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As if to emphasise that 2014 was not my year the BBC elected to show my disastrous first appearance on Pointless this afternoon. Would some New Year/Sliding Doors magic mean that I would say Joe Dolce this time and progress to the next round? If I believed enough then it would definitely happen. I did not believe enough. Dom Joly won. Which proves that the devil runs the Universe and God is dead.
If Richard Osman was any kind of true friend (he isn't, I barely know him), he would do a Pointless version of that Simpsons episode where Bart drops a catch and they replay the whole game to spare his feelings and reconvene all the players and replay the game and fix it so I win this time. Will he do that though? No he won't. Fairweather mild acquaintance.
Why am I such a loser? And given that I am such a loser why do I retain this competitive streak? It's like I like losing. It's like I deliberately said Bryan Ferry because getting 200 points would turn me on. I wish they'd show the episode every day as it's the only thing that can get me hard. Sorry, I mean it's like I wish that...
Although in a sense there are three of us already (there’s definitely something squirming around in my wife’s stomach - it’s pretty freaky) this was our last New Year’s Eve as a twosome and we decided to take it relatively easy. I attempted a jigsaw that I got for Christmas of some Roses chocolates - it’s a cruel present as it came in a Roses chocolate box and as you’re putting it together you are constantly thinking of Roses chocolates: I only hope that when it is completed the chocolates become real and you can eat them all. If you believe enough then that will happen. I really believe it. I am going to eat the jigsaw at the end regardless.
It’s a very tricky jigsaw and I only managed to get the edges in after quite a lot of work. I suspect that it will ensure that I get nothing of any worth done in the next 12 months. Apart from completing the jigsaw. Yes I might not be able to win at Pointless but I can very slowly reconstruct a picture of some chocolates. Who is the loser now?
For most of the day we had a Community marathon, watching most of the first series of this brilliant sitcom and aiming to make our way through the entire box set in the next few weeks. We’ve seen it many times before, but the first and second seasons in particular are an absolute delight. And this was an even better New Year’s Eve than when I sat at home on my own and watched myself in an alternate Universe having a fantastic time on that year’s Jools Holland Hootenanny. We did break off from Community to see the false countdown on that programme, wondering what they would do if one of the acts or audience members died in the interim between recording the programme in early December and its “live” broadcast. I guess if it was going to happen it would have happened this year of celebrity deaths.
The massive end of year draw prize was won by Robert Knight. There’s a prize draw every month.
Just donate a pound or more a month here and you could win one of this year’s prizes including Richard Herring’s Objective script, Me2’s SCOPE running top from PB half marathon (washed), hand made exclusive T shirts, rare programmes and who knows what else? Thanks to all those of you who are donating already - we've getting enough money in to release two filmed RHLSTPs a month at the moment (shame that we're releasing four a month, but still). I think we need about four times as many people to make the commitment to start making monthly AIOTMs (or we can do one every four months, or more likely wait until we've accrued enough money), so the more people who donate the quicker we can get on with that. But we're planning to start putting out a few sketches and stuff this year at least.
And my end of year weight was 83.8kg, exactly the same as I started the month (though there were some severe downs and ups along the way). I am 11.6kg lighter than I started the year, with a low of 79.4kg in August. Slightly disappointed to have put that weight back on, but impressed that I have more or less plateaued at a much lower weight than I would have guessed. And I’ve knocked off 1.8kg since Christmas with a proper return to calorie counting and exercise which bodes well for phase 2 of the weight loss operation. I am basically half way to my goal.
The winner of Guess the Weight of the Gonk was Isabel Queralt who will win some signed programmes and DVDs. She said 84kg.
I have also updated
the "History" section of the website to include 2014. It's strange to read that whole section for me, not just because all those years have passed, but because the early entries were written by a younger version of myself who is chirpier and stupider than me. I can't work out if it's a prolonged story of the crushing of hope or a testament to never giving up. It is, if nothing else, a Celebration of Mediocrity. I have at least stayed true to my younger self's goals.
