Month: February 2025

Brian and Maddy have gone up north, leaving me with both cats. Boo, my talkative shadow friend, who I’ve bonded very well with. Boo who is no longer horny thank the lord. Boo who just persuaded me to spend a good twenty minutes playing with her when I should be learning my lines. And Misty. Fluffy pudding. Misty just installs herself somewhere and expects love. I left my electric blanket on for her and she’s barely moved all day. She lies next to my face as I sleep and bats me in the mouth if I’m having weird dreams. I can largely prevent the story going bad, but there’s nothing like a catfriend to punch you in the face when you are about to start following an unhelpful cosmic track in dreams.

I’ve got these two reprobates all to myself. So we’re gonna have a cat rave. Get in.

I’ve ordered a load of mice in, a good few kilos, active ones. They’ll be running around. Some of them are mice strippers. I’ve put Misty on the tech, just cos she’s more likely to pay attention to it. Boo is a cat after my own heart. She’s perfectly capable of the tech but she might get distracted. She’s better off on reception and response if something goes wrong. I’ll start her on the door as she won’t run out of it. I’ll move her to checking performers once the bulk of punters are in. She’ll either be the one that everyone has an experience with or she’ll be off pulling mice out of gutters and sorting out disputes with the hedgehogs who can be spiky.

There’s a guy in Camberwell who does high grade catnip on delivery. I’ve had the number for decades, it’s one of the best in town but reflected in the price. It’s good if you’re catering for Top Cat, Liono and Cheetara, even Tom if he can get away from the home. Boo insists it’s worth it buying the good stuff. Misty reckons she’s got someone for half the price but I don’t trust her to be in touch with the catnip market so I’m letting Boo sort it out because, between you and me, Garfield might show. I’ve had it through his people. I can’t do him lasagne, but I want to offer him high grade nip instead. I’m told that’s more his jam these days anyway. He’s trying to move with the times. Plus he’s been hanging out with Hobbes who hasn’t been well since Calvin took that job in silicon valley.

We don’t need a sound system. We’re gonna use Boo’s lungs, she’s proved she can out shout anything and now she’s no longer horny she has the attention span so is clearly the best resource we have for amps.

So yeah, it’s on. Cat Rave! These furry maniacs and me gonna ‘ave it up large.

I’m just gonna look at my lines first. In bed. Bed is the best place to do work when it’s sleet outside. So … I’ll just do this work in bed before the cat rave. And maybe I’ll have a little power nap before we get on the catnip. I’ll just have half a Dreamie. That’s all I need these days. And a mouthful of Sheba to ground me and if someone can stroke my belly then I’ll attempt to bite their face off. Maybe a little nap. The rave will happen anyway I’m sure. Misty is very organised, Boo is responsive, they don’t need me, that’s all you need, that’s the team, I’ll just have a little rest, then I’ll be ready to take it all down tomorrow. Boo is pretty good with the forklift, but she might have other pulls on her attention and Misty can’t do it for shit, but she’ll have the breakdown spreadsheet. I might need to help with practical stuff or get on the phone, won’t know until the morning, best I get some rest and let the cats have their party. If things go to tits I’ve asked Thomas O’Malley to come wake me, and I think Macavity will help too but you can never tell with Macavity.

zzzzz

The early nineties. Bright coloured clothing. The town of Reading. Young people all aligned to theatre in some way. Kenneth Branagh in the cinema, having just been at the local Amdram “Progress Theatre”. Kate and Anna Winslett known well, loved well, both starting acting careers with some traction. Friends on TV once a week. Pills changing the way the weekend worked. Two pounds a pint. TGI Fridays. 20 Marlborough lights for £3.75. Radiohead before OK Computer. U2. REM. Finlay Quaye. The Beautiful South. Down the road near the Winslets, Chesney had his one and only house. “We used to sneak in and use his pool.” The Singing Detective on VHS. Lipstick on her Collar on TV. Trainspotting. The Chart Show on Saturday morning. Terry Pratchett. Stephen King. Braveheart in the cinema.

A faceless terraced house on Elgar Road. Mister Webb had rented it to students. Three of us. A gas oven where you had to throw in a match. Just one loo, through the kitchen. A big living room.

Adrian, Tim and I. Students. What were we studying?

Studying dreams. “I’m gonna be a writer.” “I’m gonna be an actor.” “I’m gonna be a director.”

None of us with family, precedent, contacts. All of us passionately clueless, and fervently generative. Making, building, causing, starting. The process of creation over the detail. Do do do do do.

I saw Adrian today. First time in ten years maybe. He’s won awards. Lots of them. Even back then, his output of books, all printed on that green perforated printer paper – he was prolific. “I think I’ve got the only copy of one of your early ones in my attic. If I find it I’ll send it.” “I’ll probably burn it.”

3am over thirty years from now, someone would have asked “In thirty years, where will we be?” “I’ll be acting, maybe the RSC, maybe a major American film director, maybe both, one after the other.” “I’ll be writing, maybe a few awards, selling well, sought after, going to conventions – you know up and down to London to talk at bookstores.” Adrian and I pulled a blinder. Tim too – his first feature as a director is in the edit. “That was a special year, a really happy year,” Adrian observed. And it really really was. All three of us the first time away from home, with a place of our own, working out what the heck made us tick. The late nights of it, the discussions, the projects we made. I had someone I’ve never met before who was at Reading after me ask “How in hell did you get the budgets they gave you for those summer Shakespeare’s?” Teamwork. Crazy passion. Luck. Chutzpah. I worked hard that year, just not on my English degree. We made decent shows, even if I wince at what I thought was good acting then. I had a long way to go, and needed that to go through Guildhall and Wendy and Ken and Chattie and Wyn and Patsy and Jeanette and Martin and Kate and Jo and all the incredible people who were being paid but still it was golden assembly of practitioners. I learnt what I needed to learn, including humility. Just not too much, motherfuckers.

But to have a coffee and just hang with Adrian felt like a tonic today. I’m happy for him. I never knew anyone else work as hard as he did on his vocation. Passion and commitment. Learn by doing. It’s the best way.

Hopefully it won’t be another decade. We are both still passionate and vital. I’m happy to have felt it.

Damn it’s good to be back in the room.

Wednesday night Factory. What’s next? Right now we are looking at The Winter’s Tale. We will look at Pericles and Cymbeline and then have some sort of vote.

For now though, the best times the best best times. We will just work for the joy of working, for the company of working. We will seek rigour, we will believe, we will love each other and we will take risks.

TC was quite right that if we didn’t start to show our work our interest would tail away. But we can go a long way between concept and show, this is The Factory, we’re a gym. We are working to grow together, we are working without showing our work, we are trying to make things we believe in, free of the noise. In the light of the fact we have many new players, it is time for an exercise in rigour. If we do detailed and challenging weekly sessions for months and months then we will shuck off most of the “when do I get my chance to shine” humans. Hopefully. And then we can show a thing that is true and comes from craft and isn’t burdened by the vast mess of noise and false merit we have all been running up against forever. “Why do we keep seeing that person?” It’s how it works. You can take yourself out from that position if you do enough damage, but it takes work. I was very sad to hear of Tony Slattery’s death. Matthew Perry… Bojack is incredible for really plumbing the depths of it. Nobody can be “the now” for very long as “the now” responds to time.

I’m home and thinking of my best friend who is directing Winter’s Tale at our old drama school and fuck me, those lucky students, to work on that text and to do it with her.

It’s a late one in the canon, and it’s so jazz, so full of difficulty and options, the opposite of the regularity you find in Titus, R&J etc – he’s got his chops, he trusts his actors, he’s pushing the envelope. It’s mature. Plus he’s using the resources he can get hold of. He likely had a mate from the neighbouring pits. “So you wanna be an actor?” “Yep, but I’m ok doing all the presentation at the bear pits, and there’s some of the bait bears that are so tame and sweet they follow me around.” “So how do you fancy a monologue? And maybe a bit of scene work? I’ll make sure you can leave the theatre in plenty of time to get back for your late night MC bear thing. But… Bring the bear you work with. I’ll make sure you mostly can be with it, but maybe teach one of the lads to hold it in the wings. Make it a double bubble night for your pay. I’ll have you come on, do a bit of monologue, and then we can send in the bear. You guys are mates, you can play with it a bit and make it look like it’s eating you. Then just exit stage right. It’ll be golden.”

Exit Pursued by a Bear.

I’m fully integrated into my animal household. I could offer Exit Pursued by a Cat if any of my timeless playwright friends wanted to build a part for me…

Night happy friends. Yes it’s mostly on the corporations. But let’s not take the piss. Mony a mickle maks a muckle. x

It is rare for me, this kind of neglect. I partly blame it on the cold, and partly on the fact that I am one of three cats now inhabiting this flat. Maybe I’ve wanted to make sure my territory is clearly defined? Who knows…? Whatever the reason, I haven’t washed for about four days.

I’m running a bath as I write, but I didn’t notice. I’m wearing a singlet vest. (hi ladies)

I took my shirt off to reveal this vest to myself just now. It was a Scrooge costume undergarment originally. All my clothes are inherited. It leaves my armpits open to the air. And… I became very curious about the odour.

When I was in my twenties I stank. Now it’s nothing like so urgent, but I’m usually washing every night. Something made me fall off the habit temporarily. Not just the cold… I’ve been distracted. And I’ve been cat.

I’m not gonna write a whole blog about it, but this, it’s navel gazing anyway by sheer existing. Is there any difference between me curating information about the minutiae of my life and me sniffing my own armpits and enjoying the sensation?

I hung out with Stephanie and Donald this evening and they wanted to talk about my mum’s boyfriend, who died not so long ago. It was an evening. I wasn’t feeling sociable in the slightest, but Max and I showed up and we exchanged photos and there’s something so sincere about Stephanie that you have to believe she’s made up. Perhaps we just aren’t used to American values and sincerity here. I keep thinking she’s about to pull the plug. Maybe she’s just a brilliant kind thoughtful human. I’m still working it out. She came to one of my obscure plays once at Oval House Theatre. She is full of values, but I hear her pass judgement on others. I’m surprised she’s not doing the same about me. Perhaps she is, when the doors are closed. Or perhaps she’s just an uncomplicatedly kind person.

I’m home, stinking, to play with the catses and wait for my low water pressure bath to finally fill so I can reset my stink. But I’ll kinda miss it. I keep sticking my nose in with curiosity – “is this really the scent of me ?” There’s something primal about it all. I always avoided team sports but I washed obsessively as a teenager as the fucking children I was in my house with at school kept telling me I was greasy. Because they knew my grandfather was Spanish, or a “dago” as they put it, kinda missing the country as they aimed. But… I didn’t understand ignorance back then so thought it was literal, I thought I was “greasy” cos that’s the word that goes with Spic. I washed my hair with max strength shampoo sometimes 8 times a day. When I finally realised the extent to which they were assholes it blew a hole in my trust of men my age for decades.

I smell right now though proudly. It’s a good musky man scent. You could bottle it. Call it Posh Dago Espanol. It’ll be the next big hitter.

Too late though. My bath is run. With regret I’m gonna get into it and flush this wondrous odour forever. Well, until the next time. Just… just one more armpit sniff.

mmmm

“Hello, is that Tom Ford?”

I sent pretty much all the cards but of course two people didn’t pay until I was back home so I’ll have to go back and do two more. Still, that’s some stuff moved on and hopefully I’ll never have to think about it again.

Oh lord I’m tired out somehow. I think it’s just the dark and the cold. I’m not enjoying this season, even though I’m looking ahead to some interesting work. I guess that’s the eternal malaise. What’s after the thing that’s after now? Momentum momentum momentum.

Still, I emailed the guys where I go and blither on about electricity to children. Children will continue to need to understand electricity. I can be part of that equation and use the money to buy my own electricity. I might even get more careful as a result.

I’ve bought a metal kettle that keeps the water hot like a thermos. Once I’ve set it up I’ll be able to tell it to boil from my bed on an app in the same way Brian can make the litter box clean itself. Brave New World. The litter box is filling up fast these days but it is a result that both of the cats like to shit in it. Whoever worked out the draw of cat litter deserves a medal. That stuff makes domestic cats possible in flats. These are both indoor beasts and they don’t drop poo randomly. Boo likes to watch Misty go, but she’s weird like that, she loves to come and hang when anyone is on the loo. She’ll jump up between your legs if you aren’t careful. It’s disconcerting.

She’s finally off heat at last. That was a tough time for us all and we are gonna make certain she is spayed as a matter of priority. Have to wait a bit but then it’ll be done and she won’t have to go through that with us again. She largely hated it. She’s getting back to her playful self now, and hopefully Misty will be tolerant. They aren’t fighting, but Misty has the ragdoll boundaries, and will take a swipe if Boo gets too playful.

It’s dark and late. I’ve had a bit of a walk around the area today but nothing like snowy Hampstead Heath yesterday. I’ll be asleep before midnight again I’m sure. And that’s nothing but a good thing. With Brian’s sourdough thing, and the horny cat, early mornings are very much more active in this flat than they used to be. I’m up for that, you get the best of the light at this time of year. And that’s important. God we are all ready for a summer in this country. At least I had one in Paris, but I know it didn’t quite get across the channel. And with the depressing news across the pond where just what??! Idiot. I love Americans, usually. How did they majority vote this guy? It’s not gonna be easy now, with such a mouthpiece for simplistic thinking, reactionary behaviour, schoolboy mean-ness being called acceptable. I guess I’m out of touch, as there’s a majority vote there, just as with Brexit. Dad once said “the clever people don’t breed, so eventually the stupid people have the numbers”. He bred lots. “I’m trying to redress the balance. Don’t be stupid.”

On and off I’ve been selling stuff on eBay for decades. They were the market leader and I was there as they slowly deconstructed their own appeal. People use the phrase “slow car crash” too much but we all knew where it was going, the sellers. Advantage the buyer, absolutely. I know I can buy on eBay with confidence. But the sellers?

The rot set in properly when they introduced “Variable selling fees” aka incomprehensible fees for sellers based on maths that, if you tried to ask about them (and I did) you got patronising replies basically telling you you aren’t good enough at maths and it’s all very easy. So that persisted for years while everyone was shedding to Etsy and then Vinted and still the one time market leader couldn’t understand who they were alienating. “Buy Gold for the Price of Silver,” they put on a fucking billboard, and as someone with gold to sell I knew not to go there. “Buy good things without the business markup” sure…. But the point of eBay was transference. We put our things there, they go for what people want to pay. Nothing is worth more than what someone will pay. They connected the item with the someone.

It needs to work hard to get back. Finally now they have shifted their “You need to be a math genius to understand our fees” stance and they let us list for free, which is what I would do anyway just by waiting for the free listing weekends. This is likely because they’ve spent so long servicing their buyers that they lost their sellers, not just with ridiculous fees and policies but also just with obviously giving no shits.

So I listed a bunch of magic cards and some other stuff. And people still check it. But it’s not what it was. Well watched items were sniped for tits all. One guy made an early bid and then cancelled it at the end of the sale saying “Found it cheaper elsewhere”. It was a £4.99 card worth £12. I accepted the cancel but honestly he can go fuck himself.

Tomorrow I’ll have to do all the nice packaging, and so many of the people who buy this stuff are neurotic – it’s like selling clothes – I realised I can tell them “Stop taking the piss, I said it was LP and that takes in edge damage,” but when I tried to sell clothes and patterns I got so much crap and so much stuff returned and I couldn’t speak the language and the fucking buyer wins on eBay, every argument, every time.

I’ve eaten shit for dozens of neurotic arseholes. I bought something from a trader recently and he apologised in advance that it wasn’t in quite the condition he described and sent me a load of free shit. I didn’t give a fuck. But he knows how it works on eBay and there are always arsehole buyers exploiting the advantage to the buyer thing.

But yeah, I’m back listing things when I have a moment. I hated the variable selling fee bullshit so much I stopped for years. It seems they’ve finally realised the extent to which they alienated us. You can’t provide a buying service if nobody wants to sell. Incomprehensible fees and a mission statement where people could get things cheaper than they should be. Your things that you care about. Gold for the price of silver? Ptoooie

A new household. Brian and I here, of course as forever with this blog, barring a hiatus. It’s BarclayHook Towers. Boo, who you all know. She’s still horny. She’s incredibly vocal with it, as you’d expect. We’ve had no rest, day and night, for five days now. I really hope she comes off it soon. We are in communication with the vet to have her spayed. That’ll be the next chapter. She will utterly hate having a cone on her. Then there’s Misty, a ragdoll, a seat stealer. She’s a big old fluffy plumpkin. She’s not thinking about nuance. She’s just there. And then Maddy, quickly becoming a friend, new to this country and from the other side of the world.

I’ve booked a late Sunday lunch at The Old Bull and Bush cos apparently it’s gonna be sunny tomorrow. We’re gonna hit the heath, do some walking, enjoy the fact it is February at last, probably go to the pergola. Maddy’s a photographer, and she’s not fucking around. She showed me some of the stuff she got in Richmond Park. She came over here with minimal stuff, one cat… Incredible behaviour. I’m trying to help by getting this flat less cluttered. Most of this stuff is bollocks. Time to move it on.

We are all in a puddle watching Ted Lasso. I’ve watched the first season already once, I’m watching it again. It’s joyful, so joyful. I’m so glad it was so successful, this thing that on paper I would never like, but this wonderful wonderful show about integrity and football… who knew? Impeccably acted, funny and human.

I’m burning frankincense and have candles in the window. Tonight we bring the light back by leaving light in our windows, although we need to have removed the vestiges of the winter festival decoration. Now we are moving to the light, the heat, the warmth. Fuck yeah. (Tomorrow is just as good for the light in the window thing. Just leave an old candle there on a plate so you don’t burn yourself down and blame me.)

Goodnight and happy light return.

Friday night. January.

I got out of bed to heat up a sticky toffee pudding and then got right back in. Here I lie in my jimmyjamas. It isn’t nine yet. I am going to sleep and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Just got to write a few words first.

Invigilating today. A slow and thoughtful exam, lots of relaxed people doing difficult sums. I just make sure they have a chilled out room, and that they all have the things they need. Then I send an invoice. It’s more about that part of the process than anything else to be honest. I’ve been back on eBay trying to declutter and improve my cashflow at the same time. I’ll throw in some shifts helping the future entrepreneurs of this world.

I’m happy to be in bed early on a night like this. I’m done with January and it seems January is done with us. Onwards towards Candlemas now and the climb back to the light. I want to go on holiday. Money money money. For now I’ll just flog things flog things flog things, do the invigilation, live life.

I’m feeling the cold, and I’m still empathing into jetlag hours with Brian and Maddy, plus I’ve caught their cold. I’m totally unconcerned about losing Friday night. Twelve years ago I was proudly #LOFNOTC. Parties happen when they happen, they don’t have to be Friday. This one is certainly not a party, despite what the people on the river boats seem to think.

Maybe I’ll get out of bed one more time, make chamomile and wash my teeth. Fill up water. Fuck around with Boo. Back in bed by half nine. The ghost of Marianne Faithfull would understand that we can’t always be rock and roll. I’m spent and I’ve done very little. Extra rest will make me better tomorrow, aye? The sooner I’m over this cold the better.