7520/20449
I chatted for ages to this journalist and it gets reduced to a couple of sentences. I wouldn't have lent quite so heavily into the jokey envy personally, but it's nice to acknowledge how great Dr Buckles is. I think it's his vulnerability that makes him truly great. But that didn't make it into the article.
Phoebe tried to avoid bedtime by looking through some of those highlight reels that the iphone makes out of your photos. Some of them as recent as the Cyprus holiday but others taking us back to the time before Ernie emerged into the world. I am not saying that the years are going fast, because it feels like I have been a parent for fucking eternity, but it's hard to believe that those little idiots in the photos have gone or that they are as old as they are. Some moments I remember, others disappear into the blur of the last eight years. Catie and me were talking about our Italian holiday on the Amalfi Coast and that seems pretty recent. But the kids were not around then so it's at least nine years ago.
It's fun to watch the kids being nostalgic about their short lives, but also makes me want to cry with sadness and happiness. The news is full of horrors and it's impossible to really imagine anything like that happening to our family, but I still spend a lot of time trying not to imagine it and still imagining it. Phoebe saw the breaking news about the little girl who died in Wimbledon and asked me what it was about. But obviously I couldn't bear to tell her. I just said it was a girl in London, but she wanted to know why she was in the news. In the end, as she persisted and looked worried I told her that there had been an accident, but the girl was OK and Phoebe seemed relieved and accepted it immediately. And how could I tell her that if you got supremely unlucky you could die celebrating the end of term at school?
Life is random and unfair and like some Live Aid cunt tonight I thanked God it was them instead of me. But then stopped thanking God as he could have easily stopped it happening to anyone.
What an honour to have legendary stand up Steven Wright on the Book Club.
You can listen here. It was cool to be able to send him the link to the Venerable Bede, which I think he got a kick out of. And glad to know that the minimal work I did for my history degree has finally been some use.
