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nessi gun & petra parsnip
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| The bookshelf |
[05 Jul 2009|11:56pm] |
Dear Nessi
The Journalist and I are the only people in the library. Her book launch is due to start in 10 minutes. This is a posh gentleman’s club; I don’t know how the Journalist got to have her party here. It’s for travelling businessmen, and the building even now has rooms where female guests are not permitted.
There are thousands of books. Floor to very high ceiling, some centuries old. They are all on one of my favourite subjects: travel.
Damascus. Women Travellers through the ages. The History of something Alpine. I study the tall spines of leather, faded white with red trim. A set of leather bound tomes are all about the Himalayas, probably written long before Hilary’s parents were even born.
The books are too old to touch. So I just stand there, reading the titles.
Suddenly the shelf falls away. I jump back with a yelp. The bookshelf I have been studying so intently is actually a DOOR.
Is this a James Bond movie?
The books’ spines are no deeper than a centimetre.
Behind the door stands a woman in a tuxedo carrying a tray of wine.
It is a good night. Talk of art and history and travel, of Russia and books and religions. I end up standing on a balcony with Mr Everlast long after everyone else has left. Beneath us a perfect lawn, with tables scattered around. Men over 50 in suits and ties, bent over, talking quietly to each other in this lush garden.
“Lets go down there!” I say and Mr Everlast and I wind our way through the labyrinth of oil paintings and marble staircases until we also find ourselves in the deepening dusk outside, sitting on wooden chairs, talking under giant trees.
Petra
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| High-drama and Lust vs Contentment and Ease |
[19 May 2009|10:45pm] |
Dear Nessi
I feel content. Happy. At ease.
I thought I ought to record these feelins as they are just as important, if not more so, than high-drama, guilt and lust.
When the last wave of new band members joined, 2 years ago, it was all about hugh-drama and lust (guilt came later, though as I’ve said, I never actually did anything wrong – just pointless self- torment and some very inappropriate day dreaming).
But these new girls, they so lovely, so uncomplicated. It’s refreshing.
Several good nights’ sleep help too.
And the realisation today, while painting, that if my life had taken another course two years ago I never would have done all these paintings. I would have been zapped off all creative energy, lost in a world that instead I have only dipped into – dipped in just enough to steal my inspiration, shed a few tears and get out while I still could.
Petra
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| Uncertainty |
[10 Apr 2009|09:06am] |
Dear Nessi
“Is it a story in a story?” The Gosling asks as I randomly make up s bedtime tale in which Tinker bell comes in to take mum’s place while mum goes to sleep.
Likewise I now provide you with an unfinished journal entry from last weekend. I’ve had a lot of unfinished entries over the last few months, for the very reason that is the topic of this one: I don’t have time. And rather than stress I leave them unfinished on the desktop.
4 April 2009
Dear Nessi
“I’m only doing this gig cos my name was on the flyer, even before Power Pack got sick.” I said to the former-Daily-Hell Journalist today.
“That happened to Lady Di. She didn’t even want to go through with the wedding but her face was already on the tea towels!”
We were sitting in the sunny courtyard at the V&A, while the Gosling paddled in the fountain and Power Pack sipped coffee from a paper cup. The Journalist invited us to see some castrati’s tomorrow night but I can’t do it because it’s the only night I have time to write my funding proposal. Again, because of rehearsals and this damned gig.
It’s Lavender’s art show. It’s billed as Judy and me but we got this young rockabilly chick to prop us up (Dwayne’s girlfriend.)
Ever since the end of my job last year I have felt stretched too thin, like a drum skin where there wasn’t quite enough material and it has just been stretched too thin, nearly at breaking point. Looking for a job, interviewing for the few jobs that maybe I could do, keeping up with the mortgage insurance, doing freelance web work, volunteering (for the studio space), painting commissions, organising exhibitions. And that bloody band.
Life was good when I had a job – three days a week, enough to survive. But since then, all this running ragged, I don’t see the point any more.
Power Pack’s illness has had a profound effect on both of us, in more ways than I can count.
When he finally got out of hospital I could go back into the painting studio. It was a luxury. Rather than return to doing 10 million things at once, rather than dropping one of the 10 million things, instead I choice ONE THING to keep doing: the studio, and painting, and teaching- not one thing exactly but three related things. All part of the same thing. No web design. No applying for jobs I don’t really want and the exhausting process of writing lying essays to state why this is my dream job. (In a way it was lucky the mortgage insurance finally ended. And luckier still that the interest rates dropped so low that if we are careful, and if we the boiler doesn’t break, we can survive at least a year without having to even think about work.)
We live one day at a time now.
And to add music back into the mix, it’s too much. That feeling of being stretched too thin comes back. And you know what? I have not missed it – not missed that feeling of being stretched too thin.
The average day I spend at the studio, come home between 3 and 5, do stuff with my family, eat dinner, put the kid to bed. Poke around on the computer in the evening, writing reports about work or preparing that Art talk in Leeds (also part of the same thing: art and teaching).
This week, Wednesday I’d been in Leeds. Thursday afternoon I taught. Thursday night I could have done with staying in, resting. But I had to go to bloody Brixton to rehearse.
(Unfinished on 4 April)
--
And so….
Last night…
Vlad the Drunk has me pinned to the wall. Only not really; he’s leaning on the wall and I’m standing there gazing over his shoulder at the backs of Victorian brick houses. Clouds are scuttling across the full moon, and a long trail of airplane poo extends like an umbilical cord from the white orb.
“How about I provide you with a drummer?” Vlad asks. He wants my band to play his club. Really wants us to play.
I fumble for words, making excuses when I’m just not able to say no.
“You three should form a new band!” Bird chirps later.
Indeed it went well. Much better than the last time Judy assembled a rag tag of people in Brixton, to play probably the worst gig I have ever played, with no sound check, really crappy borrowed equipment and only an hours’ rehearsal before the gig. No, this time Judy, Young Rockabilly Girl and me had 4 rehearsals. And it paid off. No extra people thrown in at the last minute. Our own amps. (and lots of effort lugging stuff; Judy even brought CHAIRS in her car from Brixton).
But that’s not to say the day was easy. I rushed back from teaching, grateful that only my physics student had shown up; the only punctual homeless person ever to live, I reckon. She turns up on time and leaves on time. So I was home. On time.
Cab to K Town. The Hairdresser had said we could ‘sound check all day’ if we wanted but in fact when I arrived at 5:45, the salon was in chaos. Four people were having their hair cut while Lavender was hanging paintings. Rave music was blaring. And a cat that makes mine look a spring chicken was stumbling about, certainly deaf from the rave music.
Hairdresser was an absolute dickhead all night. He complained non-stop that we’d brought amps; Lavender had said “acoustic.” We had three amps, about 5 guitars (to swap round), a snare drum and lots of percussion things. I don’t remember any problems last time I had an event here, in 2005. We played; Judy belly danced; The Ice Cream Man’s acoustic band also played. Great night. But maybe gigs are like childbirth; you forget the painful bits.
So we managed to sound check before the Hairdresser poured a cocktail into the mixing desk, making all electric sound impossible.
“Well done,” said a garage music fan en route to the Gnome; “ I told him to use a hairdryer to dry it out; hopefully that will melt the circuit board.” No one but the Hairdresser wanted to listen to those crappy rave records.
Dwayne came up from all the way from South London, with his daughter, and only got to see 2 songs before they had to get the train back. When another mixer finally arrived and we finally played, the place was packed and crowd was drunk and talking loudly. According to the Bootlegger, the Hairdresser was shuffling through his LPs while we were on, sneering, “when are they going to be finished? I want to play my records!”
But when we finished the place totally emptied out, everyone either spilling out front, or going to the bar and back garden.
There were some very amusing moments to the night, especially a mutual slagging off a certain girl with musical ambitions above her station. Conny, over from Germany, said, “She’s got all these instruments and she can’t play any of them!”
Judy, trying to be polite in her new, meditative and sober mindset, finally let rip and say how this girl had been pushing her out of this other band she sings with.
“She needs a slap!” quipped Bird, to howls of laughter.
--
But see… I never finished getting my thoughts out the other day. I do want to finish the album. I didn’t say I don’t want to do that at least. We have the money for 2 more days in the studio. I even hesitatingly asked Eyeliner to play. He said he has bags of time at the moment; no girlfriend, and work is slow.
It’s me who has no time, though…
Last weekend I was thoroughly convinced I didn’t want to do music any more. At all.
But I want to finish the album. We need about 3 more songs. That will be enough. Just three.
And I didn’t have the heart to tell Judy. She is so sensitive, and with things going a bit wrong in her other band, with Mr Head fancying the young upstart, Judy has little chance of rectifying that situation. If I leave her now, it’s just her and the young girl, and maybe they can start something, yes, but… I want to finish this album.
“Ugh” is all I can say. I’ve got a finish my mask for the ball tonight (I consider this ‘work’ in a way; I’ve not been to masked ball since finishing the painting, and want to try and flog a few more prints while I’m there) and pack for Scotland, and clean for my mom’s visit.
I hope you’re enjoying Spain, and that you find a little time to write when you get back. Spain should be fun but with family along, well.. a bit like the upcoming trip to Scotland. I’m really looking forward to the break but my mom can be difficult.
Petra
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| Jack’s doorway and Serena’s enema |
[25 Mar 2009|10:17pm] |
Dear Nessi
“So how did it all end up..?” I asked Serena. I hadn’t planned to go out again.. but Bird being along swayed me to attend part 452 of Lavender’s birthday extravaganza week (Oh, to be 27 and celebrate your birthday 500 times in a week!).
Serena said Izzy had snored, so Serena had slept in the bathtub. They went down to breakfast later in the morning. I tried to picture it: Serena in red tights, black hotpants, red blazer and red beret, dyed black hair and pencilled on eyebrows- 45-going-on-16 – in the posh hotel restaurant, surrounded by beige businessmen and their demure mistresses.
“They had smoked salmon, pork, and all meats with all the trimmings. Then Izzy and I had the full cooked breakfast. It would have cost £28 a head but of course it was all on Macca’s bill…. I needed a big shit after that, but all that would come out were a few pellets! So I asked Izzy, does this hotel do enemas? That would be great on Macca’s bill! Full English breakfast... enema...”
If you can picrture Serena discussing enemas you can picture how hard I was laughing...
In fact part 3 of the birthday was somewhat more fun than part 1 that I missed (by turning up wayyy late), mainly to do with gossip about people you don’t know (An ex-girlfriend of my ex-husband is dating a female banjo player; I bumped into an ex-girlfriend of someone else and so on, blah blah only interesting if you know them..)
--
“That’s where Jack the Ripper did his thing, right in that doorway,” Mr Dark pointed out the window while tucking into his jalfrezi. “And he had a curry here first!” It was one of many historical points on a long walk from London Fields to Canary Wharf, followed by a bus ride to Brick Lane. It was like being at the seaside for the day. We even found a sandy beach (littered with bones and bits of rubber worn smooth by the river).
I imagined the bones and the Ripper as we passed the now-closed down Rotherhithe foot tunnel. Dickensian backstreets merged with glass and concrete skyscrapers. We walked by a pub where pirates drank. And whose – or what’s – bones were those anyway? Mr Dark’s wife found part of a jaw – a sheep, a goat or a dog?
Later, walking to the tube, Power Pack and I pushed our pram past familiar pubs, where you and I once raised our glasses with our boyfriends, in another life. “That’s the pub where I met Miss E!” I said, and the Bricklayer’s seemed to be as much a part of ancient history as Jack’s doorway.
Petra
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| Well hung |
[10 Mar 2009|11:23pm] |
I hung the Journalists paintings, the Kiwi Feminist’s paintings and my own paintings. Miss Corncob’s boyfriend hung Miss Corncob’s paintings. And Frenchie hung her own, standing on chairs and banging in nails with her 4 month old baby strapped on her body.
Frenchie is like one of those women who would have taken a short break from ploughing to pop out a baby, and then strapped the baby to her back and got right back to the field.
Lots of other stuff has been happening, too much to write... The Gosling has been to a cross-dressing party (Silly grown-ups), a Tiki bar book launch ("most girls don't get taken here til they are 16!" quipped the maker of the most popular retro dresses around), the IMAX 3-d cinema (The adverts were too scary), two art openings and a Christening (Frenchie's latest edition - with me and Miss Corncob as Godmothers - can you picture that? Didn't think so). Power Pack is doing pretty well. And I’m off to watch Family Guy before going to bed.
Petra
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| holding back |
[12 Jan 2009|04:38pm] |
(Just a quick post, from an email I just sent to Marani's sister, who is also job-hunting, and whom I saw the other week when looking at houses a bit further out of London. The mortgage company won't let us move the mortgage without me having a job - or a year's worth of accounts from self-employment.)
Rani - I had an interview for a job today, another one that I don't really want. I have a lot coming up, a lecture in Leeds, a double-portrait commission, perhaps even a web site job - I'm going to email your friend in a mo... and I have a solo show and a group show coming up, and just sold a print to someone in China - all that would have to stop if I got a full time job.
The more I think about it the more I want to at least try to do my own business. I know it means stalling on moving, but the more job interviews I have the more I don't want a job. Not without at least trying to do what I really want to do. It's just this stupid recession - or rather the media portrayal of it - that is holding me back.
Petra
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| Catching up part 3: the Glove |
[10 Jan 2009|11:14pm] |
Dear Nessi
All week I feel a strange fear. Mostly life is much better at the start of this year. A new commission, a photo shoot with Mother Goose (for real!), a giclee print sold to someone in Beijing. And sheer relief that we don’t have to deal with Christmas clutter for another 11 months.
But there is a nagging, indescribable fear…
--
I have lost my glove. I retrace my steps but it’s not there. Out the door, to my bike and back. No glove.
I dig through my bags and pockets. I have to accept it. That is why I don’t usually buy expensive gloves. Because I would only lose them. But now is not the time to dwell on material things. I need to let go.
A woman comes over and wishes me a Happy New Year.
“I lost my glove,” I blurt out. “Er...Happy New Year.”
The woman says to wait. She goes to another woman, who has short white hair, and looks like a Buddhist. Or a cancer survivor.
The white-haired woman passes my glove to the other woman, who hands it to me.
It’s days later when I realise... if objects held memories...
The two worlds have crossed. As I knew they would.
--
Jump back to Halloween. “Those gloves look good...”
Petra
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| Catching up Part 2: the dead weight of 2008 |
[10 Jan 2009|11:00pm] |
Dear Nessi
Ok, then, the highlights and be done with it. Long overdue, and won’t take long…
1. Memory and anticipation are both enemies of experience. We always remember things better than they were, anticipate the repeat being even better or just as good, only to find… life never lives up to rose-tinted expectation.
The one exception to that is your Christmas Dinner. Down to the red and white polka dot vintage plates, it always lives up to everything imagined. If I wasn’t still feebly trying to hide our identity here, I’d post a video. The round table, the perfect vegetables, all the trimmings. And the lovely little girl totally unaware that all that meat was soya protein and Quorn.
Sadly Power Pack had flu. So, whilst dinner itself rocked, the day was marred with illness.
2. Right time, wrong generation. We went to see Power Pack\s family. The Gosling was bored and had a tantrum at granddad’s. I fell asleep on the single bed with her, on a too soft mattress in a stale-smoke-filled flat. No, this is not the highlight: it was next day: the niece and nephew and their partners. The skinny Popeye boy with the big Goth girlfriend; and the purple-haired mum ridiculed by her 2-year-old for being “mad”, with the South African husband, who put his film-making dreams on hold to support his family by working long hours in a factory. I’m much more on their level, than the older generation who just talk about cricket all the time.
3. The Royle Family Christmas Special. Had us in stitches for days. Because “Christmas isn‘t really about the kids, is it?”
4. the tears in Bird’s eyes when she opened the print I gave her. For once it wasn’t me getting weepy. It really is better to give than receive.
Otherwise Power Pack and I both feel like a huge weight has been lifted, the dead weight of 2008. Each day the fog lifts further, despite the fog outside deepening. I can’t really explain what it is. But does anyone really need to know? Isn’t just that feeling enough?
Petra
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| Blasphemy |
[19 Dec 2008|09:30am] |
Dear Nessi
The man waddles across the stage, toes pointing out like a duck. He’s wearing a long, grey coat. His head bobbles like one of those car window ornaments. He can’t decide what key to sing in. At one point he stops entirely, while a fellow band member speaks in his hear. More head-bobbling occurs.
The band struggle to follow the drunk singer. There is no passion, no lustre, just a concentrated effort to get the songs to resemble themselves. No one can understand a word as the singer slurs into the microphone between songs. Aside from what would be a unique voice if he were sober, and the fact that he’s written some great songs, this man could be any of the residents at the homeless hostel.
He stumbles towards a podium with 3 glasses of water on it. He reaches for the water but then grabs a booze bottle instead. He balances it on his head.
“As if to say, look how sober I am, I can balance a bottle on my head?” I say to the guy next to me.
“If you are sober you don’t try to balance a bottle on your head.”
“Exactly.” And especially not on stage, in front of 5000 people. But no one else seems to notice or care.
This guy next to me says the singer is good shape this year. “Not so bloated, and he’s got his A-list teeth in. Too bad he can’t speak through them.”
I walk away in disgust. It’s like Mr Radio Celebrity. Or Gl*nn Br*anca. Or my husband. (I would add “isn’t there more than one riff you can play on a penny whistle?” but that would be too mean – these were, after all, classic songs, and the rest of the band did their best to play them.)
For the final song, it’s good the audience knew all the words, as even the female accompanist was lost by the singer’s incoherency.
The support band, by contrast, were tight and professional while being passionate and exciting. The one-time nerdy illegal immigrant, the scorn of his flatmates (our boyfriends, Nessi) for his Johnny Thunders impressions, is now older, fatter and balder, and commands great respect from his 15-piece band and the ever-swelling audience. Everyone is won over by this unknown bundle of men (and 2 women) in matching red shirts.
English may be his second language, and he speaks with a cockney accent, but every word is audible. The Juju Boys are not immune to drink - far from it – but here, on this huge stage, even Mr Lulu caresses every note on his Jag with tuneful soul. They play a perfect mix of fast and slow songs, as musicians confidently stroll on and off stage. Everyone is lively. Everyone is having fun.
“You guys blew them away!” I later tell a shocked Mr Eyeliner. You’re not allowed to say anything bad about old bands reformed, it seems. Or maybe SexDoll and I just don’t get it – “It’s an Irish/English thing,” she says, bored after an entire tour of penny whistle and drunk singing.
But on a cliff top in Dorset I can be moved to tears by an Irish music. It’s the drunken singer I just can’t take. And later Floyd says that the Irish singer wasn’t drunk the rest of the tour. Just London. Typical. The one gig I catch and all demons are out. It’s my grandparents, my parents and.. oh forget it. You know.
Still, I have a nice time saying hello to each Juju Boy. Greenface thinks I’m Judy. Plenty of nice people but I have to dash now, I have some cash-in-hand work to do today. For my ex boss. Speaking of f*ck-ups.
“You too will one day be a reformed cokehead,” I say to Greenface as he grinds his teeth.
“Or I’ll be dead.”
Same goes for my ex-boss.
Petra
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| Frost, a boat and raffle prize |
[13 Dec 2008|09:20am] |
Dear Nessi
Outside the train window everything is brittle, with white frost, like an etching in glass. I am on my way to an ”employment workshop” that my mortgage insurance company has arranged. I have to get up early, brave sardines on the tube and then get this overground train way beyond Grey Town Suburb, where you used to work. No mock Tudor here; just trees and then new towns in monotonous red brick.
I’m reading a draft of a book my mom has written about my dad. The book will be of no interest to anyone from outside our family, but she is still trying to get it published. It’s comforting read my dads word from beyond the grave. To read jokes I’ve never heard, that he must have painstakingly spelled out, one letter at a time, on his Steve-Hawking-style software.
My dad advises that to give a pill to a cat you tap its nose, and it will lick its nose and swallow. I’ll have to try it.
I have to take a taxi from BoringWood Station (a note about my mom’s book: her pseudonyms are like mine: Swampend for Riverside; changing the name of a town from one Spanish explorer to another).
The mortgage insurance building is new and sterile. It smells of the same cleaning fluid they used in the hospital where my dad was, north of New York City. I would take the train up the Hudson, watching dead winter trees etched against low winter skies, just like today.
There are 8 men and 4 women sitting around table in a boardroom. I notice I have a badge with car farting on it, on my faux-fur coat. I turn the coat over so you don’t see the lapel.
The presenter is a cockney. The men and women in the room had titles like Chief Executive Officer, and worked for big-name firms. Only one admits to being the banking sector though they all look and sound like bankers to me. The average age is about 50. This is not Job Club; Power Pack had asked if they would have a “swear box” like in one of Coyote’s poems about the job centre. They don’t tell us exactly how to write our CVs but give us intelligent, up-to-date information on the trends in serious job hunting.
For some reason I find the whole day less depressing than the women’s workshops I’ve been attending at a more local employment-assistance place. I wonder if it because my expectations of the women’s thing are so high (“but it’s for MUMS! It’s got to help me!”) Or because the women are slightly patronising, even though it is all run by women for women.
Or maybe because a mixed sex situation just… works better? Later on I muse about this, and how badly my 2 all-girl bands ended. My favourite band ever is the one I’m in now and we are mixed. I love my band. I think nearly deciding to end it reminded me of that. We’ll still take breaks but I’m sure I’ll come back to it.
--
Night-time – I have a hot date. On a boat. On the Thames. I am a little worried because an American friend was on the Marchioness, but Bird assures me this boat is staying moored.
Despite a shit week and long journey to Boringwood, I am delighted and run up to Bird and hug her on the tube platform. She has been feeling down, too, but now we are OUT and we can forget about all that crap. Free booze also helps. And the band. I love this band; they have a similar name to ours but they are totally different, doing surf versions of pop songs (and Swan Lake), wearing matching outfits with Fezzes – and event the same SHOES – could you imagine all of us in the same shoes? Bird and I agree we should get back to our roots more, do more instrumentals again. (But we don’t talk about all wearing the same shoes.)
When we arrive on the boat I remember… I have been here before. It was the only time I had a proper conversation with a now-dead Icelandic women who looked like Bj*rk, sitting around one of these big, round tables in this exact room. I can’t remember why I was here, or where I went before or after. I only know Tom O’Lonney was here, and had maybe played that night but I missed him.
Back in the present day, I meet a rather well-known online journalist and writer for a major newspaper. I tell him about when I met Ortho_Bob and we played disco cricket with and one-armed man in Leeds.
The party’s host is very drunk and nearly gives Bird and me some inflatable palm trees as we dash for the tube.
Meanwhile, when I had left Power Pack and the Gosling at a party at the Gosling’s old nursery, they won the raffle. Power Pack rang me on the boat to tell me. I’ve never won a raffle in my life! And what better time than now – when we are skint and worried about Christmas food! Some of the box was a bit dodgy, like tinned prunes and batter to fry fish in, but there were also posh chocolates and Novella and Chutney and Lloyd Grossman sauce and on and on…
“And some goats cheese I’ve put in the fridge!” slurs Power Pack when I get home (they had had quite a piss up, him and the nursery workers – plus there was beer, wine and gin in the box, too.).
I look in the fridge and found not goat’s cheese but soap. Well, I find it funny anyway…
Petra
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| Radio Days |
[07 Dec 2008|07:10pm] |
Dear Petra
Oh dear , it must have been upsetting for Power Pack to see Mr Radio Star.
We heard all The Bootleggers stories about the Italian tour, it is really
sad because the Radio Stars are a great band, and Mr Radio Star a brilliant
song writer. The Bootlegger says he sleeps either in the homeless shelter in
Whitechapel, or on the night bus, some drivers let him stay on when it stops
and he just goes backwards and forwards.. I'm not sure about the 'most
creative geniuses are f*cked up in some way' thing its almost too
simplistic, maybe its something I believed when I was younger, its a
romantic rock and roll thing, but alcoholism and unhappiness effects
artists and housewives, bank managers and writers, road sweepers and
musicians, it doesn't just cut down creative genius' except I guess if you
are in a touring band drinking is more likely to become a habit, just like a
pub landlord.( the landlord at the Blueswood is a prime example).
I guess if Mr Radio Star dosn't want to help himself then there is nothing
that can be done?
I'm glad your star pupil finished her painting!
Anyway about Christmas, we haved decided to stay here, do you want to come
over for Christmas dinner or do you have other plans?
Nessi
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| The Dead Rabbit and the Fallen Star |
[07 Dec 2008|09:48am] |
Dear Nessi
The rabbit died while I was painting it.
When I started the oil version of the Kauffman-copy, I thought a real rabbit would look better than the cartoon with the pocket watch: a less obvious “white rabbit.” I even though of painting a dead rabbit. But then I found the perfect reference photo online –my brother’s rabbit.
Then, last weekend, it died.
Things like that keep happening around that painting… the figure in the middle leans more towards “painting”, while “music” points away.
--
“The Kiwi doesn’t want The Journalist coming round her flat,” Frenchie tells me. FFS, this has been nothing but a hassle, this five-women show. All I’ve heard from the start, mainly via Frenchie, is “Miss Corncob doesn’t like the Journalist,” blah blah etc. The show should be called “five women who hate each even though they’ve only met 3 times.”
On the other hand, walking to the tube, 11:30 pm Friday, I learn from RG (Rhythm Guitarist) that he wasn’t too keen on Floyd. In nearly two years there was never any indication of this, even though I had thought the could be clashes, with RG and drummer being staunch socialists and Floyd being posh. But for the sake of the greater good, for a harmonious band, no one kicked up any fuss, no one said a word against anyone else – it’s only when Floyd has left that it turns out no one is that sad to see him go.
And after poor, tired Bird left to pack for Germany, after a long spliff break, the next incarnation of the band I thought I planned to end, took shape.
We were going to work on Judy’s song. It’s one we’ve struggled with before. But out of the blue I said to RG, “what about your song?” and then we were all playing it, and Judy was even humming along. By the end of the rehearsal we had a brand new song well on it’s on way. RG’s girlfriend is going to help write some Spanish words for Judy.
It was nice to just be 4 again. Of course we need the bass but the small number was just easy, we could sit and try and new things. “Step outside our comfort zones,” drummer said. It felt fresh again.
In the pub afterwards, talking about politics, work and music, it wasn’t the same charge as the filth that was bantered about between Ricki, Bird and Floyd, but still – they are great guys, Drummer and RG, true friends.
--
Back to Wednesday... Cycling to the homeless conference, I passed a woman with a huge blonde beehive. I didn’t recognise her from any retro scene, and she was otherwise dressed fairly normal.
I realised it must be because of Amy Winehouse. Like Pete Doughty’s influencing all men in jeans and otherwise casual clothes to put on a hat (2 sizes too small). It’s this kind of retro head on a modern body.
Still, it made my day. All that effort, just to walk across City Road on a Wednesday morning. Wow. (I never bother with real beehives, I just wear wigs. At night, on stage.)
And I arrived at the conference and saw Star, with her painting done – that really made my day. She wasn’t ready to give a talk but that wasn’t my department – the painting was finished and I was very happy to see it, and to see Star.
Homelessness, in London at least, is a political movement, like civil rights or gay pride. They have rights and want to tell the hostel workers how to do things, not the other way around. In the busy room, only about 10-20% of the people were obviously homeless: black fingernails, scruffy clothes and that Smell. Otherwise you couldn’t tell the charity workers from the clients. There was a beautiful older woman in her 70s,with dyed jet-black hair and lots of make up. I wanted to paint her. She sat alone all day and I could have gone up and said something… but I didn’t. And there was a tranny on the discussion group on “how to feed yourself for £20 a week” (I was disappointed that 1. It was all meat and 2. They didn’t mention Lidl). Transsexual I mean – he had his own long hair, women’s trousers and boots, with make up and earrings; i.e. dressed as woman would dress, not as Lily Savage or Grayson Perry. (or Floyd).
--
Last night: a rather awful night out. Since we’d just had several nice nights in, it was rather pointless, all that effort for a shitty night.
It was exactly12 years since Power Pack and I got together. Mr Head, Mr Flea, The Bootlegger, Judy and various spill-overs from 4 different band were playing the Cow & Fence. But first my family went to dinner near F Park, with former Cocktail Road flatmates.
We hadn’t been to that pizzeria in about 10 years. Near the end of the meal, I knew why. “I’m feeling claustrophobic,” Power Pack said. Exactly what happened a decade ago, at the same place.
We walked to Gosling over to the babysitter, but not before a massive tantrum. I stopped in an offy to get some beer for the babysitter. The Gosling wanted a magazine. But as she had had no dinner (only some chocolate she’s somehow sneaked in her rucksack), I said no magazine. But she wouldn’t leave it.
As we walked down the street, the Gosling kept running back to the shop screaming about the magazine. At age 4 she seems to harbour some belief that if she screams loud enough and long enough, she’ll get what she wants. But I do not back down. I had to drag her down the street by her coat. As we passed people with sleeping infants in buggies, I called out “enjoy your baby! This is what comes next!”
The Gosling screamed all the way to the babysitter, about a 20-minute walk. At that point we were just going to go home. But dear J seemed to calm the little girl.
Meanwhile I found out that my paintings had not been delivered to the studio as planned. They were in Finchley. I had to talk to Henry. He wanted me to get them in a cab right now. But it was our anniversary! Power Pack and I had arranged a babysitter!
We all know why Henry’s relationships have all failed. He refused to tell me what time he could do it in the morning, even though I explained that I had to pick up the Gosling so I really needed to know a time. No, Henry said. I had to either do it right now, or just wait 'til when he felt like getting up on Sunday – probably mid day but he couldn’t really tell.
And finally the hideous gig. The bands were all very good, but attendance was low. And Mr “Radio Star” was there. He wore a woolly hat, and had that Smell.
Mr Radio Star wrote a hit song when he was 17; now, aged 48, he is sleeping rough on death’s doorstep; he’s not “part-time” anything: he’s full-time sliding down to an early grave. The Bootlegger has told stories of the recent Italian tour: Mr Radio Star pissing himself in the airport, and hobbling around in the rain with his ulcerated foot and no shoe, dragging the wound through freezing filth. (Now he at least had shoes on both feet.)
The Radio Stars used to gig with my first band in the early 90s. I hadn’t seen the singer since then. I only really knew Mr Head from the band. Now I said hello to this junkie, alcoholic, alleged “genius.” I confess it was bit like looking at a train wreck.
I don’t know this guy. By coincidence the Gang Rape Painter does painter know Mr Radio Star, from when she was also a junkie, sleeping in hostels. And with all the Bootlegger’s stories… I just had to see for myself.
It was a tour with the Radio Stars that sent Power Pack into his downward spiral right before I met him in 1996. Power Pack had not seen the signer since. And he took it badly. Where I felt only curiosity, Power Pack felt some kind of deep, despondent emotion. I tried to tell him later that most creative geniuses are f*cked up in some way. It goes with the territory. But Power Pack found this guy’s state very upsetting.
At first, Mr Radio Star was fairy lively. I asked about his bum foot. He said he was on shitloads of penicillin. I said maybe he shouldn’t drink with it- duh, wrong answer, Petra. “I have another one,” he said, pointing to his good leg.
Mr Radio Star was very taken by the Lazy Violinist’s flared trousers. “Just wait 'til you see what he wears in the next band!” I said. And in the Suitcase-Girl’s band, the Lazy Violinist wore tennis balls for boobs under a white fluffy sweater-dress, with zebra leggings, pink stilettos, devil horns and pink sunglasses.
Mr Radio Star heckled the final band in a friendly, funny way, though at the end of the last song, both he and Power Pack were in such stupors neither even clapped.
So Power Pack ended the night in a very bad mood, and too drunk to be taken in a taxi. We tried to get in one with Mr Flea and the Lazy Violinist, but the Bootlegger forgot his coat. Power Pack was still outside the cab and started punching a metal door while we were waiting. The cab driver wasn’t too happy about it so we ended up walking to a bus stop.
Petra
|
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| The cake of doom |
[03 Dec 2008|09:14am] |
Dear Nessi
Floyd aka Phyllis leaving the band was just the icing on the cake of doom. I couldn’t be THAT upset about that old pouf. He’d hardly played with us this year anyway.
Yesterday I went on a course about starting a business. Partly to impress the mortgage insurance company; but mainly to see if this is what I want to do: to do things properly, like you do with your illustration.
They immediately addressed the elephant in the room: recession. People had ideas for family related activities, and talked about what businesses thrive in recession. Women had experience in aromatherapy, cooking, aerobics instruction, fundraising and bookkeeping. One had raised 3 million pounds for an autism charity.
I did not fit in.
I left in despair.
Outside in the icy drizzle I found a note on my bike: a phone number to call for keys. I had left my bloody bike keys ON the bike! A kind but scornful old many told me I was very lucky.
And then there is Christmas. We just had to spend £170.00 to fix the boiler. The Gosling wants all sorts of toys and while we explain that she can’t have everything, we have to get her something. And a tree. And going to see family in K*nt. And food and Conny and all the people who have been so nice to use this year that I would love to give presents to.
And then this stupid art show with Miss Corncob et al. Endless emails and talk and no one agrees on anything. We may have to just pull it after all the work we- mainly I – have done.
And someone wants to order a print of a painting – great! – but this woman is very pushy and it turns out she’s a photographer and she wants the bloody digital file to get the print made herself. Dear sweet Miss Haifa and sweet Ricki help with this but I don’t want to keep bugging them, ringing them all the time about what to do, etc etc. More time taken up; lessons are learned but no profit in sight.
And the hostel – I’ve been sick so I missed the last session where Star was due to finish her project. The presentation is today; I have no idea if Star will even turn up. I feel desperately sad. And then I am going on a screen-printing course. Today. When I can barely hold back tears over the sheer overwhelming volume of everything.
And more web work for Dot, this was price agreed so they are nit picking away at it.
(/moan).
--
At the workshop they said we should have a plan B.
“I always have a plan B,” he said, heels clicking on the pavement as we left the too-crowded restaurant for another nearby.
--
“Think of a business person you admire,” said the facilitator at the business workshop.
I sneered, picturing a perfect office and a seemingly endless flow of money. But he cheats on his wife! I added to myself.
--
“Your integrity is important to you,” said the curate.
Indeed it is. I haven’t got much, so I better hold on to what I do have.
--
Sorry... writing just seems to sort thoughts out. It is boring for anyone else to read.
Thanks
Petra
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| Weeping when I should be working |
[02 Dec 2008|10:02pm] |
Sun streams in through the window. I don’t know what time it is. I wake up and realise where I am. I pick up the phone, dial RG – why RG of all people, I don’t know, it’s just how it is, in this version of the future... I dial RG and I say,
“Oh my god, what have I done... it’s over...”
It’s been a long time since that version played out in my warped mind. Perhaps nearly a year.
I was expecting this call. In fact I’d even thought of being the one to make it. Another conversation played out again and again in my head over more recent months: “...I know she’s not as good as you are, but she fits in... she’s a girl for a start, a real girl, who will wear a grass skirt, and she lives near me and we could work on songs together... she’s more in the spirit of the band...”
But I held on to certain moments ‘til the end. I wailed on that guitar, lying on the floor, gazing up at those cyclist’s thighs, in black lace stockings, as that trumpet screamed along with my guitar in some kind of wail from beyond...
It was too good. It had to end.
I’m not surprised. Nor am I surprised at the reason: being too busy. I’m too bloody busy. After just another weekend’s recording, and one more gig I might pack it in myself.
But still... I need to mourn.
And there is no one here I can cry to. No one who knows exactly what it was...
I might have been long over anything else, but the music still got me where it hurt.
So I weep when I should be working.
(There is other music. There is always other music: to listen to, to watch, to feel... I don’t have to be onstage to be taken away... there was that medieval singer… our hands clasped as we watched her; and she cried, three feet from the microphone, in operatic harmony with her beautiful castrati ...)
Petra
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| Three tap dancers and a man in a rubber corset |
[01 Dec 2008|02:51pm] |
Dear Nessi
“That’s your glass. It’s got lipstick on it,” I say, gesturing to a large white wine on a round, black table.
“You’re wearing lipstick, too,” D says.
“But I also have on lipgloss. I picked up that tip from Phyllis,” I note there is less of a red mark on my glass.
“You get makeup tips from your tranny friends!” he laughs.
--
D and I are sitting in the middle of the row in the theatre. When I go out with my husband we always get aisle seats. If I sit in the middle I worry that I’ll have to pee all the time.
Once we’ve sat down, we talk about our children. I notice that the woman on the other side of D is staring. Her eyes are practically falling out. She’s got short white hair, wire rimmed spectacles, woollen tights and brown Ugg boots. Her husband also has white hair, wire glasses – and a beard.
D is still wearing a coat over his rubber corset and fake boobs, but, because the corset is so tight, he sits with his legs apart, not at all very lady-like. The coat has fallen open, off his thigh, to reveal white lace stockings and a black chiffon skirt. The white haired lady is really staring at the stockings. I want to pull the coat over them, but that would involve reaching over and acknowledging that I see the lady staring.
D, oblivious, is telling me how his oldest daughter, age 20, is going around the country giving medical lectures. I think the woman on the other side is either going to have a heart attack or stand up and scream out “IT’S A MAN!!!”
The theatre finally goes dark. And by the time the lights go up again, the full house has been so enraptured by the 3 men on stage that minor things like transvestites in rubber underwear are of no consequence. The white haired man and woman turn to us and we all rave about the Afro-Caribbean tap dancing, the sight, sound and the rhythym that have just enthralled us for the best part of an hour. We are all just people enjoying a performance.
--
I am living the fairy tale. Again. High heels clacking on pavement, we walk past the tower block where I lived with Ahmed. And I tell the story, from the beginning, of how we lived there, how our landlord died and we squatted the 22nd floor apartment, and how, after we split up, Ahmed climbed over the cement balcony and squatted the flat below.
--
End of the night. A sexy black woman in a red corset has her arms around me. She’s telling me how her girlfriend has stormed off in a jealous huff. I tell her how silly jealousy is. And, later, on the way home, I tell D how Power Pack and I have never been jealous. When we met we realised we’d have to be jealous of both sexes, and that would just be too exhausting.
But there are other kinds of jealousy. The next day I wake up in confusion as well as flu. (not a hangover. I don’t get hangovers with D. He is the “good” one in the painting, dressed in white, never drinking too much, always going home at 2 am, no matter how much fun is going on).
My mom sent an email about my niece, about how the other grandmother has lavished her with hundreds of collectors-item Barbies, three dollhouses, 600 beanie babies. My niece has her own en suite bathroom, her own TV and DVD player and her own Christmas tree in her room. My niece is three. My mom wondered if the Gosling would be jealous, would be upset to see such a lavish lifestyle for a child her own age.
I hate to inherit this feeling. I grew up with it; constant envy of the neighbours.
But I do envy D. I envy the three successful almost-grown-up daughters. I envy that there never seem to be any problems, and even though D lives this other life, he seems to have the perfect marriage, the perfect family life. House in Islington, and country house in Suffolk. They never have to worry about money.
I even envy his wife’s studio. He showed me this little room behind a tastefully decorated, softly-lit Victorian boardroom. A painting studio, with 3 spotlights that turn on when you flick the main switch. Paintings and etchings piled up; Daumier-esque figures writhing on canvas and paper. A well-heated room, cosy and warm. Not the strange (albeit much larger) outside building where I work, wearing three sweaters, while 2 electric oil heaters fail to heat the former laundry room. D’s wife’s studio is private, hidden; she doesn’t have people parading in, watching her, looking at her work while it’s in the messy stage. (Of course I feel like I should not be here looking at her work either...) she doesn’t have to teach people who stink of stale booze just to get a painting space.
Later on, in the packed club, there are lesbians in underwear and little else, and trannies who all made an effort – not trucker trannies, but proper ones - one is so good he has to be gay. But after the theatre, after walking and talking and eating and changing to go out (one does not wear the same outfit to theatre as to lesbian burlesque), I am slightly exhausted, and there are just too many beautiful girls (and boys) everywhere for me to focus on anyone...
"I've got a new toy!" I exclaim to the photographer-with-the-tattooed neck. He gestures at D.
"No!" I say, whipping out the 450D. Tattoed-neck is impressed. But the club is too crowded, too dark and the camera too clunky. Like my brain, it's hard to focus...
Petra
|
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| O fortuna (revisited) |
[20 Nov 2008|11:50pm] |
Dear Nessi
I knew I would f*ck up that mailing list. No matter how hard I tried or concentrated. And it wasn’t the fu*ck up itself that sent me shrivelling up like a ball on the sofa… it was the fact the I KNEW it would happen. It was inevitable.
Like the glass breaking yesterday. I knew it would break. I picked some glass from freecycle, and strapped it, in bubble wrap, to the child seat on the bike. No matter how carefully I cycled, it was like watching a moving unfold. Like an episode of Heroes: I see the future. I can not change it any more than I can change the past. (At least no one got hurt; it smashed in it’s bubble wrap as I went over a speed bump*).
I feel a horrible foreboding creeping in, seeping in. Something awful is going to happen and it’s out of my control.
Sure, there were things I thought were going to happen that didn’t. But this feels too real. There isn’t much time.
And yet with not much time I wish I was doing less, not more.
--
O Fortuna velut luna
statu variabilis
In the Albert Hall I watch children singing in Latin. My hair stands on end for the first 3 songs. Until the crap conductor loses the 300 piece choir, ever so slightly, only noticeable to the very critical ear.
Still a riveting performance. I realise half way through that I used to have this piece on vinyl, and I only ever played the first side. I’m doing better than the rest of the audience; they only know the first song, from countless tv ads trying to reduce Orff’s brilliance to shaving products, cars or beer. I know better. I head bang in my seat. All that percussion! Why is everyone sitting so still…?
Petra
(* yeah yeah who would expect a 3 foot long sheet of glass NOT to break while being transported on a 13-year-old bicycle across the pockmarked streets of Hackney?)
|
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| Indecision |
[14 Nov 2008|10:22am] |
Something I read in the paper and wanted to write down because it's relevant. Don't know where to put it so here it is.
"The next couple of years are unlikely to be kind to the indecisive" - Jeremy Bullmore, from a Guardian employment advice column, to someone thinking about taking redundancy and retraining, though the guy who wrote in is not sure what he wants to retrain as.
The former Daily Hell Journalist wants to do a PGCE and is trying to talking me into it. Miss Chaos says that a PGCE is an insane amount of work and homework and impossible to do if someone has a child.
Meanwhile Rhythym Guitarist has a new job. He used to work where I volunteer. He had an idea for a course that he wanted to implement; in five years it never happened. At his new job, after only a month he's writing up his proposal. (But there are no art studios at his new workplace...)
Or do I take the advice my supervisor gave Star: "Don't work!" After all, Power Pack and I are in the benefit system now. Maybe I should just give up and paint while I have the free space to do it.
"Don't give up painting..." Said Mr Machine in Liverpool last week.
"The next couple of years are unlikely to be kind to the indecisive"
Please help. Divine intervention? Anything. Please.
Petra
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| The view from Liverpool |
[06 Nov 2008|09:59pm] |
Dear Nessi
10 pm, Wednesday 5 Nov. A drunken scouser in a bar (they’re all drunk oop noorf) wearing a poppy asks where I’m from. And instead of responding with the usual boredom or shame, I punch the air like a football fan whose team has just scored a goal, and call out “ Ohio!!” (I have never ever done that.)
“Well done!!” the man says, hugging me.
Suddenly the world has changed. Overnight. Just little things; there is no big party, just little smiles of congratulations. I’m in Liverpool for the opening of the Art Movement’s latest fiasco. I assume being with the likes of Henry Dimple et all will be a rather flat way to usher in a new era. But I’m wrong.
The former Daily Hell Journalist meets me on the train; she’s been in tears listening to Jesse Jackson crying on the radio. Miss Haifa and Clayboy both sent me texts during the night. I didn’t stay up to watch the results; with problems at home and a sleepless night Monday, I had to get some sleep.
The day was filled with emotion. I have never wanted to go home. And to be realistic, Obama is not going to make free healthcare or abolish guns - the 2 mains reasons I don’t live in the US. But still. The very fact that that nation of war mongering racist idiots could prove to the world that they are not all war mongering racist idiots – in fact the majority in a democratic election voted otherwise – this alone is call for celebration.
And it’s strange to be PART of something this big. I voted. WE won. After 9-11, I was out with a very small number of protesters against the invasion of Afghanistan before the embers of the WTC had even cooled. I was splitting a can of tuna with the cat when the rest of Britain was mourning Lady Di. I don’t DO mainstream anything. And I’m sure there are people out there for whom Obama is not left enough. If I knew all there is to know, I’d be the same. But you can’t win an election by pleasing a minority of hard-nosed anythings. So I’m celebrating. (But I’m not; I’m sitting at the computer eating Doritos and wondering when to go to bed).
So Liverpool was cool. More or less so. I could have had a few more pals to drink with, not ended up with only Henry and a Liverpudlian landscape painter (The Journalist had a row with the friend she brought and went back to the hotel early). But still. Even Henry wasn’t that bad for a change, and strangers in pubs are friendly up there. Henry even pointed out that what I love and what I hate about America are the same thing - the idea that anyone from anywhere can go to this melting pot and make a new life for themselves - that is exactly what turns people into the capitalists I hate.
And I could have spent more time in the Walker, looking at Victorian social realism and trying to think of a way to paint the hostel where I work, a way to translate the sterile bleached white walls into some kind of inspiration. And maybe spent less time in tears, wandering the dull grey streets, fantasising about moving home to start a new life, overwhelmed by feelings I never thought I’d have.
The bubble will burst. But it hasn’t yet. Which is why I should be out somewhere,..
Petra
ps I am punching the air again! interest rates just massively cut - when our mortgage just went over to the bank of England rate! is this my lucky week or what?? Ohio voting Democrat, interest rates down, what next? Selling a painting would be nice...
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| More dirty secrets, on a dark, rainy nght |
[03 Nov 2008|10:35pm] |
Dear Nessi
7 pm. Drizzling misty rain. I’m in the studio with my one remaining student. The one who is a poor time keeper and maybe a pot-smoker, but otherwise relatively sane.
I mention tomorrow’s election.
She says that it’s been set up from the start. We all know who will win.
Erm, do we? Did I miss something? We are on the eve of either the first black president of the USA, or a pig from hell as vice president under man who doesn’t look young enough to serve 4 years. Did I miss something? I guess so. These days I don’t have time to read indymedia let alone research conspiracy theories. All I hear is mainstream news, and they’ve got me hook, line and sinker: I am on the edge of my seat. I really do not know who is going to win.
Tomorrow night is band practise. And Wednesday, the day we will know the result, I will be in Liverpool with a former Daily Hell journalist. My mom, from an unfortunately rather racist family background, is voting for Obama. But I wouldn’t go so far to think that a Daily Hell journalist would want to celebrate with me in Liverpool (IF of course there is celebrating to do). Or of course uber-Tory himself, Henry Dimple.
In 20 years in UK, for the first time I’m thinking of secretly searching out a bar FULL OF AMERICANS. Geez, I didn’t even do that when I first came here as tourist in 1985.
But then again, as Miss Chaos pointed out, Obama won’t save the world any more than Blair did in 1996. The night of that the big victory, Power Pack ended up in the nuthouse. (Not that those 2 things were related – it could have happened any night – it just happened to be the night of the Labour victory.)
--
Once again my supervisor blew out our meeting. When I first met her, and my now top student, I couldn’t tell who worked at the hostel and who was a resident. Both seem fairy sane and both have no sense of time keeping.
This time the supervisor got all embarrassed that she’d forgot our meeting.
“You are going to kill me...!” the supervisor said, turning to present her backside for smacking. I laughed nervously. If only she knew...
Petra
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| Killing me slowly |
[23 Sep 2008|08:34pm] |
Dear Nessi
Warning – this entry is gross - but nowhere near as gross all the puking on the Bruce-Parry-in-the-Amazon on telly last night.
I wake up in the night, heart pounding in unimaginable terror. I ask the question no one will ever be able to answer: “which cigarette is the one that will tip me over the edge? Exactly which cigarette is the death sentence?”
You can quit smoking at age 20 and still die of lung cancer at age 60. You can smoke til you’re 100 and never get sick (Power Pack’s dad is 85: 70 of those years spent with a rollie on his lips). You can never smoke at all and still die of lung cancer.
Two weeks of being chilled, relaxed, just glad not to be lugging a bike around. Happy to be back on my bike without bags or tents or sleeping mats. Two weeks until it’s back to insomnia and constipation.
My mom was right – why would I need fibre pills on a cycle tour? Even when I’d taken a load of codeine after being stung by a wasp – usually a sure recipe for being bunged up (codeine, not a wasp sting) – even when there was this horrible outhouse with only a plank and hole in it and I thought, “well with all that codeine I won’t be needing that outhouse” – but no, even after all that, I awoke in the tent in the morning and like clockwork rushed out to the bog, making it just in time to squat over that hole.
I won’t say if I missed. I will say that the only other people on the ‘campsite’ moved their van to a field well away from that poor little wooden excuse for a loo...
But back here and it’s creeping up again, anxiety, fear, colds, sore throats, piles – and then I f*cking whacked my toe on a trolley at Waitrose (as if I ever go there! Never! I just needed a cake for the Gosling’s birthday! ) so badly I can’t wear shoes let alone try to jog or anything...
As for smoking, it’s ok when I’m with non-smokers. I’m not gonna go out and stand on my own freezing. But when Power Pack and I accidentally ended up on a pub crawl Friday night.. well, you can imagine... fags fags and more fags... Always popping out, plus the walks between pubs... that was the first night I woke up in blind terror of Death. Two days without smoking now and I wonder if this time I can quit for good – not for a year, 3 years, 9 months, or whatever.... of course having one fag a night while camping never made me feel even remotely ill or paranoid...it’s not fags, is it? It’s LONDON that is killing me.
Petra
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