Click here to view My Art Movie From Amsterdam (MP4/QuickTime format 10Mb)

Amsterdam: celebrated the inimitable Kate Mack’s birthday in true international style. She’s nearly Dutch now…although I better watch it, or she may retaliate with 020 8 jokes, and then I wouldn’t be laughing. Dined in a squatted farmhouse, met a Serbian who lived next door in a two-storey treehouse, returned to Warmestrasse after umpteen years for divine brunch, bought vintage clothes by the KILO, which was the most satisfying shopping experience EVER. And shot my first art movie. I don’t usually use Americanisms like ‘movie’ or ‘muvee’ as they call it on the phone (which has this incredibly naff feature, that adds a cartoon script Yo! to your cinematic endeavours. No!). But somehow, movie seems right – now that I’m a ‘director’. It took a long time getting the actors to really FEEL their roles, but they got there in the end. It’s a big file, and I may try to edit it down, but this is the original Director’s Cut as it were.

Also, learnt that Knuffel is the Dutch for both teddy and cuddle. I asked Kate what she told her little daughter about the ‘women in the windows’ and she said her friend told his daughter they were ladies who sold knuffles, as in cuddles not teddies I suppose. Knuffel your knuffle, why don’t you?

Bunny did not save me in Bath, I saved my self, without the advised trip to St Michael’s. From what, I’m not sure. It’s been a while, and in that time Blag Lady has been through a hoop of fire. Having PASSED I am now a full citizen. Of course, I refer to the dreaded TEST, which hitherto had eluded me. No sooner was one great mountain hiked, than another, slightly more molehillish, reared its head. In this case, said event was chairing a discussion between two writers I’d commissioned for Kin (Serpent’s Tail, 2004) at the Bath Literature Festival. There is something inherently swanky about Bath, which made public speaking all that much more the bogeyman. In another life, Blag Lady had her own radio show, and has asked a question of even the great Nelson Mandela (another story altogether). But stage fright pervaded. Why? All I had to do was sit in a chair and stimulate a natural and animated discussion between two new writers, namely Shiromi Pinto and Diana Evans, about their books. Both of which are great by the way. Shiromi’s Trussed which features a vengeful dominatrix called Vinda(loo) is particularly arresting. But something about sitting up there on a stage, WITHOUT a script is terrifying. Michael Parkinson makes it look oh so easy, but believe me, it ain’t. Of course it was all right on the night and all that, but fear is as intriguing as a new lover who suddently starts playing hard to get, and just as erratic. Best to club them/it/the spine-curdling fear over the head and drag back to cave if in doubt.

PS. Have got a new phone and am trying to work out if I can post my Art Movie from Amsterdam. It’s no excuse for extended absence, but techie issues have been a factor.

Last Thursday evening, while I was walking through the flats on the way home from the office and a long hard day of inter-departmental memoranda that involved a lot of bcc-ing, I was ambushed by a mob of ten angry staircases. The staircases believed they were being taken for granted and that the residents were taking ‘the bang piss’. I told them look, the lift is really seriously broken – people have no choice. I tried to explain that I was just a passer-by; that I had no experience of international human rights law and even if I did it wouldn’t be relevant because they were not actually human. Staircase No 3 really took umbrage at that, but I held my ground. You have to let a staircase know who’s boss. After a garrulous and lengthy debate we eventually reached an agreement: the staircases would stop targeting ‘civilians’ – which meant no more tripping up old ladies carrying heavy shopping and no more getting slippy on teenage mums with pushchairs and stilettos. I would arrange a meeting with their MP and approach an investigative reporter at Lambeth Life. Staircase No 8 fixed me with a look that said ‘You’re not fooling me, sunshine, I know your sort.’ I smiled back with a look that said ‘You’re right, I’m going to betray you, but the rest of these fools are eating out of the palm of my hand now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ When I left I offered to leave my watch as a guarantee, but we were friends by then, and the staircases were far too polite to accept. I put my hand to my ear and mimed an ‘I’ll call you’ to Staircase No 4, trying not to give anything away by gathering speed. Needless to say, I won’t be cutting through that estate again.