My tolerance for alcohol is slowly building back up although I'm not sure this is a good thing in the long run. At gigs I tend to pace myself and only get through two or three pints before moving onto Coke, and the last time I was genuinely drunk was Hockley Hustle. Traditionally (by which I mean last week and last night), I have two bottles of Bombardier with my dinner on a Friday evening if I'm not going out, and last night I had them on top of three pints of Guinness I had drank with Crown Court colleagues after work. I did the sensible/boring thing and left them to it, according to Facebook the festivities carried on well into the night. Replete with pizza and beer I did what I do with alarming frequency these days and fell asleep on the sofa watching television, waking up in the early hours and crawling to bed.
This morning I felt a bit groggy but not in any serious trouble so I took Jack for a walk to clear my head before breakfast. I had intended to do some work in my office in the morning but aside from a bit of admin and a scribbled idea for a comedy sketch I couldn't get motivated. Mandi had volunteered to go into work for a few hours and I had arranged to meet her afterwards so I wrote today off pretty much, work wise at least.
Arriving in town I was pleased to see a familiar face in the Market Square, Ayup the Duck has returned at long last to take his place in the water feature. His visits no longer attract the excitement of his early days but it was nice to see a few people taking photographs. If only he would come at a specific time and stay for a while then I would be able to exploit it and make the money I thought I would when I registered the marketing rights all that time ago. If he is only going to turn up occasionally then I am unable to plan this properly. I haven't even updated his Twitter account for ages, mainly because you don't seem to be able to log out of one account and into another on a phone, which for someone with more than one Twitter to maintain is a nuisance.
When Ayup the Duck first appeared in Nottingham in 2009 the excitement was unbelievable as the city took him to our hearts. Celebrity status was heaped on him and the opportunities were endless. When I registered the marketing rights I was genuinely excited about how far I could take things; I had plans for a whole range of merchandise and events in his honour, this time next year we'll be millionaires, but that has all gone down the plug hole. There have been times I have considered selling the rights to someone who can invest the time and money, but at the back of my mind I know I would regret it when someone else headed up a multi-million pound tourist cash cow and built themselves a solid gold duck shaped mansion.
I fear that the bubble has burst as far as Ayup the Duck's celebrity status is concerned. At one point a few years ago he could have become an emblem of Nottingham, taking over from Robin Hood as the figurehead of this city. The council need to accept some of the blame for over chlorinating the water and allowing people to bathe in that part of the water feature and scaring Ayup off. If it hadn't been for this kind of obstacle then my life might have turned out differently. On the other hand, maybe being a millionaire would have ruined me, it would have been nice to have been given the chance to find out.
This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative can be heard here.
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May housekeeping
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