TO WHERE I AM NOW

The world seems to be collapsing into panic, a standstill, uncertainty, where will it end? How will people get through this? How will they pay their bills, not everyone can go and work from home, this is going to change everything for so many people. People losing their lives, people’s livelihoods suddenly stopped. What if you work freelance, travel, work in the public sector? What if you work in catering and rely on tips? I read an interesting article today about the difference between the normal flu and this virus. It has figures about the fatalities. Is this the disease that kills the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions and not others? I don’t hear about children succumbing? Will Tom and Rita Hanks survive? Will Arteta survive? Does Trump have it? Is it too early to know anything about where it’s going? Is that why the world has gone into panic, because simply no one knows? Those poor people and their families who are in the highest risk category. This bizarre decree of no travel to US from Europe, but it’s ok from the UK? Huh? It’s two hours on the train from Brussels, not hard to fly from the UK instead. Anyway read this.

Down here in the South West we have the sea, the beautiful sea. Every time we walk down to the front the sea looks different, different colours, different mood. Sometimes it’s angry, other times serene, other times agitated and other times placid and calm. There’s days when the waves crash against the sea wall and days where they lap the shore so softly they hardly move the stones on the beach. Other days they take those stones and hurl them onto the promenade along with large clumps of seaweed and broken shells. The sea is an entity, a living breathing thing, it demands your respect, captivates you with its beauty, hypnotizes you with its toing and froing. It shows you the secrets of the shoreline and then covers it up again as the tide races in, stranding the unsuspecting on sandbanks as it strands crabs and small fish in rock pools on its way out. The fishing boats slowly chug into Newlyn with their catch and out again at godforsaken hours in all seas. Putting faith in their sailing skills and their sturdy boats and their knowledge and experience of the deep channels where they fish. On the skyline cargo ships, working ships anchor and rest, The Scillonian sails backwards and forwards to the Scilly Isles, 37 miles and up to 3 hours one way, on return resting in the small Penzance harbour.

The seagulls shriek and dive and share the shoreline with the sandpipers (no relation) and the black crows are also at home on the beach. Cormorants disappear from the surface, looking for fish, sometimes disappearing for more than a minute and then popping up in a different place. Occasionally there’s a seal and whales have been sighted here. You can hire a boat and go in search of the sea life and if you are lucky see basking sharks. People are walking their dogs, the skateboard park is busy with the clatter of skateboards and skilful acrobats. The recycling bins are also down here, often bulging with paper or plastic, begging to be emptied, they never seem to get the timing right. Perhaps after the view and the awe-inspiring power of the water the next thing is the fresh salty air that you gulp down voraciously. It regenerates your body and your soul, gives you life. Your lungs can’t believe their luck.

Inside, Dare and I were in the studio again today for Noctorum. I wrote words for one of the songs we had written and we began working on another song. We’ve started trying out ideas for arrangement, thinking about melodies and lyrics. It seems we could be here for a long time if the virus continues to spread. At this point Nicklas from Anekdoten is still coming here next Wednesday and our trip to Canada is still on. I will be here everyday, ready to continue with all these projects, to work with the sessioneers and to immerse myself in the archive and listen. Today the ‘official’ Cressida 1st album, released on Repertoire, arrived, it will sit next to the rogue Cressida album Asylum, released on Akarma. I also played Steamhammer Mk II today after a conversation on Skype with sessioneer Jed and earlier in the day I was listening to a Jimi Hendrix CD, Live At The Royal Albert Hall from 1969, his last British concerts. I also listened to side one of Starless And Bible Black and we are about to listen to it again so we can hear the album as a whole. Then there’s the new Steven Wilson single. He’s done what Tame Impala have done and Arcade Fire did, they lost me. Too slick, too smooth, too trendy, I don’t mind the electronics, but it’s cold. I need warm today in this cold and frightening world, I don’t need to be made aware of how it is, I want the antidote.