My first year as a Londoner, part five and a half: the Girlfriend, continued

I should have adopted the mantra "she is more important to you than you are to her" in that year; maybe it would have smoothed our path. It was clear to me that non-Jewish people thought differently but my group did think the same and we had the same goals. It took some time to grow out of this attitude. The GF did not think the same as I did, as was shown more than a few times during this year.

OK: during the time from September to December 1974 we talked a lot, went to see theatre shows and films and basically spent much time together (no physical contact). During the week we would speak for half an hour at a time on the telephone. We were ok without being particularly close. January through to March 1975 was near enough the same.

Something changed at the Purim party that year; I don't know exactly what it was but it caused our relationship to become much more physical. Yes! Of course in those days it was pressure-free to be a boy and pressuring to be a girl. So the month between Purim and Pesach was a pretty good time (for me, at least); by the time that we got to the European Seminar, it was too much of a good time and of course I blew it. We had some colossal row, about what I have no idea now, but clearly it was something brewing for some time. The fact that I don't know now - or probably then - what it was about speaks volumes to the mature me that I am now. I wasn't listening to her.

Somehow, with the help of Jeremy and his current girlfriend, both of whom were also at the seminar, we managed to patch things back together again. As I wrote in the previous installment, at the end of the seminar, we all went back to the mo'adon, but GF and I (and others) slipped off to the bayit to sleep properly. So we were ok again.

Here I should mention something of which I am truly ashamed. My room only had a single bed and it was very uncomfortable for two people to sleep in it (I'm not sure that we even tried at first). The first time that GF stayed over, she had the bed and I slept on the floor; very chivalrous. But the second time, I got the bed and she got the floor. And the third time. And the fourth time. So much for "she is more important to you than you are to her" - I was pushing her away instead of drawing her in. 

A couple of weeks after the seminar, we had another row that led us not to speak for about three weeks. I really missed her during this period and somehow managed to persuade her to give us another try. Because she was probably off to Australia again and I to Israel again, our paths separated in early July.

When I came back, we had maybe two weeks before she was off again to Switzerland to study French even more deeply. Something very much changed in her attitude during those few days: we became very much closer, so much so that we even spent a night together in my tiny bed, naked. Due to poor timing and innocence, we remained virgins. 

Off she went to Switzerland for six months. We wrote to each other every week but things were different now, and in February 1976 she suggested that we break up, this time for good. I examined how I felt for a couple of days then acquiesced. We exchanged maybe one more letter each after this - and then suddenly it hit me. I was working at Schweppes at the time, and basically spent one day in the toilet, crying. Paul Simon's "Still crazy" was the album of the month, and there was a verse that reverberated in my head all the time:

The sting of reason, the splash of tear

The northern and the southern hemisphere

Love emerges and it disappears

I do it for your love

I didn't know exactly when she was coming home; I wanted to meet up to say goodbye properly and maybe get back the letters that I wrote to her when I was in Israel, 1973-4, as these were a diary of our activities. I kept all of her letters religiously but she probably didn't keep mine. So I phoned her home but they wouldn't tell me when she was coming. I phoned again a week later which is when her mother screamed at me to leave her daughter alone; I was so hurt and upset by this that our entire relationship became tainted in my memory by those final minutes.

---

And that was that. She and her sisters dropped off my radar. I tried to find another girlfriend, probably too desperately, which is why I didn't succeed. I needed a girlfriend: having one would calm me down and remove much mental pressure that I felt. I didn't have another one until 1980 which is when I met the girl who would become my wife. We came from such completely different backgrounds that there was no way that I might consider that we thought the same about things, although eventually we did think the same about many things.

One night in February 1978, I was driving home (probably from a concert) when behind the Swiss Cottage cinema I saw someone who might well have been the GF, going to her grandmother's house (her grandfather died in February 1975). On the basis of that sighting, I wrote a song about our imagined meeting, called 'Chance encounter'. The first line comes from a well-known song; at the time I was trying a new technique of taking other people's first lines and seeing what evolved. I only did this twice and this is the second song.

I met my old lover on the street last night

It's been some years since our final fight

We talked a bit about the old days

Had a few drinks and then we went on our ways

She hasn't changed in all that time

She's still got her figure, that winning smile

And I've grown a beard* though I still dress the same

And over the years I've buried the blame

And I almost reached out for to straighten her hair

The seal on my heart had developed a tear

But I stopped, and in a moment she worked herself loose

We both understand that it's over and done

We both recall how much we suffered for 'fun'

Now I'm left with a smile on a sunny day

It's funny how time washes bad things away

And anger can die, yes, mine's long buried deep

I'll dream me sweet dreams when I go to sleep

* I didn't have a beard in 1978; this comes from a revised version of the lyrics from about 1998 when I recorded the song with MIDI accompaniment.

---

There is a postscript, two in fact. The first comes from about two months later, in April 1978. As I wrote exactly four years ago when describing the show that we put on for the 50th anniversary of Habonim, after the show, I met my old girlfriend, this being our final meeting. It wasn't too much of a surprise as her youngest sister appeared in the cast but always the fool, all I could talk about was the problem with the guitar and not [ask] anything about her (like how she was, what she was doing, etc).

The second postscript comes from 2008. For some reason, I was looking for information about my university on the Internet and somehow came across the playing fields where I once played a game of hockey in October 1974, trying out for the university team. These fields were on the same road as where GF lived (although at the other end of a long road), and this caused me to start looking for her. I don't think that this was particularly hard but it also wasn't straight-forward. Eventually I did find her and sent a very guarded first email - what if I had found someone else, but with the same name?

But no, it was her. I think that at first she was pleased to hear from me, but then I made the usual mistake of attaching too much importance to something that should be light. After a few more exchanges of emails, the contact died out: we didn't have much to write to each other anymore. I, of course, was very interested to hear what she had to say about me then. As far as I can remember, she said that I was very driven. I haven't reread those emails.

I want to conclude with a song that I wrote around this time, called 'Archeology', that was intended to put an end to the topic, once and forever. It was an interesting technical exercise, writing a song with a five syllable word. Strangely enough, this song is in 3/4 time, as is 'Chance encounter'; pure coincidence. I'm very proud of this song's lyrics, and also of its music that includes many different chords without sounding obtuse.

Sifting the shards from a previous time

Guessing how pieces can fit

Making connections whilst sorting the grime

That's archeology

What can be learnt from exhuming the past?

What kind of knowledge comes forth?

What can be gleaned from the remnants that last?

Archeology

The digs can expose unknown figures of clay

Our knowledge increases thus, day after day

Sometimes the past isn't all that it's claimed

Even our memories play tricks

And over the years our perceptions can change

Modern history

Interpretations are fluid at best

Mutating as emphases shift

Discarding conclusions that fail current tests

Modern history

What once was hidden is now brought to light

Examined, revalued, and all with hindsight

Totally clueless, I swanned through those days

Not paying attention at all

I missed all the signs that shone clear through the haze

My incompetence

I understand now the forces at play

And recognise your point of view

The past has unravelled and now I can say

I apologise

---

Despite supposedly putting an end to the subject, this first serious relationship keeps on popping up in my songs. It even appears in my most recent song, 'Rifts and drifts', where of course it is described as a rift. Regrets? I regret how I behaved during the year that we were together and I regret how it ended (although this wasn't my doing), but it doesn't prey on me any more.

My first year as a Londoner, part five: the Girlfriend

I have alluded here and there in the past few my blogs to my girlfriend of the time, GF. There were a few events that I could have written about previously but they are more suitable to write about here. This is the place where I become hard on myself: I considered myself to be sensitive, but the more that I look at it, I was sensitive when I was the recipient but less sensitive to other people, including GF. I'm sorry.

I have vaguely documented how we first met. Our first meeting in Britain was a few weeks after we returned (Sept 1972), naturally at 'the moadon', when a party was held for those emigrating to Israel that year. GF and I hung out together; someone who I vaguely knew (with a car) suggested that we go to his house for an hour or so (I don't remember now why). When we came back, our leader from the Israel summer camp was very angry with us, as GF's mother had called but GF was nowhere to be found. Contrite, GF went home (or so I thought). I, of course, stayed the night, sleeping in the basement that was later to be the 'cellar folk club'. Except that I didn't sleep: in those days, I found it difficult to fall asleep in unfamiliar surroundings, and anyway I was full of remorse for what happened in the previous evening.

Instead of going home by train to Bristol on Sunday morning, I decided that I would seek out GF and try to save something of the weekend. I knew her postal address and that it was somewhere near West Dulwich rail station, but that's all. Somehow I got to this station: like most South London stations, it's not an underground line so it wouldn't have been obvious to a non-Londoner how to get there. But get there I did, and by some remarkable serendipity*, I exited from the station, turning left; I continued walking a few hundred yards until I came to her road. I could easily have gone in the wrong direction, so at least someone above was looking out for me. Once on her road, I counted the numbers until I came to what must be her house. I knocked on the door and vaguely explained to whoever opened (her mother? sister?) who I was and that I had come to see GF. "But she's not here!", I was told. "She spent the night at her grandparents in Swiss Cottage". Of course! GF had told me at some stage that her grandparents lived reasonably close to 'the moadon', but I was so distraught that I had forgotten this. So I went back to the train station and thence to Swiss Cottage, found the address then talked with GF for an hour or two, trying to straighten things out.

During the year 1972-3, we met three or four times when I managed to come to London for a day or a weekend. I remember that in December 1972 we went to see "The man from the East", a musical show by Stomu Yamash'ta, that was being performed in Soho. I had come to this after reading a review then purchasing an earlier Yamash'ta record, "Floating music". Thinking about this now, I can see a similarity between this event and those that I mentioned in an earlier blog: these were all events that I suggested.

Our last meeting before we entered the 'jet-set' phase of our relationship would have been somewhere between May and July 1973. I doubt that I have mentioned this before, but GF was Australian and had moved to Britain in 1968. In June/July 1973 she flew to spend the summer (winter) in Australia and returned after I had left Britain for Israel in early September 1973. The next year, she flew again before I arrived back in Britain, so our next meeting was not to be until late September 1974.

I'm going to close what appears to be part one of a long blog by describing our first meeting in 1974. Purely by chance, although pertinent to what was to unfold, this happened to be the afternoon of the opening event of the Cellar folk club; we met by a cinema near Oxford Street in order to see 'O lucky man!' (yet another choice of mine, now that I think of it). Afterwards, I assumed that she would come with me to the folk club, but no, she had to go home for something. So we walked around the streets of London, heading for Victoria station (aha, that's how one gets to West Dulwich) with me trying to prevent the inevitable for as long as possible. I was severely disappointed, even annoyed, by her refusal: didn't she realise how important that evening would be? Looking back on this nearly 50 years later, I can see how insensitive I was to the wants and needs of other people, especially hers.

Here are a few lines of a song that I wrote a few years ago

I once thought I knew you: that's patently untrue
I barely knew myself so how could I know you?

(*) Thinking about this much later, I think that serendipity didn't have so much to do with finding her house. It's quite probable that there was a map of the area inside the train station at which I looked in order to find her street.

My first year as a Londoner, part 4: "The Movement"

As I have either hinted or stated outright, "The Movement" (aka Habonim) was very important to me in my London years. "The mo'adon" (clubhouse) was located at 523 Finchley Road (it's no longer there!), a ten minute walk (if not less) from where I lived. This was a double house that had been converted into one, so there were a multitude of rooms on several floors. There was also a sports hall at the back, and behind that a large store for camping equipment; I set foot in there maybe once or twice. I had come to know the mo'adon very well in 1972 as I stayed there for several days; also in 1973. This building housed the offices of the central movement (top floor) but also was the meeting house for the North West London branch, where activities were held every Sunday and at least one other day during the week.

To use a military metaphor, the movement could be seen as existing as a battalion: each centre was a company composed of three to five platoons, one for each age group. Each platoon would generally have two leaders, and there would be a company commander responsible for all the groups in a specific centre. The battalion (central movement) had a few staff officers. For my first two years in London, I was both a platoon leader and a company staff officer; I was nothing in my third year in London and in the fourth year I was a battalion staff officer. 

Originally I was 'contracted' to look after the group of 10-11 year olds in North West London. We physically met in a front room on the ground floor, ironically a room in which I had and would spend very little time outside of these meetings. I don't remember anything else about this activity except that it wasn't a match made in heaven. I have no idea if I completed the year or stopped sometime; I suspect the latter. Probably the meeting lasted from 3-5 pm, after which other groups would have their meetings (it might be that the 12-13 year olds also met at the same hour). After the meeting, I would have nothing much to do until about 6:30 pm, when we used to cook supper (normally cauliflower cheese) for whoever was in the building at the time, normally the leaders and those who were coming for meetings in the evening. Sometimes the girlfriend (hereinafter, GF) would be there, sometimes not; she had two younger sisters who were involved in different groups, and so sometimes they would come as a family.

Possibly there were general meetings on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening for topics like art. I have no memory of such meetings in the first year, but they definitely existed in the second year: for example, we brought in a yoga teacher for a weekly one hour session.

In about mid-October we had an activity for the entire North West London 'company' (bar the youngsters): we spent a weekend at a youth hostel in Cambridge. The youth hostel rules at the time were that one member could bring a certain number of 'guests' to stay, if those 'guests' were part of an organised group. So I (and some others) took out membership in the youth hostel association, something that I would use several times. I remember very little about this weekend, except for a few bad things. I slept in a room with several youngsters, probably aged 14-15; they talked all night and made a terrific row. People from other rooms came in to complain. I slept very badly that night which is why I was probably in a bad mood the following day. I had organised for us to see the film 'Fiddler on the roof' on the Saturday evening, but hadn't accounted for the length of the film and how long it would take us to get back to the youth hostel before they closed their doors. As a result, we had to leave mid-way though the film; I have a memory of us walking down a wide street on the way back to the hostel: were there no buses? What could have been a good weekend was fairly traumatic; the GF was also there and was treated to see what happens to me when I don't get enough sleep. So there were problems there as well.

The next major memory is from Chanuka: it had been agreed that there would be a communal ceremony with a sister youth movement ('Dror', with whom Habonim eventually merged) somewhere around Golders Green. The 'company commander' and I, along with someone else were to lead the ceremony; I persuaded the GF to come with me onto the stage and help sing, although she probably didn't know the songs too well. One portion of the ceremony had the 'company commander' reading a text behind which I played a sympathetic and improvised background on the guitar; this segment went down very well.

At the end of 1974, there was the senior leadership week-long seminar that was held this year at some student centre in Chigwell, a rural piece of east London. I, of course, went; the GF didn't. There was a break for a few days at the end, and then I continued at the same place, cooking for the week-long youngsters' camp. Originally I was the sous chef, working with the same girl as in the summer, but after a day or two, she said that her mother was ill and left. Someone suggested that she was bored and/or didn't want to continue which is why she left; I don't know. We might have met each other one more time but no more than once. So I was left to cook for the entire camp; did I have help? I don't remember. I certainly don't remember anything else about the week so it might be that I worked almost around the clock.

At some time during January, I had a huge row with the 'company commander' in the hall of 'the bayit'; he wanted to do something similar to our successful Chanuka ceremony but I said that I couldn't commit myself to it, that what happened previously was spontaneous and probably was good precisely because it hadn't been planned. Anyway, the argument went back and forth, getting more and more heated. I don't remember how it ended, but it might well be that I left the North West London 'company' after this. Someone overheard the argument and told me later that I was in the right.

Possibly in parallel to all the above was my involvement with the Edgware 'company' that had gone independent maybe the year before and was run by my best friend Jeremy. I can't work out the time line as there seem to be conflicting memories. In the summer, I had cooked at the camp for the 12-13 year olds; one of the leaders there was a young girl called Judy B. At some stage we were going to run a group together, and I have a memory of going to her house and talking about plans. But then she said that she wasn't interested. Was this for the 10-11 year olds in NWL? A group in Edgware? 

What complicates matters is that sometime, probably in November 1974, I was involved in the planning of a weekend meeting for all the 12-13 year olds in the country, to be held in Manchester; I was to cook. Why was I involved if I wasn't working with children of this age? Maybe I was: I have a very faint memory of finishing the meeting with the 10-11 year olds in NWL then catching a bus to Edgware in order to run a meeting with 12-13 years olds. So how do I remember cooking supper back in NWL? Maybe this is the false memory, dating from 1972-3.

Anyway, at some stage, off we went on a chartered coach to Manchester one Friday evening. I doubt that we left before 6 pm and we didn't arrive until 11 pm or even later. From hereon, pandemonium reigned until some time on Sunday afternoon. I remember going to the kitchen when we arrived and sorting out the food; I may even have prepared food that evening. That weekend was a non-stop round of cooking food and cleaning, for which I had some help. I slept in the kitchen. After that weekend, I heard some reports of children being ill from the food; I tried my hardest to keep everything clean, and I suspect that the children were simply suffering from exhaustion and incomplete digestion.

Other mid-week activities in NWL included a song evening sometime in January, where I sang a new song that unfortunately was about a couple splitting up. I introduced it by saying that the song had no connection whatsoever to my current situation, and now it is interesting to consider how this song came about. Another evening had us watching the film 'Goodbye Columbus'; we used to enjoy watching the films shown backwards as they were respooled. There must have been more similar activities, but these seem to be the only ones that I remember (and it took me some time to remember even those).

At the beginning of February was a very important event: a group of maybe 25 people from my year and the year above converged on Simon's house in Birmingham for a weekend of discussions about forming an emigration group. Over the next few years, new people would come in and others would leave, but this is the formal beginning. I rode back to London on the pillion of Simon's motorbike, two hours on the motorway - and fell asleep! At least I didn't fall off.

In the Passover holidays I remember opening with Jeremy a day centre in Edgware; maybe this was only for a few days and quite possibly only a few children came. Then there was the European seminar that I wrote about here. I didn't mention that the GF decided to attend as well; this was without my prompting. We had to vacate the premises for the final night of the seminar, and so everybody came to the sports hall of the moadon and were supposed to sleep there. GF and I quickly made our way up the road to the bayit.

In early July we held a few days' long camp for the Edgware 'company' in a proper camp site somewhere in the northern fringes of London. Presumably we all had a nice and relaxed time, as the only thing that I remember about it was borrowing someone's 50 cc motorbike for a trial ride. I had no problems with balance as I had ridden pillion on a motorbike for six years, whilst going to school. This probably would have been a deciding factor in the decision to purchase a motorbike upon my return from Israel in September 1975.

That near enough wraps up my memories of 'The Movement' in my first year as a Londoner. Hidden behind several of the incidents mentioned is that I wasn't a very good youth leader and I didn't enjoy this part of the movement. I declined an offer to cook for a camp in the summer and decided to go to Israel for two months instead. In the following year, I would 'transfer' to Southgate where I would work under the tutelage of Simon; this was a much better and enjoyable environment, although it did entail a 40 minute drive (?) around the North Circular Road. It's just as well that I had a motorbike then otherwise this would have been problematic; maybe I wouldn't have transferred, preferring instead to stay with NWL.

My first year as a Londoner, part 3: "The Cellar"

In 1974, I imagine that I was eager to please fellow Habonim members and had not yet learned how to say "no", which is why I found myself at the end of September 1974 organising a folk club that was to be held once every two weeks on a Saturday night (in retrospect, not the best evening of the week as there would be plenty of competition). I had been approached by a peripheral person (DB) who played the guitar (and in fact showed me the open chords to "Who knows where the time goes" a few years previously) and was interested in having such a club. Again, in retrospect, I was at the centre of Habonim whereas he was not, and so I could arrange this. The club would meet in a basement room in "The Moadon". I doubt that I asked anyone for permission to have the club meet there.

I do not recall now how the club was advertised: presumably by word of mouth, although it wasn't intended to be limited to Habonim members only (and it wasn't: one girl singer who came one night was definitely not from Habonim). I bought a record to be raffled off as well as buying a book of raffle tickets.

Come one Saturday night, a throng of people made their way down to the basement room where I was selling the tickets. The place was packed out. There must have been some 'name' guest although I don't remember who this was; as per a true folk club, members of the audience got up and sang. I even played two songs.

DB and I were very pleased with the success of the evening. I even wrote about it in the Habonim newsletter (under a pseudonym) which would have made sense to fellow members living in London but totally irrelevant to those living in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. Flush with funds, I bought a few more records (and taped them): Steeleye Span's "Now we are six" and a Ralph McTell record. Somehow we booked the folk/protest singer Leon Rosselson for the second meeting; his fee was £20. I don't remember how much we charged for admission (£1? 50p?) but this price seemed to be within our budget.

Come the second club meeting: only a handful of people turned up. Despite this, Rosselson demanded his complete fee as agreed; all the profits of the first evening went on the costs of the second evening.

The third and fourth meetings were fairly similar: no 'name' guest, few people. After the fourth meeting, I told DB that continuing was not a good idea and we agreed to cease operations. I might have been out of pocket by a few pounds but this didn't disappoint me. What I couldn't understand was how so many people came the first time and so few the next. The girl who sang in either the third or fourth meeting played "Pinball" by Brian Protheroe, a record that was played frequently on the radio at the time and a song that I liked. Whilst she sang well, her accompaniment was a bit off, so I showed her the correct chords; her response was "how do you do that?" and I presumably replied something like "that's how I hear the song". 

I have to admit that I haven't thought about this folk club for years; it was only writing about that first year in London that caused me to remember.

Severe stomach cramps

Caution: extreme narcissism ahead. This is more for my personal history than for anyone's benefit.

On Wednesday afternoon, I started experiencing stomach pains whilst walking the dog. This is normally the cue for a visit to the toilet, but even afterwards there was still a small amount of pain. On Thursday morning I had breakfast as usual (although I may have skipped the apple puree), but by lunchtime I was feeling uncomfortable and had little appetite. I tried eating a little rice with vegetable soup, but it tasted strange and I had only a few mouthfuls. About an hour later I was 'going up the wall' with stomach pain; I couldn't find a position that would minimise the pain. Fortunately this wore off by the evening.

Friday morning began again with a small amount of pain; I had only two slices of toast for breakfast. At lunchtime I thought that I would play safe with some ice cream, but no, the pain came back fairly soon. This time I went to lie in a warm bed that helped tame the pain somewhat. At this stage I was considering going to the emergency room in Bet Shemesh, but my daughter reckoned that they would send me to the emergency room in a hospital, which is something to be avoided on a Friday night. Saturday was the same story: minimal pain during the morning, so at lunchtime I tried a sausage (not a hot dog!) with a slice of bread. The resulting pain came shortly. Obviously something was definitely wrong! 

Sunday morning was a repeat of the previous days. We have doctor's surgery on Sunday afternoons but my chances of getting an appointment were slim to non-existent. I went to the clinic and of course, the nurse said that there was no room (I though that they made room for 'emergencies', or at least acute cases). She wasn't sure if the doctor was even coming that day. So slowly I made my way home then drove to Bet Shemesh to the area clinic. A receptionist gave me an appointment for a nurse who spoke with me then arranged an appointment with a doctor (probably mine - she was working that morning). As it happened, another doctor saw me, not that it matters. All in all, I was there for less than an hour, so in a sense it was quicker to go the area clinic than to the kibbutz clinic - but we're not supposed to make a habit of this.

The doctor wasn't sure what was causing the problem, only that it was likely to ease up as time went by. There exists the possibility that the food that I ate on Wednesday lunchtime - food that I cooked several months ago and froze - may have been contaminated with parasites, so I have to give a stool sample (a problem: nothing going in means nothing coming out). He prescribed for me papaverine that relaxes smooth muscle, as in the stomach. I took one pill then tried eating something - again pain, although maybe not so bad as before. I went to bed at about 4 pm with a hot water bottle on my stomach and slept for an hour and a half.

When I awoke ... there was no pain. I don't think that there was much appetite either, but the feeling was wonderful. The stomach pains had made me feel very bad mentally; I was wondering whether stomach ache or headache is worse, and I think that stomach ache is the worse of the two. Anyway, in the evening I felt much, much better. I did not abuse this though and only ate some more toast in the evening, along with another pill.

I didn't sleep very well during the night, awaking almost every hour. At about 3 am, the stomach pain began again and I didn't get much sleep after that. At 6 am, another pill. By about 9 am, the pain had subsided somewhat and I began to feel normal again. I took another pill at 12 pm (I'm prescribed three a day for five days) and at 1 pm cautiously ate a slice of artisanal bread with peanut butter. No pain. An hour later, I had another slice; again no pain.

So now (Monday, 16:08) I feel almost normal. My appetite has returned slightly although I haven't eaten anything since lunchtime. I'll take another pill before going to bed, and another if there is pain during the night. I want to weigh myself tomorrow morning to see how much weight I've managed to lose. Not having an appetite means that I don't eat a cracker every hour, or worse.

My first year as a Londoner, part 2: "The Bayit"

Probably complete coincidence, but whilst I was writing the previous blog entry about my first year as a Londoner, including a link to stomach pains, I suffered severe stomach cramps for the first time in twenty plus years . Simply eating a little food would cause terrific pain. Since Wednesday afternoon, I've barely eaten a thing, maybe a few slices of toast each day. It's now Saturday lunch time and I'm mentally debating whether to eat something light. I have also lost my appetite, which is just as well, and weighing myself this morning, I discovered that I have shed a kilo! Maybe I should continue not eating for a few more days.

Anyway, back to the topic of the day. When I lived in London, I lived at "The Bayit" ("the house", in Hebrew, as opposed to "The mo'adon", the club house), which is pictured on the left, although there wasn't the pile of building rubbish in the front garden then. The address is 360 Finchley Road, NW3, if anyone wants to make a pilgrimage there. I understand that now it's three separate flats, a fact that doesn't surprise me. I don't know who owned the house (when I lived there) or when, but I knew prior to moving there that this was a house for Habonim 'movement workers' and fellow travellers. Being a student whose parents lived outside of London, I had a strong claim to living there. Londoners would often move in for a few months or a year then move out again.

My room was on the first floor, on the right of the building - that's the room with the small balcony with the metal rails and the angled windows. There were several rooms - mainly the ones on the left - that were for two people, along with several smaller rooms for singles. There could be up to 15 people living there at any one time; in the first months of my residence, there was even someone living in what might be termed 'the garden shed' - it must have been very cold in there. My room was probably the largest of the single rooms, not that it was palatial. There was a bed, a clothes cupboard (where I could hang my shirts and trousers), a chest of drawers, a desk for working on (I placed this in that alcove) and a small couch; heat came from a gas fire. There used to be a chair on the balcony, and occasionally I would sit there: the area was very dusty and over-looked a major junction (the Hendon Way), so normally all my windows (double glazing) were firmly closed.

One can't see from the picture (taken from Google Earth), but the house was 'deep'; there was also a conservatory that was joined to the living room on one side and to a big garden, which in those days was a wilderness, on the other side. Later on, I and a few others borrowed some garden tools from the neighbours and got rid of all the weeds. We had a washing machine and probably a dryer in the conservatory, but these were always breaking down, so after a while we started taking laundry to a nearby laundromat.

In those far off days, students used to receive a grant from the Government for living expenses, as well as free tuition. I don't remember how much the grant was (maybe £20 per week, but remember that this was only for the 30 weeks in the academic calendar; no provision for holidays), but for me it was a large amount (and let's not forget that the season ticket for the Underground was covered by an extra grant). We used to pay £1.50 rent and maybe £2.50 for food in the house, so there was plenty of discretionary income (although the few textbooks available were expensive, £10-20). We would buy the food communally and eat supper together; over the weekend, all sorts of people would turn up and eat as well, although there was no communal dinner on Saturdays and Sundays. I used to cook once or twice a week for everybody, buying vegetables and meat in local shops. 'Dry goods' would be purchased once every month or so from a cash and carry store (I remember this being far away from us).

The bay windows under my room were part of the hall; there was a pay phone there where we used to receive calls (obviously with the turnover in personnel, it was not practical to have a 'normal' phone). I remember that a 10p call would allow 20-30 minutes conversation to someone else in London, very handy for talking with my girlfriend who lived south of the river. There was a notice board where messages could be written for people, and a set of wooden post boxes, where one of us would sort the mail. There was also a toilet, very useful with the number of people in the house. There was another toilet on the half-landing just above my room, and a few more in the double bathrooms down the corridor from my room. Once a week, we would clean the public areas - some people to the kitchen, some to the stairs, some to the toilets and some to the living room ("klali" in pidgin Hebrew).

There's an amusing story about the toilet on the half-landing: in September 1977 two Israeli girls came to stay for a year. My introduction to one of these girls was when we were playing cricket in the garden, no longer a wilderness. Maybe the same night I was woken from my sleep by the door to my room opening and the other girl entering; I doubt that she had come to make my acquaintance, but rather use the toilet. I directed her to the correct door before anything else could happen.

Across the road from us was a side road in which lived Tim Brooke-Taylor, although I'm not sure that we ever saw him. Two doors down from us lived Dr David Owen, who was Britain's foreign minister in 1977, but I never saw him either. I didn't know this at the time, but Hugh Banton (VdGG organist) lived not far away in Cricklewood, which was down the road and to the right. I don't think that I ever set foot in that area.

My first year as a Londoner, part 1: being a student

Apropos of nothing, I started thinking about my first year as a Londoner (from Sept 1974 - July 1975) and remembering all kinds of things, so I thought I would record them here while I'm still thinking of them. I have written before about specific events, like buying 10cc's "Sheet music" album, severe stomach pains,  seeing Fairport at the Royal Albert Hall and Richard and Linda Thompson at the Queen Elisabeth Hall, but there is a lot that I have missed.

I think that I have a tendency to be very hard and judgmental about my earlier self; maybe this is undeserved but totally appropriate for this year. It wasn't so much a case of burning the candle from both ends; I was stuck in a triangle with each one pulling in a different direction and I don't think that two of them got the attention that they deserved.

But first: I was in love with being a Londoner! On several occasions I had spent a week in London, mainly staying with friends, but this was full time. I was totally in love with the underground: until the end of 1974, I used to walk to the West Hampstead tube station and ride on the Bakerloo line to the Elephant and Castle stop (the university was next to the station). The train used to be very crowded in the morning and I didn't enjoy this very much. The train was less crowded in the afternoon, but after a few months of this (I had a three month season ticket), I decided to switch my allegiance to a different station. This was Golders Green, on the Northern line; I'm not sure if this was further to walk than to West Hampstead, but at least the trains were less crowded. Coming home was more complicated, as there were several 'Northern lines', and I had to ensure that I would take the correct train. In retrospect, it might have made more sense to walk to Hampstead station, which is the stop after/before Golders Green, but this would have been a bit hilly near the station, whereas the walk to Golders Green was flat. I'm sure that I abused my season ticket: if going out in the evening, I would buy a ticket to wherever, but return with my season ticket. One can't do this anymore.

But there were so many places that I could have visited but didn't: Soho and Chelsea come to mind. I could have visited recording studios, but I was too cool for that. Had I known, I could have visited Richard and Linda Thomson in their Thurlow Road flat - a bit further on from the Hampstead underground station.

So what was the triangle to which I referred in the opening paragraph? University, youth movement and girlfriend. The youth movement received the majority of my time. University was tough going at first; I had just spent a year in Israel whereas most of my class-mates had come straight from school, so adapting to an academic setting wasn't easy. I was still very young, barely 18. In the first year, we had lectures and tutorials; we also had what might be termed a 'pastoral' tutor with whom we could speak about problems. I remember having great difficulty with the woman who lectured us on microbiology as her lectures were very hard to absorb. We had three different lecturers for chemistry: one for organic chemistry, one for physical chemistry and one for analysis. The organic chemistry lecturer used to make remarks about whatever was written on his students' sweat-shirts, so I used to wear sweat-shirts with Hebrew lettering in order to confound him. We also had a lecturer in something (farming??) who was an ex-Israeli, so I felt quite comfortable with him.

In the first year, we also had something similar to school, whose name eludes me, <something - general?> studies, that were intended to enrich us; these weren't examined courses. As I still considered myself quite artistic, I plumped for the course on poetry and literature. I remember that one time the lecturer organised a theatre visit for his students - we went to see one of the Norman Conquests. I asked if I could bring my girlfriend along (yes) and she turned up in terrific clothes (a tailored suit?). I had never seen her dressed like that, but as she said, one dresses up for the theatre and dresses down for the youth movement. I kept in touch with that lecturer throughout my university years and even went to his house and met his family shortly before I graduated and emigrated.

Apart from the two concerts that I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I don't remember going to any other concerts. Instead we went to the theatre; apart from the above visit, I remember that we went to see Equus, Heartbreak House and possibly something else. We went to the cinema: apart from 'Play it again, Sam', I remember seeing a film by Claude Lelouch to which I had free tickets so that I could review it (it was also the Passover holiday - I went straight from the cinema to the train station in order to travel home to Cardiff) and probably others. We also went to art galleries - we saw a Paul Klee exhibition that I reviewed and probably went to the Tate gallery.

What are these reviews? Instead of being concerned with studying at the university, I got involved with the fortnightly newspaper. At first, I simply helped to collate the issues but after a while I started writing reviews. The highlight of this was when I wrote a 'personal' column that was full of in-jokes, at least for me. I don't think that my fellow students knew of my involvement.

As I have written before, my course was composed of both academic and practical work periods. At sometime during May (maybe June) 1975 I was sent to a biscuit factory in Harlesden, west London, to see whether this would be a suitable placement. My memories are that I had great difficulty in finding this factory and that it was hot, causing me to sweat in my jacket. When I eventually found the factory, I was given a tour; I wasn't enthusiastic, to say the least. This lack of enthusiasm probably carried through to the interview as the manager there did not find me suitable. Just as well. The lack of a placement should have caused me to worry, but I don't think that I did. In the end, it was only after coming back from Israel in September 1975 and after a few nerve wracking weeks, was I informed that a place had been found for me at Schweppes in Hendon, a much more suitable place.

In terms of the university, the rest is a blank. The scholastic year didn't end very well as related here. I'll continue this in the next few days.

Another dismal Saturday

Rain started falling on Thursday evening and has continued to do so, on and off, until now (Saturday morning, 9 am) and will probably continue all day. The rain is good for agriculture but not so much so for my soul.

I eventually finished "Rifts and drifts" yesterday. After listening to the 96 bpm version, I decided to speed it up slightly to 104 bpm. When I listened to what might have been a finished version, I felt it was too fast and could hear myself having difficulty with the pace. So once I again, I slowed the track down to 98 bpm; on Wednesday evening I sang a quiet vocal over this more as a demonstration than as a finished take. But when I listened to it on Thursday, I was quite pleased: the first verse was out but the rest was good. I then sang the song one more time: this new take became the lead vocal (in mono), whereas Wednesday's take (in stereo) joins the lead on verse two.

I felt that the vocal on the first verse was too 'naked'; I wasn't sure which effect would be better, chorus or backslap echo. I tried both on Friday morning and ended up with too much chorus that was completely wrong. In the evening I made yet another mix, this time with no special effect on the lead vocal, but with increased bass in order to make it sound warmer. Finally!

Whenever I wasn't fiddling with the vocals, I was changing notes in the coda. So many changes. Eventually I achieved what had been eluding me and now the coda sounds 'right' to my ears. Enough.

---

I watched a YouTube presentation about David Bowie's "Heroes". The top end of this (Fripp and Eno) is good, but the basic track presents a never changing rhythm that detracts from the rest of the arrangement. Apparently there are many covers, but the one that was presented was a live, orchestral, version by Peter Gabriel. Most of the lyrics have been discarded, but the orchestral arrangement is fantastic and TOO SHORT. It's good to have songs without drums or any other form of percussion now and then (as does "Rifts and drifts").

Rifts and drifts (song)

Continuing from what I wrote previously about a 'proto-song':  last Saturday I sequenced a bare bones version of the 'proto-song'. The accompaniment was block chords played on strings along with bass, piano and drums. When I moved this over to Reason in order to hear what the song might sound like, I found a new (for me) strings patch that made a huge difference: this sounded like a string quartet playing in front of me, as opposed to an echo-drenched string section pad. This gave me the idea to create a quasi-orchestral arrangement.

On the basis of this patch, I dropped the piano and drums and converted the bass part into a bowed cello part. As usual, serendipity plays a part: the day before, I had been listening to a discussion of Debussy's "Passepied" that features arpeggios and so I decided that I would add arpeggios to the arrangement of my new tune. At first, these were assigned to pizzicato strings, but I didn't like the sound of this so I replaced the pizzicato with a harp. Whilst thinking about the sort of chromatic runs that are often played on the harp, I remembered that one favourite piece of mine is Ravel's "Introduction and Allegro" that features a harp; I also have a midi file of this. Reading about the harp, I learned that runs are totally diatonic (i.e. notes in the scale), not chromatic. I took a look at the harp part but decided that it was either too dense or not appropriate for my requirements, although I did take a single arpeggio (that seems to play a Bb minor chord) and reduced it to one 'up' and one 'down' per bar.

Probably a day later I introduced some syncopation to the harp part by delaying one note: now it sounds like a tango! For the circle of fifths part I had a viola playing notes, but after a few days I decided to replace this with an English horn;  contrasting this is a bassoon playing some lead lines. I reduced the amount that the string quartet was playing, replacing it in the instrumental coda with pizzicato strings that made their return. Several other changes were made as I worked on this song all last week. By Saturday I thought that I had a complete and finalised arrangement, although of course I was deluding myself. I also felt that I had worked much harder on this arrangement, considering how few instruments are playing.

On Saturday morning I wrote the words that so far have barely been revised (maybe they don't need revision after the initial arguments with myself about what words and rhymes to use). There are three verses to the song (no break in the middle but a relatively long instrumental coda) and the verse itself can be considered to be made of three parts. As I was writing the words, I viewed the third part of each verse to be chorus-like, in that each verse has almost the same lyrics for this part. In the final verse, I felt that the message (as such) needed more emphasis, so I wrote another 'chorus'. This of course required me to go back to the arrangement and add the necessary eight bars, although this also demanded a chord change in one bar. The instrumentation also changed at this point: in order to emphasise the words, I wrote a very simple choir part that maintains the chordal structure without drawing attention to itself.

On Saturday evening I made my first attempts at recording my vocals. I noted that I had difficulty in pitching the first notes of the chorus - this is an A note over a Gm chord, the ninth - and if I missed this then the rest of the chorus got lost. Eventually I sorted this out and I now have a complete version of the song. I am, however, going to rerecord the vocals as what I have so far sounds very tentative and insufficiently confident, which is not too surprising. I'm not sure about the tempo: at the moment it's 96 bpm, making the entire song with intro and coda 5:24 minutes long. I may increase the tempo and thus shorten the length slightly.

Pantum laser printer

I documented the brown-out that we had a few weeks ago. About two weeks later I wanted to scan some documents with my inkjet printer/scanner: the printer was dead. At first I suspected that the brown-out had affected the power supply, but when my electrician neighbour checked the cable - which was perfectly fine - we realised that something inside the printer had blown. It turns out that a printed circuit board inside the printer had been fried, and as the printer is cheap - and doesn't print - it wasn't worth the expense of having it repaired.

Years ago, my wife wanted to buy a colour printer, but as the cost of a colour laser printer is prohibitive for the home, I bought an inkjet printer. But the ink quickly dried out and along with problems feeding paper into the printer, I used it solely for scanning - very useful since I've been working at home. Seeing as I've been printing pictures on the colour laser printer at work, there's no reason to buy a cheap and cheerful inkjet printer, so I plumped for a (black) laser printer at twice the price - 550 NIS, which is still cheap.

This is the Pantum M6550NW multifunction machine: aside from the USB connection, it also has a network cable socket and functions as a wifi printer. I ordered it on Sunday evening and it was delivered (free) to my home on Tuesday. 

Yesterday I devoted time to setting the printer up. I tried to read the cd on my XP computer but there was no luck there, so I copied the disk onto my laptop and transferred the files via wireless to the XP computer. I ran the setup program and after a few minutes, an icon appeared on the screen for the scan function. The printer is connected to the XP machine with USB, so I tried scanning a document: I discovered that the document has to face the other way from my previous scanner (the top should be on the left hand side of the platen) and that the program was set up to create JPG files. After a few minutes, I taught the program to create PDFs and my first scan was saved.

The printer function, though, was stuck: a message appeared on the printer screen that there was no toner cartridge. I know that printers are often delivered new with a small cartridge that has to be replaced shortly after purchase so it wasn't too much of a leap to hypothesize that this printer indeed had no cartridge. I couldn't figure out from the quick start manual how to access where the cartridge should be.

I also failed to connect the printer to my wifi: I gave it the network name and password but no connection was made. As it was getting late and I was tired and lacking gumption, I decided to leave configuring the printer for another day.

Today I looked at the online manual but still could not figure out how to access the toner. It also was unclear what type of cartridge the printer requires: Pantum has an Israeli website but my model didn't appear there. Without knowing the part number for the cartridge, I couldn't determine whether a shop in the nearby mall might have the correct cartridge. Somewhat in desperation, I found on Amazon the correct cartridge and ordered one at a cost of $61. Amazon delivers free to Israel with orders greater than $50 so I don't have to pay delivery; they sell a generic cartridge for about $40, but then one has to pay shipping and ironically this option turns out to be more expensive.

Then inspiration came: maybe there are videos on YouTube showing how to install the cartridge, how to define the wifi and anything else that I desire. And so it is: I saw how to access the cartridge and discovered that the printer does come with one. After removing some packing material, I replaced the cartridge but the printer still insisted that there was no cartridge. I removed the cartridge again then removed the plastic strip that I call the safety pin, as on a grenade. Now the printer recognised the cartridge and even printed out a test page!

I tried again to define the wifi: the printer printed out a list of networks in our building and the surrounding area, but again, no luck in defining the required network settings. I then moved back to the mobile computer and watched another video: this one says that the printer itself has its own network (and I discovered that there's another network printer in the vicinity). Connecting to this didn't work, but when I installed the printer driver on the computer, it gave the option of accessing the printer via its own wifi.

And lo and behold: I can now print from my mobile to the printer via the magic of wifi! 

More musicians

Several musicians, who have been somewhat peripheral to my music collection, have died in the past week or so, and it would be remiss of me not to mention them.

First was Norma Waterson, of the Watersons family singing group, whose husband is Martin Carthy. I have a disk of hers somewhere but have listened to it maybe once. The Watersons tended to be strictly traditional and at one stage unaccompanied, which is why our paths haven't crossed very much.

Then there was Ian McDonald from the first line-up of King Crimson. I have both the first KC album, where he dominates, as well as 'McDonald and Giles'. He promised much but disappeared early from my radar.

Finally there is Gary Brooker from Procul Harum: apart from their first two singles ('Whiter shade of pale' and 'Homburg'), I also have their 'A salty dog' disk. The eponymous song is excellent but the rest of the album pales in comparison.

The power of regret, and a proto-song

Astute readers of this blog may have noticed that some of my lyrics have been influenced by books - 'You should have known', 'What Alice forgot' and 'Normal people' (in my defense, I note that Kate Bush wrote songs inspired by films). At the moment I am reading a fascinating book,  'The power of regret' by Daniel H. Pink, and I'm fairly sure that by the time I finish this book, I will have some ideas for song lyrics. One possible title that I noted is 'Rifts and drifts' - regrets about friendships that were torn apart by some extreme event (rifts) and friendships that simply slipped away (drifts - note the Hammill reference).

As opposed to the other three books that I mentioned, 'Regret' is a non-fiction book. It's the type of book that I very much enjoy reading: simplified psychology. Most (if not all) of Pink's books lie in this area - I have on my shelves a book called 'A whole new mind' that dates from the days when I used to buy real books. This is a book well worth reading.

I used to think that I was full of regret (as are the people appearing in the book, naturally), but I've been thinking about this for the past few days and there doesn't seem to be anything that I regret not doing since I emigrated to Israel, although there are a few things that I regret doing or saying. Most of the regret (if any is left from those days) is to be found in my London period. I don't regret emigrating, I don't regret living on kibbutz, I don't regret marrying my wife, I don't regret leaving one kibbutz to live on another (a very good move, in fact). There was a time in about 2008 when I spent a weekend seriously considering whether to leave the company for which I worked (and still do) and move to a Priority consulting company; I didn't leave but I don't regret doing so. 

Anyway: there is a good chance that lyrics will arise from this book. This is just as well as the other day I played some ideas on the piano and recorded them. On Thursday evening I made a bare bones sequence of these ideas that I improved greatly on Friday morning, although towards the afternoon and evening I was beginning to have second thoughts, not only about this emerging song but about other songs that I have written. The tunes seem to be too dense - I don't know how exactly to describe this - not leaving much room for instruments to punch through, or even to breathe. I heard something on the radio during these hours, noting how few notes were sung to a bar, and I realised that I don't do this. This train of thought crystallised when I read how John Lennon had to add extra beats to 'Across the universe' because he didn't have enough time to breathe between lines.

So before I went to bed, I tried playing a new version of this proto-song where there is one chord per bar and the melody is more spread out and starts on the second or third beat of the opening bar of each phrase. I have yet to sequence this version but I think that it will sound better than the first version. It starts with a sequence in E Dorian (Em D Bm A) but then there's an interesting sequence of secondary dominants - Gm C F BbMaj7 Bm7b5 E Asus4 A. Obviously BbMaj7 is not the secondary dominant of Bm7b5 - in fact, the two chords contain almost the same notes: the Bb of the first chord is sharpened to B - but makes for an interesting change.

No doubt I'll be tinkering with this proto-song during the coming weeks. And no, I have no regrets about changing the harmonic rhythm.

[Note: I had literally finished writing the above and formatting it when there was a power cut. Fortunately everything has been saved.]

Welcome to the urologist

The specialist doctor to which I alluded in yesterday's blog is a urologist. Nearly two years ago I was suffering from swollen feet, and one of the varied tests that I underwent was an ultrasound scan of my lower body, to see if there were any leaks in the blood vessels that might cause liquid to build up in my legs and feet. The scan was clear but it showed that my prostate gland might be enlarged.

On the basis of this, I visited the urologist: his opinion was that there was no problem but he also said that men aged 60 and over should have a yearly (? I don't remember now) checkup. As my father had had prostate cancer in the 1980s, my chances of having prostate cancer are slightly higher than the average man. Fortunately the blood tests showed a low level of PSA and that topic dropped off the radar. 

Several years ago I discussed the topic of the PSA with our then family doctor and he was inclined not to pay too much attention to the results. There are many false positives and false negatives, and so the result on its own is not an indication of anything. As it's only a blood test, the cost (not monetary) of the test is low and so it's acceptable to do it. More demanding tests with false positive or (worse) false negatives are a different story.

Last September I did urine tests and also had the dubitable pleasure of undergoing a digital rectum examination (or as someone less polite than me would say, a finger up the bum) that showed that the prostate indeed is not enlarged. The urologist asked me to repeat the blood and urine tests in six months time, which is now.

The blood tests were fine as far as the urologist is concerned but the urine test shows two problematic values: the RBC (red blood cell) was 25 and the erythrocytes count had increased slightly since my previous test. These two tests indicate the presence of blood in the urine - a microhaematuria. I had been diagnosed with this during my army days but the condition had seemed to improve. The urologist wants to get to the bottom of this and find out what's causing the condition  (as does my nephrologist) , so now I have to undergo a CT and worst of all, a cystoscopy. Just saying the word makes me shrivel. It occurs to me that this is the final body orifice to be invaded, after the mouth, anus, nose and ear. Maybe this will be like the adrenal venous sampling procedure as far as I am concerned: local anaesthetic and no ability to move nor see what's happening.

Mint chocolate ice cream comes to Bet Shemesh!

Before I get down to business, I want to note that we were promised rain from yesterday afternoon. We actually had pleasant sunshine until about 5 pm, then it became relatively cool. Only at 10 am this morning (Friday) did it actually rain a little. When I was doing national service in the army, I made a bargain with the weather: I didn't mind if it rained all weekend as long as it didn't rain during the week. I remember that the weather actually kept this bargain for quite some time in 1980.

Yesterday evening I had to go to the local mall for a specialist doctor's appointment (maybe more on that later in a separate blog). This gave me the chance to go to the new ice cream emporium that has opened there. There's a branch near where my son lives in Tel Aviv and he has brought us some ice cream in the past: very tasty. It seems that every branch can choose which flavours to sell (obviously this is dependent on the local population) as the flavours that he brought us weren't for sale yesterday.

But the first thing that I saw was mint chocolate ice cream! I should have taken a picture of it yesterday in order to display here, but I will have to suffice with a picture of someone else's ice cream. I asked for a taste, just to ensure that it's the mint flavour that I like and not the local favourites pistachio or spearmint (nana). So I immediately bought a half kilo package, and to be fair, bought half a kilo of vanilla for my wife. They also had limoncello sorbet on display, of which I had a taste: very refreshing. This will be good when the weather gets hotter.

I am slightly surprised about the choice of flavours on sale here; apart from the Moroccans and Russians, Bet Shemesh has a fairly large minority of American religious Jews, and it may be them that are driving the choice of flavours.

But what is the ice cream like? It was much softer than I expected, though this may change the longer the ice cream is in our freezer*. There don't seem to be any chocolate chips: the chocolate seems to be chocolate ice cream mixed with the mint. There is also a synthetic note of something in the aftertaste that is slightly off-putting. But still: mint chocolate in Bet Shemesh! Despite my minor carping, the ice cream is much better than the regular commercial ice cream - and much more expensive: a kilo of regular ice cream costs about 30 NIS, whereas half a kilo of Golda ice cream costs 60 NIS (the ice cream is weighed so the cost depends on the actual weight, i.e. how much the server managed to cram into the container). That's four times as much. I don't think that the ice cream is four times as good, but it is much better.

The raw materials of the ice cream are apparently sourced from Italian manufacturer Guiso.

 

* Indeed it did.

Finishing "You hold me"

As I wrote last week, I intended to rerecord the vocals to this new song and also change the instrumental track slightly. During what turned out to be a very hard week I only found enough time to make the small changes in the backing track, further improving the song. On Wednesday night I felt that I needed a complete break from work (both 'the day job' and my consulting gigs) and decided to have a go at recording the vocals again.

Familiarity with the tune meant that I was able to nail the singing in one take (possibly with an edit at the end when I garbled a phrase). I changed the phrasing in the first line of each half verse, leaving a quaver break before the first word then singing the second note early. I'm not so sure that this was a good idea, but anyway it didn't matter. I had difficulty trying to find a reverb setting that matched what I wanted to hear - the vocal is supposed to be intimate but with a reverb tail - and several times I converted the vocal file from mono to stereo (some plug-ins only work on stereo files) and back again. As a result, somehow the quality of the vocal became downgraded and I decided to abandon the evening's work.

Thursday was a very trying day, so again I needed a diversion in the evening and resumed work on the song. This time I reduced the amount of syncopation on the first lines and was able to produce a good take the first time around (possibly with an edit at the beginning). I also sang with a more throaty and whispered voice instead of singing naturally: this is hard to describe but it changed a quality of the singing. I was determined to save every version of the vocal file in order to prevent the sort of problems that I had the first night. So file 1 was the original vocal, file 2 the small edit piece, file 3 the composite version, and file 4 the tuned version, File 3 was in stereo albeit with two identical tracks so that it sounds mono; as file 4 was created from file 3, this too was in stereo. I did not add a little silence to one side as I tend to do: this creates a double tracking effect, but I wanted an intimate vocal with few effects.

I then aligned file 4 with the music and started once again the difficult process of getting the desired tone and reverb. I had been cutting the bass entirely from previous mixes, resulting in a somewhat lacking treble tone; the breakthrough came when I restored most of the bass. This led to a very natural sound. I quickly mixed the song once again and was pleased with the result. I let my wife listen to this mix on headphones and she thought the song/performance was very good.

On Friday morning, I listened once again to the previous night's mix: I felt that there was too much bass in the vocal that was also a touch too loud. I reduced the bass slightly - also affecting the vocal's volume - until I had a good, round, sound. I mixed the track one more time and deemed this song complete.

This was actually a very fast turnaround, as the music was written only eleven days previously and the words seven days previously. Most songs take about a month from conception to completion.

Now what? I have no ideas and no suggestions (e.g. a simple song in a minor key). I started fiddling with something on the piano yesterday evening but I don't know yet whether this is going to lead anywhere. I want to listen to all the eight songs that I have written and recorded since the summer and see whether there is a style missing from them, such as a waltz.

Too much potassium in my blood

I did a blood test yesterday for a few specific items; I asked that potassium be included. As I wrote four months ago, it's been four weeks since I started taking the potassium-sparing drug spironolactone. I was very interested in seeing how my diet has been influencing the potassium level in my blood. Some sources say that the maximum recommended level is 5.1 mEq/l, whereas others say 5.0 mEq/l. My level yesterday was 5.2 mEq/l. Too much potassium in the blood causes a condition called hyperkalemia; whilst this is often symptom-free, it can cause problems with the heart's rhythms.

What can I change in my diet that I haven't already changed? I drink about 3.5 litres of rice 'milk' a week which is probably quite a lot; that's what comes from working at home. As there is no requirement to state how much potassium is in the 'milk', one is forced to get data from the internet, and here the information is mixed. One source says that rice milk is lowest [in the various 'milks'] with a range from 20 to 80 mg. The same source says that the potassium level in almond 'milk' ranges from 150 to 250 mg. On the basis of this information, I've been drinking rice 'milk'. 

Whilst writing this, I've discovered that I misread another internet page and confused the phosphorus level with the potassium level: I thought that this site was saying that the potassium level in almond 'milk' is only 20 mg (per cup, 240 ml) whereas in fact it has 20 mg/cup phosphorus. Oops. The potassium level is quoted as 160 mg/cup. So the rice milk stays. That's unfortunate as I've just bought 2 litres of almond 'milk', one carton each from two suppliers.

The only other item that I can think of that could be replaced is the yoghurt that I eat in the morning. 100 g yoghurt contains slightly less than 200 mg potassium, about 4% of the recommended daily intake. As I eat 250 g a day, that's 10% of the recommended daily intake. I am going to replace the yoghurt with apple puree which would seem to have about 150 mg potassium per 100 g. Thus apple puree has about 25% less potassium than yoghurt: not a great saving but it's still less. 

It appears that the puree costs less than the yoghurt, thus offsetting the additional cost of the rice milk. Alpro rice 'milk' costs 14.30 NIS when I can find it, whereas 2% fat low lactose milk costs 7.50 NIS. I've been buying the rice drink from Italian supplier The Bridge at 9.90 NIS, so this is significantly cheaper than the Alpro product and not much more expensive than ordinary milk.

[Edit from a few hours later] The solution to the 'tea problem' is simply to drink less tea with 'milk' and increase the amount of infusions, that have no calories and no potassium.

You hold me (yet another new song)

About three weeks ago, I wrote [A]bout this time last month, I had finished working on and recording a new song. I felt that I was out of ideas and that I'd never write another song (this happens quite frequently). After finishing "Blind as a bat", I felt this emptiness again for a few days but I knew that at some stage a new song would come. I was busy at the beginning of the week with meetings, but on Tuesday evening I managed to find some time to sit at the piano, and almost by magic a new tune appeared, that I recorded onto my mobile phone. I had decided in advance that I wanted a simple song in a minor key, to act as a contrast to some of the more complicated material that I have been writing lately, and this new tune did not disappoint.

In contrast to most of my songs, this one is almost completely diatonic: in the key of A minor, the chords are Am G | F | F Em | D | F | C | Dm | E | Am G | F | F Em | D | F | C | Dm | G | Dm | G G# dim. The only chromatic chord is the D in bars 4 and 12; the G# diminished chord at the end can be seen as E7 without the root, that leads seamlessly to the A minor chord. I was pleased by the fact that the 'chord rate' was not one chord per bar; there are bars with two chords and there is a chord that is held for one and a half bars. The song actually is very slow (66 bpm), leading me to suspect that each half bar is really a bar, meaning that the tempo would become 132 bpm. Due to this slow tempo, this simple song lasts over four minutes.

It wasn't until Thursday evening that I had the chance to transcribe the tune into the MIDI sequencer; apart from the tune itself and staccato chords, I added an extremely simple bass part and an arpeggiated part for a Rhodes piano. On Friday morning I finished my programming duties early and so was able to devote a few hours in developing the piece. The staccato chords were thrown out and the Rhodes part became the major accompaniment. I developed the bass part in the second verse, then added a few more parts. The biggest problem was deciding on which instrument was going to play the solo: originally I wanted a French horn, but this sounded too synthesizer-like. I tried a variety of instruments and it wasn't until this evening that I settled on a piano.

Originally I had no ideas for words, but as I was reading Sally Rooney's "Normal people" (which we saw dramatised a few months ago), a few sentences jumped out at me: For a few seconds they just stood there in stillness, his arms around her, his breath on her ear. Most people go through their whole lives, Marianne thought, without ever really feeling that close with anyone (in the April 2011 chapter). I thought that I could write something based on this: it's free verse with no real rhymes. The tune and the free verse made the phrasing slightly awkward. 

This is the second time that I am reading the book; I think that the first time around I got bored towards the end and never finished reading it, a rare event. The same thing happened with the tv series which became less and less interesting as it progressed.

I realised early on that A minor was too low a key for me to sing (the tune runs from G below middle C upto A above middle C); shifting it up to B minor seemed on paper to be sufficient but this was still too low for me to sing comfortably, so in the end I transposed the song once again to C# minor.

The vagaries of the phrasing made singing the song quite difficult, even though I had a comfortable key, and I ended up creating a composite vocal track of three different takes (basically each verse comes from a different take). I thought that this was hard enough, but mixing the track, or more accurately, obtaining the vocal sound that I wanted, required many different attempts until I found the settings that were not too bassy and were clear. Tomorrow I'll probably decide to change the equalisation settings once again.

Additional comments from a few days later: I'm going to rerecord the vocals as they should be more syncopated. Until I get the chance to do this (probably Friday or Saturday), I can also get more familiar with the tune, meaning that I'll sing it better. Certain lines should have been syncopated which again would improve the quality of the vocals. I've also changed a few lines in the words and I am mentally debating whether I should change the short instrumental link between the first two verses.

Completing a new song ("Blind as a bat")

Slightly over a week ago, I wrote about demoing a new song and the conclusions that I derived from this pilot study. Last Friday I implemented those changes: dropping the song by a tone, slowing it down slightly and changing the instrumental fills. In light of the criticism from The Auditorium, I also removed the hi-hat parts from the drum track. I then sang the song a few times and created an almost complete version.

It had always been my intention to add a harmony vocal to the bridge; this I did by pitch shifting the appropriate vocal track by means of software. I also decided to add a harmony to the final verse; this I sang live and as such is more organic (as opposed to the exact, but also more robotic, harmony of the bridge). For the first time that I remember, I also found myself singing the vocal tag ("Blind as a bat") over the coda.

Over the next few days, I went through the usual phase of being underwhelmed by the song, disappointed that it didn't sound as I thought it would sound. But that soon passed, and I found myself making a few final changes to the musical track. The song began with four bars of Fender Rhodes vamping on a C minor chord; this sounds reasonable in the middle of the song where it acts as a space to breathe, but seems wrong at the beginning. I changed this to a synthesizer 'bloom' over three bars; as it dies out, the tambourine rattles, and we're off! Somehow another synth 'cameo' at the beginning of the solo section had changed; all my efforts at restoring this piece failed so I left it out. This doesn't seem to make much of a difference. I also dropped the rimshots played on the drums in the first verse and replaced them with a conga loop. The vocal on the first verse now has what might be termed 'extended reverb', a new technique that I am trying.

The trouble with this kind of sound production is that it's so easy (and tempting) to make changes. I never know when to stop. Last night I made the FINAL mix! No more changes will be allowed!