Nottingham Characters

Every city… no every place has its characters. The people who seem steeped in the essence of an area. They appear to have lived there for a long time and they work on the streets so are highly visible, and the memorable ones are always a little eccentric.

Nottingham has a few that need a mention:

1. The Xylophone Man -

Now sadly deceased, but features prominently in Nottingham's popular culture, so rather than write any more, I'll point you to a couple of articles about him - http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm?id=80 and http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2005/11/327735.html

2. The Fish Seller Man
During the 10 years I lived in Nottingham, this guy has always peddled his cockles and mussels around the pubs near Nottingham Castle. When I was but a naive fresher, I drunkenly bought a polystyrene tub of something fishy from him, but have never been drunk enough to do so again! I'm sure his trade must be roaring given the number of tourists and first-time students he catches each evening.

3. The Animal Charity Collection Woman - I will get round to writing about her

4. The Park Gas Lamp Man

He lives on the Park Estate in the cottage where you register for parking stickers and so on. I’ve never seen him with anyone – he’s always alone. He always wears old blue jeans, a black material jacket a bit like a coal miner’s with badges or pins that have a turn-of-the-century military feel – a flag, a shield, a medal – none that I recognise the meaning of. I’ve never seen his head of hair, as he always wears a faded brown wool beanie that’s seen better days. No matter what the weather, he always wears it. Underneath his jacket is a navy / nearly black T-shirt, whose neck is stretched through age, revealing pale, slightly withered collar bones. Occasionally he changes his shoes from black rubber shoes with brown woolly socks that match his hat, to tan / sand colour loafers without socks in summer that are so worn they could almost be slippers and look incredibly comfy, but only on his feet! In each ear, he wears a gold stud earring.

He works for the Park keeping the gas lamps working. You’ll often see him riding around on an ancient Victorian style black bike (one of the ones with uncomfortable handlebars and seat and no gears, similar to the standard bikes you get all over Amsterdam). At other times, he’ll be carrying a ladder and some rags; or he’ll be half way up his ladder leant against a gas lamp post polishing.

He also owns a turn of the century classic town car; jet black with those classic curves, long hood and thin wheels. He’ll often be seen washing and polishing it.

Add to that his weathered face and stringy frame – he’s one of those people who looks old and young and of no age all at once. A face that’s lost in time just as he appears to be trapped in time, and of another era.

Today I saw him talking to himself, carrying a ladder and a bucket from one lamp to the next. He stopped 3 feet short of the lamp post, looked quizzically at it, as if assessing what needed doing. As he did, he raised his right hand to his nostril, picked his nose, drew his finger out and in one graceful movement into his mouth. He placed his bucket on the ground, took his ladder in both hands, flipped it to full height, laid it against the lamp and climbed with his bucket up to the top.

The whole time he was up that ladder, I could hear him muttering to himself (I was sat on my balcony looking down and across the street below to where he was working), but just out of earshot to hear the words. He vigorously cleaned each pane of glass inside and out before checking the bulbs.

His jeans tucked into his socks; his old brown hat still stuck to his skull.

Tucking his cloth into his jacket pocket, I hear his black rubber shoes bending and squeeking against the rung of the ladder, occasionally balancing on one leg to reach the far top corener of the lamp.

Slowly he made his way down the ladder, stepping back another 3 feet and looking up to the lamp, a ponderous finger to his lips. Then picking up his tools and with a light limp to his left leg, walked on… to the next one.

A watery house dream

I arrived in lucidity in a big house, in which 2 rooms had no floor – instead the ‘floor’ was water. The walls were made of thick bamboo frames with rich, but lightweight, almost transparent dark blue silk draped down to the water, but the bamboo frame dipped down below the water’s edge.

One of the rooms on water was my bedroom… a futon floated in the middle of the room, presumably there were wooden poles below it to keep it afloat and steady. It all seemed a little strange to have a bed in the middle of the water, particularly when considering the practicalities of sleeping on it… the duvet hanging over the edge and getting soggy; the pillows slipping off and floating (or worse) sinking away. But these practicalities evaporated when I took the plunge to enter the room, fully clothed. As I swam through the water to the bed, I realised that despite swimming, my clothes weren’t getting wet!

The rest of the house appeared pretty standard as far as grand sumptuous houses go, but as I walked up the stairs to a couple of other rooms, I noticed another smaller staircase, winding further upwards.

There was a man in the house with me in a tan-coloured leather jacket looking a little like a dishevelled Steve Buscemi – big eyes, bad teeth, wild hair – who told me I could have a quick look, but that after this one view, I should never go up the staircase again. I climbed the thick burgundy carpeted stairs slowly… in bare feet it felt warm and cosy. I glanced through the slightly ajar doors as I rose, and saw men in suits sat around boardroom mahogany tables plotting their next million, and then I reached the top only to find two young Italian looking women with shoulder length dark hair, wearing French maid outfits, with feather dusters cleaning the wall lights. They turned and stared at me in a way that made me stop in my tracks and shiver.

I certainly wouldn’t be climbing those stairs again… I slipped back down, and thought about how strange it was to be in a house that joined seamlessly with what must be a hotel.

I started to get settled with the strangers in my house, and began to enjoy swimming through my room and the living room with the added bonus of not getting wet. I never did try to work out how the water rooms worked… it all just appeared to work.

In this warm happy state, I heard a knock at the outer fence door, so I scooted out the front door and into the yard, up the stairs and straight to the white door. As I opened it, the leather jacket guy ran through the front door shouting “Don’t open it” at me, but too late – I’d already turned the handle and as I did I stumbled backwards, seeing who it was that had asked for my attention. A middle-aged man, impressively tall but with a paunch clearly visible below a long black raincoat, stepped forwards as I recoiled. His long greasy dark hair and crooked teeth giving him the look of a man I certainly didn’t want to meet.

I didn’t hang around to find out what he wanted. I turned and ran back through the front door, not even hesitating to look back, swimming through the living room and over to the stairs I promised I wouldn’t return to, but with my options diminished, I realised it was my only chance of a way out… past the Italian guards and to who knows where…

How not to drink coffee - Cafe Yumm, Eugene Oregon

On what is essentially an out of town shopping area, where blocks of buildings are centred around a large open space, commonly known as a car park, I was invited to join a friend for coffee at Cafe Yumm.

An organic cafe without the hippie chaos, but with the corporate sparkle. Scatter some photos on the new brick walls of South East Asia's boat markets; add some middle-of-the-road popular reggae from Bob, and pierce the acceptable chilled atmosphere with the famous peculiarity that is the overly friendly and enthusiastic all-American waitress, who I discover almost instantly hails from Ohio.

"WEYLL, HOW Y'ALL DOIN TADAAAAAAY..." she drawls with a smile pinned onto her face, looking down slightly, head tilted, in a mildly patronising stance.

OK, so I admit I'm not at my best in the morning, but this foghorn on happy gas drooling with admiration for our gorrrrrgeous accents, practically swallowing up the cash register with her smile, grated against my wishes for a relaxing Happy Planet juice and some hard core caffeine.

"SO WHERE YOU GUYS FRAAAM?"

"Nottingham", I replied with a wry smile, knowing (having experienced the US waitress before) that had I said Swindon, Dudley or Slough, the reply is a standard one... small talk rules:

(Wide eyed) "Ooooooo, WOW! THAT'S JUST GREAT. SO, HOW D'YOU LIKE EUGENE? ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL? I COME FROM OHIO AND I JUS' MOVED HERE AND I JUS' LOVE IT HERE"... (wistful)... "ALL THE MOUNTAINS... AND TREES".

"Yeah, it's great", I reply knowing that if I say any more than this, she'll try to engage me in conversation. With this short sharp response, I know that ordering is just around the corner and I can remove myself from the counter, hide myself at a table outside and immerse myself in the delights of the ritual that is espresso and bagel (with cream cheese and avocado... mmm).

I'm right, she gives up and asks me what I want. I place my order, and disappear outside to a table.

It turns out after this ordeal that although espresso is becoming more commonplace in the land of the full fat latte with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, the notion of small and strong is dragging its heels somewhat, as my weenie short sharp shot arrives in a huge black mug?! meaning I have to drink it unable to lose myself in the smell, or even see the brown frothy scum that so delights me. I have to rush it down fast to sample the hit, and even then it's only relatively hot... so large is the surface area of my 2mm deep drink that it cools even further just making its way along the cool dark expanse of this ridiculous mug to my by now, disappointed mouth.

Lesson learnt... when in Cafe Yumm, drink Americano!

Collateral, by Michael Mann

A story that begins with a man on a mission to assassinate set against a man whose life is passing him by, because he never really stood up for himself.

A story that ends with a man who dies just as he’s realising where his mission has led him, but who doesn’t know how to stand down, killed by the hand of the man who showed him where that mission destroyed his personal choice. But the assassin who dies only died at the hand of that man, because he taught him how the assassin’s mind works.

And it made me cry... tears at the scene when he dies. And it’s made me cry before… again, tears at the scene when he dies...

…when I saw my first Michael Mann film, Heat.

A story that begins with man on a mission to pull heists set against a man whose life is passing him by, because he’s committed to hunting murderers.

A story that ends with a man who dies at the just as he’s realising he has to escape the mission he’s spent his life committed to, but who refuses to stand down, killed by the hand of the man who showed him what life could be if he ended his mission. But the heister who died only died at the hand of that man, because he taught him how the heister’s mind works.

In them both, there are so many similarities, not just the central theme. The denoument of both unveils the driving forces of the two central characters, and how those forces are unbalanced by their interaction with each other. And he unravels this showing strengths and weaknesses in both men, blurring the edges of the standard good guy / bad guy relationship, by illustrating more of an insight.

And at the same time, there’s the third central character: the city of LA.

Michael Mann films predominantly at night.

When he wants you to relate to the central characters, you see one character close up, in the left or right hand side of the shot, and behind them but as predominant as that face, will be the LA landscape – as if a central character.

It could be an attempt at bringing the way you view the world into the picture… when you speak to someone, you focus on their face, but at the same time your attention will focus intermittently at the landscape behind, so you recall both elements of your eye’s focus.
In film, Michael Mann evokes this by keeping both the character’s face and the landscape in focus at the same time, using the night light to accentuate each element. It often results in the viewer seeing it as “fabulous cinematography” (which it is), but it also draws you in to focus on the character’s faces further to glean an insight into their minds (the films’ central theme).

Comments on Crash

Most people live their lives based on nurture - learned behaviour that they've lived by for so long that it becomes automatic... until they're faced with an extreme situation - a crisis - and at that point, nature kicks in and people start relating to people as people, individuals, equals.

The way the film poses the lives of 7 people, who touch each other in the 24 hours we spend with them, and how those stories illustrate the way that every interaction you have with another person could be crucial to the way that your day develops and your life twists and turns is brilliantly done.

I couldn't help thinking that the story would be so very different were it not set in the land of the free; where it's your right to own a gun - are we less suspicious in a land where people tend not to own guns? Would our reactions be the same? How would I feel if the police pulled me over and pushed a gun in my face? A tale of power on a level of race, of weapons and assumption.