It's an interesting moment to be alive. You can't ask for anything else . Look at the news. Have a conversation with someone. Put a record on. Have a cup of tea ! Do some paperwork. Go out. Do Something. Anything, There's never a dull moment . You may not always be exactly happy. But in the words of Big Country, and I'll come back to them, 'Stay Alive !' It's all we can do. It's good to be alive, We shouldn't forget.
I rise early. Between five and six yesterday. Still dark but it gets light earlier. It's almost March. Weekdays are great. As soon as I'm up, I'm off. I have an early start to my online teaching with Germans and I like that . In some ways it's weekends I struggle a bit more with these days. Which is an odd turn of events as I make my way towards sixty. But I really like my job now. I didn't for fifteen years. But I've quit the office and the arseholes for the environs of my flat and with it embraced an uneasy new freedom.
Freedom isn't always easy. Ask Sartre or Camus. Life is not supposed to be easy. Ask those guys again. I think of life increasingly as a test and there's always another hurdle approaching. But I'm enjoying the challenge. I sometimes say to myself recently that I couldn't be doing anything more interesting at this moment in history. Talking to German people and giving them a chance to discuss their lives and jobs as the world spins and the world changes. On a seemingly daily basis in 2025.
Macron has just been in Washington. Starmer might be going tomorrow. Zelensky it appears is due there on Friday to talk about rare minerals in exchange for an enormous loan,. Says who ? Says Donald Trump. Who frankly is the last person you would trust. He doesn't even seem to trust himself so why should anyone else. Millions did and do it seems. Yes, Search me too..
Still. 'They say life's a gamble. Hard to win easy lose. And while sun shines you'd better make hay. So if life is your table and fate is the wheel. Then let the chips fall where they may. In modern times, the modern way.' Cheers Bryan. Thanks lads! Time for my bath.
Writing is a great routine. This thing. It Starts, This blog. It gives me a compass. To orient myself by. To keep this vessel heading for the open seas. This morning before I bathe I listen to local band Parastatic who've just returned from a long hiatus with a blistering new album Concrete Reborn. It reminds me of Kraftwerk Of Simple Minds. Of Pylon. I listen to it, reading an interview with the band that says they're playing in Saturday at the Star & Shadow Co-operative two miles from me. The icing on the cake. It's only a tenner.
Persuaded I buy a ticket. Check it's on my phone.' In modern times, the modern way.' I put on Gabriel III on my record player.When I get to Side B it's Games Without Frontiers.. A song about It's a Knockout .A popular BBC TV series in the Seventies, an European venture based on ideals and idealism. Replacing warfare between European nations with foolish games with contestants dolled up in comedy costumes. Dressed up as budgies or penguins. Sliding along or up or down slippery poles. With comedic rather than murderous intent. 'If looks could kill they probably will. '
I have some breakfast and I'm ready for half eight. Click on my Google Calendar and I'm transported to an office in Dussedorf. Noch einmal ..' In modern times, the modern way.' I never know who's going to be in most of my classes until I turn up except if it's a one to one. My students are busy people They don't always have time to send apologies.
This morning it's just A. I know P and C aren't going to be here. Neither it seems are Ay and J. So it looks like I've got a one to one with A whose English frankly is so good that I wonder if she needs lessons at all. She reassures me that she feels she does because her English was much, much better when she was at university in Bonn. Studying Literature. Shakespeare. Now she's really into David Mitchell. The author not the comic British celebrity. We have a great chat about his books.
The lessons go fast. I'm an experienced teacher but I relish the challenge of doing this. I plan my lessons. I plan a powerpoint. But sometimes, on the spur off the moment you have to scrub the plan and teach to the students needs and priorities, Exciting. Challenging.
This is an excellent class. All of my classes at the moment are excellent. My criteria for a good lesson? I learn more than I teach but I teach when I need to and what I need to. A and I talk about the German Election. You have to mention it if you have 90 minutes directly after it's taken place. .A.says she's not going to hold back when she hears things that she thinks are unacceptable. And she's hearing them all the time. Good for her.
The subject of complicity comes up . Kazuo Ishiguro who studied Creative Writing at the university I went to and went on to win the Nobel Prize. Deservedly. It's a highly pertinent subject matter. We're all compicit in the crimes of our times. I won't expand but I really think that. I don't mean to depress you.
Anyhow. The lesson is done. I put on Cockney Rebel. Cut myself a slice of madeira cake, Call mum.
This is not a blow by blow account of everything that happened to me on 26th February 2025 you'll be relieved to hear. If that's what you're after I refer you to Ulysees or AI. Have you heard of it. It's the latest thing.
Anyhow I'll spare you my texts exchange with my sister about the Go Betweens Robert Forster who's playing in London in May. Relax. I'm reading today. It's Sold Out already.
Also my thoughts about Mattiel who I'm seeing tonight. So obviously they're somewhere in my mind all day. Alison thinks I'll like them..My thoughts on the Gene Pitney Greatest Hits I manage to shoehorn in. Trust me. You don't need to know. Snippets of the books I manage to read and write about on here. A quick phone call to mum. Trust me I don't think my every waking thought warrants documenting on here. Besides there are far too many typos for my liking.
Anyway There's time for Big Country's The Crossing before my 13.00 with S &M. Those are their initials I promise you but Germans are keen on their data protection. So that's all you're getting.Anyway they're invariably great company. The only lesson during the week that I don't plan. Not because I'm lazy but because that's the best thing to do with these guys.
M as it turns out is sick and not here. S. meanwhile has a meeting in an hour. So we curtail the lesson after an hour of discussion about Crisis Management, Carnival, where S's daughter is playing the princess, German Electoral Results where the former East Germans have decided they don't like immigrants. Or indeed anything. Ingrates.
Having lived in Czechoslovakia in 1990 I wonder how anybody can be nostalgic for flats full of cockroaches and without fridges or telephones. S. counters with memories of a holiday in Havana where a whole hotel patio had plastic glasses dancing because each one trapped the biggest cockroach you had ever seen.I struggle with the jacket potato I've just had for lunch for a moment. The lessons with these guys are always fantastic.
Anyway S. seems to think things in Germany will be alright. A bit of unemployment is not a bad thing. I trust S.'s judgement and look forward to telling mum. At two we're done. I've noted during the day that there's an interesting looking film playing at the Tyneside at three which I can see for free as I get three complementary tickets when I renewed my pass in January. So I dot 'i's and cross 't' 's for an hour. Then I'm off into Newcastle. It's Spring.
At the Tyneside I get my ticket and take the lift to the fourth floor to the Electra Cinema. I get myself a bottle of coke and a tub of salt and sugared popcorn. Is there a demand for salt and sugared popcorn? Not from me. I make my way to my seat.
Sometimes I get reminders that I'm getting older. The Electra Cinema is in pitch darkness. The film is about to start, I'm not going to respect my seat booking which is a few rows from the back. I can't evern see which row is which in the utter blackness. I go straight to the back row and plant myself in the middle of the row as the fim credits start.
I like the film I've chosen immediately. I'm Still Here a Brazilian movie directed by Walter Salles. Anyone who has City Station and The Motorcycle Diaries in his portfolio is worth following and investing in popcorn and coke for. So it proves with I'm Still Here, A drama about how a happy family have their lives upended by military dictatirship in Brazil in the 1970's.
It's full of bright sunlight and parties. Dancing on beaches. Wonderful music and attention to detail. Sinister lorries full of armed soldiers speeding past the Copacabana. Darkened prison corridors. A man who disappears. Is tortured and murdered. But not on camera. How after thirty years and committed pressure from family and friends evidence comes to the light and memories are laid to rest. I'd give it an Oscar. But it's not up to me.
It's a long film. Afterwards I mention its length to the usher outside. He says the art of the 90 minute movie has been lost. But sometimes a film needs to be long to tell a story properly. Anyway I'm out. Just in time to catch the last of the daylight and head down Newcastle's glorious Grey Street to The Crown Posada.
Lance is sat at the bar nursing a pint. Lance as it turns out is my only point of contact with someone I know face to face today. I don't mind. A and S will more than do. Anyway , I like the solitary life. Listening to music. Reading. Writing on here.
I don't need to talk to Lance. He's in his cups. He comments that I've bought a non alcoholic beer. It's true. I don't touch alcohol much. I was warned off it a couple of years ago. Coincidentally by a friend I used to come down to The Crown Posada with down the years. I'm grateful to him for his advice,
My phone is running down. I'm not happy. It's one of my quirks these days. I want my phone at 100 % charged if possible. At all times. It's not a criminal offence. I prefer things that way. I ask the burly, bearded barman and he plugs it in for me behind the bar. Which leaves me with a dilemma. I haven't got my phone and the light is too dim in the Crown Posada for me to read Breakfast At Tiffany's. So I have to go old school. Listen to the records on The Crown Posada's Sound system. Fleetwood Mac's The Chain. George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. . Phone retrieved and call of nature satisfied. I'm off. Out into the night.
The Quayside is dark and glossy. It's generally great from this point of the year on. A treat to walk down on the way to The Royal Free and then back to the Ouseburn Valley and on from there to The Cobalt Studios or The Black Tanners. My favourite circuit these days as Spring comes to Toon.
I have a non alcoholic cider and the chance to recharge my smartphone again in The Free Trade. This time by plugging in at the wall by my table. Yipee ! That will keep me happy for the rest of the evening. It's bright enough for couple of pages with Holly Golightly here. And now I'm at The Cluny. I won't trouble you with the walk. It's pretty much the same as my walk every time I come here. Good for my heart. Good for my morale.
I get myslf a plate of chips and a glass of tapwater to line my stomach in The Cluny and eat up the time until support Cosmic Crooner are due. I turn into the venue, make my was down the stairs and park myself at the lip of the stage. The Cluny is only half full but that's still a reasonable turn out and those who have turned out are respectful and intent on having a cool school night out
Cosmic Crooner is just the warm up man required. A Post Modern cabaret smoothy from Amsterdam in a ridiculous, flashy white suit and shades. Old school reel to reel recording as the backdrop.. 'A retro inspired act but a thoroughly modern sound'. according to the blurb. My eye. This is pure old school ham. Within a song Cosmic Crooner has spotted me because I'm the only person actually anywhere adjacent to the stage. So he's come up to me and is staring at me through his shades holdimg my hand. I'm waiting for him ro ask me what I'm doing after the show. But hey we've all seen this act before..
When he finishes his song he's at me again. He knows a straight man when he sees one 'Who are you texting man...' like some peevish lover. 'My family' I reply. I don't wish to spoil his patter. 'Ah family ....' Family are important' he says.' He takes off his shades for the next song. It's a relief for one and all that he's not Russell Grant as I'd been beginning to wonder..
Now he's broken into Jacques Brel's Jackie. Pretty much the Scott Walker version but with his own clever clever touches, It's great entertainment. At the end I think OK, I'll give him a response.' Call out for Amsterdam. A Brel reference and he's from Amsterdam. 'I don't know that one' he fires back. Straight as a die. You've got to hand it to the guy. .
I'm back at the bar for a bottle of non alcoholic beer and a plastic glass, mercifully free of massive cockroaches for Mattiel. I get my place at the side of the stage. As I say this isn't as busy as it should be. Don't the masses know and appreciate Mattiel ?.
They should do. They're on shortly. A taller than average frontwoman Mattiel Brown, a cool guitarist. They do a suave and sophisticated set. Mattiel inhabits the songs, cool Post Modern. That word again. Everything is Post Post Modern nowadays. We're all just a bit too smart. Or think we are.Too sharp for our own good. And everyone elses.
Byt Mattiel are so good at this. Post Modern C& W . Post Modern Country Soul. Joe Tex meets Bobbie Gentry, At the crossroads. But she inhabits these songs. The delivery is ironic but the emotion is real. Immaculately done.I;m tired though, My energy levels are dropping. Much as I'm enjoying the show, I've had my moneys worth and a great night out. Hey Wednesday's a school day too.
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