In Which I 'Cop A Feel' Outside Picadilly Station

I would like to publically apologise to the woman sitting by the window on the express into Manchester this morning. I didn’t mean to grope her leg. It just happened.

The problem was that I’d been wedged into my seat by an impatient passenger who wouldn’t let me get to my bag when I sat down. As soon as I was in my seat, I was forced to drag my bag beneath the table and, from there, extract my James Wood book. In the process of searching for the zip, I inadvertently ‘copped a feel’ of the woman sitting opposite me. Not that it was much of a ‘feel’. It was more of a slight brush against her shin. The look she gave me was pure disgust and I must have winced as I awaited a face full of pepper spray. As it was, I turned a shade of red that was off the David Dickinson scale and mumbled my apology. I was then forced to stay on the train until the end of the line lest getting off (not the best phrase in the circumstance) at my normal stop would involve more groping beneath the table.

But that’s the sort of week I’ve been having. Yesterday it was pots and paddles. Today it’s a minor sexual assault. I really worry what tomorrow will bring.

Rectal Matters

Selena Dreamy’s return to blogging has prompted me into action. It’s with some shame that I’ve been silent for the last few days and I realise that this has led some to think that Selena and I share the same patch of time, space, and hair gel. Well, that’s not the case. I have much better legs that Selena, though it’s often been said that we’re identical around the bikini line. The truth be told: I’m really Nige in disguse and spend my weekends pretending to be Elberry as I chase tramps with a carving knife and a copy of Wittgenstein.

I’m also given to write tonight since it’s with greater shame that I’ve not responded to your kind comments from last week (thank you M-Alice -- you really did cheer me up when I was feeling down). It’s just that life has been so hectic and I’m still labouring from the effects of the recent flu outbreak, which a hospital doctor recently informed me was the worst he’s ever known since he made the trip from Zambia.

However, to catch up on recent events, I must really go back to the Friday night I spent at the local hospital. I was called there to retrieve my relative who, being much improved, was released to make way for the usual influx of drunks that fill the nation's wards over the weekend. A hospital is quite the interesting place to visit at 11 o’clock at night. I recommend it to any of you who happen to be connoisseurs of terror. I arrived and soon found myself walking alone down long empty corridors whose fluorescent lights periodically flickered and went out. It was like some cheap horror movie but without the usual guest appearance by Robert Englund. At every turn I was faced with a new sign indicating the way to the ‘Facial Reconstruction Unit’, 'The Elbow Attachment Department' or, even more sinister, ‘The Mortuary’. I then had to make the return journey pushing a heavily sedated relative in a cast iron wheelchair, with the words of the nurse still ringing in my ear: ‘pull it, don’t push. It can easily break your legs.’

After such drama, life settled down for the rest of the weekend and I almost enjoyed my Bank Holiday Monday which I spent reading ‘Blott on the Landscape’. Things were really looking up. Then the telephone rang this morning. It was a man from the local environmental health department who said that he wanted to come and see me.

‘I’ve got some good news,’ he said once we’d got him settled in the living room. ‘Your relative's tests have come back from the labs and everything is clear.’

‘That’s good news, isn’t it Richard?’ said Judy, from the arm of the sofa.

‘Indeed,’ I replied, not sure what any of this had to do with me. It was my relative who had been sick, not Madeley (Richard). ‘But if there’s no sign of the usual flesh eating viruses, why exactly are you here?’

He smiled in the impure way that only men charged with the cleanliness of our nation can smile.

‘Well, there were signs of a certain bacterial infection...’

‘Bacteria?’

‘Oh, there’s no need to worry. There’s no danger. These bacteria are found dormant within all of us. We just have to carry out our usual checks and make sure that they’ve not come from contaminated food.’

‘And that’s a relief too,’ smiled Judy. I wasn’t so sure that she understand half of what was being said.

‘Checks?’ I asked.

‘Have you eaten any meat in the last week?’ asked the officer.

‘I don’t touch the stuff,’ I replied. ‘Bill Oddie made me sign a pact.’

‘Have you drank any milk that might have come in contact with blue tits?’

‘None that I know of,’ I answered, being the sort of man who remembers the tits he’s contacted during his busy week. ‘Bill Oddie has warned me about tit related infections.’

The environmental health offer smiled again and wiped a tongue over his hygienically clean lips. ‘Well, that’s fine,’ he said. ‘All I need to do now is ask you to give me a sample.’

‘Ah ha!’ I cried. ‘So that’s your game!’

‘Not so much a game,’ he said. ‘It’s more of a test of your dexterity. I’ll leave you a jar.’

‘There’ll be no jars,’ I said, rising to the moment. ‘You won’t get me urinating into one of those damn things. What’s this country coming to when a man can be ordered to urinate into any old cocked hat?’

‘Urinate?’ he smiled. ‘Who asked you to urinate?’

And that, my dear reader, is how I have spent a Wednesday I had originally set aside for writing chapter 15 of my latest novel. This is probably a detail too far, even for an honest blogger such as myself, but have you ever faced the problem of filling a sample jar with your own waste material? It’s not an easy task, despite the small plastic spoon they provide. It might not have been so bad but the spoon was remarkably similar to those that came with Screwball ice creams of my youth. I didn’t know if I had it in me to dig into the stuff, and when I did, I found it very difficult not to start looking for the gobstopper at the bottom.

Needless to say: no gobstopper was found and I now feel that my very being has been violated. Wrapped up in a Tesco carrier bag and sitting on the kitchen table is a parcel beyond description. I’ve warned Judy to keep away from it but we’re all drawn to it as though it contains some strange magic.

‘I think I’ll go to bed early tonight,’ said Judy, staring at the bag over her cup of cocoa.

‘Can’t say I blame you, love,’ I replied, as I stared at the bag over my glass of brandy. ‘It’s been another of those days. I don’t know how many days like this I can take. I mean... It's not something you expect to be doing when you get up in the morning.'

She turned her eyes to me. 'Nothing surprises me when it comes to you, Richard.'

My Epiphany

This afternoon I was standing in the corridor of our local hospital and I was rubbing some kind of sweet smelling antiseptic lotion into my hands. An automated voice had told me to do this and I couldn’t go any further onto the ward until my hands were completely free of flesh eating viruses.

And that’s when it struck me: I really have to cheer up.

So I want to apologise to all of you who have been stopping by hoping to read something uplifting. I’ve been letting you down. I can see that now. This blog is meant to be fun but I keep taking life too seriously.

It began a couple of months ago when my laptop screen cracked and the subsequent repair process led my losing 60,000 words of a manuscript I’d been working on for months. I now understand that it was meant to be wryly amusing.

Then I was informed that my first novel had been cancelled by my publisher barely a month or two before appearing in bookshops. Oh, I hid my disappointment well by making it sound like it happened to a friend of mine. Yet it was really me who suffered this twist of fate. There I was: thinking that people across the land would be laughing at my cunningly fashioned comic tale. Instead, I’m now working in an office where my literary skills go ignored. Again, it’s hard not to chuckle as such terrible bad luck. But now I see the error of my ways. I'm laughing. I really am.

It was about this time that I fell over and blackened my eye in the famous mime-related incident. Weeks later, I still barely suppress a smile when the pain shoots through my still-ruined left knee...

A week last Friday, I fell ill with a version of the flu (Flu 2.0, I think it was) that had me in bed for six days. I was really sick and I’m still not right. But this only serves to remind me to laugh at the humour of my situation. Who wouldn't smile at days without sleep and constant temperatures. Comic gold!

This week’s highly 'comic' event was my sister being rushed into hospital at two o’clock yesterday morning with a rather horrible medical condition that we now learn will probably require surgery in the coming days.

It was while waiting to be let onto the ward to see her that I began to realise that Life is merely trying to be sardonic.

Now, I enjoy black comedy as well as the next guy. I really do. All these ‘bad things’ must be happening for a reason. Am I meant to fashion them into some strange comic tale that will make my fortune and save me from a life of being so highly qualified that I'm only capable of menial office work? If so, then Providence, that old chuckler, is being really kind in providing me such material.

But I wonder: could Life not move on and make somebody else their stooge for a little while?

No, please. Won’t it just stop and let something good happen to me, no matter how unfunny that might be?

Pah!

Life keeps hammering me. If I were a nail, I’d be worn smooth with thin filigree edges around my head.

The flu lasted twelve days before I began to feel like writing. In the meantime, I've had to take a week off work. It cut my monthly income by a quarter. Helpfully, the bank then hit me with one of their illegal charges and I received a demand to pay more tax to Mr. Brown.

Earning a living must be easier than I make it appear. The life of the uber-celebrity is far less glamorous than you'd expect.

Spending a living is so easy that even a fool can do it. However, this fool is still prevaricating about applying for a course in creative writing. I know it’s an indulgence. Where will I get the money? Channel 4 don't fund their stars through Higher Education. I should simply sit down and write a new book.

Today, I sat down and tried to write. I wrote 1000 words but tomorrow I’ll write none. I’ve spent an hour, tonight, standing in the rain. I was waiting for an ambulance to arrive and take a close relative into hospital. These things keep happening to me.

Some people say that life is worth all the struggle, just so long as we're standing near Bill Oddie.

I'm beginning to doubt it.

The Double Desktop Challenge Meme

This is the first of my meme catchup posts. Lady Thinker has tagged with the Double Desktop Challenge meme, which requires me to show you the current state of my virtual and real desktops. I don't honestly understand why you'd want to see either of these pictures but here you go. This is my PC's desktop as it was a few minutes ago... (Click it for the 'larger' view)...


And here's the desktop in the context of my immaculate desktop.


It's all a bit embarrassing, I think. If I were feeling at all well (and I wasn't preoccupied by Oddie snivelling behind the curtains) I'd change the desktop and tidy up my desk. As it is, I barely had the energy to get down to my den and back. I have Swearing Mother's meme to work on but I'll do that when Oddie's gone and I'm feeling better.

(Oh, I am supposed to tag people with this meme but take this as an open initiation to tag yourself. Did I mention that I've got flu?)

Cough, Splutter, Bang!

It was Judy’s fault. She should never have allowed Bill Oddie to come up to the bedroom when she knew I was getting intimate with a bowl of chicken soup. As soon as he saw me with the spoon perched guiltily on my lips, the poor man’s eyes filled with tears. If I’d had the energy to climb from my sickbed, I would have consoled my favourite Goodie with a somewhat germ-laden hug.

‘How will you forgive me?’ I asked.

‘You've eaten bird,' said Bill, 'I don’t think I can ever forgive you.’ And with that, he took to hiding behind the curtain. As much as I tried to ignore him, his sniffling stopped my falling back to sleep and the occasional damp patch appeared through the drapes whenever he blew his nose.

‘Doesn’t it matter to you that I’ve been so ill that chicken soup was the only thing to cure me?' I eventually asked. 'Aren’t you happy to see your old friend, Dick Madeley, feeling better and nearly fit enough to rejoin the world?’

The truth was that I’ve had one of the oddest cases of flu in my life. After two days up in Manchester, I returned home last week knowing that I’d have seven clear days to make real progress on my next novel. Only, when I got to work on Friday morning, I knew things weren’t quite right. My ankles were painful and I found it hard to concentrate. I went back to bed hoping to at least use the time wisely by reading a book. I slept most of the day away and H.G. Well’s ‘The First Men in the Moon’ remained unopened on my chest. By seven o’clock, the flu was in full control of the Madeley district. A curfew was imposed on all my good nature. I was shivering despite Judy’s habit of keeping the house at a solid 27 degrees and there was no part of my body that wasn’t aching. I was not easy to live with and I think Judy was quite relieved when I retired to the world of the Discovery Channel where I watched ‘Mythbusters’ for hours on end.

The weekend was a blur of hot flushes, spells of shivering, and explosions. A chesty cough developed and kept me awake at night (luckily, they show 'Mythbusters' in the early hours too) and I also suffered terrible earache which had nothing to do with the hours spent with detonating crash test dummies. What was odd about it was that my nose remained clear. In fact, it was better than clear. It was much more breathable than it is on an average day.

My temperature finally broke sometime last night. I woke up this morning feeling fragile but well enough to eat something. Judy had contacted Fry who had recommended a fresh chicken put through a blender. You might say that I’m only typing this because of the power of poultry.

As for Bill, he’s still behind the curtain. As I said, it’s been a very odd dose of flu.

The Straight Edge

As usual, an email from Elberry found me elbow deep in the compost heap of my own scribblings. I don’t know what I was doing there. It’s such a festering mound of old prose, unpolished stories, and novels that have far to go before they can even be considered ‘half-finished’. You see, I’m troubled, dear Madeleyites. I’ve been troubled for the last few days. It all goes back to my hosting this year’s Galaxy Book Awards.

I managed to get through the show with the minimum of trouble. Bill Oddie was sitting backstage with a dart gun filled with mild tranquilizers. His job was to watch a heart-rate monitor and fire a dart into my buttocks whenever it became apparent that I was getting too excited. It worked well until I watched Russell Brand receive his award for best biography. I was suddenly filled me with such rage that the darts didn’t work. Oddie missed with one which lodged itself into Jordan's forehead. The poor girl was struck dumb. It was left to Dame P.D. James to leap up on stage and pin me down during Russell’s acceptance speech.

Now I’ve had time to calm down, I’m left to reflect on what has been a week filled with unique events.

First there was kindness when help came from a totally unexpected quarter. A complete stranger contacted me and helped me with my search to find an agent.

Then there was helpfulness. The agent rang me and talked to me for 25 minutes during which they gave me some very helpful advice.

Then there was frustration. Back up in Manchester, I was mildly scolded by a producer on ‘Eye of the Storm 2’. If I didn’t need the work, ‘Eye of the Storm 2’ would be looking for another presenter.

Finally, there’s vacillation. I’m considering returning to education. The last week's sequence of events has convinced me that I need to have some direction in my life. There has to be something more than 'Eye of the Storm 2'. And writing blogs is fine but they are hardly the stuff of novels. The agent told me as much, advising me that there’s no book to be made from this blog. It means that I have to rub out 190,000 words from my list of publishable material and to write something big and new.

Which leads me to my hesitation... The local University runs a creative writing course. I’m tempted to apply for it. How I’d pay for it, I have no idea. Whether they’d accept me is open to question. And how this would help me, I’m really not sure. But as I told Stephen Fry when he rang me on Sunday morning, since he's been in America, I’ve been missing that spiritual straight edge to run my pen along.

All Hail The Twitch!

The winner of my 'sweatpants competition was The Twitch, who correctly identified that one of the pictures was that of a torch and the other a police baton. I mailed my old pants to The Twitch this morning and runners-up prizes of Judy's old bobby socks are also on the way to all other entrants.

It's Competition Time

We didn't get chance to run this competition on the show so I thought I'd post it here. The first correct answer out of the hat will win a pair of my old sweatpants and a commemorative Olympic mug.

Amateur Hour

Bill Oddie advised me to ignore it and mention owls instead. Stephen Fry sniffed a scornful nostril of huff at the very thought of humbling oneself before the people at the Beeb. Judy just looked nervously around the room and then whispered ‘do they need to know?’ It is a good question but one I’m still struggling to answer.

It’s my ‘writing CV’, you see. I don’t have one. Having spent most of my career in front of the cameras, I haven’t enough writing credits to my name. I started to jot down my résumé at one minute past two and finished thirty seven seconds later when I couldn't decide if making a plumb tart with Antony Worrall Thompson live on ITV counted as a ‘professional production’. The fact that I’m now ready to send my competition entry to the BBC’s 'College of Comedy' means nothing if I don’t have a CV.

As you know, the irony of this is that I am Mr. Comedy. I’ve starred in more funny YouTube videos than any other living man except for David Hasselhoff. My impression of Ali G is in the Comedy Hall of Fame. I’ve also studied comedy, theorised comedy and I’ve interviewed many of the greatest comedians, including Lenny Henry, Les Dennis, and John Leslie. I’ve also written 190,000 words on this blog in addition to screenplays, sitcoms, novels, short stories, and poems. And I still maintain the seriousness of my intention to get my ‘Epistle to Jeremy Paxman on the Stat of His Sock Drawer’ included in the next Oxford Book of Comic Verse.

I’m now at the stage where I wonder if I shouldn’t be as creative with my CV as I have been with my script. I was thinking of something along the lines of: ‘at a recent performance of my slapstick routine in Manchester, I was widely applauded, with more people laughing at my antics more than those of the professional mime artist who shared my billing.’ By which you know that I mean to say: I recently fell over in the middle of the street, much to the amusement of Manchester’s shoppers.

Speaking of which, I find myself with a few days before I head back up to that fine city. Having finished proofreading the script to ‘Eye of the Storm 2’ last week, on Thursday I begin work on ‘Eye of the Storm 3’. We will be introducing a whole new range of climatic conditions to the show as we explore gusts and gales. However, before I fall silent, I wanted to say thanks to the people who have written to me lately. I’ve had some very generous responses to my friend’s problems regarding his publisher. Nothing has yet come of it and nothing might ever come of it. However, it’s always reassuring to know that there are people out there willing to help the friend of a multimillionaire television presenter. You all have my thanks and need only ask if there’s anything I can do for you.*

* This does not include: financial assistance, publishing deals, babysitting, lifts, proofreading, help with tax forms, catering, cups of sugar, borrowing my lawn mower, or any other yet-to-be-determined duties.

A Sunday Morning Protest

When it was suggested that I be a torch bearer for the Olympic flame, I had to ask myself if I wanted my name to be associated with a regime famous for human rights abuses and cruelty on an unimaginable scale. In other words: did want to be known as the man who helped support the Sugar Babes?

In the end, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in my shaving mirror and refused the dubious honour of being sandwiched between Denise Van Outen and some Blue Peter presenter. It would appear that it was the correct decision. It would seem that half of London is as appalled as I am in the way that the Suger Babes have hijacked the Olympic flame and used it for their own purposes. I gave a cold shiver as I watch BBC News 24 as the Sugar Babes’ bus drove past the protesters and the dumb music drowning out the intelligent chants. It put me in the mood to do my own spot of protesting. I spent my morning replying to not one but two requests for help from struggling writers.

It’s only because there have been two of them in the space of a couple of hours that I’ve decided to comment on a regular phenomenon. People see what they only want to see when browsing the web. They see only what applies to themselves, what enhances their own reputations. They want the easiest path to success. I can hardly blame them. Yet neither of the authors had bothered to read my blog. They simply wrote to me, assumed I could (and would) help and then launched into long descriptions of their books and offers to send me a copy.

As any of my regular readers would know, I’m a man always willing help a friend. However, I must draw a line at people who sidle up to me on the great internet pavement and ask for the price of a publishing contract. This is not an attack on these young hopefuls but had they bothered to scroll down the page beyond my email address, they might have read about my own struggles. Rather than help them, I’d happily encourage them to give up. The whole world is engaged in the process of writing books and the more I can do to encourage rivals to abandon their scribbling, the more chance there is that my own highly amusing novels (which are sure to sell millions) will find a home.

Madeley, Son of Madeley, King of Romford

Well that resolution didn’t last long. I told myself: no new books for a month. I come home with a new copy of Tolkien’s 'The Children of Húrin'.

Despite having read 'The Lord of the Rings' a number of times, in addition to 'The Silmarillion' and a few of the volumes of 'The Unfinished Tales', I don’t consider myself a huge Tolkien fan. I also thought the films trampled on the books like a runaway Oiliphant through a tavern full of hobbits. Even three huge four hour blockbusters flattened the stories. I’d like to forget the films before returning to the books. It was details on the smaller scale that I always enjoyed about the books, in addition to which they never really did justice to Aragorn.

I always think of Strider as a version of that windswept Madeley we only get to see on walking tours of the moors.

10 Pages of Funny

So, I finally managed it. In the last couple of days, I’ve written the first ten pages of the sitcom. Whether it’s any good or not is not important. I’m just relieved that I’m finally out of the dry spell that’s bothered me for about a month. The new job completely broke the routine I’d kept to for the last couple of years and which had made me so prolific. The job has also made me much too reclusive when I get home. I’d stopped answering phone calls from Fry, who insists that I help him finish the libretto for his opera about the iPhone when he gets back from America. I’ve not seen Oddie for days; the scent of spring having sent him off looking for the first frog spawn of the season. Even Judy has deserted me for the fresh air of the garden. From my office, I look out on her now, her elbows deep in the loam. Will there ever be such a women to sit on a daytime couch and touch Richard E. Grant’s knee? I think not.

Now that my competition submission if written, I’m going to give it a final polish, add a few more jokes, and then send it off to the BBC. I doubt if they’ll like it. It’s probably far too Channel 4 for their tastes, what with all the midgets and macaroni cheese. Perhaps I should ask you to judge it for me before I waste postage sending it. Only, that would require my publishing it to this blog and I’m not so keen on giving it away for free. Why let the competition know what I’m up to and give them a chance to write something better, with more midgets and cheese?

Liberated from my mental struggles, I’m now in the mood for a walk. I always have my best ideas when I’m walking. I fancy nipping to the local Tesco and spending money on strange forms of bread which I’ll never eat. However, I mustn’t. This is a month for tightening the belt, readjusting the braces and even rearranging my sock drawer. I don’t even intend to buy a single book this month. Well, that’s a lie. I bought James Wood’s ‘How Fiction Works’, which I recommend without reservation if you’re into intelligent writing about books. I think it was buying this book that shook me back into activity. Thank you Mr. James Wood. (And I loved you in Salvador.)

However, I have one bit of bad news. My bad luck is clearly spreading. I can only give you ample warning that if you find that you have inadvertently given yourself a paper cut, you must sever your arm at the elbow to stop the bad luck spreading to the rest of your body. I send this advice out to Elberry, in particular, who I see has failed to get funding for a PhD.

I suggest to him that he write his thesis anyway. Those of us who lack the patronage of a publisher to fund our writing must struggle to do what’s important to us. I see that he makes the point that office work is tiring not because it’s difficult but because it’s easy. I understand this so well. I think it was Joseph Heller who wrote 'Catch 22' in his spare time, at night, after working all day (possibly in a proofreading post in Manchester). I’m trying my best to write after a day working on 'Eye of the Storm 2' but I would say that the majority of we mortals cannot succeed like that. The analogy we’re looking for is that of a car’s gearbox. Any driver will tell you that it’s impossible to move immediately from first to fifth gear. The two extremes are equivalent to the way the mind works when doing office work and doing original writing. You need to build up speed to do the latter. This can take hours, if not days or weeks. The other can be done as soon as your arse hits your office seat at 8 o’clock in the morning.

Richard Madeley's LuckWatch

It’s one of the unmentioned disadvantages of being a man that we can occasionally wound ourselves. I speak, of course, of striking oneself in an area that’s best left unstruck. How I managed to do this to myself, I’m really not sure but the feeling of sickness is only just passing. I was simply walking down the stairs and my right hand was swinging a little too freely at my side. It collided with the banister and rebounded into my crotch.

I’m only passing on this news in order to assure you that, as of 15:46, my luck has still not changed.

Website stats

Some statistics for the wearers of rainproof artificial fibers out there ... I was humbled to learn that hits on my website for March reached a record 534,083, which is one whole hit higher than other blogs I could mention.

The Vengeance of the Mimes

My run of bad luck continues. This time, I’ve been the victim of a mime-related incident.

A sign of getting old is how you handle a fall. There was a time when I’d bounce along the road and regain my feet after a couple of neatly executed somersaults. Pedestrians would cheer, applaud my exploits and a few would hold up cards displaying figures no lower than a perfect ‘10’. Yesterday was different. I had all the elasticity and bounce as a sack of King Edwards.

This morning I’m aching all over. I’m grazed on knees and elbows and my right eye is black. I’m also reflecting on how it’s all the fault of a mime and how this pernicious evil needs to be eradicated from our society.

Mimes are tricky sods. One minute you’re walking across Manchester’s Deansgate after enjoying your lunch break in Waterstones browsing through the books of Henry Miller. The next you’re walking past the Arndale Centre when you find yourself distracted by a mime. He was standing on a box and playing with a glass ball which seemed to float as his talented hands move above and beneath it. It was a display of that grace, poise and balance which was sorely lacking when I missed my footing and went sprawling out across the concrete to the gasps of my fellow pedestrians.

A moment later, a man was at my elbow. His thick Scouse accent was so alien in Manchester.

‘You alright mate?’ he asked as he took my elbow. I just readjusted the beret on my head and felt thankful that my disguise had not come off, despite my face cracking against the pavement.

‘I’m okay,’ I said, feeling embarrassment more than the pain in my knees and cheek. ‘It was that damn mime,’ I explained.

‘Evil silent bastard,’ he muttered in agreement before he disappeared back into the crowd.

I cast a final look towards the mime who had not even reacted to the drama being played out before him. I would have thought that he, more than anybody, would have enjoyed my pratfall, but he just continued to move in his silent world where all glass globes float on white cotton gloves.

I tuned my back on him and ducked into the nearest side street to escape the scene of my humiliation. Only then did I cast an eye towards the heavens and demand of the higher powers what they want of me. Why are they teasing me like this? What have I done to upset their cosmic sensibilities? Has there been some mix-up in the great balancing act? Is it because one of my middle names is ‘Mugabe’? Was this mime sent down to punish another man by that name?

Today I’m staying indoors and while Judy enjoys a day digging in the garden, I intend to write some more about mimes. I want to understand more fully the threat they and their cousins the clowns pose to the world.

My Friend The Blogger

Tonight I've had cause to reflect that some of us are simply too nice. A horrid little word this 'nice'. I hate being nice. Let me be arrogant, deceitful, ambitious and only in business for the quick profit. I despise my own affability, my easy going nature, my reluctance to do harm. Let me make money and damn the consequences. I normally try to see only the best in others. From now on, I want to see lies. I believe everything that people tell me. Let me begin to doubt them. I also believe in the old myths about hard work being rewarded in the long run. I see that it's all folly.

It's not easy to write this evening. The tenses all feel wrong. The first person is far too remote.

You see, this all begins with my friend, another generally affable sort who also writes a blog, putting the finishing touches to a novel. A publisher asks to see his manuscript. Compliments are exchanged. An offer to publish the book is made. A contract arrives. It's far from a generous contract. People who know about these things advise him to send his manuscript elsewhere. I advise him to look for a better publisher. I tell him that the contract is not right right for him. But the writer is an affable sort. He wouldn't do that to the only people who have shown any faith in him. He's loyal, you see. He lives by certain old fashioned principals. I keep telling him are going to ruin him. Yet he's never been adept at putting a price on his own skills. He accepts whatever terms other people offer him. He often works for nothing. So he signs this contract despite the fact that he won't see any money for at least a year. Even then it might not be very much.

All this happens some months ago.

My affable friend finishes writing the book and spends weeks working on the final proofs which he duly sends to the publisher. All this time, he's struggling on very little money, falling deeper into debt. Then it all goes quiet. He hears the occasional bit of news about the book. He learns that an illustrator has been paid to produce a picture for the front cover. The artist earns money from the book. My friend, the writer, doesn't. But he's affable so he doesn't complain.

It all goes quiet again but this affable guy notices that his book is listed on Amazon and that makes him very happy. He rings me. 'It's going to happen,' he tells me. 'Soon.'

Today, my affable friend had a long and not particularly enjoyable day at work. He explained to me that the job is tough because it's mundane. It's slowly destroying the guy's spirit. I share his pain. I know what it's like. As you know, I am in a similar position. Yet he also tells me that he wants so desperately to escape the trap of debt. He's only working to keep up the repayments on the debts he's amassed after a long time studying and writing, neither of which have made him rich. Quite the reverse. He should just take a job, five days a week, and earn £20,000 a year. He's a bright guy. He has good qualifications. Probably better than 99% of the people in the country. But he just wants to write. He wants to make people smile because he truly believes that it is a moral way of living.

But it's still a struggle. He's only getting through the days because he knows that he's got a book coming out. He's not in the 8 to 5 rut because he thinks that he is really a writer. He believes in his own talent. He refuses to become the suit they force him to wear.

Only, tonight, he arrived home to be informed that his book is now not being published. 'It's complicated,' he tells me.

I reply that I should hope that it bloody-well is complicated.

But now he's angry. He's also in tears. Yet he's still affable. He says that he can't hold any of this against the publisher. He argues they were in a difficult position. I agree. I tell him that their business didn't have a sensible business model. I say that I didn't believe in the books they published. He admits that he too had doubts: that if they could publish 'those' books, was his own any better? That's as much conversation as he can take. I come off the phone having shared his agony and having felt his pain. I too shed a few tears before I sit down to write.

Now I am left wondering what he really feels. Disappointment. Anger. Frustration. Despair. Perhaps even relief? I suspect that he is beginning to think what he's always feared: that his book wasn't that good, that he's not that talented a writer, and that he's fooled himself for so many years. I should imagine that he feels embarrassed given that he has told people that he was having a book published.

If I were him, I'd try to stay calm and to use his anger to spur him on. He should write to the publisher and explain how he feels like he's been used. He should tell them that they took his dreams and did the worst thing possible: they made them 'almost' come true.

Tonight I've only managed to write because my friend has fallen silent. How I wish it were so very different.

Stand Well Back...

I'm in a really black mood and I'm just about ready to explode...

Towing Caravans With Elberry

I should tell you that I once met Elberry. I have pressed the man's flesh. I have looked into his eyes over a table littered with coffee cups, Thornton's fudge, and unsheathed knives.

It was a strange day when I'd made the long journey up to Manchester to meet that keg of pressurised intellect I'd come to know via the comments he'd left at Thought Experiments. I'd wanted to introduce him to the nation via the teatime show but I soon realised that Elberry is not for a family audience. I was frightened of the man as soon as he approached me outside W.H. Smiths' booth on Victoria Station and asked me if I knew if the trains running to Nottingham stopped at Crewe. It had slipped my mind that this was meant to my coded way of recognising him. Instead, I had tried to get away from this apparent madman and began to make frantic signals to the nearest policeman. However, once the confusion was resolved and handcuffs removed from Elberry's wrists, I headed off into the city with a man whose self-professed aim of the day was to buy himself a new copy of Dante. He explained to me that his old edition had fallen to pieces through overuse.

I ask you now: Is there any way to put a man more on edge than by admitting that you've worn out your copy of The Divine Comedy? Pretty soon it became apparent that Elberry was the most impressive example of what he, himself, describes as the condition of so many office temps: the man or woman of genius 'being used to tow caravans'. He could quote poetry that I'd read and long-since forgotten. He knew foreign languages, which have always been my weakness and the source of much of my own envy. More impressive was the fact that he was unapologetically Elberry. He lacked fear whereas I am nothing but fear. His blog provokes others with his strong viewpoints and pictures of naked flesh, there as bait to those people who are simply not Elberry. In the living flesh, he is no different.

My most embarrassing moment was when I mentioned how I questioned my devotion to a certain brand of notebook. Not having ever had this conversation with a human being before, I mispronounced the name. I still don't know why I thought it was 'moleskin' but Elberry was the first person to put me right. 'I believe it's Moleskine,' he said in what I can only presume was the syllable perfect pronunciation for whatever language it was he was speaking. Ever since that moment, a few hundred yards outside the main city branch of Waterstones and on the corner of the square dominated by The Royal Exchange Theatre, I've thought of Elberry whenever I pick up my 'moleskin' notebook. That one little event has become evidence to me of the distance that lies between my ambitions and my failures, the kind of brain I've always wanted and the sort of brain I actually have.

After a couple of exhausting hours in which my meagre intellect retreated before his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of literature, I began the long trip home, wondering what to make of the man who had variously left me feeling full of admiration, confusion, despair, and just a little fear. Elberry remained something of a mirror to me. Only, more recently, I have become more of a mirror to Elberry.

I too have moved into the world of the office temp, though I lack the genius to move even a caravan. Without the powers to both write and work, I have been forced to be far too casual with this blog, a project that has always given me great satisfaction. Not only that, I have produced next to nothing. A few pages of a woeful sit-com and a few blog posts are the product of six weeks writing. I had previously written a novel in that time. Yet it has proved to me that the writer's life sits at odds with those of the office worker. To me, the two things are mutually exclusive.

Bloggers exist on the border between the professional and the amateur. A rare few make a living doing what others aspire towards. The majority of us make less than nothing and are lucky to make even that. Yet a cherished few symbolise the woeful gulf that exists between productivity and reward. Despite mundane office chores, they still live a live that isn't compromised by mental exhaustion, commuting, or the drudge of earning a wage. Whatever their achievement, whether it is being deep, difficult, intractable, witty, wise, gentle, or homely, they remain loyal to themselves.

This brief ramble was prompted by an email from Elberry this morning. It made me realise that I'm finally beginning to understand the forces that have moulded the man. He thinks in terms of epochs but lives in a world of Formica and open plan workspaces. In private, he sends the most supportive emails, devoid of all the blood, mucus, and bile. He communicates with me when I'm feeling down and for this I just wanted to thank him. It's as if he fully understands how the prolonged silence of another man who lives to write is really a cry for help.

Open Orifice

I write out of sheer exhaustion and an unnerving desire to delay my bed. It is strange that when I'm at the peak of mental and physical exhaustion, I also find myself wanting to leave a mark on my blog.

As to that mark: it's merely to say that I'm still up here in the land where all vowels are nasal and the streets lined with trams. Another day in Manchester was spent learning the intricacies of 'Master Documents' within Open Office. It's hard to truly describe the insights this work provides other than to warn you to never unlink subdocuments from within another subdocument. Experience has taught me the perils of being so free and easy with the unlink button. My PC crashed for the fourth time in as many minutes today and a frown developed on my CreaseFree brow.

On a more positive note, I have been extremely rash in the face of my imminent pay cheque and squandered too much money on a new MP3 player with the intention of going the Bluetooth route with a pair of headphones. I spend most of my time between 6.40 and 8AM trying to untangle myself from the binding of my headphone cord as I try to extract train tickets from wallets. I dream of a future which is cord free. I also see myself scowling through the streets, my blue reefer jacket turned up around my ears as I listen to Serge Gainsbourg amid the delights of Manchester's Chinatown. The MP3 player is Korean. In addition to having a taste for dog, it also fits snugly into my pocket and is currently adorned with a nice full colour picture of Vanessa Feltz. The touch screen feels all the more touchy when there's three inches of cleevage on show. It also contains have a dozen episodes of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' which provide something of an antidote to Open Office, whose manuals are rather light on laughs.

And that, I think, is that. I don't know what's brought me to post this other than to apologise (again) for my silence and for my inability to reply to your comments, which continue to give me the only shred of consolation in these trying days. I occasionally manage to use my laptop in my daily tasks and your emails/comments pop up in the corner of the screen. I sneak a glance that way and I feel refreshed.

As for the College of Comedy: I've not been feeling at all funny and for the last week I've been suffering a terrible block. Tuesday I managed to write a few words which might develop into something on Friday when the week's labours are at an end. Not now, I'm now retiring to bed. I have to be up again in half an hour... Or it feels that way.

Happy Easter from Manchester

I'm accessing the blog via a mid-Victorian steam powered laptop in a hotel in the heart of Manchester. I'm 'up north' and far from a good frame of mind as business continues to intrude into my life. However, I couldn't let this day pass by without re-emerging from my silence to wish you all a happy Easter. I've bought Judy a large mass of cocoa solids shaped like an egg and I trust that you all got the same from your own nearest and dearest. Judy bought me a box of Black Magic given she knows that I love dark chocolate and have a mild egg phobia.

I also wanted to say that I'm still around but struggling to find inspiration as I continue to work on 'Eye of the Storm 2'.