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My swish internet connection (if you ignore the cable out the window) was working great, which was good news as I was doing another TransAtlantic chat for the Book Club, this time with the extraordinary Jena Friedman talking about her book of essays "Not Funny" (it is, where it's meant to be).
But even with smooth broadband it was an enjoyably chaotic record. First of all Jena couldn't get her camera working. There was a constant welping, crying sound as we tried to work out what the issue was and I assumed that it was her baby, but it turned out it was her aged dog, who was very unhappy about something.
We finally resolved the tech issues and I could see Jena and her sad dog, but he kept up with his mewling, even when cuddled up inside Jena's shirt and finally had to go out on the balcony. Then Jena's partner and baby got home, so I got to virtually meet the child who was a lot better behaved than the dog. We managed a slightly distracted chat, but just as we were wrapping up some music started playing and we couldn't work out which of us had started it. It sounded like the kind of music you'd play as you moved towards the credits or were trying to shut a guest up. Finally we worked out that somehow at our end we'd managed to find a feature that played intro and outro music, but I don't know how it had started as I hadn't clicked anything.
So a bit of an editing job for Chris, but I hope he leaves most of it in. Lovely to see Jena again (she did an Edinburgh podcast a few years back), even if she was a little tired from motherhood and depressed about the writers' strike. Her book is really good and also a little history lesson about women in comedy (and the world) in the last 15 years,
so buy it. The podcast will be out in September.
I managed to make a little headway with the bookings for the tour. Matt Green and Harriet Kemsley will be the guests in Winchester and Shane Todd is joining Lisa McGee in Belfast.
You can see full listings and links here. The gigs selling fastest (or at least closest to selling out) are Belfast, Leeds, Newcastle (afternoon show especially), Salford, Chorley and Bristol (that last one is months away, but in a smaller venue than usual so don't hang about). Birmingham with Joe Lycett is also doing well, but that's a huge venue, but probably worth booking sooner rather than later. I am going to concentrate on the September dates for now, but any suggestions for super famous people who live in or near any of the venues is welcome.
It's still too early to say if the tour is going to be a financial success or a podcast ending disaster. Hull and Tunbridge Wells are massive venues selling slowly, but the worst selling venue is the Leicester Square Theatre, but those spoiled Londoners like to wait til they get the guest news before they buy (even though they get much cheaper tickets if they take the plunge now- the fucking idiots). Even so, 22% of the tickets are sold and Norwich isn't even on sale yet. Will I hit the necessary percentage to go into profit? Fuck knows!
A few months ago, in the belief that I was about to turn my lifestyle around and get healthy again,
I signed up for Zoe which aims to inform you about what foods work best for your body. It finally arrived last week, but I had set aside today to set it up (though turns out I will mainly have to wait til tomorrow), but I attached my blood glucose monitor today and now get a little graph on my phone of when my blood sugar is spiking - or not. I don't really understand yet but will let you know if it's any good, or if it helps me pull myself together. Tomorrow I have to give a sample of blood and a sample of poo. So that's going to be enormous fun.
