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A package arrived, which turned out to be from puppet maker extraordinaire Richard Ison. It's always fun getting unsolicited stuff from him - you never know what will be in the package. Once unwrapped it turned out to be an (arguably) beautiful Christmas bauble (or ball-ball) of my Right Bollock. A year ago I'd never have dreamed that one of my testicles would be hanging from a Christmas tree, but things that you don't dream can come true and there it was.
Catie wouldn't let me leave it up on the tree in case it scared the kids, but it's still a lovely momento of a crazy ass year. And maybe in the future it can hang on trees when I am no longer here, so that I will still be playing a part in Christmas. Even if that part is to terrify youngsters. My ball died first, but due to its sacrifice it will outlive me. I'm not saying my nut was the ball-Jesus. That's for other scrotums to say.
Maybe next year we will have a set of Twitch of Fun tree decorations available. Who knows? I hope to do a TOF Kickstarter at some point, but for now see below for one with no representations of my bollock in it.
The kids had stayed overnight with their grandparents and I'd hoped to get a bit of work on the book done this morning, but time just keeps whizzing by and once I'd done a few chores, done a 30 minute row (first time in a while I've been well enough, but pleased to have stayed in the seat for the full session) and gone to get my hair cut (last minute decision so that I could smarten up for Christmas, but also at least start the next lockdown with short-ish hair) it was time for the cheeky rapscallions to return. But at least there had been a bit of a lie in this morning.
Still really failing to come to terms with not being 25, which is a bit of an oversight given how long ago that really was (though as I've said before I remember my gran at 85 still bamboozled by her true age and telling me she felt like she was in her twenties). It suddenly struck me that in 2022 I will turn 55 and then the day after my birthday be closer to 70 than I am to 40. I know that I will never get to be 40 again so in a sense I am closer to being 70 already, but on 13th July that will be mathematically true as well. And the 14 and a half years since my 40th birthday have passed in a blur. I guess I've packed a bit in. In December 2007 I was single (though in love with the woman who would become my wife), had no kids and had never done a podcast. But I was still (in my head at least) a kid and so full of spunk that I could afford to waste the first one, knowing that I'd be ready for another in fifteen minutes.
When you're 54 and down to your last ball you really have to eke that stuff out.
When did I get so old? It's just unfair.
Finally got out for
Stone Clearing Chapter 111 - a podcast slightly interrupted by technical malfunction, but you didn't miss much
We launched a kickstarter for the live streaming costs of the next Leicester Square Theatre run of RHLSTP (whenever that might end up being). It started very strongly indeed (kicktraq predicted it would make £222,000 at one point - it may be mistaken). If you want us to live stream the series, or just want to say thanks for another year's free podcasts or some great exclusive rewards (this kickstarter is also the only way to get a series pass - at an incredible price for 14 interviews) then
donate a little or a lot here
