What's a Letchworth?

Warming Up - warning, contains one joke.

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Into beautiful downtown Letchworth today as I was getting the car serviced and needed to go to the Post Office. How much is a letch worth? 3 million quid a year judging by some comedians.

I like to put the occasional joke in for you to keep you interested.

I have only seen the outskirts of Letchworth before - when I've taken my car in or visited the dump. I've been to their impressive Sainsburys a few times (when I am in the area) and dined at the drive through Costa coffee, but this was my first time in the impressively 1970s city centre. I went to the Post Office and went to the woman behind the screen, next to another screen that said Post Office on it. I put down my letter and she growled "the Post Office is over there." She was just doing the shop part.

"Oh sorry," I said, "I thought this was the Post Office." I wonder why I made that mistake.

I assume that bit had once been the Post Office, but they'd moved it and not bothered taking down all the signs. The woman seemed annoyed about the mistake, just like the man with the physio studio in his back garden had been. In the sort of way that indicates this happens a lot, but the person involved hasn't worked out why just yet.

I went to the proper Post Office bit, which did look more like a Post Office, with the scales and everything. But I was suspicious now. What if they just labelled everything as a Post Office and then when you tried to post a letter they'd say, "The Post office is over there" and send you on a trip down a labyrinth of people sitting behind screens with signs implying that it's a Post Office. Each getting more angry about the mistake than the last.

It turned out this was the Post Office. Or at least the person working there pretended it was. They had all the equipment, but this might have been a sophisticated attempt to steal a letter to my solicitors letting him know what items go along with my house sale and which don't.

The car service would take a couple of hours so I went to have a coffee and catch up with my blogs. I sat next to a woman working on a laptop. At one point she asked me if I'd keep an eye on her laptop whilst she went to the loo. I agreed to do so. She left her laptop and her purse on the table. It was a bit responsibility for me.

It's nice that she thought I was trustworthy. But she'd given me the perfect opportunity to steal her laptop and go on a spending spree in Letchworth with her credit cards. How did she know I wouldn't?

Usually I would have done that, but I suspected something was up here and I was being tested, maybe by a hidden camera show or instagram reel. So I pretended to be a good person in the hope of being given a huge cash reward.

The lady said thank you. That was it. Some people.

Later I needed the toilet. I could have asked the lady to keep an eye on my laptop, but what if she'd been setting me up? Pretending we'd set up mutual trust so she could make off with my stuff. Clever.

But I'd never risk just leaving my laptop when it's so easy just to pick it up and pop it in my bag while I go to the loo. Is it rude that she trusted me and I apparently didn't trust her? Did she feel slighted? Is this a modern day moment of manners? Should I have let her guard my laptop? Even though I feel like that's a crazy thing to do - not because the person you aske might steal it (I would have though) but because it's a lot of responsibility to put on a stranger. Just carry your stuff into the loo. Maybe ask someone to make sure no one takes your table.

Your laptop is worth hundreds of pounds and contains your whole fucking life (and internet history). Don't leave that just lying around for anyone to nick!

Anyway I am honoured that I was wrongly trusted by a naive Letchworth native and sorry that my trust in her laptop guarding was not as strong.

Just before bed, just in time to give me nightmares @ScarredforLIfe2 tweeted the theme tune to 1975 kids show Mumfie. I had no clear memory of this show or any of the characters, but the theme tune was still lodged in my head and I knew 80% of the words. It's so strange to be reminded of something that you can't really remember, but which one part has been hiding away in your memory banks for 50 years (it's a banging tune).

Kudos to them for doing a show with a witch and a scarecrow and not worrying about parallels with Oz. Such terrifying characters. Even Mumfie. How did they not lodge themselves in my subconscious? Now the song is stuck in my head forever of course. Mumfie, Mumfie, Mumfie.

I put up another unproduced script for paid subs on Substack. You can read the intro here and then read the script if you stump up 14p a day!

It's a weird experience going over these old, failed projects, mainly because I usually remember very little of the scripts. This one is an extra episode of Everything Happens For No Reason, which was designed to show the scope and potential of the idea - how any episode would sit on its own, but also form part of the arc of the series. The executives didn't like the main character or understand what I was trying to achieve, daring to tell me that some of the stuff was hack and been done (they didn't really understand that that was basically the point of the joke). I mean I'd only been writing comedy for 30 years, so they probably knew better than me. Ah well, look what it's stirred up.

If you'd like to know what I consider the five pivotal moments in my career, then read about them here.

As a thank you for all the donations to Scope and hitting the £13000 target that I set from the beginning I have made a seductive video of me eating my first Orange Burst Solero

Please enjoy it. You do have not have my consent to touch yourself as you're watching this.

We've released the full video of the 2021 RHLSTP with Katherine Ryan. Check it out here for free with no ads.

It's much better for us if you listen to it as a podcast!