A rare luxury on tour in that I've been booked into two venues that are 40 minutes apart on two consecutive nights. It doesn't happen very often - this week sees me playing Wolverhampton, then Glasgow, then Manchester and I am also looking forward to next week's journey from Leeds to Cardiff. But today I had time for a bit of sight-seeing and to do some work on my book. Have done the best part of a chapter in the last three days (even though had no time to work yesterday), which makes me hopeful I might actually hit my deadline.
This morning we had a walk round York City and popped into the Minster, so holy that even God couldn't burn it down properly. It's a beautiful Cathedral, though you have to pay to go into it, which I don't really approve of and I think Jesus might have something to say about as well. Everyone is on the make. This is as bad as Aldi car park.
We just went for the basic ticket to see the main church, eschewing the chance to get some much needed exercise and climb the tower and also the opportunity to go down underneath the current church to see the Norman and Roman foundations.
I especially liked the sixteenth century memorials, which were brightly coloured, almost cartoonish little carvings of fat men in doublets and hose, which looked rather jolly. Much more fun than those austere, depressing and show-offy, full size marble statues of bishops and notables lying down, somewhere between sleep and death, holding on to a book. However I told my girlfriend that when I die I want to be buried under one of those. It would be pretty cool to just be a regular person and to get such an elaborate burial place, right in the middle of a Cathedral, especially if you were an atheist. It would also be confusing to future generations, who would assume I was some clergy figure, only to be told I was a comedian who hated God. But these graves and tributes only serve to remind us of the transience of fame and importance. If they didn't have these solemn representations of themselves on display no one would know who they were. And no one really cares any more. They should have gone for the cartoony memorial, then at least they'd be given everyone a laugh, rather than bringing us all down and reminding us of our own mortality, the miserable stiffs.
Afterwards we had a quick look in the shop - again not sure Jesus liked that kind of thing in his temples, but might be misremembering. Was it just tables he didn't like? Amongst all the religious tat and tasteless trinkets masquerading as tasteful objets, which people with no taste might buy thinking they were being tasteful, was a little display of games for sale. None of them had any religious connection and one of them was an interactive DVD game based around murder in a casino. It seemed an odd thing to be selling in a Cathedral. But maybe by the time you've had all that sanctity you want to buy something involving killing and gambling, just to get the bad taste out of your mouth.
As we were leaving I noticed that the entrance to the underground bits that we hadn't paid for was not being policed very effectively. A well meaning lady in religious dress was hovering behind the desk, but was chatting to workmen and not really looking at people's tickets. We decided to try and sneak in without paying. What if we were caught? What if God saw us and told his followers what we were up to, possibly pointing us out with His gigantic Kenny Everett style hands? It was quite a rush to hold up my non- crypt ticket and just brazenly walk down the steps. No one even checked, stupid Christians and God once again showed his unwillingness to be interventionalist and we were in. "Take that Jesus!" I cried out. We'd saved two pounds through our cheeky duplicity. We got to see a load of old stones and broken bits of crap for FREE.
But then I realised that is just what Jesus would have wanted. By not paying any money to the greedy temple owners we were actually doing his work. Jesus would be looking down at us all pleased. You just can't win against that bastard.
My favourite bit was an old shoe that had come from the grave of one of the Archbishops from (I think) the 13th Century. It was not only interesting to see a really old bit of shoe, but also it seemed a bit sick that his grave had been desecrated for this purpose. He probably thought he was it beneath his big marble sculpture, but a few hundred years later and the people who ran his church were digging him up and stealing his shoes. That's what Christianity is all about. It's worth sneaking in for free if you can manage it.
Really lovely gig in Harrogate tonight. For the second night running (I believe) at least one member of the cast of TV's Emmerdale was in the audience. That's right, look impressed, because it is impressive. All the stars love my stuff.
