As excitement built for the Olympic opening - who would light the cauldron? The Queen? Harry Potter? John Terry running in at the last minute (ha ha ha, I bet no one else thought of that joke. I am funny) - we were packing up the car and preparing to drive as far away from the historic event as we could, for fear that I might be an eye witness to something that anyone would ever want to read about.
Next time we are back home the place should be all finished and inhabitable, which is something to look forward to, though I think it might take the whole of September to unpack our stuff.
But no matter, we were away to Cardiff, then Newcastle, the Scotland in a tour of three countries of the UK and at least two of the cities hosting Olympic events (don't know if anything is going on in Edinburgh, would seem foolish to clog up the city even more, but maybe there is some Olympic medal for leafleting). So perhaps we were actually more in the Olympic and patriotic spirit than anyone.
And if I hadn't left London then I wouldn't have seen the actor John Barrowman driving his car out the car park on one of the service stations on the M4. So I think I win. I nearly drove into the same space that he had vacated, but then saw one closer to the service station (I think Barrowman had parked as far away as possible so that he could walk past as many people as possible, pretending not to notice them noticing him, pulling a nonchalent "yes, it's me off of Live and Kicking" face). He is my third favourite celebrity that I have seen in a service station on the M4 after Pot Noodle's
Peter "Too Gorgeous" Baynham in second and of course
CJ from Eggheads, whose nonchalantly pretending not to be famous face was way better than Barrowman's, in first.
I have also seen myself in a service station on the M4, in one of the mirrors in the toilet, but I still only come in 4th, mainly because I keep forgetting that I am a minor celebrity and thus have to walk around self-consciously looking like I don't want to be recognised, whilst hoping to be recognised.
Perhaps Barrowman was on his way to London to light the cauldron (it was one of those service stations that serves traffic in both directions), by tweeting about this had I ruined the surprise for everyone?
Back in Cardiff tonight and in the Chapter Arts Centre where I have filmed about half of my DVDs. There was an army of volunteers on hand to get us into the venue and help us set up and they were enthusiastic and happy to see us. Cardiff is always a top place to play. It was strange sitting backstage and reading about the Olympic opening ceremony on Twitter without being able to watch it. I suspect we made the right choice leaving town as it seems like there was some kind of mind-bending hypnotic ray or Danny Boyle had put heroin in everyone's drinks because the tweets seemed to be claiming that the Queen was parachuting out of a helicopter, which just can't be true. I awaited news that the Duke of Edinburgh had dived into a toilet and that dead babies were crawling over the ceiling. Like "Day of the Triffids" I guessed that me and my audience would be the only people not affected by this drug/hypnotic ray and we'd have to repopulate the world together. Which didn't bode well for the world. A strange race of seaweed eating, chubby nerds would be the inevitable result and then only if we could find a way to make men have children together.
It was a great gig though and my new clicker worked a treat. Nearly there. Just two more previews to Edinburgh. I find myself actively looking forward to it. I hope you can make it along to one or both shows. I might have to get Danny Boyle in at the last minute to direct them both. He seems pretty well connected. Email me Danny if you're interested. Though think there might be something up with my email as nothing came through from Cyprus after yesterday's blog.
We had a drink with Chris Evans (not that one) after the show and reminisced about all the DVD records and found it hard to grasp how many years had passed since we started doing this mad adventure. Go Faster Stripe are the official sponsors of my Edinburgh Fringe Podcasts in a deal to rival Coke and Macdonalds at the Olympics. I made them the sponsor without consulting Chris and in return he has given me a box of DVDs to give away as prizes. But you have to come along to win - you might get a free Andrew Collings audiobook. But don't let that put you off, the chances are very much in your favour. You probably won't.
