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Friday 16 November 2018

Day 202: Clip Show Special #1

I've been writing a blog post every day for over 200 days now. More than half a year.

Seems like a good opportunity to pause and look back at what I've done, and to collect up some of the better pieces here. Because even I have to admit that, after flinging mud at a wall 202 times, some of it is bound to have stuck.

Really getting the hang of this self-promotion these days, don't know if you can tell.

Dumb Stuff

I've written a lot of dumb stuff. And I don't mean that to be disparaging at all. I love dumb stuff. I like to think that if I wasn't so depressed all the time, all my blog posts would be touched with at least a dash of this kind of silliness and sense of fun. But the truth is I'm probably just not that creative. Anyway, here are my favourite dumb posts:

How to gain mainstream appeal - a list article about the cliches of being a bartender that totally doesn't turn into an eldritch horror story halfway through.

Bank holiday fun - in which I imagine, roguish scamp that I am, that a bank holiday is when all our banks go on holiday to visit their families the Caymen Island banks, and without our banks' watchful gazes keeping us in check we descend into a Purge-style weekend of orgiastic abandonment. And then I spend the rest of the post making fun of being working class, because I'm an awful person.

How not to cook an aubergine - a post detailing my attempts, at 8pm, after a tiring day fighting depression, to cook a ragoût. I still don't know what a ragoût is. That might give you a clue as to how it went.

A weekend in the village parts 1, 2, and 3 - three days relaxing in the countryside near Holmfirth that totally doesn't turn into an eldritch horror story. There's no through-line to it, annoyingly, you can see me considering an idea in the first, not managing to develop it in the second, then doing something different in a rush in the third. But still, it makes me laugh.

Making small talk - my friend Mike and I went to a live podcast recording, then talked to a woman in the bar afterwards. And you won't believe what happened next! Actually you will. I pretty obviously got socially anxious.

Miffed Matt parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - a parody of Mad Max about an irradiated desolate wasteland, called Worksop, the heinous overseer Timmartin who presides over the only business left after the Great Divide, the bar turned barter fortress, Spoon Town, and the plucky hero Miffed Matt, who I gave no discernible characteristics to at all. I like the Wetherspoons/Brexit stuff, less so the Thunderdome parody "fives" that I included because the initial inspiration came from a cryptic crossword I was finishing on the bus with Mike. Mostly I think I just wanted to prove I knew how to format a script correctly. I also still need to write the final part, which I will do someday, God, quit hassling me.

Stroopwafel - I've written a lot of posts where I had nothing at all to write and I was out of time and any old gibberish just came out of my fingers onto the page. This post about ghost ships is a good example of that.

Just when you think you're out - Just a regular day in the life of the actor Ray Winstone. If you've not seen the film Sexy Beast then this post will make no sense to you. But you should have seen the film Sexy Beast. You really should.

It came from under the boardwalk - a wholesome song about what exactly you might find under the boardwalk. Totally doesn't turn into an eldritch horror story.

Who taught you meteorology - along with the bartender post and Miffed Matt, one of the most fun to write. No idea what I was on, I was just trying to make myself laugh. My friend Mike came up with some of the scenarios in here. Which ones? The better ones? I'll never tell.

...I'll cut here because I've got a banging migraine coming on and I can't focus on the screen any more. Tomorrow I'll collect up my favourites of the more serious pieces, the posts about mental health, mindfulness, films and games and storytelling, all of that. Toodles!

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