Tuesday Dec 5th – the BBC1 documentary about blogging (“Imagine: www.herecomeseverybody.co.uk”) is transmitted. I’m only in it fleetingly, but the visitor statistics for the web diary quadruple.
My volume of email multiplies. Including the spam email, the swines. I get a few volleys from bored loafers, but also a number of kind emails from friends and regular readers, plus a few messages of praise from newcomers.
I pass my next door neighbour, Ms V, in the street:
“Saw you on the TV the other night. I didn’t realise you were into computers.”
At one point in the programme, Mr Yentob is shown reading this diary. It’s the entry where I talk about having already been filmed for the same programme, particularly the part where I say I’m disappointed with the lack of tie-wearing among current BBC staff.
So this entry is about me observing a programme… which observes me observing… a programme which… is observing me.
Snakes are eating their tails, cameras are filming their own playback monitors, mirrors are held up to each other. The pool loves Narcissus only because it sees its own beauty reflected in the boy’s eyes. Still, it keeps us off the streets.
Among the emails is one from a TV production company. They saw me on the programme. Would I be interested in meeting them with a view to working on new TV projects?
Well of course I am. But I’ll see what they have in mind.
If I could do ANYTHING on TV… however unlikely…
– Writing for Doctor Who. Obviously.
– Appearing in Doctor Who. “I could play all day in my green cathedral.”
– Presenting BBC4 type documentaries on JK Huysmans, Paul & Jane Bowles, Saki, HP Lovecraft, Donald Barthelme, Dennis Cooper, Hans Christian Andersen, the Arabian Nights, Quentin Crisp, Whit Stillman, Lindsay Anderson, Stephen Tennant, Tom Lehrer, ghost stories, the history of transgenderism, deviant sexuality in Greek & Roman myths, Lars Von Trier, Mary Renault… Oh, they’ve already done that last one.
I’ll have a serious think about what I might be good at – or good for. Any burning suggestions to the usual address, please.
As long as it’s not Reality TV. I’ve never been very good at Reality.
