Diary: May 2017

29.5.17
A friend who has recently debuted as a councillor has been told off for behaving too much like a citizen, which is not befitting for a councillor, apparently.

26.5.17
I saw the crescent, Connie saw the whole of the moon. Or at least that is how it seemed to me. I wanted to know what colour eyes Marilyn Monroe had. Connie did a web search but ignored any written testimony in favour of checking the images and trusting what she saw. Blue-grey was the answer. I am too skeptical about photography to trust it to deliver facts.

Memory: 1981
Bruce Springsteen, Manchester ApolloWe had been told to stay seated, but as soon as the full blast of air from the speakers signalled the opening chords of Prove It All Night took off the front of our faces, we were up, on our feet, and on a charge.

25.5.17
Witnessed firsthand the conflict between parents and disabled people on the buses. Riding to the Guardian, a wheelchair user at one stop signalled to the driver to open the ramp at the middle door so that she might board the bus. The space on the bus allocated for wheelchair users was already taken by two mothers with buggies, who shouted to the driver that the space was full. Both women looked at each other and at the wheelchair user (also a woman, though I am not sure gender is important here, other than women generally being the parent who has to struggle with buggies on buses) and shook their heads in dismay. What this really meant I am not sure. Were they indignant that a wheelchair user might want to use a bus? Or were they annoyed that buses and bus drivers do little to accommodate parents and the disabled? I’m not sure the last is actually true, but the first has certainly made headlines recently and is likely to remain a sore point for some time to come. The wheelchair user decided to wait for the next bus.   24.5.17Yesterday came in three parts. First I settled into getting what to say about Chippy’s pictures straight in my head. I lay in bed in the early hours and it all seemed straightforward. I would start with his eyes and I would end with him having an attack of the giggles with Tony Allen. But when it came to recording the audio, it didn’t happen in the way I’d planned. I was stuck for words. Somehow I managed to utter something about his eyes, but then it all fell apart. I clawed my way back to talk (badly) about how he and Michelle work together. Then I went off on a ramble about Connie As A Goth, which was on the wall in front of me, and the portrait of me he did in which I look like George Michael with an oversized right ear.
News of the suicide bomb attack in Manchester was all over the news and I began to wonder whether this was a ‘gender crime’. It seemed targeted at girls and young women. Killing children indiscriminately was another thought, an act not exclusively practised by terrorist groups.
Later I attended a drinks-cake-speeches reception at the Guardian’s Education Centre, where I have been doing volunteer teaching assistance for over three years. Nice to see some familiar faces, and I managed to get a chat with the Chair of the Scott Trust Alex Graham, a Scottish giant, who sounded genuinely proud of the Education Centre’s work and how it reflected the core liberal values of the Guardian that began nearly 200 years ago in … Manchester. This is all the work of the Guardian Foundation, a charity wing of the Guardian covering the Education Centre, the Archive and Exhibitions.The speeches were short but packed with passion and commitment.
One of the familiar faces I bumped into was Joseph, now a senior editor. Many years ago he worked on the Education desk with Sheila, who was instrumental in setting up the Education Centre and was herself a senior executive until she left last year for pastures new. I asked Joseph if he thought the Manchester attack was a ‘gender crime’. He thought not, adding that terrorists simply seek the greatest number of dead bodies. They don’t do demographics. I still wasn’t sure about that, but began to wonder that maybe I had grown a little too attached to the ‘gender crime’ label.

21.5.17 London
Meeting with poet called St John to see how he might goose up our allotment’s contribution to Open Square Gardens next month. Unfortunately, he cannot do his 'Spring’ poem because it is June, which is Summer. Pity, that. The lines about sniffing fertile bushes would have been a real treat for our visitors.

20.5.17 London
Spotted people photographing chewing-gum blots on Millennium Bridge. Not sure what they were doing at first, but I noticed three different sets of people doing it, so watched more closely. Is there a social media-style photo collection somewhere on the web. I dare not look.
20.5.17 London
Boat trip on the Thames Clipper to Greenwich from Bankside for Séan’s birthday. He was deeply absorbed in the encyclopaedia of Lego Superheroes we bought him, but later managed a killer impersonation of me walking round with my stick uttering weakly, “I’m a very old man I am.” And Paula keeps her credit card in her bra.

6.5.17, Paris
Kate tells us that Ade is “walking out hand in hand” again. What lovely news.

5.5.17, Paris, Montmartre Citadines
The reception fella told us that Dalida was buried/entombed in the nearby cemetery. We thought he said Derrida and got quite excited.

1.5.17
In the Arona Gran hotel in Los Cristianos, Tenerife, they put a small vase-like bin in your breakfast table. I think you are meant to put your tea bags and butter paper in there.

“I don’t mind dying, I just don't want to be I'll.”
Eric

Picture: Monroe Word Wall

Picture: 'Millennium Marilyn'

A photograph of Millennium Bridge by our friend Paul Cahill from the south side of the Thames in the area around Tate Modern was the hook for this image from my studio scrapbook. I put an outline of the classic Marilyn Monroe upblown dress shot in there for fun.

Picture: 'Dead Man's Hand'

This story was inspired by two fellas, G and A, from the Men's Shed at St Luke's Community Centre, Central Street, London EC1. The are longtime south-Islington/Finsbury residents who've known each other from childhood. They are from a typical white working-class background and I imagined in this story an old criminal connection that is renewed when they become active in a local community allotment project in Islington that uses redundant small caravans as garden sheds.

Picture: Tony Blair Word Wall

This was one of my first word walls. Not much is personal here, so I don't feel very special about it.

Local: Community theatre

Golden Lane Estate Community Centre

Picture: Death

Studio scrapbook. Eric said this during a liquid lunch on holiday in Tenerife, with a deadpan delivery. He was always phlegmatic about death. This quote refers to a friend who met his end quickly and with little fuss.