Author: albarclay

Thinking about it, it is a long time since I purchased a whole tank of fish from the deputy headmaster (now retired). I didn’t have a fucking clue when I bought them. I still don’t, but most of the fish are still alive.

The angel fish were the first to go, followed by the solitary goldfish. The rest of them though – they were all robust, and all varying types of loach. Bottom feeders. Catfish.

Knowing how fish work, I allowed them to clag up and for the level to drop. Catfish want it sludgy. That’s their happy place. Still, I was aware that they also might want the option of SKY. But I knew that it takes time to clean them up. And recently I haven’t had the time.

This morning I set it aside before work. I scraped them and I squeezed out their sponges and jiggled their medium and generally reset things. Then I put the Fluval U4 back together. That’s the aerator.

For context, I inherited the aerator from the previous owner. “I’ve had it a while,” he told me. I felt flush. I bought one the same, brand new. I put it in and literally the first time I changed the medium, it packed up. Dead. Not the fuse. Just dead. Thankfully I had the old one which still worked. That has been my workhorse. I never bothered to contact Fluval and tell them my then brand new filter broke almost immediately. I did notice that there is something of a monopoly with the big pet stores regarding that brand. I’m happy to buy a filter if it doesn’t suddenly arbitrarily stop working, particularly if I’ve had it for less than a month. But this morning I was in a hurry to get to work. I suddenly had a tank full of fish that were gonna die if I didn’t get air to them, and half an hour. Option 1: Try and fix one of the two filters that have identically packed up. Option 2: Drive to the pet shop and buy a third.

I had time pressure. Had I tried to fix it and failed, dead fish. I spun to Pets at Home Battersea where the staff couldn’t find me by post code but flogged me another sodding Fluval and honestly I hate that brand they are fucking awful, somebody please disrupt the fish tank filter industry as they don’t appear to give any fucks.

I made it to work with a minute to spare. The fish are happy with me and I’m happy with them. The only asshole here is the monopolising faulty filter company. If I hadn’t lived ten minutes drive from a pet shop, I would have a stinky tank and dead fish. The last thing I want to have to do is to replace another fucking Fluval product with more of the same. There must be another way to stop our fish from running out of oxygen… Or is this just prefiguring what is going to happen to all of us, via water and air. The capitalisation of ALL. The Truss Funders. Fuck you, human. We like money. Buy my water.

I promised my captive fishes that I would make it nice for them this morning. In so doing I almost killed them. I had to go out of my way and spend to prevent their death. Now, looking at them, knowing that they are tiny little lives, I am so happy I went for it. Despite the expense, and the fact I gave more of my money to those idiots who make faulty filters.

Towards the middle of the day, two mothers came in to see Panda, carrying their two suckling babes. I first knew it from the screaming. One of them got carried in to the anteroom and was immediately terrified of the donut. It began to ackwaaaggh.

“It’s a multisensory learning experience for them,” said one of the mothers, proving that she looks at very different articles to the ones I am consuming. The child was on edge, not sure if it was meant to be terrified or not. I was speaking in my softest non creepy voice, or at least I hope I was. I was trying to make no sudden moves. The other child just sucked and stared, baffled, but this one was always deciding whether or not to start making more noise than I could happily handle. I gave him a furry chocolate finger. It’s not edible. He stuck it in his mouth. Progress.

They were delightful and busy, and I just calmed and calmed myself. I think they might still be there now if I hadn’t started cooking in my head. My face was boiling like a cabbage by the time their calm-time was over. I ushered them out and two people were waiting. I needed to take the Panda off though. I’ve not nowhere to hide in my room. “Go in before me,” I told the next two – a mother and child. That was my mistake.

We don’t encourage children. This one was 4. The two infants had put me into a calm state of mind, but hot, and I had just invited a 4 year old to go into my little space first. It of course immediately made it HIS space. He colonised it.

I came in and he was already getting started on trashing it. “What’s your name,” I tried and he shouted it to me so he was at least responsive. Then, to my surprise, he bellowed “I like to pray!” For a moment I was relieved. I was in a peaceful state. He’s a religious child. Maybe we could all have an invocation to the great Panda, I thought as he picked up a ball with “love” written on it, chucked it at my head and repeated, clearer “I like to PLAY”. Fuck. His poor mother I think had hoped he might be distracted enough by Panda for her to get a break. No such luck. I am virtually blind in the Panda and it is hard for me to move quickly or react. I couldn’t have managed him unfettered. No chance with restricted vision and no warning. Praytime for us all. Oh God.

Some time later I was discovered hanging by my fingertips to the burnt remains of the universe, surrounded by a carnage of balloons and empty cans and pencil cases and romantic novels. I shivered back to the knowledge of myself. “Hug mister Panda goodbye, but ask him permission first.” He hugs me. “You’re not a Panda, I could see your beard,” he concluded over his shoulder as he left, and the plastic sheep fell over sideways and lost an ear.

I decided long ago never to have children,” the volunteer comments. We are trauma bonded now. The rest of the day we talk loads and some lovely people come by and it’s a fun thing. The whirlwind child was great as well, but dear lord I pity the mother. She won’t come up for air for a long long time yet… He’ll be an actor. Poor sod.

I was up at half four this morning when two of my dear friends video called me from a bar I know all too well in Greencastle Indiana. My alarm was set for half five and bless them they must have forgotten the time. They sang me a song. They wished I was there. I think they might have been… drinking? This is a Macbeth tour of the states where two of my favourite people are out there together. I’m so glad they’re having a lovely time! It’s ace of them to include me. I can enjoy their joy vicariously, without having to give up all the mad shit that’s happening to me. They are soon to go to some of the most incredible destinations and I’m mildly hankering after it. But I’m off to Uruguay soon, just… not for acting. But, the Uruguay job is MINT and I’ll likely be Scrooge again in December and it’s all good and good and good.

They videoed me, then I went back to sleepish. Then up again to drive a load of branding to Paddington. Then to the doctor to persuade them to give me a load of testing shit. Then back to Paddington to pick up the tables, then back to mine in time to meet Russ and give the things to him. Then up to Hampstead to write my stupid bio again for somesuch thing that my head isn’t on yet because it was dress rehearsal for the Halloween Walk. Some guy was there from the local amdram who appeared to literally hate the fact I was extemporising because he has done the job before and likely measures every word and checks the pitch with a tuning fork. Everybody else seemed to have a lovely weird time, which is, of course, the point. Rarely have I come across a better named outfit. We are Peculiar London, and this is a very peculiar experience. We had a wonderful jogger who became part of the experience, and two teenage girls who attached themselves to the end of it and even offered to buy us all a pint if we “do the tour again here for us!”

They were like… thirteen. They would never have got served. They followed us on a rehearsal. I think we are going to be their evening distraction. I might have to build them into the tour…

I don’t have much headspace. I don’t have much free time. But… I have joy. That’s enough. That’s more than enough. And I’m surrounded by lovely people. This is going to be a good month.

No Panda today but non stop despite the lack of timechunk. Tomorrow much the same, then back into Panda.

I took Mel in to Brook Street thinking it was going to be easy, but all the roads were closed and it was a nightmare. We made it, just. By that time I was too late to go to Canada Water so we did the meeting over the phone while I was waiting for some tablecloths and branding boards and trestle tables to be dropped off at The Natural History Museum by Red Bull. I chose to use Max’s work to have things delivered as I couldn’t with any degree of certainty predict where I would end up at any point today. Not the best idea as Max only checks his phone once a month.

With the car loaded up I went home and grabbed some fly head masks, a carriage cape, my stovepipe and another top hat. I was already late. I rushed into Kirkaldy Testing Centre. We threw around some ideas for photos for a show taking place in the first week of November. I only had an hour. Tommo works fast. We got some goodies. I left precipitately to go to Hampstead. Lots of driving, a touch of photographic modeling, nothing that hasn’t been my primary earner at some point in the years I’ve called myself an actor. Then a pub. Walking.

I ordered chicken at The Freemasons, just as I didn’t want a repeat of the explosive wine situation from a few days ago. It turns out I’m not as young as I used to be. If I’m gonna be burning the candle at both ends I need to be taking care of myself within that, rather than eating nothing but a Pret salmon sandwich and then drinking all the red wine. I actually have to start slowing down. Taking care of myself. Oh how I would have laughed a decade ago when I was working out what the boundaries of my endurance were.

I did walkies. Still have some bits to straighten out. I’m trying not to cover ground I’ve covered before, but last year I carefully pulled out all the stories I was curious about, so this year has been harder on the research and repackaging. Still, the route is different and, I think, very good. I’m happy with it. We finished and we now traditionally share a baked camembert at the King William IV – a lovely way to end the tour.

Now I’m home, and Bergman is full of stuff that has to get to Paddington at crack of dawn tomorrow morning.

While I was running around I confirmed my flight times to Montevideo in November. I’ll be off for two weeks, and then hopefully back for Christmas Carol. Oh hell. Oh life.

Early start. Not such an early bed. But it’ll do. Night all.

“Dude, you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome with Barbara Cartland.”

For eight hours a day I live in a window. I am surrounded by colourful ridiculous brilliant things and among them are blown up book covers from that record breakingly prolific author. Her books are scattered about hither and yon, and when you discover me I’m reading one. It’s my opener. Connection in a book to genuine human connection.

I’ve finished one book already just from reading it through the gauze in my Panda head as I wait for people to come. It’s hard to see but I’ve got time. It was “A Touch of Love,” where Tamara melts the stony heart of the Duke by first finding the love in her own heart. It turned the pages. Tamara with her oval face and her long “Hungarian” ginger hair, The magnificent but cruel Duke with his stallion. It’s kind of Jane Eyre without the literature. There’s a bit of magic thrown in. All the loose ends get tied up neatly in a little bow and onto the next book.

She’s dictated her oeuvre, each book after a period of meticulous research. Well over 200 of them. You can see she knows a great deal of detail about how a big country house can be run. She’s very involved in how guests are supposed to be welcomed so she can highlight the shortfalls in her fictional Duke. She’s a champion of the Romany people, she believes there are magic healers out there, and apart from kissing eventually it is all very clean in her pages. No unnecessary raciness thank you very much.

There’s a book she put out when she was famous called “I seek the miraculous,” which is diary snippets from times when she has encountered something slightly magical or ghostly or otherworldly. It is filled with little epigrams and moral snippets, fragments of happy doggerel and observations that could be characterised as innocent or trite depending on your predilections. I like it very much. You couldn’t publish it if you weren’t famous. It reads as if she never lost the glow in her eyes, with her bouffy hair and dripping with jewellery and floofy dogs, living out of some stately home and channeling a romantic book every few days. “I ask myself, and then the book arrives, fully formed. All I have to do is speak it.’

It’s good clean wholesome drivel. It teaches insidious things about how important money is, and it enshrines bad old class systems. I could take her apart much more easily than I can build her up. But she’s worthy of respect, giving an escape to so many, being so prolific and actually having a good heart under all the pearls. Good old Babs.

I’ll probably read another one next week, and see the formula. I’d sooner read this crap than Fifty Shades crap though. I might not choose these books, but I’m locked in with them. Just as her heroines do, I’m solving it with love instead of hate. Generally it’s the best way. Power to the Cartland.

“So, this blog, you write it every day?”

“Yeah. Yeah I do.”

“Ok. Every day no matter what?”

“Yeah, no matter what. I used to set a minimum of 500 words but WordPress introduced blocks and so now I just write until I think there’s enough.”

“Until there’s enough?”

“Well, yeah. I mean sometimes I’ll just stop because I’m tired, and other times I’ll stop because I think I’ve completed whatever thought I was trying to convey.”

“So you’re trying to convey thoughts?*

“No not really. I’m just… I dunno. I’m just writing life. Whatever is there…”

“Ok… So you write everything?”

“Well, yeah. No. Yeah. No yeah ok so no… No I don’t write everything.”

“Aha. So this is interesting now. You keep things back? So you’re trying to craft some sort of a version of yourself?”

“Not so much, no. It’s not a curation exercise. Much of it is to do with friends of mine with boundaries. I’m very respectful of those boundaries. To the extent that I’ll often ignore very deep interactions in order to preserve the privacy of those I love.”

“I see. Ok. So that’s why you aren’t writing about how you shat yourself this evening?”

“I’m sorry?”

“On your way home tonight. Are you preserving somebody else’s privacy by not writing about how you basically shat yourself between Sloane Square and home?”

“That’s an exaggeration. I had it under control. Yes I shat. But my trousers were not involved. I got away with it.”

“Barely. By sheer coincidence your car was parked between Sloane Square and your flat. You got off the tube, got to your car and immediately shat into the gutter by your car with the door open.”

“Exactly. Into the gutter! And I had a big box of excellent tissues on my passenger seat and it was totally fine and as soon as I got home I ran a hot bath. You seem to be very much wrapped up in this whole surprise poo incident.”

“Are you surprised? Listen to yourself. Lovely Lou, and all this filming and collaborating with artists and off to Uruguay soon with your flat in Chelsea. You overprivileged wanker. I’m happy you shat yourself.”

“I didn’t shit myself. You’re making it worse than it is. I contained it all very well. I just had an emergency movement by my car, and took advantage of the fact I’ve got a bunch of free tissue boxes.”

“You’ll never write about it though will you? Too busy curating this ideal version of yourself.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m trying to make a place where I can be flawed. I got caught short and I was lucky. My car was between the station and my home, and I had a free pack of Kleenex giant tissues literally on the passenger seat. First time since Camino that I’ve not made it to a formal place. Bergman provided the necessary infrastructure. It all happened. That’s the way of it. Done.”

“Done?”

“Yeah. Done.”

“Ok. So now you’re out of the bath. You’re clean. You feel great. Tom is in York, you have your own bed. And it’s blogtime.”

“Totally. And I’m going to write about all the art I did and the amazing chats I had as Panda.”

“No. You’re not. You’re gonna write about how you basically improvised an outhouse from a car door. You’re going to tell these idiots who think you’re a glamorous actor that you emergency shat on the street in Chelsea.”

“No, dammit. Nobody will ever know. They can never know. I’m shiny and sexy. That’s me. Shiny Sexy Al. Sparkly Alec. Alec Sparkly. I’m better than real. I can’t let my adoring public know I’m flawed! Watch me work it. I’m perfect. *Hyperventilation*

“It’s too late, mate. I’ve written this whole exchange. And you’re knackered. It’s almost 2am. Bedtime. This is the blog, like it or lump it.”

“So everybody will know?”

“No. Only the people who read this.”

“That could be anyone!”

“It’s your fault if you refuse to read the stats. Who knows how much harm you’re doing, bumfungus streetpoo-man “

“That’s bullying!”

“That’s life. Just be glad there’s no picture, asshole.”

A quiet night. A Friday night. But I’m just not able to do the party right now. There’s a fortieth, full of friends. An earlier version of me would be there and would still be dancing 4 hours before I was due to start work. That version would have appeared and put on a head and stank through a day in the window. This one is already in bed, bright and early, and will be fast asleep very soon.

Today brought more joy in the form of citybound individuals lacking genuine connection and finding some humanity through their chat with Panda. I’m not confined to Panda, but currently he is the wisest of the masks as they find themselves when I wear them, so I prefer to stick with him. Panda can be peaceful and thoughtful. Brown Bear just gets overexcited and angry and Blue Bear is clearly on something and largely incomprehensible. Panda is looking for love and talks in sentences. I might experiment with Bunny before long – he seems to think he’s important and is also capable of sentences. But he’s very easily distracted. Still, I’m there for ages. Gotta mix it up.

I think there’s a joy in being rounded but flawed. Panda has been given some great advice about how to overcome his anxiety around how every time he tries to make love the BBC come along with live cameras. He has these gimlet eyes that make him very easy to open up to. But there’s more to this installation than therapy. I might have to be distracted posh bunny tomorrow, or Amy has found my favourite mask from last time : Sexy Kitty. Sexy Kitty is cruel. I suspect that conversation will get dark fast.

It’s like an extended mask workshop but without some arsehole who has already decided what the mask does based on other people who have used it. I’m finding variance in these huge things, and the array of frock coats purloined from the Opera House are definitely helping define the characters I’m finding in them. There’s great joy in this work. If only the damn heads weren’t so HOT. “I’ve overstayed my welcome,” one guest said, and it brought it home to me that I still haven’t worked out how to end the experience. After a while, my face is cooking like a broiling cabbage, but I’m trying to encourage my guest to happily leave my room and go far enough away that I can get out after them and decapitate myself and pant like a dog until my temperature is normal again. A tiring room would be lovely. With refreshments and massages and a comfy chaiselongue.

I’ll be going all weekend. It’s a living. It’s a joy. It’s delightful. It’s exhausting.

I now live in a window.

Me, some curtain trousers and a regency frock coat that I brought along this morning because I thought it might be a good match. Barbara Cartland, love, spirituality. Whatever random stuff is in your head. Beefed up by the endless random stuff-mine in mine.

Lou came by which was beautiful and strange. I had just been given a young volunteer to steward people in and out. We didn’t really get time to connect. It can be pretty much a full time job, being the windowtherapypanda. Still, I was delighted to see her – a rarity in London.

Today I met Jim Bob, and we talked about age, about love and about expectations. I met Paulina and we talked about making art and the balance of surrendering control versus keeping it. I’m aware I’m on that knife edge, where Amy trusts me to be her Panda and keep things true to her vision, but she lets me riff. My conversations went everywhere people wanted them to. I even had some curious connections made by Daniel who was angry on my behalf that the Panda community was being blamed for the pandemic because of similar sounding words. “I know,” I complained. “And it doesn’t help that I’m from China. But people make connections, they want things to make sense and the internet amplifies their pattern matching. Panda, pandemic: it’s a coincidence. But you can’t tell that to the devotees.” Lovely. Another person really wanted to talk about Rat Kings and what they might be capable of. Interstellar travel? Time dilation? Psychic communication of course. I enjoy the rat king Mythos, and I suspect that the person talking about them was surprised that I could hold my own on such an obscure topic. This is no ordinary Panda. This is geekpanda.

This will be two weeks of my life. I would be very glad to talk to you – slots are bookable online and right now it’s fucked as two people who don’t know each other can book the same slot. That happened three times today. I’m ok if you don’t book slots as there’s nowhere to hide and if it’s back to back it’s fucking miserable after a while as I discovered this evening. The head just gets hot hot hot and after a while your brain is too cooked to be courteous and engaged. In an ideal world, I would have a little place to retire to. But I reckon I can just organise it so the volunteers don’t overlap traffic…

A window in Mayfair. An artist. A collaboration.

Amy is fucking cool. She wants me to be talking to humans with a mascot head on. All she needs of me is to be in the little room she has made and to ask good questions of my visitors. I only had one proper punter today, a young Portuguese lady who opened up her life to Panda. She was the perfect person to start with because she honestly didn’t mind sharing everything. She came ready to share. I don’t know what’s in the press release, but I’m having to think about how to make sure my guests leave the room safe if they share big. It feels like it’s Panda-therapy, and even if many of my friends have gone and trained in various therapies, I didn’t and I’m not the vicar I might have been. I’m a strange man with a Panda head. But it turns out that, right now, with the whole world exploding, strangePanda-human is the guy you need. It reminds me of reading tarot for strangers. It seems communing with Panda inhabits a similar place. We are stuck. We need something out of the ordinary. Enter the Panda.

I’m gonna be sitting in a Mayfair window, variously applying hunour and empathy. I’m gonna be trying to make things lovely for my visitors.

Already it’s been joyful for me. Brian’s office is next door, and various denizens have successfully caught me between shifts. It’s free, so if you’re in Bond Street and need cheering up, book. It’s free.

We are starved of unusual joy, and we are starved of free things that have any weight. This is definitely unusual, and I think there’s weight, just in the chance we have to properly talk to strangers. My mask gives me freedom to say anything, but I’m still not certain of the best way to start and end the interaction. I can take it from my guest, but if it gets crowded I’ll need a timer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring in my fifteen minute sand timer… I got it for another project, but it’s good… Just the sand is black. For his project it needs to be bright.

Much to do. Lots of fun to be had. Inflatable dogs and fluffy cats and weird things aplenty, and it looks like this’ll be two weeks of weird but total delight. Maybe I’ll see some of you there. The rest, I’ll just be that Panda in your dreams.

I really ought to get better at sending invoices. I’m owed quite a lot of money now and yet if I were a cartoon character, moths would fly out of my wallet when I open it.

I drove back from Chinley today and stopped just in time to play “yacht guy” for a friend over zoom. “I’m assuming this is gratis,” I said to him, off the cuff. This is for friends who make things. They’ve been instrumental to good times for me financially. They recently overpaid me for nothing so I’m happy to give a bit back. Quid pro quo. It’s gratis and that is ok considering it took me all of twenty minutes and I could do it whilst sitting in Bergman. But I’m aware of what I might be able to a charge for an hour of my time had I followed the parental advice. And I genuinely think that my expertise in my field matches all these twots in different sectors who insist they’ve retired now and they’re consultants. Plus I’m not on fire from my own arsehole, and the stuff I have to say is not just my own ego massage.

Meh

We tested the route. Hampstead Ghost fun. Making sure I don’t lose people. Real ghosts vying with made up ghosts. Once more it is going to be a lovely evening. Once more I’m not sure how it will all fit together. I have to make a coherent experience for them based on what everybody else is offering, and I have to give them time…

I’m enjoying being a bit too busy. I’m starting something tomorrow which will burn my days into madness. All of this might shift if the right job goes ping, but I just told my agent I’m going to Uruguay on the 10th November and she understood. I’ve got involved with an international event that is sustainable and gender balanced and forward thinking in so many ways. You’d have to be mad to ignore that opportunity. If it was just a race it would be a waste of my life. It’s not. It’s an attempt at culture shift. And I’m right behind it.