Month: April 2023

I saw an old friend this evening. I ran into him at the dump. I haven’t spent time with him since 1992.

I was wearing sunglasses and with a full beard at the dump. Somehow he recognised me across the ages. “Al!”

There in the recycling centre. Who would have thought it. A place where old things go to have a new life, and maybe this old friendship will have a new start.

We were at boarding school together. I had been friends with his older brother, so I sought his friendship despite him being a few years below me. I had a racket going on and wasn’t able to sustain it on my own, so we became partners.

Over the week we would assemble a list of weekend booze requirements from all the locked in boys in our house. We would add “Danger money” to the order, making it pretty profitable. Then we would wait for darkness and set out with two military backpacks to one of a number of local off-licences. Different one every time, ideally. We would quickly stock up and fill the packs until we could barely lift them. I was tall and my voice had broken. I usually had some mocked up ID but we quickly learnt the shops to avoid.

Once the backpacks were full we would trudge out and into the darkness, and the hunt would begin. Some of the teachers were obsessive about trying to catch people breaking the rules. Stuffy busybodies with nothing better to do. We had to predict their movements and get back up the hill without them seeing us. They knew it was going on. Their attitudes ranged wildly from mild amusement to raging apoplexy. As with all minor rule breaks at such institutions, you have to do it well. If you’re cavalier about it you get busted. It’s part of what they teach you…

We never lost an order, thankfully. But we took some extremely convoluted routes, particularly when we sensed that the business proprietor might have called their neighbouring school about these suspicious characters in baseball caps and camo buying up all the booze. One time, someone switched the floodlights on as we were halfway across a dark pitch. We scarpered, and he was probably killing himself laughing as we hid in a bush for an hour and then set off in completely the wrong direction to try another point of ingress. We were careful to the point of paranoia. But I had seen the results of overconfidence in others. It was easy to get caught.

Sitting in the pub with him helped me put a face on that strange institution that I was lucky enough to attend, that I’ve almost deliberately wiped from my fresh memories. It helped me realise it wasn’t so bad there after all. I needed to go away from it awhile. But maybe there are old friendships left to rekindle. I’ve been avoiding a reunion dinner that’s planned in May. Perhaps I’ll go after all…

Life is so very long. We change as we grow.

My friend who I’m helping has been doing very well for herself. She’s running a successful business, employing at least five other people full time and using them. It’s a thriving work environment and right now I’m part of it, blundering through with boxes of rubbish, taking shelves off the walls, packing things.

She’s learnt a lot about business, money, PR. Alongside it she’s raising three boys as a single mum. She makes decisions fast, sticks to her guns and digs her heels in. I absolutely respect her work ethic and ambition and ability. She says “yes” and makes it happen. But there’s a thing I’ve learnt in my haphazard life that she hasn’t had time to learn yet…

She’s all about the marketing of things. She makes things and companies look fantastic. She gets articles written and photographs taken and she is part of the web that helps decide what we almost unthinkingly understand to be “aspirational”. I learnt by association in the early days, and saw first hand the machine that runs beneath the unthinking assumptions we have about competing products. We all have brands that we “like”, and often that unexamined feeling is to do with our consumption of the work that people like her do. Things rarely get into newspaper articles by coincidence. You can make a fantastic product that competes with a lesser product from a rich company – the company that buys the PR and marketing will take your space unless you are insanely fortunate. Take this blog. It’s not very widely circulated. Why? Because I’m not backlinking, I’ve switched off adverts and I’m not doing Search Engine Optimisation. All the things I can do to maximise reach take time and money. I am not writing this for reach though, so I’m not gonna spend money. If one of my blogs was put out there it likely wouldn’t gain traction anyway as I’m not dealing in absolutes, and received wisdom is that you have to be an extremist these days. Maybe that’ll change.

Marketing. You make a thing, you want people to give you a high price for the thing so you make more money. You pay someone to say that your high price is good value. Someone buys the thing brand new, and as soon as they use it they lose loads of ghost-money because a big part of the high price of the new thing is wrapped up in a “new-thing-experience tax” type affair. You pay loads of money to be the first to use the thing. That’s her world. So when she wants something, she doesn’t really hesitate to pay top whack.

Today I helped build a plastic outdoor rattan sofa that she had spent hundreds on. It’ll be lovely in summer, and it fits brilliantly where she wanted it. But if she ever wants to sell it, she’ll never get even half of what she paid, even if she sells it tomorrow. And this is the thing I’ve learnt.

We should stop attaching monetary value to our possessions.

I’ve got this stupid glass thing that my friend gave me. “You’ve still got my £150 glass bottle,” she told me once. I didn’t even want it. But the fact she puts a figure on it makes it awkward having it.

Things are worth what they mean to us.

I’ve got a cheap plastic voodoo Madonna that means more to me than a whole collection of Lladro China ones and beautiful blown glass ones. If I had to buy all my stuff back from someone I’d spend more on that plastic one than any of the ones by reputable makers. She’s Our Lady Untier of Knots.

I’m trying to help a few people untie knots and get rid of things that are clinging to them. The spanner in the works is ALWAYS their sense of value. Price can’t be predicted unless we have an Etsy shop and enough space to store the thing for years. But I can’t move your stuff on if you are convinced it’s worth three times what people will pay for it.

This is a rustic pig bench. It’s nice.

Lots Road wouldn’t take it because of condition. I’m gonna sell it for her on eBay I think. To get the best price I could choose a high value and then sit with it forever until someone pays. But there aren’t enough hours in the day and there’s nowhere to put it in the meantime. And I don’t want to disappoint her with a low price. You see the conundrum?

“You’re here at the wrong time. You’ll have to leave.” I’ve booked in to the dump on the wrong day. “My car is full. I’ll need it empty tomorrow morning and you aren’t crowded. Surely I can just empty it?” “You haven’t got a slot booked. The council could ban you.” “I don’t want to be banned. This place is going to be important in the next few months.” “Well you’ll have to drive straight through and come back at your allocated time.”

I ignore him. Dump man. I reverse into a bay and start the process of separating rubbish and putting it all in the right skip. It’s a meditation. They now take rigid plastic. Hopefully I won’t get banned by the council. It felt like the guy was on a power trip.

Most of the people who work in the dump seem to be alright. They are very mobile, winging through the bays silently correcting categorisation mistakes. Invisible in hi-vis, they help make sense of the filth. The digger operators are extremely skilled. They pick out mattresses like toys in a claw game, and they crush up the wood and cardboard to make room for more, always with an enviable precision considering the size of their machines.

I’m on a decent hourly rate from my friend and it is striking to me how I’m happy to work at that rate. I think I’ll need to pay some friends a similar rate to help me box up my flat. The thing that we have that she doesn’t have is the benefit of lack of attachment. “Those plastic coathangers will definitely be wanted by a charity shop.” Reader, I chucked them into rigid plastics.

There’s much still to do, and now it’s a working office with quite a few young men and women in there beavering away on spreadsheets, so it feels weird dismantling desks. Still, we are getting through it and running up against all the old familiar blockages. The one that I’m over now but I see in others all the time is the notion that items are worth much more than they are. “The pram goes to Christie’s.” It’s a nice pram. I’ve seen them sold for £300 on eBay. But I’ve also seen them go for just £50. If she’s expecting a couple of grand we will have to go round a few times before she accepts that it can’t command that at a last minute sale.

Still. I am doing what I can. It’s what I should be doing in my flat. I’m calling it prep…

A long long time ago, one of my day jobs involved being a temp in a PR agency. It was only for a short time. The office was mostly staffed by young women fresh from university, and my jobs ranged from franking millions of envelopes to calling up papers asking for back issues to fixing the loo roll holder to organising the basement storage cupboard. Nobody knew my education level or cared. I certainly wasn’t bothered being dogsbody. I’m very happy to be bottom of the hierarchy.

I’m still friendly with the owner. I was never gonna make full time staff as I didn’t want to because acting yaddayadda, so the work dropped off as temps are often just a way of trying out potential new full timers. But I’ve been going back there occasionally lately to help out. She’s downsizing.

This huge office full of history is going into a much smaller office next door. This involves a lot of heavy lifting. Today we packed papers for shredding, I deconstructed a few big desks, and we took a load of crap out of the basement storage. Over the years she has gathered many free samples from clients, and she’s not allowed to sell them as they are for testing only. These things date back to the late nineties now. Whatever you can think of. Tech. Art. Homeware. Furniture. Baby stuff.

I’m on hand for the man stuff. I was breaking up chipboard desks so they fitted in Bergman, and then I booked a slot for Wandsworth dump.

“I love the dump,” says one enthusiastic millennial as I am javelinning metal desk legs from my car into the metal-bin. I kind of get her enthusiasm. The sun is out and it is busy at the pit. It’s almost like a social occasion, and curiosity is at high pitch. “What wonders are being hurled away,” we all think, looking at each other’s stuff. A man arrives with a rusty bike and three people ask to look at it before it is finally consigned to the bike-resyk.

Wood in the wood. Metal in the metal. Small electronics in the small electronics. Cardboard in the cardboard. On show at the back they have compacted cubes, enough to help you believe that perhaps the work you are doing to separate it all will lead to something positive. It’s hard to trust recycling. The majority of people are thoughtless about it and chuck food packets in with the cardboard and so on, or just whatever in the wherever. At the dump you are being monitored so maybe you are a touch more careful. It’s not perfect there. “I’ve got four glass table tops. Is there any way they can be recycled?” “No, just throw them into rubbish. We can only do bottles and jars.” But it’s trying. It’s a place where you can believe that things don’t just end when their usefulness to you finishes.

I bought new boots a couple of days ago. I could have perhaps stretched my old ones out longer. A good cobbler could resole them and shore them up, but in this disposable world it just seemed easier to renew them entirely. Maybe it was justifiable with the boots, but we are mostly killing the world with our cultural habit of replacing perfectly good things when they aren’t quite working. I’ve fixed ovens and washing machines and cars with internet tutorials. Often the thing that’s gone wrong is easy to solve and working around it does no harm at all and doubles the life of the appliance. Let’s all try and ignore the external pressure to buy new shit all the time and lean into the interesting learning experience of diagnosing and fixing things. It’s fun finding out how things work.

I’m still off the coffee, and really noticing the extent to which I have been using the caffeine hit to propel me through the day. I’m not so muzzy when I wake up. For a long time, whether or not it was the case, I was persuading myself that I wasn’t much good in the morning until I’d had my coffee. Not a helpful narrative for the mornings where I couldn’t get it. We tell each other stories about ourselves all the time, and sometimes we fight tooth and nail to defend the version of ourself that we’ve made up. I’m fine without coffee in the morning. Maybe a little less wired. Maybe a little more forgetful. But with a bit more time I’ll be able to shape out when it’s a useful stimulus to me. For now I’ll save myself a fortune on the kneejerk “buy a hot drink” impulse. Sometimes three or even four a day at about three quid each. Too much money over time. It’s a huge racket, coffee. Big money beans.

I was woken up by a playful cat. She is usually mildly vexed when I show up at Lou’s and put my feet in the bit of bed that is definitely hers. This morning she shouted at me a little bit and then put her tail in my mouth. I’ll be looking after her for a couple of prolonged periods soon and feeding her medicine so it’s good that she’s getting more physically comfortable around me. She’s very nice to me at the moment though. Lou’s arms are a maze of bite marks.

We went to Stanmer. It’s easy and pleasant. Some Spring flowers but no bluebells yet, and I didn’t dare wear my new boots for a long muddy walk so it was back in the slipperboots and rolling along like a pirate. I bought some juice with the money that I’d normally have blown on coffee. They’ve got a great little juicy place that I first found back in October 2020. Simon is no longer there though. When I asked someone where he was they looked uncomfortable. “He… no he doesn’t work here anymore.” Poor Juicy Simon.

I love these little windows of countryside with Lou. It’s getting easier to do – to buzz up and down to Brighton. I might be getting used to the train before long too. Lou booked her theory test and is going to get on the road. When she gets her wheels it’ll be like Tristan in the micra all over again – I’ll be moonlighting as a driving instructor, remembering my dad’s valuable lessons, and then hours and hours on the back driveway at Eyreton practicing my hill starts. If there’s a car in Brighton already it’ll be too costly to bring down Bergie. They really sting you for parking all week down there. I’ve had more tickets in Brighton this year than in London for the last decade.

But I’m back in the smoke, winding down. Party boats on the Thames. Traffic and wind. Warm bed..mmmm

September 2018 and a kind group of concerned friends clubbed together to buy me my feet. The pair of Berghaus walking boots that I was wearing last time I saw you.

I walked Camino in them to break them in. Had I tried it in my old Brashers I would have had hamstring issues as they were worn out.

Since then they have been mostly attached to me as I’ve run around in a few deserts with Extreme-e and in a number of other hostile environments, including the drunk streets of London and the muddy mudscapes of summer festival dance pits, not to mention endless days around the Sussex Downs or through the rocky beaches of Brighton. By the end of Sardinia last July, I knew they were dying. I clung onto them though. Today, finally, I spent the money that will allow me to wish them a fond farewell. “Those are basically like slippers,” observes Jason in Millets, Brighton, looking at those dear old Berghaus. They kept their seal. The soles are worn into wedges of cheese, the back is totally ripped, the innersole is loose, the seals are fraying but last week I stood in a deep puddle to wash off some clay and it never occurred to me that they might leak. Berghaus make good boots. My first pair were Brashers though, and they lasted me even longer than the Berghaus did. They had been discontinued when I went shopping in 2018, but BRASHERS ARE BACK, BABY – Berghaus bought the brand.

Lou and I were just buying potatoes. We had stopped at the fish place for sea bream and samphire and so obviously we absolutely needed potatoes and sticky toffee pudding and the ONLY place we could get them was Waitrose, dahling. Waitrose is walking distance from Millets and you get an hour and a half free parking at the supermarket so we wandered over and I immediately saw the boots I’ve been looking for. I bought them then and there. Even got a discount from Jason. Happy days. I got out for £127.50. Expensive for shoes, but I’m off to Scotland with Extreme-e and I’m expecting a shot at a few more deserts this year. No pilgrimages planned as yet, but these things will be welded to my feet before long. A snip at the price.

I broke them in this afternoon and even though they are a little bit young yet I smile when I look at them. This is how my feet USED to look. The Berghaus did a good job for five years but we have said goodbye and I’ve gone back to Brash. I’m happy with it. All will be well in footland. I’ll keep the old pair a while though even though with the soles like that they are doing untold harm to my gait. But it was my gait that did harm to them first. Clean boot slate. Thank you Berghaus, hello again Brasher. I should have thrown a load of links into this and then written one of those abject “I’m a blogger give me free boots” emails to Brasher. This is how I’ve been missing all the tricks. This is why I’m not making MILLIONS out of this blog, MILLIONS I TELL YOU.

Brasher Men’s Country Master. “Bar Clay.” “Lord of the forest”. My surname basically breaks down to “Country Master”. They should release Brasher Barclay Boots. Dammit, I need to sort out that celebrity status so I can pitch that kind of stuff. That’s the sort of thing that will allow me to keep myself in Waitrose potatoes, walking boots and sea bream. We need someone not made out of vanilla to replace the Palins and the Attenboroughs…

“Outdoors, with Barclay. A mystical stomp through the ancient sites of the world…” I’m off to dreamland with a cat on my feet and rain on the skylight. Tomorrow, more romping fun with my new boots. SEE YOU THEN, FOOTFANS! outro music 🎵 🎶

The old rejection email came in again. Another tape I was happy with. A project I was really interested in. Something unusual, something new, something entirely pointing to my skillset. We are all used to that shit by now, of course. I just pushed it down to the place where it doesn’t jump up and tried to look at the NOW.

The NOW involved driving some beautiful curtains that Lou has made from Ditchling to a lovely house in Lewes. My height was about to come in handy. I got to attach little plastic bits into little hooks above my head. It’s a shoulder workout, hanging curtains. Lou’s clients were a lovely couple. They seemed very happy, and I’m glad as I thought the curtains were beautifully done and a lovely material.

We were showing them to the client when one of them had to take a phone-call. “That’ll be his boss,” says the remaining client and names the TV channel I’ve just missed that job with. He works there. “Oh… funny,” I find myself saying,”I’ve just had an email regarding that channel.” I think I said it more for myself than anyone else. “What line of work are you in?” “I’m an actor. They’re doing this interesting show and I went up for a barrister.” A bit more of a back and forth leads to “that’s my husband’s show!”

So it turns out that an hour after getting the rejection email I find myself hanging curtains for the guy who is making the very thing I had been hoping to get but didn’t. Timing.

I held it together politely until niceties were dispensed with fully between the client and Lou. They really were lovely people. I said goodbye happily and drove round the corner, burst out crying in the middle of the road and had to pull over. A combination of things, I was raw already going into it interaction and has already been doing some unrelated crying earlier in the day. It’s all very close to the surface right now.

I’m glad to be getting the auditions. Plenty of my friends are hardly even taping these days. That little moment was just a bit too close to home. It pulled the old rejection back up into the light when it was still too raw. I love my craft. It can feel so stifling when the only way I can ply it is with a grey screen behind me in a friendly living room for a tape that goes nowhere.

I’m off to Scotland shortly for the eco-friendly off-road racing buzz, so it’s not like I’ve got nothing to look forward to. Sometimes it’s good to know it still hurts I guess. I’m harder than I was twenty years ago after ten years in the wilderness and now all the punches. I’d be worried if the emotion didn’t bubble up from time to time, mixed with all the existential dread and the deep realisation that these life choices I made are not quite carrying through in terms of even half of what I hoped for them back when I sat with mum on her death bed waiting for Bright Young Things to hit the cinema and assured her I’d be okay.

I AM okay. Just sometimes I’m okay and sad.

Theatre cheered me up this evening though. Laura Wade’s “Home I’m Darling” is back touring and came to Brighton Theatre Royal. Nothing like good writing and good acting to take one’s mind off not having the chance to do good acting with good writing again. I booked tickets for Lou and I on impulse and I’m glad I did. A beautiful old theatre, and probably dark a lot of the time or housing the likes of David Copperfield.

I’m not a great binge watcher. My attention span is too limited. I doggedly work my way through some things though, if they catch my imagination. I covered Breaking Bad forever ago, and loved the honest darkness of the performances. Better Call Saul is a worthy follow up and I finally finished the last one just now. No spoilers, don’t worry. It has taken me YEARS. I was interrupted by Bojack, and various other strange wonders, but with the prospect of everything getting very busy again imminently, this cold and rainy summer evening was high time to finish with Jimmy. I’ve occasionally been compared to Odenkirk, as a character actor of similar age. It’s a flattering comparison. These long episodes with no precise editing limit, made with whatever money and time they feel like spending – they have been a canvas on which some wonderful actors have painted long character arcs. Seehorn and Odenkirk in particular but the rest of the cast as well, series after series. It’s great what Netflix have made possible in terms of long term engrossing TV. I guess it’ll be Ozark next for me, and that’ll take me another three years.

Brighton again tomorrow and although I’ve made some small progress there’s just so much to do and I’m far too slow in here.

I’ve been taking big uppers and big downers out of the mix and feel a bit shapeless at the moment. London is feeling noisy and messy and I’m happy to avoid going out in the rain. My warm bed with electric blanket pulls me in earlier than usual and it’s an effort to get back out in the morning if I’m not working for someone else. Brighton will be a welcome break if just to see Lou and be closer to nature. It seems that there’s always someone hammering or drilling in this town. Right now with scaffolding up my block it often feels like there’s someone scraping the inside of my brain first thing in the morning.

I’ve got myself a huge mug of chamomile and I’m feeling like an old man as I put myself to bed early sipping it. Lovely to have his higgledy-piggledy flat full of my weird things. Time to change but I find it hard clicking into gear. We have to change if we are gonna progress. Adapt or stagnate. I’ve lost patience with friends who have chosen the latter in some aspects of their lives, and yet here I am still surrounded by old things.

And the wind blows.

The wind is up. The temperature is down.

I nipped over to Marks and Spencers and bought some reduced Easter eggs even though they were still three quid. We all have to eat so much chocolate we feel sick at this time of year. It’s what our parents taught us. I bought a very phallic chocolate carrot and a more traditional egg shaped egg and I still spent six quid on sculpted sugar.

After Christmas they immediately put the Easter eggs on the shelves, but now we are allowed a little pause before it’s all the barbeque stuff. The Christians never really colonised midsummer so it’s just a thing that happens, and it’s a long way away yet. Much to do between now and then.

I did manage some small packaging of things, but man it’s tricky. I keep running into memories. All sorts of associations. Max came round this evening and he is happy to take the fish, which is burden off. Since chippy died my heart hasn’t been in them. That tank going will clear some headspace for sure.

Books. So many books. I might venture to say too many books but there’s no such thing as too many books. But too many for this flat. They all just add to the higgledy-piggledy character, but if I’m gonna rent this place I’m gonna have to get everything out sharpish. I try to sort them out and I end up reading one. There are traps everywhere. I might have to pretend there’s an imminent and terrible deadline. Knowing that the only deadline is eventual financial ruin through service charge and council tax, I’m slipping again, letting life be too distracting.

I tried for an early bed and thought I’d manage but then realised I had forgotten to eat so I’m cooking a quick chickeny thing. I’ll still manage an early bed – it’s only half eight. The world outside is hostile today. Aggressive wind in from the river. Buckets of rain, but it appears that none of it is coming to visit me in my bedroom. The hammery men must have achieved something on their little bit of expensive scaffolding above my roof tiles.

A day with a little job list tomorrow. Then a hiatus while I wait for boxes to be delivered. I’ll go to Brighton. Joy. A chance to chill coming up so hopefully tomorrow will be an active one here, and I don’t just pick up a book again.

Chicken time… Then bed and that lovely sensation of being warm and cosy as you hear the hellscape outside.

Easter Monday and there’s so much I need to be doing that it is typical of me that I spent the whole day on social calls.

My half brother and sister in law live on one of those squares in London that come with an exclusive garden. There are many. Many of them used to be localised plague pits, so the ground is fertile now. Useful to remember that a hard past can lead to a soft present. “There are only about 100 people able to use this garden,” says he. The gardener gets to live on site in a little clocktower. His work is bearing fruit now with tulips and hyacinths and spring blossoms aplenty. “But don’t you think it’s all a bit twee?”

I was very happy to be there in this weather that is actively pretending to be Spring. I was happy to have two of the lucky feet that are allowed to tread on the grass here. These gardens are closely monitored by the residents, the fences are high and the keys are hard to copy. Some of them are huge. This one is pretty big. They could turn into a tent village without the security.

After lunch we went through a box of old photos I carried back from France. Family stuff. Grandparents and sport trophies. A whiskey flask. My grandmother’s dogtag. The things you aren’t supposed to throw away but often have nowhere to keep. Heirlooms looming over the heirs. Responsibilities. Connections to the past.

I’m reminded as we walk in the park that I’m seeing an old friend tonight. Jethro. A kind and powerful man who has gently invited himself into my life with a mixture of trust and challenge. We first met about 13.7 billion years ago and we’ve been jumping alongside one another ever since in different ways. “Bring your cards.”

I drive home, grab my tarot cards, and head over to his around dinner time. I’ve barely finished the chicken from my brother’s. “You didn’t eat your rice,” I am admonished after my lovely veggie curry. “It won’t fit.”

I end up giving some readings and remembering as I do it that I’ve really built a strong connection with that deck and can be uncluttered as I pick my way from symbol to symbol building a narrative that may or may not be helpful. “Your whole demeanor changes,” someone observed. I enjoy that flavour in my mix. It was a pleasure to connect with people and simultaneously connect with my deck again.