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Sunday 12th November 2006

The laxative of impending deadline has helped to slightly shift the mental blockage that's stopped me getting anywhere with my script for the last fortnight. I was starting to resolve some of the issues in the presently rather turgid opening. Suddenly I could see a route through to page 15 and the first advert break. After all this time a couple of new ideas made it obvious what I had to do. I wish I understood where this inspiration comes from. Sometimes it feels like someone else has done all the thinking and then just beamed the ideas inot my brain. But that doesn't seem too likely. If you had the ability to do that would you waste it sending mediocre comedy drama scripts to a stupid middle aged man? And why only in little dribs and drabs, not all at once? Hey, just in case that is what's happening, I am not criticising you, comedy drama script psychic idea beamers. I love you very much. If you could speed it up a bit and do it on the first day of script writing then that would be supercool, but I know you move in a mysterious way, your wonders to perform and I suspect the power required to beam the ideas through to me probably uses up a lot of energy or something.
I suppose there is the possibility that I have managed to come up with the ideas myself, after thinking about almost nothing else for practically every waking hour for the last fortnight. Even when the front of my mind has been occupied with playing Boggle on my Nintendo or browsing the internet, the back of my mind has been cogitating and hey presto, one fifth of the script is in a reasonable shape for the next draft. When I can be bothered to sit down and really write it up.
I hate the me of the past for not working just a little bit harder so I wasn't quite so far behind. Thanks to the me of five days ago I am now in a terrible hurry. Although I think the me of tomorrow will be in a worse one, thanks to me not quite having the application to even write the bits that I have sorted out.
It's a tough, lonely and painful life being a writer. And yet do they have a Remembrance Sunday for all the writers who have given up hours of their lives coming up with nothing but tears? No they don't. The priorities of this world are askew my friends.
As usual I had a little afternoon jaunt out to see my Vitamin C dealer, Andrew Collings. Even though I hadn't got much done in the morning, it was nice to have a respite from the threat of work and to see some friendly faces. It's a lot of fun just talking crap with Andrew, both on and off air. I wish we could broadcast the off air stuff, though we would both probably be sacked and possibly put in prison if we did. So it must remain a secret.
On air though we talked about sex videos, thanks to the estranged husband of Britney Spiers threatening to sell some footage of the two doing dirty stuff together on their honeymoon (and also playing chess). What a charming man he is.
I can't really understand why these celebrities aren't more careful with their sex videos. Sometimes I think that they almost want them to be released on the internet to earn millions of pounds. You'd think after all the recent cases that they'd take more care with the videos that they have made.
I have never videoed myself having sex, though I did offer to do it and sell the footage to the 6Music listeners. At the moment it would just be me having sex on my own, but I am prepared to release the tape if the price is right. I claimed to Collings that it enhanced my lovemaking experience to watch footage of myself making self love on a previous occasion. The truth is that this is not perverse enough for me. I actually tape myself watching the tape and then tape myself watching the tape of me watching the tape. And so on. I really only get a thrill out of it when I am watching the tape of me watching the tape of me watching the tape of me watching the tape of me watching the tape. Ten years ago just watching the tape of me watching the tape would have been enough. But you become desensitised to these things after a while and need worse atrocities to get you going when you're my age.
The truth is that I don't think I would ever make a tape of myself having sex with someone. I feel bad enough to subjecting any partner to the sight of my naked body and they're up really close and can't really see it properly. I don't want to have to view my hairy, pimply arse bouncing up and down or have a taped record of my inadequacies as a lovemaker. It is better that the whole thing is gotten over with as quickly as possible and then forgotten about. Mind you if I looked like Britney Spiers I might be more interested in having a look.
I talked to my mum on the phone whilst I was being driven to the studio. She is slightly disapproving of some of my recent Warming Up topics and I am guessing she won't much care for this one either. She was able to clear up the timings on a few of my early memories though and the discovery of Oscar in the bonfire actually happened in Pocklington so I would have been probably three when this happened. Also the mud eating larks were also at that same house. So aside from the Apollo 11 launch I guess one of these or the chick fallen out of the tree would be my first memory. She told me that I had a ridiculously happy childhood and that everyone loved me and that aside from getting whooping cough and measles when I was a little baby, nothing bad happened to me at all. I think my mother protests too much and that hidden in the recesses of my mind is some kind of terrible abuse that will one day come to the surface. How else could I have turned out to be the kind of warped individual who could write about having sex with Jesus's hand wounds?
I notice in her sanitised version of my childhood, for example, that she neglected to remind me of the time when I was a baby that my mum and dad left me in the car on a sunny day and came back to find me as purple as a beetroot and seconds from death. Would a good parent have done such a thing? I think not. They were lucky that happened in the 1960s when the authorities didn't care what you did to your kids. Tony Blairs would have them locked up and sent to Guantanemo Bay. Still apart from that they've been OK parents I suppose. Mum didn't choose to clear up what was going on when she shouted at me, so I think I must have got the cause of that one right.
Don't worry. They love it when I write about them.

WIN A PSP
November quiz - Question 12
I co-wrote the sit-com "Time Gentleman Please" with Al Murray. What is the name of the actor who played "The Professor" in that series AND for a bonus point what was the name of the character he played in the Conkey sketch in Fist of Fun? (I am not even sure I know the answer to that one)

Please wait until the end of the month before sending all 30 answers in together. Anyone sending answers individually will immediately invalidate their entry to the competition. Remember the prize will go to whoever has the most answers right. It is still worth entering even if you can't answer all the questions. There will be no additional clues.

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