John Lydon: ‘After my wife's death from Alzheimer's, I lost interest in cooking'
How do famous names spend their precious downtime? In our weekly My Saturday column, celebrities reveal their weekend virtues and vices. This week: John Lydon
6.30am
I'm always up with the Malibu sunrise. If I stay in bed any longer, I feel like I'm getting aches and pains and bedsores, although I have been known to sleep on the couch if I know I'm getting up early to watch Arsenal play in a lunchtime kick-off. If that's the case, it'll be a 4am start, and sometimes I'll stay on the couch until all the games are over.
9am
In the years leading up to Nora's death [from Alzheimer's nearly two years ago, after 44 years of marriage] I used to take great pleasure in considering her diet and preparing her breakfast, but since it's been just me, I've lost interest in cooking. I went through a stage of just eating a tin of ravioli first thing, but a bit of time has passed now so I'm looking after myself better.
10am
There's a farmers' market down the mountain from me, which is bloody expensive, but everybody needs a stick of celery in their life. I used to have great fun going downhill on an electric bike to collect the veg – I've loved swedes and turnips and parsnips since my childhood – but the battery never lasted the journey back, so I've started getting them delivered now.
11am
Since Nora passed, I've got caught up in all manner of diabolical entrapments of domesticity. I've got a dishwasher now but I'm struggling to work out how to use it. My brother comes round to programme it from his cell phone, but the wildfires haven't helped the local power, which is always cutting out. On tour I'll just let the clothes rot off me. I'm not one for carrying around large bags of laundry.
1pm
I'll usually make myself a roast beef sandwich at home rather than go out for lunch. I'll have it with Bermuda onion, English mustard and, of course, unsalted Country Life butter thank you very much. If I'm seeing friends they'll come here as I've gone off the restaurants since all the smoking bans, and since the fires you can't even smoke outside now.
2pm
My favourite thing to do in the afternoon is explore the local countryside on foot. I'll take the long walk from my house down to the beach, where I'll usually bump into the weekend cleaner brigade cleansing it. I love being out in the elements and I'll walk for miles and always find something interesting.
4pm
I know a lot of people like to reflect in the afternoon, but I only reflect when I'm asleep. I can't turn off. I'm on sensory overload all the time. I just find that I'm interested in everything and love everything… right down to an itchy big toe. I find it all deeply relevant and fun.
5.30pm
The Californian sunsets are fantastic and if I'm not down on the beach watching them, I can see them from my bedroom window, which virtually overlooks the beach. I've got reams of photographs and I've painted them a few times too, but often the photograph in my head is better.
7pm
Breakfast and lunch will do me, so I don't always have dinner, and I'll just play music at the end of the day, but not on Spotify, obviously. I love the physicality of a record although most of my collection got burnt in a fire in London. Before she died Nora cancelled the insurance as she thought it was a waste of money, then six weeks later a spin dryer caught fire and burnt out the whole kitchen plus three quarters of my record collection.
9pm
I don't stay up late or go to bars or nightclubs – what's the point? I go to bed early, though that doesn't mean I go to sleep early. I like to rummage through my thoughts before I finally pass out, then my thoughts gradually waft into dreams, which is when I write my best songs. I babble thoughts into a tape recorder, then in the morning I'll replay it and be amazed by what was going on in my head.
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