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Another mind fuck re the blog and time. My daughter has essentially been around for a third of the time I've been doing this. That just seems impossible. How can it be so much? I have been a Warming Up dad for longer than I was a Warming Up slag.
I think I’ve been into BBC TV Centre more times in 2020 than I have in any year of the last decade, which is pretty impressive given TV has been shut down for most of the year. Or is it just that my career over the last ten years has been a bit shit? Either way. Nice to be getting some work.
This evening I headed down to Shepherd’s Bush for a chat with my old pal Russell Howard. I think they filmed it too, but if not it was still fun.
We talked about masculinity and ventriloquism and Ally got his picture on the telly too (though he didn’t accompany me). Those newspaper chairs on Russell’s show turn out to be actually made of newspapers and are surprisingly comfy.
And there were some Haribo in my dressing room. I like to think that that was an in-joke but maybe they do it for everyone.
Discussing Twitch of Fun made me sound insane, like I’d had some kind of breakdown in lockdown, but Russell liked taking the piss out of me for trying to turn a dead wasp into a character.
I’ve always liked Russ, ever since I gigged with him back in 2005 when we ended up on the same bill quite a few times. I was dipping my toe back into stand up and he was new, but on fire. I had to follow him once or twice and it was not an easy thing to do. He’s now older than I was then (I believe he turned 40 this year) but still youthful and enthusiastic. Some comedy fans are sniffy about him, but they haven’t had to follow him. Same with Michael McIntyre is it goes.
Anyway we bumped elbows and lamented the fact we couldn’t embrace. I told him the first thing I was going to do once I was vaccinated was to come round to his and cuddle him. He seemed suitably scared. But then I am a 53 year old man with a dodgy moustache who ventriloquises dead wasps. So maybe he had a point.
I am hardly off TV in the next few weeks, with this (not sure when it’s broadcast) four Taskmasters, my Tipping Point episode is finally being shown on Sunday and The Chase is on Boxing Day. There’s a Pointless Celebrities still to be broadcast. Be nice if that went out on Christmas Day. Surely I didn’t contrive to come second in all four shows? Let’s see. But the last thing I want to do is wreck my gimmick. Somehow being House of Games Champion of Champions has not dented my reputation.
And I wrote another sketch for Twitch of Fun. It’s turning into a full time job.
And that's 18 years of daily entries done. Join me tomorrow for my blog birthday.
