Month: August 2023

I love it here at Birch, but I’m feeling totally screwed over regarding bedrooms. “Don’t worry, it’s just cos it is opening weekend. Next week will be better.” That’s what we got last week and so we all sat happy and hopefully in our hot small noisy basement rooms. We sucked it up.

Believe it or not it is hard work being responsive in a panda head. Harder and more skilled than you would believe. I know it isn’t one of the things we are encouraged to attribute status and value to. Like being an estate agent or a lawyer or Rishi. But…

I am sure those mardy hens bitching about us last week didn’t help our credit here even though it was literally just one shit greedy group with a unified voice. I’m trying to establish why we have been relegated to the basement rooms. There’s no way all the good rooms are booked this time, but … we’ve ended up in steerage again. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by all the US tours I’ve been on where they give the actor a suite because “we know how tiring it is doing what you do!”. I don’t expect a suite, but I’m absolutely convinced they can do better for us than they are doing, room-wise. They’re brilliant in all other aspects. I’ve done decades of jobs in hotels. Maybe all the rooms at Birch Selsdon are just a bit shit. It’s possible. I hadn’t considered it until I wrote it… I’ve been in a stinky but better room here, but… perhaps it was the only good room. Maybe my first stay where I thought the room was a bit shit and stank of cigarettes and I shrugged and wrote nothing as I figured they were new and getting it together… maybe in retrospect that was the best option available. “What do you want, sir? Stinky room or noisy tiny room? Ahhh stinky. Well, here’s the honeymoon suite, complete with comforting tobacco odour and a boiler all night.”

I don’t feel like we are being looked after. I love the artist, but as her performer I feel like the venue is fucking us over and it is not right. We’ve been sidelined. I could legitimately kick off about this. I love the frontline staff here, but someone in the room allocation arena needs to show the fuck up as they are making it clear they think we are a sideshow. I’m pretty much certain these are the worst available rooms. If they aren’t there’s some medieval torture going on.

Why are we here? We are making art. We are putting another language into the mix. Why is our work and accommodation relegated to the cheapest possible? Because some fuck in the room booking arena thinks that art is unnecessary, and art people don’t need to be valued.

My little room is in the basement again. It’s not a bunk room but it might as well be. Ava tells me she’s down here too. Here we are together in this hole even though we were told it wouldn’t be so bad this time. This feels like sketchy management. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, guys.

I am still happy to do this because I love Amy and value doing silly shit with her. The venue, Birch… I loved it initially. I can take or leave it now, and that’s a shame, but… I have an insight into the value system at play here and I don’t like it. Why would you not look after your artists? There are big bad terrible giants in the sky.

Above us is some sort of constant boiler noise putting out low level rumbling all night. There’s something else going on here in this room too where I get these agile little cracks and pops, semi random and unpredictable, never ending, just above me. Oh and a mosquito! Literally in my ear as I write. Ha. So there’s standing water nearby too. Fun.

Upstairs surely there are tons of better rooms lying empty where I would already be asleep rather than jumping paragraph to paragraph and editing a blog that has – yes I totally admit it – been written out of a frustrated sort of anger. When the receptionist handed me my Lower Ground room card I was literally actually speechless. I rarely link back, but that’s why I’ve linked this blog to Bitch. Places like this are maybe curating their hits. The Headland Hotel in Cornwall, where I’ve been an actor many times (in gorgeous suites) – they have historically responded quickly when I’ve linked them in. I don’t do it lightly. But, in terms of production with this strong and fun art product, I’m “the talent”. And I rarely want to be a dick about it, but I’ve got good friends who aren’t as well known as me who would still be kicking off at being put into a noisy cupboard room. It is egregious of Birch to put me here when I’m working this hard for them.

So: Hi, social media human. I’m working hard for you. I know that what I’m doing looks ridiculous from the outside. Fancy a swap? From the inside it is claustrophobic hot hard responsive work. I’m working hard and I’m good at it and it is bright and positive work. Last week those greedy hen idiots wanted free stuff and decided to speak negatively about us to anyone who would listen which was worse for us than it was for you. But that was just a friendship group wanting free things. I really hope that their negative crap is not the reason we are once more confined to steerage…

I’ll be working 9 hour shifts straight through for the next three days, while everyone else is having a weekend. Man I would love a room with a bath and without a boiler above my head. My neck hurts at the end of the day from the weight of the panda head. I also usually have a headache from looking through the gauze. I’m the face of this installation and you have put me in a cupboard and I will have to try and be high energy and positive knowing that you haven’t prioritised my welfare?

Anyway, first world problems. And maybe they’ve sold out again and everybody just doesn’t drink and that’s why it feels pretty empty here.

The installation was fun tonight, that’s a joyful thing. I’ve managed to rewrite the business on the till receipt thanks to YouTube. I feel like that’s progress.

We had happy people and a good level of play. I’ve made Panda a bit more authoritative, as I think that bullies latched on to his weak voice last week and instinctively attacked him. People are so basic. I am being much more direct and authoritarian and it allows me to make people have fun when they might have otherwise been weirded out. I’m always safe, cos even if Panda sounds weak it is me inside the head and I will fight you until I can no longer stand. But it is easier to bring the joy if Panda is bossy. Very interesting to unravel all of this panda stuff. I never considered that at the ripe old age of 21 I would be digging into the nuance of how to get random people to best respond to mascot heads.

I haven’t unpacked my stuff from my bag in this cupboard of a room. I’m kinda hoping that someone will say “Hey, Al, we are moving you to a better room.” Hope springs eternal. We all want our hard work to be recognised.

The beds are comfy. The rooms are clean. I didn’t bring ear plugs as I believed it when I was told better rooms would happen. Can’t go shopping unless I get up early. Don’t want to get up early before a 9 hour shift. Ugh.

But in the end it’s lovely work in a lovely place and the staff are universally glorious people. I’m sure they sleep down here too, often, with this endless brute noise. If you have to, you will. Some people are sleeping on the streets tonight. Who am I to hope that my work will be valued?

Written in haste in a tiny noisy room. Forgive typos.

*delinked in the morning. slept beautifully in this bed and in the end it’s a free room to crash in*

Home for a night. Birch is a little more peaceful after the opening weekend. We are experimenting with keeping the curtains open but with no Panda. Panda can’t keep an eye on security anyway. All he can do is bait people. That genuinely seems to be the game we have here. Next week I think I’m gonna experiment with completely switching out my desire to please. Up until now I’ve been informing people that things aren’t for sale very quickly. I think there might be some mileage in letting them really set their hearts on something but then absolutely refusing to let them have it. Likely it’ll be making work for myself. But I like that kind of work.

I got home to find that Frank has sorted loads of my shit out. He’s living rent free because I want him to have the freedom, and he has responded by adding value and doing shit that I’ve never done. There’s a lot in which the ball is now in my court regarding my clutter. I need to do a trip to the dump. Or two. It has started to feel possible.

I’m bedding in. There’s a mattress on my living room floor. Sam was getting rid of it and I knew it would be useful once I got my shit together. It’s a good one and I’m glad if it. I’ll sleep well. Just one night at home. Back to Birch next week.

I’ve just had a great chat with Frank, and before that a great evening with Emma. Varied friends help build perspective. I’m absolutely thrilled that, in this time where I knew I would barely be at home, I’ve found someone respectful who needs a home. My flat is safe while I’m away annoying women of a certain age who seem to want to tell me that I’m not a Panda. Why have all the aggressors been women about ten years older than me? Maybe just coincidence. Hopefully next week I’ll get beaten up by some guy in his twenties. Panda-Fight. If we film it well it’ll go viral.

I stayed an extra night here at Birch. Just to be sure. We are seeing what happens if we open up the installation a bit without someone to threaten potential thieves with a chainsaw. It is open and unmanned.

The day was glorious. All the hens are gone – (see blogs passim) What a remarkable proof they were of groupthink. Not one of them tried perspective or kindness. They couldn’t have a carrot so went evil. I pity the groom.

With them gone, it’s nicer. Sure I still had one strange interaction: “Why can’t everything be like it was when I was a child? I hate modern life. I hate young people. Everybody has to think like me.” Those weren’t her exact words, but a very good summary. Then: “Why don’t you take that head off?” “Heads aren’t detachable, are they?’ “You’re a man in a panda head. You aren’t a real panda.” “Why would you tell me what I am?” “Oh well in a world where there are 600 genders you can call yourself whatever you like…” This is another old bitter lady. Maybe friends with the troll. This one seemed angry and sad. Very quick to roll things into her own agenda. I had no compassion for her in the moment as she seemed unnecessarily angry, but I wanted to try and help lance the boil. I’ll gladly take some pus in my face if it helps someone stop being a cunt. Sadly we were interrupted by someone quite rightly upset about the tone she was taking with me. But that was just a moment. And as I hold, art is nothing if it doesn’t provoke a reaction. The papers write about the unpleasant things first. So, it seems recently, do I.

I invited Brian to come hang. I don’t have any skin about who signs up to be a member here, but if I was Brian I would sign up immediately as he lives ten minutes from this place. There’s a shared work room, a gym, an incredible heated outdoor pool. There’s a huge ancient house, two restaurants to satisfy your courgette, fennel and chamomile desires. There are bars serving interesting cocktails. And… there’s so much land. Old land, but land that has been strangled until lately. Big wide open land and an amazing pool. In CROYDON! Remember, folks, it’s the New Jersey of London. Nobody in Croydon is supposed to give a fuck about anything other than themselves and the latest episode of the celebrated show: “Oh FUCK and one of these arseholes is going to have to be famous now?”

Bri and I hung out and caught up under the evening moon in the incredibly beautiful grounds. It was brilliant. I love that man. We’ve covered a huge amount of ground. I’m happy we had the chance to hang out here.

Life.

I’m happy. I have good friends even though we are busy. I haven’t seen that cunt for months properly. What a treat. I’m happy I stayed at Birch. I hope nobody trashes the installation.

A peaceful day compared to yesterday. Might be worth scrolling back over that one as I took my time with it and it’ll provide context. But today was back to a lovely day at Birch. I finished at 4. This will be more swiftly written and therefore likely ruder. I’m tired.

Lou was here so we grabbed a Sunday roast. She had to order it, as I was in the installation and just came out to inhale tasty lamb. I *think* I ran into the troll from yesterday. It’s hard to tell as I really couldn’t see them yesterday with the head on. “What did the troll look like?” I asked Ava. “She looked like so many bitter people.”

There was a woman in the lunch queue. Either she was someone random going through complicated emotions, or she was the troll. She either pantomimed an act of reading my “Joybomb” shirt or she is only capable of reading at primary school level and had to move her head along the words. Then she looked up at my actual non Panda face, made an expression like a cat refusing to eat butter, pointedly turned her back on me and blundered slowly away. Either it was shame (optimal), an attempt at contempt (likely) or someone having a stroke in front of me (unlikely). I didn’t hear her voice but she fit the brief of my expectation.

In other contexts I might have felt sad for the thing I saw. Of course it was hungover, but it looked old and bust, lank hair and body crabbed into a bitter forward bend, worn in the face, not cruel, more disappointed. I don’t think it was that much older than I am in the end, maybe just a decade, but there’s been too many expectations broken. If it was my gran I’d be trying to persuade it to come out and have fun for a change. Maybe yesterday that was it having fun. Fun for it… For … for her. Just as I’m having fun reflecting what it/she did to me. It dehumanised me cos it wanted a carrot. So I’ll dehumanise it.

Nobody wakes up in the morning and says “DEAR DIARY, TODAY I’M GOING TO BE A TOTAL ARSEHOLE IN AN ART INSTALLATION!” She didn’t seem like the type that is capable of examining past actions and redirecting energy in this lifetime. There’s no depth to this human being, none. First human incarnation. Well done, I should say. Maybe last time she was a very good pig. Maybe she needed to have watched all that telly she’s basically spent the years consuming in order to learn “human” for future incarnations. In a few thousand years she’ll likely be literate.

It is very much worth me noting towards myself that after the relative restraint I showed yesterday I still feel the need to express that she is an actual real life troll that lives under a bridge. My energy is stuck with hers. I’m enjoying piling into her, but I need to move on now or I’m just as stuck. I’m currently enjoying spending quite a lot of creative energy and verbal ingenuity telling you that shit stinks. I’m literally going to do some woowoo stuff once I’m done writing to sever the last tendrils of connection to her and her ilk.

My tenacity in entrolling her is because of the dissonance she brought, you see.

SIMPLY: It’s an installation about nothing more than JOY. It’s not trying to be clever or political. It’s a delight, if you look at the heart of it and why it was made. You need to be extra specially douchey to decide that Joybomb is the place you are going to draw your battle lines and start being horrible. But she and the other people in her group, having decided they would just be negative energy radiators, were stalking about all day today as well, slow dripping their pompous distaste whenever they needed a wee. (They had to walk past us to eructate their hair of the dog prosecco). Hungover, yes. Guilty? Maybe some of them felt it. Whatever the reason, they all turned their entire bodies away whenever they passed, like kids in the playground shunning us cos we got sent to Coventry.

In the installation today I just… played with all the lovely bullshit they had brought me. The narrative in there will inevitably develop as the responses do. Panda is now very protective of his inflatable veg. With full artist permission I found myself telling someone today: “If you try to take my carrots I will cut your fucking arms off.” It led to a few minutes of absolutely delightful play where he played at trying to steal my carrot while I chased him with a chainsaw until Lou happened to come in wondering what was happening and we both used it as an excuse to stop running around. But it was a fun moment for all in the installation and given to us by trollface. In quiet times I took pretend phone calls from her, and she was still trying to extort carrots from me. It amused me to bring her into the narrative as a joke.

Joy. Bomb. Where’s the joy? In you, or not in you. It’s always only in you if its anywhere. You either prioritise it or you don’t. Every day you can choose to say yes or no to joy. Just say yes. Fuck it. It’s never too late to stop being that hen party. Even for the thoughtless entitled members of that hen party, there is hope. I’d dream that one of them might find this, but if they do they won’t have read this far.

I’ve had a bloody marvelous time here. That’s the thing to remember. We went to the lido and I hit a sunset hammock and I’m on the COSTA DEL CROYDON and somehow I’ve just spent my precious blog about some reincarnated piggy.

Four hours ago I was here:

I should probably explain what this thing is that I’m doing. I’m up in Croydon where an artist – Amy – has built an installation. I’m populating it. So I’m part of the art.

Amy and I have developed a strong working relationship through her work and her approach to it. We have both processed a deal of sadness and pain and we have both reacted to it by wanting to spread random stupid joy.

This particular installation is a silly shop full of colourful ridiculous things, run by a Panda who wants to charge people to play with his stuff but is then going to insist they put everything back where they found it. Play don’t pay. People come in, mess around with things, talk with Panda, leave empty-handed. No money changes hands even though Panda is acquisitive. It’s a shop where you can’t buy anything. It’s pointless unless you are playful.

“I think the art is about how people deal with finding out they can’t buy anything,” Amy says to me at one point today. We are both trying to work out what just happened, and break it down a bit, because into this joyful world – temporarily – has come a touch of genuine nastiness.

I’m the Panda. I don’t have to be nice to people. I’m usually going to err on the side of kindness but I’m quick witted and won’t take any negativity. But my nuance is very off-whack as I can’t see a fucking thing so I can’t see faces or body language. I can’t always tell if people are being mardy with me by their tone, and I’m not really expecting people to be mardy in a silly free art installation anyway. Why would they? But … much as I try to deny the truth of this, it is undeniable that there are joy vampires out there. Nasty petty mean spirited joysucking meanies.

As Panda I’m there all day. 11 to 8. It’s a long shift.

It started with an avalanche of kids, running rings and pulling everything off the shelves. One if them broke the tortoise. We just about kept on top of it and it was finally beginning to ease when I was asked “Can I buy the broccoli?” I told her it was £4000 but I would accept a little dance as payment but then she had to leave it in the shop and see if it followed her home. “No, no I want to actually buy the broccoli from you.” This is an inflatable broccoli balloon thing she wants. She starts telling me about how her child is scared of insects and saw a dragonfly here which means he can never come here again. Child vs Nature. But the nature averse child is sick and thus deserves an inflatable broccoli balloon type thing. I tell her she can’t have it cos it’s mine. She gets rude and leaves telling me that this is stupid. “What’s the point of a shop where you can’t buy anything? I don’t get the concept”. A bit spiky, frankly, and leaves a bad taste. I’ve seen no play out of her so I’m not inclined to smooth things though. Other people pick up on it in the shop. One dad tells me his child wants some sweeties. Maybe there’s something wrong with my concept? She’s left us a little shitnugget. “Maybe there’s something wrong with you,” I don’t say. We put up a sign. “No more than 1 child”. That’ll solve the crêche problem.

“Don’t touch the broccoli,” I then take to announcing to everybody, threatening them with a toy chainsaw. I’m trying to turn poison into medicine here. Bear in mind that the vast majority of people coming in, adults and children, are getting it, enjoying it, playing in it and responding well to it. But broccoli lady is likely being vocal in the bar because suddenly there’s disproportionate broccoli interest.

There’s a hen party. I see the bride to be and her sash. She asks me what my concept is. I respond cryptically as it’s written on the fucking wall and Panda doesn’t have perspective on his own existence.

Another of the hens comes in though , after the inflatable fruit. I’ve already laid down the law about the broccoli so they covet the carrot instead. “Can I buy the inflatable carrot?” and again there’s some sick kid who deserves it. I’m shown his photo this time. “He’s already vomited this morning before I left to go party,” I’m told. “And therefore I want that inflatable carrot.” My child hates nature / I left my sick child to get drunk. Not the most compelling arguments even if I could give away the art, which I can’t.

It’s a bridesmaid. It’s a hen party. I don’t think either want it for the kids anyway. These people want these inflatable vegetables because someone forgot the blow up willy. They leave in high dudgeon when I refuse them, much the same as the previous pair, trying to drop more shitpellets. “What’s the point of a shop where you can’t buy anything?”

None of these hen party guests can read.

And then she cometh. The main event. Likely after saying “Right, give me a shot of vodka. I’ll sort this panda guy out!”

I reckon she’s the mother of the bride. I have an inkling all these nasty people are fomenting in the bar in between margaritas.

She wants the inflatable carrot. She can’t have the inflatable carrot. Why not? It’s mine. We aren’t Communists. She flirts. It doesn’t work. She’s trying a number of tactics. None work.

She tries to draw a crowd. She asks me what the concept of my shop is so I ask her what the concept of her is. I hear a laugh from someone not in her party.

She tells me I’ve made an artwork. I tell her no, I’ve made a shop but I’m glad she likes it. She clarifies that it is a shop. I confirm. “But we can’t buy anything in a shop?” “No. You can’t. It’s all mine.”

Meanwhile the other hens have nicked the carrot, but been headed off in the lobby by Amy and Ava, and made to return it. That round was an attempt at clever distraction. She thinks I’m the artist. It hasn’t occurred to her I’m supported here.

Now she’s on a very different tack. Now she’s someone who didn’t get what they wanted. And it gets amazingly insidiously nasty very very quickly from here. I hear her telling some stranger “I’ve heard of these people who put Panda heads on. They’re sexual deviants. We should get this thing shut down.” All this because she couldn’t have an inflatable carrot. I’ve heard of people who are obsessed with inflatable vegetables… The strangers she is trying to persuade into thinking I’m a Furry respond pitched so I can hear it too “um … it’s an art installation. Of course you don’t just take things from an art installation.” Bless them. “Everybody is always so interested in the sex life of Pandas,” I tell her. I think that’s the end of her.

But no, she’s not giving up that easily. I’m holding my ground now no matter what. She could offer me a grand in cash and she still couldn’t have that carrot now, and she hears me make a remark to someone else about how perhaps touching the inflatable mushroom was causing them to imagine they are talking to a panda, but really I’m the security guard at Boots. It is still mostly playful fun in this room, although by this time I’m getting very very hot in the head as it has been a constant stream of people. I hadn’t seen her still there through my limited vision but suddenly “He’s talking about illegal psychedelic mushrooms and there are children nearby, this is absolutely disgusting!”

She was filming on her phone. She can do her worst. Amy and I really get and respect one another. By holding my ground I’m trying to serve her art and Amy sees that. Good art provokes a response and that woman could do very well to examine how she behaves when she doesn’t get what she wants.

Amy likely has a better perspective on what was actually going on than me, with my tiny window of gauze to see through, overheating and with a headache. I felt totally lifted, trusted and supported. Despite that horrible woman though. Horrible horrible horrible woman. Horrible. “Likely she could dehumanise you cos you had a panda head on,” says Lou. Definitely. But again, what does that say about her?

Everybody else today was delightful, but I was trapped in Panda for hours and couldn’t process the poison. Also I’m always concerned about these things – she might be some sort of big old social media trollster. People that hateful sometimes have a wide reach as fundamental thoughts are easy to follow.

Finally, at dinner, I met the maitre d’hotel, who I am very fond of. “People were complaining about you – said you should be shut down,” he said. “Yes. She wanted me to give her an inflatable carrot and I didn’t. She got angry”. So, she went to the maitre d?!! Grade A.

I really hope that we’ve heard the end of this as it is a lovely dumb fun piece of art that exists for very positive reasons. It is fascinating though the extent to which some people are willing to be unpleasant just to serve their own sense of entitlement. Lack of perspective much? I needed to write this blog to get the poison out of my system. It is a very cathartic thing to put it all out there like this, but I carried it for the whole day as it was basic, cruel, selfish, mean, petty and spiteful. Quite a heady cocktail.

I think it is evident to the guys here at Birch what was actually going on, and we have had enough positive feedback that there’s no way her noise will break this. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if she went in there while we were sleeping, trashed the place and burst all the carrots. If she does we’ll build it in and it’ll all be fine. I’ve written her out of my bloodstream and into these paragraphs. And it is ridiculous. Because in truth, what’s the headline to the story I’m telling here?

“WOMAN FAILS TO UNDERSTAND ART INSTALLATION.” ?

“IMMERSIVE ACTOR REFUSES TO GIVE AWAY PROPS TO AUDIENCE.” ?

And it’s gone… whew. Night.

“Panda has seen a lot of things,” I found myself telling someone today. Panda is a very thin veil for this guy writing to you now. He’s got gimlet eyes but he’s just as fluffy and approachable. Many pandas have seen more world than store manager Panda but it the wide angle is one aspect of his life where he will happily stand in front of his teenage panda self and not be found wanting. So long as he can keep the momentum up as there’s still a lot of world panda hasn’t met.

—

Meanwhile, my agent rings. It is comforting and unusual to get a straight offer for some interesting work – a radio drama, such as I listen to all the time on my long journeys. And I’m playing a calm but unconventional international fixer type guy. Could’ve been written for me. I literally had to calmy juggle some of my international fixing work to fit it in, but it ended up working fine, so art can imitate life can imitate art. One second I was reassuring a client that people I am putting into high profile driving jobs won’t be starstruck or unprofessional. Next second I am clarifying with the same client that I’ll be able to take a day out into a studio to help record this lovely piece of story. It all worked beautifully.

Right now though, I’m turning in, putting myself down, getting ready for nine hours of Panda tomorrow. I’m in the basement of Birch in Selsdon. I treated myself to a posh meal at Elodie. A taster menu with a wine pairing. Nine courses, 5 wines. I sat down at 8.15pm and didn’t get up until quarter to twelve. “Would you like to start the Elodie experience?” (It’s mostly waiting)

As a performer and student of the world I love to see how people work with text and improv in real world contexts. Waiters at restaurants like Elodie are a great example, as they are usually fundamentally not actors, just lovely people making money. They’ve learnt a script about the food. If you ask them questions they have either been asked before and now have an answer or they will either style it out with fluff, or charm it out with bald admissions of ignorance. I love it when I see people style it out. “What’s samphire?” “It’s … it’s asparagus of the seaside…”

My food was very slow and about halfway through the meal waiters started apologising to me as the wine pairings started going out of sync. I was totally fine as I had nowhere else to go, I was loving reading my book on my phone and I didn’t mind at all about not having sweet red wine with my strawberries, or waiting six months for my crab. The guy to my left wasn’t drinking but he got out much quicker than me. He was generally quite angry and peremptory though so maybe he put the shits up them. The part of me that has cared about being a fine dining floor manager winced when – after he had thrice stated very clearly that he didn’t drink alcohol – he was brought a chamomile and gin gimlet as an amuse bouche. His bouche didn’t look amused after that.

Food from the estate where possible. That’s the hook. It is a rewilding project so they are very involved in ethical sourcing. They’ve had a big crop of chamomile, clearly. Three dishes had chamomile involved. Everybody has had good courgettes this year. They had a whole course dedicated to them. (Zucchini as you call them across the pond.) Tomatoes, which they’d put with Cornish crab. I guess its a decent time of year for crabs. A touch of lamb. My waiter was very green, but they are just opening. Half remembered litanies of words ran under gestures that betrayed they weren’t even sure which one was potatoes and which was cod’s roe. I tried to be a good customer, as the first drink I was poured was poured with actively shaking hands and I could tell these guys were still putting the customer on a pedestal. Give them a few weeks to bed into their knowledge and they’ll start shining their personalities through the work.

Tristan was a sommelier at St John’s. He was serving there when Wes Anderson and Ralph Fiennes were regularly going there during the Grand Budapest shoot and I will eat my hat if they weren’t going there to study the fucker. Ralph basically does Tris in that movie. There’s a bald joyful chutzpah to being a sommelier. You have to hold your ground as a load of drunk high status amateurs try to impress their guests by knowing more than you. You also have to talk some absolute bobbins sometimes. My guys were both charming and didn’t feel rote learnt. I asked genuine questions and they answered. They do however have a pairing with some sourdough bread, which I found hilarious. “The notes of pear on the nose really bring out the apple juice used in the making of the bread…” It’s delightful, that stuff. You get to say absolute twaddle to people who are the same as you but are paying. They then nod and say “fwafwafwa”. Some of them adopt high status signifiers and expect you to adopt low status ones. It’s all utter tosh. It’s another of these delightful social constructs by which we inbue and shift status amongst us, and it’s always best if we remember that it is a playground game. Today I was fwafwafwa. I enjoyed it.

I had a yummy slow thoughtful meal and now it’s pushing 1am. Panda needs to sleep so he can be 9 hours straight through tomorrow. Fwafwazzzz

About a week ago I was driving back from Brighton and heard two people on Radio 4 talking about La Cage aux Folles at Regents Park Open Air Theatre. Their appraisal was so staid and joyless that it sucked all the colour out of the car as I was driving. At one point one of them said “I could see that everyone else was enjoying it much more than me,” and having just seen the show myself I can only fear that, for them, that sentence applies to the entirety of the shared human experience that has been thrust on us.

This is just pure unadulterated joy on stage, and it is done SO WELL. We were thoroughly entertained. What an incredible night at the theatre.

I have skin in the game here, I’ll admit it. Lou and I met because of amazing Ryan, costume designer extraordinaire. He was there tonight. We almost came to a matinee so Lou could get back to Brighton in good time, but he quite rightly said we needed to see it under the lights. We did.

God it was fabulous. Everything you could imagine. Sexy cancan, sequins and big dresses and bigger numbers. I’m full of the show. The tunes are buzzing, the performances are bringing smiles in memory. As soon as the curtain call started every single person in that house immediately stood to clap. Very few empty seats. Very many happy people. We wanted to send the energy back, to thank them for the joy.

A French teacher at Harrow made my class watch the original seventies film. I first encountered this story as a stranger. So I was a protected teenage straight boy at a traditional all boy’s school where the focus is narrow. “The world outside is wondrous wide but here the world is narrow,” says the school song. We sang it but didn’t understand it. Some of my lot still haven’t seen the width. They’ve remained narrow. You don’t need to evolve culture or kindness or morals or expansive thinking when you never have to really struggle. It doesn’t make them baddies. They’ve been tricked into a narrow frame. They don’t know that they are lost. There are lots of people from these delightful institutions who feel they have experienced life but have actually experienced a lovely safe puppet show with the word “life” written below it. They’ve been laughing and pointing as behind the stage people are hacked to death and burnt to power the lights. “I understand suffering,” they say, thinking of that sad-faced little doll called “suffering” that they felt sorry for. “I understand privation,” they add, remembering how long it took to get served their drink at the interval. But I digress. This idiom or whatever it is, it gets my point across but it doesn’t really hold water much as it is fun to write. They’re all so varied, but many are definitely still stuck. My eventual intent with it is to illustrate that I came to this Cage aux Folles story as a baffled outsider to queer culture.

Lots of my erstwhile schoolfriends still believe that being queer is a choice. They have enough self knowledge that – being very straight – they would have to go against their own nature to fancy men. Then they miss a thought. It’s like a record skipping. They go from “I would be weird and forced if I tried to be sexy with a man” to a conclusion that being queer is unnatural. If pressed on it they gesticulate towards certain obscure passages in Leviticus, while ignoring vast swathes of celebrated antiquity. My generation mostly has no context as Ancient Greek was being phased out in public schools, probably because of the normalcy of same sex love in the biggest book in the canon – The Iliad. Achilles and Patroclus.

Buy a copy of David Logue’s book “War Music”. Read his modern reworking of the death of Patroclus. If you don’t feel something you’re made of stone. It’s the most incredible piece of work and Homer made it before things were being written down.

I’m getting distracted very easily here. Sorry.

But. Yeah. Read War Music. And if you can get one, get a cheap seat for Cage aux Folles – £25 we paid each and the view was great and we were part of a very very happy audience. Weather is always gonna be the bitch, but summer has been hiding so maybe now it is gonna show up.

I called it work and wandered round the heath. Nobody else is gonna employ me so I might as well play with friends for money. The last two years I’ve been able to run this evening Halloween ghost tour. Once it did go to the wire and the driver from set got me there just in time. It’s evening work. It can usually fit.

Shoe had a route in mind. It works but there’s a big old suburban walk in the middle. I’m gonna have to work hard to find suburban Highgate ghosts… But it’ll end up populated. “We do a different route every year,” says the company ethic. They get a lot of repeat custom. Great… Although I can see why many similar but lazy “experience” companies just hardtack one narrative and make people learn it. I’m good at tour guiding and improv so… I’m happy to pull people down these odd streets and go with whatever madness they bring. I love my Halloween walkies.

And I’m knackered again. I’m sleeping on my own sofa at the mo so my guest has a door they can close. It’s not ideal but thankfully the work I did selling fine leather sofas maybe two decades ago bears out. “Your sofas are more expensive than any others like them,” I was told, often. “Yes, but you get that back in time,” I would say. I sold a load of expensive sofas to people when I believed that they were just higher quality. It was only when I inadvertently discovered that exactly the same sofas were available for half the price elsewhere that I stopped giving a fuck. I’m not gonna rip you off. That feels bad. And if you know me well you will understand what might have been happening in my face when someone went “Oh but it’s a lot more money for me than if I go to DFS. Are you sure it’ll be a better investment for my sick grandson and his family?”. I KNEW that it was exactly the same sofa and my boss wanted double the price. I hate lying. Acting, for me, is about self-delusion. “If I was under that set of circumstances then…”

Everything sofa related finally died in me when a renowned film maker worked out I was an actor. “I used to be married to an actor,” he told me, and seemed interested in my shit. Sure he wanted a cheaper sofa, but he befriended me and gave me his business card. I still have it. “Call me if you ever want to make something,” he offered. But then my boss refused even the basic friends and family discount for the guy. Looking back, my boss was mostly eating his own face with coke at the time. No surprise when the mark-up was so much. I chose my sofa with knowledge of his shady business, when U was already happy to jump ship. He had too many Salvatore Corner Sofas in the warehouse and they weren’t selling but they were excellent. I knew he wanted them moved. And I had successfully flogged two at three times what I paid. I must be one of the only people in the world to have paid a reasonable price for one of these sofas, and the salesman in me is proud to say that it has paid itself in time. It’s a very very good and very comfy leather sofa. All is well.

When we were kids, we would sometimes try to come up with the most horrible possible images. Maybe we were camping and maybe someone told a ghost story and then the discussion would go towards what might be genuinely frightening to witness. We would really push the envelope. My equivalents are nothing to the creativity of the brilliant awful people I was friends with back then. The notional status of the people involved mostly guaranteed their involvement in the images. The closer to the debate the more frequently they’d be used. Maggie was popular, and strangely so was Terry Waite. Nowadays the tiny envelope of … people considered to be worth noting … It has been colonised by the dullest humans that have ever been invented. You have to be creative to make these colourless nobodies into something hideous. “Rishi Sunak dangling from a ceiling by multiple meathooks in his back, priapic and laughing constrictedly as he spasmpisses into the face of a delighted Vladimir Putin who is lying on a blanket of rotten meat wanking in his leopard skin bikini as he screams “I’m not gay!” You get the idea.

We don’t need these images. We don’t need these fucking idiots leading us. Other people were always better than me at making these assholes look even dumber than they are. In many ways there’s nothing to be gained from looking at our Prime Minister and observing that he is a whore who would say anything about anything for the right price even though his wife has already got everything. He’s a plug. He’s nothing but greed wrapped in skin. But apparently it’s what we want. Starmer is offering the same with a different badge. Anything else is made pariah.

But… But…

How can we make sense of it all?

If I fight it too hard, I’m called anti-capitalist, which is no description for me as I enjoy trying to make sense of these silly systems.I hate thoughtlessness. I detest the ease with which some of the privileged fail to understand the struggle their forefathers made to give them their safe standpoint. Apparently I’m from a Spanish aristocratic line destroyed by Franco. I’m lucky in that I have never had advantages from it, so it has never made me complacent. Also my father made his own name from Scottish organised prohibition era crime, and he worked very hard before he died to teach me that respect is EARNED. I remember being this posh kid aged 22 facing down a youth and his gang. A knife appeared and my dad’s voice in me almost got me killed but also stopped me being robbed. “Do you respect me? *knife* Do you respect me?” This is like Sands End, about 11pm. on a night like tonight, near the fuckawful graffitied rollerskater statue that I believe has finally been removed, before it all got gentrified. “No. I don’t respect you. I fear you. You have a knife. I might have to defend myself. I have no weapon so… yes I fear you. Not respect . Fear.” “You FEAR me?” “Um… oh… Yes… yes I fear you.” “He FEARS me!!!!” “I fear you”.

Meh

I’m going to bed. Long forgotten interactions with assholes…. nah.. I’m done.

I was doing a decent job of custodian in this flat until Lou got back. Then I was trying for good boyfriend points, and ran her a nice post festival bath. I put candles into the bathroom sink as they make pleasant relaxing light in there. Now she’s spark out and I’ve just realised that one of the candles leaked so much wax down the plughole that I’m gonna have to take the ancient u-bend off tomorrow, or call a plumber if I haven’t got the tools in my car. I haven’t a clue how much wax got down there but my attempts to break it up released such clouds of ancient muck that I reckon it’ll be a catharsis to clear up that u-bend anyway and there might be an gold earring in there, a lost civilisation, a new strain of botulism, an entire yeti made of nosehair… Who knows what wonders we will find. But not tonight.

Sounds like Medicine Festival was gorgeous. I’ve been watching endless videos of people who aren’t me having a delightful time in a field. I’m working next weekend or I’d get myself a Shambala ticket and go sink into something woo-woo. Can’t. Mister Panda.

So, instead, I’ve been looking at how much it’ll cost to go and do a week long Ayahuasca retreat in Peru once winter comes. I think that might have to be the safety valve this year, and I’m happy to start saving up for it.. Mister Panda will be out and about a fair bit, and I’m helping out with some production etc. Lovely things to come. It’s gonna get busy again for a bit.

Peaceful seaside night right now though. The cat and I are in the living room. I want Lou to sleep deeply for a few hours before I blunder in next to her trying not to snore and occasionally waking up shouting. No time pressure for me tomorrow so I can make sure the plumbing is done before I head back up to the smoke. Of all the bad things you can pour into the sink, hot wax is probably the worst. Ha Eejit. Should’ve paid more attention to those candles.