I felt tired and disconnected from the world thanks to drinking too much red wine last night. Not exactly hungover, just a feeling in my brain that the real me was possibly a foot or so to my left. Which perhaps explained why I was having trouble interacting with the world or didn't quite feel a part of it.
I traveled down to Brixton for another
Laughter in Odd Places gig (their website seems to be a little out of date).
I didn't quite feel in the mood for a gig, and the fact that this one was in the afternoon and
in an art gallery just added to my sense of dislocation. It was quite a schlep from the station and as I passed the moribund Woolworths and felt a sense of panging disappointment for its imminent demise, a man said something to me as he passed. I didn't quite catch it. I think he was complimenting me on my hair, which seemed like an odd thing to happen, but he might have been trying to sell me drugs, which seems more likely. Perhaps there is a new drug called "Hair" or perhaps I just totally misheard him. Maybe he didn't speak to me at all. I was a little spaced out and in no need of further mind-fuckery.
The gig was actually lovely and unsurprisingly rambling, but that was all for the good. I launched into some things that I had no exit strategy for, but unlike the Iraq war they came out pretty well. No one
threw their shoes at me, which apparently can be taken as a sign that things have been well received. Had someone thrown their shoes at me I would hope I would have come up with a better rejoinder than Bush managed. I would also hope that were I being protected by the secret services that they would have been rather quicker to stop the shoe throwing. The man actually has time to bend over and take off a second shoe. He isn't prepared with both shoes in his hand. My favourite bit is how long it takes for the men at the back to open the door and dash in. They're way too late. They might as well not have bothered. It's all very well trying to look busy and efficient now, but the shoes have been on the floor for several seconds now. And had one of them found its target then Bush would have a red mark on his face. Where was the man running to jump in front of the President. We all know that bodyguards have to be ready to take a shoe for a president at any second.
Bush has clearly had some shoe avoidance training though. It's a shame. That journalist came within inches of hitting the President in the face with a shoe. But he choked despite having two shots at it.
Assassins take note. A shoe in the face is a much more powerful statement than a bullet or a bomb. Throwing shoes at someone makes them look like dicks. Blowing them up is only going to make them slightly cool. Make shoes, not war. Then throw the shoes.
Later I watched Mama Mia. If only more shoes had been thrown at the creators of this abomination then perhaps it might have been stopped in its tracks. But it is out there and exists and apparently some people (my parents included) love it. It left my befuddled brain more confused and unsettled than at the start of the day. And Mark Kermode should resign from his job as he claimed in the Movie Quiz I did that the song Fernando is not used in the film, but in fact Meryl Streep sings a bar or two of it to herself as she approaches the goat barn. Not so hot on your trivia now are you Kermode! Stick that one up your bagpipe.
338 of you bought both "Oh Fuck I'm 40" and "Bye Bye Balham" by the end of last week and the name randomly selected from the computer hat is
Aino Kumpare who lives in Finland, where I am a big Peter Kay style star. In fact 90% of book and DVD orders come from Finland. For those rather more credulous readers (who also believed that Somerset did not have electricity when I was growing up) this is a kind of a lie.
So Aino, the "Free Hot Dog" T shirt will be winging its way to you and you will be quite the envy of the millions of Finnish Richard Herring fans.
Thanks to all those of you who have purchased my stuff. Your support really helps contribute to the survival and further releases from gofasterstripe. We've sold a quarter of the books already and thus broken even (which is all we really care about), which means that we'll be working on a second volume for release in about six months - tentatively titled, "Hello, Shepherd's Bush"!
