I have failed to get my final bit of work done before I go away on holiday (though it's just a proposal for a possible book so might be able to do it on my flight - and Jimmy Hill might be able to get it done on the flight as well, chinny reck-on). But I had lots of things to get done, including, of course, getting packed, which has remained so low on my list of priorities that I am writing this blog first. And I might also have wasted a good hour of my day doing a ridiculous podcast (but more of that later). You have to get your priorities right.
Going away in the first two weeks of December is probably a stupid thing to have done: we are going to miss nearly all the Christmas parties and arrive back jet lagged, needing to buy our presents for everyone, but it was the only real gap in my diary. It also meant I had to rush to get this quarter's receipts packaged up for my accountant, so they would be able to process them before they all went on their Christmas holidays. So most of my morning was taken up with printing up bank statements and phone bills and locating receipts. I needed to get them in the post before close of play.
Luckily with assistance from my girlfriend (who is patient enough to sort and fold my receipts, which I would just stuff into a bundle of sellotape and brown paper, like some kind of Homer Simpson) I was back at the Post Office by 3. And there was a helpful employee going down the line providing assistance. I had never seen such a thing at the Shepherd's Bush Post Office. There is also a new self-service machine at the post office, which I've used a couple of times, where you can weigh your own post and buy the requisite stamp. It was quite a big envelope so I wasn't sure it'd be suitable, but the man said I could and came over to help me. What has become of the Post Office? It's in danger of becoming efficient and a place I can visit without hoping that one of the other people has a parcel containing a bomb which will put us all out of our misery. As he helped me go through the necessary process he revealed that he'd just finished listening to "As It Occurs To Me" and had seen one of my Edinburgh shows. "Do you read my blog?" I asked, aware that I've said quite a lot of unpleasant things about the place where he works. But he hadn't. He said he would though. Which is why I am suddenly being so nice.
But for once the experience was almost a pleasure and I was in and out of there in minutes. If that man's bosses are reading, give him a raise!
But still I couldn't get down to the task of packing. I remembered that I had promised Orange Mark that I would send him a photo and a first podcast for my insane Me 1 vs Me 2 snooker podcast, which I've been planning to do
ever since I wowed Twitter with a game in Preston. I didn't really have the time for such ridiculous fripperies. It was clear that a 44 year old man playing himself at snooker in an audio format and then commentating the match himself as if he wasn't the same person pretending to be two people playing snooker would be self-indulgence to the point of offence. No one in their right mind would want to listen to it. And yet I also suspect that it will become the most successful piece of entertainment ever, leading to me touring the world playing highly paid exhibition matches in front of huge crowds. You'll see if I'm right or wrong. People are crying out to see a man who can't really play snooker, try with all his might to beat himself at snooker.
So instead of packing I dressed up in a waistcoat and got my girlfriend (who should have been packing herself) to photograph me standing by a mirror, holding a snooker cue and then, still wearing the waistcoat, went down to my basement to try and play a game of snooker in a space that wasn't really big enough, whilst talking to myself.
I think this genuinely might be the greatest work of art ever. The tragedy that this is how I spent so much of my youth combined with the bravery to face those demons and return to the table, allowing my soul to split in two to play snooker.
You'll have to wait until the podcast is out before you hear the result - though I know that both Me 1 and Me 2 already have Die Hard fans as well as their own fans and people who hate one or the other of them with a passion. I think myself, I probably slightly favour Me 1 who I see more as me, rather than Me 2 who is perhaps a part of me that I usually try to suppress. Over the course of the planned best of 1001 frames I am sure we will delve into the psychological issues of what I am doing. For the moment this was just me playing snooker badly and realising I didn't really have the necessary vocabulary or knowledge to adequately describe it. If my plane goes down tomorrow and this is my last ever piece of work I would like to be judged by it and it alone. Never have genius and uselessness walked so closely in the same footsteps. I can only whet your appetite with photos for now. But do keep an eye on iTunes. Other podcasts should quake in fear for I shall smite them all. This time next year every podcast will be a person playing a sport against themselves and in ten years time, no doubt someone else will take what I have done and Gervais it. It's happened before. But you can be in on the ground floor. I will just say there is some breathtaking snooker to be enjoyed in audio format.
I am already looking forward to frame 2.
So anyway, I am off to Thailand tomorrow. I am sure I will be able to find internet access somewhere and as always I will almost certainly keep blogging through my holiday. I am not so sure I'll be able to do the audio Warming Up, but if I have free internet in my room I will try to do that too (but it might be too time consuming for a holiday). And if they've got a snooker table at the resort who knows?
My God, sometimes I love my stupid life, as I love dancing along the rampart that separates the insane from the less insane.
Shit, gotta pack. I wonder what I will forget to take.
