Month: October 2022

No Panda today but non stop despite the lack of timechunk. Tomorrow much the same, then back into Panda.

I took Mel in to Brook Street thinking it was going to be easy, but all the roads were closed and it was a nightmare. We made it, just. By that time I was too late to go to Canada Water so we did the meeting over the phone while I was waiting for some tablecloths and branding boards and trestle tables to be dropped off at The Natural History Museum by Red Bull. I chose to use Max’s work to have things delivered as I couldn’t with any degree of certainty predict where I would end up at any point today. Not the best idea as Max only checks his phone once a month.

With the car loaded up I went home and grabbed some fly head masks, a carriage cape, my stovepipe and another top hat. I was already late. I rushed into Kirkaldy Testing Centre. We threw around some ideas for photos for a show taking place in the first week of November. I only had an hour. Tommo works fast. We got some goodies. I left precipitately to go to Hampstead. Lots of driving, a touch of photographic modeling, nothing that hasn’t been my primary earner at some point in the years I’ve called myself an actor. Then a pub. Walking.

I ordered chicken at The Freemasons, just as I didn’t want a repeat of the explosive wine situation from a few days ago. It turns out I’m not as young as I used to be. If I’m gonna be burning the candle at both ends I need to be taking care of myself within that, rather than eating nothing but a Pret salmon sandwich and then drinking all the red wine. I actually have to start slowing down. Taking care of myself. Oh how I would have laughed a decade ago when I was working out what the boundaries of my endurance were.

I did walkies. Still have some bits to straighten out. I’m trying not to cover ground I’ve covered before, but last year I carefully pulled out all the stories I was curious about, so this year has been harder on the research and repackaging. Still, the route is different and, I think, very good. I’m happy with it. We finished and we now traditionally share a baked camembert at the King William IV – a lovely way to end the tour.

Now I’m home, and Bergman is full of stuff that has to get to Paddington at crack of dawn tomorrow morning.

While I was running around I confirmed my flight times to Montevideo in November. I’ll be off for two weeks, and then hopefully back for Christmas Carol. Oh hell. Oh life.

Early start. Not such an early bed. But it’ll do. Night all.

“Dude, you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome with Barbara Cartland.”

For eight hours a day I live in a window. I am surrounded by colourful ridiculous brilliant things and among them are blown up book covers from that record breakingly prolific author. Her books are scattered about hither and yon, and when you discover me I’m reading one. It’s my opener. Connection in a book to genuine human connection.

I’ve finished one book already just from reading it through the gauze in my Panda head as I wait for people to come. It’s hard to see but I’ve got time. It was “A Touch of Love,” where Tamara melts the stony heart of the Duke by first finding the love in her own heart. It turned the pages. Tamara with her oval face and her long “Hungarian” ginger hair, The magnificent but cruel Duke with his stallion. It’s kind of Jane Eyre without the literature. There’s a bit of magic thrown in. All the loose ends get tied up neatly in a little bow and onto the next book.

She’s dictated her oeuvre, each book after a period of meticulous research. Well over 200 of them. You can see she knows a great deal of detail about how a big country house can be run. She’s very involved in how guests are supposed to be welcomed so she can highlight the shortfalls in her fictional Duke. She’s a champion of the Romany people, she believes there are magic healers out there, and apart from kissing eventually it is all very clean in her pages. No unnecessary raciness thank you very much.

There’s a book she put out when she was famous called “I seek the miraculous,” which is diary snippets from times when she has encountered something slightly magical or ghostly or otherworldly. It is filled with little epigrams and moral snippets, fragments of happy doggerel and observations that could be characterised as innocent or trite depending on your predilections. I like it very much. You couldn’t publish it if you weren’t famous. It reads as if she never lost the glow in her eyes, with her bouffy hair and dripping with jewellery and floofy dogs, living out of some stately home and channeling a romantic book every few days. “I ask myself, and then the book arrives, fully formed. All I have to do is speak it.’

It’s good clean wholesome drivel. It teaches insidious things about how important money is, and it enshrines bad old class systems. I could take her apart much more easily than I can build her up. But she’s worthy of respect, giving an escape to so many, being so prolific and actually having a good heart under all the pearls. Good old Babs.

I’ll probably read another one next week, and see the formula. I’d sooner read this crap than Fifty Shades crap though. I might not choose these books, but I’m locked in with them. Just as her heroines do, I’m solving it with love instead of hate. Generally it’s the best way. Power to the Cartland.

“So, this blog, you write it every day?”

“Yeah. Yeah I do.”

“Ok. Every day no matter what?”

“Yeah, no matter what. I used to set a minimum of 500 words but WordPress introduced blocks and so now I just write until I think there’s enough.”

“Until there’s enough?”

“Well, yeah. I mean sometimes I’ll just stop because I’m tired, and other times I’ll stop because I think I’ve completed whatever thought I was trying to convey.”

“So you’re trying to convey thoughts?*

“No not really. I’m just… I dunno. I’m just writing life. Whatever is there…”

“Ok… So you write everything?”

“Well, yeah. No. Yeah. No yeah ok so no… No I don’t write everything.”

“Aha. So this is interesting now. You keep things back? So you’re trying to craft some sort of a version of yourself?”

“Not so much, no. It’s not a curation exercise. Much of it is to do with friends of mine with boundaries. I’m very respectful of those boundaries. To the extent that I’ll often ignore very deep interactions in order to preserve the privacy of those I love.”

“I see. Ok. So that’s why you aren’t writing about how you shat yourself this evening?”

“I’m sorry?”

“On your way home tonight. Are you preserving somebody else’s privacy by not writing about how you basically shat yourself between Sloane Square and home?”

“That’s an exaggeration. I had it under control. Yes I shat. But my trousers were not involved. I got away with it.”

“Barely. By sheer coincidence your car was parked between Sloane Square and your flat. You got off the tube, got to your car and immediately shat into the gutter by your car with the door open.”

“Exactly. Into the gutter! And I had a big box of excellent tissues on my passenger seat and it was totally fine and as soon as I got home I ran a hot bath. You seem to be very much wrapped up in this whole surprise poo incident.”

“Are you surprised? Listen to yourself. Lovely Lou, and all this filming and collaborating with artists and off to Uruguay soon with your flat in Chelsea. You overprivileged wanker. I’m happy you shat yourself.”

“I didn’t shit myself. You’re making it worse than it is. I contained it all very well. I just had an emergency movement by my car, and took advantage of the fact I’ve got a bunch of free tissue boxes.”

“You’ll never write about it though will you? Too busy curating this ideal version of yourself.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m trying to make a place where I can be flawed. I got caught short and I was lucky. My car was between the station and my home, and I had a free pack of Kleenex giant tissues literally on the passenger seat. First time since Camino that I’ve not made it to a formal place. Bergman provided the necessary infrastructure. It all happened. That’s the way of it. Done.”

“Done?”

“Yeah. Done.”

“Ok. So now you’re out of the bath. You’re clean. You feel great. Tom is in York, you have your own bed. And it’s blogtime.”

“Totally. And I’m going to write about all the art I did and the amazing chats I had as Panda.”

“No. You’re not. You’re gonna write about how you basically improvised an outhouse from a car door. You’re going to tell these idiots who think you’re a glamorous actor that you emergency shat on the street in Chelsea.”

“No, dammit. Nobody will ever know. They can never know. I’m shiny and sexy. That’s me. Shiny Sexy Al. Sparkly Alec. Alec Sparkly. I’m better than real. I can’t let my adoring public know I’m flawed! Watch me work it. I’m perfect. *Hyperventilation*

“It’s too late, mate. I’ve written this whole exchange. And you’re knackered. It’s almost 2am. Bedtime. This is the blog, like it or lump it.”

“So everybody will know?”

“No. Only the people who read this.”

“That could be anyone!”

“It’s your fault if you refuse to read the stats. Who knows how much harm you’re doing, bumfungus streetpoo-man “

“That’s bullying!”

“That’s life. Just be glad there’s no picture, asshole.”

A quiet night. A Friday night. But I’m just not able to do the party right now. There’s a fortieth, full of friends. An earlier version of me would be there and would still be dancing 4 hours before I was due to start work. That version would have appeared and put on a head and stank through a day in the window. This one is already in bed, bright and early, and will be fast asleep very soon.

Today brought more joy in the form of citybound individuals lacking genuine connection and finding some humanity through their chat with Panda. I’m not confined to Panda, but currently he is the wisest of the masks as they find themselves when I wear them, so I prefer to stick with him. Panda can be peaceful and thoughtful. Brown Bear just gets overexcited and angry and Blue Bear is clearly on something and largely incomprehensible. Panda is looking for love and talks in sentences. I might experiment with Bunny before long – he seems to think he’s important and is also capable of sentences. But he’s very easily distracted. Still, I’m there for ages. Gotta mix it up.

I think there’s a joy in being rounded but flawed. Panda has been given some great advice about how to overcome his anxiety around how every time he tries to make love the BBC come along with live cameras. He has these gimlet eyes that make him very easy to open up to. But there’s more to this installation than therapy. I might have to be distracted posh bunny tomorrow, or Amy has found my favourite mask from last time : Sexy Kitty. Sexy Kitty is cruel. I suspect that conversation will get dark fast.

It’s like an extended mask workshop but without some arsehole who has already decided what the mask does based on other people who have used it. I’m finding variance in these huge things, and the array of frock coats purloined from the Opera House are definitely helping define the characters I’m finding in them. There’s great joy in this work. If only the damn heads weren’t so HOT. “I’ve overstayed my welcome,” one guest said, and it brought it home to me that I still haven’t worked out how to end the experience. After a while, my face is cooking like a broiling cabbage, but I’m trying to encourage my guest to happily leave my room and go far enough away that I can get out after them and decapitate myself and pant like a dog until my temperature is normal again. A tiring room would be lovely. With refreshments and massages and a comfy chaiselongue.

I’ll be going all weekend. It’s a living. It’s a joy. It’s delightful. It’s exhausting.

I now live in a window.

Me, some curtain trousers and a regency frock coat that I brought along this morning because I thought it might be a good match. Barbara Cartland, love, spirituality. Whatever random stuff is in your head. Beefed up by the endless random stuff-mine in mine.

Lou came by which was beautiful and strange. I had just been given a young volunteer to steward people in and out. We didn’t really get time to connect. It can be pretty much a full time job, being the windowtherapypanda. Still, I was delighted to see her – a rarity in London.

Today I met Jim Bob, and we talked about age, about love and about expectations. I met Paulina and we talked about making art and the balance of surrendering control versus keeping it. I’m aware I’m on that knife edge, where Amy trusts me to be her Panda and keep things true to her vision, but she lets me riff. My conversations went everywhere people wanted them to. I even had some curious connections made by Daniel who was angry on my behalf that the Panda community was being blamed for the pandemic because of similar sounding words. “I know,” I complained. “And it doesn’t help that I’m from China. But people make connections, they want things to make sense and the internet amplifies their pattern matching. Panda, pandemic: it’s a coincidence. But you can’t tell that to the devotees.” Lovely. Another person really wanted to talk about Rat Kings and what they might be capable of. Interstellar travel? Time dilation? Psychic communication of course. I enjoy the rat king Mythos, and I suspect that the person talking about them was surprised that I could hold my own on such an obscure topic. This is no ordinary Panda. This is geekpanda.

This will be two weeks of my life. I would be very glad to talk to you – slots are bookable online and right now it’s fucked as two people who don’t know each other can book the same slot. That happened three times today. I’m ok if you don’t book slots as there’s nowhere to hide and if it’s back to back it’s fucking miserable after a while as I discovered this evening. The head just gets hot hot hot and after a while your brain is too cooked to be courteous and engaged. In an ideal world, I would have a little place to retire to. But I reckon I can just organise it so the volunteers don’t overlap traffic…

A window in Mayfair. An artist. A collaboration.

Amy is fucking cool. She wants me to be talking to humans with a mascot head on. All she needs of me is to be in the little room she has made and to ask good questions of my visitors. I only had one proper punter today, a young Portuguese lady who opened up her life to Panda. She was the perfect person to start with because she honestly didn’t mind sharing everything. She came ready to share. I don’t know what’s in the press release, but I’m having to think about how to make sure my guests leave the room safe if they share big. It feels like it’s Panda-therapy, and even if many of my friends have gone and trained in various therapies, I didn’t and I’m not the vicar I might have been. I’m a strange man with a Panda head. But it turns out that, right now, with the whole world exploding, strangePanda-human is the guy you need. It reminds me of reading tarot for strangers. It seems communing with Panda inhabits a similar place. We are stuck. We need something out of the ordinary. Enter the Panda.

I’m gonna be sitting in a Mayfair window, variously applying hunour and empathy. I’m gonna be trying to make things lovely for my visitors.

Already it’s been joyful for me. Brian’s office is next door, and various denizens have successfully caught me between shifts. It’s free, so if you’re in Bond Street and need cheering up, book. It’s free.

We are starved of unusual joy, and we are starved of free things that have any weight. This is definitely unusual, and I think there’s weight, just in the chance we have to properly talk to strangers. My mask gives me freedom to say anything, but I’m still not certain of the best way to start and end the interaction. I can take it from my guest, but if it gets crowded I’ll need a timer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring in my fifteen minute sand timer… I got it for another project, but it’s good… Just the sand is black. For his project it needs to be bright.

Much to do. Lots of fun to be had. Inflatable dogs and fluffy cats and weird things aplenty, and it looks like this’ll be two weeks of weird but total delight. Maybe I’ll see some of you there. The rest, I’ll just be that Panda in your dreams.

I really ought to get better at sending invoices. I’m owed quite a lot of money now and yet if I were a cartoon character, moths would fly out of my wallet when I open it.

I drove back from Chinley today and stopped just in time to play “yacht guy” for a friend over zoom. “I’m assuming this is gratis,” I said to him, off the cuff. This is for friends who make things. They’ve been instrumental to good times for me financially. They recently overpaid me for nothing so I’m happy to give a bit back. Quid pro quo. It’s gratis and that is ok considering it took me all of twenty minutes and I could do it whilst sitting in Bergman. But I’m aware of what I might be able to a charge for an hour of my time had I followed the parental advice. And I genuinely think that my expertise in my field matches all these twots in different sectors who insist they’ve retired now and they’re consultants. Plus I’m not on fire from my own arsehole, and the stuff I have to say is not just my own ego massage.

Meh

We tested the route. Hampstead Ghost fun. Making sure I don’t lose people. Real ghosts vying with made up ghosts. Once more it is going to be a lovely evening. Once more I’m not sure how it will all fit together. I have to make a coherent experience for them based on what everybody else is offering, and I have to give them time…

I’m enjoying being a bit too busy. I’m starting something tomorrow which will burn my days into madness. All of this might shift if the right job goes ping, but I just told my agent I’m going to Uruguay on the 10th November and she understood. I’ve got involved with an international event that is sustainable and gender balanced and forward thinking in so many ways. You’d have to be mad to ignore that opportunity. If it was just a race it would be a waste of my life. It’s not. It’s an attempt at culture shift. And I’m right behind it.

Charlotte gave me her bed, and she’s on the sofa. I’m thrilled about it. It’s really comfy. I get it too – I like to give people my bed so I have the run of the flat.

I’m writing to you from this comfy peaceful bed. I have chamomile tea and I’m warm from a hot shower. She’s washed my clothes and she just asked me if I want a hot water bottle. The answer is always yes. She washed my clothes because, as you are all very much aware, I’m an idiot. I grabbed a change of clothes and a washbag and left it on my sofa. You would think, considering my lifestyle and the infrequency with which I sleep in my own bed that I would be able to autopilot that sort of thing. Not so. It isn’t helped by my complete lack of neurosis and thus the fact that I’m okay in the same socks as yesterday. I wasn’t too bothered when I realised, but Charlotte offered to wash them for me. Now I’ll get nice clean socks and pants tomorrow. An excellent result all round.

I’m here to deliver a painting. I’m here for a catch-up. Charlotte is my cousin outlaw. She has caught on through diligent observation of my daily words that I frequently drive things all over the place for financial remuneration, and that I do it in a big car. It’s an alignment of her needs and my habits and availability.

Dawson’s Auction House is out in Maidenhead. That’s where I had to pick it up. It’s a big painting. I went there armed with bubble wrap. Just as I was approaching I recognised the road I was on. It’s just round the corner from Taplow Court, the UK headquarters of the Sgi – the Nichiren Buddhists. I pulled off the main road thinking I would have a little chant to set me up for the day. They’ve got this beautiful country house, with horse mushrooms in the lawns at this time of year. But the whole place is STILL closed for Covid. No chanting for me, so I did it in my car through the gate.

Then I grabbed the picture, covered it in bubble wrap, and wound my way up here to the peaks. It’s now leaning against the stairwell, still wrapped for protection. Mission accomplished.

This evening we walked up Eccles Pike, just as the sun was setting. A few dogwalkers, but mostly just owls and sheep. The half moon was bright, catching the falling sun and remembering it for us, occasionally mobbed by clouds. We leapt over fences and charged through sheepshit. Various ungulates scrutinised us as we covered the ground. The farmer has a pit where he gathers his horseshit and lets the locals take it away for free as manure.

The air is better up here. I’m happy to be out of London even if just for a night. Good to catch up with Charlotte and now I’m gonna sleep like a log, snuggled up with my hot water bottle and the peace and quiet up here.

Up in the morning and out into Gipsy Hill. It’s way out. You might as well be living in Kurgistan, but to soften the blow they have filled it with craft beer and independent coffee shops, as if it’s ok to live in foreverland as long as the hipsters still have a place to congregate. Still, I asked for a Flat White and I got the thing I wanted. I tend to get a latte from hipster places these days as they appear to believe that a Flat White is a double Cortado. I’m fussy about my coffee.

Mel woke up and we joined a day of tasty consumption. We went to The Magdala for Sunday lunch. The Magdala is at the bottom of Parliament Hill, where Mel lived and I house sat over lockdown. It was a perfect and beautiful place to be. I’m still sad at the short sighted landlady. We had a good meal though, ahead of me introducing her to the walk humans. I’m committed to a Hampstead spooky walk, but I need swing. I can’t be certain I won’t be busy being generally sought after in TV / Film. Lots of the things I’ve been putting in place have started to yield. Despite my love of being under the radar, there’s stuff in the pipeline which could lead to stuff that could lead to stuff that might be the stuffthingness. Even if it isn’t, I’m willing to throw work at a friend and see them getting on well with other friends. Mel would be just as weird as I am at the front of our peculiar walk. She’s shorter than me but no less odd. We solve things in a similar manner. Having her as an option massively puts my mind at rest. Who knows what’s in the pipeline. If the big gig lands though, I gotta be free.

I’m home now, just for a flash, sleeping on the sofa. No time to send invoices and I’m getting to the stage that I have to be organised about that stuff.

Today though was just rest and fun and a bit of walk planning. Excellent roast lamb at the Magdala.

Brilliant company. A walk through the dark. Even in these early stages, when we are plotting the route and walking as friends, it is clear that we are just loving the whole process of making it and walking it. If you want to come, you must. We are already three quarters sold. Haunted Hampstead. Peculiar London. You know you want to. X

The days are getting colder. I don’t like it. I woke up in Brighton and I’ll be sleeping in Gipsy Hill. Today was mostly about the train strike. A slow wake-up and then a long drive that really ought not to have been anything like as long. I wanted to get to Mornington Crescent for 3pm to see Scene and Heard. I had helped one of the child playwrights to make their piece. I wanted to see it borne out and I was very happy to see how well they dealt with it – the playwright is 14 now – this is towards the end of her programme – and she was so much better dressed than me. I showed up on a hoodie covered in cat fur, and my grandfather’s flannel trousers. She was in an excellent suit, looking very natty. From our conversations it is likely to have been from her grandma, much like my flannel trousers. We spoke about death a fair amount. Her grandma sounded like a formidable woman. She is a formidable woman in her own right now. Wonderful to see she joined the program at 8.

I didn’t get there for the 3pm start though. The roads from London to Brighton were awash with rage and traffic. Coming to think of it, staying in Gipsy Hill this evening was a stupid idea because tomorrow is the London Marathon and it whole city will be even more shut to traffic. I won’t be able to get home. Nevertheless there’s a bed here for me and I’m already in it. And I’m tired. I got my friend home and just didn’t want to do driving anymore. So … I’m here. I had a battered sausage and chips. I’m knackered.

But yeah, I arrived at Scene and Heard about halfway through the show. I was lucky as my playwright’s piece was right at the end so I got to see it, but missed out on some of the earlier ones that I would love to have seen. It was all written in response to The Wellcome Collection. It was a lovely hour of theatre I have no doubt.

We wrestled the heating on. I threw a load of linen onto a bed. I’m going to sleep like a log I hope. Dreams have been busy recently – Lou and I simultaneously woke up from dreams of travel last night. The dreamscape is getting active. Things are afoot in dreamland…

I’m so sleepy I’m making little rational sense. Dream positive my friends. X