I have been struggling to put anything into words as of late. I've had no creative juices, no sudden bursts of inspiration. It's all been dormant, laid to rest for now, before the off chance that it might rise up again from it's bed.

I haven't been doing very well. Despite the times before the year became 2023 where I was probably in the best mental health and mental space, that had almost immediately took a nosedive into a panicked state thanks to a trip where we "bumped into" (forced to visit) a person who I have avoided contact with for eight years due to personal reasons. All because someone decided to do that for reasons that I will never understand and neither did the rest of the family. Since then, old habits have returned. During the rest of January and most of February, I was scrubbing hand sanitiser into my skin to the point where my mouth tasted like it was covered in chemicals. I was incredibly depressed, not made any better by my stupid lazy self not being able to finish... anything, mainly a Doctor Who Art project which I applied for, even when I thought that the project was too much for me.

I've gone back to thinking about the moment where all the issues popped up again, and realized that it was completely unavoidable when we arrived to "meet" them. If the person who decided to wake up one morning with this goal, without telling us and simply going on about how this person was horrible to them, but still wanting to meet them forcing the rest of the family to go into fight or flight didn't do any of that, I wouldn't be covering the car doors in hand sanitiser and opening them up with my T-shirt. As soon as I had to shake this person's hand, I knew it was over. Made even worse by the fact that they were all hugged by this person, including me when we left. Even if I stayed in the car, I knew that they would go up and try anything to get me out of there. For the rest of the day, I felt sick. Being forced into a situation that I knew I would have never done made me sick. When I got home, I went into the pool fully clothed to wash off these feelings, but they stuck. They always do.

Since then, I have not been good mentally. Physically either, as I have been in pain for a long while due to my back playing up. At age 23.

I'll share one good thing. I'll just copy and paste what I said somewhere else as I felt like I put into good words there, and don't want to rewrite it:

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In late May, 2018, Network Distributing allowed the chance for people to ask questions to The Goodies. Naturally, I jumped at the chance. I mean, for someone who grew up with them, who wouldn't? They are The Goodies. THE Goodies. I immediately typed up a possible question.

I wanted to make my question fun. And it was a short window and I couldn't delay it by thinking and wondering "Oh, is that a good question? Is this a better question?", I immediately had to jump onto whatever was the first question on my mind, and the first thought was about how Mary Whitehouse liked the show. Mary Whitehouse liking your show, especially if it was a comedy, was like a bad omen, and I wanted to know more from their point of view since interviews for the show were few and far between (at the time I hadn't noticed any more, this was before the 50th anniversary).

So, the deadline was met, I submitted my question, and... nothing. I heard nothing. So, I just thought "Oh, I'll wait. It's fine. It'll be later on".

Still nothing for a long time. Eventually, I got the big BBC boxset, the most treasured item for any Goodies fan at the time. All (well, bar one episode) Goodies episodes from the BBC in one big boxset, with books and CDs if you pre-ordered it. And there was a special feature at the end, an interview with The Goodies? This might have my question in it. Maybe. Watched all of it. Still nothing, but I enjoyed watching it. It was more of the Goodies discussing the show and what they did before and after. But it got me thinking that only people who were at the actual location in the UK, where they were, could ask questions and have them answered by The Goodies. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

Eventually, I came across another interview. It was all three of them being interviewed in the Post Office Tower, the one the giant kitten, Twinkle, destroyed (and later ate). Someone asked basically the same question. None of the wording that I did for it, just the basic question and that was that. I think in my wait to see if my question was answered, I just believed that what was said there, despite not exactly what I wrote, was my question being asked to all three of them. I felt slightly disappointed, but I was just content to see my question being answered by the Goodies. So I saw that as it. That was my question, sort of. It was answered. And I was fine with it.

2020 then crashed by. Nearly two years before Network asked for questions to be answered by The Goodies, Tim Brooke-Taylor died. It was a shock to any fan. It hurt. Suddenly this person who has made me laugh since I first watched him way back in 2003 or 2005 was gone. And I never had the chance to thank him. I won't lie, I got emotional. I was in shock and it didn't take until around mid to late 2020 for it really to sink in that I had lost a childhood hero. I got emotional. During the week that I was told Tim passed away, I couldn't help but wanted to have something to remember him by. I asked to purchase an autograph from eBay, and I did. But after that, I couldn't help but feel hollow. As if I didn't earn it. As if I wasn't a "proper" fan because I never had the chance to meet him in person. No matter what, even after years, I still felt like that whenever I saw it on my wall.

4th of February, 2023. My good friend, while looking for clips on the director, Jim Franklin, from whatever Goodies thing we had sent me a timecode to An Audience With The Goodies, an extended version of the boxset special feature.

There it was.

My name (misspelt).

My question.

My wording.

My punchline.

My question was answered. My question got answered by The Goodies. THE Goodies.

I made the audience laugh.

I made them laugh.


I made The Goodies laugh.


I was tearing up. I still am now. After so long, after never having that moment of meeting Tim, after I thought it would never be answered like I had wrote it, it was answered. And people liked how I phrased my question.


This is one of the best moments in my life.


And I never even knew until now.

All I can say is thank you.

Thank you to Network Distributing for allowing me to ask a question to the Goodies, thank you to Steward Lee, thank you to Dick Fiddy for asking it to them in your marvellous voice, thank you to Tim Beddows for even making this Goodies event happen, thank you to Tim, Graeme and Bill for not only answering, but for just making me laugh throughout my life with your wonderful slapstick antics.

And especially, thank you to my good friend for showing me what I never thought would ever come true.

Now, I won't feel shallow for owning a signature from Tim because, despite me never meeting him, he answered my question and I made him laugh. And I will never forget that.

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I've seriously tried to do something with Enedia, Susan, Arnold, anything but nothing has been coming through. Ideas that barely reach the writing stage and if they do, they are immediately stopped because I don't think they are good enough.

Because of a system error, I was nearly precluded, which put a whole damper on the year already as if the meeting of the person I haven't met in eight years wasn't enough to bring me down. The amount of stress and sadness that I had to hide away from my family due to this was exhausting, since they don't actually know about the preclusion in 2022. I have lied to them because of how they view this Uni experience. I can't quit, I don't have that option, they want me to continue. The confidence I had during that meeting with the Preclusion Appeals Committee and afterwards when I had successfully made it through to this upcoming semester is gone. Bluntly, it has just gone.

I seriously don't know what to do in regards to anything.

I know that I should be looking forward to things, but I've got nothing on my mind outside of some events that I know that I'll ruin for myself by overthinking, and sweating, and looking like an idiot. I should be well prepared for Uni, but I'm getting back into old habits that I don't want to be doing.