Author: albarclay

Five improv shows today, and after the last one I had to sneak out before the end and rush across town leaving my girls and boys holding the hippopotamus. I absolutely had to get to a casting at 5.20. It was the last possible slot they could get for me. I had to splash out on an uber. But worth the financial risk for the sheer cash value of the work if won. As long as I was there for 5.20.

I made it, by the skin of my teeth. Expensive but potentially worth it. I rushed up the stairs. Two minutes to go. I stopped in the loo. Threw water in my face. Took a second of calm. Aaah yes. Back in the room. Then up some stairs and into one of THOSE rooms. Two bored 23 year old models sitting behind a desk looking at their laptops and occasionally laconically greeting a steady stream of friendly looking men of unclear ethnicity and of about my age. White walls. Pot plants. Boredom, sweat and desperation. A heady brew. I get handed a form. “Take a seat and fill this in.” There are literally no seats. Someone else says “It’s a bit close in here.” — The receptionist: “Yeah it’s a bit stuffy certainly. But if you look through that door, we’ve just had an air con delivered. So…” “Yeah” says the guy. “But that’s not today.”

Now I’ve filled in the clipboard, which expects me to divulge literally everything about myself. “Is a close family member ill?” “Are you or your wife pregnant and if so when’s it due.” “Do you have rage issues?” “Are we making you angry now?” “Are you happy you’re here?” “Do you like answering questions?” “What’s that smell?” I even had to consent to a credit reference check. It’s like US immigration, but more personal. Essentially “Are you going to screw us over by using some excuse to not do this job after we’ve set our heart on you?” No… No I’m not.

Now sitting in this sweaty room. Bad pop is being played just to keep it all edgy. Everyone is being very polite because nobody wants the receptionist to think they’re a dick just in case the receptionist is the casting assistant as well. It’s 17:40 and there’s no way I’ll be going in that room any time soon. Could’ve easily got the bus by now.

All these casting studios look the same. I wonder how many hours I’ve sat in them. I’m not even sure if I’ve been in this one before. There’s nothing to prepare, which is nice as I can write this while I wait. It’s a commercial. There’s rarely anything to prepare as it’s about faces. I’ll go in, the casting directors will say something like “So you’re bouncing a ball and a dog attacks you. Say ‘Oy, get off,’ but we need it to be gentle comedy with a bit of pathos. Don’t take too long over it. Think Peter Sellars mixed with Ricky Gervaise. But upbeat. Don’t smile though. You don’t like dogs. And we need to feel sad afterwards. But happy. Happy sad. But on brand. And go.”

Last time I did one of these the guy said “you can mime the door if it helps you.” That time I said “It won’t help. There’ll be a real door in the shoot,” and I watched his eyes glaze over. I sometimes forget that it’s also, on top of everything else, important to eat shit if you want the job. These are commercial castings. There’s a lot of money at stake for a short amount of time. The director of that one had extended his hand to shake on a flat horizontal, palm down. I almost knelt and kissed it to make a point, but resisted and let him shake me down. The director runs the room. But If I’d wanted that part I should’ve mimed a door for him like he asked, then have got stuck in a box and pushed a big rock, wearing a beret and red and white stripes. 

—-

Well, I got in just before six. Could’ve saved the price of an uber. It was much as I expected in there but nicer. Mr Bean meets deadpan in a silent comedy type interaction. I thought I heard the thunk as a little bit of my integrity fell off. But mostly I heard the roar of a distant boiler in time for winter, the sound of a plane taking me off somewhere hot to do the shoot, the rustle of a nice new carpet, the splash of a power shower, the crunch of tasty healthy food. And frankly, I have no issue with the company the commercial is for, so I’d do it gladly if they ask. In fact it’s my favourite brand. And I’m not just saying that in case they find this blog. *munch*

Three days is not enough time to make a piece of theatre. Still, we’re trying. I said yes again dammit. I need to examine that tendency in myself. I’ve spent this weekend in a basement talking about behaviours in the workplace and trying to determine how best to present a load of extremely dry material in some semblance of a fun way. Now the evening is here and I’m walking in it, trying to clear my head.

This morning I spoke with an old friend from drama school. We haven’t spoken for ages. It was lovely to catch up. But recently I feel like I fell through a wormhole in 2003 and landed in some strange alternate future. I feel like I’m the dude from Quantum Leap and I’ve landed in older me. Oh Boy. Such lot to do. And what the hell happened? I think it’s become more noticeable to me when I spend my time doing something that doesn’t feed my soul. At least I’m in good company, but I think this will be the last time I accept something just because I like the person offering it. I learnt a few years ago not to say yes until I’d read the script. Now I’ve learnt that I can say no to stuff even if I like the people and think I need the money, if the material won’t bring me joy. I roped in John, my old friend from drama school, who did it because it was me. I suspect he feels the same way. It’s a lovely room, full of lovely people, and we are having fun with it. But it’s impossible to care about the material we have been tasked to put across theatrically because it’s just corporate nonsense. I comfort myself that for us it’s only three days. For the 250 staff members tomorrow, it’s the next few years. They’ve spent a year and a load of cash developing this language. This acronym. This way of making obvious things sound special. As for me, I’ve taken this job, so I must, as always, commit utterly to it. But I know to be more selective in future.

Dan, my old friend, asked me how it felt in London after the attacks. It’s a funny thing how quickly that washed off. Sadiq our mayor has had a lot of flak for saying that terror attacks are “part and parcel of living in a big city.” I know what he means though in terms of how we should react to this stuff. We should just carry on, and we have. It just means that there are more cops visible with guns, but for the bulk of Londoners, nobody seems to feel any more threatened. We’re still out on the street in large gatherings. Three hateful fools are just that and can’t be given any power by letting them change our behaviour.

Now I’m on a bus again. I still think of the bus that got blown up in 2007. But I spend a lot of time on buses. I love earwigging the conversations. “London guys are not so cute. They dress really douchey.” That’s the latest from the two California girls next to me. Mind you they think everything is douchey so I wouldn’t be too concerned, guys.

Right now I’m concerned that this work is douchey. But I’m in company with some lovely people, we know what we’re doing and who we are. We’ve made a frame that allows us to take risks. I’m just going to take ownership of my decision to do this, and do it marvelously, and simultaneously fail and succeed multiple times over the course of one Monday. I’ve done stranger things. I’ve done harder things. It’s just another random madness, and since that’s how I’ve predicated my existence, I have nothing to complain about.

Here’s the view from the bus. One day I’ll remember to try and take good photos.

London is cooking. I’m in a suit. Everyone is happily bounding around in shorts and sunglasses smiling lightly with shining eyes and perfect teeth, touching each other on the forearm and looking beautiful. I’m sitting hunched and grumpy in a puddle of wool and sweat.

I’ll be rehearsing this evening which is bothersome as right now I’d prefer to be in the park with friends and beer. Maybe there’ll be time for that after rehearsal considering sunset isn’t until 9 or later. I wish I wasn’t in this fecking suit. How do these executives cope? Maybe their suits aren’t made out of plastic from TK Maxx. That’s likely to be it. Being an executive probably comes with all the suits you can eat. I suspect my mood is being affected by my outfit.

I’ve been at another audition. I can never think beyond an audition. I peak to it, then stagger out blinking into the world and recalibrate. So today I was aiming for drab. I got dressed up in my drabbest grey businessman suit, and went to Ealing Studios mumbling to myself. Then I talked dull-excitedly about my garden shed in Milton Keynes and how proud I am of my son going to university. Then I incompetently tried to pick up a girl in a bar, and inadvertently sold my soul to the devil. Repeat in different ways while assessing the director and working out if I’d like to work with him. He seemed eloquent and able to give workable provocations to his actors. They teach them well at the Met Film School.

It was only when I finished and walked out into a sweltering parking lot that I immediately knew I was an idiot for not packing a change of clothes. It would never have occurred to me to pack one beforehand. If only I could justify the expense of a PA. If only my mind wasn’t so filled up with colourful unnecessary junk. I even filled my flask with water and left it on the kitchen worktop at home. Bloody eejit.

Still I’d sooner be too hot than too cold. These summer days are so fleeting. And shortly I’ll be in a room with an old friend from drama school, making playful theatre about utterly bogus corporate junk, but making a living through my vocation. I’m a lucky lucky boy. I’ve got some brilliant people in my life, I get to have fun for money, I’m in this crazy city which I’ve come to love, and summer is here at last and making sure we know it.

Last night’s blog was written after a few bottles of wine with three wonderful old friends. I thought I’d get this done early in case I end up crashing off into a sunny park this evening.

I’ve been back on Ahmed, my lovely bike.

Ahmed makes London smaller and cheaper just by existing. He’s about to have an overhaul. I’ll probably dedicate a blog to him and who made him when the overhaul happens. Right now, all I can think about is weekend sun. I hope you all have a glorious one. SUN!!!

I’m heading home on a bus and there are some proper gobshite kids at the back. As ever, you try to learn what’s normal by listening. I’m the only person up here apart from them. It surprises me that they are using the phrase “a Corbyn” to describe an attractive older man. I never saw that coming. I never saw anything attractive about him outside of his humanity. Also they describe May as “a fucked spliff.” I’m not even sure what they mean by that. Skinny and no fun? Still, it’s the youth vote that has pushed to this hung parliament. 

I’m curious to see where this all goes. May warned us of a coalition with terrorists and now it seems she’s got one. When she warned us I assumed she meant the opposition. But she’s getting into bed with some very odd bedfellows.

I understand that though. I’ve got into bed with some very odd types over the years. I want to be able to continue to work and earn.

Right now I’m making theatre to train landlords to be a bit less shit. I’m doing it for a fraction of what I should be paid for this work. This is the sort of thing that, until I forced myself to write this daily blog, I’d have kept quiet.

I inherited a concern, based on other people’s bias. “If I let people know I do this sort of thing, they won’t think I can do more legitimate stuff.” And there’s some truth in that prejudice-fear. I’ve heard a casting director describe a perfectly good actor friend as “a free actor” because they did a job for no money precisely in order to be seen by casting directors like my friend. It upset me to hear her, as I felt for him. He did the job for free so she could see him, and she dismissed him because he did it for free.

There are so many actors, but we all see the same ones work the same sort of roles over and over. You can only do the job if you’ve done the job that you can only get if you’ve done it etc.

This works both ways and I’ve seen it fall to my advantage. Sprite worked with me multiple years, and gave me beautiful summers while other people asked how they could get involved. I was lucky to be a regular. I’ve worked as a “Hugo” for Heineken three times before. (It’s my middle name but that’s a coincidence. It’s a confidence thing. They trust me because I trust myself, so they use me.)  And now I have measurable precedent of success. If we haven’t been seen to do something successfully before, “the money” is concerned we can’t do it. How do we break the barriers?

Having never having had an agent that can open doors, I’m stuck doing what I can find: corporate work: “the money”. I’d sooner be involved in a long form process with a director, mining a great piece of text. I’d also sooner be using my long gathered sense of humanity to pop up on telly and tell the truth. But that’s all down to agent and contacts. I think my new manager, Iona, might be able to shatter some of those old concerns as she appears to be marvelous.

Meantime I’m okay as long as I can eat. Corporate work is “honest”, and it’ll help me be kind to people very different to myself. I can make it fun and interesting by now. Of course I’d prefer to be doing something with more depth, more joy, more challenge. And ditto the guys I’m working with, but there’s an understanding and a camaraderie. For the next few days I’m teaching people what a training acronym means, and trying to make it sound like the stuff normal people care about. It’s harder than you’d think. But there’s joy somewhere.

Meanwhile I’m looking at an everyman part for some young film makers that rang me   today from Ealing. I have to remember that I’m constantly in a position where people want me to ply my craft for cash, even if it’s not the BBC yet like most of my mates, dammit. It’s a student film. Usually my deciding factor is the script, followed by the budget. If both are not taking the piss i might have something lined up for early summer. Which is looking like my first year for a decade without a summer Shakespeare… 😦

My Labour candidate is called Alan De’ath. He’s an awkward looking gangly twerp, but that’s the political class. His leaflet was terrible and his photos worse, perhaps to demonstrate that he’s spending money on more consequential things. His campaign had so many delightful wordplays, all of which are absent – even from his bone dry Twitter feed. “Old and poor? Vote De’ath or get death.”  “De’ath first.” “De’ath: Two parties. One word. What a difference an apostrophe makes.” “Vote De’ath for a better life.”

I’m not as well informed about the future economy and the secret intentions and capabilities of people I’ve not met as many people seem to be. I voted instinctively for the human being I disliked least, assisted by notions about the NHS and what I had found trustworthy from the vast swathe of reading material had been funneled to me by my echo chamber. Apparently both Corbyn and May will destroy this country in some way. May will sell the NHS to the devil and dance on old people’s graves, killing poor people with dead foxes and feeding ivory to Trump. Corbyn will force us to dig a tunnel to Syria with our bad teeth so his ISIS friends can take more than we earn from us and fertilise a magic money tree that will only get nuked by his IRA mates while he does and says nothing as he’s too busy deliberately ruining the economy and painting everything beige. That much is clear.

Voting itself was quick and easy. I was outnumbered by staff in the polling station in Chelsea. It’s a cricket pavilion. Of course.

I hope there were queues earlier but it was just me and three staff members when I went at half ten. I don’t really think anyone is happy with the political system but it’s the only one we’ve got for now and a voice in it, even a spoilt ballot, helps. But most people agree it doesn’t help very much. The system has been around so long it’s deeply entrenched. How do we overhaul it properly short of revolution, when so many jobs and expectations are on the line? I honestly dreamt I was part of an “electoral reform party” last night, with candidates in every constituency and a really smart proposal for how it would all work, and we won. I also dreamt I was skiing before an avalanche. I didn’t sleep well last night.

After voting I went to Factory Macbeth again. Good to have had the consistency of that positive group to glue together a week where work has been scarce. Something every day.

Now I’m heading home to let Tom into the flat. He’s my sofa guest tonight. He builds websites for high end jewellery brokers. We’re unlikely friends, but he’s stayed a few times and I always enjoy his company. The doors are still swinging from Charlotte last night, who came and filled the place with flowers. I’m going to cook ling and perhaps raise a post election glass of something. But I’m hoping for an early bed and no more dreams of avalanches and landslides.

I spent the morning in a basement with a blue floor. I met two people who speak entirely in jargon. They’ve written a load of “behaviours” on a piece of paper. They want the words to ”resonate out through the acting.” They want it “the cheesier the better although the surveyors in asset and regen don’t like cheese so maybe not that cheesy.” “It’s about internal comms, raising awareness of behaviours, cross purpose communication issues.”

Making corporate theatre is hilarious. They were lovely, but it was like meeting two fish that had taken a load of courses on how to be people, and were being tested out in the real world. I wouldn’t want either of them to be my boss, even if I suspect they’re lovely at home. When they’re with their old friends, they’ll turn back into people. They were there, hiding somewhere under the fishiness. But they didn’t want to be seen. So they “did people.” while I wrote all their words down. Looking back over what they said, they didn’t really answer a single question. They didn’t really know what they wanted. Just something. We can do that.

Spending too much time in the wrong office environment can, I suspect, make you forget how to do the people thing. Particularly with strangers when at work. It seems they’re trained to conceal the truth of themselves under all these buzzwords and this signalling.

Which is why they want us to make a piece of theatre addressing what they call “unhelpful behaviours in staff members.” Coming from us hopefully it will be more palatable to the staff being trained. The alternative would be a dry PowerPoint lecture in a strip lit room, shuffling papers, checking watches, watching a talking fish read the words on a slide out loud, before clapping for exactly five seconds.

After the meeting this morning I caught up with an old friend. We had a string of cosmic coincidences. I haven’t seen him for years, but clearly I should have. We walked and talked until I ended up at The Factory rehearsal and on a whim said “Just walk in confidently and sit down for a bit. I bet nobody clocks it.” Alex clocked it within five seconds. “I don’t think we’ve met.” Still, he stayed for a bit and we got into nitty gritty about Malcolm. It was a room full of people who were attempting to express themselves in the best and clearest way possible. It was people being honest about the fact that they’re people, knowing that people are flawed. I liked being in that room much more than the one before.

I got thinking about these fish people that pay me to help teach them human behaviour. People who have trained themselves to conceal their own truth. People who are motivated partly by fear of their own humanity being seen. And I thought that I see that in one of the candidates for election. One of them is a fish, refusing to admit they’re a person. The other one very much a person, with warts and smelly bits, hoping to move forward despite people shouting “But you’re a person!” at him.

Recently we’ve seen that voting has an effect. We’ve had two surprises. A hundred years ago half the uk population couldn’t vote. Now we all can and half of us don’t. Let’s hope we have a big turnout tomorrow.

I’ve been back at The Factory today. Nothing like a bit of rigour to recalibrate the brain. This is a company that has been front and centre in my life for years now and has helped shape how I think about my craft. It still feels like a living challenging room, and the people in it are changing and growing and breathing with the company.

Right now we are looking at Macbeth. Bearing in mind it took two years from inception to first performance with Hamlet, it might be a while before we are popping up ready with a show. But we do have to find something to show people in Wales on July 8th.

Some of the work I’ve seen and been part of with the company over the years has been some of the richest of my career. There’s a challenge and a joyful work ethic built into the very makeup of the group. It’s trying to work without ego, as fluidly as possible. I’ve built wonderful friendships through this work. Watching and playing over the years, I’ve seen so many unrepeatable moments. Some of the funniest and also some of the most poignant spontaneous happenings I’ve witnessed or generated have come out of that mixture of deep rigour and yet playfulness at the heart of the work. The fixed and the flowing.

Today one of our Macbeths brought her baby to training. One of the many things that people say about actors is: “Never work with children or animals.” I call bullshit on that. Never work DESPITE children or animals. They are completely present and spontaneous, so if you aren’t they show you up. But if you are too then things can happen. The baby was a gift to the rehearsal. She kept us honest, whilst all of our focus was on keeping her safe.

I remember a marquee show in Ripley with Sprite, about this time of year some 6 years ago. It was directed by Alex, who still runs The Factory. The audience had been moved into a big tent because it was gunning down rain. It was coming to the end of As You Like It. I was Silvius, and a little girl in the audience was howling – going at it for all she was worth, all six lungs, tears, the lot. She sounded like an air raid siren.

My job in the scene was to tell Ganymede what it is to love. I came to the girl and told her “It is to be all made of sighs and tears.” Just to see if talking to her helped. It did. She stopped. By the end of the scene she’d got me to pick her up, and was rapt at being involved. My choice was “act despite her, or act with her.” Acting with her worked in our favour that time, and gave everyone a beautiful moment. It could’ve been disastrous: “Mummy who is that horrible man, get him off me. Aaaaaaaaargh. You’re not a shepherd. You smell.” The beautiful thing with the Factory is we play for those moments, they come, and sometimes when the girl tells you you smell that’s a gift too. And then we move on. I remember Hamlet getting beaten up by a kid. “Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across?” “I DO! *bam*” Fair play to Stefan. He actually asked the question. And it was a beautiful moment too.

At some point Macbeth will happen, and there will be many beautiful moments. Until then we will keep meetingr regularly, this large joyful community of makers and players. Damn It’s good to be back in the room. I’ve got Anne-May in my home right now actively trying to gas me with my own Palo-Santo because my phone screen “can let in spirits.” Best put it down…

I’ve not had the best run of it lately. It’s started to wear on me.

I had a positive meeting with an agent that led to me shaving my beard. Then I had to go clean shaven into a casting where they wanted beard the day after the agent u-turned on me. Then I went in for Fagin, again beardless, and was told I was too young. Then I went in for Henry Higgins, who speaks in my voice, is my age and whose mother lives, essentially, in my flat. Again I was told I was too young. Meanwhile I opened my heart and discovered how much that can hurt.

This evening I’m going for a casting to play “Middle aged man 1.” Sexy. I’ll probably be told I’m too young. I don’t feel too young right now. I feel like I’ve been banging my head against this wall for a millionty five years and I’m older than Satan. It’s going to be the wall that explodes, not my head. But it’ll be a close run thing.

Not that I don’t have loads to be thankful for. I’m safe and have a roof over my head and tons of brilliant friends. And I get to do thousands of bizarre random things with zillions of gorgeous interesting people. I’m just still “seeking the bubble reputation e’en in the cannon’s mouth.” Along with so many others. It’s constantly about hope, and staying positive in the face of knockbacks. And dear God I’m still an optimist. I’ve been doing this madness for long enough that absorbing and converting energy is almost second nature by now. But it still sends me spinning when I let myself hope. I wanted to go to Frankfurt and work on the words of Bernard Shaw. I’d have been bloody marvelous too. But someone is really happy about getting that call. Let it rest there.

I’m off to The Factory now for a few hours to throw some Macbeth around in a beautiful positive challenging room full of similarly robust similarly geeky actors and theatre makers. Some of us will be going to a theatre grown out of a living willow tree in the heart of Wales in July. We go every year, and use the period before as a chance to deepen our own craft and availability on stage. I’m in the mix for Banquo, but in keeping with the company values nobody is guaranteed anything so I might not go to Wales at all. Somehow that doesn’t bother me. So why am I upset about not getting three months in Germany? I suppose the lure of a new city, the interest of the part, and the rare guarantee of three months worth of digging out of the debt hole. Shaw is great dense fun text to mine. Poo.

Too young to play my own age is better than too old. I’ve clearly been doing something right all these years. I’ll just use my youthful vigour to keep slugging. There’s something round the corner. The wall is cracking. My young head is harder than granite by now, and somehow my insides are still squishy. Bang. Ow. Bang. Ow. Bang. Ow. Crack.

I had a day of tidying and cleaning. I was supposed to be going to a festival, but the whole thing somehow didn’t appeal so I stayed and tidied and sorted things instead. I still have too much stuff – especially for someone who is an instinctive traveler. How the hell have I accumulated all this stuff? I was sorting and cleaning, but before it was all finished my friend Flavia come round with her 3 year old.

A friend of my mother in his late 70’s recently forwarded me an email telling me of the death of one of their and my friends.  I read the chain attached to the email, and it was just a string of grief. It made me realise how lucky I am. Right now most of my friends are marrying and breeding. For this guy, his friends are dying and many of them are dead. This existence that we all take for granted – it is so fleeting, so smashable. We have to clutch at the offers of happiness we have. Everything goes so quickly.

I’ve been remembering how to feel recently. It’s not pleasant, but that’s the human condition. I did the best I could to protect myself for years, so putting myself back on the line is a good thing for my sanity. And at least my current issue is to do with whether or not someone loves me, rather than my best friend dying. That’s all to come, and I’m happy to wait, thanks. But I’ve been feeling weird the last few days. So it’s good to just hang out with my old friend. And Ivo.

Ivo is 3. We exist to serve him. If he is not having fun, the world is coming to an end. Fortunately, fun can comprise of putting things into other things repeatedly for hours. We have the Mouse Trap board game here. Ivo spotted it almost immediately and wanted to play with it. It’s an incomprehensible game with loads of fiddly bits, but it looks exciting for kids. He’s a good kid, and we play well together. So I tried to construct the thing, around his attempts to disrupt me by walking on the board, stealing the bits etc.

He found a box, and was happy with just putting things into the box for ages. It reminded me of myself with the earlier version of the same game back in the 1980’s – It’s about building the traps more than it is about playing whatever idea of a game they’ve structured around them. I suspect I was an annoying little bugger to babysit. I know that one of the women who used to get that job still refers to me as Damian from The Omen.

We spent hours repeatedly flushing a plastic loo and guessing which hole the ball would come out of. It was great fun and no different from what the majority of people do in offices every day. At the end of the evening, Ivo had to be gently parted from his box for putting things in. I thought there’d be a tantrum, but somehow at the 11th hour I swapped it for a Kinder egg Disney Princess and the chance to go down in the exciting old fashioned lift that he’d have gone down in anyhow. Now they’re home and I am relieved to be back in my own space, not having to put him to bed, but also not having to put up with the pain of a growing cancerous tumour, or a broken hip, as all of the emails I saw today were talking about.

Get out there and make positive change. It turns into sludge so suddenly, and then we just fall by the tracks as the rollercoaster keeps rolling. People keep killing themselves and others for ideologies. It’s a weird world right now. I take my hat off to the likes of Flavia, bringing a child into this madness. Let’s all keep forging forward fearlessly.

Shortly after I walked through Borough Market and over London Bridge, it appears that once again some improperly socialised cocks have caused horrible chaos. Problem is the papers will big them up and give them powerful names.

I’ve been celebrating love, at the wedding party of two unutterably brilliant hearts. I did As You Like It in Yorkshire with Alan many years ago, and Janey is a writer and actress that I admire hugely. They’re a beautiful couple and nothing but goodness is going to come from that union. I was very happy to be there, as the helicopters scrambled overhead and sirens howled.

I’m walking home now, through the mobilised streets. I’ve been told that the white van is still at large, “trying to kill people.” Some idiot with a messy ideology. I hope, for once, they take him alive so his powerless morinicism can be paraded. We need to stop calling these vacuous idiots “terrorists.” That’s how to make more, by empowering slugs.

Today I’ve been working. I didn’t want to, but it seemed the best idea. I went back to the Dodgems to keep myself busy for the day. To prevent circular thinking. Best to be busy. It was lovely, and I brought people together and shared joy and made laughter. Then they all went back to their lives. I hope all those people are okay – we were right by London Bridge. My final group was two women who arrived just at the deadline. One of them had just experienced heartbreak. I ended up in accidental group therapy with two strangers. I sent them on their crazy Dodgem ride and afterwards they stuck around for a drink and a chat. “This is the first time I’ve laughed for days,” one of them said. That was about an hour before the shitstorm.

Meanwhile London is totally unchanged. The same melting pot of language and culture. The same casual thoughtless space-taking. This city still belongs to that confused aggressive human mess of bravado and love that means business as usual. But again people have died. Unstoppably. Who can predict that a virgin with a driving licence will feel small enough to try and make some adjectives in the tabloids.

Is extreme Islam the given reason for this? That’s the assumption, but it might not be. The reason is simply idiocy and hate, whatever frame the hateful idiots seek. But the more legitimate their hatewank is made, the more powerful these shitbeetles appear. And they’re nothing. Like that pathetic little turd killing kids in Manchester.

I have no eloquent conclusions here. I’m angry that once again, just before our election, people have died while going about their business. I don’t want it to drive people apart further and make them think that isolationism is the correct vote. If the timing has been orchestrated, it’s been orchestrated by people that understand that the more legitimate it is to isolate and make factions, the easier it is to peel off idiotic young men (always men) and use their bad social skills to radicalise them. Tomorrow morning the papers will all be shouting horrors about these idiots, and empowering them with adjectives. They need to change their style. “Pathetic loser attempts to make a splash by killing people.”

Thank God I had such an evening of love. I feel buoyed up and optimistic as I cross town. London has weathered worse storms than this and will continue to.

I’m not going to schedule this. I’ll post it now so I don’t need to tell everyone I’m fine. This is my photo on Southwark Bridge today, past Cannon Street rail bridge to London and Tower.