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I got to the Cheddar Man chapter of Ancestors and (unless I missed a bit) was disappointed that my history teacher Adrian Targett didn't get a mention for being related to the skellington (they even made the reconstruction look like him). But there was plenty of other stuff for me to have to process about my adopted home town. Not only was it once the home of cannibals who turned peoples' skulls into cups (I mean, at least they were committed to the cannibalism - so many cannibals are ashamed of what they've done, but the Cheddar cannibals were like, fuck it, a bit of work and we've got a drinking vessel to always remember what we did), but also Roberts shits a little bit on the Victorians who tried to get tourists to their caves and moved stuff around and created artificial pools to enhance their attractions. I've always thought that there's a great drama series in the history of Cheddar Caves, a bit like Deadwood. I did end up writing a pilot script called Chedwood, but the executive who commissioned it wanted it set in the present day, which I think was the wrong call. One of my first rejected scripts was a sitcom based on my days of working as a tour guide (provisionally called Sex Amongst the Stalagmites - not that I got any of that) and my career is so long that that got a rewrite and another go in the commissioning process about 20 years after I'd first attempted it. I can't even remember what channel that was for now, but I got to write a couple of scripts and I think it was pretty good. Maybe in another couple of decades the world will be ready for it.
One day, I hope, I will get to write something about Cheddar Gorge, but the various chancers who attempted to find caves and exploit tourists in the 19th Century do seem ripe for drama. Rowland Pavey, who wrote a book about divining water and believed that humans had invisible wings and could fly and tried to find caves using dynamite (and finally blew a hole big enough to open as a cave) would be the hero, but Cox and Gough's rivalry, the discovery of Cheddar Man and the various kooks who loved up the gorge would all feature. And maybe prehistoric cannibals could get in there somewhere.
Last I heard Cheddar Caves have actually closed and I am not sure that they will reopen after the pandemic. In SATS I was writing about a once popular tourist attraction that was now struggling and crumbling and had dreamed that by doing so I could ignite interest in the Gorge (and how beautiful and amazing it actually is) and make it popular again. I owe a lot to Cheddar and it would have been nice to create a film industry around it with comedies both modern and period. I might be running out of time, but maybe if I fail someone else will make it happen.
I trudged on with my new Emergency Questions book. I am hopeful that I can get the first draft finished this week , because how hard is it to write stupid questions? It's actually much harder than you (or I) would have thought. Only because I want them all to be good ones though. It would be pimpsy to do shit ones.
At least it's not nearly the end of June so I have loads of time to write my Radio 4 sitcom. Oh God.
