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Pockets of things to forget, all over this flat. Sometimes I am motivated enough to look at one of them a moment and usually it turns out that pretty much the entire contents of an area have been put there not because they’re precious but because they are not good enough to sell, I don’t like them enough to display, and they’re not bad enough to throw out.

Today the mood was on me enough that I cleared through a fair amount of it all. The crap got chucked, the mediocre got recycled, the good got consolidated. Now I’ve got much more space in my living room and one or two things in a different place, and just one thing I’m curious to get looked at for value.

Brian was brilliant helping out. It’s easier with two. I got disillusioned a few times and trapped in memory a few times, but considering I like moving energy there’s an awful lot still stagnating around me in this place. I’ll need a few more days like this for sure, but this was a good one. It still feels like I’m surrounded by shite, but we are going away from the piles and not towards them.

We had a proper hoarder downstairs in the block for years. He’s gone now. I helped him into his house one night when he was drunk and had soiled himself after a fight with a taxi driver. There was nowhere to move. Piles of encrusted junk everywhere, little corridors in them, to serve the daily pathways. I noticed things of mine that he had pulled out of bins just lying there. I think eventually his family jumped him and put him in a home and then it all went into skips. Probably a huge amount of absolute rubbish and one good thing. Problem is, the best thing was probably hidden in an old sock in the broken washing machine, and everything on display was junk. But in the end it’s all just stuff.

Brian and I went in the car to the dump. Could’ve taken more stuff, I got home and clocked some old paint pots I had just not seen, but it is clearer in here, and I’m not gonna get pissed off about anything we chucked today. I’m getting better as I get older which is a good thing. Processed too much stuff from too many people to make that old common mistake of attributing value to everything. Most of it will go for not much plus work.

So I’m chilling out in the early evening, watching the last few episodes of Breaking Bad with Brian and Maddy who have absolutely nailed that series and are doubtless gonna get into Better Call Saul next. Uncomfortable but lavish telly.

I’ve been looking forward to this morning. I switched off all my alarms and let myself sleep until I woke. When that happened I still had the guilty feeling that perhaps I was supposed to be doing something but I wasn’t. So I sent some invoices and did a bit of admin and tried not to get too pissed off with the plumber who took over my day yesterday.

Outside of the expensive plumbing bill I had a good audition for one of my favourite Shakespeare plays – it’s not done as often as the others, and I think it speaks to who I have become a lot more than many of the better known plays. As You Like It. Just a first round at the moment so I can’t give it too much thinking time. I think it would just hit the spot right now after a depressing autumn, to go into winter knowing I have some acting work, even if it isn’t an easy one to get industry types to come and see.

Today though, no audition. No real need to motivate myself outside of the ever present desire to make money. I stayed at home, topped up my pill carousel, relaxed and read books and organised my diary. I planned a few jobs, made a few phone calls, lined up the next few things.

My diary is filling up again and it is as eccentric as ever. Some days I’ll have to switch my head a couple of times, but I’ll fit it all in and come out the far side still able to eat nice food, no richer, no poorer but happy and without having to bin the bad luxurious habits. It’s just as well I also love a meal deal sandwich snack and drink. They rarely make the blog but they go in with astonishing regularity. I also have a disconcerting habit of forgetting to eat entirely. That was what I did after the plumber the other day.

Siwan Jo John Canice and I all piled onto the Heath and I staggered around hungry working out the journey through this year’s Halloween walk. I think I’ve got my head on the structure now. The content and finding ways of pinning it together and calling things back – that’s next. There’s still time. Dress rehearsal on the 14th. I hope my riding cape is still in the attic. Should probably check. I also want to try and fill my hat with helium balloons, but it’s probably not going to work like I imagine it will.

The Hampstead Creperie is still cash only and I love them for it. £10.50 and there’s a hot asparagus ham and cheese thing for you to tear into. There’s still frequently a queue and I will buy crepes there as much as I can to support one of the few people that haven’t bought into this “proud to be card only” fuckery.

I’m just writing words though at this point. I’m happy and chilled. Just had a bath. Did so little today I’m mostly having to write about yesterday. That’s a Friday. Oh wonders. Tomorrow Brian and I are gonna get our DIY heads on.

Ninja Plumbers. The clue’s in the name. Stealthy, unseen, painful.

I sent them a video ages ago and told them exactly what was needed. A new tap in the kitchen. An adjustment to the pipes under the sink. I was clear about it. I’ve been bitten before by tradesmen. Was hoping they would come with a tap like I suggested and some valves. That’s all we needed. It’s very very hard to find someone who will come to this post code and not slap a load of hidden charges onto the bill. I wanted to avoid the callout and made it very clear I was in no hurry.

How much did they charge me to change the kitchen tap? I dare you? Make a guess? Say it out loud.

It’s more.

The first figure he gave me was about £475. The work was done already by this point. I was so horrified I could barely speak. Eventually we got as far as £430. And I paid him. I had to. Couldn’t look him in the eye. I am still fuming. I paid £430 to change the tap in the kitchen. Just to stop a harmless but annoying water hammer noise. £430 is the amount I paid for that work. A business charged me £430 for a tap change. A change of tap cost £430. Four hundred and thirty British pounds sterling. £215 per half tap. £107.50 for a quarter tap. £53.75 for an eighth tap. Over £25 for one sixteenth of a tap. Over £13 for a single 32th of a tap fitting. Over £6.70 for a 64th.

I’m saying this a lot just because I need to look at it from many angles, just to see if there’s one where it doesn’t look so fucking absurd. £430. Four. Hundred. And. Thirty. Pounds. To change a kitchen tap.

The worst thing is, I dared to dream. These guys are local. “Maybe the Chelsea Tax isn’t applied when they are local,” I told myself. £430 for a tap change. For a change of tap £100 times 4 and £10 times 3 all added together.

I’m gonna need a lot of plumbing in the next year or so. I’ve needed it for years and I’m trying to look at it, but I can’t do it with no fucking money left and if all the plumbers are like this. I have not done it yet because every fucking time without fail they see me coming and that ole Chelsea Tax is applied and it drives me mad.

I once got a quote over the phone and then after I gave my address they phoned me back and slapped another £200 on the quote. “My guy quoted you wrong.” He didn’t know where I live yet. It’s fucked. It’s fucked. It’s fucked. I still need to find a plumber that isn’t gonna do that. Anyone with leads in the area, send them my way. The guy today was solid, I liked him. But he hadn’t seen the video I sent, hadn’t brought the tap and piping like I suggested, took the long way round, ended up somehow charging £430. To fit a tap. Tried to charge more. A tap to fit, £430, for a tap a kitchen tap in the kitchen, a tap a tap a tap. I’m pretty fucking sure he went shopping on the clock and had his lunch.

He charged me a decent week’s wage to fit a tap.

I want to be sick on him. Big chunky bits of sick. He can afford the dry cleaning.

I’m gonna go test it now. I haven’t even checked to see if it comes out hot.

It comes out hot. At least he fit it ok. If it goes wrong… It won’t. It mustn’t. It can’t.

BEHOLD THE TAP OF MONEY

Probably shouldn’t link the business like I have but I’m not saying they’re a bunch of thieves. I’m just saying what they charged me and talking about what I got.

Fatima’s next job could be in plumbing, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Unbelievable.

£430. Four Hundred and Thirty Pounds.

Am I out of touch? Have I died and woken up in the future after crazy inflation? Or is that way way way too expensive, particularly considering I told them ahead of time precisely what was needed? What do we need a callout when the job is known? I should have bought a tap. Two hours on YouTube and the price of a tap and some tubing.

Or £430. Nah. Doesn’t look good from any angle.

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing illegal about it.”

So my old neighbour who I barely know sent me to Boots. He lives in Thailand and he wants me to post drugs to him. Apparently the old lady who used to do it is indisposed. Maybe she was arrested? Nah I’m sure it’s fine.

Boots is a pretty legit chemist, let’s be honest. They gave me the bags and I told the guy in the Post Office that it was Prescription Medication. He wrote “Prictiscion Medicine”.

It’s Tamsulosin. I’ve got no idea what it’s for or if it’s legal in Thailand. Off it goes with my name on it. I gave him my Monzo details and told him how much it was to post. It got me out of the house so I’m not too bothered, but if it’ll be every month or so I ain’t paying the man to be helpful.

Then I did a quid pro quo with Frank. A much better way to do business. He helped me get all my tools and Lou’s costume and my spare masks etc up to my flat so I’m not worrying about it. In exchange I drove his plants to his, and also gave him one of the Glyndebourne suit jackets as he had spilled glue on the first one. I started with about twenty and kept them because they are excellent for floor managing. You have to have a plain black suit jacket, at the end of a fourteen hour event shift it will be covered in shit and doubly so if you’re kitchen managing. You want a new one for every day of the event ideally. I would often be very unhappy by the third day, and up extra early when it is already an early start just to wash out a stain. I haven’t done that work for a few years now, but I’ve got the skillset and it’s always a world you can walk back into if you need to.

Someone has clonked the front of Bergman something rotten, while he was parked outside this afternoon. It was this afternoon, right outside mine. No doorbell cams looking at me. I think it was a scaff van turning in my cul de sac. It’s cosmetic but it’s a hard one not to see. Poor Bergie, he’s a mess of scratches now. I had a moment thinking it was malicious damage, but actually no. That’s when they spike a tyre or smash a light. This is not placed enough. It’s random. And annoying.

I took him up to Hampstead to rehearse Halloween, but Siwan dropped paint everywhere so we decided to just go to hers instead and rescheduled for tomorrow. Keeping it varied. Audition tomorrow afternoon… I’m gonna sign off.

George is opening a Deli on Tuesday. He used to run a venue in Dulwich and the basement is full of appliances. They went in haphazardly. Often bagged atrociously. He’s got an eye on what he wants back out but it is all buried in everything else.

“I want this, this, this…” He takes me through it all on video in the morning. He keeps adding things. “Maybe if you take these things first then you’ll get to those,’ he begins and “Just tell me what you need moving and leave the load to me.”

I’m fresh and awake having just driven back from Brighton to get the van at 8:30. I really wish I had my own van. My plus one slept through his alarm, so … we start the day with videos and a moment of planning.

Mark arrives reasonably quickly. He’s fit and strong and he doesn’t drink so the late arrival is not paired with a crap worker. I had one of my lads hanging on the job in the warehouse last week and I almost sent him home on the spot. Fucking useless.

It’s so piecemeal, this job, but we handball most of this stuff up the stairs. There’s a shit cargo lift for the heaviest stuff but it’s largely just easier to hoik it up by hand. The van gets totally overloaded and tightly packed. We have both been running the tail lift hard. Inevitably now it is fully loaded the van won’t start. We’ve run the battery out on lifting.

Pace aren’t with the RAC or the AA. It’s the budget breakdown boys for them, based in Essex. They eventually show up and get the engine running. I’m late now though. Getting a bit tired of Pace Vans dying on me. “Careful mate, that vans overloaded.”

I drive across town at ten miles an hour with the hazards on. Some cunt on a cycle with a GoPro pulls up alongside me at lights and tells me he can’t tell which way I’m going. I have been going straight, and have been cancelling the hazards whenever I had signal that needed to be seen. I don’t bother fully explaining myself to the guy, he’s making content so he’s hoping for reactions. “I’m driving exceptionally slowly which could be hazardous so I’m warning traffic,” I inform him and hopefully not his subscribers.

I get unloaded into the deli, and immediately off again to get a fridge from Abbey Road. Fucking huge great thing. About half a Boris, according to the hiding twat scale. “We’ll have to cut the wire,” she says. “Surely we can just take the plug off?” Many heads make light work.

That works. John and I somehow get it into the Luton together by lying it flat. Loads of water comes out when we do that. Perhaps that’s why she sold it. Probably good to drain it.

We get it out the other end and into the deli with four people. No damage. Another thing ticked off. I’m home again.

My bruises have bruises. I’ve done something odd to one of my fingers.

Sleep.

Another night by the sea. I’ve got to take those fucking tools out of Bergman tomorrow as it gives me palpitations them being in there overnight. He got robbed twice last summer and one of them was outside where I’m sleeping. He’s not on the seafront tonight though and they’re covered but still… About £200 right plum there, and the means to nick a bike in about fifteen seconds. Plus some very nice masks for robbing banks and so forth. I need to get that stuff secure again.

Tomorrow morning back to London in the wee hours and immediately onto a van job. Today another peaceful day and would have been perfect if Lou hadn’t taken a tumble. “I’m such a plonker,” she says, but it was just a trip and thankfully she’s okay. She’s top heavy though so she goes over forwards, and she hurt her face once so her hands go out, and her hands are her living. Thankfully just nasty grazes on the padding. She can still sew. If she had broken her wrist just before she goes on a three month tour as deputy wardrobe I think I would have been sick and I certainly wouldn’t have been writing a blog tonight. But all is well. Just cuts and bruises and a properly teenage knee.

We were at Falmer just bumbling around on a slope we have walked up when soaking wet and treacherous. It should have been easy. But they say most car crashes happen within a mile of home.

We went to The One Garden and got one of the teenage staff to lend us a first aid kit and she cleaned up and it’s fine.

Such a great October. There was a chance to lie in the morning sun together up at Ditchling before she tumbled.

We got home and I roasted a whole gilthead bream with asparagus and tomatoes and garlic. Then we consumed two episodes of The Studio with Seth Rogen which is just carnage and entirely relatable and they have pulled it to get some incredible cameos. If you’re in film it’ll make you extremely uncomfortable in a really funny way. Definitely a thing to catch.

A long drive to Brighton. Rail replacement buses and so everyone is driving instead and someone crashed. I worked out a route around it ignoring Google and it seemed to go in my favour. Channelling dad and his “bump of locality”.

He would be 100 today, it’s his birthday.

Precious little about the old man on the internet and I think he would be glad of that. Occasionally I find a photo of one of his old powerboats or him in something like a dragster crossed with death car. He was my age when I knew him first. And he was still moving fast whenever possible. I wonder what our adult relationship might have been. “Actors don’t like me,” he told me when I said that was gonna be my thing. “I sometimes play golf with Sean Connery but I think he merely tolerates me because I’m Scottish”.

1925 he was born. He served at the end of WW2, doing something out in Japan about munitions and Bren gun carrying. He was army. Wheeler dealing even then though and following opportunities. He stayed there after the war. Rumour has it that there might be half brothers there old enough to be my grandparents. He had a butsudan from those times which I remember knowing when I was growing up but I’ve never seen it as an adult – I think it went with his house. It was only small, but I remember him talking about what must have been Nichiren Buddhism when I was a child, in relation to it. “Yes, it’s mostly just one phrase on repeat, but it has an effect. You’re essentially brainwashing yourself to be a better more motivated version of yourself. That’s pretty good as far as religions go.” I’ve never done one of those DNA tests but if I did I might get an email from someone over there. I can barely keep up with my friends over here. But I like to think he would occasionally say Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo. Age can be unkind so it’s nice to think that the man who very seriously taught me the correct way to stand on top of a moving car was older than I am now.

Happy century birthday dad. Thanks for the memories, the fearlessness, the ease.

I’m by the sea, by Lou, living in the now, thinking of his influence. We went to the woods and caught the light and the mild Indian summer and now it’s early to bed and a lovely chilled day by the sea to look forward to. I won’t be racing powerboats. Probably would be if I could afford it though.

This is what the weekend is for. I’m almost tempted to put the heating on but I’ve got the blanket and it’s still only October. But that was a week. I had no clue how tired I would feel at the end of it all but last night I slept like a rock and I remembered to switch off my 5am alarm. Misty would have been sad as it is her special time when Boo is asleep where she can run around and pretend she runs the place. Most of this week she has been demonstrating all her toys at crack of dawn to me while I’m trying to establish how much coffee it is possible to put into my face in an hour.

But today, nothing. I’m off to see Lou tomorrow but she knew I would be recovering today. Suddenly I’ve discovered all sorts of bruises. My foot. My arm. One of my shoulders. The Julius Caesar back. It is all a little less… young than it was ten years ago. I feel worked out.

So I stayed in bed as long as humanly possible this morning. Got up to make coffee but until about eleven that was the plan and then I didn’t have any milk so I wandered up the sunny road to Heidi and bought a Croque Monsieur and a coffee to have outside in the sunshine. Opportunities to do that are running out and sure enough by three o’clock the early sun was buried in cloud and the ice wind was blowing in the promise of winter. I quickly ran across town in Bergman to help Siwan move a ladder. Didn’t want to but I owe her a favour or three. My whole conversation was about how I didn’t feel very well, just because I’m tired. But the ladder got moved to museum street and I paid the Congestion Charge. Then back back back home, with a brief stop near Monmouth Street. I wandered to Monmouth Coffee. Everyone always mentions that place first. There was a queue six long sticking out the door. I immediately switched out of the whole idea of it.

Nothing is that much better than everything else. There are dozens of places that roast their own beans within two minutes walk of Monmouth without a queue like that. But right now the received idea is that Monmouth is the best which pretty much automatically precludes it from actually being the best, by default. And I suckered in. Like when we all bought into Google being the best browser and it experimented with how shit it could get before we noticed. Popularity + demand + capitalism = shortcuts. It’s why I won’t drink Starbucks. Those poor worldwide beans must have had a foul chemical existence and be as far from nature as anything can be and still taste of something.

So I’m back home without any coffee beans for tomorrow morning cos I didn’t want to risk a queue while I was parked in a loading bay. And I’m gonna get into bed with the blanket on and wait until one of the cats catches on and joins me. And there’s enough coffee for tomorrow, from a little independent roaster in Shepherds Bush. And all is well.

Oh God I’m absolutely wracked with sour adrenaline. This has been a big week and at the end of it I have just recorded a short story, me on film, reading it for a guy in Australia. It was 12 pages long and I knew I needed to get it done in an hour, and Alex in the studio kept faffing. We lost a good fifteen minutes to him changing his mind about the microphone, and then he kept on breaking my flow to give notes that frequently just betrayed that he hadn’t read the fucking story so didn’t have context on what I was doing with it.

I said the final word on the dot of 5pm. He can’t charge overtime for that. My reading could have been better if he hadn’t fucked my flow almost relentlessly at the start. I watched the first one in this series I’m part of and I thought the actor was being way too slow. Then every single note the engineer gave me was about slowing down when we didn’t have time (and the story is a heist – it wants a build in pace.)

So yeah. Sour adrenaline. Not enough time in a studio hour for interpretative shenanigans particularly pushing me to sound all serious and important, particularly when the first quarter is wiped out with tech issues that might have been solved ahead of time.

Still, Alex does know what he’s doing. He’s good at listening. But it isn’t just audio and he is used to that being the only information carrier. He doesn’t know what I’m doing on camera, so his notes only address half the delivery. That’s why I’ve got the sour adrenaline. I want this to be excellent, of course I do, but it doesn’t matter how good it is if it stops before its finished. I promised my client I could do twelve pages in an hour, and I managed it despite everything by the skin of my fucking teeth and I feel wrung out now.

But this has been the week. Deadlines, new information, responsiveness. I’m fucking knackered. This time last year we were finishing a long long rehearsal process for a calm and happy job that I will never forget, the people were so wonderful…

Nice though to do something creative, to care about ideas and storytelling instead of metal and wood and heavy machinery. Nice to get home without oil and filth all up my arms and all over my face. I’m gonna go to the shop and buy a pie, put it in my face and wind myself to bed. This is an excellent night not to drink, as after the week I’ve had that would be my coping strategy hands down. Pie will have to do.

Not even pie, with the storm outside. That might explain my mood, a storm rolling in. I’m having pasta pesto with the cats.

I didn’t really need a second van and driver for today but just instinctively booked it, as I wanted to be absolutely certain we were finished at the end of it. “I’m convinced someone up there is looking after you,” says Canice when the first van gets a massive puncture and I’m fine as I weirdly decided to spend on a second one. He says it before Lee from the unit next door undercuts the RAC for cash and changes the tyre for us right there. He runs a Mercedes garage and has the tyre and the tools. We’ve been pissing him off blocking him all week so I’m glad to bring him some business, and I think Canice might be right that someone has got my back.

We got it all signed off. Final load was a pile of cut up steel. Canice and I drove it to the local scrap metal dealer and they have no time today. Shit. There’s a great big artic unloading in there. So we drive out to the marshes.

It’s another world out there. The streets are lined with shit. I know it’s expensive to tip things, I’ve spent thousands in the last few days. Pure wood is cheaper than “mixed”. We drive past sofas, old mattresses, all sorts of detritus, just thrown off the back of vans in the dark. It’s like an apocalypse movie. Who knows how long it has all been there. I get it, you’re broke, you rent a van to get a room clear or something, you don’t know that you can’t get vans into the tip without paying. It happened to me with a mattress aged 24 or something. So we parked the car and walked to the tip carrying it. They wouldn’t let us in carrying it either. So I waited until it was dark and then drove around until I found a quiet place where someone else had done the same and … well who knows if I leaned it up against a wall and fucked off or not? I know. Hopefully I thought better of it, but perhaps I was just clueless and broke and antisocial and don’t want to admit to it publicly in case someone says it’s a crime.

Still it’s horrible all that junk, and of course it is nobody’s job to go get it. It could be put back round if it was, but no good Samaritan is gonna pick it up as it’ll cost them. If the government started paying individuals to clear old flytip sites it would have to be worth their while and it would be wide open to abuse. Dump it, then pitch to clean it up.

I’m done anyway. I have two good tools I didn’t have before. One of them would be amazing if I was a bike thief but I can’t seem to find my multitool or my DeWalt charger. I’m sure they are buried in my living room somewhere. Nobody would have taken them thinking I wasn’t paying attention to them.