DAY-DREAMING IN WESTMINSTER

I went with friends to the Philip Glass marathon four-and-a-half hour "Einstein at the Beach" at the Barbican this week. It is a masterpiece of psychedelic minimalism, strange and lovely - and with absolutely no comedown. I confess I did drift off a few times - mainly because I was day-dreaming about how Einstein used to seem much cooler than Isaac Newton. I rather took against the latter in the old days because I found physics (or at least my physics master) very dull.  But also of course because my hero WIlliam Blake depicted Newton as the manifestation of repressive rationalism and the malign forces of anti-imagination (see the image here).

I have recently changed my mind - mainly because of my friend Rosella Black who curates the Westminster Arts Library just behind the National Gallery.  The library sits on the site of Newton's old house in St Martin's Lane - now long gone like so much of lost London.  I have been researching the house a little and reading more about the man. I particularly like the story of how he would often get up in the morning but only make it as far  the edge of his bed and remain there lost in some thought for hours whilst his toast went leathery and coffee got cold.  I occasionally do the same thing myself  - although, it has to be said, with far less productive results to show for it

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Newton.  Perhaps to facilitate dreaming by day and sky-watching by night, he built himself a little glass observatory on the roof of the house where he spent many happy hours.  This was obviously in the time before Leicester Square and Westminster was all lit up with neon.  Sometime after his death, the observatory was bought  by an American follower who presumably took it back to the States and re-erected it there.  I would be very interested to hear from any American friends or physicists who know of its whereabouts.  I also came across a curious obscure record claiming that the whole house was drawn, carefully taken down and put into storage somewhere.  Yet another holy grail for us seekers of London Arcana.  If you know where it is, do let me know.

Rosella and I will be hosting a regular London Salon at the library later this year.  More on that soon but in the meantime, if you are free, we will be playing a couple of songs there next Saturday May19th with a host of wonderful guests for the Arctic Circle 6th Birthday Party.   You can get a recording of last year's Christmas concert where we also played a couple of seasonal songs (and a load of other lovely things) here.

Arctic Circle was founded and is mainly run by champion day-dreamer Ben Eshmade.  I attended his own birthday party at Marine Ices the other week and witnessed him demolish a Newton's Observatory sized knickerbocker glory. It is difficult to know how to applaud him enough.  He has been putting on the most beautiful, magical gigs, events, radio shows and all manner of wonderful happenings working away against the odds, against the tide for the last six years.  There is really nothing like him, not even a penguin.  

I hope he  - and Arctic Circle  - get much older..

THE DREAM OF A LONDON SNAIL

I think I mentioned here that Waterloo Bridge was known as "The Bridge of Sighs" - mainly because of the many suicides that jumped from it in the 19th century. But also that that name suits its function as a romantic assignation point for lovers. And of course in a kind of psycho-geographical loop it helps foster the very things it has become associated with.








It is no surprise then that Don Brosnan's film "The Dream of a Snail" for The Real Tuesday Weld track "You're Going to Live", which was shot there, combines high romance and potentially suicidal action. Don made the film aided and abetted by GG McEwan at some considerable expense and risk as you will see. So prepare to be moved, amazed and amused by this "slow-motion rom-com road movie"..

BOWLED OVER BY LOVE

Sitting here in the dark listening to Loose Ends on Radio Four I was thinking of the pre-war British crooner Al Bowlly as earlier I walked past the Duke Street corner in St James where he met his peculiar and untimely end. I've long been a fan and in the late nineties  I had a very strong dream about him which, along with another about a certain American actress,  kick-started The Real Tuesday Weld.  

Al was in a way the first British pop star - although of course he was actually Mozambique born and discovered singing in a South Africam barbershop by an impressario whose hair he was cutting .  His extraordinary voice and swarthy good looks set him above the bandleaders who were usually the stars at the time.  He made a mind boggling number recordings and played countless show before his final appearance in HIgh Wycombe on the 17 April 1941. 

He died later that night when his apartment building was bombed and he ignored the Blitz warning.  In a surreal twist, it appears he was actually killed by his bedroom door which was blown off in the blast and knocked him over.  

Here he is singing Close Your Eyes.

I was talking about all this with Ned Sherrin who used to present Loose Ends one time we played it.  After the show Ned would take his guests to the nice pub round the corner from the BBC where he would have a lunch set up behind a roped off area.  It was always the same.  Ned wouldn't eat anything but he would have a bottle of champagne. The guests could eat and drink whatever they wanted -  apart from his champagne.  When he finished the bottle he would leave you to it and get a cab back to his home in Chelsea.

Before he left he told me that he knew a secret about Al Bowlly.  He didn't actually say I couldn't tell anybody and sadly he is dead now too so I don't suppose he, Al or anyone else would mind after all this time.  You see apparently in his youth Ned had a romantic liason with an older man (Johnny?) who told him he had been Al Bowlly's lover.  Apart from the fact that it would have been impossible to be publicly homosexual at the time, Al's career and reputation was based on him being a romantic ladies' man so this would have been a very private affair.  And of course he was married  - and twice  - although the first attempt only lasted two weeks after his bride was allegedly found in bed with another man on their wedding night. Wow.

Anyway, Ned told me that the older gentlemen had told him that the reason Al had not heeded the siren call to the shelter which would have saved him was that they were together that night and did not want to risk being exposed.  

I always found something haunting about the image of the doorway as a metaphor for death and particularly in this case which influenced the writing of The Real Tuesday Weld song "Bringing the Body Back Home'   -  for in a final poignant twist Ned told me that Al's lover had always kept the very door that killed him. I suppose it may still be out there somewhere - like Al.

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