Month: March 2024

Without really thinking about it, we’ve been sitting on benches outside at dusk. It’s twenty to seven. There’s still a tiny residue of light in the sky, and it isn’t freezing.

Equinox. The first official day of spring. When I get home I’m switching off the central heating and then to hell with it, if there’s snow in April I’ll just freeze.

I’m at Theatro Technis up in Mornington Crescent doing dress rehearsal for Scene and Heard. Milo and I are on towards the end of the show so there’ll be no sneaking off early. Likely it’ll be a long night and I’ll get home late and sleepy. And hungry.

Invigilating this morning which always involves hauling myself out of bed earlier than I want to. Much groaning. Thank God Imperial College is in my borough and I can just bang up to South Kensington in Bergman half asleep. Plus they sell coffee at the college so as long as we get set up quickly I can indulge my addiction before all the students come rolling in. Then I had to post a package to Prague for Lou. I got home about 4pm desperate for a power nap. Got my head down for half an hour. Then up again and over to Camden for this long evening. You forget that about doing a show – you have to do the show. It really shapes how you budget your energy through the day.

It’s a lovely thing to be doing with a pleasant group of people as the winter shrugs away. I’m gonna get off the writing and enjoy the fact that I’m still outside and its dark.

I now have two boxes of corgi and dinky cars in the back of Bergman. Virtually none of them were made before 1986, so it is just bulk, but they are easy to list and I have an eBay mountain at home that I’m gonna have to climb anyway so it is time to start. When other people are involved it always gets easier so I thought I would take that “toy” category as I have plenty in that category to so I can put that whole “look at my other listings” thing and sell everything a bit better. But it is fascinating how the world of stuff-movement is clinging on, clinging on… Despite my desires.

My delight of a downstairs neighbour is struggling. But this evening she collared me cos she has some stuff and needs to realise some capital. I told her I am not really doing that anymore, but never underestimate my ability to get myself in too deep out of kindness and curiosity. She’s gonna need some help. There’s nobody else in her life with that skillset. What’s the point in knowing things if the knowledge never profits anyone. I might end up in Biarritz.

I do enjoy the whole energy transformation process. That cannot be ignored. With the internet it is much more possible to identify things quickly. My friend today had a “my dad had a porno statue” that she wanted to get rid of. A quick ignorant look on the internet and I had the material it was made from, the artist it is “after”, and an idea of what people have paid for such things in the past. It isn’t nothing.

Once again I find myself disappointed in her daddy, who was either naïve about the resell price of art or just was easily manipulated. He was the generation that decided they can’t work the internet, so very easy to fleece as everybody knows the going price of things but them. The piece itself? I mean even if you’re into bondage it ain’t that sexy. I think. It’s basically Rosa Klebb in nothing but heels and stockings, holding a riding crop and looking a little bored. It’s pretty big. There have been a few of them made, celebrating the work of Bruno Zach, and if this is an early enough copy it is a lovely thing for anyone who enjoys muscular domiatrix riding crop art. It’s certainly not original though, and as such it isn’t an investment and it might prove hard to display in many households if the in-laws are coming etc. It’s a statement sure, and in some contexts it works. I have some friends I know would stand into it. My friend’s pa had it hidden. I remember Cecil from Lost Theatre though back in the day, and his flat was a palace of cock. The right person would love this monstrosity. I’ll use very different words when I sell it.

There’s no photo. I left it in the car ahead of ‘auction Tuesday” next week and it isn’t mine. It’s enough of an invasion for me to write about it, but that’s been my day.

The model is clearly very diligent with their gym membership. She has mastered coordinated whacking while wearing stilettos. She will be carefully wrapped on my passenger seat and I’ll bring her up for a photoshoot before I go to dress rehearsal tomorrow …

Another exam in the morning and then over to my friend’s house again. Her dad died and there’s so much stuff it is a brainfuck. But she had an open house today hoping to shift things. I was really there as rentapal. No heavy lifting or anything. Just being upstairs if people were upstairs and being downstairs if they were down. And being a human friend who has her best interests at heart.

Listening to her I was impressed how she held her ground on prices. Everybody always wants a bargain. It’s why I stopped being interested in the antiques thing after taking all the time to educate myself. I realised that I didn’t like the story on either side. People gleefully tell you how they got the thing off some old lady, “she didn’t know what she had”. They tell these tales like they did something clever, giving some poor old woman fuck all for something worth loads. Not all dealers, of course. But too many.

Auction houses are better but there are too many people dying in London. You won’t get people taking job lots in this town as they won’t sell. Nobody has room for more stuff. Get out of town and it improves. It’s why I like Tennant’s In Leyburn. Diane told me one time about a truly precious vase they sold for millions that was on a windowsill in a house in York, unregarded. The joy she took in telling me was partly related to the fact that, in that case, it was spotted by an auctioneer not a dealer. So they sold it for the owner. Rather than got a bit sweaty on the back of the neck and said “Oh I might take that little vase off you, might get a few bob for it, how does fifty quid suit you?” The fact I won’t do that sort of thing though means that I am never gonna make real money from antiques. I’m either gonna end up with loads of stuff that belongs to someone else that I’m selling slowly over time, doing all the work and then taking a small percentage and swearing about it, or I’m gonna end up with a load of stuff I’ve bought for about what I can sell it for. You need space to do that sort of thing so it doesn’t just all end up in piles.

“He was our client for five years, and we always wondered how he hung all the pictures,” said a dealer today who came to the open house. “Now we know that he just… didn’t. It’s sad.” He was buying art at gallery price out of compulsion and piling it up. The prices he paid don’t speak of investment. It’ll be hard to get a fraction back of much of it. “Art is a solid investment,” I’ve been told many times, and my experience has almost never backed that up. Sure, buy a Picasso and it’ll gradually go up over time. But these galleries everywhere are flogging big pictures for big prices that you can’t get a return on – you’re gambling on the success of the artist of course. There’s the shot at insider trading if you know in advance which artists are gonna get pumped up out of college – (and you can usually read that).

I had a picture my dad bought from a Scottish gallery. He paid £450 back in the nineties. My half brother had tried to sell it at auction in London and it hadn’t made the £150 minimum. It was huge. I took it up to Tennant’s. It sold for £220. I was glad to be rid of it, but also aware that it was devaluing the guys work. I took another picture to Gorringes after someone offered me £100 on eBay and I took it down. I ended up seeing about £30 for that one. So even some auction houses suck.

If you want to sell anything for a good price, you need to be a fast talker with no scruples, or you need a shop and time. With that you can stick a high price on it and wait for the right person to walk in and love it. That happens. But rarely does it happen quickly. So the stuff accumulates in unregarded piles encroaching on our energy and time until eventually someone ruthless just hoiks the lot into the fire.

As I left I asked if I could have a particular overcoat. I lost mine. Now I have one again. Virtually unworn, but it fits great and will go with the waistcoat I have from another friend’s dead pa. I love it and it feels like a positive transfer between my friend and I, energy for energy, time for stuff, and a thing I will use and love come winter…

A proper Sunday lunch at The Chelsea Arts Club courtesy of an old family friend. “You should be a member here,” I get and sometimes I think I should start that process before I’m geriatric but then it’s a monthly subscription and will I be in Chelsea long enough to make use of it? As often as not I’m happy to go out to the local pubs. There are some great ones in the area. The Phoenix on Smith Street, just a short walk from mine, is one good example.

After lunch, after rehearsal, a quick pint of Guinness there because after all it is St Patrick’s Day. It left me feeling bloated though. Guinness is good for you, they used to say, but I was of a mind to yak it back up for a while.

A good Sunday though. This time of year is often sad for me. Distractions and old friends very welcome. Nina even paid for lunch so I’m gonna get one back for her. Is a good roast at that club, but it’s not the budget option. Lots of interesting art, not the youngest visible membership, no mobile phones allowed. A little snapshot of a different world.

I did dandle with the idea of a club. I liked the look of The House of St Barnabus but now that’s gone and Birch along with it, more’s the pity.

I’m happy and warm at home. Well fed and good company. Early start tomorrow, back on exam time. I should sleep but I’m wired. Gonna lie in the bath for ages. That’ll fix it. Happy Paddys.

What a delight of a day. The light of spring, but the cold of winter clinging on, and in the morning I drove up to Somerstown to have a costume fitting. This time I’m going to be a stick of gum. I’m trying to think back over what has happened to me in the past with this project. My first was a Travel Cup. I remember that well. I fell in love and danced with Barbara’s tin of sardines. It was a beautiful gentle piece of theatre, from the mind of an eight year old girl.

One time I was a mole, shot with missiles. An evil bacteria… COVID interrupted my turn about two years ago as an ice cube tray. All of a sudden we went into lockdown.

The costume often informs the movements. I’m not sure how easy it’ll be for me to roll on the floor. But as ever the costumes are coming together beautifully and it’ll do the child playwright’s proud.

We all saw each others work today for the first time since the read-through. These very difficult lines and strange thoughts borne out with as much diligence and integrity as can be mustered in a few short sessions. I’m very much enjoying working with Milo, who is a similar blend of spontaneity and rigor.

The plays are often very funny, as much because they put things so clearly. The young playwrights can often encapsulate adult issues in ways we forget as we grow old. Looking at the work today I was proud to be accepted by that little group. They’ve been a little solid community over the tricky years I’ve navigated so far, bringing joy and keeping the acting muscles in trim. Like The Factory, this working life has become about the little communities of people encountering the same ups and downs.

Sunday off and I’m gonna lie in. Then next week is show week. Joys.

I spent the whole day on the internet booking things. I honestly don’t know if I’m gonna stay in half the places I’ve booked, but they are there if I need them and they are all cancelable at the mo. I’m having to be organised and I hate it. But Japan is small and crowded. Even in the rural areas. And apparently spring is a popular time so perhaps I’m gonna be part of the human centipede when I walk this route.

It’s tiny. When I think it took me over 40 days to get to Santiago from Lourdes, this is just like a stroll to the end of the garden. If I walked my usual Camino days I would only need two nights maximum on the trail. I always think the Camino people online are behaving as if something easy is difficult so I still smell a rat when people do it about Kumano Kodo. I bet I get there and I’m part of a conveyor belt pilgrimage. But this idea they all have, that it is far flung and there’s only one bed and you have to fight sumo wrestlers to earn it? I’ll buy it as far as I have to. I’m not gonna risk getting stranded. Well, apart from one night, when I’m totally gonna risk exactly that because the internet is turning up blanks and the only way to book a night in that village is by contacting one of the travel agent resellers and I hate them so I’d sooner walk all night or sleep in a bush.

Most people regularly replying to Facebook groups only leave the house on special occasions. a the outdoors is big and scary. But they are right that there’s no online availability for these places so maybe that means something. It might not bear out when the real world is happening, but rather than take the risk of multiple nights sleeping rough I’ve reduced those chances to just one night and I’ve got a nice hostel in a town with hotsprings the day after.

To do that I had to book everything backwards, so I’m walking counterflow. The retired emperors used to walk counterflow anyway – it is only the tour groups that have imposed a direction on this walk. I guess it’ll mean I see a lot of people, but it also means I won’t have that experience I had a few times on Camino when I’m walking through a glorious wood and there’s group in earshot behind me making textbook small-talk about “What’s your favourite whatever the hell and why?” “If you were a glurk, would you be ergen or splurgen?” Like some people do on dates. yuk.

Then I went to a late Scene and Heard rehearsal. That is still fun. I’m happy about how it will all play out. A really lovely team and out of all of them I’m the youngest. Well, if you discount the writer who’s ten.

Lou is off in India and I found myself missing the regular evening phone call. She’s gonna be covered in sun and oil, improving her skills and taking in heat. It’s a lovely thing for her. I’m a bit jealous but I’ve got my haphazard trip to Osaka to look forward to.

Tonight we threw ideas at a our lovely script for Scene and Heard. It’s always a joyful thing, even if the learning is hard. Late rehearsal though meant I got home at the end of the day and behaved as if it is was 6pm. I just clocked the time and it is almost 1 in the morning. I had no idea.

Nobody at home so the luxury of wandering around deshabillé. I had chicken curry pie and booted up this retro emulator I’ve managed to build on Linux with my Steam Deck. Proper nerd stuff here. I spent over an hour playing games I used to play in the nineties when I was a teenager, before messaging one of my only consistent friends from back then in mild astonishment that the two of us spent so much time on simple software systems with obtuse and repetitive gameplay. I’m sure my mother’s disapproval fanned the habit for me. I haven’t got the patience for it anymore, and had just put it down to pick up a book when I noticed how late it has got.

In my dreams I’ll be sending positive vibes to Lou over in sunny India. Covering ground is powerful. I’m glad we both get up see some world…

So I joined a Facebook group about Kumano Kodo, the route I’ll be walking in Japan. I told them I’ll be showing up and seeing what’s possible, and asked what the wild camping options are plus food etc. I got jumped immediately by loads of voices that say “planning is essential” “rebook your flight” “book a year in advance” etc. One guy told me it was perfectly possible to sneak off the path with a bivvy at dusk and his post was almost immediately taken down by admins. I happened to be there to catch it. The major voice I have received is “Don’t do this without planning”. And I’m not interested in being disrespectful in a culture I don’t understand. I’m sure that bivvy camping would fit that mould. I’ll do it if I must but it would feel wrong. I really really distrust all these voices telling me it’s impossible to go last minute. It smells like a kneejerk discouragement to cut back numbers.

A lot of the people giving me advice are really saying  “Don’t do this walk without understanding the spiritual side of it.” I’m looking at their pedestrian American Facebooks and wondering how they feel qualified. I’m not going to respond by linking them to the “I’m more spiritual than you” video.

https://youtu.be/yb8PVRgi-74?si=dOoyeoMjk7SeCaf9

But many of the messages seem to be empty but for the intention of telling me not to suddenly do the thing they did after freaking out about it for six years first. The other half is Americans telling me I don’t know Buddhism / Shinto where I could write a much better book then they could on either subject. And I understand that left brain writing a book is not at all how such matters should be quantified or approached. Competitive religion? Go swivel.

My socials are rarely involved with my woowoo. But I’m a practicing Japanese Buddhist with a huge amount of animism in my structures that aligns deeply with shintoism. I didn’t just stick a pin in a map here.

Yeah ok, I’ll allude to it. One human knows EXACTLY why this is the right walk for me now. He’s the only one that knows it apart from me, but I’ve got heavy things to deal with in Japan from past lives, and this journey doesn’t need to be easy – maybe even it needs to be hard.

The other people in this restrictive Facebook group are largely helping me see the difference between Europe and Japan. They plan stuff in Japan. The vast neurosis I perceive on Camino groups from Americans is probably because there are only about twelve beds on the whole Kumano, and ten of them were bought a decade ago by travel agents hoping to resell at astronomical markups to lazy tourists. This is not a very well walked route in the UK. But I get the sense it’ll be full of Americans. Which again makes sense of why the internet things I can find are about discouraging numbers. Can anyone be bothered being social on a pilgrimage? It’s about the reason you’re walking, always, surely. Not the people.

I thought I knew why I was walking. But all the Facebook neurosis and planning bullshit makes me realise something fundamental and important. That’s what I need to learn. The planning bullshit. The neurosis. I need to shift into a place where it isn’t a violation of my standards to know where I’ll eat dinner next week. I hate it, the forward thinking. I can happily look at the past because it informs the now. “This-one’ is all about the now. But thoughtful projection into the future can inform how it all works out in the now. As soon as you take expectation out, most outcomes are tolerable. That’s how I’ve existed for years.  But curating the outcome doesn’t always mean wasted now time for the same or less future happiness. Sure, a lot of the time planning people live in the future for hours and hours of present time, and it doesn’t actually pay back when their present shifts to the future they planned. But there are times when you get a return on your investment – a bit more future happiness than the deadtime planning.

I think Japan energy needs a plan. And I need to learn about thinking ahead. So. Alignments. I’m gonna murder a half day or more with spreadsheets and internet. I’m hoping it’ll buy more time than it sinks. And maybe I’ll learn something. Sorry. Thoughts all got dense there and I’m too tired to edit it. Thank you for sinking your now into that then. I’m not gonna.

I’ve ended up feeling smashed out again. Time to get fit. Summer is coming. Am I beach body ready? No. I feel slow. And now I’ve got a date in the diary in late summer by which time I need to be back up to my best state of health. I’m gonna need to be fighting fit, ready to rumble.

I’m still slightly dizzy about all the yesterday things, vague though I’m being about it. I haven’t booked any accommodation in Japan, nor have I thought practically about anything related to my half arsed trip there. That’s for future Al. But time only seems to move in one direction at the moment so I’m gonna have to make some plans soon or I’ll end up sleeping with the rats.

Darkness is still upon the world. I’m gonna try not to let it affect my mood. At least, for one more night, I have the company of this unusual and talkative cat.

He will be heading home tomorrow morning. This morning he was disgusted with how his food had been prepared, and he came and batted me with his claws over the course of a few hours and with the persistence of a five year old child, until I worked out he wanted me to smash it with a fork and only then would I be allowed to sleep again.

But it is early evening and I’m done with the day already. All I want is a warm bed and mad dreams. I’m working towards it. Tom is on the sofa so we had curry. Boy will probably object to his food situation in the small hours, but I’m hoping I’ll get past 5 this time without a paw in my mouth. Bath. Maybe a spot of reading. Sleeeeep.

Today was one of those days we wait for.

Lou has a very well thumbed i-ching that comes out from time to time, and with the Pisces new moon yesterday, it was a good time for settling intentions, if you’re into all that stuff. I like to take the opportunity for buying into woowoo when it presents itself. It was reasonably vague, as these things are. “Trust in the processes you have already put into place.” Oh and “Be more sexy”. (These are my refinements, the book is much denser and more obtuse.) I had asked about work.

I got up this morning early and missioned back to London in time to invigilate two exams in The Great Hall at Imperial. My emergency day job. Long hours in a concentrated room. If you have half learned lines like I do for Scene and Heard, it’s a great chance to embed them while making sure nobody is panicking or cheating. Not much time for lunch, so at noon I grabbed a curry from the student union and then went back into the hall. A decision moment. I went online to book a flight to Osaka for two weeks leaving in April. I’ll work the rest of it out later. Fuck it. A short pilgrimage, fitness, heat and newness. And the flight was super cheap. Jack’s Flight Club.

As I was waiting for my card to go through with the payment my phone rang and it was my agent with NEWS. It’s a call I’ve quietly allowed myself to hope for over the years. Blind optimism has kept me rolling the acting dice for decades now. There are plenty of lovely mad people still running alongside me. We all SIN-WAVE up and down this impossible and cruel career path. Mostly we are sustained by joy when we get to do the thing we set out to do, and fellowship whether or not it is a good time. We all enjoy each others ups and commiserate with each other in the downs.

I hit an unexpected up today, out of the blue. A working relationship built years ago out of pure joy and geekiness has led to something really wonderful that I’m not gonna talk about just in case. But yay! I’ve said here that I could feel it shifting. “Trust the processes you’ve already put in place.” Man it can be hard to trust when the blows are coming in. But great news at last. “It’s not the universe, it’s cos you’re bloody good at your job,” says Brian. I’ll settle for a bit of both. It came in as I was booking the Japan pilgrimage. Seems like that was the right idea for sure. Anyone got anyone in Osaka? I’m going off half cocked as usual and a first night stay with somewhere to leave my luggage would save on lockers and hotels. Worth asking I guess. Oh frabjous day.