AlBarclay

Not my finest hour, last night. Kyoto was great and I was excitedly gobbling beers and neglected to remember Tom, whose key I gave to Lou over Christmas. He was staying on the sofa and had messaged to say he was close, had lost his bank card, and was on one percent. I had another beer and spoke to Tomo with Jethro. A lovely elder Japanese actor, one I have certainly met before through another mutual friend, he gets around. He’s fab. It was only when I left that I remembered Tom. Fuck.

I hailed a black cab. Tried to ring him but battery long dead. At least it isn’t raining, I thought to myself. Got home and he was on the doorstep surprisingly happy considering he had been waiting. We went up. I then fell off my routine further, maybe discombobulated, maybe made worse by the beer. My head was rushing with thoughts from Kyoto. All the workshops I’ve been doing and nonsense about electric cars that has helped me look at a charged issue from many angles and reach my own conclusions. I needed to shut my head off so took my sleepy drink and then realised I hadn’t blogged. It was a race against time as my eyelids drooped. I was shipping all sorts of half thought through angry nonsense. Finally I reached a conclusion and fell asleep with lenses in. Woke up about 4 and clawed them out of my face. I’m surprised I don’t have a headache now but I suppose I had only put them in just before the show.

Today I resolved to attempt to be a bit less shoddy. I did some admin, until my brain hurt and I had to go for coffee at Heidi. Heidi is on the grounds on The Royal Hospital, my new local coffee shop, in an old stable. Today as I stumbled in for a latte there was a solitary Chelsea Pensioner stopped over a traditional organ grinder, playing Tuppence a Bag to himself. Turning the wheel. It was a time warp for a moment. I smiled at him, cut a respectful bow without thinking, it seemed appropriate. I found myself wishing he had a little capuchin monkey in a tux holding a bucket and chattering. I wondered if he wanted donations but I think he was grinding out of love and exercise. In retrospect I should have bought him a cuppa. I just got myself one. Next time.

Boo and I have been hibernating together. Tomorrow is a day of new beginnings in the Hindu calendar, so I’m gonna really try to put this dark and slow time behind me and project forward into February and beyond. Lots of change in the air. I need to fire forward, from a clear flat with well done admin and no concerns about money. First step, taking my lenses out before I go to sleep and laying off the sauce. I’ve done enough grinding of the organs.

It’s fascinating and terrifying when you get into man made climate change the extent to which people have been bamboozled by capitalism. Someone just two days ago implied they “they” were responsible for the California wildfires. There are so many narratives, specific to the needs of the ones that peddle them. How can you boil it down? You can’t. Everyone has a perspective on it, and the internet has given us a tool that lets us ignore actual researchers. For every brilliant and properly researched nightmare scientist, too tired to wash, uninterested in dressing well, speaking from their vocal constriction or writing from their social obstruction, there are fifty good looking and socially acceptable public speakers who disagree with them but present extremely well. Them and idiots are driving what is now considered to be the mainstream narrative by people who haven’t noticed that the “niche” sites are the mainstream now, however you got invited. Some of these fuckers have done physics degrees or whatever and they can call themselves “scientists” to further complicate things. The whole COVID thing didn’t help, oh god it made these thought experiments into all your biddable friends thinking they found a magic secret that makes them better then everyone else. Even those of us who know how long science takes didn’t like or respect the obedience in the narrative around the pandemic. It’s no surprise I’m enjoying Baldur’s Gate 3 when you look at the central premise of the narrative. How many people have been “tadpoled”?

I’ve already had sleepy drink for tonight, I forgot I hadn’t written. I’m about to embark on a deep attempt to look at all the stuff where people who have been used their whole life to being told they are wrong or they don’t understand things properly have been jigging around trying to say “I told you so” because of an internet shared pattern matching nonsense. The exact parameters shift consistently so there’s no point sciencing things. It used to be that the deadlines in the inherited made up shit our pattern matching friends were peddling would come quick and fast: “There’ll be a great big shift and all the crap we invented about well known people will have a made up thing happen to them by Dejanubery the 53rd, Kingyear 17662.” The dates would often be just a few months away, and I would always wonder how the people buying into this “secret knowledge” would cope when it turned out to be wrong so quicky. But they never cared. They just readjusted the dates, moved onto the next one. “Oh yeah, it didn’t happen in Dejanubery because of “Well Known Person”. “Well Known Person,” who has “{usually liberal opinion}” (and this casual attack on their politics appears whether I’ve asked for it or not) “Well known person blocked the thing that was definitely happening but it’ll be definitely happening again in X TIME.”

It’s like a kid’s game I guess. You can just shift the rules based on the needs. Nobody playing these games is necessarily a bad person, even if some are not the best at critical thinking. Instinct is important, but if that’s your only guide you really have to be able to trust you aren’t being manipulated by clever people pretending to be like you.

I watched this fucking hard show about the way we were bamboozled by oil into leaving it too late to do anything about man made climate change.

What I didn’t know was how early people started to try to have the conversation. The first half was HARD to watch. I was still at school when this stuff happened. Maybe back then we could have slowed things down.

It’s done now. We will reap what we’ve sowed, but not fully in any of our lifetimes. These things are slow, but human society as we know it is long past tipping. We will continue for the short term to be able to get home and say “This evening I shall have Chinese food in twenty minutes, delivered to my door “. Depending on the oil, there is a bit longer before collapse. Get good at your martial arts though. Resource war is coming and our convenience habit is the main driver.

Kyoto made me sad, ultimately. I’m glad to see it, it leaves us with an optimistic finish. It’s a great piece of theatre. But I don’t buy the optimism, and I speak as an optimist. We’ve fucked it. Civilisation as we have built it will burn, it is burning, it’ll get worse because we can’t stop ourselves. More than half the world will probably lose their homes a lifetime. There will be mass graves, civil unrest on a scale we have never seen. Fire and water. Earth and air. Nature is bigger than us unless we do the ultimate and just ruin the atmosphere and then that’s that. I’ll be dead for the worst of it, or in another life, forgetful.

I’m so tired. Silly boy, had sleepy drink before I remembered I needed to write, no filter, no going over. Ooch. It was lovely to share the show with Claire and Jethro from Othello. And I got to meet Matthew from casting, and thank him. WIN. zzzz

Had a friend staying, which was helpful as I was feeling very Sunday morning. It was a work of effort to make a short walk into a local new build complex near the canal where they’ve opened a decent breakfast place. The Locals Chelsea. I sometimes order lazy coffee and croissants from there if I have guests. I have never been there in the flesh.

I wasn’t feeling great this morning, perhaps just because of wine at the theatre. It wasn’t a particularly late night. But my digestion tends not to kick it before ten at the earliest so it was touch and go. I managed some granola. It was more about the company really. None of us get out as much as we used to. The business of seeing friends is not as easy as it used to be. This was a chance to be seized. She doesn’t live in London anymore.

I left her there after my granola. She wanted to do some admin, I’m trying to get some admin done too. Also … the music they were playing in there was almost like it was designed to push people away. Factory made generic autotuned pop from that person you’ve heard of but couldn’t pick out of a line up. Louder than necessary. I needed out and the coffee was kicking in and the gents loo didn’t have a working lock. Home was the best solution. Home and pussycat and four walls and central heating.

My friend encouraged me to do some research on my next job. I haven’t wanted to, it isn’t really relevant who is playing what unless you find out you’re working with friends. I ended up back looking at stoopid IMDB etc and reminding myself how I have been remiss about all the online profile nonsense for decades now, but actually would benefit from doing something about it so I can keep walking forwards. Nice to see there’s an ex Guildhall goodie in the top billing. I’ll have some scenes with them which I guess has added to my anticipation. It’ll start in February, and I’ll be in and out a bit. I like it like that. Keeps you in a crafty headspace, helps you look to the future. There’ll be days when I’m not doing a great deal but will be on set, so those days will allow for all sorts of online admin magic to become possible in my trailer. Then there’ll be other days when I’m pretty occupied, thinking about arc, making sure I am fluent and embodied. Something to look forward to. No NDA yet but I bet it’s coming so I’m being coy as usual. No specific dates obviously. This is just me looking at what’s been announced so far.

I think an early bed tonight. Boo is already on my feet. I don’t really like being awake right now when it’s dark and cold and night, so I’ll make a chamomile and see if it helps me off to snoozeland.

My friend couldn’t understand why I hadn’t dug out info about this upcoming gig before. I don’t find it helpful. It’s a job of work, just happens to be in the public domain. I just need, as they say, to know my lines and not walk into the furniture. Knowing the lines is the single most important thing. Then just on set comportment, arc, not being a dick. I’m glad to have a decent run at it again. Been a while.

It’s my local theatre, The Royal Court. Back in the day I was watching everything, usually standing for 10p cos of budget. I had a dream that when I was making proper money from my vocation, I’d be a member and get the perks. Maybe I will now things have started to work out at last. For now though I bought a ticket with the punters. £22.50. Back of the circle. Nobody behind me, didn’t need to take my hat off and could stretch.

Robyn is an old friend from The Factory. She’s South African, living in London. She is in A Good House there at The Court, and it opened tonight. Turns out Olivia is in the show too, a friend who used to live just down the road from me. Did someone once try and set us up? I think so. Neither of us really paid attention to it, we just lived twenty minutes walk from each other and, as with Tristan and Tanya, it’s extremely convenient when a friend gets with a friend as you get double the socialnessness for the same cost of time.

I stopped going to the RC for a while. There was this period where you could really HEAR the writing. It’s a new writing theatre so yes, of course. But it kinda lost its Mojo (that’s an in joke).

I’m booked to see Dan Evans reprise his role in 4:48 psychosis. I’ll be at The Other Place in June at 4:48am.

I love new writing, I love fresh takes, fresh output. I make noise every day because of that love, here. I’m not structuring and barely if ever proofread / reread. Sometimes I check it in the morning, if I went to bed hammered or angry. I’ve been known to excise great chunks and one entire blog. When you put thoughts out into the world in writing they can become more concrete to people who read them than they are for you.

I’ve been tempted for a while to feed my entire blog to an AI and then see what it generates bases on prompts. The thing that has stopped me is that I don’t want to feed this blog to such a model, even if the various LLMs have already scraped me and everything else ever published.

But this blog is manual, as you can tell by how many paragraphs it has taken before I finally resolve the opening. So much subjective noise. This is my blog, I can do what I want. But: I was at The Royal Court tonight, to see Robyn and Olivia and a remarkable company in their first preview of A Good House by Amy Jeptha.

We all think about privilege and identity all the time these days. We often present one thing but have lived something else. Class and economics and race. Blind spots, gatekeepers, social media. Whatever our perspective, there are people in this instant world who hate us for it and others who love us for it. It’s hard, it’s hard, it’s HARD to make a play that carries this but that isn’t trying to inform us how we must think about our privilege. This is a truly modern play, coming into the middle of a really spicy conversation and using a delightful construct of a house inhabited by notional undesirables, and a whole load of neurotic neighbours each with their own sets of social masks and learnt behaviours.

I think this play will run. I’m no judge of the industry though, they come with axes to wonderful things too often, way too often. But I think the threatened men might just avoid showing their weaknesses on this one lest they be exposed. It is so tight and clear and passionate and funny and weird and alive.

I loved it. I really loved it. Because it was masterful. Not just the writing, the direction, the fact it dared to make us wait for things that fed into character. The acting, where not a word fell fallow, actions were being actively played even in song, nothing went without target, without intention. I never had my inner demon shout “You don’t know what you mean.” Design is where my expertise starts waning but Lou has improved my view on it. The house was wonderful and funny and strange and it pleased me. I’m sure there’s stuff to get hold of but I won’t even notice if you’ve bleached your hair. Sound design was remarkable.

It’s a brilliant show. 1h 40 straight through, no interval, no re-entry. Nothing preachy here. A grown up show about grown up things. I’m rarely motivated to be so certain, but I reckon you all will get something out of this one, it’s a joy, it’s weird, it’s sad it’s funny. We, the audience, we all squirmed at different bits. I’ve never come across something so well judged before. Fully booked for first preview, I think we were a good house for A Good House. They deserve one every night and they’ll get one so if you don’t book fast you won’t see it.

And so. Daytime I’m just here. Night I’m chilling. Sending tapes and winning when I can. A strange existence but focused. A cat definitely helps.

I’ve aligned with and written about cats many times. Fundamentally simple creatures on one level, but the Egyptians were right to revere them. There’s something they know. We all know that they bristle for ghosts. They see things.

I went to my bro Rupert tonight. We made friends over summer, he pissed me off with simplistic thinking, I pissed him off with simplistic thinking, we both accepted that the world is huge and impossible. We stayed friends because our mathematics track, we just notice and value different things. Neither of us are eugenicists. We’re just looking to a happy world through our prism.

Now I’m home. The last hour has been entirely about playing with Boo, who has evidently been wondering what the hell has happened to this flat she organised with Brian Lou and Al all ready and willing to play with her forever. It’s just me now.

These cats, they intervene for us on levels we can never fathom. Don’t fuck with cats.

Even in Baldurs Gate 3, and I’m shameless about the fact I’m playing it in my spare time. My bard can talk with animals. The cats are all narcissists. It’s hilarious and wonderful and just another example of how Larian worked hard to make every option workable. This game… I honestly don’t know how it could ever be bettered. I look to that possibility. But… I messaged my friend who voices one of my favourite tanks. She’s a barbarian, and my Dungeons and Dragons character is always a barb. 100% committed, powerful yet vulnerable, open hearted. She’s in my main party even though I used my rpg knowledge and game mechanics to get the most incredible sword for my githyanki fighter. It’s bound to githyanki, and technically it should be vorpal and thus instakill on a natural 20. But it’s still absurdly good. But I prefer to have Karlach because she actively makes me laugh – her reaction just now when Minthara went into fine print about Wyll’s infernal contract, after I totally sorted her stuff out… I laughed so hard I had to put my Steam Deck down.

But yeah, I’ve been looking at tax and hiding in computer games when it gets too much. I think I’ll have a very hard thing finished by the end of the weekend. But it has made me shit at social occasions. I’m glad I took the time to see my bro. I’m sad I missed a lovely friend’s gig. But I don’t want to be out in boozeland right now.

And I’m lucky to have a small black cat looking after me.

Boo became fascinated by my bootlaces today. I was getting dressed up. Three piece plus V neck jumper. But I’m not putting on those horrible smartshoey things we all had to polish at school. I’m very much at home to rocking an intricate suit with worn walking boots. I once was told “You can get the measure of a man by their shoes and their cufflinks.” I was told this with sincerity. The person who told me thought it would lead to me selecting excellent cufflinks at all times. It backfired. I see it because I’m looking for it, people like my old ally, looking at you from the ground up. I love that they see a fucked old pair of Brashers first. Then a beautifully tailored suit and waistcoat. And cufflinks made of Scrabble pieces. The “measure” of me is quite rightly not swept up in signalling. Spend too much time thinking about that sort of thing and you forget who you are. Constructs usually either intimidate or annoy me.

But Boo is very much Boo and she was shadowing me as I was dressing up. I was booked to go to Mayfair, fine dining and then drinkies. Yum. I have many suits. I chose an old friend of a suit, a modern one, one I have recorded many self tapes in. I’m comfy when I’m smart. I often wear fine suits at festivals. “You’re not at work now mate!” “Thank you. I kind of am. This is costume.” Festivals were work for decades and will be again. My disruption uniform is smart. And boots.

Boo just wanted my bootlace. We had been just random playing for a while before I started playing dressup. I was attempting different combos to make sure It wasn’t gonna freeze my arse off. This weather is beast.

Inches before I left the flat I realised I couldn’t find my keys. I went to the kitchen. Not there so I turned and SO NEARLY put my whole weight onto a Boo who had snuck up behind me in quest of those fascinating bootlaces.

She’s not injured thankfully. Her paw got between me and the floor. Twinkle toes here transferred weight in time, but it was a near miss and we both know it. I have since firmly touched her paw with no objection.

Her obsession with bootlaces and sneaking up behind us coupled with her apparent belief that it is impossible to step on her, it might leave to me joining the hordes of “shoes off in the house” people. Usually if I hear that rule I find it interesting just as an insight into the rulemaker. They’ll justify it a million ways but it’s pretty much inevitably a control thing. But now I’m considering it about a cat. I’m over fifty finally. I am become part of the establishment complex, oh yes. All will do my bidding. Feel the shoelessness.

I won’t do it yet. I hate imposing. I’ll get some sort of shoe rack before I arbitrate for my guests so at least it’s easy for them. But I can feel it coming. Boo is still pissed off with me, but also she is absolutely dead set on lying in pathways. It’s like she’s got a deathwish. I’ll be that guy, for Boo. I’m pretty careful, and I’m rarely not remembering about the cat. But I can think of multiple very dear friends who might step their full weight on Boo as she lies in the way.

Such a good meal. Such a posh meal. Everyone should be allowed to have a ridiculous meal from time to time. Our waiter was a clown, which both added and subtracted from the experience. He was having a better time than we were, but was simultaneously ill informed and pretending not to be. For the cost of the meal, it was like getting the work experience kid, but I’m not annoyed enough by him to name him or the place. It takes a lot for me to name and link a place for being assholes like I did the other day with the Swan’s Nest Hotel in Stratford and their £8 hidden parking charge. (It’s on the website, sir.)

So good to hang with a friend of mine that has been consistent for such a long time.

Now I’m gonna have to make peace with Boo for my galumphing.

Last night’s dream was one of those dreams that feel real, that you have to unpack when you remember it, that you have to help yourself remember it was just a dream.

It was dawn, in London, in my bed where I was sleeping. Boo didn’t exist in my dream. I woke up to a sound and I looked out of my bedroom window. There I saw the mushroom cloud.

Playing it back in my mind, the bomb I saw must have landed in Sydenham. Logically for survival purposes it would have to be sevenoaks. It was already mushrooming, exactly two fingers in the plume, but I wasn’t feeling any wind yet.

My weight and breath in my dream dropped down immediately. This is my crisis response, it’s why I’m useful in events. I get more ordered and much calmer when things go to shit. Dream Al went into his bathroom, closed the plug and ran the cold tap. Then he found his iodine and flooded his thyroid with non-radioactive iodine, while gathering essential handy tools and dried foods into a small pack. Most people not in blast radius die from casually absorbing radioactive iodine. Step 1: Flood your thyroid.

Then dream Al filled every available lidded receptacle with water, loaded up with edibles and nothing else but keys and got into the car to get out of London and drive “north”, and maybe top up the fuel and liquids at a local petrol station that hadn’t got the memo. No idea where dream Al was going. He was just getting out.

In my dream I was already in Bergman and driving “north” knowing that that was where Lou was, weirdly. I was trying to phone Lou in “north” before service went down totally, getting out of town laden with food and water and testing the edges of what still worked when Boo woke me up suddenly. I think the plan I had was to go to the Isle of Man somehow via Lou in “North”, even if it involved stealing a boat. Not a good plan, dream Al. The iodine and water was a good start, but driving THROUGH London to go north? Sure it felt like I would have been one of the first, but there’s half an hour between me and Finchley. Could have easily ended up stuck in angry nuke crowds.

I’m glad it was a dream, obviously. Lou being “north” puts it a bit closer to a future prediction than a dream as she is absolutely south in Brighton right now and that would have been through the bomb.

I’m curious though. It has been decades since I’ve had nuclear dreams. I used to have them all the time, growing up in the cold war. They’ve come back. Putin wants it back. It is his engineering that has created this shitstorm. Trump is pliable. Putin knows this, and angled for it. Now Trump is saying North America will go to war with NATO over Greenland, forgetting the first two letters of NATO, obviating the whole fucking thing, so Putin can say “See, I told you they were fascists!” and he can have Ukraine like he had Crimea and Trump can think he’ll get similar territory in some sort of reciprocal deal but the USA never held the territories so it won’t work. Maybe Panama… That’s a bit like the Crimea. But – this is fucked. Putin put in the idea he shouldn’t leave the White House. All this manly man rhetoric. “If they vote you out you will leave?” Trump didn’t believe he could lose to Biden, that’s why he overreacted. This time he’ll move quickly to try and change things and leave the USA with what they voted for forever and fuck it maybe that’s what they deserve. We can’t properly cope with the meaning of all this without the benefit of time. It looks like a fucking mess but who knows? Maybe my dream was just a dream. Maybe this idiot will subjugate his country to Russia and no shots will be fired. It just feels like when he realises how hard he has been played he’s gonna kick off and boom means boom.

Boo just started shouting. She wants play. This is better than thinking about all these fragile tiny boys and how they have put profit in front of people for so long.

I’ll play with Boo a bit, and then off to bed. If the bombs fall I probably won’t survive. But I haven’t had those dreams since I was a teenager. Here we go again. Really? Yes. Why? Male ego. Surely that’s not a big enough problem to destroy civilisation? … … … … … Ok yah it is.

Damn. The oldest surviving written work, Gilgamesh, translated from cuneiform tablets, talks of how a misguided leader is destructive when he is a leader just for being a leader. He has to go on a long journey and exhaust himself and fuck up multiple times before he can go back to where he was and look at it and see it for what it is, and therefore see the people and lead for and with them instead of just leading with his ego despite them.

I might order a big pallet of mineral water. Then I might be able to weather the lawless stage in London after the bombs. If I was in charge of the doomsday clock I’d be clicking it closer…

But hey, in the eighties we were wrong to worry. War Games was a great fiction, nothing more. Yeah? It’ll be fine. Just look at the balanced personalities we have in positions of power in the major nuclear countries. Not to mention the fact that Iran have been enriching uranium for years and probably already have nukes which is why they’ve been behaving like such arses for the last few years. Ugh. I’m feeling more and more like this is the end of times for our comfortable civilisation.

My love goes out to LA, to the fire. What hell, to lose your home in an inferno. Lou has experienced this and now I’m hearing of it again again again unseasonally and yet in January, objectively the month one goes to LA – the beginning of my blog journey, warm sunny winter in a place where they aren’t looking at you closely enough to see that you’re an alarming mess on the inside. I fixed myself there thanks to this blog, to Brian, Jake and Siri, Lyndon, Laural and Mark with their dog room in Larchmont, and Vince in Venice who, for a glorious moment had illegally filled someone else’s empty home with bunk beds and created a temporary community where good people rented US phones for cheap, good advice was given to visitors, community happened stealthily and you could get a battered Chevy for $100 a month if you spoke to the right human. I had been angling to get use of Matt’s Harley, knowing it was gently rotting in a garage after Season 2 of his fronted show didn’t materialise. Tragedy. I would’ve gladly kept that Harley running…

I miss that town. I was there as the mischief. I did a good job of it, breaking rules, pushing boundaries, having fun. I hope the fires get under control. Too many lovely weird people there. I want them to be happy and safe.

And I’m home.

A slightly drinky script-reading in a pub in Soho. Robert the owner is a writer and his friend has started to institute readings in the little upstairs room. Alice got an opportunity to do her latest film script up there and like a legend she took it. I’m a big fan of Alice. We worked out how to work with each other a long long time ago, and now it comes as shorthand. We both persisted with one another in the early days and learnt from each other. It’s a proper collaboration.

Six of us sat and breathed life into this characterful and curious tale. Ghosts, stalkers and post natal depression. The male gaze, and the violence and entitlement that often comes with it. Plus female technocrats, ancient spirits and the emotional disconnect of the army.

I was in the army house at Harrow. Wrote a drunk blog about it once that was found and shared among the people it referenced. I haven’t gone over it, just know because one of them who I don’t detest made it obvious when he was matching names to descriptions. I shrugged, at the time. Fine, this blog is always just the work of a moment, and my opinions shift and change as I grow. I absolutely defy the myth of consistency. We have to be able to shift, even if journalists think they have scored a point if they realise someone has adjusted their stance. The myth of consistency is part of what has squished the world into almost impossible polarities. I long to hear someone in power say “Yes, you are correct, I did say X but now on reflection I have developed my thinking and have realised I was misguided. I now firmly hold the opposite stance for reasons reasons reasons. And I will stand by my new position unless facts come to light that prove I need to rethink.”

This is why I’m not a politician. You have to lie to make the fuckers trust you.

Nevertheless, I play an officer class army bloke very well because I’ve observed the shivering detritus of the early education of the donkeys who led those lions. There are many disconnects, sure. The most disconnected of them weren’t the ones who went into service anyway – the burnt ends ended up estate agenting while the ones with heart did some service, sometimes very deeply. There are some good humans shuffled in with the jokers.

I won’t play the part I read, if the film is made. Way too old. Was there just to support my friend. She invited a casting director and by the sound of it that potential contact was too pissed off she wasn’t asked to cast it herself that she didn’t stay to talk with any of us who were there to help. I despair of meeting casting directors. Met one finally last year dressed as a Wrigley’s Limited Edition Watermelon Gum that joined a key to blow up Camden. But usually I’m too socially awkward to make it satisfying.

Maybe she’ll think of me negatively now because I was miscast and knew it but was there to support someone I admire. I really hope not. I kinda wish she had taken the time to tell me so, rather than just feeding back to Alice and leaving. A curious meeting primed to negative would have been better than just leaving with a negative. Still, we can only do and do and do. And our people find our people, we hope.

This evening in a little Soho pub, eight practitioners came together and made a little bit of light. Some people let it kindle them, others were a bit clogged.

Now I’m home with the cat and all of this seems almost as trivial as it is.

I took Lou back to Brighton. Just got home. We went and hung out for a moment with Tessy. Tessy is vast compared to this little black ghost that haunts me in Chelsea, although much of her bulk is fluff.

It’s barely ten and I’m already flat out in bed. Sent some work emails today, made some calls… The machine is now clicking back into gear.

The roads were dense London to Brighton and then Brighton to London. In both directions there were the drivers who try and race you. Driving home after Christmas. I always just let them win, but they often attach to me when they see me nipping through traffic. I’m just doing it for expedience, not testosterone. I’m no Andrew Tate, constantly worrying about how my behaviour affects people’s theories about the size of my penis. I had to pay attention in the outskirts of London, both ways.

Lots of driving but I’m home happy. Thankfully I had good company down and plenty to keep my mind occupied on the way up. Radio 4 played a blinder. I’ve run out of podcasts, but there were two good articles back to back and then I haven’t listened to the news for ages so I was very happy to hear about how the chinless eejit Mark Rylance plays in “Don’t Look Up” is currently behaving as if people in this country give a fuck about his awfully informed opinions. He will make waves, just because he has a platform (on fire, but he bought it). But this noise is in the same vein as “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets… of the people that live there.“

My dad said, before the internet, that people are getting dumber and dumber as information is getting easier and easier to share. I don’t know if we can get much dumber without just toasting ourselves. The whole “where are the great statesmen?” thing has been replaced by “I wonder if we can find a leader who is smarter than a dead fish.” I wonder if we will hit peak stupid? Not any time soon, when the shouting Wotsit blunders back into The White House in two weeks, with the likes of chinless cheerleading for him, and nothing but a gaping yes man our side of the pond, one with no courage and no convictions, who also happens to be politically different to the orange one, and thus will come under fire. Justin Trudeau got squeezed out by tariffs. Things are gonna get really fucking nasty. Like actually nasty. Chinlessness will be celebrated. Notional penis swinging will come back into fashion. Oh god.

So we have to build the light, protect it, keep it fed. I’m a bit tired right now, but I’m up for being part of it. Gotta pull back before springing forward, etc etc.

Early bed.

I’ll miss Lou and her silly musical kids show.

I’ll enjoy being here on my own too though. Just have to keep it positive.

Every time I drive myself back from Stratford these days it is in atrocious conditions. Once again, mist like the end of the world, shovelfuls of rain smashing into the windscreen. Lots of slow cars holding tight in the fast lane. I finished The Coming Storm. This contemplation of so many of the ways in which we can explode thoughts to fit our instincts. It’s very good. No solutions, but plenty of context. It’s a podcast on BBC Sounds. Gabriel Gatehouse. Gotta be interested in pattern matchers.

This morning I woke up in my pleasant room in Swan’s Nest Hotel. I came from my friend’s place with a driveway. The hotel took my numberplate when I checked in so I wouldn’t get accidentally charged for parking, being a resident (so I thought). I could’ve left my car at Avonside or in any number of places a bit further out. But they had a car park as part of the high charge for the room, thought I in my foolish innocence. Sometimes it’s nice to lean into the luxury I told myself when I booked the expensive room instead of staying at my friend’s place just round the corner.

Last night I had a steak in their restaurant. I was thinking of paying for breakfast when I returned my key. I bought some drinks at the bar. Lots of my money is now their money.

I wrote about this on Google reviews, and I’m putting it in my blog as well, because I was genuinely angry and surprised that when I went to check out she charged me EIGHT POUNDS FOR PARKING. Totally unexpected. I was so shocked I froze.

“It’s on the website,” she shrugged, like you say “it’s in the terms and conditions.” I booked through a third party website. It’s code for “We got you.” She was playing hardfront immediately as well, like she was in the right, not an extension of this unethical hidden charge. Obviously people kick off all the time with this, and with good reason, or she wouldn’t be all front. I knew I hadn’t got any charges, it was just me trying to dot the i that caused me to formally return my room card. What a fucker.

I paid it. But honestly what a pile of crap. They need to put up signs. They definitely need to tell us about it when we check in. It is an absolute swizz, it is wrong, it is terrible business practice, squeezing extra money from residents by surprise. For parking. On a weekend. It’s short termist unpleasant thinking. I hate them for it.

I went for lunch with my friends here when I was working over the road, I stopped occasionally for drinks too, I thought I might start staying regularly – I’ll be back up in town in February and in June as I’ve already got tickets for shows with friends in. I’ll never darken their doors again because of that £8.00. It’s the principle of the thing. They need a management overhaul.

I went over the road, the other side of the river from that vile place, into more familiar territory. Had a yummy breakfast and coffee at wonderful Bardias, went over to Avonside to see friends (and park for free), said farewell to the town for the short term again. I’ll be back before long – not at Pirate Central – there are thankfully some wonderful places to stay in that town that aren’t fleecing you.

I’m still really angry about just eight pounds. It’s totally disproportionate, but the fact I wasn’t informed before, coupled with the absolute lack of fucks given at reception. Nobody likes to feel like they’ve been made a mug of. The major thing is that I loved the place right up until that lady at reception pulled that at the very last possible minute. It’s like being stabbed by your mate. I hope they get lots of use out of my eight quid. Grumble Grumble. Silly fuckers.