“WE’RE GOING TO DO BUTLINS IN THE WINTER”
IT is lunchtime at Brian Eno’s Notting Hill studio. On the menu are takeaway gyoza and noodles. The food provides a welcome break in Eno’s busy schedule. But he is not dining alone. Sitting opposite Brian at an oval-shaped wooden table is his younger brother, Roger, up from his home on the Norfolk borders.
Even during downtime like this, their conversation constantly shifts and changes, stretching from the tabloids’ treatment of Jeremy Corbyn to ideas for colour-coded crossword clues. Today, Brian – calm, eloquent – is dressed in black shirt and trousers and a navy gilet, with red-framed glasses and purple socks adding smart flashes of colour. He looks every bit the urban ideas man, comfortably ensconced in his studio – a large, white space decorated with his own minimalist artworks and abutted by bookshelves. At one point, Brian demonstrates a favourite new gadget: a prototype for a double pendulum. Twice the spinning arms means twice the physics fun, he explains. Brian Eno being Brian Eno, he has two of these devices.
Brian, now 71, could not look more different from his younger brother. Roger is dressed in a green shirt, waistcoat, brown cords and brogues, with an earring in his left ear. Cheery and jovial, he pushes his glasses up onto his forehead as he tackles The Times’ small crossword.
“‘Exponent of record with a beat you can hear’,” he says, reading a clue aloud. “Well, log is a record, beat is a rhythm…”
“…and a logarithm is an exponent,” adds Brian.
“Then we got it!” Roger beams.
The siblings make an interesting combination. The bohemian composer visiting his stylish academic brother. But it transpires that their physical and behavioural differences are complementary. Roger’s gregarious charm softens Brian’s fastidious, scholarly manner. They laugh, a lot, in
