Has Beens And Cheese Balls

Past My Best

As is natural for any writer I sometimes wonder about the impact of this blog. No, column. I'm going to call it a column and you can go ahead and call me pretentious.

Anyway I don't mean it's impact internationally. I don't expect it to become a regular feature in a national broadsheet leading to two best-selling novels (a la Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones), but I remain hopeful that those who know me might enjoy it from time to time.

It is with this in mind then that I found something a friend said to me at the weekend quite disturbing. Admittedly he is my friend and therefore biased, and he had been drinking Guinness for four hours previous to our conversation, but the thrust of his message was that he enjoys my work immensely. All of which was a very welcome boost until it transpired that he hasn't even seen this blo.........er column, and was in fact referring to a series of diaries I wrote when I was a teenager.

So, if you don't think much of what you are reading now, you can rest assured that I was a good writer 20 years ago. In the opinion of one of my closest, lifelong friends. The question of why any teenager would allow even (especially?) his closest friends to read his diary is something else entirely, and something which even the world's greatest psycho-analysts may never figure out.

Cheese Balls

It was a depressing Monday morning. The reasons for this are a blog (damn it!) of their own, and one which will not be published until the situation reaches it's denouement. Despite the gloom I happened to strike up a cheery, polite conversation with a young girl who works at the other end of our office. I couldn't even tell you what she does, or even what department she works in. All I know is that she is friendly and polite.

Now this conversation is relevant only because my colleagues take every opportunity to find humour in my antics. Not in a nasty way, you understand, but you have to have something to get you through the day. Especially in the current climate. All of which led one colleague to refer to me during the ensuing discussion about my perceived intentions as a 'Cheese Ball'.

'What does that mean?' I asked.

'It means you are cheesy' she answered unsatisfactorily.

I laughed, despite having never really grasped the concept of what 'cheesy' actually means in this context. Perhaps that fact proves my colleague's point, and that cheesiness is something which can only be truly achieved by those who don't know they are doing it. Or perhaps I really was chatting her up and am therefore morally reprehensible, and due to be shot at dawn.

Whatever gets you through the day, but I maintain my innocence.