AlBarclay

“When are you going to pick up this giant beanbag? My dad doesn’t like it in the living room. He keeps kicking off about it.”

Sometimes I agree to things and then forget. My friend bought a giant beanbag to lie on between shows. When the run came to an end she had a beanbag, no room in the living room, and a dad who doesn’t like new things anyway. “I’ll take it. The amount of people I have round my flat. There’s always use for a beanbag.” That’s what I said a few weeks ago.

Then I forgot I’d said it, and went to a festival on the day I said I’d collect it. My friend has been keeping it for me  whilst I had forgotten it existed. I wasn’t working today so I zoomed up to Primrose Hill and loaded it into the back of an uber. “What is that thing?” asked Bashir. “It’s a beanbag. Like a big bed cushion thing. It’s really light. But it’s huge. My friend didn’t want it.” Bashir wasn’t impressed. He just grunted. At the end of my trip he shook my hand and said “5 stars, yes?” 2 minutes later I watched my rating drop by 0.03. Bastard 4 starred me. But now I have a beanbag.

It’s a hit with Pickle. I’m lying on it right now and she’s curled up by me purring like a train. I expect it will be a catastrophe of moulted hair before long. So I’ll make use of it before she claims it entirely.

And now as evening falls I’m lying in my comfy beanbag writing this so I can get on and swot a scene for a meeting tomorrow. Theatre auditions. Should you be off book, or just very familiar? Answers on a postcard. I didn’t actually realise there were sides until today despite the meeting landing a few days ago. I just assumed they’d ask me to look at various sections and talk about them. I’m glad I noticed. Better late than never. It was one of the sections I assumed they’d want to look at anyway so I’m golden. And at least now I’ve got a wide angle on the piece. It could be the answer to the “What the heck am I going to do with my summer now?” question. Although I’d have to weedle out of my obligations at Wilderness Festival. But that’s a fair exchange for a paid August at The Underbelly.

I haven’t been back to Edinburgh for a very long time. I crashed through it in a 5 star show about 15 years ago, and then bounced back a few times as van driver / free ticket rinser / enthusiastic drunk friend. I have wanted to go back for a while now but it’s punishingly expensive. This could be a good shot, and depending on the Showtime I might trial my one man show on the free fringe in the last week, and see if I can get a few rotten tomatoes to cure my festival malnutrition. Of course, I’ve got to get the part first. But that’s just a formality. 🙂

I’m walking through the streets of Chelsea in an immaculate three piece suit on this perfect summer evening.

I have a tattered brown canvas bag, a flat cap, and a pair of 20 year old Brasher walking boots, more frequently used for dancing than walking, falling apart, absolutely covered in mud. None of this would have occurred to me to share with you had I not just walked past a woman and wished her a good evening. Her eyes measured my suit, then dropped to the footwear. Her cheeks sucked in and her lips pursed, fixated on the boots. She remained statue still as I passed her. Her disapproval was palpable, unless she somehow mIsheard “Good evening” as “I’m going to kick you.” I’ve got a four pack of beer in my tatty bag. Had I been a split second quicker off the mark I’d have pulled one out and offered it to her, just for giggles. Probably for the best I didn’t. She’d have called the police.

I remember as a small boy a friend of my parents told me by way of a useful titbit : “You can always tell the quality of a man by the quality of his cufflinks.” Aged 12 I stored it in the “How to be a grown-up” section, along with “One day you’ll like kissing just as much as they do in this film,” and “When you’re older you’ll wish somebody was offering you whisky this good.” I do now. Feel free to offer me. Unlike the other two things, that started to make sense eventually, the cufflink thing never did. How can you tell the quality of a man based on something he has voluntarily dressed himself with? But then I started to see how many people never leave school. Binary options. Right and wrong. Enforced over and over again.

You can wear the wrong shirt with the wrong hat. The wrong hat with the wrong watch. The wrong watch with the wrong trousers. Even the wrong branded ski suit in the wrong resort. “This is St. Moritz darling, not Aspen.” Drive the wrong model of car. Walk the wrong dog. Do the wrong exercise. Marry the wrong type of person. Live the wrong type of life. To make sense of the endless palate of choice that we have, people navigate narrow journeys through a flowing cornucopia, and lavish judgement on everyone who does it differently. I was wearing the wrong suit for the boots, I suppose. In the wrong area. And my shirt doesn’t even do cufflinks because I bought it in Primark. If it did they wouldn’t match. They’re all in singles these days. I usually wear a scrabble piece and a silver tiffany. I suppose that means I’m the type of person who doesn’t give a crap about cufflinks. So maybe there’s that…

The trick is to make the thing you do into the right thing to do. Most people who make that sort of judgement – they don’t have much will. Just you wait. In a years time everyone will be going to society parties in a three piece with walking boots and mismatched cufflinks.

Deep in The Amazon, there is a refrigeration unit. It’s hot in the Amazon. Too hot. The unit doesn’t refrigerate properly. It got carried there by a tidal wave. There’s no power. Still, it’s home for some steam. The steam wishes he was an ice cube again. His family is all melted. He is calm, but there he is still he still stuck in his broken fridge home in the Amazon, making the best of it, growing vegetables. Until suddenly an angry visitor arrives… What does she want?

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I’ve been mentoring again, teasing creativity out of kids who might otherwise go unheard by getting them to write plays. I’m being an adult – as far as I’m capable – in their company. Sadly I think this is the last time I can do it for this season. I’ve just booked some work over the writing weekend and I have to prioritise that work. I need to clarify with the guys I’m working for about exact dates, but I think it takes me out of the picture for the writing weekend. Shame. I’ve enjoyed it immensely so far, and I care about the kids now. They’re great, and bonkers.

It’s pleasant to volunteer. It came out of the same thinking that led me to the last few blogs. I sometimes have too much time on my hands. In this feast or famine work it’s either no time to think or endless time to overthink. If you spend that endless time vanishing into bad patterns you can burn yourself out. Two routes that won’t kill you:

1: Obsess about self improvement. “Look at my muscles, I only eat kale now, my spiritual sister is an emu, I’m reading Tolstoy backwards in Russian.” That’s not my crack.

2: Occupy yourself with other people’s stuff, and thus forget about your own bollocks. Spend ages worrying about other people’s shit. Help them out with it. Work through it. Years down the line notice how your previously broken friends are unbelievable zen warriors kicking the world in the balls. End up hanging out with loads of amazing people who know things deeply. Win.

It’s been working fine so far. I love helping sort through people’s crap with them. It’s so much easier than sorting my own. I’ll help do things with others that I won’t do for myself, and I’ll find it easy. So, volunteering is a joy. I want to do more of it. But also as I write I find myself telling myself to remember to try and allocate time to myself too. Maybe I need to go towards #1 for a bit and learn how to break metal with my abs and eat less crap. Especially since I’ve got the spiritual stuff largely sewn up even if I don’t directly blog about it often. Never fear though. No emus involved. And I don’t think I can see dead people.

 

That felt great, having a good old moan yesterday. Meant I could see the colour of the crap inside. Like all the loogies I’ve been hacking up lately with this endless hayfever yuk, it’s better out where I can see it and make sure it’s not got blood in it.

I read an interesting treatment and work in progress today. Satire is one of my favourite forms, but it’s a form that develops and deepens with familiarity.  This is a modern working of an old satirical fiction. The original has great charm but it’s a bit on the nose by modern standards and gets more and more laboured as it goes. There is much that the original book has given to our culture and language, but with any classic work remade, the question is “Why this now?” With Shakespeare it’s easy: “He just … gets us.” I get jumpy when I see a classic text remade. I worry it might just be the fan fiction of someone who loved it at school and hasn’t really progressed since then.

Reading the treatment, though, I found my imagination jumping around Brexit and patriarchy and privilege which are undeniably talking points at the moment. Enough so for me to want to find out more with this one. And lovely after yesterday’s ranty blog to be reminded that people are interested in collaborating with this irascible.old git. Moods are momentary. Tempers are temporary. Sic transit.

It’s because I’m not dayjobbing this week. Normally I’m changing my clothes on a train while mumbling to myself in verse, or I’m cramming a PowerPoint into my head on a rush hour tube with a suit on and a costume in my bag. This week I’m waking up when the cat gets bored and then skittling around my local area trying not to buy shit like clockwork mice for Pickle (awnly a pahnd). Too much time to think. By the end of this week I would like to have organised a little desk area and sat it in for long enough to flesh out a couple of chapters. It’s all going to explode again soon with dayjobbing plus a run of Macbeth so it’s a good opportunity to chill out and learn another part – maybe Malcolm. What went wrong that I wind down by learning lines? Still, Crouch End Festival fast approaching and I wanna be firing all guns for that.

I stopped by the Boy with a Dolphin statue near mine. By David Wynne. My mother used to love it. As a kid I remember seeing a pod of dolphins with her on the horizon at Cable Beach. I remember it because she was suddenly a kid with me. I was only ten. She loved the things. Dolphins and seagulls. Very sixties, but the message of flow and freedom. Flowing is not about banging your head against something until it smashes. It’s about changing with the current, freedom, vigour, speed and joy.

Back to the classic, good old Hamlet puts it best to his old friends: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

I had a moan, a good read a good walk and I bought a clockwork mouse. Now another read – in honour of my mother I’ll see if I can dig out some Richard Bach – and a sleep. Pickle will be nibbling my toes in about 6 hours. Here’s a boy with a dolphin, being dynamic, flowing, rolling, shifting. And possibly drowning.

I shot back across town this evening to make sure the cat wasn’t starving after spending last night with my friends and their baby. Lovely to hang out with them, and that baby… She’s a joy. She is just entirely present, reactive and responsive. A reminder to us all to be like that.

Now I’ve got Pickle sitting on me paddling into my belly. Nutrition. Affection. Distraction. Repeat. Basic needs are pretty easily met across species. I’ve been feeling pretty emo recently and it’s been leaking into the blog. What’s the deal?

I don’t like writing about disappointments in my career because I frequently find myself in conversations with actors on that subject and I never want to be in them. It’s fucking boring. “Should should should. Want want want.” We pretend to be other people for a living for God’s sake. It’s fun. Some people stitch up knife wounds. We just want to hold a mirror up. But everyone is the star of their own life. And this latest season is no good.

This early summer has been what can only be described as an absolute complete and utter shitstorm career-wise. I could look for reasons. I could look for patterns. In the end I have to convince myself it’s arbitrary. But it’s hard to keep maintaining this daily record when I’m having to sit on disappointment after disappointment. I keep wanting to go off on a good old rant. In terms of what I’m used to it’s off the scale. So I think I will. Entitled actor twat rant. Maybe it’ll lance the boil. Maybe reading back over my first world problems and my charmed life presented negatively – maybe it’ll help me concrete how lucky I am…

Since I’ve started this blog I’ve hit a desert of pencils. It can’t be connected but it feels that way. It’s always down to the wire. I’m fucking livid about the last few. I went to a field and danced until I dropped because I smashed the crap out of a recall for a lovely tour of Hamlet, waited two weeks on a heavy pencil while unknown machinations took place and eventually found out while walking down a street near my old drama school that I’m not going to Miami and California because *insert reason* *there is no reason* *ABORT ABORT*

So here I am looking at a desert of the unknown, as ever, despite having had some beautiful opportunities to pin my hopes on, all of which turned out to be balloons. And it’s the same in the love life. Vanishing hope. Repeated. With friends asking me “When are you going to fall in love,” while I’m standing open hearted wondering the same thing.

So I’m going to put my skin back on. But this is me shaking it out first. I’ve tried not to vent here, because I actively dislike people whining when things aren’t perfect. I’ve got loads of good things happening. Loads. Absolutely nothing to complain about apart from not being able currently to expand the list of interesting practitioners to collaborate with. “Make your own work,” yes yes of course. But I love working with new people and that’s how we grow. “Go on a load of dates.” No. I hate it. “Hide in a hole?” Now you’re talking. *digging*

My best friend has a relatively new baby – (7 and a half months), and the opportunity for her to go and work at our old drama school part time (directing a second year show) came up. What a lovely thing, to be able to bring her deep practical understanding to these people just starting out. It works for her in that it’s not as all consuming as a rehearsal process into a run, so she can look after the little one and keep soliciting for telly work while giving back to the beautiful college that encouraged our kindness and presence. It works for the kids because they get an opportunity to work alongside a practitioner steeped in her craft and robustly validated by her industry, and one who has never shifted into a habitual “teaching” groove. It’s lovely to run workshops from that practitioner headspace.

I hauled myself over to Catford to spend the evening with her, as weekends actually mean something for her at the moment. I’m still recovering from the emotions and the dancing but I’m pretty much square with things now. Seeing her helped round off the remaining edges. We’ve always helped dig each other out of the dumps.

Last time I saw them, her boyfriend was seriously considering going to Shanghai to visit one of his best friends who is doing Punchdrunk out there. I said he should probably just do it. It’s not often you have a good friend you can stay with in Shanghai. I missed one shot a few years ago. My friend didn’t. He went and impulse booked the whole trip coming off a job, blew the whole job on it, and spent 10 days in entry level China. Based on the conversation I’ve just had with him it was even worth the horribly expensive last minute visa. He played me some audio of an “angel” singing in a passenger tunnel in Fu-Jing. It made my heart stop with soaring human-yet-alien vowels. It was just some guy practicing. Not even busking. Using the tunnel’s acoustic to check his form. Gorgeous and unusual.

I found myself yearning to go somewhere unfamiliar again and spend some time out of the groove. I could get behind the idea of a trip to China. I don’t speak a word of the language but if you’re looking for a culture that is utterly unlike the familiar, I reckon you can’t get much better than that. Plus I’m not a fussy eater. But anywhere will do. Who has a house somewhere unusual that I can crash in for a week?

I’m lucky that I still can travel relatively easy. I’ve kept myself unfettered. Very few obligations apart from Pickle. I can just pick up and go. Money or the lack of it and the obsession with keeping myself available for acting work are the only things that have been hobbling me. I take my hat off to my friend’s boyfriend, for just booking a flight, working out a visa and sodding off to Shanghai. Maybe I need to make a show that can travel and book myself a world tour. Maybe I need to just sod off to China and work it out when I get there…

Quiet today. Last night I had a friend round late for a restorative evening. It was lovely but involved a surprising amount of gin. I knew I wasn’t working today though which gave me the luxury of a slow morning, of which I took full advantage.

The best use of my empty day that I could possibly arrive at in my slightly impaired mental state at the moment was to go for a walk in the local area and get distracted by expensive kitchen implements in shops. I wasn’t feeling the writing. My head is full of ants. I went to Muji and looked at things I’ll never buy. Then I went to Peter Jones and did the same. Then I ran into a neighbour as I was aimlessly walking up and down the Kings Road coveting things. The next part of the plan was a trip to Holland and Barrett to look at things and buy none there too. I had it in my mind to get some 5htp. My friend intercepted me and seemed to think that a Xanax would do instead. It’s Chelsea after all. We can be 1950’s housewives. So I gave it a try because that’s what I do. I’ve never eaten Xanax before. I don’t think I’ll make a habit of it. It was a bit too floaty.

I then wafted into town for the early evening meal with Tristan and Tanya before he kicked off working in his late night hellhole of a job. We went to Dirty Bones in Piccadilly. I could’ve been anywhere for all I cared. I was surfing a wave of genial indifference by this time. I got lost in Piccadilly Circus and ended up in Carnaby Street confused and discombobulated in a familiar area by the Friday night drunk-or-bust lot who had just been disgorged from their vile offices where they trade happiness for curved televisions. They were seeing which of them could shout the loudest. I eventually worked out where I’d gone wrong and ended up in the restaurant I had been looking for. There I met a burger that had macaroni cheese inside it.

I shoved my new burgery-friend down my gullet which put paid to the remains of the Xanax incompetence, and I think I participated in some form of conversation. Then I decided to walk home.

On the way home my late night friend from last night panicked by text that she had lost her wallet – passport and all, and thought it might be in my flat. “Of course it’s in my flat,” I tried to assure her. We rendered ourselves incapable of anything but monosyllables and then passed out watching Harry Potter. Her stuff is likely to be everywhere.

But I was in no hurry. Beautiful evening tonight, and I wanted to look at pretty things so I did. I arrived home wondering what the hell I’d be able to put in a blog, found the wallet (and a packet of slims), felt like a hero for doing nothing, changed the cat litter and sat down to write this.

I’m still wearing my festival armband. I think I need to cut it off. Normally you only continue to wear them if you’re 17 and you think it somehow makes you cool. I’m not 17 anymore, despite nth behaviour. And looking cool is pretty far down the list.

I don’t want to cut the thing off yet though. It’s a reminder of the sensation of all that weight falling away as I was bouncing around in that field. It makes me smile when I look at it. I need reminders of lightness in this heavy city. Especially right now when it’s so hot and sweaty and everyone’s short tempered.

It’s not like I overextended myself today. I phoned a few actors and booked them for a job. I got a bit of work for some friends and a bit for some strangers. Then I chanted with my neighbour. Now I’m off across town for Kiwi Christmas food and perhaps a bit of prosecco.

Tomorrow it’s June. The debt that originally sparked this blog has been paid. In the process there have been more than 500 of these blogs. Sometimes they’ve had structure. Sometimes I’ve discovered things as I wrote them. Sometimes they’ve made me chuckle. Sometimes they’ve just been dashed off so I can get back to living again.

Technically there is no reason for me to carry on. I could wind this up and go live in a forest for a year with no signal. I could get on the good ship Picton Castle and fuck off around the south seas for 6 months, hardening my body and getting much better at the accordion. I could do many things.

Or I could try something similar but new… Brian likes to set me challenges. He knows I like to have them set. On his birthday he suggested : Why don’t you do a month where you make the blog a vlog? He got me to shake hands on it. I’m a man of my word… “it might take me a while to get the kit sorted. June or July.”

I don’t really know how to edit video, what platforms or bits of software will help, how to sort out sound and lighting to make it look good and make it interesting. Maybe I don’t need to. I have a few ideas of fictional theme including one which has tickled me for a while. All recommendations welcomed re software, points of reference and cheap kit. I reckon June can be a month where I quietly learn and practice in my spare time. And then in July, God help us all, I’ll try and put something out there daily. God knows what. And I reserve the right to chuck it all in as a bad idea and get back to just scratching out these overly candid or entirely evasive daily journals with nothing more than word pictures and an arbitrary photo because they’re familiar and easy.

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And now I’m traveling home humming Christmas songs to myself. We’ve had a kiwi Christmas. The weather is right for it. And pleasant if odd to be immersed in that world of sounds, flavours and symbols without having to put the old sweaty nightie on and prowl around humbugging. Merry bloody Christmas. Seems it never ends.

I think it was over ten years ago this happened. I was at Latitude Festival. “Hi, Al, we’re doing a Shakespeare workshop up at Ripley Castle. The kids know you from your work at Sprite. It starts on Monday. We need two leaders and we’ve just lost one. Can you come do it?” I had my car. I also was supposed to be driving Melissa back to London from latitude. But I’m me and it’s a job. “Yep. I’m there. Hang on what’s the money? … Great. Fine. I’m in.” And on Sunday evening, late, I left an angry Melissa stuck in a field and drove through the night to Yorkshire. Thankfully she and I are still friends.

I arrived in Yorkshire at 4am at a gargantuan house after an epic night drive. I collapsed into a randomly selected bed in a huge house. The next morning myself and Tom awoke at 7, had breakfast in this cavernous empty house, and Tom told me his workshop plan. He had a plan! Phew. “That sounds great,” I said. And in we went.

Tom and I worked with a load of young people, using Dream as text, but pulling in work by Keith Johnstone. As is often the case with work with young people, it was a confidence workshop with Shakespeare as the frame. He did the text. I did the confidence. One girl, India, ended up walking down a tree root as Titania, and 8 years later she designed and operated Christmas Carol at The Arts for two years. That’s a win. She’s a good friend and artistic collaborator now.

In the evenings, though, Tom and I ended up in a huge house, all alone. What to do? We played fucking Hide and Seek and it was EPIC. I’ve never laughed so much. By the end of the second day we were having so much fun he was able to overlook my hideous attempt at thickening a carbonara sauce by just adding unbelievable amounts of cheese. Use flour, kids. Cheese didn’t do the trick… It made us FAT. Happy. But fat. But he sought to employ me as Scrooge as a result of that fun.

The reason I remember this all is because I had a beer with Tom tonight. He’s in London now and killing it. We still collaborate, but his work has taken him somewhere brilliant. He has directed Christmas Carol and used me for years now but he’ll be too busy to do it this Christmas. Thankfully if it’s Jack and I he’ll let it go ahead as his.

Who would’ve known that a game of Hide and Seek and a terrible cheesy carbonara would lead to years of glorious work. But I guess that’s the thing. We make stuff with people we like making stuff with. I’m sitting antisocially in a restaurant with Tristan and his brother and sister. It’s his sister’s birthday and I want to celebrate it with her. But I’m aware that it’s likely the celebration will obviate the possibility of me writing coherently because it’s her 25th birthday. But here I am with Tristan, who I know I can work with beautifully, Lyndon his brother who was my constant companion and wingman in that very changing time I had in L.A, and Perdi their youngest sister. I’m surrounded by my people. I haven’t worked with Perdi yet but I definitely will in time and I look forward to finding out in what context. Meantime, happy birthday. I’m back to the party. The first year I did Christmas Carol I drove to Wales for Christmas. It was a long long drive from York, there and back.. Their dad, Terry, was the founder of the feast. “Look after my kids,” he told me with great attack. “That’s all I care about.”

Considering they’re looking after me so well, I can only try. As it happens I’m pretty fond of the buggers.

 

“This is what we get for them fucking with the weather for the Royal Wedding,” says my friend. We’re sitting in Phat Phuc. There’s a little bit of canvas between us and a torrential downpour. We have been catching up over spicy noodles. He lives in Dubai and the comics I was sorting through were bought by him.

“In Dubai we talk about weather manipulation all the time. They seed the clouds to restore the water tables. There’s always nature’s revenge afterwards.” I have a few friends that state things as facts that I would frame as speculation. Their certainty always surprises me. (“Oh yes, but he’s possessed by the devil.” – that sort of thing.) I usually play the baffled gentleman card and get more clarity, while examining their opinion through the prism of my knowledge of their experiential history. Occasionally I wonder if there’s something to it.

Conspiracy theories are as seductive and fascinating as obscure religions. Everyone wants to feel like they are in possession of secret knowledge. You feel special. Lucky. Different. Better. It helps you heal. People with damage are more attracted to this than those unfortunate/fortunates who haven’t seen the cracks yet. You can tell other people, with solid eyes, slightly nodding to yourself “Ahh but I can talk with angels.” I’ve done it before, relaying things I have learnt in my spiritual dabblings. You’ve probably done it too. We all have our own reality and perception. It’s ours and we live in it. It’s familiar and normal. I sat in a stone circle on top of a hill on Friday afternoon, hands planted in the ground, asking the rain not to fall. The rain didn’t fall. I might decide that those two things are connected in some way. I might then tell you “I’m a geomancer.” It would be it utter bullshit to you, but if I believed it it would be true for me and might be comforting. There’s always an excuse if it doesn’t work the next time. “I’d eaten Macdonalds, so I was resonating on a low level.” That sort of thing. It can be fun. It can be self-comforting. Telling me I wasn’t a geomancer would serve no purpose other than for you to stroke your own ego at the expense of my comfort. (I don’t think I’m a geomancer. But hey – it didn’t rain. Maybe I have secret power!)

I find myself seduced by my friend’s thinking. I keep asking him about it.

Two people got married publicly, and lots of other ordinary people who needed cheering up invested themselves in the idea that it was a happy occasion. Good weather meant they could get out and travel, throng the beer gardens, put money into the economy while happily celebrating this rather pedestrian occurrence. I quite like the monarchy for the fact that they are arbitrarily selected through a quirk of birth. We need to have people we can frame as special. Why not do it by lottery rather than sheer fucking arrogance and entitlement. Imagine if May was on our coins, and Boris was sizing it up. It was good for the mood of a populace who have been smashed down recently by austerity, greed and manipulation by those monsters in parliament and the corporations that own them. If it’s possible to do things to the atmosphere that stop it from raining, that wedding would’ve been a prime candidate for doing those things. Gawd bless ’em. We had such an unusually beautiful week in May. Then unprecedented lightning storms and torrential downpours a week later.

Although maybe it’s because the royal family is chosen and blessed by the skybeard!!??

There’s just so much we don’t understand, won’t understand, can’t understand. I like any and all attempts to make sense of it. It’s all bollocks and it’s all true. In the early days, spirits and magic and gods were doing it. Now we’ve got so secular that we put these gods into men. “The illuminati are preventing me” is just as seductive now as “I’ve angered Apollo.” Men in Black with forgetting machines have replaced nymphs and dryads with songs.

But whichever idiot pissed off Thor, can they get back in their invisible aeroplane and seed chemtrails with fairy dust so his wrath is appeased and I can go out without a brolly?