I had been planning a lot of things today. I was going to go for a run - that was a definite, I absolutely need to get back into the swing of exercising and have been failing for too long. I was also going to start work on the script for show 17 of AIOTM (AIOTM), because tomorrow I want to watch the England game and am doing my Lyric gig in the evening with a dream line up of Stewart Lee, Peter Serafinowicz, Tim Key and Tom Basden and Bridget Christie - there have been some strong line ups before but this for me is the best yet, a mixture of past, present and future stars (I am the star of the past in case you were wondering, though star might be pushing it a bit too far and in 5 years time I predict Basden and Key and their gang will be the shining lights of British comedy). A few extra tickets were made available today and there may be some returns from disgruntled Noel Fielding fans so contact the venue to see if you can get tickets or get on a reserve list.
As it happened though I didn't go for a run and I didn't do a jot of wor. In fact I barely went outside even though it was a beautiful day. Apart from having lunch in the garden with my girlfriend and her pals I sat in the living room all day, with the football on the TV, playing video games, like the perpetual teenager that I still clearly am.
This is how I relax. I guess this is what I enjoy. Though such behaviour makes me feel a bit sick and when I lie on my deathbed (if I am fortunate to have one) when i have one day left, will I look back on days like these and wish I had done more with them? I think I will just have to accept that this is the kind of person I am. Sitting inside in a hot room, too lazy to open the window and let in the breeze, pretending to be playing a pinball machine on my iPad.
Or will I wish I had spent more days playing pinball, because as I slouched on my lifesofa that was how I was feeling. I wished for more pinball. I had always wanted a pinball machine of my own and came very close to buying an Addams Family pinball machine when I moved into this house. I had a room set aside for it and had arranged with someone to deliver one, but think I was suddenly aware that I didn't have the thousand pounds necessary to purchase it, so pulled out of the deal. And the iPad version of pinball is not too bad at all - definitely the best video version of pinball I have seen, mainly because you do hold it in your hands in a similar fashion to a real machine. So perhaps this justifies the cost of the thing- the jury had been out a little bit I have to admit. It was cheaper than a pinball machine, and I had got three different ones to play now - though I really hope that someone might manage to get the Addams Family one on to the iPad, because that is the one I really want to play. Come on game developers. You would make me very happy.
And a video pinball machine always remains true and bits don't break, which is always the frustration with the real ones, though I was pretty impressed and amazed on one of the games when my ball actually became stuck on a little ledge and there was no way of dislodging it. Very true to life. Though annoyingly and ridiculously given how easy it would be to make it happen on an iPad there is no nudge feature on this game, so all I could do was restart the game.
It was a cool (if rather warm) way to spend the afternoon and early evening and late evening and maybe the deathbed Richard Herring should not regret the odd day frittered away out of the thousands he will have had.Though it's easy to say that when your days on Earth still seem infinite.
And if the dying me remembers things properly there were some great things to recall from this day of relaxation, not least the fact that because there was no 6music show today I got a luxurious lie in and to spend some time with my girlfriend and eat roast chicken in the sunshine and not have to drive 200 miles to a gig. I got a Saturday like a regular person. Remember to look at the good stuff (hopefully) old dying Richard. And playing pinball is as good a way to spend your day as walking in the sunshine. Pinball might be my Madeleine biscuits actually. Suddenly I wonder if I like it so much because it conjures up memories of the games rooms on camp sites in France that I stayed in as a child. And of sitting on a pinball machine with Carla, holding hands and feeling sad because she was going home that lunchtime.
I don't think teenagers will be able to sit on their iPads in the same way and that might be why pinball will die with my generation.
In fact I am quite worried I might fling mine across the room at some point in frustration at a missed ball.
There are some new AIOTM T-shirts for your perusal at
mysoti.com.
