My Year 2011

I'm probably the last person in the entire world to offer up a personal review of the year, but that's the thing with me, I invariably catch up with things or miss the boat on things after everyone else has pitched up and sailed out of the port.  Still, I'm going ahead with it anyway;
To be honest not a lot really happens in my life from one year to the next, and 2011 wasn't much more exciting than most...except for this;
After attending an advanced creative writing course at my local college (New College, Swindon) between September and November 2010 I was asked to join a writing group. This was made up of some of my fellow students from that course.  This turned out to have two benefits; the first was the opportunity to keep in touch with the friends I had made through the course, and the second meant having the impetus to keep on writing, with an added bonus of gaining feedback on anything I'd managed to write every fortnight.  I found this to be both challenging and exciting.  The other thing of course was that I was able to keep up and in touch with those I consider my peers. I must also mention my tutor Mr Stephen Tuffin. I look upon this man as both amazing and great (to quote Naveed in Radio 4's Fags Mags and Bags).  Without his encouragement I would probably not have continued to write. Not only is he a great teacher he is also a great storyteller.  I consider it a real pleasure to know this man, and his course provided me with some brilliant advice and some very funny Wednesday evenings.  Whilst at college someone told me about a writing competition I might have been interested in. As it turned out I was very interested when I learnt it was a sit-com writing competition.  I had been writing one for a while (still am) and decided what the hell, I'll give it a go.  The outcome wasn't positive but the experience certainly was.  On reflection I can safely say I didn't write the episode I could have.
Initially I went to college to see if I was capable of keeping my newly discovered talent for writing alive; it did and I haven't looked back since.  The other thing it provided was the knowledge that the things I wrote with a humorous bent were actually funny. It became clear that I could put funny things in my characters mouths and get away with (only words). This brings me to the biggest achievement of the year, if not my life;
After deliberating the cost incurred I decided I wanted to learn how to craft jokes, in order to enhance my funny stories.  I've always taken a sideways view of life and signing up for a Stand up comedy course meant I could share this with the immediate world around me.
I knew what I was getting myself into but didn't really understand the full magnitude of it.  In some ways I thought I'd be able to get away with learning how to craft jokes and not have to go through with the final performance part of it; however, after being on that course for the first two weeks I realised I must go through with it.  It paid off in the end as you can see from the video at the bottom of this page.  Again, it has to be said that without the support and friendship the course tutor (Sarah Archer) showed her students I don't think I'd have gone through with it.  Its funny how, when you tell people you are going to do Stand up, the responses you get; "Oh, I couldn't do it", or "I'd rather jump out of a plane".  For that reason I didn't tell anyone at work until after I'd gone through with it.  I felt I could tell the members of my writing group as I somehow thought only they would take me seriously.  You could say I didn't think my work colleagues would show the same confidence in me that the writing group would. They do say comedy is a serious business, and they're not wrong.  It is certainly harder than people think; but not as hard as being a fireman, a nurse, a police officer or a trapeze artist.
So those are my accomplishments throughout the year.  They do, of course only count for a very small part of the year.  The rest of it was made up of seeing people who have already achieved most of the things they've worked towards.  I am talking of course of the bands, comedians and other entertainers I have seen this year;
The first person I went to see perform was Mark Steel, in February at The Wyvern Theatre.  He is without doubt one of my favourite comedians, and although I hadn't seen him live before I still knew what to expect.  At the time he was touring his 'Mark Steel's in Town' show.  This had worked very well for him as a Radio 4 show, and by then it was into its second series.  Having listened to this show from the beginning I was under the (deluded) impression that this performance might have been recorded as part of the third series. But alas, no, that didn't turn out to be the case.  Poor old Swindon, we missed out again.
What we didn't miss out on though was the appearance of punk royalty at MECA.  In April one of the first bands to perform in the old bingo hall was The Buzzcocks.  In my opinion they were one of the best  punk bands from the original movement.  They played the sort of songs you didn't expect from a punk band; songs of lost love, infidelity and Fast Cars.  What more could a young man want out of a punk band? (well, apart from anarchy, and smashing the establishment, of course). Of course when I say young man I don't mean me (I was too young in 1976 and am too old now).
From May until now it seems to have been nothing but work work work.  Saying that though there were a few things happening; for instance in June I was asked by my comedy tutor to do a support slot on her next showcase event.  Unfortunately for me this did not go down as well as I'd hoped, and, as you can imagine my ego was slightly bruised.  I wasn't deterred and tried again on an open mic night.  Depending on your point of view, if my five minute showcase audience were laughing at my set you'd imagine that meant the jokes worked, why then at the following event those same jokes didn't go down in the same way, was it me or the audience?  Whatever the reason, I am yet to tread the boards once more.
Summer came and went without me doing a great deal other than attending my usual fortnightly writing group meeting.  Myself included we all felt as if we were getting a little stagnant in our approach to writing and so decided to once more entertain ourselves at the hands of Mr Stephen Tuffin.  This second attendance provided us with another opportunity to see what the great man could bring to the table this time round.  Suffice to say we were disappointed and he gave us some great tasks to do both in and out of the classroom.  I particularly enjoyed the warming up parts of the classes; these were twenty minutes of ad-hoc writing with just three words given to us to include in the story.  My personal favourite was the lesson in which Mr Tuffin gave each of us a colour chart provided by B&Q.  Again, we were asked to write a 100 word story including three colours from the chart.  This really was the most fun I'd ever had with DIY.
On November 12th my best friend Steve got married to his lovely girlfriend Kate.  The whole day went off without a hitch, and I was honoured to serve as the 2nd best man.  This may seem a little odd to most people but the reason for this was that the main best man felt he would not be able to manage presenting a Best man speech; this is where I came in.  With my background in writing I found it quite easy to create and subsequently deliver the speech.
December was probably the most uneventful month of the year, although the prospect of going to see Milton Jones live at MECA made up for it all.  The man is a one liner genius, and it was great to see him for real at last.  He manages to make pun filled jokes about almost anything, and with the venue sold out made for a hugely entertaining evening.  You can see a full review of this show elsewhere on my blog.
This leads me to the very end of the year and so to Christmas and New Year.  This was nowhere near as much fun as the rest of the year, and the only proper TV highlight had to be Charlie Brooker's News Wipe review of the year.
So what about 2012, will I do stand up in 2012?, will I go back to college once more?, we'll have to wait and see.  One thing I do know is that I'll keep writing.