My name is Sam and I'm a grumpy b*stard
But I am working hard and getting better
I’m a right grumpy bastard sometimes.
I never thought I’d end up like this. Shouting at the telly. Muttering swear words under my breath. Shaking my fist at other drivers. Am I really that bloke now?
I actually asked my therapist about it this week. “Why am I so grumpy all the time? Is it an actual condition? Can I get a diagnosis and maybe some pills?”
We dug into it and I came to realise that it all stemmed from a mixture of frustration and sensitivity. And that, no, I can’t have any pills.
Age has heightened my frustration at the world around me. There was stuff I thought might have changed for the better by now. But some days it only seems to be getting worse.
All this business about the Queen. The weird behaviour and baffling attitudes it brings out in some people. The fawning, the performative sentimentality, the perverse nationalism. George Bernard Shaw said that patriotism was the belief that your country was superior to all other on the basis that you happened to have been born there. He was right about almost everything, old George.
I saw another great phrase about this ‘national mourning’ from a mate on Facebook today: he called it“the pageantry of subservience.” I grew up hoping that all that bowing down to people who were posher than us would die out in my lifetime. But look at the miles and miles of slack-jawed lickspittles waiting to pay tribute outside a big palace and tell me that civilisation is progressing in the right direction.
Sorry. See what I mean? I’m a right grumpy bastard.
In recovery, one of the key things you focus on is letting go of the stuff you can’t control. I thought I’d made good progress on that over the past seven years. But here I am getting my knickers in the twist about other people’s responses to a stranger’s death. What does it matter to me how other people think or feel or behave? It doesn’t. Or at least it shouldn’t.
Also, I am dead sensitive. I am easily bruised by other people’s words and actions. This is ironic because I have always been a loudmouth who perhaps hasn’t thought enough about how my words impact upon the feelings of others. But there you go. To be honest, everyone contradicts their beliefs with their actions once in a while. It’s not such a big deal. I’m all for normalising hypocrisy.
Anyway, when a friend, relative or associate says things that annoy or upset me, I can be fucking intolerant about it. Very occasionally, I will confront the culprit there and then - telling them how rude or offensive they’ve been, explaining the way they have made me feel, perhaps even demanding some sort of apology.
But more often I will put on a phoney show of indifference, then go away and stew on their words for days, weeks, months or years afterwards. My pride stops me from alerting them to the way I feel. So I just quietly torture myself about it. Increasingly, I shut myself off from people for long periods of time. I ignore calls and texts. I go out of my way to avoid spending time with them. I let friendships fizzle out without explanation. But because I haven’t told them how I feel, they have no idea why I have totally distanced myself. They probably end up concluding I’m just a grumpy bastard. They’d be right.
All of this bollocks just makes me unhappy. I isolate myself from social situations where I have even the slightest inkling someone might irritate me. I allow myself to get angry and frustrated about other people’s words and behaviours over which I have no control. This is weird, crazy bullshit and I need to get on top of it.
I used to present this current affairs show where a panel of guests would come on every week and discuss the big news stories with me. The guests were usually comics or journalists and their contributions would be fiery, funny and passionate. But there was one particular guest who became my hero. Whenever I asked her what she thought about that week’s topic she would look back at me straight-faced and say: “I don’t care.”
This would throw me. What did she mean? She couldn’t simply not care. The whole point of this show was for people to at least pretend to care about the subjects we were discussing. So I would press her on it.
“You must care!”
“No I don’t,” she would shoot back. Her face was always calm and confident. “I really don’t care.”
We were fucking paying her for this! It was alarming. It was unique. I absolutely loved it. In a world filled with hot air, angry invective and contrived passions, she had weaponised indifference.
I asked her back on the show again and again because I found her attitude so captivating.
Now I think of it as inspirational too. My life would be so much better if I gave less of a shit about stuff. At least the stuff that doesn’t really matter.
I just need to work harder at identifying what that stuff is, I guess.
This week’s podcast with James Brown
James Brown is an old mate and an inspiration. When I decided to get sober he was one of the role models I looked to. He showed me that stopping drinking didn’t have to be boring. James is a lot of things, but boring is not one of them.
Aside from all that, he is a brilliant editor who launched a magazine that changed my life. In its first three years, when James was at the helm, Loaded was funny, smart, inclusive and revolutionary. It made me want to be a magazine journalist, which is what I eventually became. I did a bit of writing for Loaded but it was after James had left and the glory days were over. We met through working in TV years later.
His new book, Animal House, is a brilliant, hilarious, exciting and often moving thrill-ride through his life growing up in Leeds in the seventies, working as a music journalist at the NME in the eighties and launching Loaded in the nineties. He is brilliantly honest and insightful about the difficulties he faced in his childhood, how they led to addictions later in life and why he eventually got clean.
I loved talking to him on the podcast. I think this is a particularly entertaining and instructive episode. James is the only bloke I know who talks more than me! Listen here.
More writing
If you’re hungry for more of my outpourings, here are a couple of my most recent columns for the Big Issue. I wrote about Liz Truss and the toxicity of ambition here. And then I wrote a rather more upbeat piece about the majesty and wonder of the North wales countryside here. Enjoy.
The Reset Extra
If you like The Reset and want to help support it then I’d be delighted if you considered upgrading to The Reset Extra. It costs a fiver a month. For that you get a bonus weekly podcast called Club Reset, which is sort of group discussion stuff with myself and various guests about mental health. Plus you get early access to the usual pods, extra newsletters and invites to live stream Q and A’s.
My sister won an Emmy!
Not gonna lie, this is just a straightforward boast. My younger sister, MJ, won best comedy director at this year’s Emmys, for her work on Ted Lasso. She is an absolute powerhouse who has risen to the top of a traditionally male industry and I am ludicrously proud of her. Plus her speech was really funny - you can watch it here.
Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times
https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123
@calm 0800 58 58 58
@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138
@CharitySane 0300 304 7000
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/gambling-addiction/
I had to read this through twice because it was as if I had written the whole thing. Then I realised about 80% was me. I think it’s an age thing. “ Why don’t people revolt against this nonsense “ But why didn’t I when I was younger. Excellent piece of work.
Thanks Sam this really cheered me up glad it's not just me being grumpy and unreasonable haha