Bits, Bobs and Barbicans

The Choirmaster is available to buy from AllRomance Ebooks now, as well as the Amazon Kindle store so, to celebrate, I thought I'd do a little post about the London location where the action begins.

Londoners have a love-hate relationship with the Barbican, but I have always loved it. It was controversial when it opened in 1982 and has been voted the city's ugliest building, but I have always found much to love in its brutalist concrete blocks and windswept piazzas. Perhaps it is a huge and odd thing to find so close to the ancient London City walls, but I always relished coming up to street level and seeing it, like an alien spacecraft full of cultural delights come to land in our midst.

I've seen and heard many wonderful things behind those 70s-carpark-like walls. I've wandered around the fake lake at night asking myself if I was in love. I've met orchestral players and watched Shakespeare. I've even (like Loveday) been caught in a thunderstorm within its vast precincts and had to drip dry in my seat at the recital.

It's different. It's a freakishly still and silent place in the centre of chaos. I hope it lasts at least a few decades longer.

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