After I posted So You Think You Can Write a Pop Song? last night I checked my pansy map and thought there was a nuclear attack on North America and Western Europe – very Cold War. Pansies were bursting out all over the place. It shows that a title that catches the mood can go a long way. I hope all the spotty teenagers across the western world weren’t too disappointed. I suspect they won’t return!
See the video on my Facebook Wall.
Listen to this and then read the story.
Liam’s been setting some lyrics to music. The words in question were penned by our nephew and my namesake, Jack. The prose is very deep, very torch song – all lost love, bitterness, angst and misery. It’s entitled the Promise. It escapes me what a 14 year old adolescent could possibly know about mislaid love. I put it down to the comprehensive system. Classically trained Liam can’t do hooks and struggled with the composition. He’s developed a deeper appreciation of the well-crafted three minute pop song. What you heard was the result. Not a pop song perhaps, but beautiful nonetheless.
We now have neighbours. Our house is one of two on a single plot with a shared gated entrance and garden. We’d rather hoped the other house would stay vacant. It was not to be. We dreaded being saddled with a couple of old reactionaries; all head scarves, clashing florals and disapproving looks. We’re mightily relieved that Vadim and Beril are delightful arty types from Ankara. Vadim plays the bongos (or whatever the Turkish equivalent is) with talented gusto and Beril looks like she dropped too much acid in the Sixties. We engage in lots of pointing and demented waving of hands. They hardly speak a word of English and, of course, our grasp of Turkish remains lamentably poor. We’ve agreed to have a dictionary do over a bottle or three to exchange random words just for the hell of it. The ruder the better, I hope.
Thank you to one and all for the good luck messages from my loyal pansyfans. Liam and I are a little pre-occupied with nest building and kitchen reconstruction. Put two gay men in a room and witness the heated debate about where to place the Habitat vase. In the meantime sit back and enjoy a joyous discovery brought to you by You Tube and Yankee Istanbul blog Death by Dolmuş
We spent a chilly evening warmed by a blazing grate and a bottle of red romantically reminiscing about our civil partnership ceremony in 2008. It was a splendid festival of family and friends in the Sky Lounge at the City Inn Hotel, Westminster. We tied the knot silhouetted against a picture postcard backdrop of the Palace and Abbey. With the simple words “The relationship between you is now recognised in Law” ringing in our ears, we embraced to an ocean of beaming smiles, rapturous applause and a chorus of cheers. Blighty has come a long way since the awful Thatcher years.
A champagne reception was followed by an old routemaster red bus tour of London Town from the Abbey to St Paul’s. We crossed Old Father Thames by London Bridge onwards through Borough towards ‘Horse’ in Waterloo, the gastropub venue for our reception and evening knees up. Tables were dressed French bistro style with crisp white linen and porcelain contrasted with a single stem tulip of vivid red. We dined at a top table for two. Speeches were informal and unrehearsed. There were flowers for the seniors, toys for the juniors and posh chocolates and bubbly for significant others.
Liam said it all with a song called ‘Second Time Around’ which he composed covertly over many weeks. Vocals were supplied by Sally Rivers, a top-notch singer of enormous depth and experience with a rich, soulful voice. Fortified by a vat of Dutch courage, Liam nervously accompanied Sally’s recording live on the piano. I listened intently from a distance. It made me thankful he chose me. It was a sweet triumph without a drunken bum note that brought the crowd to its feet and had us sobbing in the aisles.
If you fancy a listen, click here.
The evening shindig brought in a bigger audience. I pre-mixed the music with old favourites, dance classics and pop standards – No ‘YMCA,’ ‘Agadoo’ or ‘the Birdie Song.’ The evening jolly was joyously punctuated by a big screen showing of a camp compilation of cleverly cut snippets from famous musicals synchronised to a soundtrack of ‘I Just Wanna Dance.’
See how many musicals you can name but if you are offended by the word f*****g then you’d best not play it!
The evening was brought to a close by Petula Clark’s ‘The Show is Over Now,’ a fitting end to a momentous day.
Tomorrow’s post – The Honeymoon
A real challenge to able-bodied emigreys is to find a gainful occupation that doesn’t involve propping up the bar in some sad, insular expat dive to Blighty-bash and complain ad nauseum of all things local. I have my blog but what of Liam? An early decision was to order a Roland keyboard from Istanbul. A creative renaissance ensued. Liam spends endless hours tickling the ivories and fiddling with his knobs. Well, if you can’t beat ’em then join ’em, so I have embarked on a set of suitably pretentious lyrics for him to compose around – more Shakespeare’s Sister than Shakespeare, methinks. The lyrics are evolving into a compendium cryptically entitled Asia in a Minor Key.
The title lyric, an ode to the emigrey forlorn, goes like this
Land of my fathers, don’t you want your son? Shall I run from you, my kin undone? To the land of sunrise and chattering minarets Bizarre bazaars and monkish pirouettes Chase my dream across dusty hills Past olive groves and neglected mills To find myself in the arms of strangers To talk in silence and delight in dangers Erase the pain of past misdeeds Follow my road to wherever it leads Land of my father I have done all I can To find the love of an Ottoman Asia in a minor key A game of chance Last chance for me Land of my fathers; don’t you want your son? I ran from you, my kin undone To the land of sunrise and chattering minarets But shall my dream stay unrequited yet?Pompous twaddle or what? I guess Liam thinks so. While his Steps to Sibelius musical palate may be a broad church, classically trained Liam struggles with hooks and the art of a well-crafted three minute pop song eludes him. In any case, his real dream is to complete the requiem he began to write a decade or so ago and to write a score for a film. This is now.
Liam has been experimenting with his keyboard by writing some short pieces as part of his score for a soundtrack. It’s very much a work in progress but you fancy a listen, please click below.
Working class lad, Liam, was born with an innate desire to blow things. This manifested itself at the tender age of seven when he learnt to play the recorder with noted skill. A year later, he moved on to the oboe, an altogether more difficult woodwind instrument to master. By 15, he’d learnt to play the piano and started composing simple ditties in a classical genre. By 18 he was studying for a music degree, became an oboe for hire for various orchestras and his then more complex compositions attracted a more discerning audience. A career in serious music seemed assured. But, by 20 Liam discovered the love that dares not speak its name and, with hormones raging, his creative juices flowed in an entirely different direction. His classical career in tatters and with penury looming, he joined the civil service.
Liam rediscovered his beloved oboe in the loft when we were preparing for our emigration. It had been sitting in its sad satin-lined box, broken and unblown for decades. Unable to breathe life back into the lifeless instrument, he sold it on Ebay. It was a sad day. That was then.
Find out more about Liam’s music here.
On the sabbath we decided to indulge in a hearty roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings followed by a screening of the classic musical ‘South Pacific’ courtesy of Karen at Christmas. I adore the line “I’m as gay as a daisy in May”. They just don’t write lyrics like that anymore – they dare not. Oh, such innocent times. The Rogers and Hammerstein score is a particular favourite of Liam’s. He once had the the soundtrack with the lead sung by Kiri T Canopener. He’s so gay.
Bodrum was the venue for our inaugural Turkish New Year revelry. The pretty town has been draped in festive adornments and Harbour Square next to the Crusader castle is graced with a chic snow-white Christmas tree in the shape of a multi-layered hooped skirt. We jostled with the cheery crowd of many generations to catch the act performing at the free concert. An energetic Turkish diva pumped up the volume with catchy Turkopop tunes and the animated audience swayed in happy recognition.
As 2011 dawned, the midnight sky was set alight by a cacophonous pyrotechnic bonanza that dissonantly clashed with the rhythmic Turkic beat. Liam and I embraced and no one minded. With gunpowder spent and smoke hanging in the air, we looked about to observe the assorted assembly; the mobs of mischievous young men, the pantaloon’d grannies with their infant charges, the courting pairs of trendy young things and the gaggles of covered girls variously sporting elaborate head-scarves or Santa hats. We were the only yabancılar in view and we loved it.
We waded through the throng in search of a watering hole and happened upon Meyhane Sokak, a narrow lane off the bazaar and home to a cluster of small crush bars exclusively frequented by Turks. We delicately forced our passage through the rowdy horde, inching past a pretty thing in a sparkly, silver sequined ra ra skirt shaking her booty in wild abandon on top of a table and snaked around a busking band of moustached minstrels. Finally, we squeezed onto one of the tall bench tables lining the lane to enjoy the drunken scene being played out around us. I’m told that alcohol consumption, particularly by women, is generally frowned upon in wider Turkish society. However, there was little evidence of this among the tequila swiggers.
We sent and received various festive texts. I received a message from London life friends, Ian and Matt, who were enjoying their New Year in a bear bar in Brussels. What a tired old twink like Ian was doing in a Brussels bear bar is anyone’s guess.
Defeated by the cold night air and in need of bladder relief we ventured inside one of the bars to be pinned up against the wall by the maelstrom. We were much taken with a group of grungy fellows who wore their hair up in a bun – in the style of Japanese sumo wrestlers and Katherine Hepburn. Turkish appreciation of music is refreshingly unsophisticated and the melee whirled just as enthusiastically to dirgy Depeche Mode as to the Weather Girls’ infamous gay anthem “It’s Raining Men”. Forgive them Father. They know not what they do.
This was the clearly the last hurrah before a short, sharp winter.
We’re Blighty-bound for Christmas and, in some ways, I wish we weren’t. It would be splendid to spend our first yuletide in our newly adopted home, chuck up a tree, decorate it with the cheap baubles we expensively air-freighted, wrap it up in twinkling lights and top it off with a fairy flourish.
Before our festive exit from Asia, we decided on a social double date. We had a light luncheon with Vetpats Chuck and Susan who have brought forward their new year’s resolutions by regular gym visits to replenish their health. It seems to be doing the trick, particularly for Chuck who’s dropped a few pounds, perked up his pecs and brought a new glow to his fading porn star frontage. Their tranquil existence is being rudely disturbed by noisy neighbours. Susan’s polite intervention has had little lasting effect. If Chuck had a gun he’d shoot them. This is the American way.
Our second date was with Marie from Twickenham. Marie owns a large and imposing stone house near Gümsülük, the wintertime approach to which requires a transfer by Challenger tank since the surrounding roads resemble trenches of the Great War. She used to be big in IT and has just launched a Blighty-based internet business to off-set plunged interest rates. It’s called Snazzy Specs and sells chic reading glasses for discerning myopians. Also invited was Ellen from Ulster, a pretty blond with a harmonious demeanour and an unreserved ‘I love Turkey’ message which I found refreshing. Marie dished up hearty winter fare accompanied by a warming, roaring fire and serenaded with Sezen Aksu, the Queen of Turkopop. We all imbibed a little more than was good for us as we chatted into the small hours. The next day we had wine flu.
Perking the Pansies 