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Thinking of my indifference to music made me remember one of the many fish pie mix-ups of my life and more specifically my career. There are loads of fish pie mix ups in my romantic life (maybe it's better to use Sliding Doors moments in that case as there is room for Carry On style misunderstandings there) so no point in trying to recount those. There's nothing like realising ten years too late that someone you fancied was into you too, but your lack of self-belief wouldn't let you see it at the time. However obvious you make it. I only regret the people I didn't sleep with and about 75% of the people I did sleep with, as a great man once said. It was me. Percentage may vary in the original joke.
The professional fish pie mix up (it's not going to catch on) that I was reminded of this weekend, was the time I was at a showbiz party of some kind (I didn't get invited to many and this was a good twenty years ago) and the producer, Ric Blaxill got talking to me. He was the man who had booked Stew and me to host Top of the Pops (twice), so I knew he liked my work and I really liked him too. It was a good idea to have non-DJ hosts on that show. Luckily for TOTP it means they can show a few more episodes now than they might have been able to.
I am guessing Ric was Head of Programming at 6 Music at this stage, or was about to get the job (he was there from 2004-7 according to wikipedia) and he said to me that he had always thought I'd make an excellent host for a radio show. This is the kind of thing that rarely happens. You're at a networking event and someone more or less just offers you a job. And this would certainly have been at a time when I could have done with a job. 2004-7 were basically my fallow years.
But instead of saying, "Hey yeah, that would be great, let's have a meeting!" I said, "I don't really like music." Ric said that didn't necessarily matter, but I had deflated the balloon and never chased it up and nor did he. I did end up doing slots on Andrew Collins 6 Music show, but I think that was more down to Andrew than Ric. And of course did have a 6 Music show with Andrew for a year, a few years later.
How would my life have gone if I had been enthusiastic? If I had become a radio presenter in 2004 and done a good job of it then my career could have gone in a different direction. Maybe not hugely different (given I did become a radio presenter later) but if I had had a regular job at 6 Music, that could have led on to other radio work and it's pretty unlikely that I would have got into podcasting. No way of knowing if that would be better or worse. I am just more annoyed at my inability to grab opportunities.
Even before that the fantastic and much-missed producer Harry Thompson told me he was working on a new radio panel show about pop music in the mid-90s and was thinking about having Stew and me as the team captains. I didn't bite his hand off and it came to nothing. It was, of course, Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Perhaps the biggest fish pie mix-up of my career came in around 2012 (at a guess). I had a couple of stand up specials on Netflix - I am presuming Hitler Moustache and Christ on a Bike as these were the titles I did with a different company to gofasterstripe (though gfs were also involved). I had a fan who worked for Netflix who told me that those stand up shows were doing pretty well on the platform at the time (there weren't many comedians with filmed 90 minutes shows back then) and they informed me that Netflix were really trying to get into producing their own comedy stuff and might have some money to greenlight things. It was great insider information, and I could maybe have ridden that wave to all kinds of glory - even if it was to get some of those sit-com ideas produced. I am not sure the failure to capitalise on this was entirely my fault. I forwarded the email to my manager to see if he could do anything, but he either didn't think it was worth it or missed the mail and again I did not pursue this lead (which to be fair does seem like a much bigger deal in hindsight). That one could have been very much like either having a big fish pie or having no fish pie at all or one with no fish in. Yes, that does mean that my current career is a fishless fish pie.
There are loads of these - a hot film director I met at a party asked me if I had any interest in acting. I have loads of interest in acting. I'd really like to do more of it. Especially in films. But for some reason, out of some misplaced sense of modesty or embarrassment, I'm not really sure, I said "No, not really."
When he left Catie said "Why did you say that? You do want to do acting." I suppose I was being coy or not wanting to look too pushy. But that's no way to further your career.
I think part of me doesn't want a successful career.
I do like the way things have turned out, I have to say and I wouldn't have had the things I have now if any of those opportunities had borne fruit. But I'd have loads of extra things. And a hot tub. And I could probably get on Who Do You Think You Are? which is basically my only remaining ambition.
The Fish Pie Mix Up that I think about the repercussions of the most and which I've mentioned before is the decision to step away from writing for The Day Today in the mid-nineties. This one again was less my fault and was down to our manager wanting us to have control and ownership of characters we'd helped co-create. He was probably right to shoot for that, I'd have loved to own 1 per cent of Alan Partridge. It was a huge decision for me though. Lee and Herring were beginning to break through and if I'd decided to break ranks it would probably have been the end of that (with just a few radio shows under our belts), but you only have to look at the careers of nearly everyone who worked on the Day Today to see what possibilities would have opened up for me then. I think I'd almost certainly only be a writer, especially if I continued to tell directors that I didn;t want to be an actor, but what writing opportunities there might have been.
I stayed loyal to Lee and Herring and I can't be sure that was the right thing to do. It was always on shaky ground and one of that double act (I won't say which one) was not as committed to it as the other.
But hey we had some fun - that time when we sang Oasis in the tour van - and if I had the chance to travel back in time and change my decision, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't risk the life I have or condemn my children to eternal oblivion (even though whatever path we take we condemn countless millions of children to never exist, but none of the would be as good as the two that I've got). I'd love to know where I would have ended up if I'd done that, but every second of every day is a fish pie mix-up so it'd be an infinity of possibilities.
What's more interesting is why I am so coy and modest when presented with opportunity. Some of it is just bad luck or things that would have disappeared anyway. But I wonder if there has been a little self sabotage in there as well. Certainly whether by accident or design I am delighted with the level of fame/non-fame that I have ended up with. It's not the perfect balance, but it's very close.
