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It’s so odd. Easter Weekend and normally London would be so busy. Those weekends where eight friends are having a party and another eight are in a show and I’d spread myself like marmite and try to go to everything all at once and drink a bottle and a half of wine in the process and wake up suddenly in the morning wondering how I got home.

Now the phone barely buzzes and if it does it’s seventy five percent likely to be one of the WhatsApp groups coming off 7 day mute again. I check the recent messages, find a hundred smiley faces for every three words, mute it again and go back to missing being sociable.

I need to get fit. That’s the next thing. I need to actually do that thing people do where they go into the world in order to become more healthy. In the past there’s always been that lucky job that has kept me fit by mistake. Maybe a director has had a two hour warm-up every morning, or maybe I’ve been sprinting around London with a Walkie talkie trying to pretend to be calm while Americans ask me to do things, or maybe I’ve been walking ten miles on the floor of a great big tent at Ascot making sure that table eight have had the plates cleared, or maybe I’ve had to play five parts in a Shakespeare play at 1886 metres altitude or in blazing sunshine or some-such. Accidental fitness has been my jam. Not anymore. I’m gonna have to seek it out.

The pets are no good influence. Mao sleeps whenever possible. Hex is never happier than when he’s under his rock. Maureen and Sadie and Brian and most of the other fish just hang out under various rocks. Only one of them really represents for Team Nervous Energy. Chippie is ADHD.

And the snails… The snails have magic powers.

“I’ve got two snails,” he said. “They’re supposed to clean the tank but they don’t.”

When I set up the tank, there were no snails. I changed the water completely. We acclimatised the fish. No snails. About a week later, one snail. But it kept moving faster than it’s possible for a snail to move. I’d look away for five minutes, I’d look back and it would be the other side of the tank. But I’d never see it moving. It was like a weeping angel – (Doctor Who reference alert). Then I realised there were somehow two of them, and they had arranged it with each other that one of them was always hiding. Sneaky bastards. They still do that. But then this morning they magicked a third empty snail shell, and they both hid. I thought one of them had died. I tried to coax the empty shell back to life. I’d put it on a nice flat surface, and come back to find Chippie trying to eat it again. Then suddenly, five minutes ago, two snails again, plus this new empty shell that might suddenly turn into a third snail. And a fourth. And a fifth. Until my flat is overrun by snails.

This is what happens to your mind when you don’t work out, kids.

Best think about ways to get fit but I just hate on-purpose fitness. Anybody need someone to carry boxes?

“What have you done in the flat,” Lou has taken to asking when we talk on the phone. She asks mildly, as if there’s no weight in it. Maybe there is no weight in it for her. For me, I immediately feel weight and find myself justifying my inaction, or just my lack of perfect action.

“Sorting out coins is basically moving things forward,” I might try. “They were taking up space”. The last few days it’s been “I’ve had to help out with the eviction situation in Hampstead”. “Marvelous”, that little bit of my brain must have thought. “An excuse to avoid my own shit in favour of somebody else’s!” The truth is simpler and more complicated. “I’ve been procrastinating again” would usually be the best response to Lou. “I started stroking the cat and suddenly it was 6pm and I was tired.” “I opened up the laptop for a casual gaming session with my morning coffee, and when I looked up it was dark.” There are advantages to this teenage world, as I sit at home and daddy government occasionally drips SEISS into my ear. It’s training us all to be replaced by bots and it’s very easy to just let the time shoot past unwatched but there are advantages. We are all much more aware of the place we live in now.

I forget there’s as much space as there is here because I’ve historically prioritised boxes over comfort. Having this bedroom so clear – it makes it easier to imagine how the rest of the place could be and should be.

Jethro and I have revealed some floor that I didn’t really think existed. There is a tremendous amount of guff in here though. But it’s an eBay maximum £1 listing weekend. One day in company and it feels more achievable. The key will be not finding a reason to block myself tomorrow and onwards from there, every day a little. It’s actually fun to clear it up when I get round to it. And the chairman can supervise – he’s so chilled even the hoover barely phases him.

Making a list helps. But making a start helps more.

There’s a lot of connected jobs. To sort X I have to move Y to Z place, but A and B are currently there so I’ll need to put them where X is but in order to do that I’ll have to sort X which I can’t do. It’s been a circular blockage of blockages. But most of it has been in my head. I’m better by far in company. “Let’s just move the pictures together,” he started. And piecemeal over the course of a few hours the plan revealed itself.

Another shift to Hampstead through a glorious morning, but sad work. No landlord breathing over my shoulder so I could peacefully video-call my soon to be evicted friend on the other side of the world and show them the state of things. My friend is quite fastidious. We met collaborating and very quickly realised that our energies complement each other. I explode energy, she neatly puts things in place. Together we make neat explosions. But the flat in Hampstead has exploded a bit too much with just me there, but amazingly much of the horror isn’t my fault. Sure, I’m responsible for the fact that there are a few mugs in strange places, there’s a few piles of wiring and dismantled electric things, some laundry is hanging up on doors, there’s still perishables in the fridge. Time has been responsible for dust as the roomba hasn’t been running. Builders are responsible for mud on the carpet – there’s been a heavy footfall. The landlord is responsible for walls collapsing with damp, for an upside down table in the bedroom, a barbeque on the TV stand, a wardrobe full of paint pots, a half torn down picture, a metal chair in the bath, stinky carpets and a light that’s been broken from tampering. It’s like she’s been going there once a week and throwing things in all directions at random.

I’ve taken extensive videos. And I’ve rescued some of the things identified as precious by my friend. The two most precious things were a guitar and a box of letters. I have them in my flat now for safe keeping. There’s too much stuff in here anyway, so it can’t do any harm adding to it surely? How long they’ll remain, only time will tell. I thought I’d only have the snake a few months and he’s been with me over a year now. The thirteen year old cat? Maybe he’ll grow old with me. I’m terrifically glad of him. Ragdolls are a lovely breed and suit being house cats. His needs are uncomplicated and eloquent. Cuddles and food. Both on demand. It helps provide company in trying times. And he really is very fluffy indeed. The hoover clogs up immediately as all his hair wraps around the internal workings. He’s asleel to my left as I write. I should be as well. I switched the light on suddenly as I realised that I hadn’t written this yet.

I got taken in by pretty much all the April Fool articles today. I’m wide open. Might need to dial up my critical faculties in the light of the information war that is underway. I rang an old friend from college and we ended up ranting for about forty minutes. It’s an easy thing to do with all the uncertainty, to channel bits of rage. It has tired me out though. Night. X

I feel quite bad for talking to my friend’s landlord with a dictaphone in my pocket. But I thought it might help protect them in some way to get stuff like : “Notice? Oh no. We don’t have a contract so I’m not bothering with notice.” I tried to persuade them that maybe it was worth bearing in mind she’d been there in good standing for two decades. To an extent it might have landed. But with my panorama style bullshit, now we’ve got a recording of the landlord saying some things that we hopefully will never need. It’s excruciating. I was so nervous I was motormouthing. I barely let the landlord get a word in and I just grabbed my stuff and fucked off. But there were a few gems. They’ve accepted that at least they can’t lock me out until after the fifteenth. That’s just two weeks. It’s something. But it won’t be enough time for my friend to come back vaccinated from the best place in the world to a hostile flat in Covid-city. New Zealand has never felt so far away.

I’m a casual landlord and when I needed Kitcat out it took time. I guess a tenant can easily make an eviction process hard if they want to. Kitcat wasn’t trying to make it hard but I still almost ended up driving her to Scotland with her stuff. I don’t want to fuck over my friend’s landlord but I’m much more invested in making sure my friend is dealt with fairly. Impulsively kicking her out with no notice and an aggressive tone is completely wrong.

So I recorded her just in case. It probably won’t stand up in court. It probably won’t come to that. But it’s done.

Then I went home and played with the cat. I got some good work done, if stroking is work. I moved a few things from one place to another as well. I made myself a club sandwich. Work, right? Oh! And…

I decided to have another look for the passport. I had just been in conversation with a friend of mine in America who believes in a magic sky-man. She told me she would ask the magic sky-man to help me find my passport. Half an hour later and my passport was in my hand. It had slipped between backgrounds in my eBay lightbox. Just in time for another self tape, and this one is unheard of. Ladies and gentlemen, I have more than 2 nights to prepare! No lines to learn either. It’s another reaction shot, this one extremely detailed in MCU, and they want a little cry. And if I get it I can fly to wherever they need me to. Thank you, magic sky-man. Praise be.

Some of my friends hate cash. “It’s filthy.” “It allows crime.” “It’s annoying.”

This pandemic has not been kind to cash. There are lots of outlets that don’t want it these days. Places that just a year ago would have insisted “cash only please” are now insisting you pay with contactless. I don’t like it, not because I particularly like cash, but because I prefer cash to the alternative – to notcash. To a cashless society. I like people to have the option.

Obviously first it’s about the homeless and people who want to live off grid. Government can say that they’ll “solve” homelessness and that people shouldn’t live off grid. But that’s still narrowing our options. We might allow or even champion the phasing out of cash. But even if it doesn’t affect us very much, it shrinks the world around us, it limits options. And eventually we are affected, by which time it’s too late. The business of governance desires an easy populace. The fewer options a populace has, the easier we are to channel.

I’ve had my hands in a load of cash today, getting it out of my possession and making it digital. It’s a lifetime of spare change, spread now over three containers. Filthy filthy coins, not at all sorted, just jumbled together in various containers. I was repeatedly washing my hands as I sorted it all. I figured it would pay me a half decent hourly rate to turn it into PayPal money. Auditions seem thin on the ground at the moment despite the industry waking up. There’s something around the corner I’m sure. But for now I’ve been sorting old coins – it’s like a little journey through my past. Hong Kong dollars, Czech Krone, Thai Bhaat, Peruvian Soles, French Francs, Greek Drahme… The largest pile was Channel Island pennies – (not technically sterling although easy to fob off in bars). Then US dollars. Then Swiss Francs and Rappen. All still current, but now all bagged up and logged online. I also found tons of expired random currency from UAE and Bosnia and Macedonia and old strange textured 1950’s French Francs and all sorts of other unusual bits, some of them firing memories and others leaving me wondering how the hell they found their way to my flat when I’ve never been anywhere near the country they’re from. A hundred Leones, anyone? 25 Rhodesian Cents?

It’s all sorted now. I’ve logged all the expired currency, along with the Swiss Francs and the dollars and I’m posting it to leftovercurrency dot com where they give pennies on PayPal for stuff that has been out of circulation for ages, and they take the lot. I even chucked in a few coins I couldn’t identify. Last time I used them they adjusted my receipt by like £0.0076 for some shekels I didn’t bother logging. It doesn’t come to much. It’ll be just over £50. But for about two hours work that’s ok.

As for the British currency, I’m gonna take all the tins to the car and see if the banks will take it. If they refuse, I’ll end up pouring it into one of those cages where Sainsbury’s or ASDA or somesuch take ten percent and give you a receipt for store credit.

I’m starting to worry about money now you see. The antique sales have tailed off. I’ll need to get on set and do the thing I’m supposed to do before long. Something’ll show up. Somehow it always does. But for today, I’ve been a friend’s Uber driver for less than Uber. And on the way home I stopped for some chips at a kebab shop that was open. And they told me “cash only”.

My friend has basically been stuck in New Zealand for over a year now. I’ve got her snake, and periodically I go and check that nothing has exploded in her Hampstead flat. She’s lived in that flat for twenty years, since she left college. While she’s been in New Zealand she has kept up the rent and council tax. She isn’t allowed to sublet, so she hasn’t. This hasn’t stopped the landlord from announcing out of the blue that my friend has to leave immediately. No notice. No lead time. No hint. Just a sudden heave-ho by email. Evictions have been suspended, but my friend isn’t living there right now. New Zealand time is no good whatsoever for communication either. I got a call in the morning and I’ve been trying to make some movement in the waking hours of the day. No joy.

The landlord knows I haven’t got a key to the deadlock and they’ve deadlocked the flat so there’s no way for me to get in. I’m not getting any replies to my messages yet. I can’t even get my own stuff out, let alone start making sense of the volume of my friend’s stuff to be sorted through. The thing I can’t countenance is how there’s been no notice. I rent out a room here on a casual basis and even I give a clear two months and then don’t particularly mind if there’s an overspill while people get their shit together. I’m hoping I’ll get a word with the landlord of my friend in the near future, but I’m not expecting much sense out of them. As the occasional caretaker I’ve met them. I was essentially made to feel unwelcome at the flat some time ago and now it’s developed further. This landlord is another person sitting on an asset and doing very little with it – I’ve been like that for frustrating years to my friends. They too have historically charged very little rent, but now they’ve got a bee in their bonnet. It’s this Covid bollocks. It’s sharpened a lot of us as we have been forced to find other avenues – particularly the self-employed who have been left behind in the furlough or overlooked altogether because they had a baby or somesuch.

Today though I dropped my shit for that of my friend, and now I only have a week left to make my flat inhabitable for the Jethro’s parents. Right now they would die of horror. A week, with the brand new temptation of somebody else’s drama just up the hill in North London.

Time to knuckle down in some way. I’m never sure which job to prioritise first so I prioritise none of them. But with a week left I’ll have to leap to the deadline. Not just try to get into a flat, leave a load of missed calls and go look at a bunch of trees on the Heath.

I went to a school with a proper fucking garden. When I was eight and a sea away from my parents the extent of my privilege didn’t occur to me. There I was, in my pajamas, pissed off about the fact that the former Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation had sent me out of Lower White Dormitory for talking. I was unaware that most kids of eight didn’t go to a school where there was a jungle, a lake, flowing water, acres of grass, redwood trees and future politicians playing cricket in the Sussex sunshine. They even built a theatre when I was there. The maths teacher directed the shows and he was dead inside and preferred blonde boys. But the theatre still inspired me.

The redwood tree is my biggest takeaway, though. I’m not likely to go into politics, or any of the other industries which are colonised by graduates from that place. There’s one more actor that I know of from Ashdown House – a good man and doing fucking well. Contemporary with me. I can stretch towards his career and maybe touch the edges of it. He waited for me after a premier once where I was in the film and he wasn’t. I was a bit starstruck even though it was supposed to be my movie night. He was a prefect when I was a little one, and even went to the same drama school as me. I’ve never heard him talk about his background though and so I’m gonna be discreet for him and not connect his name with my beautiful tiny school in Sussex.

I love that tall red tree.

A Sequoiadendron – frequently colonised as a “Wellingtonia” in the UK to honour the Iron Duke who died in 1852 around the time most of the first saplings were brought to the UK. My childhood love for this tree is what took me to drive hundreds of miles up the 1 from San Francisco over a year ago, and then to hike into the depths of a reserve that may well be ashes now.

The school has just been closed forever. The trust that owned it lost too much money and had to drop a school. They chose this one despite the incumbent Prime Minister and his brother being alumni. I was driving through Forest Row and thought I’d take what may well be a last chance look at the place before something happens to it. There’s still a deer skull in the porch. It’s still made out of that incredible stone with wide ranging views over Sussex to the forest. And the Wellingtonia is still there, next to the stand of rhododendron that’s now inhabited by chickens.

I didn’t spend long there. I barely saw a soul. I stayed long enough for a quick clamber and to grab some souvenirs of pine cones in case the next time I’m passing, the way is barred by a huge iron gate.

It’s a beautiful place, a peaceful place and a possible place. Many powerful lives have been launched from the calm there, many good lives, many kind lives.

Should you be that billionaire philanthropist I’ve been waiting for all my life, let’s talk about how we can get hold of that magical property in the heart of powerful land in Forest Row and turn it into an artistic spiritual Wonderland with a destination theatre and facilities for so many people to make so many things in peace and beauty. It could be a thriving community. It needs to be filled with life there. A place takes on the power of its use, and this place has been charged up with launching many small lucky lives into the world. I struggled with boarding. But memory is kind.

The magnolias are in bloom across London – those fragile and gorgeous blossoms that come for such a short while but brighten up the city in Spring. The cherry trees are shooting out as well, with pink fairies in the air. There are daffodils everywhere there’s grass. It’s a glorious time of year, signalling hope for the summer to come. Speing. A typo. For a time if being a bit like Spring. Speing has spig.

I’ve been pounding the streets with Lou. We went to Notting Hill Farmers Market and ended up with a punnet of mushrooms, some speing flowers and … well … and two packs of smoked sturgeon.

It’s just a bunch of stalls in a car park, mostly selling meat to us but with pockets of variance and two young lads selling caviar and smoked fish, which of course drew my attention. Last time I was at the market in Notting Hill I was the one selling the smoked fish. Tom Hollander bought two Arbroath smokies. So it’s nice to turn the tables and be the actor buying the fish. “It’s bred in the UK” “I’ll have two!”

I’ve never been to Kensal Green Cemetery before despite Harriet living right by the place over a decade ago. We kept on meaning to go for a walk there back then but somehow always went somewhere else instead. Today was as good a time as any to hit an attractive place of death. It’s still very much the parental deathiversary season, so the transient nature of mortal pride sits squawking at the front of my mind. It’s a quiet and beautiful space, and there are still people going in there amongst the ancient tombs. Some parts are crumbled in, others are shining. We come across a huge open plan tented memorial to a young boy killed in a riding accident. There’s a statue of him with a football, adorned with a clean yellow arsenal scarf. Some of these memorials are all about letting go. Others seem to be all about holding on. Further down we find balloons from recent cremations, and at one point we pass a car with tinted windows blaring out shonky house music. Hard to tell if it’s mourners distracting themselves from grief or local gangster wannabes hotboxing with the dead on a Saturday morning.

Down the canal to Meanwhile Gardens and the Trellick Tower.

Mel and I built an installation there ten years ago on a summer night, filling it with sound and light, fire jugglers and a treasure hunt led by strange recorded voices. “Take a calabash and draw me some water”. Projections on the tower, little snippets of story and memory about the area and its history. I haven’t been there since. We sat by the lake where we had a guy stinking of petrol as he twisted his burning poi. There are benches on the little wooden bridge. It used to be rustic and quite lovely. Now all the gaps in the wood have all been strung across with wire or plugged with plastic barriers and traffic cones and hi-vis tape. Some idiot has said it’s wasn’t safe, so they’ve fucked it up in order to prevent notional people notionally drowning. Safety again. Screw you, safety, and your mission to steal the colour from the world.

British summertime starts tomorrow. And a full moon in Libra. My sign. Speing. Being it on.

Gorringes. It’s not the sexiest name. I guess auction houses aren’t the sexiest places (although I’m still a big fan of Tennants). Nevertheless today I brought a picture to Gorringes. I’m widening my sphere. Working out what works where. So far I’ve learnt that – from my point of view – Tennant’s can sell ANYTHING but they’re in Yorkshire, Rosebery’s know what they can sell and what they can’t and Lot’s Road… well, they’re five minutes drive from me and I’m still never taking another thing to sell there again.

Now I’m trying Gorringes as it’s in Lewes – only twenty minutes drive from Lou. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I dropped a picture off with them today. It’s no lost Picasso. It’s by Maud Maraspin, an American woman living in Venice in the sixties and painting large decorative studies of the canals in oil. It’s pretty, and they reckon it should get £200 – £300. I’m good with that. I’ve only got a limited amount of time left to shift the biggest things. Another item I have no space for is now winging its way to find love somewhere else.

It was also an excuse to pick up Lou and bring her back with me to my lovely new bedroom. She has made a blind for the window, to keep the heat in and stop me from being awoken by the sun earlier and earlier as the days grow longer. It’s a beautiful thing – lucky me for finding such a clever human. We’ll put it up tomorrow. She’s with me as I write. And there’s an unforeseen side effect…

The pussycat is jealous.

Poor wee scrap. He was in a cattery for far too long and then this hairy strange man suddenly happened and filled his life with snuggles. He adjusted almost immediately which surprised me because he’s an old fellow and might easily be set in his ways. But there have been no stinky surprises, and he’s been right on his food. He’s bonded with me, and he has chosen territory in the flat and he inhabits and shares that territory comfortably with me.

But he just got massively pissed off with Lou when we were sitting together and not giving him full attention. He went into such a sulk that he was off his Dreamies until he got a marathon stroking session from me on my own. He’s fine again now, back in his wardrobe, but it helped me see what a delicate ecosystem this flat has become. Snake territory by the kitchen door, fishlandia at the far end with the noisy filter, the fine and peaceful bedroom of The Chairman, with his chaise for grooming and his sleepy wardrobe. I might have reached capacity with animals in this flat. Don’t ask me to dogsit, as of course I’ll say yes but then I’ll end up sleeping in the corridor.

“Pet free house” is considered to be a phrase that helps things sell. I’m glad I got the picture out of here today as if I were a jealous cat I’d be looking at things to wee all over…

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Time has passed and he’s completely over his jealousy I hope. We’ve just had bellyrubbing time and now it’s time for me to go to bed and him to prowl and have noisy poos in the litter (hopefully). I’m glad to still be moving unwanted things towards people who want them. I’m glad there’s a fluffy little creature. And I’m glad of some company here.

Mubi has gotten more experimental since last I switched my interest to it’s little clutch of curated films. One film leaves every day, and one film arrives. My habit had always been to watch the one that’s leaving no matter what it is. Today it was a sixteen minute computer generated wide-screen contemplation of digital legacy, narrated by some dude on his phone on top of a hill in the wind. This is why I watch it no matter what. I wouldn’t have chosen it. But it kicked off some decent thoughts.

It naturally started with me thinking about this thing I’m doing right now in your face. My daily blog. Hmm. I haven’t gone into the stats for ages. Bear with me… 1533 posts including this one. Seriously, what the fuck am I doing?

“Whether or not you like it, it’s still going to be there,” says the narrator about the shit we leave online. Even if it’s deleted it’s still there somewhere. When I shuffle off I’ll stop paying for WordPress and most of these blogs will just instantly vanish when the subscription lapses. I guess that’s ok. It’s a living record and a conversation. I probably won’t still be doing it every day by the time I’m dead anyway. But once I stop giving WordPress their pound of flesh, pop goes the weasel unless I’ve worked out how to move it. Hey ho. But nothing is ever truly deleted online. It’ll exist somewhere.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I barely publish this anyway. I’m just shipping out a bunch of words every day to try and help me feel connected to myself, to you lot, to that world out there that’s been gently receding for so many of us for so long – that strange busy world we used to know.

“Our bodies are temporary but what we do is permanent,” says the narrator. But we make so much to pour into this digital void. “Look everybody look I saw a thing that’s visible!” “Here’s me and another human overusing our facial muscles!” “Here’s a person without very many clothes!” Billions of people like me and you creating things for free. “Generating content,” people used to say. Noise. Digital noise. Blah blah me blah blah.

I was helping a friend this morning who teaches people how to breathe on zoom. She loves it. She was an actor, and a fine one too, and now she’s turned what she learnt in theatre into a business where she helps executives to improve their communication skills and confidence with public speaking. It’s good work and it’s always lovely to hear men and women of all ages having little breakthroughs about all the things we have completely forgotten in this digital world – the way that our breath drives our movement and our thoughts as much as it does our oxygen. The balance of body and mind, and how easy it is to tip too far into one or the other. And just how to speak into the forward space with the appearance of confidence clarity and authority. She makes videos where she talks to camera about using the tongue or easing out the spine or intoning vowels. Those videos will still exist somewhere in 1000 years time, if the narrator of that short is to be believed. They’ll be kicking around with my daily noise and the billions of pictures of somebody’s lunch and the weird insects and the porn and the babies and the product shots and the health warnings. Maybe just on some dusty server in a museum basement somewhere marked “The social media bubble” and accessed digitally on occasion by PhD students of this foolish era of humanity.

This afternoon I drove a friend of mine to various paint shops where she’s colour matching prints and framing artworks that she’s been lovingly crafting for months ahead of an exhibition. They are beautiful and I’m proud to be able to help her. But once again, knowing how quickly the antiques I’ve been finding can deteriorate, I’m wondering if the Instagram photos of her art will outlive the art itself…

Or maybe it WILL all just burn. Eventually it will for sure, when the sun explodes into a red giant and consumes us – but that’s in 5.5 billion years. Those creatures will be the ones who hate us the most. “They plundered the minerals we would have needed to power communication devices that also sent pictures and videos.” “What things were so important to communicate that they destroyed so many resources in doing so?” “Pictures of cute cats.” “Ok. That makes sense I suppose.”