SEXUAL GOOGLE by Michaël Potier

Raw blood geisha dancing under a rain of dead sperm that burns the erotic soul of the devils of a crucified oyster feast

faceless kids lick the acid colours of a rainbow full of nazi psychologist's venom fucking a strange Hercules with his tongue torn by a holocaust of cursed poems

the honey-saturated depths of a fecal Pakistan dilute in the extravagant piss of a Pasolini lost in the algebraic bowels of a prepared piano

precious grimace sculpting the religious silences of the cold depression

a symphony of Bulgarian farts disfigures the atomic vulva of the wounded women of the cruel pharmacy of deformed babies invented by Picasso's hysterical muse who shits epileptic macaque blood on the scratched hands of a cellist who is slowly dying in the dark algorithms of a sexual Google.

Michaël Potier

The Artist’s Fortitude by MT White 'Obstinance'

 The Artist’s Fortitude

By MT White

Obstinance

Felt a need to title this chapter “Obstinance”. Not sure why. Looked up the definition online and found: “Stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.”

The “chosen course of action” in question here is making art, being an artist.

Who or what is trying to persuade us otherwise from creation?

Loved ones, circumstances, the world itself with its institutions and economic structures, you know, life in general. But we ourselves are also trying to persuade ourselves to stop. At least one side of us…

Recently, after watching an interview with Tom Wolfe on YouTube, I wrote the following in my notebook: “Tom Wolfe said (on “Firing Line”) an author should be popular, citing those like (Emile) Zola and (Yukio) Mishima. One should only be considered ‘pure literature’ if it’s ‘pure’. But my literature isn’t ‘pure’. And I have no support system, like an inheritance or endowment, grants etc. So, it’s either go popular or go home. Which begs the question: Why the fuck am I doing this? You should only do things for love or money. And I neither love this nor am I making any money and I hardly have any notice. I’ve been doing this (writing novels) for 13 years and the dividends have been minimal. Nothing is forcing me to continue. Is it God-given talent I’m denying (by not writing)? I don’t know. I suppose if you don’t know then you do know.”

The entry immediately after: “I have close to nothing to show for it (writing). I wrote for money and fame. I failed to acquire either of them.”

There’s pages more of lament but I won’t burden you with them. But here’s the final entry after concluding it all a hobby: “I want to enjoy my hobby, not hate it. I’ve come close to hating writing. Yet, I’m still collecting notes (for a forthcoming novel).”

I feel depressed just revisiting said notes. But it’s a snapshot of where my mind was, and where it can wander from time to time.

And the concluding note…haunts? “Yet, I’m still collecting notes”…

A novel in the back of my mind for years. Collecting and collecting…

Habit? Obstinance? Probably both.

Emotions are fickle, especially when it comes to things important to us. In the span of a day or the span of a minute, we can run the gamut of emotions from love to hate, elation to despair. But sometimes, one overarching emotion sits with us, like despair, with infrequent and brief visitations from counter emotions. 

For all the admirable wisdom of the Stoics and even that of later philosophers—like Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer—it’s easy to get discouraged by external circumstances (objective events). Training inner (subjective) resolve is quite a task that we are not always up to…and let’s be honest: The artistic/creative type tends to be more sensitive than most.

So, the persuasive discouragement from our inner voice can ring loudly at times, even overpowering us.

And it isn’t always wrong.

Sometimes we just need to stop. Even quit. Or at the very least, take a break.

For writing, I’m not a believer in the theory that one must write every day, as stated by commercially successful writers like Stephen King, Steven Pressfield and even literary novelists like Larry McMurtry. They’re all more accomplished than me, but there’s a good chance they are attributing a dubious habit to their success (because all three are from working class backgrounds?), a survivorship bias. A counterexample is Georges Simenon, who only wrote three months out of the year, and was equally successful (maybe even more so) than those above, or Jim Harrison, who wrote “Legends of the Fall” in only nine days and felt you should let a work just build up inside of you before you sit down to write it. In other fields, there’s the likes of Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, who only painted between long bouts of alcoholic binges. Another bias is that of privilege: They are all professionals, after all. They can write, paint, or whatever daily because they are paid to. It’s like saying, “Do your job” every day. There’s multiple reasons for someone’s success. Habits are one of multiple factors, superseded by things like connections, talent or just the pure luck of producing at a time when the market conditions are ideal for what you are selling (the talent of business acumen mattering more than the talent of writing—or any other type of art).

For those of us not full-timers, the frustration or exhaustion can set in as the years go by, seemingly with little progress made. There’s also the effect of having another job, regardless of what said job is—whatever pays the bills and puts food on the table. The fact we are doing another task, dedicating our time to it day in and day out at the expense of what we feel is our true vocation, will affect us mentally, spiritually and even physically. 

When I participated in an AMA with Bret Easton Ellis, I asked him about his editing process. In my question, I used the phrase “revise accordingly” which seemed to bother Ellis. He chided me in his reply for using such a “corporate” phrase. In retrospect, he was right. But I work in the corporate world. It has affected me to my deepest core in the words I use (like “revise accordingly”), the way I interact with others (guarded or even canned conversations), and the way I see the world. This is reflected in my novels and essays. I can use and have used it as a tool of reflection, a perspective from inside the belly of the beast. Bret, on the other hand, from a financially well-off family, has been a professional writer since college (when “Less Than Zero” was published and became a best-seller). His experience is different. But every worthwhile artist’s experience is reflected throughout their work, like a diamond reflecting light in multifaceted ways, depending on the angle. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s eight-year experience in the Gulag, and subsequent exile in Kazakhstan (where he worked as a math teacher and wrote in the evenings), informed his work more than just providing raw material. It also set him on a path to question the very foundational existence of the USSR, to the point he felt like a foreigner in his native Russia.

But the fact we must “work”, modern society’s demanding it, takes a toll. As psychiatrist Peadar O’Grady noted, a person’s “ability to work” is the gauge of their mental health (Someone unable to work? Prescribe them some drugs!), whereas the root cause of mental distress (workplace conditions/financial concerns) is rarely discussed—and if they are discussed, it’s only in the most superficial way. 

This permeates the cultural environment at large—even for artists. Phrases like “writer’s block” have a negative connotation: You can’t write, implying you can’t produce. It’s purely pejorative. The refusal or inability to produce is seen as flighty or weak. David Mamet told actors not to “internalize the industrial model” but it has been internalized at almost every level.

This quote from Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s “Hagakure” inspired this chapter: “A Samurai should be excessively obstinate. Anything done in moderation will fall short of your goals. If you feel that you are doing more than is needed, it will be just right.”

Of course, the Samurai were a privileged class but as a ruling class they also had a duty: To their retainer and by extension, their fiefdom. 

And as an artist, when you do work, the question must be asked: “Who am I working for?”

Are you working for an audience? Applause? Yourself? God? A mixture of all? For Michel De Montaigne (also a member of the ruling class), an audience of the self was sufficient enough. Yet, for Tom Wolfe (not necessarily from the ruling class but upper class for sure), a work needed to be popular. Add to this the daily drudgery of a job with the rest of life’s challenges and things appear overwhelming.

But there is that silent thread of obstinacy in an artist… 

Artist Jeff Koons (comfortably middle-class) talked about walking on the street, feeling a physical pain while contemplating a potential work. I’ve felt same…

It’s here where inspiration can appear. Sometimes doing tasks on autopilot, or just having a routine, frees up the mind and that’s when ideas appear. We can’t help but think creatively. Ideas, concepts—they present themselves and it is then we have a choice to follow these seeds, help them grow, or ignore them.

As a working-class teenager, when I washed dishes in the kitchen of the hot deli at my local grocery store, I’d think of many ideas for the comic books I was planning or working on. I almost looked forward to doing the dishes in a way. Did any of these ideas come to fruition? Hardly. But it was an impulse I eventually started acting on more and more. 

One time, on the drive in to work, I thought about my novel “CONTENT”, which I was writing at the time. I forget why or what, but as I pulled into my parking space, I couldn’t help but think “I really care what others think.” Then I thought, “I care what you think.” Decided to start the novel stating outright, “I care what you think” which started an entire thread of ideas, becoming almost a mantra throughout the novel. Subsequently, it’s consistently mentioned by those who have read “CONTENT”. A creative victory from just doing something as innocuous as parking. 

This is where, I think, free will and choice play their part. The artistic impulse is a seed that needs to be watered. 

Does modern life retard this growth? Absolutely. The reason I didn’t act on my ideas as a teenager was mainly distractions and pure laziness. Our world is only growing in distractions, mainly with passive entertainment growing, which can only encourage laziness in the less conscientious of us. But throughout my search for entertainment, there was always that gnawing feeling…of creative ideas, whether it be book, movie, comic, art installation or whatever. After I actually started acting on some of these ideas, there was the gnawing idea of “failure”. 

Either way, there is a gnawing feeling. “Failure” is better of the two because 1) It’s a subjective definition (some have expressed jealousy at my life and accomplishments) 2) It could potentially reap dividends (forgive the corporate word) in the future and 3) It’s better to know you’ve been obstinate and done something than rather live with “what if’s”, while just watching TV, playing video games—being a consumer while being consumed. Obstinance feels better. 

As Solzhenitsyn said about his time in prison: “We are highly responsible for the development of the innate qualities nature bestows upon us.” He noted how his fellow prison inmates nurtured their respective positive or negative qualities while being locked up. Some became scoundrels, some became saints. He chose to nourish his creative nature, even if he didn’t have the best ingredients: He wrote passages on small scraps of paper or even committed whole works to memory, typing them up years later. In the Gulag, the worst of circumstances, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was obstinate. This continued in the years of exile, through the publication of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” eight years later.

We may not have such a historical moment. I know I certainly haven’t. But what good are we doing otherwise, ignoring these artistic impulses? By at least creating, we are opening up possibilities. It’s better than nothing.

French film director Eric Rohmer said when he started making films, he decided that if he was consistent enough on a theme he would eventually gain some sort of following. I’ve experienced same. There’s billions of people in this world. There’s going to be at least a few who get you.

And an artist can’t help but create. And they don’t have to create to the demands of the modern world’s schedule. But if they are an artist, they will do…something. 

When I am doing something creative, when I feel I’m at the peak of mental taxation, that’s when I’ve done my best work, echoing the “Hagakure” passage. I’m NOT advising to work yourself to death. Actually, I’m not advising anything. Just reflecting on my own obstinance. There has been no great fiscal pay-off, hardly any critical accolades, save for those close to me.

But per Montaigne, that should be enough. It really should be because without any other reward, I would just be taxing myself, stressed out comparing results to the market model. Actually, that is what I did—and still do to an extent. But I started the slow, subtle shift to asking myself, the audience of one, if I was satisfied with my work. And it helped refuel the creatively obstinate nature, because the pressure, the burden to produce, was lifted.

But even then, it was just temporary relief.

M.T.White’s powerful & provocative novel CONTENT is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/CONTENT-M-T-White-ebook/dp/B0877CNVRD. I called for it to be banned & pulped, they refused. “Combining provocation with apocalyptic vision, CONTENT presents a world on the brink of chaos as the forces of governments, technology, social media, ideology & religious cults vie for power & control of the masses.”

THE ART OF M.T.WHITE

A recurring theme in my work is “It’s always worth it”. What is? War. To live a scandalous life if that is what gives you pleasure. To provoke. To flaunt. To never take a backwards step except when that is the politic thing to do to ensure that you advance forwards & upwards faster than ever. A labyrinth involves many turnings back upon yourself, that is the only way to get through it. When people attack you for something, to make a point of doing it more than ever.

This is the ethos of the Marquis de Vaccine and of this great organ.

Don’t hide your light under a bushel? I disagree. Yes, hide it, makes it all the funnier then that they have no idea quite how great you are. You’ve got to hide your love away said Lennon. 

The double life is absolutely essential—in order to save your life.

The Puerto Rican Sirens & the Tempest they Bring By Matt FreeMatt

 The Puerto Rican Sirens 

& 

the Tempest they Bring

By Matt FreeMatt

 

Most sailors with some knowledge of Greek mythology know the danger of sirens, specifically being pulled on to the rocks by their enchantment and song.

 

I often ventured outside of our ship listening for their song during our ship’s transit through various parts of the Caribbean Sea. I often heard nothing but our hull politely slicing through calm seas. I had thought that these sirens were a bunk concept.

 

Largely forgetting about my mind’s pursuit of knowing sirens, I enjoyed some slow speed operations around a few islands that seemed to come out of nowhere. Our ship practiced anchoring, towing another ship, and a myriad of skills a warship should do well. It afforded me an opportunity to gawk at a few women at a yacht club and to soak up some sun like a Mansonian lizard. I thought nothing of it at the time, a tumultuous end was around the corner and I was celebrating its arrival.

 

The trip was a hidden blessing in that a cursed monotony was not causing me grief. It was something different and odd for us to do, but it felt like we got hit with one of the strangest armaments of all: our ship was to pull into the military base in Puerto Rico. My head continued to swirl. The thoughts were maddening.

 

I had every reason to believe that I called upon the memory of every Irish buccaneer and morally bankrupt sailor I knew to give my year a purpose. The island called with shapely women, the roughest mouthfelt rum, and an escape from my idiotic life decisions. But it was not to be.

 

The powers that be, not trusting the feral ship’s company, decided against a prolonged port visit. This decision, which was made for many port visits, was a sore spot for us. It made for bittersweet memories, seeing crystal blue waters, and teeming wildlife. I was under no delusion that I would have fun, hell was a constant companion. I watched a few cackling grifters disappear off the ship to return with cases of rum, to be stored for their slumber. During this visual insult, we completed our begrudging tasks. Our masters counted their lists and compared notes. They counted nothing else and found out we had hours left until we needed to leave once more.

 

For some reason, the powers that be capitulated and came together to figure out how to handle their charges. It was not prudent to let us loose upon a nearby town, knowing that we had rage to mix with our randy natures. Instead it was a furlough that was given as a consolation prize. It was better than nothing.

 

I found one of my usual cohorts that fancied fine drink, frivolities, and low grade criminal activity. He knew nothing better than to set out on foot to what sounded like a built up concrete shell doubling as a club. Both of us enjoyed the journey, finding no vehicles to relieve our feet. Seeing no hurry being on island time; we stopped to knock loose a coconut out of a tree, like backward evolving Homo Erecti. Then enjoying the sport of splitting it open with a rock and eating it primate style. I for one enjoyed the fair winds and courteous sun.

 

Our trek gave us time to jabber and to ponder. The journey was short, though. We found the concrete shell quickly, it being perched upon a mountain rising out of a sparkling pool. It appeared to be God’s thumb. There were people milling about and enjoying libations. And around these milling patrons, I spied a tattered sign that was warning us to: “Beware of underage women. Do not buy them drinks”.

 

I never knew that this was a problem, considering that this part of the base had thinned out of people. But alas, the warning had merit. I had spied three budding Puerto Rican sirens running out the door, smiling devilishly. The irony is that their song was heard no more, no longer pushing sailors toward the pain contained in the rock of a prison’s wall.

 

My cohort and I resisted the temptation to buy those nubile creatures strong drink. We continued on to our primary objective, which was to relax and deal with stress by imbibing. The noise of a familiar set of tunes drowned out any siren song. We set upon the hill and waited for the rest of our lives to appear. But the bitter point of our lives was a small step over the horizon.

Guy Fawkes Night

So tonight is Guy Fawkes Night. Incredble to think that 400 years after this “Catholic terrorist” was hung, drawn & quartered for the ‘Gunpowder Plot’ of 1605, when he & his co-conspirators tried to blow up all the members of the Houses of Parliament as well as King James, we are still celebrating his capture, torture & execution. It is a story that all children have drummed into them at primary school in state-sponsored brainwashing of the most ruthless kind, where we are all taught to remember the rhyme ‘Remember remember the 5th of November’. The State never wanted us to forget it. Now thanks to V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes & his masked visage have gone worldwide as a symbol of anarchy, revolution, counter culture, resistance. A curious villain and hero at the same time. All it meant to me as a child was I had to be miserably dragged miles to the local park to watch the boring firework display in the freezing cold just wishing I was home the whole time. I have NEVER understood the appeal of fireworks. Even as a child they just seemed incredibly underwhelming. So much time, effort & money invested in something that came & went in about five seconds. Later I was to have the same thoughts about my love life and relationships in general, but as a child that was still to discover. But Guy Fawkes goes into the mix as making this the most magical time of year (especially to a Scorpio like myself, BORN into it). First the clocks go back and it suddenly gets so much darker so much earlier, then Halloween, then Guy Fawkes night, all in the space of a week, and then no sooner has Firework Night finished then it is poppy season leading up to Remembrance Day, & then that is the cue for the Christmas lights to go up everywhere and Christmas to begin. We will speak of my contempt for THAT institution nearer the time. Suffice now to celebrate this wonderful time of year, dark, foggy, sulphur in the air. The 1930s Hungarian visitor to London Antal Szerb said “In London November isn't a month, it's a state of mind”. In November the streets of London are literally paved with gold, and we realise this was probably the cause of Dick Whittington’s misunderstanding, when he came up to London, to see the Queen. 

Salome, Lee Zimmerman

Salome, Lee Zimmerman

'NINETEEN' by Marcus Segretto and Lia Mara

Now out!

Seven diary entries from Soho and Amsterdam by Marcus Segretto, previously seen in Penicillin, plus three by Lia Mara. Her St Valentine's Day piece from Penicillin (now renamed Two on One) plus two brand new pieces Young Blood Old Money and Nineteen.

Click on the cover below!

Go here for more photos of Lia!

ANAL COLTRANE : Musicologue Défiguré

THE MEAT MACHINE by DAVID PLAYFAIR set for imminent release!

Exciting news my ejacolytes! David Playfair's THE MEAT MACHINE @MeatMachineBook, familiar to us from the early issues of Penicillin magazine, is now on the verge of publication. Watch this space for imminent release details.

Turbulence/Party for One by Troy Francis

 Turbulence/Party 

for One

By Troy Francis 

Well, that’s it - Fabian’s done for. And not before time. It was inevitable he’d be convicted, - no surprise at all. Which is precisely why I have this flute of Armand de Brignac Brut Gold poised and ready. And now the man on the telly has confirmed what we knew was going to happen all along - time for a little celebratory drink!

I didn’t go to court today. Too stressful. I’m emotionally bruised, you see - that’s on top of my pre-existing childhood trauma  - and Dr Michael, who I visited last week in his consulting rooms at 57 Harley Street, told me I really shouldn’t attend the summing up. Could amount to a ‘trigger point’ apparently. So he packed me off with some Xanax and told me to rest up at home. And here I am, reclining on the B&B Italia, and it’s not turning out to be a not too bad evening.

A party for one, you might say!

Turbulence. That’s how I met Fabian. No, we weren’t members of the mile-high club! Turbulence was a play Fabian wrote and directed back in 1982. You might even remember it.  Probably not, though. But it ran for twelve weeks at the Apollo that summer - a rather dull summer, as I recall it - and I had a small role as a trolly dolly. Oh, it was frightfully exciting at the time - my first performance in the West End! The moment when I crossed the bridge from ‘model’ to ‘actress’ never to return (or so I hoped). 

Fabian Skinner seemed like a dirty old man right from the start. I was 19 and he was 32. I’d been doing photoshoots for catalogues - tights and underwear mainly. I even did a shoot with Bailey once. The pictures didn’t get used, unfortunately, but there was still that sense of 1960s glamour about it, even though it was the dreary late 70s really. And Fabian - well, he had that whole thing down pat, didn’t he? - hanging around Soho with Bacon, Jagger, Marianne, Anita and all the rest of them. His films weren’t exactly popular, but they were very fashionable in the right circles. The Damned (based on the novel by Huysmans) was the most shocking, getting curtain-twitching Daily Mail readers up-in-arms and making an underground hero of Fabian along the way. 

But notoriety alone doesn’t pay, and Fabian was finding it difficult to get funding for bigger movie projects, and that was when he got the idea of doing a play instead. Well, the overheads are lower, you see. And he had slept with so many people in the West End that securing a venue wasn’t going to be a problem. So he wrote Turbulence in 1981. God knows how he got the idea to set a play on an aircraft - who can demystify the creative process of an auteur? - but it turned out that the idea had wings, if you’ll forgive me. Three couples, each at different stages of their marriages, discuss their relationships as the plane goes through severe turbulence and threatens to crash land. The biggest expense in the whole production was creating a mechanised ‘floor’ that would shift up and down, throwing us poor actors all over the place. 

I was the second air hostess - not the most prominent role and with only a few lines, but it was a great start. Or so it seemed at the time. But it was then that Fabian’s true nature started to come to light. It was the parties, you see. Showbiz parties, every night of the week! At the end of rehearsals Fabian would stand on a stool and command - yes, command - everyone to attend a ‘social’. These would either take place at his house in Chelsea, or above a pub in Soho, or occasionally at some nightclub or other.  These days it’s exhausting just to think about it - but I was only 19 at the time and the whole thing seemed so divinely thrilling to me. 

Can you describe the incident in your own words, Ms Saunders? Yes, abso-bloody-lutely I can, your honour. It was May 1982 - quite a hot day, as I remember it - when we all piled into Cafe de Paris in Leicester Square. Late night, down that long, decadent staircase right into the heart of the action. Everyone was there: Simon Le Bon, Mick Jagger, Boy George. There were even rumours that Bowie popped in, but I didn’t see him. Oh, the music and the lights and the champagne - the champagne fizzing on my tongue making the whole scene around me seem to sparkle too. Quite lovely. I felt so alive! So bloody alive. A marvel to be here, on this planet, in this great city, surrounded by all of these magical people. And me, the daughter of a builder - albeit one who’d made a few quid. But in the early eighties it really did feel as though class were a thing of the past, as though it had melted away on this new wave of New Wave, punk disco and glamour. 

How naive I was. 

I wore the red dress: that one that made everyone stop and look. Oh yes, I knew the effect it had, and I don’t mind confessing that it made me feel even more giddy than the champagne. All those looks from the menfolk. Most of them you wouldn’t touch with a bargepole of course, but who cares? It’s the sense of power when you’re young. Things were different back then: all through our childhoods we young girls had been taught that men were the strong, dominant, powerful ones. And well, look at that power now, shaking and then crumbling entirely just because of that cheap red dress, a cheap, highly flammable little thing from Topshop. 

Fabian wasn’t immune either. There were five of us actresses in the play, including big names like Carly Abbott, but I was - and I say this with all the humility bequeathed to me by my passing years - the prettiest. Well, he’d cast me because of my modelling photos - nothing to do with any acting ability I may have had. And yes, I’d seen him checking me out in rehearsals - men can never quite hide those sly looks can they? And tonight he was as drunk as a lord - completely blotto. Not an unusual circumstance as he’d often have a couple of liveners in the French House in the mornings before coming into rehearsals, but today he was a wreck and so when he came up to me and started slurring and drooling all over me I really wasn’t surprised. 

‘That damn dress’, he said. ‘You look an absolute cracker in that damn dress’. 

I coloured - as they say in Victorian novels - and smiled politely, but his blood was clearly up since he continued. 

‘You really are a marvel, Sienna,’ he said, slurring and throwing an arm around me. ‘You’ll have the world at your feet if you carry on like that.’ 

‘Thank you,’ I said, disentangling myself. Well, I wasn’t going to be slobbered all over like that. ‘I’m going to go and find Lilly now,’ 

(Lilly was another one of the actresses). 

I turned my back on him and was about to walk off when . . .  THWACK! I heard it before I felt it, his hand striking my ass. Not that it was painful - a mild sting easily overwhelmed by the alcohol I’d imbibed - but imagine my mortification. I tuned and glared at him - his stupid, fat, booze-reddened face grinning back at me like that slap had been nothing at all. 

Of course, the sky didn’t fall in. The music - Kajagoogoo, as I recall - continued. People laughed and smiled and danced as I pushed my way through the crowd, angry and humiliated. 

But I had no recourse. Nothing happened to men like Fabian in those days. They could do what they liked, as though women were an inferior species. No accountability whatsoever until nearly forty years later. 

But then they do say revenge is a dish best served cold, don’t they?

A snide text from Simon my brother - a garrulous, querulous and generally onerous person. ‘Congratulations on your partial win’.

Partial win? They threw the bloody book at him! Just because minimal damages were awarded, so what? I don’t need the money. It’s his apology I want - his humiliation on the steps of the crown court. ‘I, Fabian Skinner, apologise unreservedly for my obscene behaviour towards Sienna Saunders 39 years ago’. 

No, more than that - I want him to prostrate himself, to castrate himself if at all possible, the shit. 

I’m not saying that the entire trajectory of my career was affected by what he did, but it certainly didn’t help. We limped along afterwards, didn’t we? The movie thing never worked out - a thousand auditions, a thousand honeyed promises and zero roles. A hundred TV parts -  as the mistress or the girl who is the second to be murdered at the country house right after dinner - and lots of supporting actress gigs in the West End. A botched singing career (one album, Femme Fatale, 1997, reached number 73 in the charts) radio presenting and a regular spot on Loose Women.

But I am absolutely convinced to the very core of my being that if that ‘man’ (I hesitate to use the word) had not abused me in the way he did things would have been VERY different.

I must say that the Brut Gold is sliding down nicely. To augment it or not, that is the question. A gin and lemon perhaps? Yes, that’ll go down nicely, methinks. 

I try to call Edward. It  goes straight through to voicemail of course. Well, what do you expect? - fuckboy’s are going to fuckboy. I met him at some fragrance launch at Selfridges a few months back. Curly hair. Pectoralis excellentia. 32 years young. Some kind of personal-trainer-stroke-Instagram-model - goodness knows how the young make their money these days. Although actually he explained it to me - right now he’s being sponsored by a company specialising in tooth whitening products. All he has to do is post videos of himself flashing his pearlies and they shower him with cash. Imagine! A shame it wasn’t so easy when I was a kid. Even lockdown hasn’t touched him - his work is all online, you see. 

A glug of Slingsby and I call him again. No answer. I don’t leave a message. Carly - yes, I’m still in touch with her -  says I shouldn’t chase. Treat them mean, keep them keen. And, well, he’s twenty-six years younger than me. Twenty-six! I won’t say it was a mistake but . . . I’m such a terribly silly person sometimes. Plus now that lockdown restrictions have eased goodness only knows what he’s doing out there - and with whom. You shudder to think. 

‘A partial win’. The bloody nerve. But Simon’s always been the same. Always one to grasp the upper hand and never let go. You wonder sometimes if we’re real siblings, even. We look alike, that’s true. But we are as different in temperament as it’s possible to be. And he’s always gone out of his way to sabotage me. A prime example being that infamous time when he told dad about me and John - John being my Oxford Educated and thoroughly pleasant Nigerian boyfriend at the time. Well that didn’t go down very well with Cyril (father) did it? Nor was it intended to. Simon had tipped him off, which is why he materialised at just the wrong moment when we were getting to know one another better on the sofa in front of Tomorrow’s World. A lot of shouting and screaming and nonsense, and then John stalking out -  ‘well if that’s what you think of me then I’m definitely never coming back here again’ - me chasing after him, and catching a glimpse of Simon’s smug face as he sat at the kitchen table. The bastard. Unhappiness breeds unhappiness, you see. Always seeking to undermine. Never happy until all light has been extinguished everywhere . . .

Ah, here he is - on the telly now! Fabian’s just about to make his speech, right there on the steps of the crown court, just like I’d visualised it (they say that visualisation works, don’t they, and it looks like they’re right). Look at him - nervous is a suit that doesn’t fit him so well. You’ve lost weight, haven’t you Fabian? Was it all the stress? Poor boy! Right, let’s hear it, then. Your mea culpa. Your de profundis. Your grovelling apology to me and all womankind. Your tearful recognition of the pain and trauma you’ve caused - of the failed female lives you and your kind have begotten. 

This is my time, the moment of my recompense, and I will savour every second of it. Another glass of Brut Gold? Just the ticket. 

‘Good afternoon. I would now like to make a brief statement in light of my conviction . . . ’

Once upon a time, many years ago now, I was sitting in a pub near Charing Cross with old Cyril (dad), a smoky, cavernous place with little underground booths amid the dusty wine bottles. He was drinking a scotch - naturally - and smoking his usual Mayfair. Gaunt and thin with bright eyes, still, but the lines on his chin and forehead looked like ridges carved in stone.

It was four p.m. and we were many hours into what had turned out to be something of a  boozy lunch when I turned to him and asked if he’d ever really loved me - as a child or now. Well, he took a drag on his cigarette, looked at me for a long moment then looked away again and said . . . precisely nothing. Not a word left that man’s lips. Nada. Silence, that was all. 

I have never in my life felt so diminished before, as though I was a small black dot becoming ever, infinitesimally smaller every second ad infinitum. 

‘ . . . the pain and suffering my actions have caused to Sienna Saunders and many other women . . .’ 

Oh look - the boilerplate rhetoric continues apace. So this is my moment of glory - the moment of recompense when the greatest wrong of my life is righted. This. And of course it means nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing will change, for better or worse. Life will continue as before. No cosmic reordering, no celestial reset - just the same old existence. That  same old turbulence. 

Well, at least this champagne passes the taste test. Time for another, methinks. It’s nearly the end of the day, after all. They say you drink to forget - but some memories are impervious even to the demon drink. Like when that thin-lipped solicitor read out the will after Cyril’s death. The majority to Simon, naturally - well, he has a wife and kids to take care of. And for me? A pittance. Even the word derisory would be derisory. And Simon’s mirthless smile, mocking me. 

But it wasn’t about the money, oh no - it was about what it meant. That Cyril had never loved me, and that I was going to have to find a way to live with that. Every day for the rest of my miserable life on this doomed, spinning globe.