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My second day of filming today, though in fact I was in and out in an hour as we quickly recorded the shorter of the two (maybe three) scenes I am in. We were in an art gallery in Charlotte Street and our biggest problem was that although the film is set in 2007, everyone passing the window was wearing face masks. But we got through it. I let costume and make up (and my moustache) do most of the heavy lifting in the acting, but said my lines in the right order, improvised a tiny bit and finally got to live up to my usual casting of being a pervert, by flirting with/leching over a pretty woman who was maybe half the age of my character. And possibly half the age of me too. As you can imagine it was a stretch for me to act so inappropriately.
Yesterday was so long that today's 45 minutes of “work†seemed ridiculous, but it's been a fun little job for me and nice to be getting some acting work (in something that I haven't written)
I think it was the first time I had got on a train in 2020. I have tended to drive into town (in my electric car, environment fans) even before the plague hit, but it seemed more sensible to go in by public transport today. There weren't too many people on the 11.22 train though, but we all wore our face masks as instructed.
I was a bit early so had my lunch in Pret A Manger, which I have missed and then walked the mile to Charlotte Street. London is bruised, but carrying on. It's not quite itself, but the eccentric people still talk to no one in the streets and everyone gets on their way without any interaction. As I passed St Pancras I was reminded that my ideal place to live in London would be the biggest room in the hotel there. I came up with the idea for a film or short story of a man waking up to find his family have left him a note saying “We couldn't take it any more, we've left.†But then when he goes outside he discovers it's not just his family: every human, animal and insect have left the planet to be away from him. On the plus side he can live where he chooses and take everything he wants as everyone's left without taking too much with them. He can break into galleries and take art and there's food in all the supermarkets. I fancy there would be enough energy in the grid for him to not have to worry about it running out if he's the only one using it.
I don't think it's an original enough idea to bother writing up, but I often think about what I would do if you all left the planet to me.
I'd live in St Pancras (though it's prime location wouldn't be much use if everything was closed - maybe that's what brought it to mind today). Not entirely sure I'd mind that much.
In the story the man ends up finding an ant that has been left behind too and the two become friends, despite the fact that they were so unbearable that everyone left to be away from them.
Hopefully in six months this slightly eerie feeling city will be back to its horrible normality and we'll all be looking back not quite believing what we had to go through.
The thing I meant to write about from the church yesterday was a little plaque up in the vestry (or whatever part of the church our green room was) dedicated to a woman who had worked there. It listed her name and maybe job and I think the year of her death (I meant to take a photo, but forgot), but not much else. In fact most of the plaque was taken up with the observation that they woman had died one month short of her 95th birthday. If they had a few extra words for the dedication this seemed a bit of a waste of them to me. They could have just said she was 94 and then put in one of her achievements, but whoever put the thing up felt that her getting so close to being 95 was the main thing worthy of comment.
Maybe if it had been 100 then that would have been slightly more interesting, but there's not really much difference between being 94 and 95. There's not really any greater tragedy about dying at 94 and 11 months and 95. Certainly if you've only got a few words to sum someone up then that wouldn't be the defining thing. Shall we mention her charity or kindness or her children or something fun she did. No, there's not time, we have to let the world know how she came so close to being 95 but didn't quite make it. They'll certainly pause to think about what could have been.
Or maybe they literally had nothing else. They had a number of words they had to get on there and they had to use them up and they just couldn't think of anything else to say about her. If we just say she was 94 we have to come up with 9 more words about her nine and a half decades of life
Not quite nine and a half, Simon.
Good point. I mean, can we just put that?
Surely we can think of something else.
I don't know, when I think of Edith, I just think about how close she got to her birthday but then didn't
Is this because you'd already bought her a prsent?
No, but that was annoying.
Never buy a present for a 94 year old that far in advance.
Come on guys there must be something else………
…all right, one month short of her 95th birthday it is. I just hope I can achieve that much in life. Let's make sure the plaque isn't anywhere too prominent.
