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I had heard only a couple of weeks ago that Sean Lock was seriously ill, but still obviously gutted by today’s terrible news. It was heartening to see how much he was loved and respected in the comedy community, with an outpouring of sincere tributes for his comedy and more importantly him as a human being.
I didn’t know him well - I was on the circuit with him in the 90s but felt like an outsider on the stand up circuit for many reasons, both real and imaginary and just assumed everyone had disdain for me. Perhaps they did. And Sean was so brilliant and cool that I didn’t even dare to try to be his mate. I saw him and Bill Bailey perform Rock in Pleasance 2, with maybe four people in the audience (and I half feel like it was just me and Stew) and it’s one of my favourite Edinburgh memories, not least because it’s almost impossible to imagine a show with those two in it that people wouldn’t be killing each other in order to see.
But he was a decent man who respected decency and the one time he contacted me out of the blue was to say fair play to me for my response to that three or four days on Twitter where I had to deal with all the Ricky Gervais fans calling me a spastic (and thus proving my point that disabilist language hadn’t yet entered the lexicon as an merely ironic) and had attempted to respond as much as possible. It was a lovely and reassuring text to get. Maybe he hadn’t always thought I was a prick (or maybe he was surprised to discover I wasn’t), but either way, he just wanted to acknowledge the fact that I’d done a good thing. And reading the tributes to him I can see that that is typical of him. I know this could be read as one of those awful tribute things where the writer is actually showing off about themselves, but hope you will understand that I am not doing that. It was a properly noble thing for Sean to do to someone that he didn’t really know very well.
As always I can only regret that I never managed to get him to do the podcast - I did try and he did think about it, but he had a healthy disrespect for the internet and there we go.
You know he would have been great though. He would have eviscerated me. He didn’t suffer fools. Even though he was the king of the fools.
Cancer seems to home in on the really good comedians - occasionally hitting an average one, realising its mistake and throwing them back into the pool of the living.
RIP Mr Lock - the first stand up to play Wembley (as support to Newman and Baddiel but he was on before them).
A whole day without losing, nearly killing or even really damaging (apart from psychologically) our children. And thus we won the Parents of the Day award.
I am really enjoying this holiday, though the thing I was most looking forward to, the swimming pool, is actually the worst bit for us. We’re not allowed to go on the easy slides and the rules dictate that we both have to be with our kids at all times, so we can’t go on the scary ones and it’s mainly just two hours of being an unpaid personal life guard (and look, we’ve only fucked up one or two times out of three pool trips, so we’re doing a pretty good job). The waves every half an hour are kind of fun if you don’t get sucked into the mechanism and we rushed from there to the lazy river, knowing everyone would still be at the wave pool and got to have fun whooshing round there on the floaty rings, but they should open the pool for adults only at night time and let us go on everything.
It’s quite a reassuring thing to be in a pool complex which is basically just full of parents of young kids, because you get to see how out of shape and fucked everyone is. Today the men looked a bit fitter than they have the last couple of days (maybe from two days of chasing after their kids and cycling them up the steep inclines - I’m eating a lot, but I feel like I am constantly moving so I think it will work out ok), but on the first couple of days I would have put myself in the top quarter of men in terms of fitness. And I still have a decent belly and am older than most of the dads (and nudging some of the grandads). I’ve seen two men who are clearly managing to properly still work out and the rest are pretty much either skinny (not many), chubby, or properly hefty. And it’s not a surprise. We’re all spent vessels and are now just host bodies for the parasites we have created to feed off and leave as desiccated husks. Somewhere out there is a pool full of beautiful people splashing around and free and able to go on any waterslides they want, but it isn’t this pool. Enjoy that pool if you’re in it. Soon you will be part of the living dead, who would have given up entirely if not for their responsibilities.
I have to say I like this pool more really though. I have been in the young people pool, but I was chubby and self-conscious and unable to enjoy any of it. But time, my old ally, has managed to keep me at the same level of unfitness (and maybe slightly improve things) whilst my once fit contemporaries have descended into human walruses. Oh they judged me before (in my mind) but now it is I who judge them (also in my mind).
I think the kids are enjoying it. I asked my son what his favourite part of the day had been and he said “feeding the deers” which was something we did at Longleat about a fortnight ago. But as long as he’s had fun at some point I am happy.
RHLSTP with the Off Menu bullies is now up wherever you get your podcasts -
like here
