6876/19796
I dreamed I was being attacked by a very small rhino, about the size of a rat. It was really fucking going for me too. I realised it was a dream but it was a proper struggle to wake up. Finally I sprang to life, heart beating, ululating. My wife was concerned. I told her I was being attacked by a tiny rhino. I think from the level of panic she was thinking I was having some huge existential crisis. I don’t think she was expecting a tiny rhino. It really shook me up. My dream shins will never recover.
I might have been writing too many emergency questions.
I drove into London today, feeling rather pleased with my choice to get an electric car. All the petrol stations were either closed or had long queues. What a fuck up the UK has become. It will only get worse sadly.
I was having a 90s nostalgia fest tonight. First up the show was hosted by the real 90s Comedian, Richard Herring and his first guest was Louise Wener from off of Sleeper. Reading her book I had realised that we had lived parallel lives in music and comedy. She was maybe in the year above me at school, but her childhood experiences really resonate with me - we both studied Vanity Fair for A level and Anais Anais was her perfume of choice and also the scent preferred by my first girlfriend. I am not sure I would recognise it now by impressed a lot of young women in my late teens and early twenties by correctly identifying their perfume, but I suspect in hindsight that pretty much everyone was wearing it anyway. Also Louise years of fame were basically the same as my years of almost fame 93-99 and in that time we were both pretty much the unlikeliest person from our school to present Top of the Pops (she also played music on it, of course, which is better and it’s lovely to see how her cool performances are punctuated with grins as she fulfils her childhood dreams). The book is an excellent read about the nature of fame and the sexism of the music industry and the weird depravity of the pop stars of the nineties
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008EMAL4G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1. And Louise is still effortlessly charming and cool. I wanted to make up for all the pervy interviews she’s had to endure from men and make the point about how the positive message of her songs that celebrated sex were for young women - though of course men made it all about themselves (and she was unlucky to be trying to do this against the rise of Loaded etc). But I didn’t get this point out as well as I could and Louise correctly expressed how bad it was that she was defined by sexiness when all the male bands did the same thing all the time and it was never remarked upon. I hope I eventually came across as sympathetic to this point of view, but cheeky rude interviewer Rich can’t resist heading to the most awkward place, so we’ll see.
Louise is still cool and the new Sleeper albums are remarkably good and she has a totally different attitude to fame and her job, as all fifty-somethings will when compared to their ambitious, fame-hungry twenty-something selves.
I have never met Louise before - I rarely went to the cool parties or socialised at all in the nineties, but I wasn’t really into the music scene either, so TOTP aside there was little chance of our paths crossing. Remarkably I’d never met Joe from Adam and Joe before today either. That makes me realise what a sad and isolated time I must have been having in the 90s, just sitting at home writing and playing Civ 2 and feeling sad. It was great to have my previous rivals on the show together (though Adam is the guest who has been on the most on his own over the years). Adam wears his heart on his sleeve and is the loveliest of men, whilst Joe is a little more guarded, but still down to earth in spite of his Hollywood successes. They have been friends for forty years and we were able to discuss the strains of maintaining a personal and professional association over that time. They dressed in their Ad and Joe t shirts and Adam wore his hat. It made me laugh to think of them coming on the show again in another 25 years (it’s a quarter of century since their show aired for the first time), still wearing that get up. I’d like them to have to go back to doing the show now, with the weariness of middle age, but still doing their childish stunts and silliness. Like they were trapped in a never ending contract. Be a great drama.
I had been a bit tired during the shows and didn’t feel like I was on top form, occasionally floundering a little, but with guests this good it doesn’t really matter how well I do.
I drove home somehow. The petrol stations still closed.
