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Back on Myfitnesspal and even went for a 4km run today (the first 2km uphill) in a possibly too little too late attempt to lose my current obese status and avoid dying when the virus comes to call. I hadn't stepped on the scales for a while. I am slightly lighter than I was at the start of the lockdown, which was a surprise. But after 3 weeks of treating it like a mildly boozy holiday, it's time to have 3 weeks of being in a health farm. I have managed to continue to resist the lure of chocolate though so for the second Easter in a row my kids' eggs were safe.
Last year they made their Easter haul last for months (we discovered a Lindt bunny they'd forgotten about in January). This year they only have one and a half small eggs each and reassuringly had both motored through one each by bedtime. So they are my kids after all. My son was so smeared in chocolate that I couldn't work out if he was doing a dirty protest or attempting a comedy sketch that would end in him getting CANCELLED.
It was quite pleasant to do a small family Easter and we kept it pretty simple with games and Frozen 2 and a game of tag in the garden. The peace and pleasure of the day was somewhat spoiled by the news that Tim Brooke-Taylor had died. We are going to have to prepare ourselves for a few weeks of awful news like this, both personal and those we have loved from afar. I was lucky enough to spend time with all three Goodies last year (
you can listen to our conversation here).
I wrote about it here and am glad that I was able to let them know how much they meant to me, though sad that my “surviving Goodies†joke no longer plays. Tim had been working and in good form before this virus struck and it's awful that it has taken him when I am sure he would otherwise have had a good few years ahead of him. To people in their fifties the Goodies were the gateway drug to the wonderful world that comedy could be. And it was a comedy team where everyone played a totally equal part. My favourite Goodie has shifted all through my life, but every one of them has taken their turn. They are all my favourite Goodie now. And this hurts. The gibbon is that little bit less funky now. It's not the same when an actual tandem will suffice.
To have lost Innes, Jones, Large and Brooke-Taylor in a few months seems especially cruel. I am fearful of who will be next (especially if it's me), but it's inevitable that we are going to be mourning over and again in 2020.
Thanks for the laughs and the silliness Tim and for the chat on stage and off.
Bruce Dessau gave my chat with Adam Buxton
a nice write up here. It's interesting watching how TV shows are coping with the restrictions of the virus and perhaps not surprising that podcasters are making the switch a bit more easily. I watched Saturday Night Live tonight which as always had variable success. Michael Che and Colin Jost chose to have a small audience watching their bit and responding via the internet, because they felt it would be weird to perform to no laughs. But it all felt forced and distracting and I think they would have done better just to be each other's audience.I thought the Mash Report did better with finding the laughs in the restrictions and John Oliver has done a great job of performing without an audience and still hitting the right beats. Having something like this should (in the short term) be a boon to writers. Sure, you're deeply affected by what is possible, but that can often open up possibilities. I hope everything will keep going. There are jokes to be had and if you're funny then you can be funny even if you can't hear the audience. I often can't hear the audience even when they're in the room and it hasn't stopped me.
