Fact!

It feels like the day before Christmas. There are a million things I want to do before I go on holiday tomorrow, and I’m running out of time!

I drove across to Hackney this afternoon to see Penny and to work our way through another couple of scripts for the Requiem films. On my journey, I experienced a number of things which annoyed or intrigued me. And what’s the point of a blog if you can’t list them?

1)      I was listening to Heart FM on my journey, and I was unlucky enough to catch an ad break. A radio advert for Hampton Court Palace came on, which advertised that Henry VIII “and his wife” would greet you in the gardens. Which wife? Do they revolve?

2)      Why do so many adverts start nowadays with someone saying the word “fact” really aggressively? “Fact. 99% of household germs are found in toothbrushes.” “Fact. Every day we age another day.”

3)      Why do these ghastly people with branded macs and clip boards still insist on stopping people in the street in an attempt to convince them to donate money to Shelter? Who are the people who actually give money as a result of being stopped? This afternoon on Mare Street, just along from a woman who seemed to be lying prostrate in the middle of the road, a girl from Shelter was rushing up to people and being all flirtatious, you know, like everyone who caught her eye was the person she’d waited her life to say hello to. People were literally running for cover. It’s a rancid form of prostitution, and it’s everything I hate most about unemployed actors. Surely, any normal, decent person wouldn’t be able to do the job for more than two days. No one wants to do a job which actually does nothing but make people feel sad or angry.

4)      Why are those yellow incident signs which they put by the side of the road following an accident or murder always hopelessly out of date? Today I passed three, which appealed for witnesses to events which had happened in early April. Surely, it would be more appropriate for police to put the signs up the following day, or in time for the week anniversary of the event so that people are more able to remember what they were doing?

5)      What does the shop of the corner of Dalston High Road and Ball’s Pond Road called Lady Glitter actually sell? Vajazzels?

Pepys wrote a fairly lengthy diary entry on the 31^st May 1662, which summed up everything that was going on in his life at the time. The weather had been fine for a long period of time, he was well, but for occasion bursts of wind, which “tormented” him “extremely.” He’d given up wine and theatre. The King was well, and getting on so well with the future Queen that Pepys’ pin up, the King’s lover, Lady Castlemayne, was certain to have her “nose put out of joynt.” He celebrated by retiring to his chamber to have his head combed by his maid, Sarah...

“Which I found so foul with powdering and other troubles, that I am resolved to try how I can keep my head dry without powder; and I did also in a suddaine fit cut off all my beard, which I had been a great while bringing up, only that I may with my pumice-stone do my whole face, as I now do my chin, and to save time, which I find a very easy way and gentile. So she also washed my feet in a bath of herbs, and so to bed...”