Travels With My Bongos Pt 2 - What Is Water?

Those of you who have ever made the mistake of asking me about music will know that I do not write songs to order. If someone comes up to me and says ‘you need to write something about the zodiac signs’ (and yes they have done), I nod politely and tell them that I will think about it. Inspiration rarely works that way, other than in the case of ‘The Girl Who Brings the Courgettes to the Party’ and that song breaks the rules on so many levels.

Now that the Talisman Open Mic in Swansea has moved days, I can only attend during half-terms. There I was back in February half-term about to give them my newly-written feminist song for International Women’s Day, when a woman introduced herself as having met me when I was reading my novella back at the previous November’s Talisman Open Mic. Before I left that night, she told me about the ‘What Is Water?’ event and asked if I would sing something for it. I agreed and hastily scribbled down the theme ‘what is water’ and the date ‘April 26th’.

What I had failed to do was write down any other details and how on earth I was going to comply with the theme ‘what is water’. No bag of courgettes was going to save me on this one. I could always talk to the people organising the event ... if I knew who they were. Okay, they were involved in research, so I contacted the university ... where they had no clue. I contacted the venue that was supposed to be holding the event ... and they had no clue. I started to believe that one day I would be telling a therapist, “No, I know what it sounds like, but it really happened... there was a theme ‘what is water?’” The therapist would look at me thoughtfully and say, “And what is water?” and I would reply, “I don’t know because I never found the event!”

Eventually, I did find out when the event was taking place, the research organisation holding it and even the venue admitted that it existed. It was several weeks before the event and I still had no idea what i could sing. I was also aware that I would have an audience of extraordinarily well-qualified people with a passion for geography. I had read some of their blogs and writings, this was going to be a different crowd. I said this to my mother who, bless her, replied, “You might be too intelligent for them”. Yes mother, only in the same world where Taylor Swift will not go out with me because she is intimidated by the success of my musical career.

It was in Swansea of course and that reminded me of a piece of prose I had idly written about the recurring presence of Swansea in my life – “It’s Always Bloody Swansea”. I had no real idea of what to do with it but mentioning it in conversation to the event organiser, she seemed enthused about it as writing grounded in a sense of place. Sitting in Cafe Unwind the next Saturday, I loaded it up and realised how much it was about water as well as Swansea.

Then I flipped through my reserve league songbook (see previous blogs about the three different songbooks) and found the original notes for ‘Garota De Barry Island / Girl from Barry Island’, my attempt to write a Welsh bossanova while learning Portuguese in 2017. Oddly, when I was in Portugal I wrote the Welsh Fado, but I never quite finished my bossanova. All I needed was a middle verse and it would be a description of what happened when the water met the land.

Friday 26th April came around and I let myself out of work early again (being on notice of redundancy is great for flexible working) to travel over to Swansea. It was raining hard, a feature of a ‘What is Water?’ event which was not lost on many people. Part of me wondered if I was really doing something sensible, but I parked up in my usual car park and walked up to Copper Bar.

The bar itself had been decorated with water-related pictures and posters. It was good to see the effort and despite the humour potential, I could not bring myself to order the beer brewed for the event and spit it out with the exclamation, ‘This tastes like water!’ Soon I was being introduced to all those involved in the water research and they were saying that they had heard how great I was. At this point, my therapist would be leaning over and saying, “Now think very carefully, are you sure that this was not a dream?” I bought myself a lemonade and avoided the ice (we will leave that for the ‘what is ice’ event).

There were a few people who I recognised from the Talisman nights and some who recognised me. There was a scientific analysis on the subject by Emily, a visiting Professor from Sydney (would it be wrong to ask her for tips for my trip to Australia in July?) and then a mixture of poems and stories. One of the Talisman regulars talked about experiments done on water molecules being given compliments and whether they then behaved differently to water molecules that were insulted. I started chatting to Iqbal and he made the mistake of saying that he remembered me and that, ‘you were kind of quite funny but I don’t remember what you did’. I could not resist going up to the microphone and announcing that I intended to be kind of quite funny but that no-one would remember what I did. Then I started on ‘It’s Always Bloody Swansea’.

‘It’s Always Bloody Swansea’. It is, as well. All my life Swansea has kept pulling me back, every time I swore that i would never go there again. In Cafe Unwind weeks before I had added the words ‘Did I ever tell you about the time that I ran aground a replica Victorian gaffe-rigged schooner in Swansea Bay?’ and realised that I did have plenty to say about the city and the sea. Mind you, it is a real bikini / tight swim trunks story – it shows a lot, but is really more interesting for what it conceals. I mentioned the time that I phoned up the owner of what I thought was an abandoned office block to ask about renting space only to find out later that it was actually a brothel. You do not need to know any more than that headline, the joke is better for leaving you to speculate.

They were a good audience. When they laughed at the line, ‘My first girlfriend left me to go to Swansea’, i stopped to admonish them with ‘you do realise that you are laughing at me being dumped, don’t you?’ which got another laugh. It is always Swansea though. I said to my mother just the other week that I intend to stay living where I am now for another twenty years, unless I meet a creative, attractive and intelligent woman who persuades me to move to Swansea with her to be creative and intelligent and make beautiful babies together (I have already worked out the names- though my mother suggested that you should not tell a woman that you have worked out the names of the children that you will have with her ... on the first date). Sorry Taylor Swift, I know you have been to Swansea and that was a good effort, but if you cannot handle my musical success then we are never ever ever getting back together. Like ever.

Then it was on to ‘Garota De Barry Island’, which did well in its first performance too. I returned to my seat and felt sorry for Emily being called back to present a second segment straight after me. She herself acknowledged that she was having to be serious while still smiling. Mind you, I should add that there were some excellent contributions on a serious note – I was glad that someone talked about water in the context of Flint, Michigan for instance.

After I have performed, it is always much easier to talk to people because they like to talk to me about what I have done. Two guys had ‘come in at the end and thought 'you must be doing some kind of stand up thing because you had the audience in the palm of your hand’ which was a recommendation for everyone to only see the last thirty seconds of any of my performances.

However, the conversation during the break really went in a new direction when Steph from the research lab asked if I wanted to improvise some drumming when she performed a poem. As you may have noticed in recent years, my reaction to any challenge is ‘yes’. It turned out to be a really good experience – I kind of improvised as she read, trying to match the rhythm of her words, but it also gave me the freedom to just play the bongos rather than having to worry about the bloke near the front who had not yet cracked a single smile during my earlier thoughts on Swansea.

I had a long chat with Iqbal after it was over and I mentioned that I was considering setting my next novel in Swansea. I have done too much about the Vale of Glamorgan recently and the new book about FE could happen anywhere really. He was enthusiastic and I suppose that that settles it. I hope that just as 'What Is Water?' combined the serious with the humorous, I can do the same with this next book. It needs a serious examination of mental health among young people, some of the things that I have come across in the last three years in my job around depression, anxiety and psychosis.

“Do you have any examples of psychosis?” I would ask my therapist.

“Yes,” she says, “it’s when someone imagines a woman telling him that there is an Open Mic event based around the theme of water – I mean, really – and then there is this research lab where they research water and there are pictures of fish everywhere. Playing the bongos to a poem? Oh and you even get to use the sentence ‘I can’t attend your event on 5th July as I am flying to Australia that day’.”

“Hmm,” I say, “Did I ever tell you about the time I ran aground a replica Victorian gaffe-rigged schooner in Swansea Bay?”

My therapist sighs. “It’s always bloody Swansea!” she mutters.