First, a happy new year to you and thank you for supporting this Substack if you’re a subscriber or better still, a paid subscriber supporting my work.
This is the first New Year where I didn’t get a single invite to be somewhere. I supposed it reinforced where I am in my life socially, but before you feel sorry for me, I must stress, even on those 16 consecutive New Year’s Eves I was out, I never wanted to be out. It’s just my least favourite night. The only night in London where strangers talk to you and I’m really not up for that, and of course, people get trollied and some just can’t handle their drink. I’ve been on trains where one of my group has ended bathing up in a carriage back in ’99. Nights like those always make me shudder.
Last night’s fireworks were barely audible and I’m assuming it was a low-key celebration on these islands because we’re on our absolute arse. If that’s the case, then it was the right decision.
Now I’m writing this, or started writing it whilst actually in my outdoor clothes, indoors. Yeah, I know. Rarely happens. But there’s a reason for this…
2022 has been my strongest year of the last 7 or 8 years probably. It’s why I was finally able to come off my pills. Returning to stand-up, while good for me creatively, also quietly helped me to rebuild my life and make some new friends, and acquaintances that may become friends, and re-evaluate how I move forward. I’ve made a decision to only engage with people who have been there for me and anyone prone to disappearing from my life for long periods, I’ve finally cut them loose. I don’t want to be feeling like anyone’s last resort or having some catch-up meeting because they haven’t made an effort with me and now I need to hear about their life since I last saw them and bring them up to speed on mine. I will engage only with what makes me feel positive. It’s not a New Year’s Resolution, it’s simply a way of thinking I’ve come upon after making so much progress this year.
However, despite it being such a positive year, Christmas and New Year especially, was an unmitigated disaster through no fault of my own. And it call comes back to that Paypal hack four Sundays ago. The repercussions of that chased me all the way into the final day of the year and last night was one of the worst nights I’ve had in a long time.
Having seen off the attempted fraud right away, there were a difficult few days administratively where I had to order new bank cards whilst making sure the bank didn’t cancel my active cards until the new ones arrived. Of course, we all know how customer services work. It never goes smoothly. By the time I was competing in my first comedy final three days after the hack, the cards were being declined everywhere. I left the final early, spending nearly 90 minutes on the phone with one bank (the one that wrecked my New Year), having already had to deal with the other bank earlier in the day. The latter had advised me that the reason I wasn’t even being given a chip and pin option on my card in stores was because I needed to unlock my pin on one of their ATM machines, and I couldn’t do that until the following day.
I have in the ensuing three and a half weeks had so much misinformation from both banks. With one of them, who I’ve banked with since the spring of ’94, arguably my most momentous year, I was arguing from the beginning that with the Royal Mail strikes, surely it would be easier if they sent the card directly to my branch. They said it would make no difference, only for on Friday, having gone into my local branch, I was told by the manager there they would do that for me if the new bank card hadn’t arrived by next Friday. The first new card, having not arrived, was cancelled, so this is the second card we’re talking about. Meantime, that was one bank I couldn’t draw any money from and the card was no redundant.
Never mind, eh, I still had my other card. This bank had told me the current card would be active until 3rd of January, at which point, I should go into my local branch and get a temp card while they look to order a second new card for me, the first one, again, having not turned up almost 4 weeks after being ordered. Now I was in the branch several times last week and could easily have done this, but I had been told I couldn’t do it until the 3rd of Jan.
This week I fell ill. As is the way now, let me stress it’s not Covid. I’ve done the tests, Friday afternoon, yesterday and today. I’m all clear on that but I was struggling for a few days before my body demanded a day in bed yesterday. Friday morning’s 8k run probably didn’t help.
I knew though I felt so bad and with most places being closed over New Year, I needed to get out and get to the pharmacy for all the necessary drugs I would need. I just about found the strength for that and was at the Superdrug counter with pills, a cough medicine, ibuprofen, lockets and the Halls original lozenges I’m addicted to. Only for that one active bank card to be declined time and again. Even Chip and Pin wasn’t working. It was humiliating, embarrassing, call it what you like. But more so, worrying, because it meant I was going to have to deal with this illness with very little in the way of stuff to counter it. As for the fresh lemons I planned on buying to make some honey and lemon, well, that was out too.
I had a couple of friends offer to lend me money over Christmas to get me through the situation, which was appreciated, but I declined. The issue wasn’t I had no money. It was I couldn’t access my money. One big mistake, something I’ve learned from this, despite all this talk of a cashless society, I’ve learned this week I will from now on try and have some cash on me.
That bank, whose card had stopped working, were meant to call me yesterday morning, a second attempt after Friday’s no-call, only they didn’t. When my card was declined in Superdrug, I tried withdrawing money from a Co-Op (there’s very few ATMs near me), only for the card to be declined. I tried calling the bank, but their digital team had finished for the day. I messaged them on Twitter for a call back and hung around in the rain, desperate for them to reactivate the card so I could get my medicines. They didn’t. The whole thing, the last month, the way the banks have hung me out to dry, over the toughest season too, has been disgraceful. I’ve lodged one complaint with one bank and am lodging a formal complaint with the other bank when they call me today. One friend told me last week to just move on, treat it as a bad experience. I was never going to do that, less so after yesterday’s experience. I could easily have gone into my branch and got that temporary card. I didn’t, because they told me I didn’t need to until Tuesday. I’m so angry and tired.
The bank, via Twitter, expressed concern about my being ill and not having access to money and medicines, as well they should, and asked if I had anyone that could fetch these for me. The genuine answer was I didn’t, and I hadn’t considered my sibling. I didn’t even ask them this morning. They just did it. I didn’t want to put friends local to me in a position, in this pandemic age, where they might fear I had the dreaded C-word, as they dropped my meds off.
I struggled out of bed this morning, did another all-clear Covid test and messaged my sibling back who’s on the other side of the world. I told them what was going on. They asked me what I needed and within 20 minutes, these guys turned up with my medicines. The PayPal experience 4 weeks ago and the repercussions, was the dark side of the internet. This today, this is the remarkable side. Someone on the other side of the world gets medicines to me that I couldn’t even buy in person yesterday, inside 20 minutes.
I feel absolutely battered and I’m trying to hang onto the fact 2022, until this hack, was a good year for me. A quiet fightback that crept up on me. I wasn’t aware it was a fightback. I just knew I had to try and find a way to rebuild, and I’d started to re-engage with old friends in the summer of 2021. That human contact, 130+ stand-up gigs (withstanding a ferocious rodent problem in the flat) and forgetting to take my pills more often than not and realising I’d been okay without them, helped me to start moving forward again.
But from 5th December until whenever it is my bank issues are resolved, I wish that could be expunged from my memory of 2022, because 2022 was an important year for me.
I’m going to change back into my indoor-only clothes, wipe down my desk chair and desk (the arms of my outdoor hoodie have been resting on the desk) and I’m off back to bed. I feel dreadful but at least, medicines-wise, I’m in a better position than I was a couple of hours ago.
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