THE WORLD & ALL IT’S WONDERS:

A day of international press up town, swathed in swish.
The lavish surroundings of a palatial suit at The St Pancras Hotel.
riding the night train back out to Essex with a chocolate bar.

(K)

WATCHING YOU DROWN:

The last time I glimpsed her was in a text she sent at 4:20am,
apologising for the torrent of abusive texts she’d sent me
during rehearsals. She finished with the cute Emoji she’s adopted
to signify her love since she stopped writing kisses.
At 5am I found her, sat on the floor, red rings around her swollen
eyes, back to the Aga, clutching a hot water bottle & led her gently
up to bed where she turned on me & threw me out, insisting that she
couldn’t complete the elaborate set of rituals she has to perform in
order to get into bed. She lives in the twi-light zone, used to get
up at 5am, now it’s 1:30pm. Eats breakfast at 2pm, lunch at 6 &
dinner god-knows-when. 5am has become her ‘normal’ bed time, eating
alone at every meal. She has become a recluse since her school, with
a heavy heart, reluctantly told us they could no longer take
responsibility for someone in such poor health. The structure of
school was the only thing that broke her obsessive day-long rituals
that have now escalated with such ferocity that she is drowning,
red-eyed & only able to communicate the last scraps of her infectious
joy for life, natural humour & brilliant wit through nocturnal Emoji.

(K)

AFTER THE WEEKEND:

Sunlight walks, parks it’s car next to the canal. Abandons lines
of crawling cars. Spring, almost but not quite, in good shape
across the street. Excites the eye, waits at the lights, honed
to perfection, well, it does the trick. The pulse & then another.
Thanks for the free gifts. Must be the sun.

(K)

TO BE EXPECTED:

Wow, what a weird one! Stay on track, remain focused & when
it the crazy invades earth, take a walk in the fresh air – yeah,
nearly there.

(K)

THE UNEXPECTED GOOD ONE:

I was squeezing things into tiny time-slots & yet, somehow,
time responds with benevolence & slows down. Just when I thought
we’d be trampled in the rush of life & all it’s stuff the day
eases up, casting gentle waves for us to surf. Didn’t see that one
coming as I raced out the door this morning.

(K)

NOT BROKE JUST OUT’VE SHAPE:

Head off, voice off, attitude off. Rehearsals cut short
by fried wires as thoughts are scattered across the fields on a
cold damp wind. Best to stop & press ‘re-set’.
No sense in breaking it if all it needs is to gather it’s thoughts
& cut ’em loose.

(K)

WONDERFUL LIFE:

It was cold & damp & clung to our skins on the streets of the
West End last night. Like a re-run, re-run of 90’s bar culture
the art house drinking dens of London were burst to overflow
with darlings. The chrome & the dark lights are still dripping
off every wall & armies of sharp suited security still eye us
with disdain. It’s like the nightlife ran out of ideas & they’re
just recycling the crap we recycled back when I was trawling bars.
The only difference it seems is that guest lists are on iPads.
But it was good to see my friends Efterklang perform again
in their new identity as Liima. Live on stage in the basement of
the Edition Hotel where a straight cola cost a fiver, but frozen
fruity slush drinks were free. The crowd dressed skinny & conscious
of every tiny detail, the magazines cruised the crowd looking
for another story & the usual instagramers ignored everything except
themselves, addicted to promoting their location on the planet,
stoner eye’s, faces illuminated by the glow from their palms.
The band was great. Casper sings better than ever & he always was
a great singer, one I envy. They’ve re-invented themselves as a
version of the people they will always be, Creative, Inventive,
driven by curiosity to find out ‘what-happens-if’. Never afraid
to challenge the people they become, nor cast off comfort.
These were the guys who John Peel turned us onto. The last album
he asked to be played on the air was Efterklang’s first. He knew
there was something special about them too.
And as as we leave the basement & chrome & sharp suits & clinking
glasses, my friend Colin Vearncombe lies in a coma
in an Irish hospital.

(K)

UNEXPECTED DAY:

Yesterday’s sunrise was pure liquid gold, the Big Mother must’ve
pulled it out of ‘special reserve’ just for us, to retrieve us from
the depths we’d sunk in the night before. Shielding our eyes we drove
into the light, laughing, such was it’s impossible beauty, Miyazaki
couldn’t have imagined it better. Every train out of Essex was crazy.
The surrealists had been at the schedule in the night. I sat on the
line talking art & American visas with a neighbour. We laughed,
at least we’d picked a carriage with heating. We stopped, we started
& somewhere down the line got turfed out into a bemused commuter
crowd as rail staff passed between us handing out reclaim forms
like famers feeding maze to dazed chickens.

“Do I know you?”
“Yeah, I catch the train a lot”

Got into the city just in time, watching it slip into the red.
Down into the underground, practiced & fast through familiar holes,
seeing the twisted map unfold in my head, hoping I’d hit all the
connections. Bumped into a angel, disguised as a mate, disguised as
an arctic explorer. Just the eyes & mouth, smiling. Just enough time
to hug & acknowledge the beauty of coincidence.Then running, back
down another hole, me & the rabbit up escalators, breathless.
Hit the pavement just as the phone found signal, just as the call
I was expecting came.

“Hello? Karl? Are you ready for your interview with Lauren?”

Gasping, breathless, squeezing words out between gulps of air,
ejecting plumes of water vapour.

“Could you give me one minute, I need to find somewhere quiet?”

A door across the street, run. Mount the stairs in strides of twos,
vision turning psychedelic. An office, smiles, but no time for
greetings. Drop the bag, shed the jacket, the gloves, the scarf.
Find the notes I made in preparation, so the brain won’t have to
think. Flop back onto a sofa, hand raised, requesting silence as a
glass of water is pressed into the other & we go on air.

“High Karl, thanks for coming on the show…”

(K)

PICTURE TALL PAUL IN THE POCKET:

I meant to write to you, I really did.

(K)

DARK DAY:

Scattered emotions. The bad becomes good. The thing I’d hoped
to avoid is here at the door & has a key. The up side is it’s
a no-brainer, one direction, no confusion about what we have
to do. Up until now we were dodging pain. Swerving the unthinkable.
Trying every loop-hole for an exit. Turns out there’s only one.
All doors barred. Only the way forward is in front of us where
the thing with the key is about to walk in. I’d hoped, despite
a history of fact, to be the one to find a crack to slip through.
Times run out & I still haven’t found it. The key is in the door
& turning. the choice has been removed, the options reduced to one.
The Elephant slipped off & life got simple.

(K)