Well Hollyoaks lied to me.
I came to Chester tonight and yet no teenager died during the show and only about two of the people on the front row could have feasibly appeared on a calendar in just their pants. I only put this gig on the tour because I assumed all the people from the fly-on-the-wall documentary Hollyoaks would be here and because I had been given the impression that everyone in Chester was blonde and could have worked as a model if they wanted (but chose instead to work in a pub or a juice bar).
What a waste of my valuable time.
Still it was another fun one, with a really up for it crowd right from the start and the new venue - The Laugh Inn- was packed. I had some fun with tonight's Trevor who was a criminologist which lead me to recall that the last person I had heard about doing that course had gone on to try and become a serial killer himself. Some very poor taste jokes littered the rest of the show, which he took in good part. Though I was risking my life, riling this maniac.
The explosion shocked the timid people of Chester so much that it actually got a round of applause and just as I was wrapping up with the sensitive denoument the hand dryer in one of the toilets went off loudly allowing me to comment that if I was the son of God I would probably have prevented the end of the show being ruined in this way. Of course that just made the end of the show funnier, being upstaged and heckled by machinery, so maybe I am the Son of God after all.
Chester is supposed to be a beautiful town but I never got to see any of it as our hotel was some way out of the city and the venue, though central, was not in one of the prettier parts. We were staying at our second Comfort Inn of the tour and it rests firmly in the bottom two hotels of the tour (along with the other Comfort Inn). I know this is a budget hotel, but it costs more or less the same as all the other hotels we have stayed in and we've stayed in most of the other chains (though not the Travelodge - never going back there after the whole bogey and shower curtain incident). I am no city analyst but I wouldn't buy any shares in the Comfort Inn if I were you. An air of depression hangs in the ones I have seen and there is a total lack of care or attention to detail. From the receptionist who miserably took our details (and I don't blame her for being depressed, the place was like a happiness vaccuum) to the room with central heating that could not be turned on and big gashes in the wall and cracked bathroom mirror. The bathroom smelled very strongly of bleach, in a way that makes you suspect that they have put down a lot of bleach on purpose in order to mask a much worse smell. Though at least that probably meant it was clean. I lay on the bed doing some phone interviews and when I looked at the thin blanket I wished I hadn't. Bird shit covers the sign at the front of the building and from the lack of cars in the car park I suspect that everyone apart from us knew that this was not the best place to stay in Chester.
Comfort Ian you have let me down too often. I am not expecting luxury for £55.25 each, but touring is draining enough without having your happiness sucked from you in this way. Luckily we haven't been away from home for too long and there have been some nice enough hotels recently (though the staff in the one in Cheddar could have worked harder), but I think if this hotel had been the one we'd stayed at on night 10 of a 13 night stretch away it might have got to me more. In these times of businesses collapsing (and I was sad to see an empty Oddbins in Durham with a cheerful sign thanking customers in the window) and with so many chains offering cheap, but actually comfortable rooms, I am not sure that this particular chain will make it through. Though we've only stayed at two of them, so I might have been unlucky. But I made sure Pete checked the iteniary to see if we were staying at any more. Luckily we weren't, but if we had been I would have changed the bookings.
In more cheerful (though it shouldn't be when you think about any of it for even a second) I learned today that the Icelandic Phallological Museum which I visited for my show, "Talking Cock" (surprisingly in a pre-Warming Up world, though
I discuss it here), and curated by the wonderful Sigurdur Hjartarson,
has finally completed its collection with a human specimen.
So it's good news in that an Icelandic man now has samples of the penis of every kind of mammal that lives in Iceland, though bad news in the sense that a 95 year old man (Pall Arason) has died and then within hours of his demise had his penis cut off. I agree that in any other circumstances this wouldn't be a heart warming tale, but it really is this time. Sigurdur is shortly stepping down as curator and will hand the business on to his son, but Mr Arason gets to have his member gawped at by thousands of people, which is some kind of an achievement. You can read more of their story in my book Talking Cock - at least you could if it was readily available. But I am hoping that it might get a small reprint and be put on the Kindle quite soon. So don't spend £500 for a copy just yet.
RIP Pall. In pieces and in amongst penises.