AlBarclay

Lou’s birthday! We wandered up to Starfish and Coffee on the far side of Queen’s Park. She made the cushion she sat on. “It’s in good nick that cushion, ” she told me. “Mind you the fabric was top quality. It probably had a 500000 on the Martindale rub count.”

Ok. Great. A new thing to me. To many of us. Today’s blog is coming to you courtesy of mister Martindale.

To test the durability of fabrics you rub in a continuous figure of eight with a certain amount of abrasion and a certain amount of force. How much? Who knows? The internet is not forthcoming on this at all.

Probably around the same time as Mister Kirkaldy was bending girders to breaking point in Southwark, someone in England was diligently circling fabrics with a custom made sandpaper thing and counting. And his name appears to have been Martindale. But even Wikipedia isn’t telling me much about him. AI provides his initials as JG, but AI is often drunk. Also there’s some dilution because there’s a modern electrics company called Martindale founded in Cleveland Ohio 1913.

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Right I’ve dug deeper. Seems he wasn’t industrial revolution. 1952 it appears, at the Wool Industries Research Association up in Leeds, a machine was made named after him. Very possibly BY him. He was doing it in the war though it seems. By 1952 he was a doctor. Still not clear what his names were. James George? Testing the cloth at the edges of gas masks (?) was his route into making sure your bum doesn’t go through the seat on the tube. Or soldier wool elsewhere? Socks so they don’t get such wet feet? What was he testing that now he has a test named after him?

“The testing process requires a Martindale machine. The tester pulls the test fabric taut across a series of plates on the lower side of the machine and places discs of worsted wool or wire mesh on the upper plates. The machine rubs the upper plates against the lower plates in a Lissajous curve. The tester inspects the fabric constantly for signs of wear. If there is a visible change in appearance or two yarns break, the test is complete.”

He made it across the pond like The Beatles, but the Americans have their own rival test too. This is just as obscure in genesis and named Wyzenbeek – like they absolutely had to give it the most American sounding name they could muster. He was more direct, mister W. Just a back and forth rub for Wyzenbeek. American directness. None of these goldarned corners.

Friction eventually wears things out. That’s the thing we know. It can be direct and repetitive like Wyzenbeek or it can be curly like Martindale. It’s amazing what people measure. But there we go.

We had a glorious day in the sun today. Up hill and down dale. I’m exhausted.

Out of the flat and down to the beach, but Brighton is crowded this weekend. Fatboy Slim is playing just down the road from here tonight and the Londoners are down in force. Lou was backstage when he played hundreds and hundreds of thousands in the nineties so she’s professionally over it. “It costs more money to go stand on a beach and watch Fatboy Slim than it does to go to Glyndebourne,” she comments as I’m writing. Because that’s what we did today after a spot of beachy languishing. We went to the opera again darling.

There’s no paddling pool full of ice and beers at Glyndebourne. But it isn’t chaos there either. I’ve been so many times in the last few years. “Are you a fan of the opera then?” asked her friend Simon, this morning, when we met briefly in Café Rust. That was my coffee solution as everywhere else decent had a weekend queue. “No, not particularly to be honest,” I replied. “But I’m learning”.

Ariadne auf Naxos is fucking weird.

“How are they gonna make a whole opera about that?”

I had a Theseus ladybird book as a kid. I loved it. Great illustrations. Clear telling. And I always thought it was a bit weird. There’s Theseus, and he’s stuck in the labyrinth and the daughter of the king basically saves his life cos she fancies him.  She gives him string. And a sword. He can track routes in the labyrinth using the string, and he can use the sword for poking into the bad bad maneating bull person thing that lives at the centre. So she runs away with victorious Theseus. Then next page they stop at an island and she goes to wash and Theseus fucks off with his boat and leaves her there on Naxos mostly undressed and sad. “How could Theseus leave that poor mostly undressed attractive young lady? If I were Theseus I’d be making sure that one stays happy.” But he forgets her. Heads off home, forgets to change the sails so his dad chucks himself off a cliff. “Is Theseus a bit of a space case?” “Yes, Lou. I think he is a bit of a space case”. It works out fine for Ariadne. Bacchus finds her and likes it. She ends up with her crown as the Corona Borealis.

For Richard Straus I reckon he wrote a bit of good opera about a sad lady on a desert island falling in love with Bacchus. Then realised he didn’t have enough for a full opera so bulked it up with a frame about two competing entertainments in one night and then hammered in a bit about Circe cos everyone likes Circe. Although I expected pigs when she came up. I was disappointed.

It was fun. It was opening night. They relaxed the rules a few years ago saying that all the men have to go in penguin costume so I wore a natty yellow waistcoat that belonged to a friend’s papa and one of Lou’s blockprints. Lou was in a lovely dress. We looked glam. We ate picnic, got sun, and had culture. All round a great day. If you asked me to sing a tune from it I wouldn’t be able to. But it’s not a musical. And the singers were brilliant, giving their all on a really awkward set.

A terrific day. Culture! I think I must be up to double figures with Glyndebourne…

Up in the morning and out before coffee. Only enough milk for one day I figured I’d get mine on the ashphalt. Misty forced me to stroke her a little bit by standing on the socks I was packing and yelling at me. But that was momentary before I hit the road. No lenses. Stopped at a Shell garage for an expensive vanilla latte. Sunglasses on and Radio 4 blithering on about pirates while I’m slowly waking up at 70 mph. Another coffee at a garage close to Brighton and I decide to put my lenses in at last. I wear them too long. My eyes are still fighting them. I should get some lensed glasses. But it’s usually better to be able to read the signs when you’re driving.

Late morning and I’m by the seaside. There’s a tarot day on in a church just down the road. We drive over and stump up a few quid each and wander around looking at nice art. Lots of very open wide eyed people who have opinions about star-seeds. I bought a witchy calendar by an oily lady. Took a fair number of business cards. Pleasant interactions with good people. I’m always at home to that lot, I can be one of them when I can be bothered to dig into all that stuff. You have to be very open which they all were. Sometimes you unexpectedly get things stuck in you when you do that. Brighton isn’t exempt from that, there are silly little boys playing with nasty things as well in that world. Most of the ones who weren’t shining were on their phones looking a bit hungover by their “Dark Magic tarot deck” – (I turned that one upside down when they weren’t looking).

Sated with the woowoo, we grabbed pub lunch in a really old manor house in Hove – Hangleton Manor. Pretty basic fayre but a beautiful garden staffed by enthusiastic and clueless Saturday staff at the start of their summer holidays.

A burger. Chips. Heavy on a summer’s day so we drove to Pyecombe and walked up the hill to a hill fort that’s usually pretty quiet. It didn’t disappoint although they’ve started quarrying one of the hills in the view since we were there before. Just one lady and three men with things that they probably call bikes but which have a battery on them and tyres like a tractor.

We lay in the sun awhile. Then walked down the hill again. A good day of no real pressure to do but just a chance to be, but in a variety of different contexts. Evening brought the third of the Nolan Batman movies that are on Netflix at the moment along with an amazing amount of unwelcome adverts for Oral B Toothpaste that make me wonder why the hell I haven’t had an advert recently, I used to be on timer for them all the time, I need the money. Would prefer to work with Nolan though to be honest. I’ll have to go catch The Odyssey. It was such a seminal piece of theatre for me, improvising that story every night with The Factory and Creation back in 2013. Nice to have connected with both those companies in the week the film launched.

Well. That was a long old day of admin.

H&H van hire has been bought by CVS van hire so now they have enough of an umbrella over them to raise their prices and drop VAT on top of theb prices. I was only using them occasionally anyway because generally Pace have been better for humans, particularly considering parking is free on Pomeroy street so I can drive there in Bergie and swap out into a van for the day. But this time I’ve gone even further out. There’s a couple of South African brothers who run a fleet of grit vans out of town. Siwan found them on an earlier job. They are perfect for my needs and they tip. So I ended up centralising with them for all my van needs. I don’t want too many vehicles generally on this job. Access is very tricky. But I’ll have two of the tippers and one Luton. I’ve asked for a cage on one tipper. Then I can really fill the fucker. Sittingbourne is an absolute bastard for tipping, they charge you the same for wood as they do for mixed as policy because they’re “full of wood” aka they saw you coming. So I’ll be having to be very careful about where things go and big loads will be my friend. I’m very glad I found that end of the world place in the marshes because they’ll buy literally everything for weight.

It might not be such a scrappy load to be honest. Maybe there’ll be some value. I’m gonna have to supervise tightly but I’m building my team supreme. Canice for tools diplomacy and lifting. John for tools lifting driving and heights. Mark for precision driving, lifting and positivity. Siwan for ratchet straps, tools, admin and lunch. Either Rhys or Tristan for lifting and cutting. Me for anything not being done quickly enough and general positivity.

I’m looking forward to it but it’s another big job. I’ve learnt now that the big jobs only get small with the prep. This guy called Dave was booked for just one day on one of the big ones recently and without appreciating that I’d done the maths in my head he freaked out at the size of it and starting trying to arbitrate it as if nobody had done the maths. I just let him, worked around him and got it all done despite him. Paid him too. Won’t use him again. The Olympics was a big learn for me though generally. With a small team you can achieve a great deal. But with a team of lazyass people you are stymied.

I’m slightly dependent on the inscrutable Andy who I have to have on site. If he pulls his weight with the others we will be golden. If he doesn’t it’ll be a shitshow. He’s the only guy who can drive the forks they have on site. I hate the unknown in these things. But I have to plan them. Too much is at stake. It’s a different part of my head. But I find it very fulfilling getting it dealt with.

I think this will be a good gig. But there’s a long way between now and then.

Longfield Hall on Knatchbull Road down in Camberwell. Last time we were here we all did the show in an upstairs room and didn’t move, so tonight we got them to come out into the park. There’s a little secret garden. We moved around in it and found some lovely moments while telling the story of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.

My Frenchman ended up in an apple tree with everyone else. There were parakeets and helicopters and planes, often little gifts from God. The old game of “acknowledge and incorporate the distractions” was being played well by much of tonight’s squad. It felt well put together and very live, which is what we were trying for. We were clear and less gimmicky than last time – I didn’t get in any bins – and it felt like the squad is learning how to trust and play with each other. Pace was needed, we settled into things a bit too much and there were gaps for remembering dressed up like dramatic pauses.

I’m glad we moved it around. It would have been too hot in that room, and I feel like we exhausted it last time.

I’ll have to write about the show on a Google doc tomorrow. We still document our shows in forensic detail. We used to have a wetpaint site with blogs from every show we ever did but it fell off the internet a few years ago. I think Simon Muller saved a backup, but I might even be wrong about that. I’m sure it exists somewhere, but like so many things I like to be involved in there’s something ephemeral and unrepeatable about it to the extent that even the record gets lost.

I’m back home now on this late summer night listening to music come across the river in the slow summer air. Tomorrow I’ll have to book a whole load of vehicles and get all my tools out and charge them. I need to carefully write my budget down as well, and make damn sure I’m keeping within it. It’s Lou’s birthday coming up so I want to make sure that’s all done before I go and spend time with her.

It’s a lot of work coming up in the next few weeks, and an unknown amount of stuff to be processed somehow. Ideally I need to find a business in Kent that buys second hand Dolavs. There’s loads of admin to do and loads of careful planning ahead of three rush days where the absurdly expensive warehouse manager only works 9-5 and doesn’t strike me as a man who is interested in grafting. Last time he was more of an obstruction than an asset. I doubt a leopard changes his spots.

It’s half past seven in the morning. I’m at Harlow Town Station waiting for a coach to take me to the second day of this conference, out of town in a secure site. I drove here and parked in a council estate courtesy of Just Park. Often self determining is easier than the admin involved with asking a big company if I can get a permit to park on site. Nobody knows who to talk to and you send loads of emails and end up back where you started. I tend not to bother these days. They’ll refund the £7.00 I’ve paid.

Driving in to Harlow was depressing. Clearly the people of this town are not optimistic about the England vs Argentina match tonight. England flags all at half mast line the streets on the way in, mostly looking tattered and unpleasant. I’m a touch more optimistic than whichever pessimist put those filthy pennants up. I reckon I’m gonna watch tonight’s match at home after work like normal people. With a can of alcohol free Heineken.

Before the tournament I made a few bets to keep myself interested. One of them was the inevitable England to win bet, and another was Lionel Messi for Golden Boot, which is most goals scored. I got good odds because he’s old. He’ll only lose to an England player now if he loses. So hopefully it’s win win tonight for me.

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I’m half an hour early at Harlow. The company have laid on a coach with very specific timings and to be honest I don’t think they’ve thought this through. Loads of young people travelling somewhere unfamiliar first thing in the morning? They’re really starting the day with an aptitude test. I have a feeling someone will be doing shuttle runs throughout the morning, but it’s not my responsibility to make these calls so I’ll just be ready and let things play out. “The coach leaves at 8:30 prompt” says the email. Yeah pull the other one. Whoever wrote that email didn’t put train arrival times / departure times from London hubs to meet it etc. Whoever wrote that email thinks they wrote it to adults. Not inner city teenagers going to the boondocks for the first time. I’m trying to imagine the depressed England fan who put up those half mast flags. I picture him dead eyed and cheeks flushed, speaking in uncertain certainties. I don’t think we’d be friends. Harlow. Here we go.

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Well. That happened. It was a fun day. Bus left twenty minutes late with only 4 no shows and two people who had no passport and wouldn’t have been allowed into the secure facility. I realised a little late that I’d be presenting two more PowerPoints over the course of the day. Three in a row is too much for anyone so I pretty much binned one and did a workshop instead which I know is allowed because they understand my offering at this company now and still somehow seek it out.

A beautiful day to be inside all day. I’m happy to catch the late afternoon light. Time to get back home, sharpen up my Caius Lucius lines for tomorrow and change my head again. Tech begone! That was a flood.

I’m very very stinky tonight. The place I was working in was hot and full of geeky teenagers. If you’ve ever been to a comic convention, there’s a certain miasmic odour that goes with large groups of geeky youth. So I’m writing this as I run a lukewarm bath for myself.

Last night and this morning I was quite proud of myself. Brian and Maddy thought I was dead. I went to bed before them, woke before them and managed to leave quietly despite coffee and a noisy one sided conversation about cuddles from Misty. Misty looks like a cute little fluffpot but she screams like a 40 a day Rolling Stones fan. They messaged checking I was okay at about 9. I had even set the coffee machine back to their preference. I like the espresso bubbler. They like a plunger. Different grind size. I love that grinder, and the milk system we have going now. Great coffee at home saves loads.

Ah the bath is ready. I’m in it.

So yes I’m off out tomorrow again early. Great big companies employing me for this one and you know how I am with NDAs, I can’t go joking about the smell of ’em and then tell you who they are.

They gave me a sandwich and a double decker for lunch, and I walked to Heisenberg for an excellent and oddly Breaking Bad themed latte.

But yeah I drove to work and parked for less than a tenner. JustPark have blown the doors off, they are making London so much more driveable for those of us with cars left. For the price of return tube I get to go in Bergie with air con and my choice of music. I parked in someone’s driveway. No wonder NCP have gone into administration. Work was in Ealing near the studios, so quicker for me by car than any other way. I had a moment of pause thinking of the distance between what I expected for myself this age when I first laid eyes on Ealing Studios aged 20. I’m glad I’m good at running tech conference rooms but…

Anyway I’m gonna wash the grime off.

My brain is absolutely fried.

Over the last month or so I must have received some thirty emails with information regarding things like how DNS works and bits and bobs about artificial intelligence and the nuts and bolts of tech we mostly take for granted as consumers. All this stuff has a structure to it, of course it does. It’s easy to take it for granted or think weirdly about it. We do that with everything. There are things we have no hand in that we try to understand – sunset, climate, tide, wind, clouds, albedo, space. People still believe all sorts of fanciful nonsense about them despite thousands of years and generations of people building on previous generations of painstaking scientific understanding. But… when it comes down to it, we don’t really understand anything very much. Even if we’ve made it ourselves.

How do the taps make drinking water? How does the battery work? How does the fridge cool? How does the pen write? How does an engine actually fit together? Each one of us, if we were locked in a garage with everything we needed to make a working car and given a month? Not many of us would have a working car at the end of that month. Or fridge or oven. Maybe a pen. But… we are a clever lot when we put our minds to it. And we’ve made technology the likes of which were dreams when I was a kid.

These emails have been full of information breaking these things down. Slide decks putting these things across.

I have to teach people something I only started to understand at about 3pm today to a load of sixteen year olds. Tomorrow morning.

It’ll be fine, of course it will be. But I’m feeling a bit fried now.

On a side note, someone interesting tried to flog me a course on enhancing my offering in a workshop context, and improving the marketing side of it. He did it on zoom this morning. It’s the usual pitch: Pay me loads and it’ll pay you back down the line. I know from friends of mine that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t and the payback is determined by the work you put into getting the payback. Some of these motivational people are connected to communities. Sometimes it’s just someone like me trying to make a crust. I don’t need anyone to pat me on the head so I’ve got to determine if shelling out for this guy will make me enough money down the line, and crucially – do I have the time to make it work?

Well, tomorrow and the next day I’ll be making money from workshops anyway. I’ve done a lot of that over the years. In science as well as Shakespeare. I’ve got a skillset, that’s certain.

But I want to be acting God dammit all to hell and back. Not telling people how routers work.

It’s all part of the tapestry. Today would have been my first day on set for the most recent audition that I was hopeful about.

I enjoy the whole process of the Halloween Walk. Getting together with friends on days like this. Now I’m better at not drinking I can enjoy being on the heath and in the pubs without either overspending on those pretty gakky tasting non alcoholic alternatives to beer, or feeling strangely anxious.

We met at The Freemasons Arms on Downshire Road. That’s where we’ll start this year. Siwan has nailed the route down and it’s a figure of eight taking in some lovely places we don’t normally get to. It’s a good walk of an evening even without the spooky actors. It’s so good that now there’s some rip off merchant using our name and paying for internet presence to get hits above us. I’ve had the misfortune to get stuck behind them last year, they were going the same way as us, their group stood there looking bored and occasionally glancing up the hill to our group where people were enjoying themselves. You can know everything in the world but if you can only project your voice in a throat constricted monotone you’ll lose people.

Siwan brought me a bag of non alcoholic Heineken. She lives near Emirates stadium so she has been known to flog cool beer out of her front door on Arsenal match days. We’re an enterprising lot. She realised the non alcoholic stuff doesn’t sell in anything like the quantity she thought it would. Very kindly she donated some of the overspill to the Al Barclay sugar craving society.

We walked around for 2 hours. It was a good two hours. We covered a lot of ground and I certainly have a better idea about what to build now. Although I’ll have to get a replacement for some of it as the lovely Meisner lot are going to bring that piece back in October and I want to be available for them if at all possible.

It’s always good to have to juggle things even if they’re things we made for ourselves to keep ticking over. I’ve been asked “So what’s next?” so many times in the last few weeks. They should train people at birth not to do that to actors. “If it was good, you’d probably already know about it.”

Although I’ve got a Factory show on Thursday. That’ll be a delight as ever. Second crack at Caius Lucius so now I will be less in survival mode and more in forward motion.

That was a lovely trip to Oxford. 30 years of Creation Theatre.

Lucy and Charlie from Creation were extraordinary champions of mine for years. I was Cyclops in the improvised Odyssey they did co-pro with The Factory years ago. It was a glory. They wanted me back.

Lucy used to call me in for auditions regularly. The Welsh Centre near Kings Cross. Nearly always CC running the audition who wanted two contrasting monologues and never offered redirection during the audition. I applaud Lucy and Charlie for persisting. I think I auditioned 5 times for CC with nary a recall at the end of it and not even a moment of redirection or a note to play.

I diligently prepared different monologues for each of the auditions and until the final one I held it in that I felt she wasn’t even considering me. She used to assist TC and he has a very specific verse requirement. “Do you need me to do TC verse?” I asked her in my first meeting. “I think verse is important,” she gnomically replied. So I did TC verse. We had the same exchange time two and time three with the same result. I will gladly play the house rules but I need to know what they are.

Final audition with her I remember greeting her familiarly and saying right at the start: “Is there any real point in my being here? After all we’ve been here before. Many times.” I do that sort of thing more often than I should. It’s the legacy of growing up with Max. Clarify everything. At the time there was an uncomfortable moment and then her mouth said the words “Absolutely. Of course. Of course.”

So… I remember my first speech was “This is the excellent foppery of the world,” because it isn’t my casting but it is my voice. No redirection. No notes. As forever. No conversation. It isn’t an audition in my opinion if you don’t establish if you can work with someone. Perhaps she just … knows exactly what and who she wants and it isn’t me… But I digress. I’m not here to pick holes in someone who was a gatekeeper in my early career and I’m sure is lovely and loved. It’s always funny when you know someone doesn’t like you and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m obfuscating the name. This industry…

I went to Oxford today and saw a wonderful Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lucy and Charlie and co aren’t running Creation now, it’s Helen. Lovely Helen, who I’ve known through many friends. Claire and Jon and Simon principally.

Despite annoying auditions I’ve been up to Creation a fair amount over the years, with Wind in the Willows, with The Tempest. Zoe Seaton totally understood me, and that was courtesy of Lucy and Charlie. If I hadn’t done The Tempest, I wouldn’t have done it again in lockdown on zoom with a tinfoil hat and a snake, and I wouldn’t have encountered Lou who is the single best thing to have happened to me this decade.

Midsummer Nights Dream was wonderful tonight. They are doing it in rep with Twelfth Night and they’re a good focussed clever passionate and talented company.

I bought myself a tea towel and a programme. I’m not made of money. If you are, go on their website (above). They need money to survive. They are doing great things. I had a wonderful evening with important and loved old friends.