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As the planet Earth spins ever closer to the welcome extinction of the human race (no point in having this blog preserved in the British Library now), I have been trying to tidy up my frankly disgustingly dirty and jumbled office space. It's been going quite well and today I decided to go through my drawers of cables and old bits of podcast tech and work out which, if any of them, I actually needed.
I did throw out quite a lot of stuff, but still kept an unnecessarily large amount of stuff (do I really need three of those boxy ended cables that you connect to wireless hubs? Do I still need an old style TV aerial cable? Do I need a whole bag of USB to lightning cables, when I have basically nothing that still has that port?
It turns out I think I do. But I still managed to throw out loads of things and with Chris Evans (not that one)'s permission I will chuck a load of other bits that I don't think we will ever use.
It feels like there should be a place where you can take old chargers and cables and bits of tech that you don't use and pick up any cables, chargers and bits of tech you need, maybe for a nominal fee to charity. It would certainly save a lot of waste. But the problem is that everything would need to be checked as safe by someone and as we found out when British Gas gave us fan heaters when they had to turn off our supply, it's actually cheaper to let people keep those than to have then checked and repurposed.
And that, non-existent people of the future is why you do not exist. Sorry about that. Existing is an amazing privilege and often an incredible pleasure and so much better (speaking from experience) than the 13 billion years that I didn't exist like you (and, I am guessing better than the billions of years I won't exist again). You can have a Fredo when you exist. Or stroke a fluffy dog. Or laugh at someone falling over in the snow. It's so good. I won't list all the things you can do. Some of them aren't that nice. But nearly all of the things are better than not existing, even the really horrible ones. I will miss it. Well, I won't. But I am missing it now for the future me who won't be able to experience anything. I'm also glad it doesn't go on forever (unless you're God). That would be a bit much. Equally though, I don't think I will ever be quite ready for it to stop.
So apart from feeling bad about adding loads of cables and tech to landfill (I will get the larger electronic bits and battery stuff recycled properly), I felt good that I could have a Fredo any time I wanted, unlike all those idiots who never got to exist (past and future) and that I had made some progress in tidying up my office space.
It will get messy and dirty again soon enough. But it will have less defunct stuff in it and be slightly better organised. Sorry about the end of the world.
Sad to report that Rumpel, the Kangaroo King has died. He appeared in a couple of my early Edinburgh Fringe podcasts and was an eccentric presence on the already fairly eccentric street performers' circuit. The curse of my podcast continues, but probably the best eulogy I can give is "Crikey!"
Back in the days where the Edinburgh podcast was real, before it got beset with commercialism and you could have proper insane, amazing, obscure acts on.
You can watch Time Gentlemen Please on Rewind (Freeview 81 | Sky Q 182 | Freely 141 | Freesat 164).
