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Storm Eunice hit and we stayed inside most of the day, though I had to do a couple of dog walks and pick up a prescription from the doctors so I had to brave the winds early on. Things were just whipping up at that stage and luckily the village was never in the thick of it. A couple of gusts pushed me this way or that and I passed a fence that had fallen down. It still felt like a bit of a risk. There seemed to be a sentiment (amongst some of those who had also opposed lockdown) that staying indoors in a storm was somehow restricting our freedoms. I would have assumed this was parody, but I am not sure that it was. I saw a tweet from a politician basically saying that the British people had stood up to the Blitz and he was going about his day as normal. Was that for real? Or had someone mocked it up? After all, during the Blitz people didn’t go about this day as normal. They sat in darkness in their houses or got into bomb shelters. Because they weren’t fucking idiots. I guess we should give people the freedom to put themselves in pointless peril, but I am pretty sure that the people of the 1940s would have stayed indoors if there was a storm. It’s amazing how common sense politics has evolved into people doing things that are utterly off the scale. These people would have been walking around Blitz London shining torches on important buildings, because if they didn’t they wouldn’t be living in a free country.
A tree or two went down later, one across the main road into town. No one was hurt luckily. But I often wonder, as I drive through that wood, if one of the trees precariously balanced on the verge might one day take me out. They bide their time, the trees, sometimes waiting hundreds of years before making their move. Often after all that, they don’t even hit anyone. Must be annoying. Man is winning the war against the trees, but the trees sometimes strike back. Do not trust the trees.
I didn’t get any further with the book today (and am still on something like 40,000 words, so there’s a way to go), as I was prepping for Saturday’s RHLSTPs in Leicester. I did get sent the updated cover for the book though. It looks good. We’ve been able to use a photo from a session I did back in 2020, before I’d even lost my ball. Weird the way things work out. The Richard Herring of 2020 could not have guessed that that particular photo would be on a book cover or why. But there we go.
Even stranger to have the cover sorted out for a book I’ve only half-written, but it’s an impetus to get a move on with it. I hope I can be close to getting through the full story by the end of next week. My editor is being very cool about the deadlines whooshing past. But she is right to be cool. I am confident that I will finish it, if not on time, then in time.
Today’s retro RHLSTP is the one with Sofie Hagan that got bleeped because of the things I said about Prince Andrew. We have put up the unbleeped version, because, well, it’s obvious why, right? It’s probably funnier with the bleeps, just because there were so many of them, but it’s interesting how much I knew about all this back in 2016. Or, I suppose, how much the rumour mill knew about it. Just like the stuff we did about Jimmy Savile in the 90s, it was all based on hearsay. I think I probably believed it of Prince Andrew, whereas I am not sure I really did about Savile (amazed we got away with saying anything - he was incredibly litigious, which is why it could carry on for so long). There are so many rumours out there that are just total bullshit: Marc Almond's stomach pump, me sitting in a high-backed armchair. But then others that are right on the button. Who would have thought that Jimmy Savile having sex with corpses would end up being true? How did anyone even know about it (the victim can't talk in that case)? And if someone did know about it, why did they only start spreading it as a rumour and not go straight to the police?
The Prince Andrew stuff was not so unbelievable. Which I guess is why his cack-handed attempts to defend himself were so ridiculous.
