jonnybaker

the special relationship

having plugged harry baker's tour in my last blog post, i am now plugging esther baker's play (my sister). she is the director. turns out the family are on a roll!

esther is directing the special relationship for a month at soho theatre. this is pretty huge! i am not expecting you to come and hang out with me necessarily but jen and i are going on feb 27. the play explores issues of immigration, detention and deportation. i have seen loads of plays over the years directed by esther and they are always exploring contemporary challenges in the system for those at the edges. ths has been written out of conversations with ex prisoners and those involved in immigration - should be good and no doubt hard hitting.

see harry baker on tour

harry baker has a solo poetry tour i am 10000 from feb to may. it may well be coming to a town near you. the rumour on twitter is that london has virtually sold out so not sure if another date will get added but i think other venues are fine. you can see here a list of dates. this is his show from edinburgh festival in the summer which was fab. i can't go to the london gig so am thinking i will make the oxford one if anyone else fancies joining me at that? i really enjoy harry and chris but if you've not seen the solo poetry it is really good too and quite different. go support your poets (and my family!). 

a festival brimming over with life

jenny and i visited edinburgh festival for four days last weekend. it's such an incredible festival with so much going on. i genuinely don't know how they pack all the events into the city let alone where all the people find places to stay. it brims over with life, joy, poignancy, artfulness celebrating life.

we first visited i think in 2009 when harry took part in an open mic at a free fringe event. he was subsequently invited to a poetry event in london and that was the beginning of an adventure which included exploring poetry for a gap year and went ever upwards from there. so it was incredible to be back at the festival again and see harry with a solo show in underbelly and a harry and chris show in underbelly both selling out when we attended. it's harry's seventh festival i think with three solo shows and three harry and chris before now. i of course have a totally unbiased view but they were fantastic. it's not just me as you'll see from these 5 star reviews. i have added some photos to an album here.

we packed in about four shows a day of comedy, circus, theatre and also visited some of the art festival. it's hard to pick highlights but we loved in no particular order occam's razor, john robbins, jessica fostekew, matt winning, milton jones, bryony kimmings, tom crosby, lazerkiwis, nathan coley, alfredo jaar. it's surprising how much you can pack in to a few days (and how much you can spend!).

harry baker - i am 10000

tomorrow night i am going to see harry's new poetry show i am 10000 (which he will be performing at edinburgh along with harry and chris new show). come along if you are in london and you get to see chris' solo show as well - weird i know. harry and chris but not harry n chris or something...

super proud of harry - just saw today that he has 2 million hits on his exteter tedX talk - wow. i am generally delirious if i get over 50 likes on an instagram photo! i need to up my game clearly though inspired by harry i worked out i will be 20000 days this year on the same day as joel's birthday.

i should also add that the rejected eurovision song contest entry of harry and chris - sorry! - is out today...

out of the box cards live today

congratulations to jenny, grace and daisy on the launch of out of the box cards today - the web site is now live and you can go order cards. i love the strapline creating intelligent and playful cards that expand horizons. the cards look great (and are currently filling our lounge!). the official launch is tonight. i have chipped in photography - the photo above for example - and will no doubt be taking some photos at the launch party. 

people often associate me with the word pioneer for obvious reasons seeing as i have written and teach in that area. but in an interview the other day jenny was described as a pioneer and she really is - she makes things happen! i always love it when ideas that have been brought to our make good week and developed as ideas come to birth often a few years later. this is the latest! 

tender

i love this photo of kat and flo which i took over christmas where we were hosted in margate by harry and grace which was a treat. kat is an incredible mum - i have loved seeing her and joel being parents to flo and thea with so much tenderness, patience and love. it's not easy raising kids! it's hard to say what makes a good photo and i can't remember if flo is strangling kat or it is actually a tender moment but let's go with the latter :) 

out of the box cards kickstarts

out of the box is kickstarting today. go visit to read about it and watch a video which explains all. in a nutshell it's a new company designing greeting cards you would be proud to give your daughter, niece, friend's daughter with playful and positive messages rather than the clichés and stereotypes that seem to dominate. i am quadrupley excited because 

• i love the idea
• jen (my wife that is) had the idea and i am her no 1 fan
• grace my duaghter in law is part of the team
• it was first brought as an idea 3 years ago to make good, the missional entrepreneurship week we run and is the latest project to turn from idea to reality

 

blinded by your grace - congrats harry and grace!

congratulations grace and harry on getting married! yesterday was a wonderful wonderful day - it couldn't have been better. we are so delighted to welcome grace into the family. in the wedding service they both entered in from different sides and met and then walked down the aisle together to blinded by your grace (pt 1). i have had the tune in my head since and am feeling so overwhelmingly thankful and grateful - it seems to sum it all up perfectly. 

i didn't take a photo all day wanting to focus on being present - but it will be a while before getting the photos from the photographer so it's great to see some on facebook and instagram - thanks to my sister esther for this one.

harry and chris tour dates

i am looking forward to seeing harry and chris and their new show at edinburgh festival this summer. they have just announced tour dates for the autumn on their web site. judging by the last tour book in good time to get a ticket!

launch

it's been great this week to go to a couple of events where jen has launched and spoken about her book run for your life. the first was an evening organised by the ealing eagles, the running club that jen is part of. there was so much support and love for jen in the room - it is a really incredible community.

then last night was the launch at maggies - a centre for people affected by cancer. it is next to charing cross hospital and it's where we would go and have lunch before heading into the hospital when jen was having chemotheraphy. i rather like this photo of maggies sign with the hospital reflected in it.

jen has written about the launch here. harry had written some poems especially for the evening which may well appear online somewhere. one is in jen's post which was four lines long but opened with the amazing observation that there is a mother in the middle of chemotherapy...

and of course i took a few photos

loving seeing peoples reactions to the book and the publisher pitch are doing a great job of lining up articles and interviews. all in all wonderful stuff...

a baker family prayer for 2017!

we have a family tradition of a meal for new year where we look back over the previous year and what has been bitter and sweet and then look forward to share hopes and dreams for the year ahead. i really can't remember when we started it... the food is usually themed in some way in with bittersweet and this year the cocktails were too with harry mixing up some whisky sours. in sharing for the year ahead one of the themes was making space for a good balance between work and play, between woork and family, between commercial work and art. joel summarised this nicely when he said that in their graphic design business they say we need to do more cool shit! i was given a light box for christmas so that is now written and glowing in our kitchen on the shelf. there weren't enough 'o's so the o is improvised from a couple of 'u's.

we always offer up some prayers and i have to say my favourite prayer for the year ahead which i will remind myself of was "help us to do more cool shit!' - in other words to make enough space for those things that often get squeezed out. amen to that! i hope i'll do a bit better at blogging in that direction this year...

run for your life

jenny has written a book on her journey through being diagnosed with breast cancer and the ensuing chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy and recovery, coupled with her love of running and how that was a big part of her journey. the book is out in a month. it's published with pitch publishing.

i am so close to the story it's hard for me to be objective but i think it's a wonderful book. it will of course be of interest to anyone facing the diagnosis but i think it will also help anyone who knows someone facing that whether friends or family (which is probably most of us). jenny runs a blog and if you haven't read it do. her writing there on the journey is what was the spark for the book...

at sea - unravelling

was a treat to have lou baker artist satying this week while she is exhibiting in barking in a show of yarn and knitting called unravelling - it's on until next weekend. i have added a few photos here but i found myself drawn to the colours which i tried to abstract. lou told me this piece was to do with waves and it certainly looks like the sea when stripped down to its colours... it's probably annoying for lou for me to have done that but i did take some photos of the work too. reminds me very much of your work blythe toll if you are reading! 

one!

granddaughter flo is one - what a sweetheart!

congratulations!

a massive congratulations to jenny on her MA in voluntary sector management from cass business school in city university london - doubly amazing given the last two modules were done while on chemo - and was fun to hang out for the day with a great bunch of new friends jenny has met and graduated with.

bog on the blog - 12 years on!

in jan 2004 i blogged a photo of our downstairs toilet under a blog post bog on the blog that we had stencilled with a couple of pippo lionni inspired stencils. we recently have painted over the walls as it was getting a little tired and were sad to see the stencils go so after a family discussion settled on a different pippo lionni inspired stencil and the bog is on the blog once more!

like the wind

like the wind is a beautiful magazine for runners. jenny has an article in the current issue about her running with friends to chemotherapy. the article is accompanied by this fantastic illustration by jon birch. there's also this lovely quote on the back of the magazine from jenny. amazing...

grandad - yes that'll be me!

jen has written a few more profound thoughts over here

i am simply delighted to be grandad to baby flo! 

harry celebrates soho in this london fashion week promo

london fashion week now in soho - harry sounding very london in this poem!

harry is having a pretty good first month making a life as a poet!

harry graduated in july. so technically august is his first month making a life as a poet and it's all going rather well! admittedly he has been performing all over the place for the last few years while studying but you get the drift. he is up at edinburgh festival with his show the sunshine kid in the free fringe. this has been full very day so far and received some good reviews - see tvbomb and broadway baby for example. i loved this quote from the tv bomb review:

Underneath the veneer there is a melancholic yearning that often seeps through, a deep awareness of the intrinsic ache of the human condition. With this in mind, the poems develop into an argument for a positive outlook, for self-belief and for finding meaning somewhere within ourselves. This is a performance that will make you laugh and make you think; art at its transformative best.

as well as doing that he seems to have got himself invited into other events/shows to perform every day which is fun and how you get the word out about your show. this included an invite to perform on simon mayo's radio 2 show - a one minute poem reflecting the contents of the show. this went so well that he was invited back for the week. those shows are up on inlayer for mon, tues, weds, thurs of this week and no doubt the bbc web site as well (it's the first time i've listened to radio 2 for a while being more of a 6 music fan myself…).

i'm heading up to edinburgh on saturday to see the show and hang out and cheer him on which i'm looking forward to. the month will end up with him performing at greenbelt festival. today there is a big feature on him in the church times which is a rather lovely piece. 

also this month (probably week) his TED talk will hit one million views by the looks of it - which is pretty amazing.

i can't imagine every month going quite so swimmingly but not a bad start!!! i'm thinking i probably should get a t-shirt saying 'harry baker's dad'. if you are in edinburgh saturday come to harry's show - see you there - though get there early by all accounts.