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I think we've got our new place naming system all wrong. If you want to name a place after another place it's clearly foolish to just put "New" in front of the old name. Sure that works for a while, but things are only new for a little while and then they become old, yet you're stuck calling them New. So you want to name some islands after the Zealand and think I'll just call them New Zealand. Sure, works for a bit, but about 400 years later people are still calling it New Zealand and if you were one of the guys who came up with the name you're going to feel pretty stupid.
Surely the better system to keep things making sense is to name the new place with the same name as the old place and then change the name of the old place to Old X. So New York would be called York and York would become Old York. And it will always make sense.
What if someone wants to name a new place after York (by which I mean New York)? Simple. That new place gets called York and then (formerly New) York becomes Old York and (formerly York) Old York become Old Old York or Really Old York. Or Oldest York if you can be sure that the original York wasn't named after anything. I know what York was named after but I wouldn't want to bore you with the details.
It's really not the difficult. Might have to reprint a few "I heart New York" T shirts I guess, but that's a small price to pay for accuracy. Alternatively I don't mind if New York is renamed Old New Amsterdam.
No need to do it straight away, but if we could sort it by Monday that would be great.
My accountant informs me that this is the most financially successful year of my career (largely due to the fact that I was paid for two tours this financial year) but on writing up the history for my website I was struck by the fact that it is my least creative one ever too (no wonder that I don't know if I should feel like a success or a failure). I did write a stand up show, but a lot of the work on that was done in the previous year and I haven't written a book or a script or come up with a new weird podcast for a couple of years now.
I have come up with that York/New York thing though, so I think I can rest on my laurels.
A fallow year or two isn't necessarily a bad thing and I do have a couple of irons that if not yet quite in a fire, are sitting next to the fireplace waiting for someone to light the bloody thing (I can't do everything). A few years back we used our podcast sponsorship money to back
an improvised feature film with a cast including Russell Tovey and me. Nothing has yet come of that yet, alas, though hopefully it might still appear at some point. Sadly the film I did with the same director a year before (just days before I realised that that big bollock was something to really worry about) was pulled by the producers too (for financial not artistic reasons - I saw a rough cut and it was a lot of fun).
But I have an idea for a film that we're hoping to start work on next year which we will make sure actually gets seen by people, even if it's just a few people.
Perhaps my obituary photo has already been taken, but maybe there's time for a late flourish.
Remember if no one is ringing up asking for you, you've got to do it yourself.
This morning though, I took the kids to school, walked the dog, came home and tidied up the kitchen and then cooked food all morning - some healthy biscuits and a dahl - and I really like this side of my life and wouldn't mind it taking up more of my time. Then in the afternoon I did a book podcast and discussed logistics of filming a movie, before going back to being a dad and taking my daughter to football and putting the kids to bed.
Maybe half and half is the way to go.
However confused I am by my life and career and how it's all going, I do know I am an incredibly lucky man. Deserved or not.
On we push. We'll all be dead soon. Look busy.
