Scrapbook 2015: Journal: January to September 2015

A diary of words and pictures from January to September

12 September 2015
Labour leadership election: 59.5%

August
A Micro story that came to me on a visit to Ireland. A friend told us about his son's alternative version of his guardian.

'David has an imaginary dad he calls Jack. His real father, Patrick, is undisturbed by this. David tells Pat of the daily conversations he has with Jack, but never once is Pat tempted to compare his parenting skills with those of Jack.'

Bowie T-shirt

Diary, 22 August

Listening to a radio quiz programme last night called All the Way From Memphis (BBC Radio4 Extra) - a panel show thing on the subject of pop music that features Andrew Collins and Tracey MacLeod as its team captain's - the former Altered Images singer and contestant Clare Grogan nominated Neil Diamond as her "most underrated" yet very successful artist. She even played a snippet from Song Sung Blue to illustrate her profound disgust at the lack of recognition afforded this American singer-songwriter who, she says, was one of her mum's favourites (along with Herb Alpert).

Mention of Neil Diamond caused three memories to shoot immediately into my head. The first is the sketchiest and I cannot be sure it actually took place, but it features an episode of the US television sitcom The Big Bang Theory in which the characters Howard (a lowly rocket scientist) and Amy (a neuro-biologist and "not-girlfriend/friend who is a girl" of theoretical physicist and Stephen Hawking groupie Sheldon Cooper. Howard and Amy, as I recall, go on a pseudo 'date' at which they attempt to bond "for the good of the group". They fail, but on their way home they discover a shared passion for Neil Diamond's music. Obviously, they end up cruising the streets of Pasadena in joint rapture singing Neil Diamond songs, a greatest hits CD of which just happened to be in the glove box of Howard's car.

The second Neil Diamond memory is slightly spooky. Yesterday I was browsing a charity shop in Brighton and the background music in the shop was a compilation of Cliff Richard songs from the 1960s. One of them, 'Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon' I recall as both a Neil Diamond original and a fantastic cover by Urge Overkill in the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. But, yes, I might have got all or some of that wrong.

The third and final Neil Diamond memory I owe to my sister, Izzy, a big singer-songwriter fan from whom I received much of my musical education. She had the habit of magicking up records, both singles and albums (as they then were, in them halcyon days of vinyl), from nowhere, and one day a Neil Diamond greatest hits album appeared. The thing was, and this has remained a lifelong source of curiosity for me, one corner of the album's sleeve had been mercilessly chewed by an animal, which I presumed to be a dog. The culprit could well have been our own dog, Bonji, for all I know. That's how good my memory is. Anyway, Cracklin' Rosie was my favourite. Thanks, Sis.

A wedding gift card
For a pair of cellists, Sally and Nick

Review: Hamlet at the Barbican

Can't believe the outrage that has been voiced in the media world over the "to be, or not to be" bit being shunted to the front of the play in a production of Hamlet currently playing at London's Barbican theatre. We attended the first night on 5 August and I immediately found that seemingly audacious move really quite remarkably fitting. It features Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet Prince of Denmark, contemplating and fingering some of his dead father's possessions. The speech in this poignant moment seems perfectly natural and marks out the production from the start as being existential. This version explores the parent-child relationship in ways I had not considered before, so for that reason alone it gets a thumbs up from me. And congratulations also to the hoards of Bendettes who managed to contain themselves until the very end of the play. Only then did they consider the question, "to squeal, or not to squeal?"

31 July
Brushstrokes app treatment on a photo from the Blind Pilots Facebook page.

26 July
Ironic T-shirt

25 July
Quote: Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Pit and the Pendulum'

15 July
Statement T-shirt

14 June
Quote, by David Anderson QC, about privacy in the context of national security

David Anderson QC

8 June
From a photo by Helen Archer

31 May
'The bones of Headway', a playful image to add a laugh to the Headway East London corporate logo.

8 May
It is over. Stop crying. Have a cup of tea. Hatred rules. Thoughts on the outcome of yesterday's General Election.

7 May
The hand of history is upon you. Voting starts in a few hours.
hand-skeleton-artwork

6 May
It is beautiful. Use it. My advice to those about to cast their vote.

5 May. Naming the baby
Charlie and Diana separated by Elizabeth. Hats off to the scriptwriter. Princess Charlotte of Cambridge is born. Here name is Charlotte, Elizabeth, Diana.

April. Diary
In the name of equality, can someone please start the objectification of Demelza?

March
Painting: Hammersmith Bridge, for Ruth

20 March
Another Pangea painting

17 March
Too subtle, I'm told. The man at the front is Ed Miliband.

Quote, the Guardian, 17 March
'We need a different model. One that says this house belongs to everyone in it, that we are the sum of all of us. A society that is diverse in its marrow, with no “us” who’ve been here for ever and no new “them”. In that kind of society we would speak as robustly and openly as any family speak to each other. Such candour would be the fruit of a society that had embraced diversity as its 21st-century norm. But it’s absurd to demand the fruit immediately. First we have to plant the tree.'

15 March
'Welcome To West Street'. One of the first incarnations of this picture on binge-drinking women.

Review: The Film That Makes me Cry

The Guardian, 12 March

Film: Local Hero, 1983

Dir: Bill Forsyth

Cast includes: Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson, Peter Capaldi, Fulton Mackay, Jenny Seagrove

IMDB says nothing about blubbing. No warning to keep the tissues at the ready. Local Hero is often described as a comedy. Quirky, wry, gentle. Those are the other words most commonly used. Weepy, no. And the storyline offers no hint at the emotional turbulence you might soon be entering. So maybe it's just me being a big cissy. Wouldn't be the first time I lost the plot.

Crackpot Texan oil magnate Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) gets the idea that a small Scottish fishing village would be a marvellous acquisition for his so-rich-it-makes-you-sick company, Knox Oil and Gas, so he sends an Executive Gopher named MacIntyre (because that sounds Scottish, yeah, played by Peter Riegert) to close the deal and get the pipeline pencilled in.

On his arrival in Scotland, "Mac" is met by some local dork called Oldsen (a young Peter Capaldi), who attempts to steer him through a tartan microculture that includes a lawyer-cum-publican/hotelier (Denis Lawson) who tapdances while standing on a chair shouting "Stella", which happens to be the name of his ever-randy wife; there is a super hardwood marine biologist played by Jenny Seagrove who, after delivering a short lecture on the North Atlantic Drift, ends up helping Oldsen to find that pistol in his pocket; then later comes a scene in which a very whisky-pissed Mac calls Texas from a red phone box on the harbourside to report to amateur skywatcher Happer the nightly doings of the Aurora Borealis.

Happer is delighted because it relieves him from the urge to murder his enthusiastic aversion therapist. Plus bits of business involving a salty Russian seafarer and overflying warplanes. You can see how it got the "comedy" tag, and I haven't even mentioned the thing with the rabbit. And you can see how Mac ends up smitten.

This is all top material from a very talented writer/director, with photography and music (Mark Knopfler) to match. But I did, on first viewing, find myself asking halfway through, "but what is this film actually about?" After not very much thought, I lazily came to the conclusion that it was not a How Things Never Go According to Plan story but a love poem to Scotland and the Scots. A bit slushy, yes OK, but never mind. It's only a film.

And it is this thought that prompted the lump in my throat at the end of the movie when, having failed in his mission to secure the Knox refinery deal and mutilate one of planet Earth's most beautiful locations, Mac returns to his frigid steel-and-glass Houston apartment. He stands at his kitchen counter wondering what to do next, the hushed march of oil capitalism buzzing gently outside. He pulls from his coat pocket a handful of pebbles and shells and spreads them out on the work surface. The scene fades to black, then reopens 4,500 miles away, where, on the harbourside of a small Scottish fishing village, we hear ringing from an empty red phone box.

The PM's undaunted courage