An Experiment Concluded

Hiyi there.

Almost a week ago to this day. So eight days ago. I wrote this on Twitter:

It's because I was experimenting. I had an idea. And I needed to see it through. And to see it through I had to be really drunk. So drunk I wouldn't remember seeing it through the next day. 

And that part of it worked:

Basically I had an idea for a new blog.

Blogwise; I currently host a blog for the Shetland Times, where I talk to people in Shetland about what they do, often a personal story behind the wider news picture. Here is when I spoke to Sara Pascoe because she was in Shetland and she's the best:

 

I also used to do a blog with my brother Dirk and cousin Jamie called: The Heavy Metal Buffet

Where we talked about metal music and anything and everything else, including mass. Well I mean mass as in the being of stuff, not Catholic mass. So then, we didn't talk about everything else, because I don't think we ever actually discussed Catholic mass at any point. We spoke about a lot of stuff. 

Here's an episode to hear here here:

Anyway, I had this idea of a whole new blog, one that I believe, but I never bothered to double check, doesn't already exist.

I don't know why anyone else would have ever done this. Perhaps they have, and they too heard it the next day and thought "no never." Wuhoh! Spoilers!

So, the idea for the blog, it never at any point had one title, was:

I, Marjolein, would get really drunk, very drunk, to the point where I knew I would not remember what I had done, said or read the next day. At that point I, now Drunk Marjolein, would take a book at random off my shelf. Sit down, and read lines and exerts of the book at random, pausing between to let Sober Marjolein (who would record the next day) talk back to Drunk Marjolein in the gaps she left between reading.

The idea was to have a hilarious conversations of two halves. One random lines from a book, a bit like an improv game we play with the Imposters at Shetland Comedy nights, to be honest, if I had got a friend around we could've just done that. ANYWAY. I didn't I got really drunk by myself and read bits of books. That was the plan.

I woke up the next day fully clothed in bed with all the lights on and the drunk guilts. I checked my phone. I had not sent anything untoward. I checked my laptop, it was not broken. I checked the news, lying, I never check that. Then I checked my laptop again. I had, made four different blogs of me, presumably reading four different books. I am proud to say I have memory of none.

So I made some breakfast, a big thing of coffee and sat down as Sober Marjolein to interact with my drunk self from the night before.

It. Did. Not. Work.

The first episode I spent 20 minutes explaining the concept of the podcast as well as playing the theme tune (I'd made theme tunes) twice because I'd forgotten I'd already played it.

The books were all instructive so I never actually read any conversational dialogue. Apart from when I read from H.P Lovecraft, but, as I am when I am sober, so scared off those stories, I was too afraid to read it audibly so just mumbled nonsensically for 20 minutes.

I should maybe also mentioned Drunk Marjolein thought to help the listener differentiate between the two Marjoleins she should put on an accent each time. I can't upload the Podcasts cause I can't do accents and I don't want various regions of the UK to hate me.

So to conclude the experiment:

It did not work. Do not worry. I will never do this again. Science.

And if you don't believe me, I took a 44 second clip, made it a video on Youtube, uploaded it and will share it with you here. This is from the 20 minute explanation from the first blog post. I will write a transcript below because I slur.

Remember, this is the first one, there was two more hours of drinking and recording after this, this was me at peak sober:

TRANSCRIPT:

So be-first the theme tune sets in for the first time* let me give myself-

Hiyi listeners I'm Marjolein I just wanted you to have an emotional attachment to me before you start listening cause I realised that that is important so I will make myself available to you.

I am scared of demons they freak me out all the time.
I like the idea of eating some sun-dried tomatos but I have none to eat.
Those are my ways of making myself vulnerable to you as a listener.
I'm a real person it's hard to that when I as drunk as I am.
But I am here and I had to get this drunk to make the podcast work.

* It was actually the second time.