6393/19313
I have about 5000 more words or five more chapters to write for the book and although I did manage to put together another chapter (and a quite pivotal one where I had an actual revelation about the people claiming no one pays attention to International Men’s Day) but I can’t see me getting to the end of the first draft by Monday (the original deadline was Sunday). It’s not really a problem as I think I have as much time as I need and am hopeful that once the first draft is done that the editing process won’t be too arduous and to be frank I am amazed that I’ve managed to somehow get 15,000 words out in the limited time I’ve been able to work.
I think it’s quite good too. Which is unusual for me at this stage, though it’s very hard to cover this topic comprehensively with such a short tome. But there are more serious academic tomes out there about the subjects I am covering, so I hope mine will be the funniest, but also provide enough food for thought to push people on to those!
I walked the dog this evening and did my first audio stone clearing podcast in a while, but the warmth and the greenness of the countryside and the blue of the sky were mesmerising. I felt like I had eaten a whole bag of marijuanas and was seduced by a flirtatious butterfly.
It felt like Italy rather than the UK and I imagined I was walking through vineyards on my way to a bar to drink vermouth with all the other kids on their year off.
I did feel like I was 18 and free again and I thought of the glorious archaeological dig that I’d been on in Hampshire, where it felt the sun always shined and the sky was always this shade of blue. I was only on that dig for three weeks, but it was my first proper three weeks away from home and it made a man of me. Well a mildly less immature little boy at least. When I think about how little happens in three weeks at the moment, it’s incredible that such a short period of time remains such a profound experience for me, but that’s being young for you.
I was reminded of the day that the farmer drove past with all his harvested potatoes in an open-topped trailer. A few of the spuds were bounced off as the farmer past our camp and we went down the road, picking them up and we ate free jacket potatoes that night Did we? I am not convinced we had an oven that would have done that - did we cook them in a fire or did we just make mash over a calor gas stove?
It doesn’t matter. We had free potatoes and we were free. It was the best day of my life up to that point (and possibly still). There’s nothing like free potatoes when you’re free.
I would later kiss a girl during that dig, which was highly unusual for me. But the potatoes were still the best thing.
Good news comedy fans. I am doing a RHLSTP double on Wednesday (two shows on the same night? That’s crazy). At 8pm I a talking to Lauren Pattison and then at 10pm I will be chatting over an ocean with Bill Burr.
All on my Twitch channel (and then podcasted later)
Back 10 years and a fortnight to May 2010 for
another retro AIOTM. Hope you’re enjoying these. Someone asked if there was any chance of reviving the series, though the problem is that nothing occurs to me anymore (even outside of lockdown). I did enjoy doing the audio extra podcast when we did the video series so you never know, but I don’t think I could keep up with a weekly show. I wonder if it might work as a monthly thing, but why would I put myself through that again…. I had hoped to use lockdown to put together something like sketches or monologues on Twitch, but I hadn’t factored in the childcare and exhaustion. Let’s see how much longer it goes on. Maybe once the book is done.
