Ah Universe, how you like to punish me. Not only do I have to write a brand new 45 minutes of material in the next three days, already stressed and tired, I woke up with a sore throat (no doubt self-inflicted with all my childish punk shouting - I am 42 years old) and get progressively iller during the day. I know it's entirely my fault. I have been putting myself through the wringer for the last three weeks and it was bound to catch up on me, especially after letting my hair down pretty much every night this week. I'd like to think I was still able to go out, party and then work all day long, but it can't be done any more. And if I lose just a bit of sleep, as I did last night, then I enter a world of pain. I probably have a little bit too much on. And with 8 AIOTMs to go there is a mountain to climb.
I was cheered up a bit by finding
the theme tune to the Double Deckers posted on Twitter. I used to love this show when I was a kid (of 3 or 4 by the looks of things) and it was a bit of a Bella's pudding moment to be taken back four decades to see it again. I had known that the bloke from Aswad was in the team, but had not known, or had forgotten that Peter Firth from Equus, The Flipside of Dominick Hyde and Spooks was in it. I realised he has kept me entertained in one form or another through my entire life.
I spent an enjoyable hour on wikipedia catching up on
what had happened to the rest of the gang. The best news is that Doughnut, who was my favourite became a theoretical physicist working on string theories. Good on you Doughnut. Enjoy your gardening.
In my illness various negativity on iTunes and Twitter started to get to me a little bit. Someone posted on Twitter to say they were going to see the funny one from Lee and Herring tonight and then put @herring1967 in brackets. I assumed that this meant he thought he was coming to see me, but knew that my gig tonight had been cancelled some time ago, so kindly twittered back to say the gig was off and added that I hoped he hadn't meant Stewart. He wrote back saying "How awkward" because he did mean Stewart. But that wasn't awkward, it was just rude. I don't mind him thinking that Stewart is funnier (there is, of course, no accounting for taste), but why tag my name into the message. He was essentially just texting me to tell me that I wasn't funny. Which is different than just expressing that opinion. Luckily such stuff doesn't happen that often on Twitter and one has the easy recourse to simply block people who use it to make themselves feel big by being unpleasant to people they don't know. And I know not to take the haters seriously, and most of the feedback on AIOTM is positive or encouraging or at least appreciates that I am attempting something difficult and interesting, even if it inevitably doesn't always work. So it can slightly sting when you have nothing of the show written and are feeling ill to find people writing it off as terrible or pointless.
I was soon over it and I will keep pushing onwards with the show, provided it doesn't kill me and ultimately I feel a bit sorry for the people who feel it's necessary to try and make other human beings feel a little sad on a Friday night (and I am sure some of them are simply trying to spread around their own sadness). And I know that it's a bit rich in a way. I spend a lot of time slagging off other people for comedy purposes, but I don't actively seek them out and post a letter through their door telling them.
I wonder if anyone wrote to Tiger from the Double Deckers in 1971 and let her know they thought she was a cunt.
Probably.
Personally it was the other Tiger that I hated. I hope he reads this. The stuffed idiot.
