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I recorded two more RHLSTP Book Clubs, the first with the fantastic historian of espionage and more, Ben Macintyre about this fabulous book Colditz (my favourite book of 2022, which is soon out in paperback) and the second with David Wolstencroft about his new kids book about myth, science and time, The Magic Hour. In between I drove over to Hitchin to get my crown stuck back on my tooth. I told the dentist I had been eating toffee, because I didn’t want him to know of my Curlywurly shame. But it was a simple operation - I think I could probably have clicked the crown back on myself for a temporary fix, but I am not sure it would have been worth the risk of swallowing it and then having to find it again. I sort of assumed they’d fill in the huge gap beneath the crown with something, but nope. It’s just a little silver hat over the disaster beneath. Amazingly it only cost me about £25, but then it just took ten minutes and some tooth glue. He told me not to eat any more toffee, but he didn’t tell me not to eat any Curlywurlies so I went straight home and had one (not really, I can not tell a lie).
The final episode of Time Gentlemen Please was broadcast on the 1st May 2002, 21 years and a day ago, just tantalisingly beyond the reach of Warming Up. It doesn’t feel that long. I discussed this with David Wolstencroft as the weird nature of time is part of the theme of his book. It’s very strange to think that the baby that Rebecca Front was pregnant with in the first series in 2001 (it was such a long series that we were able to incorporate the pregnancy into the show and the mystery of who was the dad was only solved when the baby was born with jet black hair where the blackness ran if it got wet). David had also had a couple of parts in Fist of Fun, which does seem like ancient history, even though it was only 7 years before TGP. That seemed to kill his acting career, but he has had huge success as a screenwriter and author, creating amongst other things the series Spooks.
I had run out of non-alcoholic beer so fixed myself a non-alcoholic gin and tonic for snooker tonight. At least I thought it was. But I took a few sips and found myself in a rather giddy mood and wondered if I’d made a mistake. I as pretty sure I hadn’t, but that doubt made the maybe fake gin taste ever more like actual gin and then made me giddier in return. It was funny stuff. The stream of conscious madness that I want the snooker show to be - a man in his attic, performing to no one, getting increasingly madder.
I had to check the bottle after the show as I now had a bit of a headache, but it turned out that I’d been drinking non-alcoholic gin. So all my drunkenness was of my own invention.
Check out the frame in the usual places.
Video
It includes some good memory techniques for O level French and basic German which will be handy if you have a dream where you’re sitting your French O level again. I got a B.
Doing another work in progress with Can I Have My Ball Back? In Leeds on 15th July at 5pm.
Buy your tickets here.
