Rock me sexy Jesus

Cold Wars is inching forward. My book — not a sequel to the Cold War — just my own private one. But today, sat inside writing while the sun shone for what felt like the first time in months, I had a wobble.

Was I writing something people would actually want to read?

I was working on a chapter called “A Chocolate River Runs Through It” — about how, instead of going to Yosemite, I spent two months working on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Years ago when I mixed climbing with film-set stories, some people didn’t like it. They wanted rock, not Wonka.

For me the comparison mattered. A month on a wall, a month on a film set — both intense, both absurd, both revealing. On that film I learned something that the whole book quietly hangs from. But what if readers just skip it? What if some keen nineteen-year-old climber flips past nappies and film stars thinking, “Get to the death pitches.”

I loved the mining sections in Andy Cave’s Learning to Breathe more than the climbing. I know climbing. I don’t know mining. The ordinary parts humanise the extraordinary. Write only about epic routes and you become a god. Write about trying to find a babysitter and you become a man.

I wanted Cold Wars to hold that tension. The split life. The schizo nature of it. Hardcore and domestic. Ice axes and nappies. I didn’t want another “and then I nearly died” book. I didn’t want the old “I’m on a trip but I wish I was at home” refrain either. I wanted the mirror — the contrast.

But climbers can be extremists. Some want climbing like porn: harder, higher, more gear. Alastair Lee talks about this — make a great film that stands on its own and someone says, “Not enough climbing.”

If I write only for them, it’s just another climbing book.

So is it better to risk it? Alienate a few?

Someone once told me one percent will love whatever you do and one percent will hate it. The rest are neutral. But the more you deviate, the numbers swing — thirty percent love it, thirty percent hate it, forty percent shrug.

Tonight I watched Hamlet 2 — Steve Coogan. It bombed at the cinema. Cost nine million. Made four. I picked it up from Blockbusters like it was contraband. Within minutes I was laughing. It was clunky and outrageous and funny in a way most glossy comedies aren’t. It offended people. It scared people. It vanished.

But it had teeth.

And sat there laughing I wondered if it’s better to write a Hamlet 2 — risk some hate — than produce a safe Jennifer Aniston rom-com of a climbing book.

Anyway, if you’re still here, here’s a rough chunk.

“Andy — JD’s coming,” whispered Paul, elbowing me. We were harnessed up outside the gear cupboard on set.

“Who?” I said, fighting with the walkie-talkie earpiece that would live in my head for twelve hours a day.

“Johnny Depp.”

I was surprised Paul even knew who Johnny Depp was. Most climbers can tell you every placement on a wall but not the name of the Prime Minister.

A group entered at the far end of the corridor. You could tell they were important — their jeans didn’t sag and none of them were drinking tea from chipped mugs.

“Bloody hell, he’s tiny,” said Paul.

“That’s the Oompa-Loompa,” I said.

Then Depp appeared — dressed as Willy Wonka. Black coat, top hat, cane. Smaller than I imagined. Thinner too. He walked towards us and we both tried to look busy. I started coiling a rope and whistling. A sure sign of panic.

He passed. I smiled. He smiled back. Normal enough.

“I’d give him one,” I muttered.

“He’s out of your league,” said Paul.

Maybe that’s the answer. Write the book that makes you laugh in the corridor. Write the book that risks it. The climbers who only want porn will still have plenty of that. And the rest might find something else in it.