I wish I was in any state to be amusing--unfortunately, for reasons I simply cannot fathom, I haven't slept more than about 3 or 4 hours a night since before we left. I'm not normally troubled by jet lag, so I don't know what it is. I'm exhausted, but not at all sleepy. I've tried alcohol, no alcohol, Lunestra, no Lunestra--tonight it was chamomile tea and a soothing bath bomb from the Lush store at Covent Garden, but to no avail.
Fortunately the delightfully indulgent Char has left her laptop on and connected, so I am finally going to have a chat with you lot.
I didn't mean to be snippy about Cherrio, it just felt like the FanZone was gettin' all the love!! I helped Char upload the video--she had it hosted on another site, but inexplicably respondents were unable to view it.
Let's see...well, Kim asked him please to say a few words on a video (Kay may have pleaded for this, or it may have been Kim's idea, I don't recall). Char asked JI if he ever visited the Lost Girls; I interjected that she oughtn't to put the poor man on the spot, but he confessed that he did. I think the rest of his response was meant collectively--he is a little wary of singling anybody out or, conversely, neglecting anybody--and he said that he has visited, but only very rarely, and that to be honest, he usually does it for work reasons--to find a photo from Char's site or a review or article easily, because, he said, "you guys have the best archives". He continued that he didn't want to influence the tone or content of the boards, and he was afraid that if he did admit that he peeks in from time to time that we might change some aspect of our interactions. He wanted us to feel free to be as rude or silly or irreverent or lunatic as we liked, and that struck me as as good an intro as I was likely to get, so I said, "Speaking of lunacy..." and shoved Cherrio in her box in front of him.
He burst out laughing and took the box and said some effusively nice things--brushing aside her hair, for example, he exclaimed, "this is a work of art!" and somebody, maybe Catloveyes, said that the dolls had done really well for St. Jude and he cracked something about Cherrio having better legs than he does and finished with something else nice and complimentary, concluding, "this is completely twisted" or something to that effect, to which I admitted that that's certainly my child's take on the matter.
KJ has been in contact with a wonderful photographer from whom a number of JI fans have purchased (quite reasonably, I may add) some very lovely, high quality pictures of JI, and Keith and his wife (who is a big Harry Potter fan) had come to meet us. They were really terrific, and Keith snapped any number of shots with his bigass camera, using poor KJ as a bipod, and he called out to Jason to hold Cherrio up for a snap, which JI obligingly did, and directed me to stand closer (I had been standing sort of behind and beside him), at which I demurred, "oh, do I have to?" but, well, anything to improve the auction results, right??
We told him that Char's calendar had also raised over $700 for St. Jude, and he said he was so pleased, it was one of his favourite charities. He reminded us that he supports Great Ormond Street Hospital (duh--hey, he may not, but I read this board regularly).
Helen, I did remember the peanut butter--it also made him laugh. He said he has a whole case of it "in his loft". (A whole case?? How did he get it? It seemed to arrive randomly in grocery stores--lots o' the flying brat, a fair number of Tink, and few Capt. Hooks) He said he'd been quite tempted a while ago--he'd been really hungry and thought, say, I know where there's some peanut butter...we shouted in horror at the thought of eating it (as foodstuffs go, it is pretty old) and he said something about it being unlike the natural kind and absolutely loaded with trans fats and so on.
There was a young woman there who was originally from Sri Lanka. She shyly asked if he would sign her poster for her, and he said of course he would love to. He asked her name, and she spelt it for him. He carefully wrote it down, repeating it aloud, and she marvelled, "You can actually pronounce it!" I told her that (as Carole reported) he speaks Spanish as well. I asked where the Spanish came from and he said carelessly, "oh that's a public school education for you" (except that I'm not certain he said public, since that has a different meaning here). I asked if he'd really taken it in school, since that seemed like a curious choice for an English person, but he said oh yeah. He said Spanish was dead easy, because it sounds just like it looks and looks just like it sounds. He'd also had a sister-in-law from Columbia (I think) for a long time--then he amended that to say that it was actually about 18 months, but he still kept in touch with her.
It was, as usual, really chaotic--all the women calling questions and comments at once, and passing things around, and other fans trying to sneak a moment in between, and constant posing for photos and getting yet another thing autographed. He talks very coherently as he writes, a thing I could never manage, and appeared very comfortable and at ease with us. There had been a huge crush of fans at the matinee performance, but to our astonishment, many of them seemed interested exclusively in Lee Evans; they swarmed him and then buggered off (the FOOLS).
The bottle JI brought us the first night was Veuve Clicquot (NV)...nobody paid any attention to it! and Bread and Jam's DH came and opened it for us, I think, pouring some into all 8 cups (?) that JI had brought.
I thought that bringing champagne for your fans was a terribly magnanimous gesture.
After the evening performance's fan reception, he went striding up the hill toward the street, thanking us again for all our carbon-chucking, ozone-destroying gallivanting in his support, which I'm not sure the other women heard; I shouted back that we were purchasing carbon-neutral credits, which I'm not sure he heard. Okay right now this is a lie, but I am filled with good intentions.
So....yeah. Pretty danged amazing.
Also saw the Hogarth exhibit today at the Tate, for anyone who's still awake here (LIKE ME GODDAMMIT). Spent over an hour, saw roughly half of it. It is amazing how modern his painting style--at least in the portraits--looks. It was completely chocka in there, not even taking into account the bigass strollers (??? have you people not heard of BabyBjorns??), and many of the works were surprisingly small and very detailed, so it was kind of a pain trying to view them properly.
I hope to have a photo or two to share with you soon---in the meantime, you guessed it, check on the 'Zone. (oh, Kay sent us flowers at the flat!!!! This is entirely in character, but still overwhelmingly sweet and generous).
We've been having a cracking time and I am sorry for anyone who doesn't get the chance sometime, some way.
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