I’m constantly at the mercy of people demanding to know how I do it.
‘Richard,’ they’ll say, ‘how did you manage to update your blog last night when satellite images prove that you were busy in the Lakes helping stricken motorists push their cars to the side of the road?’
‘Richard, how did you manage to Twitter today when Sky News said that you were in a clinic having your nostrils scraped?’
‘Richard, you couldn’t possibly have blogged a week last Sunday when there was a picture of you in Hello Magazine that showed the clock on your kitchen wall to be the same time as when you posted your piece about David Dickinson’s spa.’
And so it goes...
‘Richard, there’s a definitely incongruity between your blogging activities and the membership records of your health club where you were definitely receiving a Korean ear massage at the time you claimed to be making a tapioca pudding with Bill Oddie.’
Despite this, I’m also asked to update my blog more and people often demand that I spend more time Twittering to them.
‘Richard, where are you today, love?’ will come the echoing cry through the corridors of cyberspace. ‘Coo eee! Richard? Are you in today? Where’s your witty banter?’
I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. And to be perfectly honest: my blog earns me no income and takes a good amount of effort and time to write. I have other projects which demand my attention. There are my many novels that need finishing, scripts that need polishing, as well as the banjo lessons I’ve taken up.
Yes, that’s right. You heard me correctly. I said ‘banjo lessons’.
It was Judy’s idea, nearly two months ago now. We’ve often talked about my love of music but my inability to play any instrument but it was listening to the Verdi’s Requiem played on the trombone that was the genesis of the whole affair.
‘I really do admire the way you’ve put your heart and soul into the trombone, Jude,’ I said to her one night. She was in the process of packing her instrument away for evening after her usual ritual of calming herself down before sleep by playing the trombone in bed. I’d been sitting by her, trying to get through Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ – a novel that thwarts me even when I’m not distracted by the delicate strains of the Requiem filling the spacious Madeley boudoir.
‘There’s nothing to stop you from learning to play an instrument,’ replied Judy, emptying out her spit valve into the bucket she keeps next to the bed. ‘God knows but you’ve got enough time.’
I closed my book. It seems that the damn thing was never going to get cheerful and I wanted to consider Judy’s suggestion.
‘You promise you won’t laugh,’ I said.
‘Laugh? What at?’
‘What I’m about to tell you.’
Judy laughed. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve always wanted to play the banjo. You know... Like they do at the beginning of The Beverley Hillbillies.’
Judy laughed again. I shrank down into my pillow. ‘Well, if that’s what you want, Richard,’ she said, turning over and turning out the light. She fell asleep chucking to herself, occasionally muttering about ‘Texas gold’.
The seed was sewn. It was about a week later that I was attending a bash in honour of some fairly forgettable cause when I bumped into an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. Dame Maggie Smith and I go back years; in fact, back to when I first trod the boards and played Laertes to her Gertrude in Ken Dodd’s one and only performance as Hamlet.
‘Maggie!’ I cried, going over to plant a wet one on her cheek. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘Well, Dick, I’m keeping busy,’ said Maggie. ‘You know what they say about an active mind.’
‘Indeed I do,’ I said. ‘I keep myself busy on my blog.’
‘Hmmm,’ she replied. ‘Do you ever think of doing something more productive with your time? I always thought it was sad that you gave up acting.’
‘One has to specialise at some point,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said Maggie, ‘it’s still not too late. You might have refused the world your Hamlet but we might still get to see one of the great Lears.’
I frowned. Maggie’s a dear and that kind of talk is a bit below the belt. I still think I could carry of a Hamlet, or one of the young lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To talk of King Lear was... Well, I could see that Hollywood had changed her.
‘To be honest, Maggie,’ I said, ‘I have been thinking of taking up an instrument. I want to be more musical as I approach my middle age.’
‘Middle age!’ she laughed. Then her face straightened. ‘What instrument were you thinking of, Dicky dear?’
‘The banjo.’
Well, if I’d said that I was making a return to the stage playing the back end of a pantomime cow, the effect on Maggie’s face wouldn’t have been as strong.
‘The banjo!’ she cried. ‘Dicky, Dicky, Dicky! My dear boy! I play the banjo!’
‘You do?’
‘I’ve been playing the banjo for nearly fifteen years.’
‘How amazing,’ I said. ‘Well perhaps you can give me some advice. I wouldn’t know how to go and buy a banjo...’
She tutted and placed her hand on my arm. ‘Dicky, for you, I’ll give you a banjo. I have dozens.’
I was moved. So moved that I probably donated so much to the quite forgettable cause that I had to hide the bank statement from Jude at the end of the month.
True to her word, not twenty four hours passed before a taxi arrived at my door and Dame Maggie Smith brought me a banjo.
Judy is over the moon, of course. Mr. Shawcross my new banjo teacher comes around once a week. He says that I have a knack because of my natural clawhammer. Judy has even started to call me The Claw, though my repertoire is limited. But I have mastered the classic bluegrass tune, ‘Dipple Doo Me Chicken Hoo’ and Judy has the trombone version coming via mail order any day now. I can’t see us performing it live for some time but who knows... It all depends if I can get the practice. And if people give me chance to be myself beyond my blog.
