Rise up

Quite a strange few weeks. Covid. Prime Ministers. Ireland. Sadness. More Prime Ministers, difficult to keep up with it really. I’ve not done much cycling, just content to keep things ticking over as the nights draw in. Despite this I still managed to have a very close encounter with what I assume to be either a very stressed individual driving a white van, or someone so unaware of his surroundings that he could have killed me without even realising it.

Taylor Swift brings out a new album. It’s best listened to when you are in the woods.

I’ve listened to it a few times. Well, about fifteen I guess, and it’s a grower. I’m going to reserve judgement on it, but I think she is on the Mendip Rouleur bus from a musical perspective. I keep finding new parts of me that need a musical hole to fill, and she has certainly made herself comfortable in my psyche over the last couple of years. It’s like a Dweckian equivalent of the musical development. One for the L & D practitioners.

But other new horizons are revealing themselves.

I’m doing a stand-up comedy course right now. The big night -the showcase of the participants- is just 12 days away. I’m quite daunted by this, but I will be taking to the stage, hoping to get a few laughs. The older I get, the more I believe that most things are learnable skills. You may not be capable of becoming the best comedian in the world, but if you follow some rules, apply what you are taught, then you too can call yourself a comedian. In a good way. If you want to find out what it looks like tickets are on sale for the showcase on 12th November in Bristol, very reasonably-priced and the proceeds go to support the charitable activity of the Comedy School foundation. 

Someone asked me just yesterday what made me want to do this course. The truth is I don’t really know, but I saw it advertised and I thought, why not? I think it was in the immediate aftermath of the death of a friend, so that may have had something to do with it. But there has been an ongoing process going on for me in the last 10 years whereby the saying “life is too short” changes from being an abstract and theoretical concept, to a very real and visceral understanding. Death is coming, so I’m aiming to pack in as much as I can before he catches up with me.

(PC Note: Death has to be a man, only a man would want to take on the role)

I’ve seen U2 in concert many times over the last 40 years or so, not as many as my adorable brother, but enough to count as a dedicated fan. The two of us (me and my brother, not me and Bono) met up in Cheltenham to hear Bono talk at the literary festival, he’s promoting his new book.

But listening to him talk, (Bono not my brother) read, and play a few stripped-down songs, was a new experience. A bit surreal and underwhelming if I’m honest. But then I saw him on the TV last week, sitting next to Taylor Swift, and I thought he looked a bit discombobulated, not quite his usual certain self. Happens to everyone I guess.

His book arrived yesterday and I’m looking forward to reading it. No matter that it is over 500 pages. I wouldn’t care if it was over a thousand, his music has been the soundtrack to much of my life. And judging by the first page, there are going to be lots of things I learn about him for the first time. 

Speaking of which, I will soon be working for a living again. In the end it all turned out very well and I’m going back to what I know well and do well. I’m also looking forward to joining a team again, being on your own in a room scanning job ads and re-hashing your CV over and over again is not my personal idea of fun. The F-word that should never be used in work. Or so they say. Them. Not going to say too much yet as some internal communications need to be done. 

I’m also looking forward to my other new role as Chair of Trustees of Wesport. Look them up, a fantastic charity that does brilliant work helping people to get moving more and become more active. I’m a bit daunted by that as well tbh but everyone keeps telling me to trust my instincts and I’ll be fine. Fortunately the CEO and his team are all brilliant and really know what they are doing. Fingers crossed anyway.

We are living in interesting times, and as any student of Chinese proverbs will tell you, this is not a good thing. Old certainties no longer hold good, or so it would seem. Them again. Yet I’m not so sure. Some people are shits but most people are nice. Do the best you can and good things can happen. Or something like that.

But there’s lots of evidence of us getting through far worse than this. You have to grasp whatever life is given to you don’t you? Whilst doing your best to smite bollocks, bullshit and bat-shit crazy people who want to make the world better for themselves even if it means others suffer. I’m running with it. Well, cycling anyway.

It’s nearly 40 years since “War” was released, quickly followed by the Red Rocks concert and “Under a blood red sky”. Imagine not experiencing that at the time it happened? Imagine being from the latest generation, having loads of new ideas, but not remembering seeing Bono with a white flag? Your life would be a pale initiation of one, wouldn’t it?

Time to sing my song.