AlBarclay

“You need to wear a hard hat to work here.”

We are in a hotel lobby. He’s not wearing a hard hat and he’s working. We are here to deconstruct six little SEG Frames that someone couldn’t find at the derig. It’s the Hyatt Regency where all the media bods have been sleeping. We don’t need a hard hat to work here. The derig is over. He’s just making it up because he has a hard hat.

“Can I borrow yours?” “No. I have to wear it.” *pause* *longer pause* *longer pause* *he puts it on* *beat*

“What if I tell you I’ve got a hard hat even if I don’t.”

“You have to have a hard hat.”

This isn’t an active site. Nobody is wearing hi-vis. I’ve got one of those in the glove compartment just in case, but I didn’t think to bring a hard hat and they’re not so easy to roll up and stick in a container. I’m so used to the Frankery that it no longer exasperates me though. I’m just gonna find a way through. He has said no, and no is final. There is nothing to be gained from persisting with this human being now. For the French, “no” is a final solution, after which there can be only shrugging.

I try anyway.

“Can we borrow your spare hard hat, there on the floor? And only one of us will work?”

“No, it might be needed.”

“Do you have a hard hat in your store room? Is there a bucket of hard hats to be issued to staff?”

*shrug*

“Because I know where there’s a bucket of hard hats but it’s about an hour’s drive and it would be a waste of time.”

*shrug*

“and it’s not an active site.”

*shrug*

“So why don’t the two of us start work, and you can call your boss. I’m here because he wants these frames gone. Maybe he can find me a hard hat.”

We start work. He gets on his walkie talkie. We stop work as I know someone will come now. He does. A new human, but my last chance.

“Good morning chef, thank you for taking the time to help me.” (They’re suckers for protocol, the French. And the boss always likes to be the acknowledged as the boss.) “We have been asked to remove the little frames and have come to take them apart. In the knowledge that this isn’t an active site, would it be acceptable to you if we worked without protective clothing. The other option would be to carry them individually down the stairs and deconstruct in the street, but I asked your fine colleague here to ask you if it might be possible just as it is a quick job for myself and my colleague to do it here. We won’t be touching the scaffolding. Just these little light frames that are in your way.” He’s about five foot tall. He’s not wearing a hat or hi-vis and he knows it. He looks up at me, looks across to Fi, looks back at me. I take off my hat. My expression is serious. He nods once, curtly. “This is okay. Go ahead.” He then instructs our friend from earlier that it’s ok and we can do our fecking job. Hooray etc. We get to deconstruct frames.

So we take the things apart on the marble floor. Stage one complete. Then I push my luck.

“Chef, thank you so much for your understanding earlier, we have nearly finished but I wonder if you might have a chariot we could employ in order to transport these items downstairs in the lift.” “No chariot. It is no chariot throughout the whole building.” “So you have no chariots in this _hotel?” I just feather the word hotel.”Yes sir we have no chariots in this _hotel but for the chariots of the guests.” “Ah there are chariots of the guests, perhaps there is a possibility I might be able to employ a chariot of the guests?” “Absolutely no possibility. The chariots of the guests are of the guests, mister, you are not a guest so you cannot employ the chariots.” It’s another no, and another dead end, and I know it. I don’t want him following me around so I am maintaining the appearance of humble politeness. “I understand you very well chef.”

I go down in the lift to the basement, borrow a pallet truck that’s right in front of me when I get out of the lift, put a pallet on the chariot and trundle it back up to the marble floor. Chef is gone so we put all the frames onto the pallet and I fight them into the goods lift while Ffion gets the van past more bemused French people and into the hotel basement.

I’m sharing the interaction in fine detail because it is so typical of my general working days here. It’s why I’ve often been fuming at the end of them, sometimes too tired to see the humour. It’s easy unless you start to assume it’ll be easy. As soon as you expect it to be easy they make it hard on purpose.

This was my last day. Fi has the hat now. I expect she’s already cleaned out the vans. I’m writing in the morning because Mel, Fi and I went for dinner in Montmartre after work and when I went home I fell asleep immediately.

I live in an oven. It’s my own fault, booking the place on price alone. It’s on a street with loads of roadworks and the price is reduced because you can’t park anywhere near it. I hauled my van up under a streetlight outside a business in a place that feels as if it is in nobody’s way. I went up after work and had a sweet sweet shower. Then I did something I haven’t done much. I took time for me.

I’ve heard of the Folies Bergère. I haven’t really been out in Paris having been here ages. I’m about to go home. I booked two tickets for whatever the hell is on at the Folies.

What do I know about the Folies? It has been breaking ground on the international cabaret stage for decades. It has hosted a number of world performance firsts. The firsts aren’t along the lines of “The first play by then Coxforth university student Micvid Bogharefrago took place in the gardens here, organised by his parents, paid for by his godfather who is now his agent”. No, this is mad cabaret. They have been pushing convention because that’s why they exist, and where better to be “ooh la la” than in Paris. I got my right nipple signed by the hostess. I sat and felt part of some truly athletic cabaret, often carrying great mischief and great meaning – unlike my signed nipple which has no meaning but fun.

When I persuaded F, neither of us knew it was gonna be Fantasma Circus Erotica, but it was, and I got the MC to sign me because the whole evening was a delight and a sharpie isn’t a tattoo and fuck it sometimes I’m allowed to stop.

Great to have a few hours not just down but random. We had hoops, we had a boy tempted by the devil through his laptop, we had Olympic locker room naughtiness, we had girls and cars, we ran through lots of kinks and all of it happy and open and free. A great way to culturise my second last night, so I can say Paris was more than just roads, security guards and a warehouse. Sexy dancing from wonderful performers. They’re in such shape. Could’ve been Olympians but instead they dance for money and I get it, it’s a vocation.

What’s their day job? To touch on mine, I went to INV today and security were lovely. Diligent, correct, but lovely. It was a perfect finish. I’m gone soon, and Mike on the inside is brilliant. I’ve had good experiences at the problem venues now and I’ve shared plenty of info with Fi about logistics areas and so forth. Finally. I can rest soon and I will.

Tonight it’s another oven night. Soon…

I just stumbled on the most partisan article I’ve seen for a while about the Olympics. In The Independent.

This is a newspaper that tried to set itself up as being free from influence. Long gone. It was bought over a decade ago by the owner of the London Evening Standard, one of the shoutiest and most entitled local rags we have. I’ll still read it, but it is monster.

It makes me very interested, as always, about who controls the narrative and why. I’m totally stoked that all these teams of hard working humans I’m working alongside at this event pissed each other off so royally for so long because they all wanted their thing to go well. But I’m stoked because it DID go well, despite fuckery. P24 never really understood how accreditation was supposed to work, so it was madness for me to expect them to know it when I asked them. Asking them how accreditation works and how you get it is like asking a kid at school if you can join their gang and what you have to do. “Yeah you need the um … the green SAP form but it isn’t called a SAP cos mum told me it’s different but NAH NAH YOUR OLD FORM DON’T WORK NO MORE STUPID ha ha ha blerrrgh I’m a major security firm for a big event woowoowoo this is my siren. You’ve got to go eat an earthworm and then you can be in my gang if you have your passport in your pocket and you can breakdance and now it’s called a UTF but tomorrow it’ll be called a Para something and I DON’T UNDERSTAND MY GANG HELP ME I’M LOST mother mother is that you I’m going home so nah nah get your own gang mister yes you can use my den.”

I had to fight to get into a venue with my Olympic accreditation that came slowly and with a background check and why? Because now they want a transitional pass that is much less secure, and after that they will want a para pass that the security lads all had already bless them but we won’t have a sniff of them until they open the accreditation boxes again. It’s the fuckedest system in Christendom.

The road passes are a hot mess. But the games have worked alongside them and the armies of cops and gendarmes. None of them have a fucking clue what the system is because, frankly, the system is a disaster. It is held together with toffee tape. You get ten different opinions every ten foot. They didn’t implement anything properly and nobody is feeding information down the chain. Every different venue it’s random. INV is the worst now by a country mile. Now I’m pulling out, it’s hilarious.

But anyway, yeah, there’s a surprising amount of noise in the press from the kids who hate “woke”. I’ve never really understood why freedom of personal expression is considered so dangerous and offensive to them. I think they were triggered by something in the opening ceremony which I didn’t see. Maybe Bacchus? I know there was some consternation there. Now they’re crying about a female boxer and some nepo academic attempting left-brain breakdance for some mad reason. She’s been swept up in the culture war because her PHD has the word “gender” in the title and there are lots of people who just go to Grendel when they hear talk of gender.

It’s all so tedious, but I’ve got “right wing” friends for whom “disgusted” is a state of being rather than someone in Tunbridge Wells. They are so upset about Imane Khelif. I see an incredible journey where a girl is born with hormonal fuckery and rather than that being the thing that holds her back the family are like “yes, you’re being teased at school for being a big girl but how about you use what you’ve got and BE the big girl and spark those whining Italian sub-bullies out?!” “She’s a man,” say the AWwwww kids who have never experienced much beyond their frame and the fact they’ve set themselves up against something they don’t understand. Cos IT’S NOT ME AND IT’S NOT WHAT I GREW UP WITH SO IT’S WRONG. Kids have always annoyed me. It’s worse when they’re in their thirties, forties, fifties, but I think the internet has rung the bell for closing time for long form thinking… It’s easy for people with view to see that the shouty narrative is not the truth. But no is easier than yes, even if it’s less interesting. This culture war Grendelerises gender. We can’t talk about it without fearing attack from a nebulous monster.

As I’ve written in the past, I’m largely just gobsmacked that the Parisians and our team pulled the games off and it was incredible and took in all the land marks. It sang, despite the noises from the No-woks.

It still seems impossible even though it literally happened. Paris Paras now. Oh lord. The commentary is fascinating. I love the Yusuf Dikec memes as he is just a brilliant accidental character and bears it well. I’m worried for the RayGunn thing. If she was mocking competitive breakdance then she’s a douche. If she thought she was the best qualified person to do it for her country then she’s delusional. If she wanted to change the way it is judged she chose the wrong manner and stage. I’m not on the ground there, so I don’t know if she’s conceited or not in person. I’m hoping she is conceited, as if she somehow arrived at what she did without overactive intellect and negativity, if she openly misjudged things then that’s what happened and let’s stop being nasty. It’s hard to not see it as some kind of intellectual statement though… Intellect has no home in breakdance. It’s a freedom thing and it’s not my territory at all – or hers if she can’t do it.

As for Khelif, she did well and I bet that the anger from how all the nowoks were treating her just added weight to her punches. I had a personal trainer once, at the start of my career. At the time it had only been about four years without a single audition for a major theatre. I would punch harder when he encouraged me with “all the theatre casting directors that haven’t seen you!” I felt my privilege was working against me so I tried to flatten my vowels for years until I just stepped up and accepted that that’s my background. It’s hard to be entirely comfortable with what you are, as you can only fully see other people, but I’m happy that this woman who has likely had to put up with mockery her whole life has hit a peak and made a huge achievement for herself despite it all.

It has been trying to break, this weather, but without much success. Grey skies and spots of rain but the promised storm did not come and as I write I’m sitting outside my local cheap Nepalese place having just failed to consume even half of my food because I’m just too knackered to eat and it’s still hot even though the sun has set.

It could be worse. Nena works alone in a shipping container at La Chappelle, and for the last month it has been an oven. Now she’s done something to her leg, and went to the doctor. They’ve been creative and generous with their painkillers in a way that surprised me. There’s horse tranquilliser there, and opium, and muscle relaxant. She shouldn’t feel anything after that lot. I’d be dead to the world for a week. Right now though it hasn’t touched the sides for her. 3% less.

I’m just feeling slow and with tender knees. I’m lucky my body is playing nicely with me. This job has strangely helped my fitness. Once I remembered Wendy Allnutt’s guidance and stopped leaping like a gazelle from the loading bay because I could, my knees stopped hurting so much from repetitive stress and I think my body is largely responding well to regular careful physical work in the heat. Wendy helped me get used to chasing tension. Thanks to her and now Lou, this weird body of mine with its inverse vertebra and pronations can stay loose under pressure. It’ll be going from being a tiny cog in the biggest event in the world to being a tiny cog in the biggest Shakespeare company in the world.

So … I’m continuing my usual me thing for now. And it’s glorious. And knowing I’m about to stop means I can push through.

The venues are no longer high security so I can drive into the compounds again. There’s still all sorts of hijinks at the gate but largely today I was able to drive right to the containers and access them once the supervisor explained that accreditation was better than a SAP. Luxury.

I really regret that I can’t see this event to the finish, but this was always going to happen. Still, it feels wasteful now I’ve built relationships with people and developed an understanding of their needs. I can get the DEF things to where Herless needs without him having to move. I can get into the LCO lockup and continue to enjoy my french interactions with nicotup even if I’ve never met him personally. He got the late night jonk under the Olympic flame. He’s the only French install manager who makes jokes in french with me but it’s because he’s seen me get the job done no matter what. I took the metro with his fifteen metre thing when the roads were closed for a race. Nena, too, knows I can get things where she needs them. Ditto Scott and Meh at CDM. Sean and Mike now know I’m gonna make fucking certain they actually want the thing because as often as not they just don’t and their security are universally shite. Although I had to send that gazebo…

Marcus and Tamara things are easier now and their venues don’t have asshole security. Unlike Stephane where I had to wait for him even with all the right passes on foot. Everyone loves Pawel. Some of his security are bullshit but largely a well informed lot. Alex and Alexis and Luc – all very French and good humoured. Not very forthcoming about showing me their logistics area at the start, but for my next big event like this I know exactly what sort of questions I’ll be asking in the first week. I need to practically know all the areas I can know, and do it early before it gets hectic. I was trying though, even back with Roadkill and Bob I knew it would be better to get into the complex while security was low and learn it, so I could operate more efficiently when security stepped up. Just a few days ago Michel saw the effect of me hitting a venue without knowing where the logistics area was at BCY. He plugged in with me to be helpful when his real intention was to catch a bit of cheeky basketball. He saw how I’m often caught in the middle with one hand not talking to the other, and was so good as to halve a load I had been very much not enjoying carrying. We stood around for ages just to wait for someone to take us through a door we both knew we would need to go through. Had we gone there without an escort someone would have panicked. But … this is the game I’ve been playing. Appear as lawful as possible, and keep an eye on the workarounds. I now know too late where the BCY storage area is, although Fernando never responded to any of my messages and still hasn’t given me the code so even when I’m gone, Fi will not have enough information for an efficient drop.

But… these people, these venues, this madness… I’ve been smashing this and the worst of it is past. But for the fact I’ve been pissed off with obstructive fuckwits, I’m happy. My last few days will be more about the warehouse than the venues though – so much stuff is coming back, but not enough consumables. Thieves. Atrocious. We lost so much stuff at the closing ceremony for the flag poles, and we will need it all again, and it was hard enough to source the first time…

But bed is here again, so hot despite 2 fans… Ahhh summer though. I love thee.

Everywhere I look, it’s roadworks. I’ve moved again. The last place had no cooling fans, but this place has got two. They just move the warm air around but it’s better than doing nothing. I’ve left them running all day while I’ve been at work. Contributing to the heat that the fans are preventing. Textbook hypocrisy. But last night I woke up every twenty minutes from sweaty dreams of ovens.

Everything has started to come back to the warehouse. Signs and scrim make up the bulk. The tool boxes are coming back pillaged. “If these were your own tools you would be making sure they aren’t lost,” says K on a WhatsApp group and he’s right. I got an empty Erbauer box back from a drill we had bought just a week ago. Nothing but a charger in it.

The good people of Paris will have tools for years to come on us and I don’t like it… Although it smacks more of carelessness than intent. There’s a nice box that’s been left. Both batteries gone but charger left in place, so Detective Barclay can clearly deduce that whoever was using it ran out of charge on their first battery and returned to the box. From thence, they removed the second battery, but neglected to put the first battery on charge. Then when the second battery ran out they asked for a second drill, which we QR coded and covered with stickers. The second drill came back with all the bits. The first drill? Left by the side of a road I reckon. “C’est cassé.” These guys throw away their Stanley Knife when the blade blunts, even though it’s reversible and they all contain three spare blades. These drills come with two batteries and a charger just so you can swap and charge and keep working. They’re the ones I used on the set break for Wolf of Wall Street. I ran my battery out every 2 hours or so, by which time my spare had charged. We were driving out damp rusted screws from a mushroom basement. I came to love that tool. So I know why they might have been nicked, but if they have it’s disappointing. We aren’t volunteering here. But… well yeah I guess lots of people are. Maybe they want the drills, and more power to them I guess if they’re broke. Still it’s disappointing.

I’ve finally worked out what the different shirts mean and I’m glad that the green volunteers have frequently been the people who have helped unclog tricky security. I like them. Worst case their coordinator comes and breaks the stalemate in a jaunty blue shirt. But this makes me much more pleasantly disposed towards these people who have always been very well meaning but strangely slow. They have largely contributed positively, as they are trying to represent the games which have been a ray of light. And they have been HELPING!

How did it all work out? I’m still astonished. We pulled an Olympic games off in the city centre of one of the busiest cities in the world. They said it couldn’t be done.

It hasn’t been gridlock. It has all gone very very well and I love that I’ve somehow got stuck into something new. I’ve got good at forklift now thanks to the occasional comment from those who learnt in the same way I have – and how else does one learn in all truth? More upskilling in handy type things just before I go and make art again as an artist. The two sides are aligning gradually. Make the event, be the event, make it, be it. Still separate but maybe not for so much longer. Soon I’ll be able to marry the skillsets, join up the dots, make a thing loads of people are in. I have largely been leery of it as self-producers are largely unskilled in one of the two sides, and more frequently both, and I’m not interesting in people who are about themselves in the art. But it feels like this is the art in me and it is where I’m being pushed by the massive energies we’ve been deciphering. It’s not clear yet how it what it erg it matak but what but it’s gonna be is fun finding out. It’s a triangle making things. Point of the triangle, covered. Right brain side of the triangle, covered. Left brain… The office. Production. Excel spreadsheets. Not me. This won’t happen alone.

Practical head right now though.

We just unloaded a whole van full of timber that had been loaded up this morning because SPA want 4×4 and we only have 2×4 and they would rather have no timber than the wrong timber. Sure they could’ve made it work even if it would’ve involved Fi and I buying every fucking 100 – 120mm screw in Paris again, but they’ve had time to restock since we did it for TRO. You’d be amazed what happens if you screw two 2×4 timbers together. You have a 4×4!! Some people just have to find problems instead of solutions. Chapeau once again to Wyn, the noticeable Welshman at TRO. I don’t just want him on my pub quiz team now, I’ll buy him a beer when this is over. Solutions man.

SPA sent it back because they want something we haven’t got and by the time we’ve got it and sent it they could have worked around it. Silly buggers. We will solve it or we won’t. I’ll be there to see how, or I won’t. Vans of wood don’t happen by magic, kids. They’ve made a problem for themselves down the line. I’m halfway out the door so I’m not gonna be the one solving it when they discover that life isn’t always handed to you on a plate, and that work involves work. Still, the show will go on.

“You might want to wear gants touching this bache,” says the driver. “It’s covered in merde.” He’s got a van of material, and he’s pulling on his gloves as he speaks. I hold my torn hands up. “I get shit all over these every day,” I assure him. “Let’s just get this done.” He looks at me strangely, turns to open the boot, pauses and looks back. “No, actual merde,” he says, and it opens and we both take two steps back as the initial bouquet is released from the van. Chateau Merde, the finest vintage. I thought he was using the word to mean dirt, but no. Oh no. Something has taken place with this bache. Someone , or multiple people… And not just merde. “I definitely don’t get that sort of merde on my hands every day. I need gloves.”

It’s a hot day. He’s brought it with him all the way from Quai D’Orsay. I don’t know how it got like that, but “It’s contaminated,” says D and he’s right. It all gets rolled out onto a big pallet and next I know I’m lifting it up and tilting it into a skip that is conveniently empty as we have been so extremely diligent about recycling and processing everything that comes in. The wind is blowing towards me as D knocks it off the pallet with a big tube of cardboard and nobody will be drying this load and cutting the rings off it.

The heat is quite something, pounding down daily, hard work to stay hydrated even before all the lifting. I’m getting through litres and litres of pineapple juice and innocent smoothies and the occasional vimto, not to mention water after water, but I still feel I’m completely wrung out. I got Fi to snap me with my favourite weed here, just by the warehouse, a real survivor in the roadwork city we are condemned to live in. I don’t quite recognise myself, cooked brown, skinnier than oft, grey beard too big and grey. One thing we did get in Paris is summer.

Now I’m in my new Airbnb. I booked it by price and it is cheap because of major roadworks just outside. Fifth floor though and there’s a washing machine so I’ll be able to prepare for pulling out and returning to the things of home for a wee while ahead of a very different adventure of the mind and body. It’s been lovely sharing time and work with Ali, but he’s back now and gone untill I’m gone. No need to stay in the big apartment we had, and besides there were no fans. This place has two and I’m shamelessly going to run them all night long.

It’s quarter past nine. My feet are facing the sunset through the window. There’s very very little wakey left in me today so the noise of the fans will be soothing as I drift away.

I’m feeling pretty chill and massively lucky today. I can get swept up in nitty gritty. These ideas of obstruction that I’ve been putting here – I’m deliberately amplifying the tricky ones because that’s what we do. Roadkill, No-neck, The Voiceless Man – these guys are rare. Normally everything is absolutely fine. Today I went into three live sites carrying an absolutely lethal knife with a curved blade that. I had it in my pocket and was hip to have it confiscated, but no, I’m fine to have my vicious curved blade. I just can’t have an awkward bit of frame in each hand.

I’m checking out of my digs again. Managed to find a well priced place up the road for my last few nights. I’ve got into the swing of this now. I am sad to leave before it’s over, but I’ve brought in a friend who overlaps with my skillset while being totally different. I’m happy to know I can hand it to her. There’s a lot to think about, but we have a wonderful team. I’m about to start a job I thought might have happened before mum died. It’s happened now, some decades later. If I wasn’t going into it at long last, I’d stay. But I have to pull out and focus on my vocation. What a strange madness, my life. The experiences I’ve had recently, the sheer breadth of it… to be part of this international thing… Bilingual international driver and problem solver – and don’t get me wrong, I’m moaning about security because they slow me down. I always deliver. I’ve never had to come back full. Maybe that has involved arguments at the gate and then me expressing it here. Kes put the shits up me telling me he knows how to find this and reminding me it’s public. I forget that, and lately, as tonight, I’ve tried to just make sentences with one eye open and no memory of the day but for the high adrenaline bits when the usual box of tricks explodes.

I’m gonna sleep. Still loads to do. Well done Team GB,  punching hard still. I’ve been thrilled to here à Paris, part of the machine… xxx

It’s incredible what they’ve pulled off. Often at the end of the day I’m moaning into my blog, but actually this is wonderful insanity and it works much better than it should.

When I first realised that the whole of central Paris was going to be the Olympic Park I immediately worried that everything would be gridlock forever, but the judicious use of road closures and an overenthusiastic police force has actually led to things being possible despite throwing up problems for the likes of me. It’s fucking amazing what they have achieved. Literally incredible, but somehow by execution it can be believed. We threw our Olympics to Stratford. They just went and plonked it in all the central places. Scattered around this town in apartments and hotel rooms there are hundreds of people who barely if ever sleep because of this decision. Some of them ping around all over the place, others are more static. It’s normal for an event, no sleep. It’s the opposite of a toxic work culture though, as there’s a huge thread of positivity running through these bonkers sleepless teams.

These games are happening all around, built into temporary structures that complement and are augmented by the landmarks. I’m glad to be a weird cog in a machine like this. I’ve really come to know this town in a way I will never be able to duplicate. My routes are largely based on getting inside the police cordon and then going the wrong way down bus lanes waved on by smiling cops. Then I park up right next to the venue, between two police cars. And largely I walk in.

Today though, the clown show came to the accredited entrance. 4 long pieces of metal. Two humans on foot, both with Tools of the Trade stickers and full accreditation. But we were at INV. The beating heart of the clown show. Good Christ. What a bunch of absolute total idiots. One man in particular.

There were 4 people in the team we first met, and three of them with yellow hi-vis were happy to make no fuss. We had everything in order as always. But the man with no neck, first man we met at the gate, in his special red hi-vis… he wanted to obstruct. Oh god he desperately wanted it. His team were trying to overrule him, but he went with it anyway. He just wanted to block to block to block. So empty of thought. So stubborn. So French. This neckless man.

“He has TOT, it’s fine, he’s safe, it’s just metal,” tries the lady manning the xray. But Count no-neck … I guess in this country it gives him a superpower as he is guillotine proof. He can be as unreasonable as he likes. Still, he pushed the boundaries of unreasonable. Gold medal for France in stupid.

The metal we had could have put through the xray. I’ve put bigger things through, even in ALX. It could have gone round the side. Frankly we could have gone off record and slid it under some heras, then gone through security and picked it up, and no neck would have been playing candy crush.

I chose to try and go through officially knowing there should have been no obstruction. But again again again, just one idiot. And now one person has said no, everyone catches the no and once again I’m a terrorist. They were behaving as if a portable metal frame was deadly. I have an accreditation that means I can bring fucking weapons with me. Still he wouldn’t let me in with a few bits of metal. Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. I’m writing all of this not using copy paste. idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. My food has arrived. idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. The man is an idiot. idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. moron moron moron moron moron. idiot is faster to write. idiot idiot idiot. Man. Why would anyone anywhere give a man like this any form of power over anything? idiot

And so it escalated to P24 venue bosses, who are supposed to be able to sort this shit out. They’re the security company apparently. But the ones we meet don’t have a clue what it’s like on the ground, so with no fucking knowledge they use their own frame of reference to determine importance and I dunno because they are doing some sort of filming on the site and an athlete might be there, we can’t bring in a portable metal frame that Ffion spent ages painting this morning and that is needed to stop people walking into holes and can’t be delivered in whatever their fucking tiny van window is because there’s only one of me and, believe it or not, I have to sleep at some point and there’s plenty to do in the day as well as the night.

I tell him I’m carrying signs and I can tell he thinks that’s pointless. He’s putting his own subjective appraisal of relative importance ahead of actually just doing his job. Signs aren’t important, eh? On a massive public event, signs aren’t important… I want to make one that points at feckless neckless at INV and just says “idiot”. I’ll put it up myself. He doesn’t look like he moves much so it’ll likely be pretty accurate.

Eventually some unwilling staff from P24 show up. “Someone took in a tent the other night,” one of them says. (that was me). “This is the last time we help you.” “I fucking hope it isn’t mate, because if you obstruct us just because of your personal priority list or because a lumpish neckless idiot at your gate doesn’t like English people, then you’re obstructing the whole games. We are all pushing in the same direction here.” Also the tent the other night was a safety feature for a massive propane burner that I had got through there half an hour previously without the correct seals. The guys who are pretending to help me start fixating on the tent having come in at weird hours a week ago like it’s justification for their useless idiot at the gate being obstructive for no reason. Let’s overlook the explosive tank and burner they allowed me to drive in with a van where the paperwork wasn’t perfect.

New kings of the clowns, with the neckless man in red hi Vis lumped at the front, clueless and unfit and malicious and dumb.

An hour later, I met the ringmaster of the whole circus. Olivier. Nice to finally see the man with the whip. You might expect someone prone to accidentally tripping over, but actually he seemed reasonably well balanced and I heard no trombone while I was with him. I actually rather liked him. Damn. But … nobody can be totally on top of all the personalities involved when building a team, so I’m not particularly angry with him for having just opened a bag of potatoes for staff. But captain neckless couldn’t be overruled by his own team at INV. They all said “it’s fine, he has a TOT and a pass” but he was being the big man and he just wanted to obstruct. It was absurd, to the extent that I reckon I could have suggested to Olivier that he just fucking needs to be sent home. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. But … he does. He really does.

Just because I’m carrying things you can’t understand doesn’t mean I need to be prevented from doing my job. I’ve taken to using the pedestrian gates because the van gates are too buttoned up and full of the likes of no-neck fecklessmech. If the pedestrian gates start getting as obstructive as the van gates, I’m fucked. But my cargo could easily have been xrayed today. I honestly can’t understand what was happening with him. He wouldn’t put it through the xray. He just wanted to be an arse. I shook his hand when I left and tried to bury the hatchet, but that was just tactics for next time because I know you can’t fight stupid.

And then I sat with his CEO and we spoke about how incredible it has been to build these games into this town like this. They’ve achieved what I thought would be impossible. With sheer force of will and manpower, these games have gone ahead here in the heart of Paris. With incredible stadiums like the one at Champs de Mars, that blend with landmarks. It’s impossible, but they’ve done it. And I expect my work to be tricky, frankly, because I’m low status but high access. I need to go where the stuff is needed, and it can’t be predicted and nobody else is gonna do it in time. Every major event needs my role, sometimes in multiples.

It’s always nice to be flattered on your french, and I can’t read tone and nuance yet, but the CEO and I were cordial and I found him pretty relatable. He wants to come to the warehouse, which I don’t want. But I’ll just remain a point of contact for him. I tried to stash my fistful of upgrades when he got in the van. But actually he probably needs to know that this system they’ve all created is too obstructive. I am working for the event. His potatoes are working for the event.

As I left I tried to give the man with no neck a pep talk at INV, with his team, along these lines. “Maybe we all need to learn how to help each other, those of us who are clearly part of these games.”

I’m glad I didn’t tell the CEO he’s trying to build a house of cards with potatoes. I’m glad he was relatable. But Jesus fucking Christ on a bike who the fuck made it so fucking complicated for everyone? Or is it just for Doublet Wasserman? Like the batshit crazy plain clothes cop at BCY the other day moving me on who told me when I pointed at a great big artic unloading next to me “They are unloading useful things for disabled people!” Maybe I should lie. Or maybe P24 should get their head out of their own bum.

From my perspective, it’s Ali’s last day. He’s off home. He’ll be back before it’s over but I have some very high profile prancing to do so I can’t be involved in the paras so I won’t see him back. The games will continue. I just have to do a Shakespeare. From a high profile event to high profile theatre job. My existence is truly “blessed” right now in the annoying social media “punch that person right now” sense of the word. I can see the path back from both of these wonderful opportunities through time and work. It’s delightful to trace it. Carpe Diem, repeated.  Hey kids , remember, if you work as hard as you can at every opportunity, things tend to come back. Thank fuck. I love to give my al. It is powerful when that all is seen and received.

I mustn’t start doing Shakespeare at the games though. I’ve worked so hard at my craft outside this wondrous madness, but actually yes – I’ve also worked very hard to expand into this response driver type thing. Being useful is a pathology.

I’m probably one of the lowest profile workers in terms of these games, which is how I would always want it frankly as I’m not here to be big and clever. I’ve got to move things from place to place and respond. Don’t have to fill in any forms thank god. Apart from secure load, but that’s just for the potatoes to half look at before just doing what they would have done anyway. Largely I can exist free…

When I go up to the RSC I’m playing Lodovico in Othello – far from the lead, bien sûr, but the poshest person in the play. What a remarkable opportunity. There’s this thing where it is pretty much always the highest status living character who finishes the verse in a Shakespeare play. Then you might well have a bit of foolery and a jig and hey ho the wind and the rain, but the job is done. I finish the last verse line, and I’m sure you’ll all be inundated with that before long. Right now I’m just loving the balance of my existence, still weighted 100% towards Olympic consumables and making this madness work, but knowing I’m gonna have to be off book on day one etc. I’ll be here as long as I need to for a handover to the team, but I was always gonna have to pull out before the paras.

I’ve been up to the usual. Perhaps a little too jaded with van gates when it can go in by hand. I had to haggle with some dodgy fucker for a half empty propane can that was in his empties pile. It’s for a burner to apply a floor sign that has never been supplied in the right size. The burner comes with a gazebo – (We’ve got two so to keep track they both went to HDV). The burner only comes into play if it rains, which it won’t. If it does though, they can dry the road under the gazebos and apply the alu floor sign. So long as it doesn’t rain “too much” whatever that means.

Reassembling all this stuff has been a remarkable job, made all the more remarkable by the fact that apparently there’s a WhatsApp group called “Aluminium floor fuckery” that I’m not part of but which I’ve been instinctively problem solving for. I’ve coincidentally got everything into the right place in time by sheer fucking listening and being visible. But yeah, visible is my thing. When I first got involved in the Rosamund Pilcher stuff for German TV, Lutz was my point of contact. He was easy to contact and reference as he always wore a trilby. It’s a helpful identifier, it was my father’s, it is mine. One day I’ll get a monogrammed Locke and co version. But for now I’ll finish off the ex hats of beloved ancestors. Dad’s is parked, Peter’s is still under heavy use, one day I’ll justify the buy… And Lutz is mostly retired with his alpacas now, but fuck it, I’ll go hang out with him anytime and learn. When we meet our people, we know it.

First stop Yves de Manoir. It’s the hockey. “Anytime between 7 and 8,” I’ve been told and Curtis books me a pass for half seven, pleasantly late. Turns out security have decided last entry is at half six though, but thankfully they aren’t maniacs at YDM. They let me in – so long as I’m unloaded and out by 8am. It’s just a stack of pallets and bags, some tools – things for the derig. Soon all the stuff that we sent out will start to come back. My van is sealed. I always seal it now, even if I’m told I don’t need to, because if I’m not sealed someone’s gonna make me open the back and then they’ll make me carry everything to their x-ray, and then they’ll radio someone who isn’t there and then they’ll get me to wait or invent more problems, and I’ve got stuff to do.

I unload the pallets. I’m out by 8 and back on the road. Early drops are easier in this city than many cities – I can come home late in the Luton and park it on the verge opposite my window. Nobody regulates parking in this town it seems. People put their vehicles in places you’d never dream of leaving them normally. In London it’d cost you a fortune. In America it’d be impounded. Here it’ll just sit there until morning and you barely see one more badly parked van in a sea of badly parked vans. I’ll take all my forms and passes upstairs with me cos I’m paranoid and sleep two minutes from the van. Passes all go in my shoe so I don’t forget them. Out and straight to work in the am, usually remembering my lenses.

If it’s humanly possible I’m not gonna bother trying to get into the van gate unless my load literally can neither be carried or hauled onto a trolley. I did it this morning as those pallets would’ve been a tough carry. They’re thorough but reasonable at YDM. I might grow old waiting for some of the van gates to open, were I to wait. I’d sooner carry three heavy boxes around than try, half the time. I’ve grown jaded.

I’ve learned the location of pretty much all the logistics areas – not all, but most. Some of them have had to change halfway through the event, like the ALX drop which is now miles from the van gate and involves a flight of stairs, but they were kicked out of their tent. All their cardboard boxes have consequently munged in rain. Their stuff is going to come back messy and it’s not their fault. They’re working around it as well as they can. It’s always been a tricky venue, that one.

I’m tooled up with enough info now that, like GRP, most places can get a stealth drop at whenever time makes sense. I don’t have to stress about the clown show and can work to timings that make sense to me. There’s much to do. I have to carry upgrade passes for venues otherwise I can’t get in. I have scavenged begged borrowed and stolen loads of them. The first time I had it explained to me at Versailles when I had to hand a drill over the fence, it was an absurdity. “You have to have a specific upgrade attached to your badge or we won’t let you in.” “There are over fifty venues and I never know where I might need to go next.” “Yes.” “So I need to have over fifty passes just to be able to respond promptly?” “Yes.”

The warehouse has some now, to check in and out. Add to them the large quantity that I’ve begged borrowed and stolen, we now have enough to do our job so long as we pool resources. There are lots of other people who are drivers in all sorts of vehicles. Technically we shouldn’t even need the upgrade pass if we are in a van with everything done, but we won’t get past the cops without one for our venue. They don’t know what they are looking for really, apart from reasons to say no. So I go sealed even if I’m dropping by hand, carrying as many passes as possible, trying to remember to switch them onto my badge as that is a thing too – if it’s not attached to my neck it might not count…

And then sometimes they just wave you through. I guess I’m fixating on the times they don’t. When you’ve got a job to do you remember the impediments.

Trying for an early bed tonight despite the heat. I’m expecting everything to go bananas again soon so I’ll take my rest when I can.