I couldn’t let the end of the month pass without a little update.
I’ve been hard at work on my new novel, which I finished a first draft of last week. It’s in the same universe as The Counterfeiter but has a mad energy to it that I have really enjoyed. I needed the time to think about it but once I got in the right headspace, it came pouring out of me. First draft is 100k words and I’ll now let it sit for a while before I jump back in.
Because this is me, I’ve launched into a different project to occupy my mind and time.

This month I was able to spend more time with family. It’s all of their birthdays at once so I saw my brothers, took my dad out for dinner and generally had a fun time with my mad nieces and nephews. It makes me thankful to have them there for me and to be able to support them in the things they need.

Therapy has been going well and we’ve taken the decision to pause for now and see how that sits, if I can self-serve in a way I couldn’t have done before all of this started. It’s been an absolute necessity to help me through and I recommend it to everyone.

I’m still very much in love and continuing to find out more about this person who makes me feel better, freer and cared for in ways I couldn’t have allowed before. What a gift.

I’m in a good place, mentally and physically. The changes of recent months have given way to something a little more real, more wholesome and with a sense of a safety net that I needed. I’m thankful and grateful. What more could I need?

Last week I was fortunate enough to visit the Tate Modern again for Yayoi Kusama’s extended exhibition – Infinity Mirror Rooms. Say what you want about modern art, when it hits, it really hits. While I could wax lyrical about some of the other exhibits in the museum, which may or may not be to my taste, this is my blog and therefore just my stupid and humble opinion on the experience.

I made the devilish effort of becoming a Tate Member. This entitles me not just to free entry to paid exhibits but also means I can pomp and swan about in the Members Bar, where Crispin and Coriander chase around after little Tarquin and Verity, desperately trying to get them to sit and enjoy their lapsang souchong without making quite such a scene. It’s the opposite of the Mos Eisley cantina essentially – a wretched hive of patterned scarves and plum voices where I feel like Bert from Mary Poppins.

Yayoi Kusama is an incredible artist who works vibrant colours and shapes into sculptures and installations. It’s hard to imagine what that journey would have been like – moving to New York as a young woman to follow her passion in a time when such a thing was considered uncouth. She’s still rocking by the way – at 94 years of age.
The Infinity Mirror Rooms are an influencer’s wet dream – although imagining this was ever the intention is so far away from the titles for both rooms. Visitors queue for their two and a half minutes of Insta fame before being allowed in grouped in sixes to attempt a single shot where it looks as if they are the centre of the universe and there isn’t a pram in the space with them. Yes, I realise the irony of this entry and my own accompanying social media posts about it. Maybe I’m doing it with a cheeky sense of irony which is why I only got twenty likes.

To stand and stare at the blinking lights, to see your own suitcase-eyed reflection staring back at you in the centre of the artist’s work is to understand the impact that it can make. Imagine floating along in the cosmos, like Gravity (2013), but never mind the Bullock. Being inside those spaces slows the heart while it triples in size. It’s a maddening experience yet a serene one. A moment of collection and an opportunity to reflect. No two experiences will ever be the same but if you can grip the hand of someone you love then it will emanate through your entire being.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about food. Specifically daydreaming about the eventual conversation I’ll have with Ed Gamble and James Acaster when I find my way onto their podcast, Off Menu.
For those who are unfamiliar, Ed and James sit down with actors, comedians and the occasional national treasure to run through their dream starter, main course, side, dessert and drink (not necessarily in that order). When E and I first started dating, this was not only an interesting way of learning about each other’s tastes but also an opportunity to both stretch our previous misadventures with food.

Still or sparkling
I’m going to have to go with still. I’m not even fussy so it could be direct from the tap. I bloody love water. A lot of the time, if I don’t feel right, it’s something that necking a pint of water will fix. As we are in the Dream Restaurant, it’s also important that I have a bladder that doesn’t reach capacity because I am ready to imbibe!

Poppadoms or bread, Paul Schiernecker! Poppadoms or bread!
Bread. It has to be. As much as I would like to be mother (see Tim Key’s episode for this reference), bread is the life force. My life is bread and circuses, to paraphrase the Roman poet Juvenal. I’d like fresh, warm rolls which take a bit of work to rip apart, served from a bread basket, possibly with the Genie Waiter present. Alongside it, I’d like several of those little circles of butter, covered in Maldon sea salt (the greatest of all the salts) and warm enough that it’s not going to tear my bread apart when I try to spread it. The basket can stay for the duration.

Starter
Just to put James’ mind at ease, I am very much a Dessert Boy. I have to say though, starters feel like a treat and I do tend to get involved. E has taught me the wonder of ordering multiple dishes and having the option to share. We usually split things (in my favour if there’s an odd number) so the starter course becomes more of a small plates affair. Given this, I’m going to bend the rules and order multiple starters under the guise of it being the way we would do things. First things first, a very seventies prawn cocktail. I’m talking lots of fat prawns, in Marie Rose sauce, served in half an avocado and with some shredded gem lettuce in there. A sprinkle of cayenne pepper over the whole affair and some slices of lemon on the side. This dish doesn’t have to be from anywhere in particular but my mum does make a pretty good one, which reminds me of the starter we would have on Christmas morning. We even had specific plates for it. These kind of kidney dish-looking things from a set that my parents were bought at their wedding. We used to call them the scratchy plates because they were made of this unfinished heavy clay(?) and any interaction with cutlery made a horrible scratching noise like nails on a chalkboard. I want that.

In addition, I’d like a portion of nachos, maybe from Miller & Carter, the vegetable tempura starter from Ozen in Westcliff and a dozen oysters from Le Dome. Given the amount of seafood in there, I’ll have a bottle of Gavi to go with it. Heads up – this is going to be quite a boozy meal because there’s nothing better than eating and drinking to excess with the people you love.

It might seem like an odd choice to specifically go for nachos from M&C but there is a reason for it. They fry their own tortillas up and it means you get these fat chips that have a lot more structural integrity than a brittle shop-bought nacho. They also pile on the toppings as well.

Ozen is one of my favourite local places and I love taking people there. Honourable munchion to their sushi platter which they serve up in a wooden boat as well. Their tempura is so light and crispy and every time I eat there, I marvel at what they are able to do.

And the oysters. Well, that’s pure indulgence. I’ve really got into oysters recently and loved Rob Brydon’s story about the way Tom Jones took the lead when they went out for oysters. What a man!

Main
This might seem a bit basic, and it’s worth remembering that I’m a lapsed vegetarian/vegan in the mix of this. I’m going for a steak. I think the best I’ve had was at Goodman in Mayfair. Seeing how I’m not paying, I’m going big and I’m going fillet steak – medium rare and with plenty of peppercorn sauce on the side. With it, I’d like some triple cooked chips with truffles, a big flat mushroom, grilled tomatoes and peas.
I was never into red meat when I was a kid but I went through this weird phase where I was severely anaemic and doctors recommended I get into stout and steak. It’s safe to say I’ve never looked back. It therefore makes sense for me to have not just a bottle of red wine but also a pint of Guinness for this to go down with. I’m not too fussy about the red wine but I’d like the Guinness to be poured in Dublin and carried across. I had a pint at the Storehouse that changed my life.

Side
There was so much room for honourable munchions in this space. There’s a Jalapeno cornbread that Caravan do that is ungodly. I’ve tried to replicate it at home, with varying degrees of success but you cannot beat theirs. I could also get on board with some escargot from La Coupole. It’s not necessarily a side but the rules are made to be broken. The amount of garlic and butter they load into theirs makes it, and I’ve still got my bread basket on the table to mop that up with.

My actual choice though is a macaroni cheese I had at Glastonbury, maybe a decade ago. I was absolutely hammered and we had stumbled away from the headline slot to get some food. I found this mac n cheese stall where they had this huge skillet and were batch-cooking in a way that I had never seen it made before. They cooked off the macaroni in the one giant pan and then as the water evaporated, they added in milk, stirring it the whole time. Then in with the cheese. I now make it in the same way but I watched it for about ten minutes. There may have been external factors impacting my judgement but it was enthralling to stare at. They then offered up different toppings and served in in those little cups you’d get ice cream in. I had chilli peppers and cayenne on mine and it just caught me in that moment as the best thing ever.

Drink
Alongside the bottle of red, the bottle of white, the water and the Guinness, my drink of choice is an Old Fashioned. Again, an indicator that I am a Dessert Boy. The silver medal goes to a charcoal Old Fashioned I had at Bull in a China Shop in Shoreditch. You think of an Old Fashioned as being a particularly smokey cocktail but this just elevated it, and it felt like I was drinking someone else’s dark thoughts. Would recommend.

The winner, and this is quite a recent one, is the Brown Sugar Old Fashioned I had on Bourbon Street when I was in New Orleans. We had got into the city late and I went wandering all down the neon-lit streets in search of just the right place. At the end of this run of depravity, I found Bourbon “O” Bar where there was a band playing old jazz songs. I sat at the bar and didn’t know what I was going to order until the guy next to me asked for an Brown Sugar Old Fashioned from the Specials menu. Absolutely that. I think it was the moment. The music. The space. I was also thrown because we had just travelled from New York by train and I was slightly out of sorts. They drop a giant circular ice cube in, add this sugar syrup and whiskey and it’s just incredible. I should go back.

Dessert
I have a real sweet tooth. My friend Benjy once taught me about his theory about the additional stomach that we have for desserts. He called it “the chockle pockle”, and I use that quite a lot as a reference. I can always smash a dessert. I love a tiramisu, profiteroles, a jam roly poly, just a bar of Wholenut even but there’s one dessert that has the top spot in my chockle pockle.

That’s cheesecake. There are so many variations to it so I’m always a little wary when ordering but obviously the best is a New York style or Jewish cheesecake. I’ve had to learn to make it because I can’t get my fix often enough and I rate the version I make. It’s mad how long it takes to make. It’s nearly a kilo of cream cheese in there alongside everything else and then a slow bake followed by eight hours in the fridge with a sour cream topping. The best cheesecake I’ve ever had though was at Junior’s in New York. I discovered it a few years ago and now wouldn’t go to NYC without a visit. It’s so thick and rich. Just the best. I am going to go with the strawberry because I can at least then trick myself into thinking that there’s some fruit involved.

I’ll finish that off with a double espresso or maybe an Irish coffee, depending on how pissed I feel. And that’s it. Unbeatable. Dream menu.

It’s with a heavy heart that I drive out to the desert and bury another character there. Four graves. each made of stone and etched perfectly with the names of the characters I’ve dragged out the back of a pick-up and dumped in the ground, along with their costumes – Tim Ropp (Bell Hop), John Doe, Denim Elliott and the freshest of them all Brillo Paddins / Poblin.

Now the dramatics are over, it’s a time for reflection. Over the weekend I was lucky enough to be a part of Southend’s first ever 48 Hour Improvathon. Two days and two ngiths of absolute insanity, music, comedy and pathos with an incredible team before me and behind me. The effort that goes into an improvathon is incredible by all concerned but the work that has to go in before we even arrive is what gets me the most. Our director, Ali James, is an unstoppable improv machine. I can see the cogs turning as she threads it all together, helped along the way by John, Cat, Jess, Lily, Alex, Lauren, Rhys, Vicki, James, Chess and Jeremy. We were also lucky enough to have two guest directors in – Jonathan and Ross Bishop, who brought their own angles to proceedings and ensured that the body count and mutilations were ramped up during their hours.

Two things always astound me about these shows. The first is the sense of camaraderie that comes from the team. Some of them are friends I’ve known for over a decade. Others are friends I’ve made specifically through improvathons, and that bond is unwavering as a result. Then, new people will slot in and add another string to Sticklebricklas’s bow (you had to be there). The way that the cast and crew carry one another through the light and the dark is so touching, human and wonderful that I couldn’t help but burst into tears at Hour 44 when we were asked to talk about the experience and compliment our scene partners.

As you can imagine, over the course of 48 hours, there is a lot of content. So many inside jokes. If anyone has the mental capacity to later callback to something that occurred in the days before then it is rightly heralded as a triumph. Some of the key memories for me include:
– That first rollcall
– Never learning the words to Neverending Story
– Magic Sandals
– The Elders’ Theme
– Karaoke at The Dancing Phony
– An unexpected pizza delivery from Twenty One
– Baking A Cake song
– The Air Fryer beard
– Tim Bimblebum losing his memory
– Gormless getting angry about the giant dice
– Gwenneth’s accent work
– The Golden Gonad
– Jon Sleet
– Going full Poblin mode
– Killing Cuff (with absolutely zero consequences)
– The failed hobbit incest storyline
– Prince Asprey forgetting his own name
– The power of Malevolience
– Anyone having to ride on Rowan
– The twenty year polygamy
– Helob and their spider children at the water park
– Bubbles song
– Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown being a certified ballad
– Watching anything Flabbergast did with full commitment
– Porridge for breakfast
– Stumpy Rumpy breaking half the cast
– Fighting the Balrog
– The Wall
– The Death of The Itcher
– Uberiyon driving us all around Middle Mirth

There are so many more moments that return like fever dreams and I question how much of it happened or was just the panic when I slept for six hours and worried about missing out on anything.

What an unexpected journey. Here’s to the next one.

At the weekend, I was lucky enough to meet E’s old work friend and mentor for brunch. I could write an entire post about the eggs that they serve at Alchemy in Leigh-on-Sea but maybe that’s something for me to sit and think on a little longer.
It was great to hear of their misadventures together, including him throwing pineapples at her when they’d over-ordered on them again. I should specify that they worked in a kitchen, as if this makes the anecdote any more palatable.

It got me thinking about the people I’ve had in my life that I now recognise as being mentors. I don’t like the business term of having a mentor. It suggests an earnest sit down over a cup of bad, machine-made coffee while making Five Year Plans like Josef Stalin.

Instead, these are people who have been there for me when I needed the guidance. Sometimes they are people that are senior to me in years or in a work setting, but in others, they have been established friendships that I later recognised had something else going on at the same time. There’s a certain respect that they have earned as a result of those engagements.

There’s S, one of the first bosses I had, who it felt truly accepted and understood me while expecting a lot at the same time. I haven’t worked with him for close to a decade but I can guarantee a message on my birthday and the occasional check-in when I’ve been quiet. He has a cool confidence, a powerful collection of aftershave/cologne and is a great problem solver.

Then I worked with R, who got me through a rocky patch. Somehow we swung a trip to Malta for work while I was going through a horrible break up. We spent a week eating delicious seafood and finding creative ways of hiding our beers on the receipts we submitted back to the office. He also helped me get into running and HIIT when I felt like a slug. R has the capacities of an older sibling, knowing just how much piss-taking is appropriate. Also, great beard.

I met J online after I read their first novel and got in touch to say how incredible it was. In turn, J read work of mine, offered fantastic feedback, and supported me through the last few years when I was really striving to get better as a writer and to make a name for myself. Their writing is some of the strongest I’ve read and I wait impatiently for the novel about working in a sex shop.

That moves us onto F and T, who have been paid to be there for me through the tough times. There’s still a level of mentorship that comes from being a therapist and the things they have taught me about myself are not to be overlooked. It’s still an ongoing process and not one I can see the end of at this point. I’m building out a toolkit of things I do know and can take comfort in.

The most recent is another J, who is now my agent. He delivers a firm but fair approach, holding me accountable for the work I’ve done while offering up this end-of-the-rainbow optimism to everything we have done together. I have total faith that this will change my life and the time he has dedicated to me has been incredible.

There are plenty of other people in my life who have been kind, have listened when I most needed it and, in particular, have seen me through the last five months. Maybe in time, they’ll become mentors too.

My grandma had a recipe for cheesecake that was unrivalled… until I went to Juniors in New York and considered my options. The below is an approximation of that recipe, taken from handwritten notes and with a little help from the Internet.

Ingredients:
Crust:
– 100g melted butter
– 160g digestives, smashed
– 1 tbsp golden caster sugar
Filling:
– 900g full-fat soft cheese
– 250g golden caster sugar
– 3 tbsp plain flour
– pinch of salt
– 2 tsp vanilla extra
– zest of one lemon
– juice of half a lemon
– 3 eggs and one extra yolk
– 200ml sour cream
Topping:
– 150ml sour cream
– 1tbsp sugar
– juice of half a lemon

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180C / 160C (fan) / gas mark 4
Line a 23cm springform cake tin with parchment paper, clipped beneath
Melt butter and combine with smashed digestives and 1tbsp sugar
Press into cake tin and bake for ten minutes
Cool on a wire rack

Increase the oven temperature to 220C / 200C (fan) / gas mark 7
Mix the 900g of cream cheese until smooth
Gradually add 250g golden caster sugar
Then 3tbsp plain flour
Then a pinch of salt
Add in 2 tbsp vanilla extract, lemon zest and juice of half a lemon. Follow with the eggs, a little at a time.
Stir to an airy, smooth batter
Brush sides of pan with butter
Pour in filling and bang on worktop to smooth
Bake for ten minutes
Reduce oven temperature to 110C / 90C (fan) / gas mark ¼
Bake for 45 minutes
Turn off oven and open door
Let the cheesecake sit in the open oven for two hours

Mix 150ml sour cream with 1tbsp sugar and juice of the other half of the lemon
Spread evenly across the top of cheesecake
Cover loosely in foil and transfer to fridge for an agonising eight hours
Release the sides with a palette knife

This is why I’ve called it the breakfast of champions. Without careful planning, it won’t be ready until the following morning. Hence why I had it as soon as I woke up.

There’s nothing quite like the discovery of something in London that you have never been exposed to before. These things can happen quite by chance, by stumbling across something wonderful and realising you’ve missed it each time your train has floated right by or right under the spot.

Nowhere is that more relevant than on the Maltby Street Food Market, where the trains can be both seen and heard. Rope Walk is built into the underside of the train line, and the constant rumble serves as a backdrop to the sounds of frying cheese and influencers thinking out loud about how to block the crowds out of the shots of their experience.

For us, it was a case of getting some drinks, getting some food and then getting some more drinks and some more food. We started with half a dozen Maldon oysters with a couple of Old Fashioneds, the unlikely combination working in our favour and feeling overly indulgent. Sitting at the side of Rope Walk, we were able to watch the crowds go by, keeping an eye out for wrapped packages of food that could turn our heads.

After walking the full length of the market, E settled on an arepa from Cheese Blanket, famed for their fried cheese, folded into cornmeal-based flatbreads – a dish from Venezuela. We shared a halloumi and plantain arepa, which may have changed my views on my favourite bread and become an honourable “munchion” when I eventually secure my place on Ed Gamble and James Acaster’s podcast, Off Menu.

I picked up a beef and chorizo empanada with chimichurri before regaling E with the story of when I stayed in the Costa Rican rainforest and an old mama taught me to make them by hand, before manning the fryer because I could not be trusted.

There were so many options at our disposal that we made plans for another trip before we were done. E picked up two bowls of gyoza from Gyoza Guys – both the chicken and the tofu, which we had with chilli oil and onions.

I have a confused relationship with food and to spend time in a place like that is to understand what it means to live to eat. Everything we had was the best bite. Each cuisine from around the world compartmentalised into a gentrified and Instagram-ready presentation, and who are we to deny ourselves that?

Woke up feeling like someone had pumped my stomach full of rich food and booze and used my lungs to smoke twenty cigarettes. There was a clear reason for this. It was our third and final day in Paris and exactly that had happened.

Unfortunately, it was time to check out and walk to the only thing I’d booked in for the pair of us to do, at the ungodly hour of 09:45 on a Sunday – the Paris Catacombs. Somehow, in my various trips to the city, I had never visited, and neither had E so it fit our little Venn diagram of things we both wanted to do and hadn’t done.

Descending, I was alarmed by how low the carved tunnel ceilings sat, keeping a hat on to soften the blows to my clumsy skull. It truly is an eerie and incredible experience, feeding into the fascination I have with death and our relationship to it. It’s hard to know how to arrange ones features to reflect that these are people, that they lived lives and had likely suffered on their way out. That was until E told me she had “the headbone is connected to the neckbone” as an earworm. Meanwhile, a version of The Killers’ Bones played on a loop in my head.

On the way out, we checked the gift shop out (and it was one of the best) before getting a late breakfast of croque monsieur, while trying to work out what to do with our day. Three is enough days for a city break. I’d stay a lifetime in Paris but that experience would obviously look very different. We found another food market and Arènes de Lutèce where we sat and watched people playing boule. Sat with another flat white, it was the perfect spot to see enough of the city that I could imagine us being filmed from behind, on a bench, like characters in a Woody Allen film, without the weight that is obviously carried by any such observation.

Knowing we had to get to le Gare du Nord on time, I was anxious we had a direct line on Le Metro, which meant riding out the afternoon with a couple of cocktails. We returned to Montparnasse for a vodka martini and a margarita respectively, along with the foolhardy purchase of another pack of cigarettes. We stayed there until we were drunk enough for dinner and went inside. The service was great and again, we had timed it to avoid the busy period in the late afternoon when the French eat. We split a dozen oysters and a dozen escargot, which were both excellent. I could get used to this life of wine, woman and song. I then had the steak I had been waiting on since we arrived and E had moules. It felt opulent and right for us to finish up our trip in this way. By the time we had finished that and another bottle of wine, I was pissed, but we had enough time to make our train, and finish up the trip with another couple of rounds of drinks.

Hemingway famously said that Paris was a moveable feast. I certainly hope that’s the case.

Woke up with a wine hangover but no alarm. A blessing and a curse. Those of you in the know are aware that a wine hangover is up there amongst the worst of them. To clear our heads, we went for a run around le Jardin du Luxembourg. It helped but the coffin-sized shower cubicle attached to our room and the almond-scented shower gel took care of the rest.

We walked north, found a food market and beside it, La Maison D’Isabelle, a patisserie that is listed in enough of the top places to get croissants in all of Paris. That was good enough for us and along with two baguettes, the stodge helped settle our stomachs and the flat whites from Le bon moment on Rue des Bernardins woke us up. Stopping in the park besides S&Co, we watched some French boys playing football with their dad and dipped our fresh pastries in the dregs of our coffee. That’s French living. The breakfast of champions.

Further down the river, we queued for Musee D’Orsee, which, thanks to Brexit, we were told we had to pay to visit. Just when you think you’ve got your head around the losses that came from that absolute misstep, here’s another. The museum was amazing, with beautiful marble statues, huge tableaus, Whistler’s Mother and a Van Gogh room full of chancers taking selfies.

We stopped for a beer and a cigarette in a brasserie before walking to Le Marais in the 4th, where E kept talking about the best falafel she had when she was last in the city. She couldn’t remember anything about the place but said she would recognise it when she saw it. We put this to the back of our minds until we got there, searching frantically for somewhere to get falafel on the busy streets. Ducking out of the way, we found Chez Hanna, which not only did the best falafel but was also the place E had been talking about all morning. She was right, of course. The food was amazing and we timed it perfectly, with everyone else seemingly finishing up their lunches before we were served.

We had been recommended Canal St Martin so walked there for a negroni and to be bide our time before we could fit in another meal. Paris is for love and Paris is for eating. We then had a couple of Old Fashioneds and I had two limoncellos for some reason before dinner at Le Verre Volé, which Anthony Bourdain recommended in Parts Unknown. We sat out on the street and had another bottle of wine, getting pissed enough before our food arrived that I wasn’t sure I could taste it. When E refilled my glass, we were rightly chastised for not doing it in the French way. It was very much a megapint. After a misstep where we queued for a club we were unlikely to get into, we got an Uber back to our hotel and fell into a drunken sleep.