4569/17498
Today I realised that moped and moped are spelled the same. Thank God I noticed that before I turned 48 or it would have been embarrassing. I guess it’s pretty rare that you see either of those words written down and can’t work out from the context which one it is. But it was quite a surprise to me when the revelation finally came. I wonder what other quirks of language are still to occur to me. I think I’ve spotted all the other homonyms, but who nose?
As lovely as it is that our kickstarter was successful, it does leave me with an awful lot of admin to do at a time when I really should be trying to get some proper work done (or at least begin relearning my old shows). I made a start on making the hand made T shirts for those who donated £75 or more (unbelievably that’s 76 people and 76 T shirts- and I also have to make some for the 30 or so people who have bought tickets to all 12 of my solo shows - and there may be more of those). I managed to make six in under an hour, though you wouldn’t believe that from the high standard of workmanship. I doubt I will be think of 76 entirely different concepts, but each one will be one of a kind, mainly due to my inability to recreate anything that I have drawn, but I was pleased with these. It will be luck of the draw which one you get, but I will do my best to give you something suitably brilliantly awful. Treasure them and look after them, but if you are going to be idiotic enough to wear and wash them then you need to iron over the design for a few minutes. But would you wear the Mona Lisa as a skirt? I know I may have confused you by using T-shirts as my canvas, but these are works of art. You can still get a T-shirt like these by buying a ticket to all 12 of those shows (and that’s only £100 and you also get 18 hours of comedy if you want it), though these will be my interpretations of the various show posters.
I bought a load more fabric pens today.
Let’s not think about the 600 Hermione hands I have to do.
My mum bought me Laurie Lee’s “The First Born”, a short book about the feelings engendered by having a daughter at a relatively late age (Lee was about 50 when his first baby was born). It sums up the feelings I have, the hopes and the fears and Lee seemed very keen not to impose his own desires on his child, which I hope I can avoid (apart from training her up to be the world’s best stand up who goes to Edinburgh and wins all the awards going and then shouts, “That’s for my dad, you fuckers!”) There’s something very tantalising about a new life and wondering where this tiny human will go and what they will do and how you will help guide them, just as there is something terrifying about worrying that something might go wrong or that you yourself might not live to see it and Lee touches on all of that, in a heartwarming and engaging way. As always he romanticises somewhat, but if you can’t romanticise a new life, then there is no hope for you.
In Lee’s case it is possible to find out how things turned out. I didn’t know how long he had lived or what became of his family and I couldn’t resist googling to find out. I was glad to see that he lived until he was 83 and so saw his daughter well into adulthood, but less pleased to see that the first google searches for Jessy Lee revealed sensationalist articles about her father being controlling and erratic and driving her to drugs (whilst actually already having a daughter from a previous relationship). Which took the shine off it all a bit.
But I suppose it’s an acknowledgment of the fact that we will aim high for out children, but will inevitably let them down (though hopefully not as spectacularly as Lee seems to have done)
