2014 and all that

On December 31^st 2013, I decided to try and blog my way through the coming year. Well, it sort of happened. In total 96 blog posts were achieved. There were a couple of month-long gaps in there when life got in the way but I'm actually quite proud that I managed quite as much as I did.

And I've decided to continue with the blog for the time-being anyway. Not least because on four months there will be a general election to get annoyed about. But I find it quite enjoyable to put finger to keyboard. A question I get asked quite often is ‘why?’. Why put stuff out there and let the world see it all? Why bother with things like Twitter? I'm not sure I have a great answer really. I enjoy it. I self-censor enough to ensure that I won’t share things that affect other people and which they might not want to be shared, and to ensure I don’t put anything out there that could be career-limiting. But other than that, this is no different to keeping a diary – just one that I let anybody read. I think that the knowledge that I am writing for an audience does prevent there being too much introspection, but it still has that cathartic effect.

So how has the year gone? Well – I've pulled up one of the early posts from 2014 and taken some of the headings from that – seems as good an idea as anything else.

Music - performance

Voxcetera continued to be a great source of pride for me – performing as I did at St Sepulchre in March, and then on tour in Edinburgh, before a ’home’ fixture in October and then a wonderful Christmas concert. This year promises a concert at St Martin’s in the Fields, and then Dublin.

But I also managed to sing in a Prom for the first time – with the Rachmaninov Choral Symphony (Crouch End Festival Chorus) being one of the most demanding pieces of music I have ever encountered. The sense of achievement was overwhelming.

Adding to that a Verdi Requiem, a (second) Mozart one, and six Albert Hall Christmas gigs (plus one at Birmingham Symphony Hall) made for a full year. And that is without adding in my involvement with Balham Ukulele Society – something I did not see in the tea leaves when looking ahead.

All the musical things I do have in common the opportunity to spend time with groups of people, from all walks of life, who are friendly, and who make my life a better place. I am grateful for all of them.

Music - In the audience

Two main words. Kate Bush. A dream fulfilled. But also Folk by the Oak – Richard Thompson, Seth Lakeman, and Keston Cobblers Club among others. James Taylor at the Albert Hall, Difford and Tilbrook at the Union Chapel and Chas’n’ Dave.

Add that to a range of smaller gigs, from solo guitarists to chamber and full choirs, and big bands, and it has been a busy year. I’d lost the habit of going to gigs and have gradually built it back up again. I am sure there will be more in 2015.

Holidays

Life got in the way a bit. The need to practice for a prom, and move house, mean that I didn't clock up the Air Miles this year. Mixed feelings about this. I don’t feel that I wasted my holiday entitlement, in that I look back and can see that I did plenty. But it would be nice to get away a little bit more in 2015. Pretty sure that the kids won’t want to come, so I can look to some more grown-up destinations.

Books

I've kept this one going – with a lot of Kindle stuff. Quite a bit of it has been fairly old and cheap sci-fi, but I've also read a bit of travel and some proper fiction. And I've read quite a lot of economics and social science-y stuff. But Thomas Piketty – just not had the drive to read him yet.

Media do overlap of course – I continue to be a great consumer of podcasts (one of the benefits of being a regular user of public transport). And I would heartily recommend Freakonomics, Planet Money, This American Life, No Such Thing as a Fish (the QI podcast) and Reply All. I greatly enjoyed ‘Serial’ too. Yes it is voyeuristic, and at times uncomfortable, but did have me on the edge of my seat – and we are all allowed one or two guilty pleasures, aren't we?

Work

I look back and (quoting directly from last year’s blog) ‘I do find myself thinking – worrying really, that I'm not sure I can, or want to, go at this pace for too much longer’. Wow. I think the pace has increased considerably. I have coped. In fact better than that, I feel more positive about my ability to do the job than I did then. I think that last year’s anxieties were a part of some more general malaise going on in my life, and that by correcting things elsewhere I had more reserves to devote to work. Of course, now that I look back I wonder whether I am pushing things too hard – just because I don’t see a problem at the moment doesn't mean I am not storing up issues. I'm currently very happy with what I do, but I suspect I should at least start to think about longer-term future options and prospects during the next year.

Health

THE major success story of 2014 for me. I managed to lose 30 pounds in the period from May/June to September. I have managed to put about 5 of them back on over Christmas, but am disgusted enough with myself over that to ensure they will not be sticking around. I found a level of will power I really didn't think I had, and (no surprise) that all you need to do is eat in a controlled way and do lots of exercise and it all comes good. Which makes me feel all the more stupid about the decade-long search for miracle ways of achieving it.

While dieting, I went almost entirely veggie for a couple of months. I've not stuck to that since I hit my target weight, but am eating much less meat that I have ever done – and I feel a lot better for it. At home, I could definitely do the veggie thing 100% of the time – it’s going out that kills it. Particularly it was three days away with work and the third consecutive mushroom risotto as the only choice on the menu that made me yearn for flesh. Does this go down as a fail? No. Because over all I am much much healthier. I have achieved something I knew I need and wanted to, but I think never really thought I would get to with weight etc. It would be better for me and the planet if I ate no meat, but eating it on a less frequent basis isn't a disaster for either.

Life

Big, big changes. Causing a lot of stress to me and to those around me (thank you to all those who gave me such support during what could have been a much trickier period without you). But I finally moved away from a situation that wasn't making me happy (and wasn't making anyone else happy either). With some time now elapsed between then and now, I know that I feel much better (and worry a little about where I would have been heading if I hadn't made the move – I think it would have been a pretty dark place). I've managed to keep what I valued most - my kids and the relationship I continue to have with them – whilst becoming (I hope) a much more balanced and centred individual.

So, there we go. Overall score? A few misses, a few definite hits, quite a few unexpected and unforeseen. A year of major change, and I feel very positive about it and about the future. So I have to put it down as a pretty good year. Of course, I now need to think about what challenges 2015 holds, and what I want to change or continue. More on that in future posts.

From gigs to pigs

Last Thursday saw my first ever ukulele gig, and what a blast it was. Performing in a benefit at Streatham's famous Hideaway club with some members of Balham Ukulele Society, we did a range of songs from Jonny Cash through to Keston Cobblers Club, stopping off at the Everly Brothers, the Jungle Book and many others on the way.

It felt a good tight performance (OK - I have no direct experience to compare it with) and it seemed to go down really well with the audience. We then got back on stage at the end with closing act MyFlat, to do a couple of numbers, which also felt great.

On Saturday I was back in audience mode when a couple of mates were singing at an open mic in Streatham - and very good they were too, and then a further uke practice on Sunday.

In the meantime, I took the boys to Bodeans in Balham. If you don't know the place - well, where to start? Brash, very 'American style' - lots of noise and sport, and above all lots of animal produce. Looked like a huge selection of interesting beers too, though none of us went near them.

Really not the sort of place to go as a delicate vegetarian or indeed an eater of small portions. I watched them as they polished off probably about an entire animal between the three of them, and then followed it with waffles and chocolate ice-cream. They loved it, and for that sort of family or quite-blokeish do, it was perfect. I suspect that if you wanted a quiet or romantic dinner for two, you would be better pretty much anywhere, including Nandos or the local chippy.

Rehearsals continue apace for Christmas gigs (with uke ones now figuring in the list as well as two different lots of choir stuff of course), and to close the musical journey, I'm off to see Difford and Tilbrook (as in Squeeze)at the Union Chapel on Saturday - should be fun.

All this doesn't leave a lot of time for sitting around and having a restful evening, so I am pleased that I am managing to keep reading. I must admit though that looking through the year, quality has not held up as well as quantity. Heavy tomes do not work well when I am tired, so it's been pretty fiction-based. 

I've just finished the three volumes of S M Stirling's Draka series - which is an alternate reality, dystopian nightmare - a bit like Croydon in that way I suppose. Bought in part because I like alt-history stuff, but largely because it was incredibly cheap on Amazon. It was OK. I think my slight disquiet is that it is written about some pretty nasty people (minor spoiler but necessary - the Draka is a civilisation based on slavery - the competing Alliance is based on tech) and because it is written in a point of view style (Game of Thrones-like) you start feeling sympathy with people for whom you should clearly have none. 

This sort of thing shouldn't matter - either the book entertains (and to be fair, it did - in a geeky way) or it does not, but there was an unease. There is no doubt Stirling does not advocate slavery, torture etc, but they weren't really eyes I wanted to look through.

Now looking for the next thing to read. As my search is based on 'Science Fiction under a quid' the same experience is entirely likely to occur.

What ever happened to plate-spinning acts?

It's been a fairly quiet weekend, for which I am quite grateful. Not sure if 'burning the candle at both ends' is the appropriate phrase, but I've had quite a few late nights in the last couple of weeks - a mixture of rehearsals, evenings in the pub that have gone on just a bit longer than they should have etc. So I took the opportunity Saturday and Sunday to recharge and do nothing more than have a wander around and a trip to the gym etc, and make use of my extra hour to sleep in a bit.

From here on in, weekends are starting to hot up with more rehearsals - this year I am doing a good number of gigs at the Albert Hall with London Concert Chorus, plus Voxcetera's Christmas concert on 13th (only one gig but lots of music to learn, plus at least one Xmas gig with Balham Ukulele Society - which will be songs I know, but do not know on the Uke. So there is a lot of practising to do as well. This may come across as a moan - it really isn't - I love doing this sort of stuff (otherwise why would I...) but put it on top of the usual social whirl and it all gets quite busy.

Other than that, work continues on apace. We've had a number of people out over the last month - a mixture of conferences and holidays and the colds and 'flu that are always around at this time of year. I'm hoping that now everyone is back I will be able to move things forward rather than just feel like one of those circus plate-spinning acts. (What happened to them - as a kid you couldn't go a fortnight without seeing one on TV - presumably they are all working in call centres or stacking shelves?)

And it's my birthday next week - which really isn't a big deal - I've reached the age where even the ones ending in a '5' aren't a big deal (this one doesn't) - it's pretty much only the decades you want to commemorate. But it's an excuse for a bit of a celebration if I want one, and to buy a nice book or similar (I need *no* excuse for the latter of course).

Anyway, that's a quick 'no news' that his filed my lunch break. Will write a little more later in the week.

Depending on Your Appetite

One of the consequences of my recent move has been a need to sort out my music collection – with the aim of being able to move away from physical CDs and to an electronic solution. Not because it's better – it really isn't – but simply for convenience and to save space.

Having successfully sync’d everything I have bought from Amazon and iTunes I set myself the task of uploading 10 CDs a day until I had finished the balance, and at the weekend I completed it.

One of the joys of this of course is that you get reminded of CDs that you hadn't played for ages, which has led to me revisiting Prefab Sprout in a big way over the last week. A band I had a lot of time for in the 90’s – at least musically (I still think that the lyrics can fall just the wrong side of clever-clever). And it’s still good – they have now been uploaded to the MP3 player as well. What is interesting is that my ranking of the albums has certainly changed over the years – and that Steve McQueen is now unquestionably my favourite. Great songs but a simpler set of production values that Jordan or Langley Park – which I now see as a bit overblown. (Swoon, the first album is simpler still, but for me the songs just aren't as good.)

And so, it was with my quest for simplicity in mind that I went for the first time to Balham Ukulele Society’s fortnightly Jam session on Sunday*. I’d never played a uke before – well maybe I’d strummed one once or twice – so getting thrown straight in with no concessions to beginners was a steep learning curve. I think I did OK though – enough of the hand shapes are familiar from the guitar that I could have a decent go anyway. And thank you to Rachel who leant me a uke to practice on between now and the next time.

Of course, the different tuning makes for some oddities for anyone thinking in guitar language. Not least that the E chord seems to be incredibly difficult. But most uke songs seem to be in G, so that’s OK. Until you come to sing them. Still, it’s another thing to keep my diary ridiculously full.

Other news, my beloved 5 year old iPhone 3GS finally bit the dust. Well, got to the point that I could only get a signal standing next to a phone tower anyway, which kind of renders the phrase “mobile phone” questionable. I have a new one and am still at the stage that I am amazed that I don’t have to charge it for three days at a time.

It has a ‘walking’ app on it. I should backtrack a bit here. In order to try and lose some weight I started using a free website thing called ‘My Fitness Pal’. It’s a diary really. You plug in goals, and the exercise you do and the food you eat (it has a huge database of these which makes that quite easy). And this is quite motivational – even though no-one else can see it - the thought of typing in “three bags of crisps and 17 bourbon biscuits” in the “Dinner” field is a deterrent. And I can use it on phone and I-Pad as well as PC. Anyway – it links to all sorts of applications, so on both Saturday and Sunday I used the pedometer thing and was pleasantly surprised how easy it is to burn calories without it seeming like it, simply by walking around. So that’s added to the routine now too.

Generally my fitness regime is going pretty well. I started it, in theory, around the middle of May, though in practice didn't get going until June. But in the eight weeks since I've eaten well, and exercised at least four times a week. I've lost a bit of weight and feel a lot happier with that sort of thing as a result. Of course, the progress will slow down now – the first few pounds are the easiest. But a huge benefit of living alone is that I can avoid treats and snacks very easily – by not buying them. So I am optimistic that the five weeks from now till end August will bring further progress.

Well, that’s enough – the train is pulling in and I’ll post this later. Off to rehearse for a wedding this evening – where we are singing on Friday. I don’t think they need ukuleles but I will ask.

___

As I come to post this, I thought I would share this from John Oliver – the UK satirist/ comedian who seems to be taking America by storm. When there is so much crap going on in the world, this made me smile - #gogetthosegeckos.

* of course, this isn't the reason at all – someone invited me, but it’s a nice narrative link!