It was summer today, 24 degrees and as northern Europe gets snow, we get sun. You might think, oh no, it’s nearly Christmas - again, but before you know it, it will be spring - again, and it comes here early so you can count it in weeks, and you know how fast they go. Having said that, I liked living with snow, it brought a whole lot of contradictions with it, beautiful and awkward, an atmospheric drama. It beckons you to touch it, but just one snowball in, and your fingers are crying in pain, your warm blood unable to cope with the icy bite that snaps at your hand.
I watched the football, and saw Man City spectacularly lose again, this time to Spurs 0-4 at home. It’s hard to know what changed apart from Rodri, but it seems that was enough. The words ‘veggie burger’ came into my head so I collected the recycling to kill two Byrds with Juan Stone, and left for the mall. I thought, I’ll take a drink out of the fridge, save the restaurant prices, but when I got to the recycling I realised I’d forgotten the drink, which shows how distracted my mind is as I had a bag of cans and bottles in my hands, but still couldn’t remember to take a new one with me. I thought, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a mall, it’s not going to be $12 for a Coke Zero in a mall (although I once ordered a Coke on Long Island). I went back for it anyway as I was so close and walking about was nice in the warm summer air.
I walked to the mall, lots of people out on the streets - warm and a Saturday night. It was ten minutes to eight and the veggie lady told me they close at ten up here on the top (the food court) and they close at nine down there (at the shops). I rode the escalators which have a strange pattern in this mall, I never remember which way to turn as I descend three floors, even though I’ve been here so many times. I finally reached the ground floor, shopped for tomorrow night’s veggie meat and was back at the top before my confusion escalated.
The veggie burger was great, as I waited for it, I looked for a table in the bustling Saturday night traffic. I saw three ladies at a table of six chairs. Can I sit here? I pointed to the chair near the balcony, on her left, she pointed to the chair on her right, hm, as I considered why that place and not the other, they all got up to leave, I asked if they were from here, they said they weren’t, they were from Matosinhos. It’s like saying I’m not from London, I'm from Streatham.
I walked to The Archive, talked to Diogo and Jo in the pizza place as the street exploded with vibe and action. Inside I was putting records away when a fight started outside and they were banging into the metal gate and the chained tables on the restaurant deck. Half an hour later, there was a police car and an ambulance and all the ladies of the night in a line, watching whatever was unfolding. I’d just talked to Jo about the crazy Colombian café that sits between the pizzeria and The Archive an hour before. She was telling me how she tries to get them not to leave their glass bottles in the street. The heat, the vibe and the nature of a street like this, it obviously all went off, as it occasionally does.
Music today has been the NME album of the year from 1981 - Nightclubbing by Grace Jones. They say it had a profound influence on pop culture, fashion and female singers. It crosses all kinds of genre borders and has Sly and Robbie on drums and bass respectively and is produced by Island Records boss Chris Blackwell, with the late Alex Sadkin who also engineered it. He was tragically killed in a car crash six years later in the Bahamas (where this album was also recorded) at the age of 38 whilst producing an album for Australian band Boom Crash Opera. Nightclubbing is surprisingly listenable considering what sonic taste was in that decade.
I stood next to Grace Jones once in the cafeteria at the TV show Countdown (Australia’s Top Of The Pops). She's not tall.