It’s funny how things come back around. We joined a book group here and the book for July is the playscript of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys. We went to a barbecue the other week too and the film we sat down to watch when the mosquitoes got too persistent to stay outside was The History Boys. Now I’ve always found Bennett to be a little too tweedy and mumsy for my taste, evoking as he does a world of Thermos flasks, digestive biscuits and rides out on a Sunday, but reading the play again brought the whole experience of preparing for Oxbridge interview flooding back. When I was living back there last year I kept seeing my old (now very old) tutor pootling along on a black bicycle. And I still had that feeling that he would say ‘Ah, Stephen, how did you find the Gawain poet?’ and I would look down at my shoes and struggle to say something original.

And then that kind of anxiety dream gets all rolled up into being unprepared for exams. I’m half expecting to wake up with a shudder in the night thinking I’ve got Finals in the morning and can’t find my subfusc and my mortarboard. I wonder if they still have to wear all that and still go through the ritual of sporting a white, then pink, then red carnation buttonhole en route to the Exam Schools.

It’s more than twenty years since I went up for interview and I know, externally at least, little of Oxford life has changed. Worcester College still looks like Worcester and the chalk we scrawled in the stonework above one of the staircases is still there. I checked when I went to take a look back last September or so, having spent another year in Jericho.

He’s right about the idea of subjunctive history, as the trains rattle across the points and your journey goes in another direction. And the useless, incantatory words that stay with you years after you learned them. The woods are lovely, dark and deep… In the room the women come and go… Unreal city/Under the brown fog of a winter dawn…

Mass MOCA is the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s over in a place called North Adams which is an old industrial town north of the Berkshires and about 2 hours west of Boston. It’s a bit like the Tate Modern in that it’s in an old converted factory. They feature a rolling programme of exhibitions (right now Sol Lewitt), some permanent stuff and a rather nice caff. I loved the buildings as they reminded me of Wigan. All those grand old Victorian brick cotton mills and factories remain impressive so many years later, with their textured brick and peeling paintwork. So, these few photos are about decay and age and gritty urban history.

A few weeks ago now we spent a weekend in the Berkshire hills and took a trip up to Mount Greylock and the surrounding countryside. There were several brave cyclists making the 3500 feet climb up to the top of the mountain. We drove. I’m bad enough in a car when it gets any higher than a low bridge. Those hairpin bends when you seem to be heading out into the sky scare me rigid. It’s irrational, but there you are. If the brain was meant to be logical, it would come with a set of operating instructions. Anyway, Mt Greylock was lovely.

Now the first of December was covered with snow
And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Lord, the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go
There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

These 1970s singer songwriters have a tune for every occasion.
Meanwhile, here are some recent photos of our apartment, Rocky Neck up by Gloucester and around Kendall Square.

It’s been a long time since I blogged. What I tend to do is take notes on my phone with the intention of uploading them when I’m in work or at home and then forgetting all about it. This is one of those notes.

These last few weeks have been hectic but I think we’re more settled in than we were.  Robin has been working on iPad developments and I’ve been in work. It’s incredibly hot at the moment and I’ve taken to cycling to work as much as I can. I do it about 2-3 times a week which, considering it’s 14 miles or so each way, I’m quite pleased with. Rob and I have got into training for our charity cycle ride (Harbor 2 the Bay) which at 125 miles in one stretch might just kill us.

This week I’m in LA working on a new film project which we’re hoping to launch in late Summer. Burbank is very fond of telling you that it’s the real home of the tv and movie industry which we all associate with the more iconic-sounding Hollywood next door.

This is where they film The Tonight Show and the outside shots for Desperate Housewives. Mary Poppins and Pirates of the Carribean were also done here at the Disney studios.  This Happy Days publicity stares back at me when I open my hotel door.

We took a break from working this afternoon and went for a walk through the downtown area which they playfully describe as Burbank Village. It’s a ‘village’ in the way Milton Keynes is a city, ie in no shape or form. And like MK, it has an IKEA sitting all big and blue in the middle.

I spotted a second hand bookshop full of old film posters, magazines and film industry books. I think this is the only time I have ever seen Focal Press books from the late eighties on display anywhere.

Imagine my surprise when I spotted a dog-eared copy of Focal’s Video Camera Techniques on the shelf only to find handwritten in the front matter in swirly blue writing the words:

This book belongs to Q. Tarantino. You take it, you die.

Ah these crazy Hollywood types.

Mondays have turned into Wednesdays. What was once a weekly trek to Cecil Sharp House is now a drive  home to Cambridge, stop for something to eat them jumping on the T down to Arlington stop music in hand.
I like the ritual of going to a weekly rehearsal but I must admit some doubts that I will ever learn all the repertoire for the show. These guys are good and seem to sight read with the best of them and the stack of music makes the Magna Carta look like a raffle ticket. The guys are friendly though and the numbers fun.

Look out the left the captain said. The lights down there, thats where we’ll land. I saw a falling star burn up. Above the Las Vegas sands.

Rob and I have been having a difficult time at the moment. I’m not quite sure why but I think we’re both suddenly feeling quite unsettled and I’m a little homesick. I don’t think the weather has helped. It’s been schizophrenic by all accounts. Friday was baking hot then it started raining heavily. Rob is off to see David Sedaris at the Boston opera house. I was supposed to go as well but a business trip has taken me to Vegas which is where I’m headed now.

The plane is packed with people going to the same conference as me.  When you’re missing England Vegas is probably the last place you should end up. And I will be staying in the Paris hotel. No doubt a vile simulacrum of old Europe. Oops. Must leave my prejudices behind when I disembark.

We went to the MIT museum this afternoon and then sat outside a bar on Kendall Square. It was lovely and sunny. But I had that feeling of rootlessness that’s hard to shake.

I’m also learning songs for the new Chorus show. Bloody hell the repertoire is enormous. I’m looking forward to the show though.

We’re also planning to do a charity cycle ride called Harbor to the Bay. It’s in September and from Boston 125 miles to Provincetown. We keep planning to go out another ride but the weather or just general knackeredness gets in the way.

 So I’m back to Boston on Wednesday.  Since getting here I’ve been to New York, Philly and now Nevada. I like New England best  Dammit – I like old England.

The drone of flying engines is a song so wild and blue.

It scrambles time and seasons if it gets through to you.

Oh. We’re coming into land.