Bristol is a beautiful city to spend the day hanging around in, but my day was pretty chockablock with stuff to do, so I didn't get a chance to sight-see. I left the hotel to grab some breakfast in the swanky Cabot Circus and pretty much as soon as I had entered the place I heard a voice shouting my name. It was Sarah Wilde, one of my gang from school. Quite a few of my friends still live locally but it was an odd coincidence to bump into one of them, but there was a weirder coincidence to come later. She hadn't changed a bit and she said the same of me, but I am pretty sure that I was not a long haired, bearded, wrinkly, greying teenager, so she might just have been being polite.
After breakfast I checked out of the hotel and drove across town to the home of Aardman animation, where Jim, the guy who'd won my Comic Relief tweet auction prize (and been rewarded with a drawing of a spunking, red-nosed cock as a result), was waiting to show me around his place of work. How cool is that? I had to sign a confidentiality agreement when I arrived, so I don't think I can tell you anything about what he's working on, but I had lunch in the canteen alongside the geniuses who create this stuff and then he showed me some of the new and old characters that they've been working on. I went on to some "Hot Sets" ie ones that were in the process of being filmed, where touching anything could presumably ruin hours, if not days of careful work. I had to resist the temptation to smash the scenery or move the arms and legs of the characters. I think Jim might have been a bit annoyed if I'd done that - he was such a polite and gentle man that that almost made it more tempting. Would he suddenly become infuriated or would he just tut and look bewildered. Fortunately I am one of the not yet mentally disabled (though I am getting close I think) and my respect for the people I was with stopped me going on a rampage of annoying mild vandalism. The amount of skill and effort that goes into these films and TV shows and commercials is astonishing.
It was on my way out that the second odd coincidence occurred. I had to sign out and as I was doing so the woman on reception said "Make sure you sign by the right name!" I thought this was somewhat redundant and possibly patronising advice - I know how to sign out of a building, but she explained further that just after I had arrived another Richard Herring had come in for a meeting with someone else. That's quite weird isn't it? It's not a common name, so the chances of us turning up at the same building within minutes of each other for meetings with the staff was a bit freaky for everyone concerned. I decided I better not try and find him and ask him what was going on in case he was me from a different dimension or time stream. It might make the universe explode. Though I suppose if he/I is/am from the future then he/I might be coming back to this specific point where he/I knows I/he will be. Perhaps he couldn't remember the exact time or name of my contact and was using Warming Up as a reference point and was annoyed that I/he had not given either the full name or the time of the meeting. I could do it now and save him the trouble. But I am scared of meeting him/me and anyway I didn't meet him/me so I can't have given the info or he/I would have known where to find me. Don't you even remember where I was, future idiot me? I hate you and I am glad I didn't meet you.
Still spooky though huh?
The rest of my day was taken up with interviews and realising that I maybe have a bit too much stuff to publicise at the moment: my tour, the Christ on a Bike DVD, the Fist of Fun DVD and Richard Herring's Objective. I was exhausted at the end of it all and not in the mood to do a 90 minute show followed by a two hour drive, but after a little lie-down my batteries were recharged enough to stay awake for both (though I might have slept through part of the drive home - it seemed to pass by quickly). I got home though to watch a Twilight Zone where a woman travelling across the country in a car trying to escape a persistent hitch-hiker (SPOILER ALERT - though you've had 50 years to watch this one) discovers she has been killed in a road accident days ago. So maybe that might have happened to me. It certainly feels like it a lot of the time on these long tired drives. Maybe I've been dead for years. Maybe that's what Richard Herring was coming to tell me.
