AlBarclay

Oh constant reader, you and only you will know how many times I have written to you from the top right seat of a number 24 bus going from South End Green (Mel’s old place before Barbara the landlady had a brain fart) to Pimlico (A short walk to mine).

It is one hell of a bus if you’re me. Plenty to do in Hampstead. Home in Chelsea. If you’re drunk and hungry you get to jump out at Victoria and still it’s easy home.

This evening we’ve been doing Halloween Walk Planning. It’s October now so we need to know. I’m just one of the guides. Sure I’m the ur guide for this iteration but only because Siwan and I like each other. Anyone could drag people from one place to another with charm.

I auditioned for an unrelated thing today. Hated it. Didn’t feel authentic in the room. But it is almost impossible, with a monologue, out of context, out of the possibility of play. Everyone had the same experience though. Horrid. Wouldn’t it be nice to be one of the twelve actors who just work forever without having to play that strange game. God love TC for Othello. He’s the best man on the planet.

I left rehearsal dressed in a three piece suit with a very shiny pork pie hat. I look as posh as I am. Here’s me in the bus right now:

So the average phone thief is gonna see a dripping roast right here. Look at him. Fat rich fucker.

On my way to my audition I decided to get a Lime Bike. I was using my phone one handed to locate the bike geographically. It was in my right hand.

I was going through a tunnel. Walking towards a massive security array. In my peripheral vision I picked up someone on a bike passing me too close on my right and my instinctive reaction thankfully was to clutch my phone extremely hard. Sure enough it was two guys on a fixie, both with masks on. One of them grabbed the top of my phone while the other tried to control momentum. My grip was better than his luckily, but they must take loads of phones like that every day. Closest I’ve ever had to losing my phone.

My initial response was as unbalanced as you might imagine. I was standing right next to a huge camera array on the way into Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens when they tried it. I’m normally thinking about my surroundings but I was worrying about time and my audition, and obviously I look like a right plum pudding in this suit. I was shouting imprecations about their behaviour… how it would affect them in multiple lifetimes. They tracked along a path in the park, looking at me, assessing if they were gonna go back and beat me up as I was telling them how many generations they were cursed for. People were around. They ignored me.

I tried the local police number. Honestly,  don’t bother. Stuff like this there’s no money to cover it and they don’t give a fuck. Much as when they broke my car window to steal my accordion in broad daylight in Camden with CCTV everywhere and a very clear time window the Met can’t give a fuck and won’t help unless they absolutely have to.

I reported this one with a very clear time window and an absolute clarifier of who operated the cameras. I had it to the minute. Easy footage.

They phoned me up but really just to say they wouldn’t pursue it. “Nothing was taken but I am sure you must be following these people.” “If their faces were covered there’s nothing we can do”. So yeah. I’ve told you exactly where they were, to within a minute. They are gonna be trackable backable. Nothing. Cops are pudding. Useless. Consistently useless. I’m not gonna let them through in traffic anymore. They would have been the same had he got my phone. Indolent. We are not protected in this city.

“I’ve had that happen to me,” I’ve heard. From multiple people already. “I held onto my phone too.” I wonder how many phones they get daily, how many they miss, these nasty little fuckers. I’ve seen them veer towards me before, I’ve put my phone away or blocked it. Today is the first time they’ve got a hand on it. I’m glad I’ve properly seen that of course they aren’t just antisocial kids fucking around, they are organised thieves.

There’s a really clear London solution. We make noise in this city. It’s who we are. London shouts.

Going forward, if you see two people on a bicycle with masks on the pavement – (and you see it all the time in this city this is a crowded city) mark them immediately. And start shouting. They are thieves. And if they aren’t it’s okay to be wrong, cos they look enough like thieves that a bad blame is harmless.

There’s always people nearby in London. If you can see a few people nearby just do what I’m gonna do going forwards. Whenever I see those fuckers, I’m gonna shout at the top of my voice. That’s a very old London solution to such things but if we all do it the problem goes away. Maybe just shout “PHONES PHONES WATCH YOUR PHONES” – that carries. We need a modern “GARDEZ LOO”. PHONES PHONES will do until enough people are doing it that it’s unworkable to be on that bike. And maybe try and kick it over too. But that’s only if it’s busy busy cos there’s two of them and one of you. But 2 on a bike, masks, pavement? Kick first, find out later imho.

Sure in the short term they might have knives, that’s what the cops will tell you. But with people around that’s not a proportionate fear particularly if you’re aware of them and where they are. And sure mister comments they might just be people with COVID sharing a bike, or dumb people who are worried about igmagrents sharing a bike. “People cover their face for many reasons” etc. No not really. They mostly do it because they are either criminals or cowards.

Two people on a bike on a pavement with masks? Thieves. Seriously. I’m gonna shout loudly whenever I see them now. I want it to become reflex with me. I’ve seen them loads when they haven’t targeted me. Should have shouted.

I’ve got so many friends who have lost multiple phones and haven’t learned. I was extremely lucky today.

I’m out of my bus and walking from Pimlico, down the embankment, writing in my phone.

Yeah so right now I’m writing and walking. I’m not worried about an audition whilst simultaneously looking for a specific bike and feeling time pressure. And my peripheral is WIDE as it usually is in this town.

But… still we do this all the time, we make targets of ourselves. And… with these guys unchecked it isn’t gonna get better.

We need to stop being targets sure, but the bike pairs are common enough now that we also need to start instinctively shouting when we see them. It’s an organised thing. We have to respond by organising.

Especially bearing in mind that the metropolitan police are absolute dogshit. QED.

There’s a box in Freston. It just looks like a scrappy wooden box. But I think it’ll contain worlds. But… fuck me it has been an absolute nightmare making it all fit together.

First of all sticking all the soundproofing.

Glue gun helped and yes it’s not perfect but I read somewhere that it shouldn’t be perfect, you just need to stop reflections but a few surfaces actually help the sound. I’ve put my cast iron stool in there, a little art deco table, and attached the R0de Nt1.

Gear4Music sent me an unthreaded housing for the pop filter so I’ve gaffered the thing to the cage instead of complaining.

I can’t run it through my iPad though as it doesn’t power the mic and the focusrite. I’ve had to run it through my laptop.

Audacity is not the most intuitive software to use but it’s free.

At lunchtime on the way in, I stopped at a little Italian restaurant in Notting Hill and sat outside in the sun. I spent £25 on a spaghetti amatriciana and a double espresso in the sunshine, and I’m so glad I did as once I went into that studio I didn’t see daylight again. I had no idea I’d lose the day like that.

An hour and a half to build the hardware. An hour to record. “I’ll be done by five.” That was the idea.

At 19:15 I threw in the towel. I had enough for a proof of concept recording to the sound engineer which I’ve just sent. I am pretty sure it’ll pass muster as I’m surprised how good it sounds in there. Just… When the fuck will I have time to record them now? I’m crazy busy for the next week. Maybe in the week gap we have from Awaken rehearsals. There’s already plenty of stuff in the diary for that gap… But if as I suspect I’ve finally made sense of the hardware, once the software is doing what I need I’ll have a thing I can send pretty quickly. And I’ll have a booth and the understanding to start coming in on the voice industry right at the low point. It is currently cripplingly beleaguered by AI and will continue to be so until people catch on how empty and arbitrary the choices are.

Back in rehearsal tomorrow. I still haven’t stopped for ages. But thankfully I adore my work. Last night I was decompressing knowing my weekend was gonna be a snippet. I’ve still got admin hanging over me, plus the endless cycle of laundry and so much learning.

All will be well. Particularly if I stop writing, hang up my washing and go to sleep. Gonna have to start activating my early mornings as well now. I’ll post about Awaken soon too at it’s a bit of theatre I’d love to see some friendly faces through.

We’ve been moving venue to venue with rehearsals. I’m extremely impressed with the production team who are making this work. Today’s venue is not dog friendly and there’s a saluki that comes with us wherever we go. It belongs to the director. She left us at 2pm as she couldn’t find care for him. So I just thought well, great. It is possible under contract to have us called 6 days a week. We were in Saturday morning. I just figured okay great the weekend starts at 2pm Saturday. But no. We stayed until the maximum possible time was filled.

Thankfully time with the company and no director isn’t totally wasted. Law the director can help us crystallise thoughts brilliantly, that’s the power of someone outside the direct process – the outside eye, the guide. But this is a tight team and we work properly without mummy in the house.

“What is my motivation?” is a cliché about people who do this work. It’s important, but methodology can start to really obfuscate practice. Some people want it phrased with transitive verbs, some need the objectives to be impossible, some need the objective to be visibly achievable. If you can find the exact right WANT it will really inform the work you do. But if you can’t, when it’s a group exercise, how long do you spend looking? Nobody can move on if it’s in a group until the person has something workable.

As far as I understand now, in this particular branch of practice, we have to WANT something in each scene the achievement of which could be visibly manifested in some way.

I’m not writing a manifesto here. I’m a keen apprentice in this work. I’ve got all my own coping strategies and pathways and targets and whatever, I recently told you what a geek I used to be and how I consumed all the books about practice.

5pm on a Saturday and we are going round and round in circles without the director and I’m honestly wondering why the fuck we are still here.

We DID get some good work done though before we hit the hole. But the hole opens up when nothing is quite right. “What’s your want?” “Something unplayable.” “How can you play it?” Aargh

This particular hard to find WANT was about systems and about the thrust of the piece we are doing. It’s about wanting the whole fucking world to be different, all the systems, all the assumptions, all the stuff we do to each other. Within the system of the Meisner practice we’re working through it actually makes sense to avoid that imposed (patriarchal?) framing. If the whole system needs to be burnt then that includes the parameters of this lovely Meisner way of working. This is at heart yet another male-formed system. My first exposure to it was a slow speaking man with a cane, pausing to visibly gather emotions, pinning public statements with laughable self importance.

The practice is good – maybe better than he was. But … I’m someone who doesn’t easily get swept up in things. I love TC because I immediately challenged him and he surprisingly responded with perspective and humility. He knows he’s not a guru. Nobody is. And as soon as that guru ground starts to open it is a vast pit with a hard cock at the bottom ready to go up you as soon as you fall in.

The play we’re doing looks back to the 1600s and is very aware of how the men John the men Stanford the men Milles… these men men men how their priapism has led us to how things play out for our protagonists. It looks at the systems of government, of trial by jury, of church. And perhaps, of putting a play on with this technique. Let’s be meta here. Examine everything. We must. More and more these days. It’s my way for sure. Big clever male man man etc

I’m so happy being a welcome apprentice in this company, with this practice, I need to log that. I know it will bring us a good result. I will continue to move towards it and learn and learn. That’s who I am. “Unthreatening alien”. I will never stop questioning. But I’m trying to be a good company member in any company. Cos that’s my life. Not just my job. My life. But I think the reason we lost hours today was because this is a male system.

That was a much longer day than I anticipated. Canterbury is just much further away than it ought to be. It’s a lovely town though. I like it in that neck of the woods. But it’s out on a limb.

The lads went and deconstructed a bed while I drove down here. With two of them it took them three times as long as it took me when I did it, but they were manually doing the allen keys whereas I had my Makita with attachments. I’m not gonna hold it against them.

They were taking the bed to Folkestone while I grabbed the three remaining wheelie wardrobes to take them up to Latimer once the bed was dropped off. Combining jobs.

While I waited for them I tried on some clothes and ended up in a very natty three piece and a brand new hat. I stayed in it to load. By the time it all got back to Latimer it was dark.

I had half an hour on my own waiting for them so I glue gunned the rest of the soundproofing to my improvised vocal booth. The microphone has arrived now so I’m gonna record the first of two audio stories tomorrow so long as I can make the technology do what I want it to do. I think its ready.

My arm hurts. My brain hurts. My eyes are tired. I slept all night with my lenses in. Then drove too long.

I’m eating an oven pizza having just got in and its ten to ten. I stink so I’m running a bath. It was good to see the two lads today.

Booked a day tomorrow with two lads and a van moving some bits up and down to Folkestone. I thought I’d be in rehearsal but I need some costume out of Canterbury. Last minute it turns out I’m not called tomorrow so I’m gonna go join them and do the picking manually rather than having to fuck around with video calls from the rehearsal room, which is genuinely a very positive outcome.

I haven’t had time to stop and take stock lately which is probably a good sign but is also knackering.

Today we had Alexandra in, to choreograph the violence. I do most of the violence so it was a busy morning. Cheryl and I trust each other thankfully. We built that trust together over summer and it feels like a deep thing now. But an expert can really raise the level of what we can do physically. With her help we have arrived at something that looks extremely uncomfortable even when we are just marking it without effort noises and vocalisations, but which is mutually understood mechanically in a way that feels controlled and safe.

John Waller used to say “excited is not exciting,” and even if he pulled pretty much all the intention out of the fights we had at Guildhall (likely because he didn’t have time so was putting safety first,) it’s a good lesson and one a lot of actors need.

I learnt from the brilliant Peter Noble back as a young man. He taught me all the points, safety, pulling, control – but also intention. His fights were safe but they had edge. I remember him teaching me how to be stabbed by making me think he’d stabbed me. He had a really sharp blade. Put me against a wall. Put it to my sternum. Full eye contact. Pulled the blade away, jammed his thumb in. “You see? Your first reaction was incomprehension and betrayal. Then you looked for the point of insertion. After that and only after that you might have responded vocally and physically to the pain if I had really stabbed you”. I’ve used what I learnt in that moment a few times since. Inhale. Take stock. Then react. But… it hits strangely with full context.

He was into LARP and had choreographed some major movies in the eighties before I met him. Ladyhawke and Willow among them. We were friends in that we saw each other regularly and I liked him – we even had a weekly fight club where we trained with his broadswords, quarterstaves – whatever he had and he had loads of interesting fun kit.

He killed his girlfriend brutally by stabbing her in bed repeatedly. He did it shortly after I left Reading… With that sharp knife… It was fucking impossibly awful hearing about it. I think he’s still in prison.

It took me a few years to be able to pick up a sword again – to get back to stage combat. It’s weird history now, I knew him last millennium. He taught me a lot. But fuck.

I sometimes mention him to stage combat guys just to see if they knew him. “He trained me,” I might say, because he did. Once I met another old friend of his who helped me with a stabbing. Neither of us could make sense of it about Peter. It’s so unusual. We pretend to do this stuff. We don’t do it. Surely that’s the contract?

Ugh. Anyway. Thankfully this is a safe room. And the way things are taught now are much more thoughtful and restrained than back in those days at Reading University…

It’s crazy how things keep coming in. My inability to say no likely perpetuates it as I do a thing and the person is happy and so they want more things done and they recommend me for things to other persons. Acting or clearance. They are both running hard at the moment and I’m rinsing my friendship group to provide good bodies and drivers for the clearance work while I’m busy poncing around wondering what my motivation is.

Thankfully Cheryl has written me an intellectual gobshite posho for the modern lifetime. I don’t need to have lost all my children and be a destructive self destructive mess of emotions and lust. I can just be absolutely convinced I’m the sexiest and most charming person in the room no matter the evidence to the contrary. Not really an acting job at all, I’m saying before you do.

This morning I went on site to the office clear before rehearsal and checked everything was going well. My client was not in the best state of mind, she has a stye from the stress of it all. I adore my client but she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. She’s a single mum high powered in her office environment with two teenage boys living at home. She just needs calm quiet people solving things, and I’ve learnt it’s best to just do it and then tell her you’ve done it as if you ask her how you should do it it will get really complicated really quickly. Solve the “how” for her, she doesn’t need to think about it, she’s flooded.

She had Rhys and John. In the morning it looked like a job too big for a day and she wanted me to get a van but I stuck to what I know and insisted it was possible without a van. We had done the prep and the ground work, I’ve been laying the ground for this job for weeks. Sure enough the lads had it all signed off by 3. I knew they would. The prep is for when the time pressure is off. If you’ve done the prep then the time pressure bit isn’t pressured. Even with my brain I’ve learnt that. Back end first, front end second. I’m better at front than back and sometimes squabble with my opposite type. But I’ll do both if I have to. I just enjoy front end more.

I was only on site half an hour. After an assessment, my only managerial instruction was: “for the next few hours, prioritise visible progress over neatness. If she sees the stuff going it’ll be much less complicated for her to imagine the job done. You can fine tune the details of how it looks the other end once it’s all there.” Rhys likes neatness. In context it is extremely valuable. But it can also slow things down.

There was a bit of back and forth about van rental. If Mark had been awake we might have had a transit but honestly we didn’t need it, it would have just been an expensive bit of showbiz. Happy to save the expense of it.

They did brilliantly in the end and of course it all got done. November I’m gonna be the captain of eBay and likely I’m gonna need a team for that as I haven’t got one. I just need one person who is good at eBay to use my eBay to list things, but because I’M good at eBay I keep thinking it should be me. Time though. Where’s the time? There’s so much stuff to do in this life around the terrifically important business of pretending to be other people for money. Do I have the headspace to deal with the assholes who abuse eBay’s advantage buyer policy to get free stuff? I’m gonna have to.

Two jobs running simultaneously today. I’m remote managing the last few days of office clear despite not being available really for any communication. I’m sneaking moments from time to time, but Rhys keeps leaving me voicenotes which I can only listen to on the loo in breaks. It’s a bit more stressful than it needs to be. But it’s manageable. My boys aren’t cleaners though. We’re practical sure and we will do a bit of it when needed but we are about moving your shit or getting rid of it. Rhys had his gloves and mask on today cleaning up rat shit and if I’d known I’d have dug in about it cos it’s not his job and frankly it isn’t the priority. She needs the office emptied. It’s a waste of thought trying to make the place its all going into perfectland.

I’ve only got so much head for such things though, I’ve got to let my lads run themselves. I’m rehearsing. In Dalston today.

I’ll be frank, I really fucking hate the space we’re working in. Even when a fox or a load of homeless people haven’t shat on the doorstep the night before it is still damp and peeling and under underground. No light. No air. It’s a space where the work can take place but it’s a space that makes you question your life choices particularly with the commute from mine. Fucking hell. Victoria line was delayed, we all stood like sardines for ages. There wasn’t even any conversation. I tried it and found one young woman going to Manchester who was worried she’d miss her train. Everyone else studiously pretended we didn’t exist, even to the extent of targeting their eye direction randomly upwards, fascinated by the ceiling, terrified of the humanity. She made her train. And I got there on time but by that time I hated people again.

Today was double hard because Bergie is working the clearance and he’s where my contact lenses are. I was blind all day. It makes me tired, untargeted and irritable.

Thankfully nothing massively was needed of me today in rehearsal. I don’t do well when I can’t see and I’m subterranean. I was mostly feeling a bit angry. Plus I was getting too many complicated messages. Auditions I might not be able to attend. Invoices bigger than I expected. Difficult emails. Notes from the lads. Questions and difficulties. Aargh. By the end of the day I was totally fried and then I had to get home by tube.

I spoke to Lou at home and found myself almost falling asleep on the call, only kept awake by hunger, done with social even got her. I treated myself to a delivery mac and cheese with steak – it came in less than twenty minutes and was perfectly cooked rump. Burnt my deliveroo credit but that’s what it’s for. It means I’m writing to you now post bath and ready for bed before ten. That was always the plan. Sleep will be a blessing. I might even dip towards sleepydrink just to ascertain it.

Tomorrow I’ll be on the clearance before I’m in rehearsal. Then I’ll be underground again. We will run around with josticks and live like rats.

For the first day of rehearsal we lost our rehearsal venue at short notice and some friends of the company stepped in with a replacement option.

Telos Theatre Company. This is a new venture and housed in a building that carries weight for the generation of actors I’m part of. Looking for rehearsal space? Click the link baby. This is where Tom Hardy trained etc etc

John Blatchley set up The Drama Centre in the building we are using. He was father to one of my inspirational teachers Jo Blatchley. John’s wife Jo’s mum was Chattie Salaman who taught the first year students at Guildhall about The Magic Space. She was challenging and eye opening, honest and vigorous in her eighties. I like to be challenged in my work. I’m probably a bit of a masochist. So I responded well to the rigour and lack of bullshit that that crowd dug into. It’s the same world as Peter Brook and Michel Saint-Denis.

I remember well my one and only audition for The Drama Centre, in that building on the stage I stood on today for the first time since I did it. I flew back from Switzerland to attend that audition. I was working as Tower Boy for The Cresta Run. They gave me two days off. It was worth it.

Mum had opened the letter and told me the date of the audition over the phone. She had neglected to tell me that they had a list of speeches we had to choose from and learn so I came with whatever was in my head. I think back then it was Cassius and the waves of Tiber.

I stood on that stage. Big stone room. Loads of people. And I’ve got a printout in my hand. And they are known for being assholes.

“I didn’t know there were specific speeches we had to prepare, I flew in from Switzerland this morning. I’ve tried to cram Mosca but it’s not ready.”

“Well there’s no point your being here then is there.” This was a man I now know to be Christopher basically throwing me out before I had started.

That gave me a shot of adrenaline and I fought back hard, ranted for a while about their prospectus which I had consumed utterly a few times. I told them I had no idea about the requirements my mum hadn’t told me. Told them I’d tried to absorb it quickly in the time I’d had with it.

Christopher was still leaning back when Yat leant forward bless his heart. “Go on then we’ll hear it.”

I did it mostly without looking down. I tried to target things, to pull them from truth, all the few ideas I had from an intellectual boy who had shelves full of books about the craft of acting and no hands on experience. I was desperate to be loved.

I’m sure it was a clever delivery just as I’m sure I had no idea what I was doing with my arms and feet and breath. I would have made sense of it but at the cost of all my coordination. It finished. And they were good enough to redirect me a bit. I like to think they appreciated something in my passion. Spongebrain helped. I could take things off the page very quickly.

But… then they dropped a bomb on me. “You did that well if you’re telling the truth that you got it this morning. But you weren’t prepared.” Yat again and back then I didn’t realise that praise was rare from him. Christopher had kinda given the floor to him but also actively wasn’t interested so maybe Yat was being nice by contrast. Still an unexpected positive. It didn’t break my confidence, likely couldn’t have back then. I think Yat liked my passion and they both responded to the fact I was genuinely angry and stood my ground when they tried to throw me out before I’d tried.

Christopher finished it though: “We can’t consider you if you haven’t done the prep, for whatever reason.” And I left with a sense of “come back next year and you might have a shot” from one of the students. And then got accepted at Guildhall which was the right place for me.

Audition coach says: Maybe I should have tried to wing it and make it up rather than dobbing myself in. But then they probably would have assumed I was a bit shit.

They made sure the lesson about being prepared went in. That’s a very good marker for a good training. If you learn something in the audition you know its a good place for you.

“You want to be an actor. You’ve flown over from Switzerland for this audition. If you really want this life you should learn now how important it is to come prepared for your auditions. You should have checked with your mother when she read you the date and time.”

I failed that again twice in the wider industry. Once when I was told I had to prepare a sonnet: “The Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame”, so I came with a sonnet and it turned out to be a scene where the sonnet was the name of the show and I hadn’t prepared the scene. The other time I had 26 pages of sides to learn for Holby and my agent told me there was no prep it was just a chemistry meeting. (!) I cannot even begin to describe to you my state of mind when I walked into Ealing Studios. The director gave me one read of one scene. “Thank you Al, that’ll be all.” “BUT…” “Thank you.”

Mum kinda hoped this wouldn’t be what I ended up doing. I love her to bits but that drama centre information might have been withheld on purpose thinking about it. Jack Hedley, circa 1993: “Your mother has told me to discourage you from being an actor. Tell me why you want to do it?”

But despite discouragements, there’s been a spirit that has got my back. It’s my grandmother’s birthday today. Peggy Macdonald. She was accepted to drama school back before the war. Her sister opened the acceptance letter and her mum burnt it. I was in Jersey when her sister finally told her about it and the fireworks were off the scale. I wouldn’t exist though if she had gone up to London from Folkestone. She met my grandad as a Wren when he was a naval officer.

This is a memory dump tonight. There’s a lot in my head, positive and negative triggers. I’m stream of consciousnessing it without any eye to construction so I apologise if it’s impossible to follow. Sometimes this blog is just for me, laying ghosts. But thank you for helping, especially those of you who have read it on and off for years and not come to burn me as a witch yet. I think I’ve expressed all the thoughts that are going round tonight.

In terms of action, look into the Telos guys. There’s opportunity and power there right now. And they are good people. What are you building?

Autumn is coming. I cleaned out some guttering today with a trowel and a bunch of flowerpots and found myself wishing I lived in a place with a garden. A bit spotty with rain and it’s getting colder. Me in an annex with an ailing fourleg. Lots of medicine applied, lots of cuddles, daytime napping.

I did hit the road briefly for a coffee at lunchtime. Friendly locals, conversation with strangers. We’re in the countryside now. Or at least we were. I left the house with the newly cleaned gutters about two hours ago and slammed back up to London on dark roads.

I’m still working my way through the Rolling Stone Album List. It’s a side project and it’ll take me forever. I’ve got stuck a few times listening repeatedly to great albums. Others once is enough. Kate Bush Hounds of Love took me a happy week of driving through summer with it on repeat.  Alanis held my interest for a while as well. But I’ve moved on and this journey through the autumn dark was courtesy of My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, at number 73. I might get stuck on it awhile even though it’s noise rock just because the next album is Kanye and I have a feeling it’ll annoy me. The flood of sound from Loveless got me home.

I’m aiming for an early bed now… I’m in rehearsal all day pretty much every day for the next fortnight which will be an unfamiliar shot of consistency. I’ll be doing stuff before and after rehearsal, sure. I’m nothing if not overextended.

I’ll be glad of the daytime naps I had today down the line when I haven’t got time to think anymore. On which subject I’m gonna try and go to bed.

I thought I might go to Canterbury today to take stock, but I just wanted to stop instead. So I did. And largely I have no concerns about that decision.

The place I chose to stop in is remarkable. You’ve had me going on about catsitting in remote places so you know how happy I am doing it. I woke up here to peace and quiet. I’ll go to bed to the same. The creatures have a great deal of house to explore but they largely stay close to me. They’re underneath me as I write.

I’m in the middle of nowhere if you’re not a driver. I’m very well located if you are. This morning I got excellent coffee in the local village. This evening I went to get a curry. The curry house was flooded at half seven – apparently there’s an England match. Football and curry is a thing it seems. So the guy asked me to wait. I waited. They aren’t licensed. People were bringing in bottles from the nearest supermarket. I just had water and wondered. They eventually brought me an excellent curry.

Most of the day was just spent being here in my friend’s place enjoying the newness. My mobility and my relative peace about long drives – both are helpful for this kind of thing. It is only a month or so since i did similar for Liz up in the peaks. I’m very happy to have headspace here. I can’t even begin to tell you how peaceful it is.

Tomorrow I should probably look at some lines again for Monday, but I’m not gonna bite myself off before we start as I know the sponge and I know the process I’m going into and it isn’t AFTLS. There’s an actual DIRECTOR.