The Imaginarium
It’s quite mad to think that it’s been a year and a bit now since we opened The Imaginarium. A lot of that time was consumed by situations that meant I couldn’t really enjoy it all as I should have, but finally now I am. It’s been a real treat to have some of the amazing DJ sets and live sets that we’ve been able to host at the space, and to get to do things like our collaboration with Craven Arts, where we had a full on exhibition in a proper art space. Really cool, that.
The birthday itself was not only fun, but an incredibly heartwarming experience. It kind of bowls me over how much love people have shown for the space. I will add as well, that the love is completely reciprocated. The project and space would be nothing without everyone who has got involved.
To Do List
From the end of the lockdown until the start of The Imaginarium I was playing gigs and recording mixes all the time. When you do a lot, it kind of snowballs, and you get asked to do more and more stuff. When you take time out, you don’t.
I’ve had enough time out now.
One thing I definitely need to do is record a mix. I was a bit gutted because I really love the selection on my last NARR show, but we accidentally swapped in a deck with a tone arm issue (we had previously swapped it out), and every other tune sounds like the needle is fucked. I don’t plan sets (as in track by track), but I’d like to take the same bag and record something similar soon.
Why I Didn’t Do a Write Up After Houghton
I thought that I would come back from Houghton – which seems so long ago now – and write a lengthy review, as I did last year, but, for a long time, I struggled to write anything. I also felt unable to draw, paint, mix, make music. I was basically in a situation, where I was being constantly berated by someone, something that seemed to happen due to their inability to respond in a reasonable manner to criticism. Some people will just attack you. In the long term, to be honest, this is a lot more unfortunate for them than it is for you. In the short term, though, it is a lot to put up with.
A friend said to me last year that my biggest problem is that I think I’m invincible. There is some truth in this, and it is both a positive and negative thing for me. He was actually referring to me having been awake for several days, but it can be applied to other aspects of my life. I suppose I’ve been through a lot in the past few years, and I wouldn’t say at all that I’ve been unaffected by any of it, but I have managed to keep on through it all, and not lose whatever it is that keeps me inspired and driven. Eventually, though, if a lot happens, something will probably break you, or break your zen at least, however strong you think you are. I hope I have learned enough from my experiences to at least try my best to avoid it happening again. Or to deal with it all in a better way if it does. It is possible to make a misery of anything, and conversely, it is also possible to take the good from most things. I’d like to think that I lean towards the latter.
To quote a mate:
“Houghton always makes the magic happen.”
He said this as we were leaving. Your phone has no signal there. Which is perfect. In the car park, on the Monday morning after the festival, the messages came through as we left. I had some good news.
You will most likely have heard this before: Houghton is magical. If it’s a cliched thing to say, I guess that’s because it’s the truth. Of course, it didn’t make anything happen, but the experience, the sounds, the setting, the people you know and meet – all of these are special.
By the time the festival came around, things were slowly starting to improve for me. Even if this had not been the case, I think having gone would have improved my state of mind. The previous year, I returned full of inspiration. Instead of a comedown, I had a short sleep, then made tunes for days. I wasn’t quite as much on form this year, but I did feel better when I returned. Partly because of the good news, but also partly I think, because I’d just come back from such a wonderful experience.
Back at The Imaginarium, a week after the festival, a DJ complained that there was something amiss with the sound. We had to explain that it would just seem like that after Houghton, because of how incredibly good the sound is there. It’s not just that, either. The attention to detail in every aspect of the festival is perfect. Everything is done as well as you could want it to be. A beautiful time, in a beautiful place.
I did also muse on the idea that you could quite easily spend the entire festival in the Terminus (a stage that never closes. The line ups are not disclosed on the programme. You have quite a queue most of the time. The queue is totally worth it, and also actually quite fun)…
Which leads me to this:
The Motorway Service Station Game
As a development from our much revisited conversation on the UK’s best motorway service stations (Top ten? I actually have one. I’m surprised it has never ended up as a post on this blog…), my friend has invented a challenge:
Spend a year in a motorway service station. You eat, sleep, work there. You cannot exit the perimeter. Would this be possible?
I ended up discussing this at length with my aunt. There are many factors to consider. For example, does the service station include a Travel Lodge, and if so, can you stay there? Can you order food to the service station? Or do you have to exist on the food available from its restaurants and shops? There are many questions. In the end, we concluded that the biggest challenge would be laundry.
P.S. My top two UK motorway service stations are:
1. Ferrybridge (M62/A1(M) Junction 33): I like the architecture is why. Obviously it’s a cheap building, but the style, with the roof that goes all the way down to the floor and the diagonal windows (you get to really appreciate why these are good when inside the cafe) is so cool.
2. Leicester Forest East (M1 Junction 21/21A): The cafe is on the bridge that goes over the motorway. Enough said.
All the Horror
Someone recently said to me that they have struggled to concentrate on creative pursuits with all the horror happening in the world. There is, of course, always horror happening somewhere, but that doesn’t take away from what is going on right now, or justify any of it.
I have always been dismayed by the fact that our government – and the opposition, and the majority of the mainstream media – in the UK are steadfastly pro-Israel, in spite of their acts of violence towards Palestine, and the oppression and displacement of of Palestinians by the Israeli government. This does not mean that I believe that the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas was justified, or that I am anti-semitic, just that I recognise a breach of human rights, and that I stand in solidarity with a nation that has suffered years of ill treatment and loss of lives.
I was slightly dismayed at myself a few weeks back because I questioned my own morality – I wondered if maybe I am more selfish than I have realised. It was an afters at our space, and someone there said that they were going home to get a few hours sleep, as they were going to join the pro-Palestine march on Briggate that day. I knew about the march, and had considered joining it, but I knew also that I would not, because I would choose, over that, to stay on at the sesh. So what does that say about me? In that moment, as I realised that, I felt very ashamed, but then it also occurred to me that I probably also wouldn’t always choose to carry on partying at an afters over something like that, and that it was The Imaginarium’s birthday – the first anniversary of a space and project that I have put my heart and soul into. So maybe it wasn’t so bad. I don’t know.
Politics Closer to Home
I’m sorry that I rant about the government so much. Or maybe no apology needed. Their bad for being such arseholes.
I do wonder if there is anyone in the cabinet who is not suffering with some kind of mental illness or personality disorder?
Firstly, what is the deal with so many people whose parents or grandparents would have been migrants being so determined that the UK keeps its borders closed?
Then we have the PM’s comment that ‘a man is a man, and a woman is a woman.’
Well, no, Mr Sunak, it really isn’t that simple. As an educated person, I would hope that you can accept scientific fact. Gender variation is the result of of genetic variants. Sometimes, this happens because they are inherited characteristics. Sometimes, these are genetic mutations caused by exposure to particular hormones whilst a person is in the womb.
Also, why does anyone have a problem with trans people? How does another person’s gender affect their life? This baffles me.
Next up, we have the issue of smoking. Should the government’s plans go ahead, then in ten years time, you will have to be 28 years old to legally purchase a pack of cigarettes in the UK.
Now, smoking is bad for you. It is a silly, pointless thing that is likely to kill you in the end. But it is also a person’s own choice, and possibly what will happen is that people will still smoke, but they will buy black market cigarettes, many of which will be worse for them than the ones you could obtain legally.
I get the part about smokers putting a strain on the NHS. But also, a nanny state is a dangerous thing, and the NHS is put under far more strain by cuts and mismanagement, than by anything else, and if we are going to go down that route, then why is the government not banning alcohol, fizzy drinks, Haribo, pizza, etc., etc.?
And HS2… Well, I don’t think it was a particularly good idea in the first place, and as far as national spending goes, right now I’d just be happy if our bins got emptied.
On the subject of bins not getting emptied, I was recently told, by someone who works for a council (which I obviously can’t name) that said council had been deemed ‘not fit for purpose’ by the Prime Minister. The awesome response from the council was something along the lines of:
“And your government is not fit for purpose, Mr Sunak.”
My thoughts are that it’s a sneaky game underfunding councils to the extent that they will not be fit for purpose. It’s a fact that Labour seats have received less funding than Conservative areas. Of course, then people will not be happy with Labour councils. So while there is more money to be spent elsewhere, there is also an increased ill feeling towards the opposition. Cunning, that.
Wilko
I was genuinely surprised and saddened to hear about Wilko going into administration. You might laugh, but I really liked the place. When we went into lockdown, one of the most cheering things for me was hearing that Wilko would remain open.
I often say that I hate shopping, but that isn’t really true. I find it tiresome trawling through endless high fashion retailers in the stuffy, plastic environments of malls. One amusing afternoon, me and my then boyfriend, after several tiresome hours of being dragged through shops by his mother to peruse nonsensical items that she had no intention of buying, we decided enough was enough. The only way out was to suggest cocktails in an overpriced bar. Still not quite my idea of fun, and the bill was immense; but it was worth it.
Anyway, I digress…
I don’t hate all shops. I actually like the idea of department stores. As the day with my friend’s mother proved, I can tolerate them only in small doses; but I do like swiftly passing through them. They evoke somehow an idea of a bygone time – a sort of false glamour that has probably never actually existed for most people. And they smell nice. I remember being very small, and walking through a department store with my mother, and thinking that once I was old enough, I would do absolutely anything to be rich.
Small doses, though. As proved by the day with my friend’s mother, the appeal of department stores is entirely in the idea, and not in the reality.
Even more baffling to me is when people browse slowly in supermarkets. They’re not even a pleasant environment (with the exception of Waitrose, which is almost nice). I know exactly what I want, and you know exactly where everything is (this varies store to store – Aldi have it nailed) – whether you’re in Ealing or Edinburgh, the veg, the bakery, the canned goods, etc., etc, – they’re all in exactly the same place. That’s both comforting and extremely helpful. It means, if you have a list in the correct order of the store you can whizz through and get everything you need in minutes.
I can never do a supermarket shop with anyone else. I end up waiting outside for twenty minutes while they complete their shopping. It defeats the object of being swift, but also I just can’t do it any other way. In my whole life, I’ve only ever met one other person who I can tolerably navigate a supermarket with.
Digressions are my superpower…
I will, eventually, get to the point, which was that I do like shopping sometimes. I will happily spend hours in a record shop, or a book shop, and I’ve always been quite fond of hardware shops. They are full of solutions.
Wilko, I suppose loosely fits into the latter category, and beyond that, it falls into the wonderful category of ‘Almost Everything You Could Possibly Need’. Or fitted, rather. Past tense. Whether you were looking for scented candles, drill bits, or a multipack of fruit pastilles, it was all there. Everything from childrens’ paints to extension leads to notebooks with smiley face covers that looked expensive, but cost three quid. None of it was super high quality. But it was all decent, middle of the road, useful stuff. You could have a list of twenty items and get them all from Wilko. And their online store worked well and delivered swiftly too.
So why did they fail?
It seemed odd. The stores were always busy – one of the few things I disliked about Wilko was how long you often had to queue – and, as I’ve said, they’d not fucked up with their online store either. I ended up going down one of those rabbit holes of researching something slightly pointless for far longer than I’d intended, and discovered that it was due to mismanagement – money being poured out of the business. Very sad. Incredibly sad for the staff, too. I was in a branch on their last ever day, and one of the store assistants ended up crying on my shoulder. It was weirdly not awkward at all. I felt really bad for her.
A Funny Note to End On
A couple of Sundays ago, I was at The Imaginarium. We were closed and a couple of us had been having a mix. Matt and Joe (two of my collaborators on the project) were talking quite seriously, and just as Matt was saying ‘It’s important not to mix business and pleasure’, I walked over dressed as a baguette.
