Month: September 2018

In the room next door to me, 12 Chinese dignitaries are eating cheese. I was supposed to be done an hour ago but they are late and slow. I’m happy to wait though. I’m not doing this for free.

I’m going to take them into the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. I’m going to tell them about the history of the space, fire up their interest in potential donations, and do a bit of Shakespeare for them. Me and 12 Chinese people. I’ll be alone on stage. I reckon I’ll do a short tasteful bit of Hamlet. Important for me to preserve dignity and do something clean. Hard though considering how much wine I’ve been offered. Thankfully I drove in. I’m getting better at this. The perfect excuse to go easy. “I don’t want to lose my license, mate.”

I went down to scout the space earlier and prevented a potential situation when J, who was at the box office, almost exploded with apoplexy at my existence. I’ve known him for all of two minutes but he strikes me as the sort of fellow who temples his fingers and starts sentences with “actually”. He brings down thunder and wrath to prevent this upstart crow from doing anything out of the ordinary in his domain. The next five minutes involves two security guards and the front of house manager with J visibly shaking with adrenaline. It’s in his voice. He instantly doesn’t like me because I’m not usual and I’m calm while he’s highly strung. I’m glad I met him before I tried to come down calm and charming with the richest people in China. He’s not a front facer. He’s the man you want hunched over a computer in a dark room enforcing rules.

---

When I do come down, he’s still there, stooped over his laptop in the café. I like to imagine he’s emailing whoever he considers to be important saying “down with this sort of thing.” I leave him to his misery and take them into the space.

Ten minutes of me joyfully channeling my own passion for this theatre into a description of all the circumstances that led to it finally opening in 2014. The indoor stage at The Globe. Based on plans found at Worcester College thought to have been by Inigo Jones but later attributed to a less glamorous technician and thus rededicated to Sam, who deserves the recognition anyway and wouldn’t have done it for himself. Great man. Vast legacy. Glad to share it with Chinese dignitaries. I get to be fabulous for a little while too. Maybe there’ll be some Chinese money making its way to The Globe now. I talked about how they ran out during construction. I made them see the names on the seats. “This building was essentially crowdfunded before crowdfunding was a thing, by these people. I like to read the names and thank the people. It was a huge undertaking, and as you can see a beautiful result.”

My dad asked me what I wanted for my 18th birthday. I said a paving stone at The Globe. He almost did it. But then they decided it would only encourage me to be an actor, and they were trying to dissuade me from this path the bloody fools.

What a lovely evening. And they gave me a bag as I was leaving. Containing a Swarovski Zirconium fountain pen… “Sorry it’s only a little thing.” It’s beautiful and I will use it.

I bid them farewell. Another lovely event. Let’s see what damage J can do. He’ll try. I can smell it. I wave to him familiarly as I leave. “Bye J.” Might as well kick the hornets nest.

…

That said I just edited his name out. Why excite the wrath of the petty? They can be persistent little beasts.

My right leg swings round weirdly when I walk. I’ve been aware of it for some time as it’s my job to be aware of things. The problem is the distance between being aware of things and knowing how to solve them.

School: “Do you know why I’ve got you to come in here this morning, Barclay?” “Yes, sir. It’s because I have a great deal of potential academically and yet I’m squandering it through a lack of focus.” “If you already know then why aren’t you doing anything about it?”

I don’t know how to stop my right leg swinging round like I’m some sort of posh zombie. I just know it’s a weird thing my leg does because I observe my body. But I’m worried how it might exacerbate over 600 miles. I get into a conversation with the 80 year old father of my dear friend on this subject. Don is extremely mobile for his age. He looks at me with the eyes of a zealot. He knows the solution. “Go to the crocodile. The crocodile will help you. The crocodile knows.”

A few years ago this friend’s boyfriend was playing Peter Pan at the RSC in Stratford. She missed him. They’re in love. Now they have a beautiful girl together. Back then, he hitched a lift into London from rehearsal one night. He knew his girlfriend was having dinner at mine. He missed her. He told me he was coming but he didn’t tell her. I snuck him onto my fire escape when he arrived. Then I interrupted a conversation with her about how she missed him by saying “Hang on. What’s that sound? Is there someone… a boy … at the kitchen window? Can you go and check?” Flying boys, surprises, romance. Peter Pan. We are all young somewhere. Joy.

The world works in mysterious ways, and shortly after that beautiful silly evening the actress playing Wendy got sick. My friend did a lot of work in Stratford back then. She got the call to go up and be Wendy instead, which was a pleasant surprise for her boyfriend and meant I definitely had to shell out for a train to Warwickshire to see the pair of them.

That was when I met the crocodile. I met him in Stratford. Hook’s nemesis. The inevitable approach of age and death embodied in a ticking ancient reptile that has to be played by an actor with a body. No puppets here. This is a movement crocodile.

Show me the actor that doesn’t have a day job and I’ll show you the actor with a trust fund. The crocodile had to do some really really weird physical stuff on stage. He was terrifying. Inhuman. Sinuous. Fast. Brilliant. He had to do it day after day, week after week, month after month. And he did and he did and he did. You can really hurt your body permanently if you don’t know what you’re doing over a long run. The crocodile understands this for himself and others. The crocodile is a chiropractor.

And here I am standing in front of him in my pants. I’m lunging. I’m kneeling. I’m touching my toes. And he’s watching. Betraying nothing. Hard assessing eyes. Tick tock tick tock. He knows things. He sees things. He writes then in his computer. Eventually I lie on my stomach at his behest. He causes me pain. Three broken ribs in my life. None of them treated with physiotherapy. Tick tock. And finally the crocodile is finished with me. He pronounces his diagnosis. It’s arcane. He knows words lost to science. It’s all about the small of my back though, apparently. I bring in detail I thought to be irrelevant, about all the ribs I’ve broken. “Didn’t they offer you physiotherapy?” he says, flashing understanding. No. But still… Then is then and now is now.

I pay for a ball to lie on, and I pay the crocodile very gladly. He takes £57 but leaves me both my hands. I exit his practice.

Captain Hook’s crocodile is the inevitable march of time. This ticking thing that takes us piece by piece. And now I start to feel that. Tick tock. I need to be wary. My body is my instrument. And yes it’s a weird body. I’m a weird instrument. But I need to make sure I can play it and fight the crocodile for as long as possible.

Alan from eBay is 74. “I don’t know what I was thinking getting a Fitbit.” he has written. “I ain’t gonna use it.” I Buy It Now on eBay for half price. Coincidentally he lives in Gillingham which is between Margate and London, so I might as well pick it up from him on the way home. Problem is, he won’t be home until half four. I’m on my own with the jag and it’s morning. Road trip? Road trip. Down the Kent coast…

The jag already has another new scar to add to its impressive collection of dinks and gashes. I have two great big zip up folders full of CDs. It didn’t occur to me until this morning that they look like laptops if you’re a fucking screwdriver wielding drunk idiot. He’d stuck his thing in the top of the driver’s door and had a good go at levering the door open. What the hell was he thinking? It didn’t work, unsurprisingly. But it did fuck up the door, so now the top corner’s bent back and there’s scratches and holes all over the inside. I’m hoping water won’t get in. I don’t particularly care about the bodywork. But it still made me angry. I hope … I hope he shits himself. That’s a possible curse.

I stop at Reculver Bay because I’ve heard of it. The remains of an Anglo Saxon church, now home to coach loads of old people and an eco friendly creperie. Still they take card and they have flat white, unlike the “Somali Farmshop.” The sign on it is a lion. It’s full of elderly white people talking about what was on TV last night. They have a few pumpkins for sale, and a carrot. Nobody is at the counter. Who knew that Somalia was so like Middle England. I do feel unusual and unwelcome there though, so perhaps it’s one of those clever non-literal immersive experiences.

I go down the coast to Herne Bay, hoping it’ll be pretty. It’s only when I get there that I realise I’ve been there before on the endless trip to Margate this Spring. I despite having two hours in the meter I immediately get back in the car and go down the coast to Whitstable. At least it’s unfamiliar. I keep occupied there for a couple of hours, walking around and successfully not buying oysters. Then Alan texts to tell me he is home early, so I get back in the car and off to Gillingham.

Alan lives on a suburban street in Gillingham. He is surrounded by active old geezers. There’s one washing his car when I arrive. “Are you Alan?” I ask. “Nah mate, he’s uglier than I am.”

The guy ain’t wrong, but when Alan asks “What do you want it for?” I tell him I’m on a pilgrimage. I tell him why I’m doing it. The potted version. Mum. Catholicism. Closure. Purgatory. I leave out lifestyle, fitness, novel research, habit breaking. “A catholic pilgrimage. That’s a good thing to do.” He says. “I’m in a similar world. I’m a Knight Templar.” I smile and nod. And back away slowly.

The Knight’s Templar. By legend they are the keepers of The Holy Grail. And here I am having stumbled into this nondescript community of healthy old men. And one of them has sold me his Fitbit. BECAUSE HE DOESN’T NEED IT ANYMORE. HE IS IMMORTAL! Can he be a true Knight Templar? Or is this like the internet where you just say shit and it’s true. “I’m pretty.” “I’m successful.” “I’m a Knight Templar.” “I’m popular.”

I shouldn’t publish this blog in case it’s true. Maybe they needed to move the Fitbit to put the enemies off the scent. Maybe I’ll be shadowed on my pilgrimage by some implacable homicidal ninja nun that only speaks in Latin and has traced me by the gps on my Fitbit… If she kills me with her ninja skills I’ll regret not buying 6 oysters for a tenner in Whitstable. It seemed too indulgent considering I was on my own…

Regular readers will know that I’ve got a car. Damn I love it. Which is just as well because despite the relatively small initial price, my insurance is punitive – they know I’m an actor. Plus it’s a jaguar.

“You don’t need a car in London” is the piece of received wisdom I hear most frequently. No. You don’t. But you need a car to impulsively get out of London at short notice. Or a motorbike. But I can play old nineties compact discs in a car. And carry loads of random shit.

Last time I came to Margate on a Sunday it took me 4 hours and it still cost me about £30. There was a rail replacement bus that wasn’t there and then eventually arrived brimming with racist children, to the extent that by the time I got to Margate I wanted to burn everyone and couldn’t because it was raining and I had no petrol.

This time I just jumped in the Jag. I listened to KLF and The Prodigy as I came out of London, which no matter what your music taste sounds like is better than the conversation on that Thanet bus. I stopped briefly in a service station to talk to a telephone man about money. Then I murdered the miles to Margate. There was sun on the beach. I ate roast lamb by the seaside in a little pub next to Dreamland. I once helped shoot a promo in the street outside where I was munching. As I ate I could see the exact spot where I had stood shivering at 3am holding a reflector and wishing I could be warm and happy. There’s something there about wishes and time. My wish came true. But it was slow. I took advantage of my comfort though, and filled my fat face with dead baby sheep.

And then we did that thing where you just sit around in one place because we can’t really walk far as a group and we don’t want to sit inside. Three or maybe four generations on the edge of the beach. I’ve intruded on a family gathering. I’ve been invited, but I see now it’s because I bring wild card. People who haven’t seen each other for ages sit and watch the child rub ice cream in his face. The child is 2. He likes ice cream. He isn’t a great shot yet though so most of it ended up on his face. The rest of it got covered in sand. That great swathe of sand down Margate sea front, surprisingly free of litter today, still edging into sunshine despite autumn bluster. There are still a few weeks left to us perhaps before the claws of winter descend and all the plumbers earn their whole year’s keep fixing our exploding boilers as we crank up the heating to 11. I go for a walk while I can, testing out my internet boots. It’s not long enough to judge. But for £34.99 what could possibly go wrong? All my toes are still attached. We are relaxing with a glass of wine. I’m thrilled it’s so easy to get out of town. And it’ll be no more than £30 petrol despite the hunger of the Jag, to be on this beach.

Maybe it was ten years ago. I was driving back from Glastonbury Festival. I didn’t keep this blog back then, so people couldn’t stalk me like they can now. (It’s all lies). This means the phone call was serendipity. Because I didn’t know what I’d be doing for the next month and didn’t hold much hope that I would be acting gainfully. My half brother rang me up out of the blue with a crazy plan.

My half brother… One of three. Now sadly one of two. I was taught to call them all brother, those guys. They were the big boys. Jamie, the oldest, my friend, the artist with the musical creative practical splintered brain. He was suddenly hit and eventually dismantled by Parkinson’s disease. Extremely young. I wish we understood the brain better. It seemed so unfair. He was blessed in that he had a loyal and diligent woman in his life, who loved him deeply. She sacrificed a lot but she brought him endless joy until the day she died, and protected him as things fell apart. I respect her hugely. I miss him hugely too. Then Jeremy, the youngest, an artist like me but with paint. He has so many children. It’s almost like children kept happening to him when he wasn’t paying attention. Some of them come and stay in my flat when they’re in London and they’re great. He is off in Thailand now, earning a necessary salary teaching art. I see a similarity in our eye for calling out people who are putting up fronts. We both cut through them. But I often wonder if the fact that I’ve avoided kids has been borne out of seeing how it damaged his artistic practice. His kids are adults now and brilliant humans. Life brings what it brings.

And then Rupert, the one that phoned me coming back from Glastonbury. He’s made an extraordinary life for himself through hard graft over years and a remarkable partnership with an extremely driven and glorious Peruvian woman. He understands numbers. And he also has brilliant grown up kids. Some months before Glastonbury he had sent me an invitation with sticky-out letters through the post. A significant birthday party. In Lima, Peru. I had long ago dismissed it. I could neither afford the flight nor the time. But then the phone rang and he’s on my hands-free on the way into rainy London.

He’s booked a trek into the Andes for a load of people. It’s a week. He’s booked mules so everyone’s walking without a pack. And he’s organised tents along the way, with cooked food. (Money).  But he’s got a spot for me. I don’t have to pay and he’ll cover my flight. Extremely generous. This is suddenly the most remarkable offer I’ve ever had. I’m driving towards a month of emails and frustration. It’s an easy “yes”.

We walked out to Choqueqirao. It was only a week walking. It was an amazing week though and the weather was perfect. Trekking. Without a pack because of the mules. Chewing coca leaves with baking powder. Seeing the Andes. Visiting a relatively untouched Inca town. Styling it up.

It was remarkable, and nothing to do with what I’m contemplating doing from France to Spain. I’ll have a big pack and I’ll sleep in shit. But one of the people I walked with back then got in touch with me today. Up until then she had been pretty much invisible to me on Facebook. Suddenly I messaged her and immediately got a load of backed up notifications about how she’d engaged with stuff I’d been posting. I hate hate hate how it filters my friends. I actively want everyone to be treated evenly. I’m way too changeable for the algorithm to work. But she messaged me and I remembered that week of walking. And even if it was easy as pie back then, I reckon I’m not that much more unfit. I’m gonna be fine so long as my teeth don’t go. It’s only a month…

I woke up on a sofa in Hampstead this morning. Second night running on that sofa and no I didn’t have a change of clothes packed. I had also managed to get food down the front of my shirt and I’d kicked over a pint of water in the night onto my trousers. As you may have gleaned had you read yesterday’s offering, I got … angry. Thankfully my friend there keeps a toothbrush for me and a pair of pyjamas. This is not her first rodeo.

So in the morning I’m standing waiting for a 24 bus, stinking in stained damp clothes, trying to remember lines I spoke years ago. They were there back then. I spoke them out with confidence at the 503. I played this character, said these lines, and people clapped and laughed and did all the audience things. It seems like a generation ago. The way I look at the script has changed in that time. Back then I was still involved in “How am I going to deliver this script clearly?” Now I’m also thinking about the message. “Why this piece now?” haunts me and annoyingly my only answer is “because they asked me.” It’s nice writing though and I’m happy with good friends. But they aren’t paying me. I’m not even getting travel. They’d better buy me some drinks. It’ll be the night before my birthday dammit.

We rehearsed at RADA. The Chenies Street building. The stairwell is decorated with RADA stills from the time that I was training across town at Guildhall. My audition intake lot. People I’ve done loads of random stuff with over the years, but all looking younger than I ever knew them. They’re all the way up the stairs. “Oh look there’s Fenella. Oh and there’s John.” I send him a photo. “Is that Aoife! How come there’s no Mel? And there’s that guy from that corporate. And that twat! And who’s she? I’ve done something. What did we do…? Did we kiss in an audition? Or not in an audition? Who knows…”

It’s nice to rehearse in that building, because it sweats acting now. Nondescript studios, black or white paint, usually a grotbag piano. Decades of people sampling humanity. Decades of high emotion either channeled or forced. Decades of detail either owned or obedient. Decades of moving for a reason or just wandering. The process of teaching acting. Refining talent. Understanding and activating weirdness. Telling stories without getting in the way. Helping people to get out of their own bloody way…

It’s good to see in retrospect how useful a good acting training can be in general life. Looking at things and people, keeping your body healthy, keeping your mind quick. (If you ignore the stubborn fuckers like me who refuse to retract their claws from the idea of this being a viable profession.) Some of the people in my year have gone on to great things, way outside of the realm of acting. Front facing front footed people changing the world for the better by noticing. Bringing new humans into it and helping them not be vile. And there’s some of the people in those photos who have done the same. So many good drama schools. So many people paying to service dreams. So many hard clear meetings with reality or time. Life just keeps happening. That lovely guy who was so kind and welcoming and funny – he’s dead. That asshole? He’s lovely. Others still fighting, others having downtime for kids. And time keeps ticking. ticking. ticking.

I stood in my stained shirt rehearsing scenes I did once but have long forgotten. I’m older. Weirder but not so weird. Balder but brilliantly “I remember you as being balder” from one of the actors. The lines fall out differently because we notice different things, care about different stuff. I’ve not had such a concrete example of how we change over time as this remount experience. My character is still a bit of an asshole. But at least he cares about something.

Our piece is one of many. Here’s the event link. Arcola Theatre in Dalston on a Sunday. It’ll be my birthday at midnight so, fuck it, you can come see me do a short play with old friends and then raise a glass to another year of madness afterwards. Although I’m not up for a big one because I wanna get the Monday in full technicolour and see as many people as I can…

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, flashing my wealth around.” “No no don’t be silly.” “Because I know that money is a problem for you. And your father won’t be around for too long. You’ve just split up with your boyfriend. You’re not getting any younger…” This is a conversation between my broke friend and her boss (pushing 80). The boss only recently lost his wife. My friend ended up briefly back in his big house the other night. Boss is in his seventies. She’s the same age as boss’s son.

“A lot of women get involved with people for money.” He ventures. “How much would it cost for you to ‘lie back and think of England’? ” he actually phrases it like that thinking on some level that it’s a wry joke.

Another fucking parasite preying on someone’s desire not to hurt someone. She’s thinking he’s just lost his wife so worries about his well being. He’s not thinking of anything or anyone but the little soft bit of flesh he probably calls “the sergeant,” which is so rarely engorged that it probably thinks it’s a holiday. She leaves it standing up, maybe for the last time, but now her day job is in jeopardy. And her job was created by this man. And she needs the work.

Again and again and again this happens. It’s societal. It trickles down. Right now there’s this compensating flaccid hypertense orange coward who likes wee wee on his face face, and he’s nominally in charge of the free world. I guess that sort of desperate middle aged catastrophic FUCK ME I HATE MYSELF shit is still going to be validated all over the place until they’re all dead, and it’s somehow overlooked, despite all the attempts to publicly call it out and show it for the colour it is. Power is power. We must be careful and know when we are exerting it. If we have it, great. Use it kindly. It’s not the seventies anymore.

I had a journalist call me up last December. He said he was a Nichiren Buddhist. Knew my ex. He wanted to know about Kevin Spacey and The Old Vic. He knew I was friends with people who had actively benefitted from or conversely been harmed by the unspoken culture there. He wanted to talk about sexual harassment in my industry. I suggested to him that the only reason why my industry was in the spotlight was because people who do my job habitually speak out. That’s our job. He disagreed. “No. It’s worse for you. The late hours. The drinking culture.” I said “Bullshit. This is across the board. You can’t make it about just our industry because we talk about it. You’re a journalist! You have late hours and drinking culture too! And this stuff is endemic. It’s about people, not lifestyle.” He was aggressive in response, and a bit humpy. “No, I think it’s worse in your industry.” he insisted, needy. Because that was his (fucked) angle. Well, good luck Kumar you idiot. I hope you subscribed nicely. Because it’s fucked across the board. Estate agents through lawyers through sales through recruitment through politics through etc etc

And yeah, perhaps this old bastard boss of my friend has followed the same flawed thinking pattern as the idiot journalist. I’ve heard it so many times. “She’s an actress. Wahey. Fair game.”

This stuff isn’t finished. It’s not. We don’t need to witch hunt it though. But surely we can get something into common parlance that helps people know when their advances aren’t welcome. Again and again my female friends tell me about how the guy didn’t take no for an answer. It needs to come from the men. Awareness  Stop being entirely driven by your dicks? Learn to listen. A penis is not a solution. Being close is not the same as being horny.

Hey ho. I had a gorgeous evening with friends. I met a beautiful woman who is happily married with two kids. We met in a pub in Mornington Crescent. I rarely fancy strangers but hell I fancied her. She was my age. Old raver. She liked the idea of setting me up with her illustrator friend. I didn’t give her my number. Probably should have. Welcome to my world. Had a nice walk down the canal. Got angry. Wrote blog. Day.

My friend bought a £200 pair of walking boots that don’t fit him. They’re size nine. My feet are bigger than that. I usually buy size ten. But I’m also a ridiculous optimist. So I’ve been walking around wearing them for the last hour or two hoping they’ll magically start fitting.

Because I’ll need good boots for this 600 mile walk I’m doing in less then a month. Eek.

My feet already hurt from these boots and there’s a blister developing on my ankle. I’ve walked no distance at all. My rational brain knows that there’s no way in hell I’m walking 15 to 20 miles a day for over a month wearing these. It would be insanity, I tell you! But the little bit of my brain that keeps me as an actor is squealing “Maybe they’ll magically change! Everything is going to be okay! Just stick it out. It’ll be fine.”

Sometimes I need to learn how to admit defeat.

I might have an old Halloween advert repeating, and if I do then I can certainly afford to buy a good pair that won’t make me feel like an ugly sister. That’s not set in stone either though. The ad agency were trying to weasel their way into giving me magic beans for the usage and now my agent has told them that they’re being naughty and she has insisted on me getting a proper usage fee. I reckon they’re going to see if it’ll be cheaper to edit me out. I’m strangely okay with that. Better to have no money in this case than to sell myself cheap, and continue to backslide the value of skill in this industry. I’ve been at this too long to let myself be undercut. Even on that shoot last year I noticed how nobody’s time was wasted on my account. Time is very actively money on set. You don’t fuck around with “What’s my motivation?”

---

I gave back the boots. It was worth a try but I’d probably have to cut my feet off halfway through the walk. I am allowing myself not to get too freaked out by the distance I’ve chosen to cover. But good boots – and quickly – are one of the few bits of preparation that I’m filing under indispensable.

And then my practical friend mucks in. “Bed bug spray,” she mentions immediately. “Those alberges will be full of them.” Ugh. I hadn’t even thought of that. Bed bugs. I was given a bed frame full of them once. I slept being eaten alive for about six months. Then I was woken from a deep sleep by Nathan asking for change for the parking meter. They were everywhere. I took some in a tupperware to the Natural History Museum, and my brother proudly said “That’s a good specimen of Cimex Lectularis.” It at least means that now I totally understand that the creatures are visible and actually quite large. I can look for them and find them. I won’t get that psychological crawling sensation at the idea of invisible beasties. I’ll look for them as I go and maybe sleep in a chemically treated sleeping bag it’s necessary. We can get hung up on that sort of thing though. And I suspect I’ll have bigger things to worry about. Like my knees exploding.

 

The tube is sweltering hot. It’s vile. And i royally fucked up. I’m supposed to be going to Balham. I got on the train at Moorgate and didn’t realise I had autopiloted north until I got to Highgate. It’s going to make me impressively late for the theatre. But if I had to be late for one thing today, that would be the thing. It’s been a rare day. I met – or at least put down a tape with the assistant of – a casting director I’ve wanted to get on the radar with. It’s for a hilarious bit of US telly. I dressed up super smart. Even a damn tie clip. Then I swam home in this hideous tube, washed, and put on a tracksuit and trainers to go back out for a workshop audition. The audition uniform. Super sharp suit or barefoot in tattered trainers and movement clothes with rips. An hour and a half being ridiculous with lovely people loosely framed in Shakespeare. A quick pint afterwards because that’s what the group was doing and they seemed like goodies. Then I ran off in completely the wrong direction to see my friend’s show. I’ve seen it before, which is just as well, because it started 1 minute ago in Streatham Hill and I’ve just hit Elephant and Castle. There’s no point even getting stressed about it. The tube only goes as fast as it goes. I lost a good half hour. I’ll just have to miss the start. Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak in late. If not I’ll just try to style it out in the bar afterwards. “Yeah that bit when you were oooh. It was, you know, wasn’t it?”

I think the best news of the day is that an old advert is going on the air again. I shot it about a year ago. The usage is always worth more than the fee. So there should be a chunk of money in time for November which will help make sense of my decision to try to walk for over a month in October.

Stockwell now. Still 4 stops to Balham and then 6 bus stops or an Uber. 8 minutes of the show already elapsed and it’s not a long show. I’m thinking of sacking it off… There’ll be other chances. And I’ve seen it before…

I’m gonna go stand by the door.

---

I didn’t make it. By any stretch of the imagination. I’ve seen the show before though. It’s wonderful, clear and sentimental in a way that makes you remember why sentiment done honestly can genuinely affect us. But by the time I got to the theatre there were ten minutes left. I’ve never been so late for a show. Thankfully I hadn’t booked. So I just sat in the bar and caught people on exit. And was honest. “I didn’t see it, but it’s nice to see you.” But i left early to get a bus home. I was highly aware of not getting there in time. And then CURVE BALL.

There I am responsibly seeking a night bus to save the pennies. But one of my closest friends from school messages me late. This is unusual. I haven’t heard from him for ages. He’s asking when we can see each other. “I’m always best at short notice,” I tell him non committaly. “Fifteen minutes?” He replies. Spot the manager. That is an efficiently called bluff. I’m not one to pass that up. I give him a place near mine. i get to it before him, barely, thanks to Uber. He’s a minute behind me. We commence a catch up.

God. These people that knew me deeply before I totally reinvented my surface out of perceived necessity. They know a version of me free from the constraints of the difference between my childhood and my adulthood. It’s good to know that even if I feel totally different, our relationship remains undamaged, our friendship the same. He’s made multiple children, fallen rightfully in love, seen things change within that, is reassessing. I’ve run around making things, observing people, reinventing myself, failing to value myself enough for a relationship. None of this matters. We will pick up where we left off.

A strange thing happened to me at boarding school, where within the first month all 750 pupils knew who I was but called me “Terry Fuckwit”.  I still sometimes encounter people who assume my name is Terry. The few people who pointedly chose to be my friends put up with attempted mockery for doing so. And now they’re all golden human beings.

My beautiful healthy practical friend, who chose not to join the crowd. His validation was so unexpected and effortlessly meant back then that, along with probably three other human beings, he helped teach the extremely messy teenage version of me that whatever I brought to the table was me and that person was loved and understood. It’s that sort of lesson that allows me to put these daily unedited missives to friends and strangers out into the world.

I’m hoping I’ll see a lot more of him going forward and I am almost certain that I will…

Caligula said “oderit dum metuat.” Or was it Accius? Or Seneca? I dunno. I wasn’t there, were you? “Let them hate, so long as they fear.”

Machiavelli developed this. “It is better to be feared than loved,” he posited, and developed this to “If you cannot have both, it is safer to be feared than loved” I’m trying to get the first version translated into Latin for a friend. The best I’ve got so far it “melium timeri quam amari”. I’m concerned about the use of timeri. Can it be used like that to denote being feared? Or is that “It is better to be frightened than to love”? Which would at least give ancient validation for my recent romantic endeavours. But might not be helpful for my friend who needs translation.

I’m also concerned about the sentiment now I think about it. It doesn’t make a very nice world, prioritising scariness over kindness. History knows that Caligula was a monster. But Machiavelli’s “The Prince” is still held up as a manual for leadership by some people. It’s deep and tricky and short. I agree with some of it and dislike some of it. “It’s not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.” Yep. But “Politics have no relation to morals.” “A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise,” and the whole concept of leadership to which he has given his name – “the end justifies the means”… well…

I’ve worked as a manager and I’ve been managed. I will not, do not and cannot respect an autocrat that has not in some way earned the unquestioning fealty they call for. I will gladly be a cog in a machine, and there are some autocratic directors I’ve worked for who I will gladly bend the knee to because they’re brilliant humans and they know what they’re doing. The end does justify the means and they aren’t doing it to cover their insecurity, they’re doing it to make a great thing for all of us. On a film set you just get on with it and it’s kind of comforting when someone just tells you what to do by megaphone because we haven’t got time to fuck around while everyone does what they should’ve been doing at home last week. But people like my incompetent South African manager at the Open Golf Tournament last year – I can’t respect someone who tries to rule by fear right off the bat and shows no compassion, no perspective and no competence. He had no idea what he was doing and hit it with bluster, and he belittled people half his age working twice as hard as he was for exponentially less money. So I went to war with him. Because he was making it horrible for everyone, but if I went front and centre he’d mostly confine himself to making it horrible for me and I’m an efficient sponge for bad energy. It’s often my job, to suck out poison. And he was a Portuguese man’o’war.

But these voices advocating autocracy are depressingly prevalent, and depressingly tempting. The call to be an Alpha. To give orders. To be the king of the castle. They scream out to people with holes in them. “Here’s a way I can protect myself from my secret terror of everything,” they say. And they grow into Trumps. Because it’s safer to hide your weakness and uncertainty than to wear it. So yes maybe it is safer to be feared than to be loved. But is it the job of a leader to be safe?

It would be lovely to see Theresa May look at a camera and say the truth “I honestly haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. I want the best out of this mess for myself and the country. But I can barely see past the positioning and infighting in my party. And it’s unbroken ground. And everyone is waiting for me to fail. How can we efficiently negotiate this when people would prefer to see me fail for their short term political ambitions? I know that privilege doesn’t equate to intelligence but these are the people I have and we need to action their entitlement and cunning to try and hammer out something half decent for the people we nominally represent. Wouldn’t it be nice if we worked as hard as we were paid?” But she can’t. Because you have to pretend to be “Strong and stable” as a leader or everyone jumps on your humanity as a sign of weakness.

I like that people ask me to translate things into Latin sometimes. This whole train of thought has significantly improved a day that would otherwise gone solely towards looking a bit sick in front of a camera in Soho for five minutes…