Month: April 2019

And here comes summer again, although my city is full of people calmly gluing themselves to things in order to remind us that the climate isn’t really doing what it should and that it’s entirely our fault. I’ve been getting on with the business of listing things on eBay – (better for the world having a second hand mug than a new one!) Firstly I had to try to make some sort of order out of the chaos. I have more boxes I’m going to have to bring into the house and I’ve not been very ordered yet with the ones that are already here.

The current plan is to consign silverware and the endless busts – oh there are so many busts – to the attic until porcelain is done. It’s easier to clean smoke damage from porcelain for starters, and I had to choose a category. Here are some of the mugs, on the table, ready for listing. I couldn’t have a dinner party right now but I could manage one hell of a tea party if there was anywhere to stand.

I had no idea it was a bank holiday until Brian didn’t go to work. I thought maybe he was sick. Then another friend of mine who is about to launch a multi million pound start up showed up for lunch and I realised when we got to pop-Brixton that there was definitely something bank-holiday-ish going on when it was completely rammerjammered and loads of people were having lunchtime beers. I had a mini raclette and moaned about the fact the post office was closed. Then he showed me his amazing new pad with a view of Buckingham Palace. He’s killing it right now.

Work today, such as it is, was walking around Battersea Park with a statuesque Welsh beauty, repeatedly talking through the same three short scenes from Shakespeare, occasionally swearing and occasionally laughing. We will have to perform the scenes at 8 in the morning on Tuesday to a load of hungover delegates, so it’s good to get them drilled. Hungover delegates can smell hesitation. You can’t drop the ball. It was a lovely few hours, and I’m feeling more confident about it all now. The two of us have worked together so much on random things like this that we’ve refined a kind of shorthand. But we both know that these new scenes are harder to retain than the usual fayre – and one of them is in French…

I got back home anxious to get some decent box arrangement done before it got too late, only to find a triumphant Brian having built the flatpack IKEA television stand we bought last week and have been procrastinating about ever since. It took three days for me to get it up from the van, and it’s been halfway up the stairwell since then. Now at last the thing is complete, and we no longer have a television balanced on a pair of chairs! No time to watch tv though.

After sorting through impossible quantities of plates I settled down to photographing tons of minute little pieces of vintage crested china by WH Goss – made to be collectible. There are some pretty bits. But there’s SO MUCH stuff in my flat. It is all going on eBay. I just need to get more efficient at listing…

It’s five to eleven. I’ve stopped on the way home, to see a friend. It’s the first stop I’ve had for 48 hours. Every second of every day has been accounted for, dictated by a checklist. It did have “phone calls and gather energy” written in for 9.30am today, which is barely work. But mostly my list has been a hard taskmaster.

I’ve basically written a phrasebook in two days, whilst hauling around a load of props and wood and cramming Shakespeare learning in any (too few) gaps. I submitted the completed piece half an hour ago, from Holloway Road. The van is heavy with timber that Lyndon hasn’t thought about where to put. Now I’ve stopped for a second I’ve sent him a message telling him I can’t keep his timber indefinitely. It’s not going to be my van much longer. Anyway I’m going to have a healing non alcoholic beer with a dear friend.

Tomorrow the plan was to go to Cambridge, grab a load of rubbish, go to the dump, and get the van empty in time for storage evacuation. Now the van is full of Lyndon’s sodding wood. I haven’t the space in my head to think about logistics right now. “Hugh Hefner had his horse here? How horrible.” That’s my head right now. Ridiculous phrases examining different aspects of the Standard English accent. For accent softening purposes. Here’s my friend and her brilliant dyslexic notes scattered on tracing paper as we worked this evening on piecing everything together into something that could be recorded.

That was my final part of the list. “18:10 – back to S. Work until ???! then drive home knackered.”

Around the world, frowning in concentration, perhaps unaware of how ridiculous it is, men and women who want to be better understood in business will be saying things like “I am renowned for shouting at clowns,” and “I can scarcely bear to pay the fare to go to Zaire by air.” Obviously there’s plenty about “bad banking practice” and “monitoring profit and loss” but I had to keep myself entertained. It’s a relief though, having that particular thought distraction locked down and finished. I’ve got so much to do back in eBay land, corporate Kingdom, audition city and camp tidyflat. But it was very useful to see how I could activate even the five minute wait between arriving on a job and starting the load to get some writing done.

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I’m home now, glad to be back. The drive was considerably longer than I’m used to for the distance. The ULEZ means you pay £14.50 to drive through the congestion charge zone even at night. I was driving from Camden to Chelsea which is normally pretty swift through town at this time. Not anymore unless you’re made of money. To save myself a few quid and God knows how long inputting data on my phone to pay it, I chose to go all the way round the edge, blowing a good five quid in extra diesel and adding about 25 minutes to the drive. Still, that’s a reasonable enough hourly rate in savings, but I feel conflicted about it. We all hate paying for what used to be free. I might have to get used to ULEZ eventually though, as I have sympathy for the cause in the name of which this new tax was raised. But not tonight. Tonight I was like “screw you Saddiq, you’ve made me use more fuel to save money.” I might have to start budgeting for the extra cash in future, as the world is dying. But at least it’s only occasionally that I have that conflict. Uber drivers must be getting squeezed hard with their crap enough hourly rates…

“Ow, I just got cactus in my thumb,” says Madge at half past ten at night in a car park in Peckham. She’s been designing a music video that shot today. I like that people are still shooting music videos. It’s comforting.

This morning I dropped all their stuff off. The director showed up in a brand new shiny white (Enterprise?) Nissan as I was unloading. He was wearing a Hermes scarf on his head. “Is that Hermes?” I asked, flaunting my new found knowledge, but choosing Greek God pronunciation. “I’m sorry?” He responded, despite hearing me clearly. “Is that Hermes?” I ask, this time pretending it’s French. “Ah. Yes,” he says, very slightly posing before his eyes slide off me. Thankfully all I’m doing is dropping off and picking up. The other guys will have to work with this plum all day.

I drove home to write more accent softening phrases. I have to keep restraining myself from writing sweary ones. I’ve pretty much done the lot now.  Many hours, and not particularly fun, but you get your kicks where you can. I got mine by going to Gatsby with an old friend. He’s a theatre producer, and used to run a pub space in Kentish town. I did my last ever ridiculously low paid acting work there – well over a decade ago. That was the job where I finally quit smoking forever, because I was about to spend my last cash on fags instead of on three days worth of food.

It’s also the job where I swore off working for fuck all, or “experience” or any of those shenanigans. I used to have romantic notions about “Apprentice, Journeyman, Master” in terms of craft building and progression, but in reality you’re better off walking into a room chin first and announcing how amazing you are with no basis at all than you are than trying to persuade most of the people holding the purse strings to come and see you in a restoration comedy above a pub. “Oh God no he’s a free actor,” I once heard someone say about a guy I knew who was slogging his guts for the price of a beer in some forsaken church hall in the precise hopes that that precise person would consider him for the precise job they’d just dismissed him for.

So yeah, I stopped that shit. But had I never done it I wouldn’t know George. And now, years later, he might be building something interesting in outdoor spaces for actual money. I wanted him to see Gatsby because it’s my jam and my people. It just gets better and better, and he was using the word immersive. I loved it tonight. It’s still growing, three years into the run. No stagnation with this sort of work. Years of “You know that moment… There’s something not quite landing. How about if we try x” and it’s really showing.  It’s a beautiful strange web, skillfully played and controlled by a surprisingly small group of actors. The only downside is, I bet they’re completely exhausted when it comes down. Hard to activate your daytime when you’re expending that much energy every night. I applaud them though. It just flies out.

I didn’t get to see the end. The call came and I had to get back in the van to pack up at the end of the shoot. Shame. I’d have liked to see how they handle it when the darkness falls, and heard them all sing together.

I got back to Greenwich.

“How was the director?” I asked Madge.

…

No surprises there.

I intend to be in bed by ten. I got home, cracked open a beer, took three sips, felt dizzy and put it down. Right there, that’s my liver telling me enough is enough. Plus I’m just exhausted.

I’ve been beating myself up a bit recently. They say astrologically that six months after your birthday is the worst bit of the year. It certainly feels like I can agree with that. I’ve got all the parent death memories indelibly wound into early spring and Easter, so the world is full of triggers. Plus I’m brilliantly horribly annoyingly wonderfully busy doing gainful things that are not acting. I have had to write a plan for the last two days before I go to bed, hour by hour, and then try to stick to it, and today was successful in that all the things on the list got done in order. But I was wobbly when I got home. Wobbly from not stopping. I’m treating myself to an early bed, shitloads of water to drink and a hot water bottle. But despite the fact I’m trying to relax I keep making work for myself. I’ve just gone down to the van in my dressing gown to make sure it’s properly locked because its full of somebody else’s stuff tonight and I got worried. It was locked. I didn’t need to check.

I took the entire contents of the van up the stairs to my flat this morning, box by heavy box before breakfast. I’m very aware that the boxes are where I left them, unsorted as I had to go off and do ten other things instead.

But I did the things. Just as many things to do tomorrow though, plus finishing the doggerell. But I’m on it. It can all work. And to make bloody certain it does, I’m taking an extreme step. I’m taking booze out of the equation. There’s too much to do. I woke up this morning from nothing to full consciousness, almost as if I’d been dead. I didn’t know who I was for a moment, or where.  An unknown voice was talking outside my third floor window about how bad the bricks are. What need alarm clocks when you can have builders? Disorienting though. I don’t need to be shocked into wakefulness, I don’t need to stagger swearing into the world, and stink so much after lifting boxes that I have to wash myself and change all my clothes before going out. I’ve got lots of shit to do, and the end goal is clear. Headspace and more money. Cutting away the unhelpful chains of the past.

Brian reminded me of what a stubborn bastard I can be. He gave me some much needed perspective on myself. He lives with me every day, and knows better than anyone how much I can put away when I’m dedicated to it. That’s not a nice glass of wine with lunch quantity. That’s “Who the fuck let that guy in here?” quantity.

There’s a lot to do. Lent is almost over. Perfect time for a contrarian to start a lentish type thing… And desire for a nice glass of wine will likely motivate me to crack on with the sorting. And now I’ve written it here…

 

“A little bit of writing.”

That’s what she called, it, my dear old friend from drama school.

18 modules. Translating the contents of her head. “Now we need sentences with the Eeyore sound.” “Eh?” “You know – like fjord. Kia-Ora.” Ok so she didn’t use that one. But she basically needs me to write a book of exercises in less than a week. It all makes sense in her head. But other people have different heads. Even old friends.

She rang me up last night for some help. I didn’t really have the time, what with all the stuff I still have to sort. But she’s a good friend and I’m always there if I can be, particularly at short notice. Plus she was paying. So I did a day. The time flew by. But it was hard to make sense of what she needed from me. And we definitely didn’t have the time. We were halfway through the third module when I said “If there are eight of these we might need another day.” “Eight? There are eighteen.”

About then is when I freaked out.

I don’t like doing things badly. I’d sooner not do it than do it slipshod. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But maybe it’s useful for me to learn to shortcut, otherwise I put off starting things forever because I don’t trust I have time to do them well. After all, I frequently write crap blogs if I’m exhausted. It’s actually good practice for me to let go like this, having to do one every day no matter what. “Oh fuck it that’ll do” is a reasonably unusual pattern of thinking to me. So I keep churning out minimum 500 words a day.

Now I’m going home with a list of vowels and dipthongs, and while I’m sorting porcelain on the floor of my hall I’ll be writing lines utilising my mind and time. All those bloody pat sentences, but new ones. The burglar was searching through Murphy’s dirty shirts when he was disturbed by the girls. The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain. How now brown cow. Air Hair Lair!! Helpfully – (not helpfully) – she likes to give them a little poem to practice with at the end of the session using all the sounds. Sergeant Marwood charmed the clerk to teach dressage in Richmond Park. George Warne sorts porn, his daughter caught him, he’s forlorn. Doggerell.

I’ve got about twenty boxes of porcelain to sort, a van to plan to return, three weird scenes to glean, better then ten letters to send, an urn of kernels to burn for the colonel, a cargo of yaargh to aargh gaaargh aaaaaaa fllargh and I’m on a mission to smash an audition. Every second I work for someone else right now is disrespectful of my own needs and desires. I’ve been doing that for so long my stuff is backed up to the point that it has to be looked at now so I can return resurgent in a few months uncluttered by the weight of the years of delaying. My focus right now shouldn’t be someone else’s needs, but mine. But there’s a deadline looming, this is work I’m good at, and my friend needs me – (and she’s paying). So now I’m suddenly Doctor fucking Suess without a story. She’s paying ok for the weight of the cake. But it’s too much to do and my time should be prime. Aargh.

I’m a quick learner. Always have been. But my interest has got to be engaged. I’ve never really been interested in porcelain. Or patriotism. But suddenly I’m starting down the road to being a patriotic porcelain expert. There’s a lot of this stuff. Coronations of various monarchs. Anniversaries. Special occasions. Any opportunity to wave flags really. “Prince Charles is marrying Lady Diana because she is pretty.” Owch.

Looking through it I’m wondering if someone is still churning this stuff out. “Brexit first default celebration date mug” None of this stuff from today has much value, even though it’s all interesting and lots of it’s very old.  Much will be amazing for Christmas Carol. And one or two pieces, if I’m careful not to miss them, will raise enough money to make things worth my time. Problem is, to find these bits, I need to sort it all. And to sort it all I need to fill my house with boxes. And  everything is covered in soot. The house it came from had a major fire. What was saved was thrown into boxes in no particular order. Lots of it is broken. Sets have all been split up and put into different boxes so really I’ve got to sort the lot and clean it and identify it before I start listing anything good because sets are better if I’m selling and you can’t sell stuff covered in soot. Plus I want to find about 160 serviceable low value plates of roughly consistent sizes in order to guarantee two full services for 80 covers so we can run shows with Fable Feast and Christmas Carol etc using our own plates – plates are a big expense to rent and here’s an opportunity to have them for free. Particularly handy if they’re the right era for Scrooge already.

All of this is an opportunity so long as I keep moving. And it’s an opportunity to remember to keep moving as well. Inertia and despair have been my biggest enemies so far in the strange few decades I’ve been experiencing. In this process I can see very clearly the results of movement through this business reflected in my PayPal balance, and in my weekly storage bills shrinking. As I get better I get faster and more adept at choosing my battles, and knowing when to take a load of mid value boxes to charity, or to sell stuff in bulk. It’s a blessing that I’ve got so much space in the flat and that Brian is tolerant of the constantly changing nature of my random. It’s an absolute bastard carrying all these boxes of porcelain up the stairs though. Who the hell has this many plates?! It’s wonderful as we will have choice of what to use. You could feed the five thousand with this stuff. It’s definitely an opportunity if I keep at it.

I reckon at least another month of other people’s plates and clothes before I start to get involved in my own junk and really making room in my flat. But that’s dependent on me not landing some vocational work, which is something I’d never want to depend on…

Today opened with a spot of acting – of sorts. An ongoing immersive puzzle game made by friends of mine. I have to be a slightly mardy golfer and talk to people, give them clues and so on, get them to play some miniature golf. It pays nicely for the time and it’s always a pleasant day. But today the weather wasn’t on my side. By the time my two hours were over I was freezing, despite the cherry blossom that is still bedecking so much of our city in this blessing of a season. The wind was Baltic.

It’s not unpleasant, doing treasurehunty jobs like this, even in the cold. It’s all grist to the immersive skillmill. Sometimes I see friends of mine running “Immersive Theatre Skill Workshops” for money, and I wonder how I’d teach it if I chose to. One way would be to give them something they need to charm people into doing, and maybe a bit of intention, and then to send them into Leicester Square or somewhere busy where people are used to blocking interaction. When I switch on Radio 4 I can almost always tell within moments whether it’s a play or a documentary, just by how people frame their words. When an immersive actor speaks to me with eyes looking inward as they recite learnt material with an expectation of how I will react, I switch off a little. I enjoy the bits in between the audience when drunk lads or cops or bored wanderers or families take a moment to wonder why someone dressed in all the golfing kit is standing on a tiny patch of grass outside Haberdasher’s Hall playing mini golf with absolute sincerity in the freezing cold and leave thinking they’ve met a charming eccentric.

I can always spot the players by how they approach me. And they’re always lovely. Of course they are – they’ve paid money to go on a story puzzle treasure hunt thing on their day off. They’re allies to me for sure, in that they are the people that like to consume the sort of bonkers stuff I like to produce, getting down off the pedestal and communicating and having fun in the world.

Then I went home, where I’ve been consuming something beautifully structured and organised and poised. Season 7 of Game of Thrones – again – so I can remember what’s going on when it all kicks off again tomorrow. I’ve seen it before so I’ve been distracting myself by cleaning porcelain and now by writing this. Turns out some of these mugs I’ve ended up with aren’t permanently damaged by smoke. They’re just stained. White wine vinegar and a toothbrush works wonders. And for more recent pieces, the dishwasher is a risk I’m willing to take. I might be able to do the same with the busts, but I still have a feeling they’ll come in handy for theatre, and most of them are plaster of Paris so cleaning them to sell is work intensive for the value but might happen to some of them if it’s possible.

I’m turning into some sort of antiques dealer. Someone had better give me a formal acting job soon…

I feel tired today. It’s not as if I was crazy busy. Things started with a trip to IKEA. I was taking Ben, whose parents owned a large part of the bonkers Victorian knick-knack hoard that I’m gradually processing. He needed shelves. I refused to take money to drive him, knowing that his parents have initiated this little cottage industry. So he bought me two lovely bottles of wine. But I think it’s the wine – generally – that has led me to feeling so tired. I’ve been keeping busy, but I’ve been hitting the sauce a bit hard this week. I had a business meeting  yesterday afternoon, and the first question the client asked me was “Can I get you a drink?” Of course I said yes. But it was only half five. By the time I got to the theatre to watch the show I was a few pints down…

Right now I’m sitting on the sofa surrounded by fire damaged busts of Victorian dignitaries. I’m building up the reserves to go and hit a Friday night birthday party for a friend of mine who’s in her twenties, while Kitchener and Gladstone and Edward VII and co all glower at me from their plinths. It’ll be a lovely crowd this evening when I get there. But I’m sleepy. I need a moment of letting myself off the hook, which is good timing as it is technically the weekend coming up.

Part of the tiredness problem is likely to be diet. I haven’t eaten very many square meals this week. Snacking on the go, mostly. Lunch was hot dogs, no breakfast, no dinner. I think I’ll treat myself to a nice evening meal tomorrow once I’ve finished work. And then go to bed early. But for now it’s Friday night in London. It doesn’t have the same draw it used to. I’m just imagining shouting over loud music. I’m getting old.

Maybe I should have a shave, spray with stink and see if I can invite some mad fool back to my house full of wine and Victorian patriotism. Although frankly I’d just fall asleep.

There’s a new TV stand in the back of the van now, from IKEA. I’ll need a hand putting it up as moving the telly is a two person job. But hopefully we’ll get it all set up by the end of tomorrow which will allow a bit more room in the flat for me to sort through ceramics. There’s only so long I’m willing to be a part of Steptoe and Son. Once I know what’s here I can box some of it up for theatre use, throw some of it directly to charity / my niece and turn the rest into money via eBay and maybe even an Esty store, although that’s witchcraft at the moment to me. And then restore the balance of the flat, which is still looking tidy despite the huge influx of gubbins. Besides, you never know when duty will call. I might get jetted halfway round the world next week to work on some action movie. Stranger things have happened…

A couple of days ago I realised I was running out of time to see Home, I’m Darling in the West End. It’s produced by Theatre Clwyd, and Liam Evans Ford, who along with Hester Evans made Sprite happen in Yorkshire every summer for a decade. Without any shadow of a doubt the summers I worked there were some of the happiest working summers I’ve had so far. They also helped form the skeleton of my support network within the industry – kind, hardworking people, some of whom have gone on to international stardom, and almost all of whom are still working and caring about their work, and who I can count as friends.

Liam knows how to combine joy and theatre. To make something fun and also thought provoking. To assemble a good team. It was cheeky to ask but relying on our history, Tristan and I – (well, Tristan) – asked if it was possible to get house seats at short notice. Against the odds, considering it won best new comedy at The Olivier’s just the other day, we ended up at the front of The Royal Circle for a whack of cash, but not as big as it might have been. And I was thrilled. Laura Wade wrote it, she of “Posh” fame. Tamara Harvey directed it. It’s part of a new wave of extraordinary and important work coming from Clwyd, which is an incredible arts theatre and complex in Flintshire, Wales – geographically close enough to Liverpool to catch an audience from there if they program well. With remarkable facilities, it has always been able to fly high in the regional theatre scene, and Tamara and Liam are taking it forward and forward. Obviously you know I’m an advocate for the place if you read this regularly as The Factory are there this week being beautiful and experimental while I sort out my storage and prevent myself from haemhorraging money on inertia.

I saw an old friend for lunch. She’s very pregnant. We spoke about why I’ve been single for so long, again, and, again I couldn’t really answer her. I tell myself I don’t know, even as I don’t look for a partner. As I said goodbye she impulsively said “I hope you find someone wonderful.” I felt her sincerity and appreciated it. Then I went to the theatre and watched a brilliant thoughtful comedy about the roles we play by habit and the need we have to constantly examine what we take for granted about ourselves and those around us. Good stories make us think. After the show both Tristan and I were in deep open conversation about the choices that have brought us to where we are today. That’s good theatre, by my book.

Even if where I am today is in a room full of weird porcelain with pictures of famous Victorians. Anything that is post Victoria is no good for Scrooge, but there’s plenty of stuff that will be great for him. The rest I just have to try to think of as energy and move it through my property quickly. I don’t have space to deal in this properly.

 

British Heart Foundation in Streatham took delivery of a whole load of books this morning. A friend of mine is going to get a few boxes of Victorian song books dropped off on the weekend unsorted. I’ve kept a small number of the books I’ve taken in for personal pleasure, irrespective of value. I’ve also listed a tiny amount on Amazon. And about five minutes ago the first of them sold. It went to a dealer- possibly one that I undercut. They messaged me yesterday asking about condition. I said it was great. Now they’ve bought it. Maybe it’s a campaign to fuck over the newbie, and they’ll grump over the condition even though it’s spotless. Or maybe, just through scanning all the books in the boxes and isolating the ones selling for more than £10 I have opened a slow burn goldmine. Time will tell. Nothing I can do but keep listing. It’s The Duchess of Devonshire’s Ball. A personal account of one of the most scandalous parties of the late Victorian era.

I’d have been there. Born in the wrong era.

Instead I went and loaded a bunch more boxes into the van today, out of the incredibly overpriced unit at Big Yellow Self Storage. The best stuff is at the back of the unit I think, but there is plenty to keep my interest in the stuff I hocked in to empty the van, even if the bulk of it is basically crap.

Today was mostly about wading through hideous porcelain cows and useless miniature collectible mini China cannons number 446543 or jugs too small to hold anything number 565334. From my childhood collecting comics I’ve learnt that as soon as someone tells you something is collectible, that’s when it isn’t. Edition 1 of every comic released when I was growing up is valueless, even though it had twelve different covers and some of them were holograms and you got the guy who did the art to sign it at a convention. It’s the unexpected ones that hold their value. Issue 12 is the first appearance of someone who became  important and the print run was significantly smaller, so it’s got value.

Some people started churning out porcelain in the early 1900’s and made it all look lovelynice but it’s neither valuable nor useful nor particularly attractive. It’s made to be collected by people who once had a valuable bit of china. It’s a cynical industry in many ways, and we see it across the board. By the time word has got around that something is collectible, the market had responded by mass producing that thing to meet the demand of all the people suddenly hoarding that thing in the belief it’ll appreciate in value. Occasionally there’s a fuck up at the plant and something is done weird and that adds value to an otherwise mundane item, but mostly, if it’s presented as collectible, it loses half or more of its value as soon as you buy it.

I’m going through a load of old tut right now. I’ve been thinking about that phrase, in this context. 1922, at the height of the Egyptology craze, they found Tutankhamen and Carter and Carnarvon died – THE CURSE. But the usual network of parasites would have snagged onto public interest in Egyptian artefacts and everybody would’ve been buying goldie looking scarabs from whitie looking Arabs insisting they were taken from the sand around King Tut’s tomb in an accent that touched Egypt by way of Wales. But people would’ve bought that piece of Old Tut, and it would have shrunk to a 24th of its value as soon as it left the hand of the salesman.

Old Tut. But at least, for the moment, my Victorian book has sold, even to a dealer. I’ll name and shame if they turn out to be fucking with me. That’s a small power I have with this blog. But maybe I should trust more.