I will start releasing ‘If?’ in the next few weeks. I will accompany each of the songs with a video.  I have also been doing some writing and vocals for my writing partner in America, David Baron.  One was specifically written in the light of recent tragic events.

These films were filmed everywhere; at work, at my last home, in Spain, Mexico, Italy, Berlin, London and Suffolk.  Also there is some mysterious 16mm home films I got transferred.  I’m always hoping I’m going to find an old Chaplin film that no one has ever seen and make a fortune!

In regards to the stuff I’ve found here’s a photograph I can’t find anywhere.  I try to post only original images that I’ve scanned. Nadia Gray was in La Dolce Vita amongst other things and originally was from Romania.  I think it captures a coquettishness!  Perhaps it captures some of an ‘if’ possibility!

My big trip away so far since Spring was to Liverpool.  I stayed at the Adelphi Hotel the most haunted hotel in Great Britain!

I was taking photos in the lobby but I didn’t realise it was until this man came up to me, a Narcotics Anonymous Conference.  The strangest thing happened you see.  This little boy came up to me in this room and kept pointing.  He couldn’t speak very well but it was as though he saw someone there.

When his Dad appeared and I told him this he said that his boy sees his grandmother all the time (he was born 3 days after she passed away).

There was something about this hotel and I spoke to an employee and he said they all hear voices and whispers.  It used to be very upmarket and grand and was in Bob Dylan’s film Don’t Look Back.  Roy Rogers and even his horse Trigger stayed there. It’s glory days are quite hard to imagine now!  I love hotels because I used to work in them as a chambermaid.  There’s something so decadent and otherworldly about them.  I was very sorry to hear of the passing of Jean Moreau who was in Bunuel’s film Diary of a Chambermaid.  Not only was she one of my favourite actresses but all the films she appeared in are up there in my top films ever including Lift to the Scaffold and the wonderful Jules et Jim.

I was there was to see John Cale.

It was a huge deal to meet him afterwards although I couldn’t make any words make sense and mumbled ‘Songs for Drella’ (one of my favourite albums) which was not that cool.  The gig was to honour the Velvet Underground & Nico.  There were lots of great performers that night.  They included The Kills, Nadine Shah, Clinic and Gruff Rhys all of whom I know but couldn’t tell who was on when perhaps because I was too far back. I had to go back to Clarence Dock the next day and took some photographs.  The sheer scale of these buildings was extraordinary.

 

I went down the Williamson Tunnels as soon as I arrived.  A man who couldn’t stop digging tunnels under Liverpool in the early 19th century.  I was taken on a tour all by myself with a hard hat! The entrance is in Edge Hill underneath student halls of residence.

Apart from tunnels, Liverpool is all about the docks and ships.  You feel it as you walk around.  The ships that brought great wealth, part of an empire that is almost impossible to comprehend….

 

The terrible past as horrifically laid out in the International Slavery Museum.  Freed slaves and sailors actually did settle in Liverpool at the end of the 18th century.  It was the oldest black community in Europe.

Later the ships carried hopes and dreams across to America…

Holidays before planes….

I have been thinking about summer holidays and I do wonder whether the weather in Bournemouth was ever this hot because if it is going to be scorchio in August I’m getting out my bikini and heading to the coast!

I do miss Italy and the sight of the volcanos. This is a postcard (below) that is actually a record but I don’t have a record player.  I think it’s some traditional song from Naples.

I do hope that the music has an onward journey.   It seems to me that sometimes songs take years and I am very happy that a film called The Victorians are using ‘Hang On’.

x x x