AlBarclay

Sitting in a window with a great big mascot head on I found myself wondering who to vote for in my local constituency. I’ve already made Caroline fall about laughing by talking about serious life things with it on. “You forget you’ve got it on sometimes don’t you!” she asks. And yes. I never would have thought that I’d get to the stage where it feels natural to have a massive great big fluffy animal head on. But I sit there in my window and I have great big philosophical discussions sometimes. Am I a man with a mascot head on? Or an I a mascot with a man body? Fuck knows. I’m just following my flow, listening and accepting the unusual.

My car is parked outside the building where my current window is located. It’s still in my borough so I can park there for free even though it is half an hour’s drive from my flat. With equipment and costume stuff and having to rush off some nights to do my evening jobs, the fact I can drive my car to work in my borough is an unstoppable force for good in my life. It is a perk unique to my borough, although it used to be universal. And it is my privilege because the Tories have always won the local elections here. It’s on their pamphlets. I look at the candidates. Two reasonable looking women. Some guy who is a Stan for electric vehicles. I look at the other parties. One Green Candidate. Three of the ogres! Christ are they trying for my borough too? How has reactive single issue thug politics gained so much traction over here? It’s that dumb crook over the pond cosplaying his “proud boys” as law enforcement.

Last time I voted here my crosses were all red. I mixed it up a bit this time, tried to vote for people I actually liked the look of. I had time to properly research them. Couldn’t just single issue it about parking permits as then I’m just like the ogres. Who knows what difference it’ll make in this Tory heartland, maybe the result will take my parking freedom away, but… I’m just one mascot making crosses today. It would be a big shift to lose the Tory council here.

Finished voting. Went home. Threw a load of underwear in a bag. Fucked off to Kent. Ogretown!

Now I’m in my top floor room overlooking Macdonald’s and the Medway. Gas and Brighton tomorrow. My hotel room is COLD. I’m wishing I packed my pajamas now. Come on spring, pull your weight. I’m liable to go buy a glass of whisky.

Funeral today for a man I loved very much. I couldn’t be there as I was committed already and it all came very quickly. He was 100, bless his heart. Last time I saw him he was still keeping the cheer but given to deliberate groaning. The weight of the world was bearing down on him. Good God his friends in the industry were all long gone, he probably stopped acting before I was born. We connected over a mutual love of Shakespeare one Christmas and stayed friends and I’m so sad for the world that he is no longer in it. His family have been kind to me in sad times.

I always hoped and imagined I’d be there to see him off, but at least I did get to see him in his hundredth year and drop off a card. He was right by the Avebury stones, in a place of power. A good place to shuffle off the load and send it all back to the universe. I think this has been affecting my mood though. Tendrils of connection severed. Hopes and dreams coming to their inevitable conclusion as we hurtle through the void.

And so we push on. I don’t think he ever severed ties with his old agent. He just refused every job and every meeting, after a while. There was a possibility he might play Prospero with us at Sprite over twenty years ago. In the end he didn’t, and a bad spirited fellow came in instead, heavy handed with the young female director, better than the job in his mind, unkind with his thwarted ambition, looking to score points and build a hierarchy where he was king. I’m about the age he was then. I’ll never be like him, I trust. Sometimes I hear his name in the credits on the radio and a little bit of me wonders how he’s still working. There’s only so much room for unkindness in this world. But maybe be realised after the fact and the scales fell from his eyes etc.

My friend who went underground today was kind. A true actor, and a brilliant soul… but… in the old fashioned sense he needed to rest. And now he’s “resting” for good. If I knew anyone who was ever ready for it it’d be him, but damn. I’m sad about it. Michael Beint. I salute you.

I think the weight of his passing has been pulling on me these few weeks. Wouldn’t it be lovely to escape this trap of time, to know that all the things we love will remain… But they don’t and they can’t and that’s the thing we’re born into. Borne into. The current of it. And it sweeps us where it sweeps us and we cling to what we cling to and then it’s done and we leave behind what we leave behind and if we have another go we can’t remember this one. Michael has a legacy through his family, through a grandson that took his name, through the friends who loved him – I’ll be having another pint or three with another old lag who worked with him back in the day – we worked out we both knew him at Chalke Festival last summer. We will go out there together again in July. I’m moving into being one of the old ones who are still in the game, and we bloody love them for their resilience and sense of fun. The crucible usually burns away all the shit eventually. And come on… We love it, dammit all. We just love it this thing we are supposed to be doing. Particularly when we get to do it.

“Did you hear John Hurt died? Very sad.”

“Sad? Yes it is. Bugger still owes me 3 and 6 for a train ticket to Elstree in 1965.”

Back on invigilating. Sometimes it’s like herding cats. I didn’t get a lunch break this time but I was ready with a salmon sandwich from pret. Now I’m home and I’ve pushed myself into torpor with half a pack of spaghetti, home made Cacio e Pepe sauce and a huge chunk of grated cheddar. This is likely to be my only invigilating shift for a while so I’m happy they gave me the extra time students as it’s a bit more money, but this lot were really working the angles. I don’t blame them though. If you can stop the clock whenever you want to then do so… Gives you time to think.

It’ll be another varied week this week, I’m looking forward to it, despite quite a lot of learning to be done. I’ve been feeling a little shaky in myself the last few weeks though and that is likely to continue for at least ten days. A movie is coming out. I want to watch it and the credits before I fully understand what I’m dealing with. Man I could really use a job to get lost in right now but they aren’t forthcoming. I’ll have to just keep plugging into the variety of life. The spice of life innit. Etc.

Today though I’ve put myself to bed and it isn’t nine yet. I might read kindle a bit. I was gonna watch The Singing Detective as apparently it is on iPlayer at the moment and I can barely remember it from the first time I watched it, but it was remarkable. I’m not feeling it though. Don’t really want to consume, don’t really want to participate. I kinda just want to sleep tonight. Sad about the usual hope things. It’s the other face on the joy. I’ll be alright. Can’t be hyperactive the whole time now can we?

I hoped I would have time to head to Waterloo Place outside the Athenaum to look at the latest Banksy. A sculpture for a change. And very well placed. And very well judged.

The Times and Telegraph both led with an article that was more about trying to wank into our mouths about the fact there’s a name potentially attachable to the Banksy tag. “Recently outed artist Billy Fucknuts aka Banksy puts new blah blah”. I actively don’t give a fuck what his parents wrote on his birth certificate, seriously. He has preserved his anonymity, and that desire has largely been understood and supported by anyone that gives a fuck about art.

His work tries to get people to think about the things they take for granted. Maybe one kind of ignorance is more triggered by being called out than another. Certainly I’ve noticed that some people with clear political agendas are trying harder than others to downplay his worth as an artist.

We’ve likely all seen it by now. It’s a male looking figure in a suit marching off the edge of the plinth, carrying a flag that has blown in his face obscuring his vision, likely leading to his downfall.

The sculpture has no colour. There’s no plaque telling us the artist’s “intention”. And just because we are constantly being bombarded with bullshit “art” created to serve an agenda does NOT MEAN that actual art does that.

So many people are trying to make the flag into whichever flag they don’t like. “It’s the star of Israel!” “It’s Palestine!” “It’s a George Cross!” “It’s Ukrainian!” “It’s a union!” “It’s a rainbow!”

And here we remember why Banksy is so celebrated. He can read the room and he’s not pointing us one way or the other. The left and the right are both losing their way… so many people are losing their way. If we put the ideology first, we absolutely risk it blinding us, and quickly. And that goes for whichever ideology.

Politics is polarising. And it’s all based on instinct.

Look at the individuals, that helps. Baddies are likely to be standing behind hideous policies. Look at what they are like, their behaviour, the things they’ve said and done. It’s hard really when the media are sqiffing it all – Ed Milliband wasn’t a baddie but he ate a bacon sandwich badly and it got magnified to the extent that we ended up with Brexit. Should eating a bacon sandwich be the decider? Or not being a bacon faced coward equivocator in seething pot of liars?

I remain a royalist. Bite me. We haven’t chosen them. They’ve been reared to it. Thank all that is holy that Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Liz fucking Lettuce – thank the good Gods that they were just our flash in the pan idiot prime ministers, not our heads of state. We would be even more of a laughing stock internationally. Everyone in the world now looks at America through the idiot. “They wanted him”, we think. “Christ what a nation of morons. What a fucking shame they have so many nukes.” Charles survived that shitshow because of history.

So yeah I’ll walk off the plinth with my flag. And you can walk off with yours.

I’m glad the bulk of outlets haven’t been shoving the artist name down our throats. Let Banksy Banksy. Like South Park, he is playing to The Fools Charter – I still stand with it being one of the most relevant bits of Shakespeare to the modern age. It was supposed to be cut from our As You Like It. I reinstated it, but never really felt like any of the others understood why – they just humoured me cos they thought I liked talking: “I must have liberty, withal as large a charter as the wind, to blow on whom I please, for so fools have. And they that are most galléd with my folly, they most must laugh… Invest me with my folly, give me leave to speak my mind and I will through and through cleanse the foul body of the infected world, if they will patiently receive my medicine.”

The best satire, the best art, takes a shot at everyone. It has to. Shakespeare knew it. South Park knows it. Banksy knows it.

I think this piece does that. And it grows every time some idiot tries to tell the internet what it should actually mean, like they are defeating the art by imposing their tiny ideas on it.

Chapeau, Banksy. Particularly now with the fact that there are nasty little people gunning for “actually he’s called Banana Pigpop”. The old Ursula le Guin thing – if we know the true name we can control it…

Banana Pigpop. Billy Fucknuts, you’ll only ever be Banksy to me, and you could tell me you fucking hate me, that’s fine cos that’s what you’re for. You’re running interference, on your own terms, but for US. Proper fucking artist. Idiot journalists waving a possible name for you like it’s a flag in front of your articles. You’ve all become part of the art.

Staying in London, looking to spend time with friends, I managed to get over for a flying visit to Minnie and her family. My regular friends, we used to hang to hang to hang, but life is life and it can be all encompassing. Flying by very briefly just in order to say hello… Every time we do that it makes the next time easier.

There are many old friends I don’t have in my life any more. From time to time I feel the lack of them. Some more than others, perhaps. Minnie and I have always somehow understood the gaps, so I never have concerns about contacting her after a pause. Others have responded with a lecture. “Hi Al, yes I got your message. I think you’ll find that actually my life is now xyz so you can imagine how surprising it is to have you contact us and abc.” I’ve had a few of those lectures over the years. They feel like doors closing. I cope by making light of it. “X has broken friends with me, they won’t sit next to me in chemistry class.” Etc. I think the hardest are the ones who vanish completely. But you can’t keep them all, friends aren’t Pokémon, the landscape will always keep changing.

I’m happy Min and I have kept consistency. I had a very clear dream about her dad the other night. Told him about it today. She’s family as much as anyone is. I was making sure nobody stole his big blue grocery bike.

London is in bank holiday mode. Everyone is out in the sun, booze is being consumed in vast quantities.

I went home after Minnie, stopped at a late night clinic for my doctor, got a referral to have a bastard skin tag taken off that catches in my seatbelt. Now just home, stopping, early bed, might even put fresh sheets on, resisting the call to get fucked ahead of an empty Monday. Happy I got the referral.

“I’ve cut one off myself,” he told me. I might do that to be honest. It’ll be down to how quickly they can refer me to do it with a skin numb and a professional implement. Cos otherwise it’s me and the nail clippers. Maybe we were always heading to that conclusion… Let’s see.

Since the Makita and the Wrecking Bar were both in my car, it made perfect sense to get down to Ditchling and help Lou. This poison estate agent needs to give her her deposit back. Even though the shelves in her unit were perfectly functional, they were chipboard. Nobody wanted them. So it came down to Bergie and I to sling them in time.

The screws were stars but of course I’ve got the attachment. I don’t understand how anyone even slightly handy insists on specifying what head they have on a screw. I had to service a lot of that lazy shit in Paris. Took the screws out, broke the glue, carried them down. It was open house at the workshops so all the rich people who do this for fun were letting equivalent people walk around in their units while we emptied a genuine maker’s unit so some posh girl can come in and fanny around.

I tried to break the boards timed well enough not to disrupt the punters. A bit of work around them probably lent the open day visitors a sense of authenticity to craft that, frankly, was much more “mummy look at me” than “I’ve got this burning thing”. These “artists” are my age largely. The stuff they do is more about them than what they’re making.

We put the broken up mdf into the car and said a last farewell to what was a possible space. “It’s for the best, I think,” I said and genuinely meant it. “You’ll get your deposit back and I’m pretty sure your diary is gonna fill up.” Yes I tend to put a positive slant on things. But as soon as that early twenties Agric College Graduate prat estate agent got the running of the place it was the end of creative truth there. It’ll just be another load of workshops for grown up rich kids to play at being artists. He’ll gradually kill everything he can’t understand. Little turd.

We slung the shelves and went back to Lou’s. She’s working FOH dayjob nightjob at a very cool outdoor summer popup in Brighton. So I took her there. Caravanserai. She’s there as I write, no doubt being patient with fucked people. She’s been part of culture in Brighton for so long that she’s woven into the fabric. There’ll always be someone she knows. The first time I came into town, a guy came by standing on a moving car for a stunt. They exchanged first name hellos. I somehow wasn’t surprised.

We went into the venue together for ten minutes and met someone lovely who is in the costume game like her. They exchanged pleasantries. Now I’m back in London. It’s just gone nine. I really want a quiet night. I’m hayfeverish. I would be snoring and spreading had I stayed at hers, and then I’d cough on her. Better to get this season of hacking coughs out of my body before spending too much time with my beloved. Preserve the mystery?! I don’t want to hack up pollen in her face all night long.

I ran out of petrol in traffic today. Was trying to get into a petrol station and was so so close. Like an idiot though I was running the air con, otherwise I would have made it. Traffic lights and I felt the engine go. Knew exactly what had happened. I had a mattress and a load of wood in the back. Hit the hazards and jumped out, gestured *slitty neck* to the lady behind me. She took the intended meaning.

Then I ran to the garage, grabbed an approved can, filled it up, paid. I was standing filling him up again less than five minutes after he bottomed out on me. Air con burns fuel fast.

Today’s job was grabbing a load of shitty furniture and throwing it away from a top floor flat in Fulham. Client had been getting great big quotes out of van drivers. John and I did it for £100 each and it felt fair. Three loads to the tip. Mattresses are never easy but they just fit in Bergie. The biggest fucker was the sofa as it was well put together. I left John with it and a wrecking bar for an hour while I took a load to the dump and by the time I got back he was sweating like a dog and the arms were off. We got it down the stairs and into the car.

Largely satisfying to do what we set out to do efficiently and at a price that suited everyone. That’s the game. I’m getting better at it.

Feeling pretty relaxed now back at home. Was about to go to sleep unblogged and suddenly remembered, as I was drifting off, hence the dumpstyle here. No time to be clever. I had sleepydrink. I’ll be running around Dreamland in ten minutes I can feel it coming.

That’s the first time I’ve run out for years and it is because I’ve not wanted to fill up at the price of any of the local garages. No choice today, but at least it was under £1.60. Just. It’s madness. But I will insist on driving my big car with an internal combustion engine. Makes days like today possible though, for me and for John…

Today I’ve been quietly PART of the ART.

There’s a woman I absolutely rate. She makes installations. She is brilliant at it. But she isn’t doing it for the usual reasons. She’s got no motive outside of bringing joy to people. But for it to work she needs hits on her whatevergram.

She found me. I found her. We discovered we both have similar priorities. Whatever she makes for me, I’ll inhabit it and own it. Because she’s brilliant. And doing it for the right reasons. And absolutely swamped in her medium by people who are utterly corrupt.

Yesterday we had a bunch of lovely people come, but they were all the CEO or Art Director of this that or the other well known global brand. They were my first people, before I had a clue how things are supposed to run. I’m sure it was fine but I think as soon as anyone gives significance to a wacky experience it dies. C separated two of these CEOs who came in their moment off, telling them they couldn’t have an honest experience together. I dunno. I think when it comes to people like that I can bulk them. “So, what’s this then, what am I supposed to do?” I don’t want that twice, and my interaction isn’t going to be interesting with someone who controls their entire environment so please don’t make me have to do it twice. I wanted to shout that to C when she gave weight to the interaction and twice separated pairs of high status nightmare people. “NO”! I wanted to howl, yesterday. As then I ended up having interactions twice with people who are so boundaried they have no play left. They’ve been dead for decades. This is not for them even if I’m happy that they came.

I’m here to PLAY with people. And this is a pleasant place for such things. But if you send me people who have forgotten play then that’s that. And sadly you don’t get to be a CEO without withering your play almost to extinction. I’ll still look for it. It’s still there. But fuck. Not the Joy I’ve always found. Too much entitlement.

Ah well. All will be well and all will be well.

There’s so much to be found here. But if people can’t, then they won’t.

Here we are once more under The Globe. A new creation tonight to satisfy a different client. It’s a hotchpotch of As You Like It and sonnets with me as a clumsy Orlando and Ffion as a boundaried Rosalind and it has been working well so far. They wanted All The World’s a Stage so that’ll be next as part of a celebratory medley of greatest hits. It can be a bit of a Debbie Downer so we are puffing it up with more energetic stuff, as it’s nice to have it when we are in amongst them. It’s funny how we both still worry but I guess that’s just caring. But it’s going well.

They just fed us a vegan aubergine and melon compote and it was much needed as I forgot lunch today so I was starving. They are generous usually so I reckon we will get mains as well, in our little underground back room with the friendly mices.

I rushed across town to get here. I’ve been next to Westfield helping out with the build on an art installation today. I might be more directly involved and deliberately not saying. It might be something I do reasonably often these days. If you come I might see you there.

It’s an hour’s drive to The Globe so I got in here just in time to get into costume and mic before the guests came in. We are miked down here as it can be a very very tricky room to quiet, especially if they are all hammered. As it happens, this lot are really lovely and attentive. I’ve actually been able to do some NUANCE, God help us all.

Tired though. Happy to have had a good earning day as looking at the coming months it is potentially quite empty. It always fills though, and I’m hoping I’ll be free in August to housesit up in the Peak District for an old friend – watch this space on that. Lots of healthy walking, and maybe I’ll find a local stable.

Round three about to commence. Time to make sure I can remember which order I’m supposed to say these words in. Ooh and they just brought us some chicken. My cup runneth over.

Global phrase trends are getting really annoying and should be addressed dammit. They’re another substitute for original thought. The phrase “rent-free”. This exists rent-free in everyone’s head at the moment. “Low key” is an epidemic on the scale of the “literally” epidemic we had in the noughties.

Accusing people you disagree with of having “low IQ” is another one. This one is because of the bad joke though, and his habit of conflating cognitive tests with IQ tests.

I’ve always found IQ a faulty metric. I can recognise patterns and am reasonably competent mathematically and logically but the final test is usually “do you want to pay for a certificate telling people how clever you are”. I like to think I’ve passed that one by always clicking “absolutely fucking not”. “I’m a member of MENSA” is code for “I’m an idiot but I’ll try and patronise you”.

The tests don’t catch intelligence, intelligence isn’t measurable. Observation, deduction, pattern recognition – you can get a good idea of someone’s brain I suppose. To me I can’t fully compute how anyone would struggle with these things, maybe nobody does, maybe they are designed to blow smoke up everyone’s arse and then take their money. Or maybe there are millions of people who genuinely can’t think beyond their needs.

People who are good with patterns can be catastrophic idiots too. Look at me! Look at the huge colourful world of what we like to call conspiracy theory. The pyramids and the speed of light. Etc etc. So yeah, that phrase “low IQ” can get in the bin. It had no meaning before the idiot started overusing it it and it has less meaning now.

I’m not an angel here. I can be prone to jumping on the phrase bandwagon. “Your mum” jokes are part of my lexicon. “Get in the bin” was overused and I just used it dammit. “Dammit” is a favourite of mine too.

Growing up it was Monty Python. That was one of the only shared cultural things so everyone would just suddenly start saying “Ni” or whatever. God it was annoying. And then they’d wait and look at you like you’re supposed to say “well done” or name the film. And they’d name it if you didn’t, like they were informing you of something new. “He’s not the Messiah he’s a very naughty boy” “this parrot is dead” oh fuck the lot of you. 

I always tried to avoid doing it. At drama school people would bring these things into improv classes and I would never understand why everyone would suddenly fall about laughing about something entirely banal and not at all theirs. Now the delights of internet mean we can share these things like diseases, and I’m culturally more curious now than It was then so if something feels like a touchstone – like the Louis Theroux recently, Lily Allen’s latest, etc – I try to get up to speed just so it doesn’t surprise me. Although I haven’t the patience for talent shows or the bad acting they call “reality tv”.

The craze for noun as verb. “I’m adulting”. “Shall we internet?” I noun-as-verb frequently. I like language and I enjoy playful language but it is also noticeable how quickly playfulness stops being playful when its overdone. And everything is always overdone all the time online. The loudest voices are not the voices with the most merit. We have some morally repugnant characters leading the cultural conversation online. They are sometimes “going viral”. “Go viral”? No meaning anymore. Nowadays millions of people WANT to be Star Wars Kid. No skill but everyone is looking at you. Be careful if someone says they can make something go viral, they’re selling you an NFT. Or is it a tulip? It used to be something negative, now people use it in marketing.

In schools we are now pretty much through 6-7 the spiritual successor to dabbing. Everyone has been “Gaslighting” everyone else for years. No they haven’t actually. And I didn’t say they have been. You’re just making it up. Read this paragraph again. I clearly said “Everyone hasn’t been Gaslighting.” You need to be sectioned.

Unalive. That’s just to get past censors but it’s a horrible word. I dunno there are gonna be loads that I’m not aware of. “So demure, so mindful” apparently… I don’t even know the meme there, just know it IS one. It came up in the R&D the other day.

Oh, and we will have a sharing soon in the west end somewhere tbd. I’ll let you know because fuck it, nice to see some familiar faces afterwards and I really like the crowd I’m with.