The Darkness - Hot Cakes

We are all familiar with The Darkness.  Their memorable guitar solos, combine with Justin's flawless falsetto to create a unique and gorgeous modern glam rock sound.

Last November, I was fortunate enough to see Justin, Dan, Frankie and Ed live for the second time, when they performed at the Hammersmith Apollo.  It was clear then that they had not lost their touch - not by a mile!  I can't express strongly enough how pleased I was to see them back, and with their original line up.  And I am not the only one.  Brian May, himself, stood on stage with them and said how pleased he was that they were back - and he would not make a random appearance to jam with just anybody.

Just over a week ago, I was really excited about purchasing my copy of the talented Lowestoft band's new album 'Hot Cakes'.  After years of believing I might never again hear new material from this most glamorous, humorous and talented of rock groups, it was a relief and a thrill to know a new album had been released and, more to the point, I was clutching a copy in my hot little hand!

The album is, in my humble opinion, fantastic.  It has a soulful mixture of styles with some profound lyrics which are sprinked with a healthy dose of Darkness silliness.  Not only that, the album cover art work looks great.  It is not as heavy as 'Permission to Land' and it is much less random than 'One Way Ticket' but I still love it.  I think anyone with an ounce of common sense and good taste will love it too.

Above all, I am beyond happy that this album exists at all.  The Darkness were born to make cool rock music and I think they should keep doing it forever!  :-)  

www.theactualdarkness.com

Clutching my copy of 'Hot Cakes' in my hot little hand.

Charlotte Exhibition Preparation Part 2

Since the last time I blogged about this, I have been working on ideas for my first piece of art for the exhibition.

My initial idea is to put together a woodland scene with the ghost of Charlotte hovering somewhere around the centre of the piece.  

The first two pages (below) show different photographs of woodland scenes, which I have examined and the options I looked through in order to decide what the ghost should look like.  I have thought about her hair, dress and position as well as the degree of transparency the ghost should have.

The following two pages show my final choice for the woodland scene and for the ghost.  In addition to this, I created a media experiment, in which I have recreated the woodland scene in 4 different media: acrylic paint, watercolour pencils, colouring pencils and oil paint.

I have decided that  I will make the final piece an oil painting.  I like that the paint doesn't dry so quickly, which enables you to blend the colours much better, whilst building up an interesting texture as well.

My next step will be to experiment with the ghost to work out how best to paint her whilst maintaining her transparency.

To purchase a copy of 'Charlotte -The Lady in White' a novel based on the Life of Charlotte White, nee Smyth, please click the link below

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/704533011/charlotte-the-lady-in-white-by-annie?ref=shop_home_active_1&crt=1

Colchester Free Festival

On Saturday, I attended the Colchester Free Festival with a friend and some family.  

When we arrived, our first port of call was the Spoken Word tent, which had poets and comedians.  The poets all came from Colchester's two poetry groups: SKOPT (Some Kind Of Poetry Thing), who meet at SlackSpace and Colchester Poetry, who meet at 15 Queen Street.

When I arrived, I was blown away by the performances I saw, all of which had been put together in a really entertaining and thought provoking way.  

What was even more pleasing to see, was the number of different people who turned up to an obscure corner of the Castle Park to enjoy poetry in its spoken form.  I was impressed.  Even when the rain plummeted to Earth, the atmosphere in the Spoken Word tent was electric and people were clearly enjoying what was on offer.  In fact, the rain provided a strange sense of pathetic fallacy to the words which were being spoken.

Later, we ventured out and were pleasantly surprised by all sorts of activities and entertainment.  The bandstand in the Upper Castle Park had been turned into a haven for techno dance music, while near the boating lake in the Lower Castle Park, there was an impressive stage set up with heavy metal and rock music, the CAMRA beer tent (I did enjoy a refreshing pint of Mersea Mud from the Mersea Island Brewery!) and loads of mad people dancing like there was no tomorrow.  There was even a tent with free tea.  This is my idea of Heaven!

If you didn't go, you missed out and I strongly suggest you check it out next year!

WriteNight Anthology

I have just spent the whole day reading through and editing the stories people from WriteNight Colchester have written for our forthcoming anthology.  

I was really impressed with every one of the stories.  The subjects range from spooky ghost stories to intriguing science fiction stories, scary dystopias, family life and historical stories amongst others.  Also awesome is the variety of styles employed by the writers.  It never ceases to amaze me how different writers can take such varied approaches with equal degrees of success.  I find it interesting and inspiring.

It just goes to show what can be achieved when a group of like minded, creative people get together.

Karaoke at The Goat and Boot

Karaoke is rather like Marmite.  On most karaoke nights, there is a 50/50 mix of avid of fans and foes. The fans enjoy performing but also appreciate the talent of the other performers.  The foes are the grumpy friends, partners or family members, hauled unwillingly into their own personal hell because their friend, family member or significant other happens to be a fan.

I am a fan.  

Last night, a friend and I attended the karaoke session at The Goat and Boot in Colchester.  In the best possible way, it was not a normal karaoke night.  Why?  Because, somehow, there were no foes.  The atmosphere was electric despite the sweltering heat.  The enthusiastic performers were greeted by an excited audience, who, very clearly, were all karaoke fans.

I hadn't performed for a really long time and I was quite nervous.  It soon came flooding back though and I managed to sing Billy Ocean's 'Get out of my Dreams, Get into my Car', Chesney Hawkes' 'The One and Only' and Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' amongst others with just a little bit of air guitar and head banging thrown in for good measure.  It was fun.  

What made it so brilliant?  One word.  Andy.  He was running the karaoke. He clearly knows what it takes to create a superb atmosphere.  He has just the right amount of get up and go and he is very fair in his distribution of songs, trying to get through as many requests as he possibly can.  

I have to say, hand on heart, it was the best karaoke night I've been to - ever!

Charlotte Exhibition Preparation Part 1

As you are aware from my previous post on Charlotte's Pool, I have been working on a story about a young lady called Charlotte White (nee Smyth), who died in 1845 and whose ghost is said to walk the Earth still, especially in the area around Berechurch Hall and Friday Woods in Colchester. 

I became interested in this after I was set the task of writing a story based on the theme of Colchester.  I remembered hearing about the legend of Charlotte's Pool at Lethe Grove when I was in Primary School and decided to investigate in more detail.

My research took me and three others (Lesley, Sioux and Hollie) on an intriguing journey as I described in my previous entry.  Now we have decided to collaborate on a larger scale project, putting an exhibition together about her life, her story and the various sightings and experiences of her ghost.  We are not sure where the exhibition will take place but it should be somewhere in Colchester.

Between us, we have a massive range of exciting ideas we are looking to explore in a variety of media.  So far, it looks like there will be paintings in oils and acrylics, prints, poems, stories, photographs, music, and filmed performances.

I thought it might be interesting to show pictures of my sketch book as I put it together.  The most recent pages are shown below.

To purchase a copy of 'Charlotte -The Lady in White' a novel based on the Life of Charlotte White, nee Smyth, please click the link below

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/704533011/charlotte-the-lady-in-white-by-annie?ref=shop_home_active_1&crt=1

Colchester Poetry Open Mic Night

I have been writing poetry for many years but I was never brave enough to perform it in public.  

Last night, having read a couple of poems out at meetings with both SKOPT and Colchester Poetry, I attended the Poetry Open Mic Night at 15 Queen Street, Colchester.

I really enjoyed listening to the different styles of poetry and the variety of performance styles I heard.  As a result, I am really looking forward to the performances which are scheduled to take place at the Colchester Free Festival at the end of the month.

At the start of the evening, I was uncertain whether I would have the nerve to perform but as the evening went on, I made the decision to have a go.  In the end I performed 6 of my poems and I think it went well.  Now that I've given it a go, I hope to develop my performances.

The poems I performed were:

Tears

Dreams

The Schizophrenic Sound

The Beast

A Moral Tale of Childhood Obesity

Condemnation 

Here is one of them:

TEARS by Annie Bell

Tears

Rolling down the inside of my eyes.

Hiding my mess

For it must be disguised.

Comfort and love;

Nothing but lies.

What have I lost?

"Nothing!" they cry

But still

Wells that feeling, continuing to rise.

I'm broken.

Betrayer, it's you I despise.

Fifty Shades of Poor Editing

After weeks of hearing the world and his wife either praising or destroying E L James' novel Fifty Shades of Grey, I decided that the only fair way for me to be able to comment would be to read it for myself.  I finished reading it yesterday.

I found the book to be a real contradiction.  Despite being quite poorly written (SOMEONE GIVE THE AUTHOR A THESAURUS PLEASE!) I did find it a page turner.  There were some clever literary references in the narrative, which made the protagonist Ana Steele - a student of literature - a little more believable.  That said, I fail to see where the controversy lies.  Nothing in the book was particularly shocking and I found a lot of what went on a little unrealistic and actually, rather tame considering the hype.

Had a proper editor given this book a damn good proofreading, it might have been a much better read but as it stands, I have an enormous urge to go through the whole thing with a red pen and send it to the author, with a grade F and a long list of targets for improvement!

Should I read the rest of the trilogy?  The jury's out.

Charlotte's Pool, Colchester

Charlotte's Pool, Colchester

It has been a really weird few weeks.  My writing group is producing an anthology with the theme of Colchester.  I decided to investigate the life of a young lady called Charlotte Smyth (married name White) who lived in Berechurch Hall, Colchester in the early 19th Century.  Her father built her a beautiful grotto in the Lethe Grove area, which was closely linked in with the stories told about her.  She died young and since her death, there have been numerous sightings of her ghost in various locations around the estate.

It became clear to me early on that there had to be truth to the strange stories, when my hair was stroked as I sat in an empty room.  A whole range of odd events took place over the time I was researching, which made writing the story all the more interesting.   Charlotte was definitely still around and really made her presence felt in a very positive and friendly way.

I spent hours in the library researching and went on numerous field trips around the former grounds of Berechurch Hall (in so much as it is possible to gain access to them these days!)  I discovered all manner of interesting things, met fascinating people and was shocked at the coincidences which seemed to lead me down this path.

It was just what I needed.  I have had the worst case of writer's block imaginable since February, so to produce a short story felt like a massive achievement.

I can't reveal too much about my story at this stage but I am excited about submitting it for the anthology soon. 

 The beautiful monument to Charlotte, which is in the Audley Chapel at St Michael's Church.

To purchase a copy of 'Charlotte -The Lady in White' a novel based on the Life of Charlotte White, nee Smyth, please click the link below

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/704533011/charlotte-the-lady-in-white-by-annie?ref=shop_home_active_1&crt=1