In Response To Mutley

“You try too hard to be funny Mr M... sometimes real feelings are the important thing. Let us know about your real self...” (Mutley the Dog)

And so, Mutley jams his finger (or is that paw?) into an exposed nerve. Trying too hard or not trying hard enough: I feel doubly damned. I have neither the will nor the energy to be funny today. Yet, should I try, I suppose I’d only be accused of trying ‘too hard’. And you know what? I really don’t give a damn any longer. I’ve had it with blogging.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Madeley’s having one of his tantrums. You might be right. I might feel different on Monday. A publisher might ring me this evening to say that they care enough to take a punt on my talents. I might get a writing gig that earns me a pittance but restores the belief that it is all worth it. It’s probably only today that I feel like I really do mean it when I say that I’m quitting this world of blogs. I’ve been writing them for over three years, written well in excess of 1500 posts, and in all that time, in the real world, my Channel 4 gig has come to an end and I’ve risen to the position of a desk jockey stuck in a serviced office somewhere between Manchester’s Chinatown and the Gay Village. Today is my payday and I have £30 to last me four weeks. That’s always a sobering thought when you sit down in the morning and try to make strangers laugh.

Not that I have many readers. People must have tuned into to the show just to see Judy. Nobody tunes into read me. Some say I write too much, others that I write too little. It’s my own fault. I suppose. I never pandered to the sex and knickers brigade, where every post involves a sex toy and a lubricated donkey. I don’t post porn, filth, or even bad language. There too, I misjudged the British public. I should reinvent myself as a prostitute and, tomorrow, give you the inside leg measurement of my first punter. Would you read me if I turned tricks? You needn’t answer that one.

I should have spotted where I was going wrong. Every morning I go through half-a-dozen mailboxes to delete the emails and comments I receive because of my blogging activities. How many mornings do I read something along the lines of: ‘you know its like you think your funny but your not funny you are just sad and i want you to die’? Eventually the poorly written insults from teenage girls weaken the spirit. For the first two years, it was all quite amusing. Now they are just a sad incitement of education in this country. Even our insults have fallen below the standard expected of a fully functioning Western liberal democracy. And when the Belgians can hurl more imaginative insults than your own people, you know your country is in trouble...

Damn, there I go, trying to be funny. And I’m clearly not funny. Why else would my novel get dumped a couple of months before it was due to be published? But then, blogging was always a delusion to match that of my writing. There was a time when I laughed at the emails I received from people wishing me dead. Now I’m tired of it. Why did I expose myself to the petty ridicule of a few and the desperate pleading of others? Just for the thanks of a very small minority?

So, I’ve had it. I concede defeat. And I suggest that we all give up. The mainstream media win again. Only those with real talents get a place on Jordan and Pete’s latest talk show. Say what you want about Katie Price but she’s gone out there and achieved what the rest of us haven’t. You can all mock her but how many of you were nominated as best children’s author at this year’s Galaxy Book Awards? I would have been so proud to have presented her with that award. I mean that. So very proud.

As for me, I’m going to save what little remains of my dignity before I become one of the slaw-jawed misanthropes with a chip on their shoulder because they’ve not had their manuscript published about the man who invented sea salt. I always wanted to write professionally. Moaning about my lack of success was never how I thought it would go. So, before it goes any further, I’m going to play elsewhere. You might see me on satellite TV. Watch out for me on the next series of ‘Eye of the Storm’.

Mutley, you’ve done a great thing. Your comment was the straw that broke this camel’s last vertebra. I’ve clearly been trying too hard and now I’m not going to try any longer.