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More staycation fun as we headed down to the Southbank for Sunday lunch with a friend. It was very busy down there with friends, couples and families making the most of their day off to eat, drink and chill the fuck out. I continue to learn too late (or just in time) that family is more important than work. I mean, it was kind of horrific and inconvenient how many people are around and I can do this kind of thing on a Monday when it’s less busy, but it was still nice to be a part of it. It’s rare to get a weekend to ourselves and even though I did sneak a bit of work into the mix, it was mainly family fun mixed with a mildly irresponsible amount of alcohol (two pints), but our baby’s still alive so we got away with it. I also saw some Spitfires fly past and for one beautiful moment thought I had found another passage to Goodnight Sweetheart and a lifetime’s worth of extramarital sex with dead barmaids, but alas my time travel and adultery fantasies will have to wait.
Phoebe can now clap when you say “clap” (usually) and also make a clicking noise with her mouth which would pass for her first word in certain languages. She continues to smile at everyone she sees as if attempting to latch on to any other family unit than the one she’s been lumped with. You can choose your friends...
Some people complain that having a baby stops them socialising, but I am doing a lot more going out that usual. I used to prefer sitting at home in my pants with the curtains closed and crying before I met my wife, and when I say prefer, I mean “have no option but to be”. So whilst Phoebe has been useless as a pulling magnet (I had hoped to use her as an advertisement for the effectiveness of my semen and then trade up to a better wife. But this has not worked at all. Women seem repulsed by me holding Phoebe in their faces and shouting “I could give you one of these, reasonably easily, though I am old so need a couple of days notice to work things up to the required state” and the ones who aren’t repulsed by that are nowhere as near as brilliant as my wife. So I may be stuck in a love-filled marriage, which is annoying. As I’ve invested a lot of time, money and effort and one of my sperms in this baby I am annoyed that it hasn’t propelled me into living in a mansion with a supermodel princess and has just given me stability, love and a much improved social life. And our baby is a really good one, she smiles all the time, sleeps for ages and hardly ever cries. I just think all the supermodel princesses are looking at us and thinking that Phoebe’s got most of that from her mum. In fact I have noticed she’s been getting quite a lot of attention from supermodel princes (and princesses) so my plan might backfire. You’d think that having a baby with someone would make them committed to your relationship, wouldn’t you? My wife makes me sick.
As someone obsessed with my insignificant place in the overarching arch of time I am enjoying thinking about the quirks that I will pass down to my daughter that have been passed down to me from my own parents and onwards in both directions through unconquerable time. It struck me today that as I said “Bless you” to my daughter after she sneezed, that unless that is some kind of Victorian nostalgic affectation (as most things turn out to be) that parents have been saying that to their kids since the middle ages and the Black Death or whichever plague it was (when a sneeze might well mean you were a few hours from spouting buboes and dying). It was passed down the generations and we kept on saying it instinctively even when a sneeze probably only indicated hay fever or the start of a little cold. But in all likelihood that little meme will progress onwards for as long as our civilisation and language survives (so at least another 25 years). My daughter might say it to her sneezing daughter, just as my great-great-great grandma said it to my sneezing great-great-grandad.
I have often wondered about how far back we could trace a story or song or saying. We have this unbroken chain of parents passing stuff down to kids and some of those connections must go back as far as language or even before. I saw a news item about Aborigines in Australia sharing stories of a flood from thousands of years ago today, and it’s interesting to work out which of the stories and songs that we have now go back that far. And even our monkey ancestors must have shared emotions and knowledge with each other that still faintly echoes down to the way we teach our children today. It hasn’t taken a baby to make me think about stuff like this, it’s always fascinated me. It’s just fun to see it in action and wonder what it is that makes some things stick and others disappear.
One week to 1st RHLSTP of series 8 with guests Stuart Goldsmith and Diane Morgan - Sunday 27th 4pm. Leic Sq Theatre. Book here.
Some great line-ups coming your way in future week
4th October Lee Mack
11th October John Robins
18th October John Finnemore
25th October Grayson Perry
1st November Jack Whitehall
8th November David Mitchell
15th November TBA
22nd November Aisling Bea
29th November TBA
There will be two guests at every show so still 11 names to announce (hopefully some biggies).
There are still 3 more episodes of series 7 to go out, Al Murray on 23rd September, Limmy on the 30th and Joe Lycett on the 7th October. So series 8 will start broadcast on 14th October with the Stu Goldsmith pod clash starting us off and run then for twenty weeks, taking us through (by my rough calculations) to February 24th. We will then release the rest of the previously pay-to-view only video podcasts from series whatever it was. Then a new series starts recording on June 6th 2016 and (if we can raise the money) will also be filmed. I am hoping we might be able to start putting together some AIOTMs in 2016 as well, but it depends on finance and other commitments. We’re slowly building up a budget with your monthly badge money www.gofasterstripe.com/badges, but may add to it with a kickstarter. AIOTM will be a lot more expensive to produce though (and I will also have to pay myself for it, as it will be too much work to do for free), but I am fairly confident we can start work on it in the next 12 months. You know, unless I get a proper job. So yeah, should be fine.
