Month: November 2023

Ahh the sea the sea.

Tessy is staring at me. I’ve come down to the edge of land in order to see her little pointy ears. Frank is looking after Boy, but I’m carrying his scent. “Who is this?” she asks of the boystink, and I can’t help wondering if they’ll get on. Pickle almost had Boy’s eyes out the first time he stayed at mine. Tessy would likely disdain to be so hands on, but she would be plotting his intricate demise. This is her domain, by the crashing waves. Here she has her snacks and expectations, her medicine and her strokings. I am here under sufferance and largely permitted because I can give her food.

I’m happy to be away from London for a few days, down here again in the wind. Parking outside here rots your wipers. We are in the salt wind. Nothing is safe. Lou’s bike is tough as boots and she still got it inside before she went away. Ahh Brighton.

I’ve only packed the basics as ever. Underwear and technology. Socks and chargers. This flat is cosy and warm so I don’t need more. It is very much missing a Lou, but pleasant even without. If only it didn’t get so dark in the world so fast.

I’ve got the weekend here to relax. I’ve brought that fucking gargantuan papier maché chicken in the boot. I’ll be carrying it wherever I go before we finally finally destroy it ceremonially next week I hope.

I’m in bed already. Happy and chilled. Tessy isn’t sure if she should come and hang or if it’s my territory, so I’m just gonna let her make her mind up. Lou joined the electric blanket under a mattress topper revolution, so I’m happily in a familiar heat as I write. I’ve got a permit to stay where I am all day with Bergman tomorrow, so no need to be adventurous. The seaside, even in winter, can be relaxing. I’m gonna breathe out.

I’m absolutely spent but loads of people have been positive to me about my “energy”. Apparently it was a hugely successful fundraiser and charity auction. Their best yet. Wow. Over £83000 profit.

So yeah. Phew. A lot of my energy over the last few days has gone to being ready for this. Sure, I’ve done a couple of charity auctions over the years. I’ve learnt a bit. About enough. Speed is of the essence. You need to know the lots. And a realistic idea of minimum is crucial. Once I was trying to flog a hideous bracelet with racing cars on it and they weren’t going to let it go for anything approaching fair price. Stuff like that means you die on your feet, especially if you haven’t been told in advance what they think its worth.

This one we had realistic prices, mostly. Some of the experiences were hard sells, as they needed you to book your own transport etc. Berlin was not popular, Venice was. A room full of haze and I had to do loads and loads of talking, and we had some really solid pledges made at the end, but I had to ask for water at one point as I was working very very hard behind that mic. Was MC /Compere as well, so introducing speakers and calling to dinner and all that, with a Shakespearean nod just because it’s the 400th Anniversary of the first folio and we are under The Globe.

Now I’m in an uber home and it smells of horrible air freshener. When I get home it doesn’t stop. Gonna set up the lights and tripod and film myself talking for an audition. Then packing for a week away and I’m off to Brighton and then Reading to see first Lou’s cat and second Lou herself, who will be in Reading eventually. As I write she’s in Liverpool washing sweaty dancer underwear that she could flog on eBay cos they’re off a talent show on the telly. She wants me to see her little cat. I want to see her too, and get out of the smoke after Halloween and this. I’m done. Cat = yay but I like the idea of seeing Lou much more. I could sleep for a week right now though.

Nice to be in an Uber. Sometimes it’s ok to treat yourself. I don’t want to do this self tape audition right now but I’m in the suit I want to wear so it just makes sense to do it before bed. Then I can slightly lie in. This cold holds me in bed longer than it is strictly normal. Tessy will have medicine in the morning. I just have to sleep in Brighton tomorrow.

I’m feeling pretty happy. This auction has taken up loads of my headspace. As the CEO said: “You’re an actor. The auction is a different skillset. Often you find people can’t do both.” I needed to allay such concerns and prove to myself I can do it at this level. He was happy so I was happy. Record breaker etc. And the thing I call acting totally blends with the auction requirements, as it’s an energy exchange. It’s a channeling exercise. If I can be alive enough you will remember to be alive too. Money is energy. Hooray! All done. Uber almost home. Time to do some more work. Then sleep at last and a less busy brain for a while.

Trying to take it easy today ahead of what I’m anticipating as being quite a stressful day tomorrow.

This won’t be the first charity auction I’ve done but it’ll be the first I’ve done where I’ve put these stakes on myself. I’ve tried to ask and right questions and be in the right state of mind. In the past I’ve been given no information ahead of time and then had to go improvise frantically. This one is pretty solid and actually I’m not too concerned about it. I watched an old friend working as MC when there was a charity auction. He’s off Corrie so he was there as personality rather than expert. When it came to the auction he passed the baton to this grey man in a suit, who understood the mechanics of auction but had no vigor. I was disappointed my friend hadn’t done it himself. When I spoke to him after he said “I refused. It seemed like too much work.” He can do that and still get the gig because he was on that Corrie. I had to be the Jack of all Trades in the pitch. My CV really doesn’t match my skillset.

This time tomorrow night I’ll be in the thick of it. “And coming next…” I might have to default at “Ladies and Gentlemen” just for speed and confidence. “My dears my darlings my pleasures my treasures” is too informal for the charity I’m representing, and perhaps adding “… and everything in between” is too fussy when I’m doing it repeatedly. I might do it reflexively though. Just generally I prefer to be informal and this feels quite buttoned up. When you’re trying to persuade rich people to be generous you don’t want to confuse them with something kind that they mistake through their prism as politics.

I’ll be up tomorrow fretting about ties. Likely I’ll bring multiple options to the venue and I might even change halfway through the event.

Bedtime now. Like yesterday it is late and I’m tired. Perhaps my body is trying to teach me to be healthy.

Night night my darling.

Once more I’m clean shaven. It’s cold in my face.

The dark closing in so early is making me really sleepy.  I put myself into an early bed with the electric blanket on and I’m not concerned that I’m calling an end to a day that barely really began. I’ve been Monday weekending again. Doing a bit of research, read a script, looked at some lines for a self tape. But despite the beauty of the crisp clear winter day, I resolutely stayed at home and did as little as possible. A bit of Alan Wake, a bit of reading. The inevitable bath. But I am feeling like I can barely keep my eyes open.

Having a late night last night probably doesn’t help, even though it was lovely to sit at table and put the world to rights into the small hours. I can barely keep my eyes open. I even had to switch off the electric blanket to even give myself a tiny chance of completing more than one paragraph before I have to just give up on this and pass out.

Old Soho, running up against New Soho, running up against tourists.

I sat in The Coach and Horses tonight and watched Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell. I recognised Hilary from The French House sitting just next to me. With her, a well known cartoonist, an epoch maker of old Soho. Through Maddy and The Factory in the past I’ve been made welcome by that shrinking crowd. The cartoonist tonight was angry about tourists. “I was there, you know, when he decided to kill himself.” This is a play about a personality, magnified, localised, amplified. You can’t be like that any more. Ollie Reed. O’Toole. They all died their wet deaths, and what remained? This kind of thing. Eulogies to people who threw their colour at nothing.

There is nothing to celebrate with this story, but for the “glorious past. This is a fucked story of self abuse pushing to idiocy. This is a charismatic beautiful man who fell apart and took his own life, and the play we have about him promotes his monster. I really struggled not to hate it. It was located so perfectly, acted without bullshit and with compassion. We sat together in the pub where so much of it happened and he lost his fucking LEG to bad circulation.

Some very funny audience snipes after the show, particularly into the “20 grand an episode soho dwarf” now running private eye. I had a good night. I didn’t want to celebrate wet death.

This morning I woke up to remember we had guests for lunch. Mad rush to M&S to buy chicken and bits. Frank went tidy mad and I cooked the hell out of everything. Three hours after I left the house in a panic there was bird with cauliflower cheese and honey carrots and roast tatties and stuffing and gravy. Nom. I got to hang with old friends and Frank.

Now I’m happy to be home again post show. I drunk loads of wine. I’m good to stop. But Tristan, Frank and I are sat around a table, and Tristan is likely staying on the sofa.

Sleep? Hopefully. Soon.

Ahhhh quarter past one and oh yes I write a blog every day. This day doesn’t really qualify, but I tried to exist despite my desire to just vanish into plop. I did put my boiler on for the first time in ages. Only for a few hours. Just as humans were coming round my flat. Siwan came with my spare car key and a friend. By a quirk of geography I get the best view of the Battersea Park fireworks display. People line up along the river outside my flat. Boats anchor and hang out. I just get to look out the window.

A little part of me was going to do some Shakespeare tonight for my old school. Inch Thick. Knee Deep. I decided not to. I was making the decision about the time my teeth exploded. I’m very glad I said no this time. I might have stressed myself out for no great benefit. Now I’m home and never had to leave, and I saw some lovely fireworks.

I played classical music and we watched it all happen. No sense of missing out. It is better from my side of the river than if you pay and go hang with the humans. Still I was happy at the end that I can just chill out now and I don’t have to fight my way through crowds to get home.

However long I still have in this flat, the time is precious. Frank and I live very well together thankfully. Him being here came out of necessity but has become very positive.

I’m writing this late and sleepy and there’s been little new to report. So screw the notional word minimum. This is me, human, humanning out and into sleepy bed bed. .mmmmmm

Thinking to stay sober, I drove into Soho at half nine. Unbelievable traffic. Still no parking spaces. We were booked for a late night show at Soho Theatre. In the end I gave up and parked in Brewer Street Car Park. They want a tenner an hour plus change. We walked into the crowded Soho Theatre bar at ten to ten.

I used to exist in places like that. There’d be little pockets of mates by coincidence all over the place in there. I’d be catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, doing something that felt like making friends even if after a while you forget who you’re with.

It was familiar but different in that bar tonight. Still the same bar, the same noise, the same vibe. No familiar faces though. My lot have all moved out of town or they’ve got the kids to think about. They watch the show and go home. Considering the cost of parking and the fact I couldn’t drink, my plan was the same tonight. Things were made easier by not knowing anyone in that bar. Too many times I’ve ended up somewhere underground at 4am after a late show in Soho. Tonight I got home just after midnight.

I like that space at the top. I brought a show there once in the faraway long ago times. I’ve seen friends scratch the things that made them famous up there. Tonight Frank and I were in to see Lachlan Werner with his Voices of Evil. It was fab.

Friday night in Soho and the audience was gobby. Lachlan knows he’s quick so he’s built loads of audience chaos into the show which is always a joy for me, and he rolled with it. He held people to account. He doesn’t let audience fob him off with crap answers, and he quite rightly hauled out one audience member for responding in their “acting voice”. There’s memories of Red Bastard in the way Brew, the (puppet?) witch piles into people trying to get off the attention-hook or trying to show off.

It’s a clown show with ventriloquism. He’s a delightful mischief of a clown, and when Brew talks she really talks. The show is exactly the sort of thing I love, and I’m so glad Frank introduced me to Lachlan. His joy is apparent, he sets things up to be live, he sends himself up and shares vulnerability with us, but also he’s witty as fuck and there’s a backbone of extremely hard work invisibly holding the whole silly fun ritualistic joyful nonsense up. He’s worked hard enough that all the chaos can happen and it will always hold together.

Now I’m gonna try and sleep. My patterns are all out of whack. I’ve been going to bed way too late and waking up at lunch. No more of that.

There’s a great big papier maché dead chicken in the back of my car. We couldn’t leave it at The Flask. It feels like it needs some sort of ritual burning, and now we are in bonfire season surely the opportunity will present itself. If not perhaps we must make the opportunity ourselves, but… living in London makes spontaneous bonfires a tricky idea. The Heath is crawling with law enforcement. Every night we would encounter these mildly overzealous park rangers, driving slowly through the walkways, making their presence felt. Any attempt to light up a chicken there and they would be on us like a gull on chips.

I can’t carry the thing in Bergman indefinitely though, and I don’t want to just dump it as it has too much personality and history. It’s pretty much ruined so we will have to find a solution. If the walk goes back to Pond Square, it won’t be for a few years, and we can find a new chicken should we need it. It’s a good story – a genuine ghost of a chicken. It was killed by Francis Bacon during a drunken row about freezing meat in the 1620’s. He caught the pneumonia that killed him while rolling it around in snow. People most frequently reported it during the blitz and rationing, but this strange avian ghost is a genuine London haunting. Our big chicken is deliberately a bit unwieldy and silly. It nicely sets the tone for a broad comedic walk.

This evening Siwan and I ran about deconstructing that walk. Getting the chicken out of The Flask was a small part of it. We also had to get the gin and the horns from The Star. That’s a lovely silly thing we do, swearing on the horns. A mischievous nod to Cernunnos dressed up in boozy silliness.

In Highgate people have been “swearing on the horns” for centuries. Siwan nicked the oath. There are very formal reenactment groups that do it from time to time for charity. We do it for fun and false pomposity – arguably the original purpose. It never really had any meaning other than silliness. But we all keep forgetting : silliness is important! Swearing on the horns is a silly way of making a false hierarchy and then all coming together in a pointless consensus. We do that sort of thing every day and call it office politics. More and more we have to remember to be silly just for the point of being silly. If it is all very very serious then we start to forget the joy that we are surely here to try and find in this existence. Then we might forget ourselves in seriousness.

Rain outside and I don’t have to be in it. It was meant to be a day of relaxation but inevitably the ghost of work. Thank God I’ve created this existence where things happen. I had to go on Microsoft Teams and be formal with people about some performative work that’s coming up. It’ll be a bit of work in the next week, but that’s nothing I’m not up for, and the rate is perfectly fine. Charity auction stuff so I’ll likely end up donating part of my fee, but round and round the mulberry bush we go until that weasel pops.

I’m happy to have a quiet day. I’ll be running a bath soon, and I had time to play with Boy and give him the strokes he craves. I ordered a curry for lunch and then heated up lentil pie for dinner. Then in the evening I rang someone a few times on my phone and sightread my side of a scene that he was filming. I’ll film my half in January. It’s just a phone conversation. All very gangster. I’m playing some high status London chancer gone over to the wrong side of the tracks. A friend of mine who really knows film but doesn’t know money. It’ll be arthouse, and but for the learning it won’t take up much time. If the conversation I’ve just had is any indication, the lead has only learnt a vague approximation of his lines so it kinda takes the pressure off to be perfect. But I will be.

Frank rang up as he was about to be disgorged at Battersea Park Station by Citymapper, for which someone needs to be shot. It was pouring with rain and it takes about a year to walk to mine from there. I went and grabbed him, we broke bread together. Now he’s warming up in bed and I’m gonna go lie in the bath and then finish either my book or GTA4 or both.

Sort of a day off. Doing nothing isn’t my special skill. I can feel a tired body holding me up. Some pampering is in order before I raise the octane for this auction. Here we go go go.

One last night of it. I park the car halfway through the route so they can use it as a changing room. I don my top hat and cape at the car and jump on a Dott Scooter to get to The Flask. This time I grabbed a pizza and shoved it into my gullet before the scooter, but that’s a break from routine. It has left me feeling sleepy but I’ve got an hour before kickoff in which to metabolise that cheese. Hopefully that’s enough time.

Everyone was out with their children, dressed in scary costumes, carrying buckets to load up with sweeties. Trick or Treat. Every year at Halloween people pretend to be scary things that don’t exist. Ghoulies and Ghosties. I’d like to see little Putins out there. Nineteen year old American Incels. Brexiteers.

It’ll be lively on the streets tonight. No rain until we are done but then the storm is coming. We can have one last energetic push and, for another year it appears we have avoided any complete washouts, plus we haven’t picked up any regular maniacs who try and make themselves part of the narrative. Phew.

Fun. Fun fun fun. Loads of fun. I’m gonna get myself into the right state of mind for it though as I’ve had a very peaceful day mostly in bed finishing my book and occasionally having extended conversations with Boy. I need to get myself into wakeyland.

—

ENTER THE CHILDREN

This evening they run the streets of London unchecked. Little howling imps, barely escorted by hard pushed mums and dads still clinging onto the idea that they can relive their first tooth fairy money by having made these hideous creatures.

The first stop in Pond Square they were onto me like children on a man in a tall top hat on Halloween. They barely let me get the story out, and once the chicken was revealed I sicced them on it. “Children, attack that CHICKEN!” “Ok, the rest of you, while they’re busy let’s escape.” I knew the chicken is going to be destroyed at last, this huge ungainly paper maché monstrosity. We talked of setting it on fire tonight. It has been used 3 times, but we won’t be going back to Highgate for at least 2 years now so we are done with it as otherwise Siwan has to store it under her stairs for years unused.

We are done. It has been lovely. I’m knackered. I’m glad I don’t have kids.