All Roads Lead to Frome

Double Double Warming Ups

8165/21085

On the way to school the kids and me riffed on funny superhero ideas. It's a much explored comedy area and we were unlikely to push back any boundaries, but there's loads of comedy that is fun to do with friends and family that I wouldn't consider putting on stage or even putting in a blog (how rude would that be, especially now a handful of people are paying up to 14p a day on it). The times I have laughed most have been sitting in a pub with friends remembering some old advert or TV show. I'd never be cheeky enough to go on stage and do that stuff as my act, even if 10,000 people came and it made me a multi-millionaire. Wait, what? No, I take it back. Please let me do that, rather than playing myself at snooker and talking about cancer, which no one is interested in.

Having high comedy principles has cost me much and what has it given me?

Nothing at all. What a pathetic thing to have principles over.

Ah well, I've made my bed.

I came up with Spider-man-man (yes I bet I'm not the first) a man who was bitten by a radioactive Spider-man and now has all the powers of a Spider-man. He is in every degree the same as Spider-man, but, and here is the genius part, the creators of Spider-man can't touch me, because it's a totally different idea. Their Spider-man was bitten by a radioactive spider and got some attributes of being a spider (mainly web-making) and some other stuff that spiders don't have (spidey-sense -those fuckers have no sense at all, otherwise they wouldn't be eating flies) and then there's loads of things that spiders do that Spider-man doesn't eg trapping and eating flies, which is pretty much all the senseless spiders get up to.

Spider-man-man would have ALL the powers of Spider-man and no extra ones. Which makes more sense. And he could do the same adventures and the people who own Spider-man (can't be bothered to look it up) couldn't do a thing. Also he'd have a Spider-man on his chest, not a spider. So again, different. I'd consider a crossover where Spider-man-man then tries to muscle in on Spider-man's life and tries to date his girlfriend and do his daytime job and generally try to take over everything. There could be some good fights between Spider-man and Spider-man-man. They'd be well-matched. You might think that's the same as Spider-man sometimes fighting another Spider-man, but it isn't, because Spider-man is fighting Spider-man-man.

I also came up with Man-man (again must have been done a million times) - a man bitten by a radioactive man who can do all the things that a man can do "Can he get on a bus? Go to work and eat his lunch? Yes, it's Man-man".

Phoebe came up with a spider that was bitten by a radioactive man, to make Man-Spider (as if no-one has thought of that, the hack). Ernie came up with a hot dog that had been eaten by a radioactive robot. And to be fair Robot Hot Dog is actually probably original and not even David Walliams or a member of McFly could have thought of that. Actually a fly bitten by a radioactive Scottish man is pretty good too. Or David Walliams being bitten by a radioactive crocodile.

Sometimes just being stupid and not trying to come up with something new can actually lead you to some funny places. And riffing with my kids is one of the greatest joys of my life. Almost like doing comedy for anyone other than your friends and your family is the weird and morally questionable way to go. Imagine having comedy principles and that not being one of them.

RHLSTP Book Club with George Monbiot, fresh from the field (recorded Wednesday) is now up where you get your pods

The book is well worth your time

8166/21086

Under the weather today, though I had to look after the kids solo this afternoon. I only fell asleep once and they survived, so it won't even make the news. Aha, take that the police. Now I'm just naming bands.

When Catie got home I had a bath in the hope it would make me feel better. I really just needed to sleep. I got out of the warm bath and did a wee (because I am too classy to do it in the bath). Part way through my micturition I looked into the bowl and there was a splash of blood. Then I looked at my leg and there was a splash of blood on that too. Where was this blood coming from? It was difficult not to leap to the conclusion that it had come from my nether regions. Obviously having been through what I've been through that was a bit concerning. But I couldn't see any blood down there and the blood wasn't coming out of my nose. Blood is rarely good especially when it's your own.

I was in a bit of a flap and checking myself for holes when I realised the blood was coming not from my little thingy but from my little finger. I'd accidentally sliced it two mornings ago when peeling an apple for my son. It had been a nasty little nip, where I'd peeled a flap of finger skin, letting me see the process from the apple's perspective. It hurt quite a bit and bled for a while, but I'd had it wrapped up in a Peppa Pig plaster and I thought it had healed. But the warm bath water had opened it back up again and made me bleed my own blood. As with the last couple of cuts the blood didn't come for a couple of minutes, like it hoped that if it dragged its feet it might get away with not having to do its job. But once it realised the boss was watching it did a good day's work.

So it was a relief to not be bleeding from my Herring's Eye or from my actual eye or from some unknown hole, but a horrible 10 seconds of thinking my life might be over. I'd been reading a book about TB and so aware of the bad news that spots of blood can bring but generally speaking I like to keep my own blood on the inside. I'm happy to ejaculate some fluids from my body, though ejaculate is a bit of a strong word for any of that now. I am lucky if any bodily liquid does anything more than fall out or wherever it's supposed to come from. Getting old sucks... your fluids back into you so it's tricky for them to get out with any element of surprise.

I went to actual bed before the kids today and slept for eleven hours. This bug has taken it out of me, but I was already on the ropes. Thank God we have a holiday coming up. Oh no, wait, a holiday as a parent is much more work than actual work. Goddammit.

8167/21087

We're doing Center Parcs again, though I am not sure why. It's fun, but only in the way that nightmares are fun, usually when you wake up and realise they're over and didn't really happen. Also it's a nightmare where you have to pay a huge amount of money up front but are then still charged for everything that happens to you, even if it's just using a hair dryer.

Anyway, so we could get every single possible second of the living Hell we travelled nearly all the way there today so we can be first through the gates of Hades tomorrow. I was feeling better after eleven hours of sleep, but not completely back to full health and was weary after two hours of driving, so Catie took over. Just, as we hit difficult traffic.

After five hours we found ourselves in Frome. Which is lucky as that's where our hotel was. My satnav has broken down (this time not my fault) and is currently in Romania being fixed. I didn't think it mattered as everyone knows that all roads read to Frome (that's this year's proper joke, so please enjoy it), but that turned out not to be true (also not true of Rome btw). We had to use a combination of phones and the shitty sat nav that comes with the VW Sharan (which is about as good as guessing which turn you need to take). Plus it was market day in Frome so it was a somewhat fractious misadventure getting to the centre of town, but we saw quite a bit of Frome on the way.

We had the family room in our hotel which was two singles and a double bed crammed into a somewhat dilapidated space, up three flights of stairs in a pub, right above the kitchen so it smelled of Sunday roasts. But it was a fun adventure and the kids leapt from bed to bed and played games to win the complimentary biscuits.

They are at a really great age now where we're spending more time laughing than crying (at least whilst they're still awake) and they've come up with an impro game where they lift their foot to their ear (oh to be that limber) and pretend they're making a phone call, which we then have to answer. At dinner Ernie rang me up wanting to sell his uneaten (and rather dry and wrinkly) peas to me for a pound a pea. I said that was too much and he suggested 50p a pea, but I not unreasonably said the most I'd pay him foe one pea was 1p. He managed to talk me up to 5p for a pea so I took one of his peas and then counted out five of his peas and handed them back to him. He was absolutely peeing himself over this bit of business. Phoebe did some similar silliness with her mum and laughed as hard as I've ever seen her laughing. These kids aren't pushovers when it comes to comedy (all right, maybe Ernie a bit, the pea/p/pee dynamic has been well-explored before) so it's so joyous to see them totally lose it. Usually we're a bit too conscious of other people in a public space, but this felt enclosed enough and not too loud. But who cares if anyone judged us. This is the golden time.

My mild lurgy meant I was wiped out again by bed time, but the enclosed space with no escape also meant that my snoring was a problem for everyone else. Ernie slept through, but the others were not so lucky. Being in a family is a see-saw of joy and sorrow.

8168/21088

If you'd told me in 2012 that my 13th wedding anniversary dinner would be brought to me by a cat robot I would have said "Wow, we're still married in 2025!?' and then I'd have said, "Cat Robots. The future is going to be amazing. I assume they don't have human robots yet or my wife would have divorced me."

If you'd then told me that my 13th wedding anniversary dinner would be at Bella Italia at Center Parcs I would have said, "Oh dear, that's a bit tragic." Which is what I said tonight when we had our 13th wedding anniversary dinner at Bella Italia at Center Parcs, as I stared at what was supposed to be a chicken caesar salad, but which was somehow a load of chicken dumped on top of hardly any lettuce. I didn't know that salad could be flat.

Our romantic meal was also gate-crashed by a couple of interlopers who hadn't even bothered to show up for the actual wedding, but thought that they deserved to be at the anniversary dinner. And full kudos to my shameless son. As we sat down he said "Hello, I'm Ernie," (he introduces himself to everyone), "It's a special day. It's their wedding anniversary. So you have to give us free stuff."

The waiter said he'd see what he could do and at the end he told us that his manager had given us a round of drinks for free. So well done Ernie. You saved us over ten pounds. You only have to save another £999,990 and you'll have paid for yourself.

I suppose we have to accept the kids as part of this marriage. On our first date (or the first time we went out - it wasn't officially a date) I wanted to tell Catie that I was sure we were going to have two kids, a girl and a boy, but I managed to not do that. If I had, then I'm pretty sure there wouldn't have been a second (or rather first) date and these kids would not exist. I was weirdly sure about it in that moment though - I don't know how I slipped through time, or out of the realm of sanity, but I did feel certain about it. All in all I'd rather the future had projected back the lottery numbers, but all I knew at that point was that I needed to be with this woman. And whatever biology or science or magic was working back then, it was right to be doing so. We're created two cracking human beings. There was a newborn at the next table and Catie wondered what it would be like to have another baby. But we can't do that and destroy the prophecy. Also having a baby to look after would definitely kill me. Might be worth it though. Just to see another little creature, staring at the world confused and freaked out, drunk on milk.

13 years married to this legend (plus another four before that). I’ve stolen the best years of her life, she’s given me the best years of my life.

Help a brother out. We’ve got a little more than a week to raise £7000 on the kickstarter or the whole thing goes down the toilet. It’s Ball or Nothing.

If you want a DVD or download of my latest show or any of the amazing rewards. BACK US NOW!

Retro RHLSTP with Ben Shephard is up today

Watch the full video for free here