Noddy Holder’s Letterbox

Somewhere in Birmingham, there is an elderly chap sat by his letterbox waiting for the Performing Rights Society cheques to arrive. His mutton-chop sideburns twitch in anticipation of the royalties from Now That’s What I Call The Same Christmas Songs Every Year 127 to land on his doormat. Noddy likes Christmas.

Yes, the supermarket ads are on, they are all shite, and will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to where I buy my matchmakers and celebratory Heroes this Christmas. Ant and Dec have sanctioned the murder of a Disney classic, John Lewis have gone all Watership Down and Asda haven’t really bothered at all.

It is mid November I may add, so anybody with their decorations up, should, much like those responsible for any minor car accident that causes me delay, be executed at the side of the road.

That seamless segue way into my traffic woes brings me to the over arching theme of last week. My soul-destroying, hope crushing commute to the office. It isn’t often the case that I have to do it five times a week, as I am often elsewhere for part of the week, so maybe that was part of the problem, but it was horrific.

Add to that woe the “fun” of Children In Need on Friday and I have had better weeks. Having to sit at my desk in my dressing gown, and how that helps some deprived child get help is beyond me, but that was the situation I found myself in. Not being able to (Pudsey) bear seven hours of Terry Wogan mis-reading an auto cue, we decided to go to the cinema instead.

We went and watched The Butler.

It was good. I know that sounds less than glowing, but we enjoyed it. It just wasn’t the life changing event it seems to have been built up to be. Oprah and Forrester were excellent in the leading roles, and it was easy to watch. I would describe it as a sort of black Forrest Gump, but not as light-hearted.

We returned home full of expensive snacks, and in my case the inevitable heart burn that Pick n Mix results in, just in time to see the only thing we were interested in on Children In Need. McBusted performed, and as we had secured tickets for their concert in May next year, we enjoyed it.

For those who have read Going Limp, (and thank you for all the five star reviews!) it may not surprise you to learn that when the intro to Year 3000 kicked in, Emily cried. As she explained, that was her childhood right there. Busted were the first band she liked, her first gig, and something which steered her musical taste to what it is today.

Rebecca is equally excited at the prospect of the gig, but managed not to cry at the first sight of them!

I have little shame in being a forty-three year old man who will be fourteen rows from the front at their concert. It will be a family outing full of nostalgia, and probably some unhealthy food. Why should I feel shame when people go and watch Coldplay, U2 and Fleetwood Mac all the time.

By next May, hopefully well before, I also hope to have my new book finished too. See how I used all that pre-amble to simply navigate you to another stroke of my literary ego? This week I passed the 25,000 words mark.  That’s a lot, believe me, and I do kind of like it, whilst at times also hating it.

I’m probably about half way through the story as I understand it today, but the really fun part of writing, I have found in my extensive two-week writing career, is the way in which it develops a life of its own, and ideas just land out of the blue to get you out of a dead-end.  My over arching worry, beyond my competence, is that I will somehow encounter a blind alley in the story and not be able to write myself out of it. If all else fails I’ll just have an asteroid hit the earth, and introduce a Bruce Willis character as that seems to work in a lot of films.

Anyway, I’m off to celebrate the fact that Downtown Abbey isn’t on tonight. Small victories.

Till the next time…..