claytoncast

When I left the Soviet Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire at eighteen — tender, earnest and armed with a suitcase full of ambition and socks — I went to Manchester to study drama. Three years of Chekhov, Gorky, tragedy, comedy, and the occasional play that wasn’t an act of national endurance. I thought I was embarking on a life of art. I didn’t realise I was also embarking on a life of accounts. Yet here I am, decades later, still keeping ledgers. Not metaphorical ones — actual, black-and-red, hard-backed ledgers. Bought annually, with all the quiet ceremony of a religious observance, from the sort of stationer that also sells brown string and those pens you have to lick. We had a marvellous tutor at drama school called John McGregor — an actor who’d once played Cornwall in Lear and had the receipts to prove it. He taught us on Friday mornings, not about Ibsen or inner truth, but about the tax-deductible nature of fake beards. It was John who first explained that keeping track of ...

We’ve just returned from holiday. And if you asked whether I’d go away again tomorrow, I’d say yes—not for sun or sea or spiritual replenishment, but because I’d need another holiday to recover from the one just gone. Not the destination. Madeira was, in a word, sublime. Mountains above clouds, sunsets like oil paintings, a sort of dignified warmth that didn’t singe the scalp. Even the famous wicker toboggan ride—lunacy in a linen hat—was delightful. No, the trouble wasn’t the island. It was the journey. And by “the journey,” I mean British Airways. Though if we’re being honest, British Airways has become more of a concept than a company—a sort of floating rumour of service with the occasional aircraft attached. We stayed overnight at Gatwick. Business class—our little indulgence. Not for the champagne, but in the faint hope someone might actually answer a question. At 6.25pm we arrived, to find a queue that could only be described as biblical. If Moses had parted these people, he’d...