I hope you are keeping well and your peckers are up. I thought I’d jump back on the newsletter horse, or is it a donkey? Either way, it’s been a while. This one is long, so grab a cuppa and a box of jaffa cakes (because one is never enough), and let’s begin.
RECTANGLES
I often bang on about my local lido to anyone who will listen. It’s a large red brick building on Hampstead Heath, which looks a bit imposing. But to us lifers, it’s a sanctuary from the outside world – a happy prison. Inside is a big blue rectangle of unheated water 60 metres long by 25, which in summer climbs up to 25+ degrees but in winter can drop to zero.
Here is what she looks like on a hot day…
And here is what he looks like on a cold day…
Brrrr!
Each day this blue rectangle of water looks the same but different – it can be as still as a mirror reflecting the sky above or on a busy, barmy hot day like it’s full of piranha. But as soon as I see it, I feel be-calmed and relaxed, like it has cast a spell on me. Of course, the reason for coming is to jump in and swim, but sometimes, just looking at the blue rectangle is enough.
So it was strange the other Saturday morning. I spent some quality time in my happy prison looking at my blue rectangle, and then in the afternoon, Elliot and I had tickets to see Spurs. And as we climbed up the stairs into their fabulous billion-pound toilet bowl stadium, there in the centre was the hallowed turf of the football pitch – a beautiful green rectangle!
And it occurred to me, wow, I spent the morning staring at a blue rectangle, and now I’m going to spend the afternoon staring at a green one!
Of course, I would like to say it gave me nothing but pleasure, but the Spurs performance and Bournemouth’s last-minute winner made the experience more one of pain.
Bloody Spurs.
Anyway, all this rectangle talk segues neatly to another kind of rectangle I’d like to discuss, namely my book. Sorry, over-egging it now – maybe I’m a rectangleophile. Is that a thing?
ANOINT MY HEAD NEWS
First, there was a band called the Pointy Birds. Then came the book about the band called Anoint My Head ( which you can buy/listen to here ). Next was the one-man show based on the book about the band ( which you can watch right here ). And now, I’m enjoying some exciting conversations about a possible TV/film show adapted from the show based on the book about the band. This is like loosey-goosey. But where will this all end? I assume things will eventually go full circle, and Pointy Birds will have to reform to play a sold-out Wembley. And maybe then and only then will Ricky tweet about the bloody book!
LIVE SHOWS
Anyhoo, while that’s all percolating away, I plan to do some more Anoint My Head one-man shows in the not-too-distant future, but in the meantime, next Thursday, 4th May, I am joining fellow indie authors Simon Williams of fierce panda records fame and Steve Lamacq of BBC 6 music fame to talk about our respective books about music. This event will take place at Bull and Gate in Kentish Town. The pub stopped doing gigs ten years ago and turfed us out, but now the brewery Youngs are pondering whether to ditch the triple-fired chips cooked in goose fat and do live music again. Doh! So this night is a test run with three bands playing after we stop reminiscing. It’s free entry— ticket link /info here.
KINGS OF CAMDEN
I am still hacking through the jungle trying to finish the sequel to Anoint My Head which has a working title of The Kings of Camden. Without wanting to take the mixed metaphor bus to analogy hell, it has been like having a thousand jigsaw pieces, but not all the pieces are meant for the same jigsaw, and you don’t have a picture to guide you. But I do now have the perimeter and corner pieces sorted, and I’ve disregarded the pieces meant for another jigsaw. I’ve also sorted the remaining pieces into different colours that go together, and by Jove, some sections are starting to take shape, images are beginning to form, and faces are appearing. The fossil is revealing itself, and I can see the finishing line (the mixed metaphor bus has arrived!) Then the hard work starts trying to make it funny, relatable and compelling. Hopefully, I will finish soon, but in the meantime, I give you…
Design by Matt Law
SLEEVES – the Shop That Comes to YOU.
Because TKOC is taking a while, I feel compelled to deliver some new content. So have been stockpiling these made-up true short stories, which are fun to write and have a beginning, a muddle and an end. This new one is called Sleeves – the Shop That Comes to YOU. It’s about the very brief time I worked in fashion. It’s all true, apart from the bits I made up (the Kevin Bacon Footloose bit, for example), and it takes about 6 minutes to read. Here is a sample to try on, but you can read the whole thing on my website or download a free PDF, which includes the fancy cover if you so desire…
Lastly, but in no way leastly, eight new/old tunes have emerged from Big Slice, the seminal band that formed out of the Pointy Bird’s ashes and have a singer/guitarist who looks and sounds a bit like me. These eight tunes are available for your listening pleasure courtesy of new B.S. album One For The Road, a follow-up to 12 track compilation Don’t Mind if I Do, which means the entire 20-song Big Slice catalogue is now available on a streaming service near you. It also ends a two-year project restoring these songs for posterity, which began in lockdown with my bro Dave and I unearthing old demos like lost treasure and polishing them into pop gems and precious tones. The nicest thing about doing this has been the total lack of ambition. And getting together with old B.S. bandmates and making a noise when we should know better feels like success in itself – and it tastes fantastic – whether it sounds any good is a whole other question. There is talk of another gig in a glorious toilet venue somewhere, maybe at Xmas, but it’s too early to talk about that. In the meantime, you can watch a shambolic, but hopefully charming live bandcamp stream wot we did last week.
Ok, that’s more than enough of my creative follies.
I shall end with some things I’ve recently enjoyed…
TV: Blue Lights. Everything about this. You’d think they run out of ideas for TV police shows, but they have reinvented the wheel. Set in Belfast, it’s like Happy Valley meets The Wire via Derry Girls. Top drawer.
Radio: A Very British Cult, A must-listen piece of investigative journalism into a life coaching company called Lighthouse. On BBC Sounds/iplayer.
Music: The Clientele – I might be biased, having worked with this band for hundreds of years, but they have a new double album (number 7) out in the summer and the video for first single ‘Blue Over Blue’ features band dressed in suits of armour in a kind of Daft Punk meets Black Adder stylee. Watch it here.
That’s it! I hope you enjoyed this rectangle-themed newsletter; next time will be triangles which should be a piece of cake.
And for those still reading, here is a slightly daft 53 second video I made about my favourite place. It’s got a good soundtrack. Hope it makes you feel warm inside.
