AlBarclay

When I was a kid, there was this constant expectation that someone would stick a bomb somewhere in London. It was mostly the IRA and occasionally some solo idiot that hated a minority. All the bins were taken out of the underground, and off the streets in the City. If you left your bag unattended it would get reported extremely quickly. My friend Dan almost had his Sega Master System detonated by police at Heathrow and he’d only put it down for a couple of minutes. It was just part of the furniture of living in this city. Watch out for bags. People are trying to kill you.

This morning some moron tried to kill a load of people in the rush hour. On the district line. With a bucket full of crap in a Lidl bag. Shit enough that you have to get the bloody district line into work. Nobody wants to put up with some disaffected twat trying to blow them up before they’ve even got to Earl’s Court. Particularly if you haven’t had your coffee yet.

Problem is that everyone’s conditioned to assume the worst, so there was a stampede as the terrified herd crushed itself into a narrow exit, backed up on themselves and clambered over each other. I strongly suspect that more people were injured in the stampede than in the blast itself.

“Terrorism,” people are saying. If anyone is promoting terror it’s the likes of Dacre and Murdoch, obliquely causing the stampede by dripping a constant culture of fear into the public imagination. Inevitably whichever 27 year old virgin it was that tried it out this morning had been on some chatroom on the darkweb, allowing Daesh to take the credit, the news-terrorists to spread the fear and the legislators to call for more thoroughly monitoring all the people that don’t know how to cover their tracks online and thus don’t need monitoring.

Calling something like that terrorism though… it’s a bit like saying it’s war if you get punched by a German. It’s a shit thing to have happened, and it could’ve gone very differently. But the more fear it generates, the more it encourages other isolated idiots to grasp at the idea that by associating themselves with the object of terror, they can have an impact on a world that isn’t working for them. Engendering fear makes people feel powerful. I’m disappointed that so much of what I’m reading is to do with fear, the terror alert reaching critical, people taking knives onto the tube as if we’re under attack. Our Prime Minister has reacted. The President of the USA has reacted. It was just a shit bomb in a bucket and the guy that made it is public enemy number one for the day. I bet he feels great.

Once when I was about 19 I encountered a scared kid as I walked through a late night common. He had a knife and very actively wanted me to tell him I respected him. I told him I didn’t respect him “respect takes time” but I feared him because he had a weapon and I didn’t, so even if I was bigger than him, he might be able to hurt me. He was just posturing, of course. And he was satisfied when I told him I feared him. Which relieved me as despite being stubborn I didn’t want to have to try to disarm him. He didn’t seem to care that I told him I didn’t respect him. Fear and respect were synonymous to him, and either one was good. He wanted to feel like he could make an impact. That’s all. We’ve all had that need.

That encounter stuck with me though, and I’m thinking of it in the light of today. Whoever made the bomb – and I know I’m speculating the gender pronoun – he made a whole train full of people trample over each other in panic. The papers are associating him with the latest boogie man. People are messaging me to check I’m ok, and people are worrying about going on the tube. This little prat has created a little bubble of fear. It’ll make him feel powerful. Hopefully the papers won’t give him powerful names like “monster” to further add to the problem. But this constant fear of the monsters that wait in the trees just beyond our circle of firelight… It makes the shadows scarier, and it keeps us in the village.

I walked home. Whenever these cracks occur I like to walk the streets a while. I came upon this sculpture. It’s called “love”. That’s the MI6 in the background.

 

 

There’s an old cliché about not working with children or animals. I think it’s to do with “special” people who lack immediacy being put into sharp relief by something completely present right by them. It’s hard to marry artifice to reality. We see that war lost when they pump out these staged “reality” shows involving these empty shells who were “made in” Chelsea or Jersey or Essex as they cynically attempt to act out idealised analogues of their own shit lives, and end up looking and sounding like evil ventriloquist’s dummies operated by narcissist stroke patients.

We had a Great Dane on set – Fraser. He’s a big enthusiastic jowly horse of a dog. His attention span made the six year old look like a samurai. His habit was to run at the camera whenever action was called. His trainer had it covered though. Constant application of towel before those pendulous drools snapped off splat onto an actor’s leg. Liberal use of treats, delivered by hand right into his chompy mouthy munchy wobbly cakehole. “Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Good boy. Waiting. No no, waiting ” We got the shots we needed. Jo, the actor by me, had her finger in his collar to help. But he could’ve keelhauled her, despite her being taller than me in heels.

This was a one day community. The job is done forever now. I will never see many of that momentary “family” again. One quick day of my life as a green person. To be honest I’m still green now and I’ve spent ages with pads and lotion so I might be green tomorrow whilst I invigilate exams. I’ve never been very good at getting makeup off. And now I’m diverting my post shoot car into central London for a treasure hunt.

It was a happy day on set today, and for the two kids it was the first set they’d ever been on. Nice for them to start with such a chilled one. The six year old was doing “High five, on the side, up above, down below … too slow” His dad must be more or less exactly my age, or the eighties really are back. There was a brief hiccup where the client worried that the hairpiece I had on made me look like a certain German dictator. But that was solved easily enough. And nobody got stressy. Winning.

Of course I can’t blog any specifics until the footage is released. Not even the brand. And I can’t put up any photos. Which sucks as we got some great ones. So here’s Fraser, just after he was wrapped.

He was the first his first of us wrapped. Now I’m in my cab home but I’ve diverted it to Green Park so I can run around looking for treasure with Brian and Mel. Which might not be the best idea considering I can barely keep my eyes open. I ended up having about two hours sleep last night. Pickle was being affectionate by jumping on me every time I started dreaming and trying to burrow into my gut with her claws. Never work with animals? I’m happy to work with them. It’s living with them that causes the problems.

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We did well on the treasure hunt! We won a load of TFL gubbins. (Transport for London. Crap like mugs, Travel pillows and key rings.)

I persuaded this guy to take a photo with me as my twin. He was totally up for making it work. Thanks to him I won a London underground tea towel…

I’m sitting in a warehouse studio in Hanger Lane. Downstairs, loads of people are building things. Upstairs people are mostly running around. It’s high energy, last minute. They’ve pulled a chair out of a room and plonked me on it in a corridor, for want of a better place. People are trying on clothes in the rooms around me. There’s eight of us aged from 10 to about 73. Two men are running from room to room with different items of clothing. “Should we take the trousers off? What about the t-shirt, no the smaller one the one with the hood on. Too racy?” It feels very disordered, really last minute, but pleasant.

The whole brief for the job changed at two o’clock yesterday afternoon and everyone’s gone into flatspin. They had organised a whole load of costume for us, and then they were told that the client would prefer “ordinary” clothing. Somewhere in a board meeting, the important person said “Actually I don’t think the feel of this advert should be gothic.”  Cue panic dominoes. Everyone having to rethink everything with no time. The client is always right. Someone will have the job of returning a thousand rubber spiders and a glowing skull to the joke shop while somebody else buys a thousand doilies and a set of ceramic ducks. Occasionally the client asks the impossible. Frequently they ask the very very difficult. But – none of us would be here without them. So we make it work. It barely impacts our experience as actors. We just have to be sensitive tomorrow. And not say “Why does this mug have cobwebs on it?” – “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!”

The wardrobe department have rolled with the change by dosing up on red bull, bitching lots, and just merrily getting on with it. Which bodes well for the atmosphere tomorrow.

With all these last minute changes, it’s no surprise that they’ll be sending a car for me before dawn. The pick-up is always early as they want to make damn sure the actors are there when they’re needed. There’s a huge amount going on with these shoots and loads of people with loads of jobs. As an actor you’re a cog in a machine. And no matter how functional a cog you are in that machine, you’d better get used to waiting. I knew that for the shoot. I’ll be bringing a book tomorrow. I didn’t expect it for the costume fitting. Normally you just walk into a room, drop your trousers, put things on while someone pins them a bit and tells you look great, and then you’re back in your own trousers and gone. But bless them, they’re stressing out today. They’re way behind. I’m going to be sitting in this corridor for hours.

Our time is being compensated so it’s fine. It’s quite funny listening to everyone flapping, bitching, joking and working. Right now one of the actors is giving her CV to the wardrobe guy. She’s a new actor, retired in 2007 and living on a pension. “I only ever play mad grannies,” she complains. I recognise another dude. He’s about 7 foot. I think I’ve seen him as a zombie. The obvious thing that binds us all together is we all look … a little weird. Apart from me of course, of course. I look amazing and sexy, not weird, what are you talking about? I was down for “servant.” The ‘tache, you see. But now the brief has changed. This new “normal” family of noticeable faces doesn’t have servants. So I’ve just been told I’ll be the weird uncle…

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They got me in, and over the course of half an hour I tried on 8 grey shirts, 2 pairs of grey trousers and a luridly colored costume that I’m not at liberty to discuss “ooh you’re a good clothes horse. Looks like we’re going to have to use you as the stylish trendy uncle not the weird uncle. But I bet you can’t make THIS look stylish.” As I said, you usually get flattered. Still, I’ll buy it.

Now this stylish trendy clothes horse is off home to an early bed so he can be ready for that early car and the crazy day ahead. Meanwhile in an office somewhere, a man with a cigar turns round in his swivel chair. “You know what? Actually I think it SHOULD be gothic.”

 

Last Monday I drove home from Crowborough early. I was a little hungover. The night before, we’d made fire and the good whiskey had come out. My original plan to drive back on Sunday night and be ready for the week was totally scuppered by the size of James’s welcome. I got back just in time to meet with one of the local Buddhist leaders in my area in order to try and persuade him to do some paperwork for me. I ended up chanting with him while my phone started ringing off the hook. It was a load of last minute meetings coming through.

I spent a rushed fifteen minutes cursing as I speed-showered and selected appropriate clothing sets before hustling out of the door in a moth eaten tailcoat. Then a bolt hit me. This is what I’ve been wanting, I said to myself. For years. Rush or no rush God I’d much sooner be busy doing that stuff than recruiting kids for the army or telling people about being a civil servant or invigilating or tour guiding or managing waiters or chefs or exams or temping or driving as bikes etc etc etc

In the last two weeks, with no exaggeration, I’ve had more meetings than the previous two years. I suspect if I looked closely at the numbers I’d realise it was closer to five years but I don’t want to depress myself. You can’t get the jobs without the meetings. I get most of my work through recommendation or self submission. But it seems that it is also possible for a representative to get an actor meetings. I had heard of this, I’d seen it work for my friends, but rarely actually encountered it myself until now. I’m laying it squarely at the feet of Iona Maclean, my manager.

I was sent from The Isle of Man to Sussex aged 8, to board at a school called Ashdown House.

There were amazing facilities, including a theatre that was built when I was there. Damian Lewis was a couple of years above me. We were incredibly lucky. There was space for possibility. That’s what these places buy. I was homesick, but I acted. I sang in the chamber choir. I did carpentry, climbed trees, fired air rifles. I also had time, particularly on the weekend when the more local kids went home, to run around in the big garden. They called it the jungle.

In October 1987 there was a rare event in the UK, all too common elsewhere in the world. A hurricane. It made our weatherman Michael Fish infamous for poo-pooing the idea there’d be one on the BBC the night before. In one night, Sevenoaks became Singleoak. I was a kid sleeping away from home as the trees came down around me. It was brilliant and terrifying. And afterwards there were a lot of fallen trees in the jungle. One weekend shortly thereafter, I made a fire. I like fires. Then I forgot about the fire and got distracted by something else. The fire was “discovered” by a teacher and “contained” before it got out of control. My parents flew over from The Isle of Man and looked very stern. It was decided I would fit in better at another school where there wasn’t a garden to burn. And I was told I’d be leaving at the end of term. All very civilised.

My last duty was to sing a solo in the Christmas Concert at the local church. Yeah that sort of thing used to happen at my school. Now I’ve been into schools of all shapes and sizes and levels across the country. I can really see what we had by comparison. Back then I largely took it for granted. It’s hard to see beyond things we have always had.

The day of the concert I was so upset about leaving that I made myself sick and couldn’t sing. I’ve never encountered that sort of sad-sickness since. I sat on a bench at the back of the church crying and puking while I listened to someone else singing my solo. A small blonde girl held my hand the whole time. I was glad she was there. Decades later that same girl has come back into my life. We engaged professionally while I was in LA and now she’s back in London and going great guns over here as my manager. Thank God for her.

I booked both of the jobs I rushed out for that morning.

My mum moved to London when I was 13. Divorced from my dad, she wanted to live in the big city. I was at school in Harrow, boarding. So I guess I started to become a Londoner then, as I was living with her. It takes a while to get a handle on this place though. I’m getting there…

I know how to avoid the evil Corridor of Doom at Kings Cross. I no longer think you need to take the tube from Sloane Square to South Kensington. I know never to change at Green Park. I am no longer surprised that the circle line always stops at Edgware Road. I even know the buses, at last, so no matter how late it is I won’t impulse-hail a black cab and have to get a second mortgage. Even though I know that night bus drivers will always try to drive past you if you’re not paying really close attention. And if you do get on the night bus God help you. It’s a stinking miasmic hell dimension of howling, heels, vomit and sweat. But one that will get you home.

The longer I’ve lived in this city the smaller it has felt. At first it seemed impossibly large and the tube map is so geographically inaccurate that it only made it harder to know how things connected.

Normally when I arrive in a new place I pound the streets as much as I can, but aged 13 and having grown up on small islands I didn’t feel as safe as I would now, so the spectacular fiction of the tube map was my first sense of how it all fitted together. Now I love to walk the streets and watch the people. And for short stops the tube is way too expensive. You only make the connections by mindfully traveling above ground. I prefer to cycle, walk or bus these days.

I arrived early for a meeting in the wrong building this morning. Fortunately I always get to meetings absurdly early, and had plenty of time to get to the right place. I walked. I walked past a magic shop in Mount Pleasant that is attached to a council estate where Ellen from my year at Guildhall used to live. I went and stood in the archway and remembered how remote I thought her central London block was. We used to roll back there at night when we were at college, covered in makeup or costume and singing. We’d wake up the next morning eating cushion with a head full of ants and go back into college to sweat booze while dancing in a leotard. One night I was angry and I woke up having shaved all my hair off. Another night Nathan woke up in hospital after falling from a third floor balcony and shattering both his wrists. The paramedic told him if he hadn’t been so drunk it would’ve been considerably worse. We all thought he was dead. He came into college the next day and put on that leotard, then swung his arms with the rest of us, casts lending weight. The show must go on. Strange times.

I’m pretty happy in this city now. I can navigate it, it doesn’t freak me out at all. I get the weird of it and I’ve been lucky not to fall too hard into the dark side yet. I tend to be able to get through most situations with my “unthreatening alien” routine. My rib is healed now, so my bike is back in service just in time for autumn. In fact it’s my birthday soon. I’d better book something in. Save the date. 24th September. I’ll probably just stake out the Alwynne Castle in Highbury.

I forgot about my blog until just before I went to sleep. Did I take a photo? Not sure… Let’s see.

Nope. Tube map. Night night. zzz

My good friend Helen suggested I meet her this morning in order to go to a Buddhist meeting about nuclear disarmament and abolition. My initial reaction was to consider it a singularly pointless exercise. Nukes, I decided, are here to stay. The fact that that was my first thought was enough to make me realise I should go to the meeting. I hadn’t thought about it before and immediately I assumed it was too big to fix.

Nukes are fucking terrifying. Those relatively tiny bombs that fell on Japan before most of us were born – the human cost was astronomical. The cultural shift they provoked was unprecedented. Little Boy and Fat Man, the bombs were called. They killed hundreds of thousands in a second. Thank God nothing of that size has been detonated since. But the warheads we have now are thousands of times bigger. Thousands of times! It’s impossible to contemplate. If just one of them blew up in a city the death toll would be unimaginable. There is no humanitarian aid organisation that could cope with the survivors from the edges of the blast, radioactive people, sloughing their burnt skin, cradling their own eyeballs, cooking in their own bodies. Most of the people from Grenfell haven’t been rehoused adequately. Multiply that by thousands and add deformities, radioactivity, constant extreme pain. Then there’s the environmental cost. Chernobyl contaminated sheep as far away as North Wales from The Ukraine. Fukushima is still contaminating the Pacific, and it seems there’s nothing we can do to get into the basement and contain that reactor. We’ve made something bigger than our ability to control it.

Right now there’s a little fat boy man in North Korea who is starving his whole country in order to be seen to throw these horrible toys around. If he is as full of hubris as he appears to be he could start something atrocious. Around the world, countries are bristling with these monstrous creations. One wrong move could provoke a chain reaction that could wipe out the world as we know it. We don’t have the power to actually destroy the earth, but we do have the power to destroy ourselves on the earth. And we are convinced enough of our own immortality that someone might just do it. Particularly when you look at some of the personalities involved.

So where does the idea that we can dismantle all of these bastards fit in, where mutually assured destruction is the only deterrent we’ve had for decades? It was interesting to contemplate it today. It’s a man made problem, so surely it’s in our power to stop it. We stopped slavery in North America after over 200 years. These things have only existed for a single lifetime. And they’re expensive to maintain. The problem is that nobody trusts anybody else. How can someone go first? How can we trust one another to honestly disarm? How would we even go about it?

Of course these questions feel impossible. But change starts from the ground up. The literal very least I can do is change my attitude from this morning’s “there is nothing anyone can ever do.” Perhaps there’s something. It might not be my mind that finds it, or in my lifetime. But these warheads have a limited lifespan. They’re disgustingly expensive to produce, as is the paraphernalia connected to delivering them. Japan has none despite having the capacity to build them, and they haven’t been wiped out yet. Although North Korea could do something terrible.

I sat in a secular Buddhist Centre in Brixton and thought about all of this while making paper cranes. I have no solutions but my thoughts have shifted a little, from resignation towards curiosity as to how change might be effected. Often we need a hard example to catalyse a big change. There’s so much horrible shit happening worldwide in the name of territory and religion, and the natural world is busily demonstrating how tiny our posturing is compared to its power. I don’t want to see the hard example that would catalyse nuclear disarmament. I dread to think what form it might take. Can we start to disarm without anyone being nuked? This morning I’d have said “No way.” Now I’ve graduated to “just maybe”. Maybe the right person at the right time. Maybe a groundswell of belief and positivity. Who knows what. But maybe.

I went home and had pie, watched Rick and Morty and now I’m going to help an actress with a self-tape in my kitchen. Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow morning all the cities in the world will still be there. I made paper cranes to send to the peace park in Hiroshima. Maybe they’ll be the ones that stop us doing that crazy shit to each other. It’s a gesture. Nothing more. But a nuclear blast is a large number of very small reactions strung together into something huge. If we all make very small gestures maybe we’ll make some sort of peace bomb? Who knows. It’s worth a try.

I had a morning free so I helped a friend move house. Everybody seems to be moving house all the time at the moment. I don’t know how I’d manage to do that with all the accumulated years worth of utter crap I have here. I could probably throw away three quarters of what I own and miss none of it. There’s clothes and books and random bits of fluff that never see the light of day. Sometimes I imagine it all pulling at my energy, anchoring me into this flat, wanting me to drag it around. No surprise I like to live out of a suitcase, and go on tour. Maybe I should have a jumble sale and ditch some of it that way. Or just take it to a charity shop while I’ve got my car. I find it hard to throw things away.

I’m still feeling positive and forward after last week’s vomit-fest. The kambo dots on my arm feel like visible reminders not to slip into old habits. It’s been a great week for meetings and recalls. There’s more to come next week, too. I need to keep my head. I’ve been keeping the diet as well, as best I can. Although Brian, right now, is cooking cheese and pork and wheat and he’s just told me he’s putting red bull in the onions, which makes it one of the least Al friendly meals possible. Great of him to cook but I think I’ll pass and just get some fruit.

The red bull onions are in anticipation of the fact that Brian and Mel I are going dancing. We’re off to Hot Dub Time Machine in Brixton. It doesn’t even start until 9 so I’m getting this written before I go out in the anticipation of being crosseyed later. I’m loading up with glowsticks. I was supposed to be at Bestival this evening so it’s only right I go some way towards duplicating the experience I’d have had there. In fact I’ll let myself finish this in whatever state I happen to find myself in at 3am or whenever I roll in.

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I’m now standing in Brixton waiting for an uber, covered in glitter. Even my moustache is full of glitter. God knows how I’ll audition for a doctor on Monday. Hot Dub Time Machine involves dancing consistently to hits from 1957 to present. Turns out the year I was born had some banging tunes. I’ve just been dancing. That’s as much as I’ve had the headspace for. There were six of us there, and we exchanged about three words all night. One thing I’ve discovered is that music since 2010 has been pretty shoddy and generic. Either that or hindsight hasn’t kicked in with enough context to bring out the diamonds that stand the test of time. Certainly the last half an hour of the set was the weakest. Which I thought was just me being old until Brian reflected my thoughts, and he’s 29. All said, a great night, and that guy that runs the time machine – he must be totally minted after cutting together a load of videos and stitching up a timeshift DJ set. Good work that man.

George Harrison first brought the Sitar into popular music with Norwegian Wood back in 1965. The sound speaks of the “eastern” mysticism that led him to Hare Khrisna. To my ear it is a sound redolent of that era, and thus psychedelics. The soaring twisting high notes. The low building undertones and rhythms. *ploing ploing na na na ploing ploing* It’s a very evocative soundscape. More so than I can evoke by writing random syllables. You’d be surprised. *boingggg*

Shama Rahman and I met on a job a long time ago. She has a PhD in neuroscience, was a film star in Bangladesh, and now lives in the UK making science theatre and playing folk-punk sitar. She’s a true polymath, and great fun with it. We met because she needed to replace an actor at short notice in a show that was touring festivals. I wanted to tour those particular festivals and it aligned. The show was about Transhumanism, designer babies, modification versus humanity, art versus science. On tour alongside us were some neuroscientists from well respected institutions, giving lectures. Family men who cooked their own highs, electrocuted themselves in the brain on purpose and made notes, and would’ve cut bits out of their own hippocampus if they’d known it’d grow back. Obsessive, beautiful crazy people. Like my brother Max. True scientists. I grew up with them. I get them.

Five days after Shama and I first met we were in a field in Oxfordshire, at Wilderness Festival, and she got word that one of these strange voyagers had voyaged into a car crash and was too bashed up to do the lecture. We found out about half an hour before it was scheduled. A crowd was building. “I’ll do it.”

Almost immediately I’m standing in front of hundreds of people, and I’m talking about the history of performance enhancing drugs and their chemical effects on the brain, clutching a print out still hot from the printer, pretending to be the guy. I was sight reading, thus discovering and learning as I went along. There were slides, and bits where the text said “If you look at this part of the brain, you’ll see a much higher density of polypoly flammicitic groks.” I had to use my common sense on a live appraisal of the photo, to point at the groks. I learnt a lot by delivering that lecture – (despite the terminology not sticking). But I learnt something about neuroscience and more about sheer bloody front. At the end of the lecture it said “Any questions?” That’s where I drew the line. Much as I rock at improvising, that’s a bridge too far. “How do you ensure that the Crog Naglatisatch levels as per the Matthew Arnold Adelaide Research Tribunal are correctly swaggled?” I’m not going near that.

Shama and I decided we needed to stay in touch, and since then we’ve covered a lot of festivals together in different capacities. I was meant to be her driver for Bestival, where she’s playing tonight, but things got too positive and unpredictable workwise so I couldn’t risk three nights in a tent outside London right now. Which is why I went to support her pre-Bestival single launch at The Slaughtered Lamb.

Among other instruments she plays the Sitar beautifully, and sings in bangla and in English. Her set involves long periods of joyful improvisation with the musicians, like a proper jazz set. She’s channeling that period in the sixties when George shifted to mystic. She’s also just honestly playing her music. Her expression of her reality. Possibility and positivity aligning with music and spoken word. It’s powerful stuff, beauifully packaged and delivered, and Shama is a true artist.

Here she is tuning and checking that beautiful and strange beast of an instrument before the evening got beautiful and strange.

 

I didn’t really want to come back to the city this morning. Last night was spent with James and Gemma, their daughter Hester and Hal, my godson. He’s just making sense of language. He understands everything but can’t quite make the words yet. It’s a fascinating thing to encounter – someone who understands everything but has no eloquence. He has to resort to repetition and volume to put across relative importance in his content, much like the US President. Unlike that though, he’s a good kid. I’m happy he’s in my life. He’ll be two soon.

James is a Catholic. When Hal was baptised I went to a huge stone edifice of a church. In the cold quiet gloom I was called on to renounce Satan, and all of his works, and all of his false promises. I did my best to do so while the priest glared at me through a fog of incense. He scared the badness out of me. He knew I was an actor. Who knows what he would make of my shamano-buddhist proclivities. But his ritual was like a spiritual version of kambo. I spiritually sicked up all the bad thoughts. There’s something in all of these things. I walked around feeling lighter for days.

My stated job was never to be the God bit in the godfather though. James has got that covered. I’m more the worldfather. When he’s 18 I can fly him on the jet to my place in Malibu and take him to my Oscars party, and then we can take the helicopter to my island where I’ll teach him to waterski. Or we can go down the pub and play darts, get in a fight and then go be sick off the pier. Or anything in between really. I’ve got a few years to hammer out what I’ll be capable of bringing to him but it’ll be something.

It’s pleasant to spend time with happily married kidded up people who don’t dwell on the “When are you going to settle down” question. It came up briefly and I realised the answer as I gave it. “I’m pretty comfortable in my own skin, and happy in my ways. I tend to be drawn to people who are similar. Neither of us are codependent, so neither of us put in the effort.” Maybe there’s some truth in that. As with any statement that someone says about themselves it’s more likely to be bullshit than true. I reckon the ratio is about 80% bullshit 20% truth. But is that bullshit? Roll the dice, because I don’t know anymore.

They’re both teachers and ex actors, James and Gemma. Being me I haven’t seen them for the whole of the endless summer break. Nope. I waited until the second day of term and then I come crashing round with a hat full of mushrooms, providing an excuse to crack open the good stuff. I hope James did alright at school today. We made another fire, in his garden, and foraged blackberries. It was a lovely evening, as this changeable summer limps to a close. There was much whisky.

When I got back into town I reeked of woodsmoke, and checking my messages I realised I had an hour left to get to a recall for one of the Christmas ads. Thankfully woodsmoke is a Christmassy smell. Maybe they thought it was on purpose.

I smashed the recall but then I’m supposed to be in my fifties for the part. One of the other guys was exactly the guy I’d pictured. Grey haired and wholesome. He’s up against moustache cavalier. Who will win? Who knows? Who cares! Someone will have Christmas sorted. I want it to be me.

Last night I slept out under the sky. Thankfully it didn’t rain. It was glorious.

My friend Jethro has access to 40 acres of woodland. I drove down to spend time with him. By the time I arrived he had already foraged loads of Hedgehog Mushrooms, Chanterelles, Bay Boletes and Tawny Grisettes.

A few years ago I started trying to make sense of mushroom identification. I wandered around the grounds of Ripley castle clutching a book and trying to positively identify everything I could see. I found loads of stuff that could kill you. Very little you could eat. I got discouraged and put the whole thing on the back burner. I love the idea of finding my own tasty food on the ground, but the consequences of not getting it right can involve your liver exploding. On balance I think I need my liver. So it was with some trepidation that I partook of the mushroom breakfast, and then only after looking at each one myself and checking against Jethro’s field book. Particularly the Tawny Grisettes, as they are Amanita which, as a genus, want us dead in horrible ways. Death Cap and Destroying Angel are both Amanita and they just don’t like us. Never invite them to dinner parties. Cook a sliver of them into your sauce and you’ll likely take out a guest, possibly all of them. After careful inspection of his trophies I was satisfied. And I’m glad because it was a brilliant breakfast. The breakfast of champignons.

The major constituent was Hedgehog Mushroom, which is the ultimate breakfast fungus. The Chinese, I have read, conducted a test on mice with them. They fed some mice with powdered Hedgehog Mushrooms and some other mice with normal mouse type food. Then they dropped them all in a tank of water and timed how long it took for each of them to drown. Turns out Hedgehog Mushroom fed mice drown much slower. Which is conclusive proof that the majority of scientists are psychopaths.

After breakfast we went foraging and Jethro taught me loads. I’ve now got a better handle on lots of toadstool species, and there are two or three edibles – like hedgehog – that I would be able to get right every time. With the others, I still wouldn’t feel very comfortable looking for them on my own and then eating the findings. Death is a high price for a free breakfast. But it’s a pleasant way to spend a few hours, and an excuse for a walk in the woods.

When we were walking we found some more Hedgehogs. I carried them in my hat. On my way home I stopped in Crowborough where my 2 year old godson lives. Trusting my recognition utterly, I offered them to his parents and we had a lovely pasta with them in the sauce.

My first real contemplation of mortality as a child, long before all the shit went down, was Babar the Elephant’s dad:

For some reason that freaked me out more than his mum being shot by hunters. I think it was the speed of it. “Yum yum tasty mushroom eek I’m green.” It looks like a Fly Agaric, the one that killed Babar’s dad and scared me with a first thought of death. If you boil them twice and throw away the water, or dry them, then the poison is gone. But the idea of instant death from a mushroom, coupled with the fact that there were puffballs in abundance near my childhood home, with people saying they were good eating. I think it explains why I’m fascinated. It’s just an area that requires certainty and the stakes are high. I’m happy to improvise but not in that context. If I lived in the countryside I’d have my patches marked out. My walks. As it is I know where there’s a puffball mycology near me in Chelsea but the last few years some fucker has always beaten me to it. Perhaps I should live in the country. Perhaps I’d be poisoned if I did…