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Definitely on the mend, though still super tired by the end of the day and experiencing lots of brain freezes, where words and names are not easily called to mind. Hopefully that’s just the effects of the virus and not a symptom of the fading of the light.
Luckily I didn’t need my brain today as I was doing some acting. Ha ha, I am funny. I am in another short film, which we’re filming this weekend, after having impressed the writer and director with my performance in While You Were Away. I can’t say too much about the film without ruining any surprises and twists, but I think it’s going to be a fun role and at one point I have to give a man CPR, so that’s going to be a challenge. Because even though the character will have had a heart attack the actor hopefully won’t have and to make CPR look realistic I would be in danger of breaking his ribs.
Although the action mainly takes place outside by the Thames we met to rehearse above a pub in Farringdon. I had wondered why we weren’t doing it in situ, but only about halfway through the process. Obviously given we weren’t actually filming we wouldn’t have required any permission. But no one realised this until it was too late.
The life of the casual actor is a nice one. You are thrown together with a group of strangers but there is nearly always an immediate bond and you make friends quick as you work in the noble trade of pretending to be something that you aren’t. Within minutes of meeting one actor, she was throwing herself in front of me trying to prevent me from progressing on my way. We hadn’t even started rehearsing yet!!!!! Oh sorry, no we had just started rehearsing. But that’s a weird level of intimacy with a stranger, but one that immediately knocks down barriers. We shared stories related to the story or to shoots with similar scenes and joked about all the things that could go wrong. We had to do a bit of improv in character, which was sort of fun, but also important in developing a relationship between me and the other main actor in the piece. I think we developed the relationship fine. I am looking forward to the actual filming.
Meanwhile, in the world, the vacuum left by no realistic opposition and the madness of Brexit seem to be coalescing into something horrible and potentially disastrous. Apparently I am part of the liberal elite, which is a new pejorative term, because of course being liberal is one of the worst things ever. And it refers, seemingly to the 48% of people who dared to vote Remain. Now I don’t know how much of an elite 48% people can be, but I know a lot of those people came from London, where most people are struggling to make a living in the most expensive place to live in the UK. They are not elite, but they do have experience of living in a multi-cultural city and they know that that isn’t a bad thing in itself. Because they’ve experienced it. So that’s a worrying lie to start perpetuating as is the confident assertion that 17 million people voted for Brexit so we have to respect that. Which is OK in far as it goes, that the winning vote should be recognised, but you can’t claim it’s 17 million people’s will without acknowledging that 16 million people didn’t want that. So it’s at most one and a bit million people who made the difference. And if we break down the 17 million, did they all want the same thing? And did they all want hard Brexit? Perhaps.
But it’s enough to say they won, not to try and fudge things and use the statistics dishonestly. It’s not the mandate that the 17 million figure suggests.
Of course the minute (and literally the minute) you tweet any of this you still get loads of replies telling you to suck it up or that you lost and get over it, with no sense of the complexity of the decision or acknowledgment that this vote to (in part) regain British sovereignty looks like being made law without a vote from the UK Parliament or any proper discussion of what we expected Brexit to mean.
I am very sad by the country’s backward step, away from us being citizens of the world, based on the vague feeling that being British is best and that having blue passports is in any way important. It feels like a backward step because it is. I hope it isn’t a disaster, because I love my country and want us to succeed. But I don’t like the swing towards politician embracing anti-immigration policies or talking about making lists of foreigners or thinking we’ll be OK because people will always want to buy British jam.
I am fearful of the direction we’re taking and that the quiet decency of what I believe is the majority of our citizens will be ridden roughshod by the loud voices of those who base their decisions on prejudice, misuse of statistics and the denial of the fact that we are all the product of immigration. Politicians the world over seem to be trying to bend to what they believe people say they want and what they will vote for, rather than what is right or true. And this kind of politics seems, to me, to be fulfilling the aims of the terrorists. And if you’re doing what the terrorists want then you are kowtowing to terrorism.
Fuck it’s a scary mess. But I care more about us remaining a place where we are not racist or prejudiced and we are welcoming and forward facing, much more than us being in Europe or not.
I hope we can find the right way through. But where are the leaders who can take us there? Scary times. But you know, you lost - get over it.
