Constructive Criticism

The motto of the French newspaper Le Figaro is an interesting quote from Beaumarchais: ‘Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n'est point d'éloge flatteur.’
Without the freedom to criticise, there is no genuine praise.
It’s a good quote but a shit newspaper.

Play Idea

The main character, a bland office worker called Sebathius, quits his job suddenly after feeling the pointlessness of his existence when someone steals his lunch from the fridge. Filled with self-doubt, he walks the streets of London and rages against the world by ringing doorbells and running away. He returns home and there follows a clever long silent sequence in which he ponders if life is an illusion shown by his watching daytime television and frowning. His girlfriend leaves him after a big argument in the meat section of Sainsbury’s and he decides to go travelling and books a bus ticket to Margate. Walking along the beach, he is lost in the contemplation of his own insignificance and only stops when he realises that he has waded out to sea up to his neck. Here follows a brilliant long soliloquy on the alienation caused by consumer culture and the price of cheese. He visits a prostitute and quotes Nietzsche to her for which she charges him extra. He tries to argue that he doesn’t actually exist and she charges him extra for misquoting Heidegger. In the final moving scene, we see him finding authenticity by returning to his old office and unflinchingly asking who took his lunch.
Notes to self: perhaps turn it into operetta with a chorus of nuns? Give it a Chekhov like title, perhaps Uncle Vanya's Sandwich? Replace prostitute scene with vampire fight?

Empirical Ego

“Hey Seb.”
“Hey Seb.”
“How are you… er, I mean, me?”
“I’m concerned.”
“There's a surprise. About what now?”
“That I have nothing to throw myself into.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, when people don’t want to think about things, they throw themselves into their work. I don’t have any work so I have nothing to throw myself into.”
“So you want to throw yourself into something to stop yourself from thinking about why you need to throw yourself into something?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Have you ever thought about writing about these things to try and address them?”
“That‘s crazy talk.”
“You’re right. Hey, I hear the timpanist got engaged today...”
I throw myself into beating myself up.

General Public

Must have experience of dealing with the general public.
This was written on a volunteer position I was looking at.
General public.
Hmm. On reflection, all of my career had not been dealing with the general public. I had been dealing with professionals in certain fields and not with the ordinary man on the street.
Jesus, I had no idea what the general public was like.
Who the hell were these people?
Perplexed, I went for a walk -just an ordinary man and part of the general public- while I tried to figure it out.

It’s An Original Fake

I read recently that there are two types of artist: decorators and revolutionaries. (Although this possibly misses a third type, like Emin and Hirst, who are just shit.)
So it made me think about if to be original one has to be revolutionary. This is, of course, talking in the creative arts sense, not in the overthrowing the Equatorial Guinea government sense. And being revolutionary sounds like it requires a lot of time and effort, trial and error, failure and re-starts, whereas I’m more inclined towards instant gratification, like Pot Noodle. But then I came across the following quote by Jean Cocteau: An original artist cannot copy. He therefore has only to copy to be original.
This took a load of my mind. There I was, trying to write something different and new when all I have to do is copy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to pop down to my local library to find what will become my first novel.