So, the HM Revenue and Customs website has crashed, making it impossible for all those self-assessment returns to be submitted on-line, today being the deadline. Thankfully, on Monday I sent a cheque for the eye-watering amount I was calculated to owe for ‘adjusted’ contributions, by post.

However, my smugness may prove to be a little previous. For into the same post-box went a disc containing a PDF of a poster which I need to have printed. Packaged in a jiffy bag with a first-class stamp affixed, it has hitherto failed to arrive. Hopefully my tax payment doesn’t suffer the same disappearing trick.

All this only days after a series of power failures upset my computer’s delicate systems and denied me access to the Internet. A conversation with my Internet provider confirmed that the problem was almost certainly triggered by the cut in electricity supply.

The power company could possibly be forgiven if this was a rare occurrence, but it’s not. People that don’t live in the area look back in disbelief when told how often supplies fail around here. Luckily my brother-in-law was able to get me back online with some loaned equipment, although the printer still isn’t working, failing to ‘see’ the computer apparently.

Maybe the HMR&C website also suffered an interruption in power. Along with the automatic sorting machinery at the Post Office.

Not a day to be at sea, some may say. Or on moor and cliff top others may add. The wind roars around the house while rain pounds at the windows. The temperature is dropping and snow is forecast to move south. Daffodils, in bloom a month early, thrash around in the gale, shining yellow-bright in the gloom.

If I lived on the coast I’d be tempted to visit the shore to walk on the beach, cold, but exhilarated, leaning forward against the blast, face numbed by stinging rain, left gasping for air, my breath snatched away and carried inland. But it’s inland that I’m stranded, left to watch passively as the storm rages on all about me outside. To venture outdoors here, there is only the promise of a good soaking, with clinging mud underfoot and crashing bough and flying slate in the air.

With these thoughts of the sea I was put in mind of the lines a poem, read aloud by a teacher in the electric light of a classroom on such a winter’s day many years ago.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days

And today, the noon wind grows stronger while the lashing rain sweeps down in waves across the view from my window. On the radio, a report that the Port of Dover is closed.

Chris Moyles? Funny? Don't make me laugh.

Shelagh Delaney did, of course, feature on the cover of The Smiths’ single ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’. Being a working class Salford lass that wrote gritty plays about the lives of outsiders, she ranked as one of Morrissey’s idols. So maybe a musical version of ‘A Taste Of Honey’ with a Smiths’ score isn’t as daft as I meant it to sound after all.

If you wonder what the devil I’m on about, go to Not Fade Away.

Last night it was Once. The film set in Dublin in which busker meets Czech immigrant, to fall in love, make music (not love) and part. 'Achingly beautiful, simply magical, said one review. And it is. But...

The music, probably deservedly, is nominated for an Oscar. It's the core of the film. It's the music that brings the couple together. It's the music that sustains their relationship. It's the music that makes their parting bearable, in such sweet sorrow. But the music, for me, is the 'but'.

It's sheer power, both in performance and quality, overwhelms the fragile story, which simply lacks the strength to withstand the onslaught. Imagine a Shelagh Delaney screenplay turned into a musical, the narrative squeezed between songs composed by The Smiths.

With Once, the result is to turn large chunks of the film’s 1hr 25mins into an ancient low budget music video; at best a musical sequence from ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, or worst, any episode of The Monkees. I’ve seen enough ‘looning around on a beach to music’ interludes to last well into the next life. By the end I was longing for the song to fade so the story could get a word in. But you can’t win all of them all the time and I’m sure the soundtrack will sell shiploads, Oscar or no Oscar.

The closing shot of the girl (now reunited with her Czech husband) finds her seated at a piano sent by her departed Irish love as a farewell gift, with himself on his way to London to seek fame, fortune and his previous ‘lost’ girlfriend, herself the continuing muse for his bittersweet songs. The camera pulls away as Czech girl looks up from the keyboard and gazes from her high Dublin window, leaving just a trace of a taste of honey as a reminder of what this film might have been had the music stopped - for once.

Went to the cinema last night. Well, not the cinema exactly, but to a local theatre that’s staging its winter film season. I’ve booked for most evenings this week (except tonight), and twice on Saturday, catching up on films that I missed at the cinema. This mainly due to the woeful lack of imagination and courage shown by the major cinema chains when selecting films for the circuit; they simply don’t show the majority of the movies I’m seeing at our local Odeon.

The film yesterday was titled Etre Et Avoir. Directed in 2002 by Nicolas Philbert, shown in French with subtitles, the documentary charts the events within a single class school over the course of one academic year. The result is a humanistic and captivating look at modern primary education in the farming village of Saint-Etienne-sur-Usson, population 200, located in the mountains of Auvergne.

Each school day, a speedy white van collects the children from their parents, mainly farmers or labourers, to deliver them into the care of the school’s teacher, Georges Lopez. In his 21st year at the school, Monsieur Lopez, a sober but kindly figure with his spectacles and goatee, is only a few terms from retirement. Mentioning this fact during a discussion with his small band of 13 children, aged 4 to 11, and asked if he’ll miss teaching them, he somewhat unconvincingly shrugs off the question by saying he ‘has plenty of things I want to do’. This may be so, but his dedication borders on the ecclesiastical, even monastic and it’s hard to imagine a life for him away from the classroom.

The film concentrates on Georges Lopez, the solitary, dedicated professional, the only glimpse into his domestic life being a brief sequence showing some energetic garden tidying. We have no clue as to personal relationships or whether he has children of his own.

Etre Et Avoir reaches out on many levels. Emotions move freely from laughter to tears as the real, everyday life of the children unfolds onscreen, but the film skilfully avoids sentimentality. Unlike Lopez, there is a peek into the home lives of a handful of his charges. One of the older boys is shown struggling through his maths homework at the kitchen table. watched over by his increasingly frustrated mother who dishes out the odd slap to encourage his concentration.

The mother and son double act eventually draws in most of the family, including an uncle, all contributing their less than accurate versions of the answer to the mathematical question. The scene then cuts to the 11-year-old boy expertly manoeuvering a tractor around his father’s farmyard, shooting us forward to show the life he’s probably destined to live: that of a farmer’s son, where his mathematical skills will be put to use to work out the cost of cattle feed and to calculate the size of the EU agricultural subsidy he can expect to receive.

Back in the classroom, Monsieur Lopez readies the children for a lifetime of obedience, conformity and work, applying teaching methods that in this country appear quaintly old fashioned, with none of the new-fangled modernism that now pervades our own primary education. In France there is still a place for repetition, copying from the board and times tables; although apparently, the director deliberately avoided showing the school’s computers.

The film ends with the charismatic teacher - who also acts as friend, father and confessor - briefing the leavers on what to expect when they move on to the new school next term. Lopez gives it to them straight in a matter of fact way, pulling no punches, saying that is precisely what they can expect as a welcome. ‘But you’re big strong lads’, he says, ‘and you can look after yourselves.’ The two boys grin bravely, wanting to believe him.

If you long for a film free of fictionalised violence, profanity and obscenity, that shows the difficulties of growing up in an unsentimental, up-close and genuinely personal way, Etre Et Avoir is for you.

Exhibition over. Now what? Mmmmmm?

www.thedragonboys.com

One more full day left before the exhibition closes at midday on Saturday. Like always, the second week has passed quicker than the first. The reaction to the work has been encouragingly positive. Some though, choose to come in and look, no words exchanged. But that’s Ok. I do the same in their place, happy to keep things to myself, with no need for conversation. Today it was different.

A young woman appeared in the doorway, pausing while she finished a sandwich. She told me she had been before and had come again in her lunch break to look at the New York photographs again. With her bright, open face glowing from the walk and the warmth inside she displayed no sign if reticence, unselfconsciously launching into an enthusiastic response to the record sleeve art on display.

‘What music do you like?’ she said.

I hadn’t expected that and answered too quickly and rather weakly that I liked all kinds, but could see she was hoping for something more.

Helping me out, she said, ‘Do you know…’ and quoted some name I didn’t quite catch but didn't think I recognised. I shook my head.

‘He’s Irish, with a deep booming voice. Wears a hat… yes… probably a bit like yours’, her eyes lifting to rest somewhere above my own.

I followed as she moved towards the New York pictures.

‘I love these. I just had to come back once more… before it closes… for another look’.

She paused in front of a rooftop scene, taken from a hotel room window and a personal favourite of mine.

‘This has a strangeness. And what’s this here?’ she said, pointing.

I explained that the windows couldn’t be opened and what she saw was a reflection of the curtains in the glass.

‘It makes it more mysterious’, she said, echoing my own thoughts.

Asked if she’d ever visited New York she said no, but would love to. I explained how the city, to me, is a 50/50 place. Facing the street it’s rip-roaring, noisy, unrelenting, but around the back it’s still, silent and secret. This is 50% of the city I love to photograph.

She smiled. ‘When I go, then I shall look for the secret places’.

With that simple remark, this young woman had confirmed that mounting this exhibition had been worth the effort. She had come a second time to recognise and identify with the mystery that is caught and frozen when, for reasons not always understood, a finger is moved to press down on the button to operate a camera shutter.

A famous photographer, whose name I forget, was once asked what triggered him to take a photograph. He replied that it was like walking past a building that was undergoing reconstruction work. As you draw level with an opening onto the street there is a sudden change in the texture of air coming from within: damp, cold, something unmistakably different. Then, in a few strides, with a return to the outside atmosphere, it’s gone. That sudden change, he said, was like the sensation he got when he knew that he had to take a picture.

And like today, when others can also see and respond to the result of that impulse, the feeling’s priceless.

Funny thing is, although CDs are threatened by downloads, the good old 12-inch vinyl LP is undergoing something of a revival, thus adding credence to the maxim ‘what goes around comes around’. In this case, at 33rpm.

This is good news for people like me, who earn - in my case an occasional - living, designing and illustrating album covers. In the 80’s we thought we’d kissed goodbye to this large format for evermore, lamenting the downsizing of our artwork to CD size.

Now, vinyl versions of music releases are very much seen as collectible items and something to keep and treasure. Refreshing in this disposable age.

It was announced this morning that EMI is to axe two thousand jobs in an effort to turn the struggling business around. This, following the takeover by a management company last summer. Terra Firma is ‘reorganising EMI in a bid to make the outfit more profitable as CD sales have fallen’.

Record companies have to take responsibility for the mess in which they currently find themselves. They were woefully slow in facing up to the threat to traditional revenues posed by the rapid spread of the internet and the resulting opportunity to download music. In an effort to protect themselves, the major companies first reaction was to go on the defensive and state that this form of accessing music should be stopped.

Companies like EMI took the same approach to home taping in the 70’s and 80’s. But the blank tape menace was nothing compared to what’s happening now. There’s a whole new generation who see no need to purchase their music on CD. Why should they when they have the pick of individual tracks online, able to create their own collections, cutting out the stuff they don’t want? The idea of owning a library of music, stacked neatly and alphabetically on shelves, will die with the baby boomers.

I’m the first to admit that efficiency was not maximised in record companies like EMI, to use the dreadful parlance beloved of management outfits like Terra Firma. The amount of money blown on no hopers was enough to make the eyes water and I should know, I worked at EMI for eight years in the 70’ and 80’s.

Predicting the next big thing is notoriously difficult in the music business. There’s no accounting for public taste, in particular, the lack of it. Talent has never got in the way of commercial success, but that’s the nature of the business. There are no certainties and that’s why record companies need people who will take a chance, sometimes taking decisions on no more than gut instinct. This means the failure rate will inevitably be higher than in other industries, but this has always been so, with 80% of artists failing to turn in a profit. If you can’t live with that, stay away. And in my opinion, that’s what Terra Firma should have done.

Management companies are generally a bunch of accountants; number crunchers that wouldn’t recognise creativity if its jaws were clamped firmly to their buttocks. I agree that slimming down EMI’s operation is probably overdue. It needs to get off its fat backside and face up to the download age, creating new, inventive ways of raising revenue.

Terra Firma may well bring the company down to earth in facing this challenge, it’s feet planted firmly on the ground. But without its head in the clouds, it will fail. It will continue to need people with fiery passion as well as cold calculation. Those who know a good thing when they see it and convince the rest of us to agree. Maybe Terra Firma will recognise this, although unfortunately, in this pre-packaged society, such people are regarded with suspicion: wild cards in a conventional business world.

I have fond memories of the good bad old days at EMI, when excess ruled. One recollection comes to mind. Eric Hall, later a footballer's agent and now a DJ on Radio Essex, was, in the 70’s, employed as a record plugger. One day he called out to his secretary in that unmistakable lisping, east end voice, ‘Theresa, get me a gorilla suit, I’m going down the Beeb’. Sure enough, an hour later, Eric set off for Radio 1 dressed in a hired gorilla costume with the latest single from Queen or whoever in his hot furry hand. Now I can’t imagine that happening in Terra Firma land.

Irritating. Trying to log onto my blog on the laptop just now I was informed that my user name and password didn’t match. How come? Nothing’s changed since I last logged on. After several attempts I went through the same procedure on the desktop and bingo; log on successful. Why should that be? Surely the choice of machine is irrelevant. Whatever the reason, it’s very annoying.

I don’t want to change my password. Whenever I’ve been forced to do this in the past I use the new version once, then forget it. The only solution is to write it down somewhere and then remember where I’ve written it. Invariably I forget. Then months, even years later, I come across obscure words scribbled on odd scraps of paper and think - why? But it seems that to log on to my blog using the laptop I’m left with no choice other than to change to a password I won't remember. Grrrrr.

I have similar problems with pin numbers. I haven’t used my credit card for two years because I’m incapable of retaining four digits. So, I’m waiting for it to expire, allowing me to start again with a new card. Although I must say, it’s a great way of not adding to the nation’s mountain of debt.

Thankfully my debit card came with a number that stuck. Well, for the first year that is. Stepping up to a cash point twelve months on I stared at the keypad with an empty space in my head where the number should have been. Nightmare. How could that be? Of course, the harder I tried to remember the bigger the blank space became. Not the first time I’d been struck with similar flashes of temporary amnesia, I withdrew my card in the belief that the number would soon return as it had in the past. But not this time. Now I started to worry. Was I losing my whatsits, this the first sign of chronic memory thingy?

A week passed by and numbers from zero to nine floated around inside my head refusing to come together in a four digit sequence that I recognised. Quiet desperation set in: the English way. The obvious solution would have been to create a new number, but recalling the old one had become a matter of warped pride and deeper still, confirmation that my mental faculties were intact.

Determined for one last attempt I approached a flashing hole-in-the-wall in trepidation. Still with no number at my fingertips there came from the blue one last bolt of hope. Although the numbers eluded me, the pattern they made on the keypad suddenly returned. Or so I thought. It was worth a try anyway and try I did. Hallelujah. It worked. The solution may have been a tad lateral, but who cared? Hallelujah again. Sine then I’ve managed to retain my pin, feeling secure in the knowledge that the pattern is there as backup should the numbers decide to bunk-off again.

Now, what to do about this password business? Easy. I’ll just stop accessing my blog via the laptop. I’m buggered if I’m going to let wayward technology force me into doing something I’ve no wish to do. Though at the back of my hitherto functioning mind is a small persistent voice that’s telling me that, at some point, in the not-too-distant future, technology will have its evil way, damn it.

Okay then, what’s it to be? First pet? Goldfish generally don’t get names. Favourite holiday destination? Can barely pronounce it, let alone spell it. Birthplace? Too obvious. Street where I live………………?

A mixed bunch, the people that pitch up at the exhibition. Men and women in equal numbers come through the door: and as many don’t. These, I surmise, probably have never set foot inside a gallery in their lives. It’s just not something that they do, or are ever likely to do. And why should they? They know what they like and it’s not art.

Others, I suspect, would like to come in, but feel intimidated. They shoot sidelong glances as they pass, as if peeking into an unknown neighbours illuminated parlour under cover of night, expecting to see something shocking that they will later be accused of witnessing and forced to recount under oath. Some hover on the threshold and when invited to enter, feel moved to apologise for not being able to buy anything. Assured that this isn’t a requirement for admission, they’ll reluctantly venture in, never fully at ease.

Once, long ago, I was similarly struck when peering into the swanky art emporiums that litter the backstreets around Bond Street in London’s West End. Invariably empty, these galleries are watched over by the one eye that isn’t covered by a downward sweep of shining hair-do beloved of young women that are rarely seen outside of Chelsea or Mayfair, except, that is, when visiting the country for polo or the hunt.

Tired of missing exhibitions I wanted to see I overcame my self-inflicted denial and began to go boldly where I wished to go. And guess what. The haughty Sloane behind the desk would most likely welcome me and happily hand me a catalogue, offering to answer any questions I may have about the work on show. I may even get a genuine SW1 smile. For the right honourable Annabelle or Felicity was pleased to welcome someone that could be, for all she knew in the post sixties acceptance of shabby chic, a self-made secondary-modern millionaire. And besides, she was probably bored to the tips of her stiff little manicured toes, relieved that someone - anyone - had come in.

The comments from those that have braved my exhibition, both written and expressed in words, have so far been very positive, with one mysterious exception. One exhibit is a painting I did for an album cover titled ’20 Motown Originals’. This was a compilation of the original versions of much covered songs from the Tamla Motown repertoire. The ‘Originals’ Part of the title gave me the idea of representing a famous work of art but showing the first imaginary, unseen, version. I chose the Mona Lisa and did a copy with La Gioconda painted as having African origins, in common with the labels founder, Berry Gordy, and the majority of the artists on Motown. One visitor, although appreciating much of the work, wrote that she found this piece ‘deeply offensive’.

Pondering this isolated outburst of shock horror, I came to the conclusion that it may have been ignited by a case of mistaken identity, with religion as its flash point. The lady in question, as painted by Leonardo – recent star of The Da Vinci Code - does resemble depictions of The Madonna. But she’s not she. Not even related. La Gioconda or Mona Lisa, was the wife of wealthy Florentine businessman, Francesco del Giocondo. Her with the cheeky smile. The alternative title La Gioconda is the feminine form of Giocondo. In Italian giocondo also means 'light-hearted' ('jocund' in English), so "gioconda" means "light hearted woman". Because of her smile, this version of the title plays on this double meaning, as in the French "La Joconde." So, no offence intended on my part and no reason to apologise. Except to Leonardo maybe.

Then there was the visitor who knew more about the record sleeves on show than I did. One illustration, for XTC’s album ‘Skylarking’ (look it up on Amazon), depicts a naked couple serenading each other on recorders, or maybe early versions of the clarinet. The male character hovers over the reclining female and originally, according to our informed observer, had a penis. This appendage apparently had to be painted out before the artwork went to print. This was news to me, as I have no memory of including the male member in the original drawing. Indeed, the illustration shows no signs of telltale white paint marking its removal. Ouch! The drawing was based on an earlier illustration by an artist called Hans Erni (duly acknowledged in the album credits), so maybe he was more generous in endowing the lad with his manhood and its in his original that the missing penis is to be found. I’m blowed if I can remember. It was done in 1986 after all.

With five more days left to run, who knows what other upsets will occur and misplaced organs be reported? Plenty of time left for further outrage and revelation. Who knows, maybe even some more sales.

So Sunday was the private view. Most of Saturday was spent hanging the exhibition, which, with the help of a trusted team of helpers, went like a dream: a good dream. Everything was fixed to the walls with no problems to speak of in the places that had been planned for them, with not a cross word being exchanged or muttered under-breath expletive uttered. We all went home happy, content in the afterglow of a job well done.

Sunday morning was bright and sunny and we arrived at the gallery around 10.30 to carry out the last few finishing touches. The wine was uncorked, the nibbles laid out in bowls, the beer arranged in military rows and the juice poured into pitchers. The glasses were given a final polish and the water bottles broken out of their plastic wrapping. The comment book was opened to the first page and the music switched to ‘play’. One last round of the gallery to straighten frames and burnish curling exhibit numbers and it was time to open the door and set up the “A’ frame on the pavement outside announcing that we were open. With three months of hard work behind me, the show was now on.

Five minutes went by. We spent them in that awkward silence that precedes any kind of social gathering before the guests arrive, shooting glances towards the open door at each passing shadow and snatched conversation. But then the first invited group breezed in, all smiles and greetings and we were off.

The three hours flew: a dizzying whirl of welcoming guests, conversations, explanations, reminiscences, anecdotes, a lot of laughter and finally, fond farewells. Oh yes, and my first sales of the fortnight. Overall I was pleased with the turnout and the reaction, with plenty of encouraging messages in the book, with only a tinge of fleeting disappointment at those who, despite enthusiastic assurances of being there, were not. But life’s too short to dwell on such inevitable absences on these occasions.

Having spent a working lifetime presenting work for the scrutiny and approval of clients, it could be assumed that I would approach such an exhibition with more confidence. But the difference here is that I’m not answering a brief, where, in terms of subject matter, a client already has a clue as to what to expect. No one has commissioned the work on show. It is made up of things that interest me and so is much more personal, with no guarantee that others will share my enthusiasms for the subjects. Therefore, it’s both gratifying and satisfying when a viewer will recognise in an exhibit the very thing that brought about its creation. I’m always pleased and slightly surprised when my favourites turn out to be someone else’s, especially if it’s for the exact same reasons.

The private view over, it’s now down to a daily routine of stewarding the gallery and seeing who turns up. After the frantic activities of preparing for the exhibition there’s a slight whiff of anti-climax replacing the smell of turpentine, but that’s to be expected. Once the two-week run is done I’ll need to consider what follows. But for now, I’m going to sit back and enjoy being busy doing nothing… much.