Sorry for the delay in blogging – as the last of the year is rained into submission, I have been travelling. Again. Manchester, London, Brussels, Berlin, Brussels, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Glasgow and a film festival in Cromarty is beckoning, even as I type. Usually, I would have taken advantage of the peace and electricity available in this or that train to hammer out something for you, but sadly I was a little preoccupied with sleep, numbed staring, making up 20 minutes of new comedy and fretting about my oncoming novel.

The comedy has been duly delivered to a couple of surprisingly fragrant audiences, my mail, ironing and packing are up to date and I have these small hours of a Thursday morning to ponder.

But before I get to the pondering, I will take a moment to point out that I am aware a number of people who used to be what we might call friends of mine now simply read this blog, having entirely abandoned any foolish ideas about phoning me at home for a chat, or actually meeting to do something human. I have been subjected to pathological levels of travel for more than a year now and whatever relations I had hitherto managed to maintain with real people – the ones I don't have to make up earlier - have become almost entirely theoretical. I have even – please forgive me – fallen into the strange pit of gossipy stalkers which is Twitter. At least this allows me to text somebody who might still care – if only because they intend to murder me and then use my skin for cravats.

And, as I wandered about in northern Europe, I was once again struck by how few people on the other side of the Chunnel are welded to their headphones. British high streets are generally packed with what amounts to thousands of competing soundtracks and brave efforts to dodge as much of our prevailing reality as possible. Over There they still do chatting, good coffee and relatively functional public transport. They can also provide civilised, trilingual audiences interested in other cultures and literature in general at the drop of a jewel-like pastry, and can lavish readers with pleasant venues, varied, well-advertised events and proper arts coverage. It's boring to have to point this out – repeatedly – but the UK isn't as cool and bright and lovely as we are intended to believe. Our public servants don't just defraud us, they also don't serve us – in detail and day after corrosive, toxic day.

But enough about them: actors. Best Beloveds, actors are an excellent thing. The Manchester part of last week's itinerary was given over to recording a radio play of mine and I have to say the proceedings were just a huge joy, parts of which I am still digesting. I knew very little, for example, about the detailed presentation of point of view within sound and where effects would be live and where they would not and what delicacy and precision goes into the production of radio drama – something I've always enjoyed, since the lovely days when I didn't have a telly.

I very rarely have time to sit in on filming, rehearsals, or even performances of my own scripts. This is very occasionally a blessed relief when I hear later about insane producers, crippling budgets, vicious weather, costumes only fit to be viewed from one side and the risk of death in – for example - improperly choreographed fights, or botched house fires. (No, really.) But more usually I find it slightly heartbreaking to never quite know what the last night was like, or to have been somewhere else when a little rewrite might just have helped ... Manchester allowed me to sit and do virtually nothing for two full days, beyond eating biscuits and listening to excellent performers do what they do, hearing readings develop, interpretations shift and fret and lock, and generally being made very happy. I ended up quite light-headed.

This is partly for entirely predictable reasons. If you have Robert Glenister and Bill Nighy flinging themselves into it all day – along with an equally splendid, professional and charming supporting cast – then you will be interested and entertained in the process. Of course. But bear in mind that I fell in love with words because actors said them to me, because they were out loud and happening at me and in me. I hear words in my head when I write them. I sit – in trains, or even my study – building people who don't exist, hearing people who don't exist, until they seem real to me and then perhaps may do to somebody else. Imagine what happens when you add actors to that – how very, deeply good it is that the music you couldn't quite hear not only sings in reality, but is far more beautiful than you could have hoped to make it alone. Imagine how permeable proper actors are to language. Imagine people who genuinely possess levels of recklessesness/talent/training/sensitivity/whoknowswhat and being allowed to hear them let words – your words – penetrate and operate and become what they need to be. It's a strange transaction – on the one hand the typist (if it's me) experiences sudden rushes of exhilaration along the lines of I think it, you do it, meat puppets of my brain – oh, life should be like this. And yet there are also swoops of despair along the lines of – I could do this all again and make it better now I know what you're all like, make it fit better – and thank you for being upset then and sorry for having to have made you upset, but in that scene it is necessary – and this sounds amazing, but that's you, not me – and that of has to go – that of doesn't scan at all and should be forgotten and never spoken about again … so sorry …

And so on. At a certain level, actors are the best readers – it's their job to be. And I hope I can reverse-engineer some response to this whole thing which would improve the reading experience for the rest of my readers. I also need to consider what I can learn from being around people at the top of their game – why are they good? They pay attention, they have a certain type of courage, they are careful of each other, generous, they have interior drives with levels of surprising and usefully-applied hunger. What can I apply from this to my own working methods? I don't know yet, but I hope to.

And otherwise, I am simply full of admiration. As I watched Mr Nighy and Mr Glenister on a monitor, working in what appeared to be a concrete holding cell at Heathrow (the space doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to sound right) and having to semi-skate on scattered gravel, to produce the necessary effect, while hitting the required mark near the required mike for each cue, while hauling at each other, reading, emoting, taking direction and generally knocking it out of the park with a glorious attention to detail and levels of courtesy and concern for which I will always thank them, I did think very loudly – bloody hell, what kind of a job is that for human people? And grinning like a muppet all the while. God bless them, whatever they're up to at the moment.

And onwards.