Warming Up

The summer morning dog walks are an incredible tonic to the soul. The countryside is so verdant, the air so clean and the exercise invigorating and it’s fun being out and about with my best and only friend, Wolfie.

60 minutes of walking anywhere is a great start to the day, but I appreciate how lucky I am to have all this on my doorstep and to be self-employed so I don’t (usually) have to rush off somewhere for work. Though my mind starts up in gear on these walks, so I am working as I walk as often as not.

Things seemed so perfect and harmonious that inevitably the evil or realistic voice in my head began to question how permanent all this was. Is climate change really going to disrupt everything? I tried to picture what the world might become and it’s very hard. The human brain has real difficulty properly imagining that things will change if they’ve always been one way and as negative and doom-mongering as I can be, our world feels so permanent. Or we expect someone to step in and save us or pray to God to intervene.

I couldn’t get my head round the idea that things could change so drastically, so like the citizens of Pompeii enjoying the smoke coming out of their local mountain, I am going to assume everything will be OK and that my kids aren’t going to have a terrible life of upheaval and violence and gas masks. I was still listening to War of the Worlds on this walk though, which probably didn’t help. The bacteria aren’t going to help us this time though.

Way to wreck a lovely walk, reality.

I continued working hard on the first chapter of the novelised version of â€œEverything Happens (For No Reason)” and think I have a reasonable first draft. It’s over 5000 words and if I can keep up this rate (which has been no means long working days- or even working every day) then I could have this thing finished in 6 months (though admittedly it’s a bit easier to do the opening chapters as I’ve done some of the work already). I am also planning to write an audio sitcom version of this at the same time and then release it as a podcast (using money generated by the ads in RHLSTP to pay for it). This might be a slower process, but it would be awesome if the revenue raised from you listening to a few ads could fund a sitcom that might otherwise never see the light of day (I don’t think the TV version is dead yet, but it’s certainly pining for the fjords).

The main thing though is that I am writing again. I know you might think that’s a weird thing to say for someone who has blogged for 6028 consecutive days, but there is something different about even speculative professional work. And what I did came easy, which is certainly not always the case and was fun to write, which is also quite rare. And there’s a chapter of a book that wouldn’t have existed if I hadn’t sat down and made the effort. But think of all the chapters that have been lost because of my laziness or self-doubt or drunkenness in the past.

Guests for the Warwick Arts Centre on 28th June will be Caroline Quentin and Bobby Mair - Book here

And London - still tickets left for two very impressive line-ups on 10th and 17th June at King’s Place. Use us or lose us you cockney bell ends

And I am now working hard on booking some top guests for Canterbury on 17th July

I've got some very good possibles.

And new names are being added to the Ed Fringe run all the time - check out the tour listings for confirmed names

Phil Wang and Geoff Norcott recently added!

And remember to find out about the big guests before anyone else then become a monthly badger here

Badgers and Dripsters already know about a great Edinburgh guest and also a cracking guest for the 11th November RHLSTP at the Leicester Square Theatre.