Category Archives: London

f o t o s : vii – ix 2008

[ 22:35 thursday 13 november – haggerston road, london ]

for the whole of this week i’ve been confined to barracks with an extraordinarily vicious flu. leaving dalston’s moustache bar at four on sunday morning i was surprised to discover my voice was a couple of octaves below the regular tesitura. thinking nothing of this, i continued to rampage through a surreally ghastly poetry event in stamford hill and bebop night at uncle sam’s on sunday evening. however on monday i woke up to a fever and a complete inability to speak. i still feel grim today but i’m unmistakably on the mend. the most productive thing i’ve managed to do in the last few days is whack another batch of photos on the web.

: london (vii-ix 2008) :
17 photos of friends, parties, music and merriment in what laughably passed as london’s “summer”.

: foo camp 2008 (vii 2008) :
19 photos at tim o’reilly’s techno-futurist retreat under canvas in sebastopol, california.

: california (vii 2008) :
21 photos of seaweed at bodega bay, san francisco and visiting vajra at the zan center in san francisco.

: c :

f o t o s : v – vi 2008

[ 00:23 thursday 4 september – haggerston road ]

ninety-eight pictures from may and june.

: granny (v 2008) :
27 photos – being with granny in hospital, her beautiful garden, echoes of her around the house.

: stromboli (v 2008) :
17 photos – brief but glorious escape to stromboli, bush fires in sicily, rome from the air.

: hokkaido (vi 2008) :
54 photos – infinity ventures summit in sapporo, the misty shores of lake shikotsu, climbing mount aniwa.

: c :

e s c a p e

[ 04:27 saturday 23 august – haggerston road ]

i’ve spent the last two hours working out how i can get to stromboli by sunday evening and booking tickets accordingly. finally it’s done. the trenitalia website (italian state train operator) nearly drove me bonkers with its byzantine booking system. i have a stack of reservation details sitting on my printer as follows:

– train ticket from london kings cross to sheffield
– air ticket from east midlands airport to rome
– train ticket from rome to naples
– hydrofoil from naples to stromboli
– hydrofoil from stromboli to naples
– air ticket from naples to london gatwick

right now a week on stromboli is a welcome prospect. i might even sneak round to tiny ginostra on the other side of the island for the second half of the week. my friend matteo is renting a house there and invited me to come and stay.

: c :

f o t o s : iv – v 2008

[ 00:42 thursday 21 august – haggerston road ]

twenty-seven new pictures from april and may.

: new york (v 2008) :
9 photos of new york in the rain and sheltering with annie in greenwich village.

: london (iv-v 2008) :
9 photos of social innovation camp and my final visit to grandpa and mary’s house to recover treasures.

: the trampery (v 2008) :
9 photos moving into trampoline systems’ new offices in shoreditch.

: c :

f o t o s : iii – iv 2008

[ 15:06 sunday 10 august – haggerston road ]

over the past couple of weeks i’ve done another burst of scanning, assisted by the persistent rain that’s blighted london. here are the first fifty-eight pictures.

: nant (iii 2008) :
19 photos from my whirlwind trip through lyon and montpellier to the remote village of nant for easter with josselin and his family, then driving back across the massif centrale in a blizzard.

: malta & gozo (iv 2008)
21 photos exploring the island of malta and its wild sibling gozo.

: san francisco (iv 2008)
18 photos performing with shemoel at the institute of art and hunting wildlife with nate in the marin headlands.

: c :

f o t o s : iii 2008

[ 01:33 monday 30 june – haggerston road, london ]

here are sixty more photos from march.

: last days at leonard street :
19 photos from trampoline’s final days in the office at leonard street before the property developers moved in to convert the building to bourgeois apartments.

: highway 1 :
27 photos of my five hundred mile road trip from san francisco to san diego down the iconic highway 1.

: breckenridge :
14 photos of breckenridge high in the colorado rockies, staying at warren’s condo and snowboarding with mum, dad and jill.

: c :

f o t o s : xi 2007 – ii 2008

[ 13:26 saturday 14 june – haggerston road, london ]

i got back to london yesterday. unusually, i’m really pleased to be home. last night i went out dancing with jan and martin in jet-lagged frenzy. i woke up ridiculously early this morning so i took the opportunity to upload some photos!

: london (xi 2007 – ii 2008) :
14 photos, mostly of music-making antics in my flat.

: cornwall (xii 2007 – i 2008) :
19 photos from christmas and new year in cornwall with family and friends.

: grandpa & mary (i-ii 2008) :
12 photos of scattering grandpa & mary’s ashes in the wilderness at bushey park, then clearing out their east molesey house.

: c :

e n d e d

[ 01:34 wednesday 14 may – haggerston road, london ]

at one minute after nine o’clock mum phoned to say she’d watched granny die a couple of minutes earlier. i was still in the office, glad to have sergio there to comfort me.

now i’m at home, a candle burning in the centre of the table, my photographs of granny placed around the room.

there are so many memories to cherish i scarcely know where to begin.

: c :

g o o d b y e g r a n n y

[ 23:58 monday 12 may – haggerston road, london ]

i spent the weekend with granny. on saturday she alternated between three states. the first appeared to reflect agitation: scrunched up brow, lifted left knee, dabbing at her mouth and nose with her right hand. the second state looked like surprise or wonderment: lying still, raising her forehead and eyebrows. the third state was tranquil: either asleep or perfectly calm. her eyes were closed all the time. she didn’t speak but occasionally made noises in her throat. she was definitely aware of what was going on around her. a couple of times when she was agitated i spoke reassuringly at her side and she relaxed. when mum and i lifted her up, held a glass of water to her lips and urged her to drink some she did. when i held her hand she responded by squeezing it.

on sunday she’d passed a step further and ceased responding to anything. i sat with her for three hours and it was the most difficult time i’ve spent with her. holding her hand without feeling her fingers tighten around mine was particularly tough. her hands were so warm, the life was so conspicuous in her, but she was completely inert. writing about it now is making me cry again. for some of the time i dozed with my forehead against hers on the pillow, which brought to mind all the mornings as a child when i’d woken up early and crept into bed with her. i talked to her, thanking her for believing in me and loving me. i wished her strength for the voyage she was undertaking and told her i was there at her side every step. i sang some folk songs i thought she’d like, though my voice faltered.

eventually the time came for me to leave. it felt like the last moment i’d ever be with her. walking away was unbearably difficult. i kept turning back to kiss her and say goodbye yet time. finally i walked backwards through the door, watching her sleeping form until the very last second. with tears pouring down my face i continued to repeat “goodbye granny” as i walked out of the hospital and as i cycled through the streets of ludlow. today, whenever she comes to mind i repeat it again.

goodbye granny.

: c :

o n t o u r / g r a n n y

[ 01:51 thursday 1 may – haggerston road, london ]

i washed up in london this morning after an eleven-day rampage across san francisco, silicon valley and new york. most days i worked fourteen to sixteen hours non-stop, not exactly my ideal pattern of activity. this stakhanovite fervour was required because i was interlacing several different sets of commitments. first, trampoline was one of twenty british technology start-ups picked for a programme of promotional events in california; second, we launched our new flagship technology in san francisco; third, the company had a stand at the web2.0 conference; fourth, i had a few seminars to deliver; fifth, i had a welter of meetings with customers and investors. everything worked out extremely well but i was comprehensively fried at the end of it.

mercifully it was possible to squeeze in a few extra-curricular activities. on friday i did a three-hour performance with shemoel, cyrus and others at the san francisco art institute; preceded by a tumultuous jam session on the wednesday. this was an utter joy. shemoel and i have decided to set up a small label as a platform for ourselves and others ploughing a similar musical furrow. the previous weekend daniel invited me to last ever san francisco performance by the beaux arts trio, which was exquisite. afterwards i spent several hours playing bach and schubert at the piano with his son nate. on saturday the weather was glorious so i rescheduled my new york flight and drove out to walk in the wilds of the marin headlands. nate came along and proved an effective hunter. without warning he would jab his hand into a bush and withdraw it clasping some writhing creature. during the afternoon he caught several species of lizard, a succession of plump newts and (the piece de resistance) an endangered san francisco garter snake with a half-eaten slug hanging out of its mouth. my thanks to simon and annie for sharing their homes in san francisco and new york respectively.

now my world turns darker. in the final days of the trip granny went into hospital with a thrombosis in her foot. surgery was not successful and the further recourse, amputation of the leg, was deemed impractical for a woman of ninety-two years. in the coming days or weeks she will develop gangrene and die. only when i finished my last meeting in new york and set off on the subway towards the airport did the emotional reality strike me. i had tears streaming down my face for much of the journey back to london. tomorrow i travel to ludlow to be with her.

: c :