Oh dear, this isn't a good sign. Two dates into the tour and I am absolutely knackered already. I think it's more to do with lack of sleep on a few nights last week, but either way I am showing my age. I was in bed until midday and then stumbling around like a zombie whose been out on the piss and then just been hit with a knockout dart for the rest of the day.
I just about managed to build up the energy to get myself into town for a double record of the Radio 4 show "Wordaholics" this evening, though I was worried I might be as much use as a cow in a Findus beef lasagne factory (see me working up my Radio 4 crowd-pleasing references). It was a less petrifying experience than Just A Minute (which was recorded in the same room with many of the same faces in the front row- gotta love the slightly eccentric Radio 4 fans) and it worked out OK. Gyles Brandreth, the host and that rare thing a rather loveable ex-Tory MP, does a sterling job at the helm and though it's very Radio 4 it's worth a listen. It's odd that I feel the need to be defensive in that way. Gyles asked me if there were any words I'd like to reclaim (as I have done with objects in my own Radio 4 show) and I suggested that "middle-class" might be one to go for. It's nearly always used in a pejorative sense, like there's something to be ashamed of, but I am proud to be middle-class. The middle-classes do some great jobs: teaching, doctoring, producing Radio 4 panel shows. None of us should be made to feel ashamed of something that we were born into anyway. My slightly impassioned speech resonated with the Radio 4 fans in the audience (for some reason). We've been down-trodden for too long. But we're too polite and self-effacing to do anything about it. Carry on cussing us all you like.
My favourite moment (which might not make it into the broadcast which is just before lunchtime) was when I was asked to define the culinary word Duxelle and suggested it might refer to some kind of cooking prophylactic which might be employed by those frying bacon in the nude. A sort of oven glove if you will. One that would be coloured a lurid green so that you didn't mistake anything for a sausage. I enjoyed having some cock-based banter with Brandreth. When I bought his "Daft Dictionary" when I was 10 I couldn't have dreamed that this would one day happen.
Another year passes by without me adding either O to my COBNOB. I am confident that I will win an Oscar eventually though. I've still got about 40 more goes at this thing. It might help if I made even a small effort to write or appear in a film. But at least my podcast (specifically "Richard Herring" podcast - whatever that is) is up for a Loaded Lafta. So I could be upgrading to a CLOBNOB. Except that I am too ashamed of the association with the Lads Mag to give you the link and ask you to dirty yourselves by voting. There's no point anyway as I can't possibly win.
My dreams of making it a CLOBJNOB are fading as Tom Hardy fans have managed to shit all over you and make you look pathetic in the
Justgiving award. He's got over 60% of the vote! You've let me down, but most of all you've let yourselves down.
