5241/18161
Stafford tonight and I’d been moved up to the bigger room in the venue, probably justifiably as I sold about 60 more tickets than I could have done in the smaller room. But the theatre was only about half full. I joked about my arrogance in making the move upwards and the audience enjoyed my self-deprecation.
I had a letter waiting for me in the dressing room from someone who had printed up various photos of me from the internet and was asking for me to sign them. They claimed to be a big fan of my work, but it’s difficult to believe that, as this is the line taken by all autograph hunters and if they were such a big fan then surely they’d know they can bring the photos to the gig and I’d sign them after. Most autograph hunters do not do it for the fandom, but either because they are setting themselves the impossible task of getting the signature of everyone in the world who might possibly be classified as a celebrity (however vaguely) or because they are hoping they might be able to make some money from the signed photos. They play the long game. It doesn’t cost much to get the autographs, but you only need one in fifty of the nonentities you’ve contacted to hit it big and you have a potentially unique and valuable item.
I actually have some sympathy for the obsessive collectors trying to complete a collection with elastic boundaries and which can never be completed. I would actually respond to all their requests if they were up front and admitted that they didn’t really know who I was but needed a scrawl from me to move one step closer to a target that moves away from them at an ever faster pace...
It’s unusual that they go to the lengths of printing up their own photos, preferring that you pay to have those done and this person had also included an envelope with a stamp on it (again far from common - if you’re trying to make money you don’t want to outlay any cash yourself). So I was inclined to think that this was an obsessive collector or possibly even someone who might have liked my work, but who couldn’t get out of the house or afford the ticket price.
And another thing making me think this wasn’t someone hoping to turn a bit of ink scrawled on a photo into hard cold cash was that they had provided an envelope and a stamp, but hadn’t written their address on the envelope or anywhere on the letter and only given their first name. After all the trouble they’d been to.
I wondered if it was deliberate. They could now tell their friends that they had spent about a tenner trying to get my autograph and I was clearly so up myself that I had refused to make their wish come true and thrown their letter in the bin. All I could do was tweet about the mistake, in the hope that the “big fan” would be following me on Twitter and then leave the envelope at the theatre so they might pick it up themselves.
My guess is that this person writes to everyone who comes to the theatre and probably remembers to put their address on the correspondence usually. So hopefully the theatre can just copy the address from tomorrow’s act’s envelope and it will still get to them. It’s more likely that the man I handed it to will just throw it in the bin himself. Why go to the bother?
I was very tired today, but the show lifted me and I had a lot of fun. Then headed back to my Premier Inn, which more or less looked out on to another Premier Inn. I have never seen two Premier Inns so close together, but it’s nice that travellers to Stafford get a choice of which identical hotel to visit. I see a Sliding Doors style film. But about how your life changes depending on which Premier Inn you stay in. One is good and one is evil, maybe. No judgement in blue sky.
My legs were heavy with tiredness. My room was cold. A few nights away from the family, but one night and easy sleep and a midday check out. This is how touring after a tough early morning with a rambunctious toddler should be done.
