Somehow my overindulgence and grouchiness last night did not lead to the mother of all hangovers. Despite consuming about two bottles of red wine and a dark Cheddar ale my head was pretty clear. Though I did get a good sleep in.
Collings arrived at about 2 and we went to a local cafe for a sandwich, before heading up to the attic for podcast 92. I had forgotten that I had left it all in a bit of a tip after searching for posters of the shows I did at school last Friday. But it meant there was loads of childhood memorabilia all over the place.
We were already in a skittish mood. Early on I made an unreasonable and offensive comment about the charity Andrew supports (and not that it really needs pointing out, but the joke of this is very much directed at the podcast Richard Herring, for being petty enough to turn such an issue into a competition) and it sent us into a fit of giggles that felt like it lasted for about a minute. When this happened on the 6Music shows we were able to put on a record, but we just had to laugh it out this time. But there was plenty more giggling until tears were running down our faces to come. I remembered that on Friday I had located the first ever notebook I had used for writing stories. I had thought this was gone as I had looked for it before, so had been delighted to locate it, but hadn't had time to read it again. My guess is that I started writing these stories when I was 6 or 7, not for school or anything, but just because I wanted to write. I always loved creating stories, especially once I got a bit older, but the impulse was there right from the start, proving again that we are pretty much fully formed as human beings very early on. Although I have lost my childhood fascination with killing, which pervades many of the tales, but not my fascination with death.
Andrew got the book and started to read out the stories, him knowing nothing of what was coming up and me having not seen any of this for probably a decade. And they turned out to be very funny. So I will reprint a few here because I have a feeling that along with the naughty dog story I have the beginnings of a second show about my childhood - this time the early part. I thought "Tiny Idiot" might be a good title.
But it's interesting to get to see the very first things I wrote. So here is pretty much the earliest thing from my long career.
"The man that could fly
once upon a time there was a man and he could fly with armbands and one day he flew to Australia and another day he flew to a desert and another day he flew to Paris and another day he was ill and could't go away and another day he flew to the Sun but he got burnt up to pieces.
The end"
As Andrew pointed out it is a slightly derivative work, being a reworking of the Icarus myth, but with some additional details and the nice spin of having armbands instead of feathers.
The second story is a bit more individual and imaginative and rather an odd topic to choose for a child.
"The man who was never born
Once upon a time there was a man who was never born and nobody saw him because he was not born and he ate food from people. The end"
It's rather telling that the thing that I imagined I would do if I was an invisible, non-born man would be to steal food from the born. But it's a nice little tale.
There then follows a trilogy of stories about Tarzan, which I think might have been slightly copied off the TV show that was popular at the time.
But my favourite is the next story entitled "The four men had a fiht with the men of Phise" which maybe I wrote alone as the grammar and spelling seem to be rather worse than the earlier works (where perhaps my mum assisted me in spelling out the words I wanted to put - I hope she had no input on the narrative)
I remember what I meant by the men of Phise. This was my attempt to write about the Pharisees who I knew from stories about Jesus. I clearly saw them as the baddies in the New Testament and must have been a little confused about when those stories took place, as I imagined them as a band of machine gun toting thugs.
I would very much like to make this story into a film and am considering selling my house to fund it. But I would have to stay true to the original story line, even if I can add a little dialogue and back story. I think people would love to see it. It would be called "The four men had a fiht with the men of Phise." If anyone wants to invest then let me know. I am pretty much serious about this. Even if the film turns out to be about an adult man trying to make a film out of a story he wrote when he was 7.
If you don't want any spoilers then look away now, but I am pretty much convinced that with the right cast this could be a major Hollywood blockbuster. It's a complicated plot. I hope you can keep up.
"Once they were four men and a lot of men of Phise and they had a fiht and most of the men of Phise died and all of the men died and they saw a lot of men and they had a fiht and a lot of the men got killed and the rest ran away and they went on and saw some more men of Phise and they said will you joun us and they did and they saw a man and he had a gun and 1 of the men of Phise got shot and one more of the men of Phise killed the man and they went away and killed all the men they saw. Antill they saw a monster and the monster killed a lot of men of Phies and a lot ascipt (escaped) and it was a dificlt life for them and they got to old to kill anneey boddy and they all died icset one and he still alive on this day and he is being cafall not to be seen. the end"
Now that is pretty much unbeatable as a story and shows that as the men of Phise got older they realised the implications of the way they had lived their earlier life. That one remaining old man of Phise hiding away, fearful of retribution. The story has everything. Look out for the film. It is coming.
There are plenty of other stories to hear about in
Podcast 92 and doubtless we will tell more in future weeks and I might dramatise "The thriling three" in next week's AIOTM. So you have much to look forward to. Someone suggested I should do the whole thing as an audio book, which maybe I will try to do when we record our special CD podcasts in Cardiff in January.
There's a lot more fun to be had out of this book I think.
After that enjoyable 66 minutes 36 seconds, we had to then read out a load of swear words for a special audio profanity application that is coming out soon. Which was a slightly surreal experience. Especially as prudy Andrew Collings refused to read out the ruder terms like "Knob Jockey" "Cock Master" and even "Ass Stain". How can such a prude be on a profanity application? That's kind of what makes it brilliant. He is nothing if not a fucking idiot and a cock monkey (another thing he refused to say).
To end a surreal and enjoyable day (where I kept on giggling hours later as I thought of the men of Phise and the 19 dead policeman) I ended up doing a charity gig in the debating hall at County Hall - not really a place designed for comedy and with the audience seated in leather seats, behind wooden desks in a semi circle around me. I felt like I was in Planet of the Apes. I think it went OK in the end, but with the high ceiling it was hard to tell - the laughter dissipates upwards or maybe it doesn't cos no one is laughing. It's hard to tell.
