Why I Gave Up Stand Up Comedy - And Why I Miss It: A Lament, Part 1.

So I had a bit of a falling out with my agent a few months ago, and it seemed as good a moment as any to draw the line under my reasonably-successful-but-never-quite-took-off stand up career. With a little bit of distance from that decision, I thought I'd write some blogs about how and why I got into stand up, the peaks and troughs, the triumphs and disasters.

Here's how I started. I was a businessman and former lawyer who was looking for new experiences to spice things up. This was pre-children when I didn't know any better. So, thinking I was every bit as funny as the comedians I trudged up to watch every year at the Edinburgh Festival, I decided to give it a shot. There was no career plan, no intention of pursuing it; it was just something to tell the grandchildren. 'Yeah, granddad did stand up once. Impressed? Kids? I say, granddad, did...kids? Come on, turn that off...' So I put together 15 minutes of cripplingly unfunny material, turned up at the King's Head in Crouch End in December 1992 and was told to do 5 minutes (along with the other 21 open mic hopefuls). Imagine. A bloke with only one barmitzvah and one wedding speech under his belt suddenly having to edit on the fly. Fuck.

Naturally, I did my best joke first: 'As this is my first ever stand up performance, I thought I'd tell you something about myself. I started life (comic pause) as a sperm...' Tumbleweed. And on I ploughed, hoping a hole would open up and suck me all the way to Hades. In desperation and with no dignity left to lose, I threw a couple of impressions in (the only two I could do) - Sean Connery and Frank Bruno - and got a titter. An impressionist! Ah, that's what I am. Who knew? Well actually I was mimic, the kid who did the teachers at school, a bloke who could do a voice or two, some accents, that sort of thing.

I couldn't let it end on such a sour note, and if I could do two, surely I could do ten. So off I went to learn some more voices. Three months later, Comedy Cafe Open Mic night - only won, didn't I? Beat some bloke called Tim Vine into second place. The prize? A paid gig the following night. I had no material, but I could do Chris Eubank. I got some laughs. Suddenly, I was inspired. My sixth gig was the heat for the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition, my ninth, the final alongside Ronni Ancona (who won), Ben Miller and Tim Vine (him again). It was the key to the door, long before I was ready to go through it. Bookers booked me, Jongleurs fast-tracked me, national radio slots followed, I was on TV by August 1993; and I started making inroads into commercial and documentary voiceovers, cartoons, video games.

Bonkers. All because I could sound a bit like other people. I had no jokes to speak of, but people loved the voices and eventually my script caught up. I was soon playing at great venues and shitholes alike. One weekend The Comedy Store, the next, the Flatulent Pig in Stow-on-the-Wold. Corporate gigs followed, as did presenting gigs, bits of TV, voiceovers. It was all fun then. I didn't do it for the money, mainly because - corporates and voiceovers aside - there wasn't much to speak of; it was for the joy of doing it, making people laugh, the power...ahahahahahaha! Meanwhile I was still running my business, having kids, paying my mortgage, the whole schmeer, so I could only gig at weekends and I turned down God knows how many opportunities because of work commitments, including a TV series that helped make someone else famous. Drove my agent mad. Even so, I somehow managed to squeeze in a few solo shows at Edinburgh, plus a sketch show which became a Radio 4 series; I was a Radio 5 Live regular, with my own Christmas show and a gig as lead impressionist on another; I gigged alongside many of today's household names; I did bits of TV (100 Greatest All-Sorts-Of-Shit, The Stand Up Show, Celebri...cough, ahem, sorry...Celebrity Squares...there, now you know). I wrote all sorts of stuff for radio, had various sitcom scripts and pitches seriously considered by the BBC, got invited to a BBC residential scriptwriters' week, the works. I was nearly - nearly - in.

But I never quite committed. It was never my career. I didn't need to be on stage. It wasn't my drug. I had other things to think about - my business interests in recruitment and property, my family, my desire to write books (a whole other story). I retired from stand up a few times, went through various agents (nearly all shit), made comebacks...the truth was, though, that I didn't need it badly enough; I'd already built a life and a steady income before I started in showbiz and without the burning passion, the hunger or, indeed, the time, I was never going to crack it, never gain the necessary momentum.

In part 2, I'll lift the lid on my fellow stand ups, describe some of the shit gigs, maybe some other stuff. Are you listening...anyone?..anyone? Kids?

Fair Weather Cyclists

Let me be clear. We're all entitled to use the roads, provided we do so with care and consideration for others. A bit of common courtesy combined with the observance of some relatively simple rules and regulations should ensure we all get to and from our destinations safely. Yes, there will be incidents and accidents to quote Paul Simon, but these, while inevitable are thankfully relatively rare given the volume of traffic out there. Be aware, be cautious, think of others.

You see? I'm a fair-minded, thoughtful individual with liberal, John Stuart Mill 'harm principle' sympathies when it comes to road use. Which is why, when I say what I'm about to say, you might wonder whether I'm losing it a bit. It's just that...well, you fair weather cyclists get on my effing tits. You've got no right to be out there with your gleaming, un-corroded, winter-shy bicycles clogging up the roads and all available lampposts and cycle stands as soon as the bloody sun comes out. I mean, there's me, come rain or shine, snow or frost, slogging my way into town every day - and I never miss, ever - nose running, eyes raw, fingers sopping and solid, risking my life on all manner of slippery and treacherous road surface, often in the dark, attaching and detaching lights, scrabbling into useless rainwear at every squall, choking on fog, coddling inside layers that are never quite enough...just so you can come along in late May, all virtuous in your tee-shirts and idiotic shorts, and claim the roads for yourselves. Well it's not right, is it? They're mine.

And you - yes you - on your Boris Bike, trundling around, thinking you're something special, never signalling, chatting to your mates as you ride four abreast, stopping to take in the scenery, bloody-well enjoying your little cycle in the sun, whilst wilfully ignoring the essential tenets of daily city centre cycling - you need to buck up. Here's the code. Learn it:
1) Always go through red lights (if safe to do so - you're on a bloody bike, f'Chrissakes)
2) Always go the wrong way up one way streets (if safe to do so - you're on a bloody bike, f'Chrissakes)
3) Shout at and shock idiotic pedestrians who don't look because they're on their mobile phones (safe or otherwise NB you may legally clip them on a shoulder or knee)
4) Scream at and remonstrate with bus drivers when they try and kill you (because they can't really answer back with passengers on board and professional restrictions and whatnot)
5) Kill - literally kill, if at all possible - white van drivers because they are trying to kill you (pre-emptive, self preservation principle)
6) Remove taxi drivers' wing mirrors at every opportunity with a violent swing of the hand (they're taxi drivers - doesn't matter; and they deserve it for past and future mis-deeds)
7) Have at your disposal a pithy string of epithets to hurl at swerving, mindless drivers on phones, fiddling with radios etc (my personal favourite: 'I've got two little girls who want to see their Dad at home tonight, not visit him in hospital because some cu*t thinks his phone call is more important than fucking looking where he's going' - admittedly, this is clumsy and lengthy and only works when, by some miracle, I've caught up with the miscreant at the next lights and his window is open and he's not fucking enormous and shaven-headed.)

So where was I? Oh yes. You, on your Boris Bike, indeed all of you fair weather dawdlers - this is what we hardened cyclists are all about. It's not a playground out there. Get with the programme or get off our roads. And stop taking our parking spaces. I mean it.

Ok. Off my chest. I think I need a nice cup of cocoa and a Digestive.

On Literary Agents

Let me take you on a journey. It's 2002 and I've just submitted my lovingly crafted manuscript to five literary agents. I don't really know what I'm doing, of course, so I've picked them out more or less at random. Less than two weeks later and my mobile trills. It's one of them, bubbling, champing at the bit, not just excited about my novel, but also the fact that, as a professional performer, I will be brilliant at promoting it across the UK and...wait for it...globally. Yes, this was what the lady told me during our first conversation. Oh, and we're not talking about some grubby, pay-us-for-reading-your-MS, back street, fly-by-nights; we're talking J K Rowling's agents.

Well that was bloody easy. Wasn't this agent business supposed to be a nightmare? Shouldn't you endure 82 rejections before you get even a tickle? I mean, even the saintly J K got rejections. There was a catch, of course, but a smallish one, I thought. They wanted me to work with one of their editors to get the MS into shape before formally signing me up and submitting it to the major publishers. Well why not? They're the pros, they know what sells. Undoubtedly, many of their comments were valid - my female protagonist was too male, too hard - and some of the structuring needed tweaking. I re-submitted the draft but was then asked to soften the protagonist further. Because they'd missed my point. She was meant to be strident, someone whose independence and fuck-you attitude masked her emotional instability and desperate craving to be loved. They wanted her to be a timid, emotionally together, run-of-the-mill office worker who somehow goes off the rails. Boring.

Well what would you have done? My guess is that you - and, indeed, any sane person - would have done whatever they told you to do. J K Fucking Rowling's agents!!! Come on! Key to the door. Well not me, thank you very much. No, I stood by my artistic principles, told them they didn't understand the book, and walked away. What. A. Fucking. Wanker.

A couple of the other agents expressed an interest but it went no further and, two years later in a fit of narcissistic pique, I published it myself through Matador. Turned out I was pretty good at selling the book - I shifted 400 on the back of some local radio interviews, personal appearances and good reviews, but it was all after the event and half-hearted. Chance missed.

That book was a psychological thriller. But I'm a comedian and thought my next attempt at novel writing should be something within my natural genre. So Song In The Wrong Key was born, the story of a middle-aged man whose idyllic family life falls apart when he's made redundant. Redemption is achieved via his serendipitous selection as the UK's Eurovision Song Contest entrant. It's probably best described as an edgy romcom, with the emphasis on com.

And so on to another ridiculous dance with the agents. I submitted it to 6 of them, and three responded asking for the full MS. A good hit rate, apparently. A fourth didn't bother with all that. He wanted to sign me. I'd only applied to him because he accepted MSs via email, which saves a lot of bother, as well as photocopying and postage costs. And I was flattered - or, to put it another way, still being a fucking wanker. He was an established agent, but one with a conspicuously thin roster of fiction writers. To cut a long story short, it didn't work out. My feeling is that his contact list amongst the fiction publishers numbered no more than two or three. When they didn't take the bait, there was nowhere else to go.

So I left him. Now I've published the book through my own company, Lane & Hart. I've had it professionally typeset and the cover professionally designed. I've engaged a top class PR agent and we're lining up radio and press interviews and personal appearances. I've run a giveaway on Goodreads (745 people applied) and will do another. I uploaded it to Kindle and have been receiving sparkling 5 star reviews (likewise on Goodreads). Would I rather have done all this through traditional channels - an agent championing my book, a top publisher with a serious marketing budget, top chains stocking it etc? Of bloody course. But that all takes patience and a thick hide, neither of which I possess. Yes, you can earn more money per unit by selling on Kindle, but that's not what this is about. Writers need validation and, as much as I value and appreciate the reviews of the handful of readers who've bought the book so far, a traditional deal would open my work up to a vast readership and set me along the path I really want to follow, that of an established author with an established readership who can't wait for my next book. It might come to that one day, but my guess is that it's more likely to happen if an agent and a traditional publisher pick up the reins from here. Well come on. What are you waiting for?

http://amzn.to/xaosKp
http://bit.ly/xu34Hh
@SimonLipson

On Writing My Book

I’d feel a bit pretentious if I declared that writing is in my blood or that it’s my consuming passion; I don’t have to write to live. I can survive on chocolate, if it comes to it. But it’s a marvellous means of expression, a wonderfully creative and fluid medium for the ideas that rattle around my head. Being a comedian and comedy writer (and ex-solicitor, but we don’t talk about that), I can express myself on stage or in a script, but both forms are necessarily limited by what audiences – who offer a very instant response - or terrified-for-their-jobs TV/radio producers demand. Novels, though, unfurl slowly; they allow you room to breathe, to lay things out, to establish rhythms, to colour every character in, right from the opening sentence. I suppose the people who read my book will tell me whether I’m doing it right but, so far at least, they seem to approve. 

I’m an avid reader – contemporary fiction with a humorous bent being my favourite genre – and I always felt I could ‘do’ a Nick Hornby or David Nicholls if I put my mind to it. Surely it couldn’t be that hard? Well, as I discovered, it is that hard. In the way that comedy is hard. I was always the quite amusing guy amongst my friends, the guy with the quick ripostes and funny voices, but I was a million miles from being a guy who could make a roomful of strangers laugh rather than throw something heavy at me. It took me a while – and the odd bruise - to bridge the gap between the two.

The dialogue in Song In The Wrong Key came fairly easily to me, but structure, story-lining, pacing, knowing when to cut out the distracting quips, avoiding the self-indulgence, were elements of the writing process I had to learn mostly through trial and error. Every time I thought I’d completed the definitive draft, another ‘quick’ read-through convinced me there was still work to do, cuts to make, bits to shift, commas to add. In truth, you can refine a draft ad infinitum, but at some point you have to say ‘that’s the one’ – it’s never an easy task to let go, like watching your child go off to university.

Song In The Wrong Key is my second book. My first, Losing It, was a psychological thriller based, loosely, on something that happened to me as a young man. I started it about 18 years ago, left the first 50 pages in a drawer for 10 years, then started again. At the time I’d been reading a lot of grim, gory thrillers and felt I had it in me to emulate the genre. It was a difficult process for me because the tone of the book is fairly po-faced...and I’m not! Even so, J K Rowling’s then agents took a shine to it and offered to represent me, provided I made some changes. Which I did, but not entirely to their liking. Stupidly, I refused to make more changes and nothing came of it. In a fit of pique, I published through Matador, sold 400 copies and forgot about writing for a few years.

It was about 4 years ago when I decided to write something more in keeping with my natural comedic bent. I’ve always been drawn to stories about nobodies suddenly rising to prominence and, having been a wannabe pop star myself, Song almost wrote itself. The first draft flowed – I’d say it took a couple of months to finish - and I took great joy in writing a story with which I connected personally and was predominantly a comedy. Needless to say, the first draft was over-written, lumpy, occasionally illogical and chronologically confusing. Writing – good writing - as I’ve already suggested, is bloody hard work. But it was something to work with and I think the ‘stream of consciousness’ approach brought out the best in me from a comedic perspective. Structure, character and story-sharpening came later. I particularly enjoyed getting my teeth into the breakdown of the protagonist’s family and the central love story, both of which, hopefully, will tug at the heart strings (I get a bit misty-eyed watching Love Actually, so you know where I’m coming from). Some readers have already owned up to shedding a few tears which, as someone whose principal aim is to make them laugh, is a huge compliment.

Like most writers, I drew from experience. As the father of two girls, Millie and Katia were easy to write (mine are called Molly and Katie – that’s imagination for you!). And there’s something of my own life story in the protagonist, Mike’s, obsession with the former love of his life (I’m over her now, darling). And it’s through Mike’s voice that I was able to express many of my own attitudes and ideas. Friends who have read the book tell me it’s like listening to me prattle on, grumble, grouch and attempt to amuse. Mike is a heightened version of me, as is the protagonist of my follow-up novel, Standing Up – about a solicitor who becomes a stand-up (where do I get my ideas?).

My aim is to stick with edgy romantic comedies for the foreseeable future. But I shan’t put the cart before the horse. If no-one buys Song In The Wrong Key, though, I can always revert to gory thrillers.  

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-The-Wrong-Key-ebook/dp/B00492CQ2K

Edinburgh Festival

I was first taken to the Edinburgh Festival by my parents when I was about 11 (a long, long time ago, before the internet, kids - actually, it was before cars with heaters). In those days, the main Festival comprised a handful of theatre and arts events and the Fringe was about as lush as a slaphead's comb-over.

And that was it until 1988 when I took my wife-to-be up there in an attempt to convince her of my aesthetic sensibilities. By then, the Fringe was fairly well established, albeit a far cry from the behemoth of today. The Assembly Rooms - now defunct - was the hub, while the Pleasance and the pre-blaze Gilded Balloon were in their infancy. We saw some cracking shows including Victor and Barry, a brilliant camp-fest with the young Alan Cumming who was clearly a star in the making.

Thereafter, we went almost every year, often with my parents in tow, and saw some stunning shows - plus, of course, plenty of crap. That's the Festival. New venues opened up every year, while existing ones expanded. Rawness was replaced by slickness and professionalism, and it became THE place to make your name. Pre mega-fame, we saw people like Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Alistair McGowan, Jack Dee, Lee Evans, Omid Djalili and Jenny Eclair. And the Perrier Award - since superseded by the Fosters - was the key to the comedy door.

Edinburgh inspired me to give stand-up a try, although I had no designs on a career in comedy. I'm shy and was never a performer, but I was that irritating attention-seeker who could make his friends laugh and thought I could simply adapt my schtick for a roomful of strangers. I got that dramatically wrong, as it turned out, but I had some impressions up my sleeve which seemed to work and, suddenly, and without particularly wanting it, I was launched into a 'career' which eventually included live work all over the UK and abroad, TV shows and countless radio shows.

Edinburgh, though, was the promised land and, in 1996, I was offered a last minute slot at the Gilded Balloon which I couldn't turn down. I should have. My half-baked show got me nowhere. The following year, I took more time over it, used my experience, brought to bear everything I'd learned, and performed an equally useless show in the same venue. I waited 5 more years before revealing my obsession with baldness with a show called Losing It. It was funny in parts, but wasn't well received and, worse, I shaved off all my hair for the 4 week run. I'm still not bald 10 years later, by the way, but remain traumatised. By 2005, I'd teamed up with Philippa Fordham and we took our show, He Barks, She Bites, to the Pleasance. We were nominated for the Dubble (sic) Act Award and spotted by the BBC, eventually getting our own series on Radio 4. Finally, Edinburgh had paid off.

This year, I decided to try Edinburgh for probably the last time. I had an idea for a show, you see - about how I stumbled into impressionism - and started exploring the possibilities. But it was a late decision, too late. In the old days, comedians applied in June, wrote their shows in July and pitched up in Edinburgh in August. Nowadays, you need to be on the case as soon as the previous Festival has finished, writing, previewing, organising a venue, having photos taken, creating posters, appointing a PR agent...and that's the tip of the iceberg. After I was offered a slot at a leading venue a couple of weeks ago, I started fumbling around trying to first locate then fit all the pieces of the jigsaw together. The show - nowhere near written - was the least of my concerns. And, as one delves into the Edinburgh minefield, it becomes clear that it's going to cost a fortune. Guarantees to the venue, travel, accommodation, printing, PR - not much change out of £10,000. With a following wind, a couple of good reviews and 50% seat occupancy, you might eventually only lose £7,000. The point, of course, is that this is an investment. If you get spotted by the BBC or a promoter who wants to take your show on tour or an awards panel, you could be on your way, but for the 2000+ shows that fly under the radar, it's a case of trudging home with all your savings blown.

The money wasn't the only reason I decided not to go, though it was certainly a compelling one. The show just wasn't going to be ready. And I'm old. I know that shouldn't be a factor, but comedy is a young man's game and mature performers are often given short shrift by reviewers however funny they might be. We're just not hip. And, worse, I'm an impressionist, the most heinous, unworthy, unoriginal genus of performer in the comedy-sphere, at least in the eyes of the comedy purists. Or wankers, as I prefer to call them. I'd only get a bashing if I didn't pitch the show just right, and you can't do that if it's April and you haven't even written it.

So...Camden Fringe, here I come! Edinburgh? Maybe next year.

Being Bald

Let's be clear. By any objective analysis, I'm not bald. Indeed, I'm told I have a thick - if greying - thatch that any sane man of my vintage would be proud to have flapping about atop his head.

Well say what you like, Mr Objective-Analysis. Like an anorexic is fat, I'm bald.

I need to explain. My Dad went bald before we even met. He was 30 when we first shook hands (I'm told I held onto his finger in a manly, British fashion on the day I was born) but it wasn't until I was about 10 that it first struck me that, in addition to passing his unusually thick-thigh and myopic-eye genes to his only son, he might also have let slip that poisonous baldness gene into my DNA. So, even as I experimented with David Bowie sticky-uppy hairstyles in my early teens and, later, the Duran Duran fop-top-mullet combo, I was convinced my days amongst the truly hirsute were numbered. As if to prove my terrifying theory, I started receding at 18 and, notwithstanding that I now had a hairline which matched that of my maternal grandfather and uncles (hairy bastards, all, well into their seventies) I thought it prudent to warn everyone in my immediate social orbit (and way, way beyond it) that I would soon be tress-less.  

It was only when I made Facebook contact with several friends I hadn't spoken to since the late 70s that it became clear just how far and wide I'd broadcast my obsession, and just how early I'd started. Every one of them queried my photo. Is that a wig? Thought you said you'd be bald at 25. Are you still being a fucking bore about your fucking hair?


Well I am still a fucking bore about my hair even though it hardly matters any more. I mean, I might still offer the occasional leer in the direction of a pretty young thing in Starbucks, but she sure as fuck ain't looking at me. No-one looks at old people. Ask my daughters. But I'm married, have been for a long time, and when my wife says she'd leave me if I went bald, I simply don't believe her. That's not grounds, is it? How shallow would that be? I wouldn't leave her if she stopped having fabulously wealthy parents.

No, I'm all set; don't need to impress the ladies any more. Like I ever did. But when you're 19 and you think you're going bald, the only thing on your mind is the ridicule, the loss of attractiveness, the premature ageing, the long lonely descent into forever-bachelorhood. Because women don't go for bald men, do they? And if they do, a 19 year old can't see it. A 53 year old knows no-one gives a shit.

And, if you need any more convincing, consider this. In 2002 I decided to do a show at the Edinburgh Festival which confronted baldness (ahem) head on. It was called Losing It and was a self-indulgent pile of shit with a few funny bits. I decided I couldn't convince the audience of my obsession (and its obvious hilarity!) unless I was bald myself. So, facing my worst fears, I shaved it all off. It was horrific, believe me, like losing a limb, but it had to be done. And this is how everyone I knew reacted: first sighting, fuck me!, oh my God, ha ha! Three minutes later - forgotten, and never mentioned again. You see, unlike the superficial idiot with the shaved head, they only saw the bloke they'd always known. The hair didn't matter.

None of which means that losing it at any age - particularly when you're young - isn't traumatic. Of course it is. Given a choice, my guess is that no-one would go bald. And why not do something about it if you can (avoiding combovers, crappy pieces and weaves, of course)? But, ultimately - and here comes the schmaltzy moral to my story - it's about you, not your hair. You can be a dick with hair and a charmer without. A genetic predisposition like that says nothing about you.

That said, I've got a fucking fantastic head of hair (I'm told) so who cares about those slapheads?

Reflections On Being Suddenly Slim

So here I am, 20 years an unreconstructed, unapologetic fat bastard, suddenly slim. Ok, slim-ish. It's all relative. I've lost 2 and a half stone, but then I was ridiculously heavy to start with. I was a man I no longer  recognised, a man I caught unwittingly in a coffee shop mirror and instantly dismissed as a corpulent pig. That was the turning point, really. If that was what I saw when I wasn't sucking in my cheeks to ready myself for my reflection, it was what everyone else saw.

A word or two on how I got here. Simple, really. No forensic calorie-counting, no fads, no crazy fitness regimes. The key? I've just stopped the bi-weekly loading of the mega-sized carrier bags they give the greedy chocoholics in the 99p Shop.Without that evil sugar/fat abomination hanging about the house demanding to be scoffed, I'm having to make my own fun. Walnut anyone?

Here's the regime: I eat dinner late so breakfast is not the first thing on my mind when I wake up - it's easily skipped; lunch might be a bit of popcorn, a yoghurt, some fruit; a snack when I get home (granola, nuts, pretzels) followed later by the kind of evening meal in which I've always specialised  - anything that takes less than 3 minutes to make. Chicken soup (powder + hot water + boil it + vermicelli = done) followed by a few slices of toast and jam or a chicken stir-fry, if I'm feeling all Jamie Oliver, or - pushing the boat out here - a baked potato with some packet roast chicken and microwaved beans. Dessert is a yoghurt, tons of fruit, tea (copious) and maybe a packet of Polos as a treat. I know it sounds grim, but I honestly haven't suffered or yearned. And now I'm where I want to be, I can have decent meal out or a lump of chocolate if I fancy. The key is moderation.

Here's an interesting tale (if you're pissed or on something); it was my birthday a few weeks ago so all bets were off. I hit the sweet shop, hard, and gorged on Boost, Caramac, Maltesers and Tooty-Fruities, but - this was the funny thing - I didn't particularly enjoy it. Me, Fatboy The Sweet Gorger. Would you credit that? Just felt sick, actually. I think they call it -'re-educating' your stomach, or some such shit.

And one other thing; I cycle a minimum of 14 miles a day, but then I've been doing that for 20 years. Combined with sensible eating, it helps the weight fall off, whereas if it's done only to feel virtuous and excuse the relentless stuffing of one's face every night, it helps not a jot. 

Clothes don't look crap on me any more. My last blog was obviously a cry for help. I'd reached the point where jeans, no matter how capacious, looked appalling, like I was trying to squeeze two legs into each leg-hole, and shirts needed to be XXXL to even resemble something made to be worn by humans. I can now go into shops and stick on a pair of 34 inch-waisters (I'm nearer 32 now - I know!) and they look ok. I was nudging 40 inches and, honestly, you don't want anyone to see you flipping those babies off a hanger and sneaking into a fitting room. The other bonus here is that the clothes I was squeezing into a few months ago now hang off me, something I still enjoy demonstrating to my children who, sadly, don't give a flying fuck. Yes, Dad, you've lost weight. Big. Deal. Oh yeah, by the way, I crashed the car.

One other bonus is that there's less weight going through my tortured knees. Now, people who know me will know that I rarely talk about my 9 knee operations, the constant pain, the swelling, the clicking, the sheer, unalloyed misery. Oy, you shouldn't know from it. I still can't play tennis and a return to the ski slopes would probably be inadvisable, but there's been a definite improvement, as you might expect given that the equivalent of 9 stone has been removed from the load going through them when I walk, 18 when (if) I run. 

Turns out I have cheekbones! Who knew? They sort of jut out and create little shadows on my cheeks. Is that normal? And hip-bones and shoulder blades and a spine...which hurt when I move about in the bath. And - stop me if this is too much information - I felt a hard lump when I was washing my bottom the other day. No, not a tumour, silly (although I'm of an age when...let's not think about that). No, it was my coccyx. Who put that there? I've also, apparently, reduced the risk of heart disease and diabetes, made myself less prone to debilitating asthma attacks and, best of all, removed all trace of the corrosive bouts of indigestion I used to suffer every day despite 24 Rennies and a couple of Omeprazole (a dosage that should neutralise Sulphuric Acid). 

But there's a downside. Suddenly, I look my age. Which might not sound bad, but everyone used to comment on how much younger I looked as a fatso. Well of course they did; I had 26 gallons of natural collagen filling the wrinkles, smoothing the skin. Not any more. It's Wrinkle City up there, but a small price to pay. I even had an insane, thin man's number 3 haircut to complement my now slender face - it looked absolutely fucking horrible (got carried away with the slim thing, I think) and am grateful to still have a thatch capable of  consigning such catastrophic hubris to memory, given time.

So, there you go. I'd be happy to counsel anyone seeking to do what I've done. Call me smug, call me obnoxiously gloaty (I may be less so shortly, given that Xmas is approaching, which might yet wreck everything; the fat, greedy boy lurks just under the surface - I can hear him), but feel free to contact me, if only to allow me to crow a bit more.

William Boyd? Surely not.

I recently finished reading William Boyd's latest novel, Ordinary Thunderstorms. It took me forever because I kept abandoning it then picking it up again. I mean, surely it couldn't be that shit all the way through to the final page. Could it? Well, no. Somehow, it actually got shittier before disappearing up its own anus with a grim squelch. I had to check that this was the same William Boyd who wrote Restless and Armadillo. Tragically, it was.

I'm not Boyd's biggest fan, but have generally found him to be fairly readable, in a can't-find-anything-else-in-Luton-Airport-Smiths-and-the-plane's-about-to-leave kind of way. He can handle whimsy and more serious themes reasonably well, and there's a level of intelligence that marks him out as a reliable if not exactly must-read author. So what the fuck happened?

Ordinary Thunderstorms starts off with a ridiculous (and seen-it-all-before) premise - innocent man witnesses murder when he goes somewhere no sensible (or even stupid) human being would even think of venturing. He then - surprise, surprise - pulls the knife out of the victim (the only person in the western world who's never watched CSI or a million other police procedurals) and dithers about informing the police for reasons so inane I can no longer recall them. He then goes into hiding - in a tent on a grassy bank alongside the Thames, mind - and becomes feral, vicious and cunning. The guy's a respected meteorologist or something. Doesn't he have any better ideas than that? The casual murder he carries out is as incongruous and silly as the fey, dopey, facile affair he conducts with an investigating policewoman.

Sorry if I've ruined it for you but, trust me, I've saved you eight quid and days of ploughing through dung wondering whether it can possibly get any stinkier. Trust me, it does. Pathetic, implausible, lazy, idiotic, cretinous, moronic...and I haven't even opened my thesaurus yet.

And, once again, I mutter and curse at the injustice of it all. Maybe Boyd's track record enables (entitles?) him to get away with this travesty of literature, but how comes I can't get a publisher when crap like this (and by people like Erica Spindler - an illiterate - James Patterson (or any one of his minions), Tony Parsons - don't start me off - and thousands of others) gets onto our shelves? I wouldn't mind, but several agents and publishers have told me my stuff is 'great' and 'hilarious' and 'commercial' - but I'm still sitting here, baby.

Spleen vented. Feeling a bit better now. Should last at least 10 minutes.

Twitter - Oh The Pointlessness

I've just joined Twitter. I have no idea why. I haven't got the time, much less the inclination, to read anyone else's dull musings, and can't begin to understand why anyone would read mine. I mean, no-one even reads this fucking blog to which I am at least able to devote some time and thought before committing it to the vacuum that is the blogosphere.

As I've now discovered, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and everything else I hold sacred is all shot to hell when people have only got 140 characters at their disposal. Obviously, my Tweety vignettes are perfect - I'm talking about everyone else, though I suspect many of them would remain incapable of explaining the purpose of a comma however much time and space they had at their disposal. (I'm in danger of becoming a grumpy old-school sod, I fear, even as I embrace modern technology)

Still, I think it's important, at my age, to try and keep up with current technological fads, irrespective of how pointless and plain idiotic they might be. So, to the zillions of you out there who already don't read this blog, here's something else for you to ignore... my Twitter address: http://twitter.com/simonlipson.

I've already contributed some fatuous crap to the canon and can already see how short a shelf life it's going to have for me. Read it (or don't) while you can.

The Miracle

I've been sicker than many a sick dog over the last week, though on the upside, my previous virus, which lasted a mere nine weeks, had been well and truly out of my system for almost five days before this new thing started, so I've had a really good spell of near-health lasting almost a week. Musn't grumble, eh?

So, here's what I wanted to talk about. One evening last week, just before the icy Armageddon wreaked its chaos - how will we cope, by the way? - I was about to make my ascent up Archway Road on my trusty, middle-of-the-range Pinnacle bicycle. It's a bastard, that hill, a precipitous gradient close to vertical. I'm 51, you know, and asthmatic, and I've got exceptionally dodgy knees, and I've been a little above my fighting weight for a while now (47 years) yet I am forced into daily combat with this demon if I am to make it back to the sanctuary of my Muswell Hill manor.

Now, as any regular cyclist will attest, there is no such thing as a following wind. It doesn't exist. It's a chimera. Cycle round a roundabout, a full 360, and the gale will be in your face all the way round, battering you, pummelling the flesh on your face, ripping your hair from its very roots. All the way round. You hear me? It's nature at its most taunting and vindictive. And if there's a bit of rain in the air - with its spiteful shards and needles which pock and slice, opening little wounds to the flesh and spirit that may never heal - God help you.

So, anyway, there I was, rounding the grim dereliction of Archway Roundabout, bracing myself for the routine double whammy - wind-against plus vertical ascent - when a gust, no more, lifted me, driving me onwards and upwards on gossamer wings towards the brief, free-wheeling relief of Muswell Hill Road, my aching, ageing legs suddenly spared, my bronchial, wheezing lungs in unexpected oxygen-credit. It was like God's arm around my shoulder, forgiving me all my cycling sins (ok, I go on the pavement sometimes and ignore the odd - and even - red light). And, in that brief, epiphanic moment, I questioned my violent atheism for the first time in thirty years.

Course, it only lasted five seconds. A sleet-speckled tornado opened its jaws and pummelled my soul, mocking my natural lack of aerodynamics, my physical decrepitude, my fleeting belief in another way, and forced me to cycle through treacle as I searched for a gear that didn't exist.

Hey, cycling's fun, isn't it? Thinking of creating a blog all about its myriad joys - I've got a million stories. I mean, there are zillions of cycling nerds out there. Maybe someone will actually read the fucker.