The contamination of pure evil is very contaminating of course. We all know that, we all know that. There isn’t a sinner amongst us who doesn’t know that. For sure there isn’t, for sure there isn’t. Absolutely there isn’t and this is a fact that we can all unreservedly agree on! Thus began my latest epic monologue, which burst triumphantly out of me one day, under the unexpected circumstances, under distinctly unpromising circumstances in fact. I was on this most celebrated of occasions both performer and audience; an indifferent performer perhaps (some might say) but also – beyond any doubt – a shockingly poor audience. This is one of those extraordinarily curious things that we so very rarely pause to consider, that in life we are both performer and audience, and that if the performance itself is less than inspirational, the actual audience itself is worse. The audience itself is a vile and unworthy rabble, completely devoid of any aesthetic appreciation whatsoever. If you saw an audience like this in the stands you would simply walk away in disgust. Not only are they undeserving and unworthy of your talents, such as they are, (and we have to admit that they’re rather modest) they smell. ‘Not only am I unable to do the thing’, I declare grandly to no one in particular, ‘but I don’t want to either’. Having thus registered my displeasure, I continued on my way, fully vindicated with regard to whatever the issue in this case had been, which is a detail that eludes me at the moment. As I walked I sang a little ditty, which made no sense but which amused me nonetheless: ‘I had a little homunculus’, I sang gaily, ‘I kept him in a jar / I didn’t like him very much   / but that’s just the way things are’. We’re all putting on the show, whether we’re prepared to admit it or not. Even the most introverted and unassuming of us is putting on a show – we are putting on a show of being introverted and unassuming. Furthermore, every show needs an audience and whilst some of us might possibly have what it takes to temporarily hold the attention of a wider audience, in the end it all comes down to putting a show on for oneself (unappreciative or bored as we might so often be). That’s what life comes down to, when all the trappings have been stripped away. Hence the popular motif of the sad clown who, whilst he might be able to entertain others for a while, always has to return at the end of the day to the sterile misery of his own humourless company. It’s no wonder this is such a beloved motif – it speaks to us all, every last one of us. We go out into the world and we put on a show, whatever type of show it might be, whatever type of show it is we are prone to putting on, and possibly we might even believe it ourselves, and then the next thing is that we’re back on our lonesome and the show is suddenly all over and all that’s left is ourselves. This is the ‘horror of horrors’ of course, but all we can do is suck it up as best we can. There is simply no other option…