Paul Putner has sent me a couple of pictures of the Lyric night, which will give you a taster of what was going on. Very impressive costume from the Put I think you will agree.
I saw a lot of Andrew Collings today, even though we're not recording our podcast til tomorrow. We've been having a few meetings with people who are interested in seeing what they can do with out podcast. Nothing has, as yet come of these meetings, mainly because we're perfectly happy doing it for nothing in my attic and someone is going to have to offer us something a bit meaty to justify us changing the set up. That is, we're perfectly happy to sell out, but only if we're actually making something from the deal. So far all offers for us to sell out have offered us little more than the use of a recording studio. Which we don't really need.
We're also rather set on the idea that the content mustn't change and we would still be allowed to say whatever we want, which might be a problem if someone else was hosting it. Anyway, hopefully we'll find someone who'll let it stay as it is, but reward us with diamonds and rubies (later that night I would have a dream where Collings was sitting on a floor covered with jewels - a presage of some wonderful future no doubt), but for the moment we have no deal and just had a couple of free coffees each. Which can't be sniffed at. Still we've had to buy some orange juice for Mark who kindly puts the podcast on his site for us, so we're barely ahead.
Today I was a few minutes late for the meeting and was desperate for a wee. We went to a little cafe nearby and it didn't look like it would have a loo. I tried to nip into the pub next door, but it was full of scary men and whilst I attempted the "pretending to look for someone I knew" manoeuvre, it seemed unlikely that anyone in this pub would be friends with me and I also couldn't see where the toilet was in either bar. The barmaid had eyed me suspiciously from her vantage point which allowed her to view the clientele of both market and public bars (which looked the same and there was no discernible difference in the men inhabiting them. So I decided I couldn't go back in to the first bar and have a better look.
I went to the cafe to order a coffee and though it was clear there was no bathroom in the tiny room I was in I said, "You don't have a toilet anywhere do you?"
"Yes we do, if you want to brave the one downstairs."
"Where's downstairs?" I asked, seeing no staircase in the place. And the man lifted up a trap door behind the counter to reveal some wooden steps, a bit better than a ladder, but not as good as a staircase, leading down into a grotty basement. He told me to mind my head on the hole and to double back on myself and sure enough there was a dirtyish toilet for me to make slightly more dirty with my germ-ridden urine.
It was, though, exciting, going down a trapdoor and minding my head. And when I got back outside to sit with Collings and our mystery coffee providing benefactor I remarked on my mini adventure.
"Oooh," said Collings slightly dismissively, "Well at least that's something for you to write in your blog of today - that's your blog sorted."
I didn't say anything at the time because I didn't think Collings and me should argue in front of a man who might want to employ us, but I thought, "Fuck you Collings. Going down a trapdoor to use a toilet might be the most exciting thing that would happen to you in a 24 hour period, but I have way more exciting events than that to catalogue every single day. There's no way I'd write about something as minor and dull as that and I resent you for even suggesting it."
I just gave him a look to communicate that thought. As if I'd write about that.
And I haven't written about that. I have written about Andrew Collings' reaction to it and his Sparrow-like paucity of ambition in which a visit to the lavatory might be something that makes it into his memoirs.
That'll show him. The twat.
As it happens nothing more interesting than that did happen today. But usually there would be something more. I did find one pence in a taxi that I was taking home later that night. One p off the cab fare. But I dropped it in the dark, so someone else will get the benefit of it.
So there is no spending a penny theme either.
