At rehearsal with a Ghanaian band for whom it is imperative to have two different drummers side by side. There are three brass horn players and I have counted four different patterns of stenciled colour on the walls. The room is filled with people speaking Ga and Twi and pidgin and the carpet is striped. […]
A homeless man was sleeping in the stairwell when I came home. Or, to put it in the terms which my instinctive body understood, a stranger, appearing unexpectedly, had barricaded my door; his body was coiled and his face hidden; I had to step round him to get in. Raised in Australia with its pleasant […]
Changing the side of the street I walk home on to avoid having to avoid the strenuously charming guy who always seems to be patrolling in front of his shop – often with a pretty girl hanging on his arm, always a different girl each time – and whose carefully-established friendliness and benign compliments have […]
A man in front of me got up from his bench and ambled towards the train. He was huge and had that loping, awkward walk of a boy who’s been called too big all of his life. I’d say 6’5″ or 6″. As we both sat down on opposite benches he pulled out a book […]
I was uncomfortable at Woodford to hear the Tibetan monks who had been hired to chant the festival’s “Dawn Ceremony”, alongside the thrilling singing of Tenzin Choegyal, being largely ignored or at best treated as background muzak while many people chatted and caught up, hugged loudly and with much syrupy performance, anointed one another with […]
Bizarre visit to the local physiotherapist today. For one thing, we speak different languages, and the overlap (in creaking German) was slim. It took us a while to understand each other. At the top of his full-length consulting room mirror was a Post-It note with a downward arrow, which said, “This is what a person […]