Gil Lloyd is exec producer of Arts admin based at Toynbee Studios where I’m
associate Artist. She’s back from a three week break and I’ve been dying to
catch up so I bike down east London through Hoxton past Smithfield market just behind Liverpool St Station to Toynbee Studios and the cafe. The building itself has got a far reaching history into britains leftist movement. The National Youth Theatre are rehearsing. Last time I was here I saw Les Dennis who was in the studios rehearsing for his Edinburgh show which is probably taking place today. Gil is fastly becoming the projects
manager for my work taking care of the larger projects like The City Commission
or The South Bank. We drink coffee and trawl through stuff. All is up to speed. I realized today that I had been paid an extra few thousand pounds by the south bank. Mo’ money!. Meeting over I wing down to tower bridge, along the thames and o the south bank and a restaurant called Giraffe.
Before this I walk down to the Finance department to declare the over payment. I got to say that as a black man over payment is a scarey thing. Fact is the overpayment had not registered on my account at the time I was asked about it. I even called my bank by phone who agreed that I hadn’t been overpaid. Now that it was showing I feared that it would seem I had lied or worse had deliberately engineered it. The finance department is open plan like the other departments. I am wearing my biking jacket – fluorescent green and crispy sounding black biking pants over my jeans. So I sound like a walking crisp packet and I look like a fluorescent ecstacy taking clubber. After rooting out the problem and declaring the situation the department subconsciously sighs before diving back into the binaric (no such word) cash flows and projections and accountancies of The Matrix.
I then dash out of the office and into Giraffe. Not into a giraffe but into Giraffe, the restaraunt were my friend Shobna Gulati is sat. I order fries and we talk for an hour and a half about stuff. I loe talking about stuff. But if friends are worth their weight in gold
why hasn’t some entrepreneur made a friend weighing station where we can trade
them in at times of financial need. Shobna just got back from The Mobo awards last
night. She’s looking very good and sounding upbeat and sparky.
Meanwhile The Journalist is in the paper today having interviewed the woman who invented the Mobo awards. We finish up. Shobna goes to the national to meet a friend meanwhile my friend Carla who is performing at the national, is waiting in the festival hall writing. I’m in a sort of funny mood so spend the next half an hour or so making Carla laugh – not sure whether she’s laughing at me rather t ran with me. We discuss literature too. I wave goodbye and go bike.
But get caught by two women from learning and participation (a department in The South Bank) who’ve just had a meeting. There’s going to be a beautiful Kite Festival at The South
Bank on 4th September – one hundred kites and this si primarily linked to creativity adn possibility. It’s a beautiful idea and they would like an inspirationl poem to lift off the festival. Bang on the money. I’d love to do it. It’s perfect. Part of the reason why, for the past
three weeks I have spent virtually each day at The South Bank is for this reason.
I bicycle home to receive a phone call from Karen rose of an independent production company. Will I write and act a script for a forty five minute drama on radio four about two east African boys – it is a docu-drama. Damn right I will. This is becoming more of a diaretical (no such word but could mean a theory of a diary) than a blog. But still it has its dips and its highs. A sea of blog. I think creatively this is a slight dip, this I went here I met them stuff. I much prefer to catch a moment and expand on it. Blah…