We met Melvin Burgess at the weekend, at the premiere of the play of his book Bloodtide. We stared into his eyes. The man looks as mad as a hatter from every angle. “Ah, you’re the bricklayer,” he said. “And so are you,” I retorted. And then, the insane one with crazy hair and a green overcoat said, “There’s a lot of strange people in here tonight!” Lovely bloke. For what feels like the third time running at the Theatre Royal, Duncan, the press officer, had forgotten to book us tickets. We ended up sitting at the side and thus missed loads of impressive AV projected onto the set. And there was too much gunfire, thus rendering the effect meaningless. But, generally, it was a damn good show.
We have spent all day cleaning the house so the kids have a clean habitat to mess up. The place looks luvverly. But what is it with this 1950s vaccuum cleaner of ours? You run it around the carpets and then spend the next hour picking up all the filth it’s deposited everywhere.