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It still always catches me off guard how much a couple of days on the road takes out of me. Phoebe is no respecter of late nights of course so that doesn’t help either. But the day passed in a blur. I think there’s about 50 more dates to go on this tour, so two down is not much of an achievement. Will this be the tour that finally floors me? I hope not. I’d like to do at least another 20 years of this if I can.
Maybe I dreamed it, but I had a meeting with a man who wants me to do some live frames of Me1 Vs Me2 Snooker this morning. I can’t say too much about it just yet, but if you live in London then mark the 28th July in your diary and either ensure you are as far away as possible, or come along to see what the Mes look like in real life. I am excited about the prospect. My wife still thinks that Me1 vs Me2 Snooker is an embarrassing waste of my time and that I should concentrate on work that will make me money or at the very least not lose me the respect of all right thinking people. But my wife is wrong. And she’s not wrong often. She was wrong to fall in love with and marry me, when she deserved much better (for example any of the several billion people on the planet who do not record themselves playing snooker against themselves) and she is wrong about this. Me1 vs Me2 Snooker is the best thing that I do. I am not being ironic or stupid. It genuinely is. Sure, it’s a waste of my time and it’s a waste of anyone who listens to it’s time as well. But that is why it is not a waste of anyone’s time. Because it is high art. And if there was any justice in the world it would win the Turner Prize (even if technically it is a serious sporting event).
I told the man that my dream is to one year attempt to make a living from self-playing snooker and turn down all other work. This ambition has been made a lot more difficult by the fact that I now have a family to provide for, so to risk going out on a limb and saying I will only earn money from playing a sport on my own, even though it usually has two people, who are usually really good at it, plus separate commentators and referees. And my wife might say I am not allowed. But it would be great to take all the Mes on the road (though the hotel bills would be astronomical) and a true work of art to do it to no people, lose thousands of pounds and have my family kicked out of the house.
Although strictly speaking this sport should be audio only, I hope that as long as I record any live shows in audio and put them out as podcasts should mean they retain their true spirit. The live audience will be able to see how far the commentary comes from describing the true majesty of the play and a new level of artistic genius will be added. And once the event is over and they only have their memories then who is to say that what they witnessed even happened in a visual format anyway? Our eyes and our memories are unreliable. Only that that appears on audio tape (without lying visuals to fool us) can be taken as truth.
So we will see where today’s meeting leads in the end. To my irreparable mental breakdown? Perhaps. To me being the richest sportsman in the country? Quite possibly. To my irreparable mental breakdown leading me to believe I am the richest sportsman in the country? Almost certainly. But it was an important step forwards and I will be paid for the event, making my claims to be the country’s only semi-professional self-playing snookerist to be very far from untrue (as they have been up to now).
I will fill you in on the details when I have them, but mark the date, my friends.
