Category: Uncategorized

I shot back across town this evening to make sure the cat wasn’t starving after spending last night with my friends and their baby. Lovely to hang out with them, and that baby… She’s a joy. She is just entirely present, reactive and responsive. A reminder to us all to be like that.

Now I’ve got Pickle sitting on me paddling into my belly. Nutrition. Affection. Distraction. Repeat. Basic needs are pretty easily met across species. I’ve been feeling pretty emo recently and it’s been leaking into the blog. What’s the deal?

I don’t like writing about disappointments in my career because I frequently find myself in conversations with actors on that subject and I never want to be in them. It’s fucking boring. “Should should should. Want want want.” We pretend to be other people for a living for God’s sake. It’s fun. Some people stitch up knife wounds. We just want to hold a mirror up. But everyone is the star of their own life. And this latest season is no good.

This early summer has been what can only be described as an absolute complete and utter shitstorm career-wise. I could look for reasons. I could look for patterns. In the end I have to convince myself it’s arbitrary. But it’s hard to keep maintaining this daily record when I’m having to sit on disappointment after disappointment. I keep wanting to go off on a good old rant. In terms of what I’m used to it’s off the scale. So I think I will. Entitled actor twat rant. Maybe it’ll lance the boil. Maybe reading back over my first world problems and my charmed life presented negatively – maybe it’ll help me concrete how lucky I am…

Since I’ve started this blog I’ve hit a desert of pencils. It can’t be connected but it feels that way. It’s always down to the wire. I’m fucking livid about the last few. I went to a field and danced until I dropped because I smashed the crap out of a recall for a lovely tour of Hamlet, waited two weeks on a heavy pencil while unknown machinations took place and eventually found out while walking down a street near my old drama school that I’m not going to Miami and California because *insert reason* *there is no reason* *ABORT ABORT*

So here I am looking at a desert of the unknown, as ever, despite having had some beautiful opportunities to pin my hopes on, all of which turned out to be balloons. And it’s the same in the love life. Vanishing hope. Repeated. With friends asking me “When are you going to fall in love,” while I’m standing open hearted wondering the same thing.

So I’m going to put my skin back on. But this is me shaking it out first. I’ve tried not to vent here, because I actively dislike people whining when things aren’t perfect. I’ve got loads of good things happening. Loads. Absolutely nothing to complain about apart from not being able currently to expand the list of interesting practitioners to collaborate with. “Make your own work,” yes yes of course. But I love working with new people and that’s how we grow. “Go on a load of dates.” No. I hate it. “Hide in a hole?” Now you’re talking. *digging*

My best friend has a relatively new baby – (7 and a half months), and the opportunity for her to go and work at our old drama school part time (directing a second year show) came up. What a lovely thing, to be able to bring her deep practical understanding to these people just starting out. It works for her in that it’s not as all consuming as a rehearsal process into a run, so she can look after the little one and keep soliciting for telly work while giving back to the beautiful college that encouraged our kindness and presence. It works for the kids because they get an opportunity to work alongside a practitioner steeped in her craft and robustly validated by her industry, and one who has never shifted into a habitual “teaching” groove. It’s lovely to run workshops from that practitioner headspace.

I hauled myself over to Catford to spend the evening with her, as weekends actually mean something for her at the moment. I’m still recovering from the emotions and the dancing but I’m pretty much square with things now. Seeing her helped round off the remaining edges. We’ve always helped dig each other out of the dumps.

Last time I saw them, her boyfriend was seriously considering going to Shanghai to visit one of his best friends who is doing Punchdrunk out there. I said he should probably just do it. It’s not often you have a good friend you can stay with in Shanghai. I missed one shot a few years ago. My friend didn’t. He went and impulse booked the whole trip coming off a job, blew the whole job on it, and spent 10 days in entry level China. Based on the conversation I’ve just had with him it was even worth the horribly expensive last minute visa. He played me some audio of an “angel” singing in a passenger tunnel in Fu-Jing. It made my heart stop with soaring human-yet-alien vowels. It was just some guy practicing. Not even busking. Using the tunnel’s acoustic to check his form. Gorgeous and unusual.

I found myself yearning to go somewhere unfamiliar again and spend some time out of the groove. I could get behind the idea of a trip to China. I don’t speak a word of the language but if you’re looking for a culture that is utterly unlike the familiar, I reckon you can’t get much better than that. Plus I’m not a fussy eater. But anywhere will do. Who has a house somewhere unusual that I can crash in for a week?

I’m lucky that I still can travel relatively easy. I’ve kept myself unfettered. Very few obligations apart from Pickle. I can just pick up and go. Money or the lack of it and the obsession with keeping myself available for acting work are the only things that have been hobbling me. I take my hat off to my friend’s boyfriend, for just booking a flight, working out a visa and sodding off to Shanghai. Maybe I need to make a show that can travel and book myself a world tour. Maybe I need to just sod off to China and work it out when I get there…

Quiet today. Last night I had a friend round late for a restorative evening. It was lovely but involved a surprising amount of gin. I knew I wasn’t working today though which gave me the luxury of a slow morning, of which I took full advantage.

The best use of my empty day that I could possibly arrive at in my slightly impaired mental state at the moment was to go for a walk in the local area and get distracted by expensive kitchen implements in shops. I wasn’t feeling the writing. My head is full of ants. I went to Muji and looked at things I’ll never buy. Then I went to Peter Jones and did the same. Then I ran into a neighbour as I was aimlessly walking up and down the Kings Road coveting things. The next part of the plan was a trip to Holland and Barrett to look at things and buy none there too. I had it in my mind to get some 5htp. My friend intercepted me and seemed to think that a Xanax would do instead. It’s Chelsea after all. We can be 1950’s housewives. So I gave it a try because that’s what I do. I’ve never eaten Xanax before. I don’t think I’ll make a habit of it. It was a bit too floaty.

I then wafted into town for the early evening meal with Tristan and Tanya before he kicked off working in his late night hellhole of a job. We went to Dirty Bones in Piccadilly. I could’ve been anywhere for all I cared. I was surfing a wave of genial indifference by this time. I got lost in Piccadilly Circus and ended up in Carnaby Street confused and discombobulated in a familiar area by the Friday night drunk-or-bust lot who had just been disgorged from their vile offices where they trade happiness for curved televisions. They were seeing which of them could shout the loudest. I eventually worked out where I’d gone wrong and ended up in the restaurant I had been looking for. There I met a burger that had macaroni cheese inside it.

I shoved my new burgery-friend down my gullet which put paid to the remains of the Xanax incompetence, and I think I participated in some form of conversation. Then I decided to walk home.

On the way home my late night friend from last night panicked by text that she had lost her wallet – passport and all, and thought it might be in my flat. “Of course it’s in my flat,” I tried to assure her. We rendered ourselves incapable of anything but monosyllables and then passed out watching Harry Potter. Her stuff is likely to be everywhere.

But I was in no hurry. Beautiful evening tonight, and I wanted to look at pretty things so I did. I arrived home wondering what the hell I’d be able to put in a blog, found the wallet (and a packet of slims), felt like a hero for doing nothing, changed the cat litter and sat down to write this.

I’m still wearing my festival armband. I think I need to cut it off. Normally you only continue to wear them if you’re 17 and you think it somehow makes you cool. I’m not 17 anymore, despite nth behaviour. And looking cool is pretty far down the list.

I don’t want to cut the thing off yet though. It’s a reminder of the sensation of all that weight falling away as I was bouncing around in that field. It makes me smile when I look at it. I need reminders of lightness in this heavy city. Especially right now when it’s so hot and sweaty and everyone’s short tempered.

It’s not like I overextended myself today. I phoned a few actors and booked them for a job. I got a bit of work for some friends and a bit for some strangers. Then I chanted with my neighbour. Now I’m off across town for Kiwi Christmas food and perhaps a bit of prosecco.

Tomorrow it’s June. The debt that originally sparked this blog has been paid. In the process there have been more than 500 of these blogs. Sometimes they’ve had structure. Sometimes I’ve discovered things as I wrote them. Sometimes they’ve made me chuckle. Sometimes they’ve just been dashed off so I can get back to living again.

Technically there is no reason for me to carry on. I could wind this up and go live in a forest for a year with no signal. I could get on the good ship Picton Castle and fuck off around the south seas for 6 months, hardening my body and getting much better at the accordion. I could do many things.

Or I could try something similar but new… Brian likes to set me challenges. He knows I like to have them set. On his birthday he suggested : Why don’t you do a month where you make the blog a vlog? He got me to shake hands on it. I’m a man of my word… “it might take me a while to get the kit sorted. June or July.”

I don’t really know how to edit video, what platforms or bits of software will help, how to sort out sound and lighting to make it look good and make it interesting. Maybe I don’t need to. I have a few ideas of fictional theme including one which has tickled me for a while. All recommendations welcomed re software, points of reference and cheap kit. I reckon June can be a month where I quietly learn and practice in my spare time. And then in July, God help us all, I’ll try and put something out there daily. God knows what. And I reserve the right to chuck it all in as a bad idea and get back to just scratching out these overly candid or entirely evasive daily journals with nothing more than word pictures and an arbitrary photo because they’re familiar and easy.

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And now I’m traveling home humming Christmas songs to myself. We’ve had a kiwi Christmas. The weather is right for it. And pleasant if odd to be immersed in that world of sounds, flavours and symbols without having to put the old sweaty nightie on and prowl around humbugging. Merry bloody Christmas. Seems it never ends.

I think it was over ten years ago this happened. I was at Latitude Festival. “Hi, Al, we’re doing a Shakespeare workshop up at Ripley Castle. The kids know you from your work at Sprite. It starts on Monday. We need two leaders and we’ve just lost one. Can you come do it?” I had my car. I also was supposed to be driving Melissa back to London from latitude. But I’m me and it’s a job. “Yep. I’m there. Hang on what’s the money? … Great. Fine. I’m in.” And on Sunday evening, late, I left an angry Melissa stuck in a field and drove through the night to Yorkshire. Thankfully she and I are still friends.

I arrived in Yorkshire at 4am at a gargantuan house after an epic night drive. I collapsed into a randomly selected bed in a huge house. The next morning myself and Tom awoke at 7, had breakfast in this cavernous empty house, and Tom told me his workshop plan. He had a plan! Phew. “That sounds great,” I said. And in we went.

Tom and I worked with a load of young people, using Dream as text, but pulling in work by Keith Johnstone. As is often the case with work with young people, it was a confidence workshop with Shakespeare as the frame. He did the text. I did the confidence. One girl, India, ended up walking down a tree root as Titania, and 8 years later she designed and operated Christmas Carol at The Arts for two years. That’s a win. She’s a good friend and artistic collaborator now.

In the evenings, though, Tom and I ended up in a huge house, all alone. What to do? We played fucking Hide and Seek and it was EPIC. I’ve never laughed so much. By the end of the second day we were having so much fun he was able to overlook my hideous attempt at thickening a carbonara sauce by just adding unbelievable amounts of cheese. Use flour, kids. Cheese didn’t do the trick… It made us FAT. Happy. But fat. But he sought to employ me as Scrooge as a result of that fun.

The reason I remember this all is because I had a beer with Tom tonight. He’s in London now and killing it. We still collaborate, but his work has taken him somewhere brilliant. He has directed Christmas Carol and used me for years now but he’ll be too busy to do it this Christmas. Thankfully if it’s Jack and I he’ll let it go ahead as his.

Who would’ve known that a game of Hide and Seek and a terrible cheesy carbonara would lead to years of glorious work. But I guess that’s the thing. We make stuff with people we like making stuff with. I’m sitting antisocially in a restaurant with Tristan and his brother and sister. It’s his sister’s birthday and I want to celebrate it with her. But I’m aware that it’s likely the celebration will obviate the possibility of me writing coherently because it’s her 25th birthday. But here I am with Tristan, who I know I can work with beautifully, Lyndon his brother who was my constant companion and wingman in that very changing time I had in L.A, and Perdi their youngest sister. I’m surrounded by my people. I haven’t worked with Perdi yet but I definitely will in time and I look forward to finding out in what context. Meantime, happy birthday. I’m back to the party. The first year I did Christmas Carol I drove to Wales for Christmas. It was a long long drive from York, there and back.. Their dad, Terry, was the founder of the feast. “Look after my kids,” he told me with great attack. “That’s all I care about.”

Considering they’re looking after me so well, I can only try. As it happens I’m pretty fond of the buggers.

 

“This is what we get for them fucking with the weather for the Royal Wedding,” says my friend. We’re sitting in Phat Phuc. There’s a little bit of canvas between us and a torrential downpour. We have been catching up over spicy noodles. He lives in Dubai and the comics I was sorting through were bought by him.

“In Dubai we talk about weather manipulation all the time. They seed the clouds to restore the water tables. There’s always nature’s revenge afterwards.” I have a few friends that state things as facts that I would frame as speculation. Their certainty always surprises me. (“Oh yes, but he’s possessed by the devil.” – that sort of thing.) I usually play the baffled gentleman card and get more clarity, while examining their opinion through the prism of my knowledge of their experiential history. Occasionally I wonder if there’s something to it.

Conspiracy theories are as seductive and fascinating as obscure religions. Everyone wants to feel like they are in possession of secret knowledge. You feel special. Lucky. Different. Better. It helps you heal. People with damage are more attracted to this than those unfortunate/fortunates who haven’t seen the cracks yet. You can tell other people, with solid eyes, slightly nodding to yourself “Ahh but I can talk with angels.” I’ve done it before, relaying things I have learnt in my spiritual dabblings. You’ve probably done it too. We all have our own reality and perception. It’s ours and we live in it. It’s familiar and normal. I sat in a stone circle on top of a hill on Friday afternoon, hands planted in the ground, asking the rain not to fall. The rain didn’t fall. I might decide that those two things are connected in some way. I might then tell you “I’m a geomancer.” It would be it utter bullshit to you, but if I believed it it would be true for me and might be comforting. There’s always an excuse if it doesn’t work the next time. “I’d eaten Macdonalds, so I was resonating on a low level.” That sort of thing. It can be fun. It can be self-comforting. Telling me I wasn’t a geomancer would serve no purpose other than for you to stroke your own ego at the expense of my comfort. (I don’t think I’m a geomancer. But hey – it didn’t rain. Maybe I have secret power!)

I find myself seduced by my friend’s thinking. I keep asking him about it.

Two people got married publicly, and lots of other ordinary people who needed cheering up invested themselves in the idea that it was a happy occasion. Good weather meant they could get out and travel, throng the beer gardens, put money into the economy while happily celebrating this rather pedestrian occurrence. I quite like the monarchy for the fact that they are arbitrarily selected through a quirk of birth. We need to have people we can frame as special. Why not do it by lottery rather than sheer fucking arrogance and entitlement. Imagine if May was on our coins, and Boris was sizing it up. It was good for the mood of a populace who have been smashed down recently by austerity, greed and manipulation by those monsters in parliament and the corporations that own them. If it’s possible to do things to the atmosphere that stop it from raining, that wedding would’ve been a prime candidate for doing those things. Gawd bless ’em. We had such an unusually beautiful week in May. Then unprecedented lightning storms and torrential downpours a week later.

Although maybe it’s because the royal family is chosen and blessed by the skybeard!!??

There’s just so much we don’t understand, won’t understand, can’t understand. I like any and all attempts to make sense of it. It’s all bollocks and it’s all true. In the early days, spirits and magic and gods were doing it. Now we’ve got so secular that we put these gods into men. “The illuminati are preventing me” is just as seductive now as “I’ve angered Apollo.” Men in Black with forgetting machines have replaced nymphs and dryads with songs.

But whichever idiot pissed off Thor, can they get back in their invisible aeroplane and seed chemtrails with fairy dust so his wrath is appeased and I can go out without a brolly?

 

On the first day of the festival I was given a sachet of what I assumed was moisturiser. “That’ll be lovely after a heavy night dancing,” said the smiling man. This morning I rose from my hot tent, staggered into the sunshine, and found the packet in my pocket. “Perfect,” I thought, as I squeezed the lot into my hand and spread it generously all over my tired face. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. Yes, it would have been lovely after a heavy night’s dancing, had it been moisturiser. It was bloody deep heat. The girls were rubbing it into their legs. In the heat of the morning sun I was crying, laughing and wet wiping my poor burning leaking face. Good God. Deep heat hungover face rub fun. I’m not sure if I recommend it. But it definitely woke me up. After the revelation and expectation shift I grew used to the pain. After about ten minutes Mike asked “Would you do it again?” “Yes, on balance, I think I would. It’s quite pleasant now.” “But that’s because you forget about pain as soon as it’s stopped,” says Tristan.

And that’s what I’ve been doing. Forgetting about pain. I’m coming back to the world on a train now. I have a new hat and a new skin. I feel totally refreshed, filthy, and in need of a good scraping, a square meal and a proper night’s sleep. I’ll probably fit them all in this evening.

I’ve learnt a lot about funky dirty bass and break beat this weekend in a field. It wouldn’t be my specialist subject on mastermind. But it would be Tanya’s and Louise’s, and we were slaves to their passion. I never even looked at a program. They had it all planned out and we mostly just followed them into various tents and danced until the music stopped, with occasional breaks for fresh air and water.

I now have a fairly good idea of what I like and what I don’t from the options presented to me. Opiuo did a fantastic set on Saturday night. It was so good I completely overheated and had to go outside and find water. But we were dancing right at the front, surrounded by teenagers, in the mosh pit. Krafty Kuts were also superb, as were the Stanton Warriors and JFB. I know nothing about this so I’m only noting the DJs that forced my tired body to dance and smile. I tend to listen to more contemplative lyrical music by habit so whenever I step into that world I feel underqualified. But there is definitely an undeniable skill in making a huge party out of remixing and recontexting other people’s music. I used to poo-poo the whole enterprise of remixing. “Make something new!” But then think of Hallelujah. Leonard’s original is not a pleasant listen. Lyrically fantastical as always. Musically less so. I prefer both the Jeff Buckley version and the KD Lang. And this weekend I’ve heard a few songs I adore turned into really big happy dance numbers. It’s joyful. Like seeing a very dear friend suddenly showing up dressed as a fairy in a tutu, and forcing you to dance.

This morning I’m lying in a boiling hot tent and I don’t want to move. Everyone else in here is fast asleep. There are two alarms going off simultaneously, and nobody is stirring but me. The heat woke me and the fact that I only scheduled two blogs ahead of time had grounded me to the reality that I’ll have to write things that actually happened this time. So I thought I’d get it done now.

These gatherings are some people’s idea of hell. I worked at Latitude one time with actors who genuinely couldn’t compute the lack of hot running water. They did an uncomfortable reading, terrified of spiders, and then got a taxi out at the first opportunity, swearing about mud.

Festivals have become strangely integral to how I work-through my life. I can usually manage to find something to do at a couple of them per year. These miniature communities of littering vegans that spring up from this time of year until the end of August, early September. There are often interesting odd performative jobs going. And for many years my alter-ego has been Captain-Odd-performative-job.

Sometimes it’s good to just go and live in a field for a few days though with no pressure, knowing you’ve got a comfortable home to go back to. I haven’t really slept very much even though I’ve been here two nights. None of us have. But we’ve relaxed. The weight has dropped off.

I had a shiatsu massage yesterday morning, and danced long hours in the afternoon and evening and dawn. Dancing like a maniac certainly burns some calories and I’d always take that over going for a run. Although I might be missing the point. But this tent is a revelation.

Tanya and Lou have never done a festival before. They haven’t got their own tent or camping gear. So they sank £200 to rent a bell tent. “Glamping”. The guys in the one next door to us were talking about their investment portfolio yesterday morning. We are in a field surrounded my about £40k worth of bell tent rental, not to mention the teepees and airstreams. It’s comparatively luxurious here. My squeamish friends from that Latitude might have been happier here. Even if there are still spiders. The showers run copious hot running water. It’s hard to like the loos, but at least they are compost rather than chemical. Wooden long drops. Not such a long drop now it’s day three.

Shindig is pretty small for a festival. It used to be the kick-off party for the regular festival workers. No main stage acts. Just a load of funk and dance. Considering we were promised flashfloods, we’ve come through it very well indeed although everybody is caked in mud. One torrential momentary downpour on the evening of the second day, but for the majority of the time it’s been sunshine and a cooling wind. I’ve got my usual festival tan. And honestly I’m thrilled I made this impulsive decision. This job, and the expectations and collapses that can come with it, can get all consuming sometimes. I was beginning to feel a fraying on the edge of my kindness towards myself. It feels like I’ve put all the pieces back in the box now, and I can come back to London and find out the thing that’s been waiting.

Today I awoke with the dawn, fresh and refreshed. Last night after twenty seven cans of red bull and a bottle of vodka I ran into a benevolent fawn that offered to scream away all my rage and frustration with me. He took me on to the tightrope and we stood there and looked at the sleeping cows. We screamed. It was amazing. Screaming is the best way to get some of the horror out of ourselves. The cows didn’t even flinch. They just went on sleeping. All of them but one, that is. One “cow”… I saw it raise its head. Oh no. Jupitus. He had heard my scream. I saw his tooth glint as he smiled.

I returned to the festival, but now I had to confront him. I had no choice. The Blitzburgers were playing their difficult second album and Toby was in the comedy tent talking about sardines. It was a good time to die. I had to confront Phill. As is traditional I removed all of my clothes and painted the word “Catshit” all over myself in ogham. Then I carefully inserted a walnut into my left nostril, and marched towards the field chanting the lyrics to Abba’s breakthrough hit “Waterloo”. The fawn was back on the tightrope, screaming.

“My my
At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah
And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way”

My voice was cracking with fear as I tried to maintain the steady drone. All on one note. B-flat. It’s the only chance I would have to weaken him. Below me one of the cows separated from the herd, its flank shuddering. Jupitus. The Ogham on my body started to glow, the heat of it burning into the glue on the sanatogen still gaffered to my leg.

“The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself

Waterloo I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo couldn’t escape if I wanted to.”

In the dark, the form of the cow was melting, shifting, changing. I reached into my pack for the bionic arm. The walnut felt heavy in my nostril. I was going to sneeze.
“Waterloo knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo finally facing my Waterloo”

And he came at me. 3 tonnes of howling Jupitus rage. The tightrope fawn was screaming behind me to the indifferent world. On the wind I caught a snatch of Toby’s voice, talking about kale. And he was on me. I tried to hold him back but he was stronger. “Oh yeah” he snorted as his weight winded me and the bionic arm snapped. I realised that my only chance was giving up the fight. I went limp and collapsed under his weight. All the breath was knocked out of me. It was going dark. I could feel the call to oblivion as Jupitus’ hands scrabbled for purchase on my throat. And then the gaffer snapped. The sanatogen junior vitamins pinged into Jupitus, one by one, full of goodness as I slipped in and out of consciousness and suddenly volcanically sneezed. The built up hayfever snot behind the walnut gave it the power of a cannonball. Right on the head! Jupitus went still, knocked out, the vitamins working in his bloodstream, his tongue lolling, his cowsuit shredded. A momentary pause.

I was trapped beneath him though. Behind me the fawn was still screaming out all my rage and frustration. Toby had stopped talking. Perhaps he was having a meal. I took stock. Beneath an unconscious Jupitus full of vitamins, I looked at the stars in the night sky. Maybe everything was going to be alright after all. “I feel like I win when I lose.”

But I was tired. The ogham was smudged now. Cat sit, it now said reminding me that I hadn’t organised anyone to look after Pickle while I was here in a field in Smurgleburg under Phill Jupitus. The stars winked at me. Jupitus shifted. His eyes shot open. He winked at me too. The vitamins gave his eyes a shine. “Brother!” he howled, the tears flowing freely, and he kissed me on the mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t laugh in Edinburgh!” I panted, trying to get my arm out from under him so I could wipe off the spit. “I was hungover and you were being too dominant. You annoyed me.” We hugged. “Let’s get some beers off my rider,” said Phill. We danced the night away. Eventually, exhausted, we said farewell and I went to my tent. As I went to sleep I could hear Toby talking about saveloys. Back on the tightrope, the fawn stopped screaming abruptly. Someone had cut the tightrope.

And I woke up fine. Phill and I are now good friends. He’s given up the cow impersonation. I still think he has an eye on my Woolworth’s fish finger sandwich. If I pretend I havent heard him when he says he loves me, the friendship works really well. But sometimes he says it three times in a row.

What will happen tomorrow? Has Al scheduled another one of these? Who cares? I’m off to dance to the Crafty Spuds. They’re teaming up with Norman Blitz.

Right. I had some shitty news. So I have gone off grid for a few days. I’m at a festival. I don’t even know the name of the festival. It begins with an S. It’s in Somerset. Shindig? That sounds right… *google*

Yep. It might look like this. A friend of mine had a spare ticket.

I wanted there to be lots of cows. That guy on the wire has to stay there for three whole days. The line-up is hilarious. I honestly don’t give a monkey’s about anyone who is playing except for maybe Correspondents. I don’t know who most of them are. And those I do know – Phill Jupitus…? In massive letters? I’ll probably choke to death on hayfever or freeze in my sleeping bag. But I need a change of scene so I am getting one. This blog is being written in advance. The facts contained herein may be different from the reality as it manifests. But if I don’t do this I will arrive there, realise there’s no reception, spend most of the first night looking for a way not to break the blog-chain which has reached the figure 497 with this post, and end up not relaxing and chilling out which is the reason I came here.

So here is what might have happened to me on the first day. And this gives me a blog-break in real time as I’m banking 2 days the evening before I leave…

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I first noticed him following me when I got off the train at Somerset Piccadilly Station. He was trying to blend in with his surroundings, shifting with the light, moving from cover to cover. Phill Jupitus. But what did he want with me? I kept my head down. Behaved as if everything was normal. Walked past the orgy of bald men in their fifties shouting “TAXI”. Joined a queue at the bus stop. In front of me was a tall skinny boy talking animatedly with his friend about crabsticks. Jupitus was in a field, flanking me, dressed as a cow. He thought I wasn’t wise to him, but he hadn’t been working on his moo. And he kept mooing over the other cows when they tried to moo. Textbook Jupitus. Even the pigeons knew he was a fake cow.

The bus arrived and I kept an eye on him, galumphing along behind it with his big legs at supernatural speed, cow suit flailing with his rolling gate, hiding huffing like a train fuelled with lager and rage, never more than ten foot behind the bus. I could see the madness in his eyes. A damp picture of my face clutched in his hand. I racked my brain. What could I have done? I only saw him once at that panel show in Edinburgh. The bus stopped at Nother Chostberry. Twelve old ladies disembarked, before one of them got back on. “Mine’s the next one,” she laughed. It wasn’t funny but we all chuckled obediently, automatically. My mind was on Jupitus. He was pretending to be a cow again while we stopped. The boy, whose name was Toby, was still on the bus, talking about mandarins.

Seventeen stops later we arrived at Blimpington which is where the Shnurrrdog Festival is definitely taking place. Keeping Toby between myself and Jupitus I hauled my bag from the bus. He was talking about chipotle oblivious that he was my human shield.

I had packed in a rush. I had a bionic arm, seven tubs of sprouts and a fish finger sandwich from Woolworth’s that I had kept from childhood. It’s the only time I ever saw them selling food. It’s worth a lot of money. I tried not to look at Jupitus but I could sense he was there, still on me, inevitable, powerful, terrible. Could it be the sandwich? I had other things to think about though. The War-Child volunteer was trying to make jokes as he fished in my bag and fingered my sprouts. “You know you can’t take any vitamins onto the site,” he said. “I have none”, I assured him, feeling the guilty pain of the sanatogen gaffered to my inner thigh. Shit. I had been distracted. Where was Jupitus? I’d lost him.

I walked into the festival site. I could hear the Mumpflunkers playing on main stage. Behind me, a shadow flickered and was still. On the wind came the unmistakable “tsccch” of a ringpull. Was that him? Was he in? Had I lost him? How had he got past the War Child volunteer? What does he want with me? Is it safe to relax?

Find out tomorrow as this tale reaches its thrilling conclusion.