Author: albarclay

Underground in Kensington, just off the Fulham Road. A regularly flooded basement. The lights are all shorted. A storeroom.

This store is below the functioning office of an old friend. Back just after I left Guildhall I worked there on a temp basis from time to time. Phoning newspapers for back-issues. Changing the ink on the franking machine. Curating the mailing lists. Doing the office things. I didn’t last long. I don’t, in offices. They would get me to do the dull practical things, as often as not. And one December I was detailed to make sense of the storeroom.

Back then it was full of samples. I organised it all and made it look current. Everything was easy to access. I was proud of the work I did. It was better than I ever do at home, because it was for somebody else and I was being paid.

I was back there today. Sure, it’s been over fifteen years. But nothing remained of my attempt at sorting. All the things were different. Nothing made sense. Much of it was more personal to my friend than the stuff I had sorted. Desperate mice had eaten anything soft. It was pitch black. My friend runs a company from the building, but her life things have crept into this store over the years. We were trying to sort it all out but it’s not just one day’s work.

The best things in there are prams and car seats. She kept all her good quality baby stuff against someone needing it, but they haven’t. It’s time to move it all on. I might end up putting it on eBay for them, but the old attributed value thing is coming up again: “That thing is worth loads of money!” “Here are three examples of it getting no bids on eBay starting as low as 0.99p.” “eBay is the wrong place to sell it then.”

To an extent, yes. But we can spend our lives getting a few bob more for things, or we can just roll them over into somebody else’s life where they will have use. Every generation keeps stuff and passes it down. The exit generation kept furniture and plates. Our lot are keeping lots of digital assets which are going to be tomorrow’s nightmare. Grandpa’s bitcoin. Uncle’s Magic the Gathering account…

I’ll be as useful as I can be for her. We threw a lot in the bin. It felt good doing it. There’s loads more to throw and it might be good to try and sell some of it – even though there’s not much value. Time is always the thing. These things take time to list. Often you just have to throw in the towel and accept that life is more interesting than getting maximum value from things and bits. I pay over three quid for a coffee all the time. I’m getting ripped off for everything from power to water. Maybe someone with a new baby will be thrilled to get a decent car seat for very little. Anyone want to buy a car seat? Sometimes you are better off saying goodbye to the stuff and hello to the space… I’m convincing myself here…

Lou came to town, in quest of fabric. She tried the cheap place in Kingston but they had misled her about the fabric she needed, so she ended up needing me to take her to Goldhawk Road. Problem is, the guys in Goldhawk have experienced people with telly budgets coming for their fabric. Lou is making for theatre right now. She can’t be paying £12.99 a metre. I sat in the car while she haggled. Then we drove to Dishoom.

I’ve tried to go to Dishoom many times in my life, and always failed. I’ve stood in that Soho queue with vague responses. I’ve drunk their free sherry. And I’ve given up, knowing that there are other places selling good food in easy walking distance. But… The difficulty makes it seem more appealing. There’s always a huge queue.

Lou booked for 4pm and when we arrived there was already a huge queue and the woman at the door tried to put us in it. We were given a vibrating thing with 536 on it and we could see people sitting and waiting with 507. We made as much of a fuss as we were able for people who booked ahead. Our rationale was clear: “if they offer bookings at 4pm, they should honour them”. Every other time I’ve tried it has been on spec.

With some persuasion we got a table amidst all the Christmas parties. Lou popped my Dishoom cherry. Tasty.

Then to a very dear friend’s fortieth in the arse end of nowhere. I had Bergman so I stayed fresh and made sure I left before the football finished so nobody drunk and angry tried to swipe into me. I rushed home to beat them, and on the way I elicited my first bang to rights double flash where they call a 40 road a 20 and I was going about 30mph. That’ll be my first speed awareness course unless there’s something faulty with the camera. Oh such fun. I’ll have to pretend I think it’s about safety and not revenue generation, when I know full well I was driving to the road and totally aware of surroundings. They’ll show me photos of dead people.

For now though I’m home and sleepy. Bed soon. Electric blanket is on. Life is making vague sense at the moment.

There’s a London college at which, over the years, I have gone in on days like this and invigilated exams. I’ve been doing it for years now. Decades. Just occasionally. But it’s been a landscape.

The other invigilators are often sick at short notice or just don’t show up, so it suits me to do it as it’s 5 minutes to the college in the car from my flat and if something comes up I can blow them out at short notice. They usually get me to lead, though, as there is a noticeable common sense deficit running through many of the others, but when I was hired they were paying a half decent rate and now they pay beans. I still get my original rate and it’s double what some of them are on so I’m clinging onto the job. But I haven’t been there for over three years. None of us have.

COVID shoved a wedge into everything. They all started doing exams online and it made no sense to me. It’s like my local Buddhists going on zoom. I can’t do it for too long. It just pisses me off.

Now they’re back in the room so I’m back in the room. It’s so odd being there though. I can’t make sense of it. I walked through the corridors as if I was in a strange dream. Three years is a long time and the college never really took up much space in my head. It was a place I went to for easy money when nothing else was happening. It helped me through some of the very hard patches.

Nothing much has changed, although now they often do their essays via laptops, all on an online system together but in the same room. I occasionally feel like a luddite faced with such things.

Lots of time to think, those exams. Long boring hours of waiting and watching. Then a bit of pocket money. Money in is better than money out right now. I’m tired of money out this winter. Living here just costs too much.

It’s much earlier than last night, I’m sober this time but I’m crashing. Even organising exams is tiring… Bed soon. Thank God. I’m still having that love affair with bed and the electric blanket …

I’m pinned into my bed after a very varied day. I’ve got hiccups from the cold.

This morning I woke hic up in Brighton hic hic and hic man these are bad. Hic. But yeah so Hic I woke up hic. Ok. I can’t write hic with this going on I’ll have hic to either stop hic documenting them all hic or I’ll have to try hic some of those hic old fashioned hic remedies like holding my breath hic…

hic hic hic hic hic hic hic hic hic hic hic hic oh God

I have put the electric blanket hic on. I’m hoping hic it’ll warm hic up soon. Man hic this is already getting hic tedious and hic and hic I’m only hic only having to hic to put up with this hic for one evening Hurp. FUCK IT I’M GOING TO DRINK A HIC A GLASS BACKWARDS.

—

Whoever taught me that, thank you. It’s done. It’s the one that works for me as often as not, and it worked this time. Get a glass of water. Drink the whole thing from the far side of the glass. It involves breath control, bending over, and concentration. If you commit to it, by the time you’re done you don’t have hiccups anymore. It works for me. Works more often than not.

Workshops today. Then winter wonderland, livestreaming for theatre, then dear friends for drinks, then hiccups and blog despite early bed needed and now at 1.12am bed with no heating as I’m tight fisted but I’ve got the electric blanket ON and I intend to leave it on all night.

Zzzz

A beautiful calm day by the sea. Kemptown Bakery really does pull out the best coffee in the world so all I had to do was walk round the corner and freeze for a little.

It’s not boiling hot either at mine or at Lou’s so I’m starting to get used to being cold and the things that make it bearable. Hot water bottles and snuggles and warm drinks and soft wool. Any of those people that say they like winter because it’s a chance to do all these things, I will fight you. These things are vaccinations against the cold. We don’t want them. But we hope they will help in some way.

We did manage an excursion, out to Stanmer and into the Walled Garden for a coffee before venturing towards the cedars. Hard to credit that just a few months ago we were dozing on grass that was now wet and churned up with mud. We attempted a walk but neither of us felt particularly inspired to punish ourselves so we called it and got back into Bergman. He has hot air blowers.

Warm hearty food and it looks very likely we will be asleep by half nine. We managed a couple of episodes of Sandman which we are watching together when we get time to share in a thing, and now I just think it’s time for bed. An early start tomorrow and lots of things happening one after the other for about a week so rest can never go amiss while it’s possible. I’m putting the phone into airplane mode and getting my head down. Tomorrow will look after itself. More National Grid madness. Helping the next generation to think about options.

Handel’s Messiah. If you were committed you could watch a different version of it every day throughout December. You would be in bright school halls festooned with ribbons, you would be in pubs in small islands where four tipsy friends and a fiddle hack out Hallelujah. If you were lucky you would have found a ticket to Theatre Royal Drury Lane for this evening. Tonight and tonight only. I booked this on 30th September, believing at the time that I would not be able to go because of Christmas Carol, but trusting some deep inner pessimism, sensing on some level that the show was gonna get pulled. I rarely book tickets so far in advance. Learnt the hard way. I had to give away my tickets to Peter Brook’s Hamlet. Loads of things I have had to give away. Loads of weddings and parties I’ve had to miss. My life makes sense to ME, but it requires immediacy and responds badly to advance planning.

As we took our seats there was whispering from the speakers almost entirely drowned out by audience noise, but evidently a beginning of trying to use this very traditional space slightly differently. Perhaps at some point in the creative process there was a thought that the audience entry and exit might have been populated, perhaps by cheap actors or installations. This was not to be, but the stage was very populous indeed.

Lou has managed to comp me to Glyndebourne so much in the last few years that I’m better at watching concerts than I used to be. We saw a semi staged Tristan and Isolde there which tested my endurance for a long show like that. I was ready to become interested in the choir and the musicians, and I know the piece very well. It was while we were rehearsing it for the school choir that my voice catastrophically broke over about a month and went from high open soprano, through wobbly alto and strident tenor to a very confused and very loud bass. At least I didn’t have the anxiety of not knowing what to expect. We settled in.

It’s all about Jesus, as you’d expect, but we had a big screen centre stage running often beautiful and striking moving light displays suggesting comets and suns and stars, crowns of thorns and stigmata and crosses and fire. A whirling display and always something to look at. Not that we needed it with Greg Batsleer as an animated and involved conductor, getting great sound and clear telling from the choir and orchestra. And for me the icing on the cake was three dancers, lighter than air, so free and controlled, whirling on the apron somehow in complete understanding of every movement they made. Absolute joyful weightlessness, the epitome of hard work looking easy. Truly beautiful and free next to the principal singers coming out of the opposite connection – a voice that soars and shines out of grounded still bodies.

This is why people occasionally punt a whole truck of money at a ticket to the theatre. This one wasn’t too bad – certainly for the venue and the experience. About eighty quid the pair of us. We both came dressed up. We went to Busaba beforehand after giving up on the Dishoom queue.

For forty quid each, a whole load of people worked really hard to entertain us, and we heard loads of songs about Jesus. They even make the word “Amen” last about ten minutes. It’s cracking if you like watching people singing. We sat in a great big swanky theatre full of Pre-Raphaelite art and sculptures. Some of the devout audience members even stood up during the Hallelujah chorus. They’ll be the ones with front row tickets to The Second Coming when Jesus finally gets his shit together and makes that show.

We finished up. We were full of joy. I caught Rebecca in the foyer, but a rushed tube to Sloane Square as it was already past ten. Another old friend next to us on the tube. London, innit. And then off off off back in Bergman eating up the miles and full of conversation about the joy we had just witnessed all the way home to Brighton and Lou’s. And here I lie, with a cat and a Lou sleeping beside me. It’s cold in the world. But I’m buoyed up by a lovely impulse buy and a bit of CULTCHA. I’d say “go see it” but you can’t cos it’s over. Shame. It really is awfully Christmassy… Lovely to see it sold out all the same.

Humbug? None of that to be seen.

Early start today for more workshops. I’m back in London so back on the earning train and I need to be able to power my home and eat tasty things and drive to Brighton. Vikram came over and fixed the boiler. Mel was there to let him in. He fixed it. Much better than last time it went wrong. Last time it was four months, this time it was four days. And now I’ve got water and radiators that actually get hot again. The little meter that tells me how much I’ve given to the oil folks is scaring me every time I go into the kitchen.

The day went by in a strange repetitive cycle. The same thing five times. Repetition but to very different humans every time. A fun bunch but there’s no way in hell I could do that sort of thing every day. Once or twice every few weeks is fine thanks. Let’s have some filming. Uruguay drove a wedge in my self-tape momentum. I brought all my kit with me and a sharp suit and I didn’t have to use any of it once dammit. They emailed to ask if I could do last minute cover tomorrow in Warwickshire but I told them no. Someone has lost their voice. That’s a shame and I was tempted to just do it anyway as there’s a bit of me that struggles to say no to anything, but it would have taken me too far from London for my evening plans with Lou.

I’m back in my incredible bed. My Fitbit logs my sleep these days and it calls me a parrot. Looking back over my sleep cycles and my activity certainly justifies the investment in this thing, even if it mostly tells me what I already know. I don’t get enough restorative sleep though apparently, and it can’t make sense of the variable sleeping hours from flying halfway round the world.. I’ve only had one day’s sleep this month where it’s awarded me a star for good sleep and that was Sunday, so now the heater’s fixed and I’m not working tomorrow morning, it’s time to try for another one in cosy bedland.

Cor blimey

I’m knackered.

Mel is in my bed tonight. I’m on my sofa. I’ve persuaded her to be in tomorrow in order to deal with the boiler human while I’m off to Kent to find future engineers.

I’ve tried to give her a crash course in plumbers. These guys are booked through my Vaillant insurance, and as with so many areas of skilled labour, it is easy to predict. “I won’t know what to expect until tomorrow morning when they call me. If they speak with a British accent then you’ll have to fight to get them to do the job. Here’s how to fight. Any other accent and they’ll just get on with it. I’ll let you know when they ring me in the morning.”

It’s like with Team Know How… “Team know how to avoid working”. A pair of awful humans who laughed about the old woman who turned on “the waterworks” when they found a technicality that meant they didn’t have to deliver an oven just before Christmas. I was in the loo, and one older workshy bastard was tutoring his younger colleague. He found some twenty year old mouse droppings and used them as pretext to avoid doing the job. “You’ve taken it better than a lot of people do,” he says, betraying that he thinks his job is to avoid doing his job. I don’t blame Curry’s, despite the fact I was in three months of pain after pulling something in my shoulder taking the old oven out. I do blame that nasty entitled lumpish man.

But tomorrow who knows… I just hope it’s not a brit. It’s a sad place we’ve come to though, where I don’t trust someone with my accent to be reasonable about some labour. It’s as much to do with the post code as it is to do with the economy.

I’m up tomorrow morning to inspire young people to go into engineering. Maybe I can help them pick up skills and then use those skills without cudgelling their clients. Maybe. It’s gotten to the point where it makes sense for me to get my own gas certification etc… There’s a huge price tag on a simple training. But the payback is pretty quick, and I could change the world by being an English accented plumber who isn’t a thief.

I went on a brilliant Dickens walk this evening and I’m too tired to write about it.

https://www.peculiarlondon.com/

Book a ticket.

I’m back home. Enough of his nonsense. Staffordshire? I was there for just a moment. A flash. A Premier Inn, way too much red wine, 6 hours of snoring, a careful shower, milky porridge, three coffees and a yogurt, scrape the ice off Bergman, short drive.

Park, stand in a cold corridor saying hello to young engineers. Go upstairs. Help Ben run a workshop.

Then a tour of the campus conducted with great will and small competence by two young men in branded red hoodies. “This building is full of cool stuff. It’s locked.” “This building serves great coffee. It’s closed.”

Then bundling up materials for another workshop to come, and we are done. Back in Bergman and back to London.

Three and a half hours seems nothing after Uruguay. There’s less to look at out the window in this country. But the drive flew by even though I stopped for a brew at Oxford just as I was flagging. All the wine last night, then all the energy. I’m home and my flat is so cold. Jacket potato and into Bed once more, with the successful experiment of putting the electric blanket UNDER the mattress topper. No more sleeping on wires. All the warmth. If the flat burns down you’ll know why.

More workshops on Monday. Tis the season. I need to prep for the Monday ones as well, so I guess it’s an early bed before missioning out and into the big world. My face is a great big scab now after I sandpapered the front of my face off. Hello you lot. I’m back in London and active again. Hopefully see some of you soon…

A terrible upset in the world of bed. The magical global warming button malfunctioned. Normally I travel to Kitchen where I push a button that warms the world in exchange for everything you will ever own. You can learn more about the land of Kitchen from previous blogs. Last night though, the roaring global warm machine that they have there packed up. Pressure error, it says. Filthy foreign machines. Those kitchen people need to make things like we make them in Bedroom.

Coincidence is strong today. In September I booked my annual boiler service. The man came this morning.

“It’s like an old car,” he says. “One thing gets fixed and the next thing breaks. I could condemn it?”

“Fix it. It’s worth it to try.”

He tried.

There’s a part, he tells me, that needs replacing. This part exists in “the wide world”. Yeah right. We all know he’s just an agent of the “wide world” theory, trying to win new recruits. But I humoured him. He is going to go to Corridor. And there he will just hide for a few days before coming back with the part that he always had. It’s worth the effort for him just to try to trick me into buying the “wide world” theory. Like the idea that we all live on an island surrounded by sea, all of us, and we don’t sink? Ha. THINK ABOUT IT, SHEEPLE. The weight would sink us immediately? How can you be so suggestible? It’s almost as if you’ve got no critical thinking. Lol.

Still I followed him to the door in Corridor to see if I could spot him hiding. He’s hidden well. I couldn’t. But knowing that there is no wide world, I “drove” Bergman to “Stoke on Trent” where I’m staying in a “Premier Inn”. All hallucination of course. Mixed with an elaborate show put on by boilerman.

I’m no sheep. I know how it is. The windows of my “car” are video screens and people jiggle it to give the illusion of movement. I appreciate the artistry. It must be a lot of work to keep the truth from me. More work than you’d think it’s worth until you take into account the New World Order who want us all to think there’s a wide world out there for their nefarious bad reasons and I’M RIGHT AND DON’T THINK ABOUT IT TOO MUCH I’M NOT LISTENING I’M NOT LISTENING AAAAAA.

So here I am. In this idea of Stoke on Trent. And what do I find in his Premier Inn? Oh look. Goodness me. It’s a bed. They don’t want you to know. But beds happen here.

Three beds. But each of them is just Bed. Proof, right here, that there’s nothing outside of bed despite what the msm want us to think. I’ve arrived here in supposed Stoke on Trent and yet here is Bed, just like in the only place that actually exists. For obvious reasons. Bed is the only place.

Now I have proved that bed is the only place that exists, it’s time for me to ask you to follow the breadcrumbs. You’ll find so much more that is just as true. Follow. FOLLOW.

Whut? Night night humans.