Month: June 2024

Right so. I could take stock today. Needed more screws, believe it or not. Got them.

Base is sending out tools and cleaning supplies and consumables to every Olympic venue. I’m based at base but solving problems as they emerge so pretty mobile.

Darren just joined the team and is living in the Airbnb, and to my enormous surprise he is at home to the oojieboojie. I didn’t bring any incense thinking I’d be in hotels, but now I wish I had. I didn’t bring my cards, which is not like me really. I’ve had them on many events before though and never used them apart from a daily for myself. No time and nobody with inclination. Typical that the first time I don’t, someone aligns. Events people are enormously practical, generally. There’s no time for listening to the wind though. There’s too much to do.

If I hadn’t been here this evening I would have been at The Willow Globe in The Tempest. Magical place, magical play. The whole piece has been carefully guided towards that magic by Maddy. Shakespeare is about channeling anyway, the last piece the most magical. It was the words around which – (with some adlibbing) – I first drew the interest of wonderful Lou. He left more of the light that he was channeling in that play than many others, did our Willie. I’ll need to find my Prospero in time, but right now I’m not ready to break my staff.

Darren and I went to the park after work. The Bois de Vincennes. We lay on the grass a while. We looked at the water. We contemplated the trees. We connected with the world and each other.

We are largely working on a metal mezzanine in a vast concrete warehouse at the moment. The work involves “consumables”. What are they? Screws. Cable ties. Bolts. Les vis. Les Cableties. Les Bouleaux. A million types of tape. Toffee tape, glass tape, gaffer tape, masking tape, packing tape, insulating tape, double sided sticky tape, hazard tape … … there’s more. Yes then tools and everything else but this evening, after the park, my thought is on the screws and cable ties. And staples. They’re gonna be everywhere, these tiny things we are handling.

You know me by now, oh constant reader. You know my obsession with the movement of energy, and my mission towards myself, to shift and process and pull the badness out of things where possible. Well, this is the finest opportunity I’ve ever had, and Darren has just come to join. We can send millions of tiny flickers of brightness and positivity to every venue in this town. Nobody will pay attention to the screws and the cable ties and the staples, but if these things are resonating at the highest level they can resonate at then all the better for this broken world. Every country in the world will send their finest humans. Why not try and make even the bolts and fastenings as bright and energetically healthy as the athletes. This is my work, under my work.

Is this how I justify working really hard on mundane things? Or have I been given a fantastic opportunity for global lightwork? I dunno. I’m just moving stuff around. And that involves moving ideas around. And ideas are powerful.

I tend to take Pascal’s Wager generally. If you take it pure, and don’t complicate with what people have done, most belief structures are more positive than their absence. You don’t have to do anything more than allow a bit of cosmic thinking. And Pascal brought the word God into it, but that’s just one frame of understanding of the unkowable. Whatever it is, either I’m sorting millions of screws and I can’t fill them with light, or … or I can. Or I can believe I can and be happier about sorting millions of screws.

Either way, you’ll all be getting a bit of the light I’m sending out via these screws. Best I can do with the life I’ve led up to now. Someone else can do the pole vault.

They took a van out earlier than scheduled for a delivery. They also took it out incompletely loaded. This is happening too often. And it changed my day totally. I thought I would be able to make sense of consumables for the future. As is I had to get up and run to buy some bolts, box them up and chuck them in a crate, get the crate lifted down from the mezzanine and loaded onto our Luton and then work out where the hell MPC is. MPC. is the main press centre. The official address we have all been given is very much not where it is for the purposes of driving there in a great big van. They’ve cordoned off a bit of road disconnected from the venue where they can check your accreditation and it is nearby, but you need to be told about it really. Then you have to go back round once you’ve been safety checked, and get past another layer of security. All is as it should be in terms of it being difficult to get into places, but people who are supposed to get in should be able to. I asked the head of transport if, after however many weeks he’s worked here, he has a pin or any helpful info. No. What a silly question. So I work it out and add it to my list of pins. I am gonna try to use some spare time to write up an English guide to some of the more complicated venues, for any non-francophone drivers. I ended up in a long french conversation with a french logistics guy and Curtis, where the logistics guy and I were both feeding back exactly the same issues. The info we have isn’t helpful. We need to share info as the closer we get to “go!” the more fraught everything will get and the more important it will be to have people get stuff quickly.

Edward works at MPC and he’s bilingual English French and the contact I get from Grace. We have been alternating languages messaging one another as we haven’t worked out what the other one speaks. Head of Transport can’t get me a van pass, but Edward gets me one in less than an hour from me messaging him to tell him I’m coming with forgotten stuff. I’ve saved his number now. He saved my bacon. I’d never have gotten close without a pass – it would have taken even longer than it needed. I would have had to walk a pallet across one of the busiest roundabouts in Paris and then have persuaded the concierge of a posh hotel to let me put it in the goods lift. You can get away with a lot in hi Vis. but not everything.

All hail Edward. He’s lovely on pick-up although I’m shortly going to Google “Best way of getting a pallet truck onto a tail lift,” because if there’s a knack, I haven’t got it yet. I can get it down but it ain’t pretty.

Still, I don’t drop the pallet or break my foot or the van. And on to the golf. The golf course is way out of town. They want 8000 80mm screws. I have a suspicion, from what I’ve observed, that they will all stand around simultaneously looking at an empty pallet for however many hours or days it takes for someone to bring them the screws. I don’t stop at multiple hardware stores to make them universal as every hour I delay is a wasted hour by everyone who has decided it is impossible to buy screws for themselves. They are getting all sorts of different heads and sizes. 80mm by everything from 3.6 up to 6.

They don’t like the 6 but they will work better than everyone running out of screws and Guyancourt is miles away. I’m not gonna come back with more screws. They can fucking source their own now if they’re fussy about the size. They’re all the right length.

Long drive home. Another stop at a hardware store, topping up consumables that we have never had enough of. By the time I’m back at the warehouse, Ali has left the building. He’s off on other events. He’ll be back in a week or two. He and I balance well together. We both have big memories but our priorities are very different. I’ll miss his very well understood brand of OCD. I’ll maintain the systems we made. I’ve even bought a digital scales so next time someone asks me to count 300 bolts I can weigh one and do maths. Expedience sometimes trumps precision.

When I arrive, someone is adjusting the number and type of cable ties in the orders Ali and Darren have been laying out while I’ve been away. I restrain myself from worrying about what else might have been changed without our being told, as the someone knows these events better than anyone and is making a knowing change. I’ll make sense of it all on the weekend and make it all ready.

Tomorrow and Sunday will be hopefully a little less runny roundy. I can literally take stock. So I will.

Many things happened today but the one in my mind as I head to dreamtime will be the steak. Steak frites. At Bouillon Chartiers. It’s old, very well established and cheap. On the edge of Montmartre, before the size of the roads cut down, in a little mews, likely converted as soon as it became apparent that horses were no longer the future. Likely the original owner made creative use of his stable. Now it sells steakfrites. And there’s always a queue. The queue moves fast, so if you know, you know. I saw people rebound from the queue, but I was in it for no time really and the food was brilliant.

We are still getting to know each other and there’s a new team member just arrived. We both went and threw loads of heavy stuff around first thing. We got a van where it shouldn’t have been. We had a good hard day.

But I’m trying to write sense with one eye open. And about half an hour ago I got an impossible list due before 9. I’ll make some of it possible but one of the other teams borrowed the transit which means I’ll have to swing around in the Luton – which just further reduces the car park options. Still, I got it into some very narrow places. All will be well but even if it is only one minute past midnight I’m going to sleep with no further thought. xx

I was so knackered at the end of the day that I ended up getting lost in an area I know well. Parked the car and walked as I knew where I was going geographically. The Parisians are tearing up their roads frantically ahead of the Olympics. They know that loads of people are about to descend on this town, and they know it isn’t ready. So they are ripping it apart now. “EVITER PARIS CENTRALE” say the signs above the peripherique. Avoid central Paris. Because much of it is shut and put aside for the games, but nobody french has caught on yet and nor has your favourite map app.

I asked Curtis if perhaps he could get the transit van an access all areas vehicle pass. This morning I was dropping off at the Olympic village. Couldn’t get past the dude and Curtis was on the metro coming in to work. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” I’ll be finished in half an hour.

He only works a bit each day, and mostly he can’t help, so I’ve tried to gather as much info as possible. But because I’m working when he isn’t and I don’t know where I’m going until I go, I am trying to persuade him to sort a response vehicle pass for the duration, just for the transit van as it can fit in all the places. I’m champing at the bit to go to GPL drama free. That’s where Roadkill and Bob incorrectly blamed me for a slow delivery. There are places I might well need short notice access to, and if the head of transport only works twelve minutes per day it needs to be sorted as things happen both early and late. I’ve never come across an event where it isn’t possible to clear a vehicle with the correct driver for the duration.

Also my accreditation is currently a thing I made with five minutes, a printer and a laminator. It is shonky and bears no scrutiny. The Paris security have been fine with it because the QR code works and they never have, but if I was working security I would question it. It’s a flimsy laminate where I’ve hole punched it to attach the lanyard, and cut it into shape. Ten days we’ve been here with no proper accred, but … Curtis has a lot to do and only six minutes per day to do it.

We have another team member, arrived today. I’m happy for it. He’s a good lad, and takes care of himself and those around him. Great addition to the team. Darren. I can tell he will find his expression easily in our little cadre of three. I’m excited to get to know him.

Much to do, and I’ll need to catch Curtis in his three minutes. He’s a good guy, just unionised and better at problems than solutions. I’m largely able to go where I need to with my improvised pass, but it makes for difficulty if I don’t have a plus one to deal with an unaccredited whip. Plus my pass is just a printout that I’ve laminated

I’m done. Got no words left. Before it all kicks off I’ll need at least one long lie in. We shall see.

Oh and yeah, mission forklift is going well. Electric pallet truck is stage 2.

I’m having to choose the things I get stuck into here. It’s going to be a fantastic event but there’s some serious catch-up to do. One thing that would be really helpful would be if I had had time to scout all the venues. I also want to properly learn the warehouse stock. There’s too much to learn but I’ll do my best. I’ve been off site either making up shortfalls or helping with deliveries or teaching installs. “How do you speak French,” Kes asked me yesterday morning, and it was a question I really couldn’t answer. I have never asked that question of myself. I think a childhood in Jersey helped, perhaps. School didn’t help much though. Academic French is useless. Rupert’s french is schoolboy and it is full of vocab trip hazards, not to mention that he sounds like a Victorian gentleman. Rupert: “Excuse me, gendered human, is it possible that you might be able to help me? Myself and my friends here, we are searching for cones such as one might use to direct traffic. Is it possible you might have access to such a thing for us to purchase? We have the means and the desire.” Me: “Hi, I’m looking for traffic cones. They want loads but I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Send me where they are. Thanks.” I suspect that an almost forgotten angry fortnight working in a sawmill because my girlfriend let me down on a gitte we had booked – that fortnight helped, even if the guys I worked with weren’t all French, they also weren’t at all English so French was the language. They paid me in cash and occasionally sent me out in a team of two to cut down trees. Nothing legal there but it paid me through a summer and I have a feeling I’m winning from it now in terms of conversation. Just cos 20 year old Al had the holiday anyway and got a job and wasn’t out of pocket, I can talk to the people who are not being competent here.

“The maps that are issued to us are almost universally off” says Reece the driver and he’s not wrong. The Bob and Roadkill venue is unclear as are many others. I’ve built a relationship with the van drivers. I’m angling to get added to their WhatsApp so we can all communicate. Yesterday Ian spent an two hours looking for a stop I found in minutes. They’re brilliant lads though, and noticeably eccentric. There are some tips I’ve already been able to give them. Some aren’t used to driving long hours in unfamiliar places that are hot. Phone holder stuck onto the window will run the battery to zero in no time as your phone tries to cool down from sun. I showed Ian my basic phone holder for solo jobs like these. Sandpaper the back a bit, stick a metal plate on, clip a magnet to your fan. So long as your car has Aircon your phone will be icy cold. If it doesn’t it is still out of the sun. Sure it’s great to have a plus one, but we can’t all have luxury. So don’t cook your phone.

Today the job was a few things but it turned into cones. Mini traffic cones. A load of orders about to go out, and they were an obvious missing thing. It’s very hard to ascertain what is most pressing but I think they were part of it. I can’t spend every day finding things that ought to have been found. But I spoke to a lady in a massive chain of Leroy hardware stores, and she told me exactly which branches had them and how many they had. Then I plotted the most efficient route taking in my other jobs like an IKEA run to make sure I had enough cones for the 4 orders that were imminent. My deadlines aren’t as clear as I like them to be so I’m having to work out my own prioritisation.

“It’s so inefficient just driving around looking for cones,” says Ali, who doesn’t know I’ve already checked we couldn’t get them on Amazon prime for today or even this month – I’ve activated my Prime in France, and then persuaded the lady in the first Leroy to tell me where there was stock before I planned a route. Then I plotted a careful route, as is my job. Barely a mile wasted. As with Extreme e so with this, I’m trying to make each leg of every journey matter, and trusting that the people who look at that shit can see it.

Generally I’m happy. A good day and now I just need the darn washing machine to finish…

I’ve known Mike for years when you break it down but we’ve exchanged just a few words over that whole time. He was in my van today. Ex copper from up Staffordshire way, he was one of my first cohort to be trained with assault rifles. He’s solid as you like. It’s funny to think how I’m actually pretty solid compared to many of my nearest and dearest because in this context I’m made out of cobweb. I arrived at work this morning having sprayed Tom Ford Ombre Leather because I bought a pot when I was flush. Sometimes I keep it in the car with me. Why not? Fuck it some people give a shit about that sort of thing. I don’t. But I wear a hat and aftershave and then I graft as hard as everyone else who doesn’t so it’s fine. There have been two jobs recently where I haven’t been able to afford contact lenses so I’ve worn my prescription sunglasses as the only vision I have. That’s been a bridge too far – people have commented negatively on that and I’ve been too proud to tell them I’m broke. Aftershave though? Fuck it, yeah I’m gonna wear chateau wank, and this hat. I’m working hard so finesse plus hat and stinkyjuice just makes a memory. I’m surrounded by people who I respect for their actual practical skill and their determination. My hat is really helpful for scale when I’m getting quantities of things. A bit of finesse and a bit of practicality.

Everybody has plenty going on in their lives, be it family, other jobs, vocations. The thing that binds us all is this strange joy in hard work. Although Ali is working later than he needs to tonight. It’s 9pm. He doesn’t need to be making orders on Amazon for stuff I could get at Decathlon tomorrow morning so it’s there in time for the deadline. And he could do it through his phone. I kinda wish I had paid the £7.99 month first, but he’s the one who paid for prime and he does things through his laptop. PhoneBAD generation. Tech wizard though. But… every time I start planning routes etc via phoneI feel like I’m on tiktok. There’s a generation above me that can’t stand mobile phones. I didn’t bring my laptop as it rarely gets used on these jobs. I’ve got my iPad I guess but usually I’m involved in being – (rymes with Clive) LIVE and my iPad doesn’t fit in my pocket. There’s an android app for everything, whether or not you like it. That’s how I’m doing all the things.

But Mike? Yeah I was on Mike. Solid fucker. I enjoyed his company. So yeah where was I … we rolled into CDG this morning after I missed the loading bay and had to go round again. By the time I drove him there I knew he had been a traffic cop so I’m basically driving one of the most highly trained drivers in the world. Fuck it. Paris traffic. I told him about priorité a droit and he was processing it for ages after. By the end of the journey I had clipped the kerb and tapped my mirror. I felt it more than ever before. It was like a three hour driving test. If he had been behind me he would have had reason to pull me over twice if he wanted to breathalyse someone. Interesting to learn that cops make me nervous.

The guys in the hotel we dropped off at are very willing but not particularly competent. There’s a lot of looking busy going on and very little busy. They rejected a load of stuff from a previous order that I think they’ll want later, and received a load more stuff, and I don’t think I saw one person there who I would describe as “handy”. Well groomed, yes. But they need someone like Roadkill to come help them out. Our team is loaded with handy people, but we are busy most of the time. There are so many companies involved here, so many people. But a lot of them are like frightened rabbits at the moment.

I picked up another cop and we drove all over Paris. The second cop is still copworking, and was asking advice from Mike. It was completely fascinating and nothing to do with the work I’m doing. I tuned in and really felt into the difficulty of the quandaries cops face. Moral and practical and legal questions. Their own language here, about when you involve the “pigs” and when you involve the “squirters” in different very gnarly situations.

I’m glad I’m just this wafting ponce with my hat and my van in this context. I’m sure the traffic cops could chow down on my vehicle operation, but they aren’t assholes. In fact I’m probably as surprised as they are that I enjoyed their company in the van all day, barring brief interludes to build stuff for friendly airport french people. I’ll waft to bed now

Goodnight my darlings. Or good morning. Good time of day. Darling. And yes I’m only saying it to make you feel uncomfortable. I tried hugging Curtis a few days ago and it was like being kicked by a mule.

Ali has a favourite restaurant in Paris. He has painted it in bright colours. In his accounts it is a golden glory of a place, full of ancient fixtures, serving fantastic food but never over priced. He’s shown me pictures. His aspect shifts when he speaks of it. This place gives him pleasure. He wants to share it with us.

Because this is Ali. He is in love with life. It makes him a joy to work alongside. He’s a force for good in the world.

We were going to go this evening. The dream was that we would finish early tonight, maybe freshen up, go into Paris, dine like kings, get back in time for an early bed.

Ali didn’t get the pick list for tomorrow until half five.

My day had been largely about DIY stores. The French are so totally not in a hurry that it’s a marvel they aren’t going backwards. I had a collection order from Brico and went to get it. “Come back in a bit,” they told me. “It isn’t ready.” I went in, and ended up with a load of messages regarding what was needed short notice. I did my best to find all the things and load them up. There was some fuckery with screws where I had just bought some that would be fine when they decided they wanted a different configuration and I had to go back round and get credit etc etc. Surely you needn’t be too picky. Then I went back to the collection boys and they were trying to load a huge pallet that was too tall into a transit van by splitting it with the forklift. They wouldn’t give me the stuff. I went away again to look for mesh. Some guy wanted 100 metres of 2 metre high black wire mesh, but then he didn’t. Only sand by the ton. I still think I should have just got a ton of it and a shovel, put it by the warehouse, anyone asks for sand we have got it. Ended up driving across town to find smaller bags.

Even the dodgy van guys at the brico don’t work on Sunday. We do.

Evening had just 4 Brits in a huge warehouse. Grace and Greg, Ali and Al. Late order. Had to be arranged. So we all mucked in and it all happened and it was half nine before we knew it and so much for Ali’s restaurant.

“This was the last chance we had, in theory,” he tells me. Perhaps. Perhaps we will make a chance.

Ali is a brilliant human. Lovely to work with. I am lucky to be working so closely with him. We both just get on with it. I really hope though that one day the stars align and we get to go to his favourite restaurant.

I am exhausted again. I somehow remembered lunch today and grabbed a takeaway chicken burger while I was carrying a box of stationery. It’s hard to find parking in Paris. In London I know how to run a van without getting smashed up for fines. In Paris I haven’t got the local knowledge so my phone is filling up with pins: “Sunday parking near stationery shop” etc. It takes time to find them though. I’ll make sense of it. Just a week and it feels clearer, and someone in a shop asked me if I was from the South of France, because I had an accent. Which is a win. Especially considering I’m usually “HiLo I wAnt thing YoU find on BEacHes yellOw sTuF MmaKe Casstles yes?” “Sand?” “Yaress I mAke purchase fOr bagginGs to do with SaaaNd.”

Anyway. I make sleep myself. Maid Night.

A quiet day today. Despite this being an event, most of the people working it are still taking the weekend off. A chance to sort through things and really make sense of what’s available and what isn’t. I’m on the response team and it’s always good to know what sort of things we can get hold of easily to solve any issues. Prevention is better than cure.

I’m slowly making sense of Paris, but it’s not a great driving city. Gridlock and the French road system, and the French drivers. The system is obtuse, not horrible, but it can be very obtuse. You’re better off if you’ve looked at a map first, as it’s easy to miss a turnoff if you don’t know the name of the road or the place you are going towards.

My problem with French has always been my ear. I can gladly create a monstrous chimera of a sentence that gets my point across. But then I can’t always parse the reply, and the more I have to say “please speak slowly” the less easy it gets all round. This evening, listening to the football, I noticed my brain has started arranging the parcels of sound that before it has just filtered out as noise. Something in me is sorting and interpreting. They aren’t saying interesting things, but I’m beginning to understand them. Good. This event is in France, I’m working it. My French needs to be as good as it can be to help solve whatever the thing is I’ll need to solve.

I’m happy with the work so far – apart from the drama at Grand Palais. My job on stage is drama. I can avoid it when I’m not working surely? I usually do. I’m not gonna let myself get swept up in it next time someone tries to be a douche. There’s just too much to do. Which is why I’m surprised so many people take the weekend off. Quality of life, you say, and yes I suppose if you have a family then you need to spend time with the children. I take such an inordinate amount of pleasure out of my work, be it event work or acting work, that the work life balance thing is less relevant, as the work is the life. I do miss Lou, but she’s an event worker and self employed as well. She gets it and is similarly working hard and long hours right now.

I got paid for some invigilating today, and it did make a difference, but I can’t tell you how lucky I am this came in when it did. I was thousands of pounds out of whack and beginning to quietly panic. This will get everything back to the right side of zero in time for me to start in Stratford. My mood has always been affected by my solvency or lack of it. It’s a blessing to know that after a long stretch of hard work, I’ll be out of the red in time for Othello.

Tomorrow will be another working day, looking at supplies and finally doing what I like to do when I arrive in a new place – a full scout of the local area, filling my maps with pins to local businesses and photos of what they have. Amazon Prime lives here so the whole world is a day away, but sometimes there’s less than a day in hand. Better to have a solve in the back pocket and not use it. The quicker and more efficient I can be grabbing things and communicating etc, the less likely something like yesterday’s misinterpretation by Rk and Bob can happen. I know and care about this work, and it connects me loosely to dad who was a winter Olympian many times over. I’m happy. And tired. And there was no hot water when I tried to run a bath but I’m hoping it just runs out in the evening. We’re in a new Airbnb. Quite a lot doesn’t work.

Wheels up at 7. Another busy solving day and largely driving.

I stuck a pallet truck in the back of the Luton, ratcheted to the side. There are three huge pallets and one small pallet. After the usual clueless fuckery, Tamara finds me. She’s the venue manager. She only needs the small one. I start talking to her in French but it turns out she’s from Devon. She gets me to the right place but there’s no loading bay so there I am already soaking wet before nine ayem trying to maneuver a loaded pallet truck onto the tail lift without dumping the contents or looking like a prat. Fifty percent is still a pass in exams these days. The contents remained undumped. I frequently look like a prat and don’t particularly mind.

First load signed off. Now I’ve got to get to The Sheraton hotel loading bay under Charles de Gaulle airport. I stop at the warehouse on the way and go and badger poor Curtis for the correct accreditation because oops. Getting into airports is hard enough when there isn’t a major event happening. I know I’m gonna need to be on point for this one. We sort it.

Everything works. I needed that printout. I get into the airport. It’s a maze under there. My instructions are in French and obscure at best. I make it to the bay and there’s a guy in it taking his time in a tiny van. There’s a queue of cars already behind me and we are in a narrow tunnel where I have to block them until he has vacated the bay. He’s in animated fun conversation and in no hurry. Honk honk honk. Not me but at him. Eventually the bay clears and I pull in to unload.

Nobody is at work yet for the drop off. They’re all having breakfast in the Sheraton. Karim the concierge though proves an absolute gem. Anglophone and Anglophile, we slip into my favourite language dynamic, where we both practice speaking the unfamiliar language. He is talkative and receptive and he helps me bypass the fact I’ve been given an incorrect contact number. The company I’m dropping for are caught napping. I suddenly have about twenty enthusiastic young french people with their Olympic hats and t-shirts, all descending on my van. I know people and companies like this so well from other events. There’s nothing they can do here to help but they want to because they’re on an adventure.

Three huge pallets and one pallet truck to unload. Lots of happy friendly people but nobody hench and no other pallet trucks so I’m on my own. A pallet truck is basically one of those manual forklift trolleys like they take the lost arc on in the final shot of raiders. We’ve all arrived at this way of transporting goods in bulk that involves a timber frame, a huge stack of stuff, and it’s all wrapped up in clingfilm.

As I haul the pallets, the corridors are lined with happy young french people. They are opening doors and moving chairs, summoning lifts and smiling benignly. Getting in the way as often as they are helping. It’s like I’m an Olympian. Pallet Shifting through the delighted crowds. It wasn’t my special skill a week ago. It still isn’t now. Always learning.

Two nice drop offs and I’m on the way back when I’m told that the guys at Grand Palais haven’t got their two extra banners. Same venue I couldn’t get into last time. I’m nice. Instead of lunch, I drop off the Luton and swap to a transit that has been pre loaded with their banners. An hour through awful traffic to get them there. They were due at half one which was when I got the call. I know how to get to the gate now and I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself when I get there.

Bob is waiting outside the gate with a guy who looks like roadkill. Bob is effete and groomed with a very French air of pomposity that likely outweighs his competence. Roadkill walks in two directions simultaneously, is completely bald and has been cooked to cinders by endless outdoor labour. Bob’s a shrugger. Roadkill’s a mugger. I’m happy to be solving problems. My mood is about to change. I forget that these guys just think I’m the inexplicably English delivery driver who had bad accreditation yesterday.

I catch Bob’s eye and shout his name smiling as I approach the gate. He and roadkill come up to the door. Roadkill snatches my accreditation out of my hand and goes to the back of the van to try open it. I’m still in a busy road. I haven’t been through security. Alexandre comes to the door. He’s huge and funny and we share a name, but he still needs to see my accreditation. I’m in the middle of the road and I was yesterday’s panic for them. Roadkill has got my accreditation. “We need to see your accreditation,” say two anxious people in hi-vis. “Hallo Alexander!” bellows Alexandre through the fence. “I hope it works this time!” “Open the back now we want them now,” says Bob. “That man has my accreditation,” I say to the security about Roadkill who seems to think that if he stands behind my van in the road it’ll open. HONK go the cars I’m blocking. “Just open the back,” says Bob. “We have been waiting here for two and a half hours,” says Bob in English. “I know,” I tell him. That’s why I’m here you idiot, I think. Then “That man has my accreditation,” I tell security. Roadkill is avoiding my gaze, fannying around trying to break into the van. “I have nothing, what are you talking about” says Roadkill, even though he has my accreditation in his pocket. “Open the back,” he demands in French. “You can’t stop here without accreditation,” shouts the security guard. “Just open the back,” tries Passive Bob again in English.

I think I said but this venue is at the north end of Les Invalides bridge. Traffic is absolutely crazy crazy crazy. I’ve worked out a good route that bypasses about twenty minutes on Google maps but it is still rammed and traffic is going every which way.

“I’m not going to unload my cargo in the road on the public side, I only did it last time because I had to and I was parked tight. I’m going through security this time because these guys at the gate will freak out every time they see me if I don’t get cleared. I’m gonna be here loads so we need to get this system working. What the bitch are you doing mobbing me before I’m even through security?” Bob comes close to my face. “We have been waiting for two and half hours,” he enunces like an angry Scottish grandmother. “I know,” I tell him. “That’s why I’m here. Now give me back my fucking pass?” Roadkill looks blank. Bob shrugs. “Ok, you’re all going to have to wait while I bring up my email because one of these two men has my accreditation in their pocket.” “Honk,” go the cars. “Just open the back,” goes Bob. I ostentatiously bring up my phone and ignore all the noise. A security guard pulls my attention: “Sir you have to show your pass.” I’m still just about calm. “One of these men has my pass and is pretending not to. I’m going to have to find my copy on email.” Roadkill hears this and responds, finally. He only speaks French – as a matter of practice – but I have been only speaking French but for a few more detailed spats with Bob, who is a prat. If he was willing to be patient towards the unknown for once in his life I think I would get on with Roadkill. Within that, Bob would be and will always remain a prat. Bob shouts “Bob” when Beyonce asks “Who run the world?”

Roadkill pulls my crumpled pass from his pocket where he stuffed it. He is looking me in the eye as he does so. I flashback to school. He is the guy I needed to contact yesterday. He is the guy I needed to contact today. He said to me on the phone yesterday “I can’t be bothered talking with English people.” I’m in his country working, but with a modicum of patience I can communicate efficiently with people who have no English. Like a knife it occurs to me: he’s making it hard on purpose cuz I’m English. Bless.

He reluctantly gives my crumpled pass from his pocket to security. He looks into my eyes defiantly as he does it. “I can do what I like with your stuff,” his look tells me.

I’m in French-head. Instinct brings me to say “va te faire foutre” which is schoolboy go fuck yourself. It’s the best I’ve got. It’s nice to say a schoolboy swear and mean it.

Security beep the pass he tried to hide and everyone is genuinely surprised it checks out.

“You see that name?” – this is Roadkill pointing to the name written on my consignment. He’s peacock now. “That’s me. That name is me. I’m Matthieu Lastname”.

“I’m Al Barclay,” I respond, shaking his familiarly gnarly hand. “You need to check your phone more often,” I add in English, smiling and nodding. He won’t.

“We were waiting for two and a half hours,” says Bob again in English. He has sidled up and is trying to impress the boss. “I was doing other things,” I tell him in English. “My job is to solve problems. You had a problem. I solved it. Don’t come to me about your slow delivery, that’s nothing to do with me. And tell Matthieu to check his phone from time to time.” Bob doesn’t look happy. He’s gearing up for more shrugging and he is GOOD at shrugging. His facial hair is twitching.

“SIR YOU HAVE TO DRIVE THROUGH THE GATE.” Security. It is open! Roadkill is still barking: “Just open the back door!” “HONK” goes the traffic.

I drive through the gate. I stop and open the back of the van. We are now safe. Security has determined that they aren’t going to take two boxes of explosives. This is why we have security Matthieu me old mucker. (A note regarding Roadkill: I usually really get on with outdoor working badly socialised angry but intensely practical misfits. He does his thing extremely well. But we don’t like each other in this instance.)

Alexandre barrels up now, because I’m legally back to where I was yesterday when everything exploded. “It worked, Alexander, your pass worked!” He’s both happy and surprised. I’m so over it. I think he’s one of my favourite people, Alexandre. He’s good at his job in a venue full of morons. Likely these idiots will need something from me before close of play. I’m gonna make sure they know they can use me. I’m not proud. I’ll do things for potatoes. We all just want this event to be brilliant.

I open the back of the van for Bob and Matthieu. They take a while to get onto site to where the van can stop. “Where the hell are those idiots”, I ask Alexandre. “They’re in such a hurry they want me to unload in the road and now they’ve vanished.” But of course they are clearing accreditation. I like to think the security staff were making it harder for them on purpose. Neither of them strike me as the type to win friendship from security. Bob reckons he’s the business. Roadkill is practical but his dnd roll is 4 Charisma. It’s a decent partnership. Smug manicured shruggy git who speaks some English, remote controlled by squat angry prune who speaks none.

They get their banners and off they trot with veiled threats. How fucking dare I be English. They really aren’t happy that I dropped all my jobs to take on their dropped job. Imagine if I hadn’t? They would still be waiting now. They don’t know how to check WhatsApp or email. It must be hard being a potato.

By this time I’ve been driving or loading for a pretty much constant 9 hours, barring a quick wee and making Curtis send me things. It’s another hour back to the depot. Then just bits and bobs so generally a pretty pleasant day, just with a few adult children who are in over their heads.

Loved ones have fallen foul of this thing. The French have a deep vein of insularity and protectionism. They don’t like foreigners. I’m a good mimic and have had time in this country, and I know that in a week I’ll likely be able to pass if I am spare with my speech. But Roadkill and Bob know I’m a gaijin and they don’t like gaijin and somehow that’s more important than just doing the fucking job.

I’m ok with putting up with it. As a nation we are arguably even worse than they are. I know I’m working here like this because I am skilled in such work. It involves being responsive and positive, and so long as there are no eejits breathing down your neck you can achieve a great deal in a short space of time. “It’s about the work,” as my old voice teacher used to say. And that goes for every walk of life. I get it now: “Live like a Frenchman but work like an Englishman” Great food, but your personal bits get in the way of big pictures…tant pis

Central Paris and the roads are still lawless. Curtis had booked me in the Luton. A big van. I told him I was gonna load into the Dacia. A little nippy car.

It was just two rolled up banners to carry. The map I had been given was incomprehensible. All I needed to be told was “It’s at the North end of the Invalides bridge, there’s a huge gate and millions of security guards”. Instead I had a blurred Google screenshot with loads of digital hand drawn arrows covering an area both north and south of the river with absolutely no indication of where the actual fucking gate might be and no contact information. Not my first rodeo though. I asked Curtis for more specific info and he gave me the district number which is less specific. Then he looked at the map and pointed to a spot south of the river, but I could sense he literally didn’t know. That’s why I swapped to the Dacia. I knew I needed to be able to just stop and scout on foot once I was in the right area. Which is what I did and how I found it. But then of course they wouldn’t let me in. An event of this scale needs serious security. Quite right that I struggled, frankly. I’m not even accredited yet. Security is far more important at such an event than practicality.

“Can you print my pass out,” I had asked Curtis the night before. “No.” Straight no. This is all just in the process of being put together you see. Printers aren’t designed to be on the mezzanine in a fucking great big warehouse. I literally couldn’t have a printed pass, and a digital pass is somehow less trustworthy.

I found the gate though, by scouting on foot and then returning. I even talked my way through the gate which I was proud of as I didn’t know my pass was invalid at the time. When the head of security had determined that my pass had been cancelled somehow I was already inside the barrier and he totally panicked. I could see it in his head – “WHY HAS THIS BEEN CANCELLED OH MY GOD”. I had determined that it was gonna get me further being Englishman no speaky Frenchy, which was likely strange for the guards I had been nattering away with to witness, but I remained benign and nodding in the face of his natterjack french “you have to leave immediately”. Still I got ejected. Then… Bob showed up. We spoke through the fence like reverse prison.

Bob knew what I had. He knew why I had it. He was on none of my lists. But he wanted me to give him the banners. Head of security was comfy with Bob. I got loads of info from him before I finally trusted him with the banners. Photographed his ID. Still “I had to pass them to Bob through the fence” was not the best way of explaining where the banners had gone. Thankfully talking to Bob had been the right thing. I determined to be a little less front end going forward – to really push for information about how people expect me to do the things they expect me to do before just knowing I can solve it live. “There’ll be posters of your face up in that venue now mate,” Greg comments. He’s not wrong. I’ll go back there some time with everything completely shipshape. I shook all their hands and asked all their names and thanked them. Nice people doing a job. Stressful job. Next time it’ll be easier.

More things have to be moved tomorrow morning so I’ll be up at crack of dawn and off to Versailles, but now I’ve got two telephone numbers and a gps pin, and I’ll be hauling the Luton through the sleepy early morning Paris streets trying to drop off before they turn into hell on earth at about 8.20.