Days without drink - 3
I was a little bit more sluggish today, and wondered if maybe this is down to being old rather than hungover! But still managed to do some work on the new sit-com script and go for a swim and wasn't tempted by alcohol. Well that's not entirely true. I saw a bottle of whisky in the kitchen and thought how funny it would be to have a slug, just to make myself look like a dick and give all the naysayers something to celebrate.
But I resisted. It was about 4 o clock in the afternoon for a start.
This morning I was thinking about Life of Brian, which I had enjoyed on New Year's Eve, despite the fact that I know it off by heart. I was laughing about Eric Idle's "Mr Cheeky" character, who is the one who when asked "Crucifixion?" says, "No freedom, actually. They said I hadn't done anything so I could go free and live on an island somewhere," before admitting that he is only joking and it's crucifixion really. My favourite bit being the fact that he knows the drill and has clearly been through all this before (as is proven later when he nonchalantly acknowledges whilst being crucified that his brother usually rescues him).
For me this character is the funniest thing Eric Idle has ever done (he's done lots of funny things, just not too many of them all that recently) and it suddenly brought back another school day reminiscence.
When we were about 14 or 15 my stupid friends and I were obsessed with Monty Python and very much taken with the Mr Cheeky character. So much so that for about a week we introduced a daily "Mr Cheeky competition, in which one of us would be given the "Mr Cheeky Award" (in fact just a piece of paper from one of those reporter notepads we all had at school with the words "Mr Cheeky Award" written on it - along with a record of the winners). Obviously the more dangerous the occasion to be cheeky, the more chance the incident had of winning the award. And the decision to who had achieve the accolade was voted upon democratically.
We were the most annoying of young men, gifted academically, but slightly disruptive, which didn't affect our own education, but in hindsight might have made things trickier for those who were struggling to understand what we found relatively easy.
But our idea of cheekiness was, on the whole rather charming and harmless. Indeed that was the whole ethos of the Mr Cheeky character - he'd take the mickey, but then own up to his own skittishness.
I won the award once. I am not entirely sure what I did. I think that during a Physics lesson, Mr Dodd, our long-suffering teacher was doing some experiment and the class were gathered around him and I stood on one of the high Physics lab stools to watch, much higher than the others, leaning over, but hoping not to be spotted. It was something along those lines.
The only winner I actually clearly remember, was, for the only time in the long Mr Cheeky Award eight day history, won by someone outside of our peer group. Again in Physics we had all been trying to trump each other in the cheekiness stakes (telling that we would only do this in the relative safety of lessons, not by maybe going out into the playground and being cheeky to Billy Lukins or Kevin Adams, the tough boys, who might actually kill us for being annoying little twots). But towards the end of the period, Mark Harris, another of the hard lads from a lower set came in with a message. Mr Dodd was calming us down, no doubt for some minor attempt to win the award and as Mark Harris left he turned round in the doorway and said "You tell 'em, Dodd!" Brilliantly impertinent. No mister in front of that Dodd, something that we would never have dared do to his face and yet somehow supportive enough for the impact not really to hit until Mark Harris was out of the room and probably sucking on a cigarette, before loafing back to his correct classroom as slowly as possible.
Even then we knew that he was better than us. We immediately bowed down to him and inscribed his name on the piece of paper - not that we would ever actually give it to him. He would have screwed it up and thrown it back in our stupid O level faces. In four words he had shown how useless we were at our own endeavour. He didn't even know about the award and yet still he was effortlessly better than all of us. The true mark of a Mr Cheeky is that he isn't doing it for recognition or reward, he is just trying to create some joy in the world, not for others, only for himself.
And it is telling indeed that Mark Harris is the only winner who I can clearly remember. If only the piece of paper had not been lost then I would track Mark down now and present it to him. He was the undisputed Kings of Wessex Mr Cheeky. Of course if I did track him down and give him a yellowing piece of paper with his name on it, he would probably still rip it up and punch me in the face into the bargain. That's what makes him great.
And the little counter at the top is a nod to another old story from my life. One year when I was living in Balham with Pete Baynham I made a little sign on my noticeboard in my room, with numbers I could stick on with blue tack, informing myself how many days I had been without alchol. It was to encourage myself and give me something to aim for. But Stew and Pete took the piss out of me, and I think even made me another chart with "Days without cocaine" on it, which as I had never had any cocaines had a number in its thousands on it. But I do not feel I am being ridiculous. I will start each entry with the statistic. Will I make double figures?
