The Pot on the Table

The fire alarm went off four times on the Thursday, which in the end was fewer than I had budgeted for.

You cannot smoke thirty kilos of rice inside a railway arch. You can smoke it nine feet outside a railway arch, in an oil drum with a piece of roofing tin over it, standing in a car park in October, if the production company’s safety officer has a method statement in front of him with a diagram on it, and if somebody who is very good at getting men in high-vis to say yes has spent two hours of his own time being charming at him.

That was Simon’s contribution on the Tuesday, and I did not thank him for it, and I should have.

By Thursday afternoon we had the drum, a bag of oak and a bag of apple, a fire blanket, a signed sheet of A4,…