On Saturday Creative spark is helping me stay sane

PHEW! What a relief! For a moment billions of people were wondering how the giant soap opera on the other side of The Pond was going to work out. The debacle in Washington was so bizarre it had long since reached the stage when a screenplay writer would have been told: “You’ve lost the plot – no one’s ever going to believe this stuff.”

There used to be another American soap opera which always ended with the words: “Frasier has left the building.”

Well, now What’s-his-name has. Sorry, I’ve forgotten the actual monicker – either that or I never want to hear mention of it again.

Whoever he was, there really will be billions of sensible, peace-loving people around the globe who regarded the change of tenancy at the White House as nothing but unalloyed good news.

Apart from that, I’ve nothing much to report. Not something a newspaper columnist should ever say – but it’s a phrase which will be repeated in countless phone-calls and Zoom meetings everywhere nowadays.

My son regularly phones from

London where he lives and for years I’ve prided myself on being able to share something interesting about my life – not to compete with his high-powered, jet-setting existence, but just to show him there’s life in the old dog yet. It has never been difficult because, as a selfish hedonistic sort of fellow, I’ve made sure my life has been full of adventure.

Now I am forced to say: “Nothing much to report, Harry.”

If he insists, I might continue: “Last night I ruined some pizzas. And the nice old lady down the lane has been given a dog to look after, which has made her very happy. And, oh yes… Very odd! Some weird person has thrown a couple of huge hollowed-out ex-Halloween pumpkins into the wood by the garden gate where they are slowly rotting. Every time I go past, their eyes gaze out of the thicket in the most baleful of ways. Who would chuck pumpkins into a remote woodland? And why?”

Now I’ve written the sentence, I can tell you it was actually an eventfilled 24 hours compared with most days this January.

Those who have Facebook accounts will be treated to regular reminders from the platform declaring: “This is what you were doing one year ago today.”

I have recently looked at my screen askance as it tells me that 365 days ago I was in the Maldives, or Sardinia, or wherever.

So my Facebook reminders are going to be a rip-roaring laugh next year. Not! The best I can hope for is the anniversary of a visit to the “click and collect” zone at Morrison’s in Minehead.

It all puts me in mind of a memorable moment in the Simpson cartoons. A fat bloke known as The Comic Book Guy is walking down a street when a fizzing cruise-missile lands at his feet. The bearded, ponytailed, sandal-wearing nerd gazes down and, realising the bomb is about to blast him into oblivion, he experiences that apocryphal predeath process when his entire life flits past his mind’s eye.

What he sees is just one endless boring sequence of nerd-ish comic book conversations in his crummy, dull, scruffy, comic-book shop.

With an expression of extreme sadness The Comic Book Guy groans to the ticking missile: “I have wasted my life!”

I can think of no more salient a picture to describe the lot of entire populations during this pandemic. It seems to depict all of us who’ve had the good fortunate to avoid Covid – presumably those who’ve had the bug and survived it just feel lucky to be alive.

“Nothing to report here,” is my daily refrain. It must be repeated by millions around the globe.

However, I’ve got one get-out clause. A lot of other people have it too – and I feel profound sympathy for those who don’t… It is called “creativity”.

If you are creative, you can never be bored. Not even if what you are creating seems bonkers to others.

So for example, I have spent weeks writing a modern fairy-story. It’s about a couple of children who live in a village that might be Dunster during what might be the Second World War. And it’s a proper little book, more than 30,000 words long.

But it’s not actually a book, and never will be. The children’s book market is impossible to break into, so I haven’t laboured in the mad hope I’ll find a publisher. The modest dream is that some future Hesp grandchildren might get to read it.

Really, I’ve done it because writing the story made me happy. It gave me somewhere to go each day. It supplied me with a lot to think about. I enjoyed the company of the children, and fighting through a blizzard in the forest, and meeting the giant above the castle, and so on.

Crazy? Probably. Can I report it to Harry when he rings? Not really. Has it helped keep me sane? I reckon so.

I wonder how many other fairytales or similar endeavours have been written or created in recent times?

I know of one that’s just ended on the other side of The Pond.

If you are creative you can never be bored. Not even if what you are creating seems bonkers