Steve's Online Diary
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DIARY 05/02/12
Sunday morning. Woke to find several inches of snow. Frozen ponds. But even that won’t spoil my mood. The response from our website users to the Priority Sale of Birmingham Symphony Hall tickets has been a real charge, giving me and those involved a rush of excitement. I hope most got the seats they fancied, but it’s not a perfect world, so I imagine some had to settle for less. But that is a wonderful hall, with hardly a bad seat in the place. We have a sizeable budget for national advertising, but at this rate we might just save most of it! Think we’ll wait a few weeks – it isn’t even actually officially on sale yet – and see the figures then. Might be able to run a couple of ads with “Sold Out” splashed diagonally across them! All vanity to one side, I really will want the nation to know!
DIARY 17/01/12
Saw The Artist. Silent, yes, but with swathes of sympathetic lush music, and perfectly acted. It will lighten any dark mood. It is a deeply moving piece of work. The French still can do it when they stay within their comfort zone. Bought tickets on-line (Cambridge Arts Picturehouse) and it made me feel officially elderly – saved £1 for being “Over 60 (retired)”. Well, I never…! When is the Bus Pass due?
DIARY 30/12/11
Mastermind was some experience. But Jaws - a whale? What possessed my mind at that moment? Nothing, that’s what! Truth is, though, the inter-round interview John Humphreys conducted with each contestant, while running for only an edited minute, actually lasted around five minutes in the “Live” recording. All the time, I was thinking “Can we get on with the General Knowledge? Can we get on? Can we? Please, John, I don’t want to talk about myself, I am on a roll, keen to get on.“ But the producers would have seen the chat as a chance to plug the “celebrity” and they would have a good point, of course. Nevertheless, Simon Day and I certainly felt the edge going off, and because of all that, I blurted out “whale” for “shark” and may have some trouble living it down, if the wind-up-Steve messages from friends are anything to go by. Never cared about coming first. You compete only against yourself in a quiz like that. Just cared that I didn’t look too stupid. Fee for charity was £2,750, so two fine organisations did well, and that’s ultimately the main thing. Mine was split evenly between The Cancer & Polio Research Fund and The Mines Advisory Group, for whom I’m an Ambassador, and jolly proud of it too. Some terrific moments occurred on the UK tour: met the delightful Cheri from California, with her friend Kathy. Had fun introducing Cheri to the audience at The Stables, Wavendon. You never know how a person will react when you single them out. Thankfully, Cheri was good, and we had a hug and 450 people cheered her. I like fun between songs, sometimes. I have to hope the audience has a sense of fun, too, and catches the glint in my eye, and the smile as I tease. The Dutch couple who came to (I think) all the Belgian dates – I know them well, and any joshing between us in public is well-intentioned and they do have that sense of fun, and knew I was kidding when I asked something like (allegedly…I don’t actually remember) “when do you go to work?” Met them outside my hotel in Poperinge later in the Summer, and we laughed about it. They are not the type to take themselves too seriously. But that guy in Bilston – self-importance the like of which I’ve never witnessed at a show. Right in front of me, iPad machine alight, tapping away or else scribbling onto a paper pad, all this while leaning on the stage. Three songs in, it was clear he meant to remain in situ, in that self-promoting stance, for the duration. No chance. He could make his notes from further back, out of my sight. It was rude and it was a serious distraction, not only to me, but to several people around him. As for his pitiful stab on Facebook, rather than misrepresenting me, he ought to be sending grovelling apologies. No professional would ever act that way. I have never minded one bit the taking of snaps. I’m flattered anyone cares enough, to be honest. I don’t mind one bit if a YouTube film gets uploaded after being surreptitiously made from out-of-sight. But those dazzling white squares they aim at me – impossible to concentrate with that happening. Believe me, if you own a Blackberry (I have been told they are the culprits), take it into a dark room, start filming and aim at your own face. No singer can do their job properly with that distraction. I don’t rant. Not my style at all. I just like to ask, please don’t aim that light at my face in the dark while I’m concentrating.
DIARY 29/11/11
Just home from Norway.
Just read the Daily Express Saturday magazine piece on me and where I am now.
Just come-to.
Must’ve fainted.
Or something.
DIARY 19/11/11
Recorded Celebrity Mastermind. Researching and studying for that has been a lot like learning a stage role, like the Beckett a few years ago. Once committed, I can’t help myself. I don’t care a lot about winning, coming first, but I care a great deal that I can believe deep down that I did my best. It was torture, frankly. I was much more nervous about it than I’ve ever been about any show of my own. Up to the last minute, after make-up and the director’s pep talk, I was still cramming from my notes. My subject, T. S. Eliot and Four Quartets, was broad and deep enough. I visited Burnt Norton, the Jacobean Manor house near Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds and the title of the first of the four poems, where Eliot had gone surreptitiously in 1934, and where, in its formal garden, he found magic and inspiration that would inform him for the rest of his life. I, too, found a little magic, but nobody was home, and no soul approached me while I ambled for twenty minutes or so among the rose bushes and fruit trees. I was technically trespassing, so didn’t stay long. I made plenty of noise with big car on gravel! Still, nobody came out to question me. I wanted them to: I could have explained it all and maybe get clearance for a private tour of the gardens, set among 2,000 acres of farmland. On the way home, I was passing within a handful of miles of Little Gidding, the title of another of the quartets. There I found a 17th Century chapel, where Eliot had knelt (“You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid”) in the ‘thirties. It, too, is a special place, tranquil and over-brimming with mystery. I sat alone in that tiny place of worship and took a few deep breaths. Seldom have I felt calmer, and it was there and then that I realised I could do that quiz without making myself look foolish and dim.
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