He may be reminiscent of Inaction Man, who appeared in The Idler about a decade ago; but Ennui Man is definitely the doll for me.

Hat-tip to A Man in the Desert. Illustration by Nick Dewar.

Time for my nonchalent saunter.

Everyday people…

Banksy on the Lower Clapton Road.

I’ve just realised I can’t write this post as I intended. It’s too difficult and I’m wrung out.

In a nutshell, the 18-month-old has spent most of his time since Thursday afternoon in hospital. That night he was observed for suspected meningitis. On Friday he came home with a drip in his arm. On Saturday we took him in for a second drip of antibiotics, and all his tests were clear. This morning his face, for no real reason, went blue: so we rushed him back again. No-one’s quite sure what’s been going wrong, but - thankfully - he is now pretty much back to normal.

Three days ago, as I saw his rash spread and still refuse to blanch, I caught a glimpse of his death. It was the cruellest thing I’ve seen.

On the plus side, after the boy’s tests came back clear on Saturday morning, I dashed up to Lincolnshire on the train and saw one of my oldest friends get married. She looked superb, and I bumped into some people I know and like, and met some wonderful new ones too.

If they, and you, can avoid rashes, vomiting and going blue - for about the next 60 years if possible - then I’ll be a whole lot happier.

Dave Hill has conducted an interview with Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, and he has posted a recording and transcript (which he’s finishing off) on his Clapton Pond Blog.

It makes fascinating listening. Here’s the bit that astonished me:

Dave Hill: “Can I just say, an ‘area of exemption’ - did this thing ever actually exist in the real… informally, or was it something that…

Jules Pipe: “No. No. It never existed, but…”

Dave Hill: “Sorry, can you say that again?”

Jules Pipe: “It never actually existed… but… the suggestion was printed in a council… I don’t know whether it was Hackney Today, I don’t know whether… somewhere there was consultation that went out and it got described as ‘areas of exception’, effectively saying…”

Dave Hill: “Exception?”

Jules Pipe: “Yeah. Effectively these streets would be excepted from, erm, a policy about no front dormers and they should have looked at it from a more sophisticated point of view. Actually that’s what the challenge I’ve laid down for them…”

Well, here’s where the idea came from - the Hackney Gazette, 21 May 2007:

And here’s a page from the consultation (download available here).

Anyway, some very good news emerges out of Dave’s interview. Firstly, it appears that every Hackney house with a front dormer has been identified. Secondly, Jules Pipe has said that it is too unsophisticated to make decisions based on whole streets - for example, one end of a street may be chock full of dormers, whilst the other is free of them. Therefore it would be sensible to allow front dormer extensions at one end of the street and not at the other. Thirdly, the Mayor has gone on the record that the same rules will apply across the whole borough.

If so, this is good news indeed. I have no problem with planning decisions that are made on the basis on architectural merit and impact. I have massive problems with applying lax planning regulations to streets that need protecting, simply because they happen to be in an area where other streets have been vandalised by inappropriate development, and where building upwards is the easiest, but most disastrous, solution to a very real problem of overcrowding.

The clothes and the uniforms may belong to 1977, and there may be three officers instead of today’s normal roster of two; but many Londoners still see the scene above acted out dozens of times over the course of a year.

There’s a lot more they’ll recognise in Paul Trevor’s archive of photographs, now available online at the Visual Arts Data Service, which he took in Spitalfields and the surrounding areas (including Hackney) between the 1970s and 1990s: shops, launderettes, mosques, graffiti, markets, families. There’s also a lot that we should be glad to have seen the back of: particularly the then frequent National Front and White Pride marches.

So go take a look. What stands out for me, though, is not how much more tolerant East London life has become when compared to 30 years ago, but how fragile those changes for the better actually are.

It’s Elegantly Dressed Wednesday and, because I have a 13-month-old boy asleep on one arm, I can’t type sufficiently well to tell you about the man above.

So, it’s competition time. Who is this superbly-attired poet? No prize, just praise.

Answers in the comments below, please.

It’s not often that you get a chance to praise Hackney Council, so I’m not going to miss this opportunity.

On Tuesday, none of the recycling in our street was collected. I heard the vans in one neighbouring street, saw them in another. But they forgot to travel down ours.

So, on Thursday, I rang up the Council and asked whether anyone would pick up all the rubbish that was beginning to blow over the street. Yes, I was told: my call would be logged and someone would be along to pick it up “within 24-48 hours”.

And, much to my astonishment, it was. On Friday.

So, to celebrate, let’s all watch Alex Higgins making a break of 132, thereby snatching the World Snooker Championship from Ray Reardon’s grasp in 1982. For those of my generation, a thousand Sunday afternoons will come flooding back. Don’t worry, Bullseye won’t be on next…

Apologies to anyone who happened to be on the upper deck of a 243 bus this afternoon, shrinking from the bearded and snorting maniac at the back. It was me reading the Daily Telegraph. I’d polished off the obits and the news, and my eye had drifted onto a ridiculous article by Nick Squires in which he claimed:

Australians love a beer, but they look upon Britain’s binge-drinking culture with fascinated revulsion.

Could this be the same Nick Squires who, under the headline Flooded Aussie town rescued with beer wrote:

Emergency workers have come to the rescue of a town cut off by floodwaters in true Antipodean style - by delivering a large consignment of beer by boat.

Or could it be the Nick Squires who reported:

“Insurance is killing a lot of events in the bush, including B and S balls and rodeos,” said Barry McMahon, who runs a national Bachelor and Spinster website and has been to dozens of balls.

“When you charge people 80 bucks [£30] each and tell them they can drink as much as they want, it tends to get a bit messy.”

Or the Nick Squires who has pointed out that:

Darwinians were renowned for drinking a good deal more than other Australians, guzzling about 230 litres of beer a year for every man, woman and child.

Through my tears of laughter, I saw a dreamlike vision of The Temperate Convict, a large, Antipodean binge drinking station public house in West London, near where I used to live about eight years ago.

(Scene: A large Antipodean public house, West London. Mitch and Lachlan are reclining in comfortable armchairs near the window, overlooking High Street. Mitch is wearing a broad-brimmed hat with eight cans of Fosters lager hanging from the brim, which are simultaneously attached to his mouth by a network of straws. He is reading a copy of the Daily Telegraph. Lachlan is unconscious and covered in vomit, although someone has screwed two bottle tops into his eye sockets in an attempt to make him look wakeful.)

Mitch (pointing to an an article in the newspaper): Hey, Lachlan…

(He is interrupted by a violent banging at the window. He looks up and sees an enormous man, wearing an Australian rugby shirt waving his manhood about on the other side of the pane. He has Ayers Rock tattooed on his scrotum and a sunrise painted on the underside of his penis. The slogan ‘Rock Hard for Dawn - Every Morning’ is emblazoned on his belly.)

Mitch (turning back to the article): Hey, Lachlan, did…

(He is interrupted by by a strange hissing noise. He turns round and spots a huge man, dressed as Dame Edna Everage with a can of VB in one hand, his prick in the other, urinating behind a fruit machine. It explodes, knocking the beer out of the urinator’s hand. “Facking Pommie wiring” he mutters before staggering back to the bar).

Mitch (after changing his hat for another one, complete with eight fresh cans of lager): Hey, Lachlan, did you see…

(He is interrupted by a huge whooshing noise and, looking out of the window he sees the Fire Brigade sluicing thousands of gallons of vomit downhill with high pressure hoses. A group of drunken Australians stands behind the Fire Engine chanting “We won the cricket. We won the fucking cricket you Pommie bastards.”)

Mitch (now holding the newspaper upside down, making it strangely easier to read): Hey, Lachlan, did you hear that Gordon Brown is going to do something about binge drinking?

(He kicks Lachlan, jolting the bottle tops out of his eyes).

Lachlan: Wasshat?

Mitch: I said did you see that Gordon Brown is going to do something about binge drinking?

Lachlan (vomiting): About time. Fucking poms couldn’t keep up if they tried… Fren’ of mine, got bladdered, wreshled a shark…

I play the kind of music that suits the African man. That is dwelling on my culture to reach the rest of Africa. People call it Highlife, which I call in Igbo Oyolima; it is all about when you are relaxed and in the mood for enjoyment.

I know little about Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, other than the facts that he died this year and that I like his style.

A popular Nigerian musician, I discovered Osadebe on the Rough Guide to the Music of Nigeria and Ghana. He was extremely well dressed, invariably sporting a red hat and one of his many sets of fine, flowing robes. He was also quite fascinated to find that people used his music as a medicine, remarking that:

Generally, I am aware that people talk much about my prophecy. They also speak about how meaningful my music is and how they play it when they have one problem or the other. They say that after listening to it, they always feel relieved. All the records I did in America bear the inscription, Doctor of Hypertension. These are what I hear or see. To be frank, I do not know what I do to the listeners with my music. But I believe that my music is educative.

From the little I’ve heard, I must say the Chief’s music certainly does lift the spirits, as does his invariable habit of changing costume several times when filming his videos, and always making sure to appear against a backdrop of charming dancing girls.

Here he is in action. I’m sure you’ll agree, he’s a feast for the eye:

It was only a matter of time before some smart-arse came along and pointed out that, as the word “Wednesday” derives from the Old English Wēdnes dæg (Woden’s Day), then the most authentic Elegantly Dressed Wednesday would be a picture of the snappily-dressed Germanic god himself .

So, to save everyone else the embarrassment, I’ve done it myself. Here’s a picture of Woden (or, if you prefer the Norse name and tradition, “Odin”) as depicted in an 18th century Icelandic manuscript (SÁM 66) in the care of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland.

As you can see, our one-eyed deity is here depicted with his pets and his weapons, and is dressed in rather a fetching red and white robe, topped with the all-important crown. As such, this picture belongs to Woden’s “blameless” period, the era before he found himself at least partly responsible (as Wotan) for Wagner’s Ring and, much more irritatingly, for lonely boys’ obsession with games such as Final Fantasy.

One note of caution to those same boys: whilst Woden takes the laurels in this week’s Elegantly Dressed Wednesday, you will not be imbued with the same panache if you dress up as him and leap out of hedges wearing cotton-wool beards and wielding rubber swords at similarly lonely people who are dressed up as dwarves. In fact, you’ll just look sad. Buy a suit instead.

“You play Bach your way, and I’ll play him his way”

Ah, Wanda Landowska! What’s to admire the most? Her pioneering mastery of the harpsichord? Her elegant dress sense? Her marvellous profile?

I can never decide, although ever since my enthusiasm for Bach’s Goldberg Variations led me to her recordings, I’ve been a devoted admirer.

Her life, though, was an inspiration. A Pole who later became a French citizen, she established the École de Musique Ancienne at Paris in 1925 and turned her home at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt into a vibrant centre for performing early music. Because she was Jewish, when the Nazis invaded France in 1940 she had to escape with her life companion Denise Restout to southern France, on to Lisbon and thence to the United States, arriving in New York in December 1941. Saint-Leu had been looted and she arrived in the USA with practically nothing, only to make history with her performance of the Goldbergs at New York Town Hall only two months later. It was the first time in the 20th century that the work had been publicly performed on the harpsichord - the instrument it was written for. It made her name, and she became a successful performer and teacher in her adopted home.

You can see (though not hear) Wanda performing in 1927 at Saint-Leu in this video, and if you persevere you can see her smiling, chatting and eating cake. A wonderful and rare glimpse into the life of one of the 20th century’s greatest - and most elegantly dressed - musicians.

Near London Fields, just round the corner from where the police were doing a random stop and search earlier on today. Despite walking past twice, I’m sad to say that no-one wanted to riffle through my belongings. Maybe they didn’t want the hassle of searching the baby.

Anyway, what kind of sign is that? Acquired by what? Five circles with a line through them? Perhaps I should ring the number and find out.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!

I gave up shaving about three weeks ago. Rather like when I gave up smoking, this wasn’t something I’d planned (although, unlike when I gave up smoking, it had nothing to do with a decomposed-rat of a hangover dulling my enthusiasm for the activity in question).

No, I simply didn’t bother to shave for four days and then, looking in the mirror at a face resembling that of (what I imagine to be) a Lithuanian pimp, I thought I’d leave it another day to see what happened. I made the same decision the next day, and the next, and so on… until I realised this morning that I had, indeed, sprouted a bona fide beard.

“Ah, feck,” I hear you say. “Grow up.”

And you’d be right. I should.

The thing to remember, though, is that in the 32 years I’ve been knocking around, I’ve still not grown the thing out properly. I’m also a curious sort of fellow. I left the facial hair to its own devices for a couple of weeks at university, much to the derision of my chums. And I left it for a similar amount of time in my mid-twenties, much to the derision of my colleagues (except the older ladies who worked in accounts and subscriptions. They thought it was lovely. “Ooh, you look like a member of the Royal Family!”)

Those attempts were both back in the days when an intensely itchy chin had the power to enter my top 100 problems and setbacks, and when I still had residual worries about what other people thought about my appearance. Those days are long gone.

Leaving me, this time round, with a much harder decision to make between reaching for the razor or finding out for certain what it takes to make oneself look like a rat peering out of a ball of oakum.

That’s why I’ve drawn up this list of cons and pros of staying bearded (always best to consider the negatives first)…

Hmm. A close call. Something tells me I’m not going to grow up just yet. Any advice?

Je veux faire construire un urinoir, Tafardel. - Un urinoir ? s’écria l’instituteur, tout saisi… Le maire se méprit sur le sens de l’exclamation - Enfin, dit-il, une pissotière.

Sacrebleu! Just look at the cut of this man’s spectacles. Examine the rakish scarf. Raise your hat to his brilliantined hair. And, above all, admire that grin.

This is Gabriel Chevallier, posing for what must be one of the finest author photographs I have ever seen. I’ve long hoped someone would post it on the web but, finally despairing, I’ve scanned a copy from the back of my copy of Clochemerle (Penguin Books, 1959 reprint - 3/6 to you dear reader).

Over here in Blighty, Clochemerle is the book for which Chevallier is most famous. A rollicking and earthy tale about how a French town was divided into factions by the erection of a urinal (pissotière) just outside the church (église, if you must know), its narrative is divided into a series of large, leisurely and interlocking plates. It’s also beautifully observed, as any fellow reading this will tell you:

Men who from generation to generation had relieved themselves against the foot of walls or in the hollows in the ground, with that fine freedom of action which the Clochemerle wine confers (it is reputed to be good for the kidneys), would be but little inclined to overflow at a spot determined and lacking an all those small pleasures that are to be found in the indulgence of such little whims and fancies, as that of a jet well aimed that drives away a green-fly, bends a blade of grass, drowns an ant, or tracks down a spider in his web. In the country, where diversions are few and far between, even the most trivial pleasures must be taken into account.

My favourite part, though, has to be when Clochemerle’s Curé Ponosse, and his friend who lives 15 miles away (both of whom sleep with their housekeepers), invent a system of confession by telegram.

I first fell in love with Chevallier’s work when I was a teenager and, after Clochemerle, quickly lapped up Clochemerle Babylon and Clochemerle-les-Bains (though I must admit I haven’t read the latter two recently). I also unearthed a copy of The Affairs of Flavie, which is the wonderful account of the chain of events that took place after a ripe woman called (unsurprisingly) Flavie, whilst staring out the window and wearing very little, upset a vase which fell and killed the owner of a chain of grocery stores.

All sound a bit ‘Carry On‘ to you? You’re not the only one. The BBC adaptation of Clochemerle (screened in 1972) had Bernard Bresslaw playing Nicholas the Beadle.

But don’t dismiss Chevallier as a result. He was also a veteran of the First World War, in which he earned the Croix de Guerre and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, inspiring him to write La Peur, a damning account of that conflict which appeared in 1930. Not that this makes the slightest difference to the fact that he was a fine writer, and a well-dressed one to boot.

Chapeau!