Days without alcohol - 30.
I went back to college today - not to learn anything, though I did go to a lecture which is more than I did in my entire second year at University (year one - maybe two lectures, year three, probably only one). I'd been asked to go for a question and answer session about "You Can Choose Your Friends" by one of my friends who lectures at the University of Greenwich. Not that my work is down on the syllabus (not yet, my genius will only be recognised when I am dead - I don't believe that, but it's the only way I can get through life by pretending to myself that the people of the future, at least, will appreciate me - hi guys if you're reading this, or rather having it read to you by a hologram of my face, in space), but the students are looking at the way family is represented in film and drama and so my work is borderline relevant.
The campus is in the historic Royal Naval College which is quite an impressive place to have a look around, if you get the chance. Just walk by the charred and hidden ruins of the Cutty Sark and you'll find it.
After a brief tour of the more historic buildings I sat at the back of my friend's lecture about "Little Miss Sunshine", a film that I hadn't particularly enjoyed or rather that everyone had gone on about so much that my expectations were ridiculously high. Still, pretty cool to do a University course which just involves watching films. Lucky little bastards. Pretty much everyone else there was half my age, so I felt like Rodney Dangerfield in that film which I would know the name of, if only I had studied watching films instead of Modern History.
After that we went to a lecture theatre to do my bit. I passed on my knowledge and the fifty minutes seemed to pass pretty quickly. They showed a brief clip of YCCYF and it gave me a slight jolt of sadness to see Anton Rodgers, but his performance made me laugh and I suppose there is some comfort to be taken in that. I was thinking the same about Barrie (
who got a rather sweet tribute on Chortle) - every time I think about him, or see a picture of him as Uncle Barrie it makes me laugh. Even though I am sad about his passing, ultimately his funniness and charm overcomes this and instinctively laughter flows. I don't think there's anything I would like more for myself - you know in 80 years time, when I finally kick the bucket, eating cocaines off the breasts of some space hookers.
So I think the students got something from my answers to their questions and I enjoyed the experience. I suppose I might well have been a teacher if my life had taken a slightly different route and I would have been proud to take up the family trade.
It's weird though to realise that so long has gone by since I was at college myself. But I passed on my knowledge of how to write scenes where men show their bums to a new generation, so all is not lost.
