Really Spoiling Us

Warming Ups

Thanks to @TheJewitts for this real photo

8117/21037

I bought Catie 131,072 Ferrero Rochers today. A promise is a promise. When will this woman observe No Rocher February?

She now has 262,143 Rochers some 17 years old, rotting away. We had to move house cos the old one was so full of Rochers.

Why does so much of my material provide great advertising for products and why do I get no money for doing so? And I could do with the money. A quarter of a million Ferrero Rochers don’t come cheap.

Up early (why bother putting that, I basically sleep past 6am about once every two months).....

Up early with somewhere to actually go as I was appearing on the Chris Moyles breakfast show on whatever radio station that's on to vainly try and shift some fucking tickets for my stand up tour. I will sell more tickets by linking to the tour list here. In that no one who has a ticket already will realise they don't want to come and ask for a refund.

It's OK. I like being an acquired taste. The most cursed comedian of all is the one that can sell exactly enough tickets to make it just worth continuing, BUT NO MORE.

I know I have some controversial opinions, but I like Chris Moyles. It is a measure of the man that as a tribute to the work of Steve Wright he insists on reading out all the tour dates. Which means that the interview might actually prompt someone to go to the actual theatre.

radiox

A post shared by @radiox

There seemed to be a couple of cancelled train so I got an early train, which meant I got in ten minutes early, which was lucky as the man on security wouldn't let me in because my name wasn't on the door. Some bigger stars might have got annoyed and said "Do you know who I am?" But I know my place, so I just got annoyed and didn't say anything.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter if you're waiting in a little decompression chamber between two sets of sliding doors or sitting in reception drinking a cappuccino. Wait, the second one is much better.

Anyway I got in and got a free cappuccino and everyone was very nice. I was done in 20 minutes and having got on the train at about 7.20am I realised I was going to be walking through my door again by 10am. All without really having woken up. The perfect crime.

The train I had thought I was going to get was cancelled, but luckily I got to Finsbury Park earlier than I expected, two minutes before the previous one was due to leave.

I jumped on, got four seats to myself, prepared to read Simon Donald's book ahead of tomorrow's RHLSTP and felt pretty good about life.

Sadly it seems likely that someone in Stevenage hadn't been so happy to be alive (as hard as that is to believe) as news came in that a person had been hit by a train. The train was cancelled and nothing was going to run to Hitchin for at least four hours.

The train driver advised us to get the slow Hertford train on the next platform and we all got up, went across and then watched the train pull out of the station. We got back on our train that was immediately cancelled and we all got off again. A man walked past me and said "It's good for material I suppose." But there's nothing funny or interesting or worth writing down about a cancelled train. Imagine having to read about someone having their day mildly impacted by something like that.

Obviously I don't know what happened in Stevenage, though we can take a good guess (as I already have). Whatever the case that person's last act had been to hugely and negatively impact the day of millions of people. Trains still weren't running this evening when Catie was coming back from her audiobook record.

For me it just meant getting a train to Welwyn Garden City, which doesn't go through Stevenage and so was still running. From there I considered waiting for Catie, who was heading into town at lunchtime and would need to drive to this station now. But as there were no taxis I decided to try the Hertfordshire bus service, which got me to Stevenage for a very reasonable three pounds. I could have got another bus, but it was close enough to be picked up.

Commuters were waiting outside the electronic gates for the trains to start up. In vain I guess, as they weren't running five hours later.

I was home by midday. My 20 minutes on the Chris Moyles show had cost me 5 hours. But I guess I hadn't had the worst day. Catie then pretty much immediately drove to Welwyn Garden City. So we could have tag teamed. But then I'd have missed out on the bus ride from Welwyn to Stevenage.

What absolute chaos from one person's actions and it's impossible to know if that was their intention or whether things were so desperate that they saw no other way (but there is always another way - always remember that), but I also think of the driver who has to deal with these situations and how unfair it is to put that on someone. There's no point in trying to apply logic to any of this though.

I'd forgotten that I'd done a stone clear yesterday, but got it edited (taking out a brilliant but private conversation with a member of the Ftone Ftafi) this afternoon and it's up here,

8118/21038

Hope you had a good St Skeletor's Day.

It has been my greatest gift to the world.

I've done five gigs this year so far, all without a tour manager, which hasn't been too much of a problem as they've been pretty local and a bit spaced out. But I am getting too old for this shit and driving home from Leicester this evening I could see that the days of being a one-man band are pretty much over. It'd been a full on day and I had been awake since 5.30am when Ernie had woken from a nightmare and the 100 minutes drive felt like it took forever.

Always lovely to come to the Y Theatre and this gig seems to be an annual event. Three great guests today - terrifying Australian nutcase (though not compared to the other comic Australian nutcases) John Robertson and two of the men behind the phenomenon that is Viz magazine, Simon and Chris Donald.

I hung out a few times with the Viz boys back in the Noughties and know Simon well, but had never met the somewhat shyer older brother Chris. So it was a delight to take them out to what turned out to be the poshest restaurant in Leicester, Pret a Manger - no actually a proper place where my fish cost me about £40. The boys (both in their sixties, but they will always be boys to me) ate a couple of sides - because they weren't that hungry (I hope - perhaps they were embarrassed to go for any of the mains as I was paying).

Viz magazine has had more influence on UK comedy than almost anything else and the story of how it turned from a practically photocopied fanzine to one of the biggest magazines in the UK is almost unbelievable. In a competitive market of handmade fanzines and magazines it outshone all the others, due to the comic sensibilities, the fact it was actually made by "the kids" not a big business attempt to do so and proper comedy chops and artistic talent.

There are two moments from the 1980s when I accidentally came across comedy that would help to define me. One was on Camp America, where looking through a trunk of stuff I came across a copy of one of Gary Larson's books. He hadn't made it to the UK at this point and I'd never seen his stuff before and the book blew my tiny mind (it's clear that Suzy Eddie Izzard was also very influenced by him). Then in 1987 I was in a production of The Threepenny Opera at University and maybe even at the audition had gone to the room of the producer or assistant director. I was at St Catherine's college which was modern and largely filled with comprehensive school kids and I hadn't seen much of the Oxford of Brideshead Revisited. But this now forgotten student had what felt like a suite of rooms in super posh New College (actually a very old college - the person who named it lacked foresight). I was in awe. On the floor were various magazines, one of which was Viz. He may have had a few copies. I'd never seen it. I loved it. He may have let me keep the copies.

It absolutely shared my comic sensibilities - they too had been fans of Python and Derek and Clive and like the Young Ones it showed me that it was possible that someone like me might actually be able to make comedy that people might want to see. And it says a lot that this magazine that had made by some nerds in Newcastle for their non-cool mates had the broad appeal that meant it would end up in this posho room in Oxford University.

So fascinating to talk to this pair on and off stage. I get to meet my comedy heroes in this show and although these two are almost contemporaries and very down to earth men, I was still in awe. We could have talked for hours.

And balancing the afternoon was a chat with John Robertson, who was predictably unpredictable and smaller than I expected. He too is a very inventive comedian with his own energy and this was a fun and dirty chat.

These podcasts will be out in a couple of months.

Over halfway in the Solero challenge. Here's the latest update.

I know most of you are probably waiting until I've definitely done it to donate and am confident we'll hit the target, but we're falling a little bit short at the mo, so anything you can give to Scope is greatly appreciated.