Leaf grief

I do this every year so just bear with me. I actually didn’t mean for it to become a tradition. But here it is. I hate the autumn. I don’t know what it is. Except maybe I do. It’s because September smells funny. And the light is awkward. And my music sounds … off. Is that it? I think I have synaesthesia when September comes around. It’s the weird moon and the weather that changes minute to minute and the sweat and shiver because your clothes are all wrong. The beloved portholes that are the windows of my flat in HMS Lancaster start to look inwards at this time of year and I refuse to look back. My curtains are drawn until March.

More specifically tonight it’s poverty and fomo and all this recycling that I simply can’t face. And Morrissey.

I went to the launch of a book about Morrissey earlier. I’ve organised and introduced an identical event myself so I know it’s not easy. But this was a bit of an ordeal if I’m honest. A mixture of introverted and possibly unenthused academics saying oblique things to an audience who knew better and whose enthusiasm wained in under forty five minutes such that there were barely any questions and in fact one open and lengthy criticism.

Proceedings were lightened considerably by These Charming Men who bookended the discussion with quite lovely acoustic renditions from The Canon. But I went there alone and my questions sounded confrontational in my head (they weren’t) so I didn’t ask them. The people in front of me sniggered and rolled their eyes and left.

Then again, maybe it was me. I’m starting to think pop music might have ruined my life. I’m pretty sure I would have written more than one unpublished novel if not for pop music. I might have written two unpublished novels. Boom-tish. ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ instigated two enormously pivotal moments in my life and I’m a bit annoyed about it now. Although it will sound just right in the autobiography I suppose.

I left the book launch and turned on my iPod and it went straight to ‘Meat Is Murder’. I skipped. It was Robyn, ‘Dancing On My Own’. I could do without the signs and symbols at the moment. I’m pained by the single unbroken martini glass that survived the party here on Saturday night, a party that was terrific fun but that more or less went completely wrong.

I have quit smoking though. For good this time. The last time I quit was on the roof of the Hawley Arms in the sweltering heat of last summer, with cider, when Amy was alive. I don’t miss cigarettes but it seems the world and his husband have taken it up again. I was definitely ready to let it go though. It’s twenty years since I smoked my first one. It was love at first puff. He hit me and it felt like a kiss. But even a kiss shouldn’t last two decades.

Chin up though. September didn’t break me. I managed to skip it with a healthy degree of denial, plus a trip to Berlin which I am going to do every September from now until forever, just to take the edge off. I shall tell all about the final day and night of my German urlaub anon. It will be heavily edited so that we can remain friends.

Anyway, now that I’m a student again September means the start of term. I’m into the second year of a part time MA in Novel Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. I’m actually doing this, and not just talking about doing this. So it’s back to a novel a week until Christmas. What could be lovelier? The reading list looks like this:

Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin

Margaret Drabble, The Millstone

Anthony Burgess, The Malayan Trilogy

V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street

Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child

J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace

Benjamin Black, Elegy for April

Nicola Barker, Small Holdings

Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie

See? We’re fine.

Coming up shortly: more Berlin, how to stay positive this autumn through retail therapy, and forthcoming exciting cultural events across Manchester.

I think I will buy pyjamas.

This on repeat please.

I hate the autumn

I hate the autumn. It’s a season which belongs to the countryside. I’d like to be able to experience it entirely from behind glass if I could, ideally from behind my enormous Grade II single-glazed oculus which can never be double-glazed and so starts to gather condensation in October. In the city a falling leaf is only pretty until it lands, and then it’s litter, and soon after that it’s a slippery obstacle. Mulch. Piles of rotting leaves smell to me like the sweat of unhealthy men. On Oxford Road, the only road I ever seem to walk down these days, they’re pulling up the Victorian sewers. The smell is of bad teeth and ripe egg mayonnaise. Toilet roll is strewn across the street, not from the sewers, from Halloween. I missed Halloween. I’ll miss Bonfire Night too. The sewer renovations intrude on the pavements so everyone is walking shoulder to shoulder at mismatched speeds, clammy in clothes inappropriate for the weather, because everything you wear in autumn is inappropriate for the weather. The weather is inappropriate. When I was a kid I ploughed my bike through an enormous pile of dry leaves at the side of the road. There was a pile of bricks waiting in the middle for me and I went in a perfect arc over the handlebars and landed on my back. Autumn is full of surprises. How I hate it.

New Sensational Daily Micro Blog Diet!

After last September, as I often do when that most challenging of months hits like a sack of wet leaves, I wondered aloud, ‘September’s here again, and what have you done about it…?’ Well this time, actually Marilyn French, I have done something. I’m four weeks into the Masters in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. And about time too. This semester consists of reading a breadth of contemporary novels, one a week, to inspire, cultivate and otherwise ass-kick us into our own fictional endeavours. And it’s working. This in part explains why my blogging has been sluggish of late, as if you care, but my life has suddenly accelerated somewhat. Coupled with the tyranny of my ridiculous, ever-growing ‘To do’ list (currently three sides of A4), a workload that is out of control and a shedload of DJing, which I am loving more and more, it’s fair to say my blog has taken a back seat. But no more! As of now my intention is to do a daily microblog of around this length, an exposé, diary and digest of what’s going on culturally, emotionally, fiscally, romantically, internally, externally and otherwise with Manchester and myself. For a while there it looked like this dreadful city had beaten me again, but he’s totally my boyfriend again now. Swoon …

Trapeze artist, Flesh @ Paradise Factory, 29.8.10

Season of lists and mellow rootlessness …

“September’s here again, and what have you done about it …?”

Not a lot. Hello October. I’ll begin on a high by saying … I don’t remember ever being this broke in my life. I know we’re all broke and I’m lucky to have a job right now but I’m feeling distinctly insecure about it all of a sudden. I have become worse than ever at haemorrhaging my pay in the first week. Can’t help it. Need another income. Needless to say it’s time to start turning down invites again and get back to writing. Almost as soon as this decision was made I came home to find another rejection letter for The Novel. Ouch. My next blog will be a massive plug for The Novel. It’s become like an old friend hanging round the flat to the point if an agent ever wanted to do something more with it than exclude drafts I’d no doubt become terribly possessive.

So, I’m about to become something of a hermit. Lucky I’ve accrued some nice memories of late to live on. Trash-O-Rama you’ve heard about and must must try. Watched The September Issue at the Cornerhouse which was fantastic, excuse me, fabulous, and have been warring between my inner Wintours and Grace Coddingtons ever since (‘Leather IS a texture…’, ‘It's a famine of beauty!'). Boozy night at the Crown & Kettle for Geordie’s send-off to Australia. Another boozy and life-affirming evening at The Deaf Institute with Dee where we had grown-up talks that made me think, properly, about life and chances and where I want to be. In the virtual world I rejoined Facebook after months of absence, followed by a sensational bloody cull. I’m tired of it already, it’s like I never went away, but it is nice to be able to look at your friend’s sunny faces from time to time at work. Bless ‘em. If I never see another picture of myself though I wouldn’t care, this old face is looking lived in, not before time I suppose.




Had a big trip in all sorts of ways to the North East where the sunshine puts Manchester to shame. A possible return-journey sabotage meant I couldn’t get back Sunday night so I got another special day out of it. Came back all happysad as usual. What am I doing I wonder? Piccadilly at 1 am was bleak in a handbasket, as was the trudge up Whitworth Street, the fretful sleep, the drunks. City’s full of death it seems, and not just the trees. Manchester, I love you, but why don’t I like you just now?



On a brighter note (sheesh, lighten up) I am loving DJing at the moment. MORE PLEASE. Surprise gig last week at the City Life party upstairs in Odder in honour of wonderful Editor Neil Sowerby saying his goodbyes. Was totally unprepared for it and envisioned ruthlessly eclectic beard-stroking musos and journos demanding danceable esoterica. My sketchy idea was to mix some good electronicy rmxs, a smattering of less obvious Mancunian gems to honour Manchester's journalistic culture-vultures, some shameless floor-fillers and a handful of vintage goodies from Mr Sowerby’s youth. As it turned out my set followed Anna’s from Guilty Pleasures and the by-then lashed crowd was positively salivating for POP. She finished with ‘Into The Groove’. Gulp. ‘How ya gonna follow that?’ a girl by the booth enquired. ‘IOU’ by Freez seemed to do it. Thereafter I had to wing it (goodbye 'Susan vs. Youthclub'…) but I felt triumphant playing ‘Come See About Me' by The Supremes, ‘I Can’t Explain' by The Who. I finished with ‘Sir Duke’ by Stevie. It actually felt great to wing it so that’s more or less what I intend to do when I play 80s night Fame over at the Purple Pussycat at the end of this month. It will be my longest set ever and I CAN’T WAIT. Come and hear me whydoncha, I WILL play Swing Out Sister …

Pre-hermit outings include the Everything Everything gig at Night and Day this Saturday and if that doesn’t shake some life into me, well, it just will. The newest material has superceded even my high expectations. The album is going to be a slug in the guts and I can't wait.

My frenzy of to do lists means it really is autumn and I can feel the New Year raking over my back already and when will something happen, when will it? When I make it, when I make it …

To do, to do, to do …



POSTSCRIPT: As usual music manages to keep a 'What's the bloody point?' type-moment from happening. I have made this list for you to listen to. Disclaimer: I listened to 'Paparazzi' four times in one day and have just now played 'Long Haired Lover From Liverpool' a number of times. I don't know what's the matter with me. Promise this list is better though ...