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I remember that ‘eyes burning’ thing. In press week in the 90s, at Premiere, I used to go to church at All Saints, Margaret Street at lunch hour just to be in darkness. In those pre-Wikipedia days, I didn’t know it was famous (’architecturally, England’s most celebrated Victorian church,’ S Jenkins). I just thought it was nice and gloomy.

And then I was chatted up by the very swish young vicar (or Father, seeing as it was High Church) in his ornate robes. It was enough to put one off going to church, except during services, and that’s just so BORING…

This was shortly after being mistaken for a rent boy (to follow a train of thought…). I was lounging on some steps in Denman St in my denim jacket when a policeman stopped me. I immediately found my best Oxford vowels when saying (truthfully): Oh no, officer. I’m waiting for my girlfriend who’s a follow-spot on The Rocky Horror Show, at the Piccadilly Theatre…
He was a bit non-plussed, and let me go, doubtless thinking he’d catch me next time.
We laughed a lot. Ah, 1991…

I once went to the market in Jaywick. A sign read: ‘Friday market. On Fridays…’ I bought 20 pencils for £1. I’ve still got one or two. This was 1999…

A is off there this morning, to do his stilt-walking thing. The Martello Tower (which I think is where the Lemmings are going) is surrounded by caravans. In about 2000 it was done up by some charity. No one from Jaywick ever went. The occasional punter from London ventured there, tricked by a Guardian editorial. The solitary attendant looked amazed at the sight of someone actually VISITING. We asked him if there were anywhere nice in Jaywick to get lunch. He said he used to bring his own sandwiches. He’d never actually BEEN to Jaywick – he’d just got in his car and driven to and fro…

But maybe it’s improved… The road names are taken from car manufacturers, which is a nice touch, especially if you live on Bentley Avenue…

I’m just writing because totally ‘by chance’ (nothing really ever is) I picked up Before I Say Goodbye – the Ruth Picardie book about her cancer – and started reading it. I knew her a bit (I remember she edited a mag called Producer that I interviewed Jim Jarmusch for in 1989!). But she was friends with L much more.

I suppose because it’s made up of emails it just reminds me of this. And just the voice – your raging. Maybe someone’s said this to you before? Anyway, I just wondered whether you’d read it, whether you want to, and so on. It’s one of those things that meant a little when I read it the first time, and so much more when I read it now. I confess the floodgates have opened, more or less: not just because of what’s in the book, but because of everything. I hope you understand! If you don’t, no one will.

Anyway, in case you HAVEN’T read it, I could send you a copy. And of course, because HER book ends with her saying goodbye, it doesn’t mean that yours will! Obviously, you know that, but it doesn’t do any harm repeating it again and again.

Anyway, the book – published after she died – was no-holds-barred stuff, and very moving, and also – I have to say – ‘artistically significant’ in that it was composed of emails, which in 1997 was an interesting way to go… And ‘artistically significant‘ was crucial because it gave me a place to put it instead of just admitting how powerful it was. Ruth’s book, so interesting because…

She was 32 when she died. I already have a whole life after that: children, love, screenplays. When she died, I’d never even been to Mistley…

So, this is basically what I want to say. There are no barriers between us. That may be a good thing and it may be a bad thing. I don’t know. But it’s a THING…

So, in 1990, when I drew a picture of you, it came out with no hands, and ‘blood’. Something in my unconscious told me to draw you, with no hands…

And of course you were ‘shocked’ (but titillated…). And HD was ‘shocked’. And I felt ‘mortified’. But. Yet. I. Did. It!

(She: And weirdly, I liked it. I don’t know why…)

So, already in 1990, there were no barriers. I wouldn’t have done a picture like that for E or K. EVER! Maybe you were young and seemed to say: Try me!

Anyway, fast forward 28 years, and everything is different, but everything’s also the same… And (unconsciously) I know this and ‘decide’ to share my premature ejaculation story with you… With my brain half destroyed, it seems like the perfectly natural thing to do. But of course it isn’t… But yet, at the same time, it’s ‘right’…

(She: Oh God, what if you hated me – that’s why you drew that? And this is all an elaborate plan to finally have your revenge…

Me: Well, it’s a possibility. But on the balance of probabilities, I think not…)

On Saturday at 7am, the Velcro on my splint gave out. Half an hour later, my second-string splint also packed up. And the orthotics department was shut until Monday…

On Monday, I got a lift to Ipswich Hospital, hobbled along the corridor to Clinic K, sent off the second-string splint for repairs, and got the first-string splint patched up. But it was only done with Velcro, and on Wednesday it again gave out…

On Friday, I had word that the second-string splint had been repaired, so my plan was to pick it up and give the first-string splint in for more thorough repairs. But the 20-minute drive to the hospital turned into an hour’s drive, as a result of an accident on the A12… And at 4, the time when the orthotics department closed, we were still only just past Tattingstone…

The weekend was here again, and I was still without a proper splint. Irritatingly, I was also due in London on Sunday to go to Joan As Police Woman, my first concert since Kraftwerk in 2013, five days before the stroke. I wasn’t going to miss it. (And it was extraordinary…)

On Monday, I awoke in PENGE to find my foot grotesquely swollen. I decided to go to A&E. But, after six hours of tests (x-rays, DVT, blood…) I was given a clean bill of health. And yet my foot was still swollen…

By Thursday, I was back in Essex and contemplating another trip to Orthotics. To be courteous, I rang them to say I was on my way. But the Spanish receptionist got the wrong end of the stick, and tried to book me in. I was frazzled by this stage and – in a moment of UKIP-esque weakness – wondered if I could speak to someone who actually spoke English. This went down like a bucket of sick, but at least resulted in a change, a familiar voice at the end of the line – and an acknowledgment that my (second-string) splint was indeed ready for collection…

I got a lift to the Hospital, only to find the Spanish receptionist on duty when I arrived. I looked at her, she looked at me, and we both just knew…

This was a new experience for me: a woman (Spanish, very thin, about 40, quite stylish a la Almodovar…) whom I’d abused on the phone, standing in front of me…

So I apologised. I said it wasn’t like me at all. It had just been 12 days since both splints had failed, and I was sorry, but at the end of my tether…

And she was LOVELY! So gracious. I had to turn away before I cried…

So, two weeks and one day later, the first-string splint is ready, and I decide to combine fetching it from the Hospital with a trip to the solicitors’… (Which costs me £475 an hour, and she failed even to come…)

Afterwards, I get a taxi from the solicitors to the Hospital. And, despite the £475 loss, I’m feeling OK, because – for the first time since the stroke – SOMEONE ELSE has failed to show…

And, while the taxi man waits, I stroll into the hospital, exchange a greeting with the three ‘do you know where you’re going’ volunteers, and head for Clinic K…

And immediately the Spanish woman – who’s on duty at the reception window – just beams at me. (You could tell she wasn’t English, just because her clothes were too svelte…)

I’m wearing shades and a red shirt, to ‘celebrate’ my divorce, and I’m starting to believe L when she says I am sexy… The Spanish woman gets the new orthotic, I say has she got a bag, to which she replies, flirtatiously, that she’s got an especially good one…

I say: You’re Spanish? Where are you from?
She says: Bilbao…
I: You’re Basque?
She: Basque/Spanish.
I: What d’you think of ETA?
She: Bad.
I: Really?
She: What d’you think?
I: I have no opinion. I’m an impartial observer for the United Nations.
(She laughs…)

I: But I must ask the crucial question: why does anyone leave Bilbao [which my sister and a Pierce Brosnan Bond film tout as ‘a good place’] for Ipswich?

She (fluttering her eyelids): For love!
I (incredulous): For an Ipswich man?
She: No! For a Scouser [great pronunciation].
I: But the fact still remains: why Ipswich?
She: We were in London…
I: That’s good so far…
She: But then it all went horribly wrong…
(I laugh…)

She: No, seriously, he got a job in Felixstowe.
I: In the docks?
She: Yes! For Maersk, d’you know them?
I: Yes! I live in Mistley, travel a lot to Harwich, where I can look across the harbour at Hanjin etc [shipping companies].

(There’s no one else waiting, but I have a taxi on hire, so I ask one more question, which is OK because she’s told me about her love for her man…)

I: What’s your name?
She: Barbara.

Barbara!
(And now I’m getting close to ‘turn away before I cry’, because she’s been SO NICE and she’s about 40 and petite and well dressed – and in fact I’m crying NOW… And also because Kurt Weill wrote Barbara Song (from The Threepenny Opera) AND Bills Ballhaus in Bilbao aka The Bilbao Song (from The Happy End)…
I say: Well, I look forward to seeing you again in six months, Barbara…
And turning and walking swiftly away, I just make it into the corridor before I cry….
I think I’ll call this: The Happy End.

The Esbjorn Svensson Trio.
They DEFINITELY had a sense of humour.
Maybe a f***ed up Swedish SOH, but still…
He’s always has this half-smile in his cover photos.
On this tune (Elevation of Love) they PREPARED (as in: f***ed up) ONE note…
So that you’re always waiting for that little mistune as the arpeggios go up and down.
No one has EVER done that before (as far as I know)…
It’s just so great/ridiculous!

It always reminds me of the last scene in The Piano, when H Hunter has a metal fingertip, and every 10th note (more or less) there’s a little THUNK…
It’s just SO GOOD – &, if I know Jane Campion, was the One Thought that got her started on that story…
(And maybe inspired EST…?)

But we’ll never know, because Esbjorn Svensson DROWNED IN A DIVING ACCIDENT!
(God – if there is one (which there’s NOT) – is laughing maniacally…)
You choose the SAFEST PROFESSION EVER: you sit down FOR A LIVING!
And then, on your day off: DIVING ACCIDENT!
You had to laugh…

I’ve just remembered…

I did a short film – my first – about Zeno’s Paradox that I delivered to the BFI (competition) on the DAY I started at the NFT in January 1990. And took an umbrella and a briefcase SOLELY because I want to keep the screenplay flat!!!

For which Waltraud teased me. And I was in the zone… Waltraud (she was probably OVER 40, and destined for Logan’s Run….) and her leather trousers…

Where is she now?

When we left Fassett Square (E8) flat (2005?), I left boxes of LPs which I ‘didn’t want’ anymore in the communal hall, with a sign that said: TAKE…

It was a 19-flat building – the old German Hospital, 1930s, called (so naff): Bruno Court. After the first name of the architect…

(Why didn’t they use his second name? So then we might actually know who he is…)

I hated virtually everyone else in the building by then (I was a hater, and was company sec of the management co…)…

And so I left my LPs as kind of a weird f*** off to all of them: “Ah, you still want my records. It’s just me…”

Anyway, somehow it made me feel better. At the time… They still wanted my records…

I don’t regret: Pet Shop Boys…

Do regret: Prince, Chic, Funkadelic….

Though they’re all on Spotify…