The Beggar's Diary, 25.08.2007. - It is still early morning when Filch starts walking the streets of Muenster. He sees himself in the mirror of a shop window and notices that he looks VERY tired. A girl comes up to him and gives him a commercial flyer for some shop or other, with the typical “3 for the price of 2” line. She herself looks very excited and awake, but Filch tells her he's not really interested. But she insists: "It’s 6 for the price of 4!!" And her tenacity sparks Filch’s interest. "If I buy 6,” he thinks out loud, “maybe I can sell them immediately afterwards?" She smiles politely to hide her confusion. He doesn't insist, and offers her a flyer For The Beggar's Opera, in exchange for hers. Filch doesn't feel like doing business today. He wants to have a normal day, whatever that means.

“Normal!” he thinks sarcastically when he sees the camera crew waiting for him at the FYAL. They want to document his day. NOT TODAY, he tells them. Tomorrow, perhaps. He just cannot handle all this media attention. (Well, Filch, I think you are exaggerating now.) Is this what getting attention and becoming famous is all about, he wonders? But right now, he doesn't want to be looked for, or at. NOT TODAY.

There is a new waiter at the Fyal. Filch says he's Filch (to get his free coffee), and the man fleetingly steals a glance at the poster of this past Wednesday’s Beggar's Evening. "Yes, that's me, believe me," says Filch, full of conviction. (http://beta.thebeggarsopera.org/node/118)

At the Spiekerhof, he sits down at the terrace of the Kiepenkerln (Grosse!) and gives himself over to the entertaining activity of observing people. It's a busy day. Some people seem to be looking for him. He decides to put the 06-tag as a gesture. Even then, he sees people staring at SPM07 maps and looking around a bit disoriented. But today he's playing hard to get. They should just look harder. At any rate, he has kept his part of the deal—he’s is there.
A waiter comes by to ask if he wants to drink something, but Filch says NO. The waiter, recognizing him, says: "I'll hear it if you need anything"… as if he knew Filch’s mood and respected it. Nothing like being a regular client.
A couple of minutes later, another waiter approaches and politely asks him to move to another, smaller table. No problem, says Filch, moving over.
Filch starts counting his money. 7 Euro and more to go. He thinks that ordering a coffee would make him look more normal, and thus conceal a bit his condition of sculpture.
But when he gets his coffee, he asks some people seated at another table to take a picture of him (wrong move, Filch! Didn't you want to go incognito?).
As they look a bit confused, he has to identify himself ("Sculpture No. 06, pleased to meet you"), and an animated conversation starts. Even a Welsh terrier is brought into the conversation; his name is Black 'n Tan, because of his color.
A couple from Muenster comes to his table, pointing at his 06-tag. The man starts talking about Muenster’s phonebook, and he tells Filch of his curious habit: as soon as a phonebook is outdated, he tears off the page with Muenster’s city map. He then he keeps those maps, after plasticizing them. And he would like to offer Filch this collection. This is when he asks if Filch has connections within the Landesmuseum. "Of course, my friend. I know every single soul working there." Well, the man has a proposition to make: at the end of the SPM07, September 30, they could cut Mark Wallinger's Thread into pieces, sell them, and give the money to charity. "I see. So do you want to make a relic, a votive offering out of it?" What Filch does not say is that he would only be interested in the plan if he could get money out of it. But in September he will no longer be, so the charity idea is OK with him. He doesn’t really care. But, of course, he will talk it over with the people at the Landesmuseum.
Right now he has other concerns: his coffee costs 2,90! Well, there goes a third of his earnings. The sale of one of his pins relieves, albeit slightly, the feeling that he has been squandering his hard-earned money.
When he leaves the Spiekerhof, he sees two Japanese girls with the map. He wants to help them, but then sees that they've crossed out his number with a fluorescent pink marker. He informs them, coldly: "I am No. 06. Whatever you have crossed, it was not me."

He meets Alina. Now, Alina, his ally, the closest thing he ever had to a guardian, is she real? Or is she a fictional character like him? Alina, Constanze, they just seem to be there whenever he needs them, and disappear when they have no part in the story, just as fictional characters do. He just shoots off his question at point-blank range: "Are you real?" But, as she is answering, a lot of noise from the Saturday market drowns out her voice. Just as if it had been written that way. And following the script, she invites Filch for dinner. How could he possible refuse? He will go, with pleasure.

Now he's to the Landesmuseum BECAUSE, after the success enjoyed by the recording of The Beggar's Aria No. 1 (thanks, Made Nandu!), Filch is ready to launch 6 more CDs with his recording of The Beggar's Aria No. 1. He has a beautiful cover for it, made by a friend, who told him that the cover was made after the cover of a book about him that will be published soon, though he did not quite understand this and he was too busy to ask anything about. He was thinking about the fact that he wants to print it and burn the CDs at the Landesmuseum.

It takes him hours. But there it is now.

Next thing: check his mail. In his very personal mailbox, hidden among the bushes of the Domplatz, is a picture of him, a newspaper clipping about a beggar's statue (not Filch though), and a postcard with sign language for "Finger weg von Faden." Someone is very up to date, he thinks. There's also candy and a riddle, though the latter is too much a riddle for him. He doesn't understand it one bit.

(http://beta.thebeggarsopera.org/node/87)
(http://beta.thebeggarsopera.org/node/116)

Then, following Alina's instructions (she is probably in charge of this story), he goes to see Eva Meyer and Eran Schaerf's film. In his attempts to figure out why he should have seen this film now, he retains one sentence from it: "What interests her are not the roles she gets, but the relationships she gets involved in when performing such roles."

It has been a long day and Filch retires to Nauman's Depression Square (or was it Square Depression?) to relax.

He meets a man called Gerd, from Heidelberg. Would he have a story for Filch's diary? Gerd thinks it isn't easy to come up with a story just like that, but after thinking a while he tells Filch about the cleaning lady who comes every week to clean his apartment. She's from Turkish Kurdistan, and on the appointed cleaning day, Gerd prepares the cleaning tools especially for her, in such a way to make them resemble what you could call it a little sculpture. And every week he arranges the tools differently. She finds this very amusing, and has herself started to create little sculptures to pay him back for his kindness. So each cleaning day he takes pictures of both sculptures and when he pays her he adds to the money a print of both sculptures.

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