Well, I’m shocked and not a little surprised, I really am. England have actually reached the World Cup Final. Well done ladies. The nation salutes you; now, just go on and win the damn thing.

I’m also shocked and very surprised at the abject failure of my new podcast – The Curmudgeon. Not to put too fine a point on it but it’s tanked. Well and truly tanked. Maybe I’m just not cut out for podcasting or maybe I just suck at it, either way, there’ll be no more for the foreseeable future.

But never mind, as I mentioned last week, it’ll give me more time to spend on other projects that demand my attention.

It is a little disheartening though as I feel the podcast itself is rather good and has great comedy value. Plus, each one comes in at less than 15 minutes long. I really thought I’d cracked it this time, but no. So sod it! No more podcasting from yours truly. I know when I’m not wanted.

One good thing that has come out of the two podcast series that I’ve done so far though (Blessham Hall and The Curmudgeon) is that from playing the hundred or so recordings back to myself I’ve actually started to like the sound of my own voice.

I don’t mean that in some bragging, boastful way where I like to command every conversation that I enter into, but that I actually like how it sounds, literally.

You see, for a good many years I’ve been one of those people who cannot stand to hear themselves speak. It was so bad that I wouldn’t leave people voice messages or speak to answerphones in case I happened to hear it later.

My voice has, in the past, been described as booming. Not something to proud about unless your name is Brian Blessed and it was comments such as that that kept me from speaking too much. I’ve always known my voice is incredibly deep. In fact, I even remember the day that it broke.

I was about ten years old and sitting at a table in primary school when quite literally all of a sudden I stopped being a soprano and became a bass baritone whilst talking to my chums. I recall the shock on one of my friends faces as he stared goggle eyed at me and said, ‘Alan, what’s happened to your voice?’ Yes, it was that sudden. My Mum had sent a young Aled Jones soundalike to school and got a Barry White tribute act back at the end of the day.

Of course, bang went any hopes of joining the school choir. School choirs are notorious for not having anyone who sings like Paul Robeson in them. Sorry, did I say sing? My apologies, what I meant is croak, for that is as close to singing as my voice gets having had my tonsils removed aged six.

Over the ensuing years my voice has been mocked and appreciated in equal measure. To some it is a thundering foghorn of a thing that might wake the baby of I go over a certain amount of decibels. To others it has been described as relaxing, soothing and even “chocolatey”, whatever that means.

It has turned ladies both on and off and one person even said it was “scary.”

All water under the bridge though as here I am aged fifty-seven and barring castration, I can’t see my voice getting any higher. And I’m not planning on becoming a harem guarding eunuch any time soon. But let’s just say that until I started podcasting a couple of years ago I loathed and detested the sound of my own God given voice.

Until now! Now, instead, I’ve come to appreciate it myself for what it is. I can’t change it or do anything about it really so I just try to make the best of it.

Which brings me to my main point (finally, I hear you cry), which is this…

I went to Skipton on Saturday as there was a food festival near the canal basin and the family had asked us to go along. The weather wasn’t great (to put it mildly) and I wasn’t feeling too good at all physically (to put it even milder). Still, I did manage to force my trembling legs to shuffle around one or two of the stalls like a doddering old man and tried a few freebie comestibles here and there, which were all very delicious I can assure you, the curry in particular.

We then came to a stall for the Dogs Trust charity. Naturally I was surprised that such a thing should be in a food festival outside of Pyongyang and so Ange and I zoomed in for a closer look as we already give to that worthwhile cause.

We spoke at length to a nice lady who works at Dogs Trust and after a while we agreed to increase our monthly donation being such suckers for our canine friends. Ergo we now support both puppies who need a home and much older dogs who are reaching the end of their lives and require more care. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that the lady we spoke to commented on my voice. In fact she positively enthused about it to the point where she said that I really ought to get myself some voiceover work on television or audiobooks. And the thing is, she genuinely meant it. She wasn’t feeding my ego to try and get me to sign because we’d already done that by then. No, she honestly thought I could do voice work.

That gave my, currently low, self-esteem a bit of a much-needed boost, to be honest, and it also gave me a lot of food for thought. You can see where this is going can’t you.

So now I’m looking into it and doing some serious research. And why not? Others do it. Why can’t I?

Plus, it’s got to be easier than self-publishing comedy novels that no-one wants to read.

So just think, the next time you’re at the cinema, waiting for your film to start and there’s a trailer for the next Terminator or Star Wars movie, it just might be my deep and dulcet tones that you hear narrating it.

Now there’s a thought!

And don’t worry those of you who do read my books, I’ll keep them coming.