Sunday 30th July 2006

Following on from yesterday’s rather preachy entry about keeping in touch with those you value, it was a nice surprise to get a call from my friend Aria this afternoon. She got married to Wade last month in her home city of Atlanta, Georgia, and I’ve not seen either of them since, despite both living happily an easy train journey away in London. We agreed I should go down and spend an evening together next week, see their new place, and catch up.

Wade has been enthusiastically reading The Power Of 10, my book that I sent out to ten of you and yet not one of you has got back to me about (is it really that indigestible and dull?), and is absolutely determined to run his business on Digital Time. This is quite a coup, needless to say he’d be the first. The whole DT thing is an unworkable joke, but it would function and thrive perfectly well in a utopia (i.e. if the whole world started again, as one, and agreed on the new system). This will never happen, and therefore the joke is upheld, but Wade exists in his own glorious utopia and so I think it could work for him. And he need only be the first, the rest will follow. Not only does Wade closely resemble Jesus, as he does on the cover of this fine book, people tend to follow his example. He is a leader of men and an ideal person to carry the DT torch on its first steps. And he will be rewarded by being my second in command when DT day comes. Which it will.

God speed, Wade. It wouldn’t be such a bad epitaph for me to go down as the person that invented a more practical and productive way of measuring time, and if there were more people in the world like Wade then my legacy would be assured. May the angels bless him and his suicidal, unworkable, unprofitable and insane devotion to the idea. This is only the beginning – give it twenty years and I’ll be living on my own secret island, controlling the entire world. And if this makes me sound like Hitler, be assured I only have the best interests of everyone on the planet at heart. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

If you did reinvent time, and there can be absolutely no doubt this is what I have done, then you could copyright it. Digital Time, © Stanley, 2006. There we go, that’s legal. Time would be a commodity and everybody wishing to use time (which everybody involuntarily has to by being born) would be buying into my franchise. Bill Gates, world leaders and global markets would all be slaves to my joke. I go cold with excitement at the thought.

So for those of you who do have copies of the book, for God’s sake think about what you hold in your hard drives. No, it’s not the poorly written work of a madman, it’s the future of the entire planet and if the bible was real and had first editions, it is the same as owning that. No, it is. It is the same. You might do yourselves a favour and read the damn thing, I’m only thinking of you and your family’s glorious future as the very first disciples. Think how proud your ancestors will be.

As the future King Of The World, it was only fitting that I should have to drive to Rotherham this evening for a gig. This is what Jesus would have done if he was a stand-up comedian living in the north of England with a financial dependency on such trips.

I, like Jesus, don’t agree with working on a Sunday but not only do I have to, it was for the same promoter that booked me for the debacle in Barlborough on Thursday and I needed to make amends. Thankfully, Anthony J Brown is an outstanding fellow, is a comedian as fine as his suits, and took my apology with an upturned eyebrow and a “What? Oh I heard it was alright. Shut up� wave of his manicured hand.

We sat in the empty and sumptuous surroundings of a new venue called The Voodoo Cellar and began to fear their wouldn’t be an audience. Comedians normally love it when no-body turns up because you still get paid without having to perform, but in this case I hoped the opposite because it’s Anthony’s venture and I’d brought my camera to film the show. It was a lovely setting, very dark with leather chairs, a good PA system, and hopefully I could put Thursday behind me and record something worthwhile for the stand-up promo DVD.

In the event, we got about thirty people in, not so bad for Rotherham on a Sunday night. They all love Jesus in Rotherham and most wouldn’t dream of coming out to hear me talk about ungodly things on their special day. The gig was fine – a knockabout forty minute set. I tried the heat wave stuff again and it’s starting to bed in.

Oh, a new bit that I’ll make a note of in case I forget it. I do quite a lot of gigs in the North and decided to address how I’m quite posh and Southern, but none the less still just like them. It was something along the lines of “There’s no difference between you and me. You might think I’m posh and Southern, but trust me, I was brought up in the same, humble and sparse way you were. I remember having to have a bath in front of the fire on a Sunday night…. Yeah, we had a lovely fireplace in our bathroom. Marble surround, gas. That pumped the heat out. My Dad loved pigeons too. As a starter.�

Good to get some quick little jokes in that aren’t routines. And make fun of Northern people. The Standard-Time following idiots.

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