I am a little under the weather, feeling run down and sluggish which is a slight worry given I am doing a half marathon on Sunday (and then a run of eight nights at the Leicester Square Theatre - six WAGTDs bookended by two RHLSTPs).
I found it a struggle to do any work at all, even staring at the the screen as I tried to write a blog. That's happened a few times lately. My already uneventful life is clearly getting ever more boring. Maybe I won't make 4000 in a row after all. But I came up with something eventually. Surely I can't write a blog about not writing a blog? That's cheating, right?
I had to head into town to do an interview with 6Music to promote the new tour. I used to go to Western House pretty regularly when we had a 6Music show (and it was also the home of Light Entertainment) but it's a couple of years since that ended (and LE has moved to another building) so it all felt a little alien. I was talking to Radcliffe and Maconie down the line as they are based in Salford, so did the interview in one of the little studios on the ground floor. I didn't feel very inspired and talked quite seriously about the show and death. I never know if any of this stuff helps to sell tickets. I don't understand what it is that sell tickets. If I stop and think about it it still feels weird that anyone pays to come and watch me talk at them.
But I indirectly made Mark Radcliffe say penis and that's enough of an achievement for the day as I could hope for.
I gave up on the idea of getting any work done after another hour or so of trying and then in the evening we went to see "How I Live Now" at the cinema. I didn't know anything about it at all and I think it's aimed at teenagers really - though it's fun to be reminded of the awkardness and power of first love - and it was less predictable than most recent films. Plus one of the boys in it looked and acted like Matthew Crosbie from Pappys, which made me laugh imagining it was really him. In reality that character is played by the son of another comedian Dominic Holland. He might have based his portrayal on Matthew. I'd like to see them remake the whole thing but have Matthew Crosbie playing the 14 year old boy in it. It should be done straight and with no attempt to make him look 14 (well no more than he does already). I know what happens and I'd still go to see it.
The film is about the outbreak of war encompassing a nuclear bomb attack on London (though the characters are far away in the countryside and only experience the furthest ripples of the bomb - in a very well put together segement), but it was hard to watch it without thinking that the bomb would have killed everyone in the cinema. Which rather took the shine off the entertainment value.
I hope there isn't a nuclear war. Or if there is that they choose to blow up Birmingham or somewhere.
When we got home we finally got round to watching the first episode of the new Netflix produced series of "Arrested Development". It had a lot to live up to as the first couple of series of this show are phenomenal. So far I am disappointed. The jokes seem too broad and it's hard to follow and went on so long in places that I was willing a nuclear bomb to drop on London. But I understand that if you watch them all then stuff starts to make more sense. Or not. I am delighted that Netflix is giving writers the chance to do stuff like this, but I spoke to a successful sitcom writer yesterday who did point out that the danger is that when a company has the ability to monitor the audience's reaction to a broadcast to the extent that Netflix can (seeing how much they watch, what they fast forward through etc) that it might lead to them becoming more dictatorial about what goes into the shows they by. For the moment they seem to be letting people get on with stuff without interference (which is possibly a pity if the first episode of Arrested Development is to go by). And it's so hard to judge something you love this much fairly.
I did see that Matt Groening had finally admitted that he is critical and disappointed by the recent episodes of the Simpsons. He picked out one where Homer becomes a Kurt Cobein like Grunge star. Coincidentally I saw most of this episode today and he's right, it is pretty poor. Especially when it was followed by the episode where Homer takes on Edison and tries to become an inventor. It's very hard to keep up such a hight standard, but also the viewer's perspective changes so much as well.
I want both these shows to be as good as they ever were. I want it so much that I think they wouldn't actually have to be all that good to fulfil my wishes. But both of them fail despite my good will. And the failure is only relative. They become ordinary rather than exceptional. And that's what breaks our hearts I suppose.
And this entry shows that if you just keep writing you eventually have a blog. It's not as good as the early blogs obviously. It's hard to do 4000 of these and keep them all fresh.... to be honest if my early blogs had been as good as Arrested Development then I wouldn't mind that the latest ones are so mediocre.
Joining Miranda Hart on RHLSTP on Monday will be Miles Jupp from off of Balamory (I asked both the Josie Jumps, but neither of them could do it). Buy tickets here.
Series 4 episode one with Shappi Khorsandi will also be up on Monday. For free audio go to the British Comedy Guide or iTunes or for your series 4 series pass go to gofasterstripe.com
