I really have no idea how last year, despite being fat and unfit I managed to do my tour, all the driving and carry on with the 6Music Saturday morning shows. It was an insane schedule where I would get in from the last gig at 2am, get up at 7.30am, do the radio show, then get in the car and drive to the next gig. This time I am taking a hiatus from Collins and Herring (after today) and who knows whether we will return at all, but even with Reliable Pete to drive me I found today a bit of a challenge. And the tour has only just started.
Inevitably when I detail this kind of thing someone will think I am complaining about how hard my life is and point out that their grandad (it never seems to be them themselves, which is interesting) worked as a welder of a miner or in some other gruelling job. But I am not trying to say my job is the hardest job in the world - it isn't and I mainly love it - but nor is it the easiest. And on a day like today it is 18 hours long. So when I was driving myself as well and finding the energy to do a 3 hour radio show and a 2 hour stand up show, I think even your grandad might concede that that is quite a tough working day. It's not as tough as your grandad's job, I would agree, but it's probably tougher than yours. Though I know most of the year my job is a lot easier.
Anyway let's not fight about it. I am just saying I don't know how I did it.
I am only one year older than I was last year and I can't see how I managed to keep up the energy. Tonight on stage I felt pretty tired and made a couple of unforced errors. And this year the tour is a whole lot easier for me.
So anyway, I am just trying to say that whilst I am sad to be taking a break from the 6Music show I think it's a good thing for my chances of making it to 50 years of age. We had a fun (possibly) final show, getting the brilliantly funny and inventive listeners to make us commemorative memorabilia of our time on the show and to send in their own Herring Rules. When someone said that able-bodied people parking in disabled parking spaces should be outlawed I pointed out that we were really searching for new laws, rather than existing ones (though someone else informed us that this crime is not always illegal). I had suggested that anyone wrongly parking in a disabled parking space should be punished by being given a disability, the longer they are in the space, the more severe the affliction. The only downside of this that I could see was that they would then be given an actual disabled parking permit and might deliberately minorly trangress in order to get one. Inevitably, I suppose, someone texted in to complain about my comment and we had to move on. But I actually can't see what they were complaining about. It was clearly a joke in any case, but one with something of a social conscience and a degree of logic, even if the logic is warped. What is the person texting in complaining about? Presumably they think I am mocking disability, which I would say I am clearly not.
I am clearly saying that illegally parking in a disabled parking spot is a terrible thing to do and whilst I would never really want to injure someone for doing something wrong, there is a certain justice to it. I have often thought and probably said before that there is something to be said for creating harsh punishments for the more "minor" crimes. When it comes to murder or rape or armed robbery the punishments are already extreme, but it doesn't really stop people doing those things (or not everyone clearly). If you were sent to prison for 30 years for dropping litter then I reckon pretty much no one would do that on purpose any more. Harsh punishments for minor crimes have an effectiveness that I think they don't always have for more major ones.
So I was using satire to express my disgust at people who don't respect disabled parking spaces, but maybe there would be something in actually incorporating my idea in the statute books. Actually disabling people would be a step too far perhaps, but what about if a not yet disabled person parks in a disabled space they will then have to live a week of their lives in a wheelchair - and not be able to use any parking spaces in that time. I think they might then start to get a good idea of why parking in a disabled parking space is a cuntish thing to do and they might actually learn something and stop doing it.
I can't understand what the person complaining didn't like about the idea.
There was no time to feel sad when the show was over as I had to get home and then get to Peterborough and the ebullient and slightly drunk group of comedy fans who run this gig. I managed to push through my tiredness and give the show the energy required and weirdly enough the Mayor of Peterborough and the Lady Mayoress were sitting in the front row in their chains of office. I directed a couple of predictable gags about elaborate necklaces to the Mayoress, who obviously enjoyed herself as she bought a copy of Hitler Moustache after the show!
Things couldn't have been more different after last night's post gig difficulties. The helpful and overexcited and drunk crew assisted us in carrying our stuff down to the car and we were allowed out of the fire doors and everything. Though one of the helpful and drunk crew accidentally (I will refrain from adding quotation marks to that, but it's hard to see how this accident occurred) picked up Pete's bumbag (he is a proper tech, so had a bumbag, though disappointingly doesn't have his keys on a chain on his belt) and made off with it. Again I thought that Pete's reliable tag line had taken another knock and that he had simply put the bumbag in the car, but fifteen minutes into our journey home we got a call to say the bumbag had been located. So all was OK with the world and maybe it had been an accident after all!
And good news for Londoners too lazy or cold to come out in January, there will be one more performance of Christ on a Bike in the city before it's all over. I am recording my DVD at the Leicester Square Theatre on the 18th May.
Buy your tickets here. It's only £15. On the same night we will also be recording an exclusive Collings and Herrin podcast as a DVD extra, which will only be available on the DVD and won't be going up on iTunes. These always sell out fast so
book now./ It's £15 for a ticket, but if you book for both shows then it will only cost you £25. It should be a fun night, so hope to see you there.
