Lost in Harbor Park Hotel, Incheon

Of course the reality is very different. We were taken by shuttle bus from the airport to a hotel where 'simplicity and modern design offer you comfortable atmosphere and allover window in room commands superior view and also completely presenting you efficient business environment.' They gave us a dinner voucher. After a hurried shower and failed attempts to connect to the internet I made my way to the Sky Lounge on the fourteenth floor. 'Appreciating the panoramic view of Incheon Harbor, you can enjoy the meeting with your sweet people after stressful and busy day and relish the diverse drinks including various beers and whiskies, wines from all the countries of the world.' A buffet dinner was available, though the waiter didn't tell me this. I sat down and worked it out for myself. I thought I'd better get it confirmed though so I asked him what the procedure was. 'It's a buffet,' he said. I got up and helped myself to some spaghetti from a chaffing dish. Also some mini chicken breasts and a glass of red grape juice. After I'd sat down I was joined by various sweet people: an elderly Asian couple with plates piled high and a swarthy red-faced man with goggling eyes who I guess was from Tasmania. He asked me what I'd got. The food kept getting stuck in my throat. I finished as quickly as I could and went downstairs to...oh you don't need to know, are not even interested to know, are you, what I was doing downstairs. They've probably got a bar somewhere here but I'm too timid to seek it out. Anyway, you can bet your bottom dollar that it won't contain Scarlet Johansson or anyone resembling her. It'll contain other transit passengers, all trying to avoid each other's gaze.      

Spaced at Brisbane airport

I spent half an hour staring at rows of watches. Didn't like any of them. Then I tried various perfumes. A sales assistant approached me so I left. Found myself in a book shop that also sold rejuvenating creams. Considered purchasing Re-birth placenta face cream but decided not to on remembering I'd already bought an intense moisturizer with Rosa Artica (not sure what it is but it smells of my ex landlady) and Facial Fuel for Men from Kiehl's. I haven't boarded yet and I'm already off my face. I have twenty hours in Incheon airport (hotel provided by the airline) where I'm expecting to feel like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. The plan is to sit in the hotel bar drinking Bourbon on the rocks and looking inscrutable. Basically I crossed the world to do four nights of The Poof Downstairs. I had a radio interview during which the interviewer called me 'difficult' and 'irritating,' and a review which described my show as 'controversial.' As the critic left the theatre he heard a man behind him saying 'I've never seen such a load of rubbish in my life.' This really makes me very happy.    

First post in ages

Twenty-four hours ago I swallowed two travel sickness pills from Boots. I was hoping I'd get high but I got drowsy and constipated instead. I've been taking Boots antihistamine pills for the last few days. They help me sleep. In my late adolescence I'd eat ground nutmeg. It tastes vile. There's a deeply unpleasant sensation as it passes down your throat. I'd advise washing it down with lemon squash. On the plus side it gets you very stoned and lasts longer than a spliff. I've tried smoking hops and dried banana skins and used to take something called Actifed until they stopped selling it in chemists. Have been getting into Tiiffy too, a Thai cold remedy containing chlorpheniramine and phenylephrine that - in my case - induces sleep, but am rapidly developing a tolerance to it. I'm also addicted to M&S cheese puffs. They're a lot cheesier than Wotsits.

Talking about Writing

Julian Fox is writing a book. I think he’s intending it to be a novel when it’s finished. Not that I want to publicize it for him. All I want to say here is that we met the other day in Brockwell Park and talked about our respective works of fiction. His is called So Here I am in the Between Land. Mine is provisionally called A Boy Falling Out of the Sky, although I’m thinking of changing that to Human Waste because there’s an awful lot of shit in it. We sat there on a bench and I gave him my reactions to his blog (julianfox.wordpress.com or something like that, though probably not that because it hasn’t turned itself into a link as soon as I’ve written it). He’s posting bits of his writing there, though I am not sure why. He’s disabled the functions that allow people to give feedback. Perhaps just putting his writing up publicly like that is a challenge to himself. He’s set himself some goals, a certain number of posts per week, and has to achieve them. We talked about our different meta-fictional techniques and my worry that they’re merely indicators of our literary ineptitude. Julian keeps on saying he’s not a proper writer. I have my fictional narrator comment on his own writing, how he’s anxious, for example, that the reader will be getting fed up with all his long-winded paragraphs, and how he’s going to turn his divagations into more palatable dinner party scenes in flats in Camberwell instead.

I am reluctant, I told Julian, to post any of my writing on the web, or even to give readings from it. A novel, I said, can only be properly judged in its entirety. You can’t judge it by its extracts. He sort of agreed with me. In fact that’s probably what he said because that’s the way he talks: ‘I sort of agree with you.’ We both expressed our cynicism about the ‘scratch’ process, currently fashionable in the theatre world, while admitting that it’s quite pleasurable, as well as heartening, to receive the occasional pat on the back when the work is well-received. I have to say I feel slightly envious of Julian. He’s developed a distinct persona over the last ten years. It’s there again in his writing. Even if he changes the narrative voice from first person to third and calls the character Stephen you can tell it’s really him talking about his life and what’s happening to him and how he feels. I’m probably deluded in thinking I’m doing something different, because when I look back over my efforts I often end up crying ‘It’s just me, me, me.’

I’ve thought about posting some material on this blog, but what would be the point? No one, apart from, occasionally, Julian Fox and the maverick theatre maker Chris Goode, oh and also very occasionally my friend and flatmate Patrizia Paolini, ever looks at the thing. For the last two weeks I’ve been suffering from writer’s block. I’ve developed an irritating habit of looking back and editing. When I get bored with moving words around and cutting them I’ll surf the internet and read interviews with writers and get depressed. Then I’ll download extracts from other people’s novels, read them and become positively suicidal. In the end I console myself by telling myself that this is what most writers do. Today, the second day of April 2012, I have been editing a passage to death. I’ve toyed around with it so much that it no longer resembles the original at all and I hardly recognize it as a product of my imagination. I thought I’d share it with you. Which is something I’m probably going to regret. Here it is. I should just tell you that the story is narrated by a successful television comedy actor called Philip Harding who is addicted to the internet.

Actually, I've decided there's no point in posting extracts from a novel in progress.

And who are you, anyway?

Work began today at the National Theatre Studio and here is a picture of one of our collaborators arriving late.

She gave me permission to use the photograph, so everything's ok. As to the work we did, well, I am not going to talk about that as I think it would be rather boring to do so. I haven't actually posted on this blog for over a year now. This is because I don't really like blogs. Also because I am not sure I have anything to say. Or rather I may have something to say but I'm not convinced that a blog is the best format in which to express it. The last time I wrote anything here it was about my irritable bowel syndrome. If that's what it was. I don't have it any more. Now I've got something else, but I'm not sure if this blog is the place to tell you about it.

Total Football

Yes, I know. It's kind of dried up, this blog. Though the bowel openings haven't. I'm a little concerned about that as tomorrow I have a long haul flight to Australia, where I'll be in a version of Total Football in Melbourne Fringe. The last time I flew back from that part of the world I had to leave my seat and charge towards the toilet during landing. This time I have prepared a cocktail of Co-codamol and Solpadeine which I hope will knock me out and constipate me at the same time. And that is all I have to say for the time being. No one is reading this anyway, apart from Chris Goode. And he was only drawn to it because I mentioned him. Is that the way to get read? Mention people? All right. Gordon Brown, George Osborne, Lewis Hamilton. Who else has been in the news? Wayne Rooney (actually I've mentioned him before and he never got in touch). The TUC.