Author: albarclay

Adblue…

There’s a tractor on site. Great big thing it is. Six wheels on the back. Came all the way from England and arrived looking shiny new. It proved very useful in the sand, lifting wrecked cars and moving things around. Unfortunately it’s diesel powered, but surrounded by strong attempts to minimise and reduce emissions. And its own emissions are reduced by Adblue.

Adblue is urea mixed with water. I’ve written about it before. You can manufacture urea, and I’m sure some of it is manufactured scientifically. But pig wee was a big problem shortly before this stuff started showing up. Purify it to urea and flog it to diesel users, and you solve the pig wee problem and reduce emissions at the same time as making a bit of money out of piss. Delightful.

Your diesel engine runs fine without Adblue. It doesn’t need it at all. But the manufacturers need to be taxed as lower emission, and the farmers need to get the wee taken off the farm without them having to pay for disposal, so they make Adblue compulsory. Your engine won’t start when the urine tank is empty. It just won’t let you drive without that darn pig wee.

The tractor, out in the middle of the desert, is about to run out of Adblue. I’ve run out on a rental before and been stuck. I can see this brand new incredible tractor having to be left in the desert at Neom. Because nobody can find Adblue in this town.

I find a place in Jeddah online. I ring them and they say it’s the wrong number and they sell food. I go online. It is all delivered from the UK and the USA. I message Samwell the interpreter. “There is no Adblue in Tabouk,” says Samwell. “Bullshit”, I think. “Somebody will have some”. I go hunting.

I just looked in my Google maps history. Today I drove 112 miles. I was driving for five hours and forty minutes, in which time I made 22 stops. Each stop was an area where I could cover a number of auto shops or similar. There is no pig farming in Saudi. Nobody really cares about emissions. None of the diesel engines take Adblue because there isn’t a pig wee problem and they don’t really care about the atmosphere yet. Adblue is cheap and the container is big. It takes up too much space for too little profit for something that will sit there for years. Still… Somebody will have it.

I give up three times and send emo messages back to site. Most people I ask about it react so sparely that I can’t tell if they don’t have it or they haven’t heard of it or both. They react to my Google translate question in such a way that I don’t usually know if they’ve understood it. Sometimes they then walk away and start talking to a friend in Arabic, glancing back at me. Sometimes I’ll wait thinking they are asking their friend about Adblue only to realise they are just hoping I’ll leave.

I scour the shelves of so many places that look like this.

The day is hot, and if there is anybody local in front of me or behind me they will be served first.

(Thinking back on it I must have spoken to a hundred people, and maybe received about 3 smiles. The rest were behind masks and their eyes were often hard. Translation anxiety, I think. I had it too. I wished I could speak better Arabic.)

A breakthrough happens late morning when I discover that it might be called DEF or diesel exhaust fluid. I am momentarily buoyed up with hope before being met with the same blank stares as I had been when asking for Adblue.

“There is no Adblue in Tabouk,” goes round and round in my head. But I find a promising district just after 2pm. Loads of Auto shops. I also find a Saudi description of Adblue with a picture. Still mostly blank looks, but one guy becomes animated. He points up the road, but then gestures a prayer and points at his watch. 4 fingers. Pray pray watch 4, point. I think he’s saying they have it up the road but they are praying until 4. I’ve been told they have it up the road often enough today to assume that it usually means “go away”. I go away. I give up. I send more emo messages.

But no. I’ve started so I’ll finish. I find another area and scour it to no avail. Evening is coming. I find myself back in the area from before, trying a Japanese garage a few blocks down where I am totally ignored for more than twenty minutes. The guys with headdresses keep getting served from behind me. I can’t see it on the shelf. I decide to go back and try the guy I spoke to before. He takes my arm at the elbow and walks me outside his shop. He points at a garage a bit further down and he says one word: “Adblue”, before miming a heavy thing to carry. I can’t believe my eyes or ears.

I walk to the garage and into the shop. There, on the floor in front of the counter, is a great big box of Adblue. They are expecting me. Everybody in Tabuk has met the foreigner who wants Adblue by now. They are taking the piss. “This is the only one in Tabouk,” one of them says. “You buy it now and must collect after a week,” he says, fucking with me.

It’s not overpriced. It goes into the back of the car. It would have at pretty much any price.

That was a long beautiful warm day pretty much entirely sunk into the procural of pig wee. At one point I very very very very nearly got side ended by a car. I was just quick enough and avoided it by a whisker. Closest I’ve ever been. But that’s to be expected when you drive almost six straight hours on these crazy streets.

I’m off to bed. The wee is in the boot. Tomorrow I’ll take it out to the desert and say goodbye to the wee and to the desert. Home soon. Sleep now.

Rain all night last night. It hasn’t happened for years. The morning felt fresh and rank with petrichor. I drove through huge puddles on the way to the desert. Occasionally little disconsolate groups of men with mops worked hard at the roadside in order to do nothing to affect the flooding.

The atmosphere on site was tense but expectant. Race day. All these hard-working teams were about to go all out for a result through the damp bumpy sand under the warming desert sun. Some of them had lent engineers to the team with the damaged car, and they had worked all night though an electric storm in this hostile desert just to get the machine up and running again. They managed.

I started what I thought would be a peaceable day in accreditation telling people they couldn’t get in. A small unexpected pick-up happened but nothing out of the ordinary until at about lunchtime when a mild voice on the radio asked for me to drive my car round the back of the compound. That’s a new one on me. On to the compound I go, very quickly, curious but not really thinking I’ll be off site for the rest of the day. I’m expecting to be asked to get some fuel and be back in twenty minutes. No flask. No coat. No water bottle. Laptop just sitting in an open fronted shipping container halfway into that desert.

Next thing I know I’ve got a car full of people and I’m going in convoy with Samwell the interpreter, pedal to the metal back to Tabuk, heading into the restricted zone – the Military City – chasing a helicopter.

I think I can say this by now. One of the drivers had an injury. That was who was in the helicopter. I was carrying two of his family and two people close to his team. After triage, Dr Jesus sent him off to the King Sultan Military Hospital in the militarised zone. I have been curious. I’ve driven round the edges forever. Now I’m going through the gate. Samwell is in front of me. The guard just waves him past. I’ve got a car full of westerners and I’m wearing a trilby. His arm sticks out. We are stopped and turned around. Bugger.

Not to be deterred we try another gate. There are loads. It’s like York with guns. These guys at gate two are just as dour but not as busy. Samwell works his magic. They confiscate two of our passports and give us a piece of card. “No photos!”

We drive into the military city. It’s heavily monitored, like everything else here but double. I keep expecting to have people in uniforms jumping onto us but we get to the hospital unscathed.

The driver is already being scanned to see what the situation is. X-ray and MRI. We are ushered to a waiting room but his mother is told she can’t wait with us because she is woman so she must wait in woman room. We all wait in the courtyard instead.

Time passes and eventually we are ushered up in a lift. We find ourselves in the Royal wing, in the royal suite. A secure door opens onto a few rooms, only one occupied, with dedicated security and nurses. The occupied one is for the driver. He is wheeled in and expertly deposited on the bed.

These men and women are sportsmen at peak fitness. Injuries will be taken very seriously indeed. There’s a tension as we wait for the results. Somebody comes in on a helicopter and Samwell and I shake his hand on the helipad at military city. It all feels very secret agent all of a sudden. We all crowd into the king’s suite. It seems the news is good.

I witness a debrief. The whole team is in a hospital room, talking animatedly about the community they are part of here, adrenaline and relief loosen tongues and flood endorphins for positive outlook. I really like these racing driver people. We share an addiction to adrenaline. I leave smiling, having caught their excitement and relief. I join everybody for an exhausted communal meal. I leave my hat in the restaurant. Shit. Somebody picked it up, or so they told me when I got back.

That’s this event over for now. Tomorrow we start to dismantle it. Then I’m back home. It seems a long way now I’m used to the desert.

Rain. Here I am in the desert, thinking I’m going to escape the mess of storms we have in London. It’s a long way to Tabuk, but the thing with this globe is that it all connects together. Rolling clouds in the morning and the crack of thunder led to a downpour.

“I’m worried about dust,” said my late night pick-up last night before I showed him the forecast. 90% precipitation.

The dunes were flattened down and made more bumpy – moguls instead of powder. Watching the drivers on their onboard camera, you see them fighting to keep control of the steering wheel, using all their strength. It is true test, this Motorsport. Having never really understood my father’s great love for Formula 1, I’m beginning to understand it now. It helps to see it from the inside. This week I’ve met the mechanics, some of whom will be working all night in the freezing desert to try and patch up machines that have taken huge hits. I’ve met the drivers, one of whom is probably full of some of the opiates I helped pick up last night. I’ve met the contractors who build the infrastructure, and the catering, and the hospitality. The people who do security and who make sure there’s water and who pick the litter and who make sure there are people who pick the litter. The people who build it, who talk about it on camera, who respond in emergencies. So many people all sharpened to tomorrow. And I have started to see what is riding on it. This is brilliant and goofy and fast and fun. These teams are pushing the frontiers of electric vehicles while racing in absurdly tough conditions with even weight on female and male drivers and an event focus on the environment. I feel like I’m in on the ground floor of the future of motor racing. And I care about it. I have my feelings about the teams, based on details of behaviour and contact between them and me – and I’m still the flatfish at the bottom of the ocean in terms of rank here. I’m not aspiring to be anything else. I like people.

It has been hard today, for everybody really. The cold moved in with the rain. All the locals were so happy to see that rain, but I was swearing. I stood out there in the car park finding it almost impossible to believe that I was being hit in the hat by hail in this desert that has cooked me and tanned me and dried me out. But that skywater? It’ll be good for nature. The stray dogs are going to have puddles. The camels can top up. We might even see rare desert blooms. Does this usually happen in February here?

As I write, a warning has come over the WhatsApp. Electric storm, coming over the site. Stay in your vehicles. I could never have predicted that this would be the conditions on race weekend. I’m hoping for a good day tomorrow all round. I’m hoping nothing blows away in the night. I’m in bed, exhausted with cold and general fatigue. I’m gonna pass out so I’m fresh tomorrow to go back into the fray.

Well this is an interesting sensation. I’m parked at a shopping mall in the centre of Tabuk and I’m waiting for the doctor. He came in on the recent flight and he wanted to go to the mall. I didn’t have anything I needed to do so I took him. But first he picked up his supplies. Twelve signatures and a huge amount of paper, and I’m sitting with a huge supply of strong opiates in the back of the car. All the stuff you need in case of an accident. Morphine. Ketamine. Tramadol… Some others. He’s a doctor. But if the police randomly searched my car right now without him in it, I would have some serious explaining to do. And then I’d probably get flogged or something. I dunno if they still do it in public, but I guess if they do I’ve got the chance to go viral. “British guy squeals like a piggy.” If I grab a few handfuls of whatever is in that bag it might delay the pain for a few days at least…

I got myself into helping accreditation today. That’s another hilarious clusterfuck as so many people in the local area have extremely similar names. There’s still a strong family name tradition of taking the place where you’re from, and there’s a devout tradition of taking the name of the prophet. It makes it very tricky to know who has come in and who hasn’t, and add to that the wild variant possibility in the translated spelling of Arabic to Roman and you’re looking at a whole load of worry.

I reckon the doctor will emerge soon so I’m gonna drive round the front and check.

—

Ahhh Doctor Jesus. It seems I’ve made a friend. He took me out on the Saudi equivalent of that bender that the celebrity takes his driver on in Vegas. No gambling or strip joints. It starts with chicken. Fried chicken. THIS ISN’T ANY FRIED CHICKEN THIS IS AL BAEZ. The queue is round the block three times. They’ve had to make one of those snakes like you have in passport control to fit all the traffic. The desert wasteland has been organised with bollards. At the end there are four outlets like toll booths. We got the chicken and we shoved it into our faces. Just what the doctor ordered. A cultural touchstone.

Then two more airport pickups and then once more Jesus appeared as if from nowhere. The two people who have been asking me to do random things at unusual hours jumped into my car with him in the reception of Hotel Mena after a pick-up, and suddenly I was taking three friendly people on a hunt for tea around the late night streets of Tabuk – and that strange fist of loneliness in my chest unclenched, and the car filled with laughter and suggestions for the things I should do while I’m still here, and the local delights I should sample. There’s a whole list now. But for tonight I have had Mumtaz tea and COMPANY. Even if just for a short while.

That’s all I was missing really – and these guys are easy friends to me. They say it takes time to find your people. They’re honest and slightly geeky humans. One of them was artlessly trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the back of the car. I felt welcome and I felt part of a group. I need that sometimes. Other people make us happy. Yay.

I’ve always known that the best way of seeing an unfamiliar place is in the company of those who know it. These good fun humans took me on a little jaunt tonight and now I’m waiting for my final airport pick-up with a smile on my face. Sure, I won’t sleep much tonight… 2am down, 6am up. Enough sleep though. I had a long one last night. Tomorrow night I’ll be gummy headed by this time. Hopefully I’ll be fast asleep by then though frankly… Unless somebody suddenly announces that there’s a party in the desert… There won’t be. Everybody is gonna be smashed tomorrow. Me first among them. Coffee will be my friend.

First pick-up this morning was another young racing driver. I’ve been so busy just getting from A to B that I’ve barely noticed that there have been some really interesting human beings in my car. People that young who are already racing at this level… Remarkable single-mindedness. I’m looking forward to catching the fruits of their labour on this steep sandy track through the dunes and between the sea-carved mesas of the desert at Neom on Saturday.

I’ve also had some extraordinarily wealthy people in my crappy little Hyundai Sonata. That’s a set I know well, the ridiculously wealthy. They’re usually delightful. It’s the ones a couple of tiers below them that you’ve got to watch out for. There have been good people from all over the Middle East, flying in to support this unusual event. Hospitality are working overnight to construct a unique tent complex with Saudi features and unusual shapes stretched over steel. It already looks incredible and its going to be another feat on this site. These calm softly spoken men and women with their hi-vis jackets have inevitably swarmed a huge unique complex of tents and banners and flags and walkways and solar panels and cables and hydrogen batteries since I arrived here. Then there are medical tents and prayer tents and testing tents and loos and wadis. The command tent. The media tent. The huge catering tent, full now of cakes and air conditioning and tasty food and wireless internet. The imposingly named “command centre”. In the desert.

An enterprising stray dog found its way onto the site this evening. That’ll be making mischief somewhere tonight no doubt. We had a camel incursion a while ago. There are factors that are not controllable. But there is so much that is thought about. So many people contributing so much thought and planning, so that a small number of tough young women and men can go fast in electric machines for a day.

I’m not doing my early pick-up today. Much of my work is done, so I went to talk to the guy who runs hospitality. I told him I’ve got a pretty good handle on serving high status people in tents after all the Royal Ascot weeks I worked as floor or kitchen manager in fine dining. He smiled. “I won’t need help, but feel free to come tomorrow and see how it looks when its finished.” My workload is easing down despite my attempts to load it up again. I think the next few days will be a useful meditation for me – my undiagnosed ADHD means I really don’t like not doing things. If nothing explodes in my department then I’m going to just have to take in the sights and sounds and not find myself feeling crappy just because I can’t find a way to make myself immediately and visibly useful.

It’s half seven in the evening. I’m done until 1am and I’m not sleepy so I’ve found a steakhouse that doesn’t check the broken Saudi contact tracing app. I thought I’d treat myself to a full moon steak. The driver’s lost bag from yesterday got through today after all that stress. The best explanation I got was that security in Dubai couldn’t compute that most of a woman’s bag was taken up with a crash helmet, and so they suspected foul play and held back the bag to search it thoroughly. The guy at Tabuk was a bit of a sleaze as well. Her had it in his cupboard and he started by pretending he didn’t know it was there, before asking loads of weird pointed leading questions about Jordan. I hope he didn’t fuck up the crash helmet banging it about looking for booze or bombs or wherever, as helmets are extraordinarily expensive at this level, and they’re useless when bashed.

Ha and I just ordered my steak expecting a nice dinner and a load of last minute pick-ups came in. My phone is still buzzing with them. Oh what a surprise… Here I am in the slow restaurant with the soft piano music and a non-alcoholic mojito, sampling the local borek and the T-Bone and I’m probably gonna have to shove it all into my fat face and jump back into my whip to sling a load of marshals around this low rise young tatty desert border town.

Time passes. It’s half twelve. I’m sitting parked next to Dunkin’ Donuts in the Tabuk airport lot. There’s one Dunkin’ in the parking lot and another in the terminal. Donuts are big business here in Saudi. The very first outlet I saw in Riyadh was a Dunkin’. As a point of comparison, I find this place weirdly reminds me of Utah. Impolite Utah without such a good selection of root beer. They are all prudish and believe something fervently and don’t drink booze and are addicted to sugar and they live in a desert full of red dust. The thing they believe out here is a touch more credible than the stuff that Joseph Smith pulled out of his great big hat, but in Zion they are much nicer to you and they don’t try to kill you when you get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

I’ll be back into the airport to get 3 more people and then 3 hours sleep once more. This place having no booze? I can cope with that. If it was caffeine free as well I think I’d have booked myself a flight to Italy by now.

…

And I’m awake again and at the airport!!! Boiiiiiing. Those final three had a weird drive because I decided not to top up the caffeine knowing I would have precious sleep straight after. I basically drove them winding down. Lost the ticket to the car park… Thankfully they like me in the booth.

I’ve never been so happy to see a Starbucks. I’ve never been happy to see a Starbucks.

Morning! Here we go again!

When I think back to waking up this morning it honestly feels like a week ago.

I had slept a little over two hours in my second and final burst of nap. My alarm wrenched me from a benign dream involving a hippopotamus. Still mostly asleep I put my clothes on and drove to my first airport pick-up at 6.20. I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. I think I sleepdrove them through the streets of Tabuk. 7am I was more awake and it was a pair of Spaniards. The idiots at baggage handling in Riyadh had lost one of their bags. This is standard. This happens all the time. Nothing to see here. Still, he was pissed off and it made it memorable.

I went home but sleepy time couldn’t happen as this was my only window for a self-tape that was too long for the part. My brain absorbed the words though. I’m a sponge at the moment, because I’m active. The new phone made me look good. I had to record myself though and cue it off camera. Tech… Got it good enough and drove into the desert and back.

It was the 16.15 pick-up where it really blew up. She’s a driver. She has been in the air for fucking AGES. She’s got a rental car so she doesn’t need shuttling. I’m literally just a Joe in a suit making sure nothing explodes. My job is to make her feel welcome. She doesn’t come through the gate.

They’ve lost her luggage too. Of all the people. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. But here I am, stuck on land side, suited up as a welcoming committee, and she’s messaging me, panicky, from flight side.

This is small airport. You can push your way through security with a bit of insistence. I get myself flight side when it has been way too long for me waiting and wondering. I find her sitting in a little sweaty office, where an orc with a moustache and hat presides over his fat desk. I take in the situation very quickly. I’ve never met her before but it is painted broad. She is upset and so so tired. He is smug and leering, explaining something that is obvious to him in a tone that immediately puts my back up. He’s exploiting a rare moment of vulnerability. I immediately switch on my alpha and take control of this horrible room and take his things and write numbers on his papers and get him to say back the thing to me repeatedly until we are all completely sure that that is the procedure and he is going to send that email isn’t he and yes of course he’s very sorry but let’s just get this solved shall we and by the time the driver and I are out of there he’s had a right earful and he’s clutching my mobile phone number. I don’t like people who start with that behaviour. It usually makes people look small and mean like the entire cabinet. But … I can do it with the best of them and it works when its right.

The car rental guy is on Saudi time as well. They drive like roadrunner but they do bureaucracy like Elmer Fudd. She signs all the documents and she is still shaken but she’s a driver so she gets us to the hotel. I’m with her still as I’m not going to let the hotel throw up one of their periodical games of “the company have used all of their allocated rooms”. Then I leave, but my car is still parked at the airport. It’s a 45 minute walk. “Get insured on my car. Then you can go and get yours!” “That’s how tired you are. Then I’d have two cars at the airport. I wish I could drive two cars simultaneously. But it’s ok. I’ll walk. It’ll give me some downtime.”

I grab a shrimp sandwich. I cut time by running across a five lane road while munching it. Then I hit a huge patch of wasteland just as the sun is setting. Dead dry mud cracking and crunching underfoot. When did it last rain here? The bleached bones of mammals lie where they fell, inviting touch – I have seen more dry and clean spines this week than ever before in my life. They fit together so nicely. And each vertebra is an interesting gamepiece. You can see how we ended up with things like jigsaws and dice.

I walk North across it. To my left, high in the sky already, the big face of the waxing moon, almost full in Leo now. Fight night. To my right, the sun dips orange below the shredded buildings and trees of this strange and broken town. The call to prayer starts to sound all around. The devout are pulled to their ritual. We all contemplate the infinite as another day ends. Seven fighter jets roar up from the airport. I push on, walking in places I am definitely not supposed to walk. This is not a pedestrian city. There is no walkway into the airport. I walk through the car gate. I get my car back and almost immediately a call from the other side of the world.

Nobody else can do it. I have to buy the things that have been lost by the driver. It might be a few days before the bag comes back. Meantime the driver needs clothes.

I’ve never bought an outfit for a woman before. Thank God for Lou. She talked me through the pitfalls. I try and get practical stuff here. I’m erring on the side of active-wear.

There are no women’s knickers in H&M here though. I am told to go to the big store in the mall where the security guard won’t let me in. Bloody prudes. Men’s pants aplenty but the women have to go to the big city. Thankfully Next is nearby, and not so buttoned up. I get it all. I drop it off at her hotel. I wish I could have bluffed that a woman had done the shopping and not me. That’s essentially how it worked anyway as I took full advantage of Lou’s incredible grasp of fabrics and styles and kept on sending photos and getting guidance.

Then it was yo-yoing up and down to the airport and dear God it’s just turning 1am, I slept 4 hours total last night in two short bursts. I’m gonna close my eyes and vanish. A mostly solitary day with a burst of social behaviour in the middle. And I was very very happy. Focused, active, needed – and not forced to make small-talk. A good place. I dunno what I got so weirded out about yesterday.

It’s a funny old thing, social insecurity…

I’m in an unfamiliar place, and sure – I’m working hard but I’m mostly surrounded by teams of people who arrived here with an existing dynamic, and who already really understand the job. Then I come in with my big hands and my oafish smile saying dumb things on purpose and being mildly annoying and mildly comical and trying to work as hard as I can but not always in the right direction. Sometimes people just don’t have room. I feel a bit outside, and as a result I am watching myself and as a result I feel even more clumsy and even more out of the loop.

For the first time in a while my work pattern allowed me to be up in the desert as night fell, and I waited with some of the people I’m living around, just for the companionship, even though I was mostly ignored. But … I’ve gone home now, feeling a little sad and a little tight around the chest.

Lots of little turnings of shoulders to close me off, lots of little ignorings of my attempts to join conversations. One very clear and hard shut down of an attempted contribution. I’m aware I’m the bottom of the pile here in terms of established social dynamic. I normally operate fine there as a happy wildcard who genuinely doesn’t give a fuck about your pretend hierarchy. But, you know, it’s Valentine’s Day where we think about our connection to others. And they’ve all gone in one car to try and see some of the sights of Tabuk. And I’ve gone home. I kind of wanted to feel like I was part of a friendship group here but I really don’t feel like they “get” me at all.

I understand. I’m feeling clumsy enough that I might have refused an invite to walk around the city at night with them anyway. And there’s nothing personal in the cold shoulder. It’s just an ease thing. I have a lifelong inability to do smalltalk. When I try to I come across like it’s a talking fish. But I’m missing the ease of established friendships. I’m so slow to make friends and I’m slow to trust. I’m missing you lot…

They’ve organised a sweepstake and I’m not included, which isn’t a deliberate slight either but it added to the outsider thing. It’s a group that has existed for a while and been to some amazing places together and worked hard there and they’re doing a thing they’ve done before. I get it. I get it. I get it. I feel sad.

Anyway, I spoke to Lou about all this. She helped me take the feelings out, look at them and put them back in a different order. It’s not so bad. “I’m perfectly happy on my own to be honest. I spend loads of time on my own.” “Then why does it bother you?” … … “I like this work. I want things to go well across the board so I can do more of it ” “There you go then.”

Then the phone went and told me I have to pick somebody up at 1am. It’s half nine. I have another pick-up at 6. Shit. Emergency cat nap. Who has time for insecurity?! I’m a solitary workmachine.

And here I am at 1.15 waiting for another plane after two hours shuteye and I remember that when it comes down to it, I’m in sodding Tabuk! (And I have to somehow send a self tape by the end of the day without anyone I’m friendly enough with to be able to honestly get them to do it with me. Here.)

There’s a camel incursion onto the road on the way out of Tabuk today. I’m driving with one of the interpreters. I get him to take a load of photos through the window.

We have been helping somebody get through COVID screening to make sure they can compete in the race. The interpreter is from Riyadh, so he isn’t entirely accustomed to the desert either. But he knows a lot more about it than I do. And Saudi Arabia in general.

When you’re driving in the city you often have to bypass these huge great big compounds that are fenced off with militaristic insignia. High and threatening looking fences. I ask him about them. “Tabuk is near the border of Jordan and Egypt and Israel. Almost all of the armaments in Saudi are stored here. The weapons and the bombs.” We live in a target. “When Neom comes, they will be distributed across the country.” Neom. See previous blogs. The utopian dream of the Crown Prince. The place we are working. It’s a beautiful idea of a collaboration. Egypt has provided some land. Will Israel and Jordan also get stuck in, to make this futuristic desert utopia? Or is it a pipe dream?

The roadcamels are chased by a number of frustrated Bedouin herdsmen with sticks. Right now their way of life is still ancient at heart. A boy begins to run ahead of the herd, down the road, and the camels chase him. I have a feeling he’s doing a pied Piper routine that is tried and tested. He’s not running away from the camels. He’s getting them interested in chasing him so they move where he wants them to and not where they want to – which tends to be towards the nearest chewable shrub.

I try to learn from the interpreter a little bit more about the ways of this place. He teaches me plenty. He shows me how to spot a fake traffic camera – they are just silver boxes with stickers that look like lenses. He also puts my mind at rest that you CAN turn right at a stop sign like you can in America. I’ve been doing it because I felt it was the thing, but I’ve been quietly worrying that I’ll end up with fines worth more than I’m paid to be here. All in all another long drive with interesting companions. And then a bit of hanging out in the desert.

Now I’m back at my clinical hotel room, and I bought a cheap mobile phone tripod which is now set up in the living room. Another self tape, this one with a long-ass monologue from a character I’m not auditioning for. The director thinks he wants to see if we can act. The director really wants to see if we have loads of free time. I don’t. I’m gonna have to read it. Hopefully I’ll find time tomorrow. It would be lovely to get back to blighty into a spot of filming. Much as I’m thoroughly enjoying myself out here in the summer, there’s that old dragon I’ve been chasing just waiting back on familiar soil.

In the meantime, things are hotting up. The drivers are arriving now. The course is getting hot. I got shown around one of the electric vehicles today. They are remarkable. And they are gonna go like the clappers – these weird beautiful scuffed up off-road monsters. You’ll get photos of them before long. Right now I’m just too charmed by the camels…

With something of a sleep deficit I found myself once more on the desert road to Neom. “Dead dog,” observed my passenger. “Ugh. Still there is it?” I watched the street cleaner dispose of the cat the other day with a special tool that had a wire loop. He picked it up by the head and carried it at arm’s length to a skip. This poor hound died too far from the city to receive such hallowed rites.

Moments after we see the poor dead dog, we see on the other side of the carriage way – sitting up straight by the side of the road – another dog. This one is alive and alert. “I think it’s waiting for its friend,” I say. We both just carry on though. We can’t cross the carriageway and my passenger has to get to work.

Time ticks by. Some hours later I’m on the other side coming back, this time with a rally driver for a passenger. We have had some car time already and she is a comfortable and thoughtful conversationalist. We’ve covered a lot of idealogical ground when we see the dog again. This time it is lying, sprawled, not looking at all well, exactly where it had been hours ago. Without needing to question I know this passenger isn’t going to start saying “What are you doing, no, stop, it might have rabies” as I pull into the verge. She’s a rally driver. Her natural instinct is not going to be fear. “I’ve got an empty coffee cup. We can fill it with water. And crush up some of these biscuits,” I say. She starts sorting the water before my seatbelt is off. She’s all over this plan.

We both approach the dog under the desert sun making the stupid noises humans make to try and teach creatures we aren’t intending to kill them this time. Occasionally drivers honk us as they shoot past – ineloquent noise with no meaning but itself as honking can only ever be. Encouragement? Criticism? Nah, just noise.

The dog rouses and takes a few suspicious totters away from us. We pantomime putting the food down and redouble the stupid noises. It looks at us and those ears are suddenly quizzical. At least it doesn’t have rabies. It is curious but scared. We start to back away like servants before the emperor, gesticulating at the remarkable offering we have made. It watches us until we are all the way back in the car. Then when it knows we aren’t going to try to kidnap it, it begins to totter towards our pathetic gifts. We are watching because we have mirrors and it doesn’t know we are looking at it. The water is the thing. I think it was sitting there because it had run out of ideas and lost its hunting companion. Hopefully it’ll find new patterns. “It’s eating! It’s eating!” I drive off. Places to go. Or sometimes not:

More tomorrow and a proper nights sleep tonight. It’s quarter past nine. I’m done. I’m glad we stopped to do ridiculous things to prolong the existence of that cur. Life is a beautiful thing.