Yesterday Charlotte (M) put a stake through the heart of the Birmingham City Council funding application. Her fight with that thing has been epic. I feel a bit guilty as I’ve mostly been cheering her on from the sidelines and only occasionally jumping in to hit the monster on one of its many heads with a frying pan.

I took myself out of the office for the final bloody scene – it was all too much. Exercising Artistic Director’s privilege I spent much of the afternoon drinking coffee and kicking arty ideas around with arty friends. In so doing I noticed that, following the lead of major international hotels and taking full advantage of their immigrant labour, Costa are now issuing their staff with pin badges informing customers of the additional languages each staff member speaks. Unfortunately I noticed this too late to order my coffee in Polish.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, 1000kg of rice was being loaded into a transit van bound for Oldham.