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I was hoping to make some headway with AIOTM script 6 today, but I had forgotten to factor in how exhausting touring is (even when you aren't ill). I didn't get very far, but I have quite a few ideas for the video script, which must be the priority. With press for the tour and my daughter's second birthday coming up, the bonus audio extra may have to fall by the wayside. But hopefully we will come up with a short one. I have a punishing schedule ahead of me for the next few weeks. Luckily I had been planning quite a destructive and nihilistic final episode of the video series, where everything falls apart due to lack of funds. So not having time or energy to write the script might feed into that. I am frankly amazed at what we've achieved over the last six months with this internet comedy and more amazed that five scripts (ten if you include the audio) have already appeared as if my magic. There must be two more in me.
We have a long day in Sutton Coldfield tomorrow and I hope that the script elves will be good to me overnight.
Today we crossed the country to Chorley. We arrived a bit early and I went out to try and buy a battery for my powerpoint clicker. But it was Sunday and Chorley was shut. Last time I went out and about in the town I commented that it smelled of smegma or crotches, but today there was no stench. But there was nothing much of anything. The only places that were open were a somewhat hopeful pound shop, the betting shops, some pubs and the two or three fruit machine arcades. It is a great town to be if you're a gambling alcoholic. There was also a sign for Uncle's pawnbroker (which already sounds like a creepy place, where a greasy man might offer pretty young woman an alternative to paying for their hocked items with money - I am sure it's nothing of the kind, of course). it had a sign boasting that it was Chorley's original pawnbroker, as if that was something to be proud of. Yeah, we were the guys who first introduced the idea of hocking your white goods and valuables in order to be able to pay your bills or gambling debts. So don't be taken in by going to any of the johnny-come-latelys who followed our lead. It's us you have to thank for this horrible business being in your town.
I wanted to get out of the drizzle and find a battery and so was delighted to see a 24 hour Asda (not a sentence you hear very often). I could sit in the cafe and use the loo and wait for show time.
But alas the 24 hour Asda close 10 minutes after I arrived. I am not sure how many hours a day there are in the Chorley clock and would suggest in future that they call themselves Asda 24 - Apart from on Sundays. I understand that there are laws about shopping on the Sabbath, but then don't call yourself Asda 24. Ian Asda should be ashamed of himself.
Back at the theatre there was the usual warm welcome and we only 20 tickets away from a sell out. There was no walk out after two minutes this year but I had to readjust back to the smaller room and fight against illness and fatigue. It was a battle I won, but post show there was no malt whisky, basking in the false glow of show business success, we were back on the road and heading for a hotel in Sutton Coldfield and having to contend with the usual late night road works that stuck us in a midnight traffic jam near Crewe. I managed to drift in and out of sleep, before arriving at a hotel where the night manager seemed unclear about how to check people in, the room was a half mile walk from reception and the central heating wasn't on.
There's always a bogey on the shower curtain my friends. But it's the bogey that stops you from believing any of this is real.
