Ted's Tale in the Making

A picture of me at Winterwell Festival writing Ted's Tale on paper napkins from a cafe. I wrote the story because I got up too early and know one else was around. It was raining outside so I put Ted's Tale in a clean coffee cup and sealed down the lid. Originally Lucy named the story Ted Gets Wet.

Later a boy came up to me and told me he was watching me write that morning but thought it was probably an extremely long, angry letter to my boyfriend. He he!

A photographer dude took this. hence the writing across my face.

Ted's Tale

"It's drier than the Gobi down here still," remarked Mike cheerfully, a burly man wearing a fluorescent jacket. He poked the grass with the toe of his boot.

"But how long will it hold?' replied Ted, his companion, looking up at the low grey bank of clouds gathered ominously above the valley.

It was Ted's first festival on the farm. He'd been planning it since he was fifteen and had taken a year off work to manage the project. His parents had provided half the capital - the rest he'd borrowed from the bank.

Ted climbed the hill above the valley and looked down over the site worriedly. The earlier risers had already started to queue for tea and coffee, waiting with tent-matted hair and glum faces outside the mobile cafes. Fluttering the festival flags madly, the wind rushed through the tents, whipping canvas flaps back and forth and blasting paper cups off the tables. Shivering, the campers huddled closer to the breakfast vans, some jumping up and down to keep warm, some rubbing each other's arms.

"Power's out!" came the shout from Milly's Tea Shop as thunder rumbled down into the valley. The sky was dark. Ted watched as Mike ran across the site towards the generator. Others rushed about securing the gazebos and pulling plastic sheeting over the sound equipment.

The first drops of rain fell, pattering onto tent roofs and patterning the wooden tables with dark spots. groaning inwardly the breakfast vendors set up canopies and pulled cardboard boxes of cups and napkins under cover. The majority of the campers abandoned bacon rolls and hot tea in favour of shelter. A few pulled on their waterpoof jackets to brave it out.

The rain grew heavier. It spattered against plastic sheeting; ran in rivulets down ropes; and began to swell sagging corners of taupalain.

Ted wiped the drops of water from his watch. Another two hours before the music would start. he had checked the weather forecast religiously for the past month. It had looked so good! This was what he had feared. People so quickly got miserable in bad weather - especially at a small festival.

From where he was stabnding Ted could see that the site had pretty much cleared - not good for the Saturday. The vendors would be eyeing their tills and gritting their teeth.

Ted narrowed his eyes as a fork of lightening shot jaggedly down in the distance. Then came the thunder.

"Mike, come in Mike,' Ted shouted into his radio over the rumble of the thunder that followed. "Mike! Can you hear me? Get some music playing. MUSIC."

"We've got no performers till twelve," crackled back Mike's voice.

"Tell them their time slot's changed. Offer to pay them more. I don't care. Just get someone on stage!" Ted replied in frustration, wiping away the rain running into his eyes.

"Copy that!" came the reply.

For a while there was nothing. Just the wet flags fluttering and the site getting sodden, the valley mutely receiving the rain. Then, suddenly, there was the shir of the generator kicking bgack into life.

"Thank God!" muttered Ted to himself.

And next, from the main stage, the fuzzy sound of an amp connecting and the sharp squeal of feedback from the microphone. Ted began to take large strides down the hill, trying not to slip on the slick turf. He strained his eyes. Yes, there was someone there, up on the stage. Although Ted could see the figure's bright waterproof jacket he couldn't make out which performer it was.

Next he heard a cough, "Ahem!" before a flat voice came, rather apologetically, through the speakers. "Hello. Hello. One, two, three. Urrm. Hello Winterwell Festival. Are you having a good time?"

Oh God. It was Mike. Ted groaned. What the hell was he doing on stage?

"Right then. Here we go," came Mike's embarassed monotone. And then he began to sing "I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the..." and dance as he sang, hopping from foot to foot like a loonie in his neon jacket. "What a wonderful feeling, I'm..."

"Oh my God," Ted said aloud. "Oh my goodness." For a moment he felt like weeping.

Mike waved as he hopped back and forth and sang, "Dancin' in the rain Dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah dee. Dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah dee. I'm happy again!"

Ted started to smile. After all the stress of the last year, not to mention the past month: the sleepless nights, the money worries (his parents' money!), the perfomers pulling out, the site, the weather... he finally relaxed. And laughed. Slapping his thigh he cracked up, doubling over and laughing uncontrollably on the wet hill above the deserted festival.

Iain Sinclair interview

An interview with Sinclair - about Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire.

And then I discovered him talking about Ballard and this interview, called ''When in doubt, quote Ballard’: An interview with Iain Sinclair' is pretty good and interesting. The photos are shot in the Barbican - that somehow doesn't quite fit, because in Ballard's High Rise they would have become frightening anarchic dumps surrounded by rubbish and I reckon you could say the same of Hackney too.

HOUSING BLOWDOWN


Thinking about High Rise, Sinclair and towerblocks reminded me of being a teenager and watching the towerblocks on Queensbridge Road come down, floor by floor, like someone crumpling to their knees. This is on Hackney Council's website! Wow - they call it a housing blowdown.

Story of London at Richmix

Free event at Richmix!

See below

Tues 23 June / Venue 1 / 6.30pm / FREE

London writers Hari Kunzru, Iain SInclair and Rachel Lichtenstein will be taking part in a special event as part of the Mayor of London’s Story of London festival in June. Chaired by Damian Barr, Iain Sinclair and Hari Kunzru will read excerpts from some of literature’s most evocative scenes of London. This is a free but ticketed event. To book your ticket, contact the Rich Mix Box Office on 020 7613 7498.

I suspect Ian Sinclair's a twat though. We'll see

TALE 3: Ravenscroft Studios and the End of the Playground Rainbow

On the corner of Ravenscroft Street and Columbia Road there is a studio building with a cafe on the ground floor called The Fleapit. My Dad's studio was on the first floor in this building for fifteen years. My school (Virginia Primary School) was in the boundary estate, just down the road.

After school in the summer I would walk to Ravenscroft Studios down Columbia Road, eating one of these:



The studio building was a warehouse and had double doors opening over the street. From the hot pavement below I could see that he was in and would whistle, or climb the iron gate and reach for the bell.

A rusty hand rail led up the paint-spotted concrete stairs and there was a strong smell of turps, which was even more intense inside the studio - and on my Dad's painting shirts.

Inside the studio there were some objects which are very clear in my memory, and which I would like to describe.

The first is a large antelope skull propped against a wall, which was stolen from the still life room at St Martins . Although aged and delicate with cracked nostrils and splintering eye sockets, it was crowned by shining, twisted brown horns three times the length of the head and as thick as my wrist. My Dad told me that he regretted this theft but I saw it as a trophy neverthless, imagining the herd of bellbottomed long-haired art students who lounged, smoking, outside St. Martin's on Charing Cross Road in the early 1970s.

The second is a miscellaneous collection of china cups on a shelf, made of blue and pink dipped porcelain, with half worn chipped gilt lips and dry drips of ink running from the rims. Inside were hardened pools of ink. If I wanted to paint a picture I could use one of these ink cups, dipping the wet point of a paintbrush onto the pastel of pigment, circling the tip and summoning up a little slick.

The third object is the industrial bulk of an etching press with its handle and wheel - the heaviest object I could imagine - associated in my mind at the time with Ironbridge, a Victorian mangle I had seen in a museum, and the Royal Mint.

Finally, a black woodburning stove, stoked with wood and coke through a hole in the top. (In winter, I would make tea in plastic thermos cups - mine with four sugar cubes - and then we'd eat fingers of shortbread that had been heated on the stove.)

Beyond the stove's silver chimney, upstairs, was Miguel - who was friendly, listened to loud music and painted naked women... in jungles? I remember his paintings as exotic and pornographic. (My brother crept upstairs to get a look.) Downstairs was Bob Mason, our American friend Cathy's husband, and the painter Hughie O'Donaghue who produced enormous canvases of crows against bleak, streaky-grey landscapes.

At first my Dad painted people - funny bands of people partying - men with ponytails and punks in brightly coloured clothes getting drunk. He also painted potraits. Later he stopped painting people and painted spots and circles and made some small sculptures using the balls he found in the gutter by the studio toilets.

Although they were outside with ricketty wooden doors that wouldn't shut, the studio toilets were magical. Outside, at the back of the building, they shared a wall with Columbia Primary School. Tattered tennis balls; the soft sponge balls used for Dodgeball; green plastic soldiers atttched to parachutes; model aeroplanes; the occasional football; dwarf bouncy balls which came to rest, like multicoloured marbles, in the paralell rungs of the drain cover ; all these came over the wall - a blessing from some benevolent playground god.

My Dad got sick of throwing them back over. We never got sick of going to the studio. For my brother and I it was a dream. The studio toilets were at the end of the playground rainbow. Every day brightly coloured balls and toys showered over the wall. Every day there was a new supply of loot.

In about 1996 everyone left the studios. Space had sold them. I helped move everything to a new building (Triangle Studios) off Mare Street, which was brighter and closer to our new house. I went to secondary school. I wore a uniform instead of my own clothes. My uniform was bought from Harrods and was 'city red'. I had a pencil case, studied German and Geography and Home Economics, and went straight home after school every afternoon to do three hours of homework.

On the last day at Ravenscroft Studios we had a party. The room was empty apart from the stove and looked enormous, whitepainted, with nothing on the walls. (How did my Dad move the etching press? I can't remember). Because the walls were empty I noticed the patterning of round multicoloured dots on the floor for the first time - fifteen years of multi-coloured paint spots on the floorboards skirting the walls of the room. We hung the room with rainbow paper streamers bought from Neal Street East and had a party.

C-B-C Man at the Gallery

C-B-C Man

Yesterday a massive dude with a gold tooth came into the gallery carrying a painting. The painting was of a little boat on a calm sea in front of a vivid orange sunset. It was like a kind of 70s Carribbean paradise.



He said the painting had hung in a hotel foyer for many years and was also powerful as it had been given to him by a spiritual person. He was just off to to Hyde Park to sell it.

Then the brass handles of the gallery door caught his eye and he shook his head worriedly. ‘I think you need to have this brass cleaning. There is a lot of swine flu about and this brass is getting much too dirty. It's dangerous and catching. You're going to get infected.’

This made me laugh. After I told him we didn’t want the brass cleaning he went off down the street to the carpet shop, to check their handles.

I was a bit perplexed by this visitor, but then I remembered the gallery manual the last assistant gave me - there’s a section of the manual dedicated to regular visitors. I looked down the list, and there he was! Aha!

‘Crazy brass-cleaning man – he will visit the gallery every few months and want to clean the brass on the door. He will tell you that you will get HIV if he doesn’t clean it. Try not to let him catch you alone in the gallery and in the loo as he will make suggestive remarks.’

(NB - C-B-C man must have updated his spiel since then – swineflu being a more current concern!)

TALE 2: World Class Table Footballers at Bar Kick

World Class Table Football Players at Bar Kick (05.06.09)

Christina, Nelson, Sam and Diego are part of a niche group of serious table football players who meet on Friday nights at Bar Kick - Shoreditch High Street. Nelson told me that a number of the players are world class.

(I have photos of the players that I will add to this story.)




After a friend told us about the group, we went there to look for them. It’s pretty easy to work out who they are. A crowd of goggling onlookers surrounds one of the tables where Christina, her boyfriend, Nelson and Diego are playing intently, their faces contorted with concentration. On closer inspection, you notice the handles are different to those used on the other tables; the serious players bring their own.

Christina is a small Chinese girl, hair tied back in a ponytail, short fringe. She plays the forward position, her boyfriend plays defence, his mouth working as he scopes out an angle through the opposition. Christina neatly receives his passes, pins the ball under one foot and agitates the row of men, feinting back and forth mesmerically before releasing an explosive shot at goal. Sam said she is the group’s most formidable player. Her expression is fixed and her body is taut – wired – waiting for the ball - watching it like a cat. When she scores I see her grin and relax for the first time. Releasing hold she steps back from the table and high fives her boyfriend.



I watched Diego playing Christina. Diego is a slim beautiful Brazilian boy dressed in a white aertex, with smooth brown arms and a charming smile. Christina is intent and businesslike; she gets her kicks from goals. Darius is a showman; he gets his kicks from tricks. He passes between his players swiftly and accurately, makes the men dribble and dance over the ball, using the sides of the table to knock away and bounce back to himself before flipping it high into the air with a jaunty flick of the wrist: the ball shot off the table four times during the game I watched.

Later I played as Nelson’s partner - on the secondary table. He insisted I took the forward position and gave me strict instructions: raise my players when he has the ball – Nelson does the rest.

Nelson’s game is almost static. He stops the ball dead on contact, gives me the look (‘Get those players up Dorothy’), prepares himself, waits… The rest of the table jiggle back and forth impatiently, eyeing the ball. Waits. Waits… suddenly delivering a highspeedbullet of a ball, which scarcely tickles the goal’s tonsils before gargling down into the bowels of the table. Although he was very encouraging when I managed to stumble on some contact (‘Come on Dorothy! Good shot!’) I couldn’t help feeling a bit superfluous. It would have been better for Nelson’s score if I had kept my strikers out of play, permanently staring down at the pitch in the horizontal position.



They meet every week in the packed bar, which is filled with boozy Shoreditch revellers knocking back bottled beer and mojitos. But not to drink, as Sam, a bearded wizardy type with tattoos (and the oldest of the crew) pointed out. None of them are drinking. It’s not about that.

Sam tells me most people grip the handles tensely and too tight. That’s a mistake. He showed me how Diego’s grip changes, rolling the handle loosely across his palm from below to flick the ball, swapping to an overhand position and manipulating the handle delicately between his thumb and index finger to dribble between rows. ‘There’s a lot of weight in the players’ feet.’ Sam demonstrates by turning a pole and letting the men drop and swing in a smooth arc. ‘You don’t need to use strength, just let them do the work for you.’

‘Do you ever play one on one, instead of in pairs?’ I ask. ‘It’s no fun that way,’ Sam replies. ‘It’s good to mix up our styles. We come here to play each other. Oh, and to talk to people about it. Like you.’

The bar closes and the bouncers shepherd out the last drinkers. As the bar staff collect glasses and stack chairs Christina, her boyfriend, Nelson and Sam are still locked in combat, feeding the plastic chips into the slot - four serious gamesters bent fixedly over the table.