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Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond
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Friday, February 27, 2004
Big Read
All the books worth reading have already all been read. Or at least it sometimes seems that way. Just a few years ago, you'd rarely see me without a book in my hand. No literary snob, I was a paperback junkie-slut, indiscriminately devouring everything from fiction to non-fiction, pulp to poetry, Trainspotting to Tennyson. I was what they called "well-read". Why, my dears, I used to get invited to some of the most interesting parties around solely on the grounds I was that rare bird indeed – someone who had actually read Proust (and, what's more, in the original, mes chéries), and so knew precisely where and how to dunk his madeleine. And now? Well, I can't recall the last time I enjoyed a new book so much that being dragged off for a few Stellas wasn't a preferable option. And it's been years since I even finished one properly, without skim-reading the final few chapters just to get the damn thing out of the way. The bestseller lists are packed with vapid clones of each other, and even my one-time favourite Martin Amis seems to have vanished up his own anus. And let's not even talk about that self-pitying, narcissistic, flaccid piffle which laughingly goes by the name of "gay fiction", but is, in fact, so unrelentingly grim that it's enough to turn a boy straight. So I find myself returning time and time again to classic authors I've read before, and who I know won't disappoint: for upper-class satire and wry wit, Evelyn Waugh and Simon Raven; for intricate plotting, Le Carré, when he was good; my dear old Thomas Hardy for storytelling pure and simple; Kafka and Borges when I'm feeling literary and paranoid; and for psychological drama there's still no one to beat Patricia Highsmith, author of the wonderful Ripley books. And sooner or later, I always return to Gormenghast or Middle Earth. But I miss the excitement of discovering a new writer and their books. Any ideas? I don't ask much: just well-crafted prose, characters or ideas I can believe in and relate to, and, ideally, but not essential, a beginning, a middle and an end. With a couple of exceptions I don't see anything on the bookshelves these days which fires my enthusiasm. Until I do, I see that the new Muriel Spark is out. Now there is someone who really knows how to write. Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Waiting for The Man
I spent most of yesterday at my desk, checking the Timex every ten minutes, impatiently awaiting the hourly visit of one of the mail-room boys, like a cokehead in the bar on the look-out for the candyman. No, my dears, this is not the start of some sort of hopeless crush on one of the office juniors. For starters, I don't do crushes: grandes passions certainly, full-on "Total Eclipse of the Heart" scorchers when I can get away with them, and undying-love-ya-till-next-Wednesdays (roughly every other Tuesday), but crushes, never. Crushes are for sissies. No, I really was waiting for the post, and in particular some pricey office software I'd ordered on-line a week ago. I knew it was on its way because I'd checked the website, and its regular on-the-hour non-appearances were making me ever more grumpy. After all, hadn't I set aside Monday evening at home to install it onto the sleek, ebony, does-everything-but-mix-the-Martinis PC I'd bought as a Valentine's to myself, as well as getting in a nice bottle of Argentinean red just for the occasion? Well, a day later and I'm still waiting. I know that someday my post will come, but, with this techno-geek attitude I seem recently to have acquired, I 'm not holding out much hope for my prince. Friday, February 20, 2004
Mistaken Identity
Straight-acting is probably not a term you'd use to describe me. For starters, the fact I rather enjoy snogging and shagging people of the same sex is a bit of a giveaway. And while I'm hardly a screaming queen (and I'll scratch out the eyes of any twisted bitch who says I am), it has been observed that at times my behaviour can get a little – er, how shall we put this? – flamboyant. And we all know about the showtunes. Or perhaps I'm wrong, and I should trade in my Queertown membership for lifetime subscriptions to Asian Babes and Horny Housewives instead. For when the (admittedly sozzled) owner of a bar you've been frequenting for fifteen-odd years asks whether your wife will be joining you later, then you can't help but feel – oooh, my dears, just ever so butch. Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Songs Of The Old Days
Recently I've been updating, or more properly retro-dating, my music collection, replacing some of the crackly old vinyl of my teens and early-twenties with nice shiny CDs. The last time I played some of them was back in Uni days, on a tiny, held-together-with-Blutac Dansette record-player with one built-in speaker that had all the sound quality of a battered tin can. So listening to them again on hiss-free and remastered CD is like catching them for the first time. There are nuances and melodic themes I'd never picked up on before, simply because back then I'd only ever hear them in mono, rather than stereo. For instance, there's that really fantastic background bit in "Fugue for Tin Horns" from Guys and Dolls where – You mean, you never noticed? Oh, you mean, you don't particularly care? Ah, right then. Now, long before dancefloor music and the Pet Shop Boys and my dear Kraut-poppets Rosenstolz, before Ella and all my other sophisticated ladies, before my Mahler and Ferrier and Phillip Glass, and even before the showtunes and dotty old Dory (and who remembers her now?), I was, as some of you already know, musically at least, a bit of a folkie. So much of last year was spent slowly rediscovering my old scratchy Joan Baez LPs (or albums as we're supposed to call them these days), and in particular her early sixties stuff, back before she became a bit of a right-on bore, and when she was into traditional songs, civil rights and disobedience, and Bob Dylan, although possibly not in that order. It's a breath-taking re-acquaintance with a voice that even at eighteen is as clear as crystal and as sharp as a silver dagger, projecting such power and confidence that the songs of love lost and betrayed send tingles down the spine. Just a girl barely old enough to be out alone on stage with only an acoustic guitar, and a cut-glass soprano about as achingly pure and perfect as achingly pure and perfect can ever get. Now, excuse me, my dears, but there's a nut roast and some lentils waiting for me down the neighbourhood commune, and then we're all marching off in our beads and Jesus-sandals to the anti-war demo for a few rousing rounds of "Kumbaya". Monday, February 16, 2004
Poison Pen
There are few other ways in which a Stranger can be better or more gainfully employed on a Monday morning than penning a well-considered letter of complaint, carefully enumerating one by one all the points on which a certain, supposedly trendy fish restaurant failed him the other night. A maître d' whose welcoming charm and effusive joie de vie made me suspect him to be the bastard love-child of Messrs Fawlty and Meldrew; and a waiter with all the capabilities of a koala in a K-hole, who forgot about three of the five dishes we ordered. A pile of chips, sorry, plat de pommes frites à la maison, arriving as a tasty and lukewarm accompaniment to the pudding we didn't want, and a swordfish steak slightly tougher than the soles of my old DMs. And let's not forget those chilly and soulless white-tiled walls, apparently reminiscent of an old-fashioned fishmonger's, but reminding me much more of the inside of that sleazy public lav on the corner. But not once did I lose my cool, although that was probably down to the three very large Brazilian cocktails I'd knocked back earlier. Oh no, I meekly accepted the fifteen quid begrudgingly knocked off the bill, as well as the apology that wasn't offered, and slipped off into the Soho night, already composing my letter to Head Office. It's a reasonable letter, even going so far as to praise the other classier – and pricier – joints in the restaurant group. It's lucid and polite but in a don't-mess-with-me-or-you're-fish-food sort of way. For I need vouchers. Vouchers! If you want me to shut up, then give me vouchers, lots of them! For you see, my dears, there really can be such a thing as a free lunch. Wednesday, February 11, 2004
First Theatre Rant Of The Year
For anyone foolish enough to miss out on tickets for my current theatrical rave, the sold-out adaptation of His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman's already classic kiddies' adventure/ fantasy sequence/ sci-fi trilogy/ ripping yarn/ theological treatise (and it's all of those, and a mind-engagingly whole lot more besides), the good news is that it's returning to London's National later this year, and will be running well into 2005. Tickets will be on sale from mid-March, so get this year's Chr***mas pressies early – or kick yourself for not getting your act together and missing out again. Much as I rate this event, and "event" is the only word which even begins to give this six-hours, two-parts performance any kind of justice, its return for an extended run means that, for something like five months, the stage of the National's Olivier Theatre will be dominated by just one show. For me, the main attraction of that subsidised slab of concrete on the South Bank lies in its theatrical variety: one day you're watching a bright and bitingly witty comedy with her off the telly, the next day, and on the same stage, a disturbing and almost fairy-tale, adults-only take on child-murder, and the day after that, some piece of over-intellectual, up-its-own-arse political posturing on romantics and revolutionaries which I never really got because I'm not clever enough and don't live in Hampstead. It's the very reason why I was always dead-set against the National doing those big, over-the-top musicals. Why have one more big-budget Oklahoma! when, for the same price, you can stage a dozen new Alan Bennetts or David Hares? Of course, without the guaranteed revenue from the big, sell-out, knock-'em-dead-in-the-aisle shows, you'd have no Alan Bennetts or David Hares anyway. There probably wouldn't even be a National Theatre. So sometimes there has to be some give-and-take and you have to sacrifice your artistic diversity and your seven or eight different plays a year for lengthy runs of single blockbusters and lots and lots of bums on seats. But, as you'll all by now have worked out, I'm a stroppy old Stranger, and I want it both ways. Monday, February 09, 2004
I Wanna Be In Your Gang
I hate being left out. It dates back to my junior school days. Then, whenever it was anyone's birthday, the lucky seven-year-old was ceremoniously lifted onto the teacher's desk, and everyone crowded around him to sing "Happy Birthday" very badly. It was probably excruciatingly embarrassing for the person concerned, but I so much wanted to be that boy. But my birthday was in July, bang in the middle of the summer holidays, so I was forever denied my schoolboy serenade, as well as the pocket-money birthday presents they were encouraged to buy, and some of whom actually did. Chiz, swizz, as Nigel might say. So ever since then I've always wanted to belong, and to be included in everything. You have a badge? Let me wear it. You run a pub quiz team? Ask me to be on it. Some ridiculous fashion trend? Let me follow it, till I realise I can no longer carry off the kind of things I could at twenty. A brand-new cheap thrill? Go on, but just a cheeky half, mind you. And it goes without saying that, should you ever be lucky enough to be in possession of an envelope, you simply must invite me to its opening. Darlings. So to those other dear darlings who threw a little get-together over the weekend, and neglected to put my name on the guest-list: yes, I know I would have hated it, and it certainly wasn't my sort of scene; yes, you'd known for weeks I had a previous appointment on a podium somewhere in South London; and of course I do recall saying I never again wanted to share floor-space with the individual whose milestone birthday was being celebrated for what I calculate to be the third time. And would I have turned up if I had been invited? Oh, do grow up, my dears, of course I wouldn't have. But you might have asked. And no, I am not sulking. Much. Friday, February 06, 2004
In Denial
Yeah, course I go there, mate, I mean, don't get me wrong, it’s not like I'm a puff or anything, but them bender blokes, well, they're all right once you get to know them, and they've got some blinding clubs, and the music's like real cutting-edge too, and there's always some fantastic-looking birds there too, nah, not lezzies but the actual real thing, some proper stunners too, yeah, you wouldn't credit it, would you, and them slags, well, like they're real relaxed, but do us a favour, you think they really want to be out with their woofter friends, when they can shag a real man like me, so that's why I go off to them queer clubs, knowwhatimean? Though, fair's fair, a couple of them nancy boys, well, they ain't so bad, knowwhatimean, and they always know where to get the best gear, and the other night, well, I reckon I was pissed, I tell you I was off me tits, man, knowwhatimean, and I had a couple of them pills, as you do, and, like, it were obvious all them shirt-lifters were getting off on me, course I told them I weren't interested, didn't I, like I ain't havin' nothing to do with all of that, well, it ain't natural, innit, although there were that geezer down the Arsenal, and I mean, he supported the Gunners and all that, and you wouldn't have known it if I hadn't gone and ... well, let's not talk about that now... Anyways, I was having a real good time with these two arse-bandits I got chatting to, like you do, so we went on back to their gaff, didn't we, and it was real nicely decorated like in them makeover things on the telly, but don't get me wrong, we just had a good laff and a smoke like you do with anyone, and, I mean, there's summat not right about it, but live and let live, that's what I say, not that I let them get the wrong idea, you know, c'mon, what do you think I am, I'm a real ferkin' man's man, that's what I am, ain't I, but just between you and me I reckon they was begging for it, and, like, it doesn't hurt to be friendly, does it, knowwhatimean, and that stuff the three of us had, well, I reckon I was really stoned that night, yeah, that must have been it, really arseholed, knowwhatimean, but too right we're all going back next week. That fag hag of theirs? Nah, she was a tart, right old slapper, couldn't handle a man's man like me, knowwhatimean, but that's OK, Gareth and Jason said they'd see me sorted... Knowwhatimean? Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Perfume
Freshly-baked white loaves crisp from the oven, and the early-morning aroma of just-brewed and nut-brown Columbian classic, and let's have none of that latte nonsense. A newly-mown lawn or park, or just about anywhere after a real killer of a thunderstorm. And those alcoholic fumes from the long-gone days when your corner boozer still had a proper cellar: as a kid, you’d end up pissed just from walking past it. Most of what gets my nose twitching with pleasure is probably the same as anyone else's, although I suspect no-one wanting to make a good impression gets the same olfactory orgasm I do when ten times the recommended amount of chlorine has been poured into the local swimming pool. Who needs roses when you come up smelling like that? But there are others, smells particular to me, which, once sniffed, catapult me - just like that French chappie with his fairy-cakes – instantly back into the fondly- and not-so-fondly-remembered past. Wax on wood and parquet: that's black crows of creepy Jesuits, and long school corridors down which we'd run to escape them. The stale tang of lumpy mashed potato under my nose, and no contest: it’s First Sitting in the huge canteen-style dining hall at Butlins, where I used to go on holidays as a kid. A certain, to this day unidentifiable, brand of diesel oil reminds me of teaching English abroad, because that was the stink hitting me every morning when I emerged from the station; and if I catch even the slightest scent of Fendi eau de toilette, then, watch out, because the slow-motion train-wreck in the distance is my heart getting smashed up all over again. Oh, and that tennis-sock whiff of amyl nitrate/ poppers/ room odouriser/ stain remover (or whichever euphemism they're being flogged under this afternoon)? Catch me unawares with that one, my dears, and I'm twenty-one again, on a wobbly podium at Heaven, all fan-dancers and rent-boy chic, those voices in my head calling "Gloria". Amazing how evocative your sense of smell can be, isn't it? Monday, February 02, 2004
Munchkinland
I am notoriously bad at estimating numbers, or weights or distances, in fact, quantities of any kind. I can't tell you how long is a mile, or a piece of string, and don't expect me to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar. I don't know whether I'm lifting pounds or kilograms down at the gym, and frankly don't give a toss how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. For so many years that I've lost count, I've thought my height was roughly five feet ten (and a bit) inches. It's what I write down on official forms, and it's even on my passport, so it must be true. It’s a nice, non-threatening and respectable height to be for a man: you're not too tall that you can’t get decent clothes to fit, and you're not so small that children kick sand in your face and call you Rugrat. Last night, in preparation for a new gym routine, I measured myself up against the wall with a tape measure. The results were so upsetting that it took me three and a half Stellas down the road just to get over the shock. Five-ten? Either I've started to shrink in early middle age, or I've been kidding myself and immigration for yonks. I straightened my back, thinking it might be my posture, all those years carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders finally taking their toll. The same, tiny, stunted, minuscule result. I even checked the wall to see if it was level. It was, and considerably more so than my head was by this point. So then I did something I rarely do, and faced the facts: no-one will ever look up to me, or describe me as a tall, handsome Stranger, and let's face it, I haven't a hope in hell of being considered for the basketball team. For I am now officially a Shortass I know I might have been a little depressed recently, but losing a couple of inches like this is ridiculous. But apart from wearing high heels, or having my body stretched on a rack (and I do know of certain people in South London who will oblige), it looks as I will have to start learning to live with my newly-found diminutive stature. And no, telling me I'm one full inch taller than Tom Cruise doesn't help in the slightest, thank you very much. |
