If these writings ever become public it won't tax readers' brain cells too much to notice there is something of a gap here between posts. In fact a gap wider than the Grand Canyon as it appeared to me when I dropped acid there in 1971 in a foolish attempt to emulate Easy Rider, not realising their trip was in New Orleans. Only a dumb limey would confuse their Louisiana with their Arizona. Anyway, the Canyon was a very wide gap on acid. Wider than the universe. Which is pretty wide. Which is a very verbose way of trying to begin to explain where I've been for four months. (Sounds like I'm on acid now but, honestly, it's only Chardonnay.)
Two words associated with my state of mind: downward spiral. In other words, decline. Not as dramatic as the Roman Empire chronicled by Edward Gibbon and nor as bloody long as those six volumes but a decline nevertheless. And the Roman Empire is not an inappropriate reference point as currently western civilisation, and particularly the USA, seems to be in a state of pitiful decay if not total collapse.
I come back to these pages on the day that the giant buffoon, Johnson, announces that face nappies are to become compulsory in shops and on public transport. Pretty much emblematic of the times and these insane, illogical, totally arbitrary decisions are the sort of dictums that had me spiralling down. But principally because humanity is so compliant and willing to go along with this drivel. I have lost all faith in most of my fellow human beings and quite fancy aping Robinson Crusoe on some Caribbean atoll with the caveat that a neighbouring island might furnish me with a regular supply of Chardonnay. Maybe Hilary in the office can give me a few tips on which Caribbean Paradise to head for, though I refuse to engage with her if she's going to resort to those little black slave kid face coverings. Face nappies! Most of the unreconstructed retards who are insisting on this apparel now are, to a fault, on record (yes, on video!) as saying at the beginning of all this bulshit that masks are not recommended as they are next to useless. I don't know if there's a pandemic of dementia going around (because there certainly isn't of Covid) but these dudes have serious problems with their short and mid-term memories.
So, more fights with jobsworths and pumped up self-important nobodies on the train network taking the opportunity to be someone for five minutes of their lives, wielding power like demented school monitors with crabs in their knickers. 'I'm exempt, I'm exempt! And no, I don't have to tell you why.' Though I don't know how many times I will be able to keep a straight face with British Transport Police when I tell them about my gang rape in Cyprus. (Note for posterity: nobody but those in authority can demand the reason for being exempt from wearing a face covering. It's a breach of the Disability Act. Also for posterity: in front of the police saying the reason you're not wearing one is because you're neither a slave nor a moron won't cut it.)
So, my downward spiral was one reason why I haven't come to these pages for bit. The other was my appalling row with Sharon.
Thus a quick recap is called for:
Pretty soon after Martin left for Lego Land I was feeling at a loose end and arranged to have a drink with Sharon. Martin - for all his confrontational belligerence - and Sharon are pretty much the only allies I have. Additionally Tanya Parker lapsing into a coma had somewhat thrown me and I couldn't get any information from anyone. I don't know if it was me who was in a cranky mood or Sharon but we'd hardly ordered our drinks and sat down at The Bay Tree when Sharon uttered a curious parody of Oscar Wilde.
'Well Ant, to lose one resource is unfortunate, two may be considered careless but three is downright irresponsible.'
'What are you talking about?'
'You being so casual with your sources.'
'Sources?'
'Martin, Tickler.'
'How am I being so casual about them? It's not my fault Marin went to Denmark and Tickler cried off.'
'You create your own reality.'
'Oh Sharon, you and your hippy dippy drivel.'
'Wasn't Martin going to help you find out the truth about Pattie?'
'Yeah, well he denies doing any specific research for Pattie. And what's Tickler got to do with it?'
'He was a Cabinet minister. Who knows what his memory has got stuffed in its underpants?'
'You're clutching at straws Sharon. There's no connection between Pattie and Tickler.'
'I don't think there's a connection between Pattie and anything. I think you've been a bit of a drama queen about it all quite frankly.'
'Me?'
'I just went along with it to humour you.'
I was flabbergasted, this wasn't like the Sharon I knew. Even so I was still curious. 'Who's the third source I lost?'
'Tanya Parker.'
'What? How is she a source?'
'You said Pattie wanted to talk to her about ''Eyes Wide Shut.'' She can hardly talk to anyone now, she's in a coma.'
'What, and I put her there did I? Sharon, I didn't lose her. She's not like a bloody puppy who ran off after I let her off the leash. In fact no way could you ever confuse Parker with being a puppy. Rottweiler maybe.'
'Why are you getting into dog analogies?'
'I've no idea. Perhaps I have a predilection for canine imagery. You know along the lines of: if it rains cats and dogs do you step in a poodle?'
'Pardon me while I puke.'
There was definitely something unusual about Sharon's demeanour, but I didn't know what it was. Outside of business Sharon is more likely to do a pole dance flashing her not inconsiderable bum than she is to be confrontational. I mean, up until recently Tanya Parker was the enemy. Why does she care that I 'lost' her? Not that I did. She wasn't mine to lose. 'How do you know anyway?'
'How do I know what?'
'Parker's in a coma.'
'Because I have sources too, Anthony. Wake up!'
We sat there in silence. This was the closest we'd come to a row since our futile attempt at coupling in my Frog Eye thirty years ago. To be honest, I felt hard done by and was determined to give something back. You'd think at my age I'd have learnt something about avoiding conflict. Must be something they put in the Chardonnay grape. It may be a fact that the last thing I ever want to do is to hurt people, but it's still on the list. And when I feel wronged I sometimes feel I just have to put it right.
'What's up Sharon?'
What do you mean what's up?
'You're behaving so out of character that a drama critic would suggest you were implausible.'
'You mean not believable?'
'On the other hand I always thought character development shouldn't be consistent. We're all agathokakological.'
'Are you serious?'
Normally Sharon would be amused but this time she just looked at me like I was a piece of malodorous skunk feculent on the end of her Jimmy Choos. Since I turned sixty five I've made it a practice to learn a new obscure word every week. So two hundred and fifty so far. Thereabouts. Partly it was to amuse myself but also to test my cognitive abilities since I am paranoid about dementia. So if you want to know what kakorrhaphiophobia means just ask. It's endemic in the world of arts.
'Your word parade can get a little tedious after a while Anthony.'
'I know. In riposte to your Wildean paraphrase, here's another one: Words are the curse of the drinking class.'
'What?'
'I'm done with words and the whole scripturient class really.'
'Here we go again.'
‘I should retire and drink myself to death.’ I wasn't amusing Sharon, I was irritating her. And me irritating her was irritating me. After irritation comes provocation. 'I'm glad we lost Tickler as it happens.'
'Actually it's a temporary postponement. But why would you be glad?'
'Well I don't want anything to do with him anyway.'
'Why?'
'Why? Because we're not going to be able to skirt around the issues regarding him and your dad.'
'That's alright, don't skirt around them. Tickler doesn't want his memoirs to include his showbiz period anyway.'
'Yeah, but I can't skirt around them. I have to write about it.'
'Why do you have to write about it?'
'Because I'm doing these diaries.'
'You're not Samuel Pepys Ant, it doesn't matter if you miss things out.'
'I can't write about Tickler without writing about your dad.'
'Why do you have to write about my dad? You don't have to include Tickler in your diaries. The diaries are about all the salacious gossip you have or will come across with all the deadbeats down at Notso.'
'Not anymore Sharon, we're in the middle of the biggest shift in mankind's consciousness for two thousand years or longer. I can't write celebrity showbusiness gossip - however acrimonious - and ignore what's going on in the world.'
'Oh please! '
'Okay, so you disagree.'
'Whatever, but you don't have to write about my dad.'
'If I'm going to keep a diary and it's going to mention Tickler I can't not. Michael was a knight of the realm and then a Labour peer in the House of Lords from 1993.'
'You don't have to make Tickler and dad public.'
'It's not going to be public unless you choose to make it public.'
'What do you mean?'
'I'm serialising the diaries to you. You can choose whether to make them public.'
'Why? What am I supposed to do with them?'
'In case anything happens to me.'
'Don't be a drama queen, what might happen to you? You’re hardly 007 saving the world from Sceptre dangling from a helicopter above Mount Kilimanjaro.'
'If I uncover some truths.'
'About what?'
'About Pattie.'
'We've just been through that! The trail's gone cold! You can't play Hercule Poirot anymore. It's ridiculous. Sometimes I think you've turned into a melodramatic old has-been who doesn't have any friends.'
Ouch. 'Then, if that's the case, if Pattie's death was not suspicious, why are you pissed off and blaming me for losing so-called ''sources'' ?'
She didn't answer but simply said: 'Honestly, it is about time you put yourself out to grass.'
I've never known Sharon be so brutal. Oh with actors yes, but not to me, basically her mentor. I couldn't help myself, I had to return in kind. It's the old clown routine: you splatt me with a custard pie, I pour a bucket of gloop over your head.
'Okay, so let's get back to historical facts. 1993 and Michael Ronson, knight of the realm is made a Labour peer. That same year he persuaded the Labour leadership to help Jerome Tickler, by now a local councillor, parachute into a safe seat at the next General Election when New Labour performed their coup in 1997. And your dad did this because of his closeness to Tickler even though their shag-fest ended in the eighties when Aids was the new matinee idol and a lot of bisexuals decided to call it a day. Then your dad and Tickler had a very public falling out in 2000 when Michael renounced his peerage because he objected to Blair and New Labour's direction of travel. Those of us in the know thought of it as an ex-lover's tiff. And all the while Wendy's supposed to be oblivious of the real scenario.'
'Leave my mother out of this.'
I didn't take a breath. 'Three years later Tickler's in Cabinet and votes to invade Iraq. So you might say that your dad shagging Tickler and then dumping him contributed in part to an illegal war.' That was a preposterous stretch too far and I knew it but when the venom is in you, you spit it out. 'See Boris Pasternak and Dr. Zhivago if you want a lesson on how spurned love can lead to the deaths of thousands. Millions. Strelnikov (formerly Yuri Antipov) can't reconcile the fact that Lara actually enjoyed a bit of rough sex with Komorovsky and so goes apeshit in the revolution murdering all and sundry!'
For some reason I said it loud enough for all The Bay Tree to hear it. Sharon stared hard at me, then left her gin and tonic and walked out. I haven't spoken to her since.
I thought after she left that the Pasternak thing was a bit of a stretch too but that's what I'd read into the novel though it's not really evident in Lean's film. Pasternak's inference I believe. He knew he was writing under Soviet repression. I like to think it was one of the reasons it wasn't published in Russia until 1988. That betrayal in love can lead to the deaths of millions. Makes me wonder who dumped Tony Blair before Iraq.
Nothing is what it seems.
Anyway, suddenly I'm bereft of friendship and I'm pretty upset. Pattie had gone at the beginning of the year and now, in August, no Sharon. I phoned but she didn't return my calls or respond to my messages and I felt a bit lame in any case because I'm not exactly a lovesick teenager anymore. Let it go.
Work was dreary, as it often is in the middle of summer and I had to keep reminding myself why I was even at Notso. And if the Pattie thing really is a fool's errand maybe I should just retire gracefully. Perhaps Pattie and Kieran were meeting in her offices that midnight because they were having an assignation which I would have thought was as unlikely as Peter Pan shagging Cruella de Ville but there's no accounting for taste. Though I'd like to think Kieran's weenie would have shrivelled and into insignificance when confronted with Pattie's towering intelligence.
Since August is the silly season and I was disinclined to engage with most of my clients, eighty per cent of whom are card carrying Covidians happily fellating the official narrative, I took a couple of weeks off to recuperate and reconsider my options. It's exhausting trying to keep one’s trap shut when writer after writer asks me if I've had the shot yet and telling me that they're only asking because they care about me. None of them have done any research. Vaccines are a good thing, it's taken for granted. Let's remember nine out of ten doctors used to recommend Camels and Thalidomide was going to wipe out morning sickness. Vaccines are 'safe and effective.' So is bungee jumping - until the thing snaps.
Given the state of the world I was getting quite bored with writing diaries chronicling the trivial, moronic escapades of the various Tuesdays that crossed my path and resolved that, if the Pattie thing comes to a dead end, I would bin the diaries and resign from Notso. To be honest my heart had fair gone out of the world of drama. (I'm reluctant to use the term showbusiness because I am snobbish enough to really believe I never stooped quite that low.)
So I sat in my Chislehurst garden sipping Chardonnay all day and watched Eyes Wide Shut at least five times in the evenings. Even so, I hadn't the foggiest what Pattie had been getting at. Despite the obvious themes related to secret societies and sexual exploitation and/or abuse I couldn't see specifically why this film held Pattie's attention. I mean who doesn't know about sex trafficking? You'd probably have to hail from the Andromedan Galaxy to have never heard about Jeffrey Epstein or Andrew Windsor's sweating habits.
After the fifth viewing I thought that if I ever saw Cruise or Kidman in the bathroom again I'd be physically sick. Though five is nothing. Kubrick probably shot it five hundred times. I heard he did ninety five takes of Cruise just walking through a doorway. I presume they found the right door eventually. Should have used Google maps.
After two weeks, in which time I phoned Sharon several times but to no avail, I decided to cut my losses. Since I had no allies anymore I'd resign from Notso and take myself off on a world cruise to remember. Poised at Kieran's door on a Monday at the beginning of September ready to announce that I'm launching myself into freedom and to hell with showbusiness (yes I had stooped that low, I was in showbiz dammit) I suddenly realised that there was no such thing anymore. Freedom that is. I wouldn't be able to get on a cross channel ferry let alone a world cruise. I'm not vaccinated and I won't wear a symbol of slavery on my face. This is where we are folks and, like The Man in the Iron Mask, I was going nowhere. Freedom of movement? In your dreams.
September morphed into October and October into November and I went through the motions of representing clients that I was now beginning to hate. They were joining a very long list of actors and musical artists I once adored or at least admired but now held in contempt. Hey, it was a big club: basically anyone who pushed the vax. I mean, the arrogant twats, what did they know?
I went to see bad dramas, fell asleep a lot in various theatres and resisted all Kieran's futile attempts to persuade me to increase my client list. 'Kieran, to get more writers they have at least got to be able to, you know, write. Not a lot of that about at the moment.' Kieran has no answer to those sort of assertions, he couldn't tell decent writing from bird shit in an aviary.
And then, toying with the most efficient way to shuffle off this mortal coil without giving pause because of what dreams may come, a script landed on my desk last week. I read it in two hours. It was beyond bad but something made me put in a phone call anyway. And then I got the whole thing about God moving in mysterious ways and synchronicities being her way of remaining anonymous. And that there was a reason I hadn't quite gone off planet just yet. (Let's face it, at my age the odds of this happening increase weekly.) It seemed these four months were a break before I changed gear. And in those quiet and barren moments waiting for the whispers takes patience. And faith. I should have known. Though, to be honest, I'm still not sure I would have returned to these pages if Sharon hadn't gotten back in touch.
We all survived severe psychological abuse. For that, we should feel empowered. There’s a certain understanding now, among those who withstood the pressure, that we have the courage to endure. In meeting new random people and vax status comes up, if per chance, it is revealed that both parties are mRNA free, there’s a nod of acknowledgment, an insta-intimacy created. Even reading stacks like this one, creates intimacy and community to step into the void left by the decade long friendships, now permanently suspended in time and mRNA goo.