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My daughter hugged and kissed me tonight as I was getting her ready for her bath and she hadn’t even been placed in a situation of peril. It was just about the best thing that has ever happened to me. What a terrifying and amazing thing being a father is.
We had lots of laughs this evening and got up to high jinx and I think maybe she’s realised I am not completely useless. As much as she still prefers her mum. When we go upstairs I hold her hand and I count the steps. She seems to have a partial early grasp of numbers and joins in sometimes. Very much saying three and eight (though not necessarily at the right time). As this happened I projected forwards to a time when I am going to count the stairs as she climbs them and she says, “What are you doing dad? I know how to count!” I didn’t mind that that is going to happen. I am looking forward to it. It’s amazing watching a person grow and I am looking forward to the petulance, tantrums and misplaced superiority as much as the more positive stuff. It probably won’t be as good as being hugged and kissed by a tiny smiling toddler. What an incredible thing this is. How dumb I was to waste all that time drinking and sleeping with women…. yeah, that was all a terrible mistake. I could be on great-grandchildren by now if only I hadn’t been a sexual magnet with reversed polarity until I was 20.
But yeah, being a dad is all right, if you’re of that mindset. Some of my friends don’t seem to enjoy it as much as I do (though many do). Maybe it’s because I left it so late. Or maybe I was always just destined to be a bumbling dad telling rubbish jokes and already preparing to embarrass my daughter years in advance.
I am pretty certain that babies prove we’re in some kind of computer simulation. They are too freaky to be real things. I’ve watched her grow from a tiny beating heart to a crazy little berserker. And there’s still a long way to go.
Day 8 of Tempting Failure, including Me1 Vs Me2 Snooker has been reviewed in Incident Magazine (not suitable for work, includes images of a man playing with himself)
It also contains spoilers to part of the result (though he missed the final two frames) so don’t read to the end if you’re waiting for the DVD.
It’s really fucking weird to see my stupid idea alongside all the weird, wonderful and equally self-indulgent art works and to see it was the only one of these transgressive ideas that caused people (including the reviewer) to walk out. But he still says some nice things (though I don’t think he’s totally understood the work for what it is and by leaving early he missed the switch in mood, where the reaction turned from boredom and bemusement to something approaching engagement and a desire to see who won). And it’s surreal to be described as excruciating and of unbearable length when there are no such qualms about the woman lip-syncing with her labia for 24 hours. But as I observed before I am proud to have proved too transgressive for the transgressive art movement and as the reviewer observes, his leaving (along with half of the audience) was part of the piece.
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I watched rough cuts of the first couple of sketches we filmed last month for AIOTM and I think they look really good. Even though I am in them. Which is quite unusual for me. Great performances from Lou Sanders and Rachel Stubbings, plus fantastic work from Ben Mallaby and his crew really help, but it’s all I can do to top tweeting out links to these non-finished videos. But you’ll have to wait until 2017 to find out if I am right to feel excited about this. For something so childish it is looking oddly grown-up.
