October 2004
Friday 1 October 2004
'Newton's law'
ENA is officially a year old today. My music is Marilyn Manson's greatest
hits. It's the Glitter Band through a flanger. Or Adam & the Ants on LSD.
Lunch features two custard tarts.
After putting it off for most of the day, I review company secretary Andy
Banks. I'm not as hard on him as I expect to be.
The day is otherwise remembered for a major stand-off with Ella that took
place during the walk to fencing, during which Ella made it quite clear that
she didn't want to go to flute tomorrow and I made it equally clear that this
was a non-negotiable. As we pass the block where Cleo's friends Mercedes
and Bethan are playing, a kid throws an apple (or possibly potato) out of the
window. I remonstrate with him and his mother, but end up calling the
police. While waiting for them for an hour (I don't believe they ever came), I
talk to the kids outside, which was probably more effective. There's nothing
to be frightened of, apart from our own moral panics. Ella missed fencing, but
we made peace and I'm reminded that it's OK to be an authority figure to
kids. I'm also humbled by the direct psycho-chemical link between not
smoking (After recently er, smoking) and grumpiness.
Saturday 2 October 2004
'A breeze'
The morning is a rush, but Cleo goes to her creative work-out (a big show in
December, apparently) and Ella braves her fears and comes with me to
Camden School for Girls, to discover if she wants to take up flute again.
Stephanie Spain (unnecessarily "like the country") is wonderful and by the
end of half an hour has won Ella's confidence to try again and even has her
looking forward to group work after the half-term break.
We celebrate this major breakthrough with strawberry cheesecake in a café on
the High Street - another double first. After shopping for processed sugar in
its many diverse forms, its chores, some more necessary than others
(including September's diary), in the run-up to Ella's birthday sleepover.
Five girls later, they withdraw to Neo's for a
sit-down dinner and I plug in her new
Yakumo (nice looking, slim-line and multi-
region. £35) to surprise her with (clicker
wrapped to look like a cracker). They retreat
to the top floor to watch movies, midnight
feast and do what eleven-year old girls do.
Michael Naylor emails in response to the
GSG article, dangling three days in Calgary
on the skeleton in front of me. Hhm... Two
grand is a bit uh, steep.
After making a ‘Top Nine albums’ from
Amazon thumbnails, I set about the
important business of reclining on the sofa
with Jack and Amanda to watch 'The Fifth
Element'. Like father, like son. We're there
(Amanda prefers a duvet) until half three.
Sunday 3 October 2004
'Dr Who and the Green Death'
I scrub up, but I'm not sure why as I head out into the garden to trim the
hedge with a pair of shears. It’s certainly not to entertain the houseful of girls
on the brink of puberty. Mid-morning, Nina arrives, with her enormous baby.
I successfully have more or less nothing to do with her. She's not staying and
soon sets off with Clare for darkest Essex where there’s space for them all.
Cleo assembles the crib while I cannibalise the girl's computer and Pamela's
Pavilion. After a lot of work with the vacuum cleaner and the traditional
smell of melting plastic, the job ends up being mostly restoring the Pavilion.
Ella arrives back from a day at Brent Cross with Ellie J, in time for Sunday
lunch. She doesn’t seem to have minded missing Nina. Cleo was concerned
that Nina would be sleeping in ‘our’ bed.
Meanwhile, Amanda's belly starts twitching and I realise that I am completely
unprepared for the birth, especially an unscheduled one.
We watch TV for a while and I get a serious attack of the munchies. I go to
bed past a screen of my eyes watching over the dining room.
Monday 4 October 2004
'Hello/Goodbye'
I'm last to surface from the deeps of sleep on the morning our little girl
embarks on school journey, four nights of activities in Cornwall. It's like a
scene of war-time evacuation at school, with Gameboys replacing gas masks.
Blur's 'Think Tank' is music on the move this morning, grooving through the
cotton wool.
I welcome the National HESAC meeting and take very much the minor part
in the hyper-speed SIG teleconference. They make one decision, to write to
the regulator directly as CEOs, rather than as ENA, but I think we can get
around that. Alison is crabby: David, Patrick and I tease her.
Cleo does Brownies, Amanda does cooked dinner and we watch Ray ‘still
baffled after all these years’ Gosling documentaries.
Tuesday 5 October 2004
'Who’d have thought, 25 years ago…'
I'm last up on a day of budgets, salaries and other ‘God plays Monopoly’
issues, interrupted only by bursts of ‘filing’ and ‘sorting’ at work, those
occasional acts of discovery when entire document wallets of papers kept for
long-forgotten reason, turn out to be the office equivalent of string in a
drawer, or a broken lawn-mower. Patrick is around and beginning to make
sense of the numbers.
Matsumoto-san of Tepco brings over a membership cheque and we take tea.
I’m home in time to collect Cleo from karate. She’s delivering a good 94/5)
punch to her teacher and looks the part in her new suit. She's very proud.
Ella has sent us a letter from camp. She misses us LOADS. She’s growing up.
Dave Walker remembers that it’s around now that, twenty-five years ago,
Music from the 1520s was first heard. We have a nostalgic instant-message
back and forth and fail to arrange a reunion gig, school half-term looming.
The remaining outstanding purchase from an Amazon-associated shop gives
up and refunds ‘Ella enchanted’.
Wednesday 6 October 2004
'The establishment'
Alison's review (coincidentally on her birthday) is painless for both of us.
It’s largely a silent day. There are few calls or mails and I spend much of it
inert, waiting for it to rain to give me something to do (i.e. mention that it’s
raining. Fortunately, after a chance discovery of something less scatalogical
than the norm in Popbitch, I spend much of it reading anti-monarchy web-
sites that prove a link between hunting and nuclear power. There’s the odd
Tory on the TV (proving that I didn’t need to go to Bournemouth) but…
Cafflick Korner™ I feel shame, giggling at a reference to the ‘embrace the wind’
celebrities as being ‘c’-list. I think that claim is over-generous.
Couldn't be bothered with a movie (Simon cries off. It’s only L4YER CAKE).
Gail and Victoria (separately) come for dinner. We discuss why Gail doesn’t
like Bob Geldof stereotyping Ethiopia and why Victoria is so busy. We think
up daft and impractical names, including Ruby and Nori (think ‘em through).
I feel vicarious excitement at the news of John Dominik’s proper job, counting
trees or something.
Thursday 7 October 2004
'Pigs at the trough'
I'm last up and don't really get my act together properly for the first few
hours. Despite the chemical cosh, The Sun makes me laugh out loud with its
front page "Pig sick - Uproar as Becks girl Loos girl pleasures a boar on telly".
More poor man’s Excel (a pen and paper) while we learn officially that there
were no weapons of mass distraction in Iraq. The war with Iraq is over. The war
with Iraq has begun. (With apologies to George Orwell).
I feel guilty about not working hard. I need to feel more motivated. Taking
the money is all well and good, but I can’t see myself doing this for another
twenty years. What shall I do?
With time to kill, I meander to the South Bank for the launch of the
photographic exhibition for embracethewind. It’s nice to see familiar faces, but I
do feel like I’m beating myself up a little every time I look back at wind.
At the Bell Pottinger dinner with Matthew Taylor (ex-favourite think-tank,
now No 10 policy unit) I make both a useful contribution (asking questions
about issues that transcend five year periods) and I fear, go on a bit (quite
possibly encouraged by the no-name champagne). Rhoda from Lewis, our
host and more importantly a bossy woman, pushes my buttons and I feel ‘told
off’. Nevertheless, I lurch into her taxi and get a lift home, to fall into bed, still
wearing my tie.
Friday 8 October 2004
'Life imitates art'
I dress very casually for work. It is
pointed out to me that I look like David
Brent dressing down in The Office. Staff
appraisals begin in earnest with Nicola,
who doesn’t want to say anything and
David, who gets an earful of my
frustrations. Amanda calls: she has a
commission for the Sunday Times. I hope
this is her big break for a national column.
Joannie and Rohan/Ronin/Rowan (last seen as a child in Abbey Gardens)
come over for dinner. Her life is a line of cosmetics laid out before her.
Saturday 9 October 2004
‘Everything in its place’
We have a routine. Cleo to drama, Ella to flute. Amanda takes the
opportunity to spend most of the day getting her hair done in time for er,
childbirth. I take the chance to watch Howard claim his historic fourth term in
Australia on the streaming ABC. Such a wonderful thing, this internet…
I move Cleo’s computer upstairs, and it works! Ella is trusted to go to
Woolworths on her own (i.e. with Ellie J) which is a big life event. OK, so
she’s not great with finances yet but it’s another step forward.
Autumn is here: official. The heating goes on. And it immediately starts to feel
cold outside. I drag the kids down to the chip shop (for the exercise) and
finish up with Good Will Hunting and Carry on Abroad. My life in movies.
Sunday 10 October 2004
‘Essex man cometh’
It’s a rare thing, so I savour it: a lie-in with the Mail on Sunday (for the free
classical CD, ‘natch) and the Sunday Times (all those common–interest body
CEO positions…) Ella is still ‘tired’ from her trip and doesn’t do church.
After brunch we make further preparation of the ground for the forthcoming
fourth coming (towels and cribs and shopping for various absorbent things).
Eric is leaving the country again soon and he is holding an ‘at home’ to say
goodbye. Lavishly catered, I don’t know many of the Essex folk there and
don’t (despite my newly arrived ‘How to work a room’) make much effort to.
The new wing on the house is a good idea, creating a kids zone. Generous as
ever, he donates his ‘foosball’ table to us. All we have to do is (once it’s over
here) figure out how to get it onto the deck.
There’s raised voices (mostly some of mine) on the way home about the ‘Nina
effect’ and how it is disruptive. The girls have internalised my views.
Bremner, Bird and Fortune (ah, this is me) before an early-ish night in a room
with an empty crib.
Monday 11 October 2004
'Mr Benn'
The headline in this morning’s Daily Planet is ‘Superman is dead’. Yeah, right.
When I retire, apart from formatting and enhancing this grand opus, I shall
also write ‘books’ through which I shall vicariously live all the lives I fancy,
had my life taken a different turn, I should have rather enjoyed. I shall also
decorate sheds in the style of the rooms I would like to indulge myself in.
I'm at the office for half eight, nervously waiting for the deputy chairman to
arrive (he doesn’t) and feeling that I’m a fraud.
Chris writes: “[Bubba] engueuled* one of his staff at 0855 this morning in my
honour, he says, so thanks.” He’s writing of me shouting at Andy Banks,
through a combination of righteous indignation and cigarette deprivation.
My gig at No. 10 this afternoon gets blown out, but it gives me a chance to get
on top of finance (or at least set up base camp). Meanwhile, seventeen
Japanese come in for a one day tutorial in stuff that we do.
Ella (who won a pen for writing the best school journey journal, a skill she
probably didn’t inherit from me, but form her mother who also won a best
school journey journal prize aged eleven) studied Thunderbirds today, which is
questionable enough, but when it was for history, ridiculous. Roll on
secondary school (and the 1970s, presumably).
The evening is mostly spent preparing the logistics of ‘who needs to be
where’ while Amanda is having the baby. I write in an email to David Still,
“As we juggle three kids and their various school requirements this morning, it's
finally dawned on us how easy four will be...”Cleo is enjoying Brownies again.
Tuesday 12 October 2004
‘Everyone’s a parent’
After crawling into bed with us, Ella wants to discuss the ‘pensions crisis’.
With Amanda, we walk in the rain to Camden School for Girls for their open
morning for wannabe parents of girls lucky enough to be admitted. We’re
shown around by Mitzi (hhm... there's a possible name) and Catherine. Both
Ella and I like it, but find the head intimidating. I'm struck by how straight I
look in my suit, compared to the uh, bohemian parents which are the
majority. Antonia and her daughter Sophia (that must be ten years since we
last saw her) are also looking. Ella is almost entirely in pink, with her hair
scraped back, looking for all the world like she is rebelling. She insists that she
has originated this Tasha Slappa look herself. She doesn’t appear interested.
I grab a Whopper on the way to the DTI and my meeting with the Head of the
Energy Directorate, Joan MacNaughton. It goes OK. I’m good, I think.
I’m very assertive at the Management Team Meeting. Too much so for David,
who feels got at by me. He is, but then he’s not coming up to scratch. I put it
down to pre-birth nerves and stay until seven, trying to knock out a budget
that will work. Arrived in time to collect Ella and walk her home.
Simon, Angela and Joanni stop by to wet the baby’s head from outside and I
watch a fascinating Newsnight about pensions. I finally sleep after sending a
memo about ENA’s policy on accepting gifts and hospitality, mostly in
response to Frank’s complaint that I’d snaffled three pencil, ruler and eraser
sets for the kids, when he felt that they should have gone to ‘the troops’.
Wednesday 13 October 2004
‘It’s a…’
Girl! As I write this on Sunday, I realise that there aren’t
many notes from the day. We’re all up from five or so and
the children are sent next door or beyond while Amanda
and I take the C11 bus to the Royal Free. There’s little sign
of activity, or even of being expected, but by ten o’clock,
I’m in greens and Amanda has more pipes and wires in her
than ENA.
At 10:58, our little girl is delivered. We cry at the miracle. By half past twelve,
I’m walking down Mansfield Road, making calls to announce her arrival.
I take pictures to show Jack and the girls and then email everyone we think
would like to know. Then it’s back to school to watch the girls take part in an
‘Excellence in the Cities’ review while Jack sleeps on the floor and then back
up to the hospital to introduce them to their new little sister. Jack is a handful,
literally taking the piss at one point as he disconnects Amanda’s er, bladder.
At home,
after left-over
spaghetti
Bolognese
from last
night, and a
dozen calls
from well-
wishers, I’m
very tired
and go to
sleep around
nine strongly
suspecting
that she’s
called Katy.
There’s nothing like a baby to lift your spirits. Even though I still don’t feel
very alive, these little pink things really do drag you out of yourself.
Thursday 14 October 2004
‘The visitors’
I needed that sleep. I get the girls fed and to school (in Ella’s case to see Whale
Rider at the Odeon, Leicester Square) and, in a conversation with Amanda,
confirm that our latest daughter is to be called Katy. Cleo is least impressed.
Jack has moved on from Samuel and now either calls her Ruby or Sophie (the
girls he knows best). At nursery, Jack shows me around but then happily goes
off to play. I optimistically wait for a downpour to stop, blowing out a visit to
Parliament Hill (Ella went yesterday) but striking up a conversation with Ron,
the former-Chilean student who fled the junta and is now an osteopath in
Camden. Only in NW5.
At the Free, Amanda is looking as
good as anyone with that many
liquids being tapped can. She gets
flowers sent to Amanda Blinck-
Homestead.
Amanda sleeps a little and I'm pleased to be standing guard, cradling Katy.
Lunch arrives and Amanda wolfs it down while I read Time and wait for the
next shift to arrive. Jane (formerly of next door) brings Minstrels (choc. type).
Nina, Pamela, Clare and Mothra†
(right) sweep in as I thankfully need to
set off for school. The only thing Nina
says to me is "is there a day room?"
They don’t visit the other kids.
After dinner (pizza) Alison and Ellie J join us in the car for a trip to the
hospital, to bring back flowers and watch Jack get hyper. Marcus comes over
and we wet the baby’s head one way and another.
Friday 15 October 2004
‘Three on each sofa’
Everyone at school, it’s into the Royal Free to see Amanda and Katy. Amanda
is up and hotching around. She can leave this afternoon, so I spend much of
the day going back and forth along Gordon House Road.
I’m wound up by Kenton so much that I have to call David Smith to sound
off. I’m inclined to tell them not to darken our doors any more.
A fantastic amount of rain falls in the evening: it cascades off the steps and
runs down the road in a river. Angela brings shepherds pie for the kids, Julia
arrives, en route to an ill-feted date with her pick from the respondents to her
lonely-heart. Laura Matthews stops by, too. Cleo does the Halloween disco,
Ella fences and by ten, we’re all safely tucked up in bed. All six of us. Home.
Saturday 16 October 2004
‘Some men cook, too’
While Amanda threads pink ribbon throughout the house, I do the Saturday
morning run. It’s OK, other than I fail to achieve everything I had planned to.
The house sees a parade of visitors come and go, but it is David and Rhona,
who arrive in the afternoon, laden with fabulous food, which David cooks
while I am completely idle and am waited on, indulging in the feeling of Katy
lying on my chest.
Meanwhile, Ella has bought a very convincing confectionary tongue and I
declare that Invention of the year is the fabulous Google desktop search client.
Sunday 17 October 2004
‘Happy families’
It’s seven something when I’m aware that Ella has arrived to carry Katy
around, but I’ve not been woken every half an hour throughout the night by
the chomping one, so I can hardly complain. Other than that, it is a quite
idyllic day. Catherine is, of course, my late mother’s name, something I hadn’t
been consciously aware of until now. Forget clumsy ex-girlfriend
considerations, what does this signify?
Roger Fuller emails pictures of his house in
the clouds. I catch up with various desk
chores (oops Yuki should be actually
Yukiko for snow child, Yuki being more of
a boy’s name) and toy with going out on the
heath with the girl, but it’s chilly and we’re
cosy and… Meanwhile… Elliott (adult
conker champion for the second
consecutive year) is the spread in the CNJ.
Fiona and Grace pay a call. We talk about the primary-secondary transfer,
buying houses and movies. Shortly after they leave, Alistair is parodied on
Bremner Bird and Fortune. A frisson of excitement and weirdness.
Ella’s moodiness today has vexed us. Then the penny drops: she’s 11. ‘Stuff’ is
beginning to happen.
Monday 18 October 2004
‘I’m just a spectator’
A midwife removes Amanda’s staples. Clang, clang, clang.
The buggy board attached to the back of Mamas and Papas, the Mamas and
Papas give Jack a ride to school as we take Katy for a show-off at the school.
Neela from the newsagents presses £15 into my hand for Katy.
While Cleo is at Brownies, I take Ella to Starbucks for a chat about ‘growing
up’. Watching and listening to her, I see her as the young woman she is
becoming. Her (correct) use of the word ‘whereas’ struck me as particularly
significant. We agree that Acland Burgley is the school for her.
Tuesday 19 October 2004
‘All the way from downunder’
It’s another day of school run (a near full-time job), plenty of mail (including
cheap DVDs from Australia) and more visitors. I do some preparation for
work (which mostly involves me beating myself up unnecessarily about
financial reporting standards, etc)
In conversation at nursery, Fariya (from Somalia) tell me that she doesn't like
the sun. No wonder you left Somalia for Gospel Oak, I jest. “No, there was a
war”. Still not been here long enough to get British humour. It will come.
Greater love hath no man… I let Amanda watch the Man Booker prize show.
Fortunately, David Langsam calls me via Skype, clear as a bell.
Wednesday 20 October 2004
‘The real All-Hallows eve’
The early part of the morning is spent cuddling Katy while Ella reads. Jack
shows me around nursery and in particular his favourite places: home corner
and the peg-boards. Daytime TV hell is interrupted by Mark Horsley calling
to revel in some electricity-interesting deal or other.
Steve G arrives, with Hallowe’en trappings, muttering about how this is the
last time he will ever do this.
I set off for Leicester Street and dinner with Robin and get quite lost. I’m on
fine form, but leave around nine, well pissed-up to return home to go out
with style (a late night all chemicals binge) the night before yet another
attempt at clean(-er/-ish) living.
Thursday 21 October 2004
‘Wagons rolling/full of turkeys!’
Yes, I’m going to be pure! Again. My first day (today) is polluted only by two
teas and a Diet Coke (and that’s despite it being a Board meeting).
After dropping off the kids (a race to the school and a few minutes with Jack
showing me ‘home corner’, his place of choice), I go into the office and
sleepwalk through the fifteenth ENA Board meeting, though perhaps not as
sleepily as most of they did. I should have had a much harder time of it. I
day-dream about having a London ‘flet’ (to be pronounced as an educated
London woman in the 1930s would) when the reality is more ‘buy a bigger
house around the corner’.
Reading with Ella is very enjoyable once I get past the point when I might
otherwise think I’ve done my ‘bit’ of ‘quality time’ and stop, but let it go on
for as long as she wants and actually enjoy it for itself.
We watch some TV to accompany our stew. The story (real) of lawyers who
bought a chateau, only to find it was decrepit. We eat exotic and very stinky
cheese sent by Amanda Craig to welcome Katy.
Ella comes to us in the night, unable to sleep. Cleo arrives later. At least Jack
waits until the morning. I don’t mind, even though they interrupt some vivid
dreams (thank you Amanda C).
Friday 22 October 2004
‘Doctor!’
I have a headache (that’ll be the fags) and an overwhelming sense of being
unfulfilled (that’ll be the luxury of living longer and more comfortably than
we were designed to).
In the playground, Ella tells me to go away as I test her on her spelling (she
got 10/10), Cleo picks up a sweet off the street (sometimes she has no sense at
all) and Jack continues to be taught street-fighting by the bigger boys.
The surgery nurse has me fill in a form before applying liquid nitrogen to
three skin tags, but can’t get out the splinter stuck under my left fore-finger
nail (and which is causing me some inconvenience).
Its’ DIY Dad day, changing blown lamps and filling minor wall cracks. I find a
midi-file of ‘Reginald Perrin’ strangely moving. And very 1970s. Apropos of
nothing, I wonder if maybe I am wrong and need a continuing sparkle at the
edges of fame for my inner peace. I discover that I can now order from
Amazon and collect from Borders. How convenient, but messed up is that?
Anne and Polly coincide in their visits and stay to eat while Katy acts cute and
stretches her increasingly strong limbs. This is very civilised. I’d much rather
do this all day, every day than a job I find uninspiring but which fills me with
guilt for not earning my money (and, by a complicated route, makes me
wonder if I have taken on too much, with 20+ years of supporting all these
children still to come?
I take Ella fencing and practice my plan to FORCE myself to mingle/make
small talk/work the room/whatever. Mixed results, but I do now know a
dietician without a TV and a woman who works at Torriano Infants who talks
of children who have never seen a pear before. We get back too late to catch
Amanda Root http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/faces/amanda_root.shtml
slumming it in a sit-com. She’s come on a long way since being kissed by me
on stage when I was dressed as a donkey, I think. She denies it of course.
Books at bedtime are the end of ‘The Family Way’ I don’t care to look into a
mirror) and returning to ‘The Shipping Forecast’.
Four teas and a Coke, today and no booze or other drugs. No junk, either
(unless you count two chocolate fingers).
Saturday 23 October 2004
‘#It’s raining chores#’
Seven is still too early for me, despite this clean living. One of the kids woke
me: I don’t remember which. I read some more ‘Shipping Forecast’ until Ella
and Jack arrive at differing, but early times demanding various attentions.
Cleo is rushed out for her drama, Eric doesn’t appear with foosball table, I fill
some cracks with instant crack filling stuff, Amanda seems to be permanently
nursing (Katy’s lungs are certainly working) and Ella disappears into her pre-
teenage world, which is centred on the corner shop and its chocolate treats…
Jack is testing his boundaries a little too vigorously for my liking and I take a
firm approach, possibly too firm, but
Unexpectedly, the 6000 code solution http://lgregionfree.tripod.com for our
DVD/VHS/home theatre combo works. Pick a region, any region. Jack is even
more captivated than Romeo + Juliet than by me reading him Noddy.
INXS’ ‘What you need’ is now on a Daily Express cover disc. Ah, those first
ten seconds still do it for me. Still don’t like saxophones as a rule, though…
I take the girls to Camden in pouring rain, wearing a stupid (and shrunken
‘Englishman on holiday’) hat, which the girls think I have done deliberately to
embarrass them. We have limited success, but don’t find them new shoes.
Fish and chips is made more lively by the Styrofoam cup of mushy peas that
decanted over the shopping on the way home. ‘The Lizzie McGuire movie’
amuses us all one way or another, but reminds me that the kids will have less
sense of being British (even European) than I did. They (and I) now have a
much higher familiarity with Americana. Is this a good or bad thing? Neither.
It is inevitable, even with extensive compensation. It’s Star Trek one-world, I
suppose, but would it be the world I choose? I quite like the idea of suburban
America, though.
The kids away, the grown-ups watch Jim Carrey’s uncanny ‘Man on the
moon’. I treat myself to 8X and go to bed inexplicably unhappy with my lot.
There’s something very ‘duh’ about this morning’s ‘insight’ that if I die, I
don’t get a pension…
Sunday 24 October 2004
‘XXX’
I could happily fill untold days like this. I plan the coming week accordingly,
but paid work barely enters my head. I am reminded of how it felt like being
unemployed in the early 1980s. Chores expand to fill the available time. I can’t
imagine being at a loose end, even before the grand project is
It’s a good job I have money coming in. Retirement is definitely what I want,
with modest but adequate income. Some generous pin money from a suitable
occasional activity would be nice, too. Being a commentator, but a better one
than the vacuous airheads polluting early morning TV.
I lie in, reading The Sunday Times
with one of its writers. Amanda’s
debut piece on page nine of the
news review section. It’s a good
read, too with a magazine article
about the illusion of Brits fleeing
to France and the like, only to
find themselves in exile. Will we
ever move anywhere else?
Perhaps when Ella and Cleo leave
home, i.e. study in London (and
they live here and I bunk up).
Cleo starts her ‘Cribs’ video for her school homework while I muck about and
do almost everything except the ordained list of chores.
Korede spends the day with us after church and shares horrible warmed-over
chips for lunch. Cleo helps me collect some grapes from the roof (will we
harvest them at all this year?) and I work through a range of minor chores,
including re-seating a misbehaving DIMM, putting frosting on the dressing
room window (unclear results, boom boom), filling some more (but not all
cracks), replacing missing (how are they missing?) knobs on Ella’s chest of
drawers, re-filling the water feature in the living room (the central heating
evaporated the last lot) and of course, endlessly squeezing grapes…
While Eastenders’ bunny boiler stabs Martin, Jack shits himself as he amuses
himself on the cbeebies website for over an hour, happily clicking away
through stories and even switching off the monitor when he’s finished and is
summoned in to watch War of the Worlds (1953). Eeh, I remember when I were a
nipper: Sunday evening, I were reet terrified… None of the children are impressed,
however and go off to do their thing while I write my diary.
I toy with the idea of going to Melbourne for the 30th anniversary of Living in
the 70s reunion gig on Thursday. I really do toy with it and feel quite decadent
for doing so.
Diary, Bremner Bird and Fortune and more vacillation about Melbourne…
I potter about but can’t sleep, wondering ‘should I go?’
Monday 25 October 2004
‘Man-made troubles’
The flights are booked. At least, I think I do, but the idiot at whichever
company is hiding behind lastminute.com books me returning a month late.
Some tense calls follow before I finally get what I want, but for more money
(from opodo.co.uk).
The car is taken to Currie Motors nice people to do business with (if you don’t
mind them being devious rip-off artists) for a service and another attempt at
sorting the ever-fizzin’ dashboard. I have little confidence.
These two activities are but the beginning of one of the most stressful days I
can remember. Despite the grief, quite a lot gets done (for someone who is
meant to be on paternity leave…)
The Halloween box is brought out of the cupboard where we keep seasonal
stuff, Cleo video tapes her homework: a project about a character she has
invented. She makes a remarkably confident film. She also gets an electric
shock from a dodgily-wired plug. Oops. Mea culpa. Greg Macainsh emails
"Well its not really a gig ..just a few mates in a loungeroom.. A long way to travel
methinks !!” Clearly, I disagree and, as if to confirm my judgement, the
Skyhooks fan club renewal package arrives, including a DVD of an interview
with Greg explaining the history of the album.
Our new painting by Kate Walters arrives but I can’t find a suitable hotel to
stay in. Then there’s confusion about my visa status. I have one, I don’t, I
have one (a super deluxe business visa, good until my passport expires). This
short trip is proving as testing as people find it unbelievable that I would
make such a long trip for such a short time. I’m beginning to agree with them.
The icing on the cake is a call from Kirsty at ‘the
not at all nice people to do business with’ calls: I have
broken tail lights. Allegedly. And a mis-aligned
headlight. And other things that need fixing.
Almost as much as a plane ride to Australia,
apparently. Driving is such a painful expense.
Cleo falls down a tree, scraping her arms and
chest as she grabs the trunk. She’ll wear
something more suitable next time.
I’m so stressed and barely eat the dinner Amanda
makes for us.
Tuesday 26 October 2004
‘The ‘art’ of travel’
It’s cold when I leave home. I have to pack (and I’m tired) so I don’t shower
(not that it will make any difference soon). Took the tube to Heathrow TO
SAVE MONEY!
I continue to feel guilty about the trip as my one of today’s 600-odd
departures from Heathrow takes off for Singapore and wonder if it is biology
punishing me for abandoning my new-born daughter. I also realise that at
times like this I really am a part-time CEO.
Desperate justification #7: think of the money I’ll save catching up on movies!
I watch Stepford Wives, The Terminal, Alien vs. Predator and half of this and a
third of that when not relishing the guilty pleasure of reading Oborne and
Walters biography of ‘Grace’s Dad’. There is a thrill in reading about people
and places you know and again, I wonder how close my path could have
taken me to something similar, (not that I mind it didn’t). Falling from high
must be a terrible thing.
By the time we’ve bypassed Baghdad I feel a little less guilty. By the time
we’re over the Himalayas, I’m ready to sleep. Coincidentally, I’m sitting by a
window with a light that won’t go off, just like the last trip down under.
Wednesday 27 October 2004
‘You never saw me, right’
Today begins when I arrive and is accordingly short, because arguably it
didn’t happen.
Not a word is passes between me and the immigration officer, even though
I’ve clearly only got carry-on and have ticked the box marked ‘holiday’ for
four days. Must happen all the time.
It’s a thirty dollar taxi ride to The Chifley Hotel (as was – it’s now the Apollo
and will soon be turned into student halls). Called home (which is ten hours
ago) briefly (thinking it was expensive) and took a very necessary shower.
I shan’t be troubled by work while I’m here: there’s no GPRS, only gprs,
which is useless. I sleep for six hours and wake…
Thursday 28 October 2004
‘#If I did not have an Ego I would not be here tonight#’
…at 2am. Fortunately, the free movie channel is showing ‘Rock Star’.
After breakfast, it’s time to explore the city just enough so I’m wide awake for
this evening. This means travelling by tram, in the rush hour and unexpected
(by me) rain. I find an internet café and catch up with the buzz ahead of
tonight, what’s going on at home and to accept that life goes on at the office.
The exhibition of Skyhooks costumes at the Victorian Arts Centre is modest,
but a strangely exciting appetizer for the gig. Then it’s some cursory sight-
seeing (i.e. passing by er Victorian buildings on a tram which takes me back
via the open air market) before grabbing a quick siesta. Quick, because David
Langsam calls me to see if I’m there, which of course I am.
He collects me and we, in turn, after a bowl of calamari in Carlton, pick up his
kids from school. It impossible to not make comparisons with Gospel Oak.
The kids here seem very well behaved and happy and I can’t help but think
its ‘better’ here, but know that things are never quite that simple.
I have to nag for us to set off in time to get through the rush hour and into the
south-eastern suburbs and Windsor, specifically. The venue, a mock Tudor
pub (The ‘Pint on Punt’) is a modest strip-mall boozer, but this is a party
(actually, ‘anniversary get-together’) at which the band members play nine
songs, (at the Red’s kids-friendly hour of
half past seven)mostly from the album
that started it all), not a gig. The place is
buzzing and soon I’m introducing
myself to everyone, or at least, all of the
Skyhooks I can identify (and some that I
don’t). Greg greets me like we’d most
recently met last week, Freddie is
unassuming, Red does his house-
rudeness bit and David introduces me to
some of his contacts. I talk to anyone
and everyone: there’s a real community
spirit amongst the grey hairs.
I position myself at the front (forget any idea of
English preserve – I’ve waited a long time for this)
and I’m flattered (and genuinely surprised) to be
name-checked (alongside Michael Gudinski, Shirl and
Peter Green) by Greg in his introduction. The set is all
I could have hoped for and, as is always the case with
live music, no matter how many times you hear the
recording or even see the video; the vibe of the live
show is not replicable outside of that time and place.
Watching the eye contact and feeling the groove, still
there after thirty years is exhilarating. ‘Ego’ is
particularly exciting: it must have been fantastic to
have discovered the music through hearing them live:
a great tune, even without the make-up and props? I
take lots of pictures, but none of me: I don’t need to
prove that I was there. I know.
Bob Spencer, Peter Starkie, Tony Williams
and Bob Starkie all make time to talk to
me. Time and time again, I’m struck by
just how unpretentious everyone is. Even
Red, when I say ‘thank you’ at the end of
the set, drops his guard and says ‘You’re
welcome’. It’s more than a fan club night,
it’s a family affair. I meet Greg’s brother
and Shirl’s entire family, ending the night
with a hug from his mum.
I spend a lot of time chatting to Chris Cester
from Jet) – he’s even more overwhelmed to have
met Greg Macainsh than I was – but bail out
before the dregs and after the principals,
deciding to walk back into town. #Hey, what’s
the matter?# I’m walking in the wrong direction.
Quickly sorted, I’m in bed for midnight, a very
happy bunny: I’ve seen Skyhooks live
(something I never thought I would do) and I’ve
not been disappointed. I’ve also had my most
enjoyable night in a pub ever.
(Top to bottom, Greg, Red, Bongo and Freddie)
Friday 29 October 2004
‘The morning after the night before’
Friday really doesn’t compare: I’m still coming down and it really begins with
a leisurely lunch with Ashley on Lygon Street, followed by a quick tour of her
office/pad (a bargain at AU$120 a week) and back to Finsbury Street to hang
out and while the night away doing nothing in particular. Yeah, I know: no
tourism. Big deal. Friends and R&R. Besides, I’ve seen Skyhooks. Ash gives
me a lift home and we grab a late night drink in Nellie’s bar next to the hotel.
If only all pubs were like this.
Saturday 30 October 2004
‘Wasted’
David calls, asking if I want to join him as he
buys crustacean from the market. He swings by
in his now battle-scarred people-mover, Alex in
tow and he buys pounds of inexpensive prawns
and oysters.
With the other kids and Asheley, it’s onto Luna
Park at the seaside (a short drive south of the
Yarra), site of the only photo of me on this jolly,
standing in the clown’s mouth. We do all the
rides and as the kids tire, part company,
leaving me to explore St Kilda and make my
way back into town.
I find the Modern Art, especially the video installation section strangely
unsatisfying (and in parts unsettling) which also applies to the buildings of
Federation Square (nah, it’s shit), buy myself a smoothie with all sorts of stuff
(wheatgrass and the like) in it, browse some cheap CDs and take the 57 tram
to stop 25 and the Langsam’s. Its race day, but despite never having done a
racecourse, I can’t be arsed. It’s a bit silver-tail (to use the local vernacular) for
me and I’ve never been interested enough to go before, so I hang out in the
garden and get quietly altered to prepare for my late-night burst of time
travel. Bizarrely, The Bill is the prime-time ‘must-see’. David drives me to the
airport, Lou Reed as loud as it will go. A spending spree for gifts to assuage
the last traces of guilt. Amanda gets opals, Jack crocodile jerky and the girls,
sundry koalas, Vegemite and Cleo magazine. Naturally.
Sunday 31 October 2004
‘Boo!’
I sleep all the way to Singapore and halfway to London, my internal clock
adjusting nicely. The only real movie this time is Collateral. That Tom Cruise
plays a mean bad guy for a short-arse.
Incredibly, I get five mosquito bites on the plane. The flight is full of the clotted
creams returning to their public schools
Soon, the reassuring grey of London is around me and after trudging up
Highgate Road (ironically past dozens of drunk Australians leaving ‘The
Church’) I’m knocking on my Hallowe’en themed front door by four.
A quick shower and the kids want to trick or treat. It’s my pleasure. I’m
home. It’s like I’ve never been away. But I have. I’ve been indulged by
Amanda and I am truly a very lucky man indeed. Treat.
* Fr., to bollock.
† Chrysalis, with large blue eyes