On balance I think this experiment of being away for the week has probably not worked. Maybe I shouldn't have done it directly after my holiday, because it might have been better to have had some time to get things in order at home, but I don't think that's really it. It doesn't make any difference where I am - if I want to be distracted then that is what I will be and unless I am actually locked in a room without any form of games system or newspaper or TV or (especially) the internet and maybe told that I won't get any food until the next 2000 words are written, I don't think any kind of exile will work.
Because in fact when you're miles from anywhere it's much easier to procrastinate. It took me over an hour today to get a copy of the Guardian as it had sold out in the first two places I tried, so I just drove in the opposite direction until I found a garage. And then when I got back I got even more distracted by the kakuro - which is my new fascination. I spent at least another hour on that and realised too late that I had made a mistake, and so had to give up on it.
And now at the end of the week I just feel a bit bored and lonely and looking forward to getting home and trying to get into some kind of routine there.
But still glad I tried it and it's been cool up to an extent to be a hermit (with a car). I think I did more work than I would have managed this week at home and it's only 7.30pm and so you never know, I might do something more, if I don't get distracted by Celebrity Big Brother.
And I did just write 600 words in 10 minutes thanks to a website that "Mr Noseybonk" (surely not the actual one?) from the guestbook directed me to called
Write or Die. Perhaps it will be my saviour. We'll see.
The 600 words were pretty shit.
But better than the zero words I had done on the book for the rest of the day.
But I haven't been entirely idle, because I had to do some prep work for a radio show that I am recording at the end of the month in which people look back at their teenage diaries. Once again the work I did 25 years ago is bailing me out.
So I had another look through my old diaries to see what new stuff I could talk about.
And I came across this astonishing entry from the 18th June 1982 (when I was approaching my 15th birthday), which if it was taken out of the context of the other rather jollier and lighter entries (as indeed I am about to do) might make one worry that the person writing it was about to take a machine gun into school and kill everyone who crossed his path. It's full of self-pity and hypocrisy and nastiness and anger and is in retrospect (now we know that I didn't murder my sister or blow up the world) ridiculous and funny. It does give a little insight into the hormone fueled world of the teenager, and it's clear from the way it is written - the first few lines written in large, sprawling capital letters, obviously because I had come to bed furious at some forgotten slight. As I write though the capitals get smaller and then by a quarter of the way down the page I have reverted to my lower case, joined up scrawl.
Anyway I think I should share it with you. It's rather special and some might say histrionic. Although I call for my own death at one point I clearly in no way mean it and am showing off. But to whom.
Well here it is. Might add some comments in as we go, but look even today's warming up was written by the teenage me - How lazy can I get? I am just laughing now at the second line where I tell the world to "bugger" off. Yeah that's right. Bugger! Here goes...
"FUCK OFF WORLD
GO ON BUGGER OFF
YOU ALL HATE ME AND GRADUALLY I'M BEGINNING TO HATE ALL YOU. I DON'T LIKE ANY OF MY SO-CALLED FRIENDS. MY FAMILY DOESN'T UNDERSTAND ME. THEY DON'T LISTEN TO ANYTHING I SAY AND THEY CALL ME CHILDISH AND WONDER WHY I GET VIOLENT."
Although I did have a little bit of a temper I was the wussiest child in the world. It's not as dangerous and exciting as I make it sound. And though the next paragraph goes on to suggest I have hidden, evil depths, I am afraid (and relieved) that there weren't even any evil shallows.
"If they only knew the half of it, even if you, dear friend, knew what goes on inside me, things i can't describe like those feelings of hate for people and fear. They are small but they mean so much
I could have smashed my sister's head in today until she lay dead on the floor."
No, I couldn't have.
"My only true friend is this book, which I suppose is me."
I "suppose"? No, it is definitely me. And it isn't my friend, it's a book. Idiot.
"My mum is pathetic. She is so immature, but so are all adults when you think about it. She says things like "Isn't war stupid" and it seems so false and silly that it makes me mad."
This coming from the child who would write in a few months time "I am anti-war. I think our country should get rid of all armies and weapons. It would show the rest of the world that we're serious about disarming."
A much less pathetic and immature attitude about the whole issue. Sorry mum.
"Adults are immature. They have to rule everything like little kids. They, having the strength, always win, but what is the point of telling kids to respect adults and not to argue with them when they too will be adults one day and so will not have to respect other adults, so the training is a waste of time."
Yes, you tell them. Bloody stupid adults.
"The whole fabric of society gets on my nerves.'
Yes the whole fabric. I don't even like a little bit of society's fabric.
"The father and mother love each other and their two kids and give them a good upbringing and all is happy apart from the occasional argument between parents and children, but these are kept quiet as the parents do not want people to think whatever they will think. All must look good and if anything looks awfully bad the adults will tut quietly to themselves."
Yeah, that's the worst thing about society. Parents who love their kids and get slightly embarrassed when they misbehave. When will society change? When?
"Isn't it stupid? If I think differently when I'm older it will merely because I have fallen into the trap of power for adults."
Shit, he's got me there. He's anticipated that I would be won round by the adult propaganda and become just like the others. So any word I write of criticism now means nothing. Only the 14 year old me understands the truth. In fact the more I try to take the piss the more I prove his point. That bit is bullet-proof. Maybe he is right after all. Then comes an entirely improvised poem - God I was passionate about my stupidity:
"Blow up the world with a nuclear bomb
Killing all men and destroying their creations
But let all plants and animals survive
To live without man's strange ideals
Let them have a simple life
Let them die a simple death
And fuck man
and his stupid ideals."
Yeah, I hated man's ideals. All of them. Even the good ones. Even the ones expressed by me in that poem presumably. I was right to hate those ones, they were ridiculous. But good luck on designing a bomb that would kill people and destroy everything we'd made, but not animals or plants. And wouldn't this bomb be one of man's creations? I know it would be destroyed in the explosion, but really, surely some voluntary dismantling of all things we'd created and mass suicide would be more efficient than trying to invent this bomb. It would only delay the time when my new world vision could be achieved. And what if the bomb accidentally killed the animals and plants as well? Who'd be around to sort out the mess? With hindsight I am glad that my proposal was not instigated by the government.
It continues... and this is the really histrionic bit -
"Come on sweet death where are you. I really wouldn't care if I died now. Everybody hates me so they'd be pleased and I hate everyone."
But I obviously reconsider as I then add an ^ and write "just about" between hate and everyone , presumably because of what immediately follows in what is possible the most amazing gear shift in the history of diary writing. It's another poem - this time about the girl I was hopelessly in unrequited love with a girl called Marcia. I will warn you. It's a bit embarrassing and I say that in full knowledge that you have read everything above. This is worse...
"When I look into Marcia's blue eyes
I feel so strange inside
To me she is beautiful
I love her
Simple thoughts and
When she talks my
Heart it beats
A strange beat
To me she is beautiful
I love her
No doubt for me
Ever my love
Ever in my mind, but
Doubt will still find its way into my head."
I would just like to admit that my heart never beat a strange beat when I saw Marcia. That is just a lie. But if you look again the strange sentence structure is explained by the fact that the first letter of each line spells out the unusual message - "Wit is what I need"
What a totally bizarre thing to put. But not entirely inaccurate either.
Jesus I was mental. Plus I really only liked Marcia because she had big tits. It wasn't my heart that was getting a strange beat, I can tell you.
Then there's another poem which possibly reveals the reasons for my distress, which I won't trouble you with - I think you've been through enough - but which the first letters of each line spell out "Marcia is going away" in which I imagine I am handsome and we are kissing, but it turns out to be just a fantasy as I end
"And then I am back here, boring and spotty,
Young, ugly boy who she thinks is potty."
It's unbelievable how much material there is in this diary - I think I'll be adding a big new section for the touring version.
The entry ends, "I've cooled down a bit now. I love you Marcia."
Ah bless you Richard Herring, you dick. I've done my best not to join the grown up conspiracy.
Incidentally Marcia wasn't going away. She knew that I fancied her and, not too vindictively (I don't think) was toying with me a bit. Maybe she even liked me and I was too slow on the uptake. Because I was hopelessly gauche and embarrassed in her presence and wouldn't have had a clue what to do if my feelings have been reciprocated.
And in the next entry, written six days later I reveal that I like Fiona now anyway.
I am pretty sure I never need to write anything new ever again. I'll just keep churning this out. It's gold dust.
