91.2

This is my life expectancy. Allegedly. Do yours here Life Expectancy Calculator

My Grandpa was 96 on Friday, and a grand old Lancashire gentleman he is too. He's bearing up well. I'm the one in the wheelchair, whilst he flits about on a zimmer frame he only started using a few months ago.

I'm in a weird situation at the moment, being told how physically crap things are, yet seeing my career take off and be requested to 'do' things, talks and stuff. I went to a school on Friday to talk to 80 15 year olds (!!!) about being an artist. Of course, I was scared beforehand, but was encouraged to see a few gothic types and a few pink-headed pierced people lurking about. No dress code at this school. Lots of skater types too, but thankfully no goddamn casuals, who were the sorts I used to have wars with back in the day. It was all v-neck jumpers and gold jewellery, wet look perms and shell suits then. Shell suits are really flammable, y'know.

Not many chavs present in the audience. But do chavs go to school? My neighbour's son is a chav, and he was excluded at 14, so maybe that explains their absence - the audience were all 15. Yep, I hate chavs and I'm proud of it. Actually there's not much difference between these two sub-cultures, chavs and casuals, maybe the chavs-of-today are the spawn of the casuals-of-yesterday... hmmm, makes sense, doesn't it? They wear baseball caps today 'cos when they were little, Mum and Dad made them have wet-look perms, and the shame of it means they want to forget forever what the tops of their heads look like. Yes. That must be it.

D'y think I could be more than an artist? Maybe a little sideline in social commentary would boost the income. Before somebody blingin' shot me, that is...

Anyway, an absence of chav-types at the school made me feel more relaxed and it went very well. My theory is alternative types are more accepting of difference - never had any disablist abuse from alternatives, but have copped it from chavs on occasion. The kids even laughed at my jokes. I had been warned not to do any by a teacher friend, for fear of appearing uncool, but with this recent success I wonder if I have an alternative career choice in stand-up comedy too (one of my hobbies, me and Mr F go off to Jongleurs in Camden Lock every now and then), as well as social commentary, maybe sort of with a disablist twist?

I was wondering how to hang all this together, as this post was just a flying visit until later on in the week, but now I realise that as I am destined to live to 91, I could feasibly attempt all three careers - artist, bigoted social commentator and comedienne. I have the time. Ha!