Pickled Eggs and Flying Monkeys

Double Warming ups

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I literally hopped over to St Albans today for a short podcast appearance at Pub in the Park. It was quite a hop. But I literally did it.

I'd been asked to appear on a podcast hosted by Simon Rimmer off of Sunday Brunch. I like Simon and it was literally only a hop away, so I thought I'd go along even though they were only offering tickets and food as payment.

I didn't really know what Pub in the Park involved and the family had stuff to do, so I decided to go along alone and then come back as soon as I was done. And I'd had lunch so I didn't need any food.

Whatever decision I make with this sort of thing is always wrong. When I got there I realised it would have been a great day out for the family - we could have come down early and had a great time. As it was it was a fun record where I ate a bit of pickled egg and played darts. I had six darts and managed to score 4, which is pretty impressive, but the four that got in the board were very nicely grouped in the 1 and the two that missed were just outside the same area of the board, so I was just shooting a bit to the right. I haven't played darts since I had my operation, so my centre of balance will have changed. Or would that had made me shoot more to the left?

I'd have been much better off not aiming at all, but have the honour of the lowest score of any guest and I doubt that will be beaten. Luckily I hadn't said that I used to play a lot of darts as a teenager, which would have made my humiliation all the greater.

On the walk through the festival a lady approached me to say that she'd got my substack email this morning. I had titled that Silver Fox versus Grandma Hopkins and she told me that she'd had a Grandma Hopkins and had been really freaked out when the email arrived. And if that wasn't coincidence enough she now happened to bump into me in a very crowded park. And now I've actually written about her in my blog which she'll get by email. Mindblowing. If she's as mad as 90% of my fans she will read some extra significance into that and now do my bidding - kill the president. Kill the president.

I was on the podcast alongside Karen, a dancer from Strictly, undoubtedly one of the most famous people in the country, but not known to me at all. Although I Googled her later and realised I had heard of her as she was previously married to Kevin from Strictly and a bit of their story had permeated through to me.

She seemed up for a laugh and some shots and was letting her hair down ahead of the new series. She didn't bully me or try to break up my marriage, so I can just say that from my experience all the rumours about Strictly are nonsense.

Backstage Simon had asked me if I'd ever go on Strictly, but even if they asked (which is not likely) I would be in no rush. I'm only really up for quiz shows, Would I Lie To You? QI and Who Do You Think You Are? now and none of them seem keen to book me.

I don't have what it takes to be a celebrity and nor do I want to be one. I could walk through St Albans park and only get recognised by a woman who thinks I am sending her personalised emails and some parents from the kids' old school who were keen to know how the new school was.

And then, when it was over, I basically got in a cab and went home. I had played darts against one of the dancers from Strictly and been comprehensively defeated, even though I was aiming and she was just chucking them at the board and then I was gone. The organiser of the event introduced me to a woman who he said would get me whatever I wanted to eat and I had to say, "Sorry, my car's here". And I'd had baked beans on toast at home. I felt a bit rude to be sloping off, but this is my default setting. Terrified of both imposing and being on my own in social situations so going home.

Show business is odd and I am socially awkward (off-stage - fine on it) and terrible at networking. And like I say, always make the the wrong decisions, But I really like Simon Rimmer and was happy to do his podcast in return for a quarter of a pickled egg, some non-alcoholic lager and darts-based humiliation. And being at homelistening to the York City match on BBC Sounds is where I belong.

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As the kids watched TV this morning, all the electricity went off and then, an instant later,  there was a huge explosion in the sky above us. It was scary for them and it was a little scary for me.  Was Jesus coming down to finally punish all the sinners like He'd promised? Or had war broken out or a plane exploded?

I realised pretty quickly that it was a thunderstorm and there had doubtless been a lightning strike on the village. But it's pretty rare for that to turn off all the lights. Was God angry with me? But not that angry. He just deprived us of 2 seconds of someone playing Minecraft on Youtube. Which if anything was a blessing. Perhaps I have pleased Him.

We had a day trip to London planned as we were going to see the Wizard of Oz on stage. I wasn't hugely looking forward to this and the kids wanted to stay inside where there was TV and no chance of being hit by lightning. But I am glad we went.

My trepidation was slightly coloured by the many times I had watched the film back in the 70s and 80s when it was on the telly every Easter or Christmas (or maybe both) and I wasn't sure I needed to see it on stage.

But I have to say it was a lot of fun and I got swept along. There was an edge of pantomime to it and the odd joke for the grown-ups ("I'm a friend of Dorothy"), but overall it's a great, mental story of a girl getting blown over a rainbow and meeting a scarecrow, a robot and a lion and murdering a couple of witches. A tale as old as time. Seeing the flying monkeys made me not only think of Mr Burns in the Simpsons as his version of the idea plummet to the ground, but a deep core memory of seeing those flying monkeys for the first time and being scared and fascinated by them in equal measure. You can say what you like about this camp and ludicrous story, but it really has some brilliant concepts.

There were a few new songs in there, but mainly the ones from the film and it struck me what a mind fuck it would be for the guys who wrote those that they'd still be being performed on stage 85 years after they'd written them. Especially as the film didn't become a hit until it was repeated endlessly on TV. Maybe people in 1939 had other things to worry about.

I started wondering about whether the rights to the songs are still with the composer (Harold Arlen) and lyricist(Yip Harberg)'s families or if they'd been bought up by a big corporation. Looking at their wikipedia pages both men were responsible for some pretty massive hits, but Somewhere Over The Rainbow is going to keep their families (or a big company) going for many decades to come.

Will anyone be doing any or my stuff in 85 years time? In 2109 I hope there's a stage musical of stone clearing (I've written plenty of songs for it) or self-playing snooker. I think there's probably only a one in four chance of either of them happening. It's hard to know what will endure (I struggle to come up with stuff that people like at the time, let alone a century later, but then no one liked the Wizard of Oz in 1939 so that gives me unrealistic hope).

Luckily Harold and Yip both lived til the 80s so will have known that their work on Oz was properly appreciated. L Frank Baum who came up with this fucking nonsense died in 1919,  but the books had done OK for him before then.

Anyway, that was a bit distracting, but I still managed to keep up with the familiar but surprising story. I have to say I think the Wicked Witch of the West was a bit dumb to have a fire extinguisher full of water in her castle. Given her hydrophobia she would probably have been wiser to have a foam based fire prevention system. But it's easy to make those kinds of calls in hindsight. Also in foresight though if you know water will kill you.

What happened to the flying monkeys was a question that the kids asked later and it wasn't explained. I guess they flew off somewhere to find some bananas.