The Questing Beast.

 It's rare I don't complain. Things annoy me. That's what, in my experience, things do. They upset, they thwart, they hamper. They get all up in your grill. It's death by a thousand cuts, the slow accretion of minor irritations consolidating into an immovable boulder I'm obliged to nudge up a hill on a daily basis.  

Half a century of this, of noticing and niggling. It's exhausting. Even good things come with a side order irritation, an undertow of vexation, a soup con of chagrin. 

Except, this weekend. This weekend I launched my book, Teeth, at The Black Box in Belfast, and it was joyous. I was interviewed by my friend Shauna, who was a natural, and we were charming and funny and insightful. I read well. I kept the effin' 'n' jeffin' to a minimum. The audience were delightful. And there were a lot of them - standing room only. I sold all my books. I didn't even mind when they started using flashbulbs while I was trying to read out funny jokes slowly. That seems to be my style. Somewhere between Neil Gaiman and Stewart Lee: whispery, sibilant, ironic, disappointed. Droll scum. 

After about the ten minute point, after I'd done my first reading (at a lectern, because THEATRE DARLING) I sat down and realised...this felt like the most natural thing in the world. Sitting there chatting to a pal on a microphone in front of a paying audience who were laughing at my jokes...how is this the first time I've ever done this? Surely I should have been doing this forever. It's fun. And crucially - after last week's testing visit to BAFTA - it's a soothing balm to my ego. It was the rarest thing in my life. A thing I could do well. I'm someone quite often defeated by door-handles and seat-belts, but here I was talking amusingly to a friendly crowd about a book I had written. It was brilliant. Finally, unalloyed joy. 

Then I saw the photos. 

Yeah. 

I mean, really, Teeth is a book about my vanity. It would be odd if I suddenly stopped being a self-regarding narcissist just because I'd bought a winning smile. 

But bloody hell. What happened to me? 

I would say this a) Shauna is a very slender, glamorous woman and I suffered by the comparison, and b) a pink spotlight, BB? Really? On a sweaty white guy? I've never looked so angry-of-Question-Time in my life. 

There's not a single photo from the entire afternoon where I look anything less than hideous. I'm a Wall's sausage pressed into a corduroy shirt and stippled with white hair. And I'm lucky to have the hair. Without out it I'd be the dead spit of Humpty Dumpty in the Kinder Surprise advert. Me unscrabbly. 

Yes, I looked terrible and I had no idea. But I refuse to let a thing like that spoil an otherwise joyous event. I'm back off the booze, and today, as Susan and I went for a walk, we discovered a David Lloyd Gym. And we went in. Outdoor swimming pool. Pilates. 

I'm joining a fucking gym. Let's sculpt this sweaty brie, hone this melting ice-cream physique. I don't want much, I just want to have a neck again. That's not greedy. Is it? 

There could be a book in it. You never know.