I've already done over 1100 miles on this tour and the SCOPE collection is at well over £4000 and there's still over 40 gigs to go. Luckily I am not too tired though as this week I've come home every night and been able to sleep in. Though of course when I stay over I won't have the drive home to tire me out. But the relentlessness of this particular tour, plus the need to get back every Friday night so I can get up early on Saturday to do the 6Music show is bound to take its toll soon.
For the moment I feel fairly energetic, though not energetic enough to dance backstage before each gig. Dave Gorman tweeted that he was about to do exactly that before his gig tonight and I remembered the days when I was young enough and full up with enough beans to do that. It wasn't that long ago. Enjoy your youth whilst you can Gorman.
Twitter is a uniting force for the otherwise lonesome touring comedian. I also had a good natured pre gig debate with Dara O Briain about his book (which is more than worth a read) and his arguments about Oxbridge privilege. I don't know how helpful it is that I am reading a book about a comedian touring the country when I am actually touring the country as a comedian, but the work certainly speaks to me. It's like he's taken my life and put it down on paper. Except he plays much bigger venues than me and has a tour manager.
Do I miss Simon Streeting?
Never.
I was at the Bath Komedia tonight, which is a little bit cavernous and echoey and took me a while to get accustomed to, but it was another fun one once I had got used to the acoustics. They were opening the doors at 6pm (as people go there for food before the gig) and though I set off early a combination of traffic jams in London and bizarre weather conditions on the M4 meant I arrived with 5 minutes to go before opening time. I did a rushed sound check and then settled down in my cold and pokey dressing room. Presumably this side of the building was once the entry to the Komedia or at least the box office as there is a Komedia sign outside it and there's a door leading directly on to the street from the dressing room. Which means that for the two hours before the gig punters unfamiliar with the venue are trying to open that door to get into the building. Occasionally they will knock.
You were disturbing me from playing Conquest and telling Dara O Briain that a good proportion of Oxbridge students get in thanks to being clever rather than rich if that was you.
Just before I went on stage I popped to the dressing room loo which bizarrely had an orange in the bowl, wedged into the exit pipe, like it was some kind of kinky Conservative MP. I didn't put the orange in there if anyone from the Komedia is reading, but clearly some previous comedian thought this might be funny. It didn't affect the exit of liquids, but luckily I didn't test out what would happen if anything chunkier was put in there (like a tangerine).
As I gazed at the out of context orange - by all the laws of God and nature it shouldn't even be in this country, let alone finding itself blocking up a lavatory, how confused it must have been, what a journey it had taken for this ignoble end - suddenly I became aware of a slight commotion beside me and something banged against the back of my leg. Due to the tininess of the dressing room they had used the loo to store the ironing board and whoever had used it last (maybe the orange situationalist artist) had not put it away very effectively, because even though I hadn't touched it, it had collapsed down towards me like a complicated trap designed by Wile E Coyote. I had escaped with only a slightly throbbing calf muscle, but with three minutes before show time I considered how unfortunate it would have been had I been pole-axed by this ironing board and been discovered lying in the toilet, unconscious with my cock hanging out, probably covered in my own urine, with an orange pushed down the toilet.
People would talk.
It was a lucky escape.
The people of Bath enjoyed the show and I enjoyed saying "Now pretty much every creed and colour of person has come back together and lives in the UK - not in Bath though obviously".
I headed home and as usual the two hour journey seemed to last for eternity. I was annoyed by the idiot central lane hoggers who really had no excuse not to be driving in lane one, as there was so little around, but who were moving over for no one. I flashed one of them as I was forced to move sharply from lane one to lane three to overtake him. He flashed me back as I pulled back in front of him and went pointedly back to the first lane. He then seemed to chase me for a while, presumably angry at the implied criticism of his driving that I had transmitted by the medium of light.
But he was in the wrong.
Pull over into the left hand lane unless you're overtaking you fucking pricks.
And tell your friends about this.
The world would be a much better and more efficient place if the word got round.
And
here's an enjoyable YouTube clip if you are in the cross section of Collings and Herrin and Battlestar Galactica fans. It could only be improved by adding "Andrew Collings has... I Love 1983..... er ..... that's it."
