Sun Sep 5, 1999
Another stiflingly hot day in Accrington! I put on Ziggy Millburn's 1st Symphony this afternoon (it's a rare recording only available on LP played by the Rochdale Percussion Ensemble in1968). My cat Crispin, perched on my 'other' chair looked at me with that blank expression which it reserves for feline contempt. It does this even for well-known composers such as Penderecki - that blank, uncomprehending stare. However if I put some Elgar on it walks out indignantly! - so it’s not entirely stupid. Millburn's 1st Symphony is dedicated to the people of Rochdale, which is ironic because the people of Rochdale have never heard of him. I think this says a lot about Art in general. I got to know his music through a performance of his 'Theme and Variations' for Wind Quintet at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester 5 years ago. It was played by students from the Cheatham School of Music. The piece is characterised by shrill atonal soundbursts interspersed with deathly quiet ethereal droning. Ziggy was in the audience. The piece went down quite well and he took the applause, after which he gave a short speech in which he claimed to be a direct channel from God. I got to talk to him backstage over drinks. He kept calling me "Henry" and flicking my earlobes with a pencil.
Sun Sep 12, 1999
12:32 PM EST
Escaped to London for several days, staying in Docklands, a frog-hop from the impressively sterile Millennium Dome. The DLR, a computer driven railway shuttles you about (if it's working). If the computer goes haywire in HAL-2000 fashion, it shunts you into the Thames - "I'm sorry Al, I could see your lips moving" - I was only mumbling to myself! I view London mostly from the tops of buses snarled up in traffic. People drift by; I’m in a reverie watching them, wondering at their motivations, their hidden compulsions; what brought them to the Kings Road with that absurd tattoo on the shoulder at this exact time in the history of the planet? It was mercilessly hot & humid, which was annoying because I like walking. I compensated by sitting in Parks, visiting bookshops/Museums. The Tate Gallery is nicely air-conditioned + it has a superb exhibition on at the moment-'Turner on the Seine'-wondrous little watercolours.
Sitting atop Primrose Hill as another hazy sunset developed, I looked at the distant city below and pondered, “Is this Eden?”. It certainly wasn't rainy Accrington!
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Wed Sep 15, 1999.
Last night I attended a meeting of the 'Accrington Intellectuals’, which meets irregularly in a basement underneath Shuttleworth's the butcher, giving a distinctly gamey smell to the ambience of the place. The meetings are essentially free-for-alls often degenerating into physical violence. Only one of the AI's is a woman - women don't make good intellectuals, as most people will agree, too vague & unanalytical.
Phil O'Reilly (we endlessly mock his name by chanting "Oh really?" when he says anything interesting) suggested the topic-"Your favourite 9th Symphony?" and nominated me to begin. I apologised to the members by being so boringly predictable in that my favourite had to be Panufnik's 9th - this was greeted with a chorus of groans & mock-yawns throughout the tiny room - "Played to death, old man!” said Ogden Pinolin, the Arts Critic for the Accrington Gazette.” If I hear it again I'll explode!" said fat bloke and ex-wrestler Bert Oliphant (called ‘The Elephant' inevitably). Shiela Okky our token female started on about bloody Schubert's 9th,but she got short shrift and was howled down-she sulked for the rest of the evening.
After a couple of hours of mass consumption of beverages, the tone of proceedings became threatening. 'The Elephant' prowled about elbowing people in the back who had vehemently disagreed with his assertion that the current Labour Cabinet were all members of the same Scottish Clan, the MacDougalls, and that they would sabotage the country at the earliest opportunity because of some historical slight by the English (I believe it was the"Fickledome at Mickledon"1703). We were all pretty plastered (except Shiela, who wisely left to go on duty at the local hospital) and after a bout of throwing things (including meat-hooks & various other discarded butchery implements) the whole room became a seething mass of violence. I crawled out the door with a 7-foot solicitor, Henry Bent, on my back hitting me with his leather belt. I threw him off as I climbed the steps to street-level and staggered home. I again questioned whether being an intellectual was compatible with the social scene!
Thu Sep 16, 1999
Spent today recovering from the whip-like thrashing Henry Bent's leather belt inflicted last night, following another rowdy meeting of the Accrington Intellectuals. I paraded my pain and discontent in front of Crispin my cat, but it wasn't impressed. Crispin has decided to let nothing past its furry lips except Tuna Chunks in Mayonnaise, daft cat - this, after I bought 10 large budget cans of Joycat Scrummy-Munch Cat Food.
Fine big fluffy clouds parading about outside above the hills - this normally gets me out hiking, but not today; I continued my 'digging in' campaign amid the poetic prose of Ian Sinclair’s ‘Downriver'. This, partly in research because the man himself is scheduled to be a guest of the Accrington Literary Club in 2 weeks time. Other members have launched assaults on 'Radon Daughters' and others on ‘Lights Out...' At present I'm back in Docklands down a metaphysical tunnel. Or is it metaphysical? Damn it! these things always puzzle me, like cats & women & Catwoman & how a fleck of colourless spittle like John Major can become Prime Minister! Ah well.....I have raised, bloodied marks all over my body - a martyr to intellect.
Sat Sep 18, 1999.
Tea with Duncan and Emma at the Cafe Splendid. Very windy outside. “Bit o' wind today." say the locals in big coats. Emma scrawls pentangles on a piece of tissue and Duncan, immersed in writing an epic poem, taps his lips with a biro, eyes upwards divining inspiration. I cram a strawberry tart into my mouth - nobody cares. Companionable silence - I prefer listening to conversations going on around me anyway; I soak in there banality - "Herrings at £2 a dozen, Blimey! That’s good. Best fish in the worlllldd they are! Herrings and Tripe, can’t be beat." The girl who serves keeps looking at me as if I'm famous or odd or oddly famous. I hide behind a copy of 'Country Life’. She’s new this girl, rather pretty in a vacant kind of way. It’s the vacancy that troubles me - what the hell is going on behind those big eyes? Duncan tests out a few lines of his ‘epic' on us, something about"spargossian splendour”. We smile inanely. Emma holds up a map of Accrington with some lines drawn on it - "I'm planning a walking route for Iain Sinclair when he arrives. It connects all the points of spiritual energy." "He'll like that." I said.
Mon Sep 20, 1999.
Yesterday evening I got together with Emma, Duncan and Didi Boyet. The latter is studying 'Film Technique' at Preston University and had his little digital video camera with him, filming us intermittently for his "project". We drove over to the Moon & Monkey pub in the nearby town of Burnley. Burnley is noted for its rows of identical redbrick housing, parading up the steep hillside in parallel lines (the painter LS Lowry captured the effect well). It’s a weird sight, a little scary in their uniform intimacy. It was for this reason that we decided to infiltrate the area and settled on a pub at a random, unadorned corner at the bottom of one of those steep streets. On our first visit we discovered that a rival Literary Society met upstairs, but try as we might (including Emma virtually prostituting herself), we couldn't find out any more, leading us to believe that the Literary Society was just a front for something else - probably, I surmise, something to do with Cults/UFO's/Preparing For Alien Visits, kind of thing, which as I’ve mentioned previously, is rife in the area. Thus another pretext for our visit- eyeing the locals for odd behaviour. We paraded in one after the other and headed for "our" corner, getting the usual less than friendly looks from the locals, “bloody exotics!" I can hear them grunt. We inhabit our little piece of Accrington in Burnley! After several beers, Didi (as English as chips, despite the adopted name) starts filming us in experimental style. Soon tiring of this he hands the camera to me and asks, in his quaint, sibilant tones, to start filming him. For this performance he glues on a pencil-thin moustache and straps on a bright red fez. Not content with this, he lights up a Turkish cigarette and smokes it in limp wristed fashion (more looks from the locals- "Fairies in tonight, Bert!").I film him as he tries out some witticisms on us, not very successfully. Later on and several pints consumed, he films the three of us and asks us to have "normal conversation". Not able to do this I beckon Emma close to my lips and shout, "SO YOU'RE PREGNANT AGAIN!" The locals glare, Emma tries a little slap, but I dodge it. "Would you like a video camera up your arse?" she growls. “That is good! That is good!" says Didi in his fake accent. Didi, like the rest of us is a fan of the alternative, documentary style of the man Keiller, in his films 'London' and ‘Robinson in Space’, so lots of fixed camera penetration of the surface of things.
I see some people behaving suspiciously, coming in to the pub, looking about them, and then disappearing amid the throng. Outside we see a red glow penetrating the thick curtains on the2nd floor; a faint hum? It's very frustrating to be on the verge of things. Sober Emma drive us home to safety as we sway to the African rhythms of 'The Four Brothers'.
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Wed Sep 22, 1999.
The church of 'All Saints', Accrington, was built in about 1840 and nestles in a snug, sunlit spot on the High Street. It has been converted to secular use as an Art Gallery, ‘Saints& Sinners’. I popped in this afternoon, as much to get out of the wind and drizzle as anything else. The Gallery owner buys in paintings from college students mostly, at all sizes and prices. My eye generally falls on small colourful abstracts or clearly delineated street scenes. These sell for about £50 nicely framed & I have several hanging in my flat, competing for attention with my antique prints of London. Now and then I see something big & affordable which seriously tempts me, though this would mean propping it up in my hallway, or on my bed during the day, but this seems a bit silly and inappropriate. Big Art for Big Spaces. Today I didn't buy anything, mainly because most of the affordable stuff had that contrived "buy me" look that I suspect creeps into the idealistic young artists' work when the prospect of money looms. In a Charity Shop down the street I bought an Arnold Farger print for £1 in a plain black frame. It depicts ‘Sea-Horses Over St.Paul's Cathedral’, a charming little purchase for my Bathroom.
Sun, Sep 26, 1999.
In bed suffering form Liggylip, popping Gidologolophal tablets to little effect. My doctor (Dr.Finzi, an "overweight genius" as he calls himself at the 'Accrington Intellectuals') says I'm a malingerer, but what does he know? Hope I'm fit and well for the visit of Iain Sinclair as guest of the Literary Club - am re-reading his 'Downriver' whilst simultaneously listening to John Cage's music for Prepared Piano, an interesting combination. Crispin, my daft cat, jumps up on the bed and looks at me critically. It has satiated itself on 'tuna chunks in mayonnaise' and has moved on to ‘tuna chunks in curry sauce’, an odd choice but one I respect. Duncan phones up to read me a poem about the 'flimsy facade of whimsy’. I told him that Iain Sinclair wouldn't have time to read his Collected Poems (in a sickening pink binder, handwritten and illegible). He’d never heard of Liggylip, stupid, gormless idiot........sorry, I’m getting tetchy with this illness..........it must be time for my fix of Hammy Hamster & Friends in 'Tales From The Riverbank' on video - the only drug that really hits the spot!
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