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You're Special, Like Ed On:2010-08-14 00:00:00

One of the downsides of writing these essays (apart from the actual stark-raving terror of actually sitting down in front of a blank computer to write the damn things) or to be more precise the other downside apart from the actual writing, is that I’ve somehow ended up on several mailing lists of people who want to solicit interviews with me.

Of course I don’t do interviews---I couldn’t: I can never think of anything at all to ask people when I meet them (to the absolute horror and disgust of every female with whom I’ve ever associated), so I suspect that these solicitors are in no way persons who could be considered fans of mine or even people who can be considered ever to have listened to me. EVER!
You see in my politics (in so far as I have any politics) I tend to be left-wing, maybe ...um... a bit to the right of Fidel Castro or poor old Trotsky but definitely well to the left of anything that would pass for centre over here. So of course those who would like to submit to putative interviews by me are all---down to the very last email, right-wing, extremely right-wing, indeed I’m tempted to say ‘crazy right-wing’ but I won’t in case my first premise is wrong and they really do listen to this, and are listening to me at this very moment, with a fixed glassy stare and a shot-gun on their knees.
But if I’m wrong and they do listen (thank goodness I didn’t say any of that stuff about them being crazy right-wingers) maybe they like confrontation, especially confrontation with someone who can never think of anything at all to ask people when they meet them: what they might think of as the fish-in-a-barrel, shooting approach to being interviewed.
But then, I really don’t do interviews!
And anyway: leaving the generic for the specific, one of the most persistent, crazily-right-wing would-be-by-me interviewee-provider is an organisation, or a person, or a cult or worse that mails me under the rubric of ‘Special Guests ’.
Now, apart from the mistake of contacting me in the first place, that expression ‘Special Guests’ is a big booboo!
You see, I have children, some of whom have at various times been schoolboys.  And you can’t just willy-nilly send out emails labeled ‘Special Guests’ to someone who has now or has ever had schoolboys as children. Especially not if they are essayists you can’t. Not unless you really, really want them to write about how they question, in exactly what manner those ‘Special Guests’ are ‘Special’, I mean is it like “Special Ed”?---not unless they really, really want them to frankly ask the Unforgivable Question, “Do they come to the studio in the Little School Bus”. Oh! Schoolboys can be so cruel to anyone labeled ‘Special’ and, even if you are a responsible (and even a quite left-wing) adult parent, once that awful idea has seared itself into your brain (and in spite of any attempted parental guidance of the young offending ‘Special’-sayer) it’s there for good. And when someone thrusts into the essayist’s face (well screen really) over and over again the fact that they are ‘Special Guests’ how can they hope that the poor put-upon essayist will not take the small step beyond thinking that they are merely ‘Special’ because they have extreme views, a penchant for believing anything crazy (especially about President Obama and socialist revolutions and gay marriage--though often not in the same message) without checking their facts, a fixed glassy stare and a shot-gun on their knees?
And then that the poor helpless schmuck of an essayist will be unable to exercise any free will in the matter of then writing and recording the results of that small step?
Aaargh! Resistance was useless! Resistance was useless! I’ve been assimilated by the Borg, absorbed by the Blob, dragged down by the Weight of Historical Necessity.
It’s like the Manchurian Candidate all over again, only sort of the other way round and, it’s not my fault
They made me do it.
just because they’re so ... Special!!
Cheerio for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton







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