AlBarclay

The lockup in Camden now has a lock on it that will most likely withstand nuclear attack. It cost £360. It’s integral to the door and Mister PissyPiss will have to ram-raid us to get in, which he can’t do if his car isn’t working.

Why did I replace the lock? Because the same fucker got in again. I suspected they would though. Mister PissyPiss. I was reasonably careful about what I put in there because of him. And I set a trap for him.

Once again he absolutely trashed it in feverish and haphazard search for GOLD.

I couldn’t assess what had been taken until the cops had dusted it all for prints. Last time, Mel and I spent a day resetting it and making it nice, and even though we isolated all the handled things and handled them only with gloves they refused to come. This time we had to leave it. It had been screwed shut anyway by a concerned neighbour who found it open.

When I discovered it with the bolt cut again I just walked away. I didn’t want to think about what had been taken. It was with a heavy heart that I went back today to find out.

My top hats were in there. One of the fly heads. The costume. The items with sentimental value… All there.

They literally took nothing that I cared about. Phew.

What did they take? Some old dead laptops. Some old dead consoles. Two television sets, one with all wires and remote worth about £40 – £60 on eBay if you’re patient, one that I had picked up off Tite Street with no wires or remote but for an investment of about £30 you would yield about £180. I hadn’t got round to it. The tools that were too shit to take the first time they broke in. An Apollo Tuck folding bike with two flat tyres and no seat. For an investment of between £30 and £80 and quite a lot of time you could yield about £120 – £150. A couple of figurines just over the edge of being crap. And I think they took Staffordshire Prince Albert, a lovely bit of set dressing but you’d struggle to get a tenner. And parian Victoria the same. These were my “later” projects, or they were set dressing. They were things where the work of selling them only just balanced the profit.

Of course they pissed on some of what they couldn’t carry. This guy has likely constructed reasons to hate me so he can justify his hateful behaviour. He didn’t have enough discernment to piss on anything valuable, and didn’t have enough piss to do much damage. Just a faint whiff in some of the old sheets, now thrown away. Whoever nailed it shut forgot about a pigeon that was in there, so there was a dead pigeon by the door but even the necrosis was not too smelly.

And they fell into my cunning trap…

A long time ago when I had the Audi, I filled a green petrol can with diesel to keep in the back in case of emergency. I never used it and I was aware of the danger, as green is for petrol. I put that can right by the door in the lockup where it couldn’t be missed and for good measure I wrote “Petrol” on the side of it with a sharpie. “They might break in again,” I rationalised. “If they do, maybe they’ve got a car…”

Chances are they don’t have a car. But if they do I’ve given them every chance of pouring diesel into the petrol engine.

Intriguingly there were still a few things stealthily in there with real cash value. They passed them through their hands. They didn’t know. I’ve rescued them now.

What a fucker. I hope they find him just because of the piss. If it was merely theft I might be able to marshal my compassion, check my privilege and accept that he was probably desperate even if it was an addiction that had got him there. But he pissed on my stuff out of spite, and a pigeon died because of him. So I hope he sold that diesel to a gang leader with anger issues who then put the stuff into a Maserati and now they’re misfiring and refusing to start, and they are angry and have come looking for Mister Pissypiss. “Try pissing when I’m done with you!”

It’s not set back. I haven’t the energy I had in November to clear up after some total wazzock does that. We made it so nice… What a goitre.

Just a couple of days eventing and my body clock is completely kablooie again. I’ve only got a couple of nights though before I’m gonna have to synchronise with a delightful cat who wants food very early in the morning and won’t be having with any of this unpredictable behaviour. On that basis I guess lying in is permissible.

I’ve been at home with all my home things. It’s been lovely just chilling out, and perhaps more lovely having just had that unexpected work that will help me pay for the sheer expense of living.

People are starting to have in person auditions again now, which is a double edged sword. I started off hating self taping until I chilled out about it and realised that taping allows me to send auditions from a hotel room anywhere. One time back in the day I flew back from a holiday early so as not to miss a casting. Cost me hundreds. The ascent of self tapes now just help to give our lives a bit more flow. I didn’t think twice about taking the event gig in Croatia. It interrupted nothing but social engagements. Acting is still number one priority but I don’t have to be in London full time anymore if things stay like they are now.

I’m still waiting on a job that will give me some much coveted structure for a few months, and it is making me realise how incredibly sporadic and last minute giggish my entire career has been for decades. I’d love the consistency of a long job for a who l wee while – and the community. Some of the people I’ve met through acting are some of the most Incredible hearts in my life.

If I don’t land a good job soon I think I’m gonna start actively looking on things like Mandy just for anything where I’ll be able to work with new people and people a bit younger than me. I wanna stretch. Also I feel it would be nice to just KNOW for a while. Regular in something? Long theatre run? Just a gig with a bit of time attached…

Still got the horseys to think about too. When I’m in Brighton I might try and channel Lou and make plans in that future place rather than just be immediate… There’s too much undone for going with the flow to be helpful.

Bath. Bed. Pack tomorrow. Onwards.

No trains to my place from Gatwick. I wasn’t gonna get mardy about it though as doubtless they have their reasons. This social construct we have made is fragile and involves many moving parts. What were the solutions? Money and Time. “Hi, what are we looking at for a cab to Chelsea?” “About two hours wait. ‘undred fifty pahnds.” Long queues of disgruntled people.

Thankfully I had phoned Tristan. He was waiting in the long stay car park. You get two free hours in there. I got the shuttle over to him and he took me home for half the stated minicab rate, and I got to spend the evening with her.

I have been tired all day though. Can always push through but nice not to have to. After my last blog I found a true hour of oblivion on the ferry back from Vis. Hard floor and the denim bag Lou made me as a perfect pillow. Nothing until sudden awakening again and the knowledge that I had to achieve the airplane.

The weather in Croatia has been perfect and I rather enjoyed being sober at the great big hairy noisy techno party. My brain has Pavlovian responses to such music, and my body interacts almost before I notice. Last night I was at work though. At one point I walked around the fortress in the dark. I felt as I often do then that I was in the right place, between the light and the darkness, belonging fully in neither. I will tend the fire. That’s our job as humans – we keep the fire. This small bright light burning in vast darkness – this is our Promethean charge. I will tend it, feed it, bank it, but I’m also happy to pull away and let others play in the light while I watch the edges of the darkness.

But I’m too tired to try and explain these arbitrary liminal points of identity I’ve learnt to construct to make sense of my needs. We’ve all got them even if it’s just “eew sparkling water,” or “I can’t eat lukewarm food”. I just like to mix being full social with being full recluse. I like being part of the party making but not part of it party fully. Like partystarting in Tower Bridge back in the late nineties in drag. Like my dancing Scrooge. Like so much of what I end up doing. “Here is the place where you can safely play! Have fun. Breathe out. Connect.”

Sleep now though. It’s caught up with me. I’m back in London on my bed. Clean sheets. A cut on my left knee, a burn on my right knee. What’s with my knee karma? A lack of penitence? KNEEL!

Or just sleep. Zzz

For almost two hundred years, this island fortress in the Adriatic was falling to ruin. Technically English territory until recently, it was built by George III’s Navy as a stronghold after the Battle of Vis. Six years after Nelson died, one of his protégés found himself completely outnumbered by a hostile force at this strategically important island. He had three frigates and a post boat. The French had six frigates, a brig, two schooners a xebec and a pair of gunboats. William Hoste was his name . He ran a flag reading “Remember Nelson,” as the engagement began, and he remembered the great admiral full well.

A patient use of an overloaded howitzer swept the deck of the enemy flagship, and general use of very bold and creative seamanship brought about a landslide English victory against very long odds.

In this photo I’m sitting on the ruined wall of the stronghold that the British then erected here shortly afterwards, named Fort George for the king. Rich is working. I thought I might be useful up there but ended up just trying to decide whether or not I suffered from vertigo. I started by walking down it and ended up shuffling on my bum as the perception of my own mortality grew stronger. I very much like being alive.

The fort fell into disuse and disrepair, even though it was always British territory. Only recently it has been rescued. Care is being taken of it. There was a ceremonial return of the soil to Croatia but the venue still has British roots and I’m here because of that. Well … I’m here because of a party. It is remote. You can crank up the beats and nobody will be at the foot of your drive with a noisemeter.

After we had dressed the place, we all mucked in round back to build a custom DJ table for tomorrow. I was mostly spare if I’m honest. I’m getting handier but these guys are off the scale. Rich and Mike built it. Fran painted it. I was just sanding and touching up. My job will be marketing. We’ve decided to call the business “FARM” as it is all of our initials. I’m crucial to that plan, bringing the only vowel. I’m not sure that “Buy the farm” is quite the right tone for our pitch, but I’m seriously impressed with what they whipped up in an overgrown Croatian hillside fortress mostly in the dark. Full disclosure, the business might have been banter. But also, guys if you need a custom DJ Table last minute and you can PAY US LOADS OF MONEY, maybe I can help.

Now it’s ten to eleven and I’m sitting on a wall behind the lighting desk. It’s a little calm place as the DJ pumps out the beats. It’s nice to feel I was part of a team making this happen. “so nice now the world has opened up again eh?” is my night time message from Lou, and God yes those shit shut times feel like a fever dream now. Summer stretches before us. Tonight I’m tired and sitting on the wall in a sweaty T-shirt knowing I’ll barely sleep, but other nights I’ll be in that fray bopping my mind out. This is genuinely one of the best DJ sets I’ve heard for years, made all the better by the fact I was dancing to some of these tunes three days ago in Tanya’s living room. Grow up? Me? Meh. There’s way too much fun to be had.

OH NO AND AT 2AM I’VE JUST DISCOVERED THAT THERE IS A TRAIN STRIKE AND I LAND IN GATWICK AT HALF 3 TOMORROW

The redbull has run out.

3.40 We took it all down. Now we are in the queue for the dawn boat back to the mainland. I might sleep a little in the van. We have woken up the birds in the tree next to us by being noisy and now they and they alone are convinced its dawn. I guess it will be some time. “Shall we go skinny-dipping?” by Fran is not met with vast enthusiasm by anyone else.

I’m on my back on a bench in Vis harbour. Stars still visible but rhododactylos Eos is sneaking over the edges of the hill. I don’t know the ratio, but I’m gonna have to work hard to get the number of dawn I’ve seen to match the number of sunsets. Here’s one more dawn though, swinging the pendulum. I’m gonna lie here and appreciate it and schedule this. Blog out.

I’ve found the summer again. It’s here in Trogir old town near Split.

I’ve been walking down these ancient stone streets. Reach out both hands and you’ll touch both sides.

Clear blue skies above, cool air in all the stone, amplified voices bouncing through the hustle and bustle. The English speakers are mostly in various North American accents, declaiming their uncertain certainties, emphasising with volume not pitch. The people that live here walk in a lope or a shuffle, or they have their little wheels. Over 30 and it’s a Piaggio. Under thirty and it might well be one of those little silent electric scooters, although not in the uneven narrow streets.

It feels pretty relaxed here. Lizards and pigeons scavenge our leavings. Tourist stores try to sell dried up sea sponges in bags, competing with one another for the most egregious Eurofunk soundtrack. I haven’t seen many swifts, but if Dubrovnik is anything to go by they’ll be here somewhere or sometime.

—

My phone rang and I got distracted. I’ve seen a bit of Split now, the high-rises in the centre, the shopping Malls, the inside of Ikea. Moved a few boxes into lovely old buildings with small doors. Then we got on a ferry to Vis. “Dean” is our host tonight and we are all coveting sleep as we know it will be in short supply over the next 48 hours or so. I’m on the sofa-bed in a big room so Fran can get some rest. He’s barely slept the last few nights, was working while I was necking Croatian Degarra last night and was up before me too. He’s next door though and I’m glad I had the foresight to pack my pajamas.

The sun set while we were on the ferry.

I have no idea what this place is like in the light but I’m about to find out as we will be up early. The tourist voices here are British not American…

Good lads I’m working with. Fran is snoring hard through the wall. I’ve told him I can sleep through a blizzard and it’s true – I’m a very light deep sleeper. I think it’s cos I’m mostly in REM apart from the first two hours.

Fran only stopped being a copper recently. To hear him talk it sounds like it’s mostly being a social worker with a hat on these days. Makes sense. There are no social workers left and someone has to pick up the slack. Another reason why he needs his sleep.

Bedtime here for me thoug too. I don’t want to be crap in the morning. Tomorrow will last ages…

So it’s a little warmer here in Split than the arctic winds that were rushing down my back as I waited for the Dart from Luton Parkway to get me to the asshole at Wizzair check-in.

These budget airlines all seem to revel in jumping out at you from behind a bush, shitting in your mouth and stealing your money. I am good enough at obeying the letter of the law in the face of extreme bullshit that I have avoided parking fines in London for over a decade despite being a very frequent driver. Still I got caught by not checking in online for a flight I only knew I was taking yesterday. I went to check in in person. Apparently if you don’t check in online you have to pay £41 for a “manual check in fee”. This is the biggest pile of shit I have ever heard of and makes me 100% know that, given the choice, I will NEVER TOUCH WIZZAIR AGAIN. And this is despite the fee being on someone else. If I was a multimillionaire I would make it known on social media that I would subsidise people to pay more for another airline until they changed that policy or went bust. Ideally the latter. Or I’d just buy them and sink them. This is a policy that punishes people who haven’t forensically read the terms and conditions. It is by its very nature corrupt. And there is no way that my £41 is going anywhere other than the budget of some ultra rich nightmarehuman with all the empathy of my left testicle. Like some of my schoolfriends from the other night.

But fuck that guy. I’m in Croatia despite him and despite the guy at check-in.

This patch of Adriatic Coast was colonised by the Greeks about 2 millennium before the fall of Troy, so things are pretty embedded here by now. I’m in Trogir, which is considered to be a different town from Split even though it’s ten minutes from the airport. I flew out from London Luton Airport which says it’s a London airport even though it’s actually in Siberia. Different countries have a different sense of what a town is.

I arrived here just as service was shutting down, so I’ve got the key to my room but I immediately walked to the local town to try and snag me a meal. I’m starving after all the bullshit from WizzAir.

Coccola Steak House, lads and gentles (and if that announcement takes on I’m holding this blog for coining it as I just realised it’s my elegant solution to what has previously been “ladies and gentlemen and people of indeterminate gender’. We need an announcement that stops a noisy room. The a of lads is too short, but repeated it can be a useful dinner call. Lads lads lads lads lads. lads. … … lads? … and gentles. Welcome to the Annual Wizzair Check-in Staff Award Ceremony, I’m your MC for the evening…” Might not take on in rooms full of stultified old nonces, but…

But now I’m geeking out about after dinner speaking. Sorry. Get on point, Al. It’s because I’m excited at being back in Croatia. Last time I was in this lovely country they were confused to the point of anger for casting a woman as Hamlet. So it stands to reason they do good steak here. Not nuance but good meat. I had some tonight. Nom. I’m fine without the nuance.

The Hamlet cast catering in 2016 was from an Irish pub in Dubrovnik and often involved the Croatia / Ireland interaction offered by good old Irish offal. James Joyce: “Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.” I have aspects of Leopold despite efforts to the contrary and I know that faint tang and I will happily consume it, ideally with a red wine sauce and rice.

I had my first ever taste of tongue in that Irish pub in Dubrovnik. Not that sort of tongue you pervert. Ox tongue. To eat. Huge slabs of it with no veg whatsoever but some peeled sliced boiled potatoes and a powder gravy. I had been curious. The plate went back three quarters full. Awful offal.

Female Hamlet was vegan so the basic menu options were not causing ructions. Tricky. Messy. But … that was a long time ago.

It was a lovely job in a lovely place just while all the idiots in the UK got together to cut their own fingers off and make all such jobs harder forever in exchange for feeling a little less fragile about who they are NOW immune to the fact that generations shift and idioms shift with them. People can be so so small. But when we were all in Croatia, they counted the Brexit votes and realised too late that the small people had activated while the expansive people had been complacent.

I just had an excellent subtly marinated Argentinian rib-eye, medium rare, with a fine local Croatian red. (How dare you call me a ponce!)

They do good wine here in Croatia which doesn’t get exported to the UK. This meal is on my personal budget, not expenses. It was the only open place and I was hungry and I like nice things. I’m making that clear cos my employer and now mate shared a blog by me yesterday and I sometimes forget that this isn’t a diary and that other humans read it.

My Trogir Palace:

See how similar it is to hotel rooms around the world? This could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome. It’s back to the small people. Who is it that first decided that the unimaginative are the right people to listen to when it comes to decor? Yeah, they shout before they know and yeah of course they breed like they’re supposed to and so yeah there are more of them than the colourful. We know this… But we have let their taste lead for so long that its getting grey here. Food and hotels are more and more boring internationally. The same restaurants, the same decor, the same the same. Argentinian or Irish steak. Are there no cows in Croatia?

The right goes on about identity, the left goes on about identity, the weirdies go on about globalism and most of the vocal ones on all sides have hardly ever left home and don’t intend to, have no perspective and really ought to have no voice.

But every one of us risks atrophying. We all have it in us to decide what makes us comfy and what is outside our comfort. We all have it in us to adjust that too. And we all have to be careful.

Let’s all look at things and make our own minds up. Then look at things some more and change our minds again and again. The first time we die is when we entrench in our viewpoint. I’ve met so many temporarily dead people recently, particularly after going to that school reunion. They are thinking, but only with one head. They are mostly dead.

I can happily see all sides of most societal arguments because all sides have a foundation in something. I choose the opinions I hold as paramount. And they are always mutable. Maybe my entrenchment is in the need to be mutable though? I have been an extremist in the past. Those fishfriends reminded me of that. Maybe I will be again..?

But … do we lose everything if everything starts to be the same the same the same? I know I’m in the minority here, but I would be happier if I’d walked into this hotel room to find no TV, wind chimes on the ceiling, a trained lynx taking up half the bed, no air con, and someone called Josip busily teaching ants to dance.

Still, I can see the familiarity and how it is easier to sell. I’m comfy and happy here and I’ll still give 4 or 5 stars if I’m covered in cockroaches and beaten every 5 minutes with birch twigs. Even if I might as well be in Swindon by the decor I’m very grateful to be here and I’m gonna sleep well. Just as soon as I work out how to disarm the fucking Aircon.

Long blog today. Thanks for sticking with me if you did. My brain always goes into overdrive when I start in a new place. If it’s any confort, it’s a sign I’m happy. Enjoy your week.

When I drove to Portsmouth and back today it was like I was in a dream state. Maybe I didn’t drive to Portsmouth at all and while I slept somebody brought a cable, drove me home, and left the thing at the top of my stairs. But that couldn’t explain this picture:

That’s my arm. That’s the cable. That’s a sunset beach, very possibly at Hayling Island near Portsmouth. So perhaps it wasn’t a dream. It’s very hard to tell.

Last night I definitely lay prone awhile. My eyes were closed sometimes. There’s something called sleep though and that definitely didn’t happen. After sleeping a whole day last week it seems now it was time to wake a whole night. When I finally gave up trying, I ordered a sausage roll and a coffee from Gails and attempted to grease and sugar myself into waking. I drove to Camden and saw another birthday friend. Then the road to Portsmouth opened up before me like a dream. At the end of it I got a cable from Richard.

Richard had a hip operation otherwise it would be him going off to Croatia. He’s walking with a crutch and he isn’t allowed to drive until it’s settled. Fun for me! The opportunity to say yes to something as is my endless habit. I’m gonna get paid for this job, I think, but it wasn’t my first question and I’ve told them I’ll take whatever they think is fair. It’s a life-job and it fills a gap perfectly.

What’s the gig?

Well, I’m not sure if I’ll be put to work once I’m out there but there’s likely things to do once I am. It’s mostly to do with the binfire set by Cameron. Brexit. Some equipment is held up in customs. The crucial thing can be flown over by hand so I’m taking it. It’s just an innocuous piece of kit but it’s the bottom of a house of cards. Posting it is too unreliable now we are the idiot-fortress. So I get to see a bit of the Dalmatian Coast that I haven’t seen yet, drop something off and then *plug in* as is my habit. It’s a beautiful part of the world.

Right now though I have to sleep. I don’t know if I’m flying tomorrow or when so I’ll have to be up in time to make sure it isn’t early. This is all delightfully last minute, 100% to my taste, and promising another adventure.

We are talking about music.

I thought I would go home tonight, but then at a birthday lunchtime I inadvertently got carried away and put a little bit too much wine into myself to be able to get back legally or safely with Bergman. Faced with an expensive taxi tonight and then another one in the morning (or buses eek) I succumbed to the offer to tread old pathways and go back to Ham with Tristan and Tanya. The one thing you can guarantee with Tanya is that the soundtrack will be excellent. She’s teaching pilates in the daytime, but by night she has had an amateur enthusiasm in all things dance music related for decades now. Even at university, her room was the place to go when the club closed. So we are gathered here with wine and talk and bouncy music and large glasses of water and I realised that it is pushing towards half eleven and if I don’t write this soon it might be an incomprehensible mess and you’ve had a few rushed ones lately, oh constant reader.

It has been Tristan’s birthday all day. We ran his star chart and he’s Gemini sun, Gemini in mercury and Gemini rising. It means nothing at all but it’s interesting to try to make these things apply. I have always been curious about astrology, just as I’m curious about everything that exists in the realm of faith and belief. Often if used as a tool these things can help us make sense of an otherwise arbitrary and often quite painful existence. Perhaps it’s comforting to be able to offload blame for things not working out how we might have planned it. Although the big man himself – not God, Shakespeare – reminds us more than once that “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves that we are underlings”.

Here staying over at T&Ts place unexpectedly, I thankfully have my own toothbrush here. This is not the first time this has happened. Apart from that all I’ve got is what I’m wearing and a copy of Julius Caesar, from which that quote is taken. I take that book with me everywhere and mumble to myself as I’m driving. This is gonna be my jam for the next while. Learning as much of that play as possible so I can keep being useful to the latest roughshod experiment by The Factory, who have glued me together for a decade now and more. I like the Roman plays. They go deep into human motivation and politics, and they are far enough removed in time that Will could make whoever he wanted say or do whatever he wanted without fear of upsetting their great grandchild as with some of the histories. He must’ve struggled with the histories like the writers of The Crown. But the Romans? Open season.

But while I write, the bass is getting crunchier and even though I’m talking to you I should probably be in the room I’m in. After all, it’s still just Tristan’s birthday… It’s nice having photos back but now I’ve got to remember to take the damn things.

The only person I spoke to today was the Waitrose delivery man. He rang the doorbell with two punnets of whatever the heck I thought I needed, mostly involving crumpets. No bag of course in the new bag free world. I made him walk up the interior stairs which is an assault course. Boxes of drinks. Crates of wine. Tiles. Screens. Pictures. A fly head. A chunk of mdf. Flip chart paper. It is still possible to get in and out the door but it helps if you’re an acrobat. He came up and stood at the top and I grabbed all the stuff and put it on the floor. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tip him but I didn’t. He probably hates me now.

It’s amazing how you can pay someone to do your shopping so easily these days. At least I’m stocked up now. Much more up to date with admin too, and I finally fixed the thing where WordPress wouldn’t let me post pictures. All I had to do was delete the app and reinstall it.

Just a few days ago we were on the top of Symonds Yat enjoying the colour of an early summer. I couldn’t have walked up there today. My body wanted none of it. Just a sleep. That’s all she wrote. I have spent most of the day in pleasant torpor. Interrupted really only for dinner and for various scattergun bursts of admin. Then I got in the bath and stayed there until it got cold. And now, somehow, is twenty past eleven and I’ve got missed calls all over my phone and I am not even sure I remember how talking works so I think I’ll probably just go back to sleep and find out tomorrow.

Ah the joy of a proper weekend. And Monday too! All this guiltless time stretched out before us and it isn’t cold. I might have to go be sociable again tomorrow but I’ve very much enjoyed a day of saying no to everything. And hopefully my invoices will turn around quickly and I’ll have a wee bit of cash. That’s the advantage of working lots. You get paid.

It’s finally here, that thing I’ve been waiting for so impatiently. The heat. We will still carry coats in our bags for a week or two just as we have been conditioned to expect the worst, but right now there’s the light and the heat and it’s a lovely thing and I’m glad of it.

Even though I’ve been waiting for it for ages, I barely went out in it. Admin, fixed a light and rested. A long happy lie in in the morning. It’s been pretty full on recently – doing interesting things but doing them lots. A little voice is waiting for the phone to ring about a job, but now it’s the weekend so I can try to forget about it.

I haven’t really been keeping up with the news while I’ve been rushing around, and looking at the state of it I’m kinda glad of it. I had the radio on in the background. There’s never anything heartening. Just a parade of lies and opinions and nastiness. Seems it’s all the children’s presenters right now. Rolf Harris dead and we all hate him now and Schofield is going down the same hole suddenly. I switched over to Radio 3 and listened to calming classical music.

Rest. There’s a mountain of admin but I was mostly disinclined to start climbing it today so I prioritised doing very little. Sometimes “nothing” is the right thing to do. Peaceful flat now with no fish tank. London though so outside the window all the drunk people are walking home. I hear flashes of their singing or their heated conversations and I’m glad as there was a long period when all that sort of companionship just stopped. Two summers we lost. The only comfort is that if the next one is a true plague we are slightly better equipped to understand it.

Much to do, but doing nothing can perhaps be excused if we think of it like winding back the spring. Now it’s a long weekend and I’m gonna see friends in it and soak up the sun, send a few invoices and do a bit of maths, but mostly I’m inclined to just be for a bit. I’ve been back at my butsudan chanting, which is usually a good sign. Tina Turner’s death got me thinking about the old Buddhist society again. I saw a photo of her chanting and her butsudan looked just like mine. It’s been a comforting practice for me. I just got put off by all the zoom meetings.

Thoughts in no particular order today but that’s been my day. No structure, pottering with occasional stops to fix things or make a big order on my credit card at Waitrose online. Streets and shops are crowded round here because of the flower show. I don’t think I’ll be going.