How lucky I am

Standing waiting for lift to take me down to washing machine, I thought how lucky I am to live here in Penicillin Mansions,and how lovely it is. Treasure it.

What a beautiful peaceful place.

While here I will write my little literary masterpieces, my jewels. In peace and tranquility.

Chinese massages just around the corner when I need them, pubs just under me. Fish & chips just over the road.

I wake up alone in bed and am GLAD I am alone. That is a blessing.

Upstairs Downstairs

When booking a hotel, in the 'Any Special Requests?' section I now put "As well as the red carpet, can you have the Upstairs Downstairs theme playing as I arrive in the lobby?" 

I also take some of my own books and surreptitiously slip them into the hotel's book shelves.

I spread my seed.

I think Eyes Wide Shut was ultimately a 'failure' but a very interesting failure

I think Eyes Wide Shut was ultimately a 'failure' but a very interesting failure. Fascinating for the complete LACK of sexual chemistry between the real life couple Cruise & Kidman.

I like the sinister uneasy feel of the whole film. Something just 'wrong' about it, in a good way

It opened in London September 1999, one of those times of my life I regard as a real ‘crucible’. Times when the fires & pressure were building up to a fever pitch, and in that great pot new things could be forged. I was just a few weeks away from travelling to Europe for the first time in my life, that first ‘Grand Tour’ that would lay down the markers for the whole rest of my life to come (a trip detailed in my book AUTISMUS (1999-2001). On that first Grand Tour I would go to Brussels, then  Munich, then Vienna, then Berlin, and it was those four ‘Cities of the Autumn Stars’ as I called them (after the Michael Moorcock book of that name) forever after that I would return to again & again & again in the years that followed, and pretty much only them. 

My excitement & tension in those weeks leading up to that journey was extreme and so anything else that came into my life at that time left a huge mark, like with a branding iron. So along comes Eyes Wide Shut. It will always be part of my history now, almost feels like part of that first journey to Europe. I started the journey months before I actually physically set off.

I am someone OBSESSED with my own personal history. Everything I write is a very conscious effort to record my time on this Earth as I am obsessed with leaving a record behind for posterity, and always conscious that every day may be my last, so I must hurry. That is why I publish all my books before I am really satisfied with them, I just need to get them out there in case I drop dead the next day (God forbid). Once published I can then keep reading them, making changes, uploading the changes ad infinitum. My books are never finished. They go on blooming & blossoming even after initial publication. Blooming, Blossoming, pruning too. Adding stuff, cutting stuff. An Ernst Graf book is never finished.

I am great believer in the 'crucible' idea of one's own life. 1999 was absolutely a crucible time in my life, whereas 2000, 2001, 2002 absolutely were not. 2003 was a crucible and so was 2004, but then 2005 absolutely was not, and so on. 

I have also observed the seven-year cycle in my life, the 'seven year itches' when I need to start a new era. In 1992 I went to Soho for the first time, a strip club for the first time & therefore saw a naked woman for the first time, and began my 'career in infamy', and from that moment on Soho became absolute centre of my life. 

In 1999 I travelled to Europe for the first time and from that moment on Europe became absolute centre of my life.

In 2006 I fell in love with a dancer at the Flying Scotsman strip pub in King's Cross and from that moment the Flying Scotsman became absolute centre of my life.

In 2013 we split up and I became single again and commenced a second 'Golden Age' of solo travelling to Europe.

In 2020 Chinese Flu came.

My books must have an intensity. A kind of claustrophobia. They are chamber pieces

My books must have an intensity. A kind of claustrophobia. They are chamber pieces. Huis Clos. True for Soho, Autismus, Lotta, the Cold Icy Air of the Mountains. Then Twelfth, Winter and Alhambra. A new London set book in the claustrophobic chamber music venues of London. Using the 2006 Casanova stuff? Fucking violinists and pianists in London. 

The sickly sweet smell of cum in the Soho porn cinemas? This my chance to talk about the Sunset Cinema period of 2005 (rather than the Soho Cinema period of 1999). The old girl on Wednesdays in the upstairs cinema. This is where we SEE what actually happens in Soho. Lela. Ana Maria. Olga. Sunset Cinema women coming in. Sunset Strip Yolanda Red Right Hand, Ding Ding Dong, Queen Anne Redd Adaire. This book can precede The Stripper, as the 2005 Soho period was Soho's last hurrah before King's X took over. Adelaide, Diana, Theodora. The steamy fronds of the Wigmore Hall, Boulevard Strip, Sunset Cinema. The curling tendrils of the Queen Anne to finish. End of an era for Soho and the Queen Anne. But the Scotsman is about to take over from everything, about to become the most important building of my life. 

Have the Wigmore Hall book set in one week, a real Georges Simenon intensity, a Sherlock Holmes story, a week of visits to chamber concerts, upstairs at Sunset Cinema, my Vauxhall book, ending in Queen Anne with Redd. Chamber concerts throughout book, ending in chamber strip pubs at end, Yolanda at sunset, Redd at QA. Ends in a foggy foggy December London 2006. That was the end of an era. The Stripper is more a 2009 book. That was heyday of Diana, Teodora. Yes the Wigmore book is my Vauxhall book, Wigmore Hall 2005, Sunset Cinema, Ana Maria, Lemon Tree, December needle-lost in Soho fog to finish. That my title? Needle Lost in Soho Fog. My love letter to Soho. Soho (1999) is more about the Bessemer furnace of the pressure I was under. We don't get to see much of Soho. In Needle Lost we let Soho bloom and blossom before it disappears in a fog. It is my fog book. Fog in Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square, Soho, finally Vauxhall. I can talk about solipsism, of the Wigmore Hall transcendency, Viennese eroticism of the chamber music, Bluebeard at the Royal opera, Erwartung, rushing back to Soho in World Cup fever, Dr Who and Sophia Myles, Jolanda, Queen Anne. Just add sex scenes. Sumptuous Siberian Cleopatra. Yes, all the long Casanova passages about solipsism, Viennese eroticism etc but interspersed with rampant fucking scenes in Sunset Cinema, or Sicilian Demi, or Wigmore Hall, ferns, rugs cushions lamps, rain at window, I am an opium addict and a gambler. Describe my Soho opium evenings lovingly. My confessions. Up a mountain too high to come down now. The air so thin so pure makes you hysterical, high in every sense. Don't want the thick polluted air of the ground anymore. Paris 1899. Fog. Queen Anne. Chamber music, porn cinema, strip clubs.

Lord Olyffe and Sir Richard Lovell and New York Bella; when S.E.Londoners come into the West End of London sparks fly (sperm flies)

Lord Olyffe and Sir Richard Lovell and New York Bella; when S.E.Londoners come into the West End of London sparks fly (sperm flies). We are Edwardnauts! We are Wickhamnauts! Put this into EROS and the Bella scene AND Adelaide! I cannot do justice to it in my novellas, it can only be done justice in EROTICA my great magnum opus. My autobiography will be my greatest work of art, my great literary achievement. My Kapital, my A Man Without Qualities, my Origin of Species. 12 Books That Changed the World, 12 books by BRITISH authors that changed the world! I will contribute No.13. 

Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue are always Ernest Dowson territory; but they are also Jekyll & Hyde territory (‘GRAND TOUR’ it only became Dowson territory after 2001 of course). R L Stevenson was great friends with Ernest Dowson’s father and used to play with young Ernest. Bursting with my pleasures, bursting with white sperm, bursting with Eroticism, and lo, here is our idol, Eros himself in the centre of Piccadilly Circus. 

The whole Aureline/Chess Goddess episode 2002, Goethe Institute is clearly in 1999-2006 GRAND TOUR. 

All my London memories e.g. Covadonga, 2002, Lemon Tree barmaids 2005, Calcutta barmaids 2005, here in SOHO? No, better to really develop them and let them bloom & blossom in EROTICA IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH, especially ‘GRAND TOUR’ 1999-2006. Elena Prokina 2005, what an incredible time! Keep the purity of SOHO, AUTISMUS, LOTTA, THE COLD ICY AIR OF THE MOUNTAINS, CASANOVA; the embellishments will all flower and bloom and blossom in EROTICA, an autobiography that blurs fact & fiction like some opium dream. When describing a dream are you recording fact or fiction? Both. And my life was like a waking opium dream. It was unreal. What had become normal for me would be unbelievable to others. The viciousness of the attacks and the exquisite voluptuousness of my pleasures, simultaneously, two sides of the same coin.

Do not change a word of SOHO, AUTISMUS, LOTTA, THE COLD ICY AIR OF THE MOUNTAINS, don’t touch a hair on their heads! All the embellishments, the bloomings & blossoming, the more florid & lurid retellings of the same memories will come in EROTICA IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH, my great masterwork, volume 1 EROS, volume 2 GRAND TOUR, volume 3 WHITE DEATH, volume 4 FREE LIFE, volume 5 1985-1992. Christ, so much writing to do. How dare you go out to the pub day after day and waste all that valuable precious time; defiling your precious instrument!

There is a purity about my writing. PURE SMUT. PURE AS THE DRIVEN SOOT. 

GRAND TOUR - how many times I had written about Frankenstein and now here I was in Ingolstadt. How absolutely overwhelming. How often I’d written about Kaspar Hauser and now here I was in Nuremberg! This was my Romantic Road. German Romanticism had inspired me late 1994 but then I got sidetracked by black bob.

Ernest Dowson was also a discovery of the ‘GRAND TOUR’ era 1999-2006 of course. Absolutely intoxicated with him on that trip to Brussels>Vienna Dorint white waves>Oslo savagery in October 2001. My second Grand Tour. My third Grand Tour encountered Lotta & Sophia and so I didn’t get very far. My trips then came fast and furious (as did I) (‘COLD ICY AIR’). My eroticism came from TV, Benny Hill, Kenny Everett etc.

It makes no difference to me if people tell lies about me or tell the truth about me, they are all so far beneath me, I couldn’t give a single shit. The truth was almost always more scandalous and shocking and unbelievable than the occasional lies they invented. How fascinated by me they all still are! And I too began to feel it made no difference if I told lies or told truths about myself. I think this is what really drew me to Jerzy Kosinski. Also his duality. The Dual Monarchy.

New projects for 2021

Having finally finished The Collected Works of Ernst Graf, what will always now be the standard textbook for anyone interested in the mysterious Marquis de Vaccine 1996-2019 (and who is not?), I today tentatively start work on my new projects: ON WRITING, a pondering on the process of writing itself, my way of writing anyway. AN ILL WIND, my ‘plague diary’ for 2020. A SOHO GOLDEN AGE, revisiting the 1992-99 years of my life when Soho was the absolute centre of my world. In SOHO (1998-99) the ‘action’ all takes place in our narrator’s head, his inner thoughts & feelings & struggles, so we never actually get to see what he was doing in Soho. A SOHO GOLDEN AGE will put that right. WHITE DEATH a lurid look at the schooldays of the Marquis de Vaccine and the roots of his ‘infantile eroticism’ that he has never grown out of & has no intention of doing. Perhaps also LOVE ME SOME OTHER WAY, sequel to THE STRIPPER (2007), to see what happened next.

My current books

 My current list of books in print:

1.Therapy

2.Soho

3.Autismus 

4.Lotta

5.The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains

6.Casanova, or Lost Wanderings

7.The Stripper? (in revision)

8.Twelfth Night

9.A Winter’s Tale

10.Alhambra

11.Brussels in the Years of Recapitalisation

12.Yes it is I

Working on:-

An Ill Wind (my plague diary for 2020)

A Pilgrim’s Tale (my serialisation exclusive to PunchRiot magazine)

White Death (my school years erotic novella)

On Writing (an in depth analysis of my own writing techniques & books)

YES IT IS I

The sayings and aphorisms of the great Marquis de Shard, 1896-1930, charting the zeitgeist. It will take you less than 10 minutes to read and yet contains more wisdom than an entire encyclopedia.
A book to put in your back pocket and carry everywhere with you.

My books

My books do appear, disappear, then re-appear with bewildering frequency. “You will never hang” as my mother always says to me. Anyway this is my current bibliography but I warn you now it is most definitely subject to change. My books are NEVER finished. They carry on mutating, blooming & blossoming even after initial publication. I include the links to the US digital editions as an American gentleman says it is hard to find my books digitally ‘over there’.

 1. Therapy (1996-98) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088KK4FYW Psychotherapy & Pornography in End of the Century Vienna. “A cry for help turns into a cry of ejaculatory pleasure in the yellow fog of fin-de-siècle Vienna.” Blimey. “Ejaculation is the theme of my books. My books are not written with ink, but with sperm.” 24 pages.

 2. Soho (1998-99) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PSCWV9J Eroticism and Jealousy in End of the Century London. “Attack all you want! I’m too busy ejaculating! With one floozie after another!” 31 pages.

 3. Autismus (1999-2002) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079BPFDFC This is a desperate attempt to communicate my last messages from the testing ground of world destruction before the end of the world, before my transmitter is detected and I am closed down. My reports are rambling, confessional, despairing, exultant, but the cries of a hunted man, in the Last Days of Mankind, in a feverish 1914 Vienna. If these are the Last Days of Mankind, and if I am going to die soon, I want to leave this record behind me. “White sperm floods from the fountains of the heart, roses burn in arms. Dusk, shed by a lamp, brightens the ejaculate.” 71 pages. 

4. Lotta (2002) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DFBH43 Our hero falls in love with two 18-year-old Swedish barmaids in a Vienna hotel. 40 pages

 5. The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains (2003-2004) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0799VNQR6 I AM EMPTINESS. I AM A CIPHER. Here I am in Berlin, the city that was wiped out, the man who was wiped out. Berlin a beautiful, modern, elegant city. Now I know why Wittgenstein took himself away to small towns, Berlin, Vienna, London being, as Spender says, “haunts of anonymous promiscuity”. Wittgenstein took himself away from temptation. Berlin and Vienna are all temptation. It eats my brain away. 133 pages.

 6. Casanova (Or Lost Wanderings) (2005-6) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DN9RFP I AM A BAD BOY. I AM ERNEST DOWSON, I AM AUBREY BEARDSLEY, I AM FRANK WEDEKIND. I LIVE IN A WORLD OF PALM FRONDS FLOATING ON AN INDOOR LAKE, WITH CLAUDIA BARAINSKY ON A GRAMOPHONE SOMEWHERE SINGING HERODIADE FRAGMENTS. THEN A SALOME. I LIVE IN THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC STUFFY GRANDEUR OF AN OLD BERLIN BEDROOM WITH A FOUR-POSTER BED WITH A MIRROR ON THE CEILING. I CELEBRATE MY VICES. 65 pages.

 7. Twelfth Night (2014) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BBPH28Q I need to put myself in to a mood of sickly morbid eroticism again! Of despair! Desperate sexual hunger that comes with black psychological despair and morbid sickly eroticism. The ferns and fronds, violin music, as dancers slowly take their clothes off on stage. Fucking like rutting cats, in despair, to fuck the pain away. Roll away and get up and leave each other without a word or a glance. I need to lose myself in degrading, sleazy illicit thrills again. Go back to the gilded gutter life of Francis Bacon, the sublime and ridiculous world, diving deeper into darkness. Go back to an infantile sexuality, pure priapism, the life of the cock. 82 pages.

 8. A Winter’s Tale (2015) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K8QZ2X5 A travel diary 2015. 74 pages. "That handjob from Manuella was the best I ever had. I came a little bit but then felt another orgasm surging up behind it, and then came again, this time explosively, a huge cube-shaped glob of white sperm landed on the bridge of her nose, fortunately between her eyes. Never had a double orgasm like that before." 77 pages.

 9. Alhambra (2016) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089FKQB7S A year in a part of Brussels not marked on any maps. 96 pages. "Beer, pornography and prostitution, the greatest things in life. My three opiums. I travel to indulge these opiums." 73 pages.

10. Yes It Is I (2020) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DV11QK9 The sayings and aphorisms of the great Marquis de Shard, 1896-1930, charting the zeitgeist. It will take you less than 10 minutes to read and yet contains more wisdom than an entire encyclopedia. A book to put in your back pocket and carry everywhere with you. 48 pages.

The first two episodes of BBC's Dracula (2020) will haunt my thoughts for a long time to come

The first two episodes of BBC's Dracula (2020) will haunt my thoughts for a long time to come. It was such a wonderful reimagining of the story that for me it became the definitive telling of the story. And Claes Bang the best EVER Dracula. I was so looking forward to seeing bang's Dracula in 1897 London. Then oh dear. Better to delete the final episode from the archives and leave us with the Demeter about to arrive in England. Let the 2 episodes of the 3 planned be all that remain, like one of the great unfinished symphonies of the world.
The thing about every Dracula I've ever seen is it is never horrifying. Just silly. This was truly horrifying. Harker in the monastery was horrific, heartrending. And yes Claes Bang is the best Dracula ever, but I must say also John Heffernan is the best Harker ever. Brilliantly written, acted, makeup. And the nun reveal was truly gasp out loud fantastic. Why they then threw it away with the wretched last episode? 'Dracula in the modern day' is always shit. Always has been. It had to stay in its period. I'd like them to go back and rewrite the final episode and only then attach it to the previous two.