6643/19563
I was having a dream where I realised it was 30 years since I'd been at Upper School and was horrified by the passage of time. Then as I woke I realised I actually started at that school over 41 years ago. I felt utterly disorientated and sick. That can't be true. That would mean a good selection of the current teachers at the school weren't even born when I was attending it.
Another electrician came round to try and work out why our lights were shorting. All the wiring is new and there seem to be no problem with the fittings.
But he was a genius and put together the clues that I'd failed to observe - why were the lights popping when they weren't even on? I had been surprised to see that our cellar had a shallow pool of water in it the other day, but I didn't stop to think that that might be the connection. The wire for the lights went along the bottom of the cellar and there was a little connectors bit under the water. Presumably the water had subsided when the other electrician came round so everything worked again. The cleverer electrician put the wire up on the roof of the cellar and all was fine again. It wasn't a ghost. Or if it was, it was a ghost in the cellar pulling down wires.
But my prediction of another appliance going wrong came true. I came downstairs to find that the dog had chewed up the plastci casing for the magnetic whisk for my new Lavassa milk frother. Which might be the most middle class thing that's ever happened. You can't get replacements due to Brexit. Though it still works just about.
I got to do my podcasts face to socially distanced face in an actual theatre today. We made the unprecedented decision to do two podcasts in one day. Insanity.
Only a small crew were there to see it live, but we had a screen with some of the virtual audience on it and sold over 600 tickets (last I heard) for the two shows. Which is OK, but with a potential audience of about 8 billion it was a little disappointing.
But it was nice to see incompetent sound man George, who I'd last seen back in March at the Palin gig and to actually meet up with my guests Nish and Lou. Fuck they were woke though. I wish they'd go back to sleep.
There were some tech issues with the first show, but it was due to a problem with the internet in the area. Sadly this spoiled the live experience, but if you bought a ticket you'll be able to watch the show online on Sunday and Monday using your links (
you can still buy tickets if you want to see either or both shows)
It's great to see venues attempting shows like this and it also means that their freelance staff can work too. And after all the free podcasts over the last year it is nice for us to do one that might make some money too.
It was also fun to take the mickey out of the brave nerds who had their cameras on and to get them involved. I have got use to doing these interviews to no audience reaction and I think today's were both pretty funny. Will we be back in theatres for real with actual people this year? Hopefully, but how soon.
These shows will go up as regular podcasts in a couple of weeks if you can't afford to jump on board now, or if you can, but feel you shouldn't pay because podcasts should be free. It's all cool.
I was tired for the drive home and the weather was bad. There were a lot of boy racers on the North Circular trying to get round the traffic in the pouring rain, revving their engines, accelerating and changing lanes at speed. We must search for our thrills where we can, I guess, though I worried about their thrills resulting in them, or worse me, being peeled off the tarmac.
But I made it home this time. Hopefully they all did too.