Felt like a luxury having two days off in a row from the show and I resolved to make as much of my day as possible for once, though it was largely taken up with doing chores. I had a big bag of change to take down to the bank, just from the last two shows (which admittedly had a bigger combined audience than the previous four) and incredibly added over £700 to the SCOPE total, which means we've raised almost £3000 in just 15 shows. Given the relatively low attendances this is fantastic news and helps to make up for the fact that I will probably be left with about 20 boxes of unused programmes at the end of the tour. Optimistically I ordered enough for sell outs all the way. Still that puts the total at over £17,000 with 75 shows to go, so I think a £30,000 target is not unrealistic. If you want to add to the total
you can do so here (I only update the offline total when I have sent cheque to SCOPE so recent contributions not yet on total). If you make a donation of at least £5 and send me your address I can send you signed copies of any of the show programmes (or a box or two of the Christ on a Bike one). If you want more than one show then add a pound for each one and just let me know which ones you need - Talking Cock, 12 Tasks of Hercules Terrace, Someone Likes Yoghurt, menage a un (limited copies available), Oh Fuck I'm 40, The Headmaster's Son, Hitler Moustache and Christ on a Bike all available. Email herring1967@googlemail.com. They make good presents for your Richard Herring liking friends. I am happy to write personal message. Will need the donation first though.
I then headed to the Post Office in WH Smiths in Hammersmith. This one runs a bit more smoothly and quickly than the awful, packed Shepherd's Bush one, though I still had to wait a while. An old man who was not queuing was flirting with an old lady behind me. "What happened with our date?" he joked (it was pretty clear there hadn't been one, partly because the cinemas were not open yet), "I waited for you at the cinema all morning."
"Oh I must have gone to the wrong one," the woman replied. I suspect she knew the gentleman in question, though can't be sure, and it was very playful and good natured. I don't think she was interested.
"You must have thought I had said the synagogue," the old man replied, which I thought was a pretty strong ad lib in the circumstances. Had I been an old woman that would have been enough for me to at least give him a hand job. You have to take it where you can get it, even at my age and there's no point in hanging around if you're in your 60s and 70s.
A sad-looking, weary mother in front of me was waiting impatiently, whilst her small daughter looked round the shop with a woman who might have been her aunt. She had obviously been given a small amount of money to get something. The girl came back with a pink and yellow plastic toy torch. The mother looked at it unimpressed. "You've got enough toys. You don't want this. You should buy a book"
The girl seemed to think she needed the torch, though the aunty pointed out that the torch had the name "Lucy" written on it. The girl was not called Lucy, having a somewhat more exotic name like a bad comedy sketch writer would have come up with for a working class girl whose mother had pretensions. It must be hard for the personalised torch (and other items) manufacturers. In the 1970s you could be pretty sure you'd cover 80% of the population with about 30 name varieties, but now there are so many weird and wonderful variations of name and of spelling, plus people naming kids after Apples and Pixies. Though at least Chris Martin will be able to buy Apple a personalised computer.
The girl returned a few minutes later with a pink box with some garish plastic toy inside. "You've got enough toys. Go and get a book."
The girl, who was maybe about four, replied, "I need new toys. My toys are getting very old." It was a grown up and persuasive response, even though her toys were probably only weeks old in most cases.
"You can have a book," the mum wearily insisted.
"There aren't any books," the girl replied, somewhat chancing her arm, given we were in Smiths and half the floor space was taken up by books. Perhaps her mother would fall for it, but no. She was more than an intellectual match for that and told her there were some books. And the girl defeated stomped off to look for some.
I managed to do some work in the cafe. The loud crisp eater was there again, but he didn't have crisps this time and I was far enough away from him to not be able to hear him breathing. Plus I was a bit more rested. I spent an hour or so writing about Stewart Lee for a possible introduction to the next edition of his book.
It felt good to be productive. I have been wasting too much time recently.
I had a quick trip to the gym and then went home and attempted to tidy up a bit and record a podcast of me doing a "Director's Commentary" of the Mastermind episode I was in. It was the first time I had seen it. I couldn't believe how terrified I looked, but was more impressed with the questions I got right than annoyed with the ones I got wrong. Weirdly there were several general knowledge questions that I don't even recall being asked and I thought the me from the past did quite well to dig out the answers. Though it's still annoying that I missed out on the ones I did and I wonder if I should have challenged on the "fast food/junk food" one. Hilary Kay was certainly given a bit of licence on one of her answers. And it was unclear exactly how they edited out the excess questions she was given. It seemed very much like the final one was the one genuinely interrupted by the buzzer, which means they'd have had to re edit the whole thing. One day they will make a Capricorn One style film about this episode. The podcast didn't work. It was too confusing and I didn't have enough to say, but I was glad I watched it in the end, because it gave me some closure and I can move on now. Someone has tabulated the results and apparently
I came third in the series (Rhys Thomas scoring an incredible 21 on his specialist subject), though was just a junk food away from coming top on passes. I can live with that. As long as I don't have to live in Sunderland. And work as a gladiator. Who is only allowed to eat junk food.
