The lazy, lazy banks are taking a two day holiday and most of you seem to be following suit, but comedians never stop working (what do you mean this doesn't count as work?) and I had writing and gigging to do. Our little block of flats is on the corner of a couple of roads on the outskirts of Harpenden and there's been a sign up on the way into our car park for a couple of days warning us that one of the roads will be shut off today for a street party. I wasn't sure if the road block would cut off the entrance to the parking and I might be stuck and unable to get to my gig or forced to plough through tressle tables and tiny children with Union Jacks painted on their faces.
As it was the road to the left was shut, but I could still get out. It was nice of our neighbours to warn us that they were having a party, but also a little mean spirited I thought that this warning didn't extend to an invitation. It was just like putting up a big billboard saying, we're having a party, but it's only for the house people on the street, not you stinky flat-scum. I think they could have taken the chance and opened up the invite, mainly because these flats seem to be largely catering for divorced dads who are away at the weekends and holidays seeing their kids.
I'm being unfair - obviously there has to be a cut off point. And even though the flats are on the same street as the houses I think it's fair that the house people had their party and kept the flat people in their tiny little holes, with nothing but a sign warning them to keep away from the fun. And I think it's probably more statistically likely that people who live in flats are paedophiles, so you can understand why the upstanding house dwellers would want to keep us away.
The irony, of course, that they couldn't know, was that I actually have a house and it's in proper London. If anything they should be excluding me because I was of too high standing for them. It made me chuckle to see how misplaced their imagined judgement of me was.
I didn't want to go to their dumbass party anyway. The rude Harpenden bastards. But the music and frivolity was a bit distracting.
So I went into town to work in a cafe and go to the gym - I didn't invite any of my stuck-up neighbours, but nor did I put up a big sign informing them of my plans and actually got some good work done. I am working up a sit-com version of an idea I first worked on twenty years ago and though I was initially unsure it would work, something sparked today and I think it might be quite good. Hopefully if it works out I can just spend the next twenty years putting out all the ideas I worked on two decades before and cruise to my death living off the fruits planted by the younger and more creatively fecund me. I am already thankful to the me of ten years ago for writing Talking Cock for me. It's going well in preview. I am going to make some changes, but the structure and most of the gags are pretty sound. I played in front of a largish crowd for the first time tonight and it went down very well.
Luckily in case my plan of just repeating old stuff doesn't come off I am having other ideas. My sentient sat-nav continues to provide inspiration. I was heading to Oxford tonight and had planned to go down the M1, round the M25 and up the M40, but my sat nav had other ideas and I slavishly followed it - it must know what it's doing, right? It took me off the M1 and I presumed there was a short cut to the M40 in the offing. I was taken down tiny country lines, turning back and forth until I had lost all sense of direction or where I actually was. My original arrival time had been 8.20pm, but when I finally hit a main road, that estimate had leapt to 8.50pm and my destination was now 12 miles further away than it had been before. Plus I seemed to be heading towards Luton, which is very near where I had set off from and was not in the right direction at all. It made no sense to me. I actually checked the destination to ensure the sat nav hadn't decided it was going somewhere else. But it was still heading for Oxford.
I have no idea what happened and am so dependent on my sat nav that I didn't even know where the road I was on was supposed to head or if it was the right way to go. Oxford wasn't on any of the signs. What if my sat nav had gone insane, or just gone wrong if you want to be less sci-fi about it? How would I find my way back to where I had to go. What if the sat nav had decided to take me somewhere else, where I would be punished for all the crimes I have committed in my life (most of which involve stealing pic n mix sweets from service stations, but maybe the universe wanted to restore balance). My reliance on this machine is so strong now that I have to follow it anywhere, no matter how much logic dictates that it is wrong. I knew my way was the best, but ended up in a maze of country roads, which might have been quicker if you could travel at the speed limit on them, but which were so thin and windy that I had to drive slowly. My car seems to be writing a thriller for me this week and I don't think it's too bad a plot. There might be something in this.
I got to Oxford in the end, though at points I really believed I might end up in the Twilight Zone and somehow I was there by 8.30, even though I hadn't been speeding. Weirdly, on the way home, the sat nav took me along the motorways, with no question of selecting this odd countryside route. How could it select different routes for the same journey - especially as it seemed to believe that there were hold ups on the M40 on the way home (there weren't). My car is being brilliantly spooky and I pretty much had a whole script in my head by the time I was home. I might have to credit it if it ever gets made. Written by Richard Herring and Y336VKT (not the actual registration plate, stalkers with access to the DVLA).
The first of the two Just a Minute shows that I recorded the other week can now be heard
on iPlayer.
