I’m writing to you about the Once More Unto The Fridge project to which you very kindly made a pledge recently.
Unfortunately things haven’t worked out how I hoped. I had to return home during my first week in Ireland as a result of a family illness. The good news is that all is much better for that family member and the prognosis is good. The less good news is that upon my return to England I had a lot of time to reflect about what had been happening to me in Ireland and I began to conclude that - fun and positive though it had all been – I was not going to be able to create something that was distinct enough in flavour from the original book.
Ireland – good old Ireland – was greeting me and my fridge with the same enthusiasm as twenty years previously and whilst this was obviously a lovely thing to happen, it did mean that many of the experiences that I was undergoing were mightily similar in flavour to those in Round Ireland With A Fridge. What was lacking, however, was my sense of wonder – and excitement. It didn’t feel sufficiently ‘new’ to me to fire my imagination and generate the enthusiasm that is required to sustain an author through the long haul of writing a book.
So, I’m sorry. I’m disappointed that things didn’t work out differently, but I’m sure this decision is right. I’ve learnt to listen to my intuition and follow my heart – and that’s what it’s telling me right now. I hope you understand.
The slightly better news is that I have a new book idea to replace it. Hopefully, you will want to stay on board and unless you let Unbound know otherwise, they will switch your pledge to the new book. I’d already been talking to Unbound about this idea before my trip to Ireland, so all we’re doing is bringing forward a book that would have happened anyway. It’s a very different book, but one that we know will raise a lot of laughs… And if you don’t want to switch, of course, we will refund your pledge in full.
I should also add that all my profits for this new book will be donated to my charity - The Tony Hawks Centre - which offers free health care to chronically ill children in Moldova.
More details will follow shortly on the Unbound site, but in essence, here’s what the book is:
THE A-Z OF SKATEBOARDING By Tony Hawks
For more than twenty years I have been mistaken for Tony Hawk the American skateboarder. Unfortunately for me Tony Hawk chose to name all is his skateboarding computer games after him, so they were called things like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The reason why this is unfortunate is because it seems that young American skateboarders have failed to grasp the concept of an apostrophe (much in the same way that English footballers struggle with the concept of an adverb) and even though it is abundantly clear on my web-site that I am an English comedian and author, they still write to me asking me questions like ‘How do you do a 900’ or ‘an Ollie’?
A while back I grew tired of this, and one mischievous day I decided to starting writing back to these skateboarding enthusiasts. And I began to enjoy it. I began to publish the best of these replies on my web-site and I soon had people writing to me telling me how these mails had them crying with laughter. I now have hundreds of emails to which I have replied, employing a pompous, serious tone, goading my correspondents for their spelling mistakes and poor grammar, whilst offering bogus or downright silly advice on how to improve their skateboarding. These ‘skatemails’ would appear alongside an equally silly and disrespectful A-Z guide to the world of skateboarding, as seen through the eyes of someone who knows absolutely nothing about it.
I see this as being a great ‘gift’ book – or one that can sit on the shelf in the loo and provide the kind of unbridled laughter that could greatly assist the constipated. There – that’s my gift to society. It would also make a wonderful Christmas present to any parent who has a child who is a mad keen skateboarder…
So there you have it – that’s where we are. I just wanted to let you know what was happening, as some of you may have started to wonder why there were no tweets trickling out of Ireland... So if you want to stay on board your pledge will be carried over to the new book and if you'd rather jump ship, simply reply by return email and Unbound can refund you.
Thanks for your time, and I’ll be in touch soon.
Tony