Author: albarclay

Bordeaux is an excellent town. Mia is there, my mother’s god-daughter, Jeremy’s first child. You need to be paying attention at the moment if you’re mad enough to try and make sense of my extended family. We can’t do it so you definitely can’t. “How do you feel about having another nephew or niece on the way?” , Rupert asks Mia. Rupert is as much of a gobshite as me, but he has learned from a book that asking open questions is the correct way of connecterising with the other humanpeoples. “I haven’t got any nephews or nieces.” “What about Ramsey?” “Ramsey is my son, Rupert. I’m his mother.” “oh. oh yes.”

We three awkward boys on a road trip have continued to develop our interpersonal dynamic. I had my first squabble with Rupert today and he with me. But the end result will be a deeper connection. I think it’ll turn out to be worth the time we spent, but I have it so hard wired into me by dad that “family is important”. There’s something powerful about the fact we don’t get to choose.

I got pissed off with Rupert for unevolved and simplistic views about computer games, of all things. Someone made him aware of the fact that in open world games you can do anything you like. His example was that someone his son observed who was eight was allowed to play a Grand Theft Auto game by stupid parents. Sasha used to sneak into my room to play exactly that game at exactly that age, and he’s a hedge fund analyst now. But that’s as maybe.

The son of Rupert doing the observation is in the arts. In game, If you pull up in certain bad areas and honk your horn, a scantily clad man or woman might get in the car. You can then drive into an alley and the car will start rocking while the voice actor makes some generic noises expressing false pleasure. Then some of your money goes away and the person leaves the car. It’s an open world game so there’s nothing stopping you from running the person over although it’ll likely lead to a police chase. If you run them over your money can be picked up again. His take: “An eight year old bought a prostitute, and then ran her over while my son watched.” Sure he should have been prevented from accessing the game. But don’t try to convert that into some idea that games are bad. That’s the definition of ignorance.

Computer games cover so much ground now. It is unbelievable how deep they go, how much thought and time has been spent. Sometimes asking deep questions, sometimes just doing ridiculous rubbish.

There’s a computer game where you drive through a straight road in the desert for hours in real time and nothing happens. There are so many games doing so many things. The whole point of loads of games is to shoot people in the head. I don’t like those games. But GTA is art. It is trying to see what it can make possible. An old mate put on Hamlet in game. When people are gaming, the fact that some games let your character do transgressive things is joyful. But the game doesn’t encourage you to do that. It wouldn’t be authentic if it didn’t allow it. But it doesn’t encourage it. This is why there are hardly ever NPC children in these games, or if there are they are weirdly immortal like the ones in Skyrim running around after dragon attacks like nothing has happened. Sandbox, yes. But never underestimate the ability of people who don’t know what the hell they are talking about to get indignant about things out of context.

I forgot though, that Rupert is ALMOST SEVENTY. He’s 67. He comes across much younger.

I couldn’t really explain the joy of an open world game to Lou, even. Barely to Tristan. But Max knows them. I was gaming with him for recreation when they first came into being, and now they are, to me, a huge storytelling medium. We need a course for beginners to understand. Some early games that changed the landscape and are still playable and understandable for non gamers…? Journey springs to mind of course. But there are many. Rather than getting pissed off perhaps we could try to educate. I will never forget my first time through Journey, largely because of a stranger who joined me. We could only communicate through jumping and odd sounds. The game is no longer than an hour and a half to play and we had a lifetime within that. A simple game, but games are art now. As with all art, it can be simplified by idiots. “Look at that naked body by Chagall. What a pervert.” We simplify what we don’t understand to fit our existing agenda. I was disappointed with Rupert and more disappointed with his artistic son who is younger than me and looking at this incredible medium of games through a cracked lens.

I’m playing Mass Effect for the first time, slowly, at the moment – just the first three – and it is a fiercely dense moral maze of a game where your actions have consequence but you can act pretty freely. I made a decision that caused me to shoot a childhood friend in the head in a public place. I’m sure there’ll be repercussions down the line. But the guy that my character (John) shot was from my character’s youthful murderous earth gang. They were blackmailing the adult John because he attained intergalactic public office. At the time, being John, I needed to show a ruthless streak to a particular alien nation in order to assure them that mankind were not a weak species. Their representative witnessed the blackmail and they are a tricky race, higher up in the federation by far than humanity, valuing ruthlessness. The character I’m playing was in a gang on earth that hated aliens, but through his military prowess he has got to be an ambassador in a wild west space type situation. I’m role playing, and he is mostly a paragon of virtue, but I’m playing a game. For my John Shepard, I felt it was correct to fatally shoot this old “friend” in the bar. The alien approved. “I’m surprised. Perhaps mankind isn’t so indecisive as we feared.” I still don’t like the decision but I made it. It’ll come back to bite me for sure. Likely in Mass Effect 3, which was over a decade later on release, and it’s deep enough that it remembers everything you did for the first two games and there’s loads of stuff you’ll never see depending on what you did.

Games now are so much deeper and more complicated than it would have been possible to appreciate in the nineties really, if you are pushing seventy or if you write for The Daily Mail etc you can’t be expected to get them.

The open worlds are losing their edge though, for the exact reason that Rupert is scared of GTA: Show a player being a psychopath in isolation, and Cecilia Montague-Janus tells the weekly column how “GAMES MAKES US WANT TO SHOOT FRIENDS” Still. A gorgeous sunny day in France. I got a scallop and went to a pilgrim mass.

It’s a rarity for me to spend time with family. I fought with my mum but damn we loved each other so much and knew it. We had each other for my twenties at least before the booze claimed her. My dad was a very different fish.

“You probably spent more time with him than the rest of us,” Rupert tells me. This baffles me. Maybe though.

I used to have a jacket reminding me that he was “World Champion Powerboat Racer” in multiple years including the year I was born and the next year. That was in the Bahamas and I was definitely in Jersey. But actually, maybe… maybe. He started to slow down in his mid sixties and I was a teenager. Formative years. And I was gasping for a male role model.

Three very different boys have been sharing memories. We have all imitated the fucker, whether consciously or unconsciously. Faddy diets, career decisions, adrenaline addiction. We all remember what an arse he could be. Mealtimes were a minefield. His grandfather would beat him up after supper I think as a matter of course. If he’d been punished at school the punishment would be repeated double at home. Somehow as a result, meals were a tense time – for the rest of his life. He would take it out on people. He never learned to drop the rage, but the principles of self knowledge were never put to the front for that generation. Arguably it was the rage that fueled his astonishing success.

I’d forgotten how horrible he could be to waiters, because my mother’s mother could be worse. But Good God I remember the atmosphere around the table at Eyreton (in the IOM). The constant possibility of explosion. It was a minefield, breaking bread with him. Things could get very horrible very suddenly and very profoundly. I was afraid to ask for condiments. I just wanted to eat and go. Porridge is a complicated food for me, although Lou has been helping me recalibrate that. I still hoover up my food generally, but without elbows on the table, rarely asking for condiments, usually trying to use my knife and fork correctly and sit up straight and be discreet with the napkin…  trying to eat as fast as I can but without doing anything too noticeable in case it draws the eye of his memory. He wasn’t a propriety nut. He was just looking for an excuse.

I haven’t really thought about it until I write this. He’s not watching, in any pernicious way, anymore. Maybe his spirit is bemused at these creatures he had a hand in making…

Memories like that resurface when we are together. We don’t do it much. Jeremy carries many of his childhood bruises to this day. He’s much older than me. Sometimes listening to him talk about things that happened before I was born it feels like I’m in a Museum of Spent Matches. I know I’ve lived in the present too long and I need to get much better at planning. That’s my thing for this year. But I’m glad that these dredges like sitting at the table eating too fast – I haven’t carried them with me on purpose. Our past informs our present but it shouldn’t shape our future. “When did you finally leave that trauma behind as a thing that was holding you back?” I asked tonight as he told us all again of a particular beating from my uncle. “Oh I told him x when I got to x stage in life” “And that is how you finally let go of it? How did it feel to not be held back by it anymore?” I think the thought around “D’ya know, Al, I think I’m still being held back by it” was what I was hoping for. I’m not a therapist but I’ll always try and shift a stuck record. What am I still carrying? Is it helping me? If not, how to shift it?

We went to the beach and lollygagged in the sun. It was glory. We found summer. And we are finding each other. It’s good to know we can do it despite opposing worldviews and piles and piles of baggage. Sad we don’t have Jamie anymore – he was the one who woke up magic in me, and Parkinson’s took his body and eventually his ever youthful spirit.

I’m happy to sleep here again, deep in peaceful France, surrounded by his things. Joy.

Half six prompt I walked out of my flat door, bleary eyed. In the growing light, Rupert and Jeremy had just pulled up outside. Both my remaining half brothers. We are going on a road trip. So much of my thinking has been towards Japan that it barely registered.

I got in the back, knowing Rupert was gonna take the wheel to Folkestone. He’s a morning bird. I’m not. He’s caught his fair share of worms over the years. I don’t have as many worms.

Rupert catalysed this road trip. A chance for three out of five of us to get to know each other as adults. Maxwell is at work and family. Jamie’s ashes are across the corridor from me as I write. Rupert’s birds have flown and his wife is with family. Jeremy is back from extended work abroad and has never been a homebody despite kids. I’m just some usually unpredictable louche actor who suddenly knows exactly where he’s going to be from late August, and thus has a sense of possibility and freedom brought on by not having to freak out about where the next job is coming from where the next job is coming from where

I’m in a big room in a quiet place, on a little sofa bed. Last time I was here Tristan and I improvised a studio and he filmed a fantastic self tape as Putin. No traction.

I’m in Néré. We got to the eurotunnel and Rupert and I swapped drivers for the first leg in France. Then we shared a long drive south and talk flowed freely. Three Barclay males with wildly different life experiences. No topic is safe if you think people who don’t share your exact worldview are idiots. Thankfully none of us think that. We all interpret everything very differently, but can all try and dig into big issues without being didactic, patronising or stubborn. I enjoyed it more than I expected. I think we are going to be able to get by without killing each other. Hopefully.

Tonight and tomorrow we are here with Danuta, Jamie’s widow, in the home he built for her. Then further south a bit.

It is Spring here. We drove through cloud and grey until we passed Paris and then the light opened. Wildlife. Birds. Light. France is yellow right now, all the rapeseed ripe for the reaping. And the sun exists. I’m starting to believe we may not have to live in darkness forever.

Damn I’m up at crack of dawn tomorrow but still I’ve ended up awake far too late. I went to Bridge Command in Vauxhall. I was supposed to get an early bed.

I ended up in command of a starship. A battle class frigate. My gunners were ruthless and my pilot was exact. My engineers and science team were on it. None of us had the slightest clue what was happening. The fact I ended up in charge was literally because nobody wanted it and someone had to.

I sat on the bridge of a starship and things happened around me. People did their jobs. Apparently we were supposed to protect some vessels or something but our comms officer was Brian and he’s a gamer. Protect missions are the ones that all veteran gamers ignore, so he ignored them and we went after the baddies instead. Brian spent most of the show insulting the pirates while Amber, Abi, Sara and Lily blew them out of the sky. Sometimes the pirates (run by the backstage team) tried to send us messages and then found out they were already dead. We neither saved nor knew about any of the civilians, I discovered later. We did, however, destroy all the space pirates including the bosses. “You’ll save more people in the long run if you gun for the pirates in front of you. Leave them and they’ll take more civilians over time.” Ruthless pragmatism from Brian, mixed with well worn distaste for an “escort mission” where something brittle flies directly at enemy guns shouting “protect us!”

Brian and I were trying to do the morals. Ish. Our crew were bloodthirsty maniacs. As the human who had to try and run the bridge, it was an incredible journey of just trying to work out what was going on and making occasional fast calls. And yes, I ended up giving clearance for two nukes, and even ended up micromanaging how the second one was deployed when the first one missed. Ugh. But we had to get through those shields somehow and the vessel we were gunning for was huge.

It would be bedtime now, I’m out tomorrow at half six. It’s not two yet. And I’ve ordered pizza. Sleep will be unusual and short. Hence rushed blog. I’m still packing for France. oh yeah, coz I’m off to France at dawn. First though, a slice of pizza and fill a bag with pants.

So a varied day. It started with an estate agent. Nobody in their right mind likes estate agents and even with no skin in the game I could feel my distaste. I just let him in so he could disappoint my friend. Snake.

Then I took a load of photos of books. Really just an aide memoir. I was back at the house of my friend’s crap dead father. It’s one thing to see the chattels of someone you loved reduced to piles of like. It’s something else to see the accumulation of ego nursing bollocks that someone you have just cause to dislike has accumulated. I’m sifting for value. There’s little to find. And I have no kindness for this man’s memory.

Still, the geek in me likes looking for interesting things. There’s bits and bobs.

Then I drove down into North London and saw friends. I’m off soon and it is helpful to touch base with who we can when we are so damnably nomadic. I can’t keep social calendars very well with the old ADHD, so largely if you aren’t right there I might forget to call you. My best friends are the ones who get that and are similar. I saw two of them this afternoon.

Then home for a meaty meal with Tom, who is on the sofa. I bought nice kebabs from the Hampstead Butcher. I’m happy as I covered a lot of ground today. I’m gonna just turn over now towards electric blanket and a pint of water. Perhaps having a beer in Camden late afternoon was not conducive to good thinking now, at midnight when I can barely string a sentence together.

ALSO Spring? Maybe… Maybe… Although I’m worried the seasons are broken now with the oblivious selfish mess we continue to make of our atmosphere. “I don’t believe in climate change,” I’ve heard people say that as if that’s a protest thing to say. We’ve been properly brainwashed. The idiots think they’re clever. Cthulu will rise ftagn ftagn gnarr rlyehh cathrrass covfefe ftagn.

I’m off to bed.

I’ve been back at my friend’s weird dad’s, and around that I’ve been looking at the funeral for my mum’s ex boyfriend.

We rarely leave this ship of fools on our own terms. He put a fair amount in order. He didn’t leave a huge mess. But he lived nomadically, finding a partner with property and aligning to their needs. It’s a way of things, and he did it well. I was suspicious from the outset as it was clear he was on the take, but he was terribly charming and my mother seemed mostly happy until the end. His habits were deathwards habits though and I know for sure she would have lived longer if she hadn’t met him. Her direction went with his though. I’m amazed he lived so long considering his habits. Heavy smoking and drinking. Set up a charity, got it rolling and lived off it. A good charity. But where does the money actually go? Hopefully where we want it to.

I struggled massively with him in some ways, but in others we aligned. He gave me my first job, designing the annual reports for his charity. We won awards. He taught me to properly question authority. It’s not enough to know the FACEHOOMS are wrong, we have to relentlessly zero in on their lies and hypocrisies in minutiae. His mate David Monroe took my first headshots, and became my mate, taught me about Rioja and then died so suddenly. David was gonna film Keith’s life. There is a STORY there. If nobody else tells it I’ll tell it here, because mum loved him even if I blame him for the way she went. She made her own decisions.

There was a window that he blew. “I need someone to write my life.” “Ok, mate. I’m busy until June but then we can spend as much time as you need.” “What do you mean?” “To write your life. I’ll need to spend some time with you and get things in order. And even though we have always had this complicated relationship, I’m happy to do it because you’ve made some positive change in the world.” “What… you? No. What are you talking about. You’re not a writer.” “Oh I’m sorry, I thought you were obliquely asking me… I’m… I mean I’m not a known writer, no. But I … I write a blog. I assumed you must have come across it and that was why you were saying you needed a writer to be a biographer.” “A BLOG? GOOD GOD NO. I’m not looking for a blogger. What? No. God no. Why would you think that? Christ. No. I need an actual writer who can write.” Sometimes, my darlings, we are the architects of our own oblivion.

I might do it anyway. I don’t really want to though tbh. There are plenty of people who look like him and feel their story must be told. Back then I thought he was asking me to, and I knew I would try to honour what he thought he was while also taking into account his impact. I thought writing him would be a departure, a challenge, something I didn’t really want to do but within which I was actually positioned to express better anyone else. I didn’t have time though. Life. I juggled it all in my head. “If I start coming to you in two weeks, I can give two weeks, on and off, to me gathering information to get it straight.” I did the maths and made the offer knowing I would be sacrificing dayjobs. His response? He blocked it all immediately, with such hard contempt that it has been tricky since then to be positive towards the old fucker.

He traded off charm for decades, and he was charming. It’s how he found his housing. I’m helping with his funeral now. He lived in this flat a fair few years after mum died cos Max and I let him. I don’t want his legacy to be my experience of him. I resented him for taking mum for what he could and dangling this “maybe” thing. She died sad because she bought his fantasy of a place in the country one day. He was always about to be able to get it. It never happened.

So… I’ve been trying to edit Blake for his funeral. He cared about mischief. But the funeral is trying to be vanilla. And I think it is right to try and carry the man I knew into it, not just obedience. He was a contrarian through and through, and taught me that much as dated mum. But the Blake is being cut to shreds and I’m wondering what is left of – let’s be honest for once – the con man my mother fell for. Feck it, I’m going there, he was a confidence trickster. Good looking, debonair, had a proveable backstory. A bad thing had happened to him. He traded off it until he died. He was a an absolute flashy liar. Me and all my friends knew it and laughed about it. He tried to make out like he knew the managers of every band we ever liked. We made up bands with certainty. We used random bands we met at raves with no managers. “Oh ya, Pascal’s Bongo Massive, I know their manager.” In my friendship group, a “Keith” became synonymous with someone who lied in order to fit in.

It’s complicated. I loved him. He was utterly full of shit. I sat with his body and apologised. Just because I blamed him for my mum’s death doesn’t mean he necessarily caused it. He just contributed. And all those things aside, I can still honour his life, and leave the lies behind. I just don’t trust he ever meant to get that fabled place in the country.

Fare forward, you delightful lying old maniac. I’ll try and represent at your funeral. The only thing I can’t properly represent is your relationship with the truth.

Divorce is a complicated thing when you’ve got kids. My parents loved each other, for certain. Mum wanted a divorce though. She had an idea about a glamorous London student life that she had never had. She tried for it, realised she was mostly still just as unhappy, went back and was wonderful with dad as he was dying, cos she loved him, and then carefully and totally took herself out of the world.

I was 12 at divorce time, just confirmed to go to Harrow when “Boys, come to the morning room,” was called out. That warm room where I set the fire every morning. “Mummy and daddy still love each other but…” etc etc. It’s a shock to the system. We construct these peaceful narratives where everything is perfect, as children. It’s the happy way to live. Nobody wants to have to see the edges of everything positive. Isn’t it lovely to just assume that everything is safe and happy? Oh children, it isn’t.

In retrospect, I am happy for the timing of that small event that I refer to as “the first crack”. It started the process that rounded me out. I couldn’t eat so much shit thereafter. I distrusted everything. At the time that divorce trustbreak was the only big thing I had had in my safe safe life. It helped me be the person who didn’t fit in, and consequently the person I am now, half jaguar, living between the fire and the woods, aware that the fire is built of the ruins of the woods, that the woods are older and deeper and stranger than we can know. And yeah my parents both went before I was thirty and I lost my shit but now there’s perspective. The biggest thing we’ve had is the biggest thing we’ve had until we get something bigger. There are people my age for whom the greatest hardship is still just a lost teddy bear. Some of them are high up in the Tory party. They still miss that teddy. We only know what we know.

Anyway I met with the man I still kinda wish mum had stayed with post divorce. A kind man, 73 now so … guarded as kind people have to become over time in a world where too many people are on the take. His habits were life positive. Mum was life positive when with him. I still like him. He sent back his steak and had the lamb and didn’t like it, so he’s particular. But I can take fussy, if it comes with a generous outlook. I paid for everything stealthily so he couldn’t try. I catalysed the meeting. He’s a nice man and has been a doctor all his life so he’s probably used to people expecting him to pay.

Mum liked glamour though. He wasn’t glamorous. Arse. I’m good at that shit if I absolutely have to be, but I detest the bullshit of it. He even googled me pre meeting and told me I should improve my online profile. He wanted me to buy into the glam world for my own good because he’s kind. I just see that world and see children pretending. It’s a shared hallucination, the notion of being glamorous. You just shout your name at people and try and dress like people who are dead. If you identify towards it you are being sucked into a black hole, because the actual poster children of the idea of glamour didn’t give a fuck about glamour and that’s why the deadliving ideate towards them. They were living their life and dealing with their mental health and generating art that was an expression and an outlet. They largely died badly at 27ish after generating a burning amount of something. By pretending towards it though you are merely courting oblivion.

You’ve got no business trying to imitate someone who died unhappily before you were born just because … shopowners want you to buy their clothes?

But I was happy to see mum’s ex. He’s well. He beat some cancer. He walks with a slopelurch, but I’m pronated on my right and it isn’t a limp. He’s pretty damn healthy and perky for 73. If I make that age it’ll be a time for celebration. Hopefully I’ll see more of him.

My downstairs neighbour is concerned, as she thinks there’s a mouse. When she is concerned the fallout can spill over. I was once overflowing water past her window, and I knew it was happening but it wasn’t much. I had a plumber booked but had to go out before. It was only for half a day as I had to go do some filming and thought it wouldn’t be necessary to switch the stop cock off. The wind was blowing it into her window and it wasn’t raining to mask it. I had 14 phone calls over about an hour. Her , the caretaker, the management of the block… She went big panic on it.

So I’m making sure I’m showing concern about the mouse in case she assumes it has come down from my flat. It hasn’t come down from mine, but I need to pantomime how much I care about mice so she doesn’t start telling people it has.

Mice don’t last long up here. Either there’s the smell of a snake, there’s a cat, or, worst for them, there’s me. I’m the one who knocks.

I remember twenty years ago when I was squeamish about killing mice. Then I got home after Sprite one year to Nathan in his pants in front of the telly casually saying “Oh and there’s mice.” “For how long?” “Couple of months.” The mice had bred down so many generations while he was in his pants that there were tiny tiny adult mice who were so small they didn’t trigger the traps or were within the trap when they went off so weren’t hit. I had to grow teeth about it. It’ll be one of the things that comes up at The Pearly Gates. I still can’t quite categorise mice like I do clothes moths. But… the mouse apocalypse that I wrought involved a number of horrors for me as well as much worse for the creatures.

Poisoned mice dying unnoticed under soft things I loved. Poisoned mice openly and horribly performative dying on the living room carpet just as I got home from work with friends. Poisoned mice generally doing what they do, which sometimes is to go and let the big scary human creature see there’s a creature in pain just in case something can be done. Then the mutilation… Mice badly caught in traps running round still attached to the wood  as they die of shock. Me trying to kill them more quickly for mercy but how? Lining up another trap with their head, pulling open the spring, aiming… I even had to use evil glue traps at the end for the tiny ones as they were immune to the poison and wouldn’t get the snaptraps. Glue is foul as then what do you do with the creature that is very aware that you are there and is hurting itself trying to escape from you? I dropped a huge chunk of masonry on one from some local roadworks and it screamed at me as I did it. It knew exactly what was going on. I left it attached to the underside of a paving stone. Likely it was laid down the next morning and someone swore at me. “What the fuck is this, a dead mouse stuck with a glue trap? Oh you nasty bastard. And now we have to lay this stone… Harrie, can you get this one, I feel a bit sick?”

So … I don’t want mice up here again as I am looking towards my Buddhism which is stronger now than it was then. I know I’ll utterly destroy them if they come. I don’t want to have to. Humane traps? Maybe now there’s the solution. Back then I couldn’t pay the extra. Plus most of the ones I’ve seen (and yes tried) don’t work.

This evening we had huge spring asparagus and tatties as I’ve been feeling bad about all the meat I’ve had lately. I don’t like the prospect of having to be death to loads of small mammals… It’ll never escalate again like it did, because literally what the fuck, Nathan? But we were kids. One or two I can deal with. I think I once wrote about the one I caught by the tail with my own hands. Hadn’t thought it through. Had to carry it down three flights of stairs as it expelled everything and tried to bite me / it’s own tail off. I took it across the zebra crossing, in mild shock, noticing the people in the cars clock what I was carrying. I threw it into the river, which just happened to be full flood. My imagination had told me the tide would be out and I’d be making a happy little river mouse. But no. And I still threw it in. And I watched it drown. And it takes longer than you think. And that’s on my karmic record.

insha’Allah.

Nam myo ho renge kyo

Amen

Oops

Peter has one of those BMW C1 motorbikes with a roll cage on top. Just 125cc and they are top heavy. As far as I recall they first showed up in the nineties with some talk about safety, but people quickly established that they bring as many problems as they solve. Top-heaviness was the problem today.

Peter does something complicated with cashback. He’s about my age and with the air of someone having a pleasant life shift. Girlfriend and a motorbike. Kids exist but I have a feeling there’s been a divorce. He’s tall and friendly and intelligent and his eyes sparkle. Brian and I met him this afternoon for the first time.

We were shopping. Paul had been shopping too. We were in the car park. So was Paul. It took me a moment to work out what I was looking at though as he was in right mess.

It’s genuinely astonishing how much a leg can bend before the bone snaps. He was in pain. Lots of pain. But somehow … somehow it wasn’t broken. His top heavy bike had lost the back in an oil slick in the car park while he was walking it out of the bike parking area. It had fallen on his leg and he was totally trapped by it. Two people who were physically perfectly capable of lifting the thing had instead been panicking and running round in circles. When Brian and I appeared they appealed to us immediately. “You need to help him.” *cos we won’t*

Slowly and carefully, taking direction from Peter in case he was attached it it or impaled etc, Brian and I righted the bike and got it off him. It had been leaking petrol everywhere so we stood it a bit away from Peter. Peter was adrenalised by shock and trying to be Superman while repeatedly dropping his helmet. A staff member showed up and brought him a chair. He kept bouncing out of it and immediately flinching.

It’s only 125cc that bike. Brian and I are both allowed to drive it. Brian made the offer to get the thing home if it ran. You have to strap in with two seatbelts. We duly trussed our lad into the cockpit before checking where the fire extinguisher was because, you know, it could have blown up when we turned the key. A worrying thought. Especially as the only extinguisher I could clock quickly was water.

It didn’t blow up, which was a relief to me and more to Brian, double strapped into the thing as he was. I took Peter into Bergman and we went slowly to Peter’s home through traffic in convoy.

Peter was talking the hind legs off a donkey next to me and likely he’ll wake up tomorrow in massive pain and on an adrenaline comedown. Shock is a big old kick. Brian did brilliantly considering he’s jetlagged to all hell. I was watching him pilot the thing in the rearview mirror and he looked pretty angry most of the way. God knows what time his body thinks it is.

Peter rang his girlfriend who suggested that he give us a bottle of bubbles so when we got him back he vanished into the house and comically emerged, staggering on his miraculously preserved leg and clutching a chilled bottle of Fortnums champagne. “Stop. Sit down. Put your leg up.” Brian and I said it simultaneously. “And thanks.”

I like Peter. I want him to get that leg looked at though, bless him. It might not be broken but ligament damage takes so long to stop hurting and Peter would do well to have someone tell him he’s not fifteen anymore. Although it’s charming. I hope he recovers well. Sounds like the work he does doesn’t involve running around lots so it’s not gonna be disastrous like it can be for those of us who jump on things for a living. It helped Brian forget his jetlag. “What’s it like to drive?” I ask Brian. “Depressingly slow.” But the things Brian likes to drive go at light speed.

A little bit of good Samaritan. Keeps the energy moving nicely. Brian stinks of petrol. “That’s the blog sorted,” he says, and I nod.

Last night I went to sleep thinking I had crafted a masterpiece. Drop the mic, I thought.

“How are you feeling after last night?” Lou asked. “It was a gorgeous evening.” “I haven’t a clue what happened from reading you.”

I had gone to sleep thinking “yeah! I’ve crafted something. Referred back to the start at the end??! Witchcraft!”

Lou: “Yes it had a shape to it. There was a beginning, a muddle and an end.”

…

God I love Lou.

Someone has to call that crap. I re-read it, which I rarely if ever do. “what a load of nonsense,” I told her. “funny nonsense” she responded. Thank God. There’s someone out there who lets me be an idiot. Everyone gets lucky sometimes. She’s the best.

She’s had Delhi-Belly today, but was expecting it. Mostly she’s in Goa eating plants and covered in oil. I don’t think I could manage what she’s doing, genuinely. I think I’d be utterly fed up. I’m very very proud of her. She’s trying to learn extremely involved things. She’s doing it faster than anyone should ever be expected to. She’s gonna get back to the UK totally flooded with knowledge and very good at Ayurvedic massage. I’m hoping to dig out a massage table so she can at least cover her friends with oil and try and remember portions of things on her return. I’m sure I’ll need something when I get back from Japan. But the massage she observed today has over 50 movements. Nobody can take that in in a day even if they aren’t having to fire a backwards watergun through the eye of a needle at a moment’s notice on top of learning.

Lovely day today. Old friends and meetings, emails I should have sent long ago. There’s a lot to be said for having more downtime than I’m used to. The admin mountain, chipped away. I even sent an email today to Drain Detectives cos I was genuinely shocked at the lack of aftercare I got on a small job that got huge. You’ll have likely heard about the saga if you were tuning in here at Christmas. They ate a week’s wages, left it broken, and then eventually charged me for them to fix it badly. I’ve finally expressed my concerns and I’m very interested to see what they reveal themselves to be in the interaction to follow.  My hopes are not high but everyone can surprise from time to time.

And so to bed. It was my neighbour’s 69th birthday. I found out at about 7pm but happened to have a huge butcher’s RibEye and she’s French so I invited her up for late birthday dinner. We had rare steak with wine, asparagus and spinach and roast potatoes. I made my pepper sauce and cemented my reputation as a saucier. It got the French seal of approval, and that’s not easy. But it is always a monstrously fine pepper sauce. Recipe? Shallot. Various pepper, whatever stock, um, oh there’s some open wine from the other night, yeah get in the mortar weird spice mush yeah that’ll ohhhh yeah and that sweet whisky, that’ll be enough no it won’t and soy do you think that’ll go? yeah fuck it maybe, oh and cream damn there’s no cream can I butter? Tastes too umami. no no go to the shop.. hi shop, you’ve got THINGS. They go in too. Cream. Time. SAUCE!! Yep that blows my face off. Oh and I’ve still got these red peppercorns. Hmm… Pours them in. Half an hour boiling. Top up with old red wine.

Nom. Seriously. I love pepper sauce as it is about condensing. You don’t need much, but every bit of it needs to make you go “ak”. Which is the noise I made when i realised DD wanted over £300 to fix the loo they’d broken. And that’s before they fixed it worse than it was before it was bust.