AlBarclay

Hex the royal python has started to get involved with rewriting Shakespeare. He insisted on slithering all over the keyboard while we had a Google Doc version of the script open, so everybody would have seen his edits – at one point perhaps a string of “sss” – as they went live and then were deleted. You can’t train a snake. Or at least I can’t. I need a basket and a pipe but even with the paraphernalia I reckon he’d defy me. I had to muck him out today as well, which is not the most pleasant job although he doesn’t make much mess in the scheme of things.

I had to wash out his claggy tank in my bath with him strung round my neck and pulsing. I could try to fool myself into thinking it’s an affectionate hug. He’s either after my warmth or he’s trying to work out if he’s strong enough to take me down. He isn’t, though. And he isn’t hungry either. He had no interest in the weekly mouse puppet show this evening.  He might take it when I’m not looking as I’ve left it with him overnight. If not that’s a waste of another good dead mouse. Another tiny life.

It’s the beginning of the weekend at home, and a warm day. I’ve literally never seen so many people walking up and down the Embankment and sitting on the benches down the sides of the river. I suppose normally they’d all be spread over London in various establishments – sporting grounds and pubs with beer gardens and so forth. Battersea Park was like a rugby scrum when I went last week so maybe the people who aren’t locking themselves in full time have decided, erroneously, that they’ll have a bit more room on the embankment. I went up on the roof.  Nobody up there but me, and I needed the air above me after way too long with a ceiling.

I love this time of year. The wind starting to blow warmer, the natural world waking up. All the blossom will be out on all the cherries and magnolias in London, and most of us are shut inside and can’t see it. Most of the conversations I’ve had with people involve us sharing our bewilderment with one another. A lot of people are sad. This lack of activity and sunlight can do that. Also the gradual drip of sad news. People’s dads suddenly dying, some of this virus, others of other things, but quite a few of them. Noticeably more than usual.

I’m trying to keep myself healthy spiritually and mentally within this, as I feel that if I can do that much then I can come out of it well. My instinctive disobedience has made me question the fact that everybody is doubling down on the navel gazing. But I guess this is an opportunity to hone a practice that is good for us, be it mindfulness, yoga, meditation or just writing 500 words every day and posting it. All these things are helpful…

The timesoup is thickening and people are starting to go bonkers. Not being locked up with somebody else is a blessing and a curse. I can live according to my own timings but my timings are all over the place these days. I’ve achieved next to nothing all day and actually I’m perfectly happy with that. It’s not even the weekend. I feel bollocks anyway, and I slept long hours. Partly sickness, partly just indolence. I didn’t have a target today. Even the simple aim of a zoom rehearsal is a thing for which I have to wash myself and put clothes on and attach a smile. I’m still wearing the I slept in plus socks, and it’s 9.30 at night. I’m only tired because I’m supposed to be tired. It isn’t like I’ve done anything to warrant being tired. Friday night, ladies and gentlemen. Friday night. Usually that’s the night when I walk into the bar, get hit by desperate noise heat and sweat, and remark to my friend “Oh fuck is it Friday? Shall we just sack it off?”

Right about now I think I’d get stuck in. I could manage that, being part of that shouting mess of dumb bodies as you breathe each others sweat and have entire shouted conversations about nothing with someone’s shoulder jammed into your back and then the stressed out glass collector drops a tray of glasses and the whole room cheers spontaneously and then laughs at itself for cheering as if it was one huge heaving great stupid organism. Shit Friday London and coming now to the time of year where there aren’t so many coats and scarves to lose and you aren’t going to freeze to death waiting for a nightbus so you can have another one even though there’s work tomorrow morning because fuck it, it’s a Friday, right? Yeah!

Nuclear bolognese, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Judge Dredd the Megacollection. Today, Michael, I’m going to be a teenager. And nobody can tell me not to so nerrr.

Thankfully in keeping with the rules of being an actor – (ie work at the times nobody else works) – I am in rehearsal tomorrow morning on zoom. So now I’m slipping from the miasma of my strangely comforting if thoroughly indulgent and lazy teenage day into the tried and tested bedtime routine as detailed yesterday.

Last night I dreamt I was hanging out with old friends. People from the cresta. Long long time ago friends. We were just hanging out together. An outwardly uncomplicated dream with many inner complications. The longing to just hang out. The desire to be active and outdoors under that wonderful Swiss sky. A la recherche de temps perdue. When I was really an actual teenager and my time was nothing but my own.

I can’t be shiftless for long now, ever. I’ve seen what it does when it accumulates over time. I woke up one morning and started walking again. There’s still a long walk ahead, but now there’s a long walk behind. It’s ok to rest our feet for a bit.

 

I have been totally trashing my living room in the name of art. There’s origami and confetti strewn hither and yon, my great big plant is currently sitting randomly by the sofa surrounded by bits of possible costume and Hex’s traveling box. All over the place there are mugs and notepads and props and shiny things and scissors and stickyback plastic. The chances of me tidying it up are next to nonexistent. I’m loving making the creative whirlwind right now, and there’s nobody here but me. Strangely my bedroom is neat and tidy. But maybe it’s because I know how important rest is right now in this time of worldwide rest.

Time is wobbly. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and turn round and it’s evening. I haven’t been under the sky for long enough that I miss it. I sleep with my blinds up though, so the morning sun wakes me enough that I know it’s morning and kick into breakfast mode. I understand the shape of the day despite now always missing lunch. It’s always been either/or with breakfast and lunch. The only meal I can’t miss is supper. But meals provide structure in the day. Bullet points. Time anchors.

If I’m not paying attention in the afternoon then three hours or more can vanish without any ceremony. Time is working very differently.  We have to pay more attention as it slips through our grasp.

I lost almost a decade in a timesoup of my own devising after mum died. I called it grief. There’s no way I’m letting this time go for nothing when it’s externally imposed. I’ve got shit to do.

It’s helpful that I’m running out of booze, particularly with the prognosis from my friend on Twitter this morning who is roughly my age and shares my proclivities. He wanted to warn me that the little crown fucker can appear to be retreating only to come back in spectacular fashion. He celebrated a perceived recovery with all the wine, only for it to double down on him. I’m going to be wary, and I’m not going to open that Barolo even if I start to feel superb. Not until I have something to celebrate. Like my industry clicking back into gear, or me successfully making something I’m proud of beyond maybe the one or two of these word-pictures a fortnight that somehow find a structure and a point enough to make me smile and nod to myself as I finish them.

Once again I’m running a bath. Candles, smoke, steam and salts. Heat and something to read. Relaxation before bed. Hot water bottle is installed in almost fresh sheets. Sandalwood and Jasmine pillow spray. Pint of water. These are things I’ve done almost every night and they don’t take up space in my memory because of the repetition. They’re good things, but they achieve nothing. Is that okay? Yes, I suspect it is. But most of my dialogue is with myself these days. And the voices in my head.

 

Yesterday when I started feeling weird I changed my sheets, tidied my bedroom and my kitchen and made a massive pot of bolognese. Because my tastebuds have gone a bit haywire I threw in as much spice as I could find to remind me that I was alive. I just had some of it on a jacket potato and fucking hell I think it was trying to kill me. I guess It’s good to taste something, even if that something is just pain. There are some chili sauces I’ve had on the shelves for years that I shook in until my elbows hurt.

It’s a good mince. It’s a something. I like it. I’m glad nobody else is going to have to eat it though as I don’t want to have to clean up after any guests that spontaneously combust.

I’m having a mug of gin and tonic so I must be feeling better. I can look at screens again without feeling weird. That was a very strange thing, but yesterday it really wasn’t possible. Writing this blog was an exercise in self discipline. It often is, but yesterday was the toughest I’ve had as my face was melting and all my instincts were telling me to stop looking. I hope that doesn’t happen again.

This unwellness thing is now just a little bit of a dry cough and a touch of achiness. My eyes still feel weird but nothing like as leaky, and I’m a wee bit shaky. No temperature as yet but I’m going outside in case I meet someone who doesn’t get hayfever. I’m still reasonably well resourced at home. I’ve got enough avocado for a few more days, loads of eggs and lentils and pasta, rice and so on and enough nuclear bolognese to wipe out a small country. If there’s any left when this is all finished I’ll sell it to the army.

I’ve drunk all the wine but for the 2012 Barolo. The beer’s long gone. There’s tons of whisky and gin though before I have to start hitting the sherry that S was necking out of the bottle, or the weirder stuff. My stash of old style Lucozade has been decimated to be used as emergency mixers by the usual parade of slow moving overprivileged wankers who roll back at midnight with Kitcat when I’m on tour and ooze into the liquor cabinet.

There are now 7 cans of old style Lucozade left in my world from the 24 I bought on eBay and locked in the cabinet. That’s 7 more years of New Year’s Day hangover and then it’ll be gone forever. I’ve locked it into the cabinet again despite slight misgivings as last time I did that someone broke the hinge with a hammer thinking they were going to find hidden treasure. That was Brian though or one of his friends, who would have been both capable and resourceful. I have no concerns that anyone the new flatmate brings will be either of those things.

The Tempest is getting interesting but I still haven’t got a clue how it will all pan out. It’s fun to geek out though. I just wish I was feeling 100%.

I’m still trying to persuade myself that this is hayfever despite the fact that every hour I’m feeling worse than the hour before. It’s not respiratory though. It doesn’t respond to any expectation of this Covid bollocks. Trust me to go and manage to get something else instead. My left eye is leaking like somebody left the tap on and I can’t look at screens which is tricky considering I’m on a break about an hour and a half into a creative zoom for The Tempest, and I’m trying to write this on my phone.

I switched off my laptop video, muted my sound, and have been listening to people being thoughtful and clever while constantly wiping my weeping eye and occasionally swearing roundly. Now I’m writing this as I have a feeling that the more time that goes by the shittier I’m going to feel. Hayfever or cold or just screen-allergy after endless talking faces, who knows. Maybe this is how my immune system interprets this plague of ours. Either way I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself and my head is starting to hurt. Noise is annoying me. It’s hard to think or to look at this phone screen to write. But it’s definitely just hayfever. I just want the noise to stop.

Tickets are live for this Tempest that we’ll be doing. https://www.creationtheatre.co.uk/book-virtual-tempest/  I’ve got time to get over this hayfever before I have to be the king.

It seems that the zoom meeting is back. They’re all talking on the screen again. Normally I don’t feel so misanthropic but I just want to shut all the light off and bury myself with a hot water bottle in clean sheets and quietly mumble to myself.

I’m going to plug back in and do my job. I’ve had a paracetamol which might help.

---

Oh I’m leaking. This whole current culture of doing everything through a screen is made a great deal harder when the light makes you melt from the inside. Also my sense of smell is not good. This hayfever is worse than usual for march. I kind of want the meeting to be over so I can make a batch of bolognese in case I collapse into a hole overnight. I’ve still got a good pile of food at home so I’m not going to starve if this is the onset of my two week rollercoaster. I guess if this is my version of this bullshit I can tick it off in a fortnight or so, get tested for antibodies, and go do stuff in the real world. But it certainly feels like I’m about to get sick now despite all my precautions. At least I’ve got plenty to read, plenty to eat, plenty to think about. I’m not in the best creative place right now though as the more my eye leaks the more it feels like the tears have been replaced by brainsuet.

This is my rehearsal room today. I can really look at it. Dammit. I hate being sick.

It’s just hayfever it’s just hayfever…

I’ve been feeling a bit peaky the last few days so I haven’t left the house. It doesn’t feel like captain C is supposed to feel, and right now every time a baby cries somebody wrongly identifies a symptom in themselves. I’m staying at home though because if I got a cold then I got it despite all my precautions against crownyface. And if I’m just a bit run down then my immune system will be compromised so it’s probably best to take government advice and try not to be a vector. Thankfully I’ve got a pleasant home to be shut up in.

I never thought I’d say it but I’m glad I’ve got a friendly snake shut in here with me. Reptiles are not known as cuddly creatures. They’re more about expedience and basic needs. Still, Hex is a living being that moves independently and is capable of surprising me. We have tangled up with each other a fair amount in his quest for warmth and my quest for sentient life that isn’t on a screen. I’m fed up of faces. Screens full of faces. Face after face after face, saying all their person things to my face. Hex is mostly body, with a tiny little head that you can’t quite believe he is capable of dislocating so completely that he can fit a whole great big mouse up there. He doesn’t talk. He just moves slowly and deliberately, and has a cute habit of blowing in my ear as he assesses it for a potential burrow. He’s pretty crap at being a snake though, even if he has recovered from his eating disorder now. He’s good at the lying under a rock bit, which is definitely part of snaking. But I’ve seen his attempts at constricting a dead mouse. It’s vigorous, willing, but not in the slightest bit effective. More in the realm of “playing with your food,” or even “happy cuddle time”.

There are living mice in this flat as well, so I’m being careful with this crap snake as I don’t want him trying to eat one. I’d put my money on the London mouse in a straight up fight to the death, and even should Hex somehow prevail, they are likely made out of digested. poison by now and I’d have to take him to the vet.

London mice. Generations of breeding have made clever trap averse mice. They are completely ignoring my one ingenious humane trap, and I haven’t got any snaptraps, but they’re pretty good at avoiding and even unbaiting those as well. I’ve just got glue pads leftover from an old flatmate and I’m not going there because the things are absolutely vile and leave you having to drop a rock onto a panicking rodent that has already eviscerated itself over hours of futile struggle. Those fuckers work because they work so well that there aren’t any mice that have evolved strategies. If only they weren’t so cruel. They’re staying in the draw. The mice can keep me company for now. Unwelcome mice, a snake and the faces on the screens that tell me things.

On the plus side I haven’t set an alarm for a week.

Yesterday I was looking at the edges of the box. Today I’ve been closing the lid. I guess we go in cycles. Days like today serve a useful purpose in a week more ordinary. I plugged in my battery by switching off my communication. I’ve barely spoken to a soul, and even the messages I’ve sent have been terse and for communication purposes only. Even Hex only got a little bit of hands on time. He’s spent most of his day literally under a rock. My rock is more figurative. But I’ve been under it.

In the normal scheme of things this would be the winding back before the springing forth. There’s the concern. I’ve been instinctively preparing myself all day for some leap into another unfamiliar social or work situation. A temporary office or a rehearsal room or a film set or the party of a company where I’m the entertainment, or I’m the award ceremony or I’m running an exam with 150 people or I’m going to a party with people I don’t know or a date or an audition… None of these. I’m winding back in order to wind back. It feels fine today but tomorrow I’ll have a load of pent up social energy and nothing to spend it on. I’m in my bath again with a glass of red wine again winding down again after another day at home.

I’m not a creature of habit. My habit is basically the absence of habit. Home is a recharging station for the many different shapes of world out there. I’m fully recharged now. No world is possible. So I’m at home again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day.

And so are we all, the world over. Winding back but unable to spring. Problem is, like my old clockwork mice, if you wind back too hard they stop working altogether. I need to spring.

There’s stuff in the diary tomorrow. That’s something at least. Online teaching, information to learn, a rehearsal. It feels like an ordinary weekday of sorts but for the fact that the three different points of focus will all take place in the same physical location, in front of my sedentary laptop in my living room. That’s the thing I’m sure many of us are beginning to struggle with.

I can’t work more than a few days in an office without going mental, but that’s mostly to do with insincerity and unnecessary miniature demonstrations of power. It also doesn’t help that if I can’t move while I’m thinking I say things out loud instead. In zoom meetings I frequently have to mute my microphone, or switch off my screen as I get up and walk around the room and mumble things to myself. Innocuous things as often as not. But out loud and to nobody in particular.

But I’ll be banging around my living room like a pinball tomorrow. I think we are still allowed exercise outside, in London. Perhaps I should hit the streets in the morning and have an actual run. But I literally haven’t opened my door for two days. If I hold out then eventually I’ll know I’m clear…

I’ve been avoiding Battersea Park. The one time I went there it was like going to Oxford Street in the January sales. In terms of maintaining distance between people it was harder in the park than on any road between my flat and the park. Oh how I wish they’d kept Chelsea Physic Garden open. A members’ only garden would be just the ticket right now in the absence of a garden of my own…

I should get more plants. But how?

When I’ve thought about the possibility of an outbreak of this proportion I’ve always imagined I’d get myself to The Isle of Man. As it happens I’m still here, in Central London. It’s not the right place to be in a crisis. If society is gonna collapse I’m either gonna burn or be burnt, and living as I do in Chelsea the smart money’s on the latter.

In my zoom rehearsal today we were talking about comparative quarantine in the various places people have ended up. In parts of Spain you get informed on if you make unnecessary journeys. The police are enforcing lockdown hard. In parts of Ireland you aren’t allowed to go more than 2km from your home, and you might get stopped and asked what you’re doing if you’re moving about at all.

Here in London, the security and hygiene in shops is through the roof, but the disaffected are using the atmosphere of fear to deliberately sneeze on people, and police are being kept very busy while being spat on. Because the streets are so empty, police presence is much more noticeable. But they aren’t yet getting involved despite often being the only traffic on the roads.

The next week is likely to be a changing time in London as the number of people presenting symptoms starts to skyrocket. Right now we are largely complacent still although most of us know a few people who have been on the whole 12 day rollercoaster. It would be lovely to think that we are over the worst of it. But I fear that it’s yet to come and then some.

The chancellor has thrown together measures that, so long as this doesn’t last too long, will prop up the economy. Even the self-employed have had a bone thrown our way. For a long time we were worried we’d be thrown to the dogs. It’s never going to be perfect, but for now there’s no rioting. There’s no looting. It feels lighter than dark. We are all still bemused, going into hibernation, slightly surprised this is all happening.

Many of us are trying to find ways to bring this to the positive. Enrolling in online courses and reading that book or meditating or putting your poems up on YouTube. Long may that continue even as we get used to the new structure, or lack of it.

It doesn’t much feel like the weekend here. I’ve been doing a bit of basic cleaning and changed my sheets, but I’m feeling a little run down and coldy so I’m going to get an early bed with a hot water bottle. Today’s the first day that I literally haven’t left the house. Just video conferencing, eating and thinking about The Tempest.

When this is all over it’ll be like when Winnie the Pooh eats so much food at Rabbit’s house that he gets stuck trying to get out. Maybe I should get into one of those online workout classes that many of my good friends are starting to schedule as we move everything online. Meantime I’m getting in the bath with a whisky lemsip.

I try to think about the extent of the business with this virus and it makes my head hurt. The amount of work that has stopped. The way in which, in London, this quarantine situation has become normalised already. There’s tape on the floor of the shop, telling us where we stand. Most people are in masks. We keep distance from each other. And yet we talk. I’ve had more conversations with strangers than usual, even just in the corridors of my block.

I guess it’s because we are all sharing this unusual circumstance – pretty much worldwide. Everybody is at home most of the time. We are adopting new technological means to play with each other remotely even as we are all getting either starved of contact or fed up of each other. Part of me is glad to be alone here. Although it does engender bad habits. I had a load of early “zoom” meetings from two companies both of whom are using the software to do something Shakespearean. I’m starting to think about the new mediums as opportunities. Zoom is a good bit of software for talking in large groups, but how do we use it to tell stories? And for how long will we need to be thinking like this? Turns out if I take a picture off the wall then I’ve got a good greenscreen. So I’ve learnt something useful.

It seems ages since I’ve been in a crowd. I was being careful for a while before it was official. But now I’m wondering when and how this will end. Bearing in mind what I witnessed yesterday, that there are people with full blown symptoms who still pop to the shop, this quarantine cannot contain it. Does summer kill it? Or are we just locked in until they perfect the vaccine?

Still, this morning about twenty of us logged into zoom and tried to read Shakespeare in a group. We were originally building towards a show in Wales in summer, but the feeling is that it won’t happen now. But if all the theatres lose their summer season, will that be it? So many arts institutions are hanging by a thread anyway.

It’ll be a new world at the end of this. And the thing to remember is that it’s global. I’ve been talking with friends in Eastern Europe, deep far north and west coast USA. We are all asking the same questions. In the absence of a precedent, what do we hope for?

Boris has been diagnosed. Ditto the heir to the throne. They’ve been able to get tests. More of my friends on Facebook are documenting their symptoms and I can tell you for sure that I don’t want it. It sounds miserable, even though none of them have had an official test. Most people can’t get tests. We just have to stay clean and hope we don’t catch it at peak, when there’ll be no beds and no ventilators.

I’m off to bed after a very unusual Friday spent almost entirely looking at faces on screens. My head hurts but that’s because I had a bit too much to drink a bit too early. Hopefully there’ll be clarity before long… But how?

My body feels strange. I’m not used to being so inactive. I’m worried about the sprightly old folk who can’t so easily go for their daily accidental exercise. I normally get my accidentals running for buses or ramping up heart rate to crazy levels about almost completely pointless things when viewed from outside.

Now I’m here in my flat surrounded by tech, wine, mice and food. I’ve been improving my cooking and teaching myself to edit videos and now I’m involved in a production of The Tempest that will take place totally online. It’s a recurrence of the bonkers one I did at the beginning of this whole run of work, so it makes sense that it’s what I end up doing again now we have all momentarily retreated into our homes. I can remember the warmth of last summer whilst I’m in strange isolation in my home.

This evening just before 8pm I went into Kitcat’s room and threw open the window. She’s in the countryside somewhere so the temperature drop won’t bother her. I threw the window open wide and felt the wind rush in from the river. At 8pm I started cheering and clapping, thinking I’d be the only one. There was a social media drive about clapping for the health workers. I respect that. There are a lot of people I love who are staring down the barrel of this nasty respiratory virus. The next week is likely to be the worst time for them in their work, and while many of us sit at home playing games and drinking wine, the people who will do everything to stop us from dying are turning up to work and making the world a better place. Some friends are even working as cleaners in specialist Corona-wards. Chapeau.

I stood in my window overlooking the river, while to my left the majestic Edwardian blocks thronged around. I didn’t really expect much. A jogger was pounding the pavement as I started, and moments from my first “whoop!” I heard cheering and clapping from all around. Directly below me Christine was in her window clapping as well. The whole crescent lit up with noise. The jogger stopped short, momentarily confused as the whole world cheered at him. Then he just started clapping as he ran, automatically, clearly aware it was “a thing”.

It was very moving, to feel the connectivity. Just for a moment to be more openly part of this nebulous sea of linked humanity even here in the “fuck you!” part of London. There were people standing in the porches where their windows look on nothing.

To my right is opus dei, now fronting a school. To my left and opposite is depressed sheltered housing where the fire trucks needlessly come once a week. My direct neighbor to the left is the Lithuanian cultural attaché. Directly in front of me is the Thames. My crescent proves to be a single line of houses leased by The Royal Hospital.

With all that in mind, there was a lot more activity and noise than I would have expected from this sleepy line of houses. Good on you, Embankment Gardens…