2009

6 – 7 March 2009

 

I'm in the house where I grew up with some people – my mum, my auntie Irene and one or two others sitting around a table including a Polish brother and sister. It seems I'm supposed to be giving an English class. I show them a picture of some people in a room, similarly arranged to us. I try to 'elicit' the response form the Polish girl that some of the people in the picture are together and others are separated. She doesn't understand and flounces out of the room in a huff. Her brother follows her and I'm about to when auntie Irene tells me not to follow her as she has 'women's problems', so I go to look out of the back window instead.

 

9-10 March

 

I'm trying to start the Club Desastre but Kati isn't on the door and hundreds of people come in without paying. We have to open the whole bar and it's chaos. The spotlight doesn't work (it's a miserable thing, like the one in the Beer Brothers), Diego feels ill and has to go off stage, Felipe doesn't arrive, the audience are all teenage louts who shout things, I'm running around like an idiot and after the show the boss (like that c*nt from the Prior) complains about all the pipas (sunflower seeds) on the floor but then insists on buying a ticket (!?).

 

To sum up: a horrible nightmare.

 

25 -26 March

 

I'm shopping in Marple, near Stockport, and I see Hannah in one of the shops so wait for her to come out and I say hello. She says hi, I ask her out for a drink and she prevaricates. I say – some other time, and go back to my friends' house. There they tell me she works nearby and soon after I see her on the street again. I ask if she wants to come to the pub and she hums and hahs but finally says yes. After a drink or two I take hold of her hand, and she seems O.K. with this. Unfortunately at this point I woke up.

 

(This was after my first long ride of the season – 132 km – and I slept for 9 hours).

 

27 – 28 March

 

I'm visiting Viki's house (the barmaid from the Morrissey) with another bloke and there seems to be some rivalry between us. Viki is wearing a long blue floral summery dress. Her family is present in some other part of the house.

 

28-29 March

 

I'm trying to do my record cycle ride of 200 + km and going well, so I decide to stop off for a drink (I appear to be back in Zaragoza). In the bar, by chance, I find Diego and Mariano doing a gig (with a guitar). They've ust finished the first half and are sitting at a table with 2 English girls who don't speak Spanish so I go and sit down with them and have a chat. Then I go outside confident I can knock off the last 70km but I find that my bicycle, which I left tied to a lamp-post, has been completely trashed. Obviously, I'm in a bad mood, but also notice from the fading daylight that I never would have been able to do the remaining distance in time.

 

(The night the clocks went forward and the day after scoring my first goal in 7-a-side football for about 5 years).

 

9 – 10 April

 

I'm due to start teaching at a school (it's a school with lots of beautiful old mansion-like buildings) but I'm on the last minute and don't know where to go, so I'm running around trying to find the classroom and eventually get in just in time. Then I find I have no notes and have to improvise a class on Etymology. The students pay me precious little attention and I end up just about muddling through, thinking all the while 'I'm not going to let it bother me'

 

(Today I learned I had a teaching job in Oxford this summer – I think this news got mixed up with memories of the gig I did in the 20th Century bar, which I wasn't very happy with - also, this was another of my 9-hour sleeping sessions, this time with no obvious reason).

 

15 – 16 April

 

I arrive in Barcelona in a taxi and have to go to the airport/bus station/ a bookshop. I find myself running around frantically and finally follow some people through some security doors in a shopping centre. I find myself being asked to officiate a wedding. I oblige, but make a mistake and am about to marry a father to his daughter before my mistake is pointed out.

 

Another deeeeeep sleep after a tough bike ride, and obviously already worried about how I can get a ticket for the Barca v Chelsea semi-final.

 

17 – 18 May

 

Awful anxiety dream (again!) – I'm in St Jo's (though it looks more like Canon Slade) trying to give a class to some rowdy Eastern Europeans and Asians who take no notice. Half way through they all go out, saying they've changed classroom and I don't know where they've gone or what I'm supposed to do so I go to see Sarah B so she can instruct me, but she spends all the time chatting to me about other stuff while I'm wondering what havoc my students will be wreaking in the school or its grounds.

 

18-19 May

 

I'm visiting friends in Ireland and I'm with them in a bedroom. They go downstairs but I remain. They then inform me I shouldn't make any noise as there are some disreputable people outside waiting in a car. I toy with the idea of hiding under the bed but then they say the coast is clear and we can set off on a trip to the beach. I'm given a motorcycle to ride, which I'm handling O.K., though I've only ridden one once, and going slowly. I notice that Andy (Hodges) is behind me on a bike and I offer to swop. We all arrive at a beach and go into a house where we sit and have tea with an Irish girl who offers me a job for April and May, which is 'ecological', pays O.K. and involves me riding around on a bike. I consider taking up the offer.

 

22 – 23 May

 

I return to England – there, in a house, I meet up with Karen, Janette, John and some others. The latter go off to buy some acid but I think they might have forgotten that I want some so I try to phone them. However, I can't remember J and J's no (I keep confusing the old one with the new one) – finally, I remember, then we all get into a taxi. Nico Cassinelli is with us and as we approach our destination he whispers to me to remind me not to get ripped off, as we would do in Buenos Aires. We arrive at a pleasant pub with wooden trestle tables and ask directions to Birmingham University from some youths. They don't know where it is. John is affronted by their lack of knowledge; 'These kids can't even tell me how to get to Birmingham Uni'. To pass the time I start doing one of my stand-up routines and people we don't know gather round to listen. I joke around with one of the young lads, saying 'I don't usually like to have a go at people...' but I see that he's laughing along with the rest of them.

 

3 – 4th June

 

I'm in the house I grew up in, in Harwood (Bolton) with Miguel Ballabriga. We're chatting and I've just got a big bag of weed which I intend to smoke. I look out of the upstairs window and see a bloke sitting in the cabin of a huge articulated lorry. I go back to chatting then a while later look out again. He's still there, but this time sat leaning out of the cabin and looking about him. I also notice that he's put some cables (one of them orange) from under the lorry to the house. I don't like the look of this so I stash the weed in a bathroom cabinet behind some shampoo bottles (with some difficulty – one of them nearly falls out) and say to Miguel I'm going to go out to confront him, then if there's a problem we'll call the police. Miguel says 'we're not going to call the police though, are we?' and offers to come out and talk to him with me, as 'it'll come across more'. I agree.

 

The telephone rings to wake me up. A pity – I'd like to have seen what happened next.

 

8th – 9th June

 

A girl (the actress who plays the 'summer girlfriend' in an episode of 'Black Books') comes to my house and insists that everyone leave the room so she can kiss me, but then after a quick kiss she starts teasing me by not letting me get hold of her. Later, after a series of scenes I can't remember, I leave the house (where I used to live in La Paz) and see her playing chess with someone on a porch under some concrete stairs.

 

9th – 10th June

 

John sends me a copy of a CD he's recorded. I absolutely love it; free jazz with long, wailing sax solos in it (in the style of Sun Ra) and I can't stop listening to it. I ring him to tell him.

 

10th – 11th June

 

I go to María's bar (Pulp) and she's explaining how we could put improvisations on there, and we're chatting in general and every now and again I see a black teenager in a 'hoodie' coming in and out of the door. Later, two other black guys come in and ask if their friend has been in. I describe the bloke I've seen and when they hear that, they say 'Run! He's got a gun!' Even though he isn't there, I run out of the bar with someone and we continue running down the streets where, sure enough, there is a gunfight. Bullets hit the pavement, making sparks, and we have to jump over them as we run looking for a bus.

 

Later I'm back in the bar and María is showing me where we could do the improvisations. It's a sort of pit and there is a performance going on. To see it, we have to look down into the pit at a small screen where the performance is projected. A woman in a group of people to our right is whispering and María says 'I hate that, when people talk over the performance'. At that moment someone goes and tells the woman to shut up. She says she is complaining because the colour on the screen is not natural. And as she says it I notice she's right. It's all tinged with pink. The projectionist alters it so that it's better.

 

Then we all go to eat. I want to talk to María but she's running around making food and answering phone calls all the time. In the end she prepares a salad for me, as I'm vegetarian, but I notice it's got ham in it.

 

19th – 20th June

 

I'm sent on a spying mission to Russia, though I have no knowledge of anything at all. I have to sit on a bench and eavesdrop a conversation near a pool, while a colleague on the same bench eavesdrops another conversation. We return to base (England?) and my boss quizzes me. I say I couldn't find anything and he says it doesn't matter. 'Now comes the funny part; I'm going to die'. It takes me a few seconds before I realise he means he's going to stage his own funeral. I will have something to do with this as well, apparently.

 

26th – 27th June

 

I'm sitting on a stool in a café, with Marga (my ex) opposite me. Marina (her daughter) comes up to me from behind and hugs me. Marga has already said 'Ah, Marina' but Marina makes me 'guess' who it is, with her little face next to mine and her hair hanging down. I decide to ask her a question that 'only Marina would know the answer to' (I forget what I asked) and having 'guessed' who it was, she runs off outside to play.

 

I see her playing with her friends through the stone gates of what appears to be a graveyard. She's concentrating very hard on something. I ask Marga if I can go off and play with Marina and she says 'yes'.

 

Once again a very sad dream, once I wake up, as I miss Marina enormously in my waking life. At least she's still there in my dreams

 

12 – 13th July

 

I'm sitting at a desk doing a Media Studies exam. The paper is a glossy full-colour brochure which I don't understand at all. The first question is about Friends, but I don't know if I have to answer all the questions, write a critique or what. I decide to start writing something but in the end leave off and opt for sitting there until the exam is over.

 

13th – 14th August

 

I have to leave town because the Nazis are coming. I arrange to leave with Karen, but separately so as not to arouse suspicion. I check out the bus route but see that it has been cut off with chicken wire and now it looks like an old overgrown disused railway. I find where to get on the new route and plan it so that Karen gets on first then me. I leave the house, go to the stop, get on and climb the stairs to the top deck where Karen is, as arranged. But then I remember I've left my rucksack in the hall and will have to run home to get it.

 

18th – 19th August

 

I go to visit Iñaki in his office. For some reason, Lizzie, my fellow teacher, is there. I can't see him so go into the garden (!) to look for him and find people sitting around smoking joints. I want to leave as I have things to do but start talking to a gay couple who want to sell their house.

 

20th – 21st August

 

After a night out in Oxford, I end up in Jericho in the early morning, accompanied by Joe, who I'm teaching with at St Joseph's. It's 9.15 a.m. and I realise lessons must be starting and there's no way I can get to the school on time. I start to panic. I try to ring from a pay-phone to tell them where I am, I notice my bike isn't where I left it and I keep making a mistake with the dialling until I notice the numbers on the pad aren't in order, but all jumbled up. In the end I borrow Joe's Blackberry to ring and even then I can't get through.

 

28th – 29th August

 

I'm watching TV in J and J's old place in Birmingham when I notice a small moth on the carpet behind me, then a few more, then something that looks like a grasshopper or dragonfly, or a big blue cicada. I point out that they're getting in through the French windows. Apparently, when this happens, it's John's job to mop the (carpeted) floor. He wants to finish what he's watching on TV, but Janette badgers him to get going. I notice that if you pat the carpet, hundreds of the little moths 'bounce' up. I try to help by batting out the bigger blue and green ones that are flying around and just as I'm observing that "they're quite pretty, really", one flies into my right ear. There's a loud, high-pitched noise in it for a while but I decide the best tactic is to stay still until it comes out. Eventually it does so and flies off. John appears to be annoyed with me, as if this is all somehow my fault.