Keep it LOCAL

New favourite (and slighty granny) website:

http://www.parishregister.com/areamaps.html

I have a growing fascination with churches, particularly in my local area. This has made me slightly intrigued by people who run local archive websites. Gone are the days where you spot brown corduroy-loving, damp and slightly smelly people hanging about in libraries spending hours going through microfiche working out if they are related to Hattie Smythe or Florence Booth; you know, the type of people who lose sleep when they can't remember what The Hebridean Times headline was on May 13th 1856. Are these people hiding behind screens in their loft feeding curiously interested people like me strange and delightful facts and statistics over the internet? Do they check how many hits they have got every 15 minutes while dunking their hobnobs in their tea? I do hope so!

The creepiest thing about all of this is that I'm turning into one of those people.

As the days go by, I have less and less time for other people and therefore reluctantly have to put up with more and more time with myself. Ugh. I hate clubs as the few times I go to them, I come home feeling really empty wondering why I've wasted yet another evening feeling awkward and confused about who I am and who I am hanging round with. Challenging and stimulating conversations are getting less frequent and that deeply worries me. Who am I and how did I end up here? And more importantly, why am I feeling the need to google the etymology of Bethnal Green at 4am on a Saturday?

I have become rather too attached to London (despite threatening and considering a move far, far away on a weekly basis) and I want to keep it local. I get perturbed when I see new flats being built where a park used to be or seeing yet another 19th century church being converted into flats for the city boys.

However my thoughts and explorations are for me and for those who are equally interested in local history. I mean, there is going the other extreme and declaring everything shit, crap and useless to a bunch of imbeciles. For example, there is a massively annoying Facebook group called Secret London which has a whopping 5,757 fans. Do I really want to 'discover the hidden gems of London, join Secret London. Post great places to see in London, giving details of locating it.' No. FUCK OFF.

What are these 6,000 idiots discussing and revealing to each other? Are they arranging to go rambling in Richmond Park or talking about fresh new galleries on Redchurch street?

Here is a recent post:

'CALLNIG ALL SINGLE GIRLS AND GUYS - new Justin Lee Collins chatshow filmed in SE London, looking for people to take part in fun dating game next week. Get in touch asap jlcaudience@tigeraspect.co.uk' posted by Toby Brack.

Jesus fucking christ!!

Yes.

I know.

I need to move to Royston Valley...

Path to Plath

I am back in my own bed tonight...the first time in over a month. I have missed my room but have felt so apprehensive to return to it. I don't know why, perhaps I have enjoyed flat-sitting much more than I expected. On a completely different note, I am beginning to worry about my (mis)use of prepositions. Being out of education and work for a couple of years has made me feel the need to dumb myself down. It is very bizarre. All those years of education wasted merely because I choose to keep company and activities in the evenings and not during the day. Tell that to the student loans company...

Anyway, old habits die hard and not having a TV (I've been watching it like a maniac over the last month; a decade of TV abstinence well and truly broken), has made me read again. That's why I like this messy, filled with musical equipment and nothing practical room! It makes me read, create and make music! It's good to be back...

I have been reacquainting myself with Sylvia Plath this evening and in particular, her poetry. It sounds like a truly cliched thing to be doing but my love for confessional poets like Plath and Anne Sexton are equal to my love for music. I identify with their words greatly but I feel uneasy at feeling easy with their volatile and uncomfortable subject matter. After reading the thesis on female poets and mental health, 'I Bask In Dreams Of Suicide', I unwillingly have in the back of my mind that I fit this female poets suffer from gloom and doom stereotype. I usually only write and create when I am down and I am unsure why I don't feel the urge to put pen to paper when I am happy. Those thoughts are no less worthy from sad ones. Perhaps I find them harder to express.

However confessional writing is not for everyone and most people find it very hard to interact with. A friend recently sent me a message in regards to a photograph I had posted up on a blog: http://thequietriots.blogspot.com/2009/06/53-rhydypenau-road.html and said how he found it inconceivable that I could write so openly about such things. However for me, writing is the only way I can share a lot about myself whether it be imaginative, humorous, trivial or extremely personal. I find it very hard to do it through any other medium.

Anyway, I enjoyed the poem below this evening. 100% of the women I know think like this so that gives us a massive unity bond of MADNESS. Grrrl power and all that....

Mad Girl's Love Song
Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

The highs and the lows and the I don't knows.....

I'M SICK OF THEM

Howrah Station April 1988

I knew what he did was wrong.

The air was a vacuum of damp sticky heat, heavy hot breaths and persistent sweat with the large exasperated sighs of the heaving steam trains releasing even more hot air into the Kolkata skies. I saw you had your eyes on Dad as he confidently marched forwards holding my sister's hand, trying to part the crowds so we could follow through. Losing sight of them in this muddle of noise and confusion would have been terrifying. A cacophony of chaos, men and railway children.

You gripped my hand tighter as we approached the platform as the crowds got thicker, denser and closer.

It happened so quickly. In an overheated haze it felt wrong and I didn't like it. I didn't know which one of the million anonymous faces the innocence-stealing hand belonged to but now, twenty two years later, I clearly remember its hard, inappropriate grip.

I looked up at you when I wanted to cry. But I knew telling you would hurt you so much more than it had hurt me. I would rather be eternally haunted by the stranger in the crowd and for you to never know it happened. I should have been shielded with you by my side and Dad and sister in front of me. I should have been as safe as I was when I was in your womb.

But he still managed to touch me, Mum.

Bandit Queen

You think you're having a tough day when everyone disappoints you and you freak out about where the hell and who the hell to turn to in your life and then you realise there are always people with more troublesome, harsher, 'real' lives than yours and that you are in fact nothing but a total drama queen.

REALITY CHECKED...PHOOLAN DEVI
Phoolan Devi was a low-caste Indian woman heralded by the masses as an incarnation of the Goddess Durga. She rose from poverty, rape, abuse and degradation to infamy as an outlaw, avenging her honor, raiding the rich with her gang, and sharing the spoils with the poor. She was assassinated in a revenge killing in 2001.
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I remember catching Shekhar Kapoor's Bandit Queen film late at night in my early teenage-insomnia-leading-to-disturbing-film-watching-years and being shocked and fascinated by the movie. It was only a few years later when I was old enough to understand the severity of the social injustices demonstrated against her and the impact that her own decisions of avenging them made for both women and ethnic minorities. The horrific plight of one woman who did use violent means to highlight her cause spoke out for the millions of other women who faced and continue to face these ongoing social injustices that unfortunately are still deemed acceptable in countries like India; the ridiculously rigid fanaticism of the Caste system, child-adult marriages, the mistreatment of women as second class citizens and the shockingly disproportionate gap between the rich and the poor.

My father is Indian and my mother is Nepalese and although they have only lived in India for just under a year of their 30 year marriage, my parents are still made to feel actuely aware by first and second generation Indians in this country that they have married out of caste and it is still severely frowned upon. I doubt the views of a second generation immigrant musician female of mixed Asian parentage will ever be able to cause ripples or speak volumes but tonight, I light a candle for a woman whose life and death certainly brought some of these ongoing social injustices to the surface even for a short time; PHOOLAN DEVI.

What else should I be?

EEK. That was fun. A completely impromptu jam turned into Samir (Kurt) and I (Dave) forming a Blue On Blue spin-off, well, a Nirvana tribute band to be precise, NOVANA!
http://www.myspace.com/hellonovana

Now this got me thinking about something that I have managed to completely avoid in my entire music-loving life, the "art" of tribute bands. The Rollin' Clones, Red Not Chili Peppers, Nearvana...the list is endless. I've never seen a tribute band play but after a bit of YouTubing ( I believe that this is a new 21st century verb, correct?), I'm really intrigued by how far and seriously some people take it! Samir asked me if he should bleach his hair and this made me question my own commitment to this project. I replied by asking his advice on whether I should have a sex change. I mean, I have always said in the past that I would go to any lengths for music....In fact, make it 7 inches.....

A few of my favourites below:
Korean Killer Queen band!


Guns 4 Roses


Jimi Hendrix Experience

Proud of my roots. But who am I?

I don't have a place that I'm from or a family home that generations of my family have lived in for years. I am a nomad born and bred and this continual sense of restlessness will fill my bones until I die.

Being born of mixed Asian parentage and living a life which took me across all towns and borders shaped my tendency to make new friends quickly and throw all sentiment and longing out the window. I have never lived anywhere for longer than 2 years and went to 15 schools. So when people ask me where are you from, I look at them and say "London. The east end to be precise."

I've lived in London for 10 years and in the east end for almost 10 years. I've lived in Mile End, Stepney Green, Bow and now Bethnal Green. I love it here. It is my life and it is my home. I still have uncontrollable urges to travel the world but I feel London will always be my home. I came here seeking an education and to find and establish my own creativity as well as meet other like-minded souls.

Lately I've been exploring it a lot more than I used to. I spend days off going to museums, churches, anywhere....In particular, I have started exploring the east end more. There are fantastic buildings here - old and new - and I want to document them and learn about their history. I am proud of the east end's historic and cultural roots and feel it is something that should be shared hence I have started doing more local themed club nights like Blackchapel and Victorian Punk which was inspired by Clement Attlee's 'In Limehouse' poem.

Anyway, here are some photographs from my little walk around my neighbourhood today:

Steeple Court formerly St Bartholomew's Church
Bethnal Green, St. Bartholomew, Coventry Street (Essex, later Buckurst Street) [1844] 1941 Bomb damage, re-opened 1955. United to St. Simon Zelotes 1978. Church closed 1983, converted to flats.


St Bartholomews Gardens


The second church, dedicated to St. Bartholomew the Less, is situated in Lamb's-fields, at a short distance from the Mile-end station of the Eastern Counties' Railway. Like St. James's Church, it is in the early English style, with lancet-headed windows; the material, light brick with stone dressings.
Extract from Illustrated London News", 8th June 1844

Orion House, Coventry Road


Three Colts Lane