Wednesday 17th October

Up at a relatively civilised hour for once, and a fine strong stroll up the Broadway to DSL for class assisting. This being the first DSL Stage Combat session of this term, you won't yet know anything about it will you? Well... DSL is a rather cosy little Drama School up in Ealing - that is, the main, nice, relatively posh part of Ealing as opposed to the scruffy, Pound-Shop end of Ealing where I live. It's based in a big white cosy old house with a cosy paved corner outside where the exiled smokers huddle around the glowing ends of cosy tabs. They run a one-year course for post-graduate students, so there's a much smaller, cosy number of people in it. Having auditioned unsuccessfully for a place on five separate occasions, I now get to spend time in the cosy staffroom, lolling in their settees and listening to cosy chat about the world and work of the cosy people who teach there.

The combat teacher at DSL is the redoubtable Philip (who, as it happens, is also the co-ordinator for the Teacher Training Programme) and the daily format is of five classes from 9 til 6.15, which means that we teach the same class five times in succession. Good in that Ronin (who is also assisting alongside me) and I get to see the same class five times, honing our knowledge and skills as we go. Bad in that we get to see the SAME CLASS. FIVE TIMES. Which can hurt your head a bit. Especially if it's one like today's - Rapier & Dagger 101: the students' first encounter with the shiny world of stage weaponary. It's the class where Philip has to lay all the groundwork, which means lots of standing around absorbing and not a lot of doing, except in the brain area (which as we know hurts much more than being hit with a sword). Around four o'clock comes the point of vertiginous head-swimmery, when you suddenly lose all concept of what time it is, what day it is, how many sessions you've already done, how many are left, how many times you've heard everything Philip has to say and whether you'll ever escape this Escheresque world back into a place where things only happen once and then stop.

And so, reeling slightly, drunk on the minutiae of swordplay, I opted for an early night whilst I had the chance.