Author: albarclay

Up in the Ayrshire morning and for a few hours I’m Julie Andrews, dancing around my little IKEA flat packing bags and cleaning up. No bin bags anywhere so a neat and guilty pile of empty Kronenburg cans by the bin. Two half finished bottles of red wine down the sink. Everything else into my case and then off into a sleety morning to pick up the ancient scientist again. He’s a brilliant human and his wife comes with him adding value. We notice and comment on similar things, Peter and I. The silhouette of a crow on a traffic light. The behaviour of a woman at the petrol station. We would be friends.

His wife gives me his card and I’ll look them up if I’m in Turin. I drop them at Edinburgh airport and then nothing remains but to get myself to Glasgow. My journey there is slow. I listen to music, stop for a long contemplative sandwich, gently dispose of all the detritus that has accumulated in my car. Detritus… I was roundly corrected at school for pronouncing that word debtrit-us. At the time I complained that deTRITEus sounded American. But I adjusted my pronunciation. Peter said it in the car the first way and now I’m thinking my way might be the English way and the people who corrected me were steeped in American English… but I digress.

So I got rid of all the crap and dropped the Suzuki back at enterprise after just shy of 3000 miles together. I even ripped off the Frankenstein’s ariel I had improvised for the second race running. I left it on in Uruguay, reasoning that a Uruguayan car rental employee was more likely to appreciate a hot fix than to raise an issue about health and safety when they see a copper rod gaffered to the car roof.

Then I flew to Gatwick, got the train and a cab to Shoreditch and met some new people. Now I’m in a pod. It’s 11pm and I’m up at half six. I won’t be driving anywhere though which makes a change. Some of us went for drinks in the bar. I had one pint, started a second one and realised I couldn’t. I’ve taken the glass back to my pod. It is rebuking me from the only tiny surface I’ve got in this room. I’m gonna waste it. My brain and body want to shut down without processing anything else. I’m listening to them.

This pod is run by Premier Inn. If it’s the future I want out. It’s all touch buttons and beige and you have to put your own duvet down and the loo is just behind your sleeping head through glass and there is a constant low level static noise plus the rumble of trains and if you turn off the air conditioning it is quickly very stuffy but you have to or it keeps you up all night. I’m here to work though. I’ll miss my little apartment in Ayr with the little living room. I’ll miss that nippy little Suzuki. And I’ll miss the spirit of the people working that Extreme-E gig. They’re goodies. Motivated and kind. Trying to be part of a positive change.

This event is managers having a jolly. The team is lovely but a very different head will be required.

I’m glad to go from job to job but a crash is coming. I only need to push it back a few more days…

Ahhh horses. I do like horses. These companion animals that were so crucial to the process that built the world we have. These days they are a luxury that few can afford, needing space and exercise.

My mum did well for me when I was young. I learnt to ride small and confident, so there’s always a muscle memory despite the long gaps. Now though I’m tall. I have weight and I haven’t my own horse. As an unknown at a stable, they’ll put me on a plodding old shire horse for safety. We might hack a bit but it won’t really be listening – it does that walk every day. The only real way to build up is to ride consistently. To find a good stable, build a good relationship with the hands and the horses. That requires a consistent pattern of living that I have never really had. So my love of horses has been parked for some time. Lou is bored of me saying how I want to find a way to start riding again.

Problem is, it’s a useful skill for my primary job. If I’m known to be confident on a horse then there are lovely parts that open up.

Today I turned down a beautiful opportunity because it required a good rider and it isn’t worth my reputation to say I am and then not live up to it. On set there are a lot of people who just need the actors to turn up and do their part of the web. If you hold things up you harm yourself. People talk. Yes if I bagged a big enough part then the riding lessons would be part and parcel of it. But I’m not Christian Bale.

Saying no to that chance today? It has spurred me to finally stop talking about it and start doing something. I’m gonna get back on that horse, get my confidence back and then make sure that casting director knows it. I’ve been digging around looking for active and varied residential courses in summer. A bit of basic confidence and hell, maybe a grounding in horse archery or similar.

It’s amazing how far we have moved away from horses. All the mews flats in London – they used to be stables. Ponds at the tops of hills. The layout of pubs. The most visible house in the village often used to be the blacksmith, making much of their revenue shoeing horses. In England now it’s almost a lost art and firmly associated with the rich. There must be ways to ride when you’re six foot tall, live in London and you aren’t minted.

I take such great pleasure making something GO while I’m in it. Just a few days ago in an A-class merc I howled with joy as I took it down active and clear bright country roads with good visibility. I think that giving a horse its head and joining a living thing in the joy of speed – it’ll add to my happiness and it’s much more alive and ancient than these fiberglass and rubber toys we have made.

If you know any courses let me know. I’m happy with some jacked up Latvian fight choreographer who talks about the horse psychology, just as much as I’m happy with some troupe of keen jousters who drink real ale and wassail every Friday. I just need people with a horse that won’t hate me, and time to remember the things I have forgotten. I can make the time.

The upskilling today was about the trailer. I had to carry a great big battery, and a tower light. It was loaded onto this shaky looking trailer by the telehandlers and then checked in great detail by the wizard. Then the boys from powerlog ratcheted it all until we knew it wouldn’t move. I was helping / making damn sure this explosive stuff I was carrying was properly secured with the straps. But then I realised I would be driving for hours once it was all secure. I jumped in my Suzuki and spun up to catering while Daf checked the batteries. Brilliant food as ever, but I was in a hurry. I selected a white spaghetti with peas. Alfredo, I thought. Or maybe a carbonara. I put it on my plate, put the plate on the passenger seat, and spun back down to the loading area. One of the stewards suddenly put their hand out for a hard stop, so I hit the brake. Oops.

It was fish pasta. The plate slid off the seat and upended in the passenger footwell. The car immediately filled up with the smell of fish. I was waiting for a recovery vehicle to pass, so I leant across and gathered all of the fallen fish spaghetti in one dusty stinky smelly handful. The woman on security, who has become a working friend, then wanted to make small talk. In order that she knew I had other FISH to fry, I stuck my pasta filled right hand out of the open window. She let me pass. No roadside bins. Obviously. It’s an event site. I drove all the way to the staging area with a fishy fistful of pasta incomprehensibly sticking out the window. I didn’t want my car to smell of fish. Too many people saw it, but I also didn’t want to be seen to be thoughtlessly throwing anything anywhere on this race where we race for the planet.

When I got back to staging they were still checking the battery on the trailer, and I still had a handful of fishy spaghetti. I discreetly threw it into a hedge for the birds.

Lots of people saw me with this inexplicable handful of pasta. It’ll take me a while to live it down. Will I be spaghetti-man?

Pasta-Person has things to do.

I drove the load to Fairlie and reversed down a long jetty with the trailer. That was a new game with high stakes. Trailer reversing with explosive stuff down a narrow jetty with no barriers between you and the sea while hungry. Turns out my hand-eye coordination is still pretty good and I can parse the logic of the trailer going bassacred to the steering. You’ve never done something until you’ve done it. Next time I’ll be more confident and just as careful. But I’m happy with myself for the whole delivery and yeah, it feels like a small upskill.

No time to stop though. Straight back for transfers. I ended up taking a lovely journalist to Edinburgh. Then back, in time to join a big evening of “hooray we did it” in Wetherspoons Ayr while the lucky few made sense of the lighting tower on the Fairlie boat with the famous DJ.

Now I’m home. Earlier than I might normally be. There was talk of a karaoke bar but … the thing with driving is you have to be alert. I’ll be getting that trailer back from Fairlie at some point tomorrow, all interspersed with being charming for interesting humans. Not as punishing as my karaoke friends, who will be rolling up the tents and pulling up the posts and labouring. But I want to be clear headed. So I will be. Night night.

I’ve put some money on Eurovision.

I tried to watch it. I have now seen the two acts I wanted to see. Now I’m going to bed.

Sweden are the favourites. If they win I’ll get some cash. If they don’t I’ll get most of my stake back so long as they are top six.

My main money though? I put it on Australia.

Why the fuck are Australia in Eurovision? I don’t care. They haven’t made the finals in a few years. They pulled all the stops out tonight and sent a throwback eighties rock band who put one finely turned leg on a vintage car and play stupid instruments. If they come top six I’ll get about eighty quid and if they win I’ll be a fivehundredaire.

I did all of that weeks ago. I didn’t realise it would be race weekend. It’s race weekend.

Once again I’m here, surrounded by all the teams and the excitement and the glamour. Once again I’m the driver. I took some people to the boat for a party. One of them knows about this blog – they are part of the legal team. Cover all possibilities! I mean it took me a whole race before I named the event on this, and even then it was only after lots of umming and ahhing and a discussion with her. I live surrounded by NDAs. Friends of mine are doing projects that nobody is supposed to know even exist. I frequently get scripts across the desk where I’m not supposed to have a friend read opposite me because the thing has got legions of those mildly insane fans.

I want those jobs. I’m never gonna risk my precious precious reputation by being leaky because I want those jobs. Also, years ago, I fucked up when I rage-blogged about an old dayjob with poisonous office culture. I made some speculations about people’s motives that were just wrong, and in so doing shut a few doors on myself. It’s hard to be honest and also be vague. I’m trying to tread the line. It’s aided greatly by the fact that this event I’m working on is right-headed and isn’t run by narcissists.

But even though Eurovision is in full swing, I’m not watching anymore. Too much to do. Race day tomorrow, and then the breaking apart, and I’m wanting to make certain I’m useful and used. For which purpose, an early bed once again. Sleep time.

The new wordpress fuckery is that if I try to attach a picture of doesn’t publish the blog. I pay a hundred a year for this shit and I can’t even put a kofi plug-in. Thieves.

Drumlanrig Castle.

“It must have been named for these drumlins,” says my passenger. He’s an eminent scientist. He’s very old. His voice is quiet like a bird but I keep my ears peeled because his wisdom score is HIGH. If he was a Top Trump you wouldn’t want to go with Physical Strength or Comeliness. But you’d beat everyone on Wisdom.

“Looking at them, you can imagine an enthusiastic archaeologist hoping they’d find an ancient ship in one of them,” I hazard, channeling my Sutton Hoo. I know he’s into mud. Trying to key his subjects. He chuckles. “We went out to the Arctic because they thought they’d found where John Irving was buried,” he reminisces. “It was a perfect grave site. A perfect looking grave. The archaeologist was convinced that the crew must have gone to all the effort to dig it for him. We know he was one of the first to die.” I think of what I know of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition. Some half remembered story of hundreds of brave or dumb men in ships stranded by ice deciding whether to stay or go. One of those “What would you have done?” things, where the only true answer is ‘I would have died’. I try to imagine the freezing starving crew of an ice locked ship taking the time and effort to hack a barrow out of freezing pack ice for one of the dead fuckers that got them into the mess in the first place. I can’t picture it.

But… they found this drumlin in the Arctic near where the boat was lost and they thought it might be a burial mound for one of the unaccounted for souls. They were optimistic. Hopeful. It would have been the making of them, to find his grave. The crew probably actually ate him, but hope springs eternal. The archaeologists might get a book out of it if they were right. Lecture circuit. No more funding applications. Gravy-time. “Hi everybody, I’m a famous explorer.” *Thanks, my agent covers all the money stuff. Can I get a car to the hotel? Oh and the air conditioning is faulty.*

It was a freak of nature, not a barrow. Stones and ice action over millions of years. A perfect mound. With rocks in it and no body. Damn.

We arrive at the castle. There’s a party going on. Is that Ali playing the pipes? Christ, it is. There’s an Odyssey parked outside it. My scientist goes to the ball. I return to my car and head home before it turns back into a pumpkin and I turn back into a rat.

I’m in bed. The alarm is set for 5. I shall ceremoniously drink two teaspoons of Actifed in a moment and go back to that mad delightful place where I can fly and all sorts of things happen and it never holds in memory. Perhaps I’ll see you there again.

Enterprise rent-a-car are a pretty big international company. I’m pretty sure they had plenty of advance warning that this big old event would be landing in Ayr. Nonetheless they appear to have been taken by surprise. Once again I arrived in a branch, this time in Carlisle, to find they’ve run out of cars. This dude tried to blame us – “I had no contact number for the person who made the booking.” Easy to overcome – “All the vehicles are booked internally by her contact in head office. Enterprise made the booking. You can contact your own company.”

He eventually sent Bob to the station with me and we all went in convoy to the Dumfries branch where they sent us off with a rather sexy MG. They had to get a call from head office first though. When I was just a customer to him I was getting no bend at all, like it was my fault they had run out of cars.

Problem solving. Responding. Driving. Talking. “What’s the social life like?” asks Kat and I realise that I’ve only managed one evening in a pub and even then I left after one drink as I stopped there on my way home and still had the whip.

One of the hotels told a load of people they had no booking. No room at the inn. They’ve all gone to Prestwick. There’s a race tomorrow morning at 7.30am to fit the audience needs. Everybody wants to be there in plenty of time so I reckon my phone is gonna be ringing off the hook. I’ll need to be awake and breakfasted. I’m laying out my clothes. Did a load of laundry. Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine in the shower. Mostly I’ll just close my eyes and make it dark until my phone shouts me up from whatever narrative I’m involved with in dreamland.

Night night. Still haven’t sorted out pictures. Shame as the race site is gorgeous.

The plug in the bath in my digs doesn’t work. You know how I like a bath.

I finally reached breaking point this evening after days of showers. I’ve improvised something using a bowl and vacuum. It seems to be working, and I’ve got my leg on it for surety as it fills. I finished at a reasonable time today so I’m bloody well going to immerse myself in water and write this while I do it, so I can get an early bed fully washed and warm and well.

It wasn’t a punishing day today even if the turnaround was tight. Glasgow and back, Edinburgh and back. My evening pick-up ended up picking up a pick-up truck. So it’s me and this bowl in the bath. The biggest thing I had to contend with before trying to immerse myself in water was Edinburgh airport, which charges you nine pounds for the privilege of touching it, and which was laid out by a classroom of twelve year olds on an acid trip.

I’m off to Carlisle again tomorrow. At some point I’ll be able to plug into Global Crew, the boys who work on site, and do some honest labour. But best use of me at the moment is taking pressure off Silvia who is swamped with transport issues. I’m at home in that work so it’s all good. It’s antisocial, but I’m not here to make friends. I’m just a cog in an extremely complicated wheel.

It’s getting active and busy on site. I only spin through occasionally so I get to see how it has changed. All the rope and post is up, things are looking organised and shipshape. Everywhere you go there’s an Odyssey being cleaned or tuned or driven. Lots of busy competitive and hardworking people all focusing on a speciality and doing their best at it. The audience and the reach is growing, as well it should. I feel that being in Scotland will help too. A lot of Americans claim ancestry here. My grandpa was building relationships over there as he smuggled whisky in. Scotland the brave. Even Trump is doing his bit with all the golf courses. With luck we will get greater numbers, greater reach, a better chance to have this right-headed offering in the racing world seen by the numbers it deserves. The racing is excellent as well, and this venue offers fascinating green vistas, a great legacy and the sense of progress as we bring an environmental race to an old open cast mine.

My ingeniously plugged up bath is ready for me to wallow in it. So, wallow I shall. And then sweet sweet sleeeep.

An interesting day of cars and pickups.

Turns out one of the execs had been given an A-class merc and he wanted a bigger car. As it happened, I was dropping a lass off at Enterprise Ayr, so the car change fell on me. I had to leave my Suzuki and get into an Audi Q3. Big new thing, all dressed in black. Lots of boot. All sorts of electrics. I wasn’t gonna connect my phone through it though so I took it down the winding roads from memory and ended up at catering on site. A smooth drive, with potential for some grunt. I was enjoying the fact that the radio worked.

It’s a rare treat for me to coincide with lunch on site, and the catering is excellent this race. I emptied the adblue, tape and silicon filler that I had brought up for Dougie. Then I loaded up with sundried tomato and olive gnocchi and waited until one of the PAs appeared with the Mercedes. She appeared almost immediately. Mid lunch we swapped vehicle contents and keys. I finished my gnocchi and had a cake and then realised as I was filling my only coffee of the day that I had to get back to Ayr post haste for a shuttle run.

I’ve driven an A-class before under different circumstances. They go like the clappers but you can’t see out the back and you feel like you’re scraping your bum down the tarmac. I thrashed the thing back to Enterprise through country roads suddenly filled with slow moving lorries. I would never have one of the things, but overtaking is a dream in them. I got back to Enterprise before I started, and feeling slightly shell-shocked I grabbed my passenger and shot to Glasgow, then Edinburgh and back up with a lovely scientist.

It isn’t gonna get any less busy. Every time I think I might have a stop my phone buzzes. I’m happy like that. And I’m seeing and feeling this part of the world out the windows. My father’s home. Big stone buildings and rain. Sweeping vistas and grey clouds. Sparkling eyes and gangly limbs. Musicality and easy small talk.

I currently only know my next day the night before. Earlier start tomorrow, but not such a late finish. I’m happy to be earning my keep on this team once more. The team feels streamlined and tight, and this season looks strong. Sardinia next, once more. Then more remote again, and I take my hat off to them all for what they are trying to make, what they are trying to do. There’ve been some brilliant and deep car conversations about legacy and science and the next steps. I’m proud to be doing my bit.

I’m sitting in my little kitchen in Ayr listening to the sound of the rain outside and the last birds of the evening. Almost 8pm and it’s still light.

I’ve just finished arranging all the factors for tomorrow’s shuttling. It’s all straight in my head and it all makes sense so I can relax now and sink towards an early bed. I’m very very tired.

First thing this morning I had to drive to Carlisle. It’s only about two and a half hours, but there’s still no aerial in the car so no music. And the rain came. Not just any rain. Rain that floods the fast lane. Rain that cuts the light. Thick hard white rain. My world was a box in front of me. Thankfully the lenses in my sunglasses cut the glare and are perhaps the finest lenses I’ve ever had. I could see what was visible very clearly, and react to it. But what was visible was extremely limited.

You know me and driving by now. My stamina for it is high. But today almost beat me. A restless sleep and then that relentless rain. It wasn’t just an hour. It was the whole way down, like some dream of watery hell, just my eyes and the engine.

I’m some twisted modern version of a centaur. My horse-body right now is a little red Suzuki S-Cross. It’s hybrid. This means it is heavier than it looks and burns petrol faster at speed. I think you’re supposed to only drive the things in cities.

The joy of the battery is when the lights change. It flies off from zero like a souped up diesel. The go pedal kicks it into go and it go go goes. On the motorway, you can sleepily drift into three figure speeds and it is still purring. I think of the Micra and how it used to shake at eighty. This one just wants to fly. I have to be careful not to express myself too much when I have passengers, as some of these empty flat winding rural Scottish roads remind me of the Isle of Man where I learnt to drive and where there is no speed limit. But no amount of go can cut a cloud like that one. I arrived in Carlisle with only ten minutes to spare, and I was adrenalised and exhausted in equal measure just in time to turn around and do the same amount of time and more with passengers.

After an hour I drove out of the cloud and found light and peace, but my head was drooping. Still rain so I couldn’t open the windows – my passengers chose to sit in the back and they were sleeping. I had to stop.

I found a lovely little station. Family owned, an extended farm shop. A far cry from the usual MacDonalds crapstop. I wish I could remember where it was, but I had a fire under me. I necked a bottle of old fashioned lemonade, shoved a packet of crisps into my face and came back to my passengers with a voice again, and a flat white to boot. Yes, I’m back on the coffee, but it’s just one a day and at times like that when it does what it is supposed to do.

I have to eat and sleep. Night night.

Things are beginning to rev up here. I remember this from previous races. I find myself thinking I’m gonna have time to think and then more stuff happens. When I’m part of the team, the team knows I’m part of it and good people make good use of me.

The St Helena is moored up in Fairlie. There’s a narrow jetty, and the old mail boat is there at the end, larger than life. “Not electric yet” it has, blazoned on the side. This is still a race with big ideas, a team buoyed up by that drive to find joy but do it ethically.

Today I met a train into Glasgow. No time to see family sadly. Hopefully one day I’ll be in less of a rush. The passengers were good sorts and got involved in my latest car game.

Last season I built up a playlist on Shazam from Saudi, Sardinia and Uruguay. My obsession has been local radio stations. Charming clumsy earnest DJs and often eclectic often local selections. I’m happy to listen to them talk in a language I don’t understand in order to hear their selections and save them. Last season’s playlist could use some trimming for sure, as I don’t just Shazam songs I like. I get curious when they annoy me. Nevertheless, the lists are an artifact of these short and intense international jobs that I’ve got myself tangled up with and they will hopefully give me pleasure in time to come.

My passengers got right behind it, thankfully. There’s a station you can only get within a few miles of Glasgow. Celt95. It puts out an earnest and eclectic folksy range of tracks. We are clinging onto it as we pushed to the marina, and building an odd and memorable artifact of this race via Shazam.

(For those who don’t know, Shazam is an app that listens to music and tells you what it is. It remembers what you’ve searched for, so later on I can add it to a playlist.)

I was taking the storyteller out to the boat. She’s going to live there for nine months. That’s a whole pregnancy. I wonder what she will bring to life. Her job will be to do roughly what I do on this blog, but with more pictures, better links, less vulnerability and more polish. I partly envy her that existence. It’s a different style of writing though, and it would make this thing I do almost reflexively into A JOB. And we all know that things change when they become your work. I still switch off adverts. I still give my money to WordPress.

I dropped her off with the crew. The first time in my experience the boat has not needed a tender to get to it. In some places you have to go through passport control to get there as on board it is technically England.

Turning round on the narrow jetty in my vast borrowed pick-up was hairy, but nothing worse than I’ve done before. I shot home to my little Ayr Apartment. It’s late. Tomorrow I’ll be covering just as much ground but in the other direction. This part of the world though – it’s beautiful. “I would have stayed there if they weren’t all so buttoned up,” dad used to say. And that seems to have changed. In Ayr, in Edinburgh, in Glasgow I’m seeing interesting looking young men and women. I’m listening to better than generic music on the local stations. There’s spark here. It’s going on the list.

WordPress has decided to stop me from uploading pictures. I’m too tired to try to work out why. That’s why you’ve had no images. Will sort it anon…