We are going to see Spiritualised at Koko in Camden. We are on the Guest List so we don’t have to queue.
I hate to queue.
We are also going to the Aftershow Party which will be an Exercise In Pointlessness. I will try to get John to let me give our wrist bands to a Keen Sober Fan so we can go home instead.
John really wants me to come with him to see Spiritualised because we missed seeing The Willard Grant Conspiracy and because he doesn’t want to go by himself wearing his work suit.
John thinks that taking a Middle-Aged Housewife with a Rod Stewart haircut to a rather Edgy Gig in Camden will lend him a bit of Edge by Association and render him almost invisible. This I doubt, because he is actually the wrong side of 17 stone and I have no Edge but I agree to go anyway because I like Koko very much.
Koko doesn’t smell of sweat and massed humanity, like most venues do since the Smoking Ban, because no one takes any notice of The Ban and it smells of Marlborough and Majuana as it should.
The singer in Spiritualised is called Jason Spaceman and they were all very Big in the Nineties. He will sing with a Gospel Choir and I hope he makes a better job of it than Howe Gelb.
I have never actually heard of Spiritualised or Jason Spaceman before because my life in The Ninties was Rather Busy.
In the Ninties I lived in Cumberthorpe Road.
I had two children in nappies at the same time.
I had a Double Buggy and it did not fit into Corner Shops. I couldn’t leave my children outside Corner Shops in their buggy because in those days this area was Very Rough.
I couldn’t drive and my Double Buggy was unmanageable on a Routemaster Bus so I stayed at home.
I listened to Radio 4 which has no music.
I painted our slummy house and stripped the floors.
I made friends with Athena next door.
I wore baggy jumpers and worn out jeans and I was very tired.
‘Why you always dressed like that ?’ Athena would ask ‘You a very pretty girl. You should go shopping.’
I had absolutely no other friends because all my friends had left London for University Towns the very moment they became pregnant.
John and Me were the last ones left.
John worked every night on The Opposition Newspaper and he was very tired too.
I didn’t join Mum’s and Toddlers or Music and Movement because the very thought made me feel entirely ill so when I wasn’t stripping floors and painting walls I walked round and round The Park by myself pushing the Double Buggy and bemoaning my fate.
I got Pneumonia then Suspected Meningitis then I got better.
The children went to the Local School and I made friends.
The only music that loomed large was The Spice Girls catalogue and I felt rather ambivilant about Abigail and Ellie aged 6 standing in the back garden singing:
‘If you wanna be my luvva,
You betta get wiv my friends!’ at the top of their sweet little voices.
Also, I was not sure that ‘Girl Power’ although a laudable idea, was best secured by dressing like a tart and shouting agressively in the manner of Gerry, Sporty, Baby, Posh and Scary.
Anyway, we made our house very unslummy and it put on £200, 000.
I had Maisie
John and me began to have fun with our new friends but it was Far Too Late for Jason Spaceman to have been on our radar.
I am quite looking forward to seeing him perform tonight.
Jason Spaceman was excellent. He was very loud like the White Stripes. The Gospel Choir were very very loud too.
The Audience was made up of Students and people who are Thirty-Eight and people who liked Oasis in the Ninties and were still sporting the Haircut and a few bald Gay Men with Piercings. John’s suit made him look quite radical.
The Thirty Eight Year Olds must all have had to get babysitters.
Me and John had a really fun time and my ears rang for ages afterwards. We went to The Aftershow party which was Completely Pointless and we went to a Turkish Restaurant in the middle of the night.
I do like Koko.
Thursday 22nd May
My Mother & May. Chip Night.
Ellis is coming for Chip Night.
My Mother is coming for lunch with her sister, May. My Mother and May have been on a Greek island together and they swam every day.
My Mother and May are a very powerful combination. We have courgette soup for lunch. Abigail sits down and eats lunch with Zac, me, May and my Mother. This is the first time she has sat down to eat at the table with other people since Christmas.
I think Abigail will get better soon.
It is lovely to see May. May is a Painter and she is one of my very favourite people. She has a very beautiful speaking voice and a quiet but formidable intelligence.
She talks to Abigail about her Eating Disorder. Her daughter, Betty had an Eating Disorder too and hasn’t eaten a chip since 1978 but it hasn’t stopped her becoming a very High-Powered Artist or prevented her from having children.
I think talking to May is good for Abigail.
My Mother asks about our visit to the Specialist and Abigail says that after exhaustive tests The Eminent Specialist had decided that it was probably all the Grandmother’s fault.
My mother nearly believes her.
Later, Ellis comes over for Chip Night. He brings Hetty, Hannah and His Youngest.
Ellis’s Youngest and Maisie rush outside. They call over the wall to Billie and whoop across the gardens to Archie and Morag.
The children climb across the boundary walls and vault fences, they drop down through Elder Trees and push through Ceonothus Hedges until they all end up in The Perfect Doctors’s garden where they play in the Giant Pit that the Doctor’s have dug to remove the roots of the felled sycamore next to their house.
The Giant Pit is a real draw for children.
Ellis and me go to buy chips from the Chinese Chip Shop Man. and My Mother makes Salad Niciose with Tilapia instead of Tuna because we think it’s greener. We adults can’t eat chips because we have to drink wine and to do both would be sartorial suicide.
Ellis tells us that he is still in love with the Artist With the Tiny Feet.
He says, ‘I fell asleep on the sofa next to the Artist and at no point did he make a move. What shall I do?’
And he says, ‘Did you know that we are the most observed nation in the whole world, that we are all under surveillance all the time?’ Ellis is good at non-sequitors.
Then he says ‘Have you seen that Banksy next to Waterstones in Russell Square? It’s brilliant ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ It says. Who is watching us and why?’
‘What shall I do about the Artist?’ he says.
My mother says that Ellis is very attractive and that frankly some men are hopeless at picking up subtle hints like falling asleep next to them on the sofa and that Ellis should bite the bullet and ask the artist to sleep with him.
Ellis agrees but says he simply hasn’t the courage.
John comes home and he says he thinks CCTV is a waste of money and that Banksy is ‘So over.’
Sometimes I think John spends too much time talking to very young PRs.
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