Author: albarclay

Today involved a spot of driving, but mostly it was to do with recruiting. I’m wearing lots of hats right now. Happy to as well as it means I get to throw work towards friends who need work, while working myself. That’s triple win as far as I’m concerned.

I’m tired though. It’ll be good to get a day where I’m not starting early. But right now it just seems to keep getting earlier. All the planes from America are getting swept across the Atlantic super fast by the storms, and usually my first job is to meet one of them and pick up the passengers. I’m not going to make them wait so I need to get there too early and hang around near all the signs making us worry about outbreaks.

Tomorrow I’ve got to get up early in order to swap my nice new car for a bigger one. I will be very surprised if I ever fill more than three seats but they want the option and I’m rolling with it even though now I’ve got to swap my resident’s parking permit and get used to another set of unfamiliar wheels. It’s a right faff. Enterprise corporate delivers but for some reason I’ve got to be at the branch first thing. Then straight to Heathrow.

I’m glad of the work though and it keeps me occupied. So be it. I’d always sooner have too much than too little. It’s only that I just watched the weekend fly by and I really want a lie in as a good sleep helps me braindump. My head feels full to bursting. I’ve been casting actors, looking for drivers and PA’s, sorting paperwork and driving people in unfamiliar cars around annoying places. One morning soon I would like to sleep until ten.

As it is I’m running a bath at 9pm, and I’m going to try and crash out early if I can switch my head off. But I’m not sure I’ll manage it. My head is full of static. I feel like I’m an electric storm. I haven’t braindumped for too long.

Still, things are flowing. It’s good to be in a phase like this and I’ll ride the storm for as long as it rolls. All I’m really lacking is sleep and that’s because I’m terrible at going to bed at a reasonable time and sober. I reckon I’ll have a chance at a late start in the next few days though, and I can call it a pretend weekend. Maybe.

Often I don’t know the day of the week and this is why. I’m surprisingly aware that it’s Sunday right now, but that’s primarily because everything was closed when I clocked off work and because I’m tired. Also I guess I’m still in a performers pattern where Monday is the day off, so I’m spitting that I’ve got to get up and change cars first thing. But I’m actually also really enjoying myself, challenging myself and stretching myself. That counts for a lot. And it’s why I’m still smiling. Somewhere.

My blog and my bath so frequently coincide that some of you probably think I live in the thing.

Right now I’d quite like to…

Waiting to pick someone up from Heathrow today it struck me how many passengers were coming out of the gate wearing little white masks. I checked the arrivals. San Francisco. Madrid. LA. Grand Cayman via Nassau. Nowhere on the list of places that are considered to be problematic…

The masks are terribly ostentatious. Over the years I’ve grown used to seeing them worn by East Asian people on public transport. My initial thought, years ago, was “Do they think we are all dirty?” until someone hauled me up and taught me : “It’s a courtesy. They do it because they’ve got a cold and they don’t want to spread it.”

Trust us in the West to just assume that it’s done out of fear of the other, and then to do it ourselves for that reason at the first opportunity. Those masks will just be annoying to the people wearing them. If people really want to avoid catching a virus they’ll need proper respirators like the one I’ve got that says “Josh”.

But there are posters all over the airport, suggesting you self isolate if you’ve been to various countries. I wonder how many people will though? Hard to self isolate without symptoms…

Jobs are getting cancelled abroad now even though the death toll to infection rate is still pretty low. Secret Cinema all emerged blinking back to London after their Chinese tour was cancelled. It’s made a lot more work for us as well on the TV show I’m helping fix and drive for, because they were going to go out east but have now decided to do a double show here instead. Twice the work! It won’t affect me much apart from being able to find even more jobs for even more friends. I’d be working those days anyway. I’ll just be working more.

I reckon about 50 people I know personally now being gainfully employed because three or four years ago Brian put me in touch with a man called Kester who organised to meet me for an interview for event staff work somewhere in East London. I arrived at the place and he was late. There were loads of people standing round, and a van with the back door open and the hazards on.

“Is Kester here?” I asked. “No. We’re waiting for him.” “What are you supposed to be doing?” “We have to load this stuff into the van.” “Ok. So let’s go. You do this I’ll do this etc etc.” By the time he arrived the van was almost loaded. Now, a few years later, his old company trusts me to find people with a bit more gumption than that lot. Plus I get to drive lots. And I do like driving lots.

Although I do see now why some drivers have a sticker saying “If you have a preferred route, state it now.” I’ve learnt to drive with terrible backseat drivers. Road placement, jolts, braking etc. Those guys – I can usually make them forget they’re in a car, which is the trick.

But this guy always knows the best route so wherever we are he’s wondering why we aren’t going three roads south. It’s not so much that he’s actually interested. More that it’s important we all know he knows the roads. I’m using live traffic on waze. It’s usually pretty accurate.

Tedious bugger. He’s on three times my wage and more. I’d prefer it if he just zipped it up.

Valentine’s Day. How am I going to style it? I’m really not sure how I feel. Part of me quite likes it despite being single.

Yes I could rant on about the commercial aspect, but also isn’t it quite pleasant to have one day in the calendar where we have to remember to be romantic – if we are in a relationship. But that’s the trouble with the styling. For those of us that aren’t, it can feel like another day for other people’s lives. Like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is now for me.

But still I like it. We can still make little gestures. Life rolls along and we are swept with it, seeking and finding, wanting and having. ‘Remember how you used to buy me flowers?” For one night we can hang up the hang-ups and leave work at the door, switch off the phone and be with those we love. And love comes in many guises.

It’s been a long time since there’s been committed romantic love in my life. There are advantages and disadvantages. “You’ve been offered the American tour!” “Shit, what’s Brunhilde going to say?”

I’m going to spend two or three weeks driving all day and then collapsing face first into my sheets, sprawled all over the bed. I sometimes wake up and there’s a pillow on the ceiling and another one in Egham. I’ve found a way to hook my feet into the bedframe and stretch myself starfish like I’m on a rack. Sometimes I wake up, sit bolt upright and speak complete sentences of garbage out loud. Sometimes if there’s no work I’ll sleep until afternoon. Nobody but I has to suffer the consequences. I can get home and dump clothes on the bedroom floor for five days running and until I run out of clothes nobody objects. One time when I was sick, I blew my nose into the duvet cover. I didn’t change it the next night. Yep. Hi ladies. Just last week I spilt coffee on my sheet and slept on it for three days before I changed it.

So yeah, I guess I’m looking for the advantages. I get to be a slob. But… Being a slob isn’t really that satisfying. It’s just being a slob.

I’d get just as much satisfaction from finishing a difficult task. Like tidying the huge pile of junk I’ve collected. More than just the momentary endorphin rush left over from childhood of “screw you mum I’m not gonna clean today”. I keep my bedroom neater these days unless I’m sick or just crazy busy. Why not? Every time I get home and the bed is made I smile to myself as I go to sleep. Better than wondering why I can faintly smell coffee as I doze.

I’m off to see a friend. Honouring the part of the intention of this day that is to do with connection. There is love between us too, and care and respect. I was going to just go home but she called and invited me. Initially I said “no, I’m too tired”. Then I realised it’s just my dark energy trying to win. I rang her back moments later. Now I’m glad I did.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope you spend it with someone you love. Even if that someone is yourself.

8.00 am. The phone rings. I’m dressed, with keys and satnav holder in hand, waiting for it. “Enterprise?” I say. “Hi, yes it’s Dawn from Enterprise Rent-a-car. Your car will be with you in half an hour.” Shit. It’s supposed to be with me now.

8.19 am. Text from unit. “Please tell me you have your car…”

8.25 am. Car arrives. Traffic warden is eyeing it avariciously as will be parked illegally in five minutes. We have admin to do.

8.26 am. Phone rings. Same person that texted me before. I’m being shown the car. I miss the call.

8.28 am I notice and ring back. The guy at Enterprise can’t operate his machine. I think it might be his first day. “I’ll be with you for 9 or just after,” I tell her. He’s faffing.

The car only has a quarter tank in it. Marginally less. “Return it with the same amount.” He says. There are many words he has to say. They’ve sent the new guy. He says all the words. I’m just pissed off about the fuel as I’ll have to get to a station which I shouldn’t really do with passengers. Months of people letting the needle slip back a tiny bit on return.

Thankfully I do get to unit base for 9 but there’s no stopping. Three people bundle into my car. They want to go and look at Heathrow Terminal 2. Then they want to look at Heathrow Terminal 3. Then Terminal 5. I can do that with my limited fuel. Off we go.

Heathrow is a horrible place to be driving at the best of times. I was going round in circles for ages as they don’t let you stop, or they try to trap you in car parks that cost £4.20 to drive through.

Eventually back through unexpectedly heavy traffic to a roundabout near my flat. Everybody goes for coffee and loo while I drive an endless loop around a building site knowing I need to be where they last saw me as my phone is almost empty.

Then, horror of horrors, to Piccadilly Circus. They’ve all gone to the loo and had coffee by this stage. I’m trying to be the unnoticeable robot driver but there’s two problems. 1 : My charging cable died without my notice last night and so my phone took no charge. It has run out completely and they’ll need to communicate with me about pick-up. 2: I’m desperate for the loo, I haven’t stopped for hours, and I’m in Piccadilly Circus. The roads round here are tiny and filled with vans. There is no parking.

After they get out, I end up in an expensive NCP on Poland Street or thereabouts, and I run out to buy a charging cable. Back to the car to put some charge in and find they’ve gone on lunch. Breathe out. And relax.

I like this work but I’d forgotten. Driving through London with time pressure is no fun. When I finally stopped for the first time at about 13.30 my legs were jittering and my left calf was stretched from clutch action. I had just driven 5 hours non stop in a completely unfamiliar car. Traffic was BAD in London today. Unfamiliarly so. Still, we got it done and back to base with 22 miles left on the fuel range. They got out the door and I got myself to the garage and filled up. Then straight to Kensington Town Hall to sort a residents permit, and fuck me if they don’t make it as hard as they possibly can even though I’ve got a load of these permits in my account history and incontrovertibly live in the borough. Sorted though and it’ll save a fortune in parking charges. Back to the hotel to check on what they need. Just staff. Home.

I’m ready for tomorrow now. New charging cable, full tank of gas and I’ve had enough time with the car now to switch off the fucking child locks and patch my phone in too. Not enough yet to switch off the oversensitive radar or work out how to set the Aircon properly but all things in their right time.

Off to bed now as it’s another likely to be another long one tomorrow. I think with time I’ll grow to love my little Nissan… I just need some alone-time. And the chance for a loo break.

If only I didn’t live so bloody far away from Mel. Enterprise are dropping a car off at mine tomorrow at 8am. I’m in immediately in order to start moving people and things around. I’ve been throwing another net today looking specifically for drivers. Drivers are in short supply, and we have to have a fleet. If you drive in London you want to talk to me.

I’m about to be steeped in it for a few weeks, this lovely strange work. I have no idea what enterprise is going to send me. Last time it was a Nissan X-Trail and I fell in love with it for the parking cameras and the modcons. I also just enjoy how you can turn your car so easily into an extended version of your mobile phone with wheels. If you’re on a driving job and solo for a large portion of the time, your podcast listening capacity goes through the roof. Just don’t get caught, as I once did, listening to “My dad wrote a porno” by people who don’t know anything about podcasts, see the word “porno” and feel the need to express concern about the extracurricular activities of the driver.

I’m being driven across London in an Uber as the car only comes into my possession tomorrow morning. Camilo. Good lad, he is. Wearing a suit and flatcap to drive me across town in his rented Toyota Prius. I totally get that. I frequently dress up in a three piece to do driving jobs, and I’ve often garnished myself with a flat cap, although my current weapon of choice is a trilby. But it’s above and beyond the call of duty to dress well in an uber where all your passengers are comfortable in the fact they are paying less for the journey than they would with any other operator until all the other operators are finally driven out of business, at which time we’ll all be saying “remember when ubers were cheap?”

I’m home, and abed on the sofa tonight. I got talking to Camilo and then cooked supper and forgot that I hadn’t finished this until now in my post bath post sleepy drink state, as the wind and rain beats on the window and it’s late enough that even the road noise outside is intermittent. It’s so quiet in Hampstead that even after just a couple of nights I hear every vehicle though, as they gun their bike engines or angrily lay on their horns even now in the small hours.

London. Driving in this city is always an adventure. I’m about to have an adventure.

Right now it’s adventures in Dreamland…

On my way up to Manchester the other day, Dean walked, by coincidence, into my train carriage with his two dogs. On the day of storm Ciara I ended up in Chorlton catching up with him, along with Nathan, Ruth, and Mat. We consumed vast quantities of red wine and a whole family of chickens.

Dean waited for me to get my shit together the next morning and we traveled back to London together. “I’ll call you when I get to Hampstead,” I told him, knowing I’d be house-sitting this week.

I didn’t feel very sociable this evening. London is a big place though, and you can be very efficiently alone in public. I felt like letting someone else cook, so I grabbed a graphic novel – (Necropolis from 2000AD if you must know) – and I wandered down to The Garden Gate. My plan was to get a quiet plate of sausage and mash, read an iconic story that I’d missed from my childhood, and then roll home tipsy and full of sausage.

I had been in the pub for less than a minute when someone clocked me. Turns out Dean was there with some other old friends for pub quiz night. “You’re usually on the winning team!” says Ruth. “I just came for a quiet drink and sausage and mash…” “Join our team!”

I join them. I sit opposite Dean. Again. The world is tiny and strange and wonderful. We are following each other around.

I have sausage and mash and social anxiety. The anxiety passes quickly and I get stuck into the quizzing.

Yes it’s true what Ruth has noticed. We frequently win this quiz. It’s Mel’s local and Mel is good at quizzing. But Mel is in New Zealand and suddenly I’m moonlighting on the quiz with other friends. London! I’ve been in this city so long there are people everywhere who I’ve done stuff alongside. Sometimes I see them in supermarkets or on buses. Sometimes I say hello. Sometimes I hide. This evening I had no choice but to muck in when I was feeling antisocial.

It was Ruth that clocked me. She pulled me from a deep thought where I was engaging with an article on my phone, and more or less oblivious to the world. I had to completely recalibrate my evening plans for myself. It turned into a great night.

We didn’t win. But second comes right after first, as Buzz Aldrin said.

Our team ended up being called “Sausage and Mash” and just by chance there were a lot of questions that my weird memory held. We won wine for the table, and it’s memorable winning a prize in a pub quiz. Too often it’s just the one same team of four old blokes winning week after week, year after year. The one I used to go to at The Magdala, right near The Garden Gate, they had such a team. The quizmaster solved their monopoly by giving an excellent prize to the team with the funniest wrong answer.

We played to win tonight. And came close enough to winning that we can feel good about it. Especially because it’s almost certain that the winning team Shazammed the music round. Bastards.

This darn storm.

Mat put me up on a spare bed near Chorlton. I realised how many friends I’ve got up that way. I could’ve been stuck for a fortnight and stayed in a different lovely person’s spare sleep place every night. There are loads of ace people I didn’t see at all.

I slept beautifully as the winds blew overnight. My sleep might well have been augmented by the fact that I had resigned myself to a slow return and that I had written today as a work day off completely in favour of just making sure I got home before they shut the trains down again.

Now I’m in Hampstead. I’m keeping an eye on a friend’s flat up here and she has terrible flooding. Considering the ongoing weather outside, I thought it would be worth changing buckets etc.

As it happens it’s been better than I thought. But I’ll live here for a night or two as the storm rages outside. I’ve brought a few changes of basic clothes, and enough reading material for a week or two – although in fact I’m going to get through what I brought in no time. I’m writing this blog at 3am with one eye open having been compulsively reading until I was about to sleep soundly, and then the biological blog alarm reminded me I still had to make words.

The window to my left is full facing the wind tonight. My friend lives on the top floor as well, and has some problems that are familiar to me in my flat : high wind, the people below hating you for existing, atrocious water pressure.

I’m enjoying the winds now, nestled as I am in a better made bed than the one I normally make for myself at home. I like hearing the cold hard world smashing against my lucky wall.

Tomorrow I might go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. I’ve got a fair amount of work to do but I can do it from home in this instance, and it’s pleasant work – it’s basically just finding people who are reliable and giving them work. But home until Thursday is going to be here in South End Green. A lovely high part of London. And one where I’m going to close my storm-tossed eyes and go to sleep listening to the buffeting of the waning tempest on the window as I lie cocooned in this insanely comfortable bed wondering how the hell I got so swept up in my reading that I forgot to do the writing.

A highlight of my day was when I discovered that I can make cauliflower into a food I enjoy. I rolled in in mayo and breadcrumbs and spices and then roasted it for half an hour, but I mention it because it’s the only photo I took today despite all the stormy things I witnessed. My photo muscle is not strong at all. I’ve been aware of it for some time but repeatedly do nowt…

Hey ho.

Sleep.

Waking up in The Principal this morning I had no idea of the carnage that had been going on overnight. Great big old hard walls protected me from the storm as I dozed in my vast hotel bed. The world could’ve ended and I wouldn’t have noticed. I just hit sleep.

Today my plan was to go for lunch with Nathan, my old mate from drama school, and then to get a train back to mine. The storm had other plans. I’ve never had to hold onto my trilby so hard as I have today. The tram to Chorlton was interrupted with concerned messages from the driver about trees on the line, and flooding. I got to Nathan’s. We had chicken.

It was only shortly thereafter that I realised that I was going to end up stuck here in Manchester tonight. The trains are all buggered because of wind and flooding and unfamiliar things and basic lack of infrastructure. It would be magical if the hotel rang me up and said “I understand you might be stuck in Manchester – we have booked you into our sexy hotel room for another night.” But that’s not how But hotels work. So I’m stuck in Manchester with no hotel.

It’s fine. Manchester has treated me brilliantly. I have many friends in Manchester, and some of them have sofas, or spare beds.

Mat has got a place for me to lay my head tonight. Tomorrow I should be able to get back into London town where there is toothpaste and broccoli and I can start pretending to be a normal human being again. 

Today was meant to be a work day on social media things but this weather has fucked it and so I’m using it as an opportunity to physically catch up with old friends.

Nathan lived with me for five years after Guildhall. We forged paths together. We went on the pull together, catalysed by him, reluctantly but inevitably. We both tried to work out how to be a working actor in London together in the early noughties, and have sex in our lives as well.

He’s living in Manchester now with two daughters and a brilliant wife. Today his house has been a nexus of old kind friends and dogs. I’ve been part of the mix.

We ended up in a warm circle talking shit to each other and enjoying the rare reality of each other’s company. Right now husband and wife are fiercely debating about whether or not their daughter is “Catholic”. Outside the storm is raging.

Now I’m at Mat’s. He’s rolling himself a smoke, and gave me a gin. We are listening to Simon and Garfunkel playing live in Central Park in 1981 on vinyl through the most incredible sound system. Mat’s flat in Manchester is the same size and design as my friend Helen’s in London. Helen shares her flat with two other people she can’t really choose. This is just Mat’s.

He’s got a gin box.

I do find myself wondering what I’m doing in London. It’s bollocks. It really is. You get nothing for everything. But at least you’re near the job…

Good to hang out with old friends from college. I was just starting to worry that I was the wreckhead before I got back to Mat’s and realised we are peas in a pod. He’s about music like I am about story… Love this. I’m clocking off to enjoy his home, the music and the gin…

Hopefully the trains to London tomorrow will be running. Cowards.

I’m sitting in a very quiet room full of books in Manchester, wearing a vintage suit. Forty people are crammed into a corridor just round the corner, moving equipment. There’s the hum of activity and the occasional squawk of a walkie-talkie. Space is limited. There’s a lot of crew here and they’re all busy. We have a few things left to shoot, and an hour in which to shoot them.

This little peaceful room has been designated the Green Room for us. As Green Rooms go it’s not so bad. Thousands of ancient tomes from the days when printing was not commonplace, collected by an earl and bought for a few hundred thousand in the 1890’s. Now they’re stored here, in sealed climate controlled glass cabinets, worth a good million now I expect. Operatic prompt books, scriptures, histories, books on philosophy and annals and languages. They are pretty even in their cages. So are we. We all look lovely all dolled up.

A few of us will sit here until we’re needed. This is often the reality of filming for an actor. Hours of sitting. Intense moments of activity. More sitting.

There are lots of extras somewhere as well. God knows where they’ve put them. They usually fence them off in a bus or a dungeon somewhere, but wherever they are I bet there’s tea.

Artificial light is streaming through the windows in the corridor outside confounding our body clocks once again. Outside the land is dark. The storm is rolling in. The wind’s gonna blow…

Once we’re done here I’ll have to go to back to unit base through whatever the weather has turned out to be. It’s on the other side of town. I’ll change clothes. Then I’ll have to come back – back to a hotel just round the corner from here. Sod it. I should’ve brought my stuff to set.

I’m hoping that Nathan and Dean will still be awake by the time I’ve checked in. I fancy a stormy night on the town in Manchester. It’s Saturday, and I don’t get to come to the city very often. It’ll be a good chance to catch up with old friends.

Even though time is running out, I have faith in the machine of this set finishing on time. They are very sharp at speeding up when they need to. My first time on this set a few weeks ago I was blinded by the efficiency of the unit, as they whizzed through the shots but got every one of them nicely done in time to wrap us bang on cue, not a minute to spare. I’m expecting they’ll work similar magic in the 45 minutes remaining.

There goes the call. “Rolling!” They’re shooting something which means they’ve set up.

Yep. Sure enough, lots of walking and I’m done for the day. It’s raining. I’ll throw my clothes back on and hopefully I’ll get to hang out with the lads in Chorlton. If not I’ll be me vs a 5 star hotel bar, which will leave me shirtless and still sober at 4am.

I was getting home from the lovely day when I realised I needed a poo. The train left in 4 minutes. I rushed through it but there appeared to be no loos on board. No way I was going to make it home. Flustered, I got out of the loo-free train onto the platform at Guildford, where I accidentally punched my own phone out of my hand and hard into the concrete platform face down.

Barely caring in my time of need I swept up the phone and did the “is it working test” while hunting the loo on the platform. I found the loo on the platform, but the phone failed the test. Whilst I was in the loo on the platform the loo-less locomotive left and my phone stayed broken.

In the ensuing half an hour before the next train I paced the platform at Guildford somehow hoping against hope that resetting it would fix it. Nope.

My ticket was on that phone. My life was on that phone. Suddenly faced with a brick I found myself wondering what to do.

I’ve often disliked iSmash. Big chain, on the high street, charging way over the odds to fix your device. I haven’t got a spare phone though.

I got on the train. I tried Google assistant. “Ok Google, what time does iSmash on the king’s road close?” Miraculously, my phone told me: “iSmash King’s Road closes at half seven”. So the phone isn’t dead. Just the screen.

Ok. Sod it. A destination.

I get on a bus from Clapham Junction. I walk up to the King’s Road and get to iSmash at 6. I’m thinking I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow somehow but no. Half an hour! How much?

Eye-watering. Two hundred and fifty quid. It’s like getting your car towed. Ow. But half an hour at six in the evening?! I guess that’s what you pay for. I’m off to Manchester tomorrow, early. I’ll need this phone. I’ll be paid more for tomorrow than I paid them to fix it. Balance?Karma? Fucknose. I’m just glad to be able to write on my phone.

I’ve been at the home of my dear old friend Dan. I’ve been recording some samples for a game he’s making. I haven’t seen him since I got politicked out of attending his wedding three days before the event in a way that still fills me with rage and powerlessness when I think about it. It was the single worst thing that has ever happened to me in the course of my job. I really hate some aspects of this insecure career.

It’s a mountain to climb to get back, but thank God we are old enough friends to stick the picks in and start hauling. We worked for a bit, then went for a walk in the park with Matilda who is a streak of lightning and hates anything speedy her size that doesn’t have nice smelling bollocks. Then we had a burger. Then a bit more work.

It’s good to have his friendship back, and Guildford is highly accessible compared to his old haunt of Canada. I’m looking forward to more time hanging out there in the near future, especially since Jack is about to play Macbeth down there.

Next time, though, I’ll make sure I go to the loo before I leave the house. Or keep a tighter grip on my phone.