My last Talking Cock tour date of 2012 AND the last time I would be driving myself to a gig for a while. Would I crash and die on the last day before retirement? I will keep you in suspense and let you know later in the entry. Oh yes, I've learned a few tricks about keeping readers on the edge of their seats in these last ten years.
I was at the Windsor Firestation tonight (remarkably my tenth gig
of the long tour). I'd expected more Friday afternoon traffic and ended up arriving earlier than I needed to, but passed the time watching "Young Apprentice" on the BBC iPlayer, delighted to find out that my iPhone tethering was up to the job and glad that I had gone with the all you can eat data that comes with 3 mobile (so far the signal strength has been good almost everyone, except for in the basement in my house). I got a plate of sandwiches and a choice of posho
teapigs tea (liquorice and peppermint is the best tea in the world). I felt like a king.
I always feel like I should use this pre-gig time to write or do some work, but I constantly forget how much touring takes out of me. Even after just one gig and not too much driving I was feeling zonked. I have delusions of getting some scripts done whilst on the road in 2013, but suspect that I'll just be watching videos and TV shows in the back of the car and maybe sleeping. It will be ace to have that option though.
I'd been asked to pose a question to Nick Clegg for the Sunday Times. The brief was for something "quirky, left-field and not overtly political," but all I could come up with was "How do you sleep at night, you fucking cunt?" I suspected that wasn't quirky enough. I felt that to ask him anything cosy or trivial would be inappropriate so I declined. Yes, he's disagreed with Cameron over the reaction to the Leveson enquiry, but to what effect. To no fucking effect. It's utterly disgraceful that all this time and money has been spent, let alone the distress caused to the witnesses forced to go over the unpleasantness and tragedies they've experienced, only for Cameron to decide it's not up to the government to legislate on this. Despite his initial claims that he would go along with whatever the commission concluded. How much of this blase treatment will the British public take from these pricks? Does Cameron actually have to piss over your face before you will complain about it? How about if he just unilaterally made Murdoch the president of the country? Would we just go "ah well, what can you do?" then as well? Seriously, let's instigate a revolution. I'll meet you outside Downing Street at 3pm on Sunday. If the police on the gate have any self-respect they will let us through to smash the state and the overlords who think of them as meaningless plebs. We can do this.
If the Nick Clegg thing in the Sunday Times is not just person after person asking him what the fuck he thinks he is doing and how it feels to have destroyed his own party then I will be most upset. I thought that the whole point was that he felt he would be able to temper the Tory excesses. Well he's not doing a great job. Fuck him in the face Nick. At the next Prime Minister's Question Time just get out your cock and stick it in Cameron's mouth. It's the only way back for you.
Anyway, I watched the Young Apprentice instead of sending in that idea, because I am just as feckless and useless as the rest of you and then did my gig. It was a fun one.
The drive home went fine and I did not die. There was an unusual late night hold up just as the M4 reached West London, which meant that my journey home was longer than my journey there. I think it was down to a broken down vehicle at a spot where a lane was already closed. Traffic had to filter into one lane. Most drivers chose the honourable path of taking it in turns to let one car from each lane through. I let a taxi in in front of me, but the man in the next car decided to try and buck the system and push in in front of me too. I did not allow this. And kept close to the cab's tail not holding back. The driver next to me seemed determined to grab himself what would be an advantage of less than a second, but in the spirit of fairness and trying to counteract dickish selfishness I decided to stick to my guns and carried on. I had let in one vehicle, this guy should go behind me. He still didn't pull back and I almost wound down the window to ask him what he thought he was doing. We were running out of space and were heading for what might be the slowest and most preventable collision ever to have happened in the history of driving. Sometimes people say these things happen in slow motion. Well this on literally was. And maybe it had the additional effect of also happening in slow motion so it was doubly slow.
My car is old and fucked up already (though annoyingly all my bumps are on the other side of the car, though this might even things up) and I was prepared to slowly destroy it in order to make my point. Why was this man too important to observe the common sense rule of taking it in turns. In the end right overcame stupidity and he finally backed off and gave up the pointless chase. Due to the gridlock he was able to overtake me about a mile further on anyway. It's lucky he backed down because I would have taken it all the way. There is no excuse for rudeness and sometimes it's worth dying to preserve a modicum of politeness.
This time I survived, although I was a bit worried he might shoot me as he finally overtook me. On my last day in the job as well. So close to retirement.
And another Me vs Me snooker podcast was recorded this lunchtime. More developments (I think - it's getting to a point where I don't remember anything that's happened and just have a thirty minute black out in my memory). Listen
here or subscribe on iTunes.
