Corinne

Happy Birthday

This entry was posted in Write By Numbers and tagged Life & Everything Else on by

This is undoubtedly unfashionably early but tomorrow is the half of Write By Numbers who cries whilst watching Arsenal’s birthday. Charlie very rarely knows exactly how old he is, though he is always quick to point out that whatever his actual age he is still young enough to claim a Young Person’s Railcard. Ouch.

Even given this it would be remiss of me not to wish him Happy Birthday. Given that the London Post Office has swallowed his birthday present (give me back my flippin’ post!) I would say I’d buy him a beer tomorrow night – but he still owes me a muffin so that might have to wait…

Lattitude and Flippin' Pint Glasses

[With thanks to @cat_elliott for the photo of Charlie and I at Latitude 2009. Most importantly this is quite possibly the only photograph in existence of me holding a pint glass].

The Road Map

This entry was posted in Write By Numbers and tagged Write By Numbers on by

There was a moment, just a moment, yesterday when Charlie and I looked at each other with something approaching terror after four hours of a planning meeting. For that meeting has (albeit with some room for manoeuvre/ collapse/ either one of us getting distracted by pretty sparkly things) set the aims of Write By Numbers for the next 12 to 18 months. There’s a lot in there that’s fantastically exciting. And there’s also a lot that means (as we knew when we started upon this adventure) that leisure time is going to be at a premium in the Whitworth/ Furness households.

All of which meant that I had to have another coffee and Charlie had to curl up into the foetal position for a brief moment or two. Then we recovered our sanity (almost) and went on our ways (in my case to fly across South London in rush hour to rescue my locked-out flatmate; it’s a glamorous life).

Whatever the next year brings (for this blog is to be the story of our company as much as it is about our ideas, and our rants and our quite puzzling obsessions) I’m booking a day in this time next year to see you all in a bar somewhere and raise my glass to crazy, fantastic, scary, liberating schemes.

And maybe, just maybe, making some art along the way…

Dance even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room 1

This entry was posted in In Response and tagged Music One & Other Participation on by

Let’s get something straight: I’m a tiny, tiny bit addicted to the live stream of Antony Gormley’s “One & Other”. This is something probably compounded by the excitement when for some reason or other I find myself passing through Trafalgar Square and can see FOR REAL what is happening. I imagine it’s the kind of feeling I would have gotten had I been allowed to wander into the Big Brother house mid series two.

Of course some of the stuff on the plinth has been the equivalent of Big Brother Contestants doing the washing up and not talking (do not mock, yes I have watched Big Brother Contestants wash up. What can I say, I was an Undergraduate with a maxed out overdraft and…okay no more excuses). But there’s also been incredible inventiveness, oddly troubling moments and then those moments that just make you stop.

I honestly can’t think of a better way of using the empty plinth than to celebrate the ingenuity, mundanity and all round insanity of those who live in this country.

So I was somewhat chuffed when I read that the Blogger Mike Atkinson, otherwise known as Troubled Diva, is going up on the plinth with the kind of crazy scheme that makes me want to jump with a little bit of joy.  For he’s going to be dancing to a specially prepared soundtrack – and he’s encouraging everyone else to participate too, either in Trafalgar Square if you can make it in person or via the web if you can’t. The Ultimate Plinth Mix is up and ready to be downloaded or streamed – though the idea is not to listen to the songs beforehand so no peeking.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m a sucker for popular music telling a story, and this reponse to the project emphatically does that. Plus, as anyone who has at some point in their life waved their arms above their heads with little regard for public safety will know, there is something totally wonderful about closing your eyes and flailing your body to music.

Maybe most importantly however, and the thing that really made this idea stand out to me, was the fact that this is about both the individual and the community. Yes, Troubled Diva will be the man on the Plinth and the songs chosen are ones that mean something to him but if you close your eyes and dance then you are part of the narrative too. And you can create your own story whether you’re on the Plinth, in Trafalgar Square or watching a computer screen in a room hundreds (or thousands) of miles away. And that is exactly why this is a little bit special.

The World Without Rules?

This entry was posted in In Response and tagged Blogging on by

I’m going to return to this one tomorrow when I’ve got a bit more time to write something vaguely coherent but, thanks to @FacesofWayne on twitter, I saw an article on Writer’s Digest about whether writers should blog. And indeed if they do whether there should there be a code of conduct.

My first response was most definitely something along the lines of it covering some useful areas whilst simultaneously feeling completely alien to my own experience of blogging. But then there are certainly times in my life when I’ve been a Blogger who writes rather than a Writer who blogs so maybe that’s where that (not so subtle) difference comes in.

Equally, I’ve never heard the phrase “time sink” before.  Every day really is an education.

It touches something, however, that I’ve been wanting to explore for some time – so I shall return…

Inspirations: Number Two

This entry was posted in Inspirations and tagged Frank Turner Inspirations Music Simon Armitage on by

Somewhere, deep down and not so secretly, if I could rearrange my personality a bit and add in a few talents which I don’t have then I would do so to enable myself to be a rock-star.  I’ve heard Simon Armitage say on a couple of occasions that he only became a Poet because it was the closest he could get to rock-stardom (and the audience which greets Armitage in his live ‘gigs’ attests to the fact that his fame in Poetry terms is nothing short of this). My, I know what he means (with the twist that I’m a Playwright because it’s the closest I could get to Poetry-stardom). Some friends and I have a fictional girlband that, in an alternate Universe, we’re ripping up the charts with. With my sticker-covered guitar and attitude I’m the lead singer who will, at some point in the future, abandon the group for an ill-fated dalliance with solo stardom.

Which is probably a long and winding way of saying how much everything in my life is influenced by music, and how much live music is one of my absolute favourite things in the world. I obsessively create soundtracks for everything I write, turn characters into songs and one day will create some great Nick-Hornby style homage to the songs which have changed my life.

Currently I’m obsessed with Frank Turner and thanks to the wonder of YouTube am wallowing in his live shows. And if any of those shaky videos makes me want to write something epic then this performance of ‘Love Ire and Song’ is it.

Angry, wistful, hopeful, romantic and just a little bit wonderful.

Shunt The First

This entry was posted in Thoughts and Flirtations and tagged Shunt Space Venues on by

Charlie and I are sitting deep under London Bridge Station in Shunt Lounge. We’re about to watch a show which involves a marshmallow and a teddy bear. I’m rather hoping that I might get a marshmallow*.

The Stage Manager closes the black curtains to my right. That’s it; we’re contained in the bowels of the world.

“We’re trapped now!” Charlie exclaims. “Maybe forever”.

I consider this for a moment.

“There are worse places to be forced to spend eternity”.

And oh, there are. Because Shunt Lounge is the type of place where you just stumble upon the unexpected (last night: a room full of taxidermy which we were led to by a path of candles, the candles making me think of sinister fairytale entrapment). It’s the kind of place where I come out with fifteen new ideas for shows which I want to create (and that’s not just the epic portions of vodka speaking). It’s a space that just crackles with creativity and insanity and weirdness and all those other things that make it very special indeed.

But it’s not going to be there much longer what with the London Bridge redevelopment taking over (I heard a rumour – which I hope to be unfounded – that it is to be filled in with concrete as foundations for whatever it is that is being built on top of it. Talk about a flippin’ metaphor). There’s a new venue in Bermondsey Street which I’m sure will be as wonderful and ramshackle as the London Bridge vaults by the time that Shunt have got their hands on it but, well…I’ll miss the magic of this place.

*I didn’t. Bah.