April Cried and Stepped Aside

April is one of those wonderful yet miserable months.  Flowers begin to blossom, while we all have to knuckle down and crack on with the pile of work that remains to be done at the end of our academic slog.  Instead of spreading it out over a whole year, naturally, most students leave it until the very last moment – and even if you do spread it out, you always seem to end up with an 'all-nighter' or several long days of non-stop work, sustenance comprising of black coffee and a speedy snack from the pizzeria next door.

London is glorious, however, and it keeps my spirits up.  The windows are open, the sun is streaming in, and it's boiling hot.  Last year, the Easter weekend was around 11ºC, while this year the weather is an astonishing 26º.  I'm beginning to worry that the beautiful weather isn't going to stick around after my Tuesday deadline.  I'm excited about Tuesday, as I've had a bottle of champagne sitting on my shelf for the last two months – all of us musos are going to sit outside Somerset House and soak in the sunshine, and open up the bottle.  If it's very hot I may run into the fountains …  I'm looking forward to revision, just because I can do it wherever I want!  I have to do my coursework at a keyboard because most of it is jotting down music, while I can go and revise in Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath.  It's going to be good.

And, ah, the summer …  The Proms, the sun, live music, no work to be done, free to write whatever music I want to write, lots of time with friends, road trips across Britain, ice cream, – I'll obviously pop home for a cup of Joe's – shorts, and loads more.  Very much looking forward to a busy summer!

But before I get ahead of myself, next week is the Royal Wedding.  Our Prince William is getting married to Kate Middleton.  The country's getting more and more excited – well, at least in the south east!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.  Some of the muso societies are all going down to Hyde Park to toast the royal couple, but I wanted to head down the Mall and get swept along like an ant before its queen, a subject of Her Majesty.  Instead, I think I'm more than likely going to stay in Hampstead and join my friends for some kind of houseparty – we will be donning some royal masks.  I suggested to a friend that I should go as Princess Beatrice, to which she quipped, 'You'd best get a horse's head then'.  Oh dear.

I think there should be a national Blue Peter competition to find the tackiest piece of merchandise in the Kingdom.  In return you could get given a Blue Peter badget, but with Kate and Prince William's face on it, just to top it all off.  One of my newest friends, Honor, posted some random toy train ('a commemorative coal hopper') which commemorates the wedding on my Facebook wall – it's certainly a contender for the prize. Naturally, it's painted in a majestic purple colour with gold fringes.  What we really need to find is a Union Jack baseball hat with bright pink Minnie Mouse ears with two antennae stretching out from the centre with the pictures of the royal couple contained in laminated love hearts.  That would be what I would make, and it would sell in the millions.  You know it's true.

Anyway, I'd best be heading off.  I have to write a Mozart sanctus and a Debussy melodie in the next three days – it's going to be stressful, and perhaps fun at the same time.  Oh, and happy Good Friday may I add.  I've been listening to Ron Kenoly's 'Jesus Is Alive' all morning – great 1980s gospel-funk worship!  Check it out.  It even has Michael Jackson's bassist, Abe Laboriel, and the old Weather Report percussionist, Alex Acuña, playing, as they're both 'born-again believers'.  Great stuff.

Miss Dudin Brown Lives On

My father and I visited north London in 2008 to check out what King's College London's accommodation was like – the two cheapest options being the halls in Hampstead and near Denmark Hill in the south.  You'd be surprised by the difference in location.  Hampstead is a leafy suburb in the north of London with opulent houses and a rich history of chattering artists, politicians, actors, musicians and intelligentsia, while Denmark Hill, in the south, is surrounded by some areas which would send a shiver down your spine.  Naturally, I settled on Hampstead. 

Just like the north-south divide in the city, the halls had a similar divide.  On the northern side are the beautiful Victorian red-brick buildings, while on the southern side there are some cheaply-made travesties which most probably date back to the 70s.  The northern side's edifices were created in 1882 and were used to prepare young ladies for education at London universities – in a similar style to those at Oxbridge – although the College had a particularly evangelical edge.  This was all due to its 'foundress', Ann Dudin Brown (a Victorian miniature, right). 

I only found this out as my building in halls was named after the missioner and evangelist.  She inherited a great wealth from her parents and wished to share this with those who shared her beliefs.  The story makes exciting reading, as many of her female students became missionaries and served the church.  Even Brown didn't fail to note its success, writing that 'of all my enterprises, Westfield has proved the most satisfactory'.  She never married and never bought a house, choosing instead to devote her life and wealth to others – a wonderful example of how God doesn't expect everyone to get married and how he can use single people in remarkable ways. 

Let's flash forward to the twenty-first century.  The buildings are now in the hands of King's College, London and there is no real Christian ethos left in the halls of residence, other than the church which lies next door.  I was surprised one morning, while sitting on the loo at church, to find a familiar name inscribed in the stone wall – Ann Dudin Brown.  It turns out that the church that I have been attending for the last two years was the church which she had helped to build.  I'm not sure whether St Luke's (left) has been 'evangelical' for the last century, but she was an evangelical Anglican, and so I'm sure she'd be happy that the church continues to love the good news.  No doubt, the students which attended her college attended this church, and the tradition (in some sorts) continues to this day.  Brown's funeral was held at St Luke's in 1917 and she was buried in Hampstead cemetery. 

St Luke's is carrying her educative mantle in the present day.  It's exciting to know that buildings which she founded will be used for education once more, as St Luke's has proposed to create one of England's first free schools (the rest of Britain has not adopted the policy).  If the school gets the go-ahead, then it will be for people with a faith or none.  It will be exciting for the church to be involved in the creation of a new school with a distinctive Christian ethos. 

Seeds sown a century ago, can be used by God today. 

To read more about St Luke's free school plans, you can read an article at the BBC News web site.  If you'd like to find out more about Ann Dudin Brown, then you can find a short biography at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (although you will need to have a subscription or Athens password). 

The Tale About the One-Eyed Sculptor

Scrap that, I meant to say the two-eyed sculptor.  He has one eye in the mind of my neighbour Agnes.

I now live in a flat on Finchley Road, situated opposite a Sainsbury's, Wetherspoons and a VUE Cinema.  One of the finer qualities is our Hungarian neighbour, Agnes, who could be described with a shedload of different superlatives.  We usually see her when the music's playing too loud and she wants to complain about the noise, but we also have the odd bit of banter – about my eye.

In case you didn't know, I have an eye condition called glaucoma, which means that there is a risk of increased pressure in my eyes.  If the pressure isn't kept at a certain level then there is risk of sight loss – as it is, the sight in my right eye is not great.  On first impression, many hazard a guess as to how much I can actually see in the "bad" eye, and they're often surprised to find that I have enough sight to enjoy a 3D film without me thinking it's in 2D – but Agnes is surprised to find out that it's not made of glass.  She still believes that it's not organic and that the original one is in a tip, as if I'm deliberately trying to deceive her.

This week, she kindly invited me to go along to a sculptor's exhibit at the Air Gallery, which is close to Buckingham Palace.  She teaches children and adults ear training in a similar manner to that of Béla Bartók, and so has a wide variety of arty friends who invite her to different events.  David Begbie, a world-class sculptor, kindly invited Agnes and a guest to attend an opening of a new exhibition, and as he only has one eye, she thought it would be great inspiration for me to come along and meet him.

I tumbled in off the street in a suit to be greeted by rich pursuers of new art, sipping on expensive wine and snacking on nibbles being paraded around the room.  I managed to bumble my way through to Agnes who was chatting to a smartly-dressed lady.  The lady had clearly had a little too much to drink as she couldn't button her mouth – for around five minutes I couldn't get a word in.  She admitted that Agnes gave her a knowing smile and approached her as though she'd known her all her life, even though she'd never met her.  When I let loose that I was a musician, I received a five-minute pleasant speech on how wonderful it is to follow one's hobby for a living.  Eventually, she was led out of the Gallery by her husband, to attend another event.

Agnes was in high spirits, showing me the models of metallic mesh which were littered throughout the room as shrines to the female form – one male form was in the middle as a rebuttal to any cries of sexism, most likely a self-portrait.  I was told that if David Begbie could pull this kind of stuff out of the hat, then I certainly couldn't complain about the poor lighting on the stairs leading up to the flat again.  His work was most impressive in the detail: the way in which he subtly molds the metal into a convincing human form. 

"Unuud" (2008) is made of steelmesh and costs £23,900.01 (make sure to bring the one pence). 

She introduced me to the artist and pointed out that I also had one eye, to which Begbie responded, 'No, I have two eyes' – he proceeded to tell me how beautiful my eye was.  I offered him the opportunity to sculpt it into wire mesh, but he declined (I didn't actually have the nerve – no pun intended).  He was very pleasant and was more than willing to converse about his work.  My neighbour explained to him about how wonderful it was to know that people with eye conditions could bypass their condition to create wonderful works.  And how right she was – only last week, I was at RNIB (the Royal National Institute of the Blind) Judd Street taking part in a composition course with blind and partially-sighted composers.  It was fascinating to watch blind musicians writing music in braille and dictating their compositions to a sighted person to transform it into written notation for the performers.  Begbie said that it had aided his success, as he was always remembered for his work and for his condition.

The creative arts are scattered with individuals who have worked with their conditions to achieve great success – perhaps the most famous being Beethoven, who wrote some of the greatest music in the Western world, despite gradually becoming deaf during his twenties.  With the invention of braille in the nineteenth century, it's exciting to know that blind musicians (often with keener ears than sighted folk) can now create in a way that they couldn't previously.

You can check out some more of David Begbie's works at the Air Gallery from the 9th of August or visit http://www.davidbegbie.com/index.cfm/main.view/gallerydifferent.  To read more about my kind neighbour, Agnes Kory, and her work, please visit http://www.bbcm.co.uk/.  Please support the wonderful work that the RNIB do with partially-sighted and blind musicians, by visiting their web site at http://www.rnib.org.uk/.  The course I went on was run in partnership with the Handel House Museum. 

The Baffled Brit

Our general election has been and gone – we're now firmly in 'hung parliament' territory.  Being a tweenager of the iPod generation, this is all rather new, and quite exciting.  Well, that's what I thought before the general election.  The hullabaloo of the campaign trail gets the majority of the population chattering about who's who and what's what: not just the 'chattering class' in good ole Hampy'; while the aftermath has left us all a little dazed and confused.  How do the Germans cope? 

The whole campaign has been rather confusing.  Firstly, none of the parties has been up front about the cuts that need to be made.  We all assume that the Tories will be harsh, and that's why big business is behind them, as they know that the markets will be more confident under a budget slashing government.  While we predict that Labour and the Liberal Democrats would be more cautious, not wanting to upset the public sector and the working to middle classes.  Naturally, amid all of the smoke and mirrors, the public wasn't certain who to side with.

Perhaps the 'presidential' election debates didn't help.  One bonus was that they quashed the nationalists in Wales and Scotland, leading Alex Salmond (in a novel 'Celtic bloc') to beg the BBC for a place in what was clearly a British debate.  For goodness sake, if they were going to allow the SNP and Plaid Cymru a podium then they'd have to have accepted the English Democrats too (heaven forbid).  While I disliked the debates because they placed a little too much emphasis on the leader of the party rather than the cross-party variations, they did engage the public in discussion and often heated debate. 

Oh, did you see Cameron getting followed around by the chicken from the Daily Mail?  For days after that, I couldn't remember what came first – the chicken or the Clegg.  I'm surprised that Rupert Murdoch hasn't hired me yet.  I came up with another (subjective, I know) witty headline: 'Brown begs Duffy for mercy'.  Get it? 

Moving on …  One of the highlights of the campaign had to be the moment Boris Johnson declared devolution for London, without Conservative headquarters' prior approval.  His shopping list of ideal projects to ping-pong around the London political sphere was eventually approved (over the course of the morning), as Tory HQ knew that it couldn't back down in the middle of a concerted campaign.  Naturally, Boris's wit and charm with Londoners won him approval, despite this blundering performance.  Boris and Cameron's partnership are more similar to Blair and Ken Livingstone's relationship than we could have ever assumed.

It will be exciting to see what transpires over the coming weeks.  I doubt that the Tories will team up with the Lib Dems – at least, I cannot imagine them being fully compatible in government.  The 'yellows' will want electoral reform – not another Jenkins Commission – and this is something which the Tories will not want to bring about, in the knowledge that we'd be unlikely to have another Tory government for years to come.  I personally think that it would bring a balance between the left and the right, providing checks and balances for one another on key budget-cutting legislation.  The Lib Dems would be concerned about where the cuts fall, and how these will affect the vulnerable; while the Tories will be able to ensure that business gets what it needs.  A Lab-Lib coalition may be too sweet and nice – and this is coming from a traditional Labour voter.  If Labour want to re-energise their mission to get back into government, then Gordon may need to leave Number 10, to provide a catalyst for coalition talks with the Lib Dems.

Only time and tired David Dimbleby will tell …

Andrews' Kitchen Nightmares

I happen to live in one of the nicest suburbs in London. It's a twenty-minute walk to Hampstead high street (picture on the left) and is surrounded by some of the nicest (or at least, expensive) housing on earth. For a start, Rachel Stevens used to live in a flat opposite my room and the conductor Adrian Boult used to live in the block of apartments situated around the corner. Just to throw around a few more names -- Sting, the ex-king (before he was deposed) of Greece and George Michael all live a couple of streets away. Yes, I'm living in university halls and yet I'm near the epicentre of celebdom.

And yet, the epicentre of the underworld (I'm picturing something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at this moment) seems to reside in my campus's kitchen. It seems to be the university rule that the kitchen must be abused in some form or other.

At the halls that I stayed in Cardiff last year, there were enough disasters. Adam's grilled-to-flames pizza accompanied by U-boat shaped baking tray, the permanent marker scrawled all over the kitchen wall ('Wake me up at six in the morning') after a drunken spree and to top it all off my other friend's hunger for cheese on toast at three in the morning resulted in her grilling toast and throwing it at the floor as she was too drunk to contemplate where her mouth was located. Oh, and of course, who could forget the crowning glory, a large traffic cone.

Okay, I admit it -- the kitchen here in Hampstead isn't quite that bad (or as humorous). But it really does smell awful. It's like a smelly bog that must be avoided at all costs. I guess that's what happens when you share a kitchen with twenty-three other students. Imagine the smells of straight vodka, gone-off dairy products, more vodka, super noodles, more vodka, more gone-off dairy products, some eggs and some more vodka all mixed in together to make the worst stench on earth. Thankfully, I'm not as foul-mouthed (not at all, in fact) as temper-tantrum Gordon Ramsay -- but I daresay our kitchen really would be considered a kitchen nightmare. I could envisage him descending like a member of a SWAT team through our kitchen skylight and shotgunning us with expletives ...

On the other hand, not all the kitchens on site seem to have reached the depths of Dudin Brown. A friend's kithcen is too far in the other direction. It's ridiculously clean. So clean that there are sticky notes on each shelf of the fridge indicating which shelf belongs to a certain hall mate, letters explaining the shock at finding the kitchen sink full of plates one day and the appalling situation in which someone had borrowed a piece of cutlery and had left it in the sink. I decided to leave a little letter of my own on the fridge -- explaining that if anyone touches any of my property my (imaginary) polytheistic god will punish them with a lightning bolt. I think they had a kitchen meeting to resolve the dispute ...

Our kitchen has recently experienced several more setbacks. So much so that Emily has named our halls' poltergeist the "Dude in Brown". One of the electricity panels has malfunctioned, our microwave doesn't have its wattage on display (which has infuriated me many a time), three out of four ovens don't work and one of the kitchen sinks is unusable.

The kitchen has henceforth been renamed Room 101. Who needs O' Brien when we have the kitchen of the underworld?

Liquid Spillages on the Tube

London Underground: an undisputed institution of London life. The red shiny buses are fantastic for sightseeing, but there's nothing quite like the mysterious hobbit-holed tunnels that network throughout the great depths of the city. What I love about the Tube more than anything else is its evident age. One feels as though you've travelled through time, as you move from the battle-scarred tiled-stations that were used throughout the Second World War to the modern dystopian cavern that is Westminster Tube station. It truly is a testimony of time.

In a city that contains over seven million people, you're obviously going to see some very obscure things from time to time -- which believe me, you look forward to after you've stared at stony-faced businessmen for an entire return journey. From the guy that jumps on the train and starts singing about your train's destination (accompanied by the ukelele) to the Jubilee Line Tube driver who sounds unbelievably like Microsoft Sam or Stephen Hawking, there is no mistaking the diversity that London life entails.

One of my favourite tannoy announcements -- this seems to be Underground policy -- is the exclamation given following an individual's vomit being scattered all over the station's platform. 'Please could the cleaner please move to the northbound platform, there has been a liquid spillage'. The joy of political correctness has infected all business, with executives now just enjoying the power to be able to rename anything they so wish. Fantastic!

It seems to be an accepted norm that one does not smile on the Tube. To smile would involve exclaiming to the world that you are obviously not a Londoner and are from out of town. And so in the spirit of attempting to spoil this drab atmosphere, I persuaded my friend Christine to burst out into song for my friend's birthday. We boarded the northbound Jubilee Line from Westminster and my cheeks became a shade of scarlet as she broke into song. 'Happy birthday to you ... '. I didn't realise that Christine would take my proposition seriously. Thankfully, a large herd of Danish people were present to join our ensemble of two, as all the businessmen simply cowered behind their Financial Times. I hope, for the sake of London, there was a grin or two lurking underneath those daily broadsheets.

Barackobamarama!

At last, a change of guard at the White House. A firm goodbye to those classic Bushisms ("The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur") and a warm welcome to the new president elect, Barack Obama. "Change we can" is the motto, and the world is certainly hoping that this will be true. When Bush comes to shove, will the change take place?

On the surface of things, it certainly seems so. For one thing, Obama seems intent on withdrawing from Iraq and focusing more heavily on the conflict in Afghanistan. Also, it seems as though he can stay calm under the economic pressure, not dithering in thought like his rival, John McCain.

What were the highlights of election night? There were many. In particular, I loved the choir that sang at McCain's election party in Phoenix, Arizona, which played "Food, Glorious Food". Any reference to the McCain oven chips ads? I enjoyed the moment Obama won the state of Maryland, at which point I opened a bag of Maryland choc chip cookies in celebration!

Both McCain's concession speech and Obama's "Change" speech were of the highest quality. Many commentators are suggesting that the McCain speech was reminiscent of the "old" John McCain that voters were fond of. And as for Obama's speech, can you imagine him delivering a mediocre speech? No way.

It has to be said, that it seems as though Sarah Palin was the black dot on the Republican ticket. Even though the crowds of Republicans applauded her with great energy, she was not the kind of VP McCain needed -- he needed someone that would appeal to the swing voters, not someone that would appeal to the conservative Christians. Nevertheless, one gets the feeling that it will be Obama vs. Palin in four years time ... !

At 5:30 it was time to jump into bed!