Manolis's letter

To all my customers - old and new

Just to let you know that I shall not be operating after this coming Thursday 30th August so I would like to thank you all for your support throughout all these years.

- No need to be told you are going to be missed
- Not for improving my bank balance
- But for being you.

You can look forward to new food experiences like I shall look forward to a different kind of life.

If my manner or my cooking was, on accasion, not to your liking, please don't take it too personally. I have meant well, at least, in most times.

So on that note I would like to thank you all sincerely and wish you the best of luck in whatever you want to do.

Thanks

Manolis

P.S. If any of you wish to see me again I shall be performing my cooking tricks at:

No.3 Stroud Green Road,
Finsbury Park

exchange of printed word missed beauty

i didn't cycle to hammersmith today because it was snowing and my back brake makes my back wheel skid in the rain... haven't had my front brake connected back up yet...

but now i regret it... i was walking to the tube in the heyday of the snow a few hours ago, a heyday that is over now probably... snow doesn't last long in london...

just how beautiful would it have been to be one of the first to cycle by the canal... or through the park... with the fresh snow...

but we live with the decisions we make...

on tuesday i took the printed out cavafy poems in greek to manolis, he was pleased with them... as i was sitting eating my beakfast in his cafe that day one of the oddball regulars piped up that his book is now available on amazon... i've spoken to him before about his book, an expose of tabloid journalism apparently... anyway he went out to his car and brought me back a copy...

so giving the printed word to manolis brought back the printed word from the oddball regular...

x

searching

just been to manolis's and i want to find something that he will enjoy reading, he's in a little bit of a low patch, i offered to lend him my book of cavafy that i know he likes but he said if it was in greek... maybe... so now i'm about to search for cavafy poems in greek to print out and bring to manolis... he told me that i was very habitual, and that kant was also habitual... people used to be able to set their clocks by kant...?

also i've been on a strange and so far fruitless search since yesterday when i used some hakim bey spoken word stuff in my improvisation. it struck me that i should be able to identify where i got it from... and indeed what it is... when he was speaking and who he was speaking to...

and i have no idea... it seems to be on the winter solstice some year.. he's speaking as peter lambon wilson, i have no idea where it came from, maybe soulseek, or maybe through deoxy... or then perhaps it came from those grey lodge folk...

reminds me that when i met that iching guy who had had some contact with hakim bey he'd told me that hakim bey was really against the internet... favouring real breast to breast communication... or letters...

going over to W(floopy)shaman's tonight for chess and food... he who has only just gone over to internet chess... we're breast to breast chessing tonight as well as our internet game...

rehearsed with T's band minus the guitarist last night, we're gigging a week on tuesday if you fancy, we were fantastic @ the metro and we'll be a touch better @ leonards...

slow day i've had today, a kind of malaise i'm almost under, not as bad by any means as some days but, what with the next semester so close and the work still to be done for it... it can seem like a day like today is a waste, but i don't see it like that, if i need to spend a day like today - even as it's hard to see what it does for me... i celebrate the day i've had... i love the way i live my life...

x

still stupid but changing

the party was great in the end, i sang my song with the help of elphara playing just one note all the way through and he's interested in doing some more playing with me which is nice, the very 1st gig @ the landlord's back in january 2003 had him involved... Hcello can't play @ my gig there in a couple of weeks so it's tempting to get elphara involved (violin) but i don't think i will, keep it simple...

i found some energy from somewhere and me & dinah made it to bed finally @ around 5:30,

the watts rocked... me & M, gordy, T & Kwo moshed for all our worth during their set which set me up nicely for dancing afterwards...

most of T's band showed up, along with D whose mad recording session i did a week ago today... nippy was there... me & nippy, me & T, and just me... we all at times performed in the impromptu performance space... at one point while me & T were jamming, nippy got up to join us and then variuos people who were listening got up until the entire room was joining in...

afterwards someone who i still don't the name of told me it was like a cross between a chart song and a knock about in the park...

so it all worked pretty well... spski wasn't there but that's becoming a regular thing these days sadly...

and tomorrow i'm receiving delivery of the piano at long last and so today i'm making this room ready, or at least that's what i'm telling myself... i have to make space for it today but i've so far done nothing at all towards that goal... stooged around on the net, been to manolis's where he proved to be pretty grumpy... i wasn't so much more cheerful... the cold continues and i'm not quite all over the party so things are moving slowly..

x

greek DVD

about to pack up various bits and pieces and go over to the landlord's piano to record a piece for W(floopy)shaman... recording this week's improvisation while we're there...

but more importantly manolis has recently had a DVD player put into his shop, me & dinah were there when it arrived last week some time, i was over there just now and he had an amazing DVD of greek singers doing greek classics on... which i really, really want to get hold of, absolutely packed full of amazing videos, men singing while strumming that guitar shaped greek instrument and sat opposite a grumpy looking man who has nothing to do with the music...

a woman in a stripy jumper dancing madly in front of about 20 men all strumming a mandolin style instrument...

a group of musicians on stage, one of whom is singing, accompanied by a woman with nothing to do who looks nervous and slightly annoyed...

i'm going to try and borrow it from manolis and rip some choice scenes destined for youtube...

unless of course some bright spark has already put it on youtube?

x