Paul Schiernecker

Category: Other

  • Quantum Of Horrors.

    Last night I headed out on the utter fool’s errand of shopping at Westfield Shopping Centre, Stratford City. A place so devoid of any of the warmth capable of a city that I feel it should be stripped of at least part of its name.
    My issue isn’t wholly with Westfield Shopping Centre, Stratford City, it is partly with retail, partly with our consumerism and mostly within myself. There’s something terribly unnerving about Westfield Shopping Centre, Stratford City and I got thrown into the Sarlacc pit.

    I don’t like shopping, in fact I would go further to say I don’t generally like large groups of people. Don’t get me wrong, people can do weird and wonderful things en masse, they can dance, they can riot, they can change the world. My issue is with the strip light nudity with which people choose to expose themselves in the eternal search for fulfilment.
    This may all be getting a bit heavy from my starting point.

    I struggle to understand what my issue is with the false-eyelashed, tangerine skinned who seem to frequent not just the stores as customers but also represent them behind the counters. I don’t know why I hate guys with douchey pencil beards and pseudo-ironic baseball caps on backwards. There is a part of me that is concerned it comes with my growing age. I’m getting ever distant from the coming of age tales I find myself exploring. I don’t like the overuse of the abbreviation, the selfie, the hashtag. I don’t even know what a Macklemore is. I find myself telling people music is not the same as was it in 2003. A Google search reveals the biggest songs of 2003 were The Ketchup Song (Las Ketchup), Dilemma (Nelly featuring Kelly Roland) and If You’re Not The One (Daniel Beddingfield) so what the fuck am I actually on about. I have to admit it. I am getting older.
    This week I have been reading the brilliant and I am hoping post-modern novel Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis. In it he discusses his own heyday of the 1980’s when he was running around LA having sex with everyone and doing all the drugs. Now the eighties are viewed with the kind of nostalgic disdain that Student Union theme nights are built upon. It’s seen as being kitsch. Will there be an emerging theme of 00’s nights where Linkin Park, Papa Roach and Limp Bizkit are pumped into bleeding ear canals while everyone pretends they don’t still have Hybrid Theory, Infest and Chocolate Starfish on their iPod. Oh wait, that’s the Brush as it is now.

    Back to shopping and I found myself in Primark, eager to step up my inward hatred. Stepping into that store is like falling into the primordial ooze, but the prices are good.
    I found myself dodging around trolleys, dollies and buggies in search of the bargains of the day. It was only when I found myself staring down my own grey-faced reflection in the changing room mirror, a popper buttoned denim shirt clad over my skin that I realised something had gone horribly wrong.
    In the queue for the tills (once I had picked up my uniform plain v-neck t-shirts (like a wayward, talented, thin, handsome Simon Cowell)) I watched the man in front of me feel his way through each upturned bucket of impulse buys stationed along the railed off holding pens. He kept going for hair scrunchies, placing two fingers into the coil before shaking his head and returning them to the box. I assumed he was looking for stylish discount cock rings.

    In H&M I tried to indulge the till droog in conversation. There was a song playing in the store, a song he must have heard on a loop so many times that it had lost any kind of meaning it could have ever held.
    Me: Do you know what song this is?
    Till Droog: This particular song?
    Me: Well yes.
    Till Droog: No, but if you go on our Facebook page there is a link to our music we play in stores.
    Me:Oh okay, so it isn’t from a particular album or anything?
    Till Droog: This particular song?
    Me: Yes, this particular song.
    Till Droog: No.

    I think my issues with the world are really that I don’t feel a part of it. I watch the eternally midday sun lit emporium of squalor and I don’t feel what any of the other people seen to be expressing. I’m not excited about it. It’s a thing I have to do, as quickly as possible, and then I want to get out.
    I see the queues of girls getting French pedicures, the gangs of boys checking out said girls with their JD Sports bags swung in front of them. I see parents struggling with children and children struggling with parents and I wonder what the fuck it can all possibly mean, and if this is our intended purpose and why I can’t help but feel removed from it, as though I’m watching myself be disgusted by it all.

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  • Busy.

    This week has been absolutely crazy. I don’t really know where my head is at. This is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and chill for a moment. There is a lot going on. 

    Between family stuff, flat-purchasing stuff, music, writing and performance stuff including hosting a variety show at The Alex in two weeks I haven’t had much time to process all of the crazy things that go on in my little life. It’s quite overwhelming. 

    I thought I would take this opportunity to drop a quick update on all of the things that are currently pending:

    I have found a proof-reader for The Stamp Collective who is currently working her way through it with the finest of toothcombs to spot any accidental transatlanticals that may have snuck their way up in there. 
    I have also confirmed with the great Adam Gardner (who designed the cover for Where Did All The Money Go? and co-curates Charlie’s Hand Movements) that I want him to design the cover of The Stamp Collective. 
    I will then look to set a date to have a launch night for the book with some wine and some performances.
    I’m really excited about getting it out to people. It will be my first novel and it means an awful lot to me. Things that have occurred in my personal life this week have amplified and magnified my thoughts on it and within it and I want people to get to grips with that. 
    I’ve also got some great ideas for promotional materials. It’s one of the few books I can think of that has its own soundtrack (High Fidelity and Nick & Norah spring to mind though).
    I’ve agreed to perform at the next Tales & Ales night for Old Trunk, and will be reading an extract from The Stamp Collective. 

    In addition I have been hard at work for my performance for High Variety. There’s a mix of different things put on including music, comedy, juggling and escapology and I can’t wait to be a part of it. I’ve been working on some comedy songs which I’m trying to segue into the night as part of my hosting patter. I’m genuinely excited and nervous about it. 

    I’ve also been redrafting my Sahara journal – Yallah! Again, I may have to bend Adam’s arm to design something for the cover and plan to then self-publish that even if it is solely for the reference of those I trekked the desert with. It was an incredible experience and one I am glad to have taken the time to document. 

    Things are still going to plan with the flat, or as far as I know they are. I’m in a strange no-man’s-land where I am being promised things are being done and we are moving forwards but there is nothing specific in sight yet. 

    Be safe.

  • Holding them.

    In October 2013 I wrote up a piece originally written by my grandfather Friedrich Wilhelm Schiernecker about his experiences in Nazi occupied Amsterdam. It helped me to understand a man I had never really felt an affinity with. Unfortunately Wim was recently moved into a residential care home because he is unable to look after himself due to his dementia. I found out on Friday that a house clearance team are due to clear his flat out next weekend, hired to remove every trace of his ninety-one years. While I appreciate this is something that needs to be done it still made me incredibly sad. 

    On Saturday morning I drove over to his flat to collect his typewriter which had kindly been set aside for me by my aunt and uncle. I have written on any number of occasions about the wonders of minimalism, of keeping only those things that serve a purpose or provide enjoyment but once I was in that flat I realised what a shame it would be for someone to not hold onto more of what he had left behind. I thought about my childhood and how I had been naturally drawn to my grandparents, how they provided me with the love and attention I have craved ever since and how it was entirely unconditional. This was a time before I was side-swiped by reality, before I took into account others opinions and just loved without boundaries or prejudice. I realised that I did have a relationship with my grandfather, and while it seemed strained as I entered my teenage years I was incredibly lucky to have him there in the first place. The pressure to have a relationship only became so once I was aware of it. When I lost my grandmother (or Nan as I called her) I was devastated. It was the first time I had experienced such personal tragedy. It was hard. I feel as though I had lost touch with something just by how jaded I have become.

    That’s why I didn’t just step out with the Imperial Good Companion 201 portable typewriter but also a watch and desk calendar to help remind me how precious our time truly is, photographs of my grandparents when they were young, thin, in love, happy, to ensure they stay that way in some capacity and my grandfather’s leather suitcase because family is baggage but one I will happily carry.

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  • Merry Christmas To You.

    It’s Christmas Day. I’m sat alone watching Doctor Who and wondering when the call will come for me to take on the lead role. I’ve been hard at work on the present I am making for a number of my closest friends.
    Last year because none of us had any money we decided we would all make one another gifts instead of just buying things for the sake of them. I obviously can’t say what it is I am doing in case they happen to read this post before I get a chance to deliver on it but it’s pretty cool and I’m quite excited.

    That being said, I have made a little Christmas video featuring the poem I performed at the Old Trunk Winter Tales & Ales reading earlier this month. Regardez:

  • NaNoWriMo – Day 17

    Today I have started work on another book. I’ve already completed NaNoWriMo so if I manage to get any of this new project done I will be over the moon.
    It’s the first of a three-part fantasy series I have had in my head for five years. It’s inspired by the great adventure and fantasy books I read as a child – Carroll, Tolkein, Lewis. It’s a complete departure from my NaNoWriMo project and different to anything I have ever written before. I’m very excited about it all. It’s a real race against time now.

  • NaNoWriMo – Day 16

    In just sixteen days I have managed to write 55,952 words. I have now completed the first draft of Yallah! 

    Looking at it now I am not sure I want it to be published. It’s very fresh to my experiences and I haven’t really written it with an audience in mind. That being said I would like to complete something this November that I can publish. My moustache sure as hell won’t be counted so I am left with just one other option….

  • Under Nazi Boots

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that I have an unusual surname. I get asked a lot about my family’s history, about the heritage of my name, my Dutch past. I’ve never really been able to learn enough to satisfy my desires. I know there is more to where I came from. I’m fascinated with the idea of my ancestors being creative or artistic in some way, it helps me justify why I’m drawn to the things I love. 
    The closest I have come to any kind of significant answer is the following. It’s an article written by my grandfather (Friedrich Wilhelm “Wim” Schiernecker) about his experience of living in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. 
    I have always been interested in 20th century history but his take on the war chills me.

    In the very early hours of 10th May 1940 I was woken up by the sound of bombs dropping and anti-aircraft guns blazing away. It took the Germans just a few days to force a total surrender by the Dutch armed forces. At first the Nazis used a “softly softly” approach, but it did not take long for them to show their true colours.

    They installed a “Gauleiter” (top bossman) by the name of Seyes Inquart (I’m not sure of the spelling after all this time) and whatever he decreed was law. A few months after the Nazi invasion I “celebrated” my eighteenth birthday which, under the circumstances, was not much fun. I was due to start my military service in that August, but obviously that was scratched as the Nazis were by then our “benefactors”, or so they tried to make us believe.

    As I was working for a chemical/pharmaceutical company  I was given an “Ausweiss” (permit) to work because of the nature of the firm. In June/July 1943 this was declared null and void, and the general idea was that I would have to report to some authority or other so that I could be transported to Germany as part of their quest to force occupied-territory nationals to work for the Nazi war effort. Naturally it was not my plan to work for their munitions industry in order to help them to overcome the Allied Liberating Forces, as we saw them.

    From the early days of the Nazi occupation quite a strong “underground” movement was started among the Dutch, which made as much “aggro” for the Nazis as they possibly could. In hindsight some of it seems cruel – like tipping as many Nazi soldiers and Nazi collaborators into the maze of canals, particularly in Amsterdam, as they could.

    The people involved in this underground movement were to us “freedom fighters”, whereas to the Nazis they were “terrorists”. Quite a number of them were caught by the Nazis, unfortunately, and after sham court proceedings they were all found guilty of “terrorist” activities and were sent to prison, or concentration camps, or were executed. I vividly remember seeing some half dozen bodies lying on a small greensward, as the tram which took me to work went past, shot to deter others from following in their footsteps. They were possibly shot the night before and left there deliberately for all to see.

    Through the “underground” movement, persons like myself who refused to work for the Nazis were given “safe addresses” where we could stay, and were given food ration cards, usually forged. Our hosts received very small amounts of money in recompense. I stayed with a family in Zaandam, north of Amsterdam, for quite a few months. They were the husband, who was a junior school teacher, his wife, three small daughters and a small boy. [People who provided safe houses like that, for people fleeing from the Nazis, were severely punished if caught, with punishments ranging from prison to death. The family who shielded Wim had so much to lose, with four young children, and were very brave].

    The lady of the house became very ill while I was staying there. She had a form of meningitis. They didn’t take her into hospital, for reasons which have now escaped me, but a nurse and a doctor came in daily to see her. I finished up looking after the children and doing the housework. 

    The eldest girl, about nine or ten at the time, became ill. I think she had measles, so I finished up looking after he, as the mother was ill herself. When the husband came home after a day’s teaching he would cook the meal, sometimes with help from neighbours. 

    In those days many houses in Holland had wooden suspended floors, with a gap of two-and-a-half to three feet between the earth or rubble base and the suspended floor. When raids by the “Grune Polizei”, a nasty lot [searching for fugitives like Wim] were anticipated I was smuggled through a trap door in the kitchen, which was covered with linoleum, and stayed under the floorboards. Food was given to me through the trapdoor, and I had a “jerry” for other purposes. I had to stay there until it was considered safe for me to come out again.

    As can be imagined it was not much fun and unfortunately, a few years after the end of the war I became subject to depression and claustrophobia as a result. Those problems stayed with me for quite a number of years. Fortunately I am very glad and thankful that depression is now in the past and does not affect the present. 

    In 1943/44 I developed mastoiditis, became extremely ill, and once taken into hospital, had three skull operations in approximately a fortnight. With God’s grace and surgeons’ skills I am still around to tell the tale. After this episode I had to leave my “safe” house and travelled, always under cover of darkness, to a place called Hilversum, to the east of Amsterdam, where I stayed for some time with an aunt of mine. When this address became too “hot” I went back to Amsterdam and stayed with an uncle and his family. By this time the tide of war had moved very firmly to the other side, and in May 1945 we were very glad to welcome the Allied Liberating Forces into the Netherlands. 

    In the meantime, in the north of Holland, we had the infamous so-called “hunger winter” which was so bad that food was almost non-existent. We had something like sugar beat, which was boiled to extract the syrup. The pulp that was left would be moulded into sorts of pancakes which were fried in Vaseline. No other fats were available. We used an “emergency stove” which my father invented and made out of some thin sheet metal. The main that was that it worked. Apart from sugar beet we also ate tulip bulbs, sliced and fried in Vaseline, as an alternative.

    My mother developed “hunger oedema” and was given extra rations, which consisted of some kind of slimy soup. I would not like to what what was in it, and we never did find out.

     

    I feel like I have never really had the chance to know my grandfather. Though I am fortunate enough that he is still around, he always seemed somewhat distant with us when we were children. By the time I was old enough to fully understand the reasons for his nature it was too late, he was gripped by dementia, and was either unable to recall much of his past or simply found it too painful to put into words. This article is the closest I have ever come to understanding him. 

    I am making it a personal resolution to find out more about my family’s history, to fill in the gaps in our history and to try and honour the memory of the brave people who stood up against the Nazi occupation of Holland. The things they must have been forced to do in pursuit of their freedom are unbelievable. I know this is just the tip of the iceberg and I can’t stand the unknown. 

  • Just a post about ping pong.

    That’s right, drawing upon the heroic efforts of Operator Please for a title there. It had to be done.

    Last night was the last ‘Sahara Social’, a series of events organised by the angel-like patient coordinators of the Sahara Trek I am heading out on this weekend. As it turns out it was the only Sahara Social I was able to attend (I believe one was on when I was at a festival…Glastonbury maybe?). It was a really good experience to be able to meet the people I am going to be walking with for the next week, an opportunity to get our heads together and work out the finer details. It was also my first sighting of the elusive WC, the individual who has raised over seventeen times what I have for charity and has something of a cult status amongst us Trekkers (not to be confused with Trekkies).

    Fortunately everyone was lovely. We had initially paid a deposit to the bar, Ping on account of the size of the group. Despite that some people still didn’t make it down so there was more beer money to go round after dinner.
    It was nice to see that everyone seems as hectic as I am at the moment, if anything it has set some of my worries aside. I seem to have done more exercise than a number of people and nobody appears to have started packing (which will very much be my last pre-Sahara battle aside from making it to the airport). The organisers were still in good spirits when answering questions and served as courteous hosts, fielding the same repeated platitudes about the details of our trek.

    The event was supposed to include ping pong but as soon as I realised I cannot play ping pong to save my life (fortunately the plastic balls were not on fire, or bullets) I just stood back and watch, playing particular interest when the monolith that is WC beat my Sahara buddy Terri down like she had insulted his honour.

    It was a cool evening but it made the whole thing a lot more real. With just 36 hours until our flight I am wondering if I will even have time to set my out of office before I have to pack.

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  • Another ten mile hike.

    I’m in the bath. Don’t worry, there’s no threat to Franny, my MacBook who famously lost her hard drive after being propped up in the bathroom so I could wallow and watch Homeland simultaneously. I’m on the iPhone, Lucille, which is virtually indestructible. So much so I’d be tempted to name her Scarlett, after Captain Scarlett.

    I’m in the bath because I’m aching. I’m aching because I’ve just walked ten miles in three hours. My feet feel harder and lumpy and my rucksack related back sweat was something to be admired. It has just dawned on me that all of my training and channeling can’t prepare me for the fact that when I do head out into the Sahara desert (in just five weeks) I won’t be able to relax and bathe whilst instagramming stupid pictures of myself. I’m going to sit in my sweat, I’m going to live in it. This is different to stinking it up at a festival. This is next level Bear Grylls shit.
    An I scared? Yes of course, I’d be concerned if I wasn’t but its good to know the time and money and effort has an end result and it is drawing very close indeed.

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  • The Life & Loves Of Jet Tea book launch.

    Last night I attended my first ever book launch, and what a launch. I’ve waxed lyrical about Joe Gardner’s writing enough times for you all to understand that I’m a fan. His first novel, The Life & Loves Of Jet Tea hit a chord with me, and I’m currently rereading my now signed copy. The reason it resonated is Joe and I have similar goals. We want to get to the top. We are both aching to get out of the menial things we have to do to get by and be recognised as writers. We both take what we see around us and turn it in, making something of it. Having now met the man I am pleased this kinship seems to have held fast.

    Jet Tea is a coming of age comedy about three friends struggling with the world they see around them, a world of pubs in West London, of officious security guards and wizards. Even on my second reading I am laughing at visions of Jet Tea dancing ‘seductively’ (I’m not sure that’s the right word) alone on bar dancefloors, and am sure use of the term ‘he’s a bit of a Craig’ is on the cusp of going viral.

    Last night Joe invited friends to join him in celebrating the success of his first book with a Q&A followed by music by a number of his close friends, including Glen (and his band Jeeps) who was the inspiration for the character Maurice.

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    It was a pleasure to be a part of, and surreal to meet people I only knew as fictional characters. The real life Jet Tea was in attendance. He hasn’t yet read the book. This astounded me, but then again, as Joe said, would you want to read your own biography?
    What’s cool about Joe and his world is that he is surrounded by creative people, much in the same way I am fortunate to be. I think there is nothing better than having people around who you can bounce ideas off of, and watching the sound checks and back and forths between everyone reminded me of the dynamic amongst my friends. There is a respect for what each of them is able to do, and they have time for that. It was cool to be included in that.
    Before I knew it, I had to make a dash for the exit to catch the train home and I didn’t get to say goodbye to the awesome people I had been introduced to, or even thank the host. If you haven’t read Jet Tea then get on it, it comes highly recommended.