Sonically Sculpted Moments

For a few months now, my desk has been positioned in the exact spot where A Girl Called Dusty, The Jam’s The Gift and The Walker Brothers’ Images were all created. When I still had the gift, I could hear the temporal echoes of their creation. Find myself surrounded not by walls of rendered stone, but walls of sound. There would be a snatch of Townsend playing Zootsuit when The Who were still The High Numbers. A glimpse of Engel’s genius as he strived for somewhere between Phil Spector and symphonic orchestration.

Hoarse arguments between Weller and Foxton, the perfect pop of Dusty Springfield singing Wishin’ and Hopin’ and even the regimented strings once led by Ivor Raymonde have become part of this space. The music made here has sonically sculpted moments reverberating beyond time and location. It has given songs that even now are playing on a radio somewhere in Ohio and travelling through interstellar dark to die in the static crunch of distant suns. Every time I sat down, I could feel the history that did not escape the natural gravity of the building.

Now my spell here is done. I leave without having created great art or capturing an instant which will burn within the cultural sphere. I have been the gallowglass in my blood, not the poet. As I walk from the interior’s gloom to bursting sunlight which its basement depth kept at bay, there is no Bitterest Pill, no Just Say Goodbye in the playback of my mind. There is only the unrelenting, aggressive soundtrack of London traffic and the prospects of a long walk.

A Placatory Cream Tea

You wait all through the cold, deluged months of English weather for your first cream tea of the year and then suddenly the opportunity to have one is everywhere. If it had not been for my indulgence yesterday, not only would I have let a Government Minister buy me a cup of Earl Grey today, I would have taken him up on his offer to experience the Devonshire tea on offer at Portcullis House. However, two cream teas less than 30 hours apart are a bit too much, even for a wanton devourer like me.

Despite not being a huge fan of New Labour, there are some Government Ministers it is hard not to like. A dancing intelligence, a surprising patina of charisma for someone still relatively young and an obvious bit of nous is always an attractive combination. Throw in the sort of easy charm that offers of a placatory cream tea as an apology for already understandable lateness and you are faced with a Minister that could make you momentarily forget about the Counter-Terrorism Bill.

Sitting around the table, it became clear we would both rather enjoy a discussion on reasons for political non-engagement at a community level and how the hippy influence can still be felt in Californian corporate culture. As my tea cooled to a drinkable temperature it became impossible not to think: “It is a shame they are not giving you the same hype as James Purnell. You might actually get my vote.”

Summer Started Today at 12:54pm

Some count summer starting with the solstice or the predictability of Test Match rain, but for me, the season begins with my first cream tea of the year. It has to be the proper thing though. A scone with just the right amount of crumbliness; strawberry jam rich in ripe fruit flavour, not just a sugary red spread and clotted cream, real clotted cream. Not some facsimile which has never seen a shallow pan. Oh, and it has to be washed down with a cup of tea just the right shade of kiln-baked orange clay.

By this reckoning, summer started today at 12:54pm. It happened while I sat in the brick-vaulted crypt of St John’s in Smith Square. No sunlight disturbed the depths of the finest English Baroque footstool in the land, but as the taste of the cream tea filled my mouth, my soul was dreaming blue skies and lying on green grass while skin was butterfly kissed by a warm breeze.

The TV Show The Prisoner was Based on Fact

Given the subject matter of the previous entry, I though I would celebrate with an un-edited extract from Secrets & Lies .

The TV Show The Prisoner was Based on Fact

Sometimes you can get away with revealing highly confidential information openly as long as you don’t tell people what you are showing them is classified. When it comes to revealing a secret to full public glare, no-one comes close to George Markstein.

Markstein had worked as a military correspondent during the start of the Cold War. Before moving into writing for television, he built up an incredible range of sources within the intelligence community. Through his contacts he heard about the ‘Mad Major’ – an ace British secret agent during World War II who was too much of an asset to kill but who had become too deranged be allowed to go back to occupied France.

The ‘Mad Major’ was taken to an establishment known as the ‘Cooler’ – a Scottish castle where he and other spies were to be held until the end of the war. Unfortunately, post-1945 some of them were then transferred to another facility for ‘prolonged secure retirement’.

Whilst working with Patrick McGoohan on the TV show Danger Man, Markstein told the star about the retirement home for spies and together they created the basis for the cult TV show The Prisoner – in which a British masterspy resigns and is taken to the mysterious Village where he is held against his will. Later, Markstein revealed even more about the ‘Mad Major’ in his best-selling novel entitled The Cooler.

Over the years research has shown that the original ‘Cooler’ was at Inverlair Lodge, in Inverness-shire, an establishment heavily guarded by the Cameron Highlanders during the war. In the early 1980s, Markstein would take close associates to his London gun club where a special firearm – a Walther PPK – was displayed. This gun had once belonged to the Mad Major himself.

Even 60 years after the end of the war, the full history of the ‘Cooler’ and the ‘Mad Major’ remain classified information. Given that some of the files have been categorised Maximum Burial – meaning they remain classified for 100 years – the secrets of the real life Village look set to be kept for some time to come.

Back in the Village

Early morning, I walk along Embankment towards the Westminster Village and find myself standing at the crossroads of Westminster Bridge and Parliament Square. A bubble in the incessant traffic stream appears. A sports car with an actor whose face is memorable enough to recognise, but not to name, is driving. He is accompanied by a cameras mounted on a truck and police motorcycle outriders.

For some reason the suit, brutally polished muscle of the car and the actor’s determined sang-froid make me think classic celluloid secret agent. My mind moves beyond James Bond to John Drake, sparking sudden remembrance and possible recognition. I think the driver is James Caviezel.

Suddenly it strikes me I may be watching a recreation of the most iconic opening sequence in television history. If it is Caviezel, then it can only be filming for the new version of The Prisoner. I am living in the fantasy of my 14-year-old self who was entranced by McGoohan’s masterpiece. Libertarianism grew inside me while watching the defiance of Number Six. Views that found expression 20 years later in Secrets & Lies, began with a Lotus Seven growling past the Houses of Parliament and into an underground car park.

I stand on a traffic island and watch the car cross the bridge and out of sight. Suppress any delight by recalling how my excitement at being part of Star Wars history turned to a quinine bitterness when I actually saw The Phantom Menace. The classics are often unforgiving to those who try to fuck with them.

At 7am I slide my security key and open the blast doors. A heavy push on the thick, cold metal and six flights of stairs take me to my new space. Like banging the blackened skin of a bruise and being reminded of the original injury, the 80mm of armour makes me painfully aware I am in the Westminster security triangle. Even without this, my window view of the Thames House transmitter towers screaming paranoia into the static confusion of the infosphere prevents any denial that I am well and truly back in the Village.

Scroll down to find David's writing which is formatted back to something readable. -- Mary Ann

I'm late to the party, but I've been busy and I kept forgetting I wanted to do this. The good news is that the entry in question is only two posts down since David seems to update about as often as I do these days...

Yes, the HTML Fairy is having a little fun. I can really make a nightmare of Gothic Eyestrain, now can't I? I promise to change the template back first thing tomorrow (I'm eight hours behind the UK currently).

Cross your fingers on that anyway. My in-laws are coming at ten am, with the gift of a mattress, and I think we have to disassemble my great-grandmother's bed, move it into the spare room, and assemble the IKEA bed frame that we bought so the dog can be loose in the bedroom without my losing sleep over whether she's going to ruin the damned bed frame before they arrive. Nine hours from now. Possibly the matching nightstand will also have to be assembled before then since I unboxed it and then spent ten minutes staring at the directions ready to start that first step just as soon as I comprehended it earlier today and now it's sort of all over the bedroom floor...

It's quite possible I'll have plenty of time to fix the template tomorrow morning after I get kicked off the job for lack of spacial reasoning skills.

Good news? The house is already clean. Bad news? We have water and maybe some nachos and salsa. And NOTHING else to offer these people unless they want to eat dried fruit or Tang. We do have those. But I'll really try to get to fixing your template before I get sucked into the prepatory chaos tomorrow morning, David. If you're really lucky the puppy will wake me up at six thirty in the morning like she did today, and it'll only be a few hours that I inflict Gothic Eyestrain on your poor, unsuspecting blog.

There is Magic in London Town…

It has been said there is nothing more boring than hearing other people’s dreams. Second-hand nightmares and wandering in the kingdom of Morpheus are not always meant to be shared. However, having had the following dream three times in a fortnight, I feel like recording it.

I am on stage in a nightclub. Late fifties or early sixties plush, all velvet curtains and gild. The air is thick with cigar smoke incense and the tang of rum. Dressed in the type of suit you would expect The Midnighters to wear, I am playing bass and singing. I look around me and see my band all attired in outfits matching my own like some bad boy Beatles. I recognise each member as a close friend, including Stephen Grasso playing the sweetest rhythm guitar.

We launch into a cover of Lord Creator’s Kingston Town. The lyrics are changed and I croon it like Jacques Brel possessed by Lord C. Looking into a crowd heavy with godfathers and rude boys, I find my Lady Love’s eyes and sing:

The night seems to fade, but the moonlight lingers on
There are wonders for everyone

There stars shine so bright, but they are fading at the dawn
There is magic in London Town…