I hoped to get a lie in this morning, but the workmen renovating a house up the street from me started up some kind of drill at 7.55am and I was awake. They seem to do this every day at the same time for five minutes and then not do any other drilling for the rest of the day. Perhaps they feel, like bum crack revealing Bagpusses (Bagpi?) that if they wake up everyone else should wake up too, or maybe they only have access to the drill for five minutes, early in the morning and have to make the most of it while they can. This job could take years.
Sometimes I remember to put in my ear plugs the night before, but last night I was tired and a little tipsy and fell straight to sleep.
I had decided to make today a day of rest (aside from my preview in the evening) and so it was annoying that I hadn't been allowed to sleep in. Perhaps I should have tried to have a siesta, but it didn't matter too much as I was largely going to laze around, catch up on some admin, watch some rubbish telly and allow my brain to go fallow in the hope that tomorrow it would be brimming with ideas.
I was lightly hungover, something that has only happened a handful of times in my 44th year (I didn't drink at all for the first half of it and have rarely exceeded two drinks in a night since I started drinking again). But it felt like a deserved hangover and might have been as much about tiredness as anything else and it gave me a valid excuse to go for a Nandos at lunchtime with my non-imaginary girlfriend.
It felt a bit like I had been released from a prison sentence to be honest. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that the relief and elation I felt at my new found freedom exceeded that of Nelson Mandela when he finally walked away from confinement. I wonder if they made him put a cumpkin on before they let him go. Perhaps Kenneth Clarke could suggest that that gets instituted as a policy for all prisoners being released from their sentences. If there is one place where there would a ready supply of sperm it would be in prison. Wouldn't that be a fitting thing to do to signify the end of punishment and the beginning of new life? I think if criminals knew that they would have to put on a cumpkin before they left prison that crime rates would drop considerably (though a few people might commit crime just to experience it).
I was picking gunk out of my hair all day - even after several showers. I presume it was dried on flour, but I realised with a start today that I had left the creation of the cumpkin contents to Emma and Dan and there was no way of knowing what they might have put in there. I heard a rumour that when Tommy Steele performed "Singing in the Rain" live on stage, his attitude towards the theatre staff made him quite unpopular and on the last night all of the stage hands pissed in the tank that created the on stage downpour. After the show Tommy Steele, so the almost certainly untrue story goes, produced generous gifts for everyone, saying he knew he could be a bit hard to work with but that he appreciated their efforts.
Could Dan (who has Nazi genes) have decided to do something similar, whilst Emma whooped and cheered and egged him on and maybe cradled his balls? Almost certainly.
You can judge for yourself because it's now possible to witness the denouement of As It Occurs To Me (as videoed by Dan Tetsell, perhaps so he could "enjoy" it repeatedly at his own leisure)
here.
And we're working on a release of all the AIOTM
shows and secret stand-ups (plus a souvenir poster) which will be released by the good folk at gofasterstripe in the next few weeks. It's the perfect gift for an enemy!
But I couldn't have a whole day of lotus eating inertia as I had to drive over to Islington for the third time in four days (and I am back in that part of town tomorrow) for another preview. Given that I have only had time to work on this show on stage in front of an audience I am very encouraged by the reaction it is getting. I am hopeful that this might be my best show yet Book Now if you want to see it at the Fringe. Soon enough I might have time to actually sit down and think about the show and read some books about it, but tomorrow I shall return to the TV script. If I can finish that then my life might almost become enjoyable again!
Who am I kidding? I had Nandos for lunch. No one has a better life than me!
There's a brilliant line-up at the Lyric Hammersmith this Sunday - Pappys, Isy Suttie, Andy Zaltzman and a secret TV star trying out new material - all for as little as £10. And me compering (imagine if I am as funny as I was at Bush Hall - I might not be). BOOK NOW.
And also the brilliant Mustard magazine is out again Buy here.
