Warming Up

8566/21485

I managed to play tennis through my pain and my serve was slightly restricted (though I won every game I served). My tennis partner who has never won a set off me, is getting better and got 3-2 up in the first set. I then won every game to win 6-3, 6-0, but I think my days of predominance may soon be over. He's still in his 40s so if he can't beat me before July 12th 2027, he will be being defeated by a man in his 60s (who has [redacted] Paid subs know what this is).

I wonder if I might get so good that I can win the main Wimbledon's Mens' title. It's never too late.

It's not a Caffe Nero strong coffee, but this hour of exercise is a great start to the day.

Thanks to David Bowie's son (Duncan Jones of course, who is a man in his own right and who posted this on Bluesky) I also started the day watching a video that I'd seen before, but which really got to me this time.

It's just an amazing piece of art. It is, of course, hilarious to begin with. Three little kids have been impressively transformed into the Bee Gees, including beards and balding heads. Despite being of a different race to the Bee Gees, they look like the Bee Gees. It's harmlessly, sweetly and beautifully funny. And if that was it, it would still be a worthwhile video to start your day.

Then the kids start to sing and it's still funny, because they're doing a good impression of the Bee Gees, but the Bee Gees themselves teeter on that precipice between seriousness and humour. Meaningless songs in very high voices as it's been put before.

Perhaps the Bee Gees took themselves so seriously because they knew how close to comedy they were edging. And they did not want to be comedic. This strange way of singing was meant to be beautiful. And it sort of is.

So then there's an added element to the impression. The kids are good, but because of the way they look and because they are so good and because the impression is great, it's now even funnier. The panel on the clip are laughing. Really laughing. You know why they are laughing, because you are laughing too. It's not vindictive or cruel. It's a natural response.

Unlike you though, those judges are in the room with the kids. The kids might see them laughing and think that they are being laughed AT, not with. In fact you think it's almost certain they'd think they are being laughed at. Will they lose the confidence that they have started with?

Do they know we're laughing because they're so good, because they look so close to the real thing, whilst being so different, because having three children dressed as the Bee Gees and being as good as the Bee Gees, just brings out the comedy of the Bee Gees that lies beneath a gossamer layer of Brothers Gibb thin skin.

You are willing the man who is laughing the most to realise the danger he is putting this delicate bit of magic in.

So much is going on already.

Yet there's still some way to go. Because suddenly you start to forget that we're looking at some small Asian kids pretending to be some middle-aged Anglo-Australian men and you just listen to them singing. And they're amazing. They haven't been affected by the laughter (the real Bee Gees would have stormed off long ago), they are not attempting to wink at what they are doing (like someone I could mention), they are just doing this song as well as they can. And it turns out that they are doing it brilliantly.

It stops being comedy and becomes something transcendental. It's so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. It's very like that equally moving bit of Operation Mincemeat, where a man pretending to be a woman, with a sweet and silly little kiss curl on his forehead, sings the Dear Bill letter.

Something sweetly comic transforms into something emotional and moving, even though this isn't really a woman and even though the woman writing the letter is only pretending to be the girlfriend of a pretend airman (though of course, we suspect, she is using some of her own experience in the missive).

I love when comedy flips like this. I think I've managed it a couple of times in my stand-up, but successfully sending your audience on a rollercoaster of laughter and tears and knowing you've touched their hearts and you feel the pain and confusion and sadness and love in the room. Which you can then choose to subvert, or not.

I am not claiming to have done it as well as Operation Mincemeat or some Asian kids in Bee Gees outfits. But from the moment that Robin takes his solo, if you have no tears in your eyes then you need to check your heart is still beating.

This is honestly one of the greatest moments of art in human history.

And, as threatened, I took a bit of time this evening to have a go at drawing the view from Windmill Hill with coloured crayons. I didn't know what it would turn out like and I made no real plan for it, just lost myself in it in the time it took Catie to put Ernie to bed and Phoebe to have a bath.

Again, I am no Asian kids in Bee Gees outfits or Banksy or whatever and I have always considered myself embarrassingly terrible at art of any kind and thus avoided doing it, except in comedic circumstances. This wasn't really about the end product, but about the process, taking myself away from work and childcare (I'd done my fair share today, don't worry) and just seeing what would happen.

I am actually really pleased with what came out of me, especially as I was really discovering the medium as I was doing it. I especially like the bus and the pine trees in the background (and the dogs of course, but they came from something I did on the pottery show so I knew they'd be OK). I like the wrong perspectives too, though I did my best to get them right. It is clearly Hermitage Road to anyone who knows it (and there's also a little Pompeii boy in there too if you look really closely). Even Phoebe said she thought it was good, which believe me is quite an achievement (she was very critical of my pottery).

I also had a go at recreating a photo of me and the kids that we took a few years back and that I discovered today is my dad's screen saver on his iPad, which made me a bit weepy for the second time today. Again, there's an awful lot wrong with this - not least Phoebe's face (sorry sweetheart), but there's a nice spirit to it too.

It's a huge thing for me (remember I burned my middle school art folder in the garden because I so hated not being the best at something) and just like the crappy poetry that paid subscribers are having to endure, it's just fun to express yourself in media that you don't feel entirely comfortable in. And to lose yourself in an activity that isn't your work or your family (even if you end up drawing your family).

Have I found a hobby? It's only taken nearly 59 years.

Sorry pics not attaching for some reason, but you can see them on Substack (why not subscribe why you're there? You can get my blog to your email- you can pay me too if you like! No? OK.)