I’m still dealing with binmen and rats. Apparently a form needed to be lodged after I spoke to Freddie the rodent man. I have to lodge it not him. Technically my block caretaker has to lodge it but he’s on annual leave. So I had a go today.
The bins go out tomorrow and the guys aren’t going there unless they have to. Path of least resistance. The room is full again. I went off up RBKC to try and talk to someone, ended up on a dedicated internal phone line inside the town hall for half an hour. I was watching the interesting folk of the borough coming and going with their problems. One lovely old guy who was homeless for two years and is now having to do so much admin to keep the place he’s been housed in that he is almost done with it. The guy I spoke to was helpful when I eventually spoke to him. He was probably upstairs when I was down.
I’ve given loads of time to this problem that is only mine because of the habit I have of making things my problem when I know that otherwise they have been disguised by a “Somebody Else’s Problem field”. (“An SEP is something we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot.”) Douglas Adams put it well, but I’m immune to them. Much of what I do on events – the stuff that makes people call me back – that’s because I make it my problem. “The Somebody Else’s Problem field… relies on people’s natural predisposition not to see anything they don’t want to, weren’t expecting, or can’t explain.” That’s never been me. Apart from my own mess.
I don’t want to see this rubbish problem in my block, but I can, so I’m fixing it. The flies come in through my window and they wouldn’t be breeding here if the bin men were taking the bags out.
I am paying a huge amount per month in service charge, and I’m doing most of the work right now. There’s some serious fuckery taking place here… But that’s another blog.
Glorious night this evening, with Brian and Maddy, finally seeing The Play that goes Wrong. It went wrongwrong tonight, there was a genuine understudy takeover halfway through. But it’s a glory too. It has run and run and spawned copies and with good reason.
I wonder how long that actor might have held the “ledger” thing until what happened happened. There are some really smart moments of durational comedy. This is something that has run and run now, the chaos looks chaotic but it’s tightly practiced. It still feels fresh enough. I enjoyed myself and it was a lovely way for the three of us to be social in The West End. I love this city. There’s so much variety, even if people are lazy and entitled and slow and noisy. A plumber came and serviced my boiler and he wanted to buy some of my random statues… I pointed out to him they were resin not bronze.
AlBarclay 