Monday 26th of February, 2001
I get to the gym. Since I have forgotten to bring a book, I choose to eschew the cycling machine and go on the treadmill for a little run. I haven't managed this since before I went to Italy - I had flu for a long time, and then a gout attack, and you don't want to go to the gym just to hobble. It's bad for the image. Anyway, this means I have to confront the horror that is MTV.
Why do they imagine that everybody who wants a little exercise in their lives wants to gape at MTV? I have taken to trying to analyse the videos - they have the version of the channel that is thankfully free of presenters. The only music I actually enjoy is Brian Eno's glorious Ascent: An Ending, which is being used in an advert for the NSPCC.
I know that this makes me sound narrow-minded and fogeyish, but the thing that I dislike most about the channel is its conservatism. And the formation dancing. The formation dancing is really beginning to grate. I while away the hour by assessing production values.
For example, the Atomic Kitten record that is currently at number one has a video that is essentially the same as the first Sugarbabes single (aforementioned "babes" drifting about against a white background), but obviously on a budget. How do I know this (how expensive can a white background be)? Mainly because the Sugarbabes video contains many more shots - the Atomic Kitten one is pieced together out of a handful of takes, whereas the Sugarbabes one obviously involved a number of different setups. There's also one for a single called Airhead - "I've got the brains/ He's got the looks / He watches TV / I read my books" (except that he could be watching a Tarkovsky season, and she/they could be reading "Bridget Jones") - which looks more expensive than it is (field-removed video; big shiny curtain and a couple of wind machines; handful of set-ups). And more formation dancing.
I really do think this stuff. There really isn't anything else to think about.
And to add insult to injury, halfway through, some idiot asks for the volume to be turned up "to give me motivation... I need motivation". So it is also, now at a deafening volume. How much motivation can you get from an A1 video, anyway? Motivation to do what? Apart from strangle A1 with your bare hands, anyway.
After I have worshipped at the temple that is my own body, I find myself sucked helplessly into the remainder bookshop on the opposite corner from the Old Vic, where I find some interesting cookbooks. And then I go the the health food shop on Lower Marsh.
(Only a few years ago all I wanted from life was a device that would allow me to light my cigarette without having to put either my kebab or my pint down: this is quite a radical change of direction for me.)
I get... oh, you know ... health food stuff, and go home and cook some of it.
I get distracted by some musical/recording possibilities that crossed my mind this morning, but frustratingly they don't really work out as planned.
I'm ploughing through Iron John at mealtimes, so it's going quite slowly. I could do without the poetry, I suppose. His poetry anyway. But he's a reputable poet - it must be my lack of taste.
I need to do a bit of a tidy. Again.
Maybe tomorrow.