31st December 2021

Here's To You Twenty Twenty Two

New Year's Eve and I've got my first dreaded Notso Company Party to go to. To make matters worse it's on The Castle on the Thames, a permanently moored boat on the north bank of the river conveniently perched just downwind from The Palace of Westminster and the House of Commons so you can smell the bulshit and lies wafting over your Notso Fruit Punch, a traditional recipe apparently designed by Sara Soper to turn the glitterati into gibbering baboons before pumpkin time and Auld Lang Syne. 

I'm not good on boats, even permanently moored ones. When I get depressed and intoxicated - an inevitability tonight - I am wont to dive into the undulating morass to end it all.  I confess to having a sunny disposition ninety per cent of the time but we have had two years of incredible government corruption and mendacity which the general public seemed happy to go along with so…you know. 

Earlier in the day I received an email from Kieran saying don't forget the party. Yeah, as if I could pretend it wasn't New Year's Eve. It's his way of saying 'don't you wheedle out of it you bastard.' As a by-the-way at the end he asked me if I knew anything about water feature pimps. This is disconcerting on a couple of levels. Firstly I've never claimed any expertise as regards the sex industry, never having utilised - and never wanted to - the services myself so why's he asking? Particularly when it comes to water sports. Is a water feature pimp someone who specialises in prostitutes who happily relieve their bladders in all sorts of ignominious places? Secondly, Kieran has taken up with Petra Popovitch (yes THAT Petra Popovitch) who - it is commonly known  - likes to drink her own urine in the morning. I am reliably informed that she has the habit of taking the piss in other ways too (sorry, I couldn't help that). Suffice to say that a golden shower has nothing to do with the metal your bathroom mixer tap is made from. It is only rumour mind, so we would normally leave it there. Except - does it have something to do with a water feature pimp?

What is it about Kieran and his flings? Surely it can't be his little pot belly and his short, fat hairy legs and diminutive stature? Granted his tousled blonde hair has him in-line for a Boris Johnson look-alike contest but that doesn't make him attractive does it? I think the fat dictator is gross but then I'm not a woman and his track record and his string of bastard children speaks for itself. 

Am I just jealous? A dinosaur who's had his fun, a has-been Lickalotopuss?

Kieran's latest dalliance has certainly put Hilary's nose out of joint. She was in a foul mood when I left the office yesterday and confessed to thinking of ways she could spill the beans about Petra to Kieran's wife Mandy at the party. I'm amazed she didn't see the irony. Besides, everyone knew Mandy couldn't care less and never turned up for Notso functions anyway. Sarah confided to me that she - Mandy - was in any case having a wild fling in their upmarket Surrey neighbourhood with the local dog breeder who specialises in crosses. What they got up to surrounded by his Bernadoodles and Cockaliers would probably make your eyes water, she said. Coming from Sarah Soper who, by all accounts, is somewhat of a gymnast when it comes to her own sexual shenanigans, that's saying something. 

Ironically Kieran got off with Petra having poached her from Sharon's agency, SKA. Sharon was all set to represent Petra in this country as she was co-starring with Phil Dawson in his latest Sebastian Coleman adventure, 'A Good Moment to be Bad.'  Unfortunately Petra happened to utter something about her bed routine with Phil, he being so wooden that playing a love scene with him was like trying to act with a barn door. Petra, whose English outside of a script is pretty basic, protested that she had been taken out of context but Phil took exception anyway since her remark went viral. Sharon, being politic, thought she couldn't represent the two of them so Kieran pounced. And now here we are. 

(Actually Phil Dawson is a pretty good actor and barn door isn't the sort of phrase a Serbian beauty should be using, out of context or otherwise. Once it's out there it's out there. You don't say those sorts of things in public. Not about the star of the current biggest spy franchise. It would be like Judy Dench saying Daniel Craig can't act.)

In case you've been living under a rock somewhere Petra Popovitch - as anyone who goes to decent art house movies knows - is possibly one of the most beautiful and celebrated European actresses (sorry actors) currently inhabiting the gossip pages. She's doing the Seb Coleman film for the money explaining she has a very large extended family to look after in Belgrade. It's bound to end in tears with Kieran. I don't know what he thinks he's doing really. I'm going to assume that God gave him brains as well as a penis, but probably not enough blood to run both at the same time. 

If she does have a penchant for golden showers, given her sudden rise to stardom, it's bound to leak out, (Oh dear, sorry.) I actually heard about it from an ex-boyfriend stoned out of his mind at the Cannes Film Festival five years ago. I was actually sharing the joint with him and it was pretty evil stuff and the ex was dead bitter about Petra dumping him so it could all be utter bollocks. (Afterthought: what the hell was I doing toking at the age of sixty five?) A bit of made-up gossip developed from the habit of her drinking her own urine? It's supposed to be good for you but I don't know what people see in it. Gives the phrase 'taking the piss' a whole new meaning. I tried it for a month in my forties and it was far from being as revolting as I thought it might be. Even so, I prefer a decent glass of Chardonnay, by far better for my mental health if not my physical. 

I arrived at The Castle on the Thames around ten and walked straight into Kieran. Since I still had urophilia on my mind and he seemed to be on his own for a brief moment - quite an achievement when he has two hundred of Notso's clients on board - I thought I'd put the pimp thing to bed right away. I explained I had no interest and no knowledge of pimping and he needed to find someone much more experienced. Kieran looked at me as if I'd just flown in from Gallifrey on the Tardis and when I actually mouthed the words 'water feature pimp' he took out his phone to look at the offending email.

'Pump, Anthony. Water feature pump. Pimp is a typo. You have a fountain in your garden which I have long admired. I'm getting one, I need advice on the most suitable pump.'

There are times when you want the ground to open up so that it can swallow you whole, no chewjng required. Like an oyster, the point of which still eludes me. Alternatively this could be a great moment to abandon ship for the undulating morass below. It never occurred to me that he meant pump. I'd read water feature pimp and thought of Petra. This whole Covid culture and the conspiracies which turn out to have legs has given me a tendency to join dots when they really shouldn't be connected. I'd been fretting about that all afternoon for no bloody reason. Still, at least it gave me some copy for these diaries. 

'It was Petra who gave me the idea. She loves the sound of trickling water.'

Ah well, dots not entirely unconnected. 

Even so, I was suitably embarrassed to make my excuses as Petra headed towards us and made a bee-line for the bar, eschewing Sarah Soper's bespoke New Year's punch for a reassuring glass of Chardonnay. Cringing at the thought of making small talk with one of my thirty or so clients here (not all of them could come) my eyes darted around the deck looking for the safest option. 

It irritated me beyond belief that twenty five per cent of the guests were wearing masks. It's become a serious affectation for those who misguidedly think they are socially aware. Surely if they were really concerned about infection they wouldn't come? It's currently rather vogue as if you're no-one without the latest facial accoutrement. They think they're displaying virtue whereas, in reality, they come across as compliant idiots. They're eating and drinking for pity's sake! A face mask at a party is about as practical as loon pants and platform boots would have been at a hundred metres dash in the 1970s. (No, masquerades don't count: they hide the eyes. I've watched 'Eyes Wide Shut' enough times to know.) 

One of those face nappy cheerleaders, heading towards me and therefore crushing my desire for a safe option, was Jeffrey Ackerman. Yes, we're talking the blockbuster novelist, who else? He was sporting a red satin number which was more likely to deter an S&M Madame in her boudoir then prevent the spread of a 'deadly virus'. 

'Anthony - ' he said, tugging the satin spittle-stained snot rag under his chin and thus displaying the seasonal, inebriated and insincere smile I can't stand. This is the key to being a good agent: exuding diplomacy and fraternity to those you quite simply loathe.

Ackerman is a Tuesday if ever there was one, a Tuesday with bells on, a veritable Tuesday. A Tuesday to end all Tuesdays. As far as I know, the only cynical and sorry episode in Pattie's glorious history. And a blot on her reputation for integrity, being one of the only clients she ever took on because she knew he would make her money. So you can imagine her nose being put out of joint when he jumped ship after nearly forty years.

And his jumping ship is a testament to Kieran's wily skills and utter deviousness. It is an unwritten rule between agents that you don't pinch other agents' clients. If the client wants to leave fine, but you don't - on the face of it anyway - nick them. Except Kieran never played by the rules. 'Live by the sword and die by the sword,'  he once said to me when I questioned his ethics of sending a rent boy round to seduce a very successful gay actor he wanted on his client list. Kieran poached Jeffrey Ackerman in January 2019 by getting him pissed on Dom Perignon at the Groucho Club. Jeffrey had been one of Pattie's only two novelists. Kieran had taken him aside at the Groucho and in a ‘don’t-tell-all- Pattie’s-other-clients-but…’ kind of mode had offered a reduced commission of 11.5%, whereas Pattie was charging him and her other author (as opposed to her dramatists) 15% for home deals. In other words Jeremy Ackerman’s motive for his move over to the most vulgar literary and theatrical agency this side of the Andromedan Galaxy was pure greed. He told me when he was leaving that it was because he liked the slope of Sarah Soper's chest muscles - yes he really said that! Symptomatic of his writing really - crap. In line with his principles. To call Jeffrey Ackerman's characters cardboard is an insult to the British Packaging industry. The fact that he has millions of readers is a testament to the intellectual inadequacy of a good part of the population. Sure, he spins a good yarn but it's his editor who brings it up to literary standards. I, personally, can't see his appeal. Whatever happened to class, to refinement, to edification? I blame the unreality of reality TV myself. The brain dead culture which started in the 1990s reminds me of the T.S. Elliot line from The Rock: ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge, where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’ Whatever happened to erudition for pity’s sake?

Ackerman's latest offering (not yet published) is being looked after by my colleague Josie because I don't deal with novelists. At Pattie Regan Associates it had been Pattie who had looked after him. Apparently the book is a thinly disguised version of events leading up to Pattie's death, only its protagonist is a sports agent who gets murdered by a client when she discovers that he (a famous world class footballer) is into ritual and secret Masonic practices. Josie says it's reminiscent of Dennis Wheatley, a novelist who delved deeply into the occult. This is curious given Pattie's last conversations with - it seemed- a number of us had included a discussion on 'Eyes Wide Shut'. Curious because the last person on earth who Pattie would have discussed anything like that would have been Ackerman. Besides, he left her nearly three years ago. So how come he is writing a novel which somehow parallels Pattie's last weeks? 

I might have asked him directly if he hadn't been so pissed. Ackerman was seventy three but that didn't seem to deter him from getting wasted. 'Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine' was his toe- curling greeting. I know he was doing a bad impression of Bogart in 'Casablanca' and I was tempted to say 'don't give up the day job' but I took offence at his inability to be funny with it so objected to being referred to as a woman saying I wasn't transgender and he could foxtrot oscar. He didn't understand. But then he's too stupid. 

'Sarah Soper's fruit punch,' he said pointing to his glass. 'Almost as powerful as her chest muscles, ' he added, giggling uncontrollably. My distinctly disinterested expression did not, sadly, deter him. 'You know, I have a next door neighbour. She's got pretty good chest muscles too. Yesterday she apologised for her bush being really overgrown at the front. I said no need, there's no accounting for taste and offered to help her trim it if she wanted, adding that I didn't think she needed to shave too much off.' He scrutinised me expectantly, my lack of reaction obviously irritating him. In reality I was dumbfounded because I couldn't tell whether he was having a joke with his double-entendres or his neighbour really did have an unruly shrub or two.  I'd already made an arse of myself by confusing 'pimp' with 'pump'. As if to remove all doubt he continued: 'I told her that I wasn't that much bothered about her bush one way or another but I would appreciate it if her thirteen year old son could stop continually banging his balls against my garage door. The clanging wakes me from my afternoon nap.'  Ackerman's got three garages for his three classic cars so I wondered which garage door exactly this teenager was hammering his balls into. However I wasn't going to ask as I was reluctant to give the old sod the remotest hint that any reaction from me could be mistaken for engagement. Instead I gave him the sort of disdainful look a chemist might give to the drunk who, when buying a box of condoms, asks where the fitting room is. That didn't deter him either and his sozzled, drooling eyeballing suggested he wasn't going anywhere until he had satisfaction so, in desperation, since I had this very afternoon brushed up on my keep-dementia-at-bay-by-learning-new- long-words-every-week exercise I called him a furfuraceous, exophthalmic pseudohermaphrodite hoping he would be either so confused - Ackerman doesn't use words of more than three syllables - or so insulted that he would back off. Instead he found it hilarious and started braying like a donkey that had suddenly gone into labour. 

I started these diaries because I thought I was going to need to vent about all the obnoxious people I was likely to meet via Notso who regarded themselves as celebrities. Sharon warned me that it would be Tuesdays all the way down over here despite me bringing most of my writers with me. Ironically the current Tuesday hee-hawing in front of me is a refugee from Pattie's stable. 

'Happy New Year Ant,' he said once he'd finished snorting. And, as an afterthought: 'What do you get for nicking a calendar?' I shrugged, still singularly disinterested. 'Twelve months.' He went into his donkey routine again. I mimed sticking my finger down my throat since the joke was so poor. He seemed to take exception to that because he suddenly stopped his braying, leaned in all serious like and said: 'I know one or two things about Pattie Regan that you don't know,' and then tried to tap his nose as a sign of confidentiality. He missed and his index finger travelled down through the air to his drink in his other hand. He tried this gesture again three times and missed his gargantuan schnozzle every time. Finally, resigned to his failure, he turned and waddled off. I wanted to follow to ascertain whether he was bulshitting or not but I didn't get the opportunity because as he wandered away a voice behind me that I recognised said 'There's telling you.'

Turning, I'm surprised to see Tanya Parker leaning on a walking stick looking even more like a refugee from a famine than usual. 'Tanya, how have you been?' I asked as if we were long lost mates rather than opposing forces for at least the last ten years. 

'Well I've been nearly dead. And in hospital more than out since I last saw you in July.'

'What are you doing here?' 

She held up her phone as if that was an answer. 'I'm doing a feature for Vanity Fair. You've got more famous zombies here than MadameTussauds.' 

I would normally have applauded her pejorative use of the term zombies, Tanya being establishment through and through. But I was quite taken aback by the synchronicity of Vanity Fair given my recent encounter with Mary Barton. Which might explain why the next bit of our dialogue knocked my socks off. 

'I erm, seem to remember back in July, in The Bay Tree, you said you had something important to tell me,' I said, scrabbling around for something to say.

'And I still do. But then I got ill right? And after that I did some research and fell right down the rabbit hole. '

'How do you mean?'

'Doesn't matter right now. What did you think he meant? That he knew something about Pattie that you don’t know?' She nodded at Ackerman's back, whose shoulders were heaving up and down with his raucous, palpably false laughter having cornered some poor sap I didn't recognise.

'I don't know.'

'Tell me, have you come across someone called Mary Barton?' 

Socks duly knocked off. I stuttered, I stammered, I hadn't a clue what to say. 'Erm, erm, erm…' Very articulate. 

'She was a university lecturer. At Cambridge. Taught Pattie in her first year. Microbiology.' 

'I erm…she just sent…this is weird…she just sent me a play. How do you come…?' I couldn't finish the question. 'I'm going to see her in the new year,' I said rather pathetically.

Tanya pocketed her phone, picked up a glass with the hand that wasn't holding her walking stick and winked. 'Oh well then, here's to you 2022.'