Warming Up

The biggest pressure with RHLSTP is booking the guests. Especially with the coming season as the Leicester Square Theatre has been making noises about the recent ticket sales (we sold out about half the last run, but the ones that didn’t sell out had record-breaking low attendance - pre-covid we’d got to a point where every show was at least half full, but one of the last run didn’t even sell 100 tickets). So I need some big name guests (last time they kept bunching up so there were two big names one week and then two lesser known people the next - we only have one guest a week obvs), but also to keep things interesting and diverse. For the first show I was weirdly in the position that I had potentially three big name acts gunning for the one space left, but overnight I made the decision about who had to be the guest and got it confirmed this morning. And it’s a good one. Plussers and Badgers, the news is in your secret area (along with bonus videos). If you’ve forgotten how to access these, or if you want to join one of the rival gangs, there’s info at the bottom of this post!

Hopefully the other big guests will be able to do it too. It’s looking pretty good so far. The other guest for 30th Jan in Fern Brady, so it’s already worth booking for, but I think it will sell out super quick when it’s officially announced. Remember there’s a new pricing structure where the first 75 tickets sold are at 2022 prices, the next 125 are a pound more and the final 200+ cost a further £2 more. So it’s worth booking early and not waiting for the guest announcement. I am, as always, going to have fantastic line-ups. The show works so much better with a big crowd and the tickets are still pretty cheap for the West End so support us if you can.

We will also live stream any shows that sell out in the theatre for just a tenner.

In recent months I’ve found it hard to exercise because I’ve been so tired/borderline ill, but this year I’ve decided to just get on with it regardless. So even though I didn’t sleep great last night thanks to my son waking me up and wanting to sleep with me, I went on my first long run for a while, managing a plodding 8km through a fair bit of mud in just over an hour. I was impressed that I could go that far, but have started the new year eating healthily and doing some sort of exercise most days and am determined to get to the point where my nice suits fit me again. Maybe this time I will lose the weight and keep it off (though to be fair to me, I have managed to bring the high point of my weight down by about 10kg. It would usually take me tipping the scales at over 100kg to get on a diet, but now I don’t seem to get any higher than 93 at the worst. That’s something.

I’d be happy if I could stay at 87 for life. Still very much overweight, but able to get into my nice suit. But let’s see where we get to this time and at what point the greedy me takes back the wheel and steers me into the rocks (of biscuits and cakes) again.

I listened to Dan Snow’s History Hit from November about the discovery Tutankhamen. I knew that the steps of the tomb had actually been discovered by the water boy Hussein Abdul-Rasoul,  but don’t think I was aware that Howard Carter, given one final chance to find a tomb, had put Hussein in the place where he was certain that there was nothing interesting to see and that it was the water boys’s dripping water that had helped locate the steps down to the tomb. Hussein was the one who spotted them. So whilst the glory goes to Carter and Lord Carnarvon, neither of them actually found the tomb and in fact it was only found due to Carter’s belief that it couldn’t be where it was. What an absolutely peachy example of white privilege - the person associated with the discovery only got there due to his own incompetence.  

I am actually quite surprised that we know the name of the water boy, so that’s something and Carter gave him a necklace for his troubles, so it’s not as bad as it could have been. But dudes, he discovered the tomb.  And didn’t seem to be cursed for his troubles. Apart from not getting the recognition he deserves.

Then just to real knacker me out we took the kids swimming. I have to say I was in a daze for most of the day, but was impressed with how competent both kids have got in the water. My son’s bottle of water opened in my gym bag and soaked most of our clothes, so me and the boy were going commando for most of the day (though his onesie was dry so it didn’t really matter for him). We then went to Nandos for the first time in a very long time (for the grown ups) and the first time ever for the kids. They weren’t that impressed and were claiming the chicken was spicy, even though we got them chicken with no sauce whatsoever. I had hot sauce rather than my old regular extra hot (if it’s not extra hot, then you’re a twot) and it was a bit too hot for me. Oh dear. Old age is a bastard.

But although the meal came in at almost £60 (what the fuck?) I managed to get my own back on Ian Nandos, because we ordered only one bottomless coke, but Catie and me shared it, saving £3.50 and each getting as much Coke Zero as we could drink. Which again wasn’t as much as it used to be in the old days, when I’d drink so much bottomless coke that I’d be in pain and desperately need the loo on the way home, even though I lived probably 90 seconds away from the restaurant. Happy days.

But anyway, Ian Nando could not possibly have expected anyone to come up with this excellent trick and must be furious that we got maybe four glasses of coke for just £3.50…. Hold on, has he still won?