I was slightly worried that I had libelled Colin Campbell yesterday, when my PR guy sent me
this link to an article which seemed more complimentary than anything else. On enquiring to my informant Nathan though, thinking he might have stitched me up, he kindly scanned the article for me and you can see if you click on it that there is not doubt of Colin Campbell's cuntdom. I look forward to the people insisting that I don't make jokes about child-killers at the gig. I don't as it happens anyway. Maxine Carr has, as far as I know, killed no-one. Though I suppose I accuse the whole audience of killing children through their neglect of the environment, which is if anything the point.
I would have preferred it if Colin Campbell had seen the show before he started calling for it to be picketed, but I am fairly confident that the ridiculous duffer would still say the same afterwards. I like causing a tiny bit of controversy, in a newspaper column that very few people will ever see and which will probably make no difference at all. But it makes me feel a little tiny bit like the Sex Pistols or Life of Brian. Admittedly the scale of protest is not as impressive, but then I it is proportional to my talent and importance and you have to take it where you can get it.
I did not manage to get any work done again, through exhaustion, not laziness. The driving took its toll (and for those of you who are criticising my carbon footprint for driving and flying to gigs, I should point out that I am on the road for days on end and thus have to cart around a big suitcase and several boxes of programmes for my SCOPE collection and it is not practical for me to go by train - but if you want to come with me and carry my stuff at your own expense I might manage it) and by the time I was in Cambridge and had done a couple of phone interviews with untrustworthy journalists (though I think it's unlikely now that I even spoke to Campbell, he has gleaned his quotes from the other article) I just had to lie down and rest.
I am slightly depressed by how unfit this couple of months has made me. At the start of it all I had been exercising four times a week and eating healthily, but now I am out of breath if I walk upstairs and my face and stomach are bloated. It's a vicious circle, I am too tired to go for a run and need the boost of sugary food to get me going on stage. I look old and haggard and that just depresses me further and I eat more crisps and drink more beer.
I have been trying to get a healthy breakfast (although if I am in a hotel and breakfast is included, I still feel the need to get value for money and have the full English, even though it leaves me too full to move) and I stopped off at a service station to get some cereal. This one was a Road Chef, which I was favouring as I had paid for a day's internet access at one of them yesterday and so I would get a chance to check my emails and stuff. I have had cereal at a few service stations and been quite amazed that they charge £1.69 for two Weetabix and half a pint of milk. But for health's sake I have gone along with it.
The Road Chef has posters boasting that RAC members get a 15% discount in their facilities. I am am member of the RAC so wa pleased to get the chance for some money off. I picked up some Weetabix without checking the price, looked for milk, but couldn't see any and headed for the check out.
The man there went to get me a little jug of milk to go with my two cereal bricks. I showed him my RAC card and told him that was all I was having.
"One pound seventy eight" he told me, with a straight face.
"You're kidding." I replied, "How much is it normally?"
"One pound seventy eight!" he dead-panned back.
"Oh right, so I get 15% off that with the card then?"
"Oh no," he answered, now realising what I had meant, "It's two pound ten or something without the discount."
"Fucking Hell!" I exclaimed, at which the check-out man laughed quite openly, clearly enjoying my expletive laden retort, but also aware that even given that the service station have to employ a man to work the till and someone to clear the tables and someone to wash my bowl that this is a somewhat exorbitant price for something with a retail value of (at maximum) fifty pence. You can buy a big box of Weetabix and a pint of milk for two pounds. In fact you could easily find a spoon and a bowl that would bring you in under budget.
"I am glad you find it funny," I told the man, slightly grumpily, though I knew it wasn't his fault that Road Chef were guilty of this ridiculous mark up.
I know that I am turning into a grumpy old man and am once again reminded of the time that my grandad offered to pay for a round of service station teas and coffees for four or five people and then actually blanched when he found out he would be charged 50 pence for this (it was some time ago - he has been dead for twenty years). But I actually think that charging over two pounds for cereal to people who aren't members of the RAC is a crime and that it justifies me stealing items to the value of at least one pound (and that's one pound in an ordinary shop, not one pound according to Road Chef) in return. It's pretty ineffectual to offer 15% off a price that is 400% too high already.
Although I do not want to be seen as someone that is advocating that everyone should go to Road Chef and shop lift from them, I am someone who is advocating that. So do it. Road Chef must learn not to rip me off when I am tired and stressed and fat and unhealthy.
I saw the trailer for "You Can Choose Your Friends" on ITV this afternoon, which was slightly odd, but exciting. I guess it's really going to go out. June 7th if you're interested.
