Telling a Story is like Climbing a Mountain

I've just got back from a two-week holiday in Austria. One week was spent staying in a remote hut high in the Alps, with no electricity or gas (we cooked and heated water on an ancient wood stove). On a warm sunny morning, I sat outside and wrote this in my notebook:

The impulse to write something is currently strong. Breakfast has been made and eaten, and all the washing done. We have no more chores, no further plans and it's too hot and sunny to go for a hike. There's no TV or radio, and no internet, of course. And I'm not very sure what the time is. Around 11am? It doesn't matter. I've got nothing to do. I could read my book, or challenge Dani to a game of backgammon, but somehow the circumstances seem right to start writing.

Below our hut stretches the green woody valley in which sits the touristy village of Werfenweng. But it's not visible from where I'm sitting; it's hiding round the corner and just over the other side of the slope of the meadow in front of me. (Later, one or both of us will have to wander down to the shop – a round trip of at least two hours on foot – to restock on milk and teabags, and maybe eggs and cheese.) The meadow is green and grassy, peppered with cow parsley, dandelions, clover and countless other tiny white, yellow and purple flowers I can't identify. To my left is the milking shed, where the cows are brought at 6am and 5pm every day (We've already accustomed ourselves to this rhythm, and their morning arrival no longer wakes us.) Beyond the shed, but also out of sight, down the hill and behind some trees, is the Gamsblickalm. Behind me is the hut, of course, and behind that the the looming Tennengebirge mountains. Their rocky peaks, dotted with occasional patches of snow, are constantly wreathed in changing patterns of cloud and shadow. In the shifting light, they dance, steam and breathe.

There is something close to silence, but there are tractors roving about further down the valley, the chirping of crickets and buzzing of insects, the occasional bout of birdsong or clang of cowbell somewhere up the mountain; then, beneath all that, the rush of the stream that passes a few yards in front of the door of the hut, and the wind high up among the hilltop pines. And the scratching of my pen on paper.

Our hut.

I'll always put off writing. I'll always seek out excuses and distractions. But the impulse to write never goes away. It is always there. As with the sound of the wind in the distant trees, I need to shut out everything else in order to hear it. And once I have heard it, it is up to me to decide whether to respond or not.

What should I write, then? According to my most successful suppositions so far, the only things we are likely to find – when engaging in any activity, not just writing – are music, games, laughter and stories. Why? Because these are the only things we are looking for. They can usefully be referred to as cosmic elements. (The meanings of the abstract nouns can be stretched as far as necessary. I will write a defence of my metaphysical postulations some other time.) Of these four things, for reasons that may become clearer, a writer should write stories.

This restriction does not help someone like me who is determined to find excuses not to write. The sheer variety of stories to be written is likely to bamboozle me. Each one is unique; each one glimmers like a star surrounded by countless other stars in the galactic array stretched overhead. Take your eye off your chosen star or story and you will never find it again. There are always too many stories; we are lost among them; we breathe them; we drown in them; they overwhelm and smother us.

The peaks of the Tennengebirge mountains have caught the sunlight, and I have shifted position. I am sitting on the other side of the hut to gaze up at them. Twenty pale cows and a couple of calves are lying at the base of the cliffs on the other side of the stream, and Dani is sitting next to me patiently chopping a swede for tonight's stew. I am writing more slowly now, as my eyes are constantly being drawn upwards to the mountain tops, and every time I look up, they have changed their appearance. They are mesmeric.

There may be as many stories to be told as there are stars in the sky, but there are also just as many mountains to climb. Some may be mighty snow-capped summits; others, mere grassy hillocks. Each one is an invitation. Each captures the imagination, drawing your gaze and impelling your feet to follow. However, the hiker, unlike the writer, is not bewildered by the swarm of potential mountains to climb. He has no doubt which one to attempt. Nor do I. It is this one here. The one right in front of me. The one it is so hard to tear my eyes from. If you think of stories as mountains rather than as stars, the story that must be written is clear: the story which presents itself first, which captivates. All other stories melt into the background, and once we can focus on the peak, there can be no further confusion about whether it must be reached: it must.

It is time to use the mountain analogy to dispel (once and for all?) the myth of originality. You may feel the urge to kayak to some unmapped corner of planet Earth in order to discover and ascend a summit that no other human has attempted, but the sense of the achievement comes from doing the climbing, not from the mountain, whose name and location are of academic interest. It is you who have done the work in getting to the top, no one else. Therein lies the originality – it is a feat accomplished only by you. The experiences and the journey are also uniquely yours, and would be uniquely yours even if a million climbers had trodden the path ahead of you.

Here, then, is your story. Don't go looking too hard for a story to tell. Tell the story that invites you to tell it. How do you tell it?

We climb every mountain the same way, so every story is told the same way. The first thing to do is to take in the whole journey. Fix your eye on the summit of your story. That is your goal. That is the place you have to reach. Your route up may need to be changed as you go. Some improvisation is practically inevitable, but so long as you know broadly which way you are headed, so that the top is reached, your story will be successfully told.

On our first full day staying at the hut, Dani and I climbed up to the Elmaualm. It was tough going, as we had to make our way up through rain and mud. Dani pointed out that mountains are normally "scowling", "foreboding" and "intimidating". They are never "protective", "comforting" and "helpful". Almost always, the peak you are heading for lies much further up than it seemed from the base. Thanks to the steep gradient, we were presented with a series of false summits. Only when we got to the brow of the hill did we see a fresh ascent loom up in front of us. The mountain seemed to be playing tricks with us. These optical illusions were the insults added to the injury of my muscles and the shortness of my breath. I am very unfit. I felt small, vulnerable and mortal. The Elmaualm (1,513 metres above sea level) isn't even the top. From there the path bears northwards, rising steeply to the Werfenhütte (1,967 metres), the Thronleiter steps, the Edelweißhütte (2,360 metres) and the peak proper. But we were certainly pleased with our modest achievement, and our hosts at the alm were impressed that we'd come up along the steeper, more remote path, rather than snake our way up along the gravel track. They rewarded us with fresh apple juice and a bowl of soup – a hearty, meaty broth in which floated one enormous liver dumpling the size of my fist. Our coats steamed next to the tile stove and we warmed up, further aided by a small glass of apricot schnapps.

When you are writing a story, you can take the cable car. You can be at your destination in minutes. You will have all the advantages of the fine view from your story summit without the laborious back-breaking work and without, crucially, the slightest possibility of getting lost along the way. Your narrative will proceed at a steady pace, in a straight line, in an easy-to-follow manner. Yet somehow, your story won't quite feel the same. You will know you cheated. Because the accomplishment feels less, rather than more, than what was promised at the start, your story is bound to be disappointing. Sadly, but predictably, the more satisfying way of telling a story is also the more arduous.

But this does not mean that you owe it to yourself to make the telling of the story as difficult as possible. When you are climbing a mountain you don't charge up through the forest in the direction of the cliff face, intent on getting lost and drenched. You have to keep your eyes and ears open. It is best to proceed slowly, set yourself intermediate targets along the way, become aware of how each stage in your journey relates to the whole. The most useful path may be the one that appears to take you further away from your goal. When I am hiking, I can sense my attention being drawn in several directions at once. I have to pay close attention to where I am placing my feet so I don't end up tumbling arse-over-tit into a ditch. I am also distracted by the sights, sounds and smells around me: a movement in the ferns that might be a marmot, but which is probably a blackbird; a drift of tiny white flowers I'll have to look up when I get back; or the shadows of clouds scooting across the treetops. I'm also keeping an eye on my progress along this leg of the journey, making sure I am still on schedule, watching the time and the weather, and using the peak (if it is still visible, which it often is not) as a spur to keep going. Perhaps most importantly of all, I find it crucial to stop from time to time, and turn around to enjoy the view back down the valley (if it is not now shrouded in mist, which it often is) and contemplate the distance covered so far and how much still lies ahead.

It may seem inefficient, when telling a story, to halt the action and break the rhythm in order to describe the surroundings and circumstantial details, but these pauses are as important to telling a story as they are to climbing a mountain. Without them, the careful progress from one point to the next carries with it no depth or context. As with climbing, it is crucial to shift your focus constantly, to ensure that the story proceeds unstumblingly along (ditches and other obstacles must be negotiated with care – you may regret imagining they can be leaped over with ease) and that each scene or story element is enjoyed both for its own sake and for the part it plays in the whole. Did I mention you should enjoy yourself? You should, as much as possible, especially in the early stages of your story, because the final approach to the summit is going to be hard.

The mountain is difficult to climb – that's what makes it worth climbing. The story you decided to tell felt compelling precisely because you didn't know exactly how to tell it, and there were perhaps times when you doubted you would make it this far, when you were stuck, lost, or you just didn't have the energy or patience to go on. The closer you get to the top, the steeper the way becomes, yet you are drawn upwards more forcefully than at any point so far, in spite of yourself, in spite of your aches and pains. This final leg is fuelled by adrenaline and emotion.

And finally – as you reach the place that inspired you from the outset – the peak of the mountain or the peak of your story – where are you? What have you accomplished? What surrounds you? How do you feel?

You have reached a high point. From here you have set yourself above other humans. You can see a greater distance and have gained a unique perspective on the world below you, based more on the work you have put in to reach this position than on the actual position you have reached. Familiar landmarks look strange and small. God's viewpoint can be a humbling one. I would like to say that the feeling you get from reaching the peak is one of pure joy, elation or pride, but it is seldom that simple. The mountain has taken its toll on you, and if the story was worth telling than it took more out of you than you were anticipating. Perhaps you put a bit too much of yourself into it, or perhpas it made you aware of your own limitations, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Too bad – if you didn't want to feel raw from telling the story, then you should have taken the cable car. Your exhilaration at reaching this special place is likely to be mixed with anxiety and melancholy, not to mention a certain sense of isolation and loneliness, set apart from the rest of humanity. It is not surprising, then, that hikers rarely spend hours perched next to the cross or cairn, drinking in their magnificent view beneath them and the glory of their own achievement. For the mountain has one final dirty trick to pull.

Your story is still not finished. It is only half done, in fact. You cannot celebrate its completion until you have made your way back to your starting point. You must get moving again. The way back down the mountain is easier and quicker, it must be said, partly because the main doubt about the expedition – whether the peak would be reached – has now been dispelled. It is still important to be sure-footed on the descent, but familiarity with the terrain is a great a help, and obstacles, dead ends and other difficulties that you encountered on the way up can be avoided with the benefit of hindsight. The mountain is no longer as intimidating as it seemed before, but it still demands your awe and respect. You may have "conquered" its summit, but the impact it has had on you will always be far greater than you or any number of walkers can have on it.

A story, like a mountain, is a fact. It is self-evident and self-consistent. It is inescapable and compelling. It is the fact of our own mortality and frailty set against the incalculable millennia of earth, sky and rock. We tell this story in order to learn about ourselves.

Elmaualm.

The signposts to the Elmaualm assured us that the walk would take us 50 minutes. I'd assumed we were both pretty fit and fast walkers, but the journey took us more like 90. I blame the bad weather. The onward journey, over the Tanzenboden, down through the pine forests to the Mahdegg-alm (where we stopped only very briefly), before winding down along easy farm lanes back into Werfenweng – by which time the clouds had vanished and we began to enjoy hot sunshine – had taken more than six hours.

This, and the fact that the warm weather we're now enjoying is not forecast to last more than the next day or so, forces me to admit that I won't now get the opportunity to climb the Tennengebirge peaks. Not this year, anyway. They're strictly for the fittest and most well-equipped of hikers, willing to get up at the crack of dawn carrying enough provisions to keep them going for 12 hours at the very least. Alas, I can't do that. The mountains I enjoyed climbing the foothills of have defeated me. Likewise, I'm unlikely to return to London having completed a story. But I did write this.

Translating Dolphin Poetry

(An apology: another thing I promised myself I wouldn't do, even when promising you the opposite, was return to topics I've already covered. But seeing as I'm burning to write more about Fantômas, and seeing as I've been breaking promises generally lately anyway, I'm going to take this opportunity to return to the subject of the Illuminatus! trilogy. Sorry.)

At last Friday night's Improv Networking Meeting at The Miller, I took the opportunity to make a quick announcement about dolphin poetry, but the 60 seconds that were allotted to me weren't quite enough to explain my proposal fully. This may explain why it was met by frowns and smirks of incomprehension.

I was recently struck by an episode in The Eye in the Pyramid, the first part of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's gargantuan comedy conspiracy-theory headfuck. Our hero George Dorn has just been initiated into the Legion of Dynamic Discord by way of a grotesque ceremony that involves fucking a giant apple. He is aboard the nautilian submarine – the Lief Erikson – with the secret society's charismatic leader Hagbard Celine, swiftly approaching the ruins of ancient Atlantis. They are suddenly joined by Howard the Dolphin, who talks and sings to Hagbard and George through an electronic translation circuit built into the sub's control panel. Hagbard explains to George that, due to the limitations of his equipment, Delphine poetry can only be rendered as doggerel. Stuff like:

Right on, right on, a-stream against the foe

The sallying schools of the Southern seas make their course to go.

Attack, attack, with noses sound as rock

No shark or squid can shake us loose or survive our dour shock.

Dolphins are mad for epic poetry. For the past forty thousand years, they have been improvising their story in epic form, and the vast and marvellous Porpoise Corpus awaits recognition by human interpreters. "It will be," says Hagbard, "as if we'd discovered the works of a whole race of Shakespeares that had been writing for forty millennia."

Crucially, Hagbard also explains that dolphins invented psychoanalysis thousands of years ago.

"They have highly complex brains and symbol-systems. But their minds are unlike ours in very important ways. They are all in one piece, so to speak. They lack the structural differentiation of ego, superego, and id. There is no repression. They are fully aware, and accepting, of their most primitive wishes. And conscious will, rather than parent-inculcated discipline, guides their actions. There is no neurosis, no psychosis among them. Psychoanalysis for them is an imaginative poetic exercise in autobiography, rather than a healing art. There are no difficulties of the mind that require healing."

It occurs to me that a human computer composed of several minds working in synergy would be sufficient to translate the Porpoise Corpus properly. I'm keen to assemble a group of improvisers, or willing Seekers, who are prepared to undergo the process of merging their egos, superegos and ids sufficiently to form a psychic connection with dolphin thought patterns. Working as a group, we would be in a position to listen to dolphin and porpoise songs and produce a meaningful English translation.

Please contact me by email or in the comments section below if you are interested in assisting with this project. Even a small fragment of the Porpoise Corpus, successfully rendered into English, might have far-reaching implications for the future evolution of human literature and society.

The only hurdle my scheme faces is in finding compliant dolphins. There have been no dolphins in captivity in the UK since 1993, when the last female dolphins were relocated to the Continent from Flamingoland in Yorkshire. Obviously, wild dolphins are more likely to collaborate than any housed in dolphinaria, though the logistics of working with them are, on the face of it, insurmountable.

In the autumn, I will be holding an experimental trial run at a suitably damp London venue using recorded dolphin songs. Watch this space for further updates.

I Need Alps

I promised myself I wouldn't write about improvisation on this blog. This is the third consecutive Tingtinglongtingtingfala post to mention the "I" word. Never apologize. Commit to your decisions. If you're going to break your promises, use a sledge hammer.

But, following the "rule of three", it's time to move on. I need to take a break. I need a holiday. I need Alps. Am I tired? I don't feel tired. I ought to. That's the problem.

The other day I was watching an unusual improv show. Midway through, I spotted a fellow improviser in the audience – someone of unquestionable talent – exhibiting a face that was twisted into a clear sneer of disapproval.

I became distracted from the show, and found myself focussing on that ideological sneer. It depressed and outraged me. We need improvisers who are generous and humble, not superior and snobbish. Heaven knows my limited accomplishments give me reason enough to be humble.

But how wrong was I? It was I who was passing judgment, who wasn't giving the show my full attention. I'd crassly allowed the sneer to infect my face. Ego creeps up on me, even when I tell myself I'm defending a principle. It blinds and deafens me.

When the opinions of others matter too much, when it becomes too easy to categorize fellow performers, when improv theory outweighs playfulness, then it's time to escape to the Alps. I'm off in mid-July for a fortnight, to listen to windy forests and cowbells. Two weeks without improv will make me a better improviser.

Is Improvisation an Art Form?

Is improvisation an art form? I will attempt to answer this using logic. I don't know very much about logic. I'd love to be able to tell you what this is:

But I have no idea.

Hagbard Celine had this to say about logical thought: "All propositions are true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense."

When someone tells you that x is y, this is may appear to be a very straightforward assertion. But it's actually complex and ambiguous, and the conclusions we draw will always depend on a successful understanding between the speaker and the listener. We have to agree on whether a) we're being asked to change or develop our definition of x in the light of a pre-agreed concept y, or b) We all know what x is, and we are being asked to amend our definition of y.

The ambiguity of the "x is y" forms the basis of all jokes along the model of "To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people": I'm not redefining you in relation to stupid; I'm redefining stupid in relation to you.

Propositions that are tautological, irrefutably true or self-evident – such as "Virtue is good" or "Too much fruit is bad for you" – don't mean anything at all. They are too true to carry meaning. And if I say "San José is the capital of Costa Rica". This statement is only meaningful if you either don't know where San José is or if you don't know what the capital of Costa Rica is. If we already know both these things, or neither of them, the utterance becomes a worthless. A statement is only meaningful insofar as its truth is debatable or its logic ambiguous.

According to this definition, it is certainly meaningful to ask whether improvisation is an art form. We can agree either that

"Improvisation is more than just a bunch of idiots clowning about in a pub. It should be taken seriously. It can be the equivalent of high drama, great painting and literature."

or that

"Art forms encompass more than traditional highbrow entertainments. Art forms can be experimental, popular, funny, transient and daft."

depending on what you want to believe.

The meaning of these statements don't exist in their truthfulness, but in the dissonance between the x and the y terms. By taking almost any two loosely defined concepts from a pair of columns, even a machine can create propositions that crackle with ambiguity, and can be asserted as "meaningful", even "inspired". 

Column A                            Column B
Courage                is               Hope
Movement             "               Understanding
Learning                "               Progress
Motivation             "               Chaos
Experience             "               Fragility
Honesty                 "               Sacrifice
Strength                 "               Madness

In the interests of full disclosure – or lack of it – I should add that my proposition "Meaningful statements are ambiguous" is itself an assertion of the "x is y" type. Am I asking you to guess whether the target of my logical satire is "ambiguity" or "meaning"? There exists a third option: I have no idea, and I am deliberately hedging my bets in order to appear clever. This is what most people do every time they open their mouths.

The Improvised Wizard of Oz – Story versus Plot

There's a lot of fun to be had asking members of the audience up on to the stage to improvise a play with us. Of course, this has to be done with care. It works best in a chummy environment where the audience already know each other well. It often helps if we can win their trust by playing a shortform game like Pillars or Puppets in the first half, to demonstrate that we're in the business of making them look good. Volunteers with no stage experience at all tend to get more out of it, and are easier to play with, than those who think they're going to be brilliant. We choose stories that everyone is familiar with, so that no one has to worry about what happens next. A Christmas pantomime is ideal. The show is guided every step of the way by a narrator.

In the past, we have held on-stage auditions for the role of protagonist, hoping that the audience will vote for their friends to play the lead. For the most part so far, this hasn't worked: the audience plays it safe and votes for an improviser to play the main character.

At the weekend, The Inflatables did shortform games in front of a village hall crowd of about 125, and persuaded eight volunteers to join us on stage for the second half. Backstage during the interval, we played a quick warmup game of Zip Zap Boing, then went straight into improvising The Wizard of Oz. Abandoning the audition process, we reassigned the role of Dorothy on a scene-by-scene basis. She was denoted by a blue gingham apron that was quick and easy to swap between actors. The remaining volunteers played scenery, Munchkins, flying monkeys, etc.

Dorothy is almost the perfect passive protagonist. She barely does anything and hardly changes over the course of the story. She is the perfect role for someone without improvising experience. She can be pimped and prodded along and made to look good, while the seasoned improvisers take the more difficult supporting roles.

It was great, energetic fun: fantastic to see the shyest of the volunteers start to come out of their shells on stage, and heartwarming to watch them being congratulated by their friends afterwards.

Dorothy serves as a good illustration of the distinction to be drawn between "story" and "plot", two words that are commonly used interchangeably. What is Dorothy's story? If we define her story has governed by the choices she makes, it could hardly be simpler. 1. She is unhappy at home. 2. She runs away. 3. She misses her family. 4. She goes home again. The two main decisions she takes (there are a couple of subtle other ones along the way) are marked by memorable lines: "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "There's no place like home". Almost everything else that she experiences consists of people telling her what to do, explaining what's going on and reacting to her. She kills two witches, both of them by accident. She even needs to be told to make the decision to go home.

By contrast, the plot of The Wizard of Oz is remarkably complex. It involves a twister, a pair of ruby slippers, flying monkeys, an egg timer and a hot air balloon. It is colourful and arbitrary, very much like the absurd nonsense that improvised comedy often creates. We can play around with it – embellish it using audience suggestions, send it panging off in random directions, do scenes in different genres – without ruining Dorothy's story. In our version, Dorothy won over the Wizard by growing a Ferrero Rocher tree from a magic bean. What the Scarecrow lacked was not a brain, but a sex drive. The plot was different, but the story was the same. She returned to Kansas at the end.

I don't wish to imply that plot is so insignificant it can be dispensed with. We cannot simply fast-forward to the emotional heart of a story without allowing the action to unfold in a colourful and coherent way. We included enough of the plot of The Wizard of Oz for the story to be recognizable, but lots of details – most notably the Tin Man and the Lion – were omitted, only for reasons of limited time.

In summary, the story belongs to the protagonist and is fixed. The plot belongs to the story and is arbitrary. The story is "what happened". The plot is "how it happened".

Improvisers who don't engage emotionally in the characters they play can easily get bogged down in plot. Without empathy for the characters and an understanding of how the decisions they make create the story, it is necessary to fall back on clever reincorporation of material in order to create a satisfying conclusion. And while some improvisers are amazingly good at this, and have fantastic skills of listening, memory and reincorporation, most improvisers struggle to tie everything together in this way. They could make their lives easier if they focused less on the plot and more on the story.

Curiously, when you allow a character to follow the story that is laid out for them, the plot often seems to look after itself. The mountain of miscellaneous stuff that you created through free-association in the first few scenes will uncannily include exactly what you need in terms of plot to allow the story to make sense, rather than be a burden that needs somehow to be accounted for. I cannot explain this phenomenon, but it happens with practice.

I'd be lying if I claimed that our Dorothies were three-dimensional and emotionally well drawn, or that The Improvised Wizard of Oz engaged the audience in deep empathy for her. Our show was little more than an affectionate (and occasionally bawdy) romp. But I wonder . . . Would we would have created such a delightful atmosphere in that village hall – with the audience singing joyfully along with our improvised choruses – had we not been faithful to her story?

Holiday Reading

I don't read as much as you think I do. Although I usually have several books on the go, this often amounts to little more than carrying them around until I get tired. I do read for work, often quickly (or too quickly), but being paid to do it removes a chunk of the pure pleasure.

I normally have to wait until I take a holiday to get any proper reading done. But I haven't had a proper holiday in years (Edinburgh doesn't count as a holiday). I read David Bellos's biography of Georges Perec while lying on a beach in Thailand in 2009  (his account of Perec's reverse-syllable poetry gave me the idea for this), and I got through most of Finnegans Wake while relaxing in Crete the previous year. What I need for my forthcoming trip to Austria is something of similar weight.

Before you start suggesting stuff: save your breath. I always react badly to recommendations. It's an involuntary and irrational reaction, and I'm sorry. Tell me to read something, no matter how appropriate, and chances are I will never go near it. I've no shortage of books I need to read. Some of them have lurked on my shelves, gathering dust, for years. I've kept them like guilty secrets. It's about time I blasted my way through The Complete Books of Charles Fort, which so far I've only dipped into. I'm deeply ashamed to admit I've never read Moby Dick. When am I going to make a start on the Arsène Lupin novels? 2012 might be the year I finally tackle H.P. Lovecraft. Top of my must-read list is probably Michel Leiris' epic autobiography The Rules of the Game, but I own stacks of Gustave Le Rouge (untranslated) in cheap paperback editions that are also calling out to me. There are, in addition, books I feel I need to reread from time to time throughout my life in order to keep in touch with myself: Rabelais, Tristram Shandy, Life: A User's Manual, The Great Fire of London, etc. I just wish I had more time.

My Austrian reading dilemma will be resolved soon, however, since I recently heard that Daisy and Greg are finding new homes for Ken Campbell's magnificent library. They are using occultist methods to discover which books go to whom. This is completely generous and brilliant of them. And all I have had to do is to send them the postage. My own choices will have to wait for another year; it would be sheer folly of me to devote my holiday to anything other than what fate decrees. I'll let you know what turns up.

The Human Loire (Repetition)

Do you sometimes notice things about yourself? I don't mean the big things – the mighty foundations of your personality that you discover and learn to build upon, and which form the architecture of your entire adult identity. I mean the little things, the character equivalents of a mole on your leg, a rogue eyebrow hair or a patch of dry, flaky skin – things about yourself that make you think "How long has that been there?"

One thing I've recently noticed about myself is that I don't like repeating myself. "But you do that, Michael," you will say. "You repeat yourself all the time. You tell the same stories again and again, sometimes within the space of a few hours. Even within a single utterance, you will say something you think is funny, laugh at it yourself, and, if no one else laughs along with you, tell exactly the same joke again with only slightly different intonation, in a desperate (and frankly unattractive) attempt to seem witty. While I think of it, you also persistently laugh at your own jokes. Stop doing that."

It's safe to say that the things I notice about myself are generally negative – the clumsy habits, lazy ways of speaking, poor manners, shoddy attitude. As with a bathroom mirror inspection, once you start consciously looking for things to notice about yourself, it's hard to stop. You could eventually decide that the combined effect of these petty flaws is too great to tackle them one by one. For most people, it's easier to reconstruct their whole persona based on the few bad habits that make them interesting.

My deep-seated aversion to self-repetition, however poorly realised, means that I could never become a standup comedian. Not, at least, a standup comedian of the conventional variety, success at which requires tireless, patient repetition, repetition, refinement and repetition. I also doubt I could write a novel. Not, that is, a novel of the conventional variety, which involves spinning out ideas as far as they will go.

(All of this is preamble to a plug. The extent and manner of my self-promotion is yet another thing I've noticed I do badly. I veer between star-struck mortification in the presence of my heroes and a graceless, churlish pushiness with people I'm trying to impress. I do hope that this soul-baring self-awareness makes this plug appealing, though – couched in such ironic language – that's highly unlikely.)

I first performed "The Human Loire" at Marbles' short-lived talkshow format The Yak, last year. It was intended to be a one-off so-bad-it's-good-no-wait-it's-actually-bad novelty gag act. As the other guests who performed on the show (Sarah-Louise Young and Alexis Dubus) are what I would describe as genuinely talented – unlike myself, who must pretend to be talented – I thought it best to present my contribution as modestly as possible. It went down surprisingly well, and people started to ask me when I would do it again. "Never!" I barked. But then in Edinburgh, I got asked if I'd perform "The Human Loire" at the late-night Music Box cabaret in front of an audience of about 100. I relented, a little reluctantly, thinking "Edinburgh audiences deserve nothing better". This time, the audience reaction was even more rapturous. I swore that would be the last time. Finally, Steve Roe asked if I'd do it for a Christmas cabaret. It was Christmas, so I said yes.

I have started on that dangerous road of repeating myself, of finding something that (inexplicably) works, and repeating/refining it. This feels odd and wrong. On Thursday, I will perform "The Human Loire" for the very last time, assuming it goes as badly as I expect. Additionally, I will be performing my "Homage to Sir Alexander Fleming", which has also been done before.

Thursday 17th May
Chicken Cabaret
Downstairs at The Harrison
28 Harrison Street
WC1H 8JF
Doors 7.30pm £5

This is tried-and-tested material. After Thursday – I promise – I will do something new.