Author: albarclay

Here I am, back in Hampstead, sitting once more on this lovely evening balcony.

I’ve mostly cleaned the flat, ahead of another Airbnb booking for my friend tomorrow that came through unexpectedly. I’m running a little low on good will where this is concerned, especially as the boiler isn’t working properly. When I show them the flat I say “oh and I’ll just show you this button on the boiler. One time a few weeks ago the hot water cut off, and I pushed this button – look this one here – remember it just in case because I just pushed it and it came back on immediately.” I can feel it going in one ear and out the other. I can’t tell them I know it’s going to happen. And then five days later I get a phone call. “Oh goodness me, has it happened again? I see. There was me thinking it was a one time thing. Oh deary. If I’d only known it was a repeated thing we’d have got someone in to look at it. Have you tried the button I showed you? You can’t remember which button. I could send you a photo? No. I can describe it? Or tell you the location? No? Oh you’d like me to come round. Of course you would. Wonderful. Well I’ll just do that then. I’m working all the hours that god made and I live in Narnia but fine. I’ll be with you this evening.” It happens either once a week, or whenever Bruce the boyfriend goes in to fiddle with the settings because he reckons there must be air con and that it must be operated from the same console as the central heating so if he twiddles with all the knobs then Man Make Cold Fire. Oh no, darling. Man Fuck Up. This is the UK. There’s no aircon. We all get a little hotter instead of making the climate a little hotter. Still, I wish my friend would fix the fecking boiler. I offered to get a plumber in. She says it’s the landlady’s responsibility and doesn’t want to pay. Even though she’s basically a landlady too. She doesn’t know what her landlady will make of this subletting and so thinks it’s better to keep it all clandestine and under wraps. I have to be careful when bringing people in not to have loud conversations in the stairwell about Airbnb. It’s all so bloody complicated.

Does everything really have to be so complicated? I don’t think it does, frankly. I think sometimes we just make things complicated for ourselves on purpose because we don’t think we deserve things to be simple. We do deserve for things to be simple, people. Most of us are kind. Life is tricky enough without us inventing reasons to make everything infinitely more convoluted. I do it as much as anyone. But right now I crave simplicity.

I’m off to see some plays written by children I’ve helped mentor. It’s with a charity called Scene and Heard – I think I’ve blogged about them before. They’re great. They’ll be a tonic because I’ll get to hang out with powerfully positive humans. Nobody volunteers for that job if they aren’t kind. Thank God. I’m feeling sad and happy, confused and alive, angry and fluid and odd. That gutsnake is still shouting up my neck. There’s a lot that needs shifting. But I’m leaving the house for the right reason. And I’ll get back to finish tidying properly.

Also don’t get me wrong, I thought we were done with flying ants day, nature. There’s one on my hat brim, one on my nipple and one in my drink. It’s as bad as the last time I sat on this balcony, when I wrote about them because I’d eaten one. Maybe there’s just a huge load of nests on Hampstead Heath. Little buggers.

I thought I might be able to find the blimp, so I walked into town. Aldwych is closed to traffic. Armed police, mounted police, bobbies and soldiers stand in huddles by ancient monuments. Helicopters are constantly droning overhead. Two smiling women walk away with their MAGA hats on. There are protests in both directions. People walk with purpose towards and away from parliament in small groups, bearing various placards and various sentiments. There is the atmosphere of something about to happen but right now it’s just an assembly. It’s the women’s march here that I’ve happened on. I hadn’t done my research but that’s great. It’s what I did last time I got involved with Plumpkin.

In Parliament Square itself, a growing crowd mills on the dead grass at the snarling base of that controversial blimp. It’s smaller than I anticipated, the baby. Maybe the media have inflated it.

“Stay close now guys,” says a kiwi accent. “This is awesome,” says a Canadian accent. It’s just a lot of people milling about right now though.

Everyone is taking photos. There are lots of big cameras. I have mirrored sunglasses and my hat is pulled down. I’m all too aware, in this messed up era, that a photo of me here might show up in a visa application. I’ll probably leave before the shouting starts.

A troupe of overheating middle aged women diligently practice their dance-protest under a gazebo in the shadow of Westminster Abbey. It is earnest, unusual and angry, like a medieval haka. “Ha!” they repeat. “Get out of here!” It feels like an exorcism for a demon of sweat, hate, money and manipulation. On the corner of Broad Sanctuary by the Abbey door, a busker loops his own arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner on the violin – mournful and slow. A dirge to the American Dream. Bring me your huddled masses. We have plenty of cages for them.

A voice is now being amped from the soundstage in the square. With all the reverb it is impossible to understand most of her words but her sentiment is clear. She leaves gaps for people to cheer. Who needs content when you have form? The crowd is larger now. They are singing “We’ve got the whole world in our hands.” We gather in public and immediately we are back at school assembly. I wonder if they’ll give out certificates. Someone just gave me a sticker, so there’s a start. It says “Bollocks to Brexit.” He’s made a whole roll of them. I let him stick one on me for all the good it’ll do.

Lots of people have brought their kids. Lots have made signs. Some of the signs are brilliant. Others hopeful. Others beautifully naïve. It all feels terribly benign. The Trump baby balloon is moving around the edges of the square. “That’s the little one,” says one of the babysitters. That makes sense. The bigger one must be in Oxford Street. It has a mobile phone in its tiny hand. So do most of the people in the crowd. Everyone is taking selfies. It’s the modern way. Proof of attendance. Here I am writing about it. I was there. Validate me.

It’s important to protest, even if it feels like an exercise in futility. There’s power in coming together as a group and just sharing the knowledge that we all think things are a bit shit. There’s plenty to protest about, and we must be wary of extremism.

—

Time has passed, and there is a shift in the weather. When I went to the women’s March in LA it was the only bright day in a fortnight of torrential rain, and rain like that is not common in LA. The natural world cries about this man. London, after weeks of stable heat, is now washed in unexpected rain. “How the hell do you have an umbrella?” I ask the woman at the bus stop. Nobody can have been expecting this rain. It’s backlash rain. It’s a cleansing. She laughs. “I work in a restaurant.” She’s been into the lost property. I wish I had. I’m soaked. Although I’m glad I don’t work in a restaurant.

I’m trying to imagine the Queen with Trump. I expect she just let him talk and talk. Maybe a little interjection after some particularly brash comment: “You are the 11th American President I’ve had the fortune to meet, mister Trump.” … and then… just let him keep talking. Give him the rope to hang himself. It’s all he ever does.

I slept until 7.40 this morning and woke with the guilt of someone whose body is convinced it’s had a lie in. Three extra hours in bed, compared to every other day this week. It’s great having a day down.

I’ve ended up in a pub at 3.45pm, ostensibly to do some work as I’ve got my laptop with me. But outside of a few invoices I think I’ll just drink weak lager and take in the sunshine until my friends arrive at 6. I might book a flight to Jersey too, and stay a night too long over there. There are things to do there, outside of visiting friends. There’s a room full of boxes of shirts and papers that I’ve been ignoring for years and need to sort properly. There’s a lawyer I need to talk to. There’s an old guy who wants some papers. And there are rocks to climb, fish to eat, patches of warm sea to swim in, and memories to wallow in.

Most of my childhood it was either Christmas or this time of year forever. That’s what I remember. I was mostly running around in the garden while my mother filmed me with her cine camera or wiped stuff off my face or got me to make her juice. I was climbing trees and falling off my bicycle and getting stung by bees and looking for insects with Max. Those memories are mostly located on that small granite rock near France. I only ever go there in a rush these days. I might linger longer this time. But there’s something mildly annoying about paying for a bed in your old home. Still… airbnb is likely to yield fruit so I’ll get looking as soon as I hear back from the lawyers…

In the process of writing that sentence about waiting to hear back from the lawyers, I realised it was procrastination so I booked my flights and car hire and told my agent I was off. It seems I’m going to Jersey on Tuesday. Who knew? This time I won’t get my hire car jammed across a road just before my flight out. I don’t know where I’m staying yet. I’ll sort it for sure asap. In fact a friend has offered me a bed on Tuesday so it’s just Wednesday in Harbour View, St. Aubin.

In theory I’ve got enough time to get things done and then bask on a beach. In practice the weather will break, fog will prevent me landing, eventually I’ll get in, the lawyers will be on holiday and then I’ll find out I’m auditioning for Tarantino in London and I’ll be fogged in so I’ll try to row to Portsmouth, capsize and drown.

Still, being in Jersey will be a tonic. In this London beer garden, there’s a building site with constant drilling just over the wall to my left.

Add to that the fact that they’re playing fucking “Beautiful Day” by U2 on the radio while the strident people shoutfight to my left instead of talking, and peace and quiet would be so welcome right now. It’ll almost be that holiday I’ve been craving. But with the pretend excuse that it’s for life admin…

When we were doing Hamlet in Dubrovnik I lost a bit of my heart to that part of the world. It was 2016, about this time of year. Barrack Obama was US president. David Cameron had called a pointless showcase referendum on Europe for ambitious reasons. Everyone on social media was going on about what a bad year it had been because famous people had been dying.

Dubrovnik has water fountains that spout and filter potable water. I never bought a plastic bottle for the whole time I was there. We had free meals but they were in the Irish Pub that anyone with any sense whatsoever avoids when they are anywhere other than Ireland. Thankfully the fayre wasn’t confined to burgers, but I found myself looking longingly at every other restaurant, particularly the Croatian ones. The people I met who were from there had weathered a war as children and young adults. They had the humour and perspective of those of us who have seen people die. I liked them. I liked Croatia. I would gladly go back and eat more fat, to swim in those seas and work in that fortress overlooking the glittering Dalmatian coast.

The day of the referendum result the actors were invited to breakfast. We often had media duties. Photoshoots in palaces. Nivea branded events on the walls. Helen’s face as Hamlet was flying over the gateway to the walled city. We were the players, and we were welcome. That morning of the “Leave” vote, in a deeply unfortunate piece of timing, was the launch of “British week” in Dubrovnik. Someone had driven over a double decker bus from London. Nice gig. It was 8am and all of us libtard actors were asked “Can you smile and hold these union jack flags?” Every single one of us refused. “Today of all days that could be taken out of context.” we apologised.

That evening a barman commiserated with me. “You English. Terrible international responsibility.” (He was probably in his third language here. Those are his exact words.) “My country too. For many years. Fear and little minds. I am sorry.”

These cheerful, beleaguered, solid stoic people. They’re in the way of our football team. A small child on a bicycle in Woking loomed into me and shocked me on the pavement about an hour ago. “Is it coming home?” he asked me.

“Well I mean technically it can be argued that football originated in China and considering the Chinese team were actually not even in the group stages … ahem … I would calculate the chances of football coming home as being OW!” says the boring guy in the corner of the pub before I slap him. I am willing to get behind this world cuppy nonsense. Because it’s unfamiliar for me to hear people being anything other than brutal about our country’s sports teams. And whilst we spiral closer and closer to a total complete and utter global shitstorm, maybe it’s a good thing that this team, managed by a self effacing and kind man, is doing well in football. I love that Gareth Southgate has captured the public imagination because we need successful kind people in authority while the monsters behave like they have permission to rampage unchecked.

I like Croatia, but I want England to win tonight. Fewer people will beat their wives for a start. That can only be a good thing. Plus we could use some positivity.

I’m posting this early, as I accidentally did that yesterday so I reckon I can put it out there before the match and not be already redundant at time of posting.

I just don’t know what today was meant to teach me, other than when you’re in turmoil inside then the outside world can get sucked into that turmoil. We truly do create our own reality. I started the day with Deepak Chopra telling me that. If anyone has a link to him thumbing his nose and saying “I told you so” then I’ll take it for this evening.

In theory it’s pretty easy to deliver a workshop to 250 kids, but first thing this morning the school told me that they would be spreading the thing over 8 classrooms. Problem is I can’t be in 8 places simultaneously yet, despite all the spiritual work, and most of the guys who are there to help me out neither know how to lead it nor have the materials. So at 8am I was having a humongous undercover smiling stress explosion. Thankfully I was surrounded by actors who do well in stress, and with their help we ended up pasting something together out of bits of optimism and high energy. The kids spent most of the day sitting in a theatre, working on their laps, watching me running around on stage babbling about stuff. Weirdly the school seemed perfectly happy with the thing we managed to create, that resembled the premise under which it had been sold, but was more of a Frankenstein’s workshop than a real boy. I couldn’t wait to get out of there though, so much so that I left my laptop there in fecking Edgware and didn’t realise until I was nearly home, halfway through the rush hour, other side of London. I was going to go back for it but as I drove, my front left tyre went completely flat. There was no spare tyre in the boot. It was shredded. People kept telling me. *honk honk* “You’ve got a flat.” You Trumpon. Like I hadn’t noticed that one of my wheels sounded like it was made out of snails. That’s why I’m driving at 10 miles an hour with the hazards on. Some people…

I limped into enterprise as I was nearby anyway. Happy coincidence. “Hi guys, me again.” That’s where I am now, while they gamely try to find me a replacement car because of course they’ve run out and they all want to go home. They say they have to ring the AA and I’m liable for the costs of replacement so that’ll be about £200. And they’ve literally just said they can’t replace the car. You’re getting this live. Buggers want to shut up shop.

One option is to cancel work tomorrow. Then I lose £160, plus the cost of the tyre and the faith of my employers. The other option is that I make the same journey that I rageblogged about yesterday, but this time carrying a great big pile of flipchart paper, a box of markers and a whole pile of laminated sheets. I would also bring my laptop but I left it in the school so that’s a bit less to carry at least. It’s a two and a half hour journey though. At dawn. Guess what? Heeeeeres muggins!

Yeah so, between phone calls part of the time I’ve been writing this I’ve been hiking home on a hot bus carrying all the boxes that were in my car, after enterprise basically left me stranded with no wheels and a hefty charge for a flat tyre. I just got home. I reached into my pocket for my home key and found I still had the car key as well. Hell.

Now I’m in an uber to return the key to this company that charge you loads for a flat tyre and more for a lost key and I’ve got my iPad on my lap with the workshop for tomorrow. At some point I’ll need to eat. I want to be in bed by half nine and it’s half seven and I haven’t properly studied the workshop for tomorrow yet because I only agreed to do it at 3.30 this afternoon full of adrenaline after not catching on fire today. “Yeah sure great I’m good at this hoooaaah.”

Somehow this whole situation is completely hilarious to me. What the fuck am I doing with my life? This time five years ago I was filming in Bangkok

There are advantages to perpetually having someone on the sofa. Tom is cooking supper. I just have to get home. Bed by half nine is possible. I got this. Kerching. I’m walking home now from Park Lane. I want beer.

7am is a long way in the future and I’m already on a train at Clapham Junction, heading out southward for what is laughably classed as a “local” job by one of my many employers, to the extent that they won’t refund me for transport. 45 minutes in a car, if only I had one. Over 2 hours and £25 on public transport, which is a significant portion of what I’m being paid. This place is in the middle of nowhere. I’m going to be threading through villages on sleepy buses. And for what? Well, so I can maybe help some kids who live in the middle of nowhere to reach a deeper understanding of their potential. And get them writing their first CV.

I don’t feel like being energy Al today. I feel like I’ve spread myself on toast. Sometimes I feel beauty in the early mornings but today I just feel loss. But I’ve got my laptop, in a shitty bag again. I’ve got a USB stick. I’ve got a load of example CVs in laminate. And I’ve got my mask. I’ve got this. Apparently. Because I have to.

There’s a restlessness that’s woken up in me recently and it’s fucking with my calm. The part of me that just remains unfazed no matter what – its getting fazed. Because I don’t want my life to be donated by inches. Today I’ll do this. Then I’ll go home and immediately have to learn something else to do tomorrow – something even harder and just as far away, that doesn’t feed my heart either no matter how I spin it. When the money comes in I’ll have forgotten these feelings, or at least taped up their screaming mouths. But this is not what I was put on this earth to do, whether or not I’m good at it. This is not sustainable. This is not what I signed up for. I am going to eat myself if this goes on.

The next station is Woking. Off I go. Still not 7am. Still not happy about this. It’s how I sustain my existence, how I weather the gaps between acting jobs. But this gap? So long now. Normally I’d have a summer job. A Shakespeare or something in Edinburgh. A tour. Everything crashed down. I’m staring down the chances of July August September October November just dripping away into the pan before they wheel me out as Scrooge again. Wilderness Festival. Three days in August to dress up and do something performative, like a prisoner looking out of an arrow slit. Then back in the box until humbug.

This money today and tomorrow and Thursday. I’m gonna earmark it, and convert it. It’s gonna add to my budget for a holiday where I shake this shit off. I need to walk and leave some stuff behind me. I’m fed up of the webs around my feet. I feel somehow like I let things come to this by valuing calm so highly. There’s a snake in my guts that has started screaming and it’s coming up out of my neck.

It’s about identifying the right calm versus the right attack. There are things I’m making. There are things I believe in. I’m still dreaming. I’m dreaming hard. I have no regrets, because everything has sharpened me to this kindness with an edge. But if you don’t like the shape of the world, change it. And I don’t. So I must.

I’ve had two cold showers today, and spent most of the day in my bedroom. But it’s not what it sounds like. I’ve been tidying. My bedroom is now like the bedroom that a real human being might have, so it’s another element of my cunning disguise in place. It’s not as comprehensively done as the kitchen, but it makes sense and there’s space. I’m sitting on the bed now. Pickle is slurping from her great big Stein of water – the one that sits at the head of my bed and stops me getting a mouth full of hair in the middle of the night when I go for my pint glass. The flat feels peaceful despite only 2 out of 5 rooms being habitable. Despite all the showers, I’m hot. Tidying and cleaning is sweaty work.

So much so that I decided to bite the bullet and go to Peter Jones to buy a fan. It’s not the most logical place to get a fan – “Never knowingly underpriced” – but it’s the nearest. But oh hell no. Weeks into this heatwave, and they haven’t restocked their fans. “There are no ordinary fans mate, they all go immediately there’s a heatwave;” says attitude on the stairs; “as soon as the heatwave is over, just you wait. They’ll all be back saying it’s faulty.” So they don’t restock. Because they reckon they’ll get most of them back. They know everyone in Chelsea doesn’t want a fan all year round. They don’t need to restock because they’ve been selling the same stock for years. Fine. I’ll just sweat rather than buy a fourth hand fan. The only other option was one of those Dyson air-bastards where because they’re unfamiliar and aesthetically pleasing they slap a £400 price tag on them and wait until they see you coming. I considered risking buying one and taking it back saying it was faulty. But I didn’t want to gamble £400 on them not having mister Dyson employed in the branch as soon as it gets cold saying “So what exactly seems to be the problem sir?” £400 is a holiday to Tromsø. I’m not spending it on a plastic loop that blows at you. That’s for offices where they are deeply invested in presenting the idea of wealth. These poisonous working environments where everyone is throwing their new Rolex at one another and shoving branded chemicals into their own faces and skins to send signals to the converted about relative merit.

And now I’m sitting on the sofa and there are good people alongside me. The living room isn’t done yet, but the swinging door policy is still firmly in place. I love how things work in this flat, that different energies from all over the place come in and fizz alongside each other. They’re totally different and they’re getting on brilliantly. “I’m talking way too much,” says one of them.” She’s been in the car for 8.5 hours. I should probably stop writing and do some of the talking instead.

Right. One room down. 3 and a corridor to go. But I’m done for the day.

I just blitzed my kitchen and threw a load of stuff away. The kitchen is likely the easiest room to do that with. But it’s a proof of concept. And a fair amount of clothing got swept up in the mood. Now I’m sitting in my catastrophe of a living room, on the giant beanbag. Pickle is attempting to claim ownership of my big toe. It’s 11pm on Saturday night and I expect I’ll sink one more night into my bomb-site bedroom before sweeping it into the blitz. Hopefully the mood will still be on me tomorrow. I’ve needed a purge for too long. But it came at a cost.

I was supposed to go out and be social. I was supposed to celebrate a friend’s birthday. But I’m still climbing out of this sad, and the idea of being fun with people is a long way from sounding appealing.

I managed breakfast. I saw an old mate who lives in walking distance. I think most of my conversation was about tidying because I knew I wanted to get cracking and was using breakfast as a procrastination. Then I walked home and did the actual work. I don’t know how I managed to make one room last all day, but I did take every single individual item out, and cleaned and arranged all of it.

I was briefly tempted by the notion of going and hitting Pride, but I didn’t want to leave with the job half done. Plus I didn’t feel very delightful. And since I was obsessively sorting everything in that damn kitchen – (and still not finding the bloody julienne) – I didn’t feel I could leave the house until it was properly finished. Throwing away things sometimes weirdly triggers me. It’s why I don’t do it as often as I should, but I had got myself in a mood where I was good at it and I needed to surf that wave.

And then I remembered the football, so I put it on in the background and inevitably got sucked in. I guess that’s part of the reason I was so slow. Another part is the heat. It’s siesta weather here. And another is the lack of company. I definitely work better when there’s conversation. Alexa and Pickle don’t quite cut it although I had a pleasant interlude with Shirley Manson’s back catalogue and a fair few belly rubbings.

I also phoned a load of random people. One call to Uganda. One to Qatar. One to Egypt. Lots in the UK. People who want accent coaching, mostly. My friend does a brisk trade, and with callbacks etc it seems I have bitten off a little more than I can chew with agreeing to be her secretary for the week, especially considering I’ve agreed to run a load of workshops that I’ve never run before next week. A holiday is beginning to sound really appealing.

After press night last night I’m really very hung over. My body has not allowed me to ingest solids all day. I got home last night and emptied my guts. But my mind! I needed to do the same with the contents of my head. I needed to shout all those mind-carrots into the porcelain phone. I honestly have no idea how my brain is able to conjure up such comprehensive feelings of malaise. I suppose it’s multiple things at once. Hangover plus end of a full on job. Back into the unknown again. Multiple weird school workshops scattered across the country. Learning business appointment software for my dyslexic friend in order to essentially pretend to be her Secretary while she’s on holiday for £20 an hour on the clock. Writing. Dreaming. Wondering where the next acting job is coming from. Trying to work out Joel and Ethan Coen’s number so I can drunk dial them and tell them I love them. Avoiding exercise.

I think exercise will help. Bumble keeps shouting at me from my iPad. I keep opening it, looking at people’s faces, not having a clue what they’re like, refusing to accept or dismiss them, closing it again.

I’ve started a deep clean of my flat. It will take time and I keep distracting myself. But Brian is away for the weekend so I can throw stuff around for a few days. I bleached the stinking kitchen bin on the fire escape while periodically swearing out loud to myself because it was so hot and I was still sweating beer. Yeah c’mon girls of Bumble, you’re missing a right catch here, mumbling and stinking as he empties a kettle into ancient gunk he should’ve dealt with months ago. But someone said “You’re a man and you live in a boy’s flat.” Good tactic, hats off. Imma gonna make it a man’s flat, oh yeah. Well as much of one as can be made out of a flat with a gargantuan telly rigged through a PlayStation with surround sound. But first I’m out again, into the evening sun, off to see a friend that helps me mend. A mend friend. We all need a few of those. I’m at her door. There are lions on the threshold.

Half an hour of chanting at her flat and a King Prawn Linguini at The Young Vic and I’m feeling considerably more human. I should stay away from free alcohol. But my friend and I were both feeling reasonably tender inside and out, so we helped each other a little by realising that the shape of things in our heads is not their true shape. Now I’m off back to the cat and the flat in order to carry on with this gradual process of eradicating ancient gunk and throwing away the things that are still clamped onto my energy. Movement is the thing now. Clear out my living space so I can rejig my habits so I can avoid these mindtraps and try my wings.

Early morning saw me fighting the alarm clock, dragging myself up from the pit of dreams and into unfamiliar light in Hampstead. Coffee and I’m airing sheets and pillows, transforming a bed where I’ve just slug-slept rolled in duvet into a bed palace with oh yes that cushion just there completes it. Bleach the loo. Dust the surfaces. Check check check. All the things I never do at home. Then it was out blinking and swearing before rush hour into my Nissan for one last day. It has to go to Enterprise by close of play, but I have to go to Kingston in the meantime. Double bubble. I’m a driver, I’m a tutor. And I don’t have to get a train. Kerching.

I drive through the whole of London blasting Caravan Palace and bopping. Still a little confused about what is going to happen I sign in at reception and get a big sticker with “Al Barclay” on it. Grrr. I told them, use Alex. Then they can’t Google me. An hour later I’m interviewing 17 year olds on a fire escape. “Tell me about yourself. What’s your greatest strength? What’s your biggest weakness? How are you overcoming it? What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?” The last question isn’t on my laminated handout, but it’s revealing. The runners, the fighters, the hiders, the rescuers… I’ve never not had an answer that makes sense and there’s always one kid who says “I’ve thought a lot about this actually.” Job done, quarter past three. Nicola lets me sneak out early. I need to be at Enterprise Park Lane for four. Things To Make and Do by Moloko. Why not? It’s been years. Bring it back. That’s what I’m doing with the car. I bring it back.

Out through the subterranean tunnels. The Enterprise is buried in a warren of car parks under Hyde Park, where people leave their incredible whips. Classics and limited editions. Some even seem to have security guards. I’m in a hurry though. No time to goggle at cars.

Uber. It’s a Ford Galaxy. “Nice to be driven for a change.” *silence*

Eventually I’m out. Hampstead again. Wasn’t I just here? “Hi, welcome, I’m Al. So this is the boiler, here are the lights, this goes on like this. I left you nice things. Have a good stay. Leave my friend a good review.” And out. Shit I dropped that twenty quid note. Some happy child at that school. Ach. Bus.

God this bus is hot. I’m tired. I’m dressed in whatever the fuck I put on yesterday, in this heat. I didn’t realise I wasn’t going home last night. And it’s press night for Knights of the Rose. Everyone showing their wares. Me in a sweaty arrangement of T-shirt and flat cap and stained trousers. And I give 0.00 fucks. Anyone who goes the old fwafwafwafwa he could’ve made an effort can swivel on it. They’ll never be my friend anyway so they can do one. I’m here to support glorious people who do beautiful things for unusual reasons. I’m not here to try and hijack it with my own LOOK AT MY SEXY FACE bullshit, much as I suspect that a bit more of that attitude would see me being employed a bit more by the fwafwafwas. But that’s life if you’re an uncompromising individualist who looks at your heart and not your clothes. Red carpet! Oh fuck. Here we go then… fwafwafwa.