On Phantoms, Morrison & The Would've Been Question - From the Vault 2005

Another archive bit, this time from Jan 2005. I went to see The Phantom of the Opera in a rare family trip to the cinema. It was an excruciating outing in some respects: I don't love seeing movies with other people in general, and the rest of the party seemed determined to irritate the frak out of me throughout...

Of course, The Phantom of the Opera is not a great movie. It's not as bad as some folks would make out, and I don't think it's aged well but it's not awful.

This is another post that feels like it's from 'before'. Before the real darkness set in; before I pulled myself out of the hole; before, before... I've edited somewhat, partly to make my meaning absolutely clear, but the content remains essentially the same... and in places I've noted where my younger self was basically starry-eyed, naive and wrong. We live, we learn. What a naïf I was...

This stayed with me for a long time after I posted it, opening with a single, simple question:


Would I love Jim Morrison if he were ugly?

The London That Nobody Knows - From the Vault 2014

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to take part in a one-off choir project called Snapshot Songs, composed by the magnificent Stuart Hancock, in collaboration with various London groups, writers and artists.

London is much on my mind today, as it so often is. Like Dracula, I take strength from the soil (concrete) of my homeland. Being Irish, Not In Ireland, I will never truly belong in the Motherland no matter how I love it, no matter how much I yearn for it... but my people have been in this pocket of London since before the Industrial Revolution, it seems... and I love my Finsbury St Lukes and Barbican, and whatever you want to label it...