Tag: Threadmash

The Unexpected Visitor, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed 28 January 2021, Plus A Brief Review Of the Evening

ellenm1, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

David Wellbrook curated this edition of ThreadZoomMash. The brief was to write a piece of fiction, 800-1,000 words, entitled "The Unexpected Visitor". I submitted and performed the following piece.

“What the blithering fuck are you doing here?” said Martin, in a daze-like state, having been disturbed from his intense concentration, staring at nothing much, on his remarkably cluttered coffee table.

“I thought I’d surprise you”, said Mary. “You knew I’d be back”.

“Did I fuck”, exclaimed Martin. “This is totally unexpected. The last thing you said to me, as you left, was that you were never, ever, ever, ever…EVER going to come back.”

“But that was months ago”, Mary whispered, coquettishly, “and it was hardly the first time I walked out on you swearing that I was walking out for the last time.”

“Months! At least 18 months. I thought I was shot of you. I thought I was over you. I mean, I am over you. It’s too late. I’ve moved on. I’ve got a new life. I’ve got a new relationship….”

Mary smiled and chided Martin gently. “No you haven’t Martin. I know you haven’t. You’ve been waiting for my return. And now I am back.”

Mary surveyed all around her in the living room of the pokey Deptford flat that had, for several years, been her home. Martin had lived there for many more years than Mary. Before Mary came on the scene, Martin had been with a woman named Peggy for years. Peggy had broken his heart. That’s all Martin would say about Peggy.

It was impossible to believe that Martin had, in any way, moved on. Apart from an increased amount of dust and general untidiness, the place looked entirely unchanged.

Mary smiled. “Let me tidy up and clean up a bit…”

“…oh no you don’t”, yelled Martin, “you can’t just stroll in as if you’d never been away and take over my life again. Leave me alone!”

Tenderly, Mary coaxed him, as she started to tidy up, “you can’t carry on living like this Martin. Look at the place.” 

Mary tidied for a while, then took out a dress from the chest of drawers, admiring and imagining herself wearing it.  “It’s that second hand Versace dress you bought me. I’d forgotten…it’s so beautiful.”

“Cost me a bloody fortune, that did”, grumbled Martin, “hundreds…”

“…but they cost thousands new, Martin. You were so thrilled when you found it and ordered it on-line. And I was so excited when it arrived. Do you remember?”

“Of course. You looked lovely in it.” Martin’s anger was subsiding.

“Shall I try it on?” asked Mary.

“I suppose so. If you like”, said Martin, quelled. Once Mary had put on the dress, Martin added, “give us a twirl”,

“Let me see if I can find some suitable shoes,” said Mary, rummaging at the bottom of the wardrobe, turning out pairs of shoes, “I don’t think I ever had a pair that quite went with this dress…I don’t suppose you could find a pair of second hand Jimmy Choos on-line to go with my second hand Versace, Martin?”

“Fucking hell, don’t start all that again”, said Martin, the anger welling up inside him once again, “that’s what we rowed over the last time. I was always shelling out money I don’t have, on clothes that you don’t need. I can’t afford you, Mary. I can’t fucking afford you”.

“Oh don’t be like that, Martin”, said Mary in her girlie voice, likely to make Martin even more angry. “I’ll pay towards them if you like”.

“Stop talking rot, Mary. You’ve got no fucking money. We’ve neither of us got any money. You’ve got all these clothes and now you’re talking about buying a pair of Jimmy Frigging Choos. You make me so angry.  You always do this. I want to fucking murder you and then kill myself.”

Martin was really wild with anger now. He started hurling clothes around, stomping around the flat and continuously threatening and hurling abuse at Mary. Mary, for her part, was soon reduced merely to sobbing and pleading with Martin to calm down.

Many minutes into the row, came a knock at the door. “Open up! It’s the police! What’s going on in there? Open up!”

“Now look what you’ve done”, said Martin, “the neighbours have set the police on me. This is all I bloody need.”

Martin opened the door. “Good evening officer…officers”.

Two policemen. One looked about fifteen. The other a bit older.

“May we come in please? The neighbours have reported a domestic incident in this flat and we’d like your co-operation.”

“Yeh, whatever”, said Martin.

“Shall I search for the victim, Boss?”, said the younger cop.

“No, wait a bit, Dan…now, what’s been going on, Mr…”

“Martin…”, blurted Martin, before he started weeping uncontrollably.

The flat was strewn with women’s clothes. Martin was on his hands and knees, wearing a Versace dress, leaving blue mascara tear pools on the formerly oatmeal-coloured carpet.

“You’d better sort yourself out, Martin”, said the older policeman, “because if we get called out here again, we’ll have to charge you and you’ll likely end up with a CBO. This is an informal warning, not a formal caution, but you take it seriously, mate”.

“What about the victim, Boss, the woman?” persevered the inexperienced young copper.

“Martin’s on his own here, Dan. Look at him. What a state. Let’s go.”

“I need help”, said Martin.

Review Of the Evening

There were eleven of us reading on the night. David Wellbrook, ever the soccer football fan, liked the idea of associating us all with members of the recently successful England World Cup winning side (1966). This triggered a memory wave from me earlier in the day, as I know what I was up to on that auspicious day:

The Day The England Football Team Won The World Cup Final, Nunu’s House, 30 July 1966

My memory piece also elicited a memory from Kay, which I felt upstaged my story in drama and brevity:

Your delicious Ogblog has reminded me that Uncle Bob came to watch the match at our house. Drink was taken. Bob was holding my baby brother on his lap for that last 30 minutes. The goal was scored. Bob leapt to his feet and threw baby brother in the air.
Luckily, dad caught him.

For his part, David allocated roles to each of us, in diagram form, which indicated the running order.

I was delighted to be cast as the controversial, hat-trick scoring No 10. Wikipedia introduced me to the juicier elements of that goal-scoring, but it wasn’t my new-found knowledge that amazed most of the group but fact that I didn’t know every detail of those controversial goals in the first place.

Jill, who might be forgiven for not knowing anything about the topic at all given her relative youth and the fact that she was raised in China, turns out to be one of the world’s leading experts on Bobby Moore. OK, I exaggerate for effect, but she had learnt about him as part of her UK citizenship programme, which is clearly oriented towards the really important stuff. Rohan should really write a book about that sort of thing.

Anyway.

The stories were diverse as always, despite the seemingly straightforward title. Several of the pieces had animals as the unexpected visitor; we had a spider, birds and a mouse, in Ian Theodoreson’s story, guest published separately on Ogblog here:

Ian Theodoreson’s The Unexpected Visitor From ThreadZoomMash, 28 January 2021

Jill’s story appeared also to have a mouse, but it turned out to be a visitor from four-dimensional space who figured that a small talking mouse-like manifestation might be less scary to humans than the alternatives.

There were several stories that revolved around death, including a murder and one story which included a birth. Covid was only mentioned a couple of times in the evening.

We went into extra time to arrange the next event, which includes a slightly convoluted “shuffling of the pack” which seemed to be confounding everyone until Jill turned out to be an expert on Google Docs as well a leading authority on Bobby Moore and four-dimensional space.

8-cell-simple

ThreadCrushes, My Turn To Curate ThreadZoomMash, I Chose The Topic “Crushes”, 16 December 2020

This ThreadZoomMash is dedicated to the late Professor Mike Smith

Part One Introduction: Medieval Crushes

I chose the topic “crushes” by happenstance. Just before lockdown 2.0, while I was pondering my choice of topic, a couple of old friends and acquaintances, out of the blue, unprompted, confided in me about crushes they’d harboured when we were all a lot younger.

The topic of crushes resonated with me as a rich source of story telling.

It also resonated with my love of medieval music. Without going into too much detail as to why and wherefore, most medieval secular love songs are about unrequited love. The story formula is a simple one – as my music teacher Ian Pittaway puts it – “she is perfect…; I am hopelessly in love with her; she doesn’t want me; I am heart-broken”.

Here is a song I am working on at the moment: Puis Que Je Suy Amoureux. A late 14th century song attributed to Richard Loqueville of Cambrai. Allow me to sing you the first verse and then translate it.

Since I am in love
With you, gracious, gentle one,
I never feel pain
I am so blissfully joyful.

Thus I wish to continue dreaming
Of serving you according to my design
Since I am in love…

[Love gives to lovers
Hope, sweet and pleasant.
Now my heart is waiting
For your gracious glance,]
Since I am in love…

Translation by Asteria – below I have embedded their delightful, professional rendering of this beautiful song:

Part Two Introduction: Primary Crushes

It was not my intention to write a crush story myself. That is not normally the way with the role of ThreadMash curator. But events since I set the topic of crushes have led me to a memory flash of my very first crush.

Here’s the story of how the memory flash and that primary crush came about.

Very sadly, my friend and work colleague of more than 25 years, Professor Mike Smith, died suddenly and totally unexpectedly on 12 November. It was Mike who, six years ago, encouraged me to start playing the four-string guitar. Janie and I had formed a bond with Mike and his young family over the years.

On the last day of Lockdown 2.0, we went to Mike’s funeral. We learnt for the first time many things about Mike’s earlier life.

I knew that Mike originally came from Montgomery Alabama and I knew that Mike had very strong views against prejudice. But I didn’t know that, in the late 1960s, pint-sized Mike had tackled the racist bullies at Alabama State University, befriending black people and bravely taking on the segregationists.

I also didn’t know that, as a youngster, Mike had liked the song Red River Valley, which the celebrant at the funeral then duly played to the congregation of mourners.

At the sound of that song, I was transported back to the late 1960s myself, to when I was seven; thoughts of my fourth year primary school teacher, Miss Brown.

I loved her and she was clearly very fond of me. I did extremely well that year in school. Miss Brown introduced me to Tudor history, a subject that has fascinated me since. She encouraged my writing.

By the time you get to your fourth year of primary school, you have got used to the idea that you will move on to a different class with a different teacher the next academic year. But Miss Brown dropped a bombshell towards the end of the summer term that year; she was going to be leaving the school altogether.

I was devastated. I wasn’t merely going to be in another class. I wasn’t going to see her again. I felt abandoned.

That year, I had been given as a present a small collection of remaindered records, known as Beano Records. Most of the records are dramatised stories for children with famous English theatrical performers peppered with classical music to provide additional dramatic frisson to the stories. But one of the records, incongruously, is a collection of Cowboy Songs.

One of those cowboy songs is Red River Valley, which had caught my ear around the time I learnt that Miss Brown was to abandon me. I played that song over and over, wallowing in the sentiment of it. I became determined to learn Red River Valley and sing it to Miss Brown on the last day of school.

Eventually I told mum about my plan. Mum gently dissuaded me from that particular idea. I think she encouraged me instead to take a small gift together with a note of thanks and farewell to Miss Brown. I expect mum maintained strict editorial control over the content of the note.

With the benefit of hindsight, that might have been the one occasion in my life when mum’s intervention in my romantic ideals was unquestionably for the best.

There are many versions of Red River Valley, but one of the most charming verses (absent from the rather corny Beano recording, which you can hear through the sound file below)…

Red River Valley, performed by an uncredited “real Texas cowboy”

…is an unrequited love lyric, the third verse of the version I’m about to play. Very similar to the Puis Que Je Suy Amoureux unrequited love lyric, written some 500 years earlier.

It’s 50 years since I learnt, but didn’t sing, Red River Valley for Miss Brown.

It is now time.

It’s easy to play on the four string guitar, which Mike Smith encouraged me to play.

So, this rendition is for Miss Brown and for Mike Smith:

Red River Valley

Oh they say from this valley you’re leaving
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
And they say that you’re taking the sunshine
That has brightened our pathway a while

Won’t you think of the valley you’re leaving
Oh how lonesome, how sad it will be
And remember the Red River Valley
And the grief that you’re causing to me

For a long time my darling I’ve waited
For the sweet words you never would say
Now at last all my fond hopes have vanished
For they say that you’re going away

Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
Just remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy that loved you so true

Postscript: The Evening

Ten of us gathered. Eight contributors, me in my capacity as curator/master of ceremonies, plus Rohan Candappa.

The Part One running order was:

  • Jan
  • Adrian
  • Jill
  • Geraldine

The Part Two running order was:

  • Coats Bush (Terry)
  • Auntie Viral (Kay)
  • Fabian Tights (David)
  • Arfur Pig (Ian T)

(The nicknames is a long story. Ask Rohan).

We had a good 30 to 40 minutes after the readings to discuss the contributions and all sorts of other stuff.

From my point of view it was a great evening and I thoroughly enjoyed the role of curator. Not that i would want to curate the evening every time, but my hand is certainly up to curate again.

ThreadZoomMash Celebrity Edition, Siddharta by Hermann Hesse In My Case, Plus Lots More Fascinating Contributions, 16 November 2020

Tonight, another of Rohan Candappa’s left-field ideas. Choose one page from any book of your own choosing; explain your choice and read out that page.

I railed against the Desert Island Discs idea a few months ago…

Desert Island Diatribe, A Performance Piece For ThreadZoomMash, Plus A Review Of the Evening,29 July 2020

…do I even need to explain that “choose just one page to read” meets a similarly febrile emotional push-back in my mind.

But I quite quickly settled on Hermann Hesse as my choice of author. George Elliot and Hermann Hesse are the only authors about whom I decided, on reading one novel, that I simply must try to read everything this person wrote.

Hesse’s novels are extraordinary and quite exceptional. I commend all of his novels to you. Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game are mind-blowing, but possibly not the place to start with Hesse’s work.

My first Hesse read was Demian. I picked up that novel, pretty much by chance, in a remaindered bookshop on the Charing Cross Road in the mid 1980s. Some of the fictional conversations in that book reminded me of conversations I’d enjoyed with Anil Biltoo, the school pal with whom I went to Mauritius in 1979 and through whom I met Fuzz, the subject of my first ThreadMash piece.

The Rohan Thing, My Short Performance Piece As Part Of Rohan Candappa’s Inaugural Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2019

Hesse’s evident fascination with Eastern philosophies and my desire to read more about them took me next to Siddharta. There are two parts to the book; I am going to read you the few hundred words that conclude Part One; a point at which Siddharta reaches a spiritual awakening such that he is, in a sense, reborn in Part Two.

I don’t personally believe in reincarnation, but I did feel a shiver down my spine while researching this preamble, when I read Hermann Hesse’s Wikipedia entry. Hesse died on 9 August 1962. That was the day that Anil Biltoo was born.

Anil Biltoo. Click here or the picture for the Project Gutenberg public domain version of Siddhartha in English

The Events Of The Evening

I went first, so (apart from a short introduction by Rohan before I did my bit), this piece is sequenced in running order sequence.

Kay went next. She read The Owl-Critic by James Thomas Fields, reading from a charming anthology she has kept from primary school. Kay might chime in with the details of the anthology, but I’m guessing it is out of print and hard to find. She had peppered the poem with musical notation as a child, which was a charming additional detail.

Flo read Last Of the MetroZoids by Adam Gopnik. It is a very moving piece about the art historian, Kirk Varnedoe, coaching a boys football team while dying of cancer. It is a very moving piece, which Flo read beautifully.

Next up was Jan, who (Rohan suggested) wanted to style herself as Constance DeVereaux this evening…perhaps an in-joke between “spice”. Anyway, Jan read from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (another book available in the public domain through Project Gutenberg). She read the bit where Jo sacrifices her glorious head of hair to raise money for the family.

Ian Theodorson read a passage from East Of Eden by John Steinbeck (link is to Wikipedia entry, as the book is still in copyright). Ian preambled his reading by explaining some of the biblical references/allusions involved, not least the Cain & Abel story from the Old Testament.

Then a brief half-time discussion. The topic that got the most coverage was about Little Women and books of that kind, specifically whether there is an equivalent literary genre that helps young men to understand their romantic emotions. We concluded that there is seemingly no such genre.

We then had an actual half-time break, but there was no evidence of anyone eating cut up pieces of orange. Nor, mercifully, did Rohan try to motivate us with glib words and phrases such as “momentum”, “play as a unit”, “give it 120%” or “leave it all out there on the Zoom screen”.

There was then a euphemism-fest, using terms such as “recharging my gadget”, when it was clear that people wanted a toilet break.

I used that time as an opportunity to show those who remained my proud collection of decomposing Pooh.

When it comes to decomposing Pooh…if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Rohan kicked off the second half by reciting the lyric of What A Fool Believes by Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins. There’s a bit of involuntary threading in there, as Kenny Loggins also famously produced Return To Pooh Corner, including Loggins song House At Pooh Corner. It’s a fabulous lyric which I looked at a year or two ago with a view to giving it the troubadour treatment; I might just about be able to sing it now.

John read a nerve-jangling passage from Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. It is a heart-stopping true story about a pair of mountaineers in the Andes who survived a disaster in almost-impossible circumstances. It was made into a much-lauded documentary film some years after the book came out.

Jill read a passage from The Book Of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith. She read the piece about amae, a Japanese emotion which is hard to translate into English. “It means something like the pleasure that you get when you’re able to temporarily hand over responsibility for your life to someone else”, to quote Tiffany herself from this rather fascinating interview with her about the book.

Adrian read an hilarious piece from March Of the Lemmings: Brexit In Print & Performance 2016-2019 by Stewart Lee. The passage Adrian read was a sequence of thank you letters to brexity aunts for their brexity Christmas presents. I learnt that we should all have an Anderson shelter for Brexit; who knew?

Terry read a passage from The Big Book: Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, explaining after his reading, in no uncertain terms, that this book saved his life.

Geraldine read us three Robert Frost poems. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it has dawned on me the morning after, that The Road Not Taken, one of Frost’s best known and most debated poems, is a fascinating echo of the East Of Eden “free will” debate regarding the Cain & Abel story from Ian T’s reading. Geraldine read one other poem the title/detail of which has escaped me (she might chime in with the title), plus The Gift Outright, which Frost recited in person at John F Kennedy’s inauguration.

Perhaps they should book Stewart Lee to recite some fitting words for the outgoing president at Joe Biden’s inauguration, if the narcissist-in-chief bothers to show up.

After the event, a few of us stuck around for some further discussion, although it soon descended into weird debates about matters such as the relative merits of Michael Mcdonald & Malcolm MacDonald, two people who are surely very hard to distinguish from one another.

I have had this problem myself in my time. Who hasn’t?

Just one more parting thought, brought to mind by the thought of stories we loved as children and our parents’ influence. I am blessed to still have many recordings of my parents reading to me. I have several still to go through and upload to Ogblog, but one in particular, from when I was five, remains charming and is a complete story. I uploaded it a few years ago and several friends told me that they have played it many times over to their children. Hare And Guy Fawkes by Alison Uttley:

Hare And Guy Fawkes, Daddy Reading To Me, 5 November 1967

Ghosts, ThreadZoomMash Performance Piece, Plus Reflections On The Evening, 21 October 2020

Bernard Rothbart (left) – with thanks to Mike Jones (right) for the image

I don’t believe in ghosts.  No ifs. No buts. I don’t believe in ghosts.

By which I mean, actually, that I don’t believe in revenants; the animated corpses and undead beings that haunt the living throughout folklore.

Possibly because I don’t believe, I don’t particularly care for ghost stories.

I do, however, especially care for Ghosts, a play by Henrik Ibsen, written in 1881. I first encountered this play when studying drama at school.  I thought it was a cracking read.

I subsequently had the honour and privilege to see the 1986 Young Vic production with Vanessa in the lead…

…Vanessa Redgrave, dears.  In theatre circles, you merely say “Vanessa”.  

More recently, in 2003, Janie and I saw the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden’s production of Ghosts directed by Ingmar Bergman, with Pernilla August in the Vanessa role; Mrs Alving. 

Intriguingly, the title of the play in the original Norwegian and Danish, is Gengangere and Ibsen disliked the translation of the title as “Ghosts”. The word gengangere has the double-meaning of revenants and events that repeat themselves. Ibsen felt that the word ghosts fails to express that second meaning.

For sure the play Ghosts is about being haunted by events and the past repeating itself.

As is my story, about an event more than 40 years ago.

Many of my former schoolmates, like me, are haunted by the sudden, untimely death of Bernard Rothbart, one of our biology and chemistry teachers. He died by his own hand, at the school, in December 1979. Mr Rothbart sat in his car in the teachers’ car park and ingested potassium cyanide. He was 29 years old.

I was reminded of the event about six years ago when a fellow alum mentioned on our alumni Facebook group how much he’d been affected by the incident. It kicked off a several-hundred comment thread.

I was subsequently reminded of Bernard Rothbart’s funeral when Rohan Candappa mentioned the Elvis Costello song Hoover Factory in his Halloween 2017 performance of What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has Taught Me About Love…

What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has Taught Me About Love by Rohan Candappa, Cockpit Theatre, 31 October 2017

…helping me to recover the memory of my Uncle Manny’s funeral, 18 months later, at Bushey Jewish Cemetery, the same location as Mr Rothbart’s.

I had been asked…almost begged…to attend Bernard Rothbart’s funeral, as the teachers felt nervous about attending a Jewish funeral and wanted my help to explain the relevant laws and mores. I think they also felt that a Jewish pupil might help put the grieving Rothbart family a little more at ease with the Alleyn’s School contingent.

In truth I felt a bit of a fraud. I had never attended any funeral before, so it was a case of the partially blind leading the totally blind. I had to pump my parents for information ahead of the day and brief the other Alleyn’s attendees based on my folks’s briefing, rather than the direct experience I think they were hoping for.

I had also been one of Mr Rothbart’s less attentive chemistry students. I recall thinking self-centredly at the time that the sight of my utterly hopeless mock A-level exam paper might have driven poor Mr Rothbart to cyanide.

I had meant to write up that strange experience; Bernard Rothbart’s funeral, when I mentioned it in my recovered memory piece about  Uncle Manny & The Hoover Factory…

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

…in 2017, but didn’t get around to it at that time.

A few months ago, I received a message, out of the blue, enquiring whether I had ever got around to writing up my Bernard Rothbart piece. The message came from one of the fellows who had been larking around out of bounds that day in 1979 and found Mr Rothbart in his car.  

I promised that I would write up the piece soon, but just didn’t have the spirit to delve into that particular memory during this strange summer.

Then, a few weeks ago, Janie & I learnt that a close friend’s former partner, Mitchell, had hanged himself on his sixtieth birthday. We can only try to imagine Mitchell’s mental state. Mitchell’s story felt like a haunting echo of the Bernard Rothbart story.

So I finally got round to writing up the story of Bernard Rothbart and my peculiar role at his funeral.

Sunday School: Bernard Rothbart’s Funeral, 9 December 1979

Now I am preparing to go to my first socially distanced funeral, a few days before I read this piece at ThreadZoomMash.

More than forty years since my first funeral; I have now been to many. This one will be a humanist cremation at Hoop Lane. I have even been to plenty of those.

But, like 1979, I don’t really know how to behave at this funeral.

I’m part of a different tribe now. Everyone must follow novel, social-distancing mores… now.

Yet still, I sense the gengangere, the ghostly echo of repeating events.

Postscript: Reflections On The Evening

Reflecting a few days after the event, my thoughts have been very much provoked by the readings that evening.

Adrian Rebello’s choice of Ghosts as the theme bothered me a little at first, as I thought that theme might yield a more homogeneous collection of pieces than usual. In fact the selection was very diverse and I thought the quality extremely high. As a group, I think we are getting better and better at writing short pieces for recital.

I didn’t take notes as I wanted to reflect on these pieces impressionistically and also imagined (correctly) that some of them could not really be described without spoilers. So I will say little about some pieces, which does not cast judgment on their quality.

Rohan Candappa went first and talked about several Ghost-themed songs from our youth; There’s A Ghost In My House by R Dean Taylor, Ghosts by Japan, Ghost Town by The Specials, Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Junior and finally (obvs?) Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. Rohan prefaced the piece by asking us all to think about 16 February 1978 (the day Wuthering Heights first appeared on Top Of The Pops). As it happens I have already Ogblogged my experience at that time; I would have been in rehearsal for Andorra that evening so (unusually for that era) would have missed TOTP that night:

Andorra, 23, 24 & 25 February 1978

Kay Scorah went next with a very creepy story about a lost twin…or two. It’s creepiness was enhanced by the sense that she was telling a true story. It transpired from the discussion afterwards that the story was largely based on truth.

Ian Theodoreson’s story was very much a true story about strange ghostly happenings (and unhappenings) at the former Mary Datchelor School Building, when Ian was working there as Finance Director of Save The Children. I first met Ian in that setting, as it happens, some time before the haunting events that Ian described. I have my own mixture of haunting memories of that time, despite the happy ending to my Save The Children story:

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

But I digress.

Terry’s story, about the loss of a child, was very moving as well as spooky. Terry has a direct, sparse style of writing and delivery that works well generally and worked especially well for this piece.

Then my piece (above).

Then David Wellbrook’s story, which fitted well with his new-found ability to write suspenseful horror/thriller stories, such as his Dahlesque piece, “The Gift”, which I read out at the fourth ThreadMash. The Ghosts one this evening had lots of twists and turns…

…but not as many twists and turns as Julie Adams’s piece. Her piece had more twists and turns than the ghost train ride that was central to her story. How she managed to pack such a rich, complex, diverse, funny and horrifying story into 800 or so words I have no idea. Julie is one of the less confident writers in our group, because that’s how she is, not because she has grounds for lack of confidence in writing. But if ever I have sensed that her lack of confidence in writing is misplaced it is with this piece, which was a tour de force and genuinely shocking. Unfortunately Julie wasn’t able to join us that evening, but Adrian was able to read her piece out brilliantly well.

Geraldine Sharpe-Newton wondered about extreme of old age in her piece, exploring the idea that the very old, tucked away neatly in care homes, might be a form of living ghosts prior to their clinical demise. As always with Geraldine, it was beautifully structured, steeped in clarity and wisdom; I found myself, as usual, wanting to hang on to every word.

Fiona Rawes (Flo’s) piece was a haunting piece about a pet. Writing about ghosts of species other than humans is quite rare and/but Flo’s style, which tends to focus in delicious detail on miniature domestic stories, worked beautifully for this piece.

John Eltham’s piece was a very well crafted ghost story about a hill-runner rescued from a near-death experience. John is another of our less confident writers but he is proving each time he writes that he has a gift for writing and that his stories deserve to be heard. John is also extremely good at delivering his stories as the spoken word.

Jan Goodman’s piece was an hilarious, post-modern ending to the evening. Upon learning the theme, she had immediately worked out in her mind the sketch of a great story. Unfortunately, she hadn’t quite worked out how to fit such a complex story into 800 words and had left the writing task until a little too close to the deadline. So instead of dropping that idea and writing something else, she wrote the story of that sketchy idea and her subsequent struggles…let’s face it, failure…with that story idea. It was a very amusing piece and it must have spoken to many if not all of us who have had that type of struggle in our time.

Adrian hosted the evening extremely well. I thought he had ordered the pieces very cleverly, as his joins were very confident, but he admitted at the end of the evening that he had decided to sequence the pieces using the simple method of listing the recitals in the order that the pieces came in…and then “winging it” for the joins.

Well winged, Adrian. Indeed, well done everyone. It was a great evening.

Mistaken Identity South Omo Valley Style, Piece Performed At ThreadZoomMash & Review Of The Evening, 2 September 2020

My favourite novel that uses mistaken identity as its central plot device is Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. William Boot, a genteel nature correspondent, is sent as a foreign correspondent to Ishmaelia, a crisis-ridden East African country, as he has been mistaken for his adventurous distant cousin, John Boot. There are predictably hilarious results.

Ishmaelia is a thinly veiled fictional version of Abyssinia, now known as Ethiopia, a place that Evelyn Waugh had visited in 1930 as a special correspondent for The Times. Waugh wrote up his African travels in a wonderfully funny book, Remote People.

In one amusing scene, when Waugh and his entourage had travelled into the heart of Ethiopia, a guard takes an interest in Waugh’s possessions. Waugh tells us that the guard:

…in exchange showed me his rifle and bandoleer. About half the cartridges were empty shells; the weapon was in very poor condition. It could not possibly have been used with any accuracy and probably not with safety…

More than 75 years after Waugh’s visit, Janie and I journeyed to Ethiopia, where we encountered a great many tribespeople with such weapons and ourselves were the victims of a form of mistaken identity.

We spent a few days in the South Omo Valley; a tribal part of Southern Ethiopia near the border with South Sudan. We had a fascinating time there.

Our small lodge was near some Karo villages.  On our second day, we had arranged to visit Turmi, a Hamer tribe village, on market day.

Our guide, Dawit, asked us if we would mind if a local tribesman, Adama, join us in the vehicle. Adama is, unusually, half Karo & half Hamer; he wanted to visit his Hamer friends and relatives. Adama had trekked to our lodge in the hope of hitching a ride. Naturally we agreed and had a peculiar conversation with Adama, through Dawit.   

Adama wanted to know more about us.  He wondered how much cattle we owned. 

Dawit passed on my reply; we don’t own any cattle. 

Adama asked what other types of livestock and how many of them we owned.

Dawit broke it to Adama, gently, that I had told him that we own no livestock at all.

Adama said that he felt sorry for us; he hadn’t realised that we were poor people.

Dawit tried to explain to Adama that we come from a society where wealth is not measured in livestock.

“He says he understands”, Dawit told me.

I looked at Adama and smiled. He smiled back. The smile was a smile of pity. Of course he understood. Ian and Janie were proud people who did not want to be perceived as poor. But by the sound of it we came from a pitifully poor tribe, universally blighted with a chronic livestock shortage.

We had been mistaken for paupers…or had we? In Karo and Hamer terms, we were/are indeed poor.

Turmi market was wonderfully colourful, bustling and friendly.

Livestock is unquestionably an important feature of that society.

We visited a Karo village later that same day, on the way back to our lodge. We had heard that the Ethiopian Government had just built the village its first school, which was due to open later that year, but had provided no consumables for the school.  Janie and I always take a few boxes of biros with us when we travel in the developing world; we thought this place well suited to a gift of 100 pens. 

The chief of the village was delighted and hastily arranged a ceremony for the gift. 

Once we had ceremoniously handed over the pens, the chief – showing no concern for social distancing whatsoever – embraced me, spat over my shoulder three times and (through Dawit) explained that Janie and I were now honorary members of the village.

Janie and I then spent some time in OUR Karo village.  I wonder whether the World War One vintage Lee Enfield 303 rifles the villagers were carrying had been around since Evelyn Waugh’s visit some 75 years earlier?  Or perhaps they had found their way to the South Omo Valley from the 1970s Alleyn’s School CCF arsenal.

To celebrate our new-found membership of the Karo tribe, Janie tried her hand at hair adornment…

…then one of the Karo body artists reciprocated with some face painting, after a false start using all white face paint, he quickly made up a small batch of dark face paint.

So, as honorary Karo people, I suppose we weren’t mistaken for poor people, we ARE poor Karo people. We have no livestock and we have no antique weaponry. But we do have some exceptionally rich memories of our time with those remote people.

Postscript One: A Video Of My Performance

Below is an “uncut” video of my performance, published with the kind permission of the ThreadZoomMash participants.

Postscript Two: Links To Our Ethiopia Trip

If you would like to know more about our 2006 visit to Ethiopia, you can find a placeholder and links here, but at the time of writing this piece I have not yet Ogblogged my journals.

Journey To Ethiopia & Zanzibar, Placeholder & Links, 16 February To 9 March 2006

If you just want to look at our photos from the South Omo Valley, the Flickr link below has an album with the best 80 of our photos from there:

04 ...the breasts are most likely unaltered P2190042

Postscript Three: A Very Brief Review Of The Mistaken Identity Evening

I don’t think that Kay Scorah imagined that she was choosing a dark topic when she chose Mistaken Identity, but the vast majority of the pieces were very dark indeed.

Let me put it this way. Terry went first, with a creepy piece about the grim reaper visiting the wrong potential “reapee” by mistake. It was almost as creepy as the following short scene from one of my favourite dark movies…

…and Terry’s piece was one of the least dark pieces of the evening.

John’s brilliantly structured story involved Northern Irish and Islamic terrorism echoing in the life of one female character.

Julie’s story was a beautifully crafted, shocking piece about horrific, fatal domestic abuse.

Adrian’s story, which started lightheartedly enough, ended with the murder of a young man mistaken for a mass murderer.

In a near-futile attempt to lighten the mood before a short break, Kay scheduled Jan’s story, which was a poetic piece full of mystery about a potential re-encounter with a former lover..or was it merely mistaken identity?

After the break, David resumed the dark theme with a thriller about a man kidnapped by thugs for mysterious reasons; but was it a case of mistaken identity?

Then the mood finally got a bit lighter, with Geraldine’s thoughtful piece about her early days in New York and how status seemed to be identified (mistakenly or not) simply through one’s job title, place of origin or even merely one’s name.

Before my piece, which was the last, Ian T told us about several of his doppelgängers; Jeremy Corbyn (I don’t think so, but judge for yourselves), an Ecology party candidate in 1983 named Ian Newton and a man in a red coat at a church parade who looked so much like Ian that even Ian himself thought the other fellow might be him.

Perhaps I should have done my own doppelgänger story, not that I have delusions of grandeur about my scribblings:

It was a great evening, as always. Many thanks to Kay for organising it, to Rohan Candappa for the original idea upon which ThreadZoomMash is based and also a huge thanks to all of the participants.

The Secret Life Of Ginger Baker by Ian Theodoreson, Originally Performed By The Author At ThreadZoomMash, 29 July 2020

I am delighted that Ian Theodoreson has asked me to guest publish this charming performance piece.

The question of what should comprise my Desert Island Disc choices has occupied me for most of my adult life and I realise I am still some way from reaching the definitive selection. So I offer the following as an interim position.

When it comes to my favourite piece of music I wondered whether to include my current fave rave – ‘Drowning in Tears’ by Gary Moore…

…but think I ought to stick with the Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan-Williams which invokes memories of idyllic summer days past and has been part of my personal soundtrack for forty years.

In terms of my favourite book I did consider choosing ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Eric Maria Remarque but given I have read it so many times I have practically memorised it, I thought I would take John Steinbeck’s ‘East of Eden’ instead and enjoy its beautifully crafted analysis of the human condition.

So, I have cheated thus far by naming two books and two pieces of music, but there is no such equivocation when it comes to the ‘luxury’ object.  It is, and always has been … a drum kit.

I have wanted to be a drummer for as long as I have wanted to be a fireman, which is basically for ever. For some reason my parents were not willing to indulge my passion and preferred my taking up the violin instead and by the time I left home other interests overwhelmed me and my ambition faded into the background.  However a desert island seems like an ideal place to start learning as long as it comes with a never ending supply of drumsticks.

Like many of my generation I was transfixed by what is now termed classic rock, although always avoiding the heavier end of the genre.  One group that didn’t particularly trouble my consciousness was Cream, despite being arguably one of the most influential bands of the rock era.  Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and the drummer Ginger Baker could be considered the founding fathers of rock music. 

Although Eric Clapton was the only one to go on to apparent greater exploits the music of Cream remains foundational despite the fact they only played together for just over two years from 1966 to 1968 before the irascible Ginger Baker decided he couldn’t stand touring anymore.

I was only eleven years of age when Cream split up and consequently knew very little about them so it was perhaps surprising that I entered the ballot at work to secure a pair of tickets for one of their four reunion concerts at the Albert Hall in 2005 – the only time they would ever play together again. My employer, Barnardo’s owned two debenture holder seats at the Albert Hall which they would allow staff to purchase, with a ballot being held if demand exceeded supply. 

Given it was my p.a. who handled the ballot process it is perhaps fortunate that I was on holiday at the time the ballot was drawn as her phone call to tell me I had been successful was followed not long afterwards by a call from the full time UNISON official to let me know that his members were taking out a collective grievance against me.  Fortunately he was joking.

Fair Use, as explained on Wikimedia Commons – click here.

So I subsequently found myself in the Albert Hall, surrounded by a crowd of ‘crusties’ all dressed in suits, having come, like me, straight from work, when it suddenly dawned on me that it was me who was the interloper.  The music we were about to hear belonged to this older generation and in actual fact I probably only knew two songs that Cream had ever produced. 

The guy sitting next to me looked nervous – he had been at the very last concert Cream had played in October 1968 and he was desperately worried that the moment he had dreamed of for over 36 years would be a crushing disappointment.

The concert was a triumph.  Ginger Baker performed one of his trademark ten minute drum solos (while Eric and Jack went back stage to make themselves a cup of tea and finish the Times crossword) and the crowd got drunk on nostalgia. 

At the end I asked my neighbour how he had found it.  ‘Better than I dared hope’ he said.  ‘How did it compare to 1968?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, I was too stoned in ’68 to remember’ he replied.

If you can remember Cream in the 1960s, you weren’t really there

One impression that night that stayed with me from the concert was the mesmerising performance of Ginger Baker.  He was notoriously mercurial character and not given to saying very much so it was surprising then to hear him speaking during the concert and particularly at the end of his mammoth drum solo when he ended up, in his gruff South London tones with ‘I thank you’. He had a very particular way of speaking, and this closing flourish stuck in my head. (Rohan has suggested he was channelling his inner Arthur Askey).

A few days later, with the noise of the concert still ringing in my ears, I was standing on the platform at Loughton tube station when suddenly the tannoy sprang into life:

‘This is a service update from the Loughton control centre. There are slight delays on the Circle and District lines and a good service on all other London Underground lines. I thank you’.

There was that voice again.  I looked around excitedly at all my fellow passengers – Ginger Baker works in the control room at Loughton Station, isn’t that amazing – but no one else stirred. I went back down the stairs to peer in through the control room window but I was too late – a shadowy figure was stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him. 

Could I really be the only person who knew that Ginger Baker has an alternative career working for London Underground? Did his colleagues realise who they were working alongside? Did he use a pseudonym? … so many questions lay unanswered.

Loughton station building

It wasn’t the last time I heard his voice on the station tannoy…each time the announcement was signed off with his ‘I thank you’…but I tell you this, I haven’t heard it since October 2019, which is when Ginger Baker died.  Coincidence or what? 

Latterly in Loughton? Hard to disprove.

Desert Island Diatribe, A Performance Piece For ThreadZoomMash, Plus A Review Of the Evening,29 July 2020

Fuck you, Rohan Candappa.

Desert Island Discs? Desert Island frigging Discs!

Writing and performing at ThreadZoomMash can help us forget about the privations of lockdown?

How? By getting us to imagine the ultimate self-isolation, alone on some crappy desert island with JUST ONE poxy record? Even Roy Plomley and chums allow eight poxy records.

Look – I know that Desert Island Discs is a quintessentially BBC thing that people in Britain have loved for decades. A national treasure. I cannot deny the success of the genre. Nor can I deny its charm. Heck, I have often listened. I have often enjoyed the programme.

But I profoundly dislike the central conceit of the show. In particular the eight-record scenario leaves me feeling sceptical…or do I mean cynical…most times I listen to the show. Who can sum up their musical tastes and satisfy their thirst for music with just eight tracks?

I suspect that most guests go through a “style consultant” process, to help choose eight records that say enough about them to satisfy their fan base, while not turning too many people off them.  That’s why so many people chose some Beethoven and/or Mozart. Unless they are UK politicians, who relentlessly choose a bit of Elgar or Vaughan-Williams; just to prove how very English or British they are.

Actually, that thought about politicians has brought dissembling insincerity to the front of my mind. By gosh, Rohan – this topic choice for ThreadZoomMash reeks of BoJo or DomCum levels of hypocrisy.

After all, YOU are the fellow who recently wrote the lockdown piece, Spotify vs Top Of the Pops. YOU are the fellow who once wrote a live show entitled, “What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has Taught Me About Love”. In fact, while you, Rohan Candappa, indulged yourself piloting the latter show at the Cockpit in 2017, a riot kicked off on the surrounding Church Street & Lisson Green Estates. It’s a minor miracle that you and we, your long-suffering friends in the audience, survived to tell the tale.

Anyway, my point Rohan, is that you of all people, the “Spotify, Top Of the Pops, 10,000 love songs” dude, should know how depleting, how devastating, this “one song per island” idea of yours is.

Oh no, not I. I will survive, there, musically. Here is my survival plan.

My object is my trusty friend, Benjy The Baritone Ukulele.

My book, which admittedly has yet to be published…but publishing my choice of book is, frankly, the least you can do for me in these circumstances, is: “The Complete Works Of English Language Song, From The Year c1220 to The Year 2020”.  Ideally with chords & music as well as lyrics for the songs.

My one measly track will be a recording of my own mash-up masterpiece, helpfully spanning circa 800 years of English Language Song. It is entitled Mr Blue Sky Is Icumen In and it sounds like this:

MR BLUE SKY IS ICUMEN IN

Sumer is icumen in, the nymphs and shepherds dance
Bryd one brere, groweth sed and bloweth med
And don't you know, amarylis dance in green–ee-ee-een.

Lightly whipping o’er the dales, with wreaths of rose and laurel,
Fair nymphs tipping, with fauns and satyrs tripping
Mister Blue Sky is living here today hey, hey hey.

Mister Blue Sky please tell us why, you were retired from mortals sight, stars too dim of light.

Hey you with the angels face, bright, arise, awake, awake!
About her charret, with all admiring strains as today, all creatures now are merry…(merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry merry-minded).

Mister Blue Sky please tell us why, you were retired from mortals sight, stars too dim of light.

Hey there mister blue, who likes to love, lhude sing cuccu;
Nauer nu, ne swik thu, sing hey nonny nonny nu.

Mirie it is while sumer ilast, in darkness let me fast,
Flow my tears, farewell all joys for years,
Never mind, I joy not in early, I joy not in early bliss.

Mister Blue Sky please tell us why, you were retired from mortals sight, stars too dim of light.

Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba

Postscript: The Evening Itself

There were eight of us live on ThreadZoomMash. Rohan Candappa made a short introduction, using John Donne (No Man Is An Island) as a helpful segway into the evening’s pieces.

Possibly it was the Tudor/Jacobean connection that encouraged Rohan to ask me to go first this evening. Possibly he simply wanted to get his own back on me. Who could blame him?

Adrian’s piece followed mine; a really charming rite of passage piece about an evening in 1985 when a 15 year old Adrian was “picked up” and taken to a party by a lovely girl while Live Aid was happening elsewhere.

I guess the Desert Island Discs theme encouraged most of the group to reflect on their lives. Terry certainly did a bit of that, but couldn’t resist the idea of Dessert Island Discs, suggesting that one might be macarooned on a dessert island. Thanks Tel.

Ian Theodoreson made me feel bad about my quip about mendacious politicians choosing Elgar and Vaughan Williams, as Ian admitted that The Lark Ascending would probably be his solo record pick. Sorry Ian – I do not think of you as a mendacious anything; quite the opposite. I guess some people really DO like Nimrod and/or The Lark Ascending best of all.

But Ian’s story mostly focussed on a visit to the Albert Hall to see a Cream Reunion Gig in May 2005. Ian subsequently became convinced that Ginger Baker was making the passenger announcements on Loughton underground station between 2005 and his departure from this mortal coil in October 2019. It’s hard to disprove that theory from where I am sitting.

Jan’s piece was charming and delightful. It focussed on her choice of book: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which Jan apparently read when still ridiculously young and before she read the book for which Looking Glass is the sequel, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. This I found fascinating as I do recall loving the earlier novel (Wonderland) as a small child but being perplexed and scared by the sequel. Jan’s made of robust stuff. Who knew? I don’t think Make Someone Happy by Jimmy Durante gets much business on Desert Island Discs these days, but Jan would chose it.

Kay also harked back to her youth and the ways she confused people by not conforming to their gender stereotypes. A beautifully constructed piece, full of Kay’s personality and culminating, with predictable hindsight, playing her choice of record, Rebel Rebel.

Geraldine’s poetic piece explored her young adult background; very different from any of ours. Somewhat earlier and in the USA. Evocative without being straightforward narrative, it can do with reading rather than describing, as my describing wouldn’t do it justice. I felt a little badly for the second time of the evening when Geraldine announced that her sole disc would be I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor, the central lyric of which I had flagrantly pinched as a bridge in my short piece.

Then Rohan read a wonderful piece by John Eltham, who unfortunately was unable to join us for the evening. Not a straight line narrative. Like many of the pieces, it had a rite of passage at its core, by which I don’t mean “passage” in a Night Boat To Cairo sense (although that was John’s choice of record), but in a Bildugsroman sense. It was a beautifully crafted piece. Much like Geraldine’s, it defies description or rather I couldn’t do it justice with description. It should be read.

If we’re lucky, I might be able to persuade some of the others, including Geraldine and/or John, to publish their pieces on Ogblog so readers can judge the pieces for themselves.

In John Eltham’s case in particular this is a huge credit to Rohan as well as John. I remember John saying to me only a few months ago that he didn’t have the confidence to write ThreadMash pieces. He has now written two superb pieces, both brimming with self-assurance and flourish. I’m genuinely impressed and delighted.

Rohan, of course, couldn’t resist closing off the evening with a masterful pun, linking his opening, John Donne, with his ending, which was reciting the Eltham piece, or, as Rohan put it, the piece “wot John done”. Perhaps we haven’t progressed as far from the schoolboy skits and word plays as I hoped.

Still, it was a tremendous evening. With thanks to everyone involved, not least Rohan, for making it happen.

Travel To The Very Edge, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed At “The Virtual Glad”, 10 June 2020

The Beechwood Hotel, renamed The Lakeside Hotel, prior to closure

I shouldn’t be here this evening. I should be in Edgbaston, savouring the build up to the first cricket test match of the summer. It’s an annual gathering with good friends I met through The Children’s Society; we started our Edgbaston tradition more than 20 years ago.

It’s OK. I’m glad to be here with you. I like being here, in virtual ThreadMash or ThreadZoom or ZoomMash or whatever we’re calling it now…

…with you.

It’s just that I wouldn’t be here at all, but for the virus.

I’d be travelling.

Rohan has asked us to write about travel.

Rohan has advised us, “let’s do this without any pictures or music”. He didn’t say, “this advice is not a request – it is an instruction”, but he could have done.

Anyway, for me, the instruction, “write about travel”, is not a difficult one. I have travelled a lot and have been writing up my travels on Ogblog these past few years. 

I considered relating to you the tale of me and Janie jumping the border between Laos and Thailand at Chong Mek, then blagging our way out of Thailand again. Don’t try that stunt at home…hmm.

I thought you might relish hearing about the occasion when, in Nicaragua, I put my naviphobia aside  only for us to end up marooned in a boat on the Pacific. We survived that one as well…obviously.

Or, I might have stuck with the theme of cricket – after all I should be in Edgbaston this week, not here – and tell you about the weird day when I was press-ganged into commentating live on a cricket match in Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh – a tribal state in the central plains of India. Janie and I were all over the papers and cable TV for that one.

But no.

Sod it.

I should be in Edgbaston right now and the minor matter of a global pandemic is not going to stop me from going there.

Birmingham might not exactly be an exotic location, nor is it a remote location, but going to Birmingham IS travel.

I’m going to Edgbaston and I’m going right now and I’m taking you lot with me…

…to the very worst hotel I have ever stayed in.

Late May 2006. Most of our gang, known as The Heavy Rollers, who together had savoured the 2005 Edgbaston test, a match that will forever be part of Ashes folklore, were to be reunited as a group for the first time since that match.

We knew that 2006 was to be different. 2005 had marked the end of our early era, which had enabled us to base ourselves at the Wadderton Conference Centre, the Children’s Society place in rural Worcestershire, just outside Birmingham. David Steed, who was one of our number in the Heavy Rollers, ran the place and lived on site. The Children’s Society was pleased for a bit of income from guests in the quiet summer period and it was mighty convenient and pleasant for us, with a suitable garden for pre-match cricket antics.

The time that Charley “The Gent Malloy” chased a cricket ball down the Wadderton slope, only to realise too late that the incline was too steep for a graceful deceleration, such that he went…how do I put this politely…arse over tit, into a heap at the bottom of said slope…remains as much part of Heavy Rollers folklore as the classic 2005 Ashes test match.

But I digress.

Late May 2006. Wadderton had closed permanently that winter. Now David Steed, bless him, ran Wadderton wonderfully and was subsequently a superb host at his Birmingham house. But he possibly wasn’t the best judge of a hotel unseen. Cheap and near the ground seemed sufficient criteria for him. An e-mail came:

Accommodation is confirmed as previously written about and subsequent telephone chat at Beechwood Hotel on the Bristol Road approx. 200 yards from the main entrance at Edgbaston…no deposits required…

The subsequent inquiry identified Nigel “Father Barry”, our de facto leader, as the other side of correspondence that clearly lacked the investigative skills, penetrating questions and due diligence that such matters deserve.

Thus the term “each with private bathroom”, did not preclude each of us having to toddle down a corridor to get to our nominated ablution booth.

“Private”, I suppose, did not necessarily mean “en suite” in this Beechwood world. Nor did it mean anything more than a tiny, decrepit shower cubicle. I recall some very inappropriate jokes about Zyklon B from my companions during conversations about those ghastly, disgusting showers.

The place was clearly used mostly as a sort-of social services half-way house for people who were having a multitude of difficulties. I took detailed notes about my alarming next-door neighbour, who I discovered heavily tattooed, talking frantically to himself and pissed…at six in the evening. At least he called me “young fella” when he greeted me warmly. We had a bizarre conversation or two.

But the most bizarre conversations were with Tom; I hesitate to use the title, “manager”, who tended to sidle up to us in the bar/common parts areas of the hotel and bend our ears with tales of his roller-coaster and/or imagined past. I made some fragmented notes:

I was a millionaire at 21…a multi-millionaire at 24…lost it all at 33…I’ve been out with Miss Jamaica, Miss Bromsgrove, the lot. I had an Aston Martin – would cost about £125,000 today…Do fast cars while you’re young, young man, you won’t fancy it once you are your dad’s age….I made a million when a million was real money; when a million was really a million…

In a more modern era, we would never have ended up there. At least one of us would have looked at TripAdvisor to check out the Beechwood Hotel. But back then, such web sites barely existed. The earliest on-line review of the Beechwood Hotel is on holidaywatchdog.com, TripAdvisor’s UK predecessor, a year after our stay; Spring 2007.  There are six reviews on that site, before the hotel was closed down in 2009 and became a squat for the Earth First Social Justice Permaculture warriors.

All six reviews give the Beechwood Hotel one-out-of-ten: “awful”. One reviewer takes pains to point out that the system doesn’t allow their preferred score of nought-out-of-ten.

Rohan said, in his instruction, “I think the words you use will create much more vibrant pictures than anything that can appear on a screen”. 

But in the mode of that great traveller, Dominic Cummings, I shall now break the spirit if not the letter of Rohan’s guidance, by using the words of others, those six unfortunate holidaywatchdog.com reviewers who followed in our footsteps, rather than my own words, to complete the painting of those vibrant pictures. One extracted quote from each victim:

  • “This hotel makes Fawlty Towers seem like luxury.”
  • “I really cannot believe that places like this are allowed to operate.”
  • “This hotel should be condemned on health and safety grounds!”
  • “I do not recommend this hotel to anyone if you have standards”.
  • “Hell hole!”. 

And my personal favourite, the final review, from August 2009:

“Please stay away – I have stayed in 100s of hotels and B&BS all over the UK – this one has to be the worst by a long way… DO NOT STAY THERE, you’d be better off in a cardboard box.”

The Beechwood Hotel Garden and Roller.
With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.

An Authentic Tale Of New York, Virtual Threadmash Performance Piece, 13 May 2020

The challenge, set by Rohan Candappa, the doyen of Threadmash, was to write a piece inspired by one of three pieces of music Rohan sent to us.

I, along with most of the Threadmashers, chose New Amsterdam by Moondog. Here’s my piece.

I first came across Moondog’s music in the late 1970s, when I was buying up second hand albums at Record & Tape Exchange.  I talked in my first ThreadMash piece about my misadventure-ful date at R&TE with a young woman named Fuzz…

The Rohan Thing, My Short Performance Piece As Part Of Rohan Candappa’s Inaugural Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2019

…whose real first and second names are lost to posterity. I believe it was on that fateful day with Fuzz that I bought the sampler album, Fill Your Head With Rock, which included my first Moondog track, Stamping Ground.

In truth I paid Moondog’s music only occasional heed until 10-12 years ago, when Janie and I began exploring Jazz. But Moondog’s story has long fascinated me and I have always associated him and his music with New York.

Rohan’s choice of piece, New Amsterdam, is a case in point. New Amsterdam was her name, Before she was New York; New Amsterdam is a dame, The heart and soul of Big Apple city.

To my mind, Moondog’s music is the second most quintessential New York music.

So I was surprised, when I started researching this piece, to learn that Moondog was not a native New Yorker. Louis Thomas Hardin, known as Moondog, haled from Kansas. He moved to New York City at the age of 27 and lived there for only 30 of his 83 years. Moondog moved to Germany in the early 1970s, where he lived out his remaining decades. 

Of course this doesn’t take away from the fact that Moondog was known as The Viking Of 6th Avenue. Nor from the fact that Moondog’s music is unquestionably inspired by a glorious mixture of  New York City’s ethnic sounds. But authentic New Yorker, he wasn’t.

So, if Moondog is merely the second most quintessential New York sound ever, what, to my mind, is THE most quintessential?  Ah, well, that comes down to my own New York experience.

My first ever visit to New York was in November 1989 at the age of 27, the same age as Moondog when he moved to New York. Coincidence strongly links my New York timeline with Moondog’s; he made a rare visit to New York, for his last major gig there. that very month.

But my soundtrack of my first New York visit was not Moondog’s music; it was Pump Up The Jam. By Technotronic, featuring Felly.

It seemed to be played everywhere, all the time, while I was in New York. It is said to be the first hip-house hit and has been described as a dance masterpiece. Just listen to those amazing accents; New York, African-American Vernacular. That’s authentic, no?

No. When I returned to the UK with my copy of Pump Up The Jam proudly in hand and played it to my half-Belgian friend, Daniel Scordel, suggesting that it was THE New York sound, Daniel told me that his kid sister reliably informed him that Technotronic was a Belgian act.

Googling now informs me that Felly, the “featured artiste” was in fact a Congolese model who lip-synced on the video and posed for the cover of the Belgian record as a marketing ploy. The actual singer with the “authentic” New York accent was Ya Kid K, an androgynous-looking Congolese-Belgian woman, who was also a co-author of the song. Worse yet, the hip-house genre is said to cross-fertilise Chicago & London styles. Not New York.

In truth, the late 1980’s was not exactly a golden age for authentic popular music.  Consider the Eurodance chart topper just before I set off for New York, Ride On Time, Italian in this case; an even messier mix of lip-synching models in the vid…

and samples “liberated” from uncredited artistes.

Walk right in, soul diva Loleatta Holloway; unsung hero, yet one of the most sampled singers of all time.

But now I must move on to my authentic tale of New York.

On the Sunday before I set off for New York, I went to the Barbican Hall.  The story of my chance encounter there with Rita Frank, our bizarre drive in the densest London fog I have ever seen and the coincidence that Rita turned out to live just a few blocks from the Manhattan apartment where I was about to stay, would be worth the price of admission to the Virtual Glad alone.

An Unexpected Evening At The Barbican During Which I Heard Sibelius, Met Rita Frank & Experienced Driving In Dense London Fog, 12 November 1989

When I got to New York, Rita insisted that I allow her 20 year-old daughter, Mara, known as Moose, to be my guide. My adventures with Moose (and with other people) in New York are well documented on Ogblog and would also be worth the price of admission to the Virtual Glad alone.

My First Visit To The USA Part One: New York, c19 to 22 November 1989

I did have a holiday romance on that trip, but not with Moose – you need to read between the lines of that write up to find it. Instead, Moose was a superb guide; a charming & fun companion in New York.  We became firm friends. I resolved to return the guiding favour when Moose was due to come to London the following year.

But that favour was not to be returned. In June 1990, I was felled by a serious back injury; multiple prolapses in my lower back. Don’t talk to me about lockdown. This was a solo lockdown; my world got smaller for many months. Everyone else was out there having a good time while I was in excruciating pain, alone in my flat, rehabilitating.

It’s at times like those when you find out who your friends are. Many of my long-standing friends turned out to be true friends. So did Moose. Moose still wanted to see me. Moose would bring in shopping for me. Moose spent happy times with me in my confined world. Moose turned out to be an authentic friend.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. You recall the story of Fuzz, whose real first and second names remain a mystery.  Is Moose similarly obscure? Is this Harris bloke a specialist in befriending young women with monosyllabic nicknames, enabling them conveniently to vanish without trace?

In Moose’s case, we did lose touch with each other after she returned to the States, but I did know her real names and I knew where she lived.

So in late 2019, while writing up my New York adventures, Mr Google helped me find her. It took me about three minutes. Not bad, considering she now goes by her married name and has moved to California.

She has 24 children…Meet:

Felly Kilingi, former Congolese model…no no no…Meet:
…Loleatta Holloway, the late great unsung samples singer…no, no, no… Meet:

Mara Holtz.

Teaching is perfect career for Vallemar newcomer

Mara has 24 different children every year. Mara is a primary school teacher.

The next few lines are dialogue.

MARA: “I am so glad that you contacted me. I’ve thought about you over the years and wondered how you were doing…I’m amazed that you found me…It’s so nice to hear from you.”

ME: “I’m so pleased that you are glad to hear from me…Are you still known as Moose?

MOOSE: “…very few friends still call me Moose. However…I seemed to have accidentally developed a Moose themed classroom, so I usually end up with students calling me Professor Moose.”

MOONDOG: “No matter what name she goes under, I dig her deeply and no wonder, For she’s been lovely to me, And I’m the better for having met her”.

Big Dog’s Big Question by Kay Scorah, Guest Piece From Virtual ThreadMash, 22 April 2020

Kay Scorah (top left in the above picture) was “head girl” for this evening’s Virtual ThreadMash. She chose the topic of soft furnishings, perhaps thinking that such a topic might lighten the mood in these unprecedented, lockdown times. If you were to judge by my Tale Of Beany & Baggy piece and Kay’s Big Dog’s Big Question (below), you might conclude that Kay’s choice had succeeded in generating lighthearted pieces…

…but you would be SO wrong. David, Julie and Flo produced pieces that were so dark, I’m thinking of sending them to the government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, suggesting that he examine these ThreadMash pieces as evidence of mental health issues arising from lockdown.

But for now, dear Ogblog readers, you are spared the darkness and lockdown anxiety.

I am delighted that Kay has, once again, (click here to read The Gift from last year), submitted one of her pieces as a guest piece for Ogblog. So I am proud to present:

Big Dog’s Big Question by Kay Scorah

Big Dog was trying to sleep. It had been a rough night, with a great deal of tossing and turning and intermittent hugging. At one point he thought he was going to fall out of bed, but Seán, himself only half awake, had grabbed him just in time and held on to him tightly. Now, just before dawn, things had quietened down and the boy had released his grip as sleep took over. Lucky Seán.

Big Dog had a busy day ahead, and knew he needed the shuteye, but his mind was too active. That same old question spinning around and around in his head.

He felt the softness of the pillow under his cheek, and, opening his eyes in the brightening pre-dawn light began to count the stars in the pattern on the pillowcase. He’d heard of counting sheep – perhaps counting decorative fabric stars would have the same effect.  But of course, thinking about the pillow only made things worse. Made That Question even louder.

Giving up, he opened his eyes wide and looked across the room to where Rabbidog and Blumberg seemed to be sound asleep on the chair. Rabbidog propped up on a cushion, Blumberg with his head on Rabbidog’s knee.

Rabbidog is called Rabbidog because no-one has ever worked out if he’s a dog or a rabbit. And Blumberg is called Blumberg because he was a gift from Jane Blumberg.

Not for the first time, Big Dog wished that he could move like the real dogs he had seen through the bedroom window. Or even like the small child now sound asleep next to him his head on the same pillow. He longed to jump down from the bed, run across the room to the others, jump up on the chair and ask them the Big Question. What are we, the fluffy toys? Are we toys, like the Playmobil and the Brio Train set? Or are we soft furnishings like the cushions and the blankets?

How could they sleep with this existential question unanswered?

The very next day, Big Dog was invited to dinner, and, at Seán’s insistence, given his own seat at the table. A couple of spare grownups were there, along with the mum and the dad. Their conversation turned to the question of gender and sexuality, to something called LGBTQ and the slow but welcome demise of the binary. And suddenly, although he didn’t quite understand everything that was being said, Big Dog realised that he was free! He need lose no more sleep over what he had thought was the Big Question. He could be soft furnishing AND toy. A place for Seán to rest his head, and a friend for him to play with and talk to.

Big Dog went to bed that night and fell sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. “Good night, big dog”, said the boy, resting his head on his friend’s furry back, “Sleep well.”