The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune

12 May 2003
Victor's going round in circles.

Every three weeks I promise myself that I will leave plenty of time to write my next clown: to come up with a blazing idea, give it the attention it deserves. Every three weeks I leave it until the last minute, can find sod all to write about, and end up with something introspective to the point of self-indulgent. It's a cycle.

I go running to clear my head and knacker myself out. It's always a circuit, never A to B, never there and back. A different route every time, but forever round and round and round and...

My work: I'm doing a PhD. My schedule for the next 6 months is as follows: read primary material, read secondary material, write Chapter 1; read primary material, read secondary material, write Chapter 2; read primary material, read secondary material, write Chapter 3; read primary material, read secondary material, write Chapter 4. Can you see a pattern emerging?

If I meet someone new I am, like you, inevitably faced with a series of questions. Unlike you, I always face the same questions:

1) So, Vic, what do you do?

2) And what are you working on?

3) Right. And what do you hope to do with that?

The first two questions are simple enough - factual. The third is ore tricky: I never have a knockout answer; invariably I say something vague about the PhD being an end in itself, how I would much prefer to regret having done it than not having done it, etc., etc. Without exception the interlocutor's response is,

"So I suppose you'll be a teacher?"

So, I've decided on a career change. Yesterday I wanted to set the world on fire; today I would be content as a housewife; tomorrow I will want to be a high-flier all over again. I want a job which is intellectually demanding, involves a certain amount of performance and pays well. I flit between the business world and the diplomatic professions: like a model on schoolgirl's favourite Fashion Wheel, the outfits in my mind's eye change daily. Back (back) and forth (and forth).

My love life? Didn't I tell you about that the other week (or was I pretending to be someone else?)? The big kids are pushing me on the swing, and it's going to fast for me to get off.

Interminable cycle, repetition, to-ing and fro-ing. Shakespeare was spot on:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

If only it scanned. And this is the second time in a row that I've ended with suicide - won't my friends be worried!

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
27 October 2003. Victor writes: Our Tune
6 October 2003. Victor writes: Sucking face (in a public place)
15 September 2003. Victor writes: You got any ID?
25 August 2003. Victor writes: Blood on the Boulevard
4 August 2003. Victor writes: In (paren)theses
10 July 2003. Victor writes: Island Fling
19 June 2003. Victor writes: Back (back) and forth (and forth)
2 June 2003. Victor writes: 300 clowns, 13 eight-year olds
12 May 2003. Victor writes: The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune
21 April 2003. Victor writes: ...just sitting there quietly contemplating suicide
31 March 2003. Victor writes: Victoria
6 March 2003. Victor writes: Relevant experience
17 February 2003. Victor writes: You will eat chips and go nowhere
27 January 2003. Victor writes: A bushy fish for fishy Mr Bush (after Juvenal)
6 January 2003. Victor writes: The Accidental Voyeur
16 December 2002. Victor writes: Gripper goes bang
25 November 2002. Victor writes: Bediquette
4 November 2002. Victor writes: Where have all the spastics gone?
14 October 2002. Victor writes: An Immodest Proposal
23 September 2002. Victor writes: Fastscan masterplan
2 September 2002. Victor writes: Dry Humping Social Club
12 August 2002. Victor writes: Beat the Mongol
22 July 2002. Victor writes: What life is not
1 July 2002. Victor writes: Stupor heroes
6 June 2002. Victor writes: Dry
13 May 2002. Victor writes: Muppet Suite
18 April 2002. Victor writes: gingermingeninja
25 March 2002. Victor writes: Sodomize with Pukka Pies
28 February 2002. Victor writes: Dave's problem
4 February 2002. Victor writes: King of the Aisles
10 January 2002. Victor writes: Here come the decorator gimps.
17 December 2001. Victor writes: Make war, not supper.
22 November 2001. Victor writes: Cough
29 October 2001. Victor writes: vbarnesinstruments.com
4 October 2001. Victor writes: Green Gauges
10 September 2001. Victor writes: Blind weed
16 August 2001. Victor writes: Snout!
23 July 2001. Victor writes: You're not going to put this in a clown are you?
28 June 2001. Victor writes: What is a droll?
4 June 2001. Victor writes: Burt Pakamak
10 May 2001. Victor writes: Board to Death
12 April 2001. Victor writes: Tricolon with anaphora?
22 March 2001. Victor writes: Point of View
26 February 2001. Victor writes: Goth's Dinner
1 Feburary 2001. Victor writes: Les Miserables
4 January 2001. Victor writes: Flat-packed furniture
14 December 2000. Victor writes: Deliverance
20 November 2000. Victor writes: Bottomry: Exorcising Ghosts
26 October 2000. Victor writes: Body Art
2 October 2000. Victor writes: Disney must die
7 September 2000. Victor writes: Ice-cream in Offworld
14 August 2000. Victor writes: I like sweets that taste of medicine
26 June 2000. Victor writes: I've seen the future, and it's feathered

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

Material is (c) respective authors. For everything else, there's it@upsideclown.com.

And weeeeeee can entertain you by email too. Get fresh steaming Upsideclown in your inbox Mondays and Thursdays, and you'll never need to visit this website again. To subscribe, send the word subscribe in the body of your mail to upsideclown-request@historicalfact.com. (To unsubscribe, send the word unsubscribe instead.)