Author: albarclay

If I boil my biggest pot once and the kettle three times there’s about enough hot water for an enervating if mildly underwhelming splash in the bath. I dread to consider the cost in gas and electricity. I’m wondering if this boiler explosion will eventually allow me to get something a little more environmentally sound than the gasfucking monstrosity that has chuntered and loured in the corner of my kitchen for so long. It was installed by the boyfriend of a friend of a girl I was seeing many years ago. His name was Stewart Walkely. He stitched me up like a kipper. I can be too trusting. He even took my old immersion heater, which would’ve provided hot water for us now. He sold it for copper and charged me for the disposal. “Fuck him,” he must’ve thought. “He lives in Chelsea. He’s loaded.” I’d like to track him down and make him wear my socks.

Over the last ten years I’ve tried to force myself to understand that not everybody is lovely. Because I wouldn’t stitch anyone up I find it a mystery that other people do. It still shocks me when someone does it to me. I think I’ve got better at looking out for it now. At accepting that some people are able to sell themselves fictions about other people that allow them to serve their own needs and hurt others in the process. It feels like the world is shifting back to giving permission for that. Back in the eighties it was all the rage. “Greed is good.” Now with this cruel selfish manipulative egomaniac at the helm of Usacorp I suspect his rapacity and simple binary worldview will give permission to similarly minded individuals the world over to take what they can.

“Them and us” though. We’re all guilty of it. Maybe I’m wrong to think Donald Duck is a bad thing. Maybe I’m missing the point. If I could switch off my empathy maybe I’d find a peculiar happiness. I’ve already shifted my worldview once, having grown up Tory. My mother was brilliant, and full of love and heart, care and kindness. And yet she would periodically bang her hand on the table and say “Bring back Thatcher.” I can’t say that made her bad, even if I’ve shifted my spectrum wildly from where I started. There can be no debate if you just think the “other side” is plain wrong. I like to think everyone wants the best for the greatest number of people. But perhaps that’s another aspect of life where I’ve duped myself with my own worldview. Maybe there are just lots of extremely frightened people seeking safety from nebulous others. Maybe I’m one of them. I hope not.

There’s an election coming up in the UK, and we need to think about the decisions we’ll make. For a start it will directly affect how and when a lot of us die, as well as how comfortable or abrupt the dying process will be. However much I hear “strong” and “stable” repeated in the new political language of bad neurolinguistic programming, I can’t associate those qualities with someone who is tightly controlling her media access like this. But similarly, shouting “media bias” about Corbyn while laughing at the idea of media bias about Littlefingers? That’s a double standard. Are those on the left going to be too nuanced and split their vote again? Are those on the right going to be too complacent and assume it’s a sure thing? We don’t have long, but Christ we need to try to be as educated as we can be about what we’re voting for here, county to county, borough to borough. And be willing to examine our own assumptions. This was my morning reading today, by the Oatmeal. Spot on as ever, and despite part of his argument being anchored in an American concern it still carries.

Hmm. I very quickly went from writing about a boiler installer scamming me to sounding off about my clumsy politics again. But it’s election time. It’s unavoidable. Vote.

Here’s a photo of a grey May day in London. This weak May Sun has me longing for change. May should be better than this. I wish this May wasn’t so unstable. etc #BadNLP.

I spent this morning as a ten year old boy from the southern states. We were supposed to be in a tree house, but the budget didn’t stretch to that. We had to make do with a portacabin. Considering I’ve rehearsed in a shipping container, it was a step up but it still felt a bit like I was being trafficked. I met someone for the first time, shook them by the hand politely, and five minutes later we embarked on a journey from first meeting, to becoming friends, to me teaching her to read, to her being unexpectedly bludgeoned to death by her father. Most of my friendships at that age were less complicated than that. Although there was that one time…

Central School of Speech and Drama is one of the (too) many drama schools in London, and a good one. I cancelled my audition there when I’d been offered my place at Guildhall as I loved Guildhall and there was no way I was putting myself through that hell again once I had a good place. But some of my most beloved artistic collaborators trained there, and some of my friends teach there now. So today I was employed by one to help the MA writers develop their scripts. The game is: Get actors. Actors read script. Ask actors questions about detail. Notice where it’s inconsistent or unclear. Rewrite.

It’s lovely to be instrumental in the development of these future practitioners and to see the concerns of their work. And in this collaborative medium it’s always useful for them to get some distance from what they’ve written. You often hear the teachers say: “You see! The actors agree with me that that bit is unclear to everyone but you.”

In the evening we got a promotion and moved up to the boardroom at the top of the school. We sat around a long table surrounded by framed headshots of noted alumni over the years. Under the scrutiny of dear dear poor dear Sir Larry, we read two episodes of a television family comedy. It was a bit like Brewster’s Millions in Essex on speed. Then more discussions culminating in a trip to the pub.

The temporary fellowships are some of the most striking parts of doing this for a living. You have to make friends quickly. Melissa the director is an old mate. I met her in a field some 8 years ago. She was sick and I was horrible. Somehow we kept each other. Also one of my oldest friends was there because I suggested her. We did Private Lives forever ago in Norfolk. Very flat, Norfolk. She’s ace. Doesn’t get blogs though, she told me. Nor do I to be honest. But somehow I’m still going. Mike is an actor I run alongside periodically. I’ll see him again soon I’m sure. We had the same agent some time ago and crop up a lot for one another. But the actors who played my friend in the first piece, my children, my sister… We all met tonight and had to go from 0 to 60 in ten seconds. I love it. It makes me forever inpatient with social niceties. It’s ruined me for society dinners where there are doilies and interaction has come down to a question and answer checklist. But I don’t get invited to them so it’s not really an issue.

Here’s our portacabin. Jo, my old mate, took it. She says the composition is excellent. And she did A Level photography…

Oops. Clicked submit instead of schedule. Hey how. Early one today.

I’ve just spent the last hour Charlestoning in front of my TV set, to the extent that I have opinions about the various different youtube tutors that have offered their Charleston tutorials to the world. Gods. Any old fucker can put a video of themselves doing any old shit with 0 production values or charisma and still there’ll be some guy like me on the other side of the world that watches it 8 times. I was thinking “Maybe next time she won’t be so annoying.” “Maybe next time he won’t be so boring.” “Maybe next time it’ll make more sense.” Like when you watch Romeo and Juliet for the 8 millionth time and it’s a good one for a change so you think “maybe it’ll work out with these guys – they actually work together.” Even though you know it won’t. You hope. But those youtube videos just get worse the more you watch them. My feet, knees and brain are tired now and I don’t think I’m much closer to being a Charleston expert than I was before I subjected myself to them. But hell, I’ll keep at it. There might be a job at the end of it.

I’m back looking at the 1920’s again. It’s a period I’ve worked in a lot. Being a bit lost, instinctively bohemian, “posh”, I fit the tone of the times. The most prevalent stories from those interwar years came from those with privilege. Everyone else was working too hard, and didn’t have uncle Joey to help them get a platform for their work. Over here we had Evelyn Waugh, vomiting caustic bile on everyone that looked or smelt like him, excoriating his own class, and yet laughing, telling mad beautiful stories of human monsters and subhuman idiots. It was one of his novels that provided my first job out of drama school – Vile Bodies. I immersed myself in that period – the desperate fun, the lack of morals, the dance of a fucked generation that had lost most of their bravest and were going to lose the rest.

Meanwhile over in America there were three writers of that period that I love and know, and their styles are hugely varied. Hemingway with his spare, sharp observations, his heat and his death. Faulkner with his slow strange poetry warping and shifting and experimenting with form, opening imaginative landscapes and possibilities. And then F Scott Fitzgerald. As a teenager, Tender is the Night was my favourite book. It’s a Wuthering Heights of a book – a young book. A good read for an angry reader. It’s easy prose, incredibly closely observed. Fitzgerald himself was a doomed romantic, an alcoholic, a lover. Be wrote what he knew. He was best friends for a while with Hemingway, the hard boiled practical humanist who lived as hard as he could and then blew his brains out when his capability fell behind his desire. They both lived.

Fitzgerald was obliterating himself, obsessively making art in the gaps, pouring his heart into broken vessels. He ran himself out long before his age necessitated a bullet in the brain. But before he went he penned one of the best known short novels in the world: The Great Gatsby. A quick read. A day’s read. A beautiful read. Some say it’s the ultimate American novel, exploring the gap between the idea of the American dream and the reality. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in the world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” That’s the opening. If you haven’t read it, it’s worth it. If you have, read Tender is the Night. And then get some of his old mate Hemingway into you as well –  I recommend For Whom The Bell Tolls – or any of his short story collections. The Sun Also Rises. Argh. I’m re-reading Gatsby tonight, and it just makes me want to read all of these books again for the first time. So much joy to be had. If I had hot water I’d slide into the bath and read the whole of Gatsby there. Last time I read Gatsby I was at University – a very different man from who I am now. “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

I’m off to bed to read and remember. And give my legs a rest.

Today my boiler packed up totally. I think it’s the end of days for it. Typical. At least it’s summer. But it means that if you need me I am either going to be enervated having sponged myself down with cold water, or a little bit stinky. In fact I might look into a month long groupon deal at a local yoga studio so I can do morning yoga and then have a shower. There’s always a way round it in this city but it’s usually expensive. My grandad had a cold shower every day until the day he died. Okay, he died of a massive coronary shortly after having his cold shower.  Which was probably catalysed by the shower. But he WAS a little older than I am now so I should be okay for a few weeks. Even if it ain’t ideal.

Basically I need a good money job – preferably acting. As do so many of us who live in this city. Nam myo ho renge kyo. Meantime we’ll all keep plugging at it and I can give thanks for the ridiculously lovely days I have whether or not my boiler is working. Today I had some friends round for a Sunday roast. No matter how broke I’m feeling, if it’s possible I want my flat to be a place where people come and are warm and well fed. This evening was great with some lovely people. Tristan is lying behind me making a strange tooting sound that is either snoring or him communicating in an ancient faerie language. Once I’ve written this I’ll go and roll him over and put a blanket on him so he neither freezes nor chokes to death on his own sick. And if he’s talking to the faeries I can see about getting hold of some of that GOLD.

I love cooking meals for people. I’ve got pretty good at it over the years, but the first thing I learnt to do, all those years ago, was roast meat. This evening I went back to basics and had my first red meat since I had medicine a couple of weeks ago. I might not have it regularly, but it seemed time to come to terms with the fact that I am not going to stop eating it – I’m just not going to eat it thoughtlessly. I’m still not back on caffeine, but wine and meat this evening. And Minnie and Rhys and Tristan for amazing company.

And then I couldn’t find my backgammon set, so we decided to play The Game of Life. What in God’s name is that hell? The Game of Life… It’s an eighties board game, and the point of it is to make as much money as possible. It’s the most unutterably corrupt thing I have ever spent my time on. Everything is worth money, everything has a price, nothing has value outside of cash. Anniversaries are an annoying waste of time. Children and lovers are chattels to be accumulated. Run around in circles and make money from everything and then when death comes you win win win by having more than the other people have when they die. I had a choice of career and the closest I could find was pop star. By the time I was 40 I had about 5 million bucks, twins, an aeroplane, a pet, and tatters where there was once a soul. Ok I’d love to be able to stump for a new boiler. But I’d sooner be feeding and sleeping people and worrying about how I’m going to wash than living the life suggested by that game. And the boiler will find a way.

Here’s a photo of Hannah pretending to be me. It tickled me. Have a good week guys.

I’m tempted to institute a new game where I write the blog in a certain style every few days. So anyone that wants to suggest a style for Wednesday’s blog, throw it at me and if I have the inclination I’ll go with the most popular suggestion.

“Kneel down behind the chair. Now open your mouth really wide. I want you to imagine you’re at the dentist. Over to the left, at that light, he’s got a huge drill. You don’t like the drill. What’s over to your right? It’s the assistant holding something like a huge sharp screwdriver. What the hell is that? Maybe your friend in the camera can help. No. They can’t help. They’re just standing there. Look at the dentist. He’s getting closer. The drill is on. And the assistant? What’s he doing? The screwdriver! He’s turning it. He’s grinning. Something is glistening on the end of it. My God what is it? What are they going to do to you? Look to your friend again. He doesn’t care. You’re on your own. The dentist is laughing. So is the assistant. So is your friend… Hold that. Hold it… Right down the barrel. Ok great and cut. Shall we get one more for safety?”

When you do this shit all the time you forget about how absurd it is. That’s not the weirdest thing I’ve done by far. Normally I wouldn’t have to write about my day so the memory would get quickly packed in the weird-box along with all the other madnesses that come out in dreams. Being gutted by a werewolf, being a spaceman shooting robots alongside someone from Big Brother, talking about my experience with AIDS diagnosis and treatment, being a tampon elephant… There’s so much more but it’s buried so deep I wonder if I’ll ever remember. And I keep coming back for more. It’s been a very very odd couple of decades. It’s almost certainly, sadly, been more interesting and varied doing this stuff as a man. As a woman I get the sense it would’ve been far less diverse: “You’re in your bikini. You’re happy about being in your bikini. No, happier  But it’s hot. You like that it’s hot. You’re happy. Oh but you’re also too hot in your bikini. Happy hot. Smiling because you’re so glad to be here in your bikini. But you need to get cooler somehow. Oh, maybe if you take off your bikini! Yes. You want to take off your bikini. Wait, why are you standing up? I didn’t say stand up. I said be happy. You don’t look happy. You’re not in shot anymore. Are you getting something out of your bag? Is it makeup? No it’s… is that a claw hammer? Why do you have a claw hammer in your bag? Now you’re smiling but I don’t like that smile. No! Oh God no! Ow! God! Why???? I’m making art! You’ve broken my wrist! Stop hitting me! Aargh! It hurts!”

I was earning my keep today. Absurd though it was, we got tea and my time wasn’t wasted. I was in and out quickly. The shoot was in one of the many out of commission fire stations in London. It’s a property guardianship, and it’s being taken over by an arts festival in May organised by Southwark council. Closed fire stations are such a frequent site in London these days they look normal. Fire stations that aren’t closed are as rare as black cabs with fares. The changing shape of this city. I explored the interior for a bit before the shoot, and found an abandoned locker room.

There’s so much unused space there. I wanted to make something in it immediately. I had nothing I had to prepare for the shoot which makes a change. Most of it was improvised to camera, and then the ending was that absurd Ed Woodish dentist nightmare I recounted at the top of the blog. It was a fun start to the day. Then I hung out in the evening sun with Anne-May, at Inner Temple. She’s housesitting so we had access to these beautiful, symbolically loaded heraldic gardens in the heart of ancient London. Finally I went up to Catford for noodles with my best friend. There’s nothing like restorative noodles with my best friend. And the shoot was fun. The director didn’t try and get me naked so i could leave the hammer in the bag. And I think the completed project will be joyful and strangely beautiful.

I’m watching Better Call Saul at the moment. I’m about halfway through the second season. I remember with Breaking Bad that that was the toughest point so I’m trying to stick with it because I trust the creative team, based on precedent. It’s interesting how we do that. I’ve been captivated in the past by a particular combination of actors and creatives, so I’m willing to trust them again, and work through a hard patch in expectation of rewards to come.

Telly is the hardest thing to watch as an actor, because the scripts are so frequently horrifyingly awful. Seeing people negotiate the minefield is extremely satisfying though, if they do it properly. The Better Call Saul lot are experts. It’s lovely to see television where many of the actors are weird looking, rather then cookie cut aspirational beautiful. The scripts are pretty good as well, compared to the usual “I speak all my subtext as text” stuff. I can count my TV auditions over 20 years on the fingers of one hand. I’ve helped numerous friends though, as linesbitch. The better you can practice that stuff the closer you can make it sound to real human speech. I’ve been a pretty auspicious linesbitch over the years. Lots of my three dimensional friends have landed these ostensibly 2d characters that serve a plot purpose, and brought their humanity to tricky tricky lines. I’d love to have a go at it if only someone could open that door. It seems a fascinating aspect of my craft and one that would fit my sponge brain. Bob Odenkirk certainly makes all of his lines sing. I think I could do the same, but every door has so far been shut. Soon though, somehow…

I was watching telly as a Friday night reward for doing my tax return. “That’s early,” I hear you mumble. No. No it really isn’t. It was due in January. If I don’t get it in by the end of April they take my firstborn. And I’ve now moved into the tax period which covers a dark time in my career. Apex casting, Nadir meetings. So I already know I’m below the minimum threshold which is depressing considering I wasn’t for the previous two years. But I also know, based on talking to friends I admire, that I’m in exceptionally fine company so I can’t complain, although I can perhaps seek for smarter representation. Or make my own stuff.

I guess I’m enjoying Better Call Saul because it’s not just employing mister washboard stomach face-boy. It helps me believe that there’s a Giles out there for me somewhere. It’s also hard to break the pattern of worrying about work on this blog right now, as I’m trying to keep myself accountable, but I’m mostly scrabbling with day jobs again. I can’t wait for the chance to write in here that I’ve got something visible or interesting, as it’ll pay off my credit cards. Meantime wishing everyone that reads this the best of fortune in whatever walk you walk in, and I’ll keep believing in you and myself.

I can barely keep my eyes open. I didn’t want to shortword it twice in a row so I’m hacking this with one finger and one eye in bed. Tomorrow I hope to get into a fight with an octopus for you lot. Right now it’s just me and my hot water bottle…

Team Beowulf is assembled fully and we’re aiming to make something we can show for the 7th May. Far from a complete thing. More of an early stage developmental scratch. “Scratching” is a lovely way to be inclusive with all the ridiculous ideas you have in the early days, and show them to safe people who tell you that half your ideas are shit and the other half are insane. Then hopefully you can move forward by getting rid of or fixing the shit ones, and shifting the insane ones into some loose semblance of story.

We’re experimenting with storytelling methods that aren’t in currency so much these days. This week, Jack has been making papier mache character masks. I’ve been plundering costume. We’ve all been looking for sticks and spears and shields. Now our third player is with us it feels like the circle is complete. She’s a dancer who understands and honours text and loves to affect and change spaces. We are accumulating shiny stuff like ravens, and beginning to obsess about all things Viking.

I’m pretty excited with where this will go now. It’s going to be ace. The early stages of a creative process are so rife with possibility and we now have three people who are all full of crazy ideas, songs, shapes, movements and joy. I want to work with experts to learn technique with shadow puppetry, puppets, mask work, physical theatre, old Norse, unaccompanied singing, ancient instruments… With our budget we’ll have to become the experts ourselves. That’ll be a lovely journey. And then there’s the food to consider. I’m going to try to learn how to brew mead. The food is a big part of a show that we want to be about community, celebration, ceremony, joy. If anyone knows how to brew mead, we need to talk.

After rehearsal I went to Waterloo and found a beautiful happy little vegan place on Lower Marsh Street. We went in and got beautifully fed and roundly welcomed, and now I’m lying on my back feeling the snooze come in and I’m going to cut this short cheekily because I’m sleepy and I want a snuggle before sleep.

In my dreams there’ll be boats and beards, songs and swords and Grendel of the fens. Hopefully I’ll wake up and still have all my arms.

Lazy photo time. Come on summer…

I also invigilate exams. It’s unlikely you’ll know that about me. It’s another little way of ticking over. I’m at Imperial College, in the business department. I’m presiding over rooms full of people who understand calculus and have no common sense. Occasionally someone tries to cheat and it’s all people talk about for ages. They do stuff like shove papers full of equations into the bogbrush holder and then go for 20 minute shits thinking that nobody in their right mind will look there.

The wonderful thing about invigilating exams is that you’re in a silent concentrated room for two hours, except when you’re listening to people poo. You have to be alert, but it’s the perfect place to commit things to memory neutrally. If you’re learning lines in an exam room you’re not going to fall into vocal and physical habits or patterns. If I were to suddenly start acting at everybody in the middle of their exam then I wouldn’t get asked back. Today I had a little sheet with everything I needed to learn on a supplementary answer book. By the end of the morning exam I had two scenes committed to memory. Then I took the afternoon off work to record them.

My friend Matt has a camera, a mic, a voice, a reflector, time, patience and a blank wall. That’s all that’s needed to record a self-tape. I went round his and spent a couple of hours recording these scenes that came through late last night. They mostly involved me being smug. It’s a familiar trope. Scientist uses logic to combat emotional scaremongerers who turn out, against the odds, to be right. He then gets eaten. I get to be aloof and superior, and then inject myself with drugs that temporarily give me a God complex. All in a day’s work. We had a good session and then I sent it off to California. Now I have to forget about it until they call.

Once again I’m finding myself thinking how handy it’d be to have a little home set up. I managed fine today thanks to Matt, although the short timeframe cost me 50 quid as I had to drop the afternoon exam to get it done. Nevertheless, if it comes through it’ll be a game changer. Although saying that, does the game ever change? When I booked Bright Young Things all those years ago I thought it was a game changer. There are very dear friends of mine who have done wonderful jobs in the past and are now struggling to find work. A job is a job, at whatever level. We just have to do it as best we can, and move on hoping there’s another one coming. We can all play “Whatever happened to” and name so many actors that were in everything when we were kids who’ve done nothing for ages. Remember when Tarantino reinvented Travolta? Tony Slattery is probably wondering where his Tarantino is. Me? I’m looking for my John McTiernan, the guy who cast Rickman in Die Hard.

Meanwhile I’ll keep plugging and keep smiling. I just had a brilliant session at The Factory. Now I’m heading home to see my glorious flatmate and my lovely cousin outlaw. I get to do stupid fun stuff lots, often for money, and never in my life has a stern faced invigilator been standing near me looking a little strange and mumbling as I try to fill in my paper on differential calculus.

Turns out i miscounted. This is 101. I’ve always been shit at counting. I do words. I’m trying to get better at the maths bit as then I’d get into fewer pickles. As someone that loves to turn his hand to the unfamiliar it’s odd that counting has evaded me so completely for so long. But it has.

I’ve just got home from a kamikaze Shakespeare evening. It was two hours of going up and engaging people in conversation before asking them to choose which Shakespeare play they like and then doing a bit of it for them. It’s fine as long as they don’t ask for Timon, Verona or Romeo and Juliet. Everyone always asks for r&jb the buggers. I ended up doing most of Hamlet, half of Macbeth including lady M, and bits of loads of the comedies. Only one person asked which my favourite was and I surprised myself by saying Julius Caesar. But that changes all the time depending on what I’m worrying about. Right now I’m worrying about the capacity for those who have power to do harm. So I did Cassius deconstructing Caesar to Brutus.

Sometimes i describe my brain to the guests as a bit like an old windows 98 hard drive. It’s all there somewhere but the wheels need to spin for a bit before the older stuff comes up. One of them asked for “some verse from Malvolio” and I surprised myself by hauling up his only extended bit of verse. I’ve not said it for 8 years or more. Another gave the first line of a half remember’d sonnet and i finished it. For every obvious win like that I hit a few losses: “Do Romeo and Juliet” “I’ve never learnt any, not even the prologue. I should probably get on it. Anything else?” Technically I could get away with just repeating the same sonnet over and over but I deliberately make it harder for myself as then it’s more interesting. That’s a pattern in my life that is all too familiar – deliberately making things harder for myself. If I’m making money doing what I love it feels like cheating if it’s easy. It’s a pattern I’m trying to break. It can lead to me blocking myself from having a nice time in all walks of life.

It hasn’t been the easiest time since I’ve been back anyway if I’m honest. I’m back to sifting and prioritising creditors, doing multiple constantly shifting jobs to make sure that things are coming in not going out. London has that effect on me. Thank God I’ve got a happy roof over my head. I was beginning to worry that I’d never have another meeting when my manager called in a self tape for tomorrow. It’s good casting – an entitled megalomaniac scientist. A cross between my darling brother and all the people I went to school with. He’s the Julian Sands character in Arachnophobia, but instead of spiders it’s … something else. I’m probably under NDA.

That’s the other side of this job. 0 to 60 in 0.5 seconds  Suddenly having a load of stuff to learn and no time in which to learn it. I’m working first thing tomorrow and I took the call at 10pm. So i have to go in in the morning. And I’ll have to see if I can get the afternoon off. But right now I’ve got to knuckle down and learn a load of ecstatic ranting well enough that I can swallow it and make it mine tomorrow if i can persuade someone to help shoot it…

“A llama is a funny kind of fleecy hairy goat, with an indolent expression and an undulating throat. Like an unsuccessful literary man.

And I know the place he lives in (or at least- I think I do)
It is Ecuador, Brazil or Chile- possibly Peru;
You must find it in the Atlas if you can.
The Llama of the Pampasses you never should confound
(In spite of a deceptive similarity of sound)
With the Llama who is Lord of Turkestan.
For the former is a beautiful and valuable beast,
But the latter is not lovable nor useful in the least;
And the Ruminant is preferable surely to the Priest
Who battens on the woful superstitions of the East,
The Mongol of the Monastery of Shan.”

That’s the undeniably Victorian doggerel of Hilaire Belloc on llamas. It starts as a lovely silly poem about llamas and ends up saying EVERY EASTERN RELIGION IS ATROCIOUS. Which kicks me right in the Buddhism. I learnt it, along with whichever other poems I could get my hands on, as a kid. Llamas have been in my thoughts a great deal today so I thought I’d share it.

The few encounters I’ve had with camelids in the wild have been perfunctory. An alpaca tried to eat the buttons on my shirt in Peru. It didn’t even have enough understanding of cliché to spit water in my face, which would have made a better story. A few kids tried to charge me for a photograph of another one in Cuzco. They made me delete it from my phone when i refused to pay. Outside of those unsatisfying encounters, it’s really just been tame llamas on farms. And sharks? I’ve not seen one in the wild at all despite having dived a bit. Is that unlucky or lucky? There were a few dogfish on a night dive in Thailand, but only little ones. I met a banded sea krait, but that’s about as dangerous as I’ve seen in the water. Ok it could’ve killed me in seconds, but they’re docile.

Llamas and sharks. Sharks and llamas. A strange pairing. But the two are connected. “How?” I hear you all cry. “How can they possibly be connected? What witchcraft is this?”

Six months ago, off the coast of Polynesia, the first specimen of llamashark was brought ashore. Hairy and aggressive, the llamashark blinds seals by spitting in their eyes with acidic saliva, before gradually chewing them to death.

No it’s a little more complicated than that. Stand by, here comes science. It was recently discovered that camelids and some sharks have antibodies that are very unusual. They are smaller than other antibodies and able to survive in higher temperatures and pH than ours. This opens up possibilities when it comes to the treatment of diseases. For instance they can survive and work in the human stomach. I’ve only got a handle on the basics at the moment. But bear with me, there’s time yet. I’ve been hanging with a bunch of epidemiologists. Scientists specialising in disease epidemics. We’re examining the ethics of new forms of self diagnosis and containment using lateral flow tests at home and harnessing big data. But we’re trying to make it a fun way of asking what you would do if you thought you had an infectious disease. Which might sound like a big ask, but it’ll work out.

Last summer at Green Man Festival we ran a sciency story gamey info thing about a disease that turns people into llamas. Here’s me in the sunshine wearing loads of wool.

It came through Fanshen, who have done some brilliantly random fun madnesses over the years, and who I love dearly. It was fun and went down well so we’re doing it again slightly differently in London. It’ll be two days only as part of a four day beer and music festival in Kings Cross. I get a free pass and a plus one and some dosh. It looks to be the beginning of another ridiculously fun summer.

Today seven people sat around a table having earnest and heated discussions about whether llama ears needed to be made out of socks or cardboard, about the merits of different types of face paint, about effective sleight of hand techniques with lateral flow test models. These and more of the usual ridiculous sincere early development questions, made all the more strange by the hotch potch of artists and scientists in the room. I’m the right man for the job though. My brother’s a scientist so I’m an expert at working out how to make what they say comprehensible and transferrable.

So there we go. Llamas and sharks. Another random day in the life. What will tomorrow bring? Will I turn into a llama? Stay tuned for the 100th episode of “Al stumbles through existence with a big smile on his face.”