Hooray, managed to get a bit of work done before and after driving from Nam to Sutton Coldfield. Not nearly enough, but something is better than nothing and I now have four viable chapters totally around about 25,000 words. My fortnight off from touring is going to have to be the time I knuckle down and really try and break the back of this thing. With little else to distract me I should hopefully make better progress. It is worth me remembering this nugget of wisdom that came to me a bit late when I was struggling to get the "Talking Cock" book completed. At the moment I am being overwhelmed by the scale of what I must achieve, but there's plenty of small tasks I can get on with - even if that's just copying stuff out of diaries and the blog. The sphincter clenching tension of the deadline shall very soon kick in at full whack, like Keira Knightley's boyfriend (though personally I think it's wrong to make an advert for domestic violence - it's something personally that I think we should be trying to stop, rather than encouraging). I am optimistic, but a little frightened. It's the perfect combination.

Though I have booked into nicer hotels this week, I was delighted to look out of the window of the posho Moor Hall (which has a golf course and everything) to see that the view from my room was a skip. This still makes it the most luxurious lodgings within a fifty mile radius of Birmingham. I just hope that they don't rent the skip out to down on their luck golf-playing businessmen. I wouldn't like to hear the coughing after a cold night of sleeping on that rubble.

I popped down to Sutton Coldfield early to get myself a linner (the meal between lunch and dinner - I had not eaten since breakfast). I ended up in Starbucks trying to do the hard kakurro, when a fire alarm started loudly blaring at regular intervals every few seconds. To begin with no one did anything and I assumed it was a test, but it carried on and eventually the rather unruffled staff said we'd had to leave the precinct. A taped voice was now declaring between the klaxon like blasts that the mall had to be evacuated due to a possible incident. Everyone was lackadaisically ambling away from the invisible peril, with amused or bemused smirks on their faces. If a rapid conflagration was heading towards them they didn't seem overly concerned. And nor did I. I wonder if all disasters start like this, with people not wanting to look uncool or flustered and then suddenly being engulfed in flame or poisoned gas, trying to die nonchalantly, whilst smiling or displaying ironic, pantomime concern.

I realised I had probably stumbled into the most exciting incident to have happened in Sutton Coldfield in the 21st Century. This would be their 9/11 or their 4/2 or 2/4, depending on which calendar you favour.

It was about 5.30 so all the shops were closing anyway and away from the mall the shop assistants of the unaffected shops were looking towards the direction of the smokeless mall with mild inquisitiveness, but were mainly concerned about shutting up their own stores and getting home.

Everyone was convinced it was a false alarm, as, unless you've heard different on the news, it did indeed turn out to be. But is it just human nature to assume that nothing bad could ever really happen and thus to act accordingly. When the Titanic hit the iceberg was everyone walking around on the decks pulling pretend scared faces at each other and ambling as slowly and reluctantly as possible towards the lifeboats? Were the band playing on not because they were brave, but because they assumed that everything was going to be OK, even as bodies came flying past them? Perhaps they slightly sarcastically exaggerated their bowing and blowing to show how little they feared this clear false alarm.

Was the only reason that so many people were killed in 9/11 because everyone was play-acting at walking as slowly as possible down the stairs to show that they were all to aware that there was no real danger?

Keep it up people, it's fun. I hope that all your alarms are false ones. And remember the first person to actually look genuinely scared when the alarm turns out to be real is a pussy. Try and keep up your trudging and smirking and face pulling for as long as possible. If you can do it even as you burn they you win a prize.

Buy Collings and Herrin T-shirts here and AIOTM T shirts here.

For details of the Christ on a Bike tour click here and you can book tickets here for The Lyric Comedy Nights

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