Monday 20 February 2017

Did I miss the opportunity of a lifetime by being polite....

On Saturday 18th February 2017 I had gone to rest in my spa, Akasha in Hotel Cafe Royal.

I'd secured my lounger by the pool, "German Style" (leaving a towel over the top of it and my flip-flops at the base) and gone into the sauna for 20 minutes.

On returning, a guest had secured the one next to it, seemingly unaware that I was returning.

To not seem intrusive I asked if he knew whose flip-flops were whom's that were on the floor as they were both close together.

His answer, was inconsequential, but his voice stopped me in my tracks.

I'd recognise Andrew Garfield's voice anywhere.

I felt there was a moment of panic on both our faces. Mine clearly showing the fact that I'd just recognised him, his panicking, I suspect that having done so, I'd talk to him.

And that idea did rush around my head for some time. Should I say hello?

You see I'd given an actress who went to Drama school with him, Karina Cornell, her first ever TV Role in my docudrama Silent Voices (she adorned the cover of that titles DVD release) and I recall the moment she screamed seeing Andrew's face on a billboard as we drove past it as friends a couple of years later (Lions for Lambs 2007).

A supporting nod from him could change my whole #LivingInACar campaign overnight.

This is how our world works now, celebrity endorsement is everything.

But I sat and cogitated and recalled every time I'd seen a star interviewed who'd said the line "People don't respect our privacy".

This was my club, but Andrew had clearly come in to get away from it all so I simply let him be.

It's been a tough year to date.  The BBC Storyville documentary we'd hoped to have all sorted by now is still in a half-way house situation.  Distributors are still dragging their heels. Storyville is looking at it as a possible acquisition rather than a commission - which makes things inordinately harder.

Promises of assistance for a whole variety of projects were not being met across the board.

And to top it all my energy levels are crashing.  Always a worrying sign of a CFS relapse, that I'm thinking cannot be far away (ironically discovering the following Monday that The Sun Newspaper had cited me as a Celebrity Sufferer of the disease along with Martine McCutcheon and Michael Crawford back in November 2016).

So, I hope, by giving him his peace, I'll get paid back in Karma rather than him being presented as an opportunity that I've simply passed on.

Only time will tell.....