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I woke up around 4am so watched a bit of the election, long enough to see the Haunted Pencil go and Labour officially win, but I didn't see the Truss moment. I snoozed a bit after that.
It was a relief to have the Tories gone but I didn't feel euphoric like I did in 97. The spectre of Reform perhaps gave a more sinister edge (though they didn't do much better than UKIP in 2015 apparently and hopefully most of our country is sensible enough not to vote for them or to do something stupid like leaving the EU).
I remembered that the day after the last election I had been heading to the Taskmaster house to do my first day of tasks.
I wasn't allowed to write about it obviously. But I'd hardly slept and was quite depressed by the result.
I suspect I'd have been too excited to sleep if there hadn't been an election. But it's hard to believe that that was almost five years ago.
It was a short drive to Barnard Castle this morning and even though I was tired I went to look round the town and do all the touristy stuff like take a photo of the Specsavers. I was determined not to do any jokes about "the incident" in the actual show as I assume the residents have had enough of it (God knows enough people made a joke about it on Twitter for me to be fairly fed up with it after just a couple of hours).
I looked round the castle - who knew there was a castle in Barnard Castle - quite a coincidence. It's a big one with some fun corners and towers to explore. I took some photos for Ernie who sent me an excited voice note. He doesn't really fully understand geography yet and asked me where this was - was it in Australia or Ireland or in the same place that I'd sent him a picture of the ship from. He was so excited about it though. He's just like his dad, whoever he is.
Again this week's shows confounded expectations, with maybe 175 people in and a great reception and some new jokes appearing from nowhere. I phrased something in a new way and got a huge laugh and thought I must remember what I said, before immediately forgetting. I was in my dressing room five minutes later and it had gone from my brain. I guess I have to start recording these things as I can no longer rely on my own recall. Annoying though.
It's great that the show is still fluid enough for new bits, but I wish my brain worked like it used to. I have pieced together something that might have been what I said, but it's just a guess. And I might not even remember it tomorrow.
