Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
have a curtain covering as if to hide offensive pornography rather than books with a promin-
ent 1960s font.
I could see how the new office might have been a bit over the top, but I liked to see it as
a Matt Helm, tonguein-cheek homage to the golden age of James Bond films. It has the hu-
mour of
In Like Flint
but with the stubbornness of Miss Havisham; red and white walls with
patterned rugs, bar stools, animal print cafe bistro chairs nabbed from the old Glee Club in
Birmingham, one of my favourite gigs, and a magnificent dresser/radio/drinks cabinet from
the late 1960s that still works and that took four of us to get up to this firstfloor atelier. I have
a record player for my vinyl, a CD multi-changer and no iPod facility on the retro hi-fi. My
office is old school.
I have a collection of guitars that I don't know how to play, a remnant from a time not too
long ago when lacking in confidence, I started wearing a guitar on my back to give me ad-
ded depth and kudos. I have a rowing machine and weights which I won't use but give the
impression that I haven't completely let myself go, an Italia 90 edition of Subbuteo that only
boys/men of a certain age could possibly appreciate and, inevitably, a cheese plant.
It is not only my room; it is an extension of me and contains everything Natalie hates in
furniture styles, colour combinations, music, literature, films and footwear. Which is one of
the reasons why it is 100 metres away from the house, presumably for fear of some kind of
paisley contamination, and why she so happily agreed to it in the first place despite not see-
ing me most of the time anyway. All the things she'd wanted to get rid of now have a home,
meaning that not only did she no longer have to tolerate their presence, but that she could fill
her boots on eBay and plug the gaps.
She was like a woman possessed, an Erin Brockovich-like obsessive not in pursuit of truth
and justice, but with the aim of hoovering up any stray Cath Kidston trinket and Toile de
Jouy knick-knackery to replace my hastily dismissed collectibles. She now has the 'office'
indoors (actually a landing) and what used to be a shared space has now been expunged of
any presence I may have had there. I feel like Trotsky after he fell out with Stalin: the family
photos look vaguely familiar but there's a grubby blur where the man of the house should be
standing. It took me a whole six weeks to get my office exactly how I wanted it; but she had
clearly been planning the move for some time and within an afternoon she was unwrapping
eBay packages that had arrived without my knowledge, and I was history.
The office represented something else, though; in time, I thought, if everything goes to plan,
most of my time away from 'home' will be spent here. I had started doing stand-up comedy
in the first place as a way to make my name as a writer, but stand-up is all-consuming and it
had swallowed me up. I was so surprised that I was actually able to make a living from it, I
got terrified of being found out as a fraud, which is why I hid under the radar for so long. The
office and the schoolroom, and not just because of the money invested in them, meant that
