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It’s all very well Princess Anne having us round to her gaff to get us pissed, but she doesn’t seem to have taken into account that we had a small baby to look after today (but look at me sucking up to royalty in this photo in my suit and black tie. How easy it was to win me round with a bit of sparkling wine! My wife is literally glowing with excitement)
Phoebe managed to sleep pretty much all through the night, so it was annoying that the booze woke me up at 3am and didn’t let me get back to sleep for a few hours. This is why I stopped boozing and with a baby to create this unwelcome part of over-indulgence I think I will be sticking to a two drink maximum until Phoebe is 18.
I had a bit of time to myself today to do some work or exercise, but I was pretty much only fit for Addams Family Pinball which continues to delight and confound in equal measure. If only I hadn’t got a baby I could have dedicated my life to this game, but maybe it’s better enjoyed in small 20 minute session, rather than playing it all day and all night (though I did have a crack at 4am when i couldn’t sleep). I did play the real table version a lot and recalled that when the Seance feature came up (with a strong magnet under the playing surface sending the ball off in all directions) I would generally rest the ball on one of the paddles and wait for the time to be up. Which overall was an excellent tactic as you nearly always lose the ball during this spooky section of the game. I feel that that is wimping out now I am older and wiser, but perhaps the survival instinct is better in the long run. I hardly ever make it through and have only “knocked 3 times” on one or two occasions. Let me know if this specific bloggage is boring for you… it isn’t? Oh cool. Also I wonder if it’s better to go for the skill shot at the beginning or to just shoot the ball into the graveyard and try and bump up that bonus (which can have a bigger bonus later if you can shoot the ball into the swamp a few times and get the 5x bonus). It’s an interesting conundrum that I am sure you have all considered when playing this game. Or you will we you do play it. It is, I repeat, the greatest achievement of humanity. The skill/luck balance is exquisite.
We had an early night, watching the latest episode of Better Call Saul which is shaping up to be an excellent series and really delighted to see them giving an episode to Mike, who felt like he might be just wasted in the ticket booth. Fantastic script and brilliant performances. I don’t know if it’s on a par with Breaking Bad, but it’s quite different and more comic. The test of any show might be how many spin offs you can do with the peripheral characters. If you’ve got a good programme then perhaps almost everyone should be well defined enough to be the centre of their own show. I certainly feel that’s the case with Parks and Recreation, where even the smallest characters feel like they might sustain a series (apart from Mark Brendanowicz who had to be slaughtered for the show to take flight). Councillor Jamm and Jennifer Barkley would both be excellent spin-off characters. What do you mean today’s blog can only be enjoyed by a tiny amount of people in the centre of a Parks and Rec, Addams Family Pinball Venn diagrm? At least it’s not all about my fucking baby.
Just a heads-up about the tour. A few of the shows are already sold out (Reading, Norwich, Aldershot, Shoreham, St Albans, both Bristol gigs and Sutton Coldfield - though Bristol people can still see me at the Orchard Theatre in
Clevedon in May (not sure if tickets are on sale yet). Do check with those theatres for returns.
Didcot, Newcastle, Leeds, Cambridge and Edinburgh are all close to selling out so get in there fast.
And finally a test to see who is more popular, Stewart Lee or me as we go on at the same time in different theatres in Glasgow next week. This is going to be like Dara O Braian in Wolverhampton all over again. I am confident of victory and once that's settled let's say no more about it.
And if you’re in London, the DVD is being recorded on 15th May at the Bloomsbury. It would be great to have it full on that day, obviously and it’s selling OK.
So book hereAll tour dates are here. Some are doing well, some are doing rubbish! Still too early to call on whether things are up or down or more or less the same. My guess, slightly down, but not so much that I have to become a barista.
The mammoth 18 month project, Richard Herring’s Meaning of Life is coming to an end this week. Chris Evans (not that one) has put up the long 90 minute version of show 6, the shape of things to come, including the full interview with Aleks Krotoski, which you
can buy on audio or video here. You can also buy a series pass and get all six episodes on video and audio for £15 or just on audio for £6. There’s around about nine hours of stuff for that. This was an ambitious and maybe over-ambitious project. I wanted it to be all new stuff and for me to have learned and rehearsed all the stuff, but this turned out not to be practical, given I wasn’t being paid (and was paying) to make the show (though I think we may just about have broken even on it, though Chris Evans not that one and me didn’t get paid for our work). There’s lots of new stuff in it and much of the stuff that is old is quite obscure and in the end it was more about whether it was possible to make a TV style stand-up and sketch show on the internet for a limited budget. It was a bit of a bumpy ride to begin with and if you’ve only watched the first couple, then it’s worth revisiting to see how much we learned. You can see free 45 minute versions on
my youtube channel. or listen to them on iTunes or the British Comedy Guide (and show 6 will be up soon). I don’t think we will be doing any more RHMOLs but I hope we can do something else (like a monthly video version of AIOTM). We will find a way to do it whatever, but you can speed things along by either subscribing to RHMOL or making a one-off or monthly donation or by just telling your friends about the show. Or just watching them if you haven’t already.
I am mildly surprised that this project hasn’t made more of a splash, as I think it’s one of the first attempts to do something like this on line and I thought that just the attempt might be newsworthy. I think maybe the length of time it took to edit and release the episodes has to helped. In hindsight we could have recorded them every two months and then maybe put them out all at once. But it doesn’t really matter. It’s shown us what is possible (and what maybe isn’t) and will hopefully serve as a bridge to something else, even if someone else crosses the bridge we've built. But it’s honestly quite good. If you appreciate this free content then consider bunging us a quid or whatever you think it’s worth. We will use your money for comedy. As always you're the Medici family and we can use your money to create amazing art and/or cock jokes.
