I felt a lot more relaxed at Absolute Radio this morning sitting in for the second time for Dave Gorman. Last week I had a lot on my mind, as well as worrying about being at the helm of the show, but this week things were a bit less hectic and I felt at home already. It has been a really enjoyable fortnight, helped considerably by sterling work from Danielle and Martin on the mics and Chris and Rich on the production side. What a lovely job to just sit back and chat and read out funny emails. I guess I should be pretty good at this by now, after the many hours of passing the time talking shit with Collings, and whilst I still prefer doing our joint show, it is rewarding to branch out and do something different. We have a very open relationship, which is lucky for him as he does far more moonlighting on other people's shows than me.
Today we were lucky enough to be joined by Charlie Higson who was in to talk about his new teenage fiction book "The Dead" which I have been reading over the weekend. If I was a 14 year old boy I would massively enjoy this book, and I am a 14 year old boy, so I am doing just that. It's really gripping and exciting and packed with surprises and shits all over Harry Potter, so have a read if you get the chance. I am a big fan of loads of Charlie's work, though I don't think I have properly met him before. And his output puts me to shame - writing books and TV shows and ensuring himself a place in TV history, not just because he was in the Fast Show and the Ted and Ralph sketches, but also because he revealed he once played the Man with the Stick on Vic Reeves' Big Night Out. He was a very unassuming and modest man and a pleasure to spend 20 minutes chatting with him - making my job even easier.
In the afternoon I started thinking about AIOTM (AIOTM) but didn't get too far. I also watched the first two episodes of the Apprentice in preparation for my potential appearance on the spin-off "You're Fired" show. It's a very enjoyable show to watch, not just to see the twats out of their depth - the man in charge of the men's team in episode 1 was visibly floundering whilst trying to look in command, never has a firing seemed so inevitable - but also to see Lord Sugar staying slightly ridiculous stuff, which no one is allowed to counter. Highlights (that I attempted to put in the AIOTM script, but which would eventually make their way into the secret stand up) included Lord Sugar's incorrect pronunciation of "resume" (as in CV, don't have the access to accents) which you'd think he would be able to say having got so far in business, but he pronounces it like resume (without the accent) with an a on the end. That's ridiculous. I was also unimpressed with his opening joke "You all look good on paper.... but then so do fish and chips", as it was unclear whether Sugar was saying they were good or not. After all if you think fish and chips look good on paper, they usually turn out to be good. Unless Sugar was saying he likes the look of fish and chips on paper, but they disappoint him when he takes them off the paper. In which case he needs to let people know that in advance of the fish and chips on paper joke, so we know what he means. The potential Apprentices found it funny, but I think Sugar would have admired them more if they had picked him up on his poor pronunciation and joking skills.
Anyway, check out the Absolute podcast on iTunes - there's loads of extra material that wasn't on the show.
