The Correspondents

I went to see a band last night, in a room above a pub in Islington. Not the ideal place to see a band. Especially if you’re in your late 40s and the room is crammed from wall to wall with boisterous teens and ‘twenty something’ art students, pogoing, squeezing past each other, falling into each other, boys showing off their dance moves, girls knocking back bottles of Becks. 

Twenty years ago it would’ve been me jumping up and down in a Camden Market hand made tee-shirt, Great Gear Market jewellery, hair freshly dyed, totally immersed in the underground Gothic look. But now...

So, feeling out-of-place, I squeezed through the throng of nubile young bodies and made my way to the bar so that I could watch from a safer distance.

Then something strange happened. Just as I was preparing to edge my way back downstairs to join my friends, the warm up band left the stage and a lean, bespectacled young man wearing a floor length black cloak took their place. He surveyed the crowd with a wry smile, prowling the stage like a stadium rock star and the crowd roared back. It was like something exciting was about to happen. Then the music started, he threw off his cloak, revealing a pierrot doll inspired black and white ruffled jacket and he was off; dancing like a whirling dervish; part Freddie, part Ziggy, with a touch of Joel Grey from Cabaret. His voice, one minute it was a fast-spoken incomprehensible babble, the next, a soaring confident roar. I was, unexpectedly, mesmerised.

It was the first singer I’d seen for many years that made me want to find out more about him. And the name of the group; The Correspondents. 

Ramble, Ramble

8pm. Soho. Coffee shop.

On the counter in front of me; a mug of black coffee, a mobile and...a moleskin.

I open it. Find a clean page. Make a note of the date. Friday 30th July. Then I cross it out and start again. Friday 29th July. Bad start.

I don’t like this black ink pen either. The line is too fine. When I write I like the ink to be crisp, clear. I rummage through my bag. Find another. It’s no better. So I go back to the first...Back to Black.

It’s been a busy week. On Tuesday I went to Nicholas de Jongh’s house in Islington. We drank pink Prosecco in his garden and discussed his latest play. There’s a cat that frequents his garden. At one point it was perched precariously on the fence and Nicholas shouted, “Ginger Rogers! I’ve told you before about that! Come down at once Ginger Rogers!” I wonder what the neighbours thought.

Last Week

Wednesday 13^th July
Arranged to meet David Benson at Waterloo station at 5:30pm as we were going to the theatre in Earlsfield.

Fought our way onto the train and for the next three stops chatted excitedly about the crumbling Murdoch empire and how we’d become so accustomed to its malign influence that it was only now could we begin to see the light.

Wandered out the station. Quite a few fit guys swaggered past. Spotted the Tara Theatre across the road. Told David that was was the theatre where I was once interviewed on stage by a bearded comic in a turban who spent the entire interview cooking a vegetable curry.

Wake Up

Wake up. Rub my eyes. Open them. Where am I? Who am I? What day is it?

Slowly take in the room; the white Jonathan Adler vases above the armoire, the inlaid jewellery box on the chest of drawers, the French doors to the garden.

Ok. That must mean, I’m here, it’s me and it’s now.