Warming Up has been an inspiring and motivating force in my life and I am very glad I decided to do it. And then occasionally it takes on an even more special significance. What I like is when one of the anonymous people I have described recognises themselves and gets in touch and gives their side of the story. Admittedly this might not always be a good thing (for example, hopefully the bloke with the man-tits does not chance across these pages and recognise himself), but today Warming Up helped resolve a misunderstanding of many months.
Go and have a look at it. You're really going to have to go back and read that one to make any sense of this.
Anyway, today I received this email:
"Please accept my most sincere apologies for the incident described on Waterloo bridge in your web blog.
I don't know if you actually remember the incident but I certainly do as it occurred on one of the most painful nights of my life. My friends and I had wanted to do the circle line pub crawl for ages and decided that as people had time off work in between Christmas and new year this was a perfect opportunity to take on the challenge. Unfortunately I couldn't get the time off as I was particularly busy at work and so had played catch up when I met up with them at 5.30 by downing two quadruple whiskey and cokes, a very silly thing to do I'm sure you'll agree.
Needless to say by the time my mate Ryan spotted you and told me, we were a bit worse for wear. In the state we were in we unfortunately got a little confused over whether you were Stewart Lee or Richard Herring and when we accosted you we got it horribly wrong. I honestly can't remember which of us got your name wrong or whose idea it was to approach you but we were both convinced we were right and must therefore take equal blame.
I would like to be able to tell you that this is where it ended as that would be embarrassing enough, but unfortunately not. We have since then, told everyone we know that we met Stewart Lee but he is a rude w a n k e r and wouldn't admit that he was who he was and have been very rude about Stewart thinking he was yourself so that's probably being quite rude about both of you somehow. We only found out the truth when Ryan was telling our friend Mark the story recently and as he is a regular reader of your blog he filled us in on where we went wrong. I now feel extremely embarrassed and have had to tell most people I know the truth as to how stupid I can be when drunk.
Anyway I hope this makes sense and that you can accept my apology as I do feel very bad as I am quite a big fan of your work (though apparently not a big enough fan to actually know your name) and wouldn't want you to think I was normally that rude as I try not to be, and felt I should try to explain my actions that night.
Thanks for reading this, and not being too scathing (or in fact scathing at all as it was quite nice to be called trendy) in your report of the idiocy on behalf of Ryan and myself that night."
I will protect this contrite man's anonymity as he has been good enough to apologise. Not that he really needed to. I think the whole thing was quite funny and enjoyed the fact that it pricked my own pomposity. Also I could have just been less churlish and told them who I was at the time. It was, as I suspected, a case of them knowing who I was, but just getting my name wrong. I come out of this as badly as anyone. My pride had been wounded and I should have been big enough to point out where they had gone wrong.
I also like the fact that they have been going around for months slagging off Stewart Lee for something he didn't do (and which to be honest was really their own fault). The only downside of this is that Stewart's reputation will now be restored. If it hadn't been for this pesky Warming Up no-one would ever have found out the truth and perhaps one of the drunk man's friends, furious at the Opera director's rudeness would have sought him out and at the very least given him a sound beating. But now, thanks to this stupid exercise Stewart Lee's handsome features are safe from harm (from this source at least - thankfully there are many dark forces who want to see him harmed and it can't be too long before one of these catches up with him).
How many times does this happen and never get discovered? How often have the rude actions of Dom Joly been wrongly attributed to me? Maybe as many as one times.
Or indeed, how many times have people mistaken Stewart Lee for me, received short shrift and are now going round telling their friends that it is me who is an idiot? And because Stewart Lee refuses to write a blog the mistake will never be rectified.
Anyway, well done Warming Up, thanks to you and the vigilante reader Mark (well remembered that man) one of the greatest injustices of the 21st century has been rectified. A reputation has been restored.
All is good with the world.
