One for me then.

It’s a game of competitive ineptitude, the aim of which is to come up with the wrongest answer to each question. In this episode, the guests joining him to try and out-wrong each other with their ideas and stories are comedians David Mitchell & Rufus Hound and presenter Victoria Coren.

In this show the panel’s worst holiday experiences, the internet and Anthea Turner all come under the ‘wrong’ spotlight – as well as the guests’ best ideas for the worst new reality TV show. Will anyone beat Rufus Hound’s pitch – the primetime reality show Blaze Of Granny?

Catch up with it on the BBC I-player. Thank you BBC, two of my favourite things on one of my favourite places.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.

And his most famous, of which there are many variations:

• I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
• Results! I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.
• We have only found 586 ways that won’t work and won’t have to be tried again. Soon, we will find one that does.
• I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.
• If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
• Failed? — why we haven’t failed, we only know the thousands of ways that won’t work.

Thanks to Fiona for the tip.

What’s next?

I don’t know what’s next! It’s kind of a joke, but we’re proudly “without business plan” in our 13th year. We’ve had a lot of things not work, and that’s OK too. If it’s a good idea and it gets you excited, try it, and if it bursts into flames, that’s going to be exciting too. People always ask, “What is your greatest failure?” I always have the same answer – We’re working on it right now, it’s gonna be awesome!

via Gruber

Kate Bornstein speaking at reunion.

Kate Bornstein is a failure as man and as a woman.

She’s in her sixties and has been talking openly about her life as a trans person.

I studied some of her performance work and writings at university in my first year. She blew my mind. Imagine a boy from the Middle of Nowhere Wiltshire trying stuff out at university, discovering who I am, what the world is and then a lecturer plonks Kate Bornstein in front of me and says “Read”.

I like where she says “do anything it takes to make your life more worth living”. I also like how she says the F word and then asks for permission to say it.

Kate talks the language of theatre which is something I’m very familiar with. One of the greatest lessons I was taught was how to die on stage and get used to it. I remember in my second year of my degree we performed in Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu. I played the King of Poland but my character was killed fairly early on. I then switched coats and played someone else who was equally dispatched. I stood right up and popped on an eye patch, reversed my coat and became someone else who was quickly killed. I died around thirty times during the one play in various ways dispatched by various methods. Once I got over the initial discomfort of feeling “Gosh, I don’t get any character development” I got into the idea of just dying and from that I began to get over my fear of things going wrong on stage.

Sure we both have very little hair & strangely shaped heads.

He was thwarted by an evil girl called Lucy. I have a sister called Lucy. You make your own pop-psychological links.

Growing up I always wanted people to think I was a bit like Schroeder, I played the piano, I wanted to think I was cool but with my big head & funny hair I was always destined to be a bit of a Charlie Brown.

Enough of the revelations about me, here’s the inspirational nonsense.

Failure Face

Charlie Brown is a real hero of mine. No matter how many times he falls over kicking the ball because Lucy moved it away; he always comes back for another go, failing time and time again. His trust and faith in other people remains unshaken even though everything around him is screaming he shouldn’t run in for another kick.

It makes me proud to say “You’re a failure Charlie Brown!”.

I wonder if the audio-video miss-sync is deliberate…