London Lives

When I was walking to the Tube this morning, I was listening to The Clash’s Clampdown from the London Calling album and thinking how I still can’t quite believe that Joe Strummer is dead.

Well now, here’s another, with the news tonight that Malcom McLaren has died in Switzerland. Mark Borkowski on Channel Four News tonight called him a “Showman, a PT Barnum” and I don’t think he’s overstated it there.

Ever one with an eye for showmanship, publicity and opportunity, he is famous for his colourful management of the Sex Pistols at a time of massive flux in seventies Britain. Entrepreneurship was always at large: he had previously (in 1975)  run the boutique called SEX in the King’s Road, Chelsea. After the Sex Pistols, he experimented with hip-hop and opera.

I was listening to him only a few days ago, narrating Parnes’ People for the BBC Radio 2 documentary about another inappropriate favourite of mine, Larry Parnes (1960s impresario and manager of Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Eddie Cochran and Georgie Fame among others). The choice of narrator was highly appropriate: McLaren was arch, lending a knowing air to the programme.

Tonight I’m reading that Malcom McLaren will be flown back here and buried in Highgate Cemetery. If that’s true it’s a very fitting resting place.

I love this footage of Gary Numan and Little Boots doing Venus in Furs and Are Friends Electric.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/events/hub/artists/nuboots.shtml

I’m still that 80s indie electronica girl at heart.

A pub on Goldhawk Road, west London. £4 on the door to see three bands, something I haven’t done for ages. Friends and friends-of-friends were in two of them. The Charles Hawtrey Experience were bluesy and excellent, followed by Luge, with eighties indie-influenced tracks, all self-penned. Also excellent. The pub was great; the upstairs room restored to a sense of the Victorian. We saw a number of friends we hadn’t seen for years. Stories and bands.

To a Friday rendezvous at my friend’s local in east London, catching up on the week’s gossip over gin and tonics. Friday after-work pubbage is a rarity these days; I’m more likely to be cooking something or eating out. Anyway, good to see some regulars, catch up on my friend’s news and chat to one of her friends too.

There had always been a plan to fit food into the agenda and it was never going to be difficult to persuade her into the the local Indian for a sit-in and natter. We had prawn biriyani, side dishes, and Goan haddock with pilau rice. They have quite an extensive fish menu which we’ve promised ourselves we’ll work through. Biriyani always sounds bland, but I think it’s a very delicately spiced dish, that matched the chilli and lime of the fish. All very lush and for once we didn’t over-order. All of it was eaten.

A quick swish around the supermarket was needed (alcohol, milk, breakfast things). Then we linked arms and trundled home among the blustery streets. We’d been warned about fairly wild weather this weekend and it was starting with bits of squally rain and serious winds. Near the Tube station, a man who’d been walking ahead of us suddenly turned and handed us pieces of paper. We muttered thanks and each of us knew they must be religious tracts. Upon inspection, we were right. “What’s Your Burden?” it asked.

Wandering to my friend’s house, the wind was gearing up. Under the street lights there were piles of enormous leaves, blown flat to the path by the wind and  kept there by numerous sheets of earlier rain. We stood for a while under the light, watching a beautiful tree as it writhed in the wind.

At her house, we sipped Amaretto liqueurs and played with her beautiful cat Phoebe. She is quite adorable. Caught up with music on Later with Jools Holland. He always has someone interesting: Steve Martin playing the banjo (Steve Martin – who knew?) and a great band called Delphic. I must look them up on iTunes.

Overnight, I was snuggled asleep in the living room, but the cat-flap was swinging so much that Phoebe kept cantering to the kitchen to check no other creature was invading her territory. The wind and rain were ferocious.

I got my hair done today and had to venture out among all the wind. The hair is great, veh slinky. I am very pleased with it. I bought nice shopping on the way home with a view to battening down the hatches this evening.

Salmon and mash planned  for dinner. Tomorrow I am supposed to be shopping for a proper winter coat. Weather permitting.

The first truly blustery and rainy day of Autumn. I am snuggled here on the sofa and have no plans to move. I’m catching up on things I’ve recorded this week: a documentary about Alfred Hitchcock, Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain and now something from the Age of Glamour series about Al Bowlly.

The Marr programme is the first of six and was brilliant: this episode covered the period from the death of Victoria to the illness of Joseph Chamberlain in 1906. Along the way, he explored the horror of the Boer War, nepotism in Parliament, music hall and Votes for Women. An extraordinary era which is of great interest to me (1900s, Edwardian Britain, inter-war Britain). I look forward to the remaining series. Next week, we move inevitably to WWI.

The Age of Glamour strand on BBC4 is also fantastic and has covered people of the age (the Bright Young People), golden liners of the era and Art Deco icons (loads of brilliant stuff about the Tube, particularly at St James’s Park station). These programmes also cover interests of mine (Art Deco, design, luxury design, social history). Al Bowlly was a very popular crooner of the era. I love documentaries like this, even about people I have only vaguely heard of because of the social history that is inevitably on display. In fact, I was surprised at how many of his songs and recordings I knew from hearing them round and about on many programmes. Dennis Potter was inspired by him to write Pennies From Heaven. I haven’t watched any Dennis Potter stuff for ages; I must see if they’ve got DVDs in the library. After surviving the bombing of the Cafe de Paris previously, Al Bowlly, poor man, was killed when a Luftwaffe bomb hit his house during the Blitz in 1941.

After a brief glimpse of sunshine, it is clouding over again. It’s very, very quiet today. No noise from the other flats downstairs, barely a car to be heard on the road. Last night, I could see the BT Tower flashing lights and today I discovered it now has a screen counting down to the Olympics.

Foodwise, I have some nice salmon and dill tartlets that I made last night, as well as tomatoes and spinach, some crusty bread, halloumi and biscuits. I need not step out of the door if I don’t want to. I’m aware that this is a very lazy-sounding post, but that is what this particular London life is doing today.

On the way to work, the shuffle songs function on my iPod churned up the following sequence:

Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us
The Associates – Party Fears Two (((Billy’s fab voice)))
Paul Weller – Sunflower
Kirsty MacColl – Walking Down Madison (I miss Kirsty)
Stone Roses – Waterfall
Paul Weller – That’s Entertainment (The Jam’s finest hour, in my opinion, performed in an acoustic version by PW)
The Teardrop Explodes – Reward
Roxy Music – Angel Eyes
Stone Roses – I am the Resurrection

Fabulous.