Author: albarclay

That was a lovely day. A strange day. A lovely day.

Amy has a big studio absolutely full to bursting with stuff. She has endless amounts of insane knick-knacks that she has hoarded over years since her decision that she’s gonna be your average bonkers artist. “My friends are usually reasonably extreme personalities,” I tell her. “I’m not though, of course,” she says with the conviction of someone who hasn’t caught on yet.

She sits me in an armchair in a vast pink set, and a young woman who used to work for a shopping channel comes in and starts busily setting up a camera.

We both got sent a script, the camera lady and I. We both ignored it after a brief perusal. I felt bad about it at the time, but …

The script was generic and empty, with loads of familiar sounding phrases and well used thought-flips. It read clever but nothing to get the imagination round. “I’m not learning that,” was my first thought before I told her I’d need an autocue, or considering I’ll have a mascot head on and my mouth won’t be visible, if she wanted me to say exactly what she’d written I could do it in ADR.

I imagined her up all night with pro-plus and fags scribbling that stuff down, no filter, no time to refine it, so wired that she did another one, another one, too many, all the same but slightly different. Like when I was writing poems as a teenager instead of revising.

How did I not notice it was Chat GPT? Of course it was. Thank fuck I didn’t try to learn it. Because I thought it was written by her I wanted to give it the time of day but honestly it was generic dross dross dross. It would have made me actively stupider learning it.

So we improvised. It was nothing like the script but we made stuff up and it feels like there’s something there but who knows what will come out of the edit. She and I are chaosmongers, despite the near AI intervention. The editor is perhaps a little more traditional in view. I’ve seen their work before and it is very much what one expects from the medium. It is obedient to form, and Amy is instinctively disobedient but wants to operate within the rules and thinks she does. Let’s see. It was fun and mad and there’s more to come.

Then I went to Ivy Asia with Brian and Maddy and Marie and munched on showy food and didn’t get boozy. A good day. A birthday. All the things.

Ladies, Gentlemen, People of Indeterminate Gender: By the time you read this, I will be older. So will you, technically, but I’ve got a number changing. Just like we all watched our screens with dread to see if everything blew up when the millennium turned, so tonight I will be watching myself in the mirror at the stroke of midnight to make sure I don’t ping out of existence.

Tomorrow I will be in my fifties, unavoidably. I will remain in that state for some time.

Brian has been an excellent friend, attempting to persuade me to arrange something like a dinner. I have made no choices. I have mostly quietly hoped it will pass like any other day. Sometimes I am in the mood for party. Other times it is just a quiet observation of the inevitable sickle of old time.

I ordered a copy of my birth certificate in Jersey once for it simple reason that I wanted to know the time of birth so I could do my natal chart. They didn’t fucking tell me.

I think it was about 1pm. That’s when I mark the turn. I’ve had fifty years to work out what the fuck it’s all about and you’d think that would be enough but nope.  Maybe it’ll all come to me in a flash in my dream as I turn the year again.

I had a Bone Daddy Tantanmen 2 with Cock Scratchings for lunch and I’m heating it up for dinner as it is generous. No harm in the same thing twice in a day, although I’ll need my aniseed suspension of Gaviscon cos it’s hot food late at night. This is what life starts to do when you get these bigger numbers in front of it. Forty years from now and if I’m still here I’ll be half robot. I’m trying to raise my chances, going to the doctor for checks and putting a pin in the oblivion juice. I’m trying to wake my body up with healthy vigorous walkies and better general choices. I’ll always be this slightly baffled friendly neighbourhood creative airhead, but there’s a body attached to the words and that body fought to exist fifty years ago, had tubes down the throat and got incubated until it worked out how to breathe. The obstetrician was an honorary godfather. I think it could have gone quite the other way right then, and can think of a few moments since, but I’m holding onto this experience for everything I’m worth.

It does mean I’ve invited nobody to anything cos there isn’t a thing going on and that’s fine.

I’m gonna put myself into hot water so I start the natal year clean. Then a good sleep and starting at a normal time for a change.

I’m having a nice cup of tea. Then I’ll have some aniseed suspended Gaviscon. Doctor Adamova prescribed it and I’m still feeling a bit coughy and bilious so I’ll drink up my chalk like a good little patient.

I’ve got my prescription note by Rawaz which reminds me of the quantities. Tomorrow morning I’m gonna start on the omeprazole just as it should be helpful for me to settle things now the worry is gone.

I can never understand the whole business that is growing so fast in the west of blaming all our problems on people who don’t look like us or had wildly different childhoods. All you need to do is go into a hospital to see the advantages, and if you think they’re taking jobs from good proper English Englandpeople from England then just wait until you get one of the English plumbers to fix your pipes or deliver an oven from Currys. Nobody workshy is left in the NHS. There’s nothing for them. The whole thing was supposed to fall flat a few years ago when the Tories did everything they could to collapse it so the wedge of paid healthcare could be driven in from America. The less we have to do with that place these days the better though sadly. The Jimmy Kimmel thing was closer to an open dictator thing than we’ve seen thus far, and there’s no way it’ll stop there. Twenty years from now there will be cautionary tales taught in schools, and people will tell you “I always knew he was a baddie”. Right now though, too many people have either persuaded themselves they are powerless or they’ve drunk the Kool Ade.

I’m just gonna have a nice time and prepare to do stupid fun shit with Amy dressed up as a Panda. Today has been admin-tastic. I barely left the house. The cats are bored of me. Tomorrow more of the same, and learning stuff. It’s a quiet time. My friends are either despairing of ever working again or they’ve just booked a massive job. Most of them the former. It’ll get better, art is needed when the world gets nasty, but it isn’t valued because it holds a mirror up, and when you get sucked up in hateful rhetoric and demagoguery it’s about how you feel and what you want. You mustn’t have perspective on what you look like, because it’s a nasty spoilt scared angry kid. Have a look at what Kimmel said, that got him suspended. It’s innocuous. It’s not even rude. It’s largely an observation of what is happening.

Terrifying. What is going to happen to America in the short term? I dread to think.

So yeah I’ll just stroke the cats, sing to myself, have a nice cup of tea.

A perfect afternoon on Hampstead Heath, even if the wind has started to blow colder. Bright and still warm enough to sit outside. We had the team in place, and Canice, my emergency replacement. I’ve got a gig on the 30th now and won’t be doing the Halloween walkies that night and it is peak season. Good to get a replacement in early. Canice and I took it in shifts to stand on a podium on the South Bank for a long hard summer carnival barking for absolute fucking peanuts. Producer was half man half cocaine. There was a sword swallower with great skill and no talk. Inside: “Right this is a sword. I’m gonna swallow it. Now this one this is bigger. Here I am gonna swallow that too. What about this one? It’s big isn’t it? Here I’ll swallow it. Great there we are. I swallowed all of them. Shall I do the first one again?” Outside: “Roll up roll up ladies and gentlemen for the sideshow of your dreams! Come one, come all and experience things you have never experienced before.” etc etc. Some of the other acts were better – Aleesha mistress of pain was a strong act. But my takeaway from that job was Canice, who costumed himself (they didn’t bother costuming us.) I love the fucker and he’s kind and sharp and motivated and funny. I’m always nervous about availablity on the Halloween walk so getting him in feels like a weight off cos I know it is gonna be covered and entertaining unless I’m there.

We started where the walk starts, at The Old Bull and Bush. I booked a table and had their trio of roasts which is still good but was better two years ago. I needed a coffee after it though, so it did the trick. We wandered out onto the Heath and staggered through the skits and the stops. It feels like it’ll be a fun year this year. Part of the joy of the whole thing is these afternoons and evenings planning it as we walk in the light from pub to pub.

I didn’t find it as hard as I might have not to drink. Didn’t really want to feel bilious and I’m getting used to feeling things again instead of avoiding them. It’s a month tomorrow I decided to fully pull out of that habit after I thought I was gonna die in my sleep.

Walkies and laughter and plans. And I’m home by then, feeling chipper.

Up in the morning and into costume. This is just stuff I had lying around. I had to be there at ten. I assembled it at nine.

Regency frock coat from Lou’s opera work. Ditto topper. Indian silk waistcoat courtesy of Emma’s dad. Tails trousers from my uncle Peter and I had to cinch the straps to the utmost because I had no braces and they’re big. The shoes are my least favourite pair of Gucci from my uncle. They’re out of shot. I have theories as to whose eBay the other pair of Guccis went on. If they ever show up in a forgotten corner of my flat along with various other comics and things that have quietly vanished over the years, I will feel naughty for thinking it.

The mask isn’t mine.

Captain Fantastic is a children’s entertainer. I have no idea how he does it, the energy and noise and control. I helped him unload his gazebos. “We met last year,” I tell him. “I don’t remember.” “You wouldn’t. I was Hello Kitty.” We get talking about the artist involved here. I tell him she likes to use me for things where I am in a mascot head. “You’re her muse,” concludes Captain Fantastic. And leaves me with that. Ha. I’m certainly glad to be part of the art, it has never been anything other than delightful collaborating with her. This one is just a birthday party though. Her daughter is seven. She likes birds.

So yeah I had a rubber pigeon head on. It is designed for children. The eye holes are in my neck. Either the pigeon is looking up in the air and has a human chin, or I am completely and utterly fucking blind. Not just mascot blind. I can handle that. I’ve danced as a unicorn in a club full of coked up Germans enough times that I don’t mind the world being reduced to a slot. But this one? You can see people’s shoes. I’m mostly doing echo location.

“Carry my pram up,” one of the mothers demands of us. Sara has to stay on the door so it’s me. She’s used to service and I AM a pigeon butler so its time to pull my weight. “How can you see through the mask?” That’s one of the kids. I’m not really in the mood to pretend to be a pigeon right now carrying this pram on my own up a narrow flight of stairs blind. “I literally can’t see anything,” I tell him. “I’m part pigeon part bat.”

There’s no hole in the top of it, and pigeon butler talks. If you talk in a rubber mask, it heats up really fast. Three times over a few hours I have to take it off, turn it inside out, and towel off the accumulated sweat. When I get my envelope of cash I feel like I’ve earned it. They’re out of a cash point, but one of the fifties is stuck to its neighbour with what is certainly a bit of dried blood. This city, I tell you, the coke and the ket situation is awful. We are in the middle of an epidemic. Yuk.

Still, pigeons deal in filth. Pigeon butler gets dirty money. He can still spend it on crisps.

I left in character. Bought a Big Issue for a tenner from a nice young guy whose pitch I had been queering. And off I went. Job done. Pigeon Butler.

“Mother, father, I’m going to be an actor!”

Ah shucks. It’s great fun.

Very sweet of Brian to come with me. We went to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. I drove, parking in my usual little square off Praed Street where there are almost always very narrow parking spots, if you can get your car into them. I got Bergie in and we made it to Outpatients with no time to spare.

I was booked right at the end of the clinic. The receptionist was perhaps Middle Eastern, and politely sent us to a waiting room where a nurse perhaps of Indian extraction in her scrubs kept on top of who was coming in and out. Lots of patients announcing lots of things with the expectation of “Everything Now.” I only got mildly concerned 45 minutes after my appointment time just as by then we were the only people there and I thought perhaps we had been forgotten about.

An hour of waiting in total though, for a free procedure, is not bad. And I only went to the doctor a couple of days ago.

The ENT Specialist was Eastern European extraction, blonde and still immaculately made up at the end of her long morning clinic. She wasn’t particularly interested in talking and nor was I so we got right down to business.

A little camera on the end of a tense wire, with a light for vision, and controllable. She sticks the end under my tongue for wetness, and then makes a verbal decision: “I think the left nostril,” she says. “Keep your head still.” And in it goes, all the way into my nostril and down my throat. “Say eeee” she says so I sing. She goes left, right and left. At one point I gag momentarily but largely it was much less unpleasant than I had expected. Perhaps in part because I kept my head very still.

My nostril feels a bit funny though.

A developing nodule. Nothing to worry about. I’m not Julie Andrews, my damage is part of my sound. And the knowledge that I produce much more than the average amount of mucus nasally, dripping back. I knew that. That’s partly why I had the lung problems. I have to clear my throat too much – probably a mild intolerance to milk or wheat or London.

So not today, old blackie. I get to keep my voicebox awhile longer. Memories of dad, who would be 100 this year. Dad had a tracheotomy and artificial voicebox back in the nineties. He had specially made silk cravats. Had to put his finger over it to talk. Couldn’t laugh, so would write “ha ha ha” on a piece of paper and hold it up. Yes I write things, but the bulk of my art generation is with presence. I like to change a space with sound (and movement but sound is my primary skill). I’m glad my fears are unjustified. I’ll sleep better going forward.

She prescribed me Gaviscon and Omeprazol for a bit. She reckons the reflux caused it – the coughing from that. Bad bad booze doing bad naughty things.

Now I can start thinking ahead again. Hurrah.

Sleep was not forthcoming last night. I felt tense and hot, my neck always at the incorrect angle. Light on, light off, light on, light off. Read book. Loo. Wee. Or just lie there with my eyes open and occasionally swear.

When I saw dawn I almost gave up entirely. I would often miss whole nights a few decades ago, I’d weather the fuzzy start the next day with coffee and have a long morning, do whatever it is I had to do, and then fade out. I need to take care of myself nowadays a bit more, so I had one last attempt and it worked. I woke at half eight with a splitting headache. About 3 hours sleep? Got some breakfast and took all my pills alongside some migraine relief and felt like the walking dead most of the morning. Brian nuked some bacon in the air fryer.

Lou was in town at lunch, buying fabrics in Goldhawk Road and Walthamstow. I spent a shot of time with her, but was really not feeling very much like a participant in the world today. I pulled out and drove home and cooked myself a hearty lunch. Max came over briefly in the evening and we had a short evening stroll. It’s mild again, the weather, for which I am grateful. Still about a week until my birthday and the weather has got to hold, that’s the rules. I’m getting even older. Days like this can’t become the norm, I need a blooming job please universe.

Looking for work, pitching for things, strategising about a few ideas here and there, keeping myself mostly capable and available for the nebulous *thing* that is definitely just around the corner but don’t look directly at it or it’ll vanish.

Misty is sprawled on me and I’m writing this on my back on my bed. She occasionally gently digs one sharp paw directly into the rose of my nipple, perfectly cutting through the T-Shirt and dragging. It’s an affection thing. She’s in her contact mode and everyone else is asleep. I suspect she will place herself at the foot of the bed and help me get to sleep tonight. She’s a sensitive soul. Didn’t show up last night, but I think I was working through some stuff as I lay there. Sometimes it comes up at night time.

Now she’s trying to burrow into my stomach. I’m glad I’m sharing space with these two affectionate idiots – the cats not Brian and Maddy. I can see how people who live on their own end up surrounded by the things. If I had a country estate there’d be a whole pantry dedicated to the buggers. “If I had a country estate.” A man can dream. And dream I shall, shortly. Gonna put this down, stroke Misty back a bit, and have a chamomile.

A couple of early phone calls. The first one was telling me I was supposed to be invigilating (oops). It’s a good thing that Imperial College is so close to my flat. I was up – just hadn’t written it in my diary. Shifts have been pretty scarce recently and my mechanisms have slipped as my priorities have shifted to more reliable ways of earning in the gaps. I jumped in the car. As I was driving up the other call came in and someone is gonna shove a camera down my neck in Paddington on Friday morning. When I took one up the arse I had to change my diet and then drink something that made me extremely void down below. It seems when they shove it down the other hole they don’t need you to get ready. I’ll just lie back and say “aaaah” and pretty shortly thereafter I’ll be able to stop worrying about this neck discomfort. Interesting.

Shift done I had a little wander about the streets, round by the Albert Hall and up into Hyde Park, then back through the charity shops in Bute Street and to a quick coffee at Pret. I like it round South Ken and it is close to home.

Home then and settling in with the cats. No Brian and Maddy all day and so I just got antisocial with the cats and booted up my new laptop and tried to get things running and shifted across which is always a slow and annoying business but I’m very glad to not have the old one anymore – admin should be possible once more hurray!

I refilled my carousel of pills. Some of the stuff I’m taking at the moment is just because it was in my friend’s fridge and he asked me to chuck it. I don’t even know what Chromium Picolinate is for. Glug. Turmeric and Bee Propolis and Magnesium Citrate. Aloe Vera? Cognitive enhancers and men’s health things and biotics. Collagen. I should be able to fly before long.

While I wait though I’ll have a little snooze and a cup of chamomile. Another quiet day. “For people in The Arts its just about surviving 2025,” a friend said to me yesterday. She’s right. We are in peak Fatima’s next job could be in cyber territory now. Je ne suis pas Fatima.

Over in Highgate up on the hill there’s a little shop attached to a very lovely little distillery. It’s called Sacred Spirits. They got known for their gin. Their brand and location makes them an excellent match for Peculiar London with whom I do the Haunted Hampstead Halloween walk.

Peculiar London is, essentially, my mate Siwan. She’s been running the walk with or without me for just about ten years now. We met about halfway through and if I can do it, I will. I’ll put on a top hat and make up ridiculous stories and reframe true stories. Last year I couldn’t, I was up at the RSC darling. No such luck this year. This year I’m very much doing it and I need the work and the money thank you very much.

We cap the audience at about 40. It’s a bone of contention as I reckon I could manage more in exchange for more cashmoney, but it is also smart cus we do get very strung out sometimes. 40 means we won’t lose anyone. I can be heard by more, but there are actors as well jumping out and doing silly things. It’s very handmade, don’t get me wrong. It’s a pub walk with some silly things and a man in a top hat shouting at you. At one point we do a traditional silly oath called “Swearing on the horns,” and we give them all a shot of something odd.

This is where Sacred comes in. One year we had Rosehip gin, another year it was Cardamom gin. This year I went up Highgate hill and got a car load of spiced vermouth.

I’m off it now. That’ll be a new experience, running the walk sober. I know I can do it though, I’ve negotiated all aspects of my work sober before, and less than a month in I’m already at the “why was I ever drinking?” stage. This means, though, that I won’t know what the stuff tastes like. Still it isn’t my job to recommend it.

“Can you get some photos for the socials?”

I write a daily blog sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at that shit. “Hi, this is me getting the booze from Sacred…” Nah. I solved it with the help of the shop assistant by pretending to be Igor shuffling in to buy the stuff. Recorded it on one take through my GoPro glasses and the shop assistant was ace. That’s all it needed and I’m actually quite proud of it as a social media thing. Maybe I am good at that shit so long as I don’t take it seriously.

If you don’t come expecting high art, it’s a pleasant boozy evening in North London. There’s a crap prize for best audience costume. I won’t be doing the 27th. Gonna train in Canice and pay him for it… Hopefully nobody will die. But yeah, if there’s availability and you fancy it, let me know you’re coming in advance so I can try and work out something odd to do to you.

Another glorious weekend by the sea with Lou. She had to be in London today so I slung up in Bergie in the morning. A blustery day largely and one where it is good to be in a car instead of on foot. I do love Bergie. I use him far too much but he’s like a little extension of me on wheels. I put too much rubbish in both of us, we are both scarred but functional. I’m sure I could extend this comparison indefinitely. Expensive to run. Bigger than he should be. Pumps out hot air. Might blow a gasket.

I drove Lou up to town and would have ferried her around for longer but for the fact I had a doctor’s appointment. Just a little something I’m concerned about. Better to know than to wonder, so I’ve managed to get a referral to have someone put a tube down my throat and look around. Probably just a nodule or some damage – I was coughing like a forty a day man in April, then early summer was all about being sick most evenings. Now I’m sober and eating carefully all the symptoms have gone but the throat, and I’ve just been aware of something there. I’m not particularly worried but no point worrying while we still have the NHS. I don’t think it costs then too much to do an endoscopy. I’m in.

Still a bit scary when they call it urgent cancer referral but she reassures me that it is 1 in 10 where they find something. A good doctor and she listened to me. Sometimes at that place I’ve had to fight to get a referral but maybe they are just better when you’re older.

It’s just gone midnight. I’ve been chilling with the cats and the bath back in London town, just enjoying soft things and reading my book. Had a ramen for dinner. Nothing to report really. It’s Maddys birthday and I thought it was the 20th so she hasn’t got a present and I’ve told her I’m celebrating on the 20th regardless.

I reckon I’m about to have a great hard sleep. Lou is back in Brighton. The weekend is too short.