My hotel room tonight had a four poster-bed. Surely they shouldn't put lone travelers in here. It's rubbing their loneliness in their face. Still, I thought to myself, after the gig I could be having the most romantic wank of my life.
But what kind of a man could keep himself aroused in such circumstances? Surrounded by frills and chintz? Only one who dreamed of being a princess.
In the end I opted for the wardrobe as usual.
I did some spectacularly bad driving today, but luckily came out unscathed. As I left Manchester I followed a couple of cars that were turning right at some major traffic lights, only to discover they were sneakily turning before the oncoming traffic could reach them. The oncoming traffic was a lot closer to reaching me and had to slow done to let me sneak through. I was a bit shaken by that mistake and two minutes later I started pulling into the left hand lane without spotting that there was a car already filling the space I was trying to get into. Luckily I noticed in time.
By this stage of the tour my brain has turned to jelly and I am a bit dippy and tired and forgetful, which is OK most of the time, but not when I am driving at 70 miles an hour on a motorway.
I was going a little bit faster than that when I spotted a police car waiting in a slip road so slowed down, completing my overtaking and returning sharply to the left hand lane, whilst slowing down to an unnecessarily and practically sarcastically slow 50 miles an hour. Which was not appreciated by the lorry behind me. I saw them getting a bit close in my rear view mirror and then in my confusion tried to speed up a bit, but hit the brake instead.
A little way up the road the lorry passed me and the driver's mate shouted at me angrily and incomprehensibly out of the window. I smiled and let my Hitler moustache do the talking.
Luckily everyone else was driving well and none of my carelessness resulted in anything more serious than some yelled expletives. Though I was conscious that before I had left I had done a pre-recorded interview with a Gloucestershire radio station in which I had closed by saying I was halfway through the tour and I wasn't dead yet. I wondered whether they would still put out the interview if I had managed to cause my own demise in the 20 hours before broadcast.
I think next year I will have to pay someone to drive me around. I know my mum will feel happier about that. I just have to get through the next two months!
And perhaps that will be cost effective, especially if I hire a people carrier or similar which might allow me to do some work whilst I traveled. Or at least play loads more games of Conquest.
And don't email me to tell me I should get the train. I'd love to, but I have too much stuff to carry around - not least the very important programmes for SCOPE.
I actually feel remarkably fresh given that I have done over thirty gigs in the last month and a bit, though ask me again in a week.
You know if I am still alive.
But please spare a thought for all those comedians out there, risking their lives on the roads in order to bring cock jokes closer to the place where you live. We are braver and in more danger and more admirable than bomb disposal experts in Iraq.
