I’ve got a stinking humdinger of a cold that has left me lying helpless as a big fat christmas turkey (‘cept without the stuffing – worst luck) on my settee, so desperate that I began to watch the box set of Life On Mars. Yeah. Not the Bowie concert – the BBC series. Sad innit? I wish someone would magically call round and ask if I need spanner taking out.
I have taken her out just now but it was only to the post office (fucking hell! – christmas can really bring out the worst in your average post office customer). While I was in there, I saw a quite famous actress push in to the front of the queue. She looked jolly glamourous but when she smiled… and then a second later when she stopped smiling… it was very apparent how much work she’d had done. I found myself comparing her to Leonard Cohen who appears to be rather lithe and sprightful for 75 – mind you he has lived in a Buddhist retreat for a good long while. Are these the options? Buddhism or botox?
I have been pondering the aging business quite a lot recently. I feel sure that attractiveness is down to having, you know, a brilliant personality, a razor sharp wit, an infinite amount of talent, an inner confidence that burns like a guiding light… right that’s me fucked already then… but there’s another part of me that, due to what I will now term “husband learning” thinks that people are much more shallow than that. Ah well, I guess if that’s true then I might as well spend my depilation money on a fast car, drive to L.A., hook up with some beach bums and wait for some highly contagious sexually transmitted disease to finish me off. Perhaps Syphilis. It seems nice and old fashioned and I think Byron might have had it. Ah Jesus they all had something them poets. Still, with Laudanum by your side, why friggin worry?
Am I swearing a lot? I think I must be a bit angry.
I went completely off line the other night and ended up very embarrassingly writing rather desperate messages to some friends. I think the sheer weight of shame may have brought this nasty cold on. Your body can at least remove you from society and duties for several days. I have carried on washing because if you stop and you’re over thirty, people don’t think you’re funky and free spirited, they think you’re fucking mad.
I will try and make a christmas picture of spanner and post it here. But there is also a huge possibility that I won’t make it off my arse (apart from dog duty) till christmas eve. So don’t hold yer breath. And to all those I love, Merry Christmas. And to all those who have pissed me off: Fuck You. I hope your babies burst.
it occurs to me this morning that the amount of washing up piled up in the sink is a fair indication of one’s emotional wellbeing.. i’ve got quite a lot. it started the other day when i threw out the scrubby thing because, to be fair, it had seen better days. and then the washing up liquid ran out. and the kitchen is approaching withnail and i proportions
sadness has become palpable. a solid block. and there’s no more coffee. oh god.
i think I’ll go and buy anchor man on dvd. tropic thunder was a bit of a disappointment…
Oh my God. I am lying on the kitchen floor staring at the stripes in the carpet, hoping that they will make me feel sane. My eyes hurt. I must never drink tequila
Oh yeah. Soho. Coffee that doesn’t make you bork. Prostitutes. Gays. Japanese people. Jesus. Just people. Thank God. I’m going to try never to leave London again.
I’m sharing a dressing room with Freya. they’ve told us we can’t have candles or oil burners. But nobody mentioned anything about bunsen burners. We’re setting up a lab in there to reduce Feminax down to it’s main component parts. Rock and Roll.
last night I experienced what I believe is known as a “whitey” within smoking circles. Unpleasant. Half an hour with my cheek against the toilet bowl and all I brought up was half a cashew nut.
It occurred to me as I staggered to my bed that what a woman really needs in a man, is someone who will hold their hair off their face whilst they’re being sick.
You know. Tenderness.
christ! May was friggin years ago. I am now living the life of Reilly down on the south coast doing a bit of acting in the evenings and that. I’ve only got a small part but I get to sit down for most of it and pretend to be a fucked off stroppy actress so it’s a biy of a walk in the park.
Sick of going to and fro to the homestead in London so am staying down for these two days off. Yesterday was pretty easy to fill… listened to Portishead (thanks Mark), tried to slash my wrists (thanks Mark) and then had a wash and went round to the lads house. Jazzer, who has just bought himself a banjaleli and is slowly turning into one of the characters from that film where they go down the river and shag pigs, decided to do a curry.
the lads are staying together in a super little council house. Here is a picture of us pre dinner in the rambling grounds at the back of the house:
that’s jazzer behind me. As you can see he has already taken to wearing his cap backwards. Before you know it he’ll be carrying a six bore and raping tourists. Next to him is Jake, or “Frenchy”. He’s not French but he keeps getting cast as a Frenchman of no particular playing range. He talks really fast and is a bit of an enigma which I put down to his having to masquerade continually as a poshy when he is, in fact, a scouser.
On the end there is Dyfan, Devs, Doves, Duvver, pretty much anything beginning with a D. Also known as Welshy, The Welsh lamb and Cariad. Very good at: “angry young man” acting. Very bad at: tolerating cigarette smoke. Having given up smoking myself very recently, I appointed him my fag superintendant and said he could use any measure, should he see me smoking one, the wrestle it from my digits. Kind of makes me want to smoke just to see what he’d do…
Anyway, pudding wise, Jazzer lost the card game and had to take a long doughnut whole. And here it is:
Now I can’t resist leaving the lads without sharing this particular money shot of Duvver at speed
I have been vaguely concerned about being done for sexual harrassment, but I seem to have got away with it so far …
So that’s Chichester and the show I’m in… it’s done pretty well. Going to WEst End (Geilgud THeatre) in Sept. I’ve been really glad of it keeping the cash coming in whilst I bugger about making films. Oh yeah. the film. Death of A Double Act is in the can after a week of the most horrendous seat of your pants Morecambe Bay action. The stills looks great but as yet I haven’t seen the rushes. I know I haven’t got all the shots I want… any road, here is a shot of one of the characters (HEN) at The Morecambe Bay Winter Gardens…
and here is a picture of Spanner The Wonder Dog, sharing the back of the most overloaded fiesta EVER SINCE THE CREATION OF FIESTAS with all the film kit and a massive pair of Chicken’s Feet.
She rested her head on a massive tube of ointment all the way up the M6. What a dog. After we finished shooting the film – which is a whole different story and various pictures of which will filter through as it becomes a glowing ember of memory as opposed to a hot steaming rod of horror – I slept and ate and felt miserable for about a week. It was like doing your exams at school. You always think that when it’s over you’re gonna feel great and you’re gonna do all sorts of really exciting things with your time. But you don’t. You just feel really lost and a bit sad…
Spanner has been with me the whole time in Chichester, but not whilst I was in Cumbria shooting the film as she would have been a bit of a continuity nightmare. When we were all offered the west end, rumour has it that it was Spanner who held out the longest waiting for the best deal. She point blank refused to share a dressing room with her understudy, and has had it written into her contract that she will play Ian McDermott’s part at least twice a week. Ian seems happy about that, so it’s all worked out in the end. I did discover, however, that she is on more money than most of us which has created some tension amongst the cast. I have tried to appease them by explaining that she’s being paid in euros and dog biscuits but they’re not happy…
I haven’t even got onto the Girls in the cast yet. From the way I’ve been talking you’d think there were just lads and me! God no! I am in dressing room heaven with some of the best and stangest creatures I have met in a long time. Here they all are watching the News Review on the night we got twenty seven stars and the reviewers wanted to be our friends (cos they don’t fucking have any of their own – and I’m not suprised)
they are from front to back: the world famous Eleanor, possibly the most beautiful woman that ever lived and currently being hotly persued by the West Sussex Police for crimes against Sanity; Noma who knows the most people in the world cos she’s so lovely that everyone wants to be her friend; lovely Freya (funny bones, will be a big funny fucking star one day if she doesn’t kill herself first) and last but by no means least, Fair Dues To You Denise, the epicentre! The Earth’s hot core! The Irishwoman! The woman whose head you can’t see is Anna our very excellent assistant director. The director, Rupert, talks very fast and asks loads of really hard questions out of the blue and then gives notes in the dark in sign language. So I think she’s done pretty damn well!
I’m off now, my fingers are hurting. before I go, here’s a shot of Al (who is getting married very soon and keeps dashing off back to London to have a life – bastard) dressed in his groom’s outfit. He wants it to be a suprise.he is actually goose stepping but you can’t see it very well. This next shot is to display how very much Spanner likes to join in on a cricket game. Look at her go!
That’s freya fiddling with her camera behind a headless dog…
And finally, here’s a a shot of Spanner considering her new role in Rupert’s Lear. Apparently Pete Postlethwaite is busy.
Cycled to work yesterday. All went reasonably well (haven’t cycled in London in many years) apart from the fact that my ukeleli completely obscured any rear view… and then last night, I locked it up WITH A MOTORCYLCE CHAIN!!! and some little fucker cut through it like butter. I returned to where my dear bike (Ned) had lain only to find a note – which I didn’t see until my heart had already left my body – saying that the bike that was nearly stolen was in the pub opposite! God bless you unknown stranger in a leather jacket who saved my bike. God bless you Golden Heart Pub for giving it shelter. The entire incident did much more to return my faith in humanity than one might at first assume. On top of which, Darren The Dream Assistant has done some marvellous location spotting for Yvonne’s house! Bloody look at this!
the time has come. I haven’t made a meal in well over three months, relying instead upon the bachelor fayre from Mark’s and Sparks (on a good day), upon the kindness of family and friends (on a very good day) and on Mars Ice Creams and Lager with a vodka top (on bloody fantastic days). So I’ve bought a couple of courgettes some carrots and I’ve still got them peppers my sister gave me in that food parcel. The thing is, I’m sure I could make myself something that I would eat out of that lot, cos I don’t have very high expectations of my own cooking… but I have a chum popping over this evening and I’d rather not make her ill…
Perhaps I could just give her a few nuts. I’ve got plenty of nuts. They’re organic, too.