Days Without Alcohol - 79.
I don't quite believe it, but I finished my script today. I would never have thought I was two good days away from finishing it, but it all came together pretty quickly and though it's far from polished and it's a bit long, I think it's ready to get sent off to the powers that be to see what they think. I think it's pretty good. I will keep you informed of any progress or more likely lack of it.
It's come on me so quickly that I didn't even get to feel the usual euphoria at getting a project done, so it's a bit of an anti-climax. I still have to write a synopsis of what might happen in the rest of the series (a completely pointless exercise, as when I come to write it I will almost certainly change that completely, but it's important for the executives to be convinced that it "has legs"), but it's exciting to think that I might well be working on something else next week. Maybe my Edinburgh show - maybe a book idea. The tour will be over, Easter will be over and I shall have a blank page before me - and probably be buzzing off eating eight Easter eggs having finally cracked and not been able to resist the temptations that are put in my way at every turn. You wouldn't have a special festival where everyone takes heroin for the weekend would you, you'd be sensitive to how that might affect addicts and recovering addicts. But with chocolate it's fine, is it? I hate you world, you care nothing for me.
In the afternoon, with about two pages to go on the script, I headed up to the BBC for a meeting with some people from the drama department to see if I could sell some ideas to them. The two women I was talking to stared rather blankly at me as I tried to explain my after-life comedy based on my 600 million baby heaven idea. It was clear from about two minutes in that they weren't going to buy anything I had to offer, but it was good practice to do the pitch. I have pitched this idea once before to a man who was similarly blocking and concerned about what would happen each week. For the moment I don't think this is relevant (mainly because I don't know), but I am very excited about the idea and think at the back of my mind that it will be a massive smash and am tempted to make good on my idea of including all the names of the people who turned it down or didn't get it, in the credits of the final piece. Too many executives get lauded for the shows that they have commissioned, but none of them get criticised for the ones they turned down. Except by the people they turned down of course.
The ladies I was talking to were perfectly charming and actually prepared to listen to my arguments and it wasn't that unreasonable for them not to get what was going on in this sprawling and deliberately confusing idea. But still it would be fun to churlishly punish them, in a way that would only serve to make me look stupid. It's the Heather Mills McCartney school of self promotion. I watched her entire post judgement speech this morning and it is another masterpiece of self-harm and self-delusion. I was gratified that she managed to mention her 20 years of charidee work within the first minute and also gratified to see that in the judgement she didn't want made public, the judge said there was no evidence of her giving huge amounts of cash to charity. She says her accountant failed to tick a box or something. That would be it. Meanwhile Paul keeps quiet and comes out of it all very well. I know it must be tough for her, as the tabloids make her out to be a mad-eyed pariah. But when you watch the unedited footage you think that maybe for once they are reporting things honestly. Yes it's a shame her child won't be able to pay for 17,000 pound first class air travel out of her allowance, Heather. But as you say, you can pay for that, out of the 24 million.
Anyway, as I walked up to the meeting I saw a young man at an upstairs window in one of the bed and breakfasts along Wood Lane spit down towards the pavement. A man was walking by at the time and I couldn't work out if the spitter (he was probably about 18) was deliberately trying to hit him, or whether he was expectorating randomly or possibly trying to hit a pigeon that had settled in front of the house.
Whatever the case, the lad saw me looking at him and the obvious confusion, disgust and disapproval in my face. I quickly looked away, well aware of what his next step would be, but too late. He spat again and I was a little more certain that this time I was the target. I didn't want to make a fuss as this shaven-headed lout might want to make more of it and turning up at the BBC covered in blood might not give the best first impression. I checked my arm to see if the sputum had hit me, but luckily I realised it had not. But what a world it is where you can't walk down the road without fear of being spat on.
