Two of a Kind

As you may know, I do love to read. Generally, I am fond of fiction - a good old-fashioned whodunit (Can't go wrong with Dame Aggie), a grand-guignol Gothic horror (Shirley Jackson's writing has an insidious way of burying itself into your sub-conscious and lingering there to unnerve you for many dark nights ahead!) or a modern-day humorous fable (if you've never read Dan Rhodes, I urge you to do so. No writer has ever made me laugh out loud more!) – But I do love reading a bit of non-fiction too. Biographies and memoirs tend to entertain my cerebral palate. I have spent many a rainy afternoon splayed on the settee with a mug of hot tea and the condensed lives of certain idols spewing forth from the pages to my gibbering delight.

I ploughed through Stephen Fry’s first two volumes of his autobiography series; Moab is my Washpot and The Fry Chronicles, and found them both deliciously entertaining and beautifully crafted. It won't be long before the third volume, More Fool Me, hits the shelves and I am most excited about this looming tome.

One of the most appealing things about Lord Stephen of Fry is the similarities between his insecurities and those in my own fragile soul. With each turn of the page, I found something else to which I can respond "Oh cripes! Me too!"

Here I shall share some of our shared foibles, flaws and idiosyncrasies (hopefully it won't sound like a lonely hearts column):

• He's cripplingly self-critical, rants about comments on the internet and finds Thomas Hardy's novels unreadable.

• He has dabbled with celibacy*, wallows in guilt over social faux-pas and feels that he is unworthy of anyone's love.

• He enthuses about his passions unashamedly, feels that he is only 90% gay and dwells too often on his mischievous youth.

Sadly, he's also vastly smarter than I, stupendously more talented and far less problematic at a social gathering.

Therefore, he wins and I resign to venerate him with candour from my shadowy corner of inadequacy.

As I compare my life to his, I feel slightly woeful that I have not made the most of my life and, maybe, not been the person/friend/lover I could have been. I won’t deny that, much like a mirror, it has caused me to slump into a quagmire of navel-gazing, egocentric self-pity from which I criticise and admonish myself in a mental flagellation of monstrous proportions.

I begin to ask myself unanswerable questions about why it seems I have a "best before" date when it comes to some friendships; why I don't have a vulgarity percolator to stop my mouth from offending others during my over-excitable attempts at whimsy; why I was unable to remain focussed and studious during my youth nor excel at those dramatic ventures into which I channelled most of my energy; why I am so sensitive that I spend years questioning everything I have ever done or said wrong when, it appears, most others have forgotten…

Oh, the list could go on, but if I go any further, I'll be up to my nostrils in belly-button fluff! But it does make one wonder.

What this post was originally supposed to be was a simple adoration of one of the UK's greatest living National Treasures, but I couldn't help expressing the thoughts that stem from the reading of other, more successful lives. It’s nothing more than the slightly bitter and resentful green-eyed monster that lurks too close to the surface. One can see why envy is a deadly sin..

*Re: Celibacy. His was by choice. Mine is involuntarius; de facto!