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I spent most of the day ebaying. I have loads of rare and fun bits and bobs from podcast, stand-up and even 1990s TV shows and it's nice to get them out to fans and raise some money to make more podcasts. It also feels a bit like I am getting rid of stuff ahead of the move this summer, but it's not really a time effective way to rid myself of minimal clutter!
I was a bit annoyed that I had made the end dates of the last lots to be at a time when I was on tour, as I pride myself on being an excellent ebay seller and getting stuff out as soon as it's been paid for. But I had contacted most buyers to let them know the stuff would be delayed, so hopefully my 100% ebay rating will not suffer!
I always bung in some extras for buyers so I hope everyone will be happy with their purchases. Ebay seems to take a bigger cut than they used to (might be wrong) and postage costs come out higher than you're allowed to charge too and it takes up lots of time, but it's fun to get this stuff out to people and also gratifying that kickstarter items tend to go for a lot more than they cost backers to buy them in the first place. That was always the hope with those campaigns that we'd all win and backers would get something rare enough to increase in value - not that any of you would ever sell something so precious.
The Fist of Fun badge is a real rarity. I don't know how many were originally made, but I doubt many of them have survived 30 years. I do remember being the one to write "I like Fist of Fun" on a piece of paper (as badly as possible) to create the template for this handmade looking badge and we gave them out at gigs and shows and maybe posted them to people who wrote to us??? It was all part of a low key attempt to advertise the show in an underground fashion. We had an army of children who listened to the radio show who'd do our bidding (luckily we used this power for good unlike other entertainers) and I hoped that we could make the show a huge success by getting people to put up postcards in newsagents windows or wearing homemade merch. It didn't work, obviously and though we did have a website and an email address, which was pretty revolutionary, I think we were a few years too early to become an internet phenomenon. Things might have been very different if we'd been in a position to really make sure of the world wide web. Fist of Fun was ideal fodder for the internerds.
Sally Phillips proudly wore her own "I like Fist of Fun" badge and unsurprisingly perhaps a man at a bar who had not heard of our show assumed it meant something else and propositioned her. So in the end the badges did more to promote fisting than they did to promote our show. But I suspect the badge that I am selling this week will be sold for more than it cost the BBC to print up however many badges we initially did.
Nothing like selling a badge that is almost 30 years old to make you realise how long you've been going. The badges and postcards in windows didn't help us turn the show into a huge smash (though it's nice that a few people remember it with affection and it served as a springboard to success for many of the cast - my springboard must have been malfunctioning). It makes you take stock a little and all I can say is that I've given this a good go. I genuinely don't know if I am a success or a failure, but although I get the occasional pang wondering how things might have been, I also am delighted with what I have both professionally and more importantly personally.
If I can just keep working til the end then that's all I need. And as long as I die quite soon that should be possible!
