AlBarclay

I’m back in The Headland Hotel in Newquay. It’s a big chunk of a building, squaring off against the Atlantic wind, custom built as a hotel in 1900. The interior brings incredible panoramic views of the ocean where you can sip your eight pound glass of wine in peace as the sun sets over the ocean. The bedrooms are well appointed. Last week I had a pretend four poster bed with no curtains or runners for curtains, located on the ground floor. Old couples in the car park were likely delighted and astonished as I proudly threw open the curtains in the morning wearing the clothes I was born in. Perhaps for that reason this week I’m in a turret room at the very top. I’m happiest here, in the wind overlooking the sea.

Nothing is ever simple though. They ask me for a £150 deposit when I check in, and right now there isn’t a single one of my cards that can take that much. They don’t seem to understand that truth, considering the price of my room. Eventually they overlook it, but as soon as I put a glass of red wine on the room they’re phoning up and panicking. “I’ll pay it when I go. I just can’t do the whole deposit!” I assure them. Thankfully the duty manager trusts that I’m worth my word. So I wander up to my room at the top of the house, I put on my gown and slippers, and I switch on the hot water to enjoy my long undeserved luxurious bath with my hard won glass of red wine.

*plip* *plip* *plip*

Nothing. Nothing at all from the tap. A whole extraordinary pile of nothing. Bugger. I’m not filming tomorrow, so grooming isn’t quite as crucial as it might be normally. But the production company have definitely paid for hot water.

The thinking behind booking us into these extraordinary places is so that we look and feel our best on set. Filming is about illusion, but there’s only so much you can do. Tweezers in the face and pain completes illusion. I had brought up all sorts of instruments with me. I was going to craft something of myself for Trinny and Susannah to retire over weeping. I had a whole day and in my familiar partitiony way tomorrow was earmarked for making myself feel and look great.

I’m not doing a porn shoot by the way. Nobody is going to see my topiary apart from Pickle. Cold water is helpful with grooming, I guess. Etc. But no. I WANT HOT WATER TOO! I might look like a caveman sometimes but I’m not. It’s just nice to feel good. For me. And to take this opportunity in a lovely hotel with a spa.

If someone hits on me in a bar tomorrow and I fancy them I’m still going to find the first exit from the conversation I can and then run until I get to John O’Groats and only then throw my clothes aside to reveal my magnificent caveman pelt as I swiftly dance into the waves like a seal and swim and swim and swim until I know she’s lost the thread.

Maybe the hotel has done me a favour by making it impossible for me to wash and groom in my own room. But fucking hell, Headland Hotel! I know how much the production company have spent on this room with no hot water because the receptionist that wanted the £150 tried to hit me for it and I was almost sick. I love this place too. I thought I was going to be writing a happy blog because it’s great here. But it changes live, this blog, cos I’m writing a bit – living a bit – writing a bit.

Meanwhile I’ll go tell reception to make sure there’s a note of it, as the night porter is mostly busy moving fake walls and I don’t want them to look at me blankly tomorrow. I’ll shower downstairs in the spa. There’s a spa. Oh yes. There’s a spa. Maybe I should leave hairs all over it out of spite.

If I could get into the spa with my key. Which I can’t. Even though apparently I should be able to…

Right. The night porter is a dude. Solutions over problems. He can’t fix the water. He can’t move my room. But he’s thinking. He opens a room downstairs for me to wash in, right at the top of the service elevator, almost certainly where all the staff wash if they must. It’s about the same size as my room but with a better view. “Mate, if you could just move me here?” “No, they’d kill me.”

Ach. So I can’t leave it full of hairs. I splosh about carefully in the bath, an impostor in an empty room. Nobody will sleep in these sheets. Absurd. Although Geoff from maintenance might show up at 6 am with “I’ve had literally no sleep cos fucking hell what a night and suddenly some bastard needs that hot water pump fixed again and I’m still up sweating pigs help me out here I need a shower in the emergency room by the service elevator…”

I slink back up, still pelted and proud, into my tower room with no hot water that isn’t quite so special anymore. But hell – It’s brilliant this job. This crew. This momentary existence. Hot water or no hot water.

I’m thrilled with my wonderful agent, and all the connections and moments through my life that have made this sort of workthing possible for me after nearly 20 years at the grindstone. No hot water in the posh hotel? Bah. I remember when there were three of us sharing a double bed for two weeks and I was happy as a clam.

 

At 12.45 I rang the RAC. Time to revive the Jaguar. First of all I wanted to find a local garage that could take it. They’re reasonably local these guys, jaguar specialists, seem very personable, have the space for it and – crucially – are “too busy to look at it immediately so it may be some time.” Perfect. I can try to put some money aside before they start giving me numbers.

The battery has run out, and I need to get the sound system from Christmas Carol out of the boot. It’s been in there since the show as I was transporting it back from Sheffield when the car all but died. I limped it here to Sussex where I realised it had no more distance in it. The battery died in my friend’s driveway. This causes a problem. There is literally no way of opening the boot other than by pushing an electric button. No mechanical means. No battery means no boot access. I’m hoping the RAC triage guy will be able to jump it when/if he eventually shows up so I can get it open. But it’s gone half five and there’s no sign of him yet. It took 3 and a half hours from my initial call before they even had the courtesy to ring and tell me I’m on the list. The RAC is clearly in no hurry whatsover. The people I’ve spoken to on the phone so far when trying to persuade them to take me off the bottom of the list – they give literally 0 fucks. It’s like the NHS. You have to go in screaming, even if it’s just minor. Or someone else will go in screaming for something minor and you’ll get bumped. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I call the garage I’m planning on towing it to after 4 hours of waiting. Maybe there’s a trick to opening the boot.”Oh yeah, I remember that about the X-Type,” says the guy at the garage. “Sometimes the electrics lose connection from front to back on that model. I had a guy, taxi driver, had a passenger’s case in the boot when that happened. The boot’s enclosed as well. Had to take the back seats off and cut a hole into it. Then had to make the hole bigger to get the bloody case out. It’s a design flaw.”

Shit. My train to Cornwall is at 4 tomorrow. No more planes in this shitty weather. I need to drop this sound system off at 3. Am I going to have to take an arc welder to the car?

Miraculously, as the shifts change from day to night, someone who actually isn’t a complete bastard takes over on the RAC line. He is acting upset that I’ve had to wait so long just like the previous person appeared to be trying to make me wait as long as possible out of spite. He gets someone sent out to me almost immediately. But the person is just the person whose job it is to say “Nothing we can do here mate.” It’s a two stage process, getting the RAC to move a breakdown. Brian says “Nothing we can do here mate,” but thankfully gives me enough power to open the boot. Sound system: achieved.  But the garage is closed now until tomorrow. He books me in. “Sorry you’ve had to wait so long,” he volunteers even though I haven’t mentioned it to him. It’s in his system. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve just come on shift. This is going to be a busy night.”

Thankfully I can stay another night here. Phew. Tomorrow I can rush home carrying a massive sound system on my shoulder, pack a bag, rush to Kings Cross, with said bag and system, drop off the system and then get on a long train to Cornwall with bag. So long as the RAC don’t decide to screw me over again now that the tow truck is booked…

Grr. That’s one day I’ll never get back. I’m hoping not to lose a second to being actively deprioritised. Time to join the AA.

Still, nice to be here again. I sang my godson to sleep, poor sod.

 

I just gave two children a dream. This is an example of the oral tradition still alive in modern society. Caxton rang the death knell. Berners-Lee compounded it. But dreams. Dudley used to give me dreams and they were good.

Party downstairs at Eyreton, the huge house I grew up in. My dad had a bar put in under the stairs. I was barman at his wake. But back when I was ten I was upstairs, in my little room, aware that the grown-ups had a whole different world of entertainment and were noisy. Even aged 6 I didn’t want to miss out on the party.

Dudley bridged that gap. He was the soul of the party. Vast, eccentric “cuddly Dudley”. He would come and give me a dream. He’d gather up the dream dust that had accumulated on me throughout the day and he’d make sure it was all shining in the palm of my hand. “Can you see it? I can see it.” I’d help him get bits he’d missed. Then he’d tell me how I had to go to sleep quickly so I could have the lovely dream that the dust wanted me to have. And so I would.

Dudley was my first friend to die. A different generation. Technically friend of my dad not mine, but he knew how to be friends with kids, and he understood imagination. A compulsive gambling bankrupt spendthrift madman, so of course he was friends with a kid. My buddy. Primarily because he was so careful and so specific in giving me my dreams, and because he listened to me rather than assuming he knew what I was going to say like most grown ups.

He didn’t make up the dream thing either – no way. He was an empath, but someone else had given him dreams like that as a kid, for sure. There’s a specificity in that sort of imaginary work, and a history. You can’t phone it. He’d stagger in to my restless room, full of whisky and charm, and twenty minutes later I’d fall asleep happy clutching the dream that he’d given me that was mine and mine and mine. I was already dreaming reasonably lucidly and he helped steer.

I don’t know how many hundreds of years that particular comforting ritual has been passed down through his family, but this evening – being the dissipated godfather at bedtime – I found myself offering dreams as a service. “I was taught this a very long time ago by a wonderful man called Dudley.” Not quite the same context. But as with any ritual it needs time. As a comforting sleep-aid it is extremely potent and it allowed me to get out and down and wind them down from getting excited. My presence was not helping those kids shut down. I’m generally willing to turn them upside down or get engaged in whatever ridiculous game is being improvised, and so I’m not much use at bedtime because I represent fun. So I thought I’d try Dudley’s dream technique. Nobody could give dreams like Dudley. I tried to homage the old guy.

He died when I was 12, I reckon. He still lives in me through that legacy. A kind, huge storyteller. I miss the dreams he gave me.

Meanwhile, you’re never too old to learn. “Snapdragon seed heads look like skulls,” says Hester – 7. She’s not wrong…

Back home today and looking ahead. I’ve had a figure for the damage I did in the car park and it’s under 2 grand. I reckon I’ll see about that much from this Cornish filming, so once again it bounces in and bounces out. Upsetting and yet is it a good thing that it leaves me without funds for a motorbike? Probably… I shall be testing the trains. But also testing the auction houses around me. There might be a way. I’m so privileged to have these options. I’m a lucky lucky boy.

I’m white, straight and have a roof over my head and I’m gainfully employed to do what I love. This world is getting nasty for people who can’t tick those boxes at the moment. It’s received wisdom that what is permissible at the top trickles down. And there’s some pretty unpleasant views being aired publicly at a high level right now, giving permission for people who are angry and feeling immune to consequence to strike out against humans who exist more as ideas than as reality. The idea of the outsider. The monster in the trees beyond the light of the campfire. The vampire who wants to steal your life. People put these ideas into people who are identifying differently from how they identify. As the potential for a global reach is more achievable, the ability we have to huddle together in tribes and wage war against the “different” is growing. All of us might go viral in someone else’s story, and if we do we will have no control over how.

Two women were beaten up on the night bus because four straight drunk kids noticed they were gay and didn’t have the empathy to frame women kissing in any other context but porn. When the women refused to conform to their young male gaze and kiss one another for their pleasure, they quickly resorted to violence. I can follow the thought process, flawed though it is. “Come on!You were kissing just now!” It’s about ownership, control and terrible empathy. I thought we were better empathetically educated these days. I hoped people were safer, particularly here in London, this somewhat permissive city. I’m upset.

Their story, and a picture of them surprised and bloodied, has been shared widely on social media to the extent that I know that Melania and Chris are their names even though I don’t know the name of whoever took the photo and used their profile to kick start it. “You’ll never believe what just happened guys!” They’re speaking well as the lens focuses on them for a bit before moving on as it will and does and must.

Meanwhile across the country someone I’ve met has had a rock thrown at them from a car whilst they were with their partner outside their place of work – almost certainly because of the work or the nature of their relationship. They’re involved in a piece of work that asks intelligent but challenging questions about gender and sexuality. They’re in a small town. Someone there had enough bile, and has enough societal permission, that they can get a rock and some mates, one with a car, and wait for the right moment to cause actual bodily harm remotely during an intimate moment. “Now mate, go on! Do it!”

Is this where we’ve come to after all these years? We need to try to understand more I guess. I need to understand how people can feel justified to behave violently to people who threaten their sense of status quo. And we need to find ways to engage people in dialogue and not attack them immediately. If you start to dismiss and use nasty names you just give people an opposing camp to belong to. Nobody believes that they are fundamentally wrong. So I’m a snowflake libtard or whatever for being an ally and I can throw things at the baddies who don’t think like I do? No!

But I’m so angry right now, from my happy safe liberal place making money from filming, executive lounge for three hours yesterday. Grr. It’s the job of the artist to speak out. But how? Like this I guess.

A grey evening full of rain. The sky is a billowing cloud, oppressive and low. Through the window I’ve got a panoramic view of the runway at Newquay airport. It’s a dead place. The rain doesn’t make it beautiful. Occasionally a plane manages to land and disgorges its haul of multicoloured humans, who run and curse their way into the shelter of this tiny uninspiring airport. Everybody looks a little bit pissed off in this weather – passengers and staff. And can you blame them? It’s relentless.

I’m in the executive lounge now. It’s a cupboard with a carpet but it’s relaxed and nobody is loudly crying. My flight is delayed by at least two hours and I get a limited number of lounge passes per annum. Six, I think. Through my bank account. I’ve used two, on the flight back from Spain for Mel and I. Now I’m using another. Three more for America, and they renew in October. Perks like this are worth finding out about and making use of in precisely this sort of circumstance.

This lounge is as shit as the weather is but it’s better than the main part of the airport, full of rage and expensive consumables. It’s definitely the right place for me to be in this grey mood. There’s a fridge full of free drinks and a table made up with free snacks. It’s pretty empty here too. Just the Ents. Two ancient stooped seven foot tall scotsmen watch tennis and exchange monosyllables. I’m in the corner with a cold can of Korev and a banana, watching the weather and the runway. This rain is ridiculous – constantly beating down. There’ll be floods tonight. Even the old men are talking about it in their Entish way. “Big rain.” “Aye.” “Bad.” “Aye it is. … Bad.” “Bad rain.” “Aye.”

It’s why I’m still in Cornwall, though. This bad rain. I’m here for bad weather contingency, and I’ve shot all but one of my scenes. I’ll be back briefly next week but I’m mostly done already. Nice to know I’ll get back as I very much like the team. It’s an enjoyable shoot full of personality. These Germans are efficient. They’ve been doing this for years. They know each other and they know the form. It’s a pleasure doing my thing for and with them, even if all my lovely nuanced vocal work will be immediately dubbed and exported. Frankly I’m just happy to be working. I always am, dammit. Nice to remember how it is on a set. To flex those muscles. To be good at it. It’s why I weather all the hard times, so I can slot into that machine and be unruffled and do the thing I do.

The Ents have gone to Manchester through the bad rain, packed in to this little plane that came in half an hour ago – two vast grey sardines in a little tin can.

I’m alone in this cupboard with a fridge full of free beer for at least another 90 minutes. I’ll only be in the air for 45. Am I really the only guy with free passes on their bank account? I doubt it. But I’m the only guy that thought to use them. Me and the Ents.

A quiet day in Cornwall and I’m going to cap it with an early night. Two international old lags and perhaps a spot too much wine last night. These things have an aura of inevitability about them. Nice to see how the preoccupations and inner battles are the same for an actor in a thriving economy like Germany as they are for an actor here in this zombie movie where the shambling remains of the government are diligently but automatically stabbing themselves in the legs, eyes fixed on the horizon, mumbling “will of the people” as bits fall off the cardboard faces they’ve made to disguise the fact that they’re actually terrified selfish children.

Newquay is a good place to spend a few days. I’ve found a pirate themed restaurant today. I’m having steak in it while they play “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”. All you need is a shedload of rope and a bit of canvas and you can make anything pirate themed. I like the table setting.

There’s love here, and the food is good. Captain Jack, it’s called. Feels like a family concern. If you’re in Newquay it’s an Al Barclay Thursday Recommendation. Which isn’t an actual thing. But should be.

“I think one of those bottles last night was bad” says my partner in crime just now on WhatsApp. Truth be told I felt like I’d been hit over the head with a sledgehammer this morning. But I don’t think we can blame the quality of the wine. I think it might be the tiny amount we had eaten vs the percentage ABV of the wine. Did we drink three bottles between the two of us? I actually can’t remember.

At about lunchtime the room service started to get anxious with me. They wanted to tick the room off their list. Maybe they were worried I was dead. I had been seen to haul myself into the restaurant grey and sweating at 9.30 for FREE BREAKFAST of instinctive smoked haddock which I subsequently hugely regretted, brushed my teeth twice to overcome, and put myself back into bed shivering. The whole time I’d had my haddocky breakfast expedition into reality I had only spoken in monosyllables, looked perpetually troubled confused and angry, and stared longingly over the vast Atlantic, spread out before me beckoning. “I could rent a wetsuit and surfboard if I get a day off.” That was me just a few days ago. This morning I just wanted to look at it and thank God there was glass between me and the reality.

Knowing how lovely it would be to get the room refreshed though, I finally threw some actual outdoor clothes on and staggered down to the beach so someone could spray essential oil on my pillow. I opened google maps to see how long it would take to walk to the Minnac. Impossible. Three hours by bus even. Pah.

Better by far to stumble randomly around Newquay and see what there is to see in this town. Apart from next week, I can’t imagine I’ll be back here anytime soon. Might as well try to see what’s here to be seen. Starting with a proper Atlantic sunset. It reminds me of Finisterra.

 I’m still in Newquay sleeping here, although I could’ve flown home tonight. “If you fly me back tonight will you be able to cancel the hotel room?” “No it’ll just be empty.” “Well I’ll stay in it then. Fly me out tomorrow. The day’s blocked out in the diary anyway.”

I sat this morning downstairs in The Headlands hotel and began the long process of completing a working VISA application for the US. They want to know everything. I had no idea how old my parents would’ve been had they still been alive but the application form wants it so now I do. Turns out dad would’ve been in his nineties and mum in her early seventies. I have friends who are older than mum would’ve been now and we still do silly fun things together just for the sake of doing them. Then there’s the whole bit where they want exact dates of previous trips to the US. And digging out my Social Security number, which I had issued last time I came over.

With the Atlantic Ocean to my right hand, I sat and filled in forms for the whole morning and much of the afternoon. I THINK they’re all done now. I hope so. I’m sleeping in a beautiful hotel but they want your firstborn for a cup of coffee. A little part of me thought I’d go to the Minack and finally see this theatre carved into the cliff that I’ve turned down badly paid jobs at for decades. A friend of mine is doing one as the best part in a tricky play. I didn’t bring my driving licence and I fly early tomorrow…

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No I don’t fly early tomorrow. Lies. 10pm Call from the unit mid blog. “Al, will you stay here? We need maybe to shoot the interior on Friday of the publisher office for the bad weather?” I’ll do what I’m told when I’m put up in such a glorious hotel room. So I’m staying here in Newquay. This also changes my chances of getting my ass to the Minack to see my friend working in a pretty place for magic beans. I will almost certainly be able to work out a way to see him earn those beans. I never want to pay the producer to see an actor working for less than what they should get. I’ve asked him what he’s paid and I’ll make my decision on his reply. I might lose some cover days by staying here, but I’ve had a glorious time, and met some excellent humans, and this job is not a job that cuts corners regarding actor’s pay.

I’ve spent the evening with the actor who’ll be my takeaway from this job so far. He’s got ten years on me. He’s a prettyboy dissolving into character after 20 years and trying to figure the change. I’ve always been the dissolve, never the pretty. The dissolve is my home. “You’re a character actor,” said the few of my parent’s friends who even engaged with my decision back when my parents were actually alive and I had their elsewise ambition for me to fight. I had to fuck three years at university despite a drama school place. Then the only actor they knew got wheeled out to discourage me. I’ve never thanked him for galvanising me as much as he did that night at the Chelsea Arts Club when he had been told to discourage me. I still don’t know if he meant to discourage or obliquely encourage. He did his best to balance humans. Jack Hedley and I should be friends. He probably feels he failed in his job to discourage. Mum was using every tool in her box to make me “get it out of my system”. I even got “You’re not even ugly enough” from one of my her many boyfriends/hangers on. All in a (maybe) careful attempt to discourage the idiot child from the stupid bad bad bad idea. But yes. I stuck with the idea because I’m an actor. Stet. And for the short term, it’s working.

There’s a fallow time ahead at some point inevitably. There always is. But thankfully not for many months. So meantime I’m finishing having a joyful rich time here in Cornwall, filling in VISA applications for my late summer. This is going to be an amazing few months.

 

First day on set today. I’ve done some unusual jobs over the years for certain. This is one of them.

Only three days on set in total, so a relatively short job. Just as you’re making the relationship with the other actors you’re pulled apart. But today I met some of the others and they were diamonds. They were all working in German, which is the predominant language on set. I’m on a German shoot, essentially.

I understand German fairly well even though I can barely speak a word. Dad was always in the Graubünden in Switzerland. I was frequently there too, as a child in the eighties, collecting discarded glass bottles and taking them to the supermarket because they had machines even then for recycling. These guys have a nuclear shelter in every household. In the event of a global nuclear apocalypse, the neutral Swiss will eventually come out on top and rebuild a civilisation where everything is on time but you can’t flush the loo after midnight and if you slam the car door you get a fine, but you know EXACTLY WHERE EVERYTHING IS.

It’s really odd contemplating Switzerland as an adult now, having spent so much time there as a child, then. They were recycling in the eighties and incentivising it well enough that little Al was washing muddy found bottles to take to the co-op every morning for a deposit that was worth the work. But they are also the country that gave us “exterminate exterminate exterminate” Nestle. (My quote not theirs. This blog is fiction. That’s the daleks. Nestlé aren’t the daleks.) But yeah, it’s Swiss that company that pipes your paid for tapwater, filters it a bit, shoves it into plastic and sells it back to you with a label on it. The company that created addictive baby milk substitute to sell to the poorest people on the planet. One of the companies that is ensuring the death of humanity by burning the lungs of the world to make “sustainable” Palm Oil plantations. (What does sustainable even mean in that context?) A vast implacable monster, so big it’s unstoppable in the capital driven context we use to establish merit. If I wasn’t just spinning words from a fictional character standpoint here I’d put all sorts of provisos in my blog to make sure their faceless evil lawyers wouldn’t stamp on my face as hard as they could if they found this and chose to.

I digress. Be mindful, dear readers. Please. But where was I?

Oh yes. German.

So. Eighteen people in a tiny farmhouse kitchen while it shits rain outside. Four actors. Every other actor is working in German and so is all the crew. I’m gonna be dubbed. I could just say “banana banana banana” but the director is kind enough to give me a performance note at one point to make me feel involved. The female lead starts to enjoy saying “banana banana banana” once I’ve made this observation but she only does it between takes in her charming way.

What an unusual job. All I have to do is look smart, move my mouth with sound, and listen closely enough that I know when it’s “my line” and – primarily – not get freaked out by being on a film set. My job is just to be present and unruffled. I’ve anticipated the German language I’ll be hearing and I’ve learnt how many thoughts my fellow actors have before I speak. As well as learning their content in English obviously. But when people ask me that excruciating “how do you learn all those lines?” question, I usually talk about learning thoughts. Thoughts first. Exact expression second. Then you will never go dead.

Here, with the Cornwallgermans, I get to be part of the tapestry. Strange to think I’ll be dubbed. How will I be dubbed even? It’s very very very weird. And very well paid.

Three beautiful humans in the light with me. Many more behind it. A Swiss, an Austrian, a German and Al Barclay walk into a farmhouse in Cornwall. Gesundheit. I’m happy here. How could I not be with this after dinner. Happy but alone. Often the case on a shoot, particularly with a mutt like me who appears super confident but is slow to make friends.

As the sun sets I’m sitting by Fistral beach with a pint of German Pils. The receptionist in the hotel was German. I have already heard many conversations in German. I hadn’t realised the extent that one woman’s writing has affected the way in which people choose their destinations. Cornwall is a good choice though. It reminds me forcibly of Jersey. Similar landscape and seascape, but also customs and slang. (I’m a “grockle” here, a Cornishman is a grockle in Jersey.)

It’s peaceful here too, outside of the constant roaring of the waves – and it’s beautiful. Those waves are rolling in, rolling back, rolling in, dotted with surfers. I count 30 of them holding themselves in place waiting for the right moment. Occasionally one of them takes that moment and they’re up, cartwheeling their arms, trying to make it last, dancing impossibly on the water before absurdly sinking back down upright and then swimming back through the waves to do it all over again. Dozens of little black dots in the evening sea getting fit by mistake while having fun.

Nearer the shore, dogs play in the spume. The air is cleaner here. The smiles are more genuine. The waitress likes my suit. I’m in a selection of three pieces while I’m filming, on and off set. Good to look the part. My uncle Peter’s Gucci shoes could’ve had as much of an effect on my getting this part as my delivery of the lines in the audition did. They’ve made it into the costume which is unusual and amusing for filming at this level. I should probably get them polished. For however long I’m in Cornwall I’m dressed sharply. And why the hell not?

I’m here because of this German relationship with the crooked ancient leg of England. There’s a well trodden path from Germany to Cornwall now. Hence the fact I’m drinking “Schwaben Bräu” on the Fistral as I write this. My hotel room overlooks the sea from a headland. There’s a four poster bed, and a ghost maid who tucks you in when you’re sleeping. They left fudge for me on the bed, and nuts and water came from the production company, who had the perspicacity to empty the mini bar of all but water and juice before the actor hit the bedroom. I only checked out of curiosity honest guvnor.

Lots of lovely cards to say hello, some from the hotel some from the unit. I’d forgotten this, about filming. People can treat you so well.

Flying here was a strange luxury. We spent more time sitting delayed on the stand at Heathrow than we did in the air. There were only two people wearing hats on the plane and the other one sat next to me. She had a banjo. I knew she’d be something to do with the production but decided to fall asleep instead of making small talk so I said literally nothing to her but “punch me if I snore” and fell into happy sleep until I was surprised by the landing.

When I met my car the driver said “I hope you don’t mind. Max’s girlfriend is on the same flight.” Max is the male lead. “Yeah she’s in baggage reclaim with a Stetson,” I said. “She seems chilled. I slept next to her for the whole flight.”

Sure enough it was her. So we had the smalltalk in the car instead which was far less awkward. I thoroughly like her. But now I’m back on my own, doing that thing you do when filming of making sure you remain available and near unit base whilst also making sure you don’t get too bored. My pick up is 9.30 tomorrow which is very civilised. I’ve had cars at half five before. So maybe I’ll have another German Pils and give some money back to the economy that made this all possible. And then some FISH. omnomnom

Halfway through a game of rounders, I get a call from Germany. It’s the unit base. Bad weather contingency filming. There’s been lots of bad weather in Cornwall. More bad weather even than they’d catered for. The downside of filming by the seaside. It must be the same in The Isle of Man. They need me on set on Tuesday so I’m flying to Newquay tomorrow. Flying. To Cornwall!! Indulgence. Joyful. I get to take a checked bag because they’ve asked me to bring the Gucci shoes I wore to audition. I’ll probably bring some even more bullshit shoes as an option. I have no idea how long I’ll be in Cornwall for. So I’ll just load up with pants and socks, and take a stack of smart clothes and the means to play music, the means to charge phones and the means to read books.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m better at rounders when I’m on the phone than I am when focusing on the rounders. Who knew? When I wasn’t in the middle of a work call, I missed the ball three times. When I was on a work call I tried to wait until the call was over before playing my turn. But I ended up having to play mid call with people shouting “What you doing on the phone?” loud enough that they definitely heard it. I had to tell them. “I’m playing rounders while we talk.” I informed them. Then successfully  whacked the ball and ran to second base while on the phone to the unit. They employed me for the truth of me. Why lie?

It appears I’ve agreed to fly to Newquay tomorrow afternoon. There is no return booked. We are a slave to the weather. They’ll do what’s possible when it’s possible and I’ll be on standby in my smart shoes. I’ll be part of a huge machine making it possible. I love filming for that aspect. So many people simultaneously specialising, using time in a very odd way, making stories in this clever disjointed beautiful community manner.

Glad I get a suitcase. But what to put in it? I’ll decide tomorrow morning.

My Sunday afternoon was a delight. Lots of very grounded people. No alcohol. I’m lucky to have influences like that in this somewhat unpredictable and haphazard existence. Especially considering what was to come, where a spontaneous decision to make sure I didn’t miss the party of a dear friend – who has always been there for me – spiraled into a potentially lethal situation with some of the most efficient party friends I’ve got. I somehow managed to call it at just 1am. I’m getting better at calling it. But going into this long run of work its a good practice.

This coming period is what I’ve been waiting for. What I’ve been working for. When I feel like my time is not my own I’ll be good to remember that. All the work I’ve done finding income streams that don’t tie me down in advance is validated at last. And looming large on the horizon is a period where I take the booze out of the equation in order to maximise my time and emotional availability because I’ll have to maximise it. This is the cusp of a great summer. Bring it on.