I was up stupidly early today to catch an 8.20am flight to Madrid. I donÂ’t know why they had me on such an early flight as the show was not on until after midnight, but it is not mine to question why. I just go from one gig to the next, whether itÂ’s in Madrid or Hull or Swansea. I am like the Littlest Hobo. Maybe tomorrow I will learn to settle down, until tomorrow I just keep moving on.
I was at Heathrow two hours before my flight and due to only having hang and using the new automated check in machines I was through the gates within 15 minutes (take note Cardiff airport) with time to kill. So I got on with my script, giving myself the realistic goal of finishing the first half today. But when you have written half a script, you are genuinely much more than half way through. ItÂ’s like
the struggle up the hill to reach 40, once you’re over the other side, you’re on that toboggan to death (or in the script’s case – completion). Having passed the third deadline of yesterday, I set myself a fourth of finishing on or before Tuesday. I think this might be possible – although I have to say I have little or no idea what is going to happen in the latter half. I am not worried though. This week my mojo has returned and I am feeling positive and getting stuff done. The weeks of torpor are, I assume, all part of the process and as important as the writing itself, but I still hate myself for the inability to just sit down and write for four hours a day, every day, because my life would be a lot less stressful if I could do that. Though as you may yourself be realising by now if you have followed my inability to write over the last four and a half years, the stress is the rocket fuel of the creative process. At least for me. I hate my stupid self.
I bought Andrew CollingsÂ’ new book
“That’s Me In The Corner” at the airport and was flattered to see that I was acknowledged as one of his (many) mentors in the preface. I have never been acknowledged before. And as the book was dedicated to his mentors, I was also dedicated. Another thing I am unfamiliar with, in every sense. I read the first few chapters on the flight, in between working and it is a very enjoyable and funny tome. He is my mate and I am his mentor (apparently), but it’s still a genuine recommendation, especially if you are of the same generation, starting in the world of work in the late eighties/early nineties.
Modern travel is so easy (when it works) and my brain was so befuddled through lack of sleep, that it was very hard for me to take in the fact that I was in Spain by midday. I have only been here once before (
when I ran through the streets of Pamplona in a pair of back to front womenÂ’s underpants), and that time I was very ill and even more weary than I was today, so it was good to be back.
The promoter, Stephen, let me go for a brief kip, before kindly taking me out to see some of the sights and have some lunch. As with Paris, Madrid has the café culture that makes European cities so much better than British ones. We went to a little Italian café and had come pasta sitting at a bar and then headed out for a walk. Stephen was keen to take me to a shop called, "Museo de Jamon" - “The Museum of Ham” - which was essentially a delicatessen specialising in cured pig meat. Even there were no actual exhibits it still shat all over the Pencil Museum, which I think should take its cue from this place and have less pencils and more bacon. Here we stood by another bar, drinking coffee and eating meat. My friend Andrew Mackay would have loved it here. I wished he was here to see his delighted face eating pieces of meat, with no fussy vegetables (apart from some olives that belatedly arrived). Around us hung literally hundreds of bits of cured pig. So even though it hardly lived up to its billing of a museum of ham, but it was still impressive, though maybe not one for the vegetarians amongst you.
We walked down one of the main streets of the city in the hot afternoon sun. I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me, but the road was lined with women in tarty clothing, sitting on little bollards, grumpily waiting for something. They were prostitutes, of course and I marvelled not only at the blatancy of their public trading in an otherwise respectable looking street, but also at the fact that clearly there was a market for sex in the middle of town in the middle of the day in what I would say was an unerotic level of sunshine. Is that what the siesta is really all about? We need a couple of hours to go to bed in the afternoon, because we can’t get through the day without having sex with a prossie. The whores looked quite miserable sitting out in the heat and I wanted to say to them “What’s wrong with you girls? You actually get paid for having sex! You’ve got the best job in the world. You get to have loads of sex and money. It’s my dream job.” But luckily I can’t speak Spanish as the girls did not seem in the mood for such ironic satire. They might have said "So it's your dream job to have sex with hundreds of fat, unpleasant, BO ridden Spanish men is it?"
To which I would have replied, "Yes it is." Which would have shut them up.
I had a second siesta after the sound check. I could get used to this concept. True to my word (for once) I completed the first half of my script at about 8pm. I have included a bit where one of the characters crashes laid on for businessmen in the hotel, which is
based on my stay in Oxford earlier in the week. My characters have the bravery to do the things that I dare not and it's good that this tour is informing the script.
Then we went for a fantastic meal and drank a little wine before doing my gig, which went pretty well. I enjoyed it a lot more after a little break and the audience were much more attentive and into it than the ones at Paris and Milan.
We went to drink beer and then go for yet another sleep. And I had to keep reminding myself where I was. Sometimes I love my stupid life. Most of the time I don't though, so don't worry there will still be plenty of comedy from misery to entertain you over the years!
