Endymion’s Dream – Celebration of Steve Moore at Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Brompton Cemetery

Saturday saw a magical event in Brompton Cemetery Chapel as people gathered to celebrate the posthumous publication by Strange Attractor Press of Steve Moore’s book, Selene: The Moon Goddess and the Cave Oracle, “an examination of the origins, dream-explorations and mystical practices centred on the Greek deity Selene.”

Alan Moore Brompton Cemetery

Alan Moore

Alan Moore Brompton Cemetry

screening of South London psychic circuit with Iain Sinclair – directed by John Rogers

Unearthing

The event started with a screening of my film with Iain Sinclair where we walked Steve Moore’s ‘psychic circuit’ around Shooters Hill, a landscape he mythologised in his novel, Somnium. Then Alan Moore read from his essay, Unearthing (the inspiration for the film I made with Iain Sinclair). Andrew O’Neill recounted how, grieving after Steve Moore’s death in 2014, he went wild camping in Epping Forest and encountered a vision of Steve on a horse and cart with Selene by his side. John Higgs talked about the scene in Steve’s Shooters Hill home following the discovery of his body, a scene he had described years before in one of his dream journals.

Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Alan Moore, Andrew O'Neill, Mark Pilkington, and John Higgs

Alan Moore, Andrew O’Neill, Mark Pilkington, and John Higgs

Brompton Cemetery

Brompton Cemetery

Endymion’s Dream was produced by Strange Attractor in association with the London Month of the Dead and hosted by Mark Pilkington.

Deptford Jack in the Green May Day Celebrations Greenwich

The streets of Deptford and Greenwich were yesterday taken over by The Jack in the Green May Day celebrations, led by Fowlers Troop and the Deptford Jack. A great cacophony of instruments filled the air peppered with shrieks and yells as the Jack processed along the banks of the Thames to the Cutty Sark where Morris Dancers pranced around the Jack and a Mummers Play was performed. A bright pink Oss gambolled through crowd. Two hurdy-gurdy players duelled in front of watching tourists.

I asked great film-maker Andrew Kötting, who’d been inside the Jack along the riverside, what it’s all about, “fecundity, awareness, what was, what isn’t, and what yet might be”, he said.
Deptford Jack in the Green
The Jack in the Green is a framework adorned with laurel leaves and flowers (dressed the night before in the Dog and Bell in Deptford), that is paraded through the streets accompanied by musicians, Morris dancers and Mummers. It’s said to date from the 17th Century as an evolution of traditional May Day celebrations, a time of cavorting and revelry with deep pagan roots.

Deptford Jack in the Green

I’m told the Jack went ‘rogue’ in Greenwich Park, as Jack in the Green is compelled to do on May Day. It doesn’t surprise me, the atmosphere was alive with the spirit of Spring.

The mighty Clapton CFC

Went along with my son and one of his friends to watch Clapton CFC (Community Football Club) at Wadham Lodge, Walthamstow on Saturday. It’s been a long time coming. I lived near the Old Spotted Dog ground in the early 90’s – home of Clapton FC, but we never made it past the doors of the pub to a match.

Clapton CFC

Clapton CFC 27 April 2019

The atmosphere that the fans have created at the temporary home of Clapton CFC (they move into a bigger ground next season) is something to behold, and incredible for a team playing in the Middlesex Counties League. Saturday’s exciting (and slightly fortunate) 3-2 victory over London Samurai Rovers have taken them to the brink of the league title, and the double, in their first season.

I’ll be back for more next season. FORZA CLAPTON CFC.

 

Walk to the Bluebell Wood

Bluebells Devon

Bluebells and Wild Garlic burst from the high hedgerows on the lane up out of the North Devon village. Dad had said he’d show me the Bluebell Wood.

Devon walk

We headed out at 6pm for those last two hours of golden light, up along the lane that runs above the link road, hills rising in the distance. The Hawthorn was in flower (a little early?) and ‘the Old Fella’ told me how they used to eat the leaves when he was a kid, called them ‘bread and cheese’. I tried one, it didn’t taste anything like bread and cheese.

wild garlic

We passed a dell thick with Wild Garlic.

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Over the fallow field and beside the perfect babbling brook to the edge of the Bluebell Wood.

Bluebell Wood North Devon IMG_7472

The pungent aroma of the Bluebells fills your nostrils as soon as you step over the stile into the wood. The flowers cascade down the hillside to the brook below. It’s almost too perfect.

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wild garlic

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At the end of the wood you splash through the water running downhill over cracked shale to a hill crested with oaks. I swear I spotted a Hobbit puffing on his pipe sitting in the shade.

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We didn’t have time to tackle the hill and the long loop back round to the village so we retraced our steps through the Bluebell Wood, over the fields and home.

 

 

 

Building and Dwelling – Ethics for the City

Building and Dwelling - Ethics for the City Richard Sennett

Afterwork return to Angel Waterstones following a lunchtime scout that threw Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling – Ethics for the City into my path. I laid down the cash mainly for the 8 pages on urban walking but also for its handsome cover (unflatteringly lit in the Highbury Corner Wetherspoons), and as a momento of U.N commissioned film for which I shot the London sequences, that featured Richard Sennett, and was based around a thesis he had developed with Ricky Burdett and Saskia Sassen. The screening of ‘The Quito Papers – towards the Open City’ at the LSE in 2017, followed by a panel discussion, was a fascinating evening.

Building and Dwelling - Ethics for the City Richard Sennett

The stimulations of walking have appeared quite differently to a more prosaic figure – the planner who seeks to organize movement.Richard Sennett

Tales from Tin Pan Alley at Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema

Tin Pan Alley A1 LS Poster

We had a full house at Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema last Wednesday for Henry Scott-Irvine’s brilliant documentary, Tales from Tin Pan Alley.

Tales from Tin Pan Alley

Henry Scott-Irvine introducing Tales from Tin Pan Alley

I first met Henry in the alley behind the 12 Bar Club on Denmark St while it was being occupied by musicians and protestors following its closure. I made a couple of videos about the campaigns to save live music venues in Soho and Denmark Street, some of the footage appears in Henry’s film. Tales from Tin Pan Alley, is far more than a protest film. It’s a documentary that tells the stories of the street of music from its Georgian heritage (with Dan Cruickshank) to its brief period as London’s ‘Little Tokyo’, to the place that gave us the pop charts. It’s an incredible story, brilliantly told in this absorbing and essential documentary.

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In the Q&A afterwards, Henry passionately told the audience about the campaign to save Denmark Street’s music heritage. We were also joined by Jimmy Winston, one of the founder members of the Small Faces (formed in East Ham) who told me about coming to Leytonstone as a youth to look at the guitars in Friedman’s Guitar Shop on Leytonstone High Road. It was a memorable evening.

“The true ‘unsung heroes’ of Tin Pan Alley are the musicians, the songwriters, the music publishers, the technicians and the people from behind-the-scenes who have come out of the woodwork, out of history and out of retirement to approach us. Individuals that would be very hard to find in any other circumstance have come forward from across the globe, saying, ‘We want to be in this special documentary film!’

We have them here now. This is their story – a contemporary urban Canterbury Tale – a vital testament from over 30 musicians, broadcasters and historians.

In 2018 Tin Pan Alley’s 110 year old music legacy is currently in peril due to ensuing gentrification, leading to upcoming penthouse flats, hotels, restaurants and a shopping mall.

The legacy of those who worked in the street is our testament to Denmark Street’s unique place in international cultural history.

The struggle for those remaining, continues …”