I had a meeting about a small radio series that I might be presenting about procrastination, lateness, laziness and other such topics. Why they want me to be involved I have no idea!
I wondered beforehand whether I should turn up on time or whether this might lose me the gig. I had been trying to organise my time so that I could go to the gym before the meeting, but hadn't had much sleep and was slightly discombobulated and mistimed things and decided it would be better to go the gym after the meeting. As the timings turned out I was at Edgware Road about 40 minutes early and so had a coffee.
I had looked at the map before I came and was pretty sure I knew where I was going, but like gay men and women (
according to new research) I have problems understanding two dimensional representations of three dimensional things. I am not gay or a woman though. And anyone who says I am is lying.
At about ten to the meeting I set off up the road that I was sure the office I was visiting was off, but after about ten minutes I realised that I should have been there by now. I had no map with me and no idea of where I was meant to be and rang my management for help. Just yesterday I had got lost on the way to the Bloomsbury Theatre (which I have been to many times - but I took a wrong early turn and ended up turning a five minute walk into a twenty minute one) and had received an anxious phone call asking where I was. I spoke to the same woman today, who must think I am a right dizzy, girly homosexual (if she believes the latest research - though to be honest I am not sure how many of needed the research to be aware of the map thing). We managed to work out where I was meant to be going. It was in exactly the opposite direction. I don't know how I had got it so wrong.
At least it meant I turned up at my meeting, looking tired and sweaty and pre-gym unshowered, twenty minutes late. The producers must have been delighted. They surely had found the man for the show. I told them I would probably do all the work the day before broadcast, which made them look uneasy and start to discuss the fact that it would need to be in a few weeks before. Oh yes, they think it's funny to book a procrastinating, confused, tired idiot with no sense of direction, but then when it comes to the realities of what that means they get a bit jittery. I told them to give me a false deadline. It is very easy to deal with idiots like me.
As I had arrived at the offices, Zoe Ball from off of the TV and Fat Boy Slim was leaving. I don't think I have ever met her, but we smiled at each other and mumbled slightly self-conscious "hellos" in the way that two people who have never met, but are aware of each other from seeing them on TV are prone to do. At least that was what I was doing. Maybe she just saw a wild-haired, anxious, fraught, sweaty man approaching her and was just hoping that a half-hearted greeting might protect her.
