Theatre actors say that standing in the wings on the first night of a play feels like teetering at the edge of a cliff, waiting to hurl yourself off. For the past month, I've known just what they mean. As the many recent tributes to outgoing RR guru Dorian Lynskey have pointed out, his perfectly tailored shoes are going to be incredibly hard to fill. Still, at least I've jumped now. I'll tell you next week if it feels like flying or falling.
Chris 7572 wondered in last week's goodbye blog whether I might start out with a list of my own likes and dislikes. It's hard to tell how serious he was being, and this is in no way a reprimand, but to me that would defeat everything that's enjoyable and peculiarly life-affirming about this column, the very reason I've taken it on. I've covered for a holidaying Dorian four times now, and each time have discovered a song or a singer or a band that has brought me out in goosebumps. It's thanks to RR that I now have a deep and lasting obsession with Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, and regularly find myself singing: "Mah sweeeet Annette was left standing at the al-turrrrr." DarceysDad has a lot to answer for. And I'm looking forward to being infected with more readers' individual passions over the coming months.
Even so, I'm horrifically nervous about running RR. On the one hand, I feel like I'm arriving late and sober at a party where everyone else is already at the drunken-confessions-of-love stage. On the other, I feel genuinely daunted by the responsibility of sifting through all the recommendations and choosing, if not the right, certainly the most emotionally and intellectually engaging playlist. I'm still haunted by a sense of failure with the infidelity list, and that was months ago. It doesn't help that, as you've all noticed, Dorian's columns have been particularly scintillating of late. "You'll be fine," he assured me recently, with the incisiveness that has made those columns great, "just go in with a winner of a theme." Thanks for that, Dorian, I feel much better now.
So it is that this week's theme is anxiety: selfish though it may be, I would like to commune with the similarly nerve-racked, whatever the cause of their worry may be. You'll all be relieved to hear that some things never change: here's where you can find RR archive, A-Z and Overspill blog. As always, the deadline is midday on Monday.
