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Catie had been out with friends in London last night and I had gone to bed with a hurting shoulder and all my limbs seized up, so I didn't think there was much chance that either of us. would be doing Park Run this morning.
But I woke up feeling almost pain free and with my legs moving enough for a light jog and Catie didn't seem too affected by the odd cocktail that she might have consumed. Also the girl from next door had been booked to babysit (though we could easily have used the couple of hours to go and have a fry up somewhere).
Somehow we managed to get ourselves to the starting line and even more impressively got to the finish line. It took me 32 minutes which is about 3 minutes off my best time this year, but two minutes better than my last try (it seems when you're 58 that unless you really keep up with the exercise regime, fitness really drops off fast if you miss a couple of weeks) and Catie breezed in a couple of minutes later, saying she felt pretty good and had enjoyed it.
I hadn't fully enjoyed it, but was impressed I'd managed it. I'd done the dog walk at around 7.30am and it had been really cold, so I'd put on some layers, but by 9am the sun was up and I was overdressed. I'd been punk'd by the weather.
I expected that the exercise would destroy my day, as the tennis had yesterday, but I was actually mostly OK. We went back up to our old village for a birthday party of one of our friends in a pub garden. A tiny bambi like Muntjak deer was wandering around having lost its mum (hopefully temporarily, so it wasn't full Bambi). I hadn't seen it and Phoebe said she was worried a cat might eat it. I thought that was crazy. It was a deer, even a baby one could take on a cat. But nope, when I saw it, it was indeed about the size of a small rabbit. I hope it found its family.
The kids were allowed to run a bit wild and Ernie was exploring prickly hedges and then tussling with the other boys in a friendly way, but one that still left him banged over the head with a big stick (his cloth sword being no match for a huge chunk of tree) and having scratches all over his back. Phoebe sat in one of the dads' cars with the other girls and listened to music. Stupid boys and sophisticated girls. A tale as old as time.
I kept a firm eye on the National League whilst sitting with my Rochdale supporting friend. Which was fun when Rochdale went 2-1 down. But he had the last laugh as the jammy pricks got a late winner to remain top.
Nice to be back in the countryside and glad to still be friends with people in the village. It's still very close (though just that bit too far to justify too many stone-clearing trips!) and so nice to get back to nature after 18 months of our cosmopolitan Hitchin life.
I'd been a bit perturbed to see the press coming out before the first Saturday Night Live UK had even been broadcast. The BBC website asked "Saturday Night Live UK is here- but can it make you laugh?" I remarked on social media "If only there was some way to find out. I dunno, maybe we could watch it before trying to guess. No that’s crazy."
People were writing it off based on the (actually perfectly adequate and tongue-in-cheek) trailer or just their suspicion that a US format couldn't work here. Which was astonishing for a show that literally hadn't even been created yet.
Maybe it would be bad (the US version that has run for 50 years certainly has its ups and downs, but if it has two funny sketches in a week then that's a pretty strong one) but maybe it wouldn't. At least wait until it's gone out to decide.
I was glad to see that it turned out to be pretty solid. They've got some very strong performers and an amazing team of writers and they had Tina Fey in it, so it was more likely to have good stuff in it than bad.
I thought in many ways it was better than the US version, and not only because there was swearing in it, but most of the sketches didn't roll on for ages, there were some solid laughs and only a couple that didn't work for me (but maybe they worked for others). Weekend update was not as strong as the US version, though that is consistently the best part of SNLUS where it's had 50 years to bed in, but there were still some nice gags.
I did idly and maybe incorrectly wonder if SNL might benefit from not having a huge team of writers (and I am not entirely serious and as there are so few writing jobs nowadays I am not trying to talk them out of hiring as many as possible), because a sketch show with an identity is more likely to succeed and I think a writers room might end up being too many cooks. But also overcomplicate things and make them more stressful than they need to be.
A couple of people just writing the number of sketched required (with maybe two spares) might work better. SNLUS works best when the host clearly takes some time to inform the tone of the show and writes some stuff.
We did TMWRNJ on basically a week by week basis (with a few pre-records) and two of us (mainly one to be fair) wrote and rehearsed the rest on the week of recording. Now it might not have been a huge hit, but it's possible to do it in a stream-lined way and in doing so make something that is more distinctive. But I am speaking as a man who came close to writing an entire US length sitcom series on his own, writing the last 9 or 10 scripts on the week we recorded them.
There must be a few other people who can do stuff like that though.
And maybe the variety of approach worked on this show, with some weirder stuff towards the end. Hit and miss, of course, because not everything in a sketch show is for every individual viewer and it'd be weird if everyone liked exactly the same jokes exactly the same. But a terrific start and the possibility of an outlet for sketch performers and writers and a showcase for new people, rather than the same old faces and the same old panel show.
If it fails though, Ally and me are ready to step in with an 75 minute long Craven Newsround each week.
