7321/19841
I got sadder about the death of Terry Hall every time I thought about it, but it was at least satisfying to see how much he meant to so many people, but the curse of RHLSTP is in full flow. That’s six guests we’ve lost now (Sean Hughes, Nicholas Parsons, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer, Kay Mellor and Terry) and the host has lost a testicle. It’s no wonder that I have so far only booked one guest for the next series - who would want to drink from this poisoned chalice? Who will be next? My plan is to outlive every single guest - that is the pact I made with Satan at least - as long as any guest is alive then I can’t die. But bits can fall off. Satan always has a trick up his sleeve. By 2090 I will be just an eye on a pillow, winking to ask my questions, but at least I will never die.
It’s good to see that Home (and an extended version no less) is now available on
Spotify (and iTunes) which was not the case when I did the interview.
I’m flying high on something beautiful and aimless, it’s got a name but I prefer to call it nameless.
I thought I’d stopped working for Christmas, but of course I hadn’t. This morning I recorded links for episode 1 of the podcast version of “Can I Have My Ball Back?” and then interviewed Greg Jenner for Book Club about his new book
"You Are History".
It’s a very entertaining story of humanity, told via 50 everyday items and how they came about. It’s very funny - it’s always a joy when something makes both you and your kids laugh (had a joyful time watching the Simpsons the other day with the whole family laughing at the same jokes), but Greg also tackles some of the big and dark subjects from history including slavery and the Holocaust. It’s expertly done and important to not skirt over stuff like this, but it’s mainly a very funny book. Unsurprisingly with all his experience of podcasts and broadcasting Greg was an excellent guest and it’s good to be a little bit ahead for next year. The cycle of producing 100+ podcasts a year (and that’s just from the RHLSTP feed) can be a bit daunting, but so far at least I think we are maintaining the standard. I also wrote a book and put out a sitcom series this year, but writing up the history for this website I realised that podcasting is now very much my main job, rather than second fiddle to all the other stuff. My eggs aren’t all quite in one basket, but podcasts now provide the majority of my earnings, rather than being something I do for free to fuel my other work.
Luckily I seem to have managed to create stuff with quite a wide variety in this medium.
It hasn’t quite struck me properly that we’ve five sleeps from Christmas, though I did wrap up the presents for my wife today. We’re whizzing down to Somerset tomorrow to see my family before returning here for Christmas with the in-laws, so that should hopefully make it all seem real. But the kids don’t even break up from school until tomorrow lunchtime. That seems crazy. Surely the Christmas holidays were longer than that when we were kids? You can’t still be at school on the 21st December, unless you’re Ebenezer Scrooge and your parents aren’t coming to pick you up.
I've definitely shut up shop for the year now though. Apart from the blog obviously. That's another pact with Satan. As long as I write this every day I will have at least one testicle. Don't know why I signed up for that when I had two. Should have spotted the trick in that one.
