When I was three years old, I kicked a dog named Squeaky (by all accounts, Squeaky was a bad dog, but I can’t remember if this was my motivation). When I was seven, I broke my arm on the day of my brother’s birth  (to this day, he feels this was a bit much). When I was twelve, my army man father took me on a father-son camping trip that turned out to be a paramilitary sting operation because my father is basically Bruce Willis. When I was nineteen, I jumped out of a plane for no good reason but at least I did it with more dignity than the guy before me, who clung screaming from the wing for a while. When I was twenty, I ran involuntarily naked through the streets during a squalid summer of mild substance abuse in Bremen. When I was in my twenties, I avoided getting a proper job and went on the road with a band. When I was in my thirties, I got a job that involved walking up to the most interesting strangers I could find to ask them nosy questions. When I was in my forties, I wrote a book called OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea. This is possibly (time will tell) just the most recent stupid idea from a lifetime of the stupid ideas that I investigate in that same book. I had set out to write a funny book – and I hope it does make you laugh - but as I wrote I also found myself thinking deeply about things that worried and interested me, because writing is a type of thinking. I wrote about mental health, family, care work, not having kids, singing, driving and bereavement. I feel that writing this book has made me feel marginally less confused and I hope that reading it gives you the same feeling.  

 ---

Patrick’s book ‘OK, let's do your stupid idea’ is published now, and is available to buy here: