Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

On third course of antibiotics. This is getting a bit annoying. Hoping this time it will work and get rid of the uninvited, unwanted guests in my bladder.

In the meantime... not a lot. Went to Reformation at Aces & Eights for a little song and dance and catch up with friends on Saturday. Apart from that, lessons and again supremely tired, presumably as am effect of either the infection or the antibiotic. With that and a few guitar lessons (have a 14 year old pupil who is an amazing electric guitar player so that was interesting) thus went the week-end.

I thought I'd have a quiet week-end. In some ways it was but it still was full of social. On Friday I met with the folks of the u.c.s.m (that's uk.comp.sys.mac if you are old enough to have used the old Usenet) to have our annual dinner in Merkato, a remarkably cheap and good Ethiopian restaurant in Cally Road. This whole thing started about twenty years ago when there was an Apple expo at the Design Centre in Islington. 'Oh, yeah, they have computers' we said. 'What do we do now?' 'Let's go for dinner at this Ethiopian place I know...' somebody said. And of course Apple Expos are very much a thing of the past but we have been meeting for that dinner in Merkato ever since.

On Saturday I only had a couple of lessons (this is a sign that I shouldn't do so much social, I can't afford it) and then there was a double birthday with the Goths at an Italian place in Green Lanes. The decor was amazing (which I always find alarming), the company was excellent, the food was.. ok and either a few people left without paying or the restaurant made a few 'mistakes' as I'm told that there appeared a £100+ shortfall in the bill when everybody had paid (I had indeed paid and left by then). My friends are now talking of always splitting that sort of bill equally so that cannot happen, in which case I won't be able to come to their events, as I'm always skint, always go for the cheapest thing in the menu and would not want (could not afford to!) pay for the rivers of wine, mountains of anitpasti that the others were having.

Yesterday (Sunday) a friend playing in a band (AlterRed) texted me to say she'd put me on the guest list for a band concert at Kolis/The Lounge in Archway, so I went. I'm glad I did, it was a very good gig by the bands I saw, but very few people.

Now, back in the real world....

That was a good week-end, but increasingly I notice that I cannot do all-nighters and go to several clubs on the same night as I ... oh, ok, it always took me several days to recover from that sort of thing, but it doesn't get better as you get older. Still, it was all good.

On Friday I went to an exhibition of art of a Venezuelan friend -'Clay. Wallpaper. Venezuelan Scenarios' by Andrea Moreno at Craving Coffee in Tottenham Hale. The pieces had a lot of subtext related to the current Venezuelan political situation and to V'zlan popular culture. I enjoyed that. It was strange to be in a place where about 30% of the people present spoke in Spanish with Venezuelan accents -and addressed me in sort of cautious English. Surely I look and sound Venezuelan? My ex-girlfriend used to say I wrote with a Venezuelan accent....



Mondlicht was a blast, it is more or less the new incarnation of Invocation in a smaller, more central venue (the basement of the Albany in Gt Portland St). As I traditionally had a little birthday celebration at Reptile, I left at midnight and headed for Archway. Now, I like Reptile even though the choice of music is not always my cup; had a good bit of a dance, chatted with friends, but by 3:00 am I'd decided I'd had enough so headed home. Could have walked but didn't; the 134 takes me right to my doorstep from there. Had some good conversations but also discovered that somebody I quite like (beautiful, interesting woman in many respects and from every other interaction I'd had with her, intelligent and mature) turns out to be a climate change denier. As I backed off slowly, the other friend who was present was asking her about some other conspiracy theory trope 'sure you also believe then that...' and she replies 'actually, since you mention...' at which point I disappeared back into the dance floor. 

On Sunday I met with friends at the Abbey Tavern in Kentish Town for Sunday Roast -which was very good, as was the gathering. At the bar I ran into a former guitar pupil who was on his first shift as a bartender at the place. That was a little bit strange. 

* the links are to Facebook events. One or several of them may not be public.

Trying to take week-ends more sedately as the previous one, plus the two very busy Monday and Tuesday that ensued, left me feeling, by Wednesday, that I was just about to die. I should find another slot for that rather challenging Sunday morning lesson. Take back control of my week-ends.. er, no, maybe not that, not like that. See what 'taking back control' seems to do to people and countries. What a mess.

Will be missing New Model Army and a whole lot of other stuff happening this season. Force majeure. Last week-end I missed Reptile... went to see my friends of Heel play a gig as part of the Camden Rocks festival as I hadn't seen them play for a very long time (but, alas, that meant missing a gig by other friends -everything seems to happen at the same time these days), on the way out I was feeling a bit off and thought, given those two Sunday lessons, of which one is the most challenging I've got, that it would be quite unwise to go clubbing that night. I think it was the better decision. I do worry that as time goes by this (stopping doing things I want to do and enjoy) may be a more frequent occurrence -I s'pose it is a fact of life, but I won't go down quietly...

I did go to a club on Friday night, Retromancy at the basement of the Albany pub in Great Portland Street. Danced quite a bit, caught up with some friends I'd not seen for quite a while... so I didn't just lie low the whole week-end. There also was the Bibliogoth meeting on Sunday, which might merit a post of its own. bibliogoth[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]

Sitting at a Costa Coffee in Cricklewood, amidst rows of empty boarded up shops, making time on my way to a lesson -boy doing a Grade 5 later today.

Birthday celebration: I'd said on FB this year I'd only do a gathering for pizza, beer and music at Aces & Eights, near where I live, hitching a ride on this event. This went very well apart from the pub showing the foot-ball at the end. Doesn't everybody watch the footie, doesn't everybody love it? Well, not everybody, I don't. It was a good evening, though,m a good gathering that ended in four of us in another pub exchanging stories. I may have drunk rather more than I usually do. A very good evening.

Saturday was the Alternative Picnic in Hampstead Heath. It was good... there'll be pictures...

Ah, the long week-end came and went; it brought two picnics, a friend’s gig at the Fiddler’s Elbow and … not a lot more. I’ve mostly been tired all the time, doing little bits of practice on the guitar, trying not to overdo it or take it to the point where the wrist really hurts. But hurt it has –I reckon I must have done something while asleep a couple of nights ago (pushing the hand against furniture or sleeping on it, perhaps) and it has been swollen again and hurting. This never seems to end..

Saturday –it was londonjon’s first Hampstead Alternative Picnic at Kenwood House this year for the tenth year in a row. Weather was fantastic and there were a lot of folk in attendance, including no less than Jesus himself. A lot of fun, the only downside of which was that as it gets dark so late this time of year I never realised it’d become too late to go see the Creeping Terrors’ gig at the Slimelight.. There are pictures –I took rather too many pictures ….

There was another goth picnic on the Bank Holiday Monday, this one on Primrose Hill and a much smaller (intimate?) affair. There will be pictures of this one as well.

No schools this week which should mean a little more time to think about how to advertise for guitar lessons; I don’t have enough work at the moment and it is getting to the point where it is becoming worrying. This time of year I should be busy and fielding lots of enquiries, neither of which has happened. Other concerns out there, too, some of which I may elaborate on in another entry.

Ah, didn't post about the long May Day (that sounds to me a little less boring than 'bank holiday') week-end. There was quite a bit happening and also quite a lot that I missed -you cannot be everywhere at once. On Friday I went to the Negative Creep, this time at Nambucca in Holloway. Got there in time to see Nemhain's set.. took pictures, rather many pictures.

On Saturday I went to Jennie and Aya's birthday party. This was a blast and, again, there are pictures. I think I got away lightly with the roulette game.

Sunday brought about the garden party at Karen Georgina's and Lee-Anne's in West London. That garden is so very beautiful. There were lots of lovely people and also a very cute snake (did I just write that? yes, she was a very cute snake). In the evening I went to the Garage for the Voltaire/Memepunks/Joe Black/Black Volition gig -which was very good, a lot of fun. Yep, lots more pictures taken. Found myself there with squirmelia again as well as sashagoblin, _pyromancer_, Jennie and Dan and a lot of other lovely people.

Monday: went with augeas, kekhmet, squirmelia, alexmc and a couple more folk to the Other Worlds exhibition at the NHM. Of course you will have seen many of the pictures before, they being photos taken by the Cassini and New Horizon probes, the Mars rovers, etc -but presented in an interesting and informative way, accompanied with music by Brian Eno, which I was looking forward to but this (the music) was far less interesting than I anticipated and, perhaps not a lot better than my own electronic ambient doodles that you can find in one of my SoundCloud pages (that no-one ever visits, neither have you so you haven't heard them). Took pictures but none of the exhibition itself. After that we went to Tombo's, Japanese restaurant there in South Ken, and had matcha lattes and Sundaes and lovely Japanese food.

After the very busy previous weekend I was thinking I would have a much quieter one on the bank holiday/May Day one. Wasn't going to happen but it was all good, including for me what may have been some closure for a long-standing painful issue. Not the wrist/elbow, that is an ongoing story but it does seem to be getting better now.

I was hoping this week-end would be a little more sedate than last. It was -but not by much. On Friday I went to Glitch, a little 80's night in a pub in darkest Hackney -all of which doesn't sound very auspicious but it was a good night with much dancing and catching up with friends old and new -and an encounter with someone from a previous life, something good, someone with whom it was good to reconnect.

Saturday brought lessons and a computer repair job. I hadn't done that for many years and then after sorting out a pupil's Mac she has been recommending me to people. This was the usual 'my laptop has become very very slow'. On checking it, trying to run a browser, MS Word and a couple of other things on 2 GB memory in these times wasn't going to be blazing fast in the best of cases. Then, looking into it, I begin to find start up items for the infamous MacHelper and Genieo -of course the machine was slow. It is often said by mac fans (like myself, although I'm not remotely as.. ardent as I used to be) that there are no viruses for the Mac and this is technically true -but there is quite a bit of malware out there, that often relies on our being off guard or on the same sort of instinct that tells us that our numbers will win, this week it is going to happen. Or that the nice man from the email really is going to give us a few hundred thousand pounds if we keep that couple of million for him, we only have to give him these advance and our bank details.

I left the computer half way through sorting it out, having replaced the slow spin hard disk for an SSD and having 8 GB to replace the original 2 later. Went to some birthday drinks at the Camden Black Heart -I've said this before, I'm off rock pubs. Anywhere where you have to shout to get heard and strain to hear what the other party says is not a place I want to stay long. Ok, so I'm getting old. From there I went to Yesterday's Shadow at the Pack and Carriage and danced a bit and conversed some more. On Sunday I had my nightmare lesson, which I survived ok, then a lovely little gathering for Sunday roast with people at the Water Rats. I didn't know most of the people but it was a very good afternoon. Came back to try the 8GB again (it hadn't worked the first time, not a good idea to try to do this kind of thing at 3:00 am after a night out) and this time it worked. Good thing I don't have to get up early on Mondays and work early.

Another week-end sailed by almost too fast to notice. This time I didn't go out much, only to Tanz Macabre on Friday. Spent the rest of the time mostly indoors, reading and practising a few things I intend to play in those two little gigs in January. Let's see what the week brings...

The week-end had the big shadow of the incidents in Paris over it -and the reaction of the media and of people, mainly on Twitter and Facebook (and, in one case, in person, where a friend of a friend started having a go at the refugees and the old 'there's too many of them lot over here already', as if not aware that she hadn't been talking to somebody who, albeit in very different circumstances, started life 'out there'). But all that came later.

Thursday evening I went to the Gothsluts weekly meeting, this time at the Angel in Bermondsey. A Sam Smith pub, it seemingly has many strange rules of the house that I wasn't aware of. First the Italian guy at the bar (I think he's the manager, he seemed to be in charge) stopped me short when I spoke to him in Italian, 'speake in Englishe, the customer over there (points at a customer at the bar) could think we're talking about him'. I refrained to mention that the pointing thing was more rude than any imaginary offence for not understanding what other people were saying. Rules of the company, he said.

I had gone to the pub straight from a lesson so I had a guitar. Dylan wanted to have a go so we brought the guitar out of the case -and the same Italian member of staff came and told us. We weren't allowed to make any sort of music in the house. Rules of the company, he said. Ooh kay then. The booze is cheap there, the food is cheap and ok, the view of the riverside is lovely but I don't think I'll be voting for that pub for the meetings again.

The company was excellent, though.