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She now has 262,143 Rochers some 17 years old, rotting away. We had to move house cos the old one was so full of Rochers.
Why does so much of my material provide great advertising for products and why do I get no money for doing so? And I could do with the money. A quarter of a million Ferrero Rochers don’t come cheap.
Up early (why bother putting that, I basically sleep past 6am about once every two months).....
Up early with somewhere to actually go as I was appearing on the Chris Moyles breakfast show on whatever radio station that's on to vainly try and shift some fucking tickets for my stand up tour.
I will sell more tickets by linking to the tour list here. In that no one who has a ticket already will realise they don't want to come and ask for a refund.
It's OK. I like being an acquired taste. The most cursed comedian of all is the one that can sell exactly enough tickets to make it just worth continuing, BUT NO MORE.
I know I have some controversial opinions, but I like Chris Moyles. It is a measure of the man that as a tribute to the work of Steve Wright he insists on reading out all the tour dates. Which means that the interview might actually prompt someone to go to the actual theatre.
There seemed to be a couple of cancelled train so I got an early train, which meant I got in ten minutes early, which was lucky as the man on security wouldn't let me in because my name wasn't on the door. Some bigger stars might have got annoyed and said "Do you know who I am?" But I know my place, so I just got annoyed and didn't say anything.
At the end of the day it doesn't really matter if you're waiting in a little decompression chamber between two sets of sliding doors or sitting in reception drinking a cappuccino. Wait, the second one is much better.
Anyway I got in and got a free cappuccino and everyone was very nice. I was done in 20 minutes and having got on the train at about 7.20am I realised I was going to be walking through my door again by 10am. All without really having woken up. The perfect crime.
The train I had thought I was going to get was cancelled, but luckily I got to Finsbury Park earlier than I expected, two minutes before the previous one was due to leave.
I jumped on, got four seats to myself, prepared to read Simon Donald's book ahead of tomorrow's RHLSTP and felt pretty good about life.
Sadly it seems likely that someone in Stevenage hadn't been so happy to be alive (as hard as that is to believe) as news came in that a person had been hit by a train. The train was cancelled and nothing was going to run to Hitchin for at least four hours.
The train driver advised us to get the slow Hertford train on the next platform and we all got up, went across and then watched the train pull out of the station. We got back on our train that was immediately cancelled and we all got off again. A man walked past me and said "It's good for material I suppose." But there's nothing funny or interesting or worth writing down about a cancelled train.
Obviously I don't know what happened in Stevenage, though we can take a good guess (as I already have). Whatever the case that person's last act had been to hugely and negatively impact the day of millions of people. Trains still weren't running this evening when Catie was coming back from her audiobook record.
For me it just meant getting a train to Welwyn Garden City, which doesn't go through Stevenage and so was still running. From there I considered waiting for Catie, who was heading into town at lunchtime and would need to drive to this station now. But as there were no taxis I decided to try the Hertfordshire bus service, which got me to Stevenage for a very reasonable three pounds. I could have got another bus, but it was close enough to be picked up.
Commuters were waiting outside the electronic gates for the trains to start up. In vain I guess, as they weren't running five hours later.
I was home by midday. My 20 minutes on the Chris Moyles show had cost me 5 hours. But I guess I hadn't had the worst day. Catie then pretty much immediately drove to Welwyn Garden City. So we could have tag teamed. But then I'd have missed out on the bus ride from Welwyn to Stevenage.
What absolute chaos from one person's actions and it's impossible to know if that was their intention or whether things were so desperate that they saw no other way (but there is always another way - always remember that), but I also think of the driver who has to deal with these situations and how unfair it is to put that on someone. There's no point in trying to apply logic to any of this though.
I'd forgotten that I'd done a stone clear yesterday, but got it edited (taking out a brilliant but private conversation with a member of the Ftone Ftafi) this afternoon and
it's up here.
