Whores and heroin

You spend your life accumulating acquaintances, finding friends, building a circle of people to spend your time with. Somewhere along the way, you work out what it is you like about others, what they might find to like about you. You begin to understand and comply with the compromises that friendship requires, you relish the opportunities to try new experiences, build shared histories.

Once in a while, if you're lucky, you get to meet someone outside of your normal social sphere; someone who carelessly crushes all the criteria you've formulated for friendship.

"You'll like him - he's got great hair."


"He doesn't wash much, but he never smells."


"His boots have got more holes than leather and he's got really skinny legs."


"He's very, very talented."


"He talks about whores and heroin. And sex. A lot."


"He's become my sort-of adopted son"


You're not sure how to react to that sort of introduction, but you're each choosing guests for your wedding party and you want to be fair, so you go along with the suggested invitation for someone you've never met.

You barely talk that first time, though you quickly acknowledge he does indeed have great hair. A few months later, you go to see him play and you're bowled over by the power of his voice, the strength of his lyrics. You wake up the next morning singing a song you've only heard a couple of times that already seems implanted in your brain.

Then you begin to see the impact he has on the people you love; they way your husband speaks of him with smiling enthusiasm; the times your daughter is suddenly eager to spend an evening in your company when he's around. You start to like him a little bit more just because of that.

Conversation doesn't come easily or instinctively at first; you notice how polite he is with you and you feel a bit like a venerated grandmother.  But then there comes a time when the three of you get gloriously drunk on peach cider and you spend an evening swapping fish-based puns, juggling Maltesers and falling from bar stools. One day he sends you a message saying he's come up with a great new idea, suggesting you write a space-based musical together. Gradually, you forget to feel old and out of touch when he talks to you.

After a while you realise that he's no longer just your husband's adopted son. The pleasure you get that night in Clapham, when the whole bar is clapping and singing along to Happy Song is something akin to loving pride.

Whenever you meet his girlfriend you're really pleased that she seems so right for him, you're delighted that she takes such an interest in his adopted family, that she's happy to spend time in the village, decorating plastic ducks for the duck race, talking about knitting and sewing, visiting the allotment. You know though, that she's only here on a visa and sooner or later she'll have to leave. That day comes round much too quickly and without understanding how the time has sped so fast, you find yourself saying a hurried goodbye of hugs and tears at a railway station, wishing her good luck as she sets off for another continent.

You worry about him when she's gone, not sure if he's eating or sleeping properly, you're concerned he'll descend into a cycle of drink and despondency. You know they've planned to meet up in Canada in a month or two and you hope he'll stick to the plan, that they'll be back together soon. But you also know there's a downside to that.

Tomorrow you'll make your way to the Windmill bar in Brixton, where he'll be playing his last London gig for a long, long time. It'll be a great night, a proper send-off in a crowded bar; the sort of occasion you'd have tried to avoid before you knew him. In a few days he'll be getting on a plane to Canada. You want him to go, you want them to be together, but you also know how much he'll be missed. You sense it will be a while til anyone in your household wakes up singing their own version of Happy Song with anything like conviction.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

Leicester Square on a Sunday afternoon is all the very worst of London.

Crowds of people mill around, with no obvious sense of purpose or direction; tourists spill noisily from over-priced chain restaurants; the scents of sweat and grease mingle as their bodies and burgers are warmed in the sunshine.

Dark blue hoardings section off half the square, proudly proclaiming "we're getting ready for 2012". Here in 2011, people negotiate their own version of an Olympic steeplechase round the half-completed road works. As you pause outside the Odeon, imagining a red carpet rolled out across the upended paving slabs, you wonder what the Hollywood stars would make of this shabby London première; ball-gowns and high-heels mixed with JCBs and potholes.

Tucked between the restaurants and bars are the small shops, stacked high with souvenirs; in one, there are enough t-shirts to bestow an artless slogan on everyone in the square; in another a sea of red plastic - miniature London buses, telephone boxes, Royal Mail post-boxes. Do people ever really buy these as gifts for their loved ones, or is the whole world caught up in a game of "bring me back the worst thing…"?

In one corner of the square there’s a side street where tall buildings block out the sunshine; their shade acts as a deterrent to the crowds and it's suddenly quiet. At the far end there's an old-fashioned pub; the unwelcoming threat of its dark black exterior is mellowed by the gold lettering of the name picked out above the windows and a long cold drink is suddenly the thing you need most.

Stopping just inside the door, you take a moment to adjust to the gloom. There's a long bar on the left, and you're surprised to see how many people are standing against it; a part of you still thinks that Sunday afternoons are for sleeping off a roast dinner in front of the TV. At the far end there’s a seating area where padded leather benches line the oak-panelled walls. Red-shaded wall-lights are reflected in the wood, their glow a testament to centuries of polishing. Hanging between them, the glaring faces of lords and politicians send out their own gilt-framed messages of history and you begin to understand why this place is called The Imperial.

The leather benches are the colour of dried blood, and just for a moment, when you see the jumble of music cables spilling out over them, you think of entrails, but then you notice the guitar case that sits bolt upright and alone, quietly claiming the space, politely waiting its turn. You know that it's waiting for the singer to give it a voice, to introduce it to the crowd.  So you find a wooden chair and wait.

The afternoon wears on and an ever-changing stream of tourists, Londoners, drinkers, singers and listeners passes through the bar. You watch them come and go, see them stop for a drink and stay a while for the music. You notice how tense they seem when they come through the doors and how quickly they relax. You begin to realise the value of this place, so steeped in history but welcoming the new; happy to accept both young and old, strange and known.

And then you know, that this small place just yards from Leicester Square, is all the very best of London.

A load of old codswallop...

Summer in Shoreham brings with it a range of local entertainment - the  village fete, a garden safari, the horticultural show and lavender weekend to name a few. These have all been going for some years and bring a fair number of visitors to the village. This weekend a beer festival at The Two Brewers was added to the calendar of events.

We resisted  on Friday, stoically staying indoors to watch England play. But by Saturday evening, the temptation of sampling strange potent brews was too strong to overcome.
It's not like we were drinking to drown our sorrows - the footie had been dismal, but we'd had a grand afternoon out, listening to Dan German singing in the park. And although we'd got soaked in a sudden downpour, we were still in pretty high spirits. We were also very wise - eating a good bowl of pasta before setting off - far too sensible and grown up to go drinking on an empty stomach.
When we got to the pub there were barrels of beer lined up on the bar, lovingly wrapped in dampened beach towels. I'm not a great beer drinker, so I declined the option of a pint of Roaring Meg, or a half of The Ginger Tosser, and settled for a peach cider - delicious, just like drinking the nicest fruit squash, but much, much, much stronger.
As the night wore on, we all seemed to be on fine form - laughing and chatting. I can't remember when any of us were quite so witty or erudite. I'm not sure exactly how or when the fish conversation started, but once it had begun, there was no stopping it - the fish puns flowed like the beer.
I'd had enough of perching on a stool, and felt a little tench, so we found a plaice at a table. There were enough of us to fillet. For a while, the conversation floundered, slightly off-bream, but Philip was a dab hand at it, so we got back to bassics and found our porpoise. By the end of the night, I was feeling quite eel, but we'd had a whale of a time.
When I was young, my Dad had a great way with words. In the cold light of a Monday morning I can almost hear him summing up our big night out.... 'what a load of old codswallop.'

A boy with a guitar

I woke up this morning with a tune in my head and words on my lips. Nothing unusual in that - it happens most days. There's no rhyme or reason to it, my brain just seems to work on random shuffle to select a particular song that will accompany me into the morning. Today's tune wasn't a chart topper or a golden oldie, it wasn't a track that's ever been published or played on the radio. It was instead a song that I've heard only a couple of times, written and performed by a friend of ours and last heard a few weeks ago from the stage of a south London pub.

I don't know what it's called, or if it even has a title, but I'm pretty sure that if it's already made its way its way into my mental juke box it must be quite special. If you're ever lucky enough to hear Dan German singing the lines ' I meant everything I said and did last night, I just wish you knew me better, now you do...' then I hope you'll agree.