FAT BARRY

We called our Christmas tree “Fat Barry”. “Fat” because it was particularly broad and big-bottomed, and “Barry” because, well, just because it made us laugh and seemed to fit. Barry’s one of those names that’s not popular any more. You don’t see many new people being named Barry, let me tell you. The name is just gathering dust, like old jam on a shelf, and one day you’ll turn around and all the Barrys will be gone.

NIGHTFISHING, OR FISHING AT NIGHT

Some men fish at night.
They have lights and everything.
The funny thing is you never see them fishing during the day.
Maybe the fish only come out at night.
Maybe the men only come out at night.
I think they call it “night fishing”, or “fishing at night”.

Lights and everything

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

It’s too early for Christmas decorations, and I know it’s a cliché, but it gets earlier every year. And I say it every year. Every year I say, “It’s getting earlier every year.” It’s getting earlier every year. And earlier and earlier every year I say it, every year, earlier and earlier. It gets earlier and earlier every year. And I think soon we’ll be living in a perpetual state of Christmas.

Earlier and earlier, every year

LONDON BREW

LONDON BREW AT THE BARBICAN, LONDON – 19/11/23

The new frying pan is made of a strange material. Some sort of space age plastic and a type of rubber that I want to call “vulcanised” though I have no idea what vulcanised rubber is, or if it’s even a thing at all, and I wonder when the world became so hard to understand, and I conclude that there was no single moment, it just happened gradually.

Happened gradually

At the soft play centre earlier there was a boy called A_____. He seemed like a nice kid but he whinged a lot. He started crying. It was loud, too loud to ignore. “Are you all right, A_____?” called the boy’s mother. “He’s faking it,” R____ called back. 

R____ forgot his water bottle. Oh well, I think in a Brooklyn accent, he ain’t gonna die of thirst, is he. People don’t just die of thirst these days.

The kids are all right, I thought, still in the accent, it’s the adults that are the problem.

Sometimes, these days, I think in a bad Brooklyn accent. 

I looked up at the tree, stark against the ashen-faced sky, and there was a magpie sitting on one of the branches, and I thought that if I had a camera with me I might have taken a photograph of the magpie and the tree and then maybe everything would have been all right. So I went and fetched my camera but when I got back the magpie flew off and sat somewhere else. Oh well, I thought, and took photos of the magpie and the tree separately. And there’s still a chance that everything will be all right.

The magpie

The tree

P.S. THE NEW MOON VISITED

After ten years of living within a hundred yards of it, and setting a novel largely within its walls, but never once setting foot inside, I just walk straight in. As simple as that. It smells exactly as I expected. Like a pub. Exactly like a pub. Yeasty, old meny, beery. I had been intending to sit at the bar, like in the book, but all the seats are taken. It’s definitely busier than I had imagined. I had never imagined it being busy. There’s hardly even room to stand and order a drink, so I stand at the corner between two drinkers. The drinkers are filling out a ‘bonus ball’ sort of raffle/sweepstake thing. They’ve all chosen their numbers and paid their two pounds. “There’s only one number left,” says one of the drinkers, addressing me, “why don’t you take it?” “OK,” I say, “how does it work?” The drinker explains how it works and I agree to take the last number. I pay the money and give them my name (my real name) and I’m in. Just like that. “I’ve never won a raffle before,” I say familiarly, like I fit right in. “Maybe this is your lucky night,” says one of the drinkers, a grey-haired, slightly drink-damaged man with a friendly glint in his eye. “Yeah,” I say, “it could be. You never know.” The grey-haired drinker eyes me with a friendly smile. “And where’s your better half: Eve?” he says with a chuckle. “She’s at home with the kids,” I reply, assuming the role of a male chauvinist with ease, or maybe I really am a male chauvinist after all. Maybe in this environment I would be, at least. It certainly is a predominantly male environment. I got that right. I ask for a ginger beer, meaning non-alcoholic, but the barmaid serves me Crabbie’s (alcoholic). I don’t quibble. I haven’t come here to quibble. But then I haven’t come here to drink either. I’ve come here for personal reasons. To prove something to myself. To close a circle. To see what it’s really like. To face the truth and compare it with my fiction. I won’t drink the Crabbie’s. I consider standing there at the bar with the other drinkers, but ultimately decide against it. I’ve done really well getting this far and I don’t want to push it. Go easy on yourself, I think. I sit at a nearby table, where I can observe without being part of the action. I text S__. “Guess where I am,” I text. He doesn’t text back straight away, so I tell him, “The new moon!” I text. “For real this time!” I sit at my table writing in my notebook. One of the drinkers smiles at me as she goes out for a smoke and I smile back. There’s a kind of fug of chatter and pub noise, which is pierced by the barmaid exclaiming, “I’ve just got a coin with the king’s head on it!” This is greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos from the assembled drinkers. “Can I have it?” says one of them, a middle-aged man who seems to have been roused momentarily from the edge of consciousness. “You should keep it,” advises the grey-haired drinker. “That’s worth money.”

JJULIUS/LOOPSEL

JJULIUS/LOOPSEL/CATE KENNAN AT MOTH CLUB, HACKNEY – 27/10/23

So, it turns out I’m the kind of guy who stops in a layby on the dual carriageway to take pictures of a rainbow. I tell myself it’s the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen. I am quite taken by it. I feel like it is emanating from me, like I am the beating heart of rainbow land.

Nice rainbow

Sometimes, I think, it seems that everything is inevitable, that everything that is happening was always going to happen, so there’s no point trying to influence the course of events. It’s better just to be swept along by it all and look about you as much as you can whilst.

One thing I’ve learned from my kids is that nothing has to be perfect.

CATE KENNAN makes the kind of music that makes you feel silly just standing there watching it. “What are you looking at?” it seems to be saying. “There ain’t nothing to see here.” OK, I think, fair enough. I close my eyes a bit. I look around. There’s a guy nodding off by the stage. A_____, my friend from T______, thinks she should be doing this in a fancy restaurant while people eat fancy dinners, and I think he’s absolutely right. 

Nothing to see here

I’ve not really connected with any new music over the last few years like I have with the sounds coming out of Gothenburg recently, and watching LOOPSEL create her spidery webs of sound it’s clear to see why: it’s otherworldly, dark, dreamy and downbeat, which is what I think I’m just like. At times her music reminds me of undergrowth. On top of Engström’s soundscapes another woman tells stories in Swedish and English that are impossible to follow but still sound nice. In a slightly sinister way, of course.

There’s a moment before JJULIUS take the stage where it seems that Julius Pierstorff has gone missing. There are whispered conversations, shrugged shoulders and phone calls that go unanswered, before he finally appears, tall, dressed in a cheap-looking suit, overcoat and hairstyle, bristling with nervous energy. There were supposed to be four of them, he explains, but the lead guitarist broke his wrist so they’re muddling through and it will just be a little more awkward than usual. It’s a kind of fidgety, uptight sound with moments of rainy melancholy. Their party song is called “Grief in Gothenburg”, or Sorg I Göteborg to give it its proper title. It’s gloomy as fuck, just the way I like it.

Gloomy

IRONIC HILL WAS HERE

ME LOST ME

ME LOST ME/GWFAA/VELOUR AT THE RAILWAY INN, WINCHESTER - 19/10/23

Winchester used to be the capital of England, and it still seems to think itself quite important. It seems like a place where rich people belong, cushioned from the world beyond, living in a sort of fantasy. Outside it’s raining, but inside it’s cosy as can be.

Fantasy

VELOUR make exactly the kind of music that I really don’t like. It’s a kind of anthemic, melodramatic eighties-style soft pop, accompanied by torso dancing and miming synthetic drum fills with index fingers. It reminds me of Spandau Ballet, to my mind one of the worst bands to have ever shat upon planet Earth. Sorry, I don’t want to be mean. I mean, if the goal is to sound like Spandau Ballet then it’s a big success. Towards the end of the set I am disliking it so acutely that I start to feel quite uncomfortable. During the last song I actually feel nauseous. Sorry. I would like it if I could.

Feeling sick

GWFAA consist of two men with lots of gear. There’s something about men with gear that is so completely serious. It’s a solemn sort of play, as if solemnness justifies the amount of gear, and, anyway, they’re not really playing at all, but working. This gear, their solemnness suggests, is not going to use itself. So someone’s got to do it. So it’s justified. I start to feel sleepy, which I think is the idea. I may even doze off once or twice. I can’t be sure I don’t.  

Solemn

ME LOST ME has her fair share of gear too, or “tech” as she calls it, but without the accompanying solemnity. She’s a strange combination of the ancient and modern, with her mix of old English style folk singing and fancy modern gizmos. One minute she’s talking about monks hiding things in bibles and the next about staying up all night playing video games. And there’s a smoke machine that always seems to know the right moment to let itself off, as if it's connected to something, somehow. That’s the kind of vibe, I guess. It shouldn’t work but it does, or maybe it doesn’t work but it should. Maybe it’s the weather, but I’m not really sure about anything this evening.

Something, somehow