How to Run a Banana Republic from a Tower Block

Tomorrow, one of my dearest friends, Jason, turns 40. I hesitated to call him one of my “oldest” friends. He isn’t the sensitive type, but his imminent birth (life begins at 40, or so the wrinklista apologists would have us believe) signals the arrival of my own 40th later this year.

I met Jason at school, 25 years ago. I shudder at this figure. Right now, I’m sitting in an office with a guy younger than that. He’s an intelligent young man. When we converse, I am not for a moment reminded of the fact that he didn’t actually exist when Jason and I became friends in our teenage years.

The title of the post is from a book idea Jason and I had. He and a friend had built up an imaginary sub-culture around the tower block he lived in, Ashford Court in Cricklewood, a stone’s throw (I’d get the youngster in the office to throw the stone, my shoulders are shot) from where I live today. He had invented a secret service, called Faqqzod, who arbitrarily removed citizens from their homes in the block, whisking them away somewhere to deep within the bowels of Ashfordia, itself a mini-state, never to be seen or heard from again. Indeed, their very existence was no longer acknowledged.

We came up with various ideas. One of the things I invented was a “cryostat”, installed in every home in Ashfordia. It administered “central freezing” to the citizens. The temperature would invariably be a constant -20C inside during winter, but during summer, it would swing wildly between -20 and 100C.

Faqqzod used various torture devices. Jason came up with some pretty crude ones, but his favourite was my “Rotolash”. A large catherine wheel type motor-driven device, with 16 equidistant cat o’ nine tails whips attached facing outwards along the circumference. Once turned on, it cut through flesh like a hot knife through butter.

Jason and I had the notion of writing a book on this outlandish state in which innocent citizens were shot on the street for no reason other than the type of clothes they were wearing….I kid you not. Back in 1980, we thought this was funny. I don’t think we ever thought that much of what we intended to write about, including a minor-celebrity-obsessed frivolous and government-loving press, would ever one day come to pass.

Thankfully, we don’t have cryostats and thankfully, only one person has actually been shot for no good reason at all, but 25 years on, the idea of writing about a banana republic run from a tower block is perhaps no longer funny.

Jason was a brilliant musician then. And he is a stunning musician now. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say he is one of the world’s greatest living classical mandolin players. He has won numerous awards, including beating every category at Trinity College to scoop the Isabelle Bond Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Performance - one of the world’s most coveted prizes and certainly by far, Trinity’s most prestigious award for performance.

He has been in numerous bands. He has learned more about language than those who profess to be linguists. He is funny, friendly, quirky and kind. He makes great coffee. His wife is a wonderful woman. He is still, despite his years, exceptionally intelligent and he has a sparkling and vital family. His children are the cutest ever, but they are also far brighter than I will ever be. And none of them are 10 yet.

We had a band in the late 1980s called “Life in the Bus Lane”. Our singer was Viv Dogan-Corringham, who like Jason, and unlike me, had a proper career in music. She was also the lead singer in a band called Tour de Force whose guitarist used to front the popular Rock School programme. Viv said that Life in the Bus Lane had the best songs of any band she had been in. I still remember our recording and rehearsal sessions with great fondness. I’m so glad we had that time.

As Life in the Bus Lane, we recorded some demo songs in a studio in the West End, the master tape from which was unfortunately stolen from me recently. Other than our band, Jason and I also created some improvised electronic music under the name “Moon” that predated a popular trend now epitomised by bands like Lemon Jelly, Orbital and Leftfield by over a decade. Some of the music we made was pretty special. He was always the more talented musician by several orders of magnitude. My saving grace was song-writing. Somehow, it worked. I enjoyed those sessions and I don’t think either of us has forgotten that period in our lives.

In any case, Happy Birthday Jason. Thanks for being my friend.