Juggling spiders Up to London, feeling twitchy. Had woke in the night feeling anxious too. Made it to work without incident however. Lunch with Keith and Matty boy. In the evening off to Mum and Mason's. Treacherous burst of rain just before I reached them. Ben there too, which was nice. And it was good to dry my trousers by the fire. Cheery glasses of wine with Mum, Mas and Ben. A spider let itself down from the ceiling just behind Mason, and Ben and Mum doing elaborate spider juggling for some time. Enjoyed a turkey supper and, yippee! more Christmas pudding. In the wake of the James Ellroy stuff I am reading, got Mason to talk about life in LA in the fifties and sixties. He told me about taxi dancing, which was renting someone to dance with in certain bars. Fairly early night, sent to bed with two hot water bottles, and slept like a large baby after calling Lorraine and reading a bit more about violent murder.
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Dark start Up to London. Archetypal start to the year. As I always say, January is the Monday of the year, and it was raining and dark when I left home, becoming grey with glum-looking commuters shuttling up to London. Reading the Guardian and looking out of the window noticing how much the Shard has moved on, rearing up and piercing the sky near completion. Work surprisingly enjoyable, doing concept work with Keith and chatting to Matty boy and Katie. More sadly, First Matie lost her grandfather just before Christmas, and Nicola is burying her father this week. After 18 years of fighting for justice, two of the murderers of Stephen Lawrence were finally found guilty. Lawrence was 18 when he was killed, and it is sobering to think that it took slightly longer than he was alive for justice to finally be done thanks to the tireless campaigning of his parents. On a murder note still reading My Dark Place Places by James Ellroy - which is incredibly raw and fascinating about his mother...
Dark places Felt like I had food poisoning, with unpleasantly exploding guts today. I got up very early, however, and watched a documentary about James Ellroy called Feast of Death, which was a wonderful. He's a guy with a weird rather obnoxious public persona, Ellroy was discussing the murder of his mother when he was a boy, and how fed by his father be built up an unpleasant picture of what she was really like. This murder resonated with him on with The Black Dahlia case, a real unsolved murder which he turned into a novel. The documentary focused on this and My Dark Places , which is a memoir about seeking the facts in his mother's murder. Fascinating stuff. I bought The Black Dahlia , which I began to read right away. It is compelling and unpleasant. My French clients finally coughed up what they owed me too, which is rather good. Apparently they are struggling. Met Matt in the afternoon to discuss the CD production and performances. We are looking at a CD launch concert ...