Tom and the Shard

A full day!

This morning I had a session for a TV commercial in Notting Hill (early stages) with another singer Sam Blue who is great, I have worked with him a few times over the last 20+ years. he has sung everything from The Streets hit single Dry Your Eyes to the Thomas the tank Engine songs to huge ads, anuyway I found this lovely song on a search, a Eurovision Entry, too good for them!
The Producers Keith and David I have also worked with before, always a pleasure, it was a lot of fun.

Then I went to the V&A for lunch and saw the Club to Catwalk 80's Fashion exhibition which was brilliant, made me feel quite old but also happy that I was there, that I was a New Romantic in the early 80s experimenting with clothes and hair and going to gigs with my other equally expressive arty friends, it was odd seeing all these very straight looking teenage students with clipboards making notes...

Then I went to London Bridge to meet my Brother Tom outside Guy's Hospital where he is having Photopheresis for his GVHD following 2 bouts with AML, the second time he was lucky to find a perfect match for the stem cell transplant but has been suffering the after effects ever since, it's been going on for 6 years in all.... I so admire him, he is very positive in a fully informed and realistic way, he has finished making a 15 minute film with a colleague for which he wrote the screenplay and co-directed, they are having a screeening before Christmas, he also had the Editor's pick on Litro with this amazingly moving short Story he wrote about his time on the cancer ward.
We talked about our childhoods, music, in particular Genesis P Orridge and creative expression and projects we're working on.
We tried to have coffee at the Shard but they wouldn't let us in as Tom had tracksuit bottoms on, we explained he'd had a blood transfusion and needed to wear comfortable clothing but that wasn't enough to be allowed in... how pathetic...
So we went to the much less poncey and more interesting oldest Pub in London The George Inn and had a lovely chat there instead.

Max made curry for tea, we all watched Buffy then at Bedtime Gulliver announced it was Evacuee day at School tomorrow so we all ran around sorting out his outfit, found an old suitcase, a wartime prayer book for children, a teddy and a gas mask and full outfit, phew!