Walking and thinking - multi-tasking!

Conscious of all the random thoughts I jotted down yesterday I took a 4 mile walk at 8 this morning and tried to make a mental note of what jumped into my head:

What must it be like to be a woodpecker with a headache?

I really fancy some Green and Blacks white chocolate (need subsequently satisfied)

If you have a little money and want to make more, act like you don’t have any

Freedom is freedom from the need to be free

Can you make love with your ego?

Staying alive is a lot less fun than being alive

You children are to you when you are old as you are to them when they are young

The inevitability of gradualness

Is it possible to sell a house, from offer to completion, in under two months?

Going to a café in Crystal Palace for a coffee and noticing that every single occupant (around 10) was speaking French. And preferring to listen to them than read The Guardian or Private Eye.

What came first – morality/ethics/empathy or religion?

Thinking of a photo of Lily, Isabelle and Daisy (7,2 and 5 months respectively) and hoping that it will be a woman’s world in the future

Realising that the rain stopped just as I left the house and started again just as I shut the front door. Sometimes things are ‘meant to be’.

Remembering my 2-hour conversation with Prof Mark Brown yesterday. Do jobs exist to which nobody is suited? I extrapolated the argument in my mind – do people exist to which no job is suited? And why don’t we put the two together – the people to whom no job is suited and the job to which no person is suited? Or are we doing that already?

Which comes first: the heart or the head?

Emotionally committing myself to a project on mood and music. And then uncommitting myself when I got home.

Thinking of the thrill of entertaining 60 people for 2 days in Germany last week. How nice it is when clients are honest and say – ‘let’s have some fun for two days and get everyone to know each other better’.

Realising that I hadn’t thought about sex for two hours. Or about all the people I know who are being unfaithful.

I need more positive thinking stories

I must buy ‘Conceptual Blockbusting’.

I sometimes feel like I am living my life through other people and that can be a healthy anti-dote to my monstrous ego

What happened to Maple Road Market, Penge?

Who is the world’s greatest sportsman or woman? (Federer)

Isn’t it strange how the music you listen to last before you go to bed is still in your head the next morning (Vangelis’ ‘El Greco’)?

Extreme nervousness about selling London house – disconnection from my favourite place, a tighter connection with a place I am not sure I want to be connected to at all.

Thinking about property at all actually makes me instantly unhappy

What is this thing called love?

I have been thinking about things I have written in my books and at the moment I am very drawn to something I wrote in my Positive Thinking, Positive Action book. In that book I wrote about stability and risk zones and in particular that many of us who take risks in life need some aspect of our life that is very stable. I have been thinking about this a lot this evening (Monday 26/2) and why many who have serial affairs are also very tied to their domestic conformity because it gives a framework around which to live. In other words we can only take risks when we know that there is a stability zone to go back to if things go wrong - it is safe to take a risk because there is always something stable at base. In fact the paradox may be that those who practice serial infidelity may attach more psychological nourishment to their stable (married or not) relationship than the wholly faithful partner. Of course, the apparently faithful partner may be a tearaway too but has learned to keep a secret!

As I think about this I realise that I am targeting my comments very personally. And I wonder who, among those who read this, imagine that it is targeted at them? That matters less than the person I am thinking of who maybe needs to take a risk because the stability is stifling them. Who are you?

I have had a huge pile of random thoughts over the last few weeks which I always record in a notebook , and I will drop them all here – for future reference:

‘Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin it, and the work will be completed’. John Anster 1835 translation from Goethe’s ‘Faust’

Being more than a ‘never’ person.

Out of the box…but within the box’s container

Loveland (float on).

If I was a jazz musician I would want to be called Ecclestone Wainwright the Third.

‘What we call luck, what we call chance, is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. If you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready." Will Smith

The thought that everyone is having more sex than we are is what gives many people all the purpose they think they need in life. Life becomes a big catch up job after the age of 40. I am fast believing that this is the most sexually active of all age groups. It’s just that at that age we have learnt not to tell to tell everyone about it. Remember John Betjeman at 90 – ‘Any regrets John?’. ‘Yes, I wish I had had more sex’. 40 is the new 90…

No regrets, no tears goodbye…death terrifies the person who has a guilty conscience about his life - someone who has not lived the fullness of it and its possibilities.

Do you have opinions or are you a prisoner of your opinions?

Would the internet have survived without pornography? And why did the number of women accessing pornography on the internet grow by 40% last year? By 2010 women will have caught up with men.

Number of women I know who admit to watching pornography = 1. Number of men I know = Almost all of them.

Why does MS Word not recognize google in its spellchecker?

Advert in The Times quoted in Frankl’s ‘Doctor and the Soul’ – ‘Unemployed. Brilliant mind offers its services completely free. The survival of the body must be provided for by adequate salary’.

Jealousy is an emotion of possession, not of love. (Frankl as well – both noted on the tarmac while refueling at Ankara airport – a good use of ‘dead’ time).

I want to re-read Douglas Coupland’s ‘Microserfs’ and ‘Generation X’’ but I have lent it to the person who is currently having an affair with... The person doesn’t know I know. And the three dots doesn’t know I know.

‘Learnt a new word today – ‘Interiority’. It means being inside someone’s head’. Coupland.

The whole town is laughing at me.

Sexual love transcends everything. Those who love truly do not feel jealousy. Their concern is for the happiness of the other person.

I think of those who are bursting with the desire for love and are totally loveable but whose easy loveability makes them perversely unattractive in the long term to so many – Deborah?

Barry White. Teddy Pendergrass. Eugene Record.

Places I want to work in this year – Baku, Almaty, Sarajevo, Paris (UNESCO) – Jenny can you help?

And Haiti – Judith, too late?

Number of books I want to write this year – 3: ‘The Idea’, ‘The intrapraneur’, ‘Playing at work’.

Phrases I dislike – ‘it’s a no-brainer’. It is for you because you are not using your brain.

Pull the strings and I’ll wink at you. I’m your puppet.

Make peace with the taxman.

Work with Mark Brown?

I hate airports late on Friday evenings.
I love airports on Monday mornings.

And I cannot wait for Mediterranean summer.

Desert Island Discs

My Desert Island Discs – for the benefit of any American readers this a longstanding radio programme (over 50 years) where the well-known get invited to talk about their life and play the music that they would like to have with them if they were stuck on a desert Island- you are allowed eight. You also get to choose a luxury and a book (The Bible and the Complete Works of WS come gratis).

1. Right Off – Miles Davis

The opening track on his ‘Jack Johnson’ album. At 25 minutes it means I get loads of Miles but it also features John McLaughlin (Britain’s greatest ever guitar player) and Herbie Hancock (the dirtiest keyboard sound you have ever heard on this track) at their best so I get three greats for the price of one. The Penguin Guide to Jazz suggests that in 50 years time this album may be seen as superior to Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way. I agree. Reminds me of 1990-91 and living in Dulwich Village and doing things I shouldn’t have done but glad I did. Mike where are you now?

2. We’ve Come Too Far To End it Now – Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

I listened to this almost continuously when I wrote my first book and managed to name a chapter in its honour. It was the most unhappy time in my life (writing the book blocked out the depression) and I loved the sentiment of the title. Those who know me will know why the time was so unpleasant. Is there a greater piece of sweet soul? I see writing a book on positive thinking at a time when I was so low as a kind of divine providence. I was forced to pull through by having to be in a positive frame of mind to write the book. A ‘why’ to live for.

3. You’ve Got To Have Freedom – Pharoah Sanders

I love this track and I love the album it is on. It would make me momentarily happy when alone. A man who has kept his music interesting and innovative into his 70’s. And a spellbinding live performer. Great trumpet playing from Eddie Henderson too. The ‘Journey To The One’ album it comes from is joyous but it is actually a very important one too. It is probably the album for me that closes a great era (1950-1980) for black American music – my first musical love.

4. Umbarabauma – Jorge Ben

This is a floor stomper from one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. I bought a 4 CD compilation of his music with about sixty tracks on it and there is not one weak one on it. I chose this one partly as a symbol of hundreds of Brazilian tracks I could have selected. Great music from a nation which must be the most naturally musical on the earth.

5. The Great Curve – Talking Heads

Off the Remain In Light album which is by far their best. They were a great band and stood out in the weakest era for popular western music since the very early 1960’s (I refer to the early 1980’s). This track has absorbed almost every musical influence with great African-style backing vocals and powerful guitar (King Crimson’s Adrian Belew from memory) to the fore. There is nothing like this music anywhere, ever.

David Byrne of TH is also responsible for my love of Brazilian music through his series of Brazil Classics compilations in 1989-90. Buy volumes one and two if you want a great introduction to Brazilian music.

6. Folk Song – Garbarek, Gismonti, Haden

I am a big fan of the ECM sound and this is a classic example of it. Garbarek is, after Rollins, the best unaccompanied saxophonist around and Gismonti one of the great multi-instrumentalists. I saw Garbarek live a few times in the 1990’s and he was terrific every time (I managed tears at one of his performances). I saw Gismonti too, doing a solo show in Southampton and on here it is his guitar playing which is so beautiful. This track is the opening piece off Folk Songs which every person I have played it to has gone out and bought immediately. The standout track from a stand out album. Best described as classical jazz.

7. Oh Girl – Chi-Lites

I had to have something from either the Chi-Lites or the Delfonics and this just edges it over almost any Delfonics track. Beautiful songwriting from Eugene Record who wrote loads of great tracks and doesn’t get the credit he should. Had he been at Motown…This appeals to the highly sentimental side of me which craves real love.

8. Starless and Bible Black – Stan Tracey Quartet

British Jazz’s finest moment and a piece of Jazz I would defy anyone to dislike. Tracey played with all the greats as the resident pianist at Ronnie Scott’s in the 1960’s. But in 1964 he produced a jazz classic ‘Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood’ and this is a magnificent piece from that album. I remember the first time I heard it was on a documentary about him and they set this track with panoramas of the London Skyline by night. I was transfixed by the connection of image and music and remain so to this day. This was a great era for British Jazz but of course no-one realised it at the time. What Joe Harriot was doing was ahead of Coltrane and if you don’t believe me and you are a jazz fan buy his two albums from the very early sixties – ‘abstract’ and particularly ‘freeform’ which features great playing from Shake Keane too. Also Indo-Jazz Fusions.

If I could take only one piece on my Island then ‘starless’ would be it and I know I would listen to it every night, look at the stars, remember the image of the London Skyline and cry my eyes out at the thought that I may never see it again. I would die of melancholia eventually.

Book: The London Encyclopaedia
Luxury: Piano – I could teach myself Stan Tracey’s piano parts!

Of course it pains me at what I have missed and there is little from after 1990 which is a shame because there is so much great stuff from the last decade. But it probably does reflect my love of black music from the Americas and evocative European sounds. The biggest gap is British rock and I am sorry I could not include Colloseum’s ‘Elegy’, Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’ or something from Led Zep. Maybe if I do this tomorrow they would all be in there. No Coltrane, Dolphy, Marvin Gaye or from the modern era Nitin Sawhney, Suba or Anouar Brahem either.

I have gone for highly emotional music first, figuring I would need it on the Island.

Germany, Andrew Neil...

I have had a good week. I spent it in Bad Neunhar, Germany working with the Kyoto Protocol team. Of course, professional etiquette means I cannot divulge what we did but I was enormously impressed by what they are doing. One thing the trip did do was to cement in my mind that Germany is actually a very attractive country and its people very friendly. Of course to Brits whose minds are still locked in the past this may be antagonistic reading but compared to my two current bases of Penge and Pezenas the lack of dog mess and the pride in civility and civic buildings was refreshing.

I have come back to the UK presented with a business opportunity that may shape the rest of my life. I may have to give a few things up, including some of the foreign travel but this may be exchanged for increasing mental stimulation. And I can continue to write.

I am not a big fan of Andrew Neil although I do think the paper he used to edit is by far the best of the ‘Sundays’. I did however enjoy his selections on Desert Island Discs which included some Miles, some James Taylor and the end to Abbey Road although his classical selections were unimaginative (Tchaikovsky’s ‘Violin Concerto’ apart). I was surprised and pleased by his choice of The Pet Shop Boys, the defining pop group of the 1980’s – those who read this and know me may be surprised by my saying this but they were the zeitgeist group of an age which has defined a more confident 21st century Britain. Music tells me a lot about people, and perhaps as a writer about people I should not be so quick to categorise, but I do read a lot into people according the music they listen to. Some Desert Island Discs can be dreadful due to the lack of stimulation presented by the musical choices. To that end, Digby Jones, the former head of the CBI was the prime offender. And I remember the most disappointing castaway being journalist Robert Fisk. He clearly had fallen victim of ceasing to be part of the world due to his over-concentration on one aspect of it. He came across as a self-justifying bore even if I have some sympathy with his views.

For my and perhaps a few readers’ amusement I shall shortly deliver my own selection. I can guarantee the inclusion of Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders but the other choices will be tough. What to leave out? At least two American soul tracks, something from Brazil, a classical piece and some rock have to be included.

I seem to be growing ‘Moobs’ – man boobs. Back to the swimming pool.

As I re-read this blog I notice that almost all paragraphs begin with ‘I’. What does that say?

Barbie

I hadn’t really noticed my daughter’s birthday presents until yesterday. I was cooking lunch when I saw her playing with a doll dressed in tight fighting black gear and carrying what appeared to a whip. And there it was - ‘Dominatrix Barbie’ – converting innocent 7 year old minds to the joys of sado-masochism. I wait for ‘Hooker Barbie’, ‘Massage Parlour Barbie’ and ‘Torture Barbie’. Some sick mind out there is already working out ways to get this done.

Anyway happier thoughts. Today is another beautiful day and confirmed that, in the South of France at least, spring is here. At a guess it is around 20 degrees and the sky is the kind of dark blue that you don’t get in the UK. I went for an early cycle ride and then spent the morning looking at houses and driving around picturesque French villages. I will only buy something that is brand new. Perhaps one of the things about the ageing process is that I like perfection. When I buy a house I like the idea of not having to do a thing to it and that nobody else has touched it. The afternoon, which is when I am writing this, is being consumed by completing a tax return, hence the reason I am writing this rather than doing what I should be doing.

On Sunday I leave France again to go to London en route to Germany. Five days with UN climate change offshoot and then back to London for 2 weeks to chase up my house sale and to get writing the next book. I am afraid my carbon footprint is immense and this year I really must follow my plan to do far more journeys by rail than plane.

Track of the day: Na Balada Do Rio Salgado – Nacao Zumbi. The best live band I have ever seen.

Van Morrison

I write this to express what I think about Van Morrison – and to provoke some response. At my friend Brian’s on Saturday night we stumbled across TOP2 and watched Van Morrisson perform the most dreadful piece of guff with Cliff Richard. Something about God. It instantly took me back to 1989 (when this song was a hit) when an old girlfriend took me to see him live. It was the worst concert I have ever seen saved only by the excellent Georgia Fame trying to breathe some life into the show. And when Lonnie Donegan came on to perform a couple of dire skiffle numbers I broke. I actually found it offensive because he made no attempt to hide his contempt for the audience. He came across as an extremely arrogant man. I accept however, that some people, including my partner for that evening think he is great live. To me it was like watching someone who got bored 20 years ago and hasn’t had anything else to do since. My snapping point was when I bought his Avalon Sunset album at that time. A shocker because of its banality.

To balance that I have enjoyed some of his albums – Moondance, Astral Weeks, Tupelo Honey and previous readers of this blog will know that I have a very soft spot for his song Natalia but I just find him extremely bland. I suppose I never really felt I was listening to a front rank performer. I think ‘Them’ and particularly his baby blue track are great and they demonstrate what he is capable of. As I get older my listening becomes more varied and inventive and I just find myself unstimulated by his offerings. I think he appeals to the part of Ireland that looks to middle America for its musical inspiration. And I think he appeals to that part of America which sees Ireland as a glossy holiday brochure. I do like Ireland myself but I find the sentimentalist view of it nauseating and I am glad to see it fast disappearing. A standing joke among musicians is Van’s inability to choose top ranking musicians (with a few exceptions such as GF) because of his fiscal tightness and I wonder, if he had done so, if his music would sound more vigorous. It needs it.

I remember going to a Danny Thompson (Pentangle, John Martyn, David Sylvian) gig once and his repartee extended to a few VM digs along the way which got me thinking about the lack of credit say John Martyn gets compared with Van Morrison. To my mind JM is in a different class – nothing Van Morrison has done gets near to Grace and Danger which I am delighted to see has just been re-released and has been given 5 stars in Mojo, Sunday Times and others. I reviewed this album on Amazon a while back.

My mother

I am back in France after two weeks away in Tbilisi and London. Next week sees me off to Germany so I have a week with my daughters before the next bout of work. But in the meantime I am preparing for that, doing my tax return (late – they have given me until 18/2) and also doing some work on the next book project. It is warm here and today I think we have settled on the idea of buying a newly built house. This is of course an anathema to middle class english inhabitants who buy up the old places. That is before they realise they are freezing cold in the winter and are often in flood zones. We have friends who have to live in one room in the winter because of the cold.

Anyway my mother. My mum has fallen obsessionally in love with a polish opera singer aged 31. She offered to be his ‘manager’ about 9 months ago – getting him gigs and so on. She has never managed anything in her life (although no bad thing as I always say to try something new). He agreed – desperate for work and started to sing in Conservative Clubs etc. He was also giving her singing lessons at £25 per hour – one a day (which my naïve father was paying for) and it turns out that she was having a lesson every day of the week. He, because he needed the money and she because she wanted to be near him. Anyway the longer this supposed ‘business relationship’ went on the more it became apparent that he was taking her for every penny he could, and I do not blame him, while she was just wanting to be attached to him. Apparently he never even kissed her. Anyway things have come to a head because he said he was moving to Southend (I presume to escape) and then when she threatened to open an office in Southend he announced he was moving to Europe.

At the beginning of January he went off, with it transpires a girlfriend of his own age who is pregnant and they are marrying in the summer. My mum ended up chasing him around Europe, having a fight in a Brussels hotel with the police having to be called and is now en route to Munich where he is singing in the next couple of weeks. I don’t think he knows she is coming. His mother has banned my mother from the wedding and, if she could, Poland altogether. She is blind to the warnings of her family and totally blind to the fact that she is making the biggest ass out of herself. Plus they are fighting over custody of some hideous 4x4 which he claims is his and she claims is hers. I suspect it is his. I have missed out some other stuff – regular humiliations in front of friends, my mother spending vast fortunes in Ann Summers to make herself sexually alluring, quaffing vast quantities of cheap red - no doubt to numb the love pain and 10 grand spent on a man who has no interest in her. The strangest thing about this is I am not the least surprised and neither is my sister. The only one who seems to know nothing about this is my father who is sat in the middle of it all. She spun him a yarn about going to Germany to sing Gershwin in a Berlin Jazz Club. My god.



I did something I don’t normally do too. I am not a great film watcher because I do not have the attention span but I did enjoy ‘Sideways’ at my friend Brian’s on Saturday. No doubt the excellent burgundy he offered for refreshment relaxed me sufficiently to make it agreeable.

Album of the day: White Noise: An Electric Storm – Delia Derbyshire. A free download of this seminal 60’s electronic album is available on the internet.

Delia Derbyshire

Sometimes when you get older you start to believe that the things that have always interested you may start to run out of new stimuli. Music in all forms (perhaps excluding opera) is my great passion and I sometimes wonder if there is anything left to listen to. Then something new comes along and I find my listening taking a new path.

Last night, not feeling well, I put myself to bed at 8.30 but woke at about 11.00pm and put the television on. Right after newsnight a programme was announced exploring the work of the BBC Radiophonic Studio in the 1960's. What a great programme this was and what a joy to hear of a group of musicians who had not been given their due recognition. But the real star was Delia Derbyshire who, although she did not compose the tune applied her genius mind to the construction of the doctor who theme and to many other jingles, theme musics and whole compositions. Anyone who is interested can visit her website where you can hear extracts of her sounds. She also released a number of electronic albums in the 1960's many of which have been re-released. This great pioneer of electronic music is now dead but not before a new generation of electronic musicians had given her the praise she rightly deserved. I will be purchasing very soon (once house is sold!)

This is what I love about music. There is a never ending supply of new (to me) sounds to choose from. Such a shame that so many 'listeners' wallow in the banal and unchallenging.

TBILISI

Written at Tbilisi airport:

It is Saturday 7.30 am – 3 February as I handwrite this blog for annotation when I get back to the UK. It seems strange that a European country should be 4 hours ahead of the UK but it’s position North East of Turkey, bordering Chechnya and as the gateway to the ‘Stans’ explains its importance the US and Europe. Add Russia’s strong desire to keep its cousin within the old Soviet brotherhood and you begin to see why this fiercely proud country of only 3.5 million people retains such a strategic role in Eastern European affairs. This role is an historic one with Georgia having been invaded by almost everyone over the last two thousand years. It’s unique language (one of only 14 alphabets in the world), is a key reason why it has retained such a strong cultural identity.

The thing that I notice most in Tbilisi, it’s capital, is less aesthetic and cultural and more practical – the terrible driving. It is almost impossible to cross the road and in particular the main street (Ave Rustaveli – Rustaveli being a great Georgian poet). I saw an old woman, apparently almost unable to walk, suddenly break into a full sprint to negotiate 8 lanes of traffic moving at 70kph and some much more than that. Imagine trying to cross the Marylebone Road at rush hour with everyone’s speed doubled and you have some idea of what it is like. Tbilisi itself (1.3 million people) is a mix of old soviet architecture, some shiny new buildings, crumbling mediaeval style homes in tight knit lanes and housing estates that look 3 times worse than Parisian banlieux.

The Georgian’s are an hospitable, welcoming people in the streets (‘welcome to Tbilisi sir’ everywhere) and they have a strong hearty cuisine and a history of reasonable wine production. Customer service is however appalling and based on the French model – ‘here’s your food, eat it and don’t ask me anything’.

I have been training border monitors and admin staff in working under pressure. The border monitors work on the South Ossetian border. South Ossetia is a semi-autonomous statelet desired by both Russia and Georgia and a cause of regular and mounting tension between the two. The seminars I ran were full and the English of course immaculate. I even sold some books too. So I am pleased to report a successful trip. Next stop is Germany later on this month.

Music: The latest Anouar Brahem album – Le Voyage De Sahar.