Having flown the flag for immaturity and refusing to conform to the stuff expected of someone my age for so long I think I might finally be acting my age or at least my continental shoe size (42). Not only am I becoming grumpier as befits someone of middle age, but today I found myself reading the book of "The History of the World in 100 Objects", greatly enjoying it and then deciding to listen to the podcast about each object after I had read the chapter on it. Could anything be more middle-aged and middle-class than that? If only I had been middle-aged when I went to University then I might have actually learned something. Further proof, if proof be needs be, that education is wasted on the young. No one should be allowed to go to University until they are at least 35. Maybe at 18 they could get sent to a big campus where everyone has sex with each other and parties and takes drugs and bullies the nerdy kids (guess where I'd be - head down the toilet looking for the brown goldfish), then when they are bored of that they get a job for a bit and then when they have lost their friskiness and get tired at 10pm and have earned enough money to take three years off and pay out £27,000 they get to go to University and actually learn something. I think I might have solved the whole education crisis in one fell swoop. You're wondering how the government would pay for the initial no education college system that I mentioned. All they would have to do is film it and put it on the internet live and charge the middle-aged men at actual University to watch it. This will definitely work. David Cameron are you listening? Michael Gove - you know you'd love to watch 19 years old taking drugs and having sex on the internet (because that certainly didn't happen to you at college). I have saved your Tory anuses once again and as a reward I do not expect to have to pay my tax bill at the end of this month. Take that as written confirmation that you won't be getting my money. Plus I want to be given the passwords to the sex college website for free! Knowing my luck I will get assigned the video camera of the 21st Century Richard Herring and just get to see him writing rubbish comedy sketches and wanking into a strangely off colour white handkerchief, which has become brittle and stiff as a board and which he never even thinks about washing, even when he is in danger of cutting himself on its now sharp edges. Whilst he listens to the wild sex and drug parties going on next door and doesn't realise that he isn't invited because he insists on wearing clip on bow ties and garish jackets from charity shops in the hope of looking eccentric and amusing and anti-fashion.
Yes I would pay £100 a month to relive those days even vicariously.
I was going to go for a run this afternoon, but still felt tired and grouchy, so just stewed in my own juice on the sofa, surfing the internet and half-watching TV, though I am struggling to remember anything that I watched. I think I probably needed a day of lethargy, although I always feel bad about wasting time doing nothing. Will I lie on my death bed wishing I had done more. Or at least read another chapter of my book and listened to the podcast. I can take some comfort in the fact that once I am dead the embarrassment will finally disappear. Unless that's what Hell turns out to be. Being burnt in a fire forever would be quite exciting I think, but being constantly reminded of the wasted days and the brittle jism handkerchiefs would be a much more effective torture. With maybe all the people who lived fulfilled and useful laughs watching your embarrassments on a big screen and laughing in your stupid face. Before being invited to a sex and drugs party that takes place next door, out of your sight, but not out of your hearing.
Or maybe in Hell you just get bummed for all eternity by Michael Gove. All his pent up sexual frustration at never having had sex in real life been taken out on your blameless anus. I am sure that God and the devil could come up with something better than the whole lake of fire nonsense.
In an effort to feel like I had achieved something I went through my wardrobe and selected a couple of bin bags worth of clothes that I haven't worn for years to give to charity. It was hard to let go of some things, but then others I wonder if I should hold on to. I have one of the shirts that Stewart Lee wore in Fist of Fun, but which he found too pretentious to keep as it had little metal bars instead of buttons so he let me have. One of you mentals would probably pay good money for that, as beat up and useless as it now is, but I suspect it's too deep into the bin liner for me to bother recovering. If you make me an offer in the next 24 hours I will post it to the person who promises the most money to SCOPE (only once they have donated the cash). If I get no serious offer you can take your chances in trying to find it in the charity shops of Shepherd's Bush.
