Month: November 2021

Waking up in Brighton today, I knew that I would need to be back in the centre of things this evening in order to catch “Choir of Man” at press night. It’s the show that’s reopening The Art’s Theatre West End after all the horrible fuckeration. “Six, The Musical” was there before everything went to shit. I caught that and adored it. Now, after all the mess we’ve had, I wanted to show up for the big night and be there while humans sang songs to us from that very special small stage.

First of all though, the important things. Lou hasn’t got a car, which means there’s a way in which I can make myself useful. We drove out to Chanctonbury Fell – the place where I communed with the pheasant spirit some time ago. We walked up slippery clay pathways, almost unrecognisable after heavy rainfall. The ancient ground was hardyielding many less familiar mushrooms. It’s the right time of year for mycology. I had plenty to consider.

Lou and I found time to spend in nature, even if I was on high alert much of the time, eyes scanning the pathways, curious and hopeful to pick up first and second clear sightings of excellent mushrooms. The time not spent doing that was spent joyfully being in nature with my sputnik. I felt calm, wild and flat when it was time to drive back up into town.

And what a show. It’s a tricky fucker to sell to those of us who care about theatre. 9 men in principal roles and another 4 on music. Self consciously celebrating the positive side of pub culture and the positive side of what one might call “the divine masculine”. It’s a very very male show, and they pull up women from the audience to serenade, which could be a horrible mess. It’s a knife edge. It’s huge fun. It’s tenderly done, and with terrific skill. It asks us to drop quite a lot.

Right now, we are so used to culturally exploring the fucked side of men. We are also trying hard as an industry to balance jobs. Not to mention the awareness that we all have that a deeply toxic and entirely man driven culture somehow got sewn into our industry over generations – and every other industry in the world. The arts is flushing it. Other industries are slower, but they will.

Knowing that, and watching thirteen men celebrate masculinity…? I found myself relieved, somehow. Happy that there’s a new and young artistic dialog that lets the pub male be more than just the sweating and inarticulate woman-fearing racist that we all know so well.

Also this is a show that helps us remember the value of our public houses. With a government that wants us all to stop congregating and just get us medicating at home so we are ever ever closer to just being batteries, we need alternative noise in the mainstream.

Is there room in the cultural space for something that celebrates men like this and only employs them? Hmm. I’ve got my 50:50 badge on my altar and to my own detriment I’ve campaigned for years for a better balance of gender in my industry. I know that there’s still work to be done. But this show isn’t undoing any work – to my mind as I write. To me it feels a moment to celebrate the good things about men. Sure, then we can all get back to being angry about the men who have finally been rumbled for being disgraceful in positions of power. We can get back – and we must – to being regretful and forward thinking about the generations of utter fuckwombles who never got held up at all for treating humans like shit – to making sure that stuff NEVER happens again. But meanwhile, let’s watch some dudes singing.

I loved it. I cannot be in conflict with myself about that. I just loved it. Stet. Musically beautiful humans. An unexpected show with an unexpected perspective, and they aren’t doing politics so it seems wrong for me to do politics in response. Noise. Light. Joy.. Go see it if you like fun. Go see it double if you like men. There’s no axe to grind in this piece outside of the very obvious one about employment numbers. I know the administration at The Arts well enough to be able to tell you right now that they are already taking every step to balance that gender gap, and they are very conscious about having made such a programming choice.

Go see it. That’s my recommendation. I had a wonderful evening. I just wish I didn’t have to get up at fuck o’clock to go talk about The National Grid again.

Plumstead. That’s where I had to work today. “A hilly suburb known for its sprawling green spaces.” I didn’t see any green spaces. I saw a screen and a load of faces.

I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to be in Plumstead before. I’ll be there pretty much every day this week. A room full of young people heard me telling them about The National Grid. Maybe one or two of them will go on to have careers as a result of the huge project they are undertaking across London in the next few years. They are going to be a massive employer with hundreds of thousands of jobs attached to building a network of vast cable tunnels stretching under 20 miles of London. Distributing power underground. Better than pylons. It’s an important part of the future. The better the infrastructure allowing us to move the power around is, the better use and yield we will be able to get from our solar farms and our wind farms etc. Efficiency cuts costs so it can get funding. It also cuts waste. The market is always going to drive these things unfortunately, but at least the side effect is positive. Cheaper and easier fuel distribution, and loads of jobs. The money won’t manifest in cheaper energy bills unless the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come goes into overdrive this year. The money WILL manifest in lots of well paid and respectable safe jobs for lots of young people who honestly don’t know what they want to do. And as I try to point out, it’s not just engineers they need. I’m an actor and for this week I’m gainfully employed because of these tunnels. If they look for opportunity they have the possibility of it coming easier to them than it might have. It’s about targeted seeking, as often as not. I was lucky. This little spot of work just filtered down to me because of availability issues with others, and because of things I put in place before the pandemic and had more or less forgotten about. It’s extremely welcome, filling a gap perfectly between the end of ghost tours and the start of Carol.

I didn’t really get to stop in Plumstead today. I figured since I’m not back working there until Wednesday I’d shoot down to Brighton and see Lou as soon as I was done. We can hang out tomorrow. She’s been mass producing pretty little prom dresses all day while I was wittering on about Net-zero. I’m tempted to try one on but I suspect I’ll rip it.

I have to take my opportunities to see her when I can these days – it’s getting rarer that I’m not brainflooded with something unfamiliar, and she’s constantly got tons of stuff to do. Now I’ve jumped the hurdles of the last few days I’ve remembered how schizophrenic my existence was before somebody hit the off switch. I loved it back then. I’m enjoying it now, but I’m thinking perhaps I could’ve found ways to allow myself a bit more downtime within all the “yes” somewhere. My back is hurting, not in the damage way. It’s just tired. It’s not used to the variance. To the heavy lifting, the long standing, the running around. I had a proper moment of sprint yesterday stopping a van at some lights (don’t ask). I’m still feeling it now, but I told you all I was unfit a few weeks ago. It’s slowly changing. I just have to keep up the random activities.

For now though warm bed, soft sheets, and another human. Mmmmm

A full day. It seems the world really is waking up.

Off to do the Globe talk in the morning. Such a beautiful morning to be in that powerful building, and I gave my little talk in the river room looking out over the expanse of the Thames shining in the morning sun. I’ve had some wonderful memories from that building and this morning was fun. My head was disorganised and I was rusty, but I could feel the old mechanisms clicking back into place after so long shut in a box.

Still, finishing carried a sense of relief as if a burden had been lifted. 45 minutes is a long time to be talking. The client seemed happy and I accepted a short morning prosecco before rushing across town to Hampstead. Manual labour. The flat is a lot closer to empty now. It’s still not empty. But it’s getting there. And this afternoon, with the help of Jan, Emma and two helpful young men with a Luton Van from Gumtree, we took a great deal of stuff down all the stairs and out. There might be another day of work in this, but I can safely say that the things that matter to my friend have probably been extracted by now and stored in a garage in Camden. It’s not the best solution, but under the circumstances I think I can be happy with my day of work today. Sunday. Day of rest? Ha. I’m pooped.

I’m in bed now having very much enjoyed my personal fireworks display – the one that they lay on for me every year in Battersea Park directly across from my flat. It’s right across the river, framed beautifully in my bedroom window. I get the best view in London, for free. I stood there, body and mind drained from an unfamiliar full throttle Sunday. I let all the clever explosions work their simple magic and I let myself feel tired at last. I hate how they affect pets, but there’s something wonderful about a firework display. Those huge sprays of artifice and colour across the night sky. Just what I needed to wind down. I let the fire do the work.

Now I’m in bed with plenty of time before midnight. Alarm is set bright and early so I can swot up before I drive to fecking Plumstead and do a PowerPoint presentation that somebody sent me last week. It’s switching back on. It really is. If it carries on like this I’ll be fit again in no time.

Zzzzz

It’s quarter to one. I finished my last ghost tour some time ago, and drove home sober. There’s the end of a lovely little thing, and the beginning of some interesting creative partnerships..

I got home because I wanted an early bed, but I’m my own worst enemy in that regard. I decided I was hungry and then I needed to digest and probably it could have all waited until breakfast time. Then I got into bed, put the light out and just as I was about to abandon myself to sweet sweet temporary oblivion I woke up with the word “blog” on my lips. I do this to myself. Who knows why, but I do. Mostly it’s helpful, but sometimes I wonder if it might not be more helpful to have the extra time asleep.

Still. I actually don’t start work all that early tomorrow. 11am at The Globe and I’m gonna drive in so it’ll only be half an hour getting there. I’ll need to be up before that as I’m gonna want to talk to myself one more time to make sure that the things I’m saying are reasonably coherent and that I can find my way through the journey of it. “Actor and historian.” That’s how I’ll be characterising myself. My old history teachers would have their jowls wobbling at the very idea, but I’m transferring knowledge of the past that I’ve internalised and looked at from multiple angles, so I guess that’s it really. Corporate entertainer? Jobbing actor that hasn’t learnt to say no? All these things.

I think it’ll be fun. It’d be more fun if it wasn’t in the morning after a final night.

As soon as I’m done I’m off to do things in the Hampstead flat. Then next week I start a whole load more unfamiliar things. It’s just looming at the moment. Piles of things. My headspace budget is tight tight tight. I guess if I use this as a dump it’ll help the process. Because otherwise, like now, I’ll just find myself getting angry with myself for being too stubborn to miss a day no matter how tired I might be.

The wonderful thing is that I have this bedroom with comfy sheets and good paint and not much junk. Even if the rest of the flat is carnage at least I have this oasis. I can rest and dream here. And both of those options are high on my list right now, frankly. Next week I’ll find time somehow to get to Brighton, but for now it’s good to be under this roof in the good ship. The road is rushing by below me as ever, but the heating is on and the money from the ghost tours came in today so generally I’m in a pretty decent headspace. I just need to remember to write this earlier in the day more often, instead of leaving it until just as I’m drifting off to sleep. Brian once, years ago, said I could always get away with just writing the word “blog” repeatedly one day. This is about as close as I can happily let myself get. Bed.

The fifth of November. A Friday. Guy Fawkes Night. I’m getting an early bed.

They were papists, you know. Fawkes and his lot. Catholics. This festival used to carry huge anti-catholic sentiment. People would often burn the Pope in effigy. “We see no reason that gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!” “Damn those Catholics.” It’s only a few years later that we were pulling down theatres. It’s hard to imagine such a rift between Catholic and Protestant in modern England. But that conflict shaped a lot of geopolitics.

Guy was arrested underneath parliament, as he guarded barrels of gunpowder set there to blow up the state opening of parliament at the House of Lords and kill the protestant king James the first thus paving the way to a return to Catholic monarchy. They had 36 barrels in there. It would’ve blown the Lords to smithereens and changed the course of history had there not been an anonymous tip off. Busted.

Hundreds of years later Fawkes has become something of a symbol of conscious rebellion now. Originating perhaps with Alan Moore’s dense graphic novel “V for Vendetta,” it’s rare to go to a protest these days without seeing one of those guy masks. His face has become part of the language of postmodern anarchy. Of the plotters, he was lucky in death. He broke his neck immediately in the scaffold and was not drawn by horses and shown his own severed genitals. Perhaps he was as given a quick death as a mercy for dobbing his friends in.

We still burn him in effigy on this night, mostly thoughtlessly – just as an excuse to drink mulled wine and come together in the darkness. It’s the closest we get to those heady days of public executions. A man on a fire. Cheers and warmth and toffee apples.

With the weekend starting tomorrow, the bulk of the official fireworks displays start on the sixth. But this is the day we are exhorted to remember so I’m remembering it.

Remember remember,
The Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot;
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

It’s a good time for fires. We are trying to get used to the dark but we still remember the light. On Sunday there’ll be a fireworks display in Battersea Park and I’ll have a ringside seat in my bedroom. Tonight the blinds are already closed although I can hear the banging of a few fireworks as I write. All the little temporary shops are likely doing a roaring trade in expensive things for people to burn.

Maybe there’s something of a protest in bonfire night now. Growing up I saw my fair share of Thatcher guys. I remember a cheer when her mask melted. I’m sure there’ll be some Boris guys scattered around the country with very flammable hair. At least the bonfire is a way of getting nameless frustrations out. Actual protest is starting to be more firmly legislated against, which is worrying. It’s a response to people pushing the edges, of course. But the edges need to be pushed for society to stay healthy. We aren’t at the stage yet where we can be hanged for burning a Boris. I might try and go to the bonfire in the park on Sunday… Although honestly the view is much better from my room.

Hamlet at the Young Vic. A friend of mine bought tickets for this show in June 2019. She has since moved out of London down to St Leonards, and only now are the ticket purchases being honoured. She couldn’t come up to watch it, so I took them off her. Then I couldn’t find a plus one for tonight. I went on my own to the box office. I built my whole day towards it. In the daytime I was swotting up on The National Grid and organising a long presentation for Sunday morning. I booked some packing boxes for Hampstead and two men with a van for two hours on Sunday afternoon. I was a flurry of activity in the morning, and even found time for lunch with a good friend. Then onto the tube, grabbed another old friend for a drink and said hello to Hex who is staying with her, and finally over to the theatre in time to sort out tickets.

Box Office was bemused at first before I found the reference number. I think it’s still in preview at the moment and they were doing a community performance for what felt like it might have been local youth. The theatre was buzzing but I was bringing the average age up considerably.

Turns out the tickets are for next Thursday, not tonight. Bugger.

Still, it gives me time to find a plus one. What a relief… Lou considered coming up from Brighton to watch it and it would’ve sucked if she’d wasted her journey. I’d have felt much more of an idiot if anybody but me had wasted their time this evening.

Returning to the tube station, I ran into a friend on his birthday and we both remembered how it used to be – you couldn’t walk through Waterloo or Soho in the beforetimes without running into another actor. Maybe there are shivers of that coming back at last.

I’m home now, and the show will still be on. It’s three hours long. I was steeled for a marathon this evening but it seems I just get to roll around at home, have a cup of chamomile and read.

So, I’ve got a plus one ticket for Cush Jumbo’s Hamlet at The Young Vic for NEXT THURSDAY. It’s definitely next Thursday this time. I’d like company and I don’t think it’s one that should be wasted.

I’ve got history with Hamlet – as who doesn’t? I’ve been the king a few times over the years. The most recent occasion was in a fort in Dubrovnik, and the woman who passed the ticket to me played The Dane. It’s an amazing play though – quite rightly considered one of his best. The joy with good writing is that it falls out differently when processed through different actors. I’m looking forward to seeing something as involved as a Shakespearean tragedy after so long without theatre. I expect it’ll be well cooked by now with such a huge delay between start of rehearsal and showtime. Next week. For now, good night.

When I was a child I was frequently on airplanes, either as an unaccompanied minor or with the parents, off to wherever dad had found himself. Holidays, half terms, even sometimes just a long weekend off boarding school – an exeat. If we flew with our parents, my brother and I would get a treat from WH Smith at the airport. A translated comic book from one of the revolving racks. Asterix or Tintin. We flew frequently enough that we built up a decent sized collection of these books that were a phenomenon in the seventies that carried through most of the eighties. We still have many of them. Too good to chuck.

In adulthood, the appeal of the Tintin books has waned, frankly. Too earnest, perhaps? Very much only for children – or maybe that’s just my conclusion as they were my childish favourites. If I’m waiting for something and there’s one to hand I might pass my eyes over it for nostalgic purposes. But there’s nothing much to hold onto. Not so the Asterix books. They are much more joyful, dense with puns and allusions and arty jokes. They reward picking up again from time to time.

A famous example of the teamwork between Rene Goscinny the writer and Albert Uderzo the artist is a frame in Asterix the Legionary where the pirates are wrecked and Uderzo, just for the sake of it, has drawn them in a reference to a famous French painting from 1810 – The Raft of the Medusa, by Géricault. Goscinny has the captain exclaim “Je suis meduse” – (I am dumbfounded).

It’s a reference that you’ll never pick up as a kid, and probably not many of us as an adult. The frame works whether or not you know the painting though. If you get the reference you have a moment of smile. If you don’t get the reference you don’t lose much. And the text is full of these little Easter eggs and allusions, just as it is rife with puns. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get them. It’s gently clever, rather than oppressively so.

The thing is though that this witty Goscinny was writing all his puns and allusions in French. How do you bring them over in an English translation.

Enter Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge. I know these names without having to look them up. They helped me understand fully the difference between a good translation and a creative and brilliant translation. Puns do not cross language barriers. Using a medusa sounding word in the example above cannot happen in English. Anthea and Derek translated all the Asterix books, and as they did it they made big creative choices to change the text, sometimes quite radically, in order to keep the spirit of the French. New puns, new phonemes, new rhythms and cultural references. It’s a masterclass, and the pair of them should be awarded for bravery and humour. Goscinny was witty. They match his wit and make it work in translation. That’s extremely hard to do without jarring. For the example above the Captain says “We’ve been framed, by Jericho.” It works in the context. It makes the smile for the person who has recognised the painting , and it even has the artist’s name embedded there – Jericho/Géricault. Elsewhere they change character names that don’t work – the dog Idefix becomes Dogmatix, and sometimes they completely shift the sense of minor frames in order to find an apposite gag. They take what could be thought of as liberties, but make the translated books deep and timeless in so doing.

Goscinny wrote another very large series that was never on the shelves in English. Lucky Luke. In airports in France and Germany and Switzerland we would see these tempting Lucky Luke books, but never in English. Once, in desperation, we got “Le Pied-Tendre” in hardback for a long flight. The Tenderfoot. Max and I painstakingly translated it ourselves, frame by frame. We even started sticking in speech bubbles in English before we realised that we knew what it said anyway. That experience probably contributed to my good grasp of French. But as a child it always perplexed me… “Why have they never translated Lucky Luke?” There were rumours in my friendship group that some existed in translation somewhere, but I never got hold of one until I was maybe 16 and 20 year old Max showed up with two. Glowworm had tried with a limited run. But it never took off. Something to do with the fact that he has a gun and a cigarette in his mouth in every single frame. He was considered, even back then, to be a dangerous role model for British children. There were a few notably untranslated Tintin books back then as well – the ones that were identified as backward even that long ago.

A few days ago, waiting for Lou at the dentist, I found myself thinking about Lucky Luke for reasons I absolutely cannot recall. I searched the internet to see if any were available. Turns out they ALL are now. Cinebook have taken them on. I ordered a big run of the early ones at a fiver each and they arrived today. I was curious, and childhood me was triumphant.

I’m three books in and I miss Anthea and Derek. In these versions, the medusa panel would have just been translated as “I’m dumbfounded”.

It’s interesting reading them as a connection with the child me, but it makes me want to go over the originals in French and think about them and rework the gags to echo the genius that Anthea and Derek brought to Asterix.

Without a translator able to channel Goscinny’s wit they become just slightly dated Wild West comic book stories for children. Sure he was young with these – they started a decade before Asterix in 1947. But I can’t help thinking something is missing. For anyone who has ever loved a book in translation, let’s take a moment to honour the mostly unsung scribe who kept the spirit and meaning well enough to make you love it.

I’ll leave this huge geekfest with a panel from book 3 – Dalton City, illustrating my point. I have no idea what the exchange was in the original French but I bet it was a chaos of puns and wordplay. I suspect its been literally translated by the workaday scribe they pulled in for it. If so, missed opportunity. I’ll probably read one or two more before bed – see if they improve. Maybe I’ll dig up our old copy of The Tenderfoot and compare…

Christmas. That’s suddenly the focus. I haven’t even finished the Halloween madness. And suddenly I’m having to think about Christmas…

I’m yo-yoing between London and Brighton at the moment. Things are getting busier and I’m having to spend a bit more applied time preparing for presentations and the like. I woke up in Brighton knowing I had a zoom interview for BBC Radio Jersey at 11.30. Bergman the XTrail was the best option for an office. I ended up sitting parked up on Marine Parade being enthusiastic into my overheating phone for about half an hour. It felt like we got the salient points across, and hopefully it’ll help sell the remaining tickets so we get to have a busy and crowded Christmas show again. I mentioned my grandpa by name. Good to tease up my connection with the island.

Once the interview was done we had a read through. I hadn’t processed that fully in advance so it rather took me by surprise. My mobile is on its last legs and it was hot in my car. For a short while I sat on a sunny bench with Lou as we read. Then we had a break and for some reason I decided to start to drive back home, even though the journey is 2 hours and the break we had was only about 45 minutes. Oops.

I ended up doing the bulk of the read-through in a lay-by off the A23 with dicky reception and juggernauts pounding past every minute or so. The magic of zoom… I switched my picture off to preserve battery and to stop my phone from overheating. But bandwidth was still terrible. I’d like to say that nobody noticed, but honestly – I’m glad it was a read-through of a familiar project, with friends.

Funny to be screwing on my Christmas head on such a hot November day. The sun in the morning was stunning by the seaside. But walking around Hampstead and also in Stanmer last week it is noticeable how abundant the berries are on the holly and the yew. A heavy yield of berries speaks of a cold winter to come. Nature clearly knows something we don’t. Or its just been thrown completely out of whack. We shall see.

I’m back in London with all the things that need doing next to all the distracting things. Which will win??

Once I arrived here this afternoon, post read-through, I rationalised to myself that the days work was done so did remarkably little. I mostly read my book. Then I had the traditional bath and now it’s my bedtime ritual but somehow time slipped away and I just looked at a clock and it’s 2am. My body clock is all over the place. I’m gonna put my head down.

It’s only nine in the evening but somehow it feels much later. Partly it’s the hour change I’m sure, but mostly it’s the fact that I’ve done very little today. A soupçon of admin. A spot of wandering around. A long queue. Posted a letter. An email or two. Some coffee…

Monday is always the official actor’s weekend – with the advantage that the post office is open – queue or no queue.

Frankly most of my focus today has been on Lou, who got bashed around by the dentist at lunchtime. She was in there so long I ended up waiting just outside the dentist for a bit too long considering it’s finally getting colder. I walked around the outside of a church a couple of times, surprised by the fact it seemed so firmly closed. Then I just stood on the pavement and ordered a few books online, and rang some friends.

Up in Glasgow meanwhile lots of people are trying to find ways to help stop us making the atmosphere of our planet hostile to us. If I’d been able to get into the church I might have sent some positive energy their way. Let’s see what comes. It’s these possible huge scale operational changes that will make a difference. Sure we can all be asked to only boil as much water as we need. We can get the vegan option or not have that hot bath. But if anything is going to seriously improve it’ll be on an industrial level – not just putting the price of consumer gas up. And petrol?! Watch those fuckers not drop it even though they’ve got the supply chain fixed.

All my social media channels have devolved to the point that I’m getting fed up of logging on at all. It’s mostly because very little is familiar right now. The platforms all seem to be serving up fundamentalism to try to get hits. Your mate who says you shouldn’t recycle because a climate activist went on an airplane. That guy who says that some vegans wear leather shoes so let’s all bite the heads off chickens. Someone who finds a Caduceus and doesn’t get the evolution of symbols so concludes that doctors are Satanists. I’m sure my friends aren’t all frothing at the mouth, but it feels like they are. The algorithm. “Promoting engagement”. I might get them because I sometimes draft a long considered reply in the comments and then delete it knowing from bitter past experience that there’s no arguing with stupid. But the platform still knows I wrote the draft.

The advertising model has taken all the joy from these social platforms. They were fun when they were for users instead of for profit. But that was just the phase when they suckered us in. I suspect that Zuckerberg announcing his saccharine and terrifying “meta” thing is going to be a step that historians mark on the crumbling and eventual total decline of our interest in and our newly formed addiction to this “social media” thing. I hope so. If that’s the future of it, it has to die. It has had its time. We’ve seen it get totally coreupted. Now it’s just a mess of hate and sales. Let it go.

It rose. Zuck with his slapped cheeks sits on his pile of money now still perhaps thinking he has started something wonderful because it made HIM LOOK AT HIM HIM WE HAVE MADE HIM MEGA RICH. We will all start suddenly clearing our heads, seeing this for what it is, and wandering down to the beach leaving our phone at home, wondering what all the fuss was about. I almost used the phrase “wake up” but there’s another phrase that has changed its meaning in the information wars. What does it even mean anymore? “Woke”.

The beach isn’t particularly appealing right now despite my sudden anti social meedja stance. I’m in bed writing this digital blog thing into my phone. Earlier today I was browsing Amazon. I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter in the last hour. I’m just so so bored of them. But … I’m still servicing the addiction. “The first step: we admitted we were powerless.” The drugs don’t work anymore. Good to spot it. It’ll take more than individuals noticing quite how manipulative social platforms are for there to be a shift away from this form of interaction, particularly in the hangover of the pandemic panic phase. But we aren’t as dumb as Zucchini seems to think we are. I hope. When it’s not quite so cold we can go to the beach. In great numbers. And throw litter everywhere like a bunch of bastards.

I’ll feel better tomorrow.

We will wake to Samhain. The beginning of the dark half of the year. We will start to huddle together in little groups and burn fires in the dark to ward off whatever might be out there on the edge of the forest. How better to have seen it in than with my peculiar new colleagues, with a large group of oddly dressed strangers, and with friends old and new.

Like a psychotic behatted Pied Piper, I swept a motley group of witches and weirdos up into the darkness of the heath for Halloween night. It’s the edge of something as close to ancient woodland as you get in London. Screech owls and foxes. Tree roots and doggers. Actors dressed in fabulous costumes they made themselves, hiding in the bushes, about to haunt you with a sad tale, or try to rob you blind, or assault you or spook you. At the head you’ve got me in my wild mood hurling energy and noise at your face. Lou was up from Brighton with two mutual friends and then I had two of my North London local friends surprise me. Really lovely to have some familiar faces.

The Heath was settled in Neolithic times – a good view down to the plains below, plenty of springs. Drinking and hunting. Bad soil though – it’s too sandy. Agriculture not so good. You’re never going to have decent crops. It’s probably why nobody ever bought it. 2% of London’s green space. Enough of it that you can get reasonably quickly to places far enough from the roads that you might forget the fact you are in a metropolis.

As I walked through the dark paths with my strange crowd walking behind me I found myself thinking what an appropriate way it was to see this night in. Trailing through the urban woodland with alcoholic ghouls in tow. Hellboy and skeleton woman. Alice, Mad Hatter and Edward the very excitable dog, a witch and a wizard, John and Emma, Victorian gentlemen, women in hats, lots of people just in their Sunday whatever, and the inevitable joyless bespectacled literal minded prat in a waistcoat with no sense of playfulness, coming right up close to me to mutter his barbed little comments. Maybe it was a Halloween act – pretending to be somebody with no soul. More likely he was just a joyless prick but apart from them remembering him as I write and memorialising his heavy joylessness, he didn’t affect me at the time other than to briefly wonder what was wrong with him. I even complimented him on his silk waistcoat but all he managed was a monosyllabic noise. Didn’t like attention going back on him. Just wanted to undercut others. I hope he finds love.

Now I’m in Brighton. The car was ready at the final pub and we all bundled in and struck off more or less as soon as the walk was over. It’s a long drive and late already, especially with the hour changing. Sunday roads though. We more or less teleported to Brighton.

I’m gonna sleep well though as after leading the group it was my right foot orchestrating the teleportation.

Only one more tour, but I’m glad of it as I wouldn’t have wanted to have had to rush off on the last show. I like the guys who I’m doing this with. Good that I get to see it off with one more night with them. And a meal beforehand.