I did not see Dracula last night

The great thing, we were saying yesterday, is that in London you can do something AMAZING every night of the week. Why would you want to live somewhere else? For instance, last night there was a screening of the 1958 Dracula in a cool bar in Dalston. How great is that?

The problem, as always, is getting to Dalston. I've finally admitted that the London Overground is basically a large model train set, not a serious railway. It's always broken, as if the trains constantly get pushed from the tracks by a giant toddler called Boris.

When I turned up at the Overground station, there was a woman stood doing a SobShout. It's a London thing. When you've taken all you can, and suddenly something just breaks. She was stood outside the ticket office SobShouting: "I have been waiting an hour <sob> An hour <sob> That's not right <sob> It's not right <sob> An hour. <sob>"

In this case all she really needed was for the person in the office to give her a hug and a jaffa cake. Instead he shrugged and shut the window. None of us offered her a hug after that. She may have had knives.

People kept on filing in, staring at the board and groaning "NOT AGAIN." We did not go anywhere, as if by sheer stubborn willpower, we could think up a train.

It was left up to one TFL worker to man the barricades. "It's my first day," he said through his megaphone, "So imagine how I feel." We nodded. We've all been there. "There's just no trains," he continued. "I'm not sure what else I can say." He then gave people who came up to him directions. Through the megaphone.
"Yes, go down past Sainsbury's and try for a bus there..."
"It's a long walk down the hill but take the second left..."

In the end I got on a bus, which slowly circled around the Overground station as though reluctant to let the idea go. The Overground is a brilliant notion. But it's really just a nice bit of graphic design.

Someone has simply played a lovely game of join-the-dots with things that bear little relationship to each other. I could do the same with Sainsburys, Lidl and Tesco on the grounds that they're all shops. According to the map you can even sail from Euston to Stratford. DO NOT TRY THIS.

Apparently people use the Overground to commute everyday. This proves how brave Londoners are, or, like survivors in a zombie film, how numb they become to the agony of daily living.

I sit on my bus, circling around the station in a crafty sidle like a toddler planning a break away in BHS. Eventually, Caledonian Road happens. Then my phone rings.

"Don't bother," says my boyfriend. "They've got the wrong disc. It's not the Hammer Dracula. It's Bram Stoker's Dracula." Understandably, I get off the bus. I go home. We talk about moving to Scotland.

Futureology

Years ago I dated a sort-of call centre worker / ketamin dealer / naked cater waiter. Looking back on it, you'll be surprised to know It Did Not End Well.

Anyway, he's now living in Brighton, and is all grown up and marvellous. For many years he's had a lovely boyfriend who has been A Good Thing. It's actually insane to think we ever made pasta together, let alone went out.

And now the odd thing about modern relationships. Social media means that, even though you don't talk regularly, you can intuit stuff from your Facebook timeline. Is there a card for "Sorry he left you for God"?

On owning an e-reader

Last week I bought an e-reader. I also bought a lot of books. Paperback books. The world didn't end.

Yes, yes, how very 2010, but I've spent the last couple of years thinking my iphone was a good enough e-reader. And it is splendid. But, those Nook things are only £29 – how bad can they be?

Actually amazing. They look so much like paper I made three attempts at peeling off the welcome screen. They make consuming books so wonderfully easy – Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard has sat on my iphone for over a year, but she solved her last crime in a little over an hour.

There is a problem – I have never been a monogamous reader. I always feel guilty when there are more than four books by the bed. But my nook has made cheating sinfully easy. After a day I caught myself actively punishing books. If something happens in them that I don't care for then zip! Off to something else. If those nuns are in trouble, then farewell! Too many pages in Italics? Then I'll call you back, Dan Brown.

I'm sure there's a phrase for this phenomenon, but I can see a time when my e-reader is little more than a collection of banished suitors. Thomas Hardy is going to be a bugger to finish on an e-reader. I wonder if I'm alone in this? I wonder if future editors will tell writers “You're going to lose people here...” as readers become channel surfers, bailing on books when the hero does something annoying, or a beloved character dies?

As well as Dan Brown (yeah, I was back within 5 minutes), I've also been reading Jamaica Inn. In paperback. It's a brilliant example of a book that doesn't stand a chance on my e-reader. It's a skilful exercise of the “Don't go into the spooky house, Doris!” variety. When I'm not cheering on the heroine, I'm yelling at her – don't hide in the parlour! Don't go off with him! Don't sell that pony! I wouldn't have finished this book on an e-reader. I'd also have had to buy a new one. My lovely old Penguin has been thrown angrily into a corner twice.

While they're busy changing the way new books will be written, they're a fantastic way of unlocking old ones. I love my classic crime, and there's a whole host of obscure detectives suddenly within my grasp (seriously, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard). But still... searching Project Gutenberg is never going to replace the joy of nosing around a second hand bookshop. Perhaps we'll just get better at deciding what deserves space on our shelve. The physical books we buy will be the ones that proclaim loudly “This is who I am”.

One thing I would change about e-readers would be an option to change the cover on them so that it tells people exactly what you're reading. Perhaps in the style of an old Penguin. Why yes, I am reading that. No, wait, I've changed my mind, I'm reading this. No, oops, now it's 50 Shades.

But it is not my ideal world. I can tell this because cats do not have the vote, steam trains don't run over the grave of Dr Beeching, and it is not compulsory to watch Daleks 2150 AD once a year. So perhaps that's a good thing. And, at the end of the day, e-readers are about people making their own decisions.

I was doing some research into Penguins recently, and was told that, until Allen Lane invented them, ordinary people by and large didn't bother with books. Bookshops were scary places and books were serious things. Then along comes Penguin and books are suddenly all the rage and tremendous fun. So maybe, e-readers are today's Penguins. Just not orange.

Help for Heros

There was graffiti on the Mosque. You get a lot of graffiti in Somerstown. Recently there's been a lot about a girl called Tracy. Apparently she's a no-good grass who hangs around with quite the wrong sort of gentleman.

I'm sure it's all quite upsetting for Tracy and her various boyfriends, but this weekend the graffiti went up a notch.

Someone had graffiti'd on the mosque: "Fuck Islam. Help for Heros. EDL". It's quite a thing when you can't even spell the cause you're appropriating for your own sick ends. But still, away they'd gone, fucking Islam and helping them heros quite a few times.

We walked past it. We were at a loose end (having just missed a play by Aeschylus because we have no sense of direction. Oh yes, we're that gay). So, we decided to do something about it.

We went home and filled a bucket with soda crystals and hot water and grabbed some brillo pads ("After all," I said, "It's good practice in case the kids on the estate paint 'Paedo' on our door someday") and went to work.

We hadn't got very far before we were surrounded by a gang. A proper, quietly intimidating gang. They stood and watched us. "Fuck' em," one said about us, "They're defacing the mosque. That's wrong."
"Wait," said another, "They are cleaning it."
They stood back and watched us for a bit. Then went away.

It only took five minutes.  Someone came out of their house and watched us quietly. A couple of people walked past us into the mosque. They didn't say anything to us. I'm quite glad about that. I'm not really sure there's appropriate small talk for this situation. Clinton's don't do a card for "Sorry about your hate crime".

Anyway, two gays stood scrubbing a mosque clean and then quietly tiptoed home. And maybe, the next time someone says something about poor Tracy and her men, we'll clean that up too.

Making Somerstown A Better Place

I live in a run-down inner city slum (as Beattie from the BT adverts would say, we're very 071). Somerstown  lurks between Euston and Kings Cross. A few years ago estate agents essayed "South Camden" but have now decided we're "St Pancras".

For an inner-city slum, Somerstown is lovely. But it has its problems. Luckily, the National Lottery has given us a shed-load of cash to Do Lovely Things.

Notices went up inviting us to come along to a meeting with ideas on how to spend it. I trotted along. You know on the news when they say "X became Radicalised After Attending A Training Camp"? I became accidentally radicalised because I sat too far from the crisps.

I sat in the meeting for an hour. There were a bunch of genuine residents. Some had brought along bits of paper, including a child's drawing in felt tip. It appeared to show a lot of green lawn and trees. But there were also a lot of people who were Big In Local Politics. The news would call them "Community Leaders". I'd call them Men Who Loved The Sound Of Their Own Voices.

They started talking with each other. Loudly and longly. Acronyms were exchanged. Grudges about differences between Local Forum and Working Parties. There was a lot of disparaging talk about Edith Neville (she sounded rather grand until I realised she was a school) and Plot 10. There was A LOT of shouting about Plot 10.

I put up my hand. "Er, what's Plot 10?"
Mr Love-Voice sniffed disparagingly.
Madly, I got a round of applause. No-one else seemed to know. Turned out Plot 10 was an outdoor gym.

The shouting carried on. After an hour the cowed-looking chair said "So, shall we move on to start the agenda?"

An hour. No-one had asked for any ideas. Just a lot of fat voices talking shop. I stayed a bit longer. Nothing more happened. Felt tip drawings moved from laps to under chairs. More voices.

Eventually I stood up. I'd left dinner on and had to get back to it. I apologised quietly and left.
I heard voices behind me. "Quite right!" and "Disgusting!".

On my way out of the community centre, I glanced back. I'd accidentally staged a walk out. I wasn't alone. Oh dear.

I'd gone along wanting open spaces and lawns and things for kids to do in the evening. All I'd done was sit too far from the crisps.

As I walked through my courtyard, two boys were destroying one of my rose bushes with a lightsaber.

Liz and her Mum

Last year I got to write for Liz Shaw. It was the last thing that Caroline John recorded before passing away. I got to meet her at the recording. She'd brought in jam.

She was wonderful, and I was so very sad when she died.

There'd been tentative plans for another adventure for Liz and her mother, which sadly didn't get very far. Here's the opening:


LIZ'S CAR. NIGHT.

(SFX: Engine running. It is raining. Car door opens and Liz gets in hurriedly)

LIZ: Drive, mum! Drive!

EMILY: I take it the meeting at UNIT didn't go well?

LIZ: No.

EMILY: And how is the Brigadier?

(FX: Distant thumping noise)

LIZ: He's in the boot...

OPENING TITLES

Anyway. That's as far as it got. No idea if I'd have got away with it. But I'd love to have tried.

Here also is her son's Just Giving page.

Party Politics

I went home early because of a nugget.

I used to be able to *do* parties. Not to A Level, but I could muddle through a GCSE in chatting to strangers in the kitchen, hoovering the crisps, flirting madly with someone else's husband and getting a bus the wrong direction home.

I still can kind of do parties. But not brilliantly. Given that the internet appears to be where people confess to social ineptitude, I've always found parties a bit baffling. I once bought a self-help book called "How To Talk To Absolutely Anyone" but gave up when I realised it was basically "pretend to find people interesting in case they can give you money, either through work or marriage". I've settled into "talk to the fun people and see how that goes".

Last night we couldn't get it right. It was a party full of young gay couples. In theory, brilliant. The hosts were lovely, there was booze everywhere... but my boyfriend and I stood in a corner hissing at each other "we should mingle". Everyone was standing in little covens of four. So we made slow progress.

A kind-of ex was there. Last time I saw him, he was a young Labour activist. Now he works for Theresa May. He was carrying a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and said "Let's bring out the good stuff! Ha ha!". We'd brought along some Mateus Rose. Because it seemed funny. (Always bring two bottles - one you'd like to drink, and one that's silly. But not Lambrinin. Never Lambrini). It's hard making small talk with someone who is still lovely and chatty and friendly while you're thinking "But you work for... for evil". I can only imagine orcs and mages at a mingle:
"So what's Mordor like?"
"Oh well, you know, Sauron's not so bad. Great sense of humour, surprisingly. And summer hours, hey ho."

What capped it though, were the nuggets. A tiny blond thing darted forward. He had hair that aimed for Harry Styles and landed on combover. Blond Thing grabbed a nugget, dunked it in the cheese&chive and trilled, "Ooh, I love a chicken covered in cream."

My boyfriend and I looked at each other. We went home and watched a film.

Unwilling

It all started when we went out for dinner with a lovely friend who is a lawyer.
"You have got a will, haven't you?" she said.
"No, why?"
"Well, now that you're living together, if you get run over by a bus then your boyfriend will have to move out."

Let's pause for a moment to consider this mythical Bus Of Vengeance. The Bus Of Vengeance seeks out and destroys those with unpaid bills, unmade apologies and unfinished business. In reality, buses only seem to run people over when their drivers are texting or confused by roadworks. You're more likely to be struck down by a lorry - those things are so lethal that even thinking about bicycle-clips increases your chances of being flattened by an HGV by 3000 per cent.

Anyway, it turns out that if a bendy bus should explode near me and I don't have a will, my boyfriend will have about 24 hours' notice to move out, pausing only to collect his cardigans, check the cupboard for any remaining crisps, and say goodbye to the cat. So, my learned counsel argued, I needed to get a will. This seemed a bit drastic.

"Well," my lawyer friend said, "You don't have to have a will. You could just get married."

My boyfriend and I looked at each other.

So, I've got a will now. As a process it's like painless dentistry with sad bits. Here are the things I've learned:

Money is great
Put all together those pensions and that weird life-insurance policy that came with that mortgage all mount up to quite a nice lump sum. If I died tomorrow, I'd never need to work again.

Your friends don't want your stuff
To you it may be a wonderful archive. But start bandying around bequests and you discover that your treasured possessions are mostly crap which would disgrace a jumble sale.

Don't try and leave anyone Lego
The solicitor drawing up my will is a marvellous woman. But even her reservoirs of tact ran out when she reached the Lego. I'd tried to leave it to a named friend. The problem is, it would have to be valued. Which means it would all have to be assembled. And catalogued. And put together in the same room. The last time I tried doing this I got halfway through laying out the train track and very nearly ended up single. I hadn't even touched the monorail or the airport.

A cat is a chattel
They may lord it over you in life, but after death, you can literally dispose of them how you see fit. My will adviser said she once had to execute an old lady's clause that her cats were put to sleep. Luckily they'd predeceased her, but it was still a horrid thing to ask.

Getting rid of the body
This was the stumper. It turned up as a surprise clause - you have to leave instructions as to where and how. Cue awkward email conversation with boyfriend. We've really only just about decided which side of the bed to sleep on and I'm asking him how he'd like to dispose of my corpse. Suggestion #1 was to leave it in the yellow-stickered aisle at Tesco "as that's where you're happiest". Suggestion #2 involved scattering it near a Loch. This is quite romantic, but isn't without its hazards. After all, my boyfriend is quite forgetful. He'll take the wrong tin to Scotland and end up sat on a rock, eating biscuits and sighing. My friend Lee came up with Suggestion #3 which involved a glitter cannon and a gay sauna.

You're going to die
The weird one. I've only just got used to being alive. I'm not sure what I'll do when I'm dead. But I do know one thing - I will be rich.

A film I hated

Turns out, I hated this film. Alan Bennett summed up Witchfinder General by calling it "degrading" and "morally rotten".

It may well operate on a level that I missed, but it's essentially about Vincent Price burning women. They're toasted, torched, griddled, branded, poached and fried.

When we got to the end of it, I reiterated how much I hated it. My boyfriend (whose favourite film it is) stared at me blankly. "But, it's just like Twins of Evil. You liked that."

"Yes," I replied. "But that had vampires in it."

His eyes narrowed. He may have sneered. "Is a film only any good if it has vampires in it?"

"Well, yes." Vampires are a bit like salt. They'll ginger up anything. The only thing that could possibly, in any way, have improved The West Wing is if they'd replaced the Jewish Mafia stuff with vampires.

London Morbid

The flat opposite me has a balcony. I would like that flat.

The owners used to keep it immaculate, and neatly-trimmed window boxes would spill out glorious blooms all the year round. Now the window box is full of weeds.

A few years ago, I think the wife died. That's when he stopped coming out to look after the flowers.

One night last year I was woken up by a banging noise. It was the husband, come home late and drunk. He'd locked himself out and was trying to kick his own door down. He looked old and small but he was still hefting away at the door. I helped him jimmy the lock with a claw hammer. He said thank you and staggered in, all without really focusing on me.

I haven't seen him since, but recently a district nurse has started to call on him regularly. I've discovered that London Feeling - a mixture of solid regret that I don't really know him mingled with "I wonder how much that flat is worth? Can I buy it if he goes into a home or something?".

These aren't nice thoughts. But it's all very well to think them. Because this is London, and some day, someone will be looking out their window at my balcony and thinking "oh, the window boxes are full of weeds. I wonder...?"