My Life on Film

Lights... Camera... Action!

Starring Anna as damsel in dreamy joy rather than distress, plus stylised extras of various character, within a medieval castle, acting out a contemporary fairytale.

I dress up, in whimsical costume, yet am not acting.

Shot in sharp focus, high contrast, and in flattering light.

An independent, arthouse film of life in a moment, captured on celluloid, making the fluid and floaty static and the moment eternal.

We are the stars. Divas demanding to go on location to a stone storybook town with many turrets, at sunset, in south-west France. We prepare for our close-ups...

Open Mic Night (or week, month, year, era, age...)

Following days of Barbican-based pen-pushing, this is the way to dream away the remaining hours...


Hours filled with fairy lit basements of Eds, and the odd Ned.
And long Harringay hills and hot-pink florists.
Twilight consumed with cherry risotto and 'getting off one's Maynards'.
An evening wiled away with a beer keg baby, chit-chat of travel, egg-shaped shakers of a blue hue and playing, ad hoc, on the omnichord.
Time taken up by Portuguese aprons that exude culinary love, poems in profile (though which is his best side, one wonders, as he searches for the light), and printed pictures of Polaroid snaps.
Moments drowned in 'oceans of gin', whisky demands and red wine spillages.
A mortifying, though liberating, lifetime of stumbles through drunken mispronunciations, of misjudged french words, before taking one's leave half-heartedly with 'half past eight a.m.' excuses.

A blurred-edge bus journey, a 29 ride, an exchange of bohemian boasting between siblings, a panic and a pudding later... Panic due to forgotten keys and visions of street-sleeping. Pudding to soothe these (thankfully) unrealised visions away. Then wide-eyed once more at 4 in the morning.

I woke up and it was hours, not dreamed, but lived later. And it is these unexpected evenings that make the days of screen-staring more of a Barbican than a Barbican't.

Fondant, Gateau, Brownie, Beau!

I shall have my cake... And damned well eat it too!

'The Comedy of Life'

It is a truth universally acknowledged that shit happens...

Posters fall down, and people get 'leg hernias' on their birthdays.
Chocolate brownie cake gets smeared on carpets, and violet creams get devoured after cider with almost disastrous consequences.
Doors to poetry bars are locked, and light bulbs nearly get sat on.
The BNP, Ukip and Christian Party are all front runners in local elections, and keys fail to cooperate.
And that is barely the tip of the iceberg.

HOWEVER, tips of icebergs can also be cherries on the top. Can they not? Work with me on this one...

As a very wise amour of mine repeatedly (and ever so smugly) whispers through an amused half-smile, 'It is all part of the Comedy of Life'.




Pink party frocks can be enjoyed, and bedrooms can be the glamorous make-up boudoirs of backstage theatres.
A casual Carlos Acosta can be spotted in the street, and free blow-up inflatables can cushion numb bums in twilit Trafalgar Square.
Jokes can be made publicly about the medium of dance, and purple glitter curtains can bedeck bars booked for private soirees.
Undone bow ties can grace slender necks, and lace can be layered to form a special, special garment.




Hampstead Heath can be buttercup brightness, or wine-drenched sunset. Rugs and mugs can always be conjured, and friends will always be friends...

And, if in doubt, at an all time low, or disillusioned with the world of dancecrobatics, one can always cut to an 80's dance montage... Fact.