The day started badly, like I was in a hastily written and tired sitcom. I was heading out for an interview with Arthur Smith for his Comedy Club on Radio 4 extra. I ascertained that I probably had enough time to pop to the bank and pay in the coins that I have collected for SCOPE in the last couple of gigs. There were quite a lot of them which was good, but they were heavy, which was possibly not the best thing for my aching back. But the bank isn't far away and the coin machine makes it easy to pay them in. If it's working. If it wasn't working I'd have to carry the coins around all day. It was a gamble. A stupid gamble.
I put the bag of coins, along with my computer into my manbag and headed off. But five minutes later the over the shoulder bag fell to the pavement - the strap had broken with the weight of other people's generosity. It could not be mended. Why does God let bad things happen to people who are being good. Almost like God hates the disabled. Could Glenn Hoddle have been right? This broken bag certainly suggested so. Or that at least God prefers Ricky Gervais' comedy to mine. God doesn't know anything about comedy. Despite having invented it. Though he's great at the comedy of cruelty as any look at a newspaper will tell you.
I had to carry the bag awkwardly in my hands, but was only five minutes from the bank and reckoned I still had time to get to the Westfield, buy a newer and sturdier bag and pay my money in. The first part was easy enough, though I was forced to rush my decision rather than consider carefully which bag would best see me through the next few years until I broke or lost it. I was already sweaty and my back was slightly aching, but when I got to the bank the coin paying machine was not working. I groaned audibly. This did not look like it was going to be my day. But the lady at the desk heard me and went to check the machine, which was only being emptied. It would take 15 minutes until it was ready. This would make me 10-15 minutes late for my interview, but it wasn't live and I knew it might do me harm to be carting around £360 in lose change in my current condition. So I waited.
I had my coins in a fragile looking plastic bag and was convinced that it would fall apart as I lifted it up to the finally working machine and the coins would go everywhere, but God's sitcom writing skills deserted him, or maybe He got distracted by one of the other 7 billion people on the planet (He can't spend all His time on me) because the bag only broke once it was safely over the coin paying in bit. And remarkably pretty much all my coins went through without further incident.
I was only ten minutes late for the interview and Arthur was outside having a crafty fag anyway, so it didn't matter. He was wearing rather fetching Greek slippers with pompoms on the toes. He said he had a spare pair if I fancied wearing them too, but I declined. We ended up having a long chat - I don't know how much of it they will be able to use, but I enjoyed shooting the shit with one of the comedians who I look up to the most. He questioned whether blogging every day for nine years (the anniversary is just a couple of weeks away) was a good thing and wondered if it had become a chore. But although there have been some times when I wanted to stop or felt I had nothing left to say I am enjoying keeping it going for now. It's useful for me and I hope entertaining enough for the few thousand of you who read it. It is what it is, not always hilarious or even interesting, but by giving myself the permission to fail, it means I give it as good as a go as I can and at its best can produce comedy out of nothing.
Not today though.
At least I have a new bag.
The new series of Richard Herring's Objective starts on Radio 4 at 6.30pm on Tuesday and will be on the iPlayer after that. This first one might get podcast as the Comedy of the Week (though no one has confirmed that to me, so suspect it might not). Do listen in if you can.
The mini tour continues this week with gigs in Fareham on Tuesday, Aldershot on Wednesday and Milton Keynes on Thursday - there may be a handful of tickets left for the first two gigs, but Milton Keynes is sold out (check with venue for returns). All details for tour
on the tour page. Next week I am doing 5 nights at the Soho Theatre in London. The Friday and Saturday ones are almost sold out, so
Book Now. It's a much shorter London run than usual (I will be back at the Bloomsbury Theatre next year if the 10pm start is too late for you at Soho).
