1984
4-5.1.84
Batwing and Peanut Sandwiches
I've just moved house to a wood near Theale (a small, cubic, glass establishment) with Phil Gallagher and Tracy (?) We go for a ride on a bus to see the new area (we are in Bath now, somehow). On the bus they are filming some kids' TV programme and I volunteer to speak on it (about coke!). The bus driver is young and friendly but refuses to le tme be filmed, telling me instead how to be friendly to the local constabulary. 'You can't refuse to let them into your house if you've talked to them once'. For some reason Gerard, who is now with us, does and impression of a Bernis Kliban drawing of a woman eating a batwing and peanut sandwich which, we are told, is the local fare.
6-7.1.84
Playing for Chelsea
The dream I've always hoped for: 2nd division match, Saturday afternoon, Chelsea are shortof players. John Neal picks someone out of the corwd and I say 'Don't pick him, he's no good. I'll play!' so I have to justify myself. I score the first goal!!!!! (against Shrewsbury Town, admittedly), then it's 1-1, then 2-1 for Chelsea, 2-2, 3-2 for Chelsea and I score again to make it 4-2. Ecstasy!
8-9.1.84
Bit Part Actors
I queue up to become registeres as a BBC actor in Oxford. A girl I know is turned down because she's only 19 years old and is very upset. I meet Erica in the canteen (very reminiscent of Reading Uni Students' Union) and tell her. She's very sympathetic to the girl (a friend of hers). I reflect on how life is always cruellest to those who least deserve it.
23-24.3.84
Family Holiday
Our family are ready to go on holiday, but I've forgotten my sleeping bag so I dash back in the house, find it and run out to the car, which is still waiting (it0s the old, light blue Ford Cortina). Then I realise I've forgotten something 'very important' which I go in to find. Once in the house again, )I forget what I'm looking for and spend ages frantically trying to find it. I don't, however, and when I go outside to ask the others to wait a bit longer, I find the car has already driven off.
26-27.3.84
Florida Shopper
I'm walking down a dark street (after some activity in a house which I can't remember) when we pass a theatre in which my play, the Uninteresting Object, has just been performed. I point out a model, which is illuminated in the window ('Florida Shopper', like the one in the Tate) I tell my companion that this model was the very one used in the end of the play (?)
March '84
India
I'm in a village (in England?) but as I walk down a grassy street I see a sign saying 'Bombay' and I'm shocked and thrilled to suddenly be in India, but I step back over the 'boundary', deciding that I will have abetter chance to explore that alluring alley at a later date.
7-8.4.84
Cheese and Biscuits and a Ram
Erica and I are walking thorugh a field of sheep and I notice one of thyem is a ram about to charge, so we step over a barbed-wire fence. There is only a little grass there, then a steep drop over a cliff. The ram has run up to the fence; it's a cartoonish affair, like an Alsatian dog with sharp teeth, a very long snout, horns and a woolen coat, and hooves. I feed it with cheese and biscuits, because I can't think what else to do. The sun is shining brightly on the white cliffs.
15-16.4.84
Rotted Giraffe
Colin drives me in his van to an estate in Cowley. We go out somewhere and when I return Colin has gone and a giraffe has wedged its head through the window and been sick in the driving seat. Then it had died and is starting to rot. How do I get home? I wonder to myself
Mike Evans called round the next day on the run from Littlemore and started going on about a giraffe.
15-16.4.84
A Putative Affair
I'min a girl's bedroom (she looks like Anna, who used to live in Oxford) and I'm about to leave when she saus 'We could have an affair, or something' I say 'What? Now?' and she says yes, so I go off to the bathroom to make myself respectable and it takes ages and ages. Colin keeps coming in and asking me how long I'm going to be. I take so long that the dream ends before I have a chance to do anything.
14-15.5.84
A Motorbicycle.
I'm taking Debbie Yapp into town on a motorbike. She goes into a dressing-room to take off the costume (?) she was wearing and comes outside again. She gets on the back of the motorbike and I say 'We can't set off like this. You've got no clothes on, and anyway I've only ridden this thing once before'. We have sex on the pavement instead.
20-21.5.84
Follow My Leader
On a barge holiday we decide to play Follow-my-leader along the bank and elect a large-ish black dog as our 'leader'. It's a sunny day and we come across some children playing ball games and Ring-a-ring-o'-roses. The dog joins in happily, so we all follow suit and play till evening, having a great time.
23-24.5.84
Stranger in the Kitchen
I'm sitting in the kitchen with 4 or 5 friends and one old-ish man who we don't know and who is walking around the place looking in cupboards and making us feel uneasy. 'Hurry up with that joint' he says. This amuses the others, perhaps out of relief that he smokes dope at least, but it pises me off and I tell him to get out. He starts cowering and I start slapping him round thye face. 'It's just like having a woman, this' he says 'You slap her around before dinner, then she slaps you around afterwards.'
July '84
Busted in Denmark
I am busted somehow by the Danish police. They ask me to report to the station to be searched. I get rid of all my gear then turn up for the search, but they say 'It's O.K. Don't bother' and send me off home again.
July '84
Video Nasties
1) I'm on the ferry from Holland to Harwich (as I was, in fact, trying to get to sleep) A video nasty is being shown on a screen and I don't want to watch it. I try to go away, but everywhere I look there is a large square screen beaming the horror film out.
2) I possess a cartridge tape of a video nasty which I want to play. I also possess a small machine to play it on but can't get the machine to work no matter what I do. I find this more and more frustrating.
28-29.7.84
Cocaine
After watching Chelsea win 3-2 at Arsenal in the first game of the season (i.e. a few weeks from now) I go to a party to celebrate. There are a lot of people there. For some reason I go to a public phone box with someone else, but the phone has been ripped out. I notice a panel b ehind it, open it up and see a small compartment with 2 small brown paper bags in it. I taste it. It's either speed or coke. Without stopping to look in the other bag I put the first bag in my pocket and say 'Let's move' then return quickly with my new-found stash to the party, which has become even more crowded.
27.8.84
Stamford in Lewisham
I set off from Lewisham on the train to watch Chelsea. It's a sunny day, slow train, high track, lots of trees down in the sun-speckled woods. I see Stamford the Lion, the CFC mascot, strolling along on his way to the game.
29-30.8.84
Leisa Yet Again
I'm in aroom with some friends when we decide to raid the room downstairs. I don't know what this means exactly, but I go down one way (the others go another way) and arrive at a door. I go inside and am surprised to find Leisa and Pete Winterbotham asleep together on a 4-poster bed. Leisa begins to look like Erica.
4-5.9.84
Medical Students
I'm climbing the spiral staircase of a huge gaunt circular tower which seems to serve as a hall of residence for medical students. I ask 2 attractive girls how many floors there are. No reply. I ask again. No reply. 'Innumerable, then?' I say and they laugh. 'Why not come and sit with us on the bench at the bottom of the staircase?' they ask me. I ponder this.
Next, I find myself in the dungeon of a tower where Andy Hodges is about to re-create a surgical operation performed by an ancient Japanese surgeon. It involves slitting the skin of an oriental lady's face from forehead to chin in a vertical line and peeling it back in order to do what the next step is. I watch for a moment but decide to leave before he begins the task which I consider a trifle gruesome.
17-18.9.84
Sex on Ice
I take a girl (Leisa?) into a garden and make love to her, but the ground is icy and muddy so we go into a bedroom indoors. Another girl, also dark-haired, wants to sleep with me and says she'll kill me if she can't join in. She re-enters the room a few seconds later with a gun, which she points at me. I wake up frightened.
18-19.9.84
Man Utd
I go to Old Trafford to watch Chelsea but the match (I think) has already started. Then I notice a woman playing. She shoots just over the bar into the end I've just got into (not the Stretford End) and I realise it's only an exhibition match. When it's over, a voice announces that the match with Chelsea will be played in another stadium, so we all have to go out and get onto buses and go acoss Manchester to see it.
28-29.9.84
Two Dreams about Bed
1) My hearing is very bad. I lie in bed in my room in Oxford and realise that all my senses are gradually failing. I fall out of bed and can't hear myself hit the floor. A very un-nerving dream.
2) I'm in bed with a couple who are making love, and I sort of join in, like.... Like you would. Then the girl starts behaving like Erica (and her 'unique horn') and it makes me feel sad that it isn't really her.
21-22.9.84
Luton v Chelsea
(An 'alarm-clock dream') I'm going to watch Chelsea at Luton (setting out from Liverpool, for some reason) and we arrive at the station just in time for a train (which looks like a tube train) which is going to Dunstable. When we reach the first stop, we're told we're going 'the wrong way' ('this train'll take you into Liverpool') so we have to get off, about turn and it feels like we're going to miss the match, but I don't know about that, 'cause I wake up (not in time to catch the bus for the real match, though)