Getting On

Another year and we're all getting on, as it were.

I don't do new year resolutions because I never stick to them, but instead I vow to continue doing what I enjoyed in the year just gone, and for me that's writing.

I really enjoyed this year - everything seemed to pan out just nicely - and this is fortunate because 2009 was full of tragedy for my family. Excuse my trepidation as a new year begins then. I don't always know what it is we're supposed to be celebrating. A new year can go as badly as it can go well, but hopefully 2011 will be fine.

Anyway, as the dying days of 2010 draw to a sluggish end, I can't resist an excuse to write a quick (and somewhat hungover) summary of the highs of the tv year and so, here we go:

Getting On

I'll start with the best. I've been a bit disappointed that this hasn't been watched by more people. Tucked away on BBC4 this sitcom has been treated with trepidation. Not surprisingly, as it's daring tv but even so I hope it'll be snapped up by BBC2 next year. It's bleak, contains Jo Brand (which strangely puts people off but she's brilliant in it) and Vicki Pepperdine. Pepperdine is genius as the priggish consultant.

There are plentiful parodies of glitzier American shows like Mad Men and House, but it's done in such a British, understated way I just want to punch the air with pride. Stars Peter Capaldi but really it's the women - including The Thick of It's Terry, that makes this show the best comedy of the year - and how often do you hear that?

The Trip

A close second (a very close second) is Winterbottom's The Trip. I'm sure you've all seen it so I won't blather at length, but it was great to see Coogan back on TV again. I wonder if him and Brydon are still friends after that? The only off episode is the one where they entertain a couple of women. Possibly to show America they can include women too? Anyway, it didn't really work.

Grandma's House

Readers of this blog and my Twitter maunderings will know what a huge Amstell fan I am. A Buddhist beaver, as a recent appearance on Breakfast TV reveals, but bloody hell, he's as bright as a button. I always loved him on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and he was the only reason I watched that. If most comedians had an inch of his talent, tv would be a much better place.

The Apprentice

I bloody love The Apprentice and look forward to it all year. Sugar's not doing another hire an apprentice series, instead he's going to give the winner of the next show £250,000 to start their own business. Will this make for less desperate, weird people entering the show? I hope not, but we shall see. In any case, the Junior Apprentice was just as watchable, if not more so.


And a Happy New Year to you all. What can we look forward to next year on the box?

But You Must Try...

I'm a carnival sceptic. I go to the Notting Hill carnival only about every ten years. The avoidance is not only because of the prohibitive crowds and transport headaches, but for another reason.

What irks me about carnivals and urban festivals in general, is the fact they're forced upon you. There's a feeling that if you don't already live there (God help you if you're a Notting HIll resident who works shifts, and no, they're not all rich - there's a huge glut of social housing around there too), you're nonetheless expected to attend if you're a London resident. I'm not comfortable with an assumption that I *should* celebrate diversity. I do this in small private ways every day anyway, as I'm sure we all do.

On a more emotional level, I don't have much connection with Notting Hill, other than having gone to some unforgettable record industry type parties in my early twenties. I'm not a resident and nor am I Caribbean, or have this heritage. Why would I go to carnival then? What meaning could I apportion to going to carnival?

Yesterday I did go. Before the drinking started in The Porchester, I wandered around by myself with my camera in semi-earnest, wanting to
document the Caribbean element of the festival (see above picture). What interests me, artistically, is the meaning people bring to celebrations. A carnival is a great unifier, isn't it? Except it isn't. It's a random collation of disparate individuals approaching the situation with different motives.

These motives range from a desire to get drunk, blow whistles and take drugs, to an extreme spectrum of elevating gang warfare. Some want to celebrate achievements in music, dance and food, or some want to show their friends and themselves how cool they are - being in the centre of a cultural whirlwind etc. In short, a sense of unity and belonging is the gloss, but it's never achieved.

Nonetheless, I got into it and I left after dark feeling a bit silly - although not ashamed, for not allowing myself to enjoy something as exciting on my relative doorstep more often.

If you realise everyone feels as fraudulent as you or at least as confused about their role in carnival as you, then you can enjoy yourself - and we certainly did that.

Does Rigsby Have One...?

Technically - strictly speaking - I have a hallway in my palatial domicile.

It's large enough for a coat rack, a shoe rack and even a bookcase, but my lady's chambers does not boast a hallway. I don't keep our telephone sat pertly on a table there, and we don't have what I can only consider purchasing if we did have an entrance displaying a bannister-supported stairway, and that's an umbrella stand.

If I've bought umbrellas in the past, they've been the short, forearm length variety - normally black, and blown-to-buggery in the slightest bluster, and abandoned in a litter bin somewhere. An umbrella stand though would require the golfing-sized model to justify its existence, and let's face it this Gothic Summertime is giving me plenty of time to consider making such a purchase.

The prize umbrella stand is of course the elephant's foot one, but where could one buy one? A cursory glance on the net reveals the main types of affordable stand are the Portland variety (wooden slats) or a wide-topped bamboo one. Perhaps even a modern, silver, cylindrical examole. There are also varieties that are over-the-top in their ornateness. There's too many of them to mention.

While I think of it, there's a parlour game called 'I went to the shop and I bought an elephant's foot umbrella stand' (the idea being - if you don't know - the next person to you has to add another random shopping item to make a list; then the next person contributes something and so on - making sure that each person in the ring remembers all the items on the list). I vaguely remember playing this in school.

Snooker Tournaments.

Snooker without cigarette advertising: well, it's not the same is it?

Do you remember Alex Higgins chain smoking his way from the sidelines in the early 80s - the golden era of snooker? I was hooked on snooker back in the day. I had an older brother who used to host tournaments for the local boys in our garage.


Even for sport-neutral me, it was an exciting time. Ghoulish Ray Reardon - the Welsh hope, Terry Griffiths, Steve 'boring' Davies, and little, squeaky Alex Higgins. My brother and his pals took their tournaments seriously - they used to club together to buy a trophy from the engravers in town. All properly executed, I remember Jason Thomas winning one year. Jason - the year he won, wore a waistcoat and dicky bow for posterity. One polaroid picture shows his chest puffed out, waving the trophy proudly.



The next year a tall boy won. I can't remember his name now, but I recall he died in his teens in a car accident in Ireland.

Ah, of course, these tournaments didn't last forever, and neither did the golden age of snooker. The enthusiasm ripping through the grey, pebble-dashed ex-council houses was directly linked to the fanfare around the players of the time, and when they gradually faded away, then then so did the tournaments - and it was back to the wickets and bats...

It's Steak Dear...

How often do you stay in a hotel and there's only one option on the menu? I have to say, in my adult life, I don't think I've come across this. But then, I haven't eaten out in rural Ireland before.

Yup, that's what happened to Mr Norman and I in a country house by Connemara lake recently. On arrival we were asked if we had any dietary needs, but basically, it was salmon, followed by steak, followed by choccy pud. I'm not complaining, but I wouldn't dare serve that up. It's not very imaginative is it? I know that's hypocritical, because I'll happily eat it.

It was a spectacular house - a mansion with dark oak panels and tiger skins adorning the walls of the main staircase. There was a tremendously handsome and friendly 'laird' (for want of a better term!) called Henry who greeted us with the clear blue eyes and black hair of some Irish lush like, I dunno, Cillian Murphy. There were also two very old ladies who stooped over double serving us our dinner. We were a little bit in time-gone-by heaven.

But what if you don't like steak, salmon or chocolate? In England, we pander too much to people now, perhaps?

We ate it all anyway, and then had a benedictine in the lounge. And that's another thing, we love ordering that. The barman always raises a confused eyebrow and gets a step ladder to reach a bottle down, while dusting it off...

From Me To You.

It's been so long since I last blogged that it just took me a while to get my correct login.

In the interim I've been doing old things (I write for www.tvcream.co.uk) and new things (I'm painting and drawing a lot more. I've recently had some work exhibited).

But here is a little something from me to you for the summer.


xx

I Was At Violet's Funeral.

From an artist's perspective, living in London reaps rich rewards in terms of observing unrelenting urban renewal. Things change and businesses turn over quicker than blancmange running through a fork.

Those of you who saw Paul Kelly's short film aired on C4 on dying workmen's cafes in Clerkenwell, and his and Kieran Evans' film, Finisterre will know what I'm getting at.

I've seen some changes in the pocket of East London where I've lived for the past 8 years, but having seen these changes, I marvel at what isolated buildings and businesses do manage to keep the wheels turning - and they appear to have been there for time immemorial. Take the picture above that I took recently:

This is my local printers. Note the writing above the door which looks like it was done in the 20s. This place is a museum in action. It's a joy to see places like this still tucked away and ticking over in the East End.

But I've seen similar businesses fade. Take 'Les's House Clearance': The old man over the way, Les, had a shop front where he just used to pile old clothes and all kinds of junk (it was a bric-a-brac shop essentially) on tressle tables. The shop was a disgrace but it was funny. Long, lean Les used to puff away on a fag in his flat cap. There'd be boxes of cassettes without covers in a shoe box and shoes without their partners. You'd let out an exasperated simper as soon as you walked in the door.

My brother-in-law used to pop in every day to chat to him. When we first moved here random places like this was what often set the East End apart. I don't know what happened to Les.

Next door was The Old Friends pub. We'd have a pint in there when we couldn't be arsed with the trendier places that were springing up around here, and to hear genuine cockney accents. We would sip our pints under brewery mass-ordered signed pics of Joanna Lumley and Jim Bowen.

The East End, like many pockets of London, is changing, but I hope the final changes are a long time coming.

My photo and accompanying blurb has been chosen to be exhibited at the Royal Academy, in the next few weeks.