Andrew was round for
Podcast 146 this morning and we were having what I thought was quite an enjoyable argument about whether diet coke was capable of stopping your body processing fat, but which with hindsight did go on a little bit long and bordered on me persecuting the simple-minded Andrew Collings due to my massive brain and intellect. For the first time Andrew got genuinely annoyed enough by my hectoring to actually refuse to go on. He stopped his computer. I suggested we change the subject. He wouldn't say anything. The podcast ground to a halt. Was this the actual end of Collings and Herrin? Would it be Diet Coke that destroyed us? Who would have thought it?
I was a bit annoyed by his petulance, so petulantly went for a wee to cool off. By the time I got back we had got things back in perspective and both realised that we'd been a bit dumb and ironically probably over-caffeinated due to the pint each of Diet Coke that we had consumed. We agreed to start again. Though I think the aborted podcast might have been dynamite and that you might have loved listening to the excruciating conversation in which we both embarrassed ourselves in different ways, I didn't save it. I slightly regret it. Maybe once we'd been distanced from our first real major argument: there have been a few genuine disagreements, but we've got through 3 years - more if you include the original 6Music shows, surprisingly amicably (especially considering what a fucking idiot Collings is and, all right, what a pompous and rude man I can be). Any double act can only work if both parties take the chance of poling their fingers into the things that really annoy the other, which is probably why eventually most of them break up. But like a marriage you enter into with a fairly high chance that one day you will actually loathe each other. Will that day come for Collings and Herrin? I think probably not, actually. Though ironically the act probably only works because Andrew actually believes I don't like him. If I told him that I really do like him then it would ruin it. I do actually like him very much. But he mustn't find out.
I am pretty annoying and pedantic and enjoy rubbing people up the wrong way, which is why ultimately I will die alone. Though if you think about it so will the people who are good at maintaining relationships. Death is like masturbation. Sometimes people are there to watch you doing it, sometimes you do it on or near other people, but ultimately it's you on your own.
And there's an odd air of embarrassment once you've finished.
The spat was only nasty for a few fleeting moments and we managed to bounce back and have an enjoyable podcast, though I had to resist the urge to start up the exact same conversation. It's the bristling sexual tension that keeps this podcast still buzzing and relevant after very nearly 3 years.
Tubeman dusted off his mask and cape today again and fought petty villainy wherever it might occur. I was having coffee after an interview in Notting Hill and a man at the next table started listening to his phone messages (or possibly a dictation machine) at high volume at his table. If it was a phone he had it on speakerphone, rather than just holding the device to his ear and if it was a mp3 or tape player he was not using headphones. It was loud enough to drown out the music in the cafe and everyone around him bristled, but were too scared to say anything in case he stabbed them in the face. I was trying to write and it was annoying and disturbing me so I said "Excuse me", but the man didn't hear. I tried again, but either his message was too loud or he was too wrapped up in his own little world to acknowledge me or his own rudeness. The other patrons looked at me with sympathy and amusement, but I knew they were impressed that I was trying to make a stand. I could have left it there, but Tubeman has sworn to protect the public from idiots who don't understand the basics of social convention.
So I stood up, went over to his table and said, "Sorry, can you listen to that on headphones do you think? It's very loud and disturbing us."
Yes, I am playing Russian roulette by such actions and one day someone might punch me in the face or worse, but in this instance the man looked immediately sheepish, was as embarrassed as an Andrew Collings and turned the machine off. It was a victory for common sense and for Tubeman.
I decided to walk to the theatre as I had an hour or so til I needed to be there. I found myself thinking about Tubeman as an idea for a sitcom. A superhero who has a secret identity to deal with the tiny trivial things that annoy people every day but that most of us are too nervous to do anything about. Because these happen a lot more often than super villains trying to blow up cities with a massive laser. A couple of people on Twitter had come to the same realisation. There are a lot of superhero films and a couple of sitcoms already and some of them are about ordinary people trying ineffectually to tackle crime, but I don't think anyone has done something about a masked figure taking on minor irritants. I found the walk was a great way of getting some exercise and clearing my mind and I had more ideas than I have had sitting at my computer. Alas I was wearing one of my new pairs of shoes and they weren't walked in yet and I ended up getting a blister, but I found the perambulation very inspirational and might do more of this. I could become the nomad comedian. Walking around town and then stopping every now and then to sit in a coffee shop and write and right injustices. There might be a sitcom in that too.
Maybe the exercise did me good, because it was one of my crispest and focused performances of the show yet. I am luckily constantly fascinated by the intricacies of performance and how tiny changes in mood and delivery can make such a difference. Back in the early noughties I think I regularly let my head drop and did a mediocre job if the crowd was small or didn't go with me from the beginning, but I am increasingly determined to make the show as good as it can be every night and hopefully it is improving all the time as I discover new nuances and ways of doing it. But sometimes, also, somehow, one is just more "on it" than on other nights. My mind and mouth were acutely connected tonight and the delivery was very precise, but I was loose and relaxed enough to have fun with it too. About the same number in as yesterday. I am over the disappointment of it not being as packed as I had hoped. We chose the wrong time of year to do this, but also were over-ambitious with the length of run. A three week run would have been more realistic. But you live and learn and it was worth the gamble. I am hopeful that the tour will do better. And there's still 8 nights in London, so get down and see this you lazy Londoners. It's a good show and deserves a better audience.
And you might see Tubeman, though you will never work out his secret identity.
