Come On Up To The House

You shan’t miss me, but I’m going off for a week, beyond the land of InterWeb, from whence I shall return in Christmas season. That’s right, I’m going to Devon. I have time off! That’s pretty sweet.

So my life the last couple of days has involved doing a bunch of fiddly things for some angry Russians. Don’t go thinking Eastern Promises here, they’re economists, but there still seems to be some fairly consistent character traits. ANGER, mostly.

 So anyway, holidays. I challenge you to find one person, from Rabbi A to Mullah Z who’s going to be offended by a Briton describing it as the Christmas break, but political correctness dictates otherwise. Am I really angry? Should I be writing this for the Daily Mail? No, I’m just confused. Do we actually have any other holidays over Christmas?

I’ve been alone in the office the entire day. I’m starting to get a little… fidgety. There’s plenty to do here, but it’s all pretty mundane, so I’m slightly avoiding it, especially when it means reading through a ream of management-speak in which I’m not really interested. So I’m glad I’m paid for contracted hours rather than for output, as per Innocent Smoothies as interviewed by whoever isn’t Declan on the business bit of BBC Breakfast yesterday. That seems to encourage a hard-working ethic, something the current British psyche isn’t really tuned into.

They work around a Fruit Tower there, you know. In teams, with the option of working at home. I don’t know, doesn’t sound that radical to me, but what do I know.They output a lot smoothies, probably actioning things, and verbing other words along the way.

It must be a fine line trying to make office life or management creative. The ideas are all there: hawaiian shirt day; bring-a-bottle meetings; fruit for everyone, that sort of thing. But it’s a fine and twisted line between creative and David Brent. In fact, I blame David Brent for non-adventurous management, but that’s a different matter. I’ve often wondered what it’s like to be non-drone-based-office-worker, i.e. management, and whether I’d end up there, or whether my brain would explode from self-loathing first. Maybe I’d try and be that manager that is 40 but still shares a house and plays computer games and is down with his 22-year-old temps. Maybe… not.

I could once do you a fantastic line in acronyms, I could. I could happily produce your ODL from SITS, or even better a rBr1 one from UCAS - easy to check in ACD.

Now I appear to be moving into the strange and distant land of MIS. MIS? MIS. I have no idea either, on the papers I looked at there’s some sort of mumbo-jumbo about project management, a lot of wordy guff that doesn’t mean anything, and some distinctly curious flow diagrams that look a little like Maxwell Roberts‘ (of Silver Hammer fame) Harry-Beck-rivalling curvy tube map. Seriously, they have to be seen to be believed, all bold strokes and delicate twists. All with a bunch of pleasing-on-the-ear but make-no-sense-at-all initials. I don’t care what they stand for really, as long as I get a training course to stick on my CV.

While I’m on the subject, curvy tube map: beautiful like a beguiling lady alien; or a travesty and mockery of good solid British design? I want to fall into the latter, but having seen the new tube map in all its overcrowded monstrosity, this flailing yet somehow enrapturing alternative looks really, really nice.

I’ve been thinking: as I leave my house I put on my mp3 player with Radiohead on. As I walk to the tube, it takes about two and a bit songs - I get to Turnpike Lane towards the beginning of ‘Nude’. By the time I’m on the train, ‘Nude’ is closing, and by the time I’m settled into my book, I’m onto tracks four and five: ‘Wierd Fishes/Arpeggi’ and ‘All I Need’. Maybe that’s why they stick in my mind.

I’d argue that there’s no finer way to spend an afternoon than browsing charity shops. This is probably not a popular or fashionable argument, but nonetheless I stand by it. And here is why. This Saturday I emerged from Palmers Green, in London’s famous North London, clutching carrier bags full of things and stuff. PG to the locals, Palmers Greek to the gourmands of North London, this part of Green Lanes is basically just an ordinary shopping street, an occasional taverna here, a mobile phone shop there, multiple ‘best kleftikos in London’ awards. But there’s an array of charity shops the likes of which is rarely replicated elsewhere.

 I say that, the joy of London to me is that Crouch End is worthy of a trip, Muswell Hill, Wood Green’s picking up its feet these days with a vast new Traidcraft, Walthamstow, Enfield, Stoke Newington, the list goes on. Because there’s nothing more satisfying than a bargain.

I came away on Saturday with a new selection of Hermann Hesse paperbacks and a Grant Lee Buffalo 12″, as well as a few more books, all for under a tenner. Last week I got a Mercury Rev album and Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies in hardback. Most of my library comes from stuff other people have just given away, and I thank them for it.

I bought the Hesses after I got Steppenwolf on spec (in Oxfam, Palmers Green). I happened to have just acquired Radiohead’s newest the same week, and as my obsession with that album began to border on dangerous, so it intertwined itself with Hesse’s interwar study on the mental fragilities of middle-age quite spectacularly. Prior to this, I’d been in love with songs like Videotapes and Nude, but after these couple of weeks of reading and listening (almost always at the same time, one’s reading life is mostly on the tube) I can’t think of either In Rainbows or Steppenwolf without hearing Weird Fishes/Arpeggi or All I Need. The latter’s ‘I’m an animal’ line seemed so in keeping with Hesse’s ideas of duality of soul, one animal, one human, ever in conflict. ‘Waiting in the wings’, there’s such an air of menace looming over the whole thing which matches in tone perfectly the barely-restrained, critical savagery of Steppenwolf.

I’ve been looking around and seeing if other people agree with my appreciation of the record. It seems some, of normally fine taste, do not. Others, do. I stand by my assessment that it’s great and that the overall experienced was enhanced by the happy coincidence of a well-placed companion read.

Any time before 7am is dead to me, and the last half an hour - after my alarm has gone off and the radio gone on - is no exception. Things from this time are hazy and unreal, like the last dreams before waking; things rarely jolt you fully awake, but just to that tight edge before. This morning was the same - I pressed ‘off’ rather than ’snooze’ which meant the sink back into unconsciousness was that little deeper today. 

But not so deep that I couldn’t hear a thing, and today’s thing was Billy Bragg on the radio singing A New England. With that hyper-imaginative clarity that only comes at that level of awareness, I constructed around Bragg an all-star band line-up and had you got a response out of me at the time I could have told you. Now, no idea. Silly really, because of course A New England is one of the Bard of Barking’s legendary solo electric guitar outings. What hasn’t changed from this morning is that it’s rattling around my head, and still ever so slightly breaking my heart.

It’s an ode to Thatcher’s Britain crossed with the crushing realism of the time; somewhere between a break-up song and a protest song. It’s one of the few I’ve heard that pulls it off successfully. It’s often difficult for a man so clearly engaged with activist politics to reconcile it with the deeper emotional resonance of the heart, so here he pairs them off, one against the other. He doesn’t want to change the world, he’s not looking to overhaul the system, sometimes he just wants a girl. I’ve seen this marked down as a replacement for Thatcher - possibly that’s in there, I’m not so sure.

What I can be sure of is that some things never change: if you’ve made it all the way to twenty one and your schoolmates are only now pushing prams around, then you’re doing well. I put you on a pedestal/they put you on the pill, alright. The England of 1983 (when I was barely a year old) ain’t all that different to today. I’m not wearing brown, flared, corduroy dungarees anymore, but heartache’s still the same, and there’s still a place for someone like Billy Bragg.

I met Billy Bragg once, you know. It was near Christmas, he looked a little harassed.

Listen on Hype Machine/Billy’s blog/Billy’s Myspace

Mix together: 1 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, 1+1/2 tbsp ground coriander, salt, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 75 ml water. Mix together and add chicken for four, cut to bitesize. Marinade for a bit. When it’s ready fry some mustard seeds til they start to pop, add one chopped onion and three finely sliced cloves of garlic, fry til golden. Add the chicken and marinade, fry for about 8 minutes, then add 330ml coconut milk and simmer for another 10-12.

Serve with lemon rice (boil with a little turmeric, add juice of 2 lemons when finished and leave to sit; fry mustard seeds, chana dal, curry leaves, dried chilli and cashews in some oil, then when hot mix into rice).

Scorchio! I love my cooking sometimes.

The ever Minnie Driver-esque Amy Winehouse filmed the atmospheric video for Back To Black at Abney Park Cemetery. That’s where I found myself on Saturday, testing my camera and still not knowing why some daytime shots look like they’ve been taken at night.

It’s a curious kind of place. I’ve discovered in me a fascination with these places, the sort of rambling, completely overgrown Victorian parks strewn with graves simple and ornate, from small, understated clusters of headstones to sprawling monuments, from the barely-visible to the oft-upkept. Abney Park is not home to the most grandiose monumentalia (go to Highgate) but it’s close, and maybe even more fascinating. It’s a non-conformist cemetery, built around 160 years ago when that meant something: so when you couldn’t have your grave with the great and good for religious convictions, you came to Abney Park to be among the greats of your faith. So you’ll find here a monument to Isaac Watts whose grounds house the graveyard; William Booth, founder of the salvation army; abolitionists like Christopher Newman Hall, James Stephen, Samuel Morley and Aaron Buzzacott. You’ll also find Albert Chevalier, Emily Gosse and Susanna Bostock.

So no stench of death here, rather the peace and quiet of those satisfied with their death and those who had something to be proud of in life. As such it’s a beautiful way to spend the afternoon, whether in contemplation, for a stroll, to take some pictures, or as in the locals’ case, to sniff some glue. These places calm me down.

The concept of one’s boss going on holiday for 6 months should be appealing to the majority. But I’m not so sure. I work in an environment where the boss knows everything, simply by virtue of the fact that he’s been doing it for ages, and the rest of us are reasonably new. It’s all going to be a bit new to me, and there’ll be plenty coming over the next few months which definitely will be (ah, the joys of educational administration), but I’ll put my most steely gaze on and it’ll be no problem, I think.

The whole thing got me questioning whether I’m just a fundamentally lazy person, however. When is the right time to push oneself forward - I presume I’ll have to pick up some slack during this time, but I guess if I fired on all cylinders I’d probably make a good show of myself then when the time comes to move on, I’d be stood in excellent stead. But the next step for me would be to move into lower management, and there’s a massive swathe of my thinking screaming out, I can’t be bothered! So I think yes, I am a lazy man, but I’ll have to press forward and be as sound and as efficient as humanly possible. This might mean significant spells where there’s just nothing to do, but that’s the price I’ll have to pay. I guess. It’ll mean forward planning, probably ‘actioning’ things, and other verbs which should never be verbs.

I’m happy with a 9-5, one that pays pretty well, doesn’t cause any headaches, that sits on the back shelf from evening til morning. Does this demotivate me? I’m certainly no creative force, where I imagine once I could have tried to be. I’ve never continued with my podcasts, or my sound engineering, my mandolin sits idle, my piano gathers dust, my novel sits on page one, looking forlornly at its overly-contented author.

You know what? I really don’t care. My life is contented, and maybe that means that I’ll have to move up to management once housing-buying looms its head, or that maybe I’ll have to work late once or twice rather than slacking off to watch the Simpsons. But I’m happy to not worry too much about progressing my career or my learning or my creativity. That makes me lazy by the world’s standards, but I’ve got bigger, better thoughts on my mind, thoughts of love and life, happiness, peace and contentment that work and art and study would never replace.

So maybe I’ll just stay as I am.

So that was some break. But real life, work, etc., all get in the way of these sorts of things. Hopefully now I’ll have the opportunity to update semi-regularly and at least espouse a little nonsense on the way.

Life has chucked some things at me over the last few months - since the last post in fact, which was mere days after starting this job. Now it seems like I’ve been here forever, which of course is not true. But I’m settled, established if you will; I have the biggest desk in the office, several curious plants, the Daddy of all printers and the opportunity to go photo-voiceover mad over some promotional films. I also have my brand new camera in real life, which means I’ll be pootling about a bit taking photos, and probably blogging them. It’s the end of autumn, which means some really nice, semi-wintry light, and although the boldness of earlier this month has gone out of the leaves, the last few stragglers are making things as beautiful as ever. Plans for the weekend include a trip up to maybe the finest wilderness in North London, Abney Park Cemetery; perhaps not as grandiose in monumental terms as the wonderful Highgate, but without a doubt as fascinating and just as charming.

More to follow, with a bit of luck.