Category Archives: Diversions

The Last Bank Holiday Monday of May

31 Tuesday May 2016

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To Oxford on Bank Holiday Monday to see a friend and a gig. London was grey and seemed pretty quiet on my way to Paddington, operating at Bank Holiday public transport pace. I missed the 11.10 train having forgotten, like an amateur, that the Bakerloo line isn’t stopping at Paddington at the moment; funny how even an escalator replacement project in tyr opposite corner of town can make south-east London feel more cut off from the west of the country. 

Oxford seemed quiet too, not packed with tourists as I expected. I was there to help out a friend who was promoting a gig by Daniel Romano, a Canadian singer-songwriter who changes a significant chunk of his concept and aesthetic from album to album: a cause of delight and confusion amongst his fans, we learnt later.

With time to kill we walked up the wonderful Cowley Rd taking in Truck Records (where I bought the latestWoods album, which I’d been listening to on SoundCloud for a while), past a ‘speed queen equipped’ laundrette, and had a pint while watching simultaneously two great (well, maybe…) sporting occasions: England finally closing out a match against Sri Lanka that should have been won much sooner, and Wimbledon beating Plymouth in the League Two play-off final.

Back to the venue to sort out the band’s rider and various other admin, off to get changed, back to the venue, then the doors opened and I found myself working the door, which I enjoyed far more than I expected. I would definitely put my hand up and volunteer for that task again. The gig went well, with more people through the door than expected and the band and crowd seemed happy (we’d heard that some of the crowd had walked out of a previous night’s show – expecting, presumably, Romano’s Stetson-wearing, handlebar-mustached, pedal steel-accompanied persona). Vive la DIY!

The Last Sunday of May

30 Monday May 2016

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Down to Ditchling for a visit to the Museum of Arts & Crafts, but up and out and so eager to beat the traffic we arrived an hour before opening time. A drive up to Ditchling Beacon gave us glimpses of Ravilious landscapes but nowhere to park (a burnt-out car in the NT’s car  park would have been ideal for one of those ‘rural Britain’s not what you think it is’ photo series). I’d like to return to Ditchling and Ditchling Beacon when it’s not full of traffic (of which, of course, we were part). The villages of the South Downs are like another country; an odd reminder that the edge-of-town neighbourhood I grew up in Durham have more in common with the south-east London semi-suburb I live in now than the hidden away corners of the rural Home Counties have.

I very much liked the museum once we got in; interesting displays, a serene atmosphere, and we enjoyed adding our amateurish contributions to the Big Steam Print linocut. 

Next, to the Interrobang letterpress exhibition – part of the artists’ open house weekend taking place in the village. A nice display and I was tempted by a couple of prints, but really need to get through the backlog of pictures to frame and hang before acquiring any more (still not worked out where to hang Brighter Later yet). One thing that occurred to me, not specific to Interrobang is that a lot of letterpress art ends up being about letterpress and, while it’s nice to see the craft celebrated, there’s an implied sense of the limitations of the process.

Then home via Nyman’s: nice meadowland and planting and some timely use of the National Trust membership we took out last year and have hardly used since.

An evening wrestling with a mortgage application accompanied by Vic Mars – a perfect accompaniment to a pastoral rural day, if not for dealing with tedium of financial admin.

The Last Saturday of May

29 Sunday May 2016

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Awake at an ungodly hour – even before daughter –  cursing our continued failure to sort out blackout lining for our bedroom curtains; exactly as per last summer and the summer before. A morning of pottering around the house, failing to make a cyanotype print (either it just doesn’t work indoors on a cloudy day or the paper’s gone off), listening to records (including multiple plays of a newly arrived Northern Soul 7″ of the sort that I really must not start collecting) and giving too much inconclusive thought as to why I just can’t bring myself to love The Band’s Music From Big Pink in the same way that I love, say, The Basement Tapes or The Band.

Then, as the clouds shifted and the temperature went up, off on my bike to a surprisingly quiet Charlton Lido for a slow-ish mile’s swim. Then round to the Old Cottage Cafe in Charlton Park and had a not-nutritionist-recommended coffee and cake to recover.

Spotted one of the bonkers ‘Legal Name Fraud’ posters off Charlton Rd – whoever is behind them must have a lot of cash, or the billboard advertising industry really is on its knees. Later an exciting trip out to buy a non-symbolic new broom (Dad tip: B&Q is alway quiet at 5.30 on a Saturday).

In between I’ve been listening to the New Daniel Romano album as prep for Monday night’s gig in Oxford. It surprises me that reviews of his recent work don’t all mention Lee Hazlewood straight up in the first paragraph, which is not to be critical: more artists in that kind-of-Americana world would benefit from looking at songwriting and production from a Hazlewood angle.

A reasonable way to start a Bank Holiday weekend, all in all.