Finally accred

Yesterday I drove with Mel to North Paris Arena simply because we had been told we could get proper accreditation there.

I’ve been working off a printout that I made and laminated myself. When someone caught on that it was hand made they anulled it and then I had another one made up. But most venues like you to have a special photocard and then another identification thing that is venue specific. With this system, for me to do my job efficiently, I would need about ten of those cards plus the special photocard. I had none of them yesterday. I had digital accreditation, Mel didn’t even have that.

“Hi, we need to get accreditation here.”

“We need to see your accreditation.”

“Here is my digital accreditation. We are here so we can both get physical accreditation.”

“Your accreditation is good. She must show hers.”

“She hasn’t got accreditation. We are here so we can get accredited properly. We have driven here because your venue is on this list where we can get accreditation.”

“You can go in and get accreditation. She has no accreditation so we cannot let her in.”

“She’s going in to get accreditation.”

walkie talkie

VOICE: “Nobody may enter without accreditation. Nobody.”

“They need to get accreditation.”

“They cannot enter without it.”

“One of them has it but the other hasn’t got it but they want to get it.”

“Nobody can enter without accreditation.”

I gave up at this point. I’ve been fine with what I’ve got. You just need good comms. Everyone has been good but Roadkill who doesn’t check his WhatsApp and won’t respond to an English number. If you can talk to someone you can make it work even if the venue is in lockdown. The only times things have not got to where they need to be have all come about because someone has given up. Like I did with accreditation yesterday. It’s easy to throw in the towel against persistent illogical high security stubborn. And it is generally better than the other option of them being too lax so I get it. This event has to be tight. Usually I’m a bulldog with these things. My brand of stubborn comes into its own when working around obtuse rules.

Today after endless fuckery I ended up at Yves de Manoir stadium trying to drop something that was wanted to someone that wanted it. But it’s locked down so we have to stick stickers over the doors of the van to prove it’s sealed, and they have to correspond to a docket. I was on my own and just as well. My digital accreditation and the sealed van and docket got me so far, but Omar is sharp as a scalpel. He sees I’ve got spare sealing stickers in my cab, just in case I have to grab something from Brico, sling it in, and reseal it. He doesn’t like it. He knows it means I’m someone looking for workarounds and he then isn’t happy with my lack of physical accreditation. “I’m not happy with it either,” I tell him. “But everything expects us either to have been booked in time for it to have been posted, or that we will always be in the same place. My job is to go everywhere. Can you help me here? This venue is on my list of places to get accreditation. Show me how to get it so you can let me in.” “Just down there,” he says, and with a mixture of suspicion and companionability he walks me to an accreditation booth that is actually OUTSIDE THE BARRIER, and that has French people working inside it on a SUNDAY. I fight my way through the flying pigs and now I’ve got the photo bit of my actual official accreditation. No venue bits so l will have to bother people for MDS passes every time but there’s only one per day so it’s about choosing my battles.

I’m sorely tempted to ask Morgan to send me one of each of the venue passes as I know I’m gonna be unexpectedly driving to many of them and I can never predict which one in advance. It’s based on what’s needed and how greatly it is needed.

So yeah. Summer and safety. I’m weirdly zen about how annoying it is overcoming security, because I am far happier having to jump through hoops than to run through fire.

And I’m learning this town. My evening drop was outside La Defense, which is in full lockdown. I had to stealthily arrange to meet a venue manager outside, who then brought my two small boxes of screws and one box of velcro through security instead of me. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. But having handballed the boxes myself for a few blocks after realising how easy it is to get caught in a one way system round there, I found myself thinking about dinner. I used the walk back to make a plan and found myself the first customer of the night here at Le Resto du Boucher. It almost immediately filled up with families. It is wonderful, and Halal meat so no alcohol on sale thus no temptation which is getting more and more important on this job as the hours get more unpredictable. I was out before 6 today and didn’t get back until eleven. That’ll start to look like a short day.