I don’t have a picture that does justice to my slobbishness, but this one is me at my smartest and I look like I might have kidnapped those children
8014/20955
I can't believe that I am 58 next year.
It seems like only yesterday that I was worrying that if my career didn't pick up I might not get back on TV until I was in my 40s. And in my early 40s I made a resolution to walk everywhere and get fit so that when I was in my 50s I could be one of those wiry, slim, men who looks grizzled but tough.
Now suddenly my 50s are basically done and I have achieved neither of those aims.
It's true that I have done other stuff instead so I am not too fussed about my failure. What I am fussed about is that fact that I had those thoughts, blinked and found myself basically well past the sell-by date of both of them.
For some of my 50s I have been quite fit -aside from the cancer and high blood pressure- but never in danger of being wiry or impressive for my age. I guess I also hoped that in this decade I would somehow buck the trend of a lifetime and become organised and sartorially dapper. The TV Producer Paul Jackson who worked on The Young Ones and then also turned out to be a champion of Lee and Herring (and was also responsible for commissioning my last major TV break "You Can Choose Your Friends") always looked so smart and sophisticated and I thought that maybe when I grew up I would be like him.
It has not turned out that way. I have a couple of posh suits, but I always look like a nine-year old who's been squeezed into them by his parents and looks uncomfortable and wrong. I just chuck on anything that's lying around most of the time and today I found myself wearing saggy jogging bottoms, trainers with no socks, a baggy RHLSTP T-shirt and my very scruffy dog walking /stone-clearing North Face coat. What would anyone think if they recognised me? Firstly they would probably think it was tragic that I was out wearing my own merch and secondly they'd assume that that bloke from the 1990s must have had a rough few years as he's now homeless and just has his dog for company.
David and Victoria dressed up nice
I am lucky in many ways that I have managed to dodge fame. I often think of David Mitchell and Victoria Coren being papped a few weeks after the birth of their first child, out walking her in a pram and being criticised by the tabloids for daring to step out of the house and not looking like they were on the red carpet. I have tried to get beyond envying anyone else's career, but David Mitchell's professional life is probably the closest to how I would have liked my own to have gone (again if you were asking me back in my thirties) - a successful sketch show, a lovely job on the best panel show on TV, parts in sitcoms and some nice acting jobs that don't stretch you too far but which you get to shine in anyway (Ludwig is a lot of fun and like a classy Death in Paradise crossed with Jonathan Creek and you can't get much better than that - if you are me).
However, I would not have liked the bit where paps were jumping out of the bushes in Hitchin, taking photos of me in mismatched clothes which made me look like a weird laundry basket and tabloids questioning whether everything is all right at home as it seemed apparent to anyone that I had lost my mind and was surely living alone.
I am sure I wouldn't have coped well with real fame at all (though I'd still be prepared to give it a go, casting directors) and being a comedy fan who has won a competition or gets to meet his heroes for an hour because he's had cancer suits me best.
I'd still love to be slim and wear a nice suit every day, even if I would be smeared in Marmite within the first 30 seconds (and not by the kids and not because I'd been eating Marmite either - it would just happen by magic). I would, I also have to remember, like to not die until my age starts with a 7 (so I can get two more decade round up stand up shows in and perhaps more importantly live to see my kids become adults). So whilst I might never be suave, I can at least still hope against hope and experience, to be a bit slimmer and more limber. As regular readers will know my weight basically goes down one year and then up the next (though impressively the highs are lower than they used to be, but the lows are also higher than they used to be), so I ended 2023 in serious danger of looking fit (in both senses) and will end 2024 back to where I was at the end of 2022.
Yesterday's pizza convinced me it was time to get the 2025 weight loss programme underway and so maybe I can now have the dream of being one of those men in their sixties who you still see running the streets or cycling around dressed in lycra and looking smart and silver-foxy in restaurants and you'd think about trying to fuck if only their penises still worked (but you could at least bum them if they're up for it). So that's the plan... what I'm 75 now? And still a fat slob/now dead. How did that happen so quick.
There's a chance I might make some permanent changes. I made these weird almond flour biscuits today which incredibly score about 86/100 for me on the Zoe app (which is extremely good - I used 90% dark chocolate which makes them even healthier) and they tasted incredible (if they were a bit crumbly). I will never stop eating a Solero a day. You'll have to pry my last Solero from my cold dead hands (which will be hard given their frozen nature), but if there are snacks like these biscuits out there then there is hope for me to lose weight in spite of my sweet tooth and chocolate addiction.
8015/20956
One week ago I burst a car tyre, two weeks ago I hit myself in the face with a door! What disaster would befall me on the day of my podcast record this week?
Nothing. Damn. I am going to have to wrack my brain to think of something to write about. I was in a traffic jam for a bit cos they've closed the road outside Mrs Doubtfire and my satnav didn't know. Is that enough?
Apparently I need to do more than that. I don't know who makes the rules. Or enforces them. Whoever it is is doing a fantastic job.
I did open the door to the car park quite gingerly and still don't understand how that door hit me. Sucker punch.
It was another surprisingly small audience for a cracking bill of Andy Zaltzman and Poppy Hillstead and this run is going to force me to have a think about the future of the podcast - though there are at least four more shows at the Leicester Square Theatre in 2025 and of course one more show in 2024 with Chesney Hawkes (and the other guest will be announced below for paid subs). Links here.
It's been an amazing run and nothing (apart from this blog) can go on forever. But I am not throwing in the towel just yet. We might just need to have a think about other ways to do the show. Or try and find a new young and rich audience who won't die on me or have to worry about baby sitters or getting to bed before 9pm (I'm with them on that last one). I saw a podcast where another comedy person claimed I had to have certain viewpoints to keep my student audience on side. And it's the funniest thing that person has said for quite some time. There's sometimes a couple of teenagers in my audience thanks to Taskmaster, but otherwise it's all unfit men in their fifties or older and I don't give a fuck about what any of them think about my politics.
I have never really been very forthright about politics aside from not really liking selfish cunts and thinking adults should be allowed to do whatever they want if it doesn't adversely affect anyone else. I like to take each issue as it comes and have a think about it rather than digging my heels in too deep. But even as a student myself, whilst somewhere between left and centre, I didn't think I knew enough to have a strong opinion about anything and was quite sceptical about those who did. A lot of the people who seemed to have very strong left wing opinions in the 80s and 90s have gone on to have quite strong right wing opinions in the 21st Century and it becomes apparent that they were consistent at least. Consistently backing whatever cause was best for them personally. Left wing when you're broke, right wing when you've made a bit of money. I have remained confused and uncertain whilst poor and relatively well off, but still think that it makes sense to take a bit more from those people who can afford it and that the government should be making certain there's a level of service for everyone regardless of their economic background to ensure a free education, free health services and some working public toilets that you don't have to pay for (OK that last bit is sort of left-wing, I guess, but it makes capitalist sense as well - society will function better if people are happier, healthier and smarter and if they're not rich people just have to pay out extra money on security and private health).
I wouldn't want to be the kind of person who would rather pay much more for private health than national health, just because they don't like the idea of someone else getting something they haven't paid for. That's pretty self-defeating as a capitalist. You'd rather lose money to already rich people than some imagined chancers.
Also I'd very much like to know that if I had a medical accident or emergency (which private healthcare can't cover) that I wouldn't be waiting for ten hours to get seen
Anyway, luckily for everyone I am not in charge, because I would be shit at it. And I have no way to pay for all this stuff, except for maybe asking rich people to pay for it. I don't think the rich people are that keen.
One of the good things about not having a very big audience is that you don't have to toe a certain line to keep them all. The fuckers that I haven't shaken off yet aren't going anywhere.
I had a fun chat with Andy Zaltzman about childhood sports statistics obsession. He was impressed by my self-playing Subbuteo leagues and I was impressed that he had managed to improve the flawed (yet still excellent) game of Howzat by adding extra dice rolls to make it more realistic. I didn't do that, but did use a proper cricket scoring pad to keep the records.
I wonder if my folder of almost endless Subbuteo matches between Partick Thistle and Dundee United (for example) is still in a box somewhere or if those records are lost. They should really be in a museum. Leeds United won everything (aside from international matches) until I started supporting York and then weirdly York became the greatest team in the imaginary world. What a monumental waste of time. No wonder I was nearly 20 before I lost my virginity.
A lovely chat with Andy who gamely tried to answer the human centipede question and then a not lovely, but very funny chat with Poppy, who made the human centipede question look almost charming. I love to have an out of control chat with someone who isn't afraid to push the envelope, even if the envelope is covered in shit and full of piss. I'd say we were on the same wavelength, but I think Poppy exists on a higher and lower plane than me simultaneously. Do check out her podcasts if you get the chance. You'll have to wait a while to listen to this one.
And find out who the second guest is next Monday by becoming a paid subscriber (or wait til tomorrow)