Another busy, but really lovely day. Jam packed from start to finish, but all with lovely fun. It's great to have a job that I enjoy this much. It's great to be enjoying it properly again.
I didn't get to bed til 3 and was up at 9.30 and not long after was answering the door to Andrew Collings in my dressing gown. I could see from the way he blanched that he was excited by knowing I was just one poorly tied knot away from being completely naked. We will be bumming before the year is out. That's a guarantee.
But I got dressed as he made some peppermint tea - one has to play hard to get - and then we went up to my attic to record podcast 22. You can listen to it
here or download from iTunes. After a week or two out of the top of the charts, we just hit 25 in the comedy charts last night. It's a fun show. Tell your friends about it. Once again the show spiralled off in directions I had not anticipated, including an analysis of Goodnight Sweetheart and a couple of other decade old TV shows. This is what the internet was invented for.
After we had done with that, my Welsh DVD making friends Chris and Gerald arrived to record some extras for the forthcoming release of "Oh Fuck I'm 40". First we headed to Nandos for lunch. Andrew Collings, who is used to eating oatmilk off of wheat free biscuits had never seen such a thing. He had a chicken burger with hot sauce on. I didn't have the heart to tell him that a chicken is a bird. He so loves bird and would hate to think he had consumed one of his friends and potential lovers. Not before he had fucked it anyway.
I tried to get my money's worth with my bottomless diet coke and managed 6 glasses for my £1.80. Chris only had three, making his cola twice as expensive as mine. The idiot. One day I hope to drink 18 glasses, knowing I am getting cola at only 10p a cup. Take that Nandos. Then you'll only be making 9pence profit on each glass of coke. Bang!
I needed to go to the toilet a few times before we recorded the first ever Collings and Herrin video podcast. It's just like all the audio ones except you can see us and the squalor we record in. Plus we would be recorded on state of the art microphones, though Collings managed to ruin this quality by also recording the podcast on his mac, which had got hot and had a whirring fan which ruined the proper sound! But that is for the best.
This video podcast will only be available on the packed extra disc of the OFIF DVD. So that's another reason to buy it when it's out. I know you'll be buying it anyway!
Collings was dispatched and then Chris, Gerald and I headed for West Ruislip Golf Club to record a little documentary to go with the recording of the preview of OFIF I did there last year, which was a bit rubbish, but which is quite interesting to watch in order to see how the show developed over time. They were also going to film the Headmaster's Son, so we could do the same thing on next year's DVD release. The people of West Ruislip are quite conservative and like golf and it was unlikely to be the best preview, but a perverse part of me likes to show the world my less successful moments. And who wants to see unfettered success, without any acknowledgment that it takes failure and pain to get there.
Although the crowd were a bit easily shocked by some of the early material, the show rocked along really well and I did what I think is the best performance of the show so far. I certainly hit the emotional journey really well. I cut some stuff, but still did ten minutes too much. But it's getting closer every time and with a couple of days proper graft will probably come down to a tight 65 minutes, which I think I'll get away with. I am very much looking forward to Edinburgh. I think I am going to be the best prepared that I have been since Talking Cock.
So it was non-stop, but now I am home and drinking a glass of wine and looking forward to a day off in Cambridge at a wedding tomorrow. Before another eight days of gigs and work, at the end of which I'll hopefully have a show and a Guide to Comedy!
I am happy. Can you tell?
