Author: albarclay

Another school, and this time thinking about careers. Year 7 once more, getting them to write their first CV – eventually. It starts with asking them to think about their top ten dream jobs. “Footballer” is one that comes up a lot. But more and more recently “YouTuber” is common. It used to be “Celebrity” but that’s not there so much now. By year 7 though, you hope that steps have been taken to move towards that goal.

If a kid says footballer I’ll ask if they’re on the youth program for any clubs. Often they are, and often for clubs they don’t support. Geography and parenting plays its part. Just as often they love watching football, and on a first question they’re drawn towards what they love watching. When “What are you doing for fitness?” meets “I play Fortnite” then it’s a good time to encourage some wider thinking.

I remember these career days at my school. I would put “actor” in every box and then eloquently defy anyone who tried to switch my head. I spoke to a young woman like young me today : “So you only want to be an actor. But even very successful actors have gaps between jobs where they do other things. You might not want to split your focus, but actors can find themselves with time on their hands, and they use their skills in many other spheres of life. You might consider having another income stream running alongside the acting.” (Like mentoring / van driving / invigilating / construction / after dinner speaking / film set driving / ASMing / fixer work / repurposing / Carrying / Proof Reading / Script Reading – to name just a few of mine in the last couple of years, and those are the ones that spring to mind before I start to apply thinking. Because to be excellent you also need to be flexible about self-identity. And yes I’m calling myself excellent.)

I didn’t feel telling her I was an actor was the right thing for where she was in her growth towards herself. Who knows if she’ll end up one of us. The “Footballer” “actor” “youtuber” bracket is often shorthand for “I’ve really not thought about this and I don’t want to and I’ll fall into something.”

Through the day we encourage kids to think a bit more about their value system. What they need out of life to make them happy. We get them to make steps towards writing a CV. It’s a lovely day, and unusual for the kids. They were great today, although primarily because their teachers were massive authoritarians. They had been trained to obedience through habit and fear. Lots of standing in line. Lots of hard words from teacher.

But today for the first time I’ve experienced in an inner city school like that, lots of them ended up with “politician” as an option. One kid had “Prime minister.” Usually I don’t see these kids contemplating a life in politics. But in terms of understanding what the bulk of people have to cope with, I’d sooner vote for that kid than most of the examples of thoughtless privilege who are eating our future right now.

It’s all academic if we’ll be dead in two generations. But even after the extinction some humans will be left I guess. Good to make sure they’re thinking.

So the stuff I took out of storage? As you know, constant reader, I put it in different storage. If I get it out within a month it won’t be a problem. But that’s how they get you. I have to make sure they don’t get me. I’ve got under a month. People who like sorting out old things and have too much time on their hands, hit me up. I’m dedicating a fair few days to this around my work. The first one is Thursday.

I had to put it in storage to empty the van. I had sofas to move, and then the family I was dealing with needed someone to clear the rest of their storage. They paid me this time round, so I now have a second load of Victorian set dressing, a load more books and records, and some bits of furniture and electronics that are incontrovertibly valueless and that I’ll have to pay to chuck. But I factored a trip to the dump into my invoice. I’m learning.

I’ve experimentally listed two shoddy electronic items on eBay – pet grooming tools – not because I expect them to sell, but because they’ve never been opened and it makes me sad. They were bought, forgotten, and then thrown away decades later. Technology has changed a bit since they were made. There’s a VHS tape included with the dog hair clippers with grooming tips that nobody these days has the means to watch. It was put there to add value, but it takes value away by making the buyer feel that it’s dated. Ditto the ionic brush, which wants one of those rectangular 9v batteries (and doesn’t bother mentioning it on the pack.) Nowadays instead of buying batteries you have to remember where your charger is. A different obstruction. And instead of making sure you groom your dog near a plug socket, you have to leave it to charge for hours when you first get it, but then it works wirelessly until you lose the charger.  These old items are perfectly serviceable and it’s part of the problem if we just throw this stuff in landfill because we want new new new. But we are conditioned to think that new things are better. I wish we could destigmatise re-using things. Especially when so many old things look great and work great. The idea that you only use second hand if you can’t afford brand new – it’s not good for the world. We are dying here.

In some fields we are leaping forwards daily. In others we have long stagnated and teams of people in the related industries are innovating packaging or pushing new “pentapeptides” in order to persuade suggestible people to upgrade their emotional placement to the “new better version”. (I’m deliberately using an old example from the cosmetic industry. They were introduced so mawkishly it stuck in my memory.) But we’ve been buying shit for years to make ourselves feel better. And things moved so fast for a while with the Industrial Revolution and the technologies that followed that our ingrained modern habit and expectation is to see the thing we prized being completely outclassed in a few short years by the upgraded version. We covet or buy the upgrade, which in itself is improved upon so quickly. But my dear friend’s dad uses a wall mounted “Spong” manual coffee grinder and it’s a beautiful thing that still grinds the beans as well as any shiny electric pretender. Let’s try and reuse things. Fix things.

Hopefully I’ll find new use for lots of the things I’m digging through. Huge amounts of classical vinyl… Someone wants it.

I’ll be off to the tip next week. But before then let’s see where we can put things that isn’t in here.

I’m upset about Keith Flint from The Prodigy. I didn’t know him. Almost certainly danced in the same vicinity as him. Probably banged up against him physically while raving. “Alright mate” “Nice one mate”. Could’ve stood behind him in the queue for the bog. Maybe exchanged unknowing greetings. “You ‘aving it?” “Yes mate!”

I don’t immediately recognise friends if they’ve changed their hair. “We’ve met before,” comes out of interactions so often I try to avoid introducing myself. I’d fall back on the old actor’s “Darling, how are you” if it didn’t feel insincere.

I barely recognise people I like if it’s been a while. If the context is shot then it’s impossible. Famous faces and I’m fucked. That round in the pub quiz where it’s someone’s eyes and someone else’s mouth? It’s like looking at pictures of frogs. “That’s Patrick Flump!” says everyone and I go quiet. I can’t do it. I mostly just don’t care, and haven’t watched enough telly. Give me context if we have something to talk about. “Hi Al I haven’t seen you since we did one day reading 1970’s instruction manuals as part of an experimental theatre project in North Wales.” I’ll love you for that. “We’ve met.” Audible full stop. Oh fuck you. Don’t make me guess or I’ll only make you feel more insecure. “You know me, Al. How do you know me?” “I can’t remember when we met. I was probably drunk?” “Yeah. That’s what you said last time.” That’s a genuine one from ANother attractive blond male actor of my age. Who I wouldn’t categorise or dismiss so quickly if they hadn’t given me reason to.

But back to Keith. I wouldn’t know Keith Flint if he kissed me full on the lips without the hair and makeup. Maybe he did. Unlikely. He might have hated me if he had me on paper. Harrow. Establishment. We were all listening to Wendy James at Harrow thinking she was subversive. Then he danced in with his eyes and his fuck you and – well – I didn’t look back.

Music crosses the boundaries we make for ourselves. The Firestarter video with friends from school. They reacted like he was an alien. “He’s mental,” they dismissed. I just thought he was having a blast, and comfortable in his own skin.

He was huge. Mobile. Dangerous. Weird. A disruptive frontman for a group with actual edge. They spoke directly to my age group and they partied with us too. The dirty older brothers. “The Prodigy are here, just dancing.” “Course they fucking are.” And they kept doing it. They kept partying as we got older and had responsibility. And we kept partying right with them when we could. There was a moment of slack, but when they rolled in with Invaders Must Die it was like they’d never been gone. Omen! Dear God yes. “The writing’s on the wall!” It’s not just about the lyrics, this music. It can’t be. There’s only a tiny bit of content per song. It’s about the volume and the variation. It’s about the attitude. It’s about the dancing. Music to fly to.

When we were teenagers dancing in weird places at short notice, they were bringing that party to the mainstream, and still showing up when they could to get stuck in. “I got the poison. I got the remedy.” They really did have both. And they spread both.

The Fat of the Land sold well in America. And those warehouses and fields in London that are so familiar from the videos went out global. A generation of men and women not that much younger than Keith Flint will be mourning with me. Very few celebrity deaths hit me hard. The last one was Leonard and he said goodbye with an album. Keith just took his life, when you could argue things looked good for The Prodigy and for him by extension.

That anger that makes people the fire… So often it’s self directed. Fare forward you pissed off beautiful dark weird spiky legend. You helped me climb down from myself. I’ll see what I can carry forward for you. Your early death is only a complete waste if we don’t learn from it. “Music for the Jilted Generation.” Oh boys, boys, what did you know?

Meanwhile, if you need me I’ll be dancing in my living room.

Today was definitely more fraught than it needed to be. All I had to do was take two sofas to Aylesbury. I got in the van and drove to Putney to collect them. My friend who was helping hadn’t checked his WhatsApp since 7.30pm on Friday. I rang him. “Are you coming?” “Yes” replied a voice from the bottom of a well.

I got in the van and drove it to Putney. On arrival the key wouldn’t come out of the ignition at all. Stuck fast. After some patience and jiggling I got it out. I went up and sat with my sofa friend, wondering if my helper friend would show up. Miraculously he did. I went down and moved the van into the loading bay. And then the key wouldn’t come out of the ignition no matter what. It just … stuck. I tried everything, to no avail. I tried to switch the engine back on. It would turn the engine over after some coaxing. But no way was it coming out. Fuck. “Well, at least I can drive it.” I say to myself. I was in a private driveway at the time so it was pretty safe to leave for a bit, although an expensive place to break down. If that huge van can’t move itself it becomes a massive problem. Like a dead elephant in your hallway.

I manually locked the drivers door and went out the passenger door, quietly panicking. I went upstairs to get the sofas, with the key left in the ignition. That driveway is soaked with CCTV.

Once the sofas were loaded in, I was back to worrying. I carefully coaxed the key to ignite the engine and went on my way. “I’ll just drop off the sofas and then work out how to fix this,” I thought to myself.

And then I looked at the range. 50 miles left before I have to take the key out to open the fuel tank. It’s 80 miles to Aylesbury and back.

“I can get there, drop off the sofas and at least get paid for the job, then pull up somewhere in walking distance from a garage and refuel with a canister”, I’m thinking. That way if I can’t get the key out or back in, then the van is not in a thoroughfare or at the petrol pump.

But … I’ve got a passenger. I’m not alone. I might be happy to sleep in the back if it comes to it but they won’t be.

“It might not be as bad as you think,” he says out of nowhere. This is my depressed friend being optimistic. I realise I’ve been catastrophising. If we are going to get stuck it’d be better to get stuck in London than get stuck in Aylesbury.

I pull into a petrol station near the newly Japanese “London Pride” brewery. I’m so nervous about this situation that the van is steamed up. I’ve been driving in the freezing cold with the windows down because I’m hyperventilating and my breath is clouding my view. I switch off the engine. I try to get the key out of the ignition.

I am as gentle as I can. I lose hope about 4 times. I resist the temptation to force it. After what feels like ages it suddenly just … pops out. It’s bent like a banana. Really badly bent. How? I take it into the station and gently hammer it flat with a screwdriver borrowed from the cashier. Fucking Renault, making their keys out of tin. I successfully refuel with my newly flat key. I put it back in, and am delighted to be able to drive away.

It’s not good though. Every time I stop I have a negotiation with the ignition. There’s damage in the barrel perhaps? We get the sofas dropped off, leaving the key in again, and we return home to his. Once there we cover the key with WD40 and insert it to get some oil in the mechanism. It’s a bit better now if the key is a certain way up. I fear I’ll need a new ignition barrel before I return the van. Expense… But that’s fine. It’s been turning over nicely, this van. I don’t think I’ll ever regret borrowing it. I’ll see on Tuesday if the ignition is settled after the oil and the time, and I’ll make sure the key is properly straightened before I use it again and cover it in more oil for good measure. I love having this van in London. But you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth I guess.

Useful to remember not to go immediately to worst case scenarios…

Jack and I went to Big Yellow Self Storage today with the van. I have two days of van work coming up. I can’t use the thing if it’s full of bric-a-brac. I went and got a starting deal on a storage pod, giving me time pressure to get the stuff sorted, and a chance for Jack and I to touch base with what I’ve managed to get hold of, through the frame of Christmas Carol.

We have the most amazing haul of tacky Victorian plates. They’re all extremely patriotic, these plates. Pictures of Victoria and Albert and Gladstone and Nelson and other statesmen of the time. Men with muttonchops looking constipated and women with bonnets looking as if someone’s standing directly behind them. These are simultaneously wonderful and awful plates. Christmas Carol this year will probably involve the audience eating from these authentic Victorian pieces of decorative nonsense, loved by patriotic Scrooge, no doubt. Although as a precautionary measure I might ask someone if any of the plates are worth loadsamoney as they’ll likely get used hard in Carol. If there are loads with value then we have a budget for Beowulf! I suspect they’ll have very little value though. They’re just costume plates. Dressed up to look fancy but not actually fancy.

If you’re a ceramics enthusiast then this is a goldmine of interest. I’d love to learn the provenance of some of this. It’s lovely to know that this plate collection, maintained by theatre people, will find a life in theatre. I almost want to thank the lost owners for curating it for us. I think they’d be thrilled to see it go to good use. I would be. I’m going to invite their kids to see Carol and hopefully to eat off their plates.

We took our time to look at things, and to photograph them, and still got everything packed in reasonably efficiently. I took a lot of photographs. Sure there’s plenty of pure and simple junk. Also a lot of interesting looking junk – stuff that will be well used as set dressing for immersive shows. Stuff with personality but no real worth. Suitcases and ceramic Queens and candelabras and tiles. There’s a filthy rocking horse that looks more like a donkey. If anyone fancies cleaning it I’ll drive it round for fuel as I can’t imagine it’ll be much use in any of the stories I’m planning on making. It needs a damn good scrub though. How does one wash a rocking horse? Manually, and painstakingly I fear. Anyway, It’s yours if you want it. It doesn’t have smoke damage. The major issue with much of this stuff is that it’s heavily smoke damaged. Carrying it makes your hands filthy almost immediately. There was a fire in the house it came out of before it went to storage. This is what was loosely saved.

The best thing about today was working with Jack. Had I been alone I’d have had an interesting but far less fulfilling day. Sharing discoveries with Jack, dreaming possibilities for things we found, making spot decisions on random items… All of that was fun in company. I enjoy doing things so much more when I do them with someone I get on with. I said to Jack as I was driving back home over Chelsea Bridge that I honestly have no idea why I’ve let myself stay single for more than a decade now. Life in company is both cheaper and more fun. That’s why I was a serial monogamist for years. Rather than this committed bachelor I seem to have landed in.

Next week will have to be about moving this stuff quickly out of my storage and finding the right home for it. It’s free from the dump. Now it’s time to repurpose things. And yes, if there’s anything with huge value maybe I’ll sell it to make budget and repay storage. I’m not here to lose money. But I’d sooner repurpose things as that’s the service I offered. So I’m going to make sure that as much as possible goes towards theatre.

This is renowned Shakespearean actor Al Barclay checking in with you from Waterloo. Hello. I should warn you that I’ve consumed a large quantity of alcohol in a short space of time. Ah yes. My work tonight? Oh I had work. Work. I had it. Is it work? Yes, dammit. Yes, it’s work. (It was hard, if I’m frank. The unknown is tricky. It’s why I decompressed into this delightful ebullient state of mind that you find me in. I always have a hand on the tiller. Although right now it’s not the steadiest hand.)

“Good evening,” I cried to those beauties with their plates of thoughtless meat and their tasty tasty clothes. Oh they all looked so correct. All the women in glorious dresses or trouser suits, expressing all the colours, delightful. Homogenous men in drab colours, aping Beau Brummel, the man who killed colour, slouching in the same old shape and pallette centuries after the poisonous shitbag died of Syphilis.

My job? I’m the interference. Even though I’m in a uniform. My threepiece is navy blue. An acceptable colour for a man, according to inherited convention. I’ve got my tophat and my green ringmaster coat in a carrier bag but these humans aren’t ready for green yet. Man in green? Pervert. Navy is the way forward here.

I stand up in front of these humans I’ve maybe even met before at a film premier connected to their company in LA two years ago. The context is way out of whack and I’m clean shaven. Still I avoid self naming, as a casual Google search would bring the curious into a thought-hole of my own creation after 777 daily blog posts not including this one. Plus I don’t like promoting myself. Probably more of the latter than the former if I’m frank. Maybe I should’ve grandstanded…

I realise just before I start talking that there’s no lectern, rendering my bullet point notes useless. I can’t stand there visibly reading from an iPad. I’m a “renowned Shakespearean”. I want to share Titania’s speech about how the seasons are topsy turvy. It would be current with this week’s weather. “On old Hiem’s thin and icy beard / an odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds / is as in mockery set.” But Titania is one of the only parts in Dream I haven’t played over the decades. I find myself cutting it entirely for safety. I didn’t want to appear as anything other than totally certain, and I’m not certain about Titania’s lines despite multiple Oberonning over the years.

When you stand in front of that many people, and then you inhale their attention into a singularity, you really need to know your pinpoint to remain the shining tip of the pyramid. Thankfully I do, but dammit I’m not – yet – as internationally celebrated for my work as would be helpful in that context. If even 10% of the audience knew me from off the telly box – doing any old stuff – I could’ve been considerably looser with my content and we all would’ve enjoyed me talking more. As it was I had to use discipline and lots of adrenaline, which takes time to wind back out.

I tell them tales. Tales of life and the art to which I’ve committed my headspace. Tales of the war between the ones who fear and the ones who breathe. As the pyramid tip I sparkle.

When I pass the Rameses mic to the client, I pass him an attentive room with it. And then I sod off and walk to Vault. And at Vault I decompress way too quickly, pull in more pints than I’m comfortable counting, and generally put it all away. Now I’m off to sleep. Zzz

Only took one photo today…

While I have custody, the van sleeps in the same spot every night. I can see it from my bedroom window. I’m jumpy about it. Every time there’s a bang in the night, poor Pickle gets ejected suddenly from whichever warm bit of me she’s chosen to nestle into as I pop up like a suddenly activated string puppet. I glue my sleepy eyes to the window until I’m certain that nefarious types aren’t causing damage to the van I’m supposed to be looking after.

Normally it sits empty, apart from a ghost light and a bedside table full of mystic knick knacks from the show. Suddenly today it’s full to bursting. Crammed. I don’t even know what’s there but there’s a lot.

My phone rang at about 2pm. It’s a friend of a friend. I have not been in touch with him directly but I put him in touch with Brian because I’d been told there was a grand piano that was going to the dump. It’s now going to be repurposed, but everything else was on its way to the dump. They were emptying multiple full storage units. They had been working since 10am with a bunch of guys who load up, throw away, charge you for the weight, and return for more. Brian had suggested I follow up, and get the van involved.

These parents worked in theatre. The guy had saved loads of theatre books for us. But the gold for me lay in the random stuff. When I heard it was all going to the dump I got myself up there FAST.

The parents did music hall. There was so much Victoriana, and it can all find its way into Christmas Carol, particularly the mismatched ceremonial Victorian plates. We need plates for carol. Every year we rent them from expensive catering companies, and they’re vanilla. We might just have hit upon all the period catering items we need for a full audience to go “oooh is this authentic?” Golden.

But I’m going to bed without the foggiest idea what’s in the back of that van. I need time and help to sort it. Sure I noticed when I took in an entire leopard skin with head and claws. Sure I clocked the plates, the lovely Shakespearian character tiles. I’ve got box after box of sheet music. A few nice old books. A shitload of smoke damaged busts. I had to move fast. The other guys were just ferrying stuff back and forth to the dump. Throwing it out. Getting it weighed. Charging for the weight. Coming back. Getting more. They were paid by the hour, but their working day finished at 6, and the dump was taking money in exchange for the weight of things with value. I have no idea what they chucked before I arrived. Nor did they.

I liked the dumping guy a lot though. We got talking about how this is what happens to our lives. We all accumulate stuff. It has such value to us. And then we die and it all goes to the dump haphazardly. Ok, my friend in the dump from two days ago might have ended up with some of it in his house. The big prop store might have got a load of it with whatever deal they’ve struck so they can rent it out to movies. But the bulk of it would’ve been landfill. It might still be. But I’m going to sort what I saved, and distribute appropriately to shows, friends, charity shops etc. I’m tempted to follow up on my impulse from a few days ago to start my own limited prop storage company. Although the acting is about to explode for me beautifully.

Still, all these lovely things saved from destruction. At least I can honour their owners. Storage units… They’re stupid and expensive. This family apparently spent £100,000 over ten years storing whatever was there. I’ll have to be smart about what I keep and what I let go. But I’m so glad I have the van right now.

The days have been going by fast this week. It’s been varied as ever, and so unseasonably hot. This time last year it was snowing and I was up in Rochdale digging a path to Rob’s garage so we could tinker with a motorbike with freezing fingers. Today I was trying to get year 7 in a hot London school to engage with politics. I don’t go into schools that often. I’d agreed to meet an old mate after work, but I walked out of that place feeling like I’d run a marathon. Nearly 200 kids shouting constantly from morning until early afternoon. Of all things, we were thinking about Brexit today. They make a political party, decide what they’re minister for, think about policies and make a campaign including their Brexit strategy. At the end of the day they present their manifesto, and make campaign promises, and then there’s a vote for the winning team.

“We don’t have any policies,” whispers one kid to another as they go up on stage to give their manifesto. “I know. It doesn’t matter. We’ve just got to say something” comes the response. A teacher overhears the exchange with me. “That’s Westminster all over,” she says. “Theresa May probably said that to someone today.”

Some kids were re-inventing communism, others re-branding fascism. “We’ll make everyone have the same money,” says one group. Another says “Anyone who isn’t from here would just have to go home to where they’re from.” A third is defence secretary. “We should avoid using nukes unless we are provoked.”

A lot of what they’re starting with is received opinion. It’s revealing seeing them unpack it for themselves and for each other, and maybe question for the first time why they think what they think – and whether it really is what they think. Perspective takes time, and our unconscious motivators can frequently go unexamined for ever. There are millions of people online who are passionately defending opinions that they’ve never examined or questioned. Often people on both sides of the political spectrum vote in ways that don’t serve them due to inherited ideologies. We all need to question our opinions and the things we take for granted. We shift as the world shifts. A stagnant pond is death.

The thing I notice most often on days like this is that, when it comes to a vote, simplicity always wins. A great big flag pulls votes. A simple catchy slogan will snag them too, much more so than a thought through manifesto.” “We don’t have any policies.” “Doesn’t matter.” Nuance usually gets lost in noise.

People vote quickly and instinctively, and in the end they often vote emotionally. It’s how we get these demagogues with very little in the way of content but lots in the way of opinion, with passionate followers willing to fight to defend empty words they’ve learnt by rote because they connect to feelings. It’s why you feel good when you’ve been to a protest or a rally. Chanting in groups is lovely, and brings us together, as we start to breath as one. It can be “zieg heil” “no more war” “om” or anything really. The key is feeling connected with the people around us – briefly losing ourselves in the organism.

We do need to examine our content better, and take emotion out somehow. And we need to learn to debate again.

Today was unusual and at times very interesting. And completely knackering, although I got the best school lunch I’ve ever had so that made a difference.

This morning I was at a recycling centre. Basically it’s a tip but they try to repurpose the stuff you drop. The van was full of mdf flooring that nobody we were able to find had a direct need for. It was heavy, and weight is money. I was paid to take it to a dump and pile it up. Almost £140 it cost my client, just to drop the stuff there based on weight, and not  counting my labour. They weigh your van going in and again coming out. You pay the difference.

They might well sell that flooring to someone. There must be people with business relationships with the dump. It’s branded as a recycling centre. It’s right next to a great big heavily branded prop store for my industry. Amazing.  That makes so much sense. It must have been going on for decades…

Say I’m making a film. I need a 1980’s household orange juicer for a scene, filming tomorrow. You can’t buy them on eBay, even though they’re everywhere. The job of finding it goes to a clueless production runner. Everyone else is dealing with other things. Nobody knows to ask Mrs Gabberney of 12 The Orchards, Penge for her one until the son throws it into a yellow skip after she’s gone.

These prop store guys fished it out of a skip years ago. They rent it to the runner. You can find the prop store online, and they’ve got a huge great branded warehouse right by the tip, full of “authentic period props”. So for loadsamoney per day you get your period perfect scene critical juicer. Plus you lose your absurd deposit when the actor drops it on the first take and dents it, even though they’ll just buff the thing out and rent it again. These people notoriously take you for everything you’re worth. They understand supply and demand, but lack empathy. They price the same for Annie Leibowitz as they do for The Finborough. They could probably teach me a thing or two about pricing themselves…

They must swing by the dump every day, from their neighbouring prop warehouse. “Anything new Harvey?” “Just the usual crap. Bunch of kitchen stuff. Take what you like. We’ll do it by weight. That’ll be £3.12.” AUTHENTIC 1980’s LEMON JUICER. THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. ONLY immortal soul PER DAY!!!

I left all the mdf in a neat pile, thinking someone might want it. It’s better it goes to use somewhere than to landfill.  But those props guys have got me thinking… I’ve got way too much crap. Maybe there’s a way to rationalise it and not be a dick about it. Just yesterday I saw someone asking to rent “random mystic  crap.” I’ve got that in spades,

We got talking to the man that works there. The sun is shining, so everyone is talking to strangers. “I used to have a van like that,” he says. “You can get all sorts. You wouldn’t believe what people throw away.” He illustrates with 200 cases of Budweiser. All in date. The American Embassy was moving and they didn’t have room or infrastructure or whatever, so some poor intern was employed to drive the surplus to the dump, and they took the job literally. “Dump the beer boss? Sure boss. Here’s my receipt boss. Didn’t keep nothing for myself boss. All done properly boss. Promotion, boss?”

I ask the question: “Are you allowed to take stuff out of here yourself”

“No no, it’s against regulations. But when I was driving a van … I’ve got a suit of armour at home, and all sorts. And a sword? I got a sword yesterday.” This man has a family, and kids. His house is likely to be completely full of random shit – (plus Budweiser I expect!). One day he’ll die and his estate will employ someone to take all the stuff he lovingly preserved from the dump, and … dump it again. The circle of junk. It happened to the contents of the house I grew up in, and I still feel the pull of some of it. It happened to my uncle’s old home in Scotland. All into skips. I’m off to Jersey to finish sorting my other uncle’s stuff in March. I can hopefully repurpose a lot of it. We will see.

For the last few years of her life, my mother had a boyfriend. Leonine and intense and poised – a David Attenborough type, deeply involved in human rights. He opened my old Harrovian eyes to a new way of thinking about ethics. Teenage Al both hated him for not being my father, and suspected him for appearing to be a compulsive liar, but respected him for incontrovertibly good work in the world. He set up a functioning human rights charity, and they successfully lobbied for changes in the law which have helped untold thousands. He had a genuine claim in his own life for redress. He’d been tortured and he was always on the verge of some big payout. He and his charity helped land compensation for a great many people while his big claim never came in – and still hasn’t.

I didn’t mind that it never landed – none of us did. His financial status was irrelevant to me, but as my mother’s boyfriend he wanted me to know: “When my payout comes through…” X Y Z. There was a thing in his mind where money was really important. He kept his notional worth high to counteract how his actual wealth didn’t marry with his value system.

Mum looked at houses in the country with him. She hated living in the city full time. When the compensation came they could move away.

Meantime he lived with mum. He pretended to know bands that my teenage friends and I invented in order to bait him. Teenage boys can be buggers. My friend Cameron used to deliberately and creatively improvise band names in order to elicit “oh yes I know their manager.” He was a delight, and constantly full of stories.

He helped make my mother happy. A teenage boy is always going to resent a man that isn’t his father but lives with his mother. After I moved out he moved in with her.

She went a few years later and I lost touch with him, and with many of my mother’s friends, for decades. I was processing it. So arbitrary. Preventable, I told myself. I was leaving drama school. Filming Bright Young Things. Busy. Maybe he could’ve helped her, I thought, or given her something concrete to help anchor her.

Recently I’ve started shyly engaging with him again. He lives in the sheltered housing opposite me. I see him pottering around the streets I live on. I see him smoking outside Tesco. Occasionally, in one of my many vehicles, I wave as I drive by. “That’s my mother’s ex boyfriend” I tell people.

We went for dinner this evening. “I need a ghost writer,” he put in randomly to the conversation. My head went to considering it: “He must know my work… I could use a first major project, and he’s almost family. Maybe he appreciates how 500 words minimum per day uncut and unedited has taught me how to hone ideas into words. I know his story, plus I’ve worked closely with human rights over the years. I know the laws a little.” Thinking he’s fishing. I bite. “Talk to me.”

He doesn’t take it how I expected. He’s not fishing at all. “No no I need a proper writer,” he tells me, unblinking. “Someone with … precedent.”

To be a ghost writer? My pride is engaged now.

“I write a blog,” I tell him, thinking it might lend weight. The idea lands on him like blancmange. Dismissively: “I need more than a blog writer.”

I’m livid. This honest and unedited content is by nature invalid because … because it hasn’t been externally validated by … something or someone that you attribute value to…? Gahh.

Pride is a funny thing, both ways. The rest of our conversation was just mutual confirmation bias, both wanting to dismiss the other, back to teenage boy and unwelcome boyfriend.

We passive aggressively insisted on splitting the bill.

When someone does what mum did, they do it despite the people they love. Even if you live with them there’s nothing you can do. I know that. But I need to stay alert to that truth when I’m with him. Even post Camino there’s some remnants of the old wounds. A little bit of teenage Al came into the conversation getting baity and announcing “You’re not my dad.”

Whether or not he’s my dad, he’s family, and dinner was proof of that. It’s always tricky seeing family. There’s so much more at play than what can be seen. Old ghosts. Old words. Skeletons.