Happy 9th birthday Warming Up. Like a long streak of shit accidentally trailed from the bottom of my shoe on to the uncleanable carpet of history. Except secretly I did it on purpose. More than a fifth of the days of my life have been documented in some small way. I think this is the 3288th consecutive entry, but might be wrong about that. I dread to think how many words that is, or how many books I might have written if I had directed my efforts that way. Or what I might have done with the time if I had just chosen to go outside or meet some friends or read great literature. But although there have been a few times where I have resented this burden or struggled to think of anything worth saying (before just deciding to write something that wasn't worth saying) I am glad I have kept it up. It helped get me back up on my feet, helped get me back into stand up and was an incredible resource when I wrote my
my last book. I don't know what kind of madness or stubborn-headedness it shows me to have that I have written an entry for every day, even holidays and Christmas, even when I have been up against yet another ridiculous writing deadline. I don't know if it makes me a kind of hero or a kind of idiot (though have strong suspicions). I don't know how many of you even read it, though suspect that there is now an entry for each of you. Perhaps you could all get your names inscribed on one blog each, like they're metaphysical park benches. If you have read every entry you have suffered more than me.
I remember thinking when I got to a year of uninterrupted blogging that someone somewhere would probably make a big deal out of it - have you seen the guy who blogged every day for a year? - but noone seemed to notice. Surely at two years though? No. By the time it was half a decade you'd think some journalist might have written about it, if only to point up the self-indulgence required. But it's gone largely unremarked, which in the wisdom I have acquired by being so old, I now see as a good thing. Like most of my output from the last nine years this is a secret shared amongst an elite group and yet whenever a new member is inducted it is still all there if they cared to waste their life catching up on the fallen petals of another man's life. Perhaps if you're new you should go back to the start, and then write a blog about every blog I have written. That might count as art. And you would be feted as a genius. Whilst I would, as is right, be ignored.
Only 366 more entries and I've done a decade and now I am so close it would be a shame not to go for that landmark. Will I be able to stop myself then? It's either that or I set myself the Andy Kaufman style task of going on for so long that everyone else has left and I am just shooting my ideas out into the void to be seen by no one. I'd give that a go, but I know there are some persistent fuckers reading this. And I thank them for sticking with me through thick and thin. With all the blogs and podcasts and DVDs and books and radio shows it takes some real commitment to be a fan of mine and if this is the first time you've come across me today, then I think it might be getting close to impossible to catch up.
Quantity not quality. If you throw enough shit at the wall some of it will stick.
These are the mottos that have maintained me through my career of mediocrity. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
And after two strong days of writing on my script I had a bit of a slump today and didn't quite get to the end - or at least didn't manage to build the bridge between the first two thirds of the script and the last scene which I have written. But I am close and will probably have it done by Monday, which was the earliest I was going to send it off. It's more important that I get it right than I get it done.
I did finish off reading the excellent and hilarious Alan Partridge autobiography, which Alan himself had been kind enough to send me for free, though I am not sure he really knows who I am. It's quite moving in places and Alan, like me, is a man who has had to fight and struggle to maintain his position in the business and who, like me, constantly justifies what he is currently doing as actually better than the way things were when he was more "successful". He writes hastily, shares too much, reveals things he doesn't intend to reveal... remind you of anyone. Am I the Alan Partridge of On The Hour?
I think not quite, but it's a strange sensation reading the autobiography of a character that I had a hand in creating as a young man and now seeing something of myself in the parody. I think maybe Partridge would be bitter if he had been involved in something that had gone on to be so successful without him, whereas I am genuinely delighted to have played a tiny part in the creation of this phenomena. But oooooh. This is one of the funniest books I've ever read and rewards fans whilst not excluding the more casual reader. And it speaks of the way we have cope with failed ambition and lost dreams. There's a cruelty to it that I wouldn't have spotted before - highly successful writers and entertainers mocking the deluded lives of those with no talent or luck - but there is an affection for this awesome and monstrous creation too. We are all Alan Partridge, but that probably hits you more if you wrote some of the first things that the character ever said. But if nothing else I suppose I can always say that I played the tiniest part in the creation of something this good. So if I am Alan Partridge, what does that make you?
Buy the book or (and I've heard this is even better) get the audiobook and hear the man himself take you through his life.
I have now written about 10 November 25ths in my life.
this link will give you 8 of them and
here's last year's so if you want to jump through my life in yearly increments then you now can.
