Warming Up

Another day of drawing cocks on books and reading for the book club. I finally got to the 550th piece of paper, though it seemed like I would never reach it. I drew a few scenes from the book on the last one (and I’ve also decorated another page with a few drawings, which I will put in a frame and send to the person who finds the prize book (that won’t be the only prize though)

I managed to mainly avoid going outside, though when I did the heat was oppressive and exceptional. I don’t know why anyone would want to deny the evidence of their senses and more importantly the evidence of the vast majority of the experts on this subject to pretend climate change isn’t happening. Even if it isn’t (it is) then it seems sensible to take the recommended precautions and changes, rather than just insist that because you don’t want something to be happening, it isn’t happening. I saw a clip of a man saying that climate change may be happening but it’s not all to do with man and that there have been ice ages and heatwaves due to sun spots and blah blah blah throughout history. But it doesn’t really matter what causes climate change (it’s definitely mainly man though) because we still have to do something about it if we want to have a habitable planet. In fact if he’s right and the changes aren’t caused by man, then we have to work even harder as we are fighting on two fronts. We not only have to cut down our own emissions, we have to do more because otherwise the sunspots get us. Mainly, unless you’re being paid by a fuel company, I don’t see why anyone would be so vociferous about this in the face of mounting evidence and stuff going on fire. It’s a weird imperative to just deny the things that you don’t like are happening.  But it’s an imperative that seems to be held by a lot of white men of my age, so maybe I will change my mind. Do let me know if I’ve turned into one of those grumpy maniacs. I will, of course, just call you a woke snowflake. Imagine being in your 50s or 60s and the best retort you have is to call anyone you don’t agree with a name. And one that implies that you yourself are asleep.

A PR person got in touch with me to see if I would have some of the people from a film they were promoting on the podcast. This always sounds more exciting than it is. It’s their job to reach out to as many people as possible and it nearly always ends with nothing happening and them never contacting me again. I gave out the Autumn dates at the Leicester Square Theatre and said there was a fee of £500. They emailed back to say "might we be able to quickly check what the £500 fee covers please?” I wasn’t quite sure what they meant, but thought that maybe they were talking about how I would be able to use the interview for the price. I had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps they thought I was charging them £500 to have their guest on the podcast. It is unusual for podcasts to pay (and lots of interviews are done just for PR purposes). I asked for clarification and it turned out that they did indeed think that I was asking for money from them. Which probably shows the value of the podcast that they didn’t just immediately tell me to fuck off. Maybe I should make everyone pay to be on the show.