Gollft

Myself, my old secondary school friend Ay EmmCeeHaitch and my old work colleague Gee Haitch are at an old fashioned tearoom together. We're inside the entrance porch-cum-lobby, looking in at the premises through a glazed door, formed of small panels of glass supported by finished timber uprights and verticals. There's a fake clock on the wall with blue plastic hands and it's set to 3:50 (evidently when they shut) -

Ay suggests using a trick off my friend Enn Bee and asks me for a piece of paper. I hand him a post-it note (with some work related pencil sketches and notes on it). He slips this under the door and works at the lock – it is for some reason locked from the inside, the delicate key still in situ – and manages to drop the key onto the paper and successfully draw it under the gap below the door. As we gain entry Gee sets the clock to 5:50, the actual time. We immediately tell him to set it back as otherwise folk will know we've been there! I feel okay as we set about inside – we keep the lights off as it's likely every employee is at home making dinner. Ay quickly cooks up three small, plain open burgers for us. Gee is suddenly sick in a bin and Ay scolds him, clean that up and use the toilet!, making sure that we leave no trace. He also remarks that Gee ate a lot of crap food (mainly sweets) earlier -

Just then three men enter, saying that they came by earlier but we were shut. One remarks that we must have opened at 3:50(!).... The middle of the three is a (sort of) Native American with long straggly hair, sleepy eyes and sallow, horse-y features, complete with a noticeable gap between his top front teeth. The men flanking him are white, on the heavy side and smartly dressed. The man on the left has an open burger of his own, only this one is garnished (and looks very tasty). The Native American wishes to use the toilet and Gee dashes off to give it another clean (on his/their return?). I suggest that maybe chef (Ay) can rustle up some more burgers -

Rungkhin

I am looking down at a panorama of (the dreamescape) Hong Kong, all tall, pale buildings with countless wee windows packed into a tight street plan. This seems to be on a promontory(?) and through the gaps in this tight-knit cityscape I can see smaller islands dotted about, each populated with oversized red triangular tents and Russian soldiers – they have occupied HK with China's consent. My POV pans along this scene to the left. At one point I (just about) witness a soldier throw a Molotov cocktail into a huge looming tent, only the result is lost as the scene steadily vanishes 'out of shot' -

At the end of this promontory three men, two of whom are garbed in yellow waterproofs, the other in a white jacket and black trousers waterproof combo, are fishing on a low square pier/wharf about 1m above the sea level. I instantly think 'he's gone' as a wave surges up and engulfs their standpoint, washing the furthermost man out into the (now) rough waters. The two other men dive in to his rescue, one grasping his legs, the other his head and shoulders. There seems no hope now as another mighty swell pushes the doomed trio further out into the churning ocean -

Dovci

I am on a train (quite conscious that I am wearing my Covid-19 mask at this point, my vision somewhat obscured) and am standing and waiting/looking for a seat. It feels like I finally walk through to the next carriage where a burly builder lad sprawls across two seats, lounging in one, his muddy 'workie' boots perched on the other. He wears a dark blue boiler suit and the two seats (and seat backs) are covered in some sort of blue waterproof sheeting with a black elasticated lining – there is caked mud on this from his boots. I ask if I can sit and do so, taking care to perch my bottom on the edge, mindful of the dried dirt -

He's quite amenable and we chat away. At one point he asks where I live. I hesitate but eventually say B-, immediately apologising for how it's “quite posh”. From there I mention I need some (building) work done to my house and we talk the job through while he makes notes in pencil on the back of a business card. It gets quite intense – I'm aware of A. N. Other observing intently and that we are now standing huddled around the scribblings -

I suddenly tune into the automated train announcement - “This is Paisley. The next stop will be Johnston” - and panic. This is my stop! I immediately rush out the closing doors on to the platform then realise I have left my phone and bag! I jam my right foot in the doors to prevent them closing and holler about my phone and bag, all the while sweeping my hands over my head in an attempt to catch the train driver's attention. He finally pops his head out the cab opens the doors. The builder lad (with a knowing look) only passes me his business card and, kind of stunned into incomprehension, I watch as the train drives off -

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 -