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Life loves a pile on. It waits for the time you’re at you most over stretched and weakest and then thinks what else can I add on. It’s like a cosmic game of Buckaroo.
We already had a maximum of five hours sleep ahead of us, but Ernie hasn’t been well over the weekend and started throwing up, which also meant he had to have a couple of days off school. A later trip to the doctors would reveal that he has tonsillitis (and Catie had to scour Hertfordshire to pick up the medicine he needed).
I tried to research for RHLSTP sitting next to him on the sofa whilst he watched Scooby Doo. About halfway through my Nick Mohammed research I got an email saying that he’d be unable to come tonight due to a family emergency. Which is fair enough and it’s surprising that it’s only happened on the day once before.
So now I needed to book another guest.
I sent out a few requests and my management suggested Paul Chowdhry, who turned out was free to do it. Coincidentally Paul had also been the stand in when Al Murray dropped out on the day in 2018. I correctly assumed that he would find it amusing that he’d never been properly booked for the show and that he was also replacing another guest of Asian heritage.
I had also realised, a bit too late, that the other guest Sophie Ellis Bextor had a book out, so I attempted to listen to as much of the audiobook as possible on double speed, whilst researching both guests. It was a bit full on. But Sophie’s book is great and she’s a very impressive and inspiring woman. Who came out of the greatest woman who ever lived, Janet Ellis.
I had to drive in this week as it’s the last show of the series and I needed to bring the cameras home. I was a bit worried that I’d be too exhausted to drive, but maybe yesterday’s lie-in had given me a reserve of energy (plus I ate a pack of mini-Twirls- I thought I’d kicked the habit) and I got through it all.
It’s been a rollercoaster of a series and we’ve been through two PMs and two monarchs, had a show cancelled for a funeral of someone I’d never even met, and had sold out shows and shows that sold the fewest tickets ever. I can’t believe that the podcasts we have in the can only take us through to the end of January. But luckily we start recording again at the end of January.
Come along if you can. The first 75 tickets sold for each show are going to be cheaper than the rest, so beat the rush that will come when I announce the big names that I am expecting.
If you’re enjoyed (some of) the last 20 years of Warming Up and would like to make a donation to charity as payment (and if you all put in a couple of quid that would raise an incredible amount and only be 0.0274p per entry) then I have set up a Movember page and unleashed my moustache.
You can donate here.
