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I keep a fairly low profile these days, for example this year I have released one short film and compered twice. My showbiz heyday is a dot in life's rear view mirror, and my creative motivation never fully recovered from lockdown, and it doesn't help that the local media have done their best to ignore me. This year and last year I have been dealing with mental health issues so all enthusiasm has pretty much gone down the sink. Actually that isn't strictly true, as enthusiasm and creativity has manifested itself from a different direction altogether. During the summer just gone, following a breakdown, I have spent most of my time in the kitchen experimenting with recipes and making jam and pasta sauce, jars of the stuff! A bit of a change from the heyday when I was attending three or four gigs a week, sometimes two or three in one night, but reading books and watching television with four cats for company suits me better than I ever thought it would. I still get out of course, but little acoustic gigs and the folk scene is far more suitable these days.
To come back to the point of this essay, another change to my attitude, in particular my attitude to being a public figure, became apparent during the week leading up to today: Goose Fair.
As an unofficial ambassador for the annual event of 'Nottingham's Christmas' (yes, I invented that), I usually spend a lot of time filming the construction. Once constructed I film candid footage of the fair itself, and even eat most of my meals there, although this is my first Goose Fair as a vegetarian. That is another blog.
The truth is, this year I don't really give a shit about Goose Fair.
There are a few factors in place that have taken away my usual excitement for the fair, the main one is the ridiculous length of time it goes on for. Originally Thursday to Saturday, then Wednesday to Sunday, we are now looking at a ten day event. Goose Fair was cancelled in 2020 for the obvious reason, and cancelled again in 2021 due to Nottingham Council's greed backfiring on them. With that in mind, the extended time made sense in 2022 as the celebration to welcome back the highlight of the year, however now it has taken the shine off.
Today I made the trip in order to do the annual iconic/traditional photograph at the mushy pea stall (above) but didn't stay for long. I wasn't even sure if this was the correct Saturday as they tend to do the opening ceremony on the 'proper' Thursday, when the fair will have been on for nearly a week. I also don't know when the annual Goose Fair dinner is taking place at the Council House, so I don't know if they 'forgot' to invite me last night or this Friday coming.
All of Steve's Goose Fair videos can be found here
