AlBarclay

My uncle died a few years ago aged 61. His ex is a friend of mine, and the contents of his property have fallen to me to sort out. It’s slow work and not something I can come close to completing in the time I have on this island right now. I didn’t really know what I was dealing with until I arrived. It’s a mess.

My uncle was an alcoholic. It got him in the end. His stuff is haphazardly flung hither and yon. In a plastic bag full of old toiletries socks and rennies I found a copy of my grandmother’s will, a watch and his old rosary. In an old leather Gucci briefcase I found a load of junk, the broken filament of a lightbulb, a picture of the house I lived in with my mum his sister in The Isle of Man, golf tees, a mostly exploded packet of Lockets, a million plastic shirt collar straighteners and a tie pin.

There’s deodorant everywhere. Papers everywhere. Things scrawled on the back of envelopes that might, to his eye, unlock all sorts of wonders. Bags of ties, newly laundered pyjamas, eye masks. There are the keys to a house in South Africa. Does the house still exist? There are photos of boats, models of boats, drawings of boats, keys that might be for boats. There’s a set of initialled cufflinks in the pocket of an old fleece top. Our life makes sense to us, perhaps, but we all think we’re going to live forever. Looking at his life preserved through these things, it doesn’t look like it even made sense to him, to be honest. It feels like he was lost somewhere trying to find the way out, getting ever more entangled.

He exists in my memory as a kind, awkward ultimately tragic figure. Like my mum, the alcohol took him very early. What can be done about that? I’ve found doctor’s letters from the nineties telling him to lay off the cholesterol. “Take at least two days off drinking every week.” The last time I saw him he got ragingly drunk and that was decades later. I think he did it every night. And then one night he fell over and didn’t get up again and now all his stuff is in boxes however it was shoved, and I’m trying to make sure that we don’t throw away the Gucci briefcase along with the old rennies. Because it’s either me or some guy with a skip. And so goes the cycle of life. 61. He’d be 68 now. He could still be running around at 68. He wasn’t well at 60, and was running a habitual avoidance on himself.

Addiction is rightly thought to be an illness. When it’s killing your life and your happiness but still you return to it endlessly. It’s such a tough spiral to break as well, in yourself and in others. Because, as his ex rightly points out, the addiction is the most important thing. It’s more important than love. Than money. Than happiness. Than life.

Every neatly folded pyjama bottom I put into the hospice pile, every unanswered piece of correspondence I fish out of the bottom of a washbag, every envelope full of expired currency I find neatly labelled and forgotten, every stolen hotel match box I find in a shoe – it’s all pushing me further towards really hard-questioning the drive there is in me towards alcohol. With one hand I’m actively trying to make my life work despite a faulty career, not much romance and terrible financial management. With the other hand I’m grasping for a crutch that my mother and her brother used to bludgeon themselves to wet and miserable ends and seeing if I can do it as well. Bollocks. The sun is fading. I’m going for a swim. And I’m definitely not having a drink tonight.

This heat. Yesterday I was making over my friend’s flat. I changed the sheets, aired everything, made it lovely, plumped the pillows. It was half two in the afternoon. Terri from airbnb messaged me to say she wouldn’t be there until 4.30. The window into the bedroom was open. I curled up in the breeze, closed my eyes and fell asleep on her beautiful clean plumped bed. “I’ll just close my eyes for a second.” I woke suddenly to the buzzing of the phone in front of my face, still clutched in my fist, like no time has passed. “I’m here!” 2 hours. Gone to busy dreams.

30 seconds of feverishly pulling black hairs off the pillows and replumping and airing everything. 30 seconds of hauling on my shorts and sticking my feet into unlaced shoes and she’s at the door. Thankfully there’s a good breeze through the flat.

Then I went to Hyde Park and played ninjas with Ivo. I think the powernap helped me keep on running from tree to tree even when the energy coffers should’ve been empty. “Let’s run again.” “Ok Ivo. That’s definitely the best plan.”

Today it happened again. I took a coldstream guard’s uniform to the dry cleaners, got home, tidied my room, did some writing and fell asleep in the heat. It’s easy to do at the moment because my room is not a shitshow. Pickle curled up next to me and we simultaneously catnapped on top of the covers. I was woken by Jack at the door. I was glad of the nap.

Jack and I have been slowly making Beowulf for ages. We’ve both got lots of other stuff on but we needed to reboot the work because we care about it. Jack played some guitar on my roof, I realised I absolutely must buy a new accordion (My old workhorse fell out of a Luton in the rain after Christmas Carol and has been forever destroyed). We are starting the long road to making something we fucking believe in.

It’s another thing to think about. August might be a quiet month in this town. Not going to Edinburgh, though, can sometimes be valuable in my industry if you’re not on the list. “We need an intelligent posho.” “Just get Bunty.” “Bunty’s in Edinburgh.” “What about Runty?” Runty is in Edinburgh too.” “Can’t we fly one of them?” “No, I’ve asked. They’re too busy up there.” “Well, we will just have to say that we can’t cast it. Without Bunty or Runty there really is nobody else that can play that part. Tell them to move the filming.” “We can’t.” “Well there’s nothing – literally absolutely nothing we can do if we can’t have Bunty or Runty… unless … Funty?” “He refuses. New father.” “Tell them it’s impossible. They’ll have to rewrite the part.” “Or maybe… Maybe we can *ORGAN SPIKE* see some different actors????” *cut to two terrified people in an office* *Enter Al Barclay* “So you’re Al … Barcty? Barty? Alty Barty?” “No it’s BarCLAY. It doesn’t end in “ty.” *I told you so glances.* “Well, I suppose we have to see what you’ve prepared anyway.” *Al removes a full size Alpen Horn from his trousers and blows it. A herd of buffalo crash in mooing and knock down the building. Al is swept away riding one of them, naked now and laughing maniacally. The two casting directors remain, sitting in the same two chairs amid the devastation, normalizing. Pause.* “Interesting fellow. Reminds me of Punty before the incident. Shall we give it to him?” “Do you think he always has the buffalo?” “We can ask his agent. Tea?”

Twenty past nine and I’m walking through the dusk in Hyde Park. Paul Simon is playing just the other side of a barrier and I can hear his tired nostalgia as I watch the groups of London people relaxing. He’s just started singing Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes. I believe that, in its time, Graceland was one of the greatest albums ever. But now it’s tired. He lost touch with the now decades ago, our Paul. He’s just rolling out the oldies because he knows we find familiar things comforting, and so does the market. I wonder how much tickets are to this sleepy summer pageant. This sharp angry guy who challenged apartheid with a glorious international pop album, and actively fought the self important sellout bullshit of his partner in early greatness – he’s now rolling out greatest hits that are long past their sell by dates, and replacing the harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mombasa with his own voice shouting “nanana” into a mic. What does he actually think about all of this, I wonder.

And he literally just started “Call me Al.” I’m right outside the front. If I go on tiptoe I can see him. Bobby the 22 year old security guard says “I know this one. It’s like being in a car with your grandmother.” He’s not really singing it, but he’s out of practice. He’s just getting through it. “How many more tracks before the hotel?” The hunger isn’t on him anymore. That song is over thirty years old and he makes it sound that way. Maybe Annie Hall is bang on and he has a Piers Morgan sized coke habit to support. But either way, he can sing my song and welcome. “Why am I soft in the middle?” I’m working on it Paul. “Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.” I see the danger Paul. “He sees angels in the architecture.” All the time, Paul. “Call me Al.” Yep.

I will put up with weekly conversations where someone brings in the words “call me Betty” in exchange for the threats and warnings and validations of young man Paul Simon’s biggest hit. We all know uncompromising stuff when we are young that we can express sharply because we frame ourselves in opposition to the compromises we witness around us. We aren’t deadened by necessity or perspective. Popular music is a young person’s game for the expression of these extreme colours that we see more clearly when we haven’t been cluttered by time. But we also know things deeper as we get older, so long as we avoid the ruts. Complacency is the deadener. The temptation to think “I have learnt all there is to learn.” Nah. We keep learning and striving until we die surely. Hopefully.

Nobody wants to be this old dude, rolling out approximations of a redundant youthful passion thirty years after it was great.  c’mon brother, where’s your new music? Leonard left us to “You Want It Darker.” He never stopped teaching us and questioning himself. He wouldn’t be everybody’s weird father if he’d just trotted out Hallelujah every few years with a hat and a helicopter. You have integrity Paul. Shake it up with the truth. Truth is a hammer. It just costs us when we wield it. But I’d be interested to hear yours now.

Here I am, back in Hampstead, sitting once more on this lovely evening balcony.

I’ve mostly cleaned the flat, ahead of another Airbnb booking for my friend tomorrow that came through unexpectedly. I’m running a little low on good will where this is concerned, especially as the boiler isn’t working properly. When I show them the flat I say “oh and I’ll just show you this button on the boiler. One time a few weeks ago the hot water cut off, and I pushed this button – look this one here – remember it just in case because I just pushed it and it came back on immediately.” I can feel it going in one ear and out the other. I can’t tell them I know it’s going to happen. And then five days later I get a phone call. “Oh goodness me, has it happened again? I see. There was me thinking it was a one time thing. Oh deary. If I’d only known it was a repeated thing we’d have got someone in to look at it. Have you tried the button I showed you? You can’t remember which button. I could send you a photo? No. I can describe it? Or tell you the location? No? Oh you’d like me to come round. Of course you would. Wonderful. Well I’ll just do that then. I’m working all the hours that god made and I live in Narnia but fine. I’ll be with you this evening.” It happens either once a week, or whenever Bruce the boyfriend goes in to fiddle with the settings because he reckons there must be air con and that it must be operated from the same console as the central heating so if he twiddles with all the knobs then Man Make Cold Fire. Oh no, darling. Man Fuck Up. This is the UK. There’s no aircon. We all get a little hotter instead of making the climate a little hotter. Still, I wish my friend would fix the fecking boiler. I offered to get a plumber in. She says it’s the landlady’s responsibility and doesn’t want to pay. Even though she’s basically a landlady too. She doesn’t know what her landlady will make of this subletting and so thinks it’s better to keep it all clandestine and under wraps. I have to be careful when bringing people in not to have loud conversations in the stairwell about Airbnb. It’s all so bloody complicated.

Does everything really have to be so complicated? I don’t think it does, frankly. I think sometimes we just make things complicated for ourselves on purpose because we don’t think we deserve things to be simple. We do deserve for things to be simple, people. Most of us are kind. Life is tricky enough without us inventing reasons to make everything infinitely more convoluted. I do it as much as anyone. But right now I crave simplicity.

I’m off to see some plays written by children I’ve helped mentor. It’s with a charity called Scene and Heard – I think I’ve blogged about them before. They’re great. They’ll be a tonic because I’ll get to hang out with powerfully positive humans. Nobody volunteers for that job if they aren’t kind. Thank God. I’m feeling sad and happy, confused and alive, angry and fluid and odd. That gutsnake is still shouting up my neck. There’s a lot that needs shifting. But I’m leaving the house for the right reason. And I’ll get back to finish tidying properly.

Also don’t get me wrong, I thought we were done with flying ants day, nature. There’s one on my hat brim, one on my nipple and one in my drink. It’s as bad as the last time I sat on this balcony, when I wrote about them because I’d eaten one. Maybe there’s just a huge load of nests on Hampstead Heath. Little buggers.

I thought I might be able to find the blimp, so I walked into town. Aldwych is closed to traffic. Armed police, mounted police, bobbies and soldiers stand in huddles by ancient monuments. Helicopters are constantly droning overhead. Two smiling women walk away with their MAGA hats on. There are protests in both directions. People walk with purpose towards and away from parliament in small groups, bearing various placards and various sentiments. There is the atmosphere of something about to happen but right now it’s just an assembly. It’s the women’s march here that I’ve happened on. I hadn’t done my research but that’s great. It’s what I did last time I got involved with Plumpkin.

In Parliament Square itself, a growing crowd mills on the dead grass at the snarling base of that controversial blimp. It’s smaller than I anticipated, the baby. Maybe the media have inflated it.

“Stay close now guys,” says a kiwi accent. “This is awesome,” says a Canadian accent. It’s just a lot of people milling about right now though.

Everyone is taking photos. There are lots of big cameras. I have mirrored sunglasses and my hat is pulled down. I’m all too aware, in this messed up era, that a photo of me here might show up in a visa application. I’ll probably leave before the shouting starts.

A troupe of overheating middle aged women diligently practice their dance-protest under a gazebo in the shadow of Westminster Abbey. It is earnest, unusual and angry, like a medieval haka. “Ha!” they repeat. “Get out of here!” It feels like an exorcism for a demon of sweat, hate, money and manipulation. On the corner of Broad Sanctuary by the Abbey door, a busker loops his own arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner on the violin – mournful and slow. A dirge to the American Dream. Bring me your huddled masses. We have plenty of cages for them.

A voice is now being amped from the soundstage in the square. With all the reverb it is impossible to understand most of her words but her sentiment is clear. She leaves gaps for people to cheer. Who needs content when you have form? The crowd is larger now. They are singing “We’ve got the whole world in our hands.” We gather in public and immediately we are back at school assembly. I wonder if they’ll give out certificates. Someone just gave me a sticker, so there’s a start. It says “Bollocks to Brexit.” He’s made a whole roll of them. I let him stick one on me for all the good it’ll do.

Lots of people have brought their kids. Lots have made signs. Some of the signs are brilliant. Others hopeful. Others beautifully naïve. It all feels terribly benign. The Trump baby balloon is moving around the edges of the square. “That’s the little one,” says one of the babysitters. That makes sense. The bigger one must be in Oxford Street. It has a mobile phone in its tiny hand. So do most of the people in the crowd. Everyone is taking selfies. It’s the modern way. Proof of attendance. Here I am writing about it. I was there. Validate me.

It’s important to protest, even if it feels like an exercise in futility. There’s power in coming together as a group and just sharing the knowledge that we all think things are a bit shit. There’s plenty to protest about, and we must be wary of extremism.

—

Time has passed, and there is a shift in the weather. When I went to the women’s March in LA it was the only bright day in a fortnight of torrential rain, and rain like that is not common in LA. The natural world cries about this man. London, after weeks of stable heat, is now washed in unexpected rain. “How the hell do you have an umbrella?” I ask the woman at the bus stop. Nobody can have been expecting this rain. It’s backlash rain. It’s a cleansing. She laughs. “I work in a restaurant.” She’s been into the lost property. I wish I had. I’m soaked. Although I’m glad I don’t work in a restaurant.

I’m trying to imagine the Queen with Trump. I expect she just let him talk and talk. Maybe a little interjection after some particularly brash comment: “You are the 11th American President I’ve had the fortune to meet, mister Trump.” … and then… just let him keep talking. Give him the rope to hang himself. It’s all he ever does.

I slept until 7.40 this morning and woke with the guilt of someone whose body is convinced it’s had a lie in. Three extra hours in bed, compared to every other day this week. It’s great having a day down.

I’ve ended up in a pub at 3.45pm, ostensibly to do some work as I’ve got my laptop with me. But outside of a few invoices I think I’ll just drink weak lager and take in the sunshine until my friends arrive at 6. I might book a flight to Jersey too, and stay a night too long over there. There are things to do there, outside of visiting friends. There’s a room full of boxes of shirts and papers that I’ve been ignoring for years and need to sort properly. There’s a lawyer I need to talk to. There’s an old guy who wants some papers. And there are rocks to climb, fish to eat, patches of warm sea to swim in, and memories to wallow in.

Most of my childhood it was either Christmas or this time of year forever. That’s what I remember. I was mostly running around in the garden while my mother filmed me with her cine camera or wiped stuff off my face or got me to make her juice. I was climbing trees and falling off my bicycle and getting stung by bees and looking for insects with Max. Those memories are mostly located on that small granite rock near France. I only ever go there in a rush these days. I might linger longer this time. But there’s something mildly annoying about paying for a bed in your old home. Still… airbnb is likely to yield fruit so I’ll get looking as soon as I hear back from the lawyers…

In the process of writing that sentence about waiting to hear back from the lawyers, I realised it was procrastination so I booked my flights and car hire and told my agent I was off. It seems I’m going to Jersey on Tuesday. Who knew? This time I won’t get my hire car jammed across a road just before my flight out. I don’t know where I’m staying yet. I’ll sort it for sure asap. In fact a friend has offered me a bed on Tuesday so it’s just Wednesday in Harbour View, St. Aubin.

In theory I’ve got enough time to get things done and then bask on a beach. In practice the weather will break, fog will prevent me landing, eventually I’ll get in, the lawyers will be on holiday and then I’ll find out I’m auditioning for Tarantino in London and I’ll be fogged in so I’ll try to row to Portsmouth, capsize and drown.

Still, being in Jersey will be a tonic. In this London beer garden, there’s a building site with constant drilling just over the wall to my left.

Add to that the fact that they’re playing fucking “Beautiful Day” by U2 on the radio while the strident people shoutfight to my left instead of talking, and peace and quiet would be so welcome right now. It’ll almost be that holiday I’ve been craving. But with the pretend excuse that it’s for life admin…

When we were doing Hamlet in Dubrovnik I lost a bit of my heart to that part of the world. It was 2016, about this time of year. Barrack Obama was US president. David Cameron had called a pointless showcase referendum on Europe for ambitious reasons. Everyone on social media was going on about what a bad year it had been because famous people had been dying.

Dubrovnik has water fountains that spout and filter potable water. I never bought a plastic bottle for the whole time I was there. We had free meals but they were in the Irish Pub that anyone with any sense whatsoever avoids when they are anywhere other than Ireland. Thankfully the fayre wasn’t confined to burgers, but I found myself looking longingly at every other restaurant, particularly the Croatian ones. The people I met who were from there had weathered a war as children and young adults. They had the humour and perspective of those of us who have seen people die. I liked them. I liked Croatia. I would gladly go back and eat more fat, to swim in those seas and work in that fortress overlooking the glittering Dalmatian coast.

The day of the referendum result the actors were invited to breakfast. We often had media duties. Photoshoots in palaces. Nivea branded events on the walls. Helen’s face as Hamlet was flying over the gateway to the walled city. We were the players, and we were welcome. That morning of the “Leave” vote, in a deeply unfortunate piece of timing, was the launch of “British week” in Dubrovnik. Someone had driven over a double decker bus from London. Nice gig. It was 8am and all of us libtard actors were asked “Can you smile and hold these union jack flags?” Every single one of us refused. “Today of all days that could be taken out of context.” we apologised.

That evening a barman commiserated with me. “You English. Terrible international responsibility.” (He was probably in his third language here. Those are his exact words.) “My country too. For many years. Fear and little minds. I am sorry.”

These cheerful, beleaguered, solid stoic people. They’re in the way of our football team. A small child on a bicycle in Woking loomed into me and shocked me on the pavement about an hour ago. “Is it coming home?” he asked me.

“Well I mean technically it can be argued that football originated in China and considering the Chinese team were actually not even in the group stages … ahem … I would calculate the chances of football coming home as being OW!” says the boring guy in the corner of the pub before I slap him. I am willing to get behind this world cuppy nonsense. Because it’s unfamiliar for me to hear people being anything other than brutal about our country’s sports teams. And whilst we spiral closer and closer to a total complete and utter global shitstorm, maybe it’s a good thing that this team, managed by a self effacing and kind man, is doing well in football. I love that Gareth Southgate has captured the public imagination because we need successful kind people in authority while the monsters behave like they have permission to rampage unchecked.

I like Croatia, but I want England to win tonight. Fewer people will beat their wives for a start. That can only be a good thing. Plus we could use some positivity.

I’m posting this early, as I accidentally did that yesterday so I reckon I can put it out there before the match and not be already redundant at time of posting.

I just don’t know what today was meant to teach me, other than when you’re in turmoil inside then the outside world can get sucked into that turmoil. We truly do create our own reality. I started the day with Deepak Chopra telling me that. If anyone has a link to him thumbing his nose and saying “I told you so” then I’ll take it for this evening.

In theory it’s pretty easy to deliver a workshop to 250 kids, but first thing this morning the school told me that they would be spreading the thing over 8 classrooms. Problem is I can’t be in 8 places simultaneously yet, despite all the spiritual work, and most of the guys who are there to help me out neither know how to lead it nor have the materials. So at 8am I was having a humongous undercover smiling stress explosion. Thankfully I was surrounded by actors who do well in stress, and with their help we ended up pasting something together out of bits of optimism and high energy. The kids spent most of the day sitting in a theatre, working on their laps, watching me running around on stage babbling about stuff. Weirdly the school seemed perfectly happy with the thing we managed to create, that resembled the premise under which it had been sold, but was more of a Frankenstein’s workshop than a real boy. I couldn’t wait to get out of there though, so much so that I left my laptop there in fecking Edgware and didn’t realise until I was nearly home, halfway through the rush hour, other side of London. I was going to go back for it but as I drove, my front left tyre went completely flat. There was no spare tyre in the boot. It was shredded. People kept telling me. *honk honk* “You’ve got a flat.” You Trumpon. Like I hadn’t noticed that one of my wheels sounded like it was made out of snails. That’s why I’m driving at 10 miles an hour with the hazards on. Some people…

I limped into enterprise as I was nearby anyway. Happy coincidence. “Hi guys, me again.” That’s where I am now, while they gamely try to find me a replacement car because of course they’ve run out and they all want to go home. They say they have to ring the AA and I’m liable for the costs of replacement so that’ll be about £200. And they’ve literally just said they can’t replace the car. You’re getting this live. Buggers want to shut up shop.

One option is to cancel work tomorrow. Then I lose £160, plus the cost of the tyre and the faith of my employers. The other option is that I make the same journey that I rageblogged about yesterday, but this time carrying a great big pile of flipchart paper, a box of markers and a whole pile of laminated sheets. I would also bring my laptop but I left it in the school so that’s a bit less to carry at least. It’s a two and a half hour journey though. At dawn. Guess what? Heeeeeres muggins!

Yeah so, between phone calls part of the time I’ve been writing this I’ve been hiking home on a hot bus carrying all the boxes that were in my car, after enterprise basically left me stranded with no wheels and a hefty charge for a flat tyre. I just got home. I reached into my pocket for my home key and found I still had the car key as well. Hell.

Now I’m in an uber to return the key to this company that charge you loads for a flat tyre and more for a lost key and I’ve got my iPad on my lap with the workshop for tomorrow. At some point I’ll need to eat. I want to be in bed by half nine and it’s half seven and I haven’t properly studied the workshop for tomorrow yet because I only agreed to do it at 3.30 this afternoon full of adrenaline after not catching on fire today. “Yeah sure great I’m good at this hoooaaah.”

Somehow this whole situation is completely hilarious to me. What the fuck am I doing with my life? This time five years ago I was filming in Bangkok

There are advantages to perpetually having someone on the sofa. Tom is cooking supper. I just have to get home. Bed by half nine is possible. I got this. Kerching. I’m walking home now from Park Lane. I want beer.

7am is a long way in the future and I’m already on a train at Clapham Junction, heading out southward for what is laughably classed as a “local” job by one of my many employers, to the extent that they won’t refund me for transport. 45 minutes in a car, if only I had one. Over 2 hours and £25 on public transport, which is a significant portion of what I’m being paid. This place is in the middle of nowhere. I’m going to be threading through villages on sleepy buses. And for what? Well, so I can maybe help some kids who live in the middle of nowhere to reach a deeper understanding of their potential. And get them writing their first CV.

I don’t feel like being energy Al today. I feel like I’ve spread myself on toast. Sometimes I feel beauty in the early mornings but today I just feel loss. But I’ve got my laptop, in a shitty bag again. I’ve got a USB stick. I’ve got a load of example CVs in laminate. And I’ve got my mask. I’ve got this. Apparently. Because I have to.

There’s a restlessness that’s woken up in me recently and it’s fucking with my calm. The part of me that just remains unfazed no matter what – its getting fazed. Because I don’t want my life to be donated by inches. Today I’ll do this. Then I’ll go home and immediately have to learn something else to do tomorrow – something even harder and just as far away, that doesn’t feed my heart either no matter how I spin it. When the money comes in I’ll have forgotten these feelings, or at least taped up their screaming mouths. But this is not what I was put on this earth to do, whether or not I’m good at it. This is not sustainable. This is not what I signed up for. I am going to eat myself if this goes on.

The next station is Woking. Off I go. Still not 7am. Still not happy about this. It’s how I sustain my existence, how I weather the gaps between acting jobs. But this gap? So long now. Normally I’d have a summer job. A Shakespeare or something in Edinburgh. A tour. Everything crashed down. I’m staring down the chances of July August September October November just dripping away into the pan before they wheel me out as Scrooge again. Wilderness Festival. Three days in August to dress up and do something performative, like a prisoner looking out of an arrow slit. Then back in the box until humbug.

This money today and tomorrow and Thursday. I’m gonna earmark it, and convert it. It’s gonna add to my budget for a holiday where I shake this shit off. I need to walk and leave some stuff behind me. I’m fed up of the webs around my feet. I feel somehow like I let things come to this by valuing calm so highly. There’s a snake in my guts that has started screaming and it’s coming up out of my neck.

It’s about identifying the right calm versus the right attack. There are things I’m making. There are things I believe in. I’m still dreaming. I’m dreaming hard. I have no regrets, because everything has sharpened me to this kindness with an edge. But if you don’t like the shape of the world, change it. And I don’t. So I must.

I’ve had two cold showers today, and spent most of the day in my bedroom. But it’s not what it sounds like. I’ve been tidying. My bedroom is now like the bedroom that a real human being might have, so it’s another element of my cunning disguise in place. It’s not as comprehensively done as the kitchen, but it makes sense and there’s space. I’m sitting on the bed now. Pickle is slurping from her great big Stein of water – the one that sits at the head of my bed and stops me getting a mouth full of hair in the middle of the night when I go for my pint glass. The flat feels peaceful despite only 2 out of 5 rooms being habitable. Despite all the showers, I’m hot. Tidying and cleaning is sweaty work.

So much so that I decided to bite the bullet and go to Peter Jones to buy a fan. It’s not the most logical place to get a fan – “Never knowingly underpriced” – but it’s the nearest. But oh hell no. Weeks into this heatwave, and they haven’t restocked their fans. “There are no ordinary fans mate, they all go immediately there’s a heatwave;” says attitude on the stairs; “as soon as the heatwave is over, just you wait. They’ll all be back saying it’s faulty.” So they don’t restock. Because they reckon they’ll get most of them back. They know everyone in Chelsea doesn’t want a fan all year round. They don’t need to restock because they’ve been selling the same stock for years. Fine. I’ll just sweat rather than buy a fourth hand fan. The only other option was one of those Dyson air-bastards where because they’re unfamiliar and aesthetically pleasing they slap a £400 price tag on them and wait until they see you coming. I considered risking buying one and taking it back saying it was faulty. But I didn’t want to gamble £400 on them not having mister Dyson employed in the branch as soon as it gets cold saying “So what exactly seems to be the problem sir?” £400 is a holiday to Tromsø. I’m not spending it on a plastic loop that blows at you. That’s for offices where they are deeply invested in presenting the idea of wealth. These poisonous working environments where everyone is throwing their new Rolex at one another and shoving branded chemicals into their own faces and skins to send signals to the converted about relative merit.

And now I’m sitting on the sofa and there are good people alongside me. The living room isn’t done yet, but the swinging door policy is still firmly in place. I love how things work in this flat, that different energies from all over the place come in and fizz alongside each other. They’re totally different and they’re getting on brilliantly. “I’m talking way too much,” says one of them.” She’s been in the car for 8.5 hours. I should probably stop writing and do some of the talking instead.