3 May 2018, London
Stuart says that Mural in French is Wall.
Dr Kai dropped into the studio today and laid her mind-wandering vision out on the floor. It's all there in the weave: magic feminism, maths, philosophy, empowerment and ritual. All made in Belgium by the best rug rats known to the world of art. We (me and Stuart) especially liked the image of Ada Lovelace - the first computer programmer and Charles Babbage accomplice - who died tragically young.
3 May 2018, London
Just heard that Eric has died. They said it was some complication following diverticulitis, but we all know it was a broken heart.
5 May 2018, Chichester
The homeless person’s equivalent of the towel on the sunbed is the sleeping bag in the shop doorway.
5 May 2018, Chichester
Me and Alex warm up for our presentation on ‘The Artist’s Voice’.
6 May 2018, London
Spotted at Magdalen House, Winchester, next to the kitchen tap.
8 May 2018, London
I am reading Ben’s book, Tell Me The Planets, which is a blistering read. It is a very warm and human interlacing of stories related to himself, his family and dramatic tales from survivors of brain injury, centring on Mathew and his perCYSTent trauma. I like the technique and his way of letting the stories tell themselves. It makes me want to do something similar about my friendship with Stuart. Two people who know next to nothing about each other but have become friends, though I don’t even know if Stuart thinks of me as a friend.
9 May 2018, London
Just sent this to L at Headway, to forward to screenwriter John Wrathall. An idea for a TV series.
The pitch
Cash-strapped inner-London charity supporting people with brain injury finds a new revenue stream as a private detective agency. It uses the unique sleuthing powers of its vulnerable yet perceptive members to crack cases the local police can no longer afford to investigate due to austerity cuts.
EXT. TIMBER WHARF, HACKNEY. DAY
There is a body in the canal.
9 May 2018, London
Dear Fellow Travellers
M and I had a wonderful short session in the Lincoln Lounge today, despite being interrupted by DU doing an appraisal. The sesh lasted one hour, and if we had been even closer to KP, travelling times could have come down further. My proposal is that we plan for these short sessions, set food and stuff in place, and abandon the massive blow-out thing. It is important to stay in touch in a quality way that we can all feel comfortable with and I would trade seeing you more often but for a shorter time than trying to squeeze things into a mysterious evening date that might never happen. Tell me what you think.
Bill
9 May, 2018, London
May column in City Matters.
10 May 2018, London
M told me yesterday that her stalker is a mansplayer. He dresses well and is 'hot’, by her description. She says he stares at her and stands behind her at the queue for the escalator, breathing heavily. She says she can sense his presence at all times but does not feel threatened. I suggested a 'reverse stalk’ in which she turns the tables on him and starts breathing down his neck, but she was uncomfortable with that idea. I tried some cod psychology and managed to accidentally hint that the man might be quite a desperate character, to which she replied sarcastically, “Thanks very much”. We ended up joking about a serious subject, which in this case I’m not sure is a good thing.
10 May 2018, Hackney
At Headway S tells me that he went to Overchurch school and now lives in a place called Overbury. We toyed with album titles such as 'From Overchurch to Overbury’ and 'Overchurch, Overbury, Over&Out’. He said he was bullied by insensitive kids like me. He wore a school cap and his school blazer had coloured piping. Red tag to a bully. Smell the fear. It lives with him to this day. He asked me if I was a “scally”. I told him no, I never quite measured up in that department.
10 May 2018, Hackney
At Ben’s book launch I spoke to the comedian Robert Newman. When I told him how I had my stroke at work, in front of people, he remarked “how humiliating!” When I described once editing one of his overlong rants about climate change, he said, “So, editing my copy gave you a stroke?” I said yes, that's about the size of it and looked for someone else to talk to.
The Carly Simon song 'You're So Vain' came to mind, with the replacement words "you probably think my stroke is about you".
11 May 2018, Brighton
Romantic message No1: “We need a new mop head xx”.
13 May 2018, Brighton
S told me off last night for eating and drinking in Wetherspoons because its owner actively supported Britain leaving the EU.
14 May 2018, London
At St Luke's they are having a 'goodbye’ for Jeanie. Barb says in her speech that they will name the bench outside the front of the building “Jeanie’s Bench” because that is where she sat, rain or shine, smoking her fags with the hunger of a starving lion. Jeanie entered her funeral service to the sound of Norman Wisdom singing 'Don’t Laugh At Me Cos I’m A Fool’ and exited to Frank Sinatra doing 'My Way’.
14 May 2018, London
At a Men’s Shed barbecue in King Square Gardens, R tells us that in 1969 he boarded a ship in Southampton bound for Australia. He was 21 and it was his first Navy posting. His duty was to peel potatoes. They called him a “spud barber”, he said.
15 May 2018, London
At the launch of S and E’s exhibition at the Dugdale Centre in Enfield Town, I got chatting with E’s mum, a lively Jamaican who has lived in Enfield for most of her life. She told me she was sad that E did not have any friends. I told her that he had loads at Headway. She was pleased to hear that I had met E's brother, P.
18 May 2018, Paris
Notice displayed inside the number 65 bus.
18 May 2018, Paris
Headlines today.
18 May 2018, Paris
K once visited the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb. That is up there with the sausage museum in Spain and the sardine museum in Portugal. Not to mention the pencil museum in Keswick.
23 May 2018, London
At the magazine launch last night Ben mentioned my contribution. When I pointed out that I had done nothing, he said I had made him and Laura feel easier with a piece of editorial advice, which amounted to “just get loads of stuff in and then decide what’s best”.
24 May 2018, London
I arrived at Headway today to be told that Pat Jackson had died suddenly last week. He was a miserable sod, always in cheap wraparound mirror-finish shades, who perked up at any mention of Elvis. I am grateful to him for always laughing very loudly at any bad joke or feeble remark I put his way. Michelle gave me the news and Tony B told me later that Pat was one of the first people he met on joining Headway. He told me that Pat was kind-of living on borrowed time, having fought and survived cancer some years ago.
24 May 2018, London
At Headway, S and I are looking at a painting on the wall. “In A Forest. Isn't that a song by The Cure?” says S, reading the painting’s title. We spend some time on Google, locate the song, A Forest, listen to it and earnestly discuss Robert Smith's singing voice. Then I notice that the painting is signed, by the artist B T Pole. Only then do I realise that we are looking at a picture called 'BT Pole In A Forest’. What larks, eh? People with brain injuries do the silliest things.
25 May 2018, London
Bumped into L, who had a good moan about how life on the estate has changed for the worse. She has lived in the area 62 years and is especially pissed off at residents who complain about children playing. I am with her on that. She was having a problem with Channel 10 on her telly. It has “disappeared”. She likes the detective programmes on Channel 10 (ITV3), and the re-runs of Dallas and Dynasty “on Channel 61”. She and her deceased husband were big Arsenal fans. She said that what is now the People's Choice café on Goswell Road used to be run by a fella connected to Arsenal FC and that players used to turn up for cups of tea and a chat. One of L’s children (in their 60s) died recently, which she swears caused the heart attack she suffered last Christmas.
25 May 2018, London
J has just got back from the hospital. She needed an injection in her hip and asked the nurse if she should take off her jeans. No need, said the nurse, who then described how men take their trousers off automatically - enthusiastically - even when they don’t need to.
27 May 2018, London
In Bruce Grove, Tottenham, there is a neglected and partly derelict building called the Trades Hall. On its wall is a blue plaque commemorating Luke Howard, “namer of clouds”.
30 May 2018, London
While preparing questions to ask Y at Headway about her memory difficulties, I realised that three of the six 'Memory’ pictures I did are of heroes: Yuri Gagarin, Bill Shankly and Muhammad Ali/Cassius Clay. I also remember a presentation years ago at one of Nick Ward's seminars at NHNN when one neuro egghead was urging us to “search for the hero”.
31 May 2018, London
In a chat with E at Headway, we both got Kim & Aggie mixed up with Trinny & Susannah.
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