knitted versions of myself in wool.  It felt like one more fortunate event in a fortunate year.  I'm very appreciative of it all.

THE LONDON BOX

For the collector of London arcana, esoterica or ephemera there can surely be no greater prize than the box of Joanna Southcott. I've been on several wild goose chases following a lead or alerted by an informant as to its potential whereabouts.  It was last definitively seen sometime early last century and although several boxes have subsequently been claimed to be it, most of us who take an interest in such things believe it has long vanished. 

Most lately, the strange object shown in the photo oposite was suggested as a possible contendor.  It was uncovered recently in Bermondsey - one of Ms Southcott's places of residence during her time in London - and it is indeed a strange thing.  But by the time I got down there to check,  the contents, if there had ever been any, had been plundered.  I recognised a couple of other treasure hunters lurking suspiciously in the vicinity so obviously I wasn't the only one to take an interest in this particular suspect.  They are curious bunch these treasure hunters: secretive; competitive; suspicious; devious; pretending to be helpful whilst covertly putting others off the trail and guarding their clues with the paranoia  of cold war spies .  The only one I can respect, never mind stand to be with, is the unofficial City of London archivist Leonard Wise.

Dr Wise doubts the Bermondsey box was Joanna Southcott's and disputes the claims of The Panacea Society who say that they are in possession of the genuine article.  He thinks it either remains hidden or was possibly opened by Churchill shortly before the Battle of Britain in the second world war. He remains reluctant to be drawn on whether it might have influenced the outcome of that particularly decisive incident.  

Joanna Southcott, 'the Bride of Christ', was either an outrageous fraud or the holiest of women depending on who you believe.  She proclaimed herself the cekestial woman spoken of in Revelations chapter 12 and amassed a huge band of followers including many men of letters and influence such as Byron who believed fervently in her prophecies and powers.  Dying shortly after a phantom pregnancy of which she was supposed to give birth to 'Shiloh' the new Messiah, her legacy lived on in the continued faith of her followers and in the box she sealed and left to posterity.  She was undoubtedly a very strange, charismatic person and like many such,  I believe both a genuine seer and an inveterate imposter:

"While all through thy wondrous days,
Heaven and Earth enraptur'd gaz'd..."

So what is the treasure her box was reputed to contain?  Well no one actually knows but it is claimed that amongst the contents were prophecies sufficient to save England in a time of grave peril. From the early twentieth century through to the 1970s, various campaigns have been mounted by Joanna Southcott's followers including The Panacea Society to have it opened, and understandably so, England has probably been in its gravest peril to date during that period.   But the box is only supposed to be opened in the presence of 24 bishops: not an easy thing to arrange and the reason often cited by The Panacea Society as to why they have not opened the box in their possession.

Whether you believe in such stuff or not, the genuine box would be a very interesting ad valuable curiosity.  I have gathered some fairly reliable descriptive details of it over the last few years and have occasionally felt myself to be fairly close on its trail.  I will of course keep you informed should it turn up.  And I would request that you would let me know if you ever come across any clues to its whereabouts yourself.

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In the meantime, here apropos of nothing in particular is The Real Tuesday Weld's cover version of Malvina Reynold's  Little Boxes

THE JAZZ DETECTIVE

I recently discovered that a member of The Real Tuesday Weld has been moonlighting. He is a good friend of mine but I was quite shocked and slightly thrilled to learn that he has been leading a double-life - undercover as it were: conducting investigations; engaging with witnesses and soundtracking the results in the most noirish-way possible

He runs his covert operations from a secret unit  in Waterloo but he has opened an online bureau of investigation right here.  Step carefully though  - he is rather trigger happy and prone to arresting suspects and sympathisers alike on the slightest provocation.

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)