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Just 200 days to my 5000th entry. I bet you can’t wait for that one. It’s going to be a biggie. Can I stop then? You can stop any time you like. But you won’t . You prick.
I do a lot of work for charity and the community, but I don’t like to talk about it. Continuing my 2016 resolution only to work for others this evening I went to a college by the O2 to talk to young students about my career, podcasting and crowdfunding, knowing that they would be impressed by the wisdom of a man over twice their age and want to be me. I donated my fee to SCOPE, because that’s just the kind of guy I am and it was in no way because the invoicing system seemed too complicated for me to work out and would have taken me more time to navigate than the small payment warranted. I just did it because I am good and only work for others. What if all of us were as good as me and John Lennon and gave all their money to charity? Well one things for certain we’d need a hell of a lot more charities to deal with all the poor people.
It’s nearly 27 years since I left University - I have to keep double checking that statistic, but unless all calendars are wrong as I suspect, then it’s somehow true - and so I didn’t have too much in common with the youngsters in front of me. Had I been in their place would I have been interested in hearing about the career of this old man who I had never heard of? I doubt it. I think my experience of both old media and new media is probably quite interesting or at least unusual. I have known what it is like to have my own TV shows and also what it’s like to more or less start again and explore the possibilities of the internet. But I don’t think I necessarily managed to communicate this today. One of the other speakers, Bejay Mulenga was a 20 year old who had set up his own tuck shop franchise at the age of 14 and now was helping businesses employ and communicate with young people via social media. He told the students that he could get them a job where they earned £30 an hour for sending out a couple of tweets and still have time for their studies. He was slick and confident and I was seriously considering giving up my own job and working for him and unsurprisingly he was surrounded by admiring students afterwards.
Having said that I was the only one of the three speakers to be asked a question after my talk. Though someone just wanted me to tell a joke, perhaps unable to believe that I had made a living as a comedian for so long. I am not sure my two jokes convinced them.
In many ways I wish that I was ten years younger, but certainly in terms of making the internet stuff work out for me. I am playing the long game, but I am rapidly running out of pitch. In my twenties, like this impressive young man, I was fizzling with ideas and the willingness and time to work ALL THE FUCKING TIME, a feeling that the world was my oyster and no fear of it smacking me in the face.
But as long as I live nearly as long as the world’s oldest man (I am not a chump and will make sure I die before I get to hold that cursed crown) I might have enough of a run up to create some interesting home-grown projects. I hope my 2016 plans for As It Occurs To Me can come off. It’s going to be quite different to the old AIOTM, just like the new Shmoo was different from the original. Or like Saved By The Bell: The New Class. I hope I am not over-reaching myself by putting myself in such exalted company.
There’s nothing like going back to college to make you envy and pity the young. And hopefully be a bit inspired by them too. I guess when you just envy and pity them that the game’s really up.
RHLSTP with Scroobius Pip up on video here
youtube
itunes
And audio here
