Month: March 2024

Dammit I thought I had dismissed the whole Japan idea as needing more planning and more time. This is because I fancied walking around Shikoku and tuning in with the Buddhism.

UNESCO only has two world heritage pilgrimages. One is the Camino. The other is only about 6 days long, is near Shikoku, and is much older than the temples. The Shikoku Henro looks colonial when you compare it to Kumano Kodo, much much older and, crucially for my needs, shorter. It’s a shinto walk. Used to be walked by emperors and samurai, largely abandoned as shintoism hit a decline. Capitalism and animism don’t blend well, because if everything has a powerful spirit you can’t burn things willy nilly in order to have instant gratification.

I’m already sold. If I can find one of those cheap flights I’m out of here. Only a week of walking through mountains. I’ll have to pack smart. It can be a stamina tester and I can make a call as to whether or not I can face coming back for the longer Buddhist one. Nice time of year to bobble around in rural Japan talking to the spirits.

Can I take the time off work and spend the money? LOOK OVER THERE, A THREE HEADED MONKEY!

…

We shall see.

I’m headed back to London tomorrow to invigilate exams and learn lines. I’m keeping busy but certainly not raking it in at the moment. Can’t be too irresponsible. But an adventure is due. It might be this one…

Back to the seaside. After this weekend I won’t get to see Lou until she’s back from India in late April. I fought my way out of the London traffic nexus and spun down to Brighton, and then we bounced back out to Lewes where there’s a little cinema. The Depot. It used to be where they stored all the beer kegs for Harvey’s Brewery, and now it’s a well appointed little cinema, and it is far from expensive. Dune 2 again. There’s plenty there for a rewatch. I was happy to sink into the world and the performances again while Lou dug through for the first time. A 1965 tale about the power of psychedelics, mixed in with feudalism, jihad and giant worms. Spice makes interstellar travel possible, take enough acid and you are in all worlds simultaneously. And this book was written at the height of it. I imagine Frank Herbert was under the influence when he wrote it.

I had always believed Herbert was a woman with a man’s name like George Eliot. It is one of those things: I was told with certainty when I was twelve by someone else at school that Frank Herbert was a woman. I never chose to question it. Thinking about it I was being wound up. “James Herbert is a woman too.” That’s what they said. I internalised that too. I’ve looked him up just now. Damn.

Neither of those literary Herberts were women. I wonder how many people I’ve told. Who was that little blighter at school with me, sending their wind-up so far into the future? I’ve carried that little glitch, unadressed and unnoticed, for decades. They deserve a medal.

I’m disappointed that these Herberts aren’t women. The most important books in my early reading were Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea books, so perhaps I was happy to absorb the lie so completely as I had experienced women’s fantasy fiction asking more interesting questions than men’s. Also le Guin had many more heroic people with my complexion than the likes of Tolkein.

Frank wrote six Dune books, and there’s plenty of distance to cover yet. His progeny banged out sequels to the extent that there’s loads of material to cover now. Things are gonna get messier and less familiar. I’m hoping that they’ll keep being able to make them though, and they don’t stray too far from the books which get thorny. Good quality widescreen epic movies, some unusual thinking, much opportunity for incredible design. British accents go down well too. Gotta believe there’s a job there somewhere for this one. And if not there’s enjoyable escapism on comfy sofas in Sussex cinemas. I’m happy to be back in the big-screen habit.

My new second hand Champion masturbating juicer has had an effect on my eating habits. Typo, you say? No. I’ve been wanking on about the thing since I bought it. Theres a bit that sticks out and spins. You push things into it. Tasty juice comes out.

Since I bought it I’ve been feeding things through it with no particular programme. Following no recipe. All I had was grapefruits oranges apples carrots ginger root and turmeric root. Different quantities of each, always a good result, although the carrots I bought were on the turn and very quickly went out of the equation.

Last night I was getting home knackered and I was gonna just get a Deliveroo. They are doing £7 off if you spend over £20 and if I put it on my Amex I get a fiver back. But still I would have ended up spending £20. I never used to buy delivery food. I don’t need to, I’m a good cook with whatever the hell is there, so long as I can be bothered. Last night I remembered to be bothered, thankfully. I got cheap ingredients, thanks to the Reduced Gods – ALL HAIL. I mostly learned to cook through the random beneficence of those reduced Gods. There was a period where my local Tesco would probably be selling punnets of mushrooms for 6p if you came after 7pm. My stroganoff, refined over months, is still referenced by various people in my friendship group who thought they didn’t like mushrooms. If life gives you mushrooms…

I just made a glorious dinner for Brian and I and it cost very little. And so we have to exist – even me, your idiot profligate voice, behaving as if there’s no future. Maybe soon the idiots will leave power, but right now I have a feeling the idiots will somehow cede to the fascists. The internet has been encouraging it for so long now, with the Russian troll factories pushing extremist ideologies into the corners of the internet that think they are independent from the hated “mainstream media”. We are fucked in the West. We have been complacent for too long. We are fat piggies ready for nomnoms. It’ll be fifty years before the tanks roll in, but they are coming.

I almost forgot rehearsal but thankfully was there in plenty of time for 8pm tonight. It’s Scene and Heard, so we have to squeeze in the work when it is convenient for everyone. David our director is an old hand at this but he does a proper job now, so we are confined to evenings. And we’ve drawn the short straw and got the late ones. We tend to finish at 10pm.

I got home hungry shortly before eleven and now I was just about to turn in and after winding out the day it is almost 2am. Sleep sleep sleep and quickly. Brian bought a Calvin Klein fitted sheet and rejected it as being too small for his bed, so I’ve put it on my mattress. It is like sleeping on a gigantic 1990’s pair of pants.

I will lie in it and dream of Marty McFly, of Friends and living parents.

This time of year always gets me the worst. The first daffs and then all the maybes and the comparisons and the things I didn’t say or do or understand, and the memories and the idiocy of grief. I always hope it’ll get better some time but pretty much as soon as we are into March I’m a wreck until the 23rd is done and done and done. I’m trying to take care of myself with juice and square meals, but then I’m up late and the flat is full of ghosts. We all have to put up with grief sooner or later. Time takes the screaming. Just leaves the throbbing and the occasional surge.

But it’s still a fortnight to DDay. I think it’s just because I’m up late. Sleepy drink and down into the elastic embrace of Calvin Klein. I’m enjoying this particular Scene and Heard. Milo is great fun to work with. David is an old friend. All is well.

I spent a good amount of time this morning trying to determine if I have the time and money to go to Japan for six weeks and walk around the island of Shikoku. I don’t. I just found a cheap flight to Osaka, but there will be another time that is better. I kinda need to get out of the old groove, but I will be served much better in that regard if I work on the flat rather than sod off to a cherry blossom pilgrimage.

Instead I tried to go through some boxes and make a bit more sense of things here, I played with Boy for a bit, and probably spent too much time reading in bed in the morning before I decided to get up. I didn’t eat until evening when Brian made pasta, and despite a very quiet day I’m feeling absolutely shattered. So I’m running a bath. Old patterns. Frank popped in to get his skateboard, and I fear that his new living situation is not helping him feel good about himself. It was great to see him but I could sense that he didn’t want to go back home away from Boy and the peace of this place. Boy bonded to him when he was here for his long stay.

I do very much want to do the 88 temple trail on Shikoku. Another pilgrim route with infrastructure, this one being Buddhism. It’s not the exact Buddhism I officially practice, but faith is a choice thing and I’ve never been one for schisms. It’s an excuse to be in body with a simple physical task every day for a while, and to do so in a place of contemplation and spirituality. I thought it made more sense than another Camino. I’m looking for a shift right now. I might need to just sit under a tree for eternity.

I’m whacked out in London. Even the few days I spend in Brighton etc I find myself feeling more vital, more alive. Still, all will be well. Gonna get in the bath. I feel a bit tired and a bit sad at the moment. The tendrils of winter.

A lovely message the other day from an old friend led to lunch and a walk just over the road in Battersea. Dan and Rachel would often ring me up while hatching wonderful mad plans. A great deal of joy was found, and a sense of fellowship and belonging. Misfits match other misfits. We made some odd and glorious things. They moved up to Newcastle, moved back back Newcastle, spent COVID over the river from me and now they’ve gone and bred. I met their little daughter. She’s the same age as Josie, the baby I got to know over Christmas in Jersey. Will at the time told me that babies born in the Chinese year of the rabbit are generally less hassle than any of the other animal year babies. I’m sure there are plenty of little fuckers out there, but his one and today’s one bear the theory out well.

We went for a walk in the park, Dan and I, while Rachel worked. It was just calming and pleasant to be with people I’ve been with under many curious creative circumstances. They fed me their usual tasty vegetarian scran. Oh boy I used to fart buckets the first few days I was on a residency with them, while my gut thanked me for the entirely healthy diet. I did have to ask Dan to remind me on the morning, just as I often inadvertently jettison social engagements from my noggin in the quest to make damn certain I keep functioning career-wise.

That said another part fell away from me this morning, but I’m still very sanguine that things are rising. The industry is back up and running, even if we recently saw the final episode of long running TV proving ground Doctors. There’ll be something soon. Unless I go to Japan which might happen if I’m irresponsible.

The evening brought another trip to the cinema and Dune 2, as strange and lavish as the first. There are a lot of books and it seems that there will be a franchise now, which is excellent considering we need to get people back into the cinemas.

Just over the river first thing in the morning. An early morning return to the old “teaching kids about renewable energy” thing. I was in a little school in Stockwell. The energy company often sends a volunteer. Usually it’s someone hoping they won’t lose their job for being a bit useless, and trying to get some kudos by joining the school’s engagement. Essentially it’s often a potato. I’ve got used to running the workshop with a potato next to me, and trying to minimise the damage they do to the attention of the students.

Today was a treat. Today I had a guy who had been to the actual school, and left fourteen years ago. He recognised some of the teachers. When he went to that school he had just arrived in the country from Afghanistan, and spoke no English whatsoever, but he was good at football. So he made friends on the field, quickly got a part in the football team, learnt the language through the need to make friends and also through excellent teachers giving time after hours. I could tell it was emotional for him to come back. He found at school that he had an aptitude for engineering, and now he’s working at a very high level on some of the biggest pioneering projects in this country. We had things to talk about, with all the work I’ve done in alternative energy, and the understanding I’ve picked up over the years of exposure to large scale interference projects like Extreme-E. But he was totally FROM that school. I live fifteen minutes away, but Chelsea and an old Harrovian? I’m always astonished and flattered when they tick the box saying “The workshop leader was like me.”

This is why I keep doing the schools thing though is for days like today. It’s paid well enough, sure, and sometimes it’s a slog where discipline is bad and nobody believes they have a hope and can’t be persuaded in the time I’ve got. But they do have hope, these curious tricky young ones. I’m sure there’ll be some people already now starting an engineering job from a hard upbringing as a result of one of then bizarre sessions they’ve had with a slightly mad-haired bearded eccentric who doesn’t seem to be wedded to dogma but does seem to care about humanity and the fact we are boiling ourselves out of the picture for greed. They get links and a strong suggestion to follow them. I’m leading a lot of horses to water. They can choose to drink or not. So good to have such a passionate and relatable volunteer.

I finished at 11am. Went round the corner to a pub in Balham and got filmed in the audience for Boatman Town, a poetic rethink of Everyman pioneered by Helen Eastman and Creation Theatre. Gorgeous work. What a lovely day.

“Hi Al, are you on your way to S&H?”

You know when you get the message and you aren’t expecting it? It’s not as bad as a wake-up when you are supposed to be working for money. But…

28 volunteers were on time today for Scene and Heard. 2 people were absent by prior arrangement. 2 people were LATE. One of them was me.

When that text message came in, I was lying on my bed playing Nier : Automata, which is shaping up to be a curious little debate about what classifies as sentience – a thought experiment that we are going to have to start taking seriously before long.

“I’ll be 45 minutes.”

I know the way very well. Sunday is good traffic. Bergman and I made it FAST.

The other late person was Milo. And he’s my scene partner. “You’re made for each other,” Roz joked, and we had to sight read our child playwright’s piece in front of everyone else. We were given a moment in the break to meet him and have a cold read so it wasn’t quite the first time. Just a very harried second.

“My god you guys and that piece were sensational!” says an old friend by text after. She’s being pointedly lovely, but that’s what she’s like. Nevertheless, Milo and I, the naughty late boys, have been given a delightful mischief of a play by our playwright. We can’t name him online. But he’s political and very interesting. I’ve never worked with Milo before, even though we’ve seen and enjoyed each other working. We understood each other immediately though and pinged. We will have so much fun.

All the pieces I saw were “sensational” in their own way. This is a mentoring project and young playwrights from hard backgrounds make stories to be delivered by professional actors. Occasionally very starry people get involved on the sly. It is a wonderful mentoring project and has brought me great joy and focus over the years. Now I’ve got a hard scene to learn, and I’ll be part of a crazy evening in a few weeks, up at Technis. Scene and Heard. There are some actor and crafty friends that I think ought to get involved. You know who you are. Come play.

Oh hi. I forgot this. Still, it’s not crazy late so I’ll still probably be able to remember something. I’m in bed. Blanket is on.

Tomorrow Boy is coming to stay for a bit while Emma heads for the Highlands. Brian is as smitten with cats as I am so he’ll have a happy home, although I strongly suspect he’ll miss Frank, who took the burden of care with the little fluffpot while I was in Aberdeen.

Today there were some breakthroughs at the admin mine. There’s still tons to do but one of the hardest things is done is done is done oh joy. Took a large chunk of day. I have no idea what the weather was like. Haven’t seen the sky.

I did make my first batch of juice with the Champion. My friend in the woods has a beast of a juicer weighing in at seven hundred pounds. For £55 and a drive to Yorkshire, that thing is just as good, and easier to clean. I’ll be working through my ASDA bag of fruit and veg the next few days, and accidentally getting a little healthier while having tasty breakfast drink that isn’t coffee.

I’m back in London. Will be in Camden a bit tomorrow and very tempted to try and go to Dune 2 and get a bit of big screen crazy epic madness. I loved the scale of the first one.

But I’m drifting. Sleep is very close. A relaxing Saturday despite the admin. I might have a tea with a sniff of whisky now I’m awake again to write this. Have a lovely Sunday folks.

There are still people left over from my childhood, people who knew both of my parents. One of them lives near Brighton, the daughter of my dad’s best friend. Her father obsessively collected and raced vintage cars. Dad shared some of them. I once got driven from Yorkshire to Silverstone in their 1920’s racing Bentley. Sadly they all got flogged without my knowledge when he lost track of himself with Alzheimer’s. I had always wanted to try and drive the thing to Sydney – they did that but only got as far as Bombay.

His daughter and I have reconnected recently, largely through the death of an old friend. In contrast to our parents, she has got very involved with Extinction Rebellion. It’s a necessary voice at the moment, so even if I’m not going to be gluing myself to anything in the near future, I wanted to see her piece of street theatre today in Brighton. They call themselves The Crude Oil Mechanicals. Many years ago I did street theatre for kids with an angle about Peak Oil running out, so I was curious to see how they use a performative voice to get their message across.

It’s rough and ready, very much on the nose, but they aren’t theatre makers. I learnt something, which I think was the point. In a crowded shopping centre we stood and watched and learnt that, of course, if we can’t stop the oil industry directly, perhaps we can shame insurance companies into refusing to insure them.

I sometimes feel jaded in these matters. I worry that nobody really wants to change, and certainly they don’t want to lead change. I worry we have gone too far already… With that in mind it is impressive to see her – very much not a performer – as she tries a theatrical message. Outside there were loads of drummers and that was joyful. Protest can take many forms. I’m glad I caught it.