I was on the phone to my mum and dad (which involves mother holding the phone and doing most of the talking, with dad occasionally shouting something that he thinks is amusing but is in fact unintelligible in the background).
"We've thought of a task for your show," said my old mum, "You could find a girlfriend and settle down!"
Dad shouted something. It was probably about having children or how much he liked all the women I've been out with before and why aren't I still with one of them.
"Well, that's interesting," I replied, "Because I'd been thinking of something along those lines," though I knew my idea was pretty much the opposite of what they were intending.
In the stuff I've been reading about Hercules (and someone also mentioned this on the guest-book, so thanks for that), I've found out a lot of other stuff he did outside of the proscribed tasks (as we know, mainly killing wonderful animals or murdering women and stealing their underwear - he was a charmer). One of the things he did was to sleep with fifty women on fifty consecutive nights and impregnate the lot of them. This doesn't just say an awful lot for his potency, as well as his stamina, but it was also a pretty incredible acievement to be going out with so many women at the same time. Either he did it all behind their backs, which is awful, but still impressive ("Thanks for that, no I can't really see you next week, or the week after. I think I've got a window in July.") or he managed to date them all openly with each other's knowledge, in which case it's amazing that he escaped with his (presumably somewhat shrivelled) testicles intact.
Hercules was in many ways a stupid twat and I bet he didn't pay child maintainance for any of his progeny. As far as I know he wasn't even sponsored for any of his tasks, and I'm sure he could have made a bundle for the telescope-less children of the time if he hadn't been so selfish. He was an idiot.
So I'd been thinking that it would be a pretty incredible modern-day task if I managed to date fifty different women in fifty consecutive nights. It sounds good, but I think it would be a living Hell. Possibly even worse than watching "Fifty First Dates" starring Adam Sandler. It would be difficult to organise, probably involve something that I've never been good at or brave enough to try (ie chatting up strangers) and like "Fifty First Dates" be strangely reminiscent of "Groundhog Day".
I would only take the women out to the cinema or for dinner, I wouldn't try to impregnate them. I wouldn't even have sex with them...unless they really insisted. I am more interested in the logistical problems it would create. And it would be a difficult task, certainly worthy of Hercules.
I suppose in essence it would essentially be a kind of very slow version of speed dating. And I said to my mum that if I couldn't find one woman that I could make it work out with after dating fifty (though I'm not sure I have to restrict this to women, maybe I should date some men as well) then I was probably going to be single forever.
My mother betrayed her Yorkshire roots by merely commenting that the enterprise was likely to be rather expensive. London is not a cheap city to go out in and I'd probably spend up to £100 a night. Though to be honest if I go through with it I am slightly more concerned about the physical and mental costs of it all.
It's certainly a possibility.
And hopefully a bit more fun than walking the streets looking at number-plates. Though maybe I could combine the two. Girls like that kind of stuff, right?
