AlBarclay

Another five hours of driving and more of lifting and then I finally had some time to commune with the fish tank. I can hear it bubbling away next door as I write. I think I’ll be googling “silent filter” before long, as I’ve put it right by the telly. But for now it’s a pleasant bubbly sound. Like lying near a river on a spring morning.

The tank had two little plastic Christmas trees with it – courtesy of the previous owner. I put them in there this evening even though they’re twee. “Do you think he carefully places them on the first day of Christmas with great ceremony, and removes them on Twelfth Night?” asks Max. I think he does. Definitely.

When I was collecting the tank my focus was on the fish and the tank, not on the previous owner. I don’t think I really looked at him much at all. Distancing kept him away, plus I was nervous about fishmoving. My imagination has filled up the gaps in my knowledge in the same way the brain uses past data to approximate half-witnessed events. In my imagined memory he’s wearing shorts. He has sandals on, with colourful socks. These are false memories, but they help make sense of what I assumed about him. He had some lovely fish, well kept but he’d only spent on the animals. They all seem to get on very well, and there’s a lot of personality in that tank. He gave me his Aquarium Owner’s Manual as well as everything else required for fishy delights. I’m gradually learning their ways and naming them.

I’m finding things to put in their tank, with the long term plan of replacing all the tacky plastic shelters with natural things and things with meaning. They’ve already got a scallop shell from Camino and a huge semi-precious stone I found in my grandparent’s effects.

I like the Weatherloach best of all. He is extremely friendly and active. As soon as my hand goes in the tank he is fearlessly gnawing at it for the dead skin. It’s cute, but you know he’d eat you if he could.

I’ve done so much driving and moving and lifting and I’ve worked such long hours for myself and for others over the last 4 days that I feel completely exhausted now in a really pleasant way. Droopy eyed but warm and calm and happy in the knowledge that insomnia is not a possibility. Work, followed by fishwatching. It’s better than booze as a sleep aid. And once more I’m taking the slow train to fishy dreams, with an early alarm as I’m basically working two jobs again tomorrow – but no lifting. One online. One behind a window.

If you haven’t heard from me recently it’s because I haven’t stopped. Partly work, partly life admin and partly sheer mischievous joy. I went to Greenwich and rescued a fish tank. A full fish tank. I am not the best taxonomist, so I can only name the angel fish, and maybe guess at some of the loaches. I have much to learn. There are some lovely big long ones and some little and swift ones.

It’s an involved process, moving a fish tank. I had five huge buckets with lids on them from Halfords, with loads of special fishy bags and polystyrene fish carriers. The owner was moving house, and was worried they’d end up dying. He had been losing sleep about the fish, but didn’t want to take them into his retirement in Tunbridge. They’re nervous little creatures, fishies. It’s very easy to give them a heart attack. Not only did I have to move this huge aquarium without killing the contents – I also had to put the mind of the previous owner at rest. I did my research. Here are some pro-tips!

Don’t feed them the night before the move. They’ll be in little bags for ages. It’s less fun if there’s poo in there as well. And less healthy. I messaged him on eBay and asked him to avoid it.

Catching the buggers? Syphon half the tank water first. Less room to escape. Two nets. Herd them. Then bag them with more air in the bag than water, only one or two fish per bag. Put the bags into polystyrene boxes to keep temperature from changing too much. Once the lid is on your box full of fish in bags, leave it on. Hopefully they’ll go to sleep while you move around doing the rest.

Syphon loads of the tank water into buckets with lids. I managed to take about 100 litres. Heavy as heck, but it’s their immune system. Speaking of which, put the filter unit in a fish bag with water too in order to keep the bacteria alive. It’s good for the fish. I can’t work out how to use the bloody tank heater yet so no pro tips. It works but I think it’s pretty cheap. Max helped me quickly raise the temperature by topping up with buckets full of warm water which then had to be treated and conditioned to make it safe for the little buggers. Sensitive flowers, fish.

I think I’m going to invest in a better heater that lets me see the temperature properly. I’m also going to invest in an automatic barrel feeder with a timer on it for when I go away. Another thing pulling on my time, as if I didn’t have enough already. But one of them has already won a bit of my heart, the cheeky little blighter. He’s incredibly friendly.

I think I’m going to enjoy keeping fish… One thing I’m going to do very soon is improve the decor in there. Right now they live in plastic and filthy sand. I reckon there are considerably better options out there…

It’s just gone 3am. I’m standing in my kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and eating cheddar with my left hand as I write with my right. I’m going to have 3 hot Weetabix and fall flat on my face until morning.

Croydon is a long way from Bethnal Green.

My friends had access to a huge abandoned gym in Croydon. They could use it as a store for theatre things that might come in handy one day. What things might these be? Well, the list is endless. Cables, though. Definitely lots of cables. Heavy things. Light things. Lights. Heavy lights. They lost the gym just recently as it was finally bought by a developer. But as luck would have it, Covid chased a business out of a crypt in the green. The theatre folk have moved into the crypt. I put my haulage hat on, grabbed my nephew, and after two pretty full-on days, we have moved all the stuff. I haven’t got much left in the tank to write about it, and despite eventful days my brain has dumped everything but the ability to drive and a vague idea of my name.

I’ve decanted myself to bed. Low water pressure and no shower means stinky Al tonight. I’m probably a bit stronger now. But that’s the sort of thing you say to comfort yourself when weird bits of you hurt. My feet hurt. My fingers hurt. Even my eyes are tired. Cheese was good though. Likely it’ll make for eventful dreaming, but if I hadn’t just bitten into that chunk of cheddar like it was a banana then my dreams would’ve been hungry.

Normally in an average day I get time to stop and write. Two days running I’ve either been driving or carrying every waking hour. Here are some of the people who made the day go quicker. But quick or not, I’ve got nothing left in the can.

Enjoy your day my dears. I’m off to Dreamland on the express train.

It’s half midnight. I just got home. I walked out the door sixteen hours ago and since then I haven’t stopped working. More than half of it was spent threading a van the size of Denmark through London traffic. Lunch was a sandwich and a packet of crisps behind the wheel. Supper is a banana. I’m running a bath. I need it.

My nephew was with me and dammit I’m proud of the lad. He has worked at KFC and works checkout at Sainsbury’s but I thought I’d try him out on a day in the van. It’s unpredictable work, mostly due to the vagaries of London traffic. Today has been much longer than I hoped and anticipated. But it’s been fun. Morale was always high. Our little van community covered a lot of ground, and talked a lot about movies in the process. Nick knows a great deal about movies it seems. So did Chris, the other passenger. I was likely the least knowledgeable despite having been in a couple and I could only hear half of it through the masks. There was a pretty constant stream of opinion and many many facts as we drove. I’m drained now, but elated – as you often feel after a day of graft.

The driving wasn’t the tricky bit. It just took the most time. We were moving all the bits and bobs of a theatre company, from a big abandoned gym in Croydon and into a crypt in Bethnal Green. The things we keep to use in theatre… It’s ridiculous. Huge old CRT monitors and fax machines. Ammo boxes full of rope. All the furniture that nobody else wants. Mannequins painted up to look like burnt corpses. And flats. Lots and lots of many many heavy heavy flats. Nicholas hadn’t hauled flats before and there’s a technique. I tried to teach it to him as we went. He had enough practice to improve by the end but there were a few drops. It’s amazing being eighteen though – you’ll take anything on. He did, and so long as I don’t get murdered by my sister in law for returning him at midnight then I’ll see him again tomorrow. We will have to finish by midnight tomorrow anyway, because lo and behold they’ve only gone and put us back in tier 3.

Apparently, after we left, the vicar went down to check the crypt and see what all these strange people had been loading in while she’d been having her tea upstairs. Perhaps we should have told her about the burnt corpses. Thankfully nobody was arrested.

Slowly and steadily I am digging my flat back. It might not look like it, but I am.

It’s never going to be the soul-free minimalist IKEA catalogue palace that some people feel pressurised into existing in. But I don’t want that. I just want a bit more sense.

There are many boxes of things that are about to fly away from my flat and go to thing-heaven. On Wednesday, Max and my nephew and myself intend to fill a Luton van with EVERYTHING. I will then drive it to Tennants where I will cry like a baby unless they take most of it. Anything left will be gradually shed on my journey back to London on Thursday – to other auction houses, charity shops, you name it, I’ll try it. By 6pm on Thursday, the van will be returned, and in fantasyland, my floor will be visible and we won’t be ransoming the Pope every week with storage costs. There’s the plan. Let’s see.

If some of it becomes money down the line, that money will go into the transformation of the pad. New Carpets! Oh God I want them. I would have a shower in the house by now if it wasn’t for the ‘rona. All the things that some people take for granted. Not having to tiptoe through looming piles of ceramics just to make a cup of tea. Luxury! But I’m done with all this stuff now. I’m over it. It’s been fascinating and difficult, learning. Hope springs eternal when these things belonged to those you love, and it’s never nice to discover that the things that look good are mostly not.

I’ve squeezed this huge pile of stuff for everything it’s worth over lockdown. I’ve had the time. I’ve used it. My knowledge of the relative worth of random items in today’s market is now excellent. People ask me for advice, and I’ve realised how frequently that advice is unwelcome. We are human. “Your valuable thing is shit and your shit thing is valuable.” “I refuse to accept this. I have always believed the opposite so I will continue to do so.” “Very well. Good day to you, sir.”

I’ve checked and double checked all the “valuable things” before jettisoning them casually. These things are going going going now. Going. Apart from the little decorative nice things I’m keeping hold of.

Clockman. He can stay. All the decanters and the beautiful glasses. My guests will enjoy the finest of beverages as I sip my chamomile. Ragpig might have just made the audition when Lou reacted positively to a photo. Maybe one of the Madonnas. The giant clams. Some marble bits and brassy bits. I’ll be googling “is it safe to put weird victorian glass ornaments in a fishtank”. I’m not going to find myself sitting in a bald and empty room in ten years time thinking “I wish I’d kept more of that stuff”. But I don’t want to be sitting in a tiny space surrounded by piles of unobserved tut either. As ever, somewhere in the middle.

It’s going to be a busy week next week and I’m employing Nick, my 18 year old nephew, to help with two days of haulage starting tomorrow. Poor fellow. I’ll sweep him up in the vortex. I’m kind of looking forward to getting to know him. It’ll be bouts of driving coupled with bouts of heavy lifting. If last time I saw him is anything to go by I’ll be saying “use your knees” to him every five minutes. He’s taller than I am. I’m extremely grateful to the man who insisted I use my knees on an early lifting job. Nobody wants a bad back. But I’m off to bed, as he’s half my age and he could be so bouncy I end up knackered.

I’m lying on my back in bed. Over my feet is a tapestry blanket that my grandmother made when she was in hospital recovering from Polyneuritis, before I was born. It’s kind of a horrid blanket – sorry Da. But … it’s better employed keeping my little tootsies warm than sitting in an expensive storage unit costing money.

I’ve been JoyBombing again. I’m now used to a constant stream of influencers while we work. They come and have their photos taken with me, and I have to be careful to keep in costume and character as the reality of me right now isn’t very much on brand. I’m in one of my “wildman of the woods” periods. My hair hasn’t been cut in months so it looks like I’m one of those bald guys that grows it long to comb over. My salt and pepper beard is bushy like a hedge. I’m Rasputin under the cat head. The same people who are smiling at me as I wave at them would be calling the police if I did it without the head on.

I’m careful to avoid the instagrammers unless the head is on, as most of them are hollow shells. I worry they’ll bang themselves and immediately shatter like Easter eggs, leaving just a pile of broken make-up and a phone. So I just stay in the head all day until I overheat, and lots of people take photos of me yowling.

Overheating is manageable now. I’ve remembered the old drama school lesson : “Excited is not exciting”. It can sometimes feel like I have to justify the fact I get to make money on my own terms by exhausting myself in the process. But today, Sexy Cat found meditation, and was giving just as much joy offering snippets of wisdom to passers by, and soliciting their admiration in return.

I don’t have to expend every last ounce of energy I have every time. Although as soon as it got dark I put on Invaders Must Die and we both mashed it up for the entire album and then for about three albums thereafter. I had to keep changing my head as fluffy heads turn into ovens pretty quickly. Weird Frog is the best ventilated but I’m completely blind in him, so the last four hours went by in a blur of laughter and ridiculous dance.

This is a delightful thing to do, this Joybomb job. It does what it says on the tin, it brings fleeting joy to people in strange times, and it’s exactly my jam despite the fact that I’ll never be the posterboy. I’m very much enjoying the fact that the two of us in our little box are just vibing with the project and each other, and finding true laughter as we seek to give it to others. It’s not gonna be my breakout role, but it’s more character and another angle on craft, costume, the nature of performance, simplicity, and letting the setting do the work. Everything is a learning experience if you let it be. But it’s tiring, all this joy. Hence the bed and blanket. Although I’m going to have to have a bath now because I absolutely pong.

I drove uninsured in the summer by mistake. Many of you know this as I got angry with myself in that special way when you secretly know its your own fault. I got picked up in under five minutes by a patrol car at some traffic lights running the plates. £300 and six points. Despite my first offence of any kind it was deep Covid time, so there was no option of a course to avoid the points. Picked up by new scanning technology. They used to need a reason. But I was driving perfectly well and I surprisingly had no flat tyres. I said to the copper at the time: “You’ve likely fucked my earning here.” He looked at me as if to say “Wrong pronoun.” But it’s only a step away from inadvertently dropping a receipt while pulling your wallet out and getting a littering fine in the post from facial recognition tech. And they’ve definitely made my life harder for no real gain – but for revenue generated by the fine.

This morning I was on the phone to Sixt – the van rental company. Having been stung at the last minute on van hire because of the points, I’m now in the habit of checking and double checking. Nationwide binned a booking two days after I made it. Took their sweet time. Almost dropped me in a right mess. Thankfully Sixt had a van free for a similar price.

I had to listen to their hold music for 46 minutes to check about the points. This music right now consists of one unfamiliar Christmas song on loop -it’s a confused young woman naming seemingly random seasonal items into an autotuner. Thankfully I had no axe handy or I might have done a spot of murdering while I waited. Instead I just danced. In a room full of soft furnishings.

My phone was resting on top of an inflatable dalmation as I spoke about insurance through speaker phone in my bright pink powerfully lit chamber. I had a large cat head on, and was gesticulating frantically to the afternoon crowds on the street outside as I spoke. For work. It’s ART, darling. Not one of those orgies. Art. Yah. My gestures in no way mirrored my words. “I’m concerned about an I10 penalty received in July this year.” JAZZHANDS.

This was to the very nice young man in Germany who eventually answered my call, speaking English that runs circles around much of the English I’ve heard from UK based customer care callcentres.

Sixt is a German company. I found this out today. I hope this bullshit doesn’t throw their business out of whack as they’re great. He reassured me, he was patient and thoughtful and intelligent, and he even ended up extending my rental to fit my needs free of charge, which I was gobsmacked by. Nationwide were crap but it turns out they’re a broker which would explain it. They aren’t renting their own vans so they can’t be flexible and the insurance requirements vary so they just blanket ban drivers with any points. But again it’s got me thinking of this cliff edge that we’re approaching of Brexit.

This time last year the British delivery guys from Team Know-How did everything in their power to make sure they didn’t remove my oven despite having been paid for it. They didn’t want to take it down the stairs. “Glad you’ve taken it so well – normally at this time of year it’s the old ladies turning on the waterworks,” one of them said. “Maybe you should just do what you’ve been paid for,” I ventured. (They didn’t. Mouse droppings. “It’s not safe”. Work avoidance was a clear habit for them.)

A few weeks previous to the lazy know-how lads a pair of Latvians had repeatedly refused my assistance getting a fridge up to the fire escape, and then wouldn’t take a tip – “we’ve been paid well enough already”. They gave me a lift to Pimlico in their van. I only mention their nationalities alongside their behaviours as it’s a noticeable trend in my recent experience that the British at work aren’t particularly interested in being helpful. Or working. And soon it’s likely to be the only choice we have. We will never get anything done. I’ll just keep dancing in the window. Like I can talk. I call that work.

When I was a young man we used to have these things called “parties”. Nowadays we use the word party to mean a collection of idiots – for instance “the conservative party”. But when I was a young whippersnapper, back in 2019, perfectly reasonable individuals would gather together in the same place and render themselves circular with liberal application of toxic ethanol. Sometimes we would throw arms around one another or dance or snog somebody before you ask their name. You’d share drinks. You’d brush up against one another without noticing, just as part of an interaction. A hand on the shoulder for emphasis. An affectionate pat. We’d gather together indoors and share an experience, an evening, a few hours. Years later we’d still remember it in flashes with old friends. “Fuck me yes I remember, and everybody was smoking in the kitchen and stubbing cigarettes into an old doner kebab.” Hot sweaty throngs with the music too loud and everybody shouting. Too many people and not enough chairs. Some good looking arsehole upstairs being mean to people because he secretly hates himself. The guy who is always hammered falling over on the TV. An entire bottle of red wine on the bed because a friend insisted on bringing Jonty and Jonty turned out to be a jerk. Somebody losing their coat, somebody else crying uncontrollably. The tough friend conversation: “I love you. You’re drunk. You’re being a twat. Go home.” Protestations of love and lust. The guy who keeps vanishing and coming back touching his nose and talking loudly.

Waking up the next morning to find chicken bones on the sofa and a fucked microwave somebody found in the street containing Tom’s PhD thesis. Somebody on the sofa called Mog who somehow ends up sleeping there for three more nights before you pluck up the courage to ask him who he is. “Oh sorry mate, I thought this was a squat”. Emerging into the light of the next day to discover you’re still dressed as a caveman and everybody outside is wearing a suit and walking quickly and you feel like you don’t fit.

Back in the real world your stomach muscles hurt for a week from playing “Everybody pick up the same cereal packet off the floor using just teeth with only your feet touching the floor” or “Limbo” or “let’s all swap clothes” or “let’s play hide and seek” where you decided to fold up into a chest and everybody else got bored and stopped playing. Whenever your head or body hurts you smile at the memory and then grimace because you said a stupid thing that literally nobody remembers but you. And you never work out how you got that cut on your leg.

Laid out like that it doesn’t sound as glamorous. But I miss it. The throng – all those vile bodies all in one place. This time of year was crazy, back when I was a whippersnapper, before we needed a permit to go to the shops.

Ahhh those heady nights overheating because the radiators are all on and forty people are dancing in coats in a room the size of a doctor’s surgery for six hours.

We’d be in Christmas Carol now. Crazy crazy Carol. We would BE the party. “Ebenezer, can we buy you some wine?” Jack and I would be dosed up on everything possible to get us through the next three weeks without turning into a puddle. In Covidland, we would have been vectors.

Looking back over my blogs, it’s a year today since I walked in to an audition and came out with a part in a nice thing – thank God for that. I was drinking hard, fighting myself hard, working hard but not taking any time to reflect or improve myself. Work party work party work until the work is the party and the party is the work.

Maybe this Brave New World is good for a while, as I take the winter sober and mostly alone in order to approach hibernation by my standards. I’m still spinning all the plates. But at least I’m not obliterating myself on purpose at the same time. Maybe I’ll be able to take some of the plates and put them away soon. But… the party. Sometimes I miss it.

It all started when I was in Pets at Home Battersea. I was purchasing some luxury food items for the gentleman snake. It always involves walkie talkies and waiting. They have to dig around in the freezer. So I looked at the fish tanks while I waited.

I like fish. We kept them when I was a kid. Lots of them died – well, all of them eventually but lots of them in a short space of time. Much of it was to do with one of our friends putting dettol in the tank for jokes. Then, another time, they were basically all eaten by the catfish.

“I wonder how much it costs to get a fish tank,” I found myself thinking, remembering those happy weird days of fishiness.

A 100 litre tank in the pet shop with no accessories had a price tag of £130. Then there’s an aerator, nice things for them to swim around in, a heater, a cabinet to put the tank on top of – not to mention the fish. Too much. Nevertheless I’ve got my phone in my hand. Ebay. “Fish tank”.

And Lo! – on eBay there’s a tank and it’s two hundred litres. It’s huge, comes with all extras and what’s more there’s something like 17 fish already in it. There it is, with a big red “Buy it now” button. “Must know how to move fish safely.” Hmm.

I’m in a pet shop. I ask somebody how you move fish. Next thing I know she’s gone and got me twenty “fish moving bags”. I’m getting the blow by blow on air to water ratio in the bag. On how to acclimatise fish to a new environment. Interesting. I reckon I can do this. I click the big red button. I buy the lot. Oh well.

The tank is in Greenwich. I had this impulse last night. I’m collecting it with a van on Wednesday afternoon.

With the cabinet it’s almost as tall as am. It’s huge. It weighs a ton…

There’s nothing like having 17 incoming fish to spur a bit of motivation. I made good headway into the boxing, sorting and understanding of bulk glassware and ceramics, trying to make an alleyway where this huge unwieldy tank can be quickly carried and safely deposited. It’s a double whammy. The fish tank van will then be going to Yorkshire with the entire remaining contents of storage and as much of the stuff in my flat as I can fit in with it. It’s all booked. We are go go go. Furniture out, fish in. It’s a karmic exchange of sorts I guess. And if they become a burden, it’ll be easy to move them on again. Right now though I’m digging it. Fish! And a snake! And me! The little cold blooded family is growing. Just so long as the snake doesn’t get into the tank with the fishes. That’d be worse than dettol and a hungry catfish.

Finally, some furniture is out. My experiment with Rosebery’s Auction House continues apace. They’re fussy, but so long as we aren’t paying to store it anymore I’m fine. I just don’t want anything back so I hope they price it right. Furniture is my blind spot. And glass. I’m getting a bit better at both. But still got a long way to go. I got a zipvan and we drove it across town. Could’ve picked a better time of day for it. I had to add an hour. Still, I’m sure we will get more than £30.

It’s fun, knowing what things are. I quite like it. I think the key is to shut up about the things you recognise unless asked. My hackles would always go right up when somebody started telling me about my own things. “You know that painting of your mum is by … / SHUT UP”.

But solicited I guess it’s ok. And now I’ve helped myself I can help others. A friend of mine might want me to come and look at some things for her in her mum’s old place. She got burgled but they only took a ring and a computer – much like the bastards who broke into my car.

I guess things are desperate these days. A ring they can try to hock for £80 is going to pay for Christmas. So long as they don’t end up in prison first. I wonder if they have Christmas meals in prison. It’s not worth the negative energy to find out.

Not only is the risk of getting rumbled hanging heavy over whoever did it, but also the wordless curses of the ghosts who had the ring before, plus the bad juju emanating from my friend, her brother and even me at their foray into occupied space.

I’ve booked a job next week driving some things across town in a Luton van for somebody else. They are expensive things to hire, so I’m thinking about how I can capitalise on it when I’ve got the thing. Out of hours I might try to go up to Yorkshire with it full of the rest of the stuff and just see what good old Tennants can do with it. I was wrong about them jobbing all the plates. They jobbed the crap plates. I’ve also got a lead to a place in Bury St Edmunds which is closer to town but less familiar. Once again I’m spinning all the plates, and trying to work out how I can optimise my time without all that pesky sleep getting in the way. Before long I’ll be craving the simplicity of lockdown again.

It might be better to just extend the rental by a day I guess. Spending money instead of stretching myself so thin I’m microscopic. It’s unfamiliar…