As if I don't have enough to be getting on with today I had to do an interview with the Guardian to promote the Hitler Moustache DVD and then in the evening was appearing in a pilot for a music based radio panel show called "Lost In Music" (which will be on air some time next year). And I was pretty tired thanks to the last two day's gigs and my brain was running on empty. I didn't get too far with the script for show 3 of Objective although at least a few thoughts blundered through my addled imagination. The weekend after next is still promising to be a car crash unless I can change the habit of a lifetime and get some work done in advance of the absolute deadline.
I had to talk to the Guardian about a time when I had done my job badly or made a mistake that I had learned from and out of the many instances of fuck-uppery I chose
the Best of the Fest gig I did in 2006 where I made an arse of myself. I suppose it is gratifying that it was hard to think of a more recent example. It feels like a long time since a gig has gone tits up, without there being circumstances beyond my control. So that's a positive, I suppose.
The evening came along a bit too quickly, with not enough done and I headed over to Maida Vale, to the BBC studios which, unless I am mistaken, I haven't been to since about 1991, when we recorded a pilot called "That's Wiggin's Yard" for Radio 4 there. It never made it to air, but was my first professional acting job and led to me getting my (then difficult to acquire) Equity Card. "That's Wiggin's Yard" was a topical sit-com set in a place that was not unlike Neal's Yard in Covent Garden and was written by me, Stew, Parsons and Naylor and Peter Baynham and Julian Dutton. The cast included Alistair Magowan and myself, but I can't remember who else. There were some nice moments in it, but it was probably a bit messy due to having so many different writers (I seem to remember we divided up the scenes between us, which must have made for a bit of an uneven script - alas I think it's lost, although I wouldn't be surprised if the tape is in a box somewhere in my attic).
Tonight we were recording in the studio which was the last place that Bing Crosby ever recorded anything (with a plaque on the wall to attest to the fact), which I think might well have been the same place we did TWY (as all the cool kids would've called it if it had ever been broadcast).
On the walk up from the station I amused myself on Twitter. A stranger, clearly having a conversation with a mate, had tagged me into a tweet about how unfunny Ed Milliband's speech was so far. "Was it written by @herring1967?" he asked, "He is as funny as cholera."
I have no problem with people not finding me funny - I don't myself for the vast majority of time - but one of the only things I hate on Twitter is people showily and unnecessarily tagging you into such an insult, knowing that you will see it. If he had used my name rather than my tag I would only have seen this comment if I had searched for myself - in which case I would have deserved it. To tag someone in to an insult is equivalent of texting a stranger them to call them a prick, but worse than that says a lot about the person generating the insult. They are not satisfied with not liking you, but want you to personally know about it. The psychology is fascinating, and although I am not qualified in that area I think anyone who does this is definitely a prick. I decided to keep it polite, even though the gauntlet of offensiveness had been clearly laid down saying, "No need to tag me into insults, ta." Which was restrained of me. Indeed the man responsible would tweet back something to that effect, saying he doffed his cap to me - another thing only a prick would say. The man he had been conversing with though had already written something complimentary about me to his prickish pal, so I tweeted back to congratulate him on his good taste, saying, "You're correct. Your mate is a prick. Dump him!"
Even though I was polite enough not to tag the prick into this tweet, as he presumably would have done, he still saw it and took back his cap doffing and now complained that I had been less polite, which seemed ironic given that I was only making these comments due to his original rudeness, but some people have little self-awareness or perspective on their own motives. I told him that only a prick would tag someone into an insult in that way and that I was helping him out with his twitter etiquette. He then responded along the lines of the fact that I had been unable to take criticism (again failing to spot the irony) and that this was for him, confirmed the comment he had originally made about me being not funny. I replied, "dude you said something incredibly rude directly to me. I don't care what you think of me. Fuck off!"
One might argue that if I didn't care I wouldn't have responded in the first place, but I was genuinely not annoyed by him not liking me (I don't want to be liked by pricks) but by his need to tag me in, which is just impolite. Still it was fun to tell him to fuck off. Just as it is to waste time dealing with something best left alone. Sometimes the only way to defeat the idiots is to out-manoeuvre them with twatdom.
The recording was very long, but there was some fun stuff in there and I did well on my specialised subject of "The Sex Pistols" even if my musical knowledge is a little lacking in other areas. The executive producer of Objective was there and told me that the first show was ready, but that rather ominously there had been some issues with BBC compliance which meant some stuff had had to be taken out. She didn't reveal what these things were, but it reminded me of why I had got frustrated with working for the BBC. I hope the show has not been wrecked by the current climate of fear at the Beeb. I may be worrying unduly, but after spending all the time crafting these things so the arguments work it will be very annoying if impact is lost due to unnecessary fear of upsetting people. Part of the point of these shows is that they are challenging consensus viewpoints and they are meant to be a little bit confrontational, so if that confrontation is removed I will be very annoyed. As I will if compliance has objected to me mentioning pubic hair or whatever they are worried about.
This is part of the reason I started podcasting. And even without knowing what the objections are I am already thinking it might be better to concentrate on that, rather than have my stuff picked apart by people who are on the look out for certain words or ideas without being able to step back and see the bigger picture in which these phrases are used.
It's not a great thing to have heard about with two scripts left to write and not much time to do them in. Is it worth pushing myself to the edge of exhaustion and madness when someone is poised to take a pick axe to the work of art I am creating? Even if, as in this case, the work of art is just the equivalent of a poster of a tennis player scratching her arse or a painting of some dogs playing poker, it's still pretty annoying to have a pick axe put through it when you've spent time putting it together.
