Month: November 2022

Sad to be leaving Majorca so soon, but other adventures await. Lou and I were told to board in Alcudia two hours minimum before departure which turned out to be a totally OCD request by Cheapferry. We arrived at 11 for a 1pm ferry to Barcelona, and were the first people there including the staff. So we went to get coffee and stock up on snacks.

Now we are rolling along somewhere in the expanse of the Balearic Sea, heading northwards back to Barcelona where an army of park-cops might be waiting to clap me in irons for my public display of total indifference to the rules last time I was there, less than a week ago. My how time flies.

If we can evade them, we sleep tonight in Girona and then ever northwards back into and through France and deeper back up to the sleet and winter and neurosis.

The ferry is pretty empty, and the staff are being relaxed about partitions. Our ticket is steerage, but we are both sprawled out in one of the lounges and nobody has said a thing. Smooth water and not too windy so I reckon we will get into port way ahead of schedule. Then just an hour or so of driving, which will be a good reminder to get back in the zone. I’ve been so laid back I’m nearly falling over.

A trip like this really leads me to wonder why the hell I still live in England. Not just the parade of clowns and thieves in parliament but the utter blithering idiocy of the majority of the humans. Checking in on Easy Jet, Lou witnessed a member of staff go up and down the queue testing everybody’s hand bags and charging them extra if it didn’t quite fit in the special box. That’s England. Pinching from the pinched. Now I’m heading back from Majorca sitting in the lounge, and nobody else in the lounge is actively disapproving of our presence, just as nobody is checking our tickets. It’s a whole society upside down over there where the ones with everything get away with everything and the less you have the more you pay. I don’t like it. Plus the weather is shit and we are constantly trying to isolate ourselves, and there’s no faith but money or celebrity. It’s comforting how little trouble I had at the border getting the hell out. But … I’m still fed up of the place.

Heading back to it though. For a day. At least I’ve got international work potentially for a while now going forwards. My contract is in. I’ve filled in my accreditation. Uruguay might be something of an adventure.

Gotta get back to blighty first though…

—

Girona is amazing and I can’t believe we are just flying through. Might have to catch some of the ancient place tomorrow bright and early…

Deia. We are up in the hills. I checked out of my busy room in Port Soller and drove into Palma. Yesterday I had dropped off all my freight so Bergman was light and I have rear vision once more. Lou flew in to meet me. She’ll be shotgun for the drive home which will make it easier. On the way up I had a table in the passenger seat which wasn’t great conversation but didn’t object to me listening to Joseph Campbell droning on about comparative mythology all the hours that God made (or that we made but are we God but what is we?)

She has booked a little hotel on a hillside in peaceful mountainous Deia, where all the terribly rich folk live their happy lives. We caught the end of the day down in a little cove with a seagull, a load of teenage stoners and a slightly disgruntled duck that appears to think it’s a seagull.

Water on feet and sinking into the peace here before the long road rolls out ahead of us back to good old blighty. I’ve relaxed so much I can barely stand up in the evenings. I’ll likely stay in this state as long as I can because it’s gonna be full on again in Uruguay and no days off. Taurus full moon and an eclipse this morning. Grounding before it all goes galloping forwards.

Company is pleasant after a few days solo, but I’m having to remember how to make conversation. Lou and I will be stuck in Bergman for 1000 miles. Right now she’s beside me in this lovely wood panelled room as I get this writing written so I can slide off to deep slumber. The balcony is open, but I saw lots of bats at dusk so hopefully the mosquito count will be low, even if summer is holding on here in the Balearics. I could live here in winter if it’s always like this. A happy break. Not a holiday. But a happy break nonetheless.

There’s a fairytale castle for sale in Port Soller for 2.8 million euro… A snip if I could only win that damn lottery. For now I’m gonna enjoy this warm comfy hotel room and see where my dreams take me tonight. The scent of woodsmoke is coming in from the open balcony. Murmuring voices on the wind. Patches of light. A faint breeze. Bright moonlight. Cicadas.

In the centre of Palma there is a little corridor flanked by two pairs of Sphinx on each side. I spent a long time trying to establish which gateway I wanted to pass through. I chose this one in this direction.

As is often the case with gateways, we pass through them all the time and often without even knowing we are passing through. People were milling back and forth constantly. I couldn’t pass in any way but mindfully. Maybe I’m too old fashioned. But I notice gateways.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” This is a Rumi quote that shows up on Alice Instone’s incredible tarot – she just ran with whichever major arcana excited her and then bulked the rest up with new names for minor. “The Gate” is one of her cards. When I first encountered it, it was hard to fathom. Now I get how it fits in a reading. What the symbol is. I saw two Sphinx gates today, one either side of a pedestrian zone. I chose to walk between just one pair of Sphinx. Towards the light, but with the clear knowledge that it was late afternoon light. The guardians didn’t stop me. I didn’t have to answer any riddles. And who knows what it meant, but with Rumi I long went to that field. That was a portal. I just didn’t attach value to it.

I’ve been paid now for the job that took me here, and paranoid me just looked at what it cost vs what I got. I was convinced I’d fucked myself. As it is, I was cheap but actually I was fair and everybody wins. Likely I’ll be back here in January.

Dad and I used to drive to St Moritz together at the start of the school holidays. We would carry all the things we wanted for the flat on Via Aruons. He’d do the bob and eventually after many years Max and I would go and do the Cresta. I miss that flat. I miss being able to come and do the Cresta. Nowadays I’d be fucked, as I got incredible times as a teenager and now I don’t have the access to top grade toboggans and I gave my kit to the club. My helmet was mostly destroyed by an actor friend of mine demonstrating that it had no projective capacity while I tried to intimate to him that nobody gave a fuck about safety if there was a few hundredths of a second in it.

I loved those long drives though. Dad trying to be paternal. This glorious socially bent older male. He was never a father. He didn’t know how. I was the last of his brood and he had stopped caring. He was a friend. He was cooler than anybody my limited experience could connect me to. His mates were and are still deeply interesting and weird and brilliant. Me being unruffled in the world of motor racing makes sense if you knew dad. I’ve found my compromise, where I can honour the parental pressure and be myself too. Extreme-E. I’ll be off to Uruguay very very soon …

Night time again outside my window. The main drag of Port de Sóller is quieter now. Just the chirring of cicadas and the occasional loud voice. Also the distant sound of someone across the bay hitting something in his boat with a hammer, and the bells of the boats in the bay as the tide rolls them. Yo the hill a bit a clock strikes the three quarters.

I enjoyed not caring for a day. It felt like a holiday. I leave my Google Maps timeline on, so I (and Bill Gates) can view where I’ve been. It is as fascinating as it is horrifying. I remember scrolling through it once a while ago and noticing how few days there were without good long tracks of movement. Today will be one of those trackless days. A little walk up the bay, a little walk back down.

My car is parked well in a place where parking is hard to find. Rather than risk being unable to park it as well again, I thought I’d just leave it there and stay here until I’ve unloaded tomorrow at 11. Also I just didn’t want to be part of the struggle today. I wanted to do what I did: To sleep until I wake. To let other people cook for me. To rest. To disconnect.

The road was long and I’m gonna have to go back the way I came. I haven’t stopped properly for longer than I can remember. Crazy silly things but they still take focus. God I don’t know how you do it with kids. I discovered last night that I was exhausted. I’ve had a cold the last week on top of everything else and that was just my body saying ‘no more”. I am on full recharge mode. Apparently breakfast is included with the room, but I slept through it this morning. That’ll start to come into play from now on.

A room with a balcony was the best idea for me in this state. I could just sit in my tracksuit and watch the world do the world thing. Sunday. It’s allowed.

“This is the à la carte, sir. But if you like, today we have the mushroom menu. It is with local mushrooms from the chef. It starts with…”

“I’ll have the mushroom menu.”

“… a mushroom soup with local meatballs. Then salmon with local mushrooms duxelles…”

“I’ll have the mushroom menu please.”

“… and then a burger… You’ll have the mushroom menu?”

“Yes please. I will have the mushroom menu.”

Majorca. A seaside resort. I am staying in Hotel Miramar in Port Soller. If you were wondering where summer had got to, it’s hanging out here with me.

No need to rent a car. Bergman and I are having this adventure together.

The ferry was late to depart, which I was thrilled about. I was in a cabin. It was due in at 6am but it was closer to 7 by the time I was woken up by shouting. The ferry goes on to Ibiza and then all the way to Tangiers. I don’t think Bergman and I are quite ready to hit the roads of North Africa. For that I’ll need better mechanical aptitude. I woke and dressed fast, but thankfully I was in plenty of time to be disgorged into Palma with the dawn.

I couldn’t check in until 2 so I explored the streets of Palma, half zombie, craving coffee. Big stone. Another island. There’s something of the Jersey here again. I even saw a Jersey car. Morning light and lack of crowds found me admiring the architecture. A surreal moment when I saw a horse drawn carriage bearing down on me and knew what people had felt for so many years before cars : that thing isn’t stopping. If I don’t get out of the way this will be messy.

Down to the Parc del Mar, and more sunny wandering. I’m overdressed now. Three days drive and an overnight ferry to summer. The modern world is astonishing. I strolled, half shellshocked and half emotional through warm streets. Big shadows.

Eventually I get as far as Port Soller, and I’m running out of gas. I find good parking for Bergman and then I’m just spent. I check in. They give me a cavernous room. I’m here for 3 days… I just about have the energy to ask if there’s a smaller one with, perhaps, a balcony… I go from this:

To this:

I walked into the above room, took all my clothes off, showered and fell asleep in the middle of the day for a clean hour, alert to the noises of the bustle outside but dreaming mad dreams and drooling into my pillow like a happy St Bernard.

Normally in a new place I have a fire under me to explore EVERYTHING. But I’ll be in Uruguay in a week working. I can do all the energetic stuff when it’s my job to know where things are. For now, I’m gonna chill. I went as far as “Balear”, the restaurant where today’s blog started. Now I’m back in bed. It’s not 8 yet. I believe I’m gonna take it easy tomorrow as well. I doubt this will be the only time in my life I’m on this island. They virtually pay you to fly here. I’m gonna take it easy.

In Barcelona, I’m sitting at the front of the queue for my ferry to Majorca. The ferry is operated by Trasmed. I booked it through cheapferry, and through trial and error I can guarantee you that it was the most useful website for planning this trip. None of the other ferry companies let you see the timetables, so you have to proceed as if you want to book a ticket before they give you a limited overview of the sailing times. That website allowed me to project forward into an itinerary. Worth adding though that the Google maps pin they give you will send you to the centre of Barcelona. Not helpful. You’ll need to use your cunning to find the Trasmed departure point, hidden as it is in a maze of badly signposted one way systems and angry cars. It took me nearly an hour.

Nevertheless it looks like I’m almost in a place where I can chill the fuck out. Finally. I was bombarded by ear mosquitoes all night last night, then woke before dawn to record my self tape. Pro-tip: Open Camera lets you film yourself while playing WhatsApp audio in the background, so long as you start the audio before you start the filming.

Once it was sent, I drove through sunshine to Barcelona. I even had to turn the Aircon from full heat to full cold. Beating low angle sun. A memory of warmth.

Spain only recently stopped being really freaked out about COVID. They had a pretty rough ride at the start, I think. Now it’s open but they are still recovering their confidence. I went to see Park Guell. It’s a park. It’s outdoors.

I parked in an expensive underground car park cos furniture. Then I walked to Guell only to be told that the park has sold out. Too many people in the park. Computer says no. Damn and I was only in town for two hours plus I’d already paid for the car park…

“Just sneak in,” says Lou. She’s right. I look at the footprint on Google maps and follow the line around the edge until I find a gate left open by a construction crew that might lead to the edge of the park. I walk in with confidence, striding quickly past chickens in coops and people’s front doors, tracking steps upwards ever upwards with false purpose until I hit a gate. It’s locked. It’s about fifteen foot tall but there’s a ten foot wall next to it. I clamber up and it is right by the guard post for the entrance. Silently I pull myself up, controlling my breath and using stomach muscles. I wait as somebody passes and then manage to drop over, catlike, behind him. He doesn’t turn round, despite it being a pretty pregnant cat. I immediately get my phone out and attempt to look like I was always there.

It takes me about five minutes to work out that I’m STILL on the wrong side of the barrier. Fuck it. Idiot. Damn.

I climb up and inspect the fence proper. Lots of piles with gaps too small for a head.

I walk along the wall, testing how well driven they all are as if I can lift one for a moment I can get through. They are, of course, all well driven. I’m not gonna be defeated by a closed park dammit. A park? Sold out? Come on.

I spot a big group. Six Spaniards striding with confidence to the entrance. I match their pace and body language and they march straight past the guard, but she chases the leader. Much talking in Spanish and he gets his phone out. I stand, hands on my hips, scowling with his friends as she looks at his phone. Nobody from his group clocks that I’m matching them, I’m positioned well. She beeps six QR codes. He thanks her and our group of seven starts to move before *damn* I watch her finger go counting. She shouts again. We stop again. I remain standing as they establish I’m not part of their group. I smile roguishly. I leave. They go in. If I spoke Spanish I might have observed mildly that she could easily have overlooked me on that one. It’s not like I was trying to avoid paying the ten euros, although that would have been a side effect. I just object to a closed park.

More climbing takes me up the sheer side of a building backing onto the highest point of the park, and there I find a fence that has been bent by previous villains. It’s a foothold. To gain entry I will have to use it to get both my hands on top of a stone column and then koala myself up. I check my pockets as this is car key lost forever territory, not to mention what happens if I slip. I try to time it well but I’m gonna be looked at however I play it so I go for it in plain sight and everybody just laughs as I haul my bodyweight over it like a seal climbing a ladder and I’M IN.

I land inside and again pretend immediate nonchalance even though it’s blindingly obvious I’ve just jumped the fence. Time to explore this strange park.

It is only on leaving that my whole plan almost falls flat. They are checking tickets on exit??!! How do I escape? I switch my phone off, and shift the cover so the buttons don’t push. Sad face. Pushy button. “Too many photos. No battery.” *Winning smile*

They don’t send me to touristprison.

Howling wind and rain. Bucketing down. Exhausting. I hit the road in the morning and started to eat up the miles from Chartres through Orleans and Limoges and down towards Toulouse. Turns out the cheap place I booked in Toulouse has no parking and is in some sort of draconian low emission zone. I cancelled it. Too much extra expense and hassle and I can’t leave this full car on the street full of antique furniture – not that there’s a market for this stuff anymore. Nobody’s gonna run off with it, but they might trash it while establishing that.

It was all happening on the road today. I had to concentrate and I didn’t want to as I was trying to learn my lines for a 48 hour turnaround self tape. I had a very bushy beard. It’s a sea captain. I phone my agent, and get the associate. “Sea captains have beards, right?” I say to him. “It’s says an elegant man on the brief,” he responds. He then pantomimes checking he sent me the brief properly in order to highlight that I hadn’t read it. I restrain myself from saying I only skimmed it because I’m spending pretty much every waking hour driving through rainstorms from the wrong side of the car.

Another thing goes on my list. “Find way to remove beard.”

I book a new room for the night in Montauban over morning coffee with the ubiquitous uht milk. I cram lines until lunch which involves a Croque Monsieur and a hasty visit to the hypermarket to buy a clip-on tripod with USB light and a cheap clipper set. They can both come with me to Uruguay and they’ll go in the travel plug place at home so I can find them. Useful to have. I also get a jumper and shirt from the clothes section. I’ve got no suit, but sea captain elegant might be jumper and shirt, and the guy I’m playing is a Frenchman which is interesting energetically considering where I am. I might as well look French.

By the time I get to digs I’m just wrung out though and they’ve double booked and it’s a very talkative granny running it and I honestly am too tired for smalltalk in French but that’s where we’re going and they have another room with a shared bathroom and I haven’t the energy to object or think about price plus I think I’m going to be in conversation all night and they are relieved that I speak French and I’m wishing I had pretended not to until I realise I haven’t packed a wet shave razor and the clippers won’t make me elegant and I have to go to the shop and that’s my excuse.

I go to the shop and then get a cassoulet and a mini baked camembert and a moment to talk to Lou. Then back to lines. I like 3 sleeps to learn. I’ve had one. Back to the hotel and the words are swimming. I grab a mirror off the wall and go put my headlights on and I shave the beard in the driveway in the light of my headlights. For the birds and for the fact that I don’t want to clean the bathroom. Then back in and wetshave the rest. Neaten up the burns. Oh God I’m tired.

I’ve managed to persuade a friend to record the other part on WhatsApp. Hooray! I set up my new mini studio, sit on a desk, and realise that my camera won’t let me play the WhatsApp audio while recording video.

I am too tired for this. I get a bit crazy. Lou helps calm me. I download a bunch of apps to try before I find Open Camera that will let me play WhatsApp audio and film video at the same time and doesn’t seem to be forcing adverts on me or taking my credit card details.

I test the light and check playback sound levels but all the words are swimming in my head by now. They were there at dinner. Now I barely know my own name. I could likely do it if someone shouted “Action”, but I can have another sleep and wake up at arseholes and do it then.

So I’m in bed. Alarm set too early. I’ll sleep after tomorrow… Timing.

There is a story that I think is based on truth about the cathedral at Chartres. It’s more likely to be based on truth than the stuff your mate tells you “they” don’t want you to know. I found it as a teenager, in a book in a library. This was pre-internet, but my bookish friends who followed similar “research” reading tracks – when research meant critical thinking and time and obscure books rather than conformist consumption and videos and radicalisation – they understand why I chose to break my journey here in Chartres. I always thought the story of how the cathedral was rebuilt was well known and publicised. It isn’t. “The mainstream media don’t want you to know the real story of the xxx” I hate to be like that regarding this issue, but it’s a curious one to me. It should appeal to people who are inclusive and non-hierarchical. But the story is not well known of how the edifice was restored and who helped.

You can never underestimate the power of an institution like the Roman Catholic Church to try to remove character from a story, and to make everything about hierarchy. From what I can see, the character is also now being picked out of this monolith, to the detriment of future generations.

There’s an extensive refurbishment going on inside the cathedral right now. I happened to arrive in time for a mass for the dead. People were making huge clunking noises at the start of it from the scaffolding. And I started to worry about the purpose of the scaffolding. It looks like a very busy interior refurb. And you can bet that they are covering up any personality left behind in the aftermath of the story that brought me here.

The internet is very scarce regarding this tale. It’s esoteric, but it’s perfect. I’m really surprised it isn’t readily available online. Maybe I can add to it. Here goes. The Cathedral at Chartres.

1134 and the Cathedral at Chartres burned to the ground. It was on a trade route though, and let’s compare to Notre Dame just a few years ago and how much was raised so quickly. These monolithic buildings capture our imagination. If we can add to their life we can somehow extend our remembered span. The burning of this vast and important cathedral inspired artisans from all over the world who were passing, and many who traveled specifically knowing how big the project was. Some stayed for years, some only gave a short time. The book I read, and that my friends read too… I can’t find it online and it feels like this story has been erased by the internet. But it was a beautiful book examining all the strange things these people had built into the architecture from their own set of experiences.

People from all over the world. Therefore people from different belief systems and different power dynamics. People with different skillsets. They all knew they were helping rebuild a Catholic Cathedral, but they all brought their own thing. Maybe they slept or ate for free while they worked on it. The whole thing began to be brighter and wider and more alive than many of the protective stone monoliths that characterise one of our more judgemental well followed belief structures. Different ways of making pigment and glass, different ideas of gargoyles, different names for God, different priorities, mischief, story. The foreman must have been extremely open minded, the workforce was willing but extremely diverse. The cathedral came up in 30 years, and is still weird and beautiful and huge. The book I read spoke of mischief in the roof where Islamic artists had put in a bit of their doctrine, or frescoes where there was a cheeky touch of Hinduism, or even little personal Latin motifs and materials and gargoyles that might be called “pagan” by people with a blanket reading of the huge mix of pantheism that gradually filed us to where we are now. It got rebuilt. It’s a Catholic Cathedral for the worship of the Judao-Christian continuance of Osiris but parsed through the Roman anti-pantheist lens and smudged. We call it Roman Catholic and it’s got some lovely art. Better than brute Anglicanism by a country mile. But in the end it’s run by Catholics who are just another competitive noise in a very well filled arena of “my idea is better than your idea!” This is why I love that it was rebuilt with wider angle ideas plugged in. The only belief I find ugly is the Nullgod faith of Dawkins etc. Just as doctrinal and smug, just as certain of the existence of a (NO)thing but empty of beauty and empty of magic and so so very easy.

It is still beautiful here at Notre Dame of Chartres even if I fear they are trying to obliterate the very thing that makes it powerful. To build over the strange character. Still there’s a sound and light exhibition right now though that acknowledges aspects of the history that pulled me. The artist is definitely aware if it even if the commissioner isn’t.

But … inside there’s scaffolding up all over the place and banging and clattering. And online you can’t find anything referring to the mischief I read in that book. For now, knowing how these things work, I am going with a theory I’ve just made up that the Catholic Church have bought the internet on it and they aren’t letting anything through about the random multifaith international wonder that makes up this incredible cathedral. If so that’s a spectacular own goal, and it’ll come back to haunt them.

I went to a mass for the dead. I lit a candle for my Catholic dead. I sang tonics. I wept. It was genuinely beautiful and resonant. We sang in the little portioned space. Three women read the list of the dead (timespan?) and it was into the hundreds – enough to fill a small mediaeval village. Was that just this year? I hope not. But… Only about 30 in the congregation and the priest flinched when I said “Thanks be to God” in English when he told me it was the body of Christ in French. Perhaps I wasn’t supposed to be there. Or perhaps he could sense that I’d spent the previous 4 hours listening to Joseph Campbell…

I just hope and pray that the Catholic church don’t overlook the chance they have for inclusion with this beautiful crowdsourced building, if they proudly bring to the fore the voices in the rebuild that clash with their doctrine they might start to build congregations where the living outnumber the dead again. It’s not like Catholicism is so weak they need to defend themselves. They own much of the best real estate in the world. They can be sanguine about the fact that humans subscribing to other curious and beautiful governing ideas lent them a hand when they were in need. Can’t they?

Peaceful Brighton, and about to go on long solo journey. It’s good to be here to connect with Lou before I go despite the fact I’m rotten with cold. I’m just run down from not having stopped. “Well if you’re gonna lower your immune system by drinking then you can’t look to me for sympathy when you get a cold,” says my beloved. She’s right of course. Nevertheless she cooked me hearty food and made me healthy tea and put the immersion on for a bath and thought about filling up water for by the bed and just made me chamomile and how the hell did I meet this incredible human?

The wind is howling outside. Lightning and constant crashing gales. It’s primal. Been like this for two days running, apparently. I’m glad I’m on the tunnel tomorrow and not the ferry. Car alarms keep going off from buffeting. I’m glad it’s a peaceful home here.

Today was just making sure things were ready to go. I had to empty my car at the lockup and then go and attend to the fishies and make sure they were gonna be ok. Then grab my passport and europlugs – both of which I have A PLACE FOR. Then shove loads of clothes into a denim bag and go to Hampstead. A car to load with a really random selection of antique furniture. I have no idea what they’re gonna say at the border having never done this sort of thing before, but I’m not a commercial vehicle so it’s hopefully gonna be okay, or am I being naïve?

It was going very well, the pack. Then Sam suddenly appeared with two huge chairs and it all went sideways. I went from a neat and logical load to a chaos of wood. There’s no backwards vision in Bergman. I even tried to repack when there wasn’t a rainstorm, but there’s no way of arranging it that lets me see behind me so I’m just gonna pretend it’s a van and hope nobody gets weird with me. The hardest border will be into France. I only have to get as far as Chartres though…

Let tomorrow do tomorrow. Tonight I’m just gonna go to sleep and listen to the wind and rain on the glass and snuggle Lou…

Happy Halloween. Samhain. A dark night but a light night. A time to consolidate.

I couldn’t leave the lockup fucked. Just too much of an energetic hangover. So I drove there again in the morning.

The cops are useless. They didn’t send forensics even though the hacksaw the thieves used to cut the lock was neatly placed in the lockup, next to a functional padlock that was taken in the same way from another lockup somewhere near. Fingerprint Bonanza, but they fobbed off my friend with some nonsense like “If it’s just boxes there’s no point us doing our job”. We were the second robbery that night I reckon, and they had enough to carry so were gonna come back for the saw. That’s why it was left in ours and the door was carefully closed. I interrupted their journey, coming when I did. They didn’t know they were finished. Maybe if I’d driven around I would have found them carrying my tools.

The whole lockup was jammed full of forensic opportunities though for anyone who gave a fuck, plus there’s gonna be someone who would like their padlock back when they realise their lockup has been robbed… but “whatever” say the met. 0 fucks given. “Can we avoid doing anything? Yes.”

Just before Halloween, bigger fish for them to fry.

Even just a patrol car to swing by with the lights flashing would at least make them know it was being watched, but they honestly can’t be fucked to do the basics in Camden. People often go back to the crime scene. I’m expecting it, frankly. Still, I tidied up the lockup and I didn’t touch any of the things the thieves had handled, apart from with gloves, you know, in case someone does their job and dusts them. It’s a transformation in there..I can leave it like that…

They’ve pulled a power cable out of the ceiling but it doesn’t look like it’ll cause a fire. They totally ruined the ornate picture frame but it only just came in and I don’t have Christmas Carol this year which would’ve been when it came in handy. Honestly, if my impact drivers hadn’t been there they would have got NOTHING for their effort. As it is they likely got about £50 cash for the pair of them which might be enough to prompt a return visit to see if they missed anything. That’s why I kinda wish the police hadn’t been dogshit. But that’s the Met. Too busy beating up women for peaceful vigils during COVID or generally raping, beating and occasionally murdering people. Cops will be cops, eh? “Join the met. Then you can break the law and do fuck all!”

Lockup tidied, I took people out onto the dark heath and told them stories. Happy times with the Peculiar London brigade. Our last night and a lovely one. I’m exhausted now though. The sheer amount of dust brushed out of that lockup. Fag butts and human skin and piles and piles and piles of absolute shit. It’s all in bags now, but for the dust and butts and goodwill. Books and clothes and paper and oh God, those thieves must have been horrified to find such little reward for their effort. Maybe that’s why they trashed the place. I took the frock coats out, as I like and use them. There’s nothing there now that I would mind them having. I thought of making them a little “Welcome” sign, as they’ll be back I’m sure, undeterred by the complete lack of interest from the cops. And I’ll be in Uruguay.

Nothing in there I don’t mind losing now. But it kinda renders it much more useless knowing I can only put shit into it.

Still there’s a lot of shit in my flat. I’ll get use from it.