People are always telling me, in one context or another: just be yourself. Well, I don’t think that’s necessarily a good idea.

Which self would they like I wonder…

Self-image is very important – I’m always working on it, but just when I think I’m getting somewhere I catch sight of myself in a window reflection, and the work I’ve done is immediately destroyed. It isn’t that immediate, though, because my first thought goes something like:  who the hell is that guy?

Then I realize it’s me, except it can’t be because I’m James Bond and the person in the reflection clearly isn’t. It must be some dreadful mistake, and at the very least the glass in that window must be bowed like the glass in a fairground hall of mirrors. 

I go to Le Shag and get my hair cut. I’ve given up on telling the various stylists who’ve cut my hair to make me look like Terrence Stamp in The Limey because it seems none of them have ever seen The Limey, and that’s just as well because if they had they’d know just how deluded I really am.

I don’t want to be deluded, I want to be cool and comfortable with who I actually am. I don’t mind being an amiable old buffer at this point, though that’s not exactly true – I resent it greatly, but I need a part to play because the dreadful truth might be that there is no self for me to be, and without a part or role assigned to me there’s no one there.