It is a real luxury to be in the same hotel for so many nights, giving me a lot more time to do stuff (or sleep, whichever I prefer). I made a bit of a start on the new script today, even though I am still at the stage where I am really just trying to work out who the characters are and trying to make them real and rounded enough to be interesting over a series. It's mainly just thinking at the moment, but I felt a little excited by the potential of the idea, even if three of the main characters do not quite feel there yet. This is an idea I originally had back in the mid 90s and whilst there is some good stuff from the earlier version I am going to rip most of it up and start again. It needs a lot more depth.
But the important thing is that I feel excited by it and I am desperate not to let another opportunity slip by. It's hard creating something with the ever present fear that some bone headed executive might smother your baby at burst. I went through a period of not giving my all with my scripts so it wouldn't hurt so much when they were smothered. This is obviously a rather dumb way to operate. I am going to raise and nurture this baby properly and if it gets killed by a dunderheaded twat then I will just have to have another baby. You have to have a Victorian style realism when it comes to script writing. Most of your babies will die at birth. It hurts and you miss them when they are gone, but you have to be pragmatic. And unlike with real babies there is a chance (as in this case) that at some point in the future you can do a Frankingstein style resurrection.
But this time I have a good feeling about the project. This might be the one that gets on TV before the tenth anniversary of Warming Up. Keep your fingers crossed.
I had woken up early, but was tired after yesterday, when I had traipsed across Leeds city centre twice (getting seriously lost and going north instead of west on one occasion) and also been to the gym. So I snoozed for a little bit longer. When I woke up I found myself looking at the picture opposite my bed. As a writer I am supposed to be observant, but I had slept two nights in this room without even noticing that it was there. But as my blurred vision focused in on it I noticed that it was quite a piece of work. The main picture was of a palm tree lined bay - maybe from the Mediterranean coast - and seemed to be an attempt at a tasteful watercolour, but for some reason the artist had chosen to place a big picture of someone on a windsurfer in front of that, in the style of a 1970s birthday card that you would get from your gran. It seemed incongruous. If you look at the bay there are no windsurfers on the water and it doesn't look like the kind of place that windsurfers would really choose to windsurf. So why plonk a windsurfer in front of the scene? Not even on a bit with water on it. He was windsurfing on the land, like some kind of a contrary show-off Jesus.
It looked like the artist had had two ideas for pictures and only one
piece of paper. Or maybe that another artist had stayed in the room and decided to make his own addition (though if you look closely the scene is framed in such a way as to leave room to add the windsurfer - so this was a clear plan). @Rod_Vortex on Twitter (where I posted the pic for the benefit of other art connoiseurs) said that he couldn't think of a single work of art that wouldn't be improved by having a windsurfer superimposed on top of it. Maybe he is correct. Perhaps we should travel around art galleries with a windsurfer transfer set and stick similar images on the front of every painting and statue and etching that we can. It would brighten up the world. I can't see that anyone could complain about that.
The picture has blown my mind though, especially as it is cleverly positioned to be viewed by someone between sleep and wakefulness. I think I might have to steal it and put it up in my own bedroom. I think it would take years of study to try to get into the mind of the artist and discover what he or she was aiming at. Annoyingly they have left this work unsigned (to add to the mystery, there is no way they can be embarrassed by it).
I am delighted to say that I might also have come up with my perfect tour breakfast. To save a bit of money and to stop me gorging on all you can eat hotel buffets (once I have paid £10 for breakfast it seems wrong just to eat a bowl of cereal) I brought my own Shredded Wheat with me. The problem with this is that I have to remember to buy milk in advance and then find a way to store it or go out and get it in the morning (there are no shops anywhere near the hotel). The other night when I was hungry after the gig I bought a cup of milk from the bar for a pound, but it wasn't skimmed. I can of course keep milk in cold water in the sink or hanging out a bag from the window. But when I did the former I wasn't convinced that the milk wasn't teeming with bacteria and with the latter there is no way to protect against direct sunlight. In Wolverhampton the room had a mini bar fridge which was a Godsend. Someone suggested a vaccuum flask, which is a good idea.
But now none of it matters because I have discovered you can buy porridge in a pot, which you just have to add boiling water to. Porridge is my breakfast of choice -it fills you up til lunch and ie warm and hearty and healthy. I had been unconvinced that such a system would produce edible or enjoyable porridge, but this morning's brew was perfectly acceptable, especially filled with fruit and seeds which I have with me in storage jars (I am taking this seriously). It is like a very healthy pot noodle. And Ian Novotel and Ian Ibis and Holiday Ian aren't getting any more of my money (though Ian Marks and Ian Spencer get quite a bit for my blueberries). And Ian Travelodge isn't ever going to see any of my money, not after that unfortunate bogey on the shower curtain incident.
Tonight was Leeds Library, where traditionally the audience has sat staring at me for the first half, refusing to laugh (not just at me either, other acts have said the same). I think the audience are enjoying the shows, they just don't like to let the acts know. Tonight though I had a very jolly crowd who were up for it from the start and aside from a Spinal Tap style trip to the stage, where fire doors were all shut at every turn so people had to go round to open them again (on the final leg a man went round to open the outside fire door, but in the process closed the inside fire door). I shouted "Hello Cleveland" once I was on stage, but not many people got the reference. Though speaking of that I had earlier tweeted Michael McKean to congratulate him on the brilliance of "Tonight We're Going to Rock You" which had come up on my iPhone. He almost immediately replied to thank me for my comments, which sent the fanboy inside me exploding with excitement. Twitter is awesome.
