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Happpppy Chriiissssstmaaaasssss!
The pared down Christmas continued to be a treat. The kids were suitably excited by their (far too many) presents and we managed to have a mainly harmonious day and an early Christmas dinner at midday (we’d slow cooked the turkey overnight and it pretty much fell apart, but as we’d cooked it upside down the breast was nice and moist and the red meat nicely overdone and crispy, which is my perfect combination.
We played with toys and watched films and zoomed our families. I had forgotten that Christmas meant I also got presents, so that was a nice afternoon surprise. We drank posh wine (I know that because my wife had written “posh” on the label to remind her which bottle we’d spent the most money on and I think that’s what the aristocracy and fancy restaurants do too), but in moderation and I broke my chocolate embargo of practically two years to allow myself a few Quality Street (and I didn’t have loads, nor feel like this was me falling off the wagon- I think I will go back to avoiding the stuff from tomorrow).
We watched me on Christmas prime time TV (though I did think how weird it was that we had terrestrial TV on and also how weird it was that watching live TV is no longer an essential part of festivities - I’d have been watching telly from first light back in the 70s) appearing on the Chase and blow me down (spoilers) if I didn’t damage my brand further by knocking the thing out of the park. It’s a great quiz, but hard to win as you have three hurdles to overcome. I got nine out of eleven on my rapid questions round (feel I should have guessed kidneys, as what the fuck is liver shaped apart from a liver, but was pleased to work out the rose one) and then despite having been almost scared out by how hard everyone else’s questions had been on the Chaser round, I couldn’t really turn down the chance to add £89,000 to the total. And luckily, grammar aside, things fell OK for me and my educated guesses all went my way too.
We nearly screwed it up on the final round and had a slow start, but then I got my brain in gear and helped push us up to 21. And we were fortunate to come up against a slightly rusty Jenny Ryan and pushed her back three times. In the last 30 seconds she found her mojo and if she’d done that even twenty seconds earlier we would have been stuffed, but we won an incredible £150,000 for our charities. That's £50,000 to Scope, which more than makes up for not being able to do any charity collection at gigs in 2020.
It makes it look like I won three quiz/gameshows in the space of a month (even though they were recorded in July 2019, July 2020 and September 2020). Imagine if I won my fourth appearance on Pointless too. You might have to imagine it. But imagine if you don't have to imagine it. Can you imagine that?
It was a memorable Christmas, precisely because of the welcome weirdness of it just being us. I enjoyed it all.
We watched Saturday NIght LIve before bed and I marvelled at the sheer comedy genius and professionalism of Kristen Wiig who always adds extra layers of comedy to everything she does, and is prepared to subvert her style and glamour for comedy. It was the best opening monologue for a while and really enjoyed Kristen in this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOVCtUdaMCU&feature=emb_logo
And even though it was Christmas Day I also did
a live stone clear to remember what this day is really about
There's some shoddy performances despite us having the opportunity to retake. The Donkey song is the shonky first take because I forgot to record the second one and my throat hurt so much by the third one that it's kind of horrible to watch (we might put it up one day).
Prime time ITV AND broadcasting to 150 people from a field? My career really has everything.
