Warming Up

In tired frustration this morning I inadvertently blurted out a swear word. “Don’t say fucking,” said my 4 year old, “It is a rude word.”

I apologised and said she was correct, but how did she find out this was a rude word? I mean I know where she heard the word - from her parents - but who has taken her aside and let her know it’s not something that should be said?

Hopefully it was one of us, but I fear that she might have used the word she’d heard at home whilst at school and had to be kindly admonished in the way she had just admonished me. Because it was very like when she told me off for saying “What?” Instead of “Pardon.”

What do her teachers think of us?

Whatever it is, it is clearly correct.

Trying to work out what will happen in Relativity and with my character and his wife dealing with a new born, I decided to look back to 2015 Warming Up to see what my thoughts on being a new dad were. And it was amazing how little I remembered from those days. I have a few flashes of memory and the birth itself is etched into my brain, but the days and months that followed are largely forgotten. I hope my forgetfulness is down mainly to tiredness and not too much to degeneration, but the blog is a lovely gift to my future self. If he’s ever looking back to find what it was like writing the third series of Relativity he can come back to this entry and find out it was slow progress. Hi future Rich. Sorry I haven’t got more for you.

I made a tiny bit of progress on episode 2 (script 3) but certainly won’t have it finished this week, or I would think, next.

Also trying to get ahead of the game for Monday’s RHLSTP (even though I’ve also got one tomorrow) by listening to Grayson Perry’s Descent of Man on audiobook. It’s an interesting companion piece to Sara Pascoe’s books, occasionally quoting the same sources but interesting to hear about masculinity from a male perspective. Grayson is going to be a fascinating guest and the way that we are shoe-horned into cliches connected with our gender has always fascinated me. I don’t really fit into any of them and clearly in some senses (primarily being artistic and enjoying dressing in women’s clothes) Grayson doesn’t either, but he’s into sport and he sure loves motorcycling. His discussion of manliness and motorbikes made me realise how much that infamous sketch is about masculinity. I suppose I knew that anyway, but attempts to fit in by doing something you don’t actually enjoy have long been intriguing to me. And the sketch is about some desire to be seen as manly, even though I know I don’t conform to the correct stereotypes. But I’ve been aware for a long time that honesty, self-expression and kindness are better attributes for a modern male, over violence, size and physical prowess. 

Which is lucky for me. Apart from the honesty and kindness bit.

Both Grayson and I have done shows called All Man, which is interesting.