Days without alcohol - 43.
I don't think I would be good as a breakfast show host. The early mornings are my least favourite time to try and be amusing and my brain often doesn't kick into gear until 3 or 4 pm (if then). Presumably if I hosted such a show I wouldn't be out working til 10 or 11pm the night before and thus not able to get to sleep until 2, but evenso, morning does not feel like the time for comedy, even if I am not a grouch. I'd just rather be in bed.
I managed to get out of bed in a fairly lively fashion at 7, but by the time I was walking out in the cold streets of Shepherd's Bush my brain had caught up with things and realised that it had been tricked into being awake and tiredness started to hit me.
Always at the back of my mind with these PR jaunts is that I am just not convinced that they make enough difference to be worth the effort. I was aware that despite having another two hours in my day I would almost certainly be too weary to get anything done later(which proved to be the case - I managed to go for a swim later, but could only manage 30 lengths and I got no work done at all). Would resultant ticket sales make up the loss of work hours? Even though it was the relatively high profile Xfm breakfast show I somehow doubted that it would result in more than maybe 2 extra tickets being bought. It's a London only station - I am not doing London for a fortnight.
Maybe I am wrong and it is enough just to remind people of your existence, but even if I did the funniest ten minutes of my life (at 8.30am? Not going to happen) then I can't see if would make enough difference. I'd willingly have paid ten pounds for an extra two hours in bed.
It's hard not to let this attitude influence your performance in the interview. This makes it doubly redundant. You feel you're wasting your time, you resent having to be there, so you end up sounding grumpy and unpleasant and unfunny and probably convince three or four people who were going to come to the show to do something else instead. Professionalism must come through and you really should try to do your best or the whole thing turns into a negative, but it's hard not to let your annoyance at least partially inform your performance. That and the fact that your mind still thinks that it is asleep in bed. I tried my best, I really did, but I can't imagine I said anything that would persuade anyone to come to my show. At best I just reminded someone who wanted to come that I was going to be on.
Alex Zane who hosted the show, was impressively bright and bushy tailed, managing to exude energy and warmth and good humour despite the comedy unfriendly hour. It helped a little that he seemed a little pleased to see me and knew who I was - when I did this show with
Lauren Laverne (note similar theme) last year it felt like there were two people in the studio who didn't really want to be there talking to the other. But I still felt that I had been sluggish and uninteresting today.
I did enjoy the fact that there were some young lads doing work experience in the studio though. They were very affable teenagers, but didn't really know what they were doing and reminded me of my useless younger self being thrust into the world of work and finding it confusing and odd. Both of them came down to meet me and Ben (my PR guy, whose employment I am justifying by doing these breakfast shows, but who is also bound to come along with me, fairly needlessly, so spare a thought for him - He really could be still in bed) and then realised that they couldn't get back in the door to the studios as they didn't have a dongle. The man at the desk wearily lent them his, but they weren't sure how it worked, waving it in front of the scanner, not realising that this had released the mechanism. I know I would have been exactly the same when I was 18 and that the adult world would have viewed me with similar contempt and refused to assist. As it happened this had opened the door, but they needed to push it. We then headed to the lift which was small with the four of us crammed in and then another woman got in. It was lucky that she did as the boys did not know which floor they had just come from. "Where are you going?" asked the woman, poised to helpfully push the button.
"I don't know," said one of the lads, "What floor is Xfm on?"
I loved the way they were blundering around, only facing the next challenge as it was presented to them - no planning ahead. It brought so many memories flooding back. I couldn't even make a pot of tea when I went on my first archaeological dig and was aghast at the idea of having to use, let alone empty the chemical toilet. I hoped that if I kept my head down and just looked confused that someone else would do everything for me. I didn't have a fucking clue.
Luckily the woman knew which floor we had to go to and the boys could remember where they were meant to take us from there, but I loved the way that they had come together and yet both of them were as in the dark as each other. Two heads are not always better than one. Sometimes they are only marginally superior to none.
We talked about Richard and Judy on the show, amongst other things, though I was funnier when the records were on, talking about the giant picture of Madeleine Mccann made entirely out of stamps, which seemed in incredibly poor taste and would have been derided had it been hanging in a modern art gallery, but was OK because it had been made by someone who thought that a giant stamp-faced Madeleine was somehow supportive (make pictures out of stamps by all means, but why little Maddy?).
One of the lads took us back to the lifts. Despite having sat in on the interview he seemed unclear about who I was or what I was doing. Which boded well for the audience at home. "Are Richard and Judy married in real life?" he asked.
"Yes, they are," I replied.
"Really?" he asked incredulously, "People don't generally know that though do they? Most people would be surprised. Or is it just me?"
Ben and I looked at the floor of the tiny lift. There was a pause. "I think it's just you," I said.
Doubtless he will go on to be director general of the BBC.
