I’ve been to Swansea a couple of times since I last wrote on here. I’m making a film with Leo Leigh about the heroin epidemic there. I spent a lot of time with homeless teenagers and was diving in and out of shooting galleries and squats. Every night we’d go back to the Ibis Hotel and it almost made me want to swap places with the kids who sleep on dirty, piss-stained mattresses down alleyways off the centre of town. I’m going to put it on record here: FUCK THE IBIS HOTEL CHAIN. While it’s as clean as a whistle, there’s a devastating modern soullessness about the whole place (staff included) that made each day of being alive and staying there a real challenge.

We stayed there during the Stephen Gately funeral, which played at full volume on a huge flat screen TV in the reception area while drunk building contractors swarmed around the hugely overpriced bar, trying vainly to seduce the dumpy receptionist.

But it was the same dumpy receptionist that really made this trip memorable. After being delayed on a shoot, we came back to the hotel 30 minutes after check out time. I apologised and asked if my key card would still work and she told me no. Then she handed me a black bin liner containing all my clothes / papers / money, which a cleaner had unceremoniously thrown in there. They had literally thrown my stuff in the rubbish as penalty of being 30 minutes late checking out. Thanks Ibis!

Also, on Stephen Gately and the somewhat-over-the-top importance placed on this fourth rate boy band dancer. What would happen if Gary Barlow died in Spain? Would there be a national holiday?