To celebrate yesterday's 9th birthday I recorded
all 10 November 25th blogs on Soundcloud (also available on iTunes). It took 45 minutes and a few seconds. On that average it would take me something like 11 days (with no breaks for food or sleep or micturation) to record the whole thing, which is rather an overwhelming realisation. Newbies might not know that the first few months are available in book form from gofasterstripe, along with loads of background info about what was going on in my personal life at the time. It's called
Bye Bye Balham. There's always the chance we might put out more, though it was a time consuming endeavour and the first one only sold moderately well.
It was an odd feeling to leapfrog through my life a year at a time and it amused me how however much things change, things stay the same. It might be more interesting to do it on a more random day, because the very nature of the anniversary tends to make the entries rather contemplative. It made me feel a little bit sad for some indefinable reason, probably because I resent getting older, which entails losing as much as you gain. Why did God invent that idea? He never ages, so He had to come up with the notion from nowhere. It's a cunt's trick. Let's just stay 25 until we die, like Justin Timberlake believes we do. With a clock telling us how long we've got left, so there's none of the awkward worry.
But I went out for a run and that cheered me up again. At least my legs are working for now. I only intended to go out for 20 minutes to test a running watch I have been given to review for a newspaper, but ended up doing 11km in 73 minutes. The impressive mini computer - way too sophisticated for my needs, really intended for serious triathalon athletes, so me having it was a bit like using Kit from Knight Rider to pop down to your local shop for some milk - was able to keep me up to date with my pace, speed, distance travelled and heart rate. I don't know if it has a facility to start flashing or emit an alarm if your heart rate becomes dangerously high. I averaged 146bpm, which one person on Twitter found alarming, but which according to the stats on the website (you download your whole run on to a webpage) seemed pretty much OK for a man of my age who has chosen to run about 7 miles. I was delighted that I found the run pretty easy - I haven't been out much since the half marathon - and also delighted that I burned up 950 calories. OK so I am not 35 any more, but I can still run for 73 minutes without feeling tired. Fuck you Grim Reaper. You'll never get me.
The only drawback of the watch is that it can't tell you how long you've got left to live (unless I guess your heart rate gets very high or very low). It's
the Polar RCX5 Multi G5 GPS Training Computer if you're rich and interested. You'll be able to find out what I think about it if you read the Daily Mail. But as you clearly don't do that, then I will tell you that it's amazing, but really only appropriate for very serious triathletes. Or people who want to go around with constant updates on their heartbeat.
I got back refreshed and ready to get some work done. Though I was slightly slowed down listening to York City lose a valuable goal lead in the last second of the match, I had my third good day's writing out of four (if I can keep up that kind of average I will be able to write a series in a month) and actually got the second draft of Gorgeous to a place where I think I can send it in to be judged. I can't really nail a script until it has been cast and read a few times, but I am really pleased with what I've got so far. It's a big step forward from the first draft, uncluttered with more left unsaid and identifiable jeopardy. If anyone asks me "Where's the jeopardy?" I can point it out. Just in case I might go through the script tomorrow and write JEOPARDY in big letters every time I think there is some.
It's about cave guides working in a fictional Somerset Gorge, but weirdly I've just remembered that I used to be a cave guide who worked in Cheddar Gorge and thought maybe I would have some useful memories of that. I remembered that on my first day at Cheddar Caves one of the other guides found out I wanted to be a comedian (I was only 18, but that was my dream) and then started telling me dozens of jokes. They were really old and corny ones and I knew all of them, but as it was my first day and I wanted to fit in I just laughed along politely, though I might have explained that I wasn't really so into jokes, preferring to do stuff with characters and sketches. It didn't stop this fella though who reeled off more jokes along the lines of "What's brown and sticky? A stick." Eventually after he'd done about ten minutes without telling one joke that I hadn't heard before, he said, "Come on you must know some jokes." I didn't like jokes and could never remember them, but luckily one sprung to mind. So I started, "Three guys were standing at the top of the Empire State Building and one of them jumps off, hits a cloud and bounces back up again....." The other guide immediately chipped in with a sneer, "It's Superman isn't it? Yeah, I've heard that one." I could have done that to everyone of his jokes, the bloody wassock.
But revenge is a dish best served cold and I have got him back by writing almost that exact event in a TV script, which will probably never be made and if it is where that scene might well get cut. And I've only had to wait over a quarter of a century later, at a point where he will have totally forgotten the incident or meeting me and be unable to recognise the parody. Be careful who you cross my friends. They might become that most feared and powerful of beings, the reasonably unsuccessful comedy script writer.
And let's not think of the potential rejection and another year's work down the toilet. For the moment let's bask in the success of a script completed to satisfaction (with the proviso that I will be going through it again on Monday morning to sharpen it up further) and enjoy the feeling of contentment that follows all the stress and discomfort and unhappiness.
God, I would love it if they make this one. I'd forgive You the whole ageing thing if You could just sort it out. What do You mean I'm not at the top of Your list of priorities...? Oh yeah, fair enough. Satan, give us a ring, mate.
