What a day!
I was uncharacteristically nervous about the HIGNFY appearance. And also surprised that there were no early indications of what might be on the show. It was a pretty good bet that the election might be covered, but what else would be in there? The change to Scrabble rules? The women trying to take a dead body on to a plane (proving that "Weekend at Bernie's" probably couldn't happen in real life)? The BNP members trying to kill each other?
I tried to take my mind off things by going to the bank to pay in the SCOPE money from the last five gigs. It was a surprisingly huge amount of coinage that I had to carry over in two half full buckets (I tried to put it all in one bucket but that was almost too heavy to lift, let alone carry for half a mile). I had been delighted to find out there is a coin counting machine in the Natwest in the Westfield and was hopeful that this meant my coin bagging days were pretty much over. But previous experience suggested that the machine might be broken or not work properly, which was a big fear as I didn't want to have to carry these coins back (though at least I wouldn't have to go to the gym after this work out).
It seemed all was going fine and I filled the machine to capacity (which only accounted for about a fifth of the coins in my buckets). But disaster struck as after this first load went through successfully the machine shut down. It became apparent that I was going to have to go home with almost as many coins as I had come with. And I estimated that there was at least £800 left, which made me feel oddly vulnerable. But it would be a strong mugger who could get away with this booty and one who would then have the problem of counting and bagging it all up.
But all this kerfuffle took my mind off my nerves.
I didn't get to the studio until 5pm for a show that began at 7.30 and was only given a big pile of newspapers to look through. Victoria Coren was the other guest panelist and Alexander Armstrong was the host, and it was good to see some friendly faces. Though Victoria was a bit freaked out by my moustache, not knowing why I had it.
She wasn't the only one. I passed Christina Ricci in the corridor, who was on the Graham Norton show that was filming in the next studio, and she seemed a little surprised too. And she was in the Addam's Family, and has had to work with a disembodied hand that can walk around. So if I can shock her then I must be creepy and kooky indeed.
The place was full of stars. Ricky Gervais was in the next dressing room to him and though I didn't see him, I could hear his distinctive laugh coming through the wall. I presumed he wasn't watching "The Invention of Lying".
Despite my nervousness I was determined to make the most of my time on the show and not sit there and clam up like some guests seem to do. I have waited 39 series to be finally invited on to this show and I had to make the most of the opportunity.
If anything I probably talked a little bit too much, but I was aiming to get four or five big laughs from the audience and I achieved that - and I took a chance by daring to make my first joke at the expense of Ian Hislop looking more like his Spitting Image puppet than the puppet itself. But I just about got away with it. There was plenty of stuff that fell flat and I worried at times that I was being annoying rather than funny, but hopefully they will edit out the bad stuff and keep in the good (unless they want to make me like an idiot). I think I acquitted myself well. You will have to tune in on Thursday at 9pm on BBC1 to find out (or watch one of the repeats or go on iPlayer).
But I'd got another boost just before the show when I received the news that AIOTM has been nominated for
The Sony award for best internet programme. We had entered the show in a couple of categories (you have to put yourself forward and pay to do so - we had decided against entering the Collings and Herrin podcasts, but as Collings philosophically puts it, our 6Music show is the award for that podcast), but I had thought it unlikely we'd actually get the nyumination. The Sonys are well respected in the industry and nothing I have ever done on the radio has got a nod, so it's pretty incredible for this home made show to have got some recognition. Both HIGNFY and this have been a long time coming, and it's a neat coincidence that they happened on the same day.
But these achievements paled into insignificance when I got the news that York had beaten Wimbledon 5-0 and assured their place in the play-offs. If I hadn't rescheduled my York City benefit gig to do HIGNFY then perhaps this game wouldn't have happened tonight (I doubt that was really the case, but you never know), so in a way this is also my achievement.
This might be the best day of my life.
I reminded Paul Merton after the show about how I used to come up and talk to him at the BBC Radio LE Christmas parties when I was drunk enough to have the confidence to do so. He was one of the first stand ups I had ever seen on TV and I have always been a big fan of his stuff and I was (and frankly still am) in awe of him. I was pretty drunk again tonight by the time I talked to him (and it was difficult to believe that I had been sitting beside him and riffing some ideas just an hour or so earlier on that familiar set) and he was kind enough to say that I had been very charming and funny in those yearly conversations almost twenty years ago. Which was a relief because I worried I had been a massive idiot.
And Ian Hislop was also charming and gracious afterwards and didn't hold my little dig against me.
I felt a bit like a kid who had won a competition.
