Sovvid

 

I am on a film studio lot, standing looking towards two doors, each leading to a (different) internal film set. Studios 15 and 16? The veteran horror film director John Carpenter is standing at the door of Studio 15 and will not allow (me?) access. He is quite defensive and our (mostly one way) argument continues for some time. I just know, and am somewhat puzzled as to why he is filming a movie for the James Bond franchise -

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I am now witness to a tortoise that has become separated from its' shell cartoon-style, the animal slick, pained and bloody and the shell a solid object (with holes for the head and legs and no other visible crack or damage). I think the tortoise will be okay just as a car slows and scrunches over the top of its' sorry shape (which holds up remarkably well, the vehicle's tyres bumping up and over no problem) -

Dransun

I am on a grassy moor of sorts, the sky dull and overcast, the general vibe being damp and chilly. To my left is a near-concealed opening in the slope of the landscape, a sturdy concrete construct that is (I know) a secret entrance leading to the mansion home of the (former Mansun) singer Paul Draper -

It is there or thereabouts that I find (indeed, I know I'm going to discover) a cardboard box chock full of hastily written sheets of A4 paper, an epic document that I know is Paul's autobiography in its most rough of forms -

I am then in quite an old fashioned office space with a very cold, stripped-back and minimal 1960's feel. I am seated near an internal wall, working, and ahead of me, sitting along an adjacent wall that runs across to tall windows, are two men at desks facing each other. They are, to my alarm, fiddling with the chunky metal radiator at their feet. Suddenly there is a surge of water from the valve that gushes across the floor, just stopping short of the toe of my shoe. The second time they are not so lucky and water jets out the valve, soaking and flooding everywhere. I turn my thoughts to my work, thinking ahead to the three documents I have left to action tomorrow -

Flavviw

I am on the fourth floor of some building searching for a vacant bathroom to change my clothes – I think I am looking to swap my pyjamas(?)for a vest top and light trouser bottoms that I clutch in my right hand. The clothes are made of fine brown paper (bag material) -

I decide to go down to the third floor and I enter a strange, cramped stairwell (that my mind tells me is half-way between floors). There's barely a landing – it's more of a slight concrete shelf – and down to my right an anxious man, all matted hair and nervous grin, is crouching down. He says something to me (I cannot recall), chuckling to himself as he does so -

The dreamescape reconfigures itself somewhat so that this small space now has a metal grill, finished in brown gloss paint, that divides the area. On the other side from myself and the crouching man are piles and piles of VHS video tapes and DVDs and stacked (by some means) against the surface of the grill (which I can see has quite large rectangular spacing) are countless ZX Spectrum games – I just know this for a fact! I decide, against the advice of my nervy companion, to squeeze under the grill to get to the other side. I am just thin enough and, after a slight scare when I looked to be stuck, I am now through -

Now Frank Skinner (thought it's actually Matt Lucas) begins a comedy stand-up show. Lucas' face is distorted and distended and he keeps wrapping a fabric chord around his (considerable) nose or chin -

Khussg

I am in some large, mostly empty, cinema-cum-theatre. It feels distinctly old fashioned. I am hoping to see a documentary (on the film Chungking Express). I keep moving from theatre to theatre looking for both an audience and a screening. Noticing posters for (a documentary on?) Sunset Boulevard I somehow keep getting muddled up, frustrated that I am constantly now asking ushers for that film and not my original choice -

I am now in a vast, busy auditorium and an American football is being thrown by the crowd, itself moving with some sort of momentum towards the back of the room. Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai is there (of course!) and, in the few catches and passes that I complete, I am anxious that I impress him -

Wewsdrot

I am in the back of a car being driven (from right to left) by an old cemetery. The scene is bathed in warm sunlight, the small, modest gravestones arranged in a random, not quite cramped, manner. It occurs to me the feeling is of quiet reverence, favoured over garish opulence. We travel on down this winding road – the cemetery is on a steep-ish hillside, the sea beyond – stopping outside the 'Lora' restaurant -

I am at the entrance to the restaurant, noting the 'Lora' sign over the sandstone doorway, when I am greeted first by an older, bespectacled balding gent, then, coming bounding out to meet me (the singer) Rod Stewart. Rod is casually dressed, his shirt sleeves rolled up as he sprints towards me (opening with, “The energy companies are ball-less!”, triggering some notion of a security guard losing his investment?) and near-plants 3 sloppy kisses within the vicinity of my face. I say, “three kisses! That's the most I've had since I came here (here being Poland?)... and from a Scotsman”... (is he?) -

Eezul

It seems my former Hope Street Studios colleagues Bee Tee and Cee Cee have bought (the dreamescape version of) my old Glasgow flat -

I enter the flat's bathroom, which is similar in terms of (basic) fittings but not in layout – the sink is now to my left inside the door, the rough timber carcass of it's framing exposed, a pool of water – so typically Cee, I think – draining from the soppy rust coloured carpet into a hole in the floor -

I am now in Bee Tee and his wife Ell's bed/sitting room, a dim and chaotic space – it could very well be a drug addict's abode – and am hoovering using an extension hose which to my frustration keeps clogging and jamming with fluff. I am constantly checking I have not accidentally sucked up anything of value. Their bed runs along the opposite wall to that of the window, by the door, and it is there, to my surprise, I finally find some children's toys, a selection of bright yellow trucks and suchlike -

It seems I am entering the the very same room for a second time, only Ell is now reclining (on a bed/sofa?) her top pulled up so she can gently stroke her exposed stomach. “Wow! You're pregnant again!?” I say brightly. The look of sheer hurt (and self-confusion) on her face stops me in my tracks! She pulls her top down. I then see their (2 year-old?) daughter who sits up on the settee. All I can say is, “Oh!” Anything else that springs to mind – praise, shock, reassurance – simply clogs and stalls in the thought process. Their daughter has a huge head the size of a football. It takes all my mental capacity to register and process this as her head swivels (not turns!) on its neck towards me to reveal a curious and ugly face. It looks like her skin/features are sculpted in some sort of crude 80s FX/animatronic stop-motion style, even more so when, in response to my pulling funny faces, she contorts her sparse features into grotesque caricatures, her thin lips curling over perfectly arranged small teeth, her eyes popping and bugging as she widens them mischievously, everything rippling and shimmering as she does so. I am speechless, haunted -

I make my excuse to leave, meeting Bee (and avoiding Cee?) in the hallway as I do so, rescuing his keys from the outside of the front door as I go. He thanks me, somewhat fuzzily confessing to doing it all the time (as I do too) -

Outside in the communal hallway I am taken by how busy it is, students coming and going to the flat upstairs -

Vondelopsh

Myself and an (ill-defined) A. N. Other are looking into a gloomy room with a table ahead of us. There the singer Sophie Ellis Bextor (or a very good lookalike) is holding court. She produces two envelopes and removes two card statements she wishes us to read. The first I cannot remember but the second says something like, “every minute of every day someone somewhere is being raped.” or “somewhere every moment a man is raping someone.” The impact and shock of this statement is inevitable. She then asks to hear my thoughts on this and I am unable to express myself, caught off guard, making excuses and stumbling over my words – it's an undeniable and harrowing thought -

The dreamescape now transports me outside and I suddenly realise that to my left, emerging out of the anonymous, ill-defined crowd, is my former work colleague Gee Ess, his father standing to the left, nearer to me. I go over (somewhat mindful that Gee's father died over 20 years ago, before he and I ever met). His father is quite surely "played" by the Australian actor Terence Donovan (Jason Donovan's father). I as I get closer, close enough to shake hands, I see that Gee's father has leathery skin, tight and brown over his tired, sunken features. He smiles and acknowledges me but with visible effort. After the father ambles off (around some sort of shallow outdoor pool) Gee remarks that he's not doing well as he is “stiff” (whatever that means). Gee and I continue to catch up and, as we go up and across a sort of railway-esque bridge (presumably over the aforementioned pool) he asks, “have you heard about the Ogilvies?” I admit I haven't, all the while racking my brain, thinking he may be referring to the marriage of one Mark ?, an old mutual friend -

Gee Ess and I then continue around the left side of the pool (following in his dad's shaky footsteps) which is formed from a sort of chunky slabbing that runs into a sturdy and primitive bus shelter-alike stepped structure. I'm busy making some point about being young and having no motivation and all the time, as opposed to being old with no motivation but no time (or words to that effect) when I spy the author Stephen King poking his head around the corner of this construct. He is smiling and in complete agreement - “how true.” We're almost past but I cannot resist praising Mr. King (whilst apologising profusely for doing so) on his novel 'salem's Lot. I begin by saying I'm 46 years old and thought it was time, considering my father is a lifelong fan, to read one of his books and explaining, not always clearly, how much I admired the writing and the way that one's imagination takes over, creating another layer of true horror/dread. As I wrap up this muddled appraisal a gaggle of fans come by and accost Stephen -