My 76 year old father wanted me to help him lift a big rock out of his pond today. It had toppled in a few weeks ago and possibly damaged the lining of the pond (which is certainly leaking somewhere as the water is getting low). His suggestion was that he get into the pond and lift out the rock and hand it to me. Given this rock was the size of a large human baby I thought this was probably a bad idea. I told him that I would do the lifting and Giles would assist.
So I stripped down to my underwear to get the job done, which was only slightly embarrassing given that the man next door was up on some scaffolding painting his house and could see everything. My wife, no doubt sensing an hilarious "You've Been Framed" moment in the offing rushed outside to film me (also because she is turned on by me in my pants standing in dirty water). It would be ironic if I fell in as my dad falling into this same pond was the inspiration for my ITV comedy drama
You Can Choose Your Friends (spoiler alert- oh too late). But maybe my dad could write his own comedy drama about me falling in.
The pond was pretty cold and slimy and I almost slipped a couple of times. I don't know how my dad thought he could lift this mini-boulder out of muddy water as I was far from sure that I'd be able to. But it reminded me of being a child and wishing I was strong enough to lift the heavy objects that my father could manage with ease. Mind you he would have been about 35 then, so I wasn't entirely sure that our positions were now reversed. I thought there was a good chance that we were now at a stage where neither of us could lift things.
But I got the rock out of the water and managed to haul it to the edge of the pond, before rolling it lengthways on to dry land. There was a semi stumble on the way which sent muddy water sloshing on to my face, but the seemingly inevitable dunking did not follow. Dad wanted me to see if I could feel the hole in the pond lining, but it was difficult to tell and I was keen to get out of the cold swamp.
It was an energetic start to the day, but I wasn't done. I went for my second run round the reservoir in three days. Last time my wife had come with me and I had seen a strange bubbling in the water. I tried to convince her that that was some kind of beast lurking between the calm waters of the reservoir, but she was having none of it. But I can't think of any other explanation. There is some kind of dinosaur in this man-made bowl and there is certain to be a massive financial reward for the first person to get a decent picture of it. So do come down to Cheddar and try to spot our Gurt Beastie. If the people of Loch Ness can get American tourists to travel all the way to the North of Scotland for the chance to spot a glimpse of their fictional monster then surely they'll come to Cheddar as well. And while they're there visit the gorge and buy cream teas. This could put Cheddar on the map (the locals have refused to be on any maps since the Middle Ages because they believe that whatever happens to the town on the map will happen to the real town) and finally the whole world will know the name Cheddar.
I do wonder what the bubbling was though. I've never seen it before and it wasn't there today and last time the reservoir had no birds or anything on it. Like they knew. The Gurt Beastie is real. Tell the world.
After tonight's gig in Swindon I have only nine more Talking Cock shows to go. It was another smallish crowd in a biggish theatre. Only 130 in tonight (about 90 down on the last two years I've been here). It's a shame that demand is dropping in some places (though confusingly I am doing better in about half the towns I play so numbers are more or less evening out). I feel there must have been a couple of hundred more people in Swindon who would love this show if they came to it (indeed Talking Cock seems to be a show that is enjoyed by nearly everyone who comes to see me, fans and newbies alike - though two middle-aged women in Hereford did leave in the interval!) But I kept my pecker up and gave it my all. I've got to the stage in the tour where this show can run on automatic pilot - not that I don't put the effort in to deliver it as best as I can, just that the words are there without me having to think about them. Tonight there was a bit of a glitch in the Matrix though as towards the end I noticed myself suddenly leaping back about ten minutes in the script and starting to repeat the wrong questionnaire comment. I stopped myself and then deconstructed what had just happened, which was entertaining in itself, but it's a weird thing to experience from within and makes me fear the day when I am just babbling rubbish, thinking it's the script.
I'd had fun retweeting the Alan Sugar football comments before the show for the last time this season (and in 2013/14 it's going to be a subscription only service costing £750 a year). It was particularly sweet as Sugar was hardly tweeting and when he did his analysis and scores didn't match the ones coming from the BBC (embarrassing for them to have got it so wrong). So Arsenal drew 1-1 with Newcastle and Spurs ended up (I presume as he stopped tweeting) 0-0. You don't get these results anywhere else and that's what makes my RTing of Alan Sugar's football tweets the amazing service that it is.
