As I said in last night’s entry, I was going to find and type up the passage I had been looking for in one of my books.
The book in question is the Grumpy Old Men Handbook, written my Stuart Prebble. It’s a book I’ve read more than once and never tire of its truths and observations.
I did attempt to search last night but I was so tired I think I started hallucinating and I could’ve sworn Kate Beckinsale was fanning me with peacock feathers as I lay, flicking through the pages while dressed in a toga. I’m no longer sleepy, I’ve skimmed through the book and I have found the aforementioned passage. So without further ado, I bring you the wise words of Stuart Prebble:
“No, the problem with the World Service arises if you wake up at 3 a.m., which I not infrequently do, and turn on the radio to help you stop thinking about all the things that will inevitably make you depressed at that time of the morning. Depression comes all too easily then. So much so that I’ve now had to make it a personal life rule to remember that anything I think at three in the morning must be bo***cks, merely by virtue of the fact that it’s three in the morning.
This is a digression, but it lays the foundation for the typical day in the life of a grumpy.
The reason I know that anything I think of at three in the morning must be bo***cks is because I used to get what I always thought were my best ideas at that time. They were so good that they were certain to make me a multi-millionaire and change the world for the better. The only trouble was that I’d always forgotten them by the time dawn eventually came around. How could I have forgotten such a great idea? And if I did eventually think I’d remembered it, I’d be sure I couldn’t have got it right because the idea I remembered was nowhere near as good as the one I’d had four hours earlier. If only I could properly remember it. Are you still with me?
This was plainly such a huge loss that I resolved to put a pencil and paper beside the bed. I did this for a few weeks, secure in the knowledge that now the only problem would be how to find enough hours in the day properly to exploit all my great ideas at the same time. I’d turn the idea round in my mind for half an hour or so in the small hours, until it was so life-enhancing that the only remaining question was how to clear enough shelf space for yet another Nobel prize. Then I’d pop on the bedside light ever so briefly and scribble down a few words on a scrap of paper. This would enable me to attempt to go back to sleep, confident that the good people of the world were not going to be robbed of the fruits of my moment of inspiration.
What I quickly found was that, in the cold light of day, I’d look at the crumpled piece of paper by my bed, try hard to decipher the scrawl, and wonder what on earth I could have been thinking of. ‘Underground car parks in Venice?’ What could I have had in mind? Anyway, turns out I never have a good idea in the middle of the night that still seems to be one five hours later.
It’s chemical. Something goes wrong in the small hours with your biorhythms or whatever they are, substituting your ordinary powers of analysis for the intellectual rigour of Ronald McDonald … And therefore, I’ve now made a note to myself that anything I think in the middle of the night, good or bad, is bo***cks. It’s amazing what a relief that is. You should try it.”
If you enjoyed reading this and found yourself nodding in agreement or saying “Oh I’ve done that!” to yourself then I suggest you purchase the Grumpy Old Men Handbook. It’s nice and cheap now so you have no excuse.
Filed under: General | Tagged: book, grumpy, Grumpy Old Men, idea, ideas, Kate Beckinsale, men, Nobel prize, old, Ronald McDonald, sleep, Stuart Prebble
