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I was going to do a daytime Twitch of Fun today, but there wasn't much fun news and I wasn't really feeling it so I just mooched in my office and didn't get much done at all. There's a bit of pressure on for the return of Twitch as the next episode is number 100 and I want to make a big deal out of it. But also it's ages since I've done one and I've forgotten who most of the characters are or how they speak and the fear of doing a crappy one makes it harder to commit.
Which is a weird thing to think as the essence of Twitch of Fun is that it at least has the possibility of being crap and much of the fun of it is that it is crap. But it can't be deliberately crap. I have to be trying my hardest. It makes the triumphs more remarkable and the disasters more amusing. It's my favourite thing I do and if there was any justice in the world, Christmas Day BBC1 would be showing Twitch of Fun, not Gavin and Stacey. And BBC2 would become a 24 hour self-playing snooker channel. And Channel 4 would be wall to wall stone clearing - you have to put the commercial stuff on the channels with adverts.
As the kids get older and bed times get later, I think that daytime snooker and puppets might be the way to continue with these ultimately pointless projects. I know there are literally tens of people out there waiting for the next episodes and I don't want to disappoint them. I assume most of them are unable to function in normal society and thus don't have jobs, but even so - a 4pm Twitch of Fun might be too much for them. I might have a shot at it on Monday - it feels at least that Prince Andrew should get a chance to talk about being ostracised from his family at this important time of year.
My main skill seems to be my resilience and persistence in the fact of general lack of interest in what I am doing. I strongly believe that if I can carry on doing stuff for long enough, eventually people will herald me as a genius and a national treasure. Though time is running out folks. Don't leave it too long.
Aside from a possible Christmas Eve Eve Twitch of Fun (and am I going to be able to get time off from the family for such self-indulgence?) that's my work done for 2024. I finished off writing the year up for
the History section of my website and remarkably I think this might be the first year in my career where every piece of paid work I've done has been basically self-generated - either podcast based or a stand up tour or a stand up gig. I don't think I've done a single bit of telly or even radio (maybe the Jon Holmes radio show if that was recorded this year, but that was unpaid!) I am, it seems, self-sufficient, like a 21st Century Tom Good.
I am, as always, confused as to whether this constitutes success or failure. It's probably best not to try and think about it. I know in the nineties I constantly worried that every idea I had might be my last or that things would go tits up and I'd have to give up on my dream. As the years have gone by and I've been constantly occupied I've been a bit less worried about that. I guess it reached a tipping point a decade or so ago where if it did all go tits up there wasn't really anything else I could do. And now if it goes tits up I am old enough that I will probably just have to retire on the pension that I've neglected to sort out for myself.
Looking over the history section of my website (as I do every time I add a new year) it strikes me how well things were going in 2019 and the early part of 2020. I was getting to appear on TV quiz shows, just landed the Taskmaster gig and I could rely on ticket sales for RHLSTP - my manager was even talking about a world tour in a meeting in about February 2020. Since Covid though things have been a bit quieter. I am not saying I am the main victim of the virus, but it's got to be close.
Could Twitch of Fun be to blame? Or is society still prejudiced and superstitious about one-balled men (though thank God for testicular cancer or I might have had no work in the last four years)?
But look my motto in life and work and relationships has always been, if you throw enough shit at the wall some of it is going to stick. And I will continue to hurl out faeces until I have none left. I would never throw anyone else's faeces - I'm not sick. Or a faecal plagiarist.
If Twitch of Fun is the reason that no one has put me on TV or radio this year, then I shall double down on Twitch of Fun.
Am I out of touch? No, it's everyone else who is wrong.
Apart from those three dozen really weird people who like Twitch of Fun. It's not over guys. 2025 is the year of much-too-rude, inadequate ventriloquism. And I have to introduce my new characters Egg Wallace and RudeBoy. Though to be fair all the characters are basically Gregg Wallace already, so there might not be room for another one.
