In Love & Death

As hot seasons go, this has been fabulous. Enough heat to keep the memory of winter a very distant memory and it makes sense to do the minimum amount of moving and keep the fans going and avoid all meetings and encounters beyond a three mile radius because the trains are stuffy and traveling by tube before seven in the evening leaves you exposed to the kind of human odours which can suffocate creatures of the natural world so I walk instead and order a pimms for a friend who says parking by the south bank is a bitch and she’ll be a while and when she arrives she's all glowing because she's on her way to a reunion with her man in the desert soon and they've found a way around their trust hurdles and if love is to be rekindled this is the season for it. Then I wander through a park in the long evenings to catch up with a producer who’s enjoying a cigar by the back of the bar because he loves them although I think it’s just part of the producer image to chomp on a fat one like he’s a player from Miramax surveying the fruit of his creative kraal.

The boy’s in a school play whose details I’ve forgotten and he wants a gangster cap which his character is required to wear and I take him one overpriced bit of head gear which I secretly think is naff but clearly pandering to his drama teacher’s need to make the most of what my boy could represent on stage even though he’s the opposite of that and wonder why such stuff is so very expensive but he’s thrilled with what his character will wear on stage and isn’t everything in playacting a reason to escape and experiment though you can only get so far in the experimentation according to the number of years you may have lived and the sum of your experiences but the look is garnered from the age of rap and still faces exuding anger and or indifference but I feel his natural smile threatening to break out and I must make time for his performance just to see if the would-be-gangster is as mean as he thinks he is and somehow I think not.


Out by the river bank on yet another hot afternoon looking for a spot to read and sip on super malt a dozen teenagers in school uniform who can't be more than fourteen go hello as I pass by where they're lounging and exchanging cans of cider and a bottle of something. I go hey and one says would you like some rose´ and I say not right now and they laugh at my prudishness and I reckon I could be done for inappropriate vicinity to drunk teens and walk on faster until just the ducks and the water stand between me and my book. It's the letters of John Keats published in 1931 and found in some obscure bookshop the other morning as I took refuge from a sudden shower and I figure I only read this dead poet because of one affecting encounter but he's good for that back to basics sensuousness with words and it makes the cynic in me wonder who would believe lines like Write immediately... write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain... Jesus. No wonder she married someone else. Actually, he'd been dead for twelve years before she did. Out on the nature trails the foliage is thick again and I've been climbing trees as part of a new exercise regime set in motion by the daunting prospect of appearing in front of camera again and while I haven't binge drank for ages I can't get this middle aged gut under control except via the treadmill and a grumpy personal trainer over at a gym called flex and ofcourse it's all vanity and where the hell would we be without it.

The al-Shabab group controlling Southern Somalia has decided to forge ahead with its version of Sharia law and nabbed four teenagers who admitted stealing handguns and mobile phones and in a public show of barbarism cut off a hand a foot from each of them as divine punishment for light fingers and is this not the most lawless land where the law is more shocking than the crimes. I’m drawn to the story because of the implications for thieves and lawmakers it’s possible one day to drive through Kismayo and see row upon row of parked crutches and more shockingly these thieves cannot be far older than my teenage daughter and there is something altogether scary about religion when it takes on such inflexible authority and we can say to each his own but this is down right fucked up. Over in the broken country a Prime Minister has returned empty handed from his trip to raise money and as he does so the old President says see, I told you so, the colonialists will give you nothing and a big debate has began about whether the exiled children should return and I rather fancy a return myself but have little say over the workload.

Finished dinner on Thursday night and turned on the radio to hear that one Michael Joseph Jackson had had a heart attack. Then the whole world went on pause. This wasn't just another dead rock star, this was Michael Thriller ABC Ben Living Off The Wall Moonwalk Rock With You Man In The Mirror songs of our experience soundtrack to first wet dreams and first kiss Jackson. This is what grief over death looks like internationally. Over on the African arm of the World Service a couple of women were coming out of a club and were informed by a radio reporter in Accra that Jackson was no more. You lie you lie you lier screamed a woman it's not true while the other said he's not supposed to die he's Michael Jackson. In Kenya they gushed just as much until a sensible man said he wanted to be white poor man I had no time for him but sad that he's dead while my son reckoned 50 is a pretty young age to die and that's not a bad thought at 12 going onto 13. Even the great Madiba could not have imagined as he grinned at the plastic man's right hand side that he of all people would outlive the man who could sing little groupies to tears.

In death as in life this androgynous human being who was neither male nor female black nor white whose songs are full of the sexual tension his own individual self lacks this incredibly talented mish mash of hope and naivety managed to have billions talk about him the weekend God chose to call in his chips. I remembered that first turn table my sisters and I fought over - me to play Marley or Black Uhuru and they to spin that scratched overplayed Off The Wall album and the thriller video and the subsequent hype and the posters on their walls getting lighter and not because of sub-Saharan sun streaming through their windows but because the man himself was experimenting with his made up disease of pigment loss and a cursory glance at all the tree murder in the weekend newspapers painted a picture of a one-off talent not suited to adulthood born to perform in need of being needed and hurtling towards just such an end as that which came to him as if by design. I ring my sister in Jozi and remind her of her youth. How you feeling about it? I'm gutted, been wearing black all weekend. Poor thing. Hey, some teenagers smoking weed in a North London park spoke loudly enough to be overheard, MJ isn't really dead, he's in a children's ward having a stroke. There's that, and the music for ever.

NewDads

When the city's grey as it often is there is always a burst of colour in every shot and I've resigned myself to the Albion summer because it's good and far better than it was and all my peeps in the Southern hemisphere are complaining about a bitter winter and there's no real rush to get back until the writing's done and the deadlines met and our man is back from Cannes and we meet for a catch up to find out what's going on in World Cinema and sure enough the Latin Americans are way ahead of the pack and there is an unspoken crisis in African cinema the gulf between the stories and the scripts and it's not good to rejoice in such bad news but there is a gap we hope to fill.

The river is still the place to meet there's too much going on with the sun bringing out the skateboarders the tourists the lovers the boats the buskers with their saxophones by the bridges and it's a time to walk and listen to snippets of conversations and the tunes in your head like Aretha going till you come back to me and the excellent newly discovered John Coltrane tunes live in Paris before you were born. The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe is in town and the phone goes over and over again and I don't have much to say beyond what's already been said by the films I've made then a friend says there's a dinner on for the visiting delegation at 75 quid a head and I reckon I can put that to better use even a few new books would last longer than the confidence I have in the new man but then again what do you expect him to do he's grabbed a snake by the tail and is running with it at arms length because the snake needs the man and the man the snake or all things will be at a standstill.But the truth is that this is a story that has been slipping off the front pages for some time and while the charitable organisations continue to call for assistance to the disadvantaged millions there is a growing feeling that the story is beginning to drift after all over in Persia an entire generation of young folk are saying no to stolen elections with one voice and risking life and limb in the pursuit of justice and there couldn't be a bigger contrast with that story I've chased for too long without any hope of an ending and that's why it feels alright to ignore it and enjoy the fattening summer.

So it's father's day weekend and if it wasn't for my beautiful offspring I'd ignore it entirely who needs to be told they have a father by a day meant to bleed you dry in cards and false sentiment but still I ring the folks they are certainly growing old gracefully and I hear my mother giggling and strongly suspect an awful lot of old people happiness but say how are you and they seem well enough to wonder why I'm still here and I remind them that they have grandchildren and they seem to get that and say just make sure you have a good relationship with them and I'm beginning to feel like an old parent myself because all around me are new parents and new tots while mine are behaving like undergraduates before my ageing eyes. I head to the post office one day to send cards and parcels to little Maelle all three months old of her and say well done to Thomas on his third birthday and go and see a man who sells kids clothes that fell off the back of a lorry and send off sandals to nephews in Jozi and a new arrival in Zambia and reckon this is probably what father's day means. I train it to Bristol with specific instructions from my boy to bring a movie camera because he wants to make a film about the planet Uranus and thinking he's been set up by some cruel teacher he says no the planets were divided up and his came out of a hat.

They've made a great effort with the weekend theme and there are presents for father's day a day early all wrapped up and laid out and too much chocolate and they shouldn't have and I take them out to dinner in the Bristol dusk to say well done for the great studying and the fine exams. We shoot the breeze about everything and exchange music news about their changing tastes and it's Nirvana now for her and yes I will try it out. This time I don't have the suffering bastard cocktail but opt for the red stripe beer because it's been hot and after a bout of cricket in which I was run ragged and he won by nearly half a century it made sense to forego the curried goat and rice and listen to the thoughts of emerging youth because it's probably what these years' memories will be made of and I'm happy to be in the picture just like any other father up and down the land. What you doing after dad heading to some studio to write and talk about the flipping same place but it's been great hanging out with you same time next week? Cool.

Dub Nights

Once when the skies were playing havoc with the drama of light it seemed normal to try and get out of our heads but only because there wasn't much in them to begin with and I ring a friend over by the grove and say an email landed in my inbox about a gig near his manor something to do with a lover's rock reggae revival and he reckons he's tidying up but he'd be up for a drink sure why not and the city's pleasant enough for the time of year a few scattered showers here and there and mostly rain on the Prime Minister as the government seems to be about to implode but Brown survives that and it seems only a small fraction of the population actually give a damn but these latest elections which produced a marked swing to the far right all over Europe get me thinking that it's bad enough having national front types lurking around every borough but European Union's open door policy has thrown up waiters from beyond the tolerance zones so it's possible to pass a British National Party meeting on your to a bar where you'll be served by an eastern european waiter who resents serving you.

In the end it doesn't really matter these things go by in circles and it's far worse for the Romanians in Belfast and the odd refugee flung as far as King's Lynn and not forgetting the Asylum Seekers from more familiar quarters of the globe and the changing face of the city is written all over the faces of the new citizens. I started one night in a favourite haunt for the Africans and did a beer to catch up but they didn't have much to say and then an eager hug and handshake broke my wrist jewelry and it felt like losing a pet and I'll have to head to Johannesburg's African Market in Rosebank to have the damn thing fixed for the fourth time in seven years and it's really just superstition like if I lose it for good I lose the possibility of a reunion with my fate and that unsettles my inner karma.

The gig over at the Tabernacle is not all that in fact it's rubbish just a bunch of old rastas clearly excited about being up on stage after a long absence and doing cover versions of tunes my dead granny could recognise and poor Bob Marley gets pulled out to the rhythm of one love and more importantly the audience seems to be rocking in their chairs and not dancing and the large hall is empty and I suppose they began the gig at eight in the evening and now it's approaching midnight and we are better off at the bar and onwards and a familiar face pops out of the blue flirting with a portobello trustafarian. Out in the uncertain chill of a summer night there's always one more place to go and the strained bass and drum of the cover versions has us yearning for a full force reggae night and we wander into the Globe basement where the feel for the tunes is a little more authentic and the weed is genuine.

I've known dozens of these basement clubs over time, the kind in which you can't see anyone but the music is like an encircling wall of sound and between the four quid beers strangers in dreadlocks offer you the latest in the best stash to make the night go quicker and ofcourse I think I'm hardened enough to try it out until the walk back to my seat seems full of stars and the music doesn't so much close in on you but feel you up like a pervert in a dark crowded train. Tune. Tune. Says the man from the grove as the DJ rolls out the 12 inchers from Baby I've been missing you to Ganja farmer and the barmaids laugh at my changing faces and reddening eyes. After a certain age we can only do this once in a while but it's as needed as a run in the park or a bench press in the gym or filthy dirty fun with the right female.

The streets are dead and quiet although earlier in the night two gangs of youth were going at each other with scaffolding pipes until the police turned up too late to catch anyone but early enough to prevent a blood fight and if it was raining the streets and their lights would look like scenes from Taxi Driver and we walk the empty streets and commit silly scenes to camera and take shots on the walk home that seem very creative to addled brains until the dawn begins to peer above the skyline and I have a train to catch early in the morning plus I've forgotten my sunglasses this is going to be a long day and there's not much I can cancel not even the meetings and at least I've killed enough brain cells to start that scene or that chapter with a fresh perspective.

When in June

Bha Bhe Bhi Bho Bhu I heard you calling and thought I’d respond because Sundays should be like they were in the old days when we sat by proper desks and caught up with our correspondence and wrote by hand and smudged the writing paper with tears and ink and drips of coffee and full lips coated in lipstick and looked outside and were pleased by the ordinary the flight of ducks the sun in June the breeze on leaves the Sunday papers the music of doubt the amazing graces of faith in the now. But Sundays aren’t really like that anymore and a welcome break from useless words are more words and people don’t catch up with their correspondence they write on each other’s imaginary walls and the summer is not pretending to be here anymore it is here and the living is easy like the old song said it would be give or take a few dramatic shots as the rain soaks us but not for long whatever the reasons for the overall warmth of the planet the warnings are out yet again about the dangers of too much exposure to the Sun God and I get the sun worship all too clearly.

But the living is gone for our old friend Omar Bongo Ondimba who died last Sunday apparently although the government of Gabon denied that such an occurrence ever happened as if they had a direct line to death’s list for that day and claimed mischievous enemies were spreading a rumour with the sole purpose of destabilizing this tiny nation with its huge reserves of oil and timber and minerals. It will be written down as the passing of yet another African dictator, the longest serving African head of state so far at 42 years, whose accumulated wealth includes a property portfolio worth 135 million dollars in France alone, and more millions in various banks, which won’t be going anywhere soon because the dead man has left his money behind to corruption lawsuits and all assets have been frozen. But we know all this. It's been the pattern for many an African strong man and once in a Malawian cottage I met the son of Zaire's Mobutu, on the run and on the trail of his father's vast fortunes frozen in neutral snow and then there was Abacha whose cash had been simply lifted out in laundry bags millions at a time and there was Charles Taylor attempting to flee into Cameroon from his Nigerian hosts with two million bucks in a suitcase.Far more interesting is how Mr Bongo fell ill and died barely three months after his 45 year old wife Edith Lucie Bongo died in a Moroccan hospital. Here are the makings of latter day Romeo and Juliet, following each other to the after life and leaving their greasy wealth behind. Or was it really like that? Edith was the daughter of the King of Congo Brazzaville (or President which is the same thing) and when the houses of Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Omar Bongo were united by this marriage, a plague of corruption surrounded their respective peoples like a thick fog, so said their detractors, and cash from their combined oil sales enriched them beyond the abilities of ordinary calculators. I once hang out in Libreville and felt I knew the deceased couple and I'm reminiscing with a Cameroonian producer plus our friend from Benin and I go incredible that they should follow each other in death like that what happened oh don't you know they say there was a strong element of African juju in Edith's passing she went into a room in the palace which only the President was permitted to enter and the spirit in there attacked her mind and she went mad yes it's true for the last four years her mind had gone and the spirit finally took her life too. Too many questions too many exclamation marks exploding all over my head. A room you say? They laugh. Yes a room, a special room for the President's portions spirits fetishes and prayers. And him? To be honest, he had cancer, although in truth he died a long time ago, sick of his own immense power and that's it that's what we do when we reflect on their passing these men and woman who insist on representing us sometimes for decades at a time and then our thoughts move to speculation about who will be the next one to rule and to die.


Meanwhile the Orator has become the world's Greek Chorus - opening his mouth and his impressive brain to utter a few words of advice on the way forward based on the paths behind. And so we watched incredulous crowds at Cairo University nodding in agreement about the need for a new middle east attitude and his words broke through several decades of standoff but it is too early we were told to tell if there will be action behind his words and the brilliant South African cartoonist paints a thousand words with his picture of the tightrope walker in search of peace. Later one day I'm down in the west country to have lunch with my boy and we use starbucks as a meeting place and he takes the magazines from my weekend readings and seems very well informed about the world at large but still I say I don't know why you want to read the papers there's nothing in them just death and destruction and fashion shots of unwomanly women I wouldn't bother if I were you and he goes yeah I know I want to read about the plot to assassinate Obama and I'm not sure he should be filling his head with stuff like that but then again the racists were around when I was growing up and now they are even members of the European parliament he'd better get used to the existence of hate. Is it interesting? It's interesting how utterly stupid these losers are. Too damn right. Yet the Orator is still with us and there he is in the White House welcoming Zimbabwe's new Prime Minister and praising his tenacity and courage and the pictures are seen everywhere but Harare and I really do think it's time for Obama's praise singers to shut up and let the man do his job without feeling like Elvis or Hendrix or Lennon or Marley and we all know what became of those rock stars. But the Prime Minister who is in government but not in power succeeds where the old man failed to hoist the Zimbabwean flag amongst other nations and as nervous as he is in such august company these are scenes missing from the Harare diplomatic photo album for over a decade but what does it matter when the people are led to believe that his trip for a nation's rehabilitation has been a failure that he is still a puppet.

In June the summer is loud and full and I've been spending far too much time indoors writing like a nutter on death row and with deadlines looming don't we all try and find the truth of our words with speed and without sacrificing their meaning and I conclude I'm crap at that or are the creeping years taking the energy out of me or is it the enthusiasm or do I just need that muse. But right here in the sunshine of the slave city are some true inspirations and I wonder what's been on their minds and we watch new parents with their screaming brats and know we're in a brand new era of communication between us which is beyond parent and child and I rather look forward to sharing a pint with the boy and the girl in a couple of years time.Still we put such thoughts away and watch the blossoming of sun soaked life around us and sometimes yawn because there is always something missing to make them truly memorable and I'd rather be on set and yes I've been wishing that forever I tell my boy as we lunch on one of his free moments and she joins us and I should say well done for doing so well in your exams why don't you join us for some nosh I can't dad got another exam on Thursday and right now I've got saxophone practice then let me buy you a summer t-shirt from that new shop on the high street and ofcourse I get a few more minutes with her because young ladies love their clothes don't they and even if she hates the colours that I like which is usually just black.

AngstFree

Power has been moving and changing hands or staying concentrated in old hands all over the place and it becomes a point of interest to those who watch the old continent and I find myself penning opinion pieces dressed as radio and why not everyone has an opinion but I’m still struggling with deadlines and this should not give the impression that it all takes forever because it doesn’t it’s just that lining up the thoughts does take forever. Ofcourse like a true saddo there are topics on which I’d happily pontificate on love and loss on fear and death on victory and defeat on plans and fate but I know just as much about what the rebels in one country are doing as those fighting them do, which is not very much. But I sit and note what I think about masculinity about a hundred days of the power-sharing deal about xenophobia and the news is all over the place at the moment confused as it is by the corrupt actions of politicians and the great 21st century depression which has us all fearing the worst. Summer’s light is strong and true and amazing days signal the end of May and wherever you walk it’s all good and I’d walk the proverbial five hundred miles just to get away from the keyboard and the pinging emails but something gets me back one way or the other. In the meantime there are spaces to walk and think and I've tried my feet at jogging but I'm just not feeling it still the hills are alive with the sound of thudding nike and the river paths have reclaimed their duck populations and there are plenty of shelters from the big bad city if you're into that kind of thing and just who isn't it will do until a beach shows itself or another hot country takes my passport.

The stories are coming from the usual places – halfway through the year and Somalia continues to fascinate, the Pirate story is real and as tales go it has all the ingredients of high drama. Over in Zimbabwe many are holding their collective breath for the power sharing deal to work but the wheels of normal government are squeaking for the lack of oiling with hard honest cash and there are almost two individuals per ministry running everything and disagreeing according to their party affiliations. In Gabon the old relic Omar Bongo has succumbed to some illness which will surely remove him from his 42 year old throne but his charming son Ali has been in charge of the defense ministry in the most perfect grooming for power and it’s a good bet to think that the throne will pass on seamlessly to the anointed off spring as it did in Togo in The Congo and may well do in many parts of the undivided Kingdom. While in Ghana Jerry Rawlings will be making a speech to mark the 30th anniversary of his first coup soon and that’s just the way we see things now, we mark everything in tens and scores and fives as if the intervening years meant nothing I mean who marks two years of a divorce? Ofcourse the buzzwords are always to move on but some move on because they can’t bear the past and others because they can’t live without it. In Malawi some weeks ago a President won a landslide election victory after breaking away from the party that elected him to his post in the first place and the old schemer Bakili Muluzi saw that handpicking a successor is like a lion selling the hunter a gun for the price of a few warm words like my goodness sir what a lovely mane you have but all reports suggest the winning President did it under his own steam by lifting Banda’s Malawi to stability and food security. Passionate place Malawi, at least in my thoughts.

Then words must be found to describe other things and keep the creativity ticking over and it’s not happening for ages despite the ticking time bombs until I decide to get out of my head for a night and everywhere you look the streets are empty. The local news is messy and anyone who grew up with the excesses of corrupt governments marvels at the viciousness of the attacks over a few thousand pounds and in many cases less but the drama at Westminster seems to be about all of it, the jobs that are going the redundancies in every sector the fear of tomorrow the incredible idiocy of representatives who reckon everyone is just jealous and I can’t help but feel somewhere sometime there ought to be just one lion instead of 650 rats but that’s democracy for you. Maybe the man in Blue will sort stuff out or it maybe best to vote Green and these are the conversations over dinner. Then there are other peoples' dramas and stories I hear of unions coming apart of long distance relationships hanging by a thread of trust and it seems to me there really is nothing new under the sun and am I in danger of becoming a grumpy old man. And when I tell strangers my heart story they go you shouldn't be here what are you doing here go there and I look at their dramas and inhale the summer breeze and know being in certain situations grows you which is not the same as ageing you. Outside a mate's Soho flat the streets are truly deserted and will this be the ghost town summer I hope it is someone says I hate crowds and steady beats the heart quite angst free and is this the best it can be or do I prefer it tempestuous but a little more certain who knows.

Fantastic football match one mid-week as Barcelona blitzed Manchester United and you can always tell a Man U supporter he’s a kind of full of arrogance what with everything they've won the money they have to spend their manager's place in history and the message boards had been buzzing with gloating predictions until Eto’o and the Argentinean genius Messi showed the way to humility by beating them 2-0 and it all went a bit Messi for the team from the field of dreams. But to a man and a woman, to anyone who watched, this was football as it is meant to be played with guile and cunning and skill and someone says Barcelona plays just like Arsenal and why shouldn't they what with their crop of Africans and the genius of Thierry Henry in among them.

In between meaningless words I'm finding I've lost the knack to write that section in a film script dealing with romance. It may be a dying libido or the lack of confidence in expressing such thoughts without feeling like a phony. So I base it all on my brother and find time to call him one Sunday morning to say happy birthday and pick at his brain without letting him know what I'm doing. Families are funny units aren't they, and I wonder if we'd be so close if there were five of us and two of the other species and I find in his collection a hilarious 1970's scene set up by a desperate mother to keep track of her brood. Now as a parent I click at everything my offspring does and annoy my teenager until she says in all seriousness that I'm the most frustrating father she knows and all because of a photograph but looking at some of these seventies delights I guess I know what she means.

Time for new pictures in new backgrounds but the long summer light will do for now.

Lid On The Game

The football season ends one Sunday but there’s no great need for weeping and gnashing of teeth it’s a welcome break and it will only be for two months but the significance of my first season as a semi interested fan stroke season-ticket-holder must be played out by venturing one more time to the Emirates to witness the Arsenal play one more time and all talk is of a show of support for the embattled coach Arsene Wenger and here and there banners have been unfurled pledging love for the boss and t-shirts are on display and on sale and I pick one up that says Take Me Up The Arsenal and who’s going to wear that I wonder. The arena is packed and the sun is blazing down and this summer won’t be a pretend summer we can tell my producer and I. Since we share the season ticket we’ve never watched a match together but some folk on our row of seats have decided to give this one a miss it’s only Arsenal vs Stoke City so we found an extra ticket. There are other reasons, I learn as the whistle goes. See that dude down there? He’s been coming to every home game for five years and he’s giving up the season ticket because he’s just been made redundant.

The economics of it all is always with us, and we take our chances to hold on to our distractions or we’ll lose it, that will to carry on and keep calm. All around us the fans have arrived for the theatre of it all as well as the sun and digital cameras are the accessories of choice and here and there someone is recording a memory before the game begins. But just for the drama of it the video screens will keep us up to date with the fortunes of other teams playing on this the last day of the premiere league season when every game starts at exactly the same 4pm kick off and some folk are listening to transistor radios and yet more are online on their blackberries and iphones logged on to the betting pages of sports pages or whatever so they can find out which team has been relegated. We’re not long into the game before Fabregas scores and then we get another penalty and another goal and by the time we head out for the half time refreshments it’s a 4-1 score line to the Arsenal. Why don’t they play like this every day when it matters and the afternoon as a contest is clearly over but we hang around to watch the team and the much maligned manager do a lap of honour to thank the supporters and church is shut for another two months and we walk along North London’s back streets and have a frulli strawberry beer over at the Swimmer pub and get back to the business of talking work women and babies and stick a lid on the game of football but not for long it's a major theme of one of our projects.

One morning the little people decide to pay me a visit in London, and to any parent it’s one of those defining new steps when your tots can get themselves on a train unaccompanied and make their way through commuter land with no hint of fear to meet you on the train platform and go so what are we doing dad. In reality the day has been in planning mode and now that it’s here I’m racing not to be late for them and as luck would have it the metropolitan line to the station is experiencing long delays because some selfish person has decided to throw herself on the track but what time is taken away by this development is added by the children’s train not getting there on time either and we make our way through the underground and I tell him I was nearly very late because of a body on the track and he’s shocked that they actually announce stuff like that oh yes they do leaves snow bodies are all reasons for commuter frustration on the train system.

What are we doing? Well you’ve got four choices – a photographic exhibition, an exhibition of the great Picasso’s paintings over at the National Gallery, Tate Modern or a tour of Shakespeare’s Globe. And we can always do a picnic in the park but the weather's not kind. He’s not into art galleries and I tell him one bad experience does not make them all bad but he’s strong willed in his rejections so the Globe on a guided tour seems to win the day and for the second time in a week I’m walking down the millennium bridge but the weather has turned from promising summer to staid English wind and rain. The thing with guided tours is that they can be rendered utterly useless by a few choice searches on google so I’ve already told them that an actor once American was responsible for rebuilding the globe and that it was destroyed when some actors on stage in Shakespeare’s day fired off a canon ball through the thatched roof and set the theatre burning to the ground which renders the guide’s words of what we’ve already googled pretty useless and we are taken around the theatre as the wind whips around us and the highlight for them is to watch some actors rehearsing As You Like It until the guide moves us on to the concrete pavements for more useless facts.

We lunch in a Lebanese eatery shown to us by a nice Nigerian man starting his shift as a security guard and she likes the atmosphere but he can’t find anything he can eat but is happy to try the chips and the walk back up the bridge takes us to a tube station where a blind man is whistling the simon & garfunkel classic like a bridge over troubled water with no microphone in sight and everyone is popping pound coins into his hat and those of us familiar with the tune are singing along and the children are embarrassed with their father’s loutish behaviour. Now I can tell that the long journeys are beginning to fade him and he’s got to get back to the slave city and head for his running club so we end up in Notting Hill so their dad’s friend can see how they’ve grown. They walk to the train station in the laughter of a story teller and sure, I’ll see them after their exams.

Know Your Art

Hello. You ok? It’s been a while since I’ve caught you up on stuff and it’s not that the thoughts have been silent or even on a break it’s the busyness of life and sometimes we can hardly come up for air and at a certain age when you know you’re well into the second half of this journey you try and catch up with all the time you know you let go flippantly. These isles and this city are full of the noises of summer and it’s an effort to shut them out although they are not as noisy as the memories of summers gone by which stare back at you from every kerb and everywhere groups are gathering like animals at ancient watering holes and the rain has been interrupting the sun rather than the other way around.

A friend says he’s done about twenty thousand words for his book and that seems a lot to me and an unwanted panic flutters by because I haven’t counted mine and then the folk at a magazine ring and there’s a piece to do over at a radio station and deadlines aren’t welcome and it’s within certain natures to fight deadlines and my nature bucks and kicks like a bondaged beast until it’s late in the day and the sun’s been sinking for ages and I make my way over to physically hand the damn things in and writing about Africa when you are not there has it’s drawbacks but there’s so much that’s been going on and I must confess to a very deep need to get out and go and see stuff. Still we go on and somewhere in the city I’ve discovered old faces still congregating on a Friday night and they seem older and greyer and much more rounded and new pubs here and there act as the release valve to lives in exile and we wait by the pool tables for a game but even there new talent is on display and our skills just don’t match but it was good to talk.

There are a spate of birthdays coming up and I find original presents in odd shops up on a hill and hope they’ll be appreciated and my man down the TCR gets a pack of cards from a war in the recent past and I chance on a cookery book from 1896 full of useful recipes on how to cook rabbits and that should be perfect for one vegetarian and soon enough the days are racing on by so quickly before we know it we are in another half term for the children and still I linger in the gathering sunshine wondering when my plane will take off. But you said you'll be here all summer. I will be, I just need to get out for a bit. And bright eyes stare back at me and I don't know if I've been believed. Down in on one of those gastro pubs with free wifi the producer arranges yet another meeting and I need him to leave me alone there is a complexity to the written word and I don’t want him to keep interrupting my flow. But I can see why he’s doing it and across the table a man has been writing all hour and I notice the script format on his screen is that I script I ask him and he says yes he’s writing a black comedy and we swap calling cards and reckon this is as good a place as any to sit and formulate dialogue and scripts and the producer feels like a healer and starts the speech about not locking myself away and getting out and bumping into like minded folk and what’s that going to do to my script I’m not writing a fucking black comedy am I.

But get out I do, over to Shakespeare’s Globe for a bit of compulsory culture for there’s no point being in one of the world’s most culturally diverse cities where there’s at least five Shakespeare productions on the go at any one time and all the film releases you can want and who knows when my path will lead me into another cultural drought so like a camel overdoses on water before the long trek into a desert I drink in the culture and first up is Ché Walker’s The Frontline. There’s something original about the geography here, the stage set deep the roof open to the sky here and there and acoustics perfectly balanced between a surrounding audience and the lines being delivered from all angles and ofcourse we are where we are so the normal Londoners are mixed in with a scores of tourists but the play’s not the thing on this occasion. It’s as if Mr Walker has taken all the representatives of his London – Camden to be precise - the lap dancer the female construction worker the born agains the hard nosed cockney racist the homeless the actor the security guard and many more and just shoved them in some theatrical blender and as one liners some dialogue is great but as a whole it’s a bloody mess and ofcourse since we are on the stage the actors are breaking out in song all over the place and I can’t tell if this is a high school musical and all the play’s serious points are being drowned in mediocre song and it’s a bad sign to be enjoying the theatre rather than what’s on its stage. It’s a lovely evening by the river and during the interval I don’t even have to fight with my inner self about whether to stay or go and join the queue for coffees and teas and a stranger says she’s been so moved by the play thank God the interval came when it did because she was balling. Now I’ve grown to cope with other people’s tears maybe I caused a flood or two and live in regret but tears over this seems a bit luvvy and an excessive waste of tear ducts. All art is a subjective appreciation so Mr Walker is lucky that so many people have packed the globe the weather’s good the tourism season is upon us and many are happy to hear what’s been going on in his head.

I cross the millennium bridge as the second half begins and the bridge is in front of a famous cathedral and walk away thinking the photography exhibition by Covent Garden where John Kenny’s Portraits from Africa were on view was much better and maybe someone will figure out a way to make photographic exhibitions musical too the walls are full of images about Africans and this study of African tribes through a lens throws up new thoughts that are more revealing than an inert prejudice to all things anthropological would suggest. For even in this age of instant access where you can find someone's house on the net if you know the address, where images are flung at us from every angle in seconds from all over the planet, there are still faces and places which seem refreshingly new.

Insomnia

I come in to the usual train station after a day with the little people and they were not so little and I was in a foul mood but these things have a way of sorting themselves out so they took refuge in a cinema and took in Wolverine XMen Originals and I thought it was rubbish and we would look at each other my boy and I whenever the hero said lines like I'm good at what I do and what I do is dangerous and roll our eyes to the cinema ceiling. These films now seem to rely entirely on special effects but there are holes in the story so big you couldn't fill them with all the popcorn in the world. So I left them to their lives and picked up mine from the empty platforms of a Sunday train station where Arsenal fans were heading back home after another thrashing and I was glad I gave away the season ticket for the afternoon then I rang the cameraman and thought we'd meet up and plan what to say at the meetings coming up in the week and a Kronenberg shandy would probably oil the mood just fine.

A friend has just returned from Mexico and ofcourse we wonder if he's got the swine and he reckons no it's all a massive conspiracy because the Mexicans said to him that the Americans were trying to sell a vaccine for a new form of cold to the Mexicans and they wouldn't buy it and then within days there was swine flu it must be a manufactured virus and not that many people died from it it's was one big hype and no-one in the hostel got sick.But many people wore masks and once he saw an old geezer on the empty streets outside wearing something unusual to ward off the swine flu and he said the government told him to wear a mask or he would get sick and die and surely it's rule by fear. The evening's breezy and we've stumbled on a singer's night in a pub in north london and people are stubbornly sitting by the tables outside as if summer's here when it really isn't fully here yet and wandering in for the acts and a woman with a guitar has a cigarette next to us and says will you come in and support me when I'm on and just applaud and pretend to know me and if someone should ask say you've been following me for ages and I deserve a record deal. This city's funny sometimes.The crowd is mellow like the season and she sings folksy tunes about a boy she met and she wants him to be good to her because she likes him that much and the voice is good the guitar in tune and soothing and although I travelled for six hours earlier I feel suddenly refreshed and the cameraman goes what do you think about her music and it's music isn't it it does the job music's meant to do.So the singer sings and fills in the background music and we talk about what's in the papers and they're full of politicians taking the system for a ride and claiming money for all manner of things and thousands of pounds have been lost in corrupt expenses and just the other morning on the radio a Nigerian man came on and talked about the evil reach of corruption on a nation's psyche and the moral high ground has turned to mush but I'm as far removed from political stories like never before and the crowd applaud the lady and her guitar and we wander down empty streets and discuss cameras.

For long stretches of the nights I'm unable to sleep and can take in two movies a night sometimes on the laptop and jot down the voices in my head and try to write or toss and turn and watch the city playing back to me on long walks between warm milk and water and I know why I'm unsettled and sleep has left because I'm thinking of too many worlds at once. If writing is the job it's never an organic one because it messes with parts of the mind and what seems like a simple enough task conjures thoughts and moods and then the calls come in thick and fast how far are you where have you got up to deadlines loom and folk wait on words like they do on loaves of bread from a baker early in the morning and there's no point being a martyr about it they're ready when they are ready.Meeting after meeting drags you away from the desk and ofcourse that's normal life but it's no good for writing continuity and we get our sleep when we can and one of these days I shall venture out of bed to eat and drink only instead of more words and deadlines. New designs arrive for the producer's pet project and a man waits for new characters and over in Cape Town the Mombasa co-writer is throwing ideas via email chat and readying herself for another short film and Cannes is starting and a project must be packaged what fun we are all having I think through gritted teeth.But it's easy to switch off solitude is just a switch off button on a phone a disconnected email and the loud musings of a pop song on headphones going so you sailed away into a grey sky morning now I'm here to stay love can be so boring but it's not so bad you're just the best I ever had and a book on shrinks to make you feel like a little abnormal thinking is the best normality can offer and now I know I really need to sleep but after I watch the 40-Year-Old-Virgin because Judd Apatow is the director of the age and his stuff's very funny and I like to sleep with a smile and maybe tomorrow I'll find my way off this island.

Newheartbeats

Coffee house offices are the best the constant supply of caffeine the people watching by the massive cinemascope windows the sugar rushes the enforced no smoking the creative arguments which won't rise to pitched battles and there's broadband everywhere you go even McDonalds and Burger King are dragging in the suits looking for work that way and as far as eateries go they may be the only places left with any customers should this dreaded recession go on much longer. We need this and we need that and there won't be much of a company if the words don't keep hitting the page the ideas don't keep knocking on doors and I had made good headway in finishing stuff but now there seems to be more of it than ever before the stuff to finish and I need a holiday and the best kind of holidays are the ones in which you are working as well but I wouldn't mind going to a sunnier corner of these isles I hear it's pretty and peaceful in the east at this time of year. Stop day dreaming and hand in more words.


One night the clouds are so low over the city it looks like the set of one of those movies stolen from a graphic novel a kind of Sin City skyline where you can place the colours onto the rusty canvas should you need to see what blood looks like or remember how lipstick feels to the visual senses and I make my way across the bridge after meetings for work to meet a friend who says she needs advice on something and to lose myself in a single malt and a beer with no hidden agendas and see how the city is coping at night. I find myself worrying about this city in the same way I worry about a township south of the centre in a broken country far away how long before the falling pound the forced entrenchments the dying clubs and restaurants the evaporating jobs make this tiny walk from the embankment across the bridge along the water a dangerous adventure but my fears are imagined because despite the unseasonal wind the south bank is heaving with the theatre goers there's a season of Bond movies on view and I still think Connery is the man and I see a constant face in my mind's eye and I smile at the reality of the ghosts in my head.

Huge changes made in the months before the credit crunch make this the place to meet and culture is where the mobs are even if you get lost on the way to the loo or in the deep comfy leather chairs and line up four deep to get a drink and watch the South American barman who's one of many nationalities fixing a mojito with the slow deliberation of a chef in front of a tv lens and the new fittings haven't left enough air circulating between the steel and glass and trendy wallpaper. I don't know what to do he's back in my life. Who? That man who broke my heart well that's good isn't it isn't that what you want well I don't know it's all a bit too sudden I spent nearly every hour of every waking moment boring my friends my family thinking about him wondering why he would fuck up like that and spoil what we had and not being able to move on for thinking. What happened. I haven't seen you for a long time have I please stop me if I go on too much because I do want to hear about what you've been up to I haven't seen you since you got back from wagamama or whatever that place you went to was called. I pour the wine and sip on my malt and buckle up this could be a rollercoaster of transferred emotion but that's what friends are for. He was in town because you know he works somewhere in the desert and he rang me and said he wanted to meet. And you said yes just like that. Well he was on his way to catch his flight and I thought it was safe and I'd hear him out. He said he was sorry for all the cheating the deceit the lies the anger and that he now realizes that he messed up and that I am the one true love of his life and he wants me to come over there and discuss things and all he wants is for us to be together and have children and then he started crying. Of all the tears spilt in the confession boxes of all the churches in the world which does God remember I think to myself. And then?She taps me on my knee and says look look they've been working up to that all evening the sweet hearts. I show the couple sharing our seating space on their first date how their first or second kiss looked like from my camera and she goes that's a really good picture actually and he laughs and agrees and my friend gets her email address and we promise to email them their moment and the warm glow of fresh love washes over tales of old love until I say so what are you going to do? I want to go over for the passion of it and to hear him out but I have a feeling he can't change who he is at the chore of his being and I couldn't put my heart through that again do you understand where I'm coming from.

Then I think there's no real difference between fresh love and old love but just the will to make things work and where the will is missing no one is going to believe you when it returns but I say nothing and drink my beer chaser and say good luck and outside the sky's colours have been changing like the rings of Saturn from rust to blue and any more of these kinds of evenings I'm going to become an agony uncle it doesn't take much just a pair of ears and the stillness of the river.