Bookmark and Share

Thursday 21st November 2019

6183/19113

Blood from a stone still, but I stumbled my way to the end of the first drafts version of episode 2 of Relativity. I am not enjoying it AT ALL. Not yet anyway. The kick in the nuts is that the end bit is fun and I always forget and go back for more.
How many times have I basically written that paragraph over the last 17 years.  Yes, it’s getting very close to the 17th birthday of this blog. So much has changed and so much remained the same. Still, on a day like today, when all I’ve done is write and avoid writing, it’s hard to think of anything to write about. I only went outside once, to bring in some coal for the fire.
We had a nice fire and watched the Apprentice and the stupid things that the peopel did made us realise that our mistakes haven't been that bad.
I didn’t have a bath until bed time. Well til just before bed time. I didn’t go to bed in the bath.
I thought a little about what I am going to say about my friend at his funeral on Saturday. I thought a little about how precious every second of life is, but still wasted a good proportion of today losing at poker on the internet and watching TV. 
I looked at the angel faces of my children as they sat entranced by the iPad at breakfast time and thought about how lucky I was to have them and how fragile and precious everything is.
I measured them against the wall. They have both grown a bit since October - my son by a good inch. He’s about five months away from being as old as my daughter was when we first measured her against that wall. He has a little way to go before he’s as tall as her.
I have also measured myself against the wall. I have not grown. Not even spiritually. 
I didn’t sleep well last night. There is stuff on my mind. At least there are no night terrors because of being booze free, but it’s no fun being awake for two hours in the night, when you know you have so much to do and your brain needs to be sharp.
I look in the mirror and see my old face. I know I am lucky to grow old.
I look at photos of me from the start of the decade. My hair is much browner and I have a jaunty moustache.
It’s only a year until my blog can get married without my permission. No one does blogs any more, do they?
I hope I can squeeze another thirty years out of all this. Not the blog necessarily, though I suspect that’s with me til the end now. 82. That’d do.
I thought about Paul Simon and his song Old Friends in which he imagined how terribly strange it would be to be 70. I checked how old he was. He’s 78. I wonder if he sat on a park bench with Art Garfunkel 8 years ago and said “Yeah, I was right. This is strange.” Or maybe “Not as strange as I imagined.”
I wondered if Paul Simon had grown, but apparently he's still 5 foot 2.
I saw a photo of Tony wicket-keeping whilst a man in traditional African dress and pads, batted. I thought that that was a good indication of a life interestingly lived. 
I’d still rather he had lived some more though. Maybe he'd have played tiddly winks with a polar bear.
Tony had a half blue from Oxford for playing Tiddly Winks.
He packed a lot in.

Being annoyed at having to do some writing seemed silly. Especially given all this was my dream. 
None of it matters anyway. Even if it’s shit, people will forget about it. As they will if it’s great. Hardly anyone will even notice it happening. The lack of purpose and judgement frees us.
Writing’s easy. I’ve just done loads of it, look. I thought I had nothing to say.



Nice review of the Vic Reeves RHLSTP from Bruce Dessau here 


Bookmark and Share



Subscribe to my Substack here
See RHLSTP on tour Guests and ticket links here
Help us make more podcasts by becoming a badger You get loads of extras if you do.
To join Richard's Substack (and get a lot of emails) visit:

richardherring.substack.com