The Power of the Voodoo

Well, now I know how David Dimbleby feels. On Sunday, despite it being one of my only (very) few free days, I was 'working' on behalf of the Studio in as much as I was hosting an event at our local arts & media centre – The Broadway. It was part of the ScreenLit Festival and the event was meant to show the audience how sometimes, the finished product that we see on the screen is not the piece that the writer originally intended to create. It's true (as any writer will know), so much of what ends up in front of the viewing public started its life as a conception of something very, very different. So, we showed two short films and played an episode from a BBC Radio4 drama series, and then I chaired a panel talking to the writers so that they could explain to the audience how their ideas were originally conceived.

I had a set of questions that I'd previously scripted – the kind of thing that gave the panel the opportunity to spell out where they were first coming from, and why, and then I threw it open as a Q&A session for the paying public to find out a little more. It was a great exercise in tact, diplomacy, and skilful helmsmanship because I wanted to give each of the three writers the chance to share their views and experiences with the audience, but I also needed to ensure that the questioners in their seats felt they were getting a fair and balanced crack of the whip too. It was all huge fun and I enjoyed myself enormously. I think that I'm cut out for such things – too bad that I've only realized it now, in the twilight of my years...

Actually, those years are going to be shortened even further if I don't do something about my eating habits. I haven't eaten a full meal in a whole week. I keep my body going on fruit, salads, nuts, and the occasional bacon sandwich. The trouble is, I never seem to have time to cook anything that would be recognized as a meal and, although I have a freezer that is crammed with earthly delights, I never seem to have anything suitable that is available (or defrosted) to cook. I don't think this can be good for me. Moreover, the fact that alcohol and cigarettes are always readily available in my small, city-centre apartment means that I too often reach for those instead of reaching for the griddle pan. It would be fairly simple, I presume, to go out somewhere to eat, and at least I wouldn't have to load the dishwasher afterwards – but I never seem to have the time.

So tonight, when I should have been out sailing (but it was cancelled), I have put a potato and a piece of chicken (that I miraculously remembered to defrost this morning) into the oven. I now sit in anticipation of these aforesaid two items transforming themselves into a meal. It has required an enormous amount of effort just to get this far, and I'm half-tempted to let them stay in the oven and burn themselves to a cinder simply because the effort of getting up from the table and retrieving the said items seems almost too great to sustain. But I won't do that, because the memory of my distended belly as I grew up in poverty and starvation in the backstreets of Naples is too vivid for me to do anything so wicked as to waste food. So, soon I shall be tucking into a delightful meal that I intend to call 'Potato and Chicken' and I might even end with an indulgent square of Turkish Delight (given to me by my sister who recently received a luxury food hamper but passed on all the things she didn't like to me).

Then, with my belly full of food and awash with a delicious Rioja that I've just opened (sadly, the bottle is already looking a little empty), I might recline on the sofa and watch 'Question Time' on the television. It's chaired by the urbane and eminently controlled David Dimbleby, of course. The man who stole my job, of course. Hmm, do I have time to make a voodoo doll, I wonder?