Author: albarclay

This week has been very much about invigilation, after my interruption into haulage on Monday. I had to cancel a shift for Monday, told them it was a funeral.

I’ve pitched this haulage job a little bit wonky but as you scale up you have to learn. I thought from the pictures and the jobs I’ve had to do before that it would be achievable with the team I brought. Far from it. This is a big job.

Responsively, I’ve booked a big team. I now have the right balance, in my opinion, to get this squared off nicely. I’ll be back a week today with 6 people and three vans and we will absolutely nail the rest of this. Van and 1 times 3, 1 floater.

It’s interesting to really start to see what I’ve learnt over the years I’ve been responsive in events. There’s a whole language that I’ve learned, it’s almost code. I’ve written about it before, the heras and the scrim and the ped, the dolavs. “Can you go to CSM and ask for a long weight?” That was the old joke. Or “Get me some sky hooks.” “What are they?” “You know, so I can attach this to the sky.” Hazing, they call it in America. I never fell for it, but also never realised I was being wound up. I just went and got Jake the longest weight I could find. “There you go mate.” “That was quick, did you go to CSM?” “No I just grabbed one that wasn’t being used.” Long WAIT you see. Didn’t notice until I saw him do it to someone else. And when he described sky hooks I just told him he’d have to improvise.

I’ve built a team and it’s a good team. We will be able to be efficient now, get this stuff out out out hopefully faster than they’re expecting. If there’s someone at the storage when the vans are out sorting then the loads will be easier. One pane of glass minimum per tip load means we will get it all out and nobody will be overweight. Lots of things to think about, lots of things to consider, lots of things to worry about, nothing to do but do and do and do until it is done.

Beltane today, so I jumped over a candle. Burning away the remains of unmotivated me. This is an overlap of three of my skillsets and contact networks. Crewing massive events, building and loving entertainment from the inside, sorting and shifting other people’s stuff.  I’m in my happy place. But there’s work to be done.

Thankfully invigilating exams leaves a lot of time for thinking.

So there was a fire in an electrical substation in St John’s Wood. Nothing to worry about though, just faulty equipment. Definitely nothing to do with Russia. It’s good we’ve got safeguards. The power flow to London wasn’t really affected at all.

I had a momentary power cut in my Chelsea flat two days ago. Only about five seconds, but it was grid not local. Probably just event staff shorting the area while building the flower show. Not Russians.

Spain and Portugal went down hard just recently. Not an attack, it was a freak environmental thing. No Russians involved, just a … *checks notes* a heatwave… (does this say heatwave, this is cold for summer, heatwave might paint the wrong picture?) *** *** ***

Ahem. So yes to continuing with blogwrite, obviously stupid people stupid think that the glorious Russian empire sabotages English. English are nothing. Nightmare of it to think that haroshi Russia doing anything of wrong to English. Sweet foolishness funny. HA. HA. HA.

…

Social media is flooded with fake photos and videos now. AI bollocks about Keanu Reeves fighting Elon Musk about how AI can never replace human thought, but actually dressed up as a trap to try and prove the opposite as real people reshare it. We have to be more careful than we have ever been, and we have to absolutely engage the things that the brainwashed masses who think they’ve found the truth hate: Critical thinking. Examining the source. And it is so hard, because we are emotional beings, but it is SO IMPORTANT. Temporarily try and distance yourself from the circumstances and expectations that make up YOU, and do it every time you hear something that triggers an emotional response. Let the response trigger, absolutely, but then when you can go into examination mode on yourself as to how it triggered. Where did this come from? Did I get sent it because I’m looking for it? What are the assumptions and manipulations in the prose? Am I being manipulated? (“Evil person x y wants us to z”)

AI is everywhere now, derivative and pat and so fucking boring but useful. The worst thing about it is that it magnifies stupid people. You can consider an argument and really think about your reasoning and examples, and someone who is their own uncle can write a basic prompt and yield an unsatisfactory rebuttal (but satisfying to whoever posts it). AI is a proxy for rednecks. You need to be able to spot it when you’re throwing pearls before swine. Don’t be part of dead internet. That’s only a few years away. Already the bulk of posts are bots or idiots with prompts. Nothing to do with Russia trying to manipulate the narrative, btw. Let’s leave Russia out of this. Dead internet is coming, where all of the activity is bots dealing with, supporting, arguing with, interacting with bots. Facebook is mostly already there. Bots and your weird uncle who inexplicably hates squirrels and feels supported by the exsquirrel bots and thinks that demagogue says it like it is. Twitter is dead.

The pictures will get better too, eventually. Right now, context evaluation is key. “My son got home from school crying about x” does not yield a studio style portrait of them crying unless you are a total psycho, even if you’re trying to pull on our heartstrings about bullying or whatever (and T*mu or T*doo app both of which are mentioned more than you would credit in this AI bullshit article economy.) Chinese companies flooding for familiarity. I’m mostly Sus about Russia at the mo just as Putin has his little pocket oompaloompa so he can flex his fading muscles without fear of repercussions.

Nuclear warheads have a shelf life. That shelf life is running out. When you’ve spent a load of money on something, you don’t want it to go to waste. Oof.

No harm in making sure you’ve got some iodine at home, and a wind up radio. I’m in London. I’ll be dead anyway.

Back to the invigilation. Ah the delights. Lots and lots of strings pulling on my attention at the moment, and somehow my agent has been silent despite me having just finished an absolute blinder of a run. Likely they’re in shock, but it’s ok by me as I’m trying to follow the money for a change.

Some very strong shifts potentially, absolutely in my accumulated skillset, merging events with storage with theatre with driving. I’ve made some good decisions recently but now have to wait and see where the fallout goes.

This week has been the most conspiracy theory-tastic week we’ve ever had, I think. Andrew’s child Epsteined herself, Spain went dark and our government officially revealed legit chemtrail plans.

Right now I’m watching this shit in horror. Yes of course correlation does not imply causation. 100% of people who think correlation implies causation will die. But how the hell can we be so colourblind to announce a cloud seeding project with an environmental agenda when a huge part of the English speaking world is involved in a demagogue who says he thinks climate change is made up so he can keep on burning. His followers have bought the idea that “they” have been somehow flying shitloads of chemicals over us without anyone at ground level ever catching on in order to somehow control behaviours in a populace whose behaviours have evidently not been blanket controlled. Who are “they”? Doesn’t matter. Rich liberals? Some of the oldest crap comes up when you ask these people who “they” are. And now an official similar plan so they can all say “I told you so” and make themselves even more insufferable.

But I am such a questioner, I really find it hard to buy narratives as I know how stories work. Alternative conformist narratives are as pernicious as what is thought of as mainstream narratives. I reckon there are probably more “clever” atheists in this country than there are people with specific “Christian” faith. But the atheists are the ones behaving like their belief structure is the correct one and needs to be propagated. And I use “clever” because so many conformist contrarians think they are somehow clever for having consumed, internalised, and started propagating some absolute gubbins idea about whatever their topic is today.

I find it hard to buy the sun dim. I don’t credit the reasons we have been given for the Spanish blackout and that’s augmented by how cagey and evasive the usually very accurate meta AI has been with me about it:

As for Guiffre, it is hard to credit that she killed herself. We are always being lied to, sure, that’s how government has to work. Manage the truth, release things when it will have the impact you need it to. Because we have made it all up, all this civilization stuff, but we made it up long enough ago that most people have forgotten we made it up and think that there are ways that things have to be, usually based on their preferences.

It’s nice until it isn’t, this made up world, but there are so many countries where it has already gone totally wrong but people are still playing a horrible game.

Sometimes people mess up the board, throw things around, but it always comes back to the same nonsense with different people.

I’m never gonna buy the mainstream narrative, anymore than I’m gonna buy the alternative narrative, knowing we are all kids in the playground making up the rules as we go. Morals shift from person to person and we know it. We are all making up the world together and trying our best in it. Maybe that’s enough. But what a weird news week, and you can be sure the patternmatchers are having a field day.

I’m shattered.

Thankfully I had good plus ones and my prep had been effective. Unfortunately the photos I had been sent to estimate the job were not in any way representative of the extent of it.

Three of us showed up in a Luton to some mardy northerner who was much more interested in moaning about how he expected more vehicles than he was in being helpful. I didn’t let him slow us down and we loaded in a ton of stuff. Old mannequins, bits of duct and cables. It all had to go, no time to properly sort it just hoik it all in. Then the moment of truth as we drove to the tip, but actually barring expense it was totally doable. The tip was lethal. No wonder it’s hi-vis and hard hat, someone almost dropped a ton of doors on my leg. It’s horrible but they are trying to recycle. Pulling out the metal, the wood, the plastics. Chucking it at your head.

I’m glad I’m not greatly involved in the IP as we have had to be ruthless. We tipped another fuckelton, but time was not on our side with the tip closing at 4. Still, we pulled as much as we could out, got things cleared but not all of them. There’s still loads there. I’m looking into getting a truck for a day – ideally a box loader 18 tonner. That and some lads and I can come up in a Luton and we can do shuttle runs and get the rest of it out. Eurocrates full of cables that’ll weigh so much I’m tempted to get someone else to drive the van and come up in my car, take them and put them into the household recycling cable section where they don’t weigh you in and out. Flight cases with god knows what. Sure we can put it back round and we will. We have to. But yeah, once I get greenlit on part two of this plan you’re gonna get a call if you’re a big lad I know. Jack and Jake and I pulled hard today and achieved, softened the mardy northerner. But there’s much to do here still and I’ve started so I’ll finish. Some huge sheets of glass that just… weigh. Big glass is the absolute fucker for weight.

I’m gonna get in the bath now. I almost certainly stink. A few more days like that and all the pies will be a distant memory. They’ll have come through my pores. I’ll get this signed off and I have now learned not to pitch too low if I’ve got no information. But … I needed the work, it has been pretty dry lately and the coffers are looking empty.  This work won’t make me rich but it won’t fuck me over either. Glad to be active.

I’ve run a bath. Brian has geranium and CBD bath salts. I thought it best to write this before I get in as I’m not sure how eloquent I’ll be when I get out the other side. This is already the fucked version of me. Sleep is calling. I’ll have to work hard to stay awake in the bath.

Well that was a lovely evening.

It feels like just yesterday that Claire and Ffion and co went round America with the fortieth anniversary of AFTLS, but here we all were suddenly at the FIFTIETH. There’s no way ten years have passed. Ten years have passed. Christ.

I last went out with Twelfth Night. Before that it was Much Ado. 5 actors and a suitcase, working deeply with Shakespeare. It’s magic. It calls for an easy knowing of the text, as you are teaching and workshopping as much as you are performing, sometimes more. Nice people, long distances, great text.

There was good cake, and a bar tab. I’m busy all day tomorrow, so I couldn’t nail the booze. I very much enjoyed the cake and the company though, and honestly I’m a cheap date these days so a glass or two of wine and I was anybody’s. I pulled out and went home before 8 and ordered pizza from deliveroo. Pizza express doing large pizza for 12 quid and I get 7 quid off four times a month and then a 5 quid rebate on my amex so basically it’s free. Gotta work the angles. I just let the guy in and now I’m munching as I write to you.

Lovely family of people, all pushing in the same direction. Actors gotta look after each other and this is an actor led company. It makes me very happy to call them friends. But I’m glad I managed to leave before the end of the night.

Greasy fingers on the phone now. Messy yum yums. The cats are both watching me with admiration and disgust as I push cheesy bread into my face and write. I’ll be asleep and in cheesy dreamland soon, that’s the plan. That was a good show. Hamlet. Three men, two women. Really strong and clever. Trust Jim Jack to make everything active, he made Claudius a thug and it worked. It’s always fun seeing lovely actors playing monsters. The whole company was fun and sparky and gelled. I’ve had a lovely night, the pizza has soaked up the wine, now it’s bedtime.

I thought I might be driving all day today, slinging heavy bits all over London and Kent, emptying emptying emptying. But the lady who runs the place this particular set is stored charges £650 for weekend access. Absolute madness. I’m going on Monday and I’m steeled to the expectation I’m going to be obstructed by her. She’s onto a winner – a company paying a monthly storage. She probably quoted them an eye watering sum for removals which is why my pitch landed. Now I’ve got to do a good job of it. That’s fine, I’m good at these things. I don’t think she will want to make it easy as she wants it still there next month… But let’s see.

I’ve booked two guys who know each other so it’ll be three lads in a Luton. White van men. Waheyyyyy etc. By the look of it there is lots of weight here. I suspect it came in an artic. She thinks we need two artics to clear it. Nah. I didn’t see any pallets. This is gonna be manual, hence the three lads. Who runs a storage place that isn’t accessible on the weekend? Madness. I honestly think she’s a chancer. Someone’s mum who thinks theatre people are rich. The post code takes me to a load of land with two businesses marked: A pet groomer and a clearance company. Clearance companies. They charge you to take the stuff. They charge you to keep it. Then if it’s good they go quiet and hope you stop paying and then they flog it. Triple profit. Land for profit.

Today has just been booking the van and my two hands to get this stuff out. Siwan will be at Old Street to take the clothes so I’m gonna cut her in as well. There’ll be loads of unexpected costs and I know for certain that the tip is gonna be pricey. But I’m in a happy place that I’ll be able to pay my friends, pay myself and solve a problem without being greedy. You’ll know on Monday night how it falls. It’ll either be triumph or disaster. I’m registered now though as an official government certificated waste disposal thingummy.

Maddy is in Albania so it off just Brian and I at home, plus cats. He’s downloaded The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered, which is the game I was playing when I completely quit games and trained as an actor, but not it’s remastered. I missed at least ten years of games starting with most of that  – a true flawed masterpiece, preserved in all its wonky glory. I didn’t have the headspace to do it anymore, I needed to put in the bedrock of an acting career, not gather 30 Nirnroot. The horse of absolute justice, the NPC voice actor who says “hang on wait I can do that better” and repeats himself, people having banal conversations while oblivious to the fact they’re on fire. It is a brilliant mess. There’s so much to love in the ambition of trying to make a whole world that long ago. They pushed the boundaries. And they pushed me out by making it so big I couldn’t comprehend it anymore.

I’ll never catch up on games now, my attention span isn’t there for them. As a teenager I could do whole weekends being a completionist, but the undimmed sun is much more interesting. Now I play for the story. I’m not trying to get every damn chocobo. Still … today I picked up the old Steam Deck and pushed further into Baldurs Gate 3, got as far as my mate John Hopkins who voices the dad of one of the playable characters. He’s been tortured for twenty years non stop when you meet him. It’s always funny meeting friends in these games. I killed Katie in Witcher 2. John isn’t alive anymore either in my play through, but he very eloquently begged for death and I didn’t have to actively stab him like Katie. I tried to take a video so he can see himself in context. My playthrough will be very different from others, I’m sure there are many options for his character, but I’m at war with Shar the dark moon goddess of loss, and aligned with Selune her light moon rival. John was collateral.

It’ll take forever for me to finish this game, but when I get a day like this it is valuable. We ate well, had occasional conversations, and consumed media. It’s just another way of telling stories. I’ve always been a fan.

So in the latest round of “things that sound like they were made up by that friend of yours who is as thick as a barge” we have the UK literally planning to pilot some experiments to “dim the sun”. This is a thing that has been mooted. Funds have been earmarked. To dim the sun. Dim. The sun. To dim it. To dim the sun. The sun. Dim sun.

Contrails happen because of temperature. You might see some moron crowing that they weren’t about in X decade where we had planes. They were. The Ickeys started to do their certainty thing where we were brainwashed cos actually “they” are controlling us with chemicals in the sky. It was whack. But the dumber people are, the more certain they can be. And patterns are attractive. It is much more comforting to think that there’s intelligent design in all the chaos. The only other option is to properly look at the unflinching uncaring mad eye of absolute random neutral chance. It’s nicer to think there’s a pattern, that we are important, that we somehow matter cosmically. That we aren’t just a load of cellbags who are trying to eat each other without being caught.

Now I’m told people are wanting to dim the sun and … look this shit up, it’s not me getting sucked in. It’s a thing. It’s not even April fools. Good god.

Why do they want to do this? Because we are too fucking greedy to stop burning anything there is to burn because we all know that if we stop then someone else will take our place. We are playing out the Fermi Paradox. Perhaps like all the other advanced civilisations before us, we are going to burn everything that might make us interstellar on short term profit. For the comfort of a few awful humans, we too will go into the bin of clever creatures. We will die clinging to this burnt rock. I think it’s a problem with our species lifespan. A few hundred years is forgotten so fast. People are already driving wedges into things that happened recently. “Oh but did the holocaust REALLY happen?” That’s coming from the same idiot that thinks the earth is flat, that evolution isn’t. That space doesn’t exist. Sure, half of it can be tracked to fundamentalist faith structures. But mostly it is ignorance grounded in greed and laziness. “Why should I change my habits?”

And so in desperation because the tipping point is basically already here, they are trying to dim the sun.

We are all going to burn. It’s too late for the crap we’ve made up. Something will continue, but before long this frantic model will collapse.

Seriously this is the reaction now? To send those oversimplifying JSO juves to prison for a decade cos they saw it coming and threw soup on a glass frame. And then to try and dim the actual sun. Because of course we can’t “just” stop oil, but still the idea of changing habits, properly breaking all the corporate abuses, deeply tackling carbon from the actual biggest emitters, not just Roger who drives a diesel engine… That’s too much to ask, is it? It shouldn’t be if now you are so desperate to fucking try and stop what you know you’ve created by seeding the clouds and making it all shit and what’s even the point of being alive if there’s no light? I’m gobsmacked. Solar panels not looking so good now.

Can we just sort out nuclear fusion? And soon. Without making a black hole please.

Christ.

Dim the sun? Get in the bin.

Back on the invigilation train tomorrow, my career in invigilation is progressing apace. They’ve bumped up the hourly rate now so it doesn’t feel like a pisstake anymore, and largely I don’t come across so many potatoes so they are clearly thinking about things which is good. It’s still the fallback but I have come to value the money. Some came in today and couldn’t have been more timely. I’m down to brass tacks in terms of cashflow.

Bergie had an advisory on his brake pads and discs last MOT and we are at the stage now where I can hear them scraping pretty much all the time. I wince every time I have to stop. I brought him in to Shak. He’s that rare thing, an honest mechanic in South West London. As often as not I buy the parts on eBay and if I can’t fit them, he does it. This time he reckons he can get better quality parts quicker, and I’m happy to let him lead cos he’s always been brilliant. I’ve never come away from him with a sour taste in my mouth. I’ll take it in after work tomorrow. It’ll still be money but I’ll pay cash for it. I’ve got some sitting in a box at home.

Slow day start today but then I gradually found myself pulling up momentum as I sourced some actors and juggled dayjobs into the next month. Some potentially very positive driving work might have just come in. But nothing is set in stone yet.

It was St George’s Day. A time to care about slaying vast beasties and to celebrate people of Middle Eastern heritage. A few days after hot cross buns, but it is the time of year for crosses. I’ve spent it mostly with the cats. Misty was sick from eating too much hair. Boo is as hyperactive as ever. All is well and I’m shattered. Even doing nothing is tiring. Probably the fact I had wine yesterday made it worse today. Bed now, and up at sparrows’ fart to make money by being organised at future business leaders.

Back to the place in Old Street where we are making sense of costume. We have a huge amount of stuff. Thankfully Siwan and I have a collaboration that goes way back. I’m very aware of the fact that it is currently eating our time, I wish I could pay her an hourly rate. She dreamt last night that I ignored instructions and walked through a plate glass window shattering it. She was worried about me, but I was totally fine, and then she realised she was the one who had some glass fragments stuck into her.

I’m gonna try and pay her what she’s worth. We are partners in this so if we start to make money then it’ll start to work out and we will go 50/50. But… right now we are both struggling for cash for the nitty gritty. That dream was a clear warning to me that I can’t just be confident without cause. We’ve got some wonderful costume, but … it’ll take time and work to even start to connect it to people that need it. We are nothing until we have been used and reviewed, in this landscape. And neither of us can work for nothing.

Like with any new business, even if we have the materials, we need so much more. If I had money to invest right now, I would do it. I’d buy into Siwan every day of the week and twice on Saturdays.

Right now it’s just about sorting. Until we know what we have, having it is meaningless. We are getting better.

Second hand shoes… I can’t even begin to tell you how many espadrilles we have, and I think it must be because they are thought of as being very close to Elizabethan footwear. I’m likely going to donate much of my tie collection to this as well. This is just the stuff from Parabolic, but there is more to sort. There’s so much.

We are making progress. We are solving. There’s so much stuff if we factor in all the things I’ve had in my attic for ages. Still, in the great big room we temporarily have for sorting, it looks like we have nothing at all. Scale is everything.

Ah the morning in London. Someone drilling and it’s not even half eight. Boo has the zoomies. I’m still in bed cos it’s warm here, but up and at it before long. Largely yesterday was an extension of the extra long weekend for me.

I woke in Brighton, well rested. Lou managed to fit some costumes and a sewing machine into Bergie and we stopped at the crack house – damn I like their coffee. Red Roaster provides it. I’m obsessed.

Then it was up to Kingston with the commuter conveyor belt of vehicles coming back from the seaside to plug back into the working world.

I didn’t plug though. I ate and nattered. In Kingston I sat at Coin de Paris, which does an excellent job of being a Parisian bistro in London. I had a croque. Uninspiring cheese but it filled me up and the coffee was good.

Ham Nature Reserve is huge. I wandered for ages and saw virtually nobody. I had no idea it was that big, it filled the morning and the sun was shining. More food at lunch via Tanya who made an omelette and then time to go home to the cats.

Evening took me out again to a low in booze and high in walking Chelsea pub crawl. The Antelope, then The Fox and Hounds, then The Royal Oak. All three can hold their heads up as having kept a degree of personality in our homogenising culture. India was in town, neither of us wanted to get drunk so walking between pubs felt like the evening hang out we wanted, with momentary stops along the way. I ended up reading her tarot in the Fox. The only other punter was a charming silver fox so was playing fast chess with the bar staff. I like Chelsea when it’s like that.

Still was tired when I got home. It was only about half nine but I’m wired for bed at that time the days so I went down like a sack of potatoes and, for the first time in ages, my internal blog alarms didn’t fire. Hence the morning pages. It’s time to get up and see the world. Sirens. Traffic. Brian is doing something with a plate. Maybe there will be coffee in the world…