Annoying news on the Talking Cock podcast that I recorded a fortnight ago. Firstly iTunes seem to have lost the whole thing - this might have been a problem at our end or theirs, but it means it's not even in the queue for upload. It's not lost lost as the podcast is up elsewhere, just all the application details have gone. Secondly we have been warned that the title and the picture for the podcast may be unacceptable for iTunes, which is odd because if you put "Cock" into iTunes you come up with quite a lot of uncensored content, including several podcasts. Some of them refer to cockerels, but one is called "Cock N Are Football Podcast". Admittedly my podcast is likely to be higher profile and they might like to feature it on the front page, so maybe that's the issue, but it's going to be annoying to go through all this again. It's my own fault of course for putting a mild possible swear word (with over a dozen non-sweary meanings) in the title of my show. It means it's hard to promote it anywhere, but I thought I'd be safe in the filthy cloaca-ry world of the podcast. Also to be told that the image of an Action Man with his pants down, displaying the absence of genitalia is too rude is also a shame. Imagine how strict the rules are if you're not allowed to show no genitalia. That people are so upset by this particular body part that even not showing it is offensive.
I wanted to have a couple of podcasts produced before the tour (to publicise it as much as anything as we don't have the budget for a national media campaign and a podcast in the iTunes charts would at least let some new people know that this thing was going on) and to have interaction from the listeners, but obviously if episode 1 hasn't even gone out then it's hard to have an interaction in episode 2. But I recorded one tonight anyway and made it about the issue of censorship, questioning why we had this attitude to the penis and what the repercussions of such repression might be. And for the moment these podcasts are going to be going up exclusively at
the British Comedy Guide. Episode 1 should be up on Monday (it is
Check it out here - also instructions to secretly listening via iTunes if that's your thing) and we'll put the second one up on the first day of the tour on Friday. Do spread the word about these to any friends you think might be interested in cock. It's a bit early to try and predict how good the tour sales are - they seem reasonably healthy and I usually sell lots of tickets nearer to the time of performance (my complacent fans knowing that they're not all going to disappear in the first hour or sale). A few of the smaller gigs have sold old (Fareham, Sutton Coldfield and Reading) and some medium sized ones are getting very close (Shrewsbury, Chorley, Salford, Leeds), so don't assume you'll be able to get last minute tickets (unless you live in York). If you want to see the DVD record then it's
the 13th April at the Bloomsbury (both nights selling well and if you can't catch the tour then the DVD will be available from
Go Faster Stripe in the summer.
It's a shame to have this slight setback with the podcast, but I will get around it, either by using those dreaded asterisks or changing the name and image of the podcast. Maybe "Talking Male Chicken" or "Talking Clock" or "Kojak's Moneybox" or "The Pen is (mightier than the sword)" or some other euphemism. The issue with doing that is that someone who doesn't want to hear a podcast all about penises might accidentally tune in, or that the euphemism might actually be filthier than the title I want to use (which only means talking rubbish as in "talking cock and bull".
Maybe if I could go back in time I'd think of a different title. Maybe I am being unreasonable in thinking that it's OK to put such a title out into the public arena (it belongs in the pubic arena). I had to content myself with
rebranding my facebook fan page and adding a background to
my Twitter page and posting
this promotional page of stats from the questionnaire. I am keen to make my advertising inventive and entertaining and give as much value as possible for your £15 (usually) ticket price.
So I was frustrated by the negative and a bit out of sorts for most of the day, but glad I turned things around into the positive by making another podcast out of it.
And after an initial spurt ahead giving me the false hope of winning an award, the Celebrity Mastermind Effect has predictably kicked in and Bane (Tom Hardy) has marshalled his evil minions into giving him a massive lead. It's all pretty meaningless given it's essentially an award for whose fans are the most obsessive (and given that there's nothing to stop multiple voting it's even more arbitrary), but I thought you'd like to know that Tom Hardy's obsessive fans are doing much better than you. And you should be ashamed.
Vote here. And then laugh in my stupid face when I inevitably finish second as usual. The other way to make the award look ridiculous of course is to give
even more money to SCOPE proving that I am best than a man who just drove around in a car for a bit. Give £20 and email me your address and I'll send you a copy of each of the SCOPE programmes I've produced (apart from menage a un which has now run out).
