AlBarclay

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.

Up in the morning and over to Kingston. I’m trying out a van hire company that have lowloaders. The thing about a standard Luton is that those wheelie wardrobes have to be tilted which is a two man job if one of the men is buff and a three man job if not. A lowloader with a ramp I might be able to do on my own.

Problem is the van hire company take the full insurance excess as a deposit. £850. Plus £120 for a day of rental (which is bordering on extortion anyway). Not for me. I cancelled the whole shebang. Haven’t got enough in the coffers and the guy was a bit of a prick.

Then over to Vic’s to help with the old office move. I’m snatching all the hours I can as she needs it. I got a load dumped and then said goodbye at 2:40pm. “Oh but can you get those filing cabinets up to the office above?” Fuck.

Brian and Maddy had their wedding livestream starting at 2:45. Very restricted access to the ceremony so I couldn’t be there which is why I was working instead. But now I’m spitting as I’m listening to the beginning of the ceremony through my pervert glasses while I’m carrying filing cabinets upstairs for a man I’ve never met before.

Into the car park and onto the road. Brian’s mum reads the wedding sonnet as I’m fighting through the streets of Chelsea. I delivered that sonnet a few months ago to a couple in the Balcony Room with the engagement ring secretly in my hand. To charge it up with love.

In terms of traffic, on my way home, everything is pitched against me, buses cutting in, slow cars blocking me on lights. I’m able to engage in the streamed ceremony as I’m mostly in traffic. All I have to do is be at the Cadogan Arms at 4. It’s barely 3.

Suddenly I realise and understand why the traffic is blocking me like this. I go totally zen about it. I’m gonna drive past the door that they’ll walk out of when they’re married – it’s on my way home. It’s not somewhere you can stop. It’s a busy junction. I find myself thinking “can this be the universe making it so I drive past the door at the very moment they emerge?”

I’m in my blacks and sure enough, thanks to a bus blocking the junction for one turn of the lights, my timing is accidentally impeccable. So I’m laying on my horn as they come out. It was a perfect moment to see them on the steps as the confetti grenades went off. I think they were glad to see me welcoming them into their new grown up life together. I was trying to toot in a celebratory way. I don’t think anyone thought I was tooting them but the bride and groom. My black T-shirt was a happy show that Brian produced that I was involved in breaking.

I went home and got into wedding clothes. Came back out suited with vintage Indian silk waistcoat and a good thick wedding tie with a grey topper. No point owning this stuff if it doesn’t get use. I’m more and more angling towards being that guy who either dresses vintage or in blacks. If only I had the patience. And the shirts.

Brian and Maddy getting married is huge. I’m so proud of them both. Scary stuff, marriage. And she’s the other side of the world from her people. She’ll find her people here, or Brian will find himself a kiwi one day. But I like these two people and I like them together. They are kind, thoughtful careful people.

I couldn’t stay as long as I wanted as I’m having to look after a cat – the owner is working in Wales today on a show.

So I drove down to the peace and quiet before I got tempted with champagne for the speeches and toasts and all the stuff. Too risky to be in a boozy celebration before a two hour drive.

About now I reckon it’ll be speeches. Brian and Maddy are surrounded by good people. He’s done well to plug his heart and his work into London. It’s a hell of a town if you understand it. It shifts quickly but they fit it right now.

Birthday.

I do get bored of people telling me all about their ADHD. It’s so terrifically fashionable these days. Everyone wants a piece of it. And they’ll tell you about it like you’ve never heard of it before.

But yeah. With that one you’ve got me bang to rights BUT I am never gonna lean on it or use it as an excuse because that’s not my vibe. My brother has done the same with a much less manageable braindifferent thing. It would be ego for me to make a fuss of my helpful thing that annoys Lawful aligned people in D&D. It only really annoys that particular demographic. Sure sometimes people have publicly humiliated me in conversation when I’m showing empathy by telling aligned stories. Such people, I’ve learnt, are usually on the psychopath scale and can’t understand why someone would tell a story about themselves if it isn’t to manipulate others. “I had a similar experience that validates your experience” is alien to dead minds. So they attack. Fukkem. Shawly self obsessed baddies.

I am observeing how I can maybe make things easier for myself within the way my personal internal noise works.

The monomania thing. I either have to give a thing my complete focus to the detriment of everything else or I do my honeybee focus which moves from thing to thing semi randomly and never stays on one thing for long. With the mono it is how I get all my performance things done. It is my acting work mode. Focus on my craft and the people in the room with me, don’t wash my clothes. I’m frequently in that mono these days as I’m doing lots of brief corporate performances, well remunerated. “Am I worth it?” I find myself worrying and I am worth it and I know it now but it took ages. The other mode is multifocused and works well for events.

I can make it easier for myself in mono if I don’t worry so much. I never worry in multi I just DO.

Ffion and I keep doing these short jobs. We are very good at them now. Crazily so. We have a ridiculously strong offering. We work hard to prepare, we deliver looking great, we get great feedback and great photos, we have it strong.

But … you’ve seen my mental state leading up to this one simple job. I need to be kinder to myself. Of course I can learn whatever… That’s my job. With my spongebrain I’d be easy on a soap or something with a quick turnaround. The thing I need to do fully is to let myself off the hook about the fact that, craftwise, I’ve got this bullshit tightly sewn up now. Always room to learn, sure. But… you want it, you’ve got it, oh potential employer. And quickly. If the money is right.

We smashed it tonight and I’m conflicted about it but it was an AI company conference so it makes sense that the script was written by AI. Like all the other bubbles it’ll swell before it bursts. And it still has a good few years swell. The issue at the heart of our script tonight is clear: “the machine has promised greatness but given no implementation plan”. Nor will it. Because it is a huge mirror. It just feeds us back to ourselves. It is an incredible tool. It isn’t a replacement. It’s nothing.

The world is good because it’s messy. Our friends work for us because we can’t predict them. We are born of Eris. Hail Eris. Let’s never be too regimented or predictable. That’s how we die as a society.

And I’m off to bed. Misty is very happy to see me.

And they gave me a birthday meal and a birthday plate after work!!

I’m learning another AI script and I believe and hope that this will be the last.

They snuck in.

We were too busy to counter offer it, and AI is instant while human endeavour takes time. I would sooner the future people had nothing and we made no money than that I have to learn any more of this dross. And I’m happy to take the risk of putting myself out of a job over it.

We can still make human scripts and we will and we will pitch them and they will be good. No more of this stuff. No more.

This particular script refers forward: “this will be a call back”. There is then no call back. It suddenly magics envelopes that people care about without giving any reason for them to care. It tells us how the audience is supposed to react. “Big laugh moment” “Powerful pause”. None of this is earned. God it is so bad. It’s almost impossible for me to express what an atrocity it is.

I’m gonna learn this because it’s my job and I said I would. I’ll deliver it with skill and charm and then draw a hard line with the guys who book us. No more AI scripts. Let us bring the pitch and give us the time to do it. Properly.

And they want endless zoom meetings. I’m in rehearsal from next Monday in the day. I’m not gonna jump out to go to a zoom meeting. You work in an office, it’s your job to do that stuff and to make work for other people and yourself to justify your existence – I’m not gonna get swept up in it. You want an entertainment, I’ll make you one and I’ll keep you posted but not every five minutes.

Mel helped me learn the last one – the first AI script I had to learn. She and I will never forget one of the similes. “Like coins of sunlight kept for later birds”. It doesn’t matter what it is referring to – the poem doesn’t know anyway. But … That bad simile is the perfect example of why this stuff just shouldn’t exist.

It sounds okay if we aren’t examining it. We like coins. We like sunlight. We like birds. We even have a notion that the early bird gets worms. What of the later bird? The later bird gets coins of sunlight. “Kept”, not “saved” despite possible alliteration. AI has no jive. Assonance? Aliteration? Rhythm? Nah. Purpose? Nah. It’s reductive.

The work is the art much of the time when you get people involved. This stuff is so empty but… it’s ubiquitous suddenly.

Coins. So… what, shiny spots of sunlight? Kept for the birds that miss the dawn? (The previous line is : “the balance holds what memory has made” btw. I’m not withholding context here it is just nothing).

Nick Kershaw kept the tracker lines for The Riddle. They made no sense but we put sense on them. That’s kinda cute cos it’s human. Ditto Vampire Weekend exists. They just sing words that fit and their band is named after two things we like. They anticipated AI. But they’re full and it is empty. Everything creatively I’ve ever been part of within that tech is empty. Keep it out of art and it’s a useful tool because a lot of sectors just need to get things done and they can be done empty. You just can’t make empty art, it’s noise. Nothing more. A curiosity at best.

Yeah so I’m done learning this stuff if I can help it. It’s not right that people substitute this for other people’s creativity. This isn’t a stand for workers rights, it’s an expression of taste.

Meanwhile I’m going to bed to process my coins of sunlight. The later birds will enjoy them with their nuts of delight.

Oh God it’ll be my birthday when this is published. Happy happy happy. I’ll be forcing rubbish into my head with a plunger and vomiting it back out all day.

This was never going to be a relaxing day by the seaside despite me wanting one. I knew that going in. I was the one who booked the van.

There’s a whole hell of a lot of stuff that Lou has had in storage. The unit is about half an hour from hers and her grace period runs out at the end of the week. It is about to get expensive as storage does. It’s a rip-off as we all know by now, the storage game. Loadsa money so we can all do it later, whatever it is.

We hired a transit van and filled it. Bags and bags of fabric, man vs stairs. Fabric is heavy, kids. Lou was on unload and sort duty and needed to be as some of the stuff wasn’t going up. I was on yo-yo. Thankfully a young Sikh builder working in the block saw our predicament and got stuck in helping. About three quarters of the way through I collapsed into a chair drenched with sweat and panting. My heart rate was through the roof. I thought I was fitter than that but haven’t had a good run of theatre for some time. This is why people join gyms. Lou picked up my shortfall and it all got up up up into the sky palace. All those steps. Over and over.

Lou and I and the Sikh whose name I don’t know. Well done us. Hot sweaty work, yes, but satisfying. “You look exhausted,” said Johnny the Romanian builder, who had been watching us all graft. All I could do is grunt. He did help right at the end though. Unlike the English electrician guy but we knew he wouldn’t. He’s a lazy fucker.

Sweaty and knackered I hit the chair again and reaped the benefit of an almost forgotten morning impulse:

As I was buying my inevitable morning coffee, the chef at the café dumped four plump scotch eggs in a tray into the counter to put on display. “I’ll have one of those for later,” I said, and purchased his comestible at a fair price. This was me at my most inspired.

Reader, I am now that scotch egg.

Most of my inner juices had leaked out through my face and upper on the forever stairs. My tired and hungry molecules absorbed every bit of that meaty eggy delight. This is science, kids. Either I’ve just eaten the best scotch egg in the history of eggs-wrapped-in-spicy-porky- bits, or it came at precisely the right moment. Possibly both.

Oh porky egg, thank you for the power you gave back to me. I needed it.

In an attempt to do something healthier on the way home we stopped at the fish place round the back of Quentin’s gaff and ordered the biggest bream they had and five scallops. The scallops are already in us. I had to decapitate the bream with a bread knife but it is now wrapped in foil and baking away. Samphire and veg and tatties on the boil. Seaside fayre. Ten minutes to fish.

At some point tonight I’ll be that fish. I’ll get into a hot bath and swim around in it until all the aches and pains are loosened.  This is essentially my weekend. I’m glad I get kicks out of doing hard work. Cos that was a schlep.

—

Full of fish. I lay in the bath for ages and I’m pickled. It’s equinox. The nights are getting darker.

Funerals are complicated. Of course they are. We want to celebrate but we want to mourn. We want to see old friends but we want to be mindful of people’s grieving. Austere celebrations. Life contrasted with death.

Today I got up and drove to Hollywood Road in a suit to load a dishwasher into the back of Bergman. Then I drove back up to Harrow on the hill. It’s thirty years since I was at school there but I still yesterday left my rucksack just casually on the right as you walk into Speech Room. It has my diary and keys and many important things inside it. Panic morning calls to school security led to it being found so I drove up to grab it from a lovely security guard: “I saw your show both times! It was great.” Bless.

Since I was on the hill, I stopped at the school outfitters and bought a Rattigan Society Tie. Purple with rats on it. Martin created the society. I was proud of my membership. I put it on immediately.

Then I drove to Canary Wharf and helped some guy called Paul load the dishwasher into the front of his black cab outside the Marriott Hotel. And then I drove to Essex and up a great big long driveway to Sewardstone Crematorium, in what must be an old deer run, to see off Martin in my RatSoc tie.

As you’d expect, there were loads of Old Harrovians there at the funeral. He was an inspirational teacher. There were some familiar faces to me, some familiar faces generally, and some who were both. We were all here to see off an inimitable gentleman, someone who had a big influence on any boy who went from that school into this industry.

He was only 72 or so which isn’t old these days. He was surrounded by his loved ones. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep” on the front of the order of service. His sons both spoke, and did so with wit and eloquence. Louis did All The World’s a Stage as part of his eulogy. We had a medley of songs written by Martin, some thoughtful interludes with pictures – it was all very well balanced.

I stood there surrounded by many people I haven’t seen for thirty years. Then to the wake.

Mr Barron told me off for not having been to church recently. I had a chance to chew the fat and touch base with a few people. Then I got sad and slightly overwhelmed and without the option to disappear into my cups I chose instead to drink too much coffee, get sentimental, and drive myself away before I inadvertently turned into a blubbering wreck in my suit. Also I had a two hour drive.

I’m here now with Lou in the absolute peace and quiet. The journey was hard, my emotional landscape was all over the place. It still is. It was lovely to see people and see the old boy off but death is never nice. This advancing threshing sickle and we are all somewhere in the cornfield watching as it gets closer and closer.

Keep living as brightly as you can, that’s the way. These people like Martin have shone a light for us, and in our turn we shine for others. One friend I met through him texted that she couldn’t stop thinking of the lyric “without a song or a dance what are we?” He shone a lot of light for a lot of people, brought the music for us, helped propel us into positive versions of ourselves. Thank you Martin, for the music. The world is brighter for having had you here. I’m glad you had such a good send off.