6060/18989
The toe hurt this morning but had settled down a bit by the evening. I think I am going to be OK. And have accepted that the second half of my life (I intend to live to 104) will be plagued by constant pain. I refuse to act my age. Or even my continental shoe size.
As my 52nd birthday approaches I have found myself thinking about Sean Hughes. He died about a month shy of his 52nd birthday, which means that with 4 days to go I am now older than Sean. He was always older than me, but now I have overtaken him. It is a deep sadness that he left us this soon and if I am lucky/unlucky enough to live in niggling pain until I am 104 then I imagine that loss will get all the greater. Assuming it doesn’t happen to us, these outliers of the friends who die before their time weigh heavy on us throughout the rest of our lives. A comedy colleague from University, Will Preston, died at the age of 23 or 24, I think in 1989 and it’s hard not to think of all the lost opportunities for him and those who knew him and I often wonder what he might have been up to. Similarly Bruce, who I knew briefly when I worked on an archaeological dig with him later that same year, who died in a car crash after a party we’d all attended, when he was about 21. At the time I was freaked out by the fact that had I got in a different car from the pub to the party then I might have been killed instead, but now I just think of what he and his loved ones lost and how horrifyingly young and senseless that was. And their tragedies just get more heart-breaking with each passing year.
It was unlikely that Sean would make old bones, but the world would have been better had he lived into his 70s. It remains surreal that my older comedy brother is now younger than me. Miss you Seany.
A sprained toe isn’t so bad, is it?
I had hoped to get down to some serious work today, but needed a day off to recover from a weekend of looking after the kids. My life, it turns out, is much harder work than my job.
I did manage to toss off a couple of podcasts though - a bad-tempered frame of
Me1 vs Me2 Snooker and
a quick evening Stone Clear in which I almost had an assignation with Judy Murray. Depending on your definition of almost. And reality.
It’s taken 11 years for people to start seeing the value in my more mainstream podcast offerings, so I wonder how long it will be before people recognise what amazing work I am doing in these two. A lot longer I think.
That wasn’t all I achieved though. I also organised all the computer and charging cables I need when I am out of the house into a proper little bag with cable ties in it. So it’s been a pretty good day overall. Apart from remembering the dead and facing the inevitability of my own slide into the same eternal vacuum.
