So this is the final version of the Edinburgh poster. I decided to go for the one without the yoghurt style writing. I don't like yoghurt that much to have my name written in the style of a yoghurt, I don't know how many times I have to say these things til people believe me. They forced me to pose for that photo at gun-point. Look at the fear in my eyes.
Feel free to download this design and put it up on your own websites or to print it up and plaster it all over your wall, town or face.
Interestingly I have been awarded a 2004 sell-out award by the Fringe Office. Apparently this is a rare distinction and one that surprised me because I remember the theatre being half empty most days. But this is genuinely only awarded to people who sold over 95% of their Fringe Office ticket allocation (the Fringe Office sell half your tickets and the venue sell the other half). This can only mean that I didn't sell any tickets at all via the actual venue. In fact I was lucky to get my money off them anyway, because the company running the venue went bankrupt and several acts didn't get paid. I am very, very glad to be returning to the Pleasance this year. I have a good feeling about the show, so don't leave your ticket purchases to the last minute. I sold out in 2004 remember. I am just very popular amongst the invisible community. If only their money wasn't invisible as well.
The other thing I was going to mention to you all is that I am looking for people to advertise in my free programme for the show. There are 10,000 printed which I give out for free to everyone coming to the Edinburgh show (almost 4000 people if all goes well) and to the audiences at previews and on the subsequent tour. Then I collect voluntary donations afterwards and donate them to a charity (most probably SCOPE again this year). If you haven't seen the programmes they are lovely glossy affairs and are going direct into the hands of up to 10,000 sophisticated and intelligent comedy fans (any spares will be posted through the doors of people living on Hammersmith Grove). If I can sell four pages at a measly £600 a page I will make enough to pay for the print run, so all profits can go direct to the charity. So you get to advertise yourself, your company or your product and help out a great cause. If you're an act who is going up to Edinburgh then you publicise your show (I am prepared to do some half pages for £300). Only 30 of the 4000 people who will come to my sell-out show (it's on the poster) need decide to come to make it worthwhile. I'd like to get the programme done early this year so I can collect at previews etc, so do email me at richardherring@richardherring.com if you have a genuine offer of support for this (you will obviously need to provide me with professionally laid out copy too). Ideally you work for some big organisation who would like to make a small charity donation that will result in some good publicity. I would have thought if you manufacture yoghurt that might be a bonus too. Most people say they feel like a yoghurt after listening to my routine about them. Whatever. Please get in touch asap.
I still haven't heard from the Popefinder General. I know these people have a bit on their plate at the moment, but at least an acknowlegement of receipt of my application would be nice.
As anyone who reads this blog will know I am anything but pedantic, but I do hate it when people put up signs or give announcements which are open to misinterpretation (see
here and
words).
As I was on my way to what turned out to be a lovely gig in Moseley (even if I did call them Molesey at one point, which funnily enough I always couldn't say right when I was training to row there) I stopped to fill up with petrol. I noticed a sign on the pump saying "Please report any spillage, no matter how small."
Now I don't know about you, but pretty much every time I have filled up with petrol, and however much I shake my nossle at the end of the transaction, a very small amount of liquid will drop on to the forecourt (if only there were some other circumstance which I could compare this to, but alas there are none). It might be just one drop of petrol or maybe two or three sometimes, never enough to cause too much of a mess (though you occasionally notice the accumulation of several people's sloppiness on the floor (again no real parallel anywhere else in the world, unless you include photo-shoots where a succession of people have been eating handfuls of yoghurt).
Now by the terms of the sign ("no matter how small"), I am meant to report this one drop of petrol to the man behind the check-out. It is still a spillage and by the terms of the sign even the spillage of one atom's worth of petrol should be reported.
How do you think the man at the counter would react if you told him this? It would be you who would be made to feel the idiot. And yet it is the fault of the garage for not saying, "Please report any spillage of more than 20ccs" or whatever amount it is that they consider dangerous. Then if you went in with a spillage smaller than this, the man in the station could mock you. He could come out, see the spillage, do a calculation and then say, "Hold on, this is only 15ccs of petrol. Didn't you see the sign?" and then everyone could laugh at you for not being able to recognise what 20ccs of petrol actually looks like. Because most people know that.
Yet now, believe me, if you tell them there has been a spillage and you take them out to look at it and then point at the evaporating droplet and say, "There it is," it is you who is made to feel the idiot. Rather than the man who wrote the sign who wasn't even clever enough to quantify what constituted a spillage and in fact emphasised that any volume of petrol on the floor must be reported. It is you who gets punished for someone else's ridiculous and impractical spillage law.
I know how Onan must have felt all those years ago.
It's been a bit of an advertising "Warming Up" today and I'm going to carry that on. Once a week I am going to keep you up to date with what is coming up in the next seven days. I do this already on the front page of this site, but from the emails I get I assume many of you don't read that. And it would be a shame if you missed me coming to your town because of your own laziness and stupidity. I'll normally do this on Monday, but I've got some important gigs coming up this weekend which I want to plug. Please come along if you can:
WEEKLY ROUND UP
GIGS: 15th Amused Moose, CAMDEN - 20 mins stand up.
16th Charity gig for Comic Relief at HAMMERSMITH Town Hall
17th Last ever London based performance of "The Twelve Tasks of Hercules" at HORNCHURCH. I am getting this show videoed properly for posterity (and a limited internet based retail release) and it would be great if it was reasonably full, so please come along and your laughing face might appear on a DVD seen by up to a 1000 people. Or it might be seen by about 150 people and 850 copies will be used at coasters around my house (but your laughing face will still be on them somewhere). SPECIAL LAST MINUTE OFFER - When booking say the words "Dave Taylor" and you will get the £12 ticket for the bargain price of £8.
FOR MORE DETAILS CLICK ON THE GIG GUIDE.
RADIO - I will be appearing on the Andrew Collings show on Sunday 17th on 6Music at around 3pm.
MARATHON - I will not be running the Marathon on Sunday. But I will be there cheering on my sister as well as web-goblin Rob Sedgebeer. He puts a lot of work into this site and I very rarely pay him, so please make up for this essential slave labour by clicking the link below and sponsoring him something. Even the smallest amount makes a difference, but bigger amounts make more difference. He is the unsung hero of this site, so please sing of his heroism right now by sponsoring him. He is about to experience one of the most horrible events in his life. He is also evil and insane and might shut the site down if he doesn't make enough money. This is in your hands people.
