I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this blog in a while. This may be painfully obvious to my one follower, but excuses aside I have been rather busy working and earning. Mainly so I can spend some time writing with some financial security (desperately search for a job).

Anyway, enough of that. I’m writing two things right now. The first is a sitcom that I’m about to send to producers. I’ve got a lot of faith in it, purely on the basis that others that have read it/helped me with it also have that faith. I’ve also spent some time around screenwriters at Q&A events and heard advice and stories, so I think I’m best positioned to have confidence in it. The second thing is still in my brain forming but will make up the basis of a stand-up show.

One things I’ve noticed about my comedy is that I’m much more of a narrative comic. I need time to develop an overall arc and punctuate it with smaller anecdotal quips. I find that the traditional starter five minute “spray and pray set” – as I think of it – is quite constricting. I’ve never been that kind of funny guy. So I’ve come up with an overall theme and a few anecdotes have come because of it. Although I’m yet to decide which bits are funny and which are me being a curmudgeonus shit.

Like right now for example, I’m in a hospital. Don’t worry I’m fine, just your usual run of the mill appointment. But the building I’m in has a TB clinic on the bottom floor. I find this weird knowing how contagious it is to have it at a level where the reception desk is. Especially seeming I’m on the 6th floor for my breast reduction… I mean run-of-the-mill appointment.

But I have been having this crisis that only appears when you turn 30. Which is where you realise that youth has gone. That doesn’t mean I think I’m old, but I’m now painfully aware that I’ve lost that invincible feeling you have as a younger person. When I was 22 my main worry about my health was whether Sprite and Wine Gums was the best hangover cure I could get before work on a Saturday morning (as an aside, it wasn’t a bad one). Now on the other hand my paranoia dictates my approach to this and I’m wondering if my Doctor would turn me away for a prostate exam due to my age and me realising I don’t get enough sleep.

This change is probably brought on by the maturity that comes with a furthering career, family responsibilities, financial planning and… Wait, I have none of those. Where does this come from?

TB has been easily curable since around the time of the Second World War. But it is on the rise again. Before this, it was just one of those things that was likely to happen to you so you jut got on with life and didn’t give a shit about it. Now, most people my age were inoculated so it’s not a problem at all and therefore, people don’t give a shit about it. Yet six floors below me is a clinic for a highly contagious disease and I’m sat here wondering if getting a qualified practitioner to rectally probe me is a sensible investment in life!

Somewhere between the age of 25 and now, my life must have taken a very strange turn…

FYI, it’s Movember next month and the time to grow hilarious poor facial hair. But it’s also the time to raise awareness of Prostate and Testicular Cancers and Mental Health issues in men. Especially seeming the lifestyles we all lead and the stresses of living we have without ever having a full medical unless our employment obliges us to, maybe 30 is a good time to start thinking about things.

See what I did there? Narrative.

Link: http://uk.movember.com/