AlBarclay

Today I ate lunch on The Great Orme, facing out towards The Isle of Man, 57 miles to Douglas. If I had a speedboat…

The Great Orme. There’s definitely a dragon buried here. It’s a huge hill on a promontory. If you were a Viking you’d use it for navigation, and there were plenty of Vikings running around this area. Orme as a word looks like worm. Worm, for dragon, was in common usage. It fell out of common usage some time after Beowulf, and got clawed back into the language along with so many other archaisms by JRR Tolkein. But clearly the hill contains one of the great Welsh dragons, in deep slumber. Back in the day, one of the great Wyrms crept into a cave here, tired of slaughter, and laid her iceberg sized head down for a long sleep. When she rolls, the earth shakes. One day she will rise from her slumber and send her fire to the pathetic monkeys that have stripped her land and filled the air with poison and the sea with plastic. But for now she sleeps. And we ate our lunch on her.

Picnic from ASDA. Mackerel and French bread and camembert and tomatoes and salami. Cheap as chips and tastier. We sat and looked at the sea mist where The Isle of Man was hiding. As Tristan opened a can of gin, someone said “That’s a very civilised picnic.” Well, we have just been doing fine dining. And it was only a couple of quid.

Unfortunately, with the dragon sleeping below, the seagulls are channeling her boldness. We had an attendant seagull, frogging around and yarking at us. It got a whole half of mackerel and shoved it down in one. Then it was eyeing up our leftover salami.

Thank God we are larger than birds. They are inevitable, like time. They’d have our eyes as soon as blink if they weren’t base level aware how easily we could break their necks. It knew where all our food was. At one point, with this particular gull, I lured it so close with a piece of salami that I could’ve broken its neck with ease. I gently touched the back of its head and it dropped low and yarked. It didn’t stop it from coming back.

In the evening we met Liam at Theatre Clwyd. I’ve never been before. It is an amazing theatre. A producing house surrounded by sheep and views with one of only 21 full sized paint rooms in the world, a 570 seater main auditorium and a gorgeous extremely customisable studio space. The things that you could make in this big theatre above a little Welsh village so close to Liverpool – it boggles the mind. As Liam said “You can see why we moved house for this job.” He’s Executive Producer here, and as part of our tour told me the extent of his plans and ambitions for the building. It’s already wonderful. He wants to make it more so. I’m sitting with him now, with 2 other lads. Four old friends who still make theatre, talking about life. It’s good to have a few days down. It’s good to see old friends. It doesn’t feel like summer if I don’t see Liam, having worked so many consecutive years for him at Sprite. I’m going to get back to the conversation. Stefan is talking about comparative genocide. How lucky we are to have the luxury for these conversations while other people are caught up in this shit.

It is done and I am free. Time to stop this crap now. No more. No more. No more. I ran myself into the ground again for something that doesn’t fill me with passion. My habit to always commit myself and to work as hard as possible caused me a great deal of actual physical pain with this rib. I’m an idiot.

Today has been a glorious day. I got up late and escaped from Pontins (god it’s horrible there. All those squat concrete “chalets” louring by the seaside.) I dropped off the team at the station, and then went back for Tristan and we found the best breakfast possible at Remedy in Southport. Tristan had Gin for breakfast. I had one too. Perhaps that was foolish, but at the time I was feeling great, with my morning solpadeine bubbling away inside me. That done, Tristan and I embarked on a seaside funday. We played the penny pushers and the shooty game. We even ventured into a casino and came out with roughly the same amount we went in with, which is essentially a win. We walked down to the end of Southport pier and contemplated the sand flats. Then, following the advice of an old friend of my dad’s, we went for tea on Lords Lane. Afternoon tea.

A lot better than the one we had to rush out to the buffet stands. An Edwardian tea room with ticking clocks and wood paneling. “Mrs Blennerhasset, we want cake, and fine wine.” Cash or cheque only and everything comes out in sterling silver. We felt a little like Withnail and I although there might be a problem determining which of us is Withnail. Either one of us might end up reciting Hamlet to the wolves in the park. Either one of us might get that changing job.

Then we drove into Liverpool and caught The Cavern Club.

Here we are with Cilla. A guy was refreshing old songs with a good level of call and response, a strong voice and an excellent understanding of how to get his crowd to sing bits of his familiar songs. Considering he was early evening Monday, I respected his competence even if he couldn’t use his own material for whatever reason. It made me think of my old mate John Holt Roberts who busks in York. John was my Marley for my first year on Christmas Carol. His work is electric. He plays with his whole body, and he attacks his guitar. He would be awesome in that venue. But he’s Yorkshire through and through. 

Now I’m in North Wales and the drive almost killed me. Ugh. Massive pain half of the journey, before I stopped and got some experimental cocodamol. Then I realised that I shouldn’t drive on cocodamol. I was driving through a painless fog but with zero reaction speed, for 20 minutes. It was terrifying. But I made it.

Now Tristan and I are staying together with an old mate in Wales. If one or the other of us gets an audition we’ll rush back. But if not we will puddleduck and hang out with old friends. A lovely way to spend a quiet week.

Up with with the dawn but for a different reason. I’m looking after my boy. Darren and I are still sharing a home. I can’t be asleep when he’s up. He has to be on the shuttle at 6 still. He needs support as he wakes. So I set my alarm, and went and jumped on him. I’ve just packed him out the door, and sent him on his way to that difficult room. Now I’ll write this and sleep another half an hour.

When the head is sick, the body follows. My experience in that room compared to a bigger room at Ascot – there’s no comparison. Ascot was hard but enervating. That room is just hard, and cruel. It comes down to the thing I blogged about some months ago. Libertarian vs Authoritarian. I lead in a libertarian manner. I don’t respect authoritarian leaders. And vice versa. You don’t have to switch off your personality to be capable of motivating people. You don’t have to make spot value judgements. These jobs are so short term. It’s foolish in the extreme to get our ego wrapped up in them, particularly at the cost of the happiness of those around us. Yes of course we have to be firm from time to time. But there are many people – and I’m one of them so I know – who do not respond well to being treated like they’re idiots.

I ended up Kitchen Managing a restaurant with plenty of different options. I had been told that the head chef was a difficult bugger, but as far as I was concerned he was Florence Nightingale. My day became all about lemon tarts and Caesar Salads. I got to know Esther, who was working her first ever job. She’s a medical student, and is studying in Russia. She wants to be a GP. I got to know the chefs. I got to know all the runners. There was fellowship, laughter even actual jokes. The head was healthy, the body followed. It’s like another world in there, a kinder world. And kitchen managing came back to me as if it was yesterday. The area manager remembered me from The Trophy Room a few years ago and made a point of saying how thrilled they were to see me back.

The day ended at a reasonable time and we all went to the beach and sat on a dune in time for the sunset. It was beautiful. By the time the guys from my old room had made it to join us, the sun was down. They got to sit with us in darkness and Emily lost her shoes.

Then eventually we went back to Pontins only to run into our tricky manager, winding down in the bar. We had a decent conversation. He asked to shake me by the hand at the end. I like the person buried inside him, but I have no respect for his front so I ended up shaking him by the arm like bad amateur actors do when saying “ah-HA”. I needed to keep my integrity. I’m really glad I held my ground in that regard. He is still in that room, causing damage with his attitude. I’m not going to support that by letting him off.

That’s why I woke up to help Darren get up and out. It’s not a happy place he’s going to, and so it’s only fair his roommate helps him rise and sends him out with positivity. I hope it’s a superb day in there for them. Much as I’d love to be there for my staff, I’m glad to be out. I even have time to hang out on the beach in the evening before the sun sets! Luxury.

These events are remarkable logistic exercises. It’s a miracle they don’t all burn down. But then at the end of them there’s so much stuff that has nowhere to go. A bunch of guys with forklifts are going to dismantle all the huge restaurants and pack them into a massive truck to take them off to another event. There’ll be nothing left but a field. Everything has to be packed away and so much stuff is chucked because it has nowhere to go. They chuck piles and piles of stuff. Massive tubs of mayo and ketchup and olives and capers and anchovies. Cheese and beans and langoustines, and spirit measures and beer foam knives and great big plastic branded coolers. Bottles and bottles of top quality open red and white wine with amazing provenance. Butter and coffee beans and cling film and programmes and pies and  crisps and smoked salmon and cakes and muffins and milk and sugar. It can’t go to the next event, it can’t be sold to guests. It has to go. We can’t eat it, as the company has to be strict in order to stop things going down a slippery slope. There are things within reason that you can do. I’ll get a hot drink order for my chefs before service starts if I’m kitchen managing. The chefs are usually hungover. If you time the caffeine right, they might get the food out quick. You can usually get hold of bottled water to stop staff collapsing. And sometimes people can bend the rules a little bit. Kitchen etiquette is no eating in the kitchen whatsoever. That makes sense. For instance Turk (Jamie) was fantastically hungover today and probably very hungry while constantly making and handling food. It’d be problematic if he just scarfed the steak off someone’s plate and they had to do another.

All this chucking things out… It’s wearing. You find yourself mourning at the side of the bin as you chuck something you really want to shove in your mouth. But there’s only one of those things and everyone else wants one as well. We had hundreds of lovely branded Stella glasses in different sizes. Word was to recycle them just because there was nowhere to put them. But we had been told that if people wanted to take a few, they could. After my staff were sorted, I regretfully detailed them to “Ostentatiously dispose of the glasses.” As a result, some of them ended up in the back of a St John’s Ambulance – “to be distributed around the Ambulance guys.” I couldn’t approve of that officially but off the record I’m glad they weren’t wasted. Here’s Tim trashing things surrounded by the beginnings of the monumental clear down.

 

So many restaurants across site. So much stuff to be thrown out. It’s been a strange event for me, but it’s over and now I can throw all that shit away with the olives and the langoustine. I’m looking forward to getting back into the world.

The dawn is lovely and early at this time of year. I suddenly appreciate the way they fiddle with the days over here in winter and give us all those hours of darkness in the evening. Not that I’m working farmer’s hours – it’s summer. But I’m up pretty darn early most of the time.

My instinct that I shouldn’t have come up here has been compounded, this sharp morning, by the fact that my manager, who I took the time to acquit in advance, has moved me out of his area. It’s an odd business, but I’m sure the fact that I’ve not enjoyed working under him has been part of it. He found out I was an actor this morning and dropped it into conversation on the floor as if he’d discovered that I train kids for the mafia. Perhaps he found my blog. I wouldn’t describe what I’m doing as being discreet here, and the onus of the daily write up is problematic when I’m in gainful employment for people who are, let’s be honest, deeply concerned about public image and portrayal. This is a pretty closed loop, or at least I think of it as such. But people do get hold of it outside of my little pile of friends. I should be aware of that, but then how will it affect the thing that I’ve almost pointedly made my USP here – that I’m honest about the rough as well as the smooth.? Who knows. It’s an important concern for me. Years ago I wrote a blog about a tour I was on where it was brilliantly chaotic. It was in a similar tone to the one I take here when I romp through various catastrophies for your reading pleasure. I’m very happy to be bald about things that are difficult, unpleasant or strange. But it almost got me into trouble when the producer found it. We are friends again now, thankfully, but the blog almost caused problems. My first year at Sprite, Liam the producer was warned that I might put something negative online. He spoke to me about it, and it went straight through me. I think of this as a little thing read by a few pleasant people and I never seek to be negative as it’s not my way. But perhaps it reaches further and does more damage than I think. Hospitality is a dangerous business for someone who speaks his mind. And it’s not my business. I know that more and more clearly as each day passes.

On the same day it appears my photo has found its way into The Stage as an illustration on an article about immersive theatre. So there’s fate reminding me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. It was taken a couple of years ago near the Bank of England. The convergence of these two events rings loudly to me, being “moved” and that photo coming out. When I say “moved” it’s because the decision was made late in the evening and thankfully the people around me are fond enough of me to appreciate I’m in Southport now, that I came here to make money, and that it’s a reasonably arbitrary decision. They’re pretty sure they’ll find something for me elsewhere on site, which is a kindness.

But this is it for hospitality. There’s the universe showing me eating in a black suit as an actor as part of a game. That’s got to be closer to whoever I seek to be than watching other people eat, in the same black suit, while they enjoy a very different sort of game.

I struggled to write this, because these kind of things make one feel compromised. I’m a mixture of upset, annoyed and resigned, and I’m heading in now to see what’s what. But yeah. I should be acting. That’s a very clear message from the universe.

Allegedly some people played golf today. I didn’t really have time to pay attention to anything. I can’t quite break down the day. I didn’t stop much at all. I was allocated two team leaders who had never done work like this before having to learn in front of the guests how to do it. Even though I had asked every single one of them their experience when they signed in, and had a good handle on them and knew who would do well in those positions.

Thankfully they both rose in their own ways. One of them smiled all day and just was ace. The other was brilliant in a different way. Big hearted and kind, and a bit older than me. She had a commendation in the local paper for saving two students from a fire. She’s funny, caring, nuts sparky and full of talk. And quite astonishingly slow on the floor because she’s making friends with everyone. To the extent that I honestly didn’t know how to speed her up, so co-opted the girl I had wanted as my section leader to assist. She helped sort it out but things was already so far behind by that point. She’d taken “We are a yes restaurant – If the guest asks for something, web try to say yes” very literally. I adored her, but she tried to offer everything turned everyone. No matter how many times I asked her to just stop talking so much, and offering the world, she kept on doing it.

At one point, in a crowded service, she came up to me and said “I’ve promised someone burger and chips because they don’t like anything on the menu. Where do I get that from?” Facepalm. “Let me go and talk to them.” We are in the middle of a field on the coast. I could probably get a takeaway brought in site…

I went over to talk to them and only then I find out it’s a kid with leukemia on Make a Wish Foundation. And all I want now is to get him a burger and chips. And it’s in the middle of a crazy service. If I was in a smaller restaurant with fewer people watching me I could’ve ordered something in or left the floor and found someone to help me source it. But there is a veritable army of observers at this time, all making notes in books and looking like someone has just kicked them in the knee and they can’t work out if it was on purpose.

Apparently they had a tough time last year in this room and lots of complaints. So loads of people are just there during service. Standing round the edges. Watching like hawks. I greet them cheerfully and they react as if I’m not supposed to see them and I’ve shattered their invisibility field. The weight of their scrutiny is heavy. I’m staying in the floor and doing nothing out of the ordinary under that scrutiny. Literally all they care about is the exact timings of service and whether or not I’m smiling. My specific interactions with the guests are uninteresting to them despite them being the heart of what I care about. They want quantifiables. So I have to toe the party line as best I can.

My manager is not around. Although if he was and I told him a kid needs a burger, he would shut down the conversation with his hand and then say one word repeatedly until I go away. That’s his way. I’ll give it a miss.

I didn’t get the kid his burger. I feel really bad about it. I wish I had been able to. He got some plain chicken and he was alright with it. But he didn’t even want to try the things on the menu. They just sounded too complicated. And I wanted him to have a lovely meal by his standards. It was the devil’s own job to even get him a plain ham sandwich. There’s no point getting snippy about “He should expand his horizons.” No he shouldn’t right now. He might only have a few months to live. Get him whatever he wants! If it hadn’t been first service crazytime I’m sure we could’ve rustled up some more familiar stuff.

So when the dour watchers stopped piling on the pressure with their klaxon like “invisible” scrutiny of our first day, I went up and took off my managers open golf pin badge from my jacket. I gave it to him. It felt like a symbolic gesture considering what I’m feeling with the way we are being treated so far this week. He was thrilled. It was literally the least I could do.

I hope he got some good autographs. He went to the 18th hole after he’d eventually got his plain sandwich from me for tea. I barely understand the golf so the names he showed me were unfamiliar. But I hope he got some of the people he loved. And I hope he liked his pin.

I’ve been subjected to a lot of theory today. “What happens if x person does y thing at z time.” It annoys me. The most honest answer is “We will solve it in the moment.” Which we will. There’s only so much patience I have for these hypothetical situations particularly when there are lots of practical things that need to be done. You have to do it though I guess. We have a tradition of pretending to be bolshy affectionate or drunk invented audience members with Yorkshire accents when we do the audience responsive bits rehearsing Christmas Carol. (The show was made in Yorkshire). I maintain that you can’t really rehearse audience interaction without a true audience. But it’s worth trying and I’ll never throw out the attempt. Ditto drunk people in a VIP restaurant.

But I knew I’d struggle with my Manager here. I knew it as soon as he jokingly patted me on the back and told me I was a “player” after I’d been talking to a group of people who, I realised as a result of his comment, were all attractive young women.

It’s why I wrote that I liked him yesterday. Because I do. I needed to have that written down to remind me. He’s a bit OCD and a bit sexist. He needs to give us more rein.

To be honest I’m trying to be diplomatic but I’m fuming with him after the last straw when he picked my waiting team for me. We came to some of the same conclusions, but I’d spent the morning working out who I thought would be good or grow from it, and he just went and arbitrated it for me without even considering I might care or be invested, and without asking us despite us making it clear we had thoughts on it. Building the teams is part of the joy for me. Dammit.

All this is detail though. I knew what I was getting into. And I’m happy to vent here, and shut up and be obedient like he wants me to. I can learn from that. He certainly knows things I don’t. Sorry to use my blog as an exhaust vent recently. Tooot.

It was the last early finish tonight, and we got back to Pontins in time to hear them playing Bob the Builder and doing a live Sooty and Sweep show in the big mirrorball hall. Our little team, Darren, Emily and I all jumped in my car and went to a restaurant where we could experience it from the other side one last time.

I still think the next few days will be fun somehow. It’ll be all consuming and then it’ll be gone. My lesson will be holding my tongue. I’ll see how well I do.

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Up in the morning, suited and booted in the rain, heading in to work. Four days…

 

Southport is full of Manx flags, and no surprise. There is something reminiscent of the Isle of Man here. Windswept shrubs, sand flies, gorse. Constant wind. Roads. Pebble dash. Hydrangeas. Sea air. About 3 years behind

If I had a really powerful catapult I reckon I could get myself plastered on the harbour wall at Douglas head. Just like old days, but messier. If I squint on a clear day I can make out the outline of one of my old mates telling me I still owe him a pint of Okells and a kipper. Or it could be Douglas Head. If I have time when I’m done here I’m tempted to get a ferry and see the old place for a night or two. Or a catapult, I guess, but a ferry for preference with this rib. I could go walking in the hills and shout at sheep in the wind. It’s a thought. Although my agent has got the hump with me for not putting my availability into her agenting software. Against all odds I have had two meetings on two consecutive days and have had to turn them both down. I’m sure I told her my dates. Sometimes it feels like fate does this stuff on purpose to fuck with me. They were only commercial auditions, so no career stuff there, and a bit like a lottery ticket. But money is the reason I’m here, and commercials still do money, although not as much as they used to. I think this might be lesson learnt, already. I’m slow at learning lessons and also a humongous masochist. So I needed to take a bit more punishment post Ascot. But I’m here now. No more of this shit. (We shall see).

I’m in the 1860 restaurant, which will be my only existence for the coming week. I have an ubergruppenmanager who I met today. Sean. He’s sweet, although he’d never self describe like that. His wife had her first ultrasound today and he couldn’t be bothered to try to hide his joy and excitement at “seeing” his son for the first time. His behavior over the next day or so will directly affect my experience here so I’m hoping he stays happy. He’s South African, but doesn’t appear to be a megalomaniac or a panicker. He seems perfectly happy for my staff to answer to me if I answer to him. He’s OCD as holy hell and inevitably I’ll be swearing about him by the time I’m done, so it’s worth me documenting for myself that I don’t think he’s an axe wielding lunatic now for referral later when I’m tired and angry.

After work we had the luxury to go and watch the sun go down with a beer. We stood on a wide sandy beach like the beach at the end of the world, and toasted the sunset.

I’m willing to believe that, rib or no rib, this will be less of a disaster than the last event. I meet the staff tomorrow, and then all my mentoring instincts will kick in and things will change. Today was just logistics, butter and pain management.

Oh man this week is going to be a blogmare.

I’m condemned to a gulag in Southport. No amount of colourful squirrel pictures on the walls will persuade me otherwise. “Pontins” is the name of this hellhole. You might think the vegetable police are more powerful than I gave them credit for, and they’ve put me in a soviet era punishment block for crimes against cucumbers. But no. This isn’t the veg police, despite yesterday. This is all my own doing. I did this to myself. I knew loosely what I was getting into when I signed up for this. Although imagination can sometimes be so much kinder than reality. After the last event I should know better, but I haven’t learnt yet.

After driving from London to Southport, the pleasant but totally useless reception people sent us to our chalet. Problem was there was a 50 year old Australian man in pants there already, with his stuff aggressively strewn about. He was very friendly, but agreed that perhaps there wasn’t room for all of us plus his Y-Fronts.  These “chalets” are tiny.

So began hours of me gradually discovering through a fog of pain after a long drive that everyone here is a totally incompetent Fuckwit, and nobody gives a shit about anything other than correctly following whatever unearthly bullshit arse-faced dickeryschlock some varnished child has written down on a piece of paper the evening before. As it transpired, the Aussie guy was chancing it. But it caused ages of running around and calling people, in a place where there is no phone reception or internet. Like anyone gave a fuck.

Now I’m ready and past ready to go to bed. I have a pallet shaped thing into which I am going to insert my body and try to make it stay still for a few hours. I think it might go by “futon” in some circles. I doubt my body will thank me in the morning based on what it feels like on a brief foray, but I’m willing to be surprised. I’ve definitely slept well in worse, but then I can say that in almost all circumstances. One of the legs keeps falling off which will be an ungodly pain if it happens in the night when this cocktail of pain relieving narcotics has worn off.

My major concern right now is “How the hell am I going to post this nonsense!” – not just tonight when all that’s happened is I’ve driven across the country and gone to war with some idiots. How’s about when the 16 hour days kick in and some Latvian Crown Prince has been howling about the temperature of his caviar for 5 of them, while I respond by being effortlessly exhaustingly charming? I’m too tired to write a coherent blog today so I’m just ranting. Bear with me, it’s an experiment 

And having written my minimum I’m going to try to post it, because I fear that it’ll involve going for a long walk. I’ll try to put in a photo on. There’s an incredible beach. People are here with their families on holiday. They are here to have fun. I mustn’t overlook that. I might think of it like a gulag, as I’m here to work and there’s no privacy and virtually no comfort. But that just highlights how spoilt I am. If it’s good enough for those families on holiday I should have nothing to complain about. They’ve even given us ten quid credit for the electricity, the hot water only takes half an hour after we switch the immersion on, there’s endless free flowing cold water, we are allowed to use the cups and there’s a lock on the door. There’s even sheets provided made out of sandpaper, but thankfully I had advance warning and brought my own from home. And I should try and sleep in them now as it’s late. Hopefully I can schedule this. Fingers crossed.

Chase Lorck. An unlikely name for a hero. But today, Chase – today is your day.

Those of you who know me well will recognise the  burning eyed zealous fervour with which I have scoured the country for that perfect holy grail of cucumbers over the years. Many of you have turned away from me in shame as I have made conversation after conversation all about Cucumis Sativus. Oh lord that gourd! In auditions, time after time when it gets to “Any questions?” I let myself down. “Yes … um … do you think my character might actually be a cucumber?” And then those occasions, thankfully getting rarer as I grow older, when I have innocently spoken half of that old cliche “Is that a cucumber in your pocket?” not even considering the possibility that they might be pleased to see me until IT’S TOO LATE, it’s all out in the open, sometimes literally, and once again my credibility is tarnished by my adoration for that delightful cucumiform vine fruit thing.

My last girlfriend – all those years ago. God. I remember it like it was yesterday. There she stood at the base of 30 St Mary Axe: “It’s either me or the cucumbers!” she said. I had taken her there for her birthday. There in the shadow of that lovely building I gave her a perfect bunch of parthenocarpic Persian Burpless that I’d imported from Canada. “They’re ideal for Raitha,” I tried to tell her. “Or we could just eat them now. There’s another one in my pocket.” She slapped me and left, taking the Persian Burpless with her. I never saw her again – or those cucumbers which to be honest weren’t cheap – I had got them in Borough Market off this overenthusiastic bearded man with a handlebar moustache who charged me about three times the value because – as he put it – “These are the hep-cucumbers at the moment.”  I hope she made them into raitha and enjoyed them on her own in front of Netflix. Preferably crying. I would’ve made great raitha with her. She would never have been stuck for sandwiches at Henley. The pain of recollection! The way I used to make her Instagram selfies with face-mask on just so much more on trend, using expertly hand sliced Dosakai. But sometimes we have to let these things go.

It was a long time ago. I remember that night, walking all the way home, I took out the Schälgurken that I had had in my pocket and desolately munched it. They’re better fried. But I was sad.

Today I went to The Lambeth Country Show. It’s in Herne Hill. There are sheep and birds of prey. The sheep get rosettes for being good at sheeping. There are many people milling around trying to establish where to get cider in the sunshine. None of the people get rosettes even though they herd together and join long queues making monosyllabic howling sounds. They probably ought to. I was there with Flavia and Ivo, and Eve. This information probably means nothing to most you. I mention it for documentation purposes only. They are not cucumbrists.

At one side of the fair is the vegetable tent. Oh yes, the vegetable tent. This is where the vegetables lie. I went there with a lump in my throat, a desperate surge of adrenaline. Maybe … Dare I hope … Maybe there would be cucumbers!

First I had to put up with butchery. God save me. God save us all. The carved novelty vegetables. “The artist formerly known as Quince.” “The Peaple of Lambeth.” IS THIS COMPETITION JUDGED ENTIRELY ON THE STRENGTH OF THE PUNS? More to the point, where are the cucumbers in all of this??

Just as I was losing my cool – and I pride myself on my cool – I’m very cool. As cool as a very cool thing that is cool. From the hands of Chase Lorck, to your eyes. The perfect cucumber. Right there. In my grasp.

Marvel at this rosette winner. It is not too cucumbersome. It has a darling little stem, or “cue”. It bends gently towards the viewer, reminding us that this is a vine from which things can be plucked. The body is not too shadowed, or “umber.” The shadows are balanced by the lines, suggestive of the determined continuation of human life. We emerge from shadow, we run parallel to one another, some for different lengths. Sometimes we are interrupted or shine brightly, but then we all go back to shadow. Apart from some of us, who go round the bottom end and back the other way but we don’t talk about them. Here she is. The cue and the umber blending where we can “c” it.

Chase Lorck has grown the cucumber of thunder. The gourd of the Gods. Oh cucumber. How I love thee. You are the one I have been waiting for.

There were loads of vegetable police officers at the festival. More than I’ve ever noticed at a gathering in London. They have their own designated area. This is in central London, and it’s a big gathering of people. We have to get used to this reality, it seems, that whenever many of us are milling around there will be loads of vegetable law enforcement officers banging around with guns watching the edges. And the vedges.

Reader, I stole it. I stole that cucumber, and I ran. Like a gazelle. Down Herne Hill I sprinted, clutching my gourdgeous trophy. Sadly with my rib as fucked as it is all that sprinting took me less than 5 foot in ten minutes before twelve vegetable police officers jumped on me and set about  me with their asparagus. Not before I had stuffed Chase’s cucumber into my mouth. Crammed it all in with its glorious perfection and crunched and slathered and drooled. Om nom nom nom nom.

Now I’m in holding for crimes against vegetables. But it was worth it. CUCUMBRIVALIS, my fellow cucumberists. Together we will rise!