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I fit a lot in today. But I seem to be fitting in a lot every day at the moment. It’s nice to busy, but it’s more busy to be nice. What?
As soon as the kids were in the hands of educators my wife and I drove out into the fog to buy a Christmas tree. We’ve gone a bit earlier than usual, just because we feel we maybe need it more than usual this year (though I think Covid19 is an excellent opportunity to introduce my plan of making Christmas a once every two years event). There was no one around at the garden centre, not really any staff and I feel we could probably have helped ourselves to a tree, but we found a man sitting in an office who sold us one. To be honest I think he might not have worked there either - he didn’t know much about trees. But good luck to him. He made a nice little earner there.
Then I went to the supermarket, which was a little busier, but had a good supply of stock. I’d mainly been going to order a turkey, but you have to do that online, but I managed to fill a trolley with stuff to get is through the next few weeks and prepare for hard Brexit.
A quick lunch when I was home and then I was straight into a car to head to the BBC to guest on a socially distanced Loose Ends. I was able to work in the car there and back and was probably only in the building for 45 minutes, so it was a very efficient way to be interviewed. Lots of things about Covid19 are actually better than before. But to be fair, Loose Ends is usually more fun because you get to meet all the guests and then go to the pub with them, but this was just me and Clive Anderson in a room for 15 minutes and then back home. Still glad to be back on the show. It’s been a little while.
Once home it was time to put up the Christmas tree. It’s a bit of a wonky one and looks like it’s leaning over whichever way you fix it, but it’s big and bushy and the kids both loved decorating it as it towered above them. It’s the first time that they are both really aware of what Christmas is and it warmed my heart to see them going through this tradition and reminded me of Christmases past. Still think it should be every other year though.
We relaxed a bit with some nice food and a drink (non-alcoholic for me - I seem to be succeeding in Stopvember) and watched the Crown in front of the fire before collapsing into bed and passing out. It’s been all go.
The Peter Dibdin sketch that I recorded this week has been put up as
a stand alone piece on Youtube and it got a bit of attention and quite a few views. It’s interesting seeing it alongside the original and judging how close we got to making me up as a man in his 50s, 27 years ago.
Chortle have both clips
Certainly the young Dibdin still has the face of a child underneath his fake baldness and moustache. The older one is more authentic for sure. But we weren’t far off. I think it’s the right mixture of tragic and funny. Luckily he seems to have been welcomed back by most (if not all). Returning to old (almost) glories can be a mistake, but then Dibdin was never run into the ground. Quite the opposite. Foolishly we resisted doing almost anything every single week. We had lots of ideas and loads of stuff that got cut out (the thank you bishops should also have been huge, and we filmed loads of extra ones that we never had time to put in), but we’d have been better to do something more like the Fast Show. Sadly the Fast Show were doing that at the same time.
I am certainly going to do more of these. Stevie Martin is perfect for this sketch and I hope I can raise my game a bit and try and compete with her actual talent. He does feel a bit more of a Brexitty character than a 1990s character, so maybe this is his time. I am glad to have him back.
Someone said that the only real difference is that Peter Dibdin looks more tired now. He shouldn’t really as the night before the 1990s record I got drunk and stayed up most of the night (note the love bite on Dibdin’s neck). That young prick was still able to pull off the complicated lines, something that I didn’t manage so well this time (though the poem and the certificate details are lodged in my brain now). Remarkably I can more or less remember the pulling away from the kerb procedure still. My brain may be decaying, but the older bits are holding together somehow.
