If you can’t do it, give up.............Sigmund Freud

7am, Saturday, July 31

Meet the Cohens Day

Couldn’t sleep. Am in a state of nervous excitement. We’re meeting Ted and Nancy for lunch; somewhere over the bridge in Marin country, I think. R&D, our chauffeurs, will soon be here. They will take us to a train station or ferry terminal. Have decided to ditch my sandals for the day. They are a bit unsightly. Though Ted is probably also part of the sandal-wearing tendency I somehow want to blend in today. Do you know what I mean? The trouble is that when you wear sandals for too long your feet expand and shoe-wearing becomes uncomfortable. (Doh! We know that. This is becoming desperate. Get on with it! Ed) Excuses, excuses! You see: I am a petit bourgeois at heart. I CAN do respectability.

But getting back to the fawn brogues for a moment. I told that story badly. For me they were a little giveaway sign that exposes the sort of super-reality that can overlay life here; rather like the moment in The Truman Show when the character played by Jim Carrey realises he is being manipulated and controlled. I’m always returning to films as a point of reference. And I know that’s pretty crass but movies set up their powerful versions of reality, against which you can measure the actual thing. Jane, on the other hand, often compares things to familiar experiences. So “it’s just like Milton Keynes” or “reminds me of Siena/Southampton/Whitby, the time you lost your shoe on the way to Snowdon” etc.

But my bowl of muesli and blueberries calls – except they don’t call it muesli here! Must GET READY! Wish me luck! Hope to get some pictures, even videos, up here if my technical manager can oblige!