I hooked up an old HD to my computer yesterday, and found the most recent backup of the site, made just before I took the site off line in 2000. Among the files were two original pieces I wrote. They are a review and an interview, both of which I’d like to share with you again, starting with the review.

I’ve also put part of the site back online, not originally created by me, but given to me to host. It gives me great pleasure to present: Pantscat!, an early Izzard creation.

The review follows after the break. I haven’t followed Izzard’s career the past five years. I stopped ‘believing’ and thought he was a bit too calculating, too eager in the quest for fame. Not a lot of soul. Then I just lost interest. But this was written at the height of my comparatively brief obsession with the man who said ‘Jam!’

Eddie Izzard – Unrepeatable
Nieuwe De La Mar, Amsterdam
April 19th 1995

A whirlwind affair, this. First time I saw Mr Izzard was on tv and I was wondering who the hell he was. I thought I knew most British comedians. Wrong. I knew all the British comedians who show their face on tv: the Elton’s , the Connoly’s, the Enfield’s… And Mr Izzard has devised a cunning plan for himself – not to appear on television other than to proclaim his show will never go on television. Calculating man. I think it was ‘Have I got news for you’. He irritated me, which is always a good sign. I’d rather have someone bug me than that I’m left completely indifferent. But there was immediate respect as well.

He may have been wearing make-up, or there was somet hing else that made him stand out and you got have guts to dare to be different on television. Then I read an interview with him in Attitude. Interesting article. Made me want to see him. Which I figured would never happen, with me in Holland, he in the U K. The article gave me some idea of who this bloke was. So he’s tv. Okay cool. Gotta thing about men in dresses. Like it.

Come April ’95, friend sends me video of Eddie’s show for my birthday. And this is where it gets weird. I stick the video in the VCR, walk to the kitchen for a bite to eat, flip open the papers and hey presto: an ad. Eddie’s playing Amsterdam on my birthd ay. How many British comedians ever play Holland? Uh… not a whole lot? So I get the tickets.

On the night, the first thing that strikes me is the pearly shine coming from his fingernails. Nice touch. TV in the broadest sense. Eddie mixes it up. The way people should – if they had any sense. Then the shoes, hah – he has taste – black lacquer jobs, like mine on the night. Only mine are more masculine, his have heels the size of London bridge. Makes him in command of things, coming on like a peacock. Scarlet suit, no shirt, rather funky. Bright red lips, too. Brings a smile to my face.

My male friend fixates on the – he says – curious arrangement in Mr Izzard’s pants. He can’t figure it out. He asks me. Well, how would I know about wobbly dangly bits? ‘He has two,’ I whisper in his ear. We come to an agreement. Meanwhile, Eddie makes us laugh. And I’d like to tell you how, but I don’t remember what it was he said. Unrepeatable, you see.

There were thimbles, clarinets, singes sur des arbres, dickhead men and lots of times when he seemed – but then that could be totally planned – to lose his way in his own fantasy world: – sudden silence, ‘I’ve forgotten who I am now …’ and on again, down some unexpected alley. His jokes are the ones we all make. Not terribly clever, no pearls of wisdom, but the silly, childish pranks you play among friends, when you share a particular framework and are close enough to act like a kid again. Others might not understand.

Eddie’s talent is that he can make you part of his framework within a couple of minutes. You just let go and ride upon the cliches made funny again and the everyday silliness of life that Eddie dishes out. And somewhere, reading between the laughs, I sensed a vulnerability. Kids can be cruel. Adults even more cruel, cause they should have more sense by then. And aren’t fantasy worlds created as places you can hide in? Eddie’s the crazy kid down the road that makes people laugh.

It was more than just a bucket of laughs. It was like putting on a record that makes you feel all right, or getting out that book that tells your story. So we left feeling groovy – the ultimate Izzard word – not just for having laughed, but for having recognised. We wandered off, my friend and I, for a late meal. Talking about how we felt about the night, feeling closer for having had the same thoughts and experience. And if videos and newspaper ads isn’t enough for coincidences, Eddie walks into our restaurant.

‘You picked the right place to eat,’ I tell him and – totally uncool – ask him to sign my programme. I haven’t got a pen, and it isn’t for myself. All the wrong words. Eddie’s cooler than me, probably quite used to this kind of BS. I send the programme off to the friend who sent the video, which leaves him gasping and me pining for a souvenir.

‘Come back,’ I told Eddie. He would.

(update: It’s taken me a month to get it together.)

1. Briefly describe an aspect of your life for which ‘The Dying Of Delight’ would be an apt title.

Delightful aspects have been sadly missing from my life. No dying, no death, not even little ones. Not a whole lot gives me pleasure at the moment. Even my appetite is lacking, so the pleasure of food has diminished somewhat. I blame the diabetes. It’s good to have something to blame.

2. Pick another book whose title has some resonance in your life, and write a little about it.

I could pick ‘The Light and Dark‘, but that would be too self-centered, even for me.

Looking at the books on my shelves, nothing really resonates until I hit Brendan Kennelly’s epic ‘Poetry my arse‘.

But I don’t want to make things too easy for anyone who picks up this meme from me, so I’ll choose MeFite John Bennett’s ‘Sea Otters gambolling in the wild, wild surf, which is the type of book you’d tell anyone they ‘must read’, because it’s dead funny and it might give them a few hours of that elusive thing, delight’.

Whatever.

I hear the Dutch title of this book will be ‘Dartelende zeeotters in de wilde, wilde, branding’, and it will be out in September this year. That’s for the benefit of any Dutch readers I might have.

3. Write one more short personal piece – one which matches the book title chosen (in part 2) by the person who tagged you.

So that would be ‘Saturday Night & Sunday Morning’.

That title means nothing to me. They’re just days. Parts of the weekend. Only slightly different from weekdays for the fact that I usually do not have to work. But sometimes I do.

I’m sure couples have their weekend rituals and younger folk are all about the Saturday Night out, and the Sunday Morning hangover. I’m too old for that now and every day is like Sunday.

4. Take your favourite little-known book and plug it to your readers. Authors need incomes, and word of mouth is one of the best ways to sell books.

John Banville may have won the Booker Prize for ‘The Sea’, but he isn’t particularly well known here in the Netherlands. ‘The Untouchable‘ is quite possibly my favourite book in the whole wide world. can’t say that everybody should read it, it’s not that type of book. If you identify with aging men (and for some reason I do), it may appeal. ‘The Untouchable’ is based on the life of Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge spies, and it deals with betrayal. Of country, of marriage, of friendship, of self.

5. Sit back and marvel at the magnificence of this meme. It was brought to you by an out-of-breath author, reduced (on account of her publisher* having expired) to trundling copies of her book across the internet on a rusty old trolley with one wheel missing, sweating and shouting “Buy me book, Gov?” Now visit www.TheDyingOfDelight.co.uk and see if you’d like a copy for yourself. I

There is something about this viral/meme that makes me uncomfortable and that’s probably why it took so long for me to finish the questionnaire. This last bit, #5, just annoys me a little. With apologies to the original author. I have no idea who you are. Please forgive me for not having the energy to find out. If I knew you, I might like the meme better, but perhaps this is one that doesn’t work beyond a blog’s regular readers. Or maybe it does and I’m just being my usual misanthropist self. Anyway, thanks for dropping by earlier.

6. Tag five people with this meme.

Nah. But anyone who reads me who hasn’t already done this, please, meme on.

I have been at home and in bed with a really bad cold for the past few days, so reading MeFi and watching West Wing episodes is about all I’ve been up to. The worst thing about colds is not being able to taste food, taking the pleasure out of surely the greatest pleasure.

Winter is not my favourite season.