The horrid drive last night paid off in peace and quiet this morning. It can be very quiet here indeed. I did line runs on zoom and then went to the nearest town for a lovely breakfast. I need to remember to bring my aeropress as the local coffee is fifteen minutes drive. I’ve already pretty much filled up a loyalty card there.
Man it’s a schlep learning lines without context. I am doing my best to cram the buggers in. The best work will always be done in the room but I don’t want to be slowing the room down with remembering.
Lou is back. Didn’t need to get her from the airport. We are both feeling the cold and a little bit throaty and we are both of the opinion that a good hot curry can help in such a situation. That’s enough of an excuse to go to the local Indian and get the hottest one I want to handle. I’m feeling a lot better for it. Lou is in the bath.
I have to expand and contract with these lines. I very quickly get bored with my own head or distracted by something. This is why I’m writing my blog now. I can’t focus on the damn things.
I’ve been listening a great deal to all the news around Walliams and Brand. Maybe ten years since Me Too and things are still emerging. Back in 2007 some guy from The Express got my number and wanted to ask about my industry. He had it in his head I knew someone in the Spaceyverse – well I did – and he wanted me to spill some beans. The thrust of his article was to be that these things are worse in our industry. I said that likely it is bad in all industries – I bet it’s bad in journalism too. I wasn’t interested in giving him much more than that. He rubbed me up wrong.
But thinking about it, the fame thing complicates it. You forget that some people buy into the game that famous people are somehow rarefied beings. As the meat-rotter opined: “when you’re a star they let you do anything”. There’s a lot at play there. Fear of consequence, of violence, of humiliation.
“Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoil’d name, the austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i’ the state,
Will so your accusation overweigh,
That you shall stifle in your own report
And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:”
I heard Deborah speaking very eloquently about it on Radio 4. “These people could have consensual sex easily if it was just about that. There are plenty of sex workers they could pay, or age appropriate people who would be interested. They predate on people instead as it is more about an exercise of power than a sex addiction.” She put it better than I can remember it but … I think she’s probably right.
