It’s just gone twelve and I’m processing the fact that I woke up this morning in Brighton. Today has been a number of days all wrapped up together. There were a few things needed moving around London. I move things around. Everything was time sensitive though and the locations were typically London awkward. I ran up against my fair share of traffic wardens, ran away from two of them. “Can I get in through the arch to where all the cars are parked unmonitored?” I asked. “No. That’s not possible, you’ll have to wait with your car.” So I did until they were ready to collect and then they let me in through the arch after all. I fucking hate London when its like that. I’d have been happier hoiking the stuff up the road after all the warden dodging they made me do unnecessarily.
I loaded up the car but they hadn’t finished the ironing so they pretended like they weren’t happy loading ironed clothes into a car with other things in it. Why can’t people be more transparent? I slung back to The Arts and dropped a load of costume bags, then back up to “you can’t get through the arch” land to load more costumes than I had seen first time. My expectation was that they would be neurotic about loading them flat into my empty car, but it turns out the neurosis was a front to disguise the fact the job wasn’t finished and to buy them another hour’s ironing as I rushed around to empty myself up. I’m shit at that sort of deceit as it requires the person making it to be capable of being embarrassed. If you’re slow at ironing you’re still faster than I am. I might suggest you get a steamer if you’re a bloke about my age and type but any other dynamic and I’ll keep my mouth shut and rant about it in my blog instead. Just ask me to wait and I’ll save the petrol.
I unloaded all the ironed clothes at a little studio in Camden and then a brief catch up with a friend before it was time to go back to Mordor for a friend of mine who directed a nice piece of new writing for six women – I needed to be there with an empty car to pick up some easels lamps and canvasses and take them back to Questor’s. It’s nice to see good new writing, and I kinda wish it hadn’t been in Mordor – still I’m home now and the universe is only a little bit wider than it was when I started the journey. I hope my contribution helped them in some way. You know how I obsess about helping the young actors. There were five of them and a colleague closer to my age who does Scene and Heard. All excellent thank God and working with a good script. I’ve driven enough today that I listened to the entirety of the BBC Podcast Intrigue The Ratline, as well as the last episode of Murder at the Lucky Holiday Hotel. This stuff makes the licence fee worthwhile. It kept me engaged and in a visual processing mode. The hours shot by and I only missed them once I stopped.
I’ll pass out with the cats now. Tomorrow is another day.
AlBarclay 