1995

Records I bought included: Toward The Within, University, The Cardigans,
Number One hits in the UK: Rednex - Cotton Eye Joe, Celine Dion - Think Twice, Cher/Chrissie Hynde/Neneh Cherry/Eric Clapton - Love Can Build A Bridge, Outhere Brothers - Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle), Take That - Back For Good, Oasis - Some Might Say, Livin' Joy - Dreamer, Robson and Jerome - Unchained Melody, Outhere Brothers - Boom Boom Boom, Take That - Never Forget, Blur - Country House, Michael Jackson - You Are Not Alone, Shagga - Boombastic, Simply Red - Fairground, Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise, Robson and Jerome - I Believe/Up On The Roof, Michael Jackson - Earth Song

7/1/95: Dinner with Simon. Peter Cook & Larry Grayson died this week.
12/1/95: Back to work. It's bloody cold, though! Even with the heating on my feet are freezing! It's Thursday today and I've got my first Music Appreciation Group since mid-December. I wonder what's number one? Some foreign hip-hop hoedown shit according to TV-AM today. I mustn't be too early for work 'cos I ain't got no keys, I gave them to P on Monday (can't remember why - oh yes, he was on a late with an agency worker & hadn't brought his with him).
KD wants to know when the manager's post is being advertised because his brother is going to apply. That'd be good... 2.30 and all is okay, feeling like I'll survive. Slight headache, occasional sneezes, but ok. P has just come back from her break, she has long plaited worms on her head. PT informs me that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards, and in high heels. K is 50 tomorrow and Maggie Moone's husband is taking him to a restaurant before he buys a karaoke machine - or something like that. Oh no, sorry, I got it wrong - some old lady in Tooting died and left £2000 to Mancap (no, I've never heard of them either) and so they're buying the karaoke - Maggie Moone's husband owns the restaurant. K's cousin used to play with some orchestra and so he's dead fabulous. MR is thinking of going to Dieppe - does P know where that is? It's in France. And the woman on Home & Away was feeling all peaceful and quiet, "all - what's that word? Tranquil".
Listening to Stan Getz, about to start Grauniad Crossword - and that reminds me, Peter Cook died this week as well, I knew there was somebody else. Funny man, though I suspect not very nice. I watched a repeat of the last Goon show last night, very nice but sadly not very funny.
27/1/95: General checkup at doc's - pain in ribs going away.
Late 1994 and early 1995... ...were full of death, love and new beginnings. All rather private, I'm afraid. So at this point there's going to be a bit of a lull. Not that I didn't write much in my journal over the next few months, just that I don't feel like sharing it. Deaths, christenings, new love and new life, very personal and not very amusing (or interesting to anyone else).
28/1/95: Max (Emil??? ) came to stay for the night. Washed curtains.
7/2/95: Drinks with Jackie in the Strand.
17/2/95: Louise moved in.
27/2 - 12/3/95: Annual leave. Recording Chanter live album.
5/3/95: Hildegard von Bingen at St. Augustin's.
6/3/95: Viv Stanshall found dead.
16/3/95: Scott Hamilton at Pizza Express.
19/3/95: Long walk - Camden lock, Parliament hill, Highgate cemetary, suicide bridge, Crouch End. Neck problems beginning...
30/3/95: I bought "High Fidelity".
13/4/95: Bought 2MB Psion Series 3a - when will this stop?
17/4/95 - 22/4/95: Guernsey holiday - very nice apart from shit crossing on the way out.
28/4/95: Paul, Chris, Sarah & Adrian for dinner.
First splurge for a while
1/5/95: Bloody T in the drop-in going on and on... T wants a picture of Bambi to colour in... First of May and I have only a short sleeved shirt on in the cafe. It's nice and sunny. The bloke came again to fix the printer at work and I've tried to start reading the programming manual for my 2MB Series 3a.
At home, lying around reading. Aja on CD, me reading the S3 programming manual and Louise reading Jung. Maggie in and out of her flat cap, chasing spiders and birds, now staring under the settee. I can't cry any more while you run around. Not much to say, obviously. I should have sent Simon a disk today but I didn't - not much work done on the screenplay, either!
2/5/95: Tuesday morning, tired and weary. MV on leave, happily, Under Milk Wood tonight at the National Theatre. Feet ache, back tense, elbow sore, under the fukin weather!
3/5/95: Lying in bed now, nearly 10.00. Hair cut at 1.15, supposed to go to Carrera to get new video card, but can I be bothered? Dunno - I ought to, though. Under Milk Wood was great last night although P's friend annoyed me a bit. Really can't be bothered to say much else...
But now it's 12.40 and I wait for the 41 to transport me into Crouch End to get my locks coiffed. In my bag I carry the programming manual for my Series 3a together with my Cirrus Logic 5428 video card, driver disks, and the manual for my old 5426 - implying that I shall proceed from the end of crouch into the est of wend for a visit to the pc shrine that is Carrera computers. Meanwhile it is quite warm and sunny, so why the fuck do I have my leather jacket on - I know that is a sin. Gunga Din. With luck I may be able to get some sp work done later on before L arrives home from work and training. Nothing in the Guardian today, jobwise - perhaps I should broaden my horizons and look elsewhere? Judging by yesterday's staff group I'll soon be the only long-term person there if I'm not careful since L and P both want to get out soonest.
Why is everybody coughing on this bus? Why do I still feel grozoid & under the w? I get so fed up, so tired... a change would dome good. A new job - but a new career? What, for chrissake? Kiss me in goosegog lane or give me a penny.
Hair done, lookin' an' feelin' better. Goin' up West now, just gone 1.45. Really must try to make a bit more time to write this journal, things have tailed off somewhat since L arrived - but that's no coincidence, I guess. Talk to her, not talk to machine. Not so many typing errors in the flesh, either!
Meanwhile VE day is beginning to get on my wick somewhat. Jingoistic slogans and shit everywhere, and the Sun cashing in as usual. Hopefully we'll miss it all (next Monday) and then all will be back to normal.
4/5/95: Head slightly sore, body weary, oh bum. Verucca clinic in half an hour or so, I really should get out of bed!
Did so, now waiting to see doc. Feeling grotty - neck stiff, body heavy and generally not too good. How to put this across, and whether it is okay in what is essentially a verucca appointment? And whether to take the role of sick, anxious patient with doctor Rohan? That, presumably, is appropriate, but difficult as part of me wants to be a peer. Anyway, he said that the neck problem will go away - or should - but if it doesn't then we'll need some physio.
At work, bored, playing Zool. Zool, indeed, I ask you!
5/5/95: Crushing defeat last night for the Tories in the local elections - good job.
8/5/95: Emil, Jonathon & Dougie over. Put the first of 4 ads in Loot for s3a.
21/5/95: Neck click driving me owahu owahu! Madness of King George in Piccadilly.
29/5/95: Day trip to Cookham and Marlow
8/6/95: Applied for Highgate job - didn't get it.
12/6/95: Physio on my neck. Useless.
21/6/95: Jan Garbarek at St Paul's.
24/6/95: Calais for the day.
3/7/95: Jon and Celia start.
Realisations
3/7/95: Sometimes I get quite surprised to realise that things that I take the piss out of, as cliches or archetypes, actually exist. I know it shouldn't surprise me, but it does. For example, on Friday I was in the library and I overheard a young black woman on the phone talking about a healer who "cures aids, and even cancer - so I'm going to start going to his meetings". And then just now I walked into the newsagent and there was a salesman saying - on my life - "But look, see? It's good quality stuff, none of your rubbish". It's a bit of a shock to realise that Arthur Daleys really exist in the world!
Mind you, the lottery is the same sort of thing. Gullible fortune-hunters spending their last pennies on lottery tickets every week and getting pleased when they win a tenner after six months! But then the realities of the lottery are quite difficult to grasp. For example, the other day someone mentioned that there were fewer people buying tickets because they'd become disillusioned and I said "all the more chance for those who do still do it" - and then realised how even I had been fooled by the fallacious theories which abound. Like the idea of a system, or that the chances of winning increase if there are less contestants, or that any number is any more likely to come up than any other, or like it can't be six numbers in a row - of course it can! 1 2 3 4 5 6 is exactly as likely as 33 46 28 9 16 3! Rant, rant, rant...
"Ciao, darling! See you maybe at Kate's, or maybe at some publishing do!" Wankers. "I was going to bring my yoga stuff to work today..." Sitting on the tube playing Tetris. I hate people sometimes...
Who the hell is "Plodge"? Today's Grauniad Xword writer is called Plodge... Plodge Owahu? Cupeselunger! Bingle bongle clickety Owahu.
6/7/95: Verucca gone, foot healed! The hottest July on record.
Astrology an ting
10/7/95: M was reading a book called "How To Move The Hand Of God" yesterday - I didn't get a chance to pry into it but I can imagine the sort of dangerous, idiotic mumbo-jumbo that it preached. Like Morris Cerullo - and aren't we due for another visit from that bastard soon?
I worry sometimes (as you know) about the underlying philosophies of some of my colleagues. Apparently C is "heavily into" astrology - and is that any better than believing that all disability and mental illness is caused by sinning against God? Because that's what Cerullo - and by implication, M and J - believes! And if madness and depression are caused by sin or the alignment of long-vanished stars in the cosmos, what hope psychotherapy?
Preflyte
How many times have you ever heard of an aeroplane running out of fuel? Or the pilot suddenly deciding to crash it? Or all the engines failing? Eh? Well, actually, about once each for the last two. And aeroplanes can, and do, fly, no matter how much I refuse to accept that a huge hunk of wobbly metal on two floppy wings, full of people, can stay up in the sky. It does.
AND: I think it highly unlikely that the actual physical experience of the flight could be any worse than the crossing to Guernsey - and I survived that, didn't I? So that leaves terrorism or being shot down by Bosnian Serbs or Croatian Bosnians or Serbo-Fulcrums. Which last is unlikely, since I don't think we fly over the former Yugoslavia, and terrorism is just as likely on the underground. Where I also occasionally panic.
Ah well, too late to stop now. I guess part of the problem is that I don't fly often enough to get blase about it or get used to turbulence and engine noise changing. Arriving at Victoria now. Have I done enough worrying already to make the actual journey fairly painless???
4/8/95: New front door fitted, I bought a second hard drive.
9/8/95: Jerry Garcia died.
11/8/95: Paul leaves Bedford Hill.
17/8/95: Swimming in Tottenham leisure centre teaching pool. Very hot still!
19/8/95: Booked a holiday in Kos.
24/8/95: Day trip to Hastings but my S3 screen got smashed somehow. Bought Windows 95.
2/9/95 - 9/9/95: Holiday in Kos. I got a rash on my bum!
A dream
I dreamed last night of many things - in reverse order Psion and Windows 95, jamming with David Crosby (him on guitar, reluctantly letting me play bass, then pleased with me) and - the big one - swimming in Hampstead/Belsize Park tube station. Deep stairwells covered in drunks and tramps, lifts with no guard rails, a derelict swimming pool with hardly any water, dried up fountains, missing slides and boards, and broken glass and bottles at the shallow end. I had to hire a pair of trunks and the locker was only big enough for my valuables (watch, series 3, camera) - a bit like the strongbox in Kos.
19/9/95: And last night, that I was in Paris. Myself and (Chris Webster / Christopher Black) had arrived on an earlier train and were waiting for the other one, so we had coffee. I ordered one espresso and one Nescafe but the bar man misunderstood my poor French (?) and gave me two white coffees, half-filled with Pernod. As we drank them I saw, through the windows of a stationary train, Max, Louie and some others from HCW so we went to join them.
When we arrived at the pensione the woman asked if any of us minded sleeping on the bottom bunk and we said no, then she asked me for a negative photo of myself. I didn't have one but knew I should have, but luckily I had a picture of Mame and myself, so that proved who we were. Then Christopher gave her a note from his mother saying that he had some odd habits but she should allow them as they kept him stable. So she asked if I minded sharing with him, I said no, and then she showed us into the bathroom where we were to make our beds.
Christopher got into bed and I heard shouting outside so I looked out of the window and a young English man with long hair and a leather jacket was kicking an elderly French man in a wheelchair before he ran off. I decided to go out for a drink but Louie and Vicky were playing table football so I went on my own. I found a map and saw that we were on a corner by 3 metro lines, and only about 100 yards from the Eifel tower. I started taking photographs and there was a woman who was taking a dance class and singing a song - she improvised some lyrics about me photographing her knickers when she did the splits. There was also someone she recognised from fashion school - he said he'd been in New York with the Velvet Underground. And then the radio alarm went off, very loud!
20/9/95: I helped return a lost dog to it's owner via Dave Berkman & Julia Kamlish - !
30/9/95: Took delivery of new Carrera Pentium PC, spent the day trying to get CD-ROM working.
7/10/95: Jamming with Narcissus! Rosemary West trial beginning...
8/10/95: Went to see Blue Juice and bought a wok.
11/10/95: Celia said she's asked for a transfer and promptly went off sick...
12/10/95: Jam session in the cafe with Jon.
22/10/95: Another jam, L saw Tony Benn at Union Chapel.
25/10/95: Osteopath!!!
26/10/95: Fridge magnets and faxes! Finished First Draft of the screenplay!!!
27/10/95 - 29/10/95: Simon's 40th birthday weekend in Gloucestershire with Si & Carol, me & Louise, Ruth & Mark, Mark & Carolyn, Simon & Laura, Paolo & Sian, and various younger things.
1/11/95: Osteopath (Debbie) squoze my ear!
Trying *anything* to get my neck sorted out
Debbie the osteopath is talking mumbo-jumbo to some woman in a cape. She wants me to take cold showers, do yoga, take ACE vitamin supplements and blue-green algae pills. Shit. And her colleague said maybe acupuncture, and a bit of Alexander technique wouldn't hurt… where and when do I get off this mad thing?
10/11/95: Not just yet, but maybe soon. I will buy the algae shit, and maybe even the vitamins shit, but that's it. Because I've now had three or four different diagnoses, each with their own prescribed treatment, and I'm beginning to think that none of them know what they're talking about. I don't suspect their motives, and I doubt if they're doing me any harm, but somehow I can't really feel very much faith in the outcome. And at £7 for the vitamins and £14 for the blue-green algae (!) I ain't taking them for very long, either! Probably until the new year but if there's no improvement - and I mean big improvement - by then, then I'll stop. Give it a chance, give it a chance.
11/11/95: Got modem up and running, first exploration of the World Wide Web
15/11/95: Sold 486 PC.
16/11/95: Michelle starts
19/11/95: Rehearsing with Narcissus, looking at WWW & newsgroups
22/11/95: Claire's 40th with L. I applied for a VISA card.
11 & 12/95: Beatles anthology on ITV
12/95: Lost month S3-wise! But it contained Charles leaving, Zappa & Dino dying, Rose West trial, Boxing night chez Aldwickle, etc.
When you gotta go
I am beginning to think I should leave Bedford Hill. I've been there nearly 7 years and I am sick to death of C, PT, A, JS, JR, T, T, T, and everybody else. I've had it. I have no further wish to connect with them, I've got to go. And I also don't think I'm going to be able to adapt satisfactorily to Jon's style of management… or, more precisely, to his stance on theory and practice. I don't agree with, and cannot put into practice, the sort of laissez-faire and patronising attitude that I believe he has - "the poor old souls, they've reached the end of the road" - I don't believe that! I don't believe they are incapable! I don't think it helps to befriend them! I wonder how much confidence he's actually got? How easy he finds it to stick to boundaries and enforce rules? And I also wonder (probably without cause) how well he would respond to someone in crisis? Like JP, at this time?
5/12/95: I ought to start making two lists: things I'm sick of at Bedford Hill, and things I have to offer - assets - that might help me get another job. But what??? Anyway it's 9.12am on a Tuesday morning and we're late. As usual. This morning Colin is going to be with us for the duration and Jon has decided he doesn't want us to do the cafe rota in his presence. Dunno why. Later on I don't know what but I suppose more garbage… Why am I so cynical? Have I turned another corner?
What the fuck is Feng Shui and are we going to be closed while it is put into action? Not if Colin has his way!
I was angry with Jon for having a meeting this afternoon, and for not knowing anybody's name after five months. Oh, I've got to get out of this place!!!
One of the things which really gets to me is the way I seem to have no privacy, no small corner of my life to myself. I can't be alone in any way. I buy myself a can of Coke and someone grabs me and demands the can. R wants to know every detail of my private life - where am I going tonight? Do I eat salmon at home? Do I go to cafes? Not if I can fucking help it, I don't, no. And J gets angry and upset because I won't accept £10 from her, and I keep thinking that Jon would take it so as not to upset her. And Alam looks to me to decide whether he should serve someone who is pissed out of his head, and then of course I get threatened with the IRA or whatever it was - I am in serious danger of losing it today.
31/1/95: New Year with John & Julie